Harry Potter and the Inferi Complex
A Fantastic Beasts/Harry Potter Crossover by
Nate Grey (xman0123-at-aol-dot-com)
Chapter 4: Friendly Truths

NOW

Harry was having a very odd day.

Although he was hesitant to believe much of what Bones had told him in the dream, it was still impossible to deny all of it.

There was not a single picture of either of his parents in the Dursley home. This was not surprising in the case of his father. But there should have been at least one picture of Harry's mother and his aunt when they were younger. Even never having seen his mother alive (the sight of that fallen red-haired form still haunted him), Harry knew this to be true because there were not even any pictures of his aunt's parents. It was as if Petunia had no family before she got married. Or wanted everyone to think that. From this, Harry assumed she was no longer on speaking terms with her parents, and strongly suspected that her treatment of his mother had something to do with it.

Harry's right eye was behaving strangely. It was still seeing things in black and white, but now with some exceptions. There were traces of that same green glow on his skin, especially concentrated in areas that he distinctly recalled being wounded in. There was also what looked like a red dome encasing the entire house, and several blue domes encasing that one. Harry could only conclude that Bones had been telling the truth: it was all magic, though certainly all of it was not his. Only the green seemed to have originated from Harry. Which quickly became a matter of concern, because the mound of dirt where Mauler was buried had a matching glow, as did the small collection of dead owls that Harry found at the edge of the yard. It was no good blaming Bones for this, because Bones had come from him.

With that much confirmed, Harry walked to a local bookstore. He had no money, but the owner had occasionally taken pity on Harry and given him gently used books. But Harry was not interested in books this time. He watched the front door carefully for several minutes.

Finally, it happened: a tiny, older man wearing a top hat slipped into the bookstore. He seemed slightly startled when Harry approached him immediately, but proved friendly enough. When Harry began asking questions, however, the man shushed him and recommended that they relocate to a nearby coffee house. Misreading Harry's reluctance, the man offered to pay for them both.

The true reason that Harry hesitated was because he had never viewed a wizard with his newly changed eye before. It was one thing to see magic on his skin or in the sky, but seeing it flowing through and around a person standing in front of him was rather odd.

Soon enough, Harry learned that his coffee companion was Dedalus Diggle, and that if Harry had ever wanted to learn something about the world Bones had mentioned, then Diggle was both able and very willing to tell him. Diggle was actually offended that Harry had been almost totally in the dark about his origins, and insisted on changing that immediately.

It was all true. Diggle confirmed everything that Bones had claimed. Everything that Harry was willing to share, that is. He wisely did not mention that his magic seemed fit only for healing himself and killing others.

Diggle also mentioned post owls, which explained the dead owls in the yard. Harry was careful to state that he had never received a letter from an owl, which was true. Now that he thought about it, he could not recall any of the owls having letters with them. Harry suggested that perhaps the letters had blown away, or automatically vanished after a certain length of time. Diggle assured him that a Hogwarts letter intended for a prospective student would do no such thing, and he promised to investigate the matter immediately. Harry was not comforted by this, as he didn't want Diggle finding out too much. But Diggle's vows to both get Harry some new glasses soon, as well as to deliver the Hogwarts letter personally, if it came to that, made Harry feel a bit better. Maybe owls weren't safe from him, but at least he had never managed to kill a person.

When Diggle rose to leave, he tried to bow to Harry. Harry stopped him and insisted on handshakes from then on. No matter how highly Diggle thought of him, Harry had personally done nothing to deserve it. He was certain of that much, because even Bones had not taken credit for what happened that fateful night. Whatever had spared Harry's life, it had been nothing that either of them had done. No, if Harry had had any say in what happened then, Bones would have saved his - no, their - parents. And then it would have been Harry who pretended that the Dursleys didn't exist.

Treating his very existence like a curse, he didn't care about. But for keeping even the sight of his mother from him, he would never forgive them.

A person could not take and keep a name like Oaths Taken Seriously without giving it a great deal of thought.

It was not even that he had been particularly unhappy being called Credence. But that name, and all of the memories twisted up in it, formed a shackle created by his former adoptive mother that he would rather be without. And he now felt that she had been false, greatly so. The face she had presented to the world outside of her home was at odds with the one she had shown him within it. And it was enough of a departure that the two outsiders who had ever who had caught her at it felt the need to intervene.

She wasn't the sort of person that he wanted to be. He wanted to be someone who kept his word when he gave it, someone who was exactly what he claimed to be.

