Chapter 3: The Immutability Paradox

Professor McGonagall didn’t say anything when she saw us, which I think on the whole was absolutely worse than a lecture. Of course, it didn’t mean that she wasn’t upset with Amit. As she glanced over the classroom during the lecture, her gaze would linger on him until she slightly shook her head and moved on. Each time she did it, Amit would sink lower and lower in his seat. I imagined he’d be back in the magic moat within the castle or whatever it was before the lesson was over.

That morning, Amit and I went to the storage closet to destroy any evidence that remained of our crime, but it was all missing. Even the cauldron of remaining Polyjuice potion had been taken out sometime during the night. But instead of being bothered or frustrated by the discovery, it seemed to lighten Amit’s mood. He thought it meant that some of the loose ends were being wrapped up, but I saw them as unraveling. It could have been Asia, but she hadn’t said anything about it. Now, somewhere in the castle, was a cauldron of Polyjuice potion, our clothes, and the notes we’d used to make the potion. I wasn’t sure if Asia’s notebook or Magic Potente Potions were with them or not, but that could be a disaster in itself. I could think of some moronic second year students trying to make the potion on their own and turning themselves into cats by accident. It was in the restricted section for a reason.

But Amit wasn’t bothered by it. Back to his usual self, he stuck to his traditional topic of conversation: Madeline Snapfire. Except, now the classic reverent adoration was gone and replaced with a deep and abiding melancholy. Apparently, being unable to talk to her with a Polyjuice potion in her dorm room meant he was never going to talk to her, and that meant he was never going to go out with her.

Probably.

I tried to remind him that things were more dire than that: he was facing expulsion, the wrath of his parents, the scorn of the entire school if they found out what he did and labelled him as some pervert, and, perhaps worst of all, detention with a furious McGonagall.

I think the danger of the last one was only now sinking in as McGonagall called on him for the seventh time this class.

“Mr. Singh,” she said. “Could you please tell me what the definition is for a human soul?”

“Uh.” Amit sat up in his chair. “Professor?”

“The human soul. What is it?”

“Um …” Amit looked around at the rest of us as though we had the answer. “What?”

“Would you agree or disagree, Mr. Singh, that any sophisticated conversation about Transfiguration would at some point discuss the metaphysical?”

“Yes?” Amit ran a hand through his curly hair. “Is that right?”

McGonagall released him from her glare and turned to the rest of the class. “Class, why would the sophisticated witch wizard study metaphysics if they were to study Transfiguration?”

My hand shot up. She locked eyes with me but paused before she said my name. She arched a smooth eyebrow, as though amused I had anything to contribute. I shivered. I was used to McGonagall giving other students that look but not me.

“Mr. Tanner?” she said.

“Because Transfiguration is interested in altering the physical. Any study of the physical will bring up questions of the metaphysical? We would want to study what we can’t change if we want to —”

There was snickering from behind me. McGonagall’s glare moved from me to the back of the room like a death beam. “Something to contribute Ms. Campbell?”

“Oh, no, Professor,” Asia said.

Another chortle broke out. At this point, the entire class had turned around to see what McGonagall saw. In the back of the room, Asia and Madeline were sitting next to each other. Both were grinning like idiots, and Asia seemed to be biting her lip to keep herself from bursting out laughing. She usually sat up front with me, so it was strange to see her back where Madeline normally reigned.

“What about you, Ms. Snapfire? Something to add?”

“No, Professor,” Madeline said. Her face alternated between blushed embarrassment and a devilish grin.

“Ms. Campbell, come sit up front,” McGonagall said. “I’d hate for you to be distracted by the lack of things happening in the back of the room.”

“Yes, Professor.” Asia gathered her things and brought them to her usual seat, glancing back to Madeline before finally sitting down.

“Now, where were we?” McGonagall asked. “Ah, yes. Metaphysics. You are right, Mr. Tanner. If I were a true master of Transfiguration, matter would be putty in my hands. I could craft reality into whatever I want, but I find that I can’t. There are limitations. Those limitations are key learning points to help me further understand what I can do.”

I wrote on a piece of paper in large type, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” and slid it over so Asia could see it next to me. She glanced down at it and shook her head lightly, telling me nothing was wrong.

That, of course, was nonsense.

