Chapter 6: Increasing Powers

"You know it's not good to steal someone else's joke…it isn't as funny. I am offended that you think me as gullible as wormy, wormy Wormtail." Sirius looked a bit nervous as he spoke.

"I'm serious…I am a phoenix!" Harry didn't blame his godfather for not believing him…it was supposed to be impossible. Harry was getting sick of being so abnormal in everything, though.

"Well, if you're Sirius, then I'm Harry."

"Well," Harry tried to lighten the mood, "you could use a hair cut. Sirius…trust me, I am a phoenix…that is, if I did the potion correctly." Harry ran his hands through his jet black, unkempt, yet handsome hair.

"Sadly, Harry…I almost expected something like this to happen. I guess it is a good thing. After all, phoenixes are amazing! However…I just didn't want you to feel so," Sirius hesitated, "unique…sometimes it is nice to be like everyone. You are a marvelous wizard, though, as I have said before. You aren't odd or strange, you are simply remarkable."

Harry was glad Sirius was there; he seemed to understand Harry's feeling. He was extremely excited to be able to turn into a phoenix…but he hated being famous, being different, having the weight of the world on his shoulders, and now, he had to deal with being the first person to ever turn into a phoenix. Questions buzzed through Harry's head instantly…Will I ever die? If I get killed, will I burst into flames and be a new born baby? Will just my phoenix live on, and ill be stuck like in phoenix form forever?

Sirius sensed Harry's discomfort and spoke, "Harry, don't worry. Everything will be okay. No matter what happens, people that love you will help you do whatever is necessary for your happiness. There are a lot more people that care for you than you realize, Harry."

"Thanks, Sirius…I guess I should be more excited about this. I just have a lot of questions about being a phoenix. Do you think ill have the powers of a phoenix, like healing tears?"

"Like I said before, Harry…this animal is in you. It is different than transfiguring yourself. You actually become the animal. So yes, I would bet my Gringott's vault on it."

"Speaking of money…I have something to show you." Harry wanted to know how to change into the phoenix, but he had enough of it for the night. Harry dragged Sirius over to the wall, and commanded it to open. The wall shrunk away, and the light reflecting off of gems and gold reflected back into their faces.

"Wow…that's more money than the Black family could ever dream of…" Sirius didn't speak about his family, ever. Harry was surprised to hear about them. Harry wondered what kind of a family Sirius grew up in. "My family was a bunch of pureblood fanatics," Sirius began, answering Harry's question, "and were obsessed with money. I have quite the fortune, being the only living Black, but it is nothing compared to this."

After admiring the fortune, they exited the room and went to the dueling dome, where Sirius trained the quick-learning boy-who-lived. Before Sirius left, he told Harry that he would let him tell Dumbledore about his animagus form. Harry went back to studying, and he exercised before going to bed.

Harry dreamt of flying that night. Not on his broom as he usually did, but just being outside, and flying on his own. Harry awoke feeling light and content. He did his morning routine and tested his wandless magic, which was steadily improving. He could cast quicker and with less thought. He was getting it.

Dumbledore appeared in the flames and beckoned Harry over to him. "So, Sirius tells me you successfully brewed the potion, and tested it." Dumbledore waited for Harry to speak. When he didn't Dumbledore said, "Oh, come now Harry, surely you aren't a ferret?"

Harry laughed at this; Dumbledore seemed to have heard about Draco Malfoy's wonderful experience last year. "Yes, sir, I took the potion. Fawkes will have a friend soon because I am a phoenix."

Harry expected Dumbledore to, once again, be shocked. He was. The dawn light reflected off of the old man's silvery beard and hair causing it to gleam as he spoke, "Well."

"Well…?"

"Well, Harry, I am getting awfully tired of this emotion. I enjoyed surprise the first time, but this is too much." Dumbledore stood up and gazed around at nothing. Harry was sure he was asking the same questions Harry had.

"So? What do you think?"

"Well, I think that you don't need to worry about it, Harry. What will happen, will happen. I trust everything will work out in the end. Whether you will be immortal as Fawkes is or not, it doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you learn to transform…and to fight. Sirius told me of the painting, simply marvelous. I expect you will put that to good use?"

Harry nodded, and they began their instruction. After Harry showed him his stronger control over his magic, Dumbledore asked Harry to show him his memory. Dumbledore told Harry how to extract a memory, and Harry placed it in the pensieve. Dumbledore pushed his face into the basin and disappeared. Several moments later, Dumbledore came out of the pensieve.

