A Little Devil at Hogwarts (Follow-up to Harry Potter - Hellion)

 

Preface

Harry Potter, the nightmare of Death Eaters, has survived his meeting with ‘Lord’ Voldemort, and the betrayal of one Albus too many names Dumbledore and his bonded, Grindelwald. He has, over the past 10 years, killed off the Dark Army of Death Eaters, removed the horcruxes that kept Voldemort anchored to this plane of reality, and developed his own kind of magic. He disposed of his uncle Vernon on the first night by calling on his innate magic and shape-shifting. Now, he is an accomplished shape-shifter, an animagus of first magnitude, and also a metamorphagus that could rival his cousin Nymphadora (do not call me that!) Tonks.

He made friends with house elves, and all sorts of magical and mundane animals while mapping their genes so he could take their form or any transitory form leading to their current development. This allowed him, for instance, to recreate the Megalodon, and the Saber Tooth Tiger on a whim. He recovered his genetic history, allowing him to become the ultimate Elf, a High Elf, one not seen on this plane of reality since the visit by Merlin and the founding of Hogwarts.

His actions have led to the destruction of the Statute of Secrecy, and the loss of autonomy of the Magical World as the Queen has decided the primacy of the Crown over the Magical World due to its repeated treason of the binding rules established in the Magna Carta and the Statute itself. During the clean-up, the Queen re-established the rule of the Round Table, with Harry as the main anchor as he represents, alone, ten of the founding families of the Magical Court of King Arthur, having inherited, either by being lone survivor of the line, or by right of conquest, these seats. Two seats remain independent, but are closely related to Harry. The Black seat, whose current holder is Lord Sirius Black, his Godfather, now free of Azkaban and the betrayal of the Rat, Pettigrew, and Lord Longbottom, a long-time ally of the Potter family. The Queen herself recognizes that her Throne is, in a way, inherited from the Round Table and King Arthur, and dependent on the good will of the magical Crown, of which Harry is the sole inheritor. That came out at the end of the previous book, when Harry was found to be the sole valid bearer of the Crown of the High Elves, much to everyone’s surprise.

So here we stand, after the first day at Hogwarts, as Harry, accompanied by 250 youngsters he rescued, invades the to old to stand castle with his unorthodox magic, his flamboyant nudity, and his free spirit where, if you can picture it, you can make it is the only rule that he abides by. Yes, you read right, or did I forget to mention that Harry is an avowed nudist, that travels the world to learn magic from Nature itself, and considers clothes an aberration? If cold, change shape to get either fat or fur, preferably both! Do not kill where you need not!

That has led to frictions with just about everybody, from one Hermione ‘Stiff-neck’ Granger, to Minerva ‘it cannot be right!’ McDonnagall, to Ronald ‘Fire-engine’ Weasley, a nickname he earned more because of his uncontrolled temper than his red hair, not to mention quite a few Snakes, the Slytherins, of which one, Flint (Mr Flintstone, as Harry calls him) is now locked in an armor, drowning in his own refuse.

Harry has already taken control of the castle wards, shocking Minerva, and ordered the dispersal of the houses and a reorganization based solely on scholarly levels. This has changed the castle’s overall disposition, not that the Royal decree by the Queen had not made a serious dent in the stuffy place of learning by imposing mundane subjects on top of magical ones. The Queen did not want a fair slice of her population to be unable to function like everyone else. On the magical side of things, Minerva is stuck with changes imposed by Harry. After all, if it works and he has begun educating his friends Draco and Neville in that manner very efficiently, she is hard put to force back a return to the old ways.

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Chapter 1

Minerva’s Nightmare

September 3, 1991, first day of school at Hogwarts for the Devil, aka (?) Harry Potter.

Harry had come back late the previous night from his unwanted visit to the Round Table, pretty pissed, something not really good for anyone that might cross his path and rub his fur the wrong way that morning.

"Hey, Harry! You look like you met a horde of Centaurs and got stampeded over!" said Neville.

