Harry eventually stopped asking how long he had been in the Spirit World. He had tried counting periods of sleep. He had marked stones. He had attempted to track changes in the sky and once spent a truly embarrassing amount of effort comparing the growth of several trees before one of the trees informed him that it had simply decided to become taller that morning. The spirits were worse. One told Harry three summers had passed, then revealed that it considered any prolonged period of happiness a summer. Another described an event Harry later learned had occurred centuries earlier as "recent." Harry finally decided time could fuck off. The decision improved his life immediately.
Fox approved of the decision immediately. "You were bad at counting anyway."
"I was excellent at counting," Harry protested.
"You stopped."
"Because counting became meaningless."
Fox considered that with the solemnity of a judge before deciding, "Bad counting." Harry threw a berry at him. Fox caught it, ate it, and the matter was apparently settled. Life continued. Without time to measure, Harry learned to measure progress. Magic became the easiest way. Harry's first wandless light had barely illuminated his fingers. Eventually he could leave spheres of light floating around a clearing without consciously maintaining them. Levitation followed. Conjuration came much later. Elemental manipulation was both easier and far more dangerous than Harry expected because apparently giving a fifteen-year-old boy direct access to uncontrolled fire remained a questionable decision even after the universe changed.
His first successful flame lasted several seconds. Harry smiled. The flame jumped onto the grass. The grass screamed. Harry screamed because the grass screamed. Fox fell out of a tree laughing.
"Oh, shut up!"
The purple grass shrieked accusations while Harry desperately tried to extinguish the fire. His first attempt at water hit him directly in the face. The second drowned the flames, half the clearing, and Harry himself. Fox rolled on his back wheezing. Harry sat in mud with wet hair plastered across his face.
Harry sat in the mud, pushed wet hair out of his face, and glared at Fox. "I used to be good at magic."
"You screamed," Fox reminded him.
"The grass screamed first."
"You screamed louder."
Harry pointed at him. "You're a terrible friend." Fox only laughed harder. The grass eventually forgave Harry. Mostly. For quite a while it rustled threateningly whenever he passed. The incident taught Harry something more useful than dignity would have. He had spent years thinking about magic through wand movements, incantations, and spell names. Without the wand, those habits became obstacles. The moment Harry stopped trying to cast Incendio and instead concentrated on heat becoming flame, the magic behaved more naturally.
Years of practice—or months, or centuries, or whatever insulting answer time preferred—changed him. Harry stopped reaching automatically for a wand that wasn't there. Eventually he barely thought about wand magic at all. Magic became movement, intention, structure, pressure, shape, and understanding. It became his. Levitation changed his practice more than anything else.
Harry learned to lift stones, branches, Fox against his will, and eventually himself. The first self-levitation attempt dropped Harry three feet onto his backside. Fox remembered that for an unreasonable period. The successful version became one of Harry's favorite ways to meditate. He sat cross-legged several feet above the ground, closed his eyes, and let his own magic hold him while the enormous currents of the Spirit World moved around him. Harry did not absorb them. He had attempted something similar once and an old green monkey spirit had struck him over the head before turning a nearby mushroom inside out to demonstrate what incompatible spiritual energy could do. Harry had accepted the lesson.
Instead he floated within the currents and listened. That was how he discovered he knew Arithmancy. Harry opened his eyes and fell directly into a stream. He surfaced coughing. Fox stared from the bank.
"I know Arithmancy."
Fox scratched one ear.
"I don't take Arithmancy."
Harry climbed out of the water.
"Hermione takes Arithmancy. I don't. Ron doesn't either, unless falling asleep while Hermione explains it counts."
Fox began cleaning one wing. Harry ignored him. The equations remained—not fragments, but understanding. Harry knew how numerical relationships stabilized magical structures, how power could be balanced across linked effects, and why altering one variable could collapse an enchantment somewhere apparently unrelated.
The next meditation gave him runes. After that came spell creation, then wards, rituals, enchanting, and magical anatomy.
Occlumency so advanced Harry immediately understood why Snape's lessons had never taught him anything useful. Curses. A great many curses. Harry eventually stopped pretending there could be many explanations. Voldemort. The Veil had torn something connected to Voldemort out of Harry and followed that connection outward. Harry remembered Voldemort's terror before the connection died.
