Mistakes of Animagus Proportions
Abby Ebon
Disclaimer; I own nothing of Harry Potter. Save the books, and – you know – that's legal.
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Trying Not To Panic
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Harry couldn't see, and he was trying not to panic. It wasn't often that he was prone to panicking, per say, usually he could do something to bring about the end of his fear or danger – even if he did it, feet first with on the spot (read: no) planning - but it seemed that it was far easier to fear something to this point, when one was tiny and couldn't see. Harry yipped in protest to this treatment, as he couldn't really help the instincts swimming about the front of his brain.
Panicking was, in this small shape, all too easy. He knew what he was, a wizard, but it simply did not matter what he knew, only what he could do. And he couldn't do anything folded into a little pocket, tucked into the dark. He could not see, and he was too small to dare do anything but shiver and yip, he'd seen the flash of a green Hogwarts badge – and that meant one thing: Slytherin.
Whoever had put him in a robe pocket (and wasn't that humiliating enough?) wasn't likely nice. Was probably a bully, like Draco, like Severus Snape…Harry whimpered a bit, considering the new and interesting turn there; he would be (literally) right under Snape's nose, and likely it'd only take a glance for the git to recognize him for what he was, then further humiliate him. Harry squirmed uncomfortably at the thought, hardly realizing what he was doing.
If it was possible, things then got worse.
"What have you got there, Bulstrode?" Mocking and low, Harry knew that voice. He perked up his little ears, trying to be very still, but knowing he was shivering all over with all kinds of new fears.
"Flint." It was hissed and clear that whoever Bulstrode was, she was a girl (as Harry didn't properly know any of the Slytherin girls as they tended to not get involved with him and Draco, save Pansy) and more importantly, she didn't sound like she liked Marcus Flint in the least.
"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with." Bulstrode cupped her hand protectively around her pocket – and Harry. It was a comfort, but still the fear griped him, controlling his shivers.
"I'll concern myself with whatever I want, thank you very much." Flint was much closer now, not even an arms length away, and stepping closer with every word. Bulstrode stepped back once, or tried to – and met the wall – she was turning to the side where he rested in her pocket at, toward the solid surface, making a barrier of her own body. For the first time, Harry began to wonder if they both weren't in danger.
"Go away, Flint." If Bulstrode was frightened, her voice did not show it, it was as matter of fact as such a request could be.
"No." Harry felt it when Bulstrode jerked away from the wall and Flint's grip. Doing so exposed her side – the side Harry rested in the pocket of. Flint was quick to take advantage, snatching at her robes – and perhaps it was by accident that he grabbed Harry too tightly and he yipped out in pain.
"What's this?" Flint asked, triumphant and stilling Bulstrode somehow in a way that Harry could not see or feel from how she moved. Flint's hand came into the pocket, and Harry flinched a little even as he was boldly hefted up and out. He saw Bulstrode then for the first time up close, her jaw jutted out furiously, teeth grinding, black hair curled elegantly away from her face, and her eyes focused on Flint with an intensity that would have given Harry pause.
"Let him go." Bulstrode hissed, her hand hovering over her ear, where her wand was tucked. Flint raised Harry up to his face, flingers crushing his ribs. Harry couldn't breath, couldn't make a sound to protest this treatment – he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it – and no one would save him.
"If that's what you wish?" Flint murmured cruelly, tauntingly letting go – as if to drop Harry – and then catching him with a grip around his neck.
"No!" Bulstrode cried out in protest, belatedly. Harry had yipped sharply, and struggled with his lower body now that his torso was free, if his head was not.
"I'll do it, do not test me, Flint." A wand was now pointed at Flint's chest, but the older boy only laughed. Harry struggled all the more, truly panicking now: what if Bulstrode's spell went awry? She wasn't much good at them, he remembered from the duel she'd had with Hermione in second year.
"Give up your hopes for this one; I think he'll strangle himself before we're done." Amused, Flint raised Harry up to eye-level, watching the little dangling body twist and turn mid-air. Harry was panting for breath, the lights going dim and his head feeling soft, his toes and tail tips were numb and he was very, very afraid.
