The Fellowship of the Fox: Alternate
by Ryuuohjin
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Disclaimer - I do not in any way own Harry Potter or any of its world or characters. They all fully belong to J.K. Rowling and her affiliates.
Got bored with plot and decided a rewrite of this story, changed the title from "Harry Potter No More" to "The Fellowship of the Fox".
Will still be AU and contain time travel, Fem!Harry, pairings still haven't decided yet.
Update 2015-03-10: Fixed several errors & mistakes I seemed have missed.
Update 2015-04-27: Now been betaed by Dragon Ashes. Thank you for that, Dragon Ashes.
Update 2018-03-16: Now completely rewritten and put through Grammarly, please tell me what of this new, hopefully, improved version of this story.
Update 2018-03-20: Sorry for this and thanks for your your patience. This will hopefully be the last rewrite. I also think I might have over complicated the ritual there, but don't know really.
Update 2018-03-30: Now revamped as an alternative version of my "Fellowship of the Fox" story.
Update 2019-03-03: Completely rewritten.
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Chapter 1 – Preparations
The second war against Voldemort had been truly devastating, while it had been shorter it had cost more lives then Voldemort's first rise ever had. Sure they had won in the end, if you could call it that, and then only just barely by the hair. Not to mention that it had been quite the pyrrhic victory, with a final price that had been way too steep for many to bear. Barley anyone of the D.A. had survived the war and chaos that had followed the wake of the war. Though the Order of the Phoenix had fared no better, it might even have fared worse, but it was really hard to say precise.
The Patil twins and the Creevey brothers, along their families had been wiped out not long before the final battle at Hogwarts. So had Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, and Hanna Abott, along with their families. Most of her own family, along with that of Lee Jordan, Dean Thomas, and Ernest Macmillan, had fallen in the final battle. Likewise had Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, along with many other Order members and students stayed and fought.
Seamus Finnigan, Romilda Vane, Terry Boot, and Justin Finch-Fletchley, along with their families, had all lost their lives when the Death Eaters had attacked their houses in surprise in the summer break before their seventh year. Maisy Reynolds, Nigel Wolpert, and Rionach O'Neal had fallen during an surprise ambush in Hogsmede early in their seventh year. Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet had perished, along with Angelina Johnson, when Draco Malfoy had let Death Eaters into the castle at the end of their sixth year. During same attack Albus Dumbeldore had fallen to Severus Snape's wand. While Neville lost both of his parents and grandmother during a Death Eater raid on St. Mungo's. Luna had lost her father when Death Eaters had come to the Rookery.
Severus Snape had been killed by Voldemort's pet snake Nagini, before the final moments of the battle of Hogwarts. And Sirius Black, Cedric Diggory, Alastor Moody, had lost their lives in the years before. They had lost Cedric during their fourth year, at the end of Triwizard tournament, when Voldemort had made his return. While Sirius had died in their fifth year, during an battle in the Department of Mysteries. Dumbeldore had been killed at the end of their sixth year by Severus Snape, and Moody had perished in an ambush just before their seventh.
Then there was the many house elves who had help them during the war, Dobby had lost his life just days before the final battle. Which had then been followed by Kreacher, who had lead the house elves at Hogwarts into the fray of the final battle, falling in the defence of the castle as a hoard of acromantula emerged from within the depths of the Forbidden Forest.
The war had then been followed by a long period of chaos and upheaval in the British wizarding world, as almost all of its leaders on both of the fence had perished in the war. Less then tenth of the magical population in Britain had survived the war, and that was still quite a generous estimate, with even more leaving country during the chaos that followed. The number of victims in muggle world was still unknown, they only knew it had been over several hundreds. And during darkest hours of the war, the statute of secrecy itself had only been hanging on by the skin of its teeth, as the crown had even threatened to stage a full scale military intervention, if they didn't get their act together quickly.
