Transfiguration for Adults

Transfiguration For Adults

“And so I thought,” said Professor McGonagall, “that we might offer adult education classes in the evenings. Half of wizarding Britain seems to be taking shelter in the castle, and they may as well be improving their minds as long as they are here. And I was hoping we might be able to entice some of the students who have ... left school early to return to the classroom, if we offered a course with a flexible timetable.” She bowed her head and murmured, “So much talent and intellect squandered on a wild-goose chase up and down the countryside...”

“Yes, I think that’s an excellent idea,” said Tonks quickly. Anything to console McGonagall, who had taken Hermione Granger’s departure hard – and, after all, it did sound like an excellent idea. It also sounded like an idea that had nothing whatsoever to do with her, so she hadn’t a clue why the new Headmistress was using her as a sounding board.

“And I wondered – as we’re short-staffed and you’re stationed in the castle anyway – whether it would be a great imposition to ask you to teach a Transfiguration course while you’re here. It would be only one evening a week – or two, at the most – and you would have only a few students, all over seventeen, so you would be assured of maturity and discipline...”

“Er, Professor, you do know that I’m on duty here? I’m meant to be patrolling the halls.”

“I was aware of that,” McGonagall persisted, “but I assure you that if anything untoward happens you will be alerted at once – and I thought you might be interested in making some money on the side...”

Tonks wondered idly if there were any truth to the rumors that the Headmistress had taken to grabbing passing strangers off the Hogsmeade High Street and shanghaiing them into the classroom. Regardless, she could do with a few extra Galleons. “All right. Tell me what I need to do.”

 

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Tonks looked around the classroom in dismay. “A few students” had somehow turned into thirty-odd people with differing levels of ability. They ranged from Hermione Granger, who could probably achieve an Outstanding N.E.W.T. right now if she weren’t too busy hunting Horcruxes in the daytime, to Argus Filch, who was well known to be a Squib, and Grawp, who had smashed one of the chairs when he tried to sit down and was now using one of its legs as a toothpick. “Assured of maturity and discipline.” Right.

Hagrid sat next to his brother, pink umbrella firmly clutched in his enormous hand. Viktor Krum had turned up with half a dozen refugees from Eastern Europe, a region that was largely under Death Eater control; the ones who spoke English were translating in whispers for the ones who didn’t. An ancient and formidable-looking witch was sitting ramrod-straight in one corner, beside a round-faced teenaged boy who kept glancing at her nervously. She was glaring at Ron Weasley, who had just said something to Harry Potter that made both boys go brick-red with suppressed mirth. Tonks wasn’t sure what was so funny, but she thought it might have something to do with the elderly witch’s hat; the vulture on top looked as if she had stuffed it herself.

“Wotcher,” she said faintly. “Welcome to Transfiguration for Adults. I suppose I’d better start by calling the roll...” Her voice trailed off as she remembered McGonagall hadn’t given her one. “Yes, well. Why don’t we go around the room so you can each introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about what you’re hoping to get from this course.”

The witch with the vulture hat rose to her feet majestically. “My name is Augusta Longbottom,” she announced, “and this is my grandson, Neville – sit up straight, Neville! Neville is a seventh-year at Hogwarts, but he is here tonight because the Headmistress refused to allow him to continue with N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration when she was his Head of House.”

“I see.” Tonks made a point of addressing the next question to Neville himself. “And is there anything in particular you’d like to learn in this course?”

“Well,” he said shyly, “I’d like to learn enough Transfiguration to sit the N.E.W.T. and qualify as an Auror, like my mum and dad. Is it true you’re an Auror?”

“Yes, I am.” Tonks’ heart sank. If Minerva had not managed to teach him enough Transfiguration to move on the N.E.W.T. level, she doubted that she could accomplish any miracles. “We can talk about that after class, if you’d like. Now, who’s next?”

One of the Eastern European girls put up her hand. “Please,” she said in a steady, clear voice that filled the classroom, “my name is Natalia, and I am joining dis course for a penis.”

Ron guffawed. Tonks wondered, belatedly, whether “Transfiguration for Adults” was really the best possible title for the course. “Er – could you explain a bit more about what you mean?”

“Ven dis terrible var is over,” Natalia clarified, “ve vill all haff a penis, but for now ve must make a penis for ourselffs in any way we can, I am tinking. So maybe, vile ve are here in Britain, ve take dis nice opportunity to study Transfiguration and try to improve ourselffs, because for me, that is a penis.”

