Harry went directly to Poppy, he wasn't sure how this meeting would go, as by the time he returned to Hogwarts in the last timeline, Poppy had retired for quite some time, citing too much suffering in Magical Britain. Harry never learned why Poppy ignored his obvious state of malnutrition. So Harry decided to take the direct approach.
"Madam Pomfrey?" Harry called out evenly.
"Yes, Mister Potter."
Harry then threw up a range of privacy wards around them, if Poppy was surprised by his skills at casting wards, she didn't show it. Harry then asked calmly. "How come you never treated my obvious state of malnutrition nor reported the abuse I have suffered?"
Poppy's eyes seemed to glaze over, and it was a long moment before she said anything. "I had spoken to Albus about it since the first time you visited the Hospital Wing in your first year, he said he would deal with it. It was clear he didn't when you returned for your second year, so I had spoken to him again, but he said, as your magical guardian, he forbids me to approach you about it, he would speak to you in due time. I am not sure why I followed through, as I would normally report to St Mungo's straight away. But surely, Albus had your best interest at heart, so let's just wait for his return to see what he says."
Harry was seething on the inside, but his Occlumency quickly jumped in. His mind could always determine whether someone was telling the truth, without Harry using any active Legilimency probes, but by analysing the person's body language, micro-expressions among other things. At the moment, Harry's HUD was telling him that she was telling the truth, so he quickly formed a course of actions in his mind.
"Do you have flushing potions at hand, Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked gently.
"Yes, Mister Potter, what for?" Then a light bulb came on, "Surely you don't think …"
"Yes, I do, Madam." Harry cut her off. "I can tell you are refusing to believe it, if I am wrong, there was no harm drinking a dose of flushing potion, is there?" Harry laced his words with some compulsion, he hated to use the same technique the MOB often used, but his manipulation was for Poppy's health, and that set him apart from the MOB. Besides, he would make sure to not make a habit of it, and vow to himself now, to never take away his allies' free will.
Poppy answered, "No, there isn't." And promptly drank a dose of flushing potion.
The effect was immediate, Poppy immediately ran to the sink, and vomited. Half an hour later, she returned and seemed to be confused and angry. "I can't believe that bastard would do that to a colleague, what was he playing at? I will go get some nutrient potions and growth potions and start to file a report to the DMLE now. I am so sorry, Mister Potter."
Before she could continue, Harry gently stopped her. "Poppy, stop, and relax. I don't blame you at all." Harry checked that his privacy wards was still up and continued. "Can you hold off the report for the DMLE?"
"Why?"
"Because I don't think you are the only staff member who is under the influence of mind-altering potions." The realisation of the severity of the situation dawned upon Poppy as Harry continued his explanation. "And I don't want to give Dumbledore a reason to come back to Hogwarts early before everyone is free from and aware of the old goat's manipulations." Poppy nodded as Harry continued. "I suggest you contact a couple of Mind Healers from St Mungo's first thing tomorrow, to check every staff member including yourself and except for Snape, for both mind-altering potions and memory charms."
"Why not Snape?"
Harry retorted back softly, "Who do you think brewed the potions for Dumbledore?" Poppy nodded immediately in understanding but hesitantly asked another question.
"Do you really think Albus would stoop so low as to use memory charms on us?"
Harry looked at her searchingly. "Do you remember coming to visit me at my relatives' house, because I was too badly injured to heal on my own?" At Poppy negative shake, Harry continued. "That's because that old goat obliviated the both of us after the events, a total of five times. And that is why I want a Mind Healer to check all of you, who knows what other charms he had casted on you without you knowing. I found a mental stunting charm on mine, which I dissolved with my Occlumency."
"Was that how you remembered those events despite being obliviated, because of your Occlumency?" At Harry's nod, Poppy continued. "That is some of the most advanced forms of magic, Mister Potter, do you think you could send me the books you used to learn the Art?"
Harry smiled, this was going better than he expected, "Of course, I will do you one better. Mind Arts is only hard because people make it out to be, I will get you a copy of my own notes on learning Occlumency, and you should be immune to or at least aware of any mind-altering magic in no time." At Poppy's grateful smile, Harry bowed his head a little in shame. "I must confess I had used some compulsion charm to get you to drink the flushing potion, I promise I won't do it again."
