"Mom?" To say I was surprised would be an understatement.
"While we're in this classroom - call me 'Professor Marlow,' " — Ariel replied with a smile, whom I hadn't expected to see for the next three months. The title "professor," by the way, has a somewhat different meaning in the magical world: it doesn't mean the person has a doctorate and teaches, no, it's simply a form of address for a teacher. The equivalent of a doctoral degree is different - "master."
"Very well, Professor Marlow ," — I replied and sat down at my seat with a smile.
When the bell rang and everyone took their seats, she began her speech:
"Good afternoon, children, I am now your new transfiguration teacher, Ariel Marlow, for first through fourth years. Madame Laurent is no longer so young and couldn't handle the workload, so she asked for a replacement for the younger years. But that's all background - we're gathered here to study such a beautiful art as transfiguration.
Transfiguration is a discipline studying magical ways of turning some objects into others, inanimate objects into living ones and vice versa, as well as some living objects into others. Plus, transfiguration includes creating objects from nothing or making them disappear. The subject is extremely complex and requires certain magical powers and strict concentration. Transfiguration requires a magic wand and knowledge of the corresponding formula.
You should know, children, that transfiguration is one of a wizard's most useful tools alongside charms. Create water in a desert? A house on a deserted island? A guardian for your dwelling? Transfiguration is capable of all this, though it has some limitations you'll learn about later. But for now, let's learn the movement and words of our first spell for turning a button into a hairpin - Barrettefors.'"
***
While Ariel taught the children the spell, supplementing the lecture with stories about failed transfigurations and why it's so important to create charms precisely, I thought about transfiguration in general.
Transfiguration is divided into three classes: inanimate-to-inanimate, inanimate-to-living, and living-to-living. Each class is more complex than the previous one, because turning a button into a hairpin is one thing, but turning a rat into a dog so that the rat can later be returned to its true form alive and unharmed - that's a completely different level of concentration and magical expenditure.
Higher transfiguration stands apart, which actually fixes the transformation for a period sufficient for the astral body to take on a new form. Sleight of hand and no fraud.
A person unfamiliar with the magical world might think - why teach children such "useless" charms? Tickling charms, dancing pineapples, transfiguration into hairpins? But even in the ordinary world, no one puts a child immediately at a lathe or gives them combat weapons without long preparation. Well, there are such people, but that's not from great intelligence.
The issue here is complexity and safety. Take the same transfiguration, which has three universal spells for each class, but to apply them, you need a certain level of skill and magical power. Second, inanimate-to-inanimate level charms don't work on people, so you don't have to worry that some fool will turn his friend into a glass and break him. Third, such highly specialized charms are very hard to "mess up" and even if you pronounce it wrong or make a mistake with wand movement, you won't blow up half the school, it most likely just won't work.
Wizards aren't stupid, not at all. Strange? Yes. Do they hide a lot? Undoubtedly. But considering them idiots would be, precisely, idiotic.
However, transfiguration has the already mentioned limitations - Gamp's Laws of Transfiguration:
{ 1. You cannot create food. }
However, Sumerians calmly materialized food, removing the matrix from the required object. I haven't reached this yet, studying so many directions. Also worth remembering the Aguamenti charm, which wanted to spit on this rule, creating water. I suspect this is connected to the fact that transfiguration works with imagination, not the infosphere, and to create food, you need to know and imagine its composition down to molecules or atoms.
After all, transfiguration without special charms doesn't create copper, for example, but an amorphous metal with properties of copper as imagined by the wizard. That is, a wizard turning stone into a dog doesn't create a dog - it becomes a golem with the wizard's ideas about dog behavior. Moreover, if he doesn't accurately imagine the dog's structure, it will look like stone inside too, not flesh and blood.
{ 2. You cannot turn anything into a human. }
Actually, you can create a human body using biomagic, the problem is it won't have a soul - such a creature is called a Cadaver. Usually they're inhabited by subordinate souls or summoned spirits who will serve you just for a body. But only the Creator can create a soul.
{ 3. You cannot turn an ordinary object into a magical one or create anything magical. }
Nonsense, pure nonsense. The difficulty is in colossal mana expenditure if you attempt such a thing, and a titanic matrix if you can remove it. Therefore it's easier for wizards to obtain the necessary ingredient or material than to bother with such things.
