Chapter 108: The power he knows not
As usual Hermione joined the Potter and Black families at the end of August. Only then did Rose and Susan look at their OWLs results that had been left unopened for a whole month. As expected they earned an Outstanding in every subject they presented or most of them. For the first time however things went differently.
Rose, to Hermione’s shock, had decided to drop a few classes to take new ones, while Hermione didn’t. Much like Lily and Rick had done during their time at Hogwarts, Hermione wanted to reach for all available classes, something she could only do by herself if Rose was doing the same as they shared notes on the subjects they couldn’t attend because of time conflict. It felt like a betrayal to the muggle-born witch.
“Hermione, I don’t need a NEWT in a subject that won’t help me for my career. Neither do you. You’re just being your over-over-achieving self. And it’s not like you can’t pass the NEWT by yourself later in life. I have no need for divination and astronomy and that gives me more time to do something else that I’d rather do.”
“Like what?!”
“Spend time with my friends? Enjoying my school life beyond classes?” Rose words brought Hermione to a stop. “And since I changed my mind about Advanced arithmancy I’m dropping normal too.” The gasp the bushy haired girl lout was one of shock and horror. “Why my parents went with it is beyond me. If I can deal with advanced arithmancy I can certainly deal with the normal one. It doesn’t make sense to do both.”
“B-but-”
“Hermione…” Rose started. “You don’t need all those subjects to be Minister for Magic. Aunt Amelia has eight NEWTs and she’s the most learned minister since a hundred years ago. Even Bagnold only has five.”
“She’s right, you know.” Lily commented from the entrance of the living room. “You can’t have everything in life. There comes a time like this one when you need to make an important choice. What matters the most to you? Getting the most NEWT possible or your career goals? Nobody will care that you earned the most NEWTs in history. People certainly didn’t care about it for my husband or me. As for why I did, it was simply to prove it to myself and because I was undecided in my career choice. Had Rick dropped divination I would have dropped it too. I wasn’t about to take a class to which I didn’t have any interest at all. I passed because why not? Rick had the notes and it was easy.
That one hour a week I spent studying it could have been spent on something else. Same for Astronomy. It was stupid of us to do that. Just because I wanted to prove that I, as a muggle-born, could do better than a pureblood. I haven’t done any divination or astronomy since I graduated. So much time wasted I could have put on something more productive.”
“Like having more sex with uncle?”
Lily glared at Susan who was grinning shamelessly. “Not something that will ever happen to you, Amelia wannabe.” Susan’s gasp of outrage was music to Lily’s ears. “I wonder how you will succeed in that when we will be on your back at every corner of the castle. Remember, your uncle and I own the very first map.” She turned back to Hermione who, much like Rose, looked like a goldfish. “My advice? Do a list of the pros and cons of each thing you want and the consequences that come with it. It will be easier to make a decision.” Then she smiled. “Congratulations on your OWLS. Even you, Susan.”
“Why even me?” the ginger looked with narrowed eyes at Lily.
“Well… Between Rose, Draco and you, you have the lowest score.”
Susan frowned in protest. “I have eight OWLs! There is no way Draco has more!”
“He doesn’t. He got eight too but he got an outstanding e-ve-ry-where~ Bye~” Lily waved her hand with a smug grin at Susan and walked away.
The thought of messing with the rebellious redhead made Lily feel really good. She walked up the stairs and went to Veronica’s room. She stopped abruptly at the door when she saw Vega sitting on the bed dressed in a woman’s robe. Despite his natural occlumency she could tell he was done with Veronica’s antics. She was currently doing his nails.
Immediately she used her mom voice. “Veronica Dromy Potter.” Her daughter froze on the spot. “What are you doing to your brother?”
The girl turned her head slowly, as if to let her mind run fast to get a good excuse. “Dressing him up as me.”
“I can see that. What I’m asking is: why?”
“I just wanted to see how cute he would look as a girl!”
“Vega?” Lily asked her step-son.
