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A Cat in Transfiguration


“Lily!”

She awoke from a dream - the same dream, the clearing and the large, unknown creature watching her from the darkness, protecting her… She lay in the tangle of blankets and pillow, trying to wrap her mind around what it was that had awakened her. She was about to roll over and assume there’d been nothing when a tiny, mousy little voice called out her name once again. “Lily!”

Lily sat up in her bed and reached for her wand on the nightstand. “Lumos,” she muttered, rubbing her other hand over her eyes to get the sleep out of them, “Come -- come in,” she yawned.

The dorm room door pushed open and Ali Prewitt, the first year, peeked ‘round the frame. “I’m sorry I woke you up but… I - I can’t sleep.”

Lily yawned even harder.

“It’s just… I’m scared,” Ali continued, “And… you’re my only friend here. And… I was hoping I could maybe sleep in here.”

Lily nodded, “C’mon,” she said and she scooted over to make room as Ali came in, closed the door behind her, and ran across the room to join Lily in her big cushy bed. “Why are you scared?” Lily asked as Ali snuggled into the pillows and blankets beside her. She was rather excited, truth be told, because this sort of reminded her of times when Tuney used to wake her up from the next bed and climb in next to her like this, too. They’d stayed up many a night, hidden beneath the covers and talking all night long like this. Ali’s presence made her feel a little less homesick.

“Because of what happened with Alice Bell and her brother,” said Ali quietly. “To their parents.”

Lily nodded, “I understand. I’m scared because of that, too. There are very bad wizards out there - I’ve seen him myself, the Dark Lord, you know. He’s very scary. But he’s just an ordinary wizard at the end of the day, you know... You’ll see. One day, he’ll be defeated.”

Ali turned pink. “Well it’s not just that. It’s… well, I think I might have been sorted wrong. By the hat, I mean,” she confessed.

“Sorted wrong?” Lily asked. She remembered thinking that very thing almost exactly one year ago, recalled her great plans to go to Dumbledore and be switched to Slytherin, her persistence that she was in the wrong house… Well, now she was convinced of the Hat’s accuracy. “The Sorting Hat doesn’t really make any mistakes,” she said

“Everyone says Gryffindors are supposed to be brave,” Ali whispered, “But I don’t feel brave at all.”

“Sure you are,” Lily answered.

Ali frowned and shook her head. “I’m terrified.”

“You should be,” Lily answered, “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t brave.” Ali gave Lily a look of disbelieving doubt. “No, seriously!” Lily defended herself, “You’ve got to look at everything you’re doing. You’re really far from home, probably for the first time in your life, right? You’re meeting all these new people and you’re not sure which ones to trust and which ones not to trust, and there’s nobody really all too familiar. Then on top of it, this happens to Derek and Alice… Of course you’re scared! But you haven’t given up, have you? You haven’t gone fleeing off the grounds screaming or anything. No! You were brave enough to come up here and knock on my door and ask to come in, weren’t you? That had to be scary, too. But here you are.”

“Yeah…” Ali agreed reluctantly.

Lily shrugged, “You can’t be brave if you aren’t afraid of whatever it is you’re facing. Being afraid is literally part of being brave. It’s just a matter of whether you let that fear dictate how you respond to that fear. You can cower to the fear, or you can push through it and take it head on. That is bravery.” Lily brushed a bit of hair off of Ali’s forehead. “I think the Sorting Hat did knocker.”

Ali smiled, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And thanks for letting me stay here with you, too,” Ali added.

“Anytime,” Lily answered.

“What’s it like having your own room?”

“Last term, I hated it,” Lily confessed. Then explained, “I have a twin sister back home and we’ve always shared a room. When I came to Hogwarts, it was the first time I’d ever slept in a room by myself! Can you believe it?”

Ali looked surprised, “Ever?”

“Ever,” Lily answered, nodding.

“Was she sorted to a different house?” Ali asked.

“Well, I’m muggleborn, see, and she isn’t magic,” Lily answered. “She hates me for it, calls me a freak. She won’t even speak to me when I go home. It’s awful.” She frowned.

Ali sighed, “That’s awful, I’m terribly sorry.”

“I miss having a sister quite a lot,” Lily said, “We did everything together, we were absolutely inseparable! And now - well, it’s funny going from a we to an I and learning how to be my own person, you know?”

Ali nodded, though she didn’t really know. She’d never been through it, but she reckoned it sounded terrible. She squeezed Lily’s hand. “Well, I can be your unofficial sister, if you like,” she suggested. “I’ve never had a sister before at all!”

Lily smiled and laughed quietly. “Alright,” she said.

