Chapter 11


Over the next few true weeks, Harry and Luna had gone through with hastily-made plans to visit the founders. During their week-long stays compressed into only hours, they had made leaps and bounds into their magical knowledge, both theoretical and practical applications.

The most notable accomplishment for Harry was the very quick grasp he had gained an arguably one of the most difficult pieces of transfiguration magics known to the modern wizarding world: the animagus transformation.

Something of significance about the difficult transformation, and had apparently been forgotten over time, was that it was exponentially easier if the prospective animagus had a true familial bond, as the familiar helped to stabilise the trainee's magic.

So, over the course of months compressed to a week, Harry was able to finally transform fully into his inner animal. However, it was not an animal at all like that of anything that had ever been seen before. Well, by any non-invasive species on Earth. The Zerg had seen something similar to it, but not exactly the same. Thankfully, the Swarm was able to provide the necessary research in order for Harry to transform and not end up dead.

See, one of the many things that made the animagus transformations so difficult for the first time was that the person had to extensively study the animal in question before the transformation could take place without someone dying. In the founder's time, the task was carried out by the dissection - and sometimes vivisection - of the animal to learn where everything was before doing the transformation. In the modern day, thankfully the process did not need to be so horrifyingly gruesome, as there were texts available for the study of the animals without the need for a more hands-on approach. Surprisingly enough, it was even outlawed in Harry's time to torture an animal in such a way, thankfully. The Hivemind had known all about the particular Zerg biology as buried within its memory in the form of its DNA and other chemical databases rested designed for the very subject he was made into.

It was a cross between what was zerg, and what the zerg knew to be protoss - whoever they were. Apparently, it was supposed to be impossible for a protoss and a zerg to even be compatible enough to last longer than a very short amount of time, before detonating. From what Harry knew from what the xenozerg had obtained, he knew that any cross or integration of human and zerg would be very difficult, on the level of what the Manhattan Project was for early twentieth century's United States. However, as difficult combining a zerg and a human genetic code was, the zerg memory banks indicated that a protoss/zerg relationship would make a human/zerg a cakewalk in comparison.

Harry's animagus form was an ardent image to behold, as well as it was an imposing figure. When Harry had done the normal thing in familiarising himself with the habits, instincts, and whatnot of his form, as all witches and wizards did before attempting their transformation so as to both know what it was and not be caught off-guard by the instincts, he had been pleasantly surprised to learn that it was not unlike what he did with his familiar.

However, inside Harry's meditation of his form, he was able to view it work in its natural habitat. That was to say, the being managed the Swarm. He had even been able to witness the combat capabilities of him, as it was defending against some imagined adversaries. Harry took all of this to mean his form was a combat-oriented body meant to house the Overmind.

Harry quickly realised he could not very well keep referring to his alternate form as simply "it", so he decided that it needed a name. When he was experiencing and eventually controlling the meditative state - having graduated from simply experiencing to actively controlling = he was always referred to as "Overmind" by his family, his Swarm. So, a name had not been able to have come from them. However, Harry had struck some random inspiration one day, when he had looked at one of his classmate's chicken scratched scrawl he called handwriting, and the only thing he could make out was a "word" that looked like a name: Amon. When he saw it, Harry had gotten one of his feelings again, and as always, he listened to them. Hence, Harry's animagus form was dubbed Amon.

Little did he know that "Amon" was described as "the universe's most ancient evil" from whence the zerg came.

When Harry had completed his first transformation, a process that took some time and plenty of effort, his friends and tutors had finally realised the full extent of Amon. Harry had told them excitedly and extensively about Amon throughout his efforts of becoming an animagus, but the sheer impossibility of what they were told and that which could not be expressed by Harry fully sunk in.


Red. Red and Dark were the best ways to describe what Amon looked like. Immediately following the transformation, Harry in Amon form stood from his "kneeling" position, having fallen due to the difficulty of the transition. In his full height, Amon stood at a proud three metres. If the wings protruding from his back were to be counted, the tips added another metre. Amon had no mouth, only a smooth, shadowed face where eyes were. The eyes themselves did not outwardly appear as anything even close to similar to any being that the collective witnesses had ever found in nature. Even Luna had a hard time placing the deep redness, and something else that her vocabulary was not adequate enough to describe fully, in one of her hypothesised fauna. The aforementioned wings were kept neatly folded, so as to allow for them not to easily catch in narrow spaces, while the feather reminded those fortunate enough to witness one of a phoenix's feathers. However, instead of the subtle change from red to gold of a phoenix's feathers, Amon had his look as though the wings started as a white inferno and a subtle yet harsh change from white to blood red; it was a fleshy blood red, too.

His legs were nearly non-existent, as he had not the bipedal structure the humans had, and instead used razor sharp tendrils to support the weight. From the way the tips rested lightly upon the stone flooring of the chamber, it was obvious they were sharp enough to pierce the dense rock with ease. Harry knew this, which was why he took such great care with the way he rose from his previous "kneeling" position, he did not wish to create tendril-sized holes just from standing.

What made Amon's method of locomotion so eerie was not the subtly obvious way it could act as the finest of stiletto shaped swords. Harry knew from his meditation stage that the tendrils could puncture the best of alloys, as sharp as it was. Harry also knew that they could be used with deadly efficiency in other ways like with the way it could be used as a bastard-child of razor wire and a whip, so sharp were the edges.

