Chương 5: Harry Potter : Chapter 5: Lesson Given, Lesson Learned II
I earned 2 points for my House with my insightful question, which received an affirmative answer: "But then if the symbols make sense only to me, would it be possible to use different wand-motions in order to perform the same Charm?"
And just like that, I lost 5 points because my questions disturbed the normal advancing of the class.
...
See, the part that nobody seemed to understand while reading Harry Potter, was that the coursework was prepared for eleven years old children, who, no matter how talented.
Had a mind that admittedly could easily grasp new things, was also limited by both their difficulty to grasp an abstract concept, and the general limitations that they subconsciously applied to magic.
Either because they grew up knowing about magic, and thusly were aware of the most common limits, or because they were muggle-raised, and thusly still not taking magic as the first path towards the completion of a task.
I, on the other hand, was an ex Art student that had lived in the far future, with access to fiction books that described my current circumstances. So I was pretty much convinced that everything was possible.
I had a growing number of theories about the workings of magic, which were obliquely confirmed by the words of Professor Farsee: "Remember, when we talk about fire we do not just mean literal fire.
It's much more than that. Fire is a symbol, your understanding of said symbol brings out several ways through which you can imagine its application, while the wand motions, when matched with appropriate intent, will create an actual charm."
Still, it was clear to me that eleven years old children weren't meant to actually understand the woolly explanation about the theory of charms, not fully. And despite that, they actually managed, when the time came, to make their quills tentatively quiver upwards in the air.
The levitation charm was obviously one that I had read extensively about: it was iconic, and if Ron Weasley managed to use it to defeat a Troll of all things, I sure as hell could do much more than that.
In the last lesson of our first week, we actually got to levitate quills, and it went without saying that I performed admirably. What was the difference between lifting a quill and a whole desk? Surely weight did not matter if Weasley managed to lift a troll's club.
And if there was some kind of limit, I was vastly within it, given my comparative size to the other children.
With an unenthusiastic rush of warmth that ran across my arm when I moved my wand, I levitated the desk, along with everything else that I had upon it.
Professor Farsee saw fit to give me five points for the charm and detract two for disturbing his class.
...
When we finally had Transfiguration, I felt almost jittery. My faith was immediately rewarded, because Dumbledore was not only the first teacher that actually had us use our wands, but also an all-around kickass wizard, that somehow had managed to remember that Magic was Magic, and that to face it with anything but enthusiasm was bloody foolish.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and beautiful magic you will ever encounter."
Dumbledore started out jabbing his wand at his desk, which churned on itself for a split second before becoming a proud lion, which eyed us students with a bored gaze before looking at the Deputy Headmaster with a flat gaze that seemed to be unimpressed.
With another twitch too fast for my eyes to follow, the lion surged forward, scattering midflight into a flock of swallows that churned just beyond the reach of my hand while everyone let out a flabbergasted sound at the impressive demonstration, after a few seconds, the birds returned towards Dumbledore, turning into black and blue butterflies for an instant before amassing themselves one upon the other and merging again in their original form.
Only that now the desk was anything but ordinary: in relief around the base of the wood, a rampant lion spewed a river of swallows from its roaring mouth, which turned midflight into the butterflies we had just watched change shape.
Now, that is magic. I didn't even pretend to contain the smile on my face, and I stared unerringly at Dumbledore, captivated just like any other 11 years old child.
"While Charms is dedicated to the change, enhancement, or even creation or negation of properties of both animate and animate things around us, Transfiguration is a branch of magic that changes the very shape of what or whom it is used upon." Dumbledore smiled genially at us while his twinkling blue eyes studied our reactions.
"But just as this branch of magic is complex and beautiful, it is also dangerous. It does not wear off, and the reversal of a Transfiguration is an advanced skill that very few can hope to master.
As such, I expect that each of you will apply himself fully in this class, and that you will not allow your attention to waver before attempting a transfiguration, no matter how inane it may appear in you eyes." then he smiled, cutting off his serious tone with his genial attitude.
