The next day, Harry cast an illusion of an acromantula behind Quirrell during defense class. He was careful to have it descend from the shadows up by the ceiling.. It worked better than he expected. Quirrell ran out of the room shrieking. Not only did he give Quirrell palpitations, he made Ron Weasley faint dead away. Harry gave himself away when instead of joining his classmates in the mass exodus he started snickering. Susan who was almost out the door stopped.
"You prat! You did that!?"
Harry lost it and started to really laugh. "Yup." he said as he dispelled the illusion.
Harry got a detention scouring the trophy room with Filch for that one, but he didn't really mind. It had been worth it, finding out Ron Weasley was afraid of spiders. Besides Sirius would be disappointed if he never got detention.
Rachel felt a little odd as she walked up to the castle in the predawn gloom. It had been most of three months since she had last seen Harry. She had still been in the hospital in India when he had his send off to Hogwarts although Remus had shared the pictures. Sirius had done a lot to support her as she recovered. He had encouraged her to take time off; siting the fact she had taken very little time off during Harry's pre-Hogwarts years. The fact was though, she missed her young protege. She missed their spars because he was one of the few that could really challenge her. What he lacked in strength he more than made up for in speed and originality. She figured for the next month or two she'd get more from their spars than he did.
She wondered how his animagus studies were progressing. She wondered if he was bored, if he was she pitied his teachers. Even at Stuart-Cavanaugh Harry had demonstrated he was a bit of a prankster, add a lack of stimulation and Harry might come up with ways to amuse himself that would leave the recipients wishing he was better occupied.
She was surprised when a house elf met her just inside the entrance doors. "If Miss bes following Hattie I'll bes taking you tos the Earl."
"Thank you, Hattie."
They went up the stairs. Seven floors worth then down a hall to a door across from a tapestry where there were trolls in tutus. "In the come go room Miss."
Rachel opened the door. The room looked exactly like the workout room at Sirius' place in Maryland.
Harry, who had been stretching, bounced to his feet and bounded the ten feet to the door to envelop Rachel in a hug. "It's so good to see you!"
"I missed you too, kiddo!"
"You're all better now?"
"Almost as good as new. I'm likely a little rusty, so go kinda easy on me."
"I will. I'm probably not in top form either kata are only good for so much. I'm mostly warmed up just need to finish stretching."
They did some team stretches. While they stretched, they talked about the animagus transformation.
An hour later they moved to the changing rooms on either side of the room, and changed into robes for the day. Harry had asked Rachel to stay for breakfast so he could introduce her to his friends.
At the Gryffindor table many of the older students were surprised by the good-looking adult witch, who cheerfully joined the first year students and they wondered who she was. Minerva knew that she worked for Sirius and had been one of Harry's tutors for a long time. Dumbledore took a bit of exception to her presence however.
"Who is that? He almost scowled looking at the Gryffindor table.
"Rachel Luttrell, she's one of Harry's tutors." Minerva answered. "Martial arts, I believe."
This brought a completely cross look to Dumbledore's face. "It's not right for that boy to have all these strangers brought into the castle. What if one of them was on Voldemort's side?"
Minerva frowned. "I am certain Sirius screens his employees vigorously."
The owls started to arrive. Dumbledore was surprised when amongst his mail was a box that once removed from the owl delivering it grew into a large one. He opened it. Inside was the most fabulous robe he had ever seen. It had all the colors of the rainbow and was quite simply breathtaking. He looked for a card. He found it. Happy belated birthday. He immediately checked to see if it was in some way trapped but all his spells came back negative. "Oh my." he said as he lifted it from the box. He conjured a mirror behind the teachers' table and pulling the robe from the box held it up so he could get an idea of what it would look like. It was quite simply the most splendid robe he had ever seen.
Down at the Gryffindor table Harry noted the arrival of the large box for the Headmaster. He gave Rachel a slight nudge and his eyes started to dance as Albus pulled the robe from the box. When the mirror was conjured, several other students around the Hall noticed the activity at the teachers' table as well. Harry sincerely hoped the robe would prove too hard for the Headmaster to resist, so he was delighted as he saw the Headmaster swirl his wand for a switching spell.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore had a scant moment to admire himself in the new robe before to his great surprise he was transformed into a goat complete with a long white beard. "MAAA!" The startled bleat echoed through the Great Hall drawing the attention of everyone.
Between the beard and the half moon spectacles it was obvious what had happened. Many of the students who didn't particularly care for the Headmaster burst into guffaws, and they weren't the only ones, most of the teachers, even Snape, also started laughing.
Minerva bit her lip to keep from laughing, however she couldn't help but smile at the somewhat appropriate image that was now before her. "Old goat" was how she often thought of him when he was manipulating things but now he was, at least outwardly, a goat and it was all she could do to maintain her decorum. She was startled as several cameras flashed from around the hall. Perhaps it was time to call things back to order. "Yes, students, it is very funny. It's time for classes now. My first class, go to the library and revise switching spells while I assist the Headmaster." She wasn't sure which of the school's resident pranksters had gotten the Headmaster but she had a suspicion it was one of her lions.
Still laughing, Harry and his classmates headed to Herbology and Rachel was snickering as she exited the castle with them. Harry winked and said, "Show Sirius the memory of that, he'll get a kick out of it."
Rachel laughed, and nodded before heading to the Hogwarts gates.
Late that night Harry spelled his shoes with silencing charms pulled on his dad's cloak and slipped into the Great Hall. There he placed spells that would transfigure the clothes of anyone sitting there at 8:39 a.m. tomorrow, which would likely mean the entire school would be hit, since that was when the post owls delivered. Tomorrow he would give everyone a taste of modern uniforms and he intended to have a petition for students to sign stating which they preferred, the modern uniform or the traditional one.
He had an agenda and wasn't afraid to use pranks to his own advantage. He was going to wait a week before giving the Headmaster the potion that would change his magical signature long enough for him to shed the robe that was causing him to be a goat.