Training starts
Kitty opened the door simply labeled "Gym". This gymnasium was huge. It was at least room enough to hold over 60 Quidditch World Cup sized stadiums, as well as Hogwarts Castle to boot.
Xiomara looked at the place and said, "This is room is positively enormous!" Her golden eyes were wide as she gazed about.
"All right, you lot! Find a place to warm up," Kitty commanded. The six walked over to a nearby corner. "All right," Kitty began. "We are going to warm up with a just little jogging. Five times around the gym.(Remember, this is a big gym, nearly a mile around its outer edge). Everyone looked at Kitty as if she had just become a flobberworm.
"Come on now! This will help you later on in your training!" she said.
"Oh really?" Ron said. "How exactly?"
Kitty simply sighed, shook her head, and took to her heels. She ran faster than the Roadrunner from Loony Tunes fame. She was able to complete an entire lap in just about five seconds later. "Five laps, ladies and gents," she commanded.
Minerva made her way to Kitty's side, after the rest had began to run. "I will be able to do that?" she asked.
"Sure. Just run," Kitty said. "Don't think of anything else but running."
Minerva was skeptical, but began to run. The mature Transfiguration instruction became a veritable blur. She ran around the enormous gymnasium ten times in only five seconds time.
"My goodness!" she exclaimed, not even tired at all.
"It's nearly always best to run fast, the first time 'round," Kitty explained.
When the rest of them had completed their five times around the gym, Kitty looked at them all. "All right, that was the warm up, people," she said. The group of four students and one instructor gave her a low moan. "Now, I'm going to give you all a real challenge."
Wearily, but not saying a word of complaint, they listened as she told them to assum a push-up position. Kitty then snapped her fingers, and a set of sturdy shelves with stack of weights on them appeared, seemingly out of nowhere at all.
"Minerva, could you bring me five of those weights from the lowest shelf?" Kitty asked her.
"Of course, I'll try," Minerva answered. She was amazed that the weights were so light. She collected five of them for Kitty, and brought them to her.
Kitty then moved down the line, laying one weight on top of the back of each of the group. Without fail, they each collapsed as the weight was laid on them.
Minerva was most surprised. "Goodness gracious! What are you all… weaklings? Those weights weighed next to nothing!" Minerva exclaimed, looking at them.
"Well, since we haven't taken a pill that makes us so strong, I think some allowances must be made," Xiomara said, grunting under the strain of the weight.
Hermione was finding it hard to breathe. "Kitty… just how much do these things weigh anyway?" she asked.
"Oh… about a ton," Kitty told them, burnishing a nail on her sleeve.
"What?" Xiomara screamed hoarsely, and was crushed down again. "A ton? A woman my size cannot lift a ton! Let alone do some sort of push up with that sort of weight!"
"No arguments, people! A hundred push– ups, right now, and no shirking," Kitty said. "And, I'm counting, so don't even try to cheat." Much grunting and grumbling commenced.
Minerva sidled over to where Kitty stood. "Um, Kitty dear? Exactly how much am I capable of lifting?" she asked.
"Oh, no more than five thousand tons… and that just with your little finger," Kitty informed her in a boring tone.
"Merciful heavens," Minerva gasped, clearly astonished.
"I know," Kitty said. She looked at Minerva and added, "You can begin to train your morphing abilities, Minerva."
"My what?" Minerva asked, looking at Kitty with a most confused expression.
"Morphing," Kitty replied. "Morphing is almost like having your Animagus ability." Kitty paused, then began again, "You like lions, right?" she said.
"Well, yes, I do," Minerva answered after a moment.
"Then, try concentrating on a lion in your head," Kitty told her. "The color, the shape, every single detail."
Minerva was skeptical, but did as she was bid to. Soon afterwards, she heard Kitty say to her, "Okay. Open your eyes."
Minerva did and looked over to Kitty, who snapped her fingers once again. A hand mirror appeared in her hand, and she angled it to show Minerva herself.
She was a Lion. A yellow male lion with a red full mane. "Amazing!" Minerva thought to herself.
"I know," Kitty said. Minerva looked on Kitty, wondering how this girl had been able to apparently read her mind. "When you are morphing, the only way to communicate is through your thoughts," Kitty told her. "Everything you are thinking will be as if you were talking."
"Now… to morph back into yourself, you have to think about your human form. Hair color, eye color, physical attributes, you know what I mean," Kitty added, continuing to speak.
