There were a lot of staircases at Hogwarts—one hundred and forty-two in total.
They came in all shapes and sizes: some were wide and grand, some were narrow and cramped, some swayed as you climbed, and some even led to different places at different times of day.
What shocked Harry most were the staircases whose steps simply vanished once you reached a certain height. That was downright dangerous—weren't the professors worried the first-years might fall to their deaths?
Even so, the staircases were still manageable. Once you worked out their patterns, you could get through them smoothly. The real problem was all the passageways and doors.
Some doors were hidden behind portraits. Unless you managed to amuse the portrait, it wouldn't open for you.
Other portraits pretended to be doors, and even if you did make them laugh, you'd find nothing but a solid wall behind them.
What really drove the students to despair was that the portraits kept moving around. The only way not to be fooled was to memorise the appearance of every single one.
Harry couldn't understand why so many of these spells had been fixed into the castle. Had Hogwarts once been some sort of fortress, only converted into a school after the wars ended?
In this maze, if it weren't for the ghosts showing them the way, half the students would probably have been late on their very first day of class.
Even Harry had nearly been late—but he'd grabbed Ron by the collar and flown straight down from the fourth floor to the second, and they'd actually ended up ahead of the crowd.
Ron patted his chest, still buzzing with excitement.
"Wow, that was brilliant—you can fly! Harry, is that bloodline magic as well?"
Harry had already decided to pin all his Kamar-Taj spells on the almighty notion of "bloodline magic". "Yes, that's right."
Just then, a gaunt figure leaned over the fourth-floor railing and shouted down at them:
"Oi, you blasted little trolls, no flying on broomsticks inside the castle! Looks like I'll have to teach you a lesson and give you detention till you learn!"
Ron jumped at Filch's shrill voice, but Harry shot back:
"Mr Filch, we weren't on broomsticks—we just flew down ourselves. Look, like this."
He lifted off the ground in front of Filch to demonstrate.
Filch froze. He had never seen a wizard fly without a broom.
He swallowed back the stream of venom he'd been about to spit and could only glare darkly at Harry.
"Even without a broom, it's not allowed. This is your last warning!"
Once Filch had stalked off, Ron muttered under his breath:
"Filch is scary. No wonder almost every student hates him."
Harry raised an eyebrow and gave a mysterious smile. "Don't worry—he'll calm down soon enough."
Ron looked at him, baffled.
"Don't forget," Harry said, "I can lend. Borrowers don't have to be wizards—Squibs or even Muggles will do."
"Right, yeah—Filch is so desperate to do magic he's practically going mad!"
Ron was just a simple first-year; he couldn't begin to grasp how far that one off-hand remark might ripple through the entire wizarding world.
For now, he was simply happy that he probably wouldn't have to worry about Filch as much.
By the time the two of them reached the Transfiguration classroom on the first floor, some of the other students were already seated.
Hermione was in the front row on the left, waving at him.
"Harry, over here—there's a seat."
Harry headed toward her, but just as he was about to sit down, he noticed a cat on the teacher's desk.
It was a beautiful cat—an English Shorthair silver tabby.
Its fur was a smooth mix of black and grey, glossy and sleek, shining softly in the sunlight.
What intrigued Harry most were its eyes. There was a circle of slightly darker fur around them, almost like a pair of glasses.
Curious, Harry walked closer to take a look.
He could feel magic inside the cat—and it was very strong.
A magical cat?
Just as Harry reached out, intending to pick the cat up for a closer look, it seemed to panic, leaping off the desk at once.
To Harry's astonishment, the cat suddenly expanded as it fell, and in the blink of an eye turned into a witch in a green robe.
The cat was Professor McGonagall.
"Mr Potter, what do you think you're doing?" Professor McGonagall sounded a little shaken. If Harry had actually managed to pick her up, how was she ever supposed to face these students again?
Seeing that she was upset, Harry hurried to explain. "I'm sorry, Professor, I didn't know the cat was you. I sensed strong magic inside it and thought it was a magical cat, so I wanted to study it a bit."
"Oh? You can sense magic? Is that one of your gifts as well?"
Harry knew what she meant—it seemed word of his bloodline magic had spread. "Yes, it's a gift. It awakened when I received my letter."
"An extraordinary gift," Professor McGonagall said, giving him a long look before nodding. "All right then, Mr Potter, back to your seat. Our lesson is about to begin."
He had barely sat down when Hermione, to his left, whispered in sincere admiration:
"Professor McGonagall really is a brilliant Transfiguration master—she can turn herself into a cat."
Harry nodded. "I know that spell. That's not ordinary Transfiguration—it's a high-level Transfiguration called 'Animagus'.
An Animagus is a witch or wizard who can transform into an animal at will.
It's an extremely complex and advanced skill, and it takes rigorous training and complicated magical procedures to learn it."
"That's so cool," Hermione breathed, clearly fascinated by the idea of becoming an Animagus.
Harry, however, had fallen into thought. He was suddenly reminded of Scabbers and the giant squid in the Black Lake.
Before seeing an Animagus in person, he had assumed that anything with that kind of magical signature was just a magical creature.
But now he realised the magic inside them felt very similar to the magic he'd sensed in Professor McGonagall's cat form—and in the Squib, Filch.
Their magic was chaotic and disordered, very hard to channel. With magic like that, casting spells would be nearly impossible.
That made Harry wonder whether Scabbers and the giant squid were Animagi as well, rather than magical beasts.
To test the idea, he was planning to make a trip to the Forbidden Forest at the first opportunity.
As for Dumbledore's ban… well, the Sorcerer Supreme had never been one for following rules.
The bell rang. Professor McGonagall swept her gaze around the classroom, and, seeing that no one was late, nodded in satisfaction.
"Ahem. Let's begin. I am Professor McGonagall, your Transfiguration teacher.
Transfiguration is the most complex and most dangerous magic you will study at Hogwarts.
Therefore, anyone who chooses to fool around in my class will be sent out, and they will never be allowed back in.
You have been warned."
She gave Harry a pointed look that made him feel terribly innocent.
So the cat-professor held a bit of a grudge, then.