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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Seventeen—Informis

            Harry looked in silence at the Daily Prophet that had landed on the table in front of him after Chang was done with it. He didn’t have a subscription to it himself, but he’d frequently read it during this year, especially to see the kinds of stupid things they said about Neville.

            And now there was another front-page story, about how Walden Macnair had been reported as a Death Eater, and had in fact been caught with the Dark Mark on his arm. But not before he’d managed to reach the island where Azkaban prison stood, overpower the guards with a mixture of magic and persuasion, and free a bunch of the other Death Eaters who were there.

            Harry delicately traced the list with one finger. Several names he didn’t recognize; others he’d sometimes seen history books mention.

            But three stood out as though they were written in scarlet ink.

            Bellatrix Lestrange. Rodolphus Lestrange. Rabastan Lestrange.

            Harry smiled.

            “Harry?” Terry asked cautiously, looking around the paper. “Cho wants the paper back. To look at the Quidditch section, I think.”

            Harry handed the paper over willingly. He’d already read the lead story several times, and it felt as if its words were imprinted on his heart with that same scarlet ink.

            “Are you all right?” Terry had handed the paper to Chang without actually turning away from Harry. Harry wondered idly what had made Terry change his mind about paying attention to Harry when he hadn’t in such a long time, but dismissed the worry. It was fine if he had changed his mind; Harry would be fine with being friends again, or with Terry ignoring him if he wanted to.

            He had more important things to worry about.

            “Yes,” said Harry. “I just thought of some things I need to take care of before we leave for the summer, that’s all.” He swallowed the last of his pumpkin juice and charmed a few sausages with a Preservation spell, just in case, then stood up.

            “You should have been packed already,” said Terry, but he stood up, too, and followed Harry back to Ravenclaw Tower.

            Harry kept silent, his mind humming with thoughts. He thought it might also make Terry speak up the way it looked like he wanted to, and stop dithering around.

            “Listen,” said Terry, sure enough, when they were only a few stairs away from Ravenclaw Tower. Harry turned around and nodded.

            Terry fidgeted for a second, and then he muttered, “I saw you flying one day with Yar.”

            Harry nodded again. He didn’t know where this was going, but thought it might be another attempt to recruit him for Quidditch, maybe because Davies had asked Terry to do it. Terry was going to be in for a disappointment if that was true.

            “And I think—” More fidgeting. Terry then looked Harry straight in the eye and blurted, “I understand now.”

            Harry cocked his head. “You understand what?”

            “I understand what flying means to you.” Terry massaged the back of his neck and grimaced. “It means more than playing a game. It means escape and freedom for you, and, well—I wouldn’t want to take that away because I want to play Quidditch.”

            Harry blinked a few times. Then he said, “That’s very—adult of you, Terry.”

            Terry sighed. “Well, that and Davies is telling me I can’t play on the team for at least a year,” he admitted. “And maybe by then they’ll have found someone they like better as a Chaser anyway. Can we be friends again? I’ve been bored.”

            “Sure,” said Harry, with a little shrug.

            Terry smiled and filled the rest of the journey and their packing with chattering about writing to Harry during the summer. He no longer urged Harry to visit him or wanted to visit Harry, and that was all right with Harry. He didn’t think he and Terry would be close friends the way they’d been before. Harry had disappointed Terry by not being enough like the ideal friend interested in Quidditch.

            But if he had friends in other places, that was all right. After all, Harry had Neville, and Cross, and Yar. And he would probably make some more friends before he finished his plans.

            And he had his new plans, which were more than enough to occupy his mind by themselves.

            Not so much that he missed Neville as they were heading for the train, though. Harry nodded absently to something Terry had said and then muttered, “I need to talk to Neville. Wait a bit.”

            “They’re saying—he might have killed Diggory,” Terry muttered, looking uneasily at Neville.

            Harry turned around and blinked. Then he said, “Neville? Who can’t even get most Charms right? Who melts his cauldron half the time? He’s more of a danger to himself than anything else.” Then Harry thought about it, and added, “Well, I suppose he can be a terror to weeds when he helps Professor Sprout in the greenhouses.”

            Terry looked startled, and then laughed and relaxed. “Right. Okay, I’ll get us a compartment.”

            Harry watched him hurry on ahead for a second, then he turned and went towards Neville.

