Nothing is mine.

Katie learns how to transfigure a cherry stem into a needle, but then things go horribly wrong... (as I'm sure everyone is still expecting) xD


A Little Princess

A soft breeze rustled through the long slim green leaves of the willow, spreading little ripples across the river in the smooth water near the bank above the lazy shadows of the fish. Harry dozed high upon the branches in the warmth of the sun, watching the cherry blossom sway and the way down to the small patch of white pebbles beneath his toes with one eye.

Maybe she's busy with her maman today. He let his eyes slip shut, soaking in the sunlight.

'Papa!' Katie chirped, tearing him from sleeping with an icy jolt.

A squawk of surprise slipped from his beak and he flapped his wings at his daughter.

She giggled, waving a small bowl. 'I bought you more cherries!'

Food. His stomach growled and gnawed at itself. Food that isn't fish.

Harry stretched his wing and swooped down, shifting back as his toes touched the white pebbles. 'Merci, mon petit ange.'

Katie beamed, shaking her shoulder-length, silver half-curls out as she held the bowl out.

He snagged a cherry and bit it off the stalk, spitting the stone into the river; the sweet taste of the fruit eased some of the snarled pangs of hunger. 'What have you been up to today, baby bird?'

'Drawing things with maman.'

'Your maman draws?' Harry scooped a handful of cherries out of the bowl and pulled off the stalks, scooping them into his mouth; he spat the stones out one by one and swallowed, smearing juice from his beard.

'No, I was drawing daisies and snakes, but maman was there enchanting all my new school clothes.'

Harry laughed. 'Fire-proofing?'

'She said I could burn all my clothes off if I got cross!' Katie pouted. 'I don't believe her; she's teasing me.'

'No, you probably could.' Harry smothered old memories as a dull raw ache crept upon him. 'I've seen your maman do it a time or two. She did it on purpose, though.'

'Urgh.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Papaaaa.'

He chuckled and mussed his daughter's silver hair with one hand. 'Where did your pretty braid go, little chick?'

'Maman said I had to wash my hair.' Her small delicate pout returned. 'But she said she was going to make me more hair ribbons that change to all the colours I like! But I have to braid all my hair to have those and maman said I should let it be free for a bit first because it's good for it.'

'I'm sure she's right,' Harry murmured. 'I know nothing about bird-girl hair, only that it's very shiny and pretty. My hair has seen better days, but it was never very tidy or pretty even then.'

'Don't bird around in my hair, papa.' Katie puffed her cheeks out, levelling her strictest glare at him. 'You'll make it all messy.'

'What about…?' He reached one hand toward her.

'No.' She folded her arms across her chest and turned her nose up at him. 'Don't ruin my hair. Your hair is already ruined; you can make more of a mess of that.'

A small fond smile tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth. 'Look at you, like a mini-version of your maman when she's cross with me.'

Katie stole a cherry from the bowl, polishing the dark red fruit on the front of her pale green dress. 'Maman wanted to look at your wand yesterday.'

Cold dread clamped its fist about Harry's heart. 'What did she say?'

'I showed her my spells and she was really proud!' His daughter beamed. 'She was worried your wand might be dangerous because you did something to it so you didn't die.'

'Oh.' The icy fear eased its grip. 'I'm sure she's checked before, but it's not dangerous like that anymore. Only when you're pointing it at people and trying to set fire to things, little chick.'

'I haven't set fire to anything!' Katie protested. 'Never!'

'Not yet.' Harry grinned. 'Setting fire to things is a strong tradition in our family. All bird-girls do it.'

'What about you?' She scowled at him, biting half her cherry off the stone. 'I bet you've set fire to way more things than I have.'

Raw guilt twisted his smile into something wry and bitter, and he glanced away across the fields. 'I've certainly set fire to quite a lot of things in my time.' He pointed his finger at the slim piece of ebony on her waist. 'But that's perfectly safe; it was enchanted for a while, but not since the magic we needed to save you.'

