Chapter One
Dear Sirius,
How are you doing in Hawaii? Is it always sunny there like they say? Aunt Marge is visiting us today. To prepare, Aunt Petunia forced Dudley into a suit and he threw a fit. I think she might make me wear one of Dudley's old suits. Again, my sixteenth birthday was forgotten by the Dursleys but the gifts you gave me were great. Aunt Petunia is still making all of us follow Dudley's diet so the cake you sent was a huge lifesaver. Thank you very much for the lovely cake.
Ron and Hermione said that they would love to visit me over the summer if they could, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would surely throw them out the moment they even set their foot on Privet Drive. So Ron and Hermione will be writing letters instead.
Speaking of visiting, when can I see you aga -
"HARRY!" A sudden and familiar whip-like screech forced Harry out of his letter writing. He jumped as his head whipped around abruptly to glance toward his bedroom door.
"Harry, get my diamond necklace NOW! It's in the basement!" Her shrill voice sounded again.
The boy sighed in annoyance. He would have finished his letter first but he knew better than to keep Aunt Petunia waiting. Well, he might as well get the job done quickly so he could get back to writing to his godfather immediately.
"Alright!" Harry yelled back his reply. A scraping sound could be heard as he got up from the old wooden chair he was sitting on and trudged his way slowly down to the basement, complaining silently as he did so. It took some effort to turn the rusty doorknob and push open the door with its noisy hinges.
The young wizard's hands flew up to shield his nose almost immediately upon entering the dusty old basement. The acidic stench of dirty socks, old books, and decomposed rats hit him so strongly that he thought he found a match for the Weasley twins' famous stink bomb. He bitterly wondered the last time this place was cleaned.
As he went down the steps, he noticed that the floorboards were rotting worse than the last time he was there. He had only been down there twice in his whole life; once when being locked in there for a whole day as punishment for accidentally breaking a china cup, the other time while looking for Dudley's old school uniform.
He looked around hastily for the piece of jewelry, wanting to get out of that cockroach-filled room as quickly as possible. The basement was full of old antiques, memories, and the Dursleys' junk, not a single possession seen without it being covered in cobwebs. Multiple cockroaches and rats roamed around.
On the far corner, he saw about ten to twenty cockroaches feasting on a dead rat. Harry tried his best not to grimace in disgust. His gaze continued lingering around the room when out of the corner of his eyes, he thought he saw something glitter.
He spun around and saw it - Aunt Petunia's diamond necklace! He grinned, relieved that he would be able to finally leave that vile place.
Crossing the room, Harry was about to grab the old jewel when the sound of glass shattering resounded in the vast basement. The teenager bit on his lower lip and spun around to the direction of the noise, only for his eyes to land on bits of crystal shards scattered everywhere. Bloody hell! That was the priceless crystal vase Aunt Petunia imported all the way from China. A rat, which Harry guessed must have been the cause of the wreckage, scuttled away from the broken mess. The wizard groaned in frustration. What would his aunt and uncle do to him if they found their precious crystal vase in this form? They would never believe it if he said it wasn't his fault! Harry always got blamed for troubles he did not create. He recounted a time when Dudley accidentally dumped hot scalding water on Aunt Marge's dog, only to blame it on Harry for using magic on the wailing and howling mutt. He had to spend a week locked in his cupboard after that.
"Harry! What are you doing taking so long down there?" Laced with impatience, Aunt Petunia's muffled voice made its way into the dark basement, breaking Harry off from his thoughts. He turned towards the door and swallowing down his panic, managed a one word reply, "Coming!"
Turning back towards the shards, Harry tried to think of a solution. The Gryffindor side of him was nagging at him to face his aunt and uncle bravely, like any Gryffindor would, but a rather sneaky side of him was silently whispering other options. No one had to know about the vase.
The Gryffindor moved towards the shards, hurriedly sweeping them into a pile with his shoe. He wouldn't be in trouble if there was no vase broken, right? He was sweeping up a particularly large shard toward the far corner of the room when he noticed, right behind the glass pile, was the silhouette of a chest the size of a large pillow. What was a mysterious chest doing in this place meant for storing old junk?
