The night before they left for Hogwarts to start their fifth year, Sirius gave Harry a present.
"Here, take this." Sirius pushed a book and a small bag of leaves into Harry's hands in the dark hallway right outside Harry's bedroom. Sirius looked over his shoulders a few times to make sure they were alone, and then handed Harry a hand mirror as well. "Becoming Animagi is by far the most important thing your father and I have ever done. Read the book and learn the magic. I'm sure Ron and Hermione would love to do it with you. Look into the mirror and say my name and we'll be able to talk if you have any questions or run into problems with the procedure."
Harry swallowed, a sudden lump in his throat at the thought of becoming an Animagus just like his father. What sort of animal would he become? Surely not a stag like James Potter. No, if Harry had to guess he would become some kind of bird. A predatory one, most likely. Something that could fly really fast. At least Harry hoped so.
"Thanks," Harry whispered, giving Sirius a grateful smile before quickly disappearing into his bedroom. He kicked his trunk open and shoved the items inside, hiding them under some loose robes. The last thing he wanted was for Mrs Weasley to find out what Sirius had given him. She would surely confiscate it, claiming Harry and his friends were far too young to learn such dangerous magic.
Harry knew better, though. His father and Sirius had been just as old as Harry was now when they became Animagi, so Harry knew he'd be all right.
There wasn't a chance to show Ron and Hermione what Sirius had given him until they were already at Hogwarts.
"Let me see this." Hermione immediately took the book from Harry's hands the moment Harry pulled it from his trunk in their dormitory.
"So are you two interested?" Harry asked, looking between Ron and Hermione with wide, expectant eyes.
"Yeah, of course," Ron said, peering at the leaves as Harry pulled them out of the bag. "It's gonna be bloody difficult though."
"Perhaps not difficult so much as complicated," Hermione mused as she paged through the book, eyebrows drawn down into a frown. "There are a lot of steps and if you forget one of them only once you have to start over again."
"Well, it's not like we've got anything better to do," Harry said with a laugh. "It's only our OWL year and the Ministry's sent over some stooge to keep us all on the straight and narrow."
"Yeah, let's do this," Ron said with a grin. "I can't wait to see what I'll become. What if it's something really big? Or really small? Like Skeeter the bug." Ron shuddered dramatically.
"I'm going to be a bird," Harry said full of confidence.
"What?" Ron offered Harry a crooked smile. "Like a turkey? Or a pelican?"
"No, you tosser." Harry punched Ron in the arm while Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Fine, we'll do it," Hermione said, shutting the book and giving Harry and Ron both a stern look. "But we're going to be careful and follow all the steps. No skipping anything, and no trying to change when you're alone. Horrible things can happen when people change alone for the first time. They can lose themselves in the animal and never remember to turn back."
"We'll be careful," Harry said with a solemn nod, meaning every word. He loved the idea of turning into an animal, but he did not want to risk getting stuck.
Thanks mostly to Hermione's rigorous planning they did not miss any steps, but in the end it still took them until after the Christmas holidays before they were ready to actually attempt the transformation. First they had to keep a mandrake leaf in their mouths for a month and after that there followed brewing a potion and lots of regular spellwork at set intervals. Hermione had been right when she said that none of it would be difficult. It wasn't. It was just bloody time-consuming and took a lot of planning.
Three weeks into January they were treated to a rare winter thunderstorm in the evening and Harry, Ron and Hermione perked up while they sat in the common room.
"This is it," Harry urgently whispered to his friends. "I've got the map and my invisibility cloak right here. Let's go to the Room of Requirement." Thanks to Dobby they'd discovered that room and were putting it to good use to teach each other actual defence, since Umbridge proved to be a humongous thorn in everyone's side that year.
They squeezed under the cloak and while keeping a careful eye on the map they made it to the Room of Requirement unseen by anyone else.
"You go first, Harry," Hermione said as they stood facing each other, all full of nervous anticipation. Hermione kept biting her lip and Ron kept scratching his neck while Harry couldn't stand still even if he tried. "Remember to push into the animal no matter what. It might feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but you have to keep pushing."
