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Morrigan was fussing with paperwork as the last class of the morning began to enter he classroom.  Looking up she swore the first years got younger with each passing year she spent teaching.  A few of them looked a little nervous, possibly having heard from older siblings that she expected nothing less then one hundred percent effort from every single student.  Slacking off was not an option in Morrigan’s class.

“Please take your seats quick,” she called over the chatter from the students.  “These seats are where you’ll be sitting for the remainder of the year, so please choose wisely.  I’m passing around a parchment with a map of the classroom.  Please write your name on the appropriate seat location.”

Handing the paper to a girl in the front row, she then made her way back to the lecture podium.  Part of her was relieved to no longer be the only American on staff.  She felt like her accent used to stick out a great deal more before Kendall Fleetfoot joined the staff.  As she looked down at her notes, she shook the image of him from her mind.  There was a class to teach and she could not allow herself to be distracted by idle thoughts.

“Today for your first class we will be discussing the different branches of Transfiguration.  We will be learning about each one in more detail,” she began.  “Can anyone tell me what the six main branches of Transfiguration are?”


(This question is open to the first poster.  After I have an answer I’ll continue with the rest of the class.)

 When professors spoke, they usually meant business, and Fiana usually tried to hop to it, listening and obeying. So when Professor Ramsay told the students to take their seats quickly, the petite Ravenclaw complied. She liked to sit close to the front, but not too close, so she chose a very good seat in the middle of the second row.

 Professor Ramsay continued, saying that these would be the seats they would sit in all year. Fiana was satisfied with her choice. She liked to sit in the same place all year anyway. It meant she would have a permanent desk, and would always know where she would sit and next to whom. And it meant that all year she would be able to sit just where she wanted in the class. Goody!

 Setting up her parchment, ink, and textbook on her desk, she looked at the professor with interest. Her accent was certainly not the usual one for this part of the world, and Fiana wondered, curious as always, what part of America she was from, and why she had come to England. She did not have a long time to think about this, however, as very soon the professor started the class.

  Fiana kept her hand down and her mouth shut, content to let someone else answer. She wasn't even certain as to what transfiguration was, let alone what the different branches of it were! She kept her quill poised over the parchment, though, ready to take notes as soon as someone provided the correct answer.

Euphemia was excited about attending Transfiguration class; it was a real class in the mind of her and her parents. It was a real talent, much like potions. Most of the core classes were real talents save for perhaps History of Magic and maybe the dirty subject of Herbology. Couldn’t you hire someone to do ones herbology the people who actually liked being dirty?

Euphemia had settled down in her seat in the middle of the class and was quite pleased with the spot as she could see the board but was not up near the front. She started to write down on her piece of parchment the date in her neat script. She wanted to make sure she had perfect notes so as to study from them later. Her focus was back on the professor, wondering where she originated from with that funny accent.

Effie raised her hand when she noticed nobody else was smart enough to answer the simple question. If they were all so unaware of their magical classes then why where they here? Euphemia was called on by Professor Ramsay and Effie softly let it fall back onto the table. With a proud tone, as she was sure she was right, she spoke. “The six branches of Transfiguration are, Cross-Species Transfiguration, Conjuration, Inanimate to Animate transfiguration, Untransfiguration, Self transfiguration and perhaps the most interesting and I hear the most complex Animagus.” Euphemia barely formed a smile as she finished her answer. She definitely wanted to be an animagus when she was capable.

Mairead had started towards a seat in the front of the class but stopped halfway there.  She wasn't sure why but it seemed being closer to the board made it easier to read the writing on it.  The further back you were, the smaller the writing seemed and the closer the lines of the letters ran together.  Sitting close to the board, the letters seemed to remain spaced further apart and much more distinct. 

But, whatever seat she chose, she'd be stuck with.  Mairead wasn't sure she wanted to be stuck in the front of the class for the full semester - hopefully, she'd experience a greater independence from the board.  Suddenly, the act of picking a seat seemed to take on a whole new significance.  Next to Effie was, obviously, out of the question.  Sitting next to the window was tempting but wrought with disaster - she'd never be able to pay attention. 

