When she returned to Snape's office there was a plate of various sandwiches and chips on his desk, along with a fresh pot of tea in the glowing carafe. She glanced at him, feeling somewhat guilty that she had been so impatient with him and had forced him from her mind, but he didn't look upset. Still she felt compelled to say something.

"I'm sorry," she said sheepishly as she sat down in her chair with her bag in her lap.

"For what?"

"Getting angry at you and forcing you out so roughly. That can't have felt good," she said, not meeting his gaze.

"It was nothing," he said dismissively. "You have a right to your own thoughts." She nodded silently and he continued. "...I don't always realize I'm doing it," he admitted. "It's become like a bad habit. Knowing where you are and what you are doing most of the time..."

"What?" she prompted him to continue.

"It is...reassuring," he said somewhat hesitantly, like that wasn't the word he wanted to use.

Comforting is the word Freddie thought he wanted to use though he was loathe to call it that. His dark eyes flicked to hers quickly, then away again.

"It is good to know where you are, that you are not somewhere getting yourself into trouble, as is your habit," he said, sitting a little straighter in his chair.

That's more like it, Freddie thought with a smile.

"Eat," he told her. "You need to eat something. You got your books?"

"Yeah," she said pulling five or six books out of her bag and stacking them on the desk in front of her so she could see the titles.

"Are those all of your books?" he asked with some amusement, pouring her a fresh cup of tea.

"All of the ones on Animagi, yeah," she answered. "I had a few more a few weeks ago, but they were due back at the library. I took notes though." There were bits of parchment stuck in some of her books with notes she'd made from the library books.

Freddie didn't know what book might have the information she needed, if it was there at all, and she didn't have time to read them all. She picked one at random – Theodore Cromwell's Technical Guide to Animal Transfiguration.

She propped the book up on her knee and began to flip through it.

"Eat," Snape commanded softly and she absently picked up a sandwich and took a bite. She realized just how hungry she was and she quickly devoured the sandwich, turning to the chapter that detailed the actual Animagus transformation. She skimmed the pages as she ate another sandwich but there was nothing helpful for her in Cromwell's book.

"Ugh," she said, feeling her frustration mounting again. She put the book in the chair next to her and crammed the last of her sandwich in her mouth. She swallowed and washed it down with a swig of tea. She realized that the flavor was different than Brew 19. She made sure the last of the sandwich was gone from her mouth and took another sip.

"This is a different tea," she said, surprised. She'd hoped for more of the pain-relieving tea, knowing that she was going to have to keep shape-shifting.

"An astute observation," he said dryly.

"Hmm," Freddie said and took another sip, weighing the flavor on her tongue. It wasn't something she'd tasted before and there were a lot of flavors to unravel.

"There's a really strong herbal flavor...wormwood? With peppermint and honey."

"Honeywater," he confirmed with a nod.

"Sort of a bitter aftertaste though. Like...willow bark?"

"Yes," he said and looked at her expectantly, like he was waiting for her to connect the dots.

"Oh!" she said as she felt the pain ebb away from her muscles. It was replaced with a new sense of vigor. "It's like Brew 19 but with an Invigoration Draught."

"That is essentially exactly what it is. This is Brew 25 and I should have thought of it earlier. I used to drink it after duels to recover more quickly. I think it will help you."

"It already is. Thank you," she said gratefully. She picked another book out of her pile, Hawkins' book. "I'm sort of glad you used to get into so many fights you made a tea for it. I always imagined you were more of a quiet, bookworm student."

"I was. I did not concoct Brew 25 until I was in the service of the Dark Lord."

He said this in a very matter-of-fact way with no particular emotion. She studied his face curiously but it was impassive and his emotions were blocked. She felt a burning curiosity but her watched beeped the hour – 3 o'clock.

"Oh jeez I've only got an hour left!" she said and began to flip through the pages of the book quickly. Hawkins' book was written from her point of view, a firsthand account of what she called her journey to flight. Freddie thought it was mostly a 'fluff' piece and unnecessarily poetic, but it was good to have a firsthand view. And obviously others liked the book, as it had been a best seller.

She quickly re-read the chapter that detailed Hawkins' very first transformation. How she'd soared over the skies of London, gaining a new perspective, blah blah blah. At the end of the scene when Hawkins transformed back to her human form – which she'd had some difficulty with apparently – there was no mention of what she was wearing if anything as she 'returned to her home exhausted but more exhilarated than she'd ever felt in her life'.

