Testing The Boundaries


His conversation with Hermione had left Harry feeling torn. He had
remembered Pettigrew's forced transformation and hoped that something
similar could be done to him, if he could ever figure out a way to get
someone to cast it on him without his having to reveal what he was
first. Having that hope stolen left him downhearted and confused about
what to do next.

At the same time, Hermione's reassurances of her friendship, even in the
face of something as unappealing as turning into a thestral, a
nightmarish winged horse visible only to those who have seen death, had
left him feeling warm and happy, in spite of her insistence that he
would eventually agree to tell her.

In truth, he was less worried about Hermione than about Ron and the
other Gryffindors. Hermione was logical, and she would understand the
need to at least support him until his appointed job was done. All he
really had to worry about with her, was her respect for those in
authority. His tale, which she had eventually wormed out of him, of
Dumbledore's admissions of weakness and failure in his office the day
that Harry had trashed it, had made her think twice, and it had actually
not been as impossible as he had feared to obtain her promise to tell
no one. The others had all abandoned him in the past, at one time or
another.

But he could not waste time thinking on that now. He had his own mission
now, a pair of them, one granted by prophecy, the other by Hermione. He
had to train and grow stronger until he could defeat Voldemort and
then finish off the rest of his Death Eaters, to make the world safe for
Muggle-borns, like Hermione. And he had to explore the limits of his new
form until he knew it inside and out, and everything it could do. He had
understood that clearly from Hermione's words, that he would have to
change himself back, and he could only do it when he had learned his
Animagi form completely.

Thinking back to his words to Hermione, he realized that part of it had
not been true. So far, he had only tested simple lighting and summoning
spells without his wand. For all he knew, though they certainly did not
seem hard or draining, he might find harder spells simply impossible, or
they might leave him weak and helpless.

It needn't be much, and he did not want to damage the hall lest he bring
about another rockfall, but he did need to know if he could cast heavier
spells. As for that, the choice of spell was easy. He had learned in his
third year to cast a spell that his teacher, Remus Lupin, had told him
many wizards and witches never managed to cast.

Focusing on the memory of his reunion this past summer with Ron and
Hermione, and their reassurances that they were still his friends, in
spite of everything that had happened, he held out his hand and cast,
"Expecto Patronum!"

To his great relief, the expected silver light streamed from his hand,
forming into the image of a great stag. It was only then that Harry
realized that the Patronus attacked dark creatures, and what was he
right now if not a dark creature?

He shivered when the stag looked about and, seeing no enemies, trotted
over to him. But it did nothing to harm him, merely rubbing its head
against his shoulder, and then licking his hand, though both motions did
bring its great rack of antlers worrisomely close. That had never
bothered Harry before, but he had never had to fear that he might be his
own spell's target before, either. After a few moments, it wavered and
vanished, leaving him alone once more. 

He looked around the hall, and decided that he needed to make a
comfortable place for himself. This hall, with its great pillars, and
that massive stone face, not to mention an apparently comatose basilisk,
seemed far from ideal, but so far, the only other room he had
encountered was the small chamber behind the face of the statue, where
the basilisk had made its lair.

It was not exactly his first choice, so finding a more suitable place
would be his first goal. Unfortunately, his earlier experience in
wandering the tunnels down here confirmed that he would never manage to
find his way without a map, and he had no experience in making them.

Going to the library meant exposing himself to undesirable risk, at the
moment, though if he was willing to wait, he supposed he could convince
Hermione to research for him. However, he did not really have to wait.

He was supposed to be exploring his powers anyway, and the communication
he had experienced with Hermione had certainly never happened before, so
it was probably a result of his transformation. If he could duplicate
the effect with the last of the true Marauders, he was sure that Moony
could be convinced to help him. He figured it was possible that the
Marauder's Map had actually been made by James and Sirius alone, but he
doubted it. He had the feeling that Remus had played the same role in
that group as Hermione did in the Gryffindor Trio, as some called Ron,
Hermione, and himself.

So Harry sat down, resting his back against the bulk of the warm
basilisk, and focused on his memory of his professor, the constant
barely there sense of wildness about the seemingly calm and placid man,
his soothing voice as he instructed Harry on the casting of a Patronus,
the emotion when he had greeted Sirius in the Shrieking Shack.

"Professor?" Harry asked softly.

