West put his hand up. "The money thing, Its a simplification right? Like, its more that precious metals can't be transfigured I think, and that extends to money, and that kind of relates to the food thing right? Because of the minerals and all. So its kind of like, some of the exceptions are like.... concepts and a bit wishy washy, like love or life or information; those aren't tangible in the same way." Right?


"But food and money are more tangible. The value of those things feed into the value of the intangible stuff too. Like almost, if you could do one, you could probably do all the others too. But money, it hasn't even existed for all that long, compared to the other things I mean. And the value of some money is implied, like how muggles use paper money. Maybe its a mix of the complicated mineral thing, and the complicated intangible value that we put on money?"

He liked that word. TANGIBLE. West put his hand down and grasped at the air a few times, like he was touching intangible things.

Christopher thought for a long while before answering the professors question, "I suppose love; it's not something that can be created. Love is an emotion, and no magic can create an emotion as powerful as the feeling of love. It can be imitated, like through the use of love potions such as Amortentia, but it cannot be magically created."
Chris felt rather confident in his answer. His confidence had grown significantly since first arriving at Hogwarts, this being his third term he felt even more confident than he ever did at his old Muggle schools.
He was still upset about not seeing his girlfriend, Angela Voeldues, since the Start of Term Feast last year. He had looked for her all over, but still had never seen her again... Hogwarts was a large school though, so Chris just thought they hadn't ran into each other since that time...

Kurumi sat back and thought about things for a moment, listening to her classmates offer up their answers to various exceptions and nodding along as she did with a few swift movements over her parchment as she took notes. After a bit, Kurumi raised her hand. "I think the key word with all these exceptions is create. You can change something into something else using transfiguration spells, but creating something is entirely different. We know that with the aide of the Philosopher's Stone we can transform other metals into gold but cannot create it." Not to mention what had been said about making gold by some of her classmates. Because if everyone had a Philosopher's Stone and were transfiguring gold left and right...well...then there would be some serious issues. "Likewise, the Philosopher's Stone is capable of making the Elixir of Life which can extend life, but doesn't necessarily create it." Unless you wanted to look at extension in an abstract sense in which case it did sort of create life...but that was over thinking things.

Food? Food? Her ears immediately perked up at the sound of it. Why was this boy talking about fooooooooooood? She buried her face upon her bag more. She was really hungry and them talking about food was making her dizzy-hungry!

So she wasn't going to elaborate about food. She was going with a different one instead. Raising her head, she looked at the Board and decided to share her idea on why Information was one of the Five Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Her hand shot up in the air, she piped, "Information is an exception because information can't be conjured out of thin air. I mean, what's this, sudden omniscience? Because in order to gain information, you should search for it or it should be given to you.." Beezus' brows furrowed as she sat down. She didn't understood a word of what she said. Only she knew was that she was REALLY hungry.

"Well," Jezzabelle said raising her hand, "You can change the information but, like Kurumi said, you can never really create it. For example, two plus two will always be four you can try to change that answer but you can never really create a new different answer." She chewed on her lip a little thinking over he next words. "Also any new information you happen upon isn't really created just found. For example, if you were to find a new plant species you didn't create the information about the plant you discovered it."

"Well, you certainly cannot transfigure food because it costs money and people harvest and sell it", Oichi replied with her hand raised high.

Hm... those were interesting facts, but Sophie had never given them that much thought. Well, she would have to give it a try! "About the 'life' part, professor, I think that we can't control it because it's beyond our reach. I mean, no one really knows what comes after death, so we can't even imagine how we would be able to bring the person back." Since they didn't know where he/she went, right? And relly, how could they use Transfiguration in that process?? Nonsense! "I mean, if we could do anything, it would still be weird and not the... real person, right?" At least Sophie had never heard about anyone actually coming back from the dead through magic! And well, if there was a law thingy about it, maybe it was... impossible. Heh!

Prue listened carefully to the answers that everyone around her gave, not to mention the question. Out of the five exceptions she couldn't help the one she chose.

"Love can't be transfigured because if you try it's basically trying to force someone to love you, or trying to trick them into believing it at least. Not even love potions like Amortentia can correctly fake the love, the best that they can do is create an obsession or fixation for someone making them believe they love them as all they can do is think of that person..." in truth she just hoped that her explanation made more sense aloud than she thought it did but she'd figure that out soon enough!

Gamp's Law? Exceptions? Penelope glanced back up at the board, her eyes instantly finding the word "food" up there. Food was an exception? Was that good? Bad? Having never heard of these "laws" before, she had no idea.

She decided she'd still take a shot at answering though.

