Chapter 10

Harry stared at himself in the mirror in shock.

He was a lion. A huge, male lion.

How the hell did that happen?

Of course, the Animagus transformation reflected a person's inner personality. As Harry Potter that had meant an animal capable of flying, a predator but also a scavenger, because Harry Potter was nothing if not opportunistic. For Harry Potter a red kite had made perfect sense.

But Harry wasn't simply Harry Potter anymore. He now lived in Harriet Hubble's body and he had her memories, and they'd inevitably influenced him in some ways, even if he hadn't noticed it in detail just yet. Harriet was a person in need of protection even if she already lived in her own large pride, also known as her loving family.

And Harry Potter had always been a protector, eager to fight the good fight to keep his loved ones safe. That hadn't stopped once Voldemort had been defeated and Harry's prophesized destiny had come to a successful conclusion. Harry had become an Auror of his own free will, and he loved his job. Well, he loved investigating crime scenes and tracking down criminals and interrogating suspects. He could do without all the politics and bureaucracy and the constant attention from his adoring fans.

The point was that Harry becoming a lion made perfect sense, especially when taking into consideration that on the inside Harry very much was still a Gryffindor, even though Harriet had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

And that he turned out to be a male lion…well, that reflected his inner personality rather perfectly, too, didn't it?

Because Harry still thought of himself as a man. He couldn't help it. He'd now been living inside a female body for over two months, and while he seemed to have accepted his new lot in life reasonably well, he couldn't help how he felt on the inside.

He accepted that he no longer had a penis, he dealt with his periods as best as he could (mostly thanks to the pain potion which did wonders as it turned out), and he'd made his peace with putting on a bra every single day. He didn't even mind that others saw him as a girl and addressed him as such.

He was doing as well as could possibly be expected of him, considering that he'd woken up in the body of the opposite gender that previously belonged to a complete stranger.

But despite all of that, Harry couldn't stop identifying as a man, and he wondered if that would ever change. Especially now that his Animagus form betrayed his inner feelings in such an obvious way. Only male lions had manes, after all. Not that anyone even knew Harry was trying to become an Animagus, so Harry could very easily keep this new talent to himself. And as long as he didn't go and register his Animagus form at the Ministry, no one would ever find out.

Harry would miss being a red kit and flying by using his own wings, but being a huge lion was rather impressive, too, if Harry was honest with himself. If he ever found himself in a situation where he didn't have his wand yet needed to fight for his life, his opponents would be in for a very nasty surprise from now on. That thought certainly made Harry smile, which translated to the lion briefly raising his lips in what seemed like a half-hearted snarl.

The lion's instincts were interesting as well. Harry suddenly felt very protective, even more so than he usually did, over the people who mattered to him. He also felt like running and hunting and tearing down prey. And he wouldn't mind taking a long, lazy nap under a tree somewhere.

Harry quickly pushed back into himself and shifted until he stood on two legs again. When first transforming the animal's instincts could become overwhelming to the point one could lose themselves in being the animal and forget to shift back into a human. Best to keep the first couple of transformations short for that reason.

Cancelling the locking charm, Harry shook himself to get rid of those last predatory instincts. He'd already been gone for far too long and he didn't want to worry his new friends. Which included Tom Riddle these day, and that was still such a foreign idea that it made Harry wonder if he wasn't still actually trapped in a coma in St Mungo's. But thinking of Tom did give Harry the perfect excuse for his tardiness. He quickly dug in his trunk and pulled out Mrs Ashford's Compendium and held it against his chest, since he'd left his bag in the library. Then he hurried out of Ravenclaw Tower.

Just as Harry descended the last of the stone stairs and found himself on the first floor again, he hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he knew someone who meant him harm was close by. Harry always had exceptional instincts like that, and thankfully they'd translated to his new body.

Harry wasn't worried, though. All of his clothes were charmed with protective shields so no one could curse him in the back.

Not even Konrad Mulciber, who certainly tried from his position behind the door of an empty classroom. The red beam of light harmlessly bounced off Harry's back, much to Mulciber's obvious surprise.

With a silent apology to Mrs Ashford, Harry dropped the compendium to the stone floor with a heavy thud, whipped out his wand and stunned Mulciber before he could try cursing Harry again. Without pause, Harry slipped inside the empty classroom, stepping over the prone form of his nemesis as he closed the door and cast a whole collection of locking and silencing charms. Then he checked the room for any hidden individuals, because he wasn't a fool. Magic made it possible for people to become invisible in a number of ways, and Harry didn't want to receive a knife in the back while he was cursing Mulciber.

