Disclaimer: Really I don't own Harry Potter. All I own is my car (well the part I've paid for so far, the rest is owned by the lovely bank people). If I were J. K. Rowling I would be busy getting ready for the release of book 6 not writing fanfiction.
AN: Keep in mind that we do not know what exactly is in either of these potions so my ingredients are just what I felt like I should put in. I'm not even sure if they would blow up if combined or not.
The next morning Harry felt much better after having taken the potion. He had the first nightmare free night's sleep in the last week. Due to that, or his excitement over getting to fly again, Harry was up first and decided to create their potion brewing room. It ended up nearly an exact replica of Snape's classroom.
"Well that's disturbing," Ron said, coming into the room a half-hour later.
"I guess it depends on what you're thinking about when you ask for something. Maybe it will help us work better," Harry said.
"Look, we have our own copy of Moste Potente Potions in here. The room really does give you everything," Hermione said.
"And it looks like we have a fully stocked potion storeroom, well almost. We'll still need our wolfsbane. There aren't any of the tougher to get ingredients in here," Harry added, taking out the things they would need.
"Shall I write the directions on the blackboard?" Hermione asked.
"You might as well, we're used to working from that rather than our books," Ron said, setting up the cauldron that Remus and Sirius had gotten for him on their shopping trip. "I wonder why the room didn't give us cauldrons?" Ron said.
"Who knows? I'm surprised it worked at all. So how many pages are the directions, Mione?" Harry asked.
"Eight. I'll write them on the board one page at a time," Hermione said, pointing her wand at the book. "Duplicato," she said, and then pointed the wand to the blackboard, where she said, "Transcribo," causing the text to transfer to the board.
"Wow, no wonder this is considered a complicated potion, at least in terms of long wordy directions anyway. There are only four ingredients. Wait, according to these directions the potion will be mixed all the way in the next ten minutes it only has to simmer for theday. We can start on the Animagi potion, if I can get the room to give us some extra cauldrons anyway," Harry said, as he spoke three extra cauldrons set themselves up at the other counter in the room. "Oops, I guess I should have asked before," Harry said.
After chopping the moonflower, shredding the boomslang skin (which brought back fond memories of the Polyjuice potion), powdering the wolfsbane, cubing the mandrake, stirring precisely 232 times counterclockwise, adding four cups cold water at exactly one cup every five minutes, and then stirring exactly 112 times clockwise, the potion was a murky brown mess of bubbling slime. "Well, it looks like the mess that Remus has to drink every month," Harry said.
"It smells like it too," Ron said.
"Do we have to wait until it's set before we test if it's poison or not?" Harry asked.
"No, bring the hair here and we'll test it," Hermione said. She dipped one hair in each cauldron and it grew stronger and about an inch longer. "We did it," Hermione said.
"I think my arm is going to fall off from stirring. The animagus potion doesn't require nearly as much. It's mostly adding ingredients," Harry said, using the spells that Hermione had used to copy the directions (only one page this time) to the board. An hour later they were finished with the potion.
"Hey Hermione, is there anything in either potion that would react badly if they were mixed together?" Harry asked.
"I don't believe so, why?" Hermione asked.
"I wondered what would happen if you mixed animagus potion and wolfsbane that's all...maybe it would make the transformation even more bearable for Remus," Harry said.
"Let's try it," Ron said.
"Let's move over there first though, so we don't ruin our other potions if it does happen to explode. I'm not sure about the mandrake and moonflower and how they'll react with the unicorn horn and shrivelfig combination," Hermione said.
"Here goes nothing," Harry said, pouring the brownish glop of the wolfsbane into a flask and then filling another flask full of swirling blue animagus potion. Ron grabbed a medium sized bowl and Hermione grabbed a notebook to write down what they were doing. Harry first poured the wolfsbane into the bowl and then slowly poured the animagus potion over the top. "I think they need to be stirred," Harry said, noticing how the blue potion sat on the surface of the wolfsbane.
"Wait, there's some silver-green smoke starting to rise up here," Ron said.
All of a sudden there was a bang and the trio ducked to avoid flying potion, a trick they had become good at during five years of sharing Potions with Neville Longbottom. "Well at least it's our own lab and not Snape's," Ron said.
"It didn't explode, it imploded and it actually mixed together," Hermione said, staring into the bowl where there was now a thick green goo with silver steam swirling from the surface. "I wonder how it reacts to werewolf hair," Hermione said, grabbing a few strands of Remus's hair and dipping them in the potion. The hair didn't shrivel up or grow, but they turned from grey to a chestnut brown.