By this point Ron and Harry had both fallen out of their chairs, and Hermione was doing her best to help them up, while looking very red in the face herself.

“Natalia,” said Viktor Krum urgently, “I think that vord is pronounced happiness.”

“Oh,” said Tonks in a strangled voice, feeling relieved that she was not expected to perform an emergency sex change. “Yes, well ... I do hope you enjoy the course.” She turned to another student, a girl with short blonde hair and a reassuringly English-looking face. “And you?”

“My name is Verity,” said the girl, “and I used to work in Diagon Alley before the Ministry ordered us to evacuate, and I’m taking the course because it sounded like fun and I wanted to brush up on some of the things I’ve forgotten from school.”

“Lovely.” Verity sounded exactly like the sort of student Tonks had envisioned. She was beginning to breathe comfortably again when she remembered that she utterly lacked anything resembling a lesson plan. “And is there anything in particular you’d like to learn?” she asked Verity hopefully.

“Well,” said Verity shyly, “I really like your hair, Professor. Could you teach us how to do that?”

“Well, actually it comes naturally to me. I’m a Metamorphmagus. But you can do it with Transfiguration as well, and that sounds like a nice simple place to start.”

Now that she had a plan for the evening, Tonks hurried through the rest of the introductions and told the students to divide into pairs. “We’re going to practice a simple coloring spell that you can use to turn your hair pink, or – or anything else that you happen to want pink,” she finished lamely, having suddenly been overcome by a vision of Augusta Longbottom with bright pink hair. Perhaps this wasn’t the most universally appealing lesson she could have chosen, after all. “Now, watch closely.” She pointed her wand at a white quill that stood on the desk. “Rosaceous!”

The quill turned bright pink, and a handful of the more enthusiastic students applauded.

“Got that? Now let’s see you have a go.”

The students paired off and began practicing the spell. Tonks wandered about the classroom giving advice, removing pink splotches from the walls and floor, and fixing the damage caused by one of the Eastern European students, who had said “Soraceous!” by mistake and had just succeeded in turning his partner into an enormous hamper.

“Rosaceous!”

“Oh, good work, Grawpy!” Hagrid enthused, waving his umbrella wildly. “Yeh turned it pink on yer very firs’ try!”

“Hagrid,” Tonks pointed out, laughing, “your umbrella was already pink.”

“Oh yeah. Righ’.”

Mr. Filch was having even less success with the spell than Grawp, and looking increasingly sour. Hermione, although she had been kind enough to take on the unenviable task of partnering him, did not exactly help matters when she told him it was a very easy spell and she’d known how to do it since her second year.

Nevertheless, most of the class seemed to be enjoying themselves, and a fair few had actually mastered the spell, when the door slid open and a black-robed, greasy-haired figure glided into the classroom.

Neville gulped. Most of the other students stared. Mrs. Longbottom had a moment of heroics and thwapped Professor Snape over the head with her handbag, a gesture which he somehow contrived to ignore.

“What are you doing here?” Tonks asked, trying to keep her voice calm and collected despite the fact that her heart was pounding. She kept a tight grip on her wand underneath her robes. “I must ask you to leave. We’re in the middle of a lesson.”

“I was under the impression,” said Snape, “that this course was entitled ‘Transfiguration for Adults’? Are you suggesting that I am not an adult, Miss Tonks?” He favored her with the sort of glare that he normally reserved for misbehaving first-years.

“No. Of course not.” Tonks restrained herself from saying that the course was not, as far as she knew, called “Transfiguration for Death Eaters, Sadists, and Murderers.” Whatever his game might be, she refused to be baited into exchanging barbs with him. “But you are a wanted man. And I have a murder for your arrest, I mean a warrant for your arrest for murder.” (So much for calm and collected, she thought, and felt a trickle of sweat run down her back.)

“The Headmistress,” said Snape coolly, “has already offered me sanctuary. If you doubt my word, you may ask her. And as I am also wanted by the Death Eaters – who regard me, rightly I might add, as the traitor who double-crossed them, and are at this very moment sending one of their agents to punish me – turning me out of this school would be the equivalent of murder. I doubt that you want that on your pristine Gryffindor conscience.”

She made her decision hastily, praying that it was the right one. “Very well. Have a seat.” With a tinge of malice, she added, “As long as you’re here, you may as well work on your Transfiguration. Perhaps you could partner Mr. Filch, he looks like he needs some extra help.”

