13: Grimly Familiar

First thing in the morning, Harry packs Bear back into his trunk, shrinks it, and slips outside under his Invisibility Cloak. It’s a cool highland morning, bright and clear, and he relishes the chill as he takes the path down to Hagrid’s cabin. 

Hagrid’s awake already, and cooking something that smells… funky. “Harry! Yer not s’posed ter be here!” he says when he opens the door. 

“Hi, Hagrid!” Harry beams up at him. “I wanted to say congratulations on the teaching post!” 

“Aw, yer too nice…” Hagrid blushes tomato red. Then his eyes 7land on something over Harry’s shoulder. “Blimey, Harry, s’tha’ a grim?” 

“Yeah, this is my familiar, Bear.” Harry turns and waves. Bear abandons a particularly interestingly scented bit of ground and lopes over, tongue lolling. “I, er… well, he took a bit of a dislike to Ron’s rat, and Hermione threatened to report him if I brought him to school. She doesn’t know. It’s not fair to lock him up in my dorm all day so I was… hoping you could look after him? Feed him, make sure he’s warm this winter, stuff like that. And not tell anyone he’s here.” 

“He’s beau’iful,” Hagrid says, bending down to pat Bear on the head. “Yeah, o’course I’ll look after ‘im. Aye, this is a genuine grim, all righ’. Where’d yeh find ‘im?” 

Harry explains how he came across Bear, starved half to death and lost in Muggle suburbia. The story brings tears to Hagrid’s eyes. “I assume yeh’ll be comin’ out ter check on ’im?” 

“Every night before dinner if I can swing it,” Harry promises. “I’ve got to go to breakfast, Hagrid, but I’m looking forward to class!” 

Hagrid beams and waves as Harry takes off. 

Hermione is at the breakfast table, but none of the other third years. Harry sits down across from her. “Morning.” 

“Oh, hi, Harry.” She barely looks up from Spellman’s Syllabary. 

Harry rolls his eyes. The big dictionary had bored him within five minutes; the rune definitions within it were unclear and not very helpful. Runic Languages: Literal and Symbolic Meanings had been a lot better but it wasn’t on the book list. 

“Oi, Harry, here’s your schedule,” George says, passing one along the table, probably from prefect Katie Bell, who’s sitting on his other side. Harry picks it up just as Ron arrives and starts shoveling food onto his plate at Harry’s right. 

Neville comes in, and Harry waves him over to the seat to his left. “Hey, Harry. Schedules?” Neville says. 

“Yeah, look—we’ve got Divination straight off,” Harry says. Neville takes his schedule from George and looks it over. 

“Potions with the Slytherins again,” he says gloomily. 

Harry stabs a bit of sausage on his fork with more force than really necessary. “I am going to make Snape give me an O this year. On something. Anything.” 

“Do you really think you can?” Hermione says. “He hates you, Harry.” 

“I’ll just have to do so well he can’t help it,” Harry vows. 

Ron shakes his head. “You’ve gone mental.” 

Faye, Parvati, and Lavender all come in together. Harry waves at them, and Faye and Parvati wave back, but all three girls sit down quite a ways down the table. Harry sighs. 

Ron grabs Hermione’s schedule and stares. “Hermione, they’ve messed this up. You’re down for about ten classes a day, look.” 

“I’ll manage,” Hermione says shortly. “I’ve sorted things out with Professor McGonagall.” 

“But look,” says Ron, laughing, “see this morning? Eight o’clock, Divination. And underneath, eight o’clock, Arithmancy. And again, eight o’clock, Muggle Studies. How’re you supposed to be in three classes at once?” 

“Don’t be silly, no one could be in three classes at once.” 

“Well, then–”

“Pass the marmalade,” says Hermione. 

“But–”

“Honestly, Ron, what’s it to you if my schedule’s a bit full?” Hermione snaps, grabbing it from his hands. “I told you, I’ve fixed it with Professor McGonagall.” 

Harry exchanges a wide-eyed glance with Neville and they both inch slightly down the bench away from Hermione. 

“Divination’s in the north tower,” Neville murmurs, “d’you…”

“Yes, let’s,” Harry says. 

