Feeling the super-sensory charm go off, Harry turned from the hallway to face the far bench in the kitchen apartment. From here, utilising the mirror charm that he'd placed on the tiles (that was only keyed to himself), Harry could watch what happened without appearing to do so.

He still couldn't believe what he'd seen last night. Doreen, a fifteen-year-old girl, jumping three stories from a standing start to reach her bedroom window. As Peter had said, 'that was just freaky – awesome, but freaky'. In usual circumstances, Harry didn't like that word – brought back too many bad memories – but in this instance, it was accurate.

The fact that Doreen had been hiding that ability leant one to assume that she was also hiding others. Not that he was one to talk. But still, it was his home and he wanted to know just who he'd invited to live with him.

At first, he'd considered simply confronting her, but he was sure that that would simply scare her away. And the fact that she'd been living on the streets when he first found her told him that she was more than prepared to do so again. No, scaring her away was not an option, not if he wanted to continue helping her. And he did, more than ever now; Harry knew intimately what it was like to be different.

The other possible outcome of confronting her was that she'd attack and, while Harry was fairly certain that he could contain her with his magic, without knowing exactly what she was capable of, there were bound to be injuries.

Thus, he'd devised a number of small tests to gain a measure of her abilities and hopefully give him a better idea of how to handle things.

The smallest of shuffling noises alerted him to Doreen coming down the hallway and Harry focussed on the mirror.

As Doreen stepped into the main room, her feet slipped out and her arms pinwheeled, her legs danced for a moment, trying to gain traction. And then, all of a sudden, she stopped, just as though she'd not only found traction but had superglued her feet to the floor. He saw her look down and frown. On her shoulder, Monkey Joe chittered at her and for an instant, Harry could have sworn that Doreen answered the squirrel. In squirrel language, if squirrels had a language, that is. But then, snakes did, so why not?

A quick wave of his wand cancelled the charm on the floor before he secreted his wand back away and turned around.

"Morning, Doreen," he said.

"Um, hi, Harry," she replied, but he could see that she was still preoccupied with the floor.

Tentatively, she moved first one foot, then the other, testing the floor cautiously with each step before giving another frown and walking towards the centre bench.

Again, Harry was ready.

"Here's your coffee," he said, placing it on the counter.

A small wandless banishing charm ensured that it slid at speed towards the edge.

In an instant, Doreen had crossed the remaining distance, plucking the mug out of the air just as it began to careen towards the floor.

Speed and reflexes? Harry wondered. They definitely seemed enhanced compared to a 'regular' person's.

"Sorry about that," Harry apologised. "Must not know my own strength."

"Know what that's like," Doreen chuckled.

"Speaking of, feel free to move that box out of your way," Harry said, indicating the large cardboard box in the middle of the bench. "It's for the Den, I'll take it down later. Just put it over there."

With a nod, Doreen picked it up before striding across the room to place it beside the door.

It took everything Harry had not to react. He'd charmed that box to be nearly ten times the weight that it was supposed to be and she'd moved it as though it was nothing.

Speed, reflexes, strength, balance. Not to mention that she can jump three stories. Oh, and possibly talk to animals, Harry catalogued as he set two plates of omelettes on the bench in front of each of them.

Breakfast, then, carried on like normal and before long, Doreen had deposited her plate and mug in the sink and disappeared towards the bathroom.

It was as Harry was about to enter the hallway to return to his own room that something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. There were some sort of marks on the floor, right where Doreen had managed to catch her balance.

Kneeling down, Harry ran his fingers lightly over the ten small holes in the wood.

"Exactly what are you, Doreen Green?" he asked.

ooo00ooo

"You know, I still don't get what changed," Spider-man said as he passed on his upward swing.

A barely heard fwick sounded as the web-head shot out a new line after releasing the one that he'd been swinging on.

"We go weeks without finding the guy ..."

Mage never even turned his head to acknowledge his red and blue partner as he dropped past on his swing, nor as he swung back up and blurted out his next phrase of his one-sided conversation.