And the thing was, he had never actually sworn to help another Obscurial. It was a rather large oversight, he thought. It was always assumed that at some point during the training, the Astute would simply accept their place and do what was expected.

But through it all, his goal had never changed: his only real priorities were protecting himself and his family. Learning to master his powers was part of that, and he could not deny that hunting and fighting Obscurials was the best test of them. A rather large part of him enjoyed it, though not for the most obvious reasons.

They interested him. Each was different from, and yet, so similar to, his own past. So many abused and lost souls who placed no value on themselves, because they had been taught not to. He should have wanted to save them. Instead, he liked watching them. He liked to try and predict what they would do next. It was a strange, almost perverse pleasure. He did not mind their suffering, it made them stronger. He knew they dangled on the precipice between life and death, and yet he had never lost one that he had been assigned to. Because above all else, he was still exceptional among the exceptionals, and he was very, very good at what he did.

On every mission, he embodied the name that his teacher had given him.

Zephyrus, the Righteous Wind.

If he was told to protect them, no harm would come to them.

If he was told to bring them down, they would fall at his feet.

But he had been given no particular orders concerning Harry Potter.

And given the rather large difference in the way they carried themselves, it was no real surprise that Zephyrus found Harry before Sahara could. But he did not make contact. He merely observed.

And Zephyrus found Harry to be truly fascinating.

He knew the basic story of how Harry had become the Boy Who Lived, as did nearly every child who knew of magic. But he, and every Astute, were also made aware of the less than decent living conditions that Harry had endured since he was a baby. They weren't told why they were told, but to Zephyrus, the reason was very clear.

Even if the chances were slim, there was still a very real possibility that Harry would either emerge as a Dark wizard, or Emerge as an Obscurial, depending on just how badly he was damaged by his time with the Muggles. If he became Dark, then he would be left to Aurors and anyone else brave enough to face him. But if he became an Obscurial, then it was the Astutes who would have to bring him in.

Fate had chosen the path of the Obscurial for Harry. So the last thing they needed was a bunch of Astutes refusing to capture Harry, simply because he was their hero. That was exactly what no Astute would see Harry as, now. After all that he had gone through, there was only one possible way for any Astute to view him.

He was one of them. And he needed to be saved, like all of them had.

Even Zephyrus felt that way, though he perhaps did not feel it as strongly as some. He was curious to see how long Harry would have survived as an Obscurial, but he also saw the need for an immediate Refinement. Only, he was not willing to be the one who Refined Harry, or anyone else. Grade 1 was exactly where Zephyrus belonged, and he had no desire to move up. Sahara, on the other hand, could not bear to see a friend in pain, and would gladly Refine at the cost of shaving years off of her life. She was a bit too much like Hera in that respect, but then, some Astutes had to be.

Zephyrus did not have that problem. He concerned himself with Harry's fate, as a matter of great interest, but his happiness was not invested in James and Lily Potter's son doing well in life. No doubt they would have preferred someone a bit more involved looking after Harry, but he wasn't doing this for them, or their memory, or the sake of the wizarding world. He was doing it out of sheer curiosity.

So he could remain calm, when he learned that Harry was an Obscurial.

He could avoid panicking, upon hearing that Sahara had taken it upon herself to save Harry.

And he could easily remove each and every one of the Hogwarts letters that had failed to reach Harry, mixed in with the pile of dead owls. After all, Harry was no longer a wizard, and wouldn't need them. And it wouldn't do for the Dursleys to find the letters, either. The owls, Zephyrus left as a reminder of what Harry was now capable of. Harry would need such things in the coming days. It wouldn't do, for an Obscurial so powerful to not be mindful of it.

Harry had just left the coffee house when he was attacked: a small person leaped onto his back, wrapped their arms around his neck, and squealed directly into his ear, "Hello, new friend!"

Harry thought he took his rather well, despite having zero experience with hugs: he did not scream or struggle. Instead, he gazed into the reflective window of the coffee house, and found a brown face with a pair of yellow eyes, staring at him. "Um, hi. Can you let go of my neck now, please?"

The girl, or at least Harry thought they must be, judging by the high pitch of the voice, did as asked and dropped down to the sidewalk. This allowed Harry to face her and confirm that she was a her. A very strange her, though, judging by her bare feet and white robe. And it was hard to be sure since she had her hood up, but he thought she might have no hair on her head. He could not decide if this was due to personal choice or disease, however.

"So... why do you want to be friends with me?" Harry asked, suspecting that asking the intensely personal questions he really wanted to ask would be very rude.

The girl pouted. "Not want to be! Are! We are friends!" She grabbed both of Harry's hands and squeezed them, as if to show that clearly friends did such things.

