After Charms, Harry and his friends walked together from the third floor to the first, heading towards their fourth and final class of the day: Transfiguration. This was the class Harry was most looking forward to, since he had already practiced a small amount. The Transfiguration Professor, McGonagall, intimidated him somewhat, but he was determined to perform better than he had in Charms.
"So, Harry, why are you looking forward to Transfiguration?" Daphne asked. "You figured out the levitation charm pretty fast, even if it looked like you had some trouble controlling it," she continued, a puzzled look on her face.
"Mainly because Ollivander told me that my wand would be good at it," Harry answered quickly before Daphne could ask about his difficulties. "Also, I may have already transfigured something on the train. It didn't seem too hard, but there's just so much that you can do with it."
Blaise pushed open the large door on the side of the courtyard and the four walked into the classroom. It was a fair amount larger than the Charms classroom, with four rows of desks rather than the semicircular layout. There was a heavy desk at the front of the classroom with a neat stack of parchment, a quill, an inkpot, and a tabby cat with rather peculiar markings on its face. Tracey led the group to the front row, and they slid into the desk on the left side of the classroom. The rest of their classmates soon filed in behind them. Once every student was seated, the cat on the desk stood, stretched, then leaped into the air. Midair, the cat warped, grew, and suddenly Professor McGonagall was standing before them. The majority of the class stared in awe, jaws wide open. Harry was no exception.
"Transfiguration," she began, "is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone fooling about in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." There was not a sound in the classroom, as every student tried their utmost not to annoy her. "Observe," she then said, and turned to face her desk. With a flick of her wand, the desk was suddenly replaced by a large pig. The animal looked up and turned its head towards the class, but was just as suddenly reverted back to a desk. "Transfiguration of this scale will not be taught until at least your fourth year. We will begin with very simple transfigurations, simply changing the shape and color of objects. Please copy the notes on the board," she said, and a very neat scrawl appeared on the chalkboard behind her with a lazy swish of her wand.
Thirty minutes later, Harry's hand was beginning to cramp from all the notes. McGonagall clearly took her subject incredibly seriously, as the vast majority of what he had written was safety concerns. While he remembered having read them before, he still wrote them down to stay on McGonagall's good side. He sighed in relief when she instructed them to clear their desks.
"The first transfiguration you will perform will be to make this matchstick look like a needle," she began. "You will use the spell mutare, which, as we just covered, is for changing something into a different shape and color. Note that I said that it will just look like a needle, since it is still made of wood. We will not be performing this type of transfiguration until at least after the New Year." As she spoke, a gentle wave of her wand distributed a neat pile of matchsticks from her desk so that there was one before each student. "You may begin. Raise your hand if you have any questions."
Harry stared at the matchstick. Recalling how he had transfigured the owl treat on the train, he firmly said "Mutare," while picturing a needle in his mind's eye, and lightly poked the match. He felt his magic twist inside the wand, before enveloping and permeating the match. It slowly grew to a point, and the color gradually changed from tan to silver. After a few seconds, he had what appeared to be a needle laying on the desk. Picking it up, he felt how it was clearly still made of wood.
"What. The. Bloody. Hell," a voice interjected right next to Harry's ear. Blaise was leaning over, and was shocked by how quickly Harry had accomplished their assignment. "It's literally only been thirty seconds. You know we're supposed to be working on this spell for the next two class periods, right?"
"Sorry," Harry said with a grin, "it's just that I've done this spell before so I know how to make it work."
"Ten points to Slytherin, Mr. Potter. Well done," McGonagall said as she walked up to their desk. "Since you've completed the task, you have no homework today. You may move on to future assignments, or help your classmates." Harry nodded as she moved on, then turned to his friends who were looking at him expectantly.
"Well? Are you gonna show us how to do it?" Tracey asked impatiently.
"Why don't you show me what you can do so far?" Harry responded.
Tracey gathered her thoughts, then jabbed her wand towards the matchstick while saying, "Mutare!" One end of it twitched, growing slightly elongated, while the rest of it gained a slightly metallic sheen. When it was done, however, it was decidedly still a match. Tracey glared at the match, before looking back at Harry expectantly. "Well? What am I doing wrong?"
"Hmm. Your incantation and wand motions seem fine… What are you thinking of when you cast it?"
"Um, turning the match into a needle? What else would you think of?" Tracey replied.
"From what I've read, you really just need to have a strong mental picture of what you're turning it into, not so much the change itself. If you think of a match changing into a needle, you're actually getting the idea of a match mixed up with the needle, so you end up with a combination of the two," Harry explained.
