Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own anything, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, JK Rowling is the coolest, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately.
Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar
Harry sat back, frowning. There were other preparations he would have liked to make—though he would have preferred not to have to make them in the first place—but the demon had just set off the nearest caterwauling charm, and Harry was out of time. What he had would simply have to be enough.
Harry's ambush was set up just after a narrow blind corner in the trail, surrounded by large boulders (likely migrated somehow from the nearby Appalachian mountains) covered in some sort of moss. The trail, though, was still simple dirt, and so Harry had blasted a pit into the ground, about five feet deep. He had used cutting hexes to trim about a dozen branches into sharpened stakes, and lined the bottom of the pit with them. The pit was covered by a large dirt-covered steel plate (which he had transfigured from a leaf), onto which he had kicked enough dirt to conceal its presence.
Hearing the beast just around the corner, Harry stepped off the path, and waited, not daring even to breathe, as the demon stepped into the dim moonlight. He barely managed to stifle his gasp of horror at what he saw. The demon's eyes were ablaze with fury and hatred, and he felt its malevolent gaze burn into his own fearfully-widened eyes.
The demon moved forward slowly and deliberately, shaking the ground with each step. Then, with a pair of ringing clangs, the huge hooves hit the steel plate. This was the moment Harry had been waiting for.
"Finite," Harry whispered, pointing his wand at the steel plate, which promptly turned back into a small leaf. However, the beast had already moved past the plate-covered pit—Harry had missed his chance! Time for plan B.
Harry stood defiantly before the huge demon and pointed his ebony wand directly between the beast's fiery eyes, enduring its scream of impending triumph. Dredging up every good memory he had, thinking back to Sirius and Remus and the feelings they brought, of home, happiness, family, love...
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry bellowed. His wand arm bucked with recoil, as though he had just fired a shotgun one-handed, and a massive, glowing silver stag slammed into the demon's chest, expending all of its energy in a flash of silver and a concussion that shook leaves from the trees.
The creature let out a "whuff" of surprise as it was pushed backwards, and then it tumbled into the now-open pit, impaling itself on the sharpened stakes. Its piercing shriek of pain and rage, though, let Harry know that it was not quite finished. Looking down at the beast, he could see that its arms, legs, and wings were impaled by the stakes; however, having such a long and flexible neck, it would still be able to bite him with its fangs (Harry didn't bother to stop and wonder why a ram-headed creature had fangs; of course it had fangs, because it just wouldn't be horrible enough without them).
"Incarcerous," Harry incanted, watching as the monster was completely immobilized—and, thankfully, gagged—by thick ropes. Just to be certain that it could not rip through the ropes, he also cast a quick petrificus totalis before vanishing the stakes. Harry lowered himself into the pit with another conjured rope tied around a tree, holstered his wand and drew the long, cold iron dagger. He looked the brute in the eyes, which still glowed, promising vengeance, before slamming the blade into the demon's chest. Seconds later, the beast's eyes faded to featureless black orbs, and Harry knew that it was finally dead.
"Huh," he said aloud. "Now what?" Usually his misadventures ended with him waking up at the hospital wing, with Madam Pomfrey force-feeding him potions. Now, though, he still had to make his way out of the woods before he could apparate back to the inn. It almost felt anticlimactic, he thought—though perhaps that was the hallmark of a successful ambush. No long, drawn-out battle, just a few cheap shots and a dead monster. Frowning at the thought, he transfigured the dead demon into a large bone (deciding that perhaps the researchers at the Franklin Institute might want to study it), and cast a scourgify to clean the black, syrupy blood off of the dagger and his hands.
"Might as well get going," he muttered, and set off down the trail. Five extremely uneventful hours later, the sun rose upon a dirty, sweaty, exhausted Harry Potter stumbling out of the woods, feeling suddenly lighter as the oppressive weight of the forest's magic lifted off of him. Without a second thought, save for an overwhelming senses of relief, he apparated back to his room at the inn, and didn't even make it to the bed before pitching over and passing out.
"Ow!" Harry yelped, rubbing the back of his head. "What the hell, Hedwig?"
His owl looked at him sternly, then raised a wing to point roughly at the alarm clock, which showed 9 AM, July 3rd. He had slept for more than an entire day.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm up," he muttered, dragging himself to his feet and staggering to the shower. He emerged at just about 10 AM, finally feeling clean now that he had scrubbed every bit of his skin several times.
Harry considered for a moment the events of the weekend, and decided to write to Healer Hopkins for advice on who—if anyone—at the Franklin Institute might be interested in hearing about his encounter with a monster in the Pine Barrens. "Hedwig, I'll have a letter for you as soon as I'm done eating everything I can get my hands on," he said, not really exaggerating; he was unbelievably hungry, as he had not eaten for over 36 hours, and had spend a not insignificant portion of that time running from and battling an unholy abomination.