The girls fell asleep not long after - after all, it had been a long day. Though Lily tried to sink back into the dream, eager to find out what the beast was that was protecting her in it, she couldn’t manage to conjure the imagery of the clearing again that night, and rested dreamlessly until morning sun had awakened them both.

Next morning, all the first years - including Ali - scrambled off to their Defense Against the Dark Arts class and the second years to their first Transfiguration class of the term. “Funny not going to Defense, isn’t it?” Lily asked as they trudged through the castle to the Transfiguration classroom.

“I know,” Sirius agreed, “I’m rather upset about it, too. I wanted to find out what the deal with that Professor Blythe is and now we have to wait until boody Wednesday.”

Lily looked confused, “What deal?” She asked, “What are you talking about?”

James filled her in, “When Dumbledore announced her, Derek Bell made the funniest face. Like he was making to hide under the table. Then we met her in the Great Hall the other day and they had quite an awkward moment. As though they knew each other.”

Lily raised an eyebrow, “Well, perhaps they do.”

“Perhaps,” James shrugged, “But I’d like to know how and what the awkwardness was all about!”

“Why do you need to go nosing about in other people’s business for?” Lily demanded, “If they wanted you to know they’d tell you.”

James rolled his eyes, “I’m just curious is all, haven’t you ever been curious before? Blimey - don’t go biting my head off.”

Lily snapped, “I’m not biting your head off, I’m just telling you that you ought to keep your mind on your own worries instead of butting in on other people’s!”

“You should talk,” James answered heatedly.

“What’s that supposed to mean, then?” Lily demanded.

“Nothing! Just that you’re always imposing yourself on other people, pushing your two cents in, asking questions about what we’re talking about and coming after us into the Forest last term when we didn’t even ask you, then blaming us for it. You’re not any better.”

“At least I don’t go niffling about in everybody’s personal affairs like a busy body!”

James snorted.

“Don’t you make that noise at me, James Potter,” Lily’s face was quite pink, “Or I’ll --”

“Oiiiii… people, people!!” Sirius broke in, waving his hands up and catching Lily’s wand in his palm before she could cast any hexes on James. He grinned between them, “Hang on to your knickers, mates.”

They’d reached the Transfiguration room anyway, and Remus pointed it out that they were there. “You don’t want to go jinxing him in front of McGonagall,” he said to Lily, “Good way to end up with a detention, that is. And on the first day of classes, too. We’ve got quite a long time for the two of you to jinx each other later.” Lily scowled, but she knew he was right, as did James, and they both calmed down and followed Remus, Peter, and Sirius into the room.

When they walked into the room, Professor McGonagall was nowhere to be seen, however. They looked about, confused, and moved to their desks. Remus felt his face flush hot when Lily sat down in the seat next to his, leaving Peter to set at a desk by himself, looking nervous. Normally, Remus might have felt bad for Peter - especially knowing that Transfiguration was one of the classes he struggled most with - but he was too busy noticing that Lily’s arm couldn’t help but brush against his when she moved just right and that he could smell her hair every time she leaned forward. His eyes seemed to be blinking faster than usual and his breath didn’t seem quite as effective as it usually did.

James looked about. “The time tables did say Transfiguration first, right?” He asked.

Peter said, “Yes. Breakfast, then Transfiguration, followed by Charms, then lunch.”

James nudged Sirius, “Look. Filch’s got a new cat. Mrs. Norris must’ve finally offed. About time, too, that cat was nothing but a walking corpse.”

Sirius followed James’s pointing finger and saw a sleek grey tabby cat sitting before the desk, looking over the classroom. “Filch isn’t a teacher, is he?” He asked nervously, imagining a classroom setting with Filch presiding over the lesson made him want to skive off. “I mean, what if McGonagall’s been held up with Derek and Alice and couldn’t make it? Would Dumbledore have Filch fill in?”

“I heard Filch is a squib,” he said quietly.

“See?” Lily hissed from before him, “Always got your big nose in other people’s business.”

James’s eyes narrowed at the back of her head, “Listening to us again, aren’t you?”

“Maybe if you didn’t have such a big mouth to go with that big nose then I wouldn’t be able to,” Lily said.

“I thought you rather liked big noses, giving the size of the schnoz on that Snivellus bloke you’ve been snogging,” James snapped.

Lily turned ‘round, “I haven’t been snogging Snivellus -- I mean Severus --, and, oh for Merlin’s sake, will you bloody stop calling him that?!”

“Snivellus, Snivellus,” sing-songed James under his breath, “Slimey-Grimey Snivellus.”

