Hermione Granger had woken up a few weeks ago, in St Mungo's hospital for magical maladies and injuries.
When she woke up, her parents had rushed in, hugging her while weeping, telling her how glad they were, how worried they had been.
Her mother had squeezed her till she nearly had her heart pushed to her throat, while her father had stayed by her bed that entire day without taking a step out.
Her friends, the small hand full she kept close came to visit her bringing loads of presents, enough for the bed rest to simply overflow with candies, and fruits and flowers and more.
They were happy because she was awake.
She wanted to be too.
But it didn't add up. She remembered the last moment of her consciousness very vividly. After all, it was not something one would so easily forget. The pain was not something one could easily erase.
Hermione knew what would happen next. Or rather what should have happened next. She had read about it, in their defense against the dark arts text book, then several other when she had researched on the curse that affected ...Lupin.
For a moment, in her hands, the white bed sheets crumpled, as the sight of those yellow eyes and the mangy monstrous form came to her mind.
Fear crawled over her skin like pins and needles.
No one told her she was bitten. No one even seemed to know it had happen. Somehow she had ended up in the hospital miraculously healed in perfect physicalcondition.
But as the day of full moon grew closer and closer, symptoms started to appear.
She had first thought that it was maybe going to be alright. Now, after nearly a week of nonstop fever that came onto her stronger each night, she was no longer believed it. She could only hope.
Hermione took a flask, and opened it, before swallowing the still fuming liquid inside.
Just because she hoped for the best, did not mean she wouldn't prepare for the worst.
The wolfsbane potion tasted awful as it went down her throat. But she chugged it like a mad woman without leaving a drop.
St Mungo had wolfsbane potion. And the book of spells Richard had given her, on the first year had the disillusionment charm.
Her heart beat faster and faster as the sky slowly turned from evening gold to dark. As it did, she quietly got up from her bed, and walked out to the bathrooms.
The wolfsbane potion doesn't stop the werewolf transformation. It only allows the drinker to maintain their sanity during the transformed state. And Hermione didn't want anyone to know, IF she was one.
Whatever tolerance the wizarding world extended to Muggle-borns, it had considerably less for people who carried a curse they couldn't simply choose to discard.
Somewhere water was running.
Hermione ignored the sounds that came from the century old metal pipes and holed herself in the farthest bathroom stall. She had locked the doors, and she stood there, looking up from the stall, from where she could glimpse the final bits of sunlight vanishing from the walls.
The moment that light turns silver, she would know. And for the first time in her life, she felt afraid of learning something.
And she waited, in her pajamas, as the light slowly came.
As she did, she wondered, what about Harry, and Richard. Did they know what happened to her? And why didn't they reply to her of they did.
And then her brain immediately reminded her why.
Harry was living in a wizard hating family that literally locked him in a cupboard for half his childhood, and last she read of Richard, he was applying to the ministry of magic to get hold of his magically severed leg. There was a full story about his experience written in the bugle.
She had read the newspaper. And thankfully things were better than what happened before they had gone back in time.
Professor Lupin was released when they found Luna alive and unharmed, but lost in the woods, left there by the third party who worked with Pettigrew, according to Richard's statement.
Though, according to what Ron said in his letter, he definitely won't be returning to Hogwarts next year, because everyone knew he was a were wolf.
As for Pettigrew himself, he was dead. His corpse was found on Hogwarts, seemingly killed by the same third party for some unknown reason.
And Sirius was free. He was no longer considered the criminal he was charged with though there were several hearings still scheduled.
Somethings had gone perfectly while others had gone to hell.
She distracted herself in her thoughts until she even forgot why she was here in the first place.
Then her heart, that tried to beat its way out of her chest reminded it to her.
Dud dud
Dud dud
Dud did
'Agghhhhh!'
Her hands pressed tightly against her chest as her heart hammered her rib cage. Her eyes shot up, and stopped at the silver geometrical shades of light that came through the windows, and lit the somewhat dark rooms.
A new wave of pain assaulted her, and at the same time, her eyes dimmed and brightened. Every part of her body started to itch, then burn as if her body was a furnace.
As the pain made her curl, and then fall onto the ground, she remembered segments of the book she read. According to them, every werewolf transformation was brutally painful, and the wolfsbane only helped the drinker maintain their sanity. The pain they would have to deal with themselves.
"Mmmggghhhaaagghhhhh!"
She stifeled the scream but it still escaped her lips.
It hurt.
It felt as if something was rampaging inside her body, screaming to be let out.
She felt something touch her lips from the inside. It was smooth, yet sharp. She could feel her skin stretching as her nails grew longer, and thicker against it.
'Control it, Hermione. You can do it.'
Magic came from the soul, according to the magic Richard taught them. And each magic has their own circuit.
It sounded mad. But the pain, it made her desperate for anything.
"Graaaaaghhhh"
It wasn't coherent words that came out of her mouth anymore. Hermione herself was surprised at the animalistic sound that escaped from her lips.
'Focus..'
She had already started to feel what the magic circuits were. If only she could find the circuit for this curse-
For a second, in her desperation, she felt as if she touched something.
Suddenly everything turned weird. The pain was still there, but it was numb, like it was happening in to her, but at the same time not her.
