***************

Lessons

***************

"I'm here!" Ron announced. McGongall looked up from her desk.

"Mr.Weasley," She greeted, "We're just waiting for Miss Green. Do you have any questions I can answer before we begin?" she shuffled some papers into a neat pile and then put them in one of the desk's drawers.

"Not really right now. I was reading up on the anatomy and structure of Jheregs last night and I re-read some of the chapters in Animagus  I have to admit, it's the first time I've been on a first name basis with a book," he laughed, "some of the notes the book gives are really fantastic,"

Lisa sprinted into the room and skidded to a halt, bunching up the carpet as she stopped. She smiled guiltily.

"I fell asleep in Divination. It gets so boring after Trelawney makes her death sentences," Lisa explained as she began fixing the carpet with a toe. She froze, realizing her audience, and looked to see if McGonagall was going to chew her out for speaking ill of another member of the faculty. Lisa thought she saw a smile out of the corner of her eye, but McGonagall's face was carefully blank when Lisa turned around completely.

"Now that Ms. Green has joined us, let's go. We practice in one of the larger, empty classrooms closer to the hospital wing," she explained to Ron who gulped at the mention of "hospital". They set off for the other side of the castle.

"So, we still on for Halloween?" Lisa asked Ron.

"Er, I thought so. Why?" he was suddenly afraid she didn't want to go with him now that there was a dance involved and not just eating and wandering around the school, chatting with other students.

"Oh, just making sure," she told him cheerily, "So you Brits don't dress up or anything? We always had a Masquerade,"

"Bill said they used to have them, but then kids tried to transfigure each other instead of dressing up and it got too messy or something," he shrugged.

"It did," McGonagall told them. They'd both forgotten she was there. They soon reached the classroom and cleared away the desks so they'd have room to work.

"Lisa, continue the exercises we started last time, I am going to help Mr. Weasley begin,"

Animagus transfigurations were harder than they looked Ron soon found out. To the outside observer he wasn't doing anything, but soon he was sweating with effort.

"As you recite the incantations, concentrate on yourself," McGonagall instructed for the fiftieth time, "Feel how your body is shaped. Concentrate! Don't look at me or around the room!  Now feel the control you have over your own for- Don't look!"

"All I feel is slightly dizzy," Ron admitted. A chair swept him off his feet and his eyes flew open. McGonagall was just putting her wand back into the folds of her robe.

"You should stop for a bit then." She told him. Ron nodded and slouched in the chair, glad to be off his feet. Lisa had made decent progress today. Her blonde hair had become small blondish feathers. And while Ron hadn't even gotten his skin to look scaly, Lisa looked depressed. She too, slouched in a nearby chair and shook her head.

"I think I lost it. Maybe it was moving. Maybe it's me. Why can't I do this!?"

"It is perplexing," McGonagall perched on the edge of a desk and looked at Lisa critically, "you are doing something," she said, "I can feel the power build, so you must be expending a lot for that to happen. But it's like it's going nowhere. I'd almost say try a different form, but I really don't think that'd help,"

"Why would you tell her to try a different form," Ron asked.

"It's very similar to what happened when I saw one of the Canadian Animagi attempting to get a second Animagus form. We could feel the build up of power and then it'd go nowhere. But when he turned into his normal bear form, we wouldn't notice anything at all," she shrugged.

"But I don't have another form!"

"And that's what's so odd," McGonagall said. Lisa sighed and slid forward in her seat until the back of her head was resting against the chair's back.

"Gimmie a moment and then I am going to see about the wings," She muttered. McGonagall nodded.

"Take you time, dear. Mr.Weasley?"

Ron stood, "I'm going to try again," he hopped out of his chair and concentrated on himself. He thought about his body becoming something else. It was just another object to transfigure. He recited the incantations he'd learned and focused his mind.

Suddenly he felt like Goyle and Crabbe were sitting on him. Like someone was squeezing and pulling on his hands. Then suddenly the pressure was gone. He looked at his hands. They were covered in brilliant red scales. He turned them over and flexed his fingers. Slim black claws slid in an out as he contracted and relaxed muscles he knew he hadn't had a few moments ago. It was the weirdest feeling he'd ever experienced. McGonagall looked very pleased. She conjured a mirror.

"You've gotten very far. You eyes have changed as well," she held the mirror and yellow eyes stared out of Ron's head. The pressure was suddenly back and Ron watched his eyes change back to their normal shade. He looked down and saw his hands were once again normal.

"Wicked!"

"Mr. Weasley, you're a natural,"

"That's so cool! It took me nearly a year to get feathers…the first time. The rest came easily. I just hope you don't have to go through this," Lisa smiled. In the time it'd taken Ron to transform his hands, her feathers had turned brilliant blue and green.

