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

That night, after sending off a few owls thanking Hermione, Ron, and Hagrid for their gifts, Harry had a short conversation with Remus and Sirius, which was interrupted by the arrival of an owl from Jacob Crane. It bore a copy of the section on the Jersey Devil, to be added to chapter 13 of the new edition of On Combating the Darker Forces of this Earth and Beyond, which showed him in quite a favorable light, included the photograph of him standing victorious over the fallen demon, and mentioned that the information he had provided had allowed several successful hunts of the foul creatures. Hopefully, they would be eradicated before too much monger, Harry thought savagely, as he penned a quick response approving the text with only a few minor changes. As the owl winged away into the darkness, his attention was diverted by Annie's familiar quadruple knock, and the remaining hours of Harry's birthday passed in a singularly gratifying fashion.

The week following Harry's birthday passed quickly. Aside from a brief trip to the literal ghost town of Perote, Wisconsin (where Harry and Annie chatted with some ghosts and explored for a few hours), Harry continued in his previous routine—some light chores, practicing magic, and spending time with Annie. Their trysts had become more frequent and more intense, as the knowledge that Harry's time in Wisconsin was ending soon drove them to make the most of their remaining days together. Though they had avoided becoming overly emotionally-attached, the fact remained that this was the closest relationship that either had ever had, and it unfortunately had a built-in expiration date that was rapidly approaching.

Finally, it was Sunday, August 7. One full lunar cycle had passed since the group had performed the animagus ritual, and the new moon was tonight. After waking from a particularly intense dream—despite his growing skill at occlumency, he had barely contained the thunderbird, which must have known that freedom was nigh—Harry spent the day fulfilling all of his primal needs. Morris had told the teens that their control over their forms—at least at the beginning of the night—would be tenuous, so it would be important, especially for the predators, to be fully satiated lest they try to eat each other. The four prospective animagi took this as approval to gorge themselves on food and ravish each other all day, so aside from hitting the kitchens extra hard and wearing out the springs in their mattresses, little got done that day.

As sunset approached that evening, the teens and Morris stood in a loose circle near the treeline. The teens—having been told that they probably wouldn't be able to transform their clothes on their first try—had all worn their ritual clothing, as it was loose and wouldn't tangle them up as they transformed. They all watched, spellbound, as the sun lowered. Just before it disappeared entirely, Morris gave a few last-minute pointers, and wished them all good luck.

"Remember, kids," he said, "try not to eat each other. And Harry, as soon as you transform, try to get as far away from here—or anywhere else that's populated—as you can, because you'll be bringing a huge storm with you."

With that, Morris promptly transformed into a massive white bear. Harry almost slapped himself on the forehead; he had been wondering what Morris's form was, but this should have been obvious. The bear stood guard, to make sure that the first moments of their transformation didn't overwhelm them and lead them to attack each other. Across the circle, Annie and Carla stripped off their clothes entirely, perhaps having decided to preserve the ritual clothes, or just to give the boys a show—either way, Harry and Andy definitely appreciated it. Then, the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, and the night of the new moon was upon them.

Carla was the first to transform. Her form blurred, and suddenly a large bay horse stood where she had been, before moving off at a gallop. Its muscles rippled beneath its coat, and its very Carla-like black mane flowed in the wind as it ran back towards the clear plain between the trees and the town.

Andy was next. His body seemed to bulge, and then a black bear stood on its hind legs in his place. After loosing a seemingly-gleeful roar, it dropped down on all fours and barreled through the underbrush, making its way into the forest with all the subtlety of a cannonball.

Annie's transformation was instant. One moment she stood, loosely covering her breasts with her hands (as comfortable as she had become with Harry, her father was standing right there) and giving Harry a saucy wink, and the next moment, a huge tawny mountain lion was sitting on its haunches and licking its paws. Harry only had enough time to form one thought ("that really is a bigass cat") before it sprang off into the trees, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Are you sure you don't want to get out of here before I transform?" Harry said, turning to face the bear-that-was-Morris. "Franklin's journals said the first transformation was...wild."

Harry had read ahead in the journals that Morris had given him for his birthday, to see what Ben Franklin had had to say about being a thunderbird animagus. Franklin had found his hearing and eyesight vastly improved after completing the transformation (he only wore his famous bifocals for show), and his strength, speed, stamina, and channeling abilities—especially with lightning and air—had also noticeably increased. Perhaps most useful was the unique kind of apparition that the form provided—while a phoenix could apparate in a whooshing blaze of fire, the thunderbird could do so with a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning. However, Franklin cautioned that the first transformation had been extremely violent, and he had barely maintained control at any point during the night. Harry was afraid that he'd transform and electrocute Morris; the thunderbird saw all creatures as prey, and a large predator like Morris's bear would provide more of a challenge...and therefore, more of an incentive for the thunderbird to fight.

