Growing Pains

George kept walking for nearly twenty minutes and finally came across an old wooden ladder connected to a trapdoor on the ceiling. Whilst excited to see the famous Shrieking Shack, he continued to use his wand like a flashlight and climbed the ladder one-handed. Every other step gave way under his weight as he awkwardly ascended the disintegrating ladder until he reached a trap door. He had to push it open with his shoulder since the rest of his limbs were clinging on to what little footholds remained.

The trap door creaked as it swung open and hit the ground which sent two decades worth of stagnant dust into the air. George kept climbing the ladder whilst holding his breath until the dust settled. Now standing on the ground floor, George stopped casting the Lumos spell and put away his wand. He was currently standing in the middle of a narrow helical stairwell, he looked up and saw that it spiralled two floors high.

Ahead of him was a poorly maintained living room. The majority of the furniture was stripped out and replaced with massive piles of decomposing rubbish. The remaining furniture, which consisted of a few chairs, a cabinet and a grandfather clock, was either damaged beyond repair or completely rotten.

George was wondering if this room would be suitable for his needs. He could overlook the filth, but the floor was covered in jagged pieces of rotting and mouldy wood. Even though his skin was extremely thick whilst in his other form, George didn't like the idea of laying on this disgusting ground with his bare skin. He had a pretty low bar, but the smell alone was too much.

George ascended the stairwell but was interrupted when he reached the first floor. A sudden jolt of warmth burst from his chest. This sensation was followed by all of the bruises on his body heating up and the skin tightening around his muscles. The discomfort was sudden and increased in intensity at an alarming rate. George recognised the symptoms as the start of his transformation. The painful side effects came on much faster and stronger than ever before.

He quickly ascended the rest of the stairs until he reached the landing and saw a pair of double doors that were partially open. George hurriedly staggered into the room. This room was significantly larger and cleaner than the living room. The floor was in much better condition since there was only a layer of white dust littering it. There was no sign of mould or rot.

The only thing that needed to be done before his transformation was to move the grand piano to the centre of the room. George walked up to the piano and grabbed it with both of his hands, the wooden frame effortlessly flexed under his grip. When he pushed the piano, George felt the muscles in his chest spasm and his skin tearing open around his armpits. The piano abruptly slid across the room and slammed into the wall which caused the entire house to shudder.

Upon collision, the legs of the piano gave out and the entire thing plummeted to the ground. George could feel a cold sensation dripping down his shirt from his armpits, he quickly took off his robes and saw his white shirt was dyed red. He didn't bother to take off the rest of his clothes since it would take too much time. The only thing he prioritised was pulling out his enchanted sack and throwing it towards the four-poster bed.

George threw the sack with too much enthusiasm and hit one of the posts turning it into a three-poster bed. Then he proceeded to kneel on the ground and concentrate on using his wandless magic to heat his body. Whilst using a similar mindset as conjuring the flame on his fingertips, George forcefully increased the temperature of his body to accelerate the rate of his transformation. He deliberately made his blood boil and roast his internal organs, sweat started pouring out of him by the bucket full.

He inadvertently tensed all the muscles in his body which caused all the bruises to open simultaneously and blood to start pouring out. George could feel his frantically beating heart all over his body, it was getting louder and louder to the point it was deafening. Once his chest felt like it had been submerged in lava, all of the clothes on George's body started tightening.

His dyed red shirt's buttons pinged off one by one as the muscles in his chest grew in size. His pants started tearing at the seams and revealed his muscles rippling like snakes slithering under his skin. George's tie started to choke him as his neck expanded in length and width until the fabric was torn apart by a spike protruding out the back of his spine. Several more rhino horn-like spikes started growing out down his lengthening spine and violently pierced his tearing skin in a spray of bloody viscera.

His belt was next to break as new pointy vertebrae started growing out of his tailbone. A fleshy mass, like a large scaly tumour, bulged at his rear in another fountain of blood. All of his skin began tearing apart at the bruises as he grew larger. Chunks of flesh peeled off his body and fell to the ground into a bloody puddle that had started to form by his feet. The leather from the tips of his shoes was pierced by long razor-sharp talons that grew out from his toes.

George fell forward from his kneeling position and supported his body on all fours as nausea began to overwhelm him. He stared at his hands and saw his fingers lengthen drastically as a new layer of grey skin formed between each digit. His arms had changed into disfigured batlike wings in a matter of seconds. The most excruciating part of this experience was the agonising sensation coming from his head.

