Regulus: Wrong Excuse

At the beginning of May, Scottish Highlands finally felt a bit like spring.

The grass was shiny green, a warm wind blew over Black Lake, and the afternoon sun shone brightly on the lake.

Several Giant Squid floated to the surface to bask in the sun, spreading their tentacles lazily, and occasionally patted the water, and the splashes were blown away by the wind.

Little Wizards changed into a thinner robe and sat on the lawn outside Castle in twos and threes. Some were reading, some were chatting, and some were just lying down doing nothing.

There were people at Quidditch Pitch from morning to night. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were fighting for the right to use the field. The two captains stood in the middle of the field and gestured to each other with Broomstick. A group of spectators gathered around them.

Hufflepuff's little Wizards spread a blanket on the lawn, which was filled with food brought from Kitchen. Most of the Slytherin people stayed in Common Room.

There is a wall between the situation outside and the laughter inside Castle.

Death Eaters caused two more incidents in the north of England. <The Daily Prophet> reported for three days in a row. The wording changed from serious concern to under investigation to asking wizards to pay attention to their safety.

Ministry of Magic's personnel changes are becoming more frequent, and Dementor's patrol scope continues to expand, but these little Wizards don't care.

They are more concerned about how many weeks are left for the final exam, who will play Quidditch next, and whether the new Honeydukes Fizzing Whizzbee is as sweet as the previous one.

Dumbledore appeared once during dinner last week. He sat in the middle of the professor's chair. He didn't eat a few bites of the meal. He said a few words to Professor McGonagall, stood up and left. He was walking in a hurry. When he passed by Slytherin table, he glanced in the direction of Regulus.

Regulus gestured with Pumpkin Juice's cup, and the old man's blue eyes curved behind Half-moon Spectacles. Other than that, there was no other communication between the two.

The principal's chair was empty again the next day.

Regulus has been back to Hogwarts for more than a week. My days are very ordinary. I go to class normally, eat normally, sit at Common Room normally, and go to Library normally.

The days were very quiet, so quiet that he was a bit lazy, and he found that he couldn't get excited.

From the moment he turned into Geralt and walked out of Hogwarts school, he has been moving.

Followed Dumbledore to Wasteland on the northern border of England and Scotland, at Hog's Head Inn and Aberforth fight each other, blow up the wall outside Skipton Castle, and look at the ruins left after Voldemort massacred the village on Durham sea cliff.

Then there was France, who fought with the smuggling gang, set fire to the sky, negotiated with French Ministry of Magic, and looked at the swollen belly of his cousin in the small cafe of Paris Left Bank.

For more than a month, everything was within his choice, but the rhythm did not belong to him.

Dumbledore's action route keeps changing, he has to follow it, Voldemort's observation falls from the sky, he has to pick it up, and the smuggling gang is coming, he has to fight it.

Now back to Hogwarts, the rhythm is back in his hands, and he doesn't want to do anything anymore.

Life on campus is too slow, nothing is urgent, nothing is urgent, the class schedule is fixed, the meals are fixed, and even the ghosts passing by are the same.

There's nothing uncomfortable about it, I just feel unmotivated.

He never cared about how the friends around him were doing. Before he left, he said he would take care of them, but he didn't forget it, but he was too lazy to do anything.

Those guys also tacitly pretended that that sentence had never existed, and no one came over to say what I had practiced, that I had improved, and that you could see if I could do it.

Avery is so talkative. I sit next to him every day and chatter about everything from Quidditch's score to Professor Sprout's Poison Tentacle pricked his finger. They talk about everything, but they don't mention a word about this matter.

Hermes saw his eyes dodge and wished he could hide himself from him.

Alex was calm. He said hello and chatted about schoolwork when it was time to do so, but he never mentioned the exam.

Not to mention Lina and Samuel, Lina hangs around Alex all day long, while Samuel keeps to himself and no one comes near him.

He didn't speak, so everyone just pretended that nothing happened.

Just like primary school students who find out that their teacher forgot to leave their homework, they wink at each other, but no one reminds them, and if you don't tell me, I won't tell them either, and the world is at peace.

