Chapter 4
"Hah — hah — huh—"
I was breathing hard and ragged, fighting the icy drafts that swept through the corridors of the ancient castle while I ran without pause up and down Hogwarts's moving staircases.
*Though "without pause" is a generous way to put it,* I thought grimly, sweat soaking through my clothes, refusing to slow down all the same. *One last push — to Gryffindor Tower, where I can finally rest properly, catch my breath, and cool down under a cold shower.*
I kept moving, steps bouncy despite the fatigue.
I'd only started these morning marathons relatively recently, after spending a considerable time trying to find a workable window for physical training. That I needed to train had become obvious after the very first attempts. This body responded to exercise in something close to a miraculous way.
I didn't know if that was quite the right way to describe it, but I felt like I was running on actual anabolic steroids. The body recovered from any given load with astonishing speed, and the rate of progress was, honestly, a little shocking. Two weeks ago, I had barely managed two laps around Hogwarts.
Which was still a significant distance — the castle was large, and its staircases were numerous. That first run had been comparable to a small marathon of around six kilometers. And that was without accounting for the staircases themselves, which I'd climbed and descended so many times that if this had been a regular apartment building instead of an ancient castle, I'd have run the full length of the stairwell in some twenty-story block twice over.
But that had only been the first session. Two weeks of this routine later, I'd increased my laps to five while barely adding any time to the workouts. I was already suffering enough, waking at half past five every morning to get everything done before eight. Most students slept until eight-thirty or eight-forty — breakfast didn't start until nine, and lessons not until nine-thirty.
As a result, I almost always arrived in the men's showers as one of the first, even after a full training session. But stretching the workout beyond two hours wasn't something I was willing to do. I didn't need extra questions from excessively curious students — they were already giving me strange looks. It was very difficult to conceal a genuine interest in physical fitness within the walls of a boarding school, and exercise wasn't particularly fashionable among local wizards.
There were a few who respected it, of course — mainly older students who practiced dueling, and, I suspected, combat magic, along with the more devoted Quidditch players who genuinely needed to stay in shape given the physical stress of flying on a sports broom at full speed.
"You've been running through the castle again?" The question caught me the moment I returned to our room to grab a change of clothes. Sirius had woken slightly earlier than usual today.
"Yep. Beat my own speed record this morning. I'll be flying through the floors before long instead of running." I nodded at him cheerfully, still fighting to control my breathing.
"Mm. Sure. Just don't forget to bring your broom." The disheveled brunette yawned infectiously.
"Obviously." I paused. "You don't want to join my training at some point?"
It was the first time Sirius had actually brought up the subject. Normally he couldn't have cared less what his friend was doing while he slept.
"Nah, not a chance. I get pushed around plenty in the summer. And I've got a potion regimen to keep my muscle tone up." He ruffled his own hair absently. "I need to drink one today, actually, or I'll forget again."
I just nodded, not intending to pressure anyone into anything. And in a certain sense, Black wasn't wrong. For general health and a decent physique, summer training and a personally tailored potion regimen would serve him just fine. One month's course of those potions probably cost almost as much as my entire education at Hogwarts. But that was neither here nor there.
Envying my companions for their parents' wealth wasn't something I had any intention of doing. An adult person had no business envying a couple of teenagers. Besides, those fitness maintenance potions weren't meant to be taken during active physical training — there were different potions for accelerating recovery, but my body was already handling that better than anyone had a right to expect.
So there was no particular reason to worry about the resources unavailable to me. The most valuable resource — knowledge — Black and Potter shared with me freely enough as it was. James would occasionally show off some new spell, just for the satisfaction of it, and I would quietly study it afterward since the boy had no objection to having another excuse to show off. And Sirius…
Well, I was genuinely grateful to Sirius. The books on Legilimency and Occlumency alone had been invaluable, and on top of that he'd promised to request additional reading for me from his parents. That wouldn't happen until the winter holidays — which I'd already decided to spend in the castle — but the gesture meant something regardless.
For now, my gratitude expressed itself mainly in helping him with Potions essays. But I intended to repay him properly in the future. Or at the very least, I intended to do everything in my power to make sure Sirius didn't end up following the path I knew about from the Harry Potter films. Though I tried not to think too much about that, even as Peter kept catching me looking at him in ways that were less than friendly.
"It's all because of my furry little problem," I muttered quietly, exhaling slowly. "Everything's fine, and then the closer it gets to the full moon, the more on edge I become."
I could feel it in my gut — the beast inside me, anticipating. And that wasn't a figure of speech. I genuinely felt the thing, coiled somewhere within me.
