Disclaimer: Usually I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but I find myself not really interested in doing so this time as it is very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I am not making any money off of this story or any of the other stories I have written.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 55: The Soul Door
When he reached the once hidden entrance to the former headmaster's office, Harry automatically slipped into the shadows to hide his presence as he made his way towards the stairs and ultimately his tower. As his feet mechanically led him back to his rooms, he allowed his mind to mull over everything he'd learned from Everard's lecture. He didn't become aware of his surroundings again until he reached the main staircase. In an interest in saving time and avoiding stressing his already sore right leg, Harry unfurled his wings and launched himself upwards so that he could bypass the stairs entirely. In no time at all, Harry was dropping down onto the seventh floor landing with a soft grunt.
When he reached the entrance to his tower, he dropped his head to sniff at the floor in order to determine if anyone had passed through the door anytime soon. The relatively strong scent of his brothers lingering near the doorway indicated that they had been there sometime fairly recently and he canted his ears back and forth in an effort to catch any sounds coming from inside of the tower. Unfortunately, he heard nothing due to the privacy charms he'd woven around the tower that prevented any sound from escaping from the tower once the door was closed.
He almost regretted the charms but knew they were there for a reason; primarily to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on his private conversations. Sitting back on his haunches, Harry scowled at the door as he contemplated his options. He was just debating on whether or not to announce his presence vocally (since sounds from outside of the tower could be heard by those inside – a precaution to prevent potential ambushes when leaving the tower) when the door opened on its own accord and Quatre smiled down at him.
"I thought I felt you drawing near once again, Taliesin."
Harry snorted in amusement as it occurred to him that Quatre could be considered a living tracking spell attuned to him and the rest of the pilots. He then rose back up onto his feet and waited for the blonde pilot to open the door all the way before he slipped into the room. A wave of scents and sound washed over Harry as he entered the room and it took him less than a minute to process and catalog the various scents; determining that all five of his brothers were present alongside Dorothy, Cathy, Hilde, Patricia, Princess Relena, Lucrezia, and Zechs. It took him a little longer to pick out the various conversations taking place; the constant flow of voices loud and garbled due to his enhanced hearing.
Eventually, he determined that the six ladies were discussing wedding plans (a rather sore subject for Harry at this point because those were supposed to be the plans for his wedding but his current condition meant his and Dorothy's wedding would be postponed indefinitely), Zechs and Heero were discussing security for an upcoming E.S.S.C. Conference, Duo was arguing with Wufei over some of the proposed laws that the E.S.S.C. wished to implement, and Trowa was flipping through a file while tossing out suggestions to Heero and Zechs between playing devils advocate and referee to Duo and Wufei's argument.
"Dobby left your supper in your office under a stasis charm, Taliesin," Quatre informed Harry as he closed the door behind the wolf.
At the mention of food, Harry's stomach rumbled loudly and he let out a huff and grumbled to himself about the fact that he'd become a slave to his stomach since his transformation. Like his reticence over physical contact, Harry's ingrained habit of eating one or two small meals a day vanished the moment he'd been transformed into a wolf. A wolf lived moment to moment; it hunted for food when it was hungry, it fought when threatened, it ran when it was frightened, it played when it was bored, and it slept when it was tired.
Like all wild animals, the instinct to eat when food was available or offered was strong; even if he wasn't exactly hungry at the time. The amount of food he ate for each meal had almost tripled as well and the result was that he'd gained nearly a full stone over the three plus weeks he'd been trapped in the form of a wolf. Heading for the office and the promised meal (he'd missed lunch after all), Harry ignored Quatre's amusement at his expense; his blonde brother one of those that had often gotten on his case about eating properly after he'd first ended up in the care of the five pilots.
In fact, the only one of his brothers that hadn't hounded him about his eating habits over the past two and half years had been Duo. The former street rat was intimately aware of the lasting effects of prolonged or frequent starvation and malnutrition (both mental and physical) and the pre-programmed need to make supplies stretch for as long as possible if they fell into the hoarding mindset instead of the scarfing mindset that had a person eating everything they found the instant they found it to prevent it from being taken. Heero and Trowa had understood on some levels due to their backgrounds but they also knew that Harry's eating habits weren't healthy, though they had gotten better after Winky and Dobby were old enough to cook because the elves were adamant about taking care of their 'master' (obsessively so, as was their nature).
