Avatarmagus

A/N: My attempt at first person writing. Just went to watch Avatar (again), saw it in 3D.

This is being written with tiny chapters, BUT I didn't want it where simply pressing page down once takes you from the top of the chapter to the bottom. Or even twice or thrice pressed. So Instead I'm writing it all together to post as a single chapter, but I have labelled where each individual chapter would have started.

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Prologue

I had never understood my Animagus abilities until now. I was never fixed to one form, and half the time I could only trigger a blind transformation. I never knew what I would become. And Every time I had done that blind transformation, well... I never knew what kind of creatures they were.

I wondered why, why me? Why those forms?

For awhile, I hated it, but eventually I began to see how much I had improved in other aspects of my life simply because of those creatures. I understand most of what birds need, now. I can see their moods, their... questions, for lack of a better description. On our 'scale' of measuring intelligence, most animals on Earth are not even half as intelligent as humans. But then again, that only covers 'most' of the animals we've been able to observe enough to get a reasonable estimate of their intelligence. Other creatures we haven't?

And it was the Muggles who always did the measuring. So many magical species, or those creatures of a species that are gifted with magic, they haven't been 'measured'.

It's only because of the first dozen Animagi in Wizard history, that many wizards understand one simple fact: All sentient creatures are capable of beyond human intelligence.

Many does not mean most. Most wizards have forgotten this. Draco Malfoy point in fact in my third year.

Once I had realized I was an Animagus... I realized just why I often found it easy to interact with other creatures. Even more so when I discovered I wasn't locked to a single animagus form either.

Flying alongside Buckbeak on his last flight in life was a great joy, and a great sadness.

Understanding just why Snakes can be both dumb and smart, and then learn just why most publicly known parselmouths, who had accounted for 90-95 percent of all parselmouths in history, were dark... Well I could have done without the experience of being a common garden snake being chased by a predatorial snake.

Each experience, taught me about the wider animal kingdom that so many humans do not see.

And taught me that Either they would all gather together and slaughter us, or become extinct before they can do so. Because man is... Was.... spreading around the globe.

Armies exterminated all non-domesticatable forms of life on the planet over the course of thirty years.

Within fifty, the green of our forests were gone.

And by the year 2140 Humanity had attained space travel, and in fact inhabited worlds beyond our solar system, stripping them of resources, because our own planet was barren of them.

I found no joy in my life on Earth. So I stowed away on one of the space ships, spent several years in Zero G, my own magic placing me into stasis so that my body did not atrophy.

And I arrived on the most beautiful planet I could ever see. Nothing but jungle and ocean. All artificial structures built by its native inhabitants were built with the planet... and I don't mean like we humans have built on Earth. They merely gave shape to what was there already, in the form it had. A tree grows, the roots that become exposed as dirt washes away becomes a den, and the hollow interior becomes the home.

Artificial, and yet not.

And my magic was telling me something, as I gazed out of the cockpit window, unseen by the hired ex-marines who were the security to the mining operation that was underway on this planet.

I had found my home.

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For three years, I lived in the forest, watching the local humanoid people, who towered over me.

Many times I thought they could actually sense my presence, and certain familiar creatures definitely could, although they never made that obvious while in the presence of the Navi.

Three years, because that's how long it took me to learn their language, and learn just why it was that for a century I could change into animals I had never seen until I had reached this planet.

What the Navi call the Eywa was who told me.

All beings with this power were merely a, node, in a galactic network. Just as Eywa was the living... embodiment, while not accurate, is close enough, Just as Eywa was the living embodiment of all living things on this planet that the humans called Pandora, and Just as all creatures could connect to Eywa in many places, each interconnected...

Each planet in the galaxy had the Power, and was in a similar war, the living embodiment of the power within the living beings on that world. Few Navi had the power, and through it they connected not just to Eywa without needing to be in those 'trees of Eywa', but to that galactic network.

Earth was no longer part of that network. Because just as the humans killed their 'mother', and all other creatures there, not enough power was there to sustain the metaphysical link to the other planets.

