a wizard's bread and butter

1 day later

"when it comes to magic the first picture that appears in anyone's mind is that of spells and hexes, being shot out of your wand tip to influence reality to your whim." professor mcgonall lectured us sternly while walking through rows of Ravenclaws and hufflepuffs trying their best to intimidate a matchstick into being a needle. :"however spells and hexes are often extremely specific and thus is not versatile enough to aid you in your day to day needs."

"transfiguration is a wide branch of magic with thousands of possibilities. With enough focus and imagination, anything a spell can do can be replicated by a wizard using transfiguration. This, is why transfiguration is a wizards bread and butter."

"then you Brit wizards must have some different sort of bread and butter cause this stuff is nonsense." murmured Padma annoyed at the matchstick which stubbornly refused to morph into a needle.:"I mean where is the spells? The wand movement? I am simply supposed to imagine it turning into a needle and it will happen? Makes zero sense. "

I replied with a curious look on my face:"no! What does makes zero sense is how in this process the matchstick's mass increases to that of a needle's? Where does the extra mass come from? We know it's impossible for magic itself transform into the extra mass! If so then people could just conjure stuff outta thin air. It completely evades the law of mass conservation. It's a muggle law which states that mass can neither be created nor be destro-"

"there it's again. The Brit condescension." Padma said cutting me off:"you assume JUST cause I'm Indian I do not know about the law of mass conservation. That is SO offensive."

I sighed. Padma came all the way from India, under the pressure of her parents, to attend the prestigious Hogwarts institute, in place of its Indian counterpart.. So she is a little insecure about her origins, which often leads to arguments like these. I smiled and replied:"I wasn't. I assumed you didn't know that because you are a pure blood and purebloods are often unaware of muggle sciences."

She squinted her eyes as though still unconvinced but after a while sighed and replied:"science and magic are intertwined. Science fills the many gaps in magic and vice versa. So it's paramount in learning those two as parallels. Our ancestors learned that secret ages ago. And my parents still want me to study in HOGWARTS, a place where people still believe 'wraiths' are real and science is a hoax. Your entire country is going to shit."

"is there room for one more in your earth shattering discussion???" said a voice from behind us spooking the two of us into turning. Behind us stood an unamused Minerva mcgonall observing us with a scowl.

I could see Michael and terry snickering from the bench next to us, just like friends should. I gave them an under-the-bench flip-off and smiled like a professional con man to reply to Mcgonall:" miss, we were simply discussing what we were doing wrong, so that the other won't make the same mistake."

"really? "Minerva replied raising an eyebrow:"if so, then it wouldn't be a problem if you showed us the... results of your endeavour, would it?"

I forced the smile back on my face and replied:"of course not! "

I pointed my wand at the matchstick in front of me and pushed all the nervousness out of my system. I took a deep breath and finally summoned the arcane from within me. In the corner of my eye I thought I saw Minerva's eyes widening. But I did not have time to focus on that right now. Arcane flowed from within me and reached the matchstick permeating it. I closed my eyes to keep my focus.

From what I understood transfiguration in its base was a branch of magic where spells and wand movements were unneeded. There are, complex spells assisted by spells and wand movements. But that was NEWT and OWL level stuff. For basic transfigurations like these What was necessary was pure focus and imagination.

I conjured an image of the matchstick in my mind. I then zoomed in on the matchstick till I could see individual atoms constituting to it. I took a deep breath.

Suddenly the Atoms started morphing. Now make no mistake, that is not how transfiguration works. The actual change has nothing to do with atomic morphing. But when I used this imagery as a base I made myself believe that this is how transfiguration works and thus steeling my intent. This helped the atoms of the needle to change, turning denser, it's nucleon bulging until finally I zoomed out. In the place of the wooden matchstick was a beautiful steel needle.

The entire class looked at the first person to complete the trial of needle in complete silence.

"duuude" Terry said breaking the silence:" first person to complete. Nice!! "

"actually Hermione Granger from gryffindor completed first. And she did it on her first try." Mcgonall said causing the entire class to go to anaphylatic shock. :"puts things in perspective doesn't it??"

The entire class suddenly went back to their matchsticks with new-found vigor when suddenly the bells rang causing collective groans to erupt from the entire class.

"now, now there's no need to be discouraged. Everyone can take five matchsticks to practice during your free time. But that is not an excuse you can use to evade your homework. Your essay should be your priority." said Mcgonall to the groaning classroom. :"and that's all for today. Now if you don't have any more questions you may leave."

The crowds of students slowly started moving towards the matchsticks to practice while I took my textbooks and decided to quickly walk out before the crowds could flock me with questions on how I did the transfiguration. I was quickly moving out when-

"Actually, Harry potter, please stay back. Everyone else may leave!"

curses!!