Chapter 47

Shortly after lunch the students of Gryffindor and Slytherin houses eyed each other warily in the hall outside the door to Professor McGonnigal's transfiguration classroom. It was rare indeed for two houses to double up in any class but potions, but now and again it was necessary, either to make up for a holiday or some other quirk in the schedule.

Draco leaned casually against the wall, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. He stared straight ahead with an expression of studied indifference. Nearby was Pansy Parkinson and her new boyfriend, Blaise Zabini. Zabini was a sixth year, and having a spare, had followed his girlfriend through the halls to wait with her for her transfiguration class to start. Zabini looked over from time to time at Draco, a slight smile on his face.

"Hey, champ," said Crabbe, far too thick to have noticed the unspoken dialogue between Draco and Zabini, "are there going to be any challenges for your title?" Crabbe said this loudly enough so that Harry and his friends would hear.

"I doubt it," drawled Draco. "No one wants to get hurt. But if anyone does challenge me, I hope it'll be a good fight, and not boring like the last one." Crabbe and Goyle dutifully guffawed, and then turned as the door opened, announcing that Transfiguration was about to begin. Pansy's goodbyes to Blaise drifted into the classroom through the open door, and then Pansy herself followed, not taking a seat near Draco and instead sitting as far away from him as possible. The usual student conversation died the instant Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. She enjoyed a respect accorded to but few professors at Hogwarts, and classroom management was never something she had to concern herself with.

"I had a busy time of it with your essays on the relationship between apparition, transfiguration and the vanishing charm," said the professor, "and with a few exceptions, I have to say that I am most disappointed in the quality of the work. Perhaps some of you will be able to redeem yourselves with today's lesson. But I doubt it. As you know, the Ministry has been making changes to Hogwart's curriculum, and for that reason, I am giving for today's assignment something that normally is given to sixth years, and not by me, but instead by Professor Flitwick in Charms class. But the Ministry thinks this spell belongs in Transfiguration, and so teach it I must. With this spell, you will attempt for the first time the transmutation of a liquid. You will each be given some vinegar, and if successful, by the end of the lesson, you will have changed it into wine. Now the spell is called -"

Ron stuck up his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley?"

"If we learn how to do this properly, does this mean that the back in the common room we can get our hands on some vinegar and create a unlimited supply of wine for ourselves?"

McGonagall smiled, and waved her wand. A coin appeared in her hand.

"Heads or tails, Mr. Weasley."

"What?" asked Ron, baffled.

"Choose." The professor wasn't smiling any more.

"Heads."

McGonagall spun the coin into the air.

"If it's heads, you can make all the wine you want. If it's tails, you'll get some extra homework for interrupting my lesson." The professor caught the coin, placed it on her wrist, and then displayed the upturned surface to Ron. His face fell.

"I'll need an essay from you, at least twelve inches of parchment on the history of laws against underage drinking both in the United Kingdom and on the continent. You'll have it at my office by 8:30 tomorrow morning."

It was not for nothing that Ron had been sorted into Gryffindor, and he demanded the chance to inspect the coin. McGonagall passed the coin to him, a new, gleaming Galleon.

"Professor! That's not fair! Both sides are tails!"

"At least you learned something in my class today, Mr. Weasley. Now let's get started."

McGonagall called for volunteers from each house, and as usual Hermione put up her hand, as did Pansy on behalf of Slytherin. McGonagall instructed the girls to take the jugs of vinegar from the side table and distribute the contents among the class.

"No more than a few ounces to each student," said McGonagall. The last thing she needed was a drunk student wandering through the halls. Hermione and Pansy, each carrying a jug, walked about the classroom pouring a small amount into the flasks at each table. As Hermione poured some vinegar into Crabbe's flask, she heard the stupid boy attempt a witticism.

"Maybe after you graduate you can get a job at the Three Broomsticks," said Crabbe with a smirk. "Although I think the Hog's Head is more your level."

"Why, thank you for your career advice," said Hermione quietly. "Maybe you can write me a letter of recommendation, if you learn your alphabet by the time you graduate. Now what's the first letter?" She ground the heel of her shoe on Crabbe's foot.

"Ahhhhh!"

"Close. Very close. Keep practicing, Crabbe."

As Pansy wandered around the room rationing vinegar into the flasks, she found that she had misjudged the amount to pour at each table. She had very little left, and knew that after pouring Weasley's portion, she would have nothing left for Potter. She could have easily asked McGonagall for more vinegar, but a better idea occurred to her.

