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A Cat, or an Owl, or a Toad.
Harry’s keeping secrets. Ron’s jealous of a cat. Trevor’s stuck on the roof.
A mishap results in some magical metamorphoses.
I.
Within seconds of stepping through the portrait hole Ron found himself with his ankles tied together and his wrists chained firmly to a decorative wall sconce above his head.
“Hermione! What are you—”
She flicked her wand so that his loose tie wriggled up from around his neck and stuffed itself in his mouth.
“Ugh, is this what you guys get up to when I’m not around?” Harry said loudly, cramming a Sugar Quill in his mouth to distract himself from the knowledge that his two best friends were doing it. Considering the events at Malfoy Manor last year, this roleplay was in supremely bad taste. The Sugar Quill was also in bad taste, until Harry realised he was chewing on a feather and spat it out.
“Quiet!” whispered Hermione, who had not lowered her wand and was now inching away from the pink sofa by the fire. “Ron, what were the first words I said to you when we met?”
Ron mumbled and spluttered until she spelled the tie out of his mouth.
“You told me I had a dirty nose. Which, coincidentally, is the same thing you said at breakfast this morning. Do you remember that peaceful time, before you saw fit to shackle me to a wall?”
“No, that wasn’t the first thing I said. And that smudge is still there by the way, I don’t know why the concept of a flannel is so beyond you. Or perhaps it’s mirrors you can’t get the hang of.”
“Thanks ever so. If I remember correctly, the first thing you said to me, darling dearest, was that a boy on the train had lost a toad. Happy now?”
“Erm,” said Harry.
Hermione turned to look at him, and Ron would have turned to look at him if he wasn’t chained by the wrists and ankles. What Ron saw, when he looked, was himself. Lying on the pink sofa in a pair of stripy boxers that were more hole than not, and a purple knitted jumper.
“I thought I’d been with you for the last hour,” Hermione explained breathlessly, combing her fingers through her hair. “I thought you must have come in while I was reading and I didn’t notice.”
Ron couldn’t see the face of the sleeping figure as it was pressed into the sofa cushions, but the Weasley shade of ginger was nothing if not distinctive. Plus, those were definitely his pants.
“Let’s wake him up,” said Harry.
“I can’t take this. Just one uneventful year, that’s all I ask for. You didn’t drink a Doppelgänger Solution, did you?”
“You can’t take it? I’m still chained to the bloody wall!”
“Hermione, it’s probably someone dicking about with Polyjuice potion. Let’s see, shall we?” And Harry poked the mysterious stranger hard in the ear.
The mysterious stranger rolled over slowly, looking most disgruntled, and was quite clearly Not Ron. Similar ears aside, he had a kink in his nose like that clever man Harry knew from off the telly. A deviated septum. On this person, coupled with the slant of his eyes, you got the impression he’d been in a few too many pub fistfights. His hair was long and straggly, his fingernails overgrown, and he was missing a canine.
And his eyes were yellow.
“Fuck off,” he growled.
All three of them were taken aback.
“Excuse me,” Hermione said, distinctly more shrill than she would have liked to have sounded at 11:30 on a Friday morning, “but who are you and what are you doing here? Oh, sorry, Ron.” She spelled him free and he rushed over to stare at the ginger interloper.
Not Ron merely yawned, shrugged, and settled back on the sofa. He closed his eyes and didn’t even flinch when Ginny kicked the door open with one of her combat boots.
“What’s up, baby crups? Harry, Sluggy wants to see you.” She tossed a scroll at him, which bounced off his forehead. “Hang on. Do I have another brother I don’t know about?”
The man on the sofa cracked an eye open, and then winked lazily.
“Hey, Gin,” he purred.
She gave the reclining pervert one second to take back his words, during which she arranged her facial features in a look she hoped conveyed absolute disgust and also not if we were the last two people on earth, and then cast her favourite hex.
“Vespertilio Na—“
“Ginny, no!” Hermione shouted, disarming her. “It’s! It’s!”
“Yes?"
“It’s Crookshanks!”
II.
The Night Before
“Look, Sirius Black had the attention span of a chicken doing sudoku, so if he could do it, I can.”
Draco watched Harry pace the floor, pondering the point at which a headache becomes a migraine. The hidden room behind the tapestry in Gryffindor tower was only five paces wide, which made for a lot of back and forth, and it was well past midnight.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t do it,” he said soothingly. “I said maybe not tonight.”
