"Mr Black." Sirius felt a sharp jab against the sinews of his neck, hard enough to rouse him from his dreams of screaming Slytherins. "Mr Black, please do return to my class."
"Mmph." Yawning, Sirius blinked open his eyes to find Professor McGonagall standing over him, a tight frown souring her expression. "I'm sorry, Professor, I was…I was practicing my dream interpretations for Divination." Several students laughed at that, including James and Peter on either side of him, leaning back in their seats and grinning.
McGonagall's frown grew deeper. "You do not take Divination, Mr Black."
"Oh, right. I suppose I forgot."
"Well," she sighed, "seeing as you clearly believe you have nothing to learn from my class, how about you explain the workings of the Draconifors Spell to your classmates?"
Sirius tilted his head. "It's got something to do with dragons, I assume?"
McGonagall sighed again and finally left Sirius's side, returning to the front of the classroom. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr Black." The other Gryffindors in the room groaned; Sirius shot them all a guilty smile.
As McGonagall returned to lecturing about miniature dragons, Sirius leaned over to James, who for once was busy taking notes. Remus was out recovering after the full moon, the final one of the school year, and it was James's turn to be his designated note-taker.
"Couldn't have woken me up before Minnie caught me, could you?" Sirius muttered to him.
James grinned. "I tried, mate," he said. "You're too sound a sleeper."
"I am during Minnie's lectures, at least." Sirius squinted at James's notes parchment, onto which he'd doodled a sketch of him flying across the Quidditch pitch with a pretty girl looking on admiringly from below. "Oh, Merlin's beard, James. Is that Evans?"
"Yup." James's grin grew wider. "You know, I finally convinced Remus to take me to Sluggy's end-of-year club dance with him. I'm going to get her to dance with me, just you wait."
Sirius rolled his eyes as he always did when James talked like this. "She doesn't deserve you, mate," he said. James laughed, but Sirius had meant it. James was brilliant, the only student at Hogwarts who was possibly cleverer than Sirius, and he was handsome enough to win over any girl he wanted. If Evans was too stuck-up and infatuated with Snivellus to be interested in him, Sirius didn't get why he wouldn't just move on. The whole thing bothered James way more than it should. It also bothered Sirius way more than it should.
McGonagall was wrapping up the lesson now. "Finals are coming up in just a couple short weeks. I'll be in my office every day after class until then; I suggest you take advantage of this to ask about anything from the year you still are confused about."
James, Sirius and Peter shared a look. "Today?" Peter asked.
Sirius nodded. They'd reached a dead end when it came to their Animagus preparations—they'd managed to steal a few important potion ingredients from Slughorn's stores and the Herbology greenhouses, but some of the ingredients, like the chrysalis from a very particular sort of moth, were much harder to obtain, and the Marauders still weren't clear on what would happen after they drunk the potion. So they'd figured they would have to ask the school's only resident Animagus some questions, an Animagus who just so happened to be their strait-laced Transfiguration professor.
As the rest of the students filed out of the classroom, Sirius and the others followed McGonagall back into her office, where they stood lined up before her desk. She regarded them with a McGonagall-esque mixture of surprise and suspicion. "I certainly did not expect the three of you to be seeking me out for office hours," she said.
"We really want to do well on our finals this year, Professor," James said sweetly. "And we know there's going to be questions about Animagi on them, so we thought we'd ask you about the experience of being one."
McGonagall sat back in her chair, still looking a bit wary. "Well, you know I am always willing to talk about Animagi, Potter."
"Great!" James pulled out a piece of parchment as if planning to take notes. "So, when did you become an Animagus? And how long did the whole thing take?"
"I became an Animagus around the end of my seventh year at Hogwarts," McGonagall replied. "Under Dumbledore's guidance, it took me about three years of preparation to pull it off."
"And where did you get the ingredients for your Animagus potion?"
"Dumbledore acquired most of them for me."
The Marauders exchanged a glance; clearly getting help from Dumbledore was not an option for them. "I had to prepare the ingredients myself, though," McGonagall continued. "Many of them require extensive preparation and refinement before they can be added to the potion. A potential Animagus must soak a leaf from a Mandrake plant in their mouth for an entire month, for example."
"Yeah, we know," Sirius said. "But what happens once you finally take the potion? Do you just transform, or do you have to do something first?"
"When a potential Animagus drinks the potion," McGonagall explained, "they will immediately see a mental image of the animal they are to become, and they must concentrate on this image until they feel themself merging with it. Then the transformation will be initiated."
"So you don't have to learn what the animal is first?" Peter asked. "By figuring out your Patronus?"
"Of course not, Pettigrew. Whatever gave you that idea?" Peter looked quickly to Sirius but said nothing. Sirius wanted to slap himself; they'd spent months working on their Patronuses. They should have spoken to McGonagall way back at the beginning of the year. Though he had to admit, it was pretty neat to have a way to fight off Dementors. Even Sirius's parents would be impressed by that.
"Are you boys trying to become Animagi?" McGonagall asked. "Is that why you've got these questions for me all of a sudden?"
"Definitely not, Professor," Sirius assured her. "As if we'd have the time or mental fortitude to pull off such a thing."
"One more question," James said. "When an Animagus becomes an animal, are they really entirely that animal? As in, would they be recognized as an animal by other species?"
"Like werewolves?" Peter added.
Something clicked behind McGonagall's eyes. "I see," she said quietly. "That's what this is about."
"What what is about?" Sirius asked innocently.
"I take it you're all aware of your friend's condition," McGonagall said. "Dumbledore and I suspected as much."
"What friend?" James asked. "What condition?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Potter." McGonagall tapped her fingers against her desk. "Becoming an Animagus is an extremely arduous, dangerous endeavor. Not to mention completely illegal to do without express permission from the Ministry. To attempt to go through the process without professional guidance could be disastrous. Do you understand me, boys?"
"We understand perfectly," said James. "This is simply a question of intellectual curiosity. You wouldn't withhold scholarly knowledge from us, would you, Professor?"
James and McGonagall held each other's gazes for a long minute, a battle of wills passing between their eyes. Finally McGonagall sighed and relented. "There was a study," she said. "Performed back in the thirties, when wizards were funding significant amounts research on werewolves and ethical concerns were…not as stringent as they are today. A volunteer Animagus in the form of an ocelot was introduced into an enclosed room with a transformed werewolf and observed."
Sirius's heart clenched. "And?" he pressed. All three of the Marauders were leaning forward.
"And nothing happened," McGonagall replied. "The werewolf showed no interest in the Animagus and treated her as he would any ordinary animal. The study was seen as proof that a transformed werewolf's obsession with savaging humans is triggered by the physical form of the human, and not the mind."
Sirius and James exchanged an excited glance. It was just as they had thought—they could keep Remus company when he transformed, and none of them would be in any danger from him. Sirius's shoulders felt lighter than they had in months.
"That's exactly what we wanted to know, Professor," James said, his smile reaching his eyes. "Thank you." He looked like he wanted to hug her—Sirius wished he would so he'd have something new to tease him about.
"Well," Sirius said, pretending to check a nonexistent watch. "I think we best be going, Minnie. Tons of studying to do."
"Loads," added James.
"I don't like those looks you're sharing," McGonagall said as they turned to leave. "Wait just a minute, boys—"
"Afraid we can't, Minnie!" James called back. They hurried from the office and out of the classroom, McGonagall's stern yells ordering them back to no avail.
