It has been awhile, but here is another chapter of Transfiguration Trouble. This is pretty short, but I think I'm going to cut it off here for now. I need to get myself back into the habit of writing regularly again and this is pretty self-contained, so it can stand alone as I work on either the next segment of this or other things.
Since I saw this work fairly well for Lawra, here is a link to a Google Doc version of the fic as well for anyone who wants to do more in depth corrections or comments on specific parts:
Google Doc Link for Inline Comments / Corrections
I'll probably be adding these to the other chapters too.
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Transfiguration Troubles
Chapter 4
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As Harry and Ron rushed back through the corridors to the Gryffindor dorm, he tried not to think about what kind of damage Ginny and Guinevere could cause after being left alone together. They had needed to pull the two apart no less than three times already in the course of a single day.
He wasn't too concerned about Ginny doing anything lasting to Guinevere, not really, but Guinevere still seemed to be working on the whole human thing. He hadn't gotten to the not biting and killing your rivals part, which seemed like an obvious oversight now that he was thinking about it. While Ron would eventually forgive him for Scabbers, he was pretty sure that transfiguring a basilisk into someone who did in his little sister would probably end their friendship for good.
He had needed to explain himself to his friends when he jumped up in the library and shouted that he had to leave now. And he might have been a bit loud. Maybe more than a bit, since the outburst had gotten the three of them banned from the library for the rest of the year. Even before that, Hermione had been dismissing the threat, saying that he was just being silly and paranoid, but Ron had jumped on board after the Scabbers incident.
After Madame Pince's pronouncement Hermione had been more than a bit upset with him and had refused to go along, choosing instead to try and argue her case about a lack of library access being cruel and unusual punishment, despite the fact that they had no more homework or exams for the last week they would be here.
His thoughts were interrupted as he and Ron saw the portrait of the Fat Lady coming up and both shouted the password at the same time. Her eyes widening as she saw the two of them were failing to slow down, she hastily opened and they jumped through the hole. Harry couldn't help flashing a grin at his friend as they charged through the Common Room afterwards and Ron returned it as they charged the stairs and began taking them three at a time.
They were almost to the first floor landing when a loud siren went off and the stairs abruptly flattened into a slide. Exchanging startled glances with Ron as he abruptly remembered the warning from the beginning of first year about the girl's dorms, his friend yelled, "Bollocks!" before his feet slipped out from under him and he landed on his stomach and began to slide down the chute.
Harry, being in front of Ron was closer to the landing and actually threw himself forward rather than allowing the ridiculously slippery surface to pull his feet out from under him. His momentum and the slick stone actually managed to send him up the slide several more feet and he scrambled to grab the door frame as he slid to a stop and started to reverse.
Panting, he hung by his fingers from the rough stone for a moment, then used the muscles that Quidditch had been helping him to develop and pulled himself up and off of the slide, tumbling into the first year's room. Flopping onto his back, he took a minute to let himself finish catching his breath and then realized as he opened his eyes that he was face to face with Guinevere. Which was a little odd given his position.
The green-haired girl was actually plastered against the ceiling somehow and was hissing angrily in Parseltongue in response to shouted comments in English that he hadn't heard from out in the stairwell. Some kind of magic that blocked the sound he supposed. He had never noticed that before, unless it was unique to the girl's side of the dorms or Ginny had done it.
Given that he could no longer hear the alarms either, he suspected it might be the latter. He rather thought those were supposed to be for the girl's benefit. It wasn't anything they had learned in first year, though he supposed with 6 older brothers Ginny's mom might have taught her something to help get a little privacy.
Neither girl in the room appeared to have noticed his entrance in the middle of their argument, so he heard a bit more than he wanted while he caught his breath. They hadn't killed each other and the room was only slightly destroyed with various items a 12 year old girl might be able to throw lining each wall, so he could afford the time. It appeared to be Ginny's turn, though he wasn't quite sure what she was responding to.
