I, unfortunately, had to put writing on the backburner for awhile due to life. But, I've gotten some good content written in the last week so I'm optimistic that more updates to my other fics will follow shortly behind this one.
"Hello, Clementine."
Clem looked up at the soft, lyrical voice, and smiled. Luna had approached his table in the library while he was buried in research about thestrals, for his Care of Magical Creatures extra-credit project. He hadn't heard her footsteps, but then, she looked to be wearing slippers today.
"Hey," Clem greeted, nodding to the seat across from him. "Thanks for helping me with this."
"Thestrals are seriously misunderstood creatures," Luna said sagely. "It's good that you're writing about them."
"You know it's just an essay for Professor Hagrid, right?" Clem asked carefully.
"Oh, well, yes," Luna agreed. "But formulating your thoughts on the topic will only make you better able to share them with others later, don't you think?"
"Right," Clem said, after a hesitant pause.
"Would you like to borrow one of my necklaces?" The girl asked out of the blue.
Clem blinked at her.
"You need it," she said calmly, lifting a strand of turquoise beads holding a pendant fashioned from cork from around her neck. Before Clem could think to protest, she had dropped it around his head.
"Um… thanks," he said.
"It won't dispel a wrackspurt infestation as bad as yours very quickly, but it will help," Luna said, nodding wisely.
"Thanks, then," Clem said. "Erm… so, about the thestrals. Some of the texts mention their link with death, but none of them really explain apart from the fact that only people who've seen death can see them."
"That's quite fascinating, actually," Luna said, leaning across the table. "We aren't sure why thestrals can only be seen by witnessing death. But, it would make sense if they were created from the spirits of those who'd died …"
The conversation with Luna Lovegood was fascinating. She knew theories that weren't found in the textbooks, had personal experience in feeding them and so knew their preferences, and detailed how she'd come to know them as the gentlest of creatures who cared deeply about one another. Clem found himself asking questions he hadn't thought of when he'd made his initial list. How did they treat their young? How about the elderly? Had she ever seen one riled?
"I imagine a basilisk would do it," Luna was rambling agreeably. "I suspect a basilisk's gaze wouldn't work on a thestral. It would be like a dragon being vulnerable to fire, don't you see? To meet a basilisk's eyes is to see death, and you have to see death to see a thestral - "
Clem shuddered. "Great theory," he agreed quickly. "How long do they live for?"
"Well, I've never seen one die," Luna mused. "I wonder if they do it at all."
The way she said it was so casual, as if death was something one chose rather than something that stalked behind every living creature its whole life.
"The textbooks don't say anything about it either," Clem said.
"Did you know that basilisks have never seen death?" Luna said, making Clem tense all over again. "Their eyes momentarily go blind at the moment the magic leaves them to kill, you see, so I doubt they could see thestrals at all -"
"Don't you have mythical creatures to chase, Lovegood?"
Clem felt guilty for being relieved to hear Mabel's caustic tones.
"Hello, Mabel," Luna greeted cheerily. "And it would be rather silly to chase after creatures that don't exist, don't you think?"
Mabel sat rather forcefully in the seat next to Clem, scowling. "Yeah, I do. Catch a hint. Leave."
"You don't have to be so rude," Clem muttered, ashamed of Mabel's scorn and also relieved he didn't have to listen to ramblings about basilisks anymore.
"Oh it's alright," Luna said calmly, already gathering her things. "It's probably the wrackspurts. They make even the kindest people grumpy, and it's worse for mean ones. You have a very serious infestation." She directed this at Mabel, whose scowl only deepened.
"Lovegood."
"Sorry," Clem murmured, going to lift the cork necklace from his neck. Luna stopped him with a sincere smile.
"Oh, you keep that. I have another in my trunk. You should probably share it with Mabel once your own colony is dealt with, though. I hope your essay is clearly mystifying."
And with that confusing well-wish, she skipped away with utter disregard for the glare Madame Pince sent her way.