Freddie groaned in frustration and shut the book, then smacked herself in the head with it.

"Don't do that," Snape said disapprovingly. "You don't want to damage what's in that pretty head of yours."

"It's already damaged," she muttered, putting her head down on his desk. "I'm a crappy Animagus. Nobody else had this problem and now I have to go be naked in front of some grizzly old Ministry official who probably looks like Professor Dumbledore."

She didn't have to look at him to know he was smiling at her. She could feel his amusement and also his sympathy. His walls were back down again.

"First of all, you aren't going to be naked in front of anyone – at least, not at the Ministry. I'm sure it can be arranged for you have a blind or something similar to transform back. He only needs to see you transform into an animal. Second, you are a good Animagus. You are just a new Animagus, and young-"

"The youngest in a century, I know," she said bitterly, lifting her head off the desk to look at him. "I feel like that means I'm supposed to be good or, I dunno, special somehow, but I'm not. I'm just me. I'm great at potions – I suck at everything else."

He shook his head slightly and he reached across the desk, brushing the back of her hand with one finger until she looked at him.

"You are special," he said softly but firmly. And she knew that he meant it. But she didn't know how to react. He might believe she was special, but at the moment she certainly didn't. He stood suddenly, tapping the back of her hand twice.

"Get up," he said and he crossed the room to replace the enchantments on his door. "We have half an hour before we have to leave. You can practice until then."

Freddie dragged herself to her feet, but she didn't see the point. 30 minutes wasn't going to be enough time.

"If you believe that you can not do it, then you never will," Snape said firmly, facing her with his arms crossed. "Wallowing in your misery solves nothing. Action does. You managed to keep your socks on once before. Do it again."

"I don't know how I did it," she said, shaking her head. He exhaled for a beat, looking her over.

"You changed your clothes."

"You just now noticed?"

"I noticed," he said quietly, his eyes lingering on her cleavage.

"I thought it might be easier with just one item of clothing to try to change with me," she explained. The implications of her words sunk in and his eyes roamed farther down her body.

"You are not wearing underwear?" he whispered, his throat sounding dry. She smiled coyly and didn't answer. If she was lucky maybe he'd find out for himself.

He took a step away from her and she could tell it was difficult for him to do.

"You need to practice," he said, clearing his throat. "Stop trying to distract me."

"I'm not," she said, but she kind of was. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. "Okay. Here I go."

She shifted into her Animagus form easily, much more easily than before. Unfortunately the velvet dress was pooled around her on the floor. She let out a sigh – a hiss – and transformed back. She flicked her wand and she had her dress back on in an instant.

"Maybe I should try talking to McGonagall about it," she said doubtfully, getting up off the floor where she'd landed. "It might be awkward, but she's an Animagus and the Transfiguration teacher."

"We do not have the time," he said, shaking his head. "By the time you reached McGonagall's office it would be time for us to leave for the Ministry...and you are not going to talk to Minerva without any underwear on."

"She wouldn't know," Freddie said practically.

"She might. And that is not a risk I am willing to take. Transform again," he instructed.

She exhaled sharply and transformed. Another failure as the dress fell around her. She huffed and turned back to her human form.

She didn't wait for Snape to tell her to do it again. As soon as the dress was on she slipped back into her kneazle form. She batted the dress with her paw, her ears flicking in annoyance. Okay, she thought. Maybe I can at least land on my feet. Before she'd taken a break she had figured out that if she jumped at the prickly-skin moment in between kneazle and human she would at least be upright and not flat on her butt.

She pictured her human reflection and leapt with her hind legs at the moment she felt the transformation start. She was upright, but stumbled and Snape caught her in his arms.

"Is it not like Apparating?" he asked, steadying her. "You remind me of a sixth year just learning to Apparate. Plenty of them fall on their ass."

"Learning to Apparate was easier," she said on exhale. He still had his hands on her shoulders and she was naked. She found it very difficult to concentrate all of a sudden, until Snape jerked away like he'd been burned. For a split second she thought maybe she'd actually burned him with her magic, but that wasn't it. He was just trying to maintain a boundary.

