A Wednesday morning in the second week of October.
Third-years filed into the Transfiguration classroom, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, each finding a seat.
Sirius dropped into the second-to-last chair by the window, tossed his bag on the desk, and pulled out his wand, spinning it idly between his fingers.
James squeezed in beside him. "Budge over."
Sirius didn't move. James drove an elbow into his ribs, and he finally shifted.
Lupin sat on James's other side, textbook already open, head down and reading. Peter Pettigrew had wedged himself into the far corner of the back row.
"Heard we're learning something new today," James whispered, leaning close. "McGonagall mentioned it last week. Complex Transfiguration or something."
Sirius kept spinning his wand, eyes on the window. "Mm."
James didn't appreciate the enthusiasm. Another elbow. "Don't you want to know what it is?"
Sirius set the wand down and looked at him. "If you want to know, pay attention in class. Don't ask me."
James pulled a face. "You're no fun at all."
McGonagall strode to the lectern, expression stern, silver-green robes immaculate, hair pinned tight.
"Today's lesson is Complex Transfiguration."
A flick of her wand, and several ordinary stones lifted from the desk, hovering in midair.
"Stone to goblet. You learned that in first year. But that's single-stage transfiguration. Once it's done, the goblet is nothing more than a goblet."
One stone descended to the desk and began to change. Edges drew inward, the base swelled, the top stretched upward.
A second later, a white ceramic cup sat on the desk. Handle, smooth curves, perfectly still.
McGonagall tapped it lightly. The cup moved on its own.
It turned a circle on the desk, took several steps forward, then retreated to where it had started.
A second stone dropped. It transformed into an identical white cup, which then began changing again.
The body contracted. The handle vanished. The base gathered into claws, a head emerged from the top, grey feathers rose through the smooth ceramic surface, wings spread, a tail took shape.
A grey pigeon beat its wings, took flight, circled the classroom once, and landed in her palm.
"That is Complex Transfiguration," McGonagall said. "Non-living to non-living, then non-living to living. Continuous transformation."
Her gaze swept the room. "Today's requirements. Step one: stone to cup. It must hold water without leaking. Step two: make the cup move on its own. Step three: cup to pigeon. The pigeon must fly."
A wave of her wand, and a grey stone appeared on every desk.
"Begin."
Sirius looked at the stone in front of him.
He pictured the cup in his mind, tapped his wand. The stone began to change.
Seconds later, a white ceramic cup sat on the desk. Clean lines, smooth handle, even rim, uniform body.
He picked it up, turned it over, set it back.
McGonagall happened to be passing. Her step faltered. "Acceptable, Mr. Black. Proceed to the next stage."
Sirius stared at the cup. Make it move.
He waved his wand and recited the incantation. Nothing happened.
He tried again, louder this time.
The cup rocked, slid an inch sideways, and stopped.
James leaned over with unsolicited advice. "You're saying it too fast and too quiet. The cup can't hear you."
Sirius shoved him away with his arm. "How about you finish yours first before coaching me?"
James shrugged and turned to exchange a look with Lupin.
Sirius went back to staring at the cup. He started thinking.
The cup was made from stone. Stone didn't move. Cups didn't move. There was nothing in the cup's form that contained the property of movement.
So how had McGonagall's cup moved?
It was stone too, but once transformed, it walked on its own.
How? Was something extra needed?
No. That wasn't it.
The cup had to want to move.
He raised his wand, gave a light flick, and didn't speak.
The cup moved.
Something seemed to carry it, holding it upright on the desk. It took one step forward. Then another.
James's eyes went wide beside him. "Holy..."
Sirius ignored him. His focus stayed on the cup.
It walked across the desk, end to end and back again, its body swaying slightly but never tipping.
He relaxed a fraction.
Then he tried making it dance and spin. A step forward, a step back.
It glided to a stop in front of him and dipped its body in a little bow, as though inviting him to join.
McGonagall returned. She stood at the edge of the desk, watching. The cup was still mid-routine, turning circles on the wood.
She watched for a moment, then looked at Sirius. "Very good, Mr. Black. You've understood that vitality is inherent to form itself. It doesn't need to be added from outside."
Sirius nodded, but his eyes hadn't left the cup. Something was turning over in his mind.
The professor didn't leave. She waited. He knew what she was waiting for.
Step three. Cup to pigeon. The hardest part.
The cup was dead. A pigeon was alive. Crossing from dead to living meant clearing a threshold.
A cup given vitality could move on its own, but a pigeon was born alive. Movement was native to it.
So what did it feel like, turning a cup into a pigeon?
He stared at the cup, but his mind drifted to Lupin.
What did it feel like for Remus, every month, when the change came?
Human to beast and back again. That wasn't transfiguration. It was a curse, a disease.
But somewhere in that process, maybe one thing was the same. You knew what you were about to become, and then you became it.
Except Lupin and the cup weren't the same. One was forced. The other was shaped by external will.
His thoughts slid to Regulus.
Start of last year. The train. What Regulus had done, freezing a spell in midair, then shattering it.
He understood now what that had been.
Control.
A comprehension of spellwork that outstripped James entirely. A casting ability that outstripped James entirely.
He understood it, but couldn't replicate it. That wasn't something a young wizard was supposed to be capable of.
Sirius pushed the thoughts aside and returned to the problem of transfiguration.
What if transfiguration could work like that...
He raised his wand. Didn't speak. Just looked at the cup, and in his mind, pictured a pigeon.
The kind you saw everywhere around Grimmauld Place, cooing on the eaves, hopping down the street.
They weren't afraid of people. They waddled when they walked and beat their wings noisily when they flew.
And after a minute or two of flying, they'd inevitably leave a deposit.
He remembered Walburga standing at the window, watching pigeons settle on the sill, her lip curling. "Muggle animals. No hygiene, no grace. They can't even relieve themselves with any dignity."
The corner of his mouth twitched.
The cup began to change.
Its body shrank. The handle vanished. The base gathered into claws, a head pushed through the top, grey feathers surfaced through the smooth ceramic, wings unfurled, a tail formed.
A pigeon stood on the desk. It cocked its head at him, eyes round and black as peppercorns.
Then it fluttered its wings and took off, looping once around the classroom.
Sirius watched it fly, and the thought was still there.
If I wanted it to drop one...
He glanced sidelong at James.
James stared back, mouth hanging open, an expression like he'd seen a ghost.
Sirius raised an eyebrow.
Never mind. He wouldn't. He couldn't, in fact. His pigeon only looked like a pigeon. It had no complete biological structure inside. Couldn't eat, couldn't drink, couldn't produce anything.
But then again...
If something convincing enough were dropped from the right height and landed on James's head, who was going to argue it wasn't pigeon droppings?
His grin widened.
James narrowed his eyes. "What are you smiling about?"
"You should be thanking me," Sirius said, perfectly righteous.
The pigeon completed its circuit and landed back on his desk, cooing twice in his direction.
McGonagall stood nearby, approval clear in her eyes. She looked at the pigeon, then at Sirius.
Both Black brothers had an instinctive gift for transfiguration.
The elder had reached this level for the first time today, and the performance was genuinely impressive. He'd always been competent at transfiguration, but never outstanding. Now the talent had surfaced all at once, putting him at the top of the class.
She flicked her wand. The pigeon reverted to stone. "Well done, Mr. Black. Five points to Gryffindor."
Applause and whistles broke out across the room.
James clapped Sirius hard on the shoulder. "When did you learn to do that?"
"I've always known. You're only seeing it now."
His gaze stayed on the stone. He was still turning over the sensation from before.
I wanted it to change, and it changed.
The bell rang.
Students packed up and filed out. Sirius was stuffing his book into his bag when McGonagall's voice carried from the lectern. "Mr. Black, a moment."
James shot him a look, mouthing: You're dead.
Sirius rolled his eyes, set his bag down, and walked to the front.
McGonagall sat behind the lectern desk and gestured to the chair beside it.
He sat. A flicker of tension, instinctive. Every other time McGonagall had kept him after class, it had been for something bad.
But then he reconsidered. He'd done well today. It couldn't be a reprimand.
He settled back and looked up at her, waiting.
McGonagall spoke directly. "There are many forms of transfiguration talent. Some wizards excel at precision. Some at speed. Some at maintaining stability."
"Yours is more like intuition. Form-intuition. You can sense what an object should become, and then make it happen directly. That isn't taught. It's innate."
Sirius blinked. Form-intuition?
"Do you remember last term?" she continued. "The exercise where you transfigured matches to needles and back again?"
He nodded. "Reverse transfiguration."
"The younger Mr. Black," McGonagall said, "turned an oak match into a basswood match."
Something shifted in Sirius's expression.
He looked at her, not understanding why she'd brought up Regulus.
"Do you know what that means?"
He shook his head. Even his features had gone still.
"That wasn't transfiguration," McGonagall said. "It was transmutation. He altered the fundamental nature of the material. Oak became basswood, but the match remained a match. He changed what it was, not what it looked like."
She held his gaze. "What you did today is the opposite. You changed what it looked like, but not what it was. The stone was still stone. It had only temporarily become a pigeon."
Sirius wanted to scratch his head.
He followed the logic, but during the actual transfiguration, none of that had crossed his mind.
A thought surfaced unbidden: So between me and Regulus, who's better at transfiguration?
McGonagall seemed to read him. "You're gifted in different directions. You excel at changing form. He excels at changing essence. Neither is superior. They're simply different."
But someone who excelled at changing essence, how could they not also excel at changing form?
That was a thought she didn't need to share with Sirius.
What she was here to do was affirm his innate gift, encourage him, and push him forward. Not measure him against someone else.
Regulus, here, was only a reference point.
Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn't know what to say.
McGonagall reached into a drawer and placed a book on the desk.
Advanced Transfiguration: The Limits of Form.
"Some of the material in here may be beyond you for now, but it's worth early exposure. If you have questions, come find me."
Sirius took the book.
Dark green cover, gold lettering. He turned to the first page: intricate transfiguration diagrams, dense annotations packed into the margins.
"Thank you, Professor." Gratitude in his voice, mixed with the faint bewilderment of being treated like a good student for once.
McGonagall nodded. "Off you go."
He stood, tucked the book under his arm, and headed for the door.
As he reached it, McGonagall's voice came from behind. "One more thing, Mr. Black."
He turned.
Her expression gave nothing away. "Your brother, in his first year, asked me a question. Whether graphite and diamond could be transfigured into each other."
Sirius stared. Diamond, he knew. But graphite?
Why would they be transfigured into each other?
What would that even prove?
He stood in the doorway, completely lost.
McGonagall said nothing more. Her eyes told him he could go.
He pushed through the door. The corridor was crowded. He walked through the press of students, book against his chest, heading for Gryffindor Tower.
At the Fat Lady's portrait, he gave the password and climbed inside.
Lupin and Peter were by the fireplace in the common room. Lupin spotted him and waved him over at once.
"What did McGonagall say?"
Sirius walked over and held up the book.
Lupin's eyes went wide. "Advanced Transfiguration? She gave you that?"
Sirius raised an eyebrow.
Lupin let out a low whistle. "Look at you, Sirius. Didn't you always say you were nothing special at transfiguration?"
Peter smiled from the side but said nothing.
Sirius dropped onto the sofa and opened the book.
Regulus's words flickered through his mind. About talent. About going deep. About finding the direction you were meant for.
So this is it. This is my gift.
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