Chapter Text
Today was the day. Hermione Granger was going to become an animagus. She’d been carrying the Merlin-forsaken mandrake leaf in her mouth for what felt like forever, and today was the day. She was going to put the mandrake leaf in the crystal phial that had received the moon’s rays. Then she would add her own strands of hair, a silver teaspoon of dew that had not seen sunlight or been touched by human feet for seven days and finally, a chrysalis of the Death’s-head Hawk Moth.
As far as she was concerned, the hardest part was keeping that fucking mandrake leaf in her mouth for a full moon cycle.
Then she just had to wait for the electrical storm.
Once she got the phial stored in a trunk under her bed, she checked the weather reports. If she played her cards right, the weather might be primed for a storm in the next couple of days. Religiously she said the words twice a day with her wand pointed towards her heart: Amato, Animo, Animato, Animagus.
Ever since she’d found out that Sirius, James, and Peter (although he didn’t count) had become animagi in solidarity with Remus, the whole process had intrigued her. After finding out that Rita Skeeter had managed to become one herself, albeit unregistered, Hermione was determined to do it.
She spent the next few days imagining what she might become. She’d heard that sometimes the animagus was the same as the person’s patronus, which in her case would be an otter. She loved her otter, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be an otter. Maybe a swan? No, then she’d need to be near water. Or a wolf? Or maybe just something simple like a cat.
**
Hermione woke to thunder. Strong thunder and no rain. This was it. It was time for the ritual. She dressed quickly and retrieved the potion, perfectly blood red. She floo’d to the Ministry and made her way to the DMLE training room. This way it wouldn’t matter what form she took, there would be plenty of room to get used to it.
Hermione said the words to the ritual and then drank the potion. She didn’t have to wait long. Suddenly, her body started to feel as if she was going through the narrowest apparition point. She closed her eyes and curled into herself, dropping to the ground in a heap. Just when she thought she couldn’t squeeze anymore, it stopped. She opened her eyes and looked around.
She was Alice in Wonderland. Everything was three, four, five times bigger than she remembered. Her next impression was that she was lying on the ground. But, when she started to push herself up on her elbows, she fell back down.
What the hell? Looking down at herself, she saw feathers. Feathers and spindly legs with little claw feet. The reason she couldn’t push herself up was because her arm was now a wing. Without even trying, she unfurled it and flapped.
Well, if there’s one here, there should be one over here, too. She moved her head, which she now realised was pretty much just eyes and a beak, and saw the other wing, stuck underneath her. Unfortunately, that one wasn’t going to unfold as easily. Again, as if it was natural, she hopped up onto her little twig-like legs. Now she could flap.
But she did more than flap. She lifted off the ground and flapped her wings furiously. The only thing that disconcerted her, besides having wings and a beak of course, was her heartbeat. Well, actually two heartbeats. There was one that was fast and fluttery—she assumed that was the bird’s—and her own.
She was a bird! A tiny one she thought, but she needed to find a mirror to see what kind of bird. Eventually. Right now, though, she wanted to fly.
She flew around the training room until her wings got tired. She imagined this had to be what flying on a broom was like, with the exception that she didn’t have to worry about staying on said broom. Not only that, she didn’t have to worry about her hair flying in her face.
Landing was as easy as taking off. As soon as she did, she folded her wings back in. She felt like she should be out of breath, but in reality, she was just fine.
Okay, time to transform back. She was supposed to be able to revert back to her human form effortlessly. All she had to do was think about it.
She thought about it. Nothing happened. She thought again, harder. Still nothing.
All right, Hermione, calm down. It’s not always perfect the first time.
After three more tries, she flapped her wings and flew around the room again. She soared, and then dove towards the ground, pulling back up just before she hit the ground, like she had cast an Arresto Momentum. That calmed her down somewhat.
The sixth time was the charm. When she felt her elbows and her knees, she knew she was at least marginally successful. Her hair made her sigh in relief. There was only one problem.
She was naked. As the proverbial jaybird. Except she thought that maybe she was a wren, not a jaybird.
Where did my clothes go? She’d been wearing her sleep shorts and a hoodie and her trainers. She looked all over the room for them, to no avail.
Fuck! Quickly, she crossed over to the locker room hoping upon hope she could find something in one of the Auror’s lockers. Maybe even Harry’s.
She opened every locker that wasn’t warded shut, but she didn’t find anything until the last one. In it, she found a pair of joggers and a t-shirt with the Holyhead Harpies logo.
It had to be Harry’s. She grabbed them and threw them on quickly, then floo’d back home.
Once she stepped out of the fireplace, she did a little happy dance.
She was an animagus!!!!