Classes

Chapter: 46

Classes

The morning started with the usual training and the trio came into the great hall a few minutes after breakfast had already started. Today, Alex and Mia decided to eat with their classmates and only waved in greetings at the trio as they walked inside.

Greeting them back, as the two needed to connect with their classmates, the trio was going to do the same and sat down at their usual place at the Gryffindor table. Greeting all the surrounding classmates with a simple "morning", all three of them started some small talk while they were eating.

Sniffy was quite popular with the girls and was talking with them about the classes. Fred and George, along with Lee Jordan, talked with Kyle and Richard about quidditch and the oncoming classes.

The entire great hall was abuzz and everyone was talking about the subjects, that they would have to sit in about an hour. Breakfast was over in no time and everyone was excitedly heading towards their destination. A few students were running frantically around and asked others for direction, as they did not know where they were supposed to go.

Helping a few with directions, Sniffy was becoming more and more popular with everyone. She was walking in a group of 4 girls who were excitedly talking with each other. On the other hand, Kyle and Richard were walking alongside them and with the rest of Gryffindor next to them.

The first subject for the day was transfiguration with Professor McGonagall, and no one wanted to come too late to her class. They arrived at the classroom in just a few minutes after leaving the great hall and did not even use a shortcut.

Shortcuts were reserved for their group only. Too much work was flowing into this mapping research, and none of them wanted to give away such knowledge for free.

Walking in the classroom, that looked well maintained. It was surrounded by windows on all sides and the morning light was shining on every inch of it. The entire room was built after university rooms and in the front was a podium with a table for the teacher and in the back was a huge empty wall.

The students were seated in a half-round manner and the seats further behind were built taller than the one on the front, so that every student had the best view of the front.

Richard, Kyle, and Sniffy found some nice seats in the middle of the room, not too far from the back, but also not too close to the teacher. Seating themselves there, all three were noticing a brown tabby cat sitting on the podium. It looked at everyone in curiosity. Richard knew who that was and Sniffy did not need more than a few seconds to come to the same conclusion. Only Kyle did not think in this way and wondered why a cat was sitting in the classroom.

Not one student went up to the podium to pet the cat, and Richard was quite disappointed by this. Apparently, their first class this day was a joint one with Slytherin since a bunch of snakes made their way in the room after some time.

Shortly before the class was starting, Richard made a headcount, and everyone should be inside. They were now 20 students and a gong later; the class started. When everyone noticed no teacher, a few children chatted with each other, but they were immediately silenced when the cat jumped from the podium and changed into the professor in an instant.

Richard was ready for that and concentrated on his magical sight. He was now seeing everything in much more detail and concentrated on the magic all around. When the professor transformed, her magic changed subtlety. In her cat form, she was a collection of magical particles that bunched together, much different from a wizard or witch who had magic cores.

The moment when she changed, her magic also changed. The magic inside her bundled together and formed a core. It was a marvelous sight, and Richard made sure to remember as much as possible. The changes were so fast that he could not completely react to them and he could only try his best.

"Good morning students, as all of you know me already, let's forget the introductions. This class will not be an easy one and if any of you use the spells, I teach you, outside this class, then be warned. Expulsion will not be the worst that can happen. Transfiguration is a complicated and highly dangerous art. Alone, the incorrect casting of these spells can hurt the caster and it is therefore forbidden to use them till I tell you differently.

In this subject, I will teach you all about the impact that magic has on objects and even on animals and humans alike. It can be used to change a human into an animal and back, as I have done earlier. That's called animagus transfiguration and is highly complicated. But also, to change things like non-living objects into living objects, albeit they will not really live."

She then used her wand and pointed at the table and it turned into a sparrow that flew around the students. and then turned back to a table when it was back in place.

All students looked at her in awe and respect, even the trio was captivated by her spells. She let that look like child's play and it gave her an aura of respect from everyone. After giving each student a plague with their name on them and telling them to put it on their robes. It was much easier to identify them this way. She then explained the theory behind the basics of transfiguration.

No one needed their books, and everyone was writing on their parchments or notebooks in Richard's group. The trio had read all that they could in the last few years and they were now ahead of their peers, but the understanding of the professor was another thing altogether.

