The House Competition

Slytherin

Muggle Studies

Drabble

Rabbit

Word Count 763

I didn't realize I was an animagus until today. I'm still not exactly sure if that's what you'd call this. Perhaps I'm some kind of were-rabbit, though that seems unlikely somehow. Although, looking back, it should have been more obvious. I mean, my entire lifestyle changed, but it happened so gradually that I barely noticed. I think it must've started when I had the first dream. The dreams started with me watching a rabbit chewing purple clover in a dark, grassy field. I couldn't tell where it was, but something about it felt so open and exposed. The rabbit itself was a little black thing with the biggest black eyes I've ever seen.

Gradually, I stopped watching the rabbit, and instead became the rabbit. Something was chasing me, every time I thought I could rest, there would be the feeling of being watched. A scent on the wind, a twitch of my ear, and I was off. I sprang through the grass, brushing the tips of each blade with my soft, vulnerable underbelly. The thought makes my heart beat through my chest even now.

After the dreams came the shift in my diet. Meat started to give me stomach aches. Crazy considering I used to practically live on chicken. Gradually, I gave it all up, which worried my twin sister a little. I told her I didn't have an explanation for it, but meat just stopped agreeing with me. Eventually, I even gave up chicken. It was a heartbreaking goodbye, but it was that or spend the few hours of freetime after dinner lying on my side with gut cramps. I started eating raw vegetables like a mad woman. Even raw broccoli, which I never used to like. I just had to get that leafy-green sensation all through my body.

The final nail in the rabbit-shaped coffin was when I started to sleepwalk. I'm not sure how I made it out into the halls without being caught by a professor, or even my sister, but I would wake, many hours later, outside and barefooted. My sister chalked it up to being homesick, but I wasn't so sure.

"This is my fourth year!" I argued. "If I were going to be sick for my home, don't you think it would have happened a long time ago?"

Padma had brushed it off and told me if I were so worried, I could go see Madame Pomfrey. As much as I felt she was underreacting, I knew she was right about seeing the nurse, and made plans to do so the next day.

That night, I had the dream again, only this time, it started with getting out of bed and wandering outside the school. I had never seen this part of Hogwarts before, but I walked in a haze to the exact spot where my dreams always began. Suddenly, the world around me began to blur and stretch, and I felt like I was falling. Once my vision cleared, I found I was in the all-too familiar perspective of the rabbit. I helped myself to the abundant purple clover that bloomed in patches all over the grounds. It was bitter, musky, and I couldn't get enough.

My pastoral nibbling was interrupted by a sound that came straight from Hell. A deep, bass, barking that gave way to mad baying. My heart seized, and I thought the sound alone might kill me. Somewhere in my human consciousness, I thought, "It's a dog. I'm not afraid of dogs." But I was filled with an overwhelming need to run and hide. My limbs worked of their own accord and launched me through the field.

I heard the barking growing closer, accompanied by my beating paws. My eyes frantically searched my surroundings for shelter, all the while too afraid to look behind me. A soft voice kept urging me, "Run! Run!" Finally, I spotted a fallen log, and squeezed beneath it. No sooner had I drawn in my hindquarters than a big, black snout tried to lift the log from its resting place. I made myself as small as possible and shut my eyes.

"Fang, you great stupid beast! You'll wake the whole school with that racket! Come here!"

The nose retreated, and I released the breath I'd been holding. It was hours before I had recovered enough to come out, and hours more before I was able to transform back. Needless to say, I did not attend classes the next day. And thankf