"Phew! Ha-phew! Hoo!" I breathed heavily and exhaustedly, battling the icy drafts wandering through the corridors of the ancient castle, and tirelessly dashing up the moving stairs of Hogwarts.
"Although 'tirelessly' is, of course, a strong word," I grimaced mentally, dripping with sweat, but still in no hurry to stop my run. "Just one last push left—to Gryffindor Tower, where I'll finally be able to rest properly, catch my breath, and cool my body under a cold shower," I encouraged myself, despite the fatigue, continuing to fly over the stair steps with springy strides.
Actually, I started arranging such marathons relatively recently, having spent quite a long time looking for a convenient opportunity to work on my physical fitness. And the fact that I needed to work on it, I realized right after my first attempts to train at least somehow. This body responded to the given loads simply magically!
I don't know if it's correct to describe my own feelings this way, but it was as if I was on some serious anabolic steroids. The body recovered from any loads simply amazingly fast, and the progress in training was even somewhat shocking. Seriously, just two weeks ago I barely managed to do two laps around Hogwarts...
Which is still a hell of a lot, because our castle is big, and there are a lot of stairs in it. Because of this, my first run could easily be compared to a small marathon of about six kilometers. And that's without taking into account the stairs, on which I managed to run so much that if this were a multi-story building, and not an ancient castle, I would have run up and down all the stairs in the stairwell of some twenty-story building twice.
But that was only the first workout, because after two weeks of such training, I increased the number of "laps" around the castle to five, practically without increasing the time of the workouts themselves. I already suffer enough, waking up at half past five in the morning to get all my things done by eight. Usually, students sleep until eight-thirty or eight-forty; our breakfast starts at nine, and classes at nine-thirty.
Because of this, usually even after my workout I appear in the boys' showers among the first, but to stretch the workout for more than two hours—no thanks. I don't need unnecessary questions from overly curious students, especially since they are already looking at me quite strangely. Still, it is very difficult to hide a passion for sports within the walls of a boarding school, and sports are not held in high esteem among local wizards.
Although, of course, there are guys who respect this matter. But those are mainly senior students, either actively engaged in dueling, and also, I suspect, combat magic, or fanatic Quidditch players, for whom it is vital to have good physical fitness due to the G-forces experienced during flights on a sports broom.
"Were you running around the morning castle again?" as soon as I returned to my own room for a change of clothes, I was already overtaken by the question of Sirius, who woke up a little earlier than usual today.
"Yeah, today I broke my own speed record. Soon I won't be running, but flying across the floors of the castle," I nodded to the guy cheerfully, albeit struggling with shortness of breath.
"Mmm, yeah, just don't forget to take a broom with you..." the disheveled brunette yawned contagiously.
"Definitely... By the way, do you want to join my workouts?" I asked Black, who had raised the topic of my training for the first time. Usually, the guy didn't care at all what his friend was doing while he himself was sleeping.
"Nah, screw that. I get run ragged enough in the summer. And a complex of potions helps not to lose muscle tone... I'll need to drink one, by the way, or I'll forget again," the boy ruffled his hair, refusing my offer.
To which I only nodded, not intending to force my buddies into anything. Besides, Black is right in a way. For health and a toned figure, summer workouts and potions selected specifically for him will be quite enough... A one-month course of which costs almost as much as my entire education at Hogwarts. Well, that's beside the point.
I wasn't going to envy my comrades because of their parents' wealth anyway. It's generally unbecoming for an adult to envy a couple of teenagers. Especially since those same potions for maintaining physical fitness shouldn't be taken during active training... There are other potions for this, helping the body recover faster, but here I'm doing perfectly fine anyway.
And therefore, there is no particular sense in worrying about the unavailability of some resources to me. Especially since the most valuable resource—knowledge—Black and Potter calmly share with me anyway. And if James, just for fun and out of a thirst to show off, sometimes shows the guys and me some new spell, which I subsequently study, because the guy is not averse to getting an extra reason to show off. Then Sirius...
Well, I am truly grateful to Black. The books on Legilimency and Occlumency alone are worth a lot, and on top of that, he promised to ask his parents for additional literature specifically for me. That will be, however, only during the winter holidays, for which I have already decided to stay in the castle, but even so—thanks to Sirius.
And even if for now my gratitude is expressed only in helping with some essays on the same Potions, in the future I will still settle up with him for such help. Well, at least I will try to do everything so that Sirius does not repeat the path known to me from the Harry Potter movies... Although I tried not to think much about the latter, even if Peter caught my not-so-peaceful glances on himself.
