Harry wasn't sure when he'd started being thankful that the Ravenclaws were being prejudiced and paranoid idiots. Sure it had hurt at first, but as the weeks had gone on he'd started enjoying the benefits he got from being the Ravenclaw reject. He preferred the Slytherin Common Room to the Ravenclaw one and he was enjoying having a room to himself in Sirius' quarters – not to mention that McGonagall was still allowing students to sit at any of the four House tables

Flitwick was horrified at his House's behaviour and had started removing fifty points from Ravenclaw for every day they rejected Harry. So far Ravenclaw House had managed to lose so many points that their total was over minus one thousand – a Hogwarts record. Harry wasn't sure why the Professor was persisting, since the loss of points obviously wasn't making a difference to their behaviour, but he did appreciate the show of support.

Not that he wanted Flitwick to find a more effective form of persuasion. He was dreading the day that Ravenclaw House changed their minds and invited him back. He'd gotten so used to being able spend time with his friends in the Slytherin Common room and eating with them at the Slytherin Table. Before Skeeter's article had come out and prompted his House to exile him, he'd only really gotten to talk to the Weasley twins a few times a week, but now they joined the group at the Slytherin Table for at least one meal a day. He didn't want to go back to only seeing them at their biweekly animagus practises and weekly wandless magic practise (not that Fred came to the second one).

Still, he knew that things couldn't continue like this forever. One day the Ravenclaws would realise that he wasn't an evil Death Eater and would invite him back and he would have no choice but to go back to them. He just hoped McGonagall still let students eat at any of the House tables when that happened.

45-45-45

"Are you ready?"

Harry sucked in a nervous breath and nodded, trying to ignore the way his friends were all staring at him.

"Don't try and force the transformation all together." Sirius warned, from where he was crouched down in front of Harry. "Do it in stages and make sure you transform your head last."

Harry nodded again. It wasn't new information, since Sirius had explained it multiple times already, but it was always good to be reminded. He closed his eyes and began his breathing exercises that would help him sink into his meditation.

He remembered a time when mediating had been hard, when it had taken him ages to find his meditative state and he had struggled not to distracted from it. Now it was as easy as walking – he knew exactly what he needed to do to achieve it and had trained his body, mind, and magic to do with ease.

He brought the image of his animagus form forward in his mind and focused his attention on transforming his left arm and, within seconds, could feel it shifting painlessly into a wing. His left arm was next, then he transformed his legs one at a time, and then finally his torso. He knew that he must look ridiculous – a giant bird with a human head.

Next came the hardest, and most dangerous, part.

Harry allowed his mind some time to settle and then brought the image of the owl back to the centre of his mind. He could do this. All he needed to do was transform his head and then his entire form would shrink to its actual size.

He had never transformed his head before, since it was the last step in becoming an animagus, but Sirius had assured him that it would be easier than any of the other parts of his body had been since it would want to transform and be at one with the rest of his body. The problem was that if he made a mistake with the transformation there was a chance that he might damage his brain and never fully recover. According to Sirius the chance was slim, but it was an intimidating prospect.

He needed to transform his head into the owl's head; his head into the owl's head; his hair into the owl's feathers; his eyes into the owl's eyes; his mouth into the owl's…

And then suddenly his entire body seemed to be doing something. The feeling was indescribable. It wasn't painful it was just…Harry couldn't think of a single word to describe it.

"Yes!" Sirius' voice exclaimed loudly. "You did it!"

Harry opened his eyes slowly, before blinking in confusion. Everything looked so different, and not just because he was less than two feet tall. Things seemed more detailed, more focussed.

"Can you fly?" Draco asked, and Harry was fascinated to discover that he could tell where exactly his cousin was standing – despite the fact that he was standing behind him.

It was a good question though and Harry focussed on moving his wings. He flapped them a few times, before letting out a surprised hoot when his feet actually left the ground. He flapped his wings a few more times and found himself a few feet in the air, flying directly towards one of the nearby walls with no idea how to stop himself.

"Immobulus!" Sirius' voice called quickly.

Harry hooted quietly in relief as the spell prevented him from colliding with the wall.

"I think flying should be an outdoor activity." Sirius commented dryly.

Harry startled as hands gently plucked him out of the air and then set him on the ground.