Richard even had the fear that he could not learn much from his classes, but these fears were completely unfathomed, at least in this class.

The key aspects of transfiguration were imagination, focus, and apparently, wand movement and incantation.

The wand movement and incantation helped the caster to focus, so Richard let these two points go and concentrated more on the important aspects. Imagination was the way to say the magic of what to do, and it imbued the intent of the caster into the object. The focus was on two different aspects. First, it was to focus on what was needed to change, and the second was to control the magic energy to do the change.

If one of these two was lacking, then it could not be corrected. The magic focus was normally outsourced into the wand, but Richards' group had a handicap in this way.

The theory lesson took about an hour and a half and then for the next one and a half hours was the practical lesson. All students were now wholly psyched up about their first magical lesson, and even the purebloods who should have done magic prior to this were visibly excited.

With a wave of her wand, a cupboard opened at the wall and 20 round marbles were floating to the students and placed themselves in front of them. One extra floated to the professor, but hers was levitating in front of her for all to see.

"This will be the first spell that I will teach you, and all the learned theory will have to be applied here. Only then will the spell be successful. Let me show you what I want you to do."

Holding her wand in front of her, she stepped up to the marble that was floating next to her and tapped it with her wand once while saying. "Aformente" The marble shook once and turned into a silver coin. Turning it back and repeating that two more times, she then handed the coin through the class. She then watched over them while they tried to recreate that.

Wands were tapping on marbles and the clank of one or two marbles falling on the floor could be heard.

Richard was focused on his front and he was looking at the marble in every way, even with his magic sight. Now, being sure knowing this marble in and out. He then envisioned the process of turning it into a coin. The material should be changed first into silver, then flattening it down and changing its surface to the state he wanted it to be.

Going through this step a couple of times before he was sure that it really stuck, Richard then took out his "wand" and tapped the marble, and infused his magic into it. How much magic and in how a density to infuse it were not important to him at the moment. Training his magical control from an early age had made this step more instinctive, and he would only need to directly control his magic with more complex spells.

He did cast much more complex spells in all his years, but the talk of the professor had given him a few insights and he focused more on the basics because of it. He was sure that he could change the marble in an instant but now he was much more concentrated on the entire process.

Changing the material went smoothly, and it took the silver round shape only a few moments to change into a flat coin shape. The surface rippled a bunch of times and his signature snow wolf appeared on the upper side of the coin and on the downside appeared a forest.

"Sigh"

Letting out a sigh while he examined the coin. He had found some places where the pictures were not as fine as he had intended and the flat surface was not exactly even either. Changing the coin back into a marble with a classic "Finite" he then imagined the same spell over a dozen times inside his head and then repeated it again on the marble.

It took him only 2 more tries to be proud of his end piece. It had been a long time since he was so focused on a piece of magic and was completely immersed inside it.

Kyle and Sniffy were both having the same problem and were at the step where they needed to engrave some markings onto the coin. Both never had much talent for transfiguration, but with hard work, they could finish their job in a few minutes after beginning.

Looking over at Richard, who was sitting in the middle of them, they saw he was repeating the same spell again and again and was getting faster every time. Not wanting to be left behind, Kyle also started the same action and Sniffy also wanted to do the same but got interrupted as her neighbor asked her if she could help her out.

Having seen that she could finish her piece already, Miranda, who could not make any leeway, had asked her for her advice.

Professor McGonagall noticed this and gave Sniffy 5 points for Gryffindor. Richard and Kyle started a fight of speed that no one noticed, even until the end. Both could shorten the time to a minimum, and only Kyle could not defeat his rival. Richard had much more talent in transfiguration and his coin was far more intricate than Kyles.

Most of the students were able to at least change the structure of the marble to a silvery state, and only a handful of the others were able to change it completely.

Fred, George, and Lee had gotten a bit of help from Richard and Kyle and could shape the coin, but were not able to completely form it.

"Alright, that's everything for this class. You can hold on to the marbles, but be sure to not lose them. And don't forget to not actually cast that outside of class, only theory is allowed. That's everything for today. I will see you later."

"Gong"

The class got dismissed, and all were heading toward the great hall. Many students were thanking Sniffy for her help as she was practically going around the whole classroom and had helped every lost one out.