"But then again, I already knew that each of you was going to try his hardest here, hm?"
With another twirl of his wand, on the blackboard appeared a triangle, with each side as long as the others, followed by one inscribed in a dashed semi-circle, and another that had two sides that stretched from one side of the blackboard to another.
"Now, we can all agree that these are all triangles, yes?"
At the general assent of the class, he went ahead: "But I bet that each of you can imagine several different forms that nevertheless fall behind the rather large umbrella of 'triangle'. So, now this I ask of you, which triangle is better?"
And at that moment I discovered that Dumbledore was an asshole because despite the obvious question of 'what do you mean for better triangle' gently forwarded by a Gryffindor, the Professor let the class despair for ten whole minutes before erasing completely the blackboard.
"Very well, we now agree that there is not a triangle better than others without a context that would give us a parameter on the basis of which we could make our choice. Now, I want each of you to trace a circle with your quill and ink on a spare piece of parchement."
"Notice how all these circles have imperfections, and yet we can still recognise them as circles?" Professor Dumbledore showcased his own slightly wobbly version of a circle realized on the blackboard.
"This is because a perfect circle, or a perfect triangle, don't actually exist. Or better yet, they don't exist in our world, and the circles or triangles we draw are more or less correct imitations of their Ideal-Form.
We perceive that these imperfect circles share features with the perfect circle, even though none of us has ever seen it.
We know that as long as a figure has only three sides and three vertexes is a triangle, but there are countless form that are defined by such a definition. It is these Ideal Forms which the magic of Transfiguration calls upon."
This sounds like the beginning of Greek Philosophy. I grimaced briefly as I distractedly jotted down notes about Dumbledore's speech. In that class, we learnt of the two substances, physical and aetherial, and we remarked that we could only change the shape.
"Doesn't this mean that to reverse a transfiguration a wizard needs to perceive the ideal form of what the object was before?" I asked in a lull of the lesson.
Dumbledore's eyes found me with another of his genial smiles: "Not at all! If that was the case, you'd be simply transfiguring the object into something that resembled its previous shape. But that was a good attempt."
After more or less an hour of theoretical discussion that made much more sense than the Transfiguration issued book, Dumbledore had us put the quills down, apparently only having scratched the surface of Transfiguration theory, but he claimed that we were nonetheless ready to try our first spell.
Very much like McGonagall would ask in the canonical Harry Potter books, our task was to transfigure a matchstick into a steel needle, something that I knew was more complex than what it looked like, or at least in theory: changing an object's substance was much harder than simply altering its shape.
For a moment I just watched over my peers, which were busy with different iterations of the same spell, from shouting the incantation and overexaggerating their movements, to re-read the first half of the book before attempting, to try and bully the matchstick into compliance with half-hearted threats, and so on.
Everyone had their own approach to spellcasting.
In the end, I simply kept in mind the explanation we had been issued and an instant before attempting, I frowned: "How different can it be?"
Slowly dragging my wand over her matchstick, I spoke: "Lignoverto!"
The matchstick shimmered and flowed, going pointy at the end and turning into a dull, metallic grey, making me frown when I spotted the grain of the wood in the metallic construct.
Why didn't it work? The incantation is no Latin, because if it was so, I should have had to use accusative coupled with the verbal command: Lignum Verto, so why...?
"A commendable attempt, Mr. Hagrid," Dumbledore said, his eyes fixed on my work from all the way across the room.
"Five points to Slytherin. Be sure to picture the needle correctly before attempting the spell. You'll learn that once-living materials such as wood don't like to be turned into dead metal. It will resist the change, so you must overcome it with a strong will and a clear image."
Like hell the will of a dead piece of wood is going to stop me. I frowned, and recast, making sure to keep the eye of the needle in mind once I reached the end of the metallic matchstick. The result was flawless
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