Work Text:
Time felt slow, meaningless as Harry watched Sirius fall toward the veil. Fear and surprised replaced laughter on his godfather's face. Harry's four years of quidditch reflexes and months of Dumbledore's Army training weren't enough. Deep in his heart, he had known this to be true, that the scant time and learning he had was nothing compared to his enemy's decades of life, but it wasn't even Voldemort who'd cast the spell.
It was Bellatrix, and she was laughing, and Sirius was falling.
Harry had spent this whole year angry, confused, grieving. The mere concept of having to grieve his godfather was more than he could handle.
Crying out, Harry reached out, seeing Remus do the same, but neither of them were close enough—
—lights and pain and confusion and nothing was making sense, but it didn't matter, because all that mattered was getting to Sirius in time—
—and then Harry was close enough, pushing Sirius out of the way of the veil with more force than Harry knew he had. He covered Sirius with his body, of which there was more than the last time he'd checked. Sudden growth spurts weren't inconceivable—Ron seemed to grow every time Harry didn't see him for a summer—but Harry wasn't entirely convinced that this was the same thing. Especially when he looked down to make sure that Sirius was okay and saw a scaled torso, claws, and wings, dwarfing Sirius entirely.
Harry carefully covered a dazed Sirius with his wing, feeling a thrum of protectiveness within his chest. Sirius was alive. The rest of it was weird, sure, but Sirius was alive.
It was only then that Harry turned his attention to the battle and found that it had stopped entirely. It was as though none of them had seen a dragon before. Harry huffed, smoke blowing from his nostrils, and searched the room for Bellatrix. Had he been a wizard, he might have reached for his wand and for every single spell that didn't benefit a light wizard to use. In this form, he had better recourse.
Instinct had him take a deep breath.
Rage had him blow it back out as fire, burning Bellatrix and the Death Eaters nearby to a crisp before they had the time to flee the scene. Harry had the faintest thought that later he might find himself affected by the deaths, but for now all he felt was the overwhelming satisfaction that he had destroyed the threat to Sirius.
Anyone who was a threat to his mate would be eliminated. Voldemort appeared for only a moment, disappearing before Harry's fire had completely engulfed him. Harry scoured the room with his now excellent vision, searching for more threats. His gaze landed on Fudge, but Remus stepped in front of him, shaking his head and saying something. Harry huffed, glaring, and acknowledged the fact that Fudge wasn't a threat at the moment. He looked like a faint wind would topple him.
Harry's attention was drawn when he heard his name said from under his wing. Harry tucked his head under his wing to look at Sirius, reluctant to allow the world to enter the little bubble he'd made around Sirius. The world had hurt Sirius too many times. Harry couldn't let it do so another time.
"Harry," Sirius said again, reaching out slowly to touch Harry's scaled snout. Once sure of his welcome, he rubbed the scales, and Harry closed his eyes halfway in delight at his mate's care. "It's time to come back. Don't get me wrong, I like this look on you, but I like your voice, too."
Harry huffed at him, keeping the smoke and fire to a minimum. He liked this form. Everything was suddenly so very clear; he could remember what a mess this past year has been emotionally, but it felt like he was looking at it all from far away. There was Sirius, and then very far down the list, there was everything else.
"Besides, I don't have a good dragon's den for you. I barely have enough room for Buckbeak. I need more warning if Grimmauld Place needs to become a nice den for your scaley side." Sirius patted the side of Harry's snout. His hand was smaller than one of Harry's teeth. "Come on, Harry. For me?"
There wasn't much that Harry could deny his mate. Nor himself, because he did want to speak to Sirius again, to look at him with human eyes and to marvel at him, wondering how he could have ever thought of Sirius as anything but his. Harry closed his eyes the rest of the way and focused. Both human Harry and dragon Harry were him, just two sides of a galleon, but for the moment he needed hands instead of wings.
When Harry opened his eyes, Sirius' hand rested against his cheek against his snout, and Harry's was leaning against him. He felt closer now than he had as a dragon. Not only because he was once again smaller than Sirius, but because Sirius' hand felt so warm against his bare skin, and all Harry wanted to do was be closer.
"Hi, Sirius," Harry said, staring into Sirius' gray eyes. He was no longer in his dragon form; human thoughts kept trying to find their way into his head, but the most important thing hadn't changed. Sirius.
Amusement gained entry into Sirius' gaze. "Thanks for the save."
"I couldn't let you die."
Harry intended to say more, but it was then that the rest of the Order seemed to decide that Harry's brief phase of scales and fire was over, and he was safe to approach. Sirius took a step back once he was assured Harry could stand on his own two feet. Harry missed his mate's presence immediately. Still, it was good to assure himself that his friends and the Order members were fine, if in a state of shock.
It was decided that Harry would spend the night at Grimmauld Place, getting pointers on the animagus transformation to make sure that he didn't pop out the scales the next time he grew angry at someone at Hogwarts. Harry had a gut feeling that his dragon side wasn't simply an animagus transformation, but he didn't argue. Hours of training and debriefing came to an end and Harry was sent up to the bedroom he'd shared with Ron over the summer. He was there only for as long as he needed to be, taking a shower and changing clothes before slipping out of the bedroom.
Harry passed Remus in the hallway, but Remus didn't stop him.
"He's your mate, isn't he?" Remus asked with a sigh, his voice quiet so that they wouldn't be overheard.
Harry nodded. "I saved him. He's mine."
"That's not quite how it works," Remus said, gently. "Come find me later. Werewolves and dragons aren't the same, but we have some things in common, I think."
"Alright," Harry agreed. He made a face. "I know that he has to agree to be mine. He has to like being mine. That's the only way this works."
"You have to want to be his, too. There's more to this than instinct."
Harry waved those words away. "He's Sirius. Of course I want to be his."
He would find Remus again later. At the moment, all that mattered was that he had been away from his mate for too long. Harry was glad that his fifth year at Hogwarts was soon to be over. Soon, it would be just him and Sirius. Harry had no intention of returning to Privet Drive and he doubted that the Order would be willing to send him there when his draconic powers were still so new.
Harry knocked gently, then slipped into Sirius' room. Sirius had been in bed, turned away from the door. When he looked Harry's way, he huffed and made room for Harry on the bed. Harry didn't waste a second before finding himself in Sirius' embrace. In this form, he didn't have the clarity of mind he had as a dragon, but everything in him still pointed Sirius' way. Harry could admit to himself now that it always had. It was only that before today, he hadn't known what it meant and hadn't listened to it. He was no good with feelings; he'd had to be knocked over the head with them to understand just how much Sirius meant to him.
Sirius was warm and so very close. Harry breathed in deep, relaxing for the first time all day. There were things he desperately needed to say, but it was too cozy to say it, too easy to fall asleep in the darkness of Sirius' bedroom.
"Don't say it," Sirius murmured into the dark. "Not yet. I'm not ready for this, sweetheart."
Harry pressed closer in wordless intimacy. "But someday you will be?"
"I will be. It feels inevitable." Sirius' eyes were barely visible in the dark when Harry raised his head to meet them, but his touch was warm and gentle. "In the very best of ways."
"I'll be here," Harry promised, both dragon and human at once, gazing at the first and most important member of his hoard. Morning would come and with it the chaos of life. For now, there was only him and his mate.