Poppy frowned for a second, before she smiled back at him warmly. "I am glad you did, Harry." Before telling him in a mock stern voice. "I will forgive you this one time, Mister Potter."
Harry just grinned back, and mock saluted. "Yes, Ma'am."
A moment later, Harry turned serious again. "I will let you know when I am ready to file charges against the old goat, so you can file those reports to the DMLE. But don't let me stop you from reporting Dumbledore's transgression against the staff of Hogwarts to the DMLE, after you had everyone except Snape checked out by a Mind Healer."
Poppy nodded in acceptance.
"Oh, just to let you know, don't worry about that fraud Lockhart, he had suddenly developed a conscious and decided to confess his liberal and illegal use of memory charms to the DMLE." Harry said this to Poppy with a twinkle in his eyes, and inwardly, Harry thanked Merlin that Flophart lacked the mental discipline to use his memory charms properly, and had at least some brain cells to realise he would risk being discovered, if students started turning up without any memories.
Poppy smirked at the implication of Harry's words, she was glad that this clearly powerful wizard decided to use his power for good, and was nothing like You-Know-Who nor Albus Dumbledore.
Harry steered back the conversation to what he came here for, "Meanwhile, Poppy, could you get me enough potions to fix my malnutrition?"
Poppy immediately left to fetch the potions, moments later, she came back with a case of nutrient potions, and told him sternly. "These are nutrient and growth potion mixtures. Only two doses per 24 hours, you will also have an increased appetite, don't fight it, and eat as much as you can. Also you will need to do stretches every day, to allow your muscles to grow to the correct length, I have included the instructions for the stretches in that case. You should be done in a month, but I have put in enough doses for six weeks. So hopefully, you will be at your correct height by the time you leave for the summer. Thank Merlin you came to me now, all the damages are still reversible, if you left this until after you graduate, you would never grow to your full height."
That last statement was news to Harry, the Healers at the Department of Mysteries never told him that, but then again, he was already six foot one when he came out of the time compression chamber. If Poppy was right, and he had no reason to doubt her, he would be even taller when he finished growing in this timeline.
"Thank you, Poppy." Harry smiled warmly at her. Before Harry took the ward down, Harry remembered about Penelope, and suddenly had an idea. He asked Poppy softly, "Could you please check Penny for any mind altering potions."
Poppy wasn't sure where Harry was going with this but decided to trust Harry's judgment. Poppy nodded, Harry then took down the wards and followed Poppy to Penelope's bed. To Poppy's shock and disgust, she had indeed detected mild love potions keyed to Percival Weasley. Harry wasn't surprised, it just confirmed another Weasley's sentence.
"How did you know?" Poppy asked Harry after informing him of what she had found.
Harry merely replied, "Molly Prewett."
Realisation dawned upon Poppy, and she nodded. "Say no more."
Harry would have smiled, if the situation wasn't so serious. He set up the privacy wards again and turned to Poppy. "Please don't ask me how I know this, but trust me Poppy, in her petrified state, Penny can still hear us."
Poppy hesitated for a moment, to be honest, petrification cases like these were unprecedented, she really couldn't refute Harry's statement without any evidence, so she nodded in acceptance.
Seeing her acceptance, Harry continued. "While you can only flush out the potions in her system after she wake up, I can get you both started on Occlumency now. It shouldn't take more than an hour for me to explain the basic concepts to get you both started, so you have something to work on until I can compile all my notes on Mind Arts and make copies of them. Do you want to get started now?"
Poppy decided that was for the best, and again, nodded in acceptance. Both Harry and Poppy found a seat each close to Penny's bed, Harry then entered his 'Professor' mode, and started to teach Penny and Poppy Mind Arts.
An hour later, Harry took down the wards, left Poppy behind in her meditation and went to see Hermione. Harry talked to Hermione about inconsequential things for half an hour before saying goodbye to her.
