you must be drunk if you think I'm JK Rowling.
The next morning, Harry jolted awake at ten to eight; not much time to collect the hangover cures his friends would need before lessons started, but he felt he could have a chance. Unfortunately, that would mean flying right out of the window. Harry checked through his friends' fears, hoping for a bird, but willing to take anything he could get.
Fred feared George's death, George feared Fred's death, Lee feared manticores, Ginny feared diaries, Neville feared a torture spell of some sort, and Harry already knew Hermione and Ron's fears, so he turned to Luna.
Luna feared bludgers. This being Luna, Harry didn't question it, instead steeling himself, leaping out of the window, and Shifting into the heavy iron form, praying that he could control his flight.
Sadly, it was less a flight and more a plummet, as he found out far too late that he couldn't copy enchantments on inanimate objects. He could still breathe, on an entirely unrelated note, being humanoid and all.
Shift tried to focus on the immediate issue, which was usually easy to do when he was about to die. This time was no different, and he snapped to attention, reversing his Shift and pulling his wand out in desperation.
"Depello Momentum!"
Harry accidentally made his cushioning charm permanent in his panicked state, but that hardly mattered as he landed softly at the bottom of the Gryffindor tower, then sprinted towards the Whomping Willow, thrusting himself forwards and sliding into the hole feet first. As his feet hit the bottom of the passage, he was already running in the general direction of Hogsmeade, bouncing off the walls more than once in his hurry.
Ten minutes later, he was clambering back out of the passage, hangover cures in hand, paling as he realised exactly which tree he was stood under. The boy gave a small yelp and rolled to the side, dimly aware of the branch that missed his left eye by a hair's breadth, and already scrambling towards the castle in a frenzy, unable to defend himself with the eight bottles in his arms. He wandlessly conjured a gobstone and kicked it straight into the knot on the Willow. The tree ground to a halt and Harry giggled from the adrenaline.
Apparently he really liked action. Not unexpected, what with the draconemus thing and all, but very welcome as it would help him deal with that sort of deadly situation that always managed to find him.
The only problem now was getting back to the tower before he was missed. He charged through the side entrance to the castle, turned a few corners and came to the grand staircase. Unfortunately, the set of steps he was on chose that exact moment to move, halting his progress.
Not one to be denied, Harry jumped, planted a foot into the still-moving banister, and kicked off, far further than he would have thought possible, before realising that his hands were full, so he would have to land the jump using just his legs. Not ideal.
Harry's foot made contact with the floor on the opposite side of the gap, and he flailed around to no avail as he lost his balance, tilting dangerously towards the ground four floors below. He couldn't fall down there! It would smash the potions!
And get him killed, he mused, but when wasn't that happening?
In a last-ditch attempt to stay upright, the boy swung a leg off the floor, further disrupting his balance, and hooked it onto the banister. After an agonising second of limbo, he mustered the strength to pull himself back onto the platform in a way that surely defied physics, not that he was complaining.
Harry left without a backwards glance, and soon came across the Fat Lady's portrait. Something was off, though. The canvas almost seemed to be peeling off...
That would explain the lack of terrible events on Halloween, Harry guessed, gazing in shock at the ribbons of fabric that used to make up a portrait. He sighed in despair; all that work had been for nothing if he couldn't even get into the tower!
"Oh, h-hello, dear," came the shaky voice of the Fat Lady.
"What happened?" Harry asked the trembling woman, who currently resided behind an escort of tutu-wearing trolls that Harry recognised from a certain tapestry.
"I-it was Black! He came down here last night, demanding me to let him in! I told him no, I wouldn't, and he slashed my painting!" she wailed, breaking down into sobs. The trolls looked uncomfortable, and one started patting her gently on the back.
She wouldn't give Harry another word, but she opened up silently after the boy gave her the password, and he climbed through, passing his sleeping dorm-mates on his way to the boys' dorms.
The others were just getting up. Lee and the twins, having drunk the most the night before, were still huddled together, but the rest were alive enough to accept the potions Harry gave them, most of them downing the bottles in one swig. When they finished, the girls left to get ready for classes, and Harry was left with Neville and Ron. After gulping down his potion, Ron put on a serious face.
"Seriously though, you had a fluffy tail and ears and everything," he told the boy-who-lived, ignoring the poorly concealed laughter escaping Neville.
Harry's curiosity piqued. "What'd they look like?"