"What is this then, a hair-dye potion?" Ron asked.
"No Ron. I think it did what Harry intended. It would make Remus's transformation easier," Hermione said. She grabbed a vial of werewolf blood and spooned out a bit of the new potion.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
"See how there's silver in this werewolf blood?" she asked.
"Yes, what does that have to do with anything?" he asked.
"Honestly. The silver streaks are the infection. They are what cause lycanthropy. I want to see what happens to them with our new potion," Hermione said. She stirred a drop of the potion into the blood and they all waited as silver steam billowed from the mixture. When they looked a few minutes later there were only five silver streaks instead of ten.
"Hermione, half of the infection is gone," Harry said.
"We have to show someone, Harry," Hermione said.
"Won't they ask how we got the ingredients for either of these potions? They're both technically illegal. I don't think even curing lycanthropy would get us off on that charge," Harry said.
"What was that, Harry?" came Remus' voice from the doorway.
"Remus, we made your wolfsbane. It will be ready for you tomorrow when you need totake it. Come here and see this though," Hermione said.
"What have you been up to in here?" Remus asked, wrinkling his oversensitive nose at the strong wolfsbane smell.
"We, well Harry, got bored or curious and decided to mix the wolfsbane potion with the animagus potion we worked on next and it came out rather interestingly. So I added a hair you gave us and instead of growing it turned from grey to brown again. Then I tested the new potion with werewolf blood and it eliminated half the silver streaks from the blood sample with only one drop, although I think it would take more in your case," Hermione said.
"What do you mean?" Remus asked, wanting to be sure of what they were saying.
"I think...we may have at least partially cured lycanthropy," Hermione said.
"I was thinking that adding the animagus potion would make your transformation closer to Sirius' so you might have to change with the moon but you won't hurt yourself anymore, but the potion actually takes away some of the infection so maybe more of it would take out all the infection. Would you be willing to try it tomorrow? It has the wolfsbane mixed in, and you'll have Padfoot in case something goes wrong. He can tell us what happens when you transform," Harry said.
Remus gave Harry a hug and smiled. "I would be happy to be your test werewolf. I can smell the wolfsbane from out in the living room so I know it's correct and your animagus potion smells correct also, if not just a little strong. Be careful taking it you'll probably change right away with that much shrivelfig," Remus said. "You know, the mixture of the two potions actually doesn't smell half bad," Remus added.
"Should we go play Quidditch now?" Harry asked.
"Sirius is already out at the pitch waiting for us," Remus said.
"Let's go then. Are you coming to watch, Mione?" Harry asked.
"Of course," Hermione answered.
The trio along with Sirius and Remus spent the day playing Quidditch, or watching in Hermione's case, and soon it was another late evening of sitting around the fire telling stories.
"What time do you need the potion by tomorrow?" Harry asked Remus.
"Eight a.m., twelve hours before a moon rise is best," Remus answered.
"Why don't you just stay here then, and not have to apparate to Hogsmeade and then Floo here so early," Harry said.
"Yes, we can easily get another couple of rooms for you to use," Hermione said.
"If you insist. Hey, why don't you three go get the animagus potion and we can see what you'll be. If you can control the transformation by tomorrow night you can come with us, or we can stay right here so you can watch what happens with Remus," Sirius said, still worried about Remus being used as a test subject.
"I was thinking the same thing so I brought three vials out earlier when I checked on the wolfsbane. Is it supposed to smell like rotten eggs at this point?" Harry asked.
"Yes, very much so. How does the hybrid potion smell?" Remus answered.
"Like rotten eggs mixed with something fruity," Harry answered, pulling out the vials of animagus potion. "Here we go," he said, uncorking his vial. "On the count of three?" Harry asked.
"One, Two, Three," Hermione said. On her three they all drank the potion.
Almost instantly Harry felt himself shrink and start to grow fur. He felt his backbone bend and twist but it didn't hurt. Then he suddenly saw everything in black and white or shades of grey. 'I bet I'm a wolf, it feels like how Remus describes Moony, only I have my mind' Harry thought.
Remus and Sirius watched as a large black shaggy wolf formed where Harry had just stood. "He looks like a cross between Padfoot and Moony," Remus said.
Sirius looked over to see what Hermione and Ron had turned into and saw a tawny brown lioness and a bright red fox looking at him. "Well, what do we have here? How about Midnight for our wolf, Paws for the fox, and we need an M name for our lioness. All I can think of is Majesty," Sirius said.
