Content warning: Transformation gone wrong, pain, discomfort in body

Rhiannon had held out a faint hope that Hogwarts might have improved upon their return in the new year, but they had no such luck. The hallways were silent and heavy with fear and suspicion as she limped through to the Gryffindor common room, and it didn’t take long to find out the cause – a second Petrification in her absence. A double Petrification, really. Rhiannon couldn’t even manage to be relieved that the school was now faced with clear evidence that she wasn’t the culprit, because there was another frozen body lying still in the hospital wing. A few Hufflepuffs made grudging apologies that they had ever suspected her of asking the snake to attack Justin Finch-Fletchley, but it didn’t matter because he was Petrified and that meant whatever she had heard in October was still stalking the school. She couldn’t let go of that knowledge to be relieved.

Along with Justin Finch-Fletchley, there was a second victim – the Gryffindor ghost, Nearly-Headless Nick. That was the thing that really had Hogwarts afraid – because whatever they faced, it could harm someone already dead. The faculty had struggled to even move him, his intangible body black and cloudy and frozen in midair, but now he resided in a closed additional room of the Hospital Wing and nobody was any closer to a solution.

Rhiannon conferred with her friends, and they were resolved – the Polyjuice plot had to go ahead, they had to find out who knew what. Oh, Draco Malfoy had been questioned by the staff, his remarks didn’t go unheard, but they were under no illusions that the Hogwarts faculty had been able to get anything useful from him. They were adults, and Malfoy was at best dismissive and at worst downright combative with authority. Positioning themselves as his peers, even ones he didn’t necessarily get on with... that gave them more of a chance to learn something useful.

Hermione was frustrated by the delay – she had managed to obtain the ingredients in the last weeks of the previous year, but going home for the holidays had put a delay on the project. The trouble with Polyjuice potion was that it didn’t need just time to mature – it needed the change of moon phases and a decent storm. Being somewhere in the far north-east of Scotland, terrible weather ordinarily wasn’t such a problem but as if it knew about their plans, the weather was stubbornly neutral with little more to it than a light drizzle.

All too soon, the first full moon of 2003 was on them and the plan was on hold even further. The full moon was necessary for the potion’s maturation anyway, and it was just their luck that with it came high winds, gusting rain and thunder. Finally they had everything they needed. After then the potion needed only a few more days to mature and that gave Rhiannon time to recover and squash her brain back into the shape it should be before proceeding with a complicated plan.

By agreement with their Slytherin friends, they put the plan into action on Saturday afternoon, the 25^th of January. After classes finished and they were let go for lunch break, Rhiannon and her friends scurried through the castle to the second-floor bathroom that was so often out of order. Rhiannon had thought it a strange workplace and Dudley expressed discomfort at being in the girls’ area, but Hermione was adamant – the ghost Myrtle flooded it so often the fittings jammed in places and the plumbing broke almost daily. There was no better place in the castle to hide their dubiously well-thought-out activities.

So there they were, just after midday, gathered around an open cubicle as Hermione and Dudley fussed over the potion. They had decided that Rhiannon, Hermione, Ron and Luna would go, and exchange places with four of their less outspoken friends. Faye had wanted to go too but had been shut down – she was a terrible liar, and it would be too easy for her to give the whole affair away by saying the wrong thing.

Eventually they decided the best to change places with would be Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, who had been staunchly a part of the protest but never loud the way their friend Heather was, as well as Ginny’s friend Hayley who was infectiously likeable even amongst the more disagreeable older students, and Alain Cardinal, another of Hayley and Ginny’s friends who’d volunteered for the swap – his family was well thought of so he’d escaped notice in joining the protest, nobody borrowing his face would be bothered if they were to talk to Malfoy.

Rhiannon found herself matched up with Hayley Callister and blushed at the thought of borrowing the younger girl’s pretty frame, even for just an hour. Rhiannon left her glasses on top of the toilet inside the cubicle – she’d been wearing the prescription pair despite the irritation, just in case anyone looked; and Hayley passed the spare clothes she’d brought for Rhiannon in over the door. Rhiannon changed into them, feeling uncomfortable. She and Hayley were of a similar height but the clothes didn’t smell right and they were still a little too big – not glaringly so, just enough to be uncomfortable. Feeling ill at ease, she left the cubicle in a hurry and re-joined the others.

Aside from Rhiannon, Hermione, Ron and Luna who would be going to Slytherin house in person and the four they were to swap places with, there were a handful of others. Dudley and Neville had helped to prepare the potion itself and Faye never liked to be left out of anything exciting. Heather had come along for sheer curiosity’s sake. So the bathroom was quite crowded as Hermione and Dudley proudly handed out their concoctions in simple enamel mugs they’d taken from breakfast.

