11 Transfiguration

It was February of the year 1990. It was still snowy outside. At No.11, Private Drive, there was a ten-year-old boy doing shadow boxing in the backyard.

He looked highly concentrated as if there was an invisible enemy in the front and he was having an intense spar with him. His upper body was naked and despite his young age, you could see the outline of muscles on his abs and back.

He looked taller for his age and his body had a grace in every movement. He moved with lithe steps and he would create whooshing sounds with his every breath.

"Mister Potter, the breakfast is ready. I have also put the lunch in the oven. Please heat it a little before eating. Also like I said before, you don't have to clean up your dishes, I will take care of it", said Mrs. Naomi in an almost helpless tone. She has been working for this young master for a few months now, and all she could say was that he was the best client she had ever worked for.

The entire house was always spotless so she had very little cleaning to do. Moreover, her employer would do his own dishes every day so even that wasn't needed. So overall, she only had to prepare food for Mr. Potter for breakfast and lunch. Also, she was only here for two hours, but she got paid for the full day. So, after a month, she took up work at another place on the side. Her income had doubled with almost no increase in workload.

She was really thankful to this Potter kid for giving her such great working conditions. Her own house has been in a pretty good situation due to her double income and she could take care of her children a lot better.

As he listened to Mrs. Naomi, Harry stopped his training and took a deep breath before taking up a towel nearby to wipe his sweat.

"Thanks, Mrs. Naomi, you are the best, as always", remarked Harry with a cheeky grin.

"Sigh…Mr. Potter. You are really…Anyways, I am done for the day and I will see you tomorrow."

"Ok, goodbye, Mrs. Naomi. See you tomorrow", Harry waved her goodbye and went inside to take a shower. Then after having breakfast, he went down to his basement.

The basement, which he now liked to call his 'Den', had completely changed. There used to be a little rack where he kept all his books, but now there was only a trunk in its place. It was something similar to what Newton Scamander had but on a much smaller scale. It was like a one-room library where he had a small study table to read and all around him there were racks of books. Although half of them were still empty he would fill them all up eventually.

Then there were the training dummies. He had upgraded the dummies to the best version available on the market. The original ones got destroyed in just a few weeks. He had to make multiple visits until now to buy upgraded models. The dealer also looked at him weirdly, but he didn't say anything as it was beneficial to him in the end. At every such visit to Diagon Alley, Harry would buy more books and materials for his potions.

He was already on the course content taught in the fourth year at Hogwarts for all his subjects other than charms, which he had already mastered till the sixth year.

But there was a section in the corner that was completely covered with a partition to protect it from any damage. It was an entire shelf full of miscellaneous items. If you look carefully, starting from the bottom left, the object looked very crude while the object on the top right could only be called as a masterpiece in modern art.

There was a gradual improvement in quality as you move up the shelf.

The first object was a teacup with a slightly deformed handle. The next one had its handle barely hanging on and its shape was completely unrecognizable. While the last one on this row looked slightly better with its handle in a loopy design, looking somewhat like the shape of infinity.

It kept getting better and better with every row and by the end of it, the last cup had intricate patterns on its surface with the handle in the shape of a phoenix. It looked as if it wasn't a handle but an alive phoenix that was joined to the cup with its mid-tail portion joined at the bottom and the back of its head at the top. Its mouth was towards the outside and looked as if it would breathe fire any second.

The entire cup was sparkling with a crystal-like shine. It was a magnificent piece of art and even thinking of drinking from this cup would tantamount to blasphemy.

The entire collection comprised of nothing but identical teacups which Harry had tried his transfiguration on. He had marked the dates below each cup. The first one had a date of 26th Aug 1989 while the last one had a date of 15th Feb 1990.

It took him almost six months to achieve basic level mastery over transfiguration. He had transformed a simple ceramic cup into a crystal cup with different engravings and carvings on the surface. The shape also looked a little different.

Although he could transform an object into a completely different object now, he still did a transfiguration magic on the teacups almost every day in order to measure his progress.

He could even conjure things out of thin air with nothing but pure magic, but he couldn't completely control this part yet and sometimes the conjured object would break down before it could even completely take shape.

He also used transfiguration on the training dummies to make it sturdier.

