Subject: Two things are common knowledge here:
Author:
Posted on: 2016-09-07 17:03:00 UTC
1) The "leaf in mouth" thing has been the official thing for a while now. Since 2014.
2) James Potter in his youth was indeed a prat.
So, the new e-books from Pottermore are out two or so days ago, and... as you can expect they're 80% texts we've already been given for free, with only two out of thirty-six being new ones. Those being the biography of Horace Slughorn and... explanation on Animagi, with a complete process of becoming one!
Now, this is a direct translation from Polish, since I haven't seen English version:
To become an Animagus, you need to be skilled in both Transfiguration and Potions. The following instruction, if followed thoroughly, shouldn't provide any negative outcomes, both physical and mental:
1. For an entire month (from one Full Moon to another), you have to hold a mandrake leaf in your mouth. You can't swallow it, or remove it. If the leaf it out, the whole process has to be started again.
2. During the second Full Moon, take the leaf out and put it (with saliva) in a small crystal vial, exposed to the moonlight (if the night is cloudy, you have to pick a new leaf and repeat Step One). To the moonlight-exposed vial, you need to add one of your hair, a (silver) spoonful of dew picked from a place untouched by sunlight or human for seven days, and a pupa of Greater Death's Head Hawkmoth. Hide the whole mixture in a quiet, dark place and don't disturb it until the next thunderstorm.
3. While waiting for the storm, every day repeat the following procedure: At sunrise and sunset touch your heart with the tip of your want and chant the words: "Amato Animo Animato Animagus".
4. Waiting for the thunderstorm may take weeks, months, years even. During this whole time, the crystal vial should be left completely undisturbed, and untouched by sunlight. Sun contamination can lead to some horrible mutations. You should also fight the temptation of opening the vial and looking at the potion, until you see lightning outside. If the sunrise-sunset incantation is done correctly, there will be a moment when - after touching your heart with your wand - you will hear an additional heartbeat, sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker then the original. If that happens, it means there's no turning back: the sunrise-sunset incantation should be repeated with no slip-ups at the right time, and never be skipped.
5. As soon as you spot the first lighting on the darkened sky, immediately go to the place where you hid the vial. If you followed the steps correctly, inside you will find a blood-red potion, enough for one gulp.
6. It is important to move to a large and secured area, where the Animagus transformation won't raise panic or won't risk your health. Touch your heart with your wand, repeat the incantation: "Amato Animo Animato Animagus" and drink the potion.
7. If everything went right, you are going to feel a burning pain and hear intense beating of two hearts. In your mind, a shape of an animal will appear. This is the animal you're gonna turn to in a moment. You must show no fear. It is too late to stop now.
8. The first transformation is usually uncomfortable and scary. Clothes and accessories (glasses, jewelry, etc.) are melting into your skin, becoming fur, scales, or spikes. You shouldn't fight or resist this change, otherwise the animal's mind may take over and do something stupid, like escape through the window, or charge at the wall.
9. When the transformation end, you should feel comfortable physically. You should remember to hide you wand beforehand in a safe spot, to easily find her when you return to your human form.
10. To transform back into human, you need to visualize yourself as one. That should be enough, but you should panic if it doesn't happen immediately. When practiced, the transformation will occur as soon as you conjure the image of the animal or human in your mind, without the need to use a wand.
Usually, witches and wizards prefer to transform with their clothes, to avoid the embarrassment of nudity, although sometimes they let them stay to pretend taking a bath. The longer the witch or wizard practices their Animagus transformation, the easier it is to choose the method of changing with or without clothes.
The Animagus' animal form is usually the same form their Patronus takes. There are no recorded cases of the Animagus form changing to adapt to a changed Patronus. Then again, there are so little wizards capable of producing a Patronus AND transforming into animals, the research lacks data.
And... I guess that's it. We have the instruction now.
Are you telling me that James "I get bored so easily that I have to bully other kids" Potter managed to not only carry a leaf in his mouth for a whole month without spitting it out, but also consistently said the same incantation twice a day after that? Are you serious? (Har, har.)
... frankly, I'm going to have to assume the first thunderstorm was one day after the potion was made. Also, that he probably got Wormtail to do the whole leaf thing for him. "Sirius, does it actually say it needs to be your own mouth...?"
hS, who read the last two Potter books and didn't like James much at all
Now, don't get me wrong, I loathe James Potter, but I very much see him doing something like this for Remus, and also because it's cool, and he wants to. Honestly, what surprises me after reading this description is that more people don't. I suppose one or two of the ingredients (the dew - though how they managed that, I'd like to know, for the same reason) must be prohibitively expensive to people without allowances to save.
