Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

The first Wednesday of March, afternoon, second floor of the castle, Transfiguration classroom.

Sunlight streamed in through the high windows, falling on rows of desks, each with a palm-sized gray slate on it.

Slytherins and Hufflepuffs are in the same class this time.

The two groups sat clearly separated, with Slytherins on the left and Hufflepuffs on the right, with an empty row of tables in the middle.

Unlike the tense atmosphere when they were in the same room with the Gryffindors, the Hufflepuffs chatted amongst themselves, with no one glancing at the Slytherins. A few Hufflepuff girls in the back row huddled together; one of them tapped the stone slab lightly with her wand and whispered something, causing two others next to her to cover their mouths and laugh.

No one in Slytherin glared back; their gazes passed over Hufflepuff's head as if it were empty.

Hufflepuff was happy to have some peace and quiet; who would want to be stared at by a bunch of snakes for the entire class?

Each side was minding their own business. The Hufflepuffs were chatting and laughing in hushed tones, creating a cheerful atmosphere, while the Slytherins were quieter and not particularly serious. Because the serious ones hadn't arrived yet.

It arrived in the next moment.

The classroom door opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in, wearing a dark green robe with the collar buttoned up tightly, her hair pulled back into a high bun, not a single strand out of place.

Square-framed glasses perched on her nose, her lips pressed into a thin line, her hands clasped in front of her, her movements so precise that even her robe barely fluttered as she walked. She stood before the podium, placed something in her hand on the lectern, and scanned the entire room with her gaze.

The chatter and laughter in the classroom fell silent instantly. The young wizards sat up straight, backs ramrod, hands neatly placed on their desks. "Today's lesson," McGonagall said, picking up her wand and waving it towards the blackboard, "partial cross-material deformation."

Several lines of silvery-white characters appeared on the blackboard, with clear edges and neat characters.

"On the same stone slab," she read the instructions with her back to the blackboard, "turn one half into wood and keep the other half stone, with each material intact, clearly defined, and without any seepage between them."

She turned around, picked up her stone tablet, and tapped it lightly with her wand.

The stone slab is split in the middle. The gray on the left half fades, and the texture rises up, revealing the light color of birch wood. The fine wood grain spreads outward in circles, and the tiny pores of the wood itself can be vaguely seen.

The right half is still made of cold, hard gray stone with a rough surface and distinct particles.

The two materials meet at the center line, the boundary clear and neat, the wood and stone each guarding their own edge, neither daring to overstep the other's bounds. She held up the stone slab for the whole class to see, and slowly turned it around.

"The difficulty of this lesson is not in the transformation," she said, placing the slate back on the podium in a serious tone. "At that intersection, the half that transforms must become completely transformed, and the half that guards must guard completely."

Many people only focus on the side that needs to be transformed, forgetting that the side that remains unchanged also needs restraint. Once the magic crosses the midline, the two sides become mixed up. When transforming, your attention must be focused on both sides simultaneously.

The professor scanned the room from left to right and said, "Begin."

A series of rustling sounds and chanting filled the classroom as the young wizards picked up their wands and began gesturing at the stone slab in front of them.

After the initial commotion subsided, the differences in student performance became apparent.

A Hufflepuff boy jabbed the stone slab so hard with his wand that the entire slab turned into wood, and the boundary was no longer protected.

He stared blankly at the piece of wood, while the classmate next to him peeked over and chuckled.

In the back row, there was a Slytherin girl who hadn't completely transformed; several unmelted stone veins were embedded in half of the wood, and grayish-white stripes were inlaid in the wood grain, making it a mottled mess.

She frowned and used her wand to touch the stone veins, but the more she touched them, the more blurred they became.

There was also a Hufflepuff student's place where the transition zone, half wood and half stone, took up a third of the entire slab, bumpy and uneven, and it was hard to tell what it was.

He tilted his head and looked at himself, then sighed.

Professor McGonagall walked between the desks, looking down at each slate.

"The whole thing has changed; where are your boundaries now?"

