"We're really going through with this, huh?" Sam looked nervously at the vial that contained the Animagus potion as thunder boomed through the night, audible even inside Hogwarts. He didn't expect Steve to say no - after all, they'd gone to all the trouble of learning about the process of becoming Animagi to transform with Bucky on the full moon. It had taken them months, and there was no way Steve would back out now.

And Sam? Despite being a prefect, he was prepared to follow his best friend into some serious law-breaking by becoming an unregistered Animagus. He wasn't concerned so much about the law as he was the danger in the process - the book they'd studied had warned them of the necessity to perform each finicky step precisely, or horrible results could ensue. He wondered what it would be like to have the transformation go wrong, to have his body twisted and warped as it was trapped between one state and another. Yeah, it was enough to make him think twice.