Harry smiled patiently and extracted his hands as nicely as he could. "We don't even know each other's names."

"No problem!" The girl pressed a business card into his hand. At least, he thought it was one. All the ones he had seen had a background that was strictly one color. This one's background was black with strangely shaped orange spots on it. And the spots seemed to be moving. No, they were definitely moving, because as Harry watched, the spots formed orange letters.

SAHARA GILA SCAMANDER
Astute, Grade 2
(Personnel Code: SGS-N)
Department of Mysteries, Astute Office
British Ministry of Magic

Harry turned the card over. The orange spots from the front actually raced over the edge of the card to form words on the back as well.

Call for me and I will always come to you, new friend Harry James Potter!

Harry might have dropped the card in shock, if he had seen it before he'd learned that magic was real, wizards and witches existed, and that he could kill things without even touching them. But now? Compared to all that, a weird but nice girl running around handing out free hugs and tricky business cards was pretty tame. And it was nice to have someone who really wanted to be his friend, even if he wasn't really sure he wanted to be hers.

"You seem like a really sweet girl," Harry began, and Sahara beamed at him. "But I don't think you want to be my friend. If you knew me, you wouldn't."

"You're lonely. You don't have any friends. If you have a family, they either don't like you or don't understand you." Sahara said all of this with a certainty that bothered Harry more than her already knowing his name had.

"I need to leave," Harry said firmly.

Her face fell. "Oh, please don't go! Whatever I said, I'm sorry! Please don't stop being my new friend!"

Although he felt justified in leaving, Harry also suddenly felt terrible. Whatever she was trying to get from him, it appeared to be working rather well. "Look, I don't have any money or food, if that's what this is about. And as for me not having friends, that's true, too. So you probably don't want to get mixed up with-"

"But that's exactly why I want to be your friend! I want to be your first, so you can see that they're really nice to have! Mine was! He had a scarf and everything!"

Harry blinked. "Erm. Sahara, I really do have to go. There's a lot of things I have to figure out. How about, when I do, then I'll give you a call? Sound fair?"

Sahara pouted slightly. "I can't come with you?"

Although that sounded innocent enough, Harry couldn't really see it that way. Either Sahara was harmless but would quickly learn that Harry and the Dursleys were not, or, Sahara was trying to find out where he lived so she could continue her scam, whatever it was. He was pretty sure he'd be back to zero friends by the end, either way. And even if she did steal something valuable, it would certainly belong to the Dursleys, not Harry, so there was very little she could do to Harry that would bother him. When you had nothing to begin with, there really was nothing to lose.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Harry said at last. "But it was... nice to meet you." He found himself admitting that much was true. Hugs were nice. Or the one had been, anyway.

"And you'll call me, if you need me?" Sahara pressed, staring at him earnestly. "Because we're friends?"

"Yes and yes," Harry said, trying very hard not to wince at the lie. There was no phone number on the card, and he suspected that the post office would not recognize the address, if it could even be called that. He decided not to point this out to Sahara, who was smiling again. She did that a lot, he noticed. He wasn't used to it. He wished he was.

"Then, until we meet again, new friend!" And Sahara rushed forward and gave Harry a big, warm, proper hug this time.

If the first hug was nice, this one was great. For a moment, Harry forgot that he couldn't or shouldn't trust her. He forgot that he was dangerous. He even forgot that his death had seemed like a good idea not too long ago. It was as if his entire life had been nothing but cloudy days, and suddenly, the sun had broken through, and was shining down only on he and Sahara.

There was no scam. There was no trick. There was just this odd girl, who wanted to be his first friend. Was his first friend.

And it was a shame, Harry realized as he finally seemed to come back to himself, because things just didn't work out that way for him. They never had before, and he doubted they would now. So he enjoyed the hug for as long as it lasted, and he tried to pour as much gratitude into it as he could. Because for several reasons, he doubted he would be getting another hug from anyone anytime soon.

But as it turned out, Harry was wrong about several things.

He would be getting another hug, sooner rather than later. It would happen largely because he had met Sahara this day, but it wouldn't actually come from her.

And there was no need to worry about his being dangerous to Sahara, for two reasons. The first was that the moment she first wrapped her arms around his neck, any power Harry had to kill without conscious knowledge or intent vanished. The second was that, due to the nature of her powers, it would take considerably more than a single Killing Curse, or even several, to end Sahara's life. If Harry had trusted her with the truth, she could have, even would have told him this, to ease his fears.