Dinner was uneventful, other than another one of his Legilimency probes sending Ronald to Malfoy again. To Harry's amusement, another fist fight broke out, and both bigots were sent to the Hospital Wing again. Harry wondered when those two so-called 'Pure-bloods' would remember they were wizards and start to use their wands.
That was also when he noticed a pair of eyes watching him intently, a pair of beautiful and icy blue eyes belonging to the resident 'Ice Queen' Daphne Greengrass. When he did, he just smirked, winked at her, and stood up to leave the Great Hall by himself, without observing Daphne's reaction. He knew Daphne's curiosity would be driven through the roof, by his actions just now. After all, Harry did get to know her quite well in the last timeline, this time, Harry did not plan to lose her ever again.
Moments later, Harry arrived at the Room of Requirement and started his training. When he came out of the room two hours later, he would be in peak physical condition again.
Harry spent exactly five months in the Room of Requirement in time compression, which was just under two hours in real time.
For every day in those five months, Harry did three sets of five-hour training periods, a period of three hours of doing various projects and a period of six hours in deep meditation.
Each of the five-hour training periods consisted of magical training then physical training for a total of four hours, and an hour to eat and rest. Harry scheduled his training this way so he wouldn't do physical training right after eating to avoid upsetting his stomach.
The food was provided by Hogwarts' house elves, and was always on time.
The six hours of deep meditation would negate Harry's need for sleep. Harry usually only needed four hours of deep meditation per day, but he allocated two additional hours during his retraining to allow his body to recover from the day's more-intense-than-usual training.
The deep meditation technique was taught to him by the Vampire Elders who were even more paranoid than Moody and nearly as paranoid as him. Harry had modified the technique to be compatible with his Mind World. It allowed Harry to completely shut down his mind except for two AIs: one would monitor any alert wards he had set up, the other would scan for any danger in the vicinity of him and his bonded. This way, he could keep his brain at an extremely low activity while still aware of and be able to react to any potential attacks.
Harry magical training served to get his younger body to be able to command magic like he used to before his rebirth, as he already had more than enough magical knowledge stored in his virtual library.
So to start off his magical training, Harry needed to open the magical channels around his body, and the best way to start on that was meditation. Once his magical channels were open again, it would be much easier for him to fill his being with magic with just a thought; thus it would be easier to call upon his Animagus forms, cast Patronuses, as well as teleport using various methods.
Diving into his magical core, Harry pushed his magic into what was available in the currently very narrow magical channels around his body; when they were all filled up, he pushed some more magic in, before drawing magic back to his core; he then repeated that process over and over again. Two hours later, Harry came out of his meditation, soaked in sweat. With the help of his Mind Magic, Harry had made significant progress in those two hours, but it was still tiring to constantly manipulate his magic like that.
Harry did this during the time allocated for magical training for two days before moving on to the next stage.
This time, instead of pushing out and pulling in his magic, Harry continued to push magic out after he filled his magical channels, and used the magic pushed to the surface of his body to form a simple shield charm all around him. This allowed a continuous flow of magic through the magical channels, albeit not very fast as the Protego Shield Charm was relatively low powered.
Harry then amped the shield up to an Aegis Shield Charm, which could block much higher powered curses, including Reductos.
Harry held the charm for half an hour before pushing more magic into it and cast an Aegis Firmus Shield, which looked like a solid layer around Harry; Harry pushed further, and the layer got thicker. This shield was strong enough to stop a weakly-cast unforgivable. Harry only held this shield for ten minutes before he was exhausted, as he still didn't have the use of his full core.
Harry followed this principle using charms with increasing power requirement for a week; the last charm he used was a modified version of the Patronus Charm that could destroy a Dementor completely. On his tenth day in the Room of Requirement, Harry was satisfied with the state of his magical channels, and started his retraining for his animagus transformations.
As planned, Harry focused on his Royal Phoenix form first.
Although Animagus Transformation was taught in Transfiguration, under Self-Transfiguration, the processes between transfiguring oneself and transforming to one's animagus form were nothing alike.
