Harry Potter: The Healer

Concentrating a little, I felt the wards, letting out a touch of neutral energy and pushing my mind to its limit — I could quite literally feel all the circuits, their joins, arrays, fields. A little storm energy, and a vague understanding arrived of where I could slip past the wards without disturbing them or knocking myself out. A simple Arithmantic formula in my mind, a rune layered over it, wrapping myself and the twins in magic, and pulling us into the Apparition.

An instant, and we were standing atop a tall, somewhat rocky hill in the north of the British Isles. Behind us, other hills, some lower, some higher. Ahead, some hundred metres on, a cliff and the grey sea stretching to the horizon. A soft, cold wind blew into our faces. Looking up, I saw hardly any clouds, one of which had just swallowed the sun.

"Bloody hell, Merlin!" Fred exclaimed.

George reacted more calmly, but his astonishment at all of it was plain.

"Why was the Apparition so smooth?" he asked, his enthusiasm building. "How did you get past the wards on the shop?"

"Where are we — that's the question!" added a delighted Fred. "Clearly, the edge of the world…"

"…the planet's round, you dolt," George smirked.

I, meanwhile, was looking out at the sea. The twins came to stand beside me, and looked too.

"It's magic, lads," I echoed Dumbledore.

"Pfft…"

"But, really…" the wind tugged at my hair and clothes, and the lapels of the twins' brown jackets flapped about amusingly. "Have you ever thought about what kind of natural phenomenon magic actually is? You know, it's been described every possible way in the past, is described various ways now, and who knows what they'll say about it in future. For some, magic is spellcasting. For others, magic is potion-brewing. Some genuinely believe that real magic is tradition — dancing around a bonfire with a drum, rituals, and mind-altering smoking blends for communing with spirits."

"You're stretching it a bit there, mate," Fred smirked.

"People call anything astonishing, unknowable, incredible, beautiful, or terrible 'magic,'" I went on with the thought. "Wonders — as Dumbledore used to say."

"Used to?…"

"…did he, though?…"

"…because we know…"

"…that you know…"

"That doesn't change the substance of it," I shook my head. "Wizards rarely dig deep enough into the essence of magic as a natural phenomenon, rather than as their own personal idea of it. Some people even call love the 'real' magic. So what, is there fake magic too, then? The essence of magic, as a phenomenon, is that it's energy. It's everywhere, in everything, in every stone, every leaf, every blade of grass, in the air, in light and shadow. It's everywhere, and a wizard can draw out a fragment of it and create anything, because magic itself can do anything. And I love feeling, watching, how magic does that 'anything,' whether with my help or without it."

Stretching a hand forward, I drew pure storm energy through myself in great volumes, releasing it outward, upward, and forward, though it inevitably spread sideways as well.

The twins were stunned, and I understood why. That kind of pressure, that whole "Dumbledore effect," doesn't come out every time even when deliberately intended — and here it had simply leaked out as background. That local wizards are poorly sensitive to magic isn't a secret to me, but neither is the fact that at high enough concentration, staying insensitive to it becomes impossible. But I didn't see fear in the twins — only a high degree of stupor.

I felt sparks of electricity running over me, heard a faint crackling. A powerful, gale-force wind rose, sweeping around us but leaving us untouched, though only a blind man could have missed how the sparse grass and plants on the hill and around it were pressed nearly flat, or how the almost mirror-smooth sea instantly turned wild, waves crashing against the cliffs along the jagged coastline.

Heavy grey clouds appeared out of nowhere in the sky, filling everything from horizon to horizon, moving faster and faster, and, it seemed, gradually spiralling above me. Flashes of lightning, hidden within the clouds, sharp glows and patches lighting up the sky, seemed to be everywhere, and the air trembled with constant thunder.

But despite all this, the storm barely troubled us, the wind only lightly ruffling our hair and clothes.

"Ha," I smiled openly, taking it all in while continuing to draw up storm energy, wanting this storm. "This — this is what I love. Seeing and feeling how magic, mine or anyone else's, brings something into the world. I don't care what. So long as it isn't death and suffering from Dark Magic — that feels disgustingly foul, and it damages the mind and the soul."

"Dumbledore used to say…" George spoke hoarsely, managing to keep more of his composure than most in all sorts of situations, while Fred stared at the storm, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. "That killing tears the soul apart."

