ACT5CH1 - THE BLOOM AND THE BITE

The moment Harry appeared near the outskirts of Cinnamon Grove, something in the air shifted. A static weight settled over him, so sudden and strange that it took him a second to realize it wasn’t physical. The world didn’t blur — not exactly — but there was a high-pitched white noise thrumming in his ears, like a thousand whispers just out of reach. 

“Grow? —”

“New — should —”

“Reach it?”

“Don’t cut —  just today —”

“Need — just a little —”

He paused, blinking. His balance wavered, just slightly.

Daphne turned toward him, her brow creasing. "Are you alright?"

Harry gave her a half-hearted smile. "Probably just disorientation. It’s the first time I have tandem rifted before.”

“Rifting?” she asked. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

Harry nodded, clenching his teeth, but it didn’t work. Like a slow spreading itch, the noise was slowly becoming clearer. Subtler. Not voices exactly — but not silence either.

It wasn’t the rift. It followed him. Or maybe it had always been there, and he was only now beginning to hear it.

As they reached the main entrance, he found Joshua standing there, ready to greet him.

And he was barefoot.

Harry didn’t know if it was a tribute to the magic of the land that vitalized the Greengrass name, or a subtle way of staying in physical contact with the wards interspersed all over the estate, but he knew better than to ask. Or maybe, the recent events had simply made Joshua take such preemptive actions. 

Paranoid? Perhaps. But because you're paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a Death Eater hiding in the shadows wanting to kill you.

Also, the Harry Potter law of inevitability stated that wherever he went, someone usually decided it was a good day to cause mayhem, or die. Or both, depending on the mood. 

Harry was flexible about whose turn it was. He was nice that way.

Cinnamon Grove was a sprawling, unplottable estate that was about an hour from the nearest Muggle road, a colossal French‑gothic chateau perched on the lip of a cliff. Forests of oak and ash surrounded the entire edifice, their crowns blazing gold in late‑afternoon sunlight. The Greengrass ancestors had carved the mansion’s heart into a sky‑lit lawn: no ceiling, only walls and stone columns holding up nothing but blue. 

Nervous, Harry? —

“Just a lit —” Harry began, only to look next to him. 

Sirius wasn’t there. Just the breeze rustling through his empty fingers. The Black heir ring never felt heavier. 

It seemed odd that the last time he had been here, it had been with Sirius beside him, cracking jokes about lordly lawns and dodgy pureblood landscaping. And now, he was here, alone, and Sirius was not.

Daphne reached for his hand. "You alright?"

There was a beat before he responded, his eyes staring at the manor grounds as if they might bleed memories. "Yeah. Just... remembering."

Joshua Greengrass waited at the threshold, a benevolent granite outcrop draped in dragon‑hide. Six half‑giants flanked him— ‘troubleshooters’, as Joshua had put it — rune‑etched crossbows slung over shoulders and ash‑wood wands thick as cudgels tucked at their waists. One cradled a bowl of Thief’s Downfall. Invitation on a tray, fingers in the potion, and crossbows in case one of them were imposters — that was the Greengrass etiquette. The last person who’d cheated the bowl occupied a crystal urn by the grotto; and received fresh flowers every week.

Harry still didn’t know if Daphne was being serious about that story.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

His future father-in-law smiled. “Had a feeling you would show up. Come.”

As was customary, Harry put a finger into the bowl, the liquid climbing up for a moment, before sliding away, satisfied. Joshua approached closer, grasped both of his arms and gave him a hug.

“I’m sorry about Sirius.”

He was too, but that wouldn’t bring his godfather back, would it?

‘He was a good man,” said Joshua. “We might have had our differences, but he loved you like a father, Harry. Every single waking moment he spent here, his sole desire was to give you everything you needed for a safe, long and prosperous life. It’s unfortunate that you had to lose him so —”

“I haven’t lost him.”

Joshua blinked. “Harry—”

“I haven’t lost him,” Harry stressed. “Sirius Black isn’t dead. He’s just… gone into the Anima. Through that Circle. And I’ll find him — get him back.”

He expected the man to say something. To patronize him. To say shallow words of agreement when he inwardly knew better than to believe Harry’s words.

Instead the man just met his eyes.

‘Had this been somebody else, I’d have given up. But you have a track record of achieving the impossible, Harry. If anyone can make this miracle happen, it will be you.”

And that was that.

