A/N: Oh yeah. It's a transformation in store for our dear, beleaguered Harry, but, I ask you – what kind?
7 – The Transformy-thingy
Harry stared. He held the stare at his reflection long enough that Snape – yes, Snape – was the first to break the expectant silence.
"Potter, you ungrateful little brat – "
"Severus, please – " Dumbledore began, but Harry wasn't paying attention. The only thing that seemed worth his attention was the dark stubble he could just about perceive on his chin, the anxious look in his green eyes, the black eyelashes that had never seemed to look so dark and black before –
"All that work, and he just stares," Snape was hissing, starting to sound really angry. "Look at him, Albus! Staring, examining – nothing will ever be good enough for him – "
"Harry."
Madame Pomfrey's soft, careful tone shook him out of his daze, and he turned to look in her direction without even thinking of it, brain still busily occupied with the oddly unfamiliar features he could see in the mirror as belonging to him, with the thin sameness of his hands, the black hair everywhere –
"How do you feel about the change?"
"Its," Harry began, then broke off, as he suddenly realised even his chest hair was back to normal, and looking stark against his palely muscled chest. "So black – "
"So black?" Snape fumed. "I slaved for seventeen hours on researching that blackness, Potter, so you'd better – "
"Thank you," Harry found himself saying, in a tone of wonder and – and something else. Something he wasn't sure he was supposed to feel, something he felt didn't belong in this moment – uncertainty. "It's just – disorientating, and…" Harry's voice trailed off lamely as the look of the thin beam of sunlight alighting on his slightly longer, messier hair catching up his attention entirely. Later, he'd be surprised that Snape didn't say anything at this point, but, for now, all he could get around was the absolute black he was just managing to see, curled around his painfully normal fingers, glinting a little brown here and there –
"You'll have enough time to acclimate yourself, Harry," Dumbledore said, taking over the conversation that seemed to be petering out at every turn. "You won't have classes today, while we see how well this works, and see how it wears. If this experiment proves successful – "
"As it bloody well will," Snape muttered. "Seventeen hours – "
" – you will be required, as we discussed, to return here for potions and checkups from Madame Pomfrey," she nodded at him, now rising briskly from the chair by the bed on his left and disappearing into the ward, as if everything was finally over – "and to speak to me about how you are coping, and to Severus when I am unable to be here," Dumbledore continued, as if she hadn't left, as if Snape wasn't huffing, small noises designed to display his contempt for even the walls of this room. Dumbledore leaned forward suddenly, worry creasing his old face, such strong emotions passing across it now that Harry was a little startled – "Harry, promise me that you will be careful from now on. The spells that Severus taught you – "
"I'll use them every day," Harry said, cutting him off. "I'll be fine," he insisted, to whom, he could not say. This moment just didn't feel right, just didn't feel as happy and cool and relieving as he'd thought it would, and Harry found himself wanting inexplicably to bury himself in the shelter of his wings, but –
Yeah. He couldn't.
Dumbledore gave him a long, hard look, then nodded and rose. "You know where to find me, Harry."
Severus snorted in the background, and suddenly, it was over, and Harry was being hustled firmly to his feet, and led out into the main Hospital Wing, where Ron and Hermione were waiting.
"Harry," they both said, standing up fast enough to fall over, and they were hugging him in the next moment, and Harry wasn't quite sure if Hermione was crying or not, but he just didn't feel comfortable in this – this shell, this wingless, clawless, helpless version of himself, and –
"Are you ready?" Hermione asked, after weathering a supremely condescending look from a watching, sneering Snape, her cheeks pink and a little wet with her tearful enthusiasm. For him. Enthusiasm that just wasn't –
"I guess," Harry said slowly. Hermione paused her shift-shift of the bag on her shoulder, and Ron gave him a sharp look. He was the one to speak, voice uncertain.
"Are you…?"
"I'm fine," Harry insisted again, ignoring the stares and whispers as the three of them threaded their way through the occupied beds in the Wing, his heart beating faster than normal. "It's just – I just feel – like I'm too light, or something. Like something's missing. Like a lot of somethings are missing – " Hermione looked curious, and a little sad, but Harry wasn't really focussing on that anymore, because the slight hair on the back of his hands was so –
"Well, we can find somewhere for you to – "
"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "Dumbledore was really firm about that – said I had to get used to it. Which I will," he added, with a look back at the tiny, very shut door behind him, behind which was his burnt, smelly, feathery, comfortable bed.
"I hope so," Ron ventured. "Right now, you just look so…"
"Pale?" Hermione tried, nerves showing in the slightly unsteady quality of her voice. "You look a little wan, like the colour's been leached out of you. Not that it doesn't look normal, or anything – " she added hastily, going a little pink even though Harry really – just – didn't care.
"Wan, eh? Well, that's how I feel," Harry said, morosely. "I just – I feel a bit guilty, because they all worked so hard, and I just want to be all red again," he said, voice rising, filling with longing. "Red, you know? Really red, and fiery, and – " He broke off abruptly, gritting his teeth. He had to be careful with this, with his emotions, because naturally he wanted to revert to his gloriously free form, despite the uncomfortable familiarity of the black surrounding him. Harry bit back the desire to break his word and just turn into one of the abandoned classrooms and take it off and fly, but only because Hermione and Ron were holding onto his arms, faces tense with worry and – fear.
Fear. They were afraid of him.
Harry drew in a sharp breath, forcing himself to move on. It hurt, everything hurt, and he wanted red so badly just now –
"Ron? Can I touch your hair?" he found himself demanding. Ron paled and reddened dramatically, and actually let go of his arm, but Harry was absorbed by all that colour and all those freckle peppering the skin of that face, and wanted to –
Hermione stepped determinedly between him and an evermore nervous Ron, and grabbed hold of his arm, heaving him along.
"Hermione, let me – "
"Dumbledore said that you had to work through it," she said, stubbornly, her tone forbidding in its own way. "Harry, please, just – just come on – "
Harry paused for a moment, slightly-alien-but-really-familiar desires warring within him, and thought. He'd missed her. Missed them both. He had to try. For his own sake, and for theirs, and his vassals', if for nothing else –
"Fine," he said, shortly, but Hermione smiled, and though Ron lagged prudently behind them, Harry could just tell he was smiling, too. And suddenly, he didn't quite want to be colourful anymore.
Well, not now. Dumbledore had given him a day, hadn't he? Twenty-four hours, that was all he had to wait.
And wait he would. Phoenixes were masters of that.
Harry gradually fell into his stride, ignoring the avid whispering that grew louder as they all headed for Gryffindor tower, the corridors becoming busier as they approached it. He ignored it, and them, because he could hang on to the fact that he would stretch his wings again, really stretch them, and fly, no matter what Dumbledore said.
After all, he was only a vassal, and they sure as hell didn't tell their lords what to do.
Preview for Chapter 8: Back to School
Harry was bored. It had only been a week of this, of this normality, of going through with the things he'd once thought fulfilling and even exciting, and he was already bored to the teeth.