Thank you for all the support! I get an email notification whenever someone reviews, follows, or favorites one of my stories. I never thought I'd actually get this many people reading my stuff. I'm still working on shrinking the length of these author's notes.

Thank you, AstoriaGrace! I modified the idea slightly, but it's generally the same.

By the way, Merry late Christmas! I wanted to get this done by Christmas, but by the time I decided on that, it was Christmas...

I now have a site at longusernamefanficupdates dot wordpress dot com. I've seen that links don't work, so here's the link in this form.

Chapter 10: McGiggles's Transmogrification Class

Harry woke up a bit earlier than Ron, as usual. He checked the clock. 8:07. Breakfast, according to the class planners Hermione had made sure he and Ron got, was in about 27 minutes.

"Ron, wake up."

"Whaaa-?" Ron asked. His excellent linguistic abilities were showcased in this moment of exceptional articulation.

"Breakfast. It's time to wake up."

Ron was immediately awoken at the prospect of filling his stomach.

The two got dressed, and headed down to the common room, where Hermione was waiting. Ron just headed to the portrait door, but Harry paused to greet Hermione, and to ask her to go to breakfast with them. She agreed, and the trio, with Ron leading, headed down to the Great Hall.

There was everything breakfast-related on the tables: Bacon, waffles, pancakes, French toast, and sausage, among other things. Harry's owl, Hedwig, flew over and perched on his shoulder as he was grabbing some bacon to put on his plate. She was following the movement of the strip of meat, so he offered it to her. She took it, and flew off, probably to find a private place to munch on it.

Other than that, breakfast was a boring affair, and was quickly over. Transfiguration was at 9:00, so they headed to the classroom, which Hermione knew the way to. When they got to the classroom, they took their seats, but there was no teacher there.

"There's a teacher, right? It's 8:59." Harry said to Hermione, while Ron was dreaming about the advantages of not having a teacher, such as no homework to do, and free naptime during class.

"Of course there's a teacher. Wouldn't you think they'd mention it if they didn't have a teacher?"

The rest of the class filled the seats, as the trio was still waiting.

At 9:00, most of the class was there, except for a few late people. No one had noticed the cat sitting on the teacher's desk yet. Suddenly, the cat jumped off the desk, startling some students, and in mid-leap, morphed into a human.

Hermione's eyes went wide with the questions that could be asked.

Harry immediately wondered if he could do that himself.

Ron, quite liking the free time the lack of a teacher would provide, wasn't paying much attention and thus was very surprised. He let out a yelp, then quickly glanced around to see if anyone noticed.

The rest of the class had similar reactions.

Professor McGonagall immediately began teaching, almost like clockwork. "Today I will be teaching you the basic principles of Transfiguration, and I will then let you attempt a small Transfiguration of your own. Simply, Transfiguratiom is changing the form of an object with magic, to turn one object into another. In this class, either you will be careful and follow instructions, or you will leave, not to return to this class. Transfiguration can be dangerous if used carelessly."

The class was silent at her last statement.

"Now, let's begin. Before we practice actually transfiguring objects into other objects, I will tell you the main laws of Transfiguration, also known as Gamp's Five Laws of Elemental Transfiguration."

Hermione brightened, as she had read all about those laws.

"The first, and most commonly known is the law that states that food cannot be created in its completed form. You can conjure or transfigure ingredients, but you cannot make the entire meal or food item."

Harry raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Well, what if you have some hot chocolate powder, and just pour it in water, but don't mix it, can you transfigure it into hot chocolate, that's been mixed?"

Professor McGonagall thought for a moment. "I suppose it could be possible."

Hermione then raised her hand.

"Miss Granger?"

"Since all organic material is made mostly of Carbon, and food is made of organic materials, could you take a stone, made mostly of carbon, and turn it into food? It's all the pieces, but in a different formation."

"I do not think so. Having the ingredients is one thing, but a stone does not qualify as an ingredient."

"But it's made of almost the same materials."

"I do not know the answer. However, do not experiment yet, as I have not taught you how to transfigure items."

"As I was saying, the second law states that it is impossible to create human life from an inanimate object, from a dead human, or by conjuring it."

Harry raised his hand again.

"Mr. Potter?"

"What about conjuring a duplicate of someone?"

"I do not believe it is possible. Why such a specific question?"

"I found a spell yesterday, and it makes a copy of me."

He proceeded to stand up, and move to an open-er area towards the side of the classroom. He pointed his wand at himself, and muttered to himself. Suddenly, there was a second one of him there, right next to the first.

The professor's jaw dropped open slightly. "Impossible..." she muttered to herself.

"It must be an illusion, as that breaks the second law." she told Harry.

"No, I don't think it is. He disappears when I touch him, but he can hold things."