Ron shrugged. "They were brown and white, the ears were really short and on top of your head, and the tail was just like a brown fox tail, with a white tip." Harry nodded, concentrating on the description, and tried to Shift the extra parts on. It was incredibly easy, more so than his regular transformations, but he felt that something was off. What that was became clear when Neville opened his mouth, and a set of two voices, one loud enough to be painful and the other far too quiet, came out instead of Neville's usual voice.
"Are you okay?" The double voice asked him, and he wondered through the pain if he was in some weird and creepy dream. It was all he could do to shake his head as he scrunched up his eyes and pulled down on the new furry triangles sticking out from his head.
After a few minutes, Harry opened his eyes blearily, the bright light making him flinch after all this darkness. He realised that a similar explanation could be provided to his new ears' sensitivity; he had never had the extra ears before so of course they would be sensitive! He grinned stupidly, then blinked, yawned and said, "'Kay, I'm gonna sleep now," barely acknowledging the double voice.
Harry shook himself awake, almost knocking the cloak off his head in an irrational panic; the watery material felt closed in, and his claustrophobia fought its way out. Hermione's hand found his shoulder, stopping his bid for freedom, and she whispered softly, "Shift back before you take it off." With a jolt he registered the double voice, though it wasn't quite as abusive on his ears this time, rather simply jumbling his hearing a little. It took him longer than usual to register what she said, so he hastily Shifted back into his human self and slipped the cloak off, regarding it in something not dissimilar to disgust.
"Where..?"
"We're at Hagrid's class," Hermione, with her normal, single voice, filled him in. "Magical creatures starts in ten minutes." Harry groaned. It wasn't that he hated the subject or teacher, but after Malfoy's run in with the Hippogriff, Hagrid had been neglecting the dangerous (fun) side of the subject, instead opting for boring creatures, such as flobberworms, much to Harry's displeasure and the rest of the class's relief.
Harry was in for a fun surprise, however, as he found when Hagrid appeared ten minutes later for the lesson in front of his hut.
The giant brought out a gigantic crate out with him, and set it onto the lawn, where it began emitting strange bangs, dark smoke seeping through the air-holes a few seconds later. Harry's eyes lit up instantly, and he asked loudly, "Are we gonna be looking at tiny dragons, Hagrid?"
The Slytherins, with whom the Gryffindors had a joint class, snickered, but Harry couldn't care less about them. Malfunction chose that time to swagger up late to the group, as he had done since the Buckbeak incident, and drawled, "You'd want to look out, Potter, they're probably dementor babies! Don't touch them or you'll freeze!"
Hermione seemed about to retaliate, but Harry simply laughed and waved at something off in the distance. Malfunction followed his gaze and a dementor entered his field of vision.
It was waving back.
Needless to say, the blond haired Slytherin dropped the subject quickly and turned back to the exploding box, trying and failing to remove the image of Harry commanding a horde of the things. "Now that tha's sorted ou'," Hagrid rumbled obliviously, "I've got a special lesson fer yeh all today." He unfastened a latch on the top of the crate, and flipped the lid off, revealing... things. "They're called Blast-Ended Skrewts, and they'll be our firs' real project," Hagrid said happily, as the class crowded round to get a closer look. "I reckon they're around two months old."
All but Ron and Harry recoiled as one of the things exploded. Harry would have, too, except that they were so interesting! They looked like a cross between crabs and scorpions, with no recognisable face. They had oval bodies coated in plates, like an armadillo's, and had six crabby-looking legs sticking out of the sides. On one end was a scorpion tail, poised to strike, and on the other was a sort of jagged pincer, which opened sideways and shot a blast of fire every so often.
After a few seconds another one self-destructed, the explosion coming from the scorpion tail, and sent the others sprawling. The one that exploded seemed fine afterwards, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief, glad that they could last long enough to have some fun with. He picked one up and brought it out of the crate, then set it down and began poking it insistently with a finger. The three foot long crab-thing skittered away from his touch, releasing a burst of energy from the pincer end and sending most of the class running.
Ron appeared next to Harry, dropping another Skrewt on the grass, and the two began battling it out, with the best friends cheering their chosen creature on. Harry's opened its pincer, but Ron's wedged it open with its own and shot a flame directly down the other's, for lack of a better term, throat. Harry's replied with a left hook from its tail, knocking Ron's over, and the stalemate resumed.
