The Rat Files

“So Weasley, how many dumpsters did you have to rummage through before you were able to find that moldy mop bucket you call a potions cauldron?” Malfoy asked conversationally from the desk across from them.  He turned around and flashed them a feigned innocent smile.  But Draco Malfoy wouldn’t know innocent if it bit him in the hindquarters.

Ron fumed and made a move to stomp his pasty blond head into the floor. 

“Really, Malfoy.  Can’t you think of anything better than that?  You’ve really been slacking on the poor jokes lately.”  Hermione quickly grabbed Ron’s arm and pulled him back before he got them all a detention.  Lately, Snape wasn’t below giving random people detention, as well as the people who were unfortunately seated in close proximity.

“This is just priceless!  The little fuzzy Mudblood defending her trash of a boyfriend.  I must say, I saw this coming.”  Draco pretended to clap.  He punched Crabbe and Goyle and they miraculously got the point and clapped as well.

“Your Mudblood jokes are going kind of stale too, Malfoy.  Why don’t you ask your father?  I’m sure he and the other washed-up, old has-been Death Eaters are having a jolly good time down at Azkaban telling jokes.”  Harry said hotly as he too restrained Ron’s advances.

Malfoy glared at him.  “You’ll pay for that one, Potter.”

“Oh, will I now?  What are you going to do, tell your daddy on me?” 

“Harry, stop.”  Hermione whispered.

“Shut up, Potter.”  Malfoy took out his wand.  Harry did the same.

“Oh, so you’re the only one allowed to spew bullshit around here, is that right Malfoy?  You can call my friends Mudbloods and trash but I can’t call your father a sniveling little – “

“Harry, stop!”  Hermione clamped her hand over his mouth, just as Snape swept into their presence, glaring down upon his students.

“Is there something going on here?” he asked slowly, looking deliberately at Harry.

“Malfoy’s a cheap, dirty, conniving son of a – “

“Well, Potter and his goonies have decided – “

“Malfoy is just being his usual cowardly, bastardly -

“Uhh…duhr….err….”

Ron, Malfoy, Harry, and Crabbe and Goyle all began speaking at once and Snape looked about ready to hex them all into oblivion.

“You guys, shut UP!”  Hermione was stunned at her own daring.  All eyes in the classroom fell on her.

Snape sneered.  “Ten points from Gryffindor, for being a bossy know-it-all who doesn’t know her place.”

Harry fumed.  “That’s – “

“Twenty points each from Potter and Weasley for fighting.”

Malfoy smirked.

Snape turned sharply to make his way back to the front of the room and stumbled right into Crabbe and Goyle, who were still standing there looking up at him blankly.

“And five points from Slytherin for allowing these two stumps to remain as unintelligent as they are.” He stormed away.

Malfoy shot daggers at his two minions, who were looking at each other, puzzled.

Harry turned back to Ron and Hermione, both of whom were bright red in a mixture of outrage and embarrassment.

“That slimy, greasy – “

“That’s enough, Ron.  We don’t need any more points taken from Gryffindor.”  Hermione warned, carefully brewing their group’s potion.  “I think Snape’s got his mind set on getting us into the negatives this year.”

            She poured their potion into three cups, one for each of them.  They were practicing the Illumination Potion, which was rumored to be in the class’s final exam.  It caused the drinker’s body to glow a bright orange and it was used on wizards who waved other wizards on broomsticks into a safe place for landing.

            “Now we just add one hair of Lumen Rat.”  Hermione pulled the small baggie of tiny unremarkable brown hairs from her pocket and opened it.

            “What’s a Lumen Rat?”  Harry wondered, not really caring.  He just wanted to take his mind off of stuffing Snape’s massive nose into Neville’s old trainers.

            Hermione smiled eagerly at him, oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t really listening.  “A Lumen Rat is like a common rat, except – “

            Suddenly Crabbe came bumbling over from his table and crashed deliberately into Hermione, and they fell to the floor in a heap.

            “Hey – get – GET OFF!” Hermione shoved at Crabbe’s whale-like body.  He grinned stupidly and made his way back to his table, where they saw Malfoy grin and wave gleefully.

