Fanfic / The Awakening of a Magus

The Awakening of a Magus is a Harry Potter fic by the-dreamer4. Published in November 2002, it was 58 chapters long when last updated in 2006. After hitting a major writer's block, the author said she is pulling it down (it had over 3,800 reviews by then), giving enough time for people to make (and even post) some copies. The last update on the status was in 2020. The promise is the same: Once it's done, the reposting will start. Until then, people can enjoy the completed chapters.

While the fic is pre-Order of the Phoenix, the author did later incorporate a few points and characters from there, like Tonks and Kingsley (well, and Umbridge). She did, however, state that she is unlikely to use the Horcruxes, and definitely won't be using the Harry/Ginny pairing.

The plot is as follows. After the Battle at the Graveyard, Harry hits a major growth spurt. Not even realizing it, he also becomes much stronger physically. And finally, a few weeks later, his power awakens.

The power of a Magus.

A Magus is an immensely powerful spellcaster, born very rarely. Only six are known to have existed over the recorded history. Their power is always beyond that of any wizard, and the younger they are at awakening, the stronger they are. The oldest one, Liam, was fifty, and died in the 14th Century trying to save a few villages from The Black Death. The youngest one, Darius, was twenty-five, and died three and a half thousand years ago, trying to prevent the sinking of Atlantis.

Harry is ten days short of fifteen.

Now, some might say "This guy sounds like a proper God-Mode Sue, why doesn't he take out Voldemort right away?" Well, there are three main reasons.

First, Harry's new powers include him being The Empath to such an extent, that any taking of life is literally painful for him, so he needs to work around that.

Second, Voldemort got a power boost of his own. He modified the Dark Mark to drain power from his followers. While not at the level of a Magus, it is enough to put him above any other spellcaster.

Third and most important, it turns out that if you try to channel nuclear level power through a regular human body, it works exactly as well as it sounds.

Every previous Magus had died from attempting either something they were not ready for, or something simply beyond their power. Outside that, there doesn't seem to be anything capable of killing a Magus. They don't grow old. They don't get sick.

The awakening does give Harry some changes to begin with. Enough to make him stronger than any wizard, especially if given time to prepare. It also makes him unable to have children with any regular woman (it is unknown whether Magi can procreate among themselves, especially considering no female ones are mentioned in the story). Still, a lot of training is required. In theory, the existence of a Magus is supposed to be kept secret as per regulations, but of course this is Fudge's administration we are talking about...

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The Awakening of a Magus provides examples of:

