Morning came and there was a buzz in the air and the still three-quarters asleep Sirius, in his Grimm form, barely opened his eyes before he yelped and was standing, legs braced, and hackles raised. The large bird's head tilted, and it cawed at him. He shifted back to his human shape and gaped at the bird.
"Buckbeak?" He gasped.
Harry saw the ground coming at him and tucked his body, ready to roll. The forward momentum pushed his roll and he tumbled head over heels, only coming to a stop at the base of a huge tree. He stood and shook his head, his body aching from his unexpected acrobatics. He had taken one step from the tree when he heard the roar of a great beast, louder and wilder than even the dragons used in the tri-wizard tournament.
He turned to his left and saw a bear nearly the size of an elephant coming straight for him. His eyes widened and he flinched back, turning to the tree and jumping at it, at the same time as he shifted into his Animagus form of a black Jaguar, more commonly known as a panther. His claws sank into the bark and his powerful hind legs propelled him up the into the trees branches before the bear could reach him.
The bear stumbled to a halt at the base of the tree and looked at the large black cat and whuffled at it, questioningly. The cat yowled back at the bear warningly.
The bear reared up and leant against the tree with one great paw, before slowly and painfully morphing back into a huge man.
"Come down, little skin changer, I will not harm you. I had thought I was alone." The man urged.
Harry shifted back into his human shape, held onto the tree and leant out enough to see the man.
"I'm not the same as you, I don't think. I came here from another world, through a magical gateway." Harry told the man.
"It matters not, little one, you can change your skin, you are my kin."
"Ah… that's not quite right. Where I came from, almost anyone can learn how to become an Animagus."
"Learn? You are not born with two forms?"
"No." Harry answered. "Most people have a form that is a totem animal, it represents what they are inside, but few are focused enough to change into it and fewer still are powerful enough to have a second form and that one is a magical creature."
"Magical?" The man asked. "You dabble in magic, little cat?"
Harry bristled at the insinuation. "I don't dabble, I was trained by some of the greatest witches and wizards my world has."
"I did mean to insult. Magic is wild and dangerous." The man began.
"And that's why we go to a special school to learn how to use it." Harry snapped.
"A school?"
"Yes, we go to school, I went Hogwarts for seven years. We have exams at the end of every year and at the end of our fifth and sevenths years, we sit international exams." This was very odd conversation to be having while perched in a tree, but Harry wasn't coming down until he knew he was safe.
"Exams? What are exams?" The man asked in a confused tone.
"Exams are… tests, I suppose. Each of us are tested to make sure that we know what the spells are, how to use them, how to avoid them, how to counter them and how to cancel them." How did someone not know what an exam was?
"Hnh… Like I test my seedlings to know which ones are strong enough to plant, or my cheeses to know which are ripe?"
"Yeah, sort of. There's a lot more writing involved and some spellcasting, but, yeah… sure, much the same." Harry shrugged and almost lost his balance.
"Don't fall, little cat, come down instead. I will not harm you, you are safe on my lands. Come down and I shall share my food with you."
Harry pursed his lips and studied the man, but had few options, unless he wanted to stay in the tree. A quick shift and his Animagus form, who he'd tentatively named Longfang due to one of his fangs being considerably longer than the others, leapt from the tree and landed on a nearby boulder, before leaping from that to the ground and shifting back into his human form.
"So easily, you shift, little one." The big man whispered, and Harry got a look at how big the man really was.
He was huge, he had to be at least eight-foot-tall, maybe even taller, but thankfully Harry was quite accustomed to dealing with Hagrid, so the only concern was the newness of their acquaintance.
"It is now, but when I started…? My first shift had my Professor falling off her chair laughing." Harry huffed.
"Laughing? Why laughing?"
"I mucked up the shift, because I wasn't focusing properly and I gave myself a tail, ears and whiskers but nothing else. No cat shape, no fur, nothing. Just a naked tail and ears." Harry sighed, wondering how long it would take McGonagall to tell Hermione of his disastrous lessons?