She stopped in front of a Hufflepuff boy, who blushed and shrank back.

McGonagall's wand lightly tapped above the stone slab: "The Transfiguration Charm wasn't aimed precisely enough. The magic dissipated as it left the wand. Let's try again, first lock onto the center line."

She walked past a Slytherin girl, glanced at the veins on the stone slab, and nodded: "The magic output is unstable, so the wood grain won't unfold. Try a few more times."

Avery sat two seats behind Regulus.

His stone slab did distinguish between wood and stone, and the boundaries were quite clear, but the slab was cracked.

Split it in the middle of the boundary line, and half of the wood is wood, and half of the stone is stone. When you pick it up, it's in two halves.

He poked the crack with his wand, muttering under his breath. He glanced up at the back of Regulus's head, then looked down and fiddled with the crack. It had drifted off the edge of Alex's slab, with the wood crossing the center line and taking up a small section of the stone.

However, the textures are clearly laid out, the wood and stone are distinct, and although the two materials are not positioned correctly at their junction, they are still complete.

McGonagall glanced at it as she passed by and said, "Pay attention to the boundary."

Alex nodded quickly, pressed his wand against the edge of the wood grain, and pushed it back, his expression focused.

Hermes sat in the back row by the window, the stone slab in his hand already finished, its edges clear, its material distinct, and its boundary clean. Then he placed the slab on the table, rested his chin on his hand, tilted his head and stared out the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, illuminating his face, and he squinted and yawned.

Regulus sat in the front row of Slytherin.

In Professor McGonagall's classes, seats are always in high demand as you go further back; you only get a seat at the front if you arrive late.

But it made no difference to him, because he was a good student, so it didn't matter where he sat.

He rested his wand on the stone slab, and magic seeped into it from the tip.

The wood rose from one end of the stone slab, its edges tinged with a very pale off-white, before the grain spread in concentric circles, fine and even. He let the wood grain stop at the midline, the boundary clean and sharp, the wood grain and stone particles naturally connecting at the edge. The silvery luster of the birch wood pressed against the cold, hard texture of the gray stone, interlocking perfectly without the slightest transgression.

Wood is wood, and stone is stone; the two materials grow on the same board, and the junction fits together perfectly.

It's a single piece when you pick it up, and it's still a single piece when you put it down. Apart from the different materials, you can't tell where it was joined together.

It's done, without much effort.

He didn't stop immediately; the magic was still pressed onto the stone slab, maintaining the transformation and sensing it.

You can clearly feel that half of the wood is being pulled back.

This is the current state of transformation magic; it hasn't reached the level of permanent transformation yet. The stone slabs that have been given the ability to transform always carry the tendency to return to their original form.

It remembers that it was originally a whole piece of stone, and the wood was attached to it from the outside.

It obeys when pressed, but once the magic is released, the wood grain will fade.

It won't be completely removed all at once; the magic still lingers inside, and the will hasn't been completely withdrawn. It can hold on for a while, but it's only a matter of time before it reverts back to stone.

The more magic power supplied, the more stable the caster's will, and the longer it can be maintained. But if you want it to remain a piece of wood, you have to keep supplying it with magic power. He already knew this, so it wasn't anything new. He just thought about it for the moment.

He knew from the moment he learned his first transformation that the effect would dissipate once the spell was stopped.

All transformations are like this, at least all the transformations we've learned so far are like this.

This is also true for the vast majority of wizards; transformation is ultimately temporary and provisional. Once the magic is withdrawn, it returns to its original state.

A question arose in his mind.

What is permanent deformation? How is it achieved?

The permanently deformed object should have been cut off from the spellcaster's magical supply; the person is gone, but the deformation continues.

What sustains it?

More advanced transfiguration techniques incorporate this maintenance element into the spell itself.

There is still an element of will. The caster's will is engraved into the object being transformed the moment the transformation is completed, and there is no longer a need to continuously supply magic power.

