Owl to Professor Walker (posted Tuesday - backdated)
Jon,
Been playing around with the colour-changing puffskeins you gave me and reading up on creatures that adapt to fit their enviroments. There are these Muggle reptiles called chameleons that do just that, but so far knowing that isn't helping at all. I'm finding it difficult trying to diagnose why they've changed like this without having a specific event that may have affected them to work from.
Somebody said, though, that the reason you had so many was the result of some kind of multiply spell from one of your class. I'm starting to wonder if maybe there was something about the spell that brought this on. Perhaps it was only intended for a single subject but was used on a group, or perhaps it wasn't cast 100% correctly? In some cases with copy-type spells the duplicates are minorly faulty in some way if the caster is not suitably proficient. Do you think it's possible that certain duplicate puffs were not copied 100% correctly resulting in missing genes or some such? A genetic mutation seems like the only thing that could bring about such a substantial change in their make-up. It might help to know the exact spell used. I'm not an expert on copying or multiplying charms, but there might also be some branches that aren't intended for use on living things.
The only other theory that I can think of is that they may have wandered into a spelled area of your classroom, or an area with heavy magical residue, and been altered by that. The leftovers of a transfigure-type spell web designed to change the captured person into something else, perhaps. That being said, there's also the possibility that we have a group of renegade puff-experimenting students on our hands. I'd dismiss the idea entirely, but sometimes it's the weird outliers that come through in the end. Anyway, have attached some notes, run them over and let me know what you think. Meant to catch you at breakfast so we could talk it over, but must've missed you.