In their fifth year at Hogwarts, a long-standing friendship is tested by something far darker than mischief. When Fred Weasley finds Deema Andrea Avanzini unconscious in the Forbidden Forest, her mouth stained crimson, he realizes she has been pulled into a dangerous magic against her will. As the truth comes to light, Deema reveals she was placed under compulsion and forced into the first steps of a forbidden transformation—one bound by blood, death, and an unforgiving clock. With time running