章節 10: Chapter 9: Light and Dark Clash Part 1
Sirius stared at his fleeing godson's back, feeling as if the world had just taken a sharp left turn without warning anyone.
Pettigrew was dead.
The thought was as satisfying as it was horrible.
He hadn't meant for things to go that far, but once Peter had started talking and begging for his miserable life, still making excuses even now, the familiar red haze from twelve years ago had come down. Sirius was actually surprised that he'd limited himself to non-lethal spells, but that was probably more to do with the fact that his mind had been on causing pain and he hadn't been in any state to shift mental gears.
He'd picked up quite a few nasty spells from his family even if he hadn't wanted to and Azkaban had given him a long time to fantasize about using them.
The fact that it would now be much harder to prove his innocence was a distant secondary concern to the fact that Harry had killed someone. Thirteen was way too young to have that hanging over you.
Then was the fact that Harry had cast a lethal spell without his wand. The most wandless magic that Sirius had ever seen had come from Dumbledore, but even that had been just parlor tricks and not really anything too impressive aside from the fact that it was wandless.
But his godson's astonishing achievement wasn't important right now. He needed to go see if Harry was alright.
He found him outside, kneeling in the snow and staring at the night sky with a look that was hard to decipher. It looked like something between shock, awe and a sort of horrified realization.
Harry picked himself up before Sirius could make his way over, his face now hardened into an expression of driven purpose that he'd last seen on Lily's.
"Harry..." He started, not really sure what to say to make this situation better.
"Not now, Sirius." Harry snapped, brushing past him roughly.
Sirius shrank back, incorrectly assuming that his godson was angry at him for losing it with Wormtail.
Not wanting to let things stew, he ran to catch up to the stomping thirteen year old and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Harry, I'm so-"
He made it no further than that. Harry spun around and grabbed him by his robes, actually lifting him off the ground, much to his incredulity.
"What part of 'not now' do you not understand?!" Harry hissed furiously, tossing him aside and sending him stumbling into a couch. "Whatever you have to say, say it later. I have somethig that I have to do. Until then, don't bother me."
And Sirius obeyed, cowed into submission by a boy twenty years younger than him. He obeyed because Harry seemed so much more than just a thirteen-year old wizard in that moment. Too tall and too strong and too powerful. Age didn't mean much when he could feel the unmistakable pressure of a powerful wizard's magic pressing threateningly into his own, daring him to rise up in challenge.
Worse than any of that though, was the sense of something inhuman staring out from Harry's eyes.
XXXXX
Harry regretted blowing up at Sirius like that, but he was still grateful that it kept the man off his back. He'd apologize later. He had no time to talk about the giant fuck up they had to deal with now. He had no time to deal with the fact that he'd killed a man. He had no time to explain to his godfather about the wandless magic and the runes, which he knew that he was now going to have to do.
The only thing he had time for was to finish preparing for the next ritual and he didn't even have as much time for that as he'd have liked.
His soul had stopped cracking and the spread of Dark had slowed, but it was still spreading nonetheless. He expected that it would always be there even if his next ritual managed to balance it out enough to save him.
What the Void took, the Void kept. Of this he was certain. He had made a sacrifice to that entity, giving it a place in his magic in exchange for power. He had done it ignorantly, unknowingly, but he had done it all the same. It would not leave.
So many questions and theories crowded his thoughts, but he had to focus. He had to hurry before the Dark did more than merely ooze through the cracks in his soul, before it started taking things that could never be regained. Because he was afraid that it would do worse than just kill him. If it wanted that, it only needed to wait. Everyone and everything went to the Void in the end. Harry wasn't sure how he knew that, but he knew it.
What he was truly afraid of here wasn't dying, it was the grim certainty that dementors weren't really Non-Beings at all, but the empty shells of wizards who had dabbled with the Void without taking the necessary precautions. Now nothing more than hollow carriers of Dark, their magic turned into a conduit for the Void, existing to take things from a world that was otherwise protected by the Sun.
XXXXX
A day later, the final preparations were complete and the ritual was set to begin.
Harry could feel that the Dark inside him had grown stronger, but not yet so strong that he was too late. It had been getting harder to focus, harder to feel afraid of what was happening to him. The world now seemed just a touch surreal, as if he was looking at it through a dirty pane of glass. As the Dark grew in strength, his sense of self waned.
Harry wasn't oblivious to the rather disturbing similarities that his situation had with the Dark Souls game franchise. He'd tried to play it years ago and gave up in a huff when it proved too difficult for his nine year old self, but he had come to appreciate its surprisingly deep and subtle plot later on, even if he had never personally finished the game.
The fact that he was now intending to link himself to the Sun in order to stave off the Dark amused him and terrified him in equal measure. He remembered all too clearly what happened to the Chosen Undead if he decided to link the fires in the Kiln of the First Flame.
He really hoped that he wasn't going to set himself on fire doing this. It was going to be his last ritual one way or another, because if this worked then he didn't want to risk upsetting the balance with any further additions.
He had originally been intending to perform this ritual in the Potter ritual chamber like all the others, but it just didn't feel right to do this one beneath the ground.
That was why he was now making his way away from the manor in the pre-dawn darkness, moving towards the east. The light covering of snow crunched under his shoes as he walked and the night was cold and black, seeming even colder and darker because the skies were clear. The moon and stars did nothing to counter that feeling when he could feel the Void pressing in around him.
