Marcos : The Change

[Shava]

Last year had been the big deal. Madden finding that book had given them a chance at real magic, real history. They wouldn't have any glory, but it would give them a taste of magic! From the book they had read about what the Marauders had done and it was complicated stuff, but they had pulled it off long before their graduation! And gotten away with stuff for years with that secret! And here was the magic THEY had already worked out! All they had to do was master the spell already worked out and how! And even more so, the Marauders (who were named in there and the name Potter was big enough, even if it wasn't the most famous one) weren't from one family they were just friends!

The triplets figured they had a natural advantage in pulling it off with their bond.

So at the end of last year they had taken care to spend a weekend prepping the items needed which had to be energized or enchanted beforehand, figuring it made the most sense to get those done first. Those included, three large candles, three candle stands (cause they couldn't risk a forest fire), a large metal pentagram outline in wrought iron (the most difficult), and a bag of silver bits mostly shaved off silver items of a certain purity. There were instructions written down for all the items needed and what they had done to make them work. Maddox, easily the smartest of them, had spent several weeks getting the pentagram right, struggling with some of the power needed, but managing. The other two had been worried about him at first, but he had come out of it okay.

Marcos had taken up the candlesticks and the bases for them. Those hadn't been too hard to come by actually, the bases, but they had to be big ones and he found them in a storage room in the castle, carefully removing them and hiding them on a rafter in the common room one night tucked behind the banners. Maddox had hidden his one night in the fifth floor's dorm at two am by coloring it to hide on the ceiling with careful paint job and some sticky spell. That had been very iffy to place with his brothers holding it up while he did the final adjustments while the older students slept away beneath them.

He was pretty sure he did not want to know where Madden had gotten the silver from or how, but he had complained for days about his hands hurting from cutting slivers off whatever it had been. They had a bag about two times as much as they needed though and Madden had spent the summer complaining about that little misread in measurements compared to his memory of the instructions. Marcos had nearly as much trouble as he had to make the candles. There had been a book about them in the Library and studying that had made making the molds far easier! Following the directions over a period of six days he had made the candles an inch at a time with different kinds of wax, acorns, sand, and water beads from his breath. Finally he had three two foot talls candles divided into one hour bands of purple and white stripes vertically for a total of ten hours.

Those he had also hidden in the top of the ceiling of the common room, putting a few protective spells of concealment around them as the last night came up to hide them as long as possible. To say the three boys were relieved to find all their things still hidden where they had left them was an understatement that first night back! Candles, holders, and silver had all been stashed in their trunks then and the metal pentagram left on the ceiling out of sight til lthe first weekend after their return.

The other part had taken all three of them a few weeks to find and involved sneaking into the first for an hour at a time doing a grid search till they found the place. It was very subtle and well hidden for a forest which had no ground cover except leaves. The forbidden Forest was spooky at night which is why they had left their searches for free periods and they had finally, finally found the place, a great relief to all three of them! The subtle mark in the ground of lower grass had been the main clue, and then you could see it at certain angles how the grass didn't really grow back in quite the same way as the surroundings of the circle. Then there had been a long argument which carried on through the summer about whether it was enough to be next to the marks or actually over the exact same spot!

That came down to how long did it take magic to creep back into the earth in a place or was it used up in a spot forever. And in addition, was the same spot really that important or was it just symbolical in their heads? But they wanted every chance to have this work in one go and over the summer they eventually agreed that near it was good enough for having the luck rub off but still have magic be around. Unknown, they missed the face that right next to the original circle were mushrooms in a fairly sizable number. Most kids would not have noticed them so small they were, nor ever suspected they were the same ones that had been there so long ago, but in fact these were not ordinary mushrooms.

There was a natural circle of them...

[Shava]

The first weekend after they returned, they were ready.

Following the directions, which were written by three amazingly talented young men, were designed for the best possible chances for three to change into animagus together were just too well set for them to go off the results. So accordingly when that Sunday night arrived, they had their things in their trunks in and ready to go. They had to wait till everyone was asleep, then quietly they stole out, each with a bag over their shoulders and down to the classroom of their earlier choice, closing the door behind them.

That foiled Mrs Norris.

A small wedge of wood charmed to look like the window sill raised it just enough the window could not be locked. Out the window, shut it behind them and the window looked fine from inside. Across the lawn quick as they could and not wands were lit till the forest edge. They went straight to the spot and on the other side of the clearing they set their things up. The pentagram, enlarged by the charm had it fit the same size as the old. Three points got the big triple wick candles each on a carefully flat surfaced candle holder before all three were lit. The points chosen were for reasons of calculations of the time of year originally, but the boys had decided that part at least had just been about luck.

