Title: Harry Potter: Four In One
Author: Joshua
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling created Harry James Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Hogwarts, the whole gosh-darn HP-universe and wrote the 7 "Harry Potter" books that we all love and enjoy. Spoilers for Book 1, and Book 7. In fact there may even be some direct quotes from Book 7, so be warned. I'm not writing this for profit, I may not even let anybody but my dearest and closest friends even read this and they'll get it for free, so thankfully this won't get me sued or anything. Everything AFTER Chapter Nine in Book 7 is going to be changed anyway and even those chapters that I do quote, they won't be quoted very well or for very long as I'm changing EVERYTHING after those points. Assume, for Wizard-Harry, that everything between the stated timelines in Book 1 and Book 7 is identical to what happened in the rest of the Books and the HP-universe. Tamora Pierce is the awesome author of the "Circle of Magic" books that 'Mage-Harry' is taken from, and of course I don't own Winding Circle nor the concepts of Academic and Ambient Magic. Any future Spy-Magic you might see is going to be exactly like the Battle Magic so far, an amalgamation of numerous sources that might not even be 'magic' on their own, but have been twisted in such a way by me. You have been warned.
Summary: A mysterious stranger interferes in the timeline and in Harry's life, splitting the young wizard into four and giving each a different magical education. Wizard, Warrior, Mage, and Spy.
Story:
The next morning, Harry had them all up in the attic, doing aerobics and practicing the different forms for each style, one after the other. They were almost to the point where he could show them how to start integrating the techniques, able to shift styles mid-move even. Ginny was still excelling at them all equally, Hermione was, ironically, starting to pick up Fire and Earth, but clearly still favored Water, while he had Ron doing push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and all other kinds of 'ups.
"Good, good," he complimented them as he walked between all three of them. "Ron, keep your elbows straight. Switch to Air, Hermione, you need more rounding out there. Good work, Ginny. Try going faster."
They followed his instructions accordingly, and he couldn't help smirking a bit when he turned away from them, but his immature sides couldn't help but find the fun in all of this. Still, his 'drill-sergeant' personality was only partially faked. To reinforce it at any point, all he had to do was use his imagination to come up with what would happen to them if they slacked in their training at all, or if he failed in any part of teaching them what they needed to know.
After another fifteen minutes, he saw marked improvement in all of them. It was subtle, and being the ones wearing themselves ragged, they couldn't tell, but if you knew what to look for you would see it. "All right, cool down time," he announced as they stopped their current exercises to stand at attention. "First up, Air."
Immediately they all three started to circle around him, holding their hands in 'guard' position. On every third step, they jumped up and twisted their bodies in a spinning leap, continuing the circle, upon landing they sunk down and did a sweeping kick before turning fully around to reverse their guard position, still continuing in the same direction though. He let them circle him nine full times, jumping about six times per circuit, before announcing, "Next, Fire."
They stopped circling, instead adjusting their breathing and crouched low, as though they were preparing to sit down with their knees spread equidistant and in time with their breathing started making simple punch, block, deflect combos, perfectly mirroring each other as Harry stood in the center of their triangle.
Another five minutes of this, he announced, "Earth."
They sunk lower into their stances and adjusted their feet and arms. They kept the breathing the same but beyond that, for the next five minutes they just stood/sat there, doing nothing but breathing. Harry smiled and nodded his head. "Excellent. Now, Water."
They flowed up from their stances as though it were nothing more than getting out of bed after a good nights sleep. They started to walk around him in a circle once again, only in the opposite direction this time, and instead of jumping every third step, they moved their arms... no, that's inaccurate... their arms flowed around their bodies, moving in liquid grace with their feet and legs as they circled him in a whirlpool motion.
Ten minutes of this later, he simply nodded his head, and in such a way one might think it had been planned that way all along, they came to a smooth, identical rest at the exact same moment.
"Excellent," Harry grinned at them, barely able to keep himself from applauding almost. "As far as I am concerned, your conditioning is complete. Now comes the hard part of keeping you in this condition, while teaching you the rest of the fighting styles."
"Does that mean we can learn a new spell?" Ron begged, like an excitable puppy that just saw you pick up a ball to toss around.
"How are you doing on the last one I taught you?" Harry teased him.
Ron frowned, "You taught us how to self-transfigure ourselves! That's hardly some cool, amazing, impossible Battle Magic spell! And for the record, we can all hold out for more than two hours, no matter who we choose to look like. Ginny and me even sparred one time, looking like different people! So we can even keep it up under stress and even when being hit!"
"Good. Can you change into animals yet?" Harry popped his balloon with a smile.
Seeing his friend deflate, he continued. "No? Well, how about change from one form to another without reverting back to your original form? Without using seals? Without smoke? Seamless transition so if you blink, it'll look like your form replaced the previous instead of actually changing? No? OK then. Until you master, and I do mean master this first spell, I'm not teaching you another, Ron."
"What? But how can you expect us to do all that? McGonagall never had us 'master' anything!" Ron complained. "I mean sure, we kept at it until the change was complete for each spell, but she never had us mastering transfiguration at all!"
Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. "I wanted to start you on a simpler spell. Like telekinesis. But you insisted on self-transfiguration, Ron. And for the record, even if it wasn't my first spell of Battle Magic, I did master it to all the effects I just mentioned before learning anything else. Before I was thirteen, for the record."
"Oh come off it, Harry!" Ron exclaimed. "You can't honestly expect us to believe that when that part of you was learning Battle Magic, that he only learned one spell at a time, not allowed to learn a new one until he'd fully mastered it? Come on!"
"Fully mastered? No," Harry grinned, enjoying this opportunity to wind his friend up a bit. "Did it well enough to be proficient in its use and able to learn the rest on my own without direct tutoring? Yes. Here's the deal, Ron. As much as you ask to learn more spells, all I ask is that you actually learn them. If you have a problem with a certain part of it, ask for my help. I'm not going to cram these lessons down your throat, but the lessons are the lessons. Anything else, you have to ask for. And, anything you ask for, expect to receive it. You asked to learn a Battle Magic spell. I showed it to you and allowed you the opportunity to learn it. Ron. You. Haven't. Learned. It. Yet."
"So," Ginny interrupted before her brother could make a mess of things, "how do you do all that extra stuff? Change into animals, do it without smoke and with a seamless transition?"
