Despite Professor Trishna's absence, Sasha still frequently sought out the Astronomy Tower's familiar warmth.  Over the past two years, the remodeled Astronomy Tower, with it's large picture windows and alcoves, had become more of a second home to the Ravenclaw than just about anywhere else, including Ravenclaw Tower and his old home back in London.  He'd all but moved into the tower during his sixth year and if he could find a way to take the tower with him after he left school, he'd do so in a heartbeat. 

But, of course, the Astronomy Tower wasn't the same without the Astronomy Professor.  And, Sasha would have plenty of opportunities to see Professor Trishna if he was accepted at Cambridge.  Despite the professor's absence, the tower continued to be warm, inviting and a much less disruptive study place than the library or common room. 

Sasha sat on one of the couches in the alcove with a bright fire blazing in the fire place.  Baldur, the German Shepherd, was curled up on the warm hearth stones in front of the fire, dosing comfortably.  Professor Trishna's phonograph and a few records had been left behind; currently, Simon & Garfunkels' voices were drifting out of the phonograph's cone.  Textbooks, scrolls, scrap pieces of parchment with scribbled notes and quills were strewn across the coffee table.  A potato sat on end of the table with two nails embedded in the flesh.  The nails were attached to wires that were, in turn, attached to a simple analog voltometer.  A simple marble composition book lay flat on the couch next to Sasha with a retractable pencil nestled in the spine. 

Baldur heard the footsteps first and lifted his head as a younger student stepped through the archway into the classroom.   Sasha looked up and offered a grin.  Baldur offered a simple flop of his tail in greeting before dropping his head back down on his paws.  "Are you looking for a place to study?" he asked.  He wasn't the only one that tried to seek out a relatively unpopulated study nook, especially this close to exams.  "You're welcome to turn that off, if you are.  The library is getting too overcrowded."

Cara entered the astronomy tower with a purpose, satchel slung over her shoulder, raven locks braided to dissuade the zephyrs actively ruffling Hogwarts' grounds from disrupting her good hair day.

"Schlagenweit!" she greeted firmly, admirably enunciating his German surname.

"There y'are."

She looked pleasantly satisfied to have located him—and thought to herself that she'd best thank Sasha's housemate, whose name she hadn't the foggiest notion of, for turning her in the proper direction.

"No—I'm not lookin' for a place to study—though my O.W.L.s keep me in my bed readin' half the time," she murmured, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

It wasn't that she wasn't prepared for her Ordinary Wizarding Levels—in fact, she thoroughly expected to receive O's in Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Arithmancy, and E's in every other subject—with the exception of Potions and Herbology!

They were just exhausting. Not Nastily Exhausting, obviously, but exhausting nonetheless.

"Came to ask you about your club!" Cara declared, tromping over to Baldur—whom she had not met even once before—and collapsing onto the floor beside the dog, adjusting her skirt before engaging in a series of enthusiastic pets and head scratches.

"What's the deal, Schlagenweit? I liked your club! Been skivin' off, have you? Took too many N.E.W.T.s, that's your problem. I reckon I'm one of the best students in my year, and you make me feel right stupid. Anyway—you still appreciating muggles on a presidential level? 'cause I'd quite like to sign up, if y'are."

She fixed Sasha with a warm smile, looking rather endearing.

The Ravenclaw was noticeably startled when the young woman addressed him by his (full, recognizable and unadulterated) last name.  It was a startling contrast to the myriad of close proximities he'd grown accustomed to: Schlagenwagen, Schlagendong...  He really should consider changing that name; he just couldn't see himself carrying it the rest of his life.   

Apparently, she'd been looking for him.  "Ja.  Here I am.  When in doubt, look in a classroom."  He offered another grin as he set the notebook in his lap down on the coffee table. 

"You're sitting O.W.Ls."  Sasha surmised, rather easily given she'd just said as much.  This could be another explanation for why she was looking for him.  "Those can be tough, but not too bad.  Potions and Transfiguration, especially."  Of course, it was his arch nemesis, Divination, that had given him the most trouble.  "Are you needing help with them?" 

Without lifting his head, Baldur welcomed the abundant attention from Cara.  He wagged his tail as she settled next to him, shifting on to his back so her petting would find his belly.  Such a noble creature.  Sasha chuckled and shook his head. 