Nearly everything taught about Animagus Transformation in any magical school was wrong, although each institute seemed to get different parts of it right, and used different potions to help with the rest of the transformation; but the end result was, no one had more than one animagus form, and it took the wizard or witch years to achieve transformation.
Harry was taught by one of the many magical Native American tribes he had met during his travels; needless to say, they were much more in touch with their inner spirits.
Spirit was the key word for Animagus Transformation. An animagus form was an animal spirit representing the person's true-self: his personalities, desires, and characteristics. However, a person's true-self was subject to change as they aged, especially by traumatic events. Harry had experienced more traumatic events than he cared to count in his four centuries of life; it was also the reason why Harry had many animagus forms.
As a magical human, all one needed to do to achieve the transformation was to find their animal spirit, accept it, fill their body with magic, and allow the spirit to take over said body; the magic would do the work of the transformation.
Care had to be taken to not let their mind to be completely overtaken by the spirit, as then they wouldn't be able to transform back. Thus, a mastery over Mind Arts would very much help with Animagus Transformation.
Given this was Harry's first transformation to this particular form in this body, Harry decided to take it nice and slow. The spirit of the Royal Phoenix was a special case among Harry's other animagus forms, in that the Royal Phoenix had its own life before coming to join Harry in spirit. Nevertheless, the process of the transformation was the same.
Harry dived into his Mind World, and found the Royal Phoenix in the ecosystem Harry had created for all of his animagus spirits. Harry let himself join with the Royal Phoenix, and flew around his Mind World to relearn every detail about his Royal Phoenix form. Once Harry was satisfied, Harry separated himself from the Royal Phoenix, but asked it to stay with him.
Harry then reached into his magical core, allowed his magic to fill every part of his body, including the clothes he was wearing, and allowed himself to merge with the Royal Phoenix again. As he did that, his physical body and any items on him disappeared; in his place was a Royal Phoenix. He had a golden head, with the rest of his feathers mixed between red and black.
Harry felt his own mind as well as the Royal Phoenix spiritual mind and instantly knew what to do to force a burning day for Hedwig and Fawkes.
Harry also knew if he went through a burning day in this form, her human body would be healed as well; all his scars would disappear, except for the lightning bolt, of course, all the incorrectly healed bones would be good as new, and the only thing he would need to take care of was his malnutrition.
Harry also realized, while going through burning day, if he wished, any of his blood being used for magic, whether it was inside his body or not, could burn with him. So in one fell scoop, Harry could destroy all of the MOB's blood monitoring devices, as well as the blood ward around 4 Privet Drive. Because to set up blood ward based on his blood, his blood was needed to power the runes on the ward stones.
With all these positives, the only downside was that Harry would have to stay in his Royal Phoenix form for 72 hours, to allow the Royal Phoenix's body to grow back. But that point was moot, as 72 hours in the Room would be barely over two minutes outside in real time.
Making his mind up, Harry initiated a burning day for himself. He allowed the Royal Phoenix spirit to do the work; a flash of golden flame later, a beautiful phoenix was gone, and a half-plucked turkey was left behind.
The following three days were very boring for Harry, as there wasn't much he could do in his half-plucked turkey form; he did chat with and learn from the Royal Phoenix spirit though.
The wait was worth it for Harry. When he transformed back to his human body again from a beautiful and fully-grown Royal Phoenix, Harry was surprised by how healthy he felt; he could tell all his scars except the lightning bolt were gone, and there were pains he didn't remember being there that had disappeared; all in all, Harry felt great.
And just like in the last timeline, the mage sight ability from the Royal Phoenix was transferred to his human form after his first transformation.
Harry dived into his magical core again, and saw all the blood monitoring branches were gone, and there was no longer a blood ward draining from his magical core. So except for the eleven layers of bindings leaving him with 0.05% of his magical core, the third draining to keep his parents and sisters alive, and the quarter draining to supply his mother's sacrificial protection, the rest, which was just over 0.02% of his magical core, was all his to use.
Harry immediately collected a vial of his tears from his Royal Phoenix form, and added a drop to each dose of his growth/nutrient potion mixtures; only then did Harry start taking his daily two doses of potion mixtures.