Harry nodded, aimed his wand at his heart and chanted the necessary spell while he closed his eyes. He focused on finding his inner animal which should be right there waiting for him. Harry expected to feel feathers, or perhaps fur if his dreams of becoming a bird didn't come true. He had not expected to find large, smooth scales.
Was he becoming a dragon? Harry couldn't help but wonder. How awesome would that be! And how impractical. You could hardly be stealthy when you were the size of a bloody dragon. Harry pushed into the scales, feeling a strong set of unfamiliar instincts to track and hunt and eat wash over him. Yes, this was expected, so Harry kept pushing while pulling the scales all over himself. His body fell to the floor and at once, in seconds, elongated and grew until Harry wasn't sure anymore how big he was. He just knew that he was enormous.
Harry blinked his eyes open, seeing the world in different colours, everything covered by a slight haze. Two figured in front of him fell to the floor and it took Harry a moment to understand who they were.
Flicking his tongue, Harry tasted death, which made no sense at all. Some part of him wanted to devour the recently killed prey in front of him, but a larger part, his human part, understood that he'd somehow just killed Ron and Hermione just by looking at them.
He was a basilisk.
He had to be. Nothing else made sense. But why the fuck would he turn into a basilisk? Because he'd met one? Because he'd been bitten by one three years ago and somehow that venom had a lasting effect Harry couldn't possibly have predicted?
Or was the basilisk truly the animal that most closely matched Harry's personality?
No, that couldn't be right.
Harry stared at the two bodies on the floor, unable to comprehend what he was seeing and smelling for a long time, until finally the reality of the situation sank in.
Harry had just killed Ron and Hermione.
Harry had just killed Ron and Hermione.
When that horrible truth became so large inside his mind that he could no longer ignore it, Harry shot forward further into the Room of Requirement which instantly morphed into a vast forest for Harry to disappear in. Even though he had no arms and legs, Harry whipped his body through the trees at incredible speeds, almost flying across the mossy ground for miles and miles while the Room kept giving him what he needed.
Eventually Harry came to a stop at the foot of a mountain and curled up into himself, head tucked inside huge coils while he let his animal instincts wash over him so he could bury his guilt and his grief beneath them. Right then he was just a huge serpent, not a boy who'd killed his best friends.
Harry wasn't sure how long he stayed coiled up like that, head hidden away, human thoughts pushed to the side by simple animal instincts, but eventually hunger and thirst drove him to move again. His body was cold and weak and slow and moving was painful, but Harry followed his old tracks back to the door where he knew the bodies of his friends would still be. The closer he came to them, the more he regained his human mind and with it the chilling understanding that Harry was to blame for losing the people he loved most in the world. And while a large part of him wanted to turn around and go hide again until his body would succumb to hunger and thirst, Harry wasn't a coward. He would not run away from his problems forever, no matter how much his entire body burned with grief.
He would accept the consequences, no matter what they would be.
Seeing the bodies of his friends and the state they were in shocked Harry enough that he finally shifted back to the human teenager he truly was. He was immediately hit with the sweet, sickly stench of death, so much more appalling now that he was smelling it with his human nose. The next thing he noticed was that the bodies of Ron and Hermione were bloated to the point that their faces were no longer recognizable.
Harry leaned over and retched, but nothing came out.
Beneath the bodies a large pool of brown liquid had formed, which looked slightly sticky.
Harry retched again before rubbing his hands across his face to snap himself out of it. He needed to get out of there, though he had no idea who he should be seeing. Dumbledore wouldn't meet his eyes and McGonagall brushed him off and Snape made an art out of giving Harry blinding headaches.
Who was he supposed to tell about what had happened?
And what were people going to do to Harry once they realized he could turn into one of the most feared creatures in the wizarding world?
Giving himself no more chance to second-guess himself, Harry picked up his discarded bag, pulled his wand out of his pocket and levitated the bloated bodies of his best friends. Brown liquid dripped, leaving a trail as Harry slowly moved towards the door and opened it. There was no one there in the seventh floor hallway and the windows showed that it was dark outside. Harry had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was. All he knew was that he was empty with hunger and thirst and more grief than he could ever possibly process, even if he lived to be a thousand years.