Eywa taught me to see again, to see the truth behind what Magic is. Just as Life is a form of energy, so too was magic. Life bound a planet and its inhabitants together in a way that was... wonderful. And Magic bound the planets together in just as much a similar way, even though we ourselves couldn't see it. Just as I couldn't.

I had over time been getting weaker in my magic, and relied on 'magic devices' that merely mimicked the effects of magic. They were as much magic as the flying devices of the Muggles, only created through magic.

The Wizarding communities blamed the influx of Muggle-born, and in the end they simply self-destructed. Many tried to take Muggle governments with them. And then the American forces stepped in and where we with our weakening magic failed was in realised that, without magic, we were vulnerable.

I spent many a time in jungles running. I couldn't use much magic to hide. And it was getting smaller. So why wouldn't I flee when given the perfect opportunity to?

Pandora was my salvation. I reconnected with magic there, and then with Eywa.

I learned peaceful coexistence with the animals of Pandora, and waited when it came to the Navi, only because I wished to learn their language and customs first. But of course, with the mining operation, I knew they would not greet me with good will. Unless Eywa stepped in of course...

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Chapter 1

Amazing what three years could teach a person. Knowing my magic as much as I do now, I could finally control my Animagus form. I had become one of earths' greatest lost creatures, as I chased the walking mechanical machines piloted by soldiers.

I laughed in my mind at the sheer look of horror and recognition that the soldiers had at seeing me.

I'm sure seeing a very-much-real Dinosaur up close and personal and chasing you wouldn't be very good for your health.

Neither would their bullets be for me, were I not in one of the more heavily armoured dinosaur forms I could transform into.

One of their helicopters fired a rocket. Knowing what it could do, I simply timed it right and grabbed the thing with one of my 'hands', put it in the other 'hand' but so it was facing them, and gave a snort-like 'I'm laughing at you' grunt and pointed it at the helicopter. I didn't let go of the rocket, but they got the message and the whole lot of them retreated.

I was laughing uproariously (well, not so much compared to a dinosaur) as I held on tight to the branch from which I observed the humans. They couldn't understand where the dinosaur disappeared to. Their satellites had a bad habit of not showing me even on Visuals. Only their gun cams could.

After a few days of this, I simply walked into the base as a normal human (only with a liberated gasmask) and learned what I could from their computers.

I had information to bring to the Navi.

That is of course, where I first learned of the Avatar Program.

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First time I met Doctor Grace Augustine, I thought, 'Scientist, wouldn't care about the Navi'.

Oh how I'm so glad I was wrong. First glimpse into her mind I got when she, in her avatar form, taught some of the younger Navi the English language... I knew. Knew, that she cared.

I watched as over the months, Grace grew even more fond of the Navi, and they her.

I was within the Navi clan Omaticaya's Hometree, now. I was training my magic to slowly change my human body to resemble that of a Navi, only it was slow. I stayed and slept among them as a small bird. Human sized, so not that large to the Navi.

After a week of seeing me follow her around, Grace decided to approach me properly.

It was as she petted me that she realized that 'I' didn't have that long tail-like body part with some kind of physical mental link port, a biological version of old earth wired connectivity.

With the control over what form to take, I was learning to merge them too, only I hadn't gotten the Pandora version of a Hippogriff just right yet.

That was when the questions began about my presence. They ceased only because Eywa interrupted by having some of her essence appear in the form of that white floating creature. The fact that I made a 'nuzzling' gesture, like an animal nuzzling another as a gesture of affection, amazed the others. And accepted me there.

That's when I first saw Neytiri.

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Chapter two

It's been a long time between when I last shared something through this link with the galaxy.

It's been a year, and I'm part of the Omaticaya people now. Eywa helped me make the changes to my body permanent. One of the minds that reside there, apparently has their sense of humour intact, as the personality came forward long enough to joke that I was an Avatarmagus. The fact that I applied a Metamorphmagus-like use of my magic to change into a Navi... Well the Avatar and Magus parts are both obvious.