Lunch was great as it was pizza day and it got over much too fast, but not before Kyle and Richard sneaked a few pieces into their rings under the excuse that it was for the "Greater Good". On the other side of the room, Mia and Alex were excitedly chatting with their classmates and they only came over to the group and asked if they would sit together at dinner. That was directly approved by all of them.

Standing up from their table, they had a couple of minutes left until their next class, but they wanted to be early as well to get their seats and they walked towards the charm's classroom. This time only a few girls from their house accompanied them since the boys were not done with eating yet.

The time to the classroom took them longer, as they had to move up a couple of floors. The moving stairs did not make this any easier, and they lost a couple of minutes there while waiting for one to come to them.

Walking into the classroom, which was a one-to-one copy from the transfiguration classroom, only with more books on bookshelves all over it. They were not the first to arrive in here and in the first row could already be seen a few blue-robed children.

"Damn, we have completely forgotten that we have this class alongside the Ravenclaws. Let's reserve some seats for Mia and Alex." Said Sniffy after she saw the Ravenclaw students already sitting there.

Richard and Kyle nodded at that, and they completely reserved one row of seats for themselves. Sniffy chatted a bit with the other girls in the row behind her before Mia and Alex came into the classroom. "Ah, there you are. We also have forgotten that we have this class together."

Said Alex to the trio and all of them had a slightly embarrassed face. "Yes, we also kind of forgot, but we have saved you two seats." Said Sniffy to them and they both sat down right next to them. For a few minutes, they just chatted about their first class and gradually the room filled up with students.

The last one to come in was Professor Flitwick, and he closed the door with a flick of his wand. He was as tiny as the children around him, and many of them were even taller than him.

"Gong"

"Hello children, I am Professor Flitwick and today we will start on the matter of charms…."

Professor Flitwick started the class and was about to introduce them to the curriculum when the door opened up and 3 more students walked in awkwardly.

"Sorry we are late Professor, but we got lost for some time before finding our way here." Lee Jordan said and stumbled out an excuse as Fred and George and he had completely lost time at lunch.

"No worries, find a seat, and let's start with class." Answered the professor and a few giggles could be heard from the other students.

The next thing that followed was an hour of theoretical knowledge of charm spells, what charms are. How to identify them and where they came from.

In short, charms are magic imbued into objects to change their natural inclination. For example, a stone is enchanted to weigh less than it originally had and, as a result, it would float up when it was lighter than air. Or enchanting a book to make it so sharp that it could even cut metal.

The professor then handed out a handful of feathers to everyone and showed them the wingardium leviosa charm. How to swish the wand and how to pronounce the spell.

He then let the students alone with it and would help them soon. The curious thing was his position, though. He was standing behind his podium, but he did not stand on a stack of books like in the movies, but the podium was built for his height.

It was quite ridiculous to think that in a school of wizardry and witchcraft, a teacher would teach on a stack of books and not do anything about it. Richard was relieved when he witnessed this and he would have found it quite insulting to the professor's intelligence when he would stand on books to teach his classes.

Anyhow, this spell was the bread and butter of Richard's group and every one of them could do this chant even unconsciously. Therefore, they helped their friends and Sniffy and Richard went over to Alex and Mia after a few minutes of waiting and gave them tips. Kyle went over to Fred's group and helped there.

Professor Flitwick was overjoyed when he witnessed their success and gave every one of them 5 house points. They could not care less about these house points as they could think that far ahead and did not see any merit in these points at all. It was just a system built to punish and reward students.

Before the class was over, Alex and Mia were able to successfully cast the spell and could let the feather float around for a bit before it fell back down.

Fred and George could only shake the feather, and Lee would also take more time with the spell. The good thing was that this magic was not forbidden like transfiguration and it could be easily trained in the common room.

No homework was issued other than to learn this spell until the next class and all of them headed off to their free time. It was now 4 pm, and they had 2 hours of free time until dinner.

Their first day of classes was over, and they had celebrated this fact with a little gathering. Abducting Mia and Alex, they then went towards a particular spot and vanished inside a shortcut. It took them not too much time, and they stood in an abandoned classroom. It was far away from the great hall and few people would come this way.

Opened the door and after a couple of spells, they now had a nice and cozy room with a long table and a few chairs.