Harry opened his eyes and found himself in the clearing that he used to go to in the forest to transform. The moon shone brightly, caressing the Earth with a silvery ethereal glow while a warm breeze kissed his naked skin, contradicting the barren trees and snow-covered ground that suggested it was the middle of winter. Looking around, he once again saw the hooded figure between the trees and smiled as it glided towards him, leaving no footprints in its wake. He watched, transfixed, as the figure's long robes billowed in the wind and what looked like stars burst into existence all over the pitch black fabric before winking out of existence – some with little to no fanfare, and others with a burst of light and colour the likes of which Harry had never seen before.
"Hello again," Harry said as the figure took a seat next to him.
"I don't think I will ever become accustomed to being greeted with such warmth," the figure said and Harry frowned as something seemed slightly off.
"Your voice sounds different," he said once he'd figured out what was so different. The last time he had seen it, the figure spoke in what sounded like a chorus of voices, but, even so, there was always a distinctly feminine quality to it. Now, though, the most recognisable voice among the cacophony was most definitely male.
"So it does," the figure replied indifferently.
"Something on your mind?" Harry asked, noting how his friend was even less talkative than the last time.
"Nothing more than simple contemplation," the figure reassured him. "Since we last spoke, I was able to return something that I had been forced to take. I'm simply curious as to how things will turn out."
"Well, that cleared things right up," Harry said facetiously.
The figure chuckled and Harry's chest warmed at the deep timbre of its voice. "Perhaps you would like to share something as well."
Without further prompting, Harry began recounting the disastrous meeting in Grimmauld Place and the events of the following month. He told the figure about how he had assigned his older students their project to invent something and how Dumbledore and the Ministry had been trying over and over to stop them and have him punished. It was only thanks to the efforts of his more politically savvy friends and the other professors that he had been able to hold them off, but at the cost of the wave of popular media coverage he was receiving taking a hit. Luckily, the news had elected to simply ignore him, rather than attempt another smear campaign. He did manage to finally get Umbridge out of the school, though. With the Riddle's return to the land of the living finally being accepted as fact, letters had come by the hundred demanding that a proper Defence course be taught in Hogwarts, leaving Fudge no other choice in the face of his ever-decreasing popularity but to remove Umbridge from Hogwarts, and providing Harry with a fantastic opportunity.
Before Dumbledore could even think of making a move, Harry had gone over his head, and, with the help of Amelia and a handful of her Aurors who all vouched for him, had managed to convince the Board of Governors to hire Sirius Black as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts. Sirius accepted immediately, and had signed his employment contract within the next hour, after which he had immediately gone to pick out a proxy for the Black seat on the Wizengamot, despite the fact he rarely attended the usual meetings anyway, getting his updates from Remus and only coming around if Remus informed him of something he wanted to put his vote behind.
To the shock of the entirety of Wizarding Britain, the proxy for the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black was a muggle-born by the name of Edward Tonks, husband to the newly reinstated Andromeda Tonks nee Black, and father to Nymphadora Tonks. This made quite the splash in various political circles as four of the oldest and most powerful families in Wizarding Britain were being represented by a werewolf, a goblin, a centaur, and muggle-born; something that was inconceivable not three years ago.
With Sirius taking over the Defence classes, Harry didn't feel guilty reducing his own classes to just once a week, which was fortunate as he explained the Circle to the figure and how he had already been sent on no less than five combat missions to help fend off various strange targets, even joining his mother on one to protect another coven as Riddle made yet another attempt at finding the Oracle of Delphi. Other than that, he was usually sent to places whose relevance to the war he couldn't discern. A series of underground train tracks in New York, according to Daphne's information; a cave in the Himalayas that seemed to be made entirely out of glass with a strange ticking noise coming from deep within it; a massive dilapidated temple in Japan…
He mentioned how he had noticed during his most recent mission to the temple that the Dark Mark that many of the Death Eaters he fought bore was no longer vanishing after death, and his curiosity about what the implications of this small, seemingly pointless change were.
"And how do you feel about it?" The figure asked. "This war you've decided to fight? Surely seeing and inflicting so much death must affect you?"
"I'd be worried if it didn't," Harry replied. "It's never easy just appearing somewhere and rallying brave and women to fight beside me, to see them die and then to leave with barely a word so that I can come back and play the part most expect of me. Especially when some of my secrets are already coming to light."
