Unexpected Animagus, Part 8

British Changeling Development from Infant to Adolescent

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it).

Hogwarts
DADA Teacher's Rooms

"What in the name of Merlin's left sock is that man thinking?" Moody growled. It had been a long and frustrating talk. Long for Harry and Hermione, frustrating for Moody.

He began to pace around the room. "He KNOWS about the damned Horcruxes. Just by the diary he has to know. He should be collecting the Morgana-damned things and destroying the lot! Hades in Darkness, he should have told ME!"

"His actions regarding Harry make no sense either." Hermione added. "He keeps him isolated and ignorant."

Harry nodded, "And forces me to go back to the Dursleys." He snapped. "I'd rather stay here alone instead."

"That's another thing that makes no sense. We are missing something. There's a hidden kneazle in the bush, Dumbledore knows, or thinks he knows, something we don't." Moody leaned on the desk. "Time to set ink to quill. We have facts, pieces of a puzzle. Let's see if one is a corner."

Harry raised a questioning eyebrow, Hermione cleared things up for him. "To assemble a puzzle, first look for the edge and corner pieces. Assemble them, and the rest are just a matter of patience."

Moody grunted. "Not even that? I'll have to give them Dursleys a piece of my staff to keep in a dark and uncomfortable place." The former Auror sat down on the desk chair. He put a piece of parchment on the surface, inked a quill, and began to write.

He set down the main events in Harry's life in a sheet, and Hermione's in another. Once he got to 1991, he used a single sheet, as their life's had been very closely entwined. He listed all pertinent events up to the beginning of their Fourth Year at Hogwarts. Neither Harry nor Hermione mentioned the Animagus training and Moody didn't ask about Logan.

For the time being, Harry Potter and Garfield Logan would be considered separate persons. The fact they didn't look anywhere alike made that very easy. Plus, in the Magical World, only Alastor Moody knew the green-skinned wizard. Sirius would keep the secret easily, being technically on the run.

Moody set each point down carefully. Harry's list was, in a word, long. Too long. The list of anomalies grew and grew.

Hermione's was relatively short. Moody raised his eyes to look at her. "Your story is very normal, lass. It's a textbook example of a Muggleborn witch early life. Except for your association with Potter, of course." He sighed. "Depressingly normal."

"What do you mean, Professor Moody?"

"Just Moody. That Professor stuff is just provisional." He said, "You have been in the magical side for three years. I am sure you have had the pleasure of meeting the Pureblood children, and I mean from Dark, Light, and Grey families." He snarled the word. "You are smart. Join the dots. Later. I'm sure you won't like it."

He turned to Harry. "Now you, lad. You are exactly the oposite. Nothing in your story makes any sense. Dropped with Muggles? Your Father had a lot of friends and relatives that could have taken you in, apart from Sirius Black. He himself is another anomaly, the scion of a very rich and important family thrown in Azkaban without a trial? Your…relatives…" the word sounded foul in his growl, "treating you like a Malfoy elf? No one checked on you? Do you even have your magical vaccines?"

Harry shook his head. "I have the Muggle vaccines, only because the school had to get them for everybody, and I snuck in the line."

"I'll arrange that with Pomphrey, by hook or by crook." Moody grunted, and put down yet another note before continuing. "Then, there's Hagrid. Why was he so soon at the crime scene, already with orders to take you to Dumbledore? And him introducing you to the magical world? The man is a fluffy bear, loyal to a fault, and an expert on beasties of all kind. Capable of introducing a Muggle raised kid to the magical side? He is certainly not. I am sure having him to teach Care for Magical Creatures is a disaster in the making."

Hermione commented with a frown, "The textbook bites. Literally!"

"The Monster Book of Monsters?" Moody wiped his face with a hand. "That's for Seventh Years!" He snorted. "Back to the point, your introduction should have been done by a teacher. McGonagal, Sprout of Flitwick usually share that responsibility. Hell! Even that drunk Trelawney would have done better than Hagrid! Only Snape would have been a worse choice, and I'm including Binns in the list!"

