Chapter 181: Chap.178 - Animagus Spirit

Rigel didn’t leave immediately, he stayed with Calypso for the rest of the day. The woman was happy to spend time with him, putting her work aside.

Rigel heard her say that she would soon need to find an assistant, she worked with many potions at once, and many of them could take days or months to complete, requiring constant attention.

Besides, Calypso also really liked potions, so she did a lot of research on her own, which consumed a lot of her time.

Kreacher could help a little, but the elf was old and already had to take care of the shop. Calypso could simply slow down, but she preferred to just hire someone.

Meanwhile, the potion’s effect wore off, and Rigel felt a little strange when it ended, it seemed like something was missing. He realized that although the potion itself had no side effects, its end caused a feeling of emptiness.

The problem wasn’t the potion itself, it was simply that his state when the potion was active was much better than his normal state, creating this incongruity.

Rigel didn’t mind much, when he slept in the coffin at night, that feeling would quickly pass. The coffin was proving to be one of the best rewards he had ever received.

Thank you, Dracula.

That night, while training in the mental landscape of the coffin, Rigel pondered why he had begun practicing Animagus. He couldn’t quite understand it, but during the potion’s effect, it was as if something clicked.

It seemed useful, not now, after all he had just begun the ritual, but what about the future?

Initially, his idea was that the transformation would be nothing more than a simple animal form that possessed no real power, at most, it could be convenient in some way, but after thinking about the Animagus, Rigel came to the conclusion that learning about it could at least expand his knowledge related to transfiguration and transmutation.

He had already started, so he would finish.

What about his promise to McGonagall not to practice Animagus? Sorry, he forgot.

//-//

Time passed as Rigel’s life fell into monotony once more, he, Hermione, and Neville found themselves focused on learning, with Neville practically becoming a different person since the beginning of the year.

Although his memory was still far from good, he was still clumsy, and his bad luck still surfaced from time to time, being pursued by Peeves every other week, he quickly got into the habit of following Rigel and Hermione to the library, which by then was practically their sanctuary.

Hermione was the happiest about it, although the little girl was still excessively talkative, Neville and Rigel quickly got used to it, for every 10 words they spoke, 8 were from Hermione.

Most of the time Rigel read alone while Hermione was busy teaching Neville, the exams were still far away, but for Hermione, it felt like the next day.

Watching the pair work together was truly amusing to Rigel, one wanted to teach, the other wanted to learn, but the one learning could barely retain the information, and the one teaching was practically tearing their hair out in exasperation. However, Hermione never gave up.

For Hermione, Neville was the greatest challenge of her life, she would do anything to make him learn. Neville had a bitter expression most of the time, except when it came to studying herbology.

Hermione realized this, so she left herbology for last. At that point, the two learned more together than she had to teach. Often, Neville would stop and comment on something interesting, leading to an animated discussion between the two for a while. They were almost expelled by Madam Pince more than once.

If it weren’t for Madame Pince seeing that they were truly good students, she would have banned them from the library long ago.

Rigel, on the other hand, continued learning about things of his own interest, spending only part of his time reviewing the content of the classes.

He had been focusing on transfiguration for some time now, and the leaf in his mouth had almost reached the time needed for the Animagus potion.

The day Rigel put the leaf in his mouth happened to be the day of the full moon. Lucky? Who knows.

The leaf should be placed during the full moon, but not necessarily directly on the moon, it needed to be removed during the full moon, and this time bathed in moonlight.

The other ingredients weren’t difficult to obtain, the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth was easily obtained from Calypso, while the dew untouched by the sun or human feet was a bit more complicated. Rigel had to venture into the forbidden forest for it, and finding the location there was quite easy, as there were many areas where the sun didn’t shine.

After collecting the dew and keeping it in his treasure, he only needed to wait for the right time to remove the leaf.

Once the potion was ready, he could keep it directly inside the king’s treasury, although it may seem that staying in an isolated and dark place for a long time is part of the ritual, it is not, there have been recorded cases of animagus who finished the potion in one day and two days later were lucky enough to encounter storms, successfully transforming.

After that, he needed to point the wand at his own chest and repeat ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus’ at each sunrise and sunset. If done correctly, a feeling of a double heartbeat could soon be felt.

Rigel had some theories about this, and if he was correct, it would answer some questions he had: Why was the Animagus’s concealment so good? Why was there a danger in remaining in that form for long enough? Why did Animagus report that when they transformed, there wasn’t much strangeness?

Growing 10 centimeters overnight is enough to cause imbalance, imagine turning into a squirrel or a bird.

Why could you just act like the animal right after transforming?

Rigel came to a conclusion: what if it had never been you in the first place? What if this ritual was actually giving birth to a second spirit within the Wizard’s body?

This would make sense to prevent the perception of Dementors and even Werewolves, it would be as if normally the spirit of the animal were inside the spirit of the wizard, but when the transformation was made, the spirit of the wizard would be inside the spirit of the animal.

This also raised the question of the Marauder’s Map again, even though it was covered, the spirit was still there. For most beings, it was as if the external spirit clouded the internal spirit, but what if the map or Hogwarts could ‘see’ the essence?

Rigel couldn’t say whether, once he became an Animagus, he could borrow the twins’ map to find out if he could still be ‘seen’ by the map.

In any case, giving birth to an inner spirit, which maintains its own form, should be like sharing the body with the animal, the spirit would be too weak to influence the soul of a wizard, but who knows, with enough time the wizard might end up being completely assimilated by the animal spirit. Peter managed to spend 12 years as a Rat, although he was exhibiting rat-like behaviors, he soon returned to seeming more ‘normal,’ so it would probably be very difficult for the animal spirit to take control.

The soul of a wizard is very powerful, at least for the animal spirit generated by the Animagus transformation. Rigel had to admit that it was intelligent and, in a way, safe magic, that is, of course, if he had assumed it correctly.

This also led him to think about werewolves, if the Animagus spirit was too weak to take control, the werewolf spirit would probably be the opposite, much stronger than the wizard’s, or perhaps it would draw power directly from the wizard, which would explain the weakness after the transformation.

Therefore, it was likely that the Animagus form and the wizard were connected entities, but not fused, the Werewolf, on the other hand, could be the conversion of the wizard into another being, or another being taking over the wizard’s body during the transformation.

There were other possibilities as well, Rigel hadn’t studied these cursed beings in depth yet, but it was a good topic for future research.

In any case, after maintaining the ritual of repeating ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus’ every day until encountering a storm, he was supposed to drink the potion and become an Animagus.

However, Rigel had his own ideas about this as well, and if he used the mental landscape of the coffin to complete the transformation, would that work?

–x–