Finding the bowl of diced and lightly grilled mutton, Harry fought his wolfish instincts to bolt the food down as quickly as possible. The biggest reason why he avoided eating like an animal (despite the fact that he currently was an animal) were the hundreds of old memories of Ron stuffing his face like the glutton he was; shoving and shoveling food into his mouth and hardly ever seeming to chew any of it before he swallowed and bolted down the next plateful of food. Ron's lack of manners had been enough to kill Harry's appetite on more than one occasion because that kind of behavior had reminded Harry of Dudley. At the time, Harry hadn't wanted to see that similarity; he'd been far too desperate to hold onto even that farce of friendship because he didn't wish to be alone any longer. Ron's betrayal during his fourth year had cut Harry deeply and so anything that reminded him of the gangly redhead was to be avoided at all costs.
The one instinct that Harry never managed to completely avoid no matter how hard he tried was licking the bowl or plate clean. That was an endless source of amusement for Harry's self-made family and he owed Duo a hexing or twenty for the number of times the long haired pilot had stuck a random plate under his nose to trigger his instinct to lick the dish clean. Snorting over the direction of his current thoughts, Harry swiped his tongue over the bottom of the bowl one last time before he sat up and cleaned off his muzzle with several swipes of the tongue.
He then stood up and shook himself from nose to tail before he trotted back into the common room and made his way to the couch where Dorothy was sitting between Hilde and Relena. Once he was close enough, Harry promptly jumped up onto the back of the couch and stretched himself out like a cat with his back legs sprawled over the arm of the couch and his chin propped on his outstretched forelegs. As soon as he was comfortable, his ears automatically began picking out individual voices as those gathered in the room continued their conversations.
"… another sixteen officers to patrol the grounds," Trowa's voice interjected.
"… no sense; they're over-complicating things," Duo adamantly insisted as he ruffled through several printouts.
"… the security systems were upgraded already, we've got one hundred guards scheduled to patrol the building, and I would prefer at least a dozen suits to help patrol the grounds since they can cover a wider range," Heero countered over top of Duo's small rant.
"… and gold with a whimsical or mythological theme… out on the grounds if the weather permits…" Dorothy insisted between the other conversations.
Harry sighed as he closed his eyes, the voices of his family washing over and through him as he did his best to ignore the various conversations being held. Taking a deep breath, he caught the scent of chocolate and peppermint clinging to his fiancée tinged with a mixture of hope, longing, and sadness. He bit back the whine that rose in the back of his throat over the reminder that his prolonged sojourn as a wolf was hurting Dorothy. The sudden influx of the sharp scent of worry let Harry know that he hadn't quite suppressed the whine and rather than face the well meaning interrogation he knew would shortly follow; he fled into his mindscape.
Free from the words and scents that had been assaulting his hypersensitive senses, Harry sighed and shook himself out before he took a good look around his mindscape. At first glance it appeared just as broken and foreboding as it had when he first found his inner mind; a bleak, abandoned battlefield cloaked in a blanket of cold fog and wrapped in an endless twilight. Beneath the coiling, curling, and ever churning clouds the ground was uneven if unbroken and scattered with quaffle sized rocks that tripped the unwary and small scrub brushes that clutched at the clothes and skin of those that passed too close to their dry, thorn-like branches. Off in the distance, the lone dead willow tree still towered above the fog and stood out starkly against the dim skyline like a sore thumb.
The reason for the depressing atmosphere was twofold; first and foremost it hid the scars from all of the damage that his mind had suffered from due to the Unforgivable Curses, the memory charms, and the mental and emotional abuse throughout the years he lived in his original time of birth. The second reason was because it was it was meant to make intruders feel uncomfortable and keep them unsettled.