"My club?  You mean the Muggle Appreciation Club?"  He wasn't going to debate the accusation of too many classes.  As exam week drew closer, even he was beginning to concede that fact.  "It's ... it has been a while since we had a meeting.  Things got a little crazy and I got distracted."  Somewhere between the madman father wannabee, Jacoba's funeral and his reluctant father's near-funeral, club activities had fallen to the wayside. 

He'd felt guilty about it, especially given his pending graduation. 

"You still appreciating muggles on a presidential level? 'cause I'd quite like to sign up, if y'are."

"I suppose, technically.  As you said, though, I've been skiving a bit.  Now that I'm graduating, I don't know what's going to become of it," he finished with a not-insubstantial pang of guilt.  "I mean, I could always try for one last hurrah before the year's out."   

"One last hurrah sounds warranted to me! Ugh—particularly after we sit our exams, yanno? They're a misery... anyway, who else is in the club? Nobody that'd wanna run it when you leave?"

Cara scratched and rubbed Baldur's belly with gusto, eventually stretching out and draping herself across the dog affectionately, thick raven locks concealing half of his tummy.

"I mean—pfft, I pro'lly should've come pokin' around long before now, honestly, but better late than never, aye? If you show me what it's about and I like it, maybe I could keep it afloat for a couple of years."

She blew a raspberry on Baldur's stomach and then sat up, scratching behind his ears.

"Good boy," she complimented, probably to the dog.

The idea of a hurrah after exams was enticing, though the timing may not exactly be ideal.  "I'm afraid it might be a couple days before I'm capable of organizing anything after exams.  It's going to a bit of a marathon week and I'm assuming I'll be a bit comatose."  They always had so little time between exams and the train ride home. 

But, despite the enormity of post-Hogwarts life, there was time after school.  "I suppose we could always do something over the summer holidays.  Some sort of end-of-year all-things-muggle celebration."

He doubted he could provide a concise list of who was in the club.  It had been long enough and teenagers' interests often waxed and waned. 

"Yes.  It's definitely better late than never.  Maybe we try to meet before the end of the year, to see what the interest is?"  Baldur seemed to be enjoying the exuberant attention and started rolling on the hearthstones, rubbing his back against the stone. 

An eyebrow arched curiously, and Sasha considered the young woman sitting on the floor.  "Is your interest just a casual curiosity?  Or, of a more personal nature?"  He asked. 

"Mm—best we meet before the term ends, if we can; see if anybody cares. Maybe make some people care if they don't, huh?"

She pounded her fist into her palm menacingly, though—at least from the perspective of physical combat—Cara was hardly intimidating. She even looked a little goofy, trying to appear tough.

"Then we could reassemble in July, maybe, and do a sorta... a combo 'have fun as an adult, Schlagenweit,' and 'also muggles are cool' get together, right? A send off!"

For her next trick, Cara took Baldur's front paws in each hand as he lay on his back, dancing to the rhythm of the song on the phonograph, standing up on her knees and swaying her hips side-to-side and her shoulders back and forth.

"Huh? Me? Oh, my mam and da are muggles," Cara replied before glancing up at Sasha. She fixed him with a broad grin.

"Reckon I love 'em enough for puttin' up with me—considering what I can do," she said—and then to demonstrate, perhaps on the off chance the Sasha had no idea, she draped her braided hair down across Baldur. In a moment, her hair unfurled itself, nearly tripling in thickness (though this was, in fact, just her natural hair) before receding very rapidly into her scalp and turning a rather unflattering shade of bright green.

Cara giggled as the dog watched, and then let her hair grow back out—and promptly turn both very curly and blonde.

She seemed amused enough with her parlor tricks, and her locks turned both raven and straight once more. She shook her head lightly as if to dispel cobwebs, releasing one of Baldur's paws and running it through her hair for a moment.

"That sounds like a good idea," Sasha offered, jotting a reminder to himself in pencil along the margins of the composition book.  "At least that would give us a starting point.  It would be nice to see the club not die."  Maybe Dreogan would want him to put in a word about the summer trip or other ways to be involved.  School bake sale fundraisers or something.  Or, Dreogan could even come and talk about it.  Sasha would have to check with the wizard about that.  "Though, there are probably spells that are more effective than, you know, brute force," he offered, with a grin.  Sasha's ability to pick up on sarcasm was often a little lacking; lucking, Cara seemed to make it obvious enough that even he didn't miss it. 

"One sec..." he murmured as he tore a long, thin strip of parchment from a nearby role and scribbled a note before  using his wand to shrink the note into a tiny ribbon.  On the back side, he carefully wrote: "Enlarge Me."  Unfortunately, in hindsight, an elf owl hadn't been the most efficient choice of pet.  But, Jack was quite cute and funny. 