"With more practice you should be able to transform yourself entirely and then we can work on getting it to stay as long as you want. And THEN you can start practicing flying. You don't want to suddenly become human again and fall out of the sky do you?" McGonagall smiled at him.

"Right," Ron agreed. Flying was fun, falling was not.

"But now I think we've had enough for today. Mr. Weasley, if you have a burning desire to practice, please seek me out and don't try it alone. I really don't want to have to take you to the hospital wing or give you transformation inhibitors. Otherwise we'll meet the day after tomorrow?"

"Sure," Lisa and Ron chorused. Lisa's feather hair formed back into her normal blond locks and they left for Gryffindor tower.

*******

Night fell swiftly on the castle and surrounding countryside. The crisp air promised the first hints of winter as it carelessly blew leaves around. Their students all in bed, a select few of the teachers were clustered in Dumbledore's office. Snape sat stiffly in a high backed chair, while McGonagall calmly sipped some tea. Dumbledore was reading the latest letter from Sirius.

"And they are getting antsy. I think they'll move soon if they haven't by the time this letter reaches you," Dumbledore read from the piece of scrap parchment. Sirius had sent little notes much like this at random intervals over the past month

"That's all?" Snape asked.

"That's a-" Dumbledore said. A low rumble shook the castle and a bellow and shriek ripped through the air. The teachers were immediately on their feet, out the door and down the stairs. In the entrance hall, Nodens was sprawled out on the floor silent except for his shallow breathing, a wound in his arm. His wand was a few feet from his outstretched hand. McGonagall immediately ran to the young giant-boy's side. Professor Stonehoof and Fleur sprinted down from the wing where the teacher's quarters were, professor Flitwick hot on their heels despite his diminutive stature to see what was the matter. Stonehoof quickly joined Snape in taking up defensive positions around the room. They began systematically searching the hall for the unknown attacker.

A dark shape moved in the shadows and the doors opened with a loud bang. They all caught a flash of brilliant green and scarlet before it fled into the pitch black of night. Stonehoof cursed the new moon's darkness and galloped after it. Dumbledore sent Snape to get Madame Pomfrey, stopping him from chasing after the DADA professor and the boy's assailant. Snape nodded stiffly then ran from the room. Dumbledore approached the door to the side of the entrance hall.

"Reveal!" he commanded. The door glowed and five deep claw marks glowed green on the middle of the door, directly across the word 'Registrar'. Many matching sets of marks along the doors edge indicated that claws had tried to pry the door from its hinges. The door's old handle was a twisted ruin on the floor. Deep cuts were evident in the metal. The attacker had tried to enter the room, but the door had retaliated with bursts of magic and the creature had retreated, leaving the door to reconstruct itself and replace its handle. The door hummed with alert energy and almost seemed pleased with itself for such a well done job.

 Dumbledore left professor Flitwick to check the protective charms on the door and crouched next to McGonagall who had been trying to stop the bleeding in the boy's arm. The Ennervate spell had only half worked, causing the boy to groan in pain and to softly babble deliriously, so she'd cast the sleeping spell on him. Nodens had a large bite mark on his forearm. The deep puncture wounds were turning black around the edges.

Poppy Pomfrey bustled in, Snape close behind. Dumbledore rose to his feet.

"I think the bite was poisonous, probably something serpentine unfortunately," he said. Pomfrey shot the slightest annoyed glance as some else (and not entirely qualified) made a diagnosis. Dumbledore continued to issue orders, " Severus I think we may need a strong antidote potion,"

"I'll prepare a general anti-venom," Snape nodded agreement and turned on his heel. He beckoned to Fleur, and headed toward the dungeon, already thinking of the ingredient he'd need.

Few times in her life had Nista-Orea Stonehoof ever chased anything which ran so quickly. It seemed to flow across the open ground, limbs barely touching. It turned so suddenly, this way and that, using it's tail as a very effective rudder, that she was beginning to have a hard time keeping up. As it reached the edge of the forest it opened what were unmistakably feathery wings and sailed into the canopy of the forest where the centauress could not get a clear shot. Nista galloped on into the forest, leaping over a fallen log. Movement in the upper canopy drew her attention. She raised her hand a shouted a light spell. A dazzling ball of light erupted just under the canopy. A huge green shape was fleeing the area, easily leaping from tree to tree. Nista followed quickly after. The creature slowed, perhaps it was getting tried. Nista readied a binding spell when a large branch cracked and fell to earth a few feet from where she stood. Nista leapt to the side, barely dodging a falling tree trunk. The creature was now nowhere to be seen, but a flapping sound was beginning to fade. Nista swore, the creature had distracted her with the tree and taken off. She sighed and inspected where the tree had been broken.

