Permanent Transfiguration and Handing In Homework

The first Wednesday of March, afternoon, second floor of the Castle, Transfiguration Classroom.

Sunlight streamed in obliquely through the high windows, falling on rows of desks, each with a palm-sized gray slate on it.

Slytherin and Hufflepuff are having the same class this time.

The two groups sat clearly separated, with Slytherin on the left and Hufflepuff on the right, and an empty row of tables in the middle.

Unlike the tense atmosphere when they were with the Gryffindor, the Hufflepuff chatted amongst themselves, with no one glancing at the Slytherin. A few Hufflepuff girls in the back row huddled together, one of them gently tapping the stone slab with her wand and whispering something, while the two next to her covered their mouths and laughed.

No one in Slytherin glared back; their gazes passed over Hufflepuff's head as if it were empty.

Hufflepuff was happy to have some peace and quiet; who would want to be stared at by a bunch of snakes for the entire class?

Each side was minding their own business. The Hufflepuff were chatting and laughing in hushed tones, creating a cheerful atmosphere, while the Slytherin were quieter and not particularly serious. Because the serious ones hadn't arrived yet.

It arrived in the next moment.

The classroom door opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in, wearing a dark green robe with the collar buttoned up tightly, her hair pulled back into a high bun, not a single strand out of place.

Square-framed glasses perched on her nose, her lips pressed into a thin line, her hands clasped in front of her, her movements so precise that even her robe barely fluttered as she walked. She stood before the podium, placed something in her hand on the lectern, and scanned the entire room with her gaze.

The chatter and laughter in the classroom fell silent instantly. The young Wizards sat up straight, backs ramrod, hands neatly placed on their desks. "Today's lesson," McGonagall said, picking up her wand and waving it towards the blackboard, "Local cross-material Transfiguration."

Several lines of silvery-white text appeared on the blackboard, with clear edges and neat characters.

"On the same stone slab," she read the instructions with her back to the blackboard, "Turn the designated half into wood, and keep the other half stone, with each material intact, clearly defined, and without any seepage between them."

She turned around, picked up her stone tablet, and tapped it lightly with her wand.

The stone slab splits in the middle, the gray on the left half fades, the texture rises up, revealing the light color of birch wood, the fine wood grain spreading outwards in concentric circles, and the tiny pores of the wood itself can be vaguely seen.

The right half is still made of cold, hard gray stone, with a rough surface and distinct grains.

The two materials meet at the center line, the boundary clear and neat, the wood and stone each guarding their own edge, neither moving an inch further than the other. She held up the stone slab for the whole class to see, and slowly turned it around.

"The difficulty of this lesson is not in the Transfiguration," she said seriously, placing the slate back on the podium. "At that intersection, the half that transforms must become completely transformed, and the half that guards must guard completely."

Many people only focus on the side that needs to be changed, forgetting that the side that remains unchanged also needs to be restrained. Once the Magic Power crosses the midline, the two sides become mixed up. When Transfiguration, your attention must be on both sides simultaneously.

The professor scanned the room from left to right and said, "Begin."

A series of rustling sounds and chanting filled the classroom as the young Wizards picked up their wands and began gesturing at the stone slab in front of them.

After the initial commotion subsided, the differences in student performance became apparent.

A Hufflepuff boy jabbed the stone slab so hard with his wand that the entire slab turned into wood, and the boundary was no longer protected.

He stared blankly at the piece of wood, while the classmate next to him peeked over and chuckled.

In the back row, there was a Slytherin girl who hadn't completely transformed; several unmelted stone veins were embedded in half of the wood, and grayish-white stripes were inlaid in the wood grain, making it a mottled mess.

She frowned and used her wand to touch the stone veins, but the more she touched them, the more blurred they became.

There was also a Hufflepuff student's area where things intersected, a transitional zone of half wood and half stone that took up a third of the entire slab, bumpy and uneven, and it was hard to tell what it was.

He tilted his head and looked at himself, then sighed.

Professor McGonagall moved between the desks, looking down at each slate.

"The whole thing has changed, where are your boundaries now?"