"I feel like it too, Neville."

"You came back way late. I tried to stay up but fell asleep in the common room. I wonder who put me to bed last night." wondered Draco.

"I did not sleep, and I put you to bed. I came in around dawn. Pray no one pisses me off today or there will be hell to pay."

"Duly noted. We will inform our friends of the brewing storm. Not that they will not notice it on your face. The one that does not feel the magical shock-waves is a Squib."

"Thanks, Neville."

"Go nap."

"I can not. If I lay down, I will have nightmares."

"What happened?"

"I will explain everything at breakfast. Let us go take a shower. By the way, I fixed the showers in that junk of a Magical Castle. We now have unlimited hot water, controlled temperatures so no one gets burned, and big bath pools. I see no reason for prefects to have benefits others do not."

"Cool. I practiced animagus transformation while waiting for you last night."

"Did it progress, Draco?"

"Somewhat. I got some hair that showed up on my hand. You were right. Forcing it does not work. I succeeded when I was too tired to impose it. Unfortunately it did not last."

"It is a good start. I gather your first animagus will be a mammal since it has fur."

"I wanted to be a Dragon!"

"That will come in due time."

"You became a Shark on your first transformation, you lucky bastard."

"Hey, my parents were married!"

"Still, you were lucky. I am afraid of being a little rodent or something like that. I do not want to be the dish of every predator in that windy castle."

"And, as you know, it was necessity, not luck, that had me become a Megalodon. How else could I have survived my uncle’s attempt at drowning me? And there was a cost..."

"A cost?"

"My parents got killed before that occurred."

"Oh, sorry, Harry... I sort of forgot!"

"It is okay."

"Let us make our way to the Great Hall. I am dry. I sure wish I could transform too. It must be fun to just shake the fur and get rid of the water that way... And wow, the advantage of a fur coat on demand: No need for clothes! I can barely stand the weight of silk on my shoulders now. Grandma is still cringing every time she sees me walk around Longbottom Manor nude! Her pinched-up face is hilarious! That wind tunnel you put in the shower room does marvels to dry us up quickly!"

"The only issue is your hair, Neville! It looks like some Porcupine quills sticking up all around your head!" snickered Draco.

The boys met the others of their age group in the common room and walked in procession to the Great Hall. The girls, minus an obviously flustered Hermione Granger, walked behind the boys talking together about what girls talk about, some commenting on the nice boy butts visible in front of them. Granger was redder than an overripe Apple, clutching her school robe tightly around her as if it was an armor against the evilness of the nudity she was witnessing from both the boys and the girls. She was almost throwing up from the comments she heard.

"Hey, Neville!" asked a girl from behind the boys.

"Yes, Suzan?"

"What hair fixative did you use to get that hair style? My hair does not even want to hold still for a second! If it hissed, some would take it for a nest of Snakes!"

"It is my natural hair, no additions required. And I got that result from the air blower Harry showed us the use of in the shower room so we could get dried quickly!"

"Harry! You did not tell us of that! Now, we will have to go to the boys’ shower to dry up! Cool!"

"You girls just have no sense of exploration, that is what. You have the same equipment in yours. When I fixed that castle last night to pass my temper, I fixed every dorm’s bathroom."

The girls looked at each other with wide eyes, some even considering returning to their bathroom to give the blower a dry run!

"You can play in the showers after classes. Gals. I can hear your tummy groan from here."

The Children made a quick run down to the Great Hall, and began eating quickly.

"What is the rush?" asked an older boy, seeing the pre-teens swallow the food like there was no tomorrow.

One of the sixth-year answered loudly from his table:

"They are feeding quickly so they can go out and run. We learned this last month that physical fitness helps improve our Magic. So, all those that are willing are going out for a run this morning before taking a quick shower and be ready for a fun day of learning."

"As if learning can be fun..." said a grumpy student, wearing the Gryffindor colors and smirking at the nude older boy. "Anyway, you probably know nothing since you can not even put pants on!"