“I’m going to try one more time.”
Draco got up from his conjured velvet ottoman and gripped Harry firmly by the shoulders to stop him from moving. Harry stopped pacing, but his green eyes continued roving around.
“I see, are we playing a game? The one where I give you sage advice and then you completely ignore it?”
“I’ve got to do it. While I’m still at Hogwarts, like my dad.” Harry vibrated with tension, and Draco knocked their foreheads together in an effort to make him see sense.
“But why right now? And why me, when McG would fall over her tartan knickers to teach you? There’s plenty of other things we could be doing.” He mouthed the skin under Harry’s jaw until he relaxed and moaned softly.
“I want it… to be just for me,” he said, trailing fingers across the hot skin of Draco’s waist.
“Me and you,” Draco said, and kissed his neck.
“Me and you. Just once more, I promise. And no telling McGonagall, you know she’d make me register.”
Draco sighed and groaned and sucked a lovebite in protest.
“I never get what I want,” he complained.
“Draco, did you or did you not receive a Pegasus for your tenth birthday?”
“All right, all right, get on with your funny business.”
“My funny business,” Harry echoed, and clenched his eyes tight shut. Draco sat back on his ottoman and waited.
It was, by far, the worst attempt. It was nauseating. Draco could see feathers, at least one antler (though definitely not where antlers should grow from), both hooves AND paws, and four tails. And it was wearing glasses.
“Merlin. Fuck. I hate this. We could be having sex right now. I’m just saying. I don’t know if you can even hear me, I can’t see any ears in your terrible mishmash of a body. Salazar.”
The clock struck one, startling Draco so much he dropped his wand and the ottoman unconjured itself and turned back into nothing, causing him to fall flat on his arse. The book on Animagi (all five hundred pages of it) fell to the floor with such a loud thunk that it probably woke the Hufflepuffs.
The unnerving Harry mishmash snorted and barked, and then let out a sound that Draco tried very hard to pretend was not a fart.
“Give me strength. I’ll turn you back, I’ll turn you back,” he muttered, flipping through the book to find the correct spell after casting three incorrect ones. “Reparifarge!”
III.
They eventually separated Hermione from Crookshanks, after a ten-minute long hug that the ex-cat endured with great dignity. She offered him four Ice Mice and a saucer of milk, which he declined. Ginny ate the Ice Mice and took the milk for Luna to soak her earrings in.
Hermione sat on the sofa between her boyfriend and her cat, who gave each other the evil eye over the top of her head. They all agreed they couldn’t let Crookshanks wander the castle alone, lest he run into Filch.
“Wait a minute, you must know Mrs. Norris?” Crookshanks shrugged noncommittally.
“But she’s still a cat, so it’s not like she can vouch for him,” Harry pointed out.
“We don’t know that. Maybe all the animals in the castle were affected,” said Hermione.
“Nope,” said Ginny, pulling a ball of pink fluff from her robes. “Arnold’s still… a puff.” She kissed the top of Arnold’s head. He squeaked. Harry saw Crookshanks lick his lips and decided it was time to go to lunch.
Ron leapt up at this, tugging on Hermione’s arm.
“It must have been a spell, with limited range,” said Hermione, ignoring Ron’s mumbling about sausages. “Or a potion, I suppose. But why would somebody transfigure an animal into a human?”
“Maybe if they were—“ started Harry, and then thought better of mentioning Animagi. “Um. I dunno.”
“Was it deliberate? Crookshanks, do you remember what happened?”
Crookshanks stretched his arms above his head and scratched at his stubbly face. He stared at Harry intensely with his big yellow eyes in a way that uncomfortably reminded him of Dumbledore. Then he turned to Hermione.
“Woke up like this.”
Harry let out a sigh of relief.
“Now that mystery is solved, can we please go to lunch?” Ron stomped over to the portrait hole, dragging Harry along with him.
It was only when all five of them were halfway down the grand staircase that they realised their mistake.
“You’re wearing my underwear!” Ron shouted so loudly that Professor Flitwick, who was passing, fell over and knocked a first-year into the trick step.
“Shut up, Ron! Harry, cloak?” Hermione held out her hand, using the other to keep a firm hold on Crookshanks, who was sniffing at a portrait.
“Er, what?”
“Invisibility cloak? Priceless artefact that you continue to drop on dusty floors? Would be useful right now?”
