Once everyone finally finished copying notes, McGonagall let them have a short break to let their brains cool off before the practical portion of the lesson.
"How could you just sit there and let me suffer like that? I thought we were friends!" Tracey wailed dramatically, rubbing her cramping hand.
"You could see the board just as well as I could," Julian said with a scoff. "I was simply the first one here, so I got a head start, that is all."
"I am still mad," she declared, puffing her cheeks out. "And I will only forgive you if you give me a special spell no one else knows."
"Looks like forgiveness is not in my future, then. Tragic," Julian replied with a shrug, pulling out a small vial of special polish and lovingly working it into his wand.
"Oi! I was joking. Do not give up so easily!" Tracey yelped, suddenly panicking.
"I am well aware," Julian said, lips curling into a grin. "What would you do without me, after all?"
"Wow. Arrogant much?" she teased.
"Arrogance is talking big when you cannot back it up," Julian said in a calm, almost wise tone. "Confidence is knowing you can."
Tracey rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, I understand. You are so very amazing," she said, dripping sarcasm.
"Just making sure we are clear on that," Julian answered with a quiet chuckle.
...
Break ended soon after, and McGonagall raised her wand.
With a flick, a single match appeared in front of each student on their desks.
"Your task for the next three lessons," she said crisply, "is to apply the knowledge you have just acquired and turn your match into a needle. You may begin."
She moved to stand at the front, watching everyone with her hawk like gaze.
Julian barely had to think about it. He pointed his wand at the match and spoke, "Verto."
Instantly, the match shifted. Wood and sulfur melted into gleaming metal. A perfect golden sewing needle lay on his desk, complete with a clean, precise eye at the blunt end.
McGonagall stared. So did everyone else.
He had made it look absurdly easy, and not just a passable attempt, but a flawless success on his very first try.
"Ten points to Gryffindor," McGonagall said, schooling her face into something neutral. "For being the first to succeed."
Tracey tried to copy his spell, but her match only stretched and sharpened slightly, the tip looking more like a sad toothpick than a proper needle. She pouted at it.
Several students turned to Julian with hopeful, pleading looks, silently begging him for guidance.
He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.
"Afraid this is not one of those things I can really give advice on," he said. "It depends more on the caster than the spell itself."
"You are quite correct, Mr Iron," McGonagall said, her voice carrying across the room. "But that does leave us with one problem. What should we have you do now that this task is clearly… inadequate for you?"
Julian tapped his wand against the desk thoughtfully, then conjured a single golden Galleon onto the surface in front of him.
"How about a little game I just thought of?" he suggested, smiling.
McGonagall arched an eyebrow. "Oh? And what would the rules of this game be?"
"It is very simple," Julian said. "Since I can only manage inanimate to inanimate transfigurations at the moment, we keep it restricted to that. We start with this coin. I will transfigure it into something with a bunch of obvious flaws. Then you transfigure it into something else, but with one less visible flaw than before. We go back and forth like that. Each turn, fewer flaws, until one of us cannot keep up."
He tapped the coin lightly.
"Materials can be reused," he added, "but any repeated material has to be in a new combination with a different shape. You cannot copy something you have already done."
McGonagall's eyes gleamed. "An exercise in both transfiguration and memory," she mused. "Very well. I shall indulge you."
As if to mark the start of the challenge, she turned and flicked her wand at the stone floor. The slab beside her desk surged upward and folded in on itself, reshaping into an ornate, cushioned chair with carved armrests.
The class collectively went a bit silent at that.
Julian started first with the coin. He transformed it into a wooden sphere. Sort of. Patches of gold still showed through, and the surface was uneven and dented all over. From a technical standpoint, it was a terrible transfiguration, intentionally so.
McGonagall waved her wand and turned the flawed sphere into a small quill. It was still imperfect, but only slightly less so than the last object.
And so the game began.
Back and forth they went, each turn shaving away one visible flaw, while students gradually forgot about their own matches and started watching instead.
Shapes shifted constantly. The coin became blocks, tools, bits of furniture, then ornaments, each more refined than the last. The rule that at least one flaw had to remain forced that single imperfection to become smaller and more subtle every round.
The more they played, the more intense it became. McGonagall clearly enjoyed the challenge; her eyes were bright, her posture sharper than usual. Julian matched her move for move, refusing to be easily outdone.
By the time the lesson was nearly over, the remaining flaws were so minuscule they were hard to spot at all. It became a game of eyesight and precision, not just magical control.
Right near the end of class, McGonagall decided to play a little dirty to secure the win.
She transfigured the object into a tiny, delicate glass statue of a bird. It gleamed beautifully in the light, wings spread mid flap, every feather carved with ridiculous detail.
Julian picked it up, turning it this way and that, searching for the flaw he knew had to be there. Nothing looked wrong.
He frowned, focused harder, and still could not see it.
Only when McGonagall pointed out a single sand grain sized spot on the bird's chest, made of ice rather than glass, did he finally catch it.
"I believe that is my victory," she said, smiling far more widely than usual.
She had enjoyed herself so much she did not even assign homework.
The rest of the class, who had completely abandoned their own matches to stare at the duel of transfiguration, could not quite believe their luck.