Ella walked into transfiguration with a smile, lugging her backpack over her shoulder. The second year really enjoyed this subject and she was getting to be pretty good with her wand so being in class again was quite exciting. Spotting Professor Magnus, Ella smiled and greeted the professor cheerfully. "Hi Professor. I'm really excited to be back." Which wasn't all that specific but was true. She was glad to be back at Hogwarts, and in classes, this class in particular.

Spotting a seat near her fellow second year, Messer, Ella went and plopped down. She gave the boy a small smile before getting settled in. The small blonde dropped her backpack to the floor and pulled out some parchment and a quill, just in case it was needed. Then, the second year turned her attention to the board, waiting for class to begin.

Zhenya walked into class, worried she would be late. No? Good! She scooted in and said "Hello Professor! Hope you had a good Summer," before taking a seat nearer the front.

"Hello, professor!" Janice greeted the professor as she strode in the class. She was one of the last people to came in, and she realized that with a sigh of relief. She took an empty seat some where in the middle of the class. As usual, she took out some parchment, a quill, and an inkwell, and waited for the class to begin quietly.

Alyssa grinned over at Minnie, and leaned over to whisper,"Thanks partner." before turning back to her book to read up on the subject of Gamp's Law of Transfiguration.

Elliot sauntered into the room, a quiet smirk on her face as she took a place near Hannah, the only friend she spotted among the many faces. She was in an unusual good mood today. Perhaps it was the prospect of the weekend, no? Hmm.

She nodded her head towards the professor, and said, "Good day, Professor Magnus. I rather enjoy the discussion classes a bit more than the wand ones..." she commented, remembering the message in the common room board. Hmph. Elliot liked to think...and only could wand work be done right after thinking.

She smirked over at Hannah, wondering what was getting into her. Mood swings lately? They were becoming a bit extreme.

Entering the classroom, Isaac smiled at the professor "Hello, Professor." Heading for one of the desks, he looked up at the blackboard as he took a seat reading over what was written there. Nodding, he pulled out a parchment and quill with ink and put it in front of him. Then he just rested his hands on the desk in front of him waiting for class to start.

Nigel walked into the room and was excited for his first ever Transfiguration class. He walks over to the professor and say "Hello Professor, How are You?". He did not really know what to expect from the class until he looked up at the board and saw that the outline for the next two classes was on the board.

Nigel glad to know the direction of the class walks over to a empty seat and sits down waiting for class to start.

Alex wandered in to the transfiguration classroom and looked around to see if he recognized everyone, but he was just looking at a room full of strangers. YOUNG strangers. Sigh. He felt like first years were taking over the school this year! And some of them were REALLY tiny...he didn't think he'd been that small since...well, way before Hogwarts.

He took a seat near the back and pulled out his notes. UGGGGHHH Gamp's Laws of Elemental Transfiguration? BORINGGG. Maybe he'd take a snooze if he could get away with it...

Louisa was yawning all the way from the Great Hall up to this classroom. It wasn't early or late to be holding a class but the girl had been staying up all night reading professor Romanos' book. It was just so addicting, reading books. She easily fell into that addiction every time she thought she was done with that. Heh.

"Hello professor," she flashed the woman a tired smile and turned to the desks to-- OOPS! She bumped a table that just appeared in her way... odd. Louisa picked a random seat and plopped down on it, sliding her bag over her shoulder and throwing it on the floor by her feet.

"I had a lovely summer, thank you for asking. I hope you did too," Isabelle smiled, standing up from her seat and making her way around to the front of her desk now. Class was going to start soon.

Oh, well that was good to know. Especially considering how this lesson was going to go. Although, enjoying using her wand too would be good. "Then hopefully you will enjoy today's lesson."

"I am very well, thank you for asking..." Mister child-whose-name-I-don't know. But he got a smile anyway.



Leaning on the front of her desk, Issy clasped her hands together and looked around the assembled faces. There were enough of them to start now. "Good morning everyone!" she said brightly. "Now, I usually start off the first lesson of term by asking you all to name one of the five exceptions to Gamps Law. But today, as you can see, I have them listed already. What I would like you all to do is choose one and tell me WHY it's considered an exception. In your opinion, why can we not use Transfiguration on, or for, these particular things. Just one each though please. And feel free to expand upon the text in your books, that's what I'm looking for. If anyone says something you would like to respond to, please do. But as this discussion will include opinions as well as known facts, please remember to keep it friendly. If you disagree with something, be nice in your replies." Isabelle paused to look around, then narrowed her eyes. "This also applies to the discussion we'll be having later on." Just in case they wondered.