“That’s the truth.”
“See!” Veronica pointed out.
“What I see is that you dragged your brother; again, into something and this time he doesn’t appreciate it.”
“What?! He does!”
“I do not.”
The flabbergasted look the youngest Potter gave her brother was pure gold to Lily. “Why didn’t you say anything?!”
“It was an apology for… you know…”
“You idiot! You could just have said you’re sorry!” She picked up her wand and began to undo all the work she did on Vega. “Honestly, Vega, I love you but sometimes I want to wrench your neck for being so complicated! You really need to speak up more about the few things you’re okay with or not. I’m not a legilimens! Don’t start with your natural occlumens shields!”
Seeing that everything was in order and that it was all a misunderstanding, Lily went to another room. She was scared for this one as it was the twins’. Who knows what they were doing there. Last time she checked they had started a potion lab and had started making a love potion they read in Teen Witch Weekly magazine.
They wanted to make sure Duncan wouldn’t go see if the grass was greener elsewhere. They knew of his father’s reputation with the witches in his time at Hogwarts and a rumor had been he spent some time with a sixth year hufflepuff inside a broom closet.
Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle of the door and entered the room. Everyone froze, Lily included. Camelia and Sage were on the bed and using her double ended dildo on each other.
““It’s not what you think!!”” they quickly said.
“You mean you didn’t steal my sex toy to pleasure yourself and each other?” Lily massaged her temples, eyes closed.
““... It’s exactly what you think but we charmed it to-””
“I don’t want to know! Tomorrow we are going to a special store in a street adjacent to Diagon Alley and we’re going to buy you yours. And a new one for me out of your own pocket money!”
“Aunt Bella brought us-”
“There last summer with-”
“Lyra but they were all-”
“Too small!”
That took Lily aback. “Too small?”
““Yes.””
“Not long enough-”
“Nor wide enough-”
“With all the toys you and Aunt Bella have-”
“We thought we could borrow one that fit perfectly-”
“They’re all big!”
““Where did you get them?””
“I made them.” The blank look Lily gave them went over their heads.
““No way!!”
“But their shapes look-”
“So real and detailed!-”
““Like a real one. It’s perfect!””
“That’s because I modeled it after a real one!” Lily was now sporting a blush on her face, not believing the conversation she was having with her sixteen years old daughters. Had they been older she wouldn’t have minded. If anything it was the context that bothered her.
The twins exchanged a look then turned back to Lily. ““You mean we’ve been fucking ourselves on Dad’s-”
“NOT. A. WORD. MORE.” Both girls gulped at their mother’s tone. “You are going to clean it and you are going to put it back where you found it.”
““MOM!”” they complained.
“You can’t do that!”
“That's the only one we can use together!”
“And you have the original!”
“Not fair!”
“Girls... You heard me, I won’t repeat myself.” She closed the door and exhaled deeply. ‘At least they didn’t ask to try their father's... God, what did I do to have those two hellions?!’
She went to the next room. Lea’s room. For all her eccentricities, Lily’s second step-daughter didn’t make any mess or create any real trouble. Still, the naked statue she was making of her father made her want to bash her head against the wall.
“Lea, why naked?” At this point Lily did everything she could to not sound as if she was whining.
“Oh! Aunt Lily!” the girl turned around, wand pointed at the stone. “Because I’m learning naked sculpting and Dad is rather big down there so it’s easier for a start.”
Lily wanted to scream but held herself back. “And how… Do you know that?”
“I saw mom giving a blowjob to dad in the kitchen at the beginning of summer.” she replied nonchalantly as if it wasn’t a big deal. Lily however, finally internally screamed.
“Lea, honey. While I’m sure your father would love it, exposing him like that will make him very uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry, Aunt Lily. It’s for practice.” Lea genuinely grinned innocently. “I'll destroy it once I get it right. It’s not meant to be seen by anyone.”
“Good. Not a word about it either.”
