Harry Potter and the Sanctuary of Light

Chapter 3 Fur and Claws

A couple of weeks since his visit, Harry sat in the middle of his cell concentrating. Learning to be an Animagus was harder than he'd thought it would be. Even with the information placed in his brain by Rea, learning to access the animal part of himself was very difficult. And it didn't help when his attention strayed. At the moment, he was remembering the first time he'd met Laurea.

flashback

At the start of his fifth year, all he could think about was getting into the great hall for the start of term feast. He'd been running with Ron and Hermione to get out of the rain when he slammed into somebody. They'd both gone facedown in the mud and he was left behind by his friends who were so focused on getting out of the rain, hadn't noticed him go down.

"I am sorry!!" He pushed himself to his feet, and then held out his hand for the cloaked figure to take.

"Oh, that's perfectly alright." She took his hand and stood up. "I should have been watching where I was going instead of gaping at the castle." She tried to wipe her dirty hands on her cloak, only to find the entire piece of clothing covered in mud. He chuckled at her disgusted expression, then gestured for them to continue up the hill to the castle.

"Are you new here this year? I don't think I've seen you before." He questioned as they walked.

"Oh, no you're correct. I've been sent here by my people for one year to experience wizarding culture."

"Your people?" He quirked an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Yes," She looked up at him with an excited smile. "I'm an elf. My father is the Ambassador to the Magical Community of Britain, and he thought this would be a good experience for me. Elven magic is a lot different from human magic. It should be very interesting."

"So, Elves as in Lord of the Rings?" He'd read the books by J.R.R. Tolkien the previous summer while trying to forget the events of the third task. Dudley had received them from some distant relative of his father and had thrown them into his old second bedroom, now Harry's, as soon as they'd been unwrapped.

"Oh! You've read the books. Yes, like that. Well, kind of. The books were fictional, but the author based the elves of Lothlorien and Rivendell off of my people. The trilogy by Mr. Tolkien is very popular among the elves."

The two continued talking until they reached the great hall. And after she'd been sorted into Gryffindor, he'd been appointed as her guide for the rest of the year, much to Hermione's envy.

end flashback

Now he was working on finding his animagus form. He'd spent the last couple of weeks learning to meditate and reach a level where he could completely clear his thoughts. As his mind blanked, shape started to form in his subconscious. It was small, with a long furry body. As it came into focus, he almost choked. A ferret??? Thoughts of Malfoy were quickly banished as he studied the creature. Its fur was completely black with dark-silver tips. Emerald green eyes shone from its face, and a small silver lightning bolt was formed out of silver hairs on its forehead. Tiny silver claws sparkled from its small paws.

Well, I guess it's better than a rat... A grin shone from his face. He was about to leave his meditative state when the ferret started to change. Its shape grew indistinct and began growing bigger and bigger. When it was finally done, Harry stared. A great leopard with dark silver fur and black spots sat staring at him. Again, it had green eyes, silver claws, and a small silver lightening bolt on its head. Trying to process the thought that he had two animagus forms, he almost yelled out loud when the animal in front of him once again changed shape into a brilliant phoenix. Black with dark-silver and light-silver feathers in its wings and tail, again with the similar marks of green eyes, silver talons, and silver lightning bolt were evident on the magnificent creature.

When he finally opened his eyes, Harry was speechless. Three animagus forms??? Then he started to grin. It was all he could do to not yell and shout in excitement. When he'd finally calmed down, he sat back down to try to change. I'll try the ferret form first, just in case I get the ridiculous urge to roar or sing or some such thing...

Then concentrating, he pictured the ferret form in his mind. Saw each detail of it like a picture of it in his head. Then whispered, "Animans transformo." He felt his body shrink, become long and slinky, felt hair and claws sprout from his skin. When he finally stopped changing, he opened his eyes. An enormous room lay before him. His nose twitched, and he pressed low to the ground in caution at the sight of the unfamiliar place. Creeping around the room, he inspected the floor and walls with careful eyes. Then his human mind came back in control, and Harry was instantly ecstatic. If anyone had come into the room at that moment, it's very possible their feet would have been attacked by an insanely hyper ferret.

After he'd finished scampering wildly around the room and restraining his curious ferret mind from jumping in the water barrel in order to see what was in there, he changed back to his human form. He clapped a hand over his mouth to hold in the shout of triumph, and ended up grinning at absolutely nothing for the next twenty minutes.

When he'd finally gotten a hold of himself, he tried out his remaining two forms. As a leopard, the cell had become quite cramped. After changing back, he was even gladder that he'd chosen to become a ferret first. Experiencing the fight between animal and human as a ferret gave him the knowledge he'd needed to control the leopard. He changed to the phoenix, then after experimenting with flying in the cramped cell, he became human again.

He needed to plan this. Laurea had been right when she said that the wizarding world would suspect her of aiding him in his escape. Then a devious thought came to mind. For the last few days, the guards had been talking loudly about the Minister coming to visit Azkaban the next week. What better way to escape than to implicate the man semi-responsible for his imprisonment. With that satisfying thought in mind, Harry lay down to sleep.