Harry Potter - Hellion!

 

"To be honest, Lord Black, I think my husband was disgusted by Voldemort at the end: The enticing, beautiful boy-man that had caught my husband’s interest was long gone by the time Lord Potter disposed of him last year. But Lucius could not change his adherence to the Knights of Walpurgis as it is a magical bond that is enforced by the dark mark. Some tried to run, but the mark is many things, from what I have observed: a call to action; a means of punishment; a means to inflict the most horrible death; and a trace. A death-eater can not hide from Voldemort, even in the deepest of caves or the highest of mountains. I have seen, with my own eyes, these uses. The pain is similar to the Cruciatus; so is the call, albeit at a lesser degree, so as not to incapacitate those called. The death sentence is like the eternal flames of hell, as the person feels like it is being burned alive, without actually burning; Voldemort can keep that punishment going on for as long as he wishes, and the person will consider death a relief. In the case of one unfortunate person, Voldemort kept him burning for a month; by then, he had torn his vocal cords, and died not because Voldemort relieved him of his torment, but because he drowned in his own blood."

"Do you know who it was?" asked Sirius.

"No. We were paraded in front of the tormented figure, but the face was so deformed by pain I could not identify him. I knew he was male because he was hanging by the ankles, upside down, nude, and twisting while emitting horrible cries for relief. ‘Rob me of what is mine and this is what you get.’ was Voldemort’s comment. I never did know what the poor soul robbed, but it must have been very important to that demon. Voldemort had him rotated each day, to show others he was still alive. He forgot him right side up, once, Lucius told me, and they dared not remind the Dark Lord of his forgetfulness. That night, he died, drowned in his own blood. Everyone was relieved, except Voldemort, who killed a dozen of his followers in a fit of rage."

After a sip of juice, Narcissa continued her story.

"It was shortly after that event that I heard people had begun signing their inheritance to the Dark Lord. Not that he asked; they volunteered, and not under the Imperio, as a will signed under that curse is invalid. I think they thought they could buy his favors by doing so. Naivety at its worst. Voldemort does not value earthly goods; he values power, and something else which I can only surmise: eternal life. He wants godhood. To reach that goal, he would do anything, and sell his soul if he thought it could buy him that."

"You do not have the barest inkling of how close you are to the truth, Narcissa," replied Sirius. "From what I have been able to gather, Voldemort created horcruxes, or soul anchors. He probably created more than one, as you said his appearance had changed drastically over time; each time you create a horcrux, you lose part of your humanity, and the reptilian, or if you prefer, snake, nature surfaces. A horcrux is stored in an inanimate object, as if it is stored in a living animal, the animal instinctively fights back, and the horcrux is released at the animal’s death. The more a soul is shred, the more unstable the person becomes, until, at seven shards, counting the original stored in the body of the caster, humanity is reduced to less than 1%, and the reptilian nature which we all harbor takes over. He did not sell his soul, as there was no taker, he shred it by murdering innocents. Harry was, for a short time, the bearer of one of his horcruxes, believed to be a piece of Voldemort’s wand. Had it resided directly within Harry, without the support of the wood shard, it would have been expelled immediately. The Ice Phoenix Harry became to redirect the Avada Kavadra spell burned the wood shard and expelled the soul shard, sending it to await judgement. I have been thinking that the dark cloud we saw leave the Phoenix was the soul shard being released to the after-life. We will not know what really happened that fateful night of October thirty-first until we can find Voldemort’s wand. Did Rosier say anything about it?"

"No. If it is in his possession, it must be his most important relic."

"While you keep Draco busy, Lady Malfoy, I suggest we do a search for Lord Potter."

"Certainly. Draco, let us go take a walk in the park. Dobby, can you find whom we talked on the grounds?"

"No, mistress. He left for the woods some time back and exited the wards."

"I suggest you go to the back of the property. I will give you a key to allow you passage through the forest wards, which are more intense than the front one, as there are rather dangerous animals in the forest of Dean." Narcissa produced eleven ward stones with a runic inscription. "Pocket these runic keys, they will allow you free passage in and out of the wards without the major issues faced by undesirables. Good luck. Did you find a signature to track, Cousin?"

"Yes, and thank you for your encouragements. We will need them."

The search group made their way out of the back yard into the forest, trying to find traces of their target. Magical traces, they found everywhere! Harry had been busy, flying, running, porting. The only thing he had not done was swim, because the streams were too small.

"We need to organize that search!" said Frank. "He has been everywhere..."

"Can you date or somehow determine how old a magical trace is? For instance, I know the wolf trace you have been tracking is a good six days old: its side have collapsed, and it has begun to dry up. The last rainfall in the area of note is a week old. If it had predated that rain, the collapse would have been a lot more pronounced as the paw prints get washed out. On the other hand, that fox trail is no more than an hour old. The grass blades have yet to redress."

Frank thought it out. "Sirius, what do you think? Can we?"

"The degradation is not linear. We have not yet established how it changes over time, but only that it is not affected by anything physical. Magic can be used to modulate a magical trace, to the point of hiding it almost entirely, but I do not think Harry is that interested in hiding." said Sirius.

