"What, Granger, can't cast?" he asked quietly, trying not to attract McGonagall's attention. "A match is an unliftable load for the likes of you."
Snorting to myself, I did what I know how; without any instruments and wands I sent a clot of neutral magic at Malfoy, which carried a simple setting to change the guy's hair color to red. Seems to me, such a thing will touch a nerve; he constantly bugs the red-haired Weasley not just for nothing, right?
My trick succeeded, and Malfoy's almost white hair immediately began to acquire a saturated red color, which could not help but cause bewilderment among those who saw him.
If someone knew that precisely my manipulations caused such a thing, but at the same time I cannot transfigure a match, they would be greatly surprised. But the thing is that the local school of magic differs greatly from the one familiar to me. In a way completely incomprehensible to me, the combination of words, gestures, mental images, and formulas forces the neutral magic of a wizard to perform a certain function embedded in this combination, but at the same time, the magical energy itself undergoes no changes structurally, so to speak. On one hand, there is nothing surprising in this, for one of the facets of sorcery via internal energy consists precisely in such a thing; invoking a certain effect, changing reality or its separate aspects, by means of magical energy alone, without feeding various structures and so on with it. But here is one huge and completely incomprehensible paradox to me; why is the result for all wizards one and the same?
Simply put, embodying an image, a fantasy, by means of neutral magic is quite easy. In essence, it is enough to pass magic with a volitional effort as if through the prism of consciousness, which contains the necessary image, and direct it to the target. But the whole point is that just as there are no two identical people with identical consciousness, there cannot be absolutely identical wizardry on such a principle of action. Here one can see an obvious contradiction; a bunch of wizards with internal neutral energy creates absolutely identical charms and spells from completely unstructured magic. Well, not counting "designer" aspects, so to speak. In general, a lot is incomprehensible.
While I reflected on magic, concurrently looking for a key to successful transfiguration, Malfoy began to panic and try to cancel my wizardry with Finite; unsuccessfully.
"Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall did not bypass such a blatant violation of discipline. "Minus a point to Slytherin for an attempt to resemble Mr. Weasley."
The almost invisible smirk on the professor's face said, like: "Mischief managed." The manner of deducting points reminded me of Snape, and led to the thought that rivalry goes not only between the Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin but also between their Heads.
Paying no attention to the quiet chuckles of students, I waved my wand again, but this time added not just an image in which the match suddenly becomes a needle, but gradually transforms into it. Added even a mental illusion of sensations from a needle in hands, but further, to the image of molecular changes, I did not go. The match turned into a needle in a fraction of a second.
"I understood the essence," I nodded to myself with a smile.
"What?" Ernie got distracted from examining the futile and almost unnoticeable attempts of Malfoy and his comrades to fix the situation with the hair.
"I say, understood the essence of transfiguration. I think."
"Yeah, right," Ernie expressed the greatest doubt, returning to copying another set of schemes from the board.
Casting a glance at the remaining teaching aids, I quickly pulled the necessary formulas from memory, matched them with the necessary images, making them maximally full-fledged and conveying the essence of objects, and began to cast, turning objects one after another and getting the necessary result. Ernie looked at this with wide-open eyes; a button from a beetle turned out, and a snuffbox, a goblet, and other small things, as the curriculum for past years required.
"For real..." he exhaled. "That is, really."
"For real?" I smirked, looking at the boy.
"Yeah, that's all Justin with his words. Hear it a couple of times, and then it sticks..."
My successes did not pass McGonagall's gaze. The professor approached us and carefully examined the products of my magical manipulations.
"Wonderful transfiguration, Mr. Granger. Perhaps you have already understood the topic of today's lesson too?"
"Gamp's Law with its exceptions, Professor?"
"Precisely."
Standing up from my seat and looking around at the students closely following my slightest body movement, I declaimed:
"All material, non-magical, countable, single and separate objects are subject to transfiguration or creation out of thin air, the change or creation of which does not contradict laws established by the Ministry of Magic. Regarding exceptions, there are five of them."
"List them?"
"One cannot create food out of nothing," I began to bend fingers, "turn something into a human, turn an ordinary object into a magical one or create something magical. One cannot transfigure money, precious metals and stones. One cannot transfigure time."
"Excellent," McGonagall nodded. "But here is an important question for you, and everyone else. How do you understand this law with its exceptions?"
McGonagall looked around the class; everyone looked thoughtful.
"It seems to me you are already old enough to move from simple rote learning to meaningful understanding. At least regarding basic material. Does anyone want to answer? Mr. Granger?"
I hadn't sat down yet, and therefore decided to express several conclusions and assumptions based both on read material and on a certain abstract and far from complete, but still understanding of the essence of such transformations from memory shards.
"I cannot speak for sure and assert something, but I have some thoughts regarding this topic."