He felt like his skull was being broken into a million pieces and reassembled in a different order. He could feel his lips ripping apart as his jaw rapidly grew in size, his teeth fell out and were replaced with razor-sharp fangs. His eyes felt like they were about to burst under the pressure of his eye sockets crushing them as they deformed to face in opposite directions. The back of his skull was bombarded with a horrendous stabbing pain as over a dozen wide horns slowly pierced through the muscle and flesh.

Most of the pain was emitting from his nose as it changed into a snout, it felt like a tow truck was prising his face from the rest of his head. George tried to cope with the excruciating pain but it only got worse as his body continued to grow at an accelerated rate. His monstrous wailing reverberated through the Shrieking Shack. It all became too much for him once his internal organs started to get crushed and rearranged. Unable to endure the pain any longer, he keeled over and fell unconscious.

George opened his eyes and was greeted with the master bedroom except with one small difference. The room had drastically shrunk in size. He struggled to lift his heavy head and looked around with his panoramic vision to see everything a third the size it had once been. Although George was dreading it, he looked down at his body to see, besides the size difference, what had changed. He was greeted with a much more defined and animalistic physique than he'd ever had before.

His legs were bent into an S shape and his feet resembled a dinosaur's like a t-rex. The talons alone were several inches long and razor-sharp. His arms had grown in length massively and his long spindly fingers were tipped with black claws and were connected with thick webbing. His chest had ballooned with muscles and his abdomen had sunken behind his ribs. His tail had grown longer than the length of his neck and torso combined. All these appendages of his body were covered in a thick grey hide with large scales covering his chest, thighs and tail.

George clambered to his feet and noticed his posture had changed to the point he didn't feel comfortable standing on only two legs. Because he didn't want to damage the floor, George supported his body weight with his elongated arms. He felt most natural resting his weight on what used to be his wrists and folding his wings against his chest. He used his tail's weight to make micro corrections to keep himself steady since he was still feeling a little woozy after getting up.

Even though he was on all fours, George stretched his neck and could tell that he had grown in height by at least four feet since his last transformation. He looked over to the corner of the room where there was a large silver mirror above a fireplace, it had rusted and dulled to the point it could barely show a reflection. He hobbled over to the mirror like a newborn pup and raised a wing to gently wipe away the dust and cobwebs obscuring his reflection.

George saw a blurry image of his head looking back at him. He recoiled after being surprised by how much his face had changed, he didn't recognise himself in the slightest. What was once an abomination of man and lizard is now a scaly mythical beast of legend. His neck had an elegant curve like a swan's and was adorned with thick scales like organic medieval armour. A long thin scaly snout and a proud brow with sunken crimson eyes, a mane of horns and rows of sharp teeth shaped like daggers.

With the long spiky tail, bat-like wings, scaly feet tipped with talons, thick reptile-like grey skin and a face that would give death-eaters nightmares; George was certain he was becoming a genuine fire-breathing dragon. His head was racing with speculation and assumptions, all of which he had no way to prove. The only person who knew the answers to his questions was not the sort who freely gave information when it wasn't necessary.

George scratched an itchy horn on the back of his head with one of his claws whilst trying to think of something less depressing. He looked back toward the patch of ground where he had transformed and saw a grotesque pile of blooded torn skin and a shredded school uniform. Normally, pieces of his old human skin would cling to his body, but this time he'd completely shedded.

The transformation left him naked which meant everything he hadn't had time to take off had been destroyed. Luckily, he had been forward-thinking enough to cast his robe and sack aside which meant all of his valuables were safe. George hesitantly walked on all fours towards the king-size bed while looking for his sack. He found it on the ground beside the mattress, it still looked in one piece and there was no evidence of damage.

George carefully leaned over the bed and picked it up with his teeth whilst making sure not to bite down. He dropped the sack onto the dusty mattress and stuck his snout inside to look for a bin bag to put his skin and torn clothes inside. The following events were almost comical as a deformed dragon attempted to blow open a black bin bag and place his fleshy remains inside. Losing opposable thumbs and fingers made performing ordinary tasks exceedingly difficult and tedious.

In the end, George resorted to pulling out a roll of duct tape and wrapping it around his claws. Once he finished filling the third bin bag with his minced remains, George was greeted with a large red stain covering the floor. Since he hated leaving a mess behind, he felt the impulse to clean that up as well. He looked at his wrist, where he had messily duct-taped his wristwatch which he had picked out of the skin slushy, and checked the time. His broken wristwatch told him he had plenty of time before dinner.

