Prologue: Don’t Think, Feel
Teddy Lupin had always been fascinated by his ability to morph. He would spend hours changing himself again and again into anyone he could imagine. He spent far more time in front of a mirror than anyone else he knew, experimenting with every conceivable feature. He would examine faces and photographs, studying every detail and working hard to imitate them precisely. He remembered how happy he had been the day he managed to morph an exact replica of his godfather’s scar on his own forehead. Sure, morphing any old lightening shaped scar would have been easy, but it had taken a half hour of examining his sleeping godfather’s face to get the angles and contours and thickness exactly correct. He had been proud of it, even when Harry woke up and told him he looked silly.
Experimentation was really the only way Teddy had of exploring his own power. Metamorphmagi were so extremely rare, there was very little written about them or the extent of their powers. He had read everything there was to read, books his grandparents had bought for his mother that were passed down to him, but they hadn’t taught him very much. He supposed he probably knew as much as anyone, after all, it wasn’t every Metamorphmagus that lived with a women who had already raised another Metamorphmagus. His grandmother could a good amount of his questions. The only way he could have been better informed is if he could ask his mother herself.
He loved morphing for many reasons. He couldn’t pretend that feeling closer to her wasn’t one of them.
But still, there was only so much you could be told.
And so he experimented, trying everything he could think of and anything anyone else could think of. Every picture he found, he became. And when he ran out of pictures, he created from scratch.
Creating original features wasn’t easy. Neither was imitation, but they were hard in different ways. Imitation required intense studying and concentration. But concentrating hard on original features didn’t work. Or it worked, but it never came out quite right. No, Teddy had learned long ago that over-thinking it wasn’t the way.
Don’t think, feel.
He couldn’t think about it. He had to feel it. He had to relax, let his mind slow down and simply let the morph come. It always turned out better this way.
Relax.
Teddy lay in bed staring at his own hand. He had been up late, working on his morph. His grandmother had seen his light on and scolded him, telling him to go to bed. But he couldn’t sleep just yet. He examined his hand carefully. Even with the room dark, there was plenty of light coming in from the large moon outside the window. He could see his hand very clearly as he held it out in front of him.
Just relax, he told himself.
Just before sleep was always the best time to practice original morphs. He could let himself relax completely, hovering between reality and dreams. He would take an adjective and let it seep into his soul. He would feel it instead of thinking it.
Don’t think…don’t think…
Young.
His hand shrank. His fingers became soft, pudgy, and pink. Teddy smiled to himself.
Old.
The hand grew to larger than normal as the skin became saggy, wrinkled, and discolored.
Elegant.
This was a new one. The skin became smooth again, the color uniform, and the fingers long and slender. The nails were perfectly manicured and there was an indefinable ere of grace and beauty. This was what he loved about morphing like this. At any time he could make his fingers long and slender and his nails perfect, but it was the indefinable ere, the –X†factor, that made it complete. It wasn’t something you could get by thinking. It was something you had to feel.
Don’t push it, he thought, trying to stay relaxed without drifting off. Just let it happen…
Don’t think, feel…
Scary.
Thick, short hair sprouted out everywhere, covering his hand, wrist, and forearm. His hand twisted and grew, his thumb receding into a non-opposable stub. His nail beds disappeared as long hard points pushed out of the tips. His palm became hard, rough and padded.
Teddy, who had seconds before been hovering on the edge of consciousness, sat bolt upright in his bed. His heart was racing and it was all he could do no to cry out and wake his grandmother. He had morphed some surprising things in his nine years of life, but never anything like this.
He took several deep, steadying breaths, not moving his terrified gaze from his moonlit hand. Slowly, very slowly, he reached his un-morphed hand to tentatively touch his new morph. He started with the hair just below his wrist. It was incredibly thick with many more follicles poking out of the skin than any other morph before. And it was so coarse. All of this thick, coarse hair…wait…no…not hair, fur.
Teddy could hear his own panicked breathing getting louder as he stroked the fur on his arm. It was definitely fur, but it definitely could not be fur. Humans don’t have fur.
But it was fur. Animal fur. Everything about this morph was animal, from the padded palm to the useless thumb. But it couldn’t be.
Metamorphmagi can only morph human features. Teddy knew this. He had read about it and tried it. It was impossible to morph animal features. Everyone said so…
–Look at this one, Harry!†Six-year-old Teddy said excitedly, morphing his face for the thirtieth or fortieth time that afternoon.
–That one is cool too, Teddy,†Harry said, his tone patient but lacking the enthusiasm it had had for the first dozen or so morphs.
–Yeah!†Teddy agreed, failing to notice Harry’s lack of enthusiasm.
–Why don’t you take a break, Teddy?†Ginny suggested.
–Please,†Ron said, his tone not nearly as patient as Harry’s or Ginny’s.
Teddy let his morph drop, feeling put out.
–Don’t pout, Teddy,†Ginny said.
–You don’t think my morphing’s cool anymore,†Teddy said, looking sulkily at Harry.
–I think your morphing is very cool, Teddy,†Harry assured him. –But you might want to save it, you know? Just do a couple of morphs at a time. Otherwise it gets a bit old. Save your morphing for special times, or special morphs.â€
Teddy perked up at the phrase ‘special morphs’. –You mean like when I learn to do animal morphs!â€
Ginny and Hermione exchanged a look. –I don’t think you can do animal morphs, Teddy,†Ginny said.
–Sure I can,†Teddy said confidently. –My mum did animal morphs.â€
–No,†said Hermione, –I don’t think your mum ever did animal morphs either.â€
Teddy was confused. –You said my mum did animal morphs,†he told Ginny.
–When did I say that?†Ginny asked.
–You said she used to turn her nose into a pig’s snout.â€
–It was a nose like a pig’s snout,†Ginny explained. –The nose itself was completely human, it just looked like a pig’s snout. She never actually had any animal parts.â€
–Oh,†Teddy said, disappointed.
–It did make her look an awful lot like a pig though,†Ron said. Ginny chuckled.
–It reminded me of my cousin,†Harry muttered. Teddy was surprised. His godfather rarely talked about his muggle relatives.
Ron snorted. –Oh yeah! He totally had a pig nose!†he laughed.
–A pig-like nose,†his wife corrected. –I’m sorry, Teddy, but no, I don’t think you will ever be able be able to do animal morphs. Like it says in Metamorphmagi: A Study in Human Transformation, a Metamorphmagus can only…â€
Teddy only half-listened to Hermione a she started to recite from the book, to quote Ron, –as if she had swallowed itâ€. She did this quite often and he always had trouble following it. Looking around at Ron, Ginny, and Harry, Teddy could tell that the other grown-ups were half-listening too. Teddy caught Harry’s eye and Harry winked at him. Teddy screwed up his face and morphed his nose to look like a pig’s snout. Harry laughed, causing Hermione to break off midstream and all of them to look around at him.
–Now that’s the one!†Ron laughed while Ginny and Hermione beamed.
Teddy grinned back, happy that he had recaptured their interest in his morph.
He had tried for a while afterwards to morph some animal features, but he had long since come to the conclusion that Ginny and Hermione were right; it was impossible.
It’s impossible, Teddy thought desperately, but then how…
It didn’t make any sense. How could he have done an animal morph? And without even trying?
And could he do it twice?
Teddy swallowed and let the morph drop. He felt slightly relieved as he looked at his normal, human hands and realized he had been worried he would not be able to get rid of it. Stealing himself, his heart pounding against his ribs, Teddy tried to morph it back.
It was easy, almost too easy, to bring the morph back. Once again Teddy found himself transfixed by the sight. He stroked the fur again. It was definitely an animal morph. But how was that possible? And what kind of animal was it anyway? It looked familiar, but…
Oh no, he thought, oh no oh no oh no oh no…
Teddy’s stomach clenched. He knew. In the very back of his mind he had always known, from the moment he first morphed. He hadn’t thought it - he had felt it.
And the longer he stared, the more certain he was that it was true. He had seen pictures; not many, but some. He knew what a transformed werewolf looked like.
But Teddy Lupin was not a werewolf. Of that he was sure. Of that they were all sure. For that they were all grateful. And he had been checked. And double-checked. And then he had been checked again. There had never been any signs. He had never transformed. He had never howled at the moon. He didn’t even like his steaks rare like Uncle Bill did; medium had always been fine for him. Teddy Lupin was absolutely not a werewolf.
And they were all so happy about that. His grandmother was happy - she had worried all though his mum’s pregnancy. Harry was happy - he had known how terrified his dad had been. His dad…
–Your dad was so happy that you weren’t born a werewolf,†Harry told Teddy. –He had been so worried. You cannot imagine how relieved he was.â€
–Why?†Teddy asked, –Why didn’t he want me to be a werewolf? He didn’t want me to be like him?â€
–No, that’s not it,†Harry said, struggling to find the words. –He didn’t want you to suffer like he did.â€
His dad had been happy, so happy, and relieved that Teddy was not a werewolf. And even though Teddy had always felt like he missed the connection with his dad like he had to his mum with his morph, Teddy was happy that he wasn’t a werewolf too. From what he knew about being a werewolf, and he knew Harry was keeping some of the really bad stuff from him, it was a pretty unpleasant thing to be. Teddy knew his father had suffered a lot.
They had been so certain. They had been so happy. But now…now everything had changed.
Teddy Lupin was not a werewolf. Of that he was sure. But on that night he was also sure of another thing. He was sure that he had morphed his hand into a werewolf’s claw.
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