Raylynx's POV

We continued travelling the next day. The group set a pretty fast pace. By the time we reached out spot, it was just before evening. We immediately began to set-up camp. I collected a few buckets and went in search of water. The air up in the mountains was even colder. I could see my breath.

I took my wand and drew spirals in the air and murmured, "Invenimus aquam." A thin thread of silver light led me to a tree trunk. I paused, confused. Then I knelt and began to dig through the foliage. My eyes widened as I saw a crystal clear spring bubbling up beneath the leaves. I touched it with my finger. It was cold and fresh. I took the bucket and tossing my cloak behind my shoulders, bent over to collect the water. I didn't notice the pearly white stone fall from my pocket into the foliage below.

When I was finished collecting water, I took one last drink myself before I covered it back up with leaves. I took both buckets and made my way back to camp.

"You can put the water just over there," Maudrick nodded to a tent.

I went to put the buckets there, and Maudrick followed me in.

"Thanks for doing this," Maudrick said.

"Of course," I replied cheerfully, and began to leave when he grabbed my wrist.

"Professor?" I said, concerned.

He gripped my wrist tighter. "Your magic. It's changed."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You use spells differently," Maudrick said. "You channel your magic differently now."

I fell silent, unwilling to speak about the King's Wand.

Suddenly, he asked, "May I see your wand?"

When I didn't move, Maudrick said quietly, "Your cutting curse… It hit Riley in the wrist. We haven't been able to heal it properly since."

Maudrick dropped my wrist and walked out of the tent.

I breathed out.


"Do you feel well enough to join us tonight?" Jesse asked me, smiling at me.

I nodded.

"Here, take this extra Cloak," Carlisle said, handing me a darker cloak.

"It's made to blend in with the forest colors. It's grey-green now, it'll transform to black at night," he explained. I nodded, and switched my blue Cloak out for the grey-green Cloak.

As I did, I hesitated. I reached into my cloak pocket and then felt a sense of panic run through me. I rummaged through my pocket and peered inside it, but sure enough, it was gone. The lumeare was gone.

It was just a stone, I told myself. Just a pretty stone. Calm down. It could have been much worse. Imagine if you'd lost the Horcrux instead.

I took a deep breath and nodded to myself. Of all the things that could have fallen out, losing that keepsake was the least of my worries.

I pulled on the Snatcher's Cloak and followed after the others.

The first shade of dusk crept up on us as we passed through the trees.

We were split into two groups, to cover as much ground as possible. The first group was Carlisle, Madison, Sam, Jesse, Harper and Riley. The second group was Maudrick, Zayne, Athena, Hayden, Benjamin and me. Within our individual groups, there was group alpha and beta. I was assigned group alpha with Hayden and Athena. That meant that whenever we split, we were supposed to head for the lower ground and gain on our targets as much as possible while group beta covered us from higher ground. It was the tactic that had worked successfully against me.

We made our way through the forest until Maudrick raised a hand.

"Hear that?" he muttered.

We all strained our ears and then, we all caught the same sounds. There were faint sounds of shouting and scuffles some ways to the North.

"Let's go," Zayne said and we started to jog through the forest. The sun was beginning to lower itself, dragging below the branches and illuminating the fall foliage on the forest floor. The sounds of the scuffle were getting louder and louder.

Squinting, I could make out five or so cloaked men running after what appeared to be a small family. An older man and two teenage boys were trying to hold off some of the cloaked men as a woman holding a baby to her breast and a small child by the hand was running off ahead.

Two cloaked men slipped through the fight and began to chase after the woman and children.

"Alpha, split!" Maudrick ordered and the three of us started sprinting full speed after the woman and children.

Athena and Hayden were both faster than me, and they immediately put up protective spells to help the older man and the two teenage boys from being instantly overwhelmed by the two Death Eaters.

But then I saw one of the Death Eaters turn and raise his arm towards the woman running away. Without thinking about it, I barreled into him, tackling him down onto the ground. We fell into the foliage, grappling with each other. He easily got the upper hand with brute force and grabbed my chin, forcing my head into place. I struggled, but he was sitting on top of me, trapping my arms to my sides. He raised his wand and began to growl "Avada Kedav-"

"Stupefy!"

Athena's Stunning Spell caught him right in the neck and he fell over, stunned.

Breathing hard, I immediately got up off the ground.

"You all right?" Athena asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks. Let's catch up!"

In truth, I was rattled and badly shaken. But if I let myself get shaken by every Killing Curse that got thrown at me, I'd be dead at least ten times over by now. We hurried forward and joined the fight against the four Death Eaters.