So eerie, though, was not just from this. Instead it was more of the way the shadows themselves seemed to cling to Amon's form, shielding the body from prying eyes in order to make it incredibly difficult for an untrained or relatively weak eyes from discerning details; the shadows were especially careful to protect limbs and the more obvious combative features hidden, including the defensive features like protective spiked from the hard, armoured carapace of Amon's armour.

Again, Amon had not a mouth, yet Harry knew that the form could communicate; Amon had taunted the make-belief enemies of his swarm. It was thought-speech - telepathy, using something called psionics which Harry assumed was just another term for magic. So, it was with a deep, mental reverberation that Harry "spoke" to his relatively old friends, "What do you think?"

Godric laughed.


By the time December showed how cold its heart really was, Luna had managed to complete her animagus transformation under the watchful gaze of the resident ancient castle composed of four ever older minds.

Luna had gained the form of an otter. When she found out, Rowena happily commented that some cultures connected the otter to laughter, curiosity, truth =, and patience. She had also added that she was an otter animagus as well.

It was also around December that a fair few other events had happened.

Harry had managed to fully master his unique form, and of course, no-one had mentioned just how impossible it was for someone to have a form like this. With the mastering of an animagus form usually came some perks related to the form, anywhere from instincts to physical prowess. For example, in the case of Professor Minerva McGonagall, a well-known animagus, she had gained the ability of increased balance and a more keen perception for moving objects. A more interesting but humorous point of this also came from the amusing penchant for catnip.

In Harry's case, he had gained a heightened ability to multitask. Before his heightened ability, he had been training over time to increase his ability to communicate with his Swarm as well as doing other things. He had gotten to the point where he could both be aware of, as well as minimally interact with his surrounding while managing the local hive cluster via issuing orders. After the mastering of the Amon form, Harry found a significant improvement came in that area; he was able to effortlessly get it to the level where he could actively be about one topic, speak with someone about a different conversation entirely, do general management of the Zerg, and conduct in-depth experimentation and research in the spawning pool and evolution chamber.

It tended to make some people fidgety when he was able to fully pay attention to what was going on in class and read a book. He had even answered the Professor's questions correctly when they asked questions because of his reading a book on a different subject. The only downside was that it made Harry had a slight attention deficit disorder, applicable to if he would try to focus solely on one thing.

All of that said nothing of the Swarm, however. Under the nurturing watch of their Overmind, they had expanded rapidly. Harry had deemed it a necessity to create more hatcheries but in different locations. He had thought that because he had three hatcheries already in a hive, it would be the most efficient for him to distribute the zerg's unique "manufacturing" process across a larger area. After all, it would be detrimental to the Swarm's survival if they had all of their population in one area in a potential invasion.

It had taken a significantly less amount of time to get the new hive cluster up and running as Harry had a lot more drones to help with the startup materials mixed with some overlords to ferry some water. All of the extra help meant that Harry didn't need to actually be at the point of interest. Harry had used the drones to gather the needed biomass to allow for three hatcheries to be set up. He utilised the overlords for the water to be pumped into the evolving hatcheries and for Harry to be able to actually see in a top-down view of what was happening with their powerful senses.

He had placed the new five cluster nearer to the South, away from the known acromantula nest near the North. His Swarm was quite able to set up rapidly. It did not take long for Harry to set up a hatchery, and then various defences as he was very conscious of something coming across a developing cluster with the minimal defences of what zerglings he had sent.

His worries were not unfounded as, incidentally, the new cluster might have been set up away from the nest of the resident scary harries, but it was closer to the castle itself. This led to the centars noticing their presence and in turn Hagrid being informed. As intelligent beings with a pacifist take on life, the centaurs had wisely opted out of flat-out attacking an unknown force that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and had instead informed Hagrid, in case he had experience with the forest's "ailment" where they had not.

This led to a contingent made up of Hagrid and a group of five centars, all of them armed with their weapons of choice. When they had reached the area in question - far away from his main hive cluster - they had all stopped at the sight of the creep. Hagrid stepped forward with a jar in hand, intent on collecting a sample of the odd fleshy "plant" covering the forest floor. However, what none of the group had predicted was a warning of sorts from said pink, snow-covered "flesh".

In exaggerated slowness, a pink spike with slowly spreading barbs rose out of the ground, directly in front of Hagrid's large, red nose. Hagrid's eyes widened, spooked by the manifestation of the pike. He had summarily dubbed collecting a sample a lost cause at that moment and had quickly backed off to a safe distance. He counted his lucky stars that the whatever it was had a presence of mind and morals to give a warning and not preemptively attack.

It was then that both Hagrid and the gathered centaurs had come across an intelligent species, and not a rage-induced monstrous plant intent on taking over the proud first. It was still yet to be seen just how intelligent the being was, but the actions taken at least resembled that of what most any animal did; some animals would hiss, some would rattle, some would growl, and some would puff themselves up, but the actions always meant the same thing: A warning. It seemed that the invasive species that took residence in the forest were no different, and thus was to be treated with the same respect as all the others did.


A/N: I hope you all enjoyed and I also hope that you'll be kind enough to leave a little review.

Sorry for the slow updates, but I've been busy.