Chapter 165: Dancing with Thunderbirds, A New Way to Use Animagus
At the peak of one of the mountains inside the Thunderbird Sanctuary.
"Ready?"
Leonardo patted the Thunderbird's neck.
This was the Thunderbird he had picked out after days of observation—around ten years old, past its fledgling stage but not yet fully grown.
To find the right partner, he had compared many birds, and the results were exactly what he had expected.
The very young Thunderbirds could not manage the full hundred kilometres. Even when they had the strength, they were too easily distracted; something interesting would catch their eye mid‑flight, and they would break formation without warning.
The very mature ones were simply too fast. At full speed, Leonardo could not keep up, which meant they did not meet the system's conditions either.
In the end, he had settled on the bird beside him now.
Even standing still, it was over two metres tall, the feathers along its back already almost entirely golden.
"Cheep."
The Thunderbird called softly, craning its neck to look up into the sky. It spread its wings in a small stretch, signalling that it was ready.
"All right. Once we finish, you will get every bite we agreed on," Leonardo said.
"Cheep!"
He turned and held up an OK sign toward Newt, who was waiting a short distance away.
"Mr Scamander, see you at the finish line."
Newt returned the gesture.
To be honest, when Newt had first heard Leonardo say he wanted to fly with a Thunderbird, he had thought he had misheard.
Once he saw how serious the boy was, how much work he was putting in to make it happen, he could only admit that the young had ideas.
Leonardo nodded to himself. Witness in place. Time to begin.
According to the system, this dance above the clouds required a witness.
Fortunately, the witness did not have to fly the whole course. Being present at the start and finish was enough.
With Newt conveniently on hand, there was no question who to ask.
As for Stanley, he had been pulled away in some haste a few days earlier. MACUSA had summoned him—someone had flooded the local Muggle community with hallucinogenic plants and mind‑bending potions. They needed every master potioneer they could find.
The quantities involved were apparently no joke. Almost every potioneer in the American wizarding world had been called in to help, and no one yet knew what the long‑term impact would be.
Leonardo could still remember the reluctance in Stanley's eyes when he left, and how he had pressed a contact address on Leonardo, urging him to visit America again one day—and, if possible, to come and see Ilvermorny for himself.
Leonardo had promised. It was just a pity this summer was already booked solid. There was no spare time now.
He looked up at the lead‑grey clouds, rolling and tumbling in the high wind.
Then he stepped straight off the cliff.
Newt, watching from the side, was no longer startled by this particular trick. The first time, he had nearly jumped out of his skin and almost let a Diricawl out to save him, only to see…
A perfectly ordinary owl wheeled up from below the cliff and shot into the sky.
"Animagus…" he had muttered then.
Since then, nothing Leonardo did truly surprised him.
In owl form, Leonardo spread his wings and let the updraft carry him, disappearing into the clouds in moments.
Of course, the body of an owl was nowhere near enough to keep pace with a Thunderbird.
Even the swiftest bird of prey would lag behind. Next to a Thunderbird, they barely counted.
Changes would have to be made.
He began at the most basic level, altering units of shape and structure, combining and creating, just as he had with the Chimera.
The difference this time was that the subject was his own body.
Hidden under the cover of clouds, Leonardo pushed his Animagus beyond ordinary limits.
His form wavered and twisted as he flew, not with the clean snap of a simple switch, but with a deeper, more radical refashioning of flesh and bone.
The owl's head lengthened. The wings stretched wider and thicker. Feathers reshaped themselves on a microscopic level, trading density and pattern for lift and cutting power.
In the space of a few breaths, he had become a bird no one in any world had ever seen.
Thanks to Loki's Faceless gift, his Animagus had never been bound to a single fixed form.
After many experiments, he had finally managed to fuse his Chimera‑style composite Transfiguration with his Animagus magic.
What he was doing now was unique. No one else could have done it.
A sharp cry split the sky.
The young Thunderbird burst through the cloud layer and hovered beside him.
Golden feathers crackled with tiny sparks of lightning. It had grown used to Leonardo's "strange bird" form by now. It only waited for his signal.
Leo's new shape rang out a clear, carrying note. The race had begun.
They beat their wings together.
Leonardo rode the lift of the air currents under the Thunderbird's wings, trimming his angle with perfect precision—sometimes flying wing to wing like twin bolts of lightning, sometimes rolling under and around it in tight, controlled arcs.
Frankly, the Thunderbird was having the time of its life. It flew harder and faster, sparks dancing brighter between its feathers, crackling like a constant drumroll in the roaring wind.
As the charge built, its speed jumped again. For a moment, it looked as if Leonardo might be left behind.
He did not panic. He simply called on his other advantages.
This was his newest discovery, one that had surprised even him.
He felt the wand woven into his feathers, melted into skin and cloth alike, and let his magic flow. Power ran along his pathways and out into a specific pattern.
A thought, and an invisible ring of wind formed beneath his wings, stripping away drag.
Another shift in the current, another twist of will, and his body seemed to lose most of its weight, held up by the sky itself.
That was the other thing he had learned, digging deeper into his Animagus gift.
He could still use magic while in animal form.
It was not as smooth as in his human body, but for the simpler spells, it was more than enough.
The only real limitation was that he had to cast them silently.
Even when he used his Chimera trick to grow human vocal cords in his animal throat, spoken incantations would not catch on his magic.
Perhaps the human shape really was bound up with spoken spellwork.
It was a question for later. For now, there was only the dance.
Acceleration Charms, Gust Charms, Propulsion Charms—
He layered them all over himself. He had magic to spare, and this transformed body was tough enough to take it. It was the perfect chance to test just how far flesh plus spellwork could go.
The Thunderbird was revelling in the storm when a shadow flashed past its flank, surging ahead.
Its sharp eyes easily picked out the "shadow." It was Leonardo's strange bird form.
"Cheep!"
The thrill of competition lit a fire in its chest. All three pairs of wings hammered down at once, and the sky filled with the boom of wind and thunder.
One hundred kilometres of sky became an exhibition of strength and grace.
With Transfiguration honed to a razor edge and magic that bent the rules around him, Leonardo flew shoulder to shoulder with a storm‑bringer and completed a dance that spanned the heavens.