The Rise of a Dark lady

Chapter 4 Getting a pet

The first week of classes was interesting although not that difficult. Dahlia was expecting a bit more, but she supposed that each subject would become more challenging in the following months, at least she hoped so. Just like the prefect Rosier had told them, they helped the first years to find their way the first few days, something for which Dahlia was thankful, Hogwarts was enormous and she was sure that she would have gotten lost herself at least once trying to find the right classrooms. However she did want to explore the castle, it was huge and she was sure that it had to have hundreds of secrets, she could hardly wait to uncover them.

Classes were something she found just as frustrating as interesting, and she could only hope that it would change. Still it was something she was used to, in muggle school she always found classes to be boring and she always had to find something new to study to keep herself entertained.

Her first class was Charms with professor Flitwick and though it had the potential to be an interesting class, they had done nothing more than theory, theory that she already knew, and it looked like it wouldn't be changing in the near future. What Dahlia wanted to do was practical classes, she wanted to do the charms, she wanted to cast magic but knowing it would take a while for it to happen she decided she would do it on her own in her room, at least like that she would learn something.

Transfiguration was far more interesting for her, she had to admit that she quite liked it. They had a bit of theory at the start of class, but after that professor McGonagall gave them a match and told them to turn it into a needle. Dahlia pointed her wand at the match, said the spell and nothing whatsoever happened. She frowned, she had done exactly what the book said, why hadn't it worked? Theoretically a needle was supposed to be on her desk in front of her, but no, on her desk, practically laughing at her, was still a match. Aside from that, she hadn't felt anything. Every time she had used magic she had felt something, just under her skin, and all around her, it wasn't always the same feeling, but she did always feel something, but now there was nothing. What was the difference? She was still looking at her match when her eyes went wide. It took her a little bit but she knew what was different. It was so obvious that she had to ask herself why she hadn't noticed it before. Every time she had done magic she had focused on what she wanted, had focused on her will, and when she tried to change the match into a needle she had only said the spell without even thinking about her will. Was that the reason why it didn't work? Well there was only one way to find out. Trying again, Dahlia not only said the spell but she also focused on her will, on how she wanted the match to change into a needle. To her delight the match changed completely and on her desk was a needle.

"Well done Miss Potter." a voice said from behind her, making Dahlia turn around to see professor McGonagall looking at her, "Now try turning that needle back into a match."

As it didn't seem like the professor was going away, Dahlia turned back to her needle and said the spell again, not forgetting to focus on her will, and the needle became a match again.

"Wonderful Potter," professor McGonagall said with a small smile on her face,

"I never had a student that was able to do both of the transfiguration on the first class, 20 points to Slytherin. Continue to transfigure the match until the end of class, try changing the needle, try adding a pattern to the metal or something similar. The spell is the same, it's just a matter of visualisation." Having said that, professor McGonagall continued walking around the classroom helping the students that needed it.

Visualisation? Dahlia took a while pondering what the professor meant. When she thought that she had understood what she was implying she admitted that it made a lot of sense. The spell she had used to change the match into a needle and the needle into a match was the same, so logically if she wanted a different needle she had to imagine that the needle was different. When she was transfiguring the match into a needle she hadn't thought about the needle because they were both already quite different, but because she hadn't visualised the needle it turned into a basic needle, she supposed that if she had no idea how a needle looked that it wouldn't have worked. But seeing as she knew what a needle was her subconscious must have provided the needed image to complete the spell. Satisfied with her reasoning she focused on her match again and cast the spell. However this time she focused not only on her will but also on visualising the needle, she imagined that the needle had a floral pattern. She was quite happy when the match changed into a needle with a pattern on the metal. However when she inspected the pattern she noticed that in some places it was more blurred and not as defined. She supposed that she needed to have a clearer image of the whole needle for it to work as it should. Having a better understanding of what she had to do she proceeded to change the needle back into a match and try again and again and again, until she achieved a result that she was satisfied with.