Chapter Number: 21
Chapter Name: The Stone of Haguba & the Ferret scaring
On the way to the first transfiguration class of the year, Ron made a lot of noise about spending all of Monday with the Slytherins. Hermione felt the same way but Harry just didn't care whether they were there or not. When they entered they saw the Slytherins had already taken one side of the class so the Gryffindors chose the other side. Ron, Hermione and Harry sat on the front row.
Professor McGonagall entered the room with a small package in her hand, which she put down on a stand that she made appear out of thin air. " Good afternoon class." She said as she looked around the class.
Her eyes froze when she saw Harry. ' Merlin's Ghost! He looks like the exact duplicate of his father... I only wish he were as good as that in his transfiguration class. Well he'll get there this year, if he sticks to what he's been doing. '
" I know you all did well in your summer homework. Ten points to both Slytherin and the Gryffindor houses. " This got a big cheer from the Slytherins as now they were ahead of the Gryffindors by over seventy points and they only had one class.
" Settle down class. I have to go over your homework with you." She turned her face to Hermione and said, " Excellent research as always Ms. Granger. Your writing was as always very conscious and clear. This paper might be included as a part of the future textbook if I have my way. There was two very surprising papers amongst the rest of you. Mr. Longbottom." She looked at Neville with awe and respect.
" I was really impressed with the details in your description of how Goderic Gryffindor felt the first time he transformed into the Lion. I dare say you would do well in class this year." Neville was stumped. He had never been very good at transfiguration and would have had dropped it in the first year had he a chance. " Thank you..." was all he could say when she handed his paper back.
She the turned to face Harry. " The other paper was done by Mr. Potter. It was very good. I'm sorry but I had initially thought it was either plagiarized or written by someone else. I see Ms. Granger has had a good influence on you.."
The whole class turned to Harry when they heard that. Harry's ears were beginning to get red. Professor McGonagall took no notice of the surroundings nor of Harry's growing redness. " Spending the holidays at Ms. Grangers house was a good idea. I have never seen a student with middle of the range marks to hand in work that almost rivals that of Ms. Granger's essay. Almos. I shudder to think what you could have had achieved had you been more focused on your studies from the beginning. Ten points for both Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter. Twenty points for Mr. Longbottom."
Neville had thought getting the praise from normally strict Professor McGonagall would make his day but he hardly knew what hit him when his homework got the house twenty whole points. The only other time he had got any points was in his first year when he tried to stop Harry and two of his friends from going after the Philosopher's stone.
Several of the girls had imagined being in the same house as Harry all day long with nothing to do and they were jealous of her. They all started to send her daggers from their eyes and if looks could kill Hermione would have had died a hundred deaths in the short time it took Professor McGonagall to tell the class about whose house he had stayed in.
Professor McGonagall then turned to look at Ron, who watched as both his friends turned pink. " Mr. Weasley, Your assignment was surprisingly easy to read and comprehend even though you didn't have Ms. Granger's help in writing it. Five points to the Gryffindors." She did all the other students until only Malfoy was left. " Mr. Malfoy this homework is not up to your usual standard. I'm afraid I'll have to deduct five points from the Slytherin house for your drop in academic standards... I expected you to produce the second best in the class, but I was very disappointed by your lack of effort."
" Well now that we've lost almost one third of the class time I suggest we pick up the pace." said Professor McGonagall, as she went to the stand where the package was and carefully revealed its content. It was a bright yellow stone, which sometimes glowed randomly.
A few seconds after it's exposure the glow of the stone seeped out of the stone and swirled around the stone in the air around it. Professor McGonagall spoke something that Harry didn't hear but from Hermione's eager hand he could tell that it was a question. Professor McGonagall smiled and asked her to answer the question.
Hermione got up from her chair and said, " It's the Haguba stone. It works as a means of testing whether or not a person can become a Animagi and displays the creature suited for the person to become."
" Good answer Hermione. Now we could use a simple potion to do this but it is an extremely painful process to go through. I'll demonstrate the use of the stone..." she touched the stone and a ghost form of herself appeared in front of her. Neville let out a shriek. It took a second for the translucent Professor McGonagall to quickly turn into a cat. The cat made a small meow and jumped toward the real Professor McGonagall before vanishing in mid air. " Now Slytherins first. Remember even if you have no Animagi form you can still do wand assisted transformations, so don't be disheartened."
Only two of the Slytherins had any effect on the stone. The first one was Pansy Parkinson. She walked up to the stone confidently and put her had on the stone. Her ghost image appeared, (Harry thought it looked like the ghost self of her, might have been a lot easier to talk to then the real one) and after a second, spent looking at the class, she (the ghost) transformed into a Monarch Butterfly.
The real Pansy looked through her tear filled eyes at the beautiful butterfly flap its wings and move all over the class room. When the butterfly settled on Harry's nose, the real Pansy turned pink and the butterfly vanished. She walked back to the line of Slytherins on her side of the room slowly under the hateful gaze of some of her fellow housemates. Malfoy looked furious when he saw that her butterfly form had landed on Harry's nose, but said nothing, as he was the next person to touch the stone.
What happened next... surprised a lot of people. Malfoy put his hand on the stone and his ghost form appeared. It stood there a few seconds and looked around the room. It seemed it was checking to see if anyone was looking. Then the ghost form of Draco turned in to a ferret.
Malfoy was horrified, but the whole class burst into laughter... including his fellow housemates. They remembered Professor Moody turning him into a ferret as a punishment. Professor McGonagall let out a laugh too before she composed herself. " Settle down class. Now the Gryffindor. First up... Ms. Brown."
Lavender was quite surprised to see that her Animagi form was a Parrot, though it didn't really didn't surprise people because of the way she and Parvati always gossiped. There was not an Animagi form for neither Ron nor Parvati and they seemed quite upset by it. In both cases Professor McGonagall reminded them that they can still do wand-based transformations, and people without Animagi abilities are usually better at that. When it was Hermione's turn Harry quickly patted her on the back and wished her good luck. Hermione's hand shook as she placed it on the stone.
To everyone's surprise Hermione's ghost started to examine the real Hermione for a little bit. ' Just like her. Always looking into how things work' though Harry fondly.
Then the ghost form of Hermione turned into an exact duplicate of Professor McGonagall's cat. Then the cat did something none of the other transformed ghost-animals had done before. The fur stood on it's ends and the cat changed it's colors. It became light grey with tiger stripes. The cat the jumped onto Harry's table. Harry had one chance to pet the cat once before the image faded.
When Hermione took her hand off the stone she was greeted with the claps from Professor McGonagall. " Class, Hermione is what is called 'spotter'. They have the ability to switch between two markings in the same animal. It a very rare ability and only come to very strong wizards and witches."
Hermione beamed as she went back to her seat. Hermione got a big hug from everyone of the Gryffindors though Ron seemed a bit rigid. Dean and Seamus went next. Unfortunately neither one had any ability and quite oppositely to what Ron and Parvati went through they were very happy.
Harry assumed that they were happy since they figured being good at wand based Animagi gave them a wider selection of animals to become. It was Neville who was next. Neville was shaking as he went to the stone. Malfoy probably would have had made a joke about Neville, but he remembered that he had turned into a ferret.
When Neville put his hand on the stone a ghost form emerged that looked more confident that the real one. The ghost form gave the real one a hug and started to walk towards Malfoy. In mid step he transformed into a lion that looked a lot like the one on all Gryffindor crests.
The lion roared at Malfoy causing him to fall from his chair. Malfoy for a small amount of time thought that the translucent lion was going to attack him and so he scrambled backwards until he was backed up against the wall. The lion went right up to Malfoy's face and let out one more roar before disappearing. The whole class was shocked to see that Neville's animagus form was a lion.
Pansy Parkinson started to clap first before all the Gryffindors joined in. Everyone assumed that the reason for Pansy's clapping was that he had managed to scare the hell out of Malfoy. Her ex.
But the truth was even more surprising then anyone could have had guessed. When he transformed she saw in him what no one else saw. Potential.
Professor McGonagall asked for silence and the class quickly settled down.
" Mr. Longbottom... That was quite some transformation. The only other Lion in the registry had been Goderic Gryffindor himself. I do hope you decide to take up the challenge." She looked at Neville for a few more seconds before deciding that she should get back to the task at hand.
" Now Mr. Potter It appears you are the last person."
Harry knew no matter how hard he tried, he was unique and bound to do something that no one expects of him. He knew when it was his turn that he was going to do something that would make him the conversation topic of months to come. So it didn't surprise him when the whole class had to turn their head away as Harry's hand approached the stone. Upon touching the liquid aura erupted and drenched the whole room in an unearthly shade of yellow light.
For the first second nothing happened. But then a searing pain went through his entire body. He could feel every cell in his body scream out in pain. Even with the intense training that he went through to get used to Hermione Astral Projecting with him in Morocco, he had never come across pain as bad as this before. The Cruciatus curse seemed like a harmless tickle against this and he was no longer able to stand it; he screamed in pain. It was heard all over the castle and windows with magical glass shattered in classes up and down and across the hall.
Then, as suddenly as the pain arrived, it was gone. It wasn't like the times when he learned to overcome the pain like he had done with Astral Projection. No. This was more like 'here one second gone the next'. He wanted to collapse to the floor but the stone wouldn't let him. Neither would it allow Harry to take his hand off it. He looked to where his two friends were and saw that Ron and Neville were working hard to stop Hermione from going to Harry's aid. He was sure they wanted to keep Hermione from having the same kind of pain.
Harry tried to make eye contact with Hermione. When she did make eye contact he mouthed the words, "Don't worry". This calmed her down immensely, as she let herself be moved to her seat by Ron and Neville. Right then three shimmering ghost forms of Harry emerged from the Haguba stone.
The ghost forms of Harry shook each other's hands before arguing for a second as to who would go first. Their discussion was done in parseltongue and as such no one in the class knew what they were talking about, except for Harry who knew what was to come and prepared himself for the inevitable return of the days of his second year at Hogwarts.
The first Harry went over to Harry's original table and sat down on it rather than the chair. It then morphed into an exact duplicate of the cat that both Professor McGonagall and Hermione. The cat the walked over to Hermione's table and changed his markings like Hermione had done. Hermione tentatively reached out to pet it but it vanished before she could touch it.
The next Harry went to the back of the room and transformed into a dolphin floating in imaginary water. It did a flip in the air above the imaginary water before disappearing and leaving the field open for the third and last Harry to transform. As soon as the dolphin was gone all eyes fell up on the real Harry. The only remaining ghost form of Harry seemed happy at this fact, until all the attention fell upon him.
The Ghost-Harry groaned and then started to run towards the side that had mild sunlight streaming through a window in it. Most of the students thought, this Harry didn't want to do the transformation, as they knew the real Harry was reluctant to show off. Everyone got out off their seat and followed the ghost version of Harry. When they reached the window, they saw a blinding while flash. Once they saw what it was they scrambled to the back of the room. They were all afraid of the creature that was on the other side of the glass.
It was a dragon.
Hermione had been the last person to get to the window but she didn't runaway from the dragon like the others had. The Dragon unlike all the other ghost transformations appeared to be almost solid.
The dragon had iridescent, pearly scales and glittering multicolored pupil less eyes. There was a lightning shaped scar that started from above the left eye and finished a bit lower than the bottom lid, giving it the look of being wiser and more battle hardened than it really was. The dragon backed away from the broken window and fired its purple flames at the Quidditch field. Noting really happened since it was all an illusion. Hermione knew which dragon it was and knew for a fact that unless the dragon wasn't provoked it wouldn't harm a human, but that was hardly a problem since it was all an illusion.
"Antipodean Opaleye" said Hermione.
The large Dragon blinked its eye once as if to agree with Hermione. The dragon then twisted its body around and headed for the sun. It vanished in mid flight. As soon as the dragon was gone every one looked at Harry like he knew they would.
' At least this time, they can't think I tried to kill someone.' Thought Harry, seeing only one positive out of the situation.
Professor McGonagall checked to see if Harry was alright before saying, " That... That was extra ordinary... I have to tell Professor Dumbledore." She started to move towards the door but the door opened first.
It was Professor Dumbledore.
" I don't think that would be necessary Minerva. If I may, I would like to take Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter with me."
" Of course" she said rather reluctantly. She wanted to see the last transformation again but she couldn't refuse the headmaster's request. " Harry and Hermione, please go with Professor Dumbledore" she waited a second and said " take your bags, I seriously doubt you'll be coming back here today."
Harry and Hermione left the room together, leaving Ron alone to brew in his own jealousy. He knew it wasn't Harry's fault that he attracted so much attention but he was jealous of the fact that all the attention in the class was now focused on his two best friends, instead of just one. Why did Hermione have to be a Spotter ?
Professor Dumbledore led them to a room they had never seen before though the entrance to the room was very close to the entrance of the kitchen. The door wasn't really a door, rather stones of slightly darker tone. " Rocket fuel" said Professor Dumbledore at the wall.
Amazingly the bricks on the wall came to life. They grew matching arms, legs, eyes, ear, and a mouth before they scrambled behind the three. The 'brick-men' (or brick-people for the politically correct) started to complain loudly amongst themselves about being woken up so quickly after they had their lunch.
' I wonder what happens to the door when they are at their lunch, for that matter what do they eat and drink.' thought Hermione.
Once in the room, the little brick people quickly laid down one on top of another until the wall was back again. Professor Dumbledore snapped his fingers and three comfortable looking chairs appeared. Professor Dumbledore and Hermione took them immediately but Harry looked at the seat like it was a hot element. Professor Dumbledore changed Harry's seat into a school stool. Harry's face burst into a big smile as he took the chair. " Thanks" he said.
" It's my pleasure Harry.... Now on to the business at hand."
He looked back and forth between Harry and Hermione. He waited a few seconds to organize his thoughts before saying,
" I guess you both know that you're quite unique... No that would be putting in very lightly. Hermione you are a very strong witch, I knew it the day you got that 125% in your first year. ... And now being a spotter just proved my point. I really didn't think I would ever see a spotter again, let alone two. Both in Gryffindor as well." There was an unmistakable pride in his voice.
Professor Dumbledore then focused his gaze on Harry. " There have been only two people in the world that managed do what you did. Both of you I assume know about Merlin..."
Harry and Hermione both nodded. Of course they knew about him. He was the father of all the wizards around the world. None before Merlin could cast spells or work magic without the permission of the Goddess of magic 'Mauve'. Merlin was the very first Wizard and from him spawned all the wizards that you see today. He cast a spell to find people with the qualifications he thought they needed to be a magician. He opened up the mystical world for all those with the gift to see.... I'm going off the track. He was the only magician who ever transformed into a magical creature not only that he could transform himself into five different dragons. Each endowed with unique abilities.
Professor Dumbledore paused to look back, almost like he was remembering a piece of his past. " It is said that the Opaleye Dragons were his creation, and it was this one that he had transformed into when he finally finished off Mauve. You also have the ability to do more than one animal. Animagus ability are rare but among those who have this ability, the ability to do more than one animal is very common. It is rare for people with talents such as those that you two posses to choose to do animagus training at all."
" Why?" asked Harry and Hermione both in unison.
" Animagus training is hard. Sometimes it takes a fully-grown wizard/witch to train for almost a year before he or she can usually train for about eight months before they can do it with sufficient speed. The procedure can be very painful without the presence of a ProTem. Those of your friends who choose to train to be an Animagus would have to work at it both this year and the year after that."
" The reason why so many choose not to go through the training is because, those who have the ability to assume more than animal, the pain is much more severe. It's even more for those who can change their marking. Most prefer to learn wand based transformation which is not really painful though it takes about six to seven months to get through."
" So where do we go from here?" asked Harry.
" Depends if you want to become an Animagus or not... If one of you decides in favor of it I'll teach him or her how to do it."
" I want to do it." Said Hermione eager for a new challenge.
" Me too" chimed in Harry quickly.
" Excellent. " Dumbledore smiled and said, " this is how it'll work. Your training to be an Animagus is different from what the rest of the class is going to learn. The first few weeks will be spent learning the ProTem spell. Once that's done I'll show both how to help the other in their transformation. Now do either of you have any questions?"
Hermione eagerly put up her hand " I have one. When do we start?"
Harry snorted out with laughter at Hermione's question. Apparently, Hermione didn't think her enthusiasm to answer the question by Professor Dumbledore was as funny as what Harry found it to be. Her displeasure would only get worse when Professor Dumbledore joined Harry in laughing, though he had the good sense to stop when he saw Hermione's eyes were set on killing mode.
Harry on the other hand was stupid enough to continue laughing at her when she was obviously getting more riled up. " Ahem... I'm sorry, Ms. Granger." said Professor Dumbledore to stop a fight that he could see coming from a mile away and he wasn't sure if the two students would actually even remember that he was there. " You just reminded me of someone... Well, to answer your question; We'll start right now. First lets get rid of these chairs..." with that their journey into the exciting world of Animagi began.
When the class finally finished neither Harry nor Hermione managed to get the ProTem spell correct. As Harry and Hermione made their way through the crowd of students nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The usual cluster of girls that had followed him the day before was back and they all wanted to go out with him. His polite refusal only made the girls want him more. Harry wasn't sure if they were after him or if they wanted to win the challenge of getting his first date.
It was of little surprise to Hermione, but a great deal to Harry, when two of the more senior girls started to fight physically. " Hey stop it..." said Harry as he put himself between the two girls.
" She started it..." said the beautiful Seventh year Ravenclaw.
" No she did..." said the equally beautiful 6th year Hufflepuff girl before trying to lunge towards the other girl.
" Stop it!" yelled Hermione in the middle of the scene with Harry trying to keep the two girls apart. " Harry's still worn out from the fight with the Nundu... try again in a few weeks time. I promise he'll be a lot more receptive then" Hermione then dragged Harry out of the middle of the two girls who decided that Hermione was right and took off in opposite directions when they left.
" I can't believe it... a seventh year and a sixth year girl were fighting over me!" said Harry with a dumbfounded look on his face.
" It's not you they're going after...in a way." said Hermione.
" What're they after then?"
" You really don't notice the effect you have around girls do you. Remember sorting... did you see them winking..."
Harry only managed to nod shyly.
" Well the reason all the girls were winking at you was because they had just seen you half naked and they liked what they saw" Hermione blushed very slightly and said, " It was your own fault - you should have had bought new clothes in Morocco." At this point Harry noticed that he was in the corridor leading to the Gryffindor common room and Ron was headed their way.
" Harry, you alright?" asked Ron obviously referring to the incident with the Haguba stone. If the voice didn't sound so hollow to Harry he might have actually believed that Ron cared about what happened to him. But Harry didn't care whether or not it was hollow or not he had decided long ago to let Ron get away with it.
" I'm fine... tell me what happened after I left?"
Ron told Harry and Hermione everything that happened. " Well after you left Professor McGonagall explained why the stone had that odd reaction to you -"
" Why?" interrupted Hermione.
" Well it supposed to hurt a little when you can do more than one animal. But nothing like what you went through. She thinks because of that Dragon transformation..."
Ron wanted the attention of the group to focus on him once more so he said, " Well anyway... Neville and Pansy were the only two who wanted to be animagus. Malfoy and Pansy had a huge fight after the class when she offered to be... well that'll be putting it too lightly... she practically ordered Neville to make her, his ProTem" he paused and snorted out with laughter. " Lavender didn't want the job and Pansy was the only one who could do it. For a moment it looked like Neville was going to decline being an animagus when she actually told him she would kill him if she didn't have a ProTem...poor Neville... can you imagine having Pansy for his ProTem."
Harry didn't think Pansy was actually bad, as her only crime was that until recently she was involved with Malfoy. There was that little incident with her teasing Hermione about being called " stunningly pretty" by Rita Skitter, but Harry thought she was most likely jealous of Hermione, being heralded as a beauty queen.
Harry got the chance to join in Ron's laughter when Hermione asked if there was any homework. The three friends played exploding snaps in the common room until it was time for dinner.
By dinner time that day the entire school knew about Harry's transformation. Everyone knew that Voldemort marked Harry for death a long time ago, but the transformation drove a point home to them. If Harry can change into a dragon then he was a very strong wizard and strong wizards had a way of dying when Voldemort finds out about them. Harry initially thought that the news of his ability would cause the female student population to become even more obsessed with him but he was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.
However the exact reason was beyond him, so he asked the most qualified person to ask this. " Hermione why do think all the girls are avoiding me... not that I don't like the break from all the attention" said Harry as the trio moved toward their final class after dinner.
" Well, I talked to that Ravenclaw that was following you around yesterday, she said it's because they don't want to get attached to you..." she saw confusion in Harry's face so she tried to elaborate. " They think they'll go through the same think that Cho Chang went through last year," there was palpable sorrow in her voice. Regretting what she had said Hermione started to say " I'm sorry, I so- " But Harry interrupted her.
" I never told you what really happened after I got transported. I'll tell you guys later when I'm up to it.... If I hadn't been so busy working over the summer I think I would be very depressed right now. Okay...enough mush." He turned to Ron and asked, " Where is the new Dueling class?"
" Right here" said a familiar obnoxious snobby voice that belonged to none other than Percy Weasley. He came out of the room and held out his hand to Harry, " Good day, Old Chap! I heard what you did... the dragon thing... I mean"
" How are you doing Percy?" Harry said shaking Percy's hand. " I heard about the promotion, so I think congratulations are in order."
" Well... what can I say? Hard work pays off sometimes." said Percy. Harry was sure he saw Percy blush a little. " Hey I saw the demonstration on Saturday. Excellent work, both of you. But Hermione..." he turned to her and said, " That was some 'Golden Flame'. I haven't seen that since I was a first year student here and that was nothing compared to what you did" Hermione blushed at the complement.
" Though I was disappointed at how long it took you to realize Harry's strategy... Oh my! Did I use those two words in the same sentence? From what Ron always tells at home it was quite unlike what I saw" he, Hermione and Ron, started to laugh at Percy's joke about Harry.
" I know... I couldn't believe that he made me so angry that I wasted my energy attacking him" she replied to Percy before adding, " Before last summer, I wouldn't have thought Harry was capable of doing anything like that either"
" Ha. Ha. Funny! Very Funny!" he said before going into the class ahead of his friends.
(A/N: I know my Percy cracked a joke.... But someone had to. It was too good of an opportunity to miss it. Don't worry it was his last one...I hope. :)
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END OF CHAPTER
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