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// 2200
//== Conscientiousness

// 2201
//Love as thou Rowling.

// 2202
//Today’s historical tidbit: The ancient Hebrews considered the boundary of a day
//to be sunset rather than dawn, so they said “evening and morning” not “morning
//and evening”. (And as many reviewers noted, modern Jewish halacha asserts the
//same.)

// 2203
//__“I’m sure I’ll find the time somewhere.”__

// 2204
//“__Frigideiro!__”

// 2205
//Harry dipped a finger in the glass of water on his desk. It should have been
//cool. But lukewarm it was, and lukewarm it had stayed. Again.

// 2206
//Harry was feeling very, very cheated.

// 2207
//There were hundreds of fantasy novels scattered around the Verres household.
//Harry had read quite a few. And it was starting to look like he had a
//mysterious dark side. So after the glass of water had refused to cooperate the
//first few times, Harry had glanced around the Charms classroom to make sure no
//one was watching, and then taken a deep breath, concentrated, and made himself
//angry. Thought about the Slytherins bullying Neville, and the game where
//someone knocked down your books every time you tried to pick them up again.
//Thought about what Draco Malfoy had said about the ten-year-old Lovegood girl
//and how the Wizengamot really operated…

// 2208
//And the fury had entered his blood, he had held out his wand in a hand that
//trembled with hate and said in cold tones “__Frigideiro!__” and absolutely
//nothing had happened.

// 2209
//Harry had been __gypped.__ He wanted to write someone and demand a
//__refund__ on his dark side which clearly __ought __to have
//irresistible magical power but had turned out to be __defective.__

// 2210
//“__Frigideiro!__” said Hermione again from the desk next to him. Her water
//was solid ice and there were white crystals forming on the rim of her glass.
//She seemed to be totally intent on her own work and not at all conscious of the
//other students staring at her with hateful eyes, which was either (a)
//dangerously oblivious of her or (b) a perfectly honed performance rising to the
//level of fine art.

// 2211
//“Oh, __very__ good, Miss Granger!” squeaked Filius Flitwick, their Charms
//Professor and Head of Ravenclaw, a tiny little man with no visible signs of
//being a past dueling champion. “Excellent! Stupendous!”

// 2212
//Harry had expected to be, in the worst case, second behind Hermione. Harry
//would have preferred for __her__ to be rivalling __him,__ of course,
//but he could have accepted it the other way around.

// 2213
//As of Monday, Harry was headed for the bottom of the class, a position for
//which he was companionably rivalling all the other Muggle-raised students
//except Hermione. Who was all alone and rivalless at the top, poor thing.

// 2214
//Professor Flitwick was standing over the desk of one of the other Muggleborns
//and quietly adjusting the way she was holding her wand.

// 2215
//Harry looked over at Hermione. He swallowed hard. It was the obvious role for
//her in the scheme of things… “Hermione?” Harry said tentatively. “Do you have
//any idea what I might be doing wrong?”

// 2216
//Hermione’s eyes lit up with a terrible light of helpfulness and something in
//the back of Harry’s brain screamed in desperate humiliation.

// 2217
//Five minutes later, Harry’s water did seem noticeably cooler than room
//temperature and Hermione had given him a few verbal pats on the head and told
//him to pronounce it more carefully next time and gone off to help someone else.

// 2218
//Professor Flitwick had given her a House point for helping him.

// 2219
//Harry was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached and that wasn’t helping his
//pronunciation.

// 2220
//__I don’t care if it’s unfair competition. I know exactly what I am doing
//with two extra hours every day. I am going to sit in my trunk and study until I
//am keeping up with Hermione Granger.__

// 2221
//“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn
//at Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. There was no trace of any levity upon
//the face of the stern old witch. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave
//and not come back. You have been warned.”

// 2222
//Her wand came down and tapped her desk, which smoothly reshaped itself into a
//pig. A couple of Muggleborn students gave out small yelps. The pig looked
//around and snorted, seeming confused, and then became a desk again.

// 2223
//The Transfiguration Professor looked around the classroom, and then her eyes
//settled on one student.

