The difference between copyrights and dementors is that one sucks up your soul, and the other is cloaked.
The group stumbled in their hurries to the Whomping Willow, Harry accidentally tripping both himself and the others with his spider limbs every so often. By the time they got to the Willow, Ron was ten feet in front, having decided that the journey would be too much for his heart otherwise. They leapt into the passage, not even bothering to register the tree in their haste, and sprinted down the corridor to the Shrieking Shack.
They had never seen Hogsmeade, having been too caught up in Harry's condition to glance out the carriage window, the night they had arrived at Hogwarts. It was understandable then, that Harry, who was now under the invisibility cloak to prevent a riot, stood there gaping for a few minutes after he had left the shack.
He snapped out of his daze, wistfully gazing once more at Honeydukes, before panicking as he realised he had lost sight of Ron and Hermione. The invisible-spider-boy-who-lived calmed himself, reasoning that the two had simply thought he had gone ahead and 'followed'. He leapt onto the roof of a nearby thatched cottage and skittered to the peak, shielding his sensitive eyes from the burning sunlight and peering into the streets. He spotted his best friends, but his foot slipped in his momentary relief.
Harry found himself halfway to the ground, having stopped in midair. He sighed in relief before opening his eyes, turning to his saviour in gratitude.
Of course, it would just be weird to thank your own four massive spider legs, so he didn't. Instead, he shouted something about waiting up and raced after the rest of the group. They turned, horrified, and Harry realised his mistake. He looked at his hand in abject terror, noting the object wrapped around it.
The invisibility cloak.
The invisibility cloak that he had been wearing.
He was shoved into an alleyway by Hermione, who hurriedly snatched the watery cloth from him, and swept it over his head, once again concealing his spidery form. She then cast six stunning spells in a random pattern at a wall, then motioned to Harry to follow and slowly stepped out into the blinding sunlight.
"What did you do that for, 'Mione?" He asked, curious, and she whispered back.
"Because now anybody who saw us together now thinks I just stunned you. Acromantula can shrug off a single stunner so I shot six to make it more realistic."
Harry nodded in understanding, then reminded himself that nobody could see him. Speaking of seeing him, though... "Why didn't you just use your owl sensing to tell where I was, anyway?"
"I did try, but apparently the cloak protects whoever's wearing it from any sort of magical detection. Invisibility cloaks don't usually do that, Harry. Yours is very special, so you should take good care of it from now on. You never know when something like that can be useful." She said this in one breath, and Harry chuckled.
"I'll keep that in mind."
The search for Professor Lupin continued for much of that day, but they failed to find him before the afternoon ended in a bright orange glow, which quickly became a cold blue as a sweeping cold consumed them, and Harry once again found himself on the floor, shivering, the temperature being too much to cope with. Then he thought of Hermione, who was once again embracing him, this time on the stone floor in the middle of a street in the middle of an icebox invasion, and a fire lit in his heart.
He stood up, willing away his frigid fatigue, and turned to the dementor, his cloak off once again and his eight green eyes blazing. He calmly stepped towards the emotion reaper, his snow-white hair and smooth black skin encrusted with shimmering crystals of ice, and banished the memory of a petrified Hermione, replacing it with...
There were too many happy memories to pick, so he settled on all of them. Anybody still looking, discounting Ron and Hermione who were by now used to the unexpected, would have fainted at what came next.
A half-spider stood together with three perfect Patroni. The four entities pressed forwards, keeping pace with each other, and the dementor wouldn't have left any faster if it could apparate. After making sure it was gone for good, they turned back to the other two.
And Harry collapsed, his magic unable to support his stone-cold body as he screamed in unadulterated pain.
Trying to reach for his glasses, the white-haired boy remembered the events of the previous day, and stifled a moan as he found his entire body locking up, the cold having stiffened his joints. He lifted his head with great difficulty and studied his surroundings. It was extremely dark, but his night vision found him inside the damp walls of the Shack. Not exactly what he expected, but he was still a spider so couldn't exactly go to Madam Pomfrey. He felt three warm objects near his body and lifted the covers.
A pair of owls and a squashed-faced cat slept, heating the boy from the inside out. Crookshanks was curled up on his chest, and the owls we're stood up, each having found a spot under his arm and snuggled up. Harry knew not to bother the cat, who was currently breathing sleepily, but stroked Hedwig and scratched her under the chin, just where she liked it. He then chuckled in his mind and did the same to Hermione, hoping to receive the same satisfied purr that his own white owl made.
He didn't, however, expect it when it came, and nearly died trying to hold the laughter in, while simultaneously nearly fainting from the sheer cuteness.
Feeling less achy now, and insanely happier, the boy assessed his current situation. Lupin would lock him away the instant the man laid eyes upon him. However, it seemed like he wouldn't return to Hogwarts until he found Harry Potter, so he might not show up during classes.
Now, what did Harry have at his disposal? Massive strength, for one. Also wandless spells and extra mobility. He'd have to test which were easiest and hardest, but he suspected that transfiguration would sit on one extreme or the other, what with his broken boggart status. At that, he remembered the glamour charm and slapped himself in the face. This didn't hurt, however, So the boy chalked up high defence as an extra advantage.
He was stuck. He had never learned many spells in school, which he thought was a major flaw of the best magical school in Britain. He didn't have any natural ability, let alone one that would come into play during combat. He was small and hard to hit, definitely a plus, but the only thing he had learned about combat was to drop your wand and summon snakes. He had Ron and Hermione at his side, but he couldn't expect them to protect him, and besides, he didn't want to just sit back while others went to battle.
That was a slytherin's job, and Harry wasn't a slytherin.
That brought him to another thought. Why was Harry's Animagus form a boggart, anyway? Boggarts weren't exactly good creatures, but Harry would like to think he was. The question had bothered his subconscious but until now, he had never realised. Maybe he was supposed to be in slytherin, after all. He remembered Dumbledore's words about a true gryffindor and wrenched himself away from his self-deprecating thoughts. An idea came to him. Not a very convincing idea at first, but it became more so each second it stuck in his mind.
Boggarts weren't feared, it was what they could be that was. Hermione had said that an Animagus form could be affected by anything in the wizard's life. What about that time he had been feared as the heir of slytherin, and as the one who opened the chamber of secrets? It wasn't a twelve-year-old boy they had feared, it was the fact that he could be something else entirely. And so he became something else entirely, he thought with a grimace. A half-spider. A useful half spider, but a creepy thing none the less.
Which brought him back to his abilities. Except this time, he had an ever so slightly better train of thought, loaded with bite-sized bits of newfound knowledge. He was a spider. What could a spider do? Crawl around, see in the dark, have a venomous bite, and create super-strong webs. Bingo. There was something else to learn. Webs would be exceptionally useful, for... Trapping enemies. Seems a little slytherin, but hey, he could also use venomous bites, to... Kill trapped enemies. Crawling around and night vision were also slytherin's calling. Harry sighed. Of course he would be stuck as a slytherin creature. He'd have to try and Shift soon, or he'd convince himself he was evil.
Now, what else? Harry felt his point about the lack of learning at Hogwarts was solid, and bounced a thought off the walls of his mind like a rubber ball. What if he set up a class of some sort? Extra-curricular classes teaching spells useful in combat? Hogwarts only really dealt with household spells, so what if he took information from the restricted section of the library and relayed it to others in his year, below, and maybe even above? Surely people would be willing, even glad, to learn magic from the great Harry Potter.
Sure, he'd be abusing his popularity, but students needed to learn how to defend themselves and Harry felt he could be a decent teacher. He quickly made up his mind on a great many things. For example, he wouldn't learn from the Guide, because if somebody asked what book he'd learned any of it from, they'd find out about it and take it from Hagrid. However, he would be searching the library for a book on Animagicks, and teach that first, telling them that he had adapted the method, as he was sure the textbook version wouldn't be even similar.
With so many thoughts flooding his mind, it was a wonder Harry managed to get back to sleep.
Seems like chapters are getting longer! I'm going to start the next one straight away, and I hope it'll turn out even half as well as I think this one did.
Harry decides to set up extra curricular stuff! Who will join the first lesson, if anyone? Will he ever be un-stuck as a spider? Or will he come to accept his new form? Find out next time!
I didn't plan a single moment of this chapter, and I'm extremely glad for that. My personal favourite part was the reasoning for Harry's boggart Animagus, which I hadn't thought about at all before, but I feel that I nailed it.