Finally, Mairead opted for the seat next to Fiana, the girl from the train, closer to the window.  She grinned sheepishly at Fiana but turned attention to the Professor's question.  Six main branches of transfiguration?  Mairead was slightly relieved to see that Fiana seemed just as confused and uncertain as she did.  Effie seemed to have an answer for the question but, not surprisingly, it did little to enlighten Mairead. 

Charles had sat down in the seat he wanted to sit in, and looked towards the board. The 6 main branches of transfiguration? He only knew of three.... ( Animagus, Conjuration & Cross-species) so he was somewhat gad when someone else answered the professor's question.

Eirene had originally taken a seat in the front row, but when Effie arrived and chose a seat in the middle, she sat for a few minutes, torn. Why hadn’t Effie wanted to sit with her and why was she getting the silent treatment? She twisted around in her seat and stared at her best friend, hoping for an answer. From what rumors she’d heard, the professor was tough, so she wanted to give the woman her full attention. However, she didn’t want to be separated from Effie.

Professor Ramsay announced that they would be sitting in the same seats for the rest of the term, and Eirene took the seating chart and wriggled in worry. If she got up now and moved from the front row, the professor could be offended. She would also be giving up the best spot. Yet if she stayed where she was, she’d be apart from Effie in Transfiguration for the whole term! That was like a lifetime!

So, giving a frantic, apologetic look at the professor, she picked up her things and hurriedly moved to the middle row, right next to Effie. She remained quiet when the professor asked the first question, far too distracted to remember all of the branches of Transfiguration. When Effie raised her hand and answered, Eirene viciously shoved down an inkling of envy and smiled at her.

Pax had dithered momentarily about whether or not to follow through on his usual policy of grabbing a seat at the front for the first class. When he was getting to know a teacher for the first time, he liked to be close to the front of the room to better determine how well a teach ennunciated, how difficult to read their handwriting on the blackboard was. If they turned out to speak quietly and write in scribbles, sitting at the front was a lot easier than sitting at the back, even if it did make you look over-eager. Transfiguration, however, he was a little nervous about; it sounded the most difficult subject and he didn't want to put himself right in the teacher's line of fire, as it were.

When Professor Ramsay advised them the seat they chose would be their permanent assignation, he went for a compromise and made a beeline for the second row, taking a seat on the other side of Fiana from Mairead. Although, what about Eirene, by herself in the front row? Before Pax could resolve to move up a row to keep her company, however, the Ravenclaw had a last-minute change of heart and dashed back to sit with her Slytherin friend, so Pax went about setting up his class supplies at his new desk.

Pax wondered if they were allowed to look for the answer in their textbooks when Professor Ramsay asked the first question; it seemed to be a moot point, however, when Effie started reciting them from memory. Pax started jotting them down on his parchment since Effie seemed to know what she was talking about. Though-- once he's scribbled it all down, he glanced at the list with a little confusion. There were only five. Had he missed some of what Effie had said? Maybe Animate-to-Inanimate counted as a separate branch, since if you could transfigure inaminate things to be animate surely you could do the opposite as well.

Oliver hustled into the Transfiguration classroom minutes before the class started.  Professor Ramsay was already passing around a seating chart, so he hurried to the open chair next to Charles Harcroft.  Arranging his side of their table with his books, quill and jar of ink, Oliver acknowledged his fellow Gryffindor with a friendly 'Hello'.  He wrote his name down on the appropriate spot on the professor's chart, then passed it on.

To his surprise, Euphemia Grissim-Dolohov answered Ramsay's question.  That sure was different.  He'd assumed that Eirene was going to be the first to answer it.

He shrugged his curiosity away, and awaited a response from their professor.

((Man... today is NOT my day. :S))

Yawning widely, Keegan strolled lazily towards Transfiguration enjoying the paintings on the walls of the castle as he munched on a blueberry muffin he had shoved in his pocket at breakfast. A bit linty but still quite tasty. Those weird squashed Chihuahua looking things they called elves (He always pictured elves being handsome and blond, so these were a welcome change) made some damn good muffins. Not that he had a lot to compare them to, his own muffin experience was limited to cheap ones he got at the corner store, but he assumed they were. He had to bite someones hand to get this one before the whole tray was gone. Ahh blood tinged blueberry, the taste of victory.