“Oh, I er— lent it to someone.” The first year had been rescued and Flitwick was coming down the stairs towards them. “Luna,” he offered, praying Hermione would not follow up on it.
“Well then, this will have to do,” she muttered, transfiguring Crookshanks’ hairy jumper into a smart black school robe.
Flitwick passed them without incident, much to their relief.
“Do you still have, uh…” Ginny made a strange cupping gesture as they passed the fourth floor. All of them looked at her and waited. “Because, you know, I’m not sure how they do it for cats.”
“Do what?” Harry asked, as Ron turned a violent shade of burgundy.
“Because you can’t be a kitty daddy anymore,” she continued. “I was just wondering if—"
Hermione shrieked and covered Crookshanks’s ears.
“Gin, do not ask my cat if he still has his—“
Luckily, their arrival at the Great Hall prevented Hermione from finishing, and Crookshanks didn’t look inclined to answer Ginny’s question. Ron and Harry had thrust their hands deep in their trouser pockets protectively and weren’t making eye contact with anybody. They sat down at the Gryffindor table, where Neville and Parvati were already buttering rolls and chatting.
Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table. Draco had his head down, writing furiously on a bit of parchment that Harry suspected was the Potions essay due in an hour. Draco noticed Harry looking and turned a bit pink, then dipped his quill in his pumpkin juice and took a sip from his ink pot.
No-one noticed Crookshanks at all until he stole a chip from Neville’s plate, ate half of it, and then let the uneaten half fall out of his mouth. Neville looked up aghast. Luna came up behind him and also took a chip off his plate.
“Hello, Gryffindors. Who’s your handsome friend?”
Ron made a sound like a squashed Kneazle.
“Handsome? You’re one gobstone short of a tournament if you think that,” he grumbled.
“I don’t know,” said Ginny, in a tone that suggested first impressions don’t always stick, and that she very much did know.
“I think he looks… rugged,” Hermione said, batting his hand away from her plate. Ron stared at her incredulously.
“Not my thing,” said Harry, still watching a seventh year spell ink off Draco’s face. “Oh. No offence, Crookshanks.” Crookshanks watched from the corner of his eyes and said nothing.
“Crookshanks?” shouted Neville, dropping his knife and fork and drawing the attention of the nearby tables. Luna plucked her pink Spectra Specs out of her hair and put them on.
“I think we should go and see Professor McGonagall after lunch,” Hermione ventured.
“No need, she’s coming over here.”
McGonagall swept down the aisle. They all tried to look normal and failed dismally.
The headmistress decided that a question would be unnecessary, and that an unblinking stare at each of them in turn would suffice. They say that silence is a useful tool in negotiation, and Harry was inclined to believe them. Even the Slytherins were watching now, and the pressure was making him break out in a sweat. Neville choked on the bread he had stuffed in his mouth to avoid talking.
The one who eventually broke the silence was Crookshanks, who looked up Professor McGonagall, blinked lazily, and said a deep voice: “Hi, Minnie.”
IV.
Potions was spent gossiping about the relationship between Professor McGonagall and Crookshanks, while Draco eavesdropped behind them. Crookshanks had recognised her even when she was not in her Animagus form, and they’d gone up to her office to discuss things, and presumably bat a ball of yarn about.
At the end of the lesson, when they’d stoppered up their bottles of Moustache Strengthening Pomade (“A useful potion to know, boys and girls,” Slughorn insisted, despite it not being anywhere on the NEWT syllabus), Ron and Hermione disappeared off to the library to study, and definitely not to snog in the restricted section.
Draco packed up his stirring rods and flicked a leftover daisy head at the side of Harry’s face.
“Just a minute, I’ve got to go meet Slughorn,” Harry said, watching Professor Slughorn waddle out of the classroom.
“I sent that scroll, you idiot.”
“What?” Harry gravitated towards him, hands worming their way into Draco’s back pockets.
“I thought your friends might find it less suspicious.” Harry had the good grace to look guilty. “Seeing as you didn’t tell them about me, or that we were most likely the ones responsible for turning Hermione’s cat into a hunk.”
“Urgh, don’t talk about him like that. Romilda already tried to slip him a love potion. And he’s a cat.” Draco laughed. “Are you coming to my room tonight?”
“Your room that you share with four other sweaty beasts?” Draco asked, pretending the idea of spending another night with Harry was some kind of terrible burden.
“Five if you count Trevor.”
“I most certainly do not. Who is Trevor?”