She stopped in front of a Hufflepuff boy, who blushed and shrank back.

McGonagall's wand tapped lightly above the stone slab. "The Transfiguration spell wasn't aimed precisely enough; the Magic Power dissipated by the time it left the wand. Let's try again, first locking onto the center line."

She walked past a Slytherin girl, glanced at the veins on the stone slab, and nodded. "The Magic Power output is unstable, so the wood grain won't unfold. Try a few more times."

Avery sat two seats behind Regulus.

His stone slab did clearly distinguish between wood and stone, and the boundaries were fairly clear, but the slab was cracked.

Split it in the middle of the boundary line, half of the wood is wood, and half of the stone is stone; when you pick it up, it's in two halves.

He poked the crack with his wand, muttering curses under his breath. He glanced up at the back of Regulus's head, then looked down and fiddled with the crack. It had drifted off the edge of Alex's stone slab, the wood crossing the center line and taking up a small section of the stone.

The textures are cleanly laid out, the wood and stone are clearly distinguishable, and although the two materials are not positioned correctly at their junction, they are still complete in their own way.

McGonagall glanced at it as she passed by and said, "Pay attention to the boundary."

Alex nodded quickly, pressed his wand against the edge of the wood grain, and pushed it back, his expression focused.

Hermes sat in the back row by the window, the stone slab in his hand already finished, its edges clear, its material distinct, and its boundary clean. Then he placed the slab on the table, propped his chin on his hand, tilted his head and stared out the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, shining on his face, and he squinted and yawned.

Regulus sat in the front row of Slytherin.

In Professor McGonagall's classes, seats are always in high demand towards the end; those who arrive late are the ones who get a seat at the front.

But it made no difference to him, because he was a good student, and it didn't matter where he sat.

He rested his wand on the stone slab, and Magic Power seeped into it from the tip.

The wood rose from one end of the stone slab, its edges tinged with a very pale off-white, and then the grain spread in concentric circles, fine and even. He let the wood grain stop at the midline, the boundary line clean and neat, the wood grain and stone particles naturally connecting at the boundary. The silvery luster of the birch wood was close to the cold, hard texture of the gray stone, interlocking perfectly without crossing any boundaries.

Wood is wood, and stone is stone; the two materials grow on the same piece of wood, and the joint is perfectly seamless.

It's a single piece when you pick it up, and it's still a single piece when you put it down. Apart from the different materials, you can't tell where it was joined together.

It's done, without much effort.

He didn't stop immediately; the Magic Power remained pressed against the stone slab, maintaining the Transfiguration and sensing it.

You can clearly feel that half of the wood is being pulled back.

This is the current state of Transfiguration; it hasn't reached the level of Permanent Transfiguration yet. The stone slabs that have been given the ability to Transfiguration always tend to revert to their original form.

It remembered that it was originally a whole piece of stone, and the wood was attached to it from the outside.

It obeys when pressed, but once the Magic Power is released, the wood grain will fade back.

It won't all come off at once; the Magic Power still lingers inside, and the will hasn't completely left. It can hold on for a while, but it's only a matter of time before it reverts to stone.

The more Magic Power supplied, the more stable the Spellcasting's will, and the longer it can be maintained. However, if you want it to remain a piece of wood, you have to keep supplying it with Magic Power. He already knew this, so it wasn't anything new. He just thought about it for the moment.

He knew from the moment he learned his first Transfiguration that the effect would dissipate once the spell was stopped.

All Transfiguration are like this, at least all the Transfiguration we've learned so far are like this.

This is also true for the vast majority of wizards; Transfiguration is ultimately temporary and provisional. Once the Magic Power is withdrawn, it returns to its original state.

A question arose in his mind.

What is Permanent Transfiguration? How is it achieved?

An object that has Permanent Transfiguration should have been cut off from the Spellcasting's Magic Power supply; the person is gone, but the Transfiguration continues.

What sustains it?

More advanced Transfiguration incorporate this maintenance element into the spell itself?

There is still an element of will involved. The Spellcasting's will is etched into the object being Transfiguration the moment the Transfiguration is complete, and there is no longer a need to continuously supply Magic Power.