"Finite!" Sirius murmured, and Harry used his newly restored ability to move to tuck his wings back in.

"How about you change back now." Sirius suggested. "You'll want to practise the transformation a few more times today so that you can transform quicker."

Harry shut his eyes and went through the process he normally used to undo one of his partial transformations. The feeling of transforming back was just as indescribable as the original one had been and, before he knew it, he was standing on his two human feet.

"That was amazing!" Theo exclaimed.

Draco looked Harry over. "What was it like?"

"How did it feel?"

"Did it hurt?"

"How are you feeling now?"

Harry grinned in amusement as his friends' questions. "It was weird. I don't have a word to describe how it felt. No, it didn't hurt, though my arms are aching now."

"From the flying?" Neville asked curiously.

"It must be." Harry agreed. "Which is a little pathetic really. I hardly flew at all."

"It would make sense that your wings would use different muscles than you usually use." Theo commented.

"It will take some time to get used to it." Sirius told him, with a proud expression. "It took me weeks of practise to get my front legs up to scratch. Your father spent the first few weeks with his antlers on the ground because his neck wasn't strong enough to hold them up."

Harry grinned at the image. "I didn't consider that I might have to build up muscle in my animagus form."

"Just be glad that animal's develop much quicker than humans." Sirius grinned.

"It takes Great Horned Owls nine to ten weeks to be able to fly." Harry remembered from the reading he had done.

"Exactly," Sirius nodded. "Your muscles will develop faster in your owl form than they do normally."

Harry smiled in relief. "I'm glad. Can I try again?"

"Go for it." Sirius leaned back in his chair. "This time, attempt to transform simultaneously. Your magic will have some idea of what you're looking for now, so it should be easier."

Easier wasn't the word Harry would use to describe it, though he supposed it wasn't exactly harder either. It just took him a little extra time to convince his body and magic to complete the transformation, but even then it wasn't much longer than doing each limb individually.

The third time Harry completed the transformation it took even less time and, by the end of two hours, he was able to complete the transformation in under a minute.

His friends, who had started their practise session watching Harry rather than practising their own forms, were all making progress as well and Harry thought that all of them would probably have completed the transformation by the beginning of the next school year if they all continued to work at it. Even Fred, who was the least far along, had completed three limbs and was working on his fourth.

45-45-45

"Here."

Harry accepted the piece of parchment from Sirius and looked it over curiously. "What is it?"

"You'll need to complete it to register your animagus form." Sirius explained.

Harry looked up with a frown. "Register it?"

"Yes." Sirius nodded seriously.

"You and my father didn't register yours." Harry pointed out. "Wouldn't it be a good trick to have up my sleeve?"

Sirius sighed. "Harry, you have plenty of tricks up your sleeve already, none of which will earn you two years in Azkaban. Do you really want to risk Rita Skeeter somehow finding it out and writing an article about it?"

Harry's mouth dropped open in shock. "Of course! That explains everything!"

Sirius gave him an odd look. "What?"

"Skeeter must be an unregistered animagus!" Harry explained quickly. "Think about it. Moody, or, well, Crouch, could see through things, so she couldn't have been sneaking onto the grounds under an invisibility cloak, but if she was an animagus no one would have recognised her."

Sirius shook his head. "How did you get to that conclusion?"

Harry let out a laugh. "I don't know. I've been wondering about it for a while, and Luna said something to me about her being a coleopteran, which means beetle, but it didn't make any sense to me. I just thought Luna was being vague, but it just came to me. She must be a beetle animagus. There was a beetle in Daphne's hair when I invited her to accompany me to the Yule Ball."

Sirius' eyes tilted his head to the side considering. "I've never heard of anyone having a bug animagus form before."

"Probably because most people who found out that their form was a bug wouldn't bother," Harry pointed out. "But Skeeter must have realised that she could use it to get good stories."

Sirius' eyes sparkled mischievously. "We'll have to catch her in the act to turn her in."

"That will be easy." Harry told him confidently. "The Third Task is in three weeks, she'll be hanging around looking for some information on it." He shot Sirius a frustrated look. "Not that I know anything about it."

Sirius looked apologetic. "Alright, but in the meantime, you need to fill in that form. If she has been spying on you in bug form, there's a chance she already knows that you're an animagus and is just waiting for a good time to publish the information."