            Neville had the grey kitten balanced on his shoulder. He smiled at Harry and said, “Thank you for Dapple.”

            Harry nodded. “Sure. Has he been keeping you safe?”

            “Well, he hisses at people who talk about me killing Cedric,” said Neville, and appeared as though he was happy and depressed about it at the same time. “And they at least shut up and go somewhere else to talk about it. I don’t know what else could hurt me right now, anyway.” He hesitated. “Except Voldemort. Harry, I know you believe me. And so does Professor Dumbledore, and so do Ron and Hermione. But it’s pretty lonely otherwise.”

            Harry lightly touched his elbow. “I know. Write to me this summer if you want. I think my relatives are a little more reasonable about owls now.” Or they would be as soon as Harry had talked to them and explained what would happen if they weren’t.

            “Thanks, Harry.” Neville gripped his arm hard enough that Harry had bruises later, and then hurried to catch up with Granger and Weasley. Harry waved once to him and touched the top of his trunk once.

            He was sure he had the right Transfiguration books now, including the ones that had the spells Professor McGonagall would frown over. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, any more than her not knowing he had animal companions made from Transfiguration would.

            Harry glanced up once. Yar had been absent, hunting, for most of the past few days. But then, she had her own ways of following the Hogwarts Express.

*

            Albus sat in his office with his eyes half-closed and his mind focused on the Tracking Charm on the Transfigured eagle’s leg. The eagle had left Hogwarts grounds abruptly that morning, which Albus had at first linked to Macnair’s arrest and the disappearance of the Azkaban escapees. No doubt its master needed it helping elsewhere, instead of staying here to make reports as the school year ceased.

            But now he knew it was moving south at a steady pace, drawing near to London. Death Eaters would be unlikely to hide there, among the Muggle population they despised, even if the size of the city would make it difficult for the Ministry to search. And there were some Muggleborn Aurors who fit in better than the others and would respond alertly to mentions of people in robes and waving sticks around.

            No, Albus feared now that the eagle was tracking Neville. He only hoped that the Apparition Neville would go through the minute his grandmother reached him would somewhat confuse and stall the eagle.

            Albus would maintain the Tracking Charm for a few days. He always had much to do at this time of year anyway, as he made sure that all exam results were properly recorded and caught up on the summer destinations of his professors. And he had more to do this summer than usual, including rousing the old crowd and finding a suitable place for a headquarters. It was possible Augusta Longbottom had a few unused Longbottom properties held in trust for her grandson that she might let him make Unplottable or put under the Fidelius Charm.

            But then, Albus intended to go and investigate the eagle’s strange behavior.

*

            The Dursleys were even more subdued this summer than usual. Harry was sure that had something to do with the way Yar’s shadow had swept across them when they stood by the car with Vernon shakily threatening Harry.

            Dudley spent a lot of time outside with his friends, and sometimes Harry, on his way to the library or the shops he now patronized freely with some Gringotts money converted into Muggle money, would hear Piers asking why Dudley kept looking up at the sky.

            Harry took out books on birds, still, and books on all sorts of other animals. If he was serious about pursuing the Animagus transformation, then he should have a good idea of the capabilities of other forms.

            But he spent more time with what he was coming to think of as the poorly-collated Transfiguration books. Not that they were badly-written, but the people who were in charge of moving books to the Restricted Section had somehow missed these.

            Harry wondered if it was because everyone panicked about the Dark Arts, and no one seemed to think much about Charms and Transfiguration. Or maybe they assumed that no one was good enough at Transfiguration to use it in battle unless they’d spent years and years studying, so it was all right to leave these books out for students.

            In the end, wondering about those reasons was only an amusing exercise for an afternoon. Harry could only cheer on whoever had thought students should have access to these books.

            Transfiguration as he had learned it was divided into several kinds, but there were two large category names that Professor McGonagall had started using more in their second year, as they got used to the theory. “Cross-class” Transfigurations were turning an animal into an object, or an object into a human being, or a human being into an animal, and so on. “Inner-class” Transfigurations were the sort that shaped an object into another object, an animal into another animal.

            These books were about the Transfigurations that slipped between the cracks, the Transfigurations that didn’t have a definite end goal in mind. Instead of turning a person into another person or an animal or even an object, there were Transfigurations that changed the shape of a person’s body.

            And that could apparently cause agonizing pain.

