Weeks passed, and Jean Grey’s training became something spoken of in whispers across Bannerman Island.
At first, people had been curious.
Then they had become cautious.
Now, they were awed.
Every morning, Harry and Jean teleported away from settlement, far away from the castle, the workshops, the schoolrooms, and the children. It had become a routine. Jean would arrive dressed simply, her red hair tied back, her expression calm but focused. Harry would take her away with his wand tucked into his sleeve and a satchel full of notebooks, ward stones, and emergency potions slung over one shoulder.
And Fawkes would come after them.
The phoenix would appear in a flash of fire and song, landing wherever he pleased—sometimes on Harry’s shoulder, sometimes on a branch above them, and more often now, on Jean’s shoulder.
The first time it happened, Jean had frozen completely.
“Is he… allowed to do that?” she had whispered.
Harry had looked at Fawkes, then at Jean.
“He does whatever he wants.”
Fawkes had trilled proudly, as if agreeing.
From that day onward, the phoenix became part of her training.
It had started after the third binding broke.
The first binding had nearly overwhelmed her. The second had shaken half the forest. The third had been worse. When Harry carefully removed that chain from the Phoenix Force inside Jean’s mindscape, the power that rushed out had not merely expanded her telepathy. It had struck through her entire being like lightning through water.
Jean had screamed.
The world had become too loud. Every thought from the surrounding lands had rushed toward her at once. Fear. Laughter. Hunger. Hope. Annoyance. Pain. Every mind had brushed against hers. Every living thing, from the children to the fish beneath the river, had suddenly become present in her awareness.
She had clutched her head, trembling.
“Too much,” she gasped. “Harry, it’s too much.”
Harry had knelt in front of her, both hands on her shoulders.
“Jean, listen to me. Breathe. Don’t fight all of it. Let it pass through. You are not a wall. You are a riverbank.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.”
The sky above them had darkened unnaturally. The grass around Jean had lifted from the earth as if gravity itself had loosened. Rocks floated. Leaves spun in circles. The trees groaned as if bowing away from her.
Then the fire came.
Not real fire.
But the echo of something vast pressing against the inside of her mind.
Harry had felt it before Jean did. His eyes widened, and for the first time since training began, his calm cracked.
The Phoenix inside her was rising.
It had felt space open. It had felt one more chain fall away. And it wanted out.
Then, before Harry could raise his wand, crimson-gold flame burst in the clearing.
Fawkes appeared.
The phoenix landed on Jean’s shoulder and began to sing.
The sound was not loud, but it filled the forest. It slipped through the storm of Jean’s power like sunlight through mist. The floating stones slowly lowered. The wind softened. Jean’s breathing steadied.
Inside her mind, the raging Phoenix paused.
Jean felt it.
That enormous being inside her, that wounded, furious, caged thing, stopped pressing against the barrier and turned its attention toward the song.
Jean lowered her hands slowly, tears on her cheeks.
Harry stared at Fawkes with deep gratitude.
“You came at the right time.”
Fawkes gave him a look that somehow managed to be offended.
Harry sighed.
“Yes, fine. You came exactly when you meant to.”
After that day, Harry had asked Fawkes to remain.
“Will you stay with her?” he asked quietly that evening, when Jean had fallen asleep in one of the temporary forest shelters and Harry was sitting beside a small magical fire. “At least until she comes to terms with what’s inside her?”
Fawkes tilted his head.
Harry looked toward Jean.
“She needs someone who understands it better than I do.”
The phoenix was silent for a long moment.
Then he spread his wings and sang one soft note.
Harry smiled faintly.
“Thank you.”
So Fawkes stayed.
The mutant children adored him.
At first they were shy, watching from behind trees and walls whenever Fawkes visited the settlement. Then Anna approached him with the fearlessness only a child could manage.
“Are you really a firebird?” she asked.
Fawkes puffed up proudly.
Anna gasped.
“He understands me!”
Harry, standing nearby with a cup of tea, muttered, “Unfortunately.”
From then on, Fawkes became the island’s greatest fascination. Children followed him everywhere. Some brought him fruits. Others tried to draw him. One boy asked if Fawkes could teach him how to burst into flames without dying.
“No,” Harry said immediately.
Fawkes chirped.
Harry narrowed his eyes at him.
“Do not encourage him.”
The children especially loved phoenix travel.
Harry had seen Dumbledore do it years ago, vanishing in a swirl of fire with Fawkes, and as a boy he had thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Now Fawkes occasionally allowed Harry to travel that way too, though Harry suspected the phoenix only did it when he was in the mood.
The first time Harry vanished in phoenix fire and reappeared across the courtyard, every child on the island screamed with delight.
Kurt appeared beside him a second later in blue smoke, looking offended.
“That is cheating.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“You teleport.”
“Yes,” Kurt said, pointing at the fading golden sparks around Harry, “but mine does not look that majestic.”
Pyro, watching from the steps, snorted.
“Nightcrawler is jealous of a bird.”
Kurt glared at him.
“I am jealous of the presentation.”
Even Jean laughed that day.
And Harry noticed that every time she laughed, the Phoenix inside her grew quieter.
That became the center of her training.
Trust.
Harry repeated it so often that Jean began saying it before he could.
One afternoon, deep inside the woods, Jean sat cross-legged across from Harry while Fawkes perched above them.
Harry asked, “What is the goal?”
Jean sighed.
“To befriend the Phoenix.”
“And?”
“Not control it.”
“And?”
Jean opened one eye and gave him a dry look.
“To stop treating an immortal cosmic creature like an angry dog.”
