I jolted awake to the sound of someone pounding on a door.
"Fitzroy! Get your arse up or we'll be late for Transfiguration again!"
Fitzroy? My bleary eyes blinked open, struggling to focus on unfamiliar surroundings. When did I fall asleep? The last thing I remembered was walking through the exit doorway of the Scholars' Roulette casino.
I sat up, momentarily disoriented by the room around me. Crimson and gold adorned the walls. Four-poster beds with heavy curtains. A stone floor littered with discarded robes, spell books, and what appeared to be candies in brightly colored wrappers.
"What on earth is happening?" I muttered, then froze at the sound of my own voice, deeper, with a posh accent I definitely didn't possess.
A chill ran down my spine as I scrambled out of the bed, tripping over a trunk emblazoned with the initials "O.F." I scanned the room frantically for a mirror, finally spotting one attached to the inside of a wardrobe door.
I yanked it open and nearly fell backward in shock.
The face that stared back wasn't mine. I was looking at a lanky teenager with disheveled sandy-brown hair, hazel eyes, and a smattering of freckles across a long nose. Most alarmingly, I was wearing black robes with red and gold trim, a prefect badge pinned haphazardly to the front.
"I'm in bloody Hogwarts?" I whispered incredulously.
The door finally burst open, revealing another boy in identical robes, his dark hair standing up at odd angles and his tie askew.
"Fitzroy, you lazy git! We've got exactly an hour before McGonagall turns us into pocket watches!"
A familiar voice echoed throughout the room, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"OOOOOOHHH MY PHOTOSYNTHESIS!" It was Bloombastic's unmistakable gurgling enthusiasm. "Welcome to stage two of the Equinox Tournament! The Writers' Guild!"
The boy in the doorway continued talking, completely unaware of the disembodied commentator, as if Bloombastic existed on a layer of reality only I could perceive.
"In this fascinating challenge," Bloombastic continued, "competitors will assume the roles of characters in three different stories! Each story contains a hidden test related to your Academy curriculum. Find the test, solve it correctly, and you'll branch to the next story! Fail, and... well, let's just say the stories have ways of pruning underperformers!"
"Professor Zephyr," another voice cut in, Professor Gravitas, I recognized, "would you kindly explain the parameters?"
"With pleasure!" Professor Zephyr's theatrical voice responded. "The competitors have been assigned a random character within various fictional realms. Your task is both simple and deviously complex: blend in with your character's life while identifying and completing the hidden academic challenge. The first story provides obvious clues to the test's nature. The second, fewer hints. The third... well, you're on your own!"
"Additionally," Professor Gravitas added dryly, "you may encounter other Academy students playing their own characters within these stories. They may be friends, enemies, or complete strangers to you in reality. Their relationships within the story, however, may be... quite different."
"What dramatic tension!" Bloombastic practically squealed. "Enemies actually becoming lovers! Friends becoming rivals! Parents and children! Teachers and students! The narrative possibilities are LIMITLESS!"
"That's quite enough, Bloombastic," Professor Gravitas admonished.
"I may have gotten carried away with my enthusiasm," the plant commentator admitted sheepishly.
"Fitzroy?" The prefect was staring at me strangely. "Are you having another one of your episodes? Should I get Madam Pomfrey?"
I shook my head quickly. "No, I'm fine. Just... overslept."
"Again," the boy said with an eye roll. "Come on, I promised Amelia we'd save her a seat, and she's got those Transfiguration notes you've been begging for all week."
I fumbled with the robes, straightened the prefect badge, and followed my "friend" down a spiral staircase into a common room decked in warm reds and golds. Students lounged in plush armchairs, chatted in corners, or scrambled to complete last-minute assignments. The famous Gryffindor common room, replicated down to the last detail.
"This is..." I muttered, "impressively thorough."
We clambered through a portrait hole (the Fat Lady gave me a suspicious look as I passed) and into the castle proper. I walked through the castle corridors, trying not to gawk too obviously at the moving paintings, shifting staircases, and ghosts drifting through walls. Despite my situation, I couldn't help but feel a flicker of childlike wonder. The architecture was magnificent, soaring ceilings, ancient stone walls, and windows that cast prismatic patterns across the floors.
It was both familiar and strange, like walking through a dream of someone else's memory. Hogwarts was both more and less than I'd imagined from the books, more grand in its scale but somehow more intimate in its details. The worn smoothness of the stone steps, the subtle scent of beeswax and parchment, the constant background hum of hundreds of students and countless magical artifacts all existing together in organized chaos.
"Remember," I whispered to myself as we descended a moving staircase, "find the hidden challenge. This isn't real. The test is hidden somewhere in this scenario."
"What are you mumbling about?" my companion asked.
"Nothing," I said quickly. "Just... reviewing Transfiguration principles."
"Good luck with that," he snorted. "McGonagall's hinting at a pop quiz today."
My heart sank. A quiz on a magic system I didn't understand? My luck was really outdoing itself today.
We skidded into the Great Hall just as breakfast was reaching its conclusion. The enchanted ceiling reflected a clear autumn sky, and hundreds of students in black robes ate at four long tables beneath floating candles.
"Over here!" called a girl with braided blonde hair, waving from the Gryffindor table.
We slid into places across from her, and my companion immediately launched into a story about someone named Peeves and a bucket of frog spawn. I took the opportunity to scan the hall for any familiar faces from the Academy. If I was here, surely others were too?
But no one stood out. Either my classmates were occupying different bodies as I was, or they'd been placed in different stories altogether. Probably both.
I reached for a piece of toast, trying to act normal while my mind raced. What would the hidden challenge be? Something related to this world's version of Transfiguration seemed the obvious bet, given where we were headed next.
