Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of the fictional locations or characters from the Harry Potter series or any other authors work. This is a work of reworked fiction using the world of Harry Potter. However, I do own this plot and any original characters hence forth created for the purposes of this story.

Shifter

IV

In a flash of black and silver embers, she appeared sitting beside Fawkes. She was a beautiful black feathered phoenix with silver beak and claws taking Senna's breath away as her dark mercury eyes looked up into Senna's silver.

"This is my mate, Nifes," Fawkes introduced her. It took all of Senna's (that would take getting used too) willpower not to laugh at the 'cutlery' birds, but she had a feeling that the name had nothing to do with real knives.

"Um, Hi, Nifes," greeted Senna with a smile, trying to hold off the laugh threatening to escape her lips by chewing on her bottom lip.

"Hello," the black phoenix sung trying not to notice the girls puffed out red cheeks from suppressed laughter before looking to Fawkes with narrowed mercury eyes and a deep sigh of frustration.

"She is the boy you wanted me to stay with?" she asked interestedly as she seemed a little lost.

"Yes," he agreed with a chuckle. "This is, or should I say was Harry Potter. She is now Senna Nightly, apparently. She has quite the powerful ability and right now has no guardian, so you can take care of her."

Nifes ruffled her feathers. "I see. Well I guess it can't be helped then," she agreed with a nod as she looked over her young human charge.

"Actually," Senna piped in, interrupting them with a smirk. "That would be Senna Rose Nightly," she laughed as she had thought some more about the name, and she figured it needed the extra flow. "I figured that I would overdo the flower theme, and I heard that Rose was my great-grandmothers name," she said as her great grandmother had live just short of Lily and James Potter's deaths and was in some wedding photos, which Senna was sad to note had been destroyed, but that life was over. "So maybe," she continued. "– Just a bit… I could keep that small connection with Rose as my second name – plus it just flows so well, even better saying it out loud. Senna Rose Nightly. Hi. I'm Senna Rose Nightly. It is wonderful to meet you, Nifes."

The two birds gave her curious looks before Nifes replied with a bow of her head. "It is also wonderful to meet you, Senna Rose Nightly."

Senna laughed sheepishly. "Its embarrassing, but at the Dursley's I got bored enough to give this too much thought. It just sucked that much living there, and that was before my arsehole uncle tried to flipping murder me!" she declared with a pouty glare aimed at the two birds.

"Well, if you say so," Nifes agreed just to humour her. "But I am confused as to why you choose this female form."

"Well," began Senna nervously. "I was just feeling bad about not being there for Ginny after her ordeal through her first year and the chamber, and um, thought she could use a friend. But I guess I think I'm going to grow attached to this new me as I certainly won't have to worry about Voldemort or Dumbledore, and I can do my own thing and come up with my own schemes to mess with them and mess with their schemes, so I can protect innocent people, you know?!"

The black bird nodded slowly while she thought it all over. "I suppose that makes sense," she conceded to the point. "So how are you going to make friends with her?" she asked as she knew all about the business with the poor children from her mate.

"Um, I don't know yet," she replied sheepishly. "I'll think of some-way. It can't be too hard, and I could always be upfront and force her to let me be her best friend-."

"Well I should get back to the old git," interrupted Fawkes watching Senna nervously and wanted to get away from her in case odd ball rubbed off, but then crazy from Dumbledore hadn't, so maybe he would be fine for a while. "... Before the idiot does something stupid; he'll have no doubt discovered that you're no longer at your home, and that his devices will say you're dead."

"They will?" asked Senna, surprised by the revelation as she had expected the old man to 'monitor' her, but the old man wasn't doing a very good job as he would have let Harry die. In his ignorance he probably didn't even consider death by muggles, just death by magic. Muggles were weak compared to magicians after all, or some ridiculous notion like that.

"Yes," he agreed. "Magic can break easily when over loaded, and I don't sense any of his magic anywhere near here, so his devices will all be reading that you either have no charms watching you, or you're dead. In which case the magic would have broken anyway."

"Oh, so whatever monitoring charms he had on me and the house no longer work because my new shifting power broke them all?" she asked interestedly, and both birds nodded in agreement. "So, you think Dumbledore's an idiot too?" she asked in surprise.

Fawkes rolled his little black eyes. "Of course," he agreed. "An example being where he made you stay for most of your life, with those horrid people, with no friends, no love, and no life. Then letting you take a beating for their enjoyment, and that fat human male trying to kill you today. If Albus doesn't know how you have been treated, I'll eat the Sorting Hat!"

"Alright, alright, I already knew he was an idiot, and... that! There is no need to remind me of why, as this body may look small and weak, I assure you I made myself… so much stronger, in every way possible," she sighed falling back on the bed, lying with her legs dangling over the edge. She shifted her clothes without thought into silky black PJ's with little red cartoon bats on them, and her half boots and socks faded away into nothing, leaving her small feet bare where she happily wiggled her little toes.

"You can go home now then, Fawkes," she said with a tired sigh. "Thank you for all of your help."

He chuckled in good humour as he flamed away. Senna watched as the little phoenix-fire embers of red and yellow drifted down and reached out. One passed through her hand and disappeared. It felt warm to the touch, and like a sprinkling of sand through her fingers, which was rather pleasant.

"Get some sleep child; you'll need it to be awake when you go shopping tomorrow and arrange for Hogwarts," commanded Nifes motherly. "The goblins will keep your secret when you arrange for your inheritance to be your new-selves. I shall watch over you," she continued as Senna crawled into bed, pulling the covers up over herself, she snuggled into her pillows.

"I'll pretend to be home schooled," mused Senna suddenly. "Then, um, my dad moved back to England from travelling with me in tow, and I decided I wanted to go to a magical school so I'm being sent to Hogwarts, so he'll be free to travel for business and stuff. I'll just use my dad as I can easily play the part of a single parent and it will probably be easier to pretend being a man than a woman if I have to meet with anyone."

"It should work," agreed the bird. "Especially since you chose that accent, they would realise the lie if you weren't born and raised for most of your life in the UK, and if needed you could pretend your father went to a magical school in a different land."

"Yeah," she agreed with a gentle yawn.

Senna put her left hand out and the air vortexed softly, and sparks of light created a closed envelope within her hand. She smiled as that was quite simply the coolest thing she had ever done; turning the fluid state of air into the solid form of paper and ink as she concentrated on the message she needed to convey before it was done and she sealed the envelope around her letter.

"Could you take this to Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts, please?" she asked her newly equated familiar hoping that her owl Hedwig would find her soon, and not be annoyed that she didn't get to deliver the post. "It's still early enough; I don't want to leave it too late, and I'll need to get myself a Hogwarts letter with school supplies and stuff arranged for… redoing my second year."

Nifes sighed, flew up, and snatched the envelope in her beak, flaming away in a flash of black and silver embers while Senna smile with dreams of phoenix travel and being an awesome dragon, drifting off, finally free and happy with her incredible new beginning.

This was the story of Senna Rose Nightly.

To Be Continued…