The Baby Project · Y/n story by @emmamazz

The seventh-year Transfiguration classroom felt unnaturally still, the usual rustle of parchment and whispered incantations replaced by a thick, anticipatory silence. Every polished desk was occupied, every face turned toward Professor McGonagall, who stood with her usual rigid posture, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Professor McGonagall

Welcome to the Baby Project, seventh years!

Her voice, sharp and clear, cut through the quiet. A collective, barely suppressed groan seemed to ripple through the Gryffindor side of the room. From the Slytherin benches, a different kind of tension radiated—cooler, more calculating.

Professor McGonagall

This project will constitute fifty percent of your final year grade. It is designed to teach responsibility, commitment, and the profound magic of creation and nurture. You will, in pairs, brew a specific variant of the Gemino Curse potion, add a strand of your hair each, and for the remainder of the semester, care for the magical construct that results.

Her gaze swept over them, lingering for a moment on a horrified Ron Weasley, who had gone pale, and then on a smug-looking Pansy Parkinson, who was already eyeing the Gryffindor boys like they were a selection of flawed cauldrons. Beside Pansy, Theodore Nott sat, seemingly engrossed in the grain of the wood on his desk, his expression unreadable. His eyes, however, flicked up once, very briefly, across the classroom.