(AN:) This is a start that can be used for just about anything. Basically, it'll give Harry an Animagus form of a magical animal I've made up: a silver gargoyle. A creature constantly hunted by goblins because that's where they got Goblin Silver.

Suggestions welcome.

A small cauldron's contents bubbled gluttonously on the stovetop, the pale purple smoke gathering thinly in the sealed kitchen.

The cauldron's minders, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, were taking turns adding ingredients, stirring, and adjusting the heat on the fiddly potion, all the while having a spirited debate.

"I'm telling you, Moony, there's no doubt in my mind that he'll be some kind of deer like his dad," was the common refrain from the ex-past-resident-of-Azkaban as he commonly referred to himself since his escape. After all, a man couldn't be an ex-con if he were never convicted. It was that sort of annoying logic that made his friend and confidant want to slap the taste out of his mouth.

"And I'm telling you, Padfoot — Stir it one more time, clockwise — that just because his father was a deer doesn't mean he will be. After all, Fleamont was a barracuda. I think he'll surprise us. Maybe he'll be a crow or a raven?" said the resident werewolf. "If he ends up being a raven, he'll have to learn to vocalize for the obvious Poe reference, of course."

"…Alright, I'm all in on a raven now. He could stalk Snivellus and throw out a 'nevermore' every now and then," Sirius said, grinning widely and adding in the clockwise stir. "I think it's ready. A nearly opaque light green with speckles of yellow and a spiraling light purple smoke. It'll keep for…" he checked his watch, "…the next five minutes in the cauldron. Watch it and make sure it doesn't curdle while I go fetch Harry!"

With that, he nearly sprinted out of the kitchen, making sure not to disturb his mother's portrait as he raced to his godson's room. Without wasting a beat, he let himself in and smiled when he saw the son of his best friends sitting up tiredly in his bed. Wordlessly, he gestured hurriedly, glancing over when Ron Weasley's snores hitched for a second. He breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't stir further and his godson moved quickly, but quietly.

"Remember, Harry, you can't breathe the fumes until after you drink the potion or you'll have to wait another month," Sirius whispered to the younger wizard. "If it curdles before we get there, it'll take a week to brew again."

"I know, I know, this is the tenth time you've told me. Is this really easier than the 'official' method?" Harry asked curiously while they padded through the house.

"You mean the plebe method? You'd have to keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month and brew a potion before a storm then chant or something, I don't recall. But the patented Potter method hasn't never failed," Sirius said. "Your father was gracious enough to share your great-grandfather's notes with us on the method when we tried back at Hogwarts. Even that worthless prick Pettigrew couldn't mess it up more than once."

They fell silent as they approached the kitchen. At a look from Sirius, Harry took a deep breath and held it, giving a thumbs up. When the kitchen door swung open, they found Remus panicking ever so slightly.

"Sirius, we messed up! There isn't a glass vial!" he exclaimed, shuffling around ingredients and looking for one. Sirius yelped softly and began to look for one as well.

Harry just stared incredulously, but silently at the two Marauders. He calmly walked over to the cabinet and extracted one of the goblin silver goblets there. He let out an unintelligible, questioning mumble and pointed at the goblet in his hand.

The two Marauders turned and looked at the goblet. After only a second, Remus said hesitantly, "The book calls for a glass vial, buuut, if I remember my reaction tables right, goblin silver wouldn't have an adverse reaction to any of the ingredients, much like glass."

He glanced over at the potion that was approaching the point of no return.

"We won't be able to get Molly out of the house as easily if we have to do this again, Moony," Sirius relented. "Go get a bezoar just in case. Go for it, Harry. Pour and drink within thirty seconds."

While the werewolf rushed out of the room, the younger wizard stuck his free hand into a dragonhide glove and, careful not to dip the tips of the glove into the potion, tipped the cauldron over, pouring the potion into the goblet. As soon as the goblet was full, he pressed the rim to his lips and breathlessly chugged the surprisingly easy to swallow and minty potion.

If he had picked any other goblet in the house, it wouldn't have had the reaction that was now brewing in the fifteen year old wizard's gullet. That particular goblet had been used in the late eighties by the late Arcturus Black the Third, Sirius's grandfather, to take a popular alternative medicine from the early twentieth century: colloidal silver.

For Arcturus, it was actually a valid remedy for the magical illness he had been suffering from, which was a mutation of the common cold that occurred in werewolves and could be spread to witches and wizards. A Pepper-Up potion only made the illness worse, so colloidal silver was the only real remedy.

However, unfortunately, the mundane silver had reacted with the goblin silver goblet to have the opposite effect on the man, mutating the disease further into a deadly malady instead of curing him. The residue left behind was almost nonexistent, but enough was there to have an effect on the potion that had spent the barest amount of time within the goblet.

With a deep breath of oxygen and some of the lingering fumes of the potion, the reaction was complete.

Immediately, Harry went into a deep trance, a silver colored fog pervading the envisioned area his mental self now stood in. Excitedly, he glanced around, hoping to catch sight of his Animagus form through the fog that was dissipating ever so slowly. The area he was standing in was a forest clearing with either a burrow or a cave that something like a bear would reside within.

Cautiously, he crept over to the entrance of the dark cave and tentatively called within, trying to sound as genuinely welcoming as he could, "Hello? Are you there? I'd really like to meet you!"

