At that moment, Louis—who was in the Room of Requirement—had no idea what was happening with Hermione.
He was staring seriously at the one-point-six-meter-tall "canary" in front of him, deep in thought.
"So your breakthrough," Louis began slowly, "is that you managed to turn a bald freakish bird into a full-feathered golden... sorry, but I really can't bring myself to call that giant lump a canary."
Holding a pocket watch in one hand, he pointed at the enormous bird that George had become.
"We did our best," Fred said helplessly, shrugging. "To turn into a proper canary, we'd need a shrinking potion, but the Candy's ingredients are already complicated enough. Add anything more, and it'll probably blow up."
Poof!
A puff of white smoke erupted, and George returned to his normal form.
"How long did it last?" George spat out a mouthful of feathers—apparently one of the side effects of the Candy.
"Two and a half minutes," Louis replied, snapping his pocket watch shut. "A big improvement, but still not enough."
"Two and a half minutes is plenty! As a joke product, even a few seconds of transformation is already hilarious," said Fred.
"As a joke, sure—but as a piece of real magic, it's nowhere near good enough." Louis pocketed his watch, picked up one of the Candys, and popped it into his mouth.
George and Fred leaned forward eagerly, clearly waiting to see the giant bird: Louis edition.
Unfortunately for them, nothing happened. Louis remained perfectly normal—his Horse Talisman charm ignored any foreign magical interference. A mere potion wasn't going to affect him.
"The potion flavor's too strong—it's bitter. I take back what I said earlier…" Louis swallowed, then gave the twins a glance filled with disappointment. "Even as a gag item, it doesn't pass."
"But there's no helping it," George protested. "You need a high enough potion concentration for the transformation to work—of course it'll taste bitter."
"Then think about a substitute ingredient." Louis tapped his finger on the table, slipping into thought.
The potion the twins used merely caused feather growth—the so-called "canary" was just a convenient name.
If they really wanted to make a Candy capable of turning someone into an animal, they'd have to start from the potion itself.
It seemed the twins wouldn't get far without a bit of guidance.
Leaning over the desk, Louis pulled over parchment and quill, writing down three key components:
-Polyjuice Potion
-Animagus Transformation Spell
-Boggart
George and Fred peered over the table, frowning in concentration at the list.
The Polyjuice Potion needed no explanation—it could completely alter one's physiology into another person's, or even a partial animal form.
Moste Potente Potions, the book detailing it, was already dog-eared in the Restricted Section; the twins had read it long ago.
As for the Animagus Transformation Spell, that was even more complicated—a ritual and potion combination that fixed a transformation animal form into one's magic, allowing voluntary shapeshifting into that specific creature.
The twins had coveted that ability for ages, but completing the ritual was ridiculously difficult.
First, you had to hold a mandrake leaf in your mouth from one full moon to the next—without swallowing or spitting it out even once. Otherwise, you'd have to start all over again.
That part completely stumped the twins—asking them not to talk was about as easy as killing them.
Then came the next step of the ritual: "At the full moon, place the saliva-soaked leaf into a crystal phial under moonlight, then add a strand of your own hair, one teaspoon of pure dew, and the chrysalis of a Death's-head Moth."
The problem was, if it happened to be cloudy on the night of the full moon—congratulations, you'd have to start all over again from step one.
And it got even more complicated after that. The mixture then had to be buried in a pitch-dark place where no light could reach it, and you had to wait for a thunderstorm. If no storm came, you just kept waiting.
During that entire period, you had to point your wand at your heart and chant the spell every sunrise and sunset.
With such an absurdly complex ritual, there was no way the twins could complete it on their own.
As for the last term—Boggart…
"Boggart is… what again?" George asked, scratching his head.
"Sounds familiar…" Fred said, frowning in thought.
Louis was silent for a long while before replying, "Defense Against the Dark Arts, third year, first chapter."
"Oh! Right, that's it! Now I remember." George and Fred suddenly realized. "It's all that fraud Quirrell's fault!"
According to the curriculum, they should've learned about Boggarts last year, but that idiot never got around to it.
Louis rubbed his temples and explained patiently,
"A Boggart is a shapeless magical creature—no one's ever seen its true form. It turns into whatever a person fears most, taking shape from that fear."
"Sounds incredible," Fred murmured.
"Yeah. What happens if you put two Boggarts together?" George wondered aloud.
"That's not something we need to think about," Louis said flatly. "I don't care what they actually look like."
He circled the word Boggart on the parchment.
"This is what we should study most closely. Its method of transformation is the most mysterious. If we can figure that out, the so-called Transfiguration Candy won't be a problem at all."
"You're right!" George clapped his hands. "A Boggart can turn into anything—that's exactly what we need."
"And it's more reliable than the Animagus Transformation Spell," Fred added, nodding in agreement.
"Besides the Boggart, we should also experiment with Polyjuice Potion," Louis continued. "It's a transformation-based potion as well, and its effects shouldn't be underestimated."
"But Polyjuice takes a month to brew," George objected, "and we've never made it before."
"Leave the potion to me." Louis drew a firm circle around Polyjuice Potion. "I'll handle it."
With his Magical Potion Bottle, something like the Polyjuice Potion was no challenge at all.
"This Boggart, though—that's your job." Louis tapped the word with his quill. "They like to hide in cupboards, under the floor, in cracks between walls. You might find traces of them in Hogwarts. Ask the ghosts or the house-elves—they might have seen one."
"No problem."
Now that Louis had taken care of the hardest part, the twins were more than happy to deal with the smaller tasks.
"What about the Animagus Transformation Spell?" Fred asked, pointing at the last unmarked point on the list. "Honestly, I think it's the one that fits our research best—it's just way too hard."
"For now… we'll set it aside," Louis said. "Handle the easy parts first, then tackle the tough ones."
"Alright."
The twins exchanged a glance, then stretched out their hands toward Louis.
"Come on, let's seal the deal—wish us success!"
"Let's do it!"
Their three palms clapped together with a satisfying smack.
After that, the three of them went their separate ways.
Louis stood there, holding the parchment with the three circled key points, and a knowing smile spread across his face.
Give up on something that important? Impossible.
The Animagus Transformation Spell was the most wizard-like form of shapeshifting there was. Without studying it, Louis wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
"After all," he murmured, taking out the Marauder's Map and looking at the names moving across it, "I already have the perfect test subject… don't I?"
Louis smiled.
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