The summer away had given him the full moons that he was after, and the solitude necessary to keep the mandrake leaf secured under his tongue without arousing any suspicion. It had cost him his job at the Ministry, but frankly that bothered him very little; he assumed his uncle Lucius could get it back for him just as easily as it had been handed to him in the first place, if he needed it. The tasking he'd been given in the Department of Mysteries had been distracting and tedious, anyway, and he needed to focus on the task at hand.

Since his return to Britain over a month ago, potion in hand, he'd been ready to finish things. Tiberius had read everything in his father's library on the subject of Animagi, and he knew everything he needed to know. The only thing he was waiting on was the event; the impetus to make the transformation for the first time. He needed a lightning storm. He had been fairly confident that the fall in England would provide one and the dissipation of the magic-erasing fog had allowed him to return to wait one out, but now that he was here his patience was wearing thin more quickly than he would have thought. He avoided Antigone, but even living in the same house with her was too much for him. It was like he could feel her, somewhere in the house, gloating over her own success and his failure.

Finally, the days grew cloudier and the air heavier. The signs of the storm made him even more restless than he had been, until for days leading up to the first crack of thunder he barely slept more than two hours at a time — he'd be damned if he missed it. The lack of sleep was making him more irritable than usual, but he doubted anyone noticed. It wasn't as though he was paying social calls at a time like this, and his family may not have noticed any difference in his demeanor anyway. There were very few people he was ever genuinely genial with, and none of them lived in this house.

The rumble of thunder came in the afternoon, though the sky had darkened to the point where it seemed to be late evening. He apparated from the study to just beyond the edge of the woods on the property, so as to avoid being seen walking out into the storm — perhaps an unnecessary precaution, since for once he wasn't doing anything illegal, but he didn't want his wife to see him. She would know, anyway; she could not have missed the significance of the gathering storm.

He tried to push Antigone from his mind as he waited in the woods, watching the skies, but she kept returning to his thoughts. Would she seek him out after the storm to see whether he'd been successful? How would she react to no longer being the only one in the household who could transform at will? The idea that he might not be successful had never seriously occurred to him — the worst case scenario as he imagined it was only that his animal form might end up lower on the food chain than Antigone's overgrown housecat.

Lightning flashed in the sky, but too far in the distance. He wanted it to be overhead, to ensure he had the full effect for what he was about to do. After pacing the forest impatiently for a few moments waiting for the storm to move to him, he instead apparated, by small bits and pieces, to where it was instead. When he was satisfied that he'd chosen the prime position, he chanted that damn incantation once more (for the last time) and took the potion. Strange, that something that had taken so much time and effort could be devoured so quickly.

Should it have started already? He had only enough time to wonder, to think this entire event a little anticlimactic, before his body convulsed involuntarily. Something was happening — and it hurt.