Tiger, Tiger.
After an Animagus potion gone wrong, Harry becomes a tiger and is unable to change back. Though, without the weight of the world on his shoulders, Harry enjoys his new body, until something happens to make him go back to Hogwarts in the possession of Draco Malfoy. HBP.
Pairings: Harry/Draco one hundred per cent, there will be Blaise/Luna and eventually Neville/OC. Not much more romance other than this, maybe some off screen romance, I don't know, I haven't decided yet.
Warnings: there might be strong language, possible gory scenes in the future. I'll warn you though, so don't worry if you're squeamish.
I don't own Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling or the poem 'Tyger, Tyger' by William Blake. Also anything you might recognise from other fics on this site or another is purely coincidental. Enjoy!
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Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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Chapter five: In which Latin is spoken.
Draco glared at his reflection. His normally obedient hair was sticking up in all directions even after his shower. He sighed angrily. He realised that it was his fault that he went flying without any hair gel but he would just blame Blaise for offering to play one on one. Running his pale fingers through the blonde locks again, Draco surveyed his new outfit that was currently lying across his dark wood bed.
The robes were Egyptian Acromantula silk in their natural colour, a silvery metallic grey. Underneath the robes he was to wear classic black dress pants and a grey shirt that matched his grey dragonhide boots. He thought the outfit looked very boring, but according to some ancient law, you weren't allowed to wear bright colours to your bonding ceremony. Something about distractions or whatever. Draco knew that only his mother, Severus and a ministry official from the Familiar sector would be allowed with him during the ceremony.
When Draco and Blaise had denied the Dark Lord, Severus had left the ranks of the Death Eaters barely a week after. He apparated to the safe house that the Malfoy's owned and was living with them ever since. His godfather had fled form Voldemort when he heard the plan the old crazy snake man had for Draco. Draco, to save his father, was to kill Dumbledore. Well Draco couldn't care less about his father and he was quite happy to get his godfathers dry sarcastic humour back, as he had lost it whenever he was near or spoke of the dark lord. He had always thought of Severus as more of a father than Lucius.
A gentle knock brought Draco out of his dark thoughts. Speak of the devil…Draco smirked internally at his godfather standing in the doorway to his rather lavish room. Said godfather groaned when he saw his only godchild standing in front of a huge ornate mirror clad in only a towel around his thin waist and clapped a calloused hand over his dark eyes. "Merlin, Draco, are you trying to permanently scar my poor eyes? You mother wanted you to have this." With some effort, as one hand was still firmly placed over his eyes, Severus pulled an orange hard back book from his robes, handing it to Draco. "You still have two hours until the binding ceremony so get reading." With that he swept from the room in an impressive display of robes.
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Getting Familiar with your Familiar' by Jonathon Notus was now resting in Draco's hand, the young man reading the brightly coloured book. It was fascinating, Draco thought, that his tiger would go to the ends of the world to protect him and would hunt down anyone who hurt Draco. Once the bonding ceremony was complete of course. Draco flicked back to the chapter on the different bonds.
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There are several different types of familiar bonds, the three most common being the blood bond, the magic healing bond and the magical core bond. There are also several more dangerous but more productive bonds that are also available.
The Blood Bond: The most common bond, it is when the chosen familiar and its Master/Mistress share blood. This enables that they heal faster due to different magical blood in their bloodstream. This bond is the only bond that works with non-magical animals thought the healing that works with magical animals is not available.
The Magic Healing Bond: This is when the chosen familiar and its Master/Mistress share surface magic, only allowing them to heal themselves or each other with the surface magic of the non-injured party. This bond is sometimes overly used by one of the bonded pair, in most cases the human party. The bond can be helpful if you are prone to accidents or you are in a dangerous line of work. If one of the party is dying, the other party may use all of their surface magic, efficiently killing them but saving the other.
The Magical Core Bond: This is when the two parties share magical cores. In some very rare cases it allows the Master/Mistress to feel what their familiar is felling and it is possible that it also works vice versa. In four cases, the Master/Mistress was able to read their familiars thoughts and vice versa. The tales were scoffed upon and this has not been looked into further, as it is said to be impossible.
The Blood Bond (The Vampire Bond): This bond is only used in extreme cases, as it allows the two parties to bond over drinking their counterpart's blood. This is dangerous as any familiar with an undetectable blood disease could fatally harm its Master/Mistress. There are over fifty cases in which a magical animal sales person that had held a grudge against someone for purchasing one of their cheaper wares when more expensive creatures were available and had purposely given the animal an undetectable blood disease in hopes that the Master/Mistress would use this bond. There have been no survivors of undetectable animal blood disease. The last case of an undetectable animal blood disease being ingested by a human was with a witch in 1979, when a former lover tried to poison the unfortunate witches new husband. The witch bonded with the chosen familiar (a cockatoo who went by the name of Johnathon if records are correct) when her husband refused to bond with the familiar because of his feather allergy. The witch died several days later and the culprit was never brought to justice.
The Soul Bond: Easily the most dangerous and difficult of the bonds, this bond rips your soul in half, takes half of the familiar's soul and swaps them. If done properly, this bond changes both the Master/Mistress and the familiar physically, mostly something mundane like changing eye colour, though it has been reported that exceedingly powerful wizards and witches with exceedingly powerful familiars can get something along the lines of a tattoo, though it is carved into the skin, though this is extremely rare. Both the Master/Mistress and familiar get all the other bonds in the Soul Bond too. The last reported wizard who had the carving was Salazar Slytherin, although no one knows what became of his mysterious familiar. There are many benefits to this bond, like if the bond was completed properly; Dementors would no longer affect either of the parties because of the shared soul. If done improperly though, this bond would eat the remains of your soul, letting the animal side take over, making the human completely savage. The familiar however would soon die as the remainder of its soul would go to the human, leaving it in a Kissed like state, though they actually die after twenty minutes or so. While all of the other bonds can be undone with strong magic, this bond is completely un-doable which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Because of the danger, only extraordinary witches and wizards can get through the bonding process unharmed. The last wizard to successfully preform this bond was Albus Dumbledore with his phoenix, Fawkes.
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Draco shut the book once again. He knew that Blaise was getting the first Blood bond and the Magical core bond. Draco however wanted to be completely bound to the tiger, and what a Malfoy wants a Malfoy gets…
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Draco stood in front of a white marble alter, his mother and Severus standing a bit behind his both with their familiars. His hand was itching to brush off the small feather from Severus' familiar that was resting on his shoulder. However, the Ministry official, Darren Markus, a half blood Hufflepuff, had glared at him when he had made to remove the annoying grey feather. On the stone alter lay his tiger, bound to the slab of rock with magically enhanced chains. The forest green eyes glared at the wall in front of him as the top of his tail twitched in annoyance. The chains themselves showed exactly how magically and physically powerful Draco's choice of familiar was. It took a lot out of someone to withstand a Ministry officials charm, and Draco's tiger was managed just that.
Earlier, the enraged tiger had broken through the magic bindings Markus had placed on him. Thankfully, the alter was prepared for escaping animals and the unbreakable chains had sprung from somewhere inside the table, trapping the tiger once more. The tiger however was not happy. With a ferocious roar, his tail started whipping about, whacking the disgruntled official in the face. Draco chuckled under his breath and the tigers head snapped towards him, the shining green eyes sparkling with mirth. Draco grinned at the tiger and the official took this moment to bind the tiger's tail and muzzle the huge jaws.
Draco glared at Markus and felt pleasantly smug when the older wizard recoiled slightly. Embarrassed, Markus fumbled with his wand before clearing his throat. "I'd like to start the um, procedure now." The man stumbled over his words in the middle of his sentence, something that greatly disturbed Draco. If the man was to repeat that mishap during the bonding spells… Draco shuddered at the thought.
The man cleared his throat again before turning to Draco. "Are you ready?" at Draco's nod Markus cleared his throat again, this time coughing slightly. "Draco Lucius Malfoy, are you prepared to care for this animal, to protect and be protected, to share both companionship and hardship, to fight for what you think is right with this animal by your side the entire time?" Draco inhaled and said quietly "I am prepared to care for this animal, to protect and be protected, to share both companionship and hardship, to fight for what I think is right with this animal by my side the entire time." Markus nodded and touched Draco on the forehead with his wand, and Draco felt a small tickle on his alabaster skin. He repeated that action with the tiger and by the crinkling of the creature's forehead; he had felt the tickle as well.
"And what do you name him?" Draco gazed down at the tiger and stated "Prosper. His name is Prosper." (A/N From now on Harry will be Prosper.) Behind him, Draco could his godfather hum in agreement to his choice of name. "And what bonds do you want to do Mr Malfoy?" Draco grinned and replied "The Soul Bond." The official paled and he heard Severus groan behind him, muttering about a 'Stupid brat' and 'bloody idiot'. The official nodded because once you said what bond you wanted, there was no going back.
Markus raised his wand to the imprisoned tiger and grabbed his left paw. With slightly shaky hands, Markus slashed open the padding of the huge paw open, blood seeping out. He also slashed Draco's left hand. Putting his hand in Prospers paw, Draco had a wild thought of dragons shaking a tiger's hand. Exceedingly nervous now, Markus started to recite the Latin Soul Bond spell.
Sanguinem et Sanguinem, Animam Anima
Animos Pertinent,
Magicae Magicis Coniungit in hoc Rituali Choro.
That's when everything decided to fuck up.
Draco was thrown across the room, a searing pain in his chest. Prosper had broken through the muzzle and was currently roaring in agony. Draco ripped his shirt off and looked at his heaving chest. There, on his left pec, was a paw. A black, Celtic carving of a tiger paw was on his chest. That was the last thing he saw before everything went black.
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Chapter 5. I apologise for not using the names Hadrian or Pavo for Harry but my sisters cat Prosper died yesterday and I wanted to honour his memory. He even looked like a tiger. Thanks for understanding.
Anyways, do you like it? Should I scrap it? Should I continue? Review and tell me your innermost secrets-er- I mean, tell me what you think. ;) Roysh, back to seriousness, how did you like the ceremony? And the undoable soul bond? And the tattoos/carvings? Sorry about the wait, my computer crashed and ALL of my files were lost. Every single one. So after a couple of days of being depressed over my lost work, I set out again. So… here ya go!