(I see so many people hating on Snape, who again don't get me wrong is a very flawed character and in many ways a terrible person, but for pity's sake, can we admit that he was at minimum sexually harassed, and more probably sexually assaulted*, by his peers - who were beloved of the teachers and administration - throughout several years of his life? That that just might mess a person up?)
*"Now who wants to see me take Snivellus' pants off," guys. I'm pretty sure forcibly stripping someone in public is assault.
It could have been pretty entertaining, going around with a leaf in his mouth for a month and keeping anyone from being the wiser. Haha, these people are all so blind, etc. And it could've been a competition with Sirius, too. What, you're gonna let a stupid little leaf get the better of you, mate?
Also, one of his better qualities is loyalty to his friends. He wasn't about to let Remus down.
What shocks me is that Sirius saw it through. James was a show-off and a bully, but Sirius was the one who complained of being bored and hated sitting still, IIRC, and he was the bad-boy flirt, too. It must have put a bit of a damper on his charms.
Still... wouldn't want to be a baby about it, or you might end up turning into something stupid like a chicken or a rabbit. Sure, the girls would still love you, but at the price of being tiny and fluffy, with a cute twitchy little nose. Does widdle wubsy Siwius wanna widdle cawwot? {= )
~Neshomeh
... how sure are you that didn't happen? Okay, so James got a stag, which is moderately cool. Sirius got... an evil black dog. Quick question: how did Sirius Black feel about his evil family and their name? Isn't 'evil black dog' about as far from what he'd want to show up as as you can get?
I reckon he was aiming at something else - a bear, maybe, to go with the wolf and hart already lined up? But he just had to take the leaf out that one time...
As for Wormtail... eesh. I bet Potter kept holding his mouth open and taking it out or something.
hS
"Ah! And here, Remus, comes our conquering hero!"
From behind the makeshift curtain came a small but deeply-felt "Sod off, James."
"A mighty wizard, whose baleful, terrible visage-"
"Sod off, James."
"-Strikes nought but the utmost dread in his enemies, be they looking upon his human or animal form! Behold, Remus! Sirius Black!"
I should mention that it was at this point I decided EVERYONE WAS BUN. EVERYONE. BUN EVERYWHERE.
---
Scape: "Messrs. Flopsy, Moonbeam, Nibbles and Sproink are proud to present the Marauders' Map. Please ignore the top-left corner, Flopsy does have quite the appetite if we don't watch him."
Ix: XDDD YES
Remus is a wererabbit
Just like Wallace and Grommit
*GROMIT
Stupid fingers
Scape: ALL OF THEM ARE BUNS
AND REMUS IS WERERABBIT
AND SNAPE STILL WORKS
BECAUSE FEMALE BUNS ARE CALLED DOES
Ix: YES
Scape: "Oh, any time I want to reminisce about my schooldays, I just watch Watership Down."
Ix: WHYYY
Scape: "But everyone dies."
"Yes."
Ix: "Just like real life."
Scape: THE WATERSHIP DOWN CONNECTION IS GOOD
SNAPEBUN
"All the world shall be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and when they catch you they will kill you. But first... they must catch you."
Ix: Write this write this write this
Scape: Oh good lord, I am having feelings about tiny teenage Remus getting maternal cuddles from Professor Sprout when she finds him post-transformation passed out in one of the greenhouses after an orgy of vegetable carnage.
Ix: eeee
Scape: THUS CEMENTING HIS CONNECTION AND GOOD FEELING TO HUFFLEPUFF HOUSE WHICH IS HOW, WHEN HE COMES BACK, HE GETS TO KNOW TONKS AND AAAAAAAA
oh wait
these are
*puts on sunglasses*
plot bunnies
YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Ix: YEEEEEEES
Scape: THIS HAS GOT ENTIRELY OUT OF HAND.
"Oh yes, we were always going around together. Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and... Peter."
Ix: MY SIDES
Scape: "Oh, Harry... you've got Lily's eyes... and James's hare..."
Ix: Pfahaha
Scape: I JUST REALIZED
THIS IS WHY
HE'S CALLED
POTTER
Ix: Oh?
Scape: https://brookeshelf.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/peter-rabbit-cover.jpg”>
Ix: OH
Scape: I KNOOOOOW
"I always wondered why Hagrid called that dog Fluffy."
and the Knight Bus never comes, which allows Sirius to explain what's going on before the year even begins, which leads to Pettigrew well and properly captured, which prevents him from assisting Voldemort in regaining a body . . . Yeah, it's a pretty sweet AU!
