The Transfiguration Club
He fidgeted all through dinner with his father, trying his best not to look guilty and to forget that there were two redheads trapped hiding in his room. Avi watched his father anxiously as they ate, trying desperately not to let his eyes dart over to his bedroom door. He could tell that Severus was suspicious, but had yet to pinpoint what exactly his son was up to. His black eyes tracked Avi’s movements as they moved to the sitting room to start the next part of their nightly routine.
Avi sat on the floor, leaning against the foot of the sofa, using it as a desk for his nightly lessons. Avi tried his best to act normal as he leaned over his potions journal, completing this week’s essay. He may not technically be a Hogwarts student yet, but that didn’t mean Severus was going to make him learn. He had roped in most of the other professors into creating introductory lessons to all of their subjects for Avi as well as including politics, current events, and etiquette. And if those lessons also included more advanced potion theories and experimental ideology than most pureblood wixen children would normally be learning at the age of seven, well the ministry did not regulate the education of students under the age of eleven and so had no say in the matter.
On Saturdays they spent the afternoons in his dad’s personal laboratory working on his brewing. After all, none of the first through third year potions required a wand, so it was perfectly legal for him to learn. Avi loved brewing with his father. It reminded him of cooking, something he had actually liked at the Dursleys, at least when Aunt Petunia wasn’t sneering over his shoulder. He had even helped Avi finish his animagus potion last Saturday (helping him cast the final spell with the help of wards to help mask the slightly illegal use of a familial wand). Now he just had to wait for a lightning storm so that the potion would activate. McGonagal had been kept informed and was waiting on standby to help coach Avi through the first transformation process. To register as an animagus your first transformation had to be witnessed by someone already registered. While his father was technically registered, he had cast so many confundus charms on the parchment that no one would ever find the paperwork again. Severus said it was to help with escape with his former spy work, but he had also said that his animagus form was useless. Avi thought his dad was just embarrassed by whatever it was and it was making him more and more determined to finish his transformation before new years so he could win their bargain and finally find out what it was.
It took hours, but Avi was careful not to do anything to draw more attention to himself like feign going to bed early. That would just tip his father off immediately that he was still hiding something, instead of thinking he was still feeling guilty for “stealing.” Eventually though, it was time to go to bed and Avi very carefully did not rush through his nightly routine before wishing his father goodnight.
Once the door was shut he cast a silencing spell at the door before opening the wardrobe. Watching as George fell to the floor, gasping dramatically as if he had been being suffocated by the small space. “Took you long enough! I almost ran out of air!”
Fred popped his head out from under the bed. “Yeah! I think I got scoliosis from being curled up under here for so long!”
Avi laughed at their antics as he helped them off the floor. They laughed and chatted quietly for a few hours waiting for Severus to fall asleep, which could take a while as he was quite the night owl. Avi told them about his animagus studies and brewing the potion with his dad. The twins shared their most recent plans to prank Ahron and some of the bullies around the school. They never targeted people that didn’t deserve it, or at least if they did it was intended to make the other person laugh not make them mad. Their siblings on the other hand, seemed to always be fair game, much to Percy and Charlie’s chagrin.
Avi admired them for their ingenuity and envied them a little for all the stories they shared about their family. He had always wished he had siblings growing up. To have someone he could trust, who would want to play with him and Dudley wouldn’t be able to run off. Watching how the twins interacted with each other and talked about their brothers and sister, he couldn’t help but want that even more. But it was probably for the best. He wouldn’t have been able to take it watching someone else suffer at the hands of the Dursleys along with him growing up.
As the night drew long and the castle settled into silence, the twins pulled out a spare bit of parchment that turned out to be an animated map of the castle. “Where did you get that?”
“Nicked it from Filch’s office a couple weeks back,” Fred explained.
“Been a godsend, that thing! Saved our hides more than once,” said George.
They watched as the dot labeled Severus Snape tinkered around the potions lab for several more minutes before heading back to his rooms to get ready for bed. Once the dot went still by the little drawn bed, Avi made them wait for another hour to make sure he was actually asleep and not just reading in bed like he sometimes did late into the night. After that, they slowly lowered the ward on the door and creeped out into the hallway. Fred kept the map firmly in hand as they stalked through the hall and up the stairs all the way to Gryffindor Tower.
Avi had never been in any of the common rooms before. He practically vibrated with excitement as he explored the room. This late at night there were very few people left awake in the common room and none of them seemed to notice Avi, or at least had learned to ignor it when the twins were up to something. The room was huge! Warm red brick walls cluttered with plaques and trophies from the students of the past and present. Large elaborate rugs surrounded by oldfashinded claw foot chairs that looked remarkably like lion paws. There were so many fireplaces all around the room, but all of them were blazing away despite the late hour. But the best part was the view! The big windows looked out over the quidditch pitch and the courtyard below. It felt freeing to be up so high. Just like being on a broom!
Once he finally calmed down, the twins brought Avi up to their dorm. The twins introduced him to their friend Lee Jourdan and the only other boy in their year called Kenneth Towler. ‘Kenny’ as the twins called him, took one look ath the four of them, glared and then left the room without saying a word. “Well that wasn’t very friendly,” remarked Fred in false surprise.
“Such disgraceful manners,” complained George in a similar tone.
Lee just laughed, patting Avi on the back. “Don’t worry ‘bout him Avi. Kenneth is just like that. He knows better than to get in the way when the twins are up to something.”
The twins told Lee about their adventure in Professor Snape’s quarters and their ‘failure’ to steal the Mandrake leaves. They told him about Avi saving their skin and hiding them in his room while he somehow got Snape to agree to let Avi invite the twins into his animagus tutoring with Professor McGonagla. “He’ll definitely be in Slytherin like his dad then won’t ‘e” remarked Lee. “With cunning like tha’?”
Avi fidgeted as the twins gave him an odd look. He wasn’t sure if Lee meant that as a complement or not. Would the twins treat him differently if they thought hw would be in Slytherin?
The twins looked at each other for a bit before mirroring each other’s smirk. “Well then, that just means we’ll have to train him up a bit before he goes to the snake pit.” said George.
“That way, he’ll be able to act as our inside man for future pranks!” said Fred in a delighted voice.
Avi laughed in relief as the three older boys started making ludicrous plans. They stayed up talking about all the cool pranks they could all do together once they were animagi and Avi was in Slytherin. Lee was jumping up and down on his bed as he explained how they could use a feather light charm to move Professor Markhart’s bed outside and float it in the Black Lake when another redhead burst through the doors.
“Fed! George! What is this nonsense I hear about you kidnaping Professor Snape’s son so you can do scientific experiments on him?!
Avi laughed all the way out of the portrait hole and out into the hall. Gyffindors were so dramatic!
***
Somewhere out in the castle, the creature clung to the ceiling of the tower watching as a boy with dark hair walked the halls beneath it. As the monster fell on it’s prey, the boy’s eyes filled with terror. The taste of his blood was sweet.