"I anticipate you will learn your transformation quickly based on your control in the potion's spell. If I am not mistaken, you got control of yourself right before you were sucked out of the daze?"

"Yes, sir." Harry didn't know what a normal dream the potion usually gave off. Dumbledore explained to him that most people just saw their animal. They didn't turn into it, but Harry actually turned into the Phoenix…and he gained control for a moment. He wondered what that meant.

Dumbledore then spoke in a light tone, "Well, I suppose the Order of the Phoenix can now be called the Order of Harry Potter."

With that, Dumbledore asked Harry to keep studying, and he left the room. Harry studied, practiced, and even went into the frame again to train. He lasted longer, but eventually a stronger Death Eater, or a larger group of Death Eaters would take him down, and he would just appear outside of the frame, slightly shaken, but unhurt.

Sirius came by again, and they began training in how to transform. "Usually the transformation is easiest to make on your head first. As Krum did last year, you will be able to hold your form even when it is not complete. Now, Harry, your meditation skills will come into play.

"I need you to clear your mind of everything. The second you start thinking of something, empty it of your head. Then, after that, focus on your phoenix that you saw. Don't think of Fawkes or phoenixes in general, just of your phoenix…you."

Harry tried, he kept thinking of things. Wow, this is a lot different than wandless magic, I have to think especially hard for that….ahh, get out of my head!

He could hold absolute calmness in his head for moments at a time, but he would think of something. Finally, he kept the silence in his head long enough for his phoenix to appear. First he saw it in his mind's eye. Then, he became it just as he did in the dream. A sharp gasp brought him out of his meditative state.

"Harry, are you not good at anything? I don't believe this. It took James and me a couple years! And you, a few minutes. That is unheard of…" Sirius voice shook as he spoke.

Harry opened his eyes when he heard Sirius' voice. His vision was spectacularly clear. His glasses seemed to have fallen off, so why was his vision ok? Why could he see where only his peripheral vision reached before? And most importantly, why had his nose sharpened to a point and turned a strange color?

He looked down at his body. Still two legs, still a waist, still a thin (yet now growing stronger) stomach and chest, still two beautiful golden and red wings…ok, so that was new. His upper body had gone phoenix!

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but out of his mouth came the most beautiful noise one could hear. The melodious tunes escaping his mouth came on their own, he had no control over them.

"Harry, if you…want…," Sirius kept losing track of what he was saying due to the wonderful calm that spread al over the room. "Want…to turn back, then you'll just have to…empty your head again and see yourself as human."

Harry did it in a second and looked up at Sirius, "So, not bad for a first day, I take it?"

Sirius laughed, even as a human, Harry knew how to calm him down. If truth be told, Sirius was a little apprehensive about Harry's amazing powers. Dumbledore said that Harry was growing at an alarming rate since Voldemort returned. There must be a connection.

"Harry, you are just like your father. You know exactly what to say. Listen, I couldn't change into my dog for a couple years, and I see myself as a strong wizard. I only told you the first two steps to turning into the animal, how could you have done that?"

"Is the third step seeing me as the phoenix? If it is, I have already seen that. In the potion, I became the phoenix for a moment…Dumbledore said I would learn fast because of that."

Sirius told him to go again, and again, and again until Harry could turn himself into the phoenix completely. He flew around the room, and picked Sirius up, yes, he had the phoenix's amazing strength. He touched down and turned himself back into Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived.

"Wow, Harry," was all Sirius could say.

They sat in silence for a long time, until Sirius broke it, "Just like with your wandless magic, you will need to practice to be able to turn into the phoenix without thought. I mean, without having to clear you thoughts. It will come easily, and based on your one-day learning curve, I imagine it won't take long for you to master it."

After that, time flew by. Harry was growing exponentially physically, mentally, and magically. Dumbledore was amazed by Harry's transformation. He said he would have to get Fawkes to come down when he was done with a mission he was on. Harry was unstoppable. A week passed and nothing could keep him from learning anything and everything.

He had gone through books worthy of 7th year students, and got into books that many adults wouldn't be able to follow. Harry's new photographic memory got only stronger as he remembered not only spells, but their history and benefits. He rarely used his wand by the end of the week and didn't need to think about Ginny and the spell anymore, it just came out of his hands.