"That… actually makes a fair amount of sense," Tracey said thoughtfully. "Mutare!" This time, one side of the match grew to a sharp point, while the entire thing turned a light gray.
"Great! Now you just have to focus a bit more on the color next time," encouraged Harry.
While Tracey was practicing, Daphne, who had been listening carefully to Harry's explanation, had managed a nearly perfect transfiguration. With a smirk, she turned and began helping Blaise with his spell.
The group left the classroom after an hour, and they had all managed to successfully transfigure the match by the end. They had decided to head to the library so they could get a head start on their first Potions' assignment, on Daphne's advice.
"Do we have to do this now?" Blaise complained. "It's literally been less than a day and I'm exhausted. We could just do this tomorrow…"
"We really shouldn't put this off," Tracey replied. "I know Snape is lenient to Slytherins, but he won't like it if we rush our work at the last second."
"Besides, this way we can at least get a feeling for where the library is and how it's organized," Harry said. "We probably won't get a whole lot done."
"Harry! Wait up!" Turning, Harry saw Hermione and Neville hurrying towards him.
"Hey guys! How was your first day of classes?" Harry asked when they caught up.
"Charms was absolutely amazing, I mean making something fly? It's incredible! Herbology and Potions weren't the most exciting things ever, but still really interesting! And Defense was pretty interesting. Professor Quirrell knows what he's talking about, even if his stutter can be… distracting occasionally," Hermione rushed out in a single breath. "Uh… who's this, Harry?"
Belatedly, Harry realized that Hermione had never met any of his friends from Slytherin. "Oh, this is Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, and Blaise Zabini," he said, indicating each of them in turn. "Guys, this is Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom." The group exchanged a series of pleasantries and handshakes, before Harry continued. "We were just gonna head to the library and get a head start on the Potions' assignment. Want to come with?"
Hermione began beaming at the mention of the library. "Sure!"
Neville just nodded shyly, clearly not fully comfortable with the group of Slytherins. The group continued down the halls, eventually finding the massive wooden doors leading to the library. With a shove, Harry pushed both doors open, revealing a seemingly endless room filled from floor to ceiling with row upon row of bookshelves. With a possessed look on their faces, Hermione and Daphne walked forward as if in a trance, and quickly disappeared into the shelves.
"Uhh… I guess we should find a table?" Blaise asked the rest of the group.
"Yeah, they'll find their ways back eventually," Tracey said, and led them to the nearest cluster of tables.
Just as Tracey had predicted, Hermione and Daphne had returned to the group after about ten minutes, each carrying a stack of massive tomes. Sliding one to each of them, Hermione had explained how these texts were advanced potions books detailing uses for nearly every important ingredient used in Potions. While nobody had finished the assignment, they had all finished the necessary research and written the majority of their essays. However, dinner was about to start, so they returned the books (Hermione had to be torn away after seeing how they floated back to their proper spots automatically) and headed back to the Great Hall. Harry said goodbye to Hermione and Neville as they returned to their tables, and the rest seated themselves at the end of the Slytherin table just in time for the food to appear on the golden platters.
"So, Daphne," Harry said as he started serving himself, "this morning you explained Arithmancy, but could you tell me more about Ancient Runes?"
"Well, you see, it's all about imbuing magic into ancient symbols that you carve…"
As the last desserts disappeared from the tables, most of the student body rushed out of the hall as quickly as possible, eager to greet their beds after a long first day of classes. Filing in towards the end of the Slytherins, Tracey and Blaise began discussing their Potions assignment. Harry, having already had his fill of Potions for the day, hung back a few steps with Daphne.
"What did you think of classes today?" Harry asked as they moved further into the dungeons.
"They were alright. Herbology definitely isn't my thing, but Charms was a lot of fun. I must say, I was pretty impressed by how quickly you picked up those spells. Normally, students from Muggle families take a bit longer to get up to speed since they haven't grown up around magic."
"I mean, I did spend a good part of the summer in Diagon Alley. I watched a lot of magic while I was there." Harry slowed down as they passed a staircase. "Is it just me, or have we passed at least ten other staircases on just this floor? We're like three floors below the main level, where could they all go?"
A thoughtful expression grew on Daphne's face. "That's a really good question. There's not even any other classrooms down here." She paused when a huge grin grew slid onto Harry's face. "What?"
"How does some exploration sound to you?"
Author's Note: Long time no see! Yeah, it's been a while, I know. Unfortunately, I can't promise my updates will pick up, since I just started graduate school. However, I'll continue to update whenever I'm able. Please leave a review!