OOC: You don't need to wait for me to tell you you can answer, just have your character put their hand up and answer all in the one post. And remember everyone has different opinions, so if someone says something that isn't a known fact, but they believe it - and you don't - please don't jump down their throats.

Alex stared at the list on the board and tried to pick out one he could easily explain to the class. He raised his hand and bit his lip as he tried to put his thoughts in to words. "Well, you can't use transfiguration on love because it's an emotion that cannot be completely faked or constructed. Even love potions and such cannot completely duplicate love and fade off after a certain amount of time. Even then, they only create obsession, not the actual EMOTION of love," he explained.

That sounded right, yeah?

Hmm. She needed to pick one. Indy thought to herself for a few moments, thinking about which one she wanted to talk about before she raised her hand. "I feel that money is an exception because if we could transfigure money then everybody would try to get as much money as they could." Which would be bad. Indy paused for a few minutes, thinking about some more aspects before she spoke again. "If we could just transfigure money, then most people wouldn't work because they could just make their own money. This would mean that like our world would fall apart because their would be nobody at schools to teach us, and nobody to run the shops that we buy our stuff from." Bad bad bad. It kind of made sense really.

Theodore looked back to the blackboard and his eyes immediately fell upon food. Despite the fact that it was annoying to not be able to transfigure food, Theo could understand it.

He raised his hand.

"You can't transfigure food, sir." He stated. "Cos I reckon people would get CRAAAAAAAZY greedy, and also get rather large around the tummy area." Yes, that was a STAR-PUPIL answer right there.

Good food had to be EARNED.

Hmm... Theo was hungry.

Discussions? João LOVED discussions! Beaming brightly at the professor, he simply raised his hand. He had an opinion about them ALL, but he would go by the one that was most important to him: Information. When it was his turn, he said "Information isn't something materialistic, to begin with. It's all in your mind," he grinned, "and it's either right or wrong. Unless you change--or transfigure--the event that has created it, you cannot change the information itself." Yep.

Adam jotted down the five exceptions to Gamp's Law, more for his own records and a secret hope that each time he writes them down, the more it will be engrained into his brain for the rest of his life. "I think money is an exception to the rule, because without some control over money things would be chaotic. I mean, if anyone could transform something into money, then there would be no control over how much money is produced, which would cause all kinds of economic issues, like inflation and things like that. Not to mention if people could just transform anything into money, then money itself would lose a lot of its value, and people wouldn't have to really do any work to earn their money."

Ella thought on the five exceptions to Gamp's Law, trying to figure out which one she wanted to try and explain. Food came to mind immediately, probably because Ella was quite hungry at the moment. Pity you couldn't transfigure something into food! As for why it is an exception to the rule, Ella tried hard to put her thoughts into words. "Professor, I was thinking that maybe transfigured food wouldn't be as good as the real thing. I mean real food gives you all the vitamins and stuff that you need to grow healthy and strong. If you used magic to just transfigure food, it might not provide you with what you needed to live and therefore is forbidden. It might look and even taste like the real thing, but it might not have all the good stuff, you know?"

Minerva looked at the law and then looked into her book. "Professor, life can not be used in transfiguration, even though we can change things into some animals like we did with the walking stick to a snake, we can not bring someone who has died back to the living. This is something that would be morally wrong and if you follow many beliefs the soul of that person does not stay with the body. So if that person was to be brought back it would not be the same person, because the soul as already went somewhere else."

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Originally Posted by Wonderstruck

Adam jotted down the five exceptions to Gamp's Law, more for his own records and a secret hope that each time he writes them down, the more it will be engrained into his brain for the rest of his life. "I think money is an exception to the rule, because without some control over money things would be chaotic. I mean, if anyone could transform something into money, then there would be no control over how much money is produced, which would cause all kinds of economic issues, like inflation and things like that. Not to mention if people could just transform anything into money, then money itself would lose a lot of its value, and people wouldn't have to really do any work to earn their money."

Aspen.... enjoyed this answer. It wasn't often you heard students at Hogwarts talking about economic issues. She wrote his answer down in her notebook, circled it with red, then gave the Gryffindor a little... glance.

Then she answered. Hand up.

"I think these exceptions exist only because the components and concepts, the building blocks behind each of the exceptions, are too complex for us to work out the magic for. For example, love. It can hardly be defined and has a different meaning from person to person. How could we ever perfect a spell to conjure love? What would it even mean? Or do? I don't think the exceptions have a purpose. There is no why. But there is a very good why not: the magic is too complex for us. Gamp's Law speaks of our inabilities and limits in magic, not in absolutes and impossibilities. In my opinion."