Harry smiled, and for a moment, the three of them saw the old Harry in this new amalgam before them.
"I am so glad you asked, Ginny. In fact, I was waiting for someone to ask for help from the beginning," he chuckled. "Animals are easier than you'd think. It also works the same way as the disguise variation. Picture an animal in your mind. No details, just picture a lion, tiger, bear, whatever and go through the same process of finding the shape of the spell, then push your magic through it. There is one trick to it though..."
"Great! Lion Animagus form, here I come!" Ron shouted and focused his magic, right before his hands automatically formed into three distinct seals, and his form exploded in a cloud of white smoke. When it dissipated, a red-maned lion stood there, one might even say it was smirking.
"Like I was saying," Harry continued in an annoyed tone now, "The trick is that unlike changing your human appearance, an animal transformation doesn't rely on a constant stream of magic. Once the change is made, it's permanent until you either consciously dispel it, or transfigure yourself back into your original form."
It's a very funny sight when you see a lion, with a red mane, look shocked. Even more so when it's eyes roll up in it's head and it keels over in a dead faint.
"I really should leave him like that," Harry sighed. Then he shrugged and waved his hand over his lion-formed friend, dispelling the transformation, and with another explosion of smoke, Ron Weasley returned to being human. He was still unconscious, but none of them were all that eager to revive him.
"Are there any other tricks to animal transfiguration?" Hermione asked in effort to change the subject.
Neither Ginny nor Harry could tell if she was trying not to lecture them, or not laugh at the small prank, but regardless, they decided not to ask her about it.
"A few," Harry answered. "Some will be obvious after you first manage it. To reverse it, and go back to your human form, or even into another form, be it another animal or a different human form, all you need to do is focus on the image and apply your magic to the shape of the spell once it forms. Any form that is not humanoid, or something that a glamour could do just as well, will be semi-permanent until you change it again. When you're going back to looking normal, especially after several transformations, all you need to do is focus on your self-image. What you look like, something about you that will help you to focus. It's easier than it sounds, trust me. Ready to try it, for real this time?"
"I think I am," Ginny offered, stepping away from them and closing her eyes to concentrate. A moment later, her hands flashed through three different seals, and a moment later, she transformed with a small explosion of white smoke into a chestnut roan mare with a bright red mane and warm brown eyes. Seemingly looking over herself she neighed and reared in exaltation before settling herself.
With a heavy pause, the horse seemed to concentrate for a moment, right before another explosion of white smoke concealed her from view once more and Ginny Weasley was standing there, looking slightly ruffled, but perfectly normal.
"Oh wonderful!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Good job, Ginny," Harry smiled at her and nodded.
"Thanks," she said back, blushing slightly. "That was easier than I thought it would be. So I just have to picture any animal, and I can change into it the same way?"
"Pretty much," Harry shrugged. "Some animals, depending on numerous factors, require more magic to change into than some others. For example, I have the worst time changing into insects, or any kind of bug really. Oh, don't get me wrong, I can do it no problem. It just takes about three times as much energy for me to change into a bug than just about any other creature, magical or otherwise there is."
"Really? I wonder why that is? I mean insects, while yes smaller, are considerably simpler creatures compared to mammals or anything else. And what do you mean magical creatures?" Hermione asked.
"Well, magical creatures are protected, in a way. It's like using Polyjuice potion for anything other than a human transformation, it runs the risk of mutating you into something else, or leaving you permanently changed or disfigured. That's why you didn't see me pull out a dragon or phoenix transfiguration earlier when I was showing you all the spell. It is possible to do a fairy transfiguration without too much trouble, but it carries its own set of... risks."
"How's that?" Ginny questioned.
"Those that succeed in transforming themselves into fairies," he answered, "often don't want to change back. Being a fairy is like being turned into pure happiness, combined with utter selfishness, mixed together with uncontrollable laughter. I've done it. Twice. Each time it was a monumental struggle just to concentrate enough to do anything, let alone change back into my human form when done. Don't tell Ron about this, by the way. If he tries one of the bigger creatures, a griffin, dragon, phoenix, whatever, that's one thing. Often the spell will just fail and he'll have wasted his magic. But..."
"I suppose it's ridiculously easy to change into a fairy, just as it is difficult changing back?" Hermione finished for him. Harry only nodded.
"Well then, I suppose it's my turn," Hermione took several deep, cleansing breaths. Then her hands flashed through the seals and after a brief explosion of white smoke, a fairly normal looking otter appeared in her place. Thirty seconds later, after the otter had taken the time to see she had succeeded, and another explosion of smoke, Hermione stood there with a very satisfied look on her face.
"That's great, Hermione!" Harry congratulated her.
"Good job," Ginny added. Then she abruptly turned to Harry and said, "Now, how do we do that seamless transition? Being able to change between forms instead of going back to our original forms first?"
"And how do we do it without all of the smoke, too?" Hermione asked, waving her hands to help dispel some lingering wisps.
"Oh, that's easy, just use less magic," Harry answered. At their looks, he held up his hands to forestall them as he explained, "It's actually something that you gain through experience more than anything else. Once you've got the shape of the spell, you don't have to spend so much time focusing to create it in the first place. Once you know the shape, just picturing it in your mind will be enough to activate it. To control the effects, all you have to do is limit, or increase the amount of magic that you push through the shape of the spell to cast it."
"And the seamless transition?" Ginny asked.
"Wake Ron up," Harry turned and started pacing back and forth before them. While Hermione did as he asked, his mind raced to come up with a way to explain this to them. It wasn't something that he'd been taught, to be perfectly honest. Joshua had only done enough to teach him how to transform into other people and various animals. Everything else, smokeless, seamless transition, animal-to-animal, all of that had come afterwards, and he'd done it himself. Through trial and error and a lot of practice, but he'd figured it all out himself, rather than have it handed to him by the Time Wizard.
Therefore, explaining to them something that he'd figured out on his own and had not been explained to him at any point, required some highly original thought. Especially since it wasn't something consciously done, but that he eventually just started doing when he got panicked. After a long while, what he'd figured out was how to turn that reflexive reaction into conscious will. Again, not something easily explained.
"Oh, what happened?" Ron moaned as he was revived.
