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Chapter Text

Elune's Pebble

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This is a Harry Potter and World of Warcraft crossover. I've enjoyed both worlds, but both have some… Issues with how they're presented. For content, I think this fic is best described as Adventure/Worldbuilding/A little romance? Eh, we'll see where it goes. Harry's making new friends, and will be going to new places. Early Warcraft peeps are invented characters, but unless I wanted Harry to befriend VIPs and Dragon Aspects by chapter three, that was needed.

As far as magic goes, Ley-lines, Runes as a component of permanent magic, and not all magicals having the exact same potential are in this story. (Harry can handle big stuff like the Patronus, Neville can manage a lot of smaller spells better, and Ron hasn't found what he is really good at yet.) I try to make everything I can make sense. Dragons don't like wearing clothing because it isn't comfortable over their scales, and abstain from armor because no one wants to look like Deathwing. All those Goblin Rebellions? They might not completely be the fault of the mean Wizards not respecting their ‘culture.’

I'm not a fan of bashing stories, but there's a problem with cannon Dumbledore. His actions are inconsistent with what his image is. Others have explained better than I could that he isn't a coherent person as much as he is a plot device. My Albus simply failed his Frostmourne moment to a much less drastic effect. Instead of saying "Yeah Muradin, let's get the hell out of here." Albus said "Oooh, shiny!" It's my attempt to make an inconsistent thing consistent, and hopefully it comes out better than if I'd made him the Dark Lord of lemon drops and spider webs.

This is practice for me, before I enter the realm of original literature, I want to practice playing in someone else's sandbox first. I don't own anything owned by Blizzard or JK.

Thoughtful reviews are super helpful.

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Chapter 1: Worlds Bridged or the Dawn of the Desperate Dragons

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    “Tendrion, are you sure this is the only way? You’ve led us well so far, I don’t think I could do half so good a job.” In a cave, dark but for a few torches casting shadows deep below the surface, stood two creatures most would say are straight out of mythology. Reptilian features, quadrupedal, tails tipped with thick blunted spikes, and large wings now folded against their backs marked them as dragons.

    Physically they appeared very similar, with just some slight differences in the colors of their scales, and a difference in size that might mark one as being older. In the near darkness, the only thing to be told of their hides was that they bore some dark shade. The air was humid, condensation dripped from the ceiling in places where the stones were cooler than the air, proof of water flowing not far away.

    “Ralion, we are out of time, and out of places to run. We are exhausted, our muscles strained, we’re wounded. Caliona needs more help than I can give her. ‘Borrowing’ a priest back in Duskwood backfired spectacularly, though I am proud of you for honoring your word. Your sister survived her wounds, and that mortal may hesitate to harm our kind, once her people realize she’s not part of the Cult. But after looking through Karazhan’s Library, I know our plan wouldn’t work in Outland.

    “Here is as good as any other place, better since we’re near a ley-line intersection. I need you to trust me, one more time, my brother in blood and heart.” Finished speaking, the larger dragon just looked at the other, quiet fortitude in his stance.

    The smaller dragon looked to the larger, his every appendage drooping for a moment before he reached out with a forelimb and gripped the other’s shoulder. He tried to speak, but nothing came. Instead he simply nodded and let go, hoping everything that needed to be said had been said already.

    Both dragons began moving again. Their hunters were never far behind, they had been nipping at their heels for weeks now all across the continent. Time was their enemy.

    In the adjacent cavern, a circle was carved into the stone floor, many arcane symbols decorating it and sharp runic script flowing around the outer edge. It was just large enough for the larger dragon to stand in, if he chose to curl his tail. Several torches lit the cavern in a flickering light. Three other dragons lay on the ground, each opened an eye as the two entered. Packs were strewn around and an odd pink sphere lay against the wall; it matched a smaller orb on a bit of chain around Tendrion’s neck, now visible in the greater light. With not much more than a thought, he removed the odd necklace and slipped it over Ralion’s head.

    Four of the five dragons bore similar colors, the fifth seemed to be the odd one out with dark orange on his underside, around his talons, on the bony spikes of his tail, the back of his head and the membrane of his wings; elsewhere he was as black as night. His name was Talion. Next to him, Caliona was a very dark blue nearly everywhere, with slight stripes of purple flowing from her face, down her sides and to the tip of her tail; her wing membranes were black near the bones they lead from, fading to dark blues a little further down. On Caliona’s other side rested Vespiona, a creature with dark purple wings, just a few shades lighter than the streak that encompassed her from face to tail, above legs and an underside that was a purple so dark that even in sunlight it often appeared black.

    The smaller of the two entering the room was Ralion, and his colors matched Vespiona, his sister. Half again the size of Ralion, Tendrion was a creature painted like a piece of glacial ice: a blue that calls to mind old, deep ice everywhere except where it faded to a lighter shade for the outer third of his wing membrane.

    None of the five looked particularly great. Exhaustion had set in, seen in the way they carried themselves, in the way the three reclining feel their eyes drooping shut against their will. Ribs could be seen clearly on each one, reminders of the times they’d been forced to choose between taking time to hunt and surviving another day. Their scales were notched and cracked in places; caked in grime and mud in others, showing none of the healthy gleam that ought to be visible. The blue female on the ground had bandages wrapped around her throat, and something dark was seeping through. (Though given the few and subtle differences between genders it wasn’t easy for without a lot of contact with the dragons to tell the difference.) But when Tendrion stepped forward with a purpose, they gave him their attention, all eyes on him, save the one on the Black drake that had swollen shut.

    “This is it my friends. Our best chance is now. I’m going to start the ritual, as soon as a portal opens, use the speak-stones to double check there’s something on the other side. If there is, take the sphere and run for it.” Talion, the black and orange drake started to raise his head to speak, but Tendrion cut him off. “I won’t be coming with you. I don’t know if there was ever a chance for all five of us to get off this rock, but at least I can give you four a chance.”

    Taking a deep breath, Tendrion made eye contact with each of them. “Caliona, you have done well at curbing some your worst tendencies. Remember, violence might be needed at times, cruelty is not. Vespiona,” Here, he looked tenderly at the purple female. “you have been a wonderful part of my life, I am thankful for the time we had. Talion, it wasn’t out of pity or selfishness that I took you under my wing. I hope someday you understand why I felt like we were so much alike.”

    Taking a deep breath, he turned to his last companion. “Ralion, in all the time we’ve been as brothers, you have given me more hope than you can imagine. So many times I’ve seen you almost understand the truth. All of my lessons you took to heart bolstered me when I had nearly faltered. Lead them well.”

    Ignoring the moisture in his eyes, Tendrion stepped forward to examine the circle and hastily added two marks to the Draconic script to the existing runes, two proper nouns etched in his own fresh blood. Turning back, he stepped around to Talion’s side, helping him up, ignoring the wheeze of pain. “The four of you, around the circle at the cardinal points, now. Now matter what happens, no matter what I or any voice you hear say, I need you all to trust me and stay silent. I haven’t brought you this far from the war to let you die now. Keep in the front of your minds this: I will never betray you . I will never let you be harmed if I can help it. You’ve trusted in me so far, just do it this one last time.”

    In a moment, the five had walked or been drug to their places. Tendrion cut his forearms anew and filled the outer circle with fresh blood. That done, he grasped every scrap of magic that was his birthright, every scrap that his flames had stolen and poured it all into the circle. Runes lit up and an odd cadence, almost beyond their hearing started to thrum. Drakes (“Drake” being the third being the third level of their development, after the “egg” and “whelp” stages but before the “dragon” stage.) usually had a lot of problems using magic, not so much for the fact that they lacked the power, but because they had yet to develop the capacity for fine control, resulting in inefficient spell casts. (Essentially making mistakes in weaving the energy, causing spells to either not work or require more power for the same effects.) Using a carefully crafted rune array, however, to shape the energy negated this weakness. Tendrion had been working on this array in his head for months, and finished refining it during his trip through the Great (and greatly disorganized ) Library at Karazhan.

    Around him, the others began pouring their magic into the circle’s focus, though they’d hold back a bit. This was his plan, and everything he had was going into it. Not, of course, that the amount of magic they were pouring in was anywhere near enough for what they wanted to achieve. Tearing a hole between worlds was a vastly draining exercise, if you knew where they were relative to each other. If you had people working on both sides to accomplish your task. If you were trying to open a new tear to you knew not where, it required an almost impossible amount of magical energy.

    Thus came the second part of his plan, and the one he most feared. Not just because his request could be turned down, but because he knew the powers that held the minds of those he cared for above all others in an iron grip would force them to see it as betrayal. Power thrummed now through the circle now; their magic pulling wisps of power from deep beneath Azeroth’s surface, the often misunderstood ley-lines. The last addition to his circle came into play now. As power began to flow from the veins of the world, a pulse was sent out to the lesser of the two entities. Tendrion had inscribed them last to keep them secret, for they had often been enemies of those he fought and bled with. Or, to be more direct, they were the enemies of the dark gods that had burrowed into the very depths of his friend’s minds.

    Taking a deep breath, and gathering resolve that these four, at least, if not all their kin, would breathe free after today, he spoke at the same moment all present felt a great weight, a great presence fall on them. No matter the distance, they had been SEEN by something greater than themselves. “Cenarius, Lord of the Forest, I call for your council and blessings, that you would allow me a brief moment to give an offering and plead before She who birthed you.” Some of those words were important, spoken in an old tongue, not just for the ceremony, but hopefully for getting the demigod to hear those who he would rightfully look upon as enemies. Opening eyes he didn’t recall closing, he looked at his friends, his lover, the brother he trusted above all others. As he knew, there was betrayal on all four; but as he’d hoped there was something more on Ralion’s face, as if he was trying to understand something beyond him.

    Beyond the circle of his friends, the cave seemed to fall away. It was replaced with a vast monolithic forest, lit faintly by small rays of moonlight filtering down through the branches. And in the shadows, a large silhouette approached. “Who dares Call on me?”

    “I am Tendrion. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only free Twilight Dragon that has survived to maturity.” He couldn’t afford to look at his friends now, he had to keep eye contact with the demi-god. He knew that greater beings could read his life through his eyes and see any deceit in them. That is why he had to be very careful to broadcast his honest intentions.

    “A bold claim.” A figure stepped into the light. In physical size, it was not vastly larger than the drakes, resembling a centaur; with the addition of cloven hooves, antlers, long ears, and one arm that ending in wooden claws instead of the fairly normal hand on the right. If not for the sense about him, one would say he’d been infested with some kind of flowering vine, but somehow, it just felt like a part of him; it emphasized that he was a creature of the forest, or that the forest was an extension of him . His presence, the sheer force of it was almost overwhelming when directed on the five young creatures before him.

    As Cenarius peered into the five, especially the one in the center of the circle, he appreciated just how young those in front of him actually were. The Black drake was the oldest by far, having grown at the normal rate for the five original Dragonflights; he was about twelve years old. The biggest Twilight drake, he seemed to be about five; obviously the Cult had found a way to greatly hasten their growth. The others were just a little bit younger than that. It struck the Forest Lord that these four should have still been whelps, playing under the watchful eyes of a Broodmother, not sent off to war. As the forest lord continued to ponder those before him, he looked into the mind of center drake. The creature was maintaining eye contact, almost offering his thoughts to him. With an amused thought, he took up the drake’s invitation.

    And, it was an invitation. Tendrion was trying to show the Guardian of the Forest his whole life. From vague impressions inside his egg, of fear not his own, of strange sounds outside, of being roughly moved. Of coming to rest in a new place, of something wrong pacing near his egg, of pain and voices whispering to him, of something washing over him in his shell. Of the pain as his old Dragonflight was torn from him, and his magic and body changed as he became a Twilight dragon.

    Of the worse things to come as something awful walked among the stolen eggs, of voices that whispered and corrupted and tried to warp him into a monster. Of the fear, the torture that seemed unending, that didn’t just make him afraid but also so very angry that they dared to hurt him. Of coming so very, very close to breaking, to giving in and accepting those voices as his truth, as his gods . Of that oily darkness outside his shell moving on just moments before he would have given his loyalty to anything , just to make the pain stop. Of spending the time left to him in his egg forming a resolve to never be a slave to those things that tried to break him, to hurt them somehow.

    The Forest Lord saw his hatching through his own eyes, of how the whelps turned on each other and killed the weakest; how one of his siblings attacked him and he had to fight or die. Of the Broodmother watching him try to show mercy to his insane sibling as it lay wounded below him and knowing, knowing without a doubt that if he was caught being merciful this day, or any other, he would join those that were disposed of as unworthy . Of ending that whelp’s life, and hiding how it tore at him to do it, just to live another day.

    He saw the little dragon begin training to kill the other Dragonflights, of the indoctrination that was forced on them. He saw this little whelp feeling so very, very alone as he saw the flaws in the logic that was presented to them, that painted the mortal races and Dragonflights as villains, and the Twilight as heroes. He saw the whelp grow into a drake in the flames of their Broodmother, saw the drake fly to war in Hyjal.

    Saw what happened when he saw uncorrupted dragons for the first time, how he wanted to stop and simply talk to them, to know what their lives were like. And Cenarius felt the drake’s despair when his brothers and sisters fell before them as drakes and dragons of the Red, Blue, and Green Flights tore into them with so much zeal. How he fought them, letting his disappointment morph into rage at ones he’d known all his short life falling to the ground, at their lives snuffed out as if they were animals and not victims.

    He saw the drake harden his heart and fight on the wrong side of the war, lost and without purpose until one day he saw a Green drake limping away into the forest from a battle; of knowing that this was something he could do. He saw the drake force other pursuers away, telling them that this was his kill, and he wanted to have fun with it before she died. Saw the knowing smirks on his brothers as they turned away, felt the disgust at what he’d implied.

    Cenarius saw him stalk the drake into a small clearing and tell her to stay there until night fell. Saw him talk with her, almost begging her for any knowledge about the corruption that plagued his kind while he rubbed her blood onto his talons and face and underside. Saw him bind her wound with a bit of scrap cloth before holding her down and forcefully bringer her to arousal, apologizing the whole time just so that the scents on him would be right. Saw him look at her, terrified and beg her to tell no one but her Aspect, that they had so many spies in their ranks she should trust no one. Saw the horror in her eyes as she realized that the stains and scents he’d taken from her would paint the lie that he’d raped and gutted her, saw the horror that a possibly noble creature would need to fake being a monster.

    Cenarius saw her ask him to join her, to switch sides. Saw the rejection and why, when he admitted that he had hope for his Flight, that there must be something that could help them; if he joined her now he would never earn their trust again. When enough time had passed he left her with a promise that he would spare as many as he could, until he was caught and tortured to death. Saw him take flight, building a hope he already suspected was false in his mind, saw him adopt a false expression of satisfaction as he turned towards the latest camp.

    Cenarius saw a trend develop; foes spared whenever he could, eggs hidden from the collection teams that stole them. Saw a daring raid that saw two red drakes and a bag filled with whelps stolen from the clutches of the enemy, saw him hand the bag over to the Red Drakes beyond the Twilight Cult’s camp, with the condition that they all be cared for and kept away from the war, the Reds not knowing about the many Twilight whelps mixed in with the Reds and Greens, behaving themselves because he told them to . He asked the two drakes to be at a certain point, and to bring enough paint to make him look like a Red or Green for a few hours, and to bring something to get if off after.

    Cenarius saw him lead those two and a few of their most trusted friends on a daring raid against the Cult. Saw the true hatred he had for those that had chosen to side with the darkness as he tore through cultists he had earlier that day been politely obedient to. Saw his trap work perfectly, and the two towering Faceless Corrupters fall along with the cult. Felt his vindication when he told the Reds that these things were what bound the stolen eggs to the will of the Old Gods, and how he had hated them since he was in his shell and he couldn’t fight or flee and they hurt him until he nearly gave in. How he convinced the others to take all the eggs with them, that they might have saved even some of the Twilight eggs from his Flight’s madness, that this was his price for helping them. Over a hundred whelps and twice as many were eggs brought back to their side that night.

    (And this, Cenarius had heard of himself, how they had brought the rescued dragons directly to the Dragonqueen herself, and she had ordered the Twilight eggs and whelps destroyed with misty eyes, and that those five drakes had stood before her and said No. The rumors had circulated that they demanded a private audience with her, and that afterwards she’d sent the Twilight rescues off somewhere with a Broodmother and a few trusted Night Elves too injured to fight a war but hale enough to wrangle whelps, that she was reserving judgment on them for now.)

    He saw them make their escape, and Tendrion lean into the soft touches as the Reds split, the males making off for their lines laden with embersilk bags filled to the brim with such precious cargo, and two females staying behind to clean the paint off him and give him what comfort they could. Saw his confusion that they would be gentle with him, and their excuse that a bath and some lingering scents would explain a great deal if his absence had been noted.

    That was the point where Cenarius had seen enough. He briefly looked at the other four, but he could tell they were mired in the darkness just as any other of their kind. An oily darkness clung to them, and he could see in their minds betrayal and anger directed at Tendrion. But, as he looked closer, into their minds he saw why they were with this (sadly) unique drake. They were trying to understand, especially the purple male at Tendrion’s right side; the darkness kept them from seeing the truth, but they wanted to. Moving back to stand directly before Tendrion, he gave a nod of acknowledgment, he’d seen enough. Deception while being so open was almost impossible, so he’d reached a decision. If it were within his power, he would help this creature.

    “You did not lie. Tell me, what is it that you seek? What is your purpose here?” A part of Cenarius always approved when any creature stood before him without fear, even knowing what he was; and this little drake who, now that he looked beyond the eyes, was bruised, bloody, and half starved looked at him with a little more confidence now.

    “I wish to send these four to a distant world, a place where they can live free, where they won’t die without ever standing in the light, where they can understand what is denied them here. I can’t ask for perfect lives for them, but if the Goddess is willing I just want them to have a chance to Live . Not die as slaves, never seeing their chains.”

    “That is no small thing, even for my mother. Do you have anything to offer for this boon you seek?”

    For the first time since Cenarius had appeared, Tendrion looked away from him and looked each of his companions in the eye. Turning back to the figure that towered over them, metaphorically if not physically, he once again looked looked the Forest Lord in the eyes, as if daring him to detect any lies. “I offer myself. I offer my service, body and soul in whatever task she would ask of me for as long as my body, bones, or soul exists.”

    Everyone else drew in a deep breath. “Old,” is certainly a subjective concept, for instance, a human is old in their seventies. A dragon is old around the time they hit 15,000 years of life. Few make it that far, due to conflicts, disease and such. Azeroth’s Dragon Aspects, the leaders of their flights, are timeless in a way few others are, the four survivors of that title are over twenty-thousand years old. No one involved here doubted Elune, the goddess of the moon, mother to Cenarius, lacked the power to force such a lifespan on a creature like them. Dragon bones tend not to degrade easily, one need only visit the great Dragonblight in the cold north to see bones from the dawn of time still entombed within the ice. Naturally, many creatures feel a soul is immortal, in one form or another.

    “Brother...” The purple drake had began to interrupt, falling silent when all eyes turned to him for interrupting. Dropping his eyes, he merely choked out “Thank you.” He did not understand the things that were denied him, but he could see the weight of the sacrifice.

    Cenarius felt as if he was intruding in this moment, so he turned his focus to a beam of moonlight in his mental plane. Though he had been raised on Azeroth by his father and Ysera, he had often spoken to his mother and come to know her when he was young. After so many years there was little left to say, but he knew she would still listen to him. Within his mind he called out to her, and began explaining what he had learned.

    Long ago, before hostile forces invaded their world, before betrayal broke the unity of the Dragon Aspects, before all but the eldest races of the world drew their first breaths, Elune had conceived a child from Malorne, the first Protector of Nature, a being and force of the world. Cenarius took much after his father, and thus she could not keep him with herself; as a creature of Nature, of the Forest, he needed to walk the world below. Thus, she gave him to his father to raise, and asked Ysera, the Aspect of the Green Dragonflight to help him. It was a decision she had never regretted.

    Elune rarely acted, for reasons known only to herself, but she often watched. When her son called to her she already knew this dragon offering himself to her, for she had seen him before. She had seen him spare daughters and sons of Ysera, had seen the first time he freed whelps meant for sport, when he’d been caught and fled. She chose to give a vision to some of her priests and this odd Twilight dragon was spared after others of his own kind had torn him the sky, when he had moved to land on his own wing instead of the whelps he carried.

    While dead to the world in agony, her followers had moved in and wiped out all who those who seen him escape, rescued the whelps and mended his injuries. That night, Tendrion awoke bruised but whole, not knowing if he’d even broken anything after all. When he crept up on the encampment he’d been stationed at, it was burning; many corpses of the Cult but few of the Flight lay there, and he introduced himself as a straggler who had gone out for a lucky hunt at the next fortification.

    Instead of giving up on his nightly activities, he simply learned to be better at them. He continued until the whole of Twilight Cult had been pushed out of Hyjal and blended in with the retreating drakes. He had provided a relief of suffering to Ysera, to see at least some of her lost children coming home. This was worth rewarding. She gathered her power and began shaping it as she replied to her son. Her awareness stretched out, far beyond the world on which they stood, searching for a place for those that followed this Champion to call home. Perhaps… Perhaps those broken could help each other, could grasp hope and the future together. Yes, there was the prefect place for them, the best refuge for these drakes would be a place where they were needed in turn.

    Back in the cavern, as the real world faded back into being, Cenarius spoke as he too faded out of sight. “My mother accepts your offering, and will grant your request.”

    Cenarius saw the relief in the one who called for him, the joy that his friends had a chance was a pleasure. But watching those emotions sour and turn to dread as he began to worry for himself only now , after the others were safe, proved a few more words were needed. “You need not fear. Though you do not know it, you have already done much for which my mother would thank you, Tendrion. I do not think your service to her will be unpleasant, Twilight Champion.”

    With that, everything else fell away completely, leaving only the five dragons in a cave. While their attention had been focused elsewhere a great deal of power had built up in the circle and a great thrumming sound could be heard. Tendrion looked around him, seeing his friend’s looks of horror, ( For him! Not of him!) and he only gave them a smile as he felt a great pull on himself, and then he was elsewhere. For a moment he could still see that cave below the earth where he had been standing, as the runes flared and a brilliant blue portal opened. He saw Ralion shake off all his emotion, and step through bravely. Then that was it. He looked around, but he couldn’t see, or rather couldn’t comprehend any of his surroundings. Ah, so here started his service.