"You weren't doing any such thing! Harry saved me, you were just... just trying to suck up or something!" Ginny's eyes flashed from where she knelt on her bed, wand pointed at Guinevere and trembling slightly. He assumed from holding the basilisk turned girl up... somehow. He'd have to point Hermione at her.
Guinevere sniffed in response to the comment and said, "You are just upset that I chose the new Master over a fake like you..." She paused, then added slyly, "And that he chose me." Parseltongue, not too surprisingly, was very good at insinuation and she might as well have said outright that Ginny hadn't been selected for the kissing she had witnessed earlier.
Ginny's eyes narrowed and she said, "Harry hasn't chosen anything. You were an accident!"
"Take that back!" the basilisk hissed. She began struggling again and Ginny's eyes tightened slightly as her hand shook, though it didn't show in her voice.
"It's true, I heard the story! You were accidental magic!" Her temper seemed to have her in full grip and she hissed out the last in Parseltongue, probably to rub it in further, since she slipped back into English a moment later. "You're not even a witch, so you can't go to Hogwarts! They're probably going to send you to live with Hagrid in the forest or something next year while I come back to learn magic and be with Harry."
Guinevere seemed to deflate at that as her struggles stopped abruptly, however, the damage had apparently been done, because there was an abrupt sound of tearing clothing as her weight settled. Ginny's eyes widened and she said, "My clothes!" She started to lower the girl, then she abruptly released whatever spell she was using letting Guinevere drop as that didn't seem to stop the tearing sound-- right onto Harry, of course.
He whuffed as the work he had done on getting his breathing back under control was abruptly negated by the slight girl dropping onto him from nearly five foot up. The snake girl's tongue flicked out once as she landed considerably more softly than she was apparently expecting and she smiled abruptly.
"Master! You saved me!" She turned and stuck her tongue out in Ginny's direction and he rolled his eyes back to see the youngest Weasley's eyes widen as she saw him there for the first time.
"Harry!?"
This was about all Harry had a chance to hear before his eyes abruptly widened and Guinevere was sent tumbling off of him as he was whisked out into the stairwell. Finding himself dangling from one foot in the air, he was confronted by Laura Endwell, the 7th year girl's prefect with a more than displeased expression on her face.
The alarm abruptly stopped as he lost contact with the floor and the stairs slowly began to take form again, making him wonder how Laura had managed to avoid sliding down to the Common Room even as he gave her a weak smile.
"Have an explanation, Harry?" she asked, her eyebrow arching. When he only continued to softly wheeze and couldn't manage to get out a word of explanation, she just shook her head in disgust. "You're 12, Harry. Seriously, what are you doing?" She glanced in to see the other two and then said, "You know what, it doesn't matter. McGonagal can sort it out. I have two weeks left before I graduate and NEWTs to prepare for. I don't have time for pre-teen shenanigans."
"You two, out here, now!" When neither of the two girl's in the dorm responded to her command, Laura's eyebrows rose and then she waved her wand abruptly and said, "Finite."
The spell protecting the room abruptly came to an end and the apparently continuing argument was abruptly audible.
"--fault this happened. Now Harry is going to get in trou..." Ginny looked up as the prefect cleared her throat and trailed off.
The near adult smiled a little nastily and said, "He's not the only one. Out, both of you, now." She glanced back at Harry and he hastily cleared his throat and repeated the instructions for Guinevere, having managed to catch his breath for the second time.
Ginny looked surprised for a moment, but slumped and followed along with the snake girl busy trying to hold her clothes together as all four individuals trooped down the stairs. Harry didn't find it a reassuring sight to get to the bottom of the stairs and see Ron trussed up like a Christmas turkey. His best friend gave him a worried look and then gasped indignantly as he was also hoisted into the air.
With the two girl's trailing along behind meekly, Harry could only guess at what was going to come out of this when they got to McGonagal's office. He winced as the twins giving him a surreptitious thumbs up reminded him that he already had another detention for something not far off of this. You could pretty much assume anything that Fred and George approved of was likely to get you a detention at the minimum.
He was fairly sure his evenings for the last week or two of school were not going to be pleasant.