Title: Twining Transformations

Author: S.Malfoy

NOTE: These are not my characters, they are J.K Rowling's, and I make no money off of them whatsoever. However, it is my plot (at least hopefully haha).

It is a slash between SS/HP, seen later in the story, so you are warned.

Note 2: Well, since so many reviewers commented on how alike my story is to "The Familiar" I finally decided I should read it (since I had never heard of it before – still new to the slash scene). It was good, I'm sad to admit mine was similar, but it makes me more determined to make this particular plot unique to me. I hope you all still enjoy!

g0ldensnidget, a.k.a. Snitch: Jeez, now I'm embarassed! That's the second time you've caught me. I even knew it didn't sound right, but thanks for the corrections. -blushes-

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Chapter 4

Christmas Eve Day debacle

"Potter," Snape growled once the day was over and they were both settled in the dungeons.

"Caw?" Harry questioned mutinously.

"I know you went somewhere today," he purred evilly. "I will find out what you did, and I will make sure you pay. Just because our celebrity is stupid enough to get himself transformed into a bird doesn't mean the rules no longer apply to you."

"Caw-twerp-tweep," Harry replied rebelliously, turning his back towards the lounging Potions Master.

"Oh really?" Severus asked, glaring in fury. "Well, we'll just see who gets the upper hand!" With a swirl of his cloak he stormed into the bedroom, slamming the door.

Harry hung his head in disappointment. Looks like things will never change.

For the rest of the November month and into December, the tension was strained between Severus and his charge. Harry no longer went into the Potions class with him, instead he had already arrived by the time Snape entered. And he sat in the back of the room, closer to the two remaining –and tense - duo than to the Professor.

Severus tried to pretend the slight didn't hurt. He withdrew most of his tender-loving-care, not that Harry seemed to notice the difference.

But Harry did – but perhaps the Christmas break could heal some of the rift that had come between himself and Severus.

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Christmas Break

During the Christmas break, both Ron and Hermione left for home, leaving Harry alone with Snape. Ron was still pouting, and both Harry and Hermione had tried to explain their actions in regret. He refused to listen to reason, and so it became just like it had during the Triwizard competition – Harry and Hermione had become closer, though they both felt the aching loss of their friend. But they refused to back down, and so it stayed stilted between the friends.

Because of their renewed friendship, Harry got more studying done on the theories of magic – he could begin practicing the physical aspect as soon as he was transformed back into his human form.

Hermione had helped Harry pick out special wrapping paper for Snape's present and had been pleasantly surprised when Harry gave her the Christmas present he had gotten on the sly – a journal, tuned into Hermione's own magical essence, would write itself automatically, whatever she happened to be feeling at the time. All she had to do was open the book. He was embarrassed at the tears that fell from her eyes in gratitude at the gift and gave him his own gift – a little maroon and gold bird sweater that she had sewn herself with little cut-outs for the wings. It was 'to keep him warm in the dungeons' she said.

Ron left Hogwarts without exchanging gifts with either of them. He didn't invite Harry to visit the Burrow as well. Harry was pissed.

He appreciated Hermione's gift as the dungeons went from pleasantly cool to down right chilly. Although he felt he could contribute some of the coldness to Snape's personality as well the weather.

It was Christmas Eve, and for dinner Harry sat at the only table in the Great Hall next to Snape on a seat with books stacked so he could see over the edge. Only four other students had stayed behind for the holidays; three first years Harry only vaguely recognized, and Hannah Abbot from Hufflepuff.

The Great Hall was decked out in all its glory; trees the size of mountains adorned each corner and streams of garland hung from the ceiling. Snow fell from the magically enhanced sky, and a homey feeling made Harry sweet with contentment.

For the occasion, Dumbledore had insisted Harry don a miniature Santa hat that matched his maroon bird sweater, while forcing Snape to wear – much to his dismay – a pair of felt antlers. Severus scowled and snarled at everyone in the general vicinity and was altogether making everyone extremely uncomfortable. The week of detentions had been almost unbearable, and the antlers were not helping.

But Harry was looking forward to spending Christmas morning with Severus; he could hardly wait to see his expression when Harry gave him his gift.

Feeling the urge to splurge he grabbed a liver out of the bowl set in front of him, tearing into the soft meat happily. He didn't notice the faint frown of disgust on the other table members, steadily engrossed in his Almost Christmas dinner.

Snape tried to hide his smile – a twist of the lips that was commonly mistaken for a smirk, but Harry noted the difference. His hope was brightened into beams of miniature shiny rays of sunlight that seemed to radiate off him in waves. Snape, who didn't like sunlight, tried to move away from the beams.

But Harry never noticed and insisted on attacking a new spleen of an animal he chose not to identify – needless to say, people were wondering why one of the lower year Slytherins had been missing in action for a few days. He chuckled evilly.

Dumbledore opened some poppers and crackers, sending great flurries of spaghetti and confetti into the air, only smiling when the students and teachers cried out as the spaghetti hit some in the head and face. Harry grabbed a meatball that plunked him on the head, smiling enigmatically at the pieces that fell out of his mouth.

"Please, try to use some of those refined Gryffindor table manners," Snape remarked peevishly.

The door opened and everyone turned to look at the new arrival – Draco Malfoy. Harry groaned, looking away. What a way to ruin a party, he muttered to himself.

"Sorry I'm late everyone. Just had a few things to finish up before I could get here," he said, excusing himself.

"It's quite alright Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said congenially, waving his hand to conjure up another seat. "Come join us."

"Thank you, Headmaster," he replied politely. Harry made a gagging noise from beside the Potions Master, who glared at him in reprimand. Harry blinked his eyes innocently.

"To bad we couldn't have pheasant for dinner," Malfoy murmured nastily from across the table. Snape smirked at Harry's disgusted look.

"Caw-eep-tweet," Harry replied sweetly, ignoring the look of outrage on Severus' face.

"Potter, that was quite unnecessary. Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape growled with a glare emanating from his dark eyes.

"You can actually understand that, Professor?" Draco asked, puzzled.

"Well, one gets the general idea, Draco," Snape replied, waving his hand indifferently and choosing another topic to start – potions of course.

Harry tuned out the unfortunate discussion of one of his least favorite topics and instead centered on his favourite – mutilating the spleen in front of him. He attacked it viciously, envisioning it to be Draco Malfoy's face. It made the slime so much better tasting with that fantasy recording through his head.

He didn't notice the slightly green tinge appear to the faces of his dinner partners, or the great sigh heaved at the conclusion of his meal. He looked up from the last scraps disappearing off of his plate, smiling his bird grin that he knew would melt the frown off of a troll. It was right on target – the faces softened and some even grinned back at him.

As dinner ended, he looked hopefully up at Snape, into his dark eyes, pleading for an end to the feud that had begun between them. Wavering, Severus finally sighed and gave in, allowing Harry to crawl up his arm carefully to sit at his shoulder.

I'm going soft in my old age, he though spitefully.

He shut his eyes, shaking his head, and avoiding the twinkling blue eyes of Dumbledore. He stood up, nodded a polite goodbye to Draco, and carried himself stiffly away from the table and down to the dungeons, his antlers bobbing in time to his footsteps. The little bell on the end of Harry's Santa hat jingled happily, and Snape smirked at picture.

When they arrived to the dungeons, a comfortable silence had settled over the pair, and Snape sat in front of the fire with a large tome in his lap while Harry stared off into space. It was companionable, Harry thought with pleasure.

Looking around the room, he realized there was no Christmas tree or any sort of holiday spirit anywhere in the dungeons. He warbled a little sigh, the first noise in over an hour between the two. Severus looked up in surprise, forgetting Harry had even been present in the room the silence had been so complete.

"What is it?" he asked gruffly.

"Caw-er-soup," Harry said softly.

With a disgruntled sigh and a flick of his wand, Severus conjured up a small little Christmas tree in the corner of the room. It had tiny white blinking lights and a few glass bulbs dangling from its thin branches. A tiny silver bird sat atop the tree, its mouth opening and closing with a silent bird song. With no other expression on his face, he went back to reading, his dark eyes darting over the pages.

Harry was filled with complete satisfaction. He hopped down ducked underneath his bird stand and opened a little drawer that had been filled with an assortment of toys and food. Digging with his beak, he pulled out a gaily wrapped Christmas present tenderly before waddling over to the tree and setting it underneath the branches on the little carpet. Severus pretended he didn't see the motion.

Squeaking a happy sigh, he climbed gingerly back up to his wooden branch perch, dipping his beak into his water dish and lapping greedily. The spleen had made him a bit thirsty, and quenching his parchment, shut his eyes and arranged his neck in an impossible human trait and promptly fell asleep.

He didn't notice the next tiny package that was placed underneath the tree, side by side to his own gift. Banking the fire, Severus took a long glance at the pitch black eagle resting so peacefully by the tree, squirming with a mixture of joy and utter disgust. It made his belly feel as if he had swallowed a bucket full of live worms, and it made him uncomfortable.

Stupid boy, won't even appreciate anything I give him anyways, he tried to warn himself.

It didn't work. That night he lay awake, his dark eyes glittering in the blanket of night, trying desperately to revive the apathy that had endured through days of pain and boredom alike. Instead, he finally fell asleep to dream of midnight flying with a shadow floating soothingly behind him.

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It was near dawn that the stealth strike attacked. No one could have predicted a student would ever have the influence or power to buy such an exorbitant cloak. But then again, most people underestimated the influence even a child could have.

Under a guise disguising all body heat and human influences, the person easily penetrated Snape's protection. The spells the cloak could not protect and simply sidle by, were broken apart piece by piece. It took long hours of silent work, but the diligent person finally invaded the dungeons of the illustrious Professor Snape.

Harry never even saw the attack coming, so deeply comfortable in his trust of Severus. A bag was thrown over his head, swallowing his muffled shrieks and cries, and there was a spell on the bag to deaden his own innate magical powers. So he resorted to physical violence, slashing his beak deeply into the woven strands of the cloth. But it only rebounded the natural weapon, and he futilely tried using his claws as well.

Finally, he stopped, and found he had only succeeded in making himself exhausted. So he laid limply inside the bag, his breath exhaling in heaving gusts, his lungs winded. He heard soft, malicious laughter from the kidnapper.

"Don't even try little bird. You won't escape me," a discombobulated voice echoed eerily beside him. He heard the soft patter of the person's feet on the stone abruptly stop and he realized they had left the safety of the school behind. He began struggling anew, his heart pounding with fear and fury.

"Cut it out," came a harsh whisper along with a violent shake of the bag. Harry stopped fighting as his head was whipped annoyingly, and painfully, back and forth.

There were slight crunching noises as they moved through the dew frosted grasses over the grounds.

"Caw!" he tried to protest, but it came out muffled as his beak was clamped hard through the bag. He attempted to squawk in disgust but it only came out sounding obscene.

It seemed to take forever for the sleuth to traverse throughout the grounds, and Harry would have been tapping one clawed foot in impatience if he'd had the room. The sounds changed from crunchy grass to the sound of a dead leaves being squashed underneath footfalls. He only knew the sounds because he had the acute hearing of a bird; that, and well, he didn't know what else would make a squish sound like that.

Howls echoed through the night, and he shivered in sudden fear. I'm not being taken into the Forbidden Forest am I? I am! Maybe there are Death Eaters waiting for me, ready to slash my bird body and leave it for the werewolves to eat. Bloody heel...er...hell. Well, the person is sort of a heel anyways...

His inner musings were halted as the kidnapper paused. Harry couldn't hear anyone else around, so he figured they must either be waiting for someone or the person had suddenly been struck by a bad case of amnesia. He hoped for the latter.

Then, when the silence had grown heavy and his bladder was getting full, the bag was shifted and hung onto a hard surface. The draw-top was knotted and wrapped around what he assumed was a tree branch because he could feel the bag swaying.

"Caw?" he tried to question.

"Shut up, you stupid bird," the voice muttered, irritated.

"Twerp?" he tried again.

The voice didn't deign to answer, instead the person cackled in a quite alarming fashion. "Let's see how you like to spend the night in the Forest."

"Twat," Harry muttered.

He was rudely whacked upside the head and he yelped in surprise and pain. Then, suddenly, there was only silence.

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The next morning Severus woke up, startled at the heavy silence that enveloped the still dungeons. He was shocked; he had gone an entire night without a nightmare forcing him into consciousness. As far as he could remember, he hadn't had a single nightmare at all!

Confused, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, his face relaxed from a night spent with hours without waking. He even decided to shampoo his hair twice, though not because he wanted to be presentable; he just decided he wanted his hair to be cleaner than usual.

He brushed his teeth and used a drying spell that fluffed his hair gently around his severe face. He donned his usual robes and entered the large living area, surprised to see his swirling entrance wasted on an empty room. Frowning, he looked quickly into the lab areas that were joined with his personal offices. Finding no trace of Harry, he was beginning to become worried. Even if Harry had exited the rooms, Severus would have felt his presence through all the barriers that had been erected for his safety.

That's when he felt it – the absolute vulnerability.

He threw some of the Floo powder into the fireplace and stuck his head inside, calling out the 'Headmaster's personal quarters'.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," Severus requested, waiting only a moment before Albus answered.

"Yes, Severus, can I help you?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.

"Headmaster, there's a problem," Snape said seriously.

His eyes immediately hardened. "What's happened?"

"Someone has taken Harry."

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A/N: Wooo, I wonder who it was? –Shrugs- You'll just have to wait and see!

And did Harry really eat the spleen of a missing Slytherin? Only time will tell!