            “Asshole did that on purpose!” Ron raged.  Hermione quickly went to hold Harry and Ron back by the arms.

            “You guys, we don’t need anymore trouble.  I’m fine!” She hissed.

            “Hermione, let me go and I swear I’ll – “

            “Harry!”  Hermione scolded.  “Just don’t.  Come on, let’s do our potion.  Please?”

            “Sending his big ugly gorilla to practically rape you – “

            “HARRY! He did nothing of the sort now will the two of you just bloody SIT DOWN!”

            Harry relaxed, but shook Hermione’s hands away defiantly.  “Fine.  Where are those Lumen Rat hairs?”

            Hermione realized she was no longer holding them.

            “I bet that bloody git stole them!”  Ron turned back around looking murderous.

            “Ron, no!”  Hermione pulled him back.  “They’re…right there.”  She picked the baggie up off the floor, half of its contents spilled out.  She brushed whatever she could salvage from the floor back into the baggie and handed it to her friends.  She noticed a lone rat scamper away and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.  The dungeons were filthy.

            “Okay, one hair into your cup.”  She instructed.  “And we should instantly glow orange.”

            The three looked hesitantly at the globby contents of their cups.

            “Are we sure it’s supposed to look like that?” Ron asked skeptically.

            “Yes.” Hermione said confidently.

            “Looks kind of like, PolyJuice Potion…”  Harry observed.  Their last experience with that particular potion wasn’t exactly a nice one.  Especially for Hermione.

            “Yes, well…”  Hermione looked a little green.  “The Illumination Potion is actually a close cousin of the PolyJuice Potion.  Actually, besides a few tiny details, the only difference is the medium we add.  Since the potion is not meant for animal transformations, we don’t actually turn into the Lumen Rat, but we gain some of its properties.  Namely, the glowing.”

            “Bloody walking encyclopedia is what you are.”  Ron grumbled.

            “No, Ron, I just have an attention span.”

            Harry grinned at her.  “Okay then, cheers?”  He held up his cup.

            His two friends murmured “Cheers” and clinked their cups.  Then they all squinched their eyes shut and prayed for the best.

            Moments later, Hermione and Ron were glowing a bright neon orange.  Ron in particular was hard on the eyes, since his hair seemed to be obnoxiously bright now.  Hermione squinted at her friend.

            “Goodness, Ron.  I never had a stronger urge to hit you with something.”

            “Bloody hell, remind me to make some of this the next Cannons game!”

            Harry just felt sick.

            “Harry…you’re not glowing…”  Hermione said, concerned.  “Are you feeling all right?”

            He was not feeling all right.  There was this tight cramp in his stomach all of a sudden.  A sharp, twisting pain that made Harry want to pass out right on the spot.  It started at his navel, not unlike a Portkey, except this Portkey hooked in and twisted mercilessly.  The room started to spin.

            “Umm…umm…”  He grunted.  Then he doubled over in pain.

            “Harry!”  Hermione cried.  “Professor Snape, something’s wrong with Harry!”

            Snape looked him over carelessly.  “Get to the Hospital Wing, Potter.”

            “Sir, shouldn’t we come with him?”

            “I’m sure Potter can make his way up there by himself.  Isn’t that right, Potter?” Snape seemed to be daring him.  Snooty, greasy, pompous, rat-face git.

            Harry glared up at him, but nodded yes.  He now felt slightly nauseous and that was not something he wanted Hermione or Ron to see. 

            “Are you sure, Harry?”  Hermione asked desperately.

            “I’ll be right back, Hermione.”  Harry reassured her and hobbled to the door.

            When he was gone, Malfoy wasted no time in bending over and performing an exaggerated pantomime of poisoned Harry hobbling along like a diseased idiot.

            This time Hermione made no attempt to stop Ron. 

~*~

            It was all Harry could do to hold back his groans of stomach pain.  What the hell had he drank?  He and Hermione and Ron had all drank from the same cauldron.  There was no difference!  Yet, they glowed orange and he just got some sort of weird food poisoning. 