The great log was really half a tree, the remainder still firmly rooted in the ground. The creature had to have been immensely powerful to break it in half. But only half the cut was jagged. The other half was clean, as if it had been the recipient of a severing charm. That was disturbing, for the list of malicious magic using creatures with fangs and wings was quite limited, and none of the options were pleasant. She checked for other signs of what the creature had been. Deep claw marks were all over the bark where the creature had sought to purchase. But no fur, no scales, no skin, no feathers, no hair, were anywhere to be seen. But wait a moment- the centauress reared on her hind legs and rested her forefeet against the trunk of the tree. Reaching up she plucked a soft tuft from the gnarled bark of the tree. In the darkness she couldn't tell the color, but she was fairly certain the feather would be green.

 She cantered further into the woods and gazed around, straining her senses for any hint of where it might be.

"Sister," a kind voice called in her native language out of the dark. She smiled and nodded to the other centaur.

"Brother," she greeted the other centaur in the old formality.

"You seek something," he asked, coming to stand beside her.

"Indeed," she said, "a dark shape. There are dark things out tonight. Be wary."

"I saw that which you speak of." The centaur gazed to the heavens, "Mars is bright."

"But look," she said pointing, "The north star also rises. With him comes the dog star,"

"Truly. You see it then sister."

"Indeed. And that is why I am where my star has guided me."

"Yes," The other centaur nodded, "Soon, very soon, our stars will either align or fall apart completely."

"Let us hope for happy alignment,"

"Good night Sister. May the darkness not plague you."

"The stars guide you,"

"Nista?" McGonagall greeted her when she returned. Stonehoof shook her head.

"I don't think I have ever seen anything that fast," she said, "and I completely lost it when it began to fly. How is the boy?"

"Poppy has him in the infirmary. Fleur and Severus are testing the poison to see what that creature was."

"What was it after?"

"What we have in here," Minerva indicated the door, "The magic quill that writes the names of children who will come to Hogwarts when they turn 11," Minerva explained. Nista nodded, "That would be a powerful tool,"

"Which is why we have it guarded so well. You said the creature had wings? We should go tell Severus, it might narrow the search down. You didn't happen to see what they looked like, did you?"

"Feathery. It was too dark to get a look at the color, but I was able to find this," Nista produced the small green feather. McGonagall picked it out of her colleague's hand and examined it. It was a bright emerald green and was about the size of the tip of her finger. The end was covered in fluffy down a shade of green lighter than the rest.

"A Griffin perhaps? No, Griffins do not have fangs and rarely are they green, though I've heard some like to use feather dye. A Chimera perhaps? Some of them have feathery wings and the snake tail would have been able to harm the boy," McGonagall suggested.

"Possibly. Two strikes from a Manticore's tail might have done that too,"

"Yes, but most manticores are red or black. I only hope it isn't some sort of new creature," McGonagall shuddered. There was a reason that the creation of new magical creatures had been banned. The results were terrible.

"We'll take this to the headmaster and he'll no doubt consult Hagrid,"

"Right," The two professors started down towards the dungeon where Severus was brewing an antidote for Nodens.

Outside in the dark night sky a feathery creature wheeled around, returning the way it had come. It had its orders.

**********

Aftermath

**********

News of the attack spread quickly the next morning. The first year Gryffindors were terribly upset that one of their classmates had been attacked. Filtch was upset that someone had been out of his tower on that evening, but Dumbledore had placated him, saying that perhaps the boy had seen something and had been attacked when he'd gone to investigate. Nodens was an exemplary student and was one of the few first years who didn't have black marks against them for breaking the school curfew rules. Filtch had grudgingly agreed, and had continue to put another coat of "Repell-all" wood finish on the Registrar's door (It had been a good door and therefore deserved a reward.)

Ginny listened with half an ear as McGonagall addressed her house. Doubtless Flitwick, Snape and Sprout were doing the same with their own houses. The victim had been a Gryffindor and thus Ginny's house was much more antsy. Suzannah was comforting Pavarti and Lavender who kept moaning about seeing dark tidings in divination and not doing anything about it beforehand. Lisa was falling asleep where she stood but she (and many others) wore frowns. The first year had been well liked by his fellow Gryffindors and already the older students were suspecting foul play. Slytherin (yes, the entire house) was probably involved too. Nodens had  been bitten after all and many Slytherins were snake freaks.

McGonagall glared at the Weasley twins who were muttering something about 'dance number gumdrops" and "Snake happy Slytherins". She ordered them not to jump to any silly conclusions and sent them off to breakfast with assurances that Nodens was well taken care of and that everything was under control. Classes would begin normally. The students groaned as they trudged off to class, but stopped moaning after another particularly cold scowl from McGonagall.

"Hey, wake up," Ginny nudged her friend awake.

" Oh, hey Ginny," Lisa said. They joined the river of students flowing towards the great hall.