Harry heard the comment and, with a snap of his fingers, stripped the offending party.

"Now, you unlearned everything you knew... figuratively. But consider I can, and I will, wipe your memory as effectively as your Mommy wiped your ass."

"Eww! Mom never saw me in that state!"

"There is a beginning for everything!"

Minerva, whom had been watching the exchange, was furious.

"Mister Potter! Cloth that boy right back! This is indecent!"

"Nature is indecent? Since when?"

"This is not natural!"

"Oh, you want him covered with fur, like a Cat? There goes!"

Another finger snap later and the boy had a thick layer of red-brown fun, from head to foot.

"Where does that come from?" yelled the boy.

"Oh, it is your natural fur. But instead of thin hair, you have thick long hair. So-called nude humans have the same amount of hair as a Chimpanzee, just, much finer. Your genetic map just got fine-tuned to allow the hair to its full glory... From what I see, you have red-back Monkey genes! When I think it is only a simple key that blocks the expression of that trait, it is amazing how fine genetic controls of traits is done. So, Minerva, is he clothed enough?"

"Mister Potter!"

"Well, he can now go out and play in the snow (when it comes) and he will not need to wear anything."

"But, but! His butt is not covered!"

"What can I say? Our ancestors evolved to show their sexual readiness by displaying a reddish butt. He still has that trait! Hey! I said the butt, not the face, dimwit!" replied Harry as he saw the red show through the facial hair.

Having finished their breakfast, Harry’s friends, those that were old enough to accompany him from Malfoy Manor to Hogwarts, took a dash for the front yard of the Castle. They began following Harry in his stretching exercises. After 20 minutes of stretching to heat up their muscles, they began a run around the lake at a moderate pace, gradually speeding up to reach peak speed at the start of the second round. Fifteen minutes later, Harry brought them to a gradual slow-down and a walk, before beginning hand-to-hand combat training.

The other students, especially the pure-bloods, were at a loss as to the use of all that energy expenditure since it seemed to be irrelevant to Magic. They eyed Harry’s friends, making lewd comments about dangling bits and floppy dicks, much to Harry’s ever increasing irritation. Finally, he ported them in the middle of the lake in a flash.

"Either say sorry or swim!" he thundered over the lake.

Quite a few said sorry, but some were stubborn enough to try and make their way to the shore. Some took a good gulp of water before Harry ported them above the water, let them throw up in the water from their vintage point, and then let them drop back in the water for another round of swimming. Some, mostly the older ex- Slytherins, required 4 or 5 rounds of drowning-heaving-dunking before they lost their attitude and finally asked for forgiveness.

The return of the soaked Rats did not go unnoticed by the staff, whom was not amused. Minerva, thundering, made her way to the lake’s shore.

"Mister Potter! Since when is it acceptable to drown fellow students?"

"Since they show disrespect for other students! And if they had stripped in the lake, they would have made it to the shore much more quickly. Swimming with wool robes is dumb. Have they ever learned good sense? What am I thinking? Good sense is beaten out of them by the use of a wand!"

"They have to go to their dorm and change. That will delay the day... even more."

"What is the use of Magic if it does not even have a drying spell?"

"Most do not know it!"

"How about teaching useful things in this school for once? Teach them that spell, now! And do not ask me to do your work for you! I am not paid for it, you are!"

The Royal Marines that ensured the security at Hogwarts were watching the whole scene from their barracks, and having a hard time not blowing up in laughter.

"That kid is not one to trifle with!" said a Soldier. His commanding Officer overheard the comment and added, for the benefit of the troops, his tidbit of information.

"That kid, as you say, taught the basic walk drills to the others in less than a day. Count yourself lucky you got your basic training before the Queen saw the video recording!"

"And he is the King of Magic, upon which our own Mundane Kingdom is based and the Queen gets her own legitimacy. We are here to protect him... as if he needed it. He has more power in his little finger than the entire army."

"I do not understand..."

