Ugh, the wand movement for this spell was really tricky--drawn in the air, it looked like some strangely-shaped fishhook or something. Violet decided she'd better practice it for a while before she tried to use it on one of her sugar skulls.

Then, when she thought she was ready, she placed one skull (they were so pretty, Violet almost hated to transfigure one) in front of her, pointed her wand ahead in preparation, and began the multiple curving motions. But somewhere in the middle she got muddled, almost as if she were running into herself, and when she finally exclaimed "Melaflors!, she got a lopsided, lumpy mess that still looked like a plastic skull, but a very misshapen one. "Bother! Violet muttered under her breath. And she only had three skulls. But wait--this spell she did know. "Finite Incantatum" she cast, and the skull resumed its former shape, complete with decorations. Good thing I didn't use magic to decorate it, she thought.

She practiced the wand movements again, a number of times, until she thought she really had it, then tried again (on a different skull, just to make sure) and cast the Melaflors spell once more, picturing a pumpkin as hard as she could. This time it worked--mostly. The skull had indeed turned into a big, round pumpkin, though it was somewhat bigger and oranger than Violet had visualized. Oh well, the teacher wouldn't know what she'd been thinking--she hoped.

But still, in doing this for real, it was important for the result to come out the way you intended--what if she was trying to do something more complicated than a pumpkin? So she tried again on a second skull, this time taking a few minutes to visualize it more completely before beginning. It was hard to think of the wand movements and what she wanted the pumpkin to look like at the same time.

When she felt had a strong picture of an light yellowish-orange pumpkin, about 1-1/2 foot wide, in her head, she cast the spell again. "Melaflors!