"You're referring to the revelation of your familiar?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "After our little stunt, Mrs. Weasley wrote to her kids to warn them about how dangerous I was. Ron already hated me, so it wasn't hard to despise me with his mother's go ahead. Ginny, on the other hand, adores her oldest brothers, and is disgusted by the way Ragnok threatened Bill's job as well as the fact that I would – according to her mother – order my beast to attack Charlie. At least the twins are still my friends. They demanded that I explain what was going on, and once I introduced them to Kyd and explained my side of things, they came around – even going so far as to find it all hilarious, as they too have been forced to live Bill and Charlie's shadows despite being two of the most brilliant wizards I've ever met, and thanking Kyddris for knocking Charlie down a few pegs while promising to write a formal letter of thanks to Ragnok for doing the same to Bill."
"And what of the killing itself?" The figure asked. "How do you feel when you take an opponent's life?"
"That's a bit more complicated," Harry said sheepishly.
"Take all the time you need."
Heaving a sigh, Harry stared at his bare feet wriggling around in the snow, not feeling any of the cold that he should have from the crystalized ice, but at the same time, not melting any of it with his natural furnace-like body temperature.
"I want to say that I take no pleasure in it," Harry began quietly. "But that would be a lie."
The figure said nothing, its posture remaining unchanged as it sat quietly beside him, staring off into the woods ahead of them. He waited for it to move or say something, before continuing once he was sure that he would not be interrupted or judged.
"I'm not saying I get off on going on some sort of killing spree and murdering orphans or anything." The figure chuckled at this, but otherwise said nothing. "But I can't deny that I don't feel bad. At first I did. After the Quidditch Cup last year, I couldn't stop thinking about what I did to those men. I couldn't stop thinking about how their lives had ended, just like that, because of me. I kept wondering if they had families. Friends. Loved ones. How I may have made someone into a widow. Or an orphan. That, especially, weighed on me. My parents had been taken from me, and there was a very real chance that I had just done the same thing to some other child somewhere. Eventually, I started to think about the events leading up to my killing of those men. I remembered how they were about to violate Fleur and Gabby in the most disgusting of fashions. Then I remembered that Fleur and Gabby weren't the only veela there, as the Bulgarian cheerleading team was composed fully of them not to mention the hundreds of other girls there.
"If I hadn't killed those men – if I spared them a second chance they hadn't asked for or earned – and they went off and managed to go through with what they wanted to do with some other girls, then it would be my fault. After coming to this realization, I started sleeping much easier, and the guilt wasn't so heavy a burden anymore. I remind myself of the kind of people I'm fighting. How they follow a megalomaniacal lunatic who does get off on slaughtering innocent people and persecuting them for something they can't control.
"That worked, for a while. At least it did when dealing with the seemingly unending supply of masked grunts that Riddle throws around who can be taken down with ease. I always made sure to keep the concept that my opponents were all people too. People with lives, and families, and ideals all their own. People who had made the choice to side with Riddle, knowing full well the dangers they would be facing. More recently, though, I've been… enjoying the fights. It feels particularly good to just turn into Nightfire, and let loose. Feeling my enemies tear open from claws. Tasting their blood on my tongue. Smelling the charred remains of someone caught in the path of my fire. On this last mission though, things changed again. There was a man there who I fought against while separated from my allies. It was one of the hardest fights I've ever been in, with the exception of Riddle, and when I beat him, he smiled, and thanked me for giving him the honour of a warrior's death." Harry paused and took a deep breath. A wave of comfort emanating from the figure washed over him, and he smiled as he took another deep breath, basking in the sudden scent of vanilla and old parchment before continuing.
"When I was fighting that man… I never felt more alive. I could tell he was feeling the same thing, too. We were equals in almost every way, and the longer we fought, the more I started to feel like we were gaining a mutual understanding of each other, and from that I started to respect him more and more. This was the third time I've had to use all of my power and everything I know in order to even think about surviving a fight, but during the other two… it was nothing like this.
"Fighting Riddle has always been something I've felt that I had to do. Both times, it felt more like what I expected it would feel like to have to fight against some sort of monstrous creature, or otherworldly force. This… this was more like when I had fought against the Horntail. There were a ton of underhanded things either of us could have done to finish things quickly, but neither of us did. I don't know why Hiroshi fought on Riddle's side, though I could tell that he was the average bigoted Death Eater, but I do know that there was pain in his heart and strength in his convictions."
