A FOX'S GUILE I

As I slowly came to terms with the fact that I had apparently lost even the most basic application of magic I had grown up with while the Potterverse, my thoughts clashed and roamed without me being able to calm the fuck down.

It just... It didn't make sense! My being still alive, which admittedly was something I was grateful for, was something that I couldn't reconcile with my memories of my last seconds of consciousness before the falling in every direction trip that had apparently landed me from low orbit onto a random ass grass plane. Even more disorienting of the conspicuous absence of True Knowledge, the trumped-up magical staff slash spear that I had crafted and then sacrificed, was the utter and absolute quiet that was hammering my senses.

"Fucking hell!" I cursed and kicked a lump of wet grass, the front of my foot swinging wildly over the greenery without finding purpose and causing me to stumble. Just as I stopped hearing the faint echo of my voice, the quiet came back.

It wasn't a quiet that swallowed sounds, oh no, I could hear perfectly the breeze caressing the grass and the rustle that my own clothes produced. It was something that ran deeper, something that I had grown accustomed to, an awareness, a feeling of being-a-part-of that I couldn't shake. I blinked with my lone eye and tried to figure out where I was, but sure as hell the constellations I had spent long hours studying back when I was a student at Hogwarts seemed to be missing, replaced instead with very different ones.

Even then, that simply meant that I was no longer in Europe, and I was simply staring into a different part of the celestial tapestry surely there had been enough random magical backlash during my last conscious instants to throw me somewhere in China. And given that at the time I was in low orbit over Italy, I could even rationalize how I got skipped all the way across Asia. Or...

The thought rose without my input, making me freeze as I kept staring at the sky and at the moon, the half-moon that looked incredibly close. Closer, I think, that it has ever been... I blinked a couple more times before taking another stock at seeing the stars in some sort of recognizable pattern, to no avail.

"Or..." I repeated out loud. Feeling myself falling on my ass on the grass as my gaze never wavered from the starlit sky. "Or I could have taken the wrong turn at the dimensional crossroad..." I tried to inject some humor in my statement, only for it to be greeted by the uncaring breeze that kept blowing over the grassy planes.

Truly, what was more realistic? That I had gotten shot across the universe to a planet remarkably similar to the Earth, even if this one had a far closer moon than the one I was used to, that somehow I was still on my original planet and that I had mistakenly pulled the moon a bit closer, or that I dropped myself across the multiverse?

Oh, sure as hell I hope this isn't the beginning of a Lovecraftian nightmare. I banished the thought from my mind faster than it came. First rule when dealing with the insane shit Lovecraft wrote about: don't.

My hands went to my face, trying to make sure that I was still myself. Being slotted into somebody else's body seemed like another improbable but still far too possible thing to happen for my tastes. It would be easier if I could conjure a fucking mirror. I grimaced a bit as my lone eye once more took in my form as my hands kept running over my brown leather overcoat.

I had stopped wearing Basilisk and Dragonskin made armour after Voldemort's fall, truly there had been no longer a need for me to gallivant around in open fights. The dragonhide boots in which I had stuffed the end of my pants were gone along with the several feathers from this or that magical bird that I could feel missing from my untamed heir. I blinked: I am an idiot.

Making stock of what I had was the smartest thing I could do once I had exhausted my other options of travel. So my hands quickly patted myself down, feeling the utter lack of anything related to a magic creature or plant. From the random strands of a Wampus cat's fur to the crushed fangs from venomous tentacula, I felt many of my hidden pockets empty, even if thankfully they seemed to retain their bottomless quality.

A sharp spike of pain made me tear my hand out from an inside pocket, a white mass of feathers and outrage flapping out: "Fuck you!" Raven croaked, "Fuck you!"

"Oh, I'm so lucky to still have you on my side, Raven." I drawled as I eyed her. She lacked a couple or more feathers from her tail, and her beak looked heavily scratched on one side, but if one ignored those two details, she looked none the worse for wear.

It was strange, I didn't expect to feel reassured by the presence of my familiar of all things, it wasn't like she could offer anything of particular value given my situation. Yet, there was some sort of quiet acceptation in Raven, something that part of me recognized as true and important. As I examined my own feeling, I blinked in surprise. Of all things I expected to feel, gratitude for her presence wasn't amongst them.

I guess that loneliness strikes everyone. I mused, before stopping again, frowning at the unusual thought and feelings. Of the many things I was and had been, wistful I had never been. What I felt wasn't an illusion of any kind, could feel the warmth of my affection for Raven as she finished flying circles around me and landed on my left shoulder: "Do I feel less of an asshole to you, Raven?" I asked, not really expecting an actual answer.