But Harry had been in the dark for too long. And there were only three people in all of the world that he was willing to trust now. Two of them were dead, and the other, while Bones hadn't exactly been a person, was probably gone for good as well. So Harry had no one.

Or so he thought.

And this wasn't the first or last time, that Harry's thoughts proved far more powerful than he knew.

THEN

He kept his eyes trained straight ahead as they walked down the corridor. It was safer that way.

"I've been hearing good things from your instructor. He thinks you're an excellent candidate for our accelerated program," Ariana said.

He nodded.

"You haven't been here very long, so I admit I was a little worried. The last thing I want is for you to be pushed too far, too fast. After what you've been through-"

"I want to," he said. "This... it's a different type of pushing. It's making me smarter, stronger. It serves a clear, greater purpose. It isn't bad, like the other kind of pushing."

"If you're sure," Ariana continued, "a test has been arranged. If you do well, it's proof that you're ready." She paused outside of the next door they came to. "Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this now? It can wait."

"I'm ready," he said.

"Then look at me, Credence."

He stiffened. It wasn't the commanding tone that got to him. It was the use of his old name. She only ever used it now when she was displeased with him. Such as she clearly was now. Slowly, he turned and fixed his gaze on her face.

"I know that you're attracted to me, I'm not blind."

He started to lower his head in shame, but her fingers on his chin stopped him.

"You are allowed to be attracted to a girl, you know. It's not a sin, despite what that woman may have told you. And... it's very flattering, to know how you feel about me. I can hardly discourage you. I have no real reason to." She frowned. "But the way you're always looking away, unable to meet my eyes? You've known me for months now. I don't like it, but again, it's allowed. Still, if you can barely look at me, it presents two problems. The first is that I don't think you're ready for Grade 1, if you can't even make eye contact with me consistently. An Obscurus is far scarier than a pretty girl. If you're going to fight them, you can't look away. You can't even blink, because in that instant, you could die."

"What's the second problem?"

"We'll get to that later." Ariana shook her head. "One last time: are you sure you want to do this now?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "I'm ready."

"We'll see." She turned, opened the door, and stepped inside. "Stand in the center."

He stepped inside. The room was large, but completely empty. There was just a black circle painted in the middle of the floor. He walked over and stood on it.

"The test starts now." Ariana gestured, and the door shut and vanished entirely, sealing them in.

He frowned. That wasn't a good sign.

"I'm going to attack you now," she warned him, and it was all the warning he got.

She wasn't Ariana anymore, but Hera.

Next second, it was as if a bomb had exploded just behind his head. He was sailing through the air, his ears were ringing, and he could feel blood trickling down his neck. He thought he would hit the wall, but instead another bomb went off above him, and the force of it slammed him into the floor.

She hadn't moved at all.

He coughed, splattering blood on the floor, and started to get up. Another blast drove him back down hard.

Suddenly, he was angry. She wasn't even trying. This was humiliating.

Suddenly, Hera was his mother, her hand extended for his belt.

Roaring in rage, pain, defiance, he stood up. A bomb went off in his face. He barely felt it. Another deafening blast sounded right next to his ear. He didn't care.

His fingers twitched, and the black wind was upon her before she could blink: ripping, tearing, burning, wrenching. He had used it to break through concrete, topple buildings, punch through mountains. Flesh would be nothing.

Her fingers were on the back of his neck in a light caress. "You missed."

He tried to spin around, but the space around him was filled with a series of small, precisely placed, but seemingly never-ending explosions. They were stealing away the air, he couldn't see or breathe, the world was a haze of smoke, and then he was falling.

Ariana caught him, and slowly sank to the floor, placing his head in her lap.

"I failed," he whispered after several moments.

She smiled. "You didn't pass."

"Sorry."

"Don't be, you were always going to fail. That second problem I mentioned earlier? Because you can't look at me, you haven't really seen me, either. So you haven't seen what I am capable of."

"Why didn't you bring it out? Your Obscurus?" He frowned. "Or was it that you didn't need to?"

She laughed softly. "Wrong." With her left hand, she cradled his head. The right hand, she held up in front of his face. "Show me yours."

The black wind reformed, curling slowly around her fingers, playfully tugging on them.

She laughed again, and he smiled, and when the black wind was blown away violently as her fingers snapped shut with the force of a gunshot, she was the only one still laughing.

"I'm a freak among freaks," she murmured. "Mine isn't precisely visible. But the mark of its passage is." She flicked her fingers at the far end of the room, and the entire room shook from the force of the explosion. A wall of thick, black smoke rolled over them, but he quickly created a small tornado in his hand that sucked it all up.

