A/N: New chappie's up, folks! This one'll be a doozy. It will contain Harry's Animagus transformation and him finding his familiar, which'll be a pretty cool-ass invention of mine. Hey, don't look at me like that, I have my moments of brilliant creativity once in a while. Here's the reviewer replies.
NarutoXYugitoFTW- Haven't you heard? Cliches make the world go 'round, buddy. My Harry ain't a teacher for shit. He's just a badass motherfucking warlock with the destructive spells on deck. There's gonna be a battle against diary-Voldemort in a few chapters, and I hope it's pretty good. Anyway, thanks for the review.
HP-DG-SB- Low-key, I'm starting to look forward to your reviews right now. I wasn't sure anyone would get that high-time thing, but you came through and got that shit. That Harry-losing-his-virginity-to-Lauren thing was a shout-out to jbern's Bungle in the Jungle. If you haven't read it, you haven't read fanfiction. In regards to your question about explicit material, I'm sorry if I disappoint when I say that this won't contain any lemons, limes, or any citrus fruit. It's not that I don't look down on that kind of thing. It's just that I suck at writing lemons. I might have a pretty good grasp on regular prose, but when it comes to sex, it's too hard for me to put that incredible feeling into written words, y'know? Gracias for catching my mistake. I'm only human, you understand, and I've made enough mistakes to fill an encyclopedia set, from A to Z and back again. Here's the next 'brilliant chapter' you so kindly referred to. I hope I don't disappoint.
Naginator- Thanks for the support, pal. Check out the next one.
Palurien- The reason I changed the dates is a simple one: I don't have the reference from the 1980's so I just changed it to a time that I know. I'm a '91 baby, so I know the nineties best, and that's where I'm going.
I hate the Japanese: I gave Harry a katana 'cause it's just so…well…Harry. It's not a super-impressive person physically, but he puts in work where it's needed. That's just the impression I got, anyway, and since I've already started down that road, I don't see any reason not to keep going.
Anyway, on with the fic!
Disclaimer: Still don't own shit.
Chapter 4: The Worg, the Wizard, and the Metadrake
24 August, 2002
Lakota Sioux Reservation, South Dakota, United States of America
Why did I do this? Harry asked himself. He was immensely uncomfortable, as he should be. He was experiencing what the locals called the Descent. The Boy-Who-Lived was having his consciousness stripped from control of his body bit by bit. His humanity was giving way to animality, and his primal instincts became first and foremost.
He felt hunger as he'd never felt it before, like a mad beast was clawing away at him from within his stomach. He needed water so badly his mouth felt like it was on fire. A bowl of the clear, life-sustaining liquid was offered to him. Harry crawled over to it and began quaffing water like his life depended on it.
"Look at that, Thundercloud!" one of the men muttered. "Your white kid's going fast!" Harry couldn't make heads or tails of the noises he was making with his mouth. One of the other ritualees tried moving toward your water bowl in an attempt to quench his own thirst.
A feral growl erupted from between his lips, and he pushed the wizard away. The poor man whimpered and backed away quickly.
"Ooh, that's gonna hurt later," chuckled another man. "Look, his nails are growing. Muzzle's coming through, too. What do you think? Canine, feline, ursine? Maybe we should collar him." He felt a thick scaly collar clamp shut loosely around his throat, and millions of tiny pinpricks itched at his skin. Muscles he never knew he had started bulging and hardening into adamant cords rippling underneath his flesh. "Get the gauntlets, too. This one's gonna be big."
"Move him outside, doesn't look like he's gonna stop growing anytime soon." Harry felt a tug at the collar, which didn't seem so loose anymore. "Definitely canine, look at his snout. Great Spirit, he's going to outgrow the collar, get it off him!"
The tightening noose of the collar was suddenly gone, and he felt the changes stop. The smell of meat was close; raw, delicious meat, layered with the iron tang of blood.
Harry's consciousness was holding on by a miniscule thread, and he heard Thundercloud's voice cut through the fog in his mind. "Species lupus maximus, or as we call them, worgs. He's a worg."
"Are you sure?" a voice asked. "Worgs are magical creatures, Thundercloud. Magical creature Animagi are only myth."
"Obviously not," Thundercloud said, and the last coherent thought Harry had was that he was no longer Harry. He was the Worg.