As we exited the Great Hall, I felt a strange tingle in my fingers, and the wand I'd been carrying suddenly shot multicolored sparks, startling a group of younger students nearby.
"Sorry!" I called after them, stuffing the wand deep into my pocket. Even in other worlds, my chaotic probability field found ways to manifest.
"Your wand still acting up?" the blonde girl, Amelia, asked with a concerned look. "You really should have Mr. Ollivander check it during the next Hogsmeade weekend."
"It's fine," I said quickly. "Just... temperamental."
We climbed several more staircases and navigated through corridors lined with portraits and suits of armor until finally arriving at the Transfiguration classroom. Students filed in, taking seats at wooden desks arranged in neat rows. At the front stood a large teacher's desk, a blackboard, and various cages containing what I assumed were animals for transformation practice.
My companions led me to seats in the middle row, and I slid in gratefully, trying to look like I belonged. So far, I'd managed not to draw too much attention, which felt like a small victory for someone with my luck profile.
The classroom door closed with a sharp snap, and Professor McGonagall strode to the front of the room, her emerald robes swishing imposingly. But something was off. The stern set of her mouth seemed more smug than severe, and when her eyes landed on me, there was recognition there, and malice.
"Good morning, class," she said crisply, surveying the room. "Today we will be discussing the principles of cross-species transfiguration with particular attention to the maintenance of biological function during partial transformations."
She began writing on the blackboard, detailing complex formulas and wand movements. I watched in growing horror as she approached my desk, her voice never faltering in her lecture, while the blackboard hovered beside her.
When she passed by, she paused briefly and leaned down, her voice dropping to a whisper that only I could hear.
"Enjoying yourself, Ardent? I'll finally repay what you did to my hair, twice."
I fought to keep my expression neutral as she moved away, but internally I was panicking.
Valentina.
My luck had gone from moderately inconvenient to actively malicious. Of all the people to encounter, I had to run into one of the students who most wanted to see me suffer. And she was in a position of complete authority.
I sank lower in my seat as Valentina continued her lecture, displaying a mastery of transfiguration theory that was genuinely impressive. She explained the difference between partial and complete transformations, the importance of visualizing the target form at both molecular and macro levels, and the critical role of intent when crossing species barriers.
"The five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," she was saying, "provide essential boundaries to what can and cannot be achieved. However, understanding why these exceptions exist allows us to work more effectively within the system's constraints."
Despite my predicament, I found myself taking mental notes. Her explanation of how magic interacted with fundamental reality sounded remarkably similar to Professor Zephyr's lectures on elemental transmutation. The principles were different, but the underlying concepts rhymed.
"And now," Valentina said with a smile that sent chills down my spine, "a little practical assessment to see how well you've been paying attention."
With a wave of her wand, pieces of parchment appeared on each desk. The quiz. This had to be the challenge.
I looked down at my parchment.
Explain the precise wand movement and incantation modifications required when transfiguring a vertebrate into an invertebrate while preserving consciousness. Detail the three critical visualization parameters and how failure in any of these would affect the result.
I stared at the question, panic rising. OWL-level question in a foreign magical system. I glanced around the room. Most of the other students were already writing furiously.
Valentina caught my eye and smirked, clearly enjoying my discomfort.
The systems were different, but the fundamental principles of magic were often universal. I began to piece together what I knew:
Consciousness preservation meant maintaining certain neural pathways even while drastically altering physical form, similar to Professor Parallax's teachings about maintaining spatial identity during displacement.
Vertebrates to invertebrates meant restructuring a central support system into something distributed, not unlike Professor Vex's lessons on redistributing magical anchor points in complex sigils.
The wand movements would need to incorporate both dissolution and restructuring patterns, similar to the patterns I have been drawing by hand in the Rift Garden.
I also recalled snippets from Valentina's lecture just moments before. She'd mentioned the importance of "molecular integrity during categorical shifts" and "consciousness tethering techniques" when dealing with sentient transformations.
Slowly, I began to write, drawing on everything I knew about magical transmutation from my actual studies, adapting it to this world's framework, and incorporating Valentina's own explanations against her.
I described a modified figure-eight wand motion with a terminal flick to represent the structural inversion, combined with a two-stage incantation that would first preserve the consciousness matrix before initiating physical transformation. I detailed the three visualization parameters: structural mapping, neurological preservation, and adaptive physiology.
By the time I finished writing, my hand was cramping, but I felt a strange confidence. This wasn't my world's magic, but magic was magic, and I understood the fundamentals better than I sometimes gave myself credit for.
I looked up to find Valentina standing over my desk, reading my answer with narrowed eyes. For a moment, surprise flickered across her features before the mask of stern professor returned.
"Time's up," she announced to the class. "Pass your parchments forward."
As I handed mine in, our eyes met. The hatred was still there, but now mixed with something else. Frustration, perhaps, that I'd managed to answer her question.
"An interesting approach, Mr. Fitzroy," she said coolly. "We'll see if it holds up to scrutiny."
The bell rang, signaling the end of class. As students packed their things, Valentina flicked her wand at my paper. Words appeared across the top in glowing green letters:
Challenge Complete: Transfiguration Theory Integration - Advancement Authorized
Relief flooded through me. I'd passed the test. As the other students filed out, I remained seated, watching Valentina. She approached my desk one last time.
"This isn't over, Ardent," she hissed. "In the real tournament, you won't be so lucky."
Before I could respond, the classroom began to fade around me, colors bleeding into one another like watercolors in rain. The sensation of falling backward overtook me, and I heard Bloombastic's voice booming:
"The Chaos-Father survives his first fictional trial! One down, two to go! What literary landscape awaits hi…"
Darkness overtook me before Bloombastic could finish his cheers, and I felt myself falling toward the next challenge.