Harry Potter - Hellion!

 

Harry, in his owl shape, hunted that night for a quick meal, before moving deeper into the Forest. He was not feeling very easy with the presence of those he had smelled as a bear that morning, and he felt he needed distance. So he kept moving south-west, on a course that slowly led him toward the Channel. At the edge of the forest, he felt the need to land and walk rather than fly. As he passed through a thickening of the air, unknowingly passing through wards, he felt something attack his magic so he fought back, siphoning the offending ward until it collapsed.

Some miles off, in a rather ostentatious manor, a ward stone melted, invisible to the two residents, whom had not been awarded guardianship of said wards; one because she was not of the line; the second, a two-year old baby with platinum-blonde hair and silver, almost blue eyes, was too young to wear the weight of such a burden. The house-elves, although aware of the collapse, could not tell their young master of this as he still had problems understanding simple things such as yes and no.

Once Harry felt relieved of the pressure, took the shape of a fox and began frolicking in the woods. His progress was hindered by his constant curiosity, and his habit of adding shapes as he met new ones. By noon, he had met, in order, a Day Fae, a gnome, a squirrel, a runespoor (a variety of snake with three heads), and a skunk. The last two, he had not held shape for long, just testing his ability at taking them. The skunk, he had retained longest, as he considered the benefits of being able to do chemical warfare to protect himself, should it be needed. The runespoor, although it might have advantages, had a serious problem: even he had trouble keeping three heads straight! The one he had met, poor thing, kept arguing with itself, unable to come to a consensus on anything but the fact it was (or they were) hungry. Harry had caught them a fat rat to make them shut up. The garden gnome was no piece of cake either: it was ill-tempered, always ready to do dirty tricks to anything that came within range. Harry had saved the one he had taken the gene map from drowning, only to be tricked. Harry had managed to get out of the trap, vowing to himself that this garden gnome could drown for all he cared.

As Harry made his way through the alleys of the garden, he saw a big bird, with an array of colorful feathers, a new addition to his collection, a peacock. As he flew in to look at them, he found the peacocks were far from friendly, and composed mostly of males more interested in showing up their feathers then establishing relations with visitors. A couple of near-misses, and an unlucky change of shape in an attempt to establish relations on a more equal footing, proved to him that the world was less than rosy, even in the animal kingdom. At some point, a peacock managed to hit him with his beak hard enough to draw blood. The result was instantaneous: The bird made a quick conversion, pulling out of the feline gene map what was needed to produce a saber-tooth tiger. Said peacock lost its head to a quick swipe, and his body was turned to lunch. The other birds, bird-brains as they were, tried to take revenge, only to quickly end up as side-dishes. The proud owner of the herd of peacocks, already dead from the Death-eater purge, found himself in a flock of plucked birds, accompanying him in his eternal roasting.

The cat walked off, disregarding the bloodied feathers stuck on his fur. It took a dive in the pool, made a quick pass as a Megalodon shark to clean its teeth of the foul smell of the ill-tempered fowls by emptying it of all its trouts in a single pass. It exited the water basin with a spectacular jump propelled by its powerful tail, changed at the top of the arch into the Egyptian Desert Cat, shook the water off, and sat off a flat rock, its tail swishing as it watched a rather innocent rabbit eat the fresh grass. The rabbit would never learn how close it had come to becoming dessert for the cat.

At 13:30, a door slammed shut from the manor, and a little boy, whose hair shone gold under the sun, made his way toward the rock occupied by the cat. It was accompanied by a rather hyperactive house-elf, whose sole task was to protect the child from getting in trouble.

The boy saw the sandy looking cat on his rock, his fort, and made his way toward it. A cat might be a nice toy, better than his father’s ill-tempered birds, and the boring fishes that tried to bite him each time he tried to play in the shallow waters of the basin, although that had been last summer. Maybe they had learned their lesson? Nah, his mom told him, fishes do not learn lessons. And neither did the birds, come to think of it. Talking about the birds, where was all the noise they usually made fighting each other and trying to show off? As if anything could be more beautiful than daddy! Or himself!

He climbed on the rock and sat, his short legs dangling from its side. The House-elf had to port to the rock’s top as he was too clumsy to climb like his little master. The cat watched the two approach and did not move, He was warm, the sun was out, the rock comfortable. Why bother? The house-elf watched the not-so-sleeping cat warily. Something was off with it, but what?

"Kitty! Want kitty!" ordered his master.

The house-elf wondered what to do. It tried to reason with the little master.

"Master Draco, this not kitty. This might be dangerous!"

"No! I see kitty! Is kitty! Dobby must!"

How do you explain that your eyes do not always tell you the truth? Feeling an upcoming temper tantrum, and he had been given an order by name, something that forced him to obey even if it was against his better judgement. Dobby took the cat gently, his hand under the thorax, petting him on the head.

