DISCLAIMER:

Severus: I'm huggable? o.O

Sirius: No, you're smelly.

James: I'm good! I'm the best! Woo-hoo!

Remus: -sigh-

Author: Ahem.

Sirius: Oh, yeah. All together now...

"We belong to JK Rowling!"

DEDICATION: This chapter is dedicated to... -pause for suspense- iced Welsh's Orange Pineapple Apple juice, which I am consuming vast amounts of while hacking my lungs out. Bleh. I hate being sick. But that means I'm home from school and bored and therefore giving you this chapter a day early... so that's good? I dunno. This chapter is also dedicated to everyone who has reviewed because ya'll cheered me up last night. And to the radio station. And to electric blankets. And to rambling...

Severus: Would you just get on with the chapter already?

Sorry.

It Falls to the Young Chapter X:

The Most Interesting and Peculiar Properties of Quintaped Puke

The sun slid over the horizon gingerly, as if scared it would wake the morning dew and get a telling off from the moon. The moon itself was still visible, and already indistinguishable from a perfect sphere, at least to Severus' eyes. It's morning. The moon should be hidden... He wondered if it was taunting them. On this side of last night tomorrow looks a lot closer.

Remus looked awful. He was sleeping as if under the Draught of Living Death and Severus doubted anything less than another Quintaped attack would wake him up. Fortunately he'd had no occasion to test this hypothesis; the night had been uncomfortable but uneventful, perhaps because they'd taken it in turns to stand watch.

Technically this was Remus' shift, but Severus hadn't had any desire to wake him. The werewolf was obviously exhausted; the darkness under his eyes testified to that—besides, I didn't spend yesterday morning walking halfway across the world. Instead, he'd decided to get in a little extra Transfiguration practice.

Severus stared at his hand, trying to focus on changing it into whatever it was supposed to become, but after another half-dozen failed attempts he was discouraged. Can't even get the fur I had yesterday. One more try, then I'll wait until the others wake up. He frowned in concentration once more, putting from his mind all thoughts concerning getting eaten by a snarling werewolf and a giant Quintaped. Change, damn you! Just change! He glared at his hand, pulling on its magic as hard as he could, trying to shape it into a new form.

At that moment a most peculiar and interesting event occurred, an event which would later be described with such phrases as "Merlin's Beard" and "How the hell did that happen?"

Severus felt it, in his magic. It was something new, something that hadn't been there yesterday; yet it seemed so natural, so obvious... He blinked, and tugged on the magic again. Hand. Change.

And he felt the change... but it was by no means as fluid as the notes had implied. He felt every bone in his hand grind together and the muscles shift and reshape themselves and his skinshrivel up and reincarnate as a taunt sea of soft grey fur that settled over him and rippled as he wiggled his fingers experimentally—his fingers, which crunched and shortened and folded into themselves while his nails arched outwards, longer and sharper...

Severus stared. He flexed his fingers—paw—experimentally; muscles he hadn't even known existed activated and five silver claws shot out towards him. A smile spread across his face. Absolutely wicked. Wait—how did I just do that? It's not possible. I'm not—the magic! It was whatever was in my magic.

He frowned and started thinking of all the things that could have caused such a reaction. Obviously the potion is a primary suspect, but those were such common, ordinary ingredients—surely someone else would have discovered this already? It has to be something else... something obscure... something potentially powerful...

A moment later it clicked.

"Wake up, you lot! WAKE UP! We're not going to die!" Severus laughed from the sheer euphoria of discovery. "WAKE UP!"

"Severus? Are... you okay? Why are you—Severus? What happened?" James asked. The Gryffindors had snapped out of drowsiness unusually quickly and were now staring at him as if he'd gone mad. Severus waved his paw in the air and they blinked.

"Uh, congratulations on getting it that far—but did you really have to wake us all up?" Sirius moaned.

"No—it's not that! It's in my magic, so it must be in yours too, because you were all there and we all got covered in it and I think the vomit's got some sort of potential-magic property—like unicorn or dragon blood and phoenix tears—but this stuff enhances your magic's power. See?"

The Gryffindors blinked. "Uh, Severus?" said James.

"Yes?"

"None of us have any idea what you just said."

Severus sighed. Do I have to spell it out completely? Well, they are Gryffindors... "Something we did yesterday—I think it was exposure to the Quintaped vomit on our skin, and maybe a bit mixed in the potion—did something to my magic, so it should have affected yours, too. It makes the Animagus transformation easier!"

They understood that, and two minutes later Remus was laughing at the antics of the stag and dog prancing through the trees. "I can't believe no one's discovered this before!" he exclaimed. "This is unreal!" Sirius ran by, barking wildly, reveling in the freedom of four legs.