“Neville’s frog. I mean toad. He’s lost him again. Actually, he said ‘I don’t lose Trevor, Trevor loses me.’”
“Right. Well. If I must. We can plan what you’re going to tell Minnie when she inevitably works out what’s happened.” Harry made a sound of displeasure at the thought, and the name, and pulled his hands away from Draco’s arse.
“Come on, then.”
Draco took out the invisibility cloak from his bag and they headed up to the tower, arm in invisible arm.
V.
Harry woke slowly, pressed against Draco from head to toe. Draco mumbled something about Snarfalumps and rolled over, burying his face into the pillow. Harry planted a wet kiss on his ear, then his neck, and travelled downwards until he heard shouting. He rolled his eyes.
“Spider, probably,” he mouthed, kneeling over Draco’s hips. Draco looked significantly more awake now, and motioned Harry to go and look. He stuck his head out of the bed-curtains.
There was a small boy of about six or seven standing in the middle of the circular room. Dean and Seamus had also poked their heads out to look. Neville was approaching him cautiously, hands raised in a pacifying gesture.
When he was two feet away, the boy stuck his tongue out, blew a large raspberry, and raced down the stairs, feet slapping against the stone. A split second later, Crookshanks (all six human feet of him) burst out the wardrobe and charged after him.
“Who the hell was that?”
Everybody turned to look at Draco, including Hermione, who was pulling Ron’s sheets up to cover her bare chest. For a blissfully quiet moment, the room was full of gaping mouths. It reminded Harry of the fish tank at the back of the Magical Menagerie.
“I… I think it was Trevor,” said Neville weakly.
They all hurried out of the room, putting on t-shirts backwards and grabbing jumpers and taking the wrong persons slippers, and caught up with Trevor by the lake. They got there in time to see Trevor take a fantastic dive into the Black Lake, while Crookshanks prowled along the edge of the bank and shook his fist at the water.
“Why does he always do this,” Neville moaned.
Harry noticed that Draco was wearing nothing but an extra large Chudley Cannons pyjama top and fell over laughing.
“Are you finished?” Draco stood with his hands on his hips, trying not to smile. He held out a hand to help Harry up, but ended up pulled to the ground and kissed thoroughly.
Ten minutes later, Hermione was summoned to McGonagall’s office by a Ravenclaw girl who asked for Crookshanks’s autograph (but was rebuffed). They all followed Hermione back up to the castle, mumbling about trousers and not saying a word about Draco and Harry holding hands.
“Come in, Ms Granger, Mr Weasley. And on second thoughts, you two as well,” said McGonagall, peering at Harry and Draco sternly over the top of her spectacles. They traipsed into her office and tried to look innocent.
“I have been talking with your cat, Hermione. And I think it pertinent to mention, that if anybody was experimenting with studying to become an Animagus, they should be reminded that it is illegal to do so without first registering with the Ministry.”
Draco didn’t help matters by looking straight at Harry, who slunk down into his chair.
“Crookshanks is an Animagus? He was human all along?” Hermione asked, leaning forward.
“Ah, no. Your pet cat is, simply, a cat. Although he says his mother was a Kneazle.”
“Then what happened? Will he stay like this?”
“I believe he was affected by a cross-species Transfiguration spell. Perhaps by a student attempting to accomplish the reverse effect.” Ron and Hermione shared a confused look, while Harry and Draco appraised the floor. “At any rate, your cat will turn back to his original form on his own soon. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Thank Christ Pig’s still at home, can you imagine?” said Ron. “My owl,” he explained.
“Of course,” said Professor McGonagall.
VI.
“Eating frogs!” screamed Trevor from the roof of Greenhouse 3. “Eating frogs!”
Neville sank to his knees, cardboard sweet packages tumbling to the grass. Chocolate frogs hadn’t proved effective in luring him down. Neither had pleading, threatening, or bargaining.
“Try Cauldron Cakes,” Draco suggested.
“Thanks a lot,” said Neville, wiping sweat off his forehead and wiping a streak of mud onto it at the same time. “Who’s that?” He pointed at the beautiful snowy owl perched on Draco’s shoulder. It nipped at Draco’s ear and hooted.
“He’s mine.”
There was a loud pop, and Trevor the toad hopped down from the roof and sped towards the lake, warts and all. Harry flew up, up to the highest turret, and back down into Draco’s arms. And Ron finally got his underwear back.
end.