"Why were you talking to her?" Mabel groused.
"She knows a lot about creatures," Clem said quickly. "And you shouldn't be so mean to her; I know she can be strange but she's not bad."
"She was talking about basilisks," Mabel spat. "She should know better."
Clem repressed another shudder. "She doesn't know about it, okay? There's no way she would know. You can't blame her."
"I can blame who I want," Mabel said stiffly. "We all went through that year. You don't just talk about it like it was nothing."
Clem sighed. This was a losing argument, obviously, but he still felt the need to defend their somewhat-oblivious classmate. "It's a stupid thing for me to be so touchy about, okay? It was terrifying, but most everyone else is fine now."
"You know what we think about 'everyone.'"
Clem rolled his eyes. "You don't get shaky anytime someone mentions first year."
"I'm a breed apart," Mabel replied snootily.
"You're deflecting," Clem accused.
Mabel sniffed. "You're not supposed to notice."
"I know you too well. It's fine, honestly - I know I'm a little pathetic."
Mabel's lips twitched. "Well…."
Clem forced a returning smile, even though the lack of argument left something hollow inside of him.
"You'll get over it eventually," Mabel said in an attempt at comfort. She did sound confident, but it may have just been dismissal; she was already turning her attention to her own bookbag, where a bird's nest of crumpled notes and essays obscured her battered textbooks.
Clem swallowed, hearing the ghostly echo of scales on stone. "Yeah. Eventually."
Clem was trying very hard to distract himself as he headed down to their workroom on the seventh day after adding the dew. Mabel had sunk into a stern-faced quiet, but the silence left him thinking about all the things that could go wrong with this plan again, and then Mabel would be annoyed at him. So, rather than let the silence exist as he usually might, Clem was desperately trying to find a topic that he could fill a good few minutes with. He'd already exhausted talking about thestral theories (which were mostly just regurgitated from Luna, but he hadn't told Mabel that). Now he needed something else.
"Pokemon!" he said.
"Pardon?" Mabel asked, pausing.
"It's this video game," he said, grinning.
Her face began to pinch, so he quickly went ahead to explain it before she could wrestle with the need to ask.
"You know the telly? Well, video games are kind of like that, except you get to choose what happens on the screen, so it's a game."
Mabel grunted, which could mean that she either understood or didn't care enough to admit she didn't. Clem plowed on.
"So I saw adverts for these games, Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, over the summer, and they look really cool. You play this character who goes around collecting creatures that hide… kind of like collecting chocolate frog cards? Except instead of wizards you're collecting these strange, cute creatures named Pokemon."
"What are they any good for?" Mabel asked.
"Oh, well, you use them to battle each other," Clem said, grinning. "They all have different abilities and powers and some are better against certain ones. The whole point of the game is to build a team of Pokemon and train them so that you can defeat other trainers—"
They had arrived at the workroom. Mabel pushed open the door blithely, and Clem followed, trying to keep his mind on his distraction even as Mabel crossed over to their vials without even a glance around.
"There's this rival you have named Gary and he follows you around and tries to beat you so he can become the champion first, but really, it's the collecting part that I like the look of. I've heard there's over one hundred and fifty different Pokemon, and—"
Mabel had dug into her pocket and withdrawn something from within. Clem averted his eyes as he saw her lift her hand to her vial.
"You can trade your Pokemon with others with a special cable. I know it would be pretty expensive, so I don't have a hope of getting the Game Boy and even one of the games any time soon, but maybe one day we could—"
"Here's your chrysalis," Mabel interrupted, nudging his arm and then gently pressing a small pod into his hand, reddish-brown and smooth like mahogany. It had a surprising weight in Clem's hand, and he carefully closed his hand around the ingredient, his heart suddenly in his mouth as he thought about the weight of what they were doing.
"Mine's done, see?" Mabel gently flicked her vial towards him, showing off how the black-flecked water had turned into something resembling smoke with the addition of the chrysalis. She turned to put it back up safely on the shelf, and Clem stared down at the innocent, pupating insect in his hand.