A summer gathering could definitely be fun.  "They should be done rebuilding my house by mid-July, so that should work well.  We could have...I don't know.  A magic from muggles' perspective marathon.  Play with social media or ... there are a lot of options, I guess.  Microwave popcorn and such." 

There was a familiar tinge of envy as she spoke of her parents, but he stifled the feeling and returned the grin.  His eyes widened as the Gryffindor showed off her change of appearance.  Baldur was curious and sniffed at the girl's hand but, having found her scent the same, returned to flopping lazily about.  After over two years living in the castle, the dog's sense of reality had certainly broadened. 

"You're a metamorphmagus?"  Sasha showing off his own unique ability to state the obvious.  "But, wait.  You're also muggleborn?  Isn't it...wait, can you do that again?"  Sasha asked, a little too eagerly, when she'd returned to her normal appearance.  He set his composition book back in his lap and pulled the metal-laden potato closer to him.  "Isn't that often an inherited trait?  Do you know of other people who are magically-competent in your family?"

"I am... and it doesn't seem to be, does it? Well—there's not a trace of magical blood in my family that I'm aware of, but I s'pose I could be wrong. If there is, my parents don't have any idea about it: the Ministry had to send liaisons to tell 'em all about this world right quick, as you can imagine!"

Cara smoothed her hair back again, clasping her hands in her lap as she peered up at Sasha from the floor.

"To be honest, there's not a lot of information about it out there—rare as it is. It was... ahm... tough, to say the least, tryin' to sort it out myself growing up. Parents managed—with the Ministry's help, probably—to sort out some books written by or about metamorphmagi, but they're not comprehensive, yanno?"

She shrugged her shoulders, perhaps having exhausted her thoughts on the subject. She'd devoted plenty of head space towards questions like that in the past—but at this point, Cara had accepted who she was, and recognized that no amount of study or information could change it.

"I can do more complex stuff, too—I've heard of fully-grown wizards that can do way more than I can, but... well, here—"

Cara turned around, shielding her face from Sasha and knitting her brow... she seemed to be concentrating rather hard for several moments—and when she turned back around, it was not the sharp, ecstatic, youthful face of Cara Siger looking up at Sasha—but that of the current Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall!

In short order her hair retreated, shortening, graying, and tying itself into a neat bun, and thus the considerably older head of Headmistress McGonagall sat atop the slight form of a sixteen year old girl, looking rather at odds.

"How's that?" Cara asked, her voice unchanged.

"I can do the Minister, too, if you'd like!"

"Interesting."  Sasha was almost certain he'd heard metamorphmagery was inherited, but he couldn't say where.  Perhaps, he was confusing it with another uncommon magical trait; being a parselmouth, perhaps.  But, it certainly wasn't acquired; one couldn't learn to be a metamorphmagus the way one became an animagus. 

The Ravenclaw shook his head, slightly.  "No, I'm afraid I can't really imagine.  My mother and step-father's meeting with the Ministry was a bit different."  Sasha tried to consider what it would have been like to have that kind of ability in his household growing up.  He could only imagine how much harder it would have been to control than the usual magical accidents.  It was a terrifying thought. 

"I've noticed the lack of literature on human transfiguration.  At least, as far as what's readily available to us.  There's a bit more in the restricted section.  I suppose to discourage students from idol experimentation."  Of course, he hadn't been looking for metamorphmagus-oriented literature, specifically; he'd been after his own study material: a little bit of necromancy as well as animagus transformation.  "My guess is it's a complicated thing to put into writing and you're already working with a significant minority of the population.  Finding someone with personal experience and the writing skills to effectively convey the information is a bit of a challenge." 

Sasha's attention kept shifting between Cara and the potato as she showed off her impersonation of their Headmistress.  "That must feel weird," he offered as he jotted down a few notes in the notebook.  "Is it all, you know, superficial?  I mean, is it like putting on a mask or do you ... feel different?"  The more he transfigured into his caprine form, the more he felt urged to climb rocks. 

"How's that?"

"That was helpful.  You can, if you want to turn into the Minister.  Or, sometime, I'd love to chart a wider range readings.  If you'd be willing."  He pointed at the potato with his pencil.   

"That must feel weird."