Harry nodded.
“Good.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You enjoy this too much.”
“I enjoy not dying in psychic fire.”
“That’s fair.”
Training in the mindscape became regular after that. Harry taught Jean how to enter her own mind without his help. At first, she could only do it when he guided her through Legilimency. Then slowly, with practice, she learned the path herself.
Her mindscape changed as she did.
At first it had been violent and unstable, a world of burning skies, shattered landscapes, and rivers of psychic energy. But after weeks of meditation, the place became more structured. Jean began building it herself. A lake appeared, calm and silver. A forest grew along its edge. A red-gold horizon glowed in the distance.
And at the center remained the cage.
Still vast.
But no longer silent except for lamentation.
Jean began approaching it alone.
The first time she stood before the Phoenix without Harry beside her, she nearly fled.
The creature looked at her through the bars with eyes older than anything she could comprehend.
Jean swallowed.
“Hello.”
The Phoenix did not answer in words.
It answered in emotion.
Anger.
Sorrow.
Mistrust.
Jean placed one hand against the cage.
“I know,” she whispered. “I would hate me too.”
The Phoenix flared.
Jean flinched but did not step back.
“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I swear I didn’t know what he did to you.”
A memory came then.
Not Jean’s.
A sensation of vast empty space. Stars being born. Stars dying. Fire without cruelty. Destruction that was also renewal. Freedom beyond anything a human mind could understand.
Jean cried when she came out of the mindscape that day.
Harry found her sitting beside the river.
He sat beside her without speaking.
After a while, she said, “It showed me the stars.”
Harry looked at her.
Jean wiped her face.
“It’s not evil, Harry.”
“I know.”
“It destroys,” she whispered. “But not because it hates. It’s like… like fire clearing dead wood. Like winter ending something so spring can happen.”
Harry nodded slowly.
“Phoenixes are rebirth as much as fire.”
Jean looked toward the sky.
“Charles was so afraid of the destruction that he never tried to understand the rest.”
Harry did not answer.
He knew that was not a simple wound.
Charles Xavier had loved Jean. Harry did not doubt that. But love could still harm when it became fear wearing the mask of protection.
As the weeks passed, more bindings were removed.
Not many.
Harry refused to rush.
Every chain released gave Jean access to more power. More telepathy. More telekinesis. More awareness. After the fifth binding, Jean could lift massive stones without effort. After the seventh, she could feel minds across the island without trying. After the tenth, she had to rebuild her mental shields from scratch because her old ones were useless against her expanded senses.
Harry watched all of it with careful attention.
“Again,” he said one morning.
Jean stood in the center of the clearing, eyes closed, sweat running down her forehead. Around her, twenty stones floated in a perfect circle.
“I am doing it.”
“Not evenly.”
Jean’s eye twitched.
“They are floating, Harry.”
“The third one is wobbling.”
“It is a rock.”
“It is an undisciplined rock.”
Jean opened one eye.
“Did you just criticize my rock?”
“Yes.”
Fawkes sang a teasing note from the branch above them.
Jean looked up at him.
“Don’t you start.”
The phoenix looked entirely innocent.
Harry smiled faintly.
It was hard work. Exhausting work. Dangerous work.
But it was working.
The Phoenix inside Jean no longer pushed blindly at the cage every time a binding fell. Sometimes it still surged. Sometimes its anger burned through Jean’s mind like a solar flare. But Fawkes’ song calmed it. Jean’s presence calmed it more.
That was the important part.
One evening, after a particularly difficult session, Jean sat with Fawkes perched on her shoulder while Harry examined the latest set of notes.
“How many more?” Jean asked quietly.
Harry did not pretend not to understand.
“Bindings?”
She nodded.
Harry looked toward her.
“Many.”
Jean exhaled.
“I could remove them faster.”
“No.”
Her answer came immediately.
Harry looked slightly pleased.
Jean smiled tiredly.
“I know better now.”
She looked down at her hands. A faint red-gold glow flickered beneath her skin, then faded.
“It’s strange,” she said. “At first I thought I needed to be strong enough to hold it back.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I need to be honest enough that it doesn’t want to leave.”
Harry closed the notebook.
“That is probably the wisest thing you’ve said since you came here.”
Jean gave him a look.
“Only probably?”
“I’m being generous.”
She laughed softly.
Fawkes trilled in agreement.
Jean touched the phoenix’s feathers gently.
“Traitor.”
Harry leaned back against the tree.
“For a phoenix, a hundred years is nothing,” he said. “One human lifetime is barely a blink. If it chooses to remain with you, it will not be because it has nowhere else to go. It will be because it wants to.”
Jean became quiet at that.
Harry continued, more gently.
“But when the final binding comes off, Jean, you need to be in good terms with it.”
Jean looked toward the forest where the last sunlight slipped between the trees.
“And if I fail?”
Harry was silent for a moment.
Then he answered honestly.
“Then we deal with it.”
She looked at him.
“That’s not much of a plan.”
Harry smiled faintly.
“It’s how most of my life has worked.”
Jean laughed despite herself.
Then her expression softened.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not being afraid of me.”
Harry looked at her for a long moment.
“I am afraid,” he said.
Jean blinked.
Harry’s voice remained calm.
“I’d be an idiot not to be. But I’m not afraid of you.”
Jean’s eyes softened.
For a while, neither spoke.
Above them, Fawkes began to sing quietly.
And deep within Jean’s mindscape, behind the remaining chains and fading barriers, the Cosmic Phoenix listened.
Not with rage this time.
With curiosity.
And slowly, very slowly, with something that almost felt like hope.