First Years, Lesson Two

First Years, Lesson Two: Transfiguration and the Ministry of Magic​

Professor Edward Pirrip had a good feeling about his first year students this semester as he stood outside his classroom greeting the first years as they approached. He greeted each student by name as they arrived, keeping a quiet count in his head as they passed. Once confident that everyone had arrived, Edward followed them into the classroom and closed the door behind him and limping towards the front of the class.

"Welcome back first years! I'm pleased to see you all survived your first week." He greeted, flicking his wand towards the blackboard behind him to make a piece of chalk start writing Transfiguration and the Ministry of Magic. "As you probably picked up last week, Transfiguration is not only fascinating and complex, but also one of the most dangerous and powerful branches of magic. And with great power," he paused for effect, "comes a department full of Ministry rules and regulations, along with punishments in place for any misuse of Transfiguration. And yes, the Ministry will find out. They always do."

Edward paused briefly, his expression serious as he covered something important, he did not want the students to think he was joking, "Using this type of magic on another human, or even an animal, with the purpose of harming them or entertaining yourself will lead to severe punishments." He continued, hoping these kids understood this was a serious situation. "There are also laws for using Transfiguration on yourself. People like me, who have mastered Transfiguration to the point of altering their physical selves into an intelligent creature that represents them are known as Animagi. They must be registered with the Ministry of Magic. This registration must include both their Animagus form as well as any special markings that can help identify them." He gave the class a moment to catch up, noticing a few frantic scribblers. With a wave of his wand, the chalk began writing bullet points on the board to help them out.

"But it’s not just about people and animals. Even inanimate objects can be dangerous since most weapons are inanimate objects. There are also some objects that are classed as 'muggle artifacts' - things created by non-magical people or are specific inventions of theirs. Meaning that if we would like something like that, we would have to obtain it the non-magical way. This is the reason flying carpets are outlawed in most countries, but broomsticks are not."

He straightened up when he realised the time and clapped his hands together. "At the end of the day, there are numerous ways to abuse Transfiguration and each of its branches, which we'll be covering more in depth in future lessons. Unfortunately, that's all we really have time for today. If you're interested, you can read up on more about it in the library or come and visit me in my office. Class dismissed!"

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Homework: RP attendance! Tag @Professor Edward Pirrip if you would like me to interact with your character! Write out notes from the lesson for extra credit.

 

[Freddie Lagowski]

Freddie sat back in his chair, trying not to stare. Why did Professor Pirrip limp, he wondered? Was he in pain? The boy was so preoccupied by this thought, he almost missed the first part of the lecture entirely. Crap - he should probably take some notes. He slouched even lower as he wrote, so only his head and shoulders were visible over the edge of the desk. He was trying to concentrate, he really was, but his head felt full and nothing the professor said was going in. By the end of the class, he'd hardly written anything down and was so annoyed he nearly threw his chair under his desk as he went to leave.​

 

[Marina Vortalis]

Marina didn’t care much about people’s lives when they didn’t affect her, so she tried not to pay attention to anything but the lecture. She took notes, continuing down her parchment as she did so, because she didn’t want to miss anything. Using punishment for transifguration, apparently a bad thing, but Marina wasn’t sure how she felt about it. She could understand why people might be hesitant, but she didn’t see why it should be such a big deal, especially since transfiguration should be pausing them, so she really didn’t see the problem with it. Especially if someone has committed a truly horrible crime - but then she supposed they wouldn’t learn from said crime either, because they would have been paused. She then wondered how transfiguration is worse than putting someone in azkaban back when it still had dementors? She supposed it had to do with the freedom of life, but she couldn’t imagine there was much freedom in the place since it looked like a horrible triangle in the sea. Still, she wasn’t willing to deep dive into such things today and so as the class ended she quickly headed out.​

 

[Elizabeth Hale]

The second week of school was here already, and Elizabeth liked to think she was adjusting well. Living in a castle was a lot more work than she expected- but that could just be because of her classes. She'd hoped to have maybe an etiquette class or an elective that could be especially princess-y, but she'd not found any. No matter, she would make the best of the classes she was offered and try to put together a bit more on her own time.

For now, she'd gotten dressed in her uniform, taking time to make sure she looked as put together as possible. She was used to leaving early for her classes- princesses didn't rush, after all. She took her seat with the rest of her class, taking out her things. She knew she'd need extra notes here, and she'd practiced all week to perfect a shorthand that would help her to keep up. She tried it as the lecture went on- it wasn't perfect, but it was working better than before.

Even if this class was dark in nature, almost. Beth took a deep breath. Princesses needed to know the bad things, too- you couldn't just pretend they didn't exist and be a princess worthy of the title, after all. Princesses had to know how to fight, too. She took a breath as the class was dismissed. She remembered reading a story somewhere like this? Curious, she approached the Professor, and a little shyly, decided to ask him. "Excuse me, Professor?" She asked. "What you were talking about before- would turning people into statues be like in The Chronicles of Narnia? The White Witch had a garden of statues, didn't she?"

@Professor Edward Pirrip

Edward was tidying after the lesson when Elizabeth's voice made him pause to speak to her. He nodded in understanding, “Jadis, if I’m remembering correctly,” he said, it had been many a year since he had read that book though. “Her garden of statues is quite similar to what we were discussing, but her magic was from a different world. It’s a very good example of transfiguration used maliciously though. Shows you’re thinking about the bigger picture Miss Hale, take some extra house points for that.”