• Abusive Parent: Draco is used to punishment from his father, but what really forces his Heel–Face Turn is the realization that he only views him as a tool instead of a person.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Dualis and Quadralis rituals, allowing two and four spellcasters, respectively, to combine their power. It requires proper choice of participants for optimal effect, although even a badly balanced one can be devastating.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Percy is revealed to be one. Even though his brother died the day after they were born, so there was no conscious memory, the unhealed magical damage from a broken twin bond affected Percy on a subconscious level, leaving a hole in his heart that he tried to fill with achievements until discovering the truth.
• Animorphism: Any Magus has two Animagus forms, although in Harry's case, it turns out he can shift into any animal (with his primary form a very rare type of Hungarian Horntail). In addition, Dumbledore is a phoenix, Snape is a raven, Hermione is an owl... and Percy is a frog. Harry also comes up with a way to turn Remus' lycanthropy into proper Animagus ability.
• Anti-Advice: When discussing what law firm Draco should use instead of the The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay his father did, Ron recommends Clearwater, Clearwater & Boggs, to which Draco says they must be the right people because Lucius used to curse them to hell and back.
• Assassins Are Always Betrayed: The Goblin who hires assassins to kill Ragnok gives them emergency Portkeys rigged for a fatal Teleporter Accident.
• Attack Reflector: Any Unforgiveable shot at a Magus is reflected back, amplified. Harry actually works out a way to prevent that effect, because it hurts him when anyone is harmed because of him, even a Death Eater.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: A major part in Draco' Heel–Face Turn is the willingness of Harry and his friends to let go of the past.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: Harry's power awakens right as two Death Eaters shoot spells at him: an Avada Kedavra in one case, and a Cruciatus in the second. He gets a bit of Heroic BSoD once he sees what this meant for them with his Attack Reflector ability.
• Borrowed Biometric Bypass: A variant occurs during the breakout of Azkaban. Lowering the prison wards requires authorization by two senior officials. The Dementors grab two, suck their souls out almost completely, and then use the nearly soulless puppets for the task before finishing the meal.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Both gym training and martial arts are introduced into Hogwarts.
• Canon Immigrant: The Recursive Fic called Who Wants to Live Forever (removed due to being a songfic) described the death of a background character from over 3000 years ago. Details of that description later made it into the Awakening.
• Chick Magnet: Harry, thanks to both his new appearance and the changes in personality. He also has a Veela-like aura, although of course that one is suppressed to the best of his ability.
• Combo Platter Powers: Harry seems to have a measure of every special ability on record and possibly more.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: With Harry's powers including an aura that stabilizes and awakens other people's gifts, this trope is even more likely than usual (and happens on an individual basis just about every other chapter). However, the most public case happens during a Dementor attack on Hogsmeade, where Harry unleashes a swarm of Patroni of a type only a Magus can create (and not any Magus at that). While they do manage to give an official cover of "The Magus was disguised as Harry", it is enough to make Voldemort suspect the truth... along with, presumably, every other magical person with a brain.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Malvina comes from a Death Eater family... and has the mindset and evil genius enough to impress Voldemort at the age of fourteen.
• Dead Guy on Display: After Lucius and Narcissa are executed, Voldemort orders their bodies to be placed among the ruins of their manor – arranged to spell the first letter of his name.
• Defeating the Cheating Opponent:
  • During the ritual to cure Remus, a local wolf pack leader is displeased at Harry's and the werewolf's presence, so he challenges Harry to a honor duel... and attempts to make it a fight to kill. However, with Harry's physical changes, all it does is nearly get him killed (Harry is forced to heal up a major artery) and cost a lot of standing with other pack leaders.
  • When a particularly arrogant transfer student attempts to cheat in a fencing duel with Draco by using a stamina-restoring talisman, Draco simply beats him despite the cheating, after which his trainer is notified.
• Demon of Human Origin: Not quite a demon, but it turns out the Dementors leader used to be the leader of a Death Eater-like sect and is still in charge. He created them because he grew obsessed with consuming souls, but couldn't process them properly as a human.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: As Harry is walking dazed after Tonks kisses him, Remus says he can tell nothing more than a kiss happened, thanks to his improved senses. Then Sirius realizes this means he could tell whenever someone was fooling around at school...