"Harry?! What the . . ." Remus' voice was cut off by a watery glub and
then a startled sputtering. "Bleh, soapy water. Harry, where are you?
Accio Invisibility Cloak! Harry?"

"Sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to startle you. I'm not really there
right now."

He could hear Remus' panicked breathing slow substantially as he spoke
and the werewolf realized that his ears were not hearing any of the
sounds of another person, nor could he smell his best friend's son.

"I've told you to call me Remus, Harry. What'd you do? Find the spell
that powers those mirrors James and . . . James made?"

"Something like that. Listen, Remus, I need to know how to make a map,
like the one you guys made. Can you help me?"

"The Marauder's Map? What happened? Did you lose it? It won't be easy to
recreate," Remus warned him, slowly recovering from the shock of
suddenly hearing the disembodied voice of his best friend's son in his
bathing chambers.

"No," Harry explained, "I need to map an area that is not covered by the
map."

"Hmmm . . . That could be a bit difficult, you know," Remus temporized,
trying to identify just what it was that felt off about this
communication with Harry. Finally he realized that though he was hearing
Harry perfectly clearly, Harry's voice did not have the slight echo that
came from speaking in the small enclosed room, while his own responses
did.

"The Map itself would not have been possible, at least not in its
fullness, if it had not been of Hogwarts. That castle is more than a bit
alive, you see. Surely you realize that the passwords the Map reveals
would have changed over the years? But no minor spell can ferret out
that sort of magic, or they would be useless. No, it is Hogwarts itself
that informs the Map, and I think the only reason it goes along with it
is that in some small way we amused it."

Remus could feel Harry's nod, somehow. "Yeah, I've felt that amusement,"
Harry said dryly, "every time it moved the bloody stairs when I was in a
hurry."

"But not when it really mattered," Remus countered, and Harry agreed.

"True. It never really got in the way when I had to get to Dumbledore,
and I'm certain that it led us to the third floor corridor where Fluffy
was, not to mention guided me to the Mirror of Erised. But don't you
know any mapping spells that would work on a different place? I don't
believe you could have hit on that trick on the first try."

As Harry spoke to the last surviving Marauder--Peter Pettigrew still
lived, but in Harry's eyes he had ceased to be a Marauder the instant he
turned to Voldemort--he was exploring the strange connection between
them.

It definitely lacked the strength and intensity of his connection to
Hermione, who had reached him without his active participation, though
that had been only a brief burst of emotion. Yet there was another,
deeper difference, as well. Something about Remus resonated with Harry,
though it was weak and insubstantial, like a thought he could not quite
grasp.

As Remus gave in and explained the most effective of the failed
techniques, Harry probed and prodded the connection, trying to find the
source of the resonance. When he found it, they both knew it instantly. 

Their discussion was cut short, as Harry was drawn into Remus' mind. In
the distance he could feel Remus' conscious mind casting about,
searching for him, calling for him, but he had no focus to spare for it,
for he was instantly in a fight for his life against a massive
wolf-spirit.

The Dark Creature in Remus was unfettered. Here in Remus' mind,
unweakened by a slow wasting illness brought on by the waxing moon, not
maddened by a painful and damaging transformation, nor bound by the
power of wolfbane, this was the werewolf at its peak.

Harry barely avoided the first cruel lunge, narrowly dodging flashing
teeth, but though his new form might be built for pleasure, it was not
incapable of dealing out its own share of pain. A sharp downward beat of
his wings, snapping out and then down, propelled him out of range of the
next attack, even as raw magical power rising about him shook the dark
forest of the depths of Remus' mind.

His wings pumped strongly, lifting him up and out of range of the wolf's
leaps, then he leaned forward and began circling the angry beast.
Waiting for the wolf's next leap, Harry released a mild cutting curse,
to test the beast's reflexes, and to see if he would have to deal with
werewolf healing in this mental realm.

The wolf twisted in mid-air but was unable to completely avoid the
curse, which opened a long, shallow slice on the wolf's side. The wolf's
howl of pain was deafening, but somehow Harry was still able to hear
Remus himself cry out in pain.

"Merlin!" Harry swore, having failed to anticipate that his attack might
be transmitted to the wolf's host. He crossed his fingers, hoping that
Lupin's wound would be as minor as that of the wolf.

