Alter Forte: Chapter 9
After a quick detour to retrieve his supplies from his room, Brian headed towards the Great Hall, planning to find a fellow Slytherin first year to follow to Transfiguration. Luckily enough for him, just as he reached the Great Hall he spotted them all leaving as a group, already on their way to Transfiguration. Emily and Henry were trailing along at the back, still noticeably distanced from the rest of the group as they talked quietly. The pair paused in surprise momentarily as they noticed Brian join them at the back of the group without saying a word.
"Where have you been?" Emily asked quietly as Henry and her began walking once more, glancing towards Brian as she spoke..
"In the library, why do you ask?" He replied, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Honestly? When you didn't show up to breakfast, I assumed you'd managed to get on the wrong person's bad side somehow and ended up in the hospital wing already," She informed him.
"The hospital wing?! I thought you said the other students wouldn't bother me unless I did something to get their attention," He replied, looking toward her in alarm. She winced slightly in response.
"Well, I did say for the most part. It's still possible an upper year might just hate your guts," She confessed. Brian shot her an unimpressed look.
"Well thanks for the warning," He said sarcastically. Emily merely shrugged in response.
"If an upper year is out to get you a warning wouldn't have done you much good," She replied evenly.
"That's fair I suppose. I don't think I could handle anyone above a second year, especially without using any wandless magic. My repertoire of spells isn't exactly amazing yet," He mused to himself, resisting the urge to grimace at the thought. While he'd worked his way through most of the spells a first year student would be expected to learn, his combat ability wasn't exactly impressive.
"I suppose you're right," He said after a moment. It was here that Henry finally spoke up.
"Then do us a favor and do your best to stay out of trouble. If you stir things up too much it'll make our lives harder too," Henry told him.
"I'll do my best," Brian replied agreeably, prompting the boy to give him a small nod before he resumed talking with Emily in quiet tones that Brian couldn't quite make out.
"It's not as if I planned on drawing too much attention in the first place. Not until I'm ready anyway," He thought privately, his eyes drifting towards the larger group of his yearmates walking a ways ahead of them. Aside from Lucian and Derrick, who he'd had the misfortune of meeting on the boat ride to the castle, there were three other Slytherin first years in the other group. All of them were girls, but one of the three stood out to Brian. While it wasn't super obvious at first glance, she was walking a step or two ahead of the others and seemed to be leading the conversation amongst the three girls.
"She's the leader of the group then. A pureblood perhaps? The other two might be half-bloods or maybe they're the female equivalents to Crabbe and Goyle and are just natural born followers," Brian mused to himself, observing them in silence as they walked. Either way though, the girl would be one he needed to watch out for.
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It was a few minutes later that the Slytherins finally reached the Transfiguration classroom, piling into the room as they looked around curiously. The other first years they shared the class with, which Brian saw was apparently the Ravenclaws, were already there and waiting, having claimed the seats at the front of the room. He spotted Damien among them, who waved at him momentarily before returning to his book without a word after Brian returned the wave.
Brian looked around the roomly curiously, taking in the sight. He did his best to refrain from staring as he noticed a tabby cat sitting perfectly still on top of the teacher's desk at the front of the room. Outside of that, the classroom was fairly barren, with the only real decoration being a few shelves that seemed to be piled high with practice transfiguration objects.
"Class is supposed to start in a couple minutes, where is the bloody teacher at?" Brian heard Lucian mutter to Derrick as the pair sat down near the back of the classroom. He resisted the urge to snort as the tabby cat's head flicked toward the direction of the two boys, staring their way intently. The rest of the Slytherin's made their way to various seats around the classroom, with Emily and Henry choosing seats right behind the Ravenclaws while the other Slytherin girls sat next to Lucian and Derrick. After a moment of internal debate Brian chose a seat, claiming one in the corner of the room the other Slytherin's hadn't occupied, as far away from the others as possible.
"Easier to avoid any attention I might get if I'm out of their line of sight," He decided. As soon as he sat down though, the cat that had been sitting on McGonagall's desk jumped into the air, twisting and changing as it did so before turning into Professor McGonagall, sending all the students into a flurry of murmurs as they saw the impressive display. Even Brian, who'd recognized that the cat was likely the Professor, was impressed.
"What I just demonstrated to all of you was the Animagus transformation, an extremely difficult skill that most of you will likely not choose to pursue due to the large time investment it requires to master. That being said, I begin every first year class with that exact demonstration for one simple purpose. Can anyone guess what that purpose might be?" She asked, looking around the classroom. It was one Damien that raised his hand.
"Yes Mister Bell, what do you suppose my purpose in demonstrating that skill might be?" She asked.