"Clem, this is the easiest part. Aren't you going to get on with it?"
Mabel held out Clem's vial to him, and he took it silently. This was the last step before it was more or less out of their control. Once the chrysalis had been added, all that was left was the repetition of an incantation and waiting for a thunderstorm.
Clem's hand was disconcertingly steady as he dropped the unassuming pod into his vial. The liquid inside hissed slightly as the new ingredient was added, and he wondered if that was right—if it was a sign that he'd done something wrong. He hadn't heard Mabel's hiss, but it had been so quiet he could have easily missed it.
He watched as his own potion turned the same liquid-smoke color as Mabel's. It wasn't very reassuring. What if he'd done something wrong and screwed this up for both of them?
"Clem," Mabel said insistently, in a tone that indicated she'd already tried to get his attention once. "Are you still freaking out? It's been almost a month, and it's all going fine. You need to relax."
Clem made himself put his vial back up on the shelf and swallowed. "But what if it's not?"
"Not what?"
"Going fine. What if I made it wrong? What if we misunderstood the directions? Some parts of them are so vague, and usually people doing this would be supervised by a mentor of some kind to keep anything from going wrong, and we aren't and - "
"Clementine!"
Clem stopped, realizing that his fists were clenched and his breathing had gone erratic. Mabel reached up and gripped his shoulders—and wow, he actually was quite a bit taller than her now—and gave him a slight shake. It seemed to jar the panicked stream of thought from his head.
"Do you have any idea how smart you are?" Mabel asked.
Clem blinked, and her expression was still set and serious, eyes steady on his.
The seconds stretched on, and Clem was aware of his heart beating in his ears, but Mabel's eyes did not slide away.
"Well?" she asked.
Clem licked his lips. "Um… well…"
"How many O's did you get at the end of last year's exams?"
Clem knew these numbers like he knew his own name.
"Seven," he murmured. "The other two were E's."
Mabel shook him slightly again. "That's impressive, idiot. And you got an O in Potions. Do you realize how hard that is? Professor Snape is not a teacher that goes easy on us. You didn't make any mistakes."
"You don't know that," Clem protested.
"I do, because I'm smart too—"
Clem snorted.
"—and we went over everything a thousand times. We watched each other every step, and we didn't do anything wrong. Okay? Merlin, but have a little faith in us, you moron!"
Clem managed a weak smile. "You're trying to give me more confidence by calling me a moron?"
"Hey, I didn't choose the methods that work," Mabel said, dropping her hands away and turning her nose up. "That's all on your idiot head."
Clem felt a laugh bubble up, still edged with a hint of hysteria, but far calmer. It was manageable again. And mixed with it was even a little bit of excitement, because this was supposed to be hard, and it seemed like they were actually succeeding. Two fifth-years, becoming animagi… that would be a huge accomplishment, wouldn't it?
Mabel smiled sharply at him. "Done panicking now?"
"I… I think so."
"I'll call you a moron more often."
"You know what they say about too much of a good thing."
"It's still a good thing?"
Clem shook his head, smiling now. "You're impossible."
He stepped over to the rough calendar they'd drawn on the chalkboard and sketched a quick skull on the current date to indicate the deaths-head hawkmoth chrysalis had been added. Mabel came up next to him, arms crossed as she looked on. The calendar ended at the skull. After that was just an arrow, and a jagged line to indicate lightning.
It was no longer a process that could be measured in days or months. Now it was all up to the chances of nature. The final step could happen tonight, or months from now.
Realistically, they probably wouldn't be finishing this until the spring rains brought thunderstorms to Scotland. Clem felt he could breathe easier, knowing that. They had a few months to focus on their schoolwork, and maybe he could think over the process another few times—dig up some accounts of others who had successfully achieved the transformation—in the meantime.
"We need a plan for if a lightning storm strikes while we're in class," Mabel said.
That was easy. "Skiving Snackboxes."
