It was Tuesday afternoon.
Over the past two days, Raven had been bouncing back and forth between Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Naturally, Professor Pomona Sprout had been informed in advance.
Raven had already communicated with his Head of House, demonstrated his solid grasp of the basics, and guaranteed he would pass the Herbology final exam with a full score.
Professor Sprout had simply let him be.
That had absolutely nothing to do with Professor Flitwick arguing with her about transferring Raven to Ravenclaw.
At the same time, Raven had taken time over the past two days to collect several invisible Field Guide pages hidden around Hogwarts.
The pages provided enough experience for him to level up once and gain a talent point, which he naturally invested into [Fertilizer].
This talent allowed Raven, when attacking with magical plants, to use ancient magic to create X physical duplicates with identical attack capabilities.
The number of duplicates and their duration depended on the amount of Ancient Magic Raven poured into them.
Turning back to his schedule—
The reason Defense Against the Dark Arts kept Raven coming back was that he genuinely gained something from it.
Professor Quirrell wasn’t as pathetic as he seemed on the surface.
He merely appeared timid and stuttered a bit.
He had no trouble fulfilling basic teaching duties.
Perhaps because he had the true professor—the masked Voldemort—backing him up, Quirrell was able to offer quite solid advice when Raven asked a few advanced questions.
The rumor might actually be true—that Voldemort possessed a genuine obsession with the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts.
Perhaps Raven asked too many questions, triggering Voldemort’s suspicion.
After answering Raven’s third question, Quirrell told him that young wizards shouldn’t bite off more than they could chew, refusing to answer any more advanced questions from then on.
As for Transfiguration class, Raven didn’t perform nearly as brilliantly.
Raven’s current persona was that of a hardworking, brilliant young wizard who just happened to be terrible at Transfiguration.
Today was the very first Transfiguration class for the Gryffindor and Slytherin first-years.
When Professor McGonagall saw Raven turn up to observe again, she sighed inwardly.
*Thank goodness this child isn’t in my House.* If she taught Transfiguration and had a Transfiguration squib in her own House, it would be utterly unbearable.
Teaching her own House’s students for the first time required establishing absolute authority to keep those wild monkeys in line.
As a veteran educator, Professor McGonagall understood this principle all too well.
Thus, she had arrived early, sitting perched on the teacher’s desk in her tabby cat Animagus form.
Then, the unexpected happened—or rather, something unexpected to everyone present except Raven, who already knew the plot.
Gryffindor’s star student, Harry Potter, and Gryffindor’s prominent family heir, Ron Weasley, were actually late!
Not even the Slytherins dared to act up in the Deputy Headmistress’s class, okay?
Ron and Harry snuck in through the back door, looking as suspicious as could be.
Ron even foolishly muttered, “Can you imagine the look on old McGonagall’s face if she caught us?”
As he said this, Ron spotted his dear older brother.
Dressed in a Hufflepuff uniform and squeezed into a desk alongside Malfoy, Raven stood out like a sore thumb against the rest of the classroom.
Ron saw Raven give him a thumbs-up, then slowly drag his thumb horizontally across his own neck.
*Oh crap!* Ron thought.
But he didn’t even realize *why* things were about to go wrong!
In an instant, the tabby cat on the desk transformed into human form.
Quick on his feet, Ron forced a look of awe onto his face and blurted out praise before Professor McGonagall could speak.
“That was bloody brilliant!”
Accepting the compliment with composure, Professor McGonagall replied, “Perhaps it would be more useful if I transfigured Mr. Potter and yourself into a pocket watch? That way, one of you might be on time, Mr. Weas—Ron Weasley.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Perhaps McGonagall had been moved by the diligent performance of the other Weasley present, or perhaps, as Harry explained, Hogwarts really was easy to get lost in.
She offered a brief reprimand and sent them to find their seats.
For these first-years on their second day of school, who didn’t even know how to hold a wand properly, expecting them to cast Transfiguration spells was out of the question.
In fact, even by the end-of-year exams, a significant portion of young wizards would still be unable to execute a proper Transfiguration spell.
So for this lesson, Professor McGonagall focused primarily on sparking the students’ interest and introducing the fundamental principles—Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.
After Professor McGonagall transfigured the teacher’s desk into a pig, the students’ enthusiasm for Transfiguration soared.
Memorizing the fundamental rules suddenly became an exciting task.
Professor McGonagall had good reason to believe that if any student could maintain this enthusiasm until Halloween, they would surely achieve their first successful Transfiguration spell before Christmas.
After class ended, Raven told Ron and Harry to wait for him so they could have dinner together.
Then, to maintain his persona, Raven went over to waste Professor McGonagall’s time.
It was purely to waste her time—his persona dictated that he couldn’t ask any high-level questions, right?
*For the purity of the Gryffindor kids, Madam Head of House, please make this sacrifice!* After all, there was a greasy, filthy middle-aged Dark wizard hiding in the Gryffindor common room right now.
When Raven returned to the back of the classroom, he was surprised to find Malfoy waiting for him as well.
In truth, Raven had intended for Malfoy to stay out of it.
After all, he had originally planned to eat dinner at the Gryffindor table.
As a Weasley himself, sitting with Gryffindor wasn’t strange at all.
However, bringing Malfoy along would look exceptionally bizarre.
So Raven adjusted his original plan.
In the Great Hall, at the Hufflepuff table, Raven invited Gryffindors Harry, Ron, and Hermione, as well as Slytherin’s Malfoy, to gather and plot their scheme.
A few attentive students—like Pappy—had already noticed that Raven hadn’t attended a single Potions class.
Today, she finally understood why.
Raven, a Hufflepuff, was currently dragging a Slytherin and three Gryffindors to the Hufflepuff dinner table to discuss how to target the Head of Slytherin, Professor Snape, in their very first Potions class on Friday morning.