You know how a 'normal' day is? Wake up to the alarm, eat, maybe go for a run, perhaps get some work done? Not that I do. 'Normal' is not a word that's in my vocabulary.. but I digress. Granted, the Saturday in question was a bit abnormal to begin with; I was going to be presenting a huge demonstration to my collegues and fellow wizards, one which I had worked long and hard on. And yet, me being... well, me, not everything went according to plan.

It all started out fine. I'd set up a holographic slide show to present my findings, and the matches, stone and squirrel were all in place. (The squirrel after much hard work, but in place all the same.)

Ah yes- perhaps I should explain the squirrel. I had been, for the past few years, studying and testing the laws of Transfiguration. In my studies, I found something rather fascinating, and continued to build upon my theory, testing and amending it gradually. And now, I was 99.998% sure that I had it perfected. Flawless. Of course, I was wrong, but that's for later.

My theory was concerning inanimate to animate transfigurations, the size and life force of the object which was to be transfigured.

I had brought up and challenged the idea that, contradictory to Gamp's Laws of Transfiguration, life could be created. Many had believed this to be a true exception to Gamp's Laws- that in transfiguring an inanimate object into a living creature, life was spontaneously created, brought from no where. No one could prove it otherwise. But I knew that it had to come from somewhere, it couldn'y just appear. And so I set out to prove how wrong they were.

I was laughed at, of course, ridiculed and dismissed as a ridiculous dreamer. But I persevered. It had to come from somewhere. I pressed on.

My findings were, in my opinion, relatively successful, and the theory I created consisted of five parts.

1. All matter possesses dormant energy. This dormant energy gives the potential to become alive.
2. In order to truly become alive, inactive matter must be given the active energy (life force) required of all animate objects during the process of transfiguration.
3. This active energy can be found in any object which is chemically active whether or not the object is scientifically alive. The host of this active energy is a source.
4. In the process of an inanimate to animate transfiguration, active energy is adopted from any nearby chemically active source. It can be directed or channelled, however if left uncontrolled the receiving object will take equally from its surrounding sources.
5. After taking a portion of a source's active energy, an object will then create more by the process of atomic duplication, resulting in a 'new life'. Similarly, the source's life force will restore itself to its previous state.

I (creatively) named these five rules the Animation Theory.

And now here I was, after six years of study and hard work and experimentation, at the end of my journey- and now I was ready to present my findings. Nervous, but ready to start the conference.

I looked out at my audience of Magical Scientists, Alchemists, Theorists and Professors, and took a deep breath.

Then I began. I explained that I was going to transform the rock into an animal. I asked my colleagues to choose one, and someone shouted, "Giraffe!" I shrugged. Sure, why not? I struck a match, held it between my fingers, and instructed everyone to watch it closely. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and began the wand movement to transfigure the rock into a giraffe. The squirrel chittered next to me, and I frowned, trying to keep my concentration.

It slowly started to work, and I kept my eyes closed, willing the magic from my wand. The squirrel fell silent, and I heard the audience gasp and mumble among themselves. I opened my eyes, a bit drained, and saw that the match had changed from a blazing, bright yellow to gray. As I watched, it extinguished, almost as if it'd had the life sucked from it. Then, without warning, it re-ignited, flaring up as before. I glanced next to me, and saw the squirrel, noticing as its swiveled its ears at me that its tail had grayed. Again, as I watched, its chestnut coloring was painted back into existence. And finally, in front of me stood a baby giraffe on wobbly legs, looking up at me with big, brown eyes of innocence.

I started to explain what had occured to my audience, who stared, speechless. I stated how they'd seen the energy of the flame, small, but mighty, taken and used to create the life in the giraffe, and how the life force and energy of the squirrel had also been duplicated and put into the life of this new, beautiful creature.

I then introduced my theory, explaining each of the five parts to it and how each applied to the demonstration I had just given. I finished by reasserting that inanimate to animate transfigurations were not exceptions to Gamp's Laws of Transfiguration or to the Laws of Matter.

As I finished, I coughed awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious of how embarrassed I was, standing in front of them all in silence.

For about a minute, no one spoke. My confident expression drooped a bit. They hated it, I could just tell. No one was going to buy it, and I'd go back to being a dreamer.

And then someone started clapping- slowly, hesitantly. I glanced up, bewildered. Then others joined in, and people were standing, applauding, swarming over to me to say in amazed tones, "You've done it! You've really, really done it!"

I stood stock still, a bit overwhelmed. I wanted to cry all of a sudden. I had worked towards this moment for six long years, and finally it had arrived. And I suddenly wondered, what was I going to do with my life now?

In all the bustle, I finally thought to wonder where that darling giraffe had gotten off to. I looked around, searching, and finally spotted it up in a tree. It had seemingly climbed up to escape the crowd either that, or it was hungry. It looked so silly and awkward, hanging there like a lemur, overlong legs and neck wrapped around the branches. I looked at it...

And I laughed.

And I realized, in that one moment, what I had been missing, why I had not been as excited as I'd assumed I would be.

For in the past years, I'd been working so diligently and gone through such hard and trying times of impatience, failure and loneliness. I'd isolated myself from joys outside my work. Now I felt carefree, seeing that young innocent giraffe up there where it didn't fit. And I remembered-

And I realized.

And I laughed.