Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
September 1, 1976 / Serena PoV
"Do you remember everything, Hag?" I insisted again.
"I'm old girl, not stupid! Yes, I remember everything! Now go away before I put a spell on you!" she growled once more, and I snorted.
"You can try." I mocked. Mary growled at me but continued working. I didn't stop moving my hands either. We were finishing bottling all the remaining potions. Today was September 1st, and I had to leave soon to take the Hogwarts Express, so I couldn't continue with the Wolfbane experiment.
"I already told you that your mind scares me, girl? A month and a half, it took you a fucking month and a half to create a potion against lycanthropy." I snorted but smiled arrogantly at her.
"I'm Serena S-"
"Snape, yes, yes, I heard you." She growled, and I rolled my eyes playfully. "that doesn't change the fact that you came up with a potion as difficult as the one you made in such a short time. You're a monster with potions, girl."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I snorted.
"HA! It was"
"Of course I am," I sighed. "I know I don't want to repeat myself, but make sure the werewolves take their potion."
"Yes, yes, yes, I already told you I know it, girl! We already started with the Y7 version a week ago, which would be two weeks of potion for when the full moon is here. 2 days ago, we started with the X6 version, which required 10 days tomorrow, we will start with the Z9 so that it will be a week, and in 4 days the X2, 3 days before the full moon, yes, I know it, girl, now go to Hogwarts so you stop bothering me!"
"Well, and don't forget! I'm still surprised you could find so many werewolves willing to take unknown and potentially poisonous potions."
"We're in Knockturn, girl. You just have to know where to look; many of them will take any job as long as they get money, even more so when it's supposed to be a cure for their condition." I snorted, but didn't answer, unfortunately, she was right. Werewolves were heavily discriminated against. With Voldemort carrying out attacks in broad daylight and giving Greyback free rein, discrimination was increasing.
It had been a month and a half since my encounter with the marauders and my improvised plan to recreate the Wolfbane potion. I didn't know where Mary had gotten so much money to buy the ingredients I had requested, but they kept coming, and I certainly wouldn't be complaining. I could work as freely as I wanted, so I made several versions.
Many of them failed, but none were potentially poisonous or lethal as they were tested on the werewolves on the full moon of the previous month. During that time, I was able to test a dozen versions of the Wolfbane potion and "take notes" to "correct" it.
Luckily, even though the original recipe doesn't take effect if not taken 10 days in a row before the full moon, it had still shown signs of improvement for a few minutes before failing and losing consciousness against the wolf, so it was easy to argue the increased dosage days before along with a "refined" version, so I had insisted on testing several variations at different consumption times.
Obviously, the working recipe was among them, I just had to wait until September 8th to hear about the success that I knew would happen if there was no problem.
"I finished my part," I said after arranging the bottles and labeling them correctly.
"It's about time girl! Now go!" I rolled my eyes and headed for the exit.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, try not to kick the bucket while I'm gone."
"Ha! You wish, girl! I still have decades left!" I snorted playfully, I could certainly believe her. Mary had more energy than me sometimes, and with that, I left the store and quickly headed to the Leaky Cauldron.
"Serena, haven't you left yet? You could miss the train, girl!" Tom exclaimed worriedly as soon as he saw me.
"There's still time Tom, and I was just leaving, I already have everything packed. I just had to finish something at the store," I smiled reassuringly at him. "That said, I'll be using your floo powder."
"Of course, of course, they're in the usual place. Good luck at Hogwarts!" I gave him a smile before tossing him the room key.
"Thanks for everything Tom." With that said, I grabbed the floo powder and threw it into the fire. "Platform 9¾!" I jumped into the fire without hesitation. A few seconds later, I stepped out onto the platform, and I grimaced. The ride had been… bumpy. I felt as if I was being stretched and twisted in all directions. It was not a pleasant sensation. Next time, I'll use my portals to travel. I shook the soot off my clothes and looked out at the crowd of people, students, and parents waving goodbye. I ignored everyone and headed for the Express; it was a bright red monstrosity, but I had to admit it did have a certain charm.
Once inside, I looked for the first free seat. Now, I had to figure out how to approach Hogwarts. There were few people with whom old Serena was intimate. In fact, outside of Lily, Narcissa had been the only one friendly with Serena. She was certainly more than an acquaintance, almost to the point of calling her a friend but not close enough as such.
Everyone else was simply Voldemort's followers, and the only reason I'd hung around in the group was to prove a point. That I was interested in joining their group, something I didn't want. The wizarding war that was about to break out, and I really didn't care. Neither side could fight all they wanted, and I couldn't care less. The problem was that I was already involved. Old Serena had wanted to join since the third year, and with Malfoy sponsoring her, she succeeded to a certain extent.
