Chapter 35: Home

"Dear Ronnie, it's been a long time since we've had a good talk as brothers," said Fren.

"That's right, that's right, why don't we go somewhere quiet and strengthen the brotherhood!" said George.

A smiling George and Fred put their arms around Ron's neck and dragged him aside for a chat, while Fish, who had started it all, patted himself on the back and ran off to tease the others as if nothing had happened.

"Ummm... Ummmmm!" cried Rom.

Harry and Neville watched as Ron was forcibly dragged away by his twin brothers covering his mouth, giving him a good luck look before burying his head back into each other's books and "learning" from the others' work.

With Fish's "help", Harry and the others went back to hurrying through their homework late into the night, saying goodnight to each other as their eyelids fought sleep, and getting into their respective beds, quickly falling asleep.

It wasn't something Fish did to disturb the sleep of others, and as the Gryffindors fell into a deep sleep, it was time for Fish to begin his tour of the grounds.

Emerging from his dormitory through a hole in the wall, Fish transformed into the appearance of Mrs. Norris.

This was a little secret he had discovered the other day, that if it was Mrs. Norris wandering around the school at night, he wouldn't get scolded if he ran into Minerva and the others.

So Fish tried to adopt Mrs. Norris's appearance, and even took the initiative to stroll near Minerva, who did not recognize him at the time.

Professor McGonagall sensed that something was wrong with him due to his affinity for animals, but he just wandered in front of her for a moment and then left, so he wasn't caught.

Aside from Dumbledore, who often followed him stealthily, the only person who really found out who Fish was was Mrs. Norris's doe-eyed spoilsport, but Filch didn't unmask him and even fed him dried fish.

However, it was Mrs. Norris who was surprised to see Fish's transformation and took a while to get used to it after sniffing and licking him.

As soon as he transformed into Mrs. Norris, Fish headed straight for the owl's hut in the west tower, much to the delight of Dumbledore, who was in hiding.

Good boy, if I hadn't been clever enough, you would have fooled me!

A stealthy Dumbledore smiled and followed close behind Fish, intending to jump out when he attacked the owl and scare the boy.

As a headmaster with a bit of a brain, Dumbledore was not a man who followed the rules too well, not to mention the fact that he had suffered twice at Fish's hands, and was desperate to get back at him.

However, Dumbledore had followed Fish to the owl's hut and had found that things were not quite what he had expected.

Instead of attacking the owls, Fish had reverted to his tiger-spotted cat form, meowing and communicating with the owls.

A mixture of meowing and cooing could be heard in the owls' hut, and it sounded like they were having a conversation.

Dumbledore watched in amazement as Fish and the owls "talked" back and forth, and suddenly felt a little less confident in his assumption that he had been born an animagus.

The ability to change fur and size and even breed was fine, after all, wizards could do pretty much the same thing, with that strange affinity, and there were precedents like Veela for that strange affinity....

But Dumbledore had never heard of an animagus being able to communicate with any other kind of animal, even a Parseltongue speaker uses snake language to communicate with snakes, and it's no good if he talks to lizards or octopuses.

And Fish now speaks to owls in feline language, even if he changed it to a "coo coo" voice, it wouldn't surprise Dumbledore that much.

It was enough to make Dumbledore shake his head and put aside the fact that whatever happened to Fish, he was now a Hogwarts student.

On the other hand, Fish had finished talking to the owls, had shrunk down to palm size, and had climbed onto the back of one of them.

It was a dark brown spotted eagle owl with large yellow-orange eyes and prominent feathers on its ears and both sides of its head, and it was one of the largest owls in the group.

"Meow!" (Come on!) (ΦωΦ)? Fish gave a command excitedly, and the eagle owl below him spread its wings, jumped off the shelf and slid down the window silently.

"Urg... this is bad...," Dumbledore, who was hiding, rubbed his nose, suddenly realizing that this situation seemed worse than Fish's attack on the owls.

He hadn't reacted and had let the owl fly away with Fish, and now it would be hard to find him again.

And considering Dumbledore's temper, he didn't usually do much to stop Hogwarts students in their little rebellions....

The part about telling Minerva what had happened was the part that might be difficult.