Roused with curiosity, Harry bent down closer to inspect it. The small chest was made with fine oak, intricate patterns carved at the sides, complete with a metal lock attached to the middle. Judging from the massive amount of webs on the trunk, the chest must have been there for a long time. The cautious young man eyed the door of the basement nervously, checking that his horrible aunt wasn't going down there to check on him before bringing his attention back to the curious chest. He reached out his extended fingers to lift the lid and was slightly surprised to find that the chest was unlocked. Grinning with joy, he explored the chest, which was filled with possessions. Satisfying his curiosity as he took out object after object - Tracing some with his fingers, and scanning them thoroughly.
After a while, he found that some objects had the name Petunia scribbled on with black marker, and the rest with the name Lily printed on. His heart seemed to have stopped working altogether the first time his eyes landed on his deceased mother's name. He stroked the name that was engraved on a wood carving of a white horse fondly. So this chest must have belonged to Aunt Petunia and his mother. He dug into the chest further and found a photo of two girls wearing identical dresses. One of them was a plain looking girl with thick and curly black hair who had a bored expression on her face. She had small brown eyes and a pointed nose, her lips were turned down in an unpleasant frown. Standing bedside her was another girl, she had beautiful big green eyes and a smile that spread from ear to ear. Her long ginger hair was tied back into a ponytail. They were in a beautiful open field with flowers in rainbow colours sprouting in the most attractive places. He spotted two rabbits in the background, nibbling on a plant. Harry bit back a childish giggle at the immature look on his aunt's face. He sighed and studied the picture one last time before reluctantly putting back the picture of his mother and aunt.
The curious boy's wandering fingers continued diving further into the chest before it landed on something hard with a leathery surface. He grabbed the object and upon lifting it up through the heaps of things in the trunk, he found that it was a book. "Achoo!" Harry sneezed after blowing away all the dust from the book. This must be a really, really old book. It had a plain cover made with leather that had numerous holes planted here and there. He swatted away a centipede that crawled out of a hole. The young wizard turned the book around and found that it had a title, The Book of Animagus by Godric Gryffindor.
Harry blinked. Since when had Godric Gryffindor written any books? How did his mum get her hands on such a rare item? Unable to contain his curiosity, the wizard flipped open the first page eagerly.
Harry's eyes widened immeasurably. His mouth was hanging open to its fullest extent in shock, confusion clouding the boy's head.
This cannot be! This is really… unexpected.
"This book doesn't belong to my mother…" Harry mumbled in astonishment, eying the messily scribbled writing that read, "Petunia Evans".
What was Aunt Petunia doing with a wizard-related book? A really old and valuable one at that. Harry knew his aunt loathed anything to do with magic. His thoughts went back to the times when his aunt was constantly attempting to turn Harry 'normal'. Those times were uncountable. His imaginative mind naturally begin working out plentiful yet outrageous reasons to his mother's sister's owning of the book, but immediately shot them down. No way. That's impossible. In the end, Harry gave up. There is just no reason for his aunt to obtain a magical item.
The young man knew he shouldn't intrude on something like this, but eventually, he swallowed down his guilt and pried open a scratchy and yellowing page like a child helping himself to a piece of cake despite his mother's instructions not to touch it.
Yet again, his eyes doubled in size. From the moment Harry laid eyes on the title, he assumed it was just an ordinary book on mastering the Animagus transformation. But he was wrong.
"Who are you?" A voice from the book echoed. Harry jumped with a start, almost dropping the book.
Harry had seen plenty of talking books in his life. In Hogwarts, some of his educational hardcovers like the Monster Book Hagrid provided in his third year seem to have a life of its own. But THIS book was a different story. Unlike the books in his school, this particular one is actually able to communicate verbally with the Hogwarts student. Harry thought he might be dreaming.
"You… can talk to me?" Harry asked slowly with unsureness, not trusting the book. Ever since he was tricked by the diary of Tom Riddle, he wasn't so keen to trust another book that could communicate with him.