"Ah—no, not particularly. Not to me, anyway. I can feel it, for sure, like... hair growing or shrinking, skin stretching, stuff like that. Feels a bit funny, I suppose, but it's fair to say I'm well used to it."

"Is it all, you know, superficial?  I mean, is it like putting on a mask or do you ... feel different?"

"Oh, it's very much skin deep," Cara replied, her McGonagall face smoothing out, nose and ears and such shrinking to more proportionate sizes, eyes darkening, locks black once more—and, just like that, she was herself again.

"I reckon you could get the same results with Polyjuice Potion, or... maybe human transfiguration, like you said—but that must take a powerful wizard to pull off, hm? Only difference, really, is that I can do it without puttin' much thought towards it."

"Has its limits, though, and its drawbacks. I could do my hair up all day long, no problem, but changin' my... size, or the shape of my face, or my physique—that all takes some concentration, and I can only keep it up for, say, a few hours at a time."

"Plus, I've noticed—ah, it's a bit embarrassing, honestly—but if I'm feeling a lot of... powerful negative emotions, like, I can't use my powers as well. Plus, if I have a really good row, my hair'll turn red on the tips! Strange, isn't it?"

"... or, sometime, I'd love to chart a wider range readings.  If you'd be willing."

Cara stared at Sasha, blinking and cocking her head to the side just slightly.

"No idea what you're askin', mate."

Sasha scowled in thought, then a half grin spread across your face.  “I imagine it would feel really weird, if you somehow took on some of the traits of the person you transformed into.  That’s what happens with animagi; the longer they’re in their other form, the more …”  How did one describe it?  “The two start to meld?  Traits from the other form seem to linger even after you change back?  I suppose that’s tempered by only transforming into one other entity.  It would probably be fairly … confusing after a while, in your case.”
 
He was overthinking, again.
 
"Doesn't seem strange at all," Sasha offered, with a shrug.  Actually, the volatility of her ability made perfect sense.  "Emotional fluctuations contributed to magical outbursts when we were younger."  Well, they still did.  Their ability to control the outbursts had just improved with practice and maturity.  "It makes sense the same principle applies to that." 

"No idea what you're askin', mate."

Sasha pointed at the potato with his pencil.  "I've ... there are a few things I want to study.  One of them is ... it's hard to explain.  Basically, I've been trying to chart how different types of magic influence electrical conduction.  It's highly imprecise, given the general wonkiness of the castle.  But, there are variations and the towers are nice, because some of the interference is filtered.  It would be interesting to see if more complex transformations create more interference or if the interference is a constant that's independent of complexity."  Sasha grinned sheepishly at Cara, looking for signs of increased confusion or comprehension. 

"Meld, eh? Sounds... ah... exhausting. Yeah, no, I reckon I'd be in a state if I had to share headspace with the folks I turned into."

"Emotional fluctuations contributed to magical outbursts when we were younger."

She cocked her head slightly again.

"Yeah—but most folks don't grow half a foot and two stone and grow a beard when they're ticked off, do they? I know magic is magic is magic, huh, but it's... well—it's not a problem a lot of people have to deal with, is all."

As he clarified his position on 'charting a wider range of readings,' Cara furrowed her brow, listening curiously.

"Oh! You want to see if I can upset your potato battery with a more serious morph, huh? I can do that—hold on, love, lemme think..."

Cara rose to her feet, adjusting her skirt as she went, and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, looking pensive.

"Ah! I've got a good one, don't I?"

She screwed up her face, clearly focusing very hard on something... and before long, she began to change.

Cara grew roughly three inches—settling at 5'9"ish—and her physique evened out, some raw muscle inserting itself in her calves, thighs, abdomen, and arms. Her chest flattened out, concealing any notion that she had ever been a girl.

Next, her face began to change: bones and muscles and cartilage began to shift and murmur beneath the surface of her skin; her jaw widened, her forehead grew, her eyes slid further apart (and, with a blink, changed from a muddled hazel to a brilliant green), and her nose and lips shifted upwards. Her ears lengthened out and stuck out on the sides a tad more.

Her eyebrows thickened and her hair receded—though it retained its darkness, rearranging itself into an untidy boy's cut, parted on the left side.

The final touch: a jagged lightening bolt-shaped scar on her forehead. She had transformed rather neatly into one of the greater figures of the 20th century—Harry Potter—and was, unsurprisingly, the spitting image of The Boy Who Lived.

It was an outdated appearance, clearly derived from a photograph in A History of Magic, or otherwise some other publication that discussed the Second Wizarding War—but it was definitely him.