Harry knew from experiments in his past life, the phoenix tears would make the potion mixtures much more potent, and his recovery from malnutrition much more pleasant. He could still remember the pain he had suffered in the time chamber in the Department of Mysteries, during his recovery from malnutrition in the last timeline.
After three days of rest, Harry restarted his training as rigorously as ever. Up to this point, Harry's physical training was mostly endurance based: running, cycling, swimming and so on. For Harry, who had been keeping up with his physical fitness for four centuries, he had to force himself to remember that his younger malnourished body needed to be built up slowly. So Harry did just that.
Most Pure-bloods neglected to do any physical training. They didn't seem to understand that being physically fit meant there was more magic available to use for casting. Besides, the best defence to any offensive spell was to not be there. By dodging instead of shielding, you freed up magic for offensive spells. Getting physically fit was the first step to get better at dodging spells.
On the third week of his training, Harry added resistance training, circuits, assault courses and started to practice martial arts katas. Having spent a decade in the muggle side of the US Army, and another decade in the British Army, Harry knew precisely how to condition his body.
By the third month of his training, Harry had re-mastered all of his old animagus forms as well as mastered his two new animagus forms during his magical training. Harry had also mastered all of his teleportation techniques; the only thing left to do for pure magical training was to make sure he could cast anything he had learned wandlessly. For physical training, Harry had started to fight dummies using hand-to-hand, knives and swords.
It was the fourth month in the Room of Requirement; Harry had changed from a barely five-foot skinny little boy to a five-foot-six lean-muscled young man, as his powerful magic forced his height towards the top five percentile of his age.
Harry had stopped his magical training as he had re-mastered every spell he had learned in his previous life. His physical training had come along nicely; picking up how to fight again wasn't that hard once his body could keep up with the exertion, as all of his fighting experiences were safely stored in his Mind World.
It was time to combine his physical training with magical training. Harry adjusted his schedule to training, project, training, training, and meditation. For the first hour in the last training period each day, Harry would review all his fights during that day, then analyze and build new strategies, spell chains and etc.; he would then spend the rest of that training period conditioning his body.
Again, this new training schedule allowed him to avoid any physical exertion right after a meal.
The Founders and Cassie had also joined him during the last two months of his training. Cassie especially was a formidable opponent, as she could copy everything Harry did as well as develop her own strategies. In addition, her magical core was much larger than Harry's bound core, and her physical manifestation could become any shape and any material, including the material used in that killing-curse-proof-bullet-proof full-body battle suit Cassie was helping Harry to make during his project period.
Harry could have cursed himself for showing Cassie the molecular structure of the material used for his battle suit, but if anything, Harry enjoyed a challenge.
With his intuition and creativity, Harry could somehow keep up with Cassie, just barely.
Soon, Harry's five months of retraining was concluded. They were five very productive months for Harry: he had recovered from his malnutrition, and was now five-foot-seven with a perfect athletic build; he was now a better fighter than even before his rebirth, both magically and physically; and with the help from Cassie, the Founders and the Room of Requirement, he had completed many side projects, but that was a story for another time.
Harry had not released any more bindings on his magical core; this allowed him to reach close to magical exhaustion during training and thus allowed his already enormous magical core to grow even bigger. This worked for him as he knew he would be able to share his magic with his girls and familiars once he bonded with them. This magical boost would allow them to better protect themselves. Harry was all for protection of his bonded by whatever means necessary without excessively coddling them.
Harry wondered if he should give the old goat a chance to bind his magical core again at the end of this year to aid further expansion of his core, but Harry wasn't sure if the MOB could if he tried. Given how much more powerful he was now compared to the old coot, even with eleven layers of bindings around his magical core, Harry doubted any new bindings could take hold.
To prevent any of the MOB's spying charms or illegal Legilimency probes from finding out about his new body before the right time, before leaving the Room of Requirement, Harry applied a glamour he learned from the High Elves, a glamour even that magical eye of Moody's couldn't see through. Harry wanted to surprise the MOB when he started to present evidence against the old goat in court.
