Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Changeling
Changeling
2 reviewsHarry regained consciousness only to find himself staring into the face of a Nubian goat. And then it spoke.
0Original
Changeling
by Draeconin
E-Mail: draeconin at gmail dot com
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Harry/Draco (sort of)
Spoilers: Don't think so.
Warnings: language, fantasy, OOC, humour, pre-slash
Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The story is mine, and if you don't recognize it, it's mine. Everything else belongs to the copyright holders. This disclaimer applies to all following chapters.
Summary: Harry woke up to find a goat face peering at him. And then it spoke. One-shot.
Harry had come into his inheritance on his sixteenth birthday. There was quite a lot more to it than the one vault he had been led to believe was his. There were three others, one of which was large enough to warrant the use of a dragon as guard. And the property. Godric's Hollow. Such an unprepossessing name, 'Godric's Hollow'. Nobody had ever bothered to tell him that the name applied to a whole village, as well as the huge castle that loomed over said village. Just as nobody had ever bothered to tell him that, because castles are so blooming drafty, his parents had been living in the gatekeeper's cottage when they were murdered.
As if that weren't surprise enough, two weeks later Harry had come into his Inheritance. His magical Inheritance. It quite knocked him out. Literally. When he awoke and opened his eyes, he was looking into the face of a Nubian goat.
"I'd swear off alcohol, but I don't remember drinking, at all," he moaned to himself.
The goat bleated. / /Good morrow, young master. //
Harry stared. And as he stared, he started to notice things. Like the Nubian goat's face was surrounded by long, curly brown hair, and was incongruously attached to a mostly human body. A mostly human nude body. With goat legs. And hooves. Not to mention the dangling bits, at which Harry studiously avoided staring. Well, he tried to avoid staring, although his eyes kept wandering back where they shouldn't.
"No... Oh, no. Well, I suppose I should have expected it. Voldemort has finally driven me mad," Harry moaned.
The goat-man was looking at him in a rather bemused fashion. How something with a goat's face could have expressions was a mystery, but the goat man pulled it off.
"Look - who are you, really?" Harry asked. "Presuming, of course, you're not just a figment of my fevered imagination."
The goat man - a satyr, Harry belatedly realised - bleated again. / /I hight Sir Hagamor, young master. As to your mental state, I understand that the transformation can leave some changelings rather confused. //
"Wow. You can really fit a lot into one bleat, can't you?" Harry asked, a bit awed. And then he did a double take. "Changeling? Who? Me?"
With yet another bleat, Sir Hagamor replied / /Well - yes. Ye did change, after all. //
"Yes, well, something's certainly wonky, if I can understand goat bleats," Harry replied. "Certainly miles away from Parseltongue, I can tell you that!"
/ /I think, young master, that ye will find that ye can understand the languages of all of the Faerie Folk, now, // Hagamor bleated.
"And why would that be?"
/ /Well, ye be one of us, be ye not? // Hagamor 'said'. It wasn't a question.
Harry stared, in shock. Then in a panic, he rose and ran to the nearest mirror. What he saw there had him staring yet again. "What the hell happened to me?" he yelled in despair. He was rather relieved he didn't have any animal bits, but...
/ /Really, now, young sir. There be no need for an attitude of that sort. After all, it be perfectly norm... Well, it happens quite oft- All right, then; mayhap it be only once in the while, but it be nothing to be losing yer wits over. And at least ye're still looking mostly human. Ye could have wound up looking akin to me, after all, // the satyr said, with a bleat.
"You were a wizard?" Harry asked, horrified.
/ /Well, no. I were a Muggle changeling. As much as a changeling can be Muggle, anyway. This be much more interesting though, don't ye think? //
Harry looked back in the mirror. His tan, garnered from many long hours of outdoor chores and flying his broom, was gone. His skin was as fine, and pale, and smooth as Malfoy's. Well, almost as pale, anyway. His eyelashes looked longer, darker, and thicker. His lips were almost as red as if he'd applied lipstick, and his cheeks were quite rosy; cream and roses, as opposed to Malfoy's peaches and milk complexion. His ebony hair was now almost waist length, and moved slightly with a life of its own. His body... Well, his body! Harry could almost sympathise with Narcissus. After a bit, a thought occured to him. With all the other changes to his body...
As much as Harry wanted to pull out the waistband of his pyjamas and take a peek, he was mindful of having an audience. A nude audience. With dangly bits out for all to see. With that realisation, Harry pulled out the waistband of his pyjamas, and took a good look. Then he smiled - a wide, satisfied, even gloating, smile. "Wail 'til the lads get a load of /me/!" Harry murmured, to himself.
/ /Oh, ye wouldn't want to be doing that, / Hagamor bleated. / /Ye might be gettin' them up the duff!/ //
Harry's face flushed a bright red. "I didn't mean that!" Harry protested. "But if I had, they're guys!"
/ /If it were the lasses, there'd be less doubt, // the satyr replied, giving the impression he was smirking. / /I be rather fancying nymphs, meself. //
"Nymphs? Your given name wouldn't be Pan, would it?" Harry asked, suspiciously.
Hagamor laughed: a rather strange sound that didn't sound anything like any sort of laughter Harry had heard before, and much too difficult to try to describe. / /No, young master. Mine Christian name were Ralph. Pan be much too busy stupping nymphs and young shepherds, and currying favour in the Seelie Court to greet and welcome new changelings. //
"Oh," Harry said, a bit taken aback. 'Ralph?' "Wait a moment... Shepherds?"