He gestured for them to enter. "Come. Freshen up. We’ll be having guests soon. Trouble’s brewing."

Harry gave a wry smile. "Isn’t it always?"

They moved through the estate’s paths of sun-dappled stone and wisteria-soaked air, but Harry’s mind was drifting, wading through static. The noise refused to fade. It wasn't an intrusion. It felt natural.

Too natural.

Inside the manor, Astoria was waiting by the stairwell, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Welcome back, Gatekeeper. Did you bring any apocalypse this time, or should we expect it tomorrow?"

"Still jet-lagged from the last one," Harry muttered.

She grinned and gestured. "Come on, I'll show you your room."

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Where are you putting him?”

Astoria winked. “Next to mine.”

Daphne rolled her eyes.

As they ascended, Harry walked beside Astoria in silence for a moment. She stopped before an oak door carved with subtle ivy runes, pushing it open with a little flourish. "Home sweet home."

The room was warm, tastefully lit by floating amber lamps. Heavy dark wood bookshelves lined one wall, and an arched window overlooked the eastern cliffs, the sea just visible in the distance. A fireplace crackled to life as they entered. A four-poster bed stood in the center with deep green sheets and charcoal-grey throws.

It smelled of cedar and something like lavender.

It felt like peace.

Harry paused on the threshold. Not for the first time, he couldn’t help but compare the contrasts between this place and the Black townhouse, which always had a claustrophobic, foreboding feeling to it. Sirius had gotten the place renovated before Harry’s birthday party, but centuries of ambient family craft left a stench that couldn’t just be whitewashed away.

This room, though, held no ghosts.

"Thanks, Astoria," he said quietly.

She smirked. "Just don’t summon eldritch horrors in the middle of the night. The drapes are new."

And then she left.

The bed was made, the curtains drawn. He peeled off his coat and stared at his reflection in the gilded mirror. For a moment, he looked like someone else. For a moment, he looked like no one at all.

What are you? He asked the noise.

To his surprise, the noise shivered.  It wasn’t a sound anymore. It was presence. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Thousands. 

He drew in a breath, closing his eyes, and extended his reach out. He sensed it — them — rushed towards him in a frenzy, and Harry Listened.

It was a rather queer skill, something he had gained through his animagus form. Owls were excellent at hearing over long-range, and were often very compatible mediums for connecting with the souls of the departed. Drawing on that symbolism, Harry could scry past physical and geographical boundaries and reach another, though for obvious reasons, he could only access auditory sensations and nothing else.

Hence, Listening.

Slowly, the noise began to shift.

Words? Not quite. But meanings. Echoes of voices far too small to be heard, unless one was now part of something larger.

"Can I... spread?"

"We grow... slowly, but it's warm now."

"Roots are deep. Roots are hungry."

"Light. There is light. Who brings the light?"

A thousand voices. Soft, polite, persistent. Requesting. Hoping.

His breath caught. Were those —

He stood abruptly and threw the window open. The gardens below shimmered in the half-moonlight. A vine uncurled faintly toward the glass. A flower turned, ever so slightly, toward him. Not to the moon. To him.

It was the ivy curling along the outer walls. The moss in the cracks of stone. The myrtle blooming lazily beneath the open windows. The rosebush, still sleepy from the spring rains. It was life whispering to him. Asking.

Not demanding. Just hoping.

"Can I grow?"

"Can we reach the sun?"

"I'm hungry. Feed me please, please, please?"

And more than the plants—he felt the soil beneath, rich and ancient, pulsing with a question. Felt the buzz of the beetles in the wood, the flex of the roots buried deep.

They knew him.

Whispers from things growing. Living. Waiting.

“Bloody hell,” Harry murmured, staring in awe. These plants… insects… Nature was speaking to him. 

The realization hit like a slow tide rising over the lungs.

This wasn’t Legilimency. Not some kind of empathy either. This was…

Recognition.

The earth itself—the living things within it—they were reaching toward him. Asking. Seeking. As if he were...

Summer.

His breath hitched. The power of Summer wasn’t in sunlight and heat alone. It was in growth, in bloom, in vitality. It was in being the answer to every fragile thing that sought to live. 

He could feel the weight of their belief pressing into his bones, not as worship, but as needed. And they didn’t ask for miracles.

They asked to survive.

On instinct, Harry whispered, "Grow."