By now, he was confident enough to impress Prof. McGonagall with his proficiency in this subject.

But he didn't let success get to his head and remained level-headed. He knew that any professor at Hogwarts was better at transfiguration than him, even Hagrid. This could be seen by the fact that he gave Dudley a pig's tail in the original story when he came to receive Harry for the first time on his eleventh birthday.

It might look simple at a glance but Harry knew how difficult it was to do that. It required a precise knowledge of anatomy and enough precision and expertise over magic to make it happen.

So Harry had set his next goal as live transfigurations. He would try to convert an object into a living animal and vice-versa.

This was a whole new level compared to before since he now needed to learn about the animal in question in complete detail.

It was possible to do the transfiguration directly without all this knowledge. All it would take is a strong imagination and a lot of magic power.

He could fulfill both the requirements but he didn't do so as he had a feeling that it was not the correct way to do it. It would accomplish his goals in the short term but would cause complications in the long run. Especially when he had his eyes set on becoming an animagus. He couldn't take any shortcuts and would go through the entire process as described in his textbooks.

Although it would take more time, Harry could be assured of his safety, since transfiguration, along with being the most difficult, was also the most dangerous branch in magic. This is what prompted Harry to go through the proper steps before attempting anything.

There were cases where wizards transfigured something into a gaseous state and then later accidentally inhaled the same gas.

That gas then transformed back to its initial state inside the wizard and the said wizard would suffer through inhuman pain and in most cases end up dead.

Thus it became almost taboo to transform anything into gaseous or even liquid form. Especially if the original form was a solid object.

This was to ensure the safety of not only the wizard casting his spell, but also the people around him as even a small amount of gas can cause death if it reaches the wrong organ.

So, Harry had decided not to attempt anything too dangerous and would only attempt at becoming an animagus after getting to Hogwarts and consulting with Prof. McGonagall.

Having said that, he still found a way to transfigure objects into solids and liquids. He created an airtight chamber using transparent glass and meta-morphed it into a perfectly sealed cube. He could see everything inside clearly.

He then put a small cup inside the box before sealing it.

After that, he put the box on a weighing scale and noted down its weight.

He kept the box on the scale at all times and if there was even a slight fluctuation in the numbers on the scale, he would immediately stop the experiment and run out of the basement until the transfiguration timed out itself.

This followed a simple law of physics regarding density. In simpler terms, no matter which form an object takes, as long as the volume remains the same, the mass would remain constant.

So if there was any change in the numbers on weighing scale, it would mean that some volume of gas or liquid has escaped the glass box and thus it would be best to escape the basement and only return after the magic runs out and everything returns to its original form.

This solved the biggest problem he was having and so he started following this method to practice his transfigurations between different states of matter.

He was really excited over the future prospects of transfiguration and couldn't wait to try out the animagus magic.

But keeping his excitement in check he went back to his next phase of training.

He had thought of mixing his physical training with his magical training and create a new kind of combat magic where the physical aspects would also play an important role.

This was something that really bugged him when he read the original story. The wizards were heavily reliant on their wands and spells for battle and didn't pay much attention to their physique.

If magic could do wonders and make an entire castle almost unbreachable, why couldn't the same magic be used to make a human body invincible?

The solution to this wasn't just transfiguration like what Voldemort tried.

Although he became strong, he didn't exactly gain a stronger body. He only gained a body more suited for magic. There was a fundamental difference between the two.

After thinking about it he decided to use mana for this. Since mana flowed inside the human body, what would happen if he tried to use this mana and make his internal organs stronger, like making the muscles denser or converting the red and white muscles into pink muscles or improve auto healing by increasing the formation of blood platelets and white blood cells? As long as he had enough knowledge of human anatomy and appropriate control over his magic, he could, in theory, use mana to reinforce his body.

There were endless possibilities that he could explore but he would need to do this only after more research. What if he tried something on himself and ended up like Voldemort or even worse?

It's possible that there might have been some experiments done on this topic which he wasn't aware of, so he would need to search the library at Hogwarts to get his answers before he tried anything.

But overall, his progress in transfiguration was truly remarkable and he felt proud that he was able to achieve so much despite the lack of guidance from any senior wizard. He had accomplished all of this with only his imagination and hard work.

It truly was something to be proud of.