The Worg raced through the wild lands of the reservation. The hearing was incredible, he could pinpoint a tiny rodent five miles to his immediate right. His eyesight even better, and even in the darkness of the moonless night, he could make out the tiniest wood louse crawling through the tree directly ahead of him three miles away, at the beginning of the forest.
But it was his sense of smell that was his greatest asset. Within the forest, he could make out a small creek about three hundred yards past the tree line, where a herd of deer were slaking their gullets. The enticing aroma drew the Worg like a lodestone to a magnet.
Racing forward on almost silent paws, he flitted through the trees faster than any non-magical beast could ever move. He heard the thudding hearts of the herd immediately after racing into the forest, and his eyes picked them out easily a moment later.
Green irises that wrapped around the entire eye of the Worg focused around the wide pupil onto the largest deer present, a stag nearly twenty hands high, and with a rack any hunter would drool over. Mine, the Worg thought.
So concentrated was the Worg on the hunt that he failed to notice the cougar who was hunting the same herd, and had targeted the same buck.
The Worg surged forward, leaping over the stream easily and landing on the stag's body. The great horned beast's back buckled under the sheer weight of the Worg, and the iron teeth clamped down on the stag's neck, instantly snuffing out the fire of its life.
Before he could take one morsel of his kill, however, he heard a coughing growl, and turned to face a fully-grown mountain lion, raking the air between them in anger and defiance, lips pulled taut to reveal gleaming fangs.
The Worg was surprised at how small the obviously full-grown cat was compared to him. Why, the foolish creature, standing only to his chest, believed that it could best the Worg. How pitifully hilarious.
The puma struck like a rattlesnake, but the preternatural reflexes of the Worg kicked in, and he dodged to the side, raking his own claws across the cougar's ribs and was satisfied by a horrendous ripping sound, followed by two sharp cracks.
Feline and Canine circled each other, blood dripping from the cougar's left side. It screamed in rage and pounced again, and the Worg met it's charge head on. The larger creature easily overpowered the cougar, and the enormous jaws settled around the cougar's neck.
Before he could snap the mountain lion's spinal chord, however, he felt a strange sensation pulse through the cat's body, and then it was gone. Leaping back in bewilderment, the Worg made out the shape of a rattlesnake rearing up from where he'd been moments ago, the snake's tail shivering in anticipation of the strike.
Get away from my hunting grounds, worg, came a voice in the Worg's head, and the single remaining thread of human consciousness perked up curiously. He swung his head around, searching for the source of the voice, but found no human in sight.
The human part of the Worg's brain struggled to gain a foothold in the ruling consciousness, and suddenly, Harry was able to think while simultaneously feeling what the Worg was feeling and sensing.
Tentatively, Harry thought, Where are you? The rattlesnake wove around in the air, shaking its tail even harder, making the rattling sound louder.
It is I, the great and mighty metadrake! the voice said again, and the snake's body shuddered and changed into a massive grizzly bear. Fear me!
Listen, pal, Harry sent back. I don't need this right now. I've barely managed to transform into my Animagus form and I was just about to eat. Give me a fucking break, okay? The grizzly roared angrily and charged forward. Guess that's a no, then.
The bear swiped at him with one of its huge paws, but the Worg dodged to the left, ramming his shoulder into the bear's already bleeding ribs. It seemed that the transformation of the metadrake was similar to the Animagus transformation in the fact that neither had a healing factor.
The Worg loosed a yelp when another paw swung down and struck him at the base of his skull like a sledgehammer. The two of them backed off and began circling, each now wary of their opponent. They rushed forward again, the grizzly taking a straightforward charge, while the Worg made a zigzagging pattern. They crashed into each other with an earsplitting crack, and the Worg felt a searing pain in his chest. Harry deduced from the pain that he'd probably broken a clavicle, and maybe even cracked his sternum.
But pain didn't dissuade the animal in him, and the Worg leapt upward onto the bear's back and sank his teeth into the back of the grizzly's neck, but even so, the Worg's teeth weren't long enough to punch through the thick fur and even thicker skin of the bear, and only succeeded in bringing it to the ground.
