Harry stared at the rain sheeting down beyond the station awning. His mate had put a great deal of effort in teaching him to swim, and if the rain were to fall just a little harder, he'd probably have been able to swim to the carriages. His inner cat was not looking forward to stepping out into that, and Hermione looked equally reluctant. Mustering their Gryffindor courage, they ran for the shelter the carriages provided. Shock jolted through them both as they saw the creatures in front of their transportation. Skeletal horses, was one way to put it, with huge leathery wings, and a bird-like beak. They weren't truly skeletal, having a covering of leather and horse-hair, but their level of gauntness came close.
"What are those?" they asked in unison. It was obvious that most of the students didn't see them. It was Luna who supplied the answer.
"They're called Thestrals, Harry, Hermione," she said. "You can only see them, if you have seen, and understood that you were seeing, death." Looking directly at the creature, she whispered. "I can see them because my mother died in front of me when I was nine. Spellcrafting accident. Ginny can see them because of the memories Riddle's diary shared with her. The rest of you... Umbridge." She didn't need to say more, and each member of the Chaos took comfort in the arms of their dear one.
The ride up to the castle was made unpleasant by the rain, and more so by the smell of wet cat that pervaded the carriage. It was obvious that the least comfortable in the carriage were Harry and Hermione, and she explained their lack of action. "Once we get up there, we have to go through the rain again, and if we've cleaned and dried ourselves, we won't want to."
Harry put his two knuts' worth in. "We're getting better at dealing with being wet because of our animal sides, but still, we are cats."
As they approached the doors, they were greeted with a barrage of water-balloons, delivered by Peeves. As the water cascaded everywhere, Professor McGonagall came charging out, berating the pesky poltergeist. As she hit the puddle of water, she skidded and lost her balance. Harry moved in, catching their fellow feline on the left, as Hermione managed the same feat on the right.
"Careful, Professor," they chorused, then set about using drying charms on them selves.
"Yes, quite," muttered a slightly disoriented teacher. "I mean to say, thank you, Mister Potter, Miss Granger." As drying charms were liberally applied, both to students and the floor, the doors opened to the Great Hall.
As the students entered the Hall, Harry glanced around, taking in the empty seats at the staff table. There was Professor McGonagall's, of course, as she had gone to receive the first-years, and Hagrid's, there by Professor Sinistra, and that left one more... probably that of Professor Moody, as Defence had an unstable staffing at best. From what Hermione had read and shared with him, there had once been a year where no fewer than five would-be professors had taken up the post, and none of them had lasted more than a few months!
There was the usual awe-struck parade of firsties into the Hall, led by the Deputy Headmistress, and she moved to stand by the stool where the Sorting Hat perched. As the rip in its brim opened, the song poured out.
"A thousand years or more ago,
When I was newly sewn,
There lived four wizards of renown,
Whose names are still well known.
Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,
Shrewd Slytherin, from Fen.
They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,
They hatched a daring plan,
To educate young sorcerers,
Thus Hogwarts School began.
Now each of these four founders,
Formed their own House, for each,
Did value different virtues,
In those they had to teach.
By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
Would always be the best;
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
Most worthy of admission;
And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.
While still alive they did divide
Their favourites from the throng,
Yet how to pick the worthy ones
When they were dead and gone?
'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,
He whipped me off his head
The founders put some brains in me
So I could choose instead!
Now slip me snug about your ears,
I've never yet been wrong,
I'll take a look inside your mind
And tell where you belong!"
As the various Houses broke into applause, the Chaos looked carefully towards the first years from their various seats in the Hall. With two main 'powers' from Slytherin in Harry's year gone, and the more capable members of that House (Daphne and her best friend Tracy Davis) siding with one Harry Potter-Black, there was little threat coming from those who remained. What they had to watch out for was the older and younger students. As the Hat sorted them each into their Houses, the kitty couple sat with their tails entwined, observing, noting which children went where, what their names were, and how they carried themselves in the company of others.
Once the sorting was done, and the feast was finished with, Dumbledore stood to make the school announcements. "It is my sad duty to inform you that this year's Quidditch Cup is canceled, and with it, all official Quidditch for the school year." Harry and Hermione's ears flattened back against their heads at the resulting noise, and they, as well as Pakhet, hissed at the cacophony even as Fred and George shouted.
"You must be joking!" they cried, disbelief and horror writ large on their faces.
