Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration on Transfiguration

Professor Danielle Holland

June 30, 2009 5:35 PM

Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration by Professor Danielle Holland

Danielle Holland was terrified. Absolutely, positively, knee-knockingly terrified. They never mentioned this during college. She'd graduated with honors, as befits a Compia and Terrigena, and she'd been so proud when her application for a teaching position had produced results at the sixth school she'd sent it to. But it wasn't until right now, standing in front of an empty classroom filled with empty seats, twenty minutes before her first class was supposed to begin that the butterflies hit with a vengeance.

She wasn't sure if helped or made it worse, knowing that Headmistress - no, Professor, Professor now - Professor Skies was in the room next door, teaching the RATS level class. Danielle was only responsible for the younger years, and only temporarily. She wasn't surprised the school was looking for someone with a little more experience, someone who'd been out of school for a little more than four months, but until such a person could be found, she had a job here at Sonora.

She wrote her name on the board, Danielle Holland, looked at it, then added Professor in front of it. Then she stepped back and looked at it again. How very very strange.

A noise at the door caught her attention and she saw the first of the early arrivals entering the room. She gave the child a reassuring smile, feeling her own butterflies settle at the sight of one of the actual students. They were just children; eleven- and twelve-year-olds in this class. Nothing to be frightened by. She had over ten years on all of them, and though only five one, she should still have height on these guys.

And it wasn't as though she'd never taught before. She'd been all but in charge of the younger classes for Professor Dobb's Theory of Magic at Salem, and she'd been the instructor for Kris's 'independent study' Math course. Plus, Kris had needed tutoring in every subject Salem offered so even today's lesson wasn't new material for her. And those were all before she had a college teaching degree to back her up. After teaching the king of ADHD, a classroom full of first and second years was going to be easy.

Beneath her name, she added, Beginning Transfiguration so the arriving students would know they were in the right place.

Once the chairs were full, she looked out on the sea of young face and smiled. "Hello, everyone. You should all be first and second years, here for Beginning Transfiguration. I am Professor Holland." She paused a moment, to get over that introduction. She was entitled to it, but that did not mean she was used to the sound of it. If she'd had any doubts before, she was now officially grown up. "I will be teaching this class until the school finds a permanent Transfiguration teacher."

"Transfiguration is one of the most difficult disciplines of magic that there is. In this class, you will literally be turning one thing into something else. Obviously, at your level this will not be permanent, but by the end of this class period, most of you will have changed enough of a toothpick's physical characteristics enough that anybody looking at it would have to call it a needle."

She'd been taught using a match instead of a toothpick, but after trying that with Kris, she'd decided the potential for fire was best avoided all together, especially with such a significantly larger class size.

She picked up the box of toothpicks on her desk and started walking up and down the aisles of desks, giving each student three toothpicks. She continued to talk as she did this. "When you get your toothpick, you'll notice that it is made of wood, that it's flat with a rounded top end and pointed bottom end, and that it's about three inches long."

"A needle is made of metal, it's round with a hole for the thread on the top end and a pointed bottom end, and it can be about three inches long. When transfiguring one thing into another, it's important to keep a clear mental picture of both what you have and what you want to have, and what has to change to get from one to the other. That is perhaps even more important than the spell word and wand movements, though, as in Charms, those are what trigger the transfiguration to occur. I'll go over those momentarily."

"This particular lesson is often used for beginner classes because needles and toothpicks do have such similar shapes. It is one less thing you need to change. I realize some of you are second years, and this is probably a great deal of review for you, so if you'd like a greater challenge, you can transfigure your toothpicks into smaller needles, about an inch long."

Reaching the last student and giving him his three toothpicks, she returned to the front of the room and placed the almost empty box back on her desk. "I gave each of you three toothpicks. I only expect one needle at the end of the class, but in case you break one, lose one, or get stuck with a partial transfiguration, you have a couple spares. I have a few more if you need them, but hopefully three should be enough."

Her brown eyes narrowed, "I don't want to see anyone throwing them around. Transfiguration can be a very dangerous class, so I will not tolerate anyone messing around." Kris, her own dear and favorite cousin, had called her a Nazi while she was tutoring him, so she felt little qualms about enforcing an equal strictness on this larger class.

She gave them another few moments of her warning glare, before she drew her wand and held up one of the toothpicks. "The wand motion you'll be using looks like this." She moved her wand point downwards at a diagonal and finished with a flick of her wrist that brought the wand tip back to its original position. "The spell you'll use is Myxanti Nere."

