alchemical blurb

[mswoods]

The following day, Sadde has Transfiguration in the morning.

She is all over it at lunch.

"Okay, so, Transfig is just about the coolest thing," she says first thing to the Ravenclaws as soon as she sits at the table.

Comments

[msmaxwell]

Very nom!

[chanuphis]

"I'm interested in healing; I might want to train in it some even if I don't wind up being a full time healer as a job."

[mswoods]

"Ooh, healing sounds interesting."

She takes a bite of something and thinks.

"Can Transfiguration be used to heal people? Like, can you transfigure a bruise into health or mend bones with it?"

[chanuphis]

"I'm not sure if healing spells tend to technically be transfiguration or not. Do you know if you can shapeshift injuries away?"

[mswoods]

She shakes her head. "I haven't ever actually tried, when I was little I didn't have fine enough control to even be able to try, and then I never did try because of habit and also because it'd be suspiciouser to muggles if injuries vanished too quickly. Well, the kinds of injuries that tended to bother me the most, at any rate."

[chanuphis]

"I can write Renée, she knows some first aid and might know if it's a charm or what."

[mswoods]

"That sounds good!" Pause. "How quickly can broken bones be mended by magic, in general?"

[pleating]

"It depends on how badly it's broken. Not that long, though, like a few minutes if it's only breaks and nothing worse."

[mswoods]

She puts some more food in her mouth and chews on it thoughtfully. "I'm now considering breaking something just to see if I can morph it better," she says. Then something else occurs to her. "Metamorphmagi live just as long as regular wixen, though, don't they?"

[pleating]

"Yeah, of course."

[chanuphis]

"Wixen in general treat injury pretty casually - you'll notice that we fly without helmets, even the Quidditch players who have angry balls actively trying to kill them - so you are not likely to have to deliberately break something to find out what the deal is."

[mswoods]

"Hmm, I think if we could just Transfigure injuries away, we could probably Transfigure old age away, right? I mean, otherwise Metamorphmagi would be immortal, and we wouldn't live to 140 we'd live to always. Unless there's a cultural thing against immortality? ...a very, very strong cultural thing, that would make literally every wix who has ever lived not want to Transfigure themself youth and health?"

[chanuphis]

"...Well, can you turn into a five-year-old?"

[pleating]

"There, uh, kind of is a cultural thing. You-Know-Who wanted to cheat death and if it were that easy he probably would have done it even though he wasn't a Metamorphmagus. ...Well, I guess just being young and healthy wouldn't have stopped somebody from killing him, he didn't actually live to a hundred and forty even, but still."

[mswoods]

Sadde scratches her head. "Do people not want to cheat death because he wanted to do it, or was he already weird by those standards before? There's a lot of context to this war, I should probably, like, read a book about it or something, except it ended a couple of months ago so maybe there aren't any complete books about it yet?

"And, er, I don't know if I can turn into a five-year-old. I've never really tried. It feels like I should be able to, if I can turn various parts of my body into animal parts I see no reason why I shouldn't turn into a five-year-old. But well, I guess I ought to try this not-here, maybe in the shower when I won't have robes getting too large - and too small, I'll definitely try to go all grown up."

[chanuphis]

"I'm not sure what the attitudes before him were except that they didn't result in commonplace immortality. I'll be interested in your experimental results though."

[mswoods]

"I'll be sure to tell you all about them."

[chanuphis]

They have Herbology together, which is nice. Today they will be harvesting seeds from Singing Mustard.

[mswoods]

...Singing Mustard.

The wizarding world is an endless string of wonders.

She spots more movement than she expects plants to be capable of over there but is ushered further inside too quickly to really see what that was.

"Are there plants that can, like, move?" she asks the non-muggleborn witches.

[pleating]

"Sure," says Karen. "Like, most of them can't pick up and walk, but a lot of them can wave around. There's a tree on the grounds that will hit you if you get too close, it's called the Whomping Willow, don't go near it."

[mswoods]

"Huh," she says. "Most of them? So are there any that can in fact pick up and walk?"

[pleating]

"Runner beans, that I know of, maybe there's more, Professor Sprout will know."

[msmaxwell]

Willow giggles.

[mswoods]

Sadde grins. "That sounds fun."

Class continues happening. While it's happening, Sadde has that abstracted, thoughtful look on her face that she usually has when she's about to suggest things like breaking bones on purpose just to see if she can morph them better.

[chanuphis]

Singing mustard seeds are small and round and yellow and make musical tinkling sounds when dropped into their containers. Professor Sprout demonstrates that if you pick a leaf and roll it up you can use it like a flute.

"Did you think of something bizarre to do with singing mustard, Sadde?"