The Travelers unlock their potential, and discuss nightmares.
Harri's birthday did indeed turn out wonderful, starting with a breakfast of her favorites made by Dobby and Winky. After that, Sirius announced he'd gotten day passes for an arcade and laser tag arena the next town over. After a slightly harrowing car trip that resulted in Remus taking over driving halfway there, as Sirius kept forgetting a minivan is not a motorcycle, they arrived and had a blast playing the different games. Sirius, Harri and Ginny dominated the laser tag arena, though the others put up a good showing. Harri and Neville, as the birthday celebrators, both got to have their pick of prizes, and they went home with a giant plush owl and a giant plush lion respectively. Once they got back home, Dobby and Winky had laid out a full three course meal, with Molly Weasley's treacle tart for dessert. After that, they watched movies until everyone fell asleep in their seats.
The first two weeks of August were spent setting up for school and making a daily schedule for the kids. They (meaning Remus and Hermione) decided that weekday mornings would be spent on their non-magical studies in the library, from eight in the morning until noon. They'd then take a two hour break for lunch before working on their magical studies until five. Saturdays and Sundays would be days off to do whatever, and Sirius insisted they also take off bank holidays. As their non-magical studies consisted of individual modules that, while having expected dates they had to be completed by, allowed them all to move at their own pace, and the magical studies were effectively independent research with some tutoring, the arrangement was expected to work out well.
The first few days of magical lessons were used to test everyone's magical levels, as they didn't know if coming through the Veil would make their magic stronger or weaker or have no effect. They each took a turn casting several spells in a row at the training dummies in the dueling room, starting with the simple first year Flipendo and Incindio, to the more powerful spells they'd all learned as a means to help Harri in the tournament. They found that their magic seemed the slightest bit stronger, but it wasn't by much. Harri felt glad she decided to hold off on wearing the skull ring, for it would have been way too obvious something else was happening with her power levels.
Once that had been tested, they started working on their Family Inheritances. The wizardborn of their group all had them, special abilities due their bloodlines, though Sirius and Remus had no access to their own due to Azkaban and lycanthropy respectively. But because of Dumbledore's meddling in their childhoods, up to binding their cores in half of their cases, they didn't have the level of control of them that they should have by now, especially since they hadn't wanted the old coot to find out how much of his machinations they knew.
Harri, along with the Parseltongue from her Slytherin line, also held the Potter Storm Magicks. After releasing the bind in it the previous year, she'd managed to work up to conjuring small flashes of lightning, but the journals of her Potter ancestors said that she had the potential to one day call down literal storms if she dedicated herself to training it.
Neville's inheritance hadn't been repressed by Dumbledore, but by his family and their expectations he be just like his father. His talent in Herbology was the expression of the Longbottom Dryad Magicks, which were much stronger in him than in any other recent Longbottoms. Once he got past the block of living up to that shadow, he flourished, and could encourage rapid growth in several different plants at a time. In time, he could regrow entire forests, and even manipulate plants to his commands.
Luna's Fae inheritance was the most developed of all of theirs, as Dumbledore never bothered her family the way he had the others. But it was almost purely a mental discipline, meditation and journaling and her curious creatures her way of managing it. So instead, she spent the training time helping Hermione with her gift.
It had been a surprise to the other kids that Hermione's accident with the polyjuice potion in second year actually had lingering consequences. Namely, she now had the enhanced senses of a cat. It also had the side effects of giving her a twitching nose and ears, and her pupils would blow wide when something caught her attention or in low light situations. She'd managed third year with some charms that McGonagall had taught her, but Luna was able to help her actually hone her abilities, so she'd be able to use them and react accordingly.
Ron and Ginny's inheritances were the most surprising of the group, as both Prewett and Weasley Family records were incomplete and the inheritances forgotten. In Ron's case, they learned that his and his family's fiery red hair and tempers was not just descriptive, but literal. The Prewett Ignus Magicks had manifested in Ron, and Dumbledore had bound them before anyone had even known it. He was able to conjure small fires currently, including Hermione's bluebell flames, and Sirius hypothesized he'd potentially be able to control Fiendfyre, after enough training. Remus then reestablished that no one was to even consider casting that spell unless absolutely, life-or-death necessary.
Ginny, meanwhile, got her inheritance from the Weasley side, and the first Weasley girl in seven generations revealed a lost family secret: they had once been harpies.
