The torchlight flickered softly, casting elongated shadows across the ancient stone walls of the Chamber. I stood before the grand portrait of Salazar Slytherin, his eyes gleaming with a wisdom that transcended centuries.
"You have returned, young heir," he hissed, his voice resonating in the ancient tongue of serpents.
"Yes, Salazar," I replied, the Parseltongue flowing naturally from my lips. "I seek your guidance."
His gaze pierced mine, as if delving into the depths of my soul. "You bear the legacy of the Starborn, a lineage that predates the Ministry, present at the founding of this very school. The blood of ancient magic courses through your veins."
I nodded, the weight of my heritage pressing upon me. "And as the current Slytherin heir, though unknown to others, I feel the burden of expectations."
"Indeed," he affirmed. "The magical society watches, waiting to see how you will uphold your family's honor. Your role in the Wizengamot is not just a privilege but a responsibility. You must be prepared to influence and lead."
I took a deep breath, absorbing his words. "I have been studying the obscure magicks, delving into the ancient texts within this chamber."
His expression turned stern. "While your thirst for knowledge is commendable, it is imperative to master the foundations. Focus on transfiguration, charms, defence against the dark arts, and runes. These disciplines are the pillars upon which your advanced studies will stand."
"Should I abandon the ancient magicks?" I inquired, a hint of reluctance in my voice.
"Not abandon," he corrected. "But allocate your time wisely. Dedicate four hours a week to the obscure arts. The rest should be spent honing your skills in the widely practiced magics. Balance is key."
I bowed my head in understanding. "I will adhere to your counsel."
His eyes softened slightly. "Your power is evident. Taking control of the chamber's wards, even without full comprehension, is a testament to your potential. After your fifteenth birthday on March 25, 1935, you will be ready to commence Occlumency training. Shielding your mind will be essential in the political arena you are destined to enter."
I felt a surge of determination. "I will prepare myself."
"Good," he concluded. "Remember, the path of greatness is paved with discipline and wisdom. Embrace both, and you will honor the legacy of the Starborn and Slytherin alike."
As his portrait faded into silence, I stood alone in the chamber, the echoes of our conversation lingering in the air. The journey ahead was daunting, but with guidance and resolve, I was ready to embrace my destiny.
The cold of January 1934 clung to the castle walls like frost on a forgotten windowpane, but inside the quiet corners of the Ravenclaw common room, lit only by the pale blue flames of conjured fire, I pushed deeper into Transfiguration than most students would dare. The texts sprawled before me weren't just third-year material. They were fifth-year O.W.L.-level tomes, bound in thick leather, filled with complex theory, recursive magical laws, and elegant yet ruthless precision of language. And I studied them not because I had to—but because I needed to. Transfiguration, at its core, was a language of change, a code that redefined reality. It wasn't just spells—it was logic woven into magic.
Each day, I followed a strict regimen: two hours before breakfast, four in the afternoon, and three after dinner until midnight, poring over Vanishment theory, Switching Spells, conjuration principles, and the unforgiving precision required to Transfigure living matter. I practiced endlessly—first with matches and goblets, then frogs, mice, and finally, more complex inter-material transformations. Some nights I failed. Others, I watched with pride as a teacup reformed itself into a hummingbird and fluttered against the windowpane, only to dissipate after ten seconds. Dumbledore's notes from past lectures, I had copied every one of them. It felt as though his calm, mischievous voice was guiding me through each abstract notion and dangerous threshold.
But this wasn't only about academic mastery—it was preparation for something more. I had power, but it needed discipline. And I knew that if I were to stand among the strongest wizards of my time, to carry the Starborn name and fulfill the expectations Salazar himself had pressed upon me, then my foundation in the popular branches of magic must be unshakable. And Transfiguration—this beautiful, volatile art—would be one of my sharpest blades.
The second week hit harder.
