In the dim, secluded corner at the back of the classroom, Kyle and Hermione engaged in a lively discussion regarding the application of Transfiguration at the microscopic level.
Considering the lives of over a thousand people throughout Hogwarts, including the house-elves, their discussion remained purely theoretical without any actual practical experimentation.
Although they didn't know how much magic power would be required to execute such a transformation spell, they could be certain that Kyle's immense pool of magic power would undoubtedly be more than enough to sustain them for quite a while.
At the very least, causing a dozen or so grams of uranium to undergo complete fission would not be a problem.
That sounded like a fairy tale.
With the Muggles' current technological means, trying to make a single gram of uranium undergo complete fission was practically impossible.
Magic, however, was an utterly unreasonable thing; things that Muggles could not accomplish could be achieved with absolute ease through magic.
Making a dozen or so grams of uranium undergo complete fission shouldn't be too difficult a task for Kyle and Hermione.
Even if it were only a dozen grams of uranium undergoing complete fission, the energy released would be enough to destroy the entirety of Hogwarts.
For the sake of life and safety, the two of them felt it was best to take things easy.
After re-explaining the key points of turning hedgehogs into pin cushions to the rest of the students, Professor McGonagall walked over to the pair and listened in on their academic exchange with keen interest.
A faint smile lingered at the corner of her mouth, as though she felt a sense of pride in her two students' attainments in the field of Transfiguration.
Before long, however, that faint smile vanished from Professor McGonagall's face.
As Kyle and Hermione conducted their academic exchange, they utilized a vast array of specialized physics terminology, the vast majority of which were terms Professor McGonagall had never heard in her entire life.
Professor McGonagall was a Transfiguration master of exceptionally high attainment, but her achievements in this field were limited solely to analyzing transfiguration from a magical perspective.
Conceptions that combined Muggle physics with transformation magic like this—let alone Professor McGonagall, even if Dumbledore and Grindelwald were both here, they would be left staring blankly in utter bewilderment.
To avoid awkwardness, Professor McGonagall took quick, mincing steps to distance herself from the two of them.
Time to bail, time to bail.
If those two, who were getting deeply engrossed in their chat, noticed her later and dragged her into their conversation circle, only for her to stand there unable to utter a single word in response to the questions they raised, that would be truly awkward.
In the Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall's severity toward Harry seemed to be merely the beginning.
Following her, Professor Moody and Professor Flitwick also grew quite strict with the students during their classes.
What was even more terrifying was the old bat; he acted as though he had turned into a completely different person overnight.
Friday afternoon, Potions class.
In the past, whenever the cross-dressing version of Harriet appeared in the Potions classroom, Snape's expression would soften at the sight of that disguised face which bore an eighty-percent resemblance to Lily.
Today, however, Harry's foolproof cross-dressing failed.
As the difficulty of the lessons escalated, the potions they faced grew increasingly harder. Even with the experimental protocols Kyle had previously helped Snape formulate, mishaps occurred frequently during Potions class.
The old bat's opportunities to spew venom increased once more.
Looking like a cross-dressing maiden, Harriet stirred the potion inside her cauldron with an air of nonchalance.
In this Potions class, the potion Snape required them to brew was called a Pacifying Draught.
The effect of a Pacifying Draught was to calm and soothe agitated or anxious moods.
If no errors occurred during the brewing process, the final finished liquid in the cauldron ought to present a crystal-clear pale blue, resembling aquamarine.
Yet at this moment, the liquid inside the cauldron before Harry presented a bizarre, sickly shade of green.
The strangeness of its color was roughly comparable to that cup of Mannoroth's blood that Ron had downed back in the gloomy underground space of the castle...
My mistake, it was comparable to the bloodline-fusion potion.
Glancing at Snape as he paced closer, Harry felt no particular panic; on the contrary, he remained quite composed.
According to past patterns, once Snape walked over and discovered his situation, he would patiently guide him step-by-step on how to correct the potion.
Once he finished the potion under Snape's guidance, Snape would generously award Gryffindor a precious ten points.
Harry had forgotten, however, that as he entered his second developmental stage, his masculine traits had correspondingly begun to become more pronounced.
In short, Harry was no longer suitable for cross-dressing.
Unless he used Human Transfiguration to radically alter his appearance from the root, no matter how hard he tried to dress himself up, it was impossible for him to resemble Lily to the extreme degree he once did.
In other words, he had fallen out of favor with Snape, being relegated to a state of virtual house arrest.
The heartless, passionless old bat, upon seeing Harry—who still bore a five-percent resemblance to James even after dressing up—alongside the suspicious green liquid bubbling away in the cauldron beside him, felt his temper flare up instantly.
"What are you doing, Potter?"
Harry instinctively put on a pitiful expression, opening those green eyes of his—identical to his mother Lily's—to stare intently at Snape.
"What are you looking at me for? Is the brewing procedure for the potion printed on my face?"
Harry looked at Snape with a trace of disbelief.
Doggie, you've changed!
Snape shot Harry a cold, indifferent glance, casually dropped a curt "Five points from Gryffindor," and drifted away.
Leaving Harry sitting there in a daze, looking as though he had suffered the greatest betrayal in the world.
Harry fell into a state of existential doubt, wondering if he had offended Snape somewhere along the line.
While racking his brains in deep thought, he completely forgot that the burner beneath the cauldron in front of him hadn't been turned off.
Before long, until Ron's panicked voice rang out from beside him, Harry snapped violently back to reality.
"Harry! Harry! It's going to explode!"
By this point, the potion in Harry's cauldron had been boiled by the fierce heat until it was exceptionally thick, sitting somewhere between solid and liquid like molten lava.
Fist-sized bubbles rapidly inflated one after another, then burst, splashing foul-smelling, sickly green sludge all over the desk.
When these liquids came into contact with the experimental desk, the desk immediately lit up with magical radiance—the characteristic manifestation triggered when the protective magic enchanted upon the experimental desk was activated.
As the cauldron continued to receive heat, accompanied by crack-crack sounds, fractures began appearing across the cauldron.
Anyone with eyes could tell it was going to explode the very next second.
"Hit the deck!"
Harry shoved Ron hard, pushing him in the opposite direction.
As for himself, he lunged toward the aisle beside him, supporting his body with his shins and elbows so that his abdomen didn't make direct contact with the floor, and clamped his palms tightly over his ears.
This was a textbook-standard prone posture; had his military training instructor seen it, they might well have awarded Gryffindor an extra ten points.
The anticipated explosion, however, did not occur.
Snape arrived in the nick of time, flicking out a Vanishing Spell that instantly caused the imminent-exploding cauldron on the desk to vanish entirely.
After a long while, Harry cautiously pulled his head out from the crook of his arm and turned his head to look sideways.
What greeted his eyes was a patch of utter darkness.
When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Raising his line of sight slightly upward, Harry locked eyes directly with Snape.
Harry: "..."
How should one handle a situation like this?
Asking online, quite urgent.
————
Supporting me on Pa-treon to gain early access to advanced chapters and enjoy expedited updates. Your support is greatly appreciated.
pat-reon .c-om/Dragonhair
(Just remove the hyphen - and space, to access Pa-treon normally.)