Harry Evans Chapter 141: It's just me, myself and I

Penny had left the room to pursue the practical portion of her Potions exam while Harry remained behind to showcase his transfiguration skills in front of Marchbanks, McGonaggal and Minister Fudge, the latter of whom Harry used the title of so he could say he was performing for the triple M&M&Ms.

“Let’s start with something simple, a thing we usually want our students to have a good grasp on by their fifth year,” Professor McGonaggal started before pointing a finger at the desk and chair that Harry had vacated after having finished the written portion. “Switch it,” she demanded.

Switching was an interesting spell, one that wasn’t particularly useful due to its limitations, but a fundamental way for students to learn how to apply transfiguration-adjacent magic to two objects at once.

Harry twitched his wand and silently watched as the wooden desk and the wooden chair switched places. 

“Transfigure one into an animal of your choice, and the other into a badger,” Marchbanks said next. 

Harry waved his wand once. The chair twisted and unfurled, becoming a badger that looked around confusedly. The table turned into a small pony. A good animal to pick to keep the material somewhat consistently the same size. 

“Very nice, silent casting,” Minister Fudge suddenly interrupted.

McGonaggal pursed her lips while Marchbanks rolled her eyes.

The somewhat pudgy man didn’t seem to mind and leaned forward on his desk to rest his head on his steepled fingers. “To my knowledge, being able to conjure an animal and a swarm of smaller creatures is an integral part of the fifth-year curriculum. I admit myself curious to see the limit of your wasp conjuration in particular, considering how often it came up in the report I glimpsed through on this year’s duelling debacle.” He paused, glanced sideways at the two women he was sitting next to. “If the madames don’t mind, of course.” 

It was clear that neither McGonaggal nor Marchbanks had a particularly high opinion of Fudge, likely because they’d taught him at Hogwarts and examined him during the O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts, respectively. But still, it was hard to say no to the person holding literally the highest rank in the government. 

Harry didn’t truly mind. After all, Fudge had helped him by speaking up on his side after an exchange of letters. The man’s voice had likely counted for something in how fast any talk of legal consequences for Harry’s actions during the duelling finals had disappeared. Although most of the credit likely belonged to Dumbledore and Snape. 

“You would have been able to showcase it for extra credit regardless,” Marchbanks eventually told Harry with her severe but curious face.

The student, for his part, held out his wand up into the air and spoke the incantation to help himself focus just that little additional amount.

“Animacreo,” he said seriously, the wand arm he’d been holding up essentially bucking under the immense power of what followed. It felt like holding a shotgun with how many wasps suddenly exploded out of his wand. 

Harry had never bothered to count the black wasps, but as they continued shooting forth, he estimated that he was capable of collectively controlling several thousand without any issue.

The noise was unbearable, especially in an enclosed room like the testing hall. The harsh buzzing, the sound of wings slapping on wings. The hall grew darker as the wasps blocked out the light and fanned out to find space.

A wind started getting picked up, and he saw Marchbanks’ robes flutter while her eyes widened. McGonagall and, oddly, Fudge, remained less affected. 

“-el-” 

Harry saw McGonagal’s mouth move. He couldn’t understand at first; it was too noisy.

“Di-”

He waved his wand and dispelled the conjuration. From one second to the next, the hall was suddenly empty and silent. An incredibly fast change. Jarring, almost. 

“Beautiful, my boy, beautiful!” Fudge praised loudly while Marchbanks thoughtfully rubbed at her chin.

“Haven’t seen something like that even during the N.E.W.Ts,” the woman eventually said. “Last thing to test would be vanishing,” she nodded her head towards the pony and the badger who had gotten frightened in the wasp storm, but had thankfully frozen rather than running around wildly. 

Harry quickly vanished the two, and the chair and desk they’d been made of.

“I’d say that’s almost it,” Marchbanks said with a nod. “The wasp conjuration is certainly something that merits an O+, considering everything else was executed perfectly, silently at that.” 

“Hmmpf, hmppf,” Fudge suddenly interrupted with a cough. “Well, why not ask the boy to prove himself further, if he has anything?” he said, leering at Harry with a glint of something in his eyes. Was it maybe greed? It would make sense for a politician. “It might help with the… you-know-what,” he said while winking and chortling. 

Harry looked questioningly at McGonaggal, who also seemed somewhat curious. He didn’t know what the you-know-what was, although he had a suspicion.

“You seemed interested in human transfiguration last time we talked,” McGonagall stated neutrally. “Have you made any progress?”

It was an open secret that Harry was ignoring the trace during his summers. After all, he had to train for the tournaments, the class advancements and for his own projects. His progression also made less sense if you assumed he was going wandless for two months every year. The professors and the ministry were obviously closing an eye here and in the past, likely under the consensus that he just shouldn’t let them catch him. 

“I haven’t touched myself,” Harry said. “But if you give me a pig, or something similar, there is something in that direction I can show,” he admitted. 

McGonaggal looked at him curiously from over her glasses and waved her wand, conjuring a pig onto his side of the table. It squealed and stuttered in its steps before Harry promptly stunned it. 

“This takes me a bit longer,” he explained as he bent down next to the conjuration and started running his wand over the rather large animal. Incantations fell from his lips in an unbothered pace as the flesh beneath his wand slowly melted, shifted and was reborn anew. 

Human features slowly started appearing in the crawling mass of flesh, alongside the unmistakable red hair present on his own head. 

