NEWT class 1

Danny turned to Mariana and only shrugged so that way his team didn't lose points. Some teachers were really uptight about that rule. He mouthed We'll find out sooner or later
and looked back at Vincent.

"Firstly Mr.Thompson," Vincent said, sneering down at him. "It is Headmaster Majere, not mister (he said with a mimicking tone.) If you are incapable of memorizing that, just call me sir from now on. Also, why would I ask you to come up and get a coin if you were going to ask again? Of course you can come up and get one, and don't waste time with foolish questions like that. And you too Miss Diggory."

He then turned to the rest of the class, who bar one person, weren't really proceeding with the task well. "Remember what we learned last year. Transmutation is merely a combination of your magic, your mind and your spirit. You must concentrate on the sickle in your hand, but imagining gold, and then use your magic to transform the sickle into it. Remember that everyone can use Alchemy, as long as they have magic."

Danny could think of the comebacks inside of his head, yet decided not to as it would create more problems. He could only glare slightly and got up to get the coin from the front. He looked at the coin and thought that this would be useless. He thought hard to change it yet he felt like an imbecile. He didn't want to ask for help, because he'd probably bust Majeres teeth in.

Vincent sneered at Danny, waiting for a comeback so he could take some points from Gryffindor. It didn't come though. Shrugging, he looked at the process the rest of the class was making.

Scorpius went up and got his sickle after writing everything down. He was a little shocked at the headmaster's treatment of Danny, clearly he had something against Gryffindors or something. But by the way he was treating Miseria, it was probably just all students. Oh well, Scorpius had really thought he would be different then Shacklebolt. Looking at his sickle, he enclosed it in his palm and began to imagine it turning it to gold, feeling rather stupid. How did you use magic without a wand anyways? He opened it and of course, it hadn't changed. He rolled his eyes and tried again.

Since arriving back at her desk, Amelia had been turning the sickle over and over in her hands, memorizing every tiny divot and bump, running her fingers over them to create a more firm mental picture. Because she was so thoroughly rooted in reality, Amelia’s imagination had not always gotten the exercise it needed to remain the flexible and intangible talent it ought to have been. This is why Amelia had to get a very clear mental picture which was based on tangibility and fact before she could make the attempt at performing the action the professor had requested.

Having perfected her mind’s view of the sickle, Amelia placed it on the open palm of her right hand and then closed her fingers over it, closing her eyes simultaneously. In the darkness created by the falling of her eyelids, Amelia took a moment to conjure the image of the sickle that she had been piecing together since she retrieved it. This was always the hardest part of alchemy for Amelia, the clearing of her mind. Amelia’s mind was her own greatest refuge; she used it as a sounding board, often had internal debates, and it was always whirring on about something or other. To perform alchemy correctly, though, took supreme focus, a fact which was not lost on Amelia.

At first the image of the sickle was clouded by other thoughts, distractions she couldn’t afford if she was going to make a good impression on the headmaster. One by one, Amelia plucked the other thoughts from her mind and stored them away in a subconscious vault from which she could pull them at a more appropriate time. After a few minutes of slow, steady breathing, her eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness and the image of the sickle was now uninhibited.

Focusing intensely, Amelia forced her mind to envision the previously silver metal into gold. She tended to work at an atomic scale, rather than the large scale, because to her it seemed less imposing. She changed one small piece at a time, a slow process to be sure, but the mental image was slowly turning from silver to gold. She could only hope that this process was mimicked in the sickle in her hand, but she could not break her concentration to look until she had completed the task on her mental money.

A few more minutes passed and the mental process was complete. After a moment of recovery, Amelia’s eyelids fluttered open and her eyes felt the strain of the bright light of the classroom. Lifting her eyes open wider to accelerate the adjustment, Amelia slowly unwrapped her fingers away from the piece of metal in her hand and was pleased to find that it had been transformed to gold.

I did it! Amelia thought, surprising even herself.

But it seemed that her mental celebration was premature, because as soon as thought began to flood her mind again, the gold of the metal in her hand began to fade away, slowly before her eyes changing back to silver. It was disheartening to watch her work slip away, but there was precious little she could do aside from observe it happening, the corners of her lips turned downward in disappointment.

Quite sure that the rest of the class would not get it for a while, Vincent focused on the only person with a potential for alchemy in the room - Miss Lyons. He watched as she focused, taking it slow and easy. He watched as slowly, the silver turned into precious gold. He wasn't surprised at her success, however he was surprised as the gold slowly turned back to silver, that didn't normally happen. "Hmm, that is odd, usually the object breaks if you have not transmutated it correctly. I believe this could be because you stopped focusing on the object after seeing some success, and the object converted back. Or perhaps you did not use enough magic for it to solidify into gold, so the object turned back. Either way, that is good work for a first try," Vincent said appreciatively. "5 points to Ravenclaw."

Now he focused on the rest of the class, who weren't nearly as successful. Scorpius was at least trying though, so Vincent went over to him. "Doubt is one of the worst things in alchemy, it holds you back. If you doubt that you can do something, you will never be able to do it. Get confidence, and try harder," he advised.

Mariana surely didn't expect this kind of answer from the Headmaster though she prefered to pretend it didn't happen since she didn't want to make a bad impression at her first class.She took a sickle and sat back at her desk trying to focus on it thinking of gold.Suddenly it became a fire ball sized of a pink and VOILA there it was gold.Or at least it looked like gold.She couldn't explain the fire ball part. "Ouch! Okay that was weird." she said as she felt the golden coin was too hot.

Amelia was not alone in witnessing her failure, she found out quickly, because the headmaster was at her desk after only a moment, seemingly as confused as she was about the regression of gold back into silver.

At first she was slightly embarrassed that she had proven herself incapable of doing what the professor asked, but he didn't seem to take it too hard. Rather, he analyzed the possible causes of the reversal, pointing out possible flaws in her methods. Although Amelia did not usually like being corrected - mostly because she didn't like being wrong in the first place - Amelia was able to take the professor's criticism constructively. His suggestions were applicable, and for that Amelia was appreciative, not to mention that he awarded points to Ravenclaw for her efforts. Amelia nodded her thanks to him before he turned his attention back to the class.

Determined that she could do better - and what else was she going to do with the time left of the class? - Amelia closed her fingers once more around the silver sickle and closed her eyes, once again beginning the process of clearing her mind of distractions, which was harder this time because of the commotion of other students finally going up to retrieve their silver.

Albus got up after copying everything the teacher had said onto his parchment. He went over to take his sickle from the teachers desk, then went back to his chair. Holding it in his palm, he looked at it carefully, memorizing the shape, the feel. He then closed his eyes and imagined it turning to gold. Focusing hard, he tried to use his magic to tranform it, he never really understood how people could do that without wands. He felt something, and opened his eyes to see the coin turn to ash. "Thats odd.." Albus muttered, dissapointed as well as surprised.