When Harry had designed his revenge for Konrad Mulciber, he'd come up with dozens of plans, one plan even more gruesome than the next. Harry knew curses so vile they'd make Voldemort cringe at the thought of them, he was sure.

But none of that would help Harriet Hubble. None of that would bring her justice.

The thing was that what Mulciber had done wasn't a one-off incident. There was a systematic problem with sexual abuse against muggleborns at Hogwarts, and that problem had existed for decades already, if not longer.

One of the stories that went around Hogwarts was that of Ellen Mueller, a Gryffindor muggleborn who had committed suicide some ten years ago after she'd repeatedly been sexually assaulted by a pureblooded Gryffindor by the name of Gawain Macmillan. The Macmillans were a light family, very rich and very well connected in the Ministry, even producing a few Ministers for Magic over the last couple of centuries. They were decent people overall, but every family had its black sheep, and apparently Gawain Macmillan was the kind of asshole who didn't take no for an answer and decided to just take by force what he thought he was owed by the muggleborn girl he desired.

After Ellen Mueller committed suicide, nothing happened. No one cared enough to see Gawain Macmillan brought to justice. The Hogwarts staff put it down to too much stress caused by her upcoming NEWTs, which had caused Ellen Mueller to snap and hang herself in a broom closet late at night.

Harry knew the story thanks to Harriet's memories, and every time he thought about it his Auror instincts screamed at him that Ellen's death may not have been suicide after all. Gawain might have decided to do away with her entirely, to hide his sexual crimes for good. Hell, she might have ended up pregnant or something, which would certainly give Gawain motive enough to see her dead to save his family's name.

Whatever happened, the point was that the Hogwarts staff certainly hadn't looked farther than they absolutely had to, and no one had bothered to even alert the Auror department about the whole ordeal. Ellen's body had been shipped back to her muggle parents with a letter full of excuses while Gawain got away with everything and that was that.

The same would have happened in Harriet's case. She'd committed suicide at home, and Harry doubted anyone would have connected it with a sexual assault committed by a schoolmate less than a week earlier.

People simply didn't care enough about muggleborns to get to the bottom of such tragedies.

Well, Harry was going to change that as much as he possibly could. Which meant that he couldn't just curse Konrad Mulciber to hell and back. Oh, Harry was going to curse him, no question there, but he was going to use a few very specific curses that would help him get Mulciber arrested and brought up on criminal charges.

Mulciber wasn't just a teenage boy who'd made a 'mistake'. Mulciber, even as young as he was right there and then, was a sexual predator and would remain that for the rest of his life. After the war, when Harry and his Auror colleagues were hunting down the remaining Death Eaters, Mulciber included, they'd come across Mulciber's sordid history when they'd searched his mansion and questioned some of his servants. Mulciber had instructed his house-elves to never speak a word of what went on in his mansion, and those poor things weren't able to share any information. But Mulciber also had some distant family who'd fallen onto hard times living in a small cottage on his property, to farm some of the land for him. And they'd been more than eager to share what they knew once they found themselves hauled into an official interrogation room.

As it turned out, ever since Mulciber graduated Hogwarts, he'd made it a habit to abduct a young teenage muggle girl, keep her in his dungeon for a couple of months while using her as a sex slave before she was used up and worn out, and he killed her and burned her body to get rid of the evidence. And then he'd abduct a new girl and start all over again. Because these were muggle girls, they were only ever reported missing in the muggle world, and thus no one in the wizarding world was aware anyone had gone missing and might have ended up in the cellar of a magical predator.

And Konrad Mulciber had done this for decades. As far as Harry knew he'd even gotten his son involved once he was old enough. When they'd torn apart Mulciber mansion they'd found more than one cell in the dungeons with the recently deceased remains of two young girls in them.

That is why Harry knew Konrad Mulciber was a monster and needed to be stopped no matter what. Because if he wasn't stopped, over a hundred innocent muggle girls would die before anyone even realized what was going on.

And Harry knew exactly how he was going to punish this serial killer, because that was what Mulciber was. Harry had read enough muggle literature on the classifications of criminals to know that Mulciber was one of the most successful serial killers, muggle or wizard, to have ever lived if you went by body count.

Harry was going to use the magic he'd learned from another very successful serial killer he'd had the misfortune to meet in his line of work.

