Harry appeared on a rocky island. A very small rocky island. One that he was intimately familiar with despite having only spent half a day on it.
The entire radius of the island wouldn’t be more than 200 meters with a small, dingy and extremely dilapidated shack resting on it. The shack that Uncle Vernon had dragged the entire family to, just to get away from the Hogwarts letters.
Harry looked at the shack with a fond sense of nostalgia, a fondness that would ever be associated with such a horribly ill-maintained shack. However, Harry couldn’t help feeling that fondness. This shack was where it all began.
Hagrid showing up, showing Harry the first glimpse of magic and the first shred of kindness. Everything about that day was etched in his memory like it had happened yesterday.
Harry spent his time, lost in thought for several minutes more before sighing and shaking his head. ‘I have quite a bit I need to do today. I can’t just stand around reminiscing about the past’ thought Harry.
Just to make sure that no one was actually around, Harry walked into the shack. The door was still lying on the floor, off its hinges like the day when Hagrid had taken Harry away. It seemed like no one had bothered to make their way onto this island in the last five years.
Walking into the shack, Harry noticed the couch, the one on which Dudley had slept off and next to which Harry had to sleep, on the softest bit part of the floor he could find. In retrospect, Harry wasn’t sure he could do that again.
Eventually, he walked through the entire shack (not that there was much to see) and was able to ensure that there was no one in there.
Harry walked back out of the shack and found a nice flat rock to sit on while he recalled all the abilities he had witnessed yesterday.
‘I’ve already experienced and even practiced my power and speed. I know how to expand my senses and I’ve pretty much gotten the hang of using that authority’ thought Harry. ‘That just leaves phoenix fire, healing fire and actually summoning Fawkes’
“Let’s start with phoenix fire shall we?” said Harry, psyching himself up.
He sat up straight and then recalled that warmth he felt a few times in the past, including the method the figure used to invoke the phoenix fire.
A small warmth sprung up in Harry’s chest as he concentrated, it very slowly spread out. Becoming bigger and bigger until it had covered his entire body. He continued to concentrate and eventually, the warmth spread outside his body, a small spark and a tiny flame springing into existence.
Harry pushed his hand out, palm upwards and concentrated all his attention on his palm. The fire wavered for a second before it made its way to his hand, floating atop his palm. Harry imagined the flame getting bigger and it did just that, though the transitions weren’t nearly as smooth as he had witnessed in the vision.
Harry spent a while afterwards, playing around with the flame. Moulding it into various shapes, seeing how far he could take it. Unfortunately, he was completely unable to discover any sort of limit to what he could manipulate the flame into.
Eventually, he stood up and decided to try some of the other things he saw the figure do. He imagined the flame turning into the shield he had seen earlier.
The flame wavered for a while, seemingly unsure of what needed to be done. Eventually, it floated in front of him and expanded, becoming a sphere that surrounded Harry. Though it was made from flames, he could still see through it without any issues.
He noticed how some water droplets would spray from the sea around him but would be unable to reach him, evaporating the moment they reached the shield.
‘I wish I had someone who could shoot some spells at me. I really want to test this shield’ thought Harry.
Finally, he created the flame wings. His own wings started out rather unstable. He tried flapping them and realised he could actually float a little when he did that.
Getting really excited to fly, Harry gave his wings a hard flap and shot up into the sky.
Unfortunately, that’s where his eagerness came to bite him. The moment he had gained a certain altitude, his already unstable wings shook. He was clearly too excited and his focus was shift all over the place.
A few tense moments passed as Harry looked at his wings, hoping beyond hope that they would be fine but they, of course, wouldn’t live up to that hope.
The fire wings just vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, plunging Harry face first into the ocean.
Plunging into the cold water, Harry swam towards the island and pulled himself onto a boulder before he heaved an exasperated sigh.
“I didn’t think it would be that hard!” he said.
Unwilling to give up, Harry spent the next 3 hours just practicing how to fly with his new wings.
Though it went horrible at first and he was drenched to the bone, he finally managed to stay afloat and even fly calmly without upsetting his wings.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Harry made his way back to the island and sat on a reasonably flat boulder, using his new warmth to dry his clothes.
“I spent way too long on that. I really should try the healing flame out” said Harry.
