J. Rowling - Short Stories From Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies

1.For the space of one entire month (from full moon to full moon), a single leaf from a Mandrake must be carried constantly in the mouth. The leaf must not be swallowed or taken out of the mouth at any point. If the leaf is removed from the mouth, the process must be started again.

2.Remove the leaf at the full moon and place it, steeped in your saliva, in a small crystal phial that receives the pure rays of the moon (if the night is cloudy, you will have to find a new Mandrake leaf and begin the whole process again). To the moon-struck crystal phial, add one of your own hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew collected from a place that neither sunlight nor human feet have touched for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. Put this mixture in a quiet, dark place and do not look at it or otherwise disturb it until the next electrical storm.

3.While waiting for the storm, the following procedure should be followed at sunrise and sundown. The tip of the wand should be placed over the heart and the following incantation spoken: ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus.’

4.The wait for a storm may take weeks, months or even years. During this time, the crystal phial should remain completely undisturbed and untouched by sunlight. Contamination by sunlight gives rise to the worst mutations. Resist the temptation to look at your potion until lightning occurs. If you continue to repeat your incantation at sunrise and sunset there will come a time when, with the touch of the wand-tip to the chest, a second heartbeat may be sensed, sometimes more powerful than the first, sometimes less so. Nothing should be changed. The incantation should be uttered without fail at the correct times, never omitting a single occasion.

5.Immediately upon the appearance of lightning in the sky, proceed directly to the place where your crystal phial is hidden. If you have followed all the preceding steps correctly, you will discover a mouthful of blood-red potion inside it.

6.It is essential to move, at once, to a large, secure place where your transformation cannot cause alarm or place you in physical danger. Place your wand-tip against your heart, speak the incantation ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus,’ and then drink the potion.

7.If all has gone correctly, you will feel a fiery pain and an intense double heartbeat. Into your mind will come the shape of the creature into which you are shortly to transform. You must show no fear. It is too late, now, to escape the change you have willed.

8.The first transformation is usually uncomfortable and frightening. Clothing and items such as glasses or jewellery meld to the skin and become one with fur, scales or spikes. Do not resist and do not panic or the animal mind may gain the ascendancy and you could do something foolish, such as try to escape through a window or charge a wall.

9.When your transformation is complete you should find yourself physically comfortable. You are strongly advised to pick up your wand at once, and hide it in a place of safekeeping, where you will be able to find it when you regain a human form.

10.To return to a human form, visualise your human self as clearly as you can. This should be sufficient, but do not panic if the transformation does not occur immediately. With practice, you will be able to slip in and out of your animal form at will, simply by visualising the creature. Advanced Animagi can transform without wands.

Generally wizards prefer to have their clothes Transfigure with them, to escape the embarrassment of reappearing naked. However, it is possible to leave clothes behind if one wishes to give the impression of having gone for a bath or something similar. The longer a witch or wizard has been an Animagus, the better they will become at choosing the precise form of their transformations.

The animal into which one turns, if an Animagus, seems always to be that which becomes the Patronus. There is no known instance of the Animagus form changing to match the Patronus if the latter changes, but the Animagus who can also produce a Patronus is highly unusual and no study has ever been done on sufficient numbers to draw firm conclusions.

Being an Animagus is a privilege – one that requires immense skill and hard work. Being a werewolf, on the other hand, is something that happens to witches and wizards against their will. The life of a werewolf can be torturous and often lonely, as we learned from Remus Lupin.

Find out about Lupin’s childhood, his love for Nymphadora Tonks and the day he was bitten by Fenrir Greyback, and discover why writing his biography saddened J.K. Rowling all over again.

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BIRTHDAY: 10th March

WAND: Cypress and unicorn hair, ten and a quarter inches, pliable

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Exceptionally gifted in Defence Against the Dark Arts, werewolf

PATRONUS: Wolf

PARENTAGE: Wizard father, Muggle mother

FAMILY: Wife Nymphadora Tonks, son Edward Remus (Teddy) Lupin

Remus Lupin was the only child of the wizard Lyall Lupin and his Muggle wife Hope Howell.

Lyall Lupin was a very clever, rather shy young man who, by the time he was thirty, had become a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions. These include poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures that, while sometimes ghostlike in appearance and behaviour, have never been truly alive and remain something of a mystery even to the wizarding world.

On an investigative trip into a dense Welsh forest in which a particularly vicious Boggart was supposed to be lurking, Lyall ran across his future wife. Hope Howell, a beautiful Muggle girl who worked in an insurance office in Cardiff, had taken an ill-advised walk through what she believed to be innocent woodland. Boggarts and poltergeists may be sensed by Muggles, and Hope, a particularly imaginative and sensitive person, had become convinced that something was watching her from between the dark trees. Eventually, her imagination became so overactive that the Boggart assumed a form: that of a large, evil-looking man, bearing down on her with a snarl and outstretched hands in the gloom. Hearing her scream, young Lyall came sprinting through the trees, causing the apparition to shrink into a field mushroom with one wave of his wand. The terrified Hope thought, in her confusion, that he had driven her would-be attacker away, and his first words to her – ‘it’s all right, it was only a Boggart’ – made no impression on her. Noticing how very beautiful she was, Lyall made the wise decision not to talk about Boggarts any more, but instead agreed that the man had been very big and scary, and that the only sensible thing to do was for him to accompany Hope home to protect her.

The young couple fell in love, and not even Lyall’s shamefaced admission, some months later, that Hope had never really been in danger, dented her enthusiasm for him. To Lyall’s delight, Hope accepted his proposal of marriage and threw herself enthusiastically into preparations for the wedding, complete with a Boggart-topped cake.