Sirius had told him that his father had taken several tries to get his Animagus form to show itself because the stag had been skittish like the actual animal. Thankfully, if his form didn't show up, he didn't have to drink the potion again; he'd only have to meditate to try and find it.

He smiled triumphantly when he heard a shuffling within the cave, but curiously, it sounded strangely metallic. Maybe his form was a tool-user of some sort? He waited expectantly while the sound of slow, ponderous steps grew ever closer.

His smile turned into a deeply surprised expression when…something stepped out of the shadows.

He was bipedal and absolutely towered over him in a way that only Hagrid could before. He was made entirely out of a silvery substance and its face was mostly featureless, aside from vibrant, almost glowing eyes with black sclera, radiantly silver irises, and deeply black pupils that reminded him of a cat's.

Whatever it was stayed within his line of sight as he studied his form's, well, form: his stance was human-like, so he wouldn't have to completely relearn how to walk. He walked on the tips of his feet, which ended in three large, sharp claws and the heel had its own claw, which seemed to suggest it could grip using its whole foot.

The legs were thick with no discernible muscle tone, but it might not show under the metal skin, he supposed. Curled behind his form was a long, thick, prehensile tail that was almost as long as his form was tall that gently tapered thinner until it ended in a sharp point. The chest was broad and the arms were thick much like the legs. Each hand had four sharp metal claws, three fingers and a thumb.

Atop the head of his form was an absolutely wild, massive mane of needle-like silver hairs: long, thin, and sharp.

Harry blinked a few times after looking over his form and said with a nervous smile, "I'm guessing the silver goblet had something to do with this, didn't it? I mean, I'm chuffed; you're brilliant and all; but I don't think you were meant for me. But I'd like to have you if that's what you want."

His form stared at him with blatant amusement at his reaction and let out what was unmistakably a laugh, albeit one that clanged like a gong being struck over and over. One of those deadly-looking claws reached out slowly and patted his head gently. It was surprisingly warm! He yelped when he found himself being pulled into a tight, but comforting embrace.

His eyes widened when a set of metal, bat-like wings slowly sprouted out of his form's back to warp around him as well.

Harry smiled broadly when he finally processed that his form could probably fly too and exclaimed, wrapping his arms around the broad chest as best he could, "Bloody brilliant!"

The two held the embrace for only a moment before the silver beast glowed brightly and then sank into the smaller form.

Once they were fully incorporated together, the clearing disappeared and he felt himself being wrenched out of his vision. When he came back to himself and opened his eyes, he saw Sirius and Remus staring at him with expectant expressions from across the table.

He glanced around the kitchen, taking in the dimensions for a moment before turning back to them and saying with a grin, "Any chance we can move the table? I'll need a bit of room to change."

His godfather raised his arms in celebration and exclaimed, "I knew it! Deer, right? Maybe a pronghorn or a great big whitetail like your dad?"

Harry shook his head with a mysterious smile and stood up from the chair that they'd guided his temporarily insensate body into. The two adults followed and with a wave of one of their wands, the table was shoved up against the wall along with the chairs.

"If you need advice on the change, the most important thing I can tell you is not to…force…it," Sirius started to say before trailing off when his godson smoothly and quickly transitioned from a human into a hulking, silver behemoth. He stared up at the large creature with wide, shocked eyes. "Cor, mate! You don't do things halfway, do you? What the bloody hell are you?"

The wizard-turned-creature merely shrugged and began to examine himself while moving around slowly. Immediately, he could tell there was a great amount of power and strength in his new muscles. He could feel his wings tucked into hidden slits in his back. His nose and mouth, which he initially thought weren't there, were merely hidden behind a retractable shield that left his face looking featureless when it was in place.

However, shortly after he'd gotten used to his new form, a headache struck. One so severe, he had to abruptly sit down on the bare floor and rub at his temples, all while information and instincts were being piledriven into his brain.

"Oh, right, that'll happen. If your animal has different instincts or their brain works differently than yours, it's been documented that it can take a while to reorient yourself. Sorry, I forgot to mention that when we started," Remus said apologetically. "It took your father a few months before he was able to stomach meat again and Padfoot still hasn't stopped trying to lick himself while human—"

"Shut it, Moony!"

Seized by the instinct of his new form, Harry scoured his memory for the feeling and properties of a pain-relieving potion and…produced it inside his body? How was that even possible? The headache quickly ebbed while he continued to be fed information.

More quickly than his human brain ever processed the information, his new form's mind went over everything he knew and felt. It wasn't an all-encompassing history of what his form's species had gone through, but it was enough for him to be giddy with glee at what he could turn into.

A body made of a metal that was nearly impossible to break or bend, but could be melted down and reshaped with a hot enough flame. How hot, he didn't precisely know, but he felt that he could take a dip in a pool of lava and it'd be akin to a steaming hot bath in his human form.

Claws that were sharpened by digging through rock walls; granite, marble, it didn't matter. Most minerals could be cleaved by his claws when they were properly cared for.

His tail was the most interesting part. Long, prehensile, and sharp, it had a hollow duct running through it that came out of the needle-like point at the end. While he didn't intrinsically have anything more than his own liquid metal blood to secrete through his tail, he could somehow create and discharge substances that have gone through his body before.

Even while he was still…human…Oh, that could prove useful against Voldemort.

Harry looked up to see the two remaining non-traitorous Marauders having a mock wrestling session. Apparently, they'd carried on with their argument while he was preoccupied. He stood up, stalked over to the two, grabbed them both by the collars of their robes, and easily separated them.