Inamorato

A/N: This one should give you a bit more info about Harry. Considering I said that about the last one, too, I make NO promises! I have plot bunnies & they tend to run away & I am left either standing there or I have to chase them down with a net. I'm then led on a merry chase, where all kinds of things befall my plot & when I finally catch up, I'm usually as lost & confused as my readers. So please, bear with me!

To Kiba - Well, 3 was 57 lines long, 4 is 88 lines long...& 5 is 123 lines long. So while I can't promise they'll KEEP getting bigger my stories have some long & some short chapters. It just depends on what's happening in that chapter. & he won't try the wings until he's at Hogwarts; what if someone saw him?

To Tachimaru - Nope, not quite. 'Mione explains it better in this one. It's really just perfume...he feeds off the smell of exotic perfumes. *shrugs* I didn't create that, either; that's how a Peri feeds. Oh & Chapter Five is Harry and Draco's first encounter.

To qwerty - Tell me about it! I learned about the Peri from a book called "The World of Fairies" & I had to search google & go through 10 search terms & 50 sites to gather what little I know about them. They're REALLY obscure; especially the pre-Islam version! Quite frustrating, I can assure you. >.<

To ThyLadyX and tamikolee - You two are so cute! ^_^ That was the answer, my dear readers! As I said before, 'Mione explains it better in this chapter & I get more into it in Chapters 5 & 6.

To all my other reviewers, thank you SOOO much! I love reading them; they make my day. You guys are fabulous! Enjoy! ~ FA

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"This doesn't make any sense!" Hermione glared at Harry, as though it were his fault. "None of these creatures make any sense!"

Harry sighed. "Look, 'Mione, Dumbledore said it's in there, so it has to be. Let's just go through each of them and see where that gets us." He moved to sit on the arm of the over-stuffed armchair Hermione was in. "Okay?"

Hermione made a face up at him. "I did that! You're obviously not a Sidhe (pronounced "Shee"), because they usually have red hair. And they don't have wings. And you aren't a Gwragedd Annwn (grageth anoon), because they're water fairies, so they don't have wings. The same goes for the Rusalki..." She sighed and flipped through a few pages, before pointing to something. "See? This is the only creature I can't identify. It's called a Peri."

"See?" Harry smiled. "That must be what I am, then." Hermione, however, was shaking her head. "What? Why can't I be one of those; I thought you didn't know anything about them?"

"I don't, Harry." The older girl looked at him in annoyance. "Except for the one thing the book says about them. It says, "Persian cousin of Selkies and Kelpies." so you can't be one."

Ron nodded from across the room. "She's right, mate. Selkies are seals who can shed their skin and become human." He turned around on his chair to stare at them. "Kelpies are similar, but they're horses, instead of seals. But they're still a water spirit; no wings."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe the Persian kind are different. Maybe they're air spirits, not water ones." He frowned for a minute, thinking. "The horse kelpies. They're black, right?" He was struggling to remember something from his childhood...a story he'd heard once.

"No, they're actually green." Hermione replied absently, flipping through the little book again, just in case she'd missed something. "They're just so dark they appear black. The seal skins are the same way."

"Remus said my hair reminded him of a creature he'd seen once." Harry said softly. "Only instead of being tinted gold, the creature's hair was tinted green. A Selkie or a Kelpie?"

That made Hermione stop reading. She picked her head up and her eyes lost focus...she was considering. "Selkies and Kelpies shed their skin and if a human steals it, the Selkie/Kelpie is bound to them. If they find their skin again, they leave." She turned to look at Harry intently. "The child of a Selkie/Kelpie and a human has webbed feet and hands. They're neither one nor they other; they are a literal hybrid of the two. If these 'Peris' are the air version, then they'd be birds who can shed their feathers and as a hybrid..."

"I might have feathered wings?" Harry grinned. "See? Now we just have to try to find something more on these Peris and see if we're right."

~*~*~*~*~*~

"A Peri?" Remus nodded, frowning. "The name sounds vaguely familiar. Let me check around; see if I can't find out something about them."

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It had been three weeks since Harry had arrived at Grimmauld place, sporting a pair of brand new wings. It had been two weeks since they'd begun to suspect Harry was a Peri. It was a week until he would be boarding the train to return to Hogwarts. He, Ron, and Hermione were in an unused room on the fourth floor of Grimmauld Place. Remus had brought Hermione a huge book on Persian creatures the night before and, equipped with said book, she was determined to see if Harry was in fact a Peri. So there was poor Harry, wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue boxers, wings twitching in agitation, waiting for her to get on with it.

