Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thank you Talesoftime, Runelore, Eider Down, and Ex-livreira for your help.

Knowing canon helps but isn't a requirement for reading this. If you are confused about anything let me know in the comments and I'll add a better in-story explanation for those not as familiar with either fandom.

… … 

Disclaimer: Lewis Carroll wrote The Jabberwocky, JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, Christoper Paolini wrote The Inheritance Cycle. This is my three-way crossover.

Warnings: No slash, no relationships, a bit of unrequited Harry/Murtagh attraction.
Triggers: Stockholm Syndrome / Psychological abuse / Unhealthy manipulative relationships.

Completely written, updates approximately every other weekend.

… xoxox …

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

He looked at Albus Dumbledore, standing in white robes and infinite wisdom. “If you wanted, you could get on a train and go—on.”

Harry was tired. So, so tired.

He nodded once, firmly. “Thank you, Professor,” he said. “For everything.” 

There was a lovely black steam engine the next platform over. Harry got into a carriage, marvelling at the way he could almost smell the vinyl seats. He knew this wasn’t real, not really. It was all in his head, after all.

The steam whistled, and Harry wished for a cuppa. The wagon lurched—they were off.

Harry’s eyes slid shut without him really noticing. 

When he awoke, he knew he had fallen much farther than just down a rabbit hole.

… … 

The first things he noticed were the birdsong and sunshine. He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, but he could feel the warmth of it. There were soft sheets against his skin. 

It was so peaceful. 

Harry hadn’t realised how much he’d missed being able to breathe easy. Of their own accord, his muscles unclenched. There was no danger. He didn't know when, or where, or how he was, but he did know this place was safe. 

Harry opened his eyes.

There was a man on a chair nearby, reading with his brow furrowed. He wore a circlet on his head, and his beard was trimmed neatly. Everything about him looked…careful. “Goedemorgen,” the man greeted.

“Hello…” Harry hedged. “Do you speak English, by any chance?”

The stranger’s eyes had already widened with understanding. “Yes, I understand and can speak the Ancient Language.”

At least they would be able to communicate, then. Harry sighed in relief.

“What is your name, child?”

With a clammy hand, Harry smoothed his bangs over his scar. “Harry.”

“Begroeting, Harry. I am Galbatorix, Leader of the Forsworn, Last of the Dragon Riders, Master of Shruikan and King of the Broddring Empire.”

Harry swallowed. He felt very small and rather inconsequential. Like the kid who had just…died, actually. Not even an hour ago, by a superior wizard’s wand. “Err. The Broddring empire? Where’s that—your Majesty?”

The King smiled genially, not seeming to mind. “Alagaesia.”

“Ah. Of course. Ala-gaesia.” Harry’s heart sunk. He had gotten on that train in King’s Cross and ended up very, very far from home. “I don’t suppose you know where that is relative to England?”

“England,” the King echoed. “No.”

“Right.” Harry swallowed. Alagaesia, huh? And—

“Sorry, did you say dragon riders?”

King Galbatorix laughed, eyes twinkling much like Dumbledore’s had. “Yes, Harry. Dragons. Come, let me show you this world. I’m sure there is a place here for you.”

Harry had grown up in a cupboard.

Had been thrown headfirst into a world of magic, where everyone already seemed to know everything about him. He had been expected to save them all.

Something inside him trembled with hungry anticipation. I’m sure there’s a place for you here, the King had said.

Harry believed him.

Chapter Text

Galbatorix was—

Harry wasn’t quite sure what he was, actually. He was strong, and stubborn, and determined. He had great plans, lofty ideals. He talked about ending war, so that society would progress and his people would live better lives. He had plans for Harry too, sending him to tutors until he felt his brain would melt.

Galbatorix would join him for dinner after long days mired in administration and politics to hiss and spit about the corrupt order of Dragon Riders. How they had torn the country apart, and the scars were still raw decades after.

He spoke of having been chosen as a young boy with much potential, torn from his family and inducted into the Order, trained and brainwashed, and finally granted his dragon. 

He spoke of how the dragon had given him magic.

And when Galbatorix spoke of magic, Harry knew there was nothing he loved more. It was different than the magic on Earth, Alagaesia’s had more rules and even more possibilities within them. It had the greatest potential for good—

—and for evil. So much evil, complacency, corruption, dark magic, hoarding of knowledge, back-stabbing.

There were days they would sit together, talking about Galbatorix’ life, and Harry’s life, and all the things Galbatorix wanted to do to make life better for his people.

Other days, Galbatorix would hole himself up in his library for a Hermione-like studying frenzy.

He’d emerge haggard, hair messy, excitement glinting in his eyes. Those were the best times, because they’d go afterwards on horseback to the surrounding city, boroughs, river, and countryside.

Harry loved the way Galbatorix's attention would feel. When he listened, Harry felt like the most important person in Alagaesia. At the same time, while the countryside was beautiful, the cities stunk of shit and despair.

So many people, sunken eyes and distended bellies, arms outstretched for alms.

“Why don’t you do something?” Harry implored after their latest trip to one of the poorer parts of the city. “You’re their King.”

“And what will it accomplish, if I feed them today? That doesn’t solve anything,” Galbatorix said.

This was the most frequent topic of the King’s rants: magic, the great rift it had created between those with, and those without. Even now the people were still looking to magic to solve their problems, and the King couldn’t help them all, forever. 

They had to learn to help themselves.

“We have an expression like that back home.” Harry conceded, speaking slowly as he translated it into the so-called common tongue. “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll never go hungry again.”

The King gave him a peculiar look then. “Back home? Is this not your home, Harry?”

Something deep inside Harry lurched. There was grief over the world he’d lost, to which he’d never be able to return. And even more grief, that he’d stood there and let himself die for them. Snape had been right.

Harry had been raised like a lamb for slaughter. It would be lying to say that didn’t hurt.

“Yeah, I guess this is home now,” was all Harry said. 

… xoxox …

“Where are they going?” Harry asked as they watched the troops march out the city gates. The cheering crowd reminded him of the people who'd let him walk to his death.

“North, to Gil'ead. There have been uprisings of Urgals near the Spine.” Galbatorix sneered the last words.

Harry knew the King hated Urgals. He grabbed the first new topic he could find. “My tutor was telling me that all young men have to enlist in the army once they turn eighteen.”

Galbatorix nodded. “Of course. It is a way to teach them discipline, test for magical ability, and if they have the mind for writing, they learn letters and sums. Many stay, after those two years are up. I pay them well.”

It was hard to imagine needing to have an aptitude for something as standard as the three Rs taught to every eight-year-old back h—in Britain. “Why don’t you have schools for children? Almost every child in the world I came from could read and write.”

“Even the girls?” There was more than a faint incredulity there, tinged with curiosity. “Why?”

Harry shrugged. It had always seemed the most logical thing, he’d never thought twice about it. “It’s useful for letting people know stuff, isn’t it? Education is the greatest equaliser.” The words had been plastered on the wall of his primary school’s dining hall. Even now he could still see the cheerful blue staring back at him. “Besides, once we started school my Aunt had time to get a job again.” He gave another helpless shrug. “I dunno, your Majesty. It’s just how things were done.”

“Hmm. You must draw me some diagrams of this school later. It sounds interesting.”

Harry had to leave soon after for another bruising swordsmanship lesson, but a warm feeling stayed with him all day. It always amazed him the way Galbatorix, literally the most important man in the empire, would take the time to explain things and listen to Harry’s ideas. 

It filled Harry with a small, simmering joy.

It was a good feeling, to be wanted.

... xoxox ...

If you want to review, I value that, but if you just want to read that's wonderful too.

I'm posting this out of a joy of writing, a love for words. Thank you for reading. I am honoured to share my stories with you.

Chapter Text

“Politicians!” The King spat the word like the foulest of curses. Harry watched him pace and rant. “A Shade, the woman wanted to know how to summon a Shade! As if she could control one, and besides, why must the people always think magic will solve all their problems?”

Harry hummed his sympathy as Galbatorix folded himself into an armchair. “Tell me, Harry, am I doing the right thing? I could reach out and fix everything, with all the magic in the world. It would be neither simple nor easy, but I am powerful enough.” He dragged a hand over his weary features. “But then the people would be the same, living the same lives with the same skills on cleaner streets with prettier houses. What good would it do them? What good would it do me?”

This was the first time Harry could recall being asked his stance on politics, in the year he’d been here. “I think…” he began carefully.

It felt like a lifetime ago that he had been that rash, stupid seventeen-year-old, screaming coward at Snape’s retreating back.

He had outgrown being the Gryffindor hero since then—dying would do that to a man. “I think magic has the potential to hurt or harm, like any other tool. And, well…” Harry swallowed and quoted, not without irony, “sometimes we need to decide between doing what’s right, and what’s easy.”

Galbatorix nodded as if Harry had imparted some great wisdom.

Harry felt a bit like an impostor, undeserving of such high regard from his King.

“So long as the Varden refuse our offers of peace, I must continue to divert resources towards this war. Oh, Harry, how I long for something other than this fighting. It is nonsensical, that the people cannot hold themselves better than this, than petty squabbling over trade routes and equality.”

“They do not see your vision,” Harry said, long accustomed to this particular rant and the place he had in it, the right words to say.

“Yes, my boy. We need safe roads so that my people can eat. We need a separation of religion from state so that the people can think clearly. And we need a new Order of Dragon Riders that will travel the realm, breeding hope.” The king sighed, shoulders bowed as though even his breath was weighing on him.

“Come, Harry,” Galbatorix said, getting to his feet, straightening back into his usual energy. “It is time. I believe you are ready.”

Bewildered, Harry followed his mentor down corridors he’d never been allowed in before, passing trapdoors and trick tapestries. “Here they are, my boy,” Galbatorix said, opening a chest with a flourish. “Even if neither of them hatch for you—”

Harry wasn’t listening.

They were magnificent. Norberta’s egg had been pinecone-like, dull and solid.

These, however, were pure light. They hummed with life and magic and unadulterated joy. Harry hovered his hand over the red, drawn instinctively to the bright Gryffindor hue. “May I?” he breathed.

From the corner of his eye he saw his King’s nod.

It was like holding a Patronus. He could swear it was humming, this egg, brighter than any jewel in Gringotts, in the world—in either world.

Galbatorix gasped as they heard a telltale crack. Harry held the red egg up to the torchlight, eagerness churning inside him. And swiftly after the crack came another, and then a soft mewling.

The egg was still whole. Harry examined it, perplexed.

“Over there, Harry, my boy,” the King said—he sounded a little smug.

Sitting in the chest surrounded by shards of green eggshell, was the lankiest, spindliest, frailest-looking creature Harry had ever seen. Harry handed the Gryffindor egg to Galbatorix, smothering the faintest hint of his own vain disappointment.

Who was he to judge the thing on something as shallow as colour?

Though it did look rather pathetic and crumpled and umbrella-y. “Do you have umbrellas in Alagaesia?” He absently noticed his mouth forming the words. Simultaneously his hand was reaching out, even as he feared the slightest touch would squash it.

Just like every book, tutor and story had said, the silver gedwëy ignasia appeared on his palm with first contact. It barely even stung.

“We have parasols,” Galbatorix offered, his voice resonating with approval.

Harry picked up his dragon and held it close.

Inside him, his magic rose up again, bubbling with new potential.

… xoxox …

The baby dragon grew even faster than Norberta had. The feeling was all-encompassing, this bright spark of everything Harry’s world suddenly revolved around. The hatchling ate, and slept, and most of all listened.

