Harry made his way out of the house and walked down the road, looking at the scenery around him.

Other than the Burrow, there were no other houses in the vicinity, at least none that he could see. There were vast grasslands and forests all around the house.

Harry walked down the path, deep in thought about what he had experienced in the last day.

'I want to think that the meeting with Dumbledore was all part of a dream but, the memories of Voldemort, his skills and what feels like his power coursing through my body, all say otherwise' thought Harry.

'I should really put those memories aside for now, every time I remember something from them, it feels like I'm turning more and more like Voldemort. Luckily his I can access his skills separately but every time I do, there are some fragments of memories attached to the skill that come with it' sighed Harry.

Looking down at the ground as he followed the path, Harry considered the pros and cons of having these skills.

'Even if I turn more ruthless, even if my personality does warp a little, if all of that is pointed towards Voldemort and his supporters, it shouldn't be a problem, right?' wondered Harry.

As he reached this conclusion, Harry looked back and noticed that he had already walked around a kilometer away from the Burrow. He looked around for a moment and realised that there was a forest to his right and hillock to his left. The hillock seemed to have a large rock resting atop it.

Wanting to sit down for a little while, he made his way towards the rock. A few minutes later, he stood in front of the rock.

The rock was rather large, at least 10 feet tall so Harry decided to climb to the top and sit on top of it. When he reached the top, he couldn't help but feel surprised.

'That looks just like a chair or maybe even a throne!' exclaimed Harry.

The top of the rock had a protrusion coming out of it, that, as Harry noted, looked just like a stone throne. Though one might wonder if it was carved out by someone but the weathering on it would suggest that it had stood there for a very long time so either it was carved an extremely long time ago or it was naturally formed.

Taking a seat on the stone throne, Harry started to relax a little. He felt like he hadn't had a moment of peace in a very long time.

'Now that I know where all the horcruxes are, that makes the mission left by Dumbledore to be so much easier' thought Harry.

'Though getting into Bellatrix's Gringotts vault wouldn't be easy...or even possible for that matter. The diadem should be much easier, I'll just have to sneak into Hogwarts. That just leaves the locket and Nagini, I'll have to talk to Kreacher for the former but I'm not even sure how to get to the latter' sighed Harry.

'Maybe if I used Imperio against one of those goblins, I might be able to get to the vault' thought Harry.

Lost in thought, Harry didn't notice an odd cry coming from the horizon. As time crept on, the cry kept getting louder until finally, a red blur could be seen in the distance and the cry heard rather clearly.

Harry noticed this and raised his head looking towards the direction of the cry only to notice the red blur moving towards him at a frightening speed.

Harry immediately jumped up from the rock throne and grabbed his wand, pointing it towards the red blur just in case it attacked.

Harry tensed up, he hadn't bounced back yet from the battle against Voldemort a few days back and he might just have to fight with his life on the line once again.

The red blur was incredibly close by now. To the point where, if it didn't slow down soon, it would crash into Harry. With negative thoughts running through his head, Harry watched the red blur get much closer as it abruptly slowed down.

The speed at which it slowed down was frankly astonishing. It felt like the blur could completely ignore the laws of physics and do as it pleased.

A few moments after he noticed it slowing down, the blur had already appeared in front of Harry. Flapping its huge crimson wings, the creature floated in front of Harry.

It had a long neck, a beautiful crimson-orange plumage with long tail feathers. Its black eyes looked deeply into Harry's with an intelligence that would normally not be expected from a bird. Not just intelligence, it seemed to be exuding affection for Harry, like it was enduring its desire to jump into his embrace.

Harry gaped at the bird in front of him, a bird he had only seen a few times in the past but one that he was intimately familiar with.

"Fawkes...?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Coo!" Fawkes called happily and dived into Harry's chest, pushing him back onto the throne.

"Haha, calm down Fawkes!" laughed Harry as he settled down into the throne. Fawkes quickly took its place on his lap.

Fawkes looked up at Harry for a moment before he put his head on Harry's shoulder, rubbing his face on Harry's cheek.

"Hehe, that tickles, Fawkes" Harry giggled, slowly stroking Fawkes' back.

After several minutes, Fawkes finally calmed down and just sat in Harry's lap, looking at him.

Harry felt like he could see a myriad of emotions in Fawkes' eyes. Happiness, affection, concern and more that he couldn't even identify. Seeing Fawkes reacting in such a way to himself, Harry couldn't help but feel a light, happy feeling in his chest.

However, that feeling only lasted for a moment before he was reminded of Hedwig. The thought of it brought a tear to his eye, that rolled down his cheek.

Fawkes immediately wiped the tear away with his beak, cooing softly. Harry smiled sadly and spoke.

