Deep in the dungeon of Baron Hume's Castle, inside a stone chamber that Muggles could neither see nor hear.
A werewolf lay on a massive stone slab, its hands and feet bound tight. Will's silver-gray eyes swept over its body, cold and rational, without a trace of emotion.
The werewolf was in terrible shape, perhaps even worse than Lupin had been back then. Through Will's Sight, the magical structure within its body was laid bare.
Truthfully, Will had not seen many werewolves. Just... Lupin, probably.
This was the second werewolf he had examined. Its magical structure was broadly similar to Lupin's, with many nearly identical features.
He recalled something he had discovered while studying Fantastic Beasts at Hogwarts: members of the same species had remarkably similar magical structures.
Whether Hippogriffs, Thestrals, Cornish Pixies, or those Blast-Ended Skrewts Hagrid had bred, their magical structures were like two copies of the same painting. The details differed, but the overall framework was much the same.
Most Wizards regarded werewolves as Fantastic Beasts, too.
Under the Ministry of Magic's classification, however, werewolves were "beings with beastly traits and usually high magical intelligence." Along with vampires, Centaurs, and Veela, they fell under the category of "humanoid beings."
But werewolves differed from creatures born as Fantastic Beasts.
They had once been human. A bite had "transformed" them, changing not only their bodies but their magical structures as well.
Will had not captured the werewolf tonight on a whim. He had been thinking about a common saying: becoming a werewolf was a corruption of the soul.
The soul.
The words echoed through his mind.
When he had studied Soul Transfiguration, he had always treated the "soul" as an abstract, philosophical concept, not something tangible that Magic could detect and analyze.
But what if the soul was connected