185authorsnote: oof this took a hot minute, apologies! getting back into regular hp updates ...
do enjoy, do review - they do I promise! motivate me to write
also I have a new hermione-centric fic: Hermione Granger's Pursuit of Magic, Justice and (weirdly) Love - check it out on my page!
songrecs: my love mine all mine - mitski
Everything looked different.
That was the first thing Harry noticed.
Sharper, more in focus, colours he didn't quite recognize, that confused him, looking at something across between purple and red before he realized it was because his human eye couldn't recognize them; he was seeing colours he'd never before.
Which meant he'd changed, successfully.
His nose twitched, well not his, not his human nose, but whatever he was now, and as well as his eyes, his vision, his nose was sharper too, a gust of something swept past, wood, and smoke, and … Hermione?
Only not Hermione, because as he turned, she too had changed.
He didn't know what he'd become, even before looking at himself in the far mirror or inspecting his … talons? No paws? Both?! But even as he glanced down and balked at no longer having human legs and feet, he first turned to Hermione, he first looked at her.
He always looked at her first.
And squawked in surprise.
For where Hermione had once stood, now stood a cat.
Only not any cat, no Hermione, overachiever as she was (he thought fondly, it was never-ending fondness when it came to her, especially at the moment), was not a simple tabby cat, nor even a kneazle or a tiger, no.
Hermione was something he'd only ever seen in his Care of Magical Creature books, but clearly, he'd absorbed something from five years of the subject, as he reared back, as he recognized Hermione.
As a Nundu.
The great beasts of Africa, her jaw dripping with a green poison so deadly he certainly didn't want to get near it. The rest of her resembled a leopard, but larger, the size of a lion, but Harry was larger, and as he saw Hermione was okay, tilting her head to the side, something far too adorable on her face for a great beast, Harry realized he needed to figure out what he was.
A turn to the mirror told him.
He was no simple bird, not even something like a Hippogriff, no as Harry bounded closer to the mirror on powerful back legs, he knew, looking across at his tall, past 7ft, maybe more body, he was something far more majestic. If he could have smiled through his beak he would have.
He was a Griffin.
Part lion, part eagle, his back legs were that powerful of a lion, his tail swishing between them, back and forth, and then his body was that of a powerful eagles, long sharp talons, a pointed beak, but best of all (and apparently birds couldn't smile, because surely he'd be grinning), massive wings, huge that spanned his back, and as he flexed them reached a wingspan equal to his body.
He'd be able to fly, truly fly.
He remembered third year, the rush of being on the back of Buckbeak, of being on the back of a broom, diving to ground as Hermione shrieked but all adrenaline for him, this time he wouldn't be the rider, he would be the flyer. He could think of no creature better.
And more importantly, as he turned back to Hermione, observing herself too, baring her teeth, she was huge too, not as big as him, but as big as a lion, and certainly intimidating enough, and yet he swore he could see a curl or two by her ear that a Nundu shouldn't have, just as … he would have sighed if he could as he looked in the mirror again, and saw the faint red line on his crown, even in the feathers, a splotch of red across them.
Some things didn't change, not even as his form did.
Some things he was stuck with, and being Harry Potter was always one of them.
Could birds look melancholy? Perhaps, as Hermione nudged under his chin with the base of her head, they couldn't talk like this, but they found ways to communicate, and maybe it was him taking his chance, or feeling more animal than man, that he leaned down and brushed his beak across her head.
He wouldn't be melancholy now, not as it sunk in as he looked in the mirror again, scar or no, he was a Griffin, Hermione a Nundu, they'd done it!
They'd bloody done it!
Harry reared up on his hind legs, and did something like a squawk batting his wings, Hermione caught on, running around him, paws silent as they padded, Nundus couldn't grin but she did something akin, only keeping that poison breath back, as she gamboled and Harry squawked, a moment of relief, a moment of being silly, for they'd done it.
They'd become animagi, and their forms were truly something.
They were however not inconspicuous. There'd be no sneaking through the forest, or down the stairs, there'd be no hiding away like little tabby cats under a bush, or a dog blending into the forest, no, they weren't animals not really, they were beasts.
Harry hadn't even realized animagi could make you turn into a beast, perhaps it had been the spell? He wasn't sure, but he wasn't complaining.
He had wings, how could he?
But it did prove a challenge for getting them to the Forbidden Forest.
Until Hermione of course, had a solution.
She nudged him with her nose, mouth kept shut, and then bowed her head, Harry copied her, and she padded around to his back, and he realized what he wanted, he'd have laughed if he could, the ridiculousness of it all.
For Hermione as a Nundu was big, but no weight for a Griffin, and so Harry bowed his hind legs, and Hermione clambered on top of him, only catching him once with her claws as he growled squawked at her, and she did something akin to a meow (a meow from a Nundu still had an edge of a growl about it, or a hiss, or both he couldn't tell), before sheathing them, and settling on his back, paws around his neck.
He was glad to know as a beast, even though she was a Nundu, Harry felt no threat from Hermione, he never would, and let her settle on him with ease, her grip was firm, but Harry knew that was from her fear of heights and flying.
One of which Harry had none, and with a squawk again, he did one circle of the room on all fours to get used to the hind legs, ones that could jump and pad, to his front that wanted to grip, before he turned to the open Astronomy Tower sides, and with a triumphant cry he launched himself through it, Hermione clinging to his back.
