Friday of the first week back.
The second-floor Transfiguration classroom was laid out in its usual neat rows. A small box of matches sat on every desk.
Slytherin took the left side. Ravenclaw took the right. The two houses kept their distance, though without the usual edge that came with sharing a room with Gryffindor.
Ravenclaws were mostly too busy with their own business to care about petty rivalry.
Professor McGonagall stood behind the lectern, ramrod straight, severe as ever, hair pinned back tight. The dim light flashed against her glasses.
She waited until everyone was seated. Quiet followed.
"Second-year Transfiguration moves beyond the basics and into the transformation of material states. In your first year, you learned to turn one inanimate object into another. Matches into needles. That was only the beginning."
Her expression didn't shift.
"This term, you will study Untransfiguration. Today's exercise is simple enough. Turn the match on your desk into a needle, and then turn the needle back into a match."
She flicked her wand. Words appeared across the blackboard.
Topic: Reversibility of Form Transformation and Preservation of Essence.
Three theoretical points:
Every transfiguration must preserve the essence of the target. A needle transfigured from a match must be capable of sewing. Transfiguration is real material change, not illusion.
Reversibility is the test of successful transfiguration. If you cannot change it back, you did not truly change it.
The caster must understand what the target object's essence actually is.
Below that, the procedure appeared:
First, turn the match into a needle. Review.
Second, turn the resulting needle back into a match.
Third, compare the restored match against the original.
McGonagall lowered her wand. "Begin."
Incantations rolled across the room.
"Vera Verto!"
Turning a match into a needle wasn't hard anymore. They'd had a full year of practice. Turning it back was where things got ugly.
Most second-years could manage something that looked like a needle. It had a point. It had an eye. Past that, who knew? The inside might still be match. Or half-match, half-metal, or some useless mess in between.
Their magic had forced the object into the shape of a needle, sure. But whether it was really metal or just pretending to be, whether it could actually sew or only stab a fingertip, most of them had no idea.
And if you didn't really know what you'd made, how were you supposed to turn it back?
Trouble spread across the classroom fast.
Some matches came back too thick. Some came back too thin. A few crumbled the second someone touched them.
McGonagall moved between the desks, stopping where needed.
"Miss Ellis, can your needle sew? Try it... no, it cannot pierce the fabric. That is only a needle in appearance."
"Mr. Bloch, why is your match bent? Because the needle you made was bent."
Regulus picked up the match on his desk.
Oak. About three inches long. Smooth grain. The head was a dark red mix of sulfur compounds.
He tapped it lightly with his wand. "Vera Verto."
The match became a needle. Silver-white. Perfectly straight shaft. Sharp point. Clean eye.
He lifted it, checked it once, and dropped it onto a coarse test swatch. The needle slid through the cloth on its own and stitched two neat passes. Clean line. No snagging.
He caught it in his palm and tapped again.
The needle became a match.
Exactly the same as before. Same color. Same length. Same thickness. Not even slightly off.
He looked at it for a moment, then set it down.
Untransfiguration was not difficult for him. It never had been.
When he was three, Sirius had turned a silver spoon into an earthworm. Regulus had turned it back into a silver spoon.
He was twelve now.
McGonagall happened to stop at his desk. She picked up the match, held it close, inspected it, and set it back down.
"Very good, Mr. Black."
Her tone stayed level. No warmth, no surprise. For Regulus, getting it wrong would have been the surprising part.
She turned to the class. "Take note. This is what proper reversible transfiguration looks like. He did not merely change the shape. He changed the object's essence."
She let that sit for a beat.
"Knowing the standard and meeting it are not the same thing. Continue."
Regulus looked down at the match again, then up at the sentence still written on the board.
Transfiguration must preserve the essence of the target.
So what, exactly, was a match's essence?
The wood?
The shape?
The fact that it burned?
He picked it up again and let his magical perception sink inward.
Its structure opened in his mind. Wood fibers. Traces of sulfur. Residual magic left behind by the previous transfiguration.
The arrangement of the fibers. The density. The oak grain, specific down to the smallest detail. All of it came into focus.
Another thought surfaced.
What if essence isn't fixed?
He started building a different match in his head.
Basswood, paler, softer grain, looser fiber structure. Even the sulfur content in the match head, slightly different.
He tapped once. "Vera Verto."
Match to needle, same as before.
He tapped again.
Needle to match.
This time the match in his hand was not oak.
It was basswood.
Regulus studied it, expression still, then set it down.
The idea kept turning over in his mind. If transfiguration could alter the essence of matter, what was it actually changing?
Physical properties? Density, hardness, ignition point?