The syllables were foreign and she could see that on some of the faces of the students. She spelled it out on the board then repeated it more slowly, drawing a line under each separate syllable as she said them. "Mix Ann Tea Nair. Emphasis on second syllable, please." She darkened the underline under the 'an' then repeated it all together again, "Myxanti Nere."

"Then you'd put them together." She dropped her wandtip diagonally toward the toothpick, cast, "Myxanti Nere," and flicked the tip back up. The needle held between her fingers gleamed in the sunlight slanting in through the open windows of the classroom.

"Now each of you can try. Feel free to - quietly - discuss your work with your neighbor if you're having trouble. I'm also right here if you have any questions. Raise your hand when you're finished so I can mark you off as a pass. If you don't have a needle by the end of the period, I'll see how far you did get and grade you accordingly. It doesn't have to be perfect - in fact, I'd be surprised if it was - but I'd like to see some change from the wooden toothpick."

OOC: You should all have the idea of how this works now. Standard posting rules apply. Keep all posts to a ten sentence minimum. Be detailed, be creative, have fun. Also, don't feel obligated to successfully complete the assignment; transfigurations are hard. Happy posting!

Subthreads:

Sudden urge to find a haystack... by Andrew Duell with Insomnia Zannicci

Here we go... by Marissa Stephenson with Jethro Smythe

On pins and needles by Edmond Carey

Re: Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration by Bridjalyn Tuppin

You said you were here if we had questions... by Quentin Melcher with Danielle Holland

1 Professor Danielle Holland Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration 0 Professor Danielle Holland 1 5

Andrew Duell

July 03, 2009 5:18 AM

Sudden urge to find a haystack... by Andrew Duell

Andrew got to the class with the rest of his classmates and found a seat. As he had gotten accustomed to by now, he pulled out his notebook and scribbled down Professor Holland's name along with Beginning Transfiguration. He smiled to himself, this was one of the classes he had really been looking forward to. History, DADA, CoMA, and Potions were good and all; but he felt that Transfiguration and Charms were where the 'real' magic was taught. This was where they would learn to change the basic fabric of reality, hopefully for the better.

As in his other classes Andrew started writing down notes as Professor Holland talked. They were going to turn toothpicks into needles? Neat. He copied down the spell words and the wand motions that the professor displayed. He did get a little nervous when the professor mentioned that this was quite difficult, could he do it? He hoped so, but there was just one way to find out.

Andrew lined up his three toothpicks in front of him and concentrated on the first one. He picked it up, turned it all over until he had a good mental image of the whole thing. Placing it back on his desk, he imagined a needle of similar size and shape. Noting the differences between the toothpick and needle he picked up his wand, closed his eyes, and cast the spell.

He opened his eyes and was rather disappointed, the three needles still sat in front of him, unchanged. Wait... those had been toothpicks, had he changed them all? He looked around at what the others were doing, and asked his neighbor quietly while pointing at his needles, "Is that supposed to happen"

2 Andrew Duell Sudden urge to find a haystack... 145 Andrew Duell 0 5

Insomnia Zannicci

July 21, 2009 8:42 AM

Desperate need to find the toothpicks by Insomnia Zannicci

Insomnia sat at her desk gazing intently at the toothpicks. She did not like them. At all. She had always hated dentists, and these sharp little pointy bits of wood just reminded her of splinters and dentists and pain. Clenching her teeth, she picked one up... then promptly put it down again, not wanting to risk her hand when doing this spell. Instead, she separated one toothpick from the rest and, squinting at it, attempted the spell she had written in her notebook. She followed this by the wand action Professor Holland had demonstrated.

She felt her wand vibrating in her palm as she waved it and looked at the toothpick to see if she had managed anything near a needle. Sitting happily where the toothpick had once been was a tooth. A perfect, pearly-white tooth. Insomnia started, startled, and knocked both tooth and toothpicks flying. She quickly knelt down, desperately scrambling on the floor to recover her equipment, just as someone above her said "Is that supposed to happen?" Totally embarrassed now she jumped, knocking her head on the table and gave in, slumping on the floor. She looked up at the boy with his three shiny needles and at her hands, cupping a tooth and two toothpicks. "Rather that than this," ...