Or more fundamentally, permanent deformation is not a matter of maintenance; it is fundamentally rewritten the moment deformation occurs.

He stared at the half-wood, half-stone slab in his hand; the wood grain was still radiating outwards, while the stone was still receding.

He pressed it as he thought.

This question is not in the textbook. The second-grade transformation lesson will not cover permanent transformation, nor is it necessary to cover it.

Advanced classes may cover that level of Transfiguration theory, which is only accessible to students in sixth grade and above.

Professor McGonagall certainly possesses a more advanced system of Transfiguration, that's for sure.

But he was only a sophomore, several years away from the advanced class, and the professor didn't call him in advance.

The bell rang, and McGonagall stood at the front of the class, removing the writing from the blackboard: "That's all for this lesson."

The students began packing up their things, and the unfinished wooden pieces on the stone slabs gradually returned to the gray stone.

The classroom was filled with rustling sounds: wands tapping on the edge of desks, and backpack clasps clicking.

Avery pieced the two halves of the slate back together, and they stuck back on themselves. He picked them up, flipped them over, and put them back on the table.

Alex's slate returned to normal, he breathed a sigh of relief, and tucked his wand back into his sleeve.

Hermes looked away from the window, stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked towards the door.

Lina and Samuel were automatically imported.

Regulus also got up and followed him outside.

I'll ask about the permanent deformation issue in the office later; perfect timing, I also have a few other questions to ask.

McGonagall's office was in the first-floor corridor of the castle, near the right side of the staircase leading to the serpentine corridor on the third floor, not far from classroom 30, at the corner of the faculty corridor. Regulus let Avery and the others go first, and then slowly walked along the stone corridor himself.

He stopped in front of the office door and knocked three times.

"Please come in," came McGonagall's voice from inside.

Pushing open the door, I saw the professor sitting behind his desk.

Several stacks of parchment were piled on the table, containing papers and assignments from different grades. Some were tied with dark green ribbons, while others were secured with copper clips, all neatly arranged at the edges.

The ink bottle cap was unscrewed but not screwed back on, and the quill pen was on the pen holder with ink still on the tip.

McGonagall looked up, her eyes behind her square-framed glasses as sharp as they were during class.

Looking at Regulus at the door, he lowered his chin slightly.

"Mr. Black," she put down her quill, her voice serious, "are you here to hand in last week's Transfiguration paper?" Regulus stood in the doorway, his hand still on the doorknob.

Submit a supplementary paper?

He was completely stunned.

This was a problem I had never thought about, and I wasn't even prepared for it.

I took leave for the first two weeks to go home and attend my grandfather's funeral. Then I returned to school and went back to class. Everything went smoothly.

No one mentioned the homework, and no one told him that he would have to make up the homework if he took leave.

What kind of logic is that?

Having lived two lives, this is the first time I've been urged to do homework.

His expression remained unchanged. He removed his hand from the doorknob, walked naturally to the desk, bowed slightly, and spoke with a respectful and composed tone. "I'm writing, Professor."

McGonagall stared at him, her gaze direct and sharp.

This Mr. Black, whether in terms of talent or skill, is impeccable, at least in his Transfiguration.

Talent is talent, and a thesis is a thesis. No matter how outstanding a student is, they still have to make up for the assignments they owe.

That's the rule.

As for what is being written, she doesn't believe a single word.

She'd heard this excuse for decades; people in every grade used it, from first grade to seventh grade, without ever changing the wording.

Regulus wasn't afraid of being stared at; he met McGonagall's gaze without the slightest hint of guilt.

Whether he's writing or not, there's no difference to him.

It makes no difference whether you say something that never happened is happening or it never happened.

In any case, starting to write now or starting to write a long time ago makes no difference to the final result.

McGonagall probably sensed something about his stubbornness from his expression, so she didn't dwell on it.

"The paper is due by Friday."

Regulus stood up straight, his expression respectful, and nodded: "Yes, Professor."

McGonagall nodded her chin toward the chair opposite her: "Sit down."