In duels with Sirius, Harry won almost every time. When he used his wand, they were pretty evenly matched, but when Harry set his wand down and used his hands, Sirius lost. Harry could cast spells without thought, and two times the amount because he had two hands, but Sirius had only one wand.

Harry could only be stopped in the frame. It took an hour or so for the Death Eaters to get difficult enough. He laughed at how easily he was beaten the first time. The Death Eaters were remarkably strong after an hour, and it took all of his skills and instinct to keep him from being hit.

At the end of the week, he tried again in the frame. After an hour and a bit, his enemy's were extremely fast, and difficult to hit and dodge. He was apparating every few seconds and hurling spells at the twenty or so Death Eater around him. Harry used a new spell he learned, called the duplicating spell, to make a hologram type reflection of himself. He gave the fake him his wand and he could think on spells especially hard and they would shoot out of his wand, in his duplicates self's hand. It proved an excellent distraction as he could apparate into a tree and shoot spells down at the Death Eaters as they confusedly saw their spells go right through the fake Harry.

Eventually they caught on, and they looked up at Harry and began shooting spells at him. Harry turned into the phoenix and flew down dodging spells left and right as he flew. He picked up the nearest Death Eater and watched as he was hit by multiple curses and hexes thrown by the other Death Eaters. Harry lowered to the ground and turned back into human form.

He began fighting the now growing number of Death Eaters. Harry's hands were moving so fast, if he had time to think he might have wondered how he could move that fast. However, he couldn't think because he was so focused on the fight. Despite this, an image of Ginny appeared into his head. Then, he saw one of the Death Eaters cast a Crucio on her.

Even though it was his imagination that thought this up, anger coursed through Harry. His power grew as he thought of the possibility of someone hurting her. Suddenly, a giant shield of fire exploded around Harry. It expanded until it passed through all of the Death Eaters, burning them to death instantly.

Harry stood alone in the middle of a small house sized ashen pit the flame created. Trees were black and crisped, half of them crumbling to the ground. Harry didn't know what happened. Did I do this?

Suddenly he felt the familiar spinning and found himself outside of the frame. Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus Lupin were standing there. Sirius' and Remus' mouths were open, staring at Harry. Dumbledore's twinkling eye smiled at Harry.

"That was impressive power there, Harry. Remus, Sirius, if you would give us a minute alone please?" Dumbledore's strong voice reassured Harry that everything was ok.

Harry said hi to Remus before walking over to the couch with Dumbledore. "Harry, I want you to know that everything is alright, you did nothing wrong. Actually, you did do one thing wrong. From what I saw, you let your emotions get the best of you. In that case it was alright, but I must warn you not to do that again, at least when you don't need to.

"You exerted tremendous power there Harry. Voldemort could have protected himself from that, so do not get prideful of your powers, although I must tell you that that was amazing. You must not allow you emotions to rule you. I don't know what caused it, but the reason you are here is so you can learn. One thing you should learn now is how to control yourself. I should hate to think the next time Mr. Malfoy insults you that he would be instantly burned to a crisp along with the rest of the students in the hallway with you."

"Yes, sir…I don't even know what came over me. Do you think my being a phoenix has something to do with this?"

"That is precisely what I was thinking. I would like you to turn into the phoenix now Harry." Harry obliged and shrunk down to a phoenix. He was a bit shorter than usual and looked to find himself in the state he had first seen Fawkes in during his second year. He was quite depressing, really. "Ok…now I would like you to transform, and you will have to focus on this, but transform into the more magnificent state of a phoenix."

Harry thought hard on his typical image. He felt himself getting bigger slightly. He heard Dumbledore sigh in relief. "Ok, Harry, this is great news, it means you can control your stage. Your anger must have subconsciously made your phoenix explode as phoenixes do, but since you were in human form, it manifested itself in a much greater explosion.

"This answers one of my questions of your predicament. I wondered whether or not you would go through the same stages as a normal phoenix, as normal as they are. I now know that you can control your phoenix phase, that is, unless you allow yourself to go beyond control. I would like you to practice this. See if you can cause this explosion on a more controlled emotional status, and then see if you can control the power of it. I know you will succeed."

Dumbledore arose and walked over to Lupin and Black with Harry behind him. Sirius instantly questioned Harry, and he explained to the two what they thought the cause of it was. Remus interjected how astounding phoenix-Harry looked. Harry quickly caught Lupin up on everything.

"….So you see, professor, I've been here for a week and a half now." Harry liked being with his old professor again.