"Ah, I see. Well, you looked like a big black forest cat, this time." The man said.
"Yeah, having to shift a dozen times in an hour, you get the hang of it, pretty quick." Harry shrugged.
"I am Beorn and these are my lands." The big man said. "I do not allow hunting for meat, on them, nor do I eat meat."
"I'm Harry." Harry gave Beorn a smile. "The only things I've ever killed were a giant snake that attacked my school and the man that murdered my parents and tried to kill me… um… five(?) times. Six? Five? Godric's Hollow, the stone, the tournament, the Ministry and the big battle. Five. It seemed like more at the time." He resorted to counting them off on his fingers.
"Someone tried to kill you five times?" Beorn growled, little of his other form showing through.
"Yeah, but it didn't work out for him, my mother cast a protection spell that was powered by her death. The idiot kept trying, but he never succeeded. Even when I stood there and let him hit me with his deadliest spell, it didn't take. After that it was… easier, I didn't actually kill him, I just… made his own spell rebound on him. He died by his own spell." Harry walked at Beorn's side, completely unconcerned about the size of the man beside him.
"You have hidden strengths, Harry." Beorn thrust his chin out and nodded approvingly.
Harry laughed. "One of my Professors called it 'sheer dumb luck' and I think she's pretty much spot on. She-" Harry cut off his next sentence. "Oh, wow, look at them… They're… wow…" Harry was in awe of the black and white ponies.
"They are mine, my friends. I care for them and protect them." Beorn said. "Wargs from the mountains try to hunt them and I am forced to fight to protect them. "
"They're the reason you allow no hunting, aren't they?" Harry asked.
"They are."
"What of the natural hunters, those that hunt smaller animals?"
"Like your cat?" Beorn waved a hand towards some trees behind a hedge, across a field. "My home."
"Nice. And no, not me. Real animals." He was thinking of Buckbeak and his herd.
"What sort of… animals?" Beorn asked, frowning.
"My friend asked me to protect some of his animals, he wasn't able to care for them like they needed. There wasn't the space or the resources." Harry felt bad for Hagrid. "They were like his children and he had to choose between them. The fact that Buckbeak trusted me enough to let me ride him, allowed Hagrid to think of what was better for them."
"Tell me about them." Beorn ordered as they approached the hedge.
"They're hippogriffs." Harry started.
"Hippagreefs? I have not heard of these before." Beorn mangled the unfamiliar word.
"No. Hippo-griff. They're a magical animal, that's part horse and part bird. I understand that the first hippogriff was transfigured from a hawk's egg and the wizard tended them until they hatched."
"Part horse? Part bird?" Beorn stopped in his tracks and looked down at Harry. "This, I would like to know more about." As he said that, Harry's stomach rumbled.
"Breakfast didn't last long, did it?" Harry muttered to himself.
"Come, we shall feed you and you shall tell me of these… hippo-griffs." The big man opened the doors to his house.
To the right was a barn area for long-horned shaggy cattle and to the left was slightly raised area that held a massive table and some shelves. One the table were a loaf of dark bread, a bowl of fresh vegetables, part of a round of cheese, a jug of something and a series of pots.
"I do not cook much, but you are welcome to anything I have." Beorn said, slicing thick slabs of bread and cheese.
"I'm happy just to have something to eat. Food was not a regular thing for me, growing up." Harry accepted the bread and cheese and used one of the table knives to split the bread into two thinner slices, that were still joined on the base and shaved the cheese finer before assembling himself a sandwich of cheese and tomato.
"Interesting…" Beorn watched and did the same.
"Saves me dropping bits." Harry shrugged.
"Milk?" Beorn held up a cask-sized jug.
"Oh, please." Harry flicked his wrist and let his wand fall into his hand and a second flick conjured a small tankard. Beorn raised his great bushy brows and blinked a few times but said nothing as he poured frothy milk into the tankard. "Thanks."