"Is that all I get?" said Ron as a small splash of vinegar landed in his flask.

"You got the same as everyone else," answered Pansy shortly. She turned as if to answer a question from someone else, and as she did so, muttered "Aguamenti." Turning back, she headed to Harry's table, her pitcher now full of water rather than vinegar. She filled Harry's flask to the brim, and stepping away from his table, vanished the remaining water from the pitcher and placed it on the side table next to the empty pitcher Hermione had used.

"As all of you know, or should know, by now, "said McGonagall, beginning her lecture now that everyone was properly equipped, "One cannot simply create food or drink out of nothing. One can cause food to move from one place to another or, as you are about to learn today, some edible or potable substances can be transmuted to other edible or potable forms, but one cannot create food or drink from nothing. Has anyone ever come across the rule that describes this fact?"

Two hands shot straight into the air. One was Hermione's, and the other, Draco's. McGonagall was tired of Hermione always answering, and was glad to give someone else a chance.

"Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration states that you can't conjure food from nowhere," said Malfoy.

"Ten points for Slytherin," said McGonagall. "Now let's get started."

Imogen smiled as she imitated the wand movement demonstrated by the professor, thinking back to her first few days at the school when she had first tried to transfigure objects using the instructions in the first year text book. At that time, she had learned that simple spells consisted of a short movement on one plane, such as a poking motion or a quick wave. More complicated spells involved movement in two or three planes, and the most difficult of all required repeated movement in all three dimensions, accompanied by rotation movements of the wrist. The Divino spell (for that was its name) required movement only in two planes with no rotation at all. It was a spell any third year ought to be able to do easily, thought Imogen.

"Now observe closely," said McGonagall, and all the students looked up to where the professor was standing next to her desk. Her flask was larger than those at the students' tables, and was filled to the brim with vinegar. McGonagall repeated the wand movement she had just taught them, and pronounced the spell. The clear vinegar at first showed no signs of any effect. But then a ribbon of red appeared, winding through the vessel's contents. The liquid seemed not to move at all, but every where the ribbon touched, the vinegar turned a deep rosy red.

"With upper year students I would invite those of age to take a small sample so that they could judge the quality," said McGonagall. "But for you, this will not be possible. You will simply have to take my word for it." And with this, McGonagall picked up a goblet sitting on her desk, and poured the small amount of liquid for herself. She took a sip and swirled the liquid around her mouth before swallowing.

"Not the best," she said. "But I've had worse. It all depends, you see, on the quality of grapes from which the vinegar was made. And of course we did not let it age at all."

Hermione stuck up her hand.

"Professor, it all looks so easy." A number of other students nodded their head in agreement. McGonagall smiled.

"Yes, it certainly does," she said. "But I think, Ms. Granger, that even you will have a bit of difficulty, at least at first. In any event, let us get started."

Ten minutes into the class it was apparent that McGonagall's prediction was correct. Not only had none of the students managed the transmutation, but also none of them had made any visible progress. At no desk had the liquid so much has changed colour in the slightest. No one had even managed to create grape juice, let alone wine.

"This just makes no sense at all," whispered Hermione in frustration to no one in particular. "This ought to be really simple."

"I bet you Fred and George mastered this in an instant," said Ron, remembering the hard drinking of his brothers over the Christmas holidays.

Professor McGonagall watched the students' frustration with amusement. Having taught at Hogwarts for well over three decades, McGonagall was possessed of all the skills a teacher needed to survive in a classroom full of teenagers. Her peripheral vision was second to none. Any murmuring by a student was sure to be heard by McGonagall, for while her hearing had deteriorated with age, she made up for this by magically enhancing her ears at the start of each day. Lastly, she knew all of her students very well, and was perfectly aware of who could be trusted and who could not. Pansy Parkinson was one of those who could not. McGonagall had watched as Pansy moved about the class, pouring out each student's share of vinegar for the day's lesson. She had seen Pansy resort to the aguamenti charm when she had ran out of vinegar, and was thus perfectly aware that in Harry's flask was mere water, quite useless for the transmutation she was teaching that day. But McGonagall chose to say nothing. She was curious to see how Potter would deal with the difficulty that Pansy's mischief created. And, when Harry's efforts proved fruitless, perhaps McGonagall would give Pansy a chance to confess her prank, and thus earn a remission from the hard detention and loss of house points that McGonagall had planned for her.