"Sadly, no," confessed the old wizard. "Although I believe a man of that name works in Zonko's... poor man has no sense of humour at all, for some reason..." It took Professor McGonagall clearing her throat as she nudged the Headmaster with her elbow to bring him back to the topic at hand. "Oh, yes, sorry, now as I was saying..." The headmaster got no further as the main doors of the Great Hall, slammed open with a resounding boom, timed perfectly to coincide with a flash of lightning and roll of thunder, revealing a new figure standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the night.
The man was the most beat-up, battle-scarred veteran that anyone had ever seen, and Ron's nervous whisper carried clearly to his friend's feline ears. "That's Mad-Eye Moody... he's the one Dementors had nightmares about..."
Hermione sniffed primly, and groomed her whiskers. "But thanks to your spell, Ron, Dementors have a new nightmare, one named Ron Weasley," she replied.
As Moody clomped forwards on his peg-leg, they caught a better view of the man. He was of middling height and indeterminate age, and moved carefully, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment, and his face was covered in scars of varying size and significance. Strapped to his head by a contraption of leather and brass was a blue orb, glowing slightly, that constantly spun about in its socket. As it spun, they caught occasional glimpses of something that could have been the 'pupil' and 'iris', that is, if it had been a real eye.
It was as he drew level with them, although he walked between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, a good fifteen feet distant, that Harry caught a faint whiff of scent, barely more than a taint on the breeze what with the fading scent of wet cats. It was familiar, but he couldn't for the life of him recall what it was... and then it was gone, as Moody continued his passage up the Hall.
The Headmaster again took the reins of the conversations. "Ah, yes," he announced. "I would like to introduce you all to Professor Alastor Moody, who will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year." Pakhet hissed in the general direction of the staff table. The Kneazle, now full grown, had done nothing like that before, and Hermione began to wonder why she was doing it now. However, Dumbledore's announcements continued, distracting her from thinking on it.
"As I was saying," he spoke, his voice carrying clearly through the silence that had been produced by the intimidating Defence Professor, "There is to be no Quidditch this year. In its place, the Ministry has informed me that Hogwarts will be playing host to the Triwizard Tournament."
Harry muttered under his breath, low enough that only Hermione heard him. "Let me guess... fantastically dangerous, horrendously lethal, and I'll be forced to compete."
His mate shrugged. "Don't be so pessimistic, that won't happen," she said, and paused as he cocked his eyebrow at her in disbelief.
"Let me count it up, shall I?" he said, smirking a little as arguments and discussions about the tournament sprang up around them, confirming the danger of the previous tournament, including the fact that the last three times it had been held had killed all the Champions. "First year, there was the troll, Quirell, Fluffy and Voldemort. Second year, we have Lockhart, the basilisk, public opinion and Riddle's diary. Third year we had the whole mess around Sirius and the dementors and … Umbridge." He stopped there, remembering the kill. For a moment his mind was blank, and then he went on. "This year, the Ouidditch World Cup was up in arms, and that was before the school year began. I shudder to think what the forces arrayed against us are bringing to bear this time."
Their first potions class was pretty good, compared to the way that Professor Snape had treated Harry in the beginning. The only real downside was the potion he chose to have them all brew: Polyjuice Potion. The good news was that it was one of the many potions that the kitty couple's bodies treated as a poison, and so they were immune to it, while the down side was that to their acute sense of smell, it was torture to brew it. The stuff smelled worse than it looked, and both could confirm from personal experience that it tasted worse than that. The naggingly familiar scent hung around them for the rest of the day, although the potion itself would not be finished for weeks.
Professor Snape even made a particular point of being certain of the hair that you intended to add, as unexpected results would occur if you weren't. At this, the entire class looked at the two felines in their midst, as Hermione tried to hide her face in Harry's shoulder. He, of course, did not try to hide, as the school grapevine had long since told everyone that he'd chosen to become like her once the change had been proven permanent.
After classes were done for the day, the Chaos of the Tigers drew away to meet in the Chamber of Secrets. With them were their prospective recruits, the Weasley twins. As the notorious pranksters were guided into the Chamber, a far more welcoming place than its previous incarnation, by Sirius and Remus, they were greeted by the full roster of the original members, standing there in their basilisk-skin outfits, with the hoods down, making it easy to see who they were. A glance to one side saw a board marked 'Potential Members', with their own names at the top, circled in red.
Harry stepped forward, his tail swishing behind him. "You said you had something important to tell us?" he prompted, the twins having left that message with Ginny earlier that day.