The rest of the day as spent chatting and getting to know each other and as Harry bustled around Beorn's kitchen and dished up a vegetable and egg pie, the big man invited Harry to stay for a while. Harry could only smile at his new friend, his emotions clogging his throat. After dinner he was shown to a small-ish room, small in comparison to the rest of the building, but still bigger than the Gryffindor dorm-room that he'd shared with four other boys.
That night Harry fell into the huge bed and was asleep, almost before his head met the cloud-like pillow.
For the next few days, Harry followed Beorn around like a curious puppy, looking at this and poking at that, brushing the round ponies and cooing at the bees the size of a snitch. These looked like big fat bumblebees but were Beorn's main source of honey and like all bears, the big man liked his honey. Harry had taken over the kitchen that first night and he enjoyed producing sweet things for his host to nibble on. Beorn showed him how to harvest the honey and Harry went one step further and used a calming charm to quiet the bees, even further, when it was time to collect their honey. The ponies quickly learned that the smaller man kept cubes of carrot and parsnip in his pockets and would crowd around him, like the D.A. when Harry showed them a new spell.
All-in-all? Harry revelled in the peace around him.
But he still got up early each morning and went through the exercises that he'd learnt from the training memory that Gringotts had provided for him, going from unarmed to the ulak knives to the sword to his staff. Beorn had said that he'd had to fight to protect his home and his animals, and Harry knew that sooner or later his luck would put him in yet another fight. After putting his blades away, the ulaks in his room along with his staff and the sword as a pendant around his neck, he would pull out his wands and in the safety of his room, he'd run through the spells that Kingsley and Croaker had taught him.
When he'd been there for nearly a week, Beorn appeared one morning dragging a log.
"It is time to build a little house for you, my friend." Was all he said.
Harry nodded and pulled a wand, rarely seen by Beorn, from his holster on his arm, he had not reached the point of leaving it, or his shrunken sword, in his room. He found that magic responded so much easier here, like it was just waiting for someone to call on it, he barely had to whisper the familiar chants for it to respond and he began to wonder if he could teach himself to go wandless, here. But for the moment, he wore two holsters, with his custom phoenix feather wands made by Ollivander, safe and within easy reach, on his arms. Together the pair built a small three-room cottage, it had a larger sitting room in the front with a cosy bedroom behind it and a tiny bathroom under the eaves beside the bedroom. With Harry using magic to cast featherweight charms and levitate logs where Beorn directed, it took surprisingly few days to complete.
That first night, as he was leaving Beorn's big house after dinner, the skin changer told Harry that he would have a place in the Beornings for as long as he wished. As long as he would defend Beorn's lands, he would be welcome to stay.
The next morning, Harry laid his trunk on a massive bed in the house that Beorn had made for him. He stood there and looked at it, his heart breaking that he'd never see Hermione again. She was his best friend and she'd stood beside him through thick and thin. And he'd never see her again. He didn't think he was ready to open the larger compartment, not yet. The smaller one held more than enough for him to get by on, at least for a while.
He scooped out the clothes and placed them on the shelves that jutted out of the walls. They were joined by the chess set, bar the hippogriff pieces, and the first aid kit. Who knew when he'd need that? The broom and the blankets were laid on the bed, but the traveller's pantry went back in the trunk. With its stasis charms, it would be fine until he decided to leave Beorn's lands. He gathered up the box of hippogriff chess pieces and held it under his arm, while the broom was slung over his shoulder.
Time to wake Buckbeak.