{ 4. You cannot transfigure money, gold, and precious stones. }
You can, and quite simply. I suspect this rule was invented by the government to control the creation of counterfeits. The only truth is that natural diamond or gold will have a much more developed third shell and will hold much more enchantments. And yes, even stones have souls, but only the first and third shells, living creatures like bacteria get the fourth and second as well. The fifth - emotional - is possessed by more developed creatures like dogs, lizards, birds and other creatures capable of experiencing emotions. The sixth is possessed by all intelligent creatures, and the seventh by all humans, whether they're active wizards or not.
The saddest thing is that there are many people in the world with the seventh shell, but wizards despise them, despite the fact that this is fresh blood in their society and new talents. However, I'm not going to convince them otherwise, because if I release into open access a method of "granting" magic to Muggles and Squibs, they'll find and lynch me. Maybe I'll help someone, not without benefit to myself of course, and in complete secrecy.
I'm getting distracted again.
{ 5. You cannot transfigure time. }
Here I agree - time can be accelerated, it can be locally turned back creating a loop, however souls of the dead who went to reincarnation won't return, and globally turning back time in the entire universe also won't work. It's easier to get into a parallel world, kill your double there if he exists, and change history as you want. If, of course, you're ready to accept that all people around you already have completely different souls. Even though they look and act absolutely the same.
…
The Sumerians had their own laws of magic - only three of them:
1. Law of energy conservation. Nothing disappears into nowhere, and nothing can appear from nowhere.
2. Law of irreversibility of events.
3. Nothing can interrupt the chain of rebirths.
I spoke about the second. The third means the impossibility of completely destroying a soul, even if you sever all shells, the indestructible core - the fourth "shell" to which all others attach - will simply go to rebirth. And about the first, very reminiscent of a law of physics, not magic. And this is logical, in magic too nothing appears from nowhere. Mana appears from surrounding ether, but you can't pull it from nowhere.
Though I've heard of newfangled quantum physics and there was a theory that some fluctuations occur in absolute vacuum, but I don't know if they can be used as energy or not. Otherwise another way to obtain mana would appear. Moreover, possibly a new art would be added to the sixty existing ones - quantum magic. Ah, dreaming doesn't hurt.
***
Finally the lesson ended. As in the previous one, I continued reading Flitwick's book, who turns out to write quite interestingly. Unlike most other wizard authors, his book has little water and specific terms, and if such appear, he describes them in accessible words. It would be nice to meet him, but as I heard, he teaches at Hogwarts.
"Mom, what are you doing here?" I approached Ariel when everyone left.
"Surprise! Or aren't you glad?" she asked me.
"No, I'm glad, but you could have warned me. It was so sudden."
"I saw you had such a funny face!" she ruffled the hair on my head. "Everything happened very quickly. Ludwig said the headmistress was looking for a replacement transfiguration teacher and advised me to approach and talk. As it turned out, Madame Maxime had heard about me and our inventions, so despite the lack of mastery, she took me on probation and here I am!"
"And I have absolutely nothing to do with this?" I raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"Partly," — she didn't hide it. — "But the main reason was that I would be bored, I'd have to look for work anyway, so why not?"
"Then I'm happy for you," I smiled.
"I see you decided to keep the fairy as a pet?" she pointed to my shoulder where my fairy sat swinging her legs. I should think of a name for her, by the way.
"Yeah," — I nodded. — "Only she decided to stay with me herself, rather."
"Take care of her, such cases when a magical creature chooses its own master are quite rare." She tried to pet the little one, but she hid behind my ear.
"But we're magical creatures too? Does that mean I should also look for a master?" I made a frightened face.
"Ah-ha-ha!" — Ariel laughed with her ringing laugh. — "Go on, pet, I need to check work."
"Should I help?" I asked.
"No, I should manage myself. And by the way, the fact that I'm your mom doesn't exempt you from homework. On the contrary, I expect the best work from you," she warned me.
"Yes, ma'am. Will be done." And I, caricaturishly turning around, marched to the exit.
I understood Ariel's motivation, though I would have preferred she find work elsewhere. Not that I was uncomfortable being a teacher's son - on the contrary, it gives certain privileges. It's just that it was so unexpected that chaos reigns in my head and I don't know how to relate to this.
