True Confessions of a Teenaged Multimagus

True Confessions of a Teenaged Multimagus

My mom once said she loved me

Just the way I am;

I wonder if she'd love me

If I became a clam.

If her son was grey and grimy,

Slippery and slimy,

An oversized hors d'oeuvre,

Would Mom still have the nerve?

- Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

It had been Irene's idea that they should try to become Animagi. Irene was ten at the time, the oldest in the family, and she had most of the good ideas first.

Callie was eight and a half. She was small for her age, with smooth, light brown plaits of hair and freckles. She had been christened Celia Andromeda Lupin, after her two grandmothers. Calling her "Callie," from her initials, had been another of Irene's ideas. It wasn't until a year or two later that Callie decided that she might not like it all that much, and wondered how Irene, whose middle name was Lily, would take it if Callie suddenly started calling her "Ill" - but by then, the name had stuck. Their parents called her Celia when they remembered, but even they forgot most of the time, and Callie had to admit she'd started thinking of herself as Callie, so she didn't really mind.

"We could help Dad when he turns into a werewolf," said Irene, "the way his friends did when they were at school."

"He doesn't really need it now that his potion's been invented," Callie pointed out. The girls had been to see their father during his transformations sometimes - only after Mum had checked and double-checked that he was safe - and it really wasn't all that scary. They'd patted him on the flank, and he gave them a friendly sort of growl and thumped his tail against the floor, although he didn't seem to want to move much and they could tell he was in pain.

"Yeah, but it's got to be lonely for him without any company," said Irene. "Wouldn't it be cool if we turned out to be wolves and we could all go running in the forest?"

Callie was sure she wouldn't turn out to be a wolf. More like a mouse or something. But she liked the idea of being able to keep Dad company, so she tried her best to become an Animagus.

Unfortunately they weren't sure how you went about it, and they hadn't learned Transfiguration in any case, so the best they could do was concentrate very hard on animals and hope for a spurt of accidental magic to help them along. It didn't work very well. Caroline, who was only four, insisted that she had transformed into a kangaroo and spent two days hopping everywhere she went, but none of the others could see it, and finally she hopped onto Mum's foot and made her spill a stack of files from Auror headquarters all over the room. Mum wasn't too happy about that, and by then Irene was bored with the whole project and decreed that they were going to become Curse-Breakers and discover an ancient tomb instead, so they spent the next few days excavating under the Shrieking Shack and forgot all about being Animagi.

* * *

Callie started school, a year after Irene, with a secret feeling of dread. She liked being at home, and she didn't see exactly why she had to go and stay in a dormitory at Hogwarts when her family lived only a short walk away from the castle, but that was how things were done in the wizarding world. I hope I'm a Ravenclaw like my sister, she thought when she tried on the Sorting Hat. Or a Gryffindor. My dad's Head of Gryffindor, and it would be brilliant if we could be together...

The Hat chuckled. It spoke in a woman's voice, warm and throaty. "I think, my dear, that you have just demonstrated that you are a natural Hufflepuff."

But I don't want to be a Hufflepuff! thought Callie, dismayed. I won't know anybody.

"Are you quite sure? You seem very much the right sort of person - loyal, patient ... and a very hard worker ... Often it's better for people if they have a chance to strike out in their own direction instead of following their families ..."

I'm sure. Please?

"Well, then." The Hat's voice seemed to have changed; it was still feminine, but rather higher and more silvery. "I think you'll also do very well in - RAVENCLAW!"

Callie hopped down from the stool and ran straight to the table under the blue and bronze banners, where Irene had already jumped on top of her chair to lead the cheering.

* * *

Over the Easter holidays during Callie's second year at Hogwarts, her father was very ill with a stomach virus and unable to keep down water, much less Wolfsbane. As the full moon approached, Mum started to have a tense, distracted look, and she told the girls to pack their things for an overnight visit with their grandparents. Irene insisted that she was fourteen, old enough to stay, and Mum said, "All right, but don't tell your dad until it's over." There was something frightened about her eyes and she sounded as if she would be grateful for the company. Callie stayed too, mostly because nobody had noticed her, and a protesting Caroline was the only one packed off to Gran Tonks' house by Floo Powder.

Mum cast as many restraint spells as she dared on Dad in his weakened condition, and reinforced the cellar door with double Imperturbable charms. The three of them huddled together on the stairs with blankets and a candle listening to the muffled howling. Irene, who was in the Hogwarts choir, sang their entire Easter concert program until she was hoarse, thinking it might calm the wolf or at least cheer everybody else up - but mostly they just talked to him through the cellar door and tried to tell him everything would be all right.

There was a lot of blood on the cellar floor when they opened the door at sunrise, and Irene went almost green and had to sit down on the steps. Callie heard her singing one of the songs from the concert under her breath. Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see / That spectacle of too much weight for me...

Callie held a basin of water and helped Mum clean and heal Dad's wounds, trying very hard neither to avert her eyes nor to stare. He gave them a weak, shaky smile. "Next time I do that, remind me to have all my teeth pulled first," he whispered, and then things really were all right and he was just Dad.

Afterwards, Irene seemed a little ashamed at losing her nerve and eager to make things up to him. "You remember how we tried to become Animagi when we were kids? I think we should do it, for real. We can't let him go through that again."

Callie agreed.

They spoke to Professor Granger, the Transfiguration mistress, when they returned to school, but she was not very encouraging. She said that the Animagus transformation was extremely difficult magic, that nobody had mastered it before the age of fifteen (which was true, but James and Sirius and Peter had started learning when they were Callie's age), and that the safety risks involved were so huge that she didn't feel it would be ethical to try to teach it to them at their ages.