"Please, Harry, call me Remus. You call Sirius by his first name. So, I bet you are wondering why I am here."

"Ok, Remus, and you are right, I was wondering."

"Well, as you may or may not know, the full moon is one week from tomorrow. I need to take some wolfsbane potion if I wish to stay myself. This last year had been torture without it. I hurt myself when I barricade myself up. With the potion, at least I won't wake up with bite marks all over.

"From what these two have told me, you seem to be quite the potions master. I would like you to see if you can make the potion by tomorrow so that I can take it up until the full moon."

"Of course I will. I will get started on it right now. So, where are you going to stay for the full moon?"

As Harry walked with the others to the potions lab, all three of the adults answered him. "He ('I' for Lupin) would like to stay here with you, Harry."

Harry laughed and called out, "Jinx," but when they went to their wands to block him as if he was about to jinx them, he told them the muggle tradition to say 'jinx' when people say the same thing. He then asked, "That'll be awesome, will Sirius stay as well?"

"Yes," chorused all three of them. Dumbledore, who always loved muggles, quickly said, "Jinx."

Harry laughed again and realized something. "This potion is new, so it won't be in those books…."

"Yes, we thought ahead." Lupin handed him a parchment with a long, and rather difficult instructions attached. Harry looked at them quickly and made sure he had all of the ingredients. He began as the others talked about the room. After five minutes Harry was able to leave the potion for half an hour.

"It will be ready by tomorrow morning, Remus." Harry liked calling him Remus; he was feeling closer to him already.

"Great, thank you. Now, Sirius says he can't beat you in dueling any more. I think us two may be able to take you on, still." He grinned and Harry agreed to take the challenge.

Dumbledore said he had urgent business to attend to, and he turned to leave. Before he reached the fireplace, Harry called out, "Did you find a new Defense teacher, Professor?"

"I didn't do the finding…it seems the ministry would like to keep a close eye on us, so a ministry official will be joining us this year." With the twinkle in his eye gone, he turned and disappeared into the fire.

Harry felt bad for his headmaster. This school was Dumbledore's sanctuary…and it was not just a school, it was his school. It was his home, and Harry felt bad that Dumbledore had to allow the ministry into his home.

"Why is the ministry being so idiotic?" Harry kept his temper in check, remembering his lesson with Dumbledore.

"They, meaning Fudge and those dumb enough to believe him, think Dumbledore's after the Minister spot. Dumbledore was the favorite for the job when it was opened up, and Fudge has never forgotten that. Now, he wants to turn the public against him…he's doing a pretty good job on that, but those who know what is really going on, that believe you and Dumbledore, they are all in the Order, or at least helping convince others of the truth."

Lupin picked up where Sirius left off, "Now Fudge is placing a ministry worker here to spy on what Dumbledore is doing. They think he is trying to build up an army out of the students. He is not far off actually, because as people learn more about Dumbledore, they trust him, and naturally join the Order, which is an army, in a sense. However, Fudge is convinced that Dumbledore is power-hungry, and he cares too much for his position in the magical world to see what is so obvious."

"What a moron," was all Harry could say. He quickly checked on the potion before leading the other two to the dueling dome. Lupin was fascinated with everything in the room, and the dome was no exception.

"Wow, would you look at this place? Well, let's do a quick disarming duel. If you beat both of us, then we will move on." They began dueling, slowly at first, Harry expertly dodged both of there spells and sent two out of his hands back at them. Lupin looked taken aback by his wandless magic, but got over the surprise as the duel got underway.

Harry relied on his instinct again to dodge as he dished out spells very quickly. He decided to have some fun with them, so he jumped behind a rock, and threw his wand over the side like a grenade. In midair, he willed it to stop and face them. He stepped out from behind the rock, and they lost interest in the wand and shot spells at him. Harry shot two disarming spells out of his wand as he put up a shield to block the incoming spells.

He watched, satisfied, as his father's best friend's wands came flying towards him. Remus was shocked; Sirius just grinned. "I had no idea you could control your wandless magic so wonderfully, Harry. It threw me there, and then your wand display…I should've seen that coming after you did it in the frame." Remus joined Sirius in grinning as he spoke.

They began a full out duel, two on one. Harry won the first few, but as time went on, the two older men caught on to a few of Harry's tricks, and they won a couple themselves. Harry was once again reminded of Sirius' lesson to not get into patterns. He needed to learn enough techniques so as to not allow people to catch on and beat him.