Ron and Hermione are still bickering so furiously that they don’t notice Harry leave. Relieved, Harry and Neville join Lavender and Parvati as they set out to find the north tower. 

An older Ravenclaw gives them directions, and they hurry along. At a junction of two hallways, they come across Pansy. She jumps when she hears them come around the corner and then relaxes. “Thank Merlin. Harry, Neville, tell me one of you knows how to get up there.” 

“Make a left,” Lavender says, eyeing Pansy warily. 

“Pansy Parkinson,” Pansy says, sticking out a hand. Lavender and Parvati both introduce themselves with some hesitation. 

As they set off down a long hallway, Neville asks Pansy if she’s the only Slytherin doing Divination. “No, Blaise is too—Zabini—but I told him I wouldn’t wait around if he wasn’t at breakfast by seven thirty,” she says. “Remind me to introduce you. I think you’ll like him.” 

“Oh, great,” Parvati sighs when a wrought iron spiral staircase comes into view ahead. “I hoped that was a joke…”

“It’s a tower, what did you expect?” Pansy says. 

Harry leads the way up the narrow staircase. Every step makes the metal ring. By the time they get to the top his legs are aching and he’s breathing hard. 

“Th-there’s no door,” Neville says, looking around the open landing with a frown. 

“Up there,” says Harry, pointing. 

A perfectly round trapdoor sits in the ceiling, labeled with a bronze plaque reading Sybil Trelawney, Divination Professor. 

“Do we knock…?” asked Parvati. 

“Maybe let’s wait,” suggests Lavender. “What if it only opens when the whole class is here?” 

None of them can even reach the trapdoor to knock on it, so that’s what they decide to do. The next group to reach the Tower is Hannah Abbott, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff. Neville and Hannah greet each other happily but the boys hang back and keep giving Harry a weird sort of look. That’s all right with Harry. He remembers the shite they said about him last year. 

Su Li, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Anthony Goldstein make up the Ravenclaw contingent.  Blaise Zabini turns up right after them and greets Li like an old friend before he comes over and slings an arm around Pansy’s shoulders. “Lovely company you keep, Parkinson, care to introduce me?” 

“Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter, Parvati Patil, and Lavender Brown,” Pansy says, gesturing. 

Blaise grins at Lavender and Parvati. “You are both so lovely I can’t decide which one to ask to Hogsmeade, so I suppose I’ll just have to take you both.”

Parvati giggles while Lavender flushes rosy pink. “You want to date us both?” Lavender squeaks. 

“Why not?” Blaise says. 

The girls exchange a look. “All right then,” Parvati says. “But if you can’t keep up, you’re on your own.” 

“I think I’ll manage.” 

Pansy ruins Blaise’s easy charm by elbowing him hard in the ribs. “Prat.” 

That’s how Ron and Hermione find them: laughing while Blaise gasps for air with a wounded look on his face. 

Harry sees Ron’s red and furious face. Oh no, he thinks, and then Ron’s storming over. 

“What are you doing with Harry, you no good slimy—” 

And just like that, Harry’s had enough. “Silencio,” he snaps out, slashing his wand towards Ron. The redhead’s mouth keeps moving but no words come out. 

“Harry!” Hermione says shrilly, hurrying over. She glares at the Slytherins. “Harry, undo that spell! They weren’t bothering you, were they?” 

“No?” Harry stares at her. “We were laughing, Hermione, in what world does that translate to bothering me?” 

“I have far better things to do with my time than bother a couple of adolescent lions,” drawls Blaise with the full measure of Slytherin arrogance. 

Unexpected support comes from Justin Finch-Fletchley. “Lay off, Granger, it’s not your job to run off everyone who tries to talk to Potter!” 

“Well I never!” Hermione exclaims, but in a moment of Merlin-sent timing, the trapdoor interrupts her by swinging down and revealing a stepladder that unfolds and lands in the center of the landing. 

After some nervous looks are swapped around, Lavender huffs and starts climbing. Harry, Parvati, and Neville are right behind her. As he’s about to pass through the hole and into the classroom, Harry aims at Ron and whispers “Finite incantatem!” 

