Lesson One: Types of Transfiguration
The door to the Transfiguration classroom stood wide open, with Leif leaning against the wall right next to it. He had thought carefully about what to do, deciding against waiting on his students inside of the room. Instead, he was stood outside. Greeting them with a warm smile in the hopes of calming any nerves they might have. They were first years, after all. This was another new room, new subject, new professor to get used to. A whole lot of things to get used to. Once he had a feeling they were all inside Leif stepped inside himself, leaving the door open just a crack to spare any latecomers of drawing full attention to themselves by having to open the creaky door.
"Welcome," He greeted his class as he strolled over to his desk, giving a small flick of his wand to lift a piece of chalk near the board before he turned around to face his students. "To Transfiguration." Leif smiled, trying not to grimace as the chalk made a terrible sound while underlining the term transfiguration on the blackboard behind him. "My name is Professor Leif Odegard and I will be your teacher for the next few years." He introduced himself. "Transfiguration is a very powerful branch of magic, capable of changing almost anything from one thing to another. Whether it be a quill into a spoon.." Leif explained, tapping one of the quills on his desk and turning it into a spoon as he spoke. "Or even a person into an animal." He finished with a slight grin, pointing his wand at the board behind him to make a list appear.
Types of Transfiguration Inanimate to Inanimate Inanimate to Animate Animate to Inanimate Animate to Animate Switching Conjuring Vanishing |
"Since I don't want to assume all of you know each and every term written on the board here, we'll start with some vocabulary. I'll try to make it quick as to not bore you, so make sure to pay attention and write along." Leif told his students, knowing kids their age had an attention span that generally didn't last more than thirty minutes. "Inanimate refers to something that isn't mobile nor living. It doesn't move, like a rock, a chair or even a building. Those are all inanimate. Animate, as you might've guessed, is the exact opposite. Anything living, moving. Like you and I, the owls up in the Owlery or the creatures in the lake." He explained, looking around to see if there were any faces that screamed confusion or perhaps excitement at his mention of the lake.
"Now let's combine those two. Inanimate to inanimate transfiguration simply means turning one non-living thing into another. Like how I turned that quill into a spoon. This is the easiest form of trasnfiguration, especially when you start with objects that are roughly the same size." Leif waved his wand at one of the books on his desk, turning it into a delicate silver box of similar size. "Inanimate to animate transfiguration," He waved his wand again, turning the cyan quill that had been sitting in an inkpot on his desk into a chirping bluebird, "You guessed it, turns a thing without live into something living. Don't be fooled though, while the creature looks alive it lacks a soul and isn't truly living. True life is something we cannot give." He finished explaining, waving his wand to turn the bird back into a quill which slowly floated towards the floor.
"If I had turned that bird into a different type of quill instead of using untransfiguration, that would've been an example of animate to inanimate transfiguration. For that type of transfiguration it's important to note that you don't kill a creature when you turn it into something inanimate, it's more like pressing pause on their life for a short time." Leif told them, picking up the quill and placing it back into the inkpot. "Finally," He continued, glancing at the clock to see time was almost up. Although some of his students' faces could've told him the same. "Animate to animate changes a living thing into another. Like a snail into a slug or a human into a toad, the latter being particularly populair in Muggle stories." He laughed. "Right, that's it for today. I know all of this theory can be tiring but it's important to understand what we're talking about before we'll be able to get out our wands and actually try to perform magic. You all did great today, though. See you next week!"
Roleplay the lesson for full marks!