Harry Potter - Hellion!

 

November fifteenth, 1981

Harry made his way slowly to the Forest of Dean. He met dogs, hawks, eagles, cats, foxes, deer, and a plethora of other animals, the last of which was a bear. Each time, he managed to capture some genetic material and perfect his metamorphagus ability, something that could be done with inner magic and was undetectable by external magical sensors. In human form, an occasional bout he took when he felt like recovering his true nature, he found the weather uncomfortable. Diapers had long vanished and he was nude. Winter was coming, and he found the furry feeling of an animal much more suited to the cold weather. At some point, he dug himself a den, rolled up and began hibernating in his bear form. The winter would be long past when he would wake up, having been kept warm by the slow decomposition of rotting vegetation, his thick three-layered fur coat, and a layer of blubber that would also supply his slowed-down metabolism with food.

Meanwhile, the death-eaters around Rosier had collected the last death-eaters still roaming in Great-Britain and Ireland. They had decided to try and find their Master, and began searching for his magical signature by ‘walking’ magical Britain. They had no issue moving, as the Ministry was dead and most of those that had been charged with monitoring displacement were now cold cuts. The magical world felt relieved that Voldemort was gone, but was unnerved by the presence of muggle-born in stations usually reserved for pure-bloods. Most had been shocked they needed to swear a magical oath of featly to the muggle Crown, and the most stiff-necked had lost its rigidity to the axe.

March thirtieth, 1982

Rosier had distributed the search, but had left the country, feeling a call in Continental Europe. But, however hard he had tried to follow the trace, the lead escaped him. France, Germany, Romania, Russia, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, China, Tibet, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and all the way back to Romania... He was sure he was on the right trail, but his Master was proving to be particularly evasive. Spring was on the way, and he needed to keep the death-eaters on a tight leash, especially the Carrows, who where biting at the bits to attack muggle-borns and blood traitors that had dared swear that forsaken oath. They had yet to find a safe house, and had to abandon their last one in a rush as a group of muggles had come to demolish the building at day-break, almost collapsing the roof on them. They had learned early that trying to take shelter in one of the now abandoned manors was like calling the aurors to their location with a sign ‘here reside death-eaters’, blinking arrows and flashing light.

---

At Buckingham Palace, the three knights considered their options: The rolls of Peerage were clear: Harry Potter was still alive. However, his location was not indicated. They were at a loss. Late in the winter, Amelia Bones, now officially head of the DMLA, made her way to the palace, and asked to talk to Sirius. Unfortunately, Sirius had been out for the past week trying to locate Harry, and had not yet reported. So she decided to talk to Frank.

"Frank, I have been thinking about something. Hogwarts has this magical book, where the addresses of its students are recorded so they can be notified of entry and of their exam results, right?"

"Yes, the Book of Souls, as magic is an integral part of the soul."

"Maybe we could use it to locate Mr. Potter?"

"Maybe. I have never seen it, nor do I know how it works. Minerva might be able to clarify its usage, since she had been, until Dumbledore’s stay at the Queen’s Hostel, Deputy-headmistress, the one responsible with mailing the letters."

"I wonder who replaced that prick, Snape?"

"Augusta! Respect the dead!" exclaimed Amelia, while smiling slightly. "And for your information, it is Slughorn. I heard his presence is seen as an improvement, of sorts."

"Of sorts?"

"Slughorn is perceived, by many, as a boy-lover. That has two perverse effects: those boys that he wants generally are weary of him; and the girls are jealous of the attention he deluges cute boys with. Some boys pass their exams by, err..., bending over, according to bad mouths. Not that it serves them at the end, since OWLS and NEWTS are administered by the slowly reconstructing Magical Education Department. And, as her Majesty has made it clear that in order to graduate, the magical youths needed to have their muggle education up to par, there has been quite a few grinding teeth."

After a sip of tea, Mrs. Bones asked the question:

"Who should contact Minerva to ask for her help?"

"I will go," Remus said. "She always liked me, even if I did partake in the troubles that befell Hogwarts during the reign of terror the Marauders imposed on the venerable institution."

"Partake? Are you in your ‘understatement’ phase, Remus? I remember you were the brain of the lot of hooligans!"

"Frank, Frank! No need to tell that to Minerva. Why break her heart by revealing the angel wore horns longer then those of Prongs, the deer animagus of Harry’s Dad?"