0 Insomnia Zannicci Desperate need to find the toothpicks 0 Insomnia Zannicci 0 5

Marissa Stephenson

July 23, 2009 10:49 PM

Here we go... by Marissa Stephenson

During her first class at Sonora, Marissa had learned about the difficulties Sonora had with getting and keeping people to teach Transfiguration. The foreword of her textbook also warned that Transfiguration was the most difficult and most dangerous branch of magic, at least in the opinion of quite a few well-educated people. She had passed the stacks given over to it in the library as well, and most of the books in there were thicker than her hand was long and had titles so long she lost track of them.

With all of these facts before her, Marissa was absolutely terrified of Transfiguration. Reading, her favorite way of dispelling the myths about things, had not helped; all she got from books on this topic was a litany of ways that she could fail. As she entered the classroom, her eyes far too wide and her face paler than usual, she felt as if she was about to meet her executioner.

What made it worse was not knowing if, in a way, she was.

In the face of all this doom imagery, the witch in front of the room came as a total shock. She wasn't that much taller than Marissa herself, and looked very...young, at least for a teacher. She managed to find a tiny smile as, books still held tight against her chest, she took a seat. Not quite as crowd-winning as usual - there was an art to getting teacher approval, and desperate anxiety had no part in it - but better than throwing up on the floor, which had occurred to her as a possibility if the new teacher looked mean.

Professor Holland. Like the country. That was easy. It was a bit of a letdown to learn Professor Holland was only the temporary teacher, but since thinking about having to meet another teacher for the Death Class on top of having the difficulty of the subject confirmed was enough to make her feel sick all over again, Marissa decided just not to think about it. Instead, she would think about...turning a toothpick into a needle, apparently. Odd topic, but better than the alternative.

Her hands were still a knot under her desk by the time her three toothpicks were placed on its surface. Her mind felt blank and fuzzy as she stared at them. There was no way on earth she could do this. No way. It was going to go wrong. It wasn't going to go anywhere at all. After the way she'd performed in Charms the day before, she was surprised that Headmistress Powell hadn't realized letting Marissa in was a mistake yet, and this lesson was just going to prove it, and...

...And she had to do this. Right now. She could fall down crying or having a panic attack later, on her own time. A constant of all teachers was that they didn't really care what she did on her own time, so long as she did what was expected of her in their presence. Marissa shook her head slightly, trying to clear it.

The visualization trick was key to it. That was good. She'd always been able to see pictures in her head before she put them to paper in her art classes, and that was the way that she was going to think of this.

The thought actually calmed her down a little. It made the subject less intimidating. It almost made it sound...good, though that wasn't quite the word she was looking for. The first thing she had thought of when she'd heard that magic was real was making what she could imagine real, and that, it seemed, was what Transfiguration offered.

If she could just make the magic part work, she thought she might like this class.

Ignoring how stupid it might look, she practiced saying the two bizarre words that were supposed to make the tiny piece of wood turn into a tiny piece of metal. She wanted them to come out exactly right, down to the precise intonations of Professor Holland and the right placement of stress on each syllable. Then she practiced the wand movement with a still-unsharpened pencil, wanting that perfect, too. Once it felt like she had those down, she got to picturing a needle.

Her parents had always been very enthusiastic about getting her and Paige involved in things. They'd both been in dance lessons since they were three, finished an etiquette class, taken music lessons and language classes, and learned basic tennis, though Paige had quickly gone to golf as her sport. Neither of them had stuck with everything their parents had thrown them into - it wouldn't have been possible, timeline-wise - but they'd at least reached basic proficiency in the activity before quitting. Sewing was what Marissa had been, at the advice of a friend of her mother's, working on right before her Sonora letter, and she hadn't decided whether or not to keep it up, but it provided her with a clear picture of a needle to work with.

She held on to that image, doing her best to clear away the attendant pink fabric her mind paired it with. "Myxanti Nere."

Nothing happened.

Her teeth clenched together almost painfully. She'd wanted this to work. "Myxanti Nere," she repeated, putting more force behind both the words and the wand movement. It had no visible result except splitting the toothpick right in half. The sight - the total ridiculousness of it - took a lot of the fight out of her. Maybe she had been right to fear Transfigurations.