The moment the word left his lips, the air thickened like honey, and then, he lurched, like missing a stair in the dark. An intense vertigo gripped him, as power — impossible amounts of power — bled out of him,  fast and hungry, faster than breakfast vanished in front of a starving Ron Weasley. It wasn’t painful, exactly. Just sudden depletion. 

Then came the bloom.

The floor sighed beneath him.

The neatly trimmed grass floor of the room was now blanketed in thick, vibrant grass, which shot upward like green lightning. In seconds, they reached his ankles, then his knees, before solidifying into a mat of young shrubs that rippled softly with life. Vines snaked up the bedposts, curling around the canopy like lazy, purring cats. Flowers burst open along the curtains, petals trembling as if they were laughing. Moss painted the walls in soft, velvety strokes, and somewhere by the corner, a fig tree tried to burst from the tile.

Outside the window, the garden was no longer a garden. It was a riot of overgrowth. Every plant had bloomed wildly, sprawling and climbing, stretching toward the sun like they'd been starved for decades. The hedges looked feral. The rose bushes were now tangles of heavy blossom-laden branches. The lavender bed had become a purple sea.

Harry blinked. Once. Twice. His hands were glowing faintly with the afterglow of something vast and golden.

Then the door slammed open.

Daphne stood at the threshold, a towel still in one hand, her freshly washed hair damp and curling against her shoulders. Her expression shifted from concern to complete exasperation.

"I left you alone for, what, five minutes? Five minutes, Potter!"

Harry opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the moss-eaten chair.

She stepped into the room carefully, brushing a stray vine aside. A small sunflower turned toward her as she passed, and she gave it a withering glare.

"This is a stately manor, not the bloody Hanging Gardens of Babylon."

Harry raised a sheepish hand. Then at her. Then back to his hand.

“Let’s face it. This isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve caught me doing.”

"So…” said Harry, a few minutes later. “I may have accidentally channelled Summer."

"Accidentally," she repeated flatly, plucking a dandelion from the hem of her robe. "You turned your bedroom into a fairy glade."

"In my defense, the plants asked first."

She stared at him.

“...Politely?”

More staring.

“Look, I just didn’t know this would happen. I tried to Listen in to what the noise was telling me, and I heard their request. How was I to know it’d turn out like this?”

“Next time, use a silencing charm,” Daphne snapped, muttering something about deranged fiances and waved her wand, trying to push the foliage back toward something resembling order. The vine curled around her wrist affectionately instead.

Harry looked around, then rubbed the back of his neck. "On the plus side, I think I can skip Herbology review for the week."

"I'm going to hex you."

"You say that, but you haven't."

Daphne gave the dandelion in her hand a thoughtful glance, then flicked it at his face like a dart.

It exploded into golden fluff.

Harry coughed. The plants giggled. Literally giggled.

Somewhere outside, the fig tree split a second window open.

He really needed to get this under control.

“Any ideas why this is happening? You’ve used Summer for a while. Even back at Hogwarts.”

“I don’t know,” said Harry, looking at his hands. “Back then, it was… how do I explain it? Like a source that stayed mostly dormant, but I could just draw on its power. To be frank, it still feels the same, only I’m… more connected? Recognized? Made an accessory in its relationship to the world? Pick one.”

“I think I understand,” said Daphne, frowning. “One of my ancestors, Seraphina Greengrass, was rumoured to have a similar ability. She was a Vessel too. Oh, and neater!”

Harry decided to just put on his Woe Is Me look. Sometimes it even worked.

“It won’t work on me and you know it,” Daphne snapped.

…Sometimes.

“Honestly, I don’t know what’s more ridiculous, the fact that you suddenly went from Death’s vessel to channeling Summer, or the entire thing with Azkaban, or now… this, at the advent of our marriage. Dad would say it’s a good sign, call it the return of our magic to our lands, and I ought to agree—”

“But you’re not,” said Harry slowly. 

“It’s like what you said back then. The fact that all of this is happening to you must either mean you’re somehow the one wizard that was blessed by Merlin and Morgana and freaking Founders, and so, all these ancient powers are manifesting through you, in which case, you’d be the Greengrass vessel, no matter how little sense it makes, or…”

“Or that I am none of that, and instead, something about me makes them run through me easier than they do for others,” said Harry slowly, thinking back to Ekrizdis’s claims of him being the Nexus Child. In hindsight, it did explain several things, but he’d be damned to accept anything at face value from that insane immortal psychopath. 

