POV of James Rivers

The Christmas holidays flew by, and I soon found myself on the train back to Hogwarts. There, I shared a compartment with Par, Bella, Ginn, Hermione, and my brother Oliver. To be honest, I was more than just a little relieved that Par seemed to be in much better spirits now and was also more talkative than she had been before the holidays.

I couldn't say for certain whether it was because we had finally shared our plans with her or if she simply had enjoyed a nice holiday, but for me, all that mattered was the result: she finally seemed cheerful again.

On the train, we agreed to meet the next evening in the Room of Requirement to check if books about Animagi had appeared there. After everything was settled, we spent the rest of the journey playing Exploding Snap and eating sweets from the trolley.

Returning to Hogwarts was an incredibly wonderful and exciting feeling. As I climbed into one of the boats with Par, Bella, and Ginn, I inevitably remembered our first boat ride to Hogwarts, when I had met Par for the first time. That evening, the giant squid living in the lake had shown itself because Par had her hand in the water. If it hadn't been so incredibly cold now in January, I would have liked to try and see if the squid would appear again.

After a while, a question crept into my mind: would we have become friends if we hadn't met at the boat ride back then, or if we had been sorted into different houses? I don't know why, but I didn't like this thought at all, so I banished it from my mind as quickly as possible.

The following day, I found it particularly difficult to keep my thoughts from constantly wandering to the Room of Requirement. This didn't escape Professor McGonagall's notice, who repeatedly pointed out that the beetle whose color I was supposed to change magically was about to crawl away from me. In the end, I had Ariana to thank for not finding myself in the uncomfortable position of having to fetch a new beetle, as she kept catching mine whenever it was about to fall off the table. This way, she didn't really get to practice herself, but she didn't seem very motivated to do so anyway. I quickly noticed that she spent the whole time alternately keeping an eye on her beetle and mine with a slightly absent look.

It wasn't until the last quarter of the lesson that Hermione noticed Ariana wasn't working at all. She complained that Ariana hadn't said anything, then proceeded to explain the spell to her.

I found it admirable how easily most spells seemed to come to Hermione. So far, she was undoubtedly the best in every class, despite being Muggle-born. By now, we were used to her collecting points for Gryffindor in every lesson by being the first to succeed with a spell or once again being the only one who knew the correct answer to a question.

I was slowly beginning to understand that Par hadn't exaggerated when she claimed Hermione had already read through all of our textbooks. At the beginning of the school year, I had actually thought that was a lie or at least grossly exaggerated, but now I knew that Hermione must be incredibly diligent and intelligent. If any student was capable of figuring out how to become an Animagus, it was definitely her - that much was certain to me.

We had hurried through dinner to ensure we had as much time as possible before the official curfew, after which we weren't allowed to be outside our common rooms. Although Bella had the option of returning to the dungeon unseen at a later hour using her invisibility cloak, and we Gryffindors didn't have far to go to reach the portrait of the Fat Lady, we didn't want the Ravenclaws among us to get into trouble.

At twenty past six, we were all standing in front of the piece of wall behind which we knew the Room of Requirement was hidden, waiting for Bella and Zane. Bella had insisted on quickly taking her school bag to her dormitory after dinner, which meant we all had to wait for her, as we didn't know if the two of them could enter the room later once we were already inside.

It was fascinating how this girl never seemed to manage being on time; she always came up with reasons why she had to go somewhere else, and even when she was already late, she remained the picture of calm. We had all felt this keenly in the weeks before the holidays when she was constantly the last person missing when we met in the library.

Relieved, I stood up from my spot on the floor where I had been sitting when I saw Bella and Zane turn into the corridor. Par beside me also stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the wall. After a few seconds, the ornate door to the Room of Requirement appeared, which my brother, who was closest to it, opened to wave us in.

Only after the door had closed did I notice that the room had changed significantly since our last visit. It now resembled a library, with bookshelves lining all the walls except for a window front, reaching up to the high ceiling. To reach the upper books, there was a ladder leaning against one of the shelves. In the center of the room was a large coffee table made of dark wood, surrounded by enough scarlet and sapphire blue armchairs for all of us.

I wasn't the only one overwhelmed by the room; I gathered this from the astonished facial expressions of the others and Hermione's excitement as she ran straight to the first shelf to examine the books.

"Almost all of these books are about Transfiguration!" she exclaimed excitedly as she brought a stack of books to the table, handing one to each of us to check if they were helpful. However, the first book she gave me proved to be completely useless, as it contained absolutely nothing about how to become an Animagus, but only explained the legal regulations for Animagi.

While we were all in good spirits at the beginning of the evening and convinced that we would find the right books, the mood gradually worsened after we had flipped through the first few without success. We did come across one or two spells that sounded interesting, but we didn't seem to be getting any closer to our actual goal, which was incredibly frustrating.

After two and a half hours, Par had moved on to looking at what other books were available and was now leafing through a large tome with various spells that one might likely use in Defense Against the Dark Arts at some point. Bella and Ariana also gradually slowed down, eventually flipping through the books Hermione picked out for us all in slow motion. Hermione herself seemed to be the only one who wasn't deterred by the lack of success so far and tirelessly looked at one book after another.

If Par hadn't checked the time, we wouldn't have noticed that we were now approaching curfew. Thanks to her, we realized we all had only ten minutes left to get back to our common rooms.

In the common room, we had no opportunity to talk privately as it was still full of students, so we said our goodbyes there before heading to our dormitories. We had definitely underestimated how difficult it would be to find the right book, if it was even present in the Room of Requirement at all. Somehow, we had only considered the possibility that the spell might be too difficult for us, but what if we couldn't find a book with instructions for it?

Even though the others were already frustrated with the book search, we all agreed to Hermione's suggestion to continue searching the next evening. This would mean spending what little free time we had left poring over books, in addition to all the homework we were getting again after the holidays. But it would be worth it in the end.

The last thought I had before going to sleep was how fantastic it would be to actually transform into an animal. I wondered what kind of animal I would turn into...