// 2224
//“Mr. Potter,” said Professor McGonagall. “You only received your schoolbooks a
//few days ago. Have you started reading your Transfiguration textbook?”

// 2225
//“No, sorry professor,” Harry said.

// 2226
//“You needn’t apologise, Mr. Potter, if you were required to read ahead you
//would have been told to do so.” McGonagall’s fingers rapped the desk in front
//of her. “Mr. Potter, would you care to guess whether this is a desk which I
//Transfigured into a pig, or if it began as a pig and I briefly removed the
//Transfiguration? If you had read the first chapter of your textbook, you would
//know.”

// 2227
//Harry’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I’d guess it’d be easier to start with a
//pig, since if it started as a desk, it might not know how to stand up.”

// 2228
//Professor McGonagall shook her head. “No fault to you, Mr. Potter, but the
//correct answer is that in Transfiguration you do __not__ care to guess.
//Wrong answers will be marked with extreme severity, questions left blank will
//be marked with great leniency. You must learn to know what you do not know. If
//I ask you any question, no matter how obvious or elementary, and you answer
//‘I’m not sure’, I will not hold it against you and anyone who laughs will lose
//House points. Can you tell me why this rule exists, Mr. Potter?”

// 2229
//__Because a single error in Transfiguration can be incredibly dangerous.
//__“No.”

// 2230
//“Correct. Transfiguration is more dangerous than Apparition, which is not
//taught until your sixth year. Unfortunately, Transfiguration must be learned
//and practised at a young age to maximise your adult ability. So this is a
//dangerous subject, and you should be quite scared of making any mistakes,
//because none of my students have ever been permanently injured and I will be
//__extremely put out __if you are the first class to__ spoil my
//record__.”

// 2231
//Several students gulped.

// 2232
//Professor McGonagall stood up and moved over to the wall behind her desk, which
//held a polished wooden board. “There are many reasons why Transfiguration is
//dangerous, but one reason stands above all the rest.” She produced a short
//quill with a thick end, and used it to sketch letters in red; which she then
//underlined, using the same marker, in blue:

// 2233
//TRANSFIGURATION IS NOT PERMANENT!

// 2234
//“Transfiguration is not permanent!” said Professor McGonagall. “Transfiguration
//is not permanent! Transfiguration is not permanent! Mr. Potter, suppose a
//student Transfigured a block of wood into a cup of water, and you drank it.
//What do you imagine might happen to you when the Transfiguration wore off?”
//There was a pause. “Excuse me, I should not have asked that of you, Mr. Potter,
//I forgot that you are blessed with an unusually pessimistic imagination -”

// 2235
//“I’m fine,” Harry said, swallowing hard. “So the first answer is that I don’t
//__know__,” the Professor nodded approvingly, “but I __imagine__ there
//might be… wood in my stomach, and in my bloodstream, and if any of that water
//had gotten absorbed into my body’s tissues - would it be wood pulp or solid
//wood or…” Harry’s grasp of magic failed him. He couldn’t understand how wood
//mapped into water in the first place, so he couldn’t understand what would
//happen after the water molecules were scrambled by ordinary thermal motions and
//the magic wore off and the mapping reversed.

// 2236
//McGonagall’s face was stiff. “As Mr. Potter has correctly reasoned, he would
//become extremely sick and require immediate Flooing to St. Mungo’s Hospital if
//he was to have any chance of survival. Please turn your textbooks to page 5.”

// 2237
//Even without any sound in the moving picture, you could tell that the woman
//with horribly discolored skin was screaming.

// 2238
//“The criminal who originally Transfigured gold into wine and gave it to this
//woman to drink, ‘in payment of the debt’ as he put it, received a sentence of
//ten years in Azkaban. Please turn to page 6. That is a Dementor. They are the
//guardians of Azkaban. They suck away at your magic, your life, and any happy
//thoughts you try to have. The picture on page 7 is of the criminal ten years
//later, on his release. You will note that he is dead - yes, Mr. Potter?”

// 2239
//“Professor,” Harry said, “if the worst happens in a case like that, is there
//any way of __maintaining__ the Transfiguration?”