He turned his mind away from that, knowing instinctively that focusing on it would only make things worse. He focused on making a suitable platform for the ritual instead, using the wand he'd retaken from Sirius on his way out to transfigure a flat stone surface and then inscribing the instructions on it that would allow the knife to act independently.
This time, there was no hesitation as he took off his shirt and began the ritual.
"Ca'Daith."
Grace. Power. Music of the Stars.
A rune to to call on the Light magic that he was now certain was inherent to the stars and also to make sure that he did not rely completely on the Sun. It would be the height of irony to find out that this final rune set only worked during the day. He decided to have it carved just under his left collarbone. It seemed appropriate to have it mirror Arhain.
"Yen'Lui."
Balance. Harmony. Chaos.
This rune's sole purpose was to ensure that the clash of Light and Dark inside him didn't have explosive results. He feared that the Sun would burn him out if he did not use this rune. There was an uncomfortably high chance of it happening anyway. This one was carved on the lower end of his breastbone, equidistant from both Arhain and Ca'Daith.
"Sol."
The Sun. The Ever Seeing Eye. Consciousness.
This rune was doubled and carved into his temples. He'd been planning to use it to enhance his eyes and give himself the ability to see magic as well as expand his capacity to feel it. That had now become its secondary purpose, but Harry was still pleased that he was able to sneak in one final enhancement.
Once the carving was done, Harry took a deep breath and waited tensely, knowing that the ritual was not over yet. Of the three runes, only Yen'Lui felt active, which was as he had expected. The other two would become active once they were hit by sunlight, which should be any second now if the brightening sky was any indication.
He grunted in surprised pain as the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon and washed over him. He hadn't expected that magic born in the violence of the Solar Core would be gentle, but its fierceness still surprised him. How had wizards ever gotten the idea into their heads that Light was gentle?
Ca'Daith and Sol burned. Yen'Lui prickled madly as it attempted to temper the violent reaction between Light and Dark.
Harry shut his eyes tighly as Sol executed its purpose. They stung terribly and he felt them bleed from the sudden change. He'd expected that, so it didn't worry him.
At the same time, he felt his perception expand as the rune's power touched his mind. The sensations were jumbled, unfamiliar as they were to him, but what was happening inside him was clear.
Dark gave way before Light as was its nature, but with the understanding that it would still be there, that it could never be pushed out. His other runes broke open and bled as Light burned through them. Where Dark was cold and slow, Light was fire and voraciously consumed all it touched.
Once it had pushed the Dark out of all the runes except Arhain, where a shard of Dark was connected to the infinite Void and could not be burned away, it surged into the cracks in his soul. It didn't hurt in the physical sense, but Harry knew instantly that he had preferred the gentle creep of Dark. Given the slightest opportunity, Light would burn him to nothing.
It was a decidedly uncomfortable experience to feel the Dark slowly relinquishing its grip on the edges of his damaged soul as Light advanced, but there was nothing to do except endure it as Yen'Lui worked to keep things from spiralling out of control.
But there was one chunk of his soul that the Dark had grasped tightly and seemed intent on taking. It had nearly pulled it away from the whole.
No, not my soul. Harry realized, now seeing that the piece did not match the rest of him. It had a dormant quality to it, but it was unquestionably foreign. That isn't mine, it doesn't belong there. How did a piece of someone else's soul attach itself to me?
It must have been with him for a long time, to have gone undetected until he'd cracked his soul enough to expose it. Unlike the rest, this one piece felt as if it been rather haphazardly attached to him and had come loose once his soul was no longer whole.
Voldemort, it has to be. Something of him must have been left inside me when he tried to kill me.
Not really sure what he was doing, but knowing that he definitely did not want that madman's soul latched on to his own, Harry pushed. He focused on that foreign soul shard and began forcing it out. He had been afraid of what would happen if the Dark took any of his soul, but it was more than welcome to the piece of Voldemort.
Its already tenuos grip on him broke once he rejected it so completely and the Dark took it instantly, as it did all unanchored souls.
With that done, the Dark put up no more struggle and allowed Light free reign.
Squinting with painfully stinging eyes, Harry shuffled back towards the manor.
XXXXX
Sirius hadn't been quite sure what to do with himself for the past day. Neither Teeny nor Charlus and Dorea would tell him what Harry was up to, but he was sure that it was something big.
His godson had locked himself in the study and hadn't left it since. His wand was still in Sirius' possession, apparently being considered unimportant, which was an attitude that Sirius had never expected to see from any witch or wizard. Then again, he hadn't expected to see this level of wandless magic either.
In the absence of anything else to do, he had put Wormtail's gruesome remains into stasis and stuffed them into an unused trunk. He was quite unrecognizable, but there were magical ways to determine a dead wizard's identity by his blood as long as they had his magical signature on file, which the Ministry should have. The corpse could still be useful.
Finally, after he had nearly paced a hole into the floor in fruitless worry, Harry had come out of the study.
Unfortunately, all he had done was grab his wand from Sirius possession with a terse warning to stay inside. He'd tried to get some answers out of Charlus and Dorea again, but they merely looked uncomfortable and still refused to speak. The only thing they would say was that it was Harry's secret to tell and that he should leave him alone to do what he was going to do.
Finally, Harry came back, but Sirius couldn't feel anything besides stunned horror at the sight of him.