It had not been that long after the everything had finally calmed down, that Harry had decided that the past somehow needed to be changed. And it really hadn't taken long for Ron and Hermione to find out what Harry had been up to. They had been quite adamant on joining Harry on this quest of his, they had soon been followed by Luna, Neville, and herself. With Gabrielle joining them a couple of months later. What had followed was many long decades of hard study and intense research, which had been dedicated solely towards that goal. They had studied everything from wand making, spell crafting, curse breaking, along with enchanting and imbuing things with magic, to magical smiting and weaving, advanced potion making, alchemy and warding.
They researched things like; Blood Magic, Parsel Magic, Runic Magic, Shamanic Magic, and different kinds of contractual and ritual magic. They had searched far and wide, high and low, for any lost or forgotten magical arts or rituals. Along with all that they had even gone through various muggle sciences like; medicine, pharmacy, biology, genetics, botany, and few different of branches chemistry, just in case they may find anything useful there. They had even managed to convince the goblins of Gringotts to help them somewhat with their project, but only in exchange for some concessions, of course. Throughout the years they had all changed in different ways, mostly thanks to experimenting with the various magic they had found or encountered throughout the decades.
The most obvious of these changes were that you now could clearly see Gabrielle with a pair of somewhat small wings, relative to her of course, of pure white and amazingly soft feathers, sticking out just over the back-dip of the sundresses she now mostly seemed to prefer to wear. Not to mention sticking out from under Luna's skirt one now could see a single, silver, fluffy fox tail, with a pair of matching fox ears where her ears used to be. Both of which were contrasting with and blending in with her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair, which gave her already-ethereal air even more mystique. Hermione seemed to be somewhat similar to Luna, as she now had striped cat ears resting on top of her head, along with a striped tail sticking out of her spine.
Then there it was Neville, whose facial features had become more streamlined, along with his ears were now much longer and tapered to a point. His eyes were also a bit thinner and a little more out drawn then before. Then there were also a slight, barely noticeable, greenish shimmer to both his eyes and hair. Ron though, had claimed his changes was mostly just embarrassing, as he had gained cerise pink, very curly hair. His eyes had become wide and slightly narrow, and he now sported a pair of reptile-looking pupils, along with slightly darker and more greyish sclera.
Finally there was Harry, which brought them to where they were now. After many long months of arduous resource gathering and many careful preparations, they were at last ready to put their plan into action. It had also been decided that it would be Harry to take the trip back, he had actually volunteered and had really refused to really take "no" for an answer. Not that anyone had really tried or wanted to dissuade him anyway. They had quickly realized that as Harry Potter or the Boy-Who-Lived, he would have way to much focus on him to do what he really needed to do.
So the first part of their plan had been to alter Harry's appearance, so he could be as inconspicuous as possible, and for that, the Boy-Who-Lived would need to disappear. Their long years of research had shown them that this may be accomplished through various blood and runic rituals they had found. While there were some spells and potions that could achieve somewhat similar results as their ritual, their affects were only temporary at best. The same with any kind of transfiguration, while they at first seemed be permanent, the magic they initially had been infused would eventually run out, unless they recharged form somewhere. From they had discovered through their research over the years, was that the only branches of magic that really could enact true and permanent changes to any kind of matter was either ritual magic and alchemy.
Then there were the strange fact, that for some reason, the older and more powerful a spell or enchantment was, the bigger risk it was that would suddenly start to change and distort in some unpredictable way. No really was sure why was happened just that it did, as it didn't seem to adhere any specific pattern or logic of when or how it happened. All that was really know, was just that it did. Sadly very few dedicated themselves to really unravel why magic behaved as it did nowadays, most just accepted that magic was strange and mysterious thing, that most only knew a very little about, and was quite satisfied with that, therefore didn't bother to look any closer.
