20th February, 1892 — Wellingtonshire

Ever since he had accidentally turned a phoenix into a ten year old girl the previous day, Ford was starting to regret having volunteered for overtime work on this assignment. When it had only been animals involved it seemed like a no-brainer; extra money, an excuse to be away from the house, not particularly strenuous or dangerous work. He wasn't an expert at catching beasts, but if they were only animals it didn't really take an expert; it wasn't as though they'd remember if you did something wrong and report you. Transfigured humans, on the other hand, might. Ford was feeling woefully out of his depth by the time Sunday morning rolled around — but reports of a lion roaming the streets of Wellingtonshire were not the sort of thing one could ignore until the next Beast Division employee was available to lend a hand. So off he was, up only a few minutes after the sun and on the hunt for a maybe-lion, maybe-transfigured human. He wasn't sure which was preferable, honestly. On the one hand, lions had a lot of teeth; on the other, he'd gotten quite lucky with Miss Lestrange the previous day and he didn't know that he could get lucky again if asked to perform a reversed human transfiguration. He probably couldn't have done it to Miss Lestrange if that was what he'd been trying to do.

As he paced through the streets, looking for — what, lion prints? He didn't even know — Ford rehearsed the spells he could use if the cat in question did turn out to be the sort who wanted to eat him. Incarcerous, probably, but how strong was a lion? Would a spell like that hold it if it had its momentum built up? Would Colloshoo be better, at least to buy him time? Lions also had claws, he was fairly sure, so maybe sticking its paws to the ground wouldn't be a bad idea...

Maybe there was no lion. Maybe it was just a hysterical maid who had seen a particularly large house cat, and who was already nervous about the possibility of roaming wild animals. Maybe he'd just pace through Wellingtonshire for an hour or two and then go back home and not be accosted by anything with claws and teeth.

Ford had only just dared to hope as much when he turned the corner and came face to face with the beast itself. Well, not exactly face to face, but certainly much closer than he would have preferred. "Ah — nice kitty," he said weakly, already having forgotten the spells he'd been rehearsing in his head. He was must better with non-corporeal aggressors.

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Tycho Dodonus Clarissa Cosgrove

  

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Set by Lady!

Tycho had not been expecting to be spending some of his days as a lion. It was a rather interesting experience but he was not wholly interested in being animal. He had his own mind which was good, he supposed. But it wasn't like he could speak which was frustrating. Tycho greatly missed the sound of his own voice.

They were eventually freed though but he could not communicate that he was man, not lion. He was large and bulky with people tending to run screaming when they saw him coming. Not the usual joy and adulation that he would have preferred instead. Not that he typically got that reaction even when he was human, he supposed.

It was also hard to navigate Hogsmeade when one was an animal. He could scent familiar scents but his vantage point was a lot lower since he was currently shorter than he was when upright as a man. He had not even known that he ended up in his neighborhood, instead following the familiar scents that he couldn't place.

Somewhere in his mind, he was aware that his own mind was starting to be taken over by general, animalistic instinct. Was this what it would be like when he was an animagus? It would be different, he hoped. Well, he supposed he would find out for himself.

He was contemplating a nap behind a nearby hedge when a very familiar scent assailed his senses. He knew that scent, it felt safe and like home. Ford. Quite forgetting that he was currently a lion, he moved to hug the man with a cry of joy. He had missed Ford terribly in the days he had been catified. But of course he was a lion, so really it just looked like a lion about to pounce on prey, oops.

  

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He was under attack. The foot-freezing spell he'd been thinking of likely wouldn't be any good, since by the time he'd recalled the incantation the lion already had its front two paws in the air hurtling towards Ford's chest.

"Incarcerous," he managed, wand trembling in his hand as he cast. Ford had never faced down a pouncing lion before, and no one had ever accused him of being a Gryffindor. He hadn't been trained for this sort of thing. They should have sent an actual Beast Division employee to hunt down lions. Ford had no hope of subduing a creature like this; he'd just have to hope the lion left enough of him intact that a healer could stitch him back together at some point.

