On Wednesday afternoon, Alvin Vance and the Slytherin first-years walked through the castle to the Transfiguration classroom on the second floor.
It was a spacious and bright room.
Huge windows looked out directly onto the mountains behind the castle, and the morning sun fell upon the neatly arranged desks.
The walls were covered with portraits of various animals, some moving slowly, others changing forms—shifting from a bird into a mouse, then from a mouse into a teacup.
However, when the class bell rang, the space behind the lectern was completely empty.
Alvin frowned slightly.
Professor McGonagall, that strict, precise, meticulous witch, was late?
It didn’t make sense.
The only thing on the lectern was a tabby cat.
It paced gracefully along the edge of the desk, its amber eyes coolly scanning the students in the classroom with a searching, scrutinizing gaze—looking very much like a professor checking if everyone had arrived.
Alvin’s gaze landed on the cat and lingered for a moment.
It looked like an ordinary cat.
Glossy fur, elegant stride, lively eyes, but that was it.
Instinctively, Alvin probed it with his spiritual perception, but sensed nothing unusual.
The “qi” inside its body was just like any ordinary animal’s—weak and simple, without any trace of magical fluctuation.
A cat.
Only…
why was it in the Transfiguration classroom?
Just then, the classroom door was flung open.
Harry and Ron burst in, panting, their robes in disarray, their faces filled with “oh no, we’re late” panic.
Ron whispered in relief as he ran:
“Thank goodness, Professor McGonagall isn’t here yet…”
Before he could finish, the tabby cat on the lectern moved.
It leaped down lightly, landing on the floor.
Then, before Harry and Ron’s horrified eyes, it began to transform.
Its fur rippled like waves, its body elongated and stood upright, and its feline face melted and reshaped like melting wax.
Within seconds, the cat vanished.
In its place stood Professor Minerva McGonagall, wearing emerald-green robes, her eyes behind her square spectacles as sharp as knives.
“Thank you for that assessment, Mr.
Potter, Mr.
Weasley.”
Her voice was as cold as an autumn wind in November.
“For letting me know that it is apparently acceptable to be a minute late to my class.”
Ron’s mouth fell open, and Harry’s face turned as white as the scar on his forehead.
The two of them froze at the door as if hit by a Full Body-Bind Curse.
The classroom was dead silent.
Alvin was also stunned.
His gaze was locked on Professor McGonagall, his mind rapidly replaying the scene.
A cat turning into a human.
It wasn’t an illusion, nor was it a trick of the eye—it was a complete, fundamental change.
Most importantly, before the transformation, his spiritual perception hadn’t detected anything unusual.
It really had been just a cat.
From the inside out, in both form and spirit.
Only now, as Professor McGonagall stood behind the lectern, radiating the sharp, sword-like magic he had sensed when they first met, did he realize that the ordinary living creature from moments ago and this imposing witch were one and the same. Get faster updates on NovelPing.
The wonder of magic had once again redefined Alvin’s understanding.
In Eastern arts, transformation spells mostly relied on “illusion”—deceiving the eyes and altering the outer appearance while leaving the essence unchanged.
Scattering beans to create soldiers: the beans were still beans, merely granted a temporary form and brief mobility.
Paper figures and paper horses: their essence remained paper.
True “Transfiguration,” which completely altered the essence of an object and made it something else entirely from the inside out, already transcended the scope of Daoist arts Alvin knew.
It bordered on the legendary realm of “Creation.”
Yet, Professor McGonagall had performed a perfect transfiguration right before his eyes.
“Come in, sit down,” Professor McGonagall’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
Harry and Ron, faces flushed like startled rabbits, scurried off to empty seats in the Gryffindor section.
As Ron passed Hermione, she gave him a fierce “I told you we should have left earlier” look.
Once everyone was seated, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and began her first lesson.
“Transfiguration,” she said, her voice clear and powerful, each word meticulously chiseled, “is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts.
Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back.
You have been warned.”
Her gaze swept across the room, ensuring everyone had received the warning.
Then, she drew her wand and pointed it at her desk.
“Now, watch closely.”
An invisible wave of energy rippled from the tip of her wand, enveloping the heavy oak desk.
In the next second, the desk began to twist, shrink, and change shape.
The wood grain flowed and merged as if alive, the four legs shortened and thickened, and the desktop swelled and wrinkled—
A pig.
A living, pink pig, twitching its tail and oinking, stood where the desk had been.
