From Fad to Forgotten

Entertainment was necessary, but spending all his time on it would be no different from asking for an early death.

Every mealtime gave Andrew a fresh, stark reminder.

That terrifying man with no nose was hiding right there, behind a thin scarf, keeping a close watch on Hogwarts.

Andrew had considered several ways to tell someone, but none of them were safe.

A manuscript was the first idea he ruled out. It wasn't that Dumbledore couldn't trace it; he simply wouldn't bother. Voldemort, on the other hand, could find Andrew through an editor far too easily.

An anonymous letter wouldn't work either. It would never reach Dumbledore's desk.

If Dumbledore read every letter sent to him, he'd probably have worked himself to death long ago.

Who could Andrew complain to when a perfectly good anonymous tip was useless simply because the recipient was too important?

He had even thought about sneaking into the kitchen and slipping a letter onto Dumbledore's plate. But after considering the house-elves' fighting ability and how hard it would be to keep the attempt secret, he rejected that somewhat workable idea too.

"Forget it. I'll practice Transfiguration first..."

What Professor McGonagall had given him this time raised the difficulty again. Fortunately, it still concerned just one aspect of the technique.

Simply put, it was about how to make a Transfiguration last longer.

The practice would take a great deal of time. There was no spell that could speed things up in a stable, controlled way, so he had to find several boxes for the little objects he had transfigured and test them the plain old way.

He took up not only his roommate's box but one from the dormitory next door as well.

Even so, most of his time was now free. Apart from waiting, recording the results, and preparing a new batch for comparison, there was nothing more he could do.

"Wow, you can even make wood carvings now... And they're assembled from multiple pieces of wood. That's so cool..."

Strictly speaking, it wasn't a wood carving. It was the sort of three-dimensional puzzle made entirely of wooden pieces that Andrew had played with later in life. It was the most complex structure he could transfigure so far, and it broke extremely easily, making it ideal for checking his experimental results.

"It's not bad. It's actually much easier than transfiguring living things. Too bad Permanent Transfiguration is still way beyond us, or I'd give you one..." Andrew made another comparison and noted it in his notebook as he replied to Kevin. "You've seemed busy these past few days, though. What have you been up to?"

Speaking of which, I could check whether anyone sells toys like this... I wonder if LEGO exists yet. Maybe I could give Kevin a set for Christmas...

"The jinx that came out of Slytherin, of course..."

Kevin put on a mysterious air. "It's started spreading among a small group. I just got the incantation and the wand movement... I've pretty much got it down already. It's ridiculously easy..."

"Seriously? That easy?"

"Sure. Jinxes are the easiest kind of spell. They barely even count as proper charms."

Kevin clearly knew far more about this than Andrew did. "You know, it's hard to find a Counter-curse for a traditional charm, and once it takes effect, it's hard to undo. Jinxes are different. The faster you can learn one, the easier it is to counter. Those Slytherins only learned it a day or two ago themselves."

As he spoke, Kevin aimed his wand at a shoe Bell had left on the floor. "Like this... Watch my hand!"

He swished his wand, then jabbed it forward. "Shoes, Bite Him!"

Andrew saw the shoe Kevin had pointed at open a wide mouth and snap at its own toe.

"That's all there is to it. It didn't even make the shoe run around biting people..."

Kevin spread his hands. "I bet those Gryffindors worked out how to counter it ages ago. They just don't seem interested in doing anything."

"It really is simple..."

Andrew drew his wand and floated a pair of his own shoes down. Then he said, "Shoes, Bite Him!"

Just as he had seen, one of the shoes snapped at the air.

"Right. It doesn't even feel like Transfiguration. It's just a little jinx. Those Gryffindors were only caught off guard."

He nodded, agreeing with Kevin.

Kevin, however, stared at him open-mouthed, looking wounded.

"I spent the whole morning—the whole morning—practicing before I could do that!"

"And I was going to show off in front of them before teaching them!"

"Ah, I promise I'll act like it's the first time I've heard the incantation."

Andrew hurried to apologize and promised he wouldn't steal Kevin's thunder. Only then did Kevin feel a little better.

There must have been plenty of people like Kevin. Within two or three days, toe-biting shoe magic had become popular throughout the castle.

Everyone kept its strength under control so the shoes wouldn't bite too hard, but even a gentle nip hurt quite a bit.

Andrew had already found a countermeasure of his own. The little jinx only worked on ordinary shoes; it had no effect at all on shoes altered by Transfiguration.

At first, he had considered using Transfiguration to add an iron plate inside his shoes or something similar. Once he discovered that Transfiguration itself stopped the jinx, he simply changed his shoes' color every day and happily watched his classmates' helpless expressions when they tried to play their "jokes" on him.

Of course, he never forgot to return the favor with an equally amusing "joke" of his own.

That put a damper on the attempts of those who wanted to get back at him. Andrew had his own complaints about the club he'd joined, but some of the students eliminated early on still resented him. There wasn't much he could do about that.

The defense spread quickly too, after Andrew gave Kevin the credit. Once the first-years' Transfiguration grades had risen a little, biting shoes became a thing of the past.

"This round of results..."

"Focusing on the core while casting really does make a Transfiguration resist the effects of time far better than other methods..."

"Of course, it's still closely tied to magic... The transfigured board and the three Quidditch balls I got still don't seem to have changed at all..."

"But that raises another question... The technique looks a little rough to me. Is that because I lack experience, or did the caster simply use their greater magic to force the spell to last longer?"

Full of questions, Andrew went to Professor McGonagall after class again, before he had even handed in his thesis.

"That's an interesting line of thought. But as I told you before term began, any theory you come up with is useless until you've mastered the basics..."

"Still, I was going to speak to you about magical experiments. Besides being careful, careful, and careful again, you must learn to schedule your experiments sensibly."

She produced another reading list.

"Read these books, one at a time..."

"Yes, Professor."