Night fell upon Hogwarts, a full moon began its long rise over the castle. Dinner had finished, prefects and teachers ushered students to their common room. All was considered normal on this night, save for one student who had given every free moment of his day to researching in the library. Dozens of books were sprawled out in front of Eoin, books on animagi, books on blood-curses, books on the magical creatures that surrounded Hogwarts, books detailing anything and everything that could have made him struggle to transform.

Frustration began to take him, he had spent night after night in the library. Even having gone so far as to fall asleep against one of the book shelves and woken up by Madam Prince the following morning. For all of his work, he had found nothing. He was tired, dark rings having formed around his eyes and his body felt far heavier than normal. There was only one thing left for him to do, he would have to push through the uncomfortable wrongness of whatever that transformation was to see what had happened.

As his slow footsteps brought him through the castle and down towards the lake. All he could think about was how frustrating it was to not know. This was his own body, his own abilities, his own transformation. If anyone should have complete knowledge of it, it was him! This new unknown frustrated him and far worse than that… It scared him. He prided himself on his knowledge, every Ravenclaw did. Here he was, unable to tell what went wrong from a simple animagi shapeshift. Pathetic was all he could think of himself at that moment.

Once more he stood out on that same dock, this time checking to make sure no one had followed him out here or were collecting flowers and herbs late at night. Then it began, just as it had before. A deep inhale through his nose, and far longer exhale through his mouth. He did not change… why did he not change? He had done this countless times before and now he couldn’t?! The young man looked down at himself, seeing his own hands trembling with that same fear of the unknown.

“Look at yourself, Eoin… this is pathetic. You are better than this, can’t have some little mystery stopping you”. The pep talk didn’t help much, he was never very good at them even when he was helping others. Again, he thought. A long inhale through his nose and even longer exhale through his mouth. This time he did not fail to begin the transformation, and this time he would see what was at the end of this mysterious trail.

His body began to twist around itself, arms and legs elongating as they coiled and bound around his torso. The first reaction he had was to scream, his mouth opening wide, the transformation forced his jaw to stretch beyond its normal limits. The sound that escaped him could barely be called a scream, he thought he was ready for this but he wasn’t. It was too late for him to stop, he had to keep pushing through until the end.

Again and again his muscles and bones twisted into unnatural positions. His body bound around itself several times until he looked more like a ball of… something on the wooden ground. Silenced by his own clothing and skin, he suffered that wrong feeling for what felt like hours. Each second bled into the next with infinite slowness. The sound of his own heart loudly thumping in his chest being all that made him sure that this was still real.

Surprisingly, his body began to relax itself. He still did not know what he had changed into, too lost in the feeling like he had just been splinched to take the time to observe. He knew he was larger, he could feel the dew of the grass on his… he wasn’t even sure what part of him that was. The dock creaked underneath him as whatever he was strained it. It felt as if he had just broken free from an egg or a cocoon, being reshaped by whatever magic had done this to him.

His body finally began to break free, unraveling from itself little by little. A rustling sound escaped as he could finally move. Everything about this felt new, it felt exciting. There was so much about himself that he needed to explore and discover. With a shifting sound, his body pulled itself off of the dock and down into the water. Taking the time to discover how moving like this felt and truly feeling out his changed self.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. He didn’t see his observer, the ministry agent that always kept an eye on him just in case. The scream and sounds brought the cloaked figure to the docks with enough swiftness to see the end of a spiked tail sliding beneath the water. A low sound bubbling up from under the ripples, sounding almost pleasantly melodic in nature. The figure shook their head as they stared down after Eoin. “Great, now I get to update the entire report… why couldn’t he have just been a normal student?”