The red wave of Dominance crashed over him, a tsunami of pure, instinctual hatred. It burned like acid, trying to strip away Alister's logic, his memories, his very name, leaving only a feral beast in its wake.
Alister's blue soul-form flickered, threatening to snuff out.
But he didn't kneel.
Instead, he laughed. It was a strained, jagged sound, but it cut through the silence of the void.
"You think you can crush me with weight?" Alister snarled, his eyes flashing with a cold, hard light. "I can carry the weight of the world on by back. I carry the ambition to save this world. Compared to that... you are just a lizard with a temper!"
He took a step forward. The red mist recoiled as if burned.
"I don't just want your power," Alister announced, his voice echoing with the authority of a king. "I want your submission."
The Dragon roared in outrage, unleashing a torrent of black fire.
Alister didn't dodge. He spread his arms wide.
"Phoenix!" he commanded.
He reached deep into the potion's matrix, pulling on the thread of the Phoenix Tear Crystal he had consumed.
SCREE!
A piercing cry answered him. From Alister's back, wings of blinding silver and gold fire erupted. This wasn't the warm fire of a hearth; it was the cold, absolute fire of Rebirth. The Phoenix essence wrapped around Alister's soul like a cloak of royalty, a shield of immortality against the dragon's death.
The black dragonfire hit the silver phoenix shield and shattered, scattering into harmless sparks.
Alister walked through the flames, untouched.
The Dragon stopped roaring.
Alister stopped inches from the massive dragon.
"You only know how to destroy," Alister whispered, but his voice boomed like thunder.
He raised his hand and placed it in the air.
"Bend the knee."
The Dragon growled, fighting the pressure, its muscles trembling. It tried to bite, to burn, to thrash. But Alister's will, reinforced by the Phoenix's eternal nature, was an immovable object.
Slowly, agonizingly, the massive head lowered. The golden eyes dimmed, losing their feral madness and replacing it with a subservient glow. The massive body dissolved into streams of red light that flowed into Alister's hand.
"Good boy," Alister smirked.
The red void shattered like glass.
__________________________________________________
The pillar of lightning that had engulfed Alister in the Forbidden Forest vanished instantly.
Silence returned to the clearing. The rain sizzled against the scorched, rune-carved obsidian.
Alister fell forward onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. Rain hissed against his skin, which was steaming hot. He looked at his hands—they were human. Ten fingers, pale skin, shaking slightly.
He was alive.
"I did it," he whispered, his voice raspy but triumphant.
He could feel it coiled inside his chest—a massive, dense ball of power that felt heavier than his own heart.
He pushed his will into the coil of power, pulling the trigger.
Pain—sharp and exhilarating—exploded across his back.
RRRIP.
The fabric of his robes tore open with a wet, tearing sound. From his shoulder blades, two massive wings erupted. They weren't just skin; they were heavy, muscular limbs covered in scales as black as the void, tipped with razor-sharp silver quills that glowed with a faint violet light.
He threw his head back, a guttural growl vibrating in his throat. His skin began to tighten, turning grey and hard as patches of obsidian scales rippled across his neck and forearms. Two curved, black horns pushed through his skull, sweeping back from his temples like a crown.
He pushed harder, trying to shift his legs, trying to fully embrace the monster—
CRACK.
A sickening sound echoed from his own ribs. His knees buckled under the sudden increase in mass. His human bones groaned, threatening to snap under the magical density of the Legendary form.
The transformation stalled halfway.
Alister gasped, dropping to one knee, sweat pouring down his face. The scales receded slightly, trembling.
"Damn it," Alister hissed, retracting the massive wings with a grimace of effort. They folded into his back, vanishing beneath his skin, though his shirt remained shredded. The horns receded, leaving only a lingering headache.
He wiped the rain from his face.
"My physique is limiting the transformation," he muttered, "If I try to fully transform now, I'll crush my own internal organs."
He could summon the wings, the claws and the horns—but he couldn't become the Beast. Not yet.
"Higher tier Physique..." Alister calculated. "I need to break the human limit again. I need to body-refine until my body can sustain the full dragon Animagus."
Crunch.
The sound of a heavy boot snapping a branch echoed from the edge of the clearing.
Alister froze. The adrenaline masked his exhaustion instantly. He spun around, clutching his torn robes together at the back to hide the evidence of his wings.
Emerging from the trees, lantern held high, was Rubeus Hagrid. The half-giant's face was pale, his eyes wide as he took in the scorched earth, the glowing runes fading on the ground, and the student standing in the middle of it all.
"Alister?" Hagrid boomed, his voice wavering between relief and suspicion. "What in Merlin's name... I saw lightnin'. Just one spot. Like the sky was fallin'."
He lowered the lantern, squinting at Alister. "And yeh... yeh look like yeh've been wrestled by a Troll. Ye're smokin', lad."
Alister looked at Hagrid, his mind racing through a dozen lies in the span of a second.
'I can't explain the runes. And I definitely can't explain the torn clothes.'
He felt the remaining energy of the storm buzzing in his marrow. His bones felt like they were made of lead.
He locked eyes with Hagrid. He let his posture slump. He stopped reinforcing his legs with magic.
"Hagrid..." Alister rasped, his voice weak and genuinely pained. "I... the lightning..."
His knees gave way.
He didn't have to fake the fall. As soon as he let go of his conscious control, the exhaustion of battling a Dragon Spirit and conducting a lightning storm hit him like a freight train.
He pitched forward into the mud.
"Alister!" Hagrid roared, dropping the lantern.