16 Marissa Stephenson Here we go... 147 Marissa Stephenson 0 5

Edmond Carey

July 23, 2009 10:54 PM

On pins and needles by Edmond Carey

Under the current schedule, Advanced and Beginning Transfig were held in adjacent classrooms. Edmond's sister had, just before sweeping into hers, given him one of her unreadable, long looks and said, "Good luck," before entering her class without a second look at him.

The "you'll need it" was left implied.

He had looked over the introductory chapter of the textbook before coming, but couldn't see how to translate the theory he'd read into a practical lesson. It was just as well that he didn't think he'd be suited to teaching even if he'd had a choice about what to do with his life; there was a divide of epic proportions between loving knowledge and having the knack and inclination for transmitting it to others several hours of every day and then grading their botched-up course work in the evenings.

Actually, he had trouble seeing why anyone would want to do that. He'd asked a few tutors over the years, but had never gotten a satisfactory answer. As he sat down and settled in for class, Edmond wondered what had made it seem worthwhile to Professor Danielle Holland.

She didn't offer an explanation in her lecture, but seemed content enough with what she was doing. She smiled at them all before she started speaking. Very few of the very many tutors he'd had over the years had ever done that. It was, though, disappointing to discover that he was dealing with yet another substitute. Two subjects at once seemed a bit, well, excessive, and did make him worry a little about his education. His main comfort was that there was no way they would have let him come if the place's scores had not been good. They'd been reluctant enough to let him leave in the first place.

The explanation was clear and concise, though it didn't do much for directly addressing the concepts involved. Edmond supposed that wasn't considered important for the present; Jane had never liked theory, and his pre-Sonora lessons in defense had been split into a theoretical session (which a majority of the family officially knew about) and then the practical one (which most of the family didn't know about). When he received his three toothpicks, he took the time to line them up neatly on the desk in front of him.

There was a bit more talk, this time about the spell words, and then they were off. It was time to see how much luck or skill he had. Following a tip from Morgaine, Edmond put his wand through the correct movement twice before he tried the actual spell. "Myxanti Nere."

A few sparks were produced, and were followed by a sizzling sound and something like the smell of a burned candle wick. He had forgotten to stress the second syllable and had said something clear to 'near' than 'nair'. Edmond mentally took himself to task for this as he moved the useless toothpick, getting it out of his immediate line of vision, and put the second one in front of him. He was lucky he was still new - if his powers had been more developed and he'd done that, a rhinocerous might have been charging the room right now, or the next chair over might have purple hair. He did not want to be one of those people who had to be involved in a major crisis before he got a clue. "Myxanti Nere," he said again, this time getting it right.

A few tries later, he was stuck with a toothpick of silvery wood. On his third and final toothpick, he was able to make a needle and raise his hand for credit. Transfiguration was harder than most of his classes, but he thought he'd be all right.

0 Edmond Carey On pins and needles 143 Edmond Carey 0 5

Jethro Smythe

July 24, 2009 11:37 AM

I've met you before by Jethro Smythe

There was a queue outside the door of people that Jethro recognised. That was a good sign he was in the right place. He followed the other boys and girls into the classroom, sat at a desk, and even remembered to get his wand, quill, ink and parchment out of his bag. It was proof that one could learn by conditioning; Jethro was getting used to being a student. Of course he hadn't really handled the part where you had to sit and listen to the teacher at the start of each class. He diligently copied her name and the subject off the board onto his parchment, and that was the end of that.

Some time later, the professor put some toothpicks on Jethro's desk. He hadn't eaten recently, and didn't really need a toothpick. Plus there were three of them, so Jethro thought maybe they were for some other purpose. He looked at his neighbors' desks, and they were just leaving the toothpicks alone. For now, Jethro did, too.

A short while later again, the professor made them all say some funny words outloud. Jethro assumed it must be a spell, probably to do with transfiguration, because that was still written up on the board. He even managed to stay on track long enough to pick up his wand and copy the flicky movement they were being shown. Some pale blue feathers came out of the end of his wand on one practise swish, but Jethro ignored them. Mostly. He did pick one up and rub it between his fingers to feel the soft fibres, but he let the rest of them alone to fall to the ground.

When he lost interest in the feather, Jethro turned to talk to the person sitting next to him. "I've met you before," he said. "Marissa," he remembered the name. It didn't occur to him he might not be correct. "Like a snake," he voiced his memory cue out loud, too.