For a moment, Harry considered fleeing Lupin's mind, but he quickly
rejected the idea. Certainly if every form of attack on the wolf
affected Remus equally, he would have to disengage. Nevertheless, he
owed it to Remus to try, for it was obvious that the wolf represented
Remus' lycanthropy, and if he could destroy or remove it without killing
the last true Marauder, he had the feeling that Remus would be a
werewolf no longer. After causing Lupin's best friend's death, Harry
felt it was his duty to take this opportunity.

The nerve-wracking part for Harry was the question of what would happen
if that wolf managed to bite him. Could the infection be passed on
without actual physical contact? Could a succubus even be infected by a
werewolf? What would be the consequences if he did get infected?

Still, he had no choice. Lifting higher, further from the wolf's lunges,
Harry took stock of himself. He had so far avoided injury, but perhaps
he could come up with a way of avoiding it completely? He needed
something to protect himself, something that would withstand the claws
and teeth of the werewolf, while allowing him to subdue it without
causing physical damage.

Harry felt a sudden magical surge, as if his magic had flowed out of his
body for a moment, before returning in a flood of power that dwarfed the
outflow. With barely any conception of what was happening to him, Harry
suddenly found his body reacting instinctively, enveloping the werewolf
in a crushing embrace.

Desperately, Harry reached out to Remus, focusing on the feeling of his
magic flowing, and the idea that Remus must survive, even as his mental
form effortlessly consumed the wolf, unaffected by its teeth and claws.

---

Hermione sat up with a start, and looked wildly around the room she
shared with the other sixth-year Gryffindor girls. She was sweating, and
breathing heavily, as though awakened from a nightmare, but she could
remember nothing of the dream.

Her thoughts turned instantly to Harry, and his dreams of the previous
year, and the memory of her earlier conversation came flooding back,
overriding the mindless panic of her awakening. "Harry?" she called out
in her mind, hoping that he was listening, hoping that he could hear
her. There was no reply.

At the same time, across the world, thirteen stones gained a steady glow
in their heart. Thirteen organizations, each formed at the same time,
each independent of their respective governments, began to execute plans
held since their beginnings.

In London, England, in the bowels of the Ministry, the change in the
stone triggered a ward that awakened the head of the department, the
head of the Unspeakables, Algernon Croaker. It took him a minute to
identify the ward that had awakened him, and what it was telling him,
but when he did, he groaned. "What a time to have a Minister like
Cornelius. Well, there's nothing for it, best prepare, even if he is
guaranteed to botch it. I never imagined we would be the ones on the
wrong side of that prophecy, but knowing Fudge and Dumbledore . . ."

---

"By Lilith's Black Heart, wake up, Mahalia!"

"Uhh . . . what do you want now, Idra? Is it not enough that we are the
last, that we must hide, unable to even feed for fear of drawing His
eye, must we now give up all hope of rest as well?"

"Mahalia, shut up! Stop grousing, and wake up. Can you not feel it?
Either your plan worked, or one of the Aeld has awakened!"

"My plan?" Mahalia stirred, and finally sat up, rustling her wings to
shake off the leaves. "What are you . . . Baal's Bronze Balls, Idra, how
can that power be from my plan? Besides, even if my plan succeeded, you
know we have to wait at least a hundred years for the whelp to mature
before it will be any good to us . . ." She yawned, exposing a mouthful
of fangs and a long forked tongue, and stretched, her coppery skin
glinting as a sunbeam crossed her flat stomach.

"But I felt no gate opening, and it's coming from the right place, that
hidden castle where you found them the first time, and besides, it feels
like you." 

Mahalia twisted to look at her brood-sister, sitting, pouting, one fang
peeking out of her mouth, pressed against her full lower lip. Like
Mahalia, Idra wore a simple halter and a loincloth covering a sleek
form. Both of them were at less than their peak, as their ability to
feed had been severely restricted since they had gone into hiding, and
limited even more so when they accidentally attracted the attention of a
hunter team.

She turned her attention away from her companion, and to the
power-signature she could feel in the distance. To her surprise, Idra
was right, it did seem to be coming from the wizard's school where she
had found her mortal playthings.

Worse yet, it did feel vaguely familiar, as she would have expected of
her get, but vastly more powerful and much older. How could this be? Was
it some relative of hers, sent by Him to bring them back? If so, it
seemed a strange thing that they would choose to appear in a school for
those who might have some chance at restraining them.