Her binding was even stronger than Ron's or Harri's, and had been reinforced after the incident in the Chamber, as that should have caused her to start expressing her harpy traits early. As it was, they had decided to leave the binding in place, as by the time they'd realized it, they'd decided Dumbledore couldn't know, and there wasn't enough time to teach Ginny to control her form before school started, so they only slightly loosened the bind, giving her access to more of her magic. But now that they were free of him, there was nothing stopping her from fully embracing her inheritance.
This led to the Travelers standing in the potions lab a couple of days after Ginny's fourteenth birthday (which had been celebrated with a family trip up to the cabin), a silver potion sitting in a vial next to Remus, while Sirius decanted a clear potion into a row of cups, each one containing a couple drops of blood from Harri, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Luna respectively. As the potion hit the blood, it changed color to match that of their magic. Sirius gave each one a stir with a clean silver rod, then turned to the kids.
"Alright, kids. Once you drink this potion, you will be set on the wonderful path of becoming animagi. It won't be easy, but luckily, you have someone who already did the trial and error path, so things should go much smoother for you five." He passed out the vials and motioned for them to sit on the cushions they'd placed on the floor behind them.
Harri looked down the line at the others, and noticed the nerves showing in all their postures that matched her own, causing hesitation. Ron was the first to steel himself, and raised his vial in a mock toast.
"Bottoms up." He threw back the potion like it was a shot, and a moment later the other Gryffindors followed suit, while Luna calmly drank hers.
The potion wasn't vile, but the taste was surprising enough that Harri closed her eyes when she drank it, and when she opened them, the lab was replaced by a thick grey fog. She tensed, ready for an attack, until she remembered Sirius explaining this was part of the potion's effects. The fog was only in her mind, and her animagus form would appear from out of it, if she was just patient.
After a minute, the fog rolled back just enough she could see something approaching. It was a lizard, low to the ground and almost three meters long. Its skin was so dark it was nearly black, with a faint lightning bolt pattern on its forehead in light grey. Emerald eyes looked back into her own for a long moment, before the Komodo dragon - as she belatedly recognized - flicked its tongue at her, turned around, and disappeared into the fog again. Harri blinked, and the fog rolled away, revealing the ceiling of the potions lab. She must have fallen back on the cushion while under the potion's influence, as had the others.
"So, what'd you see?" Sirius asked, a grin on his face as the teens sat up again.
"I'm a snow leopard," Hermione said. "Honestly, I'm just glad I'm not a housecat."
"I'm a tan fox with big ears," Neville said.
"Sounds like a Fennec fox," Remus said. "A good form."
"I'm a crup," Ron said. "Except I didn't have the forked tail."
"A Jack Russel terrier!" Sirius clapped his hands with a laugh and started rubbing them together. "Oh, I'm gonna have so much fun teaching you all the little tricks."
"I'm a Komodo dragon," Harry said.
"And I'm a white gyrfalcon," Luna said. "I hope Hedwig and Pigwidgon don't mind me borrowing their perches from time to time."
"We'll probably be able to fly together!" Ginny smiled and turned to Remus. "Can we do the unbinding now? I want to get it done as soon as possible."
Remus nodded and picked up the silver potion, directing Ginny to head upstairs with him while Sirius started explaining how the process of achieving their animagus forms would go to the other teens. Once she was upstairs, she changed into a tank top with a large portion of the back cut out and loose shorts for sleepwear while Remus cast a muffling spell and an alarm spell around her bed. Once she was settled in, Remus held the unbinding potion out to her.
"The potion has a sleeping draught mixed into it, so you should hopefully sleep through most of the unbinding and expression. That said, you're definitely going to wake up sore, and likely be on bedrest for a few days after you wake up. Understand."
Ginny nodded, and took the potion, gulping it down quickly. She barely managed to pass it back to Remus before she fell asleep. He pulled her desk chair over to the side of the bed to watch over her, and no sooner had he settled in his seat, she started to squirm and whimper in pain.
An hour later, the other teens, Sirius, Winky and Dobby all came up to check on them. "How's she doing?" Sirius asked.
"As well as expected," Remus answered. "The bindings breaking is causing some discomfort, but she's not in true pain yet."
"Is there anything we can do to help?" Ron asked, casting worried glances over his sister.
"I'd like someone to watch over her at all times. I have alarm spells set up, but we're essentially compressing two years of puberty into a couple of days, so extra eyes on her can only help."
