Chapter 19

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Ethan never expected his detention to be even more interesting than his actual class, making him wonder whether he should get more detentions.

When he was faced with the ten circuits, Ethan easily found both the one he had been shown earlier the same day, as well as the one he was supposed to find to repair the matchstick. It took him ten minutes to truly master the two spells, after what he learned the other eight.

As McGonagall had said, they all were valid circuits, and would affect the matchstick in different ways. Most were not very useful as spells, but they gave Ethan great research materials as he started understanding more about what the different nodes in the circuits did. In more than one way, Transfiguration was very similar to runes.

Nodes were like individual runes, while the entire circuit would be an array.

Since he was working on something he liked, the one hour of detention seemed to pass like a bullet train as Ethan probably became the first Hogwarts student to wish for a longer detention.

Unfortunately, no matter how fascinated McGonagall was by Ethan's talent, she shooed him away from her classroom to head to the Great Hall, as it was time for dinner.

When Ethan found his friends, they were both looking at him in pity, as if he had just escaped from hell. Seeing his jolly attitude though, he had to go through some teasing before they finally got to the Great Hall.

The next day, Tuesday, was pretty uneventful for Ethan as he discovered another subject, Herbology. Professor Sprout had a great personality, she always looked happy, but what she taught did not interest Ethan much. Still, out of respect for the woman, he paid attention to the class.

However, it was on Wednesday that Ethan got to discover another interesting class, Charms.

Professor Flitwick was half-goblin or something of that nature from what Ethan heard, and so he was really small, meaning he had to stand on a pile of books to be seen by all his students. Adding to that his squeaky voice, the short teacher earned more ridicule than respect from most students.

However, Ethan wasn't among those, as he had received warnings from his father. No matter how weak his Charms teacher looked, Filius Flitwick was one of the most knowledgeable Charm Masters in the world.

While Henry would never admit he would be defeated in a fight, even if it was against Voldemort or Dumbledore, even Ethan's proud father admitted that the half-goblin outdid him by a large margin in terms of knowledge and academically-wise.

And Ethan wasn't disappointed. Like all the other teachers until now, Flitwick's first class had them work on a spell. In this case, it was the spell [Reparo].

"The Mending Charm is a pretty simple spell that allows you to seamlessly repair broken objects if well mastered. The instructions are in the first chapter of your book."

Flitwick explained the basic working of the spell at the beginning of the class, and decided to let them work on their own while observing at first. In front of each student was a broken stick.

Ethan did not waste time, and at first decided to go by the book as he waved his wand at the broken item and enunciated clearly, "[Reparo]."

Along with his precise wand movement, a glint lit up around the matchstick as the two broken edges attracted each other, and mended up, repairing it.

Flitwick, who, after a warning from his colleague McGonagall, had been watching Ethan closely, was so surprised by the first try success that he nearly fell from his pile of books, gathering everyone's attention.

Barely managing to regain his balance, the short teacher chuckled, "Excellent Mr Grindelwald, excellent! Ten points for Slytherin!"

Ethan nodded slightly, and after a moment raised his hand. Flitwick nodded, so he asked, "Sir, I have previously used Transfiguration to repair a matchstick, and I did the same with this spell. While I do understand the fundamental difference in the way to cast the two spells, what's the… simpler, if you will, difference?"

Both of Flitwick's eyebrows shot up to the ceiling in surprise at his student's question, he clearly wasn't expecting the question, although Ethan wasn't sure what was so special about it.

After a moment, Flitwick explained, "In simple terms, a Charm only adds a property to an object, while Transfiguration will change the very structure or nature of an object."

"And in more complicated terms?"

Flitwick smiled slightly, and said, "That is something you would learn after your OWLs, but I guess it won't harm to teach you now. You have learned that Transfiguration magic has you form a circuit made of nodes to affect an object, right?"

Ethan nodded, so Flitwick continued, "Well, following this interpretation of Transfiguration, any object is nothing more than another circuit, made of more nodes, but still a circuit. Transfiguration will have for effect to change the placing of those nodes, while a Charm will add a layer of new nodes around the circuit."

All the other students looked lost, but Ethan widened his eyes in realization. For him who had been educated as a muggle in another life, he suddenly understood that the nodes and circuit were most probably the atoms or molecules in someone's body, or groups of them at least.

If what Ethan understood was right, then Transfiguration was actually a work of rearranging atoms in an object, giving it a new form.

But then, a frown came to his face as he asked his teacher, "If that is the case, then what about Alchemy. Isn't it just a redundant way to cast Transfiguration then?"

Flitwick replied with a smile, "Mr Grindelwald, you are delving in extremely complex matters for your first week in Hogwarts. I would suggest you take your time to learn more spells, and figure it out yourself. It wouldn't be as fun if I gave you the answer, would it?"

Ethan gaped slightly, there he recognized a Ravenclaw. Still, after a moment he smiled and nodded before looking back at his stick, which had returned to its broken state while he was talking with the teacher.

Ethan knew he was missing something, well a lot of things, but Flitwick was right, he was only in his first week in Hogwarts, he was being a bit premature in seeking to understand everything right away. Skipping so many steps would only result in him firmly believing in a concept without understanding it, which could end with him taking it as the absolute truth and never challenging it, thus stagnating.

Inwardly admiring his teacher for giving exactly enough information to answer a few of his question and feed his thirst for knowledge, while not giving too much, Ethan began working on the current spell, to understand it better.

Every time Ethan executed the spell, he observed the way his magic moved and behaved, and silently thought of a way to execute the spell without any incantation.

What wizards usually did would be to rely on experience to will their way through their spells, the principle was rather simple. They had used a certain spell so many time through their lives that they started developing a 'magic memory', which would allow them to throw a spell through intent alone.

However, this was obviously quite problematic for Ethan, as he was only starting to learn magic. He didn't really have the time to do this, and it would be extremely inefficient for him anyway.

Before coming to this class, Ethan had theorized he could simply imitate Transfiguration and create a circuit for his Charms too.

However, thanks to Flitwick's explanation, Ethan understood this was not a valid solution. Ethan thought the two branches of magic could work in the same way because they had the same origin, but only now did he understand there was a fundamental difference in the way the two worked.

Although Flitwick had used the Transfiguration way to see magic as an analogy for Charms, changing a structure and adding a layer to it were completely different.

After a few tries, Ethan mastered the Mending Charm well enough to keep the stick 'repaired' for ten minutes, and he had already memorized the way his magic behaved. However, even as he spent the rest of the class trying to find a way to better use the spell, by the end of the lesson, he hadn't found the solution.