Black robes, white sleeves, a crown of cinnabar red,
Wings raised, it roamed the azure heavens at will.
Last night, it woke from a clear dream in the deep marsh,
Its cry rang high among the colored clouds.
An enormous adult red-crowned crane shot into the sky above Hogwarts, then swiftly swooped down again.
Under the moonlight, it looked just like a bolt of white lightning as it landed among the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Douglas changed back into human form and quietly hid behind a tree, watching the Hufflepuff student.
The student seemed to notice something white landing in the Forbidden Forest a short distance ahead.
He hesitated, then headed in another direction.
Douglas sighed and quietly followed that direction through the Forbidden Forest.
This was why he did not particularly like using his Animagus form at school. He was far too conspicuous.
And he was a bird that did not belong here, making it easy for people to connect it to him.
But this sort of thing was entirely beyond his control.
He had suffered quite a bit while working toward his Animagus transformation.
It had taken him nearly three years to transform successfully.
He had gone through the first step alone seven times.
(A single Mandrake leaf had to be kept in the mouth for a full month, from one full moon to the next. Under no circumstances could the leaf be swallowed or spat out. If it left the mouth, the entire process had to start over.)
Heaven knew how difficult that process had been for a Hufflepuff.
He had failed the second step four times. His luck had been truly terrible.
(At the second full moon, the leaf, soaked in one's own saliva, had to be placed in a small, transparent