The world started wobbling as if it was melting, and she noticed something emerging from her body.
There were drops of silver on her skin, and where ever those drops traveled, they left a trail of pitch black.
It was every where.
Hundreds of drops started to leave her body like glitter, leaving trails of black, as if they were tearing reality itself, though the reality wasn't much of a reality to in her vision at the moment.
The colors twisted, flowed and churned like it was inside giant blender, and slowly, black started to overtake everything.
She was still trying to reach to the circuit.
Squares turned to threads, threads twisted into whirlpools, to which black mixed in.
And then the black swallowed her whole.
...
"Haaaahhh!"
Hermione woke up. Or had she been asleep to begin with? Nevertheless, she could see, the darkness was gone.
She stood up, her naked feet touching the weirdly textured plain horizontal land.
Bong
There was a dull thud. A dull and heavy thud that seem to go through her feet.
She stood up, and for a moment, she didnt know where she was. The moment st reached, and she still couldn't make sense if it.
The ground, sky....nothing was familiar. They were all blank.
What had she been trying to do?
She remembered the moment before, and the ground began to shake. Tremble as square ripples spread. And, as the ripples spread, from the center, the world began to change.
The dark sky, changed to a pale blue of a night in full moon, and everything changed to follow it.
She didnt even have a chance to run, as everything shifted, and suddenly she was standing on a different place.
On the sky, was a moon. Or rather dozens of moons, each hand drawn while showing the waxing and the waning of the moon. They were all seemingly connected to axels, all extending to a single axel along which they seemed to spin.
Tick
Tick
Every ten seconds, there was a loud tick, which reminded Hermione of the antique projector professor Snape used as a teaching aid, and the moon shifted to the next.
As it shifted, so did her attention, to the murals.
There were murals everywhere, though calling them.murals seemed inapropreate. They were more like holograms. Some images she knew, like the Greek depiction of a werewolf swallowing a human, which came straight from their text book, while the others she didnt know.
And under each of them, there were many things written. She leaned down to read them. And to her suprise it had everything she had read about.
And at the center of it stood a familiar werewolf, its jaw wide open, eyes blazing while its claw pulled back to grab onto something.
It was Lupin. That was the last clear image she got of him before he ripped her apart.
Maybe this was something related to the magic circuits Richard was talking about?
"You are half way right."
The voice came from nowhere, and Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin when it did.
The next moment shadows, fire and light gathered from nowhere, and formed a shape of Richard.
Only, he looked different.
There was something different, she couldn't quite put a pin on.
"Thats your inner world. A four dimensional book. Quite fitting if you ask me."
"Richard, What the hell is happening right now-?"
"Can you hurry it up" He cut her off. "Instead of pointless conversation, why don't you bring it out."
"Bring what out?"
Hermione couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. How did Richard appear here? What did he mean by inner world? And what was waiting?
"I think you know what. The wolf is waiting. Its waiting for us to call for it."
The tone in which Richard spoke made Hermione feel uncomfortable.
"I don't think-"
Bang!
"Its coming!"
There was an undisguised mad excitement on Richard's face. It was strange. Stranger enough for Hermione to step back. She had never seen Richard smile so widely.
Crack
The ground cracked, and Hermione took another couple of steps back. And Richard took steps forward.
Then from the cracks, silver light flowed out, carrying black.
She knew it. It was there when she was transforming. It was the same thing that had brought her to this place. And it was bringing something else. Something big.
The black spread, until there was a crack on the world. And a pair of glowing yellow eyes stared out from the massive black crack.
While Hermione turned to run, Richard stepped forward again.
"COME!!"
The eyes beyond the veil listened.
SHATTER!!!
The cracks surrounding the black shattered like glass.
"YES!"
The weight hit her like a truck, making her fall. Despite the fear, despite the instincts that screamed her to run, she found herself unable to do so.
"Beautiful.."
'Has he gone mad?!' Hermione couldn't help but curse in her mind. At the same time she turned around, and when she did she nearly fainted in fear.
It was big. It was tall. Its wolf like head was sleek, made from something white like bone, that showed every single one of it'd sharp teeth just like a naked skull.
There was bone along its claws that looked human enough, yet at the same time monstrous when compared to its proportions, as its larger front limbs had fingers that ended with spikes for the finger tips.
Its lower legs were bent, as if it was crouching down. But it seemed to be on its haunches.
It looked less like wolf, and more like a ape-ish monster, but the wolf like features were there.
There was only one word Hermione could use to describe the fearsome thing.
"A monster."
Its yellow eyes snapped onto Hermione, but Richard stepped forward instead.
"Hello dearie.." He said, as he somehow floated up, and touched the massive monster's boney head with what seemed like genuine interest." I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Then turned to Hermione.
"You should too, Hermione. You must have wanted to see the magic circuit of the werewolf curse right? I made things easy for you. This is the manifestation of the curse itself. The curse given life. The reason you are not a Werewolf in where ever you are, is because of him. "
He held out his hand as if inviting her.
"Come now Hermione. Its time you faced your inner monster."
She looked at the monster, then at Richard who held out his hand, and the words escaped from her lips before she could even stop herself.
"You are insane."