    Slowly, at first, the dragon felt a presence come close to him. And then his skin started to burn. He tried to be strong, but he was so very tired, so weary of everything in his life. As his limbs locked in place on their own he started to cry. Despite everything he had done, the lives he’d saved, he was only five years old.

    Something seemed to wrap around him then. And though he could feel parts of himself flaking away, the pain ended. Then, he heard a voice that comforted him. “ Be at peace, my new Herald, my Twilight Champion. That which poisoned you in your old life must be burnt away, so that you can live as my servant. Rest now, let go of your sorrows and old sufferings. You have been brave, now sleep. When you wake, you will know your place as my hand in the world below.”

    Somehow, it felt to Tendrion that every sleepless night in his life caught up to him at once. His body was still changing, but that felt unimportant. He gave a great yawn, and looked at the presence he felt around him. He felt so very, very small now. “Can, can you use me to help them? To save them and give them hope?”

    Inside his own head he didn’t know if he was talking about his old Flight or the ones they were hurting. Both, he decided, it must be both. Tendrion, the newly dubbed Twilight Champion and Herald of Elune received no answer, but could almost physically feel peace wrapped all around him. As he fell to slumber he thought that he must have asked the right question. A smile graced his changing face as he fell into the calmest sleep he’d had since he was back in his egg, before he’d been stolen away.

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A/N: This fic was inspired by Coup de What? ( https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6981143/1/Coup-de-What ) and The Words of Dragons (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11946694/1/The-Words-of-Dragons)

Chapter Text

I own neither franchise.

Chapter 2: A Castle far from Home

A vast distance, for now, from the band of dragons there was a boy, tossing and turning in his sleep. He had unruly black hair on his head, and many scars scattered about his body. The most prominent was on his forehead, above his right eye. His life, since he was a toddler, had never been easy. As a child, he was forced to work hard around the house where he lived. He was underfed, and forced to sleep in a space most people would merely keep cleaning supplies. He had no friends until he was eleven years old, and the relatives he stayed with made sure to constantly let him know he was neither wanted nor loved.

Many nights, nightmares plagued his sleep, leaving him tired for the next day. Long experience at his “home” had taught him to have them silently. When he left his home to come to a boarding school, life was better in many ways, but worse in others. He had as much food as he wanted, though it took time for him to realize that. He had many people that wanted to touch a legend that had existed with him not knowing,not benefiting from for the last ten years; and many opportunities to meet children his own age without his cousin beating them away. Sadly, the lesson life had taught him was any attention was bad and would see him hurt. He wanted to have friends, but somehow only managed two; though they were close. Except when they weren’t.

Since he’d come to the school, the boy had found himself fighting possessed professors, the apex predator in the basement, and demons that lived only to destroy all the happiness and joy in the world. Last year, he’d been forced into a tournament, made to compete in what was almost a blood sport because someone else had put his name into contention. He’d flown on a piece of wood against a dragon, and survived both a maze a duel with a madman. When he made it back with nothing but a bit of luck, having brought a corpse that had once been a fellow competitor and student, he received no comfort, no counseling.

The only man that could have cleared things up, instead of being questioned, was summarily executed. A strange move for a society that had a viable truth serum. The boy was sent back to live with people that made a point in their day to let him know he was despised, and cut off from communicating with any person that actually cared about him. He was only let back into the loop when someone, probably the same government that had silenced the man that could have validated his story, tried to, and nearly did, not just murder him, but destroy his soul.

When he had been ‘saved,’ as par for the course, after he had dealt with the danger himself, he found that all his friends had been living together with his Godfather, (Who was only prevented by living with Harry all the time by the fact that he had an unwarranted kill-on-sight order from this same government.) hiding in an invisible house without him. He was greeted with the news that, once again, no progress had been made in getting his Godfather’s name cleared, but instead he was about to head into a show trial; as he had become a pawn in the chess game between his headmaster and the government.

Naturally, instead of celebrating his continued life-with-a-soul, he was moved into cleaning a house as apparent busywork. Now in the house, he received the normal amount of love and support from the adults around him, with the addition of a godfather who was not wholly in his right mind but was trying . No counseling was offered, no trip to a certified healer to be sure he was healthy after his ordeal. Just the knowledge that everyone who read the paper was slowly being convinced he was dangerously insane.

As the year had progressed, things continued to get worse. He was told to keep his head down and bear it as insults and hate we re piled atop him. Just recently, he had been convinced to fight back, to teach his fellow students that were deliberately being left defenseless in the face of a coming war. Now though, his night had become a bit strange. His regularly scheduled nightmare had just been banished and now he was lucidly dreaming of a forest bathed in moonlight. He saw figures in the distance, blurry. He felt peaceful, relieved of all his burdens. Suddenly he awoke, with purpose flowing in his veins, rested and full of energy like he’d rarely felt before . Quickly and quietly he sprung out of bed and grabbed pants, no time for a shirt.

Stepping into the bathroom of his dorm, he called for his best hope. “Dobby!” What came when he called was a short, very strange creature with huge eyes and long, d rooping ears. The boy, Harry Potter, was quick to silence him. “I need help, Dobby. I need you to go to the girls dorm and get Hermione for me without waking her roommates, okay? Just tell her to bring her wand and some shoes and to meet me in the common room now . Tell her I need her and that it’s important.”

Seeing how serious his favorite human was, the little elf popped away, much more quiet ly than he arrived. Harry only stopped to grab essential items, his wand, an invisibility cloak, a magical map that would help with avoiding unwanted interruptions, and shoes without socks. He tore down the stairs, invisible. Only a few moments passed and his friend came down the other set of stairs. Her hair was incredibly disheveled, and as she came towards him, hi m having t ossed the hood of the cloak off his head, she was not happy. As she started to wind up a head of steam, he quickly covered her mouth with his hand and spoke in an urgent whisper.

“I need you to trust me. Just for tonight, okay? I need my best friend to believe me and give me help when I need it. Can you do that?” Shocked by his seriousness, she only nodded and slipped under the cloak with him. It was very, very rare that her friend was so serious.

It took her longer than it should have to notice that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. As her mind slowly woke more and more questions flared up, begging to be asked, but that would defeat the whole point of sneaking. When the reached a crossroad and saw a dot labeled Argus Flich approaching on the map, she was shocked when Harry simply pulled out his wand and sent a quiet stunning spell that dropped him instantly. In fact, she froze in shock until he carefully gripped his arm and guided her away. As they continued she heard him whisper. “Dobby, can you get him into his bed? Maybe do something to make him think he got drunk or something?”

Unseen, but still heard the small elf whispered back. “Mean Filchy will get to bed, no worries Great Sir Harry Potter!”

Unable to contain all of her questions at this point, Hermione blurted out the first thought on her mind. “What was that! That was so aggressive, just attacking him like that!” She expected Harry to start spluttering immediately, instead he just turned to face her calmly from where he’d been reading the map.

“I think there’s lives at stake tonight. He’ll be fine in the morning, I can’t let anything get in our way tonight.”

“Harry, if that’s true we should get a professor right now.”

The young man let out a snort. “Think for a moment Hermione, when has that ever helped in any situation we’ve been in? No, I don’t have time for Snape to insult me and a father I’ve never know n , Umbridge to give me detention, McGonagall to dither and do nothing and say that Dumbledore will take care of it and then for Dumbledore to give me a long speech that says nothing important and then coyly wink and let me do everything myself with no useful help. There isn’t any time, just trust me for a little longer, please.”

As her brain continued to unfog, Hermione had to admit that while she didn’t like what he said, he wasn’t exactly wrong but somehow her mind started building small arguments against what she accepted as true almost immediately. This should have been a red flag to her, but somehow it wasn’t. Her mind became embroiled in argument and counter-argument and she trusted in Harry to guide her, having had a good deal of practice sneaking under this very cloak.

Eventually, the two reached the seventh floor, and came before a certain, very odd portrait. After one last check of his map, Harry left her behind with a whispered “This might take a few tries to get what I want, just watch the map for a few moments.” She watched him move back and forth, muttering for a few moments, no door appearing for a time, until the third attempt.

Quickly following him in, she was shocked when the room was pure black obsidian, something she’d read was used in certain specialized ritual rooms. Seconds after they entered, the door faded away until the only thing left in the expansive room was a circle that looked to have been carved in the floor and then had molten gold poured in. Around the edge of the circle was a complicated rune array, in a language she had never seen before. She watched Harry walk to the edge, place his hands over two specific runes before they started to glow. That glow slowly carried around the edge until the circle and golden runes were all lit by a gentle blue light.

“Okay Harry. Explanation, now.” She said as sternly as she could. As the glow from the runes became the only lighting in the room she realized that this was the first time she’d seen Harry without a shirt on. There were far more scars than she thought there should be on his back and arms.

Letting out a deep breath, Harry began. “We’re early. Okay, do you believe in life on other worlds? And that there’s probably some where the people live better and some that live worse than us?”

“Yes, the sheer number of stars, of likely worlds make that almost a certainty. But the distances involved are such that science still has no idea how…” Her head snapped around and she stomped around the circle to look in his eyes, his hands were still on the circle, not having moved yet. “Harry, are you, right now, contacting another world? Is that what this circle does? And what is this runic language?”

“I don’t know what language it is exactly, just that it matches another one far, far away that is about to activate. I was having my usual nightmare tonight, when it just stopped, and I knew I was dreaming, and then I was far, far away. I saw figures in the distance, pleading with something. I can’t really explain the rest, but I felt something touch me, and then I knew how to get this room set up.”

He looked up and Hermione saw tears in eyes that did not shed them easily. “They’re desperate Hermione. If they don’t get away they’re going to die. Tonight, I can help them.” Another deep breathe and he continued. “That’s all I really know, that they’re desperate and trying to flee. And I can help them.”

Many, many thoughts of how this was a bad idea flowed through her mind then. Yet, somehow she thought she could trust her friend tonight. Despite the dangers, there was an excitement in the air as she watched the cadence of the light flicker momentarily, then start to grow. “Was that it, is it starting?”

“No, but I think it’s started to pull from something now. It’s drawing power from the castle now. And something deeper too.”

With a breathy gasp, she connected the dots in her head. “The ley-lines! Seven lines meet under the castle, that’s why it was built here. It’s the most magically powerful location in the world. You must be able to feel something through the runic circle, can you tell how much power it’s going to take?”

“You’re right, I can feel something from the circle, it’s like it was made just for me, I can feel it starting to suck up as much power as it can to break through.” Closing his eyes again, he focused for a moment. “Holy crap! I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling, but this is a huge power requirement. Like if I stopped halfway through the castle, Hogsmead, and the nearest mountain would be gone from the backlash.” Not even seeing his best friend’s face pale, he continued. “And! That’s nothing, nothing, to what’s powering it on the other side. We’re mostly just receiving what’s been sent, I think.”

More trepidation built in both of them, though neither said anything else for a time as the light increased and an odd hum built in the air. For Harry, this was a great experience as he felt the vast amounts of magic ebb and flow, ready to be sent forth at his command. Then he felt it.

“Hermione, get back! It’s coming now!” Trusting her to stay back far enough, he directed his circle to grab the “line” for lack of a better term, and meld with it. A great light show caused him to focus momentarily on the center of the circle. In the air above, a circle formed. For a moment it was perfectly round, then it distorted into an ellipse.

Inside the ellipse there was nothing for a moment, and Harry felt like something was fighting him. In response , he directed more and more power through the circle, and called for more to be brought up from the earth below. Sweat started to bead on him as the air inside the ellipse shifted, w arped, and then finally tore and suddenly it was done. A great rush of hot, humid air swept through, carrying with it the scent of dust and others unknown. However it worked, the feedback from the runic circle told him it was stable and would remain so for some time. He stood up, stretching his sore back and realizi ng he had nothing to wipe the sweat off himself.

As he started at the portal, he felt an odd sense of calm and anticipation flow through him. It was about six feet tall, and four feet wide at the widest point. The exterior was was a dark blue, cobalt some might call it. Inside that border, it was sky blue and slowly swirling. Looking to his best friend, he saw he standing beside him, looking hesitant. When she briefly met his eyes before turning back to the work of magic before them, she spoke to him.

“Well, at least it doesn’t look like something that’s going to bring in demonic armies or something such. It’s actually sort of beautiful.”

Grabbing her hand as they watched it continue to swirl calmly, he responded. “You’re right. When I stare at it, I feel calm. And there’s something else, but I’m not sure how to say it.”

Not looking away, she prompted him to share when he’d felt like this before. “ Like when I was waiting on my broom for one of those early games second year. When I knew I could win if I played well, and I didn’t need to worry about being the ‘Heir of Slytherin,’ at least for a while. When all that stood before me was something I could accomplish if I played hard and worked for it.” Maybe H ermione didn’t fully understand what he was saying, but she could grasp the general idea. She just held his hand a bit tighter as they waited.

They didn’t have long to wait, standing there before the gently shifting blue light. With no apparent change in the portal itself, a mostly purple quadrupedal figure came through, stumbling on the last step. It seemed as if he was in great pain, as he didn’t even seem to see anything, simply walking a dozen feet from the portal before his legs gave out.

As he met the floor, his eyes seemed to track between the portal, the runic circle below, and the two teenagers standing before it. He briefly took in the scent of sweat before tiredly raising his right claw to his face and speaking towards a small stone c lasped in his claw. He spoke in Draconic, not having any idea what language the humans might speak, and not rightly caring just now. Đ: “Come on through, just keep your wings tight and help Talion through first, bring all the supplies, especially the sphere. And leave the speak-stone paired with this one behind in plain view in front of the portal. ”

Ignored for the moment, the two teens were gaping in shock. This was a dragon, albeit much smaller than the ones they’re seen the previous year. And it was speaking . Quickly pulling out his wand, Harry nudged Hermione. “Get ready to use a levitation spell. I caught something there about wing placement and maybe an injured one coming next.” Not even really surprised at this point, she had her wand in hand as a second dragon, this one black and what would probably be brilliant orange after some cleaning came through .

Instead of walking, this one seemed almost to have been thrown, but was luckily caught by the bare chested teen. With a bit of care, he was l evitated further from the portal, near the first one that came through. A third came through shortly after that, dark blue with just a hint of a purple strip along it’s side. Harry quickly noticed the bandage on her throat that seemed to be leaking a bit. This one carried several bags and a pink sphere about three feet across, an odd item to be sure. Especially since, upon closer inspection, it matched a much smaller version around the first dragon’s neck. Fourthly, and last for now, was a purple dragon with the same colors and markings as the first. She was positively laden with bags. Once through, she sloughed some off and fell to the floor, breathing heavily.

The two teens could see the first one stand on trembling legs and check on each of the three as they now all laid on the cool stone, breathing heavily. Reaching t he blue one , he looked to the f ilthy bandage in dismay, the light in the chamber revealing the dirt caught in it. He looked at Harry, having g uessed him as the leader and then looked back at the filthy bandage.

Replying to that silent request, H arry muttered out: “Well, if that isn’t a request for help, I don’t know what is. Dobby!” After the small guy popped out, startling only Hermione, he spoke in a commanding voice. “Dobby, I need clean bandages, h ot water, disinfectant and some towels. After you get that, I need some water for these guys here. Be careful not to startle them; they’re capable of speech but they’re not in such great shape, okay?”

With a silent nod, the h ouse elf popped away. “Hermione, give me a bit of help with the throat wound and then start looking over the orange one, okay? And if the room can conjure books, give me a phrase that would get us any relevant information to help them.”

Finding herself oddly happy to follow her best friend’s lead, she nodded and thought for only a moment. “We could use an indexed collection of guides to treat injuries of reptilian magical creatures. Sorry, but that’s the best I can think of, these four might l ook like dragon s , but they’re different enough that any specialized spells would probably be wrong.”

Acknowledging with a nod, he decided to just ask the room verbally for what he needed. Low and behold, a wall appeared laden with books, with one on a pedestal in front with a guide to what was there. Also a few drains, because he figured this was going to get messy. Dobby came back quickly bearing buckets of water and towels, followed then by bandages and then more water that he carefully floated in front of the dragons.

Four sets (minus one that was swollen shut) of eyes watched them mistrustfully, as Harry approached what he figured as the leader, towels and bandages under his arms and steaming buckets in his hands. Locking eyes, the dragon motioned for the most injured one to lay down, and gently coaxed her when she hesitated. “Harry, I’m concerned that the orange one has broken ribs at least, and possibly internal injuries. As soon as this one’s safe I’ll see what I can do. Shouldn’t we get them some help beyond the two of us? There might be serious injuries here.”

Sighing as they reached the blue female, he gently started to unwind her old b andages under the watch of the vigilant male. “Who? Hermione, Hagrid can not keep a secret for the life of him even if he was here . In third year, the Ministry wanted to kill Buckbeak on Malfoy’s whim, just to hurt Hagrid. What do you think they’ll do to these creatures now with Umbridge here now?”

That was enough for her to actually wince. “You’re right, other than a few students, who, once again, probably couldn’t keep the secret you’re right. Where will we hide them?”

“We can worry about that later. Just remember not to make any sudden moves or startle them. They’re obviously intelligent, but have been through a lot. I’d guess a war, looking at some of those older scars. I don’t think they were winning either. I just hope Dobby can get everything we need here.”

For a long time, words weren’t needed. Between so much time spent in the infirmary and Hagrid’s creature care class, they were able to work quickly and effectively. Some infection had set in on the neck wound, but apparently the creatures understood disinfectant because when Harry motioned to the watchful one to hold her still he did while he poured it on. The wound was quickly dried and wrapped in clean bandages, and Hermione moved on while Harry stayed to check for other wounds. He cleaned her as he went, using a spell to conjure hot water to wash scales as he found that she liked it hot best. There was a lot of steam coming up as dirt and grime came off.

By the time Harry had finished cleaning her, and he knew for certain now she was a female, everywhere and binding a few other minor wounds, she was soundly asleep. The one watching snorted when her wing, with a membrane that really wasn’t as delicate as it first looked, tried to hold Harry close as she slept. He thought their anatomy was a bit odd, certainly they were like no species that lived on Earth as far as he knew . Seeing Hermione sitting cross-legged by the side of the orange and black dragon with a book in her lap and tapping her wand he figured she had that one under control for now. He moved on to the other purple dragon, guessing from knowing himself that the watcher would want his friends cared for first.

He supposed from the markings that this one was at least a full sibling maybe a twin or however that worked with their kind, of the one that was watching them as if daring the teens to hurt his friends. He heard Hermione stand up and walk over to him after casting a few spells he didn’t catch; when she joined him, she ran her hands along its purple side, frowning.

“Yeah, I know. The blue female was too thin also. What do you think to start them on as far as food? Maybe rabbits if we can get them?”

“Hmm, something small like that would probably be best to start. We really have no idea what might make them sick, but if that doesn’t hurt them, we can move them up to deer pretty quickly. I wanted to ask how you got the hot-water Aquementi to cast.”

“ Slow down during the last third of the wand movement and focus on getting it hot. She liked it really hot, like almost hot enough to burn my skin, so stand back far enough it doesn’t splash back on you.”

“Well, she certainly looks more comfortable now, I think I’ll try it over that far drain a few times. You found a few other things to treat under all that grime, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, these guys haven’t had time to take care of themselves for far too long. Just be careful, I thought she might be going into shock or something like this one is, see the tremors? Enough hot water helped and she nodded off. But stay far away from the nose, I had to use some c loths instead when she started to panic.”

There weren’t any major injuries on this one, some odd scaring though. A few minor things that needed some treating, but the hot water did the trick and she was sound asleep, not even waking with the minor touches of antiseptic. It took time, though. As Harry stopped and stood, he saw his best friend had nodded off right there on the floor. Concerned, he knew why when he felt the bone-deep comforting heat seeping off the orange dragon.

Hmm, a different breed, species, race? than the others I guess, even if they have mostly similar features. Well, Hermione did a good job here, his breathing sounds good and it looks like she found something to help with the bones. I wish I had a… Out of nowhere a blanket appeared and he cast a quick cushioning charm on the floor before draping the blanket over his friend and slipping a pillow under her head quietly. Turning back to the lone dragon still awake he motioned them over to the far drain. He could tell it was hesitant about being touched, but it had a good idea of what was coming, and hot water would feel so much better than slipping into a cold creek as he’d been doing his whole life.

Against his will, Ralion felt every muscle touched by the water relax as the human mage stated to clean him, of all things. He didn’t understand why he’d do this, why he was being helped, being comforted, after all the horrific things he’d done. Tendrion had said he’d hoped Ralion would understand someday, he didn’t know his brother had hated him.

His friends, his little flight, were free of their world. Well, he thought as his eyes turned towards the portal, as long as it didn’t follow t hem . To be honest, Ralion had felt the veil in his mind start to pull away as he arrived but had focused on those his brother had trusted him to look after, only now as his body’s tension started to ease did he start to look inward.

So many memories, so many times he’d killed, caused pain and reveled in it. He could see so much more wisdom in what Tendrion had tried to teach him now. He was a monster. He couldn’t imagine why his brother had stayed with him. Those last words of Cenarius, Tendrion had probably been helping the ‘good guys’ for a long time now. I wish I’d been there, helping to wash some of this blood off my hands. He started to scra pe at his forearms, quickly becoming frantic.

Harry didn’t know quite what to do when the dragon he was cleaning started to shudder before starting to scrape at himself, quickly drawing blood. Not wanting to have those talons turned on him, they were sharp , but not being able to ignore the self-harm he cut off the water and moved to his front and gently moved the dragon’s head and found himself looking into wide, terrified eyes.

Shit. I have no idea what I’m doing here, dear Merlin let my best be enough. Making sure to keep his face welcoming, he focused on the creature before him and spoke from his heart. Ƥ: “Stop. Stop Hurting yourself, please.”

Never having encountered a magical language other than Draconic, the shock was enough to get Ralion to stop tearing into his own arms long enough for Harry to quickly clean the new wounds and bandage them. Those kind eyes that kept looking into his didn’t hurt either. He didn’t actually understand the whole phrase, but “Stop” and “Please” were enough to grasp it was a request to stop the self-mutilation.