"Then, the Weasleys. Seven kids. Five of them having been to Hogwarts already, two already graduated by 1991. And she enters King's Cross from the Muggle side? Practically yelling about Muggles and asking about Platform 9 and ¾? That stinks to a set up."

"Then young Ronald says there are no empty compartments in the train? Preposterous! The Hogwarts Express won't be even half-full for several years yet, the birth rate went down the drain during the war. Add the number of families exterminated or decimated by the Death Eaters, the classes won't be back to their full number of students for years! There's simply not enough children."

Hermione nodded. "True. There were many empty compartments, I saw them while helping Neville look for his toad."

"Set. Up." Moody growled. "Somebody set you up with Ronald Weasley, Potter. Directly, Molly is surely involved. I'm suspecting Dumbledore is the instigator, the Weasleys are among his most devoted supporters. From what you two have told me about Ronald, he is definitively a millstone hanging from your neck. Lazy, short-tempered, bigoted, envious."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a quick, awkward look. Harry shook his head, "When he learns I'm in the Tournament…"

Hermione finished for him. "He's gonna go mental."

Moody grunted again. "He will almost certainly be the first to turn against you."

Harry deflated. "…"

Moody exhaled irritably, "We are digressing, we haven't even finished First Year, Potter. Let's finish."

Hermione squeezed Harry's hand in support. A gesture Moody noted, but not commented. He tapped the parchment with the quill. "The whole thing with the Philosopher's Stone. Another set-up. Those traps couldn't keep a Wizard like Riddie away. They barely hindered you three, First Years, two Muggleraised and a lazy brat; you managed the traps even without who I think should be part of your group. The Longbottom lad. As a Herbology prodigy, he would have managed that first trap."

"Ah… we…"

"I know. Petrified him and left him safely at Gryffindor Tower. Still…" he shook his head, "Remind me to go back to that point later."

"Then, we have Snape." Moody spat the name.

"Professor Snape." Hermione corrected automatically.

"If that man is a professor then I am the lead singer of the Weird Sisters." At the two confused looks of the students, he added, "Musicians, or so they say. Dreadful racket."

Both nodded.

"Snape is a Death Eater, and it's obvious he is encouraging the Slytherins to bully everybody else. My guess is that he is, or will be, recruiting. And to top the cauldron, the number of candidates to Auror or Healer posts has gone down like a stone since he has been here. Except for Slytherins, those are most of the candidates we get. I don't like it."

"And Dumbledore not only enables them, not imposing discipline. He is directly fanning the flames by insisting on putting Gryffindor and Slytherin together for several classes!" Harry noted.

"What in Hades is he thinking? No, that's not the question. The question is, What's his plan? Those extra points at the Leaving Feast? More porcupine quills to the potion. He is preparing an explosion. Centered on Potter." He nodded gravely to himself.

"Second Year. The Chamber of Secrets. I want to see it by myself the first chance we have. Hrumph. The darkest of objects enters Hogwarts and just like that troll in 1991, the wards don't stop it, not even detect it? I don't believe it. He allowed it to happen. How long did the Weasley girl stay at St. Mungo's, the mind healers need time to heal that kind of damage."

Harry and Hermione looked confused.

"She wasn't treated?" Moody snapped the quill in two. "Hell and damnation." He pulled another quill from the desk and made a note. "An anonymous note should do the trick."

"Why not do it personally? You must have the authority." Harry asked.

"The authority yes, but as long as I'm masquerading as a Death Eater, it would be suspicious. Dumbledore is no fool. He has been pulling the strings of many things for many years. He is not the kind to leave things to chance." He snorted again. "Let's continue. I have the feeling I'm not gonna like the rest any better."

Much later, Moody decided to send an elf to Hogsmeade to replenish his stash of quills.

OMAKE

This next scene is not going to be an official part of the story, but after Luizinho's review suggested possible Animagii forms for Hermione, based on other Teen Titans, well… I had to see where things would go.

"I tell you, Goldie, this is the place. Right here." Garfield Logan, now dressed with his characteristic red and white uniform, pointed at the ground.