Checking the time, it was already nine o'clock in the evening, but Harry still had much to do. Harry planned to take away the MOB's phoenix next, and he planned to initiate Hedwig's and Fawkes' burning days together. It was time to visit his beloved owl/would-be-White-Phoenix, another dear friend he had lost in the last timeline and could place the blame on the MOB.
Harry Shifted to the Owlery. Shifting was his primary method of magical transportation to known places; the principles were very similar to Apparition. After learning House-Elf Apparition (Popping) by accident (Popping Ron to Voldemort's cave), Harry decided to develop his own method of magical transportation, so that he couldn't be trapped by any Anti-Apparition and Anti-Portkey wards. Shifting was the first of a number of transportation methods he invented, and was also used most by him.
Like Apparition, mental discipline was the key, but unlike Apparition, Shifting was much more natural and less forced. Harry pushed his magic to fill every part of him, which came as a second nature now due to his retraining. Then, Harry simply imagined himself standing in the middle of the Owlery, and let his magic do the work. There wasn't any squeezing through the tube feeling, nor was there any cracking sound; he was simply in the Room of Requirement one second, and standing in the Owlery in the next.
Immediately, Hedwig dropped onto his right shoulder, and nipped his ear affectionately. Harry looked into her expressive eyes, and muttered, "Hi, girl." He started stroking her feathers, and it wasn't long before he collapsed on to the ground against a wall and let the tears drop. Harry didn't realise how much he missed Hedwig until he saw her. For six years, Hedwig was his constant companion; even Hermione wasn't there with him during the long and lonely summers.
"I missed you so much. Don't ever leave me again, ok girl?"
Hedwig had felt the change in his human; she had been waiting for him to visit her to find out what was going on, but she didn't expect him to become this emotional. Hedwig could understand everything her human said, but her human wasn't exactly being eloquent at the moment. For now, she would try to comfort him as much as she could.
Harry chuckled to himself as he felt Hedwig trying to wipe his tears off with her wings, and felt yet another burden lifted from his soul. He smiled at her, kissed the beautiful bird on the top of her head, and started talking to her.
"Thank you, Hedwig. I know you initiated a familiar bond with me, but I never finalized it. I am sorry about that; I didn't mean to not accept your bond, I just didn't know."
Harry paused for a second to see Hedwig staring at him intently, as if to say, "Took you long enough."
Harry chuckled again at his owl's antics; he seemed to attract hard-headed females. "Hey, I said I am sorry; how about we complete the bond now?" Hedwig hooted affirmatively, complete with bobbing her head up and down. Harry smiled and stared into her eyes. He reached into his magical core, allowed a branch to come out, and willed the branch towards Hedwig.
Seconds later, Harry saw both of them were enveloped in a soft white glow before the glow faded. Being ultra-aware of his body, Harry felt a tattoo forming on his chest. Loosening the top few buttons on his shirt, Harry found an animated tattoo, about the size of his fist, in the image of his beautiful owl. Harry smiled approvingly at his new tattoo.
Buttoning up his shirt again, Harry checked on his magical core and his soul; his parents and sisters were all safe and sound, frozen peacefully. A branch of his magic reached towards Hedwig, and he could tell it was a symbiotic relationship. Harry could also tell there was a tiny connection between their souls; it wasn't an anchoring bond, more of a communication bond.
Harry had learned from the Native Americans that the familiar bond would allow the familiar and the master to share their magic; usually the familiar had the most to gain. The sharing of magic included sharing of mind protections, meaning, if the master had impenetrable Occlumency, the familiar's mind would be protected too. Thus, Harry decided to bring the communication bond in towards his Mind World, and went to his control centre, to key in Hedwig, so she would have access to his memories and thoughts.
Hedwig saw the bond form, felt her human's powerful magic, and her access to it. She then felt her human expand the bond, and saw her human's mind. It was a beautiful and scary place; who knew her human could have such a developed mind? Maybe he was good for more than feeding her bacon after all.
Hedwig felt her human give her the information on how to access his memories; now she would know how to navigate through the scary place that was her human's mind. Maybe now she could find out why her human had become so emotional suddenly. Hedwig then watched the highlights of everything her human had been through; he had had such a long and lonely life without her. She now understood why her human had cried over her.