“...Yes,” she said. “It’s worrying me. You didn’t try to do this, and you turned a room into a bloody forest.”

Harry looked down at his hands. “I — I should have—” He paused, reconsidering. When he spoke next, it was quieter. “Do you think this makes me a danger? That I should —”

“Stop right there,” she warned, putting a finger to his lips. “You are a lot of things, Harry Potter, but never believe, not even once, that you are a danger. To me, or anybody else you care about. And I swear if I have to keep drilling this fact into your thick skull for the rest of our life, I will.”

Slowly, Harry gave her a lopsided grin. “Thanks, Daphne.”

‘Now look sharp, and get freshened up. I’ll be waiting here, just in case you turn the bloody tub into… I don’t know, a river or something. We have people waiting downstairs for you.”

“Oh, who?”

Unsurprisingly, the whispers hadn't quite left him. Apparently plants could be just as greedy as human beings. But they had definitely gone down in intensity, justa  faint and persistent hum at the edges of his hearing, something he could filter. Like the ticking of a grandfather clock in the background, it faded to familiarity. That didn’t mean it stopped being strange—just tolerable.

Daphne met him outside his room, arms crossed, an expression that was equal parts affection and impatience. “You good?”

He nodded, distracted. The remnants of the plant incident still clung to his thoughts like burrs. “Yeah. Still thinking about the fig tree punching a window open.”

“You mean the second window,” she deadpanned, then tugged his sleeve. “Come on. They’re waiting downstairs. And you’ve already added a decade of magical horticulture to the manor. Let’s try not to add another crisis to the list.”

He followed her down the grand staircase, the walls humming with subtle enchantments that shimmered faintly in the corners of his eyes. He could feel the estate now—its pulse, its breath. Summer was not a power one turned off. It lingered, infused in his steps, echoed in the way the wood of the banister warmed under his palm.

The silence hit first.

Not the awkward kind — the sort you might fill with polite coughs and tea cups clinking. No, this was heavier. Like the room itself had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.

Harry stepped through the threshold and froze. Seven pairs of eyes turned toward him, and the quiet thickened into something viscous. Daphne grasped his hand lightly, a silent tether, but even she stayed silent. 

His aunt Andromeda had been sitting next to her daughter, looking absolutely forlorn. Tonks, a little less, but still despondent. Much like Harry, the young Unspeakable and Auror had gained Sirius’s companionship during the last few months. On the opposite couch, Susan Bones sat with her aunt, the Minister herself, looking just as despondent. Minister Bones on the other hand, was doing her best to keep her emotions held back behind a hard mask. Joshua himself stood near the far mantle, arms folded, clenched like he hadn’t unclenched it since the news from Azkaban.

And then there was Fleur.

The veela had always been a seductive creature, her allure a fog that was always present, only receding the moment it came in contact with Death. Now though, it felt like it had teeth. There was something primal coiled under her skin, like a jungle cat basking in firelight. Beautiful, yes — but unmistakably predatory. Like she chose not to pounce.

And the way she was looking at him… he might have been a prey that had somehow grown antlers overnight. Like she’d hunt him not because she needed to — but because she wanted to see if she still could.

And then Andromeda rose and came closer.

Her eyes—gods, her eyes. They searched him like she was trying to find Sirius in the lines of his face, and maybe not liking what she found.

“You’ve grown,” she said at last, softly. “Not in inches. In… shadow.”

Harry blinked. “I don’t feel taller.”

It was meant to be dry. It landed like ash.

Andromeda stepped forward, but stopped short of touching him. “They said you—” Her voice caught, and she swallowed. “They said you held the gate. That you — you sacrificed your own freedom to keep the world together.”

“They exaggerate,” Harry said. “I am merely a gatekeeper.”

Tonks looked up then, perched half-slung in a deep blue armchair like she didn’t quite belong in her own skin. She looked older than she had the last time he saw her. Her hair was faded at the roots, a surprise since he knew perfectly well how much she made sure nobody ever spotted her metamorphmagic.

“Amelia told me that you were there, when Sirius….” her voice lowered. “When Sirius sacrificed himself. Did — was he hurt?”

“Voldemort set up a trap for me inside St. Mungo’s,” said Harry, bitterness filling inside him. “The ritual circle… I had the power to stop it, and he banked upon it. When I took over the Circle’s anchors, it activated the trap, entrapping me in the Circle. I had two options — unleash Death and become the Hunter, destroying everything and everyone. Destroy Magic itself. Or… I stayed bound in the Circle, tormented and tortured by the constant energy flux.”

