No, I'm not JK Rowling, stop asking.
The next few weeks flew by for Harry. He quickly found that Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, although he was fairly good with them, were not for him. He was especially glad that Ron had found his calling in Ancient Runes, soaring to the top of the class with his well-rounded skills, both magical and physical, as well as his incredible memory for every symbol they had been taught. Harry, meanwhile, simply grabbed a rune stone and chipped away, making many unique things, but they were all so far away from the goal that he never got more than a fifty percent.
Hermione had likewise taken over Arithmancy, while Harry once again created nothing like the target. Harry simply couldn't stop himself from being creative, hating to do things that had already been done before.
Maybe he'd be a spell inventor when he left Hogwarts.
Shift's lessons had become more popular after he had wrapped up Animagus transformations, and he became a fully fledged extra-curricular teacher. The Weasley twins were both ginger Weasels; Ginny was, fittingly, a red bat; Lee Jordan was a tarantula; Neville was a wasp, surprisingly enough; and Luna was a...
"Luna? What is that?" Ron, who had been helping Luna with her Animagick, gaped at her new form. Where she had once stood, there was now a two foot tall ball of fluffy, white and brown striped fur, with a bent spike protruding from the... front?
Luna changed back and giggled, her odd behaviour having disappeared without a trace as she found good friends in gryffindor. "It's a crumple-horned snorkack, of course!"
Ron sighed, then chuckled. "I should have guessed they were real. I bet your Dad's going to be proud when you go home for christmas."
The silver-blonde bounced excitedly on her toes as she waved her hands around, then pulled Ron into a bone-crushing hug and squealed, "Thank you so much, Ron! I couldn't have done it without you!"
The red head only just managed to cast a silent glamour charm on himself before his burning ears showed through, and he laughed awkwardly, before going with the flow and cuddling her back. "Sure you could, Luna. You're smart enough to not have needed my help at all." Luna only giggled some more and hugged him harder, to many whistles from the others.
Nothing extremely life-changing happened to Harry until the end of October. Harry was dreading Halloween, because when didn't something something bad happen to him on that date? In 1981, he became the boy-who-lived-with-hyphens, in 1991 a troll attacked Hogwarts, and in 1992 the Chamber of Secrets opened. Personally, Harry was betting on an attack from Sirius Black.
However, neither Harry nor his friends suspected that the night before would be out to get them, too.
At seven o'clock, Shift was practicing magic using his legs, hoping to unlock the secret to wandless magic. He figured out, after a few hours, that it wasn't the wand that helped a wizard do magic, it was the magical focus, in the form of a wand core. The wood was simply to establish a connection between wand and wizard, while the core forced out the magic. Shift's legs could bypass the wood because if he didn't have a connection with his own body, what on earth did he have?
Ron, Luna and Hermione were sitting at the single desk, scribbling out their homework at exactly the same speed as each other. Shift compared it to those F1 races he'd seen on TV once, and chuckled under his breath.
at nine thirty, Shift's ears picked up a snuffling sound from the door. He stamped on the floor twice, the signal to transform, and suddenly a stripy fluff ball, a fire-breathing lizard, a tawny owl and an old man in Shift's white robes were standing, facing the slowly opening door.
Shift found himself facing a pair of dull green eyes, on the face of what seemed to be a wolf. He noticed a fairly short snout, which was covered with the same grey fur flecked with brown as the rest of the body. The wolf spun its head to face the animals sitting by the desk, growling viciously. It was then that Shift figured out what was wrong.
The eyes were too human.
"Hello, my name is Brian Wulfric." Shift had to transform his face straight at the sight of a wolf jumping three feet in the air. It recovered and pivoted to face him, and he let a small smile curve his lips. "Would you be a werewolf, perhaps?" Harry had had an assignment on werewolves, set by Moody, as his first third-year DADA lesson with the man.
The wolf blinked, then slowly nodded, one non-existent eyebrow raised. "So you've drunk Wolfsbane today." It nodded again, and Shift put a thoughtful look on his face. "Are you from Hogsmeade?" A shake. "Hogwarts?" A nod. Shift grinned; he was getting somewhere!
He noticed that the werewolf hadn't left the door yet. "Don't be shy, they don't bite," he told it, pointing at the creatures in the corner. It seemed unsure, so he added in a loud whisper, "the dragon's the biggest softie of the lot," eliciting a playful growl from the black death.
Slowly and unsteadily, the werewolf put one paw in front of the other, reaching the bed surprisingly quickly and leaping atop it. Shift sat down next to it, an encouraging smile playing on his mouth. "Are you a student?" It shook its head wildly. "A teacher, then." grey-haired man descended into thought. After a few minutes, he sighed. "The only teacher I can think of with grey-brown hair is Professor Lupin, but he's-" the wolf was nodding vigorously, and Shift's eyes widened slightly.
"Well then, Professor, I have something I need to tell you." Lupin raised a furry eyebrow in question, and the elderly man sighed, then Shifted back into Harry. "I'm Harry Potter, and my Animagus form is a boggart. I'm also Shift, but I didn't want to tell you that until you disappeared."