He took out the ornate dagger he had nicked from Pettigrew and made a fairly deep cut on his palm.
Concentrating the warmth like he had done a little while earlier, he tried to achieve that cooling effect.
It took him four tries before he received some results. The warmth kept changing into phoenix fire instead of the healing kind but eventually, Harry did manage to do it.
Unlike phoenix fire, he didn’t have to worry about it having a ton of different variations so he just kept trying to figure out how to get the phoenix fire out as smoothly as possible.
Eventually, he decided that he had had enough practice. ‘That’s enough now. I’ll just improve in the future. At least I can use them now’
“Time to do the main thing I need to do in this island!” said Harry with a clap.
He grabbed a certain sock he had been carrying with him, opening it up, he pulled a large metal lock with a serpentine S made out of precious stones on it.
Harry placed Slytherin’s locket on his hand and took a deep breath. ‘This is where everything will start diverging properly from how I remember. The locket that practically caused Professor Dumbledore’s death along with that ring will finally be destroyed’
He concentrated the warmth like he did earlier and quickly created the phoenix fire. He directed the fire towards the locket and almost immediately, the locket was engulfed in the phoenix flame.
Harry heard an unearthly wail emanate from the locket, one that he had heard during his second year.He clenched the locket in his hand till the fire finally died down, though the wails had died down a while ago.
In his hand was now the locket of Salazar Slytherin, one that was untainted by the vile presence of Voldemort. This confirmation of the destruction of the horcrux caused Harry to sigh in relief.
‘That’s one more horcrux down’ thought Harry. ‘I just need to go find four more’
Feeling rather exhausted, Harry walked into the shack and lied down on the floor.
Harry checked the time, seeing it was already 6 o’clock, he sighed. ‘I’ll have to head back by 7’ he thought.
‘Now that I have a way to handle the horcruxes, I can just collect and destroy them but my most pressing issue is getting Sirius off the hook’ thought Harry.
‘As long as Fudge is in office, that would be near impossible to do. That moron would definitely mess everything up’ sighed Harry. ‘I can’t just go kill him either’
Harry thought about how Fawkes had reacted and knew he shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
‘Even if Fawkes didn’t mind. Killing Fudge would just put all the blame on Dumbledore and would make trusting his words even harder’
Harry fell deep into his thoughts. ‘What I need to do, is make him seem so crazy that people demand he be removed from office’
Harry chuckled at the thought, ‘That would be poetic justice. If I could have him thrown out of office with the same method he and the Prophet used to defame me’
However, thinking about it seriously, Harry noticed one major issue. ‘I can’t have this linked back to me. No matter what’ thought Harry. ‘I’ll need some help to cover for me while I’m missing so that it doesn’t seem like I’m missing, so even if the Ministry comes knocking, I’ll have an alibi’
“Haah” sighed Harry. “I’ll think about who to ask later, I guess I should make my way back now”
Standing up and dusting himself, Harry quickly apparated and arrived inside Buckbeak’s room. He noticed that Sirius wasn’t there and Pettigrew seemed to be sleeping.
Buckbeak just raised his head and looked at Harry quizzically but Harry just chortled and rubbed the Hippogriff’s head for a moment before making his way out the door and walked down to the kitchen.
Everyone seemed to be getting ready for dinner already. Harry greeted everyone and noted Lupin and Tonks’ absense. ‘I hope things worked out for them’ thought Harry.
The dinner went by in a flash. Hermione, Ginny and Ron were a little awkward around him and didn’t seem too up to making conversation with Harry. Even after dinner, they just made their way up to their rooms. ‘Are they feeling guilty or trying to make me feel guilty?’ wondered Harry.
Eventually, everyone went to their own rooms, making their way into bed. Harry sat in the, now, empty drawing room and picked up a rather interesting book he had found while cleaning the house.
As he got lost in reading, the door suddenly banged open. Harry looked up, surprised at the loud noise, and saw a visibly flushed Tonks.
======
I believe I can fly~
On a different note, I've been asked this a few times but the FL will only be introduced after a few weeks (Harry Potter time) after Harry makes his way to Hogwarts.
Travel to Hogwarts should happen within the next 10 chapters...Hopefully.