But while this part had been seemingly successful, it hadn't really done it in a way they had first expected. Though while very few people would be able to connect him to the person he would become, this unexpected result might also help making it so people would naturally underestimate him more. From personal experience, she knew that people often let guards down more around small children, especially little girls. Which was why Ginny thought that this result was much better then what had first planned. And since Harry was going to travel such troubled times, they would also try to give him some extra perks to help things along in past. Though what had planned to achieve that could only be considered grey, even in the best of lights.
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"Is everything set?" a goblin asked the assembled crew of witches and wizards.
"Yes, everything is set," Hermione replied somewhat nervously. They were currently in large forest clearing, deep within the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, the moon hung high in the night sky, the giant silver orb casting pale moonlight down upon the forest below. The forest to around of them was thick and gloomy, the pale moonlight unable to penetrate the canopy of leaves.
I front of them a was faery star, also know as a septagram had been carefully drawn using pixe dust, crushed fairy wings, and bonemeal, made from various magical creatures, that had been mixed together with kelp and water from Black Lake. Along the inner edges of the symbol, strange runes had been inscribed, that almost appeared to shift from one to another. Located in middle of each point there was an alchemical symbol for one of the seven planets.
In the point closest to them, on top of the symbol of the Venus, stood what seemed to be a little girl. She was wearing the white, button up shirt, while her lower half was covered with a black pleated skirt that came half way down her thighs. Her legs were encased in simple tights. Her shiny black hair ran freely down her back, almost to her waist, and perfectly framed her slightly elfin face, seemingly flushed, with the red of the small horns on her forehead and spade-tipped tail coming down from beneath her skirt that marked her as a succubus. She was tightly tied to a large pole made of beech with delicate looking copper chains, that been charmed to be unbreakable, wrapping both above and below her chest, with even more wrapping around her legs and feet.
Hanging above the succubus head was a thick copper bar with sturdy leather cuffs attached, in which her hands had been secured. The succubus also had leather blindfold, studded with diamonds, white sapphires, and white beryls, covering her eyes, while a copper bitgag, engraved with runes for sealing, restraint and silence prevented her from speaking. Around her and on top of the zodiac signs of Libra and Taurus, were the large crystallized heads of goats and sheep, while herbs like dog rose, daisy, alkanet, thyme, lady's mantel, which had been scattered about.
Directly opposite the succubus in the middle of the symbol for Jupiter, a harpy had been chained to pole made of chestnut, and which had been studded with yellow sapphires, yellow topaz, and yellow beryl, with charmed chains of tin. While herbs like dandelion, hyssop, lemon balm, were scattered on top of the signs of Sagittarius and Pisces, along with a few pieces of dragon liver.
To the left of the harpy, on top of the symbol of Mars, the magically preserved corpse of Nagini, a Maledictus who had turned into huge snake and had belonged to Voldemort before being killed, which had been being entwined around a the trunk of a Camphor tree with many long nails, made out either red coral, carmellion, bloodstone. Along with that, herbs like basil, garlic, mustard and nettle, were scattered above the signs of Aries and Scorpio, that could be seen around the base.
Going even further left in the middle of the symbol of the sun was a large majestic phoenix could seen perched on beautiful golden stand. This was in fact it was Dumbeldore's old phoenix, Fawkes, to be more exact. The phoenix had just suddenly appeared in ball of flames a few days ago, after many long decades of absence. Having disappeared shortly after Dumbeldore's death, no one having really seen him since then, until now that is. It had taken them some time to figure out why the phoenix had appeared and what he had really wanted. After having reaffirmed the phoenix's desires several times, and Fawkes being quite adamant about what he wanted, the reworked the their plans somewhat to incorporate him too. Around the stand, on top and in between the symbol for Leo, small tree saplings of walnut, ash, and dragon's blood, had been planted, with herbs like angelica, rosemary, eyebright and juniper, were strewn around in between.
