Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Chapter Warnings and Notes: This one has cursing, a splash of violence, and implied homosexuality, but it's pretty subtle. So, this chapter wrote itself quickly, and I don't have a beta, so while I did read through a few times to edit, let me know if I missed anything! Another note, at the end.
"Pansy started a rumor that we're shagging, to minimize the suspicion of me dragging you around Knockturn alley."
That was the lovely announcement that roused Draco the next morning. He groaned, and checked a decorative pillow in the direction of Blaise's voice as hard as he could. He had spent the previous evening until almost midnight as an agitated, blood thirsty animal, chasing his fathers pack of hell hounds around the property.
"Get out, I need coffee," he moaned into his pillow, lifting the corner of the pillow covering his face to glare accusingly at Blaise and his absurd lack of coffee.
Blaise laughed, and tossed the pillow onto Draco's bed. He perched on the edge of the bed, down by his friends feet, and leaned against one of the canopy beds posts. Draco waved his hand in a demanding fashion, and one of his mothers carefully trained house elves who was undoubtedly creepily watching him sleep from under a cupboard or something, popped into view holding coffee. Draco dragged himself into a seated position, and tipped the coffee down his throat. He was so fucking tired, he wasn't used to using this much magic all the time, there was so much to keep in check, to control. He sighed and threw the mug down towards the floor, trusting the house elves to catch it or clean it up or something.
He flopped back down and kicked Blaise through his comforter. "How's the, you know, coming?" Draco asked lazily, trying to settle back to sleep.
"Draco. You can't go back to sleep, we have the Hogwarts Express at 1 pm. And I don't think you've packed."
Draco ignored his friend's mother hen-ing, and closed his eyes decidedly. All he wanted was to sleep, but sleep was hard to come by these days.
"Draco. Come on. Up up up."
Draco furrowed his brow, but kept his eyes stubbornly shut, until Blaise dragged the comforter off of him. Draco sighed, and let a high pitched whine escape his lips, as he screwed up his eyes to fight off the sun. He glared at his tall friend, who was going through all of Draco's belongings in a leisurely fashion. Draco threw another pillow at him, and narrowed his eyes when he was ignored again.
He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, willing himself to become soft, bendable, and cleared his mind, then clearly and willingly thought the transfiguration charm. Transforming into his animagus form was more peaceful than his werewolf form. When he was a werewolf, he was magical still, powerful, vital, and crazed, but when he was his animagus, he was just Draco. He wasn't very magical at all, and control wasn't an issue.
Draco narrowed his eyes, growled, and pounced, spotted paws outstretched. Blaise whirled around, and was knocked over by Draco slamming into him, and as he fell, he also closed his eyes, his grin turning slowly as his face elongated, and he turned into a thin, drawn maned wolf, his reddish fur catching in Draco's powerful, snapping jaws.
They rolled on the ground growling, snapping and lunging at one another playfully, and neither noticed when the door swung open.
"Boys, none of that."
Both of them froze, and demurely sat up, next to one another, panting almost in unison. Draco was bigger, bulkier, but Blaise was a thinner, more shaggy, elegant creature. Dracos animagus was a striped hyena, and at first he had been less than pleased at yet another cosmic joke on the part of the universe. Hyenas were considered to be grave robbing, demonic, scavangers, with filthy habits and nasty attitudes. But he felt at peace, calm, like a king when he was in his Hyena form. His jaws were strong enough to snap a chairs leg, and his sensitive ears and nose were more sensitive than in his wolf form. But as a hyena, he felt more self confident and not at all challenged like he did as a wolf, but he supposed that was because he didn't actually know any other hyenas, but he was surrounded by other werewolves.
Bellatrix Lestrange was in the doorway, her arms crossed, overly large eyes unblinkingly on the two sitting animals. "The dark lord requires the two of you. Now."
