Copy Cat

Chapter 1 – Changes

A/N: Wow. I totally didn’t expect such a huge reception to this story. I won’t lie though – I’m quite tickled at the interest. And the reviews have been most encouraging so far. At the end of the chapter, I will personally address each review. ^_^

I should probably mention that this disregards certain things of OoTP,HBP and DH... As in, Sirius and Dumbledore are still alive. (I was very sad when Sirius died...)


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Dudley had only remained immobile for a few seconds before he scrambled to his feet and rushed to the owl cage in the corner of the room. The snowy owl eyed him suspiciously and with slight distaste, and Dudley got the distinct impression that she blamed him for Harry’s collapse.

“Look, you ruddy bird, ‘arry’s in trouble,” Dudley scratched out a note and held it out to the owl. She took it in her beak and dropped it to the bottom of the cage. “What’d you do that for?!”

She hooted indignantly as if to say ‘open the cage, you dolt.’ Dudley realized the problem and sheepishly opened the door. The owl picked up the note again and hopped out the cage and flew to the window, hooting around her assignment. Dudley rushed ot open the window as well. He watched as she took off into the night.

“Dad’s gonna kill me,” he muttered before deciding he should do something about the other people than Harry littering the floor. He hauled them out of the room and down the stairs. Had anyone been home, they would’ve heard thuds as they hit each stair on the way down. He wasn’t particularly pleased with being called a ‘fat oaf’. (He’d been on the stairs at the time of the insult.)

By the time he returned to pick Harry up off the floor, he was rather shocked to see that Harry wasn’t quite as he’d left him. There was some sort of…. glow. It was silvery, shimmery green and pulsed. Dudley wasn’t so sure he wanted to get near it. But natural curiosity compelled him closer. He reached out a hand and a tendril of the glow stretched out and clamped onto him. It was tingly and cold and Dudley yelped and yanked back his hand, only to discover that part of the glow had detached itself from around Harry and fixed itself on him.

He tried pulling it off, chewing it off, smashing it off, and every other method he could think of. It didn’t budge. Rather, he watched as it changed into a different color, more of a solid blue-green. And it solidified, meshing into his skin. Mesmerized, he observed his new tattoo-like marking. And then he was overwhelmed with pain.

Fortunately for Dudley, it was over within ten minutes, but those ten minutes were something he would never want to repeat. Ever. When he regained his bearings, Harry was still unconscious, still glowing, but his little cousin looked even frailer than he remembered. He stretched and had to drop his hands to pull up his pants a little. He looked in the mirror and what he saw stunned him.

He would never be small by any standards. But rather than the chunkier figure he recalled, he was more muscular, fit even. He investigated his features – his blond hair was more tousled, resembling Harry’s usual state of disarray, and his eyes were a little narrower than he remembered, sharing features that he recalled his grandfather Evans had had.

“Oh man. Dad’s really gonna kill me. Now I’m a freak like Harry,” he despaired without any real meaning behind the word, sinking onto the empty bed, even more unwilling to touch Harry than he was before.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hedwig flew around Hogwarts, trying to find the headmaster. That crazy old man didn’t appear to be in residence at the moment, though his magical signature was strong all over the place. She huffed to herself and soared off to find the next available person. The man wasn’t her first choice, but he smelled of herbs and medicines and if her Harry needed such things, he would know what to do. And if he refused, she would make his life a living hell until he agreed to go and help. With a satisfied hoot, she soared silently down the spiraling staircase to the dungeons.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Severus Snape was working on a potion, as per usual. He was a Potions Master, after all. This one was supposed to relieve allergies to owl dander. Of course, one of the main ingredients was owl feathers, something which he didn’t have at the moment and which he didn’t want to go out to the Owlry to collect either. He scowled at the book, as if it was the book’s fault that he didn’t have what he needed at the moment.

A hoot caught his attention. He looked around and didn’t see anything. He rubbed his eyes and resumed his stirring of the potion. He must be so desperate that he was hallucinating. A few minutes of silent passed in which the only sound was that of the clock. It was soothing. And then the hooting came again, louder, and if he wasn’t mistaken, angrier.