"This how to handle kitty, Master Draco. If hurt, kitty scratch and bite. Master needs to sit still while Dobby places kitty in hand."

Draco watched and heard the kitty purr.

"Noise?"

"Kitty happy."

Gently, Dobby placed the cat into Draco’s left hand and explained how to gently hold it while petting it.

"When kitty wants to go, Master Draco, Master must let it go. It may stay, go away, or even follow Master Draco, but kitty is free animal, so must be treated as such." Freer than Dobby, thought the house-elf, sadly.

After ten minutes, Draco lost interest in the cat and decided to go explore. He stood up, after pushing the cat off his mid-section, and jumped down to the grass. The house-elf dutifully followed. As Dobby turned around, he saw a duplicate of himself standing on the rock, totally nude, without the binding tea towel that held him tied to the Malfoy family. That lasted a few seconds, like a dream, then the house elf vanished, to be replaced by a young human boy, also nude. The cat was nowhere to be found.

"Master Draco, we must go back. We in danger!"

"No!"

"We must!" as the house-elf grabbed Draco and popped him directly to Mistress’ study.

"I want to go out!"

"Danger in yard, Master. Must Protect!"

"No! No! No!" said Draco, trying to give the house-elf a kick, but slipping on the carpet, and falling on his bum hard, thus beginning to cry loudly.

Narcissa Malfoy, née Black, looked at the elf waiting for an explanation.

"Danger in yard, mistress. First was tiny cat, that gave strange feeling to Dobby. Then cat changed into Dobby, minus scars from beatings; then it turned into dark-haired human boy. Dobby took Master away for safety. This powerful magic, dangerous magic."

"You did right, Dobby. Draco, go to your room now! I will not put up with your tantrums like your dad did because he found them funny. Itsy!"

In popped another house-elf.

"Itsy, accompany Draco to his room and keep him there, whatever orders or temper he blows into."

---

After Itsy had left, Narcissa turned to Dobby. "Bring me to where the events occurred!" Dobby grabbed her and popped directly to where the flat rock was.

Narcissa did some magic, and had to admit the magical field far outstripped her own. That child was powerful indeed, very powerful. She followed the signature to the forest that had made its way into their lands, then returned home, accompanied by Dobby.

"Dobby did well. I am proud of Dobby protecting my son."

That was the first time Dobby had ever been thanked for anything. That was a day to mark with a white stone.

"I am expecting guests tonight, Dobby. Please keep Master Draco out of trouble, and out of the public area of the manor. They may be allies of my ex-husband, but they are far from friendly."

---

She made her way to the floo, expecting the undesirable visitors to show up at the fireplace, as was common courtesy. Instead, she was joined by Itsy, who told her that the visitors had rung at the front door after apparating beyond the wards. Frustrated, Narcissa made her way quickly to the entrance hall, aware you did not leave these two alone if you wanted to have walls left standing. She made her way into the room just in time to stop Amycus from cursing a portrait, whom had the misfortune to snob him.

"Down with the wand if you do not wish to be found in breach of hospitality!" she said acidly.

"But it insulted us by ignoring our comments!"

"Knowing your usual behavior while my husband is around, I would not put it beyond you two to have fired the first salvo. Amycus. And it is Lady Malfoy, for you two, not this displaced familiarity you have grown accustomed under the misguided tolerance of my husband, is that clear?"

"But..."

"My husband is absent, and until he returns, I am the chatelaine here, got it?"

"You are not a druid, so these obsolete laws do not apply!"

"I am also Lady Black, Alecto, whose line predates the Norman conquest, and whose behavior is guided by these obsolete laws of the Druids and chivalry. I can and I will have your head on stakes outside my wards if you two do not behave!"

Just then, another knock came from the front door, and Itsy guided the last visitor expected that evening: Evan Rosier.

Rosier immediately measured the tension in the room and looked at the Carrows with undisguised disgust. He could not give them an inch of rope without them hanging themselves with it! It was apparent, from Lady Malfoy, they had acted their usual improper manner.

"Rosier, let us move to the tea room so we can deal with what brings you around these lands and you can take the garbage out," said Narcissa, her head motion directed at the Carrow twins when she said ‘garbage’.

After moving to said tea room, the four sat at a table, where a house-elf brought them tea.

"I want fire-whisky!"

"Which you will not get, Amycus, because your behavior degrades as you sip it, and you are already on the razor edge," replied Lady Black. "I want my domain intact, as it is probably the last one yet to be seized by the muggles. If the wards collapse, I will have to return to my ancestral family home, and Mother and I do not sit in the same room without wands being out."

