For the next month, Remus Lupin became a regular in Ernst's laboratory.
Every evening, the boy drank a vial of glowing green liquid, a modified Super Soldier Serum variant designed to fortify cellular walls against rapid expansion.
"It tastes like copper," Lupin grimaced, wiping his mouth.
"It tastes like survival," Ernst corrected, checking the boy's pupil dilation.
Unbeknownst to Lupin, the potion was a Trojan horse.
Suspended in the liquid were millions of microscopic nanobots.
They crossed the blood-brain barrier, attaching themselves to Lupin's amygdala, the fear and aggression center of the brain.
To Dumbledore, it looked like potion work.
To Ernst, it was neural engineering.
He was building a kill-switch for the wolf's rage.
"Your strength is increasing," Ernst noted, reviewing the muscle density scans.
"The serum is bonding with lycanthropy. You are becoming a hybrid before you even turn."
The Full Moon
The night of the transformation was cold.
Ernst and Lupin walked across the grounds toward the Whomping Willow.
The path was secret, known only to the Marauders and Dumbledore, and now Ernst.
The violent tree thrashed its branches, guarding the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack.
"Hold," Ernst said.
He extended his hand. Using a precise telekinetic pulse, he pressed the knot at the base of the trunk.
The tree froze instantly.
"Fascinating," Ernst murmured, walking up to the tree.
"Semi-sentient flora. Aggressive tactile response."
He snapped off a small branch and pocketed it.
"I'll analyze this later. Go, Remus. Into the tunnel."
They waited in the dusty silence of the Shack. Lupin clutched a vial of Wolfsbane Potion, his knuckles white.
"Just in case," Lupin whispered.
"You won't need it," Ernst said calmly.
"Trust in yourself. Its not safe here let's go deeper into the forest."
Deep-Forbidden Forest
Then, the moon rose.
A beam of moonlight cut through the boarded windows. Lupin screamed.
His body convulsed. His spine cracked and elongated.
His jaw unhinged, pushing forward into a snout.
It was agony. It was biology tearing itself apart to build something new.
In Lupin's mind, the cage door opened.
Inside his headspace, Lupin stood in a dark void.
In front of him was the Wolf, a massive, shadow-wreathed beast with burning yellow eyes.
Usually, the Wolf would devour him.
But tonight, Lupin stood his ground.
"Construct the cage", Ernst's telepathic voice echoed in his skull.
"You are the architect."
Lupin focused. A barrier of white light appeared between him and the beast.
The Wolf snarled, throwing itself against the bars.
Fear is the fuel, Ernst guided him.
"Do not fight the Wolf. Absorb it. It is not an enemy; it is an engine."
In the physical world, Ernst watched the transformation.
Lupin was now a towering, half-human monstrosity. His claws scraped the floor.
His eyes darted wildly, one moment human blue, the next feral yellow.
"Steady," Ernst commanded, projecting a wave of psionic calm.
"Merge the driver with the vehicle."
In the mindscape, Lupin stepped through the bars.
He walked up to the growling Wolf.
He reached out a hand.
Touch it.
Lupin placed his hand on the Wolf's snout.
A flood of primal instinct washed over him, hunger to hunt, urge to kill, the smell of blood.
It was intoxicating.
But the nanobots in his brain fired, regulating the chemical surge.
The rage didn't consume him; it empowered him.
The Wolf dissolved into smoke and flowed into Lupin's chest.
In the Shack, the growling stopped.
The werewolf stood tall, breathing heavily. It looked down at its own clawed hands.
It flexed them.
Then, it looked at Ernst.
The yellow eyes were intelligent. Calm.
"Excellent," Ernst smiled.
"You are in the driver's seat."
The werewolf nodded slowly, a guttural sound rumbling in its chest.
"I... did it," Lupin choked out, his voice distorted by the wolf's vocal cords.
"Phase One complete," Ernst said.
"But we are not done. You are currently in the hybrid state, the 'Crinos' form. It is a combat form. But true mastery is fluidity."
Ernst circled him.
"Lycanthropy is a viral rewriting of DNA. It adds sequences to your genome."
"If you can control the shift halfway, you can control it fully. Don't fight the genes, Remus. Let them win. Become the Wolf completely."
"Fully?" Lupin asked.
"Like an Animagus," Ernst explained.
"But biological, not magical. Shift your mass. condense. Become the apex predator."
Lupin closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the change and leaned into it.
His bones shifted again, compacting.
His fur thickened. He dropped to all fours.
Within seconds, the monstrous hybrid was gone.
Standing in its place was a large, majestic grey wolf. It looked natural, not cursed.
The wolf looked up at Ernst and wagged its tail.
"Perfect," Ernst laughed, a sound of pure scientific triumph.
"Total genetic malleability. The viral agent acts as a universal adapter."
Ernst stared at the wolf.
His mind was racing, connecting dots that spanned universes.
The werewolf bite transfers a retrovirus that rewrites human DNA to splice with wolf DNA.
'If I can isolate that 'Fusion Agent'', Ernst thought,
'I can splice anything.'
He didn't just want werewolves. He thought of Arnold, his loyal soldier.
He thought of the Skullcrawlers on the island.
'I can create hybrids, ' Ernst realized.
'I can splice Skullcrawler DNA into a human host using a synthesized version of this virus. I can create Tiger-men. Viper-men. Soldiers with the strength of Titans and the minds of men.'
He looked at the moon.
Thanos is coming. The Kree are coming. Darkseid is coming.
'I will not fight them with guns. I will fight them with a legion of monsters.'