His godson was only wearing a pair of pants and streaked with blood from head to toe. Even more disturbing were the twin trails of bloody tears coming from his eyes, eyes that were so bloodshot that the sclera had effectively turned completely red and whose green color now gleamed visibly with magic.
"Harry?" Sirius asked cautiously.
"Not yet, Sirius." Harry replied with weary clam. "Let me get cleaned up first, then we'll talk.
Sirius looked worried, but nodded all the same. His godson had been up to something obviously dangerous and quite probably illegal, but it seemed like the worst was over. He could wait a little longer to get answers.
XXXXX
XXXXX
"....and here we are." Harry finished, slouched in an armchair.
Sirius looked at his godson, looking less like some kind of eldritch abomination and more like a human being now that the blood had been cleaned off, his sclera had gone back to white and he was dressed in a comfortable bathrobe. He could almost convince himself that nothing had changed, if only it wasn't for the rune that he could plainly see carved into his godson's forehead now that he'd been told it was there and the shimmer of magic in his eyes that made them a touch brighter than they'd been before.
It had been quite a tale and Sirius wasn't sure whether to be impressed or horrified.
"Harry, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell is wrong with you?" He asked in a deadpan tone of voice. "What kind of eleven year old is introduced to magic and thinks 'I think I'll ritualistically mutilate myself'?"
"The kind that grew up thinking of all the cool enhancement rituals he could do?" Harry asked rhetorically.
Sirius went on as if he hadn't said anything. "And then, when you figured out that your first set was giving you the urge to shag your foster mother, you didn't think that it might have been a good idea to rethink things?"
Harry didn't know it yet, but this was mildly hypocritical of Sirius. It wouldn't have stopped him either. Well, it would have if it had made him lust after his own mother, who had been a hag in every sense of the word except the literal one, but being attracted to a fine piece of ass like Katherine Shaw would not have bothered him in the slightest, no matter his relation to her.
"It seemed like a fair trade." Harry shrugged. "An overactive libido and a bad temper in exchange for a stronger body and faster maturation? I regret nothing."
"And your second set, the one that nearly turned you into a dementor just now?" Sirius demanded. That had been an unwelcome revelation and he wasn't sure if he believed his godson's claim of dementors being the leftovers of wizards who'd carelessly dabbled with Dark. It was just too creepy for words.
"That one I might have done differently if I knew what was going to happen." Harry admitted.
"Might have?!"
"Despite the close shave, I'm actually pretty happy with the way things turned out. You have no idea about all the things I see and know now." He could see the magic in the manor and in Sirius and he could feel the Sun in the sky. There were so many things that he had been blind to before.
"And Wormtail?" Sirius challenged, becoming frustrated with his godson's recklesness. He'd thought that Harry was a lot like Remus; quiet, studious, thoughtful and he was, but when it came to magic he was a hundred times as reckless as all the Marauders put together.
Harry sobered instantly. He'd been trying not to think of that.
"We might still be able to use him to clear your name, we'll just have to be creative about the cause of his death."
"That's not what I meant, Harry." Sirius said gently.
"I know."
"You don't have to feel guilty. I probably would have killed him myself if you hadn't done it."
"Sirius, I killed a man because I lost my temper. Don't patronize me." And he couldn't even feel too sorry about it for any reason but for the fact that it would make proving Sirius' innocence harder. Yes, he wished that he hadn't done it, but he was not as broken up about it as he felt that he should be.
The worst part was that he didn't know if that was yet another side-effect of his runes or if it was something about him. Were the runes or his exposure to Light and Dark meddling with his sense of morality, or was he simply somewhat lacking in that department to begin with? Either way it was a disturbing thought.
He could feel the potential to cast the Killing Curse within him now. It was such a terribly simple spell, as simple as Lumos. Nothing but raw killing intent given power through magic. No shield could block it because it was so pure in its intent that only something equally pure could block it. Something like a mother's willing sacrifice for her child. It wasn't an Unforgivable because the spell was Dark or evil, it was an Unforgivable because you had to be a killer already to cast it.
XXXXX
That evening found Harry on the highest balcony of the manor, looking to the west.
He and Sirius hadn't managed to work out a viable solution to his fugitive status just yet. They had tentative plans, but nothing that they were in a hurry to implement at this point for fear of it backfiring spectacularly. Wormtail's death made things complicated. They'd have to spin it in a way that didn't make it look like murder.
Now Harry was waiting for the sunset, running his hands over his invisibility cloak and wondering at the piece of Dark he could see and sense in it now. Such a strange thing that he'd carried it around for years and never known it.
He'd read that invisibility cloaks tended to degrade into uselessness after a few years, but this one had by all accounts been around for decades at the least. Harry knew that this was due to it being infused with Dark. It had to be one of a kind, as he doubted that the secrets to this kind of craft had been shared beyond the original maker. Maybe Sirius would know about any legendary invisibility cloaks or similar artefacts.
When the Sun began to set, Harry observed it with a rapturous smile. He'd never paid much attention to sunsets before, but now he found them impossible to ignore.
How could he, when he could feel the Sun's blinding presence recede to make way for the Dark and the stars? The Sun was too close and too powerful. It blotted out so much. Now that it had set, he could see and feel the distant Light of uncountable billions of stars against the backdrop of Dark. He'd never thought that something so beautiful could exist. Even more, it was echoed inside his own soul. The Light inside him waned with the Sun, making way for Dark, speckled with the Light of the distant stars.