Harry grimaced. "Fine. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"If she knows about my form, she probably knows about yours." Harry pointed out. "You talk about it often enough when we're practising."

"I'm already registered." Sirius told him. "I've been to Azkaban once, there's no way I'm risking being sent back."

"Oh," Harry supposed that made sense. "Wait, what if Skeeter's here now?"

Sirius' eyes widened and his wand was in his hand in seconds. "Revelio!"

They both looked around the room, looking for anything that glowed, before sighing in relief when nothing did.

"Between this, what happened with Crouch, and what happened with Dumbledore, I'm going to be as paranoid as Moody." Harry commented with a grimace.

Sirius put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Harry."

Harry sighed. "It's not your fault."

"I know, but I'm still sorry." Sirius told him solemnly, before his expression suddenly brightened. "But I do have some good news for you?"

"Yes?" Harry straightened in anticipation.

"We need to go down to the Quidditch Pitch." Sirius said, standing up.

Harry stood up with a confused frown. "Why?"

"We're meeting Ludo there." Sirius told him with a grin.

Harry's heart leapt excitedly. "Ludo Bagman? You mean we're finally going to find out what the Third Task is?"

"Yeap." Sirius looked pleased with himself. "We're meeting them there in ten minutes."

"Oh, thank Merlin!" Harry exclaimed, quickly leading Sirius out of their quarters. "I honestly don't know how much longer I could have waited without going insane."

"You'll have three weeks to prepare." Sirius pointed out.

"Two weeks and five days." Harry corrected. "I was rounding up before. And that is not nearly enough time for us to reasonably prepare."

Sirius looked amused. "You'll be fine. I have complete confidence in you."

"I'm only fourteen." Harry pointed out, as they made their way down the stairs to the Entrance Hall. "All the others are seventeen."

"And yet, you're beating them." Sirius reminded him, just as Cedric came up from the Hufflepuff Common Room.

"Merry meet, Lord Black, Harry." Cedric bowed in greeting.

"Merry meet." Harry and Sirius both echoed with a nod.

Cedric fell into step beside Harry as they left the castle and began walking towards the Quidditch Pitch. "Any idea what the Third Task might be?"

"Sirius knows." Harry told him with a sigh. "But he's taken an oath not to tell us."

Cedric's darted nervously towards Sirius. "Oh."

"I can't believe they waited this long to tell us." Harry told him. "The Task is in two weeks and five days!"

Cedric groaned. "Oh, don't tell me that."

"They ought to have told us weeks ago." Harry said, shooting Sirius a disgruntled glare.

Sirius just looked amused. "Be thankful for the two weeks and five days. They could have always decided to spring it on you like the First Task."

Harry grimaced at the thought. "That would have been too…" He trailed off as they turned a corner and spotted the Quidditch Pitch – or at least, what had once been the Quidditch Pitch. "What in Merlin's name…?"

"What have they done to it?" Cedric sounded indignant. "We were hoping to have another Quidditch Game next weekend."

Harry looked the Quidditch Pitch over carefully. It was as though they had turned it into a wildlife habitat or something. The Quidditch Hoops were gone and the previously grassy ground was now made of uneven stone. There was a ridge made of boulders and rocks that looked as though it was approximately five feet tall and spanned three quarters of the way across the pitch to his left; a large pool of water that was at least eighty feet wide and was shaped like the letter 'C'to his right; and numerous small boulders (most of which were barely two feet across and three feet high) scattered throughout the area.

"This way." Sirius instructed, leading them around the boulders into the middle of the pitch where Bagman was waiting with the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons' Champions.

"Hello there!" Bagman greeted them cheerfully as they approached.

In contrast, Viktor, Nynke, Fleur, and Aceline all bowed politely. "Merry meet, Lord Black.

"Merry meet, Heir Black."

"Merry meet, Heir Diggory."

"Merry meet." Harry acknowledged with a nod, as Sirius and Cedric did the same.

Bagman looked uncomfortable for a moment, but then rallied himself. "Righteo, well, this is your Third Task!" He spread out his arms in an invitation for them to look around.

Harry did so, but didn't see anything new.

"Now," Bagman called their attention back to him. "I'm sure you all know what we've created here."

Harry noticed that the other five champions looked just as confused as he felt. "No, sir."

"No?" Bagman repeated, his face falling in disappointment. "What about now?"

