Chapter 18: Phoenix
Hermione watched Hailey leave the Hospital Wing, then looked back at Madam Pomfrey. Hailey’s parents had stuck around until after Hailey awoke, and finally disappeared during the night- when Hailey’s hair had turned black again, but she hadn’t reverted to male. Hermione expected that she would the following night.
“What about Angelina?” she asked.
Angelina, one of the Gryffindor chasers, was still unconscious on a bed, with a large hole in her abdomen and spellwork swirling around her. Lyra had played in her place- but without Hailey either, it hadn’t done very much good. Ravenclaw had still won by a hundred and eighty points to seventy- and Gryffindor hadn’t quite earned enough points to win the Quidditch Cup.
Madam Pomfrey turned towards Angelina as well. “I… I had some healers from St. Mungo’s in here yesterday,” she told Hermione. “She’s fading… and there’s nothing any of us can do.” She sighed. “They told me it’d be simplest to just cut her off now and save myself the pain- but I can’t just give up on her.”
Hermione frowned. “What’s doing it?”
“It’s that desk fragment,” she answered. “It wrecked her body, but the spell on it shattered her thaumic pathways… which are completely irreparable. And any attempt to repair her body by magic will send a deadly surge through her brain.”
She scowled, thinking. “I… There might still be some hope,” she muttered.
Madam Pomfrey looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. “Oh?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I… Early this year, I created a spell to bring the foreigners’ magic to Britain. It… didn’t seem to actually do that, but it did work, in a sense.” She looked up. “It works by rewriting the core magic matrix… then, in order to install that matrix without letting their magic wither and die, it transforms them into a completely different shape, which isn’t reliant upon a stable matrix thanks to physical thaumic pathways, performs those changes, and allows them to return.”
Her other eyebrow raised as well. “That sounds like it’d fix both problems at once,” she told her. “Can you cast it?”
“It takes three days to work, though,” Hermione scowled, looking down at Angelina. “And if you remember when Draco Malfoy came to you after Halloween with those weird symptoms… that’s what it was.”
Madam Pomfrey tilted her head. “I… I think I can keep her alive that long,” she said. “And those symptoms won’t matter much to her right now anyways.”
Hermione took a deep breath, and let it out, drawing her wand. “Alright, here goes.”
It only took her a couple seconds, ending with a brilliant flash of blue light.
“It’s done,” she sighed. “I… I decided when I made it that I wasn’t going to be casting it on anyone without their explicit permission, precisely because of the side-effects, both long and short term.” She bowed her head. “I hope she forgives me.”
“I’m sure she will,” Madam Pomfrey told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “And I’m sure her parents will thank you, too.”
When Angelina Johnson woke up, the last thing she could remember was coughing up blood all over her History of Magic test. But she wasn’t worried about that at the moment; rather, she was lying in a very uncomfortable position, so she sat up. She yawned and stretched- both arms upwards, both wings to the sides- as she looked around. It looked like… Yes, this looked like the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts.
Then Madam Pomfrey walked in, and blinked at her, before turning to walk over to her.
Angelina looked sideways at one of her wings, then reached out a hand to touch it. It was very real, and covered in brilliant red and gold plumage. She giggled softly to herself. “I look like a phoenix,” she observed. She looked up at Madam Pomfrey. “What happened? Am I in heaven?” Her questions came out perfectly calm and collected, as a simple curiosity- but deep inside, she dreaded the answer that she knew was coming. She knew her death would torture her parents.
“No, you’re still alive,” Madam Pomfrey informed her calmly.
“What?” she asked, and glanced back at her gleaming wings; she hadn’t folded them just yet, intent to let the muscles relax just a little bit longer after being crushed under her while only mostly folded. “Then- then why do I have wings? Doesn’t that only happen in heaven?”
Madam Pomfrey smiled. “Because it was the only way to save your life,” she answered. “Hermione Granger came up with it.” She sighed. “She said you should be able to freely transform yourself between your new and old appearances at will.”
She folded her wings, somehow knowing they wouldn’t mind her laying on them as long as she folded them all the way before she did so, and shrugged. “Future me can worry about that,” she decided.
Madam Pomfrey sighed. “Could you do so now? I’d like to make sure you’re healthy.”
She blinked. “You can’t do that now?”
She nodded. “You’re not exactly human right now.”
“Right. Sorry.” She closed her eyes, concentrated and… it felt almost like she was chopping off her wings when they simply disappeared. She shivered, and opened her eyes again. “That good?”
Madam Pomfrey nodded, and cast her spells. “Alright, you’re good,” she stated.
She almost instantly flashed back to her phoenix-self. It amazed her just how naturally it came.
She raised an eyebrow. “You like it that much?”
She shrugged. “I like having wings,” she said simply.
Madam Pomfrey smiled. “Your parents will be eager to see you,” she told her- and produced a stack of fresh robes from the drawer on her bedside cabinet- which Angelina stared at, noticing it for the first time.