"He is the Heir of Merlin, of King Arthur, of the Kingdom of Camelot which ensured the protection of the Mundane kingdoms until they betrayed their vows to the Round Table."

Harry had heard the explanation and decided to set the record straight.

"It is Arthur that betrayed his vow to my ancestor, Merlin, and thus lost his kingdom by Magic. The winner vowed to abide and follow our laws, and got the protection Merlin had bestowed on Arthur, a protection that was in effect on the Scottish Throne until the betrayal by the Queen of Scots, Mary. Then it passed over to Elizabeth I, but did not kill her when she too betrayed the Magical vow since she had not taken the vow herself. Her successor did, and as such earned the full benefit of the protection. Since then, except on rare occasions, the lineage has been safely protected by Magic. Elisabeth II knows quite well her head and her posterior rest on the Throne of Great Britain by the will of Magic alone. By MY will. I am the Heir of Merlin; Elizabeth is the Heir of Arthur by right of conquest."

The explanation had resonated across Hogwarts like a thunderstorm. It explained so much, and yet Harry had left in the dark his role as the King of the High Elves. He decided that he had given enough shocks for the day.

"Is what the runt saying true?" whispered a Soldier.

"Yes it is true, St-Thomas!" thundered Harry from 500 yards, shocking the Soldier to the point he soiled the kilt dress he was wearing and the white socks he had in his ceremonial sandals.

The Commander smirked and gestured the Man to make a quick exit to shower and change. "Make it quick, Roberts. You are on duty, if you have forgotten! Next time, crouch before letting go. I thought they educated you on the proper way of disposing of body wastes on the field during a march! I will bring that subject up with the Drill Sergeant, believe me!"

Meanwhile, Harry began training the children in relaxation techniques. Some were naturals, others had been spending the last month with him at Malfoy Manor and were therefore more advanced, but he showed patience with all.

"Okay. Magic is something that you have in yourself. It is part of you. It is concentrated in an area, and to really use it, you need to access that source, called the Core. Mind you, what you actually do, once you have learned to access your Core, is to learn to manipulate the ambient Magic with the help of your Core. That way, you do not run out of resources too early, be it in a simple, repetitive action, or a battle. All of you had spontaneous magical episodes, what the dimwits call accidental Magic, otherwise you would not be here. Think about it: You did Magic without a wand, powerful Magic at that. Can any of you describe their first instance of so-called accidental Magic that you remember or that your parents told you about?"

Denis Creevy stood up. He was fascinated by what he had seen so far from Harry and wanted to learn more.

"Mom told me I wanted my Teddy Bear and lifted it out of the shelf to bring it to me, and I was one year old. She was so scared!"

"Mundane-born, Dennis?"

"Eh?"

"None of your parents knew of Magic or were magical?"

"Yes, they are both mundane, as you call them. Both Daddy and Mummy thought I was sick."

"What you did is called levitation. Tell me, you knew what you wanted, and Magic did it for you? Repeatedly?"

"Yes."

"You were focussed on that toy, you wanted it, right?"

"Yes..."

"That is the basis of Magic: Will and Focus. You need to want it really hard and focus on what you want. You had a wand at the time?"

"No, I just bought it at Ollivander’s before Hogwarts."

"And were there any more instances?"

"Oh, quite a few: I repaired Mom’s vase after the Cat made it fall. Mom was crying because it was a family heirloom and I felt really sad for her. Then I ended up landing gently on the ground after some bully pushed me in the stairs at school. He got so scared he wet himself. Then there was that uncatchable ball that flew over my head at a baseball game and I jumped so high I caught it, shocking the coach..."

"So, what does Creevy’s experience demonstrate?" Harry asked. "And those that studied with me this summer, please keep quiet."

Finally, after five minutes of mumbling one Boy, a third year, stood up.

"Please identify yourself?"

"Fred Weasley... one of the numerous big brothers to the one you so summerly ridiculed on the train, not that it did his temper and reasoning power any good."