"Oh well," said Irene confidently, "she isn't an Animagus herself, and she probably doesn't like the idea of us learning something she can't do. We'll try McGonagall next."

Callie, who had always felt shy around the Headmistress, hung back while her sister explained what they wanted to learn.

Professor McGonagall proved to be surprisingly agreeable. She went slightly misty-eyed when Irene got to the part about why they wanted to be Animagi, and murmured "Yes, of course," in a choked voice. And then, as if she were ashamed of being caught in a soft moment, she said sharply, "This is a very complicated branch of Transfiguration, and it is not to be taken lightly. You, Irene, will have to improve your powers of concentration considerably before I can consider tutoring you - and Celia, you will have to work on bringing all of your Transfiguration work up to the mark. I shall lend you some books that explain the theoretical background behind the Animagus transformation. Mastering this material alone is likely to take several years. When you have come of age and completed your first year of N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration, you may begin to study the practical aspects."

Irene groaned. "That's years from now!"

"Yes, Miss Lupin, it is. This is not a game for children, nor will impatience get you anywhere."

* * *

As it turned out, it didn't take them several years to learn the magical theory behind the transformation inside and out. Irene was one of those clever people who grasp a thing almost at once when it is explained to them, and Callie could read three books in the time it took most people to read one. Even with their other coursework, it took them only two years and a few hundred packets of Eschewing Gum. (Eschewing Gum came in several flavors, including Vehemint and Detrimint. It made people want to avoid you without really knowing why, so it was a godsend when you were trying to work on a secret project in the crowded Ravenclaw common room.)

They went back to Professor McGonagall and told her they were ready to move on. She quizzed them backwards and forwards and couldn't find a hole in their knowledge, but she stubbornly refused to allow them to begin practical study until they came of age.

"We'll learn it on our own," said Irene confidently. "We've done it all by ourselves so far."

The books they needed to continue were in the Restricted Section. Normally this wouldn't pose a problem, as their father disliked the whole concept of the Restricted Section and would generally sign the permission forms for any student who asked, without asking awkward questions, but they wanted to surprise him. Theodore Nott, who taught History of Magic and was keen on students doing original research, had a similar policy, but he was married to Professor Granger, who would certainly put a stop to their work if she found out about it.

"What did people do in the old days, before Dad and Professor Nott worked here?" Irene wondered.

Callie remembered a certain story that Harry Potter had often told them when they were younger. "I think they looked around for a professor who was really thick."

* * *

"Professor Trelawney?" said Irene. "I had the strangest dream last night. I think it must have been a Sign."

The Divination mistress' eyes lit up behind her oversized glasses, and she nodded sagely. "Do tell me about it, my dear. The Fates often speak in dreams and riddles, though alas, many of us Mortals are too arrogant and narrow-minded to understand their promptings until it is too late. You were wise to come to me at once."

"I dreamt that I was walking in the Restricted Section, and some of the books slid out of the shelves all by themselves and flew into my hand. It was as if they wanted me to read them."

"Very likely. It would be the gravest of ill omens to ignore such a Portent as this, my dear Miss Lupin. You must certainly read them at once."

There was a long pause.

"But they're in the Restricted Section, Professor," Irene prompted her. "I'll need permission."

"Yes, yes, of course. Do you remember the titles of any of the books?"

"Oh yes. I wrote them all down." Irene handed the Divination teacher a list.

Professor Trelawney started to read it and then looked up sharply, with a much less ethereal expression than usual. "I consider it most peculiar that the Fates would concern themselves with books about Transfiguration. It is by far the most mundane of the magical arts; indeed, most true Seers regard it as beneath their notice."

"Does - does this mean you won't sign the permission form?" Irene's eyes widened and filled with histrionic tears. "But - oh, Professor, I'm so sure something terrible will happen if I'm not able to read those books. I spilled some salt yesterday and forgot to throw a pinch over my shoulder - and my tea leaves on Thursday looked just like a Yawning Mouth of Hell!"

"There, there. Do not cry, my dear. Of course I shall sign the forms - I was merely remarking that as Portents go, this one was rather unusual."

She signed Sybill Patricia Trelawney in thin, looping cursive at the bottom of the form, and the girls ran off to the library with barely suppressed glee.

* * *

They learned, among other things, that you had to look inward to find your true Animagus form. It might be the same as your Patronus, but then again it might not. You meditated, for months on end if necessary, until the image of a particular animal became clear to you. And then you had to study that animal, learn its behavior and diet and habits backward and forward, because your imitation of these things had to be good enough to fool other animals of the same species, not just human observers.

The meditation part proved to be Irene's downfall. "I can't do it. Whenever I try to clear my mind and concentrate on an animal, I get all sorts of ideas about things that haven't got anything to do with animals, and I end up thinking way too hard about them instead." She shook her untidy mop of brown hair violently and snapped her Eschewing Gum. "How are you supposed to stop thinking about things?"

Callie didn't know, but she felt as if she had the opposite problem. She enjoyed the meditation sessions, and clearing her mind of conscious thoughts was easy, but her subconscious ones didn't seem inclined to settle on any animal in particular.

"Callie?" Irene said a few weeks later. It was very late in the evening and they had the Ravenclaw common room to themselves. "I've been thinking. I don't think I'm really meant to become an Animagus. I haven't got the temperament for it."

"You're not thinking about quitting now? But we've worked on this for years!" Callie felt positively betrayed. "You can't let it be all for nothing!"

Irene looked into the embers of the fire for a moment. "It's not for nothing," she said quietly. "I can still help you."

It hadn't even occurred to Callie that she might go on without her older sister, but Irene insisted that she should, and promised to help her with the more difficult theoretical bits. The trouble was that more theory wasn't what Callie needed at this point. "It's no good," she said some weeks later. "I need to talk to somebody who's done it, and McGonagall still says she won't help until I'm seventeen."

"I wish Dad's friends James and Sirius were alive," said Irene. "They'd help you."

Callie said nothing, but an idea had come to her. She felt guilty, because she knew her father wouldn't approve of what she was thinking of doing, but it was the only way forward that she could see.

* * *

Students whose families lived in and around Hogsmeade were allowed to go home on alternate weekends for Sunday lunch. On the next such weekend, Callie sent an owl to her parents telling them she needed to stay and work on her History of Magic project, which was due on Monday. They thought she was at school, and her teachers thought she was at home. Where she really was, was thirty miles away at a cottage on the outskirts of a little windswept village.

She tapped on the door, feeling very frightened and alone. She was about to come face to face with a murderer; one who had been paroled, to be sure, in light of the fact that he had betrayed Lord Voldemort and his entire camp of Death Eaters rather spectacularly, but Callie knew very well that they hadn't been the only people he betrayed.

The little man who opened the door was nothing like she expected. Although it was only noon and he was still in his dressing gown, and unshaven, his breath smelled of firewhiskey. His blue eyes were bloodshot and slightly unfocused, and he seemed much older than Callie's father, who didn't exactly look young for his age.

He kept his hand (he had only one) on his wand, and he was looking at Callie - well, not as if he wanted to hurt her, but as if he was afraid he might have to.

Callie felt sorry for him, more than anything.

"Mr. Pettigrew? My name is Fanny - Fanny Blackhead." (Irene always said that if you had to go by a fake name, the cleverest thing to do was to make up one that didn't sound like anybody would ever call herself that on purpose.) "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I'm studying how to become an Animagus, and I was hoping I might be able to ask you some questions. That is - if you've got the time."

He looked startled, as if he weren't used to people politely asking for his advice on anything, and then gave a harsh laugh. "Time? Time's about the only thing I've got plenty of, my girl. Come on in."

He answered all of her questions, demonstrated the transformation several times in fast and slow motion, and gave her a number of useful tips about things she hadn't even thought to ask about. She scribbled furiously in one of her school notebooks all the while, trying to take everything in. He seemed to sober up as they went along, and even looked a bit more cheerful, as if he were flattered by the attention.

"By the way," he said when she was getting ready to go, "I wouldn't tell your dad you've been here, if I were you. I know you're doing it to help him, but I don't think he'll take it well."

Callie looked up, startled. "How do you know who I am?"

He shook his head. "How could I not know? You're Moony all over again. Besides ... Fanny Blackhead? D'you really think I'd believe any parents could be that cruel?"

He laughed, and it was a genuine laugh this time, and in it she heard an echo of the boy he must have been.

"Goodbye, Mr. Pettigrew." (It might have been Uncle Peter, she thought, if things had been very different. How strange.) "And thank you. I'll write and let you know if I need any more help."

"Good luck," he said, and when she reached for her broomstick and took off, he watched her from the doorway until she was out of sight.

* * *

By this time Callie's O.W.L.s were approaching; she felt confident about Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures, but she had been neglecting her other subjects. She forced herself to spend several months studying furiously. At last the summer holidays began and she had plenty of spare time to work on the transformation.

For some days her thoughts had been full of wing-beats as she meditated, and she began to suspect she might be a bird at heart. That would make sense; she liked to fly, and was good at it. But what sort of bird? she wondered. Swallow, wren, seagull, magpie, owl ...?

She let Archimedes, her owl, out of his cage one evening and went nose-to-beak with him, staring into his enormous yellow eyes. "Do you think I look like a bird?" she asked him. She tried to imagine what it might be like to see the world through an owl's eyes.

And then it happened. She heard a soft pop! and suddenly two owls like mirror reflections were looking at each other.

"Cool!" Callie tried to say, but it came out more like Whoo! Archimedes hooted back, and nipped her lightly at the edge of her wing.

The books had said it might happen like this; the first transformation was often sudden, and took wizards by surprise when they were meditating or experimenting with Transfiguration spells. So you had to make sure you did these things in a safe place. She had read about a witch who had turned into a moth unexpectedly, and flown straight into a candle and burnt away to a flake of ash.

She stretched her wings and tried to fly, but her new body seemed too heavy and awkward for her wings to support her. She fluttered down to the floor and landed hard on her rump, with her talons sticking out in front of her. You'll have to teach me about being an owl, she thought, looking up at Archimedes. I was expecting to turn into a smaller bird, for some reason. Like maybe a sparrow.

She thought about sparrows, and then another pop! startled her and she was much smaller, with brown feathers.

Archimedes was eyeing her very keenly indeed as she fluttered around on the floor, and she became acutely conscious that he was a bird of prey, and she had forgotten to feed him his evening mouse.

Don't eat me! she thought. Don't you know who I am? It's me, your mistress! Callie!

Pop! And she was a human again, sprawled awkwardly on the floor and feeling ruffled.

She went straight to the bookshelves and double-checked everything she had read about the Animagus transformation. Something weird was going on here. All the books said that every wizard had only one animal form, one that was personal and immutable and a reflection of the wizard's true character.

She gave up on nonfiction and leafed through one of her favorite novels - the very one that had given her Archimedes' name, in fact. Merlyn had transformed young Arthur into a succession of different animals as part of his education, and Callie briefly entertained the possibility that she might be a Person of Destiny like King Arthur. She rejected this idea almost immediately. She knew about People of Destiny, both through reading and because the famous Harry Potter was a great friend of the family, and one thing she knew for certain was that they weren't meant to grow up in an ordinary home with their parents and sisters. And they were never middle children. For that matter, they weren't even girls that often, unless there was a suitable Boy of Destiny to pair them with.

Her eyes fell on another novel, Northern Lights, which seemed to offer a more promising explanation. The people in that book had daemons, which were sort of like Animagus forms, only external to you. Children's daemons shifted shape, but they settled into the form of a single animal when the children grew up. Maybe Animagi were the same way, and her form wouldn't become fixed until she came of age?

But Peter Pettigrew hadn't mentioned anything like that. And he had been fifteen when he mastered the transformation, and Callie was already sixteen.

A reflection of the wizard's true character, she thought, and a cloud of nameless fear began to condense at the back of her mind.

* * *

In the morning she told Irene, who annoyed her by asking if she was sure she hadn't dreamt the whole thing. Irritatingly, Callie found herself unable to transform into an owl again when she tried, although she was sure the problem was that she was thinking too hard about it instead of simply drifting along and letting herself have owl-like feelings. Irene insisted on going through the Transfiguration books and Callie's notes herself, with a fine-toothed comb, which occupied most of the day.

When she grew tired of answering Irene's questions, Callie decided to leave her sister to it and run around to the Three Broomsticks. Madam Rosmerta was the girls' friend; she told them all the Hogsmeade gossip and sometimes gave them free butterbeers if the pub wasn't too busy.

"Wait just a minute, ducks," she said as a group of customers came in.

Pop! Suddenly Callie was eight inches tall and covered in feathers.

"Why, where did that Lupin girl run off to?" said Madam Rosmerta when she came back. "And where did you come from? Shoo!"

Callie tried to explain that she was that Lupin girl, but she could only quack, and Madam Rosmerta didn't seem to understand her. She found herself pushed out the back door of the pub with the end of a broomstick.

Next thing she knew, she was staring at a pointed red face and a set of very sharp teeth. A fox was watching her from behind the rubbish tip, with the same hungry look Archimedes had when she turned into a sparrow.

Callie quacked furiously and flapped her wings, trying to take off, but she still didn't know how birds went about flying and she only seemed to flap around in circles. Sensing weakness, the fox slunk closer and closer.

She struggled not to panic. What would Professor McGonagall do? she thought.

There was a sudden pop, and she was hissing instead of quacking and twitching a tabby tail. The fox looked distinctly startled, but no less hungry than before.

This isn't any good. I want to be a dog. Dog ... dog ... dog.

After a moment of intense concentration, she transformed into a tiny Yorkshire terrier. She yipped at the fox, which seemed unimpressed.

No, a big dog! Like Dad's friend Sirius!

This time it worked brilliantly. She became an enormous shaggy black creature like a Grim and chased the now-panicked fox until it vanished in the undergrowth. Callie barked triumphantly and loped along the edge of the woods that ringed the village, where she met her father on his way back from his afternoon walk.

Dad! she thought, bounding up to him with a vast sense of relief. He would know what to do. He always did.

"Well, hello," he said, looking at her with a funny half-sad, half-tender expression. "Who do you belong to? You haven't got a collar."

She nudged her head under his hand and tried to tell him with her eyes who she was, but he only scratched her behind the ears absently. His mind seemed very far away.

"Are you hungry? Why don't you come home with me for a bit and I'll see if I can track down your owners, all right?"

Callie trotted along beside her father agreeably, wondering whether he was going to give her dog food and whether it would be very impolite not to eat it if he did.

* * *

Fortunately there was no dog food in the house, and she was soon enjoying a plate of leftover roast beef and being petted by both of her sisters. Being a dog wasn't such a bad life, she decided. But she didn't want to be stuck that way forever.

"Can we keep him?" asked Caroline.

"Her, I think," said Dad. "I don't know. We'll have to see if we can find out who lost her." And he went into his study to draw up an advertisement.

Left alone, Callie put her forepaws on Irene's chest, looked straight into her sister's eyes, and whimpered.

"What is it, girl?" asked Irene.

Callie took Irene's hand in her mouth very gently and led her over to the bookshelves. She laid one paw on top of a Transfiguration textbook and scratched until it fell out of the shelves.

To her relief, she could see comprehension dawning on Irene's face. "You know something, Caro? I don't think this is a dog at all. I think this is Callie."

"How can it be Callie?"

"She was studying to be an Animagus. Don't tell anybody, because it's illegal, but she'd sort of figured it out."

Illegal? It took her only a second to realize that of course Irene was right - you were supposed to register - but, damn it, why hadn't she mentioned it before?

Caroline pouted and kicked the leg of her chair. "How come you didn't tell me? I want to be an Animagus."

"You're too little. You haven't even started school yet." Caroline glowered, and Irene relented. "I can't do it, myself. I get distracted too easily, and I have the patience of a flea."

Pop!

Callie panicked; she had become a tiny speck, almost invisible among the hearthrug, and her sisters looked as huge as mountains. They could crush her in an instant and nobody would ever know. Her instincts told her to jump, so she did, and it was like releasing a powerful spring. She hurtled upward through the air, a hundred times her height, and landed on Irene's arm.

Irene raised her other hand. No! DON'T SLAP!

Just as Callie was preparing to spring for her life, Caroline asked, "Where did the dog go?"

Pop!

"OOF!!!" said Irene as Callie re-materialized as a dog - an Irish Setter this time - still sitting on her left arm.

Callie got to her feet, but none too quickly. Serves Irene right for almost smashing me, she thought.

Irene picked herself up off the floor. "OK, this is weird. I think she turns into a new animal every time somebody mentions one."

"Cool!" said Caroline. "Think about all the things she could do."

"As long as nobody lets the cat out of the bag," said Irene.

Pop! Callie mewed and licked her paws.

"I'd be mad as a wet hen if somebody did that," said Caroline, catching on.

"BOK-BOK-BOK-BOK-BOK!" No wonder wet hens were mad, because being one was very uncomfortable. Callie tried to shake the drops of water from her wings.

"Yeah, that would really get my goat."

"BAAAAHHH!" said Callie-the-goat.

"They'd have to be a real snake in the grass."

"SSSSSsssss!" She hit the ground flat as the goat's legs disappeared from under her. It hurt, like belly-flopping into the lake from a great height.

She tried to tell her sisters to stop, because turning into so many animals in such a short time was making her dizzy, but of course they didn't understand. They thought it was funny, and went into fits of giggles with each new transformation. If only Harry were here - he was a Parselmouth, she could make him listen ...

"D'you think this hurts her?" asked Caroline.

"Nah. I'm sure she's happy as a clam."

"Ooh, good one." Caroline snickered.

It was at this point that their parents came in. They stood in the doorway looking at the two girls, who were looking at the clam. Nobody spoke for a moment.

"Do I want to know why there's a clam on the floor?" Callie's mother asked at last.

"Because this place is a pigsty," Caroline replied. Callie, who had found being a clam quite restful, got to her feet and oinked resignedly.

Irene nodded. "A veritable rat's nest." Callie squeaked and scampered for the nearest hole in the wall.

Dad got a certain quirk about the lips, as he always did when he was struggling with a particularly mischievous impulse. At last he said, "Well, this is certainly a horse of a different color."

And suddenly Callie was a horse of a very different color indeed, a sort of pale puce with pea-green splotches. Her mother and sisters exploded in laughter, and even she had to admit she looked pretty funny.

"What sort of animal is it?" Mum asked.

Dad looked into the horse's eyes, and Callie saw the light beginning to dawn. "I think the question isn't what, but who," he said.

It's me! Callie! Your daughter! Remember me?

And then there was another Pop! and she was standing in front of them in her ordinary shape and clothes, as if nothing had happened.

"Sweet Merlin, Callie," said Mum, "how did you do that to yourself?"

"I ... er'm ..." Callie struggled to think of a suitable reply. If it had just been Dad, she might have admitted the truth then and there, but her mother was an Auror, which meant it was her duty to arrest Callie if she knew she was an illegal Animagus (not that Mum would, but it would be awkward to put her in that position). But if she said she had been doing something else, Mum's next question would be which spells she had been using...

"She didn't do it to herself," said Caroline unexpectedly. "I ... I think I did it. It was accidental magic."

Mum nodded. "Nothing to fuss about, then. It should wear off right away."

* * *

But it didn't wear off. She kept changing into new animals whenever she thought about one, or somebody mentioned one in her presence, or sometimes completely at random. Fortunately, she always changed back into herself afterward, but that too seemed to happen at unexpected moments and without any conscious effort on her part. Her family tried not to make her transform on purpose after she told them she didn't like it, but accidents were inevitable.

"What are you making for dinner, Dad?"

"Lamb."

"Oh, goo- Baa!"

Her father contemplated the small, woolly creature that had just materialized in the kitchen and hastily put the roasting pan away. "On second thought, I think we'll just have pasta. Pasta with vegetables."

Callie turned into a human again just before dinner, and they had a normal, though quiet, meal until the girls started clearing the dishes away. "Oh, I forgot to tell you Amelia Bones will be here in twenty minutes," said Mum. "She's got some files she wants me to take over to Auror Headquarters in Edinburgh tomorrow - says she doesn't trust them to ow- the post."

"That's the third time she's dropped in this month," said Dad. He had already settled into his favorite chair with a book, and did not look enthusiastic about the prospect of company. "If the files are as important as all that, why doesn't she bring them to the Edinburgh office herself?"

"I don't know," said Mum. "Amelia's always been a strange bird. Er, I mean a strange person."

Too late. Callie abruptly turned into a bright pink kookaburra with the legs of an ostrich and the tail of a peacock. The stack of dishes she had been carrying fell to the floor with a crash, and Caroline spat milk all over the kitchen table.

"Scourgify! Reparo!" This was about as successful as most of their mother's attempts at housekeeping spells: a few fragments of crockery feebly bestirred themselves and re-assembled into something that might have passed for modern sculpture, but was definitely not a plate. Mum sighed, gathered them up, and shoved them into a cupboard.

By then Callie had changed back into her usual self. "Um ... sorry about that."

"It's not your fault, Callie," said Mum. "I really do think we'll have to take you to St. Mungo's tomorrow. But for now - could you please try not to transform into anything too big and awkward while Madam Bones is here?"

"In other words," Irene whispered wickedly, "whatever you do, don't think of a hippopotamus."

Which, of course, meant that Callie was unable to think of anything but hippopotami after that, and she transformed into one almost at once. Luckily she was only a pygmy hippo, but that seemed quite big and awkward enough in the Lupins' modest-sized house. Mum and Irene held a hasty consultation and finally hustled her into the guest bathroom, where they ran a bath full of cold water and levitated Callie into the tub.

The guest bathroom would have been a comfortable refuge if their guest hadn't insisted on using it. It didn't seem quite polite to sit there while her mother's boss was having a pee, so Callie splashed a bit to alert Madam Bones of her presence.

"MY GOODNESS." The bathroom was an echoey sort of place, and Madam Bones' voice seemed even louder and more resonant than usual. She took off her monocle, polished it, and put it back on.

Callie stood up in the tub and raised her right foot, offering to shake hands, but Madam Bones didn't seem to notice. She opened the bathroom door and hollered, "AUROR TONKS, ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOU HAVE A HIPPOPOTAMUS IN YOUR BATHROOM?"

Mum tried to stroll over to the bathroom nonchalantly. Unfortunately she tripped over the rug in the hallway, which rather spoiled the effect, but she recovered herself. "Oh yes, of course. It's, er, a stray hippopotamus. My daughters found it yesterday, just sort of - hippoing along." Mum gazed steadily at Madam Bones, as if daring her to question this.

"I see," said Madam Bones. She looked faintly suspicious, but one did occasionally find things of that nature in Hogsmeade. Once, when Callie was very small, she and Irene had seen a llama in a hula skirt come out of the Forbidden Forest, although nobody had believed them...

Uh-oh. If she thought too hard about llamas in hula skirts, she would turn into one, and then Madam Bones really would get suspicious.

With all her might, she tried to concentrate on something else - namely, that she was furious with Irene, and that Mum must have some inkling of the truth if she had felt the need to lie to Madam Bones. Neither of these were comforting thoughts, but at least they were very un-llama-like ones, and she managed to get through the visit without transforming again.

* * *

On the morning of her appointment at St. Mungo's, Callie dressed slowly and dragged her feet on the way down the stairs. She wondered if the Healers would be able to tell she was an Animagus by examining her, and if so, whether she'd be turned over to the Division of Magical Law Enforcement on the spot.

"Callie!" said Mum. "Stop poking along at a snai- I mean, why must you be so sluggish - oh no!"

"Ewwww," said Caroline.

Mum scooped up Callie in one hand and turned on Caroline. "I don't care if she is being a slug at the moment, she is your sister, and you're not to talk that way about her!" She waved her hand in what was probably meant to be an emphatic gesture, but unfortunately had the effect of sending Callie flying halfway across the room, as slugs tend to be slippery. "Oh, Callie, I'm so sorry! Er - where are you?"

"I wonder how Mum managed not to drop us on the head when we were babies," whispered Caroline to Irene.

"She did," said Irene. "She dropped you on the head all the time. Explains a lot about how you turned out."

"Ha ha. Very funny."

"I heard that," said Mum in a warning sort of voice as she finally settled Callie into the palm of her hand.

Callie gave her mother's finger a light nibble to show she hadn't minded about being flung across the room (slugs have their mouths in their feet) and tried not to ooze too much slime as they took the Floo network to St. Mungo's.

* * *

At the hospital, the Healers tried a dozen different spells before they finally found one that restored Callie to her human form with a blinding flash of blue-white light. A mediwizard led her into an examination room and left her sitting on a table for some minutes after that. She could hear voices conferring in the corridor.

... usually only works on Animagi. Funny, that ...

After a few minutes, the mediwizard came back into the room, followed by a young woman in a Healer's uniform.

"This is Healer Zeller," he explained.

"Call me Rose," said the Healer. She was young, with a friendly, pink-cheeked face. Callie liked her at once. "I'm just going to give you a quick check-up, first ... mmm, yes ... no physical damage from the transformations, and no sign of Dark magic ... Do you have any idea how this happened to you?"

And suddenly Callie wanted to tell her the full truth - the books from the Restricted Section, the hours of midnight study, her clandestine visit to Peter Pettigrew - and at the same time felt that it was utterly, completely impossible. She didn't even know where to begin. "I ... I think my little sister did it to me last week," she said at last. "With accidental magic."

"That's very long-lasting accidental magic. Usually it wears off in a few hours, at most."

Callie shrugged.

The Healer reviewed Callie's medical chart, Summoned a book called Three Heads and Only One Eye: Unusual Variants in Magical Genetics, and looked something up in the index. "I have an idea what might be going on," she said at last, "but I'd like to conduct some tests to be sure."

"What sort of tests?"

"Genetic tests. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit. All I need is a sample of your hair." The Healer snipped off the end of one of Callie's plaits. "I don't want to make any promises until we've analyzed this sample, but I think we can help you."

"You can make me go back to normal?" Callie asked hopefully.

"Well," said Rose cautiously, "normal is a very relative term."

As this remark came from somebody who was reading Three Heads and Only One Eye, Callie was not sure she found it altogether comforting.

Rose called her mother in for a moment after that, sending Callie out to wait in the corridor. Mum came out of the room looking a good deal more cheerful, but all she would tell Callie was that they would have to wait for the test results to be sure what was the matter with her.

* * *

The more Callie thought about it, the more she realized that her current condition gave her a great deal to worry about. She had not spoken to Irene since the Hippopotamus Incident, so she was forced to confide in Caroline, who was optimistic but not completely reassuring.

"What am I going to do if I can't go back to school at all? How am I ever going to get a job?"

"You could become a writer for the Quibbler," Caroline suggested. "'My Father Is a Werewolf: True Confessions of a Teenaged Multimagus.' They print that sort of thing all the time."

Callie pointed out that she could hardly expect to make a career out of this, since even the editors of the Quibbler probably weren't scatty enough to publish the same article more than once.

"So you do some more weird magic on yourself, and write some more True Confessions about it."

"No thanks. With my luck, I'd end up spending the rest of my life as a toilet brush or something."

"You could not do it and write about it anyway," said Caroline. "I don't think the Quibbler is much for fact-checking."

"In that case," said Callie grumpily, "I might as well have not become a Multimagus in the first place." Of all of the professions she had considered when she had her Career Advice meeting with her head of House earlier that year, writing for the Quibbler had not even made the list. Besides, she had a feeling Dad wouldn't like it very much if she took to publishing True Confessions, particularly if they were confessions that involved him.

* * *

Caroline was about to start her first year at Hogwarts, so the family went to Diagon Alley one Saturday to buy her uniform and schoolbooks. "I'm awfully sorry, Callie," said Mum, "but I don't think you'll be able to come with us this year."

Callie nodded. She had been expecting this. At this time of the summer, Diagon Alley was full of parents buying children their first owls or cats, and students talking excitedly about the animals they would be studying in Care of Magical Creatures that year, and people using expressions like a fish out of water or running around like a chicken with its head cut off or never tickle a sleeping dragon, some of which might turn out to be fatal.

"Tell you what," Mum offered. "I'll morph myself until I'm just your size, and that way I'll be able to try on some new robes for you. What color would you like?"

"Blue," said Callie absently, although she really didn't care much about robes.

"Would you like anything from Flourish & Blotts?"

"Here's the list they sent me." Callie took a piece of parchment out of the envelope that had held her Hogwarts letter.

"I mean, anything besides schoolbooks."

Callie shook her head. Mum looked slightly worried - it was not like Callie to refuse books - but didn't press her.

Just before they stepped into the fireplace, Dad gave her a quick, sideways glance and said that he thought he would stay home as well, as he had a great deal of work to do before the new school term began.

But after the others had left, he spent only a few minutes skimming through his lesson plans before he put them aside and said it was too nice a day to stay indoors, and how would Callie feel about going out for a bit of flying?

Callie nodded, and went to get her broomstick.

As a rule she liked to put her new racing broom through its paces with fancy loops and dives, but today she pressed forward in a hard straight course over the moorland. The wind roared in her ears and tore at her hair; she didn't care, she felt fiercer than the wind. She wanted to outrace all of the frustrations of the last two weeks and leave them far behind her. She flew higher still and allowed herself to get lost among the cottony billows of cloud that shrouded the ground from sight. Droplets of water hit her full in the face and soaked her robes.

Some twenty minutes later, a voice called her back to the world. "Callie!"

She slowed and turned her head as her father caught up with her. Hogsmeade had long since vanished, and even the vast darkness of the Forbidden Forest was only a tiny smudge on the horizon.

"Could we try - a more appropriate pace - for middle-aged lycanthropes?"

"Oh. Sorry, Dad." She went into a steep dive and touched down amid the rocky outcrops and the heather.

He followed, making a smoother landing than her own. "Thank you," he said, still a little breathless. "Good flying."

"Thanks," she said dispiritedly. Now that she was back on solid ground, she felt as if her problems were still with her.

"Callie, is there anything you'd like to tell me?" he asked gently. "Anything at all?"

"No," she said, and then, "Yes. I'm an illegal Animagus ... or something, I don't even know what I am now ... and I only did it because I w-wanted to help you, and it's all gone wrong and I'm going to be stuck shifting between animals for the rest of my life, and it's because I don't have a p-proper personality of my own so I can't settle on a real Animagus form ... and I'm not even clever enough to be a real Ravenclaw, the stupid Hat only put me there because I begged to be with Irene, and this whole Animagus thing was her idea b-because I never even get any ideas of my own, and I don't know why I was dumb enough to go along with it, McGonagall told us we weren't ready but I didn't listen, and also I went to see Peter Pettigrew and asked him for advice and I know you'll be angry about that, and I hate this, I hate not being able to c-control it -" By now she was crying too hard to say anything more. He offered her a handkerchief and, a moment later, his arms, and she struggled to hold back the sobs that kept choking her.

"Oh, Celia," he said when she was quiet enough to listen. "I don't know what to say. Except - Well, first and most importantly, thank you."

"It's - it's not done you much good, has it?" she said, blowing her nose on the handkerchief.

"That isn't the point. I'm proud that you wanted to do that for me. Secondly, you're not illegal yet. Animagi have a month after the first transformation to register ... although," he added dubiously, "I'm not exactly sure what they'll register you as."

"Spineless jellyfish?" she suggested, and concentrated on not transforming into one.

He shook his head. "As for this utter nonsense about your not having a real personality ... well, would you say that I have a personality?"

She looked at him: lying on one elbow in a patch of scrubby grass, his academic robes disheveled and his grey hair damp from dodging in and out of clouds, giving her the sort of smile that made you feel as if you had to smile back. "Of course you do, Dad."

"Well, you may be interested to hear that just about everybody who knows you thinks you take after me."

She remembered that Peter Pettigrew had said the same thing, and couldn't help feeling a bit proud; but at the same time she wasn't sure it was a completely honest feeling. "You never turned yourself into a slug or a hippopotamus when you were younger, did you?"

"No," he said, "but believe me, it wasn't for want of trying ... Tell me something. Does it hurt you at all when you transform?"

"No." Immediately she felt ashamed for crying like a baby, when Dad was in horrible pain every full moon and he never complained.

"That's something, anyway. And you're getting a little more control, aren't you? I noticed you didn't turn into a slug or a hippopotamus just now."

This was the wrong thing to say, because the words caught her by surprise and she immediately became a slugopotamus, but by thinking very hard about her human shape she was able to change back. "You're right. It's getting easier." That was, she realized, another way she was better off than he was.

"Good." He reached out a hand and stroked her hair. "I'm not going to promise you that you'll ever be back to normal, because I simply don't know. But I will tell you that I've always thought being normal was overrated."

Callie gave him a shaky smile. "Do you actually know anything about being normal?" she couldn't resist asking.

He laughed. "Well, no. Not really. But from all I've heard, it sounds a bit dull."

