Harry Potter - Hellion!

 

Harry decided to take a leisurely trip within the Greek Islands, enjoying the sea bottom’s rich history, and regularly flying off to visit inland and eye the strange buildings he could see from the sea. He made many friends, both in and out of the water. His first new friend was a drowning bottle-nose Dolphin, whom he brought to the surface, much to the surprise of the dolphin’s mother. He then changed into the bottle-nosed dolphin he had collected, before regressing to the primitive dolphin form, only to return to the bottle-nose because its form was more efficient. The dolphin school was at a loss as to what had happened, and Harry was at a loss as to how to explain the event in ‘Dolphin’ as he had yet to enter in body contact with an adult and the little one was still at ‘baby-talk’ level.

Harry stayed with the Dolphin school for a while, and even managed to save the Elder of the pod, from a fishing net by using his primitive, rather long-beaked dolphin form to bite the net off the old male. The fishermen were furious at the loss of their net and tried to harm Harry, only to be faced by an enraged Megalodon that made short work of their ship’s bottom, sinking them.

Dolphin was not the only species Harry added: he met with an aggressive octopus that became lunch before becoming a genetic map. Seagull was another addition, more by accident, as he helped the school herd smelt to the surface by blowing bubbles around the fishes. As he rose to the surface, mouth wide open to capture as many in a gulp, a seagull dove to profit from the jumping fishes trying to escape their fate. It dove at a fish just as Harry reached the surface, ending up in Harry’s mouthful, getting mapped in the process.

By the end of July, near his second birthday, Harry had reached Alexandria and decided to part ways with the pod. That night, he jumped out of the water, flashed to his Phoenix shape, before taking off along the Nile.

By August first, the reports consolidated by the Royal Task Force included the Hydra incident, the Dolphin saving another by destroying a net, a shark sinking a fish boat but not attacking the sailors; and the strange sunrise in the middle of the night reported by a group of observers from the ruins of the Alexandria light-house. There, the trail dried as no one had reported anything unusual. The task force, now including Narcissa, had dutifully followed the trail, but had not been able to confirm anything. The ship was laying by five hundred and twenty feet, and water was too mobile to keep magical traces. The dolphins had disappeared in the vastness of the Mediterranean Sea.

---

Evan Rosier had made his way to Albania, no closer to Voldemort than in the spring, and the summer was running short. Some questioning of mages in Tirana revealed that some dark events had occurred on the border with Montenegro; He ported to the village mentioned by the locals, to find another trail that led him to a backwater village in Serbia, then via a series of hops, to a small town in Bulgaria. He met another Death-eater, Karkaroff’s Deputy headmaster for Durmstrang Institute, visiting family for summer vacation.

"You can claim the headmaster position, you know. Karkaroff may have made good his escape from Voldemort, but the SAS of the muggle Queen caught him unawares and he lost his head to the axe a month ago. He gave them a good run for their money, but he got a bit too cocky for his own good. Underestimating muggles has cost our cause immense losses."

"How do you know?"

"I read muggle papers now; and his head is hard to miss in the front page of the London Times, stuck on the top of a pike."

"Eww! Are you trying to give me nightmares?"

"Better nightmares than the reality of the axe, Smirnoff."

"At least, I am safe behind the school wards."

"Until they find you. They found Hogwarts and most if not all of the magical manors in the British islands in record time, once they decided to look for them. Wards are short-range protections. And they can see from quite far. What keeps you safe is that they are busy cleaning up the British Empire, from Australia to Canada. Once they are done... Who knows how far the British are willing to go to complete the task."

"You act afraid, Rosier."

"Because I am. I like where my head sits, not where it would if I ever got caught. So, keep a low profile, and you may live until tomorrow. I was thinking of trying to regroup us, but I reconsidered: I learned the hard way that regroupment eases the muggles’ task by giving them a bigger target to bring their forces to bear on, and that this is not conducive to good health... for us. Do not trust anyone, and especially not those wards. Well, I am off. If ever you hear anything about our Master, Smirnoff, send an encrypted letter containing the code in the selection of the first word; you know the code the Master used; T meaning shift the next letter by twenty, and so forth, with each letter of the word adding to the previous shift, etcetera?"

"Yes. I use it to keep my journal entries private. Magic is useful in that; it allows to produce a complete list of words to fill in a specific position while maintaining the coherence of the text."

"That, Smirnoff, is stupid. The more a coding scheme is used, the more likely it will be broken. You are lucky the Master never learned of that betrayal."