Rhiannon sniffed at the plain swampy green-greyish coloured potion curiously, and scowled. It had no particular scent at all. Its colour was as good as nothing. She didn’t like that.

Someone squeezed her hand, she looked up to see Hermione pressing something into it – a lock of blonde hair. “Oh, right,” Rhiannon mumbled, embarrassed – she’d forgotten that part of the potion. Cautiously she dropped the lock into the cup and watched as from swampy nothingness the potion changed to a clear, warm rosy-gold. Even its texture changed, running smooth as Rhiannon tilted the cup back and forth where before it had been sludgy.

“Huh,” Ron mused, quietly impressed as he inspected his own potion. “Welp, nothing for it – best get it done with.” he added, and waved awkwardly to them before he retreated to the safety of a cubicle to drink the potion. He looked uncomfortable in Daphne’s borrowed robes, but she was closest in height to him and they’d decided to match people up by height so there wouldn’t be as much difference in how they had to move in their borrowed bodies. Rhiannon sympathised with Ron’s desire to escape scrutiny, and she winced and covered her ears as he shrieked within the cubicle.

Ron staggered out of the small toilet, grey-faced and clutching the empty mug, completely transformed. Daphne stared at him, taken aback. “Oh, you’re missing something,” she said frowning and striding over to him. She took off her glasses and passed them to Ron, who nearly poked himself in the eye trying to put them on. “Are my dark circles really that bad?” Daphne asked her friends, who giggled and chorused a unanimous yes, and you need to sleep more.

If Rhiannon looked closely, she could see the differences between Daphne and Ron-as-Daphne. They had made the right call in matching people up by their height, but there was still a slight difference in the way they moved and Ron’s pattern of speech was very different to the blonde girl’s well-bred, correct accent. But she doubted most people would look that closely, and that Ron would talk all that much – he seemed uncomfortable every time he opened his mouth, and set Daphne off giggling whenever he tried to mimic her.

Hermione sobered, and caught Ron’s eye briefly. “It hurts, then.” she said simply, the corners of her mouth turning down. Ron-as-Daphne shuddered and hugged himself, then nodded stiffly, his mouth working open and closed as he tried and failed to come up with words for what it had felt like.

“We can always find another way.”

That was Luna’s sensible contribution. Hermione, Rhiannon and Ron-as-Daphne all looked at zem, Ron shook his head adamantly. “I’m not – going through that, for nothing.” he said, and coughed as his voice came out too husky.

Heather giggled and ruffled Ron-as-Daphne’s hair playfully. “Good thing Daph’s voice is pretty low,” she reassured him teasingly. Ron flushed, the colour coming out differently on Daphne’s olive skin and he played with a lock of his-her hair wonderingly, then nodded absently as he realised there was a response needed.

Seeing that the potion had worked without issue, there was no excuse for Rhiannon to put off her own transformation any further and she retreated into one of the cubicles with Hayley’s friendly wish of good luck as she did so, stubbornly tamping down the fear that rose in her with the reminder of Ron’s broken-voiced scream. Hermione looked more anxious than she was despite Alain being perfectly supportive in his quiet bookish way, and Luna worried momentarily that in borrowing Tracey’s shape, would they need to redo her hair? Rhiannon could hear these momentary worries from behind the closed door and they did nothing to reassure her as she stared down at the clear gold potion in her mug. Seeing nothing else for it, she leaned her cane against the wall beside the toilet and pinched her nostrils, then downed the potion in a gulp.

It didn’t feel properly like liquid going down, and Rhiannon gagged as the potion coated her throat and spread out. Just like the change of a full moon, she could feel the changes it made in its’ freezing wake, she could see parts of her hair turn blonde in the greenish bathroom light and it felt limp as it hung down her back but her whole body prickled as the potion raced through her blood vessels, her hands clawed and twitched with the pain. She wouldn’t have thought the change from her shape to Hayley’s would have been that much, they’d matched it up that way on purpose, but now she understood why Ron had screamed – this was like the full moon transformation all over again, without the release that pain had promised and she felt something catch in her throat; she broke her voice in a ragged scream that was lost to her own hearing though she could feel the echoes in her complaining bones, feel them over the too-sensitive hairs of her skin. Around her she could feel murmurs, feel the others, but that scream still echoed over her skin through the ripples and prickles of the Polyjuice change.

