Harry Potter and the Animorphs #1 Chapter Three
I'm going to start posting this fic here again, hopefully a chapter a day. Then I might start writing the sequel, depending on what kind of response this gets. So if you want to see more, leave a comment!
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CHAPTER THREE
"Harry? Harry, wake up…"
After a moment’s struggle, darkness of the forest gave way to sunlight shining through the windows of the Gryffindor tower dormitories. I blinked blearily up at the curtains around my four-poster bed and the face poking in between them. That face had a long nose, lots of freckles, blue eyes, and wavy red hair. It was my best friend, Ron, the first friend my age that I’d ever had in my life.
"I was going to go to breakfast," he said. "But if you want to have a lie-in that’s alright. You must have gotten back really late last night, you look positively knackered."
I rubbed my eyes, ignoring the soreness around them. "No, I’m up. But you go ahead, I’ll be down in a minute."
Feeling grimy and dirty, I decided to go take a shower before going down to breakfast. I guessed that I had fallen right into bed after I got back. I was still wearing the same clothes and covered in dirt and twigs.
I passed by Neville’s bed on the way to the showers and saw him still deep in sleep, breathing heavily. He wasn’t the only one still in bed, judging from the snores coming from behind the curtains of Seamus Finnegan’s four-poster. It was Saturday morning, after all. Without classes to go to, many Gryffindors liked to take the opportunity to sleep in.
Pausing in the doorway, I glanced back at Neville and started to remember… but it had to have been a dream-or more like a nightmare. So I tried to forget about it as I showered. But it had felt so real…
I blocked it out of my mind and tried to think about what I should do that day. Now that the detention was out of the way, I could focus on the next big event: we would be taking our final exams in a few days. Hermione, Ron and I had been studying for it for the past week or so, but I supposed we could keep studying for a few more days.
Then again, I wouldn’t mind a bit of flying before studying. Ever since we had lost all those house points from the dragon caper, Quidditch practice hadn’t exactly been easy. It would be nice to get out and practice a bit on my own without my teammates giving me a hard time of it.
Quidditch is the biggest sport in the wizarding world, like football in the Muggle world. It’s played on flying broomsticks, the rules are complicated, and it can be a little bit dangerous for the players. That I was the only first year allowed on any of the teams and played in one of the most critical positions made it even more dangerous for me at times, so I needed to keep my skills sharp even though the season was over.
Having finished my shower and decided my plans for the day, I got dressed and went down to the Great Hall. I sat at Gryffindor table next to Ron and began dishing up my plate.
"I was thinking about getting in some Quidditch practice this morning," I told him. "Want to play a few games?"
"Good idea, I’ve had enough studying for several lifetimes," said Ron. "Hey, maybe we can get Seamus and Dean to play, too."
"I don’t know," I said. "Are you sure they’re not still cross with me?"
"No, I think everyone’s starting to get over it," said Ron. "They’re just points, and there’s always next year."
"I’m glad some people are starting to forgive us," I said. "I have enough problems with the Quidditch team alone."
"Don’t worry so much, this will all blow over before you know it."
Heartened by the good news, I gratefully began to tuck into my breakfast.
"Good morning Ron, Harry." It was Percy, Ron’s older brother. He looked a lot like Ron, except Percy wore glasses. Beyond physical appearance, the two brothers couldn’t have been more different. Where Ron was fun, more than a little bit lazy, and liked to laugh and make jokes, Percy was serious, studious, and had little to no sense of humor that I was aware of. The only things they had in common were that they both liked chess and tended to be the target of most of the twins’ pranks.
Ron had five older brothers-Bill, Charlie, Percy, and the twins, Fred and George-and one younger sister, Ginny. Bill and Charlie had already finished school, and Ginny had not yet started. As the eldest of the Weasley children at Hogwarts, as well as one of the Gryffindor house Prefects, Percy was responsible and did his best too look out for his brothers, but was always outrageously pompous while doing so (though he usually meant well).