Not that anything had to be wrong in the sense of being upsetting. But Asia certainly wasn’t acting herself. That morning, Amit and I had tried to flag her down and ask her what had happened last night, but we couldn’t get to her. She was shielded by Madeline, Olivia, and Agnes as the three girls hovered around her and buzzed with chatter around their new queen bee. Even Madeline looked at her with a strange adoration that I’d never seen on her face. It was unnatural. Yesterday, Madeline paid as much attention to Asia, Amit, and me as she did to the plumbing. It normally wouldn’t bother me if Madeline wanted to hold hands and braid Asia’s hair — she can do what she wants — but Asia had been a part of a major heist last night — a major failure of a heist — and I needed to know what happened. How had she deflected Olivia and Agnes at the bottom of the stairs? Where did the Polyjuice potion and other supplies go? The social hierarchy of whatever could wait, but out of all the results of last night’s debacle, Madeline and Asia becoming best friends was the most random and least expected.

“You see,” McGonagall continued. “Transfiguration struggles to make any change permanent. For the Animagi, there is a spell to revert them. Kill an Animagus, and they go right back to their human form. The same is true of Metamorphmagi. Any of their transformations will revert. Once will and power are no longer capable of being exerted, things revert back to their true state. Always.”

I started to write on my piece of paper, “DID YOU GET RID OF THE CAULDRON?” But I thought better and scratched it out. Then for good measure, I crumpled the piece of paper. Just to be safe, I then tore up the crumpled paper into confetti. I decided to burn it after class.

I was due for an awful lot of burning in my near future.

I glanced over at Asia to try and get her attention, but she was turned around in her seat and staring back at Madeline. Madeline was definitely not paying attention to McGonagall’s lecture as she mouthed something back to Asia that I couldn’t make out. Though apparently Asia could as she stifled a laugh before turning back to face the front of the room.

“So there must be something that is immutable to an object,” said the professor. “It could be called its original state of being, but that’s not quite right either. It isn’t as though an animagus reverts back to a fetus or a child. Neither would a wooden cup return to a tree if I were to end the spell on it. That means there is room for growth and development, but there must be an essence to a thing that is incontrovertible.”

I turned back to my notebook and wrote “incontrovertible” in my messy handwriting. At first, it was just to look like I was taking notes and not frantically trying to figure out if I was going to be arrested after this lecture, but something about the word captivated me. I started underlining the different parts of it. Something that can’t be converted? No. Can’t be confronted? No. I knew what the word meant, but my mind latched onto the little meanings, picking at them like a scab.

“And this brings us to the human soul,” McGonagall said. “How much can you change before you change the whole thing? Before it is no longer itself anymore?” McGonagall turned to the class and held her hands in her lap, letting us know it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

No hands went up.

I went back to my notes and wrote at the top, “Immutable.” Not mute to speak. Mute as in mutable, as in mutare. Like mutant. Mute as in mutation and change. As in mature? Maybe.

“Yes, Ms. Snarzle,” the professor said. Most of the heads in the class turned to one side where Olivia sat with her fiery and curly mane of hair. I had tried not to look at her all day, even at breakfast. Something about her stabbed through me. Well, it wasn’t something as in something mysterious. I knew exactly what it was. She was wearing my reflection, and I — I missed it, I supposed. Though that was silly. It wasn’t mine, and I’d only had a moment to use it, even less than a moment to look at it.

“Every cell in a human body is replaced within seven to ten years,” Olivia said. “But the person’s identity stands intact.”

“Well done,” McGonagall said. “Ten points for Gryffindor.” The class chuckled. We were mostly Gryffindors here, and it always felt a little vain whenever McGonagall awarded us points. McGonagall smiled at us but quickly pursed her lips and our laughter died down. She raised a finger, “But why must the same law of immutability apply to inanimate objects. They are soulless, yet they maintain a sense of identity that magic cannot overcome. Why is this?”

No one answered. I turned to see if one of the Ravenclaw’s — Martha Jackson was often called the philosopher by some of the professors — but none of them said anything. I could see them chewing on the question or sitting poised waiting to write down McGonagall’s answer.

Olivia caught my eye again, and I briefly forgot my interest in the lecture. I watched as she tucked a hair behind her ear, and I cracked. It was as though time stood still, and there was only that one motion, playing on repeat in my mind. Her ears were delicate, and her fingers were slight. It was an effortless motion, but the grace of it astounded me. In my mind’s eye, I tried to tuck a hair behind my own ear, but it looked clumsy. My fingers were like sausages. I watched as she wrote something down in her notes. I imagined her penmanship was like every other girl’s — perfect and tidy. I imagined the curlicues and clean lines.

“Mr. Tanner,” McGonagall said.

I wanted to turn and look at her, but before I could, Olivia locked eyes with me. She saw me watching her — the whole class saw me watching her. She wrinkled her nose with embarrassment or probably disgust, and I looked back at the professor, blushing with shame. She was right in front of me, looming over my desk like a vulture about to eat my dead brain.

“Yes?”

She tapped the notes in front of me. “Please write down the ‘Immutability Paradox,’ on your parchment.”