"And what do you conclude from Mister Creevy’s experiences?"

"That Magic does not require wands, that wand-less Magic is how things should be done. And that we need to learn how to focus and direct Magic by our will alone. And finally, that all those wand movements and incantations are totally useless, since, once we learn how to harness our Magic the way you expressed it should be, we will not need any of these crutches."

"But how do you learn Magic without incantations and wand movements?" asked a stupefied Hermione Granger, that had, until this moment, kept quiet, a miracle for her. "All the books I read say it requires immense power to do magic wandlessly."

"Books do not always tell the truth. After all, if you read the history of science, you quickly learn of dumb things that were once thought true: a flat Earth, for instance, or that the oceans boiled at the Equator, or that it fell in a giant pit at the edge of the Earth... There are medical errors too: for instance phrenology, where bumps on the head were thought to indicate over-developed regions of the brain and reflect the character of an individual. We now know this is not true. Wand-less Magic requires the brain to be trained to focus and to will. Nothing less, nothing more. "

"What about incantations?" asked Lisa Turpin.

"It is the same as a wand. Silent casting is the way to go. After all, I am sure Dennis, here, could not speak at age one, much less incant a spell in any language! It is a crutch. By saying the words, you focus your thoughts on what you want to do, thus focussing your Magic on your intentions, and it abides by your wish, the same as for the wand movements, which only act as focus point for your Magic as you try to control the movement with the proper precision."

"How do you focus the light?" asked a stunned sixth-year student.

"Focus the light?"

"Well, the wand focusses the light that carries the spell..."

"Oh, that! I wondered why they were sending all these green lights at me when I disposed of the Death Eaters... Actually, the fact that light is visible only tells me you are botching the focus of your spell. A truly well-focussed spell is invisible and does not take time to travel from point A to point B. Its effect just is there, instantly. Let me show you."

With that, Harry sent a reducto spell to a pebble, transforming it to dust with a bang.

"That is what you get when you do not focus. Notice the red beam of light. Now, a focussed spell... Back away, as that one, of the same power as the previous, will have a considerably more devastating effect!"

After the students quickly moved 50 yards away, joined by Harry, the young Elf crossed his arms, just to show there was no need for gestures, and focussed on a tiny pebble. Less than a millisecond later, a huge explosion created a hole 20 feet deep in the ground, throwing dirt everywhere and shocking the school staff.

"Same spell, same power. This time, you did not see any light, and it did not take any time for the spell to travel, since it was ambient magic around the pebble that did the trick."

"And how do you plan to teach these Children Magic, oh so great genius of the theory of Magic?" asked a pissed-off Minerva, from the steps of the school.

"The same way I thought Draco and Neville..."

"So, they can do Magic. I will believe it when I will see it!"

"As you please, Minerva. Draco? Transform that rock..."

Draco looked at the boulder, relaxed, took a deep breath, and produced a bird that flew off.

"That is a Roc!" exclaimed Hagrid as he saw the big predatory bird fly away, heading for the Forbidden Forest. "They have been gone since Merlin!"

"Draco, is this temporary?" asked Harry, as he watched the bird disappear.

"No, I do not like to give life to take it away needlessly. It is a female and I made sure it had three fertilized eggs so she will be nesting shortly."

"Good, you have learned an important lesson, my friend. Now, Neville?"

Neville relaxed as well and suddenly, a tree began growing in the middle of the Hogwarts ground, reaching 50 meters in a few minutes before blooming and producing purple flowers that seemed to glow red in the middle. Shortly, a huge collection of fruits emerged from the transformation of the flowers. At first green, the fruits turned gradually purple than black before falling on the ground.

This time, it was Madam Sprout, the herbology professor of Hogwarts, that gawked as she recognized the tree for what it was: A Niobium Escalactus, or more commonly known as the Blood Tree, whose fruits, seeds, bark, roots and leaves were once intensively used in magical pharmacology to the point it had been all but pushed to extinction by Magical Herbalists.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, white as a ghost. "Pomfrey, do you know what that tree is? It is a miracle! The fabled Niobium Escalactus! It was not seen since the time of Merlin!"