Mabel raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. "You mean the product of those Weasley Terror Twins?"
"Well, yes. Neil has one. I can offer him a few knuts for two sets of sweets."
Mabel sighed. "I hate it on principle. But, it'll work. As for keeping track of the weather…"
She reached into her rucksack and withdrew a small, smooth glass globe, filled with gray vapor. She handed it to Clem, and he held it up at eye level to examine it. It didn't seem like anything special. The vapor hardly even moved inside.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A Sky Seer," Mabel said dismissively. "It uses the same charms that they put on fake windows to make them reflect the current weather, it's just pocket-sized. I got them customized to vibrate whenever lightning strikes. Don't take it off of you. Not while you're sleeping or even showering, okay?"
"Got it."
"And make sure you're up for sunrise."
"Mabel, we'll have already eaten breakfast."
"Just saying. You were just panicking."
"That doesn't mean I'll suddenly start sleeping into first period!"
Mabel snorted, but something else had occurred to Clem.
"Hey. It won't be something we hate, right? Like… the animal is supposed to reflect who we are, so it should be impossible to… be afraid of it, or something."
Mabel narrowed her eyes at him. "It is supposed to reflect who we are. A lot of people really hate who they are inside, though."
"Thanks, that's reassuring—"
Mabel shushed him. "But, you're nothing like a snake, Clem. Seriously. Snakes are…cunning, quick predators. You aren't. You'll probably be a kitten or something."
Clem took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Yeah. You're right. Good."
Mabel smirked. "Aren't I always?"
Two weeks later
Clem had always loved the Hufflepuff common room. From his first step into the room as a terrified first year, he had felt warm and welcomed and safe. The walls were dark wood carved and polished into reliefs of animals and plants. The furniture was oversized and overstuffed, upholstered in shades between light brown and gold. Several fireplaces cast the entire space in golden light.
Plants were crammed into every corner not set aside specifically for human use. Many of them were flowering plants and bloomed at different times of the year. Refreshingly, most of them were actually muggle species. Clem reasoned that it probably wouldn't be safe to dump large groups of inexperienced children into a house filled with aggressive and/or carnivorous plants.
Clem still adhered to the advice given by their prefect all the way back on his first night. He made it a point to murmur a 'hello' to the Sneaking Snapdragon which twined on a trellis set around and over the entryway, and was rewarding as the plant shivered in recognition. The plant was usually fairly tame, but letting it get to know you never hurt, the prefect had said. Clem hadn't been bitten or burned by it yet, which was good enough for him to prove that the prefect had been right.
He was looking forward to a hot shower, and then some time spent practicing his sketching. He'd never seen a thestral (never seen death) but he wanted to try to copy the illustrations of them from a back-dated edition of the Quibbler Luna had given him after Potions. He also rather thought he'd try sketching the deaths'-head hawkmoth, of picture of which he'd come across while researching the most magically potent insects used in European potions. It was a very striking species, he thought, and would be fun to duplicate in graphite.
"Hi, Clem!" Amanda Hotchkins called, sitting at a table nearby. She was with Grace Jorkins and Misha Jigger, and from the star charts spread out on the table between them, they were studying for the upcoming Astronomy quiz. He waved back good-naturedly, thinking to continue on to his room. Amanda often said hello to him, but he figured she was just one of those people who was friendly to everyone. The sound of a chair scraping back surprised him.
"Wait, um…" Amanda had stood up and was disentangling her ankle from her seat. He stopped, watching her as she freed herself and then joined him, her cheeks flushed. It was a nice contrast with her blonde hair.
"Do you… um, do you want to study with us? With me?" she said, eyes flicking between his, resolute to keep up her courage but struggling.
"Oh, well," Clem said, startled and running his hand through his hair. "I'm um… all caught up, actually."
"Oh, of course," Amanda said, sounding strangely disappointed. "You're always studying with Estes."
Clem frowned, trying to think through why Amanda sounded so down about it.
