In the potions classes that followed, Neville's life became… painful.
Any time he made the slightest mistake, Snape would snap at him mercilessly and casually dock one or two points from Gryffindor while he was at it.
As for Lupin, Snape had already decided: the next time he brewed Wolfsbane for him, he'd amplify its bitterness a hundredfold.
If it weren't for the risk of an unmedicated werewolf rampaging through the school on full moons—and Dumbledore's personal request—Snape wouldn't bother brewing Wolfsbane for Lupin at all.
But that was a problem for later.
What Hermione Fears Most
Lupin's Boggart lesson continued.
When it was Hermione's turn, the Boggart shifted, twisting into… Arthur.
He stood there with cold, unfamiliar eyes, looking at her as though she were a complete stranger.
Hermione's chest squeezed painfully. She didn't want to see that expression for more than a heartbeat.
She raised her wand and cast the charm—turning "Arthur" into his Animagus form: a large, gorgeous cat.
Arthur watched this from the side, equal parts amused and exasperated.
So the thing Hermione feared most… was him not knowing her anymore?
Wasn't this the kind of melodrama you'd see in a soap opera, where the male lead gets hit by a car and loses his memory?
Ridiculous. And kind of hilarious.
What annoyed him, though, was that she had just indirectly outed his Animagus form in front of the whole class.
Most people wouldn't put the pieces together, of course. But still—Arthur felt speechless.
Hermione returned to his side and gave him a guilty, apologetic look, sticking her tongue out.
Arthur couldn't bring himself to scold her. He just rapped her lightly on the forehead and ruffled her hair hard in "punishment."
Then Arthur and Ranni also stepped up to face the Boggart.
But how could a mere Boggart see into the hearts of gods?
It twisted and writhed, stretching itself in every direction—but in the end, it couldn't decide on a form at all. It just trembled in place, formless.
Lupin was stunned.
In his experience, this only happened with people who truly feared nothing. Such people were exceedingly rare. He hadn't expected to find two of them at Hogwarts.
When it came to Harry, the predictable "unexpected" happened.
He thought of the Dementor from the train, and the Boggart immediately turned into a Dementor.
Boggarts inherited some properties of whatever they transformed into. Dementors fed on human emotion—that fit perfectly with the Boggart's own hunger for fear.
So this Boggart-Dementor hybrid was even more terrifying than usual, its oppressive aura crashing over Harry in a wave.
Harry's mind went blank. He couldn't even lift his wand.
Fortunately, Lupin jumped in front of him, blocking the creature's approach. The Boggart turned into a full moon—then Lupin quickly cast Riddikulus, transforming it into a balloon and banishing it back into the wardrobe.
Looking around the room at the shaken students, Lupin decided to end the lesson early.
Some students who hadn't had their turn felt disappointed. Others were secretly grateful that their deepest fear hadn't been exposed to the entire class.
The Cat Who Learned Dragon Magic
That night, Arthur finally beat Cat Quest. The long-absent system chime rang again in his mind.
[Congratulations, Host, for completing the mini-game "Cat Quest."]
[Reward acquired: Dragonblood Clan Heritage Seal, Artifact Trio]
Arthur didn't react much to the so-called "Artifact Trio."
Those were all items that already existed in the game; if he'd really wanted them, he could've manifested them earlier.
Their game effects were:
Courage: Max HP +333
Faith: Max MP +333
Determination: Attack Power +333
Reality-version, however, was different: three colored orbs of light.
He equipped them. The red, blue, and violet light merged into his body.
He took a moment to feel it.
His overall strength had maybe gone up by… the equivalent of three Snapes.
For any normal elite wizard, that was incredible.
For a divine-level Arthur, it didn't even reach a one percent increase.
(Snape: Do you have any manners whatsoever?)
Arthur had already expected that. What actually interested him was the Dragonblood Heritage Seal.
He opened its description.
[Dragonblood Clan Heritage Seal: A legacy left by the Dragonblood clan. Soak it in dragon blood, then stamp it onto the body to gain the clan's inherited powers.
(Note: You didn't seriously think humans can use this, right? This is a sacred relic of the catfolk!]
Arthur's eye twitched at the note.