His bladder chose that moment to agree with Flint in deciding he was dying; he let it loose all over the Slytherin's mocking face. In surprise, he was let loose with an outraged yell – Bulstrode must have been expecting as much, for a spell caught him up mid air and dropped him into two gently cupped hands.
"Good show, Bulstrode." It took Harry a moment to realize the one holding him had spoken, and that person was not Bulstrode herself. A finger stroked his back reassuringly, holding him back from looking up and doing something other then breathing.
"Flint. Why don't you go…clean up?" Harry could practically hear the sneer, being unable to do much more then crouch on the palm of the hand's that held him and pant for the breath he needed to live.
"That stupid Quidditch Quaffle-pocking Chaser, I don't see why they made that, that bully a Perfect. Is he alright?" Bulstrode asked urgently, her worry and fear for Harry plain in her hasty words.
"Careful, Millicent, he's my Captain." Harry dreading the urge to look up, but he did so, and found he was blinking up at none other then Draco Malfoy, his savior.
"You like him less then I do." Bulstrode pointed out, and for the first time Harry noticed where he was – and well he should, having been there once before – the Slytherin common room, with its earthen stone walls having been carved down into the earth rather then put up above it; green lamps lit it in a dim light, and the dark green, near black colored, furniture seemed to wait, almost sinister in the shadows.
"Where ever were you going with this little fellow?" Malfoy asked, and having noticed the shivering coming over the little body, once the panting for breath was largely over with, pulled Harry closer to his navel, it was steadier to be near something bigger and not held aloft in the air. Harry wondered if he'd have a fear of heights, now. Bulstrode did not answer, her lips tightly pressed together and her eyes looking away.
"You know aren't allowed pets, Bulstrode. Whatever will you tell Professor Snape if he finds out you broke your word to him?" Even obviously prodding, Harry had never heard Malfoy sound so reasonable.
"He'd…understand." Bulstrode said, as if in protest, weakly finishing.
"It's his word, his honor – he's a wizard with little else." Malfoy wasn't telling her anything she didn't know, that much was obvious, but Bulstrode swallowed, her eyes lingering on the puppy cradled in Malfoy's hands, warmed by a torso that seemed to be giving off more heat then Harry thought possible for one boy. None the less, Harry leaned into the warmth gratefully.
"I found him in the Owlery, with a Gryffindor badge on some pile of too-big and ugly clothes, he's been abandoned, Malfoy." Harry tied not to flinch too much at that brutal honesty of his life; it was as close as anyone had come to the truth to dare say it aloud. Even if Bulstrode was talking about a puppy, and not a puppy she knew to be the Boy Who Lived.
"Then we'll keep him, and take better care of him. Shove it in their oh-so-noble Gryffindor faces, too, be something like a mascot, for the younger ones." There was a growing fondness for the idea in Malfoy's voice; Harry didn't like the idea at all.
"Then you'll take care of him?" Bulstrode questioned, doubtful and challenging. Malfoy had never been one to step down from a direct challenge if there wasn't a plan of trickery from the start. Malfoy shrugged in agreement, and walked away, Bulstrode stood watching for a while, an odd little smile on her face. It seemed to Harry, that Malfoy had been the one who'd gotten the wool pulled over his eyes, for Bulstode certainly looked as if she thought to have pulled one over on him.
The Great Hall was loud and had Harry wishing for the Slytherin's eerie silence within a moment of hearing it, and most distressing was what he was hearing.
"Have you heard?" Crabbe asked upon setting sights on Malfoy, waiting only long enough till he was sitting in his customary seat between the two lumbering bullies.
"Potter's disappeared from Hogwarts." Goyle finished in a rush, smirking over at Crabbe in triumph.
"Congratulations, then." There was something oddly bitter in how Malfoy said it, and it made Harry take a second look at the blond boy who'd perched him on the Slytherin table in plain view of everyone. Mostly, though, to Harry's surprise - they were ignoring him. Then again, they looked to be waiting, as if an explanation was forthcoming, if only Malfoy would find the time to provide it.