---

September first, 1982, Hogwarts

"Minerva, however dire the situation at Hogwarts is to fill the DADA teaching position, I can not drop the Royal mandate. I am in charge of the Harry Potter Royal Task Force. Yes, I come regularly to consult the Book of Souls, but, as you know, by the time we reach where Harry was last reported, we miss him by several days. The last look had him in Namibia, of all places. And that is when we do get a name. Usually the name we get is one dating to the Crusades, if not earlier! When he was a dolphin, we got a sea name, for what it was worth!"

"But Sirius..."

"I am serious, Minerva. This is not up to debate! Ask the muggles to teach DADA, for all I care!"

"But it is a core magical course!"

"For what good it did to the death-eaters! The muggles have ways to fight our youths must learn; magical wands are good for show and tell, but when it comes to killing, they are no match for a simple hand weapon, Minerva! The maximum range of a spell is thirty feet, what the muggles call close-range combat, and we call it long-range. I have seen a SAS guy blow a hole in a target two and a half miles away, Minerva. Try that with a wand! We lost the edge when they invented the crossbow, Minerva, the crossbow! And they keep those as we do sling-shots: to show how things have evolved over time! Learning how they fight is not an option, it is a question of survival! So, please, get over your superiority complex and adapt! Change! Or we will go the way of the dinosaurs: extinct!"

"We could hide!"

"It served us nicely, did it not? We are so out of touch with the outside world we are considered... curiosities! And hide where? We have to live on this wet ball of dirt, Minerva."

"Shangri-la, maybe?"

"Oh, sure! They have a map of the valley taken in 1945, at the end of the war with Grindelwald, Minerva. It is taken from the air, showing everything, from the Magical school there to the Gremlins looking stupidly up at the passing plane! There is no place to hide anymore. Even the Goblins have had to admit defeat, and that was not something I thought I would see in my life-time! They send flybys every few days, and monitor the valley from far away, a place they call Orbit. Minerva, their eyes in the sky are so attuned they can see a person taking a leak! Not to say anything about other things not fit for even my ears. And Shangri-la is under the purview of the Crown, since it was discovered on the British Empire’s lands."

"Oh?"

"They showed me Flitwick taking a pee in a field. Did you know he is circumcised? I knew he was half-goblin but I did not know he had undergone the ritual of adulthood."

"Point taken, Sirius," said a bleaching Minerva. "Is there any more you need to tell me?"

"A bit of gossip, that might or might not brighten your day. Amelia recovered her brother. You know how she felt about him being told to leave the Bones property by that intransigeant bitch, their mom, when Amelia’s dad died in the beginning of the war with Voldemort. She is ecstatic."

"Good for her. I hope he is okay."

"He is the medical officer for the Search and Recovery team of muggles we mages head for the Harry Potter Royal Task Force. That guy could give Pomfrey a run for her money. I learned a lot from listening to him. Did you know that the obsession with pure-blood has been the cause of our decline in numbers? Marrying too closely brings forth what they call genetic defects, and he demonstrated it in animals, and humans alike!"

"That only proves muggles are animals!"

"Minerva, stop it! If we can mate and produce viable children, we are humans. Anyway, the chance of a child surviving to birth diminishes the closer the parents are related. Consider the Carrows; they have been a couple for who knows how long and Alecto never carried to birth, not that they took any means to stop things from happening, I am sure. Alecto miscarried because the child was too deformed to reach birth. And quite a few pure-bloods practiced infanticide if a child was born with an apparent defect. And who knows how many squibs got killed over the years. Magic itself is telling us the way we do things is wrong, Minerva! The number of squibs has exploded. The number of children carried to term has dropped to the point a family is happy to have one. That is not enough to sustain a stable population, Minerva! Children die, and, even without that, we are losing half of our numbers at each generation!"

"I do not get it?"

"It takes two to do the mating dance, Minerva. Start with sixteen, the next generation will be eight children; the next four; and the next two, and oh surprise, if the lone child does not mate with his parent, that spells the end of the story! We need three children per family to have a chance at survival."

"You say magic is telling us to change, or else. How is that?"

"How many pure-bloods are at Hogwarts registry, for the first year group?"

"Fifty."

"And how many muggle-borns?"

"One hundred and fifty, or so."

"And how many half-bloods?"

"Seventy-five to eighty, I am not sure."

