THE SEVEN SINS
CHAPTER 14: LETUM: DEATH I
Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.
--Henry Van Dyke.
What on earth could be happening? This was the question that Harry now occupied himself most days and nights. There was something that he was missing –and the problem was, he didn't know what. He laughed a little ironically at himself –that was why it was said to be 'something missing' wasn't it?
So far, seven people had fallen to the 'curse' or whatever it was. Their eye colours had changed. That was it.
Harry didn't believe that their conscience was truly missing as they had originally thought. If that was so, Hermione would not have reacted the way she did with Ron, on the first day. It was just as Draco said –they were still there. Yet, he couldn't quite understand why they were so off-balance. If they had their original impulses…
There was something that he had forgotten…he'd almost got it…
He hadn't even realised that he had wandered back to the Transfiguration room. As soon as he did, however, he stopped, lifting his head curiously.
"I wonder…"
Making up his mind, he knocked on the door, "Professor McGonagall?" he called.
Grey hair came into view. "Yes, Mr. Potter? Is something wrong?" She hurried to his side, forehead crinkled. Harry thought for a minute.
"Yes…" he said, as he sat down in his desk subconsciously. His brain was playing with an idea that still had no shape, but was almost resembling something…if he could only…
They'd learned how to isolate spells: given a situation in the near future, they would be able to identify any type of charms, spells, hexes or curses by certain pieces of detective work. Specificity had to be trained of course –these required specialists, but a vague idea was what most people went for first.
"Is magnification transfiguration?" he asked his Professor suddenly.
"Well, it depends," McGonagall answered, already intrigued. "It would have to be something real, not something imaginary."
"What if it were an abstract element?" asked Harry. His mind was grasping for something, but he didn't quite know what.
"As long as the abstract element were real, then it wouldn't matter." Her eyes narrowed, curious. "What abstract element are you thinking of, Mr. Potter?"
"Emotions," Harry said, after a while. "Could that be transfigured? Magnified I mean?" he said, cautiously. Transfiguration could last a much longer time than charms could; that was why he was investigating this side of it first. Charms also depended on the caster –transfiguration could last past the caster's death, but charms could not.
"Well, that's a hard thing to do," the Professor said. Already though, Harry could see the excitement building up in her eyes, as she bustled around the classroom, looking through books. "In fact, only a few people have been able to do it…"
She pulled down a rather dusty tome from one of the highest of shelves. Blowing a few cobwebs away from the cover, and banishing the rest with her wand, she turned the pages. "Transfiguring emotions is quite difficult, Mr. Potter, because you are 'messing about' shall we say, with the equilibrium of the human body. It is easy to damage, or even destroy anything that you transfigure the emotions of."
She paused, stopping her constant flipping of the book's pages for a minute. "Not to mention the potential danger to the person's sanity –there is no saying what could happen to a person who's accidentally had all of his or her emotions magnified…in fact, it was a pretty good way to torture someone, by magnifying a highly negative emotion," she said thoughtfully.
"What would you need to do to transfigure a particular emotion?" asked Harry.
"You would need to focus on one particular feeling," said McGonagall slowly. "and you'd have to do a very complicated locating spell so as to focus on something that caused that feeling –an event, maybe, and magnify the source."
A little dawn of realisation occurred to Harry. "Does it matter how small the source is? Or if it's even shown?"
The Transfiguration Professor thought for a little while. "No, you only really need a quantified limit to the emotion you're magnifying."
Harry had already gotten up to dance a jig around the desks but at this point of information, he stopped. "What do you mean by quantified?"
"Oh, a limit. So, something like 'angry up until the point that he starts punching someone'."
Harry grinned. "Is there any way to 'break out of it', then?" he asked, remembering Hermione all of a sudden. If this point was clarified, then he'd know what had happened to each of the victims. If only…
"No," answered McGonagall, and Harry's hopes crashed, scattering across the floor of the classroom in shards.
"W-what?" Harry stammered. For once, this was a little out of his league. They had been so utterly close…
"Unless," the Professor put a contemplating face on. "Unless, of course, the spell was done wrong –deliberately or otherwise."
At Harry's stunned face, she abruptly launched into her explanation: "Transfiguration of emotions does not take into account the denials that the subject has to said emotions: if a person was in denial of their love, a spell magnifying this love would not take the denial into account. Therefore there are not 'sudden breakthrough's as you call it, Mr. Potter." She paused, her forehead wrinkling up even more in her intense thinking session.
"However, if the caster accidentally magnified the emotions that the subject had at the time of the spell cast, then that might be a different matter."
Harry closed his eyes leaning back in his chair. "But why would it be different unless that emotion wasn't there at the time of casting?" He shoved his hands through his hair, desperately. He knew he was almost there, but it was just so frustrating, so exasperating to be that close…!
