章節 84: Harry Potter : Chapter 83: Beyond I
The change was as gradual and as continuous as the one that brought her from human to werewolf, but where before that had been underlined by a cacophony of broken bones and torn muscles, now Marie seemed to ripple as if made of water, and, at the same time, as she had already changed fully.
However, where the standard transformation came in seconds, this one change happened slowly: still immobilized by being caught between a state of being and not-being, Marie's werewolf form elongated, loosing some of the hunched postures she previously held.
While the fur abandoned its sickly grey color and assumed a more sleek, steeler shade that gave off just a hint of the full moon that had first summoned the beast.
What? As the sun slowly completed the process known as the dawn, the cursed creature that I had hoped to have healed turned towards e with soulful, aware golden eyes.
I didn't dare to use Legilimency on Marie now, besides the obvious dangers of opening my own mind to a creature whose primal task was to hunt and rabidly kill humans, as she was in a state of flux, I had no idea what would happen to my own very much fixed in its ways mind if contact were to be initiated.
More importantly, while the golden irises that appeared to mirror the rising sun stared into me, I realized that I didn't feel with the unnamed sense that was my own magic anything resembling the rabid need for human flesh that had always suffused the air around any werewolf. Even so, I grimaced as I witnessed Marie change, but not back into a human.
The quicksilver collar around her neck seemed to melt and flow along her fur, gifting it its shade as I supposed the purpose of the seal was integrated into whatever new form the muggle that I had wished to save mutated into something entirely new.
The tail turned from the ugly stump typical of a werewolf into a longer, fluffier thing, clawed hands that still had opposable thumbs when she was a normal werewolf, as a mockery of what the human had been, turned fully into paws as the fur grew over the fuzzy, almost absent one that covered the hide of the creature.
Then, as if it had been meant to happen all along, just as the sun completely lifted itself above the horizon, Marie shook herself, once more able to move, and cast her massive head back, howling a tune that had nothing to do with the grim call for human flesh that I had grown used to.
There was no bloodthirsty hunger there, only the far more primal, and far more understandable, call for a hunt.
The same principle that I had used to engineer the change, had now seeped into the very being of Marie, and was part of her in the same way that her new tail was, or her golden, soulful eyes that seemed to glint off sunlight even as the sky remained dark and stormy, hiding the sun from sight.
Following the same instinct that Slughorn had instilled into me with his first potions lesson, the feeling that I had unknowingly sharpened by sacrificing Hagrid's dad -and for the first time, the sudden flash of roots piercing the human flesh didn't make me want to hurl-, the sixth sense that I had forged with the ritual to save Tom's life after the Hydra attacked us.
I began to run East, towards the rising sun, wand ablaze with a silvery light that pierced the pitch dark woods.
Something told me that this hunt was as important as the one that I had used to leverage a loophole of the curse: and I had spent the previous day emptying the area of anything resembling worthy prey, in order to force Marie to jump on my designated target.
Behind me, the moose-sized silvery wolf with golden eyes ran silently over the ground, easily keeping up the pace with me as I guided the hunt. Even as my mind struggled to understand everything that had just happened, I grimaced openly, as I knew that, if only for Marie's sake, I would need to bring both Tom and Minerva in on the whole thing.
I didn't think that the process could be reversed, or if it should be, really.
Maybe it's be better to devise a second ritual to push the giant wolf back into a human shape that matched the mind hidden behind those golden eyes that cared only for the hunt, but in any case, the more time Marie spent as a giant wolf, the more time the result of my ritual had to stabilize itself, its purpose bleeding into meaning, and the meaning into truth.
...
Tom Riddle raised his eyes from the stack of parchments he was perusing as the doors to the Rùnda were almost slammed open, only to roll them as he witnessed Rubeus stride in with powerful steps, quickly reaching his cabinet and pouring himself a generous dose of a bright green brew that began to steam as soon as he placed the bucket-sized glass near the lit fireplace.