With the candles lit, the silver around the inside edge of each alternating part of the pentagram in three triangles becoming part of the whole, they only had to give some time to clearing their heads of everything. That was one of their biggest challenges actually and it took all three of them nearly another hour to get in that state of readiness. It was so exciting their minds were having trouble slowing down to do the necessary! The spell to help with the animagus change was needed because of their youth and was as far as they could find, a Marauder's secret still. There was no mention of it anywhere else at all, no hint it existed. The boys came together and chanted a blessing their mother had taught them in Spanish, arms on each other's shoulders as they did so feeling the bond of brothers unaware they had observers.

A ring of toadstools gave away nothing unless you knew why you avoided them.

Together they chanted the carefully worked out spells, each of them standing inside the silver points inside the pentagram. Once the big magic was cast (which took nearly ten minutes all together) then they were ready for their own individual ones. Eyes looked across the space at each other; calm, sure with the teenage knowledge they were all invulnerable to harm, and ready to grasp at history. There had been no going back since last year, the decision in their minds all summer solid. Now ready, Maddox could be heard to say across the space "one, two, three" and they began the animagus transformation spell on the same syllable, the three young voices ringing them out together in perfect harmony.

Most students couldn't manage such spells before their seventh year, a rare few before their fifth. When they were still a touch younger then the triplets the Marauders had pulled it off to help out their friend and keep him safe. Now with the full confidence of repeating history, the three boys completed their individual spells as they had come into existence; together as all for one,and one for all. The power of the spells combined with their bond, confidence, and location did the trick where individual effort would have failed still. And maybe like the first time the faeries were amused by a very rare entertainment and helped nudge them just enough.

As the candles burned with a mixture of the four elements being released into the air, all three boys managed their transformations and where there had been three young men, now there were three very large cats.

[Shava]

Each larger then normal for their species were also fine and rare looking. Marcos had become a White Siberian tiger, a creature in tune with the seasons and weather no longer found naturally in the world. Madden turned out to be an American Cougar, famed for the size of the prey (sometimes six times it's size as a solitary hunter) and known for being often polygamist. How fitting. And Maddox, smart boy that he was, had become a Canadian Lynx, a beautiful but highly secretive creature and again, a much larger then normal version. The three stared at each other in some surprise for several minutes, amazed at what they could see, before turning on themselves for investigation.

It was a good thing cats were extremely flexible.

By candle light the next hour was spent investigating and learning each other's sounds and twists, the ability to jump highest (Madden had that one easy) , the strongest (surprisingly Marcos), and the fastest (Maddox). They found that wrestling was completely different and more dangerous in cat form (claws were nearly automatic) and a observer would have found their language skills were fascinating to watch! Nothing like hearing three full size wild cats sitting in a circle near candles trying out sounds and actually reinventing some kind of communication between them with a human mind towards it. Growls and snarls took on new meanings as did purring (something they learned Marcos could fake, but didn't do automatically like the others).

And then came the clean up.

Turning back one at a time, they shrunk the pentagram and bagged up the others, the candles having cooled off slowly. When it was all done, the three weary ones buried the pentagram and each took a bag with one candle and one stand (in their mouths) as they turned back into cats and made their way back to the castle with a bounce in their gate still to the edge of the forest where they changed and made their way back up to the window. Picking out the piece of wood and prying the window back open was easy enough and they slipped back in. On the way upstairs, Madden handed his bag to Maddox and remained ready in case Mrs Norris appeared with the intention of giving her the 'fright of her life' as he had said on the way in through the window.

As they had almost reached the dorm (with all three feeling quite worn down to the nubings and wanting sleep) that was when in the dark hallway they saw the small shape in the middle of the floor ahead of them in the dark and Madden changed, bounding forward. All Marcos and Maddox saw and heard was the sudden screech of a cat and a scrambling racket! The boys scrambled for the portrait (Which they had left a small stick in to keep partly open a crack) as the fat lady woke up to the sounds swinging her all the way open so she saw only wall as Madden as a boy again came dashing back, face red. They jumped inside and swung the portrait shut and dashed for the stairs up knowing she had almost seen them. They could hear her calling out in confusion as they shut the portrait!

Arriving at the dorm door they paused, grinning at each other in the dark as Madden exclaimed very quietly with a face of glee "Only eight more to go!" and they snuck back into the dorm. Each of them hid a bag in their trunk and crawled into bed (Maddox forgot to take his clothes off and only remembered his shoes) with very much exhaustion from strenuous spellcasting and activity sending them all three to sleep within a few minutes. But Marcos caught sight of Madden's face grinning as his lids closed...

Oh they were going to have a very merry time with this...