            The books were stingy with incantations. That was all right. Harry understood why, and he also knew he was good enough to come up with incantations of his own if he had to. He read on, pausing now and then only to make notes. Most of the books he expected to read more than once, so he could store the information up in his memory.

            He did get one totally unexpected letter, towards the end of the first week.

*

            Albus stood, Disillusioned, in the middle of the Muggle street, and turned his head back and forth. This was the center of the eagle’s activity, but he couldn’t see anything incriminating here. No traces of magic, certainly, other than his own Tracking Charm and the eagle itself. No indication that a wizard had been hiding here and sending the eagle on information-gathering raids or creating new creatures to serve him.

            In fact, Albus was growing more and more puzzled as to what would bring a Transfiguration master here at all. The area was one of the most thoroughly Muggle ones he had ever encountered. The neighbors seemed content to spy on one another, gossip, garden, and brag about the accomplishments of their children. Albus had a much better opinion of Muggles than the general run of wizards, he knew, but these were the kind that might cause him to grow impatient.

            A brilliant Death Eater might well have picked this place for just that reason, as a disguise. But the more Albus searched his memory for Death Eaters who would fit both “brilliant” and “comfortable in this sort of Muggle area without torturing people,” the less he found.

            As well, that Death Eater would have to be a Transfiguration master. Albus had made it a point of pride to know the specialties of all Voldemort’s Inner Circle, the ones he was most likely to face on a battlefield. Only two had specialized in Transfiguration, and one had died in the first war and one in Azkaban three years ago.

            Of course, that didn’t lessen the possibility that Tom might have drawn in some new, young recruit. But Albus had heard nothing of any wizard skilled in Transfiguration suddenly resigning from his job or disappearing, either—and that was the sort of thing that would have drawn his attention.

            That made the most likely choice a foreign wizard who had kept a low profile as he entered Britain, or simply never made contact with the Ministry at all.

            Albus sighed and looked towards the cloud that the Transfigured eagle had disappeared into. I did not want to have to fight a war on two fronts so early into Tom’s plans.

            But he had long ago accepted that the world did not order itself to his specifications. Albus drew his cloak around himself, set one more spell that would ring an alarm in his office if the eagle flew more than a hundred miles from the current locations it circled, and Apparated.

            It was time to wake the old crowd again.

*

            The letter was large and delivered by a barn owl Harry didn’t know; he’d come to recognize both Terry’s and Neville’s owls. It looked slightly ragged, as if it had flown a long way. Harry let it drink from Cross’s water dish—a move that made Cross ruffle his back up and spit—and gave it a piece of bacon left over from breakfast as he opened the letter.

            Dear Harry,

            I know that you might not ever want to hear from me again, and I can’t blame you. But I’m going to come back to Britain for a while this summer on a mission for Albus, and I thought I would contact you.

            If there’s anything I can tell you about your parents, any way I can make up for what happened, please let me know. Our last conversation was—cut short. I’d like to continue it in a way favorable to you.

            Remus Lupin.

            Harry spent a moment tapping the letter against his bed, absorbed. Then he nodded and sat up to write back, while the owl watched him gloomily from its perch on his headboard.

            Dear Professor Lupin,

            There’s something I’ve been researching since our last conversation. But the Hogwarts library doesn’t have that many books on it, and of course Muggle libraries don’t have anything at all. I’d like to meet you in Diagon Alley and talk to you about it.

            Can we meet on Tuesday, at noon?

            Best,

            Harry Potter.

            Harry cast a glance at the owl and laid the letter aside. Unlike some wizards, he didn’t believe in working birds until they dropped. Let the owl sleep for a while, and it would carry his letter with a better will, anyway. And it didn’t need to get to Lupin in the next hour, or even the next day. It was only Thursday now.

            Harry would go to the meeting, yes. And he would speak with wide eyes of how much suddenly being attacked by a werewolf had scared him, and how he wanted to hear more about his parents, and how lonely he had been surrounded by people who didn’t know or understand that much about his parents. By the end of his performance, Harry expected to have Lupin lapping out of his hand.

            Guilt was the center of Lupin’s life the way fear of magic was the center of Vernon and Petunia’s. Well, Harry would use that guilt as a lever.

            He had some questions to ask about werewolves.