As the youngest of the Weasley boys, Ron often felt like he was considered inferior to his older brothers and would never be able to step out from the shadows of their accomplishments. At the time he considered being friends with the famous ‘Boy Who Lived’, otherwise known as me, to be the only thing that he had that his brothers didn’t.
"Morning," Ron and I mumbled together.
"So, Harry," said Percy, "I understand you had a detention last night, but do you suppose you’ll be able to make it to next week’s Circle meeting? There’s going to be a party to celebrate the end of exams."
The Hogwarts United Circle, also known as the HUC or simply the Circle, was a group that arranged extra-curricular activities like the chess club, as well as organizing games for sports that weren’t as popular as Quidditch but still had students who were interested in playing them, such as Aingingein, Quodpot, and Stuntbumps, and even Muggle games like football and cricket. They also planned class trips for the older students; Percy had been getting more and more excited about the trip to China being planned that summer as the end of the school year got closer and closer.
The main focus of the Circle was a group of smaller, more specialized circles meant to help different students according to their needs. Hermione for example, in addition to a study group, was part of the Muggleborn Circle which counseled its members on the issues they faced because of their Muggle heritage. Each circle met on different days of the week, but all of the circles came together on Friday nights for one big meeting where they discussed any important news-and of course threw parties and game-days.
I had been to a few meetings of a circle for students who had lost close family members on the invitation of the HUC’s leader, Madam Jocosa Merrythought. The meetings had made me a little too uncomfortable so I hadn’t gone for long, but since then I had been welcome to the big Friday night Circle meetings, which were usually pretty fun.
"Okay, I’ll be there if nothing comes up," I said. "Thanks, Percy."
"You’re welcome, Harry!" said Percy. He paused to tell Ron that he had been challenged to a chess game by another first-year member of the chess team, from Ravenclaw house, before leaving the Great Hall.
"You didn’t miss a whole lot last night," said Ron. He went on to tell me what had happened, but I wasn’t entirely listening because the mail had arrived. In the wizarding world we use our pet owls to deliver mail, and at Hogwarts all of the owls fly into the Great Hall at the same time to deliver mail to their owners. I had just spotted my snowy owl, Hedwig, flying my way with a letter.
I took the letter from Hedwig and let her have a bit of my breakfast as a treat in return. I opened the letter to read:
Harry,
I wanted to apolagise for geting you and Hermionee in troubel and leaving you while we were in the forrest. But wear did you go? I couldn’t find you wen I came back to the spot I left you. Would you come to the hut for tea this afternune? You can bring Neville along as well.
Sorrie, Hagrid
I frowned. So being left behind by Hagrid and then going away from where he’d left us had actually happened? I hadn’t dreamed that part?
But surely I had dreamed everything else! …Right?
I flipped the parchment over to write a reply on the back and reached into my robe pocket, hoping to find a quill. But that was not what I found. I could distinctly feel a four-by-four-by-four inch cube in my pocket.
A shiver ran up my spine and I went very still.
"Harry?" asked Ron. "Are you alright? You look a bit sick…"
I gave him a weak smile, trying not to show my growing alarm on my face. "No, I’m alright. I guess I’m just a bit more tired than I thought."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Maybe we shouldn’t have that pick-up game after all," said Ron. "No, wait, we’ll move it to tomorrow then."
"Yeah, that sounds good," I said distractedly. Ron turned his attention to his breakfast. I looked around, making sure that no one was walking nearby.
When I carefully peeked down into my robe pocket, I saw the morphing cube-looking just like it had the night before.
It was real. It hadn’t been a dream. The cube was real.
That meant that Elfangor was real.
That meant the Yeerks…
I started to feel dizzy and held onto my seat until the moment passed. It was real…
Well, then, that’s that, I thought. I know what I have to do.
It was seemed like the only, obvious choice. I had to fight the Yeerks. And if I had the chance, I would destroy Visser Three. I felt like I owed that much and more to Elfangor. To think that only a few minutes ago I had thought my biggest problems were Quidditch, school exams and house points.