The Worg still saw shallow breathing, and knew the grizzly was only unconscious. Suddenly, a shiver went down its body and became a miniscule, slightly serpentine dragon. It had a horn between its nostrils, and spikes running down its back to the sharp, curved blade at the end of its tail. Two sharp, blade-like protrusions jutted out from its elbows, and it was forest green in color.
Harry's consciousness shone through suddenly, and he realized what an amazing familiar this creature would make. He picked it up gently with his teeth by the tip of its wing and swung it around to the thick mane of fur that ringed his neck. The various spikes and claws made sure that the small dragon was tangled up into it.
Then, the Worg glanced at the stag and licked his lips, an all-too human gesture. Before he made it to the dead animal, however, he felt an annoying sting in his hindquarters.
Looking up, the Worg saw a group of humans flying on puny sticks. The homo sapiens looked and smelled so delicious, but they were pointing even smaller pieces of wood at him, which was causing the irritating sting.
He howled his protestation at them, and they rose higher. He heard them make noises, but couldn't understand them.
"Worgs...magical resistance...switch...Blasting Curses..." The stinging stops, and he decided to go back to his kill. That is, until fiery concussions began erupting all around him. The lights, sounds, and pressure on his eardrums forced him away from the dead stag, and the Worg saw the carcass of the deer floating into the air.
The humans were trying to steal his meat. That was his meat, not theirs. He screamed in utter fury and his back legs fired once again, sending him sailing into the air while making sure that the little metadrake was still knotted up in his fur. They weren't getting his food without a fight, the bastards!
"Full-Body Bind, on three!" A sudden, enormous flash of light struck the Worg directly in the chest mid-leap, and he froze. Powerful muscles were rendered useless, and he fell back to the floor.
Voices started swirling around him, and he tried to make sense of them. A particularly familiar sound reached his perceptive ears and he concentrated on that.
"C'mon, Harry, come on back," it was saying. Images popped into the Worg's head, of a man with dark hair and a handsome face, of a jet-black dog almost as large as he was himself. "Do you know who I am? Focus on my voice."
The Worg set all of his rudimentary intelligence to the task of doing as the voice said, and slowly, he began to make more sense of the noises.
"Good, he's coming back. How many fingers am I holding up? Blink once for each finger." Emerald orbs focused on the small but dexterous digits and blinked four times. Wait, did the thumb count? He blinked again. "Oh, shit, messed up with the thumb again. That's my bad, everyone."
The familiar voice came back. "Listen to me. Try to remember your name. How old are you? What was the first spell you ever cast? Come on, Harry, come back to us."
Spells? The Worg blinked as memories flooded his mind, of a strange, black and green wooden gun, of countless hours laughing and struggling and training. Flashes of light, puffs of smoke, transmutative discharge.
No, he wasn't the Worg. He was Harry bloody Potter, and he was a Worg Animage!
He stood up, wondering when he'd made the switch from worg to human, and felt something slide off his back. Amazing reflexes allowed him to catch the small dragon before it hit the ground. It was a little worse for wear, with four jagged cuts along its side and a large bite mark on the back of its neck, but it was still breathing.
"Can you help it?" he asked to Thundercloud, holding the small dragon. "I sorta invaded on its hunting grounds and had to mess it up. I thought it might make a good familiar, so I put it in the fur of my mane."
"You thought?" Thundercloud asked in a bemused voice. "While you were still in your animal form?"
"Uh, yeah, is that bad?"
"By all means, no!" Thundercloud exclaimed, a smile tinging his face. "This makes my job much easier. You were able to think as a human while still in your alternate form. This means that you have already taken your first step toward clarity, which is a balance between your two selves."
He turned back to the small dragon in Harry's hands. "This is a metadrake, I believe." He took the magical creature from Harry and inspected its wounds. "A few lacerations, some puncture wounds, several broken ribs. I think I can help him."
Over the next month, Harry was taught meditation by Thundercloud. The old wizard had told him beforehand that it was used to commune with his inner animal and achieve what the Native American called 'clarity.'
"You must realize, Harry, that you are no longer simply human, nor are you entirely animal. An Animage is an amalgamation of the two, and to attain clarity, you must find middle ground. Simply put, you have a human form and an animal form. The totem you have made will help the animal traits cross over into your human form, and likewise your human mind into your animal form."