"Is it to introduce students to the concept of Transfiguration? To the idea of changing one thing to another?" He asked. McGonagall shook her head slightly in response.
"Not quite, I'm afraid, although that was a rather reasonable guess. Take a point to Ravenclaw," She replied. Damien didn't seem at all discouraged at being wrong, a wide grin appearing on his face at her words.
"Anyone else? No? Well then, I shall tell you all. I demonstrate the Animagus Transformation as a way of showing first years what transfiguration can accomplish when you work hard and push yourself. While there are many impressive ways I could demonstrate Transfiguration to you all, some of which are even more impressive than the Animagus Transformation, I choose the Animagus Transformation for my demonstrations because it doesn't require one to be particularly gifted at Transfiguration to learn it. The process to become an Animagus is a long and tedious one that requires years of hard work, but assuming you're willing to put in that hard work, it is a skill that anyone can learn," She explained seriously.
"I want that to be a lesson to you all about Transfiguration as a whole. Through hard work and dedication, each of you can become a master of the art, so long as you're willing to learn," She finished with a couldn't help but admire the woman's words, as far as speeches went it wasn't half bad.
"Now then, if you'll all pull out your copies of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, we'll get started with the lesson properly. Go ahead and turn to the first page of chapter one, we'll be covering the same topic that's covered there, the importance of wand movements in Transfiguration," She instructed, waiting for a moment as the class all pulled out their books. Brian sat up in his seat in anticipation of the lesson. He'd been struggling with mastering the harder first year Transfigurations, so this class was the one Brian had been looking forward to the most.
"Excellent. Now then, those of you that bothered reading ahead at all will know that Emeric Switch, the author of your textbook there, describes wand movements in Transfiguration as the caster imprinting their intent on the object in order to change its shape, size or even the materials that make it up and using their magic to fuel that change. Today, we'll be discussing some of the more common wand movements used in Transfiguration, and the meanings of each of those wand movements in relation to the runes they correspond to. At the end of the lesson, you'll each be given a matchstick which you will need to turn into a needle," McGonagall explained briskly, looking over the class.
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McGonall turned out to be a very skilled, if stern, professor going into far more detail on the meaning of various wand movements than any of Brian's books, even his recently acquired The Runes of Wands. By the time that section of the lesson was over, Brian felt like his understanding of wand movements as a whole had increased dramatically. Though given the confused expressions several of his classmates sported, they hadn't followed the lesson nearly as well as he had. Once McGonagall was done describing the more commonly used wand movements, McGonagall had them practice one of the wand movements she'd described, the most commonly used in all of Transfiguration apparently, that connected to the Kenaz rune. McGonagall worked her way around the classroom as the students worked, observing them and correcting them as needed. To Brian's surprise she had actually come to correct him as well, apparently he hadn't been quite sharp enough with the direction change in the sideways V shape of the movement.
"You all seem to have gained an acceptable level of mastery of the Kenaz wand movement, so we'll cover the next topic," McGonagall announced after she spent quite some time wandering the classroom.
"Aside from wand movements, the other most crucial part of Transfiguration is visualization. Whereas with other forms of magic such as Charms spells will likely be cast correctly even if you're not focusing on the spell in particular, so long as you get the other two factors correct, with Transfiguration visualizing the change is just as important if you don't want the spell to fail," McGonagall explained to the class.
"Transfiguration spells are too wide of a range for the spell to know what to do if you're not guiding it mentally, which can lead to some rather disastrous results in the wrong circumstances. Take the spell you'll be learning today, Acusignis, for example. The spell is made to transform wood to metal whilst keeping the form relatively similar. While you'll be using it to transform matchsticks to needles, if someone of sufficient magical power, such as Headmaster Dumbledore, were to cast the same spell he would be capable of transforming an entire tree into a pillar of metal, or, for a more practical example, transfiguring a wooden wall into a metal one. Without your visualization of the spell, the possible results are simply too broad for the spell to know what to do. I will demonstrate the spell for you all now, which should help with you visualizing it," McGonagall told them, drawing her wand as she did so. With a simple flick, she summoned a match from a nearby shelf, holding it aloft for the class to see.
"Acusignis," She incanted, moving her wand in the movement she'd been teaching them, letting the class watch as the entire match slowly turned silvery, the end of it tapering off into a point as the match completed itself.
"Now then, it's time for you all to attempt your first Transfiguration. Here's a match for each of you. I want you to use the Kenaz wand movement as well as the incantation Acusignis, while doing your best to visualize the process I just demonstrated," She informed the class, a few movements of her wand causing matches to fly towards the various students around the room.
"You may begin whenever you feel comfortable," She finished, setting down her newly transfigured needle.