Putting his lupine nose to the ground out of habit, Harry worked his way towards the tree that represented his former life as he expertly avoided all of the rocks and brush with practiced ease. Halfway to the tree, the ground sloped sharply to the right into a wide hidden valley where an abandoned carnival was hidden from casual inspection unless you were right on top of the valley. Sitting down beside the haphazard trail that led down into the valley, Harry surveyed the carnival that he had built to protect and draw attention from his house of mirrors after his battle with the Epyon Interface. After a few minutes, Harry loped down the trail to wander aimlessly through the carnival.
The entire carnival was surrounded by a rusted barbwire fence that had seen better days with only one entrance at the base of the trail Harry walked upon. As he slipped beneath the old fashioned pipe gate he barely paid any attention to the pair of ticket booths set on either side of the entrance; both of them little more than glorified outhouses with large cracked windows with three by fifteen inch openings where tickets and cash could be passed back and forth, a warped counter upon which sat an antique cash register, and a single door on the side closest to the carnival. Scattered about the ground both inside and out of the two booths were the curled and torn remains of hundreds of rotting tickets.
The carnival attractions, game booths, and food venders were spread out in a circle just inside of the rusted fence with the remains of a large petting zoo smack dab in the middle. To the left of the entrance the very first booth was a photo booth; the ragged curtain hanging over the door was moth eaten and barely clinging to the curtain rod that held it in place. The camera itself was broken and trapped in the photo dispenser was a sheet of indecipherable photos. Directly beside the photo booth was a popcorn vender, the broken kettle filled to the brim with burnt and lightly smoking popcorn and laying on its side. One of the wheels of the push cart that the kettle sat on was broken, giving the entire thing a lopsided appearance.
Next came the first ride; a broken miniature roller-coaster that had large sections of the tracks missing and a dragon headed train parked forlornly beside the chipped and faded sign proclaiming the name of the ride to be Dragon Flight. On the other side of the ride was the first game booth advertising a dart game; the target board and floor littered with the remains of dozens of colored balloons and rusted darts. After the dart game there was the Fun House, a pretzel stand, the Ring Toss booth, the bumper car ride, a face painting booth, a hot dog stand, and a small shooting gallery. Then came one of the decoy attractions; the Freak Show.
The Freak Show housed an assortment of Harry's memories of people that he had met or known through his first life. The memories were of those people caught in compromising or amusing situations or poses. There was a poster of Dudley's pig tail, another of Dudley's engorged tongue from the twin's joke candy, and finally one of Dudley trapped inside of the boa constrictor exhibit at the zoo; all three labeled Harry's cousin as Swine Boy. Petunia had a poster declaring her a hag (a twisted, ugly expression on her face), Vernon was portrayed as the heaviest man alive (his body half stuck in a doorway while his face was painted in shades of puce and purple), and Vernon's sister Marge was the Human Balloon (the picture of her from when he'd blown her up during the summer before his third year).
Malfoy was Ferret Boy (caught mid-transformation), Hagrid was the Giant (his poster sporting him dressed in a frilly pink apron holding a tray of rock cakes), Hermione was Cat Girl (the memory of the Polyjuice incident), Crabbe and Goyle were Neanderthals, Pansy was Pug Girl, and there was even a poster of Ron stuffing his face titled the Human Garbage Disposal. The rest of the Hogwarts professors and students were there as well, as were all the members of Dudley's gang, the students and staff from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and a number of other adult witches and wizards (such as Fudge, Malfoy, Snape, Skeeter, Ollivander, and both Flamels). Even Voldemort and Dumbledore hadn't escaped their faces being splashed on a poster with Voldemort being labeled as the Snake Man in one and a bodiless spirit in another while Dumbledore was a Demonic Warlock, his picture altered so he had demonic features.
Beyond the Freak Show, there was the Tilt-a-Whirl ride, the Fishing Booth, a cotton candy stand, a souvenir stand, and the Carousel (all of them in a similar state of disrepair) before you reached the Haunted House which was the second decoy. The haunted house had been filled with the memories of his near death experiences bar the first time Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby. There was even a creepy graveyard set up exactly like the graveyard from Voldemort's rebirth; complete with the bloody tombstone that Harry had been tied to during the ritual and the human sized cauldron that had held the reborn Dark Lord. Dementors and ghosts haunted the small house as did Remus in his werewolf form, a creepy vampire that bore a passing resemblance to Lucius Malfoy, and Sirius as a ghostlike grim.
