Transfiguration

That night Ben had an astronomy class with professor Sinistra. Despite being surrounded by magic, astronomy was his favourite class. Not only did the night sky look stunning from the astronomy tower, but the surrounding view was also very serene. Ben got to really enjoy it as he already knew about the planets and the major constellations.

Ravenclaw has astronomy with Slytherin, Malfoy hadn't attended any classes since this morning. He was most likely trying to squeeze as many benefits as possible from the incident. It was really hard to feel bad for Malfoy, even if one tried.

They were escorted back to their dorms by the prefects after the lesson. Sitting on his bed, Ben used [Clairvoyance] to train his illusion skill. He used it every night to know the general location of everyone in the castle. After training for so long, Ben could divine a lot more information from the spell. Earlier he could only find out the general direction of the target, now he could somewhat gauge the distance as well. With a bit more concentration, he could even divine which way to take to reach the target.

Filch was somewhere on the first floor while Mrs Norris was on the fifth floor. Filch knew all sorts of shortcuts in the castle so he was a good target to track, Ben was able to find a few shortcuts because of him. It took a lot of work, Ben had to match Filch's location with the castle's layout in his mind and approximate his location. In an ever-changing castle, it was very difficult to keep track of what was where.

Tonight, Ben was tracking the twins. Contrary to what he'd thought, they rarely roamed the castle this late. It seemed that they were moving towards the third floor. There had been a few brave and curious students who had tried to enter the forbidden third-floor corridor before, they were all caught by either Snape or Filch. Snape patrolled the castle every night like a haunted spirit. Some people even thought that he was a vampire and didn't need to sleep at night. Quirrell was also lurking around, trying to find a way past the door without snape jumping on him.

The twins had attempted to find secrets of the forbidden corridor the very first night but were promptly caught by Snape. They seemed to have come prepared tonight, Ben changed his target to Snape and found him exiting the charms corridor, rushing past where the twins hid. They probably set off a distraction for him. It didn't matter how prepared they were though, nothing could prepare them to face a giant three-headed dog.

Ben soon saw them rushing out of the third floor, skipping entire floors and stopping only after reaching the Griffindor common room.

Ben switched the target to Dumbledore, who still seemed to be in his office. Either the old goat was really patient or he was truly clueless. He took his sweet time arriving at the forbidden corridor, probably trying not to alert anyone.

No one could see Dumbledore anyways, his disillusionment was on a whole another level.

The next morning, Ben woke up with a heavy head. Using too much magic without rest can do that, especially since Ben had pushed the [Clairvoyance] spell to its limit last night.

He felt a lot better after using [Healing] on himself, Ben had once used the spell before going to sleep, and it took him a long time after that to fall asleep.

During the weekend, Ben did not visit The Room of Requirement. There was no reason to risk it, he was free during weekends and so was everyone else. He was bound to run into people.

He decided to hang out near the lake and practice transfiguration during the day and practice [Illusion],[Alteration] and [Conjuration] at night.

Transfiguration was a complex field of magic. It was also very rewarding to learn, a skilled wizard could conjure anything that weighs less than his body weight. There were some exceptions to this. Five Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration one of which was food. Ben didn't care about exceptions, with enough power, anything was possible. He could already summon food and gold from the shop.

Unlike what the fanfictions had him believe, Ben was pleased to know that transfiguration done by a skilled wizard was pretty much permanent unless it was untransfigured. Transfiguration was divided into four branches in the degree of difficulty: transformation, vanishment, conjuration and untransfiguration. Once Ben mastered conjuration, he wouldn't need to find scrap to sell.

Transfiguration was serious business. It was like muggle science since it transformed objects at a molecular scale, only, it was a lot more confusing. Magic dealt with abstract concepts unlike science and was harder to understand for Ben. Transfiguration was the most systematic and logic-oriented branch of magic and Ben wanted to use his advantage to master it.

Ben had made decent progress into transformation, even though he could only do inanimate to inanimate transformations so far, he was progressing fast with his new wand.

Ben had transformed pebbles at the lake shore into all sorts of things, at first he started with transforming pebbles into long needles, then into leaves and finally he was able to transform them into beautiful lotus flowers. It was hard to stop once he started.

He ended up making a big Mandala flower with different coloured flowers that he had transfigured by the end of the day. It was beautiful and could even be seen from the castle.

'I still got it, maybe I should become an artist again.' He thought, admiring his wandywork.

He abandoned that idea when he thought of all the portraits he'd have to paint. He won't be short of money in this life, maybe he'll continue it as a hobby.

"It is truly a remarkable work of art." said a smooth elderly voice, startling Ben out of his thoughts.

"Yes, It is Headmaster," he affirmed as he reeled in his surprise.

"Did you happen to see who made it?" He asked looking at Ben with his twinkling eyes.

"..."

".."

"Unfortunately no, Headmaster. I wasn't here," which was technically not a lie since he was down there and not up here.

"Ah, such a shame, I happen to have some points to distribute." He said, tempting Ben.

Ben did not believe for a second that Dumbledore didn't know it was him who made it, but for some reason, he wanted to hear it from his mouth. Ben had no time to amuse the old goat.

He must have been surprised to see a first-year transfigure pebbles into an art piece, after all, most of his peers were still struggling with turning matches into nails. But it wasn't that big of a deal either, Hermione had already started practising the switching spell, and that required transfiguring two objects simultaneously.

"That is a shame. I'm afraid I must take my leave Headmaster, I've still got a potions assignment to finish,"

Giving a light bow to the bearded old man, Ben made his way to the library, he wanted to finish that assignment before dinner.