Review Responses:
The Aberrant One: I'm glad you like my concept! I always prefer the "stranger in a strange land" route of my fanfics – so don't be surprised if any other of my future fanfic's have the similar approach. Mostly it's because I like taking a character I like, drop them into a different movie/book/anime, and see what happens. Also, don't worry, IF there is a pairing, it will come MUCH later on – I hate fast romance. I agree with Harry becoming friends with Bud and his family and good job at picking out who the Eisbiber kid and father was, Bud was always hilarious in the show, so he might come more commonly on my fic.
Heart4Wolves: That whole line was rather spontaneous, really. I was thinking about it and thought, "Oh, God, if magical creatures are dangerous in England and some other countries, what would Australia be like?" Horrifying thought, but funny.
jozs001: Thanks! I have a good (at least I hope so) grasp on Harry's persona, or what I think he is like, so I'm trying to keep true to him. This won't follow Grimm to the point, but Harry will definitely influence and change the course of things in the Grimm world.
Guest (s): Thanks for all the advice! For the guest who mentioned that Harry has always had attention, that is true and I agree, I just meant that the Wizarding World has been acting like an obsessed stalker since Voldemort's defeat – following Harry's every move, having people alert them if he is seen, recording almost everything he says, making entirely TOO many articles about him for even the smallest things. People are either praising and loving him as a hero or hating him for not killing Voldemort earlier or saving people who died in the war. Before Harry was well-known but he could go through Diagon Alley without always being accosted like he is now in my fic. Hope that clears that up XD.
Archleone: Yes, I replied to you personally already to reassure that I have no intention of making Harry a god-like person to the Wessen, but I just want to make sure any of the other readers know that as well. Harry will be powerful, but not undefeatable, especially since most Wesen attack with physical strength or traits (fangs, claws, etc) and Harry doesn't know how to fight hand-to-hand combat. I personally don't like paring Harry either unless it's very well done, which I likely can't do since I've never been in a close relationship to experience it myself. I'm glad to have caught your interest though!
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Harry woke sluggishly, blindly moving his arms like a drunk hippogriff. His trunk around his neck was all tangled up and nearly choked him before he fixed it, but all Harry could think of were very vulgar curses at himself for being such a bloody idiot and how loud Mrs. Weasley would have scolded at him for such words. Stumbling drunkenly onto his feet, Harry groaned when a migraine hit him like a sledgehammer.
You are such an idiot, Harry whisper-screamed at himself. If he had merely apparated through the Key lines like usual, then he would feel infinitely times better. But unfortunately, thinking and impulsiveness don't go hand-in-hand. It didn't help that the ambient magic felt so much thicker than usual, rushing at and through him as he used it. He wondered if someone had done a ritual lately in Portland since rituals of any kind tend to gather magic in the location. It was all too eager to help and, while Harry was glad, he could only handle so much magic at once.
Pausing to let the worst of it pass until it was only throbbing, Harry studied the area. So far, everything looked as it should, excluding several baffled stares from some people who saw him apparate. Honestly, if the Ministry doesn't come running to find who caused such a huge magical distortion in the middle of a bunch of muggles, Harry would force them all to retire using the very influence that he hated as the Man-Who-Conquered.
But Harry could care less about the startled muggles, focused on Grimmauld Place in front of him. It matched the surrounding buildings perfectly, reminding him disgustingly of Private Drive, rather than appearing damaged and darker than the rest. The strangest part was how he wasn't allowed to apparate directly into the house like he should have been as the Black Lord.
"Oh, bloody hell. Why does something always go wrong?" Harry complained under his breath, fixing his rumpled clothes, not even bothering with his hair. "I couldn't just get into Grimmauld Place, contact Hermione to figure out why there were so many creature-descendants in America, and why American Wizards there suck at finding the very obvious magic lines and track down that bastard who did this so I can smack him around a bit."
Hearing him talk to himself, the bystanders wrote him off as just another crazy person and speed-walked away. Harry preferred that reaction rather than people recognizing him and trying to mob him to touch him or get interviews, so he merely continued and tried to unlock Grimmauld Place. Only, his key didn't fit. Okay, Harry was so over this. Why was nothing working like it should?
"Alohomora," His wandless spell made the lock click open audibly and Harry opened the door, stepped in, and shut it behind him. Um, did Ginny decorate this place without asking again? She always said it was too dark and gloomy in here and Hermione agrees, so Hermione must have helped her get in without triggering his Ginny-Alert wards. Or Ron let Ginny in an attempt to make Harry get back together with Ginny. Either possible answer was disturbing. After the first few times, Ginny has made his house blind worthy and tried to flirt, Harry warded the house from her specifically despite Mrs. Weasley's attempts to calm him down.
The layout was the same but everything was modern, bright, and colorful. Reds, pink, and purple decorated the furniture, muggle music blasted from the living room, and the smell of cinnamon wafted from the kitchen. Harry studied the pictures in confusion, picking up several in search for his one picture with Sirius. In all frames were strangers, rich-looking considering all of their jewelry and the professional photography that Petunia would be jealous over, but strangers all the same.