The ground rushed up to meet Alister's face, but he never hit the mud. Giant, calloused hands caught him inches from the scorched earth.
"Don't yeh die on me!" Hagrid yelled, panic rising in his voice. He scooped Alister up into his arms as easily as if he were a ragdoll.
But as Hagrid lifted him, the half-giant paused for a fraction of a second. His beetle-black eyes widened in confusion.
'He's heavy,' Hagrid thought, shifting his grip. 'The lad's built like a seeker, but he weighs as much as a fully grown auror. Dense. Like rock.'
Alister felt himself being cradled against Hagrid's moleskin coat. The smell of damp wool and dog breath filled his nose.
"Hang on, lad," Hagrid muttered, turning and breaking into a thundering run back toward the castle. "I've got yeh. Dumbledore will know what to do. Just hang on."
Alister let his head loll back, his eyes fluttering shut.
he thought, before the darkness took him. 'Now comes the acting performance of a lifetime.'
______________________________________________________________
The Hospital Wing
The first thing Alister noticed was the smell. Antiseptic, lavender, and... burning?
No, the burning smell was him.
He opened his eyes. The familiar white stone ceiling of the Hospital Wing greeted him. Rain was still lashing against the tall windows, but the storm sounded distant now.
"He's awake!"
The sharp, worried voice of Madam Pomfrey cut through the air. She bustled into his field of vision, looking more frazzled than he had ever seen her.
"Mr. Potter," she said sternly, waving her wand over his chest. "Do not try to sit up. Your heart rate is... concerningly slow."
Alister blinked, taking stock of his body. He felt stiff, like he had done a thousand pushups, but the pain was gone. In its place was a low, humming warmth in his chest—the Dragon Power.
"Water," Alister croaked.
Pomfrey immediately pressed a glass to his lips. He drank greedily.
"What happened?" Alister asked, playing the part of the confused victim.
"That is what we would like to know, Alister."
The deep, calm voice came from the foot of the bed.
Alister turned his head. Albus Dumbledore was standing there, wearing midnight-blue robes. His blue eyes were twinkling, but behind the half-moon spectacles, his gaze was sharp—penetratingly sharp.
Beside him stood Hagrid, looking anxious and twisting his enormous hat in his hands.
"Found 'im in the forest, Professor," Hagrid blurted out. "Deep in. Past the Acromantula line. The ground was scorched black. Runes everywhere. He was steaming like a kettle."
Dumbledore nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Alister.
"Madam Pomfrey tells me," Dumbledore said softly, "that your skin resisted three distinct diagnostic charms before she could penetrate it. And your body temperature is sitting steadily at 105 degrees, which would normally be fatal fevers... yet you seem perfectly comfortable."
Dumbledore leaned forward slightly.
"Tell me, Alister. What were you doing in the heart of a lightning storm?"
Alister held Dumbledore's gaze. He didn't blink. He didn't look away. He knew that any sign of evasion would trigger the Headmaster's suspicion far more than a confession of recklessness.
"I hit a ceiling, Professor," Alister said, his voice raspy but steady.
He pushed himself up against the pillows, wincing slightly—not from pain, but from the strange sensation of his skin feeling too tight, like a suit of armor he hadn't broken in yet.
"A ceiling?" Dumbledore repeated politely, his hands folded in his sleeves.
"My magical capacity," Alister explained, looking down at his hands. "I've been tracking my growth for months. My regeneration is efficient; my control is precise... but the volume of mana I can hold hasn't budged since Christmas. I was stagnant."
He looked back up at Dumbledore, letting a spark of genuine frustration—the frustration of a perfectionist—enter his eyes.
"So, I hypothesized that if I couldn't grow the core naturally, I could force it to expand."
"By using the ambient pressure of a super-cell storm," Alister corrected, sounding like a tired academic defending a thesis. "The runes were designed to siphon the static charge and filter it into pure magical density. I intended to use my body as a capacitor. To widen the vessel."
Madam Pomfrey gasped, dropping a tray of bandages. "You used your own body as a conductor for a lightning storm? Mr. Potter, that is not research! That is suicide!"
"It was calculated," Alister murmured, though he allowed himself to look slightly sheepish. "Though... I admit, I may have underestimated the sheer kinetic output of the strike. The heat generation was... higher than anticipated."
Dumbledore was silent for a long moment. His blue eyes scanned Alister's face, searching for the lie. But the best lies are wrapped in truth.
Finally, Dumbledore sighed—a long, weary sound that seemed to age him ten years.
"Ambition," Dumbledore said softly, "is a powerful gear, Alister. But gears that run too hot tend to wear out."
He stepped closer to the bed, peering over his half-moon spectacles.
"While I admire the intellect required to devise such a ritual... I must warn you."
Dumbledore's voice dropped an octave, losing its grandfatherly warmth.
"There are boundaries in magic that exist not to limit us, but to define us. If you continue to push the limits of what it means to be human... you may find that you have left your humanity behind."
"I understand, Professor," Alister said quietly. "I won't be repeating the experiments like these."
"I should hope not," Dumbledore straightened up, the twinkle returning to his eyes, though it was dimmer than usual. "Fifty points from Slytherin for reckless endangerment of a student—yourself. And... fifty points to Slytherin. For conducting a ritual of breaking their own limit that most adult wizards could not perform without vaporizing themselves and partially succeeding."
Hagrid beamed. "There yeh go! Broke even!"
"Rest, Alister," Dumbledore said, turning to leave. "Madam Pomfrey will release you when your temperature returns to a range suitable for a mammal, rather than a salamander."
(END OF CHAPTER)
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