It was ridiculous, but it was instinctual, as Harry, as a Griffin, soared through the free air outside of Hogwarts, with Hermione, a Nundu clinging to his back.
It felt as easy as being on a broom, easier even.
There was no needing to understand his wings, or listing off to one side, or dipping too low, or not knowing what to do. No, as soon as he took off, as soon as it was just him and the air he spread his wings, flapped them and knew what to do instantly.
He quickly banked them away from the Tower, into low cloud cover, away from the Castle (the last thing they needed was for anyone to see them), and straight towards the forest, that was where Remus would be, and where they could hide.
And at least, as Beasts, they need not worry about Acromantula or Centaurs or anything really, Harry could probably beat them off or launch into the sky, Hermione could take out waves of them just by hissing.
It was dawning on Harry was he dove them to the forest, as easy as dipping and diving low on his broom, not only was being an animagi useful, but he and Hermione had turned into truly powerful creatures.
And it was so easy, too easy really, how Harry leaned them closer and closer, batting his wings, but then coasting to avoid a clump of trees, to the side, down near the Whomping Willow, he set them down just next to it, landing without a stumble, even as Hermione tried to strangle him.
Thankfully she kept her claws sheathed.
And slid down from his back the second his talons and paws touched the forest floor (which felt odd, not quite like bare feet but something close), he tucked his wings in close to him, but knew without a doubt he could easily stretch them and be into the air again if he needed to.
It was as natural as breathing.
Hermione too, with something of a glare at him, seemed to be taken to being a Nundu easily (no doubt he'd tease her about being cat like when they could speak again), she stood on four paws assuredly, trotted over to him surelegged, nudged him with her head playfully as easily as if she were smacking him with a book, and then when Harry nudged her back, he could have sworn he saw mischief in her eyes.
Mischief as she launched herself at him, cat and mouse, or cat and bird to pull him to the floor.
But had Hermione forgot he was not a bird, but an eagle? And half lion himself? Internally he grinned, and a glint appeared in his eagle eye.
He used his wing to nudge Hermione over, his lion legs flipping her underneath him, his wings trapping her in, but she easily batted his beak gently with a paw before pushing him off her, and then back on her feet, she gamboled away, Harry let out a laugh like squwark and dove at her, but she was faster, hurrying away, and then on his back again.
They were like children, or cubs and baby bird playing, and it was the most fun they'd had in months.
Harry reared back, batting his wings and Hermione fell from his back with a huff, but before he could pin her with his talons, she rolled away and threw herself at him again.
He let himself be pinned.
The glint in her eye endured as she cuffed him gently with her paw and he nudged it with his beak.
It was easy then, as she jumped off, and in a joke snobbily trotted about, a rumble purr leaving her lips, easy to love her.
It always was.
Especially as he batted her with his wing and she thudded into the ground with an outraged hiss (sans venom thankfully).
And she took up the chase again.
Something closer to an hour later, knowing they had plenty of time before the moon rose, Harry and Hermione, Griffin and Nundu lounged beneath a clump of trees near the Whomping Willow, tired but exhilarated.
They'd raided the pumpkin patch, Hermione had a ferret proudly in her mouth (which she'd grinned and hissed at, and Harry had laughed), and Harry was picking at a pumpkin between his talons. Dinner and a rest? It was practically a night in Gryffindor Tower, and as peaceful.
He hadn't expected that, this peace in this time. He knew coming back would mean things would be difficult, so much to do, so much to change, so many people to save, and Harry could endure that, he could bear the burden of saving people, he could be the martyr, he would stand down Voldemort when the time came, and would do so alone, as was his destiny.
And yet, he hadn't expected this, the ease in which they'd settled in the time, with the Marauders as friends, his Mother with something close to love she didn't understand in her eyes, and the two of them.
Something that had been looking him in the face for so long, and it had taken travelling 20 years into the past to see it.
Hermione.
If he could chose anything to keep when coming to the past, if he had to do it all over again, it would be her, and the feelings he'd realized for her, over and over again.
Even when watching her maul a ferret with a little too much enthusiasm.
It was then, watching her as she cocked her head to him, and he gave her his best a-smile as he could as a bird, he knew, he knew he had to tell her.
He'd regret it forever if he didn't, he needed her to know.
And not from any pressure for her to feel the same, no, if she didn't he would do everything in his power to preserve their friendship, but if there was even a slim chance she felt the same, or even a fraction of this crushing love he felt for her … he had to try.
And so as she finished her food, and approached him, nudging him again and he did the same, he knew when they woke as humans, the first words he wanted to say were those three.
He promised himself that.
And just in time, as that promise he made to himself, the cry of the wolf was heard across the forest.
He and Hermione bounded to their feet and shared a look, Moony had turned, and without a question Harry sped off, and he knew Hermione followed.
well done to the people who guessed! I know a lot of people thought kneazle or hippogriff, so close! but yes harry and hermione are griffin and nundu respectively. after all harry has the courage of a lion but is smarter than he gets credit (also I had to have him fly), and hermione had to be a cat, but she is fierce too, hence a nundu!
so, next we meet moony, and well ... feelings?
do fav/follow, review, speak soon(er), I promise an update before christmas!