Nine Lives and Bad Luck

27:

     It was just his luck, Harry decided as he woke up in the room of requirement. The five of them had been spending nights there until they could work out satisfactory wards to give them warning before whatever thing Quirrell was tried to slaughter them in their sleep. Hermione decided that 'a place to work and rest completely undisturbed' would work for intent and so now they had a cozy, if plain looking, room with five beds, a bathroom, a nice circle of couches with a rug in the middle, and finally a table with chairs stacked at the ready nearby. They had spent most of the weekend there.

      None of that was what bothered Harry that morning as he slowly drifted into awareness. No, it was to his horror that he found he had once more discovered a new form, and in his typical form of luck, in doing so had rendered himself defenseless. He eyed the odd looking toes that now made up his four feet, they turned a sickly yellow- orange matching his displeasure.

      "Asp, don't just lay around- you need to get changed for class." Harry swiveled his eyes upwards to stare at Hermione who looked ready to move from scolding to a rant on the importance of education.

     He carefully moved one foot forward testing his balance, then awkwardly tried his tail which seemed to fight him as he tried to uncurl it. It whacked against the ground as he used too much force and it shot open before quickly furling shut again.

     "Hey, 'Mione? I don't think he can change back..."  Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Hermione stopped mid word and turned to Neville and then back to Harry who nodded in an odd motion; he could never get used to the unusual feel of new forms and preferred to remain in bed just testing little things at first until he got the general stuff down.

     "Oh."

     It took some debate- which he was quickly left out of-  and conversation before Neville was assigned the role of carrying him to classes and they set out with Lavender still giggling about his bulging eyes. He dramatically rolled them to her great delight although thankfully Hermione slapped her hand away before she could poke him starting up another argument between them not far from where he rested on Neville's shoulder.

Herbology was somewhat interesting as his friends had to explain to Professor Sprout why he was a lizard in her class making him unable to participate, it hadn't helped matters when Hermione got fed up with everyone calling him a lizard ("He's not a lizard! He's a chameleon, those are two very different things you know, don't give me that look Lav, it's important!") Nor had Ron and his two friends's snickers helped as they struggled to contain their laughter with almost anything anyone in their group said.

It wasn't until lunch that they found out why.

    They first noticed something was off when silence fell when they entered the Great Hall for lunch, having skipped breakfast there and eaten in the room, and total silence descended. Ron's vague insinuations (which he and Seamus shouted to the whole hall with Dean rolling his eyes off to the side)  hadn't cleared anything up either. Nor had the quickly penned letter Akasha had sent to him, the messenger bird being the most menacing looking owl he had ever seen and now perched not far from him glaring imperiously down at him, the letter had only read;

      'I may not currently be aware of what actions you have taken but, Kore stumbled oafishly into my home last evening disturbing my peace, too overcome with emotion to speak properly and hasn't left since, so I sincerely hope you are prepared for the ramifications.
regards,

      Akasha S. H. Alpin'. 

      The four had given him worried looks, but he had only shook his head, he'd bet twelve galleons in a second that Silk was laughing her head off... for some reason. The reason she was laughing was the concerning thing- but he could hardly communicate that to them in his current form.