Dumbledore smiled at the absolute terror plastered across Ariana's face. "Relax. How could I ever let you test something so ridiculous? Besides, you're not like other Obscurials. You have perfect control over your Obscurus now. Even if this spell worked, it probably wouldn't affect you anyway."
Dumbledore was still Dumbledore. To him, his sister's safety mattered more than anything else in the world. He was never going to make her ingest something that horrifying.
Wait, did you just admit this whole thing was ridiculous?!
Tom didn't know what Ariana was thinking, but he was holding back a massive urge to scream. If Dumbledore knew this "ritual" was completely unhinged, why suggest testing it in the first place? Just to troll his little sister?!
Newt had clearly realized the same thing, which was why he swiftly shot down Dumbledore's suggestion. But Newt was older and wiser, so he let the headmaster down gently. "You're right, Professor. But as for clinical trials... we don't exactly have any other willing Obscurials lying around. Let's table the testing until we actually have a viable method."
Dumbledore nodded. He had just used the moment to crack a joke and bond with his sister; he hadn't taken the nightmare recipe seriously at all.
But if Ariana knew his reasoning, she probably would've had a total meltdown. (Ariana: What kind of psycho brother uses that as a bonding exercise?! I should've just stayed dead!)
Fortunately, she remained blissfully ignorant. You had to hand it to Dumbledore—he was an absolute mastermind in politics, but a total amateur when it came to normal family dynamics.
Jokes aside, Dumbledore casually tossed the "ritual" draft back onto the desk and looked at Newt and Tom. "So your current roadblock is converting this theoretical process into a complete ritual spell, correct? But why does it have to be a ritual? If an Obscurus is a byproduct of emotion, why not tackle it from that angle?"
"Because that's a total dead end," Newt said, looking thoroughly defeated. "Once we realized the Obscurus was tied to emotion, we tried calming it down. You know I keep a wild Obscurus in my case. No matter what we hit it with, nothing worked."
"Cheering Charms, Calming Draughts—we threw every emotion-altering potion and spell in the book at it. Zero change. The Obscurus stayed just as purely, violently angry as before."
Newt looked positively green as he recounted this. Even though Tom had told him it was unnecessary, Newt had insisted on drinking every single "emotion smoothie" the Obscurus produced during their tests. You know, just in case the flavor mellowed out.
The result? Exactly as Tom predicted. No change. It tasted just as spicy and agonizingly painful as the first batch.
Their spell research had hit a brick wall, but on the bright side, Newt's spice tolerance had skyrocketed. Now, when he took a shot of liquid rage, he only winced instead of breathing literal fire. Newt honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry about that.
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. That made sense. Standard spells usually had diminished effects on deeply ingrained, raw magical anomalies. It was like the Animagus transformation. A basic Transfiguration spell couldn't permanently turn a human into an animal; it required a complex, highly specialized ritual.
The problem was, Dumbledore wasn't exactly an expert on either ritual magic or emotion-based magic. If he had to name one field of magic that heavily involved those elements, and someone he knew who studied it...
"I'll need to look into this more deeply. We can discuss it next time," Dumbledore said. "But if you're trying to invent a brand new branch of magic, I highly recommend studying Ancient Runes. The only emotion-based magic I can think of is rooted in ancient magic."
"Ancient Runes? Understood," Newt said, nodding thoughtfully.
Beside him, Tom felt a massive headache coming on. So after all this talking, he just got slapped with another mandatory class?! This was entirely too much work for a cat!
If he remembered correctly, the only reason he agreed to this project was to secure the patent rights, make a mountain of Galleons, and retire in absolute luxury. Instead of getting easier, his life was getting significantly harder!
But what could he do now? If he quit, all his hard work would be flushed down the drain. To recoup his initial investment, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and keep studying.
This wasn't a typical sunk-cost fallacy. Usually, you didn't know if a sunk cost would ever pay off. But here, the massive payout was guaranteed; the only variable was how long it would take. Time was the one thing Tom had plenty of, so he might as well see it through.
"By the way, Newt, you might also want to look into the abilities of certain magical creatures," Dumbledore added just as they were about to leave. "I believe some creatures possess magic deeply tied to their emotions, which requires careful grooming and guidance as they grow."
Newt paused, blinking. Dumbledore was right. Some magical creatures were incredibly volatile and prone to magical outbursts when they were young. But with proper human intervention and emotional guidance, they grew up perfectly capable of controlling their power.
Because he had proven the Obscurus was a magical byproduct, he had stopped treating it like a beast and abandoned his magizoology approach. But maybe Dumbledore was onto something...
"I'll look into it immediately," Newt promised, his expression dead serious.
Newt's reaction didn't matter right now. Tom, however, suddenly had a very strange look on his face. Artificially influencing a magical creature's emotions to guide it toward sanity... didn't that sound incredibly familiar?