"You fainted when you heard Harry tell you that were stuck as a red haired lion for the rest of eternity," Ginny teased her brother without any mercy.
"Ahh! Hey wait, how come I'm not a lion anymore?" Ron was patting himself down just to be sure.
"Because Harry changed you back. Honestly Ron!" Hermione scoffed.
"All right!" Harry interrupted the bickering. "I've got an exercise that I want all of you to do for the next couple of days. It should help you out in fully learning the Transform spell to it's full potential. It might not. That remains to be seen. Once all three of you are performing the spell to my level of satisfaction, I'll immediately show you the next battle magic spell, and maybe another just as incentive. But only after all three of you can perform this spell correctly. Agreed?"
The girls immediately nodded, while Ron looked like Christmas had come early and exclaimed, "Wicked! We finally get to learn some cool battle spells! All right!" The other three all rolled their eyes at Ron's assumption that it was a foregone conclusion that they had already learned Transform spell correctly and were already learning the next one.
"This exercise is designed to help you get used to being in bodies not your own, and as a result, I'm hoping, that you'll learn how to shift between those bodies much easier, and hopefully much quicker than it took me to learn to do the same," he explained.
"How long did it take you to learn the Transform spell, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Just over two years," he answered without hesitation.
"WHAT?!" all three shouted, but Ron was the loudest.
"Yeah, while it wasn't the first spell I was taught when I learned Battle Magic, the Transform spell was one of the first few. Actually, I think it was the fifth spell I was officially taught," his eyes rolled up in thought.
"Anyway, so, yeah like I said I was thirteen before I had fully mastered this particular spell, but I started learning it when I first started training. Which was when I was eleven to answer that question. I could change into animals and such first. Human forms took me longer, and the extra stuff I just mentioned, seamless transition, animal-to-animal, smokeless transformation? That took me a lot of practice and experience before I could even try that sort of stuff. But, you're insistent on going the fast way."
"Wait there's one other, wasn't there?" Hermione spoke up, "Using the spell, but without using seals?"
"Seal-less magic use is the mark of a true master, whether that be of the whole style, or a single spell. And the only way to learn that is to become so familiar with the spell that you can picture the entire spell, of every shape and variation it produces, without using the mnemonic devices. To provide you with an example, doing magic with seals is the same as using silent magic in Wizardry. And even then, you still see adult wizards say the spell out loud, even after they and everyone else that graduates from Hogwarts, learned the methods of doing magic silently in school. Hence, why you see me doing seals at all. Every spell I can cast, I can do so just by thinking of it and nothing else, and even then, a few spells don't even require conscious thought to activate. Still, I use seals, my wand, my staff, for the same reasons. It's easier, and faster."
"But, doesn't that make people lazy?" Hermione asked.
Harry shrugged, "In some ways, yes. But this is Battle Magic you're learning here. If it comes down to a matter of seconds in casting an attack spell, even if it means the other person sees you performing the seals and knows what's coming, are you going to worry about stealth and subterfuge and waste an extra second or two focusing your thoughts, or are you going to go ahead and use the seals that will get it off quicker?"
"Oh, well, when you put it like that..." she blushed.
"Don't worry, that's a good question, and better to know than to wonder forever and need to know later."
"Now then, the exercise I want you to do is this," Harry quickly outlined the steps and everything else.
Next Afternoon
12 Grimmauld Place
"RONALD WEASLEY!! DON'T YOU DARE!" Hermione's voice screamed out.
Moments later, there was a loud series of crashes, followed by Hermione's voice screaming out in inarticulate rage and fury. Harry and Ginny looked up at each other when they heard the other pair of Gryffindors chase each other down the stairs, making a surprising amount of racket, all things considered. The unusual thing about this scene, however, was that Ginny was currently in the shape of a brown-eyed panda, while Harry was calmly standing on the ceiling, apparently fine-tuning something about the fixtures.
Suddenly a red and white furred basset hound slid into the room, quickly chased by a ginger-haired bobcat. Not Crookshanks, who was a kneazle-cross, but an actual mountain lion like bobcat.
"STOP RUNNING AND LET ME TEAR YOU TO SHREDS YOU LITTLE PERVERT!" the bobcat shouted, with Hermione's voice.
"Not bloody likely!" the basset hound barked back in Ron's voice. They chased each other for a few more rounds before the basset hound suddenly changed itself with a loud pop into slick-furred weasel, which quickly escaped through a hole in the wall. Rather than crash through said hole, the Hermione bobcat merely made its way to the door and out into the hall, changing into a bushy-furred wolf along the way.
"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY FROM ME THAT EASILY!" she howled after the weasel.
After they left, Panda-Ginny popped into a rather large sea turtle. Slowly, she looked up at the still-standing-on-the-ceiling Harry and asked him, "Are these exercises really necessary?"
"Necessary?" he said. "No. Functional and capable of allowing you to learn how to better use the Transform battle spell? Yes. Besides, you're all getting much better. Hey, it took Ron at least two hours to figure out how to change into an animal and back again last night! Now all three of you are shifting between animal forms every half hour! That's real progress."
"I'm not arguing that," Turtle-Ginny said slowly, "It is just the drain on our magic. Having to stay in basically any form other than our own for so long, and then when we do change to anything else other than what we've already been, and making it so we all change at the same time and when the others change as well... Harry, I'm getting tired."
"Go eat something, take a nap, read a book, go meditate," he suggested. "This is just as much about increasing your magical reserves and power as it is getting you all acquainted with the spell. Don't worry, you're not about to forget your true form just from a few days of this. Believe me, I'm not going to let any of you change into any kind of magical creatures until you're more than ready. Like say... in twenty or thirty years," he grinned at her.
She snorted, and briefly considered just withdrawing into her shell and taking a nap for an hour or so. Still, she wasn't about to fall behind in the little transfiguration war that Ron and Hermione were engaged in, and if she fell asleep, then she wouldn't keep up whenever they shifted into a new form. Also, there was that thing Harry said about meditating, something that he was doing just as much as they were, almost more in fact, so it wasn't about to become a part of their training that would no longer be needed in the future.
