DISCLAIMER: THE BOOK BELONGS TO J. I HAVE ONLY BORROWED BOTH CHARACTERS AND PLOTLINE.

CHAPTER 7

On third month Draco had come to library searching for Harry and had found him huddled up in a corner reading something very obviously interesting, as he had not moved from his position since Draco had spied him. Quietly he snuck up on Harry and rapped the table startling him.

Harry looked up still a little disoriented trying valiantly to cover the title of the book he was reading so intently. "What you got their Harry," Draco asked trying to read between his fingers, harry flushed and mumbled something, " Sorry didn't quite catch that " Draco amusedly.

"I was reading about animagus" he said occupied with pulling invisible threads on his robes, not daring to look up to see if Draco was laughing or not.

Not hearing anything he sat up straighter and dared to finally look. What he saw made him feel better Draco looked lost in thought as if he was actually interested about it. Contemplating the possibility of becoming animagus.

"How much do you already know?" he asked seriously.

" Um not much, I've just started. You seeI just wanted to think about maybe attempting it since almost my entire family is animagus, even McGonagall. The subject fascinates me and I was just was really curious. If it works out however, then I'd be really surprised."

Draco studied him for a minute and said almost warily "You don't let on about how good you really are do you? I mean I know that you can do a lot of stuff that you say you can't so I'm guessing that this was not something you just thought of out of the blue. You're actually going to attempt this aren't you? And you might even succeed. But Harry becoming animagus is not easy, we know that for sure, or every other person will be attempting it. It requires a real thorough study so why aren't you asking for help from your family?."

"I want to, but I know dad won't be fully supportive Dray. Yeah he was totally nuts in school, but now he's super protective of me and Darren, he hates anything out of the norm happening to us, if I tell him then I can kiss my plans goodbye."

"Okay why not work with Darren then?"

"Actually I tried but he sort of dismissed the idea ,not that I blame him his workload is so great right now. So yeah I've started to work on it by myself okay."

"Why have you not asked any of us?"

"Well because I didn't want to see you laughing at me Dray. " he sai in a small voice.

"What! when have I ever done that? Look I think this is a really neat plan, and if you'd let me I'd like to join you, what say you harry?"

Harry's unsure expression broke into a smile and he nodded "Any help will be always Appreciated Dray."

So began the grueling process of collecting information so that they had a thorough study on the subject. They had written to the ministry for the animagus guidelines and a week later had received a thick book and an application file each.

There were a number of rules in the book most of them were redundant since the book hadn't been updated for years, but, in all it was clear and precise.

After becoming animagus the ministry would be immediately be notified. All they had to do was send in the filled up application with a seal in their animagus form and their normal signatures and they would be formally registered. The last bit gave them with a choice wherein they could either let the ministry print a notice in the daily prophet about their accomplishment or they could keep it confidential after paying and addition price of 500 galleons.

But all this was the easy part now they had to start working on the actual process. Becoming animagus was on the whole a very tedious process more than difficult.

It first started with creating a potion. The potion had many ingredients but the instructions were pretty straightforward Draco had enough faith in his abilities and he suspected that Harry was more than able to carry out the task. Acquiring the ingredients would take time so they made out a list of ingredients needed and pooled in what money they had and sent the order to a trusted supplier that Draco's father knew.

Of course like all difficult potions this one also was very specific about time and would take about three months to prepare. After it was ready, its life span was about five years, giving them enough time to slowly and carefully attempt becoming animagus.

The potion itself did not bring out the animal, what it did was enhance the drinkers ability to become animagus. It made the body compatible to host the soul of the animal conjured from magic. It was because this process involved soul magic that the ministry had deemed it dangerous and had deemed it as dark magic.

Very few people actually became animagus, some died unable to control the beast and some just gave up.

The second step was to call forth the magic beckoning the soul within and aligning with it. It was similar to something Draco called Occlumency a magic that, Professor Snape his godfather had agreed to teach them, without asking questions.

Delving into one's mind was difficult, and what they had to do was far worse they had to not only enter their own minds, but pull on the animal's soul. It required a great deal of patience and concentration.

The last step was calming the beast because the two souls were at war with each other, this went on until one soul had been suppressed. It required real strength of character and when the wizard won the battle the souls would align themselves and just imagining the form of the soul would it forth and become one with wizard, thus making the wizard an animagus.

Draco and Harry had decided that they would just finish the potion this year .They needed to train in Occlumency for at least a year before they attempted anything further. So they waited for their supplies to come to begin the process.