If given the choice to redo things with the knowledge he now had, he wouldn't change this. The risk of death and hollowing had been worth it to be able to see magic as he saw it now. He would have done it in a more controlled manner, but he would have done it anyway.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to return." He murmured to himself, recalling the old quote from Da Vinci that he'd come across years ago. It fit the situation perfectly.
Now that he'd seen past the tiny perspective of wizards, he could never again confine himself to that world. Wizards who learned spells but did not know them, who used magic but did not know it, who's best explanation boiled down to 'it just was'. It would drive him mad as surely as having to pretend that he was a toddler again.
XXXXX
"Legendary invisibility cloaks?" Sirius said in surprise. "Why would you want to know about that?"
"There's something special about this one." Harry answered, holding up his father's cloak but not elaborating further.
"I don't really know the story behind it." Sirius said with a shrug. "I know that it's a Potter family heirloom, but that's all."
"And that doesn't strike you as strange?" Harry asked pointedly. "Invisibility cloaks aren't supposed to last that long."
"A lot of old magical artefacts are pretty extraordinary by today's standards. To quote a muggle, 'they don't make 'em like they used to'."
"I'm surprised that you can actually quote a muggle." Harry snorted.
"I'll have you know that I'm actually very knowledgeable about muggles." Sirius protested indignantly. "My family hated them, so I made sure to be as muggle as possible. I even got myself a motorcycle, though I did enchant it to fly. That's actually where I heard that particular saying."
"Riiiight." Harry drawled laconically, deciding not to ask whether Sirius had a license. "But back to the point, legendary invisibility cloaks?"
"Nothing really comes to mind." Sirius admitted. "The only thing I can think off is the tale of the Deathly Hallows, but that's just a children's story."
"Tell it to me."
"Aren't you a bit old for bedtime stories?" The dog animagus teased.
Harry just rolled his eyes and waved at him, silently telling him to get on with it.
"I'll tell it to you if you tell me how your night with those two lovely ladies of yours went." Sirius bargained. He and James had always swapped details about these things, but Harry was proving to be a more secretive fellow. James hadn't become like that until he'd gotten together with Lily.
Harry rolled his eyes again. "What's there to tell? We met up somewhere private, we got naked, we had sex, we fell asleep."
"You can't cheapen your first sexual experience like that, especially since it was a threesome!" Sirius protested.
"I lost my virginity back in July." Harry replied blandly.
"Damn!" Sirius cursed.
"What?"
"That means you were twelve at the time."
"So?"
"That means you ditched your virginity two years sooner than me."
"So?"
"How am I supposed to be a rolemodel if you outperform me in everything?"
"You can stick around and provide a morale boost by showing me how great I am in comparison."
"That's harsh, Harry."
"So is life, now get to the bedtime story."
Sirius grinned at the banter, fondly remembering similar verbal spars with James. His best friend might be gone, but something of him had survived in his son.
"Alright, fine. It goes like this....."
XXXXX
House elves were weird.
That was Harry's conclusion as he watched Teeny use some magic with his new magesight, as he'd requested. The small house elf's magic looked like nothing he'd ever seen. He had admittedly not seen much since he'd only just acquired the ability to see magic, but it just looked....weird, almost like human magic, but so warped.
He'd tried to enlist her help in figuring out wandless magic soon after he'd first come to the manor, but that had been a dead end. House elves had no idea how they used magic, they just did. That had been quite frustrating to hear at the time. How can you use something if you didn't know how you used it? His persistent questioning had nearly driven Teeny to tears when she had been unable to answer him, so he'd let it go.
House elves also couldn't use spells in the same fashion as wizards. In fact, they couldn't cast spells at all. The closest aproximation they could make was a blast of force that could pass for a banishing or bludgening spell. Pretty much everything else they could do revolved around their duties as servants, which made sense in light of the fact that house elves would literally die if they weren't bonded to a master or a powerful magical location for an extended period.
Which of course made not a lick of sense if you took it out of the Wizarding World sandbox and looked at it from a broader perspective. There was simply no conceivable situation in which an entire sapient species would evolve to be slaves to another, no matter how special witches and wizards thought they were.
Conclusion? House elves weren't natural.
Admittedly it was a conclusion based mostly on conjecture, but it made more sense to him than the alternative, especially when the feel of their magic was taken into account.
"Teeny, do house elves eat?" He asked.
"Sir?" She asked, confused.
"Do you need food the way that I do?"
"No sir, house elves only be needing a master's magic." She answered with a shake of her head, sending her big ears flopping everywhere.
Definitely unnatural. Harry was betting on some kind of sophisticated homunculi that had over time developed sapience. He certainly wouldn't put it past some wizard to have gotten the idea to create a servant race because he couldn't be bothered to fluff his own pillows.
Probably best to keep that bit of conjecture to himself. He couldn't think of a single positive outcome if he started spread that around. At least not right now.
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"You know that this is illegal, right?" Sirius asked wryly.
"Sirius, you are a fugitive from the law and I am harboring you, not to mention the mangled carcass we have stashed in a trunk. I hardly think that the legalities of you teaching me to apparate four years ahead of schedule are noteworthy."
"Alright, just checking." He'd tried. If Harry didn't want to be a responsible citizen, then far be it from Sirius to try and make him one.
With a noisy crack, Sirius apparated about three feet to the left.
"Huh, that's interesting." Harry commented.
"What is?" The past few days with his godson had shown Sirius that Harry sometimes noticed things about magic that most people missed. Lily had that quality too, though not quite the same. Maybe it was due to them having a muggle upbringing.
"I wonder how it works?" Harry mused, apparently to himself.
"The way it was explained to me is that you have to keep the three D's in mind. Destination, Determination and Deliberation. You need to keep the destination fixed firmly in your mind, you have to be utterly determined to reach it, and you have to be very deliberate but unhurried about it. Once you've got all that, you just kind of...will yourself to wherever you want to go."
"Yes, that's how you do it, but how does it work?"
Sirius blinked. "What?"
Harry sighed. Honestly.
Sirius frowned. Lily had sighed exactly like that whenever someone said something especially stupid to her. James had gotten sighed at like that a lot.
"Do it again."
Sirius shrugged to himself and apparated again.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
"Harry, why am I apparating back and forth like this?"
"Because I'm trying to figure out how exactly you're using your magic to create a pathway through space without killing yourself."
"Such a bloody Ravenclaw." Sirius complained. "Just try it already. I'm pretty sure that I can fix you if you end up splinching yourself."
"I'd rather not test that belief, now do it again."
"Fine." Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Sigh. Crack.
"What does it feel like to apparate?"
"Kind of like being squeezed through a tube actually. Pretty unpleasant until you get used to it."
"Hmm, do it again."
An even more dramatic sigh. Crack.
"What's with the crack?"
"No idea, but it happens every time someone apparates?"
"Probably just violently displaced air then, but better safe than sorry. Do it again."
Sigh with eyeroll. Crack.
"Ah, I see."
"What are you seeing, oh wise one?" Sirius asked dryly.
"You're forming a narrow pathway through space and then forcing yourself through it. The interesting part is that the 'exit' side of this little magical wormhole has to be anchored in some way to the planet for it to be safe. That must be why rushing it leads to splinching, you don't anchor yourself properly and come out wrong. How you're managing to do it subconsciously escapes me though, probably lucky chance. Maybe...hmm....Apparating into the air doesn't work, does it? "
"No. In fact, apparating onto anything at all that isn't solid ground is a good way to get splinched, sometimes even killed and there's even stories of people vanishing altogether, never to be seen again." Sirius said, a bit confused as to how Harry had guessed that. And what the hell was a wormhole anyway?
"A quirk of thought then. You automatically associate solid ground with the planet and that's apparently enough to keep you safe. Rather amusing how close to messy death you are every time you apparate."
"There you go, scaring me with all these theories like a typical Ravenclaw." Sirius said. "I really need to teach you a few Gryffindor qualities."
"Blockheaded stupidity isn't a quality, Sirius."
"Your mother said that a lot, but I never gave in to her peer pressure."
"Obviously."
"Well then smarty pants, why don't you show me how it's done?"
Harry honestly thought apparition to be a rather insane mode of travel, but instantaneus teleportation was entirely too useful a skill to not learn simply because it was crazy. Occlumency helped him fix the image of his destination in his mind and then he simply willed himself to pass through the intervening space in a wormhole made of his own magic, making sure that the exit was latched on to the planet to prevent any mishaps. Earth wasn't a stationery object in space after all and he had a feeling that those people who had disappeared had ended up drifting through vacuum.
Crack.
Sirius hadn't been kidding, that really was unpleasant.
"Showoff."
Harry smirked at his godfather, openly gloating at one upping him.
"So, is there any other illegal bit of magic that you'd like to learn today?" Sirius asked sarcastically.
Harry considered it for a moment and then nodded. He could practice apparating later.
"The animagus transformation."
Sirius was surprised for a moment and then chuckled gleefully.
"Ah, a new Marauder in the making!"
"Hate to break it to you, Sirius, but I'm not much of a prankster." Harry pointed out.
"I'm sure we can turn you into one." Sirius said with authority and then affected a pensive look. "But I think we might want to wait until the summer to start teaching you that. It's not something that you can do in a few days."
For one thing, the animagus transformation could be dangerous and Harry had demonstrated a disturbingly large amount of recklessness with dangerous magic. For another, if he tried to finish it on his own and screwed up, he'd have to go to McGonagall to fix it and that would expose the secret. Being an animagus was way more fun if nobody knew it.
XXXXX
In the end, Sirius and Harry decided to deal with the Pettigrew situation over the summer. Neither one of them had any faith in the fairness of the government, one from bitter experience and the other from a deliberately cultivated sense of cynicism, so making hasty decision was a no-no. They would communicate through letters for the rest of the school year and hammer out a plan to be executed during the summer. Harry would have the free time to deal with it then and this was something that his fame would actually be useful for. Besides getting laid that was.
Harry sighed in his train compartment, alone for now. Hogwarts was starting to become a nuisance. He still loved to learn about magic, but other things were starting to pile up and he couldn't keep putting them off until the summer all the time. Not to mention that he was outpacing the curriculum and starting to become quite bored in a number of classes.
"Hello again, Harry." A dreamy voice greeted as the door slid open.
Of course, there were upsides to Hogwarts, Harry conceded with a smile.
"Hey Luna."
"How was your Christmas?" She asked as she sat down.
"It was interesting." He replied, barely managing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
"I suppose it must have been." Luna agreed, peering at his eyes.
Harry knew that they were too bright. His green eyes had always been vibrant, but now they verged on the point of glowing. No doubt a side effect of the Sol runes constantly keeping a bit of Light in them.
Mercifully, Luna apparently decided not to ask questions. "I had a visit from Ginny."
"Oh?" Harry questioned, more out of a desire to move past the topic of his eyes than any real curiousity. Luna's 'go with the flow' attitude was something that he'd always liked.
"Yes, she wanted to wish me a merry Christmas and speculate about how many girls you're sleeping with."
"Really?" Ginny had drifted off into acquaintance status this year, apparently unable to deal with the fact that he was nothing at all like she'd imagined. She clearly wasn't above gossiping though.
"Ginny thinks there's only Bryanna, but I'm pretty sure that you've also got one in Slytherin."
Harry was normally very reticent with information of any kind, he hadn't even told Luna about his invisibility cloak, but right at that moment he felt like being honest. Maybe keeping quiet about this just didn't seem important anymore after what had happened recently, or maybe Sirius was a bad influence on him.
"I actually have three. There's also this muggle girl that I meet up with during the summer."
Luna clapped her hands excitedly at the news. "Oh, that's wonderful! It makes my Christmas present even more appropriate!"
"How so?" Harry asked, bemused.
Instead of answering, Luna went for her trunk and dug out a book.
"'The Lovegood Guide on how to Love Very Good'?" Harry read the title, even more bemused.
"My great-great-grandmother was making a study of sex magic and preparing to publish that book before the European Ministries unanimously classed sex magic as a Dark Art in 1870. She wasn't able to publish it after that, but she still finished it." Luna explained without being prompted.
"How in the world could sex magic be classed as a Dark Art?" Harry demanded irritably. Of all the stupid things to classify as a Dark Art.....
"It was first used by the Succubi and the Ministry deemed that anything used by them had to be a Dark Art."
"Succubi are real?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Not any more. The last of them was killed in 1637." Luna answered mournfully.
"Let me guess, they weren't the soul sucking demons of myth but just a misunderstood race of gorgerous women?" Harry ventured. He wouldn't put it past wizards, or in this case more likely witches, to wipe out another species out of some misplaced sense of righteousness.
"Its never been proven that they sucked out souls." Luna chirped, causing Harry to blink at the implications of the statement. "There's a short exposition on Succubi at the beginning of the book if you're interested."
Harry was indeed interested and would be reading the book cover to cover as soon as he got the chance, but first he had his own gift to give.
"I've got something for you as well." He told Luna and went for his own trunk.
"He's so cute!" Luna squeed, looking at the hamster that Harry had just handed her.
"He's more than just cute," Harry said sternly, putting herculean effort into keeping a grin off his face. "this is Boo and he's a miniature giant space hamster."
"Really?" Luna asked in awe.
"Really." Harry confirmed. "He will smite evil and gouge out its eyeballs whenever he sees it."
Perhaps playing on Luna's eccentricies was a bit mean, but he hadn't been able to resist. The mental imagery had simply been too hilarious and the girl certainly seemed to be happy with her new pet. Hamsters and rangers everywhere were surely rejoicing.
XXXXX
The return to Hogwarts was a bit distracting to Harry. The thestrals were touched by Dark. He hadn't expected that, though perhaps he should have. The realization distracted him thorougly and made him poor company on the ride back as he considered the implications.
Was that state natural or had some overly curious wizard wanted to see what would happen if he infused a winged horse with Dark? He was going to need to investigate that eventually.
So preoccupied was he that he barely noticed the speculative looks several people gave his eyes, wondering if their memory was playing tricks on them or if they had always been that bright.
His thoughts were still on the thestrals when he felt yet another presence of Dark, this time as Dumbledore rose from the staff table to make a speech.
"I have at long last been able to prevail upon Minister Fudge to recall the dementors back to Azkaban, as it seems clear that Sirius Black has no intention of coming to Hogwarts." The old wizard was saying.
Harry registered the words, but only barely. He'd noted the absence of dementors on their approach to the school, so that answered that little mystery, but most of his focus was on the wand he could sense in Dumbledore's sleeve.
It radiated Dark, just like his invisibility cloak. It was the only wand in the Great Hall that did so. The phoenix feather wands were like a tiny spark of sunlight to his senses, well suited to explosive bursts of magic. The unicorn hair wands felt like a gentle stream of moonlight and were probably better off used for calmer magics. The dragon heartstring ones strangely did not give off a feeling of fire as he had expected, but of a more robust and enduring strength.
Dumbledore's wand though....it could only be the Elder Wand. Sirius had been disparaging of the tale of the brothers Peverell, and Harry had to agree that them meeting an anthropomorphic manifestation of Death and getting it to give them super powerful magical doodads for no easily explicable reason was unlikely, but he had been willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt in some measure. He may not be prepared to believe that Death was a person, but he was more than ready to believe that the three brothers had dabbled with Dark and learned how to use it to enchant certain items.
Now that he'd lain eyes on the wand, that belief was all but confirmed. He had to wonder where the Resurrection Stone was.
XXXXX
As soon as he was alone in his room, Harry cracked open the book Luna had given him and started reading.
Sex magic is something that has long been thought of as the domain of certain non-human magical beings. Given the recent thrust by the Veela Covenant to be recognized as equals under wizard law, I decided to research it myself and publish my findings so that we may better understand the Veela and their magics.
The decision of the European Ministries of Magic to classify all sex magic as a Dark Art the previous year and prohibit its use has put an end to this intention, but I will still finish this book if only for my own purposes.
