𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 | Harry James Potter x Reader

YR 3 ☆•°~'* 11

AN - Early chapter! I think I'll start updating twice a week soon...

❈🌠➵9¾♌ ⚯ 🗲━━━━━★. *･｡ﾟ✧⁺

Y/N went up to the dormitories an hour after the Gryffindor team did, nervous and excited at the same time. They were going to win, she knew it, but she still felt anxious for tomorrow's match. As she lay in bed, her thoughts drifted off to her progress with her Animagus transformation.

The week after the Easter Holidays had been the last week Y/N had to perform the Animagus spell. She had started feeling a second heartbeat, which was a good sign according to what she had read in the library books, although it felt slightly unsettling.

Long after everyone had gone to sleep, an electrical storm started. Y/N sat up on her bed and drew the hangings around it closed. She felt slightly nervous, but confident it would work despite not having brewed any potion. A bolt of lightning lit up the room and thunder growled, though there was no sign of rain or wind.

'Here goes my sanity, probably,' she mumbled to herself, pulling out her wand and pointing it at her heart. 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus!'

Suddenly, an intense pain filled her body. It felt as though she was on fire. She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth in agony and breathing irregularly. The second heartbeat had become louder so that Y/N could clearly hear it beating in her eardrums. Out of nowhere, an image of a Maine Coon cat appeared in her mind. Was that her Animagus form?

Indeed it was. A moment later, she had transformed into a large, fluffy cat. Her clothes had transfigured themselves as well, becoming the animal's fur. Y/N hopped off her bed and looked around. She could see clearly in the darkness, almost as though it was through night-vision goggles, but without the green filter. She could also hear and smell everything twenty times better. This is mental, she thought to herself. Hopping on her dresser, she looked at her Animagus form in the mirror and noticed some red-orange streaks along her fur, like the ones she had on her human hair. Completely mental.

A sudden thought struck her. The whole castle was free for her to explore as an animal, without any repercussions. Her heartbeat accelerated. She was completely free to do anything she wanted and go anywhere she pleased...

She walked to the dormitory door and stood up on her hind legs, pulling the handle down. The door creaked open and Y/N trotted downstairs to the common room. She looked around for a moment and located her cat, not by seeing him, but by smelling him. Incredible. She walked to him and found him sleeping. She nudged him with her paw and he woke up with a start, his back arched and fur on end. Did he not recognise her?

She looked into his eyes and blinked slowly, letting him know she was being friendly. He approached and sniffed her nose, then immediately bumped his head on hers, meowing loudly. Y/N heard another cat approaching, and turning around saw that it was Crookshanks. He was looking at her strangely, as though she was a stranger.

'Follow me,' he meowed. Y/N jumped about a foot in the air, fur standing on end. What the bloody hell?

He walked to the portrait hole and pushed it open with his paw, looking back at Y/N expectantly.

What?

Y/N looked back at her own cat and saw that he was following Crookshanks. Feeling that she could trust her cat more than Hermione's, Y/N followed them out of the common room and past the snoring security trolls. They smelled awful.

Crookshanks led them all the way down to the Entrance Hall and out into the Hogwarts grounds. Y/N wondered silently where he was leading them, hoping it wasn't somewhere completely dangerous. Now that she thought about it, perhaps she shouldn't have left her wand back in her dormitory. Crookshanks walked on for fifteen minutes before stopping outside the Forbidden Forest.