Katie's small fingers slipped to the wand, curling around it. 'Maman said you didn't die because of it.' Her bright green eyes widened. 'Is that why I came back? You made it work for me instead?'

'No, baby bird.' Harry gave her a small sad smile. 'It's just a normal wand now; it was made with a particular purpose in mind, and that purpose had to be given up to make sure you were going to be happy and safe.'

But I never destroyed it myself. I came out and it was just a normal wand again. He frowned down at the cherry stalks in his palm. Was that how? I took it in there with me to be sure it couldn't do what the diary did, and sacrifice itself and others to pursue our dream outside, but if it was inside, could it have paid the price in my place?

'Papa?' Katie whispered.

Harry mustered a smile. 'What is it, little chick?'

She shuffled her feet on the white pebbles. 'Is the wand okay?'

'It's perfectly safe, Katie; je te les promets.' He brushed the cherry stalks away into the grass. 'I was just thinking about something else.'

'What about? What you did to your wand?' A glimmer of curiosity rose in her green eyes. 'What did you do? To stop yourself dying?'

'The sort of magic you won't ever have to,' Harry murmured. 'I bound myself to it, my soul, my purpose and my magic, and so when I died, I came back to your maman and our dream. Your maman is worried because items like my wand can attempt to pursue the purpose they were created for on their own and become highly dangerous, but it takes a really long time and someone or something has to interact with them for that to happen.'

It took Item Seventeen over fifty years to start reaching out when people tinkered with it, and Tom's horcruxes were only dangerous if you tried to use them. He brushed it all aside. I would've had to be in there for decades; I would've remembered at least some of that, or how long it felt, even all scrambled up.

'It doesn't matter, little chick.' Harry reached out and plucked another cherry from the bowl. 'It's all safe now; there's no sense in fretting about things. It doesn't do you any good, je te les promets.'

Katie ate the remaining half of her cherry with a bright cheeky grin. 'It's only maman who was worrying. I can't feel any magic in the wand.'

'It's safe. You can use it for whatever you want, as long as that's also safe.'

'Can I learn a new thing?' she pleaded. 'S'il te plait?'

A soft smile curved Harry's lips. 'What would you like to learn, baby bird?'

His daughter scrunched up her face. 'Something you're good at! Maman said I have good magic for what she's best at, but I want to be good at all the things you're good at too.'

'Transfiguration was probably my best subject,' he said. 'That or Defence Against the Dark Arts, but you're a little small to learn to duel still.'

She stuck her lower lip out at him. 'Transfig— transfiguration, then.'

'You already know some,' Harry said. 'Conjuring is a branch of transfiguration, although it's not one you're meant to learn until you're about fifteen or sixteen at Beauxbatons.'

Katie beamed, the tips of her ears glowing pink. 'I can already do it.'

He laughed. 'I think the first thing I ever did was turning a matchstick into a needle, but since we don't have any matchsticks—' he picked up a twinned cherry stalk and ripped one half off '—we'll use this.'

'Into a needle.' She pulled his wand out. 'Just swish—' she waved the slim piece of ebony, showering silver sparks across the white pebbles '—and then it's a needle?'

'Transfiguration is changing one thing to another,' Harry replied. 'You start with simple easy things like this, and when you're older, you'll learn how to do really complicated things, like self-transfiguration, which is when you change yourself.'

Katie blinked, staring up at him with big green eyes. 'Is that how you turn into a bird?'

'I'm an animagus, which is partly self-transfiguration, but there's a few other complicated things thrown in as well.' He held out the cherry stalk. 'For now, let's stick with this.'

'I want to be a bird.' She grabbed it.

'You're already a bird-girl.'

His daughter shot him a small glower. 'A real bird.'

'I think your maman told me once that veela can't be animagi,' Harry murmured. 'You get your special bird-girl magic instead.'

'Awww.' Katie pouted. 'Well, I'm going to be both.'