George spoke first, and for once, the twins withheld themselves from double-talk and twin-speak. "We found that, as twins we have a somewhat... unique trick to the Animagus transformation." He nodded to Fred, who took over.
"When we got back to the dorms last night, after the revelation potion, we felt a bit odd, see?" the other twin said. "And a few moments later, we changed again... for sixty seconds, just like the first time. But this time, George was the spider, and I was the fox."
George again took up the story. "We spent our free period researching, and finally asked Professor McGonagall about possible explanations... in a purely hypothetical manner of course."
"She said that twins who are animagi are so rare as to be almost unheard of, but she did know of one pair... her own great-grandfather and his brother. Apparently the twin bond is such that if twins can be animagi, they can use each other's forms!"
"Interesting," Hermione mused aloud. "I wonder if Padma and Parvati... hmm..." She looked up at them. "I'm pretty sure that Professor McGonagall wasn't at all fooled ny your 'hypothetical' question, she's quite sharp. But she already knows about the rest of us, so I don't think that's going to be a problem."
The first Defence class was a disaster zone. The kitty couple were the first in the door, eager to learn after some of the rumours about Moody had gone around the school, but no sooner were they in the door than Pakhet's fur bristled along her back and she hissed at the teacher... and Harry and Hermione got a whiff of him as he lifted his flask to his lips, a scent filled with the now all-too-familiar odour of Polyjuice Potion. Hermione hissed out "Amber!", switching her school robes for her Chaos ones, as Harry did the same by saying "Emerald!". Hearing the leaders of the Chaos go into action, the others present (Neville, Ron and Daphne as the Gryffindors and Slytherins shared this class) also went into action, with Neville barking an order to a nearby portrait.
"Disturbance in Defence class!" he snapped. "Alert Professor Dumbledore and the rest of the staff!" He then whispered "Grizzlegrim." This was at the same moment as Ron's "Firefetch" and Daphne's "Midnight", so the corridor was suddenly occupied by three Chaos members, who blocked anyone else from entering the classroom.
Inside the room, 'Moody', whoever the imposter really was, was barely fazed by the sudden transformation of the children's robes, and mentally kicked himself for overlooking the kneazle and underestimating the reaction of the feline 'abominations'. His master's plan was in Jeopardy, and he had to succeed...
"Potter! Granger!" he yelled, trying to force his authority through intimidation, as he drew his wand with incredible speed... speed that was still as nothing compared to the felines' reflexes, as even starting after he'd begun his draw, they had theirs out and pointed in his direction before he'd cleared the holster. "What do you think you're doing?" He knew the real Moody would have been proud of the 'Constant Vigilance' that had them bringing a kneazle... the catgirl's familiar if he remembered right... wherever they went, but somehow, he just couldn't get that far into the role he played, since they'd caught him out.
Even as Professor Dumbledore arrived, Harry answered 'Moody'. "Maybe you won't have realised, but our noses are very sensitive... maybe not so good as a dog's, but certainly a tiger's. On top of that, considering how we came to be what we are, we are intimately familiar with the scent of Polyjuice... I may not know who you are, but we know you are not Alastor Moody!"
The imposter lashed out. If his master's plan A was discovered, they would realise he must have a plan B, although exactly what it was, he didn't know. It only made sense not to tell someone in his position inside enemy territory about the back-up plans. Still, even if his orders said not to harm Potter, he had free reign on the mudblood...
What happened next was absolute and undeniable proof, as far as Dumbledore was concerned, that the man wearing his old friend's face was not Alastor. He would have recognised the basilisk-hide making up the Chaos uniform worn by Hermione as such, and done something tricky to obviate the advantage. Instead, the imposter spat a Reductor curse at the catgirl... another mistake, as the spell deflecting from her cloak to strike the wall, blasting it into the corridor, where Neville took the form of Grizzlegrim, the Grizzly Bear, and shielded his classmates from the debris. He was knocked senseless by the flying chunks of stone, and Ron and Daphne took up station over their massive friend.
Harry was angry. The man in front of him was trying to hurt his mate! That could not be condoned, and had to be punished and he began yowling his spells in Lingua Felinarum. Disarm! Stun! Bind!
The impostor's shields never stood a chance, as the Disarming spell shattered them on the way through and drove the wand from his hand, hammering the impostor back towards the other end of the classroom. The stunner caught up with him before he got that far, and he was unconscious as he was driven into the old blackboard by the impact of both spells. He hadn't even time to fall down before he took the rope-binding spell full-on.
"Well done, Mister Potter-Black," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling like mad. "I believe you pass."