“Yes~” With a joyful tone, the second daughter of the House of Black went back to work on her father’s sculpture and Lily stepped out of the room.
‘It seems she does have some common sense. Thank god for small mercies.’
She went to Lyra’s room and once again her expectations went out the window. She had expected Lyra, listening to music or practicing magic or reading a book. She hadn’t expected her to roll in the dirty clothes of her father and sniff them happily while masturbating.
At this point, Lily’s mind checked out. She closed the door and tried to forget what she had just seen. She was done for the day when it was barely ten in the morning. She needed a drink then a good cauldron of dreamless sleep. Perhaps also use the memory spell to wipe the last ten minutes.
When she went back downstairs, she found Rick inside his lab. The distinct wet and suction sounds told her everything she needed to know about him sitting at his desk. She went to him for a kiss and as she thought she saw Fleur on her knees deepthroating his cock like she had been born for this.
“How long has she been doing this?” she asked her husband after giving him a heartfelt kiss then went behind him to hug him, resting her head on his shoulders and looking back at Fleur.
“An hour? She got three loads out of me already.”
“And here I thought Bella and I were sluts.”
“‘Aa Beh-la.” the french woman said with her mouth full of dick.
“As far as I know veela are not like this.” Rick said and Fleur finally let his cock go with a loud pop, she still rubbed her face lovingly against it.
“We feel lust deeper. More. A veela wiz little lust to begin wiz wouldn’t be as proactive. Mine eez really big so it’s even more amplified. It’s also a family trait. Mozer ‘as a ‘igh libido too.” Now she was stroking him while licking his balls.
“Now that I think about it. What about your family?” Lily asked. “Won’t they disapprove of your choice for a man? Being a concubine?”
“Papa eez not ‘appy zat I chose to become a concubine. As for ze age gap it’s less zan my papa and maman. Maman wants grandchildren and doesn’t care.” she replied before taking back all of Rick in her throat and making him cum.
This time she seemed to be satisfied because she got out from under the desk and cleaned herself up. She dressed up, gave one hell of a french kiss to Lily and left the lab while swaying her lips seductively.
“Love that girl,” the redhead commented while staring at the veela’s tight swaying ass.
Rick looked at Lily who was sporting a very lustful smile and frowned. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down onto his lap. “Don’t forget who’s the love of your life.” he whispered.
“How can I ever forget,” she kissed the tip of his nose and lovingly cupped his cheek in her hand. “When no one else makes me feel like you do with a simple gaze?”
“I hope I’ll never get blind.”
“I’ll find a way to cure it. Speaking of cure, I wanted to talk to you about lycanthropy. I need to pick your brain a bit.”
That caught Rick’s interest. “I’m listening?”
“I tried everything.” The tiredness in Lily’s voice showed how much she was done with repeated failures. “I can’t seem to pinpoint the start of the change. Blood, cells, everything and it’s all normal when I observe it under the microscope. I don’t understand why suddenly they turn.”
Rick took a moment to think about it. As a master of transfiguration and master alchemist, he was used to the change of state. Transfiguration changed the very atoms of something into something else by the intervention of magic. Most of the time exterior with the exception of animagi and metamorphmagi. Alchemy on the other hand was a chemical reaction and sometimes magical brought to light by two elements interacting together. Everyone focused on the former because of the transformation into a wolf but maybe it was the latter.
“What if… It came from the DNA?”
“You mean one gene has been altered?”
“Yes and react to the moon’s light. Like an alchemical reaction. There are higher proportions of red wavelengths in the moonlight than in sunlight as it is only a reflection of the sunlight.”
“Hmm…” Lily considered the idea from a moment. “That would explain why werewolves are more and more agitated as the full moon arrives.” She gave her husband a peck on the lips and got out of his lap. “Thank you for the help!”
The first thing she did was contact Gringotts to buy a spectrophotometer. There was no way she could buy one herself while the goblins could get whatever you needed providing you paid their price for it. It cost quite a sum in galleons but she didn’t care, it was a drop in their assets.