"You could study with us tomorrow," he offered. "I've got a project I'm working on for Care of Magical Creatures, so it'll be pretty quiet. Mabel won't mind."
Probably.
Maybe?
Ugh…
"That's okay," Amanda said quickly. "I don't want to intrude."
"You won't be," Clem said just as hastily. "It's just… um, pretty boring, really—" when Mabel isn't plotting criminal activity.
"Oh, if you're sure!" Amanda said. "After the last period?"
"Yeah, you can just come with me after DADA if you want," Clem offered.
Amanda's face lit up, all traces of sadness and disappointment gone. "That sounds great! Um… well, see you tomorrow!"
She was bouncing as she went back to her friends, and the three immediately hunched over the table to whisper and giggle behind their hands.
Clem blinked, wondering if he was about to get pranked, and then shrugged and turned to go to his room. He spent a pleasant two hours drawing. Perry was off at some prefect meeting, and Neil was probably off snogging his girlfriend in some abandoned classroom in Perry's patrol area where he knew he wouldn't get in trouble. It meant that neither would be back for, probably, several hours, and Clem wasn't one to complain about the quiet.
When his eyes were drooping, Clem wrapped his pencils in an old sock to keep the leads from getting cracked, then packed them and his sketchbook in his trunk. He spent just a couple of minutes in the hot shower before brushing his teeth and crawling under his coverlet.
Amanda was trying to spend time with him. Wasn't that strange? The girls stuck together, for the most part. It was almost like…
Clem shot up in bed, blinking rapidly.
Had she been trying to ask him out?
But why hadn't she just said so?
Maybe she'd been nervous? Okay, definitely nervous… which was probably just proof that he was right, wasn't it?
He groaned, flopping back onto his pillow. He'd been so oblivious. Oh, I've already finished, actually, he mocked himself. Idiot! He'd probably made her feel like a moron when he said that.
Maybe he could grab Mabel and ask her to make an excuse to leave their study session early tomorrow?
Oh, she'd really love that, wouldn't she—the library isn't Madame Puddifoot's, Clem, go find a broom closet.
Drat!
Mabel noticed Clem's nervousness from their very first class together, Charms. She arrived just before the class officially started, sliding into the seat next to him without a glance at her glaring housemates. Flitwick made no comment—accustomed to her habits by now—and began lecturing on summoning spells while Mabel unpacked her parchment and quill.
"What's wrong?" she whispered.
Clem wasn't sure what it was he was going to say, but it only came out as something between a grunt and a squeak anyway. It was a bit too loud, and drew the attention of Flitwick.
"Are you well, Mr. Lasik?"
Clem managed to make his throat function properly. "Yes, sir. Sorry."
Flitwick moved right along with his lecture, then, and Clem tried to focus. But Amanda was sitting on the bench behind him, just a few feet to his left, sandwiched between Misha and Grace. He was sure that she was looking at him, but he hadn't been brave enough to turn around and risk making eye contact with her.
"Seriously," Mabel hissed. "You look like you're sitting on a beehive."
Clem made a vague motion at her, hoping she'd leave it alone for now. Amanda would hear. And what would she think, if Clem was anxious about seeing her? Would she think he didn't want to?
"Clementine," Mabel hissed again.
Clem shushed her as quietly as he could, drawing glances from Neil and Perry, and probably the girls as well.
"Mr. Lasik?"
"Sorry Professor," Clem said meekly. "Just… um, stomachache."
"You do look rather uncomfortable. Perhaps you should go see Madame Pomfrey, hm?"
"Oh," Clem stuttered. "No, it's… it's fine, Professor. Thank you. Er… sorry."
"Do let me know if you need to leave," Flitwick said kindly. "No sense in staying if you can't concentrate, after all."
"Right, sir. Sorry, sir."
Once Flitwick had resumed and was well underway again, Clem risked turning just enough to glare at Mabel.
"What?" she mouthed, far too innocent.