I shrugged. They would have to accept a no from me. I didn't feel like thinking of a more delicate way to separate myself from the group. As I was now, I had full confidence that I could defend myself from any threat posed by a group of teenagers. No matter what kind of curses they could cast. I hadn't just been brewing potions for the past month and a half.
I had also been training. I had already gotten used to most of the Allomantic metals with certain exceptions; gold for example, I had tried it. While it hadn't been as unpleasant as I had thought, possibly thanks to Stress Defense, there were very few situations where seeing alternative lines would be useful. It would be more useful if it was more similar to Coil's parahuman power from the Worm series, but Allomantic gold was too restrictive.
Gold aside, physical metals were the ones I trained the most in. I got used to different levels of metal burning by pushing as hard as I could without duralumin, which was quite a lot. Talents made getting used to the difference in base attributes easy, so practice flowed well too.
I also increased the amount of my metal minds. Using Bendalloy bubbles indiscriminately to refill minds was something I overused. The main problem with storing attributes was how unprotected you were during that time, especially things like reducing mental speed or health. Which would make any situation turn fatal in no time, so being in a safe bubble for a few hours while only 5 minutes passed outside to avoid any bad situation was something I was taking advantage of.
It was horrible, to be honest. Storing health alone, feeling sickly and weak was annoying, and adding the lack of senses and shortness of breath was almost torture. At least having my mental speed reduced at that moment made me stupid enough to not process why I felt so bad. I was also grateful for the Company's phone and internet. The compressed time affected it little to not at all, so I could surf the web and watch videos while I was incapacitated. It became much more manageable.
Luckily, the other attributes were easy to store, and I could basically do them daily. I now owned many metals ready to burn whenever I needed them. I had also reached the point where I felt comfortable spending metal minds burning them to train for a few hours without thinking of them as a waste.
The last thing regarding the metals, was atium and lerasium. I still hadn't figured out how it was composed, no matter how I studied it, so I couldn't transmute other metals into divine metals. What I could do was some simple manipulation with alchemy, the form, I was able to transmute the bracers into beads to easily ingest, and after much trial and error, I was able to refine pure atium. There were several rebounds that ended in explosions, but it was worth it. Refined atium had its uses. It's a shame that the bracers, being an atium-electrum alloy, resulted in a smaller amount of refined atium than I expected, but it was better than nothing.
Speaking of alchemy, I was now proficient enough with flame alchemy to be confident in using it effectively in a fight. I still used alchemy to transmute metals into others, but I found that transfiguring one metal into another was of no use. I could neither allomantically burn them nor use them as metal minds.
The magic used for transfiguration would interfere with the magic I stored or burn them and revert them to their previous form, nullifying the process. Oddly enough, I could transfigure objects into metals and could push or pull them with allomantic iron and steel, but only that.
That's not counting my magic proper. I was still Magia Baiser constantly. I was still having trouble in my ascended form. There are too many emotions to keep control over the magic without it boiling over. Much like La Verita, La Verita generated so much magic that any attempt at control was simply futile. I had been able to greatly reduce the output and had increased my time limit, but it was like swimming uphill in a waterfall.
I was also able to replicate most of the magic Severus could use. The power, control, and talents made it easier to use them again. I certainly couldn't match up to him in a fight, but that was also being quickly corrected. The only problem I had was the more... emotionally demanding curses. I couldn't generate the right emotions to make them work, like the Unforgivables. I had tried to use them in case I ever needed them; an instant death curse that ignored defense was a strong trump card no matter how illegal it was, but I hadn't managed to be able to use them no matter what I did.
Luckily, I could use the Patronus Charm, though the happy memories of my old world were tainted by dysphoria and now sadness over what I left behind in that world. Old Serena had few to no happy memories. The memory and feeling of finally being a woman were strong enough to push back the charm, which, by the way, was a spider. I want to believe it was for the sake of its symbolism and not my powers as Magia Baiser.
Spiders are artists, exquisite, intelligent, acrobatic, patient, and provide important control over the insect population. They are vital members of the ecology; they are useful and beautiful creatures, widely misunderstood, feared, and hated with little justification. Unfortunately, I didn't know what type of spider my Patronus was, so it was something I wanted to look into.
Getting back to my magic, the other thing I hadn't been able to take advantage of and train yet had been my Ancient Magic and Parseltongue. No matter what I did, there was no way to be able to use those powers properly. I had hoped to be able to find some books, at least about Parseltongue, maybe something imported from Greece.
Herpo the Mad was Greek, and many symbols of Ancient Greece used snakes, or Indian, as many of the fanfiction would have one believe. Maybe some whispers that it could be used magically, but it was all fruitless. There was no indication that something like Parseltongue magic existed. I hoped that at Hogwarts, I could find the answer to both. I knew where to find the answer to both. I just hoped that one of them wasn't a waste of credits.