• Do Wrong, Right: During the Hogsmeade attack, a few Slytherin students leave for their dorms. After Draco and Snape follow and catch them putting on Death Eater apparel, Snape remarks anyone with a bit of brain wouldn't have played their hand so soon, but instead waited for an opportunity to backstab in the middle of a fight.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Harry, at the beginning, becomes much stronger than a regular human, but doesn't even realize it at first. People taking Polyjuice for the sake of Identity Impersonator take on some of that strength, and need to be careful not to break anything.
• Double Entendre: Everyone is surprised when Dumbledore drops one to Tonks about Harry being a lot to handle.
• The Empath: Harry develops this among his talents, while Ginny has had a low-grade version for years, which heightened in the presence of the Magus.
• Entertainingly Wrong: After Fudge is shown evidence that he had compulsion spells on him, including one that made him trust Malfoy, he considers it an obvious frame-up attempt... after all, he trusts Malfoy anyway.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Draco notes something like that as he watches Harry exercising while in his actual Hunk form.
• Exactly Exty Years Ago: Dumbledore started getting premonitions about a Magus awakening in his time on July 21, 1895. Exactly a hundred years in advance.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Among other things, Harry has that talent... to the extent that he can, with but a glance, serve as a replacement for the Sorting Hat.
• Fake Wizardry: At one point, Tonks, disguised as Harry, is asked to do some healing, which Harry is talented in (obviously). In reality, the real Harry is the one providing the healing from across the room.
• Family Theme Naming: The Rosewoods, appropriately, name boys after trees and girls after flowers. Which becomes a minor plot point when it turns out Lily is related to Pansy and Harry is entitled to some inheritance the Parkinsons have been trying to claim for decades.
• First-Name Basis: Members of the Magus Circle are often that among themselves. Can be really confusing and even uncomfortable for outsiders to see a student and a professor addressing each other that way.
• Full-Potential Upgrade: Compound-core wands, first used by Godric Gryffindor, and later rediscovered by Ollivander.
• Game Between Heirs: The Parkinsons have been fighting for the Rosewood inheritance for decades, due to the designated heir being a future descendant of a Squib daughter. A moot point now, that with Harry being both the rightful heir and of age.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: When Draco's Scanner ability is tested, a sensory deprivation spell is cast on him. This causes a serious breakdown in a few minutes, mostly due to Lucius having had the habit of using it as punishment. Plus someone used a potion with possible side effects.
• Gone Horribly Right: Draco is sent to Hogwarts in order to learn about the plans of Voldemort's enemies. He sees enough to switch sides.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted. Harry does get a dose of Instant Expert that puts him above any regular wizard, but using anything resembling his full potential requires lots of hard training.
• Hates Being Touched: Draco disliked prolonged contact with other people due to his Scanner ability.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Snape draws his share of female looks once he removes the grease from his hair.
• He Is All Grown Up: Harry 's original intent is to try passing his physical changes as a growth spurt. So far, it is unclear whether the secret will even hold until it becomes relevant. Also, it turns out that the more powerful wizards undergo a less severe case of this; in fact, Voldemort, when shown a memory of the "New Harry" believes this is the case.
• He Knows Too Much: When Pettigrew is captured in a manner that doesn't allow Voldemort to drain his power, he orders him to be killed while in custody.
• Horrifying the Horror: The Lightning Patronus some Magi can cast is The Dreaded for the Dementors and their leader... not only can it destroy them, but it deprives the collective of all the souls the destroyed Dementor had ever consumed.
• Hunk: That's literally Hermione's word about the physical changes Harry undergoes.
• I'm Having Soul Pains:
  • The presence of death, especially one caused by him, is very unpleasant for Harry, to put it mildly.
  • Apparently, Percy has some emotional problems because he was born as one of a pair of twins with a very strong bond, and when the other twin died, no proper Healer was around to notice the resulting trauma, much less treat it.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Harry offers Amelia Bones some scotch after she sees Remus in human form during the full moon.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Draco's Scanner talent manifested when he was eight or so, but his family never noticed because he never considered it something worth talking about.
• Identity Impersonator: Both Polyjuice (well, an improved version of it) and Tonks' abilities are used to provide cases of Harry and the Magus being seen together.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Two assassins attempt to kill Ragnok. They attempt to enter his office in Gringotts under the guise of Ludo Bagman captured by Albus Dumbledore. However, while "Albus" speaks Gobbledegook, he didn't bother to learn the proper gestures required, nor can he replicate Dumbledore's eye twinkle properly. Of course, the actual first hint the Goblins get is that the real Dumbledore is already in Gringotts on official business.
