The voice from the howler spoke.

We have received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty-three minutes past nine this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a Muggle.

The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand.

As you have already received an official warning for a previous offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Wizards’ Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on August 12th.

The howler was from Mafalda Hopkirk, as she identified herself. She claimed to be from the Improper Use of Magic office.

Once it was done speaking, the letter fizzled out and what was left in the room was an eerie silence.

In the next instant, another letter showed up similarly. This time around, the voice was of Arthur Weasley.

“Harry, don’t worry about that other letter. Dumbledore is working on fixing it. Just sit tight and do no more magic.”

“Ha! Expelled from that crackpot school!” Vernon laughed maniacally.

“Oh Harry,” Lily placed a hand on his arm.

Harry stood still, still reeling from the fact that they had expelled him. Even if Mr. Weasley said that they were working on it, that didn’t change the fact that they expelled him.

Not a moment later, another letter showed up from the Ministry. That told him he wouldn’t be expelled, but he would have to attend the disciplinary hearing for them to decide on the best course of action to take against him. This sent him into another daze.

Coming back to his senses, he looked around. Lily was staring back at him with concern while the other three looked positively gleeful.

Harry turned to Lily, “It’s getting late, you should really head home now, your uncle and aunt will worry. “

“But Harry,” Lily said, but Harry cut her off.

“It’s fine, I’m sure Dumbledore and the others will figure something out.”

Lily nodded hesitantly. “I’ll come see you soon.”

With that promise, Lily walked out of the house, glancing back at Harry several times as she went.

The moment she was out, Vernon slammed the door shut and turned towards Harry.

“Even those crackpots say you did something illegal,” he said with a vicious grin.

“Go up to your room. You won’t be leaving there soon,” he said, shoving Harry towards the stairs.

Harry barely paid any attention to Vernon or the other Dursleys and just trudged up to his room.

After everything that had happened, Harry just felt defeated. What was he supposed to do when everything that happened seemed to do him in?

He was just a fifth year student at Hogwarts. He did not need to be embroiled in so many situations that no normal student would have to go through. Hell, even most adults wouldn’t have to go through such situations.

So why him?

Filled with such questions and an intense anger, Harry flung himself into his bed.

He tossed and turned in bed for several minutes before finally drifting off into a fitful sleep.

Harry felt like his body was floating in water, but when he tried to swim, he couldn’t really move much. He opened his eyes and saw a strange scene. It was like the time he had watched Voldemort’s memories, but instead of the dark fog with a tinge of green; it was a much lighter golden fog with a reddish-orange glow.

Harry could see flashes of flame running through the fog and, much like last time, he couldn’t really move much other than his arms and legs.

Some flames flashing through the fog seemed to gather in front of him. It slowly grew in size until it was at least as big as Harry, at which point it morphed its shape.

The ball of flames quickly took on a rather familiar shape to Harry. Something that had practically changed his life recently. The flames looked eerily familiar to Fawkes the phoenix, though it might have been the manifestation of any phoenix, but Harry felt a powerful bond with that figure in front of him.

“Fawkes?” asked Harry tentatively.

The phoenix just stared at Harry for several moments before it slowly nodded its head. Harry felt a wave of joy emanate from him. He wanted to go hug that flame, any burns be damned.

Harry tried to move but couldn’t. Fawkes flapped his wings and in the next instant, he was already next to Harry. He landed softly on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry raised his head and looked to his right and found Fawkes’ flame form sitting on his shoulder. Oddly, despite its body basically being made from fire, Harry didn’t feel any heat coming from Fawkes.

As soon as Fawkes contacted Harry, he felt like he could move again. Raising his hand, he patted Fawkes’ head.

Fawkes happily rubbed its cheek against Harry’s. ‘How is he still soft when he’s made of fire?’ wondered Harry, feeling rather dumbfounded.

The two enjoyed bonding for a while longer before Harry looked at Fawkes and asked something that had been plaguing him for a while now.

“Fawkes, what was all that about? You showed up injured out of nowhere and you suddenly turn into a ball of fire and go into me?” Asked Harry. Despite his questions, he didn’t blame Fawkes.

Harry had a sneaking feeling that the fire he could use in the mindscape had been with Fawkes’ help.

Fawkes stared at Harry for a few moments before Harry felt a wave of emotions roll over him.

Happiness, affection, the wish to protect, fear and anxiety. A range of emotions, that crashed into him like a wave but still felt gentle enough that it didn’t affect him.

“You’re afraid and anxious about something? And you want to protect me?” Asked Harry.

Fawkes tilted his head slightly and just stared back at Harry.

Harry sighed slightly and changed his questions.

“The fire I used in the mindscape. Was that thanks to you?”

Fawkes immediately nodded proudly. It cried out loud, and Harry could swear he felt like Fawkes just puffed his chest out.

“So, what powers do I even have?” asked Harry.

Fawkes tilted his head for a moment, then cried loudly and spewed some fire out of his mouth.

Those tongues of flame quickly split into three and lined up next to each other. The flames formed into screen-like projections, floating in the air in front of Harry.

On each screen, there were scenes of a figure, or figures with unclear features, doing some action. As he glanced through the various scenes, Harry realised they seemed to repeat once they finished.