"And now we can't seem to not run into him when we're on patrol."

Not one muscle moved on Mage's face, not that anyone could tell the difference with the obscuring charm that hid his face under his hood.

Yeah, it's almost like magic, Mage thought sarcastically. Really, he was surprised that Spider-man hadn't put two and two together, considering how smart the teen was.

"Is he tailing that girl again?" Spider-man asked as he passed on his downward swing.

The unexpected high-pitched yell caused Mage to snap his head down and to the left. His eyes widened at the sight of his partner freefalling towards the ground. A string of webbing flapped uselessly from a red-gloved hand before opening to release it and send out a new web-line at the nearest building.

Instinctively, Mage knew that he was too close to the ground; there was no way that he'd be able to save himself.

The merest thought spun the lightning bolt around and down and Mage flattened himself against the broom, intent on catching Spider-man if needed.

The sound of something passing his head at speed even as a second something slammed into his broom with a solid thunk caused Mage to jerk the broom even further down. A third something flew past, only being seen in his peripheral vision but at least it was further away.

The nose of the broom was nearly pointed straight down now and Mage couldn't help but grin. The black bitumen loomed large in his eyes – not exactly the green grass of a quidditch pitch. At just the right moment, Mage pulled backwards, performing a perfect wronski feint even as a laugh was ripped from him. At speed, he dodged through the oncoming traffic before pulling straight up, his head whipping backwards and forwards.

Mage had no idea what had happened to Spider-man; the kid, he knew, could take care of himself. Spider-man, though, wasn't the one in danger, despite his potential crash down to earth. No, the one in danger was Daredevil – the shuriken still embedded in the shaft of his broom attested to that.

A touch of his wand with the correct mental command had Mage quickly flipping his broom over before rolling back upright. Half a dozen buildings zipped by as Mage honed in.

And then he saw them. Daredevil and Bullseye were going toe to toe, trading blows and leaping about. By the way that Daredevil was favouring his right leg and left arm, Mage guessed that he'd been injured already, most likely by something sharp.

As Mage closed in, he saw Daredevil backflip half a dozen times to give himself space.

You're giving him a chance to use his strengths, Mage growled internally.

And indeed, he was right. The instant that Bullseye had clearance, a dozen glinting objects were shot from his quickly moving hands, one after the other.

Mage's phoenix wand was already out, pointing straight ahead as he lay almost flat against the lightning bolt trying to coax every bit of speed out of it that he could. Instinctively, Mage twirled his wand in ever increasing circles, creating a vortex of wind, wind that quickly turned into tornado strength as it slammed into the flying objects, sending them wildly off-target.

Bullseye spun about, a grimace on his face as he realised that the Avenger was bearing down on him. With a casual salute, the man turned, his leather coat flaring behind him.

Mage's eyes narrowed as the marksman hopped behind a multitude of struts, obscuring his chance of hitting him with a spell. But there were more ways than one to catch a crook. A flick upwards and a jet of blood red shot from his wand, almost instantly followed by the lightest of blues.

The first spell impacted the water tower, smashing it to smithereens and sending a deluge of water careening on to the rooftop, right where Bullseye had last been seen. And then the light blue spell hit the water, freezing it into a bizarre sculpture of a wave of water.

Mage slowed his broom before beginning to circle the roof, staring into the ice, trying to see the image of a man trapped inside. Unfortunately, the ice was crystal clear. In fact, the only thing inside that he could see was a half-open door leading down into the building.

After slamming his fist into his thigh in frustration, Mage zipped across the roof to where Daredevil was leaning against a wall.

"You alright?" Mage asked.

"I am now," Daredevil replied in a near growl.

"What happened?"

"Caught me by surprise," Daredevil replied. "He was lying in wait to ambush me. Glad you happened by. I take it he got away?"

"This time," Mage scowled.

