Chapter 108 — When the Storm Arrived

The cupboards were empty when we opened them. We arranged our water and medical supplies where they could be reached easily, with clean dressings beside the limited things Pomfrey had allowed for the workroom. Those might help an ordinary injury. Neither of us imagined that wrapping a limb would solve being unable to turn it back into a limb.

Hermione also took the padded parcel of unicorn blood from her bag. The vial remained sealed as she described a recipe proposing its use in a restorative draught. I looked at the silver contents while she distinguished the recipe’s claims from anything we had tested, particularly during a failed transformation.

The unicorn had offered it freely. That mattered without telling us what mixing it with other ingredients and pouring it into me might do. I asked her to leave it sealed, and she returned it to the padding. The wrapped horn stayed in her bag as well, with no part of either becoming the guarantee I would have liked.

She changed the location written on the emergency message. The floor, tapestry and method for producing the door went onto it, and I checked those instructions by following them again from outside. When I returned, she was seated at the table with our plan beside the sheet. We now had arrangements to show McGonagall, she said.

I remained beside the mat, hearing my watch in the quiet. I wanted to try the following day if the storm arrived, I told her. Hermione looked at me before reminding me that McGonagall intended to review the arrangements first. When I said I remembered, she observed that this removed any possibility of calling it a misunderstanding.

I could have described the month, the second heartbeat and the room I found. None explained why the review ceased to matter. I wanted the chance before me and disliked the prospect of waiting for another storm after somebody else decided I was ready. Saying it aloud made it less impressive than the version I had been repeating privately.

Hermione looked at the emergency sheet. ‘I think you’ve learned the work. I also think we’re very good at finding reasons to do the part we want.’ I told her she did not have to help, and she made clear that she knew. I would not be able to explain this later by claiming she had no choice because I was impossible.

I sat opposite her while she went through the conditions. Doubt about the mixture, my health or any preparation would stop us before beginning. Trouble afterwards meant sending for help immediately, without waiting for my pride or concealing what happened. She also refused to promise that McGonagall would remain uninformed afterwards.

I agreed. She checked that I meant it before drawing her chair closer to work through the final pages. The seriousness made the playing card on the table seem a smaller contribution than intended: on its back I had asked to be introduced to cheese before the cat if I became a mouse. Hermione read it, shook her head and turned it face down.

We left the medical case and card there. The potion remained in the workroom’s dark cupboard until the storm completed its resting stage, with only a short transfer needed afterwards. My pouch, brush and map came back with me as the door vanished behind us. At sunset, another daily strip burned through in the workroom, leaving one for Sunday morning.

Sunday’s clouds seemed low enough to catch on the towers. That was promising for my plans and unpleasant for Harry’s, though he ate with his usual concentration before a match. Ron supplied occasional thoughts about Hufflepuff while I tried finding a natural moment to explain that Hermione and I might miss the game.

Harry asked whether it was more Transfiguration work. They knew about the preparation after a month of written replies, but not the particular decision I had made about that afternoon. I said yes, aware of exactly what the answer left out, and he wished me luck with whichever stage I had reached.

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I wished him luck too and listened while Ron returned to the weather. I did not want the match to become merely a convenient distraction in my account of the day. Harry had worked for it, Wood had made everyone work for it, and I hoped the afternoon would be kinder to them than the sky suggested.

The thirteenth daily strip had been used at sunrise. Before lunch I prepared two more: one for the final incantation and a spare in case the first was damaged before we began. Having a second piece would not mean being able to repeat a transformation gone wrong. I checked the inscriptions, direction and release before putting them in separate protective folds.

My hands remained steady, which pleased me until I noticed how carefully I was watching them. The second rhythm was still there whenever I attended to it. After lunch Hermione met me at the stairs with her notes and the covered emergency message, having checked the latest observations without proposing that a forecast would replace actual lightning.

Three passes with the same request brought the door back before the rain grew heavy. The table and supplies stood where we left them, including the face-down card. Hermione checked the door, medical case and message before reminding me that these arrangements did not grant the permission we had omitted to obtain.

I acknowledged that. She opened the notes and asked me to describe the points at which we would stop: the mixture looking wrong, uncertainty about the storm, difficulty with my condition or spell, and any failure in the arrangements. Once transformation began, simply deciding to cancel could not be treated as an available escape.

She asked about keeping my human identity. I described the rehearsed work of recognising my shape and myself through unfamiliar sensations, then confirmed that I did not choose the animal. Whatever appeared, I would have to accept it, even if it was nothing like what I hoped.

Hermione turned over the card and observed that I had considered a mouse. I defended the cheese as a constructive suggestion, making her smile briefly before I put it beside the case. The joke had done what I wanted without improving any part of the preparation itself.

My pouch went onto the table with the closed map inside. I set the brush and protected final strip within reach, keeping the spare folded separately. Concentrating on a new body seemed complicated enough without discovering what a pouch full of charged paper might do during the change.

Hermione glanced at my watch. The accounts included ordinary clothing and worn accessories, I said after considering it; our evidence did not extend to my stock of talismans. I kept the watch, the one chosen with Luna, feeling its familiar weight against my wrist. Nothing enchanted made it useful in that moment.

We returned to the corridor casement near the workroom to watch the weather. The potion stayed in its cupboard, because moving it before the resting stage ended would waste the preparation at the last opportunity. Rain struck the glass while the grounds grew indistinct. I could no longer separate the people heading towards the pitch from the grey movement beyond it.

Hermione checked her notes once and put them away. Waiting offered plenty of opportunities to invent arguments, imagine an animal or check an already settled detail, with no effect on the clouds. I rested my palms on the sill and remembered Buckbeak’s first leap from the ground. I had been frightened and enjoyed it, but Hagrid’s instructions for a short flight had not made this the same decision.

A white flash lit the rain. Hermione caught my sleeve, and we waited until thunder shook the window before moving to the workroom. I opened the cupboard for the first time since placing the mixture inside and found the vial exactly where I left it. Its appearance had changed completely.

The separate ingredients were gone. A clear, deep red liquid occupied their place, and we each checked it against the description. The storm had completed the stage requiring undisturbed darkness; we could now retrieve the finished draught. I lifted the vial in its support, kept the protective cover round it and carried it the short distance to the waiting room.

Hermione opened the door. Only inside did I remove the cover and set the vial down, looking at the small quantity which represented everything we had made. I unwrapped the final strip beside the brush while she stood clear of the space around me. Her wand was ready, with the emergency parchment on the table within reach.

She asked whether I was ready. Seeing her there reassured me without making the answer simpler: she could help if something went wrong, but she could not perform the change for me. I looked from the vial to the prepared paper and took a breath before answering.