Spellwork

Author’s Note: This chapter has been a victim of both procrastination and a mild writer’s block. I’ve been having so much spare time on my hands I nearly forgot about writing his chapter. This, I’m afraid, is very short, but I’ll try my best to keep writing frequently.

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Running his fingers through his now bouncy, light and thankfully clean hair, Lucius growled angrily. The stunt that Peeves had pulled the other day had completely tainted him – cat slobber and fur was all over his body, mostly in his hair. The disgusting felines had actually managed to pin him to the floor, rendering him immobile and unable to hex them off.

It was only until the ghastly Squib Argus Filch had shooed them off with a dusty broom that the cats left him in peace. But the dust that was spread around him had a devastating effect – he returned to his room covered in cat fur, furballs, cat drool and dust bunnies, sneezing constantly.

When he had confronted Dumbledore about it, the man waved it off with the bothersome twinkle that he always held. “The liquid, according to Professor Sprout, contains catnip, which is not illegal. In fact, it is often used to stimulate Muggle cats.” And then the old man had offered him one of his blasted Lemon Drops.

He had rebutted, “Peeves should be punished for his misdeeds against students. His pranking is intolerable to students and parents alike.”

Dumbledore had brushed off his fury. The nerve of the man – the blasted fool had reminded him that Peeves was part of the school, almost like a school mascot in his own right. If Voldemort wasn’t so eager to find out about the traitor Snape, he would have taken this up to the Ministry to have the bloody poltergeist exterminated and the old man fired for insubordination.

And those cats too. Putting them down would be too good for them. They would suffer for their transgressions… later. He had missed a whole day of interrogating Weasley about Snape and trying to get him fired. Turning a corner, he was greeted with the door to the newly created conference room for the Board of Governors.

All of his stupid little peons on the school board were in there, waiting diligently for him. Taking a seat, he observed the members. Day, at the very end of the table, looked like he was going to piss in his expensive pants out of excitement while on Lucius’ right was his best man, Higgs, looked cool, calm and collected. The man probably had news on the Mudblood.

Dardanos Day was squirming in his seat in enthusiasm. “Day?” hissed Lucius, regretting accepting the new Governor after the old one, Governor Wilkes, had died ‘under mysterious circumstances’.

The overzealous wizard spewed out everything, from the students’ gossip about Snape, to the apparent appearances of him late at night, perfectly fine, with a hawk on his shoulder. Lucius frowned. If there was nothing wrong with him, then his lord must have been wrong.

But his master was never wrong. He never bungled up a spell, even if it was of his own creation. The only time he could remember his lord’s failure was with the Potter boy.

He decided to grace the eager wizard with a compliment – just to shut him up. “Well done, Day.” Dardanos smiled smugly, his chest puffed out in pride. “Anyone else? Higgs?”

The wizard to his right smirked evilly. “The Mudblood appears to do everything by the book – rules and all. But I’m sure someone will be willing to tell, under pressure…” Malfoy was thinking along the same lines too; weaker families easily bent to his will, since they feared his power over the Ministry.

They would soon find their little ‘whistleblower’ in the form of Patrick Piggot, a distant relative of a man quite familiar to Hermione and Severus.

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Everyone who knew about the curse had tried to help. Minerva and Dumbledore had given Hermione all the tomes, scrolls and books on Animagi and shape shifting – Dumbledore had even pulled strings in the Ministry to allow their archives to be accessed by both Hermione and Severus.

She had come across a lone spell creator’s book while rummaging in the Ministry’s libraries. Spell creation was rarely done now, since people were lazy and believed they had the spells they needed already. The Ministry’s laws were rather strict on them too. Any spells which were not cleared or logged into their database was automatically dark or illegal.

Even a spell created by an old lady to make cookies would be scrutinized completely, from top to bottom for any signs of ‘darkness’ by paranoid Ministry officials.

Nonetheless, they still had a right to be afraid. Voldemort and various other evil wizards had used spell creation to their own advantages, like creating numerous spells to torture information out of their victims, cause their prey to suffer slow, excruciating deaths, or even to demonstrate their superiority.

The old tome had stated that spells created by spell creators was rather like nonverbal magic. The spell words were more of a placebo – it was really the intent that mattered in spell creation. Usually the words of a new spell meant something to the caster – they believed that the words would cause a certain effect and their heart desired such effects, so the spell would erupt from the tip of the wand.

Essentially, Hogwarts was a place where they taught students to believe in the spell words in order for them to work. And if students accepted that Wingardium Leviosa and expected that the object the wand pointed at would lift up, it would work.

After all, wands were the outlets for all witches’ and wizards’ magical energy.

Perhaps Voldemort had read Calvin and Hobbes, found the word ‘transmogrify’, and decided to use it as his spell word. If this was any other situation, she would laugh, imagining ol’ Voldie on the crapper with the Sunday funnies, chuckling while reading Calvin and Hobbes.

This, though, was no laughing matter. If this was the case, they were doomed.

Without knowing Voldemort’s train of thought during the creation of the spell, a counter-curse would not be formed. The original curse would not be able to be cast by any of them, since they did not possess Voldemort’s intent.

Normal, regularly used curses were easier to counter, since their effects were well known. However, with a homemade curse like the ‘transmogrify’, it would probably take forever to counter. If Hermione randomly cast the ‘transmogrify’ on a test subject with the ‘wrong’ intent, either nothing would happen or something completely different from Voldemort’s final effect would happen, depending on what the word meant to her.

Cradling her head on the library table, Hermione Granger fell into a troubled sleep. She could no longer avoid the facts – no one would be able to free her or Severus, except for Voldemort himself.

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Severus had found his little bushy-haired angel asleep on the desk, surrounded by books. The bags under her eyes told him she had stayed up last night, researching about their condition.

Tentatively, he gently pawed at her face, nudging her to wake. It was morning after all and she needed to get prepared for classes. He had noticed that Higgs was ready for class, as well as Lucius, who had managed to get his hair and body free of the presence of cats.

The woman next to him woke and patted him gently on the head, thanking him. She seemed worried, but with one glimpse of her watch, she told him that she would tell him later of her findings, but right now, she had to prepare for classes.

Which meant, he had to too. A little Weasley would need Severus’ help in his classes soon, with Lucius Malfoy breathing down his neck.