"Poor pig farm workers — there can't be much soul left in them at all, then. Not every killing, and not by every method, tears it apart quite like that, but it does maim it, for certain. I do want to become a Healer, after all — we're meant to know this sort of thing."

"You look happy, Hector," George now allowed himself to gaze around in open wonder too. "So that means…"

Fred cut him off, gripping his brother's jacket sleeve with one hand and shaking it wildly, pointing at the sky with the other.

"Look! Look! There! Bloody hell!"

There, hidden within the swirling clouds and tearing through their currents, visible only as a shadow thanks to the lightning's flashes and glows, but I'd already felt the familiar energy a moment earlier. A creature familiar to me — kindred, even — was flying very fast, closing in in a spiral, but still hidden within the clouds.

An instant, and the familiar creature dropped below the clouds, revealing itself to us. An enormous, absurdly gigantic bird with a pair of equally enormous wings, and two more pairs of much smaller wings, with a long tail like a lizard's, but feathered — it resembled more a variation on the theme of dragons than of birds.

"A Thunderbird?" Fred said, astonished.

"Nah," George shook his head. "A Thunderbird's not much bigger than a Pegasus, and that's practically a dragon! Charlie would know for certain, he's an animal nut. Or Hagrid."

"Don't you two think," Fred said, with doubt, agitation, and a touch of fear, "that this marvel is flying towards us? Shouldn't we be legging it? I'm no coward, but in this particular situation…"

"Friendly," I reassured the lads, watching the bird with a completely unguarded smile, even joy, as it approached our hill fast. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

Curiously, I sensed something like emotion, or some kind of mental impression, from Binesi. Something like curiosity, along the lines of: "What's got you kicking up such a fuss?", but along with it, a sort of understanding, like: "Yes, cool magic, and I can do that too, and so can you, brilliant, isn't it?"

Binesi, dark blue with streaks of pale blue feathers, quickly drew level with us and landed some fifteen metres away, smoothly and calmly, almost as if levitating. And it seemed she'd grown even bigger since our last meeting — bigger than a dragon! Enormous, like a long house three storeys tall, at the very least.

Fred fell over stupidly, having stumbled, George swallowed audibly, and the bird, on four legs — which again made her more akin to a dragon than a bird — took just a single step forward, lowering her head so her beak came to within half a metre of me, tilting it slightly to view me with one eye.

"Hello," I touched a hand to her beak, stroking it, sparks of lightning running along my hand and her beak as I did, and I was surely smiling like an idiot. "Been a while."

The bird clacked something in her own way, quiet enough for her, but loud for us. She shifted her wings, sending mad discharges of lightning racing across the sky above our heads, though the storm was beginning to subside.

"Don't kick up such a fuss, fledgling" — that's roughly how I interpreted something like thoughts reaching me from the bird.

"Insolent humans don't want to see the likes of us unenslaved and alive" — a second impression of thought came from her.

"I'll be careful," I stroked the bird, still smiling, and she clacked again. "And don't you get caught again."

The bird gave an indignant flick of wings and tail, and a branching bolt of lightning stretched across the clouds above our heads, horizon to horizon.

"Worry about yourself, fledgling. I don't live here anymore."

The bird pulled back a little, arched her neck, plucked at one of her wings, and brought her head close to me again, holding two feathers in her beak.

"Ooh!" the twins exclaimed in unison, one of whom was still sitting on the ground.

Well, yes — stories of voluntarily given feathers and other parts of magical creatures are an important part of magical culture, since the possible uses for them are broad, and their potency is usually off the charts.

"Thank you," I reached out and took the two feathers. "But why?"

The bird looked at me as one might look at a fool. For the first time in this life, I felt genuinely ashamed, without understanding exactly what for — and that very lack of understanding was another nail in the coffin of my quiet, calm, but nonetheless present pride.

"A piece of unicorn treat in your stick is burning out. Replace it. Did you want to make some sort of thrasher against insolent humans? Use it" — interpreting the bird's thought-impressions was difficult, but stranger still was the realisation that she could see either me, or my memories, or my goals, when my mind is rather well protected. Ugh… There you go, living your life, thinking you're something special, and someone always manages to take you down a peg.

Pulling out my wand, I turned it over in my hands, listening closely. The unicorn hair seemed fine as far as I could tell.