Harry remembered making the totem with his magic, some shinboku, the remains of his first kill, and his own blood and vomit. It wasn't the most disgusting thing he'd ever done, but it was pretty close.
During that month, Harry and the Worg learned that they were two entities living within the same being, and by working together, they accomplished much more than they did individually. Harry's magical prowess and higher thought-process, combined with the Worg's excellent instincts, supernatural strength and speed, and his incredible senses, came together to create a formidable opponent indeed.
Harry also managed to convince the metadrake to travel with him and become his familiar. It took a lot of arguing and a few demonstrations of his ability, but by the end of the first week of their acquaintance, Harry and the aptly-named Morpheus had become friends and familiars.
"So what's the extent of your powers?" Harry asked Morpheus one day while Harry was supposed to be meditating.
Well, as you know, I can communicate telepathically, said Morpheus. He was rubbing his claws against his scales, using his tough natural armor as a whetstone to sharpen them. And I can change into any animal, magical or nonmagical, that I have absorbed.
"What do you mean by 'absorbed,' exactly?"
I need to come in contact with the creature in question. Then I focus on the shape and capabilities of the animal, and absorb their DNA through my aquiring glands. He turned his paw up and Harry saw five little suction-cup-like growths at the tip of each of his digits, just below the claw.
"I think I chose right when I picked you as a familiar, then," Harry said, grinning.
Well of course you did, Morpheus replied, scoffing. I have the capability of becoming any animal I like, and not to mention I'm a right looker in my own form.
When Harry and Sirius revealed the prophecy to Thundercloud, the old Indian decided to teach Harry to become an Elemage as well.
"What is an Elemage?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"An Elemage is a wizard with the ability to control a various aspect of nature, an element, if you will. All magical humans, and some non-magical humans, are able to become Elemagi. Each individual has a distinct magical fingerprint, you know this already. But a few have one of seventeen power signatures, which is the type of Elemage that they have the capacity to become. It is this fact that the form of magic called Wicca is based upon."
"How would one figure out which power signature they have?" querried Harry. He was intrigued by this form of magic. In response, Thundercloud opened a drawer in his desk and retrieved a piece of transparent paper and handed it to Harry.
The moment he took it in his hands, it lit up with an intense light, and Harry had to shield his eyes. When he looked back at it, the paper had turned a dark gray shot with streaks of pure white, with the words Harry James Potter written in a sharp cursive script he immediately recognized as his own. Bewildered, he turned to Thundercloud in askance.
"That paper is what is known as a signature page. It's a magically charged piece of hemp paper that perceives magical presence through your skin and takes your fingerprint, if you will. Yours turned gray, so this means that you are an Aeromage. The white streaks, though, are a mystery to me."
"Which means...?"
"Which means that you are destined to be a master of the winds. Luckily, I happen to be an accomplished Aeromage myself, and we won't have to send you to someone else to furthur your education in Elemagery. I will, however, contact one of my friends who happens to be an expert on the subject to see if he knows anything about the white on your signature paper."
The elemental magicks took Harry over six months to gain a mastery over, but by then, he and his animal spirit were much more in tune with one another. At the end of his tutelage under Thundercloud, Harry had become a very powerful Animagus, an accomplished Aeromage, and was no longer a virgin. All in all, this was one of the better stops with Sirius.
Meanwhile, Thundercloud's Elemage-expert had reported that the white in his signature paper revealed nothing less than that he was one of the rare magicians who had a dual power signature, and the color meant that he was an even rarer Illumage, a controller of light. Unfortunately, at the moment there were no other living Illumagi to teach Harry the ways of the Light Mages.
On the last day they were staying with Thundercloud and his family, he woke up with a massive headache, primarily due to the backhanded slap he received just moments before.
"Wake up, Potter!" a harsh voice growled, and Harry was suddenly afraid. He would know that voice anywhere.
Even half-asleep and disoriented, Harry contorted his hands into a distinct hand sign and was gone in a puff of smoke. He reappeared behind his attacker, and was shocked when he found not one, but four people in his room. Morpheus was curled up on the dresser, sleeping through everything.
