Chapter 11: Marfa and the new book

"Ah...ha..."

The next morning, at the Hufflepuff table, Maca yawned and stuffed a slice of bread into his mouth, forgetting to spread the jam. His school robes were disheveled, a departure from his usual neat appearance.

"Hey, little first-year, why so tired? Didn't sleep well last night?" Charlotte, the carefree senior, didn't seem to care about others' attire, although she always dressed impeccably.

"Yeah... a bit," Maca nodded with drooping eyelids, looking like he could fall asleep any moment.

"Thinking about some girl, huh?" Charlotte teased.

"Yeah, thinking about you, ha—" Maca instinctively replied and let out another yawn.

Charlotte was clearly caught off guard. She wore a look that said, "I'm impressed by you."

"Alright! Wake up, classes are starting soon." She raised her hand and gave Maca a firm slap on the back, making him jump and drop the bread from his mouth onto the table.

"Hey, sis, no need to be so harsh, right?" Maca grimaced, feeling a red handprint on his back.

Just then, the owls arrived.

Maca looked up and watched as a flock of owls flew into the Great Hall, delivering packages and letters to their recipients.

"By the way, my Marfarrio stays cooped up in the dormitory all day long. It doesn't even want to go to the school's owlery. It eats and sleeps, hardly serves any purpose!" Maca suddenly realized and slapped his thigh, "Why did I even get it? I should find something for it to do..."

As Maca pondered about taking his owl for a stroll, a dark shadow swooped in from the entrance of the Great Hall, scattering the other owls.

"Huh?" Maca looked up and saw his owl Marfa diving towards him, dropping a large package with a resounding thud behind him.

"Hoot." Marfa hooted and landed on the table, pecking at another slice of bread on Maca's plate.

"This is your owl?" Charlotte curiously stared at Marfa, impressed by its strength. "It's really powerful. I want to have one like this too. Where did you get it?"

"At Diagon Alley's 'Giant Spider'," Maca casually answered, pulling out a note attached to the package. "Oh, my books I ordered from Flourish and Blotts have arrived."

A few days before school started, Maca made a trip to Flourish and Blotts to order some books on Potions and Herbology. Although these books could be found in the library, they wouldn't allow you to scribble on them.

Charlotte leaned over and glanced at the list, surprised. "First-year, are you planning to complete all the Hogwarts courses in your first year?"

Maca stuffed the booklist back into the package and said it's impossible, picking up the large package and heading towards the common room. He had to return the books to his dormitory before class.

Passing by the Gryffindor table, Harry called out to Maca.

"Hey, Maca! Hagrid wants me to join him for tea. Are you coming?" He waved a note in his hand, asking Maca.

"When?" Maca asked.

"This afternoon, around three o'clock!" Harry replied.

"I have a class in the afternoon. Please give my regards to Hagrid, and I'll rearrange to visit him another time," Maca said.

Harry nodded, then leaned on the table and wrote something on the back of the note before handing it to Hedwig to deliver.

This morning was Hufflepuff's first Transfiguration class.

The Transfiguration professor was Professor Minerva McGonagall, who, like Severus Snape, was a strict mentor.

But unlike Snape, Professor McGonagall treated all four houses equally and would punish any student who broke the rules.

Therefore, although most students were afraid of the stern senior professor, they also respected her deeply.

It was believed that there were many students who genuinely admired her.

Professor McGonagall's teaching style was always concise and effective. As soon as the class began, she made her presence known.

"Transfiguration is the most complex and dangerous magic in your Hogwarts curriculum," she said. "Anyone who misbehaves in my classroom will be asked to leave and never allowed back in. I've said this to every new class, and I hope you take it as a warning."

Then, she transformed her lectern into a stag and changed it back.

Most students were captivated by this magical display, and Maca, in particular, was probably the student who best understood the difficulty among those present. He had learned about it from "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration."

So far, Maca had finished reading several required textbooks for school, and among them, he considered this course to be the most challenging.

The difficulty of Transfiguration not only depended on the wizard's understanding of its principles; that was just the starting point. To truly master Transfiguration, one needed a thorough understanding of the properties of objects before and after transformation.

Wizards learning Transfiguration had to delve into the physical properties of objects and strive to attain the highest possible understanding and control over the magical properties of objects—a complex and profound knowledge with no end in sight.

For example, a novice wizard may be able to transfigure a matchstick into a needle of roughly the same size. However, a Transfiguration master can transform that matchstick into various sizes, materials, and even textures, maintaining the transformation for hundreds of years!

Of course, besides the difference in precision and energy consumption, the biggest distinction lies in their understanding of the subject.

This is a course that requires a considerable amount of time and long-term research. Maca has realized that there are no shortcuts here; it can only be accumulated through daily learning and research.

In class, Maca transformed a feather assigned to him into a lump of metal. He still didn't have complete control over the object's form, but Professor McGonagall nodded approvingly—it was a remarkable performance for a beginner to achieve substantial transformation of an object.

In the afternoon, there was a sleep-inducing History of Magic class. Professor Binns always spoke in a monotonous and boring tone, rambling about the mundane events of magical history. His emotionless teaching style made almost all the students lose interest in the subject.

But Maca listened with great interest. He discovered that Professor Binns didn't just recite from the textbook; his lectures were meticulously organized and occasionally included content that even the textbooks missed. This respected and the only ghost professor at Hogwarts clearly put a lot of effort into preparing his lessons every evening.

Of course, perhaps it was because ghosts didn't need to sleep, which gave him plenty of extra time. If he didn't do something to occupy himself, he would surely get bored to the point of wishing for death once again.

"I heard that Professor Binns was the History of Magic professor at Hogwarts when he was alive until one day he came to class and forgot to bring his body," Ernie whispered to Maca.

"As you said, Professor Binns not only devoted the latter half of his life to the teaching profession but also continues to uphold this incredibly challenging commitment even after death," Maca nodded and said so.

"Listening to you say it like that, it does seem to be the case!"

Ernie paused for a moment, realizing that it seemed to be true. He couldn't help but straighten his back and listen attentively to the class, but not long after, he slumped down again—this subject was just too dry.

While the History of Magic class may be unbearable for other students, Maca found that time passed in the blink of an eye.

"Maca, where are you going? Aren't you going to the common room to play Wizard Chess later?" Ernie asked in surprise.

The History of Magic classroom was on the second floor, and the Hufflepuff students who lived in the dormitory were walking downstairs, exchanging gossip. Only Maca was stepping onto the stairs that were moving upwards.

"Oh, I need to go to the library, I need to look up some information." Maca replied, looking back, but without pausing, he quickly disappeared from Ernie's sight along with the automatically turning staircase.

The Hogwarts library, located on the fifth floor of the main castle, was a massive structure with an extensive collection of books.

Inside, one could find almost every magical book currently in circulation or that had been published in the past. Of course, there was a significant area known as the "Restricted Section," where borrowing books was not possible without a signed note from the Headmaster or the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

The librarian of the library was Madam Pince, a thin, elderly woman with a bad temper who looked like a hungry and irritable old hawk.

She regarded the books in the library as her life and would chase out any students who attempted to deface or damage the books. In her eyes, these precious books were her forbidden treasures, and it would be best if no one entered at all.

It had only been a short time after the end of classes, and there were only a few Gryffindor first-year students in the library—there were no classes scheduled for their house this afternoon.

"Magical Creatures... Magical Creatures... Here it is!"

Maca tiptoed and pulled out a book titled "Habits and Habitats of Humanoid Magical Creatures" from a tall bookshelf, immediately standing there and flipping through its pages.