The length of the chapter has nothing to do with anything.
"HARRY!"
Harry found himself pinned to the floor of the Shrieking Shack, a long while after the Metamorphmagus revelation, by a certain bushy haired witch, with Ron and Luna watching and smirking. "Hey, Mione," the boy-who-lived gasped, grinning even as he was crushed by her supercharged hug.
"How did you do that!" she shouted more than asked. "You're brilliant!"
Harry grinned and hugged her back, Shifting two spider legs to haul them back to a standing position. "I just remembered all the research we did," he told her humbly.
"Everyone believed it, mate," Ron chipped in. "You had, what, five seconds to make an excuse? Bloody brilliant," he praised, shaking his head in stark disbelief.
"Never would've happened without your help," he reminded them, then giggled, laughing ever harder as Ron's face drained of colour.
"Never laugh like that again," the redhead chided him, shuddering.
"It suits you, Harry," Luna sniggered, and Ron jumped back as if Neville had stung him, with a look that conveyed his betrayal completely. That set Hermione off, and all of a sudden Ron was surrounded by giggling girls. And boy.
"Make it stop," he whimpered, curling in a pitiful ball and covering his ears. Eventually the laughter died down, leaving a comfortable silence.
Obviously, that was quickly shattered by Hermione, who had only just released her hold on black haired Boggart. "What were you doing here, anyway? You were going to the common room, right?"
Harry shrugged and nodded viciously. "I jumped out of the window into a permanent cushioning charm," he stated proudly, puffing out his chest in a manner similar to Percy.
Hermione blinked. "Okay," she told him nonchalantly. The effect was ruined when she saw the shocked expression on Harry's face (he had been expecting a rant about health and safety), and fell back to the ground, laughing so much that her eyes watered. "That was hilarious!" she managed, before looking up, catching the boy's eye and collapsing again.
"Right, well anyway," Harry started, completely nonplussed at his girlfriend's actions, "I managed to do something I think you'll like," he finished, beaming at them all.
"Ooh, what?" Luna questioned, rocking from heel to toe and back.
Harry was gone, and in his place sat a... thing. It was around a foot tall, and had a roughly pear shaped body, with a head almost the same size, both coated in dull brown fur. The triangular ears that Harry had grown before were now perched naturally on Fog's head, and the three foot long, extra bushy tail swished behind him as if it was meant to be. The long feet stood vertical as he sat, seeming remarkably human despite appearances, and the stubby arms dangled in front of him. The creature's eyes were an electrified green, and a black tuft of hair stuck out at an odd angle on top of his head. Another tuft, this one the same brown as the rest of him, stuck out of his chest, reminding Luna and Hermione, who had both watched muggle television, of a cartoon character. The black on his head stretched down his back, ending in a point just before his tail began.
Fog twitched an ear towards some unheard sound, brought his tiny hands up to his mouth, and laughed cutely, but rather than the surprisingly fitting male voice that Harry had, this laughter sounded more like a playful kitten mewing. For a second the world stood still as the humans' minds rebooted, then the spell was broken and Fog was purring, curled up on Hermione's lap, being stroked and scratched behind the ears, with both Ron and Luna hovering behind them, looking very much like they wanted a turn to pet him.
"Bow before me, mortals!" Fog lazily demanded, but it came out as a series of mews.
A few minutes later, or maybe a few hours, Hermione cast a Tempus and shrieked, renewing the rumours of ghosts in the nearby village. "We have Transfig in ten minutes!" she yelled, standing up and stuffing Fog, who was complaining loudly, into the neck of her hoodie. After a few seconds, the dragon mouse's head popped out of the front, and the two third-year humans set off at a break-neck pace, batting away the Willow's branches with an overcharged Protego and reaching the castle in record time.
Unfortunately, they had forgotten that Harry was still Fog, and so the lesson passed with forty points from Gryffindor for the missing-boy-who-lived and Fog pretending to be Hermione's playful pet. Ron joked about how easy that would be for someone with Harry's personality, but he didn't come close to the truth. Fog spent the entire time playing small pranks on the Ravenclaws with odds and ends from on top of the desks, and everyone bought his disguise immediately.
Everybody instantly recognised the gigantic tail as the one that Harry had had, but Hermione waved it off as Harry using Fog to copy from, in order to practice more easily. Hermione had been right; wizards didn't have an ounce of logic.
The days passed quickly after that little mess up, with the quidditch match looming ahead. Harry had taken to skipping boring lessons and flying on his Nimbus, often falling asleep half-way through his flights and falling to the ground, sustaining more than one injury. It was then that he realised why his scar was gone; as a Boggart, he healed faster, removing all traces of the injury. He had actually landed hard enough to break a wrist in one session, and it had healed in a day without medical attention. Harry just guessed that being a shapeshifter would help you to heal, and didn't think much of it.
Another thing that Harry realised was that he reverted to Fog whenever he slept, which meant that he would have to finish games in less than an hour to keep his secret.