Fortunately, it seemed his spell had fired true and was working as intended. Unfortunately, by the time it hit the lion he was too close to Ford for the spell to distinguish between the two bodies. Rather than containing the beast, the chains wrapped around both of them, binding the pair together and sending them both tumbling towards the ground.

Ford estimated that this decreased his odds of surviving intact enough for the healers to salvage the situation. The fact that his wand fell from his hand in the confusion even more so. Of all the ways he'd thought he might die, being mauled by a lion had never made the list.

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Set by Lady!

Oh. What a shame he was a lion because being bound with Ford like this was very nice. Ford was afraid, he realized. Well, duh, he thought to himself. He was a lion, not a man right now. Ford was (hopefully) used to the large hugs he gave him as a man but he very much would not be used to getting them from a lion-Tycho.

At any rate, now on the ground, he was doing his best not to crush Ford under his lion-body. He cursed the fact that he was in a lions body because he couldn't really tell how it felt to be pressed to closely to Ford. It would surely feel a whole lot different if he was in his own, beautiful skin. He missed his own face.

Well, he was going to make the best of this situation and nuzzled the other man affectionately.

  

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Ford tensed as the lion leaned its face into him, but the teeth he was expecting never came. There weren't any claws, either. The fall had knocked the breath out of his chest, and he was sure to have bruises where the lion's paws had hit him and where the chains wrapped around his back, but so far he didn't have any cuts or scratches. This... was not the way lions mauled people.

This wasn't a normal lion, then. Maybe it was a person, but Ford doubted it — why would a person pounce on him and then nuzzle him like an affectionate housecat? The other, more likely option was that this was a lion who had been specially trained to do circus performances. Raised by humans from a young age, maybe, so it only did things like roar on command?

"Um, okay," Ford said, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle away from the lion's head — he was getting hair in his mouth. If only he hadn't dropped his wand, he could get rid of these chains and assess the situation with a little more space. "Okay. Good kitty. Um — hell," he muttered, as he groped for his wand and felt only cobblestones beneath his fingers. He couldn't even see where it might be, with a lion on top of him and chains making it difficult to move. "Accio wand," he attempted, on the off chance that it was close enough to still respond.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho hoped that Ford would realize that he was a person. He was tired of being a lion. He hoped his animagus form would not be so bulky but there was no telling. He knew it tied to something deep inside a person but even he had no idea what kind of animal might represent him best.

Fords chains were making moving off the man to signal 'hey, it's me, save me' rather difficult. Plus he had no idea how to go about doing that. SOS in the snow with his paws, perhaps? He doubted Ford would stick around long enough to watch him do that though. He seemed rather scared if he thought about it.

  

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Ford seemed to be having a string of good luck lately: he had managed not to accidentally kill Miss Lestrange the day before with his misfired spell, he had not yet been eaten by a lion, and now his wand obediently nudged his fingertips. Ford let out a sigh of relief, which turned into a huff of breath as he tried to get the lion's mane away from his mouth (with very little success).

With a muttered spell he dispersed the chains, which slithered back into the air from whence they'd been conjured. This did absolutely nothing to improve Ford's mobility, since he still had a lion crouched over him — a lion which was now undetained and free to do as it pleased. Ford pulled his head back as far as he could to try and see the lion's face — better to keep an eye on its teeth, and be ready with a stunning spell — and leveled a suspicious look at it.

It seemed neither particularly inclined to run away, nor to eat him. A well-trained lion who didn't hold grudges about being tied up in chains, or a person?

"Can you, uhm, understand me?" he asked hesitantly. He wasn't sure if even the ones who were people could still understand human speech, but it was this or try and order the lion to sit, Ford figured.

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Set by Lady!

The chains vanished and Tycho moved off of Ford. He shook out his mane. He fought off the lions instinct to groom itself. Last image he wanted Ford to have was of Tycho licking himself. Even if it was with the body of a lion.