“Yes, professor,” I said, and got to writing while scattered giggles responded to my daydream. I didn’t find it particularly fair that Asia and Madeline could be flirting across the room and no one laughed at them, but I took one long glance at Olivia and now I’m caught gawking. What the heck were Asia and Madeline doing if not gawking? They certainly weren’t giving study tips.

“There is much speculation as to why this paradox exists,” said the professor as she paced away from my desk. “Some believe that matter has a kind of a memory. Others say that magic has a memory, and any spell remembers the state of a thing before it changes it. We could say that a shrinking charm remembers the original size of an object, but does a mending charm remember the original state of disrepair? And if it does, is it not acting in violation of the original state of the object? But then we must ask what is original? If I repair the desk that Mr. Singh is thoughtlessly vandalizing, to me and the desk, its original state is unmarred. To the spell, the original state is defaced by a careless student. Which is the true original state? Could it not be the tree the desk was cut from? What if I were to cast a mending spell and think only of forests, would the desk “repair” itself into a tree?”

McGonagall pivoted on her heel to stop pacing and face us as she clasped her hands in front of her lap. Another non-rhetorical question.

“Anyone?” she said. “Ms. Campbell?”

“I don’t know, professor,” Asia said.

“Ms. Snarzle?” McGonagall asked Olivia.

I didn’t turn to look at her as she answered, “I don’t know either.”

“And Mr. McAfree,” she said to one of the Ravenclaws in the back. “Surely, you must have a notion as to whether you keep a tree or an unmarred desk in mind.”

“I do,” he said. His voice was deep and always rumbled across the room. “But my mindset is irrelevant to the spell. I can repair something that I don’t know how it originally looked or how it works.”

“True,” McGonagall said with a smile. “And ten points for Ravenclaw.” She unclasped her hands and started to pace again. “The truth is that no one knows which is true. That is why we call it a paradox. There is an inherent logical flaw to the state of transfiguration magic. It does not mean the magic does not work, it means that there is still more to study and explore. For something — though we are not quite sure what — anchors things to themselves. Something that is or is like the human soul. Something that is or is like an identity, though unlike identity it is immune to perception. It is something in the design of things, the design of the world, that we have yet to fully comprehend.”

After that, McGonagall broke us out into groups to test out the Immutability Paradox. We were tasked to try and charm something past the point of reversion. No one was successful. Then we were asked to charm things back to something different than their original state. Also unsuccessful. It wasn’t a flashy or inspiring experience — we’d transfigured things before — but for some reason, it made the magic of it all seem like magic again. Of course magic was always incredible. There were always new spells or creatures or phenomena to discover, but the act of repairing a broken quill or fixing a snapped broomstick had become automatic. Now I looked at that and couldn’t figure out how or why it worked. Magic was strange to me again, as though you could look at something you’ve seen your whole life, and it still escapes your understanding.

Like looking in the mirror and your reflection is all wrong. Or getting a new reflection and it suddenly feeling all right. I resisted the urge to look at Olivia anymore throughout the class and made sure to get paired with a Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws were good for reliably sticking to their schoolwork while class was in session. They could be a perfectly lazy lot outside of the classroom, but once their curiosity was sparked, they were the safest bet to partner up with. Besides, if I worked with Amit, I imagined he’d be muttering about Madeline the entire time.

But there was a burning question I had that I couldn’t ask in front of the class. I certainly couldn’t ask it after someone used Polyjuice potion to sneak into the girls’ dormitory. I waited until class was over and everyone was filing out for lunch before approaching Professor McGonagall.

“Professor,” I said. She was sitting at her desk, recording some scores for the day’s lesson in her ledger.

“Yes, Mr. Tanner. How can I help you?”

“I had a question about the Immutability Paradox.”

“Well, glad to know it’s on that and not Olivia Snarzle.” I blushed and looked away as McGonagall took her spectacles off. “I’ll do my best to answer, though if I knew everything, it wouldn’t be a paradox.”

“Right,” I said. I looked up and shifted my weight back and forth. “I was just wondering. If an animagi can stay in animal form indefinitely, are there Metamorphmagi that can do the same thing. Can anyone change their appearance permanently?”

“That’s not exactly a question about the Immutability Paradox.”

“No, professor, it isn’t.”

“In fact, the Immutability Paradox would say that they most definitely can’t.”

“Yes, but animagi can.”

“But then they die —”

“Yes, but until then they can —” I froze, realizing what I’d just done. “Sorry, professor.”

The professor pursed her lips and put her spectacles back on. “As far as the paradox is concerned, they haven’t truly changed. They’ve only maintained a spell for a long time. As far as I know, there is no way to transform someone indefinitely.”

“Okay. Thank you, professor. And sorry, again. For interrupting.”