"How's that for complex?" she asked, her tone perhaps two octaves lower. She had never heard Harry Potter speak, having never met him in person, but she did sound rather more like a boy than she had a moment ago.

"Funny story—bit too personal, really, but I expect you'll appreciate the, ah, scientific aspect of this, so to speak—I can't completely turn myself into a boy. If you—er—catch my drift, mate. Little hang-up, no idea what it's about, figure it'll sort itself out if it's meant to be."

Cara Potter cleared her throat, glancing down at the potato expectantly.

"So... ?"

The Ravenclaw grinned and nodded in agreement.  A goat was, for the most part, easy to share a headspace with; their thoughts usually revolved around climbing.  However, the more he did turn into the goat, the more he felt the munchies.  Anything and everything.  That was starting to get annoying.

"Yeah—but most folks don't grow half a foot and two stone and grow a beard when they're ticked off, do they? I know magic is magic is magic, huh, but it's... well—it's not a problem a lot of people have to deal with, is all."
 
Sasha scowled, slightly, as he felt a slight pang of annoyance.  He wasn’t quite sure if she was dismissing the challenges of dealing with new-found magical abilities as a child for those that weren't metamorphmagi, but that had been the tone.  “No.  Other people had other problems to deal with, even if we didn’t gain a few inches in height.  We all had to deal with the consequences of emotions exposing our abilities.  That is a problem we all had to deal with, whatever form it took.”
 
Returning his attention to the potato.  “Yes, that’s exactly it.  I don’t know how well-“ he started to say, but she’d already started the transformations.  He quickly turned his focus to the voltometer, jotting down observations as the small needle darted across the dial.  He kept glancing between her and the meter as her body gradually transformed, trying his best to coordinate the readings with the various stages of transformation.
 
She’d transformed fully into Harry Potter, definitely an impressive feat.  “That definitely looks complex,” he agreed.  However, her bit of personal insight brought both a blush and a pensive look to the Ravenclaw’s face.
 
He looked up when she cleared her throat, misinterpreting the So... as a request for an assessment of the scientific observation.  “That is interesting.  And, doesn’t really make sense.  It doesn’t seem like that’s the … ability.  Maybe … a personal hesitation?”  If they were looking at it from a scientific perspective, there was no reason why that specific part of the body would change when vocal cords, bones and cartilage were able to do so.  He could understand if that was simply a part that she was … more reluctant to change.  “Maybe it’s a change you don’t want to commit to?”

"Maybe … a personal hesitation? Maybe it’s a change you don’t want to commit to?"

"Could be," Cara agreed.

Seeing that Sasha had jotted down whatever notes he meant to take, Cara relaxed a bit—and, quickly enough, her figure began to shift and twist and change, transforming her back into the slight, slender sixteen year old girl of a moment before.

Cara took a seat beside Sasha on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest. She peered over at him as she reached up with both hands and begin to work her fingers into her long, dark hair. She twisted and tied and twisted and tied, braiding her hair once more.

"To be honest with you, my sense of identity is a little skewed—I mean, there's me, but what makes me me when me can be just about anybody, yanno? I guess your... er—you know—I guess that's a big part of your identity, for most folks. So maybe it's just a mental block sorta deal."

She shrugged: "Doesn't bug me, really."

"Might make it difficult if I ever try to pose as some woman's husband for an evening," she mused, peering down at Baldur and grinning at the thought.

"But, you can't be just anybody," Sasha offered. He was aware it could sound pretentious to assert about something with which he had no personal experience. Yet, from their conversation, he didn't feel like he needed personal experience. He could come to that conclusion strictly from the information she had provided.

Sasha shrugged and looked up at the young woman. Baldur lifted his head from the warm hearthstones and watched the pair of students. After a moment, he clamored to his feet and trotted over to jump up on the couch next to Sasha, resting his head on Sasha's leg.

"You said it yourself. The change is only skin deep. Except for the very conceited, our appearance, the entirety of our appearance, is only a small part of what makes up our identity. This is all assuming we can even definitively know our identity as a finite entity." Was that even possible? Perhaps, when someone reached seventy or eighty; perhaps, with decades of life experience, maybe that was possible. But, wasn't finding your identity part of being a teenager?

"In that respect, you're no different than the rest of us. I don't know who I am. The uncertainty may not come from an ability to physically change appearance. The cause may vary but the effect is the same. Maybe, you know, you just need to spend more time being you."