Harry Potter : Chapter 42: Turning Point I

I was sitting on a transfigured bench in a hidden, underground chamber that I had dug under the cellar of Marie and Paul's home, staring aimlessly at the silver-lined cages that isolated the two muggleborns I had saved:

"We're almost there." I warned the duo, receiving a distasteful, heavy frown from the man and a grimace that should have been a smile from the woman.

The room was scarcely illuminated by a few vials containing one of my brews of sunlight: I was trying to discern if that was capable of influencing, even minimally, the imminent werewolf transformation.

Since the first summer I had ventured out into the wider world, along with my constant and neverending experimentation with potions, my ever-increasing number of projects, and the busy task of filtering the notes that I made available in the Runda, I had been trying to figure out lycanthropy.

Of course, general information on that was easy enough to come by, and the Restricted Section had a number of tomes listing the disastrous failures to either restrain, isolate, or control werewolves made before my time. I had devoured that knowledge, framing the concepts and ideas into my personal understanding of how magic in general worked.

Even my knowledge of the Animagus transformation wasn't too big of a help. Several pieces, from the ritualism to the lightning storm necessary to complete that piece of magic, acted as a controlling element for the wild implicit in turning into an animal, an element that was partially summoned through the dew untouched by the human hand.

Too much of the process Minerva had undergone was keyed into obtaining a final result with control as a fundamental element, and the moth chrysalis, besides being employed to act as a turning point for the transformation, was also an element that symbolized the natural progression of the insect's life.

The Animagus transformation, with that in mind, was a part of the wizard, not something separate.

Those multitude of differences were enough to leave me high and dry when it came to applying my knowledge to the curse that was lycanthropy. Not to mention the utter insanity of a piece of magic capable of transmitting itself by bite of all things.

With what I knew, as soon as I had been able to, I had built two silver-lined cages to keep Marie and Paul contained when the full moon came knocking.

The specifications matched in almost every tome that I had been able to study, and between the Room of Requirement, the rich first-year purebloods that came to Hogwarts with a pure silver cauldron and was then too scared to ask his parents for another, I had been able to obtain the pricey material.

Of course, I had also tried again and again the very first recipe I had used to close the two muggles' wounds, exploring just how strong I could make the effects of a potion focused on a 'mirrored moon', refining the process and applying it to other brews, and outright remaking several potions part of Hogwart's curriculum with different ingredients altogether.

I'm not going to share this with Slughorn in any case. The man had already proved how casual he could be in stealing the rough ideas of his students, and I wasn't eager for a repeat.

The Wolfsbane potion was something that had yet to be invented, but I couldn't exactly sit around till the end of the '70s, leaving Paul and Marie to tear through the Forest of Dean during each full moon would spell disaster in the long term.

In line with the first vague statement of Slughorn that stated 'A potion is like a story', it was indeed possible to achieve different brews that did the same things.

Applying that to my line of research for a cure, meant that I could carry on two separate lines of development and discovery. It didn't quite double my chances of succeeding, but each failure offered me new insight into the curse.

The potion in Marie's hand leveraged the 'mirroring effect' I was slowly discovering, while the one for Paul had been realized with an application of the knowledge I had derived from studying Polijuice and the standard Animagus transformation.

Taking a glance at the clock I had placed on one of the walls, I spoke: "Drink them now."

The two shared a fortifying breath before downing the vial I had prepared for each of them. Of course, I had changed the outside color of the glass so that it'd be opaque: I really didn't need either of the two to start questioning why one was of a deep burgundy and the other of a murky white.

An instant later, I summoned to me the two vials and twirled my wand in my fingers, the familiar warmth and thrumming, silent power making me smile fondly as I pointed the length of holly and phoenix feather at myself, my mind shifting to a concept I had grown increasingly familiar with since my first and only ritual.

Shadows were a powerful idea: cast by something as powerful as 'light', they were everpresent, and behaved mercurially in answer to the changes to the position of light sources. Shadows swam with a speed that matched the movement of the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the meanest torch or bonfire.

And just as the light dispelled illusions, as I had observed by casually using Liquid Dawnbreak to find Ravenclaw's Diadem, the shadows concealed.

Just like the shadows cast at twilight on my ritual had concealed my home, birthing a tree that I was still too wary and guilty to study. Eyes turned into crystal-like orbs that shattered into black smoke without spilling a single drop of blood, a tearing sound of ripped flesh thundered in my ears as roots pierced from my father's body...

I need a drink. I shook my head, forcing myself back into the present while I held onto the awareness of shadows that I could barely grasp: "Abdo Me."