Harry barely glanced at the Haunted House as he trotted along the open grounds between the petting zoo (which was filled with the bleached bones of magical and non-magical creatures) and the attractions. He ignored the Ferris Wheel, the Milk Bottle game, another photo booth, a corn on the cob vender, and the Fortune Teller though he did pause for a moment to glance at the Tunnel of Love (which he'd built using the memories of the interactions between the Dursleys, the Weasleys, and the allure of the veela from the Quidditch World Cup). In short, the Tunnel of Love represented the most twisted and stomach turning memories of false affection that were enough to make even a sailor gag or swear. Though the veela were a pleasant enough experience right up until they turned into vengeful bird like creatures and threw handfuls of flames at you.
Moving beyond the twisted Tunnel of Love, Harry passed the Tic-Tac-Toe booth, a second popcorn vender, the Chair-o-Planes ride, a kissing booth, a small fudge shop, and a broken down bounce house which brought him to his House of Mirrors. Harry sat down and stared up at the building that housed all of his memories (good and bad) before he glanced off to the right to take in the Zipper Ride, the Fish Bowl game booth, a side show ring (that advertised sword eating, flame eating, and juggling acts), a fish and chips stand, a third photo booth, another souvenir shop, and a roasted chestnut vender.
Seeing nothing out of place, Harry rose to his feet, slipped into the House of Mirrors, and headed for the heart of his mindscape where the representation of his magical core resided; the wizard thinking that his core would be the best place to start the search for his soul door. Nose to the floor, Harry wove his way through the maze of cracked, tarnished, and warped mirrors that made up the next layer of his defenses; each damaged mirror containing a memory of extremely negative emotion. The cold, desolate feeling of feeding dementors purveyed the entire maze as a deterrent.
Harry ignored both the mirrors and the cold; he'd long since grown used to passing through the ghosts of his less than pleasant memories in order to reach his core. Eventually, he came to what would have been the exit in a normal House of Mirrors but in his House of Mirrored Memories it appeared to be a dead end. Not slowing down or stopping, Harry stepped inside of the very last mirror and passed out the other side into another maze of mirrors filled with slightly chipped mirrors, lightly tarnished mirrors, and dirt streaked mirrors. The new maze held echoes of lightly negative emotions such as mere sadness or irritation instead of abject grief or sheer fury.
The third maze contained those memories that were neutral in mirrors that were merely abandoned and dirty instead of damaged and linked to a Hall of Mirrors instead of another maze. The Hall of Mirrors held every single positive memory that Harry had ever experienced and the strength of the emotion held inside of the mirror determined how fancy or how plain the mirror appeared. Compared to the three mazes of negative and neutral memory mirrors, the Hall of Mirrors was sparsely populated, though there were far more mirrors lining the walls now than there had been when Harry had first created that particular room.
Harry lingered in the Hall for a few minutes, basking in the gentle warmth provided by his happiest memories as he glanced about at some of the fancier mirrors. Feeling far better than he had when he first entered his mindscape, Harry slipped through the open archway at the end of the hall and stepped into the grass covered glade that held the room containing his magical core. The cool grass felt wonderful beneath his paws as he crossed over to the center of the glade before slipping down into the staircase that led down into the heart of his core. Mere seconds later, he stepped into the large, marble tiled, underground room that represented his core and paused on the threshold to examine his core.
The marble encased pool that was his core took up most of the room with just enough room left over for him to walk around the outside. The various pipes that represented the links and bonds that he had formed ran down the outside of the wall and disappeared into the floor in such a way that they would not obstruct his path. The geyser rising out of the center of the large pool hummed gently in the background as it continuously produced a steady supply of shimmering blue magic. Oddly enough, the surface of the deep pool remained unbroken despite the constant downpour of magic from the pinnacle of the geyser while a steady stream of excess magic flowed over the spillway he'd created in the wall surrounding the pool and disappeared into the hidden reservoirs that Harry had created beneath the floor.