"Still dumb!" she croaked out a laugh, and I snorted in turn, shaking my head as my hands patted me down again, and surprisingly enough, I found a familiar jar in another pocket. It was cylindrical, made of clear glass and had a single wooden like handle that made it look like a diminutive bucket. In the barely twenty centimeters tall jar, a white and bluish flame churned and flailed freely, almost eager to climb out from her containment.

A warmth of another kind found its way in my mind, it wasn't quiet and reassuring as the one that I shared with Raven, nor it was something that I could honestly dub as 'love'. More than anything, the warmth that hit me as I looked over the flame that had once been Fleur felt... heavy, almost punching me at the mouth of my stomach. I have honestly no idea about why... no. I stopped, simply running over my memories.

I set the glass jar on the ground in front of me, before sitting cross-legged in front of it, seeing the flames burning a tiny bit brighter when my fingers brushed the open top of the glass jar.

That, more than anything. gave me pause. So, slowly, almost scared that I had finally finished going mad, I let one finger surpass the edge of the glass jar, only to witness once more the flame brightening.

Fleur had attempted a big ass Self-Transmutation, turning her whole being into pure Fire in order to survive a fight against Voldemort. Sadly, between her own inexperience and the impossibility of the task, she had never managed to reform a proper body, and even worse, while the small flame in the jar had always burned with Fleur's colours, feeling quite similar to her, it had never truly answered to any external input. I had tried several times to make contact with her consciousness, even searching for her directly across the World-Soul, to no avail.

Now, more decades than I cared to count later, and only after my reasonable attempt at ritual suicide, Fleur managed to... No way. An intuition, that perhaps would have taken me several weeks to properly focus on, and months to confirm, seared through my mind. Fleur had been lost in the greater Soul that represented Fire, my Norwegian Ridgeback Dragon's leather boots had vanished from my feet, along with the several elements on my person that had once belonged to a magical animal.

I looked for a connection, carefully sidestepping the most obvious explanation that already was jumping around in my head, returning to the flames in the glass jar, which burned almost... hesitantly? from one side to another, causing another small tightening at the mouth of my stomach.

I hadn't been fair towards Fleur. In more way than one, I had used her. I knew that much. She wanted to shine, even brighter than the common part-veela, she had the skill and the drive for it, being chosen for her school back at the Triwizard had all but guaranteed that much. Then I had used that thirst for knowledge to... collect her. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, she had been a reasonably bright mind, and a fierce witch, but not something that I could honestly ever see as an equal. Not considering my own extra-verse origins. But I hadn't really been invested in the relationship, and the worst part was that I really wasn't sure I had been capable to.

Slowly, I rotated the glass jar on the ground in front of me, passing a hand over it and witnessing over and over the flames brightening a bit: "Fleur," I spoke, and the fire almost jumped taller than the edge of the jar, rebuked by a set of runes that had been etched on the glass to contain her. "Fleur, when you tried to turn yourself into Fire against Voldemort, you kind of got stuck. Now you're into a glass jar as a lump of white flames. The jar supplies you constantly with oxygen and breaks apart the CO2, again giving you back a steady supply of oxygen."

The flames burned dimmer for a few seconds, before sliding over the vertical side of the jar, as if she was testing the limits of her confinement.

Can't say the I blame her. I thought with a downward tilt of my lips, once more feeling a slight twisting at the mouth of my stomach, grimacing a bit when I was reminded once more that I had never truly considered her indispensable, or unique, or a part of my life.

True, to find an equal considering my massive advantage regarding what can or cannot be done with magic has never quite been on the table... I half admitted to myself. Still, I realized that despite having somewhat 'conquered' her, even if in hindsight our relationship had been much more similar to a transaction of some sort: her companionship in exchange for me to share the (frankly absurd) kind of magic that I could wield. I felt as if I had been less than honest, less than worthy of said company.

I blinked, perplexed as I watched the fire churning in the glass jar. "I don't really feel myself..." I muttered, between the frankly excessive enthusiasm born out of having Raven still with me, and this assault of ... feelings... and self-doubt related to Fleur I felt like I was only wearing my skin. Like I shouldn't have...