"And now – after all you've seen and done in such a short time – what does taking a life mean to you?"
"I believe that wanton murder is evil," Harry said thoughtfully. "I've seen the remains of Riddle's soul from the destroyed horcruxes and was sickened by what that poor excuse for a man had done to himself in the pursuit of power. I believe that a war can't be won with Stunners and Bat-Bogey Hexes when the enemy is using the Unforgiveables. I don't believe that all killing is wrong, though. I fight so that the people closest to me and the students I pledged to protect can live their lives safe and free of fear. I don't believe in fighting for the sake of pride, anger, or other momentary passions as it's nothing but violence begetting violence. I do believe that death is an important part of life. As such, I believe that there is no greater celebration of life than to put it all on the line as your will and ideals clash with those of another."
"Maybe you should switch to teaching philosophy," the figure quipped.
Harry chuckled quietly and felt himself being pulled away. He reluctantly bid his friend farewell before disappearing from the clearing, leaving the figure sitting there alone, contemplating the young man's progress. "You certainly are an interesting one, Harry Potter. I look forward to watching you turn into the man you once were."
*(OoO)*
Daphne shot up in her bed as the clear ring on her finger burned and information flowed into her mind. Looking around, she saw that it was still nearly pitch black in the room she shared with Harry – the only light coming from the dwindling embers in the fireplace, and the soft blue and orange glows coming from the markings on Zephyr's feathers and Kyddris' belly as the two slept peacefully. Grabbing her wand, she cast a quick tempus and sighed irritably when she saw that it was nearly one in the morning. Reaching across the bed, she wrapped her fingers around the firm muscle of Harry's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.
"Harry, wake up," she whispered. "We have another mission."
Harry's eyes shot open as he skipped right passed groggy to being wide awake in a matter of moments. "Again?" He asked as he quickly started getting dressed, stubbornly ignoring the coin that had materialized on the foot of the bed.
"It's the third in as many weeks," Daphne said as she too got to her feet and started dressing herself.
"And on Valentine's Day too," Harry groaned. "I wanted to take you out today."
"Well, it's a little unorthodox… but a super early morning walk through the woods along the border of Germany and France sounds kind of romantic."
Harry's brow furrowed as he threw a traveling cloak around his shoulders and Daphne didn't need to have a direct line to his emotions to know when he finally understood what she was saying.
"No way, Daphne!"
Reaching down, Daphne snatched the coin off the bed and held it tightly in front of her. "This is supposed to be a stealth mission – meaning no giant dragons or thunderbirds allowed – and I refuse to sit by and let you go alone. So, we can sit here and declare the mission a failure, or you can walk over here and let me do what you've been training me and the other students to do."
Harry's pupils narrowed to slits and he actually snarled at her as he stormed over to her. She could feel the extreme rage he was feeling, but did nothing other than smile fondly as she could also feel the affection and protectiveness fueling it. She did feel chills run up her spine though as she felt the primal side of Harry bellow angrily and demand she be put in her proper place for trying to control him and bend him to her will. The first time she had felt Nightfire make those kinds of demands of Harry, she had felt a small trickle of fear pass through her even as she reassured herself that Harry would never allow himself to do that kind of thing to her. Now, though, she wasn't a thirteen year old girl still caught in the beginnings of puberty. She was fully embroiled in all sorts of hormones, and her boyfriend might as well have been chiseled out of marble. Not to mention he radiated raw power, so much that it nearly made her salivate. And now that they were officially together, she was just beginning to reap the rewards of over a year of patience and teasing as she started to push the envelope a little more all the time.
Other girls had fantasies of their first times being a soft, gentle affair, with lots of eye contact and softly spoken words of affection on top of a bed of rose petals or something, but Daphne had never seen the appeal. Granted, she had already met Harry and learned about their bond by the time the girls in her dorm began talking about boys and sex, and when they did, all she had been able to think of were a pair of glowing green eyes with narrow pupils and the words he sees you as his mate.
When she had decided to pursue Harry, she had already seen the beast manifest in his human form a few times – particularly just before being forced to transform during the full moon – and as such, she had started to become intrigued with the notion of what it would take to see the beast take complete control of the man.