As I turned to go, she said, “Perhaps you could ask Professor Snape if there is a potion that could achieve the same effect you’re looking for. It sounds as though a permanent kind of Polyjuice potion would do the trick.”

I froze. “Wouldn’t that run into the same problem? I thought people who drank Polyjuice potion for long periods of time could become poisoned. And aren’t the effects only for an hour? At least … that’s um … what I read.”

McGonagall smiled an entirely unpleasant smile. I was reminded of her cat form, and I did not like it one bit. “There was an incident last night of someone trying to sneak into the girl’s dormitory. Did you know that, Mr. Tanner?”

“I … uh … did not, professor.”

“Yes, it was your very own friend, Mr. Singh.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” McGonagall stood up and loomed over me. Merlin’s beard, that woman was tall. “And he used a Polyjuice potion to do it.”

“Really?”

“Indeed.” She paced around the desk, and I took a step backwards. “Complicated potion, that Polyjuice Potion. We found an annotated copy of Moste Potente Potions in one of the custodial closets near the dormitory with a cauldron of the potion. Powerful batch too.”

“Oh,” I said as I took another step backwards.

“But you see, I know Amit Singh is a rubbish potions student.”

“Well he must not be in order to make such a —”

“We know he had help,” McGonagall said.

“Maybe,” I said. My feet started to take a step backwards, but I willed them to stay put. Only a guilty man would retreat. “But I think he has a lot of potential people don’t see.”

McGonagall’s smirk twisted into something more human, something more amused. “And at least one loyal friend.” She shrugged. “Oh well. At least no one got hurt.”

“Well Amit was dropped twenty feet into water.” I moved my hand to my lower back. “He’s got this bruise that you wouldn’t believe —”

All amusement died from McGonagall’s face. “I meant the girls weren’t hurt, which is who the spell was designed to protect.”

“Right. The girls.” No girl was going to be hurt, but did this mean that McGonagall had no idea I’d gotten through? She thought the enchantment worked as intended?

McGonagall picked up a scroll and started reading through it. She sighed as she went and furiously scribbled something down in the margins. “Is that all, Mr. Tanner?”

“Well, I had one more question, now that you bring up the staircase.”

“Yes?” She started scoring the scroll with what I hoped were checkmarks, but they were probably all bad. Her furrowed brow revealed no hint as to whether she enjoyed the essay or was moments away from burning it.

“It’s designed to see through transfiguration magic, right? Like the Polyjuice potion.”

“It wouldn’t be a very good spell if it couldn’t.”

“Does that mean it detects the immutable nature of things? The human soul?”

McGonagall looked up from the paper. “That’s right.”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. If the spell saw the soul, what did it look at when it saw me? “How?” I said, my voice was almost a whisper.

McGonagall returned her gaze to the scroll. “I’d hate to reveal how an enchantment worked in case anyone would wish to undo it.”

“Not undo it,” I said, stepping forward. “Just understand it.”

She gave a slight shake to her head. “Godric Gryffindor was a legendary wizard, Mr. Tanner. It would take years to explain his spells, let alone decades to understand them.”

“So it always works?”

“Always.” She sighed and put down the scroll. “And you can tell Mr. Singh that as well.”

Elliot wanted to know more, to ask questions. For something deeper than curiosity was sparked inside of him now. There was a burning need, a hunger of madmen, tyrants, and saviors. Professor McGonagall didn’t hold the answers to Godric Gryffindor’s spell, but she held the understanding of the Immutable. She could say what was in Elliot that passed through the staircase. She could explain what he felt when he looked into the mirror and saw Olivia Snarzle’s reflection.

“Professor?” I said, looking around. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what, Mr. Tanner?”

“That voice,” I said. “It was describing what I was feeling. Or … I dunno.” I shook my head. “Something I was feeling but didn’t know I was feeling.”

The professor went back to her scroll. “You’ve had a long night, Mr. Tanner, whether you want to admit it or not. You should get some sleep.”

“Right. Sorry, professor. And … um … thank you.”

The professor said nothing in return as Elliot turned to leave her classroom. Though her eyes roamed over the page, her thoughts dwelt with her pupil. Not just the boy who had broken the rules and lied to her — for students did that all the time. But there was a kind of pain she picked up on. It was one she recognized, one that frightened her. It was the kind of student that asks questions of the world, and when they don’t like the answers they get, they change the world to fit their understanding. It was the pain of Harry Potter and Tom Riddle.

I froze on my way out of the classroom. “Pro—” I stopped myself when I turned and saw she was still reading. She didn’t hear it. She didn’t know. I moved quickly out of the classroom. I didn’t know who Tom Riddle was, but if there was one person I absolutely did not want to be associated with, it was Harry Potter.