Love and Black Magic

Chapter Fifty: Justine Callen

The blond-haired girl stood up while taking her neck with both hands and a choking expression was reflected in her eyes as Calynn and Lily were disturbed, but apparently both teachers already knew what it was. Meryl emitted light sounds as if she needed water at the same moment but immediately she stopped and her legs began to stretch slightly as her characteristic blond hair began to turn dark, her green eyes slowly lightened reaching a bright blue at the same time that Calynn and Lily's former friend had disappeared before her eyes and instead a young woman of no more than thirty years could be seen while blinking, first greeting the principal and Professor McGonagall.

"Justine," Dumbledore said, taking her arm and kissing her cheek.

"Professor Dumbledore, it's nice to see you," the woman commented as she gave the old man a smile. The three children looked astonished at what had just happened, their looks of disbelief were a sign of their confusion about it.

"Glad to see you," said Professor McGonagall this time, hugging her. After the old Meryl finished greeting both of them, silence reigned again in the room while Dumbledore was about to speak, getting up.

"She is Miss Callen," Dumbledore began as he pointed to the woman with the palm of her hand and she only gave them a smile. "Professor McGonagall and I decided at the beginning of the course to place an adult capable enough to protect a student, since we assumed that it was in this generation that we would find the winner of the Moira Curse and we did not want to neglect the indicated one," explained the director while still being watched by those looks of surprise on the part of the three students. "All the time we thought you were the new Death Eater at school, and apparently we weren't wrong," the director concluded, letting the little ones talk.

"But how is it that Meryl is that way now?" Calynn asked trying to express himself as well as possible.

"Polyjuice Potion," Dumbledore replied, "that potion allows you to transform yourself into someone else with just something of the person you want to convert for a period of time," the old man explained as the little girls listened, tried to sort their questions.

"You mean there really is a Meryl Johnson?" Asked the boy seriously.

"That's right, Mr. Snape," he began. "The real Meryl Johnson lived on Spinner's End, some houses further from yours, Miss Evans. In fact, she comes from a family of Muggles, so your parents had a fairly close relationship with the parents of the real Meryl," the director continued. "That relationship lasted until they learned about their daughter's magical powers and lost contact for fear of sharing this and being considered insane," said the old man as he remembered exactly the events that happened. "The day when the real Meryl got her letter from Hogwarts, I went to meet the parents, just as I did with you, Miss Evans, only Miss Johnson was slightly older than you," said the principal while keeping everyone present quite focused on the story. "It was at that moment that the idea came to my mind because I knew that you," he mentioned to Calynn, "and Miss Evans shared a friendship, something that could help me to have a spy inside Spinner's End, something that worked quite well for a few months. Unfortunately, months before you arrived to Hogwarts," he mentioned referring to little Black, "Miss Johnson would go to live with her parents in France, so the change of school was necessary and, one of the proposals I made to her parents to still have the protection that the teacher and I aspired was to ask Miss Johnson for some ingredients for the Multijugos potion," Dumbledore continued, making slight pauses. "Later we managed to make a large portion with the help of Professor Slughorn and we decided to look for the right person to acquire that protection." He paused as he gave a smile to the blue-eyed woman who returned her as friendly. "We found Miss Callen a few days after her participation in the attack of one of the oldest Death Eater settlements where she emerged quite victorious. We sent her this request by an owl and received his approval a couple of days later, saying she would take this opportunity to... to do what, Miss Callen?" Dumbledore finished, looking back at the woman.