But first I had to get the others together so we could figure out how exactly to go about this war we now found ourselves in and, hopefully, figure out how to use the ability Elfangor had given us. I knew Neville was still in the dormitories-checking over the Gryffindor table confirmed it, and that Hermione wasn’t in the Great Hall either.
I looked across the hall to the Slytherin table. Draco was there, picking half-heartedly at his food and ignoring his housemates as they passed around the package of sweets his mother had sent him. I was surprised to see just how terrible he looked. He was even paler than usual, his eyes tired and even crestfallen. It didn’t help that he still had the gash on his forehead from the previous night, a little less an inch long and surrounded by a purplish-green bruise.
As if he sensed he was being watched, Draco looked up and met my eyes but quickly looked away when he realized who it was. His eyes happened to fall on his pet eagle owl. Slowly, his expression changed from nervousness to curiosity.
I watched, fascinated, as he reached out to pet the owl’s head and attempted to acquire it.
At first nothing seemed to happen. Then the owl’s eyes closed and it wobbled a little on its feet as if it were beginning to fall asleep. Draco’s eyes were wide. He was doing it-he could actually acquire an animal…
Hedwig was still perched on the table in front of me, peering serenely around the Great Hall. I scratched the feathers on top of her head. She bumped up into my fingers almost like a cat eager to be petted. I had no idea how to acquire her, but I wasn’t the type to let that kind of thing get in my way. Like the first time I flew on a broomstick, I went with what felt right. I focused on Hedwig and imagined a part of her becoming part of me.
After a second, Hedwig’s eyes closed and she slumped forward slightly, wings drooping. I was acquiring her! I looked up, hoping to find some way to communicate what was going on to Draco-but he was already fleeing from the Great Hall, mumbling weak excuses to his classmates and brushing off any attempts to ask what was wrong.
I stood up, telling Ron that I was going to go back to the dorms to take a nap. I glanced back at Hedwig as I walked out of the room. She had completely recovered after only a few seconds.
When I got out into the entrance hall, for a moment I didn’t know where Draco had gone. If he’d gone to the dungeons, where the Slytherin dormitories were hidden, then I might not be able catch up with him. The area was too unfamiliar and confusing with its almost labyrinthine twists and turns. Then I just barely saw Draco as he disappeared down a corridor leading off the entrance hall. I quickly chased after him.
"Malfoy, wait!"
"Harry?" Hermione and Neville were running down the grand staircase. One look at them and I knew that they had remembered the night before. We stood together in silence for a moment.
"Malfoy’s gone this way," I said after a while. "Come on."
We found him leaning against the wall in an unused classroom, breathing heavily and looking like he was trying very hard not to be sick.
"Oh God, it’s happened," he was mumbling. "The family curse-I’ve gone completely mad."
"Malfoy," Hermione said. "It was real. You’re not going mad."
"Let’s not be too hasty," I said.
"It wasn’t real," Draco insisted. "I dreamed all of it. I’m dreaming this now. But I’m sane enough to know I’m insane, which should count for something."
"I thought I dreamed it too," Neville said quietly. "I have strange dreams sometimes. But this was real. It really happened."
"Think about it, Malfoy," Hermione said. "We can’t have all had the same dream."
"Maybe," Draco said. "But that’s assuming you lot are even real."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the morphing cube.
"Oh my God," Draco moaned. He looked away and held his stomach.
"May I?" asked Hermione. She took the cube and began examining it. I was glad to hand it over. If we were going to use it, then we probably had to figure out how it worked-and if anyone could do that, I knew it was Hermione.
Neville watched as Hermione began turning it around so she could look at every angle. "It was real, wasn’t it? He was real… he really killed…"
He trailed off, but all of us knew who he was talking about. We stood for a moment in subdued silence. To my surprise, Neville didn’t cry. He just seemed kind of overwhelmed and unsure of how to feel. I suppose we all kind of felt the same. I had only known Elfangor a few moments, but… It’s difficult to explain how we all feel about Elfangor, even now.