Or function? A match existed to be struck, to catch, to burn. Was that its real purpose? Was that its essence?
And if function changed, did essence change with it? Or was it the other way around?
He could turn oak into basswood. So the nature of the wood clearly wasn't immutable.
Then what was?
Or maybe the word essence was wrong from the start. Maybe there was no fixed core, only a collection of traits, all of them open to change.
But if that was true, what kept an object itself?
Was it still the same thing?
If it wasn't, where had the original gone?
He went very still.
McGonagall hadn't gone far. She had been watching him.
This exercise was far below his level, and she knew him well enough by now to expect trouble the moment he got bored. She had seen him complete the first reversal, stare at the match, cast again, and pick up the result with the look of someone chasing an idea down a dark tunnel.
She walked over, picked up the match, glanced at it, then at him.
Something changed in her eyes.
Not surprise. Recognition.
I know what you did, that look said.
She placed the match back on the desk without a word, gave a single nod, and resumed walking the room.
The bell rang. Students carried their work forward, turned it in, and filtered out.
Regulus was just about to leave when her voice stopped him.
"Mr. Black. My office."
He halted and inclined his head. "Yes, Professor."
He followed her in. McGonagall went behind her desk and gestured for him to sit.
When she looked at him again, she didn't bother with preliminaries.
"In class just now, you altered the match's essence."
Regulus dipped his head politely and said nothing.
"Oak into basswood," McGonagall said. "If you can perform Permanent Transfiguration, what you did just now would be conversion, not alteration. Do you understand the distinction?"
He considered that. "Alteration changes the material. Conversion changes the essence?"
"Close," she said with a small nod. "But not precise enough."
She folded her hands.
"Alteration modifies what is already there. Conversion replaces it entirely. But it only counts as conversion if the transfiguration is permanent."
Regulus was quiet for a second before asking, "Professor, what is truly unchangeable?"
McGonagall studied him for a long moment. "You are asking whether anything exists that even conversion cannot touch."
"Yes, Professor."
"Yes," she said.
Her wand gave a light tap against the desk. The match rose into the air.
"This object is a match not only because it is made of wood, but because it occupies a place in the world. It was manufactured in a particular factory. Sold in a particular shop. Picked up by you at a particular moment. Destined to be struck at a particular time."
The match drifted back down.
"Those positions. Those relationships. Those points along a timeline. Transfiguration cannot touch them."
Something in Regulus sharpened.
The words themselves were simple. What sat underneath them was not.
"You mean... fate?" he asked.
McGonagall shook her head. "Not exactly. Fate is passive. Predetermined. What I am describing is position. A thing's connections to everything else in the vast web of the world."
"A match may be basswood instead of oak. But its place in the matchbox, the moment you picked it up, the future in which it will be struck, those remain. You changed its material. You did not change it."
Regulus turned that over in his head.
Position, Relationship, Timeline, Connection... a future already waiting.
None of that was something transfiguration could reach. Not for him. Probably not for anyone.
Merlin, maybe.
"What if," he asked slowly, "even those could be changed?"
McGonagall's gaze deepened. There was something else in it too. A thin trace of longing.
"Then it would no longer be transfiguration."
"What would it be?"
"Creation," she said. "Or, if you prefer, redefinition."
The office fell quiet.
Regulus held that word in his mind and didn't let go of it.
After a moment, McGonagall's expression eased by the smallest degree. "The notebook. How are you progressing with it?"
Regulus blinked, dragged back to the present, and bowed his head slightly. "I'm still working through it. I need more time to digest it properly."
McGonagall gave nothing away. "Show me."
He stood, drew his wand, and pointed it above the desk. Magic surged out.
The air twisted.
A patch no larger than a hand hovered over the surface, wavering.
Light bent inside it and smeared at the edges. Barely stable. Nowhere near refined.
But it was spatial transfiguration. No question.
McGonagall watched the warped air in silence. Her face stayed neutral, though something faint and satisfied passed through her eyes.
"You have a long way to go," she said, voice serious. "But you are moving in the right direction."
Regulus lowered his wand. The distortion smoothed out, and the air returned to normal.
"Keep practicing," McGonagall said. "If questions arise, come to me."
He nodded. "Thank you, Professor."
"Mr. Black."
He paused at the door.
"The question you asked, whether anything is truly unchangeable, that is a good question. Every witch or wizard who follows transfiguration far enough arrives there in the end. The earlier you begin asking it, the farther you will go."
Something like gratitude touched his expression.
He understood what she was doing. The same thing Slughorn and Dumbledore had done before: laying the groundwork for heights they thought he might someday reach.
"I'll remember, Professor."
He offered a final, polite farewell, pushed open the door, and stepped out.
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