It was piled almost three feet high with candies and get well cards.
“What in the world…?” she wondered aloud.
Madam Pomfrey chuckled softly. “In any case, you’re going to want to get changed before you meet them.”
She tilted her head. “Is something-!” She looked down, and caught sight of her middle. “Holy Mother of-!” She caught herself, breathing deeply, and put a hand to her belly- which was visible and just fine, right though the gaping hole in her bloodsoaked clothes. She did notice that she seemed to be a lot more muscled than she’d ever been before.
She looked up. “What happened?” she asked- gasped, really.
“You nearly died,” Madam Pomfrey told her. “Would have, if not for how quickly your classmates brought you up here after that desk leg hit you.” She reached over and tapped the edge of a sheaf of what looked like a good fifty pages, buried under the pile of candy. “The foreigners wrote you a report on it, if you want to know more.”
She gave a snort. “I’ll… think about it, I think. Anyways, I’d better…” She looked down at herself again. “I’d better get dressed.” She looked up.
Madam Pomfrey nodded silently. “Shall I break out the curtains for you?”
Angelina hadn’t expected to see her parents at Hogwarts, especially when she considered that she was a muggle-born- but once she had finished changing into the fresh robes Madam Pomfrey had prepared for her, the nurse had let them into the Hospital Wing to meet her.
Her mother snapped her up in a massive hug as soon as she got close. “Angelina,” she cried. “Thank God you’re alive.” Then she drew back. “But what happened to your hair?”
“My hair?” she asked, surprised. She’d expected to be asked about the wings her mother had no doubt felt on her back, not… her hair. She hadn’t even looked at her hair yet. “Uh, magic happened,” she smiled.
Her father stepped up next to his wife. “We had a frightening chain of letters,” he told her. “First one said you had been injured in an accident, and might be returning home a little late. Next one said it was only a matter of time before you died. Then the third one said you still had a chance- and now look at you!” He chuckled softly. “So which was it?”
“Ahh…” She turned to look at Madam Pomfrey. “How long was I out?”
“A week and a half,” Madam Pomfrey told her soberly. “Ten days. Ravenclaw won the Quidditch Cup, and Gryffindor the House Cup.”
She blinked. “What? I thought we were fifty points behind!”
Madam Pomfrey actually grinned. “Not after Dumbledore awarded Gryffindor nearly two hundred points during the Farewell Feast,” she chuckled. “Hailey, Hermione, and a couple of their friends fought You Know Who to keep him off the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“Who?” her dad asked.
“Voldemort,” Angelina answered promptly.
Madam Pomfrey blinked surprisedly.
She shrugged. “It’s not possible to be on the same team as Hailey and still be afraid of his name,” she told them. “Especially when she’s so forceful about it- to the point of yelling it into the face of anyone that dares to challenge her.” She chuckled at the memory. “To use her words: It’s a word, what are you afraid of?” She giggled at Madam Pomfrey’s expression.
“Angelina!”
All four of them jumped when Hermione cried her name from the foot of the bed.
“What the-?” her father asked.
Hermione glanced up at him. “Sorry, I…” She took a deep breath, and looked at Angelina. “Are you okay?”
She nodded slowly.
“Nothing broken, nothing hurts, nothing, er…”
“Hermione?” she asked, and beckoned her forwards.
Hermione trailed off, staring at her. “But your hair,” she said. “And-!” She went silent when Angelina raised an eyebrow at her.
“Come here,” she commanded.
Hermione stepped closer.
She reached out and scooped Hermione into a hug. “Thank you,” she told her firmly.
“Too- tight-!” she gasped.
Angelina loosened her hug, raising an eyebrow as Hermione sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry,” she muttered. She supposed that, with the up-muscling of her entire body that she’d noticed while changing, it only made sense that she’d be stronger as well. She smiled. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you.”
Hermione pulled away from her, out to arm’s length- and Angelina let her go. “But the side effects,” she began worriedly.
She waved it off. “Possible side effects include survival and a feeling of happiness,” she teased.
“But your hair-!”
“So I look like a phoenix, so what? I can get hair dye if I really want to.” She shrugged, using one hand to draw her hair- now gently curly and flowing almost down to her waist- over one shoulder, to where she could see it. “I don’t see why I would, though.”
“But- but the potentially dangerous amplification of wand power? Or the reduction in power if you shift back?”
“I don’t see myself ‘shifting back’ very much for a long time,” she told her simply. “And I was already a little on the strong side, magically speaking.”
“Potentially dangerous amplification,” Hermione repeated.
She shrugged. “I’m already used to controlling my power levels,” she told her. “I don’t see how an increase in capacity would change that.”
“It- It-!” She sighed. “You might not be ready for just how much higher it is.”
She reached towards her bedside table, and caught her wand as it leaped into her hand. “There’s an easy way to fix that,” she told her. Then she tilted her head, feeling her wand with her mind- something that she knew only powerful witches or wizards could do, but that she had almost always been able to do. “Hmm, not bad. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Hermione, on the other hand, was staring at her wand. “What…?”