"The piece will get used to the evil magic, you're forcing it to. But it's burning out. Replace it, or combine. And don't kick up a fuss without need. Evil humans won't let you live normally."

The bird drew back, stepped away, beat her wings, and, blasting us with a breathtaking gust of wind, quite literally shot herself up into the sky. An instant, a couple of wingbeats, a deafening clack like a hawk's cry, and Binesi turned into a streak of countless lightning bolts, quite literally tearing through space, vanishing — I could almost hear it tearing, like cheap cloth. With the bird, all the clouds vanished too, calm settled in, the sea grew quiet, and the sun blazed down mercilessly, a total shock to the eyes after the storm's darkness.

"Hm…" I turned the two large dark blue feathers with pale blue streaks over in my hands. "An unexpected encounter."

"What a fright," Fred exhaled, still sitting on the ground.

Folding his arms over his knees, he suddenly burst out laughing. A second later George joined him, leaning a hand on his brother's shoulder, ruffling his own hair with the other.

"We should clear off," I said, smiling. "The Auror Office and the DMLE won't leave a magical flare-up like that uninvestigated. I'm sure they're not here yet only because they're still gathering. Big magic, big response team."

"Yeah… Ha, phew, probably," George nodded.

I walked over, took the lads firmly by the arm, and Apparated us, with all due caution and mindful of the wards, straight into their shop's meeting room.

George, realising he was back at work, smoothed his hair with a rakish grin and flopped into a chair, while Fred headed for the drinks cabinet and, without much thought, poured himself a measure of Firewhisky, downing it in one go.

"Well… that went down well," Fred grimaced slightly. "I'm in shock. No, I'm hysterical!"

"Have another 'calm-me-down,'" George smiled at his brother, "just remember we've still got work to do."

Fred poured himself a bit more Firewhisky, drank it, and only then rejoined us.

"I'll ask you not to breathe a word of this to anyone," I said to the lads.

"We're a vault," Fred nodded, self-importantly and with a flourish, though I'm not entirely sure how one nods with a flourish.

"But why don't you, let's say, show off your abilities?" George was genuinely curious about this.

"Have you sobered up yet, brother?"

"No, but as a grown wizard I ought to keep myself in check at serious moments."

"It's simple, really," I shifted in my chair, settling as comfortably as I could. "The moment you stand out for anything — talent, power, special skills, anything that could be called an advantage — people immediately want to bring you under control. Subdue you, make you work, coerce you, use you. I once tried negotiating market entry for my simplest artefacts with a certain influential trader…"

"And?"

"What do you mean, 'and'," I smirked. "They tried to force me to hand over the technology and all my work, free of charge. If I'd been a weakling, I certainly wouldn't have walked away alive. Or I'd have signed a contract and given an Oath and handed everything over, and had my memory wiped for good measure."

"But you're not a weakling, are you?"

"Right."

"And?"

"And here I am, alive and well. Do you actually need to know the rest? Do you really want to?"

"Don't need to at all," George shook his head, and Fred agreed with him. "We already got 'a right telling-off' once for knowing too much and wanting to sniff out other people's plots. Not serious, but embarrassing, and a bit frightening. Better not to poke our noses in."

"I still get nightmares from it," Fred shuddered, hiding it behind mock bravado. "And now on top of that, you and this strange Thunderbird."

"That's Binesi," I explained. "You could call her an evolution of the Thunderbird. If a phoenix is half an embodiment of fire and life, practically an elemental, then Binesi is half a storm elemental."

"What are you going to do with the feathers, out of curiosity?" George asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm terribly curious."

"Certainly not an artefact for sale," I smiled. "A gift like that isn't worth comparing to any number of Galleons."

"True enough."

"I've got a couple of things in mind. One fresh project, and one set aside long ago for better times. And you know, I can't wait to get started, so I'm afraid I really must be off."

I rose from the chair, but Fred stopped me.

"Wait! We haven't paid you yet!"

Having received payment for the artefacts, I put it in my rucksack and, with the twins' leave, Apparated carefully, without disturbing a single warding circuit, straight to the edge of Hogwarts' protective wards, not far from Hagrid's hut. Ah. Haven't seen much of our big fellow lately.

Walking back to Hogwarts, grinning like a fool, I decided that I'd begin work on a theory for combining a wand core with one of Binesi's feathers the moment I got back, and after that — "Thor's Hammer." Enough dragging my feet out of stubbornness.

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