Morris-the-bear responded with a vague "ruff" and trundled off into the treeline. He didn't go any farther into the woods, though—apparently, he planned to watch from there.

Harry closed his eyes. He had been restraining the thunderbird from coming out for several minutes now, and even though he had actually contained it since he was an infant, it had taken a supreme effort to keep himself from transforming as soon as the sun had gone down. Now, though, he released that control, and as he opened his eyes, everything was clearer and sharper. With a scream that shook the ground, Harry disappeared into the clouds in a bolt of lightning, followed immediately by a huge thunderclap. The thunderbird was free.

Harry would remember every moment of the next several hours for the rest of his life, later likening it to trying to rodeo a rocket—after all, the thunderbird had been caged for most of his life, and now it was free. At the beginning, the thunderbird was calling the shots, and Harry was mostly along for the ride, clinging on for dear life. Soon, though, the countless hours of occlumency and the power of the ritual performed a month ago began to complete the merging between the two warring parts of Harry's mind, and he became the thunderbird. He had always felt comfortable in the air, reveling in the freedom that his broom gave him, but as much as he loved flying on his broom, it simply did not compare to flying as a thunderbird. When the air currents weren't favorable, he made them favorable. When he wanted to go higher, he would disappear into lightning and thunder, and reappear higher. Harry rocketed across the skies of North America at the head of a vast thunderstorm, screaming out in triumph and daring anyone and everyone to be foolish enough to challenge his dominance. The sky belonged to Harry, and he loved every second of it.

As dawn approached, Harry took a moment to figure out where he was, and realized with a shock that he was about ten thousand feet above Lake Superior. Knowing that he didn't have long before he was expected to be back (he and Annie had planned to meet at dawn in "their spot"), he disappeared with a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, and reappeared about a thousand feet above the Great White Bear Inn. From there, it was a short, leisurely flight to the Wolf River, where he got a look at his own reflection for the first time.

His animagus form looked much like a giant black eagle, with a wingspan of at least a dozen feet. The details, though, were telling; his eyes shone with the iridescent glow of lightning, and each of his feathers had similarly-shiny lightning bolt patterns. The talons and beak were long, razor-sharp, and hooked cruelly—Harry could tell that even without the lightning, his form would be a fierce predator.

His sharp eyes picked out the other four animagi, who were scattered around the area. Morris was wrestling playfully with Andy (bear-to-bear), Carla was trotting by a pond about a mile away, and Annie was leaping between tree branches and boulders, and making her way toward their spot. Harry zeroed in on her, and met her there just as the sun began to rise.

Annie picked herself up off the ground, standing on human feet for the first time in hours, and looked around for Harry. A soft rustling of feathers caught her attention, and she looked up into the branches of the massive oak tree to see a huge bird weighing down a thick limb. Harry glided down, flared his wings, and landed in front of her. She was shocked at how large it was; standing on its feet, the bird's head reached her shoulders. As she petted the soft feathers on its head, it suddenly became soft black hair, and Harry stood before her. Both teens were completely naked (Harry's loincloth and headdress hadn't survived the transformation, likely being roasted to ashes by the first lightning bolt as he had rocketed into the sky), and though both were bone-tired, the excitement of their first transformation combined with their own inclinations at the moment found them tumbling down onto the soft grass, entwined in passion.

They made no effort to be quiet, and a few moments after they finished, Carla's wry voice caught their attention. At any other time, they would have been startled apart, but now they were too tired to do more than crane their heads around to look at their friend.

"Now I'm jealous," she fake-pouted, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. "Where the hell is Andy when I need him?"

"Last I saw, he was about a half-mile east, wrestling with Morris," Harry said with a grin, still panting from his exertion with Annie. Carla kept up the fake-pout act, putting her hands on her hips and giving her heel a little stomp. The motion caused her breasts to shake tantalizingly, and Annie chuckled from her position on top of Harry.

"Come on, Carla," Annie said with a laugh. "You're gonna give Harry here a heart attack if you keep jigglin' around like that."

They all laughed, and whatever awkwardness that had remained in the situation was defused in the face of good humor and friendship. They gathered themselves up, and Carla apparated back to the inn. Harry had never side-along apparated anyone, so he couldn't take Annie back; however, in a rare flash of brilliance the previous afternoon, Harry had had the foresight to put his invisibility cloak and his broom in a small bag in the oak tree's branches, so they simply flew back to the inn, picking up Annie's and Carla's discarded clothing on the way.