"Yes." The voice answered simply. Harry stared at the book with suspicion.
The books he had seen moved its flaps like mouths when talking, but the Animagus book in his hands had a voice that came from within. Just what on earth is this?
The young man opened his mouth a second time and reasoned, "But you are a book, aren't you?"
Harry's hands began to tremble with the vibration of the book's loud chuckling. "Book? I am no book. I am Godric Gryffindor."
Before Harry could even give a proper reaction, the "book" lit up with a blue beam, illuminating the whole basement.
Harry gasped and dropped the book in surprise, shielding his eyes as the beam of light grew larger and brighter. After awhile, the light dimmed slowly and there, in front of the flabbergasted wizard, was an otter with oak-brown fur. The little creature sat before Harry, staring up at him with its small, beady eyes. Harry stood there stupidly with his mouth hanging open, wanting to say something, but nothing came out.
A few moments passed before Harry finally broke the silence with a stuttered, "G-Godric? Is that r-really y-you?"
The animal's eyes never left Harry as he continued his critical gaze upon him, leaving Harry feeling silly. 'Did I just try talking to an otter?' Harry internally groaned. The young boy have seen enough portraits of Godric Gryffindor to know how the man looked. But THIS little… thing is definitely not Godric!
As if reading his mind, the carnivore erupted into a hearty, deep-voiced laugh, its two long front teeth showing.
"You are partly correct, young child. What is your given name, may I ask?" It said.
Harry blinked in bewilderment. However, he was still uncertain of the talking creature and did not reply the suspicious being.
Sensing his distrust, the otter tried, "I can see your reason for hesitance. I myself wouldn't trust a talking Animagus. But I assure you, I am, quite, the real Godric Gryffindor."
The young wizard narrowed his eyes with even more suspicion, stating, "Godric Gryffindor is dead. How is it possible that you are him?"
The otter, if it was human, would be grinning with pride and sadness. An air about the carnivore seem to give out that certain emotion.
"Ah, where should I start…" The otter began, voice laced with reminiscence. "Indeed, Godric Gryffindor is dead. However, that fact is only partly true. You see, standing before you, is not the entire Godric. I am a part of Gryffindor and the only Godric that will ever exist at this very moment."
The perplexed teen tilted his head slightly in confusion. "What do you mean?" He questioned.
'Godric' answered clearly again, "By that, I meant I am the Animagus fragment of Godric Gryffindor, who preserved me in The Book of Animagus."
That must have been the record number of times someone could get shocked. Harry gaped at the man who claimed to be Godric. The boy's head was spinning, trying to comprehend the man's words. "You mean…"
Harry's inquiring was cut off by the Animagus. "Yes. Godric, whom is I, have taken a part of my soul and preserved it into a book. However, the soul I preserved was only my Animagus soul."
"Animagus soul?" Harry asked again, even more confused.
"I am Godric's Animagus soul. Only people who have mastered the Animagus have an Animagus soul. Everybody's soul is categorised into many different types. For example, the Wizard soul. You are a wizard, are you not? I can feel your powerful aura around you. You, like all the other wizards, have Wizard souls. Certain types of souls can be obtained during your life
"In the past, when I was a whole, I knew that my years were numbered. But I don't want to die yet. So one day, while I was in bed, I thought- 'Why not? Why not avoid death?' I suffered through the pain of extracting a part of me. I severed my Animagus soul from its whole, adding most of my speech at that. This is why I am still able to converse as this Animagus form. Nobody knew of my preserving my soul, so they were surprised when I came up to them, talking like a bumbling fool after having removed a large amount of my language skills, along with some of my magic."
"Fortunately, I was able to recover back my speech through years of tutoring. Now, extracting my soul was not very pleasant. I can still remember how it felt. It hurts like having a thousand wands cruciating your very self. I knew I never wanted to endure this again, but I do not regret as now, while the rest of me is long deceased, I stand as an individual. With my very own body. My very own soul. I, Godric Gryffindor, am alive."