Taking long, slow breaths to the count of seven, Ginny began to meditate and focus on her magic. It was getting easier to do with each use of the meditation techniques Harry had taught them. Ginny could feel the core and pulse of her magic throughout her body practically all the time now, but at the same time it's like noticing you're breathing. You know it's happening, you are even consciously aware of it and able to control it, but a lot of the time its there and you're doing it without having to think about it or notice it all the time either.
Currently, while just laying there as a turtle, Ginny worked on the latest meditation technique Harry had asked her to try. Focusing on and gathering all of her magic down into a tiny, tiny, tiny little ball, (Harry said they could imagine it to be whatever they wanted it to be, so Ginny chose a Snitch) until it was all compressed into the ball without leaking any magic out of it at all. It took her a while, but it happened faster than the last time, and a lot faster than the first time she managed it!
The new thing Harry wanted her to try was to try slowly drawing upon that compressed magic Snitch and let it slowly trickle and fill up her entire body. Considering her body was a turtle at the moment, it would be entirely unique from when she initially tried this in her normal, human body.
It was easier than it sounded, all it required was concentration really. After a few minutes, considerably shorter since a sea turtle's body is somewhat smaller than her human body, and very differently proportioned, she had succeeded in the exercise, and the first thing she noticed was how she felt.
When in her human form, she felt her magic suffusing every cell of her body and it was like swallowing a whole cauldron of Pepper-Up potions and then have a Cheering Charm or two cast on her. For a turtle, the effect was quite different.
Her shell felt like it was made of diamond, but at the same time was lighter than air. Her skin felt perfectly moist and pleasantly warm, which was just perfect for a turtle. And overall, she felt like she had just plopped down in the middle of a sauna at high noon, but still with that moist and warm atmosphere around her. In other words, for a turtle, she felt just as great as she did when she did this as a human.
Now for the real test, she decided. Time to cast a bit of magic.
"Ginny," Harry suddenly spoke up, "What are you doing?"
Startled, but thankfully not enough to lose her concentration, she looked up and answered him, "Practicing. Why?"
"Beyond the obvious," he replied, "What exactly are you practicing?"
"That new meditation technique you taught us to do with our magic," she answered straightforward.
"Stop," he commanded, jumping down from the ceiling and landing right in front of the turtle. "In fact, change back to normal, now! Besides, you're the one person that doesn't really need this exercise. Your control over self-transfiguration is a whole level above Ron and Hermione. Which is surprising, to say the least."
Turtle-Ginny stared at the raven-haired wizard for several long seconds, before mentally shrugging. Magic was magic, and changing back is as good as any standard levitation spell. Keeping her body flooded with her magic, she then simultaneously focused her will upon changing back into her human form, and was shocked out of her seat when instead of poofing with an explosion of white smoke, her body shifted instantly. One second she was a turtle laying on the couch, less than an eye blink later, she's sitting there in her normal human body, fully clothed, sitting comfortably like a normal human rather than laying on her stomach. It was of note, due to the fact that previously, when they changed from animal to human, their human bodies were in the same poses their animal forms had been in, no matter how ridiculous they might be compared to each other.
"What...? How...?" she stuttered.
"That's one of the tricks that it's normally too dangerous for you to try," Harry commented as he sat down beside her. "For starters, if you'll take a moment to notice, over half of your magical reserves were used up by that gimmick there. It works both ways, just to clarify."
"What does? What just happened? What did I just do?" Ginny exclaimed, while silently confirming that Harry was right. By her measure, she'd used up actually over ¾ of her reserves, though her core was already restoring all her reserves, it was surprising that the trick Harry had shown them was so easy to do, yet so damaging in the long term.
"The meditation you were practicing," he answered, "it was the one where you fill your body to the brim with magic after compressing it into your core, right?"
"You didn't describe it like that last time, but yeah," she nodded.
"What doing that does, is it more or less puts you at your magical maximum potential. It's incredibly draining, but with enough practice, it does become easier and you can do it for longer and more often. Same as training and working with any muscle in the body. Put enough power behind it, you can do almost anything. Put too much power behind it, you might still do it, but you'll probably kill yourself trying."
"As for what you just did, quite obviously you just did the seamless transition between forms. Technically speaking, instead of forcing a transformation all at once, which is cast from a single point, for example the tip of a wand is the focus for any spell. Transfiguration spells especially. Self-transfiguration focuses from your core, but also the hand seals that are used too. When you filled your body with magic, and then changed back, instead of the change originating from a single point, every single one of your cells, at the exact same moment, all decided to change together. So, instead of a single point that forced a big change, you had millions of points of focus that each made a single individual change."
"So, that's the trick to it?" Ginny clarified.
Harry nodded. "It's also why I stopped you from casting other magic while in animal form. Animals... well, they have their own magic, and in some cases, they do not mix well with human magic. So, please, trust me when I say, you are not ready to try casting magic while as an animal. If you get yourself in a jam while transfigured into an animal, no matter what kind, or whatever the situation is, I'd rather you change back to human than try casting what should be a simple spell, only to have it literally blow up in your face and half kill you and everybody around you."
"Is it possible? To cast magic as an animal?"
Harry's face grimaced and he sort of hemmed and hawed for a moment or two before finally admitting, "OK, yes, it is possible for a transfigured wizard to cast magic while in animal form, but it's dangerous all the same! Possible is one thing, safe and guaranteed to work are something else entirely!"
"Why is it you didn't try these dangerous spells when you fought... Riddle and his Death Eaters?" she asked him. He shrugged for a moment, before he fell into silent thought.
Finally, he told her, "Actually, it's not possible to use Battle Magic while in animal form. Raw magical aura is one thing, and that is easily done actually, but Battle Magic spells are too complicated to be used in animal form. But... there are other ways of using magic that allow it. Not spells necessarily, but a way to produce magical effects all the same. I'll have to investigate this a bit more..."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, I'll have to practice with it myself," he answered with a grin.
She grinned back, then took his hand in hers and leaned herself against his body, putting her head on his shoulder. "So, what other tricks are there to shape-shifting?"
"Magical shape-shifting depends entirely upon control. Magical control, self control, body control. Tonks could explain that a bit, but it all comes down to control. Increase your discipline, your control in all forms, and you'll be a shape-shifter in no time at all," he explained.
"So, how much longer are you going to make us do this exercise of yours?" she asked, enjoying the way that he was playing with her shoulder-length hair as she lay against him.
