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In typical Hogwarts fashion, the news about Montague turning Percy Weasley into a prefect’s badge quickly became all anyone could talk about. Despite the incantation being, “Praeficio Insignia,” it had turned out that the spell did not specifically turn someone into a prefect badge, but rather into an object that represented the distillation of the individual’s soul.
The weeks following the prefect Percy incident were utter chaos. The day after Percy had turned up naked in the potion’s dungeon, Oliver Wood’s seat in Defense Against the Dark Arts class was not so mysteriously replaced with an extremely thick and detailed book entitled, The Ultimate Quidditch Handbook. One Gilderoy Lockhart, decided to punish Montague by requiring him to copy every single page of this book. Afterall, he hadn’t yet published any books about quidditch. This book would be an excellent way for him to expand his fanbase to include the sporty folks.
The following week, Dumbledore was no longer able to pretend that he could not easily reverse this bit of transfiguration. He was not about to allow Slytherin to play quidditch against a variety of inanimate objects.
With his eyes twinkling madly, he transfigured the Gryffindor quidditch team back into their usual human form. Ron, Hermione, and Lee Jordan looked quite odd trudging down the halls towards Dumbledore’s office holding a large life preserver ring that was Harry, the quidditch playbook, a Fred-like Filibuster firework, a George-like deck of trick cards, a silver bell, a snare drum, and a weathervane. The next few days, the Headmaster’s office became something of a revolving door of students of all houses carrying the objects that were their friends.
To the entire Great Hall’s shock one morning, the sword of Gryffindor suddenly took the place of Neville Longbottom at the Gryffindor table. Adrian Pucey, who had been the culprit to transfigure Neville, stood frozen looking at the sword with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“H- h- hi- him?” He stuttered 5 seconds before becoming a bucket of slime. This of course, led to an outbreak of laughter, and several more Gryffindors and Slytherins to be transfigured.
Draco Malfoy became a beautiful peacock quill that was unable to write, Hermione of course was Hogwarts: a History, Crabbe and Goyle were a doornail and the sun, Ron was replaced by a wizard’s chess night wearing a Weasley sweater, and Blaise Zabini became a stunning red velvet cape with gold embroidery.
After several more retaliatory transfigurations, the madness finally came to a halt. It didn’t stop because of a teacher, or because there was no one else was to transfigure, but rather because all those that were still in their human form became even more shocked then when the sword of Gryffindor appeared.
Percy, Fred, George, and Harry all looked with curiosity and apprehension at the spot of the bench where young Ginny had sat. Not one, but two objects had taken her place; an ever-lasting torch & an elegant ring of a snake biting its own tail. Harry reached out slowly to touch the ring, and quickly clapped hand to his forehead as his scar had suddenly seared with unnerving and unbearable pain.