A discussion of how to set up the watch followed, and in the end it was decided that they'd have a rotation of two hour shifts, and to ensure that someone was always watching, the girls decided to just sleep in the room. To that effect, they conjured some futons and the girls hauled in their blankets and pillows to make a sleeping nest, as Luna dubbed it.
Harry took the first night rotation, and while she tried to entertain herself, her gaze kept looking over to Ginny, her form pale in the moonlight from the window. She wasn't deathly still, shifting and squirming as the potion did its work, but it was enough to send Harri's mind back to the Chamber. So she wasn't really surprised when that was what she dreamed of when she laid down after Hermione relieved her of the watch.
It started like any of the other nightmares she'd had about that night: green glowing walls, dripping water, and Ginny, smaller and gaunt, pale and motionless and cold on the ground. Only this time it was not like death, it was death. Tom Riddle's voice echoed around her, deep chuckles making away for high cackles as the chamber became a graveyard, and Ginny became Cedric, and it was so much worst, because his eyes were open and blank. The last words of his ghost - "Take my body back to my family" - swept in on a wind that turned into a screaming gale. The mist became thick black smoke, and thunderous rumbles sounded as pitch black spires erupted from the ground, pulsing reddish-purple symbols that seemed familiar and unknown.
Cracking just in front of her had her jerking around, and the angle statue that had trapped her transformed before her eyes. Feathered wings became skeletal, horns grew from its head, and its eyes glowed, the same reddish-purple. A voice, ancient but incomprehensible, drowned out Voldemort's laugh, and the not-angel seemed to reach out for her, only for a pale arm to cross over her chest.
"Mine!" a new voice - a familiar but unplaceable one - said, before a red and black blur swept across her vision, and Harri woke up with a sharp gasp.
"Harri?" Hermione's whisper had her looking at the other girl, who dropped the book she'd been reading by wandlight. "Are you alright?"
Harri sat up slowly, "I'm fine. Just a nightmare."
"You too?" Both girls looked down at Luna, who started sitting up as well. "I was dreaming about Daddy. I tried to warn him not to go on his trip, tried to tell him what I Saw. But he wouldn't listen, and then he went out the door, and Mommy took his hand and they walked away."
"I had one earlier too," Hermione said, coming down to join them. "I was petrified, and when I woke up, McGonagall told me that everyone was dead, because I didn't tell anyone about the pipes and Harri and Ron never found my note."
"Mine started like that," Harri said, knowing the other's dreams making it easier to talk. "Ginny, in the Chamber, then Cedric in the graveyard. But then it… changed. There was some monster or living statue or something. It reached out to me, but someone else grabbed me and said that I was theirs. That's when I woke up."
"Did you see who they were?" Hermione asked
Harri shook her head. "No, just their arm. I think they were wearing some kind of armor, but that's all I got."
"They're important," Luna said, her eyes shining silver in the way that showed she was Seeing something. "It's… not hazy but similar. I can't pick it out, but they're someone important. Like you've been Claimed in some way."
"But wouldn't that mean there's some kind of Magick in this world?" Hermione asked. "We established that there wasn't anything of the sort."
Harri thought back to Melinoe, and how she'd probably be considered some kind of Magick, but she didn't think the Reaper had Claimed her. For one thing, she'd probably have crowed about it, or at least mentioned it when she first appeared. And the person in the dream didn't have the same presence as her either. But what else could be out there?
"I'm not sure if it is Magick," Luna said. "It could be something else." Her eyes stopped shining, and she shuffled over to Harri's side. "I'll write it down in the morning and try to meditate on it later. I don't think it's immediate though, so we don't have to worry about it right now."
"I think I'll worry so long as I keep having nightmares," Harri said, a touch of forced levity in her voice. She tilted her head to nuzzle against the younger, shorter girl. "Though I wish you didn't have any."
"Same here." Hermione came in on Luna's other side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "But we'll be okay, as long as we've got each other."
Luna nodded. "As long as we have each other."
"As long as we have each other." Harri completed the echo, and wrapped her own arm around the blonde.
The three hugged for a few more minutes, then Hermione got back up to watch Ginny, and Harri and Luna fell asleep cuddling, and thankfully that night no more nightmares plagued them, in part due to a certain Reaper who kept them at bay.