He blinked up at Ford and nodded before pushing his paw towards the mans wand. Would Ford get the hint?

  

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Well, that was pretty clear — Ford instinctively pulled his wand hand away to avoid being touched by the lion's claws, but it clearly hasn't been trying to hurt him.

"Okay, gotcha. And we can get you back to normal, but you probably don't want me doing it," he explained, scooting away from the lion to sit up. (He probably ought to stop thinking of it as the lion now that he knew it was a person, but Ford wasn't sure whether this was a man or a woman, and now that he knew it wasn't only an animal he certainly wasn't going to be caught checking).

"If you follow me back to the Ministry, we've got people for this," he continued. "They'll make sure to get you sorted with no stray tails or teeth or anything."

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Set by Lady!

Honestly, he didn't think there was anyone else he would mind brandishing a wand towards him. He was in no state to complain though so long as he was back to his own fabulous self as swiftly as possible.

He moved to follow after Ford but recognized his own front yard in the distance. His was the only one that had gnomes chilling like they owned the place in the front yard. He ambled towards it and tried to 'indicate' the building with his head. When he turned back into a man, would he have his clothes? He was not entirely sure how that worked. Not that he would wholly mind flashing the Ministry folk his bits if it meant being human again but he rather would like his own clothing.

  

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Despite knowing the lion was actually a transfigured human, Ford was finding it difficult to think of them as anything more than a particularly intelligent animal as they started walking through the streets of Wellingtonshire. When the lion started moving the wrong direction, Ford's tone was similar to one he might use to correct a dog. "No, you can't go in there, that's —"

Ford stopped in his tracks as he put it together. "Tycho?" he asked, with an incredulous look at the lion. That explained the nuzzling, he thought (but then — did it?)

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Set by Lady!

If he was able to smile, he would have as Ford pieced it together. If a lion could look cheeky, that was indeed how Tycho looked as he turned to look at Ford. He stretched out a bit and bound up the steps which as a little awkward to do with four legs.

  

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Ford had never considered what his friend might look like as a lion, but if he had given it any thought this strut would have been exactly what he pictured. He broke out into a wide grin, and he might have hugged Ty if he'd even known how to hug a lion.

"Merlin, I'm glad you're back," he said, shaking his head. "But you've got to get to the Ministry. You especially — I can't risk mucking you up muddling around with transfiguration magic that's beyond me. I didn't even get my OWL in it, y'know."

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Set by Lady!

Ford was not getting the hint about getting him some clothes. Well, that was fine. He was eager to be human again. He didn't even know what day it was nor how long he had been a large cat.

Once he was human again, he had been somewhat mollified that he had been transfigured back with the clothing that he had been wearing. Wonderful, he was rather fond of this robe and he would have hated to have it been lost. He had mixed feelings when he was told what day it was.

"I spent my twenty third year of life running around Hogsmeade as a lion. What a precursor to my future endeavors." Being transfigured into an animal had not deterred him from his goal of becoming an animagus. He had already put so much time and effort into it, after all.

  

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"You spent one day of your twenty-third year as a lion," Ford pointed out. It had hardly been a wasted year, the way Tycho made it seem. "And there's nothing that wonderful about twenty-three anyway." At least, it hadn't been a particularly illustrious year for Ford. He'd been twenty-three when his father died. Tycho had already undergone that particular ordeal, however, so his year seemed to be shaping up compared to Ford's history, at least so far.

"But if you're sore about not having a chance to celebrate I'm sure we can come up with something," he continued with a small smile. "Since you owe me a dinner anyway."

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Set by Lady!

"You knew it was my birthday?" Tycho asked though he had probably mentioned it before. Still. There was a fluttery feeling at the fact Ford had remembered.

"One's day of entering the world should always be a cause of celebrations. And I do owe you a dinner, don't I? Though I would rather it be in clothes that I have not worn for weeks. Even if I was a lion for most of them."

  

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