My excitement from the early days, that tingling rush of learning the language of change, had cooled into a harder thing—discipline. Now I was well into fourth-year theory, which no longer coddled a student with clear spell incantations and step-by-step gestures. Instead, the material demanded intuition. It tested the depth of magical focus, mental visualisation, and control over the precise structure of magic in motion. The books assumed a level of internal balance I wasn't sure most fourth-years even possessed. But I had no choice. If I wanted to reach the summit of Transfiguration—true mastery, the kind wielded by animagi and war-transfigurers—I had to become the sort of wizard who thought in transformation.
I devoted a full day just to the theory behind elemental-state Transfiguration. Turning water to ice was laughably easy compared to turning flame into solid light. That particular spell took me ten hours before I even got a glow, and two entire days of practice before I managed a brief, humming crystal of flickering radiance—half-light, half-substance, and utterly unstable. It shattered into sparks when touched. But I did it. Alone, with only the texts of Galerius of Trimont and Madeline Pyx for guidance, I made the impossible flicker into life.
Every evening, I wrote detailed notes—not just about the spells or results, but about the mental states I entered to perform them. Sometimes I had to quiet myself completely, others I had to stoke emotion like a flame. Transfiguration was a paradox: requiring both surrender and control, belief and detachment, imagination and absolute clarity. It wasn't just about changing the object. It was about changing *myself*—the way I thought, the way I saw the world.
One night, I transfigured a curled silver chain into a wren, and it hopped along the surface of my desk, blinking at me with molten eyes. I watched it for a while, entranced. It was delicate. Almost real. And I felt something stir in my chest—something deep. Awe, maybe. Or the dawning realisation that this branch of magic wasn't just powerful. It was sacred.
There were failures, of course. A botched Conjuration nearly blew out the glass in the window. A switching spell swapped the physical properties of my wand with the ink bottle beside it, and I had to race against time before either one destabilised. I kept a tally of all the spells I attempted, how many hours it took to get them right, and how my intent shaped the outcomes. Over time, patterns emerged—hints about how advanced Transfiguration was shaped less by the incantation and more by magical self-awareness.
I wasn't just memorising. I was learning to see through the layers of the physical world.
Sometimes I caught myself whispering theories aloud, tracing magical diagrams midair with my wand while pacing the floor like a madman. The Ravenclaw dormitories stayed mostly empty—those who'd gone home for the holidays weren't due back until February—and I had the perfect solitude to descend deep into obsession. I cast warming charms on the stone floor near my bed and practiced non-verbal Vanishments until my wand felt like an extension of my hand. Each mistake taught me something: where my thoughts hesitated, where my will faltered.
I was beginning to feel it—that rare sensation where the theory began to fold into instinct.
One day during the second week, I conjured a shield made of translucent obsidian and shaped it into a mirror to reflect a candle's flame. I stared at my reflection, barely recognising myself. This wasn't the boy who stepped onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters just two years ago. I was harder now. Not just more skilled, but *refined* by discipline. The letters I had from my parents, the legacy of the Starborn name, Salazar's counsel, Dumbledore's challenges—they weren't weights anymore. They were fuel.
As I lay down to sleep one night, I thought back to Salazar's words: *"You must master the known world before you reshape the unknown."* He was right. Wandless magicks, the ancient pre-Roman arts, the Parselcraft, the layered structures of the Chamber's deeper runes—they would wait. Not forever. But for now, my magic had to become *unbreakable* in the forms that the world recognised. Transfiguration, in all its blazing complexity, would be my forge.
Tomorrow, I would begin fifth-year spellwork—advanced conjuration, elemental synthesis, and the transformation of magical substances. Already I had the books laid out in order, notes bookmarked, diagrams inked on parchment I'd reinforced with a preservation charm.
Week three arrived with snow thick on the windows and silence draped like a curtain across the Ravenclaw common room. I woke early, the sky outside still dark, the hearth flickering low behind me as I bent over my books with steaming tea and a parchment already half-filled with notes from the night before. I'd left off on advanced conjuration theory—specifically the rules governing magical permanence. Most young wizards conjure chairs or flowers and assume they'll vanish after a while. But permanence, true permanence, was a matter of anchoring the conjured matter to reality, almost like tying a knot in the very weave of magic itself.