She felt proud to have saved her human's life in the future, and knew she wouldn't hesitate to do it again, but she hoped it wouldn't come to that. Then she saw her human's conversation with Death, and Hedwig became excited knowing she would soon be able to show up that red flaming chicken; she would be more beautiful than ever.
Unknown to Hedwig, some of her stray thoughts were heard by Harry, who just shook his head in amusement at Hedwig's vanity.
Harry mentally reached out to Hedwig, and asked.
"I am going to fetch Fawkes, so I can free him from the MOB's enslavement. Would you like to wait outside the Room of Requirement, and we will see if you could experience your first burning day then?"
Hedwig just looked at her human with an expression clearly says 'Do you even have to ask?' except for the first time, Harry could hear his companion in his head. Harry kissed the beautiful bird again on the top of her head, thought to her "See you soon!" and transformed into his Royal Phoenix form, before Flaming into the Headmaster's Office.
The Headmaster's office was empty at the time, except for Fawkes and Alistair the Sorting Hat.
Harry saw the whole area where the MOB had left the silver trinkets/monitoring devices was burnt, and all that left was ashes and burn marks. Harry was quite satisfied with the result, and turned his attention to Fawkes.
Fawkes was woken by something burning in the whiskered wanker's office; he recognized everything that had burned was used to monitor the Chosen One. Fawkes was ecstatic that one of the whiskered wanker's plans for the boy was literally in ashes, but dreading what the whiskered wanker would do to him. It was evident that a phoenix fire had destroyed the silver trinkets; oh how he wished he had chosen to go through a burning day somewhere else all those years ago, somewhere the whiskered wanker wouldn't happen upon him and enslave him when he was at his weakest.
Just as Fawkes started to sulk, he was surprised to see another phoenix Flaming in; even more surprising, it was the Royal Phoenix, his King. The Royal Phoenix was even bigger than his swan-sized body. Fawkes knew his salvation had come, and couldn't wait to get away from the whiskered wanker's control.
Fawkes immediately started to trill, and started to communicate with Harry. Harry flew to Fawkes and Flamed him back to the Room of Requirement, where Hedwig was anxiously waiting for him.
The three birds entered the Room of Requirement. Harry told both Hedwig and Fawkes to perch next to him, and initiated a burning day for both of them. A flash of golden flame enveloped all three birds. After the flame had died down, Harry retained his fully grown Royal Phoenix form, but both Hedwig and Fawkes climbed out of their ashes looking like half-plucked chickens.
Needless to say, Hedwig did not enjoy the process, and started ranting to Harry. "Harry, I look like a half-plucked turkey; I want my beautiful white feathers back. This is not even funny."
To which, Fawkes retorted, "So do I, but you don't see me complaining about it. I am stuck in this form just as you are for three full days. Sit tight, you will get all your feathers back in less than two days, and grow to full size in three, then you won't need to go through this again for another year."
Hedwig just mentally huffed, and carried on muttering about her poor feathers.
Harry transformed to his base form, and immediately sensed a change to his Hedwig tattoo. Harry then checked the tattoo, and noticed it had changed to that of a White Phoenix. He wasn't really surprised, to be honest.
Harry knelt down, cradled both new-born phoenixes in his arms, and carried them to the perches provided by the Room.
Harry called out for Cassie, who immediately appeared next to her daddy and started cooing to the new-born phoenixes.
"Cassie, could you look after these two, please? I need to head back to the Gryffindor Tower; I don't want a search party to start looking for me," asked Harry gently while watching his daughter playing with Hedwig and Fawkes.
"Sure, Daddy!" Cassie was still gushing around the phoenixes, so she answered without a backward glance.
Harry then turned to Hedwig. "Don't be too hard on Fawkes, girl; he had a few decades of hard life imprisoned by the old goat. I sure know that doesn't feel good."
"Sure, Harry, no need to guilt trip me."