"That was actually more helpful than I expected a lesson for first years to be. The bit about visualization especially. I already managed this spell at home but I feel like I can do even better now. What's something I can do to add a challenge? Maybe a pattern on the needle? If visualization was where I was lacking, adding a engraving on top of it would definitely help me improve at that," Brian thought to himself, readying his wand. He readied his wand, waiting until he was sure the rest of the class were already distracted with their own attempts before he cast.
"Acusignis," He murmured, watching in delight as the match took on a silvery hue- only to stop half-way through the process, leaving him with a half metal and half wood mess.
"Nothing for it but to keep trying till I get it right I suppose," Brian thought with a wry grin, raising his wand once more. He cast the spell again, and though it didn't completely transform, the majority of it was metal on his second attempt, which let him see that the pattern he was trying to engrave into the match was showing up as he hoped it would, which was certainly progress. Once he got closer to perfecting his needle, he stopped his attempts.
"I'm not going to do anything to draw attention to myself just yet. I don't mind McGonagall knowing I'm doing well but if Lucian and Derrick find out they might take exception with a 'mudblood' being better than them," Brian thought to himself, waiting for the right time to continue.
"Well done Miss Nott, take five points to Slytherin for being the first to succeed at using the Acusignis spell," McGonagall announced a few minutes after Brian had begun waiting inspecting Emily's perfectly transformed needle as the girl shot smug looks towards the other Slytherin girls.
"Well, somebody clearly doesn't care too much about making the other first years mad. That's interesting, especially after she essentially told me to lay low or else. Either way though, I suppose I'm fine to keep practicing," Brian thought to himself, glad he hadn't been stuck
To his delight, by the time his fifth attempt rolled around, the needle was perfect, exactly as he'd imagined it being. He went to tuck the completed needle into his pocket when McGonagall called out from across the room.
"Well done Mister Bell! Take three points to Ravenclaw for being the second to succeed at the spell," She announced, not noticing Brian accomplishing the same thing.
"Thanks Damien, I appreciate it,," Brian thought happily as his acquaintance from the train drew McGonagall's attention, albeit unknowingly. He looked around the classroom curiously, resisting the urge to laugh as Lucian and Derrick both struggled with the spell, still only having half of the match stick transformed as they grew increasingly angry.
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Before Brian knew it, the class was over and McGonagall was announcing their homework.
"Good job today, all of you. For homework, I expect a foot of parchment on the Kenaz rune and its importance in Transfiguration. Class dismissed," She announced, prompting all of the first years to begin piling out of the classroom and head to lunch. Lunch was a rather peaceful affair for Brian, with no one bothering him while Emily and Henry seemed content to chat between themselves. It was after lunch, when he followed his fellow first years to History of Magic, that he discovered something important.
"I'm pretty sure they just renamed the study hall class," Brian thought to himself, looking around the History of Magic classroom at both the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins around it. The ghostly professor, Professor Binns, had called out their names, and once he'd made sure the class was all accounted for, he'd proceeded to go straight into discussing what was apparently the first unit of the class, the Goblin War 1521. The actual content the ghost was covering was actually a pretty fascinating topic, and one Brian had read a bit about in his history book for the class, but the ghost's voice was so monotone and uncaring that half the class had already fallen asleep, and the ghost hadn't even noticed. Deciding he'd rather learn from his textbook at a later date, Brian pulled out his book, The Runes of Wands.
"What a disappointment of a class. I knew he wasn't a good teacher from canon but this is just sad," Brian thought privately as he began to read.
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The class felt like it dragged on forever, especially compared to how quickly McGonagall had made the double of Transfiguration seem to fly by, but eventually it ended, to Brian's relief. Once he was safely separated from the other students, he had a couple of hours before he was expected in the Great Hall for dinner, and he knew just how to spend them. Making his way over to the Grand Staircase, he headed up to the seventh floor and began to wander, aiming to find a portrait of trolls learning ballet.
AN: I'm a day late yet again, which I apologize for. I've come to the decision to change the updates for each story from every 7 days to every 10 days, which will hopefully give me the time to finish on time as well as give me a bit more time for polishing the chapters instead of rushing them out. Next chapter is where things really get going into full swing for Brian's first year, but I had fun writing the explanations of transfiguration that this chapter has. Anyways, I'd love to hear your opinions on the chapter, I love reading your reviews, it always makes my day to see what you guys think about the story so far.
Update: I have a discord now! Obviously this site smites down links with an unholy passion but the invite code is 9Hw2T8PTKj I'll be posting there occasionally, answering questions you guys ask and announcing whenever I post a chapter ect. Feel free to come join.