Harry Potter And The Forger Of Worlds 39 Christmas Rage

The next morning, after Nova got back to the castle and into the common room, he found at the foot of the bed a stack of brightly colored packages. After looking at them and shaking them Nova found that they had stuff inside of them, so he could only a.s.sume that they were the so called gifts given to him from this holiday called Christmas. When he saw that the packages were wrapped in paper and bows, he wondered if it was alright to not have wrapped the ones he gave Hermione and Daphne. Not that it mattered too much to him.

A moment later, Nova heard Ron and Harry getting up as well in the beds next to him. Albeit a little on the groggy and slow side of things.

"Merry Christmas," said Ron sleepily as Harry scrambled out of bed and pulled on his bathrobe.

"You, too," said Harry. "Will you look at this? I've got some presents!"

"What did you expect, turnips?" said Ron, turning to his own pile, which was a lot bigger than Harry's.

"Oh Merry Christmas Nova." Harry said, when he looked over and noticed that Nova was sitting in the bed for once.

"Hmm . . . Yeah you too." Nova replied. He was busy looking through the small pile of stuff. From Hermione he found a box of Chocolate Frogs and Daphne had given him a picture of herself which he found amusing. In the pile he also had a big fluffy package and when he opened it up there was a woolen sweater that was black with a silver dragon on it. Seeing this one made him puzzled, but a moment later he got his answer.

"I think I know who that one's from," said Ron, turning a bit pink and pointing to a very lumpy parcel. "My mom. I told her you didn't expect any presents and -- oh, no," he groaned, "she's made you a Weasley sweater."

Nova saw that Harry had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge. "Every year she makes us a sweater," said Ron, unwrapping his own, "and mine's always maroon."

"That's really nice of her," said Harry.

"Thank her for me will you." Nova said. "But I don't understand why mine looks like it does. Do you know anything?"

"Well I might have mentioned to her that you could turn into a dragon." Ron said while turning the shade of his sweater.

"Oh. . . You did, did you. And who else have you told this information to pray tell?" Nova inquired.

"Just my family. Why?"

"Oh no reason just had to know how many people to eat later. You know dragons hate it when their secrets are revealed and ravage towns in search of traitors."

Hearing Nova say this, Ron went pale as a ghost and just about pa.s.sed out. Feeling that Ron has learned his lesson, Nova gave him a wink and told him, "I am just pulling your leg, but if you keep gossiping, I wouldn't mind a small snack." Then Nova gave Ron a big toothy grin after changing all his teeth to sharp dragon fangs.

Turning back to his pile, Nova found small bags and vials in one of the boxes. They were the 20 phoenix tears and the pile of phoenix ash that he required to help Helena. He then read the note attached. It was from Dumbledore telling him that the dragon he had requested was in the Forbidden Forest along with the alabaster and mithril. Seeing this note made Nova happy, he wanted to get things done as quickly as possible.

"It is! Look down!" Harry looked down at his feet, but they were gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head suspended in midair, his body completely invisible. He pulled the cloak over his head and his reflection vanished completely.

"There's a note!" said Ron suddenly. "A note fell out of it!"

While Harry stared at the note, Ron was admiring the cloak. "I'd give anything for one of these," he said. "Anything. What's the matter?"

"Interesting." Nova said. "You would give anything?"

"Yeah"

"Want me to make you one then, I could do it right now." Nova told him.

Before Ron could say or think anything else, the dormitory door was flung open and Fred and George Weasley bounded in.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Hey, look -- Harry's got a Weasley sweater, too!"

"Nova as well!"

Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, the other a G.

"Harry's is better than ours, though," said Fred, holding up Harry's sweater. "She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."

"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George demanded. "Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm."

"I hate maroon," Ron moaned halfheartedly as he pulled it over his head.

"You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid -- we know we're called Gred and Forge."

"What's all this noise. Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He had clearly gotten halfway through unwrapping his presents as he, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized.

"P for prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours, even Harry got one."

"I -- don't -- want said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his gla.s.ses askew.

"And you're not sitting with the prefects today, either," said George. "Christmas is a time for family."

Thinking this was all amusing, Nova pulled the sweater on as well and indeed it was very well made. And followed the twins as they frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his side by his sweater.

When Nova went down for breakfast he was surprised there were a hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas; tureens of b.u.t.tered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce -- and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table. Nova watched as Harry pulled a wizard cracker with Fred and it didn't just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and several live, white mice. Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him.