"Niwa-san! Scotty! Teacher!" Harry exclaimed as they turned around, revealing Sarutobi Niwa, Scotty the swordcrafter, and Nicolas Flamel all smiling back at him. Sirius was standing there with them. "What are you all doing here?"
"Well," Sirius said, "after Thundercloud said that you were finished with your animal and element magic studies, I decided that you needed a pop quiz. I've brought all of your instructors together, and we're all going to fight you to see how well you can combine your training and be the best that you can be."
"So, let me get this straight," Harry said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I, a thirteen-year-old, am supposed to fight against a master swordsman, an elite shinobi, the greatest alchemist to ever live, and a seriously experienced Animagus and Aeromage. That about right?"
"Not to mention the number two duelist in the world," Sirius said, grinning. Harry groaned. "Hey, don't give me that. You have a more potent magical core than any one of us, and you are destined to kill the most evil wizard of our time. It's about time we started training more seriously."
So Harry was instructed to suit up for a battle and head outside. He was wearing a full set of Chinese God armor, complete with gauntlets and sabatons, along with his wandgun and Punitor. Sirius, Scotty, and Thundercloud had their own swords and wands at the ready with dragonhide armor as well. Nicolas stood wearing the same extravagant robes he'd had on the first time Harry had met him, and Sarutobi was attired in the traditional ninja gear, including the split-toe tabi and concealing hood and mask.
"Now remember, Harry," Nicolas said in his surprisingly strong voice. "We will not be pulling punches. All five of your teachers will be attacking you with the intention of killing you, so you must respond likewise."
"Aye," Scotty agreed. "This'll be a slobberknocker t' say the least, Harry."
"You ready?" Sirius asked, and Harry smirked, unsheathing Punitor and readying his wandgun with practiced ease.
"Just see if you old geezers can keep up," Harry answered.
Without preamble, Sarutobi engaged Harry by hurling some throwing stars at him. Harry Banished them and charged forward while keeping an eye on the other four. Thundercloud instantly transformed into a bald eagle, taking to the skies and circling around. Sirius and Scotty rushed in behind Sarutobi, while Nicolas began carving an intricate transmutation circle into the earth with his wand.
Conjuring up a whirlwind to dissuade Thundercloud, Harry lashed out with a flurry of blows that forced Scotty to go on the defensive with his massive Wallace sword. Sirius took the opportunity to try a sneak attack from behind and shot a Bone Breaker. Luckily, Harry's limited precognitive powers alerted him to the curse, and he leapt aside.
"Watch where yer aimin,' dog!" Scotty yelped, dodging the curse as well. Harry swung Punitor in Thundercloud's general direction and cast one of the sword-exclusive spells, the Wind Scar. The blade, infused with Harry's magic, cut the very atmosphere, creating a razor-sharp vacuum that disturbed the air around it.
The Scar sailed upward, creating miniature tornadoes as it went. Thundercloud winged away and managed to dodge the spell, but was caught up in one of the eddies and flung to the ground, where he immediately changed back to human and began casting heavy-hitters, including lethal Cutters and wide-area Bludgeoners, forcing Harry to dodge and shield.
During all this, Nicolas completed the transmutation circle and was standing in the middle of it. Harry glanced over at him just in time to see the centuries-old alchemist drive his walking stick into the center of the circle, activating it.
The ground beneath Harry molded around his legs as it rose, slowly transforming into a fist as it enveloped his body. When it was completely formed, Harry was up to his neck in a beautifully-crafted clawed fist with an attention to detail that Michelangelo would envy, and if Flamel's stories were to be believed, the maestro actually learned the craft from Nicolas.
Sarutobi, Thundercloud, Sirius, and Scotty all surged forward, and Nicolas drew a wand from within his cane.
Five separate spells blasted from wands and blades, all aimed at Harry, who was completely helpless. Or so they thought.
Harry delved within himself and found the Worg's slumbering magic. He roused the creature, and it pulsed outward, black hair becoming coarse fur, fingernails becoming claws, teeth becoming fangs. The alchemical prison cracked and split beneath the Worg's enormous strength, and suddenly, Harry was free.
He jumped directly upward, and the magical blasts smashed together, creating an explosive conflagration, as well as an effective smokescreen.
After humanizing, Harry started conjuring and transfiguring like crazy. It expended a massive amount of magic, but being Voldemort's equal, he had enough of that to spare.