The students settled back into practicing the Rosaceous spell until just after moonrise, when Fenrir Greyback suddenly burst through the rear window of the classroom, fur bristling and teeth bared. Tonks pulled a couple of the more elderly and frail-looking students into a corner and cast a barrier around them, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione sent several rapid-fire hexes at Greyback. Unfortunately the only thing that hit him was a stray Rosaceous charm, which dazed the werewolf for a moment and turned him bright pink.

“You didn’t tell me you were a mother now,” Snape commented acidly. “How proud you must be.”

At the sound of his voice, Greyback seemed to recall his purpose and plunged toward Snape, who was evidently his quarry.

Neville, meanwhile, had been standing with his eyes closed and his wand out, an expression of profound concentration on his face as he summoned up the most powerful piece of Light magic he knew. “R-riddikulus!” he stammered.

Just as Greyback’s jaws clamped shut on Snape’s leg, Augusta Longbottom’s vulture hat flew across the classroom and settled on the former Potions Master’s head, and a bolt of white light from Hermione Granger’s wand hit the whole assemblage. There was a loud cracking sound and a puff of smoke, and then Greyback, whose fur had faded to its usual color at the moment he bit Snape, turned tail and jumped out of the broken window.

A few students coughed. The smoke cleared. In the middle of the floor, where Professor Snape had been a few seconds earlier, stood a long-legged pink flamingo.

“Er,” said Harry after a long moment. “Hermione, what was that spell?”

“It was meant to be a Fusion Charm,” said Hermione, “because I was trying to fuse the werewolf to the floor, but I ... I think it went a little wide.”

“Ohh!” said Tonks as the light began to dawn. “So in other words, you’ve just managed to fuse Professor Snape with some ... some Essence of Bird from the hat, and some Essence of Pink from the Rosaceous spell, just at the moment when he was bitten. Congratulations, I reckon you’ve just created the world’s first wereflamingo.” She did not feel entirely confident about this explanation, as she had improvised it on the spot, but not even Hermione ventured to question it. She began to think there were some perks to being the teacher, after all.

Silence hung over the classroom. Ron Weasley was the first to work up the nerve to laugh. “Man,” he said when he could breathe again, “let me fix this moment in my mind forever. Severus Snape, the amazing pink wereflamingo.”

The flamingo flew into a passion of rage, flapping his wings wildly and throwing himself at Ron. He tried to peck, but found out that his bill was not really designed for violence and the overall effect was no more damaging than hitting his victim repeatedly with an upside-down spoon. This seemed to infuriate Snape even more, and he attempted to kick and claw Ron, only to discover that his knees bent the wrong way. At last, in frustration, he turned around and began kicking backward, an exercise which made his pink-plumed posterior wiggle seductively.

“Yes, well,” said Tonks after they had all been entertained by the vicious flamingo for a sufficient amount of time. “Class dismissed. I’ll see you on Thursday, and ... no, on second thought I don’t think there will be any homework. Not this time.”

 

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“Madam Pomfrey has just finished examining Severus,” said Minerva McGonagall, “and she thinks he will change back at sunrise without any trouble, although he will continue to turn into a flamingo every full moon. I have asked Professor Slughorn to begin inventing a potion that will ease the transformations, and I am sure Severus will be only too happy to assist once he regains his human form. In any case, he will be unable to transmit his condition since he lacks teeth. All in all, I think Miss Granger and Mr. Longbottom may have put us well on our way to discovering a cure for lycanthropy – yes, I thought that would make you smile. After all, it is much better to be a wereflamingo than a werewolf – unless, of course, one is very attached to one’s dignity.”

“Which Snape is,” Tonks couldn’t help pointing out. “Serves the bloody bastard right, if you ask me.”

“I have heard his story,” McGonagall said reprovingly, “and I believe him to be sincerely repentant and fully deserving of all the protection Hogwarts has to offer.” Her lips twitched a little. “But yes, it does serve him right, rather.”

“Just one more question. What was he doing in my classroom?”

“Oh, I sent him there. I promised you that you would be alerted at once if anything untoward happened, didn’t I?”

Tonks stared at the Headmistress, glazed, for a moment, and decided that she couldn’t really dispute this point.

“By the way, apart from that little spot of trouble, did the first lesson go well?”

“What? Oh ... yeah, fine. There were a few difficult moments, but by the end of the term, I expect we will all have found a penis.”

“What did you say?” McGonagall looked genuinely shocked.

“Never mind. I think you had to be there.”