As the boy did some spell to dry them both and the ground below them h e suddenly felt heavier than ever before. Aggravating a few bruises, he let his weight go out as he hit the floor. Đ:”And why not? I’m a monster, I’ve always been a monster, I just never saw it before.”

Harry was able to make out the words “ Why,” “monster” and “see” out of that. He could guess the creature thought he was a monster but was confused by the rest. Nevertheless, keeping him talking seemed like a good idea. He was pretty sure he’d slipped into Parseltongue there, so he looked into those scared blue eyes and focused on making himself understood.

Ƥ : “Tell me why you’re a monster, I can only get a few words out of what you’re saying, but try , please.”

At least one of them was getting better at whatever they were doing, Ralion thought. He looked the boy right in his far too caring eyes and spoke as slowly as he could to make him understand why he should hate the creature before him. Đ: “I’m a killer, I’ve killed and tortured and enjoyed it! That’s what I’ve done and thought all my life! I’ve served evil in it’s most true form! I enjoyed it! Never even had a second thought !”

Back in Harry’s head he mulled over what had been said, and what he understood. It was painting an awful picture. Suddenly he thought back to his lessons the previous year, and what was a toss-up for both most effective and most evil Defense A gainst the Dark Arts teacher. (Remus got points for teach ing the Patronus, but in hindsight that should have been taught to a lot more students. Voldemort was pretty evil, but lost points for e xisting as a boil on the back of Quirrel. )

This gave him an idea, because he was pretty sure his new acquaintance was describing something similar. Ƥ: “My people have a spell, an evil spell that earns its caster life imprisonment. It forces a target to obey any command. It can make people kill their families, end their own lives, commit any crime. But, it’s the caster at fault, not the one it’s used on. The one it’s used on is the victim, the same as anyone they hurt while it’s in effect. Do you understand?”

Đ: “ Say that again, please?” And Harry did. At this point he was willing to repeat himself as many times as he needed if it would help.

After a third repetition that was easier to understand than the one before it, and in turn better than the previous; Ralion thought he understood. Đ: “But I can feel the whelps flesh tearing in my talons, the fear of drakes with torn wings falling to their deaths. I felt joy! I was happy being the cause of their deaths!”

Harry had heard that almost perfectly. He gently interrupted. Ƥ: “And what changed? You don’t seem happy about it now.”

Comprehension was catching, it seemed. Ralion answered as best he could though the answer bothered him. Đ: “ I stepped through that portal. I’m so far from home, only Elune knows. I, never, never want to go home. I can’t...”

Ƥ : “ If whatever magic was done to you only let you free once you came here, then no, you can’t. I’ll help you however you can, but life’s not perfect here either. There’s people in this castle that would have you killed because only because it would hurt me , that it would be one more time where I couldn’t save someone. I can get you out, but people would look at you and only see an animal, an animal that they can’t let most of the world see. We have things we call dragons, and they’re sort of like you, but as far as I k now they’re actually just animals. But trusting what I’ve been told, what I’ve read… Well, don’t tell my friend this, but those sources can be wrong.”

Đ: “ I can’t go home. All my kind, all the dragons that look like us, we’re evil. Maybe my brother wasn’t, but he’d have been the only one. We’ve been hunted by a band of the ‘good’ guys for months now, as we were trying to flee. S oon , they’ll find the cave, the portal. I don’t know how I can convince them to spare us. Or even if I should. I had Vespiona,” He gestured to the peacefully sleeping purple drake. “my sister, leave the other speak-stone by the portal. ” Here he handed the small stone still adhering to his right talon until he removed it to Harry. “ I just don’t know what to do, I’m so tired. So very worn .”

Ƥ : “ Get some sleep then. I had a weird dream just before I came here to open the gate on this side, I’ve got enough rest in me to be fine for a long time yet. Tell me how to use the stone and I’ll try to talk them down.”

Ralion was so rung out at this point he could barely keep his eyes open. Đ: “ Just channel a little magic in and speak. It’s a simple version cause I don’t have great control of my magic. As long as that Wyrmrest team doesn’t touch the water they’ll be fine. And, thank you, so very, very much.”

He was asleep before he even finished laying his head down, but Harry was quick with a cushioning charm. At a ‘loud’ thought, he had some heated blankets to place over the drakes, a little extra heat ought to at least keep their muscles relaxed, if nothing else. That done, after quietly checking that his best friend was still asleep he stripped quickly after asking Dobby for a few things from his room. Though, the Room beat the little guy to some comfortable lounge-wear. Poor little Dobby was a bit ticked at that.

He was thinking of so many other things he didn’t think to ask the room for a screen or shower head, just washed in the spray from his own wand. The room had warmed from all the steam so he didn’t think much of leaving his shirt off. He didn’t have any homework with him, or any urge to do any either. Before he sat down and tried to think, he a sked Dobby to fetch the small mirror his godfather had given him. With it in his hand, he spoke directly into the mirror he spoke one name: “Sirius Black.”

It took a few moments, but a man with a clear case of bed-hair and a beard that looked much better than the first time they met answered. “Harry! Is everything all right? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine Sirius. But I’ve had a long night, and could use someone to talk to. Before that, I need to do something, can just do me a huge favor and not say anything for a bit? I need to check something and you can see what I’ve been up to.” Giving Harry a nod, so pleased to be a part of something, to have some news, Sirius silenced his end of the mirror, and was glad he did. He did not see anything close to what he expected when his godson called without a shirt on at f our in the morning .

Harry gathered up some bandages, and walked back to where the dragon who’s name he still didn’t know was soundly sleeping under a heated blanket. Setting the mirror down, Sirius saw him remove the bandage, clean the wound again and carefully wrap it again. Swinging the mirror around, he showed Sirius all four drakes, Hermione asleep on a cushioning charm, and the slowly swirling portal. Moving to the farthest corner of the room, he sank gratefully into a plush r ecliner that appeared as soon as he had a need of it.

When he sank down into the chair he turned the mirror over to show his godfather’s gobsmacked face. “Yeah, I know. That’s sort of how I feel right now.”

Quickly waving his wand to dispel the one-way silencing charm, Sirius really didn’t know where to start. “Those are real, breathing dragons. That you’ve bandaged up, and put to bed like little kids. You have had an interesting night.”

The teenager let out a short laugh. “You don’t know the half of it, g od father. I think I also just talked one down from killing or at least maiming himself. I’ve never been so happy to be a parselmouth as I was when I talked to the male with the purple wings tonight.”

“They speak parseltongue? Wait, why would a dragon kill itself? Why would it listen to you? No offense.”

Harry shrugged. “In order: They don’t, not exactly. But we started out hearing a word or two when the other spoke, then it got better. The last time he talked, I only missed a word or two, and not the important ones. For why it was tearing its arms apart, I think it’s been a victim of something like the Imperious, but worse. For a really, really long time. Years maybe. Or it’s whole life. I don’t know, didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Wait, worse than the Imperious? I’m going to regret this, but how do you get worse than an unforgivable?”

“Well,” Harry started ticking off points on his fingers. “apparently, it’s race wide. He said all the dragons that looked like them were evil. Also, there’s only been one of them that might, might have been free of it, and it was that one’s brother, but he might have meant brother not in the blood relation way. I don’t know what happened to him, but he’s not here and they don’t seem to expect him to catch up. Oh, and apparently whatever spell he was under didn’t just make him do horrible things, it made him like doing horrible things. He talked about feeling joy as he killed what I think is a child in their species. ”

The horror was starkly written on Sirius’s face. “Yeah, shit, I can see that being worse. And it explains the suicide attempt too. I’d watch them all, something like that is going to leave scars like Azkaban did to me. Shit, that’ s even worse. How’d you talk them down? And where are you? I’ve never seen a room with a blue swirling thing in it at Hogwarts before.”

“Still in the castle, for now. There’s a room here I just found that becomes whatever you need. I had a really strange, peaceful dream tonight, and after an hour or so of rest I feel more rested than I can ever remember being. I raced here with Hermione, and I got the Room here to make this runic circle on the floor over there.

“It turns out it’s some kind of receiving rune array, not in any language Hermione’s ever seen before though. It sucked up a HUGE amount of power just to open the portal on this side. When I was using it, I could sort of feel what was going on. There was more power than I can express opening the door on the other side. As for talking him down, I told him about the Imperious curse, how the people who are under it are victims, them and the people they hurt. I think he understood, cause he gave me this little stone and passed out.”

“What’s the stone do? And if it took as much power as I’m thinking, people will definitely have noticed. It came to you in a dream? I have no idea what to make of that, but in that case the peaceful and restful part is probably a good thing. But Harry, opening a portal to, it sounds like, another world? The Ministry will-”

“I KNOW what they’ll do Sirius!” Harry snarled out, losing his composure. “I know I’m in the middle of the war and I have no one that’s both willing and able to help me! I know I’m one wrong step away from Merlin know s what with Umbridge, and she’s picking at me EVERY time I see her! I know the headmaster won’t help me!

“It’s not like he was there with Voldermort my first year, and while I was really grateful Fawk e s showed up with the sorting hat when I was fighting a GIANT FUCKING BASILISK my second year, a rooster would have been more useful. OR a squad of TRAINED AURORS ! Or any plan that didn’t involve stabbing the world’s DEADLIEST SNAKE with a fucking sword! It’s not like it didn’t BITE ME! At least Fawk e s saved me, but for a while there I was so sure I was going to die. I didn’t even get to keep the sword I pulled out of the hat!

“ And when I told him you were innocent, he gave me VAGUE FUCKING HINTS, and locked me in the infirmary with my best friend. Yeah, at least you didn’t get your soul sucked out, but you’d think the GRAND WARLOCK that people seem to GODDAMN WORSHIP could have told people you didn’t get a trial and ACTUALLY go tten you one! And last year speaks for itself. What help did I get from the staff? Oh Harry, there’s dragons! Everything else I got from the fucking death eater hiding as Dumbledore’s BEST FRIEND! And the rest of the staff, when everyone thought I’d cheated to get into that death trap, when I was the heir of Slytherin, a few moments to make an announcement was too much to ask.

“Not to mention that all these people knew my parents, and Hagrid’s been the only one to tell me anything about them really. Remus pretended not to know me, like I was just some other student he was teaching.” Harry was starting to wind down now, but he felt a little better, like he’d been holding that in for far too long. “And Snape’s hated me since the first day I got here, and he shows it! And it’s not like he even teaches, just puts things on the board.” He took a few slow, deep breaths.

“I know, I know what wi ll happen if the ministry knows about this. I know I can’t expect any help from any adults. I know that you’d try, and that means so much to me, but they’d do worse than kill you and I can’t have that on my conscience, please .” He took a few moments to calm down, focusing on calming his breathing helped. “ I’m sorry about that, I should n’t have lost my temper. I know I can’t do that where anyone can see me or it’ll be even more ‘dangerously unhinged Harry’ all across the papers. It’s just been getting to me.”

Unknown to the conversing two, five sets of ears (well, one set of ears and four sets of armored bone plates that served the same purpose) had heard everything since he started shouting. Only one understood, but the others had heard some of the desperation and had exception al memories. When they learned to speak this language, they’d know what had been said. After making sure they’d remember what was said they started to fall back to sleep, one by one. Ralion thought back to what the human said about people that would kill others just to hurt him. He seemed like a good man, but he wasn’t among friends.

Sirius suddenly felt very old and very useless. In that rant he saw a boy under massive amounts of stress, barely holding it together now. If things kept up like this… Well, that wasn’t a nice thought. Everyone breaks eventually.

“ Harry,” He started out, as serious as he’d ever been. “do you want to leave? All this mess, it shouldn’t be your job to fix. You’ve only had four years of magical education so far, and I’ve heard at least two of your Professors were shit. I can probably get us out of the country, if you can make it to Hogsmead. Heck, you might be able to get the minister to kick you out if you asked, maybe stick him with a magical contract with fine print to get your new friends escorted out. At least we could hide them in a trunk and take them with us.

“The Blacks have an island we can fortify the hell out of, hire tutors and everything. You wouldn’t have to come back to England ever if you didn’t want to. This war shouldn’t be your burden. I hate to say it, but if the people don’t fight for themselves, they don’t deserve your help either. If you want, I can be in Hogsmead tonight. Give me a little practice with making illegal portkeys and we can be out this time tomorrow.”

It took a few moments of thought for Harry to realize that the offer was far, far, more tempting than it should have been. When he spoke he was hesitant, and he turned the mirror around to show the portal.

“I can’t go yet. The portal needs to degrade, not be forced closed. If it destabilizes, say goodbye to everything for at least a few miles. And there’s the problem of what my new friend called “the good guys,” that are hunting down dragons that were evil until they entered that portal. They’re due within a few days, and there’s some kind of magic stone that’s sorta like these mirrors on the other side matching the one I have in my other hand. I at least need to talk them down, or use the room here against them if I can’t. Let me get past the weekend and I’ll let you know, okay?

“ I just feel like I could use a few days away from everything going on. Since I might need to use this room, I might move the dragons into the Chamber of Secrets, but there’s a cave-in I’m not sure how to deal with blocking the way. Oh, and the big snake’s probably still there. I’m not sure what to do about all the students and rumors that’ll pop up though.”

“I’d ask the twins to help you. They seem like good guys, if you can slip them a note they can probably think of something. If you can trust me, I think I can get some help to deal with a cave-in. Hard part will be getting them to actually listen to me.”

“Don’t you have an insane house-elf? Maybe you could get him to help with a careful direct order. Or, make him tell you what he’d want in exchange for helping you? I’m not all that comfortable with how a lot of pure-bloods treat their elves to be honest. They are people of a sort .”

“Good idea Harry. I, I have a lot of bad memories involving Kreature. But, I should remember that house elves can’t disobey orders. He’s still probably a miserable being, but he didn’t have a choice in much in his life. Thanks again. Anything else you want to get off your chest? Or that I can give advice for? I really don’t know how to help with those dragon hunters, if all else fails and you can’t turn them around you might let them into the castle proper. Let them be Dumbledore’s problem instead.”

“No, thanks Sirius. Thanks for listening. I really needed a chance to vent. I need to get something for these guys to eat, and to get a hold of the twins now before most people wake up. I’ll let you know things go here, okay?”

“P lease do, now let’s go manage some mischief! Padfoot out!” Sirius signed off with a stupid grin and a salute that actually made Harry smile.

After thinking for a moment, he tried to make the Room of Requirement produce some food, but got nothing. Giving up on that after a bit, it turned out that Dobby was more than happy to deliver notes and collect some food. “Dobby, thank you so much. I don’t think I could have pulled this off without you. Is there anything I can do for you in return? I can pay you or just give you my friendship or something else if you want.”

“Dobby is so happy to be helping a good wizard. Dobby not want pay, but maybe some day the Great Wizard Harry Potter would bond Dobby to his family? Dobby is loving being free for now, but thinks he would miss Purpose and Family later.”

Even through the elf’s odd speech and inflections, Harry caught the capital letters in those words. This was food for thought. “I’d have to think about it, but I don’t think I’d mind if it was really what you wanted. I give you my word to be a better master than the Malfoys, if you decide this is what you want. I don’t know how to convince Hermione though. She has strong feelings about house elves.”

“She-who-knits does not understand. Dobby not know how to make her either.”

Internally amused and horrified about Hermione’s hyphenated title, Harry tried hard to keep his face blank as he wrote out a clear, concise not e to the twins, asking them for a bit of help covering for him and Hermione’s absence for a few days. Thankfully it was the weekend. Looking back at the dragons sleeping, he tried to think of what else he should be doing. A bit of effort later the portal had a slightly opaque barrier around it, and some sleeping potions ready to throw in through small holes.

As he got comfortable in his chair he asked for, and got, a book on mind-healing, specifically dealing with long-term Imperious victims. There was a lot he didn’t grasp at first, so he started to make notes in a binder that showed up as he needed it, and started using another book that was suddenly to his left side to make sense of the terminology he couldn’t decipher. At another thought, and kicking himself a bit for thinking of this after getting clean, the Room added a full bath to the corner. Not even looking, he decided to ask, as vaguely as he could, for working toilets for the dragon’s anatomy.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back in a dark depressing house in London, Sirius got to his own business. Deciding to be direct, he called his u nwilling servant. It took some time for him to appear, but eventually he did. Clearing his throat, he decided to be direct. “Kreacher, I directly order you to tell me what I can do to earn or gain your loyalty as a Master you would be willing to serve.” He did not expect the answer. By the end of the whole tale, he really wished he could stop and get drunk. Instead he looked the small guy in the eyes and held the house-elf’s defiant, angry gaze.

“Kreacher, if you agree to serve me and my heir, I will help you complete my brother’s Last T ask . I wish he’d come to me that night, I wish we’d been close enough that he would have. I loved my brother, more than I’d admit to most people. If you give me a week, we can see how that locket stands up to Basilisk venom or Dragon fire. You think one of those would do the job?”

Smiling at the enthusiastic head nod, he continued. “But, you will work with me until then. If I fail I don’t expect your help ever again , but if we do I want your real loyalty. Harry Potter is my heir, and he’s the best chance the house of Black has. The only other possible heir is a pathetic snot named Draco Malfoy. If you agree to serve me, after today I want you to go to Hogwarts and, without being seen by anyone compare the two. See which would make the house stronger. You might not know this, but Harry is a parselmouth. He’s doing something interesting right now actually. So, will you agree to work with me?”

“Kreacher agrees, for now. He will even follow if bad master can do what he said.”

Smiling at the elf, even though it turned his stomach to do so, Sirius gave the first commands he actually expected the crazy little guy to follow. “I need a room cleaned a bit. Later in the day you’re going to ‘invite’ one of the professors from Hogwarts that seems to have continually failed my heir. She won’t need her wand. We’re going to have a discussion, and she’s either going to sign a contract that will force her to give my godson some god-damn help, or she’s going to be obliviate d and I won’t mind if she’s a bit bruised on the way back. Grab me a book on contracts and then go ahead with your first task. We can’t let anyone know what’s going on, especially the ‘guests.’”

Kreacher left quickly after that smiling. It wasn’t a nice smile, but Sirius got his book and got to work. Since he had a basic idea for a framework already it didn’t take long. It was a bit of trick ery , he was essentially going to get Minerva to agree to help Harry hide his new friends and give him some actual support. He was pretty sure he could get her to sign something that would make her trust Harry to handle any situation so long as he had dealt with a worse problem on his own before.

Considering that Dark Lords, Dementors, and giant snakes had already been taken care of in the past; that ought to give Harry some real leeway. He’d check with Harry first. Poor boy could really use a say about something in his life. About four hours later he stretched and stood. He was done, and he’d grab a bit of food and come back to call Harry.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Time passed, and a lot of what Harry found boiled down to that it was going to be a long road for recovery, that having someone to talk to was important, and that finding a purpose could help victims going forward. When the breakfast hour came, he found Dobby had slipped into the room without him knowing about it until he caught a smell that made his stomach rumble. On a small table was all the fixings of a full English breakfast, heavy on meats; on a different table was a pile of rabbits, some cleaned and some not.

Shrugging, Harry gathered himself a plate and went back to his research. He’d been marking on the pages in some places, folding others. Usually he’d be more careful, but it seemed like this was a conjured or some such book, so he marked as felt useful. As he went, he found himself more and more intrigued by the path of the mind-healer.

Bent over the book as he was, he didn’t notice his best friend until he felt her hair brush his face as she leaned over his shoulder. Seeing she was reading, he asked the room for another chair and that his table be a little longer. Still rather tired, she simply slid in and he turned the book as he pulled out his wand and summoned a pitcher of coffee and two mugs. When her eyebrows went up inquisitively, he just looked at her a moment. “You look like you could use something stronger today. It was a long night. You did a great job on the orange one by the way. What all was wrong with him?”

As she finished chewing on a strip of bacon stolen from his plate, and taking a small sip of hot coffee, Hermione finally turned her attention from the book. “A couple of broken ribs, a little internal damage, I don’t know if that would have killed him or not in the long run. There was a few smaller things wrong with the legs on one side, but they’ll heal pretty quickly with a bit of treatment. I thought spells rather than potions was the way to go, we don’t really know how they’ll affect them. Do I want to know why you’re studying this book harder than I’ve seen you study anything before ? The contents and your notes seem... ominous.”

Harry concisely filled her in on what the dragon had said to him in the night. “I’m glad that we can understand each other a bit better now. I helped him as best as I could, but I’m not a trained mind healer. As soon as they’re up, I think we can get their names. I only know the female with the purple wings is “Vespiona” so far, and that she’s the leader’s sister. It’s an interesting name.”

Hermione chewed her lip a little, looking over at the dragons that seemed to be waking up a bit more, shifting in their sleep. “Hmm, it is. I wonder if there’s any meaning to it. I think you have the general right idea for helping them through this. If they never had a choice, they shouldn’t suffer for their actions.” Looking at the portal for a moment, she shuddered. “It’s terrifying that something could even do that, let alone would. How else can we secure the portal?”

Sharing her anxiety, Harry had some coffee himself before continuing. “I’ve asked the room to seal it for the moment, there’s some sleeping solution that can be poured in. If the room did what I wanted, the potion should release a gas and knock out whatever comes through. On the plus side, we’re sort of expecting the “good guys” to catch up to these dragons shortly, so that might keep any horrid evils from coming in.

“I’m not sure how things are going to go when they turn up, but t hings seem safe enough for the moment, I think the portal’s in a cave on the other end from the scents that first rush of air brought. I wanted to ask you for your thoughts before I tried anything else.” He stood for a moment, taking his now empty plate and returning shortly with two full ones , after sitting near her for over four years now he knew what his friend liked in her breakfast.

A companionable quiet bloom as they ate and thought. Finally, Hermione spoke: “I think a Fidelius charm on the other side of the portal would work best but I doubt we could cast it. That would probably keep us safe, and maybe some wards to act behind it? Aversion wards or such. I’ll see what I can find in the...” She paused as a two thick tomes dropped to the table in front of her. Harry took the old, untitled one and pushed the other, titled ‘A Collection of ye Most Useful Wards’ in front of his friend. “Library. Okay, I admit that’s handy.” She completed her thought before diving in, Harry passing her some paper and a pen for notes.