"She looks like a Majesty," Remus said. "Okay you three, just think about your human shape and you'll change back," Remus added.
Harry managed the change first and smiled. "That was awesome. Am I right? I felt like a wolf," Harry said.
"Yes, you were a large black wolf, Hermione as you can see is a lioness, and Ron is a fox," Sirius said.
"I heard your nicknames for us. I like it. The new generation of marauders are Midnight, Paws, and Majesty," Harry said.
"I agree," Ron said, popping back to human form.
"Me too," Hermione agreed a moment later.
"All right new marauders time for sleep," Remus said.
"First, we need some blood to test our hybrid potion, just to be sure it won't hurt you Remus," Hermione said apologetically.
"No problem," Remus said, conjuring a knife and a vial. Cutting his palm he let the blood run into the vial until it was about half full.
"Let's see what happens," Hermione said, going to the potion room and coming back with a vial of the mixed potion which they had made extra of during the afternoon just to be sure, and to have some on hand for testing later. Hermione added a drop of potion to the blood and watched the steam billow as before. This time though only one silver streak had vanished. "I guess it takes a lot more. Maybe you get new silver streaks in your blood for every year you carry the infection. We'll see after tomorrow if there's any difference in your blood," Hermione said.
Harry asked for two more rooms to be added and everyone went to sleep quickly to get to the next day and the transformation. The trio were eager to see what result, if any, their potion had on Remus' condition.
The next morning they ate quickly and watched Remus drink a large goblet of the combined potion which had cooled an odd silver colour with only a hint of green remaining. Hermione was impatient knowing she'd have to wait until after the full moon to test what effect the potion had on Remus. Instead they spent the rest of the day practising their animagus transformation which they mastered by lunch, and then Harry went to his Occlumency lesson for three hours with Dumbledore.
The moon rose at eight p.m. and Sirius was ready as Padfoot in case the wolfsbane hadn't worked properly. He trapped Remus in the bedroom that Remus had used last night and waited for the usual howls and horrible sounds of bones breaking that usually accompanied the transformation. Instead there was one painful sounding crack and then Moony was standing there wagging his tail ready to play with Padfoot and the new friends that he could smell on the other side of the door. "Come on in, you three did something, he didn't even howl when he transformed," Sirius said, having transformed back to open the door, earning himself a sloppy kiss from Moony.
"He's tame," Harry said, also transforming back to pet Moony.
"Yeah, the wolfsbane really helps. He's not usually this tame though. I really think you three are on to something, the transformation was much more like an animagus rather than a werewolf," Sirius said.
The marauders, old and new, spent the night running about an imitated forest that the room had conjured after Sirius had wanted to go outside if it only wasn't so dangerous for Harry to accidentally roam past the apparation barrier. When morning came, Remus transformed back with barely any pain and only one loud pop, which served to wake the others from their slumber.
"How do you feel?" Harry asked, giving Remus a hug.
"Much better. I only felt the change for the first few minutes and then it was like I stopped fighting it even more than usual and my mind stayed in the front instead of Moony coming to try to take over," Remus said, hugging Harry back. "Thank you, Harry," Remus whispered in Harry's ear.
"Would you mind giving another blood sample?" Hermione asked.
"Not at all, I'm anxious to see what you've managed to erase. I feel at least five years younger," Remus said.
"You look it too. Some of your grey hair is gone this morning," Harry said.
Remus cut his hand again and then healed the gash while he waited for Hermione to test the blood sample. "You started with 30 silver streaks yesterday and now after the full moon and the potion you have 20 left," Hermione said.
"We took ten years of damage away in one full moon, and made the pain more bearable. It wasn't an outright cure but maybe over the next two full moons as the damage repairs more it will reverse completely," Harry said, writing the findings in the notebook.
"We should tell Dumbledore," Remus said, thinking that the cure could be what they needed to get the werewolves on their side instead of going to Voldemort.
"Are you thinking the cure could be a way to entice the werewolves?" Hermione asked.
"Exactly. I'll let you three tell Dumbledore. It is your discovery," Remus said.
"Tell me what?" Dumbledore asked from the doorway.
"We think we may have found a possible cure for lycanthropy," Hermione answered.
"Remus tried it last night. It took ten years of damage away from him and caused the transformation to be nearly as painless as an animagus transformation," Harry added.
"You three never cease to amaze me, unfortunately I need to borrow Sirius and Remus today. There's been an attack on Diagon Alley late last night and we're needed to sort the survivors and those less fortunate. I believe there may be several Hogwarts students who will not be returning for the new term on September 1," Dumbledore said gravely.