A collective gasp erupted in the classroom.
Several students in the front row instinctively shrank back.
Neville even nearly slid off his chair.
Professor McGonagall’s expression remained unchanged.
She waved her wand again.
The pig began to warp, elongate, and revert.
In the blink of an eye, the heavy oak desk was back in its place, solid and motionless, as if nothing had happened.
“Perfect,” Professor McGonagall said, lowering her wand.
“The basic principles of Transfiguration, as I have just demonstrated: you must possess a deep understanding of the object’s essence, as well as a firm will to reshape it.
If your intent is impure, the transfiguration fails; if your will is weak, the transfiguration is unstable.
Remember this.”
She paused and swept her gaze over the classroom again.
“Now, take out your quills and begin taking notes.
There is far more basic theory of Transfiguration you need to understand than you might think.”
For the next half hour, Alvin experienced the most grueling mental storm since arriving at Hogwarts.
The material Professor McGonagall explained was incredibly profound: the five basic principles of Transfiguration, the application of the law of conservation of mass in transfiguration, the fundamental difference between animate and inanimate transfiguration, the five common types of failed transfigurations and their causes, the essential distinction between Transfiguration and Charms…
A torrent of concepts and theories washed over him, requiring him to chew on every sentence repeatedly just to barely digest them.
Alvin’s quill flew across the parchment, jotting down every key point, occasionally noting his own understanding in Chinese in the margins.
This was far more complex than Charms theory.
He tried to understand Transfiguration through the framework of Eastern magic, but found it difficult to map directly.
As he had thought earlier, spells like “bean-soldiers and paper-horses” essentially “granted temporary form.” But the Transfiguration Professor McGonagall spoke of was to make a desk truly become a pig, giving it the biological traits, physiological structure, and even…
the soul of a pig…
He recalled her demonstration.
That pig could oink and wag its tail. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Did it have the consciousness of a pig?
If she didn’t turn it back, would the pig exist forever?
Would it need to eat?
Would it poop?
These thoughts flashed through his mind, but Alvin didn’t ask them aloud.
He knew these questions were too complex for a first-year class.
And he had a faint feeling that the ultimate secrets of Transfiguration lay far beyond his current level of understanding.
The lecture finally came to an end.
Professor McGonagall lowered her wand, looking over faces that were either dazed, exhausted, or excited.
“Enough theory,” she said.
“Now, for some practice.”
With a wave of her wand, an ordinary match appeared on each student’s desk.
“Today’s exercise—turn this match into a needle.”
Professor McGonagall’s voice was devoid of emotion, as if she were stating something perfectly ordinary.
“Begin.”
A collective sharp intake of breath echoed through the classroom.
Alvin looked at the tiny wooden stick before him, took a deep breath, and picked up his wand.
He recalled Professor McGonagall’s lecture: *pure intent, firm will*.
He stared at the match, trying to “see” it turning into a needle in his mind.
The silvery metallic texture, the sharp tip, the slender body…
“Transfigure…” a low voice whispered nearby, followed by a soft *puff* as a match gave off a wisp of gray smoke.
Alvin paid no attention to the noise around him, focusing solely on his target.
He raised his wand and gave it a gentle tap, mimicking the wand movement Professor McGonagall had demonstrated.
“Change.”
He didn’t use any Latin incantation.
Professor McGonagall had said that incantations in Transfiguration were merely aids; the true core lay in the caster’s intent.
Using his most familiar method, he fused his spiritual energy with his intent, transmitting the command to “change” into the match.
The match shuddered, bent slightly, and then snapped back to its original shape.
Failure.
Alvin wasn’t discouraged.
He closed his eyes, reconstructing the image of the needle in his mind.
This time, he imagined it in even greater detail: the angle of the tip, the curve of the eye, the metallic luster reflecting light.
He even summoned his memories of acupuncture needles he had seen on Mount Qingcheng—needles that were even thinner and sharper.
Second attempt.
The match began to change.
Its color shifted from woody pale yellow to grayish-white, and its shape elongated slightly, but it stopped halfway, turning into a twisted, bizarre rod that was half-wood and half-metal.
Alvin sighed, cleared away the failed attempt, and refocused his mind.
Third time.
This time, he didn’t rush.
First, he calmed his mind, letting his spiritual energy circulate through a minor cosmic orbit to dispel the impatience caused by his first two failures.
Then, he raised his wand.
His movements were slower and steadier than before as he poured his intent, bit by bit, into the match.