Chapter 2
Draco had thought that he had been prepared for the transformation. He had thought that the bite that had turned him was painful, but he now knew that he hadn’t even known what pain was. The pain he felt when he was bitten paled in comparison to the pain he felt when he transformed. It had felt like his entire body had been on fire. The books had said that it would be bad, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
It had only taken a few minutes, but it felt as if his suffering had lasted for hours. This wasn’t something that he could live with. He had to find a cure. He had thought that he could live with his condition for a little while.
He knew that it would be an inconvenience, sure, but he learned how to make the wolfbane. It was tricky and time consuming to make, but he managed.
Finding out the ingredients had been a struggle and then he had to find potions that used the same ingredients. Nobody could find out that he had changed after all. That would ruin his reputation. His family’s reputation. His family would no longer be considered pure. He couldn’t let that happen. So he read book after book looking for potions that used ingredients like dragon blood and moonstone, so that he could tell anyone that asked that he was making something else instead.
Fooling his parents had been easy. Neither of them were well-versed in potion ingredients and its uses and Draco had always had a knack for potions and he had mentioned more than once that he would like to walk in his godfather’s footsteps and become a potions master.
It was difficult, but he managed. It was time consuming, but he did it and it was foul, but he swallowed it. Never even coming close to missing a dose the whole week. But enduring that pain again month after month until he died? He couldn’t bear the thought. He hadn’t expected it to be this bad. He thought that he would be able to manage.
He had thought 8 hours every 29 days or so, how bad can it be? Very bad it turned out. He had expected to have a few bad years until he could find a better solution, maybe even a cure. He was excellent at potions. His greats were top of the class, only being bested by that mudblood Granger.
He had planned on graduating Hogwarts, becoming a potions master and then think of a way to cure himself, when he had the right expertise and training. He had thought that it would take 5 more years of Hogwarts, maybe 2 years as a potions apprentice. 7 years of his life. A long time, sure, but nothing in the grand scheme of things. 7 years. That would mean 84 bad days out of 2555. He thought that he would be able to handle it.
He had thought that he would be able to think of a cure eventually, but that wasn’t good enough. The clock keeps on ticking. Every minute wasted is another minute closer to the next full moon, the next transformation. He didn’t have the time to do research. He didn’t have the time to become a potions master and then get the cure. He needed a cure now.
He didn’t get his cure. He didn’t even get a lot of information. It turns out that not a lot of witches and wizards want to study a person that turn into monster, that tries to bite them once a month.
There isn’t a lot of information available and the information that is available is contradictory.
Some sources are outright wrong. He found one that claimed a werewolf would bite and try to maim any and all humans it sees if it’s in human form or not. Draco has yet to bite anyone since he himself has been bitten and hasn’t felt the urge to either. He scoffs at the book and puts it in the discard pile, on top of a book that claimed that a werewolf will even claw at and bite itself if it doesn’t have any tasty humans to bite into. The discarded pile is significantly larger than the other piles that either haven’t been read yet, didn’t have anything about werewolves in them or had some interesting things in them that might be explored later.
There is also the problem of going back to school. He hadn’t ever taken notice before on what day the full moon falls on, but it’s particularly important to him now. He needs to find a way to hide his new situation while at Hogwarts. And it’s just his luck that the next full moon is September 1st.
He is going to need an excuse to go to his room early, close the curtains around his bed and hope that his dorm-mates won’t want to take a peek behind the curtains. He hopes the muffliato spell will hold the full 8 hours or otherwise the other people in his dorm will wake up to his screaming and then the whole secret will be out.
He thought that he would have time to figure things out. Hogwarts is a huge castle, so he thought that there would be some place for him to hide, transform and go back to his dorm after, but he won’t even have time to look. His first night as a third-year is going to be miserable and there’s nothing that he can do to prevent it. He has already has the next three batches of wolfsbane ready.
No use worrying about it now. Two more weeks until the next fool moon.