Stolen Years: The Flower Reborn as a Tree

Chapter 12: Walburga's Journal

It took a few days for Albus and Minerva to get a lesson plan done for Felicis. By then, she had bounced back from shutting in on herself and reassured herself that the counter-curse would be found. During the day she would study her textbooks, Albus, Minerva, and a few trusted members of The Order would stop by for a short period of time to supervise Felicis as she would use the wand Albus provided her to perform the magic she had been learning that day. She settled into the routine rather quickly, and her progress was above what many had expected. While she missed Hogwarts, Felicis was greatful that she had a routine and lessons at the Burrow. Molly remained wary of Felicis', but it seemed less out of fear now and more of uncertainity on how to approach. Molly allowed her sons to interact with Felicis' and they were slowly worming their ways into her heart.
It was a devestating blow to Felicis' family and members of The Order who had been teaching Felicis when she was found to have fallen back into a coma on the morning of September twenty-second.
When a month passed and Felicis didn't wake up, everyone's hopes began to fade. With each month that past, more of them began to mourn.
Nearly everyone had given up on Felicis by the time she awoke on August 22nd, 1977. Minerva had been visiting Felicis when her eyes flew open and she jerked against her restraints. With her transformation from her severe partial Lycanthropy complete, Felicis was overwhelmed by the ehanced sounds, scents, and the gaping maw of hunger that gnawed away at her very soul. She gnashed her teeth and struggled against her restraints, a mixture of whimpers and snarles eminating from her. It wasn't until Minerva urgently forced a vial of Draught of Peace and Calming Draught down Felicis' throat did she scrounge up enough mental strength to become cognisant. Through gritted teeth Felicis informed her godmother of the predatory abyss of hunger that threated to consume her entire being. Over the course of an hour Minerva tentatively fed Felicis cuts of raw meat until she was stable enough to be released from her restraints. Felicis' self hatred grew into a deep-seated revultion for herself and what she had become. Learning how long she had been unconscious for and the bizarre stasis her body was apparently in only added to her inner turmoil. Her heart beat and her body still required nutrients, but many others basic functions of her body had stopped. Her nails never grew after she cut them, her hair did not grow, and her menstruation had stopped.
The immense uncertainty of her life left Felicis plagued with immense dread. She would search for control wherever she could. The first bit of control she obsessed over taking back was her studies. With the fact Felicis could slip back into a coma at any moment meant the original set up for her studies was highly ineffective. The abundance of subjects taught at Hogwarts were a wealth of knowledge that Felicis once looked forward to obtaining. But now that abundance could no longer be fully explored with the limited time Felicis had. And so, Felicis cut out the subjects of less importance until all the remained were Charms, DADA, Transfiguration, Potions, and Study of Ancient Runes. Then came the issue that Felicis would need to dedicate a full day to her Potions studies, seeing as she planned to study her passion to the mastery of a Potiona Mistress. To be as effective as possible in her studies, Felicis would need a time turner. She would dedicate the day to spell casting and studying, then at the end of the day she would use the time turner to start the day over and study Potions- in addition to the math and Ancient Runes that were relevant to potion making. Felicis presented her new study plan to Albus and Minerva. Albus had been accepting but Minerva was hesitant. It didn't take long for Minerva to agree to Felicis' study plan after a bit of coersion from Albus. One time turner and one shed with a magically expanded interior later and Felicis was ready to begin. Felicis settled into the new routine quickly. And, with her putting everything into her studies, progressed rapidly. Every morning she would rise before the sun and begin her studies, taking no breaks. She studied as she ate, she waited until bed to use the restroom and to bathe- even then she would recite the lessons she had learned that day whilst doing such. As the sky grew dark, Felicis would head to the shed Albus and Minerva provided for her to practice her Potion studies. Within the storage closet she would use her timeturner and begin her Potion studies as the sun rose once more that day. On September twenty-second, Felicis slipped back into a coma. Once more it wasn't until August twenty-second of the following year that Felicis woke up. With a pattern emerging, Felicis clung to the control she could maintain with such little conscious time she had in the year. She nearly had a meltdown when she spent her first day moving into and setting up her new room on the newly constructed fourth floor. Every hour afterwards that was wasted remembering what Felicis had learned the previous year was an agonizing dissapointment of wasted opportunity to move on to new studies. 1978 gave way to 1979, and Felicis was fighting a constant battle with herself. Despite Felicis' progress over such little time being considered an astounding success, all Felicis could focus on was her inability to do more. The hinderence of time weighed heavily upon her. Her body didn't have enough time to adapt to her growing power, resulting in bursts of magic and lack of control when her emotions were strong. She had to put extreme focus into every spell in order not to use excessive amounts of power. Albus began giving her lessons in occlumancy again and Professor Reed (Hogwarts' Divination Professor) gave her lessons in meditation, and occasionally Divination Theory, hoping the lessons would teach her about dedication and patience alongside familiarizing her body with her magic. Her studies began to feel pointless, yet she pushed herself to continue to give it her all as she ignored the inevitable outcome of her breaking point unless a counter-curse could be found.