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"Hmm... here, you could approach it like this..."

Having easily dealt with that guilty feeling, Andrew quickly immersed himself in studying Transfiguration.

But just as he figured out the problem and began writing furiously, a shadow fell over his parchment. He looked up and found a tall red-haired boy standing there.

Judging by his clothes, the other boy was from Gryffindor.

"Hello, is there something you need?"

Andrew stopped what he was doing and asked curiously—he didn't think he could possibly have anything to do with an upperclassman from Gryffindor.

"An analysis of plant Transfiguration... you can do it like this?"

The boy raised an eyebrow. "But why are you studying cacti? That isn't a very good direction... the model is too simple. Normally, we use trees as a breakthrough point. The model is more complex, but because it is large enough, minor differences in detail won't cause the spell to fail."

"Not enough magic," Andrew said, spreading his right hand on the table. "And if I use trees, analyzing the leaves requires too much. If I ignore the details, the tree as a whole won't look real enough."

"You start with saplings, of course. You should know that greatly reduces the need to transfigure leaves. Once you get used to it, you can actually be a bit less precise with the leaves. That will make the spell create leaves that look more realistic."

"More realistic?"

Andrew thought for a moment, then tapped the blank parchment beside him with his wand. Unlike before, when he had carefully imagined the veins of each leaf, this time he only vaguely envisioned what a leaf should look like.

The parchment began to curl, shrink, and change color before taking the shape of a beautiful maple leaf.

"Like this?"

"It's still a bit wasteful. More importantly, growth... make it grow."

"Growth?"

The explanation was vague, and Andrew couldn't quite understand it.

"Like, once you've fixed it in place, it just grows out."

"Fixed in place... fixed in place... you mean... like this?"

Andrew canceled the spell he had just cast and tapped the parchment with his wand again. This time, the parchment curled into a stick-like shape, and tiny green shoots began to emerge.

The shoots rapidly grew. Within a few breaths, they turned into leaves of varying sizes—but there was nothing magical about it. Instead, it looked like someone had randomly glued a mess of leaves onto an ugly stick.

But the red-haired boy looked very satisfied. "Yes, yes, that's it. That's the feeling. That's how you should cast it. You only need to control the magic driving the leaves a little more, and it'll be perfect."

"I don't have enough magic. I can't even manage to transfigure the branches, let alone control them—that's the limit of what I can do."

Andrew spread his hands as he spoke to this inexplicably appearing boy.

He had a very favorable impression of him now—this kind of guidance was far better than those trash spells from the club.

"What a pity..."

"QUIET! IN! THE! LIBRARY!"

Just as the red-haired boy sighed, two books appeared alongside a booming voice. Each word was followed by a loud blow to the head, and the two books began rhythmically bouncing atop Andrew's and the red-haired boy's heads, one after the other.

"Run."

While Andrew was still dazed, the boy across from him had already said it swiftly.

Andrew readily followed suit. Though he got off to a slower start, he caught up within a few steps. The books he had borrowed and his schoolbag followed behind the two books, rhythmically smacking their arms and legs along with Madam Pince's scolding, only stopping once they had run out of the library.

"Phew..."

The boy behind Andrew panted as he stopped beside him. "God, that's the first time Madam Pince has ever scolded me... But it's fine. I've never heard of her banning anyone from entering a second time."

"Let me introduce myself," he said after catching his breath. "Percy Weasley, Gryffindor prefect."

"Andrew Taylor, Ravenclaw."

Andrew shook Percy's hand.

"You have a solid foundation in Transfiguration. Very few second-years study material from the third year, or even the fourth year."

"It's only some theoretical knowledge. In practice, I'm far from good enough." Andrew shook his head. "I've already spent all my free time on it."

"That's as it should be. Also, you need to pay attention to spell strength. Your casting is lacking by quite a bit, and that can easily cause problems when you cast."

"Can't be helped. My magic can't support it. I asked Professor McGonagall, and she said it can only be solved through age and appropriate training. It'll improve a lot once I'm in my second year, since this age is exactly when magical power starts to surge."

"Then there's no—wait, what did you say?"

Percy gave Andrew a careful once-over. "You're a first-year."

"Yeah, that's right. Why?"

"Bloody hell..." He scratched his head. "Then how could you possibly be involved? Miss Granger really is..."

"Miss Granger?"

"Ah, right." Percy spread his hands. "You know, I'm a prefect."

You've introduced yourself twice in such a short time...

"She came running over and said it looked like someone was running some kind of group scam in the library. She had been reading when someone approached her, then she noticed people watching nearby. Afterward, they even pretended to go back to reading..."

???

I was only curious and went over to see what was happening.

"She also said that you regularly showed up in the library to scam people with others, because she asked around and heard that you seemed to be in the library every day. But she had never heard any professor mention someone whose grades could keep up with hers."

That stung a little. But it was true. After confirming that Transfiguration was his greatest talent, Andrew had only maintained a basic level of effort in his other subjects. He had even become a little muddled in things like Magical History. Only Charms could still be considered excellent.

"But after seeing your Transfiguration, I knew she was worrying herself over nothing again... She's not a bad person, just far too enthusiastic..."

Percy shook his head. "Still, her grades are quite good. I think she should become a prefect in the future too—being enthusiastic isn't necessarily a bad thing."

That connection is a bit forced...

"All right, you don't need to think about Granger anymore. I'll explain it clearly to her." Percy waved his hand. "Now that I'm sure there's no problem, I need to go. You know, this is my OWLs year, and I'm very busy. There won't be any problems, of course, but I don't want to give up first place."

"Well then, see you around. If we meet in the library, I can help a little with Transfiguration—I'm quite good at that."

Percy shook his head as he left, leaving Andrew standing there somewhat stunned.

What even was that... I almost got mistaken for an accomplice.

And why did that feel like some kind of internal club meeting...

He watched Percy leave, shook his head helplessly, packed up his bag, and prepared to return to the common room.