'Maybe you'll be a giant fire-breathing eagle.' He laughed. 'But I think if you turn out to be an Anzu animagus, they'll have to make you queen of all the veela somewhere in the veela enclave instead of Aimée.'

'Princess.'

'Princess?'

'Queens have to marry a king, I don't want to marry a boy.' His daughter screwed her face up. 'Urgh.'

'I wholeheartedly support that.' Harry chuckled under his breath. 'No boys for you. And especially not if you have your maman's terrible taste in men.'

Katie held up the cherry stem and poked at it, prodding her finger with the wand, but the tip of her finger turned long, shiny and sharp, and the cherry stem fell to the stones.

'Oops,' she squeaked. 'Papa?'

'Don't worry,' he murmured. 'I'll teach you a spell to turn it back. And if that doesn't work, you can get your maman to do it.'

'Can't you do it?'

'If I cast a spell, your maman might realise I'm here,' Harry said. 'And if that happens, I'll have to disappear. You have to keep me a secret, little chick. Tu m'as promis, non?'

'But you can just come home!' A glimmer of frustration shone in his daughter's pine-green eyes and she pointed her sharp, silver forefinger at him. 'You said secrets were bad!'

'They are bad,' he murmured. 'If you keep too many secrets, your maman won't know what you're doing or why you're doing it, and she might get the wrong idea. But this one is different; it's too late to undo this secret. Tu m'as promis, Katie.'

'Je sais, j'ai promis,' Katie mumbled.

'Merci, mon petit ange.' Harry took her small hand. 'Now, let's fix this, shall we?'

His daughter bobbed her head. 'Do I just transfigure it back?'

'You could,' he said. 'But it would be riskier than what I'm going to tell you to do, because you don't know where all the bones and veins and muscles and everything in your finger are meant to be and how they're meant to work. So, instead we have a spell with the incantation redeo.' A small sad swell of humour tugged at his lips. 'I learnt this for the exact same reason you did, you know. I was trying to transfigure myself and needed to know it in case it went wrong.'

'Into a bird?'

'That was a lot later.' Harry tapped her on the tip of her nose. 'Listen carefully, little chick, so you don't do something weird and get your maman to take the wand away.'

Katie's green eyes widened and her knuckles whitened around the wand. 'How do I fix it?'

'You picture yourself, all of you, as you are,' he said. 'You have a sort of subconscious understanding of how you're supposed to be, and this spell reverts you back to that. As long as you believe you can, want it enough, and have enough magic, it should work.'

'Redeo?' she asked.

'Redeo and imagine yourself just as you normally are.'

Katie gave her long, sharp, shiny forefinger a poke. 'Redeo.'

It turned pink, fleshy and the pointed end flopped about like a worm.

'Oh no,' she breathed, 'I made it worse! Papa?' His daughter held out the wand with huge pleading eyes. 'S'il te plait.'

'Halfway there,' he said, tapping the end and watching it wobble back and forth with a small grin. 'Give it another go.'

Katie screwed her face up into a frown. 'Redeo.' Her forefinger shrank back to its normal size. 'It's fixed!' She cheered, bouncing on the balls of her feet. 'Merci, papa.'

'Let me see, baby bird.' Harry took her hand and turned her finger over, inspecting each knuckle, bone, and her small nail. 'It looks okay. Give it a wiggle?'

She curled it up and uncurled it.

'Feels normal?'

His daughter nodded. 'It's all fixed, papa.'

'Get your maman to have a look with magic, little chick.' Harry fixed her with a long look. 'No sneakiness. Tell her you were trying to transfigure a cherry stem into a needle and accidentally transfigured your finger.'

'But if I don't tell her you were here, then it's already sneakiness,' Katie mumbled. 'And maman will be cross I did magic without anyone around in case it went wrong.'

'But it's better to be safe. Your fingers are useful and you don't want to lose that one.' He patted her on the head. 'Go on, baby bird. I'm not going anywhere, I'll be here when you get back.'


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