Opposite to Fawkes, on top the symbol for Saturn, in a heavily charmed cage, made out of lead, which had been faceted with blue sapphires, iolite, and kyanite, was an Obscurus, which looked like a flying, incorporeal, and amorphous entity, with a oleaginous appearance of a black, fluid-like cloud with a reddish core, and a shining white eyes. Around it some small tree saplings been planted such as almond, peepal, gingko and olive. Along with various herbs as arnica, belladonna, cannabis and knotgrass, hiding the Aquarius and Capricorn that were beneath.
To the right of the Obscurus, above the symbol of the moon, and between a pair of large mahogany pillars, a seemingly rugged and feral old man was chained with thick and sturdy leather wrist and ankle cuffs, that was dangling from heavy duty silver chains. This man was a condemned werewolf who, like Fenrir Greyback had forsaken his humanity long ago, and was driven by his animal hedonism, to the point that he had finally become cannibalistic. He had already been sentenced to death, having admitted that he enjoyed attacking people and took pleasure in his brutality. That through some quite shady dealings had ended up had in their hands.
Further to the right, between the werewolf and the succubus, on top of the symbol for mercury, chained to a large X shaped cross, that was made of obsidian, and had several runes for restriction and sealing carved into it, with charmed chains of quicksilver, was another man condemned to death, though this one was an ancient vampire, that since long had terrorized the neighbourhood were he finally had been caught.
Directly at the star's center were three concentric rings shaped like gears that were somehow also overlapping. That also appeared to somehow move or shift whenever they were not directly focused on. Focusing on any one part of the circles, however, was a quite difficult prospect with the way they seemed to contradict themselves, and forcing your eyes to focus on the circles simply led to a headache. As your mind attempted to comprehend what seemed to be beyond any humans understanding. Inside on of the circles laid a red wolf, which were had been captured for just for this ritual, and was currently deep asleep. In the middle of all this stood Harry upon the . In front of him was three pair of crystal vials, one containing a quite complex luminescent blue potion that had brewed just for this ritual, while the other was filled with much less complicated dull brown one, the vial Harry knew was blood taken from the dragons that had been in the Triwizard tournament, along some blood from the Norwegian Ridgeback they had meet in their first year at Hogwarts.
"Well then, let's get this show on the road," Harry said and grabbed the vial with the blue potion, chugging it in one in go, before he then reaching for the one with the dragon blood in it.
As some of the others began drawing strange markings with a dark coarse paint the bodies of the succubus, the vampire, werewolf, and the harpy, ending with what looked like an inverted S or a five, that had an accent mark on the side of it, sat on their foreheads.
For Harry though, after drawing a symbol, comprised of a circle divided in two by a horizontal line crossing through it, in the middle in palm of his with it. Which was followed by Harry clapping his hands together, before spreading them out, like he was addressing a great audience, and began to chant a long incantation in an ancient Germanic language, as he poured out the rest of blood in a as wide circle around him as he could.
His voice echoed off the hexagonal faces of the room, and as it did the multitude of runes that had been carved into the rock began to glow a dull red as the room thrummed with immense power. As the circle, he stood in lit up a brilliant blue and its incomprehensible motion, which before could have been attributed to tricks of the light, was now clearly visible. Along with that, as it did so, the air at the clearings edge shimmered, as if in a heat wave, tiny specks of light forming and spreading rapidly until the entire are was surrounded in a pure white barrier, locking them in, and everybody else out. The light spread out across the floor and above them as well, completely sealing all of them inside. After Harry was done chanting, Neville, Ron, and the gathered goblin shamans standing outside the outer circle began to chant in archaic some tongue.
As they chanted the rest of the drawings on floor began to pulsate and glow, as did the marks on their captives foreheads, soon followed by the other marks on their bodies. This promoted the girls to start their own short chant in Latin, before they each pulled out a silver athame which they drew across their palms with a wince. They let their blood flow for a short while before they started on another short Latin chant, ending it slamming their bleeding hand into the symbol closest to them, making them brightly give away a scarlet glow. Along with all the making the marks on their chained victims body bodies flare up for a short moment. A few seconds then passed before Harry then grabbed the last vial and quickly swallowed its contents all in one go. Almost instantly fell to his knees as the resulting pain neutralized his body, while the air around him seemed to crackle and flash like lighting. His insides burned and an unbearable pain began to enveloped his body, it was as if he was fighting off a raging demon within him.