• In the Blood: A significant part of the plot is centered around the lineage of an ancient demon named Klaatu.
• Inbred and Evil: Demetrius, the child of two twin Klaatu-shah, who had a serpentine appearance from birth. He manipulated his parents into a Mutual Kill at the age of sixteen, and still survives now, as the controlling mind and progenitor of the Dementors.
• Instant Expert: Downplayed. Harry does get instinctual understanding of his power, but not enough for truly massive things.
• The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay: Lucius Malfoy's legal advisors are literally named Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe.
• Liquid Assets: Voldemort is slowly siphoning away his followers' power to increase his own. In case of a Death Eater who had failed him (or was captured and can't be rescued soon enough to avoid questioning), he drains all of it with extremely painful and naturally lethal results.
• Loose Lips: At one point, Harry has to magically swear Ron into secrecy after he proves unable to keep silent about sensitive matters. Hermione, too. A fifteen year old boy with the tendency to broadcast his thoughts is too much of a liability otherwise, so is the one who discussed the matter with him in a public place.
• Love Makes You Evil:
  • Wormtail's motive for betrayal turns out to be jealousy toward James for having Lily.
  • Snape states that the Death Eater captured at the beginning of the story most likely joined Voldemort because she liked Lucius.
• Magical Seventh Son: It turns out Ron is very powerful magically due to being one; Percy had a twin brother who died a day after being born. Seventh Son lore in general is also discussed - in a muggle family, it may result in a psychic or Muggleborn wizard. In a wizarding family, it generally results in stronger magical talents.
• May–December Romance:
  • It is unclear how much of a romance we can talk about with the likes of the two of them, but Voldemort seems to believe that Malvina's heritage and brains make her a suitable potential consort, while she seems to be receptive to the idea. She also happens to be Ginny's age, and was actually set by her parents to be Draco's wife.
  • Harry has a fling with Tonks, who is quite a few years Harry's senior (even accounting for the Plot-Relevant Age-Up), and his true soulmate has not even been born yet.
• Mind over Manners: Harry has the power to basically mind control just about anyone, along with a Veela-like Chick Magnet aura. Of course, it would take a lot for him to even consider using either.
• Mind Rape: The Memory Reading spell is a regular painless Mind Probe when used on a Muggle, but with a wizard, it's both very difficult for the caster and painful for the target. Of course, Voldemort cares about neither.
• Mindlink Mates: The fic features a non-romantic artificial variant, in the form of the Magus Circle. The number of people in it presents a considerable problem, because the vulnerabilities are there. When one of the Circle dies, everyone is depressed for a long time, while Harry goes catatonic for a while. After that, they start working on ways to take care of the obvious Achilles' Heel. It is mentioned then (and was earlier described in a Recursive Fanfiction) that when Darius the Magus died, the only living member of his Circle went mad and massacred the wizards he held responsible.
• Mistaken for Romance: What Ginny thought was a romantic connection to Harry was actually stemming from her Empath ability.
• Mundane Utility: Harry's supernatural Excellent Judge of Character ability is used to ease the logistics of Sorting a thousand transfer students.
• New Transfer Student: Rachel Dragonrider, the American niece of a new professor. Plus all the schools merging with Hogwarts.
• Oblivious to Love: That's how Sirius broke Adelaide's heart when they were students. They do manage to resolve the misunderstanding (after a good verbal kicking from Snape) once his name is cleared.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Pettigrew, once he realizes his supposed friends have murdered him while he's in custody.
  • Harry and the others, once they realize the students taking refuge in Hogwarts have been reporting to Voldemort and have just escaped with a copy of the Barabbas Manuscript.
  • And then everyone realizes Voldemort has just claimed the Dark Fortress.
• Operation: Jealousy: Hermione is tired of Ron not making the first step, so she kisses Harry in front of him.
• Phlebotinum Overload: The only thing known to have killed a Magus is pushing beyond his limits. Harry comes somewhat close a few times during the training, though the worst result seems to be some exhaustion and bruising. And he blows up his wand at one point.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Harry is literally aged up three years, for all intents and purposes, including legal matters and magical sensors.
• Poke in the Third Eye: After Draco and Harry investigate a crime scene with scrying spells set and transmitting everything to Voldemort, Harry does the magical equivalent of shorting the cameras. Then he feels pain in his scar from Voldemort's displeasure, and decides it was Worth It.
