*Discontinued* No Longer

Black Door, Silver Snake

Harry Potter**

In transfiguration, Harry had been the first student to enter the classroom. As with his other teachers, McGonagall took him aside to personally talk about his alternate lesson plan. Her original plan had been some seventh year work, but Harry had proven that he already knew the most challenging and important aspects of all years of transfiguration study, so she altered her plans fast.

There were six different books she'd given to him, all on the animagus transformation, which he'd been very grateful to be presented. He'd read that when one shifted, their magical presence also did, and Harry believed it may help him to hide from Metus.

Turns out one of his classes would be useful to his research attempts after all. Last night, he'd turned back time after visiting with Lucius and Tom, and had spent thirteen hours in his limitless library trunk, paging through volume after volume on occlumency until his brain began to have trouble retaining the information and he went to breakfast with his Slytherin friends.

Metus aka fake liar, had been there too, and Harry had forcibly ignored his presence, or at least projected that he was. It was always in his periphery though, the threat, making him a uncomfortable and on edge, talking more than usual. If his friends noticed, they didn't comment, and he was grateful for it.

The books provided by his professor were supposed to be read in a specific order, going from Finding Your Soul Animal by Ferdia Linman to How to Act as an Animagus by Geoffrey Drune. The process was supposed to begin with brewing a potion or prolonged meditation to discover what you would turn into, and its purpose was to make it easier to transform. There was, Harry knew, also the route of leaving it a surprise, but that path wasn't recommended due to the increased difficulty.

The potion took six and a half months to brew, and the meditation took at least three months, but if the technique was poor, as much as two years. Harry didn't want to do either. He was going to leave it a surprise, and just push through.

Anyway, the next step was to learn the patterns of your soul connecting to your body, but the books said it was to become in tune with yourself because people hadn't comprehended the exact requirements for it yet. This took, if you used the potion, around three months, or with meditation, two weeks. Harry already knew the this though, so he could skip this step as well.

The third step was the easiest, you had to pick a magically enhanced sage leaf from a living plant, and soak it in your own blood. Then, you had to perform a complex ritual to bind the protein in your blood, specifically the albumin, to the leaf. Then, you could dry the leaf with magic or naturally. It was recommended to make at least seven, as step four usually had to be repeated.

After your sage leaf was dry, you needed to keep it in your mouth for two months. The leaf, as it deteriorated, would release its power into the wizards saliva, which the body would slowly process to prepare you for the next steps. Biting the leaf, swallowing the leaf, or accidentally spitting it out resulted in a need for a new leaf.

The fifth step was a potion, which would connect all the energy of the leaf's nutrients in the wizard's bloodstream and create an internal network for your magic when you actually transformed for the first time.

The potion, Harry knew, could be prepared in advance, and unlike the potion to discover what you would turn into, it didn't need your own blood in it to work, so the store that Severus had in his potion vault would work just fine. It only took a single drop, so it wouldn't be missed.

The sixth step had to be performed when the moon was full in an open space where its light would fall on you. To transform, you had to perform a small enchantment that would instantly turn you into your soul animal, if you were concentrating hard enough on what your intent was at the same time you focused on the power of the sage leaf inside your system.