* * *

Mum was waiting for them when they got home, a set of test results from St. Mungo's and an official-looking envelope from the Ministry tucked under her arm. "Good news! The Healers think you've inherited some of my Metamorphagus abilities, and that's why you're able to shift between animal forms."

Callie stared at her, stunned. She was certain she wasn't a Metamorphagus, because when she was six, Irene had tested their abilities by cutting off most of their hair with a pair of garden shears, and they'd both had to wait for it to grow back the regular way. (Or rather, Callie had. Irene decided she liked the gardening-shears haircut, and did it to herself again on purpose.)

"I didn't want to get your hopes up, but I thought that might be what was going on from the beginning. See, I remember what it was like when I was first learning how to control my abilities, and it was the same sort of thing - all I had to do was look at somebody's face, and I would transform without really meaning to, and then they would get the idea I was mocking them, and - Well, anyway, you'll learn how to control it. It takes practice, is all, and I expect Professor McGonagall won't mind giving you private lessons, the same way she did for me."

"But - but how can I be a Metamorphagus when I'm an animal, if I'm not one when I'm a human?"

"They haven't figured that out yet. The combination of Metamorphagus genes and the Animagus transformation is so rare it hasn't actually happened before. Rose said you might make the next edition of Three Heads and Only One Eye - if you want to."

"I think I'll settle for learning how not to turn into a clam at fancy dinner parties," said Callie.

"That's about what I thought you'd say. Um, there's one other thing." Mum looked awkward. "I stopped by the Ministry and made sure you were registered as an Animagus, so that's all taken care of, but there's a fee. It's usually sixty Galleons, but they threatened to bump it up to a hundred for multiple forms, and they had the nerve to suggest we were getting a bargain. I talked them down to seventy-five and I've advanced you the money, but I'm afraid it's a loan, not a gift."

Callie had to admit this was reasonable - her parents didn't have much money to spare, and she felt as if she'd caused a great deal of trouble by going behind Professor McGonagall's back - but seventy-five Galleons seemed an enormous sum. She had about twelve Galleons saved up from minding Professor Granger and Professor Nott's son, but how on earth was she supposed to come up with the rest?

"Where's Irene?" she asked menacingly. Evidently registration fees were another thing her brilliant older sister had forgotten to look up. All in all, Callie thought it was time she started speaking to Irene again. And had a word with her about her research methods.

Mum looked around. "Why, I don't know. She came back from London with us, and then she disappeared." She frowned. "I do hope she hasn't turned herself into a Demiguise or something. One Multimagus per family is enough."

* * *

Irene didn't turn up until much later in the day, and when she did, she startled Callie no end by apologizing. "Um, about the hippopotamus thing? It wasn't very nice, and I'm sorry."

"It's all right," said Callie. She thought about the look on Madam Bones' face when she discovered the hippo in the bathtub. "It was funny, you know."

Irene grinned. "'Course I know. Why do you think I did it? Anyway..." She reached into her sock drawer and fished out a handful of lint-covered Galleons and Sickles, which she gave to Callie. "I'll pay half the registration fee, since the Animagus thing was my idea. It was really stupid of me not to look it up - I didn't realize it would be so much."

"Neither did I," said Callie. "Er, thanks, but ... this isn't anywhere near half, you know."

"I'll give you the rest as soon as I earn it. I've just been around to the Three Broomsticks and talked Madam Rosmerta into giving me a summer job, she's paying a Galleon an hour."

"Do you think she'd hire me, too?"

"I already asked. She said we should both be there at noon tomorrow."

And so it was that they spent the rest of their holidays washing dishes and clearing tables at the Three Broomsticks. Callie got plenty of practice at trying not to transform, and Irene became very good at sweeping up feathers - because they never did manage to break Madam Rosmerta of calling people "ducks."

* * *

Callie made rapid progress under Professor McGonagall's tutelage, and by October she was able to transform and un-transform at will. The Headmistress warned her that controlling her outward form wouldn't be enough - she had to undertake an in-depth study of the behavior of any animal she was thinking of impersonating before she could use her talent in public, and it might take her the better part of a lifetime before turning into so many animals became second nature. But Callie felt that being free from sudden, accidental transformations was an accomplishment in itself.

Their first Hogsmeade Saturday fell on the eve of a full moon, and Callie asked her tutor whether there was any chance she could stay at home overnight. Students were, on occasion, allowed to visit home in case of illness in the family. Callie had pleaded for the privilege every full moon during her first year, more out of homesickness than genuine worry about her father, but Professor McGonagall had always stood firm. This time she relented.

"Yes," she said with one of her rare smiles as she signed the permission slip. "I think you might be able to do a bit of good."

Both Caroline and Irene had brought friends over, and for a few hours the house was full of chattering, laughing girls, until Mum shooed them off to the Three Broomsticks for butterbeers. The others set out for the castle gates after they left the pub; they hardly noticed when Callie doubled back. She found Dad, who had been trying in vain to mark essays, fast asleep on the living room sofa; Mum gave the permission slip the merest glance and winked conspiratorially.

Her father didn't wake until half an hour before moonrise. He blinked at her, a little disoriented, and finally said, "Aren't you supposed to be back at school?"

"Not tonight," said Callie, and she transformed herself into a young wolf, silver-furred and white-footed, as close to his own werewolf form as she could manage.

He stared at her, speechless, for a long moment, and she was afraid that he was going to say It's sweet of you, but you can't stay or I wish you hadn't.

At last he stretched out a hand and touched her fur very gently, and she saw the shock in his eyes give way to wonder. "Thank you," he said slowly. "I think I'll be glad of your company."