The next morning, the rotation started again, and everyone had their own way to occupy themselves during their watches. Neville and Harri played their new games, Ron sketched, Luna meditated and made bracelets, Hermione got ahead on her school work, Remus read, and Sirius alternated between looking through newspaper classifieds and telling Ginny funny Marauders' stories. At mealtimes, Remus would spell a couple powerful nutrition potions and some elven broth Dobby and Winky made into her stomach, so she'd have the energy to get through, and the nutrients needed to grow her harpy form.
About halfway through the second full day of the unbinding, Ginny's whimpers became cries of full pain, and under the covers her hands and feet started flexing.
"The physical changes are coming," Remus explained when they called him in to check on her. "Try not to touch her unless necessary. Her instincts might cause her to lash out in defense."
On the third day, Ginny flipped herself over onto her stomach and bumps started to grow on her back, just below her shoulder blades. Hermione screamed when the bumps split open during her watch, bone poking out of it. Remus reassured her that there was nothing wrong, it was simply Ginny's wings growing in. Had they developed naturally, it would have been a process of a few months, with the bone and muscle growing under her skin, which would have stretched and grown around it, but the acceleration of the unbinding prevented that. And unfortunately, there was little they could do but watch the new limbs form, for any attempt at healing could cripple them. Thankfully, Skelogrow and blood replenishers were approved potions, so the growth of the new bone was done within a few hours, and the muscle and skin grew over soon after. Remus set an extra replenisher aside for after everything was finished anyway, just in case.
Finally, after five worrying days, Ginny's transformation was finished, and she shifted from pained unconsciousness to true sleep. On her back were two wings, while her hands and feet had become talons. These new features, as well as her temples and a ring around her collarbone and neck, were covered in soft downy feathers. Remus did a final check and confirmed that it was over, and gave instructions to the girls.
"Go get her a bath, lukewarm water, and clean her up. Be gentle with the wings, they will be hyper sensititve right now since they're so new. Try not to soak her feathers either, but if they get damp, it's no big deal." While they did that, he vanished the bloodsoaked sheets, pillows, and mattress, which had been bought cheap for this. When Ginny was brought back in clean clothes and laid on the fresh bedding, Remus spelled the nutrition potion, blood replenisher, and elven broth into her stomach. "We'll keep an eye on her until she wakes and then see how she feels. It probably won't be until tomorrow morning."
"And she's really alright?" Ron asked.
"Yes, she'll be just fine, Ron. A few days rest, and she should be up and about again."
As Remus said, Ginny woke up close to lunchtime the next day. Harri was on watch when she did, a light groan signaling her to the redhead's return to the land of the living.
"Good morning, Ginny," Harri said, setting her DS down. "Here, have some water." She picked up the glass from the nightstand and helped Ginny sit up and drink before gently setting her back on the bed. "How do you feel?"
"Sore…" Ginny groaned out. "And weird." She shifted, and made a face as the wings moved with it. "Definitely going to need to get used to these."
"And the talons," Harri joked, before casting a patronus to summon Remus to the bedroom. A minute later, he and everyone else had come up, though only the werewolf came to the bedside to cast diagnostic charms.
"You're recovering well, I think, Ginny. You're still on bedrest for the next few days, but with some hearty meals and a couple potions you should be on your feet again in no time."
"Then we can start teaching you how to use those big wings and claws of yours," Sirius added.
"Sounds good to me. I'm starving." Ginny tried to sit up on her own, but couldn't quite make it.
Remus and Harri helped her get up and propped against the pillows in a way that wouldn't hurt her wings, while the others piled into the room. Dobby and Winky came up with lunch trays, pot roast stew and another bowl of elven broth with crackers for Ginny to eat first, and they all dug in, taking the time to catch Ginny up on what she'd missed out on over the past couple days. Harri helped a pouting Ginny eat, as her hands were not the right shape to hold the spoon.
When everyone was mostly done, Sirius and Remus called for everyone's attention. "Remus and I have been talking these past few days, and we need you to hear us out before you protest. We want all of us, Dobby and Winky included, to start going to therapy."
"All of us have gone through significant traumas, much more than any of us should have," Remus continued. "And while talking with each other has been helping, having a trained professional to talk to will be even better."
"Dobby and Winky do not need therapy," Winky said, shaking her head. "We have no traumas to work through."