By now the first reptilian eyes had opened. Talion was the first awake, unfamiliar places had become h is norm so he was cautious as he came to, checking his surroundings as best he could before standing to see around. It briefly amused him that he shook off a blanket that was... warm? Well he certainly appreciated the thought, and he’d think more about that later, but breakfast called. He certainly didn’t expect what he found.

Those teens were pouring over a collection of books, and he thought back to the previous night, where the female spent a lot of time trying to find the right spell. Given that he could breathe much easier and even stand with almost no pain, she had done well. Ignoring the food for a moment, he moved to stand before her, across the table and bowed. With his anatomy , this consisted of moving his front low, curling his head to show his neck, and spreading wings wide. When she smiled at him and motioned to the food he rose, nodded at her, and moved to finally fill his stomach. Hmm, they had rabbits? Not something he’d had before, too fast, too little meat to bother chasing. But as he bit the first one in half and swallowed, it wasn’t bad.

Harry Potter had a smirk on his face as the dragon with the beautiful (or handsome, possibly ) orange markings turned away. He was about to make a snark y comment at Hermione, when he saw her go a bit green. ‘ Ah. Well, certainly a natural carnivore then. If the teeth and talons didn’t give it away.’ “Try not to let it bother you, we can talk about table manners later. They’re going to be staying, at least on this world, so we have time.”

Going back to their books, neither tried to listen in as a second, then a third of them stirred. Harry had begun reading the casting requirements of the F idelius charm before he noticed the lead dragon bringing a cleaned rabbit over to the one that was still laying down, having apparently proven too weak to get up on her own. Putting a loose page in the book to keep his place he went over to see how he could help.

Seeing that her conscious was a good thing, though she was very weak. Quickly getting a pitcher of water and a bowl, he shrugged and snagged the rabbit from the Leader and after a thought, and having seen the other eat the rabbit bones and a ll , he used a spell he’d seen Molly Weasley use in her kitchen, but certainly not on a whole rabbit. Now with a bowl of rabbit paste he motioned for the Leader to help keep her head up, then poured in the paste slowly. He refilled the bowl with water several times to get all the pieces in, then repeated with another rabbit mush. Moving away briefly for something else, he returned with some bacon. When he showed a small transfiguration of a pig and g ot a nod tore them up and placed them in her mouth and let her swallow.

Her throat injury might pose a problem going forward, but he could still make out something like “Thank you.” Not even noticing his slip in Parseltongue, he let out a muffled “You’re welcome” before quickly checking her wound, very glad to see it had stopped leaking pus, and smelled much better than before. There was a scale or two that would be lost by the t ime it was completely healed , but it was looking up. ‘ God I love this room.’ He thought as he stepped back. A soft pillow had appeared under her, and Harry helped her rest her head on it . Harry cleaned her wound again with hot water, dried it with a soft towel and left it open to the air for now.

Getting the Leader’s attention again Harry spoke as quietly as he could. Ƥ: “ I want her wound to breathe a bit. We’ll put fresh bandages on if it starts to bleed. I’m not sure how much she should eat right now. She needs enough in her to start replacing her blood. You guys are all too thin. And I remember that if you let someone who’s been starving eat too much too fast it can make things worse. Are the rabbits okay with you guys?”

Đ: “ They’re fine. Are you worried about something making us sick? Unless it’s poisoned, you don’t really need to. Our guts are tough. We have rabbits at home, but they’re too small to bother hunting normally. Usually we eat deer or elk or something. Anything without tainted or poisoned meat; and I’m pretty sure we’ve all survived eating some of that too. For Caliona, don’t worry, she’s tough. We might need to baby her for a few days but after that she’ll be fine.”

Ƥ : “ That reminds me, I don’t think I’ve really introduced myself yet. My name is Harry Potter, and my best friend over there is Hermione Granger. Right now you’re standing in Hogwarts Castle on the planet Earth.”

Ralion gave a short bow. Đ: “I am Ralion of the Twilight Dragonflight of Azeroth. Formerly a servant of what we call the Old Gods and their Cult. I was brother in blood and spirit of Tendrion, our former leader. Vespiona is my clutch-sister,” He gestures to the purple female. “Caliona here with the wounded neck is also a Twilight Dragon. Talion is a Black Dragon, the first group of dragons to fall to the corruption of the Old Gods.”

Ƥ : “ It is nice to meet you Ralion.” Harry gave a small bow. “ Right now, we’re working on magic to keep anything else from coming through the portal. I’ve found a charm, but I doubt I have enough power to cast it, so I’m thinking of touching the circle on the other side to draw enough power to do so. Am I right in assuming there’s a sister to the one here on the floor back where you left from?”

Briefly examining the circle from behind the barrier, Ralion answered. Đ:” Where did you get this?! The Draconic runes are the perfect receiving array for what we did, unless you know of Draconic on this world, but without my kind...”

Ƥ : “ I had a dream last night. I saw a forest in moonlight and figures in the distance, then I woke and knew I had to come here, to get this Room in this configuration to open the door. I was in a bit of a rush. I had to stun one of the adults that usually walks the halls at night, but he’s an asshole anyway.”

Looking around, he saw that t he three mobile dragons had walked over to him and he had their attention. Seeing Hermione f rom behind her book he asked for another chair and some comfortable mats for the dragons, and he decided to start a group therapy session. That book had said that repetition might be needed to get patients to believe that some things were not their fault. He started by repeating his spiel about the Imperious from last night. Quickly his whole focus became talking with the dragons, trying to insure they understood, and that they didn’t feel the need to harm themselves.

Hermione stopped researching for a time, enjoying how the stress of the year so far seemed to fade f rom him now that Harry had a task he could accomplish. She simply observed how he threw himself into helping people so wholeheartedly. Suddenly thinking back to last night, she decided to do everything she could to help Harry help these, well aliens would be the most accurate word. She knew her friend cared deeply, and he didn’t deserve to be hurt again. These four didn’t deserve it either.

She was still l istening when the mirror laying on the table started to vibrate and let out a quiet “Harry Potter.” Luckily she knew that voice. Answering it wasn’t difficult, at least there wasn’t a strange password to it.

“Hello Sirius.” She answered with a small smile. “Is there anything pressing that you need? Harry’s… Well, I don’t speak the languages, but I think he’s having a group therapy session right now. And how strange is it that Harry’s having a counseling session with formerly evil dragons from another world, and it’s not enough to freak me out.”

Sirius couldn’t help but snort at that last night. “I’m still not completely sure what to make of that. When he mirrored me at f our this morning without a shirt on, yourself and four dragons tucked into blankets on the floor was not what I expected. Is he doing alright? And also, if he’s busy, can you check a few things for me? First open the Marauder’s Map if you have it handy and see if the castle is going crazy or not outside where ever you are.”

Having no reason to argue she did. “He’s doing better than usual actually, he said something to me last night about tasks he could accomplish. It’s like he’s in his element now, like helping people is really what he lives for. Give me a moment. Hmm, Dumbledore is having a staff meeting in his office, everyone’s there but Umbridge. Where is… There she is, she’s meeting some Aurors at the gate it looks like. I see Tonks. Is this about the power flow through the wards with the portal?”

“Yeah, I’d imagine so. I’d stay in there for now if I were you. The Ministry will kill, or do worse, to your new arrivals if they get a chance. Don’t trust any students from the Death Eater families or anyone close to the Ministry. I think you mentioned something about a Defense Association? I’ll send you a book I have on magical contracts so you can whip up something. Focus more on making it so they can’t betray you rather than penalties for when they do. Because, trust me, with the Ministry so big, they will find someone to lean on, even if they have to threaten loved ones to get to you.”

Seeing the way her face fell, Sirius managed to guess what had happened. “Already put out a contract with that problem? Come up with a new one before the first meeting, copy it to a clean sheet of paper in front of them, and burn the old one with Incendio after they sign on to the new.”

“Thanks Sirius. Seems like that would have bit us at some point. Is everything well with you? Anything new you can tell us?”

“You mean is the Order doing anything? Anything at all? No, we’re doing nothing other than guarding the thing we have been. I can’t get them to even bother guarding muggleborn families. It’s like when I’m talking they’re hearing Greek instead.” She could see he was frustrated as he drug a hand through the stubble on his face. “Hermione, the more I find out about what his life had been like the worse it gets. Did Remus not tell Harry that he knew him? Did the staff not do anything to dispel the rumors during the Tournament?”

“I don’t think Remus said anything to him, Harry had to beg him for Patronus lessons. And no, they did nothing then or when most of the school thought he was the “Heir of Slytherin” in second year. I’ve thought about asking Harry if we should move the dragons down into that chamber eventually.”

Sirius Black was uncharacteristically silent for a while. “Hermione, it feels like the whole world went mad while I was in hell. What you just confirmed about Remus and the staff, that’s unforgivable. It’s like the people I used to know are completely different people now. Even my brother, I was so sure he was a die-hard Death Eater; then this morning I found out the story of how he died. Turns out, Regulus turned on Voldemort and paid with his life .”

Silence reigned for a time after that. Hermione, not having anything to say to that, turned the mirror so he could see Harry hissing off and on, now reaching out to touch a dragon that seemed to be breaking down into tears. Whatever the language the dragons spoke was an odd one, full of harsh tones . After a long time of o bserving , Sirius spoke again.

“He really is something, isn’t he? Hermione, I have a sort of plan. I think I can get Min erva to actually help Harry like she should have been doing for all these years. I’d like Harry to sign off on it first though, let him have some input on things that effect him. Can you tell him that I think I can get your head of house to sign a contract so that she’ll do her damn job and help, not pass the buck or go tattle so long as he’s handled something worse before. Given the Basilisk at twelve, I don’t think she could have any argument that he couldn’t manage a few little dragons.”

“I’m not really comfortable with that. But, if it helps, I won’t complain. Looking back a few words from her or the Headmaster could have dispelled most of those awful rumors and lightened Harry’s load considerably. I don’t know why they didn’t, to be honest.”

She turned the mirror back to see Sirius’s face when she heard him snort. Seeing her “Explain!” eyebrow come up, he voiced his thoughts. “I do. Last year it was easier for Albus to let Harry suffer being thought a c heat than admit he didn’t know what happened, to let anyone think it was his failing that let The-Boy-Who-Lived be placed in danger, that the students under his care might not be perfectly safe. He didn’t even need to lie, his silence was enough to let people deceive themselves. And the only one it hurt was Harry. Does that sound about right for your second year too?”

Hermione could only nod, she’d long had a habit of trusting those in authority, and those habits left a sour taste in her mouth now . Needing a moment, she saw that Harry’s group was taking a break. As she saw Harry motion to bathroom in the corner in response to some question, she stepped up to him as his group broke for relief and some water.

She did see that every kind of meat from the breakfast platter was gone, but she helped herself to a slice of melon as she walked over. “Hey Harry. Everything going well here? I’m sort of jealous that you can understand them, but I was watching and you’re doing great.”

“I think we’re doing as well as can be expected really. Would you be willing to do a bladder and bowel spell on Caliona? I’m not sure I could get it as right as you on the first cast. She lost enough blood from that neck wound that she’s too weak to do much. Ralion, the purple male, and the others are confident she’ll be fine in a few days, that she just needs some help until then. I feel iffy about that, but they should know their biology better than I do. Oh, and we have names for all four.”

Harry said, passing over a book dog-eared to a spell for human patients that lacked the ability to use the bathroom on their own. It was rather simple, but with the wand movements and positioning, she could see why he preferred a female to do it. Not that she was terribly comfortable doing it herself, but given that this was for medical purposes she’d manage. “I’ll introduce them all properly in a moment. I’ll give her the general idea of what you’re doing.”

“Thanks Harry. Sirius is on the mirror, so you should talk to him after you explain.” While Harry was hissing away she looked over the spell for a time. It was very simple really, and she was sure it would work the first time if she was careful. By the time she was ready to go, Harry was back at the table in discussion and one of the purple dragons was back. Taking a close look, Hermione was fairly sure this was the female that she had a name for.

“V espiona ?” Turning her head, the female gave Hermione her full attention as Hermione turned her book around and began to get her point across that she needed Caliona to shift onto her side for a moment.

Catching the gist of the conversation, the two male dragons chose to move towards Harry, not trying to listen in, the words didn’t mean much. They did hear their names once, but shrugged that off. After conferring a bit, both of them believed Harry about people wanting to hurt them, after all, they’d seen the worst parts of people their whole lives already. All four had agreed to at least give this Harry Potter and the woman he was courting their tentative trust in their discussion over breakfast.

It was one thing for a person to give them shelter or a bit of food, but he’d taken the time to tend their wounds and wash all the filth of their old life away with his own hands. He seemed to trust the one he was talking to, eventually ending the conversation into a mirror. A few moments later, Caliona let out a shrill wordless exclamation. A t that , Talion let out a snort. He’d had a fair bit of outside magic pumped into him last night when the female treated his injuries, and it really was a strange sensation.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

As most of those in the Room mentally prepared for the inescapable discussion that would soon need to take place, something interesting happened in the same castle, but only briefly. Minerva McGonagall found her wand taken from her hand as soon as she entered her office, then hastily and forcefully apparate d elsewhere.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Oddly enough, the stern Professor didn’t expect to suddenly find herself sitting in what looked to be a small, plain room in Number 12, Grimmauld Place. This inference was back ed up by one Sirius Black serving her a cup of tea. Taking just a moment to sip at a decent cup of tea, she turned her most stern countenance onto her host.

“Sirius, while I appreciate the tea, I really must inquire what you think you’re doing here. This is most out of the ordinary.”

Sipping his own cup briefly, just to observe the niceties, Sirius succeeded in not quailing under her gaze. (Though it was significantly harder than he’d ever admit.) He began with care, putting as much quiet malice into his words as he could. “Well, Minerva, I felt we needed to have a discussion of certain failings of the staff at Hogwarts. I’ve recently become concerned about the welfare of my godson, you see, as the guardian his parents chose in the event they could not be there themselves. Granted, Alice and Frank Longbottom were the preferred choice, and if things had been different I doubt I would have had any objections to them. I’m sure they would have done a far superior job raising Harry, but I digress.

“You see, the administration of Hogwarts Castle has failed to protect Harry from becoming a pawn in the battle between the Headmaster and the Ministry. The professors have continually failed to provide a safe environment for learning, or even basic safety. And, this is most personally vexing you see, Harry feels that not one adult in that entire castle is actually in his corner, who will do anything to help him if he needs it. I don’t feel this is a situation that can be allowed to continue.

“I’ve always held you in a great deal of respect Minerva, even back when I was young and stupid. But learning what’s been going on in that castle for the last five years has r educed that respect t o,” Here, Sirius leaned forward and put as much venom as his Black heritage afforded him into the last word without breaking his flow. “ ash. ”

Sirius held up a hand to stop her objections for a moment. “In a moment, we’ll go into why I feel this way, but first I want to inform you of something and let you read over a contract I wish for you to sign before you leave here today.”

“Sirius Black! You are acting preposterous! Hogwarts is the safest place...”

The exceedingly stern professor was cut off just as she was gathering steam by Sirius slamming his fist on the table hard and thundering over her. “DO NOT give me that shit, Minerva. I know plenty of schools where students haven’t had to deal with evil spirits, BASILISKS in the dungeons and the unadulterated hatred of their professors. You and all the rest have failed that school! You have failed the students!

“This is your last chance, Minerva. The Blacks have safe places all over the world. You will step up, starting today, or in a week’s time Harry and his closest friends will be gone from that castle!” (Unsaid was the abysmal odds of keeping the spawn of a Marauder inside the castle on his own, much less with outside help trying to extract him.) Here, Sirius calmed down and slumped back into his chair, looking and feeling as he had after his talk with his godson that morning. “I talked to him thi s morning, Minerva. He’s not having an easy time of it, and you lot aren’t helping him. He’s so close to breaking. I won’t let that happen. I’ve failed him so much already, it has to stop now. It will .”

“The Headmaster will never allow you to...”

With a snort, Sirius interrupted her again. “He won’t know until Harry’s already gone Minerva. Either you sign this contract to ensure you give him the help he needs,” Here Sirius’s voice dropped very low, barely audible in the quiet room. “or I’m going to Obliviate you before Kreature takes you back. And no, I’m not very good at the spell, but I can bury my sentiments and do what’s needed. I want you to have a glance at that contract, listen to what I have to say and then think before you choose. I’ve respected you for a long time Professor. Please, I don’t want to do something drastic, but there are so few good options.”

Minerva McGonagall was shocked. This was not how she expected her morning to go. “Sirius, there was something of an emergency last night. I’m needed.”

With a real smile, Sirius waved off her objections. “Something to do with a huge flow of magical energy into the castle and through the wards? Harry’s already taken care of it. He showed me what caused it on his mirror, it’s stable and slowly leaching off energy. He tells me it can’t be rushed without causing disaster, and given how much power is involved I’d say that’s a given. Since Hogwarts apparently uses students to solve all its mysteries and fight any monsters as a matter of course now I see nothing wrong with letting him take care of it.”

Refilling their cups as he waited for her rebuttal he let a devilish smirk cross onto his face. They both knew that last statement, while perhaps not completely accurate, wasn’t wholly wrong either. He was surprised when Minerva just sighed and reached for the document in a folder he’d moved next to her teacup after he finished speaking earlier. “I will want to know what is going on, Mr. Black. Most of this doesn’t look unreasonable. I could be accused of favoritism for any of it, but from a rational perspective it’s not bad. Why do you want me to tutor Harry in Transfiguration? He does quite well as it is.”

“I want you to teach him how to use your art in combat. He has the power for it, if you’d seen, felt, that Patronus from his third year… Also, I want you to start laying groundwork so he can learn the Animagus transformation. Just the groundwork, don’t let him look for his animal yet; I’ve heard of a potion and if it’s real I want him to take that first. For both of them, the reason is because I want him to live through all the shit that happens in his life.”

“I wish that he didn’t need it, but given how his life is, I can understand. But what potion? I can’t think of what you’d mean.”

“It’s something I heard the American Indians use, well in stories anyway. Something about heroes of their people proving worthy and being gifted the right to wear the form of a Th underbird. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, so I’m going to send Remus out to find the truth. Harry could make good use of a surprise up his sleeve.”

“Hmm, I always thought those were myths. However, even if this is impossible an animal form could prove exceedingly useful. I do want Harry to have a long life, so this is more than acceptable. Now this last part is worded oddly. Can you tell me why you want me to follow a minor’s lead in this current adventure? I can get why you don’t trust my judgment, but the secrecy seems just a bit much.”

Taking a long sip of tea, Sirius gathered his thoughts. “Harry called me on the mirror I g ave him at Four o’clock this morning. When he showed up either sweaty or just having rinsed off without a shirt on and said he’d had a long night, I’m sure you can guess where my thoughts led.”

Shaking his head at the indignant expression on his once-favorite Professor’s face, he continued. “There’s four more lives in the balance in your castle today Minerva. In the night, Harry received an urgent call for help, that’s what caused your problem too. I don’t think you’ve ever been biased against non-humans , so I’m comfortable telling you that they’re certainly not human.

“ I’m guessing they’ll learn English eventually, but for now, Harry can only communicate through Parseltongue. I don’t think he’s ever used that ability willingly, so he hasn’t noticed yet but when he was having a little counseling session, his Parseltongue was going strange. I’m guessing his new acquaintances have some kind of magical language of their own, and it’s interacting with Harry’s. How that works, I have no clue, but it seems to be.”

“ I see. With the ministry in the castle, this is a poor time. Why does Harry think they need counseling?”

“Harry didn’t have the complete picture yet, but it looks like they’re victims of a nightmari sh version of the Imperious, they were kept under their whole lives, maybe from their their first breath. For them, it was like up was down, black was white, and good was evil. This spell that they just got away from, it made them do all the worst things our version can do, but it made them enjoy it. Harry talked one of them down from tearing the veins out of his arms last night.”

It took a good five minutes for Minerva to respond to that. “That… That is truly vile, unconscionable. To do that to children! Not even Grindlewald was that twisted! And the poor souls! Who could do such a thing!?”

“Evil, is the only answer I know for sure. Harry’s doing a good job so far, but it might be needed to move them through the castle soon. Harry and Hermione are thinking of taking them into the Chamber of Secrets soon, but there was a cave-in down there when Harry killed the Basilisk, so I’m not sure it’s safe. I’m guessing you can handle permanent transfigurations , or at least enough of them to secure a tunnel. Might try making it a teaching moment. Anyway, there’s still a Basilisk, dead, down there probably. I’m not sure if it’s still good for anything, or if it’s rotted to nothing.

“ Anyway, the important part about this is that if the wrong people get wind of this, I don’t trust the Ministry to do the right thing, the logical thing, or even stay away from the evil thing. Whatever their origins, they are intelligent enough to know regret, but we both know that would mean nothing if they’re found in the castle. Hell! It wouldn’t mean anything if they were found anywhere in the country if the Ministry found out hurting them would hurt Harry.” Again, he sagged into his seat, feeling tired and worn.

“Minerva, what the hell happened to the country while I was in Azkaban? I’m still not okay with getting chucked into there without with no trial, just Crouch’s desire for notoriety at my expense and probably Malfoy gold. But, the government has become an enemy of the people, and the people are just stupid sheep that do nothing about it. This wasn’t what I fought for in the last war dammit!”

Minerva really had no idea what to say to that. For a moment, she was confused why Malfoy would have wanted Sirius in prison, but then she remembered who his wife was. With Draco, the whole of the Black family would be in his father’s hands. Suddenly she felt worse about Sirius’s imprisonment. Thinking back on the history she’d lived, she tried to come up with an answer.

“Too many of those that followed Voldemort got out of their just sentences and we never cleaned out the Wizengamo t of the loyalists entrenched there. Too many of the good people that should have led the charge were dead, and the rest of us were so tired of fighting. I admit, I thought when we won that it was over, that I could be a teacher and just teach. I trusted the people in power.

“That was a mistake, it seems. And now, looking at what our government has become, it feels like we’ve lost already. I really don’t know how to fix any of this Sirius. I think, if we win this war we’ll need to completely clear out the old guard, throw them in prison, use veritaserum on everyone with any scrap of power. Arguments about not having enough just cause seem so very hollow when the Ministry can act like it is with you.”

“Not to mention it tried to kill my godson over the Summer.”