Rhiannon’s vision dimmed and twisted, her depth perception warping and focus shifting in and out even as blackness encroached on the edges. She barely felt the pain as her knees hit the floor, her upper body fell against the cubicle knocking it open – the sensations hardly registered as her very skin was on fire and her senses themselves shrieking protest. Some rational part of her mind was babbling that she shouldn’t have fallen – Ron hadn’t fallen, her pain tolerance was higher than his, something was wrong... but it was drowned out by the sheer pain that washed over her as her limbs jerked uncontrollably and the chill of the bathroom floor seeped into her aching bones.

The voices blurred around her, half-familiar faces peered down at her and she flung out an arm to warn them back but that hand was clawed and she shrieked in panic as the smell of blood swamped her overextended senses, she’d caught someone around the ankle but couldn’t see who... there were too many faces and none of the ones that made her safest, she was only half-aware of her own body and the limits of it as she scrabbled fearfully back into the toilet cubicle to escape the looming faces and sounds., desperately trying to get her breath back – something wasn’t right there either, something in her throat was out of shape and she coughed and leaned over on the floor trying to breathe into lungs that flexed and stretched and pressed against her ribs painfully.

“Everybody out! Faye, run for Madam Pomfrey; Heather, you get Hagrid – the rest of you, bloody scram, it’ll be our hides if we’re caught – Neville, the fuck are you doing? Oh, fine, but make it quick... You spare Slytherins, you get somewhere and hide – through there, broom cupboard, stay in there and don’t come out til we leave, I’m serious or we’re all screwed.”

That fearful voice that broke on the higher pitches, that was familiar to the wolf-in-wrong-shape that was Rhiannon, and she whined piteously. The sound came out thin and scraped, she was curled against the toilet bowl between that and the cubicle wall, but it was too close in here – no snow to run in, only stone under her wrong-shaped paws and cold green-white light, sharp... and the smells, mould and spilled potions and all the smells humans track about on their clothes and their shoes and that they leave with every touch of their hands... to this wrong-shape-wolf it was choking and the only familiar scents were tangled up in potion-smells and wrongness.

Dudley’s voice was the only concrete anchor that Rhiannon-who-wasn’t had to anything familiar. She heard the door creak open and crawled out from her improvised nook into the main bathroom, blinking against the sharp light and trying again to take in the people who stared at her grey-face.

“Go, get!” Dudley snapped at them, shooing them out the door. The door – open, freedom, outside, was then all the wolf could think of and she charged for it – but her legs weren’t wolf legs, the floor was wet, she sprawled face first on the wet stone and had the wind knocked from her chest, falling far short as the round blond boy lunged for the door and slammed it closed.

“No, Rhi,” Dudley cautioned her, his voice tense as he faced her with his hands raised in a placating sort of gesture. “You’ve got to stay here. Someone’s going for help.”

Those were the words he said, but words meant nothing to a wolf – wolves didn’t speak! All she could understand was that he stood between her and the door. He smelled like wolf but didn’t look it, why was he familiar? No, he was Pack, one didn’t hurt Pack... but she was trapped, and frightened, and hurting... the wolf-Rhiannon retreated again, growling and coughing, curling her tail up under herself as she backed away from the confusing Boy-who-was-Pack, he presented too much confusion – she didn’t want confusion, she wanted out.

The wolf-that-was-Rhiannon growled as she backed away, not into a cubicle this time but just away, swinging her head back and forth looking for something of a way out. Windows – no windows, not good windows and too high, she was trapped... the wolf whined and retreated under the cluster of sinks in the centre of the room.

Dudley seemed to take that as a good sign. With the door firmly closed, he took careful steps towards her, his hands still raised as he murmured placating words that meant nothing to the wolf trapped under the sinks. She growled and flattened ears-in-the-wrong-place warningly but he kept advancing and she was trapped, his heavy frame made a fourth wall that pressed her back against the stone...

The wolf-Rhiannon coughed and growled again, and her vision honed in on the door far behind the boy-pack-family. The door, she had to get to the door... that was the only way out, and he was blocking it. She growled again, but the boy didn’t stop and his voice buzzed in her ears. She flexed her long-paws against the stone and shook her head trying vainly to clear the fog from her vision... nothing. Just the thin voice and the stink of mould and potions. She coughed and staggered to her feet, feeling the wrongness in her shape and shuddering as it set her off balance and weak in her stance. She lunged forward, more cautious than the first time, but Dudley caught her after only a few clumsy strides and wrestled her to the ground.

