Otters can be incredibly smart and adorable. Under the right circumstances, they can also be incredibly disgusting.
I don't own Harry Potter. I do own Michael, Morgan and Lizzie Black, as well as Emma and Whizzie. For the purposes of this fic, I have donated Blaise my missing chunk of chromosome indefinitely.
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Chapter 2 - The Beast Within, pt. 1
Harry groaned as he slowly faded back in consciousness. Clutching his head in discomfort, Harry sat up to find himself not on the floor of 12 Grimmauld Place alongside his brother and friends, but alone in a dark, barren wasteland, stretching far into the horizon. The crimson sky filled with gray, ashen clouds and dry, cracked earth gave the place an atmosphere of death.
"Cheerful place," Harry muttered sarcastically. A sharp cawing rang from behind him, and Harry turned to see a raven perched on a branch of a bare, twisted tree. The black bird spread its wings as it cawed again. Harry did not know why, but something in the back of his mind was telling him that this raven would help him find his animagus form, as well as get him out of this place. Harry tentatively raised his hand and clicked his tongue to get the raven to come down from its perch and onto his arm. Instead of jumping off and gently gliding down onto his arm, the raven simply sat on its branch, preening its feathers and ignoring Harry.
After several minutes of standing there, trying to gain the bird's attention, Harry lowered his tired arm and sighed in frustration. "Fine, I don't need you; I'll figure out how to get out of here on my own," he grumbled, walking away towards the endless horizon. As Harry walked away, the raven stopped its preening and watched as the teenager slowly shrank into the distance.
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Michael stirred from unconsciousness, groaning at the pain in his head and almost gagging at the stench of burnt wood infiltrating his senses. Covering his mouth and nose with his shirt, Michael stood up and observed his surroundings. Instead of the sitting room of 12 Grimmauld Place, Michael was standing in what seemed to be a freshly razed village. Broken wood and clay littered the streets, and not a single house was untouched by what seemed to be a terrible fire.
Michael heard a soft whining coming from one of the houses. Carefully pushing open the door of one house, he stepped through the burnt rubble, trying to find the source of the sound. After finding nothing in the first house, he moved on to a second house. There, he saw a black paw poking out from under a pile of rubble. As Michael moved aside the rubble, a large, black dog began crawling out from under the wreckage. The dog was thin, like it had not eaten for several days, and its fur was thick and matted, giving it a rather pitiful appearance.
"Come on, let's see if we can't find something for you to eat," Michael said, rubbing the dog on its head. The dog barked in response, and followed the teenager as he began inspecting the destroyed houses, searching for anything else that had survived the blaze.
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Hermione heard the sloshing of water against something and felt the swaying motion of something drifting on the ocean waves as her senses returned to her. She stood up to find herself in a small dinghy drifting in the open ocean, with no land in sight in any direction.
Grabbing the oars, Hermione tried to row away, but found her oars caught on something in the water. After a large amount of tugging, the oars tore loose from whatever held them. Hermione raised them out of the water and saw that tangled around the ends of the oars were green, rope-like plants. Hermione sighed in frustration as she looked over the edge of the boat and saw that she was trapped in a large kelp forest.
A playful squeaking caught Hermione's attention, and she turned to see an otter jump into her boat, a fish in its mouth. Hermione groaned in disgust as the soggy mammal began devouring its prey in front of her. Curling up to get as far away from the display as possible, Hermione sighed dejectedly. I hope that the others are faring better than I am, she thought irritably.
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When Blaise woke up, she found herself in a dense, dark rainforest. Sweat already trickling down her forehead, she coughed as she peeled off her muddy sweater, the heat and humidity suffocating her.
Blaise looked around suspiciously as she stood in the forest. She was no expert on this particular environment, but she thought that it rainforests were supposed to be full of life, so why was this place so remarkably silent? No animals were calling; no wind blowing through the trees; there weren't even any insects trying to devour her.
Picking up a fallen branch with a broken, pointed end, Blaise began stepping through the muddy underbrush. She thought she heard something rustling, but when she turned, she saw nothing. Figuring it was just her imagination, she continued onwards, unaware of the creature silently stalking her.
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Emma groaned as she stirred awake. She felt a weight on her chest, and she looked down to see a light brown rabbit sitting on her chest, sniffing at her face. Grunting in effort, Emma lifted herself up, causing the fluffy animal to roll down to her lap. Looking around her, Emma saw that she was in a forest, gray sky visible through the trees.
Suddenly, the rabbit jumped out of her lap and bounced away. Emma quickly got to her feet and chased after the rodent, its brown fur visible against the darker earth. After several minutes of running, the chase ended when the rabbit hopped over to the edge of a still lake and bent down, drinking the cool water. Gasping and panting, Emma shuffled over to the water's edge, where she fell to her knees and began drinking the water as well.
