You're a protagonist Harry
Chapter 20 – The power of change
…
"Whatcha readin Harry?"
Harry glanced across the table at his ginger friend and the seven plates arrayed before him, "Just something from my financial advisor."
"What's that?"
He smiled at his housemate's curiosity. It was interesting how he seemed able to dedicate his entire attention to stuffing all the food within reach down his face hole, yet still notice the little things going on around him… sometimes.
"The first time I went to Gringotts, they took me down to my vault, and I found that it was full of gold, like, full full, a stupid amount of gold."
"That's nice," the ginger said with a sour look, swiftly losing interest.
"Not really," said Harry.
"Huh?" the ginger baffled, once again interested. "How is a vault full of gold not nice."
"Because it's just a vault full of gold," said Harry. "What can you do with a vault full of gold?"
"Uh, spend it," he left the 'duh' merely implied.
"Exactly! And when it's all gone, then what?"
He didn't know. He tried to know; squinted and clenched and threw out partial words, mumbles and grunts, but the answer would not come. He didn't know.
"The answer is, nothing. It's gone."
"Well yeah I spose," he acknowledged, eagerly latching on to any idea made of complete words. "That's why you get a job, isn't it?"
"But what if you didn't have to?"
"Have to what?"
"Work."
His friend snorted through a mouthful of bacon, "Yeah, right. Whatcha gonna do then, make the money work for you."
"Precisely."
He hated doing it to him, not least because it was disgusting seeing the food falling out of his gaping mouth, but it was hard to discuss finance with one of the uninitiated without blowing the brainbox, just a little. Or in Ron's case, to the point of requiring a hard reboot.
"Huh? Wha? Uh, what happened? Where am I? Did I miss breakfast?"
Harry just chuckled, "Maybe we should save this conversation for another time."
"What conversation? Hey, what's that ya got there?"
'Nothing' he meant to say as he folded the missive in preparation for his pocket, but a quicker hand snuck up from behind and plucked it from his unready fingers.
"What's this then?" said Hermione Granger, the glare off her spectacles lending the bush with a girl a menacing air. "You have an investment portfolio."
"Yes," he replied hesitantly, feeling there'd been something of an accusation in her tone.
Apparently, it was just his imagination, "My father has one of those too," she said, handing back the set of papers. "He and mother are planning to sell the clinic in about ten years and spend their retirement traveling the world. What are you planning to do Harry?"
"Not do a job I hate for far less than it's worth and die bitter and alone… just for a start."
"I… see."
She clearly didn't, but even knowing her as short a time as he had Harry knew she'd never admit it.
"Come along chillins, time for class," Madysonne declared as she walked past.
"Already," Ron wailed, "but, breakfast!"
"Breakfast is over Ron, time for class," said Harry, collecting his things and following the rest of his year group, giving no sympathy to his ginger friend, which was only right. He'd had more than enough breakfast, even if he couldn't remember it.
Hate those hard reboots, don't you?
As a group, or perhaps a herd… a murder, no… a gaggle, hmm, well whatever you call a number of young wizards traveling together they made their way to transfiguration. The routine was well understood by now more than a month into the term.
Charms was the class unanimously anticipated, while Potions was the class unanimously loathed. History was a snooze, where people were prone to snoozing. Defense was— in desperate need of a translator—or a new teacher.
Reviews were mixed on Herbology. Harry liked it, mostly because he liked the teacher. Neville was good with plants, and so long as the dung came in small, easy to manage amounts, it was generally considered an 'okay' class by the rest. Transfiguration is where things got a bit complicated.
It's not that they didn't all respect their teacher, they did, and not just because they feared what might happen if they didn't. She was clearly skilled in her field and provided all the instruction and supervision one could need. It was just, Hermione.
"Come on, we don't want to be late."
There was much that could be said of Professor McGonagall, many comparisons to be drawn. The words rigid and iron came up often, as did dour, sour, and stern. Given such descriptors, it could be assumed smiling was not a thing she was prone to doing, but when she did…
It's not that it was a scary expression—intentionally, but on a face that seemed designed to express disappointment, the very act of smiling seemed unnatural, not to mention painful and slightly uncanny. And the only reason she did it—Hermione.
"Hurry up already."
"She does know she doesn't need to wait for us," said Ron.
"Not sure she does actually," said Harry.
They arrived with two minutes to spare, just enough time for Hermione to find her seat and spread all her things out just so before McGonagall emerged from her office. Nodding to the cat sitting watch on the desk it scampered off to do whatever cats do when they're not working, and McGonagall got on with the days lesson.
"Today we will be continuing our practice of inorganic to organic transfiguration with the button to beetle transformation."
Handing out several buttons to each student from a jar full of random buttons, she demonstrated the spell, speaking clearly the incantation, then set them to it. To no one's surprise, Hermione completed the assignment first to McGonagall's delight.
"Very good Ms. Granger. Exemplary work." Ugh! Just unnatural.
As was her want she began explaining the fine details of how she'd accomplished the task which only extended the unnatural expression. They were saved further exposure by the appearance of one of the Gryffindor prefects (who was not Cassidy).
"Professor!"
"Yes, what is it? I'm right in the middle of class."
The prefect must have been either very brave or very distraught that they completely ignored the warning in her tone and barreled ahead.
"Girls loo, explosion."
"Oh goodness," the old witch exclaimed, "has Peeves been putting cherry bombs in the toilets again."
Several of those listening snickered at the idea, but this proved not to be the case.
"Weren't quick enough. Caught them with a toilet seat, heading for the owlery."
