Title: Instinctive Behaviour

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: Nothing Specific, general for first few books.

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.

Summary: Harry gets cold waiting on the front porch of number 4 as a baby, so he does something to get warmer, which changes things immensely (Animagus young Harry, no living with the Dursleys)

Harry rode on Su's shoulder as she exited the bathroom, snuggling against the outside of the towel wrapped around her head to, ineffectually, attempt to dry himself. Hermione saw them enter and rolled her eyes slightly at Harry's antics before picking up a towel and holding it out for him. In an instant, Harry jumped from Su's shoulder and into the spread towel, which Hermione wrapped around him and began vigorously drying him as he chirped in delight.

Su smiled as she dropped the towel from around her body and began getting dressed. Ten minutes later both Su and Hermione were sitting on Hermione's bed with Harry in front of them.

"Nee, when see Big Beard Man?" Harry signed.

"I got his name for you, Big and… was that last one person?" Su said.

Hermione repeated what Harry had said both verbally and doing the signs again, for Su's instruction, and then turned back to Harry.

"After Breakfast. Meet other girls and go see Hagrid." Hermione both said and signed, spelling out Hargid's name in signs.

Hermione, with Harry on her shoulder, and Su met up with the other four girls in entrance hall before they all began to walk down towards Hagrid's hut. Everyone agreed that Hagrid was a gentle and genial man who really loved animals, if a slightly absentminded one. Everyone also said that, though Hagrid made a decent tea, never eat anything he makes as you may break a tooth. Even with this, they figured that six was enough so that if something did go wrong, at least one or two would escape and get help from a Professor.

When amongst themselves, House loyalty was not a big thing as they had all rapidly became friends, helped by the affection they all felt for the mischievous Lemur. Even most of their own Houses did not object to the six girl's association with each other. The only real objections were from rabid pureblood supremacists like Draco Malfoy, a vocal and quite hated minority even in Slytherin house, and Gryffindor House, as they were not represented in the popular and successful group.

In the walk down, Harry jumped from Hermione's shoulder to Daphne where he crawled up onto the top of her head, gently grabbed her hair and leaned forward to look into her eyes, upside down and smiled at her, causing her to smile back. Less than thirty seconds later he jumped across to Susan and licked her ear which caused her to giggle. With Tracey, he kept jumping from one shoulder to the other, tapping her cheek softly each time he switched, and she made an obvious show of trying and deliberately failing to catch him. For Hannah, he simply settled down in her arms, cradled like a baby. By the time the group had reached Hagrid's Hut they were all in a happy mood.

The big man opened the door and invited them all inside his hut. The interior was a single large room, with a few chairs and a bed all sized to Hagrid. There was also a fireplace on one wall that acted as both heater and cook fire. Against another wall was a boarhound curled up in a basket.

As the girls began to talk to Hagrid, Harry started to explore the hut. There were a lot of little nooks and ledges around the space that he had fun exploring, while he absently listened to Hermione explain how they had met. She did not mention their dreamscape, mostly because that was something just for the two of them. After the initial story was told, a few other conversations occurred. Once that caught Harry's attention briefly, because for a moment he had thought they were addressing him directly, was Susan Bones and Hagrid discussing her Aunt's investigation of the disappearance of a Harry Potter. Apparently, Susan's Aunt was some kind of Magical Cop and the other Harry had disappeared years ago and the case was now 'cold'.

After a few hours the girls left with Harry riding on Hermione's shoulders. They all had a good impression of Hagrid and Harry signed that he agreed with some of the suggestions Hagrid had to add variety to Harry's diet.

Harry walked slowly along one of the hand-rails on the main stairway. The stairway was bathed in shades of black and silver as it was two am on the morning of what Harry called No-Eat-Pumpkin Day, because Hermione, Mum and Dad would bring pumpkins into the house and he was not allowed to eat them, well maybe one or two little bits that the others cut out and hand to him. Of course, No-Eat-Pumpkin day was always followed by Eat-Lots-Of-Pumpkin day.

Normally Harry would be asleep and in the dreamscape with Hermione but he never slept on the night before and the night after No-Eat-Pumpkin Day because his instincts told him that long ago something bad had happened on No-Eat-Pumpkin Day.

He passed Mrs Norris, the Caretaker's cat, as he went down past the entrance hall, and the cat hissed at him but let him pass. Continuing on down, Harry came to the dungeons and followed the scent of Daphne and Tracey to the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room, a seemingly blank section of wall. Of course he could not get in through the human entrance but he searched around a bit and found the small hole that was the pets entrance. The pets entrance was a few metre long small tunnel with a largish room off to the side in the middle that was full of litter boxes for pet cats. It was very similar to the pets entrance to the Ravenclaw Tower and the Hufflepuff Dorms that Harry had explored previously.

At the far end of the tunnel he emerged into an out of the way corner of the Slytherin Common Room. The green and silver Common Room was mostly lit by a low burning fire in the fireplace and a barely there greenish light from the large window what looked out onto the Black Lake. Harry could tell the room was not empty, so he made his way to the couch that was facing the window and jumped up on the arm of the couch.

"Oh… Harry." Daphne said in surprise. "How did you get in here?"

Sitting on his haunches, Harry pointed back to the pets entrance. It took Daphne a moment to realise what he was pointing at and then smiled.

"Of course. Clever." She mused. "Why you exploring so late? Can't sleep?"

Harry nodded as he moved across the couch and snuggled into Daphne's lap.

"Yeah. Me neither." Daphne agreed.

As Harry settled down and curled up, he listened to Daphne talk, as if to herself, about the things that were worrying her. Things like worry about her little sister, her father's work and how Draco was trying to cause trouble with her for being friends with Tracey.

Harry listened and chirped in response or rubbed his head against her hand at the appropriate times. While they weren't as important to Harry as Nee was, the rest of the girls were part of his social group and he cared from them all as well. Besides, listening to Daphne talk was soothing.

TBC….

A/N: A group of Lemurs is officially called a Conspiracy, but Harry would not know this. Hermione might but I doubt it would have come up in conversation.