Because of this, Daphne doubted very much that there would be any rose petals during her first time with Harry. The longer he went without giving in, the more brutal it would be, which was exactly what she wanted. It touched her that he would go to such lengths to try and control himself so as not to hurt her, but Daphne could tell that it was always a difficult and painful battle for Harry to wrestle with both human hormones and the instincts of a creature comprised of two apex predators.
She planned on showing Harry one way or another that she cared for every part of him. From the heroic young man who was forced to fight a war against a dark lord who had murdered his parents and tried his best to help those in need; to the tortured and angry man who wanted nothing more than to rail against those who had schemed and manipulated every facet of his life – to leave it all behind and let someone else deal with everyone's problems for once; to the majestic beast who was only let loose on the battlefield.
A sharp tug behind her navel jolted Daphne from her thoughts, and before she knew it, Harry had her pinned against a tree – eyes glowing and teeth already sharpening into fangs.
"You will stay under the Invisibility Cloak at all times, you will stay right near me, and you will do exactly as I say. Understand?"
"But –"
"Do. You. Understand?" Harry growled, his hair growing as fur started to coat his skin.
"Yes," Daphne said petulantly. Guess I won't be needing that cold shower after all, she thought to herself.
Harry tossed her his cloak, completing his semi-Transfiguration, making him look like a tall, shadow as the glowing in his eyes faded. He reached out and summoned his staff in one hand and his sword in his other. A quick wave of his sword later, and he silenced both their footsteps as well as enchanting their boots
"What are we here for?" Harry asked quietly as he raised his head and sniffed the air.
"The artifact mentioned that the people you've been chasing are somewhere in the vicinity," Daphne replied. Harry's investigation into the strange murders in France had hit a wall as neither Lucas Delacour nor Nicolas had been able to grant him access to examine the bodies or the scenes of the crimes.
Harry swore under his breath and immediately called Dobby and Tipsy. "Go fetch Newton Scamander and Lucas Delacour," he ordered. "Tell them that I'm on the trail of our quarry, and would like their assistance."
Dobby and Tipsy vanished and Harry lifted his head to sniff the air once more. "There's a house nearby," he said. "Bring out Rosie and have her take a look around."
Daphne did as she was told and Rosie materialized from her shadow before trotting off to sniff around. She had never seen Harry act so cold, or commanding before. Was this how he was on his other missions? Or was it just because he was forced to drag her along? She felt hot indignation flood her cheeks and make its way down her neck. Not only was he acting like the many adults who had been trying to keep him in the dark over the years, but he was treating her like a little sibling that he had to drag along to a friend's house.
Lucas and Newt appeared next to Harry, and the three of them started combing through the forest with Daphne trailing angrily behind.
Eventually, Rosie seemed to find something as she ran back to the group, barking excitedly and indicating that she wanted them to follow. Harry, Lucas, and Newt all ran after Rosie, forcing Daphne to curse angrily as she was forced to run after them as well. All three men easily outpaced her, and she struggled to keep up but quickly lost sight of them as they sprinted into the shadows.
Slowing to a stop, Daphne doubled over and tried to catch her breath. She thought she had been in fairly decent shape, especially after all those dodging exercises Harry made them do, but it was a real blow to her pride that Newton Scamander – a man who had to be nearly a hundred years old – had easily outrun and lost her in the forest. Standing up straight, Daphne started walking in the direction that she had last seen the others running, picking up her pace when she heard a series of cracks far off in that same direction.
Her lungs were burning once more, and she could barely hear anything but the sound of her pounding heartbeat and ragged breathing. It was only because she had tripped on an exposed root in the snow that she heard another crack of someone apparating behind her. She heard footsteps approaching, and froze in place, before scurrying towards the tree whose root she had tripped over, ignoring the cold of the snow soaking through her pants as she held her legs to her chest, making sure that she was properly covered by the Invisibility Cloak just as a man came running out of the trees and tripped on another root not five feet from her. From where she was sitting, she could see the man's face as he tried to clamber to his feet.
She figured the man was a couple inches shorter than her, and fairly stocky. He had skin paler than even her own, yet somehow didn't look very sickly. His messy, brown hair stuck to his head in wet, matted curls, which framed his sharp jawline as they hung limply down to his shoulders. He was dressed in torn pyjamas covered in red and brown stains, with some of the former growing as he bled from various gashes across his body. What really surprised her, though, were his eyes – which were a startling shade of red, and searching frantically for an escape route as another crack and footsteps started echoing through the night.