Walking into his next class, Keegan barely made it before the teacher started the lecture, falling into a seat behind Mai and some long haired girl he didn't recognize. Pulling out an already beat-up notebook and quill (which he had come to hate already) Keegan made himself as small as possible when the teacher asked the inevitable question he didn't know the answer to. Granted, he rarely knew the answers, but on occasion he could BS his way through it well enough. This one was about the various types of Transfiguration. As Effie, with her nose securely planted so high in the air that if there were water in there birds would bathe in it, answered the question as obnoxiously as usual.

Never one for memorizing facts, Keegan had learned long ego to play with the words so they made some fantastical, or often gross, word/sentence that he simply couldn't forget. When Effie listed off "Animagus", Keegan wrote "Anti-Mange ass" and drew a very crude (in both subject and style) picture of what he was thinking. He then wrote 'Ewwwfie' with an arrow pointed at the large posterior before carefully folding the paper up and sliding it over Mai's shoulder, letting it fall into her lap.

Morrigan wondered for a moment if anyone would even know the answer to the question.  She watched as a girl scurried apologetically from the front row to sit next to another girl who's hand was raised.  With a sense of relief that someone would at least try to answer her question she called on the other young girl, obviously a Slytherin based on her colors.  As the girl answered she saw some write down the answers and others remained still waiting to see if she was correct.  Morrigan also couldn't help but smile slightly at the mention of her interest in the Animagus branch of Transfiguration.

"Excellent, three points for Slytherin" Morrigan said when she had finished.  "The others are a bit more self-explanatory, so let me speak to the specifics of what an Animagus is.  There are very few Animagus because it is indeed the most difficult branch of Transfiguration.   A witch or wizard who is an Animagus can transform into a specific animal at will.  We will be learning more about this branch in later lessons.

"Transfiguration can be quite dangerous, which is why we will begin with something completely intimate," she said, moving back to her desk and taking a box of matches from the top of it.  Handing to them one of the students she continued.  She took one for herself, setting it on top of her desk and picked up her wand.  With a flick the matchstick was instantly transformed to a shiny needle.

"Please take one match from the box.  For the remainder of the class you will be attempting to change it into a needle.  If you have any questions please raise your hand and I will be around to help."


(You will have until 10/5 to RP this portion of the class.)

Oliver took one of the matches that was offered and weighed it in his open palm.  There was nothing odd about it; it was an ordinary, everyday match, the kind used to ignite fires or lamps.  He placed it in front of him and brandished his wand.  Professor Ramsay didn’t verbalize an incantation of any sort, so he assumed that with a simple flick of his wand, it would transfigure into a needle.

So, letting out a long, concentrated breath, he gave his hand a start.  A pale flash of white light streamed out from the end of his wand and struck middle of the match.  To his dismay, it didn’t change into a needle; instead, what lay in front of him now was a piece of ordinary orange yarn.

He frowned.  What had he done wrong?  He tried it again, but to his disappointment, the yarn only changed colors, going from a pale orange to a navy blue.

He flicked his wand again.  There was a small flash of yellow light this time, and when it cleared, his yarn had transformed into a earthworm.  An alive one at that.  It wriggled about, seemingly as baffled as he was.  Amused, he glanced over at Eirene to see if she happened to notice it.

Sniggering lightly, he flicked his wand again.  What lay before him now was, to his utter disappointment, an ordinary match.  He'd changed it back into what he had originally started with.

Determined to get it right, Oliver pressed on, vowing not to give up until he turned the thing into a needle.

((OOC: Edited to add a bit of realism))

Charles greeted Oliver as the other boy arrived, then watched as the Professor demonstrated what they would be doing. Muttering the incantation needed, he flicked his wand. The match turned into a silver match. Frowning, Charles muttered " well, it's a start" then tried again. this time, it turned into a wooden needle. " and now for attempt number three" he muttered. muttering the incantation, he flicked his wand. There was a flash of yellow light, then he couldn't see the successfully transfigured needle. " Where is it?" he muttered, slamming his hand down on his parchment in frustration. Right over where there was a small crack in the desk, long enough to conceal a needle, that jabbed him in the hand. "OW" he suddenly cried, grabbing the parhcment up off the desk with his other hand, seeing the needle. " How did it get... never mind, i don't want to know." Charles said.

