Chapter 65: Harry Potter - part 3

Harry Potter's summer was brilliant. His dogfather, and he still couldn't wait to be an animagus too, had taken him to the beach. And not any beach. A beach where top less was allowed. Harry had problems on the first day on keeping his head cool with so many boobs around for everyone to see. After the first day, where Harry spent most of the time in the water to hide his boner, Sirius had some pity on the teen an casted a strong glamor over Harry's crotch. The spell was very successful, but Sirius had made a remark to not hug any woman or the jig would be up in an instant. On the fourth beach day, Harry had gotten numb to all the boobs and managed to control himself, but that didn't make Sirius' tease him less.

The duo did some sightseeing and, in general, had a lot of fun. This vacation was something that Harry and Sirius were desperately in need of and didn't even know.

Back in England, Harry's pre-letter for Hogwarts arrived and he called a 'family reunion' for that night to ask for advice on what to choose as electives. The list of available electives had tripled from last year, and the students had to choose a minimum of two and a maximum of four. The adults were as lost as Harry was. It was then that Remus Lupin pointed out, after reading the list for a time, that a lot of the 'most advanced stuff' had prerequisites. The list was big because it contained all electives available.

"They could have sent just what we could choose."

Harry whined about being confused.

"I agree with what they have done here, Harry."

Andromeda said to the boy after noticing why they were doing it that way.

"Sending the complete list, the students can better plan what they want to learn about."

Andromeda explained, and seeing that the boy had not understood yet, she continued.

"Here, take Enchanting as an example. If you wanted to learn it at Hogwarts in your sixth year, you must have good OWLs in Charms, Potions, Runes and Arithmancy. Two of those are electives available from the third year and above. So, if you want to, in the future, learn Enchanting at Hogwarts, it would be recommended for you to take the Runes and Arithmancy electives. Same thing for the other ones like Alchemy, and Introduction to Magecraft."

"Hmm… Now I understand."

Harry said while nodding his head. He ended up choosing Arithmancy and Runes, because he wanted to learn Magecraft and was interested in Enchanting, 'Economics and Politics', because Andromeda said that it would be very useful for him as Head of house Potter, and Care Of Magical Creatures, to 'relax'. It was then that Harry said to Sirius that he wanted to continue his non-magical education. When asked 'why', he replied that Lord Ravenclaw said that he would have an easier time later if he wanted to go into Magecraft. Harry complemented saying that he wanted to study it because it was Magecraft that his mother had used to save his life as a baby. After some more discussion he added that the 'transportation stuff' seemed brilliant too while scratching his cheek.

With the subject of the electives done, Harry remembered the information that Hermione and he had searched for in the library at Hogwarts but were restricted the access to it. He decided to ask the adults in the room with him. The worst that could happen was if they denied him the information too.

"Sirius, what is a Devil?"

Harry asked his dogfather. All adults in the room looked seriously at Harry, and then between them. A silent conversation happened and Andromeda was the one to talk/ask first.

"Harry, where did you read about Devils?"

"It was in a book in Hogwarts' library that explained what Magecraft was. It said that it was a branch of Magic developed by Merlin himself that imitated the kind of magic used by Devils. We tried searching about Devils too, but all the information was restricted for NEWT years or above."

Harry explained to Andromeda and the other adults, who traded looks again. Remus Lupin seemed to be the one that lost the trade and let out a sigh.

*sigh*

"Hmm… How to better explain this? …Harry, have you ever read the bible?"

Remus Lupin asked Harry, who nodded his head in confirmation. The Dursleys had tried to take Harry to the church once as to 'exorcize the freakness out of him'. Harry didn't need to say that it had not worked. And it was then that his eyes went wide in shock. He had worked out the link between his question and Remus' one.

"You mean that THAT Devil exists?"

Harry asked back to Remus, who chuckled at the boy's reaction.

"Yes, and no."

Remus Lupin said.

"Yes, to the fact that Devils do exist. And no, to the fact that they are not like it is described in the Bible, at least not anymore. You see, Harry, Devil is the name of a race of beings that have inherent magic. Their appearance is identical to a normal human, but they have some pros and cons. The pros are that their bodies are physically much stronger than humans, they have wings that can be hidden and allow them to fly freely, they can live up to ten thousand years, and their magic is based on their imagination. With so many 'good' pros, they have some bad cons too. Their reproduction rate is very, very low, where sometimes a Devil couple can try for hundreds of years before managing to have a child. Because of their nature.Devils are very weak to Holy and Light magic. But, in my opinion, the worse is their susceptibility to the sins. Devils are born with one of the seven capital sins ruling their beings and they have a very hard time resisting it. For example, a Devil born under the wrath sin would be very easy to anger and to provoke, while one born under the sloth sin would be very lazy and easy going."

Remus Lupins said, finishing the basic explanation to Harry.

"So, if Devils do exist, so do the Angels? And what about Hell and Heaven?"

Harry asked again. This time it was Andromeda who answered him.

"Yes, Harry. Angels do exist too, and they live in a separate realm called Heaven. But Hell is not where Devils live. A Hell like the one described in the Bible does not exist. Devils live in the Underworld. It is, like Heaven, a separate realm."