When Emma had slaked her thirst, she straightened up and looked down on her reflection in the water. The rabbit had stopped drinking as well, and the water quickly stilled to a mirror-like state. Its fluffy fur reminded Emma of her rather unruly hair, and its brown eyes resembled her own.
"Are you my animagus form?" Emma asked the rabbit, and immediately felt like an idiot afterwards. Rabbits can't talk you idiot, she thought to herself. The rabbit shuffled around to face her. It wriggled its nose as it sniffed the air, then jumped at Emma, falling through her chest. Emma's head felt faint, and suddenly, her world went black.
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Emma sat up with a gasp, a hand over her chest. She looked around to see that she was back in 12 Grimmauld Place, the other four still lying on the floor, pillows under their heads.
"Oh good, you're awake," Sirius said behind her. She turned around to see Sirius sitting on the sofa, reading an old and worn copy of Quidditch Monthly, while Lizzie was patting Morgan on the back next to him. He looked up from his magazine to glance at the clock on the wall. "And in only an hour too; I'm impressed," he added before returning to his magazine. Emma groaned in discomfort as she clutched her throbbing head.
"Here, drink this," Lizzie said, handing Emma a glass of pumpkin juice. Emma drained the whole glass, grimacing at the bitter taste the potion mixed into it left, but her headache immediately disappeared.
"So what's your animagus form?" Sirius asked, setting his magazine down.
"Umm...it's a rabbit," Emma said, standing up.
"Interesting," Sirius said, smiling slightly. "The kitchen's over there," he continued, pointing towards the kitchen, "help yourself to whatever you like; I don't think the rest are going to wake up for a while." Nodding in thanks, Emma carefully stepped over her unconscious sister and went into the kitchen to find something to eat.
"How will they know that they've found their forms?" Lizzie asked as she stopped patting Morgan, the infant having given a satisfyingly loud belch.
"The scenarios that this potion creates are usually pretty bleak; your animagus form is usually the only thing left alive," Sirius said, picking up his magazine. "When they wake up depends on how long it takes for them to realize that." If Sirius had looked up from his magazine, he would have seen his wife face turn into a scowl.
"And why did you neglect to tell them this before they took the potion?" Lizzie asked in a controlled voice, a tone that Sirius was oblivious to.
"Where's the fun in that?" Sirius asked, looking up. Lizzie's look of barely contained rage alerted Sirius that this was the wrong thing to say.
"You are very lucky that Morgan is here, Sirius Orion Black," Lizzie growled lowly, "or else you would be having your butt beaten into the ground right now."
"But I told you what would happen," Sirius whimpered as he tried to defend himself.
"You said, and I quote, `that they would be out for a few hours.' Never did you say that they would be out indefinitely," she hissed, keeping her voice low to avoid distressing Morgan. Lizzie scooted over so that she was as far away from Sirius as possible while still sitting on the sofa and pointedly refusing to talk or even look at him.
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Michael and the dog had searched the razed village for what seemed like hours, until he finally found a small basket that was mysteriously untouched by the disaster. Opening it, Michael found a loaf of bread and some carrots. The bread was hard and stale, and the carrots dry and cracked, but it was better than nothing.
"Here you go, boy," Michael said, offering the dog some food. The animal devoured the offering greedily. Michael chuckled as he watched the dog eat. "You know, you kind of remind me of my dad when he's in his animagus form." The dog looked up at him, and Michael leaned back in surprise when he saw his own blue-green eyes staring back at him. The dog whined softly, then jumped towards Michael. As he instinctively raised his arms to protect himself, he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor of 12 Grimmauld Place. Almost as soon as he regained consciousness, he was pulled into the arms of his mother.
"Mum, I'm alright, I've just got a headache," Michael grumbled as he tried to shake her off. After giving him his headache potion, Michael left to get something to eat. Afterwards, Lizzie sent him upstairs to do his homework.
Hours had passed, but Harry, Hermione and Blaise still had not awoken, and Lizzie was beginning to worry. She had not spoken a word to Sirius since she berated him, despite his frequent apologies. Finally, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, she spoke to him.
"Is there a counter potion for this?" she asked.
"Yes," Sirius said, deciding that saying only what was necessary would keep him from being berated again.
"Start brewing it," she ordered him. "If they're not awake by this time tomorrow, I'm going to wake them up."
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The writer's block was killing me, so I decided that this was as good a spot as any to stop the chapter.
This chapter took a long time to make: over a week. To put that in perspective, it usually takes me about three hours to write a single chapter.
After staying with a guy who owns a boat for two weeks, I have learned that there isn't much you can do to keep otters from jumping onto your boat and leaving their crap everywhere...in both senses of the word.
Don't forget to read and review!
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