Needing to explore every inch of the room in hopes of finding his soul door, Harry stepped into the room and inspected the nearest pipes that represented his bonds to Dobby and Winky. He was pleased to see that both bonds were still strong and that there was nothing obstructing the flow of magic to the two elves. He also didn't miss the newly formed links to the four elves that were due to be born within a week or two. Moving clockwise around his core, Harry came to the pipes that represented the links feeding magic to the remaining magical children and paused when he realized that there were two more pipes than expected; one representing the child that Dorothy carried and one surprisingly representing the soon to be born child of Ayame Sarutobi.
Beside the links to the young witches and wizards were the five connections to the young centaurs that would be born either just before or just after the newest house elves. Harry lingered for a moment to make certain the links were supplying an adequate amount of magic to each of the unborn children before he continued on his path to check on the plethora of links that represented all of cloned creatures that had not yet been hatched or born. After that, the next pipe he approached for inspection was the one representing his bond with the earth beside which he found an unfamiliar second, smaller bond that was labeled as Hogwarts.
He wasn't exactly surprised to find that he'd bonded to the castle considering how much magic he'd been pouring into the castle over the past year; he just hadn't expected a permanent bond to form. A shrug of his shoulders and a flick of his tail saw the size and strength of the bond increasing so that instead of a mere two centimeter pipe there was a two inch pipe feeding magic into the castle and her wards. He also increased the size of the link to the earth from two inches to three inches so that the magic he was feeding to the castle would not be stolen by the ley lines beneath the ancient stone building.
Finished with those adjustments, Harry moved on around to the last two links; those that represented his link to Wolfstar and Grimstar. Unlike the rest of the links connected directly to Harry's core, the links to the two sentient suits were currently inactive; only activating when he was connected directly to their systems (such as when he was battling or flying the suits or when he pulled on their connection in his anger). Harry spent several long minutes just staring at those two bonds while he reflected upon the circumstances in which each bond had been formed and inevitable fallout that occurred due to him effectively bringing them both to life.
Tearing his eyes away from the twin pipes, Harry glanced up to inspect the walls of the core room; his eyes taking in the portraits that hung on the wall representing the bonds that he'd formed with his family (bonds that were tied to his heart and soul by magic as opposed to being tied directly his magic). The first wall held pictures of his adopted brothers and sisters (Iria having wormed her way into his heart alongside Cathy), his many honorary uncles, his fiancée, his son, and the first two house elves; his self-made family. On the wall directly to the left of his new family wall were the portraits of those individuals that had made up his first family; his birth parents, his godfather, his honorary uncle, his long lost self-claimed brothers and sister, treasured friends, and Dobby the First.
Opposite of that second wall of portraits and to the right of the wall holding his current family, was the wall holding the pictures of his new friends; his squad, most of the space pilots that followed them to earth, a number of his employees, the five magical children that had been born over the past few months, Relena, Zechs, and Obduro (whose picture was steadily migrating towards the family wall).
The fourth and final wall held portraits of the various creatures that Harry had established friendships with or that he had at one time considered a pet; Hedwig, Buckbeak, Fawkes, Spero, Spera, Seth, Beauty, Anubis, Orsa, Belladonna, Rusty, and the rest of the snakes (named or not). Those individuals that had passed away hanging closer to the wall holding the images of past bonds while those still living were closer to the wall holding his friends. Harry spent a moment in silence with his head bowed as he paid his respects to those that had passed before he slipped out of his core and explored the glade that represented the heart of his mindscape to continue his search for his soul door.
When a thorough search of the glade turned up nothing, Harry sat down and tried to figure out what he was missing. He had thought that because the heart of his mind and his magical core were both linked to his soul that the soul door Everard had spoken of would be found in one of those two places since those were the two most logical places for a soul door to be found. Then again, magic had a logic all its own and it defied the laws of physics time and time again and maybe, just maybe he was using the wrong set of rules to define the logic of where a soul door that would link his inner and outer natures would be located.
Closing his eyes, Harry focused on everything he'd just learned about forced adaptations and everything he'd learned about the animagus transformation over the past two weeks. He also thought back to everything he remembered about the moment his inner nature had confronted him after he'd spent days on end trapped inside in his mind. The moment he reached the point in his memory where he and his inner nature had hugged one another in mutual acceptance, he jerked his eyes opened and whined as he recalled the pain of magic suffusing their bodies as they plunged into their magical core. Jumping to his feet, Harry rushed back down into the room holding his magical core and smoothly jumped up onto the wall surrounding the pool that was his core and used his wings to help him balance on the six inch wide wall as he stared down in the crystal clear blue depths of pure magic.