McGonagall nodded approvingly, as if giving permission to continue.
"The law itself has a certain duality. It speaks about the fact that some types of transfiguration are simply impossible to carry out, and also about the fact that some of those that are possible are punishable by Ministry law."
"Continue, Mr. Granger," the professor nodded.
"The object of transfiguration must satisfy several conditions. It must be singular, must be an independent numerical unit, not be in a rigid immobile coupling with other objects excluding their mutual mobility, and most importantly, must not possess magical properties."
"Quite a literate explanation, Mr. Granger," the professor nodded again. "I recommend to those who are unable to decipher the essence of the law for themselves to by all means write down these words. Mr. Granger, I would like to hear examples of objects satisfying one or several requirements."
A fairly large number of students from our year immediately rustled quills on parchment.
"I think, Professor, with a non-magical object everything is simple; everything that does not possess magic, a magical property, is not enchanted, does not possess activated runic engraving, and everything in that spirit. Countable; that which can be mentally and factually separated from the community of similar objects. For example..."
I took my ordinary notebook from the table.
"A notebook. One piece. Separable from the community of other notebooks. It can be transfigured. However, one cannot transfigure a part of the notebook, positioning the transfiguration impact precisely on a part of the notebook. But one can transfigure a separately selected leaf or several leaves."
"Several leaves? Shouldn't the object be single and separate?" the professor smirked, while some students looked at me with mockery.
"Depends on the type of manipulation. Technically, for one spell one object is needed, and one spell won't work on several objects. However..." I held a dramatic pause, and the professor, it seems, understood what I was driving at and was slightly surprised. "One can use the Meyer-Turner formula to combine several spells and objects of their application into one cascade transfiguration spell. Strictly practically, one spell for several objects will result. A small trick."
"Magnificent. Seventh-year material. I see you read additional literature, and, what is important, understood it," McGonagall's smile became much more obvious. "What about other requirements?"
"With a separate object, everything is simple. It won't work to transfigure, for example, a nail firmly driven into a wall. But a nail that wobbles inside it; no problem. Should I state understanding of exceptions?"
"Of course, Mr. Granger. I, and, I dare hope, the rest, are extremely interested in your conclusions."
A couple of students snorted disdainfully, but under McGonagall's stern gaze immediately assumed the look of diligent students listening attentively to a colleague.
"Well then... One cannot create food out of nothing. Old phrasing, in my opinion, not quite correctly revealing the essence. The object of transfiguration cannot be 'nothing' in principle."
And yes, I know perfectly well that matter is a form of energy, which means absolutely everything can be transfigured into anything. Only in local realities, there is no justification for this, and the depth of knowledge of the universe in both ordinary and magical worlds is much inferior to elven. Simply put, there is no sense in talking about this, as well as proving in practice.
"Regarding food, I think I know what the problem is. Food is an object with an extremely complex structure, and its creation requires extremely deep knowledge in the theory of the structure of matter and space, along with knowledge about the functioning of the organism in general, and metabolism in particular. Transfiguration, I emphasize, precisely transfiguration of food that would fully perform the function of this very food is a colossally expensive matter both magically and mentally. But there is another problem."
I tore out two leaves and with a wave of the wand turned them into glass cups in turn.
"Aguamenti," I pronounced the spell, filling one cup with water, and repeated the maneuver with the second.
"The second problem is the duration of transfiguration."
For clarity, I turned the water in the cups into two apples. And no, they are not real.
"Not food, naturally. Similar in structure," I cooled the ardor of several students who excitedly began to whisper.
"By my estimates, magic is invested for five minutes of transfiguration. What do you think, Professor, am I not mistaken?"
McGonagall with an important look passed her wand over one apple, and then over the second, after which she nodded, confirming my own sensations. It seems I indeed found the necessary key for transfiguration; now this discipline is not a problem for me. I took one apple in hand.
"So. Duration of transfiguration. Drawing conclusions from various material on the subject, I came to an unambiguous and disappointing conclusion. If one divides the result of transfiguration in two, then the duration of transfiguration will be reduced by half. This is connected, as it seems to me, with the fact that the spell is sort of divided between objects, dividing the invested magic too. And as we know, not the size or density of the object and the goal of transfiguration influences the expenditure of magic, but their structural complexity. And if divided into a multitude of parts?"
I hit the apple forcefully on the table, breaking it into a huge multitude of particles. The smallest almost immediately turned into water, others, larger, lasted a couple of moments longer, and so on until among the puddle of water five largest pieces remained. I just wanted to speak, when the smallest of the remaining turned into water.
"No need to say what could happen, had you transfigured this apple from a chair, or a table, and started consuming it."
"A very harsh example," the professor nodded, removing traces of my demonstration with a wave of the wand. "Did the remaining exceptions yield to your extraordinary mind?"