With improvised Latin lending the needed gravitas to my will, I dragged my wand in a vertical line in front of me, smoky shadows taking following the tip of holly wood in a rippling, wavy pattern.

The liquid-like substance hovered in front of me for a couple of seconds, only to fall over my form with a sound of silk on silk, uncharacteristically warm as it settled over my skin.

From one moment to the next, I vanished into the shadows of the dimly lit room, the sunset brewed light close enough to twilight that my spell was almost enhanced by that.

I followed with the same sequence of spells that had concealed me in Albania, when I happened so close to vampires that only Liquid Luck stopped me from outright tripping over them.

As soon as the last silencing charm fell on my form, the moon outside finished rising, and the transformation began.

There was a terrible snarling noise, followed by a keening wail that managed to send a shiver down my spine: Paul and Marie's heads were lengthening.

So were bodies, and soon the transfigured clothes they were wearing sizzled and fell apart, unable to sustain the presence of the werewolves. Their shoulders grew hunched, while fuzz started to grow out of their skin, covering the inhuman features they now sported.

Their limbs assumed a new configuration with the snapping of bone and the almost audible tearing of muscles. Hands and feet cured into black-clawed paws, which dug small furrows into the floor of the cages the werewolves were standing in.

I forced myself to watch like I had done so many times before, in perfect stillness, as understanding and humanity fled the two french muggles, leaving behind the inhuman need to tear, bite, and howl.

But, for the first time in the dozen or so attempts, my unerring focus was paid itself by spotting something. There was a difference between the two werewolves, Paul seemed more restrained, as even at the peak of his change, he remained hunched, his head shaking minutely as spasms kept running through his body.

The brew I had developed for him was based on what little I knew from the Wolfsbane Potion that would one day come into being: what I had attempted to do, was to surrender the change of the body to the moon's effect, focusing instead all the power that I could squeeze into the potion on the mind. 

I had employed the Swooping Evil's secretions that I more or less stole from Slughorn's reserves to target the wolf.

Paul's potion was meant to target exclusively the wolf's mind, if a distinction could be made, and to more or less 'obliviate' the wild need for violence that characterized the werewolf. I really need to study the Shadow Tree that hides my home, maybe the leaves can be leveraged to 'hide' the beast from the body, leaving control to Paul.

I swallowed hollowly at the reminder that I still knew almost nothing about what I had accomplished with the metamorphosis of Hagrid's dying father, once more casting the thought aside in order to focus on the here and now.

While Marie's form howled to the ceiling without purpose, as it usually did, something in Paul was fighting the change.

That creature was spasming, hunched on all fours while its head rolled aimlessly, snarling furiously as it stumbled. As if a string under too much strain, Paul suddenly snapped, and a ripple of primal fury could be heard in the haunting howl that followed.

Whatever opposition my brew had managed to muster against the change, it shattered helplessly against the sheer power of the moon-empowered curse. Paul's golden eyes flashed hungrily then, the inhuman mind behind them analyzing the rest of the chamber until the beast's orbs landed on the shadows cloaking me.

And in a way that I wasn't equipped to justify, never mind understand, the werewolf spotted me: there was no transition. One moment it was still after its last challenging howl, the next it flung itself towards, me, slamming against the silver-lined cage that burned fiercely against its skin.

An almost thunderous snarl followed, and the beast started to mindlessly ram against it again and again, while Marie remained surprisingly controlled, given her conditions.

Her inhuman eyes observed what her fellow werewolf was trying to accomplish, but there was no understanding in her behavior, only the distracted curiosity of an animal that didn't feel under threat when a bigger beast had a clear target.

Paul rammed itself once more against the bars, uncaring of the pain that only managed to make the werewolf more furious, and it raked its claws helplessly against the unyielding silver.

A chunk of his fur sizzled, while a bunch of hair managed to fall through the bars, and quick as a viper, I summoned those to me, safely tucking them into one of the crystal vials I always carried with me.

Luckily enough, the insane magic resistance of the werewolf didn't translate to the mere hairs that he shed.

Hopefully, I'd be able to use them either as ingredients or as a clue to deepen my knowledge of the curse, even if I doubted it. Besides, if I needed werewolf's hair to brew a cure, that would severely limit my ability to brew it i the first place.

Another failure. My eyes lingered on both the werewolves for a few seconds, my heart thundering with no control in my chest even if I should have been used to this shit by now. Before Paul managed to kill himself against the cage tailor-made for werewolves, I apparated away, leaving behind the hidden cellar and the forest of Dean.

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