Or more fundamentally, is Permanent Transfiguration not a matter of maintenance, but rather a matter of being fundamentally rewritten the moment Transfiguration occurs?

He stared at the half-wood, half-stone slab beneath his hands; the wood grain was still radiating outwards, while the stone was still receding.

He pressed it as he thought.

This question isn't in the textbook; the second-grade Transfiguration Class won't cover Permanent Transfiguration, nor is it necessary to.

Advanced classes may cover that level of Transfiguration theory, which is only accessible to students in sixth grade and above.

Professor McGonagall certainly possesses a more advanced system of Transfiguration; that's for sure.

But he was only a second-year student, several years away from the advanced class, and the professor didn't call him in advance.

The Dismissal Bell, McGonagall stood at the front of the class, taking down the writing from the blackboard. "That's all for this lesson."

The students began packing up their belongings, and the unfinished wooden pieces on the stone slabs gradually returned to the gray stone.

The classroom was filled with rustling sounds: wands tapping on the edge of desks, and backpack clasps clicking.

Avery pieced the two halves of the slate back together, and they stuck back on by themselves. He picked them up, flipped them over, and put them back on the table.

Alex's slate returned to normal, he breathed a sigh of relief, and tucked his wand back into his sleeve.

Hermes looked away from the window, stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked towards the door.

Lina and Samuel were automatically imported.

Regulus also got up and followed him outside.

I'll ask about the Permanent Transfiguration issue at the office; perfect timing, I also have a few other questions to ask.

McGonagall's office was in the first-floor Corridor of the Castle, near the right side of the staircase leading to the Serpentine Corridor on the third floor, not far from classroom 30, at the corner of the Staff Corridor. Regulus let Avery and the others go first, and then slowly walked along the Stone Corridor himself.

He stopped in front of the office door and knocked three times.

"Please come in," came McGonagall's voice from inside.

Pushing open the door, I saw the professor sitting behind his desk.

Several stacks of parchment were piled on the table, containing papers and assignments from different grades. Some were tied with dark green ribbons, while others were secured with copper clips, all neatly arranged at the edges.

The ink bottle cap was unscrewed but not screwed back on, and the quill pen was on the pen holder with ink still on the nib.

McGonagall looked up, her eyes behind her square-framed glasses as sharp as they were during class.

Looking at Regulus at the doorway, he lowered his chin slightly.

"Mr. Black," she put down her quill, her voice serious, "Are you here to hand in last week's Transfiguration paper?" Regulus stood in the doorway, his hand still on the doorknob.

Submit a supplementary paper?

He was completely stunned.

This was a problem I had never considered; I hadn't even prepared for it.

I took leave for the first two weeks to go home and attend my grandfather's funeral. Then I returned to school and went back to class. Everything went smoothly.

No one mentioned the homework, and no one told him that he would have to make up the homework if he took leave.

That's utterly unreasonable!

Having lived two lives, this is the first time I've been urged to do homework.

His expression remained unchanged. He removed his hand from the doorknob, walked naturally to the desk, bowed slightly, and spoke with a respectful and composed tone, "Writing, Professor."

McGonagall stared at him, her gaze direct and sharp.

This young Mr. Black, whether in terms of talent or skill, is impeccable, at least in his Transfiguration.

Talent is talent, and a thesis is a thesis. No matter how outstanding a student is, they still have to make up for the assignments they owe.

That's the rule.

As for what is being written, she doesn't believe a single word of it.

She'd heard this excuse for decades; it was used by people in every grade, from first grade to seventh grade, without ever changing the wording.

Regulus wasn't afraid of being stared at; he met McGonagall's gaze without the slightest hint of guilt.

Whether he's writing or not, there's no difference to him.

It's the same to say that something that never happened is happening, or to say that it never happened.

In any case, starting to write now or starting to write a long time ago makes no difference to the final result.

McGonagall probably sensed something about his stubbornness from his expression, so she didn't dwell on it.

The paper is due by Friday.

Regulus stood upright, his expression respectful, and nodded. "Yes, Professor."

McGonagall nodded her chin toward the chair opposite her. "Sit down."