Chapitre 39: Harry Potter : Chapter 39: Turning Point IV
"But even someone as reckless as our scatter-brained friend doesn't base all his efforts on the results of a single experiment, however successful.
So the real question that came to me was: does he only know about the ritualism for your Animagus Potion, or did he figure out something else, and if so, how?"
...
The Griffindor witch dropped the page back on Rubeus' table, going over the eager words of the Slytherin next to her: in any case, and she'd be grilling Hagrid about it soon enough, she had just realized something.
"He studies Magic." Minerva's voice caught in her throat as she realized the sheer scope of Rubeus' studies, and she felt... humbled.
"I thought we all were." the sardonic reply of the Slytherin Prefect was answered with a sudden glare.
"No, Tom." she shook her head, realizing how short-sighted she had been by using Rubeus' talents only to improve her already more than adequate potion-related skills.
"I study Transfiguration, Charms and so on, you do the same, along with other extremely advanced spells, if your demonstration of before was anything to go by."
"And frankly," she added as she turned towards the exit of the Rùnda, "I don't see what kind of Bragging Rights you can claim with that Black King bet you have going on when he tries to figure out things of this magnitude."
She ignored the reply of the Slytherin wizard while she strode towards the oaken double doors that led to the hidden corridor, an unfamiliar heat burning in her stomach: she liked Transfiguration, loved it even, and she had accepted Rubeus' quirky nature as something that somewhat balanced his unreasonable grasp of the theoretical aspects of magic.
She had had to, otherwise, she could never tolerate his company, never mind actually taking seriously the ideas of a wizard that had barely begun his third year of magical education.
As she walked briskly out of the room, she acutely felt what she hadn't truly been able to recognize before: for all of her undisputed ability in Transfiguration, and her fantastic grades in every subject, despite the difficulty inherent of the NEWT level courses, she was lagging behind Rubeus Hagrid.
Not to mention Tom Riddle, who actually seemed capable of following the general nonsense of the unreasonably tall third-year Slytherin just enough to uncover the hidden gems in the middle of his ramblings.
Without realizing what she was doing, her wand found itself in her hand, and her mind went back to the very first lesson of Professor Dumbledore, to the moment in which she understood just how spectacular Transfiguration was, how it was the True Heart of Magic, as she had perceived it then.
She couldn't use potions as Rubeus did to try and understand everything, she just lacked the talent in that field, but why would she give up?
She remembered with perfect clarity Dumbledore's example, she remembered the sheer feel of awe, and she felt on her skin the same determination that had brought her to wow to herself to be the very best she could be.
Raising the length of fir wood with a dragon heartstring over her head, Minerva exhaled, capturing the double oaken doors that led into the Rùnda proper under the unmerciful lenses of her unbreakable focus, and with a silent twist, of her arm, they changed.
In a split second, the wood was remembered of the lymph that once run through it, and the doors turned into a thick golden colored liquid, before that too disappeared, becoming crystalline water.
Gravity immediately took charge of the situation, and what had once been a pair of 4 meters tall wooden doors collapsed on the stone floor, sloshing loudly both in the corridor and against the Griffindor witch.
Her irritation and self-recrimination were cast aside, her mind falling in a familiar state of supreme focus while she shaped the changes she envisioned, Ideal Shapes and Concepts dominating her mind while she smoothly made reality bow into compliance.
Just as the rushing water was about to reach her, Minerva rose her wand once more, the water rising in an elegant curve without touching her, and the small surf shattered as it was glass.
The way in which it captured and refracted the light was used to bridge the distance between the liquid and the solid: still rolling upwards, the crystalline nature of the water was used to turn it into a countless amount of diamond-like shards.
Which were flattened and paired one to another in butterfly-like shapes while Minerva rode the wave of her own frustration in order to create, in order to prove herself.
The awe for her favored subject was reflected in each glittering shard of glass, her determination exemplified by their sharpness.
Without stopping, she recalled the sudden bouts of inhuman playfulness she occasionally felt in her cat form, and between one crystalline ringing and the next, the glass butterflies became alive, their color still translucent even as they started to capture the rainbow their broken edges caused when the sunlight hit them, and from a second to the next, they became as mesmerizing as an actual rainbow after a thunderstorm.
And for a single instant, the witch let go of the steely control she had over her current set of emotions, which no longer influenced the transfiguration she was carrying forth in a minute and controlled manner.
As the multicolored swarm reached the ceiling, Minerva's free hand came up while she gestured as if to push, and her memory, influenced as it was by her sudden relaxing of the emotions that should never influence something as delicate, precise, and complex as Transfiguration, went to the lightning storm that acted as a catalyst to complete her first Animagus transformation.
In yet another transition too fast to follow, the flashes of glittering light captured and refracted by the multi-colored butterflies were linked inescapably to the bolts of electricity she remembered, and so the subject of her focus changed once more, becoming something that more closely resonated with her recent emotional state.
Focused, chaotic power rippled less than a step in front of the witch, and the dull rumble of thunder strained against the silencing wards that Riddle had put in place all over the abandoned corridor that the unlikely trio had suborned from Hogwarts itself.
The tables rattled, piles of parchment fell aside, and Riddle found himself pointing his wand at the sequence of Transfigurations that was taking place, suddenly not so sure that her fellow Prefect was in control of the situation.
With her bout of rage leaving her along the imposing, invisible but heavy presence of thunders was flattened once more in something hard and uncompromising: in something exemplifying Strength.
Immediately, Minerva clamped down on her reaction, her steely will, and unmatched focus brought to heel once more the sequence of Transfigurations that had almost escaped her control.
With the last spark of inspiration, the Griffindor witch brought forth once more the doors that existed in the threshold before, her nature as selective borders between the corridor and the room being empowered by the thunder-born stone in front of her, and with a final tilt downwards of her arms, she swished upwards, the magic 'clicking' into place, and her brief bout of not-quite madness coming to an end.
Where before stood a pair of 4 meters tall oaken doors, now stood something that was more art than anything else, and that yet it still accomplished the purpose of a threshold.
Going backward from the floor to the top of the archway, an unbreakable and unyielding steely grey stone blurred into a flat expanse of the same deep black that characterized clouds filled with the promise of never-ending rain.
The stretch of clouds was run through by quiet bolts of lightning that appeared to race upwards, too fast for the eye to follow, until the electrical currents became see-through, rainbow-colored butterflies.
Which shed their colors and turned into threatening shards of glass and then into the white foam of a surf, the progression from one state to the next soo smooth that the eye couldn't point out a clear distinction.
Paradoxically, from the surf water seemed to flow upwards, golden like veins of lymph running through it until they met the archway, where they solidified into amber so thick and crystalline it looked like amber.
Minerva exhaled with her diaphragm while she lowered her arms, her eyes studying the handiwork she wasn't sure she'd be able to replicate, until she heard something that almost reminded her of a choking sound.
When she turned she was surprised to see Riddle's open surprise written on his features, his usual control none to be seen while his eyes left the result of her magic in order to focus on her, and maybe for the first time in his life, words deserted him.
Quietly, and looking at the witch like he was seeing her for the first time, Tom's right hand went across his torso, his left was still holding the wand he was ready to use to defend himself by the insane transfiguration he had just witnessed, and fished out a familiar Black King from one of his pockets.
Still with no words, he handed it over a slightly heated Minerva, who nevertheless accepted it with a beaming smile.
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État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone