Minerva McGonagall

"You can call me Minerva." McGonagall raised her chin and nodded at Nelson. "Are you ready, Nelson?"

Nelson nodded. He felt that McGonagall was a proud, stern, and difficult person.

"To be honest, I don't want to tutor a Slytherin. Slytherin has no bottom line when it comes to competitive sports. Other than that Prince, who is quite good at Gobstones, the rest of them would cheat even at Wizard's Chess... They are far too obsessed with winning, without realizing that such victories run contrary to the Glory you keep preaching about." She paced around Nelson, studying him.

Nelson raised an eyebrow, somewhat displeased. Such an abrupt opening hardly left a good impression. It made McGonagall seem like a caustic woman, and he did not like being examined from head to toe.

"However—" As though she had not seen Nelson's expression, she abruptly changed tack. "I must admit that this conviction that one must win is suitable for Transfiguration, and suits it extremely well... When performing Transfiguration, a lack of resolve can easily lead to magical errors, clumsy spells, or even accidents."

"And since I often pride myself on being favored by Ravenclaw, I should understand even better that an individual's actions should not be used to label the whole, nor should the nature of a group be used to arbitrarily define a person." McGonagall locked eyes with Nelson with her amber gaze and spoke on her own, then looked away, drew her Wand, and lightly tapped the wooden stump where she had been standing. Several pieces of bark fell away. "Everything we do not understand should be treated equally. I understood that in my second year, and I hope you can understand it too... Come, Nelson. Turn it into whatever you wish... Parchment would be good enough, really, but let me see your Transfiguration."

Nelson drew his Wand. Seeing his fourteen-inch Wand, she opened her eyes slightly and stated with certainty, "You will grow very tall, Nelson."

Under McGonagall's sharp gaze, Nelson felt prickling discomfort across his back. He cautiously swung his Wand and pictured a lectern in his mind.

"Your wrist is steady, but not flexible enough... You also seem to be using too much force when swinging your Wand."

"Hmm, black walnut wood and..." McGonagall pointed her Wand at another piece of bark by her feet. It wobbled into her hand, turning into a small notebook as it flew.

"Dragon heartstring," Nelson supplied. Unlike the scene earlier, where the rope beneath Flitwick's Wand had suddenly turned into a lectern, the small piece of bark Nelson pointed at slowly stretched and twisted.

A wooden lectern, darkened with age. As Nelson thought it, the bark's texture and color began to change.

He strained to think of the lectern's dimensions. As the image in his mind gradually filled in and took shape, the piece of bark continued to stretch and grow.

"Good, dragon heartstring." She wrote something in her notebook. "Transfigured from a small piece of bark... Hmm, a desk, a lectern." She watched as a lectern continued forming beside the Black Lake, finally standing on the grass.

She walked over and rapped on the lectern with her hand. "The material is fine," she said as she tapped and wrote. Then she reached into the drawer, and after a moment pulled her hand back out. "There is still some of the bark's roughness inside, but it is very good."

She tucked the notebook into her pocket and walked toward Nelson. "Today, we will mainly correct some of your improper casting movements and habits."

With a wave of her Wand, the bark scattered across the ground flew before them with a whoosh, arranging itself neatly on the grass at their feet.

"First, try copying this movement with me..."

"That movement is wrong. When performing Transfiguration, the body should be relaxed while the mind remains focused. Only then can you Transfigure efficiently and precisely..."

As the sun climbed to its highest point, McGonagall's tutoring drew to a close. Nelson had already mastered the Transfiguration of nonliving, nonmagical objects without being constrained by size, material, or shape. He was now thoroughly at ease with such basic Transfiguration; his casting movements were simple and efficient, and the results matched his expectations.

"Most people need a great deal of preparation and practice when first learning Transfiguration. You are different. You have a natural talent for it—you grasp things immediately and become proficient very quickly." McGonagall praised him. She seemed to harbor a deep prejudice against Slytherin, then added, "You are nothing like a Slytherin."

"Must a person's entire life really be decided by a hat, Senior Minerva?" Nelson finally could not hold back. He put away his Wand and looked directly at McGonagall. "I do not know why I was sorted into Slytherin either, but does being sorted into Slytherin mean I have to cheat at chess?"

"..."

Neither of them spoke. McGonagall merely took out her notebook, lowered her head, and wrote in it. It was the hottest time of day; even people from the United Kingdom, who rarely saw sunshine year-round, would not choose this hour for a stroll. Only a few students wandered along the Black Lake, each far from the others. Beneath this vast yet enclosed sky, the only sounds were the rolling waves of the Black Lake and the soft scratch of McGonagall's pen against paper... Even the air had become awkward, and Nelson began to consider what he should say.

