Rats!

[Minoas Stratis]

Given the opportunity, Minoas decided to practise the new trasfiguration away from the class that usually his lessons were taking place. Being the kind of person that liked changes over routine and permanence, he couldn't resist from taking his partner and their rat for another location in the castle. He remembered of an abandoned classroom that was no longer used for teaching and had started turning into storage rooms. He had used it several times in the past to practise the prank-jinxes from defence against the dark arts class and it was rarely visited by other students, especially during class periods.

He had paired up with a slytherin. He has a new face and Minoas had noticed him since the beginning of the year. From their short conversation, on their way to the abandoned classroom, he discovered that the slytherin was a transferred student and he wondered if they were going to work well together since the serpents weren't really cooperative with gryffindors and hufflepuffs. Minoas opened the door while holding the squealing rat by its tail, supplied by professor Davershire. They were supposed to turn it into a rabbit but the rat didn't seem eager to let them work their hocus pocus on it. It was trying desperately to release its tale from Minoas' fingers as if it could feel what it was going to happen. Minoas stepped inside the room, where the sun was penetrating through the dusty curtains, leaving the door open for his partner. "This is it! The abandoned classroom. Your name is Elbio, right?" he asked as he walked towards the center of the room where an antique table was standing. "I'm not sure if it is a good idea to let this little fella let go." he said, hesitant to leave the rat wander on the table. It was still struggling to release its tail and it was probably going to runaway at the first opportunity.

 

[Elbio Aiello]

Elbio wasn't sure about it. He wasn't a brilliance on transfiguration and he was feeling much comfortable with Professor Davershire around him. He had no problem with his colleague. Most fellow Slytherins used to talk trash about Gryffindors on their late night conversations in Slytherins common room but Elbio couldn't understand which was the source of this distaste. He was feeling slightly concerned about one thing. What could happen if he was going to mess up their practice. Last time, he considered himself purely lucky that he had managed to complete the task of turning his frog into a grasshopper. He was surprised positively but he wasn't expecting his lucky strike to keep on. On the other hand, Minoas was good at that subject. Elbio was a really observant person, he wasn't only paying attention to the lesson, but also to his classmates. He had noticed that Minoas was a quite good student and he was a talent in transfiguration. Elbio could use that to his advantage, get some advices on how to improve his dreadful technique, since he was too shy to ask the professor.

Following Minoas, he entered what was supposed to be an abandoned room, used in the past for teaching. To Elbio, seemed more like a storage room. A forgotten storage room. "That's a rat hole but it would do." he spoke of his first impression, just to break the ice. The had talked during their little trip from transfiguration classroom to that room but Elbio didn't really know what else to say. He was really bad when it came to socializing. "That's right." he confirmed his name as he was having a look at the different stuff that had piled in the room, ready to cave in upon them. He was glad that Minoas had taken the initiative and took the rat. He was probably going to lose it on their way and they wouldn't have anything to practise on. "Here, let's use this." he plucked carefully a box from the closer pile, without collapsing the pillar of junk. He placed it on the antique table, letting Minoas place into it, the hyperactive rat.
"So, how are we going to work?" he hoped that his partner had a plan in mind. "To be honest, I suck in transfiguration and I have already forgotten the incantation." he confessed, not really bothering to hide how bad he was.

 

[Minoas Stratis]

Minoas couldn't hide his smile when Elbio commented about the room. It was true that it was cramped with all sort of things, piled as if by magic since some of the piles were still standing by some sort of miracle. If he didn't know that the room of requirements was placed on another floor, he would have mistaken it with this one.
"I know right. It will do though for our practice." he just said and placed the rat into the box that Eblio placed on the table between them. "Well, I don't know how to turn the rabbit back to a rat once we are successful, so I guess one of us is going to try it. But I guess, we can still practise the right movement and the incantation." he suggested since his partner asked for his opinion. Of course if Elbio had a different idea, he was more than eager to hear it. He listened as the slytherin before him expressed his lack of skills in the area of transfiguration. Minoas simply shook his head and grinned. "I can't understand why most people believe that transfiguration is that difficult. Okay, it is a little bit complex but since you have discovered a few things, everything flows naturally then." he tried to encourage him. He already seemed to have gave up.

"Don't worry about the incantation. I got it, it's cuniculus." it was good that he had memorized it from the blackboard before leaving the class. Returning back to the classroom just to memorize again the incantation was going to be time consuming and a wrong-remembered incantation could lead to disasterous results.
"I have passed hours wondering what I've been doing wrong in the past, trying to figure out why my stupid needle didn't want to turn into a simple match." he began, trying to show him that he had also experienced the disappointment that was now all over Elbio's face. "I found out that I was paying too much attention on the incantation that I completely ignored the right movement." he paused as he was revealing something really important for their practice. "Let's begin from the movement. The movement for animate to animate transfiguration is point your wand at the target with your hand completely extended." he said and demonstrated a couple of times.

"Now this is fifty percent of success. The rest fifty is devided between the incantation of course, its right pronunciation and your imagination." he said with a smile and pointed a finger at Elbio. "Visualize what you want to achieve! Last time if you remember, the grasshoppers were differing from student to student. It's the inner power of each one of us and our imagination." he concluded, hoping his long speech was inspiring enough to give a psychological boost to his partner and give it a go. "So let's begin. Combine the right movement with the incantation and your imagination. Let's see what you are made of." he encouraged him as he was demonstrating with his wand, the movement again.