If his memory served him right, Norberta was the perfect example of a magical beast he had personally "influenced" and trained! Regular dragons were inherently arrogant and vicious; no amount of taming could change their core nature.
But Norberta was different. Thanks to Tom's interference, she was gentle and obedient—well, at least to him and his friends. But it proved she could fully control her temper. And wasn't that because Tom had actively participated in her birth?
The same went for the unicorns. Tom's intervention had given them higher intelligence instead of relying purely on animal instinct.
Wait a minute... does that mean the new Obscurus inside Ariana was born because of me?! Tom realized with a jolt.
After all, Tom was the one who had ripped the original Obscurus out of her. If he hadn't done that, the new one wouldn't have formed. Plus, Ariana herself had admitted the new Obscurus was triggered by the sheer anger and grief of watching Tom "die" in front of her.
If that Obscurus could talk, it would probably call Tom its godfather.
Is Ariana's current stability entirely my doing? Tom side-eyed her, then quickly shook his head.
No way it's that simple! If it were, we could just force every Obscurial to eat that unholy pie recipe and call it a day! That's ridiculous!
It wasn't a baseless comparison. Newt had pointed out that while he and Dumbledore added some garnish, Tom was the one who built the ritual's foundation. If merely associating with Tom was the cure, then it stood to reason his bullshit "ritual" could actually work.
Tom firmly believed it couldn't be that simple. Neither Dumbledore nor Newt actually thought the gag ritual had any merit either. So they tossed the idea aside.
Maybe one day, some poor idiot would actually take the recipe seriously and attempt it. Only then would they realize the terrifying truth: the joke ritual actually worked.
But who knew when that would happen? By then, Tom and Newt would have likely invented a safe, legitimate cure that didn't involve patients poisoning themselves.
Watching Newt and Tom leave, Dumbledore picked up the list of culinary war crimes and shook his head. He had no idea what had possessed him to play along with their nonsense. "Still, it felt rather nice to let loose for a moment," he murmured.
Tucking the recipe away, he walked over to the fireplace, grabbed a handful of Floo Powder, and hesitated. Finally, he threw it into the flames. "...Nurmengard."
He stared at the roaring emerald flames for a long moment before stepping inside, murmuring that familiar yet distant name.
Time flew by, and soon enough, Christmas was just around the corner. Tom was in an excellent mood.
Though the spell research was crawling along, Dumbledore was right about Ancient Runes being a massive help. With the headmaster's occasional tutoring—even if he mysteriously vanished for long stretches afterward—Tom and Newt had finally constructed a basic framework for the ritual.
Better yet, Tom had finally finished grinding through Nicolas Flamel's "Basic Alchemy Guides" and was ready to tackle the advanced stuff.
The only downside was his notoriously short attention span. He knew the advanced techniques in theory, but his actual execution was a bit rusty compared to Flamel's flawless notes.
Of course, Tom had no idea how spectacular Nicolas's face looked when he casually announced he had finished the notes.
That was over six hundred years of accumulated experience! Sure, Tom skipped the trial-and-error phases, but mastering it all in roughly a month was completely absurd!
The most terrifying part was that Tom's "rusty execution" was only rusty compared to Nicolas Flamel. If any other Master Alchemist watched Tom work, they wouldn't spot a single flaw. Nicolas only edged him out thanks to six centuries of pure muscle memory.
Thankfully, Nicolas was already numb to Tom's freakish talent. The initial shock wore off, leaving him surprisingly content.
Having an apprentice like this was a blessing. Nicolas had been ready to embrace death because the world had grown unfamiliar, his friends were gone, and he had hit the absolute ceiling of alchemy. He had nothing left to strive for.
But with Tom around, the future of alchemy didn't look like a dead end anymore.
As for his lifespan? He still had the Philosopher's Stone. Even if Tom was technically a cat with a fifteen-year life expectancy, Nicolas could just pump him full of Elixir of Life until he was a centenarian feline.
Nicolas stopped holding back and poured every ounce of his knowledge regarding alchemy golems into Tom.
Since building golems also required a solid grasp of Ancient Runes—which tied perfectly into Newt's Obscurus research—Tom simply dragged Nicolas into their spell-crafting project.
The six-hundred-year-old billionaire certainly didn't care about the royalty money, and Tom couldn't care less about fame or prestige. They could divide the credit however they wanted.
[It's a shame time is so tight,] Tom signed regretfully, watching Hagrid lug a massive Christmas tree through the castle corridors.
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked curiously.
[If I had a little more time, I could have built highly detailed, fully articulated alchemy golems. Imagine if I dressed them up as Santa Claus and ran a premium 'Santa Delivery Service' for the students. Do you have any idea how much money I could have made?]