Instead of seeing his reflection in the mirror like surface of the pool like he normally would, Harry saw the walls of the pool riddled with the pipes that protected the various links tied to his core and the very bottom of the well where a perfectly round door in the center of which was etched the silhouette of a man with wings. Pacing back and forth as he balanced precariously on the wall of his core, Harry growled and whined under his breath as his mismatched eyes remained focused on the door that held the key to regaining his human form. The only thing stopping him from just diving into the pool of magic in order to reach the door was the memory of how much it had hurt when he'd fallen into his core with his inner nature just a few weeks earlier.
After spending several minutes pacing in agitation, Harry sat down on the wall and concentrated on moving the door from the bottom of the pool to the outer wall of his core. The door stubbornly remained firmly embedded on the floor of the pool. Harry let out a string of curses in the form of growls, whines, barks, and hisses that his body unknowingly echoed; startling those who were in the room with him into silence as they turned to watch his wolfish form twitching and complaining through his meditative trance.
Once he'd ran out of verbal curses, Harry tore his eyes away from the depths of his core and stared up at the wall holding the portraits of his family; his eyes automatically being drawn to his brothers first before traveling on to lock on Dorothy and James's portraits that were sitting side by side on the wall. Determination flooded Harry's soul as he felt his heart aching over how much he missed holding his son and how much it hurt knowing he was causing Dorothy pain trapped as he was in the body of a wolf.
Taking a deep breath, Harry marshaled his courage as he turned from the ties that bound his heart to his loved ones and focused them once more on the door waiting for him at the bottom of the endless pool of magic that was his core. He sent a quick prayer to whatever gods or goddesses were listening in the hopes that he knew what he was doing before he shoved himself high into the air. Just when he lost his upward momentum, he jackknifed his body so that he plunged headfirst into his core; his wings furled tightly against his back as he sank down towards the bottom of the pool while his entire body exploded in pain as his magic suffused his entire being.
The moment he heard the first whine followed by what sounded like a full out rant of frustration (in Wolfese), Heero stopped speaking in mid-sentence and snapped his head around to stare at Taliesin. In addition to the oddness of a wolf vocalizing such a wide range of sounds (something that should not have been possible), Taliesin's current behavior reminded Heero of the day when Zero had switched… more like morphed… into a full grown wolf with Taliesin's mind.
Unlike the feral wolf cub that they had christened Zero, Taliesin had often dreamed while in his wolf form but as far as Heero knew, his adopted brother's dreams while as a wolf had been pleasant and silent; his physical reactions limited to slight muscle twitches at most. What he saw and heard now sharply reminded him of what happened the one and only time he'd witnessed Zero dreaming and cold fear washed through him at the mere thought that Taliesin was potentially in the process of turning feral.
"Taliesin, is there something wrong?" Dorothy asked as she twisted around and made to shake the wolf awake.
"No! Don't touch him!" Heero ordered sharply as he jumped over the coffee table that had separated the couch he'd been sitting on beside Zechs and Trowa and snatched Dorothy's hand away from the wolf twitching and jerking on the back of the couch. "Everyone get back, now! The last time Taliesin went through something like this was the day he regained control from the feral Zero. I don't know what is happening but I'm not taking any risks that Zero will pop up and attack or worse, that Taliesin's magic strikes out blindly at anyone close to him because he lost control of himself. So let's back it the hell up, people!"
There was a scramble to comply with Heero's final snapped order, with Quatre helping the ladies onto their feet quickly and shooing them off towards Taliesin's office since they would be far better protected behind the wards of the office than they would in the sitting room. They'd barely gotten the ladies clear of the couch when a wave of magic exploded outwards around Taliesin and wrapped him in a cocoon of blue-green. Heero cursed and danced backwards to avoid getting tagged by the magic; he had no desire to spend several hours without any feeling in half of his body a second time.
