*Discontinued* No Longer

Transfiguration Made Easy

Harry Potter**

It was with a smile on his face that he walked to the Great Hall. Last night had gone rather splendidly, and he believed that his three mates had really hit it off, even if Severus still spoke somewhat harshly to him, and disdained any of his proffered affection.

He was very curious to see what happened at breakfast this morning however, and the smile stretching his features was partly due to the reactions about to be incurred. It was perhaps more interesting to him the reception of the other teachers that Harry most wished to see, able to be openly candid with a colleague.

Immediately upon entering the hall, he'd arrived just as breakfast was appearing on the table, he went over to sit with Theo, the only member of the Slytherin Trio already present.

"'Morning Harry," Theo said, barely paying him heed he was so wrapped up in finishing the homework due today.

"Good morning. Is that the transfiguration homework?"

"Yeah. McGonagall assigned an analysis on why our attempts weren't working, or at least a theory. I spent my time yesterday just trying to transfigure the match, because she said if we could we didn't need to turn it in, only show that we can do it."

"Oh," Harry said, "Do you think I could help you?"

Theo huffed and ran a hand through his hair, "I won't say no to you trying, of course, but I think I'm beyond help. I asked some of the older students in my house if they could explain it to me, but everything they said just went over my head."

Harry slid under the table so he was sitting next to the boy rather than across from him. He began to read Theo's analysis, and was nearly tutting at how utterly he missed the mark. Being a good friend though, he didn't make a face or sound, and decided that he was going to drill the information into his blue-eyed friend's head if he had to.

"Would you humor me and try to change the match now please?" Harry queried.

The other boy blew a breath through one side of his mouth so it blew black hair from his eyes, "I would, but I left it in my dorm."

"No problem," Harry said making one appear in his hand.

Theo looked at the display sullenly, pink lips pouting in irritation, "There's no need for you to show off Harry. Thanks the the gossip channel, everyone already knows you're a genius at everything."

"We needed a match," Harry said, brutally practical, "How else did you expect to get one?"

The other boy sighed and cleared the pout from his face. He placed the match on the table in front of him, and took out his wand.

Harry entered his mind, and concentrated on his magic flow. Theo casted, and Harry knew that he was perfectly envisioning the needle he wanted to create, but from a logical perspective, he just imagined his magic replacing the match with a needle, although what transfiguring something is is changing one thing to another, so the match becomes the needle, rather than the needle replacing the match.

"Okay," Harry said, "I think you're probably imagining the correct result, but you're having issues with theorizing the conversion process, and since you don't understand what the magic is actually being made to do, you're image of the transfiguration cycle has skewed your magic's ability to transform the match."

"In English, please," Theo said, exasperated.

"Follow these steps. First, envision what the match is made of. It's made of wood, right?"

"Right. Envisioning the wooden match."

"Now, imagine that as your magic flows into it, it's changing the essence of the wood, and as it passes through, leaves the altered wood as silver in it's wake."