The sound of Ron’s complaining voice follows him up into the oddest classroom he’s ever seen. In fact, it doesn’t really look much like a classroom. At least twenty small round tables were clustered around the room, surrounded by squashy armchairs and chintz poufs. The windows are draped in heavy curtains embroidered with the constellations in silver and gold thread; the lamps are draped in reddish gauzy scarves so the whole room has a sort of dull crimson light. A fire crackles in the hearth. Between that and the curtains, it’s stiflingly warm. 

Harry selects a table and sits down. Neville and Lavender join him while Blaise, Pansy, and Parvati cluster around the next one over. 

“Where’s the professor?” Neville whispers. Harry and Blaise both shrug. No idea. 

Ron looks furious to see Harry already seated with other people when he gets up the ladder. Harry feels a bit bad, but he’s sick of Ron’s attitude, and as much as it makes his stomach churn sometimes he doesn’t want to keep holding himself back just to make Ron like him. Maybe he would have if he didn’t have other friends, but he does have them. 

A voice comes suddenly out of the shadows. It’s soft and misty and probably the least threatening sound Harry’s ever heard. "Welcome," it says. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last." 

Harry's immediate impression is of a large, glittering insect. Professor Trelawney moves into the firelight and reveals herself to be very thin, with large glasses that magnify her eyes to several times their natural size. She’s draped herself in a gauzy spangled shawl. Innumerable chains and beads hang around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands are encrusted with bangles and rings.

"Sit, my children, sit," she says, and everyone who hasn’t yet done so hurries into seats, including Dean Thomas, who shows up at the last second and barely scrambles into a seat with Ron and Hermione.

"Welcome to Divination," says Professor Trelawney, who has seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye." She delicately rearranges her shawl. "So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you… Books can take you only so far in this field…”

Hermione won’t like that, Harry thinks, and sure enough, when he glances over, she looks both offended and startled at the idea. Then again, Harry doesn’t much like it, either. He’s beginning to think this professor is a bit of a hack. 

"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future," Professor Trelawney goes on, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face. "It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy," she says suddenly to Neville, who almost topples off his pouf. Lavender grabs his elbow and tugs him upright. "Is your grandmother well?"

"I think so," says Neville tremulously.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear," says Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings. Neville gulps. 

Professor Trelawney continues placidly. "We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves and palmistry. By the way, my dear," she shoots suddenly at Parvati, "beware a red-haired man."

Parvati gives a startled look at Ron. 

"In the second term," Professor Trelawney goes on, "we shall study fire omens and the crystal ball… Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever."

A very tense silence follows this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seems unaware of it. Blaise is staring at her with a narrow-eyed calculation that would not look out of place on a fox deciding if its prey is worth chasing down. 

"I wonder, dear," she says to Lavender, who is nearest and shrinks back in her chair, "if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?"

Lavender, looking relieved, stands up, takes an enormous teapot from a shelf, and puts it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.

"Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading – it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."

Lavender trembles as she retreats to her seat. Neville pats her shoulder. 

"Now, I want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me, and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink, drink until only the dregs remain. Swill these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside down on its saucer, wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing. Oh, and dear" —she catches Neville by the arm as he makes to stand up— "after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."

Harry follows right behind Neville as they get to the shelves of teacups. Neville’s hands are shaking as he reaches for one. Lavender swats Neville’s hand down while Harry plucks two teacups, both blue, from the shelf and passes one to Neville. “Thanks,” Neville whispers. 

Trelawney looks at Harry for a long time before filling his teacup. 

Back at their table, they find that the tea is scalding. “Aren’t you supposed to meditate while drinking it?” Harry says quietly. 

Lavender frowns. “Maybe… hey, Parvati?” She leans back so she can ask the other girl without raising her voice. 

Parvati has a quick whispered conversation with Blaise. “Yeah,” she says to Lavender, “apparently you meditate and try to open yourself up to outside influences…”

“Wonder why she didn’t tell us,” Harry mutters. 

At least Neville’s quit trembling. So the meditation is good for one thing, at least. 

When the scalding tea is gone, Harry swills the dregs around. “Do it widdershins,” he whispers to the others, “anticlockwise,” and then drains the cup and passes it to Neville. Neville hands his cup to Lavender and Harry takes Lavender’s from her. “Where’d you read the bit about which way to swirl the dregs, Harry?” Lavender asks. 