Though Aspen sincerely hoped witches and wizards were trying to crack these exceptions. Probably in the Department of Mysteries, right? That'd be awesome.

Okay... why the Gamp's laws were the exceptions of Transfiguration...

Well, there was no doubt about what Nora would choose to ramble about. "Love is something too wonderful to... create," she said as she raised her hand. "I mean, whatever magical means we use, it still wouldn't be true love," FAIRYTALE love, with a true love's kiss and all. Even with the Amortentia... it still wasn't real love. "So, this is one of the exceptions because, even though we can change one's moods with charms or potions, love is a feeling that is too strong to be... faked." She knew 'fake' wasn't the best word, but hopefully, professor Magnus would understand what she wanted to say.

Vickers pushed his glasses up his nose and pondered the list on the board. Hmm what to speak about? His eyes went up and down the list before deciding on the first one. Raising his hand he started "Professor, Life-- real life-- cant be conjured because each body has a spirit. Our house ghosts are the best example of what we are outside of our body." he firmly believed this "Although it can be said that we have many spells that conjure animals that move and act like real animals I've always thought that they... are animated with the power of the spell, once the spell wears off their essence as animals vanish along with it."

Delilah was still watching the blackboard when the professor started the lesson. Why are they exceptions? She listened to a couple of people's suggestions, eyeing that boy from the fountain (João) closely - his ideas were actually really smart.

After a moment, she raised her own hand.

"Um... Life is considered an exception, I think, because it's not right to ''play god''. Dying is what we have to do, and trying to control that or change that isn't natural." Because come on, who wants a zombie grandma? Not me. "Nor is it fair."

"Like... Some people believe that we've all got a set point in which we'll die." As morose as that sounded, it was actually a helpful belief in dealing with bereavement... Or so her mum had told her. Maybe the Centaurs believed it, too. They liked fate and all that stuff, right? "And, we have many means of trying to bring the dead back, but none of them work properly... And that itself kind of supports that belief, and if our souls leave our physical bodies when we die - which makes sense, because other wise, I think it'd be rather difficult for ghosts to exist - then that would be a good argument towards why we'd never, ever be able to find a real, successful way around the exception."

She was just rambling now... and what if the teacher thought her opinion was COMPLETELY wrong... oh Merlin. That would be really embarrassing... It was probably time for her to shut up now, anyway.

Nigel was listening to all the suggestions and though boy were there a lot of great answers. Nigel was nervous now. What if his answer was not good enough. Well he guesses he will give it a shot. " Um Professor, food is an exception because it takes more than one ingredient to make any type of food as it is a whole mess of different items such as vitamins and minerals that you cant transfigure food to have what you want in it." Nigel hoped he got his point across that food is a whole mess of ingredients that it would be impossible ot transfigure anything into a piece of food with all you need in it.

Kennedy smoothed his hand over the piece of parchment in front of him, meanwhile thinking of the question that had been asked. That was a complex one. It had facts, but as well opinions in the mixture. And they could only choose one to talk about.

After choosing a topic he raised his hand. "Love is an exception of Transfiguration," he began, "for starters it isn't something you simply posses nor is it something that can be conjured. You can make someone think they are in love by the use of a potion or a spell..." That'd be like tricking oneself that they are in love with someone when they aren't. "...but even that can't be really considered love because love is a mixture of actions AND emotions...and you can't simply create that or transfigure it." Nope, because when you love someone you act for them by a simple hug, kiss, comfort and the list went on and on. Same for emotions, you can't transfigure a chair into love.

Elliot listened intently to all of the answers given. Most of them seemed to be backed by moral ideas, but Elliot wasn't one for morals. Facts were what she lived by. So this lesson was going...quite interestingly.

She thought of love, how the idea of love varies. She quickly raised her hand, raising her eyebrows a bit. "One of the more obvious exceptions of transfiguration is love...I think this is because love is an emotion, a emotion that exists in the depths of our core. Love is not something gained or possessed in one day, or even a year. Love exists by spending time and energy on other people. It cannot simply be conjured up, for love is a funny thing. Even potions or spells, as my classmates have mentioned, won't create real love because love has to be earned and freely given. you can't ever force someone to truly love you..." she paused, and smirked, "but some people certainly try." Cue evil Elliot laugh. What day would be complete without it?

She sat up a little straighter, and began to write some stuff down. That Aspen girl always said particularly wise things, Elliot had begun to notice, so she wrote what she said down...and that Slytherin boy...Elliot was lousy with names.