No Longer

To Make a Match a Needle

A/N: I'm feeling brain-dead, and it's also kind of a 'What-da-potatoes!' moment of OMGoshickles, we're at part 43. (Sorry for the verbal vomit dear readers)

Harry Potter**

"Transfiguration is an extraordinarily difficult branch of the magical arts. It requires patience, practice, and a level head. It is very dangerous as well as detailed, so if you mess around in my classroom, even once, you will be dismissed immediately and will never again enter my classroom. You have been warned."

She changed all the papers on her desk into hummingbirds which flew around the classroom, some even landing on especially calm and collected Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Two landed on Harry, and he smiled at them, their beautiful coloration standing out on his midnight robes.

They fluttered back and dove, transforming midair to land neatly on McGonagall's desk arranged as before. It was explained that such complicated transfiguration work would not be achievable for the first years, and she explained to them the basic principles of what it meant to transfigure something. 

The notes were extensive, though Harry knew there was far more to it that wasn't even mentioned. He supposed though, that all the students would be asleep by the time they were told all the basics that Harry himself considered necessary. She gave them all matchsticks, and told them to turn them into needles.

Wishing to show off, just a little, Harry pretended to practice the wand movements and the intense concentration necessary for it, but fifteen minutes later, when he first spoke the enchantment, his match warped until it was a delicate silver sewing needle, eye and all.

"Most impressive Mr. Potter!" McGonagall said, beaming, and she picked it up for inspection, "Never have I, in all my years of teaching seen such a natural at transfiguration! Was that your first time?"

"No professor. I practiced before coming to Hogwarts."

"Ah, but still! Even the children from wizarding families don't usually manage any change their first day! Your parents would have been so proud, James was rather talented himself at it, but nowhere near your level. You even remembered the eye of the needle on your first class. Ten points to Ravenclaw, and no homework for you today."

Harry was very surprised at this, as Minerva McGonagall was very hard to impress, and not assigning him any homework was a shock. Why, even in all his pilfered memories, he couldn't find another instance of her doing such for another student.

"Thank you."

"Tell me, Mr. Potter, how far have your studies on transfiguration gone exactly?"

"Well, I honestly don't know."

It was the truth, he didn't know. He could turn, so far as he knew, anything into anything else, so long as he understood the makeup of what his final product was.

"Perhaps I shall speak with the Headmaster. He can get someone from the Ministry to come and test your aptitude. If you stay back after class, I can do a few tests of my own first, those ought to help convince him. You don't have anything next block, as I understand, and neither do I."

"I'd love to stay after, but I don't think we should trouble Professor Dumbledore. I mean, he is Headmaster, and it seems wrong to trouble him about it."

Really, Harry didn't want Dumbledore brought anywhere near him. The bastard was foul, and he wanted nothing to do with the liar. Feeling conflicted, Harry figured he should tell her outright he didn't want to be tested by the Ministry. Pretend he was scared, or that he spent so much time studying that he didn't want his schedule interrupted. He would explain in more detail if he had to, but Harry was the one who wanted to be thought of as a genius after all, this was the price of his pride.