“Oh—uh, Divining Every Day.” He squints into Lavender’s cup. “Let’s see… you’ve got a cup, which means… friendship and good faith, and it’s right next to… is that a lantern…? Uh, that means knowledge and… spiritual growth. They’re close together on the side of the cup… maybe you’ll have a new friend who helps you learn and grow?” Lavender glances, blushing, at Blaise. “And down at the bottom, for the distant future… a heart inside a sort of triangle… Triangles mean stability, positivity, and groups of three, but the heart means love. I’m not sure what that all comes out to,” he admits. 

Lavender is now blushing furiously. Neville smiles, small but genuine, and whispers, “Maybe it means a triad marriage.”

“Shush!” Lavender scolds. “Read your tea leaves!” 

“You’ve g-got my tea leaves,” Neville points out. 

Harry’s too busy having a mental breakdown to pay attention to Neville’s tea leaves as Lavender interprets them. A—a triad? Like, a marriage of three? Aunt Petunia would say that’s sinful and evil and bad—something about the idea sounds weird to Harry, too. What if he was in a triad with another bloke? That’s bad, right? He thinks so. Thought so? Is it different for wizards? All Harry knows about men who like other men is that Uncle Vernon calls them things his primary teacher put a kid in time-out for saying. He’s got a vague sense that those kinds of people are different, somehow—but neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon ever said how they were different. Maybe it’s like him, where different’s not a bad thing. He can’t think how it would hurt anyone for two men to get married, anyway. 

“Harry?” Neville said. 

“Oh. Right, sorry.” Harry shakes the thoughts away and leans in while Neville peers into Harry’s cup. 

“Er… there’s a blobby thing…” Neville turns the cup. “An a-acorn?”

“Windfall, unexpected gold,” Lavender reads from Unfogging the Future. 

“Th-thanks… it’s k-kind of far down the c-c-cup, though… that means it’s not very soon b-but not too far away, either… and that bit looks like a sh-sheep?” 

Professor Trelawney swoops down on them and snatches the cup from Neville. “Let me see that, dear boy… hmm. Hmm. A falcon… a deadly enemy.”

"But everyone knows that, " says Hermione in a carrying whisper from several tables over Professor Trelawney stares at her.

"Well, they do," says Hermione, louder. "Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who."

Most of the class gapes at her. Harry has certainly never heard Hermione speak to a teacher like that before. 

Professor Trelawney chooses not to reply. She lowers her huge eyes to Harry's cup again and turns it a bit more. "The club... an attack, with a crescent moon… you have a hidden foe, but the attack will be directed at someone other than yourself…” 

She turns the cup a bit more and shrieks. 

There’s a tinkle of breaking china. Neville’s smashed his cup. “Sorry,” he whispers into the dead silent room. 

Professor Trelawney sinks into a vacant armchair, her glittering hand at her heart and her eyes closed. "My dear boy... my poor, dear boy no it is kinder not to say… no… don't ask me…”

"What is it, Professor?" says Dean Thomas at once. Everyone’s on their feet, crowding slowly around Harry's table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney's chair to get a good look at Harry's cup.

"My dear," Professor Trelawney's huge eyes open dramatically, "you have the grim."

Harry laughs in a sudden rush of relief. 

A few people look puzzled, but Ron and, actually, most of the class look utterly horrified.

"The Grim, my dear, the Grim!" cries Professor Trelawney. "It is no laughing matter—the giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen—the worst omen—of death!"

“Or it just means I have a big pet dog,” Harry says drily. 

Professor Trelawney freezes. “What, my dear?” 

“I have a familiar that looks exactly like a grim,” Harry says patiently, “but as I’ve known him for a lot longer than twenty-four hours, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t foretelling my death.” He takes the cup and looks at it. “That shape’s at the bottom, by… are those wings? The falcon, then. Maybe my familiar fights my enemy, or something.” 

“My dear boy, I do believe you have the gift of the Sight…” Professor Trelawney stares at Harry with wide, misty eyes. “Yes… well, I think we will leave the lesson here for today… please pack away your things…” 

Silently the class takes their teacups back to Professor Trelawney, packs away their books, and closes their bags. Blaise looks highly amused by the whole scene.