Harry watched it grow, talked to it, and experimented with his magic. It was wonderful and a great relief, to be able to cast with a focus again. The first thing he did was transfigure the poor imitation of spectacles that Galbatorix’ best glassblower had provided into something which actually corrected his vision.

Then followed an extensive series of experiments on different variations of Lumos.

Next he tested his ability to Apparate.

Where? his dragon demanded, voice high and reedy. Harry immediately Apparated back.

“Did you just talk?”

The dragon had managed to tumble off the bed in the few unsupervised seconds. At two weeks, it looked like a green-tinged baby thestral.

Where? it repeated.

“Er. Well, I Apparated, see? It’s instant travel via teleportation. You focus on the three Ds, Determination, Destination and…Dematerialisation? No, Delocalisation—oh, that isn’t it either.” Harry realised he was rambling and let his mouth click shut.

Stay, the voice said, thin and imperious. The effect was further enhanced by the way it still hadn’t disentangled its limbs.

“Right,” Harry said back. “Are you hungry, then, or is it time for another nap?”

… xoxox …

Thank you for your lovely, enthusiastic support! This is an unusual fandom, you could always help me by spreading the word via kudos/bookmark/Reddit.

In the process of posting this, the story has captured me and is now growing swiftly. Beware the Jabberwock will be completely written by June 1st and end up around 31k words. The chapter count is limited by the lines of Lewis Carroll’s poem, so you’ll be getting much longer chapters soon.

Up next: After being introduced to the empire at a banquet, Harry realises he’s never going to get to be ‘Just Harry’.

Chapter Text

Thank you talesoftime for your betaship.

… xoxox …

Harry was ashamed to admit he’d barely noticed his King’s absence, as preoccupied as he’d been with his bonded hatchling.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” was the first thing Galbatorix asked when he returned.

“Is it true, what they’re saying?” Harry asked back, “There’s another Rider out there, with a blue dragon?”

The King scowled and Harry instinctively flinched back. “Sorry,” Harry said, but the apology was already being waved away.

Galbatorix knelt down and began petting the mess of green dragon limbs snoozing by Harry’s chair. “Yes,” he said, sighing gustily. “Yes, the Varden stole an egg fifteen years ago. The Elven princess had been ferrying it between the Varden’s hideout and Du Weldengarden since then. My servants captured her just as she teleported the egg into the Spine, where the dragon’s Rider happened to be.”

“Maybe it was fate.” It certainly sounded like some kind of predestined meddling.

“Perhaps it was, Harry. I hope not, for I am not enthused by the meddling of fate and destiny.”

Harry nodded, he could empathise with that. “So now there are three of us dragon riders?”

“I do not know,” Galbatorix admitted. Under his scratching hand, the green dragon hummed. “If I manage to find the new rider before the Varden does, there is hope for him. But once they start indoctrinating him? I can only guess how they will weaponise the boy and the hatchling for their cause. Facing one of our own in battle would be a great tragedy.”

The dragon opened its eyes then, butting Galbatorix’ hand for more scratches. Instead it overextended and lost its balance, toppling over.

“Is there something wrong with my bonded?” Harry hedged them, after confirming that the dragon was unhurt. “It’s just, I thought it’d be more…majestic.”

His King looked up sharply. “I can understand not naming her, but a dragon isn’t an it, Harry. And no, it’s perfectly normal that they grow at different rates. The muscle will fill in later, I am certain.”

Harry sighed in relief. His dragon-partner snorted, sending up tendrils of smoke. “Are you a boy dragon or a girl dragon, then?”

Does it matter? it projected into both their minds.

Apparently, Harry’s dragon-partner was a bit…special. “See?” he said to his King, “And it doesn’t like any of the names I’ve suggested, either. She or he just tumbles off the furniture and keeps growing like a weed. I figured when it’s good and ready, it’ll let me know itself.”

Tumble-Weed, the dragon said then, fully extending its neck. You may refer to me thusly.

Harry wasn’t sure where it had learnt words like ‘thusly’, either. “Right. Tumbleweed it is.” He tried to look annoyed, but really his heart was just swelling with joy. A grin split his face in two as Harry lunged to hug Tumbleweed. “You chose perfectly.”

Galbatorix snorted. “The people will be clamouring your names. All hail Harry and Tumbleweed, heirs to the Brodding empire!” he mock-chanted, then left.

Harry and Tumbleweed exchanged bewildered looks—as much as a dragon could look bewildered. Did the King just name us his heirs? Harry hedged.

He felt his heart was about to burst from his chest with a thousand unnamed emotions.

… xoxox …

It was a month after Tumbleweed’s hatching that Galbatorix presented them to the people. Select politicians and city mayors were invited to a small gathering for lunch.

King Galbatorix had made it sound so simple, harmless.

He’d failed to mention the select number totalled a hundred strong. The meeting hall was brimming with noise and chaos. Somehow in the past years of barely any company, Harry had forgotten what it was like to have so many people around. He dithered outside the hall, Tumbleweed perched on his shoulder

“I welcome you all to this gathering. It is my great pleasure to host you in my home, this central stronghold of the Brodring empire.

“This past month has brought us worrisome tidings, but I have good news for you also. With word of a new dragon hatching being confirmed, the Ra’zac have now flown with greatest haste to the Spine to bring the latest Rider under mine and Shruikan’s extended wing.”

There was hearty applause, but Galbatorix continued speaking over it, and they settled very quickly.

“The Varden will not find an ally in Eragon, who is a citizen of Brodring just like yourselves. We have no reason to fear the dissenters who crawl craven amongst the dwarves even as they die of old age and scurvy.”

More cheering. Harry felt his pulse in his ears, reminded of all the times in the quidditch changing rooms, waiting for Lee Jordan to announce his name. Tumbleweed’s claws kneaded his shoulder, comforting him with their presence.

Together, the dragon said.

“…finally bringing into the public eye proof of the birth of a new Order of Dragon Riders, I present to you my chosen heir Haraldr and his partner Xerophyte!” Galbatorix cried.

Bewildered, Harry stepped through the oaken doors. Haraldr? Xerophyte? he asked the dragon.

Tumbleweed’s focus was already on the room, drinking in the sea of awed faces. The dragon beat its wings and let out a screech; Harry could feel Tumbleweed’s pleasure at the way several wine-cups were dropped even as mouths hung agape.

Galbatorix clapped a strong hand on Harry’s free shoulders. “Come, my boy. You will join me at the head table.”

His King led the way and Harry followed, the dragon preening astride him.

…

It was an exhausting evening, the banquet filled with countless moments where Harry had to wear the perfectly-crafted mask his tutors had drilled into him.

Yes, Lady Hemsworth, the oil trade is lucrative, have you considered selling to the King’s army to make use of His transportation network?

Duke Shorthold, I assure you that the dragon will bite you if you continue to harass it.

Of course, Lord Moleham, the roads northwards could always use improvement, and do you have any young labours to spare that they might join the engineers in his Majesty’s army?

My King, Master Gumpsmith was just telling me about the high yield of this year’s harvest, isn’t that fortunate?

And so on, until Harry’s brain was coming out his ears. Though he did remember to start responding to Haraldr by the end of the night. It seemed that, no matter what life he might live, he’d never get to be ‘just Harry’.

But sitting on his bed watching the sun teint the city smog red, listening to the morning bells, Harry understood that this was his world now, his dragon had claimed him and bound him in heart and soul. Even now, half-asleep, his silver-marked hand stroked Tumbleweed’s scales.

The dragon’s dreams flitted through him, fire and smoke and love.

He didn’t understand what he’d done to deserve Tumbleweed, so pure and unapologetically different, but he wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world.

Alagaesia’s prince, the future of the Dragon Riders. Harry and Tumbleweed—Haraldr and Xerophyte.

For the first time in a long time, he felt like he truly belonged.

… xoxox …

The sun rose and set over the city of Urubaen. Harry spent long hours sitting under Shruikan’s wings, watching and listening as all the city’s noise and chaos faded to mottled gray light and the bellows of dragon-breath.

Tumbleweed had grown too large to sit beside him, limbs still long and lanky, but Harry knew the dragon’s comforting presence was sitting just beyond his reach.

Shruikan was once again telling stories of days long by, foregoing words most of the time as he showed scenes of young swordsmen, wizened old dwarves wielding axes, and dragons, so many dragons.

It was startling, how the eyes of a dragon saw things differently. Harry always marvelled at the way Tumbleweed’s sight emphasised vibrant greens—Shruikan’s world was entirely gray.

Now, with his day of lessons over, Harry had been hoping for respite, but Galbatorix had other plans.

“Shruikan, my dragon,” their King greeted. “Xerophyte, you grow more magnificent by the day. Come out from under there and walk with me, my child. We have much to discuss.”

Harry gave the dragons each a farewell pat and made his way dutifully over, brushing off his robes as he went. “My King,” he greeted, “I didn’t know you’d returned already.”

Laughing, Galbatorix placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “All the pirates in the seas could not keep me away from home for long, son. Follow me, there has been much progress in your latest endeavour.”

Uncertain as to what exactly he’d been endeavouring, Harry nonetheless fell into step beside his mentor. “Tumbleweed is still growing steadily. Xerophyte, I looked it up in the library, it means a desert-plant. Though it doesn’t like the symbolism, it does like the sound.”

“A dragon is not an it, Haraldr, how many times must I tell you—”

“My dragon isn’t a he or a she either, my King. I cannot force language upon it that it does not want, I cannot force Tumbleweed to do anything really. Stubborn beast, that. I don’t know where it gets that from.”

Again Galbatorix laughed, but Harry’s mind was captured by Tumbleweed’s voice in his head.

“You can use xe if your King objects so much to it ,” the dragon hummed.

“Xe,” Galbatorix echoed, saying it slowly, a smile still on his lips. “Well, I did introduce you as Haraldr and Xerophyte.”

Relief trickled all the way down to Harry’s toes, warming him. “Thank you.” Tumbleweed’s content resonated alongside his own, magnifying their combined feelings a hundredfold. Harry couldn’t help but grin. “Xe,” he thought towards xer. “I like it.”

A portier opened a door and bowed King and heir through to an outside courtyard. Soon Galbatorix and Harry were on horseback, moving towards the river where the mills churned the foul waters.

The building they stopped before was squat, made of sandstone blocks with dainty windows that clashed with the surrounding streets turned black and blue with decades’ worth of dyes.

Harry looked at it, unsure what he was seeing. “It’s very nice and clean,” he hedged carefully. “Is it for your new military?”

Then a bell sounded and, to his utter shock, a stream of children burst from the wide wooden doors, yelling at the top of their lungs and showing exactly no regard for the fact that the King was dismounting his horse within the fenced-in courtyard.

Bewildered and amazed, Harry let Galbatorix show him the slate boards covered in chalk runes.

“They are learning their letters twice as fast as the soldiers ever can,” a white-haired man announced from his place behind the frontmost desk. “My King, my prince, allow me to lead you to the kitchens that you might eat and drink.”

“No need, Helbert,” Galbatorix dismissed. “I know the way.”

The kitchens were bright and the mess hall had ’ Education is the greatest Equaliser ’ in blue runes on the far wall.

The feelings in Harry’s chest roiled between nostalgia and awe. “You built all of this, based on my idea?”

“Why else would I ask you to draw up floor plans, my boy?” Galbatorix laughed and brought them back outside to where their horses were waiting, a few children watching from behind a fence. “The mothers can go to work in the mills, the children are learning the right lessons early while getting a good meal every day. In only ten years, these will be the empire’s best soldiers. It is a wonder I had not thought to do this a decade ago!”

