"There were Muggles present!" Michael shrank back a little. "After hearing you analyze it like that, why do I feel like today's 'comprehensive practical exam' is going to be really difficult too?"
"It was like yesterday's exam—they conjured up a battlefield out of nowhere, and it was even a battlefield from a Muggle world war. Although the shells and things were fake and couldn't hurt us, the commotion was really frightening!"
Chris nodded in agreement. "It felt like those Muggles were tormenting us and trying to scare us..."
"I don't think... it'll be that bad," Hermione said. "Maybe those Muggles were simply using their own methods to observe what magic actually is."
"It's hard for them to understand what magic is, so they can only observe it through something visible, like Transfiguration."
"That does seem to make some sense." Chris nodded reluctantly, but then another question arose. "But what could they observe by having us use Transfiguration to make a gear?"
"Maybe this way..." Hermione looked troubled, frowning as she tried hard to think. "They could see how precise our Transfiguration is... whether it can compare to their lathes?"
"Lathes?" Chris raised his eyebrows, his tone turning odd. "Are they just thinking... that we could become workers processing parts one by one? Is that what they mean?"
"Of course that's not what they mean!" Hermione hurriedly shook her head and tried to explain. "It's just that Muggles don't understand magic, so this is the only kind of question they could come up with."
"Could those Muggles simply be ignorant?" Terry interjected. "Like at Easter a while ago—the feeling those Muggles gave us. Ignorant and stubborn."
"Probably not..." Hermione sounded far less confident than before, her voice noticeably softer. "I feel like these Muggles... are different from those Muggles who become