Eytucan and Moat had me taught my Tsu'tey in the ways of the Navi, and how to move like one. That I took to it quickly shocked him.

Only Eytucan and Moat know about my Animagus ability, so far. The last Omaticayan Navi with Magic had died several decades before my arrival, and has never manifested greatly within them. The others are untrusting of me for now...

But they all know that I spent a great many years as a human. Eytucan has me watching Grace for now. With his daughter, Neytiri, learning English from her in the school, he is greatly worried.

And he knows I will protect her. All of them.

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It's amusing, watching Grace trying to teach me English. I'm having lots of fun saying it wrong.

Especially 'accidentally' saying certain bits of innuendo.

She's smart, she'll catch on soon enough.

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She did. I played dumb for a few seconds and she saw through it. Here's what happened...

"Ari'otar, I know you understand me. And I know you are messing up on purpose!" She spoke. Ari'otar was my Navi name. I couldn't use 'Harry Potter', now could I?

I looked at her, an innocent, unknowing confused look on my face.

"Ari'otar..." She started warningly. I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"I'm sorry! I couldn't help it. Yes, I understand you perfectly."

Then I realised, my English was a bit too perfect... She narrowed her eyes, and I made a guilty look.

"So I already knew a bit of English from watching people before I came here."

She raised an eyebrow. What I said was technically true, but what she'd take from that sentence, and what it actually referred to were several separate things. I observed people on earth. My aunt and uncle to be precise. They wouldn't exactly teach me on purpose would they? And that did happen 'before I came here' the here being 'Pandora'.

It's just that she wouldn't realise that 'before' was before the turn of the millennium, from the 20th century into the 21st. Yeah. I was born 1980. It's now... 2150 or something. 170 years old or so.

Dumbledore lived to 190, and I didn't age nearly as much as he. Because we had magic, according to original theories on why wizards lived longer.

That I had less than Dumbledore obviously doesn't mean more magic power longer life.

Then again, life and magic were two separate energies. Neither could be transformed into the other.

Maybe I simply had more than he.

Suffice to say, Grace thought that for the last few years while humans were on Pandora, I watched and learned a bit of English simply from that.

We were interrupted though when something happened.

A bang rang out.

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I stood up, the rite of return to Eywa complete, and held my knife to Grace' throat.

"Tell me you were not involved." I snarled. A young Navi child had been killed.

I searched her mind for the truth, as she stuttered out that she was not. I saw her readying to disconnect.

"Do not leave this body." I spoke, perhaps a little bit into her mind through Legilimens. "Tell me."

She released herself from the instinct to disconnect. She looked back at me, somehow knowing that I was not looking at the surface, but beneath it.

"No I wasn't." She said, strong. And angry. I saw that she was not angry at me, but at whoever killed the child.

I held the knife for a second, my eyes searching hers. Then I stepped back, and put my knife away.

Then I patted my chest with my fist, then held it out, palm open. With meaning, I said in Navi, "I see you."

She understood the entire meaning behind those words, and nodded.

Then I added, "But the others may not See."

She looked away. "I won't be welcome, will I?"

"No. I will tell them that you share no blame for this."

I knelt down and picked up the child.

I turned and saw Neytiri looking at me, curious. I nod to her, and she leaves.

One last look at Grace, and I added, just as I left, "Tell those Jarheads to watch where they're pointing their guns or the next death just might not be of my people."

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It was risky, calling them Jarheads to Grace' face. But she'd assume that it was the name of them I had learned from 'watching them'. Oh I did learn that name from doing so, but that was on earth.

When I finally got some peace to myself, Neytiri almost interrupted it. Almost, because she did not interrupt the meditation, only merely joining me, wanting to speak but being respectful by not.

When I came out of it, she was looking at me. One difference between me and the Navi, on a purely biological level, excluding all differences that can simply be explained as 'individual differences between those of the same species', was that I had kept my 4 fingers.

