Luck of Nines

43

       The three of them, himself, Theo, and Chipped Fang that was, were one of the first people into class, quietly slipping into the charms classroom and taking seats. 

     "Early again?" Flitwick greeted as he glanced up from the papers he was grading with efficient swishes of his plain quill.

      "Yes," Harry responded, Theo sat looking bewildered at his side, "I was wondering if you could answer a few more of my questions today. You've told me how natural animagus are different from forced; but what are they?"

      "No one knows," Flitwick answered, a concerned expression just barely peaking through, "There are all sorts of theories out there of course, but none of those are based in any real fact. The simple truth is that most have between two and eight animagus forms- mostly having exactly either two or eight- but not everybody. There tends to be some correlation between the forms and coloring, for instances matching the being's original shades or being their favorite color, there's records of one family of animagi's forms all being a matching shade of dull yellow, though even this is not true for everyone, and the tends to be near equal variation between magical and not creatures showing up even though forced animagus rarely take a magical form.  Natural animagus can control the shift between their two form, and indeed most think it's most unnatural to solidly hold a single form for long. There's all sorts of rumors beyond that information, but once more nothing grounded in fact since it's such a rare and unstudied occurrence. I suppose this means that the rest of your house knows you are an animagus now?"

"As far as I know just Theo and Malfoy."

Flitwick paused, he seemed to have been dancing around something before, uncertain on how or what it was that he wanted to say, but now sympathy softened his face now, "Ah, I had heard something to do with accidental magic was involved."

"It was." Harry responded, "None of my forms are big enough to even dream of overpowering that beast." He didn't mention that some were poisonous enough to severely weaken it and some had jaws powerful enough to rip through thick bones easily.

Flitwick didn't say anything and simply stared at him with a grim look on his face, something between pain and understanding lurking in his eyes.

"You fall into the second category then." Flitwick finally stated.

"Second category?"

"It's one of the rumors, some believe that natural animagus have an effected moral compass, they've become more animal like in mind set, but that's not true, it's more the effect of having been raised as an animal that has some natural animagus seeming like mentally they are less human, or whatever their original species might have been, or so I'm told. It's true that most tend to find themselves off on their own after their first shift traps them... My guess has always been that they are simply born with the capacity to be either way."

Harry paused, his head tilting slightly as he thought over this information, "Are there many other natural animagus?"

"No, I knew one in Egypt long ago, and there were two who I met east of here in the dueling courts, but besides them and a rumor of one who stars in the higher circuits in dueling I haven't heard of any others in a long while and it's been some time since I participated in dueling myself..."

"Are they all human?"

"Not at all, the one in Egypt was a goblin, and no one's quite sure what the other two are." Flitwick paused again, "But in afraid we're going to leave things here for now," once more there were people approaching the door, "Class should be starting soon."