Transfiguration Lesson Two (All Years)

The young witch's attention had been piqued the moment she understood they would be turning tings into pretty animals. She was even more excited when she found the word game Professor Hughes proposed on the boar. The girl had no worries about reading because nearly the whole class whispered the written words out loud, trying to figure out what they meant. Mimosa had no such problems of course as her hand shot up in the air instinctively.

"Draco means dragon," she pointed out happily. Her Latin may not have been great but Mimosa knew the Malfoys well, they were always present at the Christmas Ball and other events at the Palace. One of their English cousins was named after a Dragon, she'd been told. "So using the spell "Dracoifors" would turn things into a dragon, a make belief creature from fairy tales." The witch was rather proud of her answer to that one.

Except "Dracoifors" didn't make sense, not linguistically. So the witch tried the word a few times in her head, wondering how it would sound in French. "Actually maybe change it to Dracocifors, it sounds prettier."

She couldn't help but feel proud of herself as her answer was awarded the most points. She knew that Mimosa wouldn't ever admit that someone else's answer was better than hers, because everything she did was the best, but Lyra knew that she'd given the superior answer. Nonetheless she nudged the girl beside her with an encouraging smile, nodding her support to the younger girl. It was easy to forget for some reason that Mimosa was two years younger than her, so her answer was pretty good considering.

Her attention was drawn back to her favorite subject matter a moment later and she couldn't help but get excited at the prospect of turning things into animals. She loved Transfiguration, and she loved animals, and that officially made this the best lesson ever. The assignment made it all the better, they got to choose which animal! So long as they could figure out the prefix that is. She scanned the list slowly, recognizing many of the words right off the bat.

Question is, which animal did she want to turn her rock into? Mimosa immediately latched onto the dragon prefix, causing her to roll her eyes in response to the term 'make-believe'. The tooth fairy was make believe, as well as Santa Claus, the easter bunny, and Jack Frost, but dragons were very real. "Mimosa," she spoke gently, "dragons are real." Not that the younger girl was going to change her mind at all, but it was always worth a try.

Moving on she looked over the list and stood, approaching the front of the room and speaking quietly to the professor. "Serpens is latin for snake, so presumably Serpensfors would turn my rock into a snake, if not for the extra 'S'. But looking at other spells and latin, I would take off the last 'S' in Serpens to make Serpenfors, just like you take off the last 'S' in Avis and Piscis to make Avifors and Piscifors." She grinned proudly and waited for confirmation to try out her spell.

The repeated pitter-patter squeaking of Gwennie's sneakers echoed as she walked as quickly as she could walk without classifying it as running. She'd been caught up in trying to translate Italian into English because she had decided the day prior that trying to figure out how to grow grapes on a tree instead of a vine was worth her time and the only research she could find on the topic was in Italian. The issue here was that she was unable to speak or read Italian and she could barely stand reading in English, so translating words she couldn't read into words she could possibly understand was taking a substantial amount of her time. Barely through the second half of the first page, the Gryffindor realised that she was supposed to be in class and her new dream was going to have to wait for its moment a while longer.

After walking at the speed of light, Gwennie finally reached the Transfiguration classroom. The class was more than definitely already in session, but she assumed that if she walked in on her tiptoes really quietly, no-one would notice her and she'd be practically invisible. So, she nudged the door ever so carefully, forgetting that the entire world becomes increasingly loud when the only goal is to be quiet. The creaking of the door sounded like the loudest sound she'd ever heard. With elephant-like footsteps, she found an empty seat near a rock.

As she'd roared her way into the room, the professor had been giving instructions. He was saying something about prefixes and spells, paired with the direction to put words together and ask him if it would work on the rock. Looking to the board, she saw spells and a list of words. Upon her entry, the professor had been talking about prefixes and adding them onto "fors" words so she assumed that they were supposed to be doing that.

Looking to the list of words, Gwennie noticed the word "herba," which she was pretty sure meant plant or something of the sorts. In the Italian to English dictionary she'd been studying, she remembered seeing the word "erba" translated to herb, so the connection was definitely there. Surely, adding "herba" to "fors" would create "herbafors." She nodded to herself and made her way to the professor. She waited for a couple of girls to go before her and she began making her pitch.

"I'm sorry I was late, professor," she smiled nervously. "It won't happen again, but I do think I got the gist of the lesson. I am thinking that putting 'herba' and 'fors' together into 'herbafors' would turn my rock into a plant, or grass, or something plant-like." She nodded along as she spoke, proving to him that she knew what she was talking about. She rocked on her heel once for good luck before waiting for a response.

The first to approach was Nikolai Kessler, and Grayson smiled in response to the boy's suggestion. He'd decided to go for the least obvious one on the board, suggesting some level of internal motivation which was encouraging to Grayson. Not only that, he had clearly caught on to the pattern as well, suggesting he had also been paying attention.

"Very good, Nikolai. Feel free to give it a go."

Next up came Mimosa's response. He nodded as he watched her think aloud.

"Very close, Mimosa. You're almost there. 'Dracocifors' does sound better than 'dracoifors' but I think there's something that sounds even better than that. What letter does 'dragon' end with?"

He waited for her to figure it out on her own, turning to the next student in line. He once again nodded as he took in Lyra's reasoning, happy with the connections she had made.

"Very close. You chose a trickier one, as it turns out. Unfortunately, 'serpenfors' doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but perhaps it would be helpful to know that the genitive form of the word is actually 'serpentis,' giving you a few extra letters to work with."

He let her think on that for a little while as the next student approached. He had seen the young Gryffindor come in out of the corner of his eye, but he hadn't said anything. She hadn't caused a disturbance, so he didn't feel a need to call her out for her tardiness. He smiled gently at her apology.

"It's quite alright. You do seem to have the gist of it down. Unfortunately, 'herba' is somewhat irregular, so while it seems straightforward, there is one small change you'll need to make. Can you think of another vowel that might replace the 'a'?"

The rest of the class continued on similar note. Most of the students had the right idea, and they were all able to translate the Latin into English, but a few minor tweaks here and there were often necessary before he sent them off to try out their spells. Still, by the end of class, just about everyone had moved on to the practical portion, and many of them had successfully transformed their rocks into the creatures of their choosing. Before they left, he had them all practice their reverse transfiguration skills by returning the creatures to their original states.

Sending a nod of approval to each student as they filed out the door, Grayson hoped he'd given them something to think about. Not a lot of classes here fostered creativity on purpose, and he thought that was a bit of a shame.


House points:
Nikolai Kessler: 10 points for attendance + 3 points for answer + 10 points for participation = 23 points
Mimosa Harrington: 10 points for attendance + 3 points for answer + 10 points for participation = 23 points
Lyra Fletcher: 10 points for attendance + 5 points for answer + 10 points for participation = 25 points
Nerisei Volkova: 10 points for attendance = 10 points
Gwennie LeTrelle: 5 points for attendance + 10 points for participation = 15 points

Totals:
Slytherin: 46 points
Hufflepuff: 25 points
Ravenclaw: 10 points
Gryffindor: 15 points