While Harry descended the steps, he encountered two older Ravenclaw students. They took one look at the bodies floating behind Harry and started screaming, which quickly brought others towards Harry as he kept walking down the stairs.
"Mr Potter!" McGonagall came hurrying towards him up the stairs. "Where have you been? We've been looking for you for a week. Where are…" It was at that point that McGonagall noticed the bodies behind Harry and her face became the colour of sour milk while she clapped a trembling hand over her mouth.
"It was an accident," Harry said in a monotone voice, mind drawing a complete blank as to what else he could say. He did not want to admit he'd killed his best friends. He couldn't, no matter how hard he tried. The words stuck in his throat the second he tried to explain himself to McGonagall.
More students gathered around the staircase and screamed once they realized what was floating behind Harry.
Umbridge joined them moments later and got a positively delighted look on her face. "Flitwick, call the Aurors right now!"
Harry hadn't even noticed that Flitwick had joined them. He stared at McGonagall's horrified face and wondered vaguely what was going to happen to him. Not that he cared much about that. No, without Ron and Hermione there by his side, Harry found that he didn't care much at all what his future would bring.
The moment multiple pairs of strong hands grabbed hold of Harry's arms, Harry sagged and let his head drop. He didn't remember much after that as he was dragged out of the castle and across the grounds before a portkey took him to the Ministry. When Harry somewhat regained his focus again he found himself in a Ministry cell where a tray with a glass of water and a simple cheese sandwich stood waiting for him.
Harry picked at the food and took small sips of water and waited for his future to be decided. It only took a day or two of complete isolation before Harry was dragged in front of the entire Wizengamot.
Fudge looked more delighted than Harry had ever seen him, as though Lucius Malfoy had just voluntarily signed over his entire fortune to him without expecting anything in return.
Umbridge did most of the talking during the trial while Harry sat chained to a wooden chair and didn't meet anyone's eyes. Not that there was anyone whose eyes he wanted to meet. There were no Weasleys that he could see, and Dumbledore did not come for a last minute rescue as he'd done the previous summer.
"Mr Potter broke the rules and killed two students," Umbridge said in her sugary sweet voice. "The Ministry recognized the dangers of letting children practice defensive spells and issued decrees to protect the students of Hogwarts. Mr Potter thought he knew better and now two students are dead because of his arrogance."
Harry didn't bother correcting her. In a way she was right. Harry had been reckless and arrogant to think he should perform magic as complicated as the Animagus transformation without expecting negative consequences. When had anything in Harry's life ever happened without negative consequences? He got to go to a wizarding school and learned there was a Dark Lord waiting in the wings to kill him. He learned he had a godfather who wanted to take care of him, but the man was a wrongfully convicted criminal on the run. A dangerous tournament came to Hogwarts and naturally Harry had to compete in it.
The list went on and on.
So yeah, Harry knew that he had been arrogant to think nothing bad would happen the moment he tried turning into an animal.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Umbridge asked him after she was almost done with her monologue.
Harry refused to look at her even though the scar on his hand throbbed. "It was an accident," he mumbled, because that was the only truth he could say. It had been an accident. Harry would never, ever want to see Ron and Hermione dead.
Vaguely he wondered what had happened to their bloated bodies. He still got a whiff of their decaying flesh every now and then when he was least expecting it.
"All who believe Harry Potter is guilty of a double murder, please raise your wands," Fudge finally said and as Harry briefly glanced around the room he noticed that probably more than three quarters of the people raised their wands. Well, they weren't wrong, after all.
Fudge seemed like he was about to combust with sheer pleasure. "Then I hereby sentence Harry James Potter to life in Azkaban." He slammed his hammer down with a bright smile on his face.
The trip to Azkaban barely registered with Harry. He thought once or twice about changing into his Animagus form and escaping but what good would that do him? No, Harry deserved to go to Azkaban, he knew that much. He had murdered Ron and Hermione, they weren't wrong about that. Besides, Harry wanted to keep his Animagus form a secret for a while longer. Because even though he was hollow with guilt and grief, he was still Harry. And he knew a much better use for his Animagus form than the accidental murder of his best friends.
Harry was sure that all he had to do was be patient and wait.
