How Did Ravenclaw End Up Like This?

"Dumbass."

Once Connie had left, Andrew finally let himself curse.

He normally wouldn't speak ill of someone behind his back, but today he couldn't help it.

Andrew had mocked him to his face, and the guy had actually taken it as a compliment.

Fine, he was a bully who picked on the weak and cowered before the strong. But did he have to make so many excuses for it? Damn it, how had Ravenclaw ended up like this?

Andrew had suspected something was off before. Now he was sure: the so-called Ministry of Magic Faction wasn't a serious group at all. After all those supposed internal selections, the people left probably thought they already worked for the Ministry of Magic.

They obviously didn't. They were lost in their own fantasy—and Andrew was certain there was no organization that guaranteed anyone a place at the Ministry.

"So that's what their 'selection' does. It weeds out the normal people until all that's left is a bunch of arrogant lunatics..."

"That guy talked for ages, and the only useful thing he said was a few assessments. Biased ones, at that..."

"I'll take another look," he told himself. "At least see whether any of those activities have something I want. I'm not going through all that for nothing."

He couldn't simply break with them, much as he wanted to. He would have to leave the group without making too much of a fuss. Extremists were far better than normal people at sticking together and making a nuisance of themselves. If he were in an upper year, he could be more direct. For now, he had to take the roundabout route.

"It's like I stumbled into some shady organization..."

Andrew sighed and composed his expression. Once he was sure no one could tell he'd been angry, he strode out of the classroom toward the library.

His priority wasn't getting tangled up with those lunatics. It was borrowing the books, reading them as quickly as he could, and getting his thesis ready to hand in to the professor.

"'A Microscopic Guide to Complex Structures in Transfiguration,' 'Fundamentals of Transfigured Structures'?"

When Andrew handed Madam Pince the parchment and asked for help, the stern librarian looked at the titles, then at him, a hint of puzzlement in her expression.

"Well, at least they aren't restricted books. Eighteenth row of shelves, third shelf up."

"Thank you very much, Madam Pince."

After thanking Madam Pince, Andrew headed for the shelves, taking the chance to get a rough idea of how the Hogwarts Library organized its books.

The older books were shelved by subject. Within each shelf, they were arranged by the first letters of the first two words of their titles.

"Easy enough if you know the title. But if you're looking for something based on what it covers, you'd need a recommendation. Studying on your own would be a nightmare otherwise. I might as well get some recommendations out of that group while I'm there."

Even a scrap of paper had its uses, Andrew thought as he pulled out the books he needed.

He wasn't in a hurry to eat, so he found an empty table and settled down to skim the two books Professor McGonagall had recommended.

[Transfiguration is not simply changing one object's outward form into another's—especially when the result has connected parts.

Take one of the simplest and most common objects: a chair.

At a glance, a chair looks like a single whole. But when we transfigure an object into a chair, the transformation only counts as a success if the chair can be taken apart like an ordinary chair. If a simple attempt to dismantle it breaks the integrity of the magic and causes it to revert to its original form, it has failed...]

Andrew sucked in a breath. He had never imagined that something as simple as transfiguring an inanimate object could lead to all this.

He tucked a bookmark into the page he had just finished, then read on, half expecting the subject to change. It didn't. Everything that followed still dealt with inanimate objects, but its arguments about structure, material, color, resistance to damage, and even spell duration went far beyond anything he knew.

"And I was so proud of myself for turning a beetle into a button."

Andrew marveled at the book's depth. Without Professor McGonagall's guidance, he doubted he would have found anything so closely suited to what he needed within a year.

"Take it apart, replace the pieces, then picture the whole..."

He sat there with his parchment spread out before him, writing down a line or two whenever an idea struck. More often than not, further reading made him cross out whole passages of his notes.

"So that's how it works..."

"Out!!!"

Andrew was wrestling with a question when Madam Pince's booming voice startled him. He turned to see a Hufflepuff student being pummeled by a loaf of white bread.

The student's schoolbag followed behind the bread, landing the occasional hard blow between its attacks.

"Food is strictly forbidden in the library!"

Madam Pince's voice rang out again. There was nothing of the gentleness she had shown at the borrowing desk; now she was like a tiger patrolling her territory.

After privately laughing at the unlucky student who had broken the rules and been caught, Andrew realized he was starving. He looked out the window and discovered that it had somehow grown dark.

"Oh no... I'd better hurry if I want dinner."

Andrew packed up his draft notes, dutifully checked out his books with the still-fuming Madam Pince, then sprinted all the way to the Great Hall with his schoolbag.

"Made it."

Dinner was already halfway over, but at least he had caught it.

Famished, Andrew spotted his roommates and took an empty seat nearby.

"What have you been doing? You never came back to the dormitory, and you look half-starved."

Bell, one of his roommates, looked at Andrew's bedraggled state and asked out of curiosity.

"I heard he passed the selection for that club whose members want to join the Ministry of Magic on the very first day of school. They say your club makes up more than half the Ravenclaws the Ministry recruits each year."

A freckled boy named Hal had answered for Andrew; he directed the second half of his remark at him.

More than half? I knew it...

Andrew rolled his eyes inwardly, but he couldn't say what he really thought of that sixth-year while he still had to avoid a falling-out.

At least monopolize the places before pretending you're part of the Ministry... After all that, you're not even as impressive as a student council...

"Well, put that way, you lot are doing all right... At least you've got plans for the future. I spent the whole afternoon playing Exploding Snap at my club..."

"Playing cards?"

"Yeah, and I hardly won a game. The upper-year students can even work out what cards you've got left after a few plays. Still, there's hope... We've got an event this weekend. Students from other houses will come play with us, and then we can even go easy on them."

So that's the hope he meant...

Wait. There really is hope...

"There are normal clubs and normal people after all. It's just the ones I ran into who are extreme... Thank goodness."

Andrew's spirits lifted, and he decided to reward himself with another scoop of ice cream.