Edward Hopkins was an accomplished man, and one of the most well-known of the researchers at the Franklin Institute. Like many in his family, he had an eye toward improving life, and therefore had focused much of his research on the healing arts, even taking the time to receive a medical degree from the prestigious university that bore his famous ancestor's name. Therefore, it was no surprise that he received a great deal of correspondence from colleagues and researchers around the globe, and, after decades of consulting on a wide variety of cases, considered himself somewhat desensitized to shock. He was taken aback, though, by the content of a short missive from a child he vaguely recalled meeting the previous week; so much so that he interrupted his lunch and fire-called perhaps the one researcher at the Institute more well-known, and with a more famous family name, than himself. Moments later, a tall, powerfully-built man with a square jaw, black hair, and gray eyes stepped through the fire into Edward's home.
"Good afternoon, Jacob," Edward said, shaking the man's hand. Jacob Crane was, like his great-great-grandfather Ichabod, a monster-hunter, and his experience had already added several chapters to the next edition of On Combating the Darker Forces of this Earth and Beyond. He was considered an expert in all matters related to dark creatures and magical combat, and had been extremely interested in what Edward had mentioned in the short fire-call.
"Thanks for the call, Ed," Crane said. "Do you think it might be true?"
"Maybe," Hopkins allowed. "I recall that the boy was British—it's likely he hasn't heard of the Jersey Devil, so he wouldn't think to try to make some sort of hoax centered around it. Here, take a look at the letter."
Dear Healer Hopkins,
I don't know if you recall, but you spoke to me several days ago at the Franklin Institute about some interesting fields of magic and courses of study I might undertake in my spare time, and prescribed me some nutrient potions to correct malnourishment. Anyway, I went on a camping trip to the Pine Barrens on Friday, and encountered some sort of demon in the forest which might need to be brought to the attention of the authorities or, at least, someone in the field of dark creatures. Would you, or anyone you know of at the Institute, be interested in hearing my account of the encounter? If so, please send a reply with my owl. I will be departing the city on the 5th of July, so—in light of the holiday tomorrow—today would be the best opportunity to discuss what happened.
Regards,
Harry Potter
Crane let out a low whistle. "This could be the real deal, you know," he said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. "Maybe this kid saw something that will show us how to kill those damn things."
Thirty minutes and two more owl messages later, the two men were knocking on the door to Harry's room at the Alexander Inn, and were promptly ushered inside by a pale, dark-haired teenager. The three wizards stood in an awkward silence, until Hopkins broke the ice.
"It looks like those nutrient potions are working well for you," he observed. "Seems like you've grown at least three or four inches, and put on about ten pounds. Have you noticed an increase in appetite?"
Harry smiled gratefully, and blushed slightly at the attention. "Yes sir, and thank you very much for telling me the potions I need to take. Now that I've had time to think about this weekend, I think they also helped my stamina, which probably saved my life on Friday night."
This statement snapped Crane's attention back to the boy, which reminded Hopkins that he had brought Crane along.
"This is Jacob Crane, an expert in dark creatures," he said.
Recognition flashed in Harry's eyes. "I've been reading your family's text on fighting dark creatures," he said.
This was a new wrinkle, Crane thought. Depending on the edition, it was indeed possible that the young man had in fact heard of the Jersey Devil.
"What edition have you been reading, and how far in have you gotten?" he asked casually.
"The 1988 edition, and I'm halfway through the twelfth chapter," Harry replied.
Crane cocked an eyebrow and shared a significant look with Hopkins. The 1988 edition was the most recent edition of the text, and both men were aware that the section on demons and devils began in the thirteenth chapter.
"Open it up to chapter thirteen," Crane instructed. "And skim through to where it mentions the northeastern United States." He watched the boy's eyes scan across the page, and suddenly go wide.
"This is what I saw," Harry whispered, his face even more pale. "It was terrible."
Harry recounted his tale. When he reached his reasoning about the patronus, Crane was skeptical.
"You can cast a corporeal patronus?"
In answer, a glowing silver stag cantered around the room before dissolving into glittering motes of light, quashing any further doubt. As the argent light faded, Harry continued his tale through to the end, leaving both older men in shocked silence. Finally, Ed Hopkins found his voice, and asked for the bone. Harry drew it from his pocket tossed it to him.
"You should step back before dispelling the transfiguration," Harry warned. "It's at least eight feet tall, and its wingspan is twice that."
A flick of Crane's wand proved the truth of Harry's claim, as the demon's corpse—in all its slightly-blurry malevolence—took up all of the available space in the room. As Hopkins blanched, Crane transfigured it back into a bone and sat down heavily.
