"How did you know ahead of time that was Professor McGonagall?" Ron hissed, still catching his breath, voice low with disbelief. "It was literally a cat! The markings were perfect—even the way it moved looked real!"
Lucian's steel pen paused mid-twirl between his fingers. He didn't look at Ron. His gaze settled instead on the rough wooden matchstick lying at the corner of his desk.
"Because of the weight."
He spoke quietly. "A ten-pound cat cannot walk with that kind of lightness unless the excess mass has been tucked into a dimension we cannot perceive… which would constitute fraud against the principle of equivalent exchange."
"Huh?" Ron blinked, face contorted as though he'd just swallowed a slug.
Harry and Ron exchanged baffled glances. In the row ahead, Hermione Granger whipped around so fast her bushy hair nearly knocked over a textbook. Her eyes shone with pure hunger for understanding. She had caught the reference to conservation of mass.
"Transfiguration is the most complex and dangerous branch of magic taught at Hogwarts."
Professor McGonagall's stern voice snapped every head back toward the front. "Anyone who chooses to fool around in my classroom will leave immediately and never return."
She flicked her wand. The desk swelled and twisted in an instant, becoming a snorting Yorkshire pig—then, seconds later, snapped back into polished wood.
A uniform gasp rose from the class. Harry's eyes widened, that raw wonder at magic's miracle sparking in his chest.
In Lucian's heart-phase vision the pig was merely a violently overwritten patch of corrupted code. Invisible springs of reality—countless corrective forces—were already compressing the altered matter, straining to force it back into the shape of a desk.
"Exquisite execution," he thought, "but arrogant. She is using will to defy physical law."
In one of his notebooks he had once written: At the foundational level of this world, reality is woven from two interlaced layers—the objective physical stratum governed by immutable laws, and the conceptual stratum defined by meaning.
What McGonagall had just done was not molecular reorganisation. She had rewritten the object's definition on the conceptual plane with sheer magical will.
Without constant mana input, reality's inertia would rebound like a compressed spring and snap the pig back into a desk.
"Today you will begin with something simple."
McGonagall gestured at the matchstick on every desk. "You will attempt to turn it into a needle. Concentrate. Visualise the needle clearly. Then speak the incantation: Vera Verto."
Practice commenced.
Most of the young witches and wizards wrestled with their matches. Seamus Finnigan, true to form, produced a small explosion that left his face streaked with soot. Hermione's was the most impressive—her match already gleamed with metallic silver at the tip.
"Very good, Miss Granger," McGonagall said with approval.
Lucian glanced over.
Illusion.
She had merely bent light and surface texture with magic. Beneath the shine the interior remained loose wooden fibre. Visual sleight-of-hand, not true transfiguration.
McGonagall paced the aisles, correcting pronunciation and wand movements. When she reached the back row her steps halted.
Lucian held his wand suspended an inch above the match. He had not yet cast.
"Ashford," she said, a trace of displeasure creeping in—the instinctive reaction to perceived laziness, "are you too disdainful to attempt it, or have you encountered some difficulty?"
Lucian raised his head and asked the question that mattered.
"Professor, I am merely confirming a premise. When we speak of transfiguration, are we modifying the match's definition on the conceptual layer, or reorganising its foundational substance on the physical layer?"
The classroom fell silent. Hermione spun fully around, staring at him with fierce intensity.
McGonagall paused. In all her years of teaching, no first-year had ever posed so fundamental a question on the very first lesson.
She steadied herself and delivered the orthodox answer. "Transfiguration is the wizard guiding magic with will—altering both concept and substance. The two cannot be separated."
"I see."
Lucian nodded, tone as neutral as if discussing the weather. "In other words, traditional transfiguration treats the incantation as a fuzzy macro command. The wizard's will then violently opposes reality's inertia. It is akin… to using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut."
"With respect, the system is primitive and lacks elegance."
McGonagall's eyebrows drew together. The words bordered on criticising the very foundation of her discipline.
"Then, Mr Ashford," her voice sharpened with challenge, "since you deem the traditional method a mere 'sledgehammer,' what more efficient insight do you propose?"
Lucian did not reply in words.
He simply extended his wand and touched the tip lightly to the match.
No incantation.
In heart-phase vision the microscopic world opened wide. He saw the tangled cellulose chains—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen long molecules woven into wood fibre.
His intent flowed in. A thread of extremely pure grey qi seeped from the wand tip into the material.
There was no need to fight reality's inertia by overwriting concepts.
He would follow physical law.
Bond breaking.
To the onlookers the match simply… melted. Without sound or flash it lost all solid form, collapsing into a small, mercury-like droplet of bright silver liquid hovering above the desk.
"What the…" Ron's mouth hung open.
Then reconstruction.
In Lucian's mind the lattice of iron atoms appeared.
The droplet flowed, stretched, coalesced. It built the needle's structure layer by layer according to the most stable hexagonal close-packed arrangement.
One second later the droplet vanished.
Tink.
A tiny, crystalline sound.
A flawless steel needle lay on the desk—gleaming with cold light, point razor-sharp, eye perfectly round and smooth. Its surface even carried the characteristic blued sheen of industrial quenching. (The blue, of course, was a conceptual flourish.)
Matter had transitioned from one form to another in utter silence and perfect efficiency.
Professor McGonagall stood frozen. With slightly trembling fingers she lifted the needle.
Cold. Hard. Absolutely real.
No trace of sustaining magic. Even if Lucian died this instant, the needle would remain forever.
After a long moment she drew a deep breath. Her voice was dry but solemn.
"Twenty points to Ravenclaw… for a display of terrifying precision."
"Class dismissed. Everyone else may leave. Mr Ashford—you will stay behind."
…
When the students filed out—full of questions and quiet awe—the classroom held only teacher and pupil.
"Your theory… what you just performed…" McGonagall still held the needle as though it might burn her. "That is not recorded in any first-year text—or any current textbook I know."
"All methods return to the source, Professor." Lucian's reply was calm. "Whether magic or Muggle science, at the root they are both understanding and application of the world's rules. Wizards use wands; Muggle craftsmen use chisels. The essence is the same."
"'Craftsman'… an exquisite metaphor." She exhaled slowly. "Most of us so-called transfiguration experts spend our careers forcing reality to bend with brute magical force. You… you simply align with the rules."
She made her decision.
"Hogwarts' curriculum is designed for the majority. But there are always anomalies—students like you—who cannot be satisfied by standard texts. For that reason I personally oversee an unofficial study group. We invite only those with extraordinary talent and truly original insight in transfiguration. We ignore textbooks. We explore boundaries."
She met his eyes. "Would you care to join us, Mr Ashford?"
"My honour, Professor." Lucian gave a small bow. Exactly what he had hoped for.
"Excellent. Friday evening at eight. My office."
Lucian gathered his books and left the classroom. The moment he stepped into the corridor he saw a tall figure standing at the far end where shadow met sunlight.
Albus Dumbledore.
Lucian's spine tightened fractionally. Occlumency slammed down like a rusted gate, sealing every emotion deep beneath the surface. He stopped, bowed politely—impeccable courtesy.
"Headmaster."
"A most impressive demonstration, Mr Ashford."
Dumbledore smiled. From the folds of his star-and-moon robes he produced a small paper bag. "I was passing in the corridor and felt… a remarkably pure, almost fundamental sense of order. Rare in Hogwarts."
He plucked a bright yellow sherbet lemon and offered it. "Care for one? Sweets do help soothe the anxiety that comes from thinking too deeply—especially for children who see the world a little too clearly. Perhaps we might continue this conversation in my office. Now?"
Lucian regarded the aged hand and those piercing blue eyes that seemed to see straight through souls. He knew his material reconstruction had drawn the attention of the greatest white wizard alive.
"No need to be tense," Dumbledore continued gently. "This power is not your fault, my dear boy."
"Of course." Lucian accepted the sweet but did not eat it. "I also have some questions about the castle's architecture that I would like to ask you."
…
When he left the Headmaster's office dusk had already fallen.
Lucian was still turning over Dumbledore's words.
In the circular office warm golden firelight danced across the walls, softening the portraits of past headmasters. Towering dark-wood bookshelves held gilt-edged tomes. The scent of old paper mingled with lemon drops. Fawkes perched quietly on a bookshelf by the window, gold-red wings folded, tail occasionally brushing leather spines.
Dumbledore's voice had been gentle yet piercing: "Many wizards live their whole lives without grasping the heart of transfiguration. You touched it instinctively. That tells me the Obscurial never truly imprisoned you. Your core has always moved toward real magic."
He paused. Fawkes trilled softly, nuzzling the back of Dumbledore's offered hand. Warm light caught the half-moon spectacles, scattering tiny sparks.
"The doors of Hogwarts stand open to you. Here are the finest transfiguration texts… and corners large enough to hold your particularity. You might even learn to let both forces coexist." He considered a moment, gaze drifting toward the seventh floor, eyes twinkling with mischief. "And if you are interested in repairing the castle itself… perhaps take a look on the seventh floor—"
Lucian's footsteps had slowed to a halt in a quiet seventh-floor corridor.
A tapestry hung on one wall: a giant clubbing Barnabas the Barmy.
He stopped. No hurry.
First he studied the surroundings. The corridor was empty save for distant armour creaking faintly. His gaze settled on the tapestry. In heart-phase vision its magical threads were simple—ordinary decoration.
The real anomaly was the blank stone wall opposite.
To ordinary eyes, unremarkable masonry.
To him: inside the wall a bizarre, ever-shifting vortex of magical structure. Countless micro-spatial fissures wove, annihilated, and reformed—an extremely unstable mana singularity.
"Spatial folding. Exploiting the castle's vast magical surplus to forcibly inflate a pocket dimension tethered outside the primary space."
Like folding a three-dimensional pocket out of a two-dimensional blueprint with masterful technique.
He knew exactly what this was.
The Room of Requirement.
He began to pace.
"Requirement one: absolute silence. Shielding against all known magical and physical detection methods."
First pass.
"Requirement two: equipped with a complete set of top-grade alchemical tools."
Second pass.
"Requirement three: constant environment. Pure mana. No attribute bias. Ideal for precision work."
Third pass.
On the third footfall the opposite wall rippled like water. Stone bricks lost solidity, flowing silently aside to reveal a deep opening of pure darkness.
Lucian stepped through.
The wall sealed behind him.
Before him opened a workspace steeped in Victorian aesthetic grandeur.
A vast skylight simulated deep starfields; nebulae drifted slowly, bathing the room in soft, even light. At the centre stood a workbench hewn from a single slab of obsidian, etched with intricate energy-guiding arrays. Along the walls hung every conceivable instrument—from massive dragon-hide bellows to delicate crystal droppers—organised on brass racks. The air carried the cold bite of metal and the dry fragrance of sage.
The mana here was pristine: a blank sheet of paper, waiting for the craftsman's first stroke.
Lucian crossed to the obsidian bench. His fingers brushed the icy surface.
A long-absent feeling rose inside him—complete dominion.
This would be his domain.
The starting point from which he would dismantle and rebuild the magical world.