Harry hadn't gotten any closer to flying as Fog, and it started to get to him. He didn't even know how draconemuses were supposed to fly, despite Lupin's fairly frequent tips, and using a broom to figure out how to fly couldn't help him any more than using a toaster and expecting to figure out how a television worked.
The day of the game flew up to greet the students, and Harry found himself standing on the dark pitch, already soaked to the skin. He didn't mind the feeling, but what he did mind was the staring. It was obvious as to why; in the cold, the vapour that Harry's body always emitted condensed in the air, and to anybody who didn't know, it looked a lot like smoke was billowing out of him.
He explained, simply, "Metamorphmagick accident," and the rest of the team dropped the subject, but not before staring at twins, who were snickering in the corner.
The whistle blew as the quaffle was released, and Harry instantly found a bludger on his currently metaphorical tail. He sloth rolled under it, and it skinned the back his hands as it shot past him. He could hardly see through the rain and steam, and was immensely glad that his glasses had no lenses to get wet and hamper his sight even more.
As the tens of minutes drew on, Harry cast a Tempus. It read thirty five past, so Harry had exactly five minutes to catch the snitch before he fell off his broom in a deep slumber. He was soaked through, but he really didn't care as he searched the pitch, ground and stands for the snitch. He noticed a glint of gold from behind Forge's neck and pushed towards it, having to compensate for the wind as he went.
Out of nowhere came Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff seeker, who was approaching from a much more favourable angle and also had the Nimbus 2000, though not in the brilliant shade of pink that Harry felt accounted for speed. Harry pushed himself further down onto his broom, ignoring everything else, and began to gain ground towards the speedy little ball.
He almost had a hand touching the snitch when it shot higher, and he followed it, Cedric hot on his tail. He grinned back as the Hufflepuff used his slipstream and shouted, "Good luck to both of us, right?"
"Good luck!" Cedric replied from right next to Harry, the steam almost hiding the identical smirk on his face.
A whizzing sound and Harry's broom splintered.
Harry tore his gaze off the winged ball and saw that the end of his broom had vanished, smashed off by a bludger. His mind went into overdrive as the iron ball came for a second pass, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of gold diving towards the ground, followed by a streak of yellow. In an instant the cloud of steam was concentrated underneath him, shooting out of the soles of his feet. Unfortunately, that couldn't keep him up completely, and he began to slowly sink to the ground.
Another whizz sounded from behind him, and Harry's eyes gleamed as he thought of a last-ditch attempt to win. This would be amazing if he could pull it off.
With the exact timing necessary for a seeker, Harry pulled up his legs, pointing the soles backward with the steam still projecting itself from them, propelling him forward to a similar speed to that of the iron ball. He eased off ever so slightly, and the ball made contact with his feet.
He dropped the remainder of the pink broom, which had only been good for stabilisation, and pointed his hands downwards, concentrating the water vapour into them to guide his flight.
Cedric heard another whizzing noise and turned back for a second, making out a bludger hot on his tail. His jaw slackened as he registered the red uniformed boy standing horizontal on the edge of it, gaining on him every second. He barely noticed the yelling coming from that same direction.
"GOOD GAME!"
As the boy-who-did-the-impossible's hand closed on the tiny ball, Cedric could safely say he'd been bested in the most incredible way, before a chill washed over the stadium, cancelling out all happy thoughts and leaving only despair.
Cedric didn't realise that Harry didn't have a broom to glide down on, or that he was currently plummeting toward the ground.
Fortunately, somebody did. At exactly forty minutes past, a sleeping mouse was handed over to Hermione by a distinctly less scabby than average dementor. She thanked it, and conjured a Patronus to ward off its less than friendly companions. Before she could actually do anything, however, the kind dementor, which Hermione then realised must be Joy, reached under its cloak and pulled out... chocolate.
The Professors and students watched in wide eyed wonder as the reapers hesitated, then queued up to get their own bar of the stuff. After all, if one dementor liked them, why wouldn't the others?
Next to Ron, a squeaky voice made its owner heard. "Mr Weasley, has Mr Potter made an appearance yet?" Nobody other than Harry, Ron and Hermione knew about Harry's new form, so Ron pointed wordlessly at the large rodent curled in its own tail in Hermione's arms, and Flitwick nodded. "Well, don't you think it best to take him to Madam Pomfrey?"
He chuckled as Hermione leapt out of her seat and dashed towards the castle, closely followed by Ron.
"'Lo, Madam Pomfrey," Fog mumbled as he sleepily opened his eyes. It took him over a minute to register the purring that had left his mouth.
"Really, Harry, can't you go any time at all without almost murdering yourself?" the haggard healer admonished him, before grimacing resignedly. "Excellent catch of course, I just wish you weren't so stubborn!" Fog's smile was infectious, and Poppy found herself with the first real grin she had worn in a long time. "I suppose your friends can come in, now that you're awake. They'd just sneak in while I'm not looking, anyway."