“Sirius, why would you think… Surely, they’re not that dark?”

Refilling their teac ups again Sirius bought a little time while he ordered his thoughts. “First we have the Dementors themselves. If Voldemort is keeping a low profile, calling on them would be an odd move. While the Ministry doesn’t have as good of a control over them as they think, it’s odd that two would go rogue and only target my godson. If they were truly loose, they would have had more victims along the way. Next, the timing of the expulsion note is far too quick, and there’s no way it would have been generated without some investigation. The only one who saw the Patronus in the first place was Harry’s cousin after all. And that trial had nothing to do with getting the truth and everything about destroying an enemy.

“We both know Harry’s become a pawn in the conflict between Dumbledore and Fudge. Fudge would prefer Harry be gone in a way that didn’t reflect badly on him. I’m... I’m not really sure what Dumbledore wants for my godson. Minerva, with everything going on his life, has Albus arranged special lessons for Harry? Anything that would help him stay alive with the madman that’s after him and has been for years now?”

“It’s hard to deny your logic. I believe the Patronus lessons are the only time Harry’s been given any special training.”

“I’m going to have words with Remus for that. Hermione told me Harry had to beg for his help, we both know how badly those blasted demons affect him. I can hardly believe that not only did my oldest living friend make a child he should have been an uncle to beg for help, but that he never checked up on him while he was growing up. If he would have bothered to check up on him maybe Harry would have a few less scars on him.” That brought up Minerva’s eyebrows sharply.

“Explain. Now. ” She intoned harshly.

“I think the insanity of the situation got to him, and it was warm enough where he was not to notice, but that was the first time I’ve seen him without a shirt on Minerva. I’m no healer, but I had a bad enough childhood to recognize at least one significant burn scar and a fair number of belt lashes that have scarred. I, I don’t even want to know what his back looks like, I might have to go earn that reputation for killing muggles. Harry was such a bright, happy child once. Seeing him act so shy and withdrawn at times just makes me sure people who should have been looking out for him failed him.”

“Albus, I told him those were the worst sort of muggles when we left him there!” The old professor’s fury drained away to a small voice. “ He assured me Harry would only be safe with his Aunt. That everything was taken care of. I don’t understand. I guess I’ll just have to trust Albus more going forward.”

It took a lot for Sirius not to argue with her on the last line, and instead he tried to think about that line. Either Minerva’s mind was broken from some trauma or age, or something had been done to it to make her want to reward a betrayal of trust with more trust. This, this didn’t bode well at all. Suddenly he remembered an older relation of his warning him to never trust Dumbledore or men that played the rest of the world like chess pieces. That power was a drug that made one thirst for more and more and the Headmaster was drunk on it. A terrible suspicion began to rise in Sirius at that moment.

The n , something started to whisper in the back of his mind. It wanted him to believe that this was all a misunderstanding, that he really should trust the Headmaster. That the Headmaster was so wise, that he was so kind and generous. Sirius reeled i n his chair and he realized what was happening. H is old, so very neglected lessons in mental defense pulling themselves to the forefront. They proved woefully insufficient.

A mental wall tried to form, but the thoughts that were a form of mental influence wormed under, over, and through. Sirius felt strangled as those foreign beliefs started to burrow back into his the deepest parts of his and mind and a comforting fog descend on him. As he lost the battle, Sirius made a last rally and tried to make the words he spoke true, not realizing he said them aloud as well. “No! I am the Lord Black! Protector of the Family! I will not abandon my Heir! I will NOT fail my family AGAIN! ” In this case, in this house , those were magic words .

The Black family boasts a long and stories history through the ages. They’ve produced villains and heroes, but more than anything else they’ve produced cunning people who valued family above all. The last few generations had lost this focus, but two centuries of poisoned magic feeding into the family tapestry cannot destroy the weight of two millennia of people who, often with cunning and guile, used everything they could to ensure the Blacks continued. That believed that family came first.

The Family Magic, that f ont of power each Black fed their unneeded strength into, was a creation of ages past. A brilliant man, living with his family in the heart of the Roman Empire was beset on all sides and he was not strong enough to protect those he loved. With a great need before him, he stole his family to a tiny island in the Mediterranean where he created a well with a drop of blood from each member of his family, and his loyal manservant and his wife as well. They were slaves originally from Judea, but the first Black treated them well, never forcing them to work any harder than he himself did. Both men often worked long hours at the forge, feeding Rome’s hunger for s words and armor , enhanced with just a touch of magic.

After long work and much toil, the man created the Family Magic; which would take from every person who added a drop of blood to that Well as much magic as it could without harm and store it for use by the family head. (The need to bring each new family member to the physical location was removed with the weaving of magic to s ummon the needed blood from each descendant at birth .) In practice, this meant while they slept every magical would be slowly drained by just enough so that they’d recover their strength fully a s they woke . Once the work was done, the man stood in front of the stone basin looking down at the seven drops of blood and added three of his own.

On that island he created the Creed that would serve the Blacks for a very long time. “Let me and every H ead of my House to follow be bound true to this purpose! To remain always pure to this purpose! That every man and woman of this house be in this of pure hearts and devoted above all else! That our family will survive this day, that we will survive EVERY day! That we will look after one another! That the Blacks will endure in this purpose for every day that the sun rises until this world ends!”

The d rips of magic that Well (Long since hidden beyond any mortal finding on the Island only a Black and those both invited and well-meaning would be welcome on.) pulled from every family member gave it life, gave it purpose! Every drop added to the well changed it, for good or ill with the very essence of what they were. Their hopes, their dreams, their fears, the very depths of the human soul never seen but in darkest adversity; that was what the fed the Well.

B ut, in the last few centuri es , with each new generation, the drops turned to poison; the newest family members bound to that Well clashed horribly with the purpose for which it had been created. Tho se that would have been a comfort had been c ast out of the family , and those whose influence it yearned for were broken, broken almost down to their very souls.

Though not a truly intelligent thing, the Black Magic that had given up hope for itself and the Family heard Sirius in his desperation through the fog it was falling into. Joy, Hope, Rage for all that been wrought by and to its Family, Fear for those in danger, and Rage that one of its Sons had their mind tainted flowed through it in a heartbeat. Unseen by any living thing, contained within a cave with no exits or entrances, behind a Fidelius of which the Well itself was both Keeper and the only Knower of its own secret, the Well surged. Magic roiled and thundered! The Black Family Magic roared!

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

For the first time in over two centuries, the Black Family’s Magic had the three things it truly needed to influence the world. Firstly, it had enough magic to do so, if only barely. Second, it had a true Head; the Magic would never bow to the insane or one whose motivations was incongruous with its own. And third, it had a use for its Magic that aligned with its purpose.

In the mind of Sirius, the Family Magic swept aside the expertly woven compulsions. To protect the Head, the Family Magic used the bits of magic that were maintaining the compulsions to throw up a very narrowly specific spell for the caster to ignore the Black Head. Whoever had altered his mind would have a great deal of difficulty assigning any importance or even notice to the head of the Black Family.

This expended the Well’s available stored power. What was once a mighty gift that could turn the tides of battle was greatly reduced by both the decline of the family and the magic it had gathered from the majority of the Blacks in the last century. But it had hope now. The Family had a Head that knew what family should mean. He had an heir as well, and the young man had potential.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

As the Family Magic left him, Sirius Black, now the official head of the family slumped onto the table, desperately wishing for something to dull his headache. He could really only say one thing at the moment. “Well, that sure hurt.”

Sitting across from him, Minerva raised an eyebrow as she observed him again. From her perspective, Sirius had made a rather dramatic statement, frozen in place for several moments, then slumped like a puppet with cut strings. After several more moments with Sirius face down on the cool table, she cleare d her throat. “Are you well, Sirius?”

Not raising his head just yet, he answer ed carefully. “Professor, I think we have either a traitor or someone trying to usurp the Order for their own purposes among us. My family apparently has some kind of defense that can purge outside influences from the Head’s mind. When I claimed the Headship just now, it activated and cleaned my mind out. I, I need to brush up on my Occlumency, I don’t know if that cleansing was a one-time thing or not. You should too, would you like me to send you a book on it when I find a good one?”

“ Mr. Black, are you telling me we have another Pettigrew among us?” Minerva was more than a little shaken at that idea, she liked to think she could, at least, trust the rest of the Order.

“ Yes, but this one is probably a lot smarter and is very skilled in the mind arts. I’ll have you sent back as soon as you sign the contract Minerva. You must tell no one until we know more. Remember that the walls might have ears, especially the ones at Hogwarts this year.”

“ You will keep me informed Sirius. Send an elf with that book you mentioned in the evening when I’m alone in my quarters. Helping Harry prepare for battle would not be a terrible idea. There does seem to be a war coming and that boy attracts trouble like no one else I’ve ever seen. Do you have a quill?”

Though Harry Potter’s experience with them was neither pleasant or legal, unmodified Blood Quill s were sparingly used for binding legal documents. A contract signed in ink was usually legally binding, but one signed in blood was magically binding. Sirius Black felt no joy as Minerva McGonagall winced and signed the contract in her own blood. He really, really hoped that this did not cause a clash with another binding contract or oath she may no longer remember. Only the thought that his godson was more important kept him from stopping her right then.

Sirius really, really hoped that somehow he was wrong about Albus Dumbledore; that the man wasn’t what he seemed in light of the compulsion spells. The Headmaster would be a dangerous enemy if he was a Dark Lord hidden in the light or an old man that simply thought that he alone knew the correct way forward and had no appreciation for the free will of others.

A/N: My personal head cannon is that Umbridge did not exactly invent the Blood Quills, as that seems beyond her usual level of competence. I mean, really, she was bested by a bunch of kids that she was continually antagonizing. If she had a half-dozen Aurors there loyal to her, how much differently would that have gone? Anyway, my head cannon is that being the awful person she was, she saw the Blood Quills used in rare circumstances to sign legal documents, took a good look at them and said “I can make this into a torture instrument pretty easy.” So she did.

Chapter Text

I don't own Harry Potter or Warcraft. Call me arrogant if you want, but I think I could have done a better job with the story for Battle for Azeroth. Reviews put a smile on my face!

Chapter 3: Free! Well, more free. Free-er?

Back at Hogwarts Castle four dragons and two humans were preparing to have a discussion of what exactly was going on. Harry wanted as much information on the pursing force as they could give him, along with anything that could help him help the dragons with adjusting to life not under the thrall of evil gods. Ralion wanted to know more about the new world he was living in. Hermione just wanted to know everything.

It began as an awkward and stilted conversation. At Hermione’s request, Harry was taking notes and had several sheets of paper filled with questions his friend wanted to know. Bit by bit, they got parts of the current condition of the world on the other side of the portal that painted a rather grim picture. Essentially, the forces of evil were trying to destroy the world (The thought of a cult of humans and other races dedicated to killing off all life on a planet did horrify both of them.) and had a pretty good chance of succeeding.

The Cult was led by the fallen Dragon Aspect (Once Neltharion was one of five dragons charged to protect the world, personally responsible for the prisons of the very creatures that had usurped his mind. Seems he wasn’t given protection from his prisoners when he was given he job.) Deathwing. He was huge, powerful, and plated head to toe in elementium armor that both held him together and made almost any attack on him impossible. Deathwing wasn’t unbeatable, but neither would he fall easily.

Between Deathwing, the Black Dragonflight (Neltharion’s Flight, sadly they went down with him when he fell.) and the mortal servants of the Old Gods, a process had been developed that could take the eggs of other dragonflights and warp them into what was in the room now. Twilight Dragons were essentially a weapon forged to destroy all the others, and in the war that had been raging for a few years now their Dragonflight had sowed vast amounts of destruction.

Tendrion and the others learned that on this world, magic users had segregated themselves and gone into hiding. If they were seen flying around in most places there would be trouble. They also learned something about the dragons of this world, which appeared to simply be dumb beasts, but all present decided to verify that for themselves at some point.

Harry mentioned flying against one last year, and that brought up a discussion of the Tournament, which led to a discussion of the various tasks and how it ended. Talk of the summer’s events violently killed any hope of peaceful coexistence with the Ministry of Magic. If they would do that to their own citizens, it was highly doubtful a band of dragons from another world would do any better. The dragons were also amused that the human’s own name for their world was simply another way to say ‘dirt;’ ‘Azeroth’ was a much better name for a planet as far as they were concerned.

Time seemed to fly quickly as they swung back and forth between subjects light and heavy, Harry taking notes until his wrist was killing him. For her part, Hermione couldn’t wait until either she or the drakes learned each other’s language. They had a late lunch, Dobby having convinced the Hogwarts elves to make a variety of prepared meats for lunch and snagging a fair bit for his favorite human and his friends.

Đ : “This is pretty good, but please tell your small friend there’s no need to cook our food. When we can hunt we generally just eat the deer or elk raw wherever we kill it.”

Ƥ: “ Will do. I assume you eat more of your kills than just the muscle my people tend to R alion ?”

Đ : “ Yes, muscles tend to taste the best, but creatures have lots of nutrition in their hearts, livers, and bones. We can digest bones fairly well in most cases, so long as we chew properly. We need to consume some blood too or we tend to get to get an iron deficiency.”

Looking to Dobby who was still serving them with a smile on his face, Harry gestured to get his attention. “Dobby, the meat we eat in the castle, what happens to the various organs like hearts and the bones? Ralion just told me his people eat all parts of the animals they kill, so if t he elves don’t use the organs, bones, or blood we can give those items to my friends to eat instead and keep them fed without causing problems.”

“Other parts be waste Great Wizard Harry Potter. Dobby can get dragon friends parts we not use, keep many more dragons than this fed.” After Harry translated back to the dragons, Ralion looked over to their pile of bags and the pink sphere.

Đ : “ That’s good, because we actually have a lot more of us. Save one, they’re all whelps though, but at some points of development they can eat as much as I can. You see that pink thing? It’s a Dalaran Prison Sphere. The human mages stole and tweaked the design a bit, and we stole this one from a rouge mage that was experimenting with a wide variety of whelps; he wanted to take our long lives for himself and find a way to enslave all dragons.

“We discovered his hidden facility on a little island east of The Swamp of Sorrows, sn uck in and added everything there from tomes to armor and weapons to metals to our supplies for when we found a new world. Tendrion was emphatic that we not hurt any of the other Flight’s whelps, so we took them all with us in that sphere. Valistraza got stuck with watching over them all, so she’s in stasis with them right now.”

Ƥ: “ Valistraza?” Harry asked with a curious hiss.

Đ : “ She’s a Red Dragon that abandoned her flight. We found her by chance making her way south over the Badlands. Tendrion knew enough to see she was carrying a clutch and figure out something was very wrong in her world for her to be fleeing in her condition. After we got her on the ground very carefully we found out that she was a fter the same objective we were. Inter-flight romances are forbidden, but she had fallen for a Blue Dragon and was carrying his young. They were going to flee the world together but he fell in combat and she was forced to flee on her own, she was adamant that her young would survive no matter the cost.

“Tendrion convinced her to serve as our broodmother in exchange for a place with us when we left Azeroth behind. I think she saw that he was free of the darkness that t ore at the rest of us and came to trust him. She’s only in stasis with the whelps because we barely had time to hunt enough food for ourselves, never mind a clutching broodmother. When the key on my neck touches the prison they should all wake up hungry.”

Ƥ: “ Okay, as soon as soon as we deal with this other group and get the portal hidden on the other end, I need to get the Chamber set up for you guys. It’s a big place, but it’s damp and cold right now. We can take care of that with the right bit of magic though. I bet with some work we could find or create a tunnel to the surface too. It might not be high living, but it would be safe. As far as I know, only myself and the dark wizard that wants to kill me can get in, and he’s afraid to come here himself.”

Đ: “Caves are no problem for us. Sunlight isn’t as important as warmth really. That thing you do with the warm water will probably earn you loyalty from Valistraza. It’ll take you a bit longer to get all of her though, she’s a dragon but not yet a wyrm.”

Ƥ: “ Wyrm?”

Đ: “ A wyrm is a dragon that’s over t housand years old. I see you’re writing this down, so I’ll explain the different stages. First, we’re born as eggs and spend the first six months of our life soaking up magic and mostly sleeping in our shells, but we are awake and thinking at times too, usually more towards when we hatch.

“We come out of shells as whelps, infants you might call them. Most flights spend a decade as whelps, but the T wilight and Nether drag on s progress much faster. I’m not sure about the Netherwing, but the Twilight dragons are ready to mature after a year. At t he whelp and drake stages , we absorb a lot of nutrients and kind of shift them into storage with our innate magic.

“When we’re ready, we make use of those nutrients all at once and change rapidly into forms like you see in us. Usually we’re helped by a broodmother through the first transition and manage the second with only a few instructions. Black, Blue, Bronze, Green and Red drakes spend a century saving more nutrients before they become dragons. I’m not actually sure how long Twilight dragons take because we’ve been forced to mature faster, that’s part of why we wanted a broodmother to come with us. A dragon will grow very slowly over time in both size and power as they gain some physical traits that mark them as wyrms. ”

Giving his thanks to Tendrion, Harry left them behind for a moment and went back to his comfortable chair where Hermione was already looking over some of his notes. She looked over to him as he sat down tiredly. At her inquisitive look he shrugged and started to speak.

“We have a lot more than four dragons here. You know those trunks that are bigger on the inside? That’s what the sphere over there is, it’s also keeping them in some kind of stasis. There’s one adult with a lot of ‘whelps,’ their c hild form. I don’t think they even counted exactly how many are there. The adult is also a pregnant ‘Broodmother’ which seems to be a profession that deals with the raising of their young, and she’s apparently a traitor to her ‘Flight’ because they would have done something to her illegal inter-racial children if she stayed. Is this crazy enough for you yet?”

Letting off an amused snort, Hermione Granger gave him a long look for a moment. “It was c razy enough for me last night when you got me out of bed to open a portal to another world and started hissing at dragons Harry. Honestly, I don’t think you ever had a chance at a normal life with things like this popping up at you. But you’re doing pretty well so far; this is going to be a long project for sure.

“I’ve been looking at the map once in a while, things are still going crazy out there, like someone kicked a beehive. As long as they can’t find this room we should be good, and even if they do I’m not sure anyone could get in. The Room seems to become everything you need, as soon as you need it. So long as you need us to not be found we should be totally safe in here. Well, as long as Dobby keeps the food coming. If you can make that shower a little more private I think I’ll try to get a shower in soon.”

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back in a dilapidated house in London, Sirius Black was back at the same table he was that morning, now facing Remus. “So Remus, I think I have a way to be sure that Harry makes it through the war, but I need your help. You see, I once swore an oath not to mention something, but it occurs to me that Harry could collect on a debt owed from a member of the Potter family.

“What I need you to do is either find or create a method by which a magical creature can grant a human their own form, replacing or adding to their own animagus form. While Harry might have fun as a stag or some kind of bird, something more powerful would help him live longer. I remember hearing about old magical champions of the Native American tribes being granted the ability to wear the form of a Thunderbird.

“All I can say is that we might have something even better available, but I can’t leave this house to find the potion or whatever method they use. I need you to help Harry now, by doing what I can’t. I just need you to sign this contract that will protect the secret. Are you willing to help win the war?” Thankfully, at least one Marauder will forgive me for deceiving another. I’ll try to make this worth it James.

After hearing about the lack of contact between his old friend and his godson, Sirius felt much less guilt over doing this than he had with Minnie. To be completely honest, he was also still a little ticked over the whole innocent man in prison without a trial thing as well. It seemed like Remus couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing on his own, so a binding contract would help.

True, this might be how Albus got started, but at least I’m only making Remus keep promises we all gave James and Lily. I failed them when I went after Pettigrew because I trusted that others would do the right things. That got Harry raised by monsters and myself in the company of demons. No more. Harry is the heir of my house and all that’ s left o f the Potter’s legacy and he’ll be a good man if he makes it through this alive. I don’t know who else in the Magical World I’d trust with any kind of power really.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back in Hogwarts, in a hidden room both groups were taking some time to marshal their thoughts. While Draconic came easily to its native speakers, parseltonguein large amounts was proving tiring for various parts of Harry’s mouth, face and throat. There was more to be discussed, but all involved were considering what was most important information they wanted.

Đ: “A secure cavern, next to a forest and a small town in the middle of nowhere? Much worse places to stay. Course, if Talion can manage it we might try for our own island someday once he’s grown up. I’ll never forget Tendrion for getting us here, his toil and ingenuity. It’s just so nice to be free of Azeroth, free of the Old Gods at last!” Vespiona’s words were cut short by a hollow, broken sound coming from Talion as he started to chuckle, then laugh brokenly.

Đ: “ I’m sorry, hahaha, I thought you knew at first, haha,” The black and orange drake let out in words punctuated by increasingly hysterical laughter. “then I just couldn’t bear to take it away from you.” At this point, he broke down into sobs briefly.

“That darkness, that taint that bound us isn’t gone. I don’t think even Elune could remove it without killing us. It’s still there, in the back of my head, it’s just for the first time it isn’t influencing my every thought. Feel it out, see if it’s still there or not. I hope you’re free and you can just bind me or put me out of my misery in a few hours when it takes me again.” Finished speaking, the dragon sank to the ground and shed tears from his eyes. “Actually, if there’s no escape for this, I’d rather die as myself, for the first time in the dozen years I’ve lived then live as a slave any longer.”

Across the room, Harry and Hermione caught the sudden downturn of emotion, first with Talion and then with the others. Reading their faces wasn’t easy with the reptilian features but the drooping wings and tails were; not to mention the hurr y and panic in Draconic that even Miss Granger could pick out of the language.

Ralion took charge of the growing panic by slamming the dull bone plates that made up the club at the end of his tail on the obsidian hard enough to crack the stone and catch everyone’s attention.

Đ: “ We are not giving up! Not yet! I will not let me brother’s blood toil and tears be for nothing! Stay calm and focus for a few more hours before you let despair take you! There must be something we can do, so think hard!” Coming up to Harry as quickly as he could without charging at him he started to speak. “Harry, we’ve just figured out that our ‘Imperi o us’ isn’t gone but dormant and we might only have a few hours before we need to be restrained or killed. I need to know everything about how you knew to open the door on this side, that might give us a clue on how to proceed.”

