Chapter 313 Gabrielle's age

Most of it, in fact, is conjecture and hypothesis; after all, even Adrien himself, who made the ring and the gem, had never used such a thing for its true purpose.

He could only deduce, all on the basis of theory, how to perfect the true Animagus if the ring ever encountered someone who could use it successfully in the future.

Firstly, the preparatory steps at the beginning were indistinguishable from normal Animagus.

Jon needs to find a single leaf of mandrake and hold it in his mouth.

This process lasts for a month, and in between, once he accidentally swallows the leaf or spits it out, he has to start all over again.

When this step is complete, he then needs to remove the leaf on a full moon, fill a small crystal vial with saliva and soak the leaf in it, allowing it to receive the pure moonlight. If the day on which the leaf was taken out according to time was a cloudy day and the moon could not be seen, it meant that the previous work had to be abandoned, and he would have to start it all over again.

When all the conditions are in place, a hair of his own is needed to be put into the small crystal vial illuminated by moonlight, along with a silver teaspoon of dew, which must be collected from a place where there has been no sunlight or human contact for seven whole days, and finally, the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth also need to be added, and the mixture needs to be placed in a quiet, dark environment.

Then, while waiting for a night of thunderstorms, Jon had to chant an incantation that was very different from normal Animagus until a second heartbeat may be sensed, and then drink the mixture on the night of the thunderstorm.

It sounds a bit disgusting, a vial of saliva that will be stored for who knows how long, even if it is produced by himself, it is not quite pleasant.

But this is indeed how Animagus is learned in its entirety, and all Animagus who have been successfully transformed have all gone through this process.

As Adrien deduced in his notes, the steps up to drinking the mixture down on a thunderstorm night were no different, the only difference is the final normal step of holding the wand and chanting the incantation aimed at one's heart area to finalise the transformation.

In the case of the ring spell casting, the final step, of course, needs to be done by using the gem embedded in the ring itself to complete the spell.

But when it comes to transforming into a magical creature, the change in appearance is only secondary, the key lies in the inner change in magic power.

No matter what kind of magical creature it is, even if it is the lowest-level slug, the magic it contains is vastly different from that of a wizard.

The key to a normal Animagus not being able to turn into a magical creature lies in the fact that a wizard has no way of essentially altering his or her own magic.

For example, the Basilisk's direct death gaze effect and the fact that its venomous fang could directly attack the soul are all abilities brought to it by its own special magic.

If a wizard wants to turn into a Basilisk, the only way to do so is to transform his or her magic into that of a Basilisk.

Otherwise, even if the transformation is complete, it will be no different from not changing at all if the magical creature lacks the abilities it inherently possesses.

It was for this reason that Slughorn had told Jon right at the beginning that the current Animagus of the magical world was a failed product of research on whether magic could be transformed.

To truly transform magic, by making everything it represents into a different form, was an unprecedented attempt.

There was no historical reference, so this note left Jon with only a reference, and it was still uncertain whether it would work or not.

But in any case, there was such a possibility in front of Jon, so, of course, he had to try.

He hadn't thought about what magic to attach to the gem he had got from the labyrinth itself, and an Animagus that could transform into a magical creature would certainly be a good choice.

After he had made up his mind, Jon didn't stop, he immediately found the office where Lily was and asked her for a leaf of mandrake.

As it happened, he was there just at the right time, Lily was preparing a potion to lift the petrification using the mandrake, and she was pouring it over Nick's body when Jon entered.

Gabrielle had informed the Professors about Nick's situation the night she had just returned from the French Ministry of Magic.

Mandrake, an important strategic supply nowadays, was readily available in Witching Horizon, and after two days of brewing by Lily, the antidote was complete.

"It's a good thing it was Nick who saw the Basilisk's eyes."

Lily's voice was a little serious; from Nick's state at present alone, she could tell that Jon's and their experience in the Arctic had a high degree of peril than one could imagine.

"If it was you or Gabrielle who locked eyes with that Basilisk, it would have been a big mistake."

Jon held a mandrake leaf that Lily had picked out for him separately in his hand, not rushing to just put it in his mouth, but watching from the sidelines as she poured the antidote over Nick's rigid body.

"Would Gabrielle have had any problem if she had seen the basilisk's eyes as well?"

"She turned into a unique spectral state by drinking the Draught of Living Ghost, but that state doesn't make her immune to direct death from magic. Whether it's the lethal effect of the Basilisk's eyes or the killing curse, it could kill her in a different way by directly transforming her into a ghost."

Hearing Lily's words, Jon's heart couldn't help but wince a bit.

He had likewise felt that Gabrielle's state was obviously very different from that of a real ghost, so he had also been asking her to avoid the Death Eater's killing curse.

"So when will Gabrielle be back to normal?"

Lily replied softly.

"It shouldn't take long, as long as your performance at the Triwizard Tournament goes smoothly, and once we've completely taken over Beauxbatons, we can retrieve her body from there and revive her."

With that said, an interesting question suddenly struck Jon.

"Well, Gabrielle has been living in a state of ghost for over a year now, so when she returns to her own body, how will she age? Will her body grow older as well?"

Lily carefully drizzled the potion along Nick's head, all the way down to Nick's feet, before saying.

"That would depend on how that runaway Beauxbatons Headmistress, Madame Maxime, preserved her body, under normal circumstances, she would have used something like a Freezing Spell to suppress the growth of Gabrielle's body, in which case when Gabrielle's soul returned to her body, it would mean that her physical age would still be the same as when she drank the Draught of Living Ghost, but the true soul and mental age must be calculated according to the time she grew and experienced."

Jon blinked.

So, if Gabrielle remained in her soul state for eight or ten years and then changed back, wouldn't that be the same as being an adult in her mental age and a child in her body?

Seemed kind of interesting?

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