Chapter 48– Shapeshifting(3)

'As you can see, knowledge is e-e-everything. You have to r-r-read and l-l-learn as much as possible about each creature. Otherwise you can e-e-end up like the v-v-viper. Like A-A-Alexander. And in real life you may no longer have a second ch-ch-chance."
The professor went to smell some flowers, but not before giving the children a task to do.
'Read as carefully as possible about the f-f-f-fire mouse. And read and re-re-read, until you remember as much about him as p-p-possible. And this can s-s-save your life. And next time we'll learn about the water s-s-skylark."
And the professor smelt the wonderful fragrance of the flowers, letting the children learn about the animals they could turn into. At that lesson, about the fire mouse.
This is the purpose of the shapeshifting class. Not just shapeshift, as this could be done by a child-wizard of only three who learned to speak, but to know what to turn into, depending on the situation you were in. That was the most important thing.
If you didn't know, a spotted turquoise green frog could save you, if you turned into it, when you were chased by someone who wanted to swallow you, for exmple that viper Alexander, because the frog could poison the place it went through, leaving behind an extremely strong substance. And the pursuer, no matter what it was, if it passed exactly where the little frog passed, touching the grass, the leaves or the branches touched by the frog, became confused, puzzled because of the poisoned air, and gave up pursuing.
And most importantly, you had to know what you turn into. Transformatum was easy to say, but:
Phyllobattes terribilis turcoasum aer dicitur venenum Bibendum operum tuorum gemmam,
wasn't quite easy to say. One wrong letter and you turned into something else. In something that might not help you leading to perdition. Even more, you had to know if your avatar could help you. If you considered how much was to learn ... probably even the two years weren't enough.
That was what you had to learn at Professor Von Halgen's classes.
That was what the children learned in the coming months.
And many other things. For example if you tried to hurt someone, as Geoffrey Walsh, one of Alexander's friends, tried, to turn Johnny into a crawling worm, that happened to him. To change the others, you needed much more years of training. And to be at least a 7th grader at Elmbridge School of Magic.
So, no matter how disgusting Alexander found it, he had to take Geoffrey - the crawling worm in his handkerchief, not to be walked over and lose his naughty friend. And he had to keep him under observation in a pile of moistened soil for three hours, in order not to lose him. And when he finally became human again, his mouth was full of earth and worse than that ... he started to like it.
Of course he left the class ashamed, along with five penalty points from Von Halgen.
The dream that they were to learn to turn into dragons, centaurs, bears or even lions, disappeared even from the second lesson.
Von Halgen told them they could only learn this when they were at least seventh or eighth grade students. Maybe then they would manage to turn into a few of those creatures, because he didn't know either everything in order to turn into some of the biggest and most powerful beasts.
Even a professor like him, who knew many procedures had to study for at least five months, day and night, in order to turn into such a being.
Finally, after many classes everyone got that knowledge and hard work could help you in tough life situations. For many of the students, this shapeshifting class became as the student from the upper grades said. A class for which kids had to study hard.
But for Elizabeth and some of the students, it was something special, exciting and nice as anything that happened at that magic school. Another subject that could greatly help not only in your wizard life. Even though it was a lot to learn, all these things, like the other subjects studied at Elmbridge School of Magic, would definitely help them in life.
And given the tests that were announced, it was best to prepare as much as possible. Everyone got that it was good to go for knowledge, as Professor Eadan Knudlac used to say.