At this point, Harry was desperately hoping that Ginny might have picked up some of the twin's mischievous side after he screamed at her to sod off. Turning into the kitchen, Harry came face-to-face with a younger woman who froze, dropping her tray of cinnamon buns, and gaped before screaming shrilly. "W-What are you doing in MY HOUSE!?"
Harry apparated blindly to escape the wrath of the pissed off, pink wearing, teenage muggle. Hopefully, she might just think she was crazy seeing some scruffy-haired man in her room vanish without a trace.
To his luck, of course, Harry landed on the side of a hill. And, since Harry can apparently never apparate or floo without stumbling, he followed the law of gravity. Or, more like, he was forced to follow. So down the hill Harry went, until he smacked back-first into a tree. Groaning, Harry sat up slowly and rubbed his aching back. He groaned louder when he realized the sun was almost set and though his eyesight was perfect after his death, he couldn't see in the dark unless he used mage sight to see the magical signatures or ambient magic.
"All right, no more apparating." Harry dusted off his clothes vainly, before simply using a quick cleaning and repair charm for the dirt and tears. He was grateful that Mrs. Weasley ended up teaching him housework spells, claiming he needed to take care of his house if he refused to get any house elves. Though Harry did clean himself, the habit ingrained into his body because of the Dursleys, Grimmauld Place was just too big to do himself.
Something wrapped around his wrist, "Merlin!" Harry jumped in surprise, magic surging in defense to cut whatever was holding him off. Harry looked where it fell, but there was nothing other than twigs and leaves. Calming down his racing heart, irritated and scouring the area for a threat through the dense forest, Harry dropped his wand into his hands from the invisible holster on his wrist that Moody had thrown at him after one of their training sessions.
Something vaguely snake-like curled around his waist curiously and Harry snatched it before it could retreat. It was bark. More accurately, a vine-like bark that could wiggle around with all the flexibility as real vines but more durable. Confused rather than annoyed now, Harry followed the vine to where it attached to a gigantic tree. The vine didn't pull back, sewing itself through and over Harry's fingers before trailing up his forearm.
Instead of alarmed, Harry was relieved. Hell, even if it was trying to kill him, he would be relieved. Because normal trees didn't attack at all, so it must be a magical tree. He wasn't alone, that is, if you count the sentience this tree has and the creature-descendants. Its magic was comforting, despite the quiet stillness of the forest.
Now that Harry was focusing more, he could feel the key line directly under the tree, which was pulling him closer slowly. Stepping over its massive tree roots, Harry's unfocused eyes noticed a face-like pattern on the tree side.
Usually, he would dismiss it as coincidence, but this was a magical tree. Faces don't just show up on trees for no reason. The bark of the tree was twisted with vines covering every part except each face and moss growing from the vines. Curiously, he prodded it with his magic the tree lit up bright forest green, the face brighter than the rest. That's when Harry noticed several other bright spots high above him in the branches, which he assumed must be more faces.
Well, here's a setting to a horror story, Harry mused. Several more bark-vines jolted off to latch onto him, sucking pinpricks at his magic, but the amount was equivalent to a mosquito taking blood. It was weird, but considering how it grows right above the key line, Harry figures that it feeds off magic. The faces on its trunk and branches were telling him it possibly needed more than ambient magic, which Harry warily tried to decide whether it was moral or not.
Now Harry wasn't as prejudiced as he led everyone to believe. He never showed his natural mistrust or apprehension of other people, except to the Slytherins and would push blame on them like so many others did because that's what was expected of him. It was hard not to flinch whenever his admirers reached out to him, sometimes even hard when Hermione and Ron hugged him without warning. Magical creatures were different, however. They didn't kill out for fun, but for food and occasional revenge for one of their own being killed.
This tree possibly couldn't survive without magic or whatever it needed from humans, so it merely was feeding itself. Of course, this is where the morality of the situation comes into play. The British Ministry would probably classify this tree a dark creature simply because it usually kills what it eats, considering the faces the tree either engraves their faces for some reason or absorbs it into itself, and Harry didn't want to agree with anything they say.
So, Harry allowed it to continue, the vines curling around his body but never attacking and stopped pulling him closer when he was in arms reach of its trunk. It was rather relaxing, much to his own surprise, and a great relief after the ambient magic had surged through him before. It wasn't painful in the least, simply drinking away his excess magic that hovered around him with its vines while curling around him like a loving pet.
But what startled him next wasn't the tree, but it's mate casually waltzing over.
Unlike the tree rooted to the ground, this human-shaped tree was fully mobile. It closer than Harry was comfortable with, having blended in with the forest and was moving too slowly to actually startle Harry's reflexes. It was made of vines and bark, as far as Harry could tell, but it didn't act aggressively either. In fact, it tilted its head like a dog and watched. It let out a low, bass type of sound that reminded Harry of a tree creaking.
