Chapter 90. Meeting in Girl’s Bathroom / Waiting For Next Full Moon

During lunch, I sat on the porcelain sink, my lunch hovering around me with Wingardium Leviosa. It wasn’t long before Hermione came in, Chiara standing just behind her, hiding from my gaze using Hermione as a buffer. “So…” I started, getting up from my 'seat, staring at the shy silver haired Hufflepuff. “You’re the other.” Chiara grasping on Hermione’s clothes meekly nodded her head. I had another bite of food, trying to ease myself at finding another like me. I could finally ask another werewolf questions about what we were.

“Where have you been going for your transformations?” I asked, knowing that she hadn't turned recently, I remembered the strange feeling when we first met in our first year. She squirmed while avoiding looking at either Hermione or me, finally speaking after a few seconds of her own humming. “The forbidden forest.” “Chiara!” Hermione immediately called out in disbelief, Chiara shrinking under Hermione’s protective anger. “You know how dangerous it is out there!? Especially now!? Who knows where Sirius Black may be hiding!?”

I frowned as well, feeling that her being naked in the woods wasn’t such a good idea. Suddenly the stable that I used for concocting my elixir came to mind. Including that one portion with extra hay I used as a seat. ‘In fact, it was free of other things a stable should have laying around. Why didn’t I notice it before?’ “You use that abandoned stable in the woods?” I asked, Hermione pausing her righteous anger for a moment. Chiara looked at me with surprise, but slowly nodded. “Yes... Dumbledore had it renovated for me when I entered in school...” I held back griping about how bad the house I was given to use was buried in an inch thick snow of dust.

“W-When did you learn? About yourself?” She asked me, somehow already understanding that I was hidden from it myself. Hermione glanced at me with shock, her mouth slightly agape. I sighed, scratching my head, looking back on my life, and the clear signs I decided to ignore. “On some level I probably always knew, but I didn’t come to terms with it until… 2nd year.” I paused glancing at Hermione again, she realized that I didn’t know myself until the student incarnation of Voldemort accidentally told me.

I scoffed, shaking my head at the logic of my parents. “I guess they thought teaching me about blood purity, but no longer having pure blood myself might lead me to self hatred.” I shook the thought away, looking past Chiara’s quiet pity as I asked her another question, one that I knew was written about, but needed to hear a personal testimony. “What is your beast like?” Chiara froze, her eyes went wide as she let out a small squeak. Her face burned red, her shaky voice stammering an answer, even Hermione seemed confused at her reaction. “A-Um-She… She is… Less violent than others…” She finally whispered, hiding her face behind Hermione’s back in shame. I squinted my eyes at her unusual behavior, blinking a few times in wonder of her beast showcasing more intelligence than others written about. 'Where they all lies to begin with?'

Moving on from Chiara’s strange shyness, Hermione looked back over to me, if only for a moment before preferring to look behind me; her own face a little flush. “What’s yours like then?” She asked, making me shrug, my thoughts derailed. “Wouldn’t know. I have no memories of the time it's awake.” I then felt my own face heat up, remembering the one time I did, only a few days ago. “Anyway, we should discuss your idea for saving Buckbeak.” I coughed, pushing the conversation along.

Hermione nodded along, quickly agreeing with my assessment. “Right. You know of the Wolfsbane potion?” I nodded, rolling my eyes. I had studied it myself, but it was much too dangerous and precise of a potion for me to make myself. ‘At least the Dominion of Fear was carefully explained with each step, reassuring that I would do fine throughout the process. Not to mention the price of the ingredients.’ Even for me and my deeper pockets, it wasn't simple to accommodate the vast expense of ingredients while also feeding the ever growing amount for Val, resting in my room. “You don’t expect me to ask Snape for vials of the stuff are you?” I asked, already seeing a major plot hole in the plan if that was her idea.

Hermione shook her head at me. “No, just the ingredients.” I immediately groaned, resting my hands near my temples. “That’s only adding the danger of mixing it together. Once he notices his stash is light, he can make the connection between having it stolen, and another sentient werewolf running around.” Hermione scowled at me, crossing her arms in dismay. “What would you do then?” I took a deep breath, the one idea I had for the next full moon to test my own strange affliction came to mind. “A wideye potion.”