She turned, and swept out, and Draco loped after her, not bothering to shift back into a human. His human form was of no use to the dark lord, and he knew it. As a human he was only a decent wizard, not overwhelmingly strong, young, and not particularly sneaky. As a hyena he had incredible stamina, perfect control over his body, and his large, ugly head was strong, and had a vice like grip. As a werewolf, he had wildly uncontrolled magic, and since they had spliced the werewolf virus with that of various magical creatures, he was pretty powerful, but he couldn't really control himself, and half the time he couldn't even make decisions, he could only feel heart beats that he wanted to rip at.
Blaise followed, also still a maned wolf. Draco was a Black, and genetically, Blacks had a gift to transfigurations, and morphisms, he even had a few cousins who were metamophaguses, and it was easy for those of strong Black heritage to master Animagi forms, and any transformation magics. Blaise was just a smart kid, who was unwilling to let Draco get the best of him in anything. He had spent the summer along with Draco being drilled and taught by an odd selection of Death Eaters, and finally both had been able to work out the complex meditation and magical awareness that had to be active to transform into an animal.
They arrived in a room where The Dark Lord was perched on a large, ornate throne, and several hooded figures knelt around him. Fenrir Greyback was standing to the left of The Dark Lords throne, and as soon as the two boys entered, he made direct eye contact with Draco. Draco flattened his ear against his skull and looked down, but internally he was annoyed as hell. Draco's first real full moon allowed out with the pack, Greyback had made sure Draco knew his place at least halfway down the large pack's pecking order.
Draco couldn't focus on the high pitched voice of The Dark Lord, going on and on and on about, Hogwarts, about Dumbledore, about keeping up their training, about how Draco needed to master his powers by winter term break, and of course on and on about how Draco needed to accomplish his task in regards to capturing the two when he got the message, through Blaise.
Blaise had only been involved because of Draco's new accelerated healing, because of the unicorn and phoenix bloods that had been genetically grafted through complex arithmancy and potions making it almost impossible for things to mark him. It also made his blood a funny color, but more importantly to the Dark Lord, his body had rejected the Dark Mark, since superficial wounds didn't affect him, and wand branding was a superficial wound even at its harshest.
He had gotten severely wounded crucioed, and re branded twice for that one, but then Snape had shown the research that the Mark wouldn't take now, the Pheonix's DNA was too intricately spliced with his own, and the unicorns blood meant that he couldn't be drained of blood to be redone genetically without the person who took the blood possibly being damaged or cursed.
"Let us see the boys control. Fenrir?"
The dark lords voice was naturally cold and amused, but it made Draco's sensitive ears grate. What was worse was when Draco saw the old, twisted werewolf step forwards, malicious grin on his face.
"Turn. Now." The or else rang louder than anything else in Draco's mind. He whined low, and closed his eyes, letting the blooming fear channel into his veins and activate his very primal werewolf instincts, that when threatened, seemed to manifest regardless of the location or even presence of the moon. Instead of fighting it, which just made the transformation hurt more, he tried to breathe and accept if, as his face rearranged itself, and his innards, and magical core twisted and roiled.
Red. Everything was all red. And he fucking hated it, dammit, he was so mad. He grudgingly kept his ears back and his head sunk low, glaring at his pack masters feet. He tried to keep breathing calmly, control, calm, come on, but everything smelled. It smelled bright it smelled too much, he could smell fear, roiling off most people, he could smell dried blood and urine, he could smell sweat, he could smell a house elf moving somewhere in another room, he could smell something familiar, intermingled in fear, mother, mother must be one of these one of these people he could smell her, and most of all, he could smell the sharp, static scent that magic had in this form.
He lashed his tail, bristling, calm calm, can't scare mother, gotta please mother. In, out, in out, stay Draco, stay this, come on. He heard the yelps and moans that were what human speech sounded like if he didn't focus very hard. He whined, head lower, trying to keep calm. Ok. Focus. What did these sounds mean. Come on Draco.