Sirius stared at the cloud of smoke, then turned to Thundercloud. "Think we overdid it a bit?" he asked, jerking his thumb at the blast.
"Not enough, I think," Thundercloud replied. Sirius looked back and saw a veritable army of conjured animals, chains, claws, and other assorted nastiness. And leading the phalanx was an enormous, jet-black worg with eyes the color of emeralds.
"The boy's core has grown much since the last time I fought him," Sarutobi remarked as he unshrunk a sickle from a pouch at his belt. "Ninpou: Kamaitachi!" With a swing of the sickle, a scything blast of wind ripped across the battlefield, cutting down two grizzly bears and a transfigured claw.
Harry wove through the spells and ninjutsu, leapt over the swordspells and the alchemic spikes that jutted suddenly from the earth until he was within striking range, thinking the whole time. He needed to take out the heavy hitters first, which meant that Flamel and Thundercloud needed to be put out of commision for the time being.
Coming up with a plan on the fly, Harry raced past the other four adults and straight for Nicolas, allowing his army of conjurations to run rampant and create a diversion.
Harry transformed running, Punitor and his wand already in hand, and rushed toward the infinitely older man. Knowing how cunning the man was, he steeled himself for any traps imaginable. Casting Levitation and Propulsion charms on his boots, he flew over any ground-based surprises Flamel had cooked up.
Nicolas smiled, saying, "So you remember last time, do you? Well, I've come up with several new things since then. For example," he tapped his cane in the transmutation circle, and a runic mine burst upward from the ground, right in Harry's path. Punitor took it out, and the Propulsion shot him forward before the shockwave could do any harm.
"No dice, Teacher. How about this?" Thundercloud had taught Harry well in the arts of the Aeromage, and he used this to his full advantage. Elemagery requires no focus, like magic needs a wand, or ninjutsu needs hand signs. Only the determination and power to bend the elements to your will.
A horizontal whirlwind shot from Harry's outstretched hand, and Flamel had to raise a solid wall of rock to weather the blast. While he was otherwise occupied, Harry redrew a few symbols on the transmutation circle and broke the outer line, then leapt back, waiting.
"You hesitated, Harry," Nicolas said. "That was your mistake." He tapped the cane again, and alchemical discharge burst from the circle. Flamel's eyes swept the circle and alighted on the redrawn runes and the incomplete circle. "Ahhh...I see," he said, before the circle exploded. Harry tossed a rope spell at the old wizard's body, trussing up his hands first, then the rest of his form. An alchemist is only as good as his hands allow him to be.
"Keep your eyes on all your targets, disciple!" he heard Sarutobi yell. Harry sighed. He'd hoped that the conjurations would've kept them at bay longer. Harry dodged and blocked a series of punches and kicks, while getting nearly leveled by a few in the process, and managed to land a palm strike to Sarutobi's chest, pushing him back enough to level his wand and land the Incarceration spellchain: a Knockback jinx, followed by the Stunning charm, and finishing with a Rope Binding charm. Niwa was roped up and finished off before he even knew what had happened.
"My thoughts exactly," Harry told Sarutobi's unconscious form. Then his precognition alerted him to danger, and he dodged to the side, just barely avoiding a low, sweeping Cutter. "Bad form, Sirius!"
"What'd you expect from an ex-con?" replied his godfather, sending Bone Shattering curses and conjured chains at him.
"Y'know, I'm not that little eleven-year-old you hit with the diarrhea jinx," Harry said, using an offensive shield charm exclusive to sword-magic to cut through the Bone Shatterer and sent a gust of wind to blow the chains back at Sirius. "And I still haven't gotten you back for that, either."
The two wizards traded spellfire for a while before Thundercloud and Scotty joined in after finishing off the last of Harry's conjurations. Then Harry was put on the defensive, raising solid shields and parrying curses and hexes while struggling to hold the shields and bringing up more when the old ones crumbled and buckled.
"Just give up, Harry!" he heard Scotty shout. "We won' hold it against yeh, y'know!" Harry growled, gritting his teeth as he dug deep. His magical reserves were running on empty, but he pulled out the required power and shouted the incantation, just to let them know what they were now up against.
"Golem Mobilis!"