"Oh, they aren't to be congratulated, the Boy Who Lived to be Lost went missing, right under their noses, too." Blaise Zabini spoke up, voice soft and amused. Crabble glowered at him, while Goyle sneered as if Zabini wasn't worth his information.
"That is interesting, is it?" Malfoy asked him, dryly, but relieved. That, Harry knew he hadn't imagined, this time. Why, he wondered, was Malfoy so interested in his being kidnapped by the Dark Lord, from the sound of things?
"Oh, he's just adorable!" A girlish squeal rung out and Harry flinched from the too loud sound, even as careful fingers rubbed under his chin soothingly.
"Adorable is he?" Snarled a voice Harry would be very unlikely to forget.
Flint. Harry's heart was racing, and he crouched close to the table top, trembling and his teeth showing though he made no sound.
"Yes, he is. What's gotten into you, have you been scaring the puppy?" Snapped the same girly voice, likely having noticed the profound effect Flint's appearance had had on Harry, it was funny that she growled her words while before they had sounded to Harry so inviting and soothing.
"No, he's just sour as the little Gryffindor reject showed a spine while he was tormenting him." Malfoy commented, and his words had quite the sudden effect on those who were sitting near and so clearly listening. They went silent, serious and staring – waiting made all the more obvious.
"Whatever did such a little puppy do?" Zabini played along in asking.
"Pissed all over his face, that little puppy did." Bulstrode stated crudely and proudly from behind Flint, who stiffened up all over. They didn't laugh or clap aloud, these listening Slytherin students, but there was something oddly approving in their look.
"Rightly so, I'd guess." Goyle grumbled approvingly, clearly no fan of Flint.
"I suppose that is what that smell is, Flint?" The girly voice asked, child like.
"I thought I told you to clean up?" Malfoy asked of the older boy, his nose curling upward as if to catch a draft of clean air upwind. Flint was remarkably calm looking, for someone who should for all appearances be stomping off. Harry had to wonder if the Slytherin's always acted so to Flint, in their own way they certainly seemed disapproving of the Perfect who was also Capitan of their Quidditch team.
They certainly weren't treating Malfoy like that.
"Oh, the poor thing, he's trembling still! Daphne, perhaps I ought to knit some sort of sweater for him?" The girl that Harry had not recognized all along, that one with the girly voice mused to another – older girl – who sat near. That one, she smiled in a sisterly way, seeming unable to help herself, and looked to Pansy Parkinson then to the younger, nodding to where Malfoy sat.
"If that is what you want to do, Astoria – ask him first." The difference that Malfoy was given by his peers was obvious, noticeable even to someone like Harry who avoided Slytherin's if he could help it. Ruefully, he realized his mistake now – for he could not help anything of what he did or didn't know, and how'd it changed from how it had been.
"May I?" She folded her hands under her chin, pouting childishly as she pleaded.
"Certainly, I suppose." Harry noticed the pink tinge to Malfoy's cheeks, if no one else did.
"Grand! I simply must paint his nails green." Harry was under her inspection, he was aware. He was determined not to whimper.
"You certainly mustn't. Silver would go along better with his fur." Bulstrode argued teasingly. Harry wasn't fooled though, there was something determined in how they were looking at him, as if imagining him in all the colors of the rainbow.
Or at least the ones that suited him.
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Note; I know it's been a very long time, you have my sincere apologizes, but no excuses; this is one of those stories where I have a number of cute little scenes I want to string together into an unwilling story. It's a pain to write something this way, as most of what I want to write I can only get to if I write the rest of it first; like wanting treats first and having to eat the meal. Ugh, just no fun and sometimes a bore to get into, but once you start; finishing is an easier job to grasp.
But, as I made a deal with loretta527, it was this updated, or a new Gundam Wing/Harry Potter story – this first, I decided; you can vote if you like to for the choices I've put up for a Gundam Wing/Harry Potter cross' I do hope they prove to be unique.