After Voldemort had been defeated the Aurors had their hands full identifying all the marked Death Eaters and everyone else who had sided with Voldemort but who had never received the Dark Mark.

Saphira Zabini was such an unmarked supporter of Voldemort. They found enough evidence to charge her with a few small crimes, so they brought her in for interrogation while they searched her mansion top to bottom.

It was Harry, still pretty much a rookie Auror at that point, who'd discovered a hidden room off Saphira Zabini's bedroom, filled with illegal potions and books and dark artifacts. Amongst that stash Harry had found a little black book. Contrary to what one might expect, it wasn't filled with the contact information of lots of rich wizards.

It was filled with all the magic Saphira Zabini had ever invented in her entire life.

As it turned out, Saphira Zabini was a very talented, very creative and very disturbed spell-creator. She'd invented so many different hexes and curses that she used to lure very rich men in, marry them and then dispose of them in ways that never directly implicated her or even suggested that foul play may have occurred.

Harry's boss had ordered everyone to pick up a stack of all the books and paperwork they'd found in Saphira's hidden room and read it thoroughly to look for any potential evidence, and that's how Harry had ended up with that little black book in his possession. He'd taken his pile home with him to read it over the weekend, and while he'd been lazing on the couch he'd first opened that little black book. He hadn't been able to put it down again for the rest of the weekend.

Not only had Saphira described all her hexes and curses in detail, she'd also added in depth notes on every single person she'd ever used any of those hexes or curses on. She went into full detail of the effects and how long the magic lasted or how soon the person ended up dead.

That little black book contained enough evidence to see Saphira Zabini receive an immediate death sentence once she was brought before the Wizengamot.

When Harry had shown the little book to Ron and Hermione a day later as they stopped by to visit, they'd paged through the book in absolute shock. Ron had shuddered repeatedly while his skin paled until he barely looked alive.

Hermione ended up with tears streaming down her face when she read about one particular curse. "I love magic," she said as she wiped a hand across her wet cheeks. "But this scares me. That one vile woman can create such magic that robs you of yourself. Does it even have a counter-curse?"

"No." Harry shook his head, chilled to the bone by everything he'd read in that little book. "She didn't seem to create many counter curses for her work. She probably didn't think she'd ever need them."

When Harry presented the little black book to his boss the following Monday, it caused quite the stir and Harry was even allowed inside the interrogation room while more experienced Aurors grilled Saphira for hours and hours.

Saphira Zabini was without a doubt the most unflappable person Harry had ever met. She merely smiled and tilted her head as she listened to all the accusations, but she never said a single word. As their investigation deepened, they realized that Saphira had to be much older than she pretended to be, and that on top of hexes and curses, she'd also developed lots of magic to keep herself looking young and extraordinarily beautiful.

It was also revealed that Blaise Zabini was not her biological son, but instead a baby born to the wife of a rich man Saphira had targeted. She'd killed the wife, and eventually the rich husband, but kept the baby and raised him as her own son. Harry doubted Blaise knew any of this, and for a moment Harry felt sorry for him until he remembered Blaise had eagerly fought on Voldemort's side during the battle of Hogwarts and then any sympathy quickly disappeared again.

As they were preparing to formally charge Saphira with many, many counts of murder, she disappeared from her ministry holding cell one night. The Aurors on guard duty were found dead, poisoned by something they drank during their shift. That was also the last time anyone saw Blaise Zabini in Britain, so it was assumed he was behind the jailbreak of his fake mother.

Even though Harry urged his bosses to publicize the truth about Blaise Zabini's origins in the paper, it never turned the son against the mother. Harry understood why. Blaise loved his mother and would find anything the Aurors claimed suspicious at best. And Saphira would of course tell him none of it was true, and who was Blaise going to believe? The woman who raised him and always treated him with love, supposedly, or the Aurors who wanted to see both him and his mother thrown into Azkaban for life?

The last Harry knew of them was that they were living somewhere in South America while using false identities. Seeing Saphira go free had frustrated Harry beyond belief, but at least she was now a wanted woman in the whole world, because her arrest warrants had been shared globally.

And even though Harry had only had that little black book in his personal possession for one weekend, he'd memorized most of its contents. It had happened almost accidentally. Harry certainly hadn't wanted to remember any of it, but the contents had been so shocking that the details were ingrained in his mind and he sincerely doubted he would ever forget them.

Harry released a deep sigh, moved his head from side to side to relax his tense neck and then he pointed his wand at the still prone Mulciber.

He was going to use three curses on him.

Harry started with a little something Saphira Zabini preferred to use on all her victims the moment she married them. It rendered them both infertile and impotent and it was irreversible. No matter what happened, Mulciber would never father children and he'd never be able to rape another woman ever again.

One of the reasons Saphira Zabini was so successful as a serial killer who used her victims as puppets in her own personal play, was because all the magic she used was of her own creation and had no known counters or cures. Most people didn't even know they were cursed because they had no idea such curses even existed. And if they did consult a healer or curse-breaker, they weren't able to immediately help either, because they also didn't know what sort of magic was used specifically.

And now Konrad Mulciber would be having the same problem. Harry was cursing him to hell and back, and no one would know what those curses even did or how to counter them.

The second curse was something Saphira had created to use during her hunts, when she was still deciding on who to make her next victim. It forced the mark to speak the truth, nothing but the truth, but they were unaware they were doing so and that whatever they said might have consequences.

It was vital that Mulciber speak the truth once Harry got the Auror department involved, and this curse, which Saphira called the Cassandra Curse, would make sure Mulciber would confess to all his crimes without even realizing he was doing it. It was also one of the few curses Saphira had created that had a counter curse, but Harry obviously wasn't going to share it with anyone. Without the counter curse, the effects could last well over a year. Plenty of time for Mulciber to get sentenced to prison.

The last curse Harry used was the one that had made Hermione cry in sheer horror. It would see the victim dead in three to five years while they slowly lost not only their minds, but also themselves in the process. Saphira called it the Dementia Curse, and she loved using it on her older husbands, because no one was ever surprised when a senior wizard developed dementia, and no one ever suspected foul play.

Harry was well aware that the chances that Konrad Mulciber would actually see Azkaban from the inside were very slim. The Mulcibers were rich and powerful and very well connected. The best Harry could hope for was that Mulciber got expelled from Hogwarts, probably. After which he'd just be home schooled and still get to keep his wand after he sat his OWLs at the Ministry.

And thus Harry had decided to make sure Mulciber would soon be unable to even think straight, and that he'd be gone forever in under five years.

And Harriet and the others at Hogwarts Mulciber had assaulted and raped, plus all the muggle girls from the future, would finally get justice.

Harry lowered his wand after he cast the final curse. He knew he'd just used some horrifying magic, and he hadn't used it lightly. But a monster like Konrad Mulciber deserved nothing less.

The last thing Harry did was adjust Mulciber's memory, so he didn't remember going to confront Harriet Hubble that afternoon. Harry didn't want to connect Harriet with Mulciber in a way that might suggest he was the one who'd cursed Mulciber, if it ever got out the boy was cursed in the first place. But Harry wasn't nearly as impulsive anymore as he'd once been. Auror training had taught him to plan for the unexpected, which he always tried to do.

Mulciber was ready, which meant that Harry had to implement the next phase of his plan. But he could do that later that evening, or even after his roommates had gone to bed.

Harry cancelled the charms around the door and room, pulled the classroom door open and sprang to the side on sheer instinct when he saw a wand aimed at him.

Tom stood in front of the door, Mrs Ashford's compendium clutched to his chest with one arm, wand in hand while he desperately tried to break the locking charms, his face pinched with worry and frustration.

"Harriet!" Tom instantly sagged in relief, shoulders drooping and mouth curling up in a smile. Then he noticed the prone form of Mulciber in the middle of the classroom and he aimed his wand while he glared at his friend.

Harry plucked Tom's wand right out of his hand to stop him from cursing Mulciber. "Remember what I told you this summer?"

Tom looked between his wand in Harry's hand and Harry's frowning face with a shocked gasp before he seemed to register Harry's question. He nodded. "Yes, I'll stay out of your way." Tom gave Mulciber a long, dark look. "Did he hurt you?"

"Not today," Harry said with a wicked little smile. "Soon he'll get what he deserves."

"Good." Tom relaxed his shoulders somewhat again and then seemed to remember that he was holding a book. "I found this on the floor outside the classroom. It was rather an obvious clue you'd been here."

"You saved Mrs Ashford!" Harry beamed up at Tom, genuinely happy he hadn't lost that book. He'd truly be very depressed if he had to go through life without the infinite wisdom of that amazing woman. It was then that Harry remembered he was still holding Tom's wand. "I'll trade you," he said, holding out Tom's wand. It was interesting that the wand did feel familiar in a way, yet it also didn't feel quite right as if might once have done, when Harry was still Harry Potter.