After half-listening to the other students' explanations and opinions, Penelope raised her hand and said, "I think food is an exception 'cause it's too awesome to be just created out of nowhere. Magic is cool but it's not cool enough to create food. Besides, food created out of thin air would probably taste like it, and who wants air food? Probably wouldn't fill you up at all." And was the point of food if it didn't actually fill up your stomach when you were hungry?

...

Exactly.

Dylan eyed the board for a moment, really taking in all five things listed. Pulling out a notebook he'd designated for the task of holding Transfiguration notes, he jotted them all down...and even quoted some of the better answers he was hearing...Especially the one about Money...

*HAND-RAISING in progress* "To add a bit to what that guy said...It's always been a big issue back home where I'm originally from. In America, they have laws concerning counterfeiting and illegal activities. Like, if you are spending crazy amounts of money but don't have an income that backs up the spending habits, you're going to have the government coming down on you for one thing or another." He spoke from experience since his uncle had somehow gotten himself involved in certain illegal activities. "...and if one was exceptional at Transfiguration and was producing fake money that appeared perfectly normal, like he said, people wouldn't want to work anymore...Meaning there would probably be A LOT of people getting hounded by the IRS and some guy named Sam." He didn't personally know anything about the guy named "Sam" but he'd heard his uncle talking about him extensively.

"And I wanted to comment on Love...Since it's been brought up...I read a book on Wizarding History and it was talking about the Dark Lord and how his mother and father had been muggle and witch." Something that especially stuck out since his mother was a witch and his father was a muggle...Not that his mama needed to curse his dad. She was a babe, Dylan could admit. "Even though she had been feeding him that love potion, he didn't really love her. That woman had to continue to feed the potion to him on a regular basis...and when she finally realized that it was wrong, it wore off and he left her. It was artificial and basically a shell of what it was suppose to be." He definitely knew what love looked like. Even though there were some weird dynamics that happened in his family, Dylan knew his mother and father loved each other with everything they had.

Sierra's eyes automatically flickered up to the information on the board. She read through it, despite already knowing Gamp's Law, and then raised her hand. "The one about life," she said, first pointing out which one she'd be discussing. "I think it's pretty much a no-brainer why we can't just wave a wand and create or prolong life. People could get way too powerful," she said, thinking about the history of Voldemort. "I think people would pretty much go insane knowing that their life can be spared much easier than it can now. I also think...people wouldn't consider life so precious."

Jonathan was already aware of those 5 things listed on the board. When he first saw it, he knew right then and there that it's the 5 exceptions of Gamps Law. Also, that the lecture would be based on it too, wouldn't it? Jonathan sat up straightly when the professor finally started the lecture and took out his book and quill and parchment... Just in case she had notes for him to take down.

Choose one and tell me WHY it's considered an exception.

Well, those 5 are definitely an exception when it came to Transfiguration. Those things just wouldn't do. First of all, love is an emotion. So it's definitely a no-no. Another is life, heck in the Tales of the Three Brothers he had to ask Death for a resurrecting stone just to bring back someone he loves. Food is also an exception because you can't just look at a paper and transfigure it into a nice delicacy, right? Same principle goes for money as well.

And as for information, Jonathan shot his hand up to answer the question. Choose one and he chooses to go with information "Information, Professor." stating his answer first "it is an exception because information has facts in it that it would be impossible for one to just transfigure with magic" did that make sense at all? "Plus if it wouldn't be an exception then people around can definitely know everyone's profile or secrets" especially the Ministry people.

Alyssa listened as the other students gave their answers, and quickly noted them down in her journal, then she when thought of an answer she raised her hand again.

"Like some of the other students have mentioned life can be prolonged like Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel with the aid of the Sorceror's Stone, but once the life is gone, one cannot change the dead and bring them back to life again."

"When one is dead, one is dead. If there was a way for someone to bring back someone from the dead, there would be no need for the Sorceror's Stone, or the Resurrection Stone or even the Horcruxes, which Voldemort had to create to achieve Immortality."

West looked at the Hufflepuff and sorta added on to that, hand vaguely up, cos she was kinda missing something important in his firstie expert opinion. "But you can bring people back to a semblance of life. At least, you can reanimate them. Necromancy and stuff. Its just not real life. And its dark magic."

Silvia thought for a moment. This was a really difficult question; the kind, she thought, that might not even have one right answer. But she decided to give it a go and raised her hand. "I think information is an exception because it isn't a physical thing. You could conjure up books and scrolls that already hold information, but you really can't create information itself. If we could, we probably wouldn't have to study, and a lot of things that we still don't know about the world wouldn't be mysteries."