*

            Minerva straightened her spine. This was the first report Albus had asked her to give to the revived Order of the Phoenix, and she feared she would disappoint him. But he had asked her to look at all the lists of students who had left Hogwarts for someone who could have produced this eagle and joined You-Know-Who. And she had faithfully been through them, including revising her own notes from past years about who had done particularly well on their essays and practical work and who had kept making the same mistakes.

            “I found nothing,” she said. “No sign of a Transfiguration prodigy who could have joined You-Know-Who, and especially not within the last few years.”

            Albus was opening his mouth; Minerva held up her hand, and he subsided. “I did contact the ones I could find addresses for, Albus,” she said wearily. “Most of them still live in Britain and responded in a friendly enough way. None of them have arrest records. I also looked through back editions of the Daily Prophet to be sure. Most are married and have children, which would make it more difficult to slip away and live a secret life. None live in Muggle areas like the one you described.”

            In fact, Minerva thought that the Muggle township, which Albus hadn’t told her the name of—he might not know—but had described as “intensely Muggle,” was even less likely to host a Transfiguration expert than most other kinds of specialized wizard. Transfiguration attuned one to the magic and company of living things, and to the Wild if one followed the old theories. You wouldn’t find it among Muggles only, and especially not in a place with no visible animals and few trees.

            “Perhaps it is someone from outside Britain, then,” Albus said in a musing voice, and faced Alastor. “Do you think you could use some of your contacts among the French Aurors to ask questions?”

            Minerva looked in a troubled way at Alastor. He had barely recovered from spending almost a year locked in a trunk. She didn’t think it was right to ask him to come to this Order meeting, let alone come up with strategies for fighting You-Know-Who.

            But Alastor nodded a little and gave a fierce grin, as if to say that he couldn’t wait for this. “There are a few who have reasons to remember me. I’ll soon get hold of ’em.”

            Minerva shuddered as she considered what that could mean, but Albus didn’t appear to have any doubts. He gave Alastor a relieved smile and turned away to consider the other end of the table. “You have anything to report, Severus?”

            “No.”

            Minerva hid a shudder of another kind. Severus had the greatest burden to bear since You-Know-Who had returned, and she had tried to be understanding. But Severus did nothing except stare at people from beneath his eyebrows and strike at their weakest points with his insults, the way he normally did only to students he didn’t like.

            “The Mark has not darkened,” Severus elaborated, when Albus’s chiding glance remained on him. “The Dark Lord has not yet summoned me to him. He may suspect I am a traitor, although since Longbottom said nothing useful about that night when the Dark Lord returned—”

            “I entered Neville’s mind and saw his memories myself,” Albus interrupted firmly. “Voldemort did not mention you.”

            Severus flinched and stared down at his curled hands. Minerva was glad when Albus moved on to other topics. And even gladder when he reassured them that Augusta Longbottom had agreed to let them use a hidden house, Thornglade, for the Order’s headquarters. They could meet in Hogwarts only for the summer, and even the largest rooms gave a sense of stifling density, the Order had grown so.

            Severus lingered by the doorway when the meeting was over. Minerva had assumed he had some private report to make to Albus, but he turned and fixed her with a gimlet stare when she tried to pass him.

            “Yes, Severus?” she asked, pausing.

            “This grown Transfiguration student Albus is so eager to find,” Severus began, and Minerva concealed a sigh. Did he think she was hiding something she would tell him?

            “I don’t know who it is. I would have no reason to hide such information from the Order—”

            “I know that.” Severus leaned towards her and lowered his voice. Albus was talking to Alastor at the other end of the room, and Minerva didn’t think either one of them would hear. “But you might overlook something without knowing it. What do you think of Potter as the identity of our mysterious genius?”

            Minerva was so used to thinking of him as “Harry” that her mind skipped automatically to James, and she opened her mouth to laugh. But then she realized who Severus meant, and bristled. “That is giving him more credit than you ever wished to in the classroom, Severus.”

            Severus flushed, an unattractive look on his sallow face. “You said that he was some sort of prodigy in his first year.”

            Minerva shook her head. “He has a gift for Transfiguration, but what he can do has slowed down considerably. I’ve seen it before. A child has a gift for the beginning work of the first one or two years, and then it mellows and slows down when they enter their later years. Harry is still a good student, but in step with his classmates.”

            Severus stared at her. Minerva blinked back at him. She knew well enough that Severus was a Legilimens, but in this case, if he was entering her mind, he would find nothing except what she had already said was true. He ought to figure that out soon.