// 2240
//“No,” Professor McGonagall said flatly. “Sustaining a Transfiguration is a
//constant drain on your magic which scales with the size of the target form. And
//you would need to recontact the target every few hours, which is, in a case
//like this, impossible. Disasters like this are __unrecoverable!__”

// 2241
//Professor McGonagall leaned forwards, her face very hard. “You will absolutely
//never under any circumstances Transfigure anything into a liquid or a gas. No
//water, no air. Nothing like water, nothing like air. Even if it is not meant to
//drink. Liquid __evaporates,__ little bits and pieces of it get into the
//air. You will not Transfigure anything that is to be burned. It will make smoke
//and someone could breathe that smoke! You will never Transfigure anything that
//could conceivably go inside anyone’s body by any means. No food. Nothing that
//__looks like__ food. Not even as a funny little prank where you mean to
//tell them about your mud pie before they actually eat it. You will never do it.
//Period. Inside this classroom or out of it or __anywhere.__ Is that well
//understood by __every single student?__”

// 2242
//“Yes,” said Harry, Hermione, and a few others. The rest seemed to be
//speechless.

// 2243
//“__Is that well understood by every single student?__”

// 2244
//“Yes,” they said or muttered or whispered.

// 2245
//“If you break any of these rules you will not further study Transfiguration
//during your stay at Hogwarts. Repeat along with me. I will never Transfigure
//anything into a liquid or gas.”

// 2246
//“I will never Transfigure anything into a liquid or gas,” said the students in
//ragged chorus.

// 2247
//“Again! Louder! I will never Transfigure anything into a liquid or gas.”

// 2248
//“I will never Transfigure anything into a liquid or gas.”

// 2249
//“I will never Transfigure anything that looks like food or anything else that
//goes inside a human body.”

// 2250
//“I will never Transfigure anything that is to be burned because it could make
//smoke.”

// 2251
//“You will never Transfigure anything that looks like money, including Muggle
//money,” said Professor McGonagall. “The goblins have ways of finding out who
//did it. As a matter of recognised law, the goblin nation is in a permanent
//state of __war__ with all magical counterfeiters. They will not send
//Aurors. They will send an army.”

// 2252
//“I will never Transfigure anything that looks like money,” repeated the
//students.

// 2253
//“And __above all__,” said Professor McGonagall, “you will not Transfigure
//any living subject, __especially yourselves.__ It will make you very sick
//and possibly dead, depending on how you Transfigure yourself and how long you
//maintain the change.” Professor McGonagall paused. “Mr. Potter is currently
//holding up his hand because he has seen an Animagus transformation -
//specifically, a human transforming into a cat and back again. But an Animagus
//transformation is not __free__ Transfiguration.”

// 2254
//Professor McGonagall took a small chunk of wood out of her pocket. With a tap
//of her wand it became a glass ball. Then she said “__Crystferrium!__” and
//the glass ball became a steel ball. She tapped it with her wand one last time
//and the steel ball became a piece of wood once more. ”__Crystferrium__
//transforms a subject of solid glass into a similarly shaped target of solid
//steel. It cannot do the reverse, nor can it transform a desk into a pig. The
//most general form of Transfiguration - free Transfiguration, which you will be
//learning here - is capable of transforming any subject into any target, at
//least so far as physical form is concerned. For this reason, free
//Transfiguration must be done wordlessly. Using Charms would require different
//words for every different transformation between subject and target.”

// 2255
//Professor McGonagall gave her students a sharp look. “__Some__ teachers
//begin with Transfiguration Charms and move on to free Transfiguration
//afterwards. Yes, that would be much easier in the beginning. But it can set you
//in a poor mold which impairs your abilities later. Here you will learn free
//Transfiguration from the __very start__, which requires that you cast the
//spell wordlessly, by holding the subject form, the target form, and the
//transformation within your own mind.”