Wednesday morning, two days later, was bittersweet. Carla and Andy had left the previous night, after a tear-filled goodbye dinner, and Harry had just woken up in Annie's bed for the last time. He had already packed all of his things, and would be returning to Philadelphia right after breakfast. After Harry and Annie showered (together—they didn't want to pass up this one last opportunity to be together) and ate a subdued breakfast, Harry thanked Morris for all he had done for him, and walked out the front door of the inn.

"Wait!" Annie called, just as he was about to activate his portkey back to Philadelphia. Harry turned around, and was met with a crushing hug. "Just...one more kiss, to say goodbye."

After they broke apart, both teens had tears running down their cheeks. "Goodbye, invisible man," Annie whispered, finally letting go of him.

Harry took one last look around. In the month he had been here, the tiny town of Keshena, Wisconsin had become almost as much of a home to him as Hogwarts. Andy, Carla, Morris, and especially Annie had so completely dominated his focus for that month that he almost couldn't conceive of a world in which he had not met them—and if he could, it certainly wasn't a world in which he'd want to live.

"Goodbye, Annie," Harry responded hoarsely, and disappeared into thin air.

Harry arrived back at 12th and Market with a soreness in his chest and a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, neither of which had anything to do with the portkey. Even though both teens had known that this moment had been coming, that didn't stop it from hurting—for Harry, who had never even truly understood that such a connection was possible, it felt like he was suddenly missing a part of himself. Trudging the suddenly interminable three blocks to the Alexander Inn, he mused that he might always feel like he had left something of himself back at the Great White Bear Inn; he would definitely never forget the time he had spent there. At least there was always post; plus, there was no reason why he and Annie should not meet sometime in the future.

Harry, in no mood to be sociable, mostly just grunted at the innkeeper—whose name he had never bothered to remember, having had so little contact with him compared to Tom at the Leaky Cauldron or Morris at the Great White Bear Inn—and made his way to his new room on the second floor. He wondered when he would stop comparing things to the Bear, as he glanced around at his accommodations with distaste. Not that it was unsuitable; in fact, the room was objectively nicer and larger than room 301 had been. However, at this inn, there was no chance of hearing Annie's quadruple knock on the door and opening it to see her sly grin and glinting eyes.

Gadsden, of course, was little help; as Harry tried to explain how he was feeling, the snake's advice was mostly of the "find another mate, and pick me up a mouse on the way" variety. Hedwig gave only a low, mournful hoot and rubbed his shoulder with her head. At least his bird understood.

Harry sighed, and unpacked his books. There were several that he wanted to read before he got back to Hogwarts, and he wasn't picking up lessons with Jacob Crane at the Franklin Institute until the next morning. He might as well get a start on reading. It wasn't as though there was a beautiful girl waiting outside his door.

"Well, that's pretty much it," Remus observed matter-of-factly, wiping a now-dead Death Eater's blood off his hands. "We are officially out of leads."

"Fuck," Sirius spat, summing up with one word all of his feelings on the subject. He punctuated his statement by kicking another Death Eater in the face and breaking his nose. It didn't do much, as the man was already dead, but it did make Sirius feel a little bit better.

"Maybe they went back to Britain," the werewolf suggested, nodding in agreement with Sirius's frustration. "We both know that the majority of Voldemort's followers were British, and the most useful ones, who bankrolled his operations, were all rich enough to buy pardons from Fudge after the war."

"Number 12, then?" Sirius asked with a sigh. "We can at least set Kreacher to cleaning up that shithole. Maybe we can find another house-elf, one who isn't a total psychopath, to take his place."

"Actually, Padfoot," Remus said thoughtfully, "Our little Harry might have an inside line on just such an elf. Remember what he was saying about the whole basilisk affair?"

"Ah, right. We'll have to bring it up the next time we talk to him. And that's as good a place to start as any. We'll have to start looking into Lucius buggering Malfoy."

"Good, Harry!" Jacob called, as Harry dodged a stunner and returned two of his own, knocking out one of his two opponents. "Don't be afraid to deflect an enemy's curse back at them, either."