"I knew you were horny!"

"Frank, another comment like that and you will be sitting on needles for a week."

"So, Remus visits Minerva. It is spring break, so she should not be too busy. I have to go back to my office. Some idiot is bound to have tried writing his own laws..."

"I wonder how Dumbledore enjoys the Queen’s hospitality?" asked Bones.

"To the bones, Amelia." replied Frank.

"He is being starved?"

"Oh no. He is being eaten. And is getting quite mad from the pain. Magic is not being very kind to him. A muggle would be long dead, but he is still alive, very much conscious, and can feel every bite the rats take. Last time, he was busy re-growing nuts... Rats and squirrels share a family tree, and it shows. He probably wishes for starvation and thirst, but he is not being served that exit. And we learn more and more of his plans for the ‘Greater Good’ as delirium sets in. He is living in an alternate world now, and each bite produces more information. We came close to WW III, so very close! He is talking to his boyfriend, Grindelwald, and exchanging ‘plans’ for the submission of the muggle world, and the destruction of blood-traitors."

"Grindelwald is not likely to be taken out of jail. I assisted to his execution on Christmas Eve. The Chancellor of Germany wanted to give his mentor a Christmas gift, his freedom, so he had him executed. That guy had a wicked sense of humor, as long as you are not the object of said ‘practical joke’."

"You know, I think the joke is on us. From what I understand, these two had decided to share souls... by becoming each other’s horcruxes. Now Dumbledore is a deeply evil two-spirits: His now reconstructed one, and he now harbors Grindelwald’s complete mind," said Remus, as he scratched his head. "Two souls in one body, two minds in one body... What they wanted from the start, minus the pain they are now in. But that might explain why he is not completely bonkers. They probably alternate taking the pain, allowing their mind the needed rest to rebuild. If they escape, they will be trouble."

"What would you suggest?" asked a troubled Amelia.

"However horrible the idea may sound to us, and remind us of the witch hunts, a burning. It must be a fiend-fire burn too. Ordinary fire will burn their body, but release their souls to the world, and they would be able to take any of us as body by having two souls fighting our single one."

Lupin’s suggestion was met with horrified looks, bringing back terrible images.

"You know how difficult confining fiend-fire is. It might well fall in their combined control."

"That is why we need to find some confining forces. It is our ignorance of what constitutes fiend-fire that has us at a disadvantage. It is not a simple combustion, but something radically different," said Lupin. "Maybe it is time to talk to the Queen about the issue. Muggle technology might have something to control it, to confine it in some way."

"You think muggles know about fiend-fire?" asked a troubled Amelia.

"They know a lot of things, and some are, in my mind, as magical, if not more, than ours. Have you seen that thing called the Apollo project? They landed on the Moon and came back. We are unable to go there and survive, much less come back, even if the Moon is within eye-sight. Ever seen a broom that carries six hundred passengers comfortably, in a heated environment, and with food and plush seats, with bathrooms?"

"Err... that is impossible! Not even a Bagdad flying carpet offers these amenities."

"Well, I took one from London to Boston two years ago. I was visiting a friend at their Institute of Magical Studies, in Salem. It took six hours, and I felt no wind, no cold. We came to Boston in a thunderstorm and I was not even aware of it until I left the huge building they called Logan Airport. Then I was told I could have walked from that building to their train station and boarded the one for Salem without even getting wet. They called it intermodal integration."

"But we should have seen these things."

"We have, We see them daily as long white lines in the sky, I have been told. But we think they are clouds, so we never investigate, or those of us that did never came back to tell us about them... alive. I must have shown my wonder, because a passenger, a very nice old muggle man, explained to me that the ‘cabin’ as they call the place we sit in, is pressurized to sea level so we do not pass out. Did you know that as you go up, air pressure diminishes? I was sceptic until I climbed a mountain in the Alps last summer. We never fly our brooms higher than five hundred feet, and that is not enough to bring the issue to the fore. You know, I saw a flight of geese as we were coming to Boston, and they were below us, heading along the coast. You know how high these birds fly during migration!"

The more Lupin talked about the marvels he had experienced in the muggle world, the more Amelia, pure-blood extraordinaire, felt left behind. Magic had its beautiful moments, but muggles had developed their own kind of magic that far outpaced theirs. They had wands that controlled fiend-fire, and probably a way to confine it in a bond that would leave their mages in awe.