"I fucking hate it when I'm right sometimes," Heero bitched as the hairs on his arm stood up due to the proximity of the bubble of magic that had engulfed the wizard turned wolf.
"Maybe iffin' ya weren't such a pessimist ya wouldn't be right all da time when things end up fubared," Duo growled back more than a little snarkily.
"Maybe the two of you should just shut up and grab hold of something we can use to tangle up Zero long enough to get him back in his kennel…" Trowa started to say only to cut off mid-sentence with a troubled frown before he tightly demanded, "Damn it, did we ever get the kennel repaired or replaced after Heero busted it?"
"That wasn't my fault!" Heero protested as he shoved the coffee table backwards in order to avoid tripping over the table while moving further away from the still growing globe of magic.
"He's in terrible pain," Quatre gasped as he clutched at his chest. "He's not afraid or angry though; he's filled with nothing but sheer determination despite the pain. Do you think that means he's fighting what's happening?"
"How long did the process take for him to switch from Zero to Taliesin the last time, Heero?" Wufei inquired calmly as he stood off to one side studying the now unmoving bubble of magic that began glowing with an inner light that was pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Six minutes and eighteen seconds from the first whine," Heero replied warily as he eyed the magic encasing Taliesin with distrust.
"It's been six and a half minutes since you first noticed something odd happening," Zechs pointed out with a frown as he moved closer in an effort to make out what was happening inside of the magical shield. "Do you think he might have found a way to return himself to his human form?"
"Why would he be in so much pain if that was the case? His initial change didn't appear to cause him any physical distress at all; though he was experiencing extreme mental distress at the time," Wufei interjected tersely.
"His transformation from wolf pup to adult wolf caused him pain," Heero reminded them as he worriedly watched Taliesin's form twist and roll off the back of the couch where he'd been perched up until that moment.
The magic surrounding the wizard vanished a second later and a soft groan cut through the silence followed immediately by the sound of retching before a most welcome (if tired) voice uttered, "That fucking hurt. And someone remind me to never again transform on a full stomach of nearly raw meat. I don't think the producers of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean could have come up with a flavor that could be more disgusting than half digested barely cooked meat. Evanesco. Eluos. Defaeum.*"
"Taliesin, is that you?" Heero called tentatively even as he palmed his pistol and slipped up to the couch to peer over the back where he promptly found the wizard curled up on his side wearing the clothes he'd been wearing the day he'd been transformed into a wolf and looking excessively rumpled.
"No, I'm the fucking tooth fairy; come closer so I can knock out a few teeth to take back with me when I leave," Taliesin snapped back as he rolled over onto his back to glare up at Heero.
"Somebody's in a good mood," Duo quipped as he draped himself over the back of the couch and grinned down at the wizard.
"What's happening out there? Is it safe for us to come back out yet?" Dorothy demanded from Taliesin's office as she opened the door and poked her head into the room.
Heero watched as Taliesin's eyes grew wide before he rolled over and shoved himself up off the floor so fast he nearly ended up back on his face. Despite the pain Heero could see the other teen was feeling; Taliesin was soon stumbling across the room towards his fiancée. Turning to watch Dorothy's face, Heero knew the instant Dorothy saw Taliesin as a hundred different emotions flittered across her face in an instant before her smile lit up the room as she flung the door all the way open and sprinted across the room. Taliesin caught her in his arms and pulled her close as he buried his face against the side of her neck.
"Don't you ever do that to me again; do you hear me, Taliesin Bard?" Dorothy ordered in a voice that was thick with emotion.
"Never, never again," Taliesin whispered back fiercely. "I never meant to leave you nor did I wish to hurt you. I was stupid and I let my fear cloud my mind before I researched the problem from every possible angle. I was just so frightened to find myself facing my biggest fear so soon after dealing with the locket and just the thought of there being a possibility that I could one day hurt you or my family was killing me inside. It won't happen again; I won't allow it."
"Life is never dull with you around, is it, Taliesin?" Zechs asked rhetorically as he pushed the coffee table back into place now that the drama was over.
"Da day Taliesin's life becomes dull is da day I'm gonna check myself inta a mental institution," Duo deadpanned.