// 2256
//“And to answer Mr. Potter’s question,” Professor McGonagall went on, “it is
//__free__ Transfiguration which you must never do to any living subject.
//There are Charms and potions which can safely, reversibly transform living
//subjects in __limited__ ways. An Animagus with a missing limb will still
//be missing that limb after transforming, for example. Free Transfiguration is
//__not__ safe. Your body will change while it is Transfigured - breathing,
//for example, results in a constant loss of the body’s stuff to the surrounding
//air. When the Transfiguration wears off and your body tries to revert to its
//__original__ form, it will not quite be able to do so. If you press your
//wand to your body and imagine yourself with golden hair, afterwards your hair
//will fall out. If you visualise yourself as someone with clearer skin, you will
//be taking a long stay at St. Mungo’s. And if you Transfigure yourself into an
//adult bodily form, then, when the Transfiguration wears off, you will die.”

// 2257
//That explained why he had seen such things as fat boys, or girls less than
//perfectly pretty. Or old people, for that matter. That wouldn’t happen if you
//could just Transfigure yourself every morning… Harry raised his hand and tried
//to signal Professor McGonagall with his eyes.

// 2258
//“__Yes__, Mr. Potter?”

// 2259
//“Is it possible to Transfigure a living subject into a target that is static,
//such as a coin - no, excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, let’s just say a steel
//ball.”

// 2260
//Professor McGonagall shook her head. “Mr. Potter, even inanimate objects
//undergo small internal changes over time. There would be no visible changes to
//your body afterwards, and for the first minute, you would notice nothing wrong.
//But in an hour you would be sick, and in a day you would be dead.”

// 2261
//“Erm, excuse me, so if I’d read the first chapter I could have __guessed__
//that the desk was originally a desk and not a pig,” Harry said, “but only if I
//made the __further__ assumption that you didn’t want to kill the pig, that
//might __seem__ highly probable but -”

// 2262
//“I can foresee that marking your tests will be an endless source of delight to
//me, Mr. Potter. But if you have other questions can I please ask you to wait
//until after class?”

// 2263
//“No further questions, professor.”

// 2264
//“Now repeat after me,” said Professor McGonagall. “I will never try to
//Transfigure any living subject, especially myself, unless specifically
//instructed to do so using a specialised Charm or potion.”

// 2265
//“If I am not sure whether a Transfiguration is safe, I will not try it until I
//have asked Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick or Professor Snape or the
//Headmaster, who are the only recognised authorities on Transfiguration at
//Hogwarts. Asking another student is __not__ acceptable, even if they say
//that they remember asking the same question.”

// 2266
//“Even if the current Defence Professor at Hogwarts tells me that a
//Transfiguration is safe, and even if I see the Defence Professor do it and
//nothing bad seems to happen, I will not try it myself.”

// 2267
//“I have the absolute right to refuse to perform any Transfiguration about which
//I feel the slightest bit nervous. Since not even the Headmaster of Hogwarts can
//order me to do otherwise, I certainly will not accept any such order from the
//Defence Professor, even if the Defence Professor threatens to deduct one
//hundred House points and have me expelled.”

// 2268
//“If I break any of these rules I will not further study Transfiguration during
//my time at Hogwarts.”

// 2269
//“We will repeat these rules at the start of every class for the first month,”
//said Professor McGonagall. “And now, we will begin with matches as subjects and
//needles as targets… put away your wands, thank you, by ‘begin’ I meant that you
//will begin taking notes.”

// 2270
//Half an hour before the end of class, Professor McGonagall handed out the
//matches.

// 2271
//At the end of the class Hermione had a silvery-looking match and the entire
//rest of the class, Muggleborn or otherwise, had exactly what they’d started
//with.

// 2272
//Professor McGonagall awarded her another point for Ravenclaw.

// 2273
//After the Transfiguration class was dismissed, Hermione came over to Harry’s
//desk as Harry was putting away his books into his pouch.

// 2274
//“You know,” Hermione said with an innocent expression on her face, “I earned
//two points for Ravenclaw today.”

// 2275
//“So you did,” Harry said shortly.

// 2276
//“But that wasn’t as good as your __seven__ points,” she said. “I guess I’m
//just not as intelligent as you.”

// 2277
//Harry finished feeding his homework into the pouch and turned to Hermione with
//his eyes narrowed. He’d actually forgotten about that.

