Chapter 58: Syndicate
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After a few moments, she withdrew and looked away, turning to the egg and brushing it with her tail feathers, letting out a gentle trill. With a gentle pulse, the egg started glowing brighter than ever before, and a crack appeared on its side.
Before his eyes, the crack spread, and soon the shell split open into pieces and revealed the whitest little chick Harry had ever seen with a tiny beak and big feet and stubby wings and a tail that was too small for its body.
As the mother phoenix cleaned off all the remaining egg fluid from the little chick's feathers and helped it onto its feet, its eyes opened to reveal the brightest amber irises Harry had ever laid eyes on.
After being helped onto its feet, it stumbled around for a bit, taking in all the bright lights and colors around it until it caught sight of Harry. Letting out a happy little chirrup, it twaddled over to him on those tiny little legs.
Stopping right in front of him, it looked up at him and let out a commanding chirp.
Harry let out an incredulous chuckle, before bending down to pick it up. For some reason, his eyes were pricking. Raising the little chick to eye level, he turned to his four-legged companion in confusion.
"What is happening?" he asked Firenze, for he was thoroughly baffled.
Firenze smiled. "I would have thought it was fairly obvious Harry Potter. She has chosen you as her companion."
Silence.
"But the books said that phoenixes only chose the pure of heart," Harry finally said quietly, not because he wanted to, but because a stone had suddenly materialized in his throat, "I'm… not. I've done… horrible things. I don't deserve this. I'm not… not even close to pure of heart."
Firenze looked at him for a moment before looking back at the newborn phoenix; who'd decided to curl up in his palms and take a nap; and answering, "I believe the young one would beg to differ."
He stood there quietly for a while, wondering what he could say to that. Deciding to drop this line of worthy-or-not conversation, he asked, "So what do I call her? What is her name?"
"I do not believe she was born with one," Firenze said, "What do you wish to call her?"
Harry thought for a moment, before replying, "Hedwig. I want to call her Hedwig."
So, I'm open to suggestions and ideas about changes that you'd like to see from here on out. When I started the rewrite, my idea was to seed a few new plotlines and remove most if not all of the outright copying that existed in the early chapters.
Those chapters are now mostly done. Other than a few specific scenes, I don't have much of an idea what to change in the next 8 or 9 chapters.
So, if you have read the old version of those chapters(Uploaded as a separate story in my profile), then please do let me know your suggestions. I'd really appreciate them.
P.S. Be nice. Just cos I encourage constructive criticism doesn't mean I encourage verbal abuse, either attacking or defending me. I've seen a few of those in the reviews lately.
Book-I:First Class Magic
Chapter 8:
When Nymphadora Tonks, daughter of Andromeda Tonks nee Black, had joined Hogwarts in 1984, she was a bright bubbly girl with dreams of becoming the best potioneer to ever pass through the hallowed halls of Hogwarts.
She spent a lot of her nights from her first through fifth years reading through the books, memorizing formulas, going through reactions and writing down notes.
Many of her days were spent trying to impress Professor Severus Snape with her encyclopedic knowledge of potions, trying to persuade him in to giving her an apprenticeship and set her on her path to her very own Potions Mastery.
It seemed hopeless at first, but it had finally paid off. At the end of her seventh year, Professor Snape had called her to his office mere hours before she was supposed to leave for the Hogwarts express and told her that he would be offering her an apprenticeship.
That meeting had ended in Professor Snape almost physically throwing her out of his office after she had whooped in a voice loud enough to wake the entire castle and in her excitement, hugged the professor.
The dour man had not taken kindly to that.
Nymphadora had then proceeded to brag about her upcoming apprenticeship all the way to King's Cross to her friends and all the way back home to her parents.
Unfortunately, things weren't going to be so good for her the rest of the summer.
Despite her mother's insistence that she take her wand with her while going out to the city to buy groceries one day, she had refused.
"I can't use it anyway Mum! Ministry owls will be there in a jiffy and the Aurors will be on my case for breaking the statute and I'll be expelled! I can't be expelled after Snape finally agreed to apprentice me!" she'd exclaimed.
That had proven to be her first mistake.
While coming back home from the store, she passed through the local park, where she caught sight of a little boy of no more than five years of age staring at her.
With a cheeky grin, she checked around to see that no one was looking their way, bent down and used her Metamorphmagus abilities to convert her nose into a pig's snout and oinked.
The boy giggled and ran away, and Tonks, with a smile on her face, continued on her way back home.
That was her second mistake.
A man named Grunnings had been out and about in the park for his morning walk. As a man who ran the majority of an international crime syndicate and was also diabetic, morning exercise routines were a daily thing for him.
Yet, this morning was quite different, because he'd seen something extraordinary. He had seen a girl change her appearance in inhuman ways from afar and followed her with his bodyguard, greedily fantasizing about how much money the right people would pay for a freak like her.
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