"Until Ron and Hermione figure out what you just did," he answered. "As far as you're concerned, the exercise is over. All you need to do is practice it on your own and you'll have it down in no time. Work on your control so you don't put yourself into a coma from magic exhaustion any time you want to practice more than twice a day, though."
"So what's next?" she asked him, holding his hand with hers and closing her eyes in relaxation.
"Practical experience," was his cryptic reply.
Two days later
Diagon Alley
"You guys ready for this?" Harry, disguised as some random face, but in wizard robes, asked his companions.
"As we'll ever be," Ron replied, though he looked like Cedric Diggory's twin brother at the moment.
"Let's just get this over with," Hermione whined, currently done up to look like another random face, but much more subtly, as it was still Hermione's own face, just with straighter hair, different colored eyes, chubbier cheeks and her buckteeth returned, as well as a few inches in height and... other areas too.
"Thisss isss an interesssting way to learn Parseltongue I must admit," Ginny hissed in Harry's ear, seeing as she was a standard six foot viper draped over his shoulders at the moment.
"Considering that Parseltongue once was spoken by your lips in your first year, I didn't think it would be that hard for you to relearn it," he said to her in the same language.
"All right," he said to them, switching to English, "Let's do this. And have some fun while we're at it."
That said, they all quickly went their separate ways. Except for Harry and Ginny of course, since the latter was riding on the shoulder of the former. The plan, and what they were doing in Diagon Alley in the first place, was threefold; first, it provides each of them with practical experience in using their "Battle Magic Spell" in real life conditions. Second, to get some more reliable intelligence about the state of things in the world. And lastly, Harry wanted to strike a blow to the Death Eater-controlled Ministry and remind them that he was still out here and he was not going to just go away.
On a side note, Harry had finally admitted to his late night excursions where he sometimes summoned a hit squad by saying Voldemort's name in hidden away locations, and then isolated and defeated the ones that showed up, be they Death Eaters or unfortunate Auror's. Needless to say, the argument got long and loud.
He had also, unfortunately, promised to no longer go out alone, but he'd managed to swing that so long as one of them went with him, he could still go out. Hermione swore never to let him out of her sight again, while the Weasley's simultaneously begged and promised to go with him the next time.
Hence, the current plan. Once they had successfully infiltrated Diagon Alley, which despite all the current tension of the political climate, people still had to eat, shop, and sell their merchandise, they would then each do the Taboo thing with the intention of bringing as many Death Eater and Ministry hit squads to the Alley as possible. One at a time, in different locations, one of them would whisper Voldemort's name, and before they were found, but after someone had seen their face, they would disappear for half a second and shapeshift, to either another face, or a nonthreatening animal, like a mouse, or a bird of some kind.
Once everyone had closed shop and pretty much left the Alley, leaving only the Death Eaters and Ministry flunkies, Harry would summon up a small hoard of dragons, or dragonlings actually, and they would each change into the most dangerous, nonmagical animal they could think of and it would then be a free-for-all.
Of course, as Harry reminded them all countless times; no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
The transfigured Harry and snake-Ginny slowly ambled their way down the Alley until they came to the corner that turned into Knockturn Alley. After all, a faceless wizard with a python draped across his shoulders would be perfectly normal for the Dark Arts marketplace. Once they'd reached the end of the side Alley, he reached out with his magical telepathy, aka Mental Skills of Battle Magic, and brushed the minds of Ron and Hermione, each on their own ends of Diagon Alley, Hermione next to Gringotts, Ron still standing next to the entrance behind the Leaky Cauldron.
'You guys ready?' he asked.
'Ready,' he heard from Hermione's thoughts.
'Let's do this!' Ron mentally exclaimed, his wild grin mirrored in his mind.
"Voldemort," all three whispered as one.
Turning on his heel, Harry placed Ginny on the ground and stepped around behind a stack of crates and then shifted into a completely different face and body, more resembling your typical middle-wage wizard, pot-bellied with thinning hair... and Lucius Malfoy's face. Ginny, hissing in quiet laughter slithered along the side of the Alley until she came to Borgin & Burkes. After she'd managed to get herself inside, she curled up under the counter and waited for a moment.
Finally, she heard in her mind, Harry's voice whispering, 'Everybody ready?'
'Born ready!' she thought back "at" him.
Thanks to the connection his magic had established between all of them, she then heard the others responses as well. 'I am in place,' came Hermione's matter-of-fact reply. 'This is bloody brilliant!' Ron crowed.
Then, taking a unique breath, snake-Ginny hissed out, in perfect English, "Voldemort." Afterwards, she slithered out and shifted into a small mouse, easily sticking to the shadows and then escaping back into the Alley, where she shifted seamlessly once more into a brown-eyed black cat. After that, she had to sit still for a minute and got some water from a nearby puddle, feeling the drain on her magic of so many quick-shifts back to back. She heard Harry contact them all once more, but she did not respond, only just able to hold her form.
'Is it someone else's turn to be the animal?' she finally asked once she'd gotten enough strength back.
'Hermione, next shift after this call, you go animal. Ginny, you sit tight, and when you feel up to it, go to human and then immediately into a disguise. You can't be seen away from the Burrow or your family. But to be on the safe side, head to the Twins' shop and shift in their back room. Catch your breath, gather your energy. Oh, and don't let your brother's see or find you.'
'Thanks for the advice,' she grumbled, but still changed her course for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
On the other side of the Alley, Hermione, currently a tall and leggy blond with dark eyebrows, glanced around, whispered, "Voldemort," one last time, and then walked around a post along the side of the street right as she transfigured herself into a brown feathered pigeon and flew off. Of course, Hermione, while she could do it, was not yet skilled enough at seamless shifting, but thankfully at the exact same moment that she exploded in smoke, a street vendor let off one of Filibuster's Fireworks, one that happened to explode into a lot of smoke. So thankfully, nobody noticed the new and unusual pigeon flitting about the buildings and the street.
'Death Eaters should be on their way, if they haven't already infiltrated. Time to start Phase 2. Ron, you're up first, I'll cover you. Hermione, I'll go next, so be ready to shift, quickly and quietly. Ginny, where are you?' Harry checked in with each of them, also allowing them to hear the others' responses.
