After her admonition, Professor McGonagall no longer paid much attention to Evan and formally began the day's lesson—using a Transfiguration spell to turn any personal item into a button.
For Evan, who had already reached Level 3 in Transfiguration spells, this was a piece of cake. With a light flick of his wand, he transformed the quill on his desk into a round button, its surface still faintly showing a beautiful ringed pattern. To earn extra points, Evan had pushed his Transfiguration skills to their limit.
McGonagall, passing by, nodded in approval and discreetly awarded Evan a point.
The rest of the students, however, lacked such prowess. For many, simply casting the spell was an achievement, and the resulting buttons were of various odd shapes.
Seamus Finnigan, not far in front of Evan, even managed to explode his inkwell in the attempt, splattering black ink all over his neighbor's face.
Evan spotted another student sneakily tearing a button off their clothing, hoping to pass it off as their own work. Unfortunately for them, McGonagall was not so senile as to miss such a trick, and the student's fate was to stand at the front as punishment.
After witnessing Evan's impressive Transfiguration, McGonagall seemed to raise her standards significantly. Aside from Hermione's paper-made button, which was deemed acceptable, the others were hard for her to swallow.
McGonagall clapped her hands to draw everyone's attention.
"Let's pause our Transfiguration spells. Who can tell me the key points of casting a Transfiguration spell?" she asked.
"Professor, Transfiguration is a complex magic that requires the caster to visualize the desired form in their mind. The more similar the object being transfigured is in shape and nature to the desired object, the more likely the spell will be successful. Also, transfiguring creatures is much more difficult than transfiguring objects, and only a few wizards proficient in Transfiguration can manage it..."
"Evan Halse, I thought I've reminded you..." McGonagall, conditioned to reprimand, was about to scold Evan again but turned her head and found Evan sitting properly with his hand raised, staring blankly elsewhere.
"Granger? How could you?" McGonagall realized that the eager answerer was none other than the usually well-behaved Hermione Granger.
Hermione, though shaking with nervousness, stood firm and said, "Professor, was I correct?"
"Of course... and quite comprehensive. However, given your behavior, I can't award you any points," McGonagall stammered, shocked, and it took her a while to instruct Hermione to sit down.
Hermione looked slightly disappointed, but upon seeing Evan's dazed expression with his hand still raised, a smile crept onto her face.
Evan slowly lowered his hand, his mind filled with confusion. Was he dreaming, or was this Hermione an impostor?
Like Evan, Harry and Ron also found Hermione's behavior off. As soon as class ended, Ron couldn't wait to vent.
"What's gotten into Hermione? Today I saw her stand up without permission in Professor McGonagall's class. My God, McGonagall must've been stunned."
Ron looked for agreement from Harry and Evan but found none. Turning around, he was surprised to see Hermione right behind them.
"Her... Hermione..." Ron exclaimed.
"I just want to win back the points deducted from our house, and besides, it's not against Hogwarts rules. Professor McGonagall will understand!" Hermione glared at Ron before turning to Evan with a hesitant voice.
"Evan, I heard from Ron and Harry that you were looking for me yesterday when you encountered the troll. Anyway... thank you!"
"It's nothing, aren't we friends?" Evan replied with a smile.
Although he had felt a bit annoyed with Hermione for inadvertently disrupting his plan during the troll fight, he knew it was more his error in choosing the location. Fortunately, the outcome wasn't bad, so he didn't dwell on the mishap.
"Right..." Hermione nodded with a smile, then added, "I'll work hard to earn back the lost points as soon as possible!"
Evan felt a headache coming on. If Hermione was going to work hard, his plan to earn academic points by answering questions to improve his Potions skill would suffer.
"Weren't you only deducted ten points by Professor Dumbledore? You've already made them up in class, right?"
Evan was puzzled. Was losing ten points really such a big deal? Especially compared to the points Hermione had accumulated over the semester by answering questions.
"To be precise, I've earned 67 points for Gryffindor so far," Hermione emphasized, giving Evan a reproachful look. She could have earned more if it weren't for Evan's aggressive answering recently.
"Then why are you still..." Evan began.
"I remember you said you'd earn it back tenfold, a hundredfold," Hermione replied with a smile.
Evan was at a loss for words, wishing he could go back a few weeks and silence his past self.
For the rest of the walk, Evan tried to dissuade Hermione from continuing this disrespectful behavior towards the teaching staff, to little avail. The determined Miss Know-It-All didn't seem inclined to change her plans.
Eventually, their conversation shifted to studying, and Evan was surprised to find that Hermione's extraordinary memory and talent had given her a theoretical knowledge base in some subjects that was even stronger than his own.
Of course, that was partly because he had spent half his academic points on training in the Room of Requirement to boost his practical skills.
Still, Hermione's knowledge was impressively vast.
Harry and Ron trailed behind, unable to join the conversation, as they couldn't understand a word of what Hermione and Evan were discussing.
Or rather, they recognized every word but were lost when put together...
Was this how top students talked? Harry and Ron felt rather superfluous...
[Ding, after a period of learning and discussion, your basic spell theory proficiency has slightly increased.]
As Evan was discussing spell principles with Hermione, he stopped in his tracks at the sound of the system notification. Checking the system panel, he saw that his basic spell theory proficiency had indeed improved a few points.
This gave Evan a sudden bold idea...
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