Professor McGonagall held each end of the match between her thumbs and forefingers, her movements as gentle as if she were handling some priceless treasure.
Crack.
The match snapped in two, its wooden core clearly visible—no one could have imagined that it had been Transfigured from paper.
Professor McGonagall's right hand trembled slightly as she cast the Counter-Curse on the match.
The broken match swiftly changed back, returning to its original form—a sheet of paper already torn down the middle.
"Good heavens. Damon, do you have any idea what you've just accomplished?"
McGonagall stared blankly at Damon, who was still calmly eating his dessert. She could not understand how he could remain so composed—did this child not realize how shocking his achievement was?
"You'll change the entire wizarding world."
Hesitation appeared on her face, but she quickly perked up again. Picking up a sheet of paper, she moved closer to Damon and said:
"How do you achieve a transformation of essence? Show me!"
"If it's only a match, that's quite simple, Professor."
Damon drew his wand and said calmly:
"Microcosmic Incantation."
A faint glow lit up his sapphire-blue eyes as he spoke again to the paper in Professor McGonagall's hand:
"Magical Order."
The paper in Professor McGonagall's hand began to shrink and transform, becoming a match in the blink of an eye.
A match—one of extraordinary significance.
"It was that easy?"
Professor McGonagall looked at the match in her hand, then at Damon, whose eyes were glowing. Completely stripped of her usual composure, she asked blankly:
"You gave me this paper because you wanted to—"
"Oh—I was planning to submit it to Transfiguration Today. Before it was published, I wanted you to look it over and see whether there were any errors or anything that needed adding."
"Transfiguration Today?" Professor McGonagall froze for a moment before saying, "I'm afraid that won't do."
"Why not?"
"This is too shocking. You'll set off the entire wizarding world—I need to speak to Dumbledore. I believe he can offer better advice—would you be willing to wait a while, Damon?"
"Sure, but Professor, could you give me back my points first?"
"Sorry—you said what?"
"House Cup points. Because of the Malfoy incident, didn't you deduct one hundred and fifty points from me? I'd like you to add them back. And if you could give me some extra, that would be even better."
Professor McGonagall looked at Damon as though she were looking at a Magical Creature she had never seen before.
"Merlin's beard! Are you joking with me?" She was nearly losing her mind. "Do you realize that you've invented a theory of the century? Every future development in Transfiguration will have to reckon with your theory, and you're still here fussing over House Cup points?
"Once your paper is published, they may even name this theory White's Transfiguration Law. Your name will be recorded in textbooks, and you will be immortalized in A History of Magic. Do you understand the significance of this, child?"
Professor McGonagall was truly anxious now. The more she spoke, the more urgent and excited she became. Seeing the slight curve of Damon's lips, she felt as though he were teasing her, yet also wondered whether the child simply had not grasped the situation. In a rare show of agitation, she said:
"I'm not talking to you anymore!"
With a wave of her hand, Professor McGonagall hurriedly grabbed the paper and the match Damon had just Transfigured, then rushed toward Dumbledore's office, leaving Damon alone with his tea and pastries.
"Why did you get so worked up?" Damon watched Professor McGonagall's retreating figure, looking as if she might break into a run. He chuckled and took a sip of tea. "Aren't people like you the ones who made the House Cup so important?"
Using the Levitation Charm, he lifted a macaron and tossed it into his mouth from above.
Mm, sweet.
"Fizzing Whizzbees!"
Professor McGonagall spoke the password. The stone gargoyle leapt aside, and the wall behind it split in two. She eagerly stepped onto the moving stone staircase and arrived before the bright door.
She could not even be bothered with manners. From outside the door, she shouted:
"Dumbledore, are you there?"
"Come in, Minerva."
Professor McGonagall shoved the door open and barged in. Dumbledore was replying to letters from the Ministry of Magic.
"What happened to make you so flustered?"
Dumbledore set down his quill and asked gently.
Smack.
Professor McGonagall practically slammed the paper onto the desk, her breathing slightly hurried.
"You—you need to look at this! Damon wrote it!"
"Oh? Has our Duelling Prince come up with something else?"
Ever since the Malfoy incident, even Dumbledore had begun calling him that.
A faint smile hung on his face as he picked up the paper Professor McGonagall had pressed to the desk. What could have astonished Minerva this much? Had Damon proposed some novel Transfiguration hypothesis?
Breakthrough Research into Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, Second Law
The instant he saw the title, the smile vanished from Dumbledore's face.
A faint scent of violets filled the air. Warm, brilliant sunlight streamed through the transparent stained-glass windows onto the desk. The phoenix Fawkes quietly preened his feathers, while the portraits in the Headmaster's Office remained motionless, silently waiting for Dumbledore's conclusion so they could decide whether to praise or mock afterward.
A mocking smile was already forming on Phineas Black's lips. He only had to wait for Dumbledore to offer his assessment: "For a child, this discovery is rather good."
Then he would speak up and lecture McGonagall that, as Deputy Headmistress, she ought to be more composed.
Yet second after second passed, and Dumbledore's frown only deepened.
He had probably never imagined that on such an ordinary day, beneath such bright sunshine, he would hear a thunderclap!
That was Dumbledore's thought at that moment.
He had been drinking tea, reading the newspaper, answering official correspondence—and then, all of a sudden, lightning struck him.
Such a shocking hypothesis—no, this was no longer a hypothesis at all—this was a new Transfiguration theorem that had already been successfully put into practice. Who could have imagined that it had been proposed by a child still in first year?
"Incredible. Simply incredible."
Dumbledore's first words left every headmaster in the portraits dumbfounded.
He picked up the match Damon had Transfigured. Without even breaking it apart, he could already sense that its internal structure had been altered by magic. With a flick of his wand, the match returned to paper.
Dumbledore suddenly became curious.
He tore the paper open and held it up to the sunlight, examining its structure.
Under the sunlight, a faint layer of wood grain showed along the paper's edges—he had not mastered the reverse Transfiguration needed to alter matter, so he could not restore the paper's original structure.
Dumbledore pondered for a while, then placed the torn paper on the desk and softly said:
"Magical Order."
He narrowed his eyes and felt a vast amount of magic being mobilized. The paper before him seemed to become a monster that devoured magic, consuming roughly one percent of his magical power in a single gulp.
There were many reasons for this—he had not yet mastered the spell, nor was he familiar with the principles of the transformation. He was forcibly using the Charms Damon had created, combined with the principles in the paper, to achieve a transformation of matter through an enormous quantity of magic.
But that did not change the fact that he had only Transfigured a single sheet of paper.
In other words, while this law was astonishing, it did not mean that any wizard could make good use of it. In fact, most wizards would not be able to do so—and precisely because of that, this power needed to be guided!
"Where is Damon?"
Before you continue