Dumbledore rubbed his eyebrows together, considering whether he should inform Professor McGonagall first or wait to see if Fish returned with the owl before dawn.

He wasn't worried about Fish getting lost, he just feared that Fish would go so crazy out there that he'd forget to get back to school on time, and then Minerva would go crazy again....

'Huh? Why 'again'?', After thinking about it for a few moments, Dumbledore didn't want to get on Professor McGonagall's bad side, and decided to wait and see, if Fish would come back too late, then he would go ask Orr for help, and hide it from Minerva as much as he could, until he couldn't hide it anymore.

Dumbledore shook his head, a little annoyed that Fish was the one who had to make a scene every now and then, so he was going to go back to the Headmaster's office and eat some of his favorite pile of cockroaches to calm himself down.

Fish, who flew out of Hogwarts on the back of an owl, to be precise, didn't know that bad old Dumbledore was having a headache because of his own affairs, if he did....

He would have been very happy.

But now Fish is very happy too, even though the owl's speed is not as fast as the broom's, and he can't control the direction in real time like the broom, and has to rely on communication with the owl.

But, nevertheless, he... can fly again!

The owl flew Fish around Hogwarts Castle and then, at Fish's request, turned around and flew towards Hogsmeade village.

After being away from home for so many days, Fish missed his little nest in the cottage.

The distance between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade wasn't too great, so the owl flew for a while and carried him to Professor McGonagall's hut, where he picked up his wings and landed on the windowsill, setting him down.

"Meow!"

Fish raised his paws and tapped on the window, yelling Comey's name in feline, only to remember that Comey had come back to Hogwarts with him, and that no one was home now.

But that wasn't a problem for him, as Fish transformed back into his human form, pulled his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at the window.

"Meow! Alohomora!" (?ΦωΦ?)つ━☆ *.

But the window did not move.

Fish looked at the wand in his hand and then at the window, which didn't respond at all, and the cat scratched its little head in confusion, "Meow?"

In the 17th century, the black sorcerer Elden Esrickel fled from Africa to England with a leopard cub, carrying with him a then-unknown spell taught to him by an elderly African wizard - Alohomora, a perfect spell for thieves.

Now a thief, Esrickel used the lock-picking spell to launch his career as a king of thieves in London, where he was visited by Muggles and wizards alike, and where he was occasionally captured in exchange for his freedom, leading to the emergence of many great thieves in the city.

Finally, a London wizard named Brigdon Bray, who had been visited by thieves nineteen times in two weeks, became so intolerant that he invented the anti-alohomorrhea spell, and the fiasco subsided.

Since then, almost all wizarding families have used this spell to lock their doors, and you can only open the door of a wizard with an Alohomora spell that is much more powerful than the caster of the anti-alohomora spell.

Otherwise, you can only use more violent methods to break it, such as an explosive spell or other spells.

This point of knowledge was mentioned in Professor Flitwick's class, but Fish was sleeping at the time.

The Book 'Standard Spells, Elemental' also mentions the origin of the Alohomora spell and its counterspell in its documentation, but Fish only read how it was cast, and was not interested in anything else.

So now he had no idea why his spell had failed.

Was there nothing wrong with the steps or the spell?

Raising his wand in his hand, Fish again used the spell on the window.

"Alohomora! Meow!" (?ΦωΦ?)つ━☆? *.

The window remained intact.

Although under the influence of the world tree shard, Fish's amount of magic was far greater than that of most of the younger wizards at Hogwarts, and even some of the less gifted adult wizards were not as good as him, there was still a considerable distance between him and a veteran wizard like Professor McGonagall, who had been a genius since she was a little girl.

And given Fish's nature, he had learned the spell and discarded it without further practice and research, and certainly could not have gotten through Professor McGonagall's carefully arranged counterspell.

The eagle owl cocked its head, its large yellow-orange eyes looking at Fish, and let out a questioning hoot.

Fish pursed his lips, put away his wand, which had done nothing, and reached out with both hands to grasp the window frame.

[Ant's Strength] [Bull's Brute Strength] [Wild Power].

"Meow!" With the power of the three druid spells, Fish easily ripped out the entire window.

The spells that had appeared in his mind worked better.

Tossing the window aside, Fish clapped his hands, nodded in satisfaction, and took the owl home.