Now Harry possessed knowledge he'd never learned. He searched his mind thoroughly and found no Voldemort, no memories of growing up as Tom Riddle, no second consciousness, and no hidden voice.
There was only knowledge. Harry hated that at first. Then he became practical. Knowing how to build a ward didn't become evil because Voldemort also knew it. Arithmancy didn't become evil. Runes didn't. Even the magic Harry once would have immediately called Dark became harder to classify after enough time around spirits. Harry met beautiful spirits that were murderous and terrifying spirits that were kind. He watched a creature use a technique British wizards would almost certainly call Dark to remove a spiritual parasite from another being.
Magic had consequences, and intent and use mattered more than labels. Harry kept the knowledge because what he did with it belonged to him.
Parseltongue survived too. Harry discovered that when two serpent spirits tried gossiping about him from a tree.
"The many-legged cat smells strange," one hissed.
"Humans often do," the other replied.
Harry stopped beneath them.
"I can understand you."
Both serpents froze. Harry looked up. The smaller one slowly withdrew behind a branch. The larger remained.
"You speak the old tongue?"
"Apparently."
Some serpent spirits were delighted. Others became very unhappy when they realized Harry could understand exactly what they said about him. One elderly serpent spent several minutes complaining that Harry possessed unnecessary limbs while assuming he couldn't understand. Harry waited until the end. Then answered, "I happen to like my limbs." The serpent closed its eyes.
Fox laughed for the rest of the day. Harry's relationship with Parseltongue changed after that. Britain had treated it like something sinister because of Slytherin and Voldemort. Here, it was simply a language. Some spirits considered Harry's accent bizarre. A few told him his pronunciation sounded ancient. Harry didn't care. He liked having another way to talk to people.
The poison incident happened because Harry smelled a flower. That was not how he told the story afterward. The flower had blue petals, a silver center, and a faint apple scent. Harry brushed against it, inhaled a cloud of dust, and managed perhaps twenty steps before his vision doubled. Fox landed in front of him.
"Harry?"
"I'm fine."
Harry walked into a tree. Fox stared. Harry leaned against the trunk.
"I may have spoken early."
The headache became vicious. Harry ended up sitting with his back against the tree while Fox paced around him.
"You are dying."
"I've done that before."
Fox made an angry noise.
"Sorry."
The pain worsened. Then, unexpectedly, stopped. Minutes later it began fading. Harry recovered far too quickly for the poison to make sense. Later, floating within the Spirit World's current, Harry reached for whatever knowledge might help. Basilisk venom surfaced.
Not information about Harry. Voldemort's expertise. Voldemort had experimented extensively with basilisk venom—its persistence, magical destructiveness, and interaction with other venoms and enchanted materials. Harry tried not to think about why. Instead he remembered being twelve. The fang.
Fawkes. Phoenix tears falling into the wound. Harry had always assumed the tears had simply removed the venom. But phoenix tears healed. Healing did not necessarily mean extraction. What if traces remained?
Not literal pools of venom and phoenix tears sloshing around inside him, but magical remnants. Basilisk destruction. Phoenix restoration. Opposing forces that had reached some kind of equilibrium inside Harry years ago. Then another poison entered that system. Harry laughed when the idea fully formed.
Fox looked worried.
"I'm fine."
"You laugh when poisoned."
"I'm thinking."
"Worse."
Harry considered whether those two magical creature influences might also have contributed to the bizarre form his Animagus transformation had taken. It was impossible to prove. Harry liked the theory anyway.
Harry met Iroh while meditating. By then, Harry had become comfortable enough with the currents to let them move him physically. He would sit cross-legged in the air, close his eyes, and allow himself to drift wherever the Spirit World wished. That particular meditation began beside white flowers. When Harry opened his eyes, he was floating near a waterfall. An old human man sat beside it drinking tea. A monkey sat with him.
The monkey also had tea. Harry stared. The man smiled.
"Good morning."
Harry slowly lowered himself.
"You're human."
The old man glanced down at himself.
"So I have been told."
Harry laughed. He wasn't cautious. That realization came later. Once, Harry would have treated an unknown adult in an impossible place as a potential threat. By now, anyone who wanted to hurt him had apparently possessed plenty of opportunity while he floated unconscious through their tea gathering. Also, Harry had lived among spirits for too long for an old man beside a waterfall to rank particularly high on his list of suspicious things. The man lifted the teapot.
