A.N.: Guys, this Oneshot is still smelling like wet paint. It's spellchecked and I managed to catched 'flummooxed' so I could fix it in time :D
No, Lost Hearts is still in the works, I assure you. I just needed to get this OS off my chest because it drove me up the wall...enjoy.
Harry frowned at his wand.
Because for the past few weeks, it had been behaving…..oddly.
Normal spells it did just fine, but everything that was considered even slightly dark in nature was refused to be cast by it.
Cutting curses were rejected, bombarda spells didn't lit, and not even Ginny's favoured Bat-bogey jinx got a reaction out of it, and that one was rather prank-oriented in nature. And the one time Harry tried to cast the feared Crucio at a tree by imagining Bellatrix, he got zapped by his own magic so bad the boy didn't wake up from it three whole days.
The only thing that worked even better than before were his defence-oriented spells like Protego and the Patronus.
What threw Harry the most however was that the fire-related spells were completely out of whack.
Yesterday Harry had tried to lit the fire in chimney and almost burned down the entire room. A big jet of fire had been rushing towards the unfortunate logs and burned them to cinders in a heartbeat.
Harry had stopped using magic for more than the basic household spells after that, fearing what else his (in his mind) faulty magic would do next.
Hermione had hit her books, but her range of them was minimized, and unable to procure a good answer.
Ron had first laughed off his behind, but, like Harry, soon calmed down after he realized in just how much trouble his friend now was.
All three of them had grown steadily more worried, but promised to drag Harry to the nearest healer if they survived the war.
It wasn't meant to be however.
When Harry began circling Voldemort in what they both knew was their last battle on Hogwart's lawn, both spoke their spells.
As Voldemort cast his Avada, Harry bet his cards one the single offensive spell he was still able to invoke: Incendio.
To the surprise of Harry though, the spell had morphed yet again. Now the flames were white, of such a brightness that Harry had to squint.
The spells met in the middle like all those long months ago, again releasing Priori Incantatem's powerful protective cage.
And the ghosts of Voldemort's past victims appeared, even greater in amount than the last time, taunting their murderer and whispering words of praise and encouragement to the hero.
Harry then won their battle of wills again, his foe disappearing in the white flames that swallowed him whole, only letting behind grey ashes, and even that vanished as if blown away by an invisible breeze.
For a moment, the battlefield was deathly quiet.
Then pandemonium broke loose once again, the dark wizards and creatures opting to flee into the woods instead of facing their enemies.
The wizards at least though were soon stopped by cracks echoing all around the clearing. One by one, the wizards that bore the Dark Mark fell to the ground. Later one it was found that ever last of them had lost their magic.
Such was the price they paid, the deal with magic itself their lord had made, of immense powers for them, but an early grave too should their lord perish.
But that was for later.
At the moment, the crowd of survivors had already started cheering loudly, with Ron and Hermione running faster than ever towards their best friend.
Suddenly though there were screams again, stemming from their hero, Harry had become enveloped by the same white fire that had aided him before.
Terrible screams rent the air, and many of the crowd had to turn away, not wanting to witness what seemed like a cruel end to the one who had saved the Wizarding World only minutes before.
With a final cry, the wizard that had once stood there was suddenly gone, only white ashes slowly drifting to the ground.
Ron and Hermione had come fast enough to catch the very end, and fell down on their knees next to the pile of ashes.
Teary eyes could be seen all around the defenders of Hogwarts as they watched the duo openly cry for Harry.
Suddenly though Hermione stopped crying. Because she just noticed something moved under the ashes. Shaking like a leaf, Hermione brushed away the topmost surface of the ashes, and saw something strange.
A newborn orange chick, featherless and shaking. The girl hastily took it on her lap, bundling it up in a hastily conjured blanket.
The crowd was flummoxed by this. Where had that bird come from?
Chirping could by heard from under the blanket, and Hermione curiously lifted the blanket to look at the chick.
Only, it wasn't quite a chick any-more.
In a minute, the little bird had aged and even now didn't stop with it.
Soon after Hermione had something in her lap that until now she'd only seen in books, or, in very rare occasions, seen in Professor Dumbledore's vicinity.
The brightly coloured orange phoenix with green eyes let out an amused trill at the girl, before spreading it's wings and hopping of to the ground.
Flapping with it's wings a bit, the phoenix soon got the hang of flying and took to the sky. It's song began to sound, uplifting, but also so very sad, soothing to everyone but making their eyes teary and their hearts feel heavy. High up in the sky, the phoenix then vanished in a burst of flame.
Fresh tears rolled down Hermione's cheek as she now remembered an old legend she'd discarded as only that. How only the most brave and courageous ever started life anew as a phoenix. As she told her other best friend and love interest this, other people listened in to her and spread the tale, of their Hero that defeated Voldemort, but the victory ultimately costing him his own life.
The weeks passed, and suddenly it was time for the Wizard's version of a military funeral.
A coffin draped with Hogwart's banner was shouldered by four burly Aurors and carried to the little insland on which Dumbledore's grave was, and now sported a second burial pit next to it.
The procession went on, the priest spoke his words, and the Aurors fired off a non-verbal bombarda three-volley salute afterwards.
After the burial had finished and freshly dug up soil covered the
coffin, Harry's friends stood around it for a while, hoping against all reason that Hermione was right. Because sometimes, a phoenix would return to it's birth place after a while. A while meant something entirely different to an immortal being like a phoenix.
And so the now young adults went back up to the castle with a heavy heart, above them a clear and beautiful autumn moon.
Never knowing that a pair of sad green eyes had watched the entire thing, concealed with a nifty illusion spell.
A quiet warble sounded before the watcher disappeared again, not to be seen in this lands for a long time yet.
In another strange place, Thor could only look flabbergasted after the big bird that had just saved his brother from falling off the rainbow bridge, and was now making off with him, his claws fastened on Loki's cape. Thor could still hear Loki's loud cursing and the somehow amused sounding birdsong of a creature Thor had taken for a myth until this very day.
Looking at Heimdall's pinched but not troubled looking face reassured Thor that he didn't need to interfere for now.
There were a lot of just as important matters to take care of, thought Thor as he looked into the direction of his Lady Jane.
P.S.: I purposely didn't list it as a Crossover because I have no intention of continuing this Oneshot. Maybe in the far future, but I first want to get on with Lost Hearts. Speaking of which, I'm now on vacation till the start of January, so hopefully a chapter or two will come out of it...