"Winky, you were vindictively cast from your home and family, after years of loyal service. Dobby suffered many abuses at the hands of the Malfoys before Harri freed him. Those are traumas, and they left wounds and scars that we don't want you to suffer for."
"I am in no way properly recovered from Azkaban," Sirius said. "And I don't think I need to explain what all you kids have been through." They all shook their heads. "We let it be until now because we've been getting settled in, but after seeing how Ginny's unbinding restarted a lot of nightmares for some of you, we thought it best to get help sooner rather than later."
Harri looked at the others, trying to gauge their reactions. Aside from the elves, Neville looked the most unsure. She could understand why, his most traumatic experiences were all pre-Hogwarts, and he probably felt like he was over them (but she remembered how he'd always stay the farthest from the lake whenever they studied outside). Judging by his eyebags, Ron was probably in the same boat as herself, recent nightmares of Ginny and the Chamber keeping him from sleeping. Hermione and Luna's own demons were closer, their families' deaths being so recent, and from the way Hermione was nodding, she full heartedly agreed with their guardians.
"Mum and Dad wanted to put me into therapy the summer after first year," she said. "What with the troll and the gauntlet for the stone. But they couldn't find any magical therapists, and we couldn't go to a muggle one, so they just made sure I had a lot of self-therapy guides and insisted I keep journaling. But I think actually talking it out would definitely be better." She looked up at Remus and Sirius. "How are we going to do this?"
"Remus and I will hunt around for a therapist," Sirius said, "And when we find someone, we'll go for an initial session. If we like them, then we'll explain our situation. If they react well, then we'll arrange for them to meet us all and have an initial session. If not, we'll obliviate and try again."
"Hopefully not too many times," Remus said. "We won't force you to have any sessions past the first, but we do strongly believe it will help."
Surprisingly, it was Dobby who spoke first. "Dobby will go. Dobby doesn't want bad Malfoys to have any hold on him anymore."
"I'll go too," Ginny said. "I want to get Tom completely out of my head."
With those two leading, the rest of them agreed, Winky very sullenly, and it was decided.
"Excellent," Sirius said. "Remus and I will get started on that right away."
And so they did, going through the yellow pages for local therapists and making appointments while Ginny was on bedrest. Once she was up and about again, the two wizards split their time between helping her figure out her new form and going to the appointments. By the first week of September, Ginny was able to move naturally in her harpy form as well as hide it away when needed, and Sirius and Remus had come to a decision. On Tuesday, the fifth of September, the two wizards loaded everyone into the van and drove to the office of Dr. Garner and Dr. Melfi.
The therapists met them in the lobby of their office. Dr. Garner was a black man in his late thirties or early forties, while Dr. Melfi was a white woman in her late forties. Both, however, had the same soft and caring but strong demeanor, which instantly endeared them to the group.
"It's lovely to meet you all," Dr Melfi said after everyone was introduced. "Who would like to have their first sessions tonight?"
The teens had talked it out between themselves, so it was Harri and Ginny who stepped forward. Ginny went with Dr. Melfi while Harri went with Dr Garner. His office was warm woods and cool blues and grey, with a variety of seating. Harri took the invitation to sit wherever she wanted, dropping crisscrossed onto a beanbag while he took a chair across from her.
"Your godfathers filled me in on most of your situation, but I'd like to hear it from you if you're willing, since things can look a lot different from the inside."
Harri nodded, knowing almost too well the truth of that. "Where should I start?"
"Wherever you like, though the beginning is usually a good place."
From the beginning, it was a lot, so Harri took a deep breath. "I'm Harriett Lilian Potter-Black-Slytherin. My parents were James Fleamont Potter and Lily Joan Evans. When I was a year old, a dark wizard called Voldemort attacked our home…"
Aeroza: Hey everyone, I hope you are enjoying my and Rowana's shared Fic so far, as there is more to come in due time.
I also would like to state that I am not only working on some needed-updated chapters for most of my own stories, but developing a redo of my previous story involving "Jade Chan", which will be out maybe by the end of May or sooner, for 13 Chapters.
Anyways, it seems like our favorite characters are getting what they need after so long, I wonder what would happen next? Find out in the next chapter, and thanks for reading our shared story.
Rowena: Yes, an interesting chapter, if I say so myself. What effects will the teens being animagi (and Ginny being a harpy) have in the future? Well, you'll just have to read and find out. Meanwhile Aeroza and I will keep working on the next chapter. Until next time!