A/N: I own nothing, JKR owns the characters and everything else but the idea

A/N: It's only b/c of the reviews that I'm still trying to write during the work week.

A/N: Tell me your thoughts --- we'll see what happens. I could have asked for a show of hands who wanted to see him turn into a phoenix or a griffin but I decided to go a different way. I haven't read very many fics but my money says there are probably enough of those to go around.

CH18 Challenging Change

"Padfoot, what is that? What it he becoming?"

"I don't know. But it looks like whatever it is, he's not doing a very good job of it."

"I doubt that's the case. He always does well and besides, he absolutely has to do this." Sirius turned when he heard the door open only to see the headmaster enter.

"Ah! Most excellent! The centaurs were right. Harry is going to be the only member of our Order than can save it. I'm so glad that they were right about which creature was going to choose Harry --- "

Sirius and Lupin were both surprised to hear this. Lupin was the first to be able to speak. "You mean to say that this is what is supposed to be happening? We though Harry's transformation was going wrong. It only looks like part of him is transforming. And the parts that are transforming don't look like any creature I've seen before. The biggest change I noticed is that his hair is growing longer. I expected the transformation to be less subtle. What is he?"

With the familiar twinkle in his eye the elder wizard said, "you'll find out soon enough. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for you. But I think when you see what he is that you both will understand why it's going to be him that can save the Order." And with that, he left.

"I can't believe he didn't tell us Padfoot. We have every right to know."

"I can; I'll bet he's punishing us for all the mean things we say about Snape. He is just having a little fun at our expense. I used to wonder if he had any hobbies but I guess know we know. I guess all we can do is to wait."

Somewhere else on the castle grounds ---

"Fred, you're a genius!"

"George calm down. We don't even know if we're going to be able to pull it off. We don't know enough magic to do it yet. Do you really think that you and I could learn enough magic in the next few months to pull something like that off? I was only saying that it would be great IF we could do it --- I wasn't suggesting that we try it."

"Don't be daft. You know how hard we can apply ourselves if the incentive is right. We can learn enough magic to do this; I know we can. And besides, the benefits outweigh the risks."

"George, we have to be sure about this. We are really going to have to buckle down and spend a lot of extra time studying just to even have a chance to pull this off. We wouldn't be able to spend as much time inventing things for the joke shop. You and I both know that we owe it to Harry to be able to open next year --- he gave us one thousand galleons."

"Fred you know that in the end it will be worth it. Harry is going to appreciate this much more than if we opened the shop two months earlier. Besides, the magic we learn to do while preparing for this might help us with some new inventions. It's going to be worth it. Now, close your eyes."

"What? Are you insane?"

"Just close your eyes."

"Alright but if you try to hex me I'll tell Mum who it was last summer that enchanted all of her undergarments to shrink whenever she raised her voice."

"I'm not going to hex now so close your eyes." Fred finally closed his eyes.

"Good. Now you are going to clear your mind of everything but Snape. Now I want you to imagine the look on his face when we pull this off."

Fred smiled and said, "Alright --- we'll do it!"

And still somewhere else at Hogwarts ---

"Weasley! I have already told you that you need to be more careful where you are aiming" Professor McGonagall chastised him.

"Sorry professor" Ron mumbled. He really was sorry. He wanted to get through this lesson and on to the next one just as much as the two ladies did.

"Professor," Hermione chimed in. "Perhaps Ron could do some target practice on something --- er --- something besides me for a little while."

"No, I'm sorry Granger," and Hermione realized that she actually did look very sorry. "You know that Weasley has good aim against dummy targets but gets anxious in a real time duel. The only way to work to get him past this is to work through it. I do think you should be rewarded with fifteen points for your house for being such a good sport." She smiled at Hermione. "Now back to work"

Hermione enjoyed her new classes and she was especially grateful to get the head of her house as her mentor. She was learning a lot more than in her earlier years here, even more than last year with all the extra work they did with Harry to get him ready for his tasks. But still, Hermione secretly wished she could give back the points and let Ron train with someone else.

All they were supposed to be doing was hexing each other's wand hand making it impossible for the other person to cast a spell. (Professor McGonagall had told them that while a lot of wizards cast shielding spells around their wand, they often forget about their wand hand.) But so far today Ron had: swelled her nose to five times its original size, turned her legs into fins, cemented her face leaving her unable to breathe until Professor McGonagall applied the counter curse, made her cough up flobberworms, and countless other horrible things. They began again.

"Horibles motindus" He had done it --- sort of.

Ron had turned Hermione's wand hand into a vice. However this had the opposite effect than intended since it was now next to impossible for her NOT to be able to hold the wand with her new hand. With her new "vice hand" she couldn't drop her wand if her prefects badge depended on it.