// 2278
//She __batted her eyelashes__ at him. “We have lessons every day, though. I
//wonder how long it will take you to find some more Hufflepuffs to rescue? Today
//is Monday. So that gives you until Thursday.”

// 2279
//The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, unblinking.

// 2280
//Harry spoke first. “Of course you realise this means war.”

// 2281
//“I didn’t know we’d been at peace.”

// 2282
//All of the other students were now watching with fascinated eyes. All of the
//other students, plus, unfortunately, Professor McGonagall.

// 2283
//“Oh, Mr. Potter,” sang Professor McGonagall from the other side of the room, “I
//have some good news for you. Madam Pomfrey has approved your suggestion for
//preventing breakage in her Spimster wickets, and the plan is to finish the job
//by the end of next week. I’d say that deserves… let’s call it ten points for
//Ravenclaw.”

// 2284
//Hermione’s face was gaping in betrayal and shock. Harry imagined his own face
//didn’t look much different.

// 2285
//“__Professor…__” Harry hissed.

// 2286
//“Those ten points are __unquestionably__ deserved, Mr. Potter. I would not
//hand out House points on a whim. To you it might have been a simple matter of
//seeing something fragile and suggesting a way to protect it, but Spimster
//wickets are expensive, and the Headmaster was __not__ pleased the last
//time one broke.” Professor McGonagall looked thoughtful. “My, I wonder if any
//other student has ever earned seventeen House points on his first day of
//lessons. I’ll have to look it up, but I suspect that’s a new record. Perhaps we
//should have an announcement at dinnertime?”

// 2287
//“__PROFESSOR!__” Harry shrieked. “This is __our__ war! Stop
//meddling!”

// 2288
//“Now you have until Thursday of __next__ week, Mr. Potter. Unless, of
//course, you engage in some sort of mischief and __lose__ House points
//before then. Addressing a professor disrespectfully, for example.” Professor
//McGonagall put a finger on her cheek and looked reflective. “I expect you’ll
//hit negative numbers before the end of Friday.”

// 2289
//Harry’s mouth snapped shut. He sent his best Death Glare at McGonagall but she
//only seemed to find it amusing.

// 2290
//“Yes, definitely an announcement at dinner,” Professor McGonagall mused. “But
//it wouldn’t do to offend the Slytherins, so the announcement should be brief.
//Just the number of points and the fact of the record… and if anyone comes to
//you for help with their schoolwork and is disappointed that you haven’t even
//started reading your textbooks, you can always refer them to Miss Granger.”

// 2291
//“__Professor!__” said Hermione in a rather high-pitched voice.

// 2292
//Professor McGonagall ignored her. “My, I wonder how long it will take before
//Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look
//forward to seeing it, whatever it may be.”

// 2293
//Harry and Hermione, by unspoken mutual consent, turned and stormed out of the
//classroom. They were followed by a trail of hypnotised Ravenclaws.

// 2294
//“Um,” Harry said. “Are we still on for after dinner?”

// 2295
//“Of course,” said Hermione. “I wouldn’t want you to fall further behind on your
//studying.”

// 2296
//“Why, thank you. And let me say that as brilliant as you are already, I can’t
//help but wonder what you’ll be like once you have some elementary training in
//rationality.”

// 2297
//“Is it really that useful? It didn’t seem to help you with Charms or
//Transfiguration.”

// 2298
//There was a slight pause.

// 2299
//“Well, I only got my schoolbooks four days ago. That’s why I had to earn those
//seventeen House points without using my wand.”

// 2300
//“Four days ago? Maybe you can’t read eight books in four days but you might
//have at least read __one__. How many days will it take to finish at that
//rate? You know all that mathematics, so can you tell me what’s eight, times
//four, divided by zero?”

// 2301
//“I’ve got classes now, which you didn’t, but weekends are free, so… limit of
//eight times four divided by epsilon as epsilon approaches zero plus… 10:47AM on
//Sunday.”

// 2302
//“I did it in __three__ days actually.”

// 2303
//“2:47PM on Saturday it is, then. I’m sure I’ll find the time somewhere.”

// 2304
//And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.