Ƥ: “ I often have nightmares, and I was having one last night. I was seeing a fellow student killed again when suddenly everything changed. I knew I was dreaming, and I was in a forest with huge tree and gleaming shafts of moonlight coming down through the trees. I could see a tall figure in the distance standing before five smaller ones, but it was indistinct and I couldn’t see anything beyond that. I looked at them, and something swept into me.

“I knew you were in trouble, fleeing death and darkness, I knew I could help if you if I acted quickly. I had an image burned into my brain of that circle on the floor and then I woke up. Usually I don’t sleep as well as most people, but after only a couple hours of sleep I was more rested than I’ve ever been. I got someone I could trust to help me and came to this room. This is the Room of Requirement and it becomes whatever you need it to, last night it became what you see, minus what I’ve wanted to add to it since.

“I know that something very powerful touched my mind, but it didn’t seem to be malevolent. I know malevolent things touching my mind.” Harry stopped talking for a moment and thought hard on what that touch of his mind felt like, trying to get a thought on it’s possible motivations. After a moment he had the best he could phrase it.

“I think the best way I can put it is that whatever force connected us wanted you to be free, but it c ouldn’t or wouldn’t just give it to you. I’m not sure why. It feels like, and I don’t know why, it wanted you to prove yourself somehow.” Harry gestured his companion towards the mirror and she indeed grasped the idea. Harry leaned over as the dragons thought and whispered in her ear:

“Whatever influence was warping them isn’t gone, but it was silenced for a time. I think they’re in a place where they’d rather die as themselves than go back. Try to brainstorm with Sirius if you can get him alone.”

A few paces away Ralion and the others were thinking hard. None of them were familiar with Elune or Cenarius save as powerful enemies. And that was probably the point, Ralion thought to himself. Tendrion was worthy but I’m not sure we are. There must be something… I can’t believe an eternity of Tendrion’s service would be worth sending us here for a few hours of false hope . So there must be something here that can help us. From the description of this room, I can already see the young mage is already trying to make it conjure something to help. I don’t know if that would work, but it can’t hurt and trying the easy solutions is a good first step.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back at Number Twelve, Sirius was grabbing a late lunch after having gotten Remus started on his research expedition when the mirror in his pocket started to vibrate and warm. Making off with his sandwich to his private room he sat down and pulled his mirror out of his pocket. Once alone he tapp ed it with his wand to receive the call. He had been hoping that most of the excitement had been dealt with for the day, but those hopes ended when a concerned Hermione showed up on the mirror and started relaying the last few moments of events from the Scottish Castle.

“So now the leader of the four is saying that their old leader gave himself in service to a god basically forever in exchange for them getting here, and he doesn’t think an offer in good faith like that would have them only escape the darkness for a few hours. Sirius, if we can’t get them taken care of in a few hours we’re going to start chaining them, but they’re apparently saying that if we can’t help them they’d rather die then be monsters again. We only have a little time left where they’ll want to help us, apparently whatever effect is in play, it will warp their thoughts where the Imperious only blankets the mind. Do you have any ideas?”

Scratching his stubble, Sirius thought hard. “Try to find out more about how it was applied, when it first started to get into their thoughts. Ask about when it first got its hooks into them.”

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back in the Castle, no one really like the answer that the stolen eggs from other dragons were subsumed in some kind of black, evil magic and miasma. It stoked anger when the Twilight Dragons spoke of the torture in their eggs that never let up until their wills broke and they actually begged to serve the Old Gods if only the pain would cease.

It was generally agreed that being led through a series of questions, since all three dragons had heard the same words in their minds ( Will you serve me? Will you serve no other? Will you obey your god s ?) and the pain continued until all answers were yes, that it was what essentially a form of magical contract or oath. And, as any well-educated magical would tell you, getting out of those was tricky.

The good news from Sirius was that to the best of his knowledge not all oaths and such were equal. One given under duress (For example: Sign this contract in blood or I kill you.) would not be as binding as one done in good faith on both sides. Sadly, in some ways the power of the people involved also played a part. A near-squib signing a contract wouldn’t be held as tightly as a strong wizard.

This was bad because response oaths tended to take from both individuals involved, and the dragons were not sparing the word ‘god’ apparently when discussing the creatures that had enslaved them. Several hours passed quickly in a stream of discussion and frantic reading of every tome the room could conjure, leading even Hermione to recklessly hurl useless books off into the distance. Time was short already.

There was no more time left when Talion, member of the first Flight to fall to the Old Gods and having lived with the whispers much longer by virtue of having lived about eight years longer than the others asked Harry to restrain him. That sort of sent a chill through the other six souls that heard it. Talion found himself in a padded stockade, more comfortable than he expected to be honest. At that point, Sirius asked Harry to place the mirror in front of the dragons and to translate what he said word for word.

“Okay, time is short now. Here’s what we know: You’ve sworn an oath under duress, under torture as the most helpless kind of child imaginable. That’s made it weaker than one made on the level. With most magic, intentions matter. Good emotions and motivations produce stronger b o nds than selfish ones do. Love truly is stronger than hate.

“Also, an oath, verbal or mental isn’t as strong as something with a physical binder, like a contract signed with blood. Your leader made a deal with a goddess that’s generally on the up and up with honest intentions and the most valuable thing he could offer , and she sent you to my godson here out of all possible places and people .

“I don’t know if you know, but Harry is standing almost alone against an evil that’s rising right now in this land. I think that if you were to make some kind of blood oath in good faith and really meant it on both sides, that would be strong enough to protect against this filth that’s forced its way into your minds. Harry, is that dragon laughing in a good way or a bad way?”

Indeed, Caliona had begun laughing in a way that wasn’t great for her throat wound, with the others joining in soon after. But, this time it wasn’t a broken loss of hope, but a seeming joke that was just now being funny. Tendrion had seemingly saved them again.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Đ: “ Harry, Tendrion will save us again it seems. He made all of us learn an old ritual that was used by an old elven mage-king that ruled a small and wildly diverse kingdom that shattered amicably after his death. Quickly, write down your parts of the oath, then have the room summon a sharp silver knife and four silver goblets. I feel a little unsure about doing this, but we’ve come this far and we don’t have other options at all. I hope you will save us from madness and darkness by accepting our service,” Here he raised his head and looked into Harry’s eyes. “My Lord.”

Thus it was, with Hermione Granger, Sirius Black, and the house elves Dobby and Kreacher watching unnoticed in the shadows, Harry began an old ritual to bind four servants to him, and thus threw the fate of two worlds from their previous paths. For good or ill, events to come would be different .

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Feeling it the right thing to do, Ralion went first. Đ: “ I, Ralion of the Twilight Dragonflight, former slave-servant of the Old Gods of Azeroth do hereby swear myself to Harry James Potter so long as I draw breath.” Saying this, he paused, took his very clean right forelimb and cut himself with the knife, bleeding into the silver goblet . “I offer you my life’s blood to bind myself to you, the Lord I have chosen. P lease accept my service .”

Taking the offered goblet, Harry ingested a sip of the blood, ignoring the taste (Coppery and s lightly evil, with a hint of some wood ash.) he responded looking into the eyes of Ralion, hoping he could do this right, that he could do right by him, whatever came after this.

Ƥ: “I accept your service, given in good faith Ralion of the Twilight Flight.” Accepting the knife offered to him handle first, he cut a finger and added three drops to the goblet before passing it back to him. “Take my blood that you may know the bulwark of a Loyal Lord .” Hearing this, he drank the contents of the goblet, mostly his blood with the addition from Harry. “Will you, Ralion of House Potter give me your service, in whatever manner I ask o f you to y our very last breath?”

“I give you my service to my last breath, of my own free will my Lord.” With that, a bright white flashed through the room and the silver goblet, taken from the room of lost things, (and then cleaned vigorously) slipped from Ralion’s right claw and formed a narrow band around his forelimb marked with the rarely seen symbol of H ouse Potter , a rapier crossed with a wand over the words “Timor non est in facie mali.” a phrase in Latin that translates to “ No fear in the face of evil .”

Both participants would later admit to feeling rather strange as they stood there, the after effects slowly fading. Hermione, filling in for a loyal retainer, cleaned the knife with a cloth in a very specific pattern as Ralion stepped back and first his sister Vespiona, then Caliona and Talion repeated the ritual with Harry.

Talion, the darkness clawing at his mind, had much difficulty getting through the ritual, at one point pausing to bellow out “I will never serve you again!” in defiance. Talion would later describe the sensation of the bond settling as something pushing the old hatred and cruelty aside a building something within him that would stand between his mind and the writhing shadows. Something that cared about him, that wanted him to know a better life and to live a better life.

Soon all four stepped up to Harry in a line, Ralion a half stride further forward than the others, and bowed before Harry. Đ: “ What is your first command, my Lord?” they asked in a nearly eerie unison.

Harry had been thinking about this since Sirius first made the suggestion. He knew that any command he gave to them would be law, they would be unable to disobey. As they were getting ready for this, he’d asked Hermione and Sirius over the mirror in a corner for advice on how to phrase the needed commands.

Ƥ: “ First, you will never again be influenced by , obey, heed or register hearing the thoughts, words, or whispers of the Old Gods. Second, from this day forward I want you to live a life you can be proud of. Third, you will not obey my words that are not directly intended as commands. If you are unsure, ask me before you act. Fourth, I want you to come to me if you need something, I would rather be a friend than a master. For now, look after your health and we’ll make what preparations we need. I, I’m not sure I’m worthy of your trust but I will do everything I can to make myself worthy. For now, I think we could all use something to eat and drink; I don’t know about you but I seem to be buzzing inside and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

A bit of a rest was certainly in order after a rather exciting afternoon. Sirius signed off when he saw eyelids starting to droop, seeing that the room had shifted to provide a rather large pile of pillows for the dragons to arrange however they wanted and a four-poster bed with his still shirtless godson slipping under the covers, too tired to notice his female friend slipping in on the other side. He wondered if they’d find themselves spooning sometime soon or not.

In any case, Harry might not have known what all that ritual did, but he’d bet his tail that there would be some side effects that were unexpected. While he wasn’t familiar with that ritual, let alone the language it was performed in, between the light show, the intent, the blood and the cups made he suspected that there was more to it. Exactly what effects this could have, he wasn’t sure of yet. It looked like it was time to review some of his lessons from the previous Head the Blacks (His grandfather, not his father. Now that was a terrifying man. His father never met the minimum sanity requirements to be the Family Head.) back when he was just a kid before he fled from his parents.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

A four hour rest did everyone in the Room of Requirement a great deal of good. Hermione, not directly dealing with any fallout from the ritual was the first to wake up. She found herself held in a pair of arms and held against a bare chest. She blushed, but decided to remain still and not wake him. She had heard him say that he often had nightmares so decided to let him rest for the time being.

It turned out she felt more relaxed than she expected as she soon returned to her slumber. A little after eight that evening Harry woke up, surprised to have his best friend held close so he carefully disentangled himself and slipped out of the bed and made use of the bathroom. Despite being as quiet as possible, he did return to the others stirring awake. Now that much of the stress and immediate problems had been resolved he noticed that his best friend had seemingly not had the time to don a bra last night. He found himself blushing at some thoughts that ran rampant through his mind at that discovery.

Dobby, seeing them waking up provided a light meal and some warm drinks. If he wanted Harry Potter to take him as his elf someday, he would have to prove that he was the best elf. He was experimenting with different seasonings for the dragons too. For the meal he had cow hearts from the little known farm a group of Hogwarts elves kept up in a greatly expanded, and previously unused, wing of the castle only reachable by the elves. (Centuries ago, a headmaster had commanded the elves to find a way to reduce the food budget without lowering quality. After some false starts, he was amazed when the quality went up while the costs plummeted to almost nothing. After learning what the elves had done he had gathered them all together and given them most honest praise he could for not only accomplishing a hard command but surpassing expectations. Some elves had passed out from joy at the honest, earnest praise.)

Dobby had found a seasoning they all seemed to enjoy in a slowly cooked heart with very spicy barbecue sauce. For the dragon that was still looking rather weak he had made for her a meaty stew of heart and liver with a little blood. Not sure how to prepare bones for consumption, he’d merely soaked a few in bit of unused gravy from the main student’s dinner. It was certainly different cooking for carnivores instead of omnivores, but so far the little elf had nailed it.

After they had all finished eating w ith light conversation floating around during the meal, Harry willed the room to create a pool just deep enough for the drakes to submerge their heads if they ducked. Thinking back to his guest’s preferred temperature for water, he added a heating element to one side of the pool and had it make that part scalding hot. With a little magic the other side of the water would be warm enough to relax human muscles but not scald human skin. He requested and got a pair of swimming trunks in dark blue but poor Harry had a problem when he tried to get some swimwear for Hermione. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t get the room to provide something that was as modest as he guessed his friend would want.

Hermione was honestly impressed at the combination hot tub and pool Harry designed , but found herself immediately insulted when the first attempt produced a very tiny string bikini. She almost let out an angry remark when she saw him frown and try again. His second attempt produced a larger amount of cloth, but it had sections cut out that revealed almost as much. By the sixth attempt, she could see him becoming frustrated before he turned to her, red faced and very embarrassed.

“I’m sorry Hermione, I think you’ll have to transfigure something. I think the problem is that while I want to give you something you’d be comfortable in, part of me also wants to see you something like this.” Deciding to cut her best friend some slack, she picked up two pieces from different sets that seemed more modest than the others and applied a color charm to both so they’d be matching dark green. Honestly she’d seen plenty worse on vacation in France. Stepping into the bathroom for a moment, she remarked to him as she closed the door.

“That’s alright Harry, I guess you’re still a teenage boy, Lord o f dragons or not. You wouldn’t believe what my dad has to say about teenage boys.”

Within five minutes everyone had sunk into the rather warm water, Harry had made an admirable attempt to keep his eyes on his friend’s face and not on the rest of her as she slipped into the water looking much more graceful than he remembered her previously. For her part, Hermione noted both the attempt and the warm feeling she got that Harry seemed to enjoy the view when his eyes roved a bit.

Thankfully the pool was self-cleaning, as bits of previously missed mud and dried blood flaked off the dragons as they relaxed in the water. Talion felt a little let down that the water wasn’t as warm as he’d like, but then again if he wanted to swim in something to his tastes he’d need a vat of aluminum or molten stone instead of water. After a time of just relaxing, Ralion asked for and received some large brushes of varying thickness. It turned out due to their anatomy dragons had pretty much given up on washing themselves, too many hard to reach places, and instead they would groom each other. Harry learned that it had become a tradition, and Hermione guessed it was a kind of bonding ritual.

Usually a male drake would only bathe a non-related female if they were either courting or already mates, but Vespiona and Ralion paired up while Talion and Caliona cleaned each other out of necessity. The two teens just relaxed in the warm water, asking the odd question about draconic culture. Sadly, those here hadn’t been exposed to as much of it given their situation as slaves, but from what they knew it seemed v ery practical .

After an hour of soaking in the pleasantly warm water, the group made a few plans for tomorrow involving getting up early the next morning, and using Sunday to make plans for going forward. Both teens took a few moments to slip into the rooms shower for a quick scrub with soap before bed. Vespiona had mentioned they couldn’t use soap on themselves until they had either acquired or mixed up a substitute for a special oil they used on their scales, as most soaps would strip the existing oil off and let their scales dry and crack.

Harry let Hermione take the existing bed and asked the room for a sleeping bag instead. Hermione watched him lay down to sleep next to the dragons, he’d whispered something about wanting them to feel like he was one of them instead of thinking him as their superior. It turns out the dragons were still rather exhausted from their escape and the bonding, as they fell asleep quickly. Her last view of Harry for the night was when a sleeping Caliona used her wing to pull him to her side like a large teddy bear. Hermione fell asleep with a smile on her face.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

On another worl d no longer very far away at all a n eclectic group of creatures flew through the night sky, led by five shapes Harry would have now found familiar . Đ: “ I can’t believe that priestess made us wait at o ur last camp for a full day. Even you R eds should have felt that surge of power! I bet we have another mess to deal with now.”

Another dark shape, wings beating hard without the thermals they would normally ride to ease the strain responded in the same tongue. “Elune is a real entity, and as far as I know she’s at least somewhat fond of m y Flight because Cenarius learned so much from G randmother. Unless we’ve done something to seriously offend her I doubt she’d intervene to the group’s detriment while I’m here. Sadly we don’t get to demand answers from the higher beings, only work around them. Think you can find the center of whatever that was?”

A third of the creatures beating their wings through the night injected himself. “Even I know that won’t be hard. Let’s just hope we can finally finish this and get that R ed they took back in one piece. I hate to think of what’s been done to her to make her so compliant, and we haven’t seen her since before they got to that island. You still think she’s alright Dali?”

“I do brother. They must have had a reason for dragging a clutching dragon around with them, and it would be out of character for this group to be, well, so wasteful to just slit her throat and drop her in the ocean. I agree with Aurogos, it’s likely that island was some kind of facility experimenting on dragons by a Kirin Tor traitor and the Twilights have stolen the whelps we could smell there and placed them all into a prison sphere. There’s a chance we could get some of our whelps back alive too. You all know how many losses our Flights have taken in the last few years. Any thoughts, Stine?”

The dark shape that had been lagging behind the others speaking replied, pitching his voice to be heard. “You know we don’t give out hints Dali. I will tell you that after seeing my own possible futures I choose to join your group for this hunt. We’ll just have to see how this shake of the hourglass pans out.”

Speaking again, the first voice a sked : “Does that imply you don’t know how this turns out Stine?”

Even in the front of their column, Aurogos could hear the amused snort. “There’s a reason people lost in the Caverns of Time go mad my friend. Past flows into Future with endless eddies thrown into the mix. Fate is ever-changing and rarely kind. Predicting tomorrow perfectly is only possible if one can account for every variable and I don’t think even Aman'Thul can manage that. If you’ll keep this to yourselves?” He paused for a moment until he got a committed yes from all the others taking wing with him. “ I did see a future self, or should I say a potential future self going about his business on my way out of the Caverns of Time . I, or rather he looked very chipper and excited in a way I haven’t been in s ome time so I have a rather good feeling about this.”

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

AN: I’m trying to decide on weapon(s) for Harry. Right now the plan is to have him learn to fight with magic and a blade, but I find myself torn as to what to give him. A one handed sword and a wand, and/or a spear that doubles as a focus are my main thoughts. I welcome other’s o pinions .

Chapter Text

I don't own Harry Potter or Warcraft. Reviews put a smile on my face!

Chapter 4: More Dragons? More Dragons!

That Sunday in October dawned bright and clear in Scotland. At Hogwarts, the panic that had started Friday night when portions of the Hogwarts wards seemed to go crazy had mostly subsided as there seemed to be no immediate danger.

In fact, the drained wards are recharging a good deal faster than they should be, thought Albus Dumbledore, sitting in his office as he enjoyed a hot cup of tea while enjoying the frankly spectacular view of the grounds and surrounding mountains. I wonder if there has been some change in the ley-lines under the castle? It is very rare, but they do shift. In fact, no reason to delay asking the lead unspeakable to do a survey of the surrounding lines. He concluded as he picked up his wand and sent out a Patronus spell before continuing his morning tea.

Later the survey results would be mixed, but conclude that at least two of the more accessible lines had reversed the direction of their flow and increased slightly in size. This neatly solved the mystery as far as everyone investigating was concerned. A shift in the lines explained all the odd behavior of the wards, but the Ministry and H eadmaster really should have looked into the cause of the shift a bit more. In truth, not just two, but all of the ley-lines had shifted directions, now flowing away from the castle as vast amounts of magical energy poured in from an unassuming blue o val .

That power flowed through the runes that regulated it, down into the stones and eventually down into the earth itself. It also saturated the air around the portal. Most magicals of Britain did not know why Hogwarts was a boarding school, or why it was in such a remote place. In truth, wizards and witches as they mature benefit from a high saturation of magical energy, and Hogwarts Castle provided the highest saturation possible in the hemisphere .

Most of the inhabitants of the castle would begin to, on and o ff , notice a small buzzing sensation as the year went on. Poppy Pomfrey never would discover the reason, as it was not the effect of a spell or disease. In fact, it was wholly the effect of living in a place where the saturation of magic suddenly doubled in two days. Then again a week later. And then again three weeks after that. Then again two months after that. And one more time in M ay before leveling off at a level that was so far beyond any recorded that it would just be assumed that the equipment or scale was wrong.

Why was the saturation skyrocketing? Well, it was simply a matter of equalizing pressure from one world to another.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

On a positive turn, Harry’s recurring nightmares ha d been chased away by the roughly seven -hundred pounds of dragon that was cuddling him like a toddler would a teddy bear. On a less positive one, he really needed to use the restroom and he was being held in place; and Caliona was a lot stronger than he was. In fact, between the wing above him, the tail on his lap, and what he couldn’t determine as a rear or front limb, he wasn’t even sure which way to wiggle right now. Well if I can’t force my way out, or slip away from a limb here, I wonder if she’s ticklish?

From there it only took a little work to find out the right spot. Most of the scales were too thick, but when he reached the soft spot under the base of her wing, he got a twitch. A little more work and she shifted enough for him to escape. He found he was still the first one awake when he returned to the room, and the room was kind enough to provide a clock and some magical windows. As he noticed it was almost seven in the morning he thought about asking for some tea, but remembered the room seemed unable to make food. (He wasn’t actually sure if the water in the pool was real water taken from elsewhere in the castle or some kind of construct like everything else R oom brought forth . )

Sitting down to look at some of his notes Harry saw the small rune stone Ralion had given him. Examining it more closely he was intrigued at how it worked with just a few runes carved into the right kind of stone; it made him wonder for a moment about other kinds of magic that could be made from runes. Suddenly his decision not to take the Ancient Runes class seemed to not be his brightest idea.

Looking around reminded him that the other group should be f inding the portal soon. Based on what he’d heard, a stable portal would be cause for endless concern given the history on Azeroth, he hoped he could defuse the situation peacefully. To be honest, he was really tempted to step through the portal just to see what was on the other side. Well, besides a dusty cave anyway. Seeing a whole new world seemed so exciting , even if it was dangerous as hell apparently. In any case, he had a good amount of time before the pathway collapsed so he could go e xploring at some point later on.

