Open Can Of Secrets

I stared from the bird to the old man. There was a twinkle in the old man's eye that came from not being all there. Vernon had it, too, while he was eating shit out of the toilet bowl. From my point of view, this situation needed lots of lightning and death. But, unfortunately, it wasn't an option.

There were drawbacks to transmigrating besides my magic constantly battling me for control and weakened qi. My body was also frail and unused to qi.

The old man removed his hat, I resisted the urge to retch. Why was there a hole in his skull? "I know this looks horrible, but there is a good reason for it. You have to understand, Harry, my boy, I don't want to sugarcoat anything. Just know that this will never be your fate as long as I live." Fawkes jabbed his beak in deep and pulled back a hunk of grey matter.

"Lemon drop," the old man bellowed. He turned his head. "Harry dear boy, would you like a lemon drop. They're on my desk back at Hogwarts." Movement down below caught my attention. The old man was growing a bulge.

I looked up to see Fawkes crying into the old man's skull. "Your parents were very important to my kind so if you'll let me I'll explain everything. We phoenixes sing you a song so you can dream. Let me show you." A trill that sounded more like nails racking on a chalkboard than music rang out through the attic.

Qi can do a great many things. I moved across the room at preternatural speeds and snatched the elder wand from Dumbledore's hands. Calling him that didn't seem right. He was just a puppet of a parasite. The wand reached out, promising death, destruction, and all the blood I could stand. I snapped it before burning both ends to ash. There would be no unbeatable superweapons in this game.

I pointed at the bird and fired a beam of qi. Fawkes burst into flames but didn't die. Instead, Dumbledore screamed and jerked forward with outstretched hands.

"Lemon drop," The old man yelled for his battle cry.

I waved my hand and knocked the lobotomized wizard off his feet with a gust of wind. A glance shattered the roof into pieces with a concentrated burst of qi.

"Harry, that's just rude; you could hurt yourself if you're not careful. The world is a dangerous place for a wizard outside of phoenix protection." Fawkes croaked.

I stopped in place. There were other phoenixes outside on the shoulders of wizards and witches singing and pecking at their brains. Was the world really overrun, or was this an illusion? I looked back at the creature, the phoenix.

From the ashes of its death, it had returned as a chick. Dumbledore picked the little chick up and rested him in the hole in Dumbledore's skull. "I'll be hungry when we get back; I think I'll feast on some first years. There was a large crop this year."

Should I cleanse the wizards of this world to starve the phoenixes? I wanted to scratch my head, but there was a real possibility a Phoenix had already poked a hole in my head. What if I have always been under the dream, and this was an illusion? If I were Fawkes, I would make my prey believe they were free. The first thing I would do after my illusion took hold was to make them think they were already out of it.

"How can this be? Your illusion should only affect their hearing? Their eyes should still see the truth." I said.

"Oh Harry, look what you've done. I'm going to have to punish you for this. No quidditch for a week, young man. I'm serious.

"Lemon drop," Dumbledore said.

"To answer your question. Sound is just a medium once we're inside; we can do so many things, and what is life but a hallucination. We give our wizards sweet dreams in exchange for what we phoenixes need to thrive." Fawkes said.

"I would rather die," I said and approached the edge.

"Don't be like that, Harry. I'm going to protect you. Your parents were so important to us it's the least we can do. If the former wizard nobles are pets, then the son of James and Lily Potter is an honourary phoenix." Fawkes crowed.

"Do you think I need eyes to see or ears to hear? Who moves this body or Harry Potter's brain? Is it the chemical impulses that manipulate this physical form or something more?" I poked out my eardrums right in front of the chick as it stared at me with its beady black eyes. Blood seeped around my fingers, but I didn't use them to hear anyway.

The world didn't change because I was never under an illusion. Its song failed because I didn't need food to survive or air underwater. A cultivator's physical body was more a vessel to contain energy than anything else. I would still exist without it because I was more than my bones, blood, and meat.

"Look what you did to yourself. I already told you we aren't going to hurt you. We loved your parent Harry, and I'm sure we'll fall in love with you." Fawkes said.

I laughed not because it was funny but because of how fucked up this version of the world was. A timeline of parasitic Phoenixes what were the odds. There wasn't a reason to hold back; it seemed my first step was simple.

"I will destroy you. No, I think I'll leave just enough of you around for your tears. The medical uses of them alone make you a valuable commodity. But not you. When next we meet, I will have a way to end Phoenixes permanently." I said.

"You poor child, you never should have been raised here in the first place. Gehenna wanted better for you." Fawkes said.

Suddenly I could see my breath. I still needed it for talking. I wasn't going to let the bird off easy without at least a one-liner before I blew it up again.

A dozen black robes shot through the air like a dark lord clothesline was cut on laundry day. I searched my foggy and unreliable HP memory.

"I see, so you sent the Shoggoth after me. What's next, the ancient race of Yith? Should prepare a pale am I going to be milking some black goat's young later?" I said.

When I looked back, the bird's feathers were fluffed. Fire licked at the phoenix's feathers. Fawkes was furious.

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