"They wouldn't have made Drear Unplottable if they'd known," Severus answered. "Do you know—do you have any idea what this discovery could do? What it's worth? With some experimentation it could enhance practically every spell known to wizardkind..."

James turned back into himself, a huge smile plastered on his face. "That was AWESOME! We're gonna be rich! We can buy the island and sell Quintaped vomit—"

"Prongs, you're already rich," Remus laughed.

"Yeah, but we're talking millionaire-ism! For all of us! Okay, Severus, you try it now!" Sirius barked his agreement.

"I've never—"

"Just try! Why not?" James and Sirius were literally bouncing with enthusiasm; Sirius actually jumped onto Remus' lap and drooled in dog-ecstasy when Remus scratched his ears. James pulled him back onto the ground where they waited impatiently for Severus to try the spell.

Half a minute later, Severus was still mostly human, but quite obviously also something else. He examined himself closely, thankful he was still capable of unimpaired speech despite his oddly rough tongue. The most noticeable changes were to his other hand and his feet, which had made similar conversions into paws—I wonder where my shoes went—and the itch on his back was now far more irritating...

"Merlin," James gasped. "It took us over a year to get that far along. This stuff is phenomenal."

"Any idea what I am?" Severus asked, experimenting with his new-found claws.

"At the moment?" James laughed. "Odd, mutant, and disturbing all come to mind—"

"It's really encouraging for a first try, though," said Remus.

"Yeah, I bet if you—what is it, Padfoot?" Sirius had dropped his ecstatic-dog act and was now whining miserably, scratching at James's leg. "For Merlin's sake, change back. I can't understand a word you're saying." Sirius growled and barked at James.

"Merlin..."

"What, Remus?" James demanded.

"What if—this is just an idea, but what if he can't change back? How do we know the Quintaped puke-magic is permanent? What if it only does so much, and then you have to use your own power to change back?"

"I changed back—"

"But you've always been the best one at transfiguration, James. Sirius and Severus aren't as good at it, so without the extra magic they're stuck. Hypothetically, of course," Remus added, looking at Severus.

"Well, we won't know until we try." Severus closed his eyes and concentrated on returning to his usual form, hoping Remus wasn't right. A few minutes later he still had paws and Sirius was still a quadruped.

"Bugger," James sighed. "So much for becoming multi-millionaires and ruling the world."

"At least you still have feet," Severus snapped.

"Wait—so does this mean I can't do it anymore either?" James disproved his theory quickly by changing into a stag and back. "So why can I change when you can't?"

"Probably because you managed to change back on your own," Remus speculated. "You just needed the push to transform in the first place, but now you know how to do it, and can control it properly... So that's good then!" he said suddenly, turning to Sirius and Severus. "That's still really good, because as soon as you two finish the transformation, you'll be Animagi. And since you're not in your natural forms anymore, it should be easier to change back, and hopefully a lot quicker than learning to transform from your human form."

Severus frowned, digesting this information. "But until then..."

"You could hire yourself out for muggle horror films," James suggested. "The Evil Mutant Dr. Claw in the Haunted Forest of Doom!" Sirius let out a laugh-like bark and Severus glared at him.

"I suppose we ought to keep walking," Remus said. "And Severus and Sirius can—"

"—just keep trying throughout the day," Severus finished. Now that his initial exuberance had worn off he wasn't anticipating life as a half-whatever person. It's hard to balance with these feet. I suppose they're my toes, actually...

Sirius bounded south—always south—and the others followed—a more cautious and more eccentric group than had arrived the day before.

Sometime between another quick dip in the stream that afternoon and their recent decision to camp for at least part of the night, James Potter thought up an idea. A terrific idea. An idea so fantastic it made him laugh aloud as he set off with Padfoot in search of 'anything edible.' Or at least that had been his excuse...

"As soon as you two finish the transformation, you'll be Animagi," Remus had said. So Sirius has to change back, and Severus has to complete the transformation then change back, and then everything will be grand. He knew the others could do it—they've made it this far, haven't they?—now they just needed another push to finish the change. More Quintaped puke wouldn't help; it was too dangerous to retrieve and appeared to be just a temporary solution anyway.

No, what they needed was to panic. It's a 'life or death' situation, and their only hope is to transform... so they do! Totally simple and totally brilliant, he congratulated himself. Unfortunately, engineering what would appear a 'life or death' situation had proved harder than he'd thought. Only a stroke of extraordinarily good luck had solved this problem; when he'd separated from the group earlier to use the non-existent facilities he'd discovered an eerie cave with a Quintaped corpse inside. It had scared him half to death until he'd realized the monster was dead, but now... Now it's an integral part of the plan! He laughed again, and Sirius perked his ears up curiously.