Regulus didn't bother to say that he didn't even go to Room of Requirement very much. After class, he ran to Library, occupied his old seat by the window, flipped through Alchemy's literature, read Transfiguration's extension theory, and occasionally took out a few pieces of parchment to draw a sketch of the circuit on it.

The days passed in a relaxed and slow pace, like a vacation.

More than a week has passed like this.

Thursday afternoon, Transfiguration class.

Professor McGonagall stood on the podium, wearing a meticulous emerald green robe, and his eyes behind square-framed lenses swept across everyone in the classroom.

The afternoon sun was just right, and a bright parallelogram was reflected on the blackboard.

The content of this lesson is the reverse operation of turning a turtle into a teacup and an utensil into an animal.

McGonagall tapped the teapot on the lecture table with his magic wand. In a burst of silver-gray light, the teapot shrank, flattened, grew limbs and a carapace, and turned into a palm-sized hawksbill turtle, crawling slowly on the lecture table.

"The key to converting animals into objects lies in the correspondence between materials," McGonagall's voice was clear and serious. "The horniness of the turtle shell corresponds to the glaze of the ceramic, and the skin tissue corresponds to the density of the porcelain body. If the material correspondence is wrong, such as mapping the turtle shell to the metal, Transfiguration will fail. Don't take it for granted. Observe first before taking action."

There was a turtle placed in front of everyone, and there were several spare ones in cages against the wall at the back of the classroom, stacked together to bask in the sun.

Regulus looked down at his own, gray-green shell, with its limbs retracted halfway, exposing its pointed nails, its head facing his fingers, and its big black bean eyes unblinking.

He picked up the wand and put the tip of the wand against the edge of the turtle shell, letting the silver-gray light seep in.

The turtle began to flatten in front of him, the curvature of the carapace slowly flattened, and the luster of the cuticle gradually transformed into the texture of a glaze.

The limbs were retracted and retracted into the body, and then the body began to stretch. The deck expanded into the bottom of the cup, and the sides extended upward to form the cup wall. The lines on the carapace were left on the ceramic surface, turning into a circle of light dark green patterns.

In less than two breaths, a turtle turned into a teacup.

The mouth of the cup is rounded, the glaze is smooth, and the pattern on the cup wall has clear edges without any smudge.

Professor McGonagall came over, picked up the tea cup, turned it over, looked at the bottom of the cup, and then looked at the pattern on the wall of the cup.

"Not bad." She nodded, put it back, and then walked away to see the next student.

There are no extra points, and Regulus doesn't care.

He tapped the teacup with the wand again, and the pattern on it became three-dimensional. He used Transfiguration to make the relief, which was purely idle.

The pattern spread out from the center, and the fine lines intertwined into a messy pattern. He didn't think about changing anything, so he Magic Power ran away by himself.

Dismissal Bell rang, and little Wizards stood up one after another.

Avery put the half-transformed turtle back into the cage. There was still half a teacup handle on the turtle shell, and it was pulling the cage with its paws dissatisfied.

Alex put away the wand and put the turtle back to its original shape, gently.

Hermes had finished it a long time ago. The turtle turned into a teacup and the teacup turned into a turtle. Both forms were very standard. He stuffed the turtle into Samuel's arms, picked up his schoolbag and walked out.

McGonagall's voice came from the direction of the podium. "Mr. Black, stay for a moment."

Avery looked back, Regulus waved his hand to him, letting them go first.

The door closed and the classroom became quiet, leaving only Regulus and Professor McGonagall.

He vaguely sensed that something was wrong, and a thought flashed through his mind, as if he had forgotten something.

What's coming?

McGonagall was sitting behind the lecture desk, with a stern gaze under his square-rimmed glasses, his hands folded on the table, and an open class record book spread out in front of him.

"Where's the homework, Mr. Black."

Regulus opened his mouth, but the expression on his face was stuck.

Now that I think about it, the professor did tell me before I left that I had to do my homework on time when I was outside, and I would have to hand it in when I came back.

He agreed at the time and never thought about it again.

"Professor," Regulus quickly calmed down his expression and spoke in a very respectful tone, "The outfit you helped me make before, that Permanent Transfiguration, was very effective. It was not damaged at all after a high-intensity battle. It is extremely stable. The self-repairing function of the fabric helped a lot in actual combat."

