Dear Wizarding Britain
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I probably wouldn't be playing around on fanfiction.
Time passed quickly, as it tends to do when one gets older and in what felt like the blink of an eye, it was the Christmas season, not that one would have noticed without keeping track of the calendar, since the weather surrounding the island where Harry and his friends resided stayed warm year round.
During the time since Harry's birthday, he had mastered his metamorphmagus abilities. He could make himself as tall as six-and-a-half feet or as short as four-and-a-half feet, change his hair to any color and/or length, change his eyes to any color and/or shape. He could make his shoulders broader or slimmer, so that he could appear to be as strong as a Viking or skinny enough to resemble Olive from the old Popeye cartoon. He could change the shape of his nose in a myriad of different ways, including all of the ones that Tonks had entertained them with when they had all been gathered together around the table at Grimmauld Place. He could completely change himself to look exactly like the twins, so that one would have mistaken them for triplets.
As sort of a joke, but also to see if he could do it, he attempted to look like Hermione and found that while he could change himself to look like her in just about every way, including giving himself breasts, he could not change his manhood in any way except longer, shorter, wider, and thinner. Not that he really wanted to change his gender, he had only wanted to see if he could have done it if he wanted to, but it was nice to find out that he did have some limits when it came to his abilities. He had never wanted to become an all-powerful wizard, he had only ever wanted to be normal. Then again, he was way past the point of worrying about normality when he was stretching the limits of awe inspiring every year of his life.
Trying to turn into Hermione also brought to his attention that should he ever try to disguise himself as a female, he would have to use a charm to change his voice, because while he could change his tone of voice by adjusting his vocal cords in different male forms, he could not change the pitch of his voice enough to sound like a believable female. The twins found the voice ordeal hilarious, but there was no telling what they'd do or say if he confessed to them about his attempts to do a full gender swap just to see if he could, so he decided to keep that tidbit all to himself, thank you very much.
After Harry had gotten the hang of his metamorphmagus abilities, he turned his focus back to trying to become an animagus, which was no longer the struggle that it had been before he had received his power boost on his birthday. What was shocking was the fact that he seemed to have the ability to turn into any animal his imagination could come up with, including magical creatures, which also meant he was capable of becoming a completely new magical creature if it was a picture he could hold in his imagination. Not only that, he could change colors in his mundan animal forms in order to blend in better with his environment, and he could take on whatever magical properties the magical breeds were known to have, it just took many weeks of practice to perfect.
Because he had been around Fawkes so often, he had very little difficulty in becoming a phoenix, though learning how to flash travel took a lot of practice, but he was eventually able to even flash travel while in human form.
"Harry Potter, sir," Dobby said as he popped in when a disheveled Luna Lovegood by his side, "Dobby has brought Harry Potter his Luny Lovey."
Harry, who had been resting on the beach for a change, jumped up and exclaimed, "Luna!" He took in her appearance as he ran to her to gather her in a hug. "What happened?" No one noticed Dobby pop back out to give them privacy.
Luna, in a rare show of emotion, clutched onto Harry like he was her lifeline and sobbed for a few minutes before she was able to calm down somewhat to say, "Death Eaters tried to take me from the Hogwarts Express. Neville fought them off long enough for me to escape using the emergency portkey you gave me. I tried to get close enough to Neville so I could take him with me, but they hit him with the cruciatus curse just as the portkey activated and he couldn't hang on."
Harry cursed and called Dobby back. When Dobby popped back in, Harry ordered carefully, "I need you to go to the Hogwarts Express as silently and stealthily as you can to check on Neville. If he is alone when you get there, you may show yourself to him and ask his permission to evacuate him. If he is not alone, remain invisible and just go ahead and bring him straight here, after we confirm he is well, then we'll let him decide whether or not he's ready to stay."
Dobby nodded his head in a rare show of seriousness and said, "Dobby will do." And then he was gone with a silent pop.
Harry turned his attention back to Luna and tightened his hold on her, rubbing soothing circles on her back in comfort as he held her while she cried. They could only hope at this point that Neville didn't break under the cruciatus like his parents did and that Dobby would get to him in time to bring him back.