“What about the girls?” Harry wondered aloud. He couldn’t properly tell, what with most of them covered in dirt and dye, but he’d thought he’d seen a few skirt-clad children.

“I will find a use for them, no, we will find a use. This Empire, it is yours also. You and I will have it prospering.”

… xoxox …

“I—I don’t know,” Harry found himself saying to Galbatorix’s head engineer. “The steam comes out the top, and the train just goes.”

The frustration radiating off the half-man-half-elf was a tangible thing. Innerly, Harry marvelled at how the Seander could keep such a neutral expression, but mostly Harry just felt frustrated, too.

“You mustn’t fiddle with an arrow-wound, youngling,” Tumbleweed’s voice chimed in his head.

Somehow, adding cryptic dragon-symbolism wasn’t the answer to improving Harry’s mood. “Thanks,” he sent back.

“Forget the train for now, Haraldr, and tell me how you make the rails.” Seander’s pointed ears twitched. “You said they were made of steel, but steel would warp in the sun and break in the cold. Steel cannot be stretched that far. Your ideas are ludicrous.”

“I thought you were the engineer between the two of us,” Harry huffed, and turned away. He met with the half-man every week, ostensibly for the purpose of bringing Earth’s technological innovations to Alagaesia. Instead, it had turned into a weekly session of Harry being belittled as he was reminded over again that he’d left formal schooling at age ten, and he’d been more worried about Dudley’s gang than learning anyway.

“Peace,” Tumbleweed hummed, sticking xer head through an open window. “Shall we go flying?”

The sight of his dragon-partner never failed to fill Harry with joy, heart beating a little faster as the light bounced green onto the stones around him.

“I’ll meet you in the main courtyard in five,” he promised, hurrying for his rooms at his fastest walk.

Haraldr of the Broedring Empire does not run in the halls like a peasant child, Galbatorix had said exactly twice before Harry had understood.

He changed quickly into what his King called ‘adequate dragon-riding gear’.

My heir will not be seen dressed in unsuitable clothing, whether it is for sparring lessons, riding, or in the middle of the night while taking a shit.

The usual beeswax went onto his lips, and a simple spell protected his eyes from the wind.

Son, you and your dragon are a part of my Kingdom now. You must protect yourself from harm, if not for yourself then as an act of service to me.

Doing things the proper way was so tedious, but Harry had grown from the brash Gryffindor who would have simply jumped out the window onto dragonback, consequences be damned. He saddled Tumbleweed and fastened the straps before pulling his gloves on. “Ready?”

Xe spread xer wings and clambered up the defensive wall, scales gouging familiar paths into stone. “Ready or not,” Tumbleweed sang into their mind, “here we come!”

… xoxox …

On a broom he’d felt rather like a knife slicing through the air, but dragon-flight was very different. The world unfolded below them, its vastness engulfing them even as it cradled them with a sense of connection. Dragons were creatures of magic, they couldn’t fly without it, so the magic held them in a balance of gently push-pulling them away from and back down to the earth below.

This high up, the landscape below was made entirely of miniatures. Harry’s eyes traced the familiar roads and the river that roiled away so far below them.

If he were to fall from here, he’d be able to admire the view for a few long minutes before he hit the ground.

“I would catch you,” Tumbleweed said fiercely.

Harry stroked his hand over xer spine, relishing the way his stomach fell when he let go of the saddle’s handles. “I would never leave you,” he thought back at xer. He stretched out his arms, holding onto the dragon only with his legs. His heart raced, faster even than the wind beating against his face, faster than his thoughts could keep up with.

Fastening his hands to the saddle again was simultaneously relief, and regret.

“I wonder where Eragon is now,” Harry said into the silence, his eyes straining to see the way the world’s edges curled.

Tumbleweed snorted, a plume of smoke burning acrid in the wind. “Somewhere far away, I hope.”

The last news had been that the boy was near Dras Leona, continuing his southbound journey. Galbatorix surmised they were heading for the Varden’s hideout in the dwarven realms to the south. From what Harry had been told, the Beors were a mountain range so high that their peaks disappeared into the clouds. He very much wished to see them, spectacular as such a sight must be, but Tumbleweed did not think much of it.

“Dragons do not belong inside mountains,” xe reminded him. “Dragons belong in the open sky.”

Tumbleweed spent a lot of xer time thinking and talking about belonging. On days where Harry was feeling self-reflective, he understood whom xe’d gotten that from.

Slowly, xe winged a huge arc across the river, pointing them back towards Urubaen.

“I’d like to meet them, Eragon and Saphira. Maybe we can convince them to join our side. I hope he’s not a bully like Dudley was. Or maybe he’s like Draco, and being a Rider has gotten to his head.” Harry leaned down and pressed his face against Tumbleweed’s great neck, the warmth welcome against his skin. “We could use more dragons in our Kingdom.”

“Dragons do not belong to Kingdoms, nor to Dwarfdoms, Elfdoms, or Vardens.”

“Maybe.” Harry thought of Shruikan; the great black Dragon hadn’t left the throne room in so long that he didn’t fit through the doors anymore.

“Shruikan is only half of a soul.”

Sometimes, Harry wished his Dragon would use less cryptic symbolism and make a little more sense.

… xoxox …

I am so pleased to share these stories with you, thank you for reading.
If you have a favourite part or something really spoke to you, leave a comment. I try to write for my audience, and I’ve been known to add scenes when they’re suggested.

Up next: He took his vorpal sword in hand; / Long time the manxome foe he sought—
Harry and Tumbleweed get sent on a mission to capture Eragon, Saphira, and Arya before they reach the Varden.

Chapter Text

“I have a mission for you,” Galbatorix said.

It was an overcast Sunday, another dust storm having swept in and turned the skies amber.

“Eragon and Saphira have been sighted near Gil’ead. They freed the elf Arya, and Durza assures me they will be headed immediately for the Varden lest she die of poison. Your mission is to intercept them. This is important, Haraldr. Can I trust you?”

The solemnity of the situation, the entire weight of his King’s words turned the air thick with gravity. “You can trust me,” Harry replied, then echoed Galbatorix’s army’s motto. “I will serve.”

Though he received a smile in return, it was heavy. “Thank you, Harry. My dear, dear boy. You have done so much for me, and yet I find myself needing to ask you for more.”

Harry swatted his confusion aside like a fly—so far he’d served mostly as a minor politician, an emissary, a figurehead, and a scout. It hadn’t been much in return for the place Galbatorix had granted him by his King’s side. “I don’t understand,” he admitted when the silence had stretched beyond comfort.

“A vow, son. I need you and Tumbleweed to swear a vow in the Ancient Language for me that you will do your best to capture Eragon, Saphira, and Arya before they enter the Beor mountains—without unreasonably risking your life and limb, nor theirs.”

It was a solid construction, a vow like the ones in his old world had been worded. Harry thought over it for a minute before nodding. “I swear it,” he said, repeating the phrase in what he privately still thought of as English. The second the magic passed his lips, he could feel it pulling him towards Tumbleweed’s saddle.

Galbatorix still had mission-relevant information to share, he told his magic sternly, and the itch to carry out his word subsided for a minute.

“I am proud of you, my son,” the King said.

And then he said several words in English, combining heir and dragon rider, wizard and saviour, wrapped into a spell that resonated and bubbled and swelled within Harry like a Patronus.

“That’s my Name,” he realised. Tears came to his eyes, heavy with some overwhelming emotion he couldn’t have identified even if he’d tried.

“Not a bad name,” Tumbleweed said from within him. “Albeit, there’s distinct room for growth.”

Xer name probably held the word ‘critic’ within it, Harry thought, but he would never stop feeling fondness for xer.

“Swear to serve me, that you will always be loyal to me, to never betray me,” Galbatorix said, and Harry had spoken the corresponding words before the next breath had fully passed his lips.

Galbatorix nodded then, satisfaction half-hidden by his neat beard. “Good. Good. Prepare yourself to leave immediately, I shall meet you in the eastern courtyard.”

All the sensations jostling within Harry had him feeling unbalanced, he almost tripped in the halls on the way to his rooms. He changed clothes on autopilot, barely listening to Tumbleweed give the same vow Harry had, though Galbatorix evidently didn’t know xer name yet.

That didn’t matter, of course. With Harry vow-bound, Tumbleweed was equally bound. They shared a mind, were two halves of a whole. He hurried for the courtyard, taking a pack of military rations from the store-shed on his way.

“This is a dragon’s heart, a soul,” Galbatorix said, and handed Harry a velvet bag that seemed to hold a bowling ball.

Harry took it on instinct, fastening it to Tumbleweed’s saddle as his vow pushed him on. He needed to leave, to stop Eragon and Saphira from reaching the Varden. “Yes, my King. What am I meant to do with it?”

“A dragon is not an it, Haraldr,” Galbatorix chided, but with warmth. “She will tell you as you travel. Fly towards the Hadarac desert, then follow their trail. Fly swiftly, Xerophyte. Bring me Eragon, Saphira, and Arya.

“Do not disappoint me, boy.”

Harry clasped his King’s hand in farewell, jumped onto Tumbleweed—and they were off, wind already screaming in his ears.

A few quick spells took care of that.

Once Tumbleweed had reached her usual altitude, winging steadily east at a pace xe could easily keep up all day, Harry turned to the dragon… soul? that Galbatorix had given him. He could feel nothing when reaching out his mind to it, so he squeezed his hand through the bag’s opening.

“Hello,” he offered. “Who are you?”

“Children these days, no manners at all, well I never, if I could I’d give you a nice roasting until you’d be lobster-red—”

“Begroeting,” he interrupted, lest she come up with a way to actually roast him using magic. “I’m Harry, Rider of Tumbleweed and heir to the Broding Empire. How do you do?”

“Hmph.” The spiky feeling of her mind unbristled. “I am Ulpukka. The King Galbatorix told me you are on a mission to capture a dragon. Have you ever captured a dragon before, young man?”

“No,” Harry admitted easily. The most he’d ever captured was a snitch, or the horntail’s golden egg. “What are you, Ulpukka? How can you be a soul and a heart?”

“Some things, you are not yet ready to learn, child. You only must understand that I can teach you, and that I can lend you my strength when your need is great. Try it now, cast a spell while drawing from my magic.”

Harry tried a colour changing spell, and by the time Ulpukka was satisfied his pack had cycled through the entire rainbow twice.

While Tumbleweed flew steadily onward, Harry indulged in a nap.

… xoxox …

It was night before they reached the desert, with Tumbleweed stopping only twice to eat and drink. Harry channelled magic to xer so that they might keep moving, the vow they had made pushing them onward even while it drained them of energy.

Tumbleweed landed in a tired heap of scales and sand. “I must rest. We will be unable to capture even a tallow deer if we continue on now.”

Harry agreed, and evidently the magic did too as it stopped its steady hourglass trickle of lost magic. He summoned water from the ground and held it while Tumbleweed flopped into the pool to drink.

“That’s entirely unhygienic,” he told her, watching the grit on xer long neck scatter into the water.

“Make me a bigger pool, then. I must bathe. There are insects on my scales, Harry. Insects .”

But the summoning spell was tiring Harry out quickly, and that was only from holding about a bathtub’s worth. “Scourgify,” he cast instead, watching Tumbleweed’s full-body shudder in response.

“Acceptable,” xe said, then stretched out across the cooling sand. “Now you can bring me a nice deer. One with antlers, those are lovely and crunchy.”

“Your wish is my command,” Harry threw back fondly, twisting to apparate to the nearest plains. Tumbleweed had spotted some antelope on the way over, those should do the trick.

When Harry returned xe was already asleep.