"Tea?"
Harry smelled it. The leaves smelled good. Very good, in fact. He raised one hand. Magic gathered and formed into a cup. Harry had intended something simple.
Instead he produced dark porcelain with deep blue glazing, delicate silver tracing, six curved supports around the base, and two narrow handles that swept backward suspiciously like his Animagus tentacles. Harry stared at it.
"Apparently my subconscious has become pretentious."
The old man's eyes brightened.
"Beautiful work."
Harry sat.
"I'm British. Tea is serious."
The man clearly had no idea what British meant but accepted the statement. Fox arrived moments later, saw the monkey's cup, and immediately decided he wanted it. The monkey disagreed. Harry watched them begin fighting over perfectly replaceable crockery while the old man calmly poured Harry's tea.
"Should we stop them?"
The man considered.
"They appear occupied."
Harry laughed. That was how Harry met Iroh. Introductions happened sometime later. Tea mattered first. Harry knew good tea. Iroh knew tea in ways Harry had never encountered.
They disagreed almost immediately over steeping time. Iroh enjoyed that enormously. Harry discovered this when Iroh deliberately altered the water temperature without telling him, then made Harry compare two cups.
"You cheated."
"I taught."
"You cheated while teaching."
"Sometimes wisdom takes unexpected forms."
Harry stared at him.
"You've been living with spirits too long."
Iroh laughed. Harry kept returning.
Iroh told Harry about his world gradually. Iroh described four nations and bending, a physical art through which some humans manipulated fire, water, earth, or air by combining movement with internal energy. Iroh demonstrated Firebending. Harry was fascinated, but not because flame itself was new.
The method was. Iroh breathed, moved, and fire answered. Harry's magic and Firebending were clearly not the same thing, but that did not make the principles useless. Harry began borrowing ideas almost immediately. Breathing improved control, movement improved flow, and intent did not always require force. Iroh complained that Harry stole techniques. Harry called it interdisciplinary study. Iroh also told him about the Avatar. The Avatar was one spirit joined to a succession of human lives, one person capable of all four bending disciplines and serving as a bridge between humans and spirits. Harry became obsessed with one question almost immediately.
"Where are the old ones?"
Iroh looked at him.
"The old Avatars."
"They remain connected to the current Avatar."
"That wasn't my question."
Iroh smiled. Harry leaned forward.
"If they can speak to previous lives, then something persists. Memory, spirit, imprint, whatever word applies. Where?"
"I do not know."
Harry's eyes lit up. Iroh sighed.
"You intend to look."
"Obviously."
Harry did. For a very long time. He asked ancient spirits. He asked serpent spirits. He found places where particular Avatars had supposedly visited. He heard stories about Yangchen, Kuruk, Roku, Kyoshi, and people whose names Iroh didn't recognize. Some spirits claimed contradictory things.
Harry loved that too. Kyoshi became a favorite long before he met Korra, despite Harry never once speaking to her. One spirit described how she had separated an entire peninsula from the mainland. Harry remained silent for several seconds. Then said, "I like her." Iroh nearly spilled his tea.
Fox named Harry Many-Paws during one of these journeys. Harry had transformed so they could cross a difficult region more easily. Fox was riding between his shoulders and complained about the number of legs moving beneath him.
Fox shifted between Harry's shoulders and announced, "You have too many paws."
"I have exactly as many as I'm supposed to," Harry replied without slowing.
"Many paws."
"My name is Harry."
"Many-Paws."
"Harry."
Fox considered the correction and compromised. "Sometimes Harry. Sometimes Many-Paws."
Harry stopped, transformed back into a human, and pointed meaningfully at his own feet. "Two."
Fox looked down at them, then back up at Harry. "Sometimes Many-Paws."
The name spread. Harry objecting only made the spirits use it more often. Eventually he stopped objecting. Later still, he realized he actually liked it. Harry was the name he'd brought from Britain. Many-Paws belonged to the life he'd built here.
Air-walking began because Harry became bored with floating. Levitation carried him. Harry wanted to stand. He created a thin field of magical resistance beneath one foot and immediately fell through it. Iroh watched him climb out of the waterfall.