It was getting late, so the two older men left with a goodbye. Harry tended to the potion and went to bed. He was tired from the day's work and fell asleep easily. He awoke, and did his morning routine of swimming, working out, and eating a wonderful breakfast. Dumbledore joined him, but only for a moment as Harry didn't have time to work on his new assignment, and was done with wandless magic practice.

The day went on, the potion was nearly finished, Harry read some more, and began working to control his exploding power. He went back into the frame and tried to make it happen. Harry was smart, and he had a lot of logic. He knew that he needed to explode his phoenix in human form, and that his anger had done that once already.

He put his mind to the test and willed himself to get to the 'bursting into flames' phase of a phoenix, but he could only do it as a phoenix. He would turn into a phoenix before exploding. Finally after several hours, he came to the conclusion that he needed to change phases in his heart, not his head.

It was similar to wandless magic. He needed to think of a powerful emotion to funnel his phoenix energy…and fire lit the world around him. Moments later, the forest was blackened again. He worked for another hour on controlling the explosion. He made good progress. He was sure Dumbledore would be proud. Harry was exhausted from the work he did.

He left the frame; he found he could will himself out of the frame. He just finished the potion when Remus and Sirius appeared. "All done!" he shouted across the room to them. The cauldron was smoking with the potion.

Harry conjured a goblet and filled it full of potion and handed it to Remus. The potion was smoking still. "Remus, would you like me to test a few things, and see if I can make it more enjoyable to drink? I remember you saying it tasted awful."

"That would be great! But until you know that it is exactly correct, I would like you to keep this batch ready for me. I need to drink every night in the preceding week of the full moon." Lupin quickly drained the goblet and shuddered at the taste. Smoke was still coming from the goblet.

Harry found something very interesting while reading. Apparently, in the old days when the Four Founders lived, they wore glasses. They were not glasses to improve their sight, but rather to have charms on. There were charms to make you see--through the glasses-- invisible objects, through walls, and see behind you. It reminded Harry a lot about Moody's eye.

He thought that Dumbledore surely had some cast on his own glasses. He had seen Harry through his cloak before. Harry looked at the spells. They were very complicated. Normally, spells were just something you said, and the magic happened. Harry had seen a couple of spells where more was involved, now he had a few more spells to add to that category.

Some spells took more concentration that others, some just took more magical ability than others. The spells Harry was looking at took concentration, ability, skill, time, patience, and energy. Harry went to work. An hour later, he could see through walls when he wanted. He could look at a wall normally, and then see through it if he wanted to.

Harry called it a night and went to bed. One morning routine later, Dumbledore was listening to Harry explain his phoenix phenomenon. "So, Harry, you see that your heart has once again given you a power beyond that of most people's comprehension. It is very draining I am sure, so you can not do it very often, or you may hurt yourself."

Harry then told Dumbledore about his glasses, and that he planned to put more charms on later. "Excellent work Harry. I see you have found out my secret about how I see through your cloak. Cloaks are wonderful, but they can give a false sense of security to many.

"Harry, I need to leave now, but I am going to ask you to research something more specifically now. Voldemort is going to try to get the Dementors to follow him again. I need to know anything and everything about Dementors to see if we can't find a stronger protection than the Patronus, because few people can make a corporeal Patronus."

"Corporeal Pat…" Harry began.

"Corporeal…it means it takes a form, as your stag does. Anyway, I think Dementors existed in the Founders' days, so I would like to see their history, and anything you can find. I will see you tomorrow, Harry."

"Bye Professor!" Harry exclaimed as Dumbledore flooed away. Harry jumped up and ran to the library. After searching for twenty minutes, Harry had a stack of books on magical creatures. Harry skimmed through each one until he found a chapter dedicated to Dementors.

Harry read quickly but in depth. The book was written by Ravenclaw. He stopped several times, but most of the things he rea, he already knew. In the middle of the chapter, Harry read: No one really knows where Dementors come from. I have had many theories, but my most plausible one is this: Storant Grentlewald, one of the most evil persons to walk this world, disappeared suddenly in the middle of his reign. Many thought he had a sudden death. But I believe he is not dead. Perhaps he made one too many Horcruxes and his soul ceased to exist—perhaps he was and is the first Dementor, and he found he could kiss others to make them like him. I believe this to be the most feasible explanation for the origins of Dementors.

The Patronus is made by…Harry stopped reading. This made sense, except…what is a Horcrux?