“Ulpukka,” he asked the dragon-soul, holding it in his hands, watching the fire cast it into a brilliant orange glow, “We’ve reached the desert, you said you’d tell me the most effective way of finding Eragon and Saphira now?”

“Honestly, Harry, you must use your mind. Not a whit of logic in you, I can tell. What are they teaching children these days?”

Somehow, the warmth glowing from the ball in Harry’s palms tinged all her words peach, lessening their blow to a tickle. Chewing on some jerky, Harry pondered the dragon’s words, accustomed to having to unpack riddle-speak before he could find the meaning underneath.

After some time Tumbleweed stirred, promptly tearing the antelope in two. The sound of breaking bones wasn’t helping Harry think at all.

“It’s not a riddle,” Tumbleweed finally said, rubbing xer scales clean again on the sand. “You should cast out your mind, like a net.”

Intertwining himself with Tumbleweed’s warm, already dozing self and tapping into Ulpukka’s magic, Harry projected his thoughts up and across, checking each compass-point in turn.

The first thing he noticed was that there were a lot more snakes, lizards, beetles, and plants hidden in the dunes. They were easy to ignore, their consciousnesses pinpricks in his field of awareness.

The desert was teeming with life, but there was no sign of dragon, elf, or rider.

“You must assume they have already passed. Tomorrow, Tumbleweed will fly faster and farther to gain on them. We have more magic, there is a chance you will catch them still,” Ulpukka said, her voice seeming to boom in Harry’s head like when Dudley used to turn up the kitchen radio.

He closed his mind and centred himself, marvelling at the irony of how he’d ended up grasping occlumency entirely by accident. “What do I do when we catch up?”

“Tomorrow, as we fly, I will teach you both aerial combat manoeuvres. They will do you very little good without practice, but the other dragon is even less experienced than you. Remember also that they are overburdened and desperate. Desperation makes for strong fighters, but it also makes your enemy stupid.”

Harry wished once again for his holly-and-phoenix, the way it had glowed hot and alive in his hand. His world’s magic hadn’t carried the same costs, but every time he attempted casting those spells through the gedwëy ignasia they wouldn’t work the same. The Alagaesia-equivalent spells all drew from his magical core much more heavily, and Harry’s greatest fear was accidentally draining himself with a careless Expelliarmus.

“I will help you, child. Rest now. No harm can come to you from snakes and beetles, but your tiredness may cost you our lives tomorrow.”

When they weren’t speaking in riddles, Dragons were rather annoyingly blunt. Harry huffed to himself, drawing out a sleeping sack and huddling under Tumbleweed’s wing.

Around him, the world was shaded green. Harry dreamt of the lights in the Slytherin common room, where Malfoy’s hair was turning bright red and Ron, by his side, was transforming into Voldemort.

… xoxox …

The morning was bitingly cold, even with Tumbleweed’s warmth radiating beside him. A series of warming spells, another antelope for breakfast and they were off, racing south on a direct line through the Hadarac Desert.

Ulpukka served as both a source of entertainment and a deep well of magic, letting Harry siphon great amounts into Tumbleweed to sustain xer during the long flight. Still, their vow punished them, as if it thought they weren’t doing their best to fulfil it. The loss of energy was like a mosquito, more annoying than draining, but on top of everything else it was making Harry very cranky.

The grit pressed into Harry’s eyes, and his muscles were aching from holding himself in the saddle. He didn’t dare complain though, or Tumbleweed would—rightfully—find a way to bite his head off while flying. The sun baked down on him, the sweat made his skin itch, and all the while his vow in the ancient language pressed him to hurry, hurry, hurry southward.

That night, as Harry poured as much healing magic into Tumbleweed as he could muster, he felt the thought pop back into his mind like the weeds in Petunia’s garden, except this thought screamed and wailed like an uprooted Mandrake.

Heir and Dragon Rider and Wizard and Saviour, Galbatorix had named him.

It was a great compliment that his King knew and understood him so well, but it also made him feel exposed. Naked. Was he really so transparent? He remembered standing in the Quidditch changing rooms, a tiny first year watching the others shower out of the corner of his eye and wondering why he was so…small.

Was that really all there was to him? Was that his fate, to serve and serve, until the end of the world? A life lived in terms of his relationships to others?

On the other hand, what was wrong with that? Shouldn’t it be a good thing, to know who he was? To be the kind of person who does good deeds for others? Hermione had never properly gotten around to explaining where the problem was with him having a saving people thing.

The second day flying through the desert was even more miserable than the first, their moods only shifting with the first sight of green that appeared on the horizon halfway in the afternoon.

When Harry told Ulpukka, she insisted he replenish Tumbleweed’s energy completely with her magic, until her voice became sluggish and the pulse of her soul slowed by half.

As the sands and shrubs below them shifted to grasslands, Harry cast out his mind, following the bubbles of life that showed there were people nearby. A bunch of southern wildlings were gathering a funeral pyre. They pointed and shrieked, ducking at the first sight of Tumbleweed, so Harry yanked into one of them, connecting his consciousness to the man’s.

He tried to be gentle, but his vow had spoken about his life and limb, not this stranger’s. Harry tore through the man’s thoughts, seeing an altercation with Saphira, Eragon, and—was that Murtagh Morzansson who lopped off the wildling leader’s head?

“We’re close, Tumbleweed,” Harry said, leaving xer to focus on the flying. “Head south-east, we’ve almost caught up to them.”

The vow was screaming in their heads now, louder than the wind, louder than the humans, louder than the bellowing Urgal-cries echoing through the nearest valley.

Hoping that these were Durza’s Urgals and a part of the empire’s army, Harry and Tumbleweed quickly followed the noise.

They were greeted by a scene of Eragon and Murtagh on horseback, while the Kull troop were dithering before a surreal wall of mist.

Harry’s first sight of Saphira took his breath away.

“She’s so beautiful,” he said, and then Tumbleweed was spiralling away from the dragon rushing at them.

Their vow yanked them back towards the trio. Tumbleweed spotted the elf Arya barely visible strapped to Saphira’s belly.

The Kull were shooting arrows and charging at Eragon and Murtagh, even as the two were running towards the nearby lake.

Meanwhile Saphira batted through the air, dodging swift and nimble. She swooped again at Tumbleweed, both beautiful and frightening.

The dragons clashing high above the ground had Harry’s teeth jarring. He could feel Tumbleweed’s tired muscles as if they were his own, he could feel his need to capture her but had no idea how to make that work.

“Break the saddle,” Ulpukka called as the dragons scrabbled in midair.

Harry could feel his stomach in his ears. The ground was approaching fast, too fast—

Tumbleweed broke away first, getting in a good kick to Saphira’s jaw as xe pulled out of the dive.

In nineteen years of near-death-experiences, Harry had never felt so alive.

“I can’t break the saddle, the vow told us not to risk their lives,” Tumbleweed growled. “Every other attack fails and drains my magic instead. How did the King think this would work?”

“How am I supposed to know,” Harry yelled back, hugging tight to his dragon’s neck as xe turned back towards the lake. “I can’t give you more magic, if this isn’t working let’s go for the horses instead.”

The vow was ringing in his ears, making it hard to think beyond the desperate pull towards their mission. Capture them before they enter the mountain. Don’t risk anyone’s lives or limbs.

We swore to do our best.

Eragon was screaming something at the cliff face. The horses were rearing, almost unseating the farmboy-turned-Rider.

Saphira rushed at them from behind, forcing Tumbleweed to dodge downwards.

They fell into the lake with a crash.

The shock was worse than the cold, and the cold was worse than not knowing which way was up, which wasn’t as bad as needing to breathe.

It was, all of it, terrible.

Harry poured all he could into Tumbleweed, trusting the dragon to bear them to the surface, even if he didn’t know where that was.

Ulpukka touched his mind, her words still sluggish from what she’d let him pull from her before. “I have more to give,” she insisted. “Take it all, my child. Use it well.”

Trusting—later he’d wonder why he was always so trusting—Harry drained Ulpukka’s magic right into Tumbleweed, filling xer muscles with more energy as xe bit into Saphira’s leg, clouding the water with blood.

Harry really, really, really needed to breathe.

Then Saphira was gone, the vow was no longer there, Ulpukka’s voice had become quiet.

It was just Harry, surrounded by a vast emptiness, almost like mist—

—or a train station.

Maybe this time, I can learn how trains work, he felt himself thinking—

But then Harry breathed.

His lungs felt like they wanted to cough right out of him. Still, he breathed again.

“Harry!” Tumbleweed cried. “Harry. Harry, please, never do that again.”

“Alright,” he agreed, busy with the act of pulling in air through his lungs.

“I got Murtagh’s horse,” Tumbleweed said, nudging the shivering beast with xer snout. “It’s not being very horsey.”

Around them the Kull were retreating, apparently not wanting to chat with Harry about what had just happened.

“Murtagh loved that horse. You did well, Tumbleweed.” Harry snagged the reins, briefly liking the way all three of them were equally wet and miserable. He cast a simple drying spell, watched the water wring itself from his clothes. “Come on. Let’s go back home before the Varden find their bows and arrows.”

… xoxox …

Coming up: So rested he by the Tumtum tree / And stood awhile in thought.
Harry and Tumbleweed return to Galbatorix and face consequences.

Thank you for reading.

Chapter Text

“My King,” Harry said, kneeling before the man. “We failed you. We weren’t fast enough, and we didn’t have enough magic. They bested us. I am sorry.”

The words were heavy in his throat, even as the air around him was heavier with Galbatorix’s mood.

“Show me,” the man said, and entered Harry’s head with a jolt.

Unlike Snape, Galbatorix did not take pleasure in rifling through places he didn’t belong. He merely stood at the gates of Harry’s mind, energy puddling around him like a vat of smouldering tar.

Harry projected his memories at the man: flying until they were exhausted, surprise at finding Murtagh with Eragon, fighting while being blocked by their vow at every turn, the constant drain of magic—and Ulpukka, a ball of light that had glowed like summer peaches, turning ashen.

He watched as his King’s energy swirled back into order, coiling around the man’s self like a dragon’s tail. “I see,” Galbatorix said, and stepped back.

“Leave me,” the King said. “I must think.”

This time when Harry came to Shruikan for advice, the dragon said nothing, only holding up a wing for the boy to curl himself under and look at the scars on the underside, pretending he was staring at the night sky.

What had used to comfort him just made him restless now, so Harry fled to do something a little more physical.

Tumbleweed found Harry later on in the training yard, in the act of losing yet another spar to the Urubaen barracks’ Master-at-Arms.

“Come fly with me,” xe said.

“I’d rather not.” Harry paid for his momentary lapse of attention with the loss of his sword.

“Please?”

Starting, Harry turned to look at his dragon, properly seeing xer for the first time in a while.

Xer limbs were still long and lanky, with a wingspan so large it made the dragon look unbalanced. Though Saphira had been about the same size, she’d been much more filled-out with muscles and strength.

Tumbleweed looked like a teenager who hadn’t come to terms with their latest growth spurt.

The dragons in Shruikan’s memories had all been different from how Harry’s dragon looked, too.

“I’m coming,” Harry agreed, tripping up the swordmaster with a shoelace-tying spell.

He didn’t care that it was childish, he had a dragon waiting for him.

Harry knew he wasn’t the only one who could do with a good heart-to-heart.

…

“Saphira was very pretty,” Harry admitted easily as they winged their usual route over the roiling river.

“She was much stronger than me,” Tumbleweed said, words slow. “She was better than me.”