"Until we meet again," says Professor Trelawney faintly, "fair fortune be yours.”

Harry makes it until they’re halfway down the corridor at the base of the stairs. “That professor is a hack!” 

“What? Why?” Lavender frowns at him. “I thought she was brilliant!” 

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m surprised you agree, Harry,” Hermione says, “but really, she’s just saying things you can interpret to be true—she made Neville so nervous he broke the cup, and then—”

“But she did see a grim!” Parvati insists. “And he’s got a dog that looks like one!” 

“I don’t think she’s a hack because she’s making it up,” Harry says loudly. “For all I know she’s really a Seer. But I’m pretty sure I’m not, I mean, seers have visions, don’t they?”

“They do.” Blaise has his hands shoved deep in his pockets and seems to be enjoying himself immensely just by walking behind Harry and eavesdropping. 

Harry waves a hand at him. “Right! I’m just—anyone can do divination like that, with tea leaves, if they’re patient and open-minded. It’s not making prophecies! That whole thing about—about how you can’t teach Divination… maybe you can’t teach Sight, that’s a gift, but you can teach stuff like this! The bit about meditating while you drink your tea was on the first page of the tasseomancy chapter in the book I read, if you don’t meditate then it doesn’t really work, and she didn’t bother telling us either!”

“I see what you mean,” Parvati says, lips pursed. 

“I l-liked it,” Neville says. “The c-class, I mean, not… her, so much…”

“We need to hurry up if we’re going to get to Transfiguration on time,” Hermione says a bit shortly. 

They have Transfiguration with Hufflepuff this year, so Hannah, Finch-Fletchley, and Macmillan trail behind as Harry leads them to McGonagall’s classroom. Thanks to his many nighttime wanderings he knows the castle better than most of his year mates, but even so, they only barely get to class in time.

Professor McGonagall gives their group a narrow-eyed look as they hurry inside right before the chime signaling start of class, but she doesn’t comment. Harry sits down next to Neville and in front of Faye; Hermione drags Ron into the table in front of him. 

“Welcome to third-year Transfiguration, in which you will progress to more complex animate to inanimate transfigurations. In the second half of the year we will begin to examine the theory behind full animate-to-animate transfiguration. Attend.” 

Professor McGonagall steps forward, and between one breath and the next, a tabby cat is sitting in her place. Harry blinks. He feels rather like his brain edited over the exact instant of the transformation. 

Applause ripples through the classroom. 

Smiling slightly, Professor McGonagall turns back into a witch. “Thank you all. The animagus transformation is based in animate-to-animate transfiguration theory. However, it is enormously complicated—much more so than turning a rabbit into a rat. Can anyone tell me why?” 

She seems a bit surprised when Harry’s hand is one of the first in the air. “Mr. Potter?” 

Hermione shoots Harry a disgruntled look over one shoulder. 

“Er–it’s wandless,” Harry says. “And it’s a–a process to learn, so you might get stuck with a flipper instead of an arm…” 

Several people laugh. “Take three points, Mr. Potter. Can anyone speak to the dangers of the animagus transformation?” 

Susan Bones suggests getting stuck as an animal, while Hermione quotes from Intermediate Transfiguration and informs them all that animagi who are careless about the transfiguration in its early stages can seriously injure themselves. 

“Three points to each of you. A third danger is less commonly known.” McGonagall looks solemn. “Animagi who spend too much time in their other form can begin to take on the traits of that creature. Depending on your form, this may be more or less of an issue. For example, after an extended period of time in my animal form, I tend to be easily distracted by small and quickly-moving objects.” She permits scattered laughter to fade away after this anecdote before going on. “I once knew a wizard with a horse as his other form and he could occasionally be found chewing on a blade of grass while deep in thought. Another witch was a rabbit in her other shape and it nearly cost her her life during a covert rescue in the war, as rabbits are prone to freezing when faced with sudden bursts of light and noise. 