'I'm in the back of Wizard Wheezes,' Ginny answered. 'Human again. Still me though. I just... need a couple more minutes, then I'm good to go. Do you want me to be me when I do it, or changed and then change again? Or what?'
'Ginny, you'll do it after me, but,' he emphasized, 'after both me and Ron are in place to cover you. Just in case, and nobody says IT in front of witnesses unless they are covered. Understood?'
'Understood.' They all answered as one.
Harry glanced around himself, already seeing several, rather obvious, 'hidden' Death Eaters and there were Aurors streaming out from the Leaky Cauldron. They were still being discreet, which meant they could not localize the people breaking the Taboo, only the location. They weren't even looking around the spots where the name had been spoken already.
Taking a deep breath, and subtly altering his facial features to more resemble his normal face, but not exactly, he walked right up to one of the 'hidden' Death Eaters and whispered right in his face, "Voldemort is a wanker and a coward. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort."
While the Death Eater was reeling in shock, Harry stepped around behind him, seamlessly shifting into a cleaned-up image of Peter Pettigrew and bumping into the same Death Eater he'd just whispered at, making it seem as though he were a completely different person rushing past. For a minute or two, the lone dark wizard just spun around on his feet, looking like a chicken with its head cut off.
Harry was well away and in position to cover Ron, just in case, by the time the idiot finally went up to one of his fellow Death Eaters. Ron, incidentally, looked like a non-sneering version of Draco Malfoy, and his clothes didn't match with the Pureblood Slytherin's reputation either, but that was fine for the circumstances.
Giving the Draco look alike a slow nod, he gestured to another of the searching Death Eater's, this one far less obvious. Ron acknowledged and made his way over and behind the indicated wizard, and whispered, yet still audible, "Voldemort is weak. I heard the Chosen One thoroughly thrashed him. Voldemort got beat by a lone seventeen-year-old boy. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort."
Before Ron could get out of the way though, two more Death Eater's moved up to hear the last bit, even as the marked one spun around and growled at the blond.
"You won't think that for long, traitor!" the Death Eater spit in his face, as the other two grabbed him by the arms and held him steady.
Harry, seeing this, was already in motion, and still in his Pettigrew disguise, ran directly for the altercation, and just as he reached them, he bumped into the first Death Eater and one of the others holding Ron, and then raced right on past. Yet still making sure that it looked like he was actually running from someone.
Meanwhile, Ron had gotten enough space to free himself and at the same time the three Death Eaters were looking at the running fugitive, he seamlessly shifted himself into a perfect mirror of the first Death Eater, clothes, face, everything.
When they looked back, Ron was the first to react, grabbing the Death Eater he'd whispered to earlier, and shouting, "Oi! Think you're pretty quick with the Polyjuice, eh? Don't think you can get away that easily. Take 'im boys. It'll wear off in an hour and then we can find out what exactly he's been saying here."
The two nodded and grabbed the real Death Eater and quickly dragged him off, while he was looking stunned, going back and forth between the two goons and Ron, stuttering, "But... what...? But... no, wait!"
After they were gone, Ron went over to the Ice Cream Parlor and sat down, changing his appearance once more, this time to a blue-eyed blond who was clearly still in school, and with rather decent, but not rich robes. He sat down next to a dimpled blond in pink robes, who was sharing a sundae with a pair of cats, one with black and white patches and green eyes, the other with ginger fur and almond brown eyes.
"Well, things seem to be heating up rather quickly, wouldn't you say?" Ron asked the girl, and the cats.
"Not really," 'Harry' replied, taking a moment to enjoy the unique experience of eating ice cream with a cat's tongue. "Still simmering, I'd say. For one thing, while there are fewer, there are still shoppers running about. But, from the looks of it, and the Apparitions we just heard, the shops will be closed very soon, and that's when things will start to heat up. Ready, Ginny?" the cat turn to the blond.
"Born ready," she grinned, repeating her earlier expression, while taking another spoonful of her sundae.
"Hey," she defended herself, "never know when we'll get to enjoy this again. Besides, for what I have in mind, there still aren't enough of them yet."
"Don't make yourself too much of a target," 'Hermione' warned. "The objective is to prove the Taboo can be broken without us getting caught. If you're the center of attention, it will be hard to get you away from it, being a magical shapeshifter or not."
"Actually, and I'm sorry to burst your bubble like this, Hermione," the black and white cat apologized to the ginger furred feline, "but this is actually a tactical strike, not a psychological one. Once enough of them are here, and the Alley is evacuated of the innocents... Well, let's just say the fight over Surrey is going to be child's play by comparison."
"Wha—!" Hermione nearly screamed, but Harry's... paw was faster.
"Go, Ginny," the cat ordered, while giving a mild glare to Hermione, before leaping down from the table. Ron too, gave a hard look at the cat as he got up alongside his transfigured sister, both leaving the sundae half-eaten. The proprietor quickly moved to their table, an annoyed look on his face at the half-eaten remains, until he picked up and saw what had been left on one of the napkins. His eyes going wide, he dropped everything and went around whispering to certain people, while at the same time locking everything down and pretty much closing the place up for the day.
A few people raced out of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and down to a few other shops along Diagon Alley. Within five minutes of the blond couple leaving the Parlor, almost every single shop, store, and vendor within Diagon Alley was closed up, including a number of places on Knockturn Alley. Even Gringotts had pulled in it's guards and shut the door. Not locked, but shut.
Within ten minutes, the only people walking the Alley were either disguised Death Eaters, and at least three teams of Aurors. And one young woman who stood like a queen in her court, mistress of all around her. Without trepidation, nor hesitation, she walked right up to one of the teams of Aurors and spoke to them in a clear, crisp, and upper class accent.
"Good day to you Aurors. Good day indeed, it seems, which as I've heard the gossip around the Alley, Voldemort would agree. I'd heard that Voldemort has been most generous and compassionate of late. It was said," she walked past the Aurors and right in front of a gathering group of 'undercover' Death Eaters, "that it has been several hours even, since Voldemort last killed one of his followers for failing him yet again. Ah, Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort."
They all felt the wards go up. Anti-Apparition, anti-Portkey, and a more complex one that sealed up the entrance as well as stopped anyone from using a broom to fly out either. The clearly Pure blood witch merely grinned sadistically at the forces arrayed before her, even as they raised wands to curse her out of existence.