0 Jethro Smythe I've met you before 146 Jethro Smythe 0 5

Marissa

July 24, 2009 1:30 PM

...Though you don't know where or when? by Marissa

She still had two more toothpicks. Two more chances to get it right. She could work with that. Breaking her first one proved she could do magic, and it couldn't be that much of a leap from doing magic she didn't want to and doing magic she did.

Marissa was swapping the broken toothpick for one of those that remained intact when Jethro, who she'd been too wound up to notice sitting beside her, spoke. She looked at him, confused, for a moment, trying to figure out what on Earth snakes had to do with anything. That was the House mascot, but there was no reason to associate it with her more than anyone else. She also didn't think she was a very venomous person, so...

"Yes," she said uncertainly. "We met the first night here." He was also in all of her classes and shared a common room, but she thought he was referring to when they met, not when they'd just seen each other around.

Belatedly, it occurred to her that he might be making some odd joke. Half her family swore she had no sense of humor, and while she preferred to think of it in different terms, they had a point in noting that she didn't often catch on. People too often failed to make sense in their attempts at wit. Marissa decided to just change the topic. "Not having any luck with yours, either?" she asked, nodding to his three toothpicks. They all seemed unchanged. "I broke my first one."

16 Marissa ...Though you don't know where or when? 147 Marissa 0 5

Bridjalyn Tuppin

July 27, 2009 9:16 AM

Re: Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration by Bridjalyn Tuppin

As usual Bridjalyn bounced happily into the classroom excited by the chance to get started learning a new skill, particularly transfiguration. The idea of turning something into something else really intrigued her. She hoped that they would learn some of the theory of it and that that aspect wouldn't be too boring.
She was also wondering how quickly they would progress and if she would have some clever little tricks to try on her brother when she went home for the holidays. There were ways to get round the no underage magic restrictions and hopefully she would learn enough to be able to get back at her brother if he tried anything.

Grabbing a seat she pulled her notebook from her bag, and looked round tossing a grin at some of the faces she recognised and everyone else in between for good measure. As she copied from the board she contemplated the teacher. Professor Holland. The teacher looked really young, but despite her reassuring smile Bridjalyn could sense strong determination.

After the lesson of the day had been explained Bridjalyn studied her toothpicks.
Shutting her eyes she quickly said the spell and flicked her wand in the way they had been shown. It sounded right inside her head but there was no warmth from her wand and when she opened her eyes the toothpicks were still there, unchanged. Oh Dear!

0 Bridjalyn Tuppin Re: Years 1 & 2: Beginning Transfiguration 0 Bridjalyn Tuppin 0 5

Quentin Melcher

July 27, 2009 7:11 PM

You said you were here if we had questions... by Quentin Melcher

Quentin typically enjoyed transfiguration. Really, he enjoyed all his classes and he didn't really expect today to be any different. They were getting a new teacher. Not a permanent teacher, but a substitute like Professor Fawcett. As Professor Fawcett was pretty much Quentin's favorite teacher, he was not displeased about this in the least. Substitutes were people he really greatly admired for their ability to teach many different subjects. In fact, some of them were better than some of those considered to be real professors.

Of course, there was still the possibility that this new teacher wouldn't be as good at as many things as Professor Fawcett was but hopefully she'd at least be qualified for Transfiguration. And for teaching. There were people who might be good at a particular subject but couldn't teach at all. Quentin's grandfather had fired multiple teachers for that. Teaching was not just knowing, it involved being able to give others that knowledge. Plus, it would help if a teacher was, well, pleasant to the students. It didn't make them not a professor if they gave the students that knowledge and were mean but it tended to be a plus if they weren't.

As he listened to Miss Holland's lesson, Quentin quickly decided that she was indeed a professor, due to the fact that she was teaching them to turn toothpicks to needles. Not the most useful thing ever, but it was a simple starting point for beginning transfiguration. Of course, Quentin had had Transfiguration last year, so he wasn't exactly a beginner but still, it was teaching them to change something into something else.

"I'm also right here if you have any questions."

Oh did Quentin ever have questions! He always had questions and she was there to answer them. The second remembered the incident with Mr. Flatt last year, on his first night at Sonora, when Mr. Flatt had asked them if they had any questions and failed to specify that they had to pertain to what he had discussed. It was silly,really, to have them ask questions about what he had discussed when he'd already discussed it. Professor Holland had also failed to specify that and she seemed a good deal more pleasant than Mr. Flatt so perhaps she had meant that Quentin could ask her anything even if it had nothing whatsoever to do with Transfiguration. She'd even said he could ask multiple questions!