George thought he might as well keep the place clean since he would be coming back to transform every month or so. Being someone who's always prepared, George brought all the cleaning utensils he could need to remove stains in his sack. He once again placed his snout in the enchanted sack and pulled out a mop with an accompanying bucket with his tongue coiled around the handle. He also pulled out a large plastic jug containing over forty litres of drinking water and an assortment of cleaning products.

He filled the bucket with the water from the plastic container and mixed in some bleach until it was frothy. Then George very gently picked up the mop between his taped-up claws and dumped it into the bucket. For the next thirty minutes, George in his draconic form thoroughly mopped the floor until there wasn't a single spec of blood remaining. He'd cleaned the floor to such a high sheen that he could see his horrifying reflection in it.

George placed the mop into the bucket and patted his wings together whilst having a very toothy grin plastered on his scaly face. He'd spent so much time cleaning, he could turn back into his human form and return to the school. He was looking forward to having a hot bath the moment he got back to his dorm room so he could wash away the mouldy smell clinging to his scales... erh skin.

There was only one problem holding him back. The spot where his blood stained the ground was clean, but the rest of the floor wasn't. George scratched one of the horns on the back of his head whilst he contemplated how he could fix this issue. He looked at his watch and saw that he still had plenty of time before he had to return to school.

George ended up reaching for the mop in the bucket whilst forgetting about the fact he could transform whenever he liked. And just like that, he spent the rest of the afternoon thoroughly cleaning every square inch of the floor in the master bedroom. His massive form was especially useful when it came to lifting the three-poster bed into the air so he could clean the floor underneath.

He stood proudly at the entrance of the room whilst overlooking the immaculate wooden panels. The floor was a better mirror than the mirror itself. George checked his watch and was shocked to see how much time had passed by. He'd been cleaning for over three hours. George decided he'd spent far too much time in the Shrieking Shack and he needed to get back to Hogwarts before anyone noticed his absence.

George tied a knot in his two bin bags and placed them, along with his cleaning utensils, back into his enchanted sack. Then he picked up the sack with his mouth and headed towards the landing, but stopped once he realised he wouldn't fit down the stairwell. George had become so familiar with this new monstrous form that he'd forgotten to turn back into a human.

He dropped the sack to the floor and took off the duct tape watch and stuck it on the bannister. Then George craned his long neck down and looked toward his abdomen, he found a faint purple scar to the right of his navel. He pressed what was formally his right hand against the scar and closed his eyes. Whilst reading the illegible enchantment in his head, George felt his claws descend into his abdomen and reach his intestines.

George carefully moved his intestines aside to avoid internal bleeding. He pushed his hand in further until he reached a fleshy sac just below his liver. He wiggled his two claws into the sack and pinched a tacky marble-sized ball, he pulled the ball out of the fleshy bag. George continued to pull his hand out of his abdomen and opened his eyes to see the yellow and veiny hard-boiled sweet clasped between his slimy claws.

He hesitated slightly before opening his mouth and swallowing the 'sweet'. His whole body instinctively shivered as it travelled down his long neck, there were no words to describe the other-worldly sensation. Once the 'sweet' in his stomach started to dissolve, George immediately felt himself starting to compress and shrink. The transformation was the polar opposite of before as his body cooled and shrank, there was hardly any pain in comparison.

His scaly body flaked away as new smooth skin was revealed underneath. His horns retracted back into his spine whilst his tail separated from his body and vanished into ashes a moment later. His arms and legs bent back into their original shape and his talons and claws retracted back into his fingers and toes until they looked like slightly pointy nails. Finally, George's long neck collapsed in on itself and his snout deformed back into his nose.

George reached for his sack and pulled out his mirror so he could see his reflection. He was relieved to see that his eyes had returned to their normal colour and his brown hair was growing back out of his bald head. Perhaps the only concerning issue was his sunken cheeks and extremely pale complexion. He wasn't too concerned about this since his complexion always improved after eating a large meal.

He stood up unsteadily and could tell he'd grown by at least an inch or two. His muscles felt slightly more developed as he clenched the bannister for support. George pulled a fresh uniform out of his enchanted sack and quickly dressed his shaking body. He also pulled out a large pair of scissors to cut his hair since it would always grow back down to his shoulders.

George finished cutting his hair and was satisfied with the reflection in the mirror, he was now ready to go back to Hogwarts. He took one last look back into the room he'd cleaned so vigorously and smiled before descending the staircase. George could imagine indulging his cleaning impulses and slowly renovating this building over the next few months to the point it was ready to be lived in once again.