Seeing Dumbledore look over at them Nova gave him a small nod in greeting as the old man raised a gla.s.s to him in reply. After eating a few turkeys and hams, a dozen or so potatoes and half a gallon of cranberry sauce Nova was feeling great. Letting himself be caught up in the fun atmosphere, Nova followed the group outside. There he watched as the others started to throw b.a.l.l.s of snow at each other, though Nova didn't understand why he saw that they seemed to enjoy it. After a while though the snow that was falling softly started to soak into his new sweater so Nova took it off and stored it into his ring as the wet, cold water was starting to bother him. Then he opened up his wings and wrapped them around himself, enjoying the warmth that they provided.

Seeing him do this the Weasley brothers and Harry all stopped what they were doing and stared. Surprised at what they were seeing.

The Twins, Fred and George, quickly came over to spectate Nova, "So it is true, you are a dragon! We thought Ron was trying to right a novel when he told us."

"Our brother, Charlie, works with dragons in Romania and tells us about them all the time, but he has never mentioned a dragon being able to turn into a human."

"Of course not those dragons are just lesser beings and can be considered as lizards with wings. Pathetic really only knowing how to fight and scream." Nova said with disgust. Just the thought of being compared to those lowly beings put a bad taste in his mouth.

Unsure of what Nova meant the twins just looked at each other. "Hey can you breathe fire? Or turn into a full size dragon?" Fred and George asked.

Nova just looked at them and blink at them like they were stupid. "I am a dragon, if I can't do that much at least, then how can I be considered a dragon."

"Can you show us." The two said together. Nova had this thought that they were just little kids, but considering how they liked practical jokes, he let it slide this time.

"Ok only because I have things to do in a little while that requires me to change anyways. But if you so much as tell anyone, I will wipe your minds and make you think you are chickens."

"You can do that?" Percy suddenly asked. But then recalled the incident at Halloween and decided it was best to not speak.

Then in front of them, Nova started to transform into his dragon self, after storing his clothes into his ring so that they wouldn't rip again. As he changed Nova let his body grow to its full height and ma.s.s. Which was many times larger than when he had changed during Halloween.

"WOW! Your huge. You weren't this big last time what changed?" Nova heard Ron call up to him.

Bringing his ma.s.sive head down, and without directly looking at Ron in the eyes, "If I couldn't change my size do you think the school would still be standing?"

Hearing Nova say this, he could only nod his head in understanding. With Nova standing over the top of them, like he was, they found it a little intimidating. But instead be scared, they seemed to be in awe of his majesty.

"Breathe fire for us." One of the twins called to him. Since Nova was please with how they were acting, he didn't mind doing it. So he let out a abysmally weak column of fire, and even though it was the weakest he could release, it still caused the lake to melt and boil for a few seconds.

"That is strong." Harry said. If only they knew.

"Ok I think that is enough for today." Nova told them. "I have stuff I need to do in the Forest."

"Wait before you go. Can you let us ride you?" Ron asked.

"Let you ride me? First change yourself into a woman. But since you can't, the most I would do is let you dangle in mid air as carried you in my claws. That is if you were impaled when I went to pick you up."

Hearing this Ron decided he didn't want to ride on the back of Nova anymore. So with that Nova turned to the Forest and started to walk in carefully making sure the small mortals didn't get squashed by his tail.

After walking about twenty paces into the Forbidden Forest, Nova found a lesser dragon in a cage next to the pillar of alabaster and the two tons of mithril that made a small pile next to it. Carefully Nova picked up the fragile alabaster between his two talons and held it up in the air as he inspected its purity, before having it moved into his ring. The alabaster was in just the right condition to be used to make a vessel, and then he just stored the mithril away since he knew it was going to have to be worked on regardless.

Nova then turned his attention to the caged dragon. After ripping off the top of the lid, he bought one large eye down to look at the creature. Now of course when the dragon, saw that Nova was looking down at it, the creature lost control of its bowel movement as it quickly bowed it's head to pay it's respects to Nova.

"Pathetic." Nova said in disgust. The dragon trembled when Nova said this. Nova then reached down and picked it up, looking at it for any imperfections. The dragon was about 45 feet long, the bones seemed healthy. Because of some minor mishap its organs were now clean. Nodding his head, Nova nodded in approval. It was a fine specimen to use in his project.

