Chapter 150

Chapter 150

Suer cancelled his Animagus transformation and returned to his original form before Hermione’s eyes.

“When did you work it out?”

Hermione answered with a delicate huff, wearing an expression that said she had known it all along.

“I knew I’d given myself away…” Suer muttered with an awkward smile.

“Hmph.” Hermione folded her arms. Whatever thought crossed her mind brought a blush to her face.

Only after a long moment did she part her pink lips. “Well? How did you avoid the detection magic in the girls’ dormitory?”

“I don’t know either… perhaps because this particular magic is so unusual.” Suer glanced cautiously at Hermione and shook his head. “I’m more curious about when you discovered it.”

At that, Hermione looked distinctly pleased with herself.

“I secretly slipped into the hospital wing,” she said. “The moment I saw that version of you in the bed, I knew something was wrong.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“The posture and expression,” Hermione said with certainty. “They weren’t the way I remembered you.”

Were they not? Suer scratched his head. He had watched Professor Dumbledore use one of Fawkes’s feathers to create the copy. At the time, Suer had been astonished by a piece of Transfiguration that seemed to violate the discipline’s laws.

“There are always more solutions than problems, are there not?” had been Dumbledore’s answer.

“Once I knew the person in the bed wasn’t you, it was obvious where you might be.”

Once Hermione began, she could not stop. She paused and gave Suer a sidelong glance.

“If you couldn’t appear in the castle, you had only a few choices: become something else, leave Hogwarts, or hide here in the Room of Requirement, where you could be completely safe and no one would find you.”

“And I noticed that you and your transformed form could never appear in the same place at the same time. In other words…” Hermione’s face reddened. “When I was in the hospital wing and held… held… held him, you never appeared. He always came out just after you left.”

“And another thing: some students at Hogwarts do keep badgers, but there aren’t many. I specifically asked someone to check every one of them, and not a single badger looked exactly like him.”

“Then there was the fourteenth of February… No one can enter the Gryffindor common room without the password. I can promise that only Harry, the others and I were in the common room that night. No one entered or left.”

“Animals can’t speak! And a little badger running through the castle with a flower in his mouth could never avoid attention, even late at night. Don’t forget that Hogwarts is full of portraits capable of speaking to wizards, yet I didn’t hear anyone mention it the next day.”

“At first, I only suspected. Now I’m certain.”

Hermione finished, took several breaths and gave Suer a triumphant look.

Suer could only applaud the girl’s care and reasoning. She truly was Hermione.

“Impressive… Even I didn’t realise I’d overlooked so many details.”

Hermione gave another self-satisfied huff. She seemed especially fond of speaking through her nose today.

She looked as adorable as a child receiving a favourite sweet, and Suer could not help smiling.

“So you’re not angry any more?”

“Of course I’m angry!” Hermione declared haughtily. “Including this time, you’ve lied to me twice. Don’t you know that girls hate being deceived more than anything?”

“But since your apology appears sincere, I shall be magnanimous and forgive you.”

“However!”

“Punishment is unavoidable!”

“Of course, of course.” Suer nodded repeatedly, unable to hide the laughter in his voice. “Wrongdoing deserves punishment. Even Angel understands that.”

“Because you deceived me twice, and also…” Hermione broke off. Whatever she remembered spread an attractive pink flush over her pale neck. “And because you did something outrageous, the offences will be punished together!”
“Of course.” Suer could only nod.

What else could he do but indulge her?

“Your first punishment…” Hermione was very satisfied with his attitude. “If I’m not mistaken, the magic used to turn into an animal is called the Animagus transformation.”

“I want to learn it!”

“All right, all right… What?” Suer had only just nodded when uncertainty appeared on his face. He had personally endured the agony of that transformation and knew how unexpectedly troublesome the magic was.

“Is there a problem?” Hermione asked.

“No. I can teach you.” Suer shook his head. “But becoming an Animagus is extremely difficult. The incantation itself isn’t hard; in fact, it’s simple. The problem is that the steps are extraordinarily complicated. A single mistake means failure. And…”

“And what?” Hermione pressed.

“The first transformation hurts. It hurts terribly. A wizard must remain lucid enough to understand that they are human, not an animal or something halfway between. In other words, you have to remain conscious through the final stage.”

“Does it hurt more than Polyjuice Potion?” She sounded unconvinced.

Suer had never taken Polyjuice Potion and did not know which transformation caused greater pain.

Even so, he doubted that Polyjuice Potion, painful though it might be, could compare with having every bone shattered and reconstructed by the Animagus transformation. In a very real sense, it completely changed a wizard into another animal.

“I believe so.” Suer considered the matter, then nodded firmly.

Hermione hesitated now, but rare and difficult magic held far more appeal for her than pain that would eventually pass.

After only a brief hesitation, she still chose to learn it.

“All right, I’ll teach you.” Suer nodded. “I’ll help you prepare everything you need.”

“Can we start now?” Hermione’s eyes shone. In Professor McGonagall’s first lesson, she had watched the professor perform the beautiful Transfiguration from cat to human, and she had longed to learn the magic ever since.

“I’m afraid not.” Suer shook his head. “An Animagus requires a great deal of preparation, and the first step must begin beneath a clear full moon.”

“The moon is full tonight,” Hermione interrupted eagerly.

“But we need Mandrake, and there’s no chance of obtaining it today. Unless you can sneak out of the castle, reach the greenhouses and take a fresh Mandrake leaf without our Head of House noticing.”

Hermione considered this and could only accept the disappointing reality.

“Don’t rush, Hermione,” Suer comforted her. “Preparing to become an Animagus takes a long time. I suggest that you first memorise the entire procedure. Every step matters, and if one goes wrong, we’ll have to start again.”

“Even with luck on my side, it took me several months to succeed.”

“So you went into the Forbidden Forest during the Christmas holiday to become an Animagus?” Hermione suddenly asked.

“Yes.” Suer shrugged. “If Fang hadn’t fetched Hagrid, you might never have seen me again.”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“I’ll explain the Animagus transformation process now, so you have a basic understanding of it. Then I’ll help you ‘borrow’ that book from the Restricted Section.”

“I can’t be sure whether the book’s author ever successfully became an Animagus, but the procedure is correct.”