Harry didn’t define the genital area, obviously, but the rest of himself appeared on the cold marble floor of the ministry. There wasn’t any emotion attached to creating what he created, just a clinical decision to increase the chances of getting you-know-what.

The examiners similarly looked at his creation with a detached look, albeit with different undertones. Marchbanks was excited, McGonagall had paled slightly, while Fudge looked, if anything, hungry.

“Exciting, exciting, exciting!” Marchbanks praised loudly while clapping her hands. “I haven’t seen this side of human transfiguration from a Hogwarts student in more than a decade!” She shook her head. “No, more than three decades in fact!”

“I didn’t want to touch my own body, and I didn’t have someone to practice with,” Harry started explaining. “Human transfiguration in the Hogwarts curriculum is usually limited to transfiguring a human into something else. Or at least parts of them. An arm into a wing, for example. Due to a lack of opportunity, I decided to work on the reverse.” Also, transfiguring an animal into a human was just as, if not more important, to safely learn the animagus transformation.

“Students in sixth year generally work on changing the colour of their eyebrow, growing additional facial hair,” McGonagall said critically. “This is… much beyond that. Seventh years can turn an arm into a wing, as you said, but even that is considered advanced.”

Harry shook his head. “I worked specifically on this. I don’t know how to do literally anything else to do with human transfiguration.” 

“Still,” McGonaggal continued. “This and the prodigious amount of wasps you can conjure in a short time frame… Along with the fact that you do most of it silently… It puts into question if you should not instead be testing out of sixth year,” she said. She tilted her head, much like a cat, before shaking it. “Well, no, human transfiguration is dangerous when cast on oneself and others. Missing that class, if not supplemented during private tutoring. It would be dangerous. Irresponsible.” She fixed Harry with a stern gaze. “You will likely have a very easy time in transfiguration next year, something that I sought to address but seemingly haven’t been able to. I will give you additional goals during the practical portions, so that you may challenge yourself.”

Harry inclined his head. “Thank you, professor,” he said.

“If you were to go directly into seventh year,” Minister Fudge interrupted. “Then you would have your first N.E.W.T at the age of what, fourteen? It would be unheard of, a scoop. Another Dumbledore, some would say.”

“It might be politically expedient,” Marchbanks interjected harshly. “But for all that, this was very impressive. Dumbledore showed me magic I’d never seen before during his O.W.Ls.”

“Two more years,” Fudge argued right back. “Dumbledore had two additional years. The display today proves that what Hogwarts has done with young Mr Evans works. Letting a student advance when it is proper. Pushing them further creates excellence, something that has been missing from our island for quite a long time.”

Harry looked confusedly between the two of them; McGonagall, meanwhile, remained stoic.

This seemed to be an argument that had been ongoing for a while, one that he didn’t have the full picture of.

“Let’s finish up here,” she interjected decisively, nodding at Harry, before pausing. “Good job, Mr Evans. I can confidently say that I will be seeing you in class with the other N.E.W.T. students. One thing, however. It is considered somewhat unwise to transfigure human bodies. I hope you didn’t try to animate one, for example. The results can often be… horrifying." 

“I’ll keep that in mind, professor,” Harry said.

“We will confer now as to what grade to grant you specifically,” Marchbanks said, seemingly uninterested in continuing to argue with Fudge. “You may wait outside; it shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes.”

The redhead nodded and promptly exited the examination hall.

The minister followed barely a second after. “What a performance, Harry, truly, what a performance,” the man said happily in the empty corridor as he adjusted his bowler hat and patted Harry on the shoulder. “I knew you were a mature young man; your letter proved as much, but your talent, truly exhilarating!" 

“Thank you, minister. I will lay most of the blame on my teachers,” Harry said humbly.

“Yes, and what teachers you’ve had,” Fudge replied wistfully. “I see that McGonagall has taken you almost fully under her wing, as has Flitwick. Both are masters of their fields, although that is about as far as their talents reach. I also heard your former DADA professor helped you a tad extra-curriculary?” the man asked before waving Harry off before he could answer. “You’re a smart boy, very smart. You seem to know how to grasp opportunities.” He paused, looked to the left, looked to the right. “Although all that humbug about animating a transfigured human. Respect your teachers, but don’t listen to them too much, eh? Real magic, the things that Marchbanks has never seen. You can’t learn that. You have to create it yourself, and you can’t create anything without experimenting a little.” He winked at Harry. “Well, duties do call, I’m a busy man after all, but I’m very happy to have witnessed what I did today. You’ll have a great deal of power one day, Harry, I can help you get there faster.” A smirk. “Literally, in this case. Something tells you you’ll have more time than you’ll know what to deal with this Hogwarts year. I wish I could do the same for myself, really, but a controlled environment and a repetitive existence are the only way it works, unfortunately. So many unfortunate limitations.” 

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Harry said idly, confirming what you-know-what had exactly been. It seemed that agreeing to continue arithmancy and advance in transfiguration had been the correct decision.

“Ah, responsibility, responsibility, noblesse oblige,” Fudge sighed and shook his head. “You’ll find that more than responsibility, great power comes with great destiny. We’ll talk more on that soon, sooner than you may think, but for now, I must bid you audieu, duty calls!” he exclaimed before promptly rushing off.

Harry was left standing alone in the corridor. Fudge had been odd, oddly charismatic for one, not at all how Harry had imagined him. Perhaps the fact that Crouch had been minister in this universe had changed the man’s trajectory in life. Weirder things had certainly happened.

He didn’t care about all that, however.

One thing had become very clear in that conversation. He was going to be getting a time-turner, and that… that was something to celebrate.