4 Chapter 4

The library was big. No, to say it was big would be an understatement. The library was massive. It was some kind of eidolon to the prowess of writing books, some kind of monolith of knowledge and information, a veritable trove of discoveries and arcane theories and...

They had twenty copies, in various editions, of how to pet birds magically. The books were written by a certain Scroogey MacDucky, some local celebrity for a bird sightseeing club in the wilderness of Scotland, and who had won international acclaim for discovering a magical bird of some kind in the lost jungles of South America.

This was the kind of world I had forgotten existed in the realm of Harry Potter, and which I was now confronted with.

"What is this library's filing system?" I muttered, glancing at the absurdity of a non-alphabetical order, and a non-printing one. How were the books even ordered? By whim and fate? No, perhaps it didn't matter. If you knew the Accio spell, you could get the book yourself. If you didn't know it, then you were too young to loan a book without the help of the librarian to begin with.

This still didn't help me. The fluttering of wings caught my attention after a few more minutes, and I dimly realized there weren't birds flying about, but books. Heavy tomes fluttered back into their places, some even going as far as butting spines against others in order to claim a high enough place.

The books had a pecking order.

"This place needs a centralized database, and a flamethrower," I muttered in disbelief. "Perhaps not in that order either."

Still, I found the book I had been looking for on the bottom shelf, and thus returned to the library table. The other students had already long since gone to explore more of Hogwarts, but I couldn't do that. I had to do very important work for the glory of a beautiful future filled with lack of murder, lack of Voldemort, and a general lack of everything and everyone seeking to kill me by association with the school of Hogwarts.

Magical Confectioneries and You, a Guide by Sweetie Toothie

I moved to the index, only to find it empty of the key terms I hoped to find in order to make my research swifter. Of course, the book didn't have an index. Wizards denied the scientific method any chance of existence, so how could they even think that giving books indexes with key words would be in any way a great idea? The book's author proved to be merciful, in that they had a list of the chapters at the beginning, which encompassed the general tastes, ranging from Sweet to Sour, from Pungent to Noxious and even reaching into Absolutely Amoral to Eat-levels.

Thus, it was absolutely useless.

On the plus side, Icelandic wizards enjoyed making Seal Jelly. It apparently tasted really sweet, and was also placed in the chapter entitled The Absolutely Amoral to Eat.

Thus, I scribbled. As the hours passed, I scribbled on and on with a quill that threatened to break from the pressure applied. I wouldn't be done in a single day, that much was sure. Still, I had made great progress. Dinner awaited me, and if I could just get the book on a loan...

"No book shall ever leave this library for as long as I live," Madam Pince answered quite airily, wrinkled her nose a bit, and the book in my hands flew off to return among each brethren up in the sky.

"Can't you just put some kind of charm to keep them always in pristine conditions? Like a Reparo charm or something like that?" I hazarded. Madam Pince huffed, and flicked her wand in my direction. I was literally hunted out of the library by my bag, which tried to eat my head off with its dull buckles.

Sure, from an outsider point of view it might look like something funny, or perhaps by an extremely serious viewpoint, as something quite abusive, but I reckoned the truth stood in the middle. It was normal for wizards to use magic, and it was normal for wizard children to survive extreme odds. Neville's uncle being a shining example of it, I reckoned that since jinx and curses could be survived with magic and potions...the levels needed to get on the 'child abuse' scale had to be quite higher than the norm, at least for what concerned physical punishments of the kind.

Also, the buckles didn't try to eat my eyes to begin with, so clearly they were sympathetic, and it wasn't the Stockholm Syndrome speaking to me through the lens of a scared eleven year old.

Still, I was going to learn how to counter spells. I was going to learn how to do so many things that by the time I was done, I'd challenge anyone to turn my cauldron into muck or let books fly off my grasp. I was going to become the very best, like no wizard ever was. If Tom Riddle could make Horcruxes at his fourth year of Hogwarts, or perhaps was it the Sixth, then I could damn well make incredible progress by the end of the first year.

Transfiguration lessons, the morning after, disproved my theory that wisdom and intention were all one needed.

For not mere mathematics, but bonking-bonkers-mathematics had appeared. Well, I didn't as much as flinch when McGonagall turned from a cat into a human, but that was the only positive sight of the day. My transfiguration theory was good enough, I reckoned, but my practice absolutely worthless. It wasn't the need to do calculations that killed me, but the fact that the calculations resulted inherently wrong into my head.

It was like trying to quickly add five and a cat, in order to obtain a silver cup. Only five was to be summed from a pear tree and a chihuahua, and cat came as the natural result of seven times seven. It was madness. It was Lovecraftian-levels of madness.

You are all dead to me. You hear me, Wizardry-Mathematics? You die. You die painfully. I will find whoever decided to use you in such a way, kill them very slowly, and ensure their screams are heard through the weave of history!

"Remember that distractions and frustration can prove to be the undoing of an otherwise flawless incantation and wand movement," Professor McGonagall said curtly, walking past us. "Excellent job, Miss Bones, ten points to Hufflepuff."

I, in the meantime, was staring daggers at the wooden thing I had to turn into a needle.

Stick, you met your match. That's why they call you a matchstick. Horrendous puns aside, I needed a way through.

Transfiguration sounded extremely cool. It also didn't require much in the way of words. However, it was also extremely difficult. I could daydream about summoning forth glittering daggers, change the landscape and cause earthquakes, but the reality was that I couldn't even turn a matchstick into a needle.

All right, I needed to face this mathematically, and in the wonkiest way possible.

The body weight of the matchstick and the viciousness are both factors on one side of the equation, and are by logic countered by the wand power and the concentration of the wizard. The fifth unknown factor must be the amount of energy required to force atoms to change at a subatomic level, or maybe it's chemistry and we're dealing with moles? No, concentrate on the math and act like a wizard would. You are a stupid wizard. You are so stupid, you use magic for everything. So what happens when a door doesn't open?

You throw more magic at it until it does.

It's simple, sweet, and works.

I swished my wand, scrunched my eyebrows, and then touched the tip of the matchstick while trying to imagine myself pouring every atom of concentration I could into turning the matchstick into a needle.

It exploded.

It exploded with such deadly, shrapnel precision that I ended up with metallic shards pulled out of my chest in the next fifteen minutes.

"Transfiguration always makes a victim among the first years," the kind nurse-lady said as I sucked on a candy, while she finished removing the shards from my chest.

McGonagall had been impressed enough that she had given me ten points, but had taken fifteen away for endangering the nearby students.

It was not my fault the matchstick refused to cooperate.

Still, I couldn't help but be inherently pleased.

The laws of physics had won the day, after all.