"He gave us the morphing ability for a reason," I said finally. "Elfangor was real. That means the Yeerks are real, too. They’re out there, taking people over. We have to stop them."
Hermione nodded. "I’m with you, Harry."
"So, Malfoy, had enough time to think it over?" I sneered.
"Am I not supposed to be a little bit concerned about this?" asked Draco. "Oh, no, I suppose taking a few seconds to think before throwing oneself into danger isn’t the Gryffindor way."
"I still think what I thought last night: if we decide to do this, then we all have to agree," said Neville. He looked at me. "But I’ll do whatever you do, Harry."
"You know, just because you kiss Potter’s arse and follow him around like some kind of dog doesn’t mean that he’s ever going to be your friend," said Draco.
"Leave him alone!" said Hermione. "Neville’s making the choice for the same reason we are, because it’s the right thing to do."
"Was I the only one who saw what happened to Elfangor?" asked Draco. "That other Andalite-"
"That was one of the Yeerks," Hermione corrected him. "He just has an Andalite-"
"Whatever!" shouted Draco. "The Abomination, then! He turned into a monster and ate Elfangor! What’s to stop him from doing that to us?"
"What’s to stop him from taking over the Earth if not us?" I challenged. "So what is it going to be? It’s all or none of us."
Draco’s eyes widened and flickered between us. "Why do I have to decide?"
"Because you’re the only one who doesn’t think we should do this," I said. "Do we fight, or do we let the Yeerks win?"
"I-I…" He started to get nervous and panicky. "I don’t know-"
"We need you," said Neville.
Draco stared at him.
"That’s why we need to stay together," said Neville. "We’ll need all of us to do this. Including you."
After a moment, Draco’s eyes flickered towards me. I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t even sure we really needed him. Though I had to admit, I thought he’d be more useful in a fight than Hermione or Neville. Even if he could be an idiot sometimes, at least he was a scrappy idiot. Neville would probably burst into tears if a Yeerk aimed a ray-gun or something at him, and Hermione’s fighting experience was probably limited to reading about a battle in a book once.
Swallowing my pride, I nodded.
Draco looked down at the floor. "…Okay."
Relieved, I turned to face the others. "Well, now that that’s out of the way, maybe we should figure out how to morph?"
"I should think that we would learn how to acquire something, first," said Hermione.
"Draco and I already acquired our owls," I said. "It’s easy, we’ll teach you."
"What was it like?" asked Neville.
"…Strange," said Draco.
"It isn’t bad," I said quickly. "I didn’t even really feel anything. Hedwig just got really sleepy all of a sudden."
"It didn’t hurt her?" asked Hermione.
"Nope," I said. "She shook it off right afterwards."
"Then maybe Neville and I should acquire some owls," said Hermione. "If it really doesn’t bother them… I don’t have an owl, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt anyone if I acquired theirs."
"Let’s go to the owlery, then," I said. "The owls would have finished delivering mail by now."
"We should hide this before we go," said Hermione, holding up the morphing cube. "You remember what Elfangor told you, Harry. We have to keep it somewhere safe."
"I’ll lock it in my trunk until we find something better," I said. "I’ll meet you at the owlery."
The owlery was a circular stone room that was usually cold and drafty because none of the windows had glass in them. The straw-strewn floor was a hazardous obstacle course of owl-pellets and slippery droppings. All of the students’ owls lived in the owlery, about a hundred of them in total, of every breed imaginable. Each of them had a hollowed out perch in the wall, and most of them were either going to sleep after the morning’s deliveries or outside hunting their breakfast (or would it be dinner at this time of day for an owl?). Catwalks encircled the room all the way up so that each owl’s perch could be reached by its owner.
I climbed up a short set of stairs from the castle’s southwest courtyard to enter the owlery and found Hermione, Neville and Draco grouped together on one of the catwalks, chatting awkwardly about inconsequential things like the weather.
