He Needs to Know

Harry woke up the next morning at his usual time. He went outside into the grounds for a quick run. There was hardly any student up at this hour and whoever was awake, gave him a weird look. Wizards don't usually train their bodies. Thus, watching a first year doing laps in the school grounds was a novel sight. After the warmup, he did his usual routine of martial arts practice before going in to get ready for classes.

The first class they had today was Transfiguration with McGonagall.

As everyone entered the class, they saw a cat sitting on the professor's desk. Everyone ignored it thinking it was just some pet, but Harry knew that it was the animagus form of McGonagall.

As he entered the class, Harry stopped in front of the cat and looked at it for a few seconds. Then, he just turned around without saying anything with a slight smile on his lips.

As it was time to start the class, the cat suddenly jumped off the table and transformed into McGonagall. All the students were surprised and a few of them even shrieked in fear.

"Hello everyone, my name is Minerva McGonagall and I am your Transfiguration Professor. What you just saw was the highest form of Transfiguration any wizard could achieve. Can anyone tell me what its called?"

One hand shot up immediately.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Its called an animagus. There are only seven registered animagus in the entire country of Britain. It is considered to be the highest feat achievable by any wizard" replied Hermione.

"Very good Miss Granger, five points to Gryffindor.

As Miss Granger said, its known as an animagus form. It's almost impossible to tell the difference between an animagus and a normal animal, evident by the fact that none of you could see through it.

Ah, my apologies, one of you did see through it." She smiled at Harry giving him a quick look. Harry appreciated her understanding of his thoughts and not pointing him out.

"As I was saying, the fact that there are so few animagus in the country should tell you about how difficult becoming an animagus is and by extension, how difficult Transfiguration is.

It is the most dangerous branch of magic taught at Hogwarts. I know many of you must be thinking what's so dangerous about it. Correct?"

Many in the crowd nodded.

"Well then imagine this. Let's say you transfigure a chair into a glass filled with water. It's a very simple transformation and any of your seniors can do it.

Now, let's say a friend of yours suddenly came at that time and he was feeling thirsty. He saw the glass of water in your hand and takes it from you and drinks the water from it.

What do you suppose would happen as that water transforms back into the chair?"

As she asked this, almost everyone shuddered with fear as they imagined such a situation.

"Now you understand. Transfiguration is not a magic you could take lightly. It is extremely powerful and extremely dangerous. No wizard who ever flunked this subject became great, whereas every great wizard is an expert of Transfiguration.

So I need you to remember a few things before you decide to Transfigure ANYTHING.

First, never, ever, EVER, change anything into gas or liquid. No matter what the situation you are in and I already explained this in the example earlier. This is an absolute taboo.

Second, never use transfiguration if you don't know the exact outcome. This is very important. If you are not absolutely sure about what the transfigured results are going to be, do not attempt it. You can come to me or any other Professor for help and clarify your doubts.

Third and the most important one, NEVER attempt any transfiguration magic on yourself without MY permission. If you ever want to try out any kind of such magic on yourself, come to me first and only after I am satisfied with your results could you do it elsewhere.

If at any point I came to know that you have broken any of the above rules, you will be permanently banned from my class.

Have I made myself clear?"

Harry could feel that the mood of the class had suddenly become a little gloomy. This made him feel a little scared. He had already broken two out of three instructions. But he would obviously never accept it even if you beat him to death.

As McGonagall saw that she had made her point, she cleared her throat with her usual "Ahem".

"No need to be so serious all of you. As long as you are careful, transfiguration can be a lot of fun. Now, there is a matchstick in front of you and your first task is to transform it into a needle. Please follow my actions and do exactly as I tell you."

She then showed everyone how to do the transfiguration. It was a pretty straightforward magic and Harry simply waved his wand once and the matchstick turned into a needle. He transformed another matchstick into a thread and put it through the needle.

McGonagall was surprised as she saw that. But she didn't show it on her face. Only praised Harry in front of the class and awarded ten points to Gryffindor.

Many students were looking at him with envy. He didn't pay any attention to them and took out one of his notebooks and started going over his notes on Transfiguration. He had tons of questions to ask McGonagall and he knew that she would definitely stop him after the class.

As expected, McGonagall told him to stay back as everyone left the class. Harry went to her desk and sat down after taking a chair from the first row.

