Atan'iti's first question was no surprise to Harry, "How do you fly with no machines and become sightless in the eyes of others? I did not know the Sky People could do such things."
Harry knew that he could lie, that he could make up some weak excuse as he had done for the scientists. After he had returned from his broom ride last night he spend until dawn going through the seemingly unlimited data available on his pad, crafting a story. He knew much of the basic stuff from his primary schooling- what a sun was, other possible solar systems, and space travel, but the pad quickly educated him on quantum physics theories, on RDA practices, and on the highly desirable Unobtainium. The last two were easy enough to grasp, as it dealt with the unchecked human desire for power, something that Harry could understand quite easily, and the quantum physics had been idiotised enough for him to see the logic behind it. It had been easy to fool the scientists' minds with facts, data that they felt they had some grasp over, when they truly knew nothing about it. Their faith in their false knowledge was what made them so gullible, and what Harry knew would make them so opposed to the idea of magic. However, Atan'iti had called his broom a 'magic stick' by herself, and that gave hope to Harry. He didn't want it to be a secret, but with the human scientists, he felt he had no choice. "No one else can do what I did," he replied. "I'm rather unique."
Harry began his explanation into what magic was and how it worked. When he mentioned magic wands, Atan'iti asked him to show her, but Harry replied, "I don't have one. It was destroyed just before I was pulled here."
"So, you have control over this magic, a control that none of the other Sky People have."
"That's right. They think its all fantasy." Atan'iti didn't know the word. "Children's stories."
"The songs we sing to our children are meant to educate," she said, "But I understand what you say. Why are you the only one?"
"I didn't used to be. There's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. My journey here from Earth took much longer than it takes for other Sky People. For them, it takes four years. For me it took 180 years, two full lifetimes of travel. Since then I'm pretty sure all the others like me have died, and no more have been born since then."
"You are the last of your kind, then," said Atan'iti. She seemed sad for Harry.
"I think so. I'm the last wizard." They were both silent for a while. Atan'iti searching Harry for something, while Harry's mind jumped between introspection and admiration of the beauty around them. A lizard crawled onto the rock upon which Harry was seated and looked at him with the rotating eyes of a chameleon. Harry went to touch it, curious how the brown, scaleless creature felt, when it suddenly exploded in a flash of color. A single, vibrant wing fanned out above the lizard in a twirl and the small creature was carried away in the lowered gravity by the wing's momentum, spinning like a top below the spiral wing attached to his back. Harry, for his part, fell off his rock. Atan'iti laughed at him as he righted himself, her tail swaying back and forth in mirthful motion.
Harry began to laugh too despite his flushing red face, and the contemplative mood was broken. "Where does your power come from, Harry Potter?"
Harry pointed to his chest, "It comes from myself. Most Sky People would call it a soul, and mine is unique among them all because it makes magic."
"Eywa's energy comes from the life of all creatures. It is strange that your power comes from within."
Without warning Atan'iti picked Harry up by his shoulders and pressed his chest to her ear. Harry hung there, shocked, feeling like a limp doll in the arms of a possibly abusive little girl. Atan'iti could have thrown him thirty feet into the air if she pleased. She set him down after a moment, disappointed.
"I could not feel any of your magic, Harry Potter. I wish you could show me more than your cloak and flying stick."
"I wish I could too. What I would need is a wand, but I wouldn't know which trees to start with."
Atan'iti seemed to consider something, "Let me speak with my father. He may be able to help you."
Harry brightened considerably. If anyone knew which trees on Pandora held special properties, it would be the Na'vi. "Thank you, I would be in great debt if you helped me like that."
Atan'iti nodded her acceptance, "So why have you come?"