Out in the field, hedged by trees, Harry turned to Beorn. "There's a few things you need to know about hippogriffs, before I start." Beorn nodded but said nothing. "They are extremely proud creatures and can be very dangerous. When approaching them, proper etiquette must be maintained, or they're likely to attack. Stop about twenty feet from them, bow and stay bowed until the hippogriff bows back, then and only then can you approach them. Do it slowly, if the hippogriff tenses, raises its wings or throws its head back, stop. Wait for it to settle and begin to approach again. Stop about ten feet away and slowly raise a hand, no sudden movements. Let the hippogriff come to you. They like their crests feathers fluffed and preened, it's one of the few places they can't reach for themselves."
"As you say." Beorn nodded again.
"What I'm going to do, is take this in stages. First, I'll cancel the transfiguration. Then, once I have them positioned, I'll wake Buckbeak, he's the herd stallion, then once he's got himself together, I'll wake the rest of the herd. I suggest giving me a bit of distance, he's likely to be a bit upset."
"I shall wait over there." Beorn pointed to the tree, some twenty yards away, where Harry had left his broom.
"That's fine." Harry laid out the pieces and carefully dismissed the transfiguration charm, then he levitated the curious looking animals into the places and positions he'd selected for them. "Here goes nothing…" He whispered and pointed his wand at the pale grey stallion. "Rennervate." It took a few seconds, but Buckbeak clambered to his hooves and shook himself off, seeing his mares lying around he sniffed at them before cawing harshly. "Beaky?" Harry called to get the creature's attention. The stallion swung towards him and screamed his anger. "Easy, mate, easy. They're just asleep. Shh, now, shh."
Harry kept up a steady stream of crooning nonsense and Beaky slowly began to respond to him. Harry bowed and after a few moments, Beaky bowed back and Harry walked closer, stopping far enough away that Beaky wasn't threatened by him. A few more moments and Beaky rested his razor-sharp beak, that was nearly the size of Harry's head, in Harry's hand. Harry stepped closer and scruffled his fingers through the soft feathers. The two stood like this for a minute or so, before Beaky looked over his shoulder towards his mares and warbled a sad little sound.
"Want me to wake them, Beaky? I can." Harry stepped back and drew his wand, Beaky watching him intently. "Rennervate."
This time instead of pointing his wand directly at one hippogriff, Harry waved it around the little grove of oak trees and one by one, the mares and foals woke up. Beaky quickly moved over to them, sniffing that this one, nudging that, preening a few feathers of a foal. Basically, reassuring himself that his ladies and their hatchlings were all there and all uninjured. When all were settled and preening each other or their foals, Beaky moved back towards Harry. No bows this time, just a calm and quiet progression. Beaky nudged at Harry and the young man awkwardly climbed onto the stallion's back. A flip of his wings and Beaky took to the air, circling his new home and learning the feel of the air currents around it. Once they were high enough, Harry summoned his broom from where he'd left it. When it reached them, Harry carefully rose until he stood on the stallion's back and lifted a hand, his broom came closer and Harry leapt from hippogriff to broom and began to fly alongside his feathered friend.
They twisted and turned, dipped and rose, teasing and taunting the other, their joy in flight clear to the big shape-shifter as he watched from the ground.
"He is smiling... Finally…" Beorn whispered. "This is a good thing."
A week later, Harry's luck ran out.
A group of what Beorn called orcs, entered the lands they protected. The intruders killed with abandon, anything that got in their way. When one of Beorn's ponies was torn to pieces, the skin-changer went berserk, he attacked without thought to his own safety and if Harry had not been as quick with his sword as he was with a wand, the big man would have been overwhelmed. As it was, he was severely injured, a crude black blade sinking into his unprotected side and tearing it open.
Harry screamed and magic burst from him, a wave of pure white light spread out from the snarling wizard. As it touched each of the intruders it enclosed them in a bubble of magic and changed them. The wargs, the ugly canines the orcs rode like horses, began to change, to shrink, smaller and smaller they got, until they were just wolves, then smaller again until they were puppies. The orcs weren't as fortunate, Harry's magic attacked them, it ripped the black blood from their bodies and turned them to dust, before that dust faded into nothing, much like Voldemort had done.