Saphira had been fending for her life in the Spine from the start, while Tumbleweed fell off velvet pillows and ate from platters, flying only for the pleasure of it. They had been living a sheltered life, and Harry hadn’t minded until now.

Somehow, he’d never felt any real, serious threat. Of course the Varden were leeching resources from Galbatorix’s army and preventing widespread peace, but that danger lay far away, tucked in the elbow of the Beor mountains.

There were often minor scuffles in Alagaesia between people from different cities, fights over whose god was the one God, whose understanding of magic was the truth.

Most of Harry’s existence in this land had been a political one, as a figurehead, as a symbol, as someone bringing ideas of technological and societal innovation without much understanding of what the journey from A to Z looked like.

Galbatorix often raved about the old Riders and their corrupt order, the way they’d forced his teenage self into roles he hadn’t wanted. As a result, Galbatorix tended to be lenient with everyone he saw as children, not taking anyone under twenty-five particularly seriously. Sometimes Harry felt like he was being indulged as a hobby or a pet project, other times when he sat and listened to his King speak he felt like it was just the two of them, right at the centre of this new world that Galbatorix would create.

Still, Harry couldn’t help the way he had grown to love the man. Galbatorix was a genius of Hermione’s caliber, with all the frazzled hair and scholastic frenzies that brought with it. Yet, when they talked he made Harry feel important, not for his role as a Rider but for his opinions and thoughts as a human being.

It was such a wonderful thing, having someone who listened when Harry spoke, and that actually cared.

Perhaps Harry was setting the bar rather low. Maybe he shouldn’t focus so much on how his King empowered him and instead focus on how Galbatorix wasn’t doing very well at lifting his people out of poverty.

But Harry was only human, motivated by human things, like, the desire to belong.

“You belong to me.” Tumbleweed hissed into the wind and swooped, free-falling for over a minute, then sliding into a slower descent until they were just above the river.

Harry let his mind flow over into xers, feeling their claws slice through the water. In Tumbleweed’s mind, he felt xer desire, just as biting as his own.

“You belong,” he spoke to xer fears, “You’re perfect just the way you are, even if your legs are too long and your wings stretch almost twice as far as Saphira’s.” He listened to their hearts beating in sync. “There’s nothing wrong with looking a bit different than others, you know.”

He remembered the way he’d used to peer at his scar in the mirror as a child, tracing the lightning bolt shape and enjoying the way it made him look special, even while everything Dursley was completely, obsessively normal. Mundane.

“You’re perfect in your imperfection,” Harry finished.

The space between their breaths was filled with thoughts they couldn’t find the words for.

“I believe,” Tumbleweed finally announced, landing on an outcrop, “the time has come for me to learn to hunt my own antelope.”

Harry smiled at xer, fondness filling his heart. “What about the way you don’t like getting mud on your flanks, or blood on your claws?”

“I am a dragon, not a porcelain doll!” xe replied, righting xerself. “Besides, you’ll be cleaning my scales afterwards.”

“Of course I will.” He sat back on a rock, wrapping warming spells around himself. He suspected he’d be there for a while.

…

Very proud, very muddy, and indeed spattered with blood, Tumbleweed perched smugly between Harry and the setting sun. “I did it.”

“I can see that, love.” Harry eyed xer critically. “Did the antelope explode? Are they carrying pipe bombs nowadays?”

For some reason, Tumbleweed didn’t want to reply to that. A good Scourgify later and they were ready to return home.

When Harry was telling Shruikan the story later, the dragon barely responded. He didn’t seem to care one way or another how they got their food, seeming perfectly content to gulp down half a cow whenever the servants delivered them.

But his eyes opened in interest at one point, so Harry endeavoured to bring him a fresh rabbit with his next visit. Maybe Tumbleweed would even spare the great dragon a nice, crunchy antelope skull for a snack.

… xoxox …

“Haraldr, my son, we must talk,” Galbatorix announced over breakfast the next morning. The king’s mood seemed to have shifted overnight to excitement, an odd reaction to the failed mission—almost all of Galbatorix’s reactions were odd.

“Alright.” Harry had spent the night thinking, too, but all he’d gotten was disappointment: at himself, and at Murtagh and Eragon. It looked like his King was having a much better time of things.

“Let me show you my most precious treasure.”

Harry obviously wasn’t going to say no to that.

He thought they’d be walking for a long time, past locked doors and hidden entrances, farther even than where the vault with the two dragon eggs had been.

It wasn’t until Galbatorix led the way there that Harry realised he’d never actually been in the King’s study.

The room looked like the home of a madman, hoards of books colliding with stacks of papers. Rolls of parchment had been deposited haphazardly in the corner, right beside a pile of tossed wads of paper.

“I am seeking the True Name of the ancient language,” Galbatorix said, his voice rich with reverence. “I will be able to take power from those that misuse it, and grant it to those whose need is greatest. It will be true equity, liberation for my people from the oppression of magic and those who wield it.”

It didn’t make sense, but Galbatorix’s passion was irrefutable. “What about you and me, don’t we wield magic?” Harry hedged.

“That is entirely different. I am speaking about the greedy who are filling their pockets, and the idiots that attempt to summon shades, and the people cutting off their ears in the name of godliness.”

“Hmmm.” Peering around, Harry could see very many scribblings and not a lot of sense. He very carefully didn’t suggest English, just in case it gave the man any ideas. Of course Harry loved his King, but this seemed just a bit over the edge into…madness. He scrambled for something better to say. “What about Eragon, then? And Murtagh, ugh, I can’t believe Murtagh ran away to join the Varden, the tosser.”

“Murtagh has been in pain for a very long time, and he had no wish for my guardianship. He will learn, in time, the evils of the Varden with their broken politics and their drive for war. It won’t be long before they reject him, upon which he will return to us.” Then, Galbatorix’s beard split open to reveal a grin. “Perhaps not as easily as he might have if you hadn’t taken his horse.”

“I guess.” Murtagh’s betrayal still hurt. Harry had always seen him as a sort of angry Draco Malfoy, a boy raised with everything while only being able to see the things he didn’t have. Those steely eyes would always stare at Harry with so much superiority running through them, and while it was often hard talking with Murtagh, he was always very pretty to look at.

Basically like Draco, Harry conceded to himself. Probably, Harry’d be better off leaving the bloke alone.

Not that he had a choice now, with Murtagh off in the Beors doing Merlin-knows-what. Eragon had been brainwashed by Brom to fight with his dragon for the wrong side, but Murtagh? He should have known better.

“…Haraldr?”

Startled, Harry looked up at his King. “Sorry. I was off with the fairies, I guess.”

“If you are done visiting these fairies, I would still show you my greatest treasure.”

“Oh. I thought it was your research into Names,” Harry admitted.

Galbatorix smiled indulgently, reaching for his desk-drawer and pulling it open with a flourish.

The drawer defied the laws of physics, deeper and longer than it had any right to be. In Harry’s first months in Alagaesia, Galbatorix had seized the idea of undetectable extension charms and tinkered tirelessly until he’d reached this success. The adapted spell still didn’t work for little beaded bags, but it was fine on wooden furniture.

Stepping closer, Harry looked in—then gasped.

It was full of glassy spheres like Ulpukka had been, balls of light and energy.

Hearts, Galbatorix had called them. Souls.

Slowly, carefully, Harry reached out and touched the topmost, a brilliant lemon yellow.

“WHO GOES THERE!” she shouted. Harry yanked his hand back.

King Galbatorix was staring intently at his hoard, pleasure clear on his face. “They are all deep wells of knowledge and power, some of them enemies but most of them noble servants. Citron is sworn to serve me, she will do you no harm.”

At Galbatorix’s gesture, Harry reached out again. “Begroeting,” he pushed at the yellow soul. “I’m Harry. You’re Citron, I’m told?”

He got only silence in return, but Galbatorix’s good mood was holding strong. “Dragon loyalties are difficult to wrap our human minds around, I will talk to her about you later. I believe I have been remiss in your training, working only on your mind and your magic while neglecting your physical prowess.”

The army’s main swordmasters regularly put Harry through his paces until he felt like a human bruise—Harry wasn’t sure what physical training looked in comparison. Part of him feared what would come next, but mostly he was curious. His King was full of mad ideas from unusual perspectives.

“Did your tutors ever teach you why your body’s condition improves with training?”

Harry shook his head.

“This is something I have been experimenting with, using the dragon hearts as an energy source. You showed me how you healed Xerophyte’s muscles during your flight so xe could continue for longer, granting me the insight.” Galbatorix nudged the drawer closed and directed Harry to a drawing of a human’s muscles and tissues. “When you train your muscles, it creates small tears. These tears heal, and the muscle strengthens and thickens. The next time, you have to train even harder to tear it again. It is how you become stronger.”

That made very little sense to Harry. He knew frog leg muscles moved by electricity from one very traumatising science experience in primary, but that was the extent of it. The best ways to slice muscles for potions ingredients would be a much simpler question. “Are you sure? Muscles have to be broken to grow stronger? How does that even make sense?”

“Not broken, Haraldr, merely slightly damaged. The greatest strengths result from the overcoming of hardship or suffering. Look at Xerophyte, with xer unchallenging life. It is time you and the dragon began facing hardship so that you might grow stronger.” Galbatorix clasped his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “As Eragon and Saphira could not be prevented from joining with the Varden, our security is being threatened. The Broeding Empire needs you now.”

There was a lump in Harry’s throat. He swallowed it down, but the churning in his stomach remained. “You want to use magic to tear my muscles?” It sounded painful, and while Harry knew he could deal with pain he couldn’t bear having Tumbleweed hurting.

“Of course not!”

Harry sagged with relief, glad for the hand still holding his shoulder.

“This is a normal process, we will merely be accelerating it.” Galbatorix pointed back at his chart, showing muscles labelled and numbered beyond what Harry could understand. “You will train hard, every day, and rather than waiting for you to recover naturally I will use the energy from these dragon hearts to heal your muscles. You will be growing much stronger very swiftly.”

“Alright.” It made sense…ish. Besides, Harry and Tumbleweed had both decided they needed to improve themselves. “Next mission, maybe we could work out better vows, yeah?”

“If I wanted someone to question my orders, Haraldr, I would visit the bloody Shade.” Harry ducked under the hand that was ruffling his hair. “Off with you now. My swordmasters say you have yet to best them, even by chance. You must do better than that.”

… xoxox …

The next weeks were gruelling for both Rider and dragon. While Tumbleweed was saddled with Citron and sent to fly endless drills over the river, Harry sparred until he couldn’t lift his sword, only to be healed so that he could go again. Galbatorix assigned four swordmasters with different fighting styles so that Harry would learn to counter them, but in actuality he mostly just got confused.

No matter how much his body was healed, his mind put a solid cap on the amount of training he could do in a day, and judging by his King’s heavy sighs it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

“Eragon has already bested you once, and my spies say he is steadily improving. You are better at him when it comes to magic, but we cannot rely only on magic, Haraldr. This land is the result of people counting on magic for answers and strengths it cannot grant them.”

Harry was tired, frustrated, and rather sorely bruised. In his head he could hear Tumbleweed’s disgruntled replies to Citron, who wouldn’t—stop—shouting. The exhaustion was just enough to stop Harry from saying something he’d regret.

Galbatorix held a hand into his desk drawer and the other to Harry’s arm, flooding magic through Harry’s weary muscles and leaving sweet relief and energy in its wake.

“Son,” the King said, “you are too important to me, I could not stand for anything to happen to you. Please, my dear boy, indulge me in my selfishness. I need you to be safe.”

The tears in Harry’s eyes were entirely unwelcome, so he blinked them briskly away. “Of course,” he said. “I will make you proud.”