"Everyone keeps asking me. It wasn't my choice to come. Something pulled me here, away from Earth. I spend all that time in transit through space, my body didn't change but my mind was always active. I heard a voice speak to me just as my journey ended and I fell from the sky, where Jake and Neytiri found me. I was pulled here and it was for a bigger reason then my enjoyment of the sights." Atan'iti looked surprised and intrigued by his explanation. "I think rather than something that it was someone. I know that I am supposed to do something here, that I have some purpose. The only thing I can think of right now, however, is that I want to protect Pandora from the RDA. Norm and Abe and all the rest say we're long overdue for an invasion."
Atan'iti looked at him with her large, feline eyes, judging his character. "You say you lied to all the Sky People. Why do you speak the truth to me?"
"I didn't want to lie to anyone, but I don't want to become something for them to examine. If they knew what I could do then they would want to study me endlessly, convinced they could find the science behind something that naturally defies explanation. It would be useless and annoying.
"And as for you, I really didn't have a choice when you saw my broomstick and invisibility cloak. If I hadn't have told you, you would have brought me right to Khaki. Besides, like I said, I don't want to keep it a secret. I want to learn everything I can about this place, and right now I hardly know anything."
"Perhaps it is Eywa that has brought you here, like she did before with my father. Your magic is unique and powerful, even among the Sky People, and I can see already that you wish to be a friend to the Na'vi. You are worried about more Sky People coming, so is my father, and the scientists. Perhaps will arrive soon, and you will help us stop them."
"I am not powerful, Atan'iti, especially without a wand."
She nodded and stood up, offering her hand to Harry. He took it and was pulled up in one swoop, effortlessly. She held his hand after he was standing, "If the Na'vi help you find your purpose, and help in your quest to craft a new wand, will you pledge to help us in the fight against the Sky People?"
Harry nodded, and they shook on it.
*
Atan'iti promised to return to Hell's gate tomorrow with her father to discuss further their deal, and the fears that they all shared of an imminent invasion. Overall, Harry was pleased with their talk and the deal he had made. It would provide him with purpose on Pandora, and opened the opportunity to learn about the Na'vi culture. For now, he wanted to learn about this place, learn more from his books, and somehow get away from the very place he was returning to.
On the way back to Hell's Gate he saw a wild banshee flying low over the treetops, peering down through the canopy in its search for prey. He flew within feet of Harry, but never noticed anything amiss with Harry's cloak. Harry asked Atan'iti if he would be safe in his cloak from Pandora's creatures, and she said he would be 'safer.' That was good enough for him.
Harry landed on the outskirts of Hell's Gate. He checked the bottoms of his shoes for paint and checked around for observers. Finding nothing of either sort, he removed his cloak and quickly wrapped the Firebolt in it. Abe intercepted him halfway back to the compound "Harry! Get inside, quickly! There's been a situation at the school and Atan'iti is missing! Roxanne says there might be some unknown predator roaming around and no one is allowed to be outside right now."
Harry knew he had to play dumb, "Thanks for telling me, but who is Atan'iti?"
They were both jogging back to the airlock, "Jake's daughter! She's like the princess of the Omaticaya!"
The airlock door sealed behind them and the room filled with breathable oxygen, "That's not very good, then, is it?" Harry asked stupidly.
"No its not, man!" he said, and Harry felt bad over his distress. "The worst part is, it happened on our watch! Roxanne asked Atan'iti to find whatever it was at the school and she hasn't come back yet."
The red light began spinning and the inner door opened to Hell's Interior. Celia was there, waiting for them. "They found Atan'iti. She says she was tracking the animal at the school, but it got away."
Abe let out a breath of air and his figure relaxed. "Did she come back before the hunters arrive to take the children?"
"Yeah," Celia said, "Everything is fine, although Atan'iti's brother is annoyed she didn't take him along to find the animal."
"Alright," Abe said, "I'm gonna go to the link room and wait for Roxanne and Norm to come back. You and Harry get to know each other a bit. We still need to find something for him to do." To Harry he said, "Next time don't go so far to where we can't find you, Harry. Hell's Gate is well guarded, but at the edge something like a thanator could snatch you up pretty easily before our guys in the tower have time to react." Harry nodded, properly chastised, and Abe left to the link room.