• Power Floats: In Chapter 41, Harry goes to the roof in order to enjoy the feeling of a storm around him... and begins to hover in the air without realizing it.
• Power Limiter: Snape had a block placed on him during the school days, locking away most of his potential. It seems Voldemort was paranoid about Severus having the power to beat him. Properly Paranoid.
• Power Perversion Potential: Tonks mentions she sometimes used her true appearance for a boyfriend who wanted a perfect lover, but ultimately found it degrading to be used like that.
• Purple Is Powerful: Any magic cast by a Magus is purple (aside from an Avada Kedavra, which is always green). This can lead to a case of Cover-Blowing Superpower, but Snape teaches Harry an incantation to make any spell a simple white (Death Eaters need it as part of their disguise). In addition, Harry's Animagus forms have some purple in them.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: When Malfoy attempts to scold Harry for not showing proper restraint when dealing with Crabbe and Goyle, Harry states that restraint is the only reason there weren't two cases of Ludicrous Gibs. Apparently, he did a surface scan of their minds, and not only are they both abusive toward Goyle's little sister, but they have also started developing some unhealthy interest in her.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: An In-Universe example with Tonks. She was quite plain looking while a child, but when the She Is All Grown Up trope started kicking in, everyone assumed she was using her recently manifested Metamorphomagus abilities. She resorted to using an appearance extrapolated from her earlier looks, which is implied to be the reason for her clumsiness, due to different balance and all.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Two of them. The first one is Who Wants to Live Forever by LoneWolf5 (removed due to being a songfic). That one is a Distant Prequel and actually had the details there becoming canon. The second one is called The Oldest Plans, serving as both a Distant Sequel and a Distant Prequel.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Snape and Draco have a good amount of that. Enough to provide a significant portion of the comic scenes in the fic.
• Relative Error: Sirius gets angry when he sees Adelaide talking to Severus, only for the latter to point out that first, they are cousins (albeit distant ones), second, they were also good friends, and third, that who is Sirius to talk after breaking Adelaide's heart while at school.
• Required Secondary Powers: Harry's body changes to allow for channeling the enormous amounts of power he has. Unfortunately, the change takes a long time.
• Secret Legacy: Quite a few come up:
  • Harry discovers he and Albus are descended from Godric Gryffindor, which is given as the reason why Harry was able to wield the Gryffindor Sword in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Dragonriders are later also revealed to be descended from this line.
  • Along with Voldemort, Snape and Draco are both revealed to be powerful Klaatu-shah and descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Malvina is a lower-grade Klaatu-mehr, and thus able to read the Barabbas Manuscript.
  • Neville Longbottom is a descendent of Hufflepuff, while Hermione Granger is a descendent of Ravenclaw.
• Shoot the Messenger: Voldemort does that that to the man whose mind he read to see the amount of power channeled during the Hogwarts Ritual.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Harry's powers include speaking with and understanding animals. Later, Hermione turns out to be capable of talking to magical animals, and Charlie might have the potential of a Dragon Speaker.
• Squishy Wizard: Averted. A properly trained body is required to channel one's magical potential properly. In addition, Snape is a master fencer.
• Stumbling in the New Form: It is implied Tonks' clumsiness is because she is normally using an appearance different from her real one, and the difference in the build makes her balance wrong.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Harry attempts to solve the problem of magical backlashes and overloads through study of energy currents in physics.
• Super-Empowering: Downplayed. Harry's mere presence is enough to awaken dormant gifts and stabilize weak ones, but it cannot grant new abilities.
• Super-Intelligence: Harry receives a large boost, enough to read and absorb a sizable tome in minutes, and learn a language in hours.
• Supernatural Sensitivity: The Scanner's talent allows to sense magic both in items and people, and even identify it for more powerful ones. Draco has it on a level above any ever documented. Mike Storm also has a bit of it, despite being a Muggle in all other senses.
• Super-Speed Reading: As part of Harry's Magus abilities, he can spend less than a second per page as well as perfectly recall anything he has read, down to the page number.
• Taking You with Me: Peter, upon realizing the potion he drank to protect himself from the Veritaserum was actually intended to stop interrogations in a more thorough manner, starts rattling out as many Death Eater names as he can, including Malfoy, who sent the potion.
• Tarnishing Their Own Beauty: Tonks, after puberty made her far more beautiful than she used to be, took a habit of maintaining an appearance closer to what she had before, to avoid both accusations of using her powers for personal purposes and unwanted stares.
