Round Two of the Torture

[Aurora Night]

Rory had once again signed up for Transfiguration tutoring this year, and she had really hoped she was going to get the same tutor who had managed to help her last year, as she was sure she couldn't have scraped the Acceptable grade she'd ended up with on her own. When she'd finally received a note informing her of the time and meeting place, however, she'd noticed it wasn't the same person which made her kind of apprehensive. Rory remembered the troubles she'd had last year with her History of Magic tutor all too clearly, and didn't really want a repeat of that experience. Finding herself once again in the library, a place still largely unfamiliar to her, Rory waited for her tutor to arrive in much the same way she had done last year - by spelling out 'SAVE ME' with torn and crumpled up balls of paper. Maybe a random passer-by would take pity on her.

 

[Solomon Mordaunt]

It was back to the library again, for another year of tutoring younger students who didn't know how to apply themselves properly. Like the previous year, Solomon had expected to be paired with just one student, and even then he'd almost reconsidered signing up for the program as he lacked the proper patience for childish attitudes or, more accurately, dealing with anyone younger than him, he'd decided to purse it again if only for selfish reasons. It looked good on his record, and it gave him an opportunity to revise for his own, more important exams and classes. Unfortunately for the metamorphmagus, this year left him inundated with students to tutor. He immediately regretted his decision to sign up, already spreading his generosity thin on just one student as it was, but it was too late to retract his decision now.

It didn't take long to locate his pupil, having had Merrill point out the unfamiliar Gryffindor girl to him sometime prior, to avoid him awkwardly figuring out who it was when they met. Hopefully she'd do better than the last girl he had taught. Glancing between Aurora and her crumples of paper, Solomon sat down opposite her and set his bag aside. "Do you waste paper during your Transfiguration lessons, too?" The Slytherin said bluntly, unimpressed by what he took as her lack of concern for learning. If she used her paper for note-taking during lessons, perhaps she wouldn't have been wasting his time now. "I'm Solomon. Your tutor." He introduced himself to her, in case she didn't know who he was, though he refrained from extending his hand to shake and instead busied himself with setting up a pile of textbooks for the session, along with an assortment of items for practical purposes. He wasn't sure if she was struggling with practical or theory, though he had no doubt he'd find out soon enough.
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[Aurora Night]

Rory looked up from her little side project upon hearing someone sit opposite down opposite her. "Nope," she replied cheerfully. "Although maybe I should," she continued, casting a last eye over her handiwork before sweeping it a short distance off to her side. "It would probably be more productive than trying to get my transfigurations to work." Even without an introduction, she would have realised this was her tutor - he had way too many books and other things to be someone who just wanted to casually strike up a conversation. Rory watched him set everything out for a moment, before she piped up, "If I'm gonna be doing spells that's cool, but if you want me to get them first try we're going to be here for a couple of hours." It sort of sounded like a joke, but Rory wondered. She had made some progress in her Transfiguration skills since first year, but she knew she was still doing worse than a lot of other students in the class. "How do you get them to work?" she added. Maybe she could just do whatever her tutor did, and that would finally manage to make her not suck.

 

[Solomon Mordaunt]

Solomon silently listened to the girl make her comments on lesson productivity, and he realised it was no wonder she needed help with the subject. "Mm." He hummed, to show he was paying attention despite busying himself with his supplies, and bit back sarcastic remarks creeping to the tip of his tongue. He didn't have all day to spend with her, and he definitely wasn't going to waste a couple of hours on someone who didn't appear too enthused to put the effort into her studies, so he got straight to it. "Hard work and concentration. Perhaps you could start with that." The Slytherin replied, though it was practically a lie in his case. As a metamorphmagus, transfiguration was practically second nature for the youth. He had an innate knowledge on how it worked, a biological ability to alter his own composition and rearrange it as he liked, and that extended to his wandwork. He was average at best when it came to dueling or charmwork, but Transfiguration was his element. It was this ease of transmutative magic that made him look down on others who struggled with what he considered basic concepts.

"First, why don't you tell me what in particular, if anything, you're struggling with and we can work from there. You're a..." He glanced at his notes."Third year? So, animate to inanimate, or vice versa? Inanimate to inanimate, even?" Merlin help a third year who couldn't perform inanimate to inanimate Transfigurations. Solomon could only hope that wasn't the case. The last thing he needed was starting from scratch. He'd done it with one student already.
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[Aurora Night]

Rory didn't even bother holding in a groan at the tutor's words, dropping her head onto her arms melodramatically. Hard work and concentration? Well that was never going to happen, even if she tried. Food, a game of Quidditch, sneaking out after dark with her friends, these were all things she could concentrate on, but something that involved hard work as well? It was impossible, surely. She did want to get better though, it was so annoying that she did alright with all her other spells and yet had such trouble with Transfiguration. Rory scrunched up her nose in contemplation.

The tutor's next words brought her back to the situation at hand, particularly the bit at the end. Was he implying she was stupid? She couldn't quite be sure, so instead Rory just eyed him suspiciously. "No," she replied slowly, "I'm okay at inanimate to inanimate now." With varying degrees of misshapenness and numbers of attempts of course, depending on the particular transfiguration, but she'd done enough of it now over the years that it wasn't a type she was altogether concerned with. "And inanimate to animate is sometimes alright, depending on what I'm using it on. I got the chess piece in second year pretty quickly, for me," she remembered brightly. "But yeah, I still suck at animate to inanimate, and all the new stuff we've learned this year, too." It was always a slow process at the beginning of learning a new type, she was used to that by now.

 

[Solomon Mordaunt]

Solomon clicked his tongue. There was a lot of work to do, it seemed. Suppressing a sigh, he listened to the girl finish explaining and perused through what he had available to him. He would have preferred more than 'okay' when it came to inanimate to inanimate transfiguration, and perhaps her working on that more would benefit her more complex transfigurations, but as it was he decided to test her on a second year spell and see how it went. He took out a tea kettle from his bag, which looked impossible to have fit in from its exterior appearance, and placed it on the table with a dull clunk. "Fine. We'll see how you do with this, then. Transfigure it into a tortoise."
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[Aurora Night]

Rory had thought the tutoring session was kind of going alright so far - until the tutor suddenly pulled out a tea kettle from essentially nowhere. For a moment Rory could only blink in slight bewilderment at how prepared the guy was. He meant serious business... and she was no good at serious business. It didn't help that the spell he had picked for her to start with had been one of the ones she had found more complicated last year. It was still didn't make any sense all these months later. Why would anyone need to turn a tea pot into a tortoise? Especially considering the fact that you'd usually have to be in a kitchen to have access to a tea pot in the first place. Who needed a tortoise in a kitchen? What sort of nefarious purposes would they need it for? This was all just a distraction from the real problem though... or, at least, the beginning of the problem, Rory realised. "Yeah, I can definitely give that a go, just... what was the incantation again?" It had been way too long since she had last thought about this particular spell.

 

[Solomon Mordaunt]

Solomon held back a sigh. "It's Torte. Like tortoise." The clue was in the name, quite obviously. "You need to do more than just give it a go. Your spells aren't going to work well if you're only half committed to using them. With Transfiguration, there's no try, there's only do. You need to put a hundred percent into the outcome, and turn thought into reality." The last thing they needed was a steaming tortoise with an iron handle. These students needed to understand that changing something in its entirety wasn't something you could simply do with a half-hearted attempt, though he was somewhat glad Aurora wasn't one of those self righteous kids who were more concerned with the animal cruelty myth of Transfiguration, but wouldn't bat an eye when it came to using magic on another person.
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