She paused for a moment, and then decided to add, "And I think this goes for things like life and love too. They are really complex and it's hard to explain just how they work, especially since we can't actually see them, only their effects. So maybe the reason we can't conjure these things is because we don't fully understand the true nature of them." Though, Silvia wasn't too sure if money and food could possibly fall into this category of too complex to understand; they were physical objects. So she would just listen to what others had to say about them.

Annabelle heard a first year bring up a good point. "Professor i agree with Nigel here, Food is an exception because you can not create food out of thin air. You need like man made ingredients to help transfigure it. Also Life can not be transfigured because you can not bring loved ones back from the dead." Maybe a lot of people have tried to bring loved ones back but probably never succeeded.

Alyssa nodded when she heard the first year's answer. "Yes I agree that some people may bring back the dead to some semblance of life, like the Inferi for example, but if one had the ability to bring someone back to life, why don't they just bring them all the way back to life and be a regular human being again, instead of giving them an aimless kind of life?" Alyssa paused as she wondered that herself.

Minerva had sat listening to all the answers, when she heard Alyssa and this first year respond. She placed her hand up. "I agree with both of you, but like I said earlier, bringing back someone from the dead is not bringing them back really. Like you both said you can bring a body back, but it's not going to be the exact person you knew when alive. There soul has went to it's new adventure so your just reviving an empty body." Well that's what her muggle Sunday School classes would teach her about souls and death.

Jory raised his hand. "Love cannot be...manufactured,'' he said. "It's a very personal emotion that only someone themselves can feel, no matter what form of love it is. Love potions can only create the feeling but without it, the love's not really there.'' Sounded kind of confusing, but Jory hoped everyone understood what he meant.

Of course, Chelle was going to pick love. That was one thing she could talk about for hours on end.
"Professor, love had to be an exception. It isn't like anything else on this planet. It is an emotion, a feeling- and it is one of the most honest and unconditional things that exist in the universe. And it cannot be transformed, changed, manufactured, or forced upon anyone," she said. She would have thought that all emotions would be exceptions, but that was irrelevant at the moment. "I have heard of love potions, but those who use love potions are trying to fool themselves into believing that they can make it happen. They can't, really. It'd be the same as using someone for their benefit and pleasure and then just throwing them away later. They evidently don't know the difference between real emotions and false ones."

Isabelle nodded along to all the replies she got to her question. The kids were all making very good points, and she was glad that they had grasped the reasons why. But she decided to address each subject in turn.

"Love, exactly. You are all quite correct. It's an emotion that we all feel in a different way. True love is not something that can be created, or conjured, or forced upon another person. You can imitate certain aspects with potions, as you've mentioned, but the deep emotional aspects of love are an individual thing. Not something that can be universally reproduced."


Ahh, yes. Morals. That was the main thing with money, or in fact any precious metal, as the young boy said. What was his name? Smart student.

"You all make a very good point. Being able to conjure, or produce money using magic would indeed mean that people would have an abundance of it to buy things with. But if no one needs to work for it, then there is a very strong chance there will be no one to sell or make the things people want to buy." If that made sense. So morals and common sense played a big part in that. "Of course you can conjure things, but as we know they don't last."

"And you, my dear," Issy said, pointing at the young dark-haired boy who had made sense with his theory. "Are quite right as well. Metals are very often made using various things and that is difficult to replicate with magic."


Sir?

Isabelle gave the boy a 'do-I-look-like-a-man' look, before launching into her repsonse.

"Exactly. Food is made using various ingredients. As you all said, food that is conjured is not real food. It will disappear and certainly will not taste the same. You cannot produce it out of thin air. Multiply, yes. Summon, yes. Even enlarge." But if you want something to taste nice, make it in a mixing bowl.


Information. Another thing that you couldn't physically hold in your hand, not in a real sense. Books with it in you could, but the kids were right.

"Information is such a wide ranging thing, covering so many different topics, that being able to use magic to produce it all is nigh on impossible. The majority, not all, of what we know - the information in our heads - is learnt and based on facts. And if it was so easy to just conjure all that up, then...I wouldn't have a job." Isabelle chuckled, and gave the students a smile. Although they probably wished sometimes that they could do it, and not have to go to school.


Life. The most complicated of all. And their reasoning was pretty much spot on. Nodding as each of the kids spoke their views, Isabelle cleared her throat to reply as sensitively as she could. After all, people had differing views on death and what happened after it.

"Life is so much more than just existing in a physical sense. A body can be reanimated to appear like it's alive, as the three of you have discussed," Issy said, gesturing to Alyssa, Minerva and West. "But it's not real. What makes a person who they are is what is in their mind and their hearts, and that is not something that can be produced via a spell or any kind of magic. Their spirit leaves, as the ghosts are an example of. You cannot get that back, however much you try."