—doctorlit expounds on the bunnyfly effect
So Pettigrew is arrested, and - being perhaps overly generous to the Ministry - Sirius Black is pardoned. He doesn't return to Grimmauld Place - he hates it, and doesn't exactly need to hide out now! - but instead takes up residence in Hogsmeade. He and Remus get together quite often.
No Dementors are on the scene, so Harry never learns to conjure a Patronus. Nor does he receive the Maurauders' Map - the twins gave it to him because he wasn't allowed to visit Hogsmeade, which isn't the case now. Instead, he spends a lot of time hanging out with Hopfoot (^_~) and Moony.
Meanwhile, Voldemort has basically given up; he's hanging out in Albania with only Nagini for company. And who else will come looking for him? The only other faithful Death Eater is Barty Crouch Jr... who occasionally breaks free of his Imperius prison.
So: the World Cup is still interrupted by the Dark Mark, but Voldemort isn't there to get Barty out permanently. Year 4 is frankly boring: the Triwizard Tournament takes place, and is won by Cedric Diggory (who came second in the first task, and first in the other two). Mad-Eye Moody - the real one! - is a terrifying DADA teacher. He probably does teach Harry the Patronus charm, and Sirius helps him refine it. Sometime in this year, I suspect Harry becomes an unregistered Animagus, to be more like his father (and with prompting from Sirius).
In Year 5, Barty Jr escapes his father, and goes looking for Voldemort. Barty Sr covers it up (of course). Sirius Black teaches DADA at Dumbledore's request (yay, no Umbridge!). And around springtime, Barty finds Voldemort. He brings him back to England and they follow, essentially, Wormtail's plan: the potion. That means they need Harry Potter's blood - but a Harry Potter who is a year older, an Animagus, and hasn't even thought much about Voldemort since his first year.
So they orchestrate a breakout from Azkaban - a subtle one, replacing the prisoners with fake substitutes - and use the freed Death Eaters to run a kidnap attempt. They grab Harry in Hogsmeade, take his blood, restore Voldemort, and Voldemort challenges Harry to a duel. Priori Incantatem kicks in... but there's no Portkey to hand. As the ghosts appear around them, Voldemort grabs Barty's wand and kills Harry.
Or so he thinks. He manages to kill his own accidental horcrux, and knocks Harry out long enough that Team Voldemort leave, but then Harry revives and stumbles back to Hogwarts. He tells Dumbledore everything.
Going into the sixth year, we're in a place only subtly different from the canon. Voldemort is back; the Ministry refuses to believe it; Dumbledore starts hunting horcruxes. But Grimmauld Place is a Death Eater hangout, Sirius is a friend of Hogwarts, and - perhaps crucially - Harry no longer has a piece of Voldemort in his head. He can't see what Voldemort sees.
Anyone want to take it from that point?
hS
Crouch, Jr. escaping is speculation on your part. If anything, after the sudden, public reveal of a Death Eater who was formerly presumed an innocent victim, Crouch, Sr. would almost certainly increase his efforts to keep his son under wraps.
And even if Junior did escape, there's no guarantee he'll find Voldemort, since the latter wouldn't have Wormtail assisting him in the locomotion department. I still say the Hopfoot!Sirius timeline prevents Riddle from returning to power. Second Great Wizarding War: averted!
* * *
Probably unrelated, but uh . . . I had a bunny nightmare last night. The rabbit was mostly white with some brown in the back, so I don't think it's Hopfoot from his AU coming to haunt/spite me . . . Anyway, some repairman came to the zoo to fix chain link fences, but needed someone to watch his rabbit at the gift shop. I volunteered, not realizing how long he would be gone. Eventually, the zoo opened, and I got in trouble when someone called over the radio and everyone found out the Adventureland buildings hadn't been opened to the public yet.
It also had huge teeth, and kept nipping slices of skin off my hands. So yeah. Bunny nightmare.
—doctorlit is pretty sure the dream rabbit represents his inability to let go off small details to focus on the big picture
But so is 'the Ministry of Magic take convicted mass-murderer Sirius Black's word that actually, it was someone else what did it, but he doesn't know where the other person is'. Of course it's speculation. That's... that's how AUs work.
Your timeline, on the other hand, leaves Voldemort and his horcruxes entirely at large in the world - and hanging about not too far from Wizard Hitler's prison. How many years would Voldemort have to suffer in Albania before he and Nagani sought Grindelwald's help? We all know Tom Riddle can be charming when he needs to be...
hS
As far as straight lines go, this one was wider any road ever built.
1) The "leaf in mouth" thing has been the official thing for a while now. Since 2014.
2) James Potter in his youth was indeed a prat.