//------------------------------//
// 43 - Suspicion 
// Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone 
// by gerandakis 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Forty-Three

Suspicion






When the Transfiguration professor of Hogwarts first arrived at the desk before her, Silvia Anderson had only recognized her by description. The fact that she, unlike most British wizards, had never been to Hogwarts, was due to the fact that her parents, a half-blood and a muggleborn, had seen certain signs in the wizarding world that they knew all too well from the world of the muggles.

Thus, before the Wizarding War started in earnest, her family had moved and was living in America, successfully evading the death eaters. She had gotten her magical education at Ilvermorny and lived in the US for several years after the war was over before finally deciding to return to the land of her birth.

Still, when Professor McGonagall returned to her counter for the third time in only a few weeks, Silvia did recognize her. The paperwork she and her companions submitted was no less unusual together with the ones she had submitted over the past weeks, those listed on these documents almost tripled the number of animagi registered in this century. In fact, she happened to know that those registered now were more than had been previously registered in this century by the British Ministry of Magic and the MACUSA combined.

Usually such things weren't anything she would concern herself with, but unusual events such as these aroused her suspicion. As such, when her guests were gone, she made her way back to the archives to check back on what she had filed there.

Previously, she had only checked the names on the paperwork and used a spell to check its validity. Combined with the self updating database, they would know if anything wasn't in order. The only reason animagus registration wasn't automatically covered by the database was that the normal files for every witch and wizard didn't contain the necessary papers for that.

Still, she remembered every name she filed and decided to go for the largest sample she could, as such she headed for the first of the filing cabinets covering the letter 'W'. Moments later and with a bit of quiet grumbling she closed it back up and went to the second one instead, finding the correct files soon enough. Those of the Weasley family.

The first file she found, going through them alphabetically as she was, was that of Arthur Weasley. Everything seemed in order as she read through the file, until she reached the animagus details. She hadn't expected that, of all things, to be the unusual part, but then again, she might be forgiven for not expecting the field titled 'animagus form' to read 'unicorn'.

That the more in depth description mentioned a pale blue coat and red mane only served to confuse her further. Any unicorn she had ever heard of, was pure white in coat and mane. Adult ones at least. But even the gold and later silver of foals and juveniles came nowhere close to the described colors.

The line reading 'Cutie-Mark of a wand threaded through a gear' was just the cherry on top. What on earth was a Cutie-Mark supposed to be. What kind of word even was that?

She would be willing to dismiss the file as a hoax had she not personally cast the charm that linked it up to the self-updating database and prevented that very thing.

Thoroughly confused, she moved onto the next relevant file she found, Ginnevra Weasley. Again, everything seemed to be in order until the 'animagus form' category read 'pegasus'.

And so it continued. For over half an hour, she checked file after file, each checked out save for the incongruities in the 'animagus form' and 'identifying details' sections. One by one she added to the list, coming to a total of one unicorn, five pegasi, one of them with the annotation'(Raptor)', and two thestrals, another magical creature not at all matching typical description.

Finally, she arrived at the last two files she intended to check. Granger, Daniel and Granger, Emma. Here, again, she found two more unicorn animagi, but she also found further incongruities. She had seen the two at the counter. They were clearly adults. The files confirmed that. Yet the files also stated that they had been created on the thirty-first of August of this very year and even at the same time, only minutes apart. That alone would be surprising, but not entirely implausible, until one considered that the files also stated that they were not only currently living in, but had also been born in Britain to British parents. The files should have been created upon their births.

They were clearly a wizard and a witch. Their parents, as stated in the file, were muggles, but that was nothing unusual. The self-updating database not creating their files upon their birth, however, was. In fact, it was more than unusual. It was unheard-of.

There clearly was more going on here than a few nonsensical animagus forms. She wasn't certain how any of this was possible, but she would find out. She would have to tell her friends about this.





At breakfast on Monday, Sunset intentionally positioned herself next to Ron. She needed to talk to him. When they had left the common room, she had intentionally gone last, making sure that Ron's pet rat remained there.

"Say, Ron, how long have you had Scabbers?"

Ron looked at her with some surprise. "I just got him this year. He was Percy's pet before, but when he got Hermes ... well ... owls and rats don't mix too well, so I got Scabbers instead. Why?"

"And when did Percy get Scabbers?"

Ron looked to the side, scratching his chin in thought. "I don't know actually. You'll have to ask him. Must've been years though. But again, why?"

