Chapter 37: Diamond and Graphite
Friday's Transfiguration class. Professor McGonagall began teaching them to turn beetles into buttons.
This was a step up from matchstick-to-needle — involving the more complex transformation of a living form into an inanimate object, demanding greater precision and a clearer intent.
Most students were wrestling with beetles that kept trying to crawl away. The room buzzed with faint droning and soft pops of failure.
Regulus picked up the beetle, raised his wand, and spoke the incantation softly.
The beetle stiffened faintly in his palm. Its shell began to shift — the deep brown fading toward sleek black, the form contracting and flattening.
In three seconds flat, an exquisite button lay in his hand — jet-black, glossy, with a faint spiral grain across its surface.
The transformation had been fluid, the result flawless. It even retained a whisper of the beetle's original texture, making it more distinctive than any ordinary button.
He no longer raised questions beyond the lesson's scope the way he had before.
He knew McGonagall remained wary of him. No need to probe further; silence would suffice.