thestrals

Harry Potter is tired of being a pawn. After years of manipulation and loss, he awakens a dormant, primal power: the ability to shift into a Thestral foal. When Fawkes the Phoenix offers him a chance to start over, Harry seizes it, traveling back to age eleven with the wisdom of a survivor and the instincts of a predator.

This time, Harry refuses the path laid out for him. He rejects Gryffindor for the quiet invisibility of Hufflepuff, befriends a lonely Draco Malfoy before prejudice can take root, and finds the maternal love he always craved in the form of Diamond, a grieving mother Thestral in the Forbidden Forest.

As the years unfold, Harry's humanity begins to blur with his wild nature. He masters the Dementors, outmaneuvers the memory of Tom Riddle, and gathers a "herd" of outcasts-including Sirius Black and Remus Lupin-into a Shadow Ministry that operates by the laws of the forest rather than the laws of men. In a world of light and dark, Harry chooses the grey, proving that the things seen only by those who have known death are often the most beautiful of all.