He whirled around and found himself face-to-face with an amber-eyed snowy owl. He scowled at it. The only snowy owl he knew of belonged to that Potter brat. And surely Potter wouldn’t start sending his most hated professor letters. The owl seemingly rolled her eyes and shifted on her precarious perch at the edge of the shelf irritably. She bent down and tapped her beak against a scrap of paper on the shelf.

Severus arched an eyebrow. When the owl hissed at him, he hurried picked up the piece of paper. The scrap of parchment was filled with little more than a note in the sloppiest writing he had ever seen. Potter’s handwriting was neater than that, if he remembered correctly, and he rather thought he did.

The note said simply ‘About Harry. I didn’t do it.’ It wasn’t signed or anything. Severus frowned further. What did that mean? Was Potter in trouble? Of course he was. When was he not? But for the note to have come from someone other than Potter, the Weasleys or Granger… Maybe he ought to look into it. He shook his head. What was he thinking? Help Potter? Please. He’d done enough of that already and never received a word of thanks for his efforts.

“Here now, what’s this about?” He asked the owl expectantly.

Hedwart, or Hoogfig, or something like that (he didn’t recall the name of the bird) gave him a look that clearly said, ‘It’s about Harry. Obviously.’

“Yes, I know that much. I can read,” Severus said dryly. “I mean, what about Harry… Potter?” He cursed himself for his slip-up.

The owl ruffled her feathers. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.’

Severus sighed. “Why didn’t you get Dumbledore?”

She gave him such a look that spoke of her exasperation with the headmaster. A wry smile spread across his face in spite of himself. He had never expected to like anything related to the name Potter, aside from Lily, and here was a most remarkable, sensible bird.

“I see. Let me put a stasis spell on this potion, and I’ll get a few staples and be right with you. Will that make you happy?”

Hedwig (he’d finally recalled the name) hooted softly and nipped his extended fingers affectionately. She shook herself a little and a few feathers fell onto the shelf. Severus raised an eyebrow. Yes, he definitely liked this owl, belonging to Potter or not. He collected the feathers in a jar carefully and cast the stasis spell as promised. Though, part of him really did wonder why he was keeping a promise to a bird…

“Now, let’s go see what you idiotic master’s done with himself this time, shall we?”
Hedwig hooted her assent, and the two left together.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dudley awoke to the sound of someone bustling around in the room with him. He sat up, a little startled to realize that he was still in Harry’s room, and more disconcerting, Harry was still on the floor, though the glow seemed to have died down a bit. He screamed when he saw a bat-like man looming over him with a look somewhere between disgust and cautious curiosity.

“You. Boy. Did you write the note?”

Note? Dudley wracked his brain for a moment, and then remembered. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Sit still.” The man barked. He then began checking over Dudley with remarkable efficiency, lingering over the strange tattoo around his wrist.

“Sir?” Dudley asked. “Who are you?”

“Severus Snape. Potions Master of Hogwarts. Now shut up.”

Dudley stared at him blankly for a moment, but didn’t say anything. He just waited for the black-haired man to finish his examination. Having finished with Dudley, he handed him a vial that he pulled from some hidden pocket within his robes.

“Drink this,” Severus ordered.

“How do I know that won’t kill me?”

“Just… do it, Dud…” Harry’s voice said faintly from the floor. He was struggling to sit up and doing a marvelous job at failing at it.

“Lay down, Potter,” Severus barked. “If you sit up too rapidly you’ll just…”
He was cut off by the sound of sudden vomiting.

“… make yourself sick,” He finished with a sigh.

In the meantime, Dudley drank from the vial, feeling relaxed and content immediately. “What’s going on?”

Severus sighed in the midst of banishing the sick from the floor and shoving potions into Harry’s hands so that he could drink them. “It would seem that your ancestors had some magical creature in their blood. Magical creatures most often come into their adult features anywhere from age 15 to age 19. You might have you’re your entire life without ever having experienced it, due to the miniscule amount of the blood that runs through your veins. Potter appears to have gotten it from his father’s side as well, hence why his was more intense. It also explains why you went through it. By touching him, the extreme boost in power around him triggered your own transformation.”

Dudley stared at Severus. “So… What are we then?”

