Dria gave the potion one last stir, after adding one more pinch of garlic. This was the fifth time she attempted to make a potion that would prevent her teenage son from turning into a werewolf. She longed for the day she would be able to celebrate the end of this curse inflicted upon him by her husband.
Dria did not know that day long ago that she had married a werewolf. She believed he went out of town on business a week every month. It did not occur to her until the fateful night 5 years later that the trip always occurred during the full moon. That one month he decided to try to stay home for their son’s 4th birthday, locking himself into the back barn on their property. He never suspected that her brother would take their son for a moonlight walk to show him the lunar eclipse that was occurring that night. The meadow near the barn was the perfect place to watch the moon as it faded and then came back into view. That night her brother was killed and her son was injured by the werewolf that broke out of the barn. The Healers at St. Mungos had not believed her son would live, but he did live, but a cursed life.
Dria spent every full moon after that sobbing outside their basement door, where he son was caged and raged the night of the full moon each month. Her husband was banned from ever coming near her or their son again. She blamed his lies and his lack of caution for what happened to their son. He never met their daughter who was born 6 months after their son was cursed. The girl lived with her grandparents to protect her from her brother.
Potion making was not her strong point when she attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but she quickly found a newfound respect for this ancient art. Every full moon she attempted to brew a potion that would end her son’s curse. Every month she had failed. Some did nothing. Some gave her son a stomach ache the next day. A couple years before she had created a potion that slowed the transformation…but the agony it had caused her son prompted her to never give that potion again.
Her latest attempt sat in front of her. She crept down the hall and knocked at her son’s door. He emerged with a sigh. She knew he kept trying the potions for her sake, her despair when he tried to defer one month was enough for him to drink the potion. He understood her helplessness, he felt it, too, but he longed to attempt to live life as fully as he could. He did not understand how sheltered she kept him. Only recently did he start to see the scorn, fear, and hatred that followed most Werewolves most their lives when his best friend found out his secret and ran away as quickly as he could.
Dria knew that the phase of the moon played a part in brewing the potion. She has several herbs she used with every attempt. Pennyroyal to bring about a feeling of peace, Cypress increased the longevity of the potion, just a pinch of unicorn horn to add an agelessness to her son as he always seemed to age years between each monthly transformation not just a month, so palm to enhance potency, and from there the potion changed. This time she added albizzia bark to overcome her son’s worry and hoping that it would decrease the wolf’s bad temper and bring him inner calm. She added biota seeds in hope that it could help her son maintain his human thoughts when in wolf form. Some capsicum was added to help purify his blood, some chamomile for flavor and for its calming effects, Siberian Ginseng because of how tired her son always was after his night of transformation, ground Gotu Kola Root to stimulate his memory and brain while transformed, Korean Ginseng root to increase his stamina and vitality, Lady Slipper root to ease the transformation on her son’s patient and side. Several other herbs were used, but finding the right combination, mixture, and timing of the potion was beginning to frustrate Dria. She knew that had to be a way to stop her son’s transformations, she just needed to find it.
Her son drank the potion and moved into the basement and the waiting cage. Hope had left him, but Dria knew she would find the correct potion. She just needed to keep trying. This time the wolf still came, but he was calmer than other months. Dria just knew she was headed in the right direction.