“Oh, Haraldr,” Galbatorix sighed, smiling. “I already am.”

That afternoon in the training yard, Harry disarmed his swordmaster for the first time. When he went and told Shruikan, the dragon very nearly smiled.

… xoxox …

Their nightly flights following the river on its course through the countryside were the only time Harry and Tumbleweed had left to themselves, just for thinking.

Already, Tumbleweed’s wingbeats had become fewer, stronger. It was encouraging to see the changes that were happening so quickly.

“Citron said that the Shade is leading an attack on the Varden,” Tumbleweed announced.

“Citron hasn’t said a thing in her entire life.” Harry retorted. “She’s a fiend, and a loud one. I can’t stand the sound of her voice, just from hearing her at the back of your head. I don’t get how you haven’t gone off the edge yet.”

“She’s not that bad. Better than getting beaten by pointy metal sticks all day. And she always has the best gossip, don’t ask me where from.”

“Beats me.” Harry shrugged into the wind. “Bringing the fight to the Varden doesn’t make sense, they’re in a defendable position. It’ll be a very messy battle. I don’t understand what Galbatorix is thinking.

“And bringing an army of Urgals is just madness.” Harry continued, his thoughts churning. “The king hates Urgals, how is employing them helpful towards Galbatorix’s goal of putting the lot of them out of their misery?”

“You think the entire species should be exterminated?”

From anyone else that would have been an accusation, but Harry could feel that Tumbleweed truly was just curious of his reasoning. Which he’d have been glad to give, but Harry didn’t really know himself. “That’s tricky. They’ve been attacking our lands and our people because of their savage ways. If they were just minding their own business like Surda does it wouldn’t matter so much, but like this? They’ve made the first move, for years. If they can’t be reasoned into peace, maybe they need to…go. Right?”

“I do not think they would taste very good,” Tumbleweed replied. “Though the horns would be crunchy.”

“That’s revolting.”

“Is it? Why?”

Harry’s next sigh was lost on the way out his throat. “I don’t know, Tumbleweed. Killing people is wrong, and Urgals are people.”

“But in war it’s different?”

“Yes.” Harry remembered seeing Bellatrix’s mad laughter as Sirius fell backwards through the Veil into nothingness. “When you’re fighting, sometimes people deserve to die. Especially if they’re killing you and yours.”

Tumbleweed’s wingbeats counted the moments that spanned between them. Harry could feel xer in his head, watching how his battles had been won or lost, watching motherly Molly Weasley call Bellatrix Lestrange a mad bitch.

“I refuse to be a part of murdering a fellow dragon,” xe finally announced.

“We’ll find a way to capture them. Overpower them somehow. If we bring Eragon and Saphira here, they’ll see the truth of things. How we need peace, a new Order of Dragon Riders, how we need to shape the politics of the empire carefully. He’ll turn against the Varden, he’s just a farmboy who’s been getting his information from the wrong places. Don’t worry, Tumbleweed, nobody’s said we should even hurt them.”

Tumbleweed hummed deep in xer throat, a plume of smoke trailing into the wind. “So we bring them here, and Galbatorix will set us up as figureheads, emissaries, et cetera, to spread…peace?”

Put like that, it sounded sketchy. “We’ll be heroes, Tumbleweed.” Together, they were going to do good. Harry knew it like he knew his own name, like he knew his own scars.

I must not tell lies, it said on the back of his hand.

“We’re going to save Alagaesia,” Harry said, and he meant it.

… xoxox …

Up next: And, as in uffish thought he stood, / The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Alagaesia is at war, while Harry is sent off to look for pirates. Shruikan talks to Harry about the differences between being alive, and not being dead.

Chapter Text

“You have grown, my son,” Galbatorix announced one morning after Harry’s first round of training. “I believe you are ready for another mission, and the empire’s need is great.”

Harry felt his stomach drop. They weren’t ready to face Saphira, they still had no way of overpowering another dragon with their rider in combat. He knew Durza and the Varden would be clashing any day now, and he had hoped beyond hope that he’d be left out of this fight.

“My spies have reported grand threats of piracy to the west, between the harbours of Narda and Feinster.”

The sheer weight of his relief had Harry sitting down, ignoring that it was his King’s desk that he’d planted his butt on. “Of course,” he whispered. “We’ll leave first thing.”

Galbatorix smiled. “You will leave after tomorrow’s banquet, my dear boy. I need you at these events, you give the people hope for a better future. Besides, I can barely stand their politics without you by my side.”

“Yes, my King,” Harry said, grinning cheekily back. He’d somehow forgotten all about the banquet, too busy fretting about armies that were leagues upon leagues away. “I’ll be wearing my best robes and my most patient face.”

“That’s all I ask, Haraldr. Now go, you are already late for your afternoon training.”

… xoxox …

The banquet was dull and stiff, full of people pretending to like each other while secretly hating each other’s guts.

The pirates might as well not have existed. Harry and Tumbleweed flew patrols over the route that had been getting attacked and found absolutely nothing, but the sea air was wonderful and the break from their usual training was refreshing.

They returned to Urubaen a week later feeling lighter, even though they had now failed their second mission.

“This is excellent news, son,” his King only praised, “I had suspected the merchants were being dishonest, it is good to have your corroboration of the fact. They are likely avoiding taxes, trying to take money that would go towards educating and feeding the poorest. We have schools in every district now, and while they are good for the people they are also expensive to run.”

During that day’s lessons, Harry disarmed both his swordmasters. When he went flying with Tumbleweed in the evening, diving in and out of the clouds, he felt like he was on top of the world.

“Citron said the Shade was slain during the battle in the Beor mountains. Eragon and Saphira have won their first real battle.” It wasn’t clear from Tumbleweed’s voice how xe felt about that.

“What else did she say?” They’d been gone for a week, and lost track of an entire war in the meantime.

“Eragon was badly injured. The dwarf-king and Varden leader fell. The elf-princess and Saphira are in good health but bad spirits. Murtagh left the Varden and is being brought back home.”

“Are you sure? Is Citron getting her information from a good source?” It was…unbelievable, almost. In the elbow of the Beor mountains a battle had been fought and won, so many lives lost and many more lives changed forever.

And yet here they were cutting trails in the evening fog, everything feeling just the same.

Harry wondered if that was what it had been like for Draco in the beginning, before he’d realised Voldemort was evil and insane. Just business as usual until at some point a flip switched—and it all was turned on its head.

“She spends most of her time in a drawer in the king’s office. She speaks the truth, Harry. Is it wrong that I am glad Saphira is alright? And Eragon, I wish him well, even though we are on opposite sides.”

“I want that too.” Harry patted xer shoulder, feeling the warmth that flowed through their bond. “It means you’re a good person, Tumbleweed. A great dragon, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

… xoxox …

When Harry asked Galbatorix where Murtagh was, he simply said, “Not here.”

Harry believed him.

… xoxox …

The next day during lunchtime, Harry dodged the usual social obligations to go and sit by Shruikan in the throne room.

Almost nobody visited the hall when they didn’t have to. Shruikan’s melancholy was a palatable thing, but Harry didn’t mind the dragon’s dark presence.

There was a certain comfort in the familiarity of him, always willing to listen.

“Back again?” was the only greeting he ever got.

“Yesterday we went flying through the river fog when it was red with the sunset. It was beautiful. Tumbleweed’s gotten so much stronger, too.”

“You are wrong.”

Harry started, looking up from his tray into the gleaming black eye. “Huh?”

“Everything is grey.”

Honestly, it was a wonder Galbatorix could laugh and smile at all with this ball of sunshine sharing his headspace.

“Right. So anyway, we were flying, and talking about the battle, have you heard? Eragon is injured. We both hope he gets better and joins us, it’s terrible that he got hurt.”

“You are a child.”

“And you’re a great conversationalist. Look, Shruikan, there’s only three or four dragons left, it makes sense to worry about every one even if only so we can breed more dragons.” Harry rolled his eyes and returned to his bowl of soup. “You could use some empathy, Shruikan.”

“I am tired.”

Shruikan said that every time Harry stole away to talk to him, which had been often in his first year in Alagaesia and was becoming more often again now that Galbatorix wanted him training so much. Seeing the dragon curled around the stone throne reminded Harry of how far he’d come, of the extraordinary magic of this world—

—of a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs, waiting for someone to come and rescue him.

There was so much power trapped inside Shruikan, if only he’d get up and push on the walls they’d crumble and he could go flying again, see the world as it was.

Begin to live again.

“You’re awfully tired for someone who spends all his time sleeping,” he said, instead of cajoling his King’s dragon into breaking the castle apart from the inside out.

“Leave me to rest, child. The King approaches.”

With ‘approaches’ Shruikan meant ‘is now coming through the doors.’

“Haraldr,” Galbatorix cried across the hall. “I thought you’d be hiding here. Come, the Lady Flederlaken wants a demonstration of your exceptional control over magic. She seems to believe herself the centre of the world, and it would be prudent to indulge her.”

Sighing, Harry drained his bowl and got to his feet. “See you around, Shruikan,” he called over his shoulder, knowing he wouldn’t be getting a response.

For the noble lady in her overdone robes, Harry transfigured eight grapes into a miniature solar system and set them revolving around her with an accuracy that would have made Professor Sinastra proud.

Galbatorix was the only person in the room who understood, but Harry enjoyed their private joke all the more for it.

… xoxox …

For all that he looked, asked around, and wondered, Harry couldn’t figure out where Murtagh had gone to. Galbatorix now spent long parts of the day off somewhere doing some research, with the rest of his time spent running the empire.

The task of healing Harry and Tumbleweed post-workout was relegated to Harry himself, from a store of dragon souls that Shruikan had been given to guard. He was much more intimidating than even Fluffy had been, with his black eyes blinking slowly from the darkness.

In theory it was convenient to have Harry briefly visit the throne room throughout the day, but in practice he kept getting caught up with telling Shruikan about how his lessons had been going, miming his swordmasters’ expressions and acting out his tutor’s haughty monologues. He even went back to old material from his Hogwarts years, donning a cape to demonstrate Lockhart’s best flounce.

Sometimes Shruikan would laugh, a tiny puff of air that set a plume of smoke curling in the air between them. Those moments had Harry feeling stronger than he did in his best duels, because here he was, granted the approval of the second most powerful being in all of Alagaesia.

Harry reasoned to himself that it only made sense to be spending time with the King’s other half while the man was busy. It was always good to have an excuse all lined up in case somebody asked, but so far nobody had bothered him.

“What was the King like when he was young?” Harry asked one day, for lack of anything better to say.

“Charismatic. Ambitious. A strong fighter, but often a stubborn student. The elves did not approve of him. To them, he was the embodiment of the flaws of humanity.”

“I was hoping for a more personal story, you know.”

“Galbatorix stole me from my rider. I did not meet him until we were both long grown.”

“He what?”

“The king killed my rider and bonded me to him instead.”

How had Harry not known this? He racked his mind but found nothing, not even a clue. All this time, he’d believed Galbatorix had once been a skinny teen holding a coal-like egg, face split into a grin as he listened to the sound of it cracking.

Hagrid had told Harry over rock cakes and tea: When ye’r breakin’ it from the outside, life ends. But when it breaks from the inside, life begins. Tha’s magic, that is.

“I don’t understand,” Harry said to Shruikan.

“It is an enchantment I had not seen before, nor since.”

The very idea sounded like an act against nature. Like an Inferius, created as a parody of life. Or even a Dementor, sucking the very soul from someone and leaving only a husk.

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Harry hedged. “Without your rider, you’d probably have died. And for him without a dragon, that must’ve been awful.”