Of course there were slight exceptions to the exception, as Vickers mentioned. "We can conjure some form of life, of course, as Mister Vanderbilt said. But that doesn't last, and is merely a spell making something appear to be alive."

"Very good, Kurumi, yes. Creating something from nothing, conjuring it for example, is a very difficult thing to do. And in the case of most of these exceptions, currently impossible and even morally wrong. But those are good examples you gave - The Philosopher's Stone is incredibly powerful, but even that can only transform metals, or extend life. It cannot help to create it."

Issy gave the prefect a grin before moving on to one point that she thought was exceptionally good....

Isabelle walked over to Aspen and directed her gaze on the girl. A smile broke out across her lips and she nodded her head for what felt like the umpteenth time that morning. "You make an interesting point, Miss Odessa. Are they exceptions because we can't currently do them? Or would, should, they continue to be so even if we could?"





Wandering back over to her desk, Issy turned and scanned the room. "That is a good segue into my next question for you all. If it WERE possible to do all the things the exceptions say we can't, would you? If our magical abilities could be honed to a level in which we could produce real money, real love, real life excetera- should the wizarding community do so? Would you get rid of any of these exceptions if you had the chance?" Or would their morals get the better of them.




OOC: There is no right or wrong answer to this, purely what sort of opinion your character has on the subject. Discuss it among yourselves, and ask questions of Isabelle and each other if you wish. But again, PLEASE BE NICE TO EACH OTHER.

The professor got a full beam smile at her response to his answer and then an even biiiiigger one when she addressed his sister.

But the smile went to a thoughtful look at the next question and West stuck his hand up.

"Do you know, I think that I probably wouldn't? Its like how, when my dad says I can't do something, I usually REALLY want to do it, because he said I can't. Same with most anyone that tells me not to do something. But then as soon as I'm allowed to, its kinda not as exciting. I think like if we could do that stuff, a lot of it we'd just take for granted and be like mehhhhhhh about after a while." Mehhhhhhhhhhhh. He was sure of it. But ALSO....

"Sure at first there might be like, less dead people staying dead, more people knowing things they shouldn't, manufactured love and money and everyone so stuffed with food they have to leave their pants unbuttoned, but also I think it'd mean more ways to STOP those things would probably become common use. Like, dark magic even. And that wouldn't be good would it? So I guess firstly it'd be boring and secondly it could open a Pandora's box. And its kind of nice to have stuff that is precious anyway, and all those things that are exceptions are more valued cos we can't just reach out and have them when we want 'em."

Ella was a little taken back by the Professor's next question. WOULD she use magic to get things like money, love, food, information, and life? She wanted to say no, that she would never even think of using magic to create these things. Mostly because something in her gut told her that it wasn't right. BUT what if there were extenuating circumstances? Would something like the loss of a loved one provide enough desperation to cause her to try and bring them back were it possible? The answer was yes, she probably would. If the situation seemed that grave.

"Professor, I think that were these things possible, everyone would have some kind of breaking point where they might cave in and use one of them. I mean desperation is a strong emotion and it sometimes leads people to do wreckless things that they wouldn't do were they in a rational state. I can't say that I wouldn't use magic to conjure food, were that possible, if I was starving and on the brink of death...not that the food would help much if there was no nutritional value to it."

Hmmm...Hannah thought about this for a moment. With a raised hand she responded with "Professor I think love is something that can't be messed with because that is a way that a person feels. You can't really make they stop or start loving you with a wave of a wand." She wasn't sure why anybody would want to do that anyways. Ugh!



Would Hannah do all of these things if she could? Ummm heck yeah. She wasn't going to lie and she dang sure wasn't ashamed to admit it. She could rule the world with that kinda power. "Professor if I could I would. Could you imagine what kind of power you would have? I think it would be awesome." she said with a raised hand. I mean sure that would mean that the others would be capable of the same kind of power and that could be bad and Hannah wouldn't want other people making her love them, but that wouldn't happen because she would just make sure that she was the most powerful ever. Duh!

If those things... were possible? But they weren't!

BUT. If they were... "No, professor," Nora shook her head when she raised her hand to answer the question. "It would just be wrong." Since life... there was only one that could give it, love... it still wouldn't be love, information... there had to be sillier people in the world, right? But how about money and food? Well, people could buy pretty much ANYTHING, like... even the Moon! And that would be wrong as well.

"Err... I don't really know what to say about food, though. Witches and wizards could maybe conjure it for the ones who really need it, perhaps?" But if food was an exception as well, it had to be a reason for that.

... or not?