"Mr. Green, that was excellent!"
Madam Hooch strode toward Sean with athletic poise. Hands on hips, even her smile cut in a sharp arc.
"You've mastered a lot of flying basics—hovering, banking, circling—but those are just foundations. Today we're going to practice something different—"
A breeze combed the Quidditch grass all one way. Sean stumbled a little coming off his broom and was steadied by Hooch's hand.
"Good. Catch your breath—then you'll face this."
She flicked her wand; a wooden rack rolled out of the broom shed filled with golf balls.
Sean watched Hooch toss one skyward; it shot up fast and high as if charmed, then hung there for a beat.
The tall witch who'd been beside Hooch had vanished. Sean quietly pulled a phial from his bag and downed it with a "glug-glug"—he hadn't seen a thing.
He tucked the empty away. Snape's potion tasted like some kind of fruit juice—nothing like the thick, bitter enhancers in textbooks.
A recipe Sean wouldn't dare alter turned into a personal Boggart in Snape's hands: Sean would see a dreadful potion explosion, and Snape would sneer a single "Riddikulus."
Madam Hooch naturally noticed; she arched a brow and studied the boy as if she'd just spotted something remarkable.
His flight proficiency now read:
[Flying: Novice (190/270)]
[Advance: Reach Adept flying to unlock the domain's Adept title]
Sean thought: the new title should unlock in a few days.
Up in the air, the golf balls behaved like a gentler version of Quaffles. They'd been charmed so that if you missed them, they would slowly drift down, as if sinking through water. Sean's job was to snatch them mid-air.
Hard? Yes. But not too hard.
Wind roared past his ears; his silhouette cut the blue like a hawk. He was pushing the old broom right up to its limits. It rattled on the edge of giving out, but Sean stayed calm—he wasn't the only one at his limit.
"Astonishing talent!"
Madam Hooch watched him palm a ball cleanly as he slipped from the bright sky into the embrace of a cloud. In just three tries he'd gone from flustered to sure-handed.
"Mr. Green, you're destined to be a Seeker."
She held his gaze a long moment, something complicated in her eyes.
Such a good kid—why doesn't he like Quidditch?
Lines from Quidditch Through the Ages rattled in Sean's head:
[In the early years, nearly 70% of fouls involved Seekers—vile tricks abounded.
'Setting the opponent's tail on fire,' 'bludgeoning a broom with a bat,' 'axing a broom'—those were appetizers.]
"Next week I'll be giving you a flying test," Hooch said at parting, hands on hips with a sigh. "First-years only get one shot. Bring a new broom. As for that Comet 160… it belongs in the shed."
She left Sean confused and a little anxious.
Where was he supposed to find a Nimbus 1500?
That afternoon, not a single Ravenclaw dared speak in class—it was Transfiguration.
For the third time, Professor Minerva McGonagall's eyes drifted to Sean. He was utterly focused, wand flicking—rat to snuffbox, snuffbox back to rat—until he went pale and started leafing through Intermediate Transfiguration.
He'd borrowed the two-Galleon volume from the library; unlike A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, the gold medallion on the cover had a green center instead of red. Inside were detailed transfigurations—say, teapot to turtle. You checked the tail for steam, or whether the shell still bore willow-pattern lines. Or slipper to white rabbit—did the rabbit's ears come out whole?
All of it seemed to hammer the same point: turning a "dead" thing into something "alive."
After class, Professor McGonagall's answers confirmed Sean's hunch.
"Elementary transfiguration converts inanimate objects into one another. Intermediate converts between animate and inanimate. Advanced deals in conversions between two animate beings—turning a turtle into a rabbit, for instance…"
She seemed pleased with Sean's questions; probing the nature of magic always helps a witch or wizard go farther. "Mr. Green—remember: the more advanced the transfiguration, the greater the power required. Don't attempt them lightly."
She handed him a set of notes. After reading them carefully, Sean drew his wand and began to practice.
Eyes bright, he fixed on the teapot and, following her notes, pictured the attributes a turtle should have. Transfiguration is a dangerous branch; practicing under a professor's eye was safer. Even if he turned himself into a badger, she'd set him right quickly.
Indeed, canon tells of a student who accidentally turned a friend into a badger; if you can't reverse it quickly, someone might be a badger for life.
The office fire crackled. From the pitch came the distant roar of practice. In the corridor, students played exploding snap; chessmen barked, "Aha!" "Out of the way!"
Inside, Sean trained himself to exhaustion. In his hands, a dark-green baby turtle crawled along—and puffed steam from the base of its tail.
The panel chimed again and again:
[You practiced an in-depth Intermediate Transfiguration to Apprentice standard. Proficiency +50]
In-depth likely meant turning a "dead" thing into a "living" one. At Apprentice standard, +50 proficiency—very nice.
When he reversed the turtle, he looked to McGonagall, hopeful, oblivious to how bloodless his face had gone.
"Very good, Mr. Green. A great deal of progress."
Her voice was warm, but her eyes dipped, almost imperceptibly.
Sean didn't notice. He tidied the office carefully and slipped out.
His panel had shifted:
[Transfiguration: Novice (800/900)]
He turned over what he'd learned as the hallway bustle washed past.
McGonagall stood in the doorway, watching him go—just as she had a hundred late nights.
"Minerva, you think highly of that child?"
A steady voice sounded; an old wizard with a beard white as snow stood at her side.
"There are no accidents in this world, Albus," she said, eyes fully gentle now, with the faintest trace of pride—and worry. "If that child is set on finding something, he will find it."
~~~
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