Severus looked at Dudley then at Harry, only just seeming to notice the other changes that had come over the smaller boy. Where he had thought Harry’s hair to be particularly disheveled were actually two small, protruding cat ears. Frowning, he knelt in front of his groggy student and pulled the hair aside to confirm that what he was seeing was actually what he was seeing.

“Merlin’s beard, Potter. You just had to be a Kuronegato, didn’t you?”

“A what?” Harry and Dudley said at the same time.

Severus rolled his eyes. “I can never escape them.” He sighed again and stood up, hauling Harry to his feet on still-shaky legs. “A Kuronegato is a type of magical creature that exhibits cat-like features and tendencies. An automatic benefit is that the Kuronegato can perform the Animagus transformation, into some form of cat obviously, without any training or registration necessary.”

“But why’s that a big deal, sir?” Harry asked.

“It’s not, really. At least, it’s not provided that your mate, who’s your dominant by the way you look, is nowhere near you. Have you ever seen a cat in heat?”

Dudley shook his head. Harry nodded. Mrs. Figg had more cats than he’d ever encountered at one time, unless he were to count the horrendous décor of Umbridge’s office, which he didn’t, as those weren’t real cats anyway.

“I should probably report this all to the headmaster,” Severus said with a bit of a sigh.

“Um. Sir? What about me? Will I have any weird things happen like Harry?” Dudley asked timidly.

“Probably not. If you do, go to that Mrs. Figg woman and talk to her about using the Floo.”

Dudley gave a confused expression and would’ve asked Harry for clarification, as Severus didn’t seem inclined to answer any further questions, if Harry had not been clinging to the tall man in question and purring. Severus looked less than thrilled at that.

“Potter… POTTER! Let go of me!”

Harry just snuggled closer and purred louder.

Severus twitched. “Dammit, Potter. I don’t want to be your intermediary.”

Dudley had to ask. “What’s that mean?”

“An intermediary serves as a secondary level guardian beyond the person or people any magical creature sees as its primary level guardians. The intermediary is responsible for looking out for the creature when the primary cannot and serves as an ambassador to the mate and the mate’s family. Unfortunately, the creature chooses the intermediary,” Severus attempted to pry the Kuronegato off of his person, but Harry clung tightly to him.

“Sir?”

“Inform your parents that I have taken Potter into custody. I have little choice in the matter. I can only hope that when I get him with his primary guardians that he will leave me be.” Severus flicked his wand around the room, packing all of Harry’s things into the trunk neatly and efficiently. He was a little amazed at how few things Harry really did have. And of course, his suspicions about Harry’s rule-breaking were confirmed when he caught sight of the invisibility cloak slinking its folded way into the trunk along with everything else.

Hedwig, who had been observing everything, hooted softly, reminding Severus to include her cage in the stack that would be shrunken down for easy transport. Severus looked to Hedwig and couldn’t help the glower that crossed his face. Somehow, he just knew that that bloody owl had known what would happen if he came here to help Harry… Potter. Dammit!


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Reviewers' address:

Vittani - I like when Dudley does good things, too. ^_^ I went off of the fact that in DH, Dudley says he doesn't hate Harry. Thanks for your review!

Zuka - Don't thank me for the plot. I'm just using what Moonlight Black Rose requested. But, I appreciate the compliment all the same. I'm having fun writing it so far, so I hope to keep you interested.

Draco_Harry_lover - Thanks for your words of encouragement! As I told Zuka, Moonlight Black Rose requested that Harry be submissive. But, I am glad you like it despite this fact.

Ataeru - Glad you're enjoying it!! ^_^ I'm very flattered you took the time to read it and review. Hope the rest lives up to expectations.

thrnbrooke - Yeah... I got a note from MBR (Moonlight Black Rose) asking me quite nicely if I would pleeeeease write the fic, so I decided that, since I'd been toying with the idea ANYWAY, I might as well go ahead and post something to let her know that I'd accepted, hence why it was so short. The rest should be of a length equal to this chapter.

gorgeousbrowneyes - As I told thrnbrooke, I just wanted to get something up here to let MBR know that I had chosen to write the fic like I'd said I would. Hopefully, this length of chapter will suffice. ^_^ Thanks for reading!