By now, the family had figured out that we weren't actually Snatchers and helped us to defeat the remaining Death Eaters. With our numbers, we made short work of them.

Maudrick began to introduce us to them when he suddenly heard shouts up ahead.

"Riley, Benjamin, lead them back to the camp!" Maudrick ordered. "Rest of you, come with me!"

We immediately took off again, racing through the trees.

There was a young girl and boy, perhaps Hogwarts students, running from Death Eaters. Our first group of fighters was dueling with the real Snatchers on their tail. Their numbers matched ours and spells were going astray everywhere.

"Get behind me," Maudrick said, and pushed the two teenagers behind him. The rest of us joined the fight. I teamed up with Jesse to bring down two Snatchers. We worked well together, timing spells together so as to cover each other.

"Always knew we belonged on the same team," he commented cheerily, holding his hand up for a high five.

Madison began to erase the Snatchers' memories so that they would forget that Maudrick's group was not real Snatchers.

Then, we hiked our way back to the camp.

When we got back, each group leader reported what had happened.

Carlisle was grim as he said, "I saw Fenrir."

Fenrir? The name was strangely familiar.

"He didn't bite anyone, did he?" Benjamin asked, his voice tense.

Something in my memory clicked.

Fenrir Greyback was the savage werewolf who bit Remus as a child and who enjoyed the horror and slaughter of it all. I shuddered.

"No, we managed to get to them before," Madison said. "But only just."

"We'll have to be more on guard than usual," Benjamin replied, sighing.

"More than that," Sam said. "We should track them, so that we can prevent whatever attacks they're going to make."

It was clear that there was not enough water to go around and so I volunteered to go again. As I tiredly made my way back up to the spring, I thought I spotted something glimmering besides the water spring.

I raced up the hill to the spring. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was a white plant that had sprouted up overnight. Its stem and leaves were all sparkling, and the air around it glowed softly.

I bent down to study it. My brain felt awakened just by breathing in its scent. I touched one of its leaves and it felt refreshingly cool to the touch.

I stared at it in awe. I've never come across such a plant. What plant could be so bright, so pure?

I hesitated. Bright? Pure?

"How pure it's glow, how bright it's light," she said. Then, she smiled like the Chesire Cat, as though she had given me some precious clue.

"The lumeare," I whispered, shocked. "This plant grew from the lumeare."

Yes, I must have dropped it when I leaned over to drink water from the spring yesterday.

Wait… I thought back to my discussions with Dorcas and Mrs. Kaius.

"I still can't think of any Potions ingredient with a purity and luminosity that high." I bit my lower lip. "Can you, Mrs. Kaius?"

"No," she agreed. "I do not know. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that the formula is useless. It just means that there is some more research to do."

"This is it," I murmured in awe. I traced the edge of the lead with my finger. "Pure… Luminous…"


"Ray, what exactly are you doing?" Zayne said, utterly confused as he watched me haul a sack full of Potions ingredients up the mountain in the dead of the night.

"It's got to be above 20,000," I muttered to myself, running over the alchemic processes in my head. "Preferably 28,000, but that's just ridiculous."

"What's just ridiculous?" Zayne asked, hesitantly following me.

He kept watching me worriedly, and every so often, glanced back at the campsite until it disappeared between the trees.

Finally, we came in view of the plant.

"Whoa. What's that?" he asked, his eyes going wide.

"The answer," I grumbled, pushing forward the heavy bag. "The answer to everything."

I dropped to my knees and rummaged around in the bag, pulling out a phial of shimmering blue liquid. I took out a beaker, a wooden board and knife, and some roots. Then, I set up a cauldron over a small fire besides me. Zayne sat by me and watched quietly, no longer interrupting or questioning me.

I sliced the roots and stewed them over the fire, then pulled the cork on the phial and tipped it into the beaker.

When the roots had finished brewing, I tipped the hot liquid into the beaker. The liquid inside turned into a pitch black. This was the purity test. The ingredient dropped into the liquid would lighten the black into various shades of grey, and the closer the shade was to being clear, the purer it was. However, if the shade ended up as white, it was also an indicator of its luminosity.

Carefully, I sliced off a single leaf from the lumeare plant and then dropped it in.

It hissed, and then began to steam.

"Er- That's not how plants normally react!" Zayne said, jumping to his feet.

It started to spark.

"Get back!" Zayne yanked me to my feet and pulled me back.

The beaker exploded. All it left behind was a thin milky liquid, enflamed, and spilling quickly over the ground. "Look," Zayne pointed.

"This is unprecedented," I said in amazement, as we both bent down to look more closely at the glass-like liquid.

"Beakers exploding and setting things on fire? No, it's not," Zayne scoffed. "It's like being at Hogwarts all over again."