Very carefully, Harry sidestepped picturing what that would feel like. Tumbleweed was completely intertwined with who he was, so much that he could hear xer conversation with Citron in the back of his mind. If someone asked, he knew he’d be able to say what they’d been talking about, even though he hadn’t been listening.

If xe were no longer there, it would be—

—it would be like dying. Except worse, because he’d still be alive.

He thought of Sirius falling, fading, gone.

“I’m sure if Tumbleweed were…well, I’d do something really dumb in my grief. Bonding you and and him together must have been Galbatorix’s best way to save both of you.” He thought of how the man must have been mad with mourning.

“Perhaps. I cannot know what would , only what was .”

Galbatorix, in their many conversations, had often talked about death, mortality, and endings. Sometimes it was because he’d found a new grey hair in his beard, other times Harry was sure it was because of Shruikan’s heavy thoughts weighing on him.

The concept of Harry having died only to be given the choice to board a train had begun Galbatorix’s drive to equip his empire with a railroad, but it had also brought a recurring thought that the King preached so often that Harry knew it by heart.

“If everything is a terrible plight and you die, then you’re gone. It is over.” Harry quoted, weighing the words on his tongue and wondering whether the truth was all in his head, or real, or both. “Only if you keep going, keep fighting for your life, only then will things have a chance of getting better.”

Somewhere a world away, he imagined a school full of children surrounded by bodies and rubble, picking up the pieces in the hope that they could become whole again.

… xoxox …

Sorry about the delay, I’ve been busy on the life side of things. On the plus side: a new story! Voldemort wakes up as Harry Potter and tries to take over the world. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Chapter Text

Murtagh arrived in the castle like a stormcloud.

It was only because of Harry’s usual curiosity that he discovered the man’s presence—the sight of a servant carrying a pail of meat up eight flights of stairs to a tower bedroom was too interesting to ignore.

There on the floor sat Murtagh, a dog-sized ruby dragon perched on his lap.

The servant deposited the bucket and left, almost bumping into Harry where he’d frozen in the doorway.

“You have a dragon!” he choked.

“Oh, it’s you,” Murtagh replied. The usual scowl was stretched across his face.

The dragon was much more friendly. It loped across the narrow room and sniffed Harry’s palm, allowing for a few good scritches before plunging its head into the bucket.

Murtagh sighed. “You can close the door behind you.”

Choosing to interpret that as ‘Come in,’ Harry went and plopped himself onto Murtagh’s bed. He watched the red dragon, admiring it.

A dragon’s not an it, Haraldr.

“What’s your name, then?”

The head, covered in blood, turned towards him. Those eyes were more brilliant than the gem on Gryffindor’s sword. Harry felt a jolt of envy, that this dragon was well-proportioned and healthy and so beautiful—

—Harry quashed the thought like a bug. Tumbleweed was perfect, special, his.

“That’s Thorn. He doesn’t talk much, yet. Why are you here, Harry? Or is it Haraldr now, a fancy name to dress your peasant soul up for proper society?”

The sheer familiarity had Harry smiling. “I’m just Harry.”

“Are you really?” Murtagh sneered.

Having a dragon hatch for him had been the best thing in Harry’s entire life, one moment after another filled with awe and gratitude. For Murtagh, son of Morzan, it was apparently nothing more than his birthright.

“Thorn is amazing,” Harry said. “You’re so lucky.”

“I’d rather be back with the Varden without him,” the man spat.

What? Both Harry and Thorn cringed. “You can’t mean that.” The Varden were a silly rebel group hiding in a stuffy mountain, and this brilliant, Gryffindor dragon was the second half of Murtagh’s soul.

“I—” Murtagh breathed harshly, yanking a hand through his unkempt hair. Harry could see an unfocussed look on his face, a clear sign that he was talking with the dragon.

After a few moments, Thorn trotted over to his human and plopped down on the man’s lap once again. There was so much fondness in the way Murtagh looked down into those red eyes, in the way he wiped a smudge from the dragon’s jaw with his thumb.

It had Harry’s heart clenching, though he couldn’t quite tell why. He pushed through the door and ran, ran, ran all ten flights to the main courtyard, calling Tumbleweed as he went.

Xe landed with a cloud of dust, concern and curiosity pouring equally across the bond.

Reaching out, Harry cradled xer head between his hands and looked, really looked.

“I love you,” he told xer, all his emotions warring for attention within him. “I’m so grateful you chose me.”

Tumbleweed hummed, bathing Harry in a gust of hot air. “Even though I’m all green and Slytherin?”

The sheer absurdity of the moment had Harry laughing. “The hat did say Slytherin would take me far.”

Xer answering laugh singed his hair, the smell of sulphur blown off by a warm breeze. “Come, let us abandon our afternoon tutors to go flying. Citron has run out of gossip for today anyway.”

Joy bubbling within him, Harry jumped up xer leg and into the saddle. “What’s the point of being a prince if you can’t do what you want, right?”

“Indeed.” Tumbleweed took off westwards, flying low over the railroad tracks that sliced the shrubland all the way to Dras-Leona.

Diving into xer mind, Harry watched his world tint green.

He urged xer to fly some of the maneuvers xe’d been practicing, feeling his stomach clench with every loop, every twist—and letting everything else fall away.

… xoxox …

“You missed your afternoon lessons,” Galbatorix said over dinner, but Harry could tell he was distracted by something.

“Murtagh’s living in the North Tower, did you know? He has a dragon, too. Funny that.”

The king looked up from his meal, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I was going to tell you next week, Haraldr. Their bond needs time to strengthen. You should ask your questions directly, facetiousness doesn’t become a prince.”

Harry knew that Galbatorix was usually at least a little amused by his cheekiness, so he took that with a grain of salt. “Yes, my King.”

“You shouldn’t be truant during history lessons, you have much to learn still. You should always be striving for self improvement.”

“Yes, my King.”

Said king rolled his eyes and helped himself to a slice of lemon cake.

… xoxox …

Now that Harry knew where to find them, he took to seeing Murtagh and Thorn every day before breakfast. The servant was glad she didn’t have to carry the bucket of offal up all those stairs, and Harry enjoyed the excuse to visit the most interesting additions to the castle.

Thorn was strong, almost stocky, growing as fast as Tumbleweed had in xer first weeks. The difference was that the little red dragon was filling out along the way, not even looking mildly umbrella-ish. He was very coordinated and careful in his movements, just as effortlessly elegant as Murtagh was on the sparring ground.

Galbatorix started them on a similar training regime as he’d developed for Harry and Tumbleweed, which first gave Harry a jolt of jealousy. He brushed that aside quickly for the joy of being matched with someone, like in a Seeker’s duel. It was nice to have company during the boring weight-lifting, too, and he got to learn to counter a different fighting style.

With both Murtagh and Harry being so intensely competitive, they were pushing themselves harder than ever. Sometimes, Harry would catch Murtagh before the man could replace his easy, triumphant grin with a more mean-looking smirk. It was no use pretending, though, because Harry could see right to the core of him.

Harry knew Murtagh enjoyed the challenge just as much as he did.

It didn’t take much longer for them both to surpass even the strongest men in Galbatorix’s army, the dragon-bond enhancing them beyond the mere humans.

Between the two of them and their dragons, overpowering Eragon and Saphira finally seemed possible. The latest news of those rebels told of Eragon and Saphira moving through the Beors, trying to play at dwarven elections.

“Imagine being with the Varden now, you’d probably be bored out of your mind. The politics there can’t be any more fun than they are here,” Harry said, passing Citron’s latest gossip on to Murtagh as they wound down together after lessons.

The other man looked up from his book, the were-light that hovered over his shoulder going out as he stopped paying attention to it.

Murtagh cursed and set aside his wine to focus on relighting it. “They locked me in a room because of who my father was, all I really did there was read.”

All Murtagh really did here was read. Harry spent his extra time fiddling with ways to cast magic, missing his familiar spells that hadn’t cost him as much energy to cast. Meanwhile Murtagh just sat under his own were-light and went through books faster than even Hermione had.

At Harry’s very pointed look, Murtagh explained.

“The air was different there. I felt free. Here, the king controls me, has a plan for my life, has a plan for everybody’s life.” Murtagh looked around, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “When the time comes, you’ll see. We’ll be a new Order of Riders, but instead of being corrupt like my father we’ll be controlled, vow-bound to the core. He’ll make us into what we’re not.”

That didn’t sound right. First off, what was wrong with being the empire’s hero? And second, if Galbatorix could control people, there’d be a lot less silly banquets full of haughty nobles asking stupid question. Harry whispered back, just on principle. “I can do whatever I want, though.”

“Really? What happens when you skip your lessons?”

Harry rolled his eyes and sipped at his wine. Galbatorix’s chiding would be minor, and besides, life here wasn’t much different from Hogwarts. He followed his tutors’ schedule and learned what he could, and the more he knew the more he could do real, practical stuff. “What’s wrong with doing what our King tells us to do?”

Hermione, wherever she was now, would have laughed if she’d heard. So much time spent trying to get him to follow the rules, and all it’d taken for him to cotton on was…well, dying.

“Can’t you see how broken the empire is?” Murtagh hissed, “People are scared and starving. Over in Dras Leona, they lop off their hands for the Ra’zac to eat. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and all it would take for Galbatorix to fix things is a tiny amount of the magic he hoards. But no, he isn’t doing shit, because he doesn’t give a shit. Too busy with his research, his stupid projects. How are you so blind, Harry?”

For one, Harry was myopic, not blind. For another, magic would create just as many problems as it would solve. The schools, the army, the railroad, those were actually legitimately helping people. “I hadn’t realised you cared about the peasant folk, having lived in pretty palaces all your life. I bet the Varden was a real shock to your senses, is that what freedom tastes like to Murtagh Morzansson? Doing your own laundry for once?”

The sheer nerve of Murtagh, talking about being poor, or hungry, or terrified. He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had never been camping in the woods, scared for his life, trying to defeat a dark lord while everyone and their mother was waiting for him to save them.

In Alagaesia, nobody was asking to be saved at all. There were no prophecies ruling over what was or, what should be, or whom he could become.

“You’ve got your head so far up your ass you can’t smell the shit any more,” Murtagh said, his wine sloshing as he gestured.

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Galbatorix’s mission in life couldn’t be using magic to solve everyone’s problems. That was a stupid plan—no, that wasn’t any kind of plan. Murtagh should be going to his politics lessons instead of sulking in his tower bedroom, running away into books and stories.

Words that whisked him away into foreign worlds, different times, others’ adventures.

And then Murtagh hiccuped, startling them both.

The sheer absurdity had Harry stifling a smile, but then Murtagh was laughing, and Thorn was chuckling, so Harry joined in until his belly ached and his eyes were wet and none of them could remember what they’d been laughing at.

“It’s late,” Harry said finally, glancing out the window at the moon’s position. It was an eight minute walk to his rooms, he’d counted it. Galbatorix’s brilliant idea of anti-apparition wards across the entire castle were entirely stupid with only Harry and the King himself knowing how to apparate, but it hadn’t been Harry’s decision to make.

With a tired sigh, Harry pushed himself to his feet, untangling himself from Murtagh’s bed. He felt a bit woozy, actually.

“Stay,” Murtagh said, draining the last of his goblet and reaching out a hand. “There’s space for two.”

The thought of his own cold room, clawing with loneliness, wasn’t tempting at all.

Harry couldn’t come up with a reason to refuse. Wiggling his fingers, he moulded a transfiguration spell to stretch the bed even farther, enjoying the flow of energy tingling his palm. The magic barely drained him now, a welcome payoff from all the time he’d spent practicing how to bring his old world’s magic here..