Harry glanced up at his sometimes human sometimes teacher and sighed again at the look of pure guilt on Lupin's face, complete with unshed tears in his eyes. "Don't worry, you didn't kill me or anything." He stopped, then added, "That poison you gave me came off after Professor McGonagall gave me veritaserum, and I think it was a brilliant idea, just so you know." He shrugged and suddenly became very interested in his feet. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Professor, I don't know what I was thinking."
Harry closed his eyes, pressing his index fingers into the lids as he bowed his head. He started when he felt something wet and warm impact his face, then gave a yelp and jumped off the bed, hiding from the tongue of doom behind a resigned-looking dragon. He took that moment to whisper into his friends' ears, "Do you mind if I tell him?"
At the three shaking heads, Harry stepped out into the open, smirking at the now whimpering Professor, who seemed thoroughly embarrassed with his outburst. "Professor, the three behind me are Animagi." Still whining pitifully, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher looked over the black and red dragon, tilting his head in question.
"The dragon is Ron. We still don't-"
"Hey, I can explain myself, mate."
Harry turned to his currently human best friend. "Fine, it'd be easier that way, I think. Besides, I don't want to carry on talking to anima- ow!" Ron had punched Harry right in the jaw, and although the green-eyed boy had Shifted into spider skin in reflex, that didn't stop him being thrown across the room by the impact. "Okay, you aren't animals, geez."
"That's better," Ron snorted, before the two boys broke into laugher, with Lupin pawing at his ears in pain only adding to the hilarity. "Anyway," the redhead choked out, "as Harry was saying, we don't know what kind of dragon I am, but it shoots exploding purple fireballs, and I think I can change their temperature if I want." Both boys chuckled again at the horrified expression of the wolf, and didn't stop until a certain owl transformed and stepped forwards.
"I'm Hermione, obviously, and I'm a tawny owl. I can fly," Hermione ignored Ron's snickers, "and I can tell where people ar- WHY didn't I use that to find you once we were in Hogsmeade? I'm so stupid sometimes!"
"None of us thought of it, Hermione, you're not stupid at all," Harry consoled her, pulling her onto the bed with a Shifted leg and into his waiting arms. She giggled and transformed back into the tawny, then perched on Harry's shoulder, taking the opportunity to peck on his ear, much to Harry's pain and discomfort.
The final creature, a white and brown fluff ball with a spike sticking out, transformed into a silver haired girl with a slightly dreamy expression, who ignored the yelling Harry to speak to Lupin. "I'm Luna, but I believe we've met, Professor Lupin. My Animagus form is a crumple-horned snorkack, and I can be incredibly cute and run really fast!" She transformed back and gave Ron a hard tackle, sending him sprawling onto the bed next to the furry Professor, a crazed owl, and a boy with tough black skin coating his ears.
"Anyway," Harry suddenly spoke, after a few minutes of lying on the tiny bed, everyone overlapping each other and Lupin sitting triumphantly on top of the pile, with Harry crushed under the sea of body parts. "You've missed a lot, Professor. We found out that my extra legs can be used as wands, and I must've been Shifting myself a wand, because I remember that you left me in the cupboard in only my boxers." Lupin whined and Harry stroked him, smirking slightly as the Professor leaned into his hand. "We went to Hogsmeade to try and find you, a Tatter-"
"He means dementor, Professor, he seems to think he can be friends with them." Ron's interruption gave Harry a chance to catch up on breathing as the glared at the redhead.
"You'd better not be insulting Joy," Harry threatened, shaking his fist as he lay face down.
"I'm not, I just can't believe the 'Tatter' let you make friends with it."
"Her," Hermione corrected absently, sitting on Harry's stomach.
"Anyway," the boggart continued loudly, drowning out everyone else, "a Tatter tried to suck out our souls and it froze me, then we fended it-"
"You fended it off, Harry," Luna reminded him.
"Yea- you weren't even there, how did you know?" Harry sighed. "Wait, you're Luna. You know everything." He paused, then continued filling the Professor in. "After that, we started illegal Animagus classes with me as the teacher, and I honestly can't believe how few people have made a connection between Harry and Shift, and I also told Professors McGonagall and Flitwick about them, and Professor McGonagall said she'd make me an official teacher tomorrow morning," he finished, gasping for breath. "And that's it, I think. Oh, and some guy called Moody was teaching fifth year DADA while we were pranking the school again with the Weasley twins."
Harry looked up at the decidedly stunned-looking doggy Professor.
An extra long chapter, but not much content. Harry fills in a certain Professor on the weeks he's missed.
Yes, Lupin looks like a wolf. No, he isn't that demented furry hunchback thing in the movies. On a related note, the Wolfsbane potion turns a werewolf's wolf instincts into domesticated dog instincts, and also suppresses them slightly. Basically Lupin's a wolf Animagus who can't transform when he wants. Also the transformation is painful.
Yes, the 30th of October actually was a full moon. I searched it.
Yes, Shift will be a fully fledged Professor tomorrow, on Halloween.