For now, it was time to finish looking at the information for the Fidelius Charm, if he wasn’t strong enough to cast it he could probably tap a little power off the runic circle at the other side. In any case, Harry decided that if Dobby decided to join his family he would certainly say yes because just as he was about to ask for some tea he had found some already waiting for him. Crazy little guy’s trying hard to make a good impression.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

“We’re directly above the arcane disturbance, but it must be in a cave below. Shaman, can you tell us if there’s an entrance nearby or if we need to dig?”

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

As morning progressed, nightly fasts were broken all across the country. Sirius checked in with Harry and told him he’d be sending Kreacher to Hogwarts today with a slightly better version of the mirrors they were using; he’d had Remus send a few well-made folding mirrors from the muggle world with a new owl on his way out of the country for a bit. Harry replied that he was fine, and nothing was happening at Hogwarts other than h e was still feeling a strange buzzing sensation. That was attributed to the ritual yesterday, and could probably be ignored for now.

Later, w hen Kreacher found his Masters heir, he did not quite expect him to be sharing light snacks with four dragons and a girl that had spent the summer at Number 12 . Luckily they seemed oddly well behaved, so he approached the boy-who-might-be-heir-t o -the-Blacks.

Experiences with Buckbeak informing his actions, he approached only after he had been noticed by the dragons. Standing before Harry, he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. The chance of completing the Task he’d been left kept him polite, and he drew on every lesson on comportment he’d ever observed, determined to get this right. After handing over the new mirrors and accepting the old one (never want the mirror to fall into the wrong hands) he started to plead his case to the boy.

“Many years ago, Master Regulus Black stole an item from the Dark Lord and died for it. He tasked Kreacher with its destruction, but Kreacher has always failed in his favorite master’s Last Task. Master Sirius has told Kreacher that H alfblood heir could find the venom of a Basilisk or a d ragon’s f ire so Kreacher could finish his task. So Kreacher comes here and asks, and sees that Master’ s heir is s nacking with dragons.”

Harry, g ave the small, oddly polite creature a nod. “I will ask. And if they can not or will not help, there should be a Basilisk corpse with venom in its fangs down in the Chamber.”

Turning to Ralion, he spoke. Ƥ: “Ralion, this creature has a magical locket he claims was stolen from a wizard that’s been trying to kill me since I was a toddler. It was the last request of his favored master that he destroy it, but he’s been unable to. Would you consent to making an attempt? I think you can breath fire or poison, or I have no idea what that sack under your jaw is for.”

Đ: “ You’re right. Uh, you might want to make a space to burn this. Twilight Flames should work on consuming items as they do flesh, but stopping them from also consuming the castle will require a bit of care. It shouldn’t get badly out of control, extinguishing our own flames was a lesson Tendrion was firm we learn, but better safe than sorry. ”

A few moments and a section of the room expanded and a wide area was covered in a platform of soapstone above granite. Kreacher could barely contain his excitement as he placed the locket in the middle of the platform. Everyone came to stand at the edge and watched as Talion had to gesture the house-elf back three times.

When he was clear, Ralion took a deep breath (Only wishing a little for the stronger fires he’d have once he grew from drake to dragon.) and spat out dark blue hungering flames. Coming a little closer, his own flames not a danger, he watched the locket as its first protections b egan to falter . He breathed again, a smaller, more fine stream directly onto the locket before he felt the first touches of his Flight’s absorption kick in.

Early Twilight Dragons gained much of their strength from absorbing Nether drakes, but this had been refined later on. Though not a completely efficient process, the magical properties of the Twilight Flame stole the strength of those it burned, adding some of their capacity for magic to the dragon’s own. For a small piece of equipment, even accounting for it being heavily enchanted, this was proving to be a n unexpectedly rich meal.

The onlookers were becoming worried at how long this was taking, until the tiny piece of metal screamed and let out a cloud that resolved briefly into a human-like figure cloaked in shadow. R alion ’s thoughts on u ndeath mostly re volved around wishing everyone would do the sensible thing and burn their dead . So he took his own advice and buried the a pparition under a torrent of flames until there was nothing left at all. Seeing the house-elf fall down to its knees in relief Ralion moved back over to the onlookers and offered his thoughts. Đ: “ If that wasn’t a phylactery I’m a chicken .”

It only took a gentle elbow nudge from Hermione to get Harry to admit there was a noun there of some unknown significance, but he had no idea what it was. Luckily with his ability to make conversation through the language and species divides and the book-conjuring power of the Room of Requirement, they soon had worked out a rather horrifying answer.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Learning that Voldemort was alive because he had split his soul caused a fair amount of disquiet, even among creatures that knew of, and had encountered a Lich at one point. On the plus side, Voldemort retained his flesh by keeping part of his soul inside his physical form, but the dragons shuddered at the thought of the instability and insanity that would likely come from splitting one’s own soul. The fact that there was at least two pieces in objects that they knew of was horrifying.

Once again, they were eating a late lunch and trying to plan how to get the dragons unseen through the castle; Harry had just remembered how the real Moody had been found in his trunk and they were trying to figure out how to use something similar when the small rune stone sitting on the table began to vibrate. The six of them (Hermione being slightly out of the loop but having good advice to toss in anyway.) had after discussing their options decided to wait to cast the Fidelius until after making contact with that other group.

Also, since Harry was the only one that could communicate with the pursuing drakes and not be attacked on sight he would go through and talk to them. He knew it might take a little while to get through the Draconic Parseltounge divide as he had with the speakers in the room. (Now almost never missing a word, and when he did it was a word he wasn’t familiar with in English.) They figured the hunters had probably heard Ralion shouting orders at some point, so the usually quiet Caliona, with somewhat raspy but functional vocal chords that got to answer the receiver as she opened a connection with her magic. Đ: “There is no immediate threat. Stay out of the water and do not kill the human about to come through the portal, please confirm.”

“Confirmed, we will not kill the human without provocation.” Harry shrugged at that as he prepared to go through. Though he didn’t know that Dobby had been raiding the lost and found for him, he did prefer the new, better fitting boots, pants, and shirt. A wand holster with an enchanted release was proving very handy as well. Taking a deep breath he willed control of the room to Hermione as planned just after crossing and restoring the barrier around the portal. With a smile on his face, he walked up to it and paused slightly.

“One small step for man...” And stepping through, got to briefly see a dusty and mostly dark cave before the room started to spin and he passed out. Luckily he was caught by a young man in brown leather armor as he quickly sheathed his daggers and rushed forward before Harry found out how hard the rocks were on this planet.

Fortunately he was only out for a few moments before he started to come around. Opening his eyes he saw what, in better lighting might have been a blue dragon circling the runic circle that sat on the ground below this side’s portal. He did notice a different shade of dragon seemingly talking into her talon. Đ: “ ...a little magic intoxication, he should be fine in a few moments. Wait, he’s coming around now. Are you certain you want him to handle the explanations to us? Fine then, no need to be rude.”

Coming around to stand directly in front of him, she started to converse. “ I have no idea why, but the dragon on the other end said to speak to you in Draconic, can you understand me, mortal?”

Falling back into what was becoming a familiar tongue he hissed a reply. Ƥ: “ Yes. My name is Harry Potter, may I ask yours?”

Đ: “Strange way of speech you have there. My name is Alira of the Green Dragonflight. We’re hunting a group of five dangerous creatures that seem to have used magic far beyond what they should have been capable of. In addition to being twisted monsters, they’ve abducted at least one of our friends. Your people are in danger, but we’re hesitant to enter another world uninvited. Have you seen them?”

Ƥ: “ I’ve had a very interesting couple of days actually. I don’t know if you’re going to believe me, to be honest.” Harry closed his eyes as the room was still trying to spin on him.

Đ: “ Just tell me what’s happened please. Time is of the essence.”

Ƥ: “ Alright, but dragon at the portal, please don’t tinker with it. I don’t know what would happen on this end, but if it destabilizes on the other end before the energy leaches out it’s going to destroy a school and town.” That got a gruff response from the dragon that he wasn’t crazy or stupid as three other dragons stepped forward.

Harry was still trying to keep his eyes closed. He wasn’t sure what magic intoxication was, but it was making him nauseous. “All right. The night before last, on the my world, I have no idea the time here, I was asleep having my normal nightmare when everything just cleared, instantly.

“I found myself in a forest with massive trees and gleaming magical shafts of moonlight. I saw figures in the distance, and then I just knew things, like the receiving set of runes for the one you see on the floor there. Wait, I didn’t notice that before, did I get another language jammed in my head too?”

Pausing for a moment, he opened his eyes and looked at the Night Elf woman in ornate robes with some kind of blatantly magical, glowing staff across her back. “Good fortune to your family. How is the weather here? One the other side it’s getting a bit cold, I almost need to break out my heavy s hirt s .”

That got people’s attention. Especially the Night Elf’s. “You speak my native tongue, but in a very old dialect young man. I have not heard some of those inflections spoken aloud in a millennium. How is this possible?”

Continuing in a language that had only recently been renamed Darnassian, Harry r esponded . “I think I was given a dream from a being called Elune several nights ago. The leader of the dragons you were hunting was apparently a decent guy trying to do the best he could, and he traded his eternal service to Elune for getting the ones he cared off this world, away from the Old Gods.”

Looking at him like a teacher would a wayward student, eyes boring into him she confirmed his suspicions. “I would normally think you a liar for saying that child. But, probably at the same time you were granted a vision, Elune touched my mind for the first time and implored me to keep our group in camp for a full day. It required a show of Her strength to cow some members of our group, but we waited until the appointed time to continue. Did the Goddess’s intervention cleanse the taint from those dragons?”

Sighing, and again closing his eyes, the room’s spinning was slow ing , but still making him feel sick. Harry had no idea what that he had the full attention of every dragon in the room and basically everyone but the human in leather that didn’t speak the language.

“Yes and no. I don’t think it’s possible to break their oaths and purge the corruption outright without killing them. From what I understand, it might not be possible at all on this world. But what she did do was free their minds for a time. I, I’ve had to stop one of them from killing himself so far, after he got the wounds on his friends treated he broke down and all the things he’d done, the things he’d been forced to enjoy caught up with him. When they found out that their reprieve was temporary, they became desperate, all four of them.”

Alira, drawing attention to herself by stepping forward broke in with perfect Darnassian. “We have searched for a way to purge the corruption of the old gods for a very long time. We have found no thing but the freedom of death m ortal .”

Sighing, Harry shakily stood up and looked her in the eye at his full height. “Did you ever try great amounts of distance from the corrupti ng agent and then overlaying that oath with a stronger one?” That did indeed get everyone attention.

Swinging around and stomping towards him, the Blue dragon began demanding, also in Darnassian (Hey, learning a new language can kill good amounts of time in a constructive way. Dragons have a shelf life of roughly ten to fifteen thousand years so they have plenty of time to kill.) “What are you talking about, what oath? Are you saying you’ve found a way to free sentient s from the grip of the old gods when we’ve been failing for ten thousand years?”

Looking the a gitated dragon right in the eyes Harry responded. “I don’t know if you have the same traditions, but my people have a way to bind people to honor agreements with magic, some stronger ways involve using blood as a binding agent. We found out from the Twilight Dragons that when they were in their eggs, they were tortured mercilessly until they gave in and g ave a binding oath to accept your enemies as their gods simply to escape the pain .”

All five of them looked more than a little sick at that. No just individual ever condones the torture of children. “We almost didn’t figure it out in time, but it turns out that not all oaths are equal. The intent behind them matters, like my godfather said, love is stronger than hate . Not to mention that an oath given at gunpoint isn’t as strong as one given in good faith, add in the distance, a physical binder of blood, and that portal apparently doing something to keep the evil on this side...”

Alira jumped forward into Harry’s face. “With all that you were able to free them? You mean we don’t have to kill them anymore?!”

Quickly suppressin g a wince, Harry responded. “They’re free of what was binding them before, but now they’re bound to me instead. Given that Elune apparently sent them to me specifically, they made the choice to use the binding ritual . I haven’t heard complaints yet, but they’re not completely free, and I’m not sure if they ever will be. Also, now that you’re close I see that you’re still damp. I’m going to step back and make a quick call with my mirror if you’ll excuse me.”

Flipping open a seemingly simple mirror, Harry was heard calling out a word in English before seeing a teenage girl’s face show up. A few rapidly said words and Ralion’s face was showing quickly. Ƥ: “ Ralion, tell me quickly why you wanted them to stay out of the water.” Harry was focused enough on the mirror that he failed to notice the green snout looking over his shoulder.

Even through the mirror Alira and Harry could tell that Ralion was drooping, ashamed of himself. “The water was supposed to be an obstacle to make them detour around or try digging a new tunnel! They were supposed to notice what was wrong and avoid it! It’s not the first time we’ve set traps to slow them down!”

“ Ralion . What was in the water?”

“I’m so sorry. Nineteen standard crystal vials of Faceless blood from one we ambushed and killed .” Five drakes serving under the Wyrmrest Accord hissed violently in shock. “If any significant amount of t hat blood were to come in contact with them for long or be ingested, it would slowly infect them like a plague. I’m so sorry my Lord.”

A voice in English came back as the image on the mirror swapped to the bushy-haired teenager again. “Harry, is everything all right over there? The dragons here are looking depressed and guilty again.”

“I think it will be okay in the long run Hermione, but we might have five more joining me for the same reason as the others are staying. Can you alter the barrier around the portal so there’s room for five drakes and myself to stand, but keep it sealed? I’ll see you when I see you, I might be here for a while.”

Turning around, glad the room had stopped spinning, Harry saw that Alira was actually crying into the Night Elf’s lap, while the human rogue and werewolf(?) with a r ather large rifle were standing near the only entrance looking confused. The other four dragons were just looking despondent. He focused on the entrance again when a, well he wasn’t quite sure what it was except that it was sort human shaped with very broad shoulders, an extra knee, with on e bending in the opposite direction of the upper one did, some kind of tail and wearing chainmail came back and said something to a dragon that was waiting near the door.

When that dragon’s wings drooped just a bit, Harry figured he knew what the news was. Never the less, t he drake moved forward resolutely. Nodding to Harry as he placed himself in the middle of the group of dragons. Đ: “ I’m sorry friends. Malaru confirmed the water we swam through and some of us drank bears the taint of the old gods. From everything I know we’re now doomed to walk the path of Neltharion in his descent. If it’s any consolation , I think the mortals are safe; carrying them above the water seems to have spared them. They’ve been hunting faithfully with us since we first struck at the Twilight, so at least we won’t drag them down with us. I don’t really know what else to say.”

Harry waited for him to finish before speaking, trying to give them some hope. (He knew what it was like to have no hope.) “ Life on my world isn’t perfect.” He started with, gaining their attention. “There’s still evil and I have human enemies that want to destroy me for their own power. But on the plus side, as far I know we don’t have evil gods corrupting our people’s thoughts. I’ve been planning on moving the other drakes into a h idden chamber , and make it so they can hunt in the nearby forest at night. There will be plenty of food for all of you, and I think if you let me I can keep you from falling into what you fear right now.

“I can’t make many promises, but if you let me I will do everything I can to help you. To keep the horrors of your world away from mine I’m planning to use a spell that should remove this cavern from everyone’s memories and keep others from finding it. I think I can keep my world safe until the portal fails. I wish I could give you a lot of time to make a decision, but I c an ’t. Use the stone if you wish, as far as I can tell, Ralion, Vespiona, Caliona, and Talion are intelligent creatures horrified with the things they’ve done as slaves to evil. We’ve been discussing a lot of things so far. Think it over p lease , I have some stones to set up.”

As Harry pulled out a small case from his pocket that had an expansion charm on it, and took out a few simple ward stones Hermione had carved to encourage living things to stay away he was surprised when the Blue drake walked over and began examining them. Preempting any questions, he started speaking in Darnassian. “It’s already a forgone conclusion mortal. I doubt you noticed, but Siara, the elf priestess was asked to use her mind arts on you before you came through. Nothing invasive, but enough to tell us if you were lying. I’m curious about these glyphs, I’ve never seen scripts like them before.”

“I think they’re Old Norse, I haven’t studied them, my friend on the other side carved them for me. At times I regret not choosing to study Ancient Runes, tha t class would certainly be more useful than the one I went with.”

Letting out a loud sigh as he took one of the ward stones and examined it carefully, the dragon responded. “Mortal, if I’m going to fall into your service, you should know I won’t accept a leader who is lazy or uneducated. Between the five of us that will be coming with you, we have a good deal of knowledge and over t wo hundred years of experience in this world. If you want to learn, there is much we can teach you, but it will take long hours of study. I assume you are a user of magic?”

Receiving a nod the drake smirked. “Then I do have much to teach you young one. My name is Aurogos of the Blue Dragonflight, and I spent twenty years as a student of S enegos before the Nexus War. Here, you can set up these stones, I need to prepare a report for these mortals to return to Wyrmrest Temple with. Last thing, there was a female Red dragon abducted by the...”

“Valistraza. As far as I know she’s perfectly healthy inside some kind of pink stasis sphere. And if she wants to stay, I have no problem granting her what protection I can . I’m told she was trying to flee Azeroth on her own, and the Twilight group convinced them to travel with them. Tendrion, the drake that seems to have been free of the darkness, made a deal with her that the whole group was honoring.”

“Why on Azeroth would a clutching female try to… Oh. I suppose that does happen at times. Her mate?” At Harry’s downcast eyes he had enough of an answer. “That explains what she was doing traveling alone in that state then . We never did fin d out a good reason.”

Leaving Harry to his work, setting the aversion wards and preparing for casting the Fidelius, Aurogos walked over to his pack and prepared his people’s version of a memo. One plus was that with enough mental discipline one could prepare an entire report ahead of time and simply w ill it directly into the golden metal disc. Normally the devices were color-coded for the different Flights of dragons, but this one was special, marking it as very important. After a few moments of running his magic through the device he sealed it by turning an inner section clockwise until it locked and drew out another, more plain version.

Switching to the language known as Common, a descriptive if uninspired name, he addressed the Night Elf priestess Siara Moonshadow. “This is my last report to the Wyrmrest Temple. I’ve made it Aspect Eyes only, please ensure it is given directly to either Alexstrasza or Ysera and they understand to only view it in private. This second disk is less important, but it’s fair that we give it to you. My group was infected by a trap left behind, and we’re going to follow in the footsteps of the Black Flight if we stay on this world. There’s hope for us on the other side of this portal. You have all proven loyal and skilled and we regret parting ways.

“I ask you for anything you can spare that might prove useful to us on the other side, especially any gems or such that improve mental focus. Any plant seeds or metals or even worked items would be helpful. Enchanted bags would be greatly appreciated, books you don’t need or can replace even more so. When you reach Wyrmrest Temple, present this second disc to the quartermaster for reimbursement and the agreed payment for our hunt. Thank you again mortals. And, we wish you luck in all of your pursuits. Remain safe, brothers and sister in blood.”

That said, he bowed low to the Human lurking in the shadows, the Night Elf priest leaning against the cavern’s wall, the Worgen and the Draenei shaman preparing a totem to burn away the corrupt water a few tunnels over on the way out. They bowed low in return and began emptying their traveling packs for anything useful. With the continual introduction of bags even larger on the inside than previous versions, (And the fact that the standard enchanted backpack standard to all adventurers across the world can hold other a number of enchanted bags within it.) this would take a while, but be rather profitable for those heading to Earth.

Praise the Titans for mortal packrats! The Blue thought as he rejoined the discussion in Draconic . As he had surmised, it was the conclusion that, while not happy about their options they really had no other c hoice . A leap in the dark was preferable to the fate that awaited them here. Alira and Dalistraza were discussing the impressions Siara had shared about the young man, as when the subject matter turned interesting, she started taking a deeper look at what kind of person he was. Brave, loyal, and smarter than he thought he was but with deep insecurities stemming from something about his family and not really having the strength that came from a family, clan, or Flight.

Well as far as starting points, we could have done a lot, lot worse. It doesn’t seem like he would sell us out or use us as slaves against his enemies. The Blue drake thought as he watched the teen begin drawing a series of symbols on the walls of the cave. He was referencing several sheets of paper as he went, and it looked to be a rather complex spell, so t he teen might have some real potential.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Back on Earth, Hermione had decided to keep busy. She had used the mirror given to her to speak with Sirius about the ritual binding, and their conversation had started to rabbit-trail quickly. The young woman found that whatever had happened to Sirius recently, he seemed altogether more coherent than the man she had met s poken to her third year or over the summer. His intelligence surprised her, as did his eclectic mix of magical knowledge.

“You have no idea the work that went into some of the Marauder’s pranks Hermione. Grades don’t really matter outside of school, just your NEWT scores really, or OWLs if you don’t make it that far. I think we got a better education learning what we needed to accomplish our goals than we ever did in the classroom. Heck, it’s not like they teach you to become an Animagus in class, and even Wormtail managed it eventually. Classes are all right for most students, but there’s so much more to learn. Honestly, the learning behind the pranks is most of the reason I was hoping Harry would follow in his father’s footsteps. If this war gets anywhere near as bad as the last one, I’d keep Fred and George as close friends. They aren’t smart so much as they’re clever and I promise they’ll come up with some useful things when they need to.”

While they waited for word from Harry, Sirius promising the mirror would switch to the new ‘call’ as soon as Harry tried contacting her, Hermione Granger enjoyed what was almost a lecture on facets of magic not taught at Hogwarts. Eventually house elves came up, and when she made her views known, he countered with a different argument.

“Hermione, something I don’t think you realize is that different species aren’t human. I don’t say this to denigrate them, but while they might be similar in some respects, if you expect them to share your beliefs, your way of thinking, you are going to be disappointed at best, or end up dead or worse. Take house elves. Do you know what happens to them when they’re free, truly free? You don’t, or you wouldn’t be trying to free them.

“Originally, house elves were a creature that took delight in chaos. They never really cared if humans were hurt, but they had a need to see other’s lives shaken out of the ordinary. They didn’t always mean for people to get hurt and die, but that doesn’t change the number of deaths they caused. Eventually wizards rounded them all up, but one of the greatest of that time implored the other magicals to allow him to attempt to alter them before they were all killed. In the end, he was successful and changed their need for chaos to a need to serve .