Andromeda explained to the boy. Questions kept coming from Harry and the adults explained what they knew about. How not only do the Biblical beings exist, but the other pantheons do too. Greeks, Nordics, Indians, Japanese, Chinese. Basically, every god, goddess and myth do exist or are legends based on existing beings. He even learned that his father and his friends, while in school, were worshippers of Loki, the god of mischief. They later had quit it when Harry's grandmother had gotten winds on who they were worshiping and had sent to them a book about the history of the Nordic Pantheon. After reading it, they got sickened by Loki's most recent 'feats' and changed their target of worshiping to a much more 'friendly' Hermes. Remus Lupin went on and explained too about the 'recent' big war that happened between the three biblical factions, and then about the civil war that plagued the Devils. Then, Harry made a question that he had since the beginning of the conversation.

"Do Devils take souls as payment for contracts?"

"Not anymore. By what I was told about, taking a soul as payment was something that was, indeed, done a very long time ago. But they saw that it was 'bad for business' and changed the payment for something much less fatal. After all, a client can only pay with his own soul and only once. Now they accept all means of payment methods: cash, paintings, artifacts, books, knowledge, etc. But the most common method of payment are favors. Mainly from people who have some power. A lot of Devil families have business in the human world, and sometimes they need some favors done to facilitate their business."

Sirius said, explaining the Devil's contract to his godson.

"Devil families?"

Harry asked again.

"Yes. There were once seventy two pillars of the Devils. Families that each had their own special ability. With the great biblical war, a lot of these families were extinct. With the civil war after that, even more of these families disappeared completely. If I had to give a number, less than half of the original seventy two families remain, and between the families that were extinct are the ones of the four original satans: Asmodeus, Leviathan, Belzebub and Lucifer. The four Devils that now carry these names are the leaders of the Devils and earned the titles with their own strength."

Sirius explained again to Harry, who nodded his head in understanding. He had a lot of information to digest, but he tried a last question.

"But why is their existence hidden?"

"For everyone's sake. Just like we, wizards and witches, hide from the non-magical world with a very strict law, they too hide. Their protocols to people discovering about the supernatural world are, mainly, the same as ours: memory change. The thing about it being restricted information in Hogwarts' library is because children don't tend to think right. Imagine what they would do if the knowledge of how to summon a Devil was easily found by anyone?"

Andromeda was the one to answer this question to Harry, who nodded his head in understanding. After that, having sent Hedwige to Hogwarts with a letter containing his choice of electives, Harry went to sleep. He had received a lot of information today and had a lot to digest.

Some days later, he had met with Hermione in her house as Ron had gone to Egypt with his family to visit his eldest brother, who worked there as a curse breaker for Gringotts, and when they were alone after having talked about their chosen electives and other small stuff, he told her about what he had discovered about their failed research on Devils. That his best female friend was shocked was an understatement. Hermione had bulged eyes and an open mouth during his entire explanation about the estra of the 'supernatural world' and Harry had found it funny to see her reacting like that.

"So, God is real."

Hermione murmured.

"Yes, he is as real as every other god and goddess of the other Pantheon, but he is definitely not like the one written in the Bible."

Harry explained to his very curious friend. What followed was an avalanche of questions that were answered by Harry if he knew the answer to them. After all, he had just learned about the rest of the supernatural world too. Hermione reacted to the lack of answers in the same way that she reacted everytime that she had something she wanted to know more about: by researching. She talked to Harry about how she would be getting books about every Pantheon in existence, starting with the ones that were closer to them: the Nordics, the Greeks, the Celts, and the Biblicals. Harry warned her to be careful and pointed her to start with books that had non-magical origin. Hermione agreed with him and they stood in silence, each one with their own thoughts.

"... The world is a very big place…"

Hermione suddenly murmured.

"What?"

Harry asked Hermione in confusion.

"Lord Ravenclaw had mentioned once that he had traveled the world, spending centuries doing it. He said that, even then, with centuries available, he could not see everything that there is to see because the world is a very big place."

Hermione said, explaining her murmur to Harry.

After that conversation and some other random stuff, Harry went back home.

The duo had met a lot more times after that, mainly finishing their homeworks and just chilling and enjoying the summer. Harry even had the chance of dipping in the pool that Hermione had in her house's backyard. It was then that he thanked the gods and Merlin that Ron was still in Egypt with his family. Harry noticed that Hermione was hiding a very nice body under all those school robes when he saw her wearing a one piece swimsuit. Harry tried to hide his looks at her body, but he was just a newbie at that and he ended up being noticed by the girl. That Harry had shown interest in her body, boosted Hermione's ego by a lot, and she, too, noticed that Harry was not that scrawny boy that she had jumped on the back of a mountain troll to save a girl that he knew little about.

'All that workout in the new gym at school is definitely showing results.'

The girl found herself thinking. Unknown by the two teenagers, Jane, Hermione's mother, was seeing all the trade of looks of the teens. Their 'dance' around each other had brought back some nostalgic memories, and with them, a sigh.

*sigh*

Later that night, before going to bed, Jane had a very serious conversation with Hermione about boys and how they needed to be shown that you had interest in them, and even more clear when they were young teens, like Harry. Hermione went to bed that night as red as a ripe tomato, but her mother's word had reached her.

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a/n: I'm a big fan of Harmony, so I don't want to read people whinning about it.

a/n2: Happy New Year!