Transfiguration

The bell for third period, the last period before lunch rang, alerting the students to run off and go into their classes. Will, being the good noodle he was, did just that. He even did it with great excitement, marching into Professor Brown's classroom with his signature big cheesy smile plastered on his face.

"Hullo, Professor!" Will called out, taking a seat in the dead center front of the classroom, right in front where Professor Brown taught. He hoped to be a shiny beacon of light in that class of Gryffindor dopes.

"Are you excited for a new year with me?! I sure am! We're going to be learning something INTERESTING this year, right?!"

Professor Brown pulled her dark graying hair out of her face. "Hello, Will..." she sighed, turning to the board while writing things upon it. She kept her back to him. "Yes, very interesting..."

"SO!" Will pulled out some parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink and began to copy the notes down from the board. "WHY do we have to use parchment and ink anyway? Wouldn't it be more convenient to use regular paper and pencils instead? It would be cheaper and easier to fix mistakes and stuff." Will chatted away.

"I've wondered all these days too, William." Kelsi said, turning around to eye him. She then turned to the class. "Alright, take out your wands, we'll be learning about the Yudkire Theory today," she said looking at the class. "How was your summer break, everyone?" she asked, as they all opened up their books. "Mine was amazing! I came home, and was with my family and everything, and we had great times. Didn't we, Derek?"


Derek narrowed his eyes at his mother.

Then entered one of those Gryffindor dopes. Head held high, bangs combed just perfectly over her porcelain forehead, Mildred Vainglory took the table in the dead-center of the classroom. She surveyed the classroom in search of someone she considered worth sitting with, before spying one of her 'besties': a rather stubby, fellow Gryffindor with a single blonde braid and copious amounts of cover-up smeared over sistic acne. "Hey, babes!" Milly Vainglory said, her books falling with a bland thud on the half-table next to the girl. "I missed youuuu!"

"More like you being punished for the entire summer... hey," Will lowered his voice to a whisper, and nudged Derek. The two of them scooted in, as Will stared at him. "Is it true that your mom busted you for pot?" he demanded to know.

~

The girl leaned back in intimidation, but narrowed her eyes at Milly in hopes of looking stronger than she really was. "Hey, Milly... you remember what I said about friends? How true friends grow when they are separated?"

"Oh, my gosh. That is so true!" Milly exclaimed with an upwards inflection, turning to display her plastic smile at her friend. She had her father's teeth, as well as his outward-slanted, Tuscan-red eyes.

"What? That's bullshit," Derek gasped. "I'd never do pot! Who told you that shit?" he asked genuinely.

"Hey, class, settle down!" Professor Brown demanded. "Seriously... you fourth years are the worst..."

"SO, if that's true then, I think that one of us should sit alone in the back of the room, so we may be apart, but yet grow in friendship! Doesn't that sound lovely?!" That girl said, feigning excitement.

~

"...Wha? You mean that's not true? But dude, Jared told me. You know, one of the Silva brats." Will said, with one of his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"The Hell?" Derek shook his head. "I'll have a talk with him.. But no, I didn't! I mean, I know my buds from the neighborhood do it, but I wouldn't do it! Besides if I did, I wouldn't get caught.." Derek said with a wink.

"OH MY GOD SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!"

"Yes Ma'am!" Will exclaimed, with the ma'am sounding more like a 'May-UM!' "Just teach away!"

Mildred's smile relaxed, though her teeth were still bared. "Well, we haven't seen eachother all summer, so that doesn't really make much sense." She ignored the professor.

Professor Brown pressed her hand to her forehead. She pulled out her wand, and shot something straight at Mildred's desk, causing a false explosion. "Vainglory, if you keep this up, you'll have that in your face, dear."

"O-KAY!" she snapped, hand slamming palm down on the table as she assumed her usual slacker's posture. Her feet stretched forward and latched onto the lower rung of the chair in front of her while her back gained more and more of an angle as her ass slid forward in the seat. Ahh, comfort.

Will continued to copy down his notes, like a good little stooge, but before continuing, he turned around and winked at Milly. He liked that strange girl, Milly. She was so amusing and lots of guts.

"So, as I was saying, this theory consists of the fact that only solids can be permanently transfigured. Meaning that, once they're in their new state, they'll stay that way forever until you decide to change it back. Liquids though, as we all know, are much more difficult to transfigure. But if you succeed, they'll eventually return to their original state."

Will raised his hand up in the air, and yelled his question out at Professor Brown without waiting to be called on. "But Professor, what about the gases?! If this theory discusses the three states of matter, than what will happen when gases are transfigured?" He asked, in a dead serious voice.

"You can't transfigure gases, William. You should know this by now, you learned this in your First Year," she said with a deadpan expression. Then she continued the lesson. "Anyways, we'll be doing an experiment today. Don't worry, it's easy. And fun! You'll just need your wands, and you'll group into partners. I'll give each group a bowl of water and an old shoe. We'll make the shoe turn into a wooden ball, and the water into a wooden ball too. Be sure that the color is this brown," she lifted her own wooden ball . "And the same size. Hurry, we only have an hour left,"

Milly rolled her eyes, took her wand in hand and, with one attempt, transfigured the shoe as ordered. "Voilà."

Professor Brown's eager expression flashed towards Milly. "Excellent, Vainglory!" said she, clapping her hands together. "Come on, kids, you can do this,"

Caroline was sitting in the back of this horrid class, completely asleep. She certainly did NOT like Transfiguration, and she was determined to make some use of it.

Considering how it was Gryffindor/Slytherin, Leah was in this class, slumped in her seat. She looked slightly bored, but was still consuming the information.

Matilda was next to Leah, but she was actually paying attention. She had received a strongly-worded letter from her mother telling her that she had "better pay more attention in class or I'll fuck your shit up." So, naturally, Matilda was paying more attention and taking notes and what-not.

Caroline was still snoozing, despite the wonderful (boring) lesson Professor Brown was giving.

Professor Brown lifted her ruler, and nodded at everyone. "You know you're only first years, right? Well guess what. It won't last." she said sharply, giving them all a strong stare. "One day, you''ll be preparing for NEWT classes, and you'll come in here stressing about doing live transfiguration and fretting whether or not you'll kill the guinea pig." she didn't blink. "And guess what? It'll only get harder from there. So I'm telling you all. If I get over 50% of students failing my tests in this class again, I will make your lives impending doom," She pronounced the p in 'impending' rather strongly. "And then? You'll go down a path of eternal misery with me. So I want you all to get your acts together. You know, this is just one class. Who cares. Who cares about turning toothpicks into needles? Who needs that crap! You could go to a store and buy yourself a whole bag of needles! RIGHT?! Well, guess what. Failing a class is like a string of Christmas lights. You muggle-borns know what I mean. Other ones? Ask them. Well, back when Christmas lights were shitty, one light was broken, then everything was broken. Moral of the story? Keep your expectations high and pass my goddamn class or else later in the future you'll have a hell of a life!" With the meter ruler in her hand, she slammed it loudly against the desk for each word when she said "Keep your expectations high".

Leah was shocked. Never had her mother spoken like this- it was always screaming and swear words at home. Not only was this frightening, but also a bit inspiring. And loud altogether. Leah put her elbows on her desk and set her face in her palms, and looked at her mother in admirably.