Boys' Friendship

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, hopeless as ever, were ultimately "invited" out of the classroom by Professor McGonagall for their improper attitude toward studying.

As a master of Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall saw at a glance where the problem with Harry and Ron's "magical explosions" lay. Their issue was entirely different from that of Seamus Finnigan.

Seamus's problem was that his magic was far too active; whenever he used magical power, it triggered an explosion. He was practically Hogwarts' walking human bomb.

But the problems Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had in this lesson were entirely because their heads were full of random nonsense, much of it violent—otherwise, their matchsticks would not have exploded with such spectacular determination.

Because of Harry and Ron, Zhang San was also politely sent out of the classroom by Professor McGonagall. He was not a struggling student being thrown out; he had been tasked by Professor McGonagall with giving psychological counseling to the two blockheads.

The person who tied the knot had to untie it. Harry and Ron had become obsessed after seeing Zhang San's dazzling swordsmanship, so Zhang San's advice would be more effective than Professor McGonagall personally chewing them out.

Professor McGonagall was, after all, the head of Gryffindor House. She knew all too well what Gryffindor's little lion cubs were like. Never giving up until they hit the Yellow River, never turning back until they hit a wall—that was exactly what Gryffindor hotheads were like.

With the three troublemakers gone from the classroom, the latter half of the Transfiguration lesson lost much of its entertainment.

Harry and Ron squatted against the corridor wall, staring dejectedly at Zhang San. "Why can't we do it?"

"You've never practiced swordsmanship. What made you think you could pull off fancy tricks just by flicking a wand around a few times?" Zhang San asked bluntly.

Harry and Ron stared blankly at Zhang San as they watched his nimble fingers spin the ghost wand through all sorts of tricks.

"Is that magic too?" Harry asked.

Zhang San snorted. "It's pen spinning! Didn't you play with this in primary school?"

Ron said, "I never went to primary school."

Harry said, "I didn't have a pen to spin."

Zhang San: ...

He could understand Ron never having attended primary school, but he could not understand how Harry Potter had gone to school without having a pen to spin.

"When I was in primary school, I never had any new pencils of my own. I could only use the pencil stubs Dudley had finished with," Harry Potter explained.

All right. This poor kid really had not lived a very happy life at his aunt's house.

"Save the sob story for when you talk to your mother later. Tell her to find time to have a proper talk with her sister," Zhang San said with a helpless shrug. "Learning to spin a pen is the first step toward using a wand flexibly and looking cool. It trains the flexibility of your fingers and wrist. A wand is longer than an ordinary pen, but the principle is the same."

Harry and Ron nodded furiously. As expected of the clever Sild—his head was full of clever little ideas.

Then the two unlucky boys squatted in the corridor and spun their pens away, while Zhang San flew back to the Transfiguration classroom to continue practicing Transfiguration magic.

School rules stipulated that young wizards could only practice Transfiguration in the classroom under Professor McGonagall's supervision and guidance, because it was an extremely dangerous subject.

The small chain explosions Harry and Ron had caused did not even count as much of an accident. According to Hogwarts' unofficial histories, more than one student this century had sent themselves or someone else to the school hospital during Transfiguration lessons.

Hogwarts' school hospital was no less capable at emergency treatment than St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Never underestimate young wizards' ability to cause trouble. They had ten thousand ways to send themselves or someone else to the school infirmary—ten thousand!

Zhang San was utterly fascinated by this magic that could transform one thing into another. After mastering the technique of turning a matchstick into a metal needle, he began looking around for something else he could transform.

"Transform! Transform! Transform! Transform already!"

Magical light flashed, and the wooden chair beneath Zhang San's backside turned into a genuine leather sofa.

Heaven knew why Zhang San blurted out a Guangxi dialect dripping with old-country flavor at that crucial moment. Now, every time he recited a Transfiguration spell, it sounded especially comical.

Professor McGonagall's eyes immediately lit up—Merlin's spectacles! What a talent!

Zhang San had completed such a complex transformation in his very first Transfiguration lesson. Such outstanding talent was truly rare. Hermione was still making a grand show out of that tiny matchstick shell, while Zhang San had already begun drawing inferences from one example and using Transfiguration magic on larger objects.

Among Transfiguration spells that did not involve changing living forms, the larger the transformed object, the greater the difference in volume between the original and transformed forms, and the more realistic the details of the transformed object, the more difficult the spell became.

Transforming a chair was harder than transforming a matchstick, and turning a chair into a sofa was leagues beyond turning a matchstick into a metal needle.

"An exquisitely executed material transformation. Five points to Gryffindor!" Professor McGonagall applauded in praise.

Zhang San politely cupped his hands toward those around him. He did not want to be so exceptional either, but his talent simply could not be hidden.

"Mr. Sild, tell everyone about your experience with Transfiguration," Professor McGonagall encouraged.

Zhang San did not hesitate. "Before transforming it, I carefully observed the structure of this chair. Both it and the sofa I transformed it into are meant for people to sit on, so their basic structures are the same."

Professor McGonagall nodded slightly, her face full of the pride of a sect master looking upon Gryffindor's gifted prodigy.

"Then I imagined what the transformed sofa would look like in my mind. Don't just think of it all at once. Instead, picture how the chair legs would become sofa legs, and how the wooden seat would become a sponge-padded sofa cushion."

"Once I had thought through every detail, I fixed the image of that sofa in my mind. Finally, I only needed to firmly believe that this chair could become a sofa, swing my wand with force, and recite the spell with conviction... and then I succeeded."

After Zhang San finished speaking, he gave a polite bow. To Hermione, that refined and courteous display could be summed up in just four words: putting on airs, slick-tongued, utterly hypocritical!

"Mr. Sild has keenly grasped the key points of Transfiguration—detailed imagination and unwavering will. As long as you achieve those two things, Transfiguration is not difficult at all," Professor McGonagall summarized.

In Professor McGonagall's eyes, Zhang San had risen from "an ordinary Gryffindor student" to "my beloved disciple." Hermione Granger, the star pupil full of promise from the previous lesson, had been demoted from sweetheart to old hag.

Hermione was a genius among ordinary people, but Zhang San was a genius among geniuses.

If Hermione's talent qualified her to join the Transfiguration Club, then Zhang San was the kind of freakish talent Professor McGonagall would tie up and drag over to join.

Under Professor McGonagall's approving gaze, the Transfiguration lesson came to an end. As the students filed out of the classroom, Ron and Harry excitedly blocked Zhang San's way.

"Sri, we can spin our wands in our hands now!" Harry said excitedly.

Hermione, passing by, shot the three of them a sidelong glance and muttered, "Boring!"

Ron was displeased. "What's her problem?"

Zhang San asked, "Hasn't she always been like that?"

Ron suddenly understood. "Right... Come on, watch me spin it. I'm really good now!"

Then the two boys and one ghost slung their arms around each other's shoulders and left. Boys' friendship was just that simple and pure.