"And for good reason!" said a proud Neville Longbottom. "That tree NEEDS the Roc for its fruits to disperse and for them to grow. The Roc will come back to eat the seeds on the ground and, through its digestive tract, carry them in the forest, allowing more of the Niobium Escalactus trees to germinate. Also, once the fruits have been eaten, we can collect the seeds that fall down from the eating process and plant them after exposing them for six hours to a high concentration of HCl, hydrochloric acid, better known as stomach acid. Without this harsh environment, the shell of the seed is too hard for them to germinate."

"And who thought you that?" asked a pissed-off Hermione, whom just could not tolerate school mates that knew more than her.

"Harry did. He explained why a tree disappeared from an island, Mauritius if my memory serves me right, because the Dodo bird was hunted to extinction on it. That told me why the Niobium Escalactus tree too had disappeared shortly after the last Roc died out. I showed him the last illustration of the tree, done by a contemporary of Merlin. We agreed that was the case. When Draco brought back the Roc, I decided to follow suit. After all, the Roc’s main diet is these fruits."

Just as Neville finished its explanations, the Roc came back and took a dive to begin gorging itself with the fruits.

"See what I mean? It will come back until the stock of fruits is gone. As I plan to recreate a fully functional grove of trees for the sole purpose of feeding that bird, it will not go anywhere. I will figure out the size of the grove from how many fruits it eats daily and how quickly the current stock depletes. By the way, the Roc is a carnivorous bird; it will hunt. It uses the seed of the tree as rocks in its stomach to tenderize the meat of its prey. So, when you see it, keep out of sight. For now, it has an ample provision of food in the forest... the nest of Spiders will meet its match. Only the weak Spiders will get caught and eaten. Natural selection at work."

Hermione grumbled, and said things about know-it-alls that did not escape Harry’s extra-fine hearing. He decided to keep an eye on the disgruntled girl and warn both Draco and Neville of the impending blowup.

"What happens during the winter?" asked professor Sprout.

"Are we Magical or not? I am sure Harry and I can create a virtual greenhouse where it is magical wards that focus the sun’s energy. Keeps winter at bay and the trees growing in an artificial equatorial climate. What do you think, Harry?"

"Ward stones are easily created... and I know exactly how to do them so they are permanent, protect the trees, and allow rainfall and the bird to fly in and leave. It will be fun!"

Minerva was lost: Not only had common decency been breached beyond repair, but her own capacity at Magic and her understanding of Magical theory had been torn to shreds in a single lesson by that little Devil!

"And I guess you are about to tell me the tree is permanent?" asked professor Sprout.

"Well, as permanent as any current living thing, that is, likely to suffer extinction if we do not care for it, much like the Roc." replied Neville.

"And where did you find the genetic map for these extinct species, Draco, Neville? We are not known to preserve genetic maps..." asked Minerva.

The two boys looked at Harry for guidance.

"I gave them the genetic map." said the surprising boy. Damn it, I will have to come out as able to time-travel if this continues, he worried. That, or come out as having made a trip to Avalon. I wonder what would be best?

"And how did you get the maps, Mister Potter?"

"It is none of your business." replied a darkening Harry. "What matters is you have the only Roc and Niobium Escalactus tree in existence on Hogwarts grounds. Count your blessings, Madam!", all that said in a voice that frosted the air, creating a miniature snow storm in the process.

The reddening face of Minerva told everyone she was not used to being told off.

"Young man! I never..."

"Now, you do!" said Harry, letting go of a lightning flash from his closed fist. "Get over it!"

The Commander of the protection detail made a quick run to Minerva and touched her shoulder, whispering to her ear: "Remember who he is, for the sake of Magic!"

That sent shivers down Minerva’s spine, and she quickly deflated, as she remembered Mister Potter was an Elemental.