"Didn't get much sleep?" Ginny asked.

"Nah.," she yawned, " scream must've woken me up. I had the weirdest dreams last night. Anyway, I'll eat and I'll be fine," she said as she trudged towards the hall. "So does this sort of thing happen a lot here?" Lisa asked as breakfast appeared on the table plates.

"What sort of thing?"

"Attacks in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, but usually Harry's on the receiving end," Ron interjected. He sat next to Lisa and smiled what he thought of as his best smile.

"Yeah, that's true enough," Harry commented, his voice dry with gallows humor.

"We'd heard things were bad over here, but it was history class. It's so different actually being a part of it," Lisa, oblivious to Ron's attempts at being charming, mused. She took a helping of eggs and bacon and began picking at it.

"You don't think he was targeted because he's not human, do you? Ginny asked the table at large.

"Dunno. Could be," Ron shrugged.

"There were rumors that the giants were more inclined towards You-Know-Who's side before," Hermione, ever the font of knowledge, informed them.

"Yeah but those were just rumors. And if they were already firmly on that side, why's Dumbledore bothering trying to make 'em allies?" Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, I think a lot of that was rumor," Ginny said, "I used to think otherwise, but now that I can put faces on these people, I've changed my opinion," Ron nodded agreement. His own opinion had also changed drastically.

"That's probably why Dumbledore brought them to the school," Harry thought aloud. The others nodded agreement. "I mean with Madame Maxime and Hagrid and the three students? There have to be other people who're nice like them," the other students nodded again and the table fell into silence.

"All I know," Ron abandoned his efforts at charming and was pulling out a transfiguration book for a little breakfast reading, "Is that if we find out any Slytherins were involved, my brothers are going to see to it that they're dancing and singing for the rest of the term, and that's just the nicent thing they plan on doing,"

"Wonderful, a Slytherin chorus line. Do you think we could convince Fred and George to get them to sing silly love songs to one another?" Hermione asked.  Ron grinned.

"I bet we could!" He smiled but it was half hearted. The Gryffindors were worried about their housemate and laughter at the expense of Slytherin was a welcome escape. But still, it was an idea for a happier time.

Classes that day were subdued, as the shaken students dealt with that had happened in the night. Snape's class was taught by Fleur. Snape was busy mixing more antidote potion for Nodens and Fluer gave a running commentary for the class as Snape hurredly mixed and brewed. A muscle in Snape's cheek began to twitch and he glared at the student teacher a few times. Her accent was beginning to get on his nerves and the running commentary was distracting. He only hoped some of the students were getting some of the material down as he chopped and ground. There were a few altercations between Gryffindors and Slytherins, but nothing that resulted in anything more serious than a detention.

Professor Stonehoof announced another special visitor class for the next day and had taken the students out into the fields to practice their disarming spells on one another and the different ways of thawrting an attacker. The students' morale lifted a bit as they conjured ropes, glue, and other such hindering items around one another's feet. They had a short impromptu contest to see who could Expelliarmus a wand the furthest distance. Dean, Ron and Harry had tied at a decent 25 feet, Lavender had the shortest distance at a paltry 5 feet. She cheered when she got to Divination. Trelawney wailed about seeing dark times and comforted Lavender and Pavarti (again and again) about not acting on what they'd predicted weeks ago.

"Ah, my dears," her wavering voice rose above the blazing fire and sobbing girls, "Often what we have seen is not fully clear until after the horrid events have passed,"

"Yeah, I bet," Ron snorted from behind is transfiguration book. Harry nodded and poked the soggy tea leaves in the bottom of his cup. He prodded them into the shape of a dog just for kicks and hard a hard time not laughing when Trelawney predicted that he would be the next victim of the creature that had attacked the Gryffindor first year.

Hermione caught George and Fred in the hallways and spoke to them about "love song" jokes and random dance numbers brought on by enchanted sweets. Her day had been progressively better and she'd decided that the twin glares the boys wore as they stalked around school had had to go. She explained the gist of her idea and had watched with a smile as the boys exchanged grins and then went to class talking and gesturing wildly about how they could accomplish setting a "Spontaneous dance number" charm on a common toffee. Hermione almost felt sorry for the Slytherins. Almost.

a/n: not too confusing eh? The next chapter will be a bit more entertaining I hope. We're gonna see more Sirius, find out what the heck that creature was, (guesses? Anyone?)  and the story is really going to get going. Gonna have some Ron/Hermione shippy-ness in later chapters despite what it looks like now and I have been dancing around the Idea of some d/g hints but I am not sure if those will work or not at this point. At this point I have only about half of what I have written posted (because the other half is woefully unpolished) I am now on Spring break! Woo! So look for more chapters and a humor story about everyone's favorite eccentric headmaster and his goat-charming brother.