He reached over, grabbed his quill from his desk, then tossed it at Harry 2. Harry 2 caught it, and then said, "Yeah, I can hold things. I'm just a copy of Harry over there. I think." He turned to Harry 1.

"I'm the copy, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Right Ron?"

Ron nodded.

"Yeah, you're the duplicate."

Harry 1 told the Professor, "We both have the memories of the class before this."

Harry 2 added, "Except after he made me, I started my own separate memories."

"Until we touch, then we're back to-"

"-Just being one."

"Unless I make more." He looked at Harry 2. "Why did you have to cut in?"

"Because I was thinking the same thing as you. We're the same person, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"We should go back to being a single person. We're probably distracting the class."

"Yeah."

They reached out, and poked each other in the index finger, and suddenly, there was only one Harry there.

"As interesting as your discussion with yourself was, with you re-defining talking to yourself, we still have a class."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Come to my office after class, I would like to know what spell you used. Now, to the third law. It is quite simple. It states that every Tansfiguration, no matter how big, or how small, will take some magical power to produce, and must be attempted by a witch or wizard, not by a muggle, or a machine."

Harry raised his hand another time.

"Yes?"

"What about the Philosopher's Stone? Ron told me about it, and it's supposed to change any metal into gold. It's not a wizard. And what makes it different?"

"As far as I know, it is imbued with a wizard's magic, to fuel it. And, to make it different, a transfiguration is reversible, thus making any gold that is from a transfiguration worthless, since it can be turned back into what it was before, and conjured items disappear over time. However, the Philosopher's stone makes the change to gold permanent via alchemy, not transfiguration, giving it value as real gold.

"Now, the fourth and fifth laws are connected. The fourth law states that every transfiguration will use up some energy, no matter how large or small, it will still use some. The fifth states that the power used is proportional to the matter transfigured. If it either starts with or results in a large object, it will drain a large amount of power. However, if you start with, and end with, a small object, you will only use a small amount of power.

"Do you have any questions? Mr Potter? Miss Granger? No? We will begin the practical part of today's lesson, changing a matchstick into a needle."

She picked up a box full of matchsticks off her desk, and handed it to Seamus Finnegan, who happened to be at the front of the class. "Pass these out, and make sure everyone gets one. If they need another for some reason, there should be enough."

So he did, and within about 3 minutes, the whole Gryffindor first year class had a matchstick each.

"To transfigure an object, first pick up your wand. I see some of you do not even have your wands out."

So, everyone took their wands from wherever they had stashed them, and eagerly waited for the next instruction.

"Point your wand at the object you are going to transfigure. Then, pause and imagine the object you are intending to change it into, which is a needle, and think about the details of it. Once you have the picture in your mind, then focus on the two together, and turning the matchstick into the needle. Do not move your wand away from the matchstick. Your magic will flow through your wand and change the object, but it is up to you that the correct object is transfigured, and into the correct result. Now begin."

Everyone paused for a second, then various small pops, poofs, bangs, and other various sounds were happening around the room, as some got it right, some transfigured it part of the way, and some failed entirely. Seamus accidentally turned his into a small dagger, that was roughly the shape of a needle, only it was about a foot long. Neville had shaky hands, and he accidentally changed his desk into a needle, which made him lose the matchstick that was on top of it. Hermione, of course, got it almost perfect on the first try. Ron didn't manage anything, as he was upset he had to work, and was distracted by Harry's previous display. Harry concentrated, and pointed, but nothing happened for a second. Then it exploded quite loudly, leaving a large crater in his desk. In the middle of it, there was a perfect needle.

Professor McGonagall was busy un-transfiguring Neville's desk, so she didn't see Harry's transfiguration. "I said to transfigure the needle, not destroy it, Mr Potter. Seamus, hand him another."

"But Professor, I did transfigure it."

"Then what was the explosion? A prank you got from one of the Weasley twins?"

"No, Professor. It was the transfiguration."

"Then show me the needle."

He fiddled with the rubble of his desk until he grabbed the needle, which he then proceeded to accidentally prick himself with, of course. "Ow!"

"What did you do, Mr Potter?"

"I poked myself with it. Just a second-" He picked it up, more carefully this time. "Got it!" He held it up for the professor to see. She came closer to look at it.

"I don't know how you managed it, Harry, but you've made the most explosive transfiguration I've ever seen. And, on top of it, you've managed a perfect result. Have you practiced this?"

"No, Professor. And do you know how to fix my desk?"

"Amazing. And yes, I think I can fix that."

"Thanks! I don't know much about explosion repair. Or anything about it, really."

Ron chuckled at that, as the professor pointed her wand at Harry's desk and muttered something. Then, Harry's desk re-formed into its original state.

Exploding Needles Exploding Needles Exploding Needles

Everyone in the class eventually got something that looked like a needle, even Ron.