"Hey guys, what'd I miss?" Spider-man asked as he landed lightly on the rooftop, his costume a little torn and the worse-for-wear in a number of places.

ooo00ooo

Doreen scowled at the assignment question that she'd been given by her history teacher.

Describe the differences between the three types of colonies that existed in the British Empire in America during the height of its power in the eighteenth century.

How was she supposed to know that? She hadn't even known that there were different types of colonies in America.

Hopefully, the answer lay in one of the stack of books that sat on the end of her desk. As soon as the bell had rung, Doreen had raided the library for anything that looked as though it might give some sort of answer. The only problem now was that she was going to have to read through them all to find the answers she needed.

And then she had a brilliant thought: she was living with a living, breathing English guy. If anyone was going to know the answer, it'd be him, right?

Not that Harry was home right then. Really, the guy barely was ever home, or at least, that was the way it seemed. If he wasn't in the Den downstairs, he was 'out', wherever that was. He never said, only sort of skirted the question or changed the topic.

But Harry, she knew, had a library, a library filled with books – hundreds of them. Surely, somewhere in there, he had one on history.

After sliding from her seat, Doreen padded from her room and down the hallway to the library. She stopped at the entrance, looking over the many shelves. Then, with a shrug, she began exploring.

Her hand trailed along the spines of the books as she read the titles. If there was a system, she couldn't find it; it didn't help that at least one out of every ten books wasn't even written in English.

And then, on the fourth shelf, she found what she was looking for. Or at least, the history section. There weren't really a lot of books about history, but one, a large book with a dark, nearly black cover made out of something that felt like leather caught her attention. It took a bit of tugging, but eventually, Doreen managed to free the book from its brethren, although the weight of it surprised her and only her increased strength allowed her to maintain hold of it instead of dropping it.

Doreen dropped to the floor, sitting with her legs crossed and the book cradled in her lap. If there'd ever been a title on the cover, it'd long since disappeared. Instead, she opened the cover to the first page and stared.

"Goblin Rebellions of Avalon, 592AD to 1357AD."

Shaking her head, Doreen read the title again and then again. Nope, it stayed exactly the same.

With a lurch, she opened the book to a random page somewhere in the middle. To one side, the writing was small, cramped and looked almost hand-written rather than typed. On the other, though, was the most bizarre picture that she'd ever seen. It showed some kind of battle between men holding swords – no, on closer inspection when she bent her head close to the page, she realised that they were actually sticks – and the strangest creatures that she'd ever seen. They were short with long, ears, wickedly sharp looking teeth and the axes that they were wielding looked to be held by the longest fingers she'd ever seen.

"This obviously belongs in the fiction section," she decided.

Not knowing exactly where that was, Doreen decided to simply put the weird book back where she found it.

Trying to squeeze the book back into its slot was only made possible when she took out one of its neighbours.

"Now this looks more like it," Doreen smiled at the book in her hand. "Expansion of the Commonwealth."

A quick flick through proved that it was exactly what she was after. Then, with the book firmly in hand, Doreen made her way back to her room and the dreaded assignment.

ooo00ooo

"Homenum revelio!"

Harry's eyes narrowed as he examined the results. The various red blobs downstairs could be instantly ignored. No, it was the one in his apartment that he was being wary of. And there she was, in her room with the door shut.

A simple nod of satisfaction preceded Harry slipping into the closest and closing the door behind himself.

Originally, the door led to the top of a spiral staircase leading down to the part of Harry's basement dedicated to his magical training. But with the introduction of Doreen to the apartment, he'd been forced to put in a false wall, hidden by magic, of course, and to fill the cupboard with brooms, mops and other cleaning supplies. A series of quick taps of his wand caused the back wall to become transparent and Harry simply walked through.

