18 Chapter 18

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Defence Against the Dark Arts was the last class the Slytherin First Years had for their first day, but because of the incident in Transfiguration, Ethan hadn't finished his day yet.

Still, his detention was with McGonagall, and the woman still had other classes, so Ethan got a nice two hour break, which he spent with his Slytherin friends.

They walked through the long corridors of the magical castle, avoiding the forbidden third floor in their exploration.

As they perused through the walls of the castle, it got Ethan thinking, especially about a room he somewhat remembered, the Room of Requirements.

If his memory didn't fail him, it was a cheat like room in which the user could make basically anything inside Hogwarts appear, especially books from the forbidden section and such things.

However, Ethan didn't really remember where it was, he somewhat remembered how to make it appear, he probably had to want really hard for it to appear, but he had already tried and nothing appeared, so he probably had to be in a particular place to make it appear.

But even if he knew how to get in the cheat like room, Ethan wasn't actually very interested in it. He really didn't like reading, and did only the bare minimum for his classes, relying more on his practical experience.

Ethan wasn't interested much in making potions either, so the Room of Requirements really had no appeal to him. The only real use Ethan saw for the room would be for exercising his magic, which was normally forbidden in between classes, but Ethan had already thought of several places where he could make magic without being seen, so again, it wasn't much.

So instead of wasting his time in searching aimlessly for that room, he reasoned he might as well use this time to do things he liked.

Speaking of which, as a couple of hours elapsed, and Ethan had to show himself for his detention, he wasn't feeling dejected, because it was with McGonagall, who taught the subject he liked the most, and he was the most talented in.

First years had seven core subjects: Astronomy, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions and Transfiguration.

Out of the seven, even though Ethan hadn't even started classes for some of them, there were several he wasn't really interested much in. Astronomy sounded cool, and observing the night sky could be interesting, but Ethan didn't fancy learning the names of all the stars very much, despite his talent at memorisation.

History of Magic was by far the most boring subject, Herbology, he hadn't tried yet, but he doubted he would like, and Potions… well, Ethan wouldn't say he disliked it, but it, again, sounded a bit like a bother to learn recipes and such.

However, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration were already his favourite subjects, despite not attending a single Charms class yet.

Ethan largely preferred practical magic over theoretical magic, and Transfiguration perfectly suited the way he used magic, so it was the subject he had the most ease in.

As for Charms, it wasn't that the magic didn't suit him as much, but more that the way he cast his spells was much more advanced than first years, so it would be a lot more challenging, which brought satisfaction to Ethan.

As for DADA, he simply liked the subject. There wasn't much more to it.

Since it was early September, the sun hadn't gone down yet by the time Ethan got into McGonagall's classroom.

As he entered, he noticed the teacher was sitting behind her desk, looking at him with a sharp look. It wasn't mean or judgemental in any way, but it told Ethan that if he messed around, he was going to suffer.

Ethan silently walked to the front desk, and with a nod from McGonagall he sat. At this, the teacher finally got up, and with a stern stare said, "While it was honourable to stand up for a friend, using your magic against a fellow student is absolutely unacceptable."

Ethan nodded and replied, "I understand, I lost my temper."

McGonagall's gaze did not turn away though, and she said, "I hope this won't happen again, or your next punishment will not be so light."

With that said, McGonagall took out her wand and flicked it, bringing a broken matchstick to Ethan, and said, "Your behaviour aside, you have shown exceptional abilities today in Transfiguration. I believe this does not only have to do with the advanced way you use your magic."

Ethan nodded and took out his wand as he explained, "The core of my wand is made of a hair from a seven tailed Kitsune, making Transfiguration even easier for me."

McGonagall showed a rare expression of surprise, but it was quickly wiped off as she said, "That would indeed help. But that isn't all, your capacity to read a circuit and come so close to figuring one out by yourself, this has nothing to do with the way you use magic or your wand."

Ethan inwardly agreed with McGonagall, and knew exactly where this ability came from: the rune training he got with his mother. In his childhood Ethan had learned all the fundamental rune languages in the world, and while that gave him a light repulsion to reading, it did serve him well.

Helene hadn't only taught the rune languages to him after all, she had also spent a great deal of time teaching him to use those languages he had learned to guess what newer languages, which had been derived from those he learned, meant. It was a bit like deriving French, Italian and Spanish from Latin.

This was done to set important foundations for Ethan, so that whenever he would set runes, or decipher them, he wouldn't have to spend minutes or hours of his time translating every symbol. Thanks to his training, he was capable of comprehending pretty much every runic language in the world, which was something of an achievement.

And this ability projected onto Transfiguration. Although he couldn't yet go at the same speed, he found it much easier to decipher circuits than others, and more importantly, he could use them to devise other circuits.

That's how in his first class ever in Transfiguration, he had nearly grasped the first circuit on his first try, and nearly managed to make up another.

However, despite the praise she had given Ethan, McGonagall's face still looked grave as she explained, "The reason I am saying this, Mr Grindelwald," she stressed his name out, "is because I believe you have great capabilities, and I do not want them to be misused."

"I, or any other faculty members at Hogwarts for that matters, do not believe that your name should define your future, hence why you were accepted in this school. However, while I will teach you like any other student, I shall warn you. Do not misuse your powers."

Ethan was a little stunned by her words, as while they sounded threatening, they were fair. A small smile, not condescending, but one of happiness found its way on Ethan face, and seeing this, the Transfiguration teacher felt pleased.

But she kept a tough front as she explained, "Back to the broken matchstick, while your attempts at figuring out the appropriate circuit were praiseworthy, because of lacking material what you were doing was nothing more than groping in the dark. Rather than waste your time on learning the effects of different nodes in circuits, you should learn other circuits."

Ethan couldn't help but ask, "Why did you ask me to do it then?"

McGonagall pursed her lips and replied, "To see what you would do, of course. Now, let's perfect this circuit and the other to turn this matchstick in a needle, before going on to learn other circuits, shall we."

Ethan nodded slightly, and McGonagall wrote several circuits on the blackboard, ten of them to be precise. She said, "The two circuits you are searching for are among those ten circuits. Do note that each of those circuits is a valid one, and they all are interconnected."

She was about to add a few explanations, but noticed Ethan was already completely focused on the blackboard, so she stopped herself and watched.