• Telepathy: Ron discovers he is a born mindspeaker, able to read and communicate with others' minds without a mind link. This turns out to be part of his inheritance as a Magical Seventh Son (see above). Harry also develops this power as part of his Magus abilities, which is how he realizes Ron has the same power. In addition, mind links can be created between groups of people to connect them mentally.
• Teleporter Accident: Two assassins hired by a renegade Goblin to kill their leader are given deliberately faulty escape Portkeys.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Harry is extremely averse to the presence of death, and uses non-lethal measures as much as possible.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Barabbas Manuscript. An ancient tome with five original copies, with Draco's grandfather giving him the presumably only surviving copy. Among other things, it has hidden text visible only to descendants of the demon Klaatu, and absent in all secondary copies.
• Took a Level in Badass: Harry is far from the only character to unlock new abilities during the fic. Alas, Voldemort isn't idle either.
• Tranquil Fury: Draco's reaction to his parents' death has a good amount of that.
• Twin Telepathy: Fred and George have a bond powerful enough to not only mindspeak, but potentially pool their magical power together. Also, it's stated that a lot of Percy's emotional problems are because he had a strong bond with his twin brother who died at the age of one day.
• Unbuilt Trope: Voldemort putting a Power Limiter on Snape as a child, along with compulsion charms for loyalty, may look like an inversion of all the Ron the Death Eater fics where Dumbledore does the same to Harry. However, the fic dates from 2002, years before that plot became popular.
• Unexpected Inheritance: In addition to all the descendants of the Founders, there is Harry being entitled to an estate and a baron's title from his mother's side. The next ones in line for claiming it are the Parkinsons.
• Unholy Matrimony: Voldemort and Malvina seem to be on the way to becoming one... if they get the time.
• Unintentionally Notorious Crime: The men who attempt to kill Ragnok were given special grenades by their associate... who hated Goblins, and so made the weapons genocide level. Even without the scale, racially specific poisons are banned by official treaties.
• Villainous Incest: Part of the fic's background is that long ago two twins, a man and a woman, both Klaatu-shah, became lovers and had a child because no one else was considered remotely worthy by them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Of course Snape and Draco are both this for Harry and his old friends. Appearances must be kept up, after all.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Harry has that ability, allowing him to appear publicly under the appearance of a Magus who lived thousands of years ago.
• Weak, but Skilled: Basically, what Voldemort is to Harry. While a Magus' power is by far the larger, Voldemort has no problem using the full extent of his, while Harry risks an overload when attempting to use large amounts of power without a lot of preparation. As such, in the chaos of an actual battle, Voldemort can expect to have the advantage.
• White Sheep: Savannah Goyle, a very kind and smart girl in a family of brainless Death Eaters.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Subverted. After Fudge announces Sirius' innocence in public, he attempts to bring up the matter of Sirius escaping Azkaban... until Arthur reminds him he announced Sirius to be free of all charges up to date. In front of reporters.
• You Are Already Dead: While Pettigrew awaits interrogation in his cell, Malfoy's agent comes in with some potion and says it's meant to counteract Veritaserum. When Peter is skeptical, the agent assures him he drank a dose himself to no ill effect. Peter takes his own dose... and then, right as the Minister arrives, the agent screams and drops dead. That's when Wormtail realizes Voldemort intended to ensure his silence through more radical means, and the only thing he can do is reward Tom for his treachery by naming as many Death Eaters as possible.
• You Are in Command Now: Amelia, once Fudge is Kissed when Azkaban falls, immediately takes the position of the Interim Minister – before Umbridge can return to Britain and claim the position.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Evil: Voldemort is really displeased at how Draco is wasting his potential by joining the Light.
• You Didn't Ask: Voldemort is very displeased with Lucius after learning that Snape is not only alive, but also teaches his son, Draco. Lucius' only justification is he didn't think to ask. In reality, Draco was fully aware from the start Voldemort believed Snape to be dead, and simply chose to keep silent.
• You Have Failed Me: Lucius is killed by Voldemort after it turns out a mission to bring Draco to be marked not only reveals that the boy did a Heel–Face Turn, but also gets Macnair killed. Then Narcissa is killed as well, and the Malfoy Manor is destroyed.
• You Need to Get Laid: After Harry literally jumps from being fifteen to being eighteen in a single moment, there is indeed a recommendation finding a partner might be beneficial for him.

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