"I'm sorry," he said, avoiding her gaze and walking back to his desk. Freddie magicked her dress back on, but she'd had an idea. Her magic, her other magic that was sometimes hard to control but that let her shrink and grow her plush kneazle at will, unlock doors, become invisible. Maybe, she thought, twirling her wand. That magic she had always done without a wand. She knew it was possible for Animagi to transform without their wands, but it was supposed to be more difficult. In Hawkins' book it had been three months before she'd been able to do it. But maybe she was different. Maybe she was special.

She put her wand on the nearest shelf, next to a jar of dead frogs suspended in a preserving potion. Snape was watching her curiously, but didn't speak. She closed her eyes and flexed her fingers, concentrating hard.

Bring the dress with me, she thought, trying to command the magic that flowed through her. At the same time she thought of her Animagus form and she felt her body shift. It was difficult to transform without her wand, but it wasn't impossible. It took a little longer and hurt a little more, but in just a minute she was a kneazle once more...and the dress was nowhere to be seen.

Exhilarated, she immediately transformed back, expecting that the dress would be on her. Well it was on her...sort of. It was wrapped around her legs and she tripped, falling to the hard stone floor and jarring her shoulder.

"Ouch!" she said.

"Are you okay?" Snape asked, quickly getting to his feet and coming around the desk to check on her.

"I think so," she said as he helped her to her feet. Her shoulder throbbed and she knew she'd have an impressive bruise there by the morning. She unwrapped the dress from around her feet and pulled it back on over her head.

"Well that was progress," he said, smiling slightly. "Why were you trying it without your wand?"

"I thought maybe I could control my magic better that way. Like maybe I could focus it better, like when I do my wandless magic to unlock doors just by thinking it."

"Like when you made the snow kneazle outside the Hog's Head," he said with a nod.

"Yeah. And it worked – well, it almost worked. I think maybe if I-"

The alarm beeped on Snape's watch, interrupting her.

"Unfortunately, we are out of time. We will have to explain to Mr Dearing that you need privacy to transform back."

"Ugh, that's embarrassing," she groaned.

"I am sure he will understand. Probably this has happened to other Animagi."

"Nobody warned me, none of the books talk about ending up naked."

"Would you?" he asked.

"Yes! If I wrote a book about becoming an Animagus I'd tell people how to make sure their clothes come with them – if I ever figure it out myself."

"You will," he assured her. "Put your boots on. We are going to Floo directly to the Ministry."

Freddie grabbed her wand from the shelf and dropped into her chair. She put her boots on with a flick of her wand. She grabbed her purse from her book bag and slipped it over her shoulder, stowing her wand in it. She remembered her hair suddenly – there was no mirror in Snape's office but she imagined it looked terrible. It had been wet when she pulled it into a ponytail earlier, without even bothering to brush it. She pulled the scrunchie from her hair and desperately tried to comb her fingers through it. Snape was waiting by the fireplace, looking at his watch impatiently.

"You should have listened to me earlier about your hair," he said, striding across the room towards her. Before she could ask what he was doing he took the scrunchie from her. He slapped her hands away from her head and gathered her hair in his hands. He pulled it up towards the back top of her head and put it through the scrunchie a few times. Then he did some sort of twist with her hair. She couldn't see what he was doing but her scalp tingled pleasantly as he twisted and manipulated her hair with surprising deftness.

"There," he said a few seconds later, stepping away. "Let's go."

"What did you do?" she asked, feeling the back of her head. Her hair was in a bun and although she couldn't see it, it felt more neatly done than any bun she'd ever made. She was amazed. "How did you even know how to do that?"

"I used to do my mother's hair, okay?" he said, impatience clear in his voice. "And if you ever tell anyone that, I'll hex you. Now, come on. I do not like being late."

Freddie approached the fireplace as Snape tossed in the first handful of Floo Powder. She looked around for Ziggy, but he was stretched out on a high shelf and didn't seem all that interested in following them. She hesitated, not wanting to leave him behind.

"He'll be fine," Snape said, handing her the pot of floo powder as he stepped into the flames. "Ministry of Magic."

He disappeared in the green flames. Freddie took her handful of floo powder and put the pot back on the shelf. She looked at Ziggy again. "Be good," she said to him, then tossed in the floo powder and stepped into the hearth.