Sunset stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Since we came to Hogwarts, I've seen a few things that weren't what they appear to be. I suspect Scabbers might be one of them. I'll have to talk to Percy, maybe do some research as well."

Ron looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean 'not what he seems'? What do you think he is?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know if I find out."





Their morning classes passed quickly. Seeing how they were learning quite a few spells at this point, Professor Flitwick saw fit to teach them a rather universal, if basic, counter spell, 'Finite'.

After that, their lessons on basic plant care as it applied to magical plants continued in the morning's Herbology class.

Finally, the students reconvened in the Great Hall for lunch. Seeing Percy already seated and an unoccupied seat directly across from him, Sunset made a beeline for the latter. She wondered for a moment how she would strike up a conversation with the prefect. Luckily, he solved that problem for her.

"Sunset! How do you like Hogwarts so far?"

"Oh, it's great. I know a lot of the things lessons go over already, of course, but that doesn't really stop me from enjoying them. Well, outside of History of magic of course, but I guess that's a given."

Percy chuckled a little. "I suppose it is. Defense Against the Dark Arts is also usually more interesting. I really hope we get a better teacher next time."

Sunset looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean? How do you know he won't stay?"

"Right, I guess you probably don't know that. Hogwarts: A History doesn't mention that. For decades now, this school has never managed to keep a D.A.D.A. teacher for more than a year. There are rumors that the position is cursed."

Sunset's eyes widened slightly. Could this be the dark magic she had been detecting? She had checked if Quirrell was cursed, of course, but if the curse was simply projected onto him from elsewhere? If it wasn't him that was cursed, but something as abstract as his job? She hadn't considered that option.

She would continue her scan for the Defense lesson after lunch as planned, she didn't have time to prepare a new one, but if that one didn't turn up anything either, she would have to investigate this lead.

"But anyways, how do you like Hogwarts beyond the lessons?"

Percy's question brought her back from her thoughts. "Oh it's great. We've spent a few days already exploring the castle. Seriously, the amount of secret passages there are in this place ..."

"You're right on that. I don't know why the castle has so many secret passages. I guess it was meant as a fortress at some point, that accounts for the layout changing all the time, but is that amount of secret passages really necessary?"

"Intruders. Of course! That's why the castle changes its layout! Sweet Celestia, how didn't I see that?"

"Well, the castle hasn't needed to work in that role since muggle repelling charms were invented a few centuries ago. Any wizard that might attack has a good chance of having been a student here and knowing the way the layout changes anyway."

"I suppose that makes sense. Still I really should have realized that. It's basically military tactics one-oh-one. Anyway, Ron said that you had Scabbers before he did?"

"Uh, yes, why?"

"I suspect Scabbers might not be who he seems to be. When did you get him?"

Percy narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at her curiously. "I found him when I was seven and brought him into the family."

"Now I don't know how it works here, but in Equestria, at least, I'm pretty sure rats don't get that old. I'll go check later."

"Now that you mention it, I guess you're right. Do you think he might be an animagus?"

"Entirely possible. I'll read up on it later. If I find any more evidence, I'll ask Professor McGonagall. But if he is, he can understand what we say so we need to make sure he doesn't realize that we suspect anything, just in case."

"True, true. So no mentioning this in the common room then until we can confirm either way."

"My thoughts exactly."





Silvia Anderson sat in her chair at one of the tables outside Florean Fortescue's' Ice Cream Parlor. Beside her, was her childhood friend Erica. They had met on their first day at Ilvermorny and been friends ever since. When Silvia had returned to the land of her birth, Erica had followed with but a moment's hesitation. Erica's parents had both been muggles. After they had died in a car crash during her third year at Ilvermorny, she had had nothing keeping her in the States. As such, she came to Britain with her friend.

While Silvia had found work at the Ministry's Department of Records, Erica had always been good at magical craftsmanship and found work learning under Madam Malkin. She was one of only two whom Silvia felt comfortable sharing her suspicions with. The other hadn't arrived yet.

Monday was their day off, a recompense both of them got for being willing to work on Sundays. They often spent them together. The latest gossip from the Ministry or the Alley was always a top subject to discuss.

"Yoohoo, Girls!"

And there came the third member of their little group. Emily Winters. The witch was younger than her two friends and had lived in Britain all her life. She and Silvia had met through her work at the Daily Prophet where she was more or less solely responsible for any research in the Ministry Archives. Silvia had than introduced her and Erica.