Quentin walked up to the teacher's desk. "Professor Holland, if a vampire bit someone who was drunk would the vampire become drunk as well?"

11 Quentin Melcher You said you were here if we had questions... 129 Quentin Melcher 0 5

Andrew

July 27, 2009 8:26 PM

They're around here somewhere by Andrew

The table bounced as the girl next to him bumped her head into it. He hadn't actually even noticed she was under the table. He turned a little red and held out his hand for her, "I'm sorry, let me help." She was in his house... her name was.. something a little different. It started with an I... Insomnia! That was it!

Andrew saw the contents of her hands, two toothpicks and a tooth? Did she change one of her toothpicks into an actual tooth? "Wow... did you do that? You actually made a tooth? That's awesome!" His mind spun at the differences between a toothpick and a tooth. She would have had to change it's shape, material, and mass. "Can you show me how you did that?"

2 Andrew They're around here somewhere 145 Andrew 0 5

Insomnia Zannicci

July 29, 2009 9:10 AM

Err, I would if I could. by Insomnia Zannicci

Insomnia grasped her neighbour's hand and let him help her up, trying to place a name to the face. Ah yes, Andrew. She'd seen him around in other classes. "Thanks," she murmured, placing the tooth and toothpicks back on the table and rubbing her head. It ached a little, where she'd bumped it. She hadn't realised just how solid the tables were.

She grinned at Andrew's question, a little bemusedly. "Ehm... I would, but it was sort of an accident. The toothpicks just made me think of dentists and teeth and, well it just happened." She shrugged good-humouredly. "At least we got given 3 toothpicks, I can keep trying to get it right. Or," She pointed at Andrew's 3 perfect needles, "I could just nick one of yours," 'Nia patted Andrew on the back, teasingly, "Well done you. It really should be me asking you how you did it!"

0 Insomnia Zannicci Err, I would if I could. 0 Insomnia Zannicci 0 5

Danielle Holland

August 02, 2009 4:09 PM

Not quite the question I had in mind by Danielle Holland

Danielle looked up as one of the students made his way to the front of the classroom. Her seating chart, charmed in a way that her old Concepts professor had shown her while she'd been his teaching assistant, identified him as Quentin Melcher, an Aladren, and a second year.

Being from the Sonora sibling of her own Terrigena House, she anticipated a complex question about the mechanics of changing material from wood to metal or a request for something a little more complex to do since the assignment was so basic.

She was not expecting to be asked a question that more appropriately belonged in a DADA class, and even then was unlikely to come up.

"Would a vampire get drunk from drinking a drunk person's blood?" she repeated the question, to make sure she'd heard it right. When it was clear she had, she gave the hypothetical situation perhaps more consideration than perhaps she should have. Certainly, it never occured to her to not answer to the best of her knowledge. She would never discourage any student from learning by dismissing a question, even one entirely out of the blue.

Eventually, she answered, "I think it would depend largely on how large the vampire is, how much he or she drank, and how drunk the blood source was. In most cases, however, since vampires do have a stronger constitution than humans, I'd have to say it's unlikely they'd get significantly drunk. They might get a little buzzed though. I've never heard of any clinical trials, or anectotal evidence of it happening, though, so I can't guarantee I'm correct. That's just my best deduction given what I know of vampire physiology."

1 Danielle Holland Not quite the question I had in mind 0 Danielle Holland 0 5

Andrew

August 03, 2009 9:55 PM

You can do it! Believe in yourself! by Andrew

Andrew smiled at Insomnia. It wasn't everyday he got complimented like that. Granted her comment did make him think, how had he done it? He looked back at his three needles, they shouldn't have all changed... right? He walked himself through what he had done. He examined the one toothpick till he had a good mental image of it, then crafted a similar picture of a needle. The needles laying in front of him as it was. He figured the differences between the two and what changes would have to take place as he waved the wand and spoke the words.

"Well," Andrew started trying to explain, "I'm not entirely certain, but I think it has a lot to do with mental images while you're casting the spell. That's probably why you got your tooth." He thought again for a moment. "I think the key to these transfigurations is all about shaping what you want to do with your head. That's probably why it's one of the more difficult areas. Give it another shot." He said with a smile.

2 Andrew You can do it! Believe in yourself! 145 Andrew 0 5