Red markings, similar to those of the other had drawn, travelled from every visible part of his body. As the marks grew on his body, the fabric around them burned away, making what was left of his clothes fall off, exposing his skin. His arms, legs, and torso were covered in symbols, along with a mark of on his forehead. It was much like girls, only his marks were rounder, more stylized and have more additions to the S, unlike they others simpler S design. Harry thrashed, gasping and groaning. Sweat poured in glistening trails over the dips and rises of his body, his chest heaving as he took halting, shuddering breaths. Harry felt ill, his stomach queasy and his body in immense pain, his muscles felt taut and strained, a small sheen of sweat was covering his body, the marks gleamed with an eerie light as they crawled over his skin.
As the ritual reached its climax, the intensity of the light emanating from the circle grew and its erratic motions intensified until it seemed frenzied. Before a sudden explosion of light and magic occurred as the shield that Harry had erected at the beginning came tumbling down, from the might of a large stampeding horde of clearly panicking animal, both magical and not. Forcing everyone to quickly evade them, unless they wanted to trampled. Though once all the animals seemed to have passed and things had calmed down again somewhat. Their jaws just about dropped to the ground, as what meet their eyes was utter chaos. The magic circle and the things in it had been trampled completely into the ground, with the blood the succubus, the vampire, werewolf, the harpy and Nagini was soaked deeply into the ground. The only exception to this seemed to be the cage in that the Obscurus was in. While seemingly heavily battered, it still seemed to hold fast.
Though what the worst thing was, the thing had made them the most shocked, was that Harry being surrounded by chaotic torrents of wild magic, swirling like a turbulent storm around him. Along that Harry also seemed to been been by, the horn of a unicorn, that had seemingly broken its legs during the stampede. Both seemed to be still alive, though seemed to be struggling to breathe, as a mixture of the Harry's and the unicorns blood was staining the ground under them.
After several minutes of this, as the others trying several times to either approach or in some way help Harry had proved to be to no avail. The ground around them began to crack, the markings on Harry's body only grew brighter, becoming dislodged from the unicorn as he began to float into the air. They all watched in horror, as suddenly unknown chants seemed to come from all around Harry. Making the on marks on his body to turn into iridescent crimson flames, which were quickly spread across his skin. They burned him, consuming what was left of his clothes and caught his hair on fire. From his hair, it seemed to inflame his brain, because it was suddenly once again ablaze with infernal pain. Harry gasps, his breathing heavy, his entire body spasming as his skin flaking and reabsorbing into his skin, reforming itself. The same seemed to also happen to unicorn beneath him, with random flakes of skin being exchanged between them as they grew closer to each other.
The very air seemed to tremble as they watched both Harry and the unicorn was hanging in the air for a few seconds, and were now close enough to touch each other, their mouths in a silent screams. Before the chaotic storms of magic seemed to wrap itself around them, forming a growing sphere chaos around them. After that they had been unable to see what was happening, as the sphere seemed to become nothing but a sphere of solid bright light, that only kept growing until it had finally swallowed the whole septagram and all that it contained. A few more minutes then passed, and the air around the dome began to pulsate as small shockwaves began to ripple out from it.
For over three hours, that felt like eternities for all that was watching, the sphere just seemed to hang there, with Harry's friends, almost going crazy with worries and what ifs, that only seemed to get worse as time passed. After what felt like a long time of waiting, suddenly there was a crack, that was more felt than heard, as the pulses steadily began stronger and tears started to appear here and there on the sphere. Then with a bright flash that drowned area in light and blinded everyone, the sphere exploded into a million pieces in a single burst the sphere. The many pieces of the sphere looked like a rainbow–coloured meteor shower, that disappeared whenever they hit anything.