In the meantime, she had invited Remus for a small experiment regarding the red wavelength. The man didn't understand anything but he trusted Lily. He gave her a vial of his blood and stood to the side as she used the Lumos spell and changed it from white to red to observe what was happening with Remus’ blood. She didn’t need it because Remus uncharastically growled like a wolf, his eyes having turned golden. The experiment stopped on the spot. Lily saw right under her eyes Remus‘ own eyes regaining their natural color and his behavior changing back to the usual.
“I’m sorry, Lily. I don’t know…” he was horrified. He had felt the wolf inside him awaken when it shouldn’t have. The full moon was two weeks away.
“I do!” She said with excitement. “Damn, my husband is smart.” she grinned.
“Lily, what the… What do you mean you do?” On top of being horrified, Remus was now confused.
“Everyone thought that lycanthropy was like a transfiguration but it isn’t! It’s a bit like a chemical reaction! That’s why no one ever found a cure!”
“Alright, that… sounds like a very big discovery but… layman terms, Lily. Please.”
“Oh!” she suddenly felt embarrassed as her excitement made her forget Remus wasn’t much versed in science. She conjured two chairs and invited her friend to sit down. “You remember when Rose was ten and she put a mentos inside a pepsi?”
“If I remember? The thing became a hose and drenched everyone!” Remus remembers that moment fondly. She didn’t believe her father when he told her that it was what would happen.
“Well, that’s a chemical or alchemical reaction. Two elements interact with each other with the right concentration and something happens. I think it’s the same for lycanthropy. Like, your body is the pepsi and the moon’s light is the mentos.”
“Okay, so far I understand the image but if the answer to not turning was simply to not be affected by the moonlight that would have been known long ago.”
“Ha! But that depends on what is making your body react! You see natural light is composed of… well… how to say it simply… seven different colors of light. Like the rainbow! All of them have the same characteristics like a human has two eyes, two ears, a mouth and so on. But we’re not all the same!”
Remus was catching on. “You mean those seven lights have the same structure but not the same… composition or rather it varies?”
“Exactly! The moon doesn’t emit light, it just reflects the light of the sun. The difference is that there is a much higher concentration of red light in it so to speak. Now light has a frequency, a wavelength and emits radiation. For each of the seven lights those three variables vary.”
“Since I reacted so strongly when you bathed the room in red light, you think that its frequency, wavelength or radiation, is what started the transformation.”
“Yes. Now I have to determine which is it and how to counter it. It’s not a real cure but it’s even more progress than the wolf-eazy. Also since now I’ve determined that the reaction is not transfiguration but alchemical I know where to search for stopping and removing the element that reacts to red light!”
“Merlin, Lily! That’s… That could change everything. Even if we’re not cured, the simple fact we’re not turning is… Whatever you need you’ll get.”
She summoned an empty vial and handed it to Remus. “Spit will do. Also from the wolf if possible for a comparison.”
“Just spit? Not blood?” he asked confusedly but took the vial and spat in it.
“Yes. The information I need is in every cell of your body, blood is irrelevant." She took back the vial and put in a small rack on her work table. With a flick of her wand she destroyed the blood sample Remus had given her and summoned Tipsy for some tea.
In the meantime, Rick went to Hogwarts to talk with Albus. Not about Voldemort or the horcruxes but for his problem with his spell. He found his friend sitting near an open window reading a book and enjoying a small breeze.
“You let the floo open constantly now?” Rick said as he conjured a comfy chair next to Albus.
Albus conjured a bookmark with difficulty and used it before closing his book. “Only to Potter Manor and Blackmoore, just in case you or Regulus need to come in urgently. Now what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been working on a spell. Everything is in order, the arithmancy, the wand movements… and yet,”
“It doesn’t work.” Albus stated and Rick nodded his affirmation. “What are you trying to create?”
“Not so much create but convey. I’m trying to make a different version of the patronus based on love." He picked up his wand and made the movements accompanied with the spell “Verus amor.”