"Progress?"
Harry spat water.
"Technically."
Eventually Harry learned to sustain the resistance. One step became two. Two became walking across empty space. It wasn't air manipulation, exactly. Harry wasn't bending the atmosphere. His magic simply created support where physical support did not exist. Iroh became interested. Harry taught him the principle.
In the Spirit World, where surrounding energy responded more readily, Iroh eventually managed several steps by combining his own internal energy with the current around him. The first time Iroh fell into the waterfall, Harry laughed so hard he nearly followed. The first time Iroh managed five steps, Harry cheered. Fox threw fruit at both of them.
The magical tea was Harry's fault. Iroh disagreed. He considered it Harry's responsibility. Harry considered the distinction petty. They had been discussing how soil, weather, altitude, and cultivation changed tea plants when Harry naturally wondered what magic would do. Harry began infusing growing plants with tiny amounts of specific magical qualities.
He experimented with warmth, calm, clarity, and alertness. Most worked. One worked far too well.
Harry brewed a cup from a plant infused heavily with calming magic. He drank half. Later, Fox found him lying in the grass staring at his hand.
"Harry?"
Harry raised one finger.
"There are bones inside us."
Fox stared.
"All the time."
Fox sniffed the teapot. Harry's eyes widened.
"Don't."
Fox drank. A while later Fox was hanging upside down from a tree discussing clouds. Iroh found them. He looked at Harry. Then Fox. Then the tea.
Iroh looked from Harry to Fox and finally to the teapot. "What did you do?"
Harry considered the evidence with great seriousness. "I believe I accidentally invented magical marijuana."
Iroh tried not to laugh. He failed almost immediately. Fox became obsessed with those leaves. Several older spirits did too. Harry once discovered Fox sharing a pot with an ancient serpent while they debated whether reflections knew they were reflections. That was when Harry intervened.
He gave the remaining seeds to an old tortoise-like spirit he trusted to cultivate them and share responsibly.
"You ration these."
The tortoise nodded solemnly. Fox objected. Harry pointed at him.
"You lost unrestricted access when I caught you licking the teapot."
Fox looked betrayed. The tortoise kept the seeds. Harry continued experimenting with safer blends. The safer blends improved concentration, produced warmth, or reduced anxiety.
One batch made hair glow. Harry kept that one because it was funny. The work became deeply important to him. Voldemort had nothing to do with it. No professor had assigned it. Harry and Iroh built those techniques together.
They belonged entirely to Harry.
Peace arrived without ceremony. Harry realized it while floating above a river with Fox asleep across his lap. He thought about Sirius. The first image that came was not the Veil. It was Sirius laughing. Harry smiled.
That was when he understood. He still missed Sirius. He still missed Ron and Hermione so badly some days that the pain sat behind his ribs for hours. He still wished he had thought before following Sirius. But Harry no longer felt as though continuing to live betrayed anyone who had died. Iroh had helped.
The Spirit World had helped. Harry himself had done the rest. He had things he wanted. He wanted tea tomorrow, another argument with Iroh, a new route through the western currents, more stories about old Avatars, and to find out whether Fox had somehow bribed the tortoise spirit. Harry had a life. Then the Spirit World changed. Every current shifted. Harry was beside Iroh's waterfall when it happened.
Fox stopped fighting the monkey over a cup. Iroh lowered his tea. Light spread across the distant sky. Something had opened: a connection unlike the Veil, something unmistakably alive. The currents rushed toward it. Spirits began moving. Fox flew upward.
"A door!"
Harry stood.
"A human door!"
Iroh looked toward the distant light. Harry's heart beat faster.
"The physical world?"
Iroh nodded slowly.
"Your world?"
"Most likely."
Harry stared. Somewhere beyond that opening was the world Iroh had described, with bending, the current Avatar, and living humans. Harry's curiosity surged.
Then something unexpected happened. Leaving hurt. Harry looked around the waterfall. At Fox. At Iroh. At a place that had stopped being where Harry was stranded and become home.
Iroh seemed to understand.
"You do not have to go."
Harry smiled faintly.
"No."
He looked toward the new current.
"But I'm absolutely going to look."
Iroh laughed. Harry sat back down. The portal had only just opened. It could wait through another cup of tea.