Around Grace, it was 3. But it would return to 4. Before my Avatarmagus, or rather, Navi form was made my permanent 'default' body, when I became Navi it was with 3 fingers, and on relaxing the changes I would become human again. Then the 'default' became a Navi body but with 4 fingers, and I had to change from my 'Avatarmagus' default form to full Navi form.

"You were one of the Sky People." She spoke to me. In Navi, naturally.

I replied, "I came here from the sky, yes. I am the same, species, as they, yes. But for the last century I have not counted myself as one of them. Just as a Navi from one of the clans in the plains would not count themselves as one of the Omaticaya. I was human, but I was not of 'their clan'."

Neytiri nodded in understanding.

Then I spoke. "Grace is similar to me. While she cannot change form to become Navi like I did, she has moved her mind to that body like we do on death to Eywa. Like my change to becoming Navi before, hers is not permanent unless Eywa makes it.

"But that is not the only way that she is similar to me, Neytiri. She may not realise it yet, but she is starting to not see herself as of the Clan 'RDA'." To show what I mean, I drew the letters just as I began to speak the sentence, and pointed to each letter as I spoke them. Neytiri would recognise it as the symbols written on the human machines. "With each push towards Hometree that the humans of Clan RDA make, with their Jarhead clan surrounding them, protecting them, the further from them Grace considers herself in heart. When she realises this, she her head will follow."

"But how can we teach her when her mind is already so full?"

I smile. "Mine was not full, Neytiri. Yet it was not empty either." I leant back a bit, and slowly lowered my back so I was looking up at the roof of the small alcove in Hometree that was my chosen chamber of meditation. "While I had an 'open mind', I was still ignorant of many truths of this universe."

The Navi were no strangers to those truths. Time and space, yet they cared not for exploiting it.

"Eywa taught you." Neytiri spoke as though it explained it away.

"She can with Grace too." I agreed, "But just as Eywa does not pick sides among the beings of our world..." He paused, and Neytiri understood. He then continued. "I did not learn all truths from Eywa. You and your people taught me too."

"And much we learned in turn." Neytiri finished.

"It is easy to find humans whose minds are not full. All humans are like that. But it is difficult to find one whose mind is open to new truths and ideas. Grace is open. Many of the others... are not."

He let that sink in to her, and left her to her own meditation.

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Chapter Three

Several years have passed, and I find myself in a quandary. Neytiri and I are following one of the 'Avatars'. The Omaticaya have learned more of me and from me. Just as I from them.

I had met Grace several times in the last few years too, although not that much when you do consider it has been several years.

Tsu'tey, my brother, is always ready to ride out. He has never been trusting of Dream walkers, or Avatars. As I never was a 'dream walker' That trust issue he does not carry with me.

Neytiri is a formidable warrior now, too. Although she is training to take over from Moat once she is ready.

Eytucan has yet to name a successor for himself. He has no son to choose, and so if Neytiri chooses a mate before he chooses his heir, that mate would be his heir.

If I were honest with myself, I would wonder why he has not already chosen Tsu'tey as his heir.

As Neytiri watches from a branch, daylight fades and my own literally birds-eye view of the avatar reveals that the Avatar is preparing a fire torch.

I descend and although I know Neytiri knows of my Animagus ability, I do not change where she can see.

By now my Magic energy reserves are great, and I pool more magic into my bow. It is a form of wand on Pandora. I can use it to project a shield just in front of it, and use it like medieval knights on earth would a flat shield, or I could fire spells as though firing an arrow. Indeed it is firing a magic-laden arrow. For combat magic, anyway.

I have yet to find a form of near-instant magic transportation like apparition – That ability had long since fled me when I was on earth, and not returned.

As Neytiri draws her arrow on her bow, I do the same, lacing my magic yet without form into my own.

Then Eywa stepped in, and I sensed her curiosity about this Avatar in those white floating woodsprites.

Of course, that was when this avatar guy finally got his torch lit, and viperwolves attacked. I quickly took aim and fired, lacing the arrow with stunning and healing magic... doing the same with every arrow I fired at each viperwolf, tapping the few hit by Neytiri with a spell-charged arrow. I let Neytiri rescue the silly Avatar.

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