The wolf went down with a grunt and a heavy thud. The thin fur along her spine prickled, she tried to turn and snap at the Pack-Boy-with-no-manners who didn’t understand so much as back off, but he held her fast and her growl turned into a whine as he squeezed her a little too hard.

The boy released her at that and staggered away, chattering his unintelligible words – even his tone didn’t register, as the wolf glanced frantically around the room looking for the way out. The cleaning cupboard that smelled of sharp and people had already been disregarded – too small, the wolf was thinking of ordinary wolf-shape restrictions without full understanding of her current shape. Only the Way Out would do. They’d used it. And she lunged for it again now, only to be brought up short as her face was thrust directly into something very cold. She recoiled, gasping and gagging, trying to wash the smell of ice and long-dead lavender and vervain from her nose and mouth, to no avail.

Rhiannon would have recognised the newcomer as the ghost of the bathroom, Myrtle. Rhiannon would have been kind to her, were Rhiannon home. But Rhiannon was buried under the wolf, Rhiannon’s concerns and memories and knowledge didn’t have the same weight they normally did. Strong emotive connections carried through – Pack-scent, Outside – but nothing more complex. So the wolf did not recognise the ghost. The wolf did not understand what a ghost was. All she understood was the smell of dead herbs and ice, and that she had almost passed through something that now spoke to her in a tone that was probably meant to be reassuring but from something the wolf fundamentally could not comprehend, was anything but.

The wolf shook her head and retreated back under the sinks whimpering and curling her tail under herself again. She sank down on her belly and rested the chin of her too-short face on her too-long paws, trembling fearfully as now she was beset by Boy-who-was-Pack and the companion that smelled like death herbs and cold. That cold still froze her nose and set her teeth to aching, she shook her head and covered her eyes with her paws.

“Oh, puppy... don’t worry, you can stay here... it’s alright, it’s not so bad in here. Look, see – it’s not so small if you look up.” Myrtle coaxed her, and the ghost drifted backwards. The words didn’t matter but the wolf did look up when she spoke, letting out another whine – more curious this time. At this distance she could see the thing was human-shaped, even if it smelled like death herbs... Humans weren’t that unfamiliar. Sort-Of-Human was understandable enough as a concept. And she did look up at the sort-of-human’s gesturing, creeping out and putting her forepaws up on the sinks for better balance.

Some of her panic eased – the ceiling was high, and seeing so held off the feeling that the walls were pressing in on her. Experimentally she leaned forward and closed her too-short jaws around the enticing-smelling metal fitting of the tap in front of her and chewed on it, curious at the sensation while still watching the Boy-who-was-Pack and the Human-who-wasn’t out of the side of wide yellow-green eyes. She chomped at the thing more confidently – it tasted sharp, nice, and she lapped the water that dripped from the tap. Her teeth grated over something gritty-feeling on the side of it and she yelped, bonking her chin on the sink as she recoiled from it in disgust. She stared at the Boy-who-was-Pack and the Death-herbs-cold-girl-shape, wounded as their shoulders heaved with laughter.

Their laughter subsided as the door far behind them, forgotten in their distraction, creaked open and a new figure entered. The figure was small, thin, and walked with purpose, seeming almost unaware of the wolf-who-was-Rhiannon and the others who inhabited the bathroom. Door. Out. The wolf’s head snapped around to stare beyond the small dark-robed figure, entranced by the light that glowed in her colourless vision. She slunk forward while the Boy and the Not-One protested, then halted again after only a few steps, wrinkling her nose.

The door swung closed behind the thin figure, and closer now the wolf could smell the wrongness brought in with it. Rhiannon would have recognised this figure too, dark-circled eyes notwithstanding, but Rhiannon wasn’t here – or Rhiannon didn’t know if she was. The wolf gagged on the scent that rose from the thin figure. It smelled dead – not dead like the death-herbs on the Cold Girl; real dead, rot and clawing and blood and hunger, dead. The girl-who-carried-death lurched backwards, suddenly wide-eyed and frightened with all purpose gone, and she backed away until there was nowhere else to go and her back pressed against the wall.

The wolf’s round eyes flicked from the girl-carrying-death to the door and then at the space between them. She needed Out. But the girl had brought death to the In. She shrank back as the girl took tottering steps towards her, and bared her teeth in a choked snarl – stay back, stay back, take your death let me out.

The Pack-Boy said something, and the death-carry-girl shook her head frantically. She backed into the door, Pack-Boy’s voice was raised but the wolf wasn’t listening – the girl was going to go Out, she was going to take her death back to the Out too, and the wolf barely noticed as her paws carried her across the metres between them. This time she did not slip on the wet stone, but she underestimated the reach and speed of the too-long wrong-legs and collided with the girl, knocking her down and to the side.