Professor McGonagall looked at him, his expression not changing at all.

"I encountered some new problems in the application of Transfiguration outside, especially the intersection between Transfiguration and Alchemy," Regulus's expression did not change, and he continued, "Alchemy's circuit drawing book Essentially, it is the precise control of the Magic Power texture inside the material, which overlaps with the underlying logic of Transfiguration changing the material form. One is to guide the reorganization of the texture, and the other is to force the shape to change, which ultimately allows the material to present a new structure under the action of Magic Power."

His attitude was impeccably sincere, and his eyes were full of desire for knowledge. "I read several Alchemy textbooks in France, and I have some ideas about this intersection, and I would like to ask the professor for advice."

McGonagall was silent for a while, and it was unclear whether he had already thought about this problem or whether he had made it up temporarily to avoid homework.

If he has thought about it for a long time, it means that he is really not idle outside school, reading textbooks, thinking about theories, crossing subjects, and making comparisons.

If you think about it immediately, you will open your mouth within a few seconds of being asked to do the homework, and string together the underlying principles of Transfiguration and Alchemy in a logical and consistent way, and it will look like a serious topic.

No matter what the situation is, it's quite rare, and it's like something he can do.

But she is a professor after all, and this question is indeed in-depth and worthy of an answer, "Alchemy and Transfiguration do share part of the underlying logic, but their boundaries are also very clear.

Transfiguration deals with the form of an existing thing, changing it but maintaining its own continuity. Alchemy directly rewrites the essential structure of the material without going through the intermediate step of form conversion.

If you think about the two together, the direction itself is fine, but be careful not to confuse their operational boundaries."

She looked at Regulus and said in a serious tone, "If you can continue on this road, you can indeed find something new."

Regulus's eyes flashed with gratitude, and he bowed slightly. "Thank you, Professor."

Mad's expression softened a little, his eyes were still stern, but his brows did not frown anymore, and he grabbed the window.

"Professor, there is an objective situation," he said very sincerely, "I have been running with Professor Dumbledore since I left school, and I have never stayed in one place for more than a day.

There was no table, no books, no inkwell. One night I slept on a stone by the seaside, and I woke up the next day with salt all over my robe. This condition - "

He spread his hands with embarrassment on his face. "There is really no way to write a paper."

McGonagall The gaze behind the glasses changed from stern to sharp, Regulus suddenly felt something bad.

"It sounds reasonable, but in the world of Mr. Black, Magic, this is the first time I have heard the saying that there are no conditions for homework."

Her tone was calm but extremely oppressive. "Can't Transfiguration let you get what you need?"

Regulus closed his mouth, pretended to give up sophistry, and stood still.

What the professor said is really impeccable.

He used the wrong excuse.

Professor McGonagall took out a piece of parchment from the drawer and slapped it on the table. The paper surface glowed faintly, and the handwriting emerged, line by line, neatly.

"Send it to my office before the weekend. Each article should be no less than thirty inches."

Regulus accepted it gladly, took the parchment, folded it and put it into the inner pocket of his robe. "Okay, Professor."

Then he bowed slightly, said goodbye respectfully, turned around and walked towards the door.

When I walked to the door, the professor's voice came from behind again. "Mr. Black."

Regulus Look back.

"Welcome back."

Regulus smiled, "Thank you, Professor."

Dinner, Slytherin table.

Regulus was sitting in his seat with half of the food on his plate eaten.

Opposite are Hermes and Alex, next to them is Avery, and diagonally opposite are Lina and Samuel.

He raised his head and turned his eyes slowly, his eyes unkind.

The movements of the five people slowed down at the same time.

"At eight o'clock tonight, Room of Requirement, everyone will be here."

After finishing speaking, he put down his napkin, stood up and left, going to Library, leaving the five people behind him looking at each other.

Professor McGonagall It is natural to urge students to do their homework, but it is unpleasant to make up for their homework.

If he's unhappy, then others won't be able to live well either.

None of these guys are innocent.

Why didn't anyone write his homework for him?

Does anyone need to teach you about this kind of thing?