Why in the nine hells I stopped trying to help Fleur? I frowned heavily as my eyes lost themselves into the "In the universe where I lived until yesterday," I started carefully seeing the white flame with bluish shades splatter itself against the glass closer to me and managing to convey a feeling of 'attention/curiousity', "Everything existed on the base of an amalgamation of much bigger souls, since everything at the end of the day was a part of the World-Soul." I frowned, almost fearing what I was about to say: "Here, wherever we are, I lost everything on me that belonged to a magical plant or creature, while you Fleur, who had become a small flame without self-awareness a long ass time ago, are suddenly receptive to the sense of hearing, at the very least."

And isn't that a nightmare and half. I immediately thought: Sound is vibrations in the air picked up by the ear, she has no such organ, how can her fale-state be aware of what I say?

The fire in the jar was pulsating wildly now, rolling from one side of the glass to the other, burning with a brightness that I had long since forgotten about. "My first thought is that my ritual suicide went sideways, and that we are now in a world were animism isn't quite as present among the... living."

Since Raven had stopped ruffling her feathers and even Fleur's flame had stilled, looking like they were made of glass, I specified: "My last ritual could have gone... a couple of dimensions sideways..."

Ever helpful, Raven croaked from my shoulder: "Fuck up! Fuck up!" causing me to flick her off from her unwilling perch.

"Yeah, I gathered that much!" I growled at the bird, my eyes landing once more on the jar holding Fleur, which had apparently managed to hear the exchange, given that she was rolling with a hiccuping pattern that I could associate with her laughing her ass off.

"And Fleur seems okay with the fact that I have no idea about how to go back, nor that..." I stopped, knowing that I had to convey my next words, even if I really, really didn't want to deal with the consequences: "Fleur..." I tried again, only to quiet down and swallowing a lump that I didn't realize had formed in my throat.

"Since you 'lost yourself in the Fire'... " from there on, I gave an extremely short summary of what she had lost since losing her awareness, glossing over the fact that I hadn't even thought about talking with her family regarding her condition, and implying without saying out loud that had passed more than one hundred and fifty years since the death of Lord Voldemort. The 'Your family agaed and died in the meantime' was the part that I hoped she wouldn't quite grasp.

Sadly, Fleur had been the brightest french witch of her age: the fire, that had rolled across several 'burning patterns' her flames describing a different dance depending on what I had been talking about, burned so bright that I might have had the Sun a meter from my fucking face and not notice the difference.

I didn't tink, I turned, scampering on all four as I heard the glass crack open behind me, and when the heatwave reached me I didn't even feel that I was going faster on all four than I could have with my human legs, I didn't feel my cheeks sinking and my mouth stretched into a pointy end, I didn't even realize that I had a tail.

Until the fire sizzled against my fox-form's fur, I hadn't even realized that I had turned into my animagus form.

AN

So, I have thought about making David Taylor capable only of the inheritance-verse brand of magic, but at that point I would have simply opted for writing a completely new SI, and since there is already Stronghammer, which covers pretty much everything I'd wish a brand new SI would do in Alagaësia, I'm leaving the MC capable of some of the minor stuff that he had back in the Potter-verse.

The reasoning behind the magics and instruments that I have let him keep is that some of them were deeply tied only to his soul, or tied to elements that are shared between the Potterverse and Alagaësia, like his animagus transformation, as you've seen in this chapter.

Elder Futark runes will keep working for the MC (very differently than they did in the Potter-verse, as the new ones he applies will need to be imbued with energy from his own body to work in Alagaësia) because his several soul-gutting forays in magic have imprinted them on his very soul. And with the same reasoning, he can speak and be heeded by canines and snakes, even if this ability will become somewhat less useful given the presence of the Ancient Tongue.

A basilisk hide coat would have fallen apart because basilisks do not exist in Alagaësia (kill with gaze magic is still on the WE-NEED-TO-NERF-THIS-SHIT list).

Fleur and Raven travelled with him, as well as his extremely cool trunk. However, not all of the stuff in his trunk will be able to survive: namely, everything that doesn't also exist in Alagaësia. Why? Because following the logic I have set in The Bigger Picture, stuff exist branching off an original World-Soul. So magical plants won't be able to survive the cross over, Fire exists in Alagaësia, so Fleur manages to retain her current form (she wouldn't have been able to if she had been into a Veela's body), Raven too, mostly because her magic is tied to the MC's soul, and not a Greater Concept of a future-seeing raven.

The trunk has remained undamaged because it is as a self-sustaining and isolated system, built-in a multilayered gravitational well, and gravity is a constant across the multiverse. The House Elf that tended to the first layer of the trunk is gone too because of the same reasons of the other magical plants and animals lacking in Alagaësia. (You'll see in the next chapter!)