Lynn's reason for hustling extra cash was pretty straightforward. After he finished the beginner wandlore book Ollivander gave him, he immediately wanted to start running some simple experiments. Sure, Hagrid could hook him up with free unicorn hair nobody else wanted, and he could totally "borrow" magical wood from the Forbidden Forest (those trees grow in huge patches, and Hagrid literally chops them for firewood).
Cores and wood? Free.
Tools and secondary materials? Those cost actual money.
We're talking hundreds of galleons just to get started.
Also, Cho's birthday was in two weeks, and Lynn needed to come up with a proper gift. She'd been nothing but sweet to him (aside from the tiny detail that she was clearly trying to get in his pants). No way was he gonna cheap out on her birthday.
A broom was off the table, though. Harry (little sugar-mommy Harry) had already custom-ordered one. If first-years were allowed to bring brooms to school, she'd have bought both of them Nimbus 2000s before the train even left King's Cross. Pocket change to her.
For now, potion-brewing was his main side gig. He only brewed twice a day (after lunch and dinner), twelve cauldrons a batch, roughly 120 bottles daily. After rounding, that's 21–22 galleons a day, over 600 a month. That's literally professor-level salary. Even in the Muggle world, three grand a month is solid money.
Tuesday after Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall officially invited Lynn to her advanced club. She told him not to worry about the inter-school tournament yet; she wanted him focusing on fundamentals first. Which was exactly what Lynn wanted anyway.
Turning random objects into animals is fun and all, but for wandcraft he needed to master the absolute bedrock of Transfiguration: material shaping. Basically magical 3D printing and metallurgy rolled into one.
It's the most basic spell in the book, but the ceiling is absurdly high. You could know literally nothing else about Transfiguration and still become a world-famous master just by perfecting this one thing.
Because this branch of Transfiguration doesn't just change the shape; it lets you mess with the actual atomic structure of matter. It's the closest the wizarding world has ever come to real, reproducible alchemy.
Ever since some Muggle-born wizard figured out how to restructure carbon into diamond, "turning lead into gold" stopped being a fairy tale and started trending on the wizarding internet again.
Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone is still a one-of-a-kind miracle, but structural Transfiguration? That can be taught, learned, and mass-produced.
If any magical subject deserves to be called a science, it's Transfiguration.
When McGonagall laid all this out, Lynn honestly thought she was pulling his leg.
"Magic's gotten this advanced, Professor?"
"Why wouldn't it?" McGonagall looked at him calmly. "Magic evolves. More and more Muggle-born students are bringing new ideas into our world every year. The old pure-blood conservatives are shrinking every decade. Almost half of Hogwarts students come from Muggle families now, and among the rest, half-bloods far outnumber pure-bloods."
She gave him a small smile. "I'm half-blood myself. My mother was a Ravenclaw witch. My father was a Church of Scotland minister."
"If magic refuses to move forward, one day it will fade away entirely. Look closely and you'll see Muggle inventions already creeping into our world. The only thing stopping deeper integration is the magical interference that fries electronics. But one day we might solve that problem."
"You should participate in more of these international competitions, Lynn. The world is so much bigger and more wonderful than you think. England is just a tiny corner of it. Hogwarts isn't the whole magical world. Go out there. See it. Any wizard who wants to go far needs to."
So yeah, reality is definitely not the same as the books.
Walking down the corridor after saying goodbye to McGonagall, Lynn couldn't help but think how normal this all was. Pure-blood families are tiny in number. Back when the population was small, closed-off family traditions made sense to preserve power. But the world's mostly at peace now. Old privileges don't hold up forever.
Trees die when you transplant them wrong, but people thrive. Not every wizard is a stubborn fossil; plenty are eager to embrace new things. Once someone blazes a trail, others follow. The tide of progress stops for no one; stand in its way and you get crushed.
Guess I'd better hurry. This might be the golden age of magic; new systems just forming, old rules still cracking. When the wave finally hits, that's when you ride it to the top.
Suddenly fired up, Lynn wanted to inhale the remaining twenty-odd giant textbooks right that second. Realistically, though? He wouldn't finish them until around Christmas.
Friday rolled around fast. The little wizards were finally settling into the Hogwarts routine. Second-week Herbology meant they finally got to bring tiny shovels into the greenhouses.
…It was not the wholesome "digging in the big garden" experience they'd imagined.
"If you don't want fingers as thick as carrots, keep your hands to yourselves," Professor Sprout warned, eyes sweeping the room. "Those dragon-claw peppers are not for eating. Mr. Weasley, I trust you don't want another stomach disaster? Breathing fire is significantly worse than vomiting."
The greenhouse erupted in laughter. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs all turned to look at Ron, whose face went red. Neville nervously tugged his sleeve.
"I told you not to touch it…" Neville whispered.
"Why didn't you say that sooner?!" Ron hissed back.
At least it wasn't Snape, or Gryffindor would've lost another ten points and become "Gryff-in-the-minus" again.
Dean just patted Neville's shoulder. "Ignore him. You know he never listens."
Professor Sprout smiled warmly. "Now, who can tell me what we need to remember when planting bubbler pod seedlings?"
Neville raised his hand hesitantly. "They need lots of water. Really soak the soil."
"Correct! Bubbler pods love wet environments. One point to Gryffindor. Anyone else?"
"You shouldn't pack the soil too tight," Hannah Abbott added, "and you can mix some camellia seed cake into the bottom of the hole; it's one of their favorite fertilizers."
"Excellent, Hannah. One point to Hufflepuff."
The greenhouse filled with cheerful chatter. Hands-on magical plants were way more fun than they'd expected, and for a little while everyone forgot about the afternoon schedule.
But the guillotine always falls eventually.
After lunch, the cold, damp Potions dungeon sucked the color right out of their faces again.