"So, there are three muggle-borns for each pure-blood; and there are two muggle-borns for each half-blood; overall, the number of muggle-borns matches the number of half-bloods plus the number of pure-bloods. The numbers speak for themselves, Minerva; we are being pushed aside by magic itself. Being obsessed with blood purity is an evolutionary dead end, as Doctor Bones explained to the Mages of the Royal Task Force. Get this: the weakening of power we have observed over the generations is due to too much in-breeding, which allows genetic defects to surface. We did this to ourselves, Minerva! The muggle-borns are the only way out of this impasse, and the fools followed Voldemort to their own funeral pyre! Ignorance is bliss is a muggle saying; they say it with irony, as they point to the sheep being led to the butcher. Voldemort was the shepherd leading the magical sheep to the butchery, time being, until recently, the handler of the ritual knife. Now, it is the muggle executioner that has taken over, more efficiently I might add, with that Lochaber axe. Anyway, Minerva, the mandatory update of the curriculum imposed by the muggles will bring us into the twentieth century, screaming and kicking, but it will. Her Majesty is more than pissed at our attitude."

---

Harry flew over the Egyptian desert, using the updrafts from the hot sands to climb and sustain his flight, enjoying the ease of flight they afforded him. He saw a set of strange paw prints that seemed, from his height, to jump huge distances. Curious, he began following them through the sand dunes until he finally caught up with the owner. It had four paws, yes, but also a set of very powerful wings, a tail and a mane like a lion, a muzzle that seemed to harbor a rather impressive set of teeth from the noise it was doing eating a water buffalo. Harry glided silently to land on the back of the still very busy animal. He read the language set, not going any deeper so as to respect his potential friend. Finally assured he would be understood, he changed shape, having previously taken a genetic sample.

"Good day!" said Harry, in ancient Sumerian, surprising the Sphinx, whom had not spoken that language in thousands of years. The feline looked down at the tiny human in shock.

"Good day, human. How come you speak my language?"

"I learned it; and I found out I knew it as soon as I could form my first sentence."

"Curious."

"What are you?"

"A sphinx. I am the embodiment of life."

"So, if, say..."

"Before I answer any more questions, human, you must prove yourself worthy of these answers. To test your readiness, I must ask you a riddle. If you fail, I will ignore you."

"Fine by me, but you too must answer a riddle to get answers from me. Fair is fair!"

"That is indeed fair. So, my riddle is: I walk on four legs then on two, an finally on three until I can no longer walk. Who am I?"

"That is easy: a human baby walks on four legs, or more precisely crawls; as he grows, he walks on two legs, and when he is old, he needs a cane, or three legs to move around; and he finally ends up bed-ridden before death; a man. I may be young, but I have travelled. My turn."

The sphinx was worried. That baby had solved one of his most difficult riddles in the blink of an eye. He sat down, listening to Harry’s riddle.

"I start as strong as a lion; yet in the end fall to the dog; and run around to catch my breath before becoming lion again. What am I?"

The sphinx though real hard. Unable to find an off-the-cuff answer, he began thinking aloud.

"Let us see, a lion is a cat; a big one, but a cat nonetheless; so, the thing that becomes a lion has to be a cat; then there is that dog that beats the lion; the way the riddle is worded, the lion falls to the dog, therefore is old; The only dog that can kill a lion, even ill, is the Grimm, the messenger of Death itself. We have life, the lion; we have death, the dog; and we have the cat running around to catch its tail, Eternity; The Lion is Me! The Dog is the Grimm! And the cat is an old friend I have not seen in thousands of years, the Desert Grey Cat! That is the Cycle of Life! I have to remember that one, young one, you really impressed me! That is the most difficult riddle I have ever heard!"

"Thank you."

"Now, can you explain to me how you came up with that riddle?"

"I better show you."

"Show me? How?"

"Watch."

Harry first shifted to the Grim, and looked at the Sphinx. It nodded it accepted the concept of a changing shape, as the riddle itself was an allegory of the changes in life. Then Harry shifted to the Egyptian Desert Grey Cat, surprising the Sphinx. When, finally, Harry changed to a young Sphinx, the adult one was not surprised at all. He had come to expect it. Harry then quickly went from one shape to the next very fluidly, displaying the cycle of life in all its beauty. The Sphinx was awed.

Finally returning to his human form at the end of the cycle, Harry looked at the Sphinx, who looked back.

"So, now, do you understand?"

"Oh yes, Master of the Eternal Cycle of Life and Death. Are you aware that you are in fact eternal? Nothing can kill you, since you can restart at the beginning of a cycle with all your knowledge."

"Maybe this is why I can do this?" Harry changed to his ice Phoenix and back to human again.