“The animagus transformation is not purely transfiguration. It involves elements of mind magic as well.” She lifts a cage containing a small brown bird onto her desk and lashes out with her wand. It transforms instantly into a crow. “Turning one type of bird into another is not particularly difficult.” Another slash of her wand and the crow becomes a mouse. “One type of warm-blooded vertebrate creature into another is one more degree of complexity.” A third movement and the mouse is now a toad. “Amphibious and reptilian transfigurations from warm-blooded creatures are more difficult still, and finally…” She taps the cage to fill it halfway with water, and before the toad can react, she changes it to a jellyfish. Sweat is beading on her temple. “Vertebrate to invertebrate transfiguration is one of the most dangerous animate-to-animate transfiguration classes there is, surpassed, naturally, by invertebrate to vertebrate.” With a last gesture, the jellyfish morphs back into the little brown bird and the water disappears. The bird twitters angrily. 

Applause sweeps through the classroom. “My thanks,” Professor McGonagall says, lowering the cage out of sight. “The only animate-to-animate transfiguration you will attempt this year will be turning one type of quadruped mammalian vertebrate into another. Specifically, mice into chipmunks and vice versa. In order to reach that level, you will be assigned substantial work in anatomy and evolution.” 

Harry sits up straighter. Evolution? That’s not a term he’s heard in Hogwarts before. Hermione’s nearly vibrating out of her seat with excitement. 

“Those of you who have lived in the Muggle world have likely heard of this concept, as I understand Muggles teach it earlier than we do. However, at Hogwarts, it finds itself most at home in my classroom. Who can give me a brief overview of evolution? Mr. Finch-Fletchley?” 

Justin puts his hand down. “It’s how one type of animal changes to another. So, when you have a whole group of animals, say… uh, deer, and then a bunch of them move to a different part of the world where the conditions are different, their bodies aren’t designed to survive in that new environment as well. So then over time they adapt to that environment and eventually their descendants are so different they’re a whole other animal and no longer deer.” 

“Three points to Hufflepuff.” Ernie Macmillan puts his hand up. “Yes, Mr. Macmillan?” 

“Sorry, Professor, but how do the deer change? Are they smart enough to think of what they need to change about their bodies? And how do they do it if they aren’t magic?” 

“My wand for an introductory biology course,” Professor McGonagall mutters. “Through something called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.” She waves her wand and the words appear on the blackboard. “You recall our lectures on molecular and atomic structure from introductory inanimate-to-inanimate transfiguration?” The class nods. “Well, DNA is a very particular type of molecule. It is made of four distinct smaller molecules linked together in extraordinarily long chains. When we began studying animate-to-inanimate transfiguration, you saw how glass lenses and magnification charms can be used to see things smaller than your eyes can detect unaided. DNA lives in each and every cell in your body, and it is responsible for giving each of you the physical traits that you possess. Hair color, eye color, and much more. Half of your DNA is from your mother and the other half from your father. 

“This will be studied in further detail later in the year, but for now it will suffice to say that an element of chance is at work in the process by which your parents’ DNA combined to make you. Some parts of your DNA are entirely original; some parts are exact copies from one of your parents. The same holds true for every living being we know of, including most magical creatures, which is a topic you will discuss in NEWT-level Care of Magical Creatures if you are so inclined. Now, to return to Mr. Finch-Fletchley’s example of a herd of deer, imagine that they find themselves no longer in a forest but in a very steep and mountainous area. Their brown coats blended in perfectly in the forest but stand out against the grey and white of the mountains. This makes the deer easy targets for predators such as mountain lions. However, some of the deer will, by pure chance, have coats closer to grey or perhaps white, and those deer will survive longer, and by living longer they will have more offspring. The traits exhibited by the deer that reproduce more often will gradually become more common in the population as a whole. Over the course of a few generations, there will be many more deer with grey-brown instead of brown coats, and eventually they will be wholly grey and other colors that camouflage with the mountainside. When only one or two superficial traits such as coat color change, we consider them to still be deer, but a different species. When many traits change, they may be something else entirely—deer are related to elk, moose, mountain goats, horses, cattle, and bison, for example.” 