            Severus turned away with an impatient curse. “There is something strange about the Potter boy,” he said over his shoulder as he moved away.

            And that is the result of secrets you do not deserve. Minerva sighed as she remembered the Transfigured kitten Harry had gifted Neville with. Maybe she ought to have told Albus about that, but there was a difference between such a gift and the eagle Albus was talking about, who seemed to migrate back and forth in response to some mysterious purpose. Besides, Albus had seen the kitten, since he’d spent time with Neville before the students left school. If the same person had made the eagle and the kitten, he would have known about it by studying the kitten’s aura.

            I only hope that Harry keeps his promise not to dabble in creating more animals, Minerva thought as she went back to her office. She had plans to create for classes, and she might as well get something besides the Order meeting out of this visit to Hogwarts.

            Then again, I think he only managed to create the kitten for Neville because he felt so sorry for him. Harry needs emotion and the Wild to power his magic. What emotion could make him create that eagle and send it roaming around?

            And why would he need to spy on the secrets of Hogwarts? He’s already here all year and can see them then.

*

            “Thank you for coming, Harry.”

            Lupin’s eyes were so wide and guileless. Harry had to hold back a chuckle as he nodded and slid into the seat across from Lupin. They were at Fortescue’s, and there was more than enough of a crowd around them to distract attention. Even if they were notorious, which Harry didn’t think was the case. Most people wouldn’t be looking for a werewolf they assumed was lone gone from Britain.

            As for Harry himself, no one would be looking at him, either. More than ever, Harry was glad that he didn’t have Neville’s level of fame. It would be hell to live with.

            “What do you want to learn?”

            Harry leaned across his bowl of chocolate ice cream and spoke softly. No one was paying attention right now, true, but it was still possible someone might start listening in. “I want to know what your transformation is like.”

            Lupin leaned away from him in the chair. Harry’s nose twitched. He had started adding a few modifications there, although he’d only managed to make it a little more sensitive before the summer brought the end of his wand magic. But he thought he smelled fear.

            “Why would you want to know that?” Lupin whispered. “Have you been bitten?”

            Harry shook his head. “I think you would have known the minute I came in, if I was,” he said, and Lupin nodded reluctantly. Apparently he didn’t want to confirm anything about his condition for Harry. Harry held back another chuckle. “No, I want to know because I’m interested in animals and Transfiguration, and I want to know how lycanthropy relates to that.”

            Lupin looked at him blankly. “They’re nothing alike.”

            “Transfiguration can reshape the human body. The werewolf transformation does the same thing. Do you think they’re unrelated?”

            Lupin frowned and spent a moment raking his fingers through his hair. “I suppose I didn’t think about it. I mean, sometimes James talked about Transfiguration theory, but—”

            Raw grief choked his voice for a second. Harry watched him and allowed him that. The more distracted he was, the easier he would be to manipulate.

            Lupin sighed and looked up. “I suppose you’ve read the standard descriptions?”

            “Yes. But I also know how biased the standard books are, so I don’t know how much useful I’d be able to get from them.”

            Lupin gave him a tentative smile. Harry reckoned that even hearing Harry talk about how biased those descriptions were gave Lupin hope, because it put Harry more firmly on his side. “Well, I’ll tell you, then.”

            He drew his wand and created a small illusion on the table between them. Harry studied it attentively. It was a naked human, a standardized figure without sex. He had sometimes seen such illustrations in textbooks.

            “The change begins in the head,” Lupin said, “and ripples back towards the tail—well, tailbone.” He gestured once with his wand, and the human’s skull seemed to rise up and fracture. Leaning forwards, Harry could see how the nose was getting longer, how the hands extended, how there was a different kind of space for the eyes.

            Lupin was good at illusion work like this. Harry felt a smile pull at his mouth when that thought crossed his mind, though. Of course he would know how to show it, having lived through this change each month for years, from the inside.

            “There, you see,” Lupin murmured, as they watched the illusion drop to its knees and then the knees turn into part of the hind legs. Harry nodded as he watched the head continue to grow longer, and the body grow shorter at the same time. The shapes writhed and passed through some of the more grotesque contortions he’d ever seen until there was a wolf there instead of a human being.

            Like the wolf that stalked me in Lupin’s room, Harry thought, but he wasn’t afraid. They were a week off the full moon, and Lupin couldn’t be much sorrier than if he’d tried to abuse Harry like the Dursleys did.