            He grunted aloud when he reached the stairs.  Maybe he should have gotten one of them to go with him.  There was no way he was going to make it up the stairs.  For the first time he wondered why Hogwarts, with its many floors, had never invested in elevators.      

He silently cursed whoever invented the staircase and then half-crawled upwards.  It was then he noticed his hands, which were grasping the cold stone steps.

They were covered in brown fur.

Harry blinked his watering eyes and looked again.  Yes, they were still furry.  And his fingers seemed to be growing into long black nails.

“I’m hallucinating.  I’m definitely hallucinating.”  He murmured to himself.  Then he heard something scrape behind him.  He turned around and was startled to find a long brown snake following him.

Wait.  That wasn’t a snake.

Harry shook his head vigorously to shake himself out of whatever funk he was in.  Which in turn tore his attention away from the snake and to his whiskers.

His whiskers.

“Ahh!” he tried to yelp, but all that came out was a frightened squeak.

“What the hell is going on?” he thought to himself.  He took a potion….it made him sick…it was exactly the same as Hermione and Ron’s though!  Except…the Lumen Rat hair…

His stomach sank as he remembered Crabbe causing Hermione to spill the baggie onto the dark, dirty floor.  And he remembered Hermione saying the potion was related to the PolyJuice Potion.

The gears turned in Harry’s head.  Slowly, but surely, he came to a conclusion and he looked back at the “snake” for confirmation.  To his dismay, he found what he had been fearing.  Then he looked forward and found he was facing a tall stone wall that hadn’t been there before.  Actually, yes.  It had been there before.

Only a few seconds ago it had been the next stair.

And the snake was his tail.

And he had freaking whiskers.

And his nose was wet.

And…

Bloody.  Hell.

Harry scrambled over the formerly smooth, but now relatively bumpy floor and found a small puddle of water.  It was the dungeons, after all.  He was almost afraid to look in, but curiosity got the best of him.  He stared at his reflection.

Harry Potter was a rat.

~*~

            “For homework I want a two foot long essay about the alternative uses of the Illumination Potion.”

            The neon orange class groaned as they packed their things up.  The effects of the potion would last at least one hour more.

            “Sadistic prat.”  Ron grumbled.

            “And Mr. Weasley, don’t forget your detention tomorrow.”

            Ron clenched his fists.

            “We should go see if Harry’s okay.”  Hermione said, writing down the assignment on a separate piece of parchment so that she could give it to Harry.

            “Right.”

            The followed the mass of students out into the damp corridor.  But before they could climb the steps, Ron spied something out of the corner of his eye.  He stopped suddenly, almost causing Hermione to fall backwards down four steps.

            “Ron, you realize if you had done that a split second earlier I would have fallen, cracked my head open, and haunted you relentlessly for the rest of your days.”

            “Look!”  Ron pointed.

~*~

            Harry was still staring in shock at his reflection.  His long twitchy nose.  His beady little eyes.  He barely had time to look up before a massive, annoyingly orange hand wrapped itself around his middle and lifted him up.  His short limbs scrabbled uselessly.

            “Ron!  Put that down, who knows what diseases it’s carrying!”

            “Hermione!  Ron!” Harry squeaked.  Thank Merlin they found him.  “It’s ME! HARRY!”

            “It hasn’t got diseases, Hermione!  Actually, it’s quite cute.”

            “Ron?  Ew…”

            Hermione looked the brown rat over.  “Ron, it looks like a regular disease-ridden rat to me.”

            “Disease-ridden?  Excuse me?” Harry scowled.  For a girl so bent on helping out non-human creatures, she sure was mean to rats.

            “Relax, Hermione.  It’s not like I’m going to drop dead of bubonic plague…I think I want to keep her…”

            “Gee, thanks Ron.  But this is HARRY!  Wait.  HER!?  What makes you think I’m a girl!?”

            “What makes you think it’s a girl?”

            “That’s my Hermione.”  Harry applauded, but only succeeded waving his stubby appendages around.

            “I don’t know.  It looks like a girl.”

            “I do not!  I am a deviously masculine rat!”

            “I don’t know, I think it’s a boy.”

            “I love this woman.”  Harry nodded vehemently, accomplishing nothing except a tighter grip from Ron.

            “I’ll ask Hagrid tomorrow.  He can tell.”  Ron said.

            “What, you mean you’re actually going to keep that…thing!?”  Hermione demanded.

            “I’m not a THING!  I’m a HARRY!”

            “Why not?”  Ron clutched Harry to his chest.

            “Oww, Ron!”  Harry thought he felt a rib crack.

            “Don’t you remember the last time you had a rat??”  Hermione pointed out.  Ron slumped as he remembered Scabbers. He looked depressed. 

“Good one, Hermione.” Harry knew that losing his favorite pet had stung, even if it had been an ugly, evil, backstabbing bastard.

Hermione softened.

            “Oh Ron, I’m sorry…”

            He said nothing.

            “Look, Ron.  After we go visit Harry we’ll go straight to .  You can bring…it.”  Hermione looked at “it” disdainfully.

            “Why?”

            “You’ll see.  Come on.”

            They ran up to the Hospital Wing, with Harry bouncing around helplessly in Ron’s shirt pocket.  Harry was elated.  As soon as they realized he wasn’t in  the Hospital Wing, they would to put two and two together and soon after he would have his own human body back.

            “You two are going to have to stop right there.”  Ron and Hermione swiveled around to face a portrait of a sad clown. 

            “Why?”  Ron asked.

            “They’re having lots of problems up in there.”  The melancholy children’s entertainer informed them.  “Something about a bad potion.

            Just then the door to the hospital wing swung open, with Madame Pomfrey looking very heated.  Snape followed, looking indignant.

            “You should have known that Clotropesis Root was expired!”  she roared at him.

            “WHAT!?”  Harry cried noiselessly.

            “It wasn’t all expired!”  Snaped snapped back.  “I’m not the dolt who ordered the shipment, anyway!”

            “Tell that to the thirty students in there suffering from poisoning!”

            “Hey, at least they didn’t mix their damn potions with regular rat fur.” Harry huffed.

            Snape turned to Ron and Hermione.  He pointed at them.  “These two came out fine.  Obviously it was a bad shipment if some were bad and some where not.”

            “It doesn’t matter!  I’m going to have to speak to Dumbledore about this!”  Pomfrey threatened. 

            “Be my guest, Madame.  He’s the one who ordered the Clotropesis Root.”  He bowed arrogantly and swept away.

            “That man…is such a…”

            “You got that right.”  Harry agreed.

            “You got that right.”  Ron said.

            “Madame Pomfrey?”  Hermione asked timidly.  “Is…is Harry in there?”

            “No!  No I’m not!  I’m in Ron’s bloody pocket trying not to fall down the little hole and into his pants!”

            “Hmm?  Oh, he might be, dear.  We’ve got so many students from your Potions class right now.  They all went straight here after the class ended.  Poor dears…”

            “Can we see him?” Ron asked.

            “Oh, not tonight I’m afraid.  We’re just too busy.”

            “NO!  You have to let them see me!  I mean, not see me!  I mean, uh…NO!”  Harry groaned inwardly.  It was going to take forever for them to realize he was missing.

            “Okay…”  Hermione sounded disappointed.  Harry’s little rat face frowned.  He never liked it when she was disappointed.

            “Mr. Weasley….is that a rat in your pocket??”  Madame Pomfrey’s face twisted in disgust.

            “Yeah…”

            “What if it has diseases or something?”

            Hermione looked pointedly at Ron.

            “What is it with women and rat diseases?”  Harry wondered.

            “Oh, come on then…”  Ron grabbed Hermione arm and pulled her away down towards their Common Room.

            “Don’t let that thing sleep in your bed with you!”  Madame Pomfrey called out behind them.

            “As if.” Harry snorted.  Then he remembered how Ron slept with Scabbers every night.

            “Good grief.”

~*~

Note: I know, I know I suck at updating existing stories.  But if it makes you feel any better, this story is already finished.  I wrote this during my finals because…uh…finals sucked.  Anyway, it’s really only a matter of posting the chapters (this is a short fic).  So review honestly please.  This story should be completely posted here before the New Year :-).  I SWEAR this time!