"Lady Malfoy, we are in need of shelter for a day or so. Our last hideout was blown to bits by a combined muggle and auror forces. We lost four new recruits as we sacrificed them to escape. We are still looking for Harry Potter, Lady Malfoy. He must be stopped or our glorious Master will have nothing to come back to."

"I come to understand you believe the Dark Lord has survived his confrontation with Mr. Potter?"

"Yes. I have been able to track his signature all through Europe and Asia and back to the Balkans and Romania, before I had to come back here to stop idiots from setting fire to straw piles in order to show they had power over fire."

Narcissa snickered. She knew exactly whom Evan Rosier was talking about. They were currently making faces at her tea, right in front of her.

"Are you sure that Mr. Potter survived his confrontation with the Master? We have had no proof, and I am sure the Headmaster would have gloated of the fact to the point of flying off the ground. You are not telling me everything."

Rosier looked at the Carrows, clearly indicating he felt uncomfortable talking about the question in front of them. Narcissa was not blind nor dumb, she understood the unspoken signs better than if they had been yelled at her. She called Itsy and asked for more tea, sliding a yellow note in her hand. Sleep potion to be added to the tea. Had she slipped a red note, the Carrows would not have woken up. A few minutes later, Itsy came with a fresh pot of tea, laced with enough sleeping potion to put a dragon to sleep. Rosier tried to take some to his almost empty cup, but she signaled to him to keep his hands off. On the other hand, she put the tea in the Carrows’ cups herself, telling them it had some fire-whisky to help them stomach it. Too glad to be able to indulge in their vice, even if it was edulcorated by tea, the twins drank the tea without thinking, taking two quick cups of it before falling unconscious under the table.

"Quick thinking, and quick results, Lady Malfoy. I will need to be careful around you, I think. That might well have been poison."

"Given how much sleeping potion they took, it might still be."

"I would not cry on their loss. They have been more trouble than their worth."

"So, the things you did not want to talk about in front of these two dimwits?"

"The muggles have been able to trace the Potter brat."

"How is that possible?"

"A dragon is hard to miss."

"A... Dragon?"

"Yes. Dumbledore dumped him at his aunt, and she found nothing better than to have her husband try and kill him. It was in the muggle news a few weeks before I made my way back from Romania to put some fire out."

"That is unheard of!"

"Quite. Things degraded on the first night, when the man tried to drown the kid, only to lose both hands to a shark attack. The shark was followed down-river by the muggles, and changed to a dragon right in front of them. That triggered a dragon hunt of first magnitude. My contacts in the muggle military allowed me to keep abreast of the hunt, and I brought most of my forces into Sherwood forest in order to capture the brat. Bad move. I had expected an easy capture because of his youth, but he had turned into a deadly wolf, that shred my men to pieces, with the help of muggles and a small mage force, led by your cousin, Lord Black. In the battle, the last of my men used the Avada Kavadra on the wolf, only for it to convert to a phoenix, which promptly swallowed the spell and fired it back at the man, vaporizing him and the tree he had taken shelter in to get better aim. I followed the phoenix all around Sherwood forest, but it gave me the slip at sundown. My vulture form can not fly at night."

"So, Potter is a shape-shifter. That is a whole grade above animagus. It is very rare. Even our Master is not able to do this, much to his despair. And you saw three shapes, plus, we must assume the boy does have human form. That gives him four that we know of. And that was last fall, Mr. Rosier. Nothing stops him from taking in more. He might be a fly on my wall, for all I know."

"I know, lady Malfoy. That is one issue I am faced with. I can not trust those swines that are left from not doing something stupid, yet I must find the Master. I need someone I can trust to do the hunt properly, without an obsession for revenge. I would not put it beyond the Carrows to attack a military base if they thought the muggles were worthy targets. They would end up with enough holes to sink in wet concrete."

"They would create a weakness in the water conduits’ construction", as she thought about Roman aqueducts that supplied her own water. "How many death-eaters have you under your command?"

"These two, if you can call them ‘under’ my command. The other marked death-eaters are dead. We may have ten or so sympathizers, but they are hiding under the nearest tree stump, too afraid to come out and regroup."

"I would not blame them. We are a simmering fire, nothing more."

"And that is being generous, Lady Malfoy. Sometime, I feel like my ambitions have been drowned in the ocean. So, can we stay for the night? We will leave before dawn."

"If you can wake these two up, that is. By dawn, I want the garbage out, as I said earlier. I will create a portkey for you three to a destination of your choosing."

"Thank you, Lady Malfoy. I will stay here and sleep on the sofa, if you do not mind. Somehow, I do not trust these two alone in a rat’s nest, much less in a patrician’s home."

"And you would be correct. Amycus was getting ready to curse a family portrait for a perceived affront. It is his and his twin’s presence that is an affront. They came quite close to breaking hospitality, discounting it as outdated. My ancestors have roots in magic deeper than the vast majority of those so-called pure-bloods of today, Rosier, and we still hold true to the laws set forth by the Druids of old. Do not forget it whilst in my house. My husband is not here, and until he comes back, I shall bow to no one."

She left a shocked Rosier in the tea room and made her way to her private suite. She had a lot of thinking to do.

---

"Dobby!"

POP!

"Yes Mistress?"

"Put a drop of sleeping drought in Master Draco’s hot chocolate milk tonight. I do not want him to roam the manor while sleep-walking. The guests are too dangerous for his own safety."

"Yes Mistress. Will that be all?"

"No. Once Draco is sound asleep, walk to my suite. I need to talk to you, and the pops of house elves are rather hard to miss. Bring yourself and I tea. We will have a long discussion."

"Yes Mistress."

Dobby made his way to Draco’s room, stripped him and gave him a bath, before putting him in fresh diapers and a pajama decorated with flying snitches. He then quickly went to the kitchen, made the hot chocolate and added the required sleeping drought drop. Master Draco would not be sleep-walking tonight, keeping every house-elf on their toes to guide him away from danger. He added marshmallow cookies fresh from the oven, sprinkled with coconut. Four: a treat for the young Master, but also a certain way to insure the drought’s taste would pass unnoticed. An hour later, the young master was sleeping away, enjoying a dream. From what he had been told by the Master, these dreams revolved around a friend. The Master was feeling lonely.

Dobby then popped to the kitchen and told Itsy to keep an eye on the young Master as he had other things to do. He made a plate with fresh tea, added cookies, milk, sugar, and two cups and saucers, with silver spoons wrapped in napkins. That would go unnoticed by other house-elves, whom had learned of their mistress’ preferences for night snacks. Hopefully, the additional service would go by as for the guest.

Dobby used the service stairs, silencing each step as he made his way to Narcissa’s suite. He then used his hand to open the door, already ajar, and lay the service plateau on the tea table in the boudoir. He then slowly closed the door and made his way to the study.

"Young master is asleep under the guard of Itsy, Mistress. Should I lock the door to your suite using our kind of magic? It is not very well-known and your guest will probably mistake it as one of ours doing his house-work."

"Please, Dobby."

---

A few minutes later, Lady Malfoy sat in front of Dobby, inviting him to take a seat as well. The poor house-elf was astounded. Never, in the history of elfdom, had they been invited to sit in presence of their Masters! Nevertheless, he climbed into the chair and sat, his legs dangling several inches above-ground.

"Dobby, I need to tell you something, which must be kept from Draco at all costs."

The house-elf nodded vigorously, his head threatening to fly off.

"You remember that boy in the back yard?"

"Yes, mistress. He had powerful magic."

"You do not know how much, Dobby, you really do not know how much. From what this ruffian has told me, he can become a shark, a dragon, and a phoenix, to his knowledge. Now you tell me he can become a cat and a house-elf as well. And how many more shapes can he take, we have no idea. That information must be kept from the Master, and, especially, from those three visitors."

"But the young master already saw the kitty!"

"Did he see the other two forms?"

Dobby thought it out. The master had been looking at him his back turned from the rock, when Dobby had taken the initiative and spirited away the young Master.

"No. Master Draco was too busy yelling at Dobby to look around."

"Thanks Merlin. Now, the real clincher, Dobby. And that goes through one ear and exits the other, bypassing the mouth. Is that clear?"

Dobby looked at his mistress, trying to understand the meaning of that sentence. Narcissa noticed how Dobby looked mixed-up.

"That means it is a Black family secret, Dobby. You are not to talk to anyone about it. Not even to Master Malfoy, my husband."

"That would be difficult. Master Malfoy is dead. We house-elves can sense when Master dies."

"And you told no one, not even me?"

"No one asked."

"That is a useful tidbit, Dobby. Keep it to yourself as well. Dobby, that child, the one you took Draco from, is likely to be Mr. Potter. That stays locked in there!" she said as she touched the Elf’s forehead. "We will not talk of it ever again."

"Yes mistress."

"Can you sense Mr. Potter, Dobby?"

"Yes mistress. He is in the woods, at the edge of the wards, yet still within them."

"Good. Tomorrow, we will try to find him, but for now, go rest. Leave the tea set. You can bring it to the kitchen in the morning, as soon as the garbage is out. You know whom I am talking about, do you not?"

"Yes Mistress."

"And walk out to your room beside Master Malfoy’s. Do not tell him his dad is dead, for Merlin’s sake. He is already difficult to control, and should he become aware he is now the Master of the House, we might as well set it on fire."

"Yes Mistress."

Dobby left on his toes, made his way to Draco’s room, relieved Itsy and then went to bed. He has so many things running through his mind he doubted he would be able to fall asleep.