Ron and Hermione burst through the doors at this remark, Hermione blushing slightly at the accuracy of the statement, and they sat down next to the gigantic bed that Fog occupied. Ron spoke first. "Fog, mate, you are a crazy son of a-"
"Ron!" Hermione snapped, then she shook her head. "I don't know how you manage to even think of all these stupid stunts," she muttered bluntly.
"Mostly luck and sheer stupidity," the mouse countered in mews. He unwrapped his tail, revealing the crumple-winged snitch that he was grabbing onto with all four limbs, holding it as close as possible with all his admittedly small might. He untangled his legs from the golden ball and blushed, and from Ron's laugh deduced that the red tinge was visible even through his blanket of fur.
Hermione changed the subject for the sake of what little dignity Fog had left. "You should have seen Dumbledore's face when he saw the dementors! He looked really scary!"
Ron coughed a few times between his choking, and Fog deduced it to mean, "His face when he saw dementors eating chocolate was priceless! It looked like he was hit by an entire quidditch team!" At the mention of quidditch his eyes darkened a little and his gleeful cackling subsided. "...Mate, about your broom..."
Hermione held out a pink broom handle and a few hundred pink twigs. "It can't be repaired," she told him sadly; that broom had grown on her since she had recoloured it.
Fog stroked the remains of the broom absently, but he remembered something that made the loss seem to disappear. "I flew! I guess I didn't actually but that's just because my human form was heavy so I couldn't hold myself up, but I can probably fly like this!"
To the humans, it seemed like Fog was chattering animatedly and waving his arms around, and they obviously couldn't understand his speech. Pomfrey broke the ensuing silence. "Fog, is something wrong?"
Fog placed a paw on his forehead, then decided to just show them what he meant. He leapt into the air, then began pushing water vapour out of his paws and tail, occasionally ejecting some out of his front paws to stabilise his flight. To him, it felt like he was suspended by nothing, just floating there magically. He wondered why it hadn't gotten foggy, but Hermione's mind beat his own to the answer.
"Because it's warm in here, the water vapour can't turn back to water, so it stays invisible," she explained simply, hoping that the muggle explanation wouldn't go over Ron's head. The redhead just nodded his head confidently, secretly wondering why Fog wasn't making his namesake.
At midnight, Fog floated out of the hospital wing, testing his flying skills as he headed for the library. He figured out that it was even easier to do than flying a broom, once he knew how, and by the time he entered the bookworm paradise, he was somersaulting and zigzagging all over the place, purring happily as he went.
Fog liked being a mouse thing more than he liked being a Boggart, he found. It was fun, there weren't any boring responsibilities, and he could fly! The only things he couldn't do were speak and defend himself, so he resolved to find a way in one of the library books.
After fours hours and ten minutes of looking, along with fifty minutes of on and off sleeping, Fog came to the conclusion that the books weren't here. So he did the logical thing, and grabbed a pouch of Galleons from his trunk, then flew to Hogsmeade, laughing at some ground-based cats on the way. He found the shop called Tomes & Scrolls, and pushed the door open after checking the opening hours.
"Good eveni-" The shopkeeper stopped mid sentence as he saw the chimera that was Fog; cat ears, fox tail, mouse body, human eyes... needless to say, he was quite the sight. The keeper didn't let it bother him for long, however. "Good evening. May I help you?"
Fog nodded, then floated over to a thick book, called 'A Database of Magical Accidents, 1930-1950'. He framed the word 'Magical' with his paws, and the keeper repeated the word out loud, garnering a nod from the dragon mouse, who then pointed at the human.
"Erm... Magical Me, by Gil-" the man stopped when Fog violently shook his head, dizzying himself in the process. After landing to wait for the world to go straight, Fog pointed at the man again. "A few more clues please, I don't understand-" lots of nodding ensued, and the man rebooted his thoughts. "Hmm. Magical understanding?.. Magical... Speech! Of course! You can't speak! I'll be back with a book on telepathy right away!" he shouted, and Fog felt accomplished for not having resorted to Shifting. He was going to stay in this form for as long as (in)humanly possible, and no language barrier could stop him!
After Fog paid for his book, the man bid him farewell. "Do stop by if you learn telepathy! You're far better mannered than some of my other customers!" The mouse giggled and waved goodbye, then set off back to Hogwarts, completely forgetting to ask for a book on fighting. Not that it would be much help in the first place.
And there we have yet another chapter! I just keep churning these out like a machine!
A machine with only one word for giggle, but a machine nonetheless.
By the way, Harry sleeps ten minutes every hour even at night, but can also sleep the entire night if he feels like it. Just sayin'.
Next chapter, stuff happens! I'll have to check the books for any major events, but I have an idea of what to do if none exist.
I think I'll try to make every chapter longer than the last from now on, if only because I'm getting closer to the Triwizard Tournament, and I have billions of ideas for that year.