Since they weren't actively trying to kill him, like ninety percent of the world tried to, Harry was quite happy for once in a long time. When the tree let go a few minutes later, the moon high in the sky, Harry was able to leave peacefully. He waved at the tree's friend, a polite habit more than anything, and followed where it pointed him to go. His sense of direction in a forest wasn't reliable and they didn't kill him while he was "tied up," so he followed the direction given.
Harry eventually found his way back into town, luckily not having apparated too far when that girl broke his eardrums and caught a ride from a taxi to Hermione and Ron's house. An elderly man answered the door, baffled but polite and waving away Harry's apology for disturbing him. Hastily, Harry went out to the Leaky Cauldron, but instead, it was a small cozy pastry shop filled with muggles. No sign of wizards, no wards in place around the building like usual, no opening on the bricks so he couldn't enter Diagon Alley.
Placing a hand against the brick, Harry nudged it with his magic like he did the tree, which usually would have lit up the magical sequence on the bricks, but it remained dull and unresponsive. It was as if the ministry spontaneously decided to move the opening to Diagon Alley for some reason. More worried and anxious than he was willing to admit, Harry nearly flew to the nearest key line of magic, with the same result he had before. Nothing. Dead-ends, nothing magical in the least.
"Well, that muggle phrase about Kansas would be perfect right now, if I could remember it," Harry muttered nervously under his breath, raking a hand through his windswept hair. He supposed he couldn't just ignore it and hope it was all on big mistake anymore. Something was seriously wrong. No Aurors, no magical cores except a few scattered or groups of creature-descendants, no ministry or magical world, no Hermione or Ron.
Well, what in Merlin's name was he supposed to do now? Studiously search for a nearly impossible way home? Find a convenient pensive to remember the symbols in that alleyway to redo whatever happened and luckily end up in the right dimension? He's not Hermione, for Merlin's sake, nor can he somehow conjure a magical pensive. Even if he read a lot, he didn't have the near-perfect memory she did, so he would have to refer to the very books that he didn't have. Sure, he had a good number of books in his shrunken trunk, but nothing that could possibly have anything about teleporting dimensions.
Okay, enough depressing thoughts. He had enough of those for two lifetimes already.
Either way, Harry was curious about these creature-descendants. Though he had felt a few close by while at Grimmauld Place, it was nowhere near the amount in Portland. It was also strange how he only started feeling them after he woke up in Portland when he should have felt at least a few whenever he had sauntered off into the muggle world for a break from the magical world. In the forest, since there was a key line there, more magical creatures should have been there than just the tree and its friend. Sure, it could have eaten the others, but the faces he could see were all human and the muggle animals weren't afraid of the tree.
Harry sighed in frustration, wondering what he should do now. Apparently, he was homeless now and the magical world has vanished. Portland, Oregon. The place he woke up in, home to hundreds of creature-descendants. Harry really hoped fate wasn't out to get him again because investigating the creature situation was the only thing he could think of doing now. Searching other countries for entry without permission into the magical world was illegal, even with his fame. It was also futile since he couldn't enter Britain's magical section. Harry wasn't delusional enough to believe the entire magical world was on lockdown and refuse to let Harry, their "Beloved Savior" according to the Daily Prophet, inside.
So, now that he was thinking relatively clearly, Harry went to the nearest Key line and latched his magic onto it. This time, he vanished without the echoing crack into the magic of the Earth. The Key lines were all attached similarly to a spider's web, some stronger or weaker than others, but Portland's were some of the strongest among the lines. Harry would have remembered that on earlier apparitions through the line, making his situation even more confusing.
He didn't have time to ponder the implications before he found the right Key line connection and appeared above where he was certain was no walls or people in his way. Splinching or accidental mutilation is never fun, especially with the other party freaking out.
Harry was alone in the alleyway, thankfully, and not nearly as disoriented or nauseous as the last apparition. Walking out of the alleyway, he shrugged and randomly started to follow one of the creature-decedents that he could feel. Probably not the best plan, but he knew he couldn't just walk up and ask him it straight to his face. Most magical creatures or creature-descendants prefer to blend in and hate being called out by Wizards, understandably content to live a normal life among muggles who are not bigots against their race.
Eavesdropping was his choice, yet again. He summoned the invisibility cloak from his trunk with the whispered password to open it, waited until the crowd thinned and the people were paying no attention and swept it over his body.
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Oh, and if you're wondering how long since Harry has defeated Voldemort, I would say it has been about two years, so Harry is 19 in my fanfic. During this time, Harry has been reading more. Harry strikes me as the sort to read what interests him, but to stubbornly skim or refuse what he is told to read (like in school), which is why his grades were never the best (also because Ron was a rather bad influence in that case and because Harry isn't good with orders – evidently).
Anyways, sorry for the late update. Hope the length of this chapter makes up for it!
PS: Thank you JKS16 for pointing out my mistake – honestly, I got mixed up with a different fic on another account.
It should be rather obvious what the tree is if you're keeping up with the Grimm episodes. Guess in the comments why it doesn't kill Harry and why it "ate" his magic.
Comment if you want more!