Finally, the reason Hermione was staring at it crossed Angelina’s mind, and she looked as well. “Interesting,” she muttered- then dropped her wand on the floor next to the bed.
Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow, but it leaped straight back up into Angelina’s hand as soon as she wanted it to- but not when she merely made a grabbing motion in the air over it.
“Very interesting,” she stated.
Hermione scowled. “Intermittent?” she muttered.
She smiled. “Nope! It only works when I want it to work.”
“Then… Oh! That might be an aural interaction effect. Your aura is a lot bigger than it was before, and a lot stronger, so…” She shrugged. “There’s probably a maximum range beyond which it won’t work at all.”
She tilted her head. “Might that aura also provide increased resistance to random, supersonic table legs?”
“It wasn’t supersonic,” Hermione told her immediately, sounding instantly as though she had been in the middle of a lecture. “Bonbon said it must’ve been moving at only a third of that.” She paused. “But… I actually have no idea.” She shrugged. “I don’t know enough about the magic I gave you.”
“At least the side effects included survival, eh?” She chuckled. “Though I imagine my next doctor’s visit is going to be interesting.” She grinned at her father.
He raised an eyebrow. “Interesting?” he asked. “I thought magic was immaterial?”
“Magic is,” Hermione stated. “But the spell we used to save her did so by transfiguration. It’s entirely possible that it used a non-human form to do so, and it does not force a return transformation, merely ensures she’s capable of a return transformation on her own.”
“And so it did,” she chuckled. She drew back her sleeve and clenched her hand so the muscles stood out on her forearm; her sleeve wouldn’t go high enough to expose her biceps. “For example, I could never do that before.”
Hermione looked at her arm. “Muscular,” she observed.
Her mom smiled. “What else did it do?”
“We’re going to have some fun figuring that out, I think,” Angelina smiled up at her. “Oh, and by the way, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione, these are my parents, Andrew and Margaret.”
Hermione glanced towards them. “Right, sorry, Doc.”
Andrew waved it off. “Don’t sweat it,” he told her. “And I’m Andrew when we’re not at the clinic.”
Angelina blinked. “Wait. You mean-?”
Hermione smiled innocently at her. “Yes.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.025 seconds
Total duration
1,075 users online
1,519,334 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
A were-phoenix? Okay, that is one that I haven't heard before. I can imagine Fawkes try to court her, much to Dumbledore's annoyance.
Huh! So Angelina and Hermione could have been friends before Hogwarts if Angelina had ever visited her dad's clinic at the same time Hermione was there
10949520
Assuming philominea came over at some point I think fawkes would be more interested in her
Reading this story I am waiting to see how the ministry reacts. Especially characters like Minister Fudge and Umbridge. Especially the later there is no way they can't know Hogwarts accepted many more times the number of students than they normally do in a year. We've seen the chaos Pinkie caused in Leaky Cauldron for apparently 6weeks how much more would be caused in Diagon Alley with so many new students hunting down and buying supplies.
10949874
Well as we are practically at the end of the first year, there should have been a LOT of reactions...
10949912 I mean the stores would need over 40times what they normally sell in supplies for first years. Wands and robes might not be an issue but books and potion supplies. How many retailers keep that much excess on hand
10949922
Yes... That is one of the issues I have with this story... It puts there a too big thing to keep things so close to canon that it EXPLICITLY glosses over to half the story because it's "canon". Depending on how you make the calculation the WHOLE UK magical population is something around three or four thousand people. DOUBLING it suddenly should have QUITE MORE impact.
does she have the other traits of the phoenix?
Transfiguration magic, Hermione did it? That's like expecting too much too fast from the 1st year student. Professor McGonagall would have immediately stopped it and Angelina would have transferred to the St Mungo where she belongs with the real magical healers.
10955078
But as Madam Pomfrey just told Hermione, there was nothing even St Mungo’s could do (as confirmed by the “real magic healers”)…. As such, even straws are worth something. And who knows, maybe those straws you’re grasping at are made of titanium and firmly anchored! No way to tell without grasping…
Exactly how much Phoenix is in her?
or, you prefer to keep it for later(or not specify at all)
Either way, fine by me; just asking, for the sake of making the point.
Foreseeing certain side-effects(in the vein of survival on a different plane)
or, possibly other interesting effects.
Then, I ponder how this would be applying to certain other issues in the Wizarding Brittain(and possibly its Government)
Okay, just saying.
if you have not thought of it yet, or if it comes up later in the story already written?
11022582
How much? No idea, will probably never specify, because... Well, I won't say any more here because I'm not sure what will spoil certain future chapters and what won't... But if you comment on the chapter where she finds out more about it, there won't be any spoilers left, so the answers can be provided.
i think Pinkie Pie is on the same level as Starswirl, but doesnt even know it. If she does, she chooses to show it as be 'ramdom'