The staff meeting the next morning was a masterclass in controlled deception. The faculty gathered in their lounge, a comfortable room with chintz armchairs and a lingering scent of sherry. The imposter Moody sat near the fireplace, his magical eye whizzing suspiciously, but he had no reason to suspect anything was amiss. Dumbledore was his usual calm, genial self, and the other professors were grumbling good-naturedly about the early hour.
Hidden behind tapestries and in shadowed alcoves, Amelia Bones, Shacklebolt, Tonks, and two other senior Aurors stood perfectly still, Disillusioned and silent, their wands at the ready.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice," Dumbledore began cheerfully. "As we are hosting the Triwizard Tournament, I felt it was prudent for our new Defence expert, Professor Moody, to brief us on some of the updated security protocols." He turned to the imposter. "Alastor, perhaps you could begin by demonstrating the new ward-detection charm the Ministry has implemented?"
The imposter Moody grunted, pleased to be the center of attention. "Aye, Dumbledore. Simple enough." He limped to the center of the room and raised his gnarled wand.
It was the last move he would make as a free man.
The moment his wand was raised, Dumbledore gave a slight, almost imperceptible cough. It was the signal.
In an instant, the room exploded into disciplined action. The Aurors dropped their Disillusionment Charms, appearing from nowhere. Shacklebolt and Tonks were on him from behind, their wands pressed to his neck. Amelia Bones stood before him, her own wand aimed directly at his heart. "Barty Crouch Jr.," she said, her voice like cracking ice. "You are under arrest."
The imposter's face contorted in a mask of pure, shocked rage. He tried to cast a spell, but Dumbledore's own wand was a blur, and a silent Petrification Jinx hit him before he could utter a syllable. He froze solid, his expression of fury locked on his face.
The entire takedown was over in less than five seconds. It was swift, silent, and absolute.
Later that evening, at dinner in the Great Hall, Dumbledore made another announcement.
"I have some rather startling, but ultimately good, news," he began, his voice calm but carrying a note of grave importance. "Thanks to the extra vigilance of our new Defence professor and the swift action of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a long-term fugitive has been apprehended within the walls of this castle. The man you knew as Alastor Moody was, in fact, an imposter. We have identified him as Bartemius Crouch Jr., a Death Eater long thought dead."
A wave of shocked gasps and horrified murmurs swept the hall.
"The real Alastor Moody has been rescued, and is recovering," Dumbledore continued, raising a hand for silence. "However, he will be unable to take up his post this year. In his stead, the Ministry has graciously appointed one of its finest to act as our Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for the remainder of the term. Please welcome Professor Kingsley Shacklebolt."
Shacklebolt, who was sitting at the staff table, stood and gave a grave, reassuring nod to the student body.
"He will be assisted," Dumbledore added with a twinkle in his eye, "by Auror Nymphadora Tonks, who will be acting as a special security liaison and teaching assistant." Tonks, whose hair had just turned a bright, canary yellow of excitement, gave a cheerful wave and promptly tripped over her own feet, much to the amusement of the students.
The crisis was over before it had ever truly begun. The plot to enter Harry into the tournament was dismantled. The servant of Voldemort was captured. And Hogwarts had gained two highly competent, professional Aurors as its new Defence team. The Triwizard Tournament would proceed, but without the dark, manipulative shadow hanging over it.
With the immediate threat neutralized, Ariana turned her formidable intellect back to her personal projects. The days settled into a comfortable routine. Classes, study sessions with Hermione, political discussions with Daphne, and in the deep privacy of the Room of Requirement, the meticulous, groundbreaking research continued.
Their work on the Lycanthropy curse was fascinating. They observed Remus Lupin's blood sample under magical magnification, noting how the viral magic lay dormant, almost indistinguishable from the normal magical core. However, as the full moon approached, their observations became more startling.
"Look," Hermione whispered one evening, pointing at the magically projected image. "The lunar energy isn't just a trigger. It's a nutrient. The virus is absorbing the ambient moonlight magic, using it as a power source to replicate and initiate the forced transformation."
"It's photosynthetic," Ariana murmured, her mind making a connection to Muggle biology. "But with moonlight instead of sunlight. Not even direct moonlight, just the magic itself. It converts a specific spectrum of magical radiation into the energy needed for the change."
A new, brilliant idea sparked in her mind, a logical leap inspired by the very name of the process. If the curse fed on moonlight, what would happen if it were exposed to its opposite?
"Hermione," she said, her voice sharp with sudden excitement. "What is the purest form of lightbased magic we know? The opposite of the dark, cold energy of a Dementor?"
"The Patronus Charm?" Hermione guessed.
"Too complex, too emotional," Ariana countered. "Simpler. A direct magical manifestation of the sun."
Hermione's eyes lit up. "Lumos Solem! The Sunlight Charm!"
"Precisely," Ariana said. It was a simple, first-year spell, but one rarely used, as its applications were so specific. She drew her Elder wand, its tip pointed at the vial containing Lupin's blood.
This was not a time for overwhelming power, but for precise, controlled application. She focused her will, not on creating a blinding flash, but on conjuring a single, sustained, pure beam of concentrated sunlight.
"Lumos Solem," she whispered.
A thin, intense beam of brilliant, golden light, as pure and warm as the midday sun, shot from her wand and struck the vial. Not really directly, but instead creating an area of field around the vial that would not be charged by moonlight magic.
The reaction was immediate and violent. The blood in the vial did not burn or boil. Instead, the dormant, viral magic within it began to writhe and recoil, like a creature of darkness exposed to a holy relic. Under their magical magnification, they could see the viral threads shrinking, pulling away from the blood cells, becoming inert and brittle under the charm's radiant energy. They were not being destroyed, but they were being… neutralized. Rendered dormant and powerless by the pure, positive energy of the sunlight spell.
The two girls stared at each other, their minds reeling with the implications.
It wasn't a cure. The viral code was still there. But it was a treatment. A revolutionary one. If a controlled, regular application of the Sunlight Charm could render the Lycanthropy virus inert, it could potentially prevent the transformation altogether. It could mean no more agony, no more loss of self, no more monthly torment. It could mean giving Remus Lupin, and every other werewolf, their lives back.
"We've found it," Hermione breathed, her voice full of awe. "A potential suppressor. A real one." Ariana nodded, a slow, triumphant smile gracing her lips. She had looked at an ancient, terrifying curse and, by applying a simple, elegant piece of logic, had found its fundamental weakness. The sunlight, she thought, was always the best disinfectant for things that thrived in the dark.