Chiara frowned unsurely, weakly raising a finger to stop me so she could interrupt. “Um… That doesn’t work.” I nodded at her, acknowledging that it may not. “That is true for most, but I’m a bit of a special case. Most potions involving Wolfsbane affect me differently compared to others like us.” There was a moment of silence as both girl’s couldn’t think of anything to say to me about that. Hermione had seen first hand that Vitamix did bring out lupine tendencies in me, and Chiara probably just was afraid of controversy. “I think there’s a good chance I’ll keep my mind… But just in case I’ll transform in the Chamber to avoid any accidents.”

I did avoid telling either of the girls that I did have two more ideas in my mind to steal Buckbeak before the Ministry would kill him. One was Nyx along with the Thestrals, the other was being able to transform myself into a bestial form without the beast inside me waking up. I was able to control it by channeling the energy I received from the Dominion of Fear, letting it run free throughout my entire body, but I couldn’t explain how I got this power. Not wanting it to be known, I had another teacher from the dark arts.

Weeks passed as we waited for the next full moon, Chiara and I questioned each other’s experiences from our now cursed bond. Chiara slowly became more at ease with me as we discussed, apparently thinking of me as nothing but any other blood purist Slytherin one might find until I revealed Val to her along with explaining Abarrane under the lake. Hermione seemed just as shocked about that one, still remembering the first night I was dragged under the waters by her in her excitement.

I had learned a lot from Chiara about the beasts living inside our bodies. Given, it took a long time for me to pry anything from her, her refusal to discuss anything personal of her beast's desires and will, leaving only vague general ideas for me to uncover for myself. She still worried of her beast, her constant glanced towards Hermione proved she scared of being seen as what a piece of her saw as herself. I couldn't help but sympathize, my own worries and self doubts surrounding the idea of Pansy, the closest friend I had ever come to know seeing me as such. Both of us having the same affliction pulled us closer to one another in understanding, the strange bond I felt with her slowly growing as I learned more of the general ideas surrounding my cursed blood.

Hermione and I continued to butt heads every now and then, but we began to have a mutual respect for one another. I felt we could have been close friends if I weren’t born in my house. Is that something I wanted? If that were true then I wouldn’t be anywhere close to Pansy. Pansy was the closest friend I had, someone very important to me, I couldn’t imagine school as a Slytherin without her. That was the reason I feared her turning her back on me above all other Slytherins. Of course I always wished to have been born in a house like the Weasley's, one that didn’t care of pure blood, allowing me to be in any other house, but I didn’t want to miss out on my experiences with Pansy. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t change the past.’

Yes Hermione and I were similar, and I could feel a sort of friendship growing between us, I knew that it couldn’t get much larger. We could only truly talk behind closed doors, same with Chiara. Both girls were good company, but poisoned company regardless. One mistake, one unplanned sighting, and I would be outed as a blood traitor. One that would be ostracized at every turn.

“Why am I thinking of this now?” I muttered aloud, standing in the Chamber of Secrets, alone. Tonight was already the night we had been planning for. The full moon was slowly rising in the sky, far above this underground tomb. I had already told Gaynor to hide from me, not knowing what might happen if I drank the vial of potion in my hand. Her spongy webs felt comforting to my bare feet. I let out a sigh, shaking off the nerves I had gained at testing out this method to keep my mind above the beasts.

Normally I would have gone to sleep by now after taking my medicine prescribed by my father, but staying up, I could feel the beast slowly waking in the back of my mind, rising along with the full moon. “Cheers…” I said to nobody, just a small tradition I had ever since meeting Pansy. Trying out a new potion was met with a small ‘cheers’. I still had no idea why my more 'instinctual mind' was filled with thoughts of her, Chiara, and Hermione, but swigged the potion quickly down my throat, avoiding tasting the sour and bitter mixture.

I waited for a moment, my eyes clenched shut, the feeling of fatigue slowly eluding me. However, aside from that, nothing of interest happened. After a few minutes, I let out a sigh. “This was perhaps a waste-!?” Suddenly I could feel my body begin to change as the last restraints in my mind snapped while beast within me woke.