Ripped Away

Year Two: Nundu, Mysterious Voices and Petrified Cats

Ortho and Norbert were back in their habitats in the Forbidden Forest, and were menaces for Heracles to take care of. Ortho's maintenance was mostly routine at this point, but Norbert was now a fully grown Norwegian Ridgeback and was now eating three entire cows for every meal, which Hagrid generously supplied, so the scaly creature sucked up a lot of her time. Not to mention her regular visits to Rhea and the unicorn herd. It was almost a weekly tradition for Heracles to ride her and then spend some time with her and her herd, which Heracles actually found very relaxing. It was one of the best parts of her week.

Heracles's nightmares were still very much a thing. They weren't as bad as they had been over break, since time had managed to make the scars of her trauma fade slightly, but she would still wake up sweating and panting at least once a week, subconsciously looking at her hands to make sure Quirrell's blood wasn't on them. And that was when she even got sleep, between all her other activities and her work with the mirrors. It was still an improvement, though.

Honestly, between making mirrors, her friends, the creatures, the horcrux hunt she and Dumbledore were putting on hold until summer break after the desication curse incident, and her side hustle with her private greenhouse, Heracles didn't know how she had time to breathe anymore.

And then there were her efforts to become an Animagi, because despite the fact Heracles had taken the easy route with the mandrake leaf, she still ended up taking two months to complete the process because Montague had the audacity pat her on the back at lunch in congratulations for acing a practical charms test that morning and earning fifty points for Slytherin, causing her to swallow the stupid leaf when she was three days away from not needing it anymore. So after causing an incident in the great hall that ended with Heracles being torn off the poor bastard by the twins, Montague nearly getting his eyes gouged out by cursed playing cards, and Heracles only evading punishment because she threatened the fucker with a much worse fate so he would say they were 'just messing around' when Snape asked what had happened, Heracles had to steal a mandrake leaf from the second year greenhouse again, keep it under her tongue for a month again, and ended up reminding everyone in Slytherin why she was not to be fucked with. Malfoy was at least slightly less annoying in the week that followed, so that was a plus.

But none of that mattered anymore, because on Halloween night, Heracles was finally, finally ready to find out her Animagi form. After sneaking away from the Halloween feast halfway through it, telling her friends that she had 'things to do' and to save her some treacle tart, the red haired girl made her way to her lab and got to work. She took the mandrake leaf out of her mouth, threw it away, sat on the ground, crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and started meditating, waiting for when her beastly form would appear in her mind's eye.

'I probably should be doing something more... memorial-like, given that this is the day my parents were murdered by a psychopathic terrorist, but I get the feeling they would be happy to see me spending their deathday learning how to turn into an animal so I can get up to some shit... or at least my father would. I don't know about my mother.', Heracles thought with a small smile on her face, doing the exact opposite of meditating by thinking and not clearing her mind. But apparently her Animagi form was stubborn and persistent, because shortly after having that thought, the outline of something appeared in her head. Heracles grinned widely.

'Yes! Yes! Come to me, my fursona! Please let the animal be something cool, like a wolf like Jack! Or a lion, or a hyena, or a dragon- !', Heracles rambled, listing off the animals most connected to Leona, Ruggie and Malleus. When she got a good look at what her Animagus form was, however, she cut herself off.

' ...The heck is that?', Heracles asked herself as she stared at the animal. It was a ginormous, cat-like thing as tall as a pine tree, with black fur covered in spikes, leopard spots, and a lion's mane that was spiked like its fur. It's tail was long, with a wicked barb on the end of it. It had great big green eyes like Hercules's own, only they were slitted and feline like the rest of it. The creature stared at her with intent-filled eyes.