Eventually things got out of hand, ending with both Skrewts exploding in the boys' faces. Both Gryffindors seemed unaffected, blinking the smoke out of their eyes, turning to one another, and grinning in unison.
Harry opened with a right hook, which Ron leapt back to dodge. The redhead pulled a fist back, regained his footing and jabbed Harry straight in the face. Harry leaned back on one leg to absorb the punch, then countered by bringing the other leg up, catching Ron in the chin. At that point, the Skrewts joined in and a free-for-all ensued, Ron punting one of the mutant lobsters back into the crate, the remaining one slapping Harry in the temple with its tail, and Harry responding with a sweeping kick, which 'accidentally' tripped up Malfunction, who sent his two bodyguards into the brawl and began firing off hexes.
Eventually, the Slytherins gave up and watched with ill-disguised glee as the best friends beat each other into the ground, occasionally shooting spells to trip them up. After a good fight, the pair sat back to back on the ground, badly bruised, grinning madly and panting heavily. Hagrid didn't seem to mind the outburst of violence; he was smiling too, the adrenaline having affected him almost as much as Harry and Ron.
Harry remembered something important, cast Tempus, and whispered something to Ron, then stumbled to Hagrid's hut, complaining about a back ache and the need to sit down. He leant on the door to open it, walked in, and promptly fell asleep on the sofa, dreaming of finally flying as Fog.
Ten minutes later, Harry woke up, yawning and clicking his neck, then trudged out of the small home, expecting to see order of some sort, such as a class packed up and ready to leave for brunch. Instead it was a storm of chaos. Every single three foot long exploding lobster was out of the crate, which had apparently dissolved, and Hagrid, Ron and Hermione, along with a few helpful Gryffindors and even a Slytherin or two were sprinting around, attempting to round up the creatures before they destroyed everything. A few of the Skrewts lay dead with burn marks covering them, but none had yet been captured. Perhaps that had something to do with the lack of a cage to keep them in.
With a well placed Impedimenta, Harry discovered that the Skrewts had weak spots on their bellies, and relayed the information to the others. The entire class, but most of all Hermione, chipped in to stop the rampaging crabs and tie them up. They finished almost twenty minutes later, and as the last one was thrown into a conjured pen, the entire class turned as one to face Harry. Now that the immediate danger was over, Ron and Hermione were gazing at him with a mixture of shock and pity.
With all the glares, it was no wonder Harry felt penned in. Irritably, he asked, "Am I a vampire or something?"
"Try half-fox," Dean muttered, and Harry finally noticed the double voice, which now seemed pleasant rather than abominable. He slowly pulled his hand up to his left ear and tugged hard, wincing as he realised how sensitive it was. He swished a dull brown bushy tail, with a creamy white tip, and decided that he rather liked his new parts. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to admire them, as the entire class began spreading rumors right in front of him about the origin of his new parts.
He couldn't care less about what they thought, but what if Dumbledore found out? He'd work out the Shift secret in less than a second and begin trying to find a way to convert Harry back to a human.
Harry didn't want to be human! It was more fun being a Boggart, and this could be a huge help against Black!
Also Voldemoron, but he wasn't an immediate threat for the time being.
Getting his thoughts back on track, Harry tried to figure out a simple explanation for his current state. He went through a list of Magicks: it could be a transfiguration, but that was too close to the truth. Maybe a glamour charm, but that left him without a reason for casting it, other than fun, which was far too flimsy.
A single Magick shot through the boy's mind, one that he had read about while searching for subjects to teach, and he could have laughed at himself for being such an idiot as to not notice this perfect excuse for his humanoid transformations. Instead, he put on a grimace as if he didn't want to divulge the information and sighed, "Okay, fine. If you really need to know, I'm a Metamorphmagus." He laughed in what he felt seemed like a bitter manner. "Bloody accidental morphing. I only figured it out yesterday, too."
To make a point, he Shifted off the Foggy parts and turned his hair and eyes a dull grey, then walked off with his head down, aiming for the castle, cackling like an evil genius in his mind as he went.
I can't believe I actually thought of that! Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Which I do. I was originally thinking of having Harry's abilities kept a complete secret, but I love this, in all honesty. So much more fun to write.
Malfunction finds out about Harry's connection to the Tatters, and the school sees him as a Metamorphmagus! Next time: The game against Hufflepuff!
Now might be a good time to say that I read every single review, and while I probably won't include many, suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Chiao!