"Remember how the Unforgivables need hatred to work?" Harry nodded. "In essence, spells take a little piece of the caster away, but because our magic replenishes everything, we never really notice, unless we take too much away too soon –that's what we call a 'magic out'."
"If the caster had accidentally miscast the spell, then there would not have been any 'breakthroughs'. If the caster had miscast the spell on purpose, then it can be safe to say that they didn't expect the subject's feelings to change. So if the subject's feelings changed while the spell was still on them…"
"…then there would be a breakthrough!" Harry whispered in awe. "But what if the subject's feelings then reverted back to magnification status before their feelings changed? And why would someone miscast the spell on purpose?" He knew that Voldemort would try and get as little weakness as possible.
"Someone would miscast the spell on purpose if they were afraid that the subject's emotions would undergo a change so drastic that the feeling that they were magnifying would disappear. As for the reversion, I believe that the magnification transfiguration spell would come in again –a transfiguration spell like that is not actually one spell, but a constant stream of same spells. It would have taken a while, but as soon as the caster had noticed something wrong, then the spell would have adjusted itself so that the magnification would still occur to the quantified limit."
Harry stared at her in awe. "It fits…everything fits!"
His professor turned to him, forehead crinkled. "Mr. Potter…why have you asked me these questions?"
"It's…I…I need to find Dumbledore!" Harry stammered, still unable to get his head around the fact that the mystery was solved. He ran out of the classroom, yelling a 'thank you' as he did so. With that, he took off towards the Gargoyle, exhilarated beyond belief.
"Cotton candy!" he yelled at the gargoyle, and it swung open. Hermione, before she'd been…well, transfigured, had found a spell that added to the Marauder's Map the aspect of knowing what the Headmaster's passwords were in case of emergency. Not noticing as red light surrounded the doorway.
"Dumbledore!" he exclaimed. As the old wizard looked up at him expectantly, he started explaining, his voice excited, seeming to ramble on about the discovery.
As he finished, Dumbledore grinned at him, and clapped his hands. "Excellent, Harry!" He paused. "But what about the seven emotions?"
Harry pondered, a little stumped at this question. His mind whirled, seemingly trapped on the number seven. Why is that number important? he wondered. Then his mind focussed on Hermione…then Dean…then Pansy…so lustful, so greedy…so…
His eyes blinked.
"The seven sins." He spoke softly. Dumbledore clapped his hands again.
"That is truly good…" Dumbledore took a sip of his tea, mouth curved into a smile. "You have found the answer," he said cheerfully, rather like one of the PS2 muggle games that said 'You have won' over and over again.
Harry looked at the Headmaster with not a little doubt in his eyes. "Headmaster, are you alright?"
"That would depend what 'alright' is," Dumbledore said, still in that irritating voice. Gradually standing, he rose up behind the desk.
With growing apprehension, Harry stepped back, as the Headmaster only continued to smile.
Black swirled around his vision, and for a second he thought he was going into a faint. Until he realised that, like a cloak revealing the twisted version of a muggle conjurer's tricks, an image was being peeled off, and Harry realised that he was standing in a completely black clearing, with no skies, and no ground.
And it was then that the Headmaster's beard and twinkling blue eyes melted away to form poisonous red and a set of black robes.
A thin mouth appeared, and as the transformation completed itself, it raised itself into a sneer.
"Hello, Harry," it said.
Replies to Reviewers: Radish Earrings: Thank you, as always!
birdsofmorrigan: You won't be so confused anymore, I hope! Well, less anyway, not totally not confused. I haven't even explained everything everything yet!
JadeLilyMalfoy: Dang…I have to work on my Slytherin tendencies a little bit more.
JustBecauseI'mAgUrl: Thank you very much and I hope you like the new update! Love your name by the way…
FreeDaChickens: Well, first of all there ARE only seven, as you can see by the title…hope this chapter's title explained that. Secondly, Pomfrey is asleep, but because her 'sloth' tendencies have awakened, she can't focus on any other emotion. She is asleep, but she can't wake up. The other things will be explained later.
TheSmallestGhost: Well I hope you get it now!
Dark Angel's Blue Fire: Yep, and I'm updating again!
NinjaoftheDarkness: Actually I do it rather spontaneously…-sweat drops- but thanks!
Cute-angel4eva: Updating!
Nulla: Now you know!
Hiril Moon: I don't quite know either. –shrugs- But you're here now! Whoopee! Oh, and Draco is NOT going to die and neither is Harry. I do very few character deaths. There are not going to be any except one in this one.
Clayscarface: Well, here's your rather gigantic explanation! Does it all fit? I hope it does, because if it doesn't I will be rather puzzled about how to fix it. I don't think righteous anger will be too 'bad', though I would imagine that the angels wouldn't be angry, but more…righteous instead.