It was a very strong piece of evidence that Harry truly wasn't Harry Potter anymore, because the Cyprus and Phoenix feather wand that had chosen Harriet Hubble felt like the perfect wand for Harry nowadays.

"Gladly," Tom said, and accepted his wand back while Harry eagerly clutched Mrs Ashford to his chest.

Harry closed the door of the classroom and fell into step beside Tom as they made their way back to the library. "He'll wake up soon enough. He won't remember a thing from this afternoon," Harry whispered, so Tom knew not to interrogate his friend about what might have happened.

Tom gave a bit of a stiff nod while he remained quiet and soon they reached the library and stepped inside together.

This did not to unnoticed by anyone in the library and within seconds the whole place was buzzing with gossip about how Tom Riddle had run off with Harriet Hubble for at least half an hour and they'd obviously had done many very filthy things together in the nearest broom closet.

Harry sighed. Some of these students weren't even trying to be quiet as they discussed Harry's imaginary sex life. "This is all your fault," Harry muttered while giving Tom an annoyed glance.

Tom's response was to smirk, that ridiculous tosspot.

"Is everything okay?" Myrtle asked with worried look when Harry fell into the seat opposite her.

"Everything's fine. I just needed to run up to the tower to retrieve the second coming of Merlin." Harry placed Mrs Ashford's compendium on the table with a thump and then chuckled when everyone looked at that book in quiet disbelief.

"I've been hearing nothing but high praise about Mrs Ashford all summer," Tom said, just to add more fuel to the gossip fire, apparently. Annabel and Lukas exchanged a knowing glance before they went back to looking between Tom and Harry in obvious speculation.

"She'll have the answer to my needs, I'm sure of it." Harry flipped the compendium open and went in search of a spell that would solve his chafing tights once and for all.

And because Mrs Ashford was the most amazing witch that ever lived, Harry did find such a charm and he couldn't wait to try it out later in their dormitory. The library wasn't exactly the place to start casting magic at your own crotch. Even Harry knew that much.

Their little group of students chatted about their classes and the ancestor potion and the upcoming OWLs for another hour or so until it was time to pack up and go to the Great Hall for dinner. They made plans to meet up in the library again to do homework together, and Harry was very happy he'd been able to start a few new friendships so soon into the schoolyear.

Mulciber appeared at dinner as if nothing had happened, and Harry kept a careful eye on him without drawing attention to himself all throughout the meal. The Cassandra Curse seemed to be working fine because more than once Harry noticed Black or Malfoy admonish Mulciber for something he'd said, though Harry couldn't hear what was being said exactly. Tom also kept a close eye on Mulciber, studying him as though he was an interesting new lifeform he'd never encountered before.

Once they got back to Ravenclaw tower, Harry excused himself to Myrtle, saying he was very tired and wanted to get early night's sleep. Harry was tired from the first full day of classes, that was no lie, but Harry wanted a little time to himself to implement the next phase of his plan. Over the summer, Harry had written numerous letters, all detailing Mulciber's crimes, including his sexual assault of Harriet Hubble.

Harry did not look forward to having to talk about Mulciber raping Harriet to some Aurors, but he would, because he owed it to Harriet.

And examining Harriet's memories of her classmates, Harry was certain Mulciber had assaulted at least two other muggleborn students already. A Hufflepuff a year older than them named Matilda Bonner and a Gryffindor a year younger who was called Cathy Jones. There might be more, but the Aurors would discover that soon enough once they talked to Mulciber thanks to the Cassandra Curse.

Harry got the pile of letters from his trunk and tucked them in his bag, and then he cast the strongest disillusionment charm he could and made his way out of the tower again without revealing his presence to anyone. The trek to the owlery was quiet, since it was past curfew already. Once there, Harry recruited as many school owls as he needed and tied the letters to their feet while telling them where to go.

The Auror Department. The Head of Magical Law Enforcement. The Minister for Magic. The Daily Prophet. The Headmaster of Hogwarts. The Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts. And all the Heads of Houses.

Harry figured that at least a few of them would take his accusations seriously enough to come have a chat with dear Konrad, and that was all they needed to do to hear the truth for themselves.

Harry had used all he'd learned in the Auror department to make sure the letters were completely untraceable to him. He sent the owls on their way and watched quietly as the many birds took to the sky and disappeared in the dark horizon.

Now all Harry had to do was wait and see who would take the bait first.