Transfiguration and Tryouts

The next few days were fairly uneventful. Dumbledore agreed to let Hagrid take care of Tas. Pansy was stuck in the hospital wing for an undetermined amount of time. Most of the Slytherins were now afraid of Shade, although they would never admit it. Ed discovered that the Hogwarts library contained many books about alchemy, so he and Al spent a lot of time there, studying to prepare themselves for the Philosopher’s Stone transmutation. Colette often visited Hagrid to play with Fluffy and Fang. Bookworm and Hermione hardly left the library. No one was quite sure if they were actually working on the Aging Potion or just reading. Keyblade spent most of her free time either practicing alchemy with Ed and Al or sparring with Lloyd. There hadn’t been much difficult schoolwork or homework that week, but everyone was still relieved when it was finally Friday. Even better, Friday evening was when the Quidditch tryouts would take place.
During breakfast, Keyblade noticed Bookworm kept scribbling on a piece of parchment. “Is that for the Aging Potion?” she asked curiously.
“No, it’s even better!” Bookworm put down her quill pen and showed Keyblade the paper. “Since Shade got to beat up Pansy, I made a list of everyone I want to beat up before we leave here!”
Keyblade read the long list. “Bookworm, how do you plan to beat all these people up? And how will you even find them? Voldemort’s hiding far away, Bellatrix Lestrange is in Azkaban, and Umbridge and Fudge are probably at the Ministry of Magic in London. Are you going to beat up Snape in the middle of Potions Class or something? And don’t forget, if you try to beat up Draco Malfoy, Shade will probably murder you. And Ed told me Cho Chang’s in the hospital wing because of the explosion.”
“Okay, that makes one less person to attack… Hmm… Do you have any ideas for how to get the rest of them?” Bookworm asked.
“No!” Keyblade said in exasperation. “Bookworm, shouldn’t you be working on the Aging Potion instead of plotting revenge?”
Bookworm considered this. “Can’t I at least beat up Umbridge? We could borrow some thestrals and fly to London…”
Before Keyblade could reply, breakfast ended. Their first class was Transfiguration with the Slytherins. This was Hermione’s favorite subject, so she made them hurry to class. Professor McGonagall instructed them to practice turning squirrels into goblets.
“I’ll hit the squirrels with a fireball, then you alchemify the goblets, okay? If we wave our wands and say the correct incantation, McGonagall might not notice,” Shade whispered to Keyblade.
“Yay! I did it!” Bookworm excitedly waved a goblet around.
“How did you do that?” Shade asked, shocked that Bookworm had mastered magic so quickly.
“I memorized a bunch of spells last time I read the Harry Potter books! And Hermione taught me some more!” Bookworm excitedly explained. At the end of the class, she and Hermione were the only ones to perform the spell correctly. Shade and Keyblade’s plan was successful. Some of their classmates might have noticed the tiny explosion and the squirrel-like piles of goo, but no one told McGonagall because they preferred to remain non-goo. McGonagall awarded Hermione, Bookworm, Keyblade, and Shade perfect grades for the class.
Later, everyone gathered on the Quidditch pitch for tryouts. Tas even got Hagrid’s permission to watch. Al volunteered to keep an eye on him because his armor was too heavy to fly on a broom anyway.
Draco slipped his team’s captain a few galleons, earning himself a position as seeker. None of the Slytherins wanted a Muggle-born on their team, but Shade did very well as keeper. Normally, they wouldn’t have let her on the team no matter how well she did, but they had heard some rumors involving explosions and goo… Shade was welcomed as the new Slytherin keeper.
The Ravenclaw team quickly realized that small and speedy Genis would be a good seeker. After checking the rulebook to make sure there was nothing against alchemy or auto-mail, they selected Ed as their new chaser.
Lloyd had some trouble flying. He was more familiar with rheiards and wings than broomsticks. However, his luck changed at the end of his tryout. Both bludgers flew toward him at once! Lloyd grabbed a beater’s bat and, holding it like one of his twin swords, whacked both bludgers. The Hufflepuffs thought this was incredible and selected him for their new beater. Unfortunately, Colette was too klutzy to make the team. She said she didn’t want to be a burden, but seemed really disappointed anyway. McGonagall had a brilliant idea to cheer her up. Lee Jordan, the commentator, had a bad habit of swearing and yelling at the Slytherins during Quidditch matches. McGonagall had been trying to do something about this, but had been unsuccessful so far.
“Miss Brunel! Would you like to help Lee Jordan commentate at the next Quidditch match?” she asked.
“Really?” Colette’s face lit up. “I’d love to! Oh! I have to tell Lloyd!” As she ran off to find Lloyd, she tripped and knocked Al over. Tas took this opportunity to set off a dungbomb he had “borrowed” from the Weasley twins. The terrible stench knocked all the potential Gryffindor players unconscious.
“Look! We’re late! I told you we should have left the library earlier!” Keyblade said as she and Bookworm walked to the Quidditch pitch.
“But I was reading!” Bookworm protested. This was not a very good excuse because she was still reading while she walked.
“Hey! What happened to everyone?” Keyblade asked when she noticed all the unconscious Gryffindors.
Bookworm and Keyblade were the only Gryffindors to tryout, so they automatically became the new chasers, even though Keyblade fell off her broom and Bookworm accidentally hit Harry with the Quaffle. (She was aiming for Keyblade, who was in the opposite direction.)
After the tryouts, Ed asked Bookworm when the Aging Potion would be ready. “Umm… maybe a few more weeks…” Bookworm said uncertainly. “I think I should have it ready by the final Quidditch match.”
“Maybe after the final match, we should take the Aging Potion and leave,” Keyblade suggested. (A few weeks seemed like a really long time to go without any DDR or anime.)
“What? No way! I still have so much magic to learn! And I haven’t even attacked Umbridge yet!” Bookworm complained.
“Bookworm, did you know McGonagall’s going to assign a long essay that will be due the day after the final Quidditch match?” Shade asked, grinning evilly.
“Essay?!” An expression of complete horror appeared on Bookworm’s face. “Okay, we can leave right after the match, even if I haven’t beaten up Umbridge.”
“Wow, she’s just like Lloyd,” Genis shook his head in amazement.
“Thanks!” Lloyd said, thinking this was meant as a compliment.
“And please make sure the Aging Potion is ready by then! I need to get taller!” Ed said. He had apparently forgotten that he hadn’t grown in the past four years, therefore the potion would have no effect on his height. No one bothered to point this out. He would find out soon enough anyway.