"This is so embarrassing..." Harry's thought was shadowed with waves of mortification. Ron, Draco, Ginny and Hermione all agreed one hundred percent, though the twins didn't seem to care one way or the other.
It had been perhaps a week since they had awoken to find themselves stuck in the bodies of fully formed animals. The animagus lessons hadn't been any help as of yet, though the self-control lessons with Remus had continued to help. These lessons were now daily and took up most of the day as they could no longer take any of their classes. While Ginny's paws were still agile enough to hold a quill and, rather sloppily, write her essays, she was not being required to continue working while the others did nothing.
In the week since the attempt at a cure, no one had seen much of Professor Snape. He rarely even showed up for lessons, piling tons of written work, reading and essays on his students before storming back into his private lab. He was taking their regression into full animals rather personally and was working almost non-stop with the samples as he worked on a new cure.
The first few days had been fun as they learned that the castle's wards now registered them as familiars. Having the entire castle open to their wandering whims had been entertaining and Fred and George had been threatened with expulsion if they were caught in any of the girls' dorms one more time. Hermione and Ginny had been wandering in the Library's restricted section almost every night, the cougar's night vision and the otter's paws allowing them to search out a variety of topics without being caught.
Ron had been following in his older brother's footprints, though not literally. He turned out to be a lot sneakier than the twins and flew around the castle towers, his extremely sharp eagle vision allowing him to see all sorts of things he would normally get in trouble for seeing. Harry couldn't join in such antics as he was too obvious and amused himself racing through the halls and driving Filch up the wall.
Draco seemed to find these Gryffindor antics beneath his dignity and refused to partake in any spying. Of course, knowing Malfoy, he probably got to wander into the Slytherin girls' dorm any time he wanted, regardless of form. About the only thing he seemed to do was lurk beneath the tables in the Great Hall. It was rather entertaining to watch as he alternated between using canine tactics and getting things passed from the table to his muzzle with snarling to frighten the lower years and Hufflepuffs.
After a few days, during which they had explored all the places familiars had access to, usually with Crookshanks and Hedwig acting as guides, Colin Creevey had convinced them to try on blindfolds for a day and find their ways about the castle using just their other senses. That had been great fun and had even amused Sirius enough that he had joined in the game. At one point, they had overheard him commenting to Remus about how they should have used their animagus forms like Fred and George had been back when they were in school. Remus had responded by whacking Sirius upside the head with a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet.
Then, of course, they became rather bored. They didn't realize how dreadfully boring the castle was when all the other students were in class and they couldn't use their wands. After lounging around the common rooms for a day or two, taking breaks only for necessary trips down to the Great Hall or kitchens for meals, or outside for other things... The next issue to be dealt with arrived.
"Under normal circumstances this wouldn't be an issue.. But you've all been running in and out of the castle as you please for five days and it must be taken care of." Professor McGonagall had managed to corner the entire group in the Entrance Hall. "But seeing as you can't seem to tend to this yourselves, I have recruited assistants..."
Waving her hand to draw their attention, the seven Animalities looked around. They were surrounded! Every first year in the school, regardless of house, was wearing their sturdiest Herbology gear and a determined look was on each face. Looking vaguely alarmed, the seven older students backed closer together and Ron tried to take off from his perch on Harry's back. A flick of McGonagall's wand and both Ron and Harry were essentially rendered flightless.
"I'm sorry, Mr Weasley... But there will be no escape. For any of you." Another gesture and Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell arrived. "They will be supervising and have orders to make sure the first years carry out their task, at any cost..." A sympathetic look crossed her stern features for a moment. "I know this will be embarrassing, but you seven are starting to stink up the common rooms." With that last comment causing the first years and supervisors to giggle and snicker, McGonagall swept back to her office.
"You heard Professor McGonagall... Come along then." Angelina giggled, pointing her wand in a threatening manner at the animals and gesturing for them to head outside.
The seven were led, at wand-point, outside where Remus and Sirius were filling up two large, shallow tubs with sudsy water. It seemed the two Marauders found the situation as amusing as everyone else, seeing as they were laughing openly.
"Now... Who's first?"
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
Several hours later, the cleaner and definitely much nicer smelling Animalities were once more listening to Sirius as he went on about past exploits. He was supposed to be going over the Animagus transformation, but tended to easily wander off topic. Remus didn't bother trying to bring Sirius back on track as he did throw in comments about the transformation from time to time. At the moment, Sirius was telling them about when they were first learning to transform and forgot their clothes half the time in the process.
"That can't be nearly as bad as being felt up by a bunch of first years." Harry shuddered with the comment. Though he knew it had been necessary, it still felt funky to be given a bath like a house pet. He, like all the others, was now wearing an over sized cloak. Remus had taken to putting the cloaks on each of them at the beginning of each lesson, just in case they managed to turn into a nude human...
Ron made a funny sound that was the avian equivalent of a snort. "At least you've got some fur. Do you have any idea how violated I felt with them trying to get all my feathers clean?" He was mortally offended by the whole deal.
"At least we were lucky it was first years... It would have been more embarrassing to have the older students feeling us up..." Leave it to Fred and George to point out that things could have been worse. "Just think of what might have happened if Angelina had been the one with her hands all over you, Ronnikins."
With a strangled squawk, Ron buried his head under a glossy red-gold wing.
Sirius had paused his story when they started talking about the bath again. "You know, as fun as it was watching you try to melt your fur and feathers with blushes... You really do need to concentrate and see if you can make yourselves take on your human forms again. Unless you really want to be bathed by the first years again in a few days..."
As he had hoped, all of them turned their minds once more on concentrating... At least for a minute they did. Not long after the actual lesson started, a small sound that they couldn't really describe drew their attention.
"It worked!" Ginny was bouncing in place, the cloak drawn tightly around her. She wasn't a human, though. Standing where the otter had been moments before was the half-breed they had grown used to. She still had the super short auburn fur covering her and paws for feet. Not to mention the stubby claws and thick tail, but at least she wasn't a full animal anymore. "We were trying to get back to our human forms. We forgot that we weren't humans when the full animal forms were forced upon us!" She squeaked with excitement over being the first one to get it right.
"Congratulations Ginny!" Remus gave Ginny some chocolate. "You can go ahead and go back to the castle if you want."
"Hang on.. I want to try something first." Ginny closed her eyes, concentrating on all the information they had learned on the animagus transformation and a moment later she was once more an otter. Opening her eyes, she squeaked with delight and changed back and forth several times. Thankfully she had her cloak every time she turned back into a half-breed though it wasn't always there when she turned into the otter.
"Ginny! We would all feel a lot better if you would go put some clothes on!" Hermione's horrified voice caused Harry and Draco to snicker and Ginny's brothers to vehemently agree!
"All right... I'm going. Just don't forget to picture the cloak!" With that, Ginny turned into an otter and scampered swiftly back up to the castle. After all, running as an otter was safer than running in just a cloak.
"Now that we know what was wrong, get cracking." Sirius made a chopping motion and the others tried to remember how they had looked in their half-breed forms.
Three hours later the last of the Animalities made his way back up to the castle to put some clothes on and head to bed. It had taken so long because once George had figured out his form and returned, they had discovered that the seemingly identical twins had more than their scent to separate them and Fred had taken the longest of all to figure out just how he was different.
All in all, it was a rather good day.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
Several days later, during Transfiguration class, Harry, Ron and Hermione were whispering softly while turning their tea cups into lanterns. Their matter was on the increasingly distant behavior of the twins.
"I don't care, as long as they aren't turning my things into spiders, they can do whatever they want."
"It just seems odd that they've been so close since the first accident and now don't want anything to do with us."
"They're probably just planning a prank now that we're getting back into the swing of things."
"Yeah, now that they can sneak into the other Houses and up into the girls' dorms, there's a whole new area of Hogwarts they haven't been able to prank yet."
"Still, it is strange that they would be keeping so distant."
"Did you ever stop to think that they're keeping distant because you and Ron are prefects and they don't want you turning them in for what they're planning?"
Both Ron and Hermione looked offended at that suggestion and the conversation died as Hermione successfully transfigured a rather intricately designed lantern. It wasn't until they were leaving class that she even remembered her earlier suspicions that the twins were up to no good.
"Umm... Harry... Ron... What class did the twins have while we were in Transfiguration?"
"I think they were supposed to be in Divination, why?"
But Hermione never answered, freezing as she stepped out of the classroom and her senses went on full alert. Without even thinking of trying to say anything, she dropped her bag and tore off at top speed.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
(Here's where you might want to go back and reread the Prologue if you don't remember how it went. The next part of this chapter takes up where the Prologue left off.)
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
Fred and George screeched to a halt at the end of the corridor. They had finally noticed that they had lost Hermione's scent. A quick gesture and they turned, backtracking and sniffing like bloodhounds on the hunt. They couldn't let her escape. After all the times she had viciously attacked them since the situation started, they were finally going to get her back. Sure their plan was rather childish, but it was all they could bring themselves to do to the cougar.
George waved, pointing toward the door to the bathroom where the entire fiasco had started and nodded his head. Fred quickly crossed the empty corridor and tested the door only to find it latched. He rolled his eyes, like that would work, they were wizards after all. A flick of his wand and the door creaked open. Gesturing for George to guard the door, Fred slipped inside.
"We know you're in here, Hermione..." Fred called in a singsong tone as he crept into the girls' bathroom. He crouched slightly, pushing open the stalls as he went along. "You're not going to escape us... We're going to get you and once we do... You're ours."
Jumping slightly at Fred's phrasing, George's attention wandered for an instant and, in that instant, Hermione made her move.
She had been in full cougar form, body pressed against the wall as she clung to the little ledge above the door itself. Watching Fred and George from her vantage point, she took George's moment of inattention as her only chance to escape. Diving off the ledge, she twisted in midair and sprang at the startled George. Hermione actually managed to get past him and, mid-stride she shifted back to half-breed form to continue her escape.
What Hermione hadn't counted on was George's reaction time and before she had gone more than two steps in her half-breed form she found herself plastered to the floor with a much larger and heavier tiger on her back. She twisted and snarled, trying to escape.
"Got her, Fred! She sure is a tricky little minx." George lowered his voice as Fred reassured Myrtle that everything was fine and whispered in Hermione's ear. "Stop squirming like that, would you?"
Something in his tone caused Hermione to freeze and she looked over her shoulder as Fred came out to join them. Whatever she had been about to say abruptly changed. "You do know that you aren't going to get away with this, right?"
"We'll see about that, Granger." Fred cheerfully informed her as he took her arms. George stood, grabbing hold of her legs as he did and the twins carried her securely out of the castle. "This is your punishment for all of your attacks we've been forced to foil."
Ignoring Hermione's curses and efforts to escape, and the crowd their passage drew, the twins carted Hermione over to the edge of the lake. "Now, little Miss Cougar... This will teach you to cool off instead of lashing out... One. Two. Three!"
With a loud screech and a louder splash, Hermione hit the water about fifty yards into the lake!
"Wow, Fred! We should have taken our strength into account before lobbing her in like that... Hope she didn't hurt herself." George peered out at the lake while Fred and their audience laughed.
"Nah, she's fine. See?" Fred waved to Hermione as she popped to the surface. They couldn't hear her cursing very well thanks to the distance. Fred dusted off his hands. "Now that that's taken care of, what say we go down to the kitchens for a treat?"
Out in the lake, Hermione was digging around in her sodden robes as best she could. It wasn't easy with the way they tried to float up in the water. A small poit sound nearby drew her attention and she saw her wand bob to the surface. An evil grin formed on her face as she snatched it into her hand.
Two shouted curses and two brightly colored streaks of light later and she swam to shore and marched smugly back to Gryffindor Tower while the audience now got its' laughs from the twins. For the next eight hours, no one had any trouble telling the twins apart.
After all, who could mistake a sheepdog style, tiger striped, shaggy furred George for his new twin sister Fredina?
A/N: I'd just like to note that the animals chosen for the characters are not what I personally think their animagus forms would be. It's the forms that closest fit their mental state at the time the twins' potion hit them during the accident, or at least I think so. Hermione was feeling aggressive and wanting to attack Peeves for daring to touch her potion, so she became a rather aggressive and territorial cougar. I figured the twins would be slightly aggressive and territorial as well, but with a protective and playful nature right along side that and I felt that a tiger fit it best. Ron felt the urge to take flight at being caught while also wanting to attack Draco, so he became an eagle. Harry wanted to take flight as well but also wanted to protect and defend the others, so a pegasus came to mind. Ginny was in more of a playful mindset while also feeling sneaky and a bit deceptive, so she became the otter. Draco was on edge with his feelings. He was a bit aggressive, but more defensive while trying to intimidate a group of Gryffindors that didn't have a history of being intimidated by him. He just seemed wolfish to me at the time. So their forms are not their animagus forms. The reason they're taking the animagus training is because the Professors thought that since they're in the bodies of full animals, they might be able to trick their human selves out the way animagus resume their human forms. I hope that clarifies several things people might have been wondering. And once again, thank you to all my lovely reviewers! -:-:gives them pumpkin pie and hot chocolate:-:-