"Did you have any problems?" Hermione asked when I arrived.
"No," I said. "There wasn’t even anyone in the dormitories. Have you acquired your owls yet?"
"We decided to wait for you," said Hermione.
We followed Neville as he searched for his owl, which he found near the top of the tower. Hedwig was up there, too. She hooted at me in greeting.
"Hello, Diana," Neville said to the barn owl. He gently petted the feathers on her neck. "Harry, how do I…?"
"You’re doing most of it already," I said. "You just have to imagine her becoming a part of you, and I guess your body does the rest."
Neville stared intently at his owl. After a moment, her eyes fell shut and she leaned into Neville’s hand.
"I’m doing it!" Neville exclaimed excitedly. I couldn’t blame him. He usually had trouble doing even simple magic spells-being able to accomplish something like this so easily must have been new for him.
Draco smirked. "Amazing, Longbottom-you’ve managed not to bollocks this up yet."
Hermione and I glared at him.
"What?" asked Draco defensively. "Everyone was thinking it."
"It’s okay," Neville said with a sheepish smile. "I was thinking it, too. How do I know it’s over? She’s starting to wake up again."
"It only takes a second or two," I said. "You should be done."
Hermione looked around their level of the owlery for an owl to acquire. She eventually decided on a large tawny owl, which she acquired without any trouble.
"So, how do we start morphing?" she wondered, absently rubbing her fingers together. "Do you suppose it’s anything like transfiguration? If it is, the most important thing may be to visualize what you want to transform into-in this case, our owl morphs."
"Well, the owlery’s empty if anyone wants to take a crack at it," said Draco.
"I’ll try it first," I said. "In case something goes wrong…"
Neville’s eyes widened, but Hermione only nodded tightly and waited.
Draco was staring at me, with startling intensity.
I closed my eyes and blocked everything else out. Hedwig, I had to think of Hedwig. I thought of the pattern of her feathers, the way she flew, the bright yellow of her eyes…
I heard Neville gasp and opened my eyes.
"Oh good lord," mumbled Draco, turning away with a grimace.
"What?" I asked. Or tried to ask, anyway. What actually came out was a raspy shriek. I realized that, relative to the others and the world around me, I was getting shorter.
I looked down at my body and immediately wished I hadn’t. Morphing definitely isn’t a pretty process. I had thought that my whole body was shrinking, but it was actually just my legs getting stumpier and stumpier. My trousers became steadily baggier as the process continued. I could feel my feet shrinking inside my shoes.
Then my arms started to change. They were also growing shorter, though the fingers were getting longer. They all started melting together into one long, fleshy digit. It was absolutely disgusting, but I couldn’t look away. My chest suddenly swelled out until I looked like some kind of muscle-bound body-builder. I was worried for a moment that the buttons of my shirt would start to pop off, but then the rest of me caught up with my legs and started to shrink.
Morphing sounds like a horribly painful process, but all I could feel of it was an odd numbness like when your foot falls asleep. I could feel things like the itchiness of white and black feathers sprouting all over my body, and I was distantly aware of my bones and joints shifting around, but none of it hurt.
My clothes billowed up around me, obstructing my vision. Whether this was a bad thing or a good thing is up for debate.
Finally, the transformation was over and I had to get out of this thing, I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t get away, I was trapped-what was going on? Why was this happening?-I had to get out!
I searched desperately for an escape route. There was an opening in the trap that had snared me, and I struggled awkwardly to wriggle my way through.
Free! I was free! But there were humans around me-
"Harry?"
Harry? Who was… I…
I blinked, and suddenly I was me again. What on earth had just happened?
"This is amazing!" exclaimed Hermione. "You look exactly like Hedwig!"
I glanced over at Hedwig-I had to turn my whole head because my eyes couldn’t move, but my eyesight was so powerful that I could clearly see individual cracks and specks in the stone walls all the way across the room-to find her staring at me with wide, almost alarmed eyes. I supposed it would be strange, seeing an exact copy of yourself standing where someone else had been a moment ago.