"We were made for each other," he decided.

She giggled. "I thought you'd say something corny like that."

"I still love you."

Ariana sighed. "That's sweet. But not my point. You can't be Grade 1 until you can actually put up a decent fight against the one you love. So. Let's practice."

He stood up. "I'm ready."

Ariana smirked. "I doubt it." She gestured, and the door reappeared. "I got you a sparring partner."

Sahara ran in at once, a huge grin on her face as she tackled him around the waist. "Big bro Windy! Big sis Ari said you're going to play with me all day! Is it true?!"

"Yes, it is," Ariana promised with a smug smile. "And if you do a good job, you might even move up to Grade 2."

"Yay!" Sahara cheered.

He frowned at Ariana. "This isn't what we talked about."

Ariana chuckled. "You're not the only one who wants to move up around here, you know." She patted Sahara's shoulder. "I'm very proud of both of you. Now it's time to show how ready you really are. Sahara needs to prove that she's truly mastered her Obscurus, while you need to prove that you're ready to hunt them if you have to. Given the nature of each of your powers, you're very tricky opponents to match up, so who better to help you train?"

"I feel like you just put me on babysitting duty," he muttered.

"Oh?" Ariana's eyes flashed. "Just so you know, Sahara mastered her Obscurus faster than you did, and she's more than ready to fight one. The main reason she hasn't moved up has to do with her immaturity. So I wouldn't get too cocky if I were you."

"I'm really strong!" Sahara said excitedly, flexing her nonexistent muscles at him.

He frowned at her, and tried to protest to Ariana again, but she had already left and sealed the door again. The walls began to ripple, and suddenly they were standing beneath a blazing sun on miles and miles of sand.

Sahara grinned. "Oh, good! She gave me the field advantage!"

"I'm doing this under protest," he grumbled, spreading his arms to summon a towering, black tornado at his back.

"So cool!" Sahara gasped, her yellow eyes wide. "My turn!" And she spread her arms wide, then quickly brought them together in front of her, hands meeting with a loud smack.

He expected something like an enormous wall of sand, rising up in the space of a second.

What he got instead was an enormous black and orange shape exploding from the sand beneath his feet, huge mouth opening wide as sand filled the air, choking him every bit as much as Ariana's explosions had.

"I hate my life," he whispered just before the mouth snapped shut around him, plunging him into darkness.

from The New Astute's Handbook, by Opan Dor

Astute Grading

Every Astute is classified by their Grade, which determines their skill level, readiness to interact with others, and their assigned roles.

A Grade 3 Astute is a new recruit who has yet to master any of their powers to a safe level. Their interactions may be limited to a single instructor, or set of instructors, until they prove competent enough to progress.

A Grade 2 Astute has mastered their Obscurus, and is no longer a danger to their own existence. They are free to interact with other Astutes, and may be asked to teach recruits.

A Grade 1 Astute has mastered their body (specifically, the use of magic directly through their body, as opposed to via an Obscurus). They can safely interact with the wizarding world, and may be asked to capture, and in some cases, Refine an Obscurial.

A Full Grade Astute has mastered their mind. They can safely interact with anyone, and are chiefly tasked with maintaining positive relations with both the wizarding and Muggle worlds. This includes locating, Refining, and bringing in new recruits.

Continued in Chapter 5: Fruit of Life

There is a woman standing on Privet Drive. The wards don't stop her. The blood protection doesn't prevent her. But whether this is because her blood made the protection possible, or because she currently lacks said blood, is unclear.

Endnotes:

Petunia seemed very bitter that her parents continued to accept Lily as a witch, so I assume Petunia has cut them out of her life as well. Probably why Marge was the only relative who visited.

I am assuming that Dedalus Diggle, later revealed as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, did not just coincidentally run into Harry at a store. Rather, it's far more likely that he was specifically looking for Harry, or looking out for him.

Said this many times, but it's amazing Harry didn't have more lasting emotional damage from the Dursleys. Here, he does, and is slow to trust as a result. Beyond the three "people" mentioned. Which will soon be very important.

As I said, the Astute business cards will vary in appearance and purpose. Notice that Hera's hid her public identity and family, while Sahara's proudly states hers.

I didn't want every Obscurus to be exactly the same, that would be too convenient. But I also didn't want to get too far away from the theme of a black, smoke-like substance, especially not for Credence. We don't get much information on Ariana, only the nature of the incidents that killed her mother and then herself. So something tied to an explosion seemed suitable. Sahara gets a desert theme, with an animal, so naturally Newt was the best one to handle that.