Hagrid looked like he hadn't slept in days, and knowing that the moon had been full just the night before, Tom allowed a sly smirk to appear on his face.
The presence of the black king chess piece secure in one of his pockets and reminding him of the fantastical progress he had made on the 'storing-ink' as Rubeus insisted in calling it, as always proving his lack of appreciation for the elegance that a properly chosen name could convey.
"Where is Minerva?" his rumbling voice made the Slytherin prefect rise a challenging eyebrow, not taking personally the lack of any greetings, as he knew very well how tediously meaningless those could be when both parts had a clear idea that the conversation about to happen was more similar to an unsanctioned duel than to anything else.
Riddle openly grimaced in distaste as he answered: "Apparently talking with your pet first-year gave her an idea about her task from Flamel," and if there was any jealousy or rage in his voice, Rubeus didn't mention it.
"so she's spending her mornings in the Library with him as an errand boy before coming here with her findings."
The unnaturally tall Slytherin student took a deep gulp of his mint-green brew, and seemed to immediately stand taller while his gaze sharpened. Dark eyes met each other across the room, and a winning grin appeared on his face.
"So Filius passed her test? She'd hardly spend time with him otherwise... and I wouldn't assume anything about the kid if I were you: you might just remain surprised."
Just as Riddle prepared his rebuttal, Minerva entered the Rùnda with her usual stalking grace, a small column of tomes floating beside her while she kept her eyes glued to an open tome that she held in front of her face.
Immediately, Rubeus reluctantly let go of his mirth and returned serious: "Drop everything and come with me: you have to see something."
Bottle-green eyes rose from the page they had been scrutinizing and narrowed minutely: "Good morning to you too, Rubeus, Tom." she immediately returned her focus to the tome, "I'm afraid I am a bit busy for..."
"I cured Lycanthropy."
The words fell from Hagrid's mouth with all the veritable weight of a landslide. Tom's face turned carefully blank as his mind whirled with a thousand ideas, none of which would be much appreciated by those surrounding him, while the cat animagus outright dropped her open tome, only to catch it mid-air thanks to her insane reflexes.
Rubeus looked first at the Gryffindor Head Girl and then to the Slytherin prefect: "This is really something you need to see."
It was lucky that it was a Saturday, and so the three were quickly able to sneak their way out of the Castle Grounds and into the Forbidden Forest, past the Wards that stretched themselves across the outer layer of the woods and onto the trail that had clearly been made by Rubeus' coming and goings from the school.
During the whole trip, the tallest of the mages kept his mouth shut, letting the questions of his friends build up one upon the other, only to answer with a sardonic: "You'll see."
A brief chain of three apparitions later, which left Riddle to impose his will onto himself in order to not slump against a random tree and Minerva with a faint green tint to her cheeks, they were arrived: "Where are we, Rubeus?"
"This is the Forest of Dean," Rubeus answered distractedly as he walked to the center of a clearing, slowly followed by his friends, "I'm asking you to not attack, even if it may be a bit of a shock, you're perfectly safe, I assure you."
"Your definition of 'safe' isn't really..."
"Even if you've 'cured' your pet-werewolf," Tom interrupted Minerva's trite objection as he recovered from the process of side-long apparition with Hagrid, "how are we meant to witness it? Even if it's cloudy, I promise you that the sun has been up for a while."
"I said I cured Lycanthropy:" Rubeus voice came as if he was distracted, and in fact the other two mages saw how he turned from side to side, eyes closed and wand slowly held aloft, as if he was listening to a hidden tune in their surroundings.
"As in, the werewolf is no longer a werewolf: now I really need Minerva to get Mrie back to human, and you, Tom, to go over the process, since I used much of your recent research for it."
As he spoke, Rubeus raised his wand fully, pointing it at the sky and unleashing a silvery, soft light that had nothing to do with a Patronus, it was far more ethereal and distant, almost as if he was calling forth some memory of a moonlit night.
...
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