Harry raised his eyebrow in surprise as, with a flick of Bagman's wand, a burst of flame erupted out of the stone ten feet away from them. He turned his head and noticed two other places across the arena where the same thing had happened. Rather than dying out, the flames continued to burn, creating three pillars of fire that stretched higher than he was tall.

"Non." Fleur shook her head firmly.

"Oh," Bagman looked towards Cedric, Nynke, Viktor hopefully, before his expression fell again. "No one?"

"No." Viktor rumbled in denial.

"Well, that means that I get to tell you all then, doesn't it?" Bagman brightened up at the idea. "It's a…a…well, I guess I'm not sure that there's a word for it actually, but basically, you'll each be placed behind one of the rocks around the edges of the arena, and then will participate in a non-traditional duel until there is one victor."

Harry tried to keep his relief off his expression. Duelling he could do. "What are the rules?"

"There aren't any." Bagman grinned. "Well, except for the obvious of course."

Sirius took over. "You may not cause your opponents any permanent damage. Every injury that you cause must be able to be healed within twenty four hours."

"Healed by potions and magic, or naturally?" Harry asked.

"Healed by a professional Healer." Sirius clarified. "You may not use any spell that has been banned by the British Ministry of Magic. You may not leave the arena. The only thing that you may bring into the arena is your wand."

"What of the use of unnatural talents?" Aceline asked, glaring at both Fleur and Harry through narrowed eyes.

Sirius didn't look impressed. "All talents and abilities that any champions may possess are allowed, so long as they uphold all the other rules."

"But zat ees unfair!" Aceline protested. "Just because we are not freaks…"

Sirius stiffened. "What was that, Miss Moreau?"

Aceline paled. "I beg your pardon, Lord Black."

"It is not my pardon you ought to be begging." Sirius told her sternly. "You owe my heir and Miss Delacour an apology."

Aceline looked as though she had swallowed a lemon, but she turned towards Harry and Fleur. "I beg your pardon for my rudeness."

Harry nodded in acknowledgement, deciding to ignore the lack of sincerity in the apology. There was no point in causing a fuss – particularly not over a prejudiced French witch who would be returning to her own country within a month.

Bagman cleared his throat nervously. "The, uh, the last person standing in the arena will be declared the winner and will become the Triwizard Champion."

Harry frowned. "The last person standing? Or the last person conscious and willing to fight?"

"The second one." Sirius answered. "If you are knocked unconscious, or out of the arena, you are immediately out of the Task. However, you may also yield by releasing red sparks into air."

"What about the points we've earnt from the previous Tasks?" Cedric asked.

"Ah," Bagman looked excited. "They will determine when you enter the arena. Miss Moreau and Miss Delacour will enter first, as they are currently in fifth and sixth position. After one minute Mr. Krum will enter, then Mr. Diggory, Miss Visser, and finally Mr. Potter!"

Harry considered that. It sounded pretty good as advantages went. Ideally, by the time he entered the arena, some of the other Champions would have already been defeated.

"But zat ees not fair eizer!" Aceline protested. "Why should zey get to come in later?"

Bagman frowned. "Well, the other tasks have to mean something, don't they? No point in having three tasks, if it's only the last one that matters."

"Zen ze last Task ought to be judged on points also." Aceline argued. "Zat way we, who need more points, would still 'ave ze chance of winning."

"You still do." Sirius told her. "You will just have a defeat the other five Champions to do so."

"And eef I defeat all but one, and am zen defeated myself?" Aceline asked. "What zen?"

"Then you will have come second." Sirius told her flatly.

"Eet makes sense to me." Fleur nodded, shooting Aceline a reproving glare. "I will still do my best."

Aceline's entire body seemed to stiffen as she turned to Fleur with a hostile expression. "As will I, of course." She tossed her head haughtily.

There was a long, awkward silence, before Bagman stepped forward. "Any questions?" He asked, rubbing his hands together. "No? Alright, let's go back inside then, shall we?"

Harry took one last look around the arena, before following the others back up to the castle. The boulders were obviously there to help them hide from their opponents and stay out of the line of fire. It would be very different from the usual duelling he did with Sirius which was one on one with no kind of shelter. Hopefully the Come and Go Room would be able to recreate something similar to help him figure out how to duel in that kind of environment.

45-45-45