I had to make some adjustments to my original plotline after discovering some very explicit instructions in Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies by J.K Rowling. It goes without saying that those instructions and the characters of the HP universe belong to J.K Rowling.
3rd March, 1952
Tired, cold, and still in their quidditch robes Minerva and Sterling collapsed heavily onto an empty bench beside Walter and Augusta.
"Is our fearless leader going to lead Gryffindor to victory on Sunday?" Walter asked Minerva, pushing a steaming soup tureen across the table.
She glanced over her shoulder quickly to ensure that no one was listening before answering.
"As long as Mallory can get to the snitch before Marigold." She admitted, feeling guilty.
"I thought Marigold kept falling off her broom any time she flew higher than 60ft." Augusta interjected, looking up from her copy of Witch Weekly, "She keeps falling down the stairs. She gave Mr Pringle a right scare the first few times, he thought it was Peeves with all the crashing and bashing."
Minerva shook her head, her mouth full of bread.
"Nah, Madam Doufant fixed her up. Something about her inner ear." Sterling grumbled as though he would have liked nothing better than for poor Marigold to continue toppling suits of armour down three flights of stairs.
"Did you get your prize, Minerva?" Walter asked, concentrating hard on not letting a rather large slice of apple pie falling off of the serving knife on its journey from the dish to his plate.
"My what?"
"Your prize," he insisted through a mouthful and Augusta swept pastry crumbs off of her magazine with a scowl, "for beating Dumbledore."
"Oh." She had forgotten that a reward for winning had even been on offer. She had been distracted by the powerful sense of pride that had blown up her ego one size too big. "No. I didn't." she realized.
"He should let you keep that music box." Sterling said and the others made various noises of agreement.
"It isn't a music box!" she exclaimed disparagingly, "You should know this! It's a phoenix feather. It was always a phoenix feather! It will always be…" but an epiphany stopped her thought dead, "oh my goodness…" and she pushed her plate away, banging her knees on the table as she got up, "it was in front of me this whole time!" and without further explanation to her goggling companions she sprinted the length of the hall and out the doors.
"She has never been one for explaining things has she?" Walter observed casually. Augusta shook her head in disapproval. Sterling was still eyeing her empty seat with apprehension.
"She had better not blow herself up again."
Whilst blowing herself up was not exactly what Minerva had in mind Sterling's concern was not as far from the truth as he probably would have liked.
She rocketed up the staircase to the seventh floor, narrowly dodging Peeves who was lurking on the fourth floor, shouted the password at a dozing Fat Lady and barrelled up to the girl's dormitory. She paid no mind to Ainslie and Vera who were whispering covertly on Vera's bed and dived into her trunk, searching in earnest for her copy of Spellman's Syllabary and a very battered edition of a book called Witches and Switches.
"What are you doing?" Vera asked with vague disdain, peering over the edge of her four poster.
"Work," Minerva snapped, "a foreign concept I know." But before Vera could work up a retort Minerva had thrown her books back into her trunk and swept from the room.
She emerged back onto the seventh floor corridor with nothing her wand and a scrap of parchment with a single word scribbled messily in black ink. The way to Dumbledore's quarters was cool and quiet save for the guttering torches. Most everyone was still at dinner or in the middle of their evening ablutions. She touched absently at her own hot, flushed face before realising that she was still in her gold and scarlet quidditch robes but continued on past the passage to the girl's bathroom, deciding that a bath could wait.
When she knocked politely but insistently on the door she swore that, if she strained her ears, she could hear the rhythmic whir of a turntable slow and stop.
Dumbledore did not look at all surprised to see her. Taking in her slightly rumpled and windswept appearance he noticed a worrisome glint lurking in her emerald eyes. Her fringe had stuck to her forehead in places and the faint scent of dew and cropped grass had followed her back from the grounds.
"I've come to collect my prize." She said with a lopsided grin.
"Yes, I thought you might." He chuckled and held the door open for her.
A very large bird of red and gold was eyeing her keenly from where it was perched across the room. It tilted its magnificent head from side to side as if sizing her up before shuffling its great wings and looking away rather haughtily.
"Don't mind Fawkes." He added, casually, as if it were perfectly normal for a phoenix to be in his sitting room.
His discarded teaching robe was hanging over the back of an armchair and she thought he looked strangely casual in socks and trousers with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His glasses were sitting, folded and forgotten, on a stack of what she could only guess where essays and his auburn hair had been pulled back into a handsome ponytail.
"I don't suppose that my prize is negotiable, is it?" Minerva asked, with one eye still watching Fawkes warily, as Dumbledore made for her to sit.
"How so?" he queried politely and shuffled through a teetering tower of largely unopened post beside his bookcase.
"A proposal of a more immediate resurrection of our lessons, perhaps?"
"I think that you will find," Dumbledore managed to finally extract what it was that he'd been searching for, "that our ideas are running rather concurrently." He pulled a sheaf of parchment from its envelope, flicked through them quickly and pulled away the very last page.
"However, I think that this may be of supreme interest to you and prove to be a more than satisfactory reward." And he handed her the parchment, folding away the remainder of his letter and tucking it safely in his pocket.
Minerva shot him a curious glance before turning to read:
...it only happens a few times.
However, I did manage to find what you were looking for:
I. For the space of one entire month (from full moon to full moon), a single leaf from a Mandrake must be carried constantly in the mouth. The leaf must not be swallowed or taken out of the mouth at any point. If the leaf is removed from the mouth, the process must be started again.
II. Remove the leaf at the full moon and place it, steeped in your saliva, in a small crystal phial that receives the pure rays of the moon (if the night is cloudy, you will have to find a new Mandrake leaf and begin the whole process again). To the moon-struck crystal phial, add one of your own hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew collected from a place that neither sunlight nor human feet have touched for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth. Put this mixture in a quiet, dark place and do not look at it or otherwise disturb it until the next electrical storm.
III. While waiting for the storm, the following procedure should be followed at sunrise and sundown. The tip of the wand should be placed over the heart and the following incantation spoken: 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus.'
IV. The wait for a storm may take weeks, months or even years. During this time, the crystal phial should remain completely undisturbed and untouched by sunlight. Contamination by sunlight gives rise to the worst mutations. Resist the temptation to look at your potion until lightning occurs. If you continue to repeat your incantation at sunrise and sunset there will come a time when, with the touch of the wand-tip to the chest, a second heartbeat may be sensed, sometimes more powerful than the first, sometimes less so. Nothing should be changed. The incantation should be uttered without fail at the correct times, never omitting a single occasion.
V. Immediately upon the appearance of lightning in the sky, proceed directly to the place where your crystal phial is hidden. If you have followed all the preceding steps correctly, you will discover a mouthful of blood-red potion inside it.
VI. It is essential to move, at once, to a large, secure place where your transformation cannot cause alarm or place you in physical danger. Place your wand-tip against your heart, speak the incantation 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus,' and then drink the potion.
VII. If all has gone correctly, you will feel a fiery pain and an intense double heartbeat. Into your mind will come the shape of the creature into which you are shortly to transform. You must show no fear. It is too late, now, to escape the change you have willed.
VIII. The first transformation is usually uncomfortable and frightening. Clothing and items such as glasses or jewellery meld to the skin and become one with fur, scales or spikes. Do not resist and do not panic or the animal mind may gain the ascendancy and you could do something foolish, such as try to escape through a window or charge a wall.
IX. When your transformation is complete you should find yourself physically comfortable. You are strongly advised to pick up your wand at once, and hide it in a place of safekeeping, where you will be able to find it when you regain a human form.
X. To return to a human form, visualise your human self as clearly as you can. This should be sufficient, but do not panic if the transformation does not occur immediately. With practice, you will be able to slip in and out of your animal form at will, simply by visualising the creature.
Best of luck dear boy,
P. Flamel
"Albus…" she began in a voice quivering with suppressed and dawning excitement. "Albus, these are instructions." Her gaze was glued to the parchment in her hands as she read the words over and over again to assure herself that she wasn't hallucinating.
"I should have asked her sooner." Dumbledore confessed, "I wrote just after you'd been released from the hospital wing. I had hoped that she might have stumbled across something on animagi over the years… I had not expected her to come back with this."
Minerva was looking up at him with absolute joy, her lips parted prettily, eyes wide and bright with excitement.
"This was the prize all along?"
"It was." He confirmed with a smile.
"Assuming that I would win? What would you have done if someone had bested me?" she asked honestly and without a trace of conceit.
"My dear," he rounded his armchair to sit across from her, "there was never the briefest moment in my mind that I thought you might fail."
She felt herself warm under his praise before coming back to that first, unfinished sentence in Perenelle's rather loopy handwriting.
"What only ever happens a few times?" she asked suddenly, her brow furrowed in concern.
"Oh." The barest hint of embarrassment coloured his cheeks pink. "That's… that's something different."
Minerva let his secrecy pass without much notice. She was far too distracted in trying to remember the lunar calendar that Sterling had left open on the table in the common room.
"The 11th" he answered, knowing exactly what was churning through her mind, "The next full moon is the 11th."
She looked into his face expectantly.
"You'll let me try?" She beamed and he wondered how he could ever refuse her anything.
"Yes." He conceded with a smile of his own, her enthusiasm infectious, "but you'd best get back to Gryffindor Tower, Minerva." He suggested with a glance at the clock over his fireplace, "It's almost past curfew." He resisted the urge to help her out of her chair and followed her to the door.
After he had bid her goodnight and closed the door behind her Dumbledore noticed a small corner of parchment, quite forgotten, poking out from under Minerva's seat. A single word scrawled across it.
Maneo.