Date: September 17 2023
Time: After classes
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Interacting with: X
Mentions: @Pericles Dralt
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English | French
Thoughts
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Mahlioz had homework to do. She'd just had Defense Against the Dark Arts, and she was having an awful time with the Disarming Spell, Expelliarmus. She should have been sitting in her dorm room and practicing on one of her dormmates. But the procrastination had gotten the better of her, so here she was, sitting in the library for the trillionth time.
This time, though, was slightly different from the others. Usually the young Slytherin came for the fantasy section, sometimes the sci-fi, and read fiction until her head was filled with monsters and mysteries and magic. But today, she had a job.
A few days ago, she'd listened in to a conversation some other second years were having. They had been speaking about next year's classes, when they would have to choose. These particular students seemed invested in the idea of Care of Magical Creatures (which Mahlioz couldn't say she was extremely interested in). But the word "animagus" suddenly came into the conversation.
Mahlioz had never been very good with animals. That was her mom's thing. The girl had been surrounded by creatures ever since she could remember, but she didn't really care about them more than anyone else. She preferred her books. On the other hand, there were loads of advantages animals had over wizards. Some of them didn't need brooms to fly (that would be great, please and thank you), some of them ran faster than floo powder - or at least it felt that way - and some of them could live underwater without coming up to breathe for hours. Animals were cool, that she couldn't deny. And she'd always had that dream at the back of her mind saying she would love to be able to become one.
Growing up with half her family wizards, she learned about animagi pretty young. She'd had a whole phase when she was little, saying she was a bird and pretending to fly around the house for days on end (this was very probably
before she realized how absolutely terrifying heights were). Over the years, though, she'd kind of dropped it. She was still a kid, after all, and waiting for something that felt a lifetime away was exasperating. So she hadn't really thought about it since.
But that word in the other students' conversation had brought the thought back up again. And... well,
what if there were animagi at Hogwarts? That was possible, right? And that meant Mahlioz could be one of them someday, right?? And
that meant she had some research to do.
Hence why she was at the library when she should've been practicing her spells.
After looking around for a while, Mahlioz managed to find a book about creatures in the wizarding world, that happened to have a chapter on animagi. Sitting down near the fire with it, the second year began to read.
There was a lot she already knew - it was a learned skill, unlike for metamorphmagi, and it took a lot of preparation and it was really hard to do. Also that doing it without registering with the Animagus Registry was a crime.
What she
didn't know was how to actually do it, and that, the book was happy to provide her with. And dang, was it a lengthy process. They weren't kidding when they said it was really hard to do. Apparently you needed to keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth from one full moon to the next, then find untouched dew and a chrysalis to make some sort of potion you would have to keep in a dark place until an electrical storm. And until then, you'd have to keep repeating a phrase twice a day every single day.
As much as Mahlioz wanted to become an animagus some day, this all seemed like a lot of work. She wasn't one to back down from a challenge she knew she could do, but... well, the least she could say was that she was glad she wasn't of age for it yet.
She did wonder what kind of animal she would be if she managed it, though. It said in the book that usually it was an animal native to where the wizard was from, but Mahlioz had no idea what that meant for her. She'd have to do some more research.
Until then, though, she knew her animagus phase was back.