"You have constantly impressed me, Mr. Potter. You seem to be very familiar with the use of magic. Would you mind telling me who taught you magic? Oh and please don't say that you mastered all of this in the last few months after you got your acceptance letter. No one can be that fluent in just a few months. It takes years to be able to do what you did. So, Mr. Potter, would you please?" asked McGonagall in a serious tone.

Harry expected this question to pop out sometime but didn't think it would be so soon. Looks like his doubts would have to wait.

He knew it was a very important moment. His answer could determine his future. It was a good thing he was prepared.

"Well, Professor, you are half right with your conjectures. I have indeed been training for years but no one has taught me. I have been able to do magic ever since I was five years old. Actually, I was doing magic even before that, but it was unintentional. As I turned five, I was able to control my magic and do small stuff with it. By the time I turned seven, I was under complete control over my magic. At that time, my aunt forced me to learn some self-defense, I mean muggle self-defense. So, I joined a martial arts gym. Two years later I could feel that my magic power has grown by a lot due to my physical training. Even though it might have just been due to my age or my constant magic practice, I still think that my physical training had at least some impact, no matter how minuscule.

One day, I was coming back from a competition. I was walking along the Charing Cross Road and there I saw something weird. I saw a shabby pub called the Leaky Cauldron. The reason I found it weird was that it didn't belong there. It looked really old and decrepit and there was no way such a bar could exist at such a location.

Moreover, there was another thing I found suspicious. Everyone just walked right past it, as if it didn't even exist. No one looked at it even once. No one. Otherwise, with its appearance, most of the people would at least give it a second look if not first.

So, I got a little curious and went inside. As I entered, I understood what was weird about it. I had entered a different world. I could feel magic in the air and also from the people around me. The way they dressed and the stuff they were carrying, it all pointed to the fact that this was the magical world my aunt had told me about a few years ago.

I got really excited and went further inside. There I saw a few people coming and going out from the rear of the pub. I followed them and there I saw them enter the wizarding street, which I later found out was known as the Diagon Alley.

I was fascinated by everything there. But since didn't have any money, I went back to my house, only to return the next day. I tried to go to that street again but as I went to the backyard, there was a solid brick wall instead.

So, I waited for someone else to go first. I followed them and saw them using their wand to 'open up' the brick wall. That's when I understood how it worked. But since I didn't have a wand myself, I could only follow someone every time I wanted to enter the Alley.

The next thing I did was try to buy books from a bookshop. But they refused to take my money, saying they didn't accept muggle currency. They told me to go to the Gringotts to get my muggle money exchanged with magical currency, which I did.

Then, as you can predict, I bought a lot of books and as I kept getting more and more familiar with the magical world, I kept buying other things to learn magic and finally, here I am."

Harry took a deep breath as he finished his story and looked at McGonagall as he waited for her judgment.

After a few seconds, she opened her mouth, "That still doesn't explain how you trained your magic without a wand."

Damn she was good.

Instead of giving another roundabout story I just waved my hand at the nearest table.

There was a matchstick on it. The matchstick floated over and then he waved his hand again. The matchstick melted and remolded itself into a needle.

Professor McGonagall's eyes almost popped out of her head. Never in her wildest imagination could she have expected such an outcome.

"Did you...did you just used wandless magic AND chantless magic?"

"How...?"

Harry already expected this outcome so he didn't say anything and let it sink in.

McGonagall's mind was in shambles at this moment. It was absolutely unbelievable. Although many wizards could do wandless magic and few could also do transfiguration without a wand, every single one of them was a famous and experienced wizard with years of training. Even amongst them, being able to do wandless and chantless transfiguration magic together...the number of wizards who could pull it off could be counted on your fingers.

Even she could only do it after she passed out from Hogwarts and she was called a genius. Actually, she was considered the foremost authority on Transfiguration and the only one who could match her was the Headmaster, but he didn't count.

So, to see an eleven-year-old kid do what eludes most of the masters of magic, he must be the only one in the country or even the entire world.

As she looked at the boy sitting in front of her again, she could feel that she was witnessing something historic.

'This kid will decide the future of the wizarding world." That was the only thought in her head as she took him and ran out to see the headmaster.

'He needs to know about this. We can not afford to have another Voldemort and from the looks of it, this one's talent makes Voldemort's talent look like shit. Yeah, Dumbledore definitely needs to know about this.'