"Sorry Fawkes. It's just that, I recently lost Hedwig, the sweetest owl you would ever meet. I don't think I can get over it very easily"

Fawkes just cooed again and gently rubbed his head on Harry's face, in what could be unmistakably seen as an act of comfort.

"Haah, let's talk about something else shall we?" said Harry, trying to change the mood.

"Coo!" Fawkes cried happily.

"Fawkes, do you remember the time in the chamber of secrets, how we both fought against the Basilisk, finally killing it?" asked Harry.

Fawkes quickly nodded, looking up with a slightly nostalgic look in its eyes.

"Time really flies by doesn't it? I can't believe that five years have passed since then!" exclaimed Harry.

"You know, when I had met you for the first time years ago, I had gone and asked Hagrid about phoenixes" said Harry with nostalgia only to giggle as he continued.

"You should have seen him then Fawkes, that excitement that you would only see in a child with a new toy. He kept explaining all sorts of random information about phoenixes that I honestly don't think even you would know" said Harry with a smile.

"You know, he even used huge words like reincarnation. I was more surprised about Hagrid being able to wrap his head around such concepts than the fact that phoenixes symbolise fire, healing and reincarnation" said Harry with a wide grin, thinking about his half-giant friend.

Thinking about what he had just said, Harry paused for a moment before gazing into the distance and continuing wistfully.

"Reincarnation huh? If I could go back in time, there are so many things I would change...so many people I would save" said Harry.

Fawkes stared at him with a deep, mysterious gaze as Harry spoke.

Harry continued to gaze into the distance for several minutes before finally turning his attention back to Fawkes and sighed heavily.

"Well, that's pointless to think about right now. What are you even doing here Fawkes? I thought I would never see you after Dumbledore passed" asked Harry.

Fawkes didn't respond and just kept gazing into Harry's eyes for several minutes. Harry couldn't help but wonder what happened and just as he was about to ask Fawkes, the phoenix jumped off his lap and hovered in front of Harry.

Harry got up off the throne, stood in front of Fawkes, puzzled.

"What's the matter, Fawkes?" he asked.

Without any response, Fawkes just stared at Harry with a deep gaze. A moment later, Fawkes' body looked like it was getting brighter and brighter. Soon a small flame appeared in between Fawkes' eyes.

The flame grew bigger, at first slowly but picked up speed as time went on. Harry couldn't help but feel surprised at what was happening.

"What's going on with you Fawkes?" he asked in a concerned tone.

A few minutes passed and the flame had already covered the entirety of Fawkes' body but the odd thing was, Harry couldn't feel any heat from it.

"Coo!" Fawkes cried loudly and then flapped his wings, slowly inching towards Harry.

Harry stood dumbfounded at the scene in front of him but no matter what was happening, he couldn't feel any hostility from Fawkes nor could he get himself to feel any fear.

He just stood there and let the phoenix do whatever it wanted. A few moments later, Fawkes had reached Harry and gently touched its beak to his chest.

In the next moment, the flame on Fawkes' body blazed very brightly, turning him into a huge ball of flame that got sucked into Harry's chest.

Harry expected to feel pain but what he felt instead was a warmth that brought comfort and security to him.

In the next instant, his body got covered in flame as well, burning his clothes off, including his glasses. A vortex of fire wrapped around Harry, spinning faster and faster, to the point that he couldn't see anything outside.

When the vortex had reached its peak speed, Harry felt himself leaving his body and merging with the vortex.

The moment he merged completely with the vortex, Harry lost consciousness.

==========================================

Hey guys!

I'm sure all my readers, all 3 of you, must be wondering why I didn't update for 2 days.Before you ask, no, I did not lose interest or have a writer's block (I mean seriously, it's only been 6 chapters. If I have a writer's block now, I should probably not have started writing)

Anyway, I thought hard about it and with how hectic my job can get, I've decided to post 5 days a week (Mon - Fri) and then use the weekends to write for the week (so 5 chapters over the weekend).

I'll write during the week if I have the time, so any extra chapters will go in the bank for a rainy day.

If I end up having a lot of extra chapters (Upwards of 10) then I'll just do a mass release of 5-7 chapters.

I know this will increase the time it will take me to finish the novel but well, it's going to be less than 100 chapters anyway so it shouldn't increase the timeframe that much.Hope you're all staying safe during these annoyingly trying times!

Let me know what you thought of the chapter and the story over all.

We're done with Volume 1 by the way. It's a short volume, sort of like a prologue volume, mainly cause the prologue would have been too long if it was just 1 or 2 chapters.

The next volume will be 2 - 3 times the length.