He ignored her for the rest of the class, though she passed him two notes bugging him to spill whatever it was that was bothering him. He tried his best to take notes, tried to pretend that he wasn't hyperaware of Amanda sitting so nearby, resisted the urge to look over his shoulder every five seconds, and ignored Mabel some more. The class dragged on for seemingly forever before they were released.
Mabel wasted no time once Flitwick had dismissed them.
"Spill it, Lasik. Something happened, I know, so tell me."
Clem finally did glance over at Amanda as she passed by the front of his desk with her friends, and then froze as their eyes met. Smile, smile…
But then she was gone again, giggling with Misha and Grace, and Mabel's elbow was rudely intruding upon his ribcage.
"Come on, Clem."
Flitwick appeared in front of Clem's work area just as Clem was managing to gather up his things.
"Do make a stop at the Hospital Wing, Mr. Lasik," the diminutive professor said. "I'm sure Madame Pomfrey would be agreeable to giving you a calming draught."
"A calming draught? Don't you mean a stomach soother, Professor?" Mabel asked.
"No, no—" Flitwick smiled, obnoxiously happy. "I do believe it's a calming draught Mr. Lasik needs. Off with you, and good luck, lad."
Clem's cheeks were bright red as he hastily made his escape with Mabel. Out in the hall, she shoved him hard enough that he bumped into the wall.
"Clem."
"Amandaaskedmeout," he squeaked.
Mabel frowned at him. "Pardon?"
"Well, not really," Clem said in a rush. "She asked if I wanted to study with her, but then I told her I was already caught up and she was sad, so I asked her to join us today in the library and I think maybe she likes me and now I think maybe I shouldn't have asked her to do that but you could leave early, maybe?"
Mabel scrunched her eyebrows together. "You asked her to study with us?"
"That's what you got from that?" Clem asked, loudly enough that they drew looks from other students at the other end of the hall. Flushing, he quieted his voice. "Yes, because she seemed really upset, and I guess it's because she thought I was saying I didn't want to go out with her at all so I had to do something, didn't I?"
"So you asked her to join our thing?" Mabel asked incredulously. "That's not a solution, Clem."
"Well that's why I thought you could maybe make an excuse to leave early—"
"That's not a solution either!" she said. "Honestly. She probably only accepted because she didn't think she'd get another chance. But I can guarantee you she doesn't want to hang out around me, and I know this because the feeling is mutual—"
"Mabel…"
"No, listen. There are only two ways that can go. Either she feels left out because the two of us know each other too well, or I end up murdering her for making lovey eyes at you and taking up all of your attention. So that isn't going to work."
"Again, why can't you just leave early?"
"Because the library isn't a broom closet, Clem! And I am going to be studying, unlike you, so tell me who should be the one to leave?"
Clem felt his face practically light on fire, even as a distant, merciless part of his brain laughed at him for predicting her response so well and trying his doomed tactic anyway.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked desperately.
"Use the stomachache lie again and back out," Mabel said promptly.
"Mabel!"
"Fine. If you want to spend your time with airheads, it's your own intellect at risk, I suppose. Just don't spread the disease to me."
"Please."
She sighed, very heavily. "Just find her and ask if she'd be alright studying somewhere else. I'm sure you can find an abandoned room somewhere around here. Or, you know, you're in the same house. Just use your common room. Or the kitchens."
Clem turned all those ideas over in his head, and felt his panic begin to recede. "Right…right. Thanks."
"Anytime," Mabel said grumpily.
Clem thought it all over for another few moments as they walked, making their way to the Great Hall for lunch. Another possibility occurred to him.
"But Mabel, what if she wasn't trying to ask me out? Then it'll be weird, won't it? Maybe I should just—"
"Lasik, shut up or by Merlin, I will turn you into a reptile."
Clem shut up.
On the way to DADA that afternoon, Clem's pocket buzzed.
Oddly, his first thought was that he had somehow acquired a mobile and someone was ringing him.