The wolf didn’t like the dead-smell-thing in her home, she didn’t want it on her – but it was here, she couldn’t go to the Out and leave it here to fester. So she stood over the girl on all fours, and nosed insistently through the girl’s clothes in search of the thing. Her nose was the wrong shape for that, and she gave up to stare plaintively at the girl. Where? Get rid?

The frighten-scent-girl said something, the wolf could hear Pack-Boy behind her respond, but now she cocked her head as voices and footsteps sounded on the other side of the Way Out. Someone cracked the door open and it clunked into the wolf’s shoulder, she scrabbled back snarling and suddenly fearful again at the unexpected contact. The death-smell-thing was not forgotten but she couldn’t find it and now the death-smell choked up her nose and clung to her paws, and now all that mattered was getting away from it as too many more people filed into the room. Familiar people. The woman-who-smelled-like-clean, the big-heart-man, the woman-who-walked-like-cats.

They were all tall, too tall, and the wolf backed away snarling with wrong-place-ears flat and thin hackles bristling, eyes wide but defeated – the Way Out was full of people now and the walls began to close back in on her again. Her back hit the wall of a toilet cubicle, she yelped and shrank from it into a corner where she hunkered down to glare suspiciously at the Big People who talked in low voices and brought flash-glitter-hot-lights with them, forming a wall that separated the wolf from the death-carry-girl and the herbs-cold-shape and the Pack-boy.

“Don’t make me wrestle you now, lass – just settle now.” The big-heart-man spoke in his low comforting way and the wolf whined and shook her head, the fur on her tail spiking up. She didn’t understand. She knew him instinctively but he was big and she was scared and why wasn’t the big-heart-man taking her outside like he usually did? Why did he bring people that separated her from the Pack-boy? She whined and shrank from him, but he was undeterred and very carefully, very patiently, he closed the distance between them.

The big-heart-man very gently stroked the top of her head, tickling the sides of the wrong-place-ears. She snapped at him the first time he tried it but he only laughed and persisted in his gentle way, and finally she allowed it though she trembled. She trusted him. She knew him by what little memory she kept.

The big-heart-man withdrew a small bottle from his pocket. The wolf shrank and bared her teeth at that, but he was undeterred. “No, lass – you’ve got to take it, come on now.” he murmured to her, talking more for the quiet calming rhythm than any particular meaning – the big-heart-man knew she couldn’t hear him inside and she was comforted if nothing else by that knowing.

The wolf trembled and wrinkled her nose at the astringent herbal scent of the opened bottle, baring her teeth again in a half-hearted snarl, but the big-heart-man had never brought her anything that hurt. She lowered her head and let him help her take the potion, though on first try she then sprayed it all back in his face in disgust. The gentle man was unfazed, and the clean-sharp-smell-woman levitated another bottle through the hot-light-wall to him. He tried the process again, and this time the wolf was ready for the vile taste, repeating in her limited mindspace that he had never brought anything that hurt, he was Pack, he was to be trusted.

This time the wolf kept the potion down and swallowed it, then began to sway as the exertion caught up with her and her position, with her knees folded under her and the rest of her propped upright with her long-paws flat against the cold floor, became too unsteady to maintain. She keeled over sideways whining softly and curling in on herself as little by tenuous little, Rhiannon came back to herself. Now in her own mind, she recognised the black edges and curtain for what they were, and groaned softly. Her hearing was dulled too, she curled up and went to put her hands over her ears, and found them to be the wrong shape – the hands and the ears alike. She keened softly and hugged her knees to her chest as she lay on her side.

“Calming draught please, Poppy, and something for sleep,” Hagrid said quietly. His voice was a reassurance, Rhiannon felt its’ lowest reaches in her chest and it calmed her, but not enough that she would open her eyes and face the bright sparks and black curtain that assailed her. Another bottle was pressed to her lips and she made only token resistance before she accepted it with a whine. It spread throughout her body leaving cool in the wake of what had been burned by the Polyjuice Potion, easing her scorched nerves both in her physical frame and the frightened edges of her mind. Then a third – something for sleep, he had said. Rhiannon, still half-wolf inside, wanted sleep. She wanted to sleep and wake up with this all over, and so she drank greedily when it was offered to her, welcoming the patient violet-black darkness that held its’ arms out to catch her as she fell into it with a sigh and a half-smile on her face.