Year 6 on Transfiguration

Professor Sutekh

September 24, 2008 4:26 PM

Year 6 by Professor Sutekh

Sanaa was late. She was never late. Unfortunately she had had a nightmare during the night and had knocked her alarm clock off her side table, meaning it didn’t go off that morning. Dragging a brush through her hair and grabbing a dark green robe, she left her office and entered her classroom. Judging by the sounds outside of the door the students were already waiting. Sanaa waved her wand at the door and opened it, allowing the class to come in as she put her robe on over a light green dress.

“Good morning class. Please all sit down.” Sanaa grabbed her notes off her desk and quickly scanned them, breathing a sigh of relief. “Okay, today we are continuing with permanent transfiguration.” Sanaa carried on reading her notes. “We are going to be transfiguring animals into wooden boxes. Extra points given for decoration.” Sanaa mumbled to herself before placing the notes back on her desk and turning to the class.

“Today we will be turning mice into wooden boxes.” Sanaa used her wand and floated down a cage of mice from the ceiling and into her hands. Tucking her wand away she proceeded to each desk and placed a single mouse in each desk well. Once back at the front she placed the rest of the mice onto her desk and turned back to the class once again. “The incantation is the same as our previous attempts at permanent transfiguration. Dauerhafte Änderung. This topic is being repeated as there were minimum attempts at this last lesson and this is extremely important, it will be on your RATs.”

Sanaa picked a mouse out of the cage and held it in her hand. She tapped the mouse with her wand, said the incantation clearly, and watched as it wiggled and transformed into a wooden box with a scarab beetle inlaid on the top. “Extra points will be given for patterns on the box.”

“Finally, the last step is to check how permanent your transfiguration is, with the same incantation as last time, ‘Confuto.’ Sanaa swished her wand over the object and watched as it turned green. “This box will exist until I dismiss the transfiguration now.”

“You all have your task, begin. And please concentrate.”

0 Professor Sutekh Year 6 0 Professor Sutekh 1 5

Anne Wright

October 04, 2008 10:17 PM

Practice makes perfect. by Anne Wright

Anne's foot tapped restlessly as her classmates talked and they all waited for the Transfiguration classroom to open. She had an armload of Muggle culture books she had checked out of the library after breakfast, an armload her bookbag wouldn't take, and everything from and between her palm to her shoulder was aching from their weight. Short of having the rest of the day's classes and Quidditch practice over, she couldn't think of many things she'd like better at the moment than to put them down. Small comforts and all that.

When the door finally opened, Anne was the first through it. As she dropped her books on a table and followed the direction to sit, she felt a flicker of hope that, maybe through some miracle, they would be doing something that was not permanent transfigurations. Of course, it was as possible Professor Sutekh was trying to see if exploding chairs would improve their performances, but...Anne took out her wand before she folded her hands and crossed her ankles in an uncharacteristically demure pose, as though good behavior might make the teacher be kinder, though a compromise had to be made when a mouse was placed on her desk. Unfolding her hands, she put the dirty thing under the Full-Body Bind as soon as the professor moved on.

"The incantation is the same as our previous attempts at permanent transfiguration."

Anne uncrossed her ankles and slumped a little in her seat. No such luck.

Trying to ignore the sudden heat in her face when they were upbraided for not trying hard enough in their last lesson - she couldn't even remember the last lesson, so she supposed she'd spaced out again during it - she picked up her Muggle books and put them down on the floor. Mr. Reynolds would be after her blood if she returned them burned or nibbled, and she kind of liked it where it was. It occasionally gave her problems - it did odd things with sugar, its alleged purity made her attractive to the radical groups that were popping up like mushrooms after a rain, and its pressure constantly rose and fell more dramatically than the Roman Empire - but it had its uses....

"And please concentrate."

Concentrate. Right. Concentration was good. It was what she had to do to not be told off again, and she didn't like for her teachers to think less than the best of her. Time to do what she was ordered to do and redeem herself. Right.

She picked up her wand and pointed it at the mouse. Was it displeased at being temporarily paralyzed? She wasn't fond of the idea of being that way herself, but touching it was too much to think about and the spell was bound to be much harder if the subject was running around all over the desk and causing problems. Would its reluctance make it harder? Whose fool idea had it been to include living-to-inanimate Transfigurations on the curriculum, anyway? When she did a Transfiguration in the real world, she was pretty sure she would generally do it on nonliving things. Merlin, if some kid got too good at this, they might go out into the world and turn out nutso and start doing it to people, an illegal action if she'd ever heard of one...

The thoughts swirled around, blocking constructive action. Shaking her head to put them back into place, Anne blinked hard and tried to think only of the mouse and the patterns she wanted to appear on its pretty permanent box-self.

"D - " Anne started, then cleared her throat. She had sounded almost hoarse, which made little to no sense now. She wasn't sick. "Dauerhafte Änderung."

When she saw what the flash of light produced, she dropped her wand as her hand flew to her mouth. The one thing Anne was sure of was that she had not Transfigured a mouse into a box. The only thing she could imagine the twisty-looking wooden...thing being was a paperweight, and what about the item was attractive enough to make anyone want it for that was beyond her.

Shaking slightly for some reason, she picked her wand back up and cast the second charm. Almost all of it went green. Choking back a laugh - this was too much! - she undid what she'd done and had to repeat the Full-Body Bind on the no-longer-bewitched mouse. It probably wasn't happy with her, but she had to keep practicing. She had to get it right in this class period, or Professor Sutekh would stay angry. A mouse couldn't understand the concept of a higher purpose. Forcing her mind to shape and stay on a prettily-patterned box, Anne tried again.

16 Anne Wright Practice makes perfect. 59 Anne Wright 0 5