The earthen shields merged together with more of the ground and took on a roughly humanoid shape with massive, sledgehammer arms and thick, sturdy legs. When the golem was fully formed, Harry sent another couple bursts of transfigurative magic and the hard, rocky skin became smooth and shiny as a large, blunt form began taking shape in its three-fingered hand. After all of Harry's magicks were done, a twenty-foot-tall, titanium golem towered over the remaining three men, a massive steel club held firmly in its grasp.
"Sick 'em, boy!" Harry shouted, and the golem lumbered forward, clinking and clanking as it went. Sirius and Thundercloud hurled Blasting curses at the thing, but the reflective surface of the metal absorbed or reflected most of it, and left the golem relatively unharmed.
While they were busy with his conjured construct, Harry started weaving the most complex spell he knew. Even with the various runes carved into his wandgun, there were still wand movements involved, along with a massive power drain that went with this particular spell.
Sirius wiped his brow, which was growing slick with perspiration. Harry must have combined the steel golem with a reflective shield somehow, because he was dodging his own Blasting and Explosion curses more often than the golem was taking damage. Thundercloud was likewise beginning to tire. Scotty must've been as well, since he was taking the golem head on with his massive claymore, and no matter how strong or big that man was, the golem was more powerful by miles.
"Let's combine our attacks," Sirius told the other two men. "Thundercloud, Explosion curses at the hip, and Scotty, use the Steel-Piercing Fang at the same place. We'll see just how strong Harry's golem really is."
Thundercloud and Sirius charged up their spell as Scotty moved backward, the claymore glowing with pent-up energy. They unleashed their attacks simultaneously, but the Tetsusaiga, the Steel-Piercing Fang, reached the golem first, cutting deep into its metallic skin. The combined Exploding Curses slammed into the deep rent created by the swordmagic and cracked the golem open. Its torso hung onto the legs by a thin piece of metal the size and width of a door-hinge, and Scotty severed that easily with the claymore.
"Good work, mates," Sirius said with a grin. That grin was still on his face when the infamous Vox Verbero smacked him upside the head, followed quickly by Thundercloud and Scotty. Harry stood panting as he dispelled the Power Whip, a concentrated stream of energy held in the form of a whip with more offensive potential than nearly any other spell in existence.
Feeling wiped out, but completely energized at the same time, he straigtened from his dueling stance and cast five Reviving charms and a couple weak Severing charms to free Flamel and Sarutobi.
"So, did I pass?" Harry asked when they were all coherent enough to stand up. Flamel and Thundercloud looked infinitely pleased, Scotty and Sarutobi were contemplative, and Sirius was pouting. Thundercloud was the first to speak.
"If you continue growing in magical and physical prowess at the same rate you are, your Dark Lord will have to be prepared to lose, young man." Harry blushed at the praise as his other teachers continued complimenting him, even Sarutobi, who was notoriously hard to get praise from. Sirius remained pouting.
Finally, Harry had to ask. "What's got your knickers in a twist, Padfoot?"
Sirius glared at him, but there was mirth in his eyes as he said, "Now that you've beaten me, I can't hold bragging rights over you anymore, pup." He cocked his head to the side, like the idiot dog he was and said, "Y'know, I can't be calling you pup anymore, either. We need to get you a Marauder nickname."
He furrowed his brow and thought about it for a while. Then, he raised his finger with a grin and said in a pompously rich accent, "From this day hence, Harry James Potter, thou shalt be known as Jetpelt, whether you like it or not."
Harry grinned, ignoring Sarutobi, who was now pointing out what he could have done better during the fight. After besting all of his former teachers, he now felt that he actually had a fighting chance against that sheep-shagging wanker, Voldemort.
A/N: Okay, so that's the end of that chapter. I was looking through an old Dungeons & Dragons monster book I had gathering dust and was looking through it when I saw the perfect Animagus form for Harry, especially considering the canine nature of Sirius' form and Lupin's 'furry little problem.' I'll go more into detail with Morpheus's powers and the Elemagery. Trust, it won't just be Harry with that kind of power. Well, I've got to run, my court date's set for today, and if I don't want to be thrown in jail, I should probably get going. Later days, assuming I make it through the trail without saying or doing something stupid.