“Good night, Harry,” Murtagh whispered, letting his were-light go out.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” Harry replied through a yawn.

Murtaugh snorted. “Now who isn’t making sense.”

“Who said anything really has to make sense?”

… xoxox …

Murtagh looked so peaceful in his sleep.

Tumbleweed had woken Harry at dawn to pass on the news that xe was going to hunt up a nice goat. For a while Harry had watched the world through xer eyes, hoping to drift back off, but eventually he’d realised it was no use.

Which left him lying in bed, looking at the man sleeping beside him. That usual scowl had melted into nothingness, and Harry caught himself thinking, once again, how pretty Murtagh was.

His laughter last night, his passionate rant about how the people deserved better.

Murtagh spent more than half his time angry, but the rest of the time, he was noble, warm-hearted, good.

Thorn chose that moment to flop onto the space-expanded bed in between them, startling Murtagh into his first frown of the day.

“Fuck off,” the man growled, pulling a pillow over his head.

Harry laughed, easily imagining the dragon’s accompanying mental prodding.

Murtagh fell out of bed, righting himself to glare up at Harry. “The fuck are you doing here?”

“You asked me to stay?” Harry glanced over at the wine bottles on the floor. Had they overdone it, or were the man’s mornings always like this?

Murtagh’s eyes were flicking back and forth across the expanded bed. “We didn’t—? Right?”

“We didn’t make a lot of sense? Yeah, you got that in one. Well done.”

“No, I mean,” Murtagh gestured rather frantically between himself and Harry, “you know, do anything…erm, untowards? Because I’m not—into that.”

The dots in Harry’s mind connected like a very reticent constellation in astrology class. Inside him, something cracked at the rejection. “No, Murtagh. Your virtue is intact.” Then, he smirked. “Why are you so straight about it? Have you tried doing it with a man?”

“Have you?” Murtagh shot back. His entire head was flushed red.

It made Harry want to ruffle that ridiculously curly hair. He shrugged back, deciding not to make a big deal of this.

Of course he’d tried it. He’d arrived in this world barely eighteen, there was no way he was going to stay a virgin until Galbatorix decided to marry him off to strengthen their ties to Surda, or some such rot.

When his go at things with a woman hadn’t worked out, she’d suggested he attempt it with a man instead. The cute chap who worked in the barracks’ stables had been more than willing for a few tumbles in the literal hay. Or the metaphorical hay, because straw was nowhere near as soft as it looked, and Harry had a perfectly usable bedroom, thank you very much.

Tumbleweed’s arrival had changed everything, of course. Even his own hand was rather awkward with a constant mental passenger along for the ride, innocently asking questions.

Stretching, Harry pulled himself out of bed and tried to smooth his hair into something sensible. The morning ablutions spell had him shaved and ready for the day.

“You have got to teach me that magic,” Murtagh said, and only then did Harry realise he’d been watching.

“Sure, some other time. I want to…” he floundered, looking for an excuse to leave the awkwardness this room had fallen into. “I want to talk with our King.” Maybe Galbatorix would have something useful to say about concepts like liberty and freedom from the night before.

… xoxox …

“You’ve been listening to Murtagh,” the King said immediately. “You shouldn’t let him put ideas in your head that don’t belong.”

“Is it true, though? Are the people afraid?”

“Afraid of what, son? Of me? Of Shruikan, who hasn’t left his hall in a decade? They barely see me. I exist only as a figure in the stories they tell each other, as a concept they can deify or vilify as it suits. No, the people are too busy with their own suffering to care about what I do, say, or think. They care about food on their tables and roofs over their heads, and I provide that if they work hard.

“My army employs many, many men, young and old. The engineers build the roads, the soldiers protect them, the elders teach and command. They defend the borders against urgals and keep the Varden, whatever their reasons might be, from invading.

“The Ra’zac are tricky beasts, of course. They have their uses, but they cost me a great deal in money and in faith. They are predictable though, and it is better to keep them close so that I might know what they are doing and direct them as needed. They are not my friends, but I do not want them as my Empire’s enemies.

“Haraldr, you must remember it is a web of politics, a balance between all things. The men, you will find, are always busy being wrapped up in their own little lives. They do not dream big, they do not stand tall, and they do not care for freedom.”

“Freedom is a good thing, though.” Harry knew that much, even if he couldn’t explain it properly.

“If they wish for me to solve their problems for them, with or without magic, then they must accept the price of being told the steps along the way. One does not give a toddler the sweets she is screaming for, what she needs is proper nutrition.”

Harry remembered the way Dudley had always been wailing for attention, for love, for a racing bike and a new telly. “That makes sense,” Harry admitted, and waited for the King to dismiss him.

It made sense for a child, yes. But Galbatorix didn’t rule over a nation of toddlers. These were grown men and women they were talking about. Wasn’t it right, then, that they be able to make their own choices, right or wrong?

Then again, the entirety of magical Britain had built their case on banning dark magic so that people couldn’t just do what they wanted. That had made people angry, and in the end it had given them Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Would the light side have won the war if Dumbledore had just gone around telling people where the line between right and wrong was, then thrown in a few rules on how to be a good person?

What was government, if not a more elaborate version of schools, of parents, a different authority ruling over people and robbing them of their own freedom to decide?

Even if it was for their own good.

… xoxox …

Sorry, slow updates for a while. The low traction of this fic hasn’t been moving me to update particularly often, but the story’s almost all written, if not fully edited.

Hope to see you in the comments, thanks for reading!

Chapter Text

“I want to kill the Ra’zac,” Harry announced to Galbatorix. The king had fallen into his latest researching frenzy, barely coming out of his study for meals.

In this case Harry had given up on chancing upon his King during lunch and brought lunch to Galbatorix instead.

The tray sat there untouched. meanwhile Galbatorix’s nose was almost smudging his notes.

“I could transfigure you some glasses, you know,” Harry added.

“Yes, yes, very well,” Galbatorix replied without looking up.

The papers on the desk were covered in scribblings. It looked like the king’s search for the ancient language’s True Name was up for another useless attempt.

Harry sighed, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floorboards. “Yes to the glasses or the Ra’zac?”

“Hmmm?” Galbatorix finally looked up, his irises cloud-grey. “What was that?”

“Do you approve of the mission or do you want glasses?”

Suddenly the king’s hand twitched madly, grabbing a pencil from his desk and beginning to write again. “Ah, son, the etymology is key,” he mumbled, “perhaps the root is protogermanic?”

“I could take Murtagh with me? As backup?”

Galbatorix nodded, briefly looking up again. “A mission, you say? Do what you think will serve the greater good.”

“You should eat,” Harry said, but he knew his King wasn’t listening, not really.

The vow Harry had made to serve and never to betray wasn’t quite satisfied by the vagueness of his King’s decision. Turning around, Harry left for the throne room to ask Shruikan instead.

“Why does Galbatorix tolerate the Ra’zac? They’re awful.”

“They are useful, especially in a world without Riders. The king likes useful things.”

That was surprisingly direct for the dragon. “What’s he thinking now?”

“I have sworn on my Name to never divulge his thoughts, nor his secrets,” Shruikan replied promptly.

Harry groaned. His leather boots were looking rather worn, decidedly unhappy at being ground into the floor again. A quick Reparo put them to rights. “Shruikan, now that there are two, soon three of us Riders, killing the Ra’zac is a pretty good idea. Right?”

“I cannot absolve you of the decision, child. Do what you will. Do what you must. Serve the greatest good, did he not say? But a piece of advice, I offer you:

“Be careful that you do not outlive your usefulness.”

How utterly cheerful.

That night while flying with Tumbleweed, they let the words trickle through their thoughts.

“The Ra’zac are causing the people of Helgrind to suffer,” Harry said.

“Removing them will not end their suffering, just as magicking cleaner streets and prettier houses will not end suffering,” Tumbleweed answered.

“It will help, though. Our job is to serve the empire, and this will make the people safer. If Galbatorix needs them for a mission, he can send us instead.” Harry stretched out his arms, feeling the wind rush through his fingers. “They are a great evil, and removing an evil serves the realm.”

“They do look crunchy,” Tumbleweed said with an air of finality.

It was as good an agreement as any. Within Harry’s chest, he could feel the magic of his vow untangling itself as he decided on the right thing to do.

Murtagh would be pleased, what with all his complaining about lack of freedom and lack of action. In general, Murtagh tended to get very excited about things getting killed, Harry had noticed somewhere along the line, and the Ra’zac and their mounts were a worthy test of their combined skills.

If they could best them, they’d be able to bring in Eragon and Saphira next.

A trio of dragon riders, together they would form the new Order, bringing a new age of peace and prosperity to the people of Alagaesia.

The setting sun looked like it was lighting the clouds on fire. Catching Harry’s thought, Tumbleweed let loose a bout of flames. Steam billowed up from the river in their wake.

“We’re going to be heroes!” Harry yelled into the wind.

Not because of prophecy, not because anyone was counting on him.

Just because he wanted to, and because a tiny dragon soul in a vibrant green egg had chosen Harry to spend xer life with.

… xoxox …

“This is a terrible idea,” Murtagh said as soon as they reached the base of the rocky spire outside Helgrind.

Harry rolled his eyes, circling their camp-site to set up the usual wards Hermione had drilled into him so long ago. For a moment his heart yearned for her; he wondered if perhaps she was thinking of him too.

“They’re awful beings, you said so yourself,” Harry said. “We’re doing this for the greater good.”

Murtagh looked very handsome all decked out in light armour, a gleaming sword fastened to his back. The usual scowl was there too. “I said they’re horrifying, Harry. Have you ever been near one?”

“Nope.” He ignited a small fire and suspended the deer Tumbleweed had brought them to roast. With everything set up, there was nothing to do but rest until morning. “Can’t be worse than a Dementor, though.”

“Do I even want to know?” Murtagh’s shoulders fell.

“They make you feel cold and empty and they can suck out your soul, leaving you basically dead even though your body is still alive.” Harry shuddered, wishing he could conjure Prongs, but his patronus hadn’t followed him to Alagaesia.

Some magics just didn’t work here no matter how he tried.

Maybe his patronus had changed anyway; it might be Tumbleweed now. The image of a massive green dragon snapping at a Dementor made him smile.

“You’re a fool. A mad, dunderheaded fool.”

Harry’s smile grew as he watched sparks dancing off the fire into the darkness. “You remind me of one of my old professors, a real arsehole. He used to call me that, too.”

For a moment grief flashed through Harry, raw and fresh as the blood that had poured from Snape’s neck. The night air felt heavier than it had any right to be.

“I’m sorry,” Murtagh said into the silence.

“No,” Harry said, shaking himself. “No, he was grouchy, but he did the right thing in the end. He was always there to save me when I needed it. Snape was a hero.” Looking over at Murtagh’s uncertain expression, Harry grinned. “Maybe you’re a hero too, your heart’s in the right place.”

“Ha!” Murtagh barked. “You really are a fool. I’m not a hero, I’m a slave. Thorn is a slave. You, too. You’re not the king’s son, he’s delusional. My father said a lot of shit, but he was right about one thing: Galbatorix went mad when he lost his dragon. I pity you, Harry, because one day you’re going to learn it’s all been a lie. You’ll realise you’re just another pawn on his chessboard.”

Harry clamped his mouth shut, not wanting to say something he’d regret. He’d come a long way from the child who shouted Coward and cursed a running man’s back.

Checking on the roast, Harry busied his hands putting together their meals.

Murtagh was apparently unