About unique Magic and Animagi

„About Rachel, what did you mean by "a fitting companion"? Does it have anything to do with the death magic inside of her?"

<Yes indeed, we already know your umbra has the form of a snake and while I told you without the help of the respective family no one can learn unique magic, but there is an exception; animals.

Animals are able to make a weak connection with the respective power sources and become magic creatures, and crystal vipers are just some of those for death magic, their "venom" is in reality just minuscule amounts of death magic in it's most basic form.

The only thing that makes them unique between thestrals and dementors ist their ability of complete immunity to death magic.

But now comes something even more interesting and also relevant to you: You know how it is only possible to get non magical animals as your animagus form usually, but those creatures are not magical by nature, they only have a connection to a unique power source.

Can you guess what that means?>

After this info dump about magic creatures Julius had to think for a moment to process all of it:

"Maybe I can get the animagus form of a crystal viper due to me as a human already having the connection to the source of death magic? That would be perfect for exploring Hogwarts unseen and it would also be perfect considering what kind Rachel is."

<You guessed right, at least my successor isn't completely retarded it seems. But that's still just a guess going from the proportions of your umbra and the hope of this happening again, the last time something like this happened in our family was hundreds of years ago when some depressed kid accidentally transformed into a thestral and was killed by some some primitives, believing him to be a bad omen.>

<Is that all? Very well, then get out.>

…

After leaving the mausoleum, Julius thought about his plans for his time until he came to Hogwarts and it seemed it was one of the few times he could just relax a bit while doing his little ritual every morning, hoping for a thunderstorm and playing with his sisters.

…

After going to his sister's room, Julius was greeted by a surprise consisting of an empty room.

At this time of the day both of them would usually be in their room waiting for him, not once in the last month had that not been the case.

Trying his best to stay calm while panic began to creep up on him through the initial shock his gaze was already racing through the room, searching for any traces which could either prove or disprove his assumptions.

After finding nothing inside the room and with his panic slowly starting to spiral out of control Julius pulled out his wand and quickly went to the window, hoping to find traces of them in the garden.

His sisters had never before shown any interest in any sort of sport, magical or non magical, especially due to Astoria's condition, so he was completely surprised when he found them on flying brooms in the sky, playing catch with a quaffle with George and his mother watching anxiously on the ground.

…

After having convinced Astoria to not use a broom if not supervised by someone able to use arresto momentum Julius had to participate too, by order of his mother who though he should also enjoy himself sometimes instead of just learning and training all the time and surprisingly he found it to be quite enjoyable.

Even though he did not have the strongest of bodies quidditch wasn't the most strength based sport as could be seen by the scrawny Harry still being a great player in the original series.

Well, unless you played as anything else than a seeker that is.

And while Julius very much enjoyed playing as a seeker it would be unfair to his sisters and he didn't trust himself to have enough control of his broom to not endanger them so he just played as the seeker for a bit while a puppet conjured by his mother and enchanted by George was a very miserable keeper, floating in front of three hoops Theo had apparently stored in some corner of the mansion after the last children using them had become adults and lost interest or more fittingly, been made to „loose interest" by their strict etiquette teachers.

After all his dexterity was never impaired by his curse and he had always had at least a slight interest into magic tricks of the muggle sort.

…

Some days of quidditch and his morning ritual later, the day before he would have to go to Hogwarts his patience was finally rewarded and this manifested in the form of an excited Theo waking him up in the early morning while wildly plucking his shirt, something he would normally never do with his master.

"Master you have to wake up! Look outside!"

And looking outside Julius became exhilarated; a thunderstorm! Finally!

Immediately Julius ran outside as fast as he could, only grabbing his wand and telling Theo to bring his crystal phial, not even taking any clothes.

And Theo was just as reliable as always, Julius had barely ran a few steps when Theo already appeared at his side again with the characteristic pop of house elf apparition and gave him the phial, filled with a small amount of a blood red liquid.

Standing in the rain in the court, Julius hesitated for a moment and then placed the wand tip on his heart, spoke the incantation and drank the red liquid.

Immediately a second heartbeat could be felt in his chest, bringing with it a fiery pain which pulsed up after every heartbeat.

There was no longer any turning back, when the shape of his second form manifested inside his mind and was forever burned into his soul and magic Julius was screaming in pain, unable to form any coherent thought through it all, but he was still adhering to the one thing he had imprinted into his mind before; to never feel fear, otherwise he could become a mutated being, neither human nor animal.

Than it happened, he felt his body change.

But contrary to his expectations the transformation itself was not painful at all; it was more of a swift feeling as if he liquified for a moment until taking form again, much different this time.

After the transformation was complete all of the pain apparently just disappeared so he decided to just lie down to recuperate in the silence, only broken by the light tapping of raindrops on the floor.

He had told everyone to leave him alone during his transformation as he had heard horror stories of people going berserk after their first transformation and attacking anyone they saw, additionally he also didn't want his little sisters to see him like this, but laying in a small puddle in the rain, lonely as he was, he already regretted not even allowing George to stay, he felt as if he was alone in the world and it was depressing.

Then he suddenly heard a grinding sound behind him, like scales on stone and who could only be Rachel appeared in his field of view.

Apparently he had been lucky and had indeed become a crystal viper, enabling him to finally see her clearly.

And he knew he could also speak to her now but he just didn't feel like speaking right now.

Apparently Rachel felt the same because after darting her tongue out and tasting the air she little poked his head with her own and slithered up the gutter.

Feeling as if she expected him to follow Julius tried moving his body and was positively surprised to not only be able to move his body without any problems, but also feel quite powerful like this so he just followed her up the building until they arrived at the edge of the roof.

And as soon as the both of them slithered onto the rooftop and were bathed in the rays of the rising sun already breaking through the sea of clouds at some spots he saw something beautiful, no; something magical.

When the rays of light hit their bodies it created a beautiful array of multicoloured lights dancing in the air around them with every movement.

…

Only hours later would Julius finally get down from the rooftop and after a long struggle and a bit of panicking he would transform into his human form again, earning him a fascinated gaze from Rachel and spend the rest of this day filled with anticipation with teaching Rachel the excitement of flying on a broom in return.

And since his earlier transformation he was still able to see exactly the same as before with his left eye so all the time he was flying he was still able to admire the lights.

***********

Sorry for the late chapter but in turn it is not only on the long end with almost 1600 words but I also already wrote almost 600 for the next one.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

This is the last chance anyone who doesn't want his name used in the novel to speak, if you do it now (and also later) I will change the name but as soon as I publish the next chapter that will be more complicated (in the sense that I will have to go through every chapter, searching for mention of a specific username)

Thank you for reading!