His second, far more panicked thought was: since when does Scotland get thunderstorms in late November?
"Clem?" Perry asked from his right.
"S…sorry," Clem stuttered out. "I… my stomachache has come back. Um… tell Snape I'm… I had to go to the Hospital Wing. Yeah. Sorry… thanks!"
"Wait, what…"
But Clem took off running down the hall in the opposite direction, heart pounding in his throat. He couldn't believe he was skiving Snape's class. The man would murder him, especially if he bothered to follow up on Clem's lie about going to the Hospital Wing. Detention for the rest of the term, probably, but there was nothing he could do. The instructions were clear: you had to drink the potion at the first lightning strike. What would happen if lightning struck again before he could get to the vial? What if the storm wasn't close enough to count? What if the Sky Seer didn't have a radius far enough? There were any number of things that could go wrong!
Clem skidded into his and Mabel's workroom in the dungeon to find her waiting, her vial in hand, pacing anxiously.
"There you are!" she picked up his vial and shoved it into his hand. "Drink it!"
The potion had changed to the color of blood. Clem only had a moment to bask in the relief that it was the right color before Mabel was pointing her wand at her heart and incanting.
"Amato Animo Animato Animagus."
As soon as she finished, she knocked back the potion. It disappeared alarmingly quickly, and as soon as it was gone from the vial, Mabel doubled over, face scrunched with pain.
"Mabel!"
"Drink yours, idiot!" she gasped. "We knew it would hurt!"
Clem glanced once more between his friend and the potion, then drew his wand and pointed it at his heart.
"Amato Animo Animato Animagus."
A dog would be nice, Clem thought as he tipped the potion into the back of his throat and choked it down. Something nice and friendly, something that can defend itself but isn't scary—
"I can feel the heartbeat!" Mabel gasped next to him.
Fire rippled up through his veins and leached into every muscle. His knees buckled and hit the stone, his vision swimming, his head pounding. He saw Mabel gasping on the ground next to him, clutching her hand over her chest.
And then he felt it too. A pulsing in his body, quick and light. A frenetic pounding without any weight. A heartbeat, out of sync with his own.
"It's working!" Clem gasped. "We did it, Mabel!"
"I told you!" she gasped. "I think… I see it. Remember, don't panic!"
Her body began to sprout brown fur.
"I'm not panicking!" Clem said, exhilarated. It hurt, yes, badly, but the magic coursing through him was also so alive. It wanted to change him—no, was excited to change him into something more. He couldn't help but embrace that heady rush."For once, I'm really not!"
Then, an image flashed in his mind: something long, without limbs, smooth and cold and covered in scales; with evil, slitted eyes and a hissing, forked tongue.
The magic no longer felt good. It wanted to change him into a monster; his worst nightmare.
"No!" Clem screamed, feeling the magic grip him even tighter. "Not that! No, I can't—"
He yelled again as the magic dug into his cells like talons. "Mabel!"
Clem reached for her, but his hand missed as her body shrunk away from his touch. Her clothes went with her, all fusing together until she was some sort of weasel, out of reach.
The magic in Clem pulsed, and he pushed back against it. "No! I don't want it!"
But he was in the grip of forces beyond his control. The magic was no longer excited, but angry, mercilessly pressing him into a shape he was terrified of. The one thing Mabel had agreed wouldn't even be a possibility.
"Mabel!"
Clem tried to reach out farther, to touch her, even in her new form. But his own body was being dragged into a straw, compressed and elongated. He could feel his toes disappearing and his ankles fusing despite the layers of socks and trousers between them. Even as he reached out, his arm was shrinking into his body, leaving the sleeve of his shirt behind to drape uselessly on the floor.
His head shrunk to his neck and his face rotated up until it was where the back of his head used to be. He saw the calendar he and Mabel had drawn on the chalkboard, the skull from when they'd added the death's-head hawkmoth chrysalis prominent in white.
He opened his mouth to scream.
He only heard a soft hiss.
