Link of Hogwarts

Fifty-Three

The weeks following after the Second Trial were full of mundane events. The strangest that happened was the disappearance of one of the officials in charge of the Tournament. Percy, who had graduated the year before, became even busier as he stepped in for the missing Barty Crouch though it didn't make much different since Mr. Crouch had been unwell throughout the event.

Meanwhile, Moody's treatment of Link has been lukewarm at best and frigid cold at worst in class or whenever they crossed each other's path in the castle. Link still doesn't trust the man, which confuses his friends since other than trying to teach Link how to throw off the Imperious Moody didn't really do anything intrusive.

On the more peaceful side, Link had been studying under Sirius's help on becoming an Animagus. Since the fact that Sirius being an unregistered Animagus has been ousted, the Ministry would normally charge him but since Sirius already spent more than a decade in Azkaban they decided that he had already paid for it, Sirius now openly uses his ability and decided to mentor Link in the art. McGonagall watched over the lesson at first but once she deemed that Sirius will not endanger Link by taking shortcuts, she left them on their own.

Since Link had quietly kept a Mandrake's leaf in his mouth for a whole month at the beginning of term and finished creating the required potion with the help of Sirius in between Trials, casting the spell "Amato Animo Animato Animagus" every morning and evening, he now only needed to wait for the storm.

The initial steps were easy for Link. Since he didn't speak much, keeping a leaf in his mouth for a whole month has been of little trouble to him. And since he either didn't sleep or an early riser when he's busy, preparing the potion and looking for those dews in places untouched by sunlight or treaded by human was also easy. He only needed to step into the Forbidden Forest during his morning routine to do that and Link's keen tracking skills help in finding the required dews.

Sirius's suggestion of burying the phial under the roots of the famous Whomping Willow was genius. And since Link then became too busy to even think about checking on the phial, it was easy to follow the next step of not even think about the phial of potion.

Now, he's running towards the Whomping Willow with McGonagall and Sirius following closely behind as the sky rumbled, flashing lights warning the coming storm. Link has been preparing for a whole year for this moment. He could only pray that the phial was safe.

Dodging the thrashing limbs of the Whomping Will, he threw a pebble at the knot that will paralyze the sentient tree. Once the tree froze, he lowered himself into the hole in the ground, hidden between the roots of the tree. Inside was a secret path that will lead him, according to Sirius, to the Shrieking Shack. Link quickly cast "Lumos" and looked for the place where he had hid the phial for almost a whole year. He easily found it a little deeper in and sees that it has turned blood red.

Climbing up the hole, McGonagall immediately guide him to an empty room and turned to him, "Now, place your wand tip against your heart and chant the incantation. After that, you will drink the potion," She pulled Sirius to the side; "We will be here to stop anything that went wrong. Although at this stage if anything does go wrong then there's little we can do to help," She warned him.

Link nodded, taking out both of his wands and handed the aspen to Sirius for safe keeping. One hand pressed his wand over his heart and the other held the phial of red blood potion. Calming himself, Link whispered, "Amato Animo Animato Animagus,"

His heartbeat doubled and echoed through his body. Link quickly thumbed the phial's cork out and swiftly downed the tasteless potion. He then calmed himself as his heartbeat grew stronger and stronger, his limbs felt like they were lit by lightning that flashes outside. As he forced himself to control his breathing from growing erratic, his mind flashed with memories of a more painful and frightening transformation.

A Beast, for lack of better word, in the form of a wolf with markings of white on its forehead appeared in his mind. As he transformed, shadows covered his form and McGonagall almost step in. She has never seen such a bizarre transformation. It was usually a morph between man to animal, but Link's shadow crept up from the ground in odd blocky shapes that clings to him. It also happened much faster than even her own initial transformation.

At the end of it all, lightning flashes as a larger than normal wolf appeared before them, blue eyes glowing with intelligence as it studied them. Sirius called, "Link?"

A howl erupted from the Beast and Link huffed at him, tongue lolling out as he tilted his head at the adults. Sirius transformed into Padfoot and approached Link. Minerva rolled her eyes and joined them as a cat. The moment she does so, she instantly sensed the predator in the room. She looked up at her student who sniffed at her. Something about Link sent warning bells but she chalks it up to him being a wolf.

Although she has never seen a wolf like Link, from the pure black and white coloring and the way it swirled over his back and limbs. He's also bigger than normal wolves, not that she has even seen an actual wolf other than that taxidermy wolf exhibition she once went to. Then there's those odd scruff on the back of his neck.

They looked less like hair and more like scales or hardened matted fur. But as Link didn't show signs of being in pain...McGonagall stopped her musing and watched as Link studied her, lowering his body and waited. It seemed that he can tell that she wanted to know what the mane on the back on his neck was and so McGonagall transformed to human. She put her hand onto the odd 'fur' and realized that they're like those strange blocky shadows that appeared when Link changed form.

Her fingers almost didn't feel anything other than fur, despite it being there visually. How odd...

Shaking her curiosity off, she instructed, "Now try and transform into human. Do not panic if you didn't immediately get it. Just take your time. Just like when you transform, visualize your human form and appearance as clearly as you can,"

To her surprise, Link's human transformation was smooth but the shadow particles still appear. If she could bottle shadow, she would've taken them to study. After that, she watched as Link morphed from one form to the other to try and makes sure he has it right. Once satisfied, she invited him to her office to complete his registration.

She walked him through the papers and the next day takes him to the Ministry to finish his registry. Even though Sirius had suggested that Link keep his Animagus status a secret, McGonagall opposed since she would not have her student get in trouble with the law if she can help it, "You're lucky that you don't have to pay for your decision anymore and James is lucky he's not around to suffer the consequence of his harebrained choice," She then apologized to Link who simply smiled and shrugged it off.

The next day, news of Link's status as an Animagus came out as the "Youngest Animagus of the Century" on the Daily Prophet. Link scowled at the name of the writer, a Rita Skeeter. She has been trying to cause trouble to his friends since nothing she wrote gets to him. She even revealed the scandal between Hagrid and Madame Maxime being half-giants. Then she tried to start something by writing that ridiculous story about his relationships with the girls around him.

Yet somehow he couldn't find it in him to do anything more than scowl and turn the page. Somehow he feels nostalgic whenever he saw things like this.

Not that he likes it...