After a long moment, Luna's sobs quieted down and Harry loosened his hold on her as she backed up to put a little space between them. Harry had just remembered that he had been shirtless from laying on the beach when Luna rubbed her hand across his chest and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't mean to transfer all of my sadness onto your well-developed chest."
Harry had to use his metamorph skills to force down the blush he felt trying to creep out and cleared his throat as he waved his hand and vanished the mess and said, "You don't need to apologize, Luna. You're my friend and I take care of my friends." He summoned the T-shirt that he had previously discarded when he first stretched out on the beach and pulled it on. Then he offered Luna his arm, which she took with a small smile, and they walked towards the house.
"Is your father going to be safe, do I need to make arrangements to get him out of Britain?" Harry asked in concern as they walked.
Luna silently considered and said, "I should probably let him know that I'm safe. I have the feeling the Death Eaters were attempting to kidnap me so that they could have some leverage over him. He's continued defending you in the Quibbler, you know."
Harry smiled and said, "I never doubted that he would stop writing the truth. We'll get you some parchment, so that you can write him a note as soon as we get in the house. I'll offer him sanctuary here, if he wants to accept it."
"Thank you, Harry," Luna said.
They remained silent for the rest of the walk.
When they walked into the house, Hermione was the only one to see them come in and she quickly ran to Luna and grabbed her in a hug.
"Luna, are you alright?" Hermione asked in concern. "You look a bit roughed up."
Luna glanced at Harry and he said, "She just escaped an attempted kidnap from the Death Eaters. We need to get her some parchment, so that she can let her dad know she's safe. I wouldn't put it past the Death Eaters to make him believe they have her in the dungeons in order to make him cooperate."
"Oh!" Hermione, who had a habit of keeping parchment and quills in her pocket, reached in and grabbed some before handing them to Luna, so that she could write to her dad.
After Luna finished her letter, Harry called Winky, because Dobby had not returned from his mission yet. When Winky popped in, Harry instructed, "Now, Winky, I need you to deliver this letter directly to Luna's dad, BUT I need you to do it stealthily and as safely as possible. Make sure that he is alone when you deliver it, please.
"If there are Death Eaters already there, wait until they are gone. Only if Mr. Lovegood's life is in danger, do I want you to interfere. I know you can remain invisible, so if they are, say, holding him under the cruciatus curse, you are free to invisibility pop to him and grab him to bring him straight here. But if they are only using verbal threats, wait until they're gone. Understood?"
"Winky understands, Master Harry Potter." Winky said, before she took the letter from Harry and popped away.
Winky was barely gone when Dobby finally popped back with a heavily injured Neville. "Bad wizards were still torturing Harry Potter's Nevy when Dobby popped there, so Dobby just grabbed Harry Potter's Nevy and brought him back here."
Neville seemed to have not noticed that he had been rescued and his body kept twitching as if he was still under the curse, but he was no longer screaming. It wasn't a good sign.
"Dobby, I need you to go back to the train and retrieve Neville and Luna's belongings and bring them here. Same instructions as before, do it stealthily. If the Death Eaters are still in the compartment, I'm trusting you to use your discretion to retrieve their belongings without getting yourself hurt."
Dobby nodded in understanding and said, "Dobby will do." And then he popped out again.
Harry conjured a stretcher and carefully levitated Neville onto it and said, "I'm going to take him up to one of the spare rooms and try to get him cleaned up." Then Harry turned to Hermione and asked, "Hermione, can you show Luna to the bathroom so that she can get cleaned up, and maybe lend her something to wear until Dobby comes back with her clothes?"
"Of course, Harry," Hermione said. Then she turned to Luna and said, "Come on, Luna, let me show you to the bathroom," as she gently wrapped an arm around Luna's shoulders and led her off.
A/N: Not as long as I wanted to go, but I don't have enough time this morning to get more of it done, so I hope this small chapter is enough to hold you all over until next time.