I glanced up at him and we both grinned sheepishly.


I spent the rest of the night diluting the leaves and then making the potion.

I was in awe the whole time.

Dorcas, Mrs. Kaius, I didn't just find the plant that reaches the absurdly high levels of purity and luminosity we needed. I found a plant that has to be diluted! The purity and luminosity of this plant surpasses even theoretical levels. Imagine traveling to infinity, and finding another dimension beyond that. That's what I've managed to come across.

I conducted the rest of the potion-making in accordance to the formulas. Normally, I would be too nervous to do this without better preparation, but somehow I felt like Dorcas was sitting beside me, guiding me on what to do. Zayne stayed with me the whole night, handing me the papers I needed or keeping the cauldron at the appropriate temperature.

A pale dawn broke over us, light spilling down the hillside.

"I need to go tell the others where we are," Zayne said.

I nodded, not really hearing what he was saying to me.

The timing had to be perfect. I snatched the beaker out of the boiling liquid in the cauldron at the precise moment.

I worked well into the day, not even noticing when the sun beat down on my shoulders.

Zayne finally came back when I had my first break, which was when the potion-brewing required forty minutes of just stewing. I carefully set my watch to the time, and then sat back against the tree and gazed at the plant.

Zayne dropped a parcel of food in front of me and said, "I've told the others that we're working on something. Didn't say what, though. The others said they're going on ahead, to track Fenrir's group of Snatchers. I promised we'd catch up to them as soon as we were done."

"It's going to take a minimum of five days, Zayne," I said.

Zayne looked uncomfortable, but finally shrugged.

"I appreciate your kindness, but you don't have to stay with me," I told him.

"Nah, if I left you on your own, someone could come galumphing on a chimera and you wouldn't notice, you're so intent on your potion."

"Do you know what I'm trying to make?" I asked Zayne.

He shook his head.

"It's a werewolf mind transformation prevention potion," I told him.

His mouth fell open and the piece of sandwich he was eating fell out of his mouth and into the dirt.

"But that doesn't exist," Zayne said.

"Not yet," I agreed. "But that's because nobody could find a plant with a high enough purity and luminosity to satisfy alchemic laws. The equations didn't work out, not even on a theoretical level."

"The equation?"

"It's a deviation from Golpalott's Third Law. It's a bit complicated, but essentially, the values of purity and luminosity have to overwhelm the darkness of both the man and wolf combined."

"Right, because the antidote has to be more than the sum of its parts," Zayne said, awestruck.

"Yes," I replied.

"How did you figure this all out, Ray?" Zayne asked.

"I didn't," I said, staring at the plant again. "I hardly figured anything out. I just happen to be the one to execute it."

As I stared at the bubbling potion, I thought about how it was that I, the least skilled in Potions, certainly when compared to the likes of Mrs. Kaius and Dorcas, had come to be sitting here now, actually brewing what could be the first werewolf mind transformation prevention potion.

For years, I thought it was unfair that I was always overlooked. But now I see that that is my advantage. To be overlooked by history means that you can change it. Nobody shoots the messenger.


In five days, we procured a potion. But there was a remaining issue, and it was an important one.

"How do we know if it's going to work?" Zayne asked. "Neither of us are werewolves."

I shook my head, pondering. "I'm not sure, either. But for now, let's try to catch up to the others."

I put up the strongest protective enchantments around the plant and then I enchanted my coming-of-age watch so that it no longer told time, but was a compass to this very spot. I figured Professor McGonagall wouldn't be too disapproving.

"Zayne?" I called.

"Hm?"

"Where are we exactly? What is the name of this forest?"

"The Forest of Dean."

We were walking through the forest a few hours later, when Zayne suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"What is it? Do you see something?" I asked, standing behind his shoulder and peering out in the woods.

"I've got it," Zayne said suddenly. "The potion, Raylynx…"

"Yes?"

"We're headed straight to the perfect testing subject."

"We are?" I said, crinkling my nose.

Zayne explained excitedly, "Maudrick's group, our group, we're setting up to ambush Fenrir. He's a werewolf, isn't he?"

"Zayne, you're a genius!"

"Well, I'm not as cool as your friends who came up with the potion," Zayne said modestly.

"Oh, come on. Your idea is perfect!" I said. "But we've got to catch up to them before the sun sets tonight. It's the full moon."

"Well then, come on," Zayne said. "I'll race you there!"

"That's not fair!" I protested. "I'm carrying all this potions crap!"

Zayne laughed, and took off anyways. "You're falling behind!"

He ran down the hill, taunting him, and I raced after him, clanking my way ungraciously down the hill.