Susan gasped, covering her mouth in horror.

“Prometheus,” Amelia muttered slowly, her eyes never leaving him. 

“The titan that gave Gubraithian fire to mortals, and in return, was punished to be tortured for eternity by the Gods. Guess Voldemort decided it would be apt for somebody like me.”

“And Sirius —” began Andi.

“I chose the third path,” said Harry, clenching his fists. “I gave Sirius some of my scales, and was preparing to give up, to be swallowed by the Anima.”

“You WHAT?” yelled Daphne. “You never told me that!”

Harry didn’t look at her. “I didn’t end up doing it, so it doesn’t matter. I am an owl, and if anyone can traverse between the realms, it is me. I thought that maybe, just maybe I could find my way out. No matter how long it took. I had already left a wardstone filled with Summer energy…” he paused, and looked at the Minister. “Um —”

“Miss Greengrass had been attacked viciously by the curse while you were battling Ekrizdis. I’m not sure if it was coincidence or your luck, but I was lucky to have the wardstone with me, and get here to hand it over. Or else…”

This time it was Harry’s turn to gape. He turned to Daphne accusingly —

“You didn’t tell me that either.”

“I didn’t end up dying, so it doesn’t matter,” said Daphne coolly.

Harry scowled, before turning to Andi. “Sirius didn’t agree. He used blood — his blood — to channel the Black Family Magic. I was anchoring the ritual Circle, connecting the Anima to our world. He used that connection to summon it. And Tezcatlipoca answered.”

Harry met her eyes. “Sirius bound it to me. Commanded it to entrench itself to me within my blood. To strengthen me, to protect me, because I am his heir. And he commanded me to bring him back.”

The air thickened. Shadows bled inward, curling around Harry’s feet like ink drawn to parchment. And then—soundlessly—it emerged.

A jaguar, massive and regal, prowled into being beside him.

Not summoned. Not conjured. Unveiled.

Its form shimmered in shades of deep amethyst and starlit violet, like obsidian soaked in moonlight. Every muscle rippled beneath translucent fur that wasn’t quite solid—more like a constellation had decided to wear the shape of a beast. Swirls of ancient runes moved across its hide, each one pulsing with a heartbeat not its own.

Its eyes glowed gold. No, not gold—molten amber, like volcanic resin holding the memory of ten thousand ancestors.

There was no sound as it stepped forward. And yet every paw print left a ripple of distorted magic in the carpet, like reality had to reform around its weight. Fangs, too long to belong to anything mundane, gleamed beneath lips that curled in silent judgment. Its tail flicked lazily, trailing wisps of magic that smelled faintly of blood, smoke, and jungle rain.

It didn’t purr so much as rumbled—a low, guttural sound that didn’t come from its throat but from the world itself, like the stones of the manor remembered who the Blacks once were and shuddered accordingly.

When it turned its head toward Andromeda, those molten eyes narrowed—not in threat, but in recognition. It saw her. It saw the blood in her. And it approved.

Andromeda instantly gave in to the sudden, irresistible urge to kneel. “My… my Lord. I… serve and obey.”

Tezcatlipoca. The Jaguar. The Smoking Mirror. The Herald of the Nocturnal Sky. The God of Night and Sorcery.

The Black Family Magic.

Susan looked outright terrified. Even Daphne and Joshua looked like they were having a hard time keeping themselves in check. Fleur maximized her allure, likely to protect herself — a predator snarling to ward off a more powerful one. 

“Oh, my,” Tonks murmured, clenching her fists.

“You feel it too?” asked Amelia. “I’m not a Black, and it wants me to bend.”

“It’s demanding my obedience,” said Tonks. Harry noted how her skin was constantly rippling beneath a hastily applied glamour — too subtle for others to see it, but he saw it. Tonks was using metamorphmagery to keep shifting inwardly, just to keep the influence from bending her. “I can defy it, but it’s not pleasant… by any means. Harry, could you —”

Harry closed his eyes, and the jaguar let out another rumble, before dissolving into motes of magic and rushing into Harry, manifesting into a ring on his finger.

The Black Lord ring.

“Like I said,” said Harry. “He commanded that I should bring him back. And I will. My Lord commands me to.”