Suddenly, the cat in the front of the classroom was no longer a cat. Sirius urgently punched James in the shoulder and hissed, “Shut up!” James gave him a funny look and turned to see Professor McGonagall at the front of the room, exactly where the cat had been but a moment before.

“Bloody hell,” said James.

Remus was staring wide-eyed, dropped-jawed up at McGonagall - as were the other students. Remus felt a twinge of excitement in his belly. If McGonagall could turn herself into a cat and back to a human… Could he learn to turn himself back from being a werewolf? Would whatever lesson she was about to teach them help him from ever having to spend another lonely night in the Shrieking Shack? He eagerly inched forward with his quill tip poised over the parchment, dripping little specks of ink onto it, as he waited to take down every word she could possibly say on the subject.

“How did you do that?” Squeaked Peter.

Professor McGonagall, who’d been giving James and Lily a hard look, perhaps contemplating detention for the fighting, turned to look at Peter. James sighed in relief as her eyes went off of him. “I am an animagus,” she explained. “It is a very specific sort of Transfiguration. A very advanced sort. This ability is something which is one of the many possibilities for those who apply themselves to become very skilled at the art.”

Lily asked, “Does it hurt?”

McGonagall shook her head, “No, Miss. Evans. I would describe the actual process of changing as mildly discomforting, but not particularly painful, no.”

Remus wished becoming a werewolf was mildly discomforting.

“Can you do it whenever you want to?” Sirius asked.

“Yes,” McGonagall replied, and, to demonstrate, quickly became a cat once more, her features melting from their teacher into the grey tabby which, they now noticed, had markings ‘round the eyes where her glasses were.

“CAN YOU UNDERSTAND US WHEN YOU’RE A CAT, PROFESSOR?” Shouted Peter, leaning over his desk to look the cat in the face.

McGonagall turned back into herself, rubbing her ear as she did so, “Yes, Mr. Pettigrew, I can understand just as well as a cat as I can as a human. My hearing -” she added pointedly, “Is actually quite a bit better as well.” Her eyes flashed back to James, emphasizing - if he hadn’t already known - that she’d heard his song mocking Severus Snape. He sank lower in his chair.

Lily raised her hand.

“Miss Evans?”

“Do you get to chose to be a cat?”

Professor McGonagall shook her head, “The animal which an animagus becomes is not their choosing. Much like a patronus, every wizard’s animal is unique to them. Some of the American spiritualist wizards, the patronus and animagus forms of any witch or wizard is linked to their spirit animal - the creature which best represents them or whose lessons speak into their lives. The Native American spiritualist wizards believe that this animal’s spirit lives alongside us in life and death. We can share the lesson of many animals over a lifetime, which is why often when a witch or wizard has been through a life-altering event, his or her patronus and animagus form may change. But it is not of the witch or wizard’s choosing.”

Lily asked, “Do you like being a cat?”

“Yes,” Professor McGonagall replied, “It is rather peaceful, actually. Though I must say, the hairballs are terrible.” She cleared her throat as though to emphasize, and magicked herself a cup of tea on the desk as she went ‘round.

“Well how do they know Voldemort isn’t turning into one of the rats or cats or frogs or owls going in and out of here everyday?” Sirius demanded, “How do they keep bad guys from just turning into their spirit animals and sneaking off doing nasty things? How would the Aurors ever find them?!”

McGonagall sipped her tea, “There is a registry,” she explained, “If you chose to become an animagus, you must be registered with the sort of animal you can turn into as well as the specific markings that your form takes on.”

“What happens if you don’t register?” Asked James, laughing, “Do you get collected by the pound?”

Sirius snickered.

McGonagall’s eyes met James’s and he stopped laughing instantly, frozen by the stare she was giving him. “No, Mr. Potter, you do not get collected by the pound,” she said. “You are sent to Azkaban. Foregoing registration is a very serious offense for exactly the reason Mr. Black has just described. It is not a laughing matter.”

James nodded.

“Are you going to teach us how to be animaguses?” Asked Peter nervously.

“No, Mr. Pettigrew, I’m not,” McGonagall said. “As I said, it is very advanced Transfiguration skills, which none of you are at the level of learning to do. It is something one learns through extremely careful study - and many years of it, might I add - and couldn’t possibly be achieved by underage wizards. Especially ones whose exam grades were as low as some of the grades earned in this very room,” she added pointedly.

Peter’s cheeks blazed red.

“I am merely demonstrating the things that Transfiguration could lead up to. Rather, today we’ll be working with these…” she turned and lifted a box of small white mice from her desk.

“Her snacks for later?” Whispered Sirius under his breath to James, who covered his mouth to keep from laughing.