The otter seemed to falter a little as he continued his ramblings which was previously said with a proud tone, but now his tiny head hung low, "Ah, but how I wish I had done more than that. If only I had preserved more. But now, I will have to continue in this small body forever."
Harry studied the little form.
Godric looked like he was on the verge up sitting there and give up. His small otter mouth was turned down slightly to express a sad frown.
In other words, the man looked pathetic. While Harry finally believed the man's words, he hated seeing him like this. He is Godric Gryffindor, for goodness sake!
Godric; one of the men who built Harry's school, who represented his house, whom Harry, together with his fellow Gryffindors, looked up to.
After deciding for some time, Harry eventually made up his mind to involve himself with the troubled otter and asked sincerely, "Surely there must be something I can do to help?"
The otter perked up its tiny head almost instantaneously, his dark eyes with a flicker of emotion that Harry couldn't quite put his finger on. From the way the man was seemingly elated, Harry guessed that he was waiting for him to ask that. The younger wizard fought the urge to mumble, 'You little nitwit' and forced a smile at the man. "There is actually one way to help me get back my human body…" The otter broke off and appeared to be thinking hard, before shaking his mini head.
"No, no… That won't be a good idea."
Harry eyed the otter intensely, unable to pull back his curiosity from leaping out. "What? What won't be a good idea?"
The Animagus said with a serious tone, "There is a method of getting my full body back. However, it involves something very, very committing."
Harry continued staring at him expectantly.
Finally, the man sighed and let out, "It involves the commitment of a willing assistant… which… most likely, would be you."
The young man nodded carefully, gesturing with his hand for him to continue.
"In order for me to obtain my full body back, you will have to donate to me a small fragment of your soul."
Disclaimer: Harry Potter don't belong to my cousin and I (OBVIOUSLY). It belongs to J.K. Rowling. All hail her. :D
Authors' Notes
(Important part):
Yes, we are aware of the fact that Harry has not find out the reason to Aunt Petunia's owning of the book yet but you will know soon enough.
Hello dear readers (If there are any), this is our (My cousin and I) first time writing a fan fiction. We apologize if there are any mistakes and we would love for you to indulge us with EVERY one of your ugliest criticisms you can find in our story. We WILL go through every single one of your reviews and polish the critics over and over again until our fan fiction is sparkly perfect. So we encourage you to review. Let us know how we're doing and you are most welcome to flame. You know what they say; Nothing is perfect. We want to see all mistakes in our story and shoot down all of them. Don't worry, we aren't planning to stop writing just because of flames. We are just doing this for fun. From now on, we will refer to my cousin as Author 2 and I as Author 1 as I don't want to keep going like, "my cousin" this and "my cousin" that. Anyway, you must be wondering: Why the title? Ha-ha. Well, one day Author 2 was in Facebook talking to me about Harry Potter fan fictions and she made an error of typing Harry Otter instead so… yeah. My mind started running around tapping my imagination crates to open up and create. Alas, Harry Otter was made! Author 2 suggested to make this to be a Snarry pairing so, whatever. Snarry it is! However, if you do not like Snarry (Snape and Harry) very much, we will try to make it a minor pairing and focus more on the main story plot. We hoped you enjoyed this story. Please be patient, give this story a chance, and wait for the next chapter. We will work on it as quickly as we can. And remember: Reviews are like energy bars. It will most certainly drive us to write faster.
Author 2:
Heyy! Did you guys enjoy the first chapter? If you didn't, I'm sorry. We're not miracle workers but if you did, awesome! This is our very very very very very hard work ;) I have something to admit, I kind off procrastinated a lot while Author 1 kept nagging at me. So when I was too lazy to edit she would continue the story. Yes, she is the creator of the stories and I edit and improve them. We both play VERY important roles. I also did a bit of creating the story myself (not bragging, but yeah). And I just found out I'M the inspiration to Author 1's ideas! I feel so honored :D Just to let you know, I am totally 100% in love with Snarry:3 Ok, I won't bore you guys like Author 1 did so bye bye ~ Till the next chapter :) Btw, one last word, SNARRY33