Next to him, his teammate, Koriand'r, best known by her code-name Starfire (1), knelt on the ground to examine the grass. Her big green eyes examined the surface. "This looks like very normal grass, Gar."

"Yeah, and it feels really normal too. I felt a presence when I was here last time, and it vanished when I tried to touch it, you know, invisibility is not unheard in our line of work, but it actually had weight, the guess was flat, as of there was somebody sitting there."

Suddenly, she gasped, the grass had flattened in the center of the clearing, "Like that?" She asked.

Logan turned into a green bloodhound, sniffing the air. "Just like that, it feels almost the same, but… different too."

"Did you felt any hostility?" She looked at him. "From that presence, I mean."

"Umm… no. I kinda felt like I was intruding. Like when Robbie is meditating, you know." The Changeling returned to his human form.

"Do you feel the same now?" She raised her hand, extending it towards the flattened area of grass.

Logan scratched the back of his neck, wincing awkwardly. "Well… yeah."

"Hello?" She said, her musical voice strangely hesitant. Her hand hovered close to the presence.

"Ah, Kory? Are you sure it's a good idea?" He asked, changing into a tiger, just in case.

"Let's try to make contact. Peacefully." Her hand touched something. It was almost insubstantial, barely there. "Hello?"

Half a world and a whole different dimension away, Hermione Granger gasped. "Something touched me!"

Sirius Black nodded, "Don't be alarmed. That's your animal spirit. Relax and let it meet you. Don't scare it."

The exiled Tamaranian princess looked at her hand, rubbing the fingers together. "It's not hostile, Gar. It's like it's waiting for something." She extended her hand again.

"It feels warm…" Hermione whispered. "Like laying on the beach when the sun is high on the sky."

"Must be a tropical animal. Keep calm and let it check you out. "

Later

"Okay, everything seems to be fine." Sirius said.

Harry hugged his friend. "How do you feel? Are you ready to change?"

"Let's see what your animal form is, Hermione. Relax, don't try to force the change, just call your animal, and let yourself change."

She closed her eyes, breathed deeply a couple of times.

And felt the change.

Suddenly, she looked down at Harry, and surprisingly, at Sirius. Both males' jaws open in amazement.

Hermione looked at her hands. "Oh!" Now her skin was a peculiar golden-orange shade. Her fingers were longer and slender.

"Harry, what's with you guys and superheroes..?" Sirius stage-whispered at his godson.

Still unable to speak, Harry raised the mirror, so Hermione could see her face. It was still round, and her hair was a bushy cascade at her shoulders and fell freely to her knees height, but despite the sheer amount of hair, it rested in ordered waves behind her head. Her eyes were now completely green, no iris, no pupil, and no sclera, just green orbs the colour of grass. The effect was both beautiful and eerie.

Sirius mumbled to Harry, "Uh… um… er… she… is that a Tamarindian?

Harry spoke "She is Starfire… and it's Tamaranian… wow…"

"I can't be a Tamaranian!"

"You sure look like Starfire, Hermione. You are only missing the metallic clothes." Luckily for her sense of modesty, Hermione wore a robe.

"But I can't!"

"We will help you control the starbolts, no problem." Harry offered. Starfire's energy bolts ranked quite high in the power scale for comic book standards.

"No!" Hermione stamped her foot in frustration, "I can handle that! It's…"

Suddenly, Harry gasped. He finally made the connection to what Hermione had meant.

She nodded, bit her lip, and looked at the ground. "I'm afraid of heights!"

Author Notes:

(1) Starfire was one of the three new characters created for the debut of the New Teen Titans. She debuted in a 16 page insert that was included in DC Comics Presents, Issue 26 (Oct 1980), and her official debut was in New Teen Titans, issue 1 (Nov 1980). Starfire might be best know for her appearance in the animated version of the Teen Titans, though her look was very different from the original, making her much younger, and much less endowed. This animated Starfire is much more naive. Another version appears in the DC animated movies involving the Titans, and it's probably the most mature version. BTW, Starfire's origin story was part of the Tales of the New Teen Titans miniseries, specifically, issue 4 (Sept 1982).