I solemnly swear that I am up to no good | Professor Remus Lupin

Chapter 23 | Fear

The next day I couldn't attend any of classes, because I couldn't walk to many stairs and they all took place in the towers. So I slept in and read more about werewolves. Madam Pomfrey gave me breakfast and checked my injury. Right before lunch break was over i walked towards the Transfiguration classroom to meet McGonagall like Dumbledore had told me. I saw that the third years had finished their class and walked out. I greeted Ron, Hermione and Harry. He winked knowingly at me and i laughed. When all students had walked past me i walked into the room.

"Ah, Miss Lovegood!" McGonagall greeted me and motioned me to walk towards her. She told explained me how she learned to transform into her animagus form and what is important when I would transform.

"I know an animagi is different from the transition of a Veela, mainly because of the control. Turning into an animagi is hard and takes long to learn, that's why not every wizard continues learning it. And it can go horribly wrong, if you do it incorrectly. I remember that you were pretty close to transforming in your third year, when I thought it. I suggest we start there and you transform into an animagi at first and learn the skill...this way you can at least experience to transform into something else than your human form." She explained and I nodded in agreement.

"I remember that you managed to fulfill the process successfully until the potion, is that correct?" She asked me and looked over glasses.
"Yes, Professor, but don't I need to do the month long process again?"

"Gladly not, Miss Lovegood. We kept the leafs from every student, since some want to continue learning later on." She explained and with a flick of her hand a small bottle with my name on it flew into her hand. The mandrake leaf was in it. "You are truly in luck, Miss. We can continue making the potion since it was full moon only a few days ago." She celebrating explained and I smiled at her. We walked towards the table were she had displayed the things the needed for the potion. "Do you still remember the ingredients?" She asked me with a risen eyebrow.

"The leaf of course, a hair of mine, a teaspoon silver of dew that never been opened or touched and the chrysalis of a death's head  hawk moth."

"Excellent" McGonagall stated and I smiled proudly. We started to make the mixture and McGonagall told me that the next step was to put it into a quiet and dark room, and we did. She had a large metal box in one of the room, that was often used for those potions.

"Now we need to wait for a heavy storm, when this happens I need you to immediately come to me and I will bring you to an open place where you drink the potion. And you need to chant the incantation amato animo animato animagus - repeat after me" I did as I was told and she continued. "Good, you will do this at every sunrise and sundown and right before you drink the potion. This is very important you can't miss it, do you understand?" I nodded.
"While you say the words point with the tip of your wand at your heart" she explained.

I thanked her for her time and followed her instructions carefully. I continued attending the classes I could and Remus came back on the next D.A.D.A. lesson the following day. The lessons were as fun as always and I spend most of my time with the twins and Grace. I was glad that they got along so well. Snape continued to harass me every time he could and Madam Pomfrey told me that my infection was getting better.

..................

Three weeks went by and everything began to look like fall had arrived. The days got colder and it was raining some times, but never storming. It was only one week before Halloween was about to happen when I woke up this morning. I sat myself up and looked out of the window, this was my last night sleeping in the hospital wing. It was a Wednesday and when I looked out of the window I saw dark clouds in the sky, not letting any light through. It was about to rain, maybe even a storm. I quickly got dressed into my uniform and walked towards the great hall.

My first class would be Defense against dark arts. I found myself smiling as i thought of seeing him again, even though I just saw him yesterday at dinner. I walked into the great hall and felt heads turn towards me but I was looking for a specific pair of eyes, which I found at the teacher table. We exchanged a smirk and i walked towards the Gryffindor table where Grace was already sitting with Fred and George.

"Maeve, finally. I need your help, these two idiots want to make all of the pumpkins at the Halloween party turn into spiders!" Grace explained, she was helpless. I knew very well how exhausting it could be to argue with the twins. It was a dead end.

"Then I would suggest you not getting to close" i answered her and winked at the twins. Their idea was too good to let this chance get away. Grace was shocked at my answer and the twins dramatically winked back at me and started laughing.

"Grace, don't worry"
"We will take care of you"
"But this idea is pure gold" the twins explained.
"Just look"
"It will be worth it"
"Completely worth it"
"Look" George Said and turned towards the younger students. I saw the golden trio sitting not far away from us.
"Ron!" Fred shouted and got the attention of his younger brother.
"Spiders" George shouted and Rons facial expression immediately went to disgust and fear. Everyone started laughing and it took him a few moments to recover again.

"See, Grace" Fred said towards Grace again. "Pure gold".
Grace wasn't fully convinced but she laughed at Ron's expression.

"How far are you at the lessons with McGonagall" George asked after a while. Before I could ask noticed that Grace looked confused, I haven't told her about my mother and the whole Veela thing. I was scared how she would react. Since the research on werewolves that showed how they were treated by society and many other creatures, I began to feel insecure about my abilities. I was scared that I could hurt people, McGonagall had warned me about that. She had said that if I wasn't able to control my abilities I could really be a danger to people. And since I only was a half-Veela no one really seemed to know how my transformed form would be.
I found myself being more and more scared of myself, so I was really anxious about everyone that knew, in fear that they would leave me.

"I will be back in a second" I said towards George and went away to get more honey, because the one I wanted to use was empty. And I needed time to think about what to answer. I feared that Grace would be scared of me if she find out. I knew that she feared werewolves even in their normal form, probably just because she never met one before and believed societies lies. I couldn't really name her though, how could she know?

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a new jar of honey. Honey was my second guilty pleasure, after matcha. After I got I walked back to the table, I noticed that the twins were telling Grace something that seemed to scare her...

oh no, was all I could think.