“He altered their purpose, which is no easy feat. It turned out, however, that the creatures were actually drawing energy from the results of their actions, so for the creatures to remain alive they draw a small amount of magic from the people they bind themselves to. Maybe you read that squibs aren’t allowed house elves? That’s because the drain is enough to kill them, and then the elf usually commits suicide or goes insane.”

A number of thoughts ran through the teen’s mind. “So the muggle myths of gremlins...”

“Probably true accounts that survived the Statute of Secrecy. Either that or there’s a few of the original creatures that escaped, but if they did their numbers are so low they haven’t been a significant problem in a long time.”

After that exchange, the call ended. Hermione had been given a lot to think about. Later, she had spoken to Dobby and the small creature had affirmed what Sirius had said. A fter Dobby mentioned wanting to be Harry Potter ’s Elf someday, Hermione decided to try to hasten that as much as she could since the little guy already seemed to be lacking in stability. Though he did seem to have a great deal of purpose in aiding Harry. After some thought, she decided Sirius’s advice of not trying to hold non-humans to a human standard was very sound.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

It took just over an hour for Harry to finish drawing all the needed symbols on the walls, floor and ceiling of the cave and just a little longer for the other humanoids to finish going through their bags. Apparently used to carrying everything he owned with him at all times, the Draenei Malaru had a significant amount of gems with him. Harry learned when he asked asked, (Through the Night Elf that was already finished sorting her items.) that the Draenei Shaman was cutting them into shapes that would improve one’s mind and spell casting by a small amount. There was a serious pile of items ready to come with them, even a good bit of foodstuffs. Harry found he could read one of the books, it was a manual on some of the priestly magics and looked rather interesting. It didn’t take much longer for the man with blue skin and hooves to finish the last peice of jewelry he had the items to craft, apparently the gems would only give a benefit if they were set in a special slot.

As Harry had been preparing for his spell, the dragons had asked if the jewelcrafter could create an item for the young human. After some discussion, a necklace made from mostly from pearls and a little mithril wire was produced. It didn’t look like much more than a simple necklace with two gleaming gems; one yellow and the other red. I t was a small simple pendant w ould look at home on a man or woman. Alira explained to Harry as she handed it to him it was a magical item that should provide a minor boost to his mind, spell power, and precision.

H arry felt a small surge as he looped it around his neck and s tartled badly . He got laughs from everyone when he jumped, but apparently that was a normal reaction for first timers feeling an item binding itself to them . It would now serve no other until many years after he died. (Assuming the item survived his death.) Apparently a quirk of the materials it was made of, the item would also soak small amounts of pure water through his skin . It wouldn’t be enough to prevent dehydration, but it would slow the process if he couldn’t get water when he needed it.

Harry tried to stay out of the way as the group said their final farewells and loaded all the items into bags as Aurogos made a tally and recorded the list into the blue metal disc before locking it as he did with the other and handing it to the Night Elf . When they were ready, Harry explained that the group not coming needed to be outside this cavern and that they might be disoriented by the magic. After that, four notes were written and stuck to the mortal’s shirts, giving only needed information so they could get out safely and clear the tainted pool. As soon as they were out, Harry Potter started casting the Fidelius Charm. He’d decided to make himself the secret keeper and had taken some advice to hide both the existence of the cave and portal.

Half an hour later, a very sweaty teenager grinned at the extremely disoriented dragons, cast a silencing charm at the cave entrance and spoke a carefully considered line. “The portal that leads to Earth is itself in a cave under Stranglethorn Vale, on the most southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms on the planet Azeroth.” H arry was fortunate that only a few people knew about either the cave or the portal. He saw one of the Red drakes watch the mortals outside the entrance read the notes tucked into their shirts, shrug and move off to burn out the trap that had poisoned the drakes .

Again Harry wa s surprised at how expressive these dragons were at times as he saw most of them putting up a brave front for the most part , but Alira looking very forlorn with a tear leaking down her face. Stepping up to her, he touched her face gently and wiped it away. Ƥ: “ I know its going to be a whole new world for you, but I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can for all nine of you to survive and thrive on it. Believe me, please.”

When she nodded her head, Harry picked up as many bags as he could carry and walked through the swirling blue doorway between worlds.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Harry did not expect to see Professor McGonagall talking with Hermione in front a small fire with dinner sitting in front of them when he stepped through. After just a few moments the other five followed with Alira touching her head to Harry’s shoulder, now revealed in the light as beautiful creature of emerald scales and tan fading into a shade of red on her wing webbing. The additional armored plates and around her talons also bore tan with a bit of red on them.

Seeing that his best friend and their Head of House had noticed him, he spoke to them. “Hermione, see if you can make the room detect any dangerous diseases or anything else you can think of that might be tagging along with us. Then purge it if you can.”

Nodding Hermione closed her eyes for a moment concentrating. “I don’t think there was anything the room could get rid of other than a few mold spores. Good thinking though, want me to open the barrier?” At a positive response she brought the barrier that was around the portal down, then up again after they all walked though.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Minerva McGonagall had been quite off balance since the meeting with Sirius yesterday. After she signed the contract with Sirius, she’d soon received a rather good book on Occlumency and had been brushing up in her quarters every spare moment. At first she really wanted to ignore Sirius, but performing a broad detection spell on herself for mental spells had given a positive result. When she’d contacted Sirius this morning after that very surly elf had delivered a mirror and some simple instructions he had assured her that it was pointless to remove the compulsions before she could prevent new ones. Not to mention disastrous if the perpetrator found out they were on to him before they were ready.

When she had asked about what he meant he’d responded “Imagine if the people all around you w er e spelled to believe that you’d switched to the Dark Lord’s side of the war with no evidence and that they needed to silence you. And worse, your mind would be r ifled through and the traitor would know we were on to him .”

That had convinced her to instead study hard and make some plans to help Harry, who for whatever reason was a central figure in the war. After Harry had stepped through the portal, Hermione had contacted the Professor with the mirror now in a pocket, apparently horrified that the call phrase was “Here kitty kitty.” After checking herself for tracking charms, she had gone to the seventh floor of the castle and was looking at a strange painting when a door appeared behind her and Hermione ushered her through.

As M inerva understood it, th is room would become anything they needed, and she was just slightly concerned when the door disappeared behind her. Summoning all her powers of student intimidation she had asked Miss Granger where Harry was and what trouble he was embroiled in this time. Her composure as a stern Professor slipped mightily when she was interrupted b y the three dragons that slipped out of the shadows and took up p rotective positions around her student.

She was more surprised when Miss Granger told her they didn’t speak English, and that they must not have liked her tone. After Hermione got them to calm down and showed her Head of House to a seat, the room became much more well lit and proved to contain a rather odd collection of items. Though the large bed, swirling blue oval, and steaming pool were enough to ask questions, the forth dragon coming up to the other three and conversing in some language she had never heard before immediately got her attention.

Miss Granger introducing her to the four dragons was a strange experience, and what odd names. Over the next hour, Hermione served tea brought to them by an elf she wasn’t familiar with and explained the situation as she knew it. Harry was apparently dealing with something on another world just then. Usually Minerva would have scoffed at that, but this was Harry Potter, a boy that drew trouble to him like no one else she had ever met .

In the end, Minerva McGonagall was only a little surprised when Harry led five more dragons of new colors out of the portal and gestured towards the steaming pool as a few more brushes appeared out of nowhere. As he joined her at the table, she could see the boy was covered in sweat and seemed dead tired, though he was perking up a bit. “ Mr. Potter, trouble seems to have found you again. May I ask what you have been doing just now?”

Though tired and sweaty, the boy had a wide grin on his face as he set down an empty glass of water. “I just cast a Fidelius Charm on the cave on the other side of the portal. It took a lot out of me, but it’s stable.”

Looking at the dragons for a moment he hissed briefly at them, and got a response in their rather rough, growling tongue. The colorful newcomers moved into the pool, seeming to revel in the hot water. Th e boy nodded and then said a sentence in another strange tongue. The dragons that had assembled around him seemed to relax and settle down, but they all choose to sit rather close to the boy as most of them watched the others, now over in t he steaming pool us ed the brushes to clean each other.

“Before you ask, that was a language called Darnassian, and it seems I got it jammed into my head Friday night. I’m fluent, but apparently I speak a very old dialect. Oh, Hermione? After the dragons are finished, have the room vanish the water and brushes, okay? Thanks. Do you two mind if we eat? I’m starved.”

“ Harry, was that the Secret?” Hermione inquired. The boy in the middle of adding a large quantity of pasta to his plate nodded. “I suppose putting the secret in English might not make sense, but I still have no idea where it leads, other than apparently somewhere with dragons.”

As soon Harry finished chewing his slice of garlic bread he responded. “I thought that might happen. How do you feel about learning ‘elvish’ when we have time Hermione?”

Minerva could see the girl was shocked as she nodded and the boy went back to consuming as much food as he could, though he retained good etiquette while doing so. The boy was certainly eating like he had been doing a lot of spellcasting. He was still eating, putting to shame the polite amounts of food she and her star Gryffindor were consuming when the new dragons were finished bathing. Harry hissed something at them, and when the y exited the pool, b oth pool and water and all vanished, then a new pool formed and a system of very strong shower heads appeared for a moment before they struck the poor dragons from all directions for a few moments. All that water soon vanished also, leaving dragons that were dry walking over to them through the clouds of steam that had been created. Harry set his food aside, finished for now.

Her eyes saw that the first four dragons were clearly nervous. They hadn’t touched their food yet, despite looking thin around the ribs. After several moments going back and forth Harry introduced them one by one, apparently in two languages.

“This is Alira of the Green Dragonflight of Azeroth, (Gesturing to a lithe G reen dragon with tan on her wings and underside .) Aurogos of the Blue Dragonflight of Azeroth, (Motioning to the larger and rather m ore muscled scarred Blue dragon with a beautiful azure hue to his wings and tail club, with a darker blue on his main body. And are those runes? It looks like it’s hide was tattooed...) the siblings Dalistraza and Senastrasz of the Red Dragonflight of Azeroth. (Here H arry indicated the two Reds, mostly covered in crimson scales save for the webbing of their wings and their underside which were white . Dalistraza had a much more feminine build while Senastrasz bore both muscles and scars. )

“ A nd this is Stine ( H ere he motioned to the last of the second group , a Bronze dragon that seemed to be built for speed rather than strength. He was covered in Bronze scales, with a light brown for his wing webbing and underside. ) of the Bronze Dragonflight of Azeroth. And this is Ralion and his sister Vespiona, and Caliona, (Here he indicated the two drakes w ith dark purple scales , then the dark blue one.) Twilight Dragons of Azeroth formerly associated with the Twilight Cult of Azeroth.

“This is Talion, (here Harry indicated the final creature, a Black and brilliant orange creature) a Black Dragon, who claims his only association as a member of the group started by Tendrion. Professor, they’re going to be staying here on this world now with the others, because of what awaits them back at home.”

Without being asked, Alira had carefully stepped over to the first group of dragons and was gently peeling back the bandage over the least active dragon’s throat. After wincing at the wound that was just starting to bleed again, she slowly raised her claw, glowing with green light and touched the woun d as it slowly receded into healthy flesh. Every eye had been on her as she worked, and she shirked back when she noticed t he attention .

Minerva noticed that when Harry walked up to her with what must have been comforting words she leaned into the awkward attempt at a comforting touch he gave. After a few moments she started running her f orelimbs all across the once injured dragon, then the other three before giving obvious good bills of health with a few c aveats . (Years of dealing with Poppy allowed her to understand that much even with the language barrier.)

When the Green joined the rest of them at the table, she saw the other settings and shocked all three humans when instead of a dragon, there was a purple humanoid with long backward flowing ears, forest green hair, and softly glowing green eyes ringed with small tattoos inspired by vines. In fact, her whole group suddenly changed forms.

A young man with powder blue hair and almost crystalline blue eyes along with the young woman with long red hair and soft, motherly features proved to be the most normal. The other R ed dragon had shifted into a similar, but different variety of elf, shorter, with lightly bronzed skin. Senastrasz’s ears were more vertical than horizontal and the only thing that would mark him from being different from a normal elf was his striking red eyes.

Stine, on the other hand, could possibly draw more attention to himself in his humanoid form. Instead of the upright, four limbed forms of his fellows, he had become a smaller version of the local centaurs, only instead of being meshed with a horse, he had a humanoid torso with orange and black striped fur and a cat’s head with extra long ears atop an orange tiger. After a few exchanges in their respective magical tounges , Harry, seemingly very amused, pulled out his mirror and told it “Paddy.”

When Sirius answered the mirror, Harry after checking he couldn’t be overheard, started sweeping across the room with the mirror. “Hey Sirius, just as an update we’ve collected more dragons here at Hogwarts, but I’ve just found out their species has the ability to turn into a humanoid form at will, sort of like the animagus transformation we use. It’s not so hard for them to learn really, but what it does take is for them to find a shape they like.

“You have Alira, the Green dragon, whose form is a Night Elf. And yes, I spoke to one of them on the other side, she was pretty , a bout seven feet tall , and at least a thousand years old. Aurogos and Dalistraza both take a human appearance, which would fit in fine most places. Dali’s brother Senastrasz is a different kind of elf, you can notice the height, skin tone and ears. Last, we have Stine, who apparently thinks these cat-people called Tol’vir are cool.

“These guys are staying cause they’re in a similar boat, having fallen in to the liquid e vil that causes the same problems the others had. So, we have four dragons that can fit in with a bit of work, and one guy that will attract more notice when he’s not a Bronze Dragon the size of a horse. Anyway, just wanted to let you know what was going on, have a nice night.” After that Harry hissed a bit and everyone came up to the table that now had enough chairs and places.

Dobby seemed to be on to something with the liver stew and hearts. In fact, the stew was so nutritious the kitchen elves were working on getting the seasoning just right and adding it to the general menu. Spicy grilled (also sometimes fried, smoked, and baked) hearts, sadly, were still going to be a dragon only dish. As were the seasoned bones. Poor Minerva was wondering why she hadn’t been served any of the interesting looking white dumplings in sauce until she saw one of the purple dragons, apparently getting a few etiquette tips from the green dragon with a gentle bearing, crunch into what she realized was a piece of bone. Ah, well I would have to say that they are predators. I certainly can’t imagine them as anything but apex predators. Our cook must be that crazy house-elf that’s so adored of Mr. Potter.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

During the de s sert course, a sweet layered cake that the S tine and t he dragons in their natural forms skipped, but everyone else found to be very good, Harry decided to broach a subject he had been thinking of since before casting the Fidelius. “Professor, what would be involved with dropping divination? I’ve found there’s nothing really worthwhile for me to learn in that class.”

“You would have to add another class Mr. Potter, and catching up to your fellows would be difficult.”

“I was wondering if I could self-study or join the third-year’s rune class. I’ve realized my laziness led me to wasting that elective slot, but in my defense I really had no idea what any of the classes were about when I made my decision. After finding out a bit about what runes can do I’ve decided that seems like a much better use of my time.”

“ Hmm, I will speak to Professor Babbling. Her feelings on Professor Trelawney will likely help you there. Self-study will be needed to catch up with your yearmates, but a good way to prove you are serious about the subject would be to spend some time with the younger students until you pro gress past that year’s materials in your private study. I will let you know sometime tomorrow. Now, what are your plans with these creatures going forward?”

“My first goal is to keep them safe, and then get them speaking English as quickly as possible. Right now, they can understand Parseltongue and I can understand Draconic without much trouble, but that isn’t good enough. Also, now that I know they can take different forms like this, I’d like them to learn that skill. Was the reason they’re here at all explained to you already? I’m glad I don’t have to explain it then.”

Standing, Harry stepped back a bit from the table moving to stand next to the various drakes that were sitting together at the other end of the table. “ Dobby, I promise to pay you back as soon as I can, but can we get five more of those silver goblets? The style doesn’t matter but the metal does.”

Dessert left the table and one by one, old silver goblets started appearing on the table. Harry decided that he liked having plausible deniability just in case his little friend was also a little thief and helping himself to precious metal drinking vessels.

(Those fears were unfounded. Although Dobby did have to recruit help to secure these goblets from the Room of Lost things. There was simply a vast amount of objects that had piled up in the last millennia that were no longer owned by anyone. In fact he had heard about there being even more dragons in the pink ball, so he’d asked the other elves to help him find all the silver items in the room, if needed they would be reforged if needed. Not counting the silver coins, there was a rather large quantity already there. )

Ƥ: “ I don’t know how long you five have until that evil starts tearing at your minds. From what I understand it will start small and gradually strengthen until you’re nothing like you are now. I propose that we get this over with now, if you are willing.”

Seeing Alira look so downcast he walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her. He really didn’t know what to say so he just stood there and kept up a bit of human contact while he spoke again. “Ralion, I want your group to explain the ritual you shared, all right? Let me know when they’re ready. I think we need to move you guys tonight, and it’ll be a long one before we have the Chamber set up. I want you four to start learning the shapeshifting trick, having a human or near-human form would make things easier.”

Harry moved over to the open area in front of the portal, Hermione holding the silver knife from last night as she came to stand before him. He was surprised when just a few moments later Aurogos stood before him in his natural form holding one of the silver goblets. At Harry’s surprised look, he simply shrugged. Đ: “ Our memories are excellent. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Once more, the ritual played out, and Aurogos joined the House Potter. Stretching his form out, he looked at his left front palm for a moment. “Hmm, the ritual healed the cut, I wasn’t expecting that. To be honest, this really doesn’t feel bad at all. Did you know that magic often contain s an impression or taste of the one from whom it originated? I’ve served under an Aspect whose touch felt a rrogant , cruel and mad my Lord. From what I can sense of you life here won’t be awful.”

Turning his head to where the others were grouped he called out. “Alira, you should go next. You’re worrying needlessly.”

As soon as the silver once-cup settled around the Green Dragon’s forelimb, Harry found himself in a very powerful hug. Through the other three rituals she refused to let go of him, eventually ended up wrapped around him she fell asleep . After Dalistraza, the last to complete the ritual, finished poking at the silver band that now decorated her forelimb with a talon she leaned in close.

“Thank you for being kind to her my Lord. Alira is the youngest of us five, and the most unsuited to war. She was in training to be a B roodmother before she was pressed into service, and she never had the temperament for battle. I think if we had been facing any enemy other than Tendrion’s group she’d have been long dead. I remember when fighting that group more than once he either spared her or m ade the others to spare her.

“She’s become a dear friend, so please take care of her my Lord. She really hasn’t been the same since the first Twilight band we were chasing down left us in a cave with t wo d ozen dead whelps, so we’ve been trying to offer what comfort we can. My Blue friend was right that we can sense a lot of what makes you, you, my Lord. That’s wh y she’s trying to wrap herself a round you right now. I don’t think she’s really felt safe in years.”

Ultimately disentangling himself, he saw that Hermione had demonstrated an expansion charm on an old trunk and after a few tries Aurogos had crafted an enchantment that would allow a second trunk to both be expanded and shrunk for easy carrying. Dobby had brought the personal brooms for Harry and the Professor which went into the trunk, and given a few spare items, a ladder and simple furniture had been transfigured in the interior space.

While the Room of Requirement was a nice temporary hiding place, it was felt that a place with a ready escape route was needed, just in case everything went badly. Harry quickly explained what he’d been told about the G reen drake while the humans watched the two groups of drakes begin to hesitantly interact. When they were nearly ready, and Alira had woken up, Harry repeated the same commands he had with the first group. He got agreement from the drakes that there was nothing onerous or objectionable there. He got a hug from Alira he only broke because they needed to get going.

After the room provided a confirmation that their leaving would not destabilize the portal, and Dobby promised to make sure that the House Elves knew to stay away they prepared to head down into the Chamber of Secrets. Harry would use his invisibility cloak, walking alongside the Professor to Myrtle’s bathroom while Hermione would ride in the trunk with the drakes and all the items they had with them. She found herself cautiously examined by the green dragon but when she offered a smile she found herself embraced by the creature’s elfin form until Harry brought them out. Luckily she was already sitting comfortably on the transfigured couch at the time. Between the warm embrace and gentle rocking of the trunk she found herself enjoying a pleasant nap for the entire journey.

Outside, Harry “required” the room to lock itself so that it would only open for him, preserving the safety of all involved while the portal slowly bled off energy. (Aurogos agreed with Harry’s initial supposition that the portal would need to bleed off slowly or else explode violently. His guess was that it would take at least a year, and then he started planning out addition ward schemes for the other side.) Outside and invisible, Harry talked to his Head of House as they strolled along. “Thank you for agreeing to help us Professor. This is already the most helpful any of the staff has ever been. I have no idea what shape the Basilisk will be in, but now that I think of it, it was very cold down there so maybe that has slowed the decay.”

“It’s possible Mr. Potter. It’s also possible that the creature’s own magic has slowed the process. We won’t know until we get there, it could be anything from a skeleton and pile of goop, to a fully preserved carcass. Did no one ever point out the potential value? I can’t imagine anyone preventing you from claiming it for yourself after killing it.”

“I suppose I’ve just learned to keep my head down as much as possible. Hey, do you think Olivander could have used any part of the snake for wands?”

Minerva was silent for several moments as they passed by several students making their way from the library to Ravenclaw Tower.

“It’s possible. To be honest, the most common wand cores in this country happen to be the most readily available. Unicorn hair and dragon heartstring and fairly easy to acquire, so they get used in many creations. I know in America Thunderbird feathers are common wand cores, along with some other native creatures. If anything of that carcass is salvageable, Olivander would likely be very interested in acquiring pieces for his craft. Have you thought of a cover story for your absence these last few days? Unfortunately, people have noticed.”

“Professor, after seeing that expansion charm in action, I’ve found myself very curious about the limits of such expansion charms. I also find myself wondering, hypothetically of course, what the results of the p ower surging through the castle could have had, if I had been revising in the common room in a n expanded space, say a mouse hole, that I had found and m ade into a cozy little study room for myself? ”

“ Hahaha, Mr. Potter, are you saying that your cover story is that you were lost in an enormous mouse hole this whole time?”

“If the story is at all pl ausible , yes. It’s believable for the students doesn’t and doesn’t paint me in a terrible light. To be honest, if you tell people the space was so large I had been using my broom for over a day and h adn’t f ound my way out it will even make people think before they try using the spell for something similar. You can say you went looking for me and when you asked the elves they mentioned the new space in the tower needing to be cleaned. ”