"Not that he lacks the power to do so?" asked a muggle.

"No, he has ample power, and the knowledge is a thought away. He just is not interested. The problem we have is that we do not have a base value for Harry. He is still growing, and is far from his magical maturity. So, we lack the description of how magic signatures degrade over time, and we lack the base value for Harry. What we do know is how magic grows in potential, but again, Harry is atypical. The weakest sign I see here matches twice Lord Black’s power-level at rest. And Harry is simply walking in the woods," Frank explained.

"How does magic grow?" asked the muggle commander.

"There is a magic core, which grows with time. Everything alive has one, even you, Commander. The thing is, magical beings have a bigger core, and it grows faster than with mundanes. There are three main curves: the muggle core, which starts tiny and stays tiny; the squibs, who seem to have a magical core that does not grow; and the mages, that start as squibs, but grow into mages, that is witches and wizards. The thing is, magic can skip generations, and there is a high probability that muggle-borns, that is, witches and wizards that have no known mages in their history, are simply ‘generation-skippers’, if you understand what I mean."

"Genetics. You are telling us mages are genetic-based," said a soldier.

"Genetics?" asked Alice, baffled.

"Genetics is the building blocks of life. We have been studying it since Gregor Mendel, in the late nineteenth century. From what you are telling me, being a mage is a recessive trait that can skip generations. Also, given the presence of three potential curves of development, it is polygenic, that is, the expression of the core, its growth, and its final level is mapped by more than one gene, probably located on different chromosomes, a chromosome being a collection of genes forming a helicoidal chain. Many factors influence the expression of a gene, which is a potential. For instance, a person may have the potential to measure six feet, but only grow to five foot five inches due to malnutrition. That must also be true of the magical core: malnutrition may stifle its growth. The genetic makeup, the potential, is the genotype; the expression, which includes the interaction between recessive and dominant genes, but also environmental factors, is called the phenotype. A squib may be so for many reasons: genotype mismatch, where the mundane parent squished the expression of the genotype by passing on a dominant gene that inhibits the recessive magical trait; there might be a mutation that damaged the genotype, banning its expression; or, there might be environmental conditions that blocked its growth, such as, say, a missing element in the baby’s food."

"That is enough, Doctor Bones; you are making our magical colleagues sweat," said the Commander.

"His short exposé is enlightening. We are far behind in this, it seems," said Alice, more than impressed by the young Doctor. "What is a doctor?"

"A doctor is someone that has a doctorate, that means, has done research in a domain and published the results, with the recognized approval of his peers. There are many types of doctors; I am a doctor in Medicine; I specialize in first-line trauma, or field medicine. That is why I was affected to this group, as the in-field trauma specialist."

"A healer, then."

"It depends on what a healer does; we have a wide range of healers, from nurses that take care of patients after we intervene, to nurses that do preventive education; and nurses that work in specialized care areas, such as surgery, post-surgery, or palliative care, for those whom are near death. There are even trauma nurses, that sort the patients according to the type of issue and flag those that need immediate care from those that can wait. We better get going. The commander is trying to kill me with his death glare!"

"You have that right, Bones!"

---

The search team had long disappeared in the forest when a nude, dark-haired boy walked out of it and made his way to the rock. His hair hanged right to the crux of his ass, wet from a swim in a narrow stream that fed the pond in the Malfoy grounds.

"Mistress! The boy is back under the wards!" whispered Dobby, as he played fetch with Draco.

"Locate him!"

"He is sitting on the rock. I think he is waiting for Master Draco."

"Guide us, Dobby. Maybe Draco can invite him in the house. Would you, Draco?"

"If he wants."

"Yes, naturally."

---

The three made their way around a magnolia bush, and Draco walked with Dobby to the nude boy. After studying the boy, Draco asked the first question he thought of:

"You no clothes?"

"Clothes?"

"To hide body."

"No need to hide. Hiding does not change body."

Momentarily caught by the dilemma, Draco, tried another tack.

"Cold?"

"If cold, change to fur."

"Change to fur? Me not under..."

"Understand, Master Draco."

"What he said," replied Draco, pointing at Dobby.

"Oh. Want to see?"

"Yes!"

Harry changed to the Saber-tooth tiger and back to human form. The new form fascinated Draco, who clapped happily, while Dobby was shaking in his breeches.

"More! More!" demanded Draco, shamelessly.

Harry obliged, even making a copy of Dobby, nude, naturally, much to Dobby’s shame and Draco’s amusement. Draco was so enthused he fell in the pond in excitement. Harry, understanding the body language of Dobby, jumped in the pond and changed to his shark form, diving after his friend. Shortly, Draco surfaced, carried on the back by the shark, which calmly waited on a shaky Dobby to remove Draco from his back before jumping out of the water and changing to his Phoenix and did a looping before turning once more to his human form in mid-jump. When he landed gracefully on his feet, Harry was dry.

Draco was shivering in his wet clothes, his diaper sagging badly. Harry noticed and, with a hand, vanished the clothes and dirty nappy. Another flip of a hand and Draco was dry, and as nude as he was.

