Potter Spawn

Chapter 16

"Yeah, Prongslet?" 

"Can you practice the animagus transformation with us again? Pleeeaaaase?" 

"Sure!" 

Okay, Hermione was game for that. 

Sirius had started teaching them about the theory of the animagus transformation just a few days after they had found out he was not, in fact, a dog named Buck. A couple of weeks ago, they had finally moved on to the practical part, which mostly consisted of meditating at the moment. Sirius was still working on the potion they would need, and Hermione was very glad the marauders had thought to store all the necessary ingredients in the Marauders' Room. That meant there was currently a steaming potion simmering over a fire in the corner, always carefully obscured from view with several complicated charms once they left the room. After all, Moony could get in here and did so whenever he pleased, and there was no way a bunch of first years could make such a potion on their own. As they did not need a suspicious Remus, they had to hide it. Simple as that. 

For now, the children sat down in a circle on the rug, Sirius perched on the sofa. 

"Now. Clear your mind. You know what you're supposed to focus on. Focus on yourself, on who you are, your strengths and your weaknesses. Be objective. Don't consider anything or your mind will start whirling, which is counterproductive. Just reach inside and look around. What makes you you? Now you focus on that. Reach deeper. Find a path to who you really are. Only people who are in touch with themselves can become animagi. What does it feel like, being you? It'll come to you eventually, your animal. Most importantly: don't become impatient. It's going to take months, years most likely, to find your form. Reach inside, Hermione. You're concentrating too hard. Relax, Neville. You need to focus a bit more, Harry, and you too, Ron." 

Hermione tuned him out then and vanished into her headspace. It was cluttered in here, she was always thinking about one thing and the other, and millions of thoughts lay dormat as soon as she closed her eyes and stopped hyperfocusing on schoolwork. But now, she tried to ignore all the offers and dig deeper. What did those millions of possible thoughts tell her about herself? What did it feel like being her? 

No thinking, she reminded herself. Just being. That was the way Sirius had put it in their first session. 

Well, she was smart and energetic and - alive. Hermione had always felt very alive. She felt... there. Intelligent - no, no, wrong, surface thought. Why did she feel intelligent? Why did she want to feel intelligent? Why did she crave it so much? 

The young girl tried to dive deeper, but there was something stopping her now. It was a barrier she knew very well by now, something in her mind not allowing her access to what was hidden deep inside its dephs. Very well, that probably meant she wasn't ready, and she had already accomplished a lot today. She would try another direction and come back to this later. Carefully pushing and probing, careful not to lose her way, Hermione waded through the dephs of her mind, only brought out when - 

"Gah!" A hand had landed on her shoulder, scaring her out of her mind (hehe). 

"Sirius!" 

"Sorry, kiddo, I had to stop you there. You were doing real good just now, but it's past your bedtime and you have school tomorrow." 

"Thanks, Sirius. I made some progress today." She looked around. "What about you guys?" 

"Me too!", Harry beamed at her. "I'm a very proud person, apparently, whether I have something to be proud of or not. And I care a lot about personal honor and morales." 

Sirius beamed. "Good job, kiddo!" Those were James' first realisations, too, he thought, but it went unsaid - if he told Harry that, Harry would focus on what his father was like instead of him during meditating, unconscious as it may be, and would come to the inevitable conclusion he was just like his father. That conclusion was doomed to turn out wrong, as Harry was not James, and would therefore never truly unlock his animagus form unless he revoked that way of thinking. This would force him to start over and he would lose valuable time on a frustrating process with frustrating results. 

"What about you two?", he asked instead, turning to Ron and Neville. Neville looked a bit ashamed of himself while Ron seemed frustrated. "Still nothing", the ginger grumbled.
"Me too." Neville's shoes seemed to be very interesting. 

"I'm not surprised", Sirius said, smiling at the two in what he hoped was an encouraging way. "Hell, it took us original marauders almost a year and we started in our third year, not our first. Don't worry about Harry and Hermione getting something quicker than you do. That can turn around in an instant. It's entirely possible you two will get it long before Hermione and Harry do, and besides, maybe they just got lucky today." 

Neville gave the older Marauder a thankful smile, so Hermione supposed his words had really reassured the insecure boy. They would build his self-confidence up, she vowed, and if they had to do it brick by brick. 

But for now, she thought through a yawn, the best course of action was probably going to bed. After all, they had transfiguration first thing tomorrow.