Wondering what they were about, Harry looked at the first screen. The figure stood in a forest — a rainforest, to be exact. The figure standing in that rainforest seemed minuscule, but Harry was getting ever more curious about what was going to happen. As he concentrated on the scene, he felt his senses connect with the figure in the scene. Whatever the figure saw, heard, smelt or felt, he would see, hear, smell, or feel.

However, his own senses remained. He could still see the scene in front of him playing on the screen. To test it out, Harry turned his head away and the link to the figure disappeared.

Harry turned back to the screen and concentrated, and the link quickly formed again.

‘Interesting, this should make it easier to understand than just watching,’ thought Harry.

He closed his own eyes, so he could experience everything completely from the figure’s point of view.

A moment later, Harry could feel a warmth coming from the figure’s chest. A warmth he had felt occasionally.

The warmth built up; the temperature rising higher and higher but it never seemed to be hot, only warm. Eventually, the warmth spread outside the body and soon a fire burned into existence.

The figure concentrated the flames into its hand, and the fire promptly sprung out from its hand. It could then shape and form the fire into anything it desired.

Eventually, the figure wrapped itself in a sort of shield of flames that seemed to be actively moving around the figure.

Then the figure sprout the fire from its back, forming rather large flame wings which it then flapped and floated off the ground.

Finally, the figure coated its whole body in flames and concentrated on the flames, packing it layer by layer. Eventually, the flames became incredibly dense and rather blinding to look at. The figure then let the flames rush outward in an explosion.

The flames blew outward at an absurd speed and within moments; they had covered a large area. When the flames finally died down, the figure looked around.

What had been a rainforest was now levelled and covered in ash.

Harry pulled his attention away and looked towards Fawkes, aghast.

“What the hell was that!?” yelled Harry, shocked beyond belief. “That’s phoenix fire?”

Fawkes nodded. Though he seemed to be against needless violence, it’s possible that phoenixes believed that violence would need to be used in the right situations.

Harry fell deep into thought after having seen that destruction. He thought for several minutes before he turned to Fawkes and asked. “Can phoenix fire affect souls?”

Fawkes immediately nodded. “Can they affect horcruxes?” asked Harry, looking hopeful.

Fawkes hesitated for a moment, then nodded again.

“Brilliant!” cheered Harry, feeling truly happy at having found the right tool for taking care of the horcruxes.

As he turned his attention back to the screen, he found the figure standing in an intact rainforest.

‘So it’s looping again,’ thought Harry as he pulled his attention away from the scene.

“That was amazing!” exclaimed Harry as he turned to Fawkes. “Is that really the power that I can use?”

Fawkes nodded. Though he didn’t have any expression, Harry could feel exasperation from him. As if to say, “what else did you expect from a phoenix?”

Harry chuckled and turned his attention to the second scene. He concentrated in the same way as the first and soon found himself linked with the figure. What he didn’t expect was the gruesome sight he saw.

In front of the figure lay another figure. It had one arm chopped off, its chest had a huge wound that ran from the left shoulder till the right hip and he could almost see the organs inside. One of its legs was missing as well.

Harry felt horrible seeing this sight. He wondered why he was being shown such a scene.

The figure Harry was linked to eventually did like the earlier one. Called out the warmth in its body, but unlike the earlier one, the warmth didn’t build up. A cool feeling spread out instead. Eventually it concentrated on that cool feeling in its hand and a blue-ish purple flame sprung into existence.

The figure pointed the flame towards the severely wounded figure on the ground and the blue-ish purple flame rushed towards its target. It soon covered its target from head to toe.

Harry expected the flame to burn the figure on the ground to ashes, but what he saw was much more amazing.

The wounds on the body of the injured figure healed rapidly, clearly visible to the naked eye. Even the limbs that had been chopped off grew back in minutes.

In no time at all, a complete figure was lying on the ground, not a single blemish on its body.

‘A healing flame,’ thought Harry in wonder, ‘there are so many ways this would be useful!’

Harry turned to the third and final screen and linked into the figure in the scene and felt his excitement rise. The first two powers had been phenomenal and incredibly useful. What would the third one be?

The figure did what the one with the phoenix fire had done. It concentrated the warmth into its body, but then it did what the healing flame figure did as well. It concentrated on the cool feeling in its body. The odd thing, though, it was doing both simultaneously.

When the feeling of the warmth and cool energy reached their peak, the figure raised its hand up in the air and concentrated all its power into that point.

All the warmth and cool energy rushed to its open palm, forming an enormous ball which then quickly took a form that Harry was very familiar with.

The ball formed into the figure of a phoenix, one that was made entirely of flames and looked similar to the phoenix Harry was currently with, but one major difference was that the flames were a deep teal in colour.

The phoenix flew around and then settled onto the figure’s shoulder, acting much like how Fawkes did with Harry.

Harry pulled away and turned to Fawkes with excitement. “I can basically summon you to the real world!?”

Fawkes nodded. Though it still had some of that exasperation emanating from it, the primary emotion it felt was happiness and excitement and a good dose of playfulness.

Harry laughed. “I’ll call you out often so we can play.”

Fawkes cried out loud and happily nuzzled into his neck.