"Ye mean, they exist?  Yer not pullin' me bloody leg?"  Mairead couldn't help but blurt out, her eyes widened with surprise, when the Professor offered an explanation for animagus transfiguration.  She'd heard about witches who could turn into animals in songs and stories from home but had always assumed that's all they were - stories.  "Ye mean like rabbits and horses and such?" 

Mairead braced her hands on her desk and pushed herself up slightly to get a better look at what the professor was doing with the match.  "Wow," she muttered to herself, glancing at the girl next to her with an excited grin before fishing a match from the box as it passed by. 

So - she was supposed to waggle her wand at the thing and it would become a needle.  She didn't even think that sounded simple.  Other than being short and slender, the two things had nothing in common.  But, filled with determination, Mairead picked up her wand and, feeling slightly foolish, she muttered the incantation and waved the wand at the match.  Disappointed, though not necessarily surprised, nothing happened. 

Again, she muttered the incantation and flicked her wand but, still, the match just lay there.  Not moving and not changing.  It seemed perfectly content with its current state of matchdom.  Mairead glanced around - no one seemed to have succeeded yet, though everyone else's match had at least done something.  She turned back to her own and waggled her wand over the match several times as she muttered the incantation repeatedly.  With a snort of frustration, Mairead picked up the match and struck it with her thumbnail.  In a flash of light, the match burst to life.  At least it had changed.

Eirene jotted down notes about the six branches of Transfiguration, adding the bit about the Animagus that the professor talked about. She agonized for a few seconds about the structure of the letter ‘A’, which looked crooked, but she didn’t have time to white it out and write it again like she normally would. Eirene glanced up and kept writing as fast and as neatly as humanely possible while the top of her quill fluttered frantically in the air.

Soon, Professor Ramsay handed each of them a match and told them to try and change it into a needle. Eirene took a match and looked at her expectantly, waiting for further instructions. When she realized that was it, she just had to try it and see what happened, Eirene felt a bit insecure. She hadn’t practiced this type of magic over the summer, instead focusing on simple charms that required spoken incantations. Words were concrete and she just had to pronounce them correctly and focus. Transfiguration required a type of thinking she hadn’t tried yet.

Eirene flipped through her Transfiguration book to see if it had more instructions. Skimming through the chapter on basic transfiguration, she saw that it was all about visualization, imagining the object to be something else and to consist of different properties.

Feeling better, she shut the book and pointed her wand at the match, concentrating. Needle, needle, needle. Matches were made out of wood, needles were metal. Eirene focused on how a needle felt, what the hole looked like at the top for the thread, and the silver, metallic color. After a few minutes of this, the match slowly turned silver.

“Look!” she gasped to the students sitting around her. “Mine’s already changed color!” Eirene looked around the classroom, expecting to see everyone else struggling, but disappointment came crashing down on her when she noticed that at least two students had already changed their match into a needle. Her face fell. She had to do better!

That was when she saw Mairead. Eirene latched onto the girl’s failure like a niffler latched onto silver.

“Professor!” She announced, pointing at Mairead’s desk with an unhealthy amount of glee. “Mairead lit the match!”

Pax had also been somewhat unsure of how to go about transfiguring, even if it was something as small as a match. Like Eirene, his automatic response when he wasn't sure of something was to See What the Book Said. Even as he looked over the preliminary instructions, however, his heart sank a little. This seemed a little too much like it required natural prowess, not just determination. Pax didn't have a great deal of raw magical ability, he just knew how to compensate for it. But what if he couldn't always overcome his obstacles with hard work alone? He knew negative thinking would get him nowhere, he knew he shouldn't compare his work to that of the other students, but he couldn't help but glance over to Oliver and Charles and the success they seemed to be having.

Sighing, Pax resigned himself to the fact that he had to at least try. He had finally finished the relevant passage in his textbook (he was a bit of a slow reader, carefully taking in everyone word), picked up his wand and turned his attention to his match, when he heard a voice pipe up from somewhere behind him; Eirene's voice.

He twisted around to the source of the noise, then whipped back in the other direction to look at Mairead, whose match was indeed lit. Leaning over, Pax hissed, 'Quick, blow it out!' If he had been at the desk next to her instead of two over, he would have blown it out himself. He really didn't want a confrontation on the first day of school.