"Good news little one, you are perfect for my project." Nova then wiped away the soul of the creature leaving it as a living corpse. With the dragon now having served its purpose, Nova head back to the castle and headed for the front gate.

When he had arrive, Nova changed back to a human and with a hand on the dragon's head dragged it into the castle up to his forge. When the paintings on the wall saw the 11 year old looking Nova dragging the dragon behind him they started running out of their portraits away from him. Nova didn't understand why, it wasn't like he was going to break the portraits, the dragon was at least a couple of inches from the walls. When he go to the stairs though Nova had a bit of a problem as the dragon's body was too big for the stairs. So he had to lift it up and carry it over his head for a few minutes.

When he had reached the Room of Requirement, he found the Grey Lady waiting for him.

"Oh good your here, I was about to come look for you." Nova told her.

"What is the dragon for?" The female ghost asked.

"These are your organs." Nova told her in a matter of fact way, as he summoned his forge and walked in.

"My organs? But this is a dragon?" The Grey Lady told him.

Not answering her, Nova took out a sword and cut off the head and froze it, he then tied the headless corpse to the slaughter rack, and drained the blood into a silver bucket. While the blood drained Nova used a small knife to start gutting the animal. As he took out the organs he was going to need such as the heart, liver, lung and such he immediately incased them in ice.

With that finished, Nova turned to the Grey Lady and asked, "Where is your mother's diadem? I know it's in the castle, but I am in need of it."

"It's here in this room." she said.

"What do you mean?" Nova asked her.

"It was stored in the Room of Requirement, after a student that had left went to find it where I had hidden it."

"Ok." Nova then left his forge and started to think of the Room itself. After a few minutes the Room reappeared, inside was mountains of junk and garbage. Casting out his divine sense in the room, Nova felt his wife crown like it was calling to him.

As he started to walk towards it, he heard the Grey Lady call to him, "The diadem is damaged it won't serve you any good anymore."

Hearing this Nova stopped in his tracks, a cold chill ran over his body, "Explain."

"When the boy that had found it, returned it to the castle, he had tainted it with dark magic and stored a piece of his corrupt soul on it." The Grey Lady said darkly.

Suddenly there was a large pressure that was exerted on the entirety of the school. Not caring about his clothes Nova flew to where he felt the diadem. He found it in a box next to some bust. As he looked at it, he saw that there were micro cracks in the metal and jewels, when he gazed into the largest sapphire's depth the saw two souls. One of the souls was his wifes and the other was one he did not recognize. And what he saw made him see red. The foreign soul was latched onto his wifes slowly sucking the vitality out of it, the soul was like a parasite slowly corrupting and drain the other. His wife's soul was already weak but this parasite was making it go black.

The more Nova watched the soul pulse with its stolen life, the madder Nova got. As carefully as he could Nova took his power of souls and pulled out the foreign soul to stop the feeding, as he brought it into the real world the soul started to scream and wail in pain.

Nova then breathed out a stream of fire and burned it to ash painfully. When he looked back at his wife's soul, Nova felt the blood drain from his face. Her once bright soul was now tainted and gray looking. As he stared at the fragment, he remember the Sanctuary had told him that one of the fragments was tainted.

Coming to the realization that this was the fragment, the rage and grief hit him all at once and Nova let out a loud roar. The roar of anger tore through the air with his unrestrained power and ripped through the the piles of junk in the room and blasted the doors of the room of requirement right off.

Unable to contain his rage anymore, Nova shot out of the room towards the Forest once more, completely disregarding the obstacles in his way. Once he was outside, Nova let his instincts take hold and directly changed into a dragon and went on a rampage. The earth quaked and shook as he stomped it and the forest burned for miles as he let loose his raging fire. He wanted to destroy the soul of the parasite again and each time he realized he couldn't he roared out in rage and grief at his loss. He had caused so much damage to the world that a rift had formed in front of him. And when he saw it, he grew even madder and just burned it out of existence which also caused the mountain miles away to be erased.

After sometime, Nova managed to calm down some, and upon seeing the damage that his outburst had caused, he felt extremely remorseful. He then summoned a rain storm to put out the fires on the trees, but there was little he could do to fix the earth and cool the lake of lava that had formed.

As he shrunk down to human size he took out the diadem and slowly injected some vitality into the fragment to see what would happen. After a few seconds the soul doubled in size and let out a distorted, gray pulse before flying out of the diadem.

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Poor Nova, poor forest, poor parasitic soul.