“As you go back further in time you can find the place where the distant ancestors of modern deer split, one group moving to a mountain and one group to a forest. The mountain group became mountain goats and the forest group became deer. Another group became moose; a fourth elk. In this way, we study, through evolution, how closely related two species are, and therefore how difficult the transfiguration from one to the other will be. By understanding the anatomy of those two creatures and the process by which they deviated in evolutionary history, you will better understand the changes that must occur from one to the next, and the transfiguration will be easier for you.” She takes a deep breath. “Yes, Miss Perks.” 

The Hufflepuff lowers her hand. “Professor, does this mean that every living creature on Earth has a common ancestor?” 

“Five points to Hufflepuff for an insightful question,” Professor McGonagall says, smiling. “Indeed. In the unimaginably distant past, yes, there was one life-form which began to evolve into two different distinct species, and over hundreds of millions of years, we have seen the growth and death of thousands upon thousands of different species.” 

“What about magic?” asks Harry. 

McGonagall pauses. “As I am sure you can imagine, this subject is of great interest to those who wish to understand the origins of magic. Evolution is not the entirety of the story. To date, there has been absolutely no indication that wizards and Muggles are different species in terms of our DNA. Any wizard or witch can reproduce with any Muggle or any squib barring any kind of individual deformities or diseases that cause infertility. And yet, for reasons we do not understand, we wield magic and they do not. How many of you experienced an incident of accidental magic healing some kind of injury when you were young?” 

About a third of the class raises their hands, Harry included. McGonagall nods. “Can anyone tell me why that is significant to this topic?” 

For a few seconds, no one speaks up, but then Harry slowly raises his hand again. Professor McGonagall looks a bit startled. “Mr. Potter?” 

“Because it means our magic affects our bodies,” Harry says quietly. He knows he’s right. “Some of us were injured. That makes your body think it’s in danger. You don’t like pain, and you want the injury to be healed. Every animal has an instinct to avoid injury because if you’re hurt you’re weak and something might eat you. We don’t get hunted by most things anymore, but a long time ago, our ancestors were. So our magic reacted and healed us. And if it can react to something like that, then it can affect our DNA, too… since that’s also physical.” 

“Another five points to Gryffindor.” McGonagall looks around the room at a number of extremely surprised pureblood faces. “If there is a connection to the origins of magic in your DNA, it has not been discovered as of yet. However, it is a known fact that magic can accelerate and impact evolution. Kneazles are distantly related to nonmagical cats and yet their exposure to magic has made them so distantly related that male kneazles and female cats cannot reproduce, only the reverse, and their offspring are invariably sterile. Nonmagical animals who spend significant time in a magical area or in the company of a witch or wizard have been documented to become smarter or develop other traits that enable them to be better companions and longer-lived, healthier animals. They also pass on these traits to their offspring even if they reproduce in an area with little natural magic. Therein lies a fascinating observation: magic can alter DNA within the lifetime of an individual, which is otherwise considered impossible. Evolution only works via the randomized change of DNA from one generation to the next. Magic also can create or lead to traits that have no basis in DNA; kneazles can often scent strong enchantments and other strong spells, while Muggle cats cannot, but there are no discernible differences in the sections of their DNA that are associated with the olfactory sense that would explain this. 

“An even more interesting case is the animagus. When I transform into a cat, the physical structures of my cat form’s brain are exactly as you would expect to see in a perfectly normal nonmagical cat. I feel the cat’s mind, and its instincts, but my human consciousness, my sense of self, is preserved. There is no explanation in nonmagical science for the preservation of my human mind independent of physically human brain structures. Nothing the Muggles or we have discovered suggests that without the intervention of magic a cat’s brain could ever physically support the complexity of human thought.

“Transfiguration masters study these questions because they are intimately related to our field. So, now that you understand the importance of this concept, and now that you have diverted me into lecturing on it far sooner than I intended—” she pauses and smiles as a few people laugh— “your homework will be to read this handout and tell me what you think would be the most difficult interspecies transfiguration of the given examples, and why. You must demonstrate a basic understanding of the concepts in the handout regarding DNA, evolution, and the taxonomy of different species of living things.” Harry takes his copy of the handout, a scroll of sturdy parchment about three feet long. Excitement bubbles in his stomach. He’d had fun talking basic physical science in transfiguration last year, but this is really cool. “Dismissed.”