"So what did you do today, Harry?" Celia asked, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"
"A bit, yeah," Harry said. In truth he was more than a bit hungry, as he hadn't remembered to eat breakfast before he ran out of the airlock, anxious to get away from the searching eyes of the scientists. Celia led him to the kitchens and prepared food for the two of them.
She set down a sandwich with strange meat inside of it. "What is this?" Harry asked warily.
"Hexapede!" Celia said happily. "They look like antelopes, sort of. Have you seen an antelope on a datapad before?"
Harry wanted to tell her he had seen a real antelope in a zoo before, but resisted. "Yes I think I've seen one." He bit into the sandwich with trepidation, but found that it was excellent, soft and flavorful.
"It tastes like turkey!" Harry said.
Celia stopped mid-bite, "You've had turkey before?"
"Uh, yeah… I was able to get a last meal before I was sent into the sun."
She seemed to accept the answer, and finished her bite. "Probably cloned meat," she said. I heard wildlife has been extinct on Earth for years.
"So how does using an Avatar work?" Harry asked. "Can anyone use one?"
"No, an avatar is paired with its driver. They are grown using the driver's DNA, and if anyone else tried to control someone's avatar… well… I don't actually know what would happen. You'd have to ask Mom or Dad." Harry didn't like the answer, but realized that sitting in a 'link room' all day was not an option for him. Slowly, a plan began to form.
Harry was able to escape Celia after they had finished. He liked the friendly girl, but the last thing he needed to do right now was waste valuable time with people he didn't need to learn anything about. He respected the scientists turned colonist/refugees, but had a more important purpose than making friends. The other humans in the base were busy building and maintaining their and maintaining their lives in addition to finding out more about Pandora in the hopes of finding something that could save Earth, not just keep bandaging dire wounds with Unobtainium. It was a respectable goal, but not Harry's goal.
Harry was lying on his stomach on the top bunk, flipping through the pages of The Metamorphmagus Guidebook, reading the introductory chapters that explained exactly what the magic encompassed. Harry was surprised to find that the Metamorphmagus transformation was complete and real, involving not only form, but also function. Harry remembered back to when Tonks changed her nose into a pigs' snout and realized that she had been hit with intense smells coming from the dinner table. The drawback to Metamorphmagus magic was that it would not allow the user to change himself or herself to anything besides human. Tonks could have given herself a pig snout, pig eyes, and pig ears, but she would still be a human with the face of a pig. Yes, she could make her body larger, smaller, taller, and shorter, even different colors, but Harry was unsure if he would be able to grow to the size of the Na'vi. Besides the height, he knew that being a Metamorphmagus would have certain drawbacks. The Na'vi had a grace and a strength that Harry wouldn't hope to match, even if he succeeded in copying their form exactly. The sensory abilities Harry would get as a Metamorphmagus- sights, smells, sounds. The physical strength and agility would be beyond him. In fact, the book stated that forms far off from Harry's normal figure would cause him to be clumsier, if anything. From his experiences with Tonks Harry knew the book to be accurate.
If Harry could somehow make his Animagus form be Na'vi, then it would be the much better option. However he knew that the choice was not his, not consciously, anyways. The book described the form as a symbolic reflection of the Animagus' deepest self. Harry was who he was, and no amount of willpower could change his Animagus form.
So he was stuck. It looked like the Metamorphmagus route was by far the better one to take. He would look like a Na'vi, would be a Na'vi in a shallow sense, but would be lacking that certain finality that the Animagus form offered. He sighed through his nose and began to practice the first-step exercises from the manual.
Author's Notes:
Sorry for the short updates, but don't worry about me cutting corners. These short chapters allow me to update more frequently, and encourages me to take on this daunting task in shorter bites. The narrative will be more or less continual, with subsequent chapters picking up the instant the previous one leaves off. The ball is really starting to roll now, so tell me your thoughts on the story. Hopefully some of your concerns have been met, Zealot.