"I'm sorry, Nelson." McGonagall was the first to break the silence. "I—"

She cut herself off, fell silent for a moment, and spoke again.

"A hat truly cannot decide our lives." She tore a page filled with writing from her notebook and handed it to Nelson. "All the books I listed here are ones you need to read. Some are textbooks you will use in the future, while some are not. You can borrow most of them from the library. For a few, you may need to seek help from Flourish and Blotts or from teachers' private collections. As for the books on the back, read them if you can find them."

"The magic I dislike most is Divination. I think it is merely putting on an air of mystery. Nothing can decide things that have not yet happened." She repeated herself, as though trying to convince herself. "Nothing can decide things that have not yet happened."

"Nothing can decide things that have not yet happened!" She emphasized the words, seeming to have finally convinced herself. "Nelson, you need to read and study the book list I gave you carefully. I will notify you of future lessons in the same way as today."

"Dumbledore has many other matters to attend to. Although he thinks highly of you, he cannot tutor you individually, so as you know, that task has been given to me—and now I share his view." McGonagall spoke sternly. "If all goes well, I hope we can begin our final course of study before I graduate, so that you may master the same Transfiguration ability as I have. Nelson, do you know what it is?"

"Animagus." Nelson was somewhat excited. He was filled with curiosity about the near-pinnacle magic of completely transforming into another animal, and deep admiration for this open-minded senior.

"That's right." McGonagall looked into Nelson's eyes with a gaze full of appreciation and scrutiny. "I think we can do it."

"Go eat! You still have training this afternoon. See you next time." McGonagall waved her Wand, and all the "teaching aids" they had used for practice turned back into bark. They flew in a neat line to the stump and stuck themselves back on. The shortened stump quickly became just as it had been before.

She lifted her right hand, and the Broomstick leaning against the stump flew into it. She swung herself onto it and kicked off into the air.

"But a Wand can decide the futures of two people..." As she was leaving, she seemed to remember something. She suddenly became melancholy and murmured softly to herself.

"I may know how this tree became a stump." Nelson shielded his eyes from the sun with his right hand and looked up at McGonagall's rapidly retreating figure. Reflected in the Black Lake's rippling surface was a figure of long hair and robes dancing through the air, flying toward the blazing sun.

Nelson carefully folded the book list and tucked it into the inner pocket of his robes.

He found a neat patch of sunlit grass and plopped down.

"Argh!" Nelson sprang up. A stone had been hidden in the grass. Rubbing his backside, he picked it up, drew his Wand, and gave it a light tap. The stone immediately turned into a bamboo pillow. "Tornado Sweep!" After clearing away everything hidden in that patch of grass, he tossed the pillow down and slowly lay back on it. He raised his hand high, letting the noon sunlight spill through his fingers. Listening to the breeze brush over the grass, the exhaustion from last night's wandering until dawn suddenly washed over him, and he unknowingly fell asleep.

"Nal, why are you here?" Nelson was awakened by a voice. "I've been looking for you forever. I didn't expect you to have a hobby of sleeping on the grass."

He opened his eyes to a warm orange-yellow blur. He rubbed them and saw Tom standing beside him, bent over to look at him. The sun had already begun to set. Nelson held out his hand, and Tom pulled him to his feet.

After standing there for a while to recover, Nelson stamped his feet and looked toward the castle.

"Stop looking. There's no food left at this hour." Tom took out two boxes. "Roast quail and cherry tomatoes. Make do with this for now. Later, we can go get something from the Hufflepuff kitchen."

Nelson looked at him.

"Don't worry, I'm completely fine. After all, I am Riddle—" Tom looked down his nose at Nelson with pride.

"I know Professor Slughorn would not do anything to you." Nelson waved a hand, interrupting his grand speech. "I'm just curious how you manage to precisely find this vegetable in every meal." He pointed at one of the lunch boxes.

"It's a fruit," Tom said excitedly. "After 'turning myself in' like that this morning, they must all be bowing before Lord Riddle, right?"

"Everyone admires you."

"Of course they do. But honestly, taking the blame for a pack of fools disgusts me, even if I understand that it can earn me loyalty."

"Tom, no one is a fool."

"At least those Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs are fools."

"That Sprout from Hufflepuff memorized the entire Complete Guide to Magical Herbology. Could you do that?"

"Er, I'm just not interested in Herbology..."