Lupin left with Amelia, whom asked him if he would take in the post of muggle studies professor at Hogwarts.

"Do not be daft! I know next to nothing about their world. And the Queen is clear: No more dallying when it comes to the education of magical beings, be they pure-bloods, centaurs, goblins, house-elves, or even fairies. Size has no impact on the access to education, and the magical beings will be integrated, screaming and kicking, into the muggle educational system, with magic as an, how did she call it? Oh yes, talent-based side-specialization. I better get going. Knowing Minerva, the school grounds must be near lock-down, especially with all those muggles roaming in the school. She must be having kittens."

"Remus!" Amelia said, as she laughed, remembering Minerva’s animagus form.

---

Remus popped to the gates of Hogwarts, saw Hagrid readying to close the gates and made a dash for them.

"Berly made it, Remus. Would have had to wait until tomorrow morning if you had missed the gates."

"Minerva in her office?"

"As usual at this time, with the muggle trainers, whom are explaining what they did today, what went wrong and what went well, and what they plan for tomorrow. Did not know muggles had to learn so many things. I been introduced to their types of maths. They have long division! And it works! Ever tried to do that with our Roman numerals? It is a pain! They even invented a new number to indicate nothing! I still have not figured out is what it is used for..."

Hagrid made his way to his hut, while Lupin walked in the silent halls of Hogwarts. It had never been so silent in his days. A soldier patrolled and asked his reason to be in the school. A short explanation later, and Remus got escorted by two gun-toting muggle soldiers to the open gargoyle doors, that seemed to crawl in the wall at the arrival of the muggles.

"Wonder what happened to them to act this way?"

"The commander told them if they misbehaved and tried to act snobbishly, he would see to it they would be reduced to sand. A jack-hammer demonstration on a cube of granite proved his point. There you are sir. We will wait for your return, and bring you to the visitors’ rooms after your visit."

"I plan to leave by floo."

"To where?"

"My suite in Buckingham Palace. The Queen is expecting me for an early tea around dawn."

"Okay, sir. Why did not you tell the corporal?"

"He did not ask. And would he have believed me without the Queen being there babysitting me?"

"Probably not, sir. He has been rather paranoid lately. He discovered his little brother got killed by Voldemort’s forces some years back, and he is more than ready to go overboard."

"Sad, and he is not the only one. Many of us lost family to these idiots, including me. Tell him I feel for him."

---

Lupin climbed up the moving stairs, and knocked at Minerva’s door.

"Come in!" grumbled an irate Minerva. What next? she thought.

"Hey Minerva. Is your meeting over yet?"

"Gentlemen?"

"Yes, we are done. We will retire to our studies."

After the five muggle had left, Minerva took a look at Lupin.

"What brings you in these backward woods?"

"You never thought that of Hogwarts before?"

"After having seen their chemistry, physics, and biology courses and laboratories, along with the way they purify ingredients, and extract essence of plants or animals, I feel we are ten thousand years behind! They have these ventilated fume captors that prevent contamination of products, they call them fume boxes, and they have ways to control the heat and the fire with what they call bunsen burners. I have never seen such fine control of potion reactions. Severus would be shocked."

"And furious. You know him: if it was not his way, it was not good. He would have dropped something into their cauldrons to prove them wrong."

"I am sadly aware of his shortcomings. He may have been a grand potions master, but a sorry teacher."

"What brings me here, Minerva, is delicate. And it is as part of my mandate with the Queen and the Round Table. So, please, mundane, disconnect your bugs. It is vital nothing leaks, and that is under Omega-One. You have two minutes to turn your listening devices off. If a single word of this conversation leaks, the Queen will see to it that you spend the rest of your tenure in the military in Antarctica."

"Listening devices? In my office?"

"Minerva, the mundane have the ability to listen to a conversation in this room from the Astronomy tower, located, as you know, across the school from here. So, I am taking precautions. You might deal with magical listening spells?"

"Sure," replied a baffled Minerva. "How do you know about these muggle capabilities?"

"I visited one of their military bases and was shown the extent of their efforts at insuring security. And that conversation shall stop there."

Two minutes later, insured that the Omega-One keyword had closed all listening devices, Remus sat down and looked at Minerva.