Azkaban was a miserable place, the very stones of the prison imbued with pain and suffering. Everything was grey and cold and damp, including Harry's new cell. He sat in the corner, knees drawn up and head bent down and refused to scream whenever the dementors floated by and brought with it detailed memories of bloated bodies and sticky brown fluids and the stench of death.
It must have been at least a week, or perhaps two, when a guard Harry hadn't seen before approached his cell and tossed a Daily Prophet inside.
"Thought you'd get a kick out of this, Potter," the man said with a malicious smile. "Black wanted to do you in so badly he even tried to break into Azkaban, but the dementors got him in the end, as he deserved."
Harry blinked tired eyes and stared at the frontpage.
Sirius Black Captured and Kissed!
Glancing down again, Harry didn't even bother reading the article or the rest of the paper. He'd heard enough. Harry's grief was already so overwhelming that the death of another loved one hardly made a dent. Why had Sirius even tried to rescue Harry? Didn't he understand that Harry was a murderer now?
Not that it mattered. Sirius was dead, and Harry had other, more important things to live for now.
Harry wasn't sure how long it took for his prey to come to him, but eventually, after many nights of cold despair, a large number of echoing footsteps approached Harry's cell.
The old guard who always distributed their meagre meals opened Harry's door, revealing the cloaked figure of Lord Voldemort.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort said, tilting his head in mock-sympathy. "Such an unexpected ending for the Boy Who Lived."
Harry chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. "I was just about to say the same to you, Tom. Such an unexpected ending." And with that, Harry lunged forward and shifted into a basilisk. He kept his eyes wide open as he looked at every living soul around him, bodies dropping heavily to the stone floor up and down the shadowy corridor and inside neighbouring cells. No one made a sound, no one even had time to go for their wands.
And not even Voldemort, who had been holding his wand in his hand, stood a chance against a basilisk's lethal gaze. His body was dead in an instant and from it a wailing wisp of dark smoke rose which immediately disappeared out of a nearby window.
When Harry was the only living soul left alive on his prison floor, he shifted back because the sudden appearance of hoarfrost announced the imminent arrival of perhaps every dementor in the whole building. Harry quickly snatched up Voldemort's wand, which felt far too comfortable in his grip and he cast his Patronus while looking at Voldemort's dead face. That sight gave him enough joy for his misty stag to burst forth and keep the dementors at a distance. Harry stepped over the bodies of Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband and a few other Death Eaters he vaguely recognized but whose names escaped him. There were also a few dead prison guards, not to mention a whole bunch of dead prisoners in their cells. And not far from Voldemort lay the form of his dead pet snake.
Good.
Very good.
It was not enough to fill the void of guilt and grief inside Harry, but he was happy to know that something good had come out of the tragedy of becoming an Animagus.
Harry kept to his human form until he encountered the other guards who were on duty in the prison that time of the evening. He tucked Voldemort's wand away and turned into a basilisk again, killing every soul that stood between him and freedom. Behind him the dementors screeched in outrage, but they had no idea what to do with a basilisk and they let Harry burst through the doors and out into the cold night.
Without pause, Harry slid into the ocean and swam into the direction of where he thought land would be. His large body was excellent at propelling itself through the choppy waves as it turned out, and Harry didn't think of much at all as he made his way further and further away from the massacre he'd just caused.
Soon it would all be over.
When Harry had hatched his plan to do away with Voldemort, right after he'd been sentenced to Azkaban, he'd known what the end would be.
There was no way Harry could live with himself after what had happened to Ron and Hermione. And after he'd purposefully killed at least twenty people, some of them merely underpaid guards doing their shitty jobs.
No, Harry had always known how it would end.
Morning was approaching rapidly when Harry made it to shore. He flicked his tongue and let the scent of his greatest doom lead him to his destination.
At the foothills of the Highlands, right beside the coast, Harry found a small farmhouse cloaked in darkness. In the farmyard he found a chickencoop full of sleeping critters waiting for the dawn to arrive.
Harry coiled up against it, his large body stiff and cold from spending hours in the water. He blinked his large eyes, stared out over the mountains and the lightening sky, and he waited eagerly for the sun to rise.
The End