"Hmmmm..." Hermione set the book on the only table in the room and walked the two feet to Harry's side. "Well, full-blooded Peris can turn into white doves, but half-breeds and less are usually completely human in appearance. A few, however, have been noted to have beautiful white wings, similar to the "feathered garments" the true Peri wears while in human form. It's by stealing the feathered garment that a human can take a peri spouse."

Harry nodded. "We were right about them being the air-cousins of the Selkies and Kelpies, then." He tilted his head to the side. "So the wings match, but what about the rest?"

Hermione moved back towards the book and flipped a page. "Well," She said in a serious voice. "Peris are known to be made of ether, so they don't eat human food. They feed instead on exotic perfumes, which also serve to repel something called a "div" (pronounced deev), which is the Peris' natural enemy." She glanced at Harry, who nodded. "Hybrids, however, have been known to eat human food."

"Is there any specifics on what kinds of foods they eat?" Harry asked, curious. He'd been leaning towards nuts, berries, and breads...but was there something else he could - or should - be eating?

"Um...no, no specifics. But," She added. "Since we know they're shape-shifters, with birds as their base form, I'd say the nuts, berries, and bread you've been eating make perfect sense." She looked at him knowingly. "So does the not-liking-meat thing. Doves aren't raptors...they're far less carnivorous than some birds."

"As long as I don't start eating bugs, I'm pretty sure I can handle that." Harry replied, grinning at Hermione.

Ron snorted from his seat in the corner. "Yeah, well, if you start eating bugs, you're on your own, mate. I am NOT hunting worms for you."

Harry sighed as though suffering greatly. "Some friend you are." Harry replied sadly. "What kind of friend won't even hunt worms for me to eat?"

"The good kind." Ron replied, earning laughter from the other two-thirds of the Gryffindor Trio. He added in an amused tone, as an after thought. "I bet if you told the Slytherins that if they brought you worms, you'd eat them, that they'd go dig them up for you."

Harry made a face as Hermione giggled, still reading the book. "Um, thanks Ron, but if worms alone are a gross thought, the thought of Slytherin-gathered worms is just more-so."

"Anyway..." Hermione cut in, stopping what surely would have proved to be a long, and very insane, conversation about worms and Slytherins. "That's pretty much most of what it says about Peris. They...well, after Islam took over Persia, people began to liken the Peri to a fallen angel, rather then a fairy. And, despite the fact that their biggest enemies, the div, are evil, Peri's are known to be both benevolent at times, and wicked at others. More often than not, they were originally thought to be Dark Creatures, though the Islamic people believe them to be good, but mischievous."

"Um..." Ron broke into the awkward silence that followed Hermione's recitation. "So you're saying that Harry's a Dark creature?"

Hermione shrugged. "Not necessarily. Some of it may just be that humans don't understand the Peri's nature. The Kelpies don't actually shed their skin like Selkies do- it's by stealing their bridle that they're bound to their human form. They will allow humans to climb onto their backs when they try to grab for their bridle, then they dive into the water and drown the helpless human who was foolish enough to try to ride them. It doesn't make them evil...they're just trying to protect themselves."

She flipped through a few more pages, then explained. "It says here that when a human steals a pureblood Peri's garments and the Peri remains with them, often bearing them children, that the human becomes obsessed with the Peri, due to their Otherworldly beauty and charm."

"Like people do around Veela?" Harry asked cautiously. He did NOT want people mobbing him that way.

"Not exactly." Hermione corrected. "They just become enthralled with the prospect of having the beautiful creature bound to them. So, if the Peri finds their garment and leaves, the human usually..."

When she stopped, Ron and Harry shared a concerned look. "They what?" Ron finally asked, impatient.

Hermione looked up from the book, her face incredibly somber. "They go mad. It's referred to as "peri-stricken" and the human descends into a state of uncontrollable grief and torment."

"Well, sure, but..." Harry shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, I can't be bound the way a pure Peri can, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about, right?"

Frustrated, Hermione ran her hands through her hair. "I don't know, Harry. The book doesn't say much else." She looked at him apologetically. "I'm really sorry." Then, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile, she added. "It does mention that you should be able to use your wings to fly, though."

"Huh." Harry frowned. It was kind of weird, knowing what he was but still not knowing much about himself. Still, the fact that his wings were functional was interesting. "Good to know, I guess."

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A/N: YAY! I really DID tell you more this time. That's really all the information available about the pre-Islamic Peri. Kind of annoying, but I get to have fun with the rest of the fic, in as far as Harry goes. Hope you enjoyed this chapter; next one is the Hogwarts Express ride! Please go the extra three inches to review; I love reading them. Remember, put in your e-mail & I'll send you an alert every time I update! ~ FallenAngel