"See? Clothes nasty. Clothes stink too!" said Harry, remembering the nappy and its terrible smell.

Narcissa was floored: removing clothes by magic took astounding control; doing it silently was unheard of. And she saw the shark dive in the pond, push her son to the surface, and then do a flip to exit the pond and change to a Phoenix and then back to a human form in less than a second. That was power, that was control every mage dreamed of but never reached.

Draco took to nudity like a duck to water. The two began running around, playing hide and seek. At some point, Harry walked on the pond’s water as if it was solid ground.

"You cheat! Me can not do that!" hollered Draco, miffed.

"Oh, sorry. I thought everyone could. I was surprised when you sank, thought you had forgotten how."

"Can you do something else with water?"

"Sure. Solid water."

"Ice?"

"Is that what it is called? Then yes, ice."

"Can you shape it, say like a dragon. That is where my name comes from, Daddy said. I wonder where daddy is."

"Yes, I can. What is ‘daddy’?"

"Daddy is..." Draco was stuck. How do you define what a daddy is? So he turned to Dobby for help.

"Daddy is life-giver for child; but so is mommy. Mommy carries life given until baby is born," tried to explain Dobby, just as stuck with the problem as Draco was.

"Oh, daddy mounts mommy so egg grows."

"Mounts?" asked a horrified Draco. "Mommy not a horse!"

It was Harry’s turn to get mixed-up. What was a horse, and by what gymnastic did it come to play in mounting a female? Deciding there was a language barrier, Harry took the talk to safer grounds.

"You want to see water dragon?"

"Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Harry looked at the pond and suddenly, without even moving a finger, the water began to spout sixty feet in the air, cascading down to form a dragon, that stood, solid as a rock, yet as liquid as water. Rainbows colored its body, as it moved fluidly on the pond’s surface, its liquid nature very apparent. Then the dragon became ice, as well as the water in the pond, presenting a dragon with wings extended, ready to take flight, the wings a kaleidoscope of colors.

Draco was spell-bond: that was the most beautiful dragon he had ever seen. He walked on the transparent ice surface of the pond and wrapped his arms around the left forepaw of the ice dragon. His eyes wet with tears, he sobbed. "This is the most beautiful gift I ever received! It is so beautiful! I wish I could keep it forever!"

"Why not?" asked a dumbfounded Harry.

"It is ice. It will melt," said Draco, still teary-eyed.

"Oh? Come here."

Draco reluctantly left the dragon and the pool to join Harry on the grass. Once Draco reached him, Harry looked at the dragon and focussed. It glowed gradually brighter its rich colors reaching deep saturated rainbow fundamentals. Then Harry snapped his finger, more for show than necessity, and turned to Draco.

"As long as you love the dragon, it will stay intact. It is your love for it that will maintain it. This is the essence of what life is: love."

Draco could not hold it anymore: he hugged Harry, kissing him, much to the surprise of the other boy.

Narcissa had watched everything from behind the bush; she had bitten her lips to blood not to laugh at the quick and failed sex education course Draco and Dobby had given Harry, only to be told the truth without understanding it. Then the ice dragon had her awed. How much control did that not yet two-year old have on his magic already? Then, the feather on the hat, the deep philosophical lesson the boy had given Dobby, Draco and her in that so short sentence: Life is love. Oh, how she wished to talk to that boy. Such candid knowledge wrapped in such clear pictures. If only Draco could remember to invite him in his home!

As if Draco heard his mother’s injunction, he turned to Harry.

"I want to go get cookies. Do you want some? We must go to the kitchen to get cookies."

"Cookies? What are cookies?"

"A type of food Draco goes nuts for," replied Dobby. "Maybe you should try some?"

"And what is kitchen?"

"The place where we do the cookies," replied Dobby, authoritatively.

"Oh. We can go... But there is a tall one behind the bush, there, that has been watching us. It wears ‘clothes’ too. Is it bad?" Harry said, pointing directly at Narcissa, much to her shock.

Draco looked at the bush.

"It's mummy. She took me for a walk, and decided to stay in the bush while we played. No, mummy is not bad, well, most of the time. She does tell me off when I do something bad. Daddy, he hurt me. Mummy never!"

What? Thundered Narcissa, that degenerate had dared hurt Draco by hitting him? If he had not been dead already, he would have lost his family jewels to a well-aimed cutting curse! As she raged on internally about Lucius, she remembered some off-the-wall comments by Lord Black. That kid smelled intents better than any animal. She worked on her self-control, afraid he might believe to be the target of her dark thoughts.

"Mummy! Mummy! Can I bring my friend to the kitchen to share cookies with?"

It was the first time Draco had ever called someone a friend. That alone was gold to Narcissa.

"Sure Draco. Come in, we will go to the kitchen. Dobby, you too!"

Dobby was getting way too many shocks in succession: Sitting in the presence of the mistress; sharing tea with her (and let us not forget the oh so superb cookies); being confided into; and now, invited to her dining table, That was pushing him to the brink of fainting. But no, he would not dishonor his mistress by toppling over! He took Draco and Harry by the hands and walked behind the mistress, acting like a lioness protecting her cubs.