"Harry, would it be possible for you to come to the Institute and give us a copy of your memory of the fight with this devil? We could leave now, and it would only take a few minutes."
Harry agreed, and, after a brief explanation of the function of a pensive, went to Crane's office at the Institute and provided the memory of the fight. The three then experienced the memory (Harry, of course, for the second time), which Harry narrated. Afterward, it was nearing dinnertime, so they adjourned to the Institute's cafeteria and continued their discussion over steaks and butterbeer.
"Harry," Crane said "I can't overstate how much your efforts will help us understand how better to hunt these beasts down. With your permission, I'd like to include your story in next edition of my family's book. I originally wanted to begin printing this summer, but with this new information, the Jersey Devils might all be hunted down in a few months, so I'll probably push it to the beginning of next year."
Harry was reluctant to get more famous, but he figured that at least this time it would be for something he actually remembered doing; plus, it wasn't as though anyone in Britain read American publications, viewing non-European wizards as "beneath" them. He agreed, and posed for a picture standing next to the slain devil, with his wand in one hand and his trusty dagger (which had not left his reach since he had used it to kill the creature) in the other.
"I'll send you the wording on the section later this summer, so you can add in and make sure everything is accurate," Crane said happily. "And after you are done in Wisconsin, you'll have a few weeks before you go back to Britain—if you want, you can spend that time with my department, and we'll teach you a few things."
Harry enthusiastically agreed to these terms; only a madman would turn down lessons from a team of dark creature hunters at one of the most prestigious research institutions in the country. After a quick eye exam from Healer Hopkins (who told him that he would likely regain most or all of his eyesight, and who told him to keep in contact about his condition) and handshakes from both men, Harry apparated back to the inn. After all, he had a mirror call to make.
Author's Note
Thus ends the tale of Harry's foray into the New Jersey Pine Barrens. So now the question is, as ladysavay put it, why did I include this in the plot? She's right; it does, in a way, appear to come out of left field, and from some points of view, it may seem that it was solely for a bit of action. I thank her for her insight, as it brings up a good discussion point; this, I feel, is the true purpose of reviews and Author's Notes.
Keep in mind that Harry originally set out planning to take day-trips throughout the summer. He's just spent a week exploring a fairly large, bustling city, and is looking for a calm, relaxing weekend before being surrounded by the inevitable chaos of the 4th of July celebrations and his subsequent departure for animagus training in Wisconsin. Also, he's a bit starved for magical settings—despite Philly having a thriving magical community, the city as a whole is quite non-magical. Where, nearby, is there a large, entirely magical setting into which Harry can immerse himself? Well, he heard a snippet of a conversation pointing him to the Pine Barrens, so he decides to check it out.
Why did I bring the Jersey Devil—and the subsequent drama—into the equation? Character development. In canon, Harry regularly charges into dangerous situations, all because he never stops to think. In his fifth year (in canon), this culminated in Sirius's death; despite the fact that it was probably a trap, Harry plunged into battle, only to find himself far out of his depth. There were several points in the Pine Barrens, before the Devil ever appeared, at which any thinking person would have abandoned the quest—he even acknowledges as soon as he realizes that he has no quick means of escape (portkey or apparation) that Sirius and Remus probably would not want him to stay in the woods. At the very least, he should have fled as soon as he noticed that the woods were changing behind him. I was also originally going to include an attempt to make a mirror call, only to find that the mirrors didn't function within the Barrens, and have Harry still continue; however, I decided against it, because that would make him look absolutely idiotic, rather than just foolhardy.
Harry needs to learn, as he gains more independence and—arguably, adult responsibility—that his choices have consequences, and there won't always be someone around to save him from himself. Take second year—were it not for Fawkes's timely arrival, Harry would be dead. In third year, were it not for Dumbledore's intervention, Hermione would not have realized that she could use the time turner, and Harry would not have been able to save himself. Harry needs to stop counting on deus ex machina to get himself out of tight spots, and learn to avoid those situations in the first place (as much as he can, considering his tendency to attract trouble, as tchizek noted).
Also, Harry needs to have it drilled into his mind—the way that children who grew up in magical families likely did—that the magical world is dangerous. He's grown up as an abused child, who no doubt sees magic as an escape; in his reverence and wonderment, he doesn't always see the darker, more savage aspects of its nature. To help bring this home, I've characterized magical America as being, in some significant ways, better than magical Britain. That does not, however, make it a glittering paradise of an escape; on the contrary, magical America, for all its progressive modernity, has dark and perilous facets which are in some ways worse than those in magical Britain.
My hope is that the increased caution these realizations will bring will serve Harry well, and aid him in becoming more independent and powerful.