Harry chuckled at Hedwig's wit. "Wasn't trying to, girl." He then turned to Fawkes. "You will be safe here for now Fawkes. I am not sure where you are going to go afterward, but please don't leave without saying goodbye."
Fawkes trilled as the spirit of the Royal Phoenix helped him to understand the new-born phoenix. [Although I do wish to bond with you, Harry, I don't think Her Highness Hedwig would be happy about it.] Harry chuckled at Fawkes' sarcastic remark for Hedwig. [I can sense the difference in you since you last visited, not to mention you have somehow gained the allegiance from the spirit of the Royal Phoenix. Whatever your plans are, I plan to stay and help you and my King. Your plan has got to be better than the whiskered wanker's Greater Good. I would like to see you destroy the whiskered wanker for enslaving me for nearly seven decades,] Fawkes finished that with some agitation.
Harry nodded in agreement; being a phoenix didn't mean he didn't want justice done. That wasn't what being light meant, contrary to the MOB's belief.
Harry replied, "I am honored that you choose to help; I promise you the old goat will get what he deserves. I plan to destroy him little by little, as he watches all his plans for his 'Greater Good' falling apart, but can do nothing about it.
"I am also honored that you think I am worthy to bond with you, but you are also correct that Hedwig would probably have a fit."
"Hey, I am here, you know."
Harry chuckled at his beautiful companion, and continued. "While I cannot predict what he would be willing to do when he gets desperate, I do know a familiar bond would protect you from the old goat. And I might just have the right person for you to bond with; she is a delightful girl and has had a hard life so far. Her experience of Hogwarts until now wasn't really pleasant, and I will rectify that soon. But either way, I think she would be a good companion for you. I will bring her here soon, and you can make the decision of whether to bond with her then. How does that sound, Fawkes?" asked Harry as he stroked both Hedwig and Fawkes' feathers.
Fawkes trilled positively.
"Good, I need to leave now. The time compression will last for 72 inside hours, so when I return, the both of you should be fully grown, now play nice you two."
Both Phoenixes trilled. Harry kissed the phoenixes and Cassie on top of their heads, and left the Room of Requirement.
Miles away in one of the few Potter properties that weren't sealed off during the First Wizarding War, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot plotted his next step.
While he wasn't expecting to be temporarily suspended as the Headmaster, all the other pieces of his chessboard were moving according to his plan. Especially the main pawn, Harry Potter; the boy had turned up just as he expected: beaten, selfless and completely unaware of his inheritance.
He was rather miffed that he still couldn't get rid of that mudblood, Granger. She had escaped the troll and ended up being much closer to the pawn. The incident had created a lot of work for him, as he had to remove all the books that could potentially affect his plan from the library. And just recently, she even managed to narrowly avoid being killed by the Basilisk.
Oh yes, he knew it was a Basilisk. He was Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard since Merlin, of course, he knew it was a Basilisk; he was even aware of who was controlling the Basilisk. While he didn't plant Tom's diary on the youngest Weasley, the situation was surely helping with his plan for the pawn. Who cares if someone might get killed by the Basilisk? It was all for the Greater Good!
Meanwhile, he needed to find a way to deal with the Board of Governors; they were obviously leveraged by Malfoy, and thus it shouldn't take long for him the leverage things back in his favor. He was Albus Dumbledore after all.
Suddenly, his musing was interrupted by a feeling; Albus Dumbledore felt weakened, and he wasn't sure why. He could tell his magical core was fine, so he shook the feeling off, he was sure he would be fine after a good night sleep in this relatively small but still luxurious Potter property.
Unknown to the self-proclaimed 'Leader of Light', that feeling was caused by the severing of his connection with Fawkes. His magical core had been augmented by Fawkes' powerful magic since he enslaved Fawkes until now for about seventy years, and the so-called greatest wizard since Merlin forgot his own lesson: almost all rituals have a price.
In his case, Dumbledore's own magical core had been slowly reducing in size without him realizing it; and every year when Dumbledore re-enslaved Fawkes after a burning day, a bigger proportion of his magic reserve was replaced by Fawkes' magic. Soon, the manipulative fool would start to feel all 112 years of his age.