The red-eyed man froze momentarily as the strange, uneven footsteps drew closer. It sounded as if someone was walking with a single metal boot on, as every other crunching footstep in the snow was accompanied by a metallic clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
The red-eyed man seemed to regain his senses as he continued looking for the best escape route. He had just made a decision and barely taken a single step when a series of high-pitched whistles filled the air. A moment later, Daphne had to hold back a shriek of fright as several metallic blurs soared through the air, burying themselves into the man at intervals along his arms and legs before lifting him up and pinning him to the tree just across from her.
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
"No! Please! No!" The man shouted as whoever was approaching came from behind Daphne's tree. "Please! I have a family! No! Don't do this please!"
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Daphne pressed her hands over her mouth to keep quiet as the man kept begging and pleading for his life, watching, transfixed, as the blood seeped down his arms and legs before dripping into the snow. She could hear the footsteps not even five feet from her as whoever it was passed her hiding place.
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Crunch. Clank!
Daphne stared fearfully as a man in dark, hooded robes stepped up to the man pinned to the tree. She could see now that it was his left leg that was making the clanking sound, but the man didn't seem to be at all off balance as he walked forward. His long, baggy robes hid what it was making the sound, and she had to restrain another gasp of fright as he silently watched his trapped prey, not moving a muscle as more metallic blurs zoomed out of his robes and stabbed through the sides of the man's torso, causing him to shriek in pain.
Upon closer inspection, Daphne saw that the things pinning the man were thin, four-inch rectangular blades, and that they seemed to be vibrating ever so slightly while lodged inside both man and tree. Once again, Daphne was forced to watch as the hooded man lifted his right arm, which creaked metallically, indicating that he either had some strange armor on him, or this man carried a lot of knives, and ran his hand over his captive's chest slowly cutting open his chest and ignoring his screams of pain as five bloody lines were drawn from his left shoulder to right hip.
The hooded man continued to slowly cut his victim, over and over. Not once did he make a single sound besides the creaking of the innumerable knives within his robes as he worked. Eventually, the pinned man's screams died down, having screamed himself hoarse and not being able to properly maintain consciousness. Daphne watched horrified as the hooded man paid no attention. He simply kept leaving cuts in series of fives all over the man's body. By the time the blades pinning the man to the tree retracted, Daphne could tell that he had already been dead for at least five minutes. Still, the hooded man didn't utter a word as he lay the corpse on the snow and his blades spun in midair, flinging any blood off them before returning to the man's robes.
His work done, the man turned to leave, but stopped and looked in her direction, allowing Daphne to see the lower half of a face covered in stitches, with grey, sickly skin. Daphne's heart stopped as the man looked at the ground in front of her, and she noticed the tracks in the snow from where she had dragged herself to her current hiding spot. The charm Harry had placed was only on her feet. It didn't account for one skidding their behind through the snow.
Holding her breath, Daphne watched as several blades flew back out of the man's robes. She wanted to close her eyes, so as not to watch her inevitable demise, but a large pulse of magic made her freeze in place, her body locked where it was scrunched up by the trunk of the massive tree. She tried to fight the effects, but nothing she did worked and she was struck with the idea that she would die before apologizing to Harry for being such a brat and for ruining his Valentine's Day.
Death didn't come for her, though, as a series of bangs in the direction she remembered Harry, Lucas, and Newt running off drew the hooded man's attention. A moment later, a familiar voice shouting through the air made hope swell in her chest as the man quickly returned his blades to his robes and apparated away, leaving Daphne frozen in place with the rapidly cooling corpse of the red-eyed man until a familiar four-legged chimera landed in front of her and shifted back to Harry before grabbing the Invisibility Cloak off her and freeing her once he discovered the state she was in.
Crouching down, Harry wrapped his arms around her and held her close to his chest as the tears suddenly appeared, and she allowed herself to process the fact that she had just been closer to death moments ago than any other time in her life. Her sobs eventually died down, though, when she felt hot tears splashing on her from above and found Harry to be crying quietly as well.
"You're okay," he muttered. "You're okay."
She wasn't sure how true that statement was, but it sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself anyway. If that was the case, then she could be okay, at least until they got back to their nice comfy room in Harry's office back at Hogwarts.