Not bothering with a seamless transfiguration, as she felt she'd need to save her energy, yet also the smoke from the spell would mask her change and give her some cover to get away in. After all, your standard Animagus did not explode with white smoke every time they changed. Usually it was a pop or a gradual morph. Therefore, they wouldn't know what happened to her, and looking at a mouse running the opposite way would be the last thing in their heads at that point.
Several curses shot into the cloud of smoke, but thankfully none of them were aimed at the ground, so were no where close to hitting Ginny as she fled back to the entrance. Harry was the only one of them that could teleport instead of Apparate, which meant he was the only one that could get them out of there so long as the wards were up. But Harry had other things to do.
"Well, well, well," his voice rang out across the Alley, bringing all those within it's walls to high alert. "What do we have here? Seems the trash man forgot to visit this week, just look at all the scum littering Diagon Alley. Makes Knockturn Alley seem pristine in comparison, if you ask me."
The amassed forces of Death Eaters and 'Aurors' (though none of them were light wizards and the rest were paid off in some way, so it really doesn't matter) had been looking up, down and all around the Alley, until finally one of them screamed a warning and pointed out the source of the echoing voice. They all turned to face their antagonist, wands raised and ready to unleash a fury spells and curses.
Harry Potter stood before all of them, actually standing on the top of the 'wall' that was the entrance to the Alley behind the Leaky Cauldron. Some of them wondered how he could do that with the wards in place, until they realized the wards only stopped people from flying out of the alley, or going out the entrance... not standing on top of it.
"Now," Harry continued his monologue, seemingly not caring that he had over thirty wands pointed at his head, "some of you might be thinking, gloating really, to yourselves that you've finally caught me, that the Dark Lord VOLDEMORT!! will reward you for finally capturing/killing me. That you've got me trapped, that you have me completely cornered with no way to escape, no possible hope for leaving here alive. Well... I almost hate to burst your bubble. Note: I said almost."
He grinned sadistically and pulled out his wand, it's tip glowing a fiery orange/red. "Now forgive me, but I have always wanted to say this; You may think that I'm trapped here with all of you, but actually, you're the ones that are trapped in here with me!" Thus began what soon became known as the 'Alley Slaughter.'
"AVADA KEDAVRA!!" came the simultaneous casting from over half the gathered crowd. It would have been devastating, and there would have been no way for Harry to possibly defend against that many curses. Except that he wasn't there by the time they hit. Instead flying on to the space behind where he'd been, and hitting the wards and protections set up around the wizard marketplace.
Amazingly, even under 30 direct hits by the Avada Kedavra, the wards around Diagon Alley barely flickered. Growling, the fifty plus wizards spread out, all of them looking for Harry Potter and planning on cursing him into oblivion. Some shot out at the slightest hint of movement, causing a few "friendly fire" incidents, but nothing lethal. Unfortunately.
Finally, Harry appeared before the mob once more, this time standing on the roof of Gringotts. Before somebody did something stupid though, the cooler and more history-inclined heads quickly reminded those that fell asleep in Binns class from the first day and didn't even bother learning anything, that the last thing Voldemort and the "new" Ministry needed was yet another Goblin Rebellion, caused by a few curses cast at their bank on Diagon Alley.
Harry knew he was pushing his luck. He should have taken the others and left a while ago, leaving them with the knowledge that he could get to them at any time and they couldn't do a thing to stop him. However, he'd been itching for a fight ever since he'd been forced to call a stalemate at the Burrow a month ago, and the skirmishes taking out a few Death Eaters a night weren't fulfilling in the slightest anymore.
Not that Harry really got off on violence or anything like that, but when you're used to activity and the feeling of accomplishment and progress, having all that come to a screeching, agonizingly slow crawl was maddening to him. So, he decided to scratch his itch.
"Tell you lot what for," he shouted out to them from his perch on top of Gringotts. "The security wards that just went up a few minutes ago, they stay up. But if any of you can find your way out of here within the next hour, you get to leave. Rest of you, well..."
Suddenly, Harry's aura exploded across the Alley, charging the atmosphere, making it hot and heavy, while at the same time a pressure wave traveled out from his location, knocking some off their feet and to the ground as Harry cut loose with a lot of magic just to intimidate them. "... YOU CAN TRY AND SURVIVE FOR THE NEXT SIXTY MINUTES!"
An eyeblink later, Harry vanished, yet the charged atmosphere of the Alley remained, telling the Dark Wizard enforcers that danger was still present, and Potter's threat was very real. Then the screams started.
Knowing that his tactics had to change with the strategy, Harry held off on his flashy Battle Magic spells, as well as using clones. This time, he had to evoke a sense of terror amongst the government terrorists, so that limited him, yet again, to hit-and-run spells. It also meant a lot of running, so of course his very first spell was Lightning Shoes, advancing it up to Thunder Claps when needed. All the same, it kept him out of the Death Eater's sights so they couldn't curse him, and when they did catch sight of him, it was only a streak of movement out of the corner of their eyes, which of course had them jumping all over the place.
First objective, separate the lambs from the sheep. Using his mage sight, he checked everyone's auras. Surprisingly, only ten of the Aurors present had and lack of darkness to them. They were also, thankfully, clustered together at the fringe of the gathering, staying near the entrance.
Picking up a fist full of pebbles, he stepped back into the shadows, going to the very edge of the Alley where the wards were, and then extended his magic senses, by briefly meditating, into the wards and "adjusted" them so that a set kind of PortKey would be allowed to exit the Alley. He then changed all of the pebbles in his hand into that kind of PortKey and sped his way back to the gathering.
One Death Eater saw him emerge from the darkness and started to scream a warning and a call for everyone to approach, only for it to turn into a scream of terror as Harry grabbed him and threw him back into the darkness... and then up into the sky, where he flew through the wards... twice.
They'd all heard the scream, but it didn't really get to them until the ward-burned corpse landed, quite dead, in the midst of all of them in the middle of the Alley. A sinister voice echoed from every shadowy corner, "For those of you who did not think I had it in me to make good on my threats..."