Returning my attention to the others, I wondered if there was any way I could communicate with them.
"Hello," I tried to say. What came out of my mouth was a soft hoot.
"Are you trying to say something, Harry?" asked Hermione.
I thought.
The others jumped. "You just spoke in our heads!" exclaimed Hermione.
"Like Elfangor…" said Neville.
I said.
"We heard you the first time, didn’t we?" said Draco.
I said.
"That’s good?" echoed Hermione. "We’ll be able to communicate with each other while in morph-this is wonderful!"
"Why didn’t his clothes transform with him?" asked Draco, flicking at my shed robes with the toe of his shoe. "I thought that was what happened when you turned into an animal."
"That’s what happens when you use magic to transform into an animal," Hermione corrected him. "We don’t know how morphing works. They might not have thought to allow clothes to change with you-the Andelites don’t wear clothes, after all."
"So does that mean, every time we morph…" Neville blushed.
Draco rolled his eyes. "So we’ll be naked when we have to morph. What’s the problem?"
"So we just won’t look at each other," Draco said with a shrug. "I don’t know about you, but I’m never going to watch anyone morph ever again. I don’t need any more nightmares, thanks."
"Okay, we’ll just do that. And we won’t be seen naked by anyone else because we don’t want to be seen morphing, and that’s the only time we’ll be naked," said Hermione, blushing furiously. "That’s it then. No problem."
After some very embarrassed discussion, we decided that Hermione and Neville would morph while wearing their clothes and then crawl out of them with Draco’s help. After that, Draco, who didn’t care as much about nudity, would undress and hide all of our clothes and wands before morphing last. I waddled over to the edge of the platform and looked down so I could see and warn the others if anyone entered the owlery.
I said.
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione. She and Neville were removing their ties, shoes, socks, and robes so that it would be easier to get out of their clothes once they morphed.
I said.
"That’s strange," said Hermione. "What was it like?"
I said.
"That sounds almost like the owl took you over for a moment," said Hermione. "The owl must still be there, in the DNA you acquired."
"What is DNA, anyway?" asked Draco.
"It’s a nucleic acid that contains-"
"She’ll explain it to you later," I said.
"Ah," said Draco with disinterest. "Muggle stuff."
"It’s not just ‘Muggle stuff’ obviously," Hermione said in annoyance. "Anyway, we’ll have to be careful to stay in control while in morph."
I said.
Draco and I turned away, giving them privacy as they morphed. I looked up at Draco. I said, unable to keep the smile out of my voice,
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Draco said quickly.
said Neville after a while. Draco helped pull him out of his robes, and then Hermione when she finished a few moments later.
A barn owl and a tawny owl waddled up next to me.
said Hermione.
She leaned over the edge of the platform, peering down to the bottom of the owlery.
she said.
"That’s disgusting," Draco said from behind us as he got undressed. "Can I opt not to hear Granger’s thoughts, please?"
was a little too much information, Hermione,> I admitted.
I could hear as Draco gathered up everyone’s clothes and wands and slid them under the gate that closed off the section of the owlery for the professors’ owls. No student would see them there, and hopefully we would be back before any professors came around.
As Draco started to morph, I thought about what he’d said and remembered thinking the previous night that Elfangor had been able to choose who could hear his thought-speech.
Curious, I focused on Neville.
Neville turned his head to look at me.
asked Hermione.
I explained.
said Hermione.
We continued to practice this for a moment, until Draco finally said,
Hermione, Neville and I turned around-and for a moment I was actually intimidated, before I recovered and laughed at myself. Could you blame me, though? Draco’s eagle owl morph looked positively gigantic compared to the rest of us. Even the tufted ears seemed to add to the effect, seeming almost like devilish horns sweeping up from wide hellfire-orange eyes.
Draco took a few steps towards us and looked us over, taking in the great size difference between us and him. With an almost tangible smirk, he said,