Sirius's son

Quidditch

"Umbridge has been reading your mail, Harry. There's no other explanation."

"You think Umbridge attacked Hedwig?" he said, outraged. 

"It could be Filch" Eliza grumbled. "Silencio! Ha, take that you stupid crow."

 "It's a raven," Rigel said already silencing his bullfrog.

"What's the difference."

"Raven's are larger dear," Rigel said dryly. "God I hope that's my animagus form."

Charms were always one of the best lessons in which to enjoy a private chat: There was generally so much movement and activity that the danger of being overheard was very slight. Today, with the roomful of croaking bullfrogs and cawing ravens, and with a heavy downpour of rain clattering and pounding against the classroom windows. While Harry, Ron, and Hermione's whispered a discussion about how Umbridge had nearly caught Sirius, Rigel and Eliza talked about animagus.

"Oh yeah, what happened to your mandrake leaf?" Eliza said eager for more knowledge.

"Well, I spat it out," Riel said scratching his ear. "Then I added my hair and kept it in a small crystal vial that receives the pure rays of the moon." This time Rigel rolled his eyes. "Most of the instructions are nonsense. Honestly, I doubt moon rays would matter. I added a silver teaspoon of dew from a place that neither sunlight nor human feet have touched-"

"What?" Eliza said confused.

"The edges of the forbidden forest," Rigel said. "Hagrid collected some for me. Then I put a Death's-head Hawk Moth to the crystal vial and McGongall hid it for me because I'm not supposed to know where I hid it."

"Then what?" Eliza pressed.

"Well." Rigel grinned. "Here's what's going to happen. I made a few no several changes to the book. I did my calculations with dad and turns out, you don't need to wait for an electrical storm, you can just create one!"

Eliza gasped. "So-"

Rigel nodded smiling. "I'm close to being an animagus."

The weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o'clock that evening, when Rigel, Eliza, Harry, and Ron went down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, they were soaked through within minutes, their feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass. The sky was a deep, thundery grey. Rigel was muttering 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus' under his breath.

. When they entered the changing rooms, they found Fred and George debating whether to use one of their own Skiving Snack boxes to get out of flying.

"— But I bet she'd know what we'd done," Fred said out of the corner of his mouth. "If only I hadn't offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday —"

"We could try the Fever Fudge," George muttered, "no one's seen that yet —"

"Does it work?" inquired Ron hopefully, as the rain on the roof intensified and the wind howled around the building.

"Well, yeah," said Fred, "your temperature go right up —"

"— but you get these massive pus-filled boils too," said George, "and we haven't worked out how to get rid of them yet."

"I can't see any boils," said Ron, staring at the twins.

"No, well, you wouldn't," said Fred darkly, "they're not in a place we generally display to the public —"

"— but they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the —"

"All right, everyone, listen up," said Angelina loudly, emerging from the Captain's office. "I know it's not ideal weather, but there's a good chance we'll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this so it's a good idea to work out how we're going to cope with them. Harry, didn't you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?"