"There you two are. Oh it's good to see you both. I need a bit of relaxation. Seriously, Skeeter is driving me mad. No sense of privacy at all. Good thing she's out in the field so often."

Silvia chuckled and pushed the third sundae sitting on the table over to the new arrival. "We took the liberty of ordering one for you. I know you don't have much time in your lunch breaks."

"You two are fantastic. Anything new?"

Silvia nodded. "Absolutely. You'll never believe what happened yesterday."

"Why? Did you register another animagus?"

"Oh, if it was just one."

"Wait, really? You know I was joking right?"

"I gathered. Doesn't change the fact that you're right though. I got to file eight new animagi yesterday. With the other two we've had recently we've had more in the last three months than Britain and the US got together this entire century. Mind you, the US has been slacking a little, they only got four, but still."

"Unbelievable."

"Absolutely. And that's not even the weirdest thing."

"You're kidding, right? What could be even weirder than that?"

"Only that two of them are an adult Witch and Wizard couple who have been born in Britain, yet their files are barely two weeks old."

"What, the files have the dates of birth wrong?"

"Oh, I wish. No. They have the dates of birth right, as far as I can tell. But that date doesn't match the date the file was created, and for any wizard or witch born in Britain to British parents, it should. So either the self-updating database is broken, or something seriously weird is going on."

"What are their names?"

"Emma and Daniel Granger."

"Wait. Hold on. Granger? Were they filed to have a daughter?"

"I think so. Why?"

"We've had a girl in the shop at the start of August getting her school robes. She was in with some friends. When she was asked if she was muggleborn, one of her friends answered, and I quote: 'We're working on that.' Tell me that's not suspicious."

"Wait are you saying the database didn't create files for them any sooner because they were No-Majs before?" Despite being raised in a British family, Silvia still often fell back into using American terminology. Calling muggles No-Majs was only one of her quirks that threatened to drive her co-workers insane.

"I don't know. It sounds impossible, but I've also never heard of a self-updating filing system failing like this."

"I guess you've got a point there. I'll check on that tomorrow."

Emily had been looking back and forth between her two friends for their entire conversation as though she were watching a tennis match. Now, however, she felt it right to add her own two knuts. "You go do that. I'll see if I can dig up anything on my end. And I'll let you know if the Prophet catches wind of anything weird."





Sunset was still frustrated at her persistent failures to divine the nature of the dark magic around Professor Quirrell. Still at least she had a lead to go on now, perhaps on Wednesday she'd know more. For now, however, she had more pressing matters to research.

Following Hermione's directions, she easily found the library. She could scarcely believe that she hadn't been here before, but her time at Hogwarts thus far had been so eventful she simply hadn't had the time to explore this place alone yet. And the chances of dragging the entire group to the library of all places were slim to say the least.

It took her a while to find a book on non-magical animals, but she managed. A quick check was all she needed to confirm that, indeed, regular house or garden rats rarely lived for more than two years. Just like in Equestria. Finding her suspicions progressively more likely, she began looking for a book on animagi.

It didn't take long to find what she was looking for in the 'Transfiguration' section of the library. She pulled an old edition of Animagus – Awaken Your Inner Animal from the shelves. The book was nearly twenty years old, but with how rare animagi were, she didn't suspect that there had been any significant advancements in the field since its publishing.

A check in the index led her to a short chapter titled 'How to Identify an Animagus'. Many of the stated traits would be difficult or impossible to manifest or find on a rat, but discrepancies in lifespan were among those mentioned. Still she thought of one more check she could perform. If the animagus, by chance, had achieved their alternate form at Hogwarts, there was a good chance that they may have used this book as a guide, perhaps extensively. Drawing her wand she cast a complicated scanning charm on the book, aiming to find magical signatures. She found many.

A quick look over her shoulder confirmed that the most prominent of them belonged to Madam Pince, the school librarian. But there were three more signatures that were far more prominent that the nearly hundred others. They were old and badly degraded as a result, but she was almost certain that one of them matched Scabbers.

With a quiet sigh, she brought the book to the counter to borrow it. Claiming that she was doing research. Not technically a lie. Carefully depositing the book in her bag, she made her way back to the Gryffindor tower.

She would talk to McGonagall after the Transfiguration lesson the following morning.