"Malfoy, light this on fire. With magic."
He focused on the piece of crumpled parchment that Greyback threw on the ground in front of him. Greyback wanted to show off, and he knew destructive magic was by far the easiest for him in this form. He growled at it, channeling all the rage he felt, all the protectiveness he felt, all the overwhelming shame deep into his gut. He breathed in, closing his eyes. He concentrated, centered his magic, opened his eyes and focused it on the paper. He breathed out hard, narrowing his eyes at the crumpled paper and snarled. The paper burst into flame, and so did the robe of one of the hooded figures, who squawked and stamped it out.
He sat, and watched the Dark Lord, steadily, stoic. The dark lord made some more human sounds, but Draco was tired, magic was hard for him, and he was fucking starving, ravenous, couldn't fucking think or function. All he fucking knew was that he wanted to taste something fucking raw and crude right now. Right. Now.
People kept talking, and he hated them, he hated that his pack master always kept him on such a tight, fucking leash, some of the other wolves could manage their form when the moon wasn't out, but no one else was a fucking science project so they got to do whatever the hell they wanted while he was just the Dark Fucking Lord's bitch, when really that man couldn't fight tooth and nail, spilling blood, couldn't really fight like a wolf would he was a weak, thin skinned, foul smelling little runt. He choked back a snarl, musn't hurt mother, can't let them, breathe. He shifted, and leaned his shoulder into Blaise's.
Kill. Kill. Come on. Fuck. Come on. Give the command. Come on. You know you want to. Come on, come on, come on. The blood lust was nearly overwhelming him. He just needed to rip-
Blaise rose, and gave Draco a pointed look, padding out of the room. Draco followed, sheepishly realizing that he hadn't been paying any fucking attention. Because. He was going to kill and eat the next living thing he didn't know well enough to not want to eat. He growled, nipping at Blaise's flank, shoving past the smaller wolf, and bolting down the hall way. Air. Fresh air, ripping past him, he soared out the door, the ground only skimming his paws, he was so fucking fast and it felt so good, his body shot along the edge of the property. He vaguely heard his friend scampering after him, and he came to a skidding halt in order to turn around, and pounce, knocking his friend over. The cold, evening air made him feel alive, the smell of grass, of life, of delicious, it was so good, he was so fucking happy, and rolled over his friend, playfully snapping his jaws, letting himself be flung backwards by the other wolfs hind legs to his belly. He threw back his head and howled, the release making him feel good, howling like this made him feel slightly less like killing. When he looked back over at Blaise, the other wolf leapt to his feet and bolted, Draco taking off after him, tongue hanging out of his mouth happily. Later, another day, in another form, he would bother himself with the worries that should be plaguing him, but allowing himself to get lost in the adrenaline rush that came from running as hard and fast as he could, wind slamming through his lungs. When he wasn't a man, it wasn't hard to forget the worries of men, the more complex plane of thought, the bothers of right, wrong, and responsibility.
Authors Note: So, I'm trying to capture the shifting of Draco's world from screwing around with his friends to the adult world, and his unwillingness to let it go. The coping method of ignoring Voldemort and going running with Blaise is childish, but I can't imagine he's just going to segue calmly.
An additional note: Hyena's are one of the most adaptable animals, being both hunters and scavengers. They have complex social structures, with large packs, and are versatile and powerful hunters. The jaw of a hyena can snap the femur of an adult human male in one bite. They're also able to digest anything from skin, to bone, to plants, to insects, to bone, anything. I thought a loyal, versatile, powerful animal that has a negative social stigma, and is socially complex was a good match/assessment of Draco to be his animagus. I also concluded that since being an unregistered animagus came easily to Sirius, and with Tonks being a metamorphagus, that transfiguration probably came easily to the Black family, and since his body was already accustomed to changing, it wouldn't be that difficult to combine his predispositions and make becoming and unregistered animagus achievable.