The first mention of sex magic dates back to Ancient Sumeria and the sorceress that would later become most widely known as Lilith, the Queen of the Succubi.
Little is known of Lilith's origins, but it is known that she was born human. Her transformation into a Succubus has long been an unanswered mystery and will likely remain so. The other thing that is known of Lilith is her mastery of sex magic.
After her transformation, Lilith spent a millenium ensnaring the minds of wizards and witches alike and consuming their magic to sustain her life and power. For this reason, she eventually became revered as a fertility goddess and feared as a voracious demon.
This was a time long before wands and magic schools, meaning that trained magic users were few and far between and none of them very powerful. Lilith's Succubus transformation had among other things granted her immense control over fire and her ability to enthrall the minds of near any magical being made her unassailable by magical means. She was eventually slain by the hand of the muggle Hero-King Gilgamesh, who was immune to Lilith's enthrallment ability due to his lack of magic.
But Lilith had spawned a legion of Succubi daughters during her long life and they continued to prey on wizardkind, learning from the death of their mother and adopting a more subtle approach by targeting mostly those who were young, untrained, easily seduced or otherwise vulnerable.
Though popular muggle folklore portrays the Succubi as horned and bat winged demons, they were in fact indistinguishable from human women, save for their beauty, allure, intrinsic control of fire and the ability to partially transform into a hybrid bird creature at need. This made it easy for them to hide amongst human populations if they were careful and fed on the unwary or ignorant.
Their fortunes turned with the establishment of Hogwarts and similar magic schools later on. With fewer and fewer victims going untrained and unguarded, they were forced to go after more risky prey. The increased danger and lack of sustenance took a great toll on their numbers.
Unlike their mother, Lilith's daughters were unable to breed more Succubi and the last was eventually killed in 1637.
One among their number, the Succubus Velana, did however learn to spawn more children that were not Succubi. These came to be called Veela. They are possessed of similar powers as the Succubi, but much weaker. However, Veela also do not need to prey on magicals for survival and have been able able to endure despite the stigma of their origins.
After centuries of being hunted, Veela have now successfully won their acceptance in the majority of Europe, though their innate ability to use sex magic has been classified as a Dark Art in a rather transparent attempt to limit their influence.
Harry kept on reading long after he would have usually gone to bed, completely absorbed in the book. Much of the writing done by Luna's ancestor was theory and speculation, in no small part due to the fact that sex magic could not be done with a wand.
Which was exactly why Harry found it so fascinating in the first place, even beyond the subject matter.
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when something occured to him.
"How the hells did Luna know that I wouldn't give a shit about the Ministry prohibition, or that I would like the wandless aspect?" He wondered, baffled. "Did she know, or was it just a coincidence?"
He pondered the vagaries of his friend for another half hour before metaphorically tossing his hands into the air in frustration and going to bed.
XXXXX
Harry sighed in his Charms class.
They were currently going over the Freezing spell, which Harry had known for some time. Even if he hadn't known it, he could have gotten the hang of it within minutes. Even watching the energy flow with his newly acquired magesight had gotten old already.
Flitwick was a good teacher, but Harry was bored out of his skull in his classes these days. Now that he could see magic as well as feel it, it seemed like he had an easier time mastering wandlessly what his classmates struggled to master with a wand.
XXXXX
Transfiguration was an interesting subject that was quickly becoming as dull as Charms.
While doing it wandlessly had always been a problem, doing it with a wand was simple enough, even if a dragon heartstring wand would have been better suited for the task.
Now that he could observe the process happenning, he was starting to figure out the nuances that would let him do it without a wand.
This had the unfortunate side-effect of making the class itself mostly superfluous. He spent almost the entire time ignoring McGonagall and doing his own thing.
XXXXX
"Potter, stop staring at your cauldron and start brewing!" Snape shouted.
Harry jerked in surprise, having gotten caught up in watching the magic of the ingredients interacting in his cauldron.
"Sorry, sir." He apologized and went to complete the potion.
Half an hour later, he was once again staring at his unfinished potion in fascination, wondering at the strange swirls and eddies that his stirring was making in it. He had no idea what any of it meant, but it was mesmerizing. All that 'stir clockwise six times and counter clockwise four times' crap was finally making some sense.
"POTTER!"
XXXXX
"Harry, please stay after class."
Harry raised an eyebrow. Looks like Lupin was finally done waffling. His indecisive shuffling had been getting beyond obvious in the lead up to the Christmas holidays.
When they were alone, Harry decided to ask the obvious question.
"Was there something you wanted, Professor?"
"Harry, the Headmaster tells me that you are aware of my relationship with your parents." Lupin stated after taking a bracingly deep breath.
"Yes."
Cue uncomfortable silence.
"I'm going to be late for Herbology." Not that he cared too much about that particular class, but standing here and waiting for the werewolf to get to the point was pretty tedious.
"I was wondering if you'd like to hear a few stories about them sometime." Lupin offered hopefully.
"Not really, I think I've got a general idea of the kind of people they were." It wasn't likely that he had anything new to add to what he'd already learned from Sirius, Charlus and Dorea.
"Harry, I'm sorry." Lupin suddenly said.
"What for?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"For never checking up on you, for not getting in touch when you started Hogwarts."
"Whatever your relationship with my parents, you don't and didn't owe me anything." Harry pointed out.