Of course, she reconsidered, one of that strength, such strength as she
had never felt in one of her kin since the Aeld left the Underrealm,
would have little to fear.

Yet, what if it was her Lily's child? She was torn between
investigating, and fleeing.

---

Harry slowly returned to consciousness, his body aching horribly, and
his head pounding. He shifted, trying to relieve an uncomfortable
pressure on his tail, when he heard a dry hiss. He froze, realizing that
he was in his succubus form, given the feeling in his tail, and that
there was something or someone else in the room with him. He listened
intently, but the sound was not repeated.

Carefully, he cracked his eyelids open, allowing a sliver of darkness to
enter. "Sure, Harry, just peer around and see who's making the noise . .
. doesn't help much when it's bloody pitch black," Harry mentally
castigated himself.

Closing his eyes again, he took stock of his surroundings. He was lying
on something warm and yielding, and there was a weight on his tail, but
none on his body. There had still been no recurrence of the unexpected
hiss, so Harry dared a twitch of his fingers against his support. The
feel was smooth but yielding, and interspersed with ridges. "I'm lying
on the Basilisk? How the heck did I get up here?"

Harry tried again to move his tail, and again he heard a hissing. He
stilled and the noise stopped. He moved his tail sharply, which felt
strange, as if he had only managed to twitch a little bit of it, like he
had kinked it or something, and was rewarded with a higher pitched
scraping noise.

Deciding that he was the source of the noise, and therefore alone, he
cast Lumos, then waited for the red of his eyelids to fade from blinding
to merely aching, and slowly opened his eyes. The light did nothing good
for his headache, but at least he could see. The first thought that
crossed his mind was amazement at how much the basilisk seemed to have
shrunk. He could see a loop of its coil--an oddity in itself since the
snake had not been coiled up when he rested against it--just beneath his
head, and judging by the way it fell away to either side, he would say
it was no wider around than his torso.

He turned his head to look up at the room, and was startled to realize
that it too seemed to have shrunk. He tried to pull a leg beneath him to
rise, but to his dismay, he could feel no reaction. His head snapped
down to look at his legs, and he felt as though a giant hand had reached
inside him and crushed his heart, lungs, and stomach.

He had no legs. He had no feet. He had an absolute hell of a tail. His
abdomen seemed to merge seamlessly into a tail as wide around as he was,
and both tail and abdomen were red and scaled. He lifted his hands in
front of his face, and to his horror, they too were covered in scales.

After several minutes of thrashing about in a frenzy, he managed to get
the hang of moving this new tail and managed to lift his torso into the
air. Now able to look fully about him, he realized that the room had not
shrunk, nor had the basilisk. He had grown. The basilisk was gone,
somehow absorbed by his animagus form, resulting in a strange new shape.
He stretched out, looking over his new mass, and decided he had to be at
least fifty feet long. He could easily rear up and touch the ceiling,
and his wings stretched out amazingly wide.

He glanced down again and sighed unhappily. His mental image of himself
was taking a real beating. It was hard to keep thinking of yourself as a
boy when you sported breasts that massive. Their relative increase in
mass had exacerbated their tendency to pull him off balance when he
moved too quickly. Even worse, his clothes had survived his wings coming
out the first time, but they had been ripped to shreds by his massive
increase in size. Only his shoes and pants remained unharmed, though of
course, he could wear neither. His cloak was not torn itself, but the
clasp had been pulled loose.

"Well, here goes nothing," he stated. His voice sounded unnaturally loud
and deep in his ears, but he ignored the change. Pointing his hand at
his cloak, he cast "Reparo!"

It was not until the light had flashed from his hand, and the clasp
restored to his cloak, that he realized he had not even considered the
possibility that his unexpected transformation might have affected his
magic.

Aside from covering him with scales, stealing his legs, and increasing
his overall proportions, not to mention one bloody huge tail, had he
obtained anything else from the basilisk? Would his eyes kill if someone
saw them? Was his bite now among the world's more deadly poisons?

More to the point, if he conjured another mirror to check out his eyes
for any visible changes, did he risk killing or petrifying himself? An
even worse thought occurred to him a moment later. Would he, like the
basilisk, now be killed by hearing a rooster's crow?

A moment later, Harry shook off the fear for his own life. Basilisks
were not vulnerable to their own gaze, so he doubted he would be either.
That did not, of course, protect anyone else. He also doubted that he
could truly be slain by a cock's crow, as that would invalidate the
prophecy.