As he stepped off of the bottom stair, a pair of magical dummies appeared from alternate sides of the room, wands raised in wooden hands. A dodge to the right was enough to avoid the jet of red light; a swish of his wand raised a shield for the dark blue bolt to bounce off of. Three more spells were snapped off from the dummies – two from the one on the left, one from the right. A dodge and a second shield were enough for two of the spells. The third, however was headed straight for Harry and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Instinctively, he snapped up his left hand, the thought of a duelling shield, similar to a buckler, in front of it. The sound of a gong as the spell impacted nearly caused Harry to get hit by the next spell. He'd never managed to do that before.

Feeling the pull on his magic the more he shielded, Harry switched to attack. Swirling to the left, his wand came up in intricate patterns and jets of light – yellow, white, red, white, red – spat out.

One dummy had its wand arm blown off while the second was hit in the midsection, sending it hurtling backwards to crash into the far wall before falling to the ground.

After one last check with narrowed eyes at the downed dummies, he straightened and holstered his wand. Raising his left hand, Harry willed the same duelling shield from before to appear. And it was there, perhaps not as strong as if he'd conjured it using his wand, but it was a shield nonetheless. A wandless shield. He'd been working on this for months and finally, finally ...

Letting the shield fade away, Harry danced a jig before nearly skipping across to the small reading section that he'd put in.

A casual wave of his hand summoned the book that he needed, not that that was a great feat – he'd had a bit of an affinity for the summoning charm ever since the TriWiz all those years ago and as a consequence, it'd been the first wandless spell that he'd been capable of. Well, apart from a wandless lumos, but he didn't think that counted.

After revising the passage in the book for the umpteenth time, Harry sighed, closed it, and moved to the centre of the room.

His eyes closed and he turned his attention inwards.

As always, the prickling sensation over his arms came first and he knew that he was growing feathers in place of the usual hair on his skin. His clothes rippled and flattened against his body before his torso also began to take on that tingling feeling. The bones in his arms and legs began to shift, scraping against each other, even as his butt changed and he felt long tail feathers growing from there.

And then it stopped.

As it always did.

Harry opened his eyes and took stock of his new body. Mostly, he was bird-like. Exactly what type of bird was anyone's guess. The problem was that his head refused to transform. And he remained the same size.

Yep. He'd developed some kind of block. The book even said that this could happen. Not that it really offered any kind of solution.

With a sigh, Harry reversed the transformation. He'd been stuck at this point for weeks now. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to bite the bullet and talk to someone who'd successfully become an Animagus, someone who could coach him past this block.

One name instantly came to mind. There was only one problem with that – she was in Britain, a place that Harry had no real interest in going.

ooo00ooo

"Doctor Curtis Connors."

The man in question lifted his head from the text that he was reading and turned to face the small window set into the door of his cell. The face on the other side was not one that he recognised, a fact that the slight German accent should have told him anyway.

"Yes. Can I help you?" Curt replied.

It'd been months since he'd first been incarcerated in Beloit Psychiatric Hospital, a place that Curt didn't think that he actually belonged in. No, he wasn't insane. A criminal, yes, that certainly, after all, he'd hurt a great many people. But insane, no. He wasn't even dangerous any more, not since his body had absorbed the antidote to the lizard formula that he'd taken to transform into that savage beast.

But as much as he protested that he didn't need to be there, that a simple penitentiary would be a much better choice for him, his pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Countless doctors of all sorts had practiced on him, most with one goal in mind: to get the formula out of him. But that was something that Curt would never give up. The formula that created the Lizard was simply too dangerous to be allowed out into the world.

And so, Curt had changed his tactic. Be meek, be mild, be helpful (except where it came to that damned formula), answer any other questions, force them to see that he wasn't insane, that he didn't belong here.

"My name is Doctor Daniel Whitehall," the man introduced himself. "I have been assigned to treat you."

"As you wish," Curt replied.

As he'd expected, the door swung open, admitting Doctor Whitehall and an assistant, an assistant who obediently placed a file into the waiting doctor's hand. Whitehall calmly perused the file, flipping page after page as he read through it. Finally, he looked up, his clear blue eyes looking interestedly at Curt through his black-rimmed round