In a flash, Harry, aura raging around him, swept down and threw his fist forward while he shouted the rest, "...I ALWAYS KEEP MY PROMISES DEATH EATER SCUM!!" The glowing pebbles flew in blazing streaks through the air, each striking a specific individual in the crowd, who vanished with a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and the girly man scream you always hear on TV when the minions fall to their death. Then he was gone and the remaining Dark Wizards feared for their lives, as the majority knew that those that had just vanished were the closest thing to Light Wizards left among the Auror ranks, although most of them would say they were a mid-gray in their opinion.
Some tried to Disapparate, and were unpleasantly reminded that Anti-Apparition wards had been put in place around the Alley. Those with more experience, and unfortunately darker auras, soon cooled their heads and brought the rest under control and organized the crowd into something that might give Harry some trouble. Until he swooped down from a different place and shot a few dozen fireballs into their midst and was gone before anybody could even lift their wand to do anything about it.
One of them got rather impatient and shouted out suddenly, "Come out and fight like a wizard, Potter!"
"OK, I'll do that if you stand there and die like a piece of shit," came the harsh reply from directly above them. They all looked up as one, and immediately wished they hadn't as they finally saw Harry flying there above them, only with a magical attack already prepped, and released the moment they looked up.
"EMERALD CYCLONE!" he cast down his arms and a solid mass of green-tinted wind sliced down and covered the lot of them. From a distance it was just wind, but inside the cyclone, the Death Eaters were finding out first hand that Harry's spell had formed the air into cutting blades of air and it was quickly tearing them apart, literally.
By the time it was over, Harry had disappeared again, but the remaining Death Eaters, those that were in any shape for anything besides St. Mungo's and a casket, or a bucket really, still were not in very good shape. They were also pissing scared.
"This is crazy! We've gotta get outta here!" someone screamed.
"Potter was just supposed to be a punk kid! How did he get this powerful?!" another yelled.
"Bloody insane to stay here! We're all gonna be killed at this rate! Take down the wards!"
"ENOUGH!!" a louder voice shouted over the rest. This, of course, was the leader of the group. Harry, from his hiding spot, smirked, as he recognized none other than Anton Dolohov, one of the Inner Circle to boot.
"Are you lot a bunch of pathetic mudbloods, or are you WIZARDS?! He's only one punk kid, that happened to learn a few new spells! So what? All of us have got years experience on this boy and he hasn't even graduated school yet! Now find him and KILL HIM!!" Dolohov roused them.
Right until a lightning bolt struck him dead and fried him to ash right in front of their eyes.
"Have to find me first, bozos!" Harry's voice echoed throughout the alley.
Meanwhile, as the Death Eaters were getting terrorized, Harry began the final phase of the plan, now that he'd had his fun and managed to get them all thoroughly afraid of him, it was time to take it to the next level, and turn himself from the symbol of hope and light into a true legend.
"Blood Copy Helix!" Creating a few quick clones, actual physical, albeit magically-created, copies of himself, Harry placed each of them at different points in the Alley, and then joined his friends near the entrance.
Taking a moment to gather his magic, as this would take a lot, although now he had magic to spare and then some, Harry's eyes snapped open as he, and his clones, all declared, "GATE: OPEN!"
Simultaneously, in front of him and each of his clones, a man-sized version of his Gate appeared, the twin emerald-green rings of energy mirrored in their eyes as in front of them. Then, he summoned the dragons; "Hunter Dragons!"
His friends looked at him, surprised, as they had been expecting him to summon the same Elemental Dragons they'd seen him summon before. They were even more surprised when a gray and silver dragon began to emerge from the open Gate. It was about the size of a large boar hound, or jungle cat. It had sharp claws and a spiked whip-like tail and four wings, two smaller ones coming out of his head and then the two main wings coming from the back of it's torso. It also had a very large chin that they only realized afterwards was instead an inverted, and razor sharp, horn. It's lethal red eyes glanced at Harry and his his friends (and clones), only once before seeming to grin and the thirteen summoned dragons turned their attention to the Death Eaters waiting, cowering actually, in front of them.
"Well," Harry smugly crossed his arms as he watched the carnage begin, "All in all, not bad for a days work, wouldn't you say? Let's head back."
"Right," Hermione mumbled, looking rather green as she turned away from the Alley.
"Don't you have to stay here, for the dragons I mean, Harry?" Ron asked. They stepped out into the open, Harry dividing his attention between the carnage, disabling the wards, focusing his energies to teleport them all, and Ron's question.
"Nah," he shook his head, "They'll go back when they feel like it. I only summon Hunter Dragons when I need one of two things. To track a scent, in which case I bring a lot of meat ahead of time, or for the same reason somebody would keep a school of piranhas in a pond. After they get finished with this lot, provided that no more Death Eaters show up, they'll go back on their own."
"Ah, good, that's good," Ron mumbled, not really understanding, and not sure he wanted to either.
It happened so fast. And as fast and as good as Harry had become, he could still be surprised.
"Potter!" a Death Eater had gotten away from the pack of Hunter Dragons, though not without cost seeing how torn up he was. Harry spun around, a spell pattern forming in his mind, but too slow and too disorganized to truly form. "Sectumsempra!"
A jet of purple light shot out, aimed right at Harry's heart. Of course it would be simple to either block or dodge the spell. For him that is.
"Harry!" Ginny yelled and tackled him to the ground before he could do anything about it. This action, unfortunately, only succeeded in putting her into the path of the spell at the exact moment it hit.
"GINNY!" he screamed, catching her as she fell, and witnessed as blood spurted from her nose, mouth, and even her ears and eyes.
Everything froze in that moment, the air stopped, the fighting and killing stopped, and the magic stopped, seeming to gasp in shock at this event. Then it rushed forward at an adrenaline pace all at once.
Harry's eyes squinted shut, tearing up before snapping open, blazing with emerald green light. He released a primal scream as a wave of pure force atomized the Death Eater, and then went on to do the same to nearly everything behind the destroyed wizard, even buildings, plants, other Death Eaters, until it hit the wards, and they fell instantly as it exploded and caused massive property damage. The Hunter Dragons, seeing that even though there was still prey left, it was no longer a good idea to stick around, all left at once.
His rage spent, Harry focused his remaining energies and power on saving his girlfriend's life, and immediately teleported himself, her and the others back to Grimmauld Place, where began the fight for Ginny Weasley's life.