It Meant Family

30th of November 1993

"I am a reflection of my mother's secret poetry as well as of her hidden angers." Zemi: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde

Hogwarts, Scotland

Harry stood at the door of the Great Hall before breakfast taking a moment to marvel at his work. The face of every student on the Gryffindor table was framed by a voluptuous copper mane, Ravenclaws no longer had hair, but a collection of feathers in several shades of brown coming out of their head, Hufflepuffs had platinum white hair with a pitch black stripe in the middle of each side and short whiskers growing just below their noses, but his favourites were the Slytherins, their hairs had been replaced with green scaly snakes who hissed and moved making each student look like a gorgon. Even the teachers at the staff table had been transfigured and his eyes lingered on Snape, annoyed at the snakes on his head, that kept trying to eat his food.

"This is a disaster." Whispered Hermione, incessantly running her hands through her mane. "It feels like the Polyjuice incident all over again."

"I don't know." Said Ron looking amused at the Slytherin table. "I think it's pretty great."

"Yeah, besides," Harry smiled at both his friends, "no one can make fun of our hair anymore." He threw some of his mane behind his shoulder in the dramatic way Sirius moved his hair and walked into the Great Hall aiming for a few seats at the end of the Gryffindor table.

Confusion reigned during breakfast, nobody knew how they ended up that way nor did they dare trying anything to undo it. The Hufflepuffs began distributing hair ties to any member of their house whose previously short hair had grown three times its length and soon enough every badger in school wore some form of ponytail or bun, Harry even saw a few girls by the entrance if the Great Hall attempting to trim their whiskers, but it was no use as they immediately grew back.

Once they were finished eating, Hermione insisted they stop by the Hospital Wing, but as they expected, it was already flooded with desperate students, all still transfigured, trying to get back to normal before class. Madam Pomfrey seemed incredibly frustrated at her failed attempts to turn everyone back to normal and simultaneously relieved she hadn't been affected. Defeated, Hermione agreed they should head to Divination before they were late.

They had finished the pyromancy chapters on their books and were on the path of getting ready for midterms, Trelawney had said that would be their last practical lesson with the flames before she went back to revise tessomancy before their exams. Feathers spread through the room as she waltzed around waving her hands dramatically making commentary on the nuanced movement of fire and how it affected the reading of the future.

Professor Trelawney taught her lesson entirely unbothered by the feathers covering her head and showed no sympathy for the Gryffindors scratching at the fur under their chins or the Hufflepuffs picking at their whiskers. By the time the class ended Seamus Finnigan had managed to set his mane on fire four times on the miniature fire pit that sat on the table he shared with Dean Thomas.

After class was over most of the Gryffindors made their way down to Hagrid's hut for Care for Magical Creatures. The professor didn't look very different under the transfiguration spell other than the change from dark black hair to copper and a minor alteration in length, in all honesty, Harry hadn't been sure if the spell would work on him at all considering how much bigger than everyone he was. He assumed it would take a lot more magic for it to be effective, but his mane seemed just as lionlike as everyone else's.

Hagrid had decided they would have a theoretical lesson and sent them all to a classroom on the second floor. Ron had settled for waiting by the classroom door where he would allegedly start working the DADA essay Snape had assigned them. Harry and Hermione walked in, settling on the front row, the whole way through class, they heard infuriated commentary behind them from the Slytherins struggled to take notes with the snakes in their way as Hagrid reviewed every creature they had studied during the term and gave a detailed explanation on what they would need to remember for their exams.