Sparks of red light emitted from the wand with the beginning of a very small and thin red mist. Dumbledore looked attentively, both curious and fascinated by what was happening under his very eyes. An emotionally based charm was one of the most difficult spells there was and Rick was trying to use love for it. The most powerful and difficult emotion of them all in Albus’ opinion. It was both insane and heartwarming.
“I think…” the old headmaster marked a pause wondering if he was right for a moment. “Just like the patronus it’s the emotion you feel from the memory you use as focus that does the work.”
“I’m using the memory of Lily saying yes at the altar.” Rick frowned. “How could that not be powerful?”
“I don’t think it’s about how powerful the memory is. Love can bring up miracles when it’s in its purest form. That memory of yours, there isn’t just love in it. Maybe a bit of lust? Lily was quite beautiful that day.”
Rick thought about it in silence. What Albus had said made sense. He remembered Lily, beautiful beyond comparison, saying yes to becoming his wife. He remembered the love and the awe and feeling a bit unworthy.
“In truth? There wasn’t. There was awe and a feeling of unworthiness mixed with love. I’m not sure there isn’t a single memory of her that isn’t… a bit tainted by other emotions.”
“You’ve been together for more than twenty years. I’m sure there is one.”
“A memory of Lily not looking like the prettiest woman in the world and me loving her to death? I doubt-” He stopped there, a memory crossing his mind followed by two others.
Albus had noticed the change, the doubt, the reflection and the realization. He could barely wait for Rick to try the spell again. In a whisper, his young friend did it. A huge phantomatic red wolf came out of the wand and trotted up in the air around Albus office before stopping in front of the two men.
Raising his hand to touch it Albus didn’t feel anything on contact. Not anything strong at least. Rick pointed his wand and gave the animal a mental command. On the spot the wolf jumped through the window and ran towards its target.
“I never thought that I could experience the feeling of love by proxy no matter how muted it was.” Albus remarked.
“Muted?”
“Yes. I felt it but at the same time… I didn’t. As if it wasn’t meant for me and as such couldn’t properly appreciate how beautiful it was.”
“It was for Lily. I… used the memory of when she had given birth to Rose. She had her in her arms and looked absolutely awful,” Rick chuckled “Yet in that moment…” he had no words to convey what he felt. How much he had simply loved Lily in that instance.
“Perhaps, you’ve created the only thing that could defeat Voldemort.” Albus mumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“I always believed that love was the most powerful magic in existence. That is a power that he doesn’t know. His mother was not the prettiest of women, far from it. Generation after generation of inbreeding did that. His father however was quite handsome, just like he was. Merope… used Amortencia on Tom senior. She dosed him for a year and stopped once her pregnancy was at the last stage, believing that senior would not abandon her and his child.”
“Let me guess, he did.”
“Yes. She died at the orphanage in childbirth. She had barely had the time to name Tom.”
“So no maternal love. No paternal love. I suppose no help from the Gaunt for being a half-blood and none from his paternal side… Amortencia in the mix… First law of magic?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“You want me to teach the spell to Rose so she could use it against him.” Rick remarked.
“Yes but I’m thinking less and less that Rose will be the one to do it. She’s a bit too young to have felt deeply true love. No… I think it’s either Lily or you. You both are her power of love but also her hand as you’re protecting her.”
“Fine by me.” Rick raised his wand and cast a patronus. His familiar lioness appeared from his wand. “Now that’s curious.”
At the same time at Potter Manor, Lily had just said goodbye to Remus who left through the floo. She went to the dining room where everyone had gathered and just before she took a seat a red wolf came through a window and ran toward her. Thinking it was an attack, all the adults present pulled out their wands. Lily used a shield spell but was hit by the wolf who disappeared in a bright red light. She let out a sound that was between moan and gleeful squeal and fell on her back against the ground. Marlene and Bella were the first to get to her and the sight left them not only worried but confused. Lily was crying profusely but with a smile going from ear to ear.