Harry had decided to bury the pain of his separation from Annie by throwing himself into training. In early July, Jacob Crane had offered Harry a place in the training rotation of his team, which operated under a division of the FBI focused on hunting down magical criminals and dark creatures. This same team had gone on several hunts for Jersey Devils, and the intelligence Harry had brought them had been vital to their success. Therefore, the team members were all perfectly willing to drill Harry, especially since teaching him provided an opportunity for them to rehash the fundamentals themselves. To Harry, this experience was invaluable; if there was one thing he had learned in his three years as a wizard, it was that the world was a dangerous place, especially if your name is Harry Potter. This sort of practical combat training might very well save his life someday, and he relished the opportunity to test his mettle against trained professionals.

He was also noticing that either the nutritional potions he had taken in July or the changes wrought by the animagus transformation had significantly impacted both his physical and magical prowess. His senses were sharper, his reflexes were faster, his muscles were stronger and more efficient, and he had more magical power to throw around than pretty much anyone his age. After a week and a half, he was already capable of holding his own against some of the newer team members, all of whom were a decade older than him. It helped that he wasn't easily intimidated; giant basilisks and Jersey Devils had a way of making most wizards seem tame by comparison.

Jacob did have to ennervate Harry this time, though, as his opponent returned fire with a wide-area stunner that Harry only partially parried. Afterward, they broke up and showered, then gathered again for dinner.

"So Harry," Jacob said between bites of his burger, "Tomorrow's the day, huh?"

"Yeah," Harry responded. "I'm portkeying out of Philly International at 9 AM. I've got to be back in England by 5 PM local, but I'd like to take care of some stuff before that."

Thanks to a cleverly-cast mail-diversion ward, Sirius and Remus had intercepted an owl from Ron about the Quidditch World Cup, and had woken Harry up at about 4 AM to tell him that he needed to be back in Surrey the next day, or else the jig would be up. Harry had dictated a response to them, so it would sound authentic, and held up samples of his handwriting and his signature to the mirror so that Remus and Sirius could make the letter look as though Harry had written it. Remus had paid an impromptu visit to the Dursleys to go over their cover story; in case anyone asked, Harry had been grounded and confined to his room all summer. There, he had found the "official" invitation letter from Molly Weasley, and made sure that Harry knew what to expect when the Weasleys came calling.

Harry was a little bit sad that he wouldn't get to see Sirius again before going back to Hogwarts, but they had all agreed that mirror calls would be sufficient for the time being.

"Well," Jacob said, interrupting Harry's mental trip-planning. "You should probably get back to your room at the inn and grab some shuteye. I know I'm always tired after a long-distance portkey."

"Yeah, maybe I will," Harry murmured noncommittally. In reality, he planned to go flying one last time—it was a safe bet that once he got to England, he wouldn't be able to really let loose, so he wanted one last chance to go full-thunderstorm-crazy. Plus, that would help tire him out for tomorrow, which would otherwise be a short day due to the time difference, so his sleep schedule might have a chance at staying intact.

After leaving the Institute's cafeteria and bidding a fond farewell to Jacob (who promised to send a signed copy of the newest edition of his book for Christmas), Harry did just as he had planned, tearing through the skies from Philadelphia down to northern Florida and then back again, spearheading an epic thunderstorm the whole time. He didn't end up apparating back into his room at the Alexander Inn until well past 1 AM, and simply passed out as soon as he staggered to his bed.

Author's Note

Ah, the long-awaited first transformation! And parting is such sweet sorrow.

I'm glossing over the bits about Harry's time with Jacob, in the same fashion as I glossed over the details he learned from reading books and what tips and spells Sirius and Remus taught him. These details aren't important; rather, the only important thing is to note that he is taking an active interest in self-improvement, rather than having to be dragged kicking and screaming by Hermione. This Harry Potter is, as a result of his slight rebellion against Dumbledore, becoming less passive.

I also just noticed something that really threw me off—the actual calendar differs by a few days from the Harry Potter calendar. For example, September 1 in 1994 was in fact a Thursday, but if you go by the Harry Potter calendar, it's a Monday. To reconcile the dates—which won't be a problem until the term begins, as the time in Philadelphia and back in Britain can be fudged via timeskip and vagueness—I'll pick up August 23 on the Harry Potter calendar. No dates really matter until August 23, which IRL was a Tuesday but in HP-verse was a Saturday—this is the date on which Harry receives the invitation to the Burrow and the World Cup from the Weasleys.

As HufflepuffGleek helpfully pointed out, Milwaukee is actually in Wisconsin, not Minnesota, so I'll pop back to chapter 15 and edit that, so that Andy comes from a real place.

Andy and Carla didn't get much screen time—in fact, I think each of them only got one or two lines of dialogue—but Harry became quite close with them, and will probably continue to correspond with them, though probably not to the same extent as he will with Annie.