"I'd hex you both but I have better things to do right now," Taliesin dryly replied as he glanced up to send both jokesters a mock glare before he turned back to his fiancée and captured her mouth in a searing kiss.
Heero shook his head as a grin slipped onto his face; that was the first open display of affection that Taliesin had ever shown (even after they'd learned about the pair's relationship). He was relieved to know that the latest mishap hadn't sent the wizard into regression but then again, compared to being imprisoned, tortured, drugged, and nearly used to destroy the earth; being trapped as a wolf for a month was practically a vacation. Glancing to the side, he caught a glimpse of Quatre smiling a small half smile of contentment even though he was still clutching his heart (indicating that Taliesin was still in a considerable amount of pain).
"Can the two of you break it up just long enough that I can give Taliesin a quick physical?" Trowa inquired with a small smirk on his face as he threw a juggling ball at the back of Taliesin's head.
Taliesin caught the ball in his right hand without breaking the kiss and promptly threw it back before whipping out his wand and hitting the speeding ball with a duplication spell that turned the one ball into one hundred that drew a yelp from Trowa as more than half of them found their mark.
"I'd take that as a firm no," Duo crowed as he fell back on the couch laughing.
"Where's a garden hose when you need one?" Trowa asked under his breath in exasperation only to yelp again when Taliesin soaked him to the bone with his wand which set Duo off a second time.
"How did he hear that from across the room?" Wufei inquired as he pursed his lips and glanced between the dripping wet teen standing near the fire place and the lip-locked pair standing not far from the office door.
"Could it be possible that some of his enhanced senses carried over to his human form?" Zechs asked in response. "As a wolf, he did have excellent hearing."
Taliesin finally came up for breath as Dorothy melted into his chest and he dropped his head on her shoulder before he half turned to face his brothers and Zechs as he answered, "Zechs is correct; at least a couple of the enhanced senses from my alternate form carried over which may include my ability to sense the seriousness of injuries but I'd have to do a few tests to confirm whether or not it did. As far as I know, none of my other abilities (such as the healing secretion, venom, and anti-venom) were brought over which is a good thing. The best thing though is that I didn't end up with any furry accessories; I would have been seriously annoyed if I'd ended up with wolf ears and a tail to go with my wings. I suppose I'll have to submit myself to yet another battery of genetic tests once Dr. Watanabe learns I'm human again."
"How much pain are you in right now?" Heero asked as he pointedly glanced towards Quatre.
"I feel like I was tossed out of an airplane without a parachute at cruising altitude, hit by a train the moment I crashed to the ground, and dragged along a gravel road for a couple of hundred miles before being run over by a heard of stampeding bicorns but that's because my body is still oversaturated from the magic that triggered my transformation. Once that magic dissipates, the pain will fade completely."
"How exactly did you manage to figure out how to change yourself back?" Quatre inquired with a puzzled frown. "I'm glad to have you back but I'd been feeling your frustration on and off for several days now; so finding you are yourself once more quite out of the blue when we didn't even know you'd found a way to change back is a bit confusing."
"Obduro took me to see the portraits of the former headmasters and headmistresses of the school and I spent most of the evening sequestered with them up in the former headmaster's office getting a rather in depth history lesson on a few things that Hogwarts stopped teaching at some point. Now, if you will excuse me; I'm going to carry my bride-to-be off for a thorough ravishing before sleeping for a day or two."
Translations: Latin to English (and other)
Defaeum – spell used to freshen one's breath; derived from defaeco (meaning to cleanse, purify, or purge) and pneum (meaning breath)
Eluos – spell used to clean out the mouth derived from eluo (meaning to wash out/rinse or cleanse) and os (meaning mouth)
Wolfese – made up word referring to the art of speaking wolf or the languages of wolves
AN: And now we have Harry back in human form without any furry accessories. I will have at least another two chapters up over the weekend; one each day. Oh, and ignore my chapter count from the AN at the end of the previous chapter. Apparently, I have forgotten how to count properly... that or the cold medicine made me loopy. There are only ten chapters left to post now, not eleven (last AN said twelve but that was wrong). Anywho, total number of chapters for this story is sixty-six and the final two chapters are in progress. ~ Jenn