Chapter Eighty-five

Araminta tumbled to the ground between two sticker bushes. Twenty feet away, Melannen jumped the fence. Twenty-five feet away, she saw herself fumble with the Time-Turner and then disappear.

"Melannen!" she exclaimed. "I have to save Melannen before something happens to her. Hogsmeade is a rough town!"

Araminta tugged on the bars of the fence, but they wouldn't budge. She tried to slip between them, but her hips were too wide. She tried to climb the fence, but it was simply too high.

"What am I going to do?" Araminta moaned.

She was struck with a sudden electric jolt of inspiration. Araminta backed up about twenty feet, braced herself, and said "Animagus." She was conscious of her body changing shape, growing equine. She pawed her hoof against the ground and made a run at the fence.

A little more...a little more...jump! Araminta told herself. She wasn't sure she would make it.... She would probably be impaled on the spikes that topped the iron bars....

Yet, she cleared the fence by a dozen feet. Araminta twisted her head to look at her back. Enormous, feathery wings had sprouted there and they flapped gracefully to hold her in the air. She couldn't tell for sure, of course, but she had the sneaking suspicion that her unicorn horn was gone. She was no longer a unicorn; she was a pegasus!

A memory came back to her, a memory with Professor McGonagall's voice: "Of course you can. Actually, everyone can, if their magic is strong enough, up until the time they--well, up until the time they lose their virginity. Then their Animagus form is different, and reflects who they are as an adult. You don't hear of children turning into unicorns very often because most don't have your advanced magical skill."

Araminta had found her adult form. Well, McGonagall did warn you that it would change, she thought, and then she blushed, remembering the afternoon when Snape had almost caught Harry in her bedroom in the past.

There was no time to think about this, though. She had to think of Melannen! Araminta flew down to the ground and concentrated on being herself.

"Melannen!" she shouted as she ran down the road to catch the other girl.

"Yeah? You decided to come along after all?" Melannen waited in the road, cracking her gum.

"No," said Araminta as she caught up. "What you're doing is wrong and it's going to cost your House points. You're putting yourself in danger and you're putting me in danger. I think that you don't like yourself very much, and that you have low-self esteem, so you are trying to impress me by being a punk. Well, you should now this. I'm impressed by people who are true to themselves and who aren't influenced by their peers, except when their peers are right. Today, Melannen, I'm right. Come back to Hogwarts with me."

Araminta waited. She hoped this was going to work.

Melannen looked at the road to Hogsmeade, and then back at Araminta. "True to myself?"

Araminta nodded.

"Well, you know, I've really been itching to spend a day in the library, and I hear Hogwarts has an excellent collection."

Araminta looped her arms through Melannen's in a friendly way. "I've heard that same rumor."

They walked back toward the castle, each lost in their own thoughts. For Melannen, these were thoughts of spellbooks and volumes of magical history; for Araminta, these were thoughts of her future. Harry would surely be waiting for her at Hogwarts, now that she'd changed the past. They'd ask Dumbledore to marry them, and then, tonight, they'd spend the night in the Hogwarts honeymoon suite which was reserved for just such an occasion.

They'd spend tonight in each other's arms, as they were destined to.