In the game, the protagonist was a cat from the Dragonblood clan, so of course the seal only worked on cats. Reasonable… in theory.
That explained why the system had bundled two types of rewards this time—well, four items total if you counted each artifact separately.
Most likely even the system thought the game had too little of value, so it scraped together the best things as compensation.
The artifacts he could toss to Hermione later as toys.
But the seal? He had no idea what to do with that.
It wasn't like he planned to raise a legion of dragon-blooded cats.
And then, inspiration struck.
"…Maybe there is a way to use this."
Arthur stepped into the Zen Garden, taking out the heritage seal and several vials of dragon blood he'd collected in the Lands Between.
He transformed.
A large, stunning Norwegian Forest Cat appeared on the floor—a perfectly groomed, black-and-white furred Arthur.
He scooped up the seal with one paw and dropped it into a bowl of dragon blood.
The seal greedily absorbed the blood, its golden surface gradually turning a deep blood-red. When it finally stopped absorbing, Arthur plucked it out and stamped it onto his other paw.
Power burst out from the seal, racing through his feline body.
Warmth spread through his limbs. In his mind, a stream of information unfolded—that was the Dragonblood Clan's inheritance.
There wasn't much: seven spells and two abilities.
Purr Flame – breathes or releases fire.
Mew Lightning – hurls crackling lightning.
Paw Heal – restores your own injuries.
Frost Claw – launches ice-element attacks.
Meow Trap – creates a thorny trap under an enemy's feet.
Heavy Paw – summons four shockwave slams from above in all directions.
Mad Meow – enlarges the body, increasing power.
And two movement skills:
Flight – self-explanatory.
Waterwalk – walk atop the surface of water.
All of them could only be used in cat form.
If he returned to human form, he'd lose access to them.
Once the seal reverted from blood-red back to gold, the transmission was complete.
Arthur closed his eyes and examined his feline body.
He could feel new magic channels woven through his limbs.
Before this, when he transformed, he was essentially just a normal cat—his divine power compressed into his heart, inaccessible, unable to cast spells.
Now, his cat body had its own magical circuits.
Which meant that in cat form, he could cast magic as a magical beast.
In a certain sense… his Animagus was no longer just an Animagus. It was a magic creature in its own right.
He switched back and forth between human and cat a few times.
As expected: in human form, the Dragonblood abilities were unavailable—but that didn't stop his cat form from using any of his own spells when needed.
From this day on, he thought, he was officially a magic cat.
Arthur spent a good chunk of the night as a cat, racing around the Zen Garden, gleefully testing every single new spell and ability.
Thankfully, it was already late. The creatures in the Garden were sleeping, and Ranni was in her room.
Otherwise, someone would've seen him acting this ridiculous.
Once his excitement cooled, Arthur changed back into human form.
Overall, the spells and abilities were quite good—but for someone at his power level, they weren't game-changing.
And he rarely used his Animagus form publicly anyway, so this inheritance was, realistically, a toy: something to mess around with in the Zen Garden.
The Full Moon and a Teacher's Workload
Time flew.
Soon, the last day of September arrived.
It was the night of the full moon—and also the Mid-Autumn Festival back in the East.
Arthur had been busy these past few days, because he'd been forced into a role he never asked for: substitute teacher.
Here's what happened.
As the full moon approached, Lupin's condition worsened—night by night he struggled more to keep his inner wolf in check. To avoid hurting anyone, he locked himself inside the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade.
That left a vacancy in the Defense Against the Dark Arts schedule.
Snape, now serving as Acting Headmaster, had long been eyeing that post again. He seized the opportunity and personally stepped in to teach Defense temporarily.
The problem was that his Potions classes and the Defense classes for some year groups overlapped.
So he went to Arthur.
And dumped the entire Potions timetable into his hands.
Arthur refused outright, of course.
He was perfectly happy enjoying his lazy, semi-retired student life. Why on earth would he volunteer for extra work?
Snape responded by quoting an old saying he'd picked up somewhere:
"When the master is occupied, the disciple should shoulder the burden."
Arthur had no idea where he'd gotten that from—but with the man phrasing it like that, he couldn't exactly refuse without looking ungrateful.
…Fine. He'd be a professor for a few days.
Just for the experience.
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