The Deer
When the Night wound down and they made it back to the common room with somehow nobody finding out James was relieved. He saw Lilly looking at him a few times but they didn’t look confused or anything so there should be all good. As the Night went on James even forgot his attire completely and it felt really great being back at Hogwarts.
As they went into the dorms James thus didn’t realize his attire still not being right and he just directly went into a discussion with the other marauders. You see they had a little secret, well they had a few but this one was their biggest. Remus was a werewolf which was of course no problem for the rest of the marauders but many people where afraid of them, even for good reasons. James, Sirius and Peter even went and started the animagus ritual, a ritual granting the people an animal form which would cancel out if they afterwards would get bitten by a werewolf.
Normally you only would do this as a seventh year and under strict observations of the transfiguration professor but in an old journal of the Potters they found out why it’s so hard and that as long as they followed certain rules they would be fine. Well that and they must have at least one person there that could transfigure them back. James was actually the closest and even knew roughly what it was that made out his inner animal. He could already make hooves and a bit of fur. His guess would be a deer for how his hooves and the fur looked like, he just didn’t know what kind of deer because what kind of deer has hooves looking like they where bronze. Well everybody but Sirius could see that he got some kind of dog as his form so he wasn’t that far away either. Peter was still at the beginning.
They where trying to get the transformation done when James suddenly wasn’t there anymore. In his place was some kind of animal in the deer cathegory, they actually weren’t sure which one exactly and they couldn’t just ask someone for that so James just proclaimed to be a stag. What other option was there really, he certainly wasn’t a reindeer, actually he didn’t have any antlers but well he was still young so he would grow into them yet. As he had a panic of not being able to transform back, suddenly he saw a Grimm before him and his heightened animal instincts told him to flee which he did.
Out of the door and through the common room running through the corridors of the castle. Not that he himself would have realized but luckily for him the common room was empty and luckily for his instincts his friends couldn’t follow him. Unluckily he ran in a floor with another person already in it and still only responding on his instincts he made to turn around. Moreso unlucky for him it was his cousin Narcissa who actually at this point worked out these secrets of the marauders and was an animagus herself, not that anybody but Bella or Mcgonagall knew about that.
In his unluck he could be called lucky as she therefore knew what to make out of the deer that was before her. Any other student would probably just have given him to Hagrid who bless his soul would not have realized him to be an animagus. As he woke up still in deer form he calmed down from the familiar presence in the room. To late he realized who it was and at that point Narcissa already begun talking: “look I will help you with detransforming and I will keep your secret little cousin but I want you to tell me what is going on and why you are doing this. I want you to promise me this. Tap your nose once to show me you understood and promise to do so.“
As he really didn’t have another choice but to do this she detransformed him, only slightly rising her eyebrow when seeing him still looking like a her.
“You see the reason I cannot say to you as I would reveal a secret of my friend but know that it is important and I can ask him if it’s possible to tell you I promise you that“. „If it is about Remus being a werewolf, I already knew that but I hope for you It isn’t just you doing it to be near him on full moon night, do you know how dangerous this is? Spill“. „Well… it is because that? Look he is always so sad and we wanted to be with him and help him and being animagi is always a good thing and please don’t be mad.“
„Could you at least see what animal you where? I saw and it actually is pretty funny. I am happy right now that I took care of magical creatures as I know what you are“ „ Well some kind of deer, wait comc? I am a magical deer?“ „Well yeah, you are a Ceryneian Hind for your information. Good news is you will get your antlers, they will even be gold so you are extra in that. You want to hear the bad news? Well here it comes either way: the doe of Artemis is, well that exactly, a doe variant. Exclusively. A female deer. Also they are sacred and really hard to harm and really rare so like yeah if someone knowledgeable enough to identify sees you… You actually got no choice to tell Mcgonagall now.“
“Well if I am a magical animal, maby Sirius didn’t transform into a Grimm-like dog just now but an actual Grimm.“ „Wouldn’t actually surprise me, he is a black after all.“