"A phoenix! Well, I would consider this insurance, not that you need it, young human. And a water elemental, from the color. I could ask you for rain, but for now, we have enough for the desert’s need."

"It would not be difficult, you know. There is a huge aquifer below the basalt layer, trapped by its thickness."

"No, let us not. I do not wish to play god with nature; neither should you, young one."

"It is my role to ‘play god’ as a high elf, you know that, do you not?"

"The True Ones have returned?"

Harry took the proper shape and spoke High Elf to the Sphinx. The giant cat bent in his forepaws, his head to the ground, tears running freely from his eyes.

"Master, ask and I will obey, so I swear on my life and Magic."

Harry was shocked and petted the lion’s nose gently.

"I need friends, more than servants; magical, non-magical, that is not important to me; what is important is that they will not be afraid to stop me from doing blunders, like you just did. Will you be my friend?"

The sphinx was taken aback by the depth of mind of the youngster.

"Yes, I will be there for you, to support, guide, and instruct within my feeble capabilities."

"Then, so be it by magic!" At these words a thunderous flash of light joined the two.

"I must now resume my peregrinations. If you ever need my help, think of me and call for a friend. I will be there instantly for you."

"What is your name?"

"So many ask that. What is a name?"

"A label that eases exchanges."

"Oh, so that was what it was! I have a friend, and his life-giver kept calling him Draco. It was his name!"

After some considerations, Harry told the sphinx: "I must have a name but I do not remember it; I must have had parents somewhere in time, but I do not know who they are or where they are. They must have given me a name, but my memory is shady before I turned to a phoenix for the first time. There is a before, shrouded in vapor, hazy, and there is an after, where everything is crystal-clear. And every morning, after I have time to rest, I find I have more in my mind, mastered more magic, know more languages, both human and animal. Can you explain that?"

"There must have been a traumatic experience in your youth that set a barrier; the Phoenix burned the barrier. In time your memory will return in full; however, you may not remember your name if you had not begun acquiring language skills when you had that trauma." After a breath, the Sphinx continued: "As for what you learn, it is inherited knowledge, from other mages. You must have a lot to process for you to have to sleep to handle the load. That means your inheritance is huge, and goes much further than your birth. That you talk my native language, Sumerian it is called, and then the language of the High Elves demonstrates without doubt your inheritance runs deep, very deep, some fifty thousand years deep to be exact. That language has not been spoken in this world since the High Elves parted ways with us by passing through the veil."

"Thank you. I will think on these facts. I must go now, as I feel my trackers are getting close. If I were you, I would fly off to leave them without trail."

"Thanks for the warning. See you later." The Sphinx jumped off the cliff, spread his wings and turned inland, away from the Nile. Harry followed suit, flying off in the opposite direction. Barely half an hour later, Sirius and his team apparated at the site, only to find shallow prints blown away by a strong desert wind.

"Damn it! Missed again!" he hollered in frustration.

---

"It is not been long, Sirius. We only need to speed up our reaction time."

"It is easy for you to say, Frank, it is not your godson we are talking about!"

"Come on you two. Put into practice the tracking capabilities the muggle have been trying to infuse in your thick skulls!"

"Okay Wolf. Let us see, the wind is strong, the paws are shallow, but still visible. So, I would say half an hour top."

"Agreed, Sirius. Now that is one big cat, as we see no claw marks, it has retractile claws, a feline trait."

"Agreed! Now the size of that cat can not be Harry, it is way too big. It is at least fifteen times bigger than a lion; the only cat that reaches that size is a Sphinx."

"And I confirm, as the prints stop at the cliff’s edge, without any trace of descent along the side. It flew off."

Sirius nodded to Remus.

"Now, hidden from the wind by this rock outcrop, is a human foot print, the size of what I would expect Harry’s to be," noted Narcissa, pointing at the print in the shade.

"And here is the clincher," added Alice, "a set of four prints: Harry’s in his human form, hidden partially by a Grimm hind paw print, followed, right over it by a small cat, then, beside it a much bigger cat, I would say the first is the Egyptian Desert Cat, and the second set is Harry’s Sphinx form. He is now the Master of Eternal Life. If we go back and consult the paperwork, we will find the Sphinx added to the list, with the proper, correct title."

"We can not do much here. Let us go back to London. I hate long portkeys, they make me want to puke!"

"We could have flown to Cairo on a muggle plane, Narcissa."

"And trust these flying coffins, Sirius? Over my dead body!"

"Do not worry, if it crashes, your body will be flying, but not necessarily to where you expected to go!"

"Encouraging, cousin, oh so encouraging!"