/ /Oh, aye. If it has a hole he can put it in, Pan be most pleased, regardless of gender/, / Hagamor replied, with just a hint of distaste in the tone of his bleat. / /He were cursed by a young goddess he propositioned once too often, so he'd never be satisfied, but never have get. //
"I'm not too keen on girls," Harry admitted uncomfortably. "But here; were you saying I'm something of a baby making machine?"
/ /Changelings be made in many ways, // Hagamor bleated in confirmation. / /I quite enjoy the labours involved, // he said with a broad wink. Maybe if he stimulated the young one's imagination, he'd be happier with the prospects.
"Do I have to?" the new changeling asked, apprehensively.
/ /The Queen will demand children, // Hagamor bleated worriedly. He was becoming less than happy about this assignment. Up until now, the welcoming and briefing of new changelings to their new lives had gone fairly smoothly. Now here was a male changeling of a rare type that was supposed to seduce humans by the dozens: one that not only didn't fancy females, he also didn't seem to be willing to help enlarge the Fae population. That was his type's main duty, although not the only one, by any means.
"She will?" Harry asked, worry in his voice now, as well.
/ /Aye. Although you could speak with her, // Hagamor 'said' with relief, mentally bolting for the escape hole he'd just seen. At least it wouldn't be his responsibility. He stepped up to the closest wall, touched it, and a few seconds later, a largish area of it rippled, without any other visible changes. Hagamor turned to Harry. / /Let's be about it then, lad, // he said, gesturing towards the wall. It was no longer rippling, but there was an almost door-sized area that occasionally seemed to shimmer.
Harry stepped forward, and nervously put out a hand to feel of the wall. His hand went into it. He snatched it out /quickly/, and looked to Hagamor for an explanation.
/ /It be a magic door to the Kingdom, // Hagamor said, supplying the needed information.
"You go first," Harry said, his natural caution exerting itself.
The satyr sighed. / /Be I to go through, 'twill close, since it were I who made it. //
"Oh." Harry eyed the shimmering wall suspiciously, slowly approached it, and again allowed his hand to go through it. When nothing untoward happened, he slowly thrust more of his arm into it.
After everything else, and stressed with worry over the Queen's reaction to what she might see as his failure, Hagamor was impatient with the young changeling's caution, and shoved Harry through, then followed. The wall rippled with each breach, then the shimmer brightened momentarily before winking out. Nothing was left to show that anything strange had ever happened in the room.
Hedwig screeched mournfully from the open door of her cage before grabbing up Harry's wand from the bedside table in her claws, and flying out the window.
o~~~~*~~~~o
It was five days before the Queen granted Harry an audience. But Harry wasn't idle during those five days. No, he had one tutor after another drilling him full of the history, laws, and customs of the Fae. Most of the races had adopted the same customs and laws, but each also had their own quirks that also had to be learned, which only made the task more difficult and confusing. But by the time the Queen sent for him, Harry at least had the gist of them learned.
Harry was brought before her without fanfare. He went to one knee, bowing his head and spreading his arms wide; a position that made him vulnerable, and showed he was unarmed.
"Rise, Harry." (She pronounced it 'hah-ree'.)
Harry rose to his feet, briefly noting that his hair was streaming out from his head, reaching out towards the Queen's right side. He paid it little heed. Although he found it more than a little strange that his hair seemed to be alive, and moved on its own, he had more or less grown used to it since he'd come here. Enough so that he paid it little attention, anyway. He stood there gracefully in his short, red, spider-silk robe, making not a sound, and awaited the Queen's words.
Queen Titania observed the young man standing before her. Not yet in his full growth, he was nevertheless a beauty to behold. The changeling's hair amused her; reaching, as it was, for what was hidden behind the partition behind her. This fact reinforced her belief that her choice had been correct. Not that it would have been easy to change her mind elsewise, of course.
"I have been informed," she said without preamble, "that you find no great appeal in the fairer sex."
Harry shrugged and nodded; common gestures that lacked the proper respect for the queen, and which elicited a few apprehensive gasps and outraged whispers from the courtiers gathered in the room. "It is true, your majesty," Harry replied, "that very few females have caught my attention for long, and then mostly for their beauty, rather than any desire to possess them."
"And of males?" she inquired.
Harry's face reddened, but he replied. "A few, but I have had little leisure in my life to pursue my own interests and desires." And among those few, Harry thought to himself, was a gem above all others.
Titania nodded. "I have chosen a mate for you," she revealed bluntly. Her voice left no room for argument or discussion. "A new changeling, like yourself, who should bear you fine children."
With that announcement, a beautiful creature appeared out from behind her throne. He was about Harry's size, wearing white, flowing robes. His hair was so light and fine that it seemed to glow, his skin pale, but not the least bit pasty-looking, and he sported a large pair of translucent, oil film coloured, butterfly style wings. But his silvery eyes were what caught your attention.
Harry stared, transfixed. His manhood had immediately come to attention, and his hair was almost wild in its attempt to reach the other young man. Slowly, as if in a daze, he approached the vision of almost androgynous male beauty. The other's eyes were wide with apprehension, but he didn't retreat. Harry slowly reached for him, took him by the shoulders, and pulled him close. Harry's jet black hair wrapped around the fair head of the other, and drew them closer. Harry's lips captured the rose pink lips of the other. As their lips met, a soft glow enveloped them for a second, before dying away.
"You, Draco?" Harry inquired softly.
"Me, Harry," the blond affirmed.
~~~~~Ende~~~~~
A/N: "I hight... " - In Middle English, this means "I am named," or "I am called," followed by the name and/or title.
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