Minerva turned herself back into her old self once more.
"All right," Kitty then yelled. " Xiomara … you have done your hundred push–ups. You may take a rest."
Xiomara got to her knees, just as soon as Kitty snapped her fingers, wishing the weight on her back away. She then got to her feet and moved to beside Minerva and Kitty. "Are we going to have to do this again?" she asked plaintively.
"Oh, yes. That we are," Kitty assured her. Xiomara closed her eyes and moaned softly to herself.
" Xiomara, stop your whining," Minerva said.
Xiomara snorted, and said, "Says the lady who has taken a pill, instead of sweating it out with the rest of us."
Kitty left the two instructors alone, and strode away to gather up her teenage students after their first round of exercising. "If it helps, I'm going to give you a little surprise later today. Now, though, we're going to do something more relaxing," she said.
She showed them the way down to a room. "This is the Drawing room," she informed them all. "You will need to become good drawers. And, to become good at drawing, you will come down here to practice."
"Everyone… find yourselves a seat, anywhere in the circle," she told them, and pointed to the six easels set around a round platform the seats surrounded.
When everyone was seated, Kitty said to them, "Now I am going to turn myself into a crude cartoon lion. It shouldn't be difficult to draw." She eyed them all to be sure they understood. "Once everyone has drawn me as a lion, I will then turn myself into something more difficult. I will continue to increase the difficulty with each and every drawing," she added. She looked over to Professor MacGonagall.
"Minerva, since you are rather good at this sort of thing, I will ask you to try to draw some sort of background also," Kitty requested. Minerva simply nodded her head.
Kitty then turned herself into the lion she promised, and sat down on her haunches for them to draw her. When everyone eventually finished, they looked over to Minerva's drawing, which was quite splendid indeed.
"Crikey! That's ruddy perfect, Minerva!" Ron declared, his eyes wide in amazement.
"Finished," Minerva said a moment later.
Kitty then resumed her human form and looked back at everyone, pausing to review their work. "Ron, you need to work harder on your basic anatomy," Kitty told him. Ron nodded, and reviewed his work.
" Xiomara, you need to concentrate more on your figure's face," she continued.
"Harry, you should work harder on the feet. Something's just not quite right," Kitty commented, then moved along.
"Hermione, Draco… your pictures are almost perfect… but you both need to work more on your subject's anatomy as well," Kitty said in conclusion.
"Minerva, you have a great deal of talent already, so I don't really need to look at your drawing," Kitty said, giving Minerva a respectful nod.
"Now, I'm going to give you a little reward for doing such good work. Come with me, please," Kitty then announced. She led them down to the Cinema Room.
"Ooh! Which movie are we going to watch?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"You´ll see soon enough," Kitty promised. They all then watched the actor Richard Harris come out of nowhere on the screen, but since her students didn't know that they were looking at the actor that played Dumbledore, they didn't say anything. But, when they saw the tabby cat appear, and Harris---as Dumbledore--- say, "I was wondering whether I was going to meet you here, Proffesor McGonagall," they saw that the cat was turning into Dame Maggie Smith---as Minerva, no less, they gasped.
"They've made a movie about those books you've shown us?" Xiomara asked, clearly surprised.
"Yep!" Kitty crowed. When the movie had progressed to the point they were going to start broomstick practice, Xiomara saw an actress Zoe Wanamaker playing her, she whispered to Kitty, "She rather looks like me!"
"That was the plan, you know," Kitty whispered back.
"However did she get her eyes that yellow?" Minerva asked.
"Contact lenses," Kitty replied.
After the movie was finished, they made their way out while discussing the movie.
"I think that that this Emma Watson girl needs to work more on my personality," observed Hermione with a slight frown.
"Why?" Draco asked a moment later. "I think that she did well enough. Don't you all?"
Everyone laughed… well, with the exception of Hermione. Even Kitty smiled.
"All right then. That was the first of your two rewards. We are now heading toward the second reward," Kitty told them with a grin. She led them about the next corner, where they saw an exact copy of Hogwarts Castle, and even the Quidditch pitch. "Here we are! This is my version of your home, my students," Kitty said, indicating it all with a sweep of her arm. "You may move in here if you'd like. However… this priviledge is contingent upon one condition: everyone sleeps in the Gryffindor common room. And, yes, that means even the teachers. Is that perfectly clear?"
"Yes, Kitty," they all replied, more or less at once.
"Good. That's settled then. I will see you all tomorrow," she then said.