(A/N): Hey Guys! Next chapter, and this is one you've been waiting for!

Leo

I woke up the next morning, body sore, and when I finally managed to peel my eyelids open, gritty with salty tears as they were, I was alone.

I listened carefully, straining my ears, finding that my senses were slightly closer to normal than they had been the last time I was awake, though I still couldn't hear the now three vampires I knew were somewhere in the house.

I levered myself up slowly, being careful not to make any quick movements, pushing myself into a sitting position against the pillows, resting on my elbows. I panted slightly through the pain in the pit of my stomach, before swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, hoping that they would support my weight.

They did, but I swayed slightly, and fell, unused to the new feeling of being unbalanced, and clumsy.

"Fuck..." I muttered, letting my forehead rest on the cold wood floor for a minute as I waited for my stomach to stop churning, and the world to stop spinning.

When it didn't, I pushed myself to my feet anyway, one arm wrapped around my midsection, the other reaching forward, in case I tripped again, or bumped into anything.

I just couldn't stand being cooped into that bed for a minute longer...

I stumbled through the halls, and I could hear them downstairs now. They knew I was here, but they also knew that I wanted my space.

What the hell had happened though?

Without realising it, I ended up on the other side of the house, outside a familiar door, the door to the drawing room Shari and I had used to start my animagus transformation.

Swallowing deep, I reached out a hand, resting it on the handle, casting a glance behind me to make sure no one was there, before pushing it open and slipping it inside.

I shut the door as quietly as I could, though more for my own sake than the others.

I padded on bare feet into the center of the room, retrieving all of the books and ingredients from inside the old piano we had kept in there, spreading them out across the floor.

"Leo?" The sudden voice made me jump, and I spun around to see Shari standing behind me, the door still closed, though my vision swam, and I sat down on the ground, hard.

"Hey..." I murmured breathlessly, raising a hand to my forehead, where a thick sheen of sweat had formed, though it wasn't that hot out.

"Leo..." She began, moving my hand to replace it with her own. "I think you have a fever..." I shook her off, turning back to the ingredients.

"Can you help me with this?" I asked, deciding to ignore her, and I knew, from experience, that her lips were now pursed in a thin line.

"I-" She stopped herself, and for a second, everything was silent. "Okay." She adhered in a whisper.

"Good. Now, how do we do this?" I asked, my fingertips brushing the tops of everything before me.

"Uhm..." She looked everything over, rearranging a few things in order, shaping them into a circle. "Stand in the middle of here." She instructed, and I did as I was told immediately.

"What's next?" I asked eagerly, though I was breathing hard, and she glanced up at me from where she now sat on the floor.

"Take this." She handed me a sprig of something, most likely bay. "Put it in your mouth, but don't chew on it." She warned me, a finger raised in my direction as I popped the sprig between my lips.

"Ots ex?" I asked, though it was muffled by the bay leaves in my mouth, and Shari only shook her head and chuckled lightly.

"Just give me a second..." She told me, taken one of the mortar and pestles from the side and placing some rosemary, spearmint, peppermint and more bay leaves into it before retrieving a box of matches, and striking the tip of the small matchstick alight, holding over the mix and dropping it in.

"Good for transformation..." She murmured, though I already knew all of this from my time spent with Remus and Elaine. She leaned over, retrieving the book from the side and smiling at me reassuringly before raising her wand towards me, and beginning to chant.

"Proserpina, dea mutationem nobis pro nobis melius mutare, coibant cum spiritus animalis. Concede nobis ut cum ipsis verus Deus Persephone!"

The ingredients around me began to glow, their light pulsing, and she dropped the book, her full attention on me now, her wand focused and leveled.

"Spiritus animalis apparent!" Something shot from her wand, hitting me full in the chest, and everything disappeared, leaving me numb, my eyes falling closed before I felt my body stretching, changing.

It wasn't painful. Somewhat uncomfortable, yes, but not painful.

I felt my insides shifting, and there was a pang of pain, though from my earlier ailment, not this. I heard faint groaning sounds as my ribs pushed outwards the same time as my skin did, to form a broader rib cage. I felt my knees pushed inwards, forcing me down onto all fours, and something extend from the bottom of my spine, my ears shifting upwards and remolding, and hair growing thicker all over my body.

The numbness dissipated, and I opened my eyes, blinking rapidly, though they sharpened and enhanced, locking onto Shari.

Prey? My instincts asked. I was used to this question from my normal instincts, but this was different, they were easier to quell. Not prey. I replied, and it was almost like the animal within me became bored with her.

Shari directed me over to a floor length mirror, currently covered in a thick sheet, and one thought went through my mind before she ripped the sheet away.

Please god, don't let me be a lion.

And I wasn't.

I was a cheetah.

(A/N): So, what did you think?

This chapter had had minor edits made to it on 29/12/22 - Please note that the animagi transformation isn't accurate to canon, because at the time where I originally wrote the transformation scenes, there was very little information on the animagi transformation available. By the time the information came out, it was way too late for me to be able to change it without rewriting large chunks of this story.