"Come on, Padfoot; I saw a cave earlier, there might be some mushrooms or something in there." Sirius made gagging noises but followed him to the cavern's entrance, where they stopped and stared in awe and perhaps a bit of fear.

It is creepier at dusk, James admitted to himself, but there's nothing in there but a stone-cold corpse. "I'll go first, Sirius," he said, but it came out as more of a whisper. Padfoot whined and tugged on his sleeve. "Come on, Sirius. Don't tell me you're scared of the dark?" That silenced all protests, and Sirius followed him into the cave.

Their footsteps echoed noisily through the room. James could hear water dripping, somewhere. He approached the pillar which hid the monster's ghastly remains—the moment has come—he stepped behind it and screamed.

"AAAHHHHHHHHH! IT'S GOT ME! SIRIUS, RUN! GET HELP—!" He transformed into Prongs and continued to scream, now with a stag's tongue; the result was a horrifying shriek that echoed throughout the cavern. James ducked behind the corpse and prodded it with his antlers; it moved sluggishly but just enough to convince Sirius the danger was real. James poked his head around just in time to see a huge, black dog-shape run into the night, barking frantically. He changed back and chuckled. Step One, complete. Now he'll have to change to tell the others what's going on...

Sirius ran straight into Remus, barking and growling like a lunatic. Severus yanked the mutt off as best he could without fingers and demanded: "What's going on? Where's James?" Sirius continued to howl frantically, craning his head constantly towards the way he'd come. Severus didn't need to see his mind so panic-stricken to know what had happened.

"Here, Remus—get the last vial of Exploding Fluid from my pocket; there's no way I can throw without hands." Remus nodded; they took off running after Sirius, and Severus was soon reduced to loping along on all four limbs. It was quicker... and dignity be damned anyway, especially if James has run into another Quintaped.

When Sirius darted into the cavern he immediately cursed both Gryffindors a million times the fool—Who but James Potter and Sirius Black would run into a spooky cave at twilight when there are monsters around?—but followed anyway.

Inside it was deathly quiet. Sirius was no longer running, but creeping across the ground; his nose pointed to a pillar up ahead. Remus glanced at Severus and he nodded in silent agreement, urging the Gryffindor forward. They rounded the corner and there it was, another Quintaped; it began to growl ferociously but there was no sign of James.

"THROW, REMUS!"

The werewolf hurled the vial through the air directly towards the beast. But rather than snatching it out of the air, the Quintaped simply stood and let the glass shatter against its face. What the...? Severus stepped forward cautiously. It still made no movement.

"Is it already dead?" Remus wondered aloud. "James?"

The Exploding Fluid was sliding down thick orangey-brown hairs, sliding towards an eventual confrontation with the ground. A drop reached the end of the line, hung, trembled... fell...

BOOM. The stone floor cracked outwards, imitating a spider's web, the walls began to shake. Severus looked up and saw stalactites trembling like china about to fall off a table.

"LOOK OUT!" Remus dove into him, sprawling them both across the ground; a stalactite crashed into the floor right where he'd been standing. Sirius leaped over them, dodging another falling rock. The cave is collapsing...!

"GET UNDER THE QUINTAPED!" he shouted. There was no time to reach the exit. They scrambled across the floor, coughing and choking from the sudden downpour of dust and grit that made it almost impossible to see. Sirius was half-dragging him along by his sleeve, and Severus' claws had a firm grip on Remus' shirt collar. "JAMES?" he shouted, desperate...

"I'm here! Get under here!" Quidditch-callused hands grabbed his wrist and yanked him roughly forward until Remus, the mutt and Severus himself were all beneath the Quintaped.

"James?" Severus gasped. A final torrent of rock and dust made it impossible to hear any reply. The three boys and dog clutched each other tightly, huddling together as far as possible from the devastation that was happening just inches away. A few minutes later the eerie silence returned, disrupted only by an occasional clatter as some small rocks completed their journey downward.

"James?" Remus asked finally.

"Y-Yes?"

"You better have a good explanation for this."

"Let's see if we can get out of here first," Severus suggested. "Then we can maim him."

"Sorry," James groaned, as they slid out from beneath their hairy shelter to assess the situation. "I just—I just had this theory, you know... I thought if I got you scared enough, you could finish the transforma—" He froze.

The cave's entrance remained unblocked, which was a marvelously good thing.

But guarding the entrance possessively was a huge creature. The fading sunlight at its back cast an enormous, five-legged shadow across the cracked floor, and its gleaming red eyes flickered with horrible amusement as they surveyed the ragged, dust-covered band of exhausted teenagers. A monstrously bad thing. And I'm out of Exploding Fluid.

So! What's funny? What's sad? What's gooey? What's artificially flavored? What's completely random and has no point whatsoever? How do I know unless you hit the little button that says review!