"Sigh, it's all my furry little problem... Everything seems to be fine, but the closer to the full moon, the more nervous I become," I sighed quietly, feeling the anticipation of the beast locked inside me with my gut. Moreover, this is not even a figure of speech; I really feel the monster shackled within me.
Which on the one hand scared and unnerved me shitless, but on the other... Such changes in sensations were somehow connected with changes in me. And the only changes lately are the wildly progressing physical fitness, the begun work with my own consciousness, and gradually growing magical abilities, coupled with sensitivity to magic.
Yes, if earlier I generally had a poor understanding of what magic is and how it works. At some point, I even got the feeling that all magic is just waving a wand, pronouncing spells, and brewing potions... But no, I knew for sure about wandless and non-verbal magic. Which means the true power of magic lies by no means only in these words and gestures...
Interested by such a discovery, I started looking for information on the desired topic. Fortunately, a whole bunch of books had been written on the theory of magic, only a very small part of which carried at least some practical benefit. But personally, the very understanding that some magical energy really lies hidden somewhere in our body helped me to feel this very energy at some point...
Which is, of course, important and very interesting, even if for now my sensations are limited to a light "rustle" on the edge of sensitivity during the application of particularly large-scale transfiguration and the execution of the most complex spells. But how do such changes relate to the suddenly arisen ability to feel my own beast?
The answer—I don't know. I generally have little idea what exactly affected my feelings—physical training, the manifested sensitivity to magic, or the practice in mental magic, which, in part, could also affect my ability to feel magic in general... I didn't even know if the changes happening to me were positive or not.
"What if all this is not normal at all? Perhaps Remus was right not even trying to develop the advantages granted by the nature of a werewolf? Or is mental magic to blame for everything? Or maybe I'm just going crazy, having messed up somewhere with mental practices? Or could I only go crazy because of this strange sensation of my own beast's desires?" all these and hundreds of other questions tormented my mind and soul.
But I still didn't allow myself to rest on my laurels, hoping very much that I was doing everything right, and even this ability to feel my own beast could ultimately turn into at least some opportunity to subjugate or even negotiate with the monster living in my body...
However, such ideas did not stay in my mind for long. On Friday, November twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy-three, the full moon reigned in the sky again. I was once again locked in the Shrieking Shack, where Madam Pomfrey takes me every time, and the beast in me was steadily waking up.
"Daaamn! How I hate this, fuck this to hell!" I growled naturally, trying with all my might to retain the right to own my own body, but steadily losing to the werewolf inside me. My consciousness clouded, despite the mental techniques I applied, my body burned and cracked with pain, and I myself looked less and less like a human.
Snow-white fur rapidly covered my arms, my nails rapidly turned into bone-like claws, and in my mind, like a church bell, the wild howl of a werewolf rang tirelessly.
"That's it! I can't take it anymore!" I pleaded painfully, but only a muffled wheeze came out of my mouth, and I completely lost control of my body, falling into saving oblivion... Well, almost.
Somewhere on the edge of consciousness, I still continued to feel my own body and the echoes of the emotions of that monster that is usually locked somewhere deep inside me... Although, I don't even know if what I feel can be called emotions. As for me, this abomination was more like the bare instincts of a hideous monster.
Because even from the dumbest dog one can feel much more reason and awareness than from that dark creature that breaks out of my body every full moon... Yes, tonight I was finally convinced. The werewolf inside me is a creature deprived of even the rudiments of reason. This creature does not even have a semblance of a mind. And that means mental magic is unlikely to help me cope with this problem.
"However, as expected," I grimaced painfully, regaining control over my body in the morning. "If everything were so simple with this curse, werewolves would have solved their problem a long time ago. I doubt that none of them even tried to use mental magic in the fight against the monster," coughing up some muck from my mouth, I continued to reason relatively calmly.
"And yet, there is a use to my training. It seems that this time I don't even feel as broken and exhausted as in previous times," with a bitter smile on my face, I noted a fairly obvious fact to myself.
Physical training helped my body endure the transformation into a werewolf more easily. And even if the hand raised in front of me still continues to tremble as if I just came out of a year-long binge. But last time there was not enough strength left in my body even to just raise this very hand... Which means there are positive trends anyway, which pleases and encourages me.
"I'll definitely need to brag to the guys. Maybe they'll leave me alone with their questions about the necessity of my workouts," I made a note to myself, deciding in the end to lie down in the Shrieking Shack for at least a couple more hours.
It's not a five-star hotel here, of course, but showing myself to people in my current state is still not worth it. Especially since if they see me in the castle now, they might send me to classes, and I really don't want to show up at Potions with this trembling in my hands. What if I blow up my cauldron, what am I supposed to do then? I don't have the money for a new one right now.