The prefect stopped when a loud thud echoed the room. All looked to see Ron with his head firmly planted on his desk.
"They didn't," he groaned into the wood.
McGonagall sighed, the heavy, weary sigh of a woman who'd done this song and dance too many times before, "Messer's Weasley?"
The prefect nodded.
"Oh goodness! Everyone, carry on with your assignment, I have to go deal with this." And with angrily clicking heels, she marched from the room with a fretting prefect close behind.
"Your brothers," Harry ventured, once they were gone.
"Sure sounds like it."
"What were they taking a toilet seat to the owlery for?" asked Dean.
"They were gonna send it to my sister," he said, prying his face of the desk. "I heard them telling her at the train station. I didn't think they'd actually do it."
"Your brothers are weird," Madysonne opined. "Why would they send your sister a toilet seat?"
"The better question perhaps, is why would she want one?" said Zuli.
"No, the better question is, why are you all talking about toilet seats when you should be working on this transfiguration."
The bossy bush and its girl translator took their heated glares with practiced stoicism. Finding it easier to just ignore her, everyone turned back to their work and pretended she hadn't spoken at all.
"Who does she think she is?" Ron grumbled under his breath.
"Try not to think about it," said Harry. "Button to beetle."
Transfiguration, out of all the wanded subjects they were learning, had proved the most difficult, requiring absolute concentration. Being they were a bunch of scatter-brained teenagers, this had proved an obstacle, larger for some than others.
"Change—change—chhhhhh—CHANGE!"
"Ron, stop clenching so hard or your head will pop."
"Guuuuuuuh! Why is this so hard?"
"It's not hard, you just need to focus," said Hermione. "You see the button?"
"Yes."
"You know what a beetle looks like?"
"Yes," he growled, at the edge of snapping.
"Well, then what's the problem?"
"It's not working, that's the problem!"
"Is that how you do it Hermione?" Serena piped in unexpectedly.
"Yes," the bush proclaimed through the mouth of the girl. "It works perfectly fine for me."
"I thought I heard a pop earlier. That was you then?"
"What do you mean? What pop?"
"The popping sound your button made when it became a beetle. You're forcing it. You're going straight from one thing to another."
"It works," said the highly affronted bush with the girl.
"For now," said the bunny girl. "It won't once we get into bigger, more complex things."
Leaving Hermione looking perfectly scandalized, Serena swiveled her chair around so she could look directly at Ron. "You did the needle, right? What was your process?"
"What'chu mean? It just turned, I, well, didn't it?"
He was thoroughly embarrassed trying to explain his 'process', largely because he didn't have one. The only thing that kept his ears red out of embarrassment and not anger was Serena looking at him with that guileless look of curiosity.
"So, you just forced it, one right to another?"
"I—guess? That's not how you're supposed to do it?"
She shook her head, "No. With something that simple you can get away with it because the source is so similar in shape and composition to the objective, but something like this, that's not going to work unless you really, really understand both your source and objective, and it's still going to require way more power than it should take."
The look on Ron's face made plain he didn't fully understand what he'd just been told. Too many long, unfamiliar words. Hermione did though but found the source of the information to be lacking the necessary credentials to impart such information.
"Well if your such an expert, where's your beetle?" she demanded.
The bunny girl grinned and held out her hand, "Right here," only it wasn't. She blinked in confusion then turned her hand over, "I mean here."
Gravity must mean little to a beetle as the Seven Spotted Ladybird continued its meandering crawl across the back of her hand entirely nonplussed by the world suddenly flipping upside down.
"It was a red button," she explained, like this was the reason everyone was staring.
"How'd you do that?"
"In pieces, like you're supposed to. With practice you learn to do it so quick it looks instantaneous, even when it isn't. Just takes a lot of practice."
"And you've had a lot of practice?" Hermione said snappishly.
"Well…" rather than telling, she chose to show.
The adorable white bunny twitched its nose and wiggled its ears, then, for a real showstopper, she picked up the ladybug with her bunny paws and placed it on her nose. Tada! It was still sitting there when she changed back.
"See. It's all about the process. The more you practice, the quicker it comes."
"I saw you turn into a bunny," said Ron, "the rest…"
"Let me walk you through it," she said, pulling up her chair so she could hover over Ron and his button.
"Look at your button."
"Okay."
"Now, think of your beetle. Picture it in your mind."
"…okay."
"Now, compare the two, see how similar they are. See the beetles shell, see how similar it is to the hard surface of the button. See how easily they could be the same if the button was just a little curved.
"See how easily the legs grow from the sides, how the head just darkens and looks at you with its big bug eyes. See how it crawls around on those legs, walking across your hand."
"Hey!"
Those watching marveled as the beetle that was a once a button ambled across Ron's hand, just like a real bug.
"I did it? I did it!"
"And you doubted," the bunny girl scoffed, though it wasn't much of a scoff with the way she was grinning.
"Hey. Hey, I got it too," cried Neville, holding up his creation for scrutiny.
"Hmm, well not quite. It's still a bit too much button," said Serena. "See here, the holes in its shell, that's still button. Your close, but you stopped too soon. Good job though, keep going."
"How bout this one," said Zuli, holding up a big nasty looking beetle.
"What's that?" asked Dean as the boys leaned in, fascinated.
"Scarab beetle," she said with a playfully wicked grin. "They're flesh eaters."
"Gah!" they collectively yelped, making the dark-skinned girl cackle.
"See, it's not so hard," Serena giggled. "You just need to have the right process."
Enthused by the display of ability, the class as a whole returned to their work with great enthusiasm. Everyone that is, except Hermione, who sat pouting until McGonagall returned.