Which was terrifying and infuriating in equal measure. But on the other hand — changes in sensation were tied, one way or another, to changes in me. And the only changes over these past weeks were the aggressively progressing physical fitness, the beginning of deliberate work on my own mind, and the gradually growing sensitivity to magic.
Yes. Where before I had barely understood what magic was or how it worked — where I'd even fallen into the mistaken impression at some point that all magic was simply wand-waving, verbal incantations, and potion-brewing — I had since known better. Wandless and nonverbal magic existed. Which meant that the true power of magic resided somewhere other than just in words and gestures.
Intrigued by this, I'd gone looking for more information. There was no shortage of books on magical theory, though only a tiny fraction of them offered anything of practical use. But for me personally, even the bare understanding that some form of magical energy genuinely resided within the body had been enough to help me feel that energy — or begin to.
Important, and genuinely fascinating, even if my current sensitivity was limited to a faint rustling at the edge of perception during especially large-scale Transfiguration and the most demanding spells. But how did this connect to the sudden ability to sense the beast within me?
The answer was: I didn't know. I had no real grasp of what specifically had triggered the change — the physical training, the awakening magical sensitivity, or the practice in mental magic, which might in turn have influenced my general capacity for magical perception. I didn't even know whether what was happening to me was good or bad.
*What if none of this is normal? Maybe Remus was right not to try developing the advantages his werewolf nature offered. Or maybe the mental magic is the problem. Or maybe I've simply gone wrong somewhere in the mental practices and I'm losing my mind. Or maybe I'm about to lose my mind precisely because of this strange sensation of the beast's desires.* Those questions, and hundreds like them, gnawed at me constantly.
But I refused to stop. I held onto the hope that I was doing something right, and that even this ability to sense the beast might eventually translate into some chance to control it — or at least to reach some kind of understanding with the monster living inside my body.
Those ideas didn't linger long in my mind, however. On Friday, November 29th, 1973, the full moon rose over the Hogwarts skyline once again. I was locked in the Shrieking Shack, as Madam Pomfrey brought me there every time, and the beast inside me was waking up without hesitation.
"Oh, *damn* it — I hate this — I absolutely *hate* this—" I was practically growling, using every ounce of willpower I had to hold onto control of my own body, and losing ground steadily. My mind clouded despite the mental techniques I was applying. My body burned and cracked with pain. I was less and less recognizable as a person with every passing second.
Snow-white fur was spreading rapidly across my hands. My nails were transforming into something harder and sharper. And in my consciousness, like a church bell being struck again and again, a wild werewolf howl rang without pause.
*That's it. I can't hold on.*
The thought was a plea. What came out of my mouth was a strangled wheeze. And then I lost control of my body entirely, slipping into merciful darkness.
Almost.
Somewhere at the very edge of consciousness, I continued to sense my own body — and the distant echoes of whatever the monster that was usually locked deep inside me was feeling. Though I didn't know if "feelings" was even the right word for what I was perceiving. It seemed closer to the naked instincts of something ugly and mindless.
Because even the most dim-witted dog radiated more intelligence and awareness than the dark creature that tore itself free from my body every full moon. This night had made it definitive. The werewolf inside me was a thing without even the rudiments of a mind. No flicker of reason, nothing that resembled thought. Which meant mental magic was unlikely to help me solve this problem.
*As expected,* I reflected bitterly, reclaiming control of my body in the early morning hours. *If it were that simple, werewolves would have solved their own problem long ago. I doubt no one before me ever tried using mental magic against the beast.*
I spat something foul out of my mouth and kept thinking, more or less calmly.
"And yet. The training is doing something." A bitter half-smile crossed my face as I stated what was, on reflection, a fairly obvious fact. "I don't feel nearly as destroyed as I did after the last time."
Physical training had helped my body handle the transformation more easily. The hand I raised in front of me was still trembling like I'd just emerged from a year-long bender. But the last time, my body hadn't had enough left in it to lift that hand at all. Progress was progress, however grim the circumstances — and that was genuinely encouraging.
"I'll have to tell the others. Maybe they'll finally stop asking why I bother with the training," I noted to myself, deciding to stay and rest in the Shrieking Shack for another couple of hours.
It wasn't exactly a five-star establishment, but showing up among people in my current state wasn't wise either. If someone spotted me in the castle right now, they might decide I was well enough to attend class — and I had absolutely no desire to show up to Potions with hands shaking like this. Blow up my cauldron, and then what? I had no money for a new one.