The wizard blinked in shock at what had happened, but adrenalin was still pumping through his veins and forcing him to act and act quickly. He stunned the former-warg-now-puppies and conjured a basket to put them in, then descended on Beorn's trembling form.
"I'm… sorry… my friend…" The man whispered. "Protect… my lands… I leave… my… animals… in your… hands…"
"No, they're yours, Beorn."
"No… one… survives… an orc… blade… poison… too… great…" Beorn held his side and tears leaked from his eyes. "At least… I die… free…"
Harry flashed back to Dobby's death and he snarled. "You're not dead yet, Beorn Changeling and you will not die if I can help it." Harry stood and whispered a sleeping charm. Then his wand flicked, and a few fallen branches were transfigured into a stretcher, another flick and Beorn was levitated onto the stretcher, a third and the basket of stunned puppies were between his feet. Harry took a deep breath and reached out, summoning his broom from his cottage. While that was coming, he cast a featherlight charm on the stretcher and its cargo. When his broom arrived, he mounted up and levitated the stretcher, tethering it to his broom.
He carefully flew back to his cottage, landing on the little paved area in front of his bedroom, where he did his exercises each morning, and let the stretcher settle back the ground, he darted inside and dragged the first aid kit from the shelf. But a quick glance at its contents showed that it was predominantly muggle-based products and he needed something better, if he was to save his friend.
"Goddamn it." He snarled, before gasping. "Oh!" He remembered Hermione saying that Fawkes had given her his tears and that she had placed some in Harry's trunk. He dropped to his knees and dragged the trunk from under his bed, tapping it with a wand to shrink it as soon as he had room. He ran back outside and stood the, now tiny, trunk on its end and enlarged it, switched the lock from trunk to door and enlarged it further again. He flung it open and plunged into it.
He came to a screeching halt just a few feet later.
"Fuck!" He snarled. "Where bloody hell would Mione have put the first kit?" He rubbed a hand over his face.
"First door to your left." A silky voice answered.
Harry turned and headed that way, throwing a quick "thanks, Snape," over his shoulder.
"What seems to be the problem, Potter?" Snape asked.
"I need phoenix tears, or my friend is going to die, he was stabbed in the side by a poisoned blade." Harry replied without thought.
"Ah. Here. This is a wound sealant that has a phoenix tear in it, to increase the potency. And this is an infection suppressant. And I assume you are quite familiar with blood replenishing potions?" Each was scooped off a shelf and handed to Harry. "I suggest giving them in that order."
"Yessir." Harry yelled as he sprinted back to his friend, his mind not registering anything but the potions to help his friend.
Back outside, Harry rennervated Beorn and ignoring his objections, gently forced the big man to swallow each potion. When all three were gone, the skin-changer lay back, his breathing still laboured, but not to the same degree. His breathing began to ease and he fell into a natural and healing sleep.
"Out of the way, Mr Potter." A woman's voice sounded at his shoulder and Harry automatically stepped aside. Narcissa Malfoy nee Black waved her wand over the prone man. "He's quite a robust man, but the poison is extremely potent, he's going to need another dose of all three potions, and I would suggest an additional two tears in the sealant." She called the directions over her shoulder.
"Yes, mother." Another familiar voice said and moments later, the relevant phials were handed to Harry. "He's familiar with you, Potter, you get to be his nurse."
Harry gave Beorn the potions and watched carefully as Narcissa waved her wand again.
"Excellent, he'll sleep for a few hours, and be weak for a day or so, but he'll be fine within a week." She declared and Harry slumped in relief.
It was then that Harry's brain switched tracks, from focusing solely on Beorn to what was going on around him. He looked at Narcissa, his eyes widening, before turning to his trunk. Leaning against its outside were Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape, inside it he could see a sea of faces. Two stood out.
"Mione? Remus?" He gasped and fell on his backside.
"Oh, so very elegant, Potter." Snape shook his head.