            “That’s the way it is.” Lupin sighed deeply and banished the illusion just as it grew a tail. “I can’t tell you why it happens that way, but it does start with the front of the body and work its way back. Always. If you stumble across any information on why, it might tell you more.”

            “What you’ve told me is helpful, thank you,” Harry said absently. His mind was full of visions, most of them centered on the picture of the Lestranges he’d seen in the old Daily Prophet.

            He was going to practice, and he was going to find the incantations that would work to create the images he had seen in his mind. Images that would make the Lestranges suffer for what they had done. Images that Lupin and others would probably be horrified to know he was bringing to life.

            Harry did feel a twinge when he thought of Professor McGonagall and Neville, but he shrugged it away. They never had to know.

            I do want to have some people to practice on, and they’re the best candidates.

*

            Using a wand during the summer was right out unless he wanted someone to arrest him for struggling against the restrictions on underage magic, of course. But Harry found he didn’t immediately need one. He pictured the results he wanted, found the Latin words that would fit them, and began practicing with the movements of his hands and his mouth, Word and Will only, at most of the hours of the day when he lay up in his bedroom.

            “Forma.” He started with that, the Latin word for “shape,” and varied it with plurals and cases and prepositions until he had to start a list to keep track of the ones he hadn’t used. But nothing seemed right. The movement of his hand could cause emotions to rise up in him, the will was there to make the Lestranges suffer, but he didn’t feel anything of the cool, impulsive Wild. The spell wouldn’t be right until he did.

            He moved on to Latin words for specific body parts. Maybe he was being too ambitious. He probably couldn’t change someone all at once, like the werewolf transformation did. He would have to change their head, or their arms, or their hands.

            None of those were right, either. None of those fit the incantations the books were hiding from him. Harry was sure.

            Frustrated, he was lying on his bed one evening, at the end of an afternoon training Yar in a park he’d walked a couple miles to find. On the floor lay a pillow, which was what Harry gestured at to practice his “spells.” In front of him was one of those books that talked solemnly about Transfiguration between the gaps being possible, but didn’t tell him how to do it.

            Harry opened a Latin dictionary and scanned through it again. He already had small pencil marks by most of the words, emphasizing how he’d tried them and failed.

            Harry rolled over and let loose a little growl of frustration that scared some of his mice into running under the bed. There had to be something that would do what he wanted! Otherwise, the books wouldn’t make a point of mentioning that there were incantations that could accomplish it, and then refusing to name those incantations.

            He flipped moodily through the dictionary once more, about to put it away and go back to studying some of the Muggle medical books. Then he got to the I section, which he hadn’t spent much time with since not that many body parts started with I in Latin, and paused.

            There was a word. It leaped off the page at him like a thrown stone, and Harry was an expert on thrown stones after years of being tormented with them by Dudley’s gang. He smiled, and knew from the way his mouth creased that it was an interesting smile, the kind he usually tried to keep from people.

            He rolled back towards the pillow and held up his hand. The sweeping motion that started most Transfigurations was second nature by now, and so was envisioning a wand at the end of his fingers. “Informis!” he shouted, a word for “shapeless.”

            And the Wild was there, moving around him, kissing the side of his cheek like a dog’s wagging tail. Harry felt it coil around him and tug his arm, and honestly, that would have been enough for him, that ability to feel what the spell would be once he had his wand back in his hand.

            But it went further than that. It twisted out, around the imagined wand, and it leaped and came down like a stomping foot.

            The pillow twisted into a tortured comma shape.

            Harry stared at it and felt a sharp prickle pass along his arm and spine and cheek, almost like the wave of magic going in reverse.

            He had done wandless magic.

            He had done wandless Transfiguration.

            He could practice outside school now, and no one would be able to catch him. He might even be able to make modifications to his body, with enough passion and practice and pausing to sense the Wild.

            And he could find ways to punish his enemies.

            Harry closed his eyes and fell back on the bed in his intense joy. Cross came creeping out from behind the pillow and curled up next to him, purring.

            Harry stroked him, and smiled.

            This is the only disadvantage of keeping things to myself. I really wish I could tell somebody.

            But he shook the odd mood off, and went feverishly back to the books. He had an incantation. Time to study, anew, what results he might be able to cause with it.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning