The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Our Theoretical Animagus

Our Theoretical Animagus

Albus Dumbledore stood before the pensieve in his office. The water shimmered and trembled before him, his hands gripping the sides. He'd only just come out of the memory - a long passed memory that he had been considering quite frequently recently... He turned as a knock came on the door. Dumbledore walked across the room and opened the door, taking the moment to breathe deeply and clear his mind. When he opened the door, he was not surprised, really, to see Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, standing on the landing - Remus still on the stairwell, Sirius fixing the umbrella he'd just knocked over, which had been leaning against the wall.

"Masters Lupin and Black," Dumbledore said, stepping back to admit them. He watched them move, watched the way Sirius hovered close to Remus, the way his eyes followed Remus's every move, protective and caring... It made his heart ache, especially in light of the memory he'd just finished viewing. Remus hovered before Dumbledore's desk, his nerves strung too tight to sit. He looked at the headmaster, who stared back at him with expectant eyes, a smile curling his lips ever so slightly... "I expect that you did not come up that many stairs just to say hello."

Remus looked at Sirius. While walking to the Headmaster's office from Gryffindor tower, the boys had realized that the topic at hand would be a very delicate one, seeing as the question they had was whether a werewolf bite to an illegal animagus would change said illegal animagus into a werewolf. So, Sirius had come up with a story to ask without asking and, depending upon the answer that the headmaster gave, they would either tell Dumbledore the full story or carry on with the tale as needed.

Sirius said, "We're working on a paper for Transfiguration and Miss. Minnie always says you're the one that's taught her, so we had a question and hoped you might be able to answer it."

"I do have a fair bit of answers inside of my head," Dumbledore nodded, "And it is possible that one of them may pertain to your question. Do ask it." He tried not to smirk at the awkward way the boys were acting, hovering about like satellites of each other. Remus kept checking himself that he wasn't getting too close to Sirius's right arm, then backing a step or two away.

"In theory, if a werewolf were to bite an animagus, would the animagus be... infected?" Sirius asked.

Dumbledore eyed them.

Sirius tried very hard to appear as though he were no more than a curious academically inclined student.

"I thought that Minerva had already covered Animagi with your year?" Dumbledore asked.

"It's for review, for the O.W.L.s," Remus piped up quickly.

Good one, Moony, thought Sirius.

Dumbledore nodded slowly, stroking his beard, and went around to the chair behind the desk, lowing himself into the seat. He leaned back and stared up at the two boys. "It's an interesting question that you ask..."

Sirius had no patience for the ramblings Dumbledore usually preluded his replies with. "Do you know the answer or what?"

Remus looked at Sirius with The Look, and back to Dumbledore.

"Mr. Black, did the bite occur on the full moon?"

"Yes, sir," Sirius answered.

"And the animagus was transformed to his animal shape completely at the time of the bite?"

"Yes, sir," Sirius answered.

Dumbledore said, "Well, then, the animagus would be fine. His wound would be quite nasty, I expect it may even retain some of the attributes of his animal form, but the venom of the werewolf would not change the man. The reason is quite simple. When a werewolf bites a man and changes him into a wolf, the venom works by accessing the man's DNA strands and sort of... rewriting them. You see, Mr. Black, imagine your DNA as a great ribbon upon which is written all of the information that makes you who you are - all of your features and personality quirks and the way your body grows and the way your teeth are shaped and the sound of your voice... every hair on your head and the way that they fall. When you - or, rather, our theoretical animagus - transforms into the animal form, that ribbon of DNA is rolled up tight and stored away, kept safe until it's time to access it again and change back. Wounds carry over because it is the same flesh that is changed, the same molecules and cells that reform in new patterns to create seemingly new things. But the ribbon would not have been touched by the wolf's venom. And it does not affect the DNA of other animals, therefore the string of the animal would not be altered, either. Both man and beast would be quite clear of the werewolf's venom."