Having habitually calmed my emotions with mind magic, I decided to just forget about it. Do what you must, and let what will be, be. Especially since now I won't worry about her. Not that I could protect her from everything, but dying together is more fun than regretting for the rest of your life that you weren't there in time.
…
After dinner, going to my room, I cast the same complex of charms on the closed canopy and, taking the chirping fairy from my shoulder, placed her on the pillow.
"Arthur," I pointed to myself.
"Pee!" she repeated my movement, which is already encouraging. She might not have reacted at all.
"Fairy!" I pointed to her.
"Pee!" she repeated my movement, looking at me with her black bead-like eyes. Well, this will take a while.
Half an hour later.
"Arthur."
"Pee!"
"Arthur, not Pee!" And then she started crying. Only after this did I think to rummage through books and found out that fairies can't talk at all. Either their vocal cords aren't designed for it, or something else. What an idiot I am!
Carefully petting the fairy, I covered her with veela charms and gave her a piece of chocolate, which she happily began gnawing as if nothing had happened. Either a very cunning or forgiving creature.
Well, I'll have to go the hard way. I took out a sheet of paper on which I wrote the French alphabet and prepared for a headache because I'd have to transmit mental images very precisely so as not to burn the little one's small brain.
Why don't I just leave her alone? Because she's intelligent like a small child and possesses weak but still magic. And not teaching my child is sacrilege to me.
If she learns to read and write - that will already be success.
…
The training was simple: I gave her a reduced "Reducio" writing quill and tried to explain through images the meaning of letters, what words start with them and what images correspond to these words, duplicating images verbally. A child knows word meanings because they learn to speak, but she doesn't.
If the fairy correctly wrote a letter or drew the corresponding image, she got a treat and a pleasure impulse from veela charms. If not, she didn't get any. At first she was capricious, but then got drawn in herself and liked the game.
But we achieved nothing except a sheet covered with small drawings. I even had to take the quill away - she chirped and resisted, she liked it so much. But she'll draw all over everything!
…
Late in the evening I left the dormitory with everyone and went to astronomy class, which was always conducted at night. On a platform in one of two towers located on both sides of the central wing, we listened to a lecture about celestial bodies from Monsieur Weber and looked through enchanted telescopes at the moon.
They differed from ordinary ones in enhanced clarity, magnification coefficient, and eye protection. That is, with them you can look at the sun not twice, but as much as you want.
Already on the way back, I deliberately lagged behind my classmates.
"And I was wondering when you'd approach me. You're quite fast," I called out to five guys who came out from around the corner.
"What, got scared? Now you're not so brave as in the great hall?" Delacour said to me in an arrogant voice.
"You're repeating yourself, it's boring. What did you want? To get beaten before bed?"
"You'll answer for your words. And for talking to my Apolline!"
"Yours? I didn't see a brand on her. Listen, I understand everything - hormones are playing and so on. But didn't you think to just normally befriend the girl instead of declaring her your property, no? And also provoking her friend? Go sleep and think about it at leisure."
"What, scared?"
"No, I just don't like beating up children."
"You bastard! I'm sick of this! I challenge you to a duel!"
"Go ahead," I bowed mockingly.
"Defend yourself!" — I thought he'd gained sense and would really think, but no. We moved to opposite sides of the corridor. — "Petrificus Totalus!"
"Protego," I whispered, though there was no need. Protego can be stationary and mobile, and it can both absorb charms and reflect them. I used exactly the latter, striking Delacour who attacked me. Immediately charms flew at me from four more of his minions. Futile - I reflected them back the same way. There was no point in attacking myself.
"What bastards you are. Expelliarmus," — I approached the paralyzed, bound and stunned boys, collecting their wands. — "You know, if you'd just attacked alone and head-on, I wouldn't have done anything to you. Everything fair: you attacked, you got hit. But you gathered a whole crowd that then attacked a first-year. Moreover, I gave you a chance to come to your senses, but you took it for weakness - stupid. Therefore I'll treat you like the bastard you are."
Gathering them all with "Wingardium Leviosa"- levitation charms - in the nearest classroom, whose lock opened with ordinary "Alohomora," I bound them with "Incarcerous" and cast silencing charms "Silencio." Let them lie and think about their behavior. I threw their wands on the nearest table - I don't need them.
***
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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!