"Minerva, I need to ask you some questions about the Book of Souls."

Minerva looked at Remus, intrigued and alarmed, nodding.

"How does it work?"

"A name is added to the book of souls at the first accidental magic manifestation that is enough to trigger its response."

"What does it contain?"

"A name, a date of birth, a date of first spontaneous magical manifestation, and a count of these events."

"Does it contain addresses?"

"Yes."

"Is the address updated as it changes?"

"Again, yes."

"So we have a way of tracking a magical being?"

"Yes."

"From the first manifestation until?"

"Death."

"What happens upon death?"

"The name gets a deceased date, a location, a cause, and something that reminds me of an egyptian hieroglyph, Ra’s I think, but I am not familiar with hieroglyphs. Burbage might be of better help but she specialized in Norse writing."

"Okay, that is more than I expected. Can we have a look at the Book of Souls?"

"Sure."

Minerva made her way to a brick wall, pressed on a specific sequence, much like the arch that led into Diagon Alley, and the brick set moved to form a gothic arch, revealing a small space containing a book with a golden symbol, a flattened eight, the symbol of infinity.

"It is small..."

"It stays reduced until it is needed, Remus. Luckily, it has a zero-weight charm and a no-mass one or we would not even be able to lift it, much less move it. Let us place it in the centre of this white tile. That is the top of the support arch of the tower, around which this office was built. It is the only place strong enough magically to support the book once it gets expanded, even with all these charms. The first name on the book is Merlin Ambrosius’."

After placing the book carefully at the centre of the tile, in a clearly marked square, Minerva expanded the book. The ground groaned from the weight, but held. The infinity symbol glowed a brilliant gold. The book still looked thin to Remus.

"I understand that look, Remus. The book displays what you need to see by materializing the pages with the requested contents. What do you need to know?"

"I need to know about a specific person: Harry James Potter, born July thirty-first, 1980."

Minerva repeated the request, and the book glowed before opening at Harry’s records.

"Harry James Potter, born July thirty-first, 1980; first magical activity, May fifth, 1980! Wait a second! He showed sufficient magic in his mother’s womb to register in the book???" exclaimed a flabbergasted Minerva. "That is unheard of! Even Merlin did not!"

"We already knew Harry was exceptional. What else?"

"Apparation, six days after birth, within his own home; telekinesis, the next day, to get his stuffed dog; mouse animagus at one month, after being visited by one during the night. And it continues.... latest: Shark, variety: Megalodon (extinct); Dragon, variety Hungarian Horntail; Phoenix, variety Ice; Owl, variety Snow; Fox: variety Arctic; Wolf: variety Arctic; Snake: variety Adder; Deer: variety White-tail; Bear: variety: Black; eagle: variety Peregrine; Dog: variety Grimm; Cat: variety Egyptian Desert Grey (extinct);..." Minerva sat down, white as a ghost.

"What is wrong, Minerva?"

"The Egyptian Desert Grey went extinct at about the end of the eleventh dynasty of Egypt. It was the physical manifestation of Eternity and generally buried with the pharaohs."

"So?"

"Harry has the Master of Death, the Grimm, and Eternity, the Egyptian Desert Grey, in his animagus collection. He only needs the animagus form of Life to have the whole cycle under his thumb!"

"And what is that animagus?"

"The Sphinx. He gains a sphinx animagus and he has it made."

"As if with his Phoenix, he has not already... What happens if he gets the other three Phoenix types?"

"Remus, you are asking much. That he already has that collection of magical life-forms under his diaper belt is scary enough, assuming he wears a diaper still. Each Phoenix gives its animagus the control of the element it embodies. In this case, Harry has control over water, a life element. He can drown, desiccate, make it rain or dry out. And do you know how much power an ocean contains? Or a river?"

"Of that, I have serious doubts. I suspect the conversion to Ice Phoenix removed that moral constraint."

"Why did you ask about him specifically?"

"We want to find him. And I thought we might get an address from the book."

"Let us see: Forest of Dean, fifteenth Oak Stump? What in Merlin’s hairy balls does that mean?"

"Minerva!"

"I was married, Remus."

"I am off. I need to get the others to the Forest of Dean. Oak stumps must not be that common."

"In a forest of oaks? Dream on. Take the fireplace to move out."

"Good bye."