Experience gave him a way to test his gaze without great risk, as well.
In his second year, when Riddle was releasing the basilisk, a ghost had
fallen victim, and been basically unharmed, but not unaffected. If he
could get his hands on a ghost without risking seeing anyone living,
then he could find out what the consequences of his vision would be.

Unfortunately, guaranteeing that there were no living things in his
range, when he could not use his eyes, would not be an easy thing. Not
to mention that he would have to figure this new form out well enough to
be able to propel himself up that tube to Myrtle's bathroom. That was
assuming that he could get past the rockfall.

Then again, if he could still turn intangible, that might not be so
difficult as it seemed. A moment of focus confirmed this easier answer,
as Harry's form wavered, and his shifting coils slipped beneath the
surface of the floor.

Harry made it back through the tunnels and half-way up the twisting pipe
to Myrtle's bathroom, when he stopped. What would happen if his eyes did
paralyze a ghost? Granted it would likely do the ghost no permanent
harm, and could be easily remedied, but what would be the Ministry's
response to a new 'attack' from Slytherin's Monster?

Not only would Dumbledore likely be removed again, but worse, the
Minister might well throw Hagrid back in Azkaban. Harry descended once
more, his relief shattered. If even such a safe test might have
unacceptable consequences for his friends, would he ever be able to see
them again?

Even if he managed to somehow return to a semi-human form--at this point
even the form of a girl seemed a vast improvement--he had no way to be
certain that his eyes held no danger.

"Harry!"

Harry snapped his eyes shut, cringing away from the sound of Hermione's
voice, afraid that she had somehow managed to get into the Chamber,
afraid that he was about to find out if his eyes could kill, at the cost
of one of his best friend's life.

A moment later, as Hermione's sharp voice sounded again in his ears, he
realized that he was hearing her the same way he had previously, in his
mind. "Harry, answer me! I can feel that you are there now. Where were
you?!"

"I'm here, Hermione," he responded, instantly grateful that his mental
voice had not changed with his size, leaving no indications of what had
happened to him that Hermione should be able to pick up.

"Harry, what happened down there? What was that?"

Or not. Apparently she could tell. "What do you mean, Hermione? Nothing
happened."

"You can't mean to tell me that you didn't feel that magical pulse,
Harry? It passed through all of Hogwarts! It woke me up out of a sound
sleep . . . it didn't wake the other girls, but when we got up this
morning, we found a posting on the inside of the Fat Lady's portrait,
we've been confined to the dorms while the professors search Hogwarts
for the cause! I've been so worried, I tried to contact you when I woke
up, but you weren't there, and I was so afraid . . ."

"It's alright, Hermione," Harry interrupted her, as she had gotten
steadily faster and more shrill, and he had the distinct sense that she
was about to burst into tears. "I'm . . . I'm fine. Yes, alright,
something happened, but I can't tell you about it, not yet. It won't; it
can't happen again, Hermione, definitely a one-time thing," he tried to
reassure her, suppressing a laugh at his own statement. Had to be a
one-time thing, right? After all, there weren't any other basilisks
here for him to absorb.

Remus! Harry's heart fell through to his feet. He had awakened, and
completely failed to think of Remus. He did not even know if the Marauder
was still alive after what he had done . . . he was unclear on just what
he had done anyway, though he was pretty sure he remembered eating the
wolf . . . swallowing it whole. He felt bile rising in his throat, and
forced it back down. "I've got to go, Hermione. I'm fine, you're fine,
but I've got to check on something."

"Harry, you can't just . . ."

Harry pulled his mind away from Hermione, and focused once more on the
smell and feel of Remus. For several long minutes he could feel despair
rising in his throat. Finally he decided that he had to change his
method, he could not think of anything about Remus that was tied to the
wolf if he had destroyed it. That had to be the problem, it simply had
to be.

With his stomach twisting in knots, and feeling horribly afraid that he
had just killed his last link to his parents, he reached out again,
focusing solely on his memories of Remus teaching him, of his patient
manner, his quiet diction, carefully avoiding any thought of the wolf.

Great tears sprang into his eyes when the sense of Remus suddenly
surrounded him. Too choked up to say anything, he just basked in the
feel of the man. The wildness about his feel had gone, and he simply
felt tired, sore, but alive.