"Back to the old drawing board," Ron said to himself as Professor McGonagall once again restored Hermione back to her normal state. He cast an apologetic look towards Hermione before trying again. Hermione was trying to think about anything except what Ron was going to do to her next. She cast her mind around and finally ended with Harry (it didn't seem like the three of them were spending as much time together this year as the others but that was mainly due to the new classes) and what he had been doing in all of his visits with Sirius. She realized that she and Ron hadn't had much chance to talk to Lupin nor Sirius. She was hoping that fighting the Dark wizards weren't keeping them preoccupied. She also wondered what type of lessons Harry was having with Dumbledore. He hadn't talked much about his lessons at all but had listened intently to Ron and Hermione talking about theirs. Whatever it was that he was learning, it had to be more exciting than being a dummy for Ron to use for target practice.

How right she was.

"Moony, it's been over an hour. Perhaps we should transform him back. From the shoulders up he hasn't changed one single bit except for the hair. And I don't know what that is growing out from his midsection but I don't like the looks of it."

"Patience Padfoot patience --- It looks to me like he's still making progress. That tail of his is still slowly growing. It may not be much but it's enough to tell us that he's still working on transforming and not on transforming back and you know how important it is for him to do it on his first attempt because he can't use the potion any more to help him. Besides even though we don't know what he's becoming we do know that Dumbledore thinks he's right on track. Let's just wait a little while longer before doing anything."

"Patience had never been one of my strong suits --- "

Moony interrupted "You don't have to tell me that old friend."

Sirius glared up at his friend before breaking into a wide smile. "Right. As I was saying --- I just want to make sure nothing goes wrong. I know I know, patience."

Lupin just smiled at his friend without saying a word. Another thirty minutes passed before the transformation was complete and Harry opened his eyes.

Lupin gasped.

Sirius' knees buckled. His legs would no longer support him.

Harry wanted to ask what was wrong but found that he was unable to speak. He sort of expected that he wouldn't be able to speak but he thought that maybe some noise would come out like a bark or a meow or something like that but he couldn't make any noise at all. He wanted to know what was wrong with his godfather but he couldn't ask him. He wanted to know what creature (or partial creature because they told him that might also happen) he had turned into but he couldn't ask that nor could he ask anything else.

"Harry is that you?" Lupin asked. Harry nodded. He could hear and understand them and yet he was unable to talk to them. He supposed that maybe speaking in your transformed state was one of the lessons that he had left to learn. It was really frustrating because he really wanted to know what he looked like. His appearance seemed to have quite an impact on his two mentors. Was he that ugly and vicious looking? Of course that could be a good thing too he supposed. Harry was starting to get very worried about Sirius; he hoped he hadn't transformed into a dementor.

Sirius finally seemed to find his voice again. "Harry, can that really be you? You're so --- you're really --- you are so beautiful."

Harry couldn't say for sure what adjective he thought was going to come out of his godfather's mouth but that certainly was not the one he would have bet on. Was Sirius really starting to cry? It was definitely time to transform back and find out what was going on. Just then he saw Dumbledore enter the classroom.

"Harry. I see that you're done now. Excellent work, really quite magnificent. Transforming into any creature is difficult but transforming, as you have, into an extraordinary magical creature --- well that's quite a feat even for advanced wizards. I daresay that you're wondering what's going on even if it's just a little bit." He paused to wait for Harry to finish nodding his head. "I see Sirius certainly wasn't expecting to see what he's seen today. Harry, you're probably wondering why you can't speak." Harry nodded his had even more fervently in reply to this question. "Harry try saying --- Will you tell me what you see? What is it that I can be?"

No one spoke. There was utter silence.

"Go ahead Harry, try repeating what I said."

Harry repeated the words as the headmaster bade him and was surprised to hear a woman's voice repeat Dumbledore's message.

"Go ahead Sirius," Dumbledore was prompting him to do what someone had to do. "Show Harry what he has become. Words couldn't do his present form justice and it's not fair to keep him wondering any longer. After all, the three of us already know."

Sirius turned to look at the headmaster as he was addressing him. He just nodded numbly. At first, he was unable to move and remained kneeling on the floor. Everyone was watching Sirius to see what he would do. Then, finally, the wizard got to his feet and conjured up a large mirror on the wall so Harry would be able to see everything. Lupin went over to stand beside Sirius as they waited for Harry's reaction.

Harry began walking to the mirror. He couldn't help wondering what he had become that had gotten such strong emotional reactions from Sirius and Lupin. Whatever he was, Dumbledore seemed to be expecting it. The headmaster also knew how to get him to be able to speak. Well at least he knew that if he could speak then he wasn't a dementor.

He looked up into the mirror and gaped at the image looking back at him.



A/N: You didn't really think you'd find out this chapter did you? I might write again tomorrow after work if I'm not too tired.