When the light finally had died down, what meet their eyes made most of them gasp in surprise. As the sphere they had all expected see, there now what looked like a very huge shiny cobalt egg, floating a few feet above the cracked floor. It had a lustrous crystalline sheen, and appears to be covered in scales. It also had shimmering veins of crystal running across its surface, and raised golden ridges. The egg also glowed mysteriously, giving off an almost magical aura, and seemed to be surrounded by some mysterious, reflective dust. Along with that it seemed have some kind of magical symbols carved upon its surface, that seemed to literally glow and pulse with life, although the meaning of any of the strange etchings adorning its face none had a idea. Though it seemed to make them all feel somewhat queasy and uneasy as they look on them for some reason.
After the strange looking egg had just hanged still in the air for over several minutes doing nothing at all, Luna decided to brave closer to the egg. As she grew closer to egg, she began to detect a faint exotic scent coming from it. When nothing seemed to have happened to her or the egg on her approach, she reached out for the egg with her uninjured hand. Luna had never really felt anything quiet like it, and unconsciously also began to run other hand all over the egg.
A few minutes later when once again nothing seemed to happen to neither Luna or the egg, the rest of the girls was slowly joining her. The egg was surprisingly warm, and felt somewhat heavy and rather rough, almost as if it were made out of some kind of natural formed rock or mineral. But this time after another few minutes the rest of the girls had started run both of their hands across the eggs surface, and another few minutes later the egg flashed brightly a short moment, that temporally drowned chamber in a light that blinded everyone for short seconds.
When the light finally had died down once again, the egg now seemed to have grown a bit, along with changing its features. The egg was now covered by black scales with a crackle pattern revealing a sliver of pale rainbow colours beneath. Along with that each scale seemed to have been carefully placed in a intricate spiralling pattern. It wasn't until a day later something finally started to happen, as the egg started shaking back and forth, on its own, while weak at first it quickly grew to shake with surprising ferocity. This continued for quite a while, until after a particularly violent shake. The egg then shook faster than ever before until then finally.
CRACK! Then echoed through out the forest clearing, the sound was then more felt than heard. A ringing followed, growing louder and louder, as cracks spread across the surface of the egg, followed by an even louder CRASH! Everyone had instinctively ducked and now looked up and took their hands off of their ears. But where there once had been an old wizard man named Harry Potter, there now was a little girl spilling out of the egg. Who were drenched thick with a glistening sheet of strange amniotic-like fluid, with little beads of fluid trailing down his skin, and much of his hair was matted to his face, while the rest seemed to reach his waist in long, matted tangles. Harry's now seemingly had an slim, lithe body, that seemed to be quite tiny and thin.
Really thin, maybe even a little to thin, as he wore absolutely nothing, his entire new body were exposed for their studying gazes. Harry now looked very young, showing almost no sign of development. If they didn't know better they couldn't imagine him having seen more than eleven winters. There was little fat on his new body, as they could easily make out his collarbone, pelvis, and ribcage. They also noticed that Harry's cheekbones were a bit too pronounced, the same was true with his spine, which put them somewhat on edge. Adding to that was that Harry's skin now also seemed to be excessively, almost unnaturally, pale. Whiter than even someone who'd never been exposed to the sun for decades, making them worry about vitamin D deficiency. Additionally it was so soft that actual porcelain felt like sandpaper, by comparison. Along with that it was far too smooth; not a single blemish or scar on him, a feat well beyond the protectionism of even the most controlling parent. Another thing they couldn't help but notice, was the pair large wolf ears where his ears should have been. Not to mention the big and fluffy tail that was now protruding from the end of his spine, while Harry, himself, still seemed to be very deep asleep.
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TBC
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