The fifth-year texts were maddening. *Elemental Molding and Magical Permanence* by Marta Highenough read more like alchemy than Transfiguration, yet it made perfect sense when I tested it practically. I conjured a length of silver chain and used the technique to bind it into existence, tying it into an amulet that refused to vanish even after twenty-four hours. The strain it put on my reserves was immense—conjuration, I was learning, was the most resource-hungry branch of Transfiguration. It didn't just borrow from your magical power. It demanded your conviction, the *truth* of your vision.
By midweek, I was already working on compound transfigurations—combining multiple transformations in sequence with controlled magical pacing. I started small. Transfiguring a coin into a feather, then into smoke, then into water, and finally into glass. I messed it up ten times before I realised the key wasn't raw power. It was rhythm. A perfect cadence of mental image, magical push, and release. By Friday, I could flow between five transformations with relative ease.
There were nights I felt like I'd cracked something profound—some secret beneath the incantations. I no longer thought about the words. My wand moved in smooth arcs of habit, and my thoughts shaped the outcome more than anything else. At one point I transfigured a puddle of ink into a hovering script midair, each letter twisting with thought as if alive. Dumbledore had shown me something similar in a duel once, and replicating it—even imperfectly—made me feel like I'd stepped across a threshold.
Week four began with exhaustion. My magical reserves took longer to replenish. I'd learned enough about magical fatigue by then to properly nourish myself, sleep well, and use restorative charms when necessary—but the kind of Transfiguration I was doing wasn't meant for second-years. Not without supervision. Still, I pressed on.
The subject that consumed most of this final week was *animate transformation*—changing inanimate objects into living creatures and maintaining the form without magical instability. This was not beginner magic. Fifth-years only scratched the surface. Sixth- and seventh-years studied the truly difficult applications. I didn't care. I needed to touch the edge of it now.
My first attempt at animating a stone into a toad yielded a strange, shuddering creature that croaked once and collapsed back into granite. The next attempts improved. A rat made of fur and bone twitched under my wand. It had a heart. It breathed. But its eyes were glassy and empty—no will inside, only shell. That's when I understood the true limitation. Life couldn't just be made. It had to be *simulated* with layers of magical complexity I'd only begun to glimpse.
I stopped just short of attempting humanoid transfigurations. The ethics of such magic weren't covered in most schoolbooks—but they were hinted at in the texts I borrowed from the Restricted Section. Things could go very wrong. Still, I didn't shy from understanding the principles. I studied the work of Emeric Walden—theory on soul-bound forms, on magically generated sentience—and I copied diagrams that looked more like runic star maps than transformation charts.
That final night, as January wound down, I sat in the quiet of my room, spell-candles burning low and the snowy moonlight casting a cold silver glow on my desk. I laid out every transfiguration textbook I'd read—from first to fifth year—and stared at the progression of knowledge. My notes filled three thick journals now, each bound in dragonhide and sealed with simple locking charms. I'd gone through more ink than I could count. My wand had never left my side. And I'd changed—not just in skill, but in *thought*. I could now perceive the world in layers of potential. Nothing looked fixed anymore.
The glass of water beside me? Ice, steam, blood, crystal, fire—it was all there, in potential. Transfiguration had become not just a subject, but a *philosophy*. And in that moment, I felt the power and the danger of it. A wizard trained in Transfiguration was a shaper of reality. A breaker of order. A restorer of form.
I stood up, stretched, and extinguished the candles with a flick. As I walked to bed, the silver wren I'd made during the second week fluttered down from the bookshelf. It perched on my shoulder and chirped once, soft and metallic. I smiled.
I wasn't done learning. Not even close. But I'd gone further in a month than most would in a year. And I felt it—deep in my core—that the foundations I was building now would carry me into every war, every duel, every mystery the magical world had to offer.
Tomorrow, I'd return to balancing other branches—Charms, Runes, and even the old, obscure arts sleeping in Salazar's library. But for now, I'd earned sleep. For the first time in weeks, I allowed myself to close my eyes and drift off not in study or theory, but in quiet pride.