Remus winced at the even response. Perhaps he hadn't owed James, Lily or Harry anything, but it was a poor friend that didn't check up on the orphaned son of his friends.
"I still should have checked up on you. I couldn't take you in because of a medical condition I have, but I should have checked up on you."
"I did well enough without you." Harry replied, not deigning to inquire about the oblique reference to lycanthropy.
Remus winced again. That was another way of saying that he'd do well enough without him from here on out as well. Harry was being decidedly lukewarm about getting to know him, and Remus couldn't blame him. He wasn't upset about the absence, but he wasn't eager to get to know him either. It would've been easier if Harry was angry at him. That at least would have been clear.
"I'm going to need a note for Professor Sprout." Harry prompted.
Remus wrote him a note and spent the next twenty minutes brooding over past regrets. He'd really dropped the quaffle with Harry and there wasn't much he could do about it now.
XXXXX
Aside from Potions, the only class that had actually become more interesting since his little Christmas adventure was Astronomy.
He still thought that the telescopes could do with replacing. The enchantments on them made them substantially more powerful than they should be, but that just meant that the newer models would be even better.
That being said, it was hard not to develop an appreciation for the night sky when he could practically feel the stars singing in his magic.
"Have you got it, Harry?" Professor Sinistra asked, nudging him over so that she could take a look herself.
"Almost." He replied and let her do it, taking a private enjoyment at the feel of her breasts brushing against his back when she leaned over him.
And that was the other reason why he liked Astronomy. He was terribly tempted to flirt with the beautiful dark skinned Professor sometimes. He didn't, because that could turn out very problematic, but he was seriously tempted.
How ironic. Ginny had asked him earlier in the year whether he liked older women and he'd said yes mostly to get her off his back, but now it was turning out to be true. Women thirty-plus years in age did more for him than girls in their teens.
Sinistra was thirty-three. Vector was forty. Both of them were hot. He couldn't show even a hint of his attraction without making things very, very awkward. He didn't even know if they were in a relationship. Sometimes, life was just plain unfair.
Harry vowed to himself that he would try to sleep with at least one of them before he left Hogwarts.
XXXXX
Back at Potter Manor.
Sirius put down the glass of firewhiskey that he'd been about to drink and put a hand to his chest, wondering about the fierce burst of pride he'd just felt for his godson.
XXXXX
Harry returned to his room in a state of mild sexual frustration, which was pretty much normal for these late night Astronomy classes.
To the sight of Bryanna lounging on his bed, wearing what appeared to be a set of chocolate underwear, obviously enchanted to behave as it if were fabric.
"Hey lover."
Life might be unfair sometimes, but it could also be very good at other times. He'd been wanting to give some of the stuff he'd read in Luna's book a try for a while now, but he had needed a partner to do so. Luna's great-great grandmother had postulated a lot of theories, but only practice would determine whether they held any weight.
"I thought you could use a snack before bed."
Lots and lots of practice.
"I am feeling rather peckish." Harry admitted, quickly divesting himself of his clothes and firing a contraceptive charm at his midnight visitor.
Bryanna rolled her eyes t his paranoia. He still didn't trust the potion to do the job.
Harry paid her exasperation no mind as he climbed on the bed, zeroing in on her chocolate covered nipples.
Harry had no real idea how to implement the techniques described in the book, but he figured that he couldn't go far wrong if he started out by licking the chocolate off her breasts. He had magesight now, so enough experimentation was sure to yield results.
XXXXX
Bryanna let out a shuddering gasp as she rode Harry to her third orgasm, coincidentally triggering his fourth. She had no idea what he was doing, but his member felt even better in her than that vibration spell that Tiana had taught her at the end of last year.
Harry smirked to himself as Bryanna collapsed on top of him and nuzzled his neck, taking deep breaths all the while. Being able to see her magic reacting to his efforts was proving inordinately useful in figuring out how to please her. The book was written from the perspective of a woman, but it hadn't been too hard to adapt the knowledge.
"Mmm, what have you been doing over the holidays?" Bryanna nearly purred out, feeling deliciously satisfied. Harry had definitely been improving.
"Oh, this and that." He replied mysteriously, rubbing circles on her lower back and seeing if he could magically stimulate the nerves that were supposed to be there.
"Well keep at it." She instructed, mashing her chest into his and already feeling a slow heat returning to her groin despite her recent orgasm. The fact that she still had him sheathed inside her and was leaking a slow trickle of sperm from her opening was only making it better.
"Yes ma'am." Harry chuckled, slowly refining his technique based on the feedback feel he was getting from her own magic.
They stayed that way for a while, content to take a short break and let the desire build before they jumped back into the sex.
"What do you think about having a meeting with all four of us girls soon?" Bryanna asked out of the blue, raising her head to look him in the eye.
Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You mean...." He finished by pressing her down more firmly on his once again erect member.
Bryanna laughed lightly, realizing what she'd just implied. "You wish, Potter. No, that's not what I meant."
"Pity." He grinned. He could already imagine how jealous Sirius would be.
"Isabel drafted up a contract and we'd like you to take a look at it." She elaborated
"Sure." He agreed, starting to press kisses to her neck. "But I'm not interested in contracts right now."
"What are you interested then?" She asked huskily.
His hands went to cup her rear end and then he quickly spun them around so that he was the one on top.
"Oh, I could think of a thing or two." He said and kissed her, thrusting his hips forward in the same movement and delighting in her grunt of pleasure.
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