Chapter 5: To be an animagus

"I think we should become animagi," Harry told his friends. The others looked up from where they had been practicing the various different shield charms they had found in the Potter Grimoire. Harry was sat on the floor with the enormous tome on his lap looking for more shield spells.

"What's an animagus?" asked Hermione.

"It's a witch or wizard who can turn into an animal," Luna explained.

"That would be so cool," Ron said. "How do we do it, Harry?"

"Well, it looks like there are quite a few steps to it. The first thing we have to do is establish our form."

"How do we do that?" Ginny asked, coming over to look at the Grimoire with Harry.

"We have to meditate to clear our minds, then there's a spell we cast, focusing on the 'animal within'."

"What's the spell?" asked Neville.

"Animalis in medio est revelare." Ginny spoke the Latin phrase carefully.

The eight children gathered in a circle on the floor and began to try and clear their minds through meditation. Some of them found this more difficult than others. Hermione was ready first and nervously cast the spell, opening her eyes as she did so. The others opened their own eyes when they heard Hermione's voice.

An image of a unicorn stood in the centre of the circle, surveying the group proudly. Its coat was pure white and almost seemed to glow in the reflected light of the crystals. The mane and tail seemed to be made of strands of pure gold; the strands Rumpelstiltskin had woven in the fairy-tale. Hermione thought it was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. The unicorn turned to face her and with a gasp she realised its eyes were identical to her own. After a few moments, the image faded away and Hermione settled back to watch her friends find their own animal forms.

Luna was the next to get it. The image that appeared when Luna cast the spell was of a Sphinx. Her lion half had fur they colour of Luna's hair and the human half looked like Luna. Sphinx Luna had her hair tied back into a plait and seemed to be wearing a mask that looked like a lionesses face.

The twins cast the spell together, expecting their forms to be as identical as the boys themselves were. They were not. One of the images showed a griffin with fur and feathers the Weasley red. The other image was of a dragon. The second oldest Weasley brother worked with dragons; thanks to him the boys were able to identify the dragon as a Hungarian Horntail. The twins looked at each other in astonishment. Neither of them was sure which of the two forms was their own.

Ginny was next to perform the spell. It revealed that her form would be a phoenix. Ginny couldn't help noting that her form had more red feathers than orange and yellow ones.

Neville was next to achieve the spell. A brown-furred niffler turned out to be his form. Neville had read a bit about nifflers in his mother's copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Ron finally managed the spell revealing a winged horse. Its fur and wing feathers were as white as Hermione's unicorn's had been but its mane and tail were as flaming red as Ron's own hair.

Eventually Harry got the spell. His form was a large bird that no one recognised until it lifted its wings and thunder rumbled. Lightening flashed from the bird's wings to the ground.

"It's a thunderbird," Neville told everyone. There had been a section on thunderbirds in Fantastic Beasts.

"What do we do now Harry?" asked Hermione, who had been waiting impatiently since the unicorn vanished.

"We have to research our forms. It says 'you cannot become the animal if you do not know the animal'."

Just then a magical alarm starting blaring; a warning to the group that someone was looking for them. The two six-year-olds, four seven-year-olds and the twin nine-year-olds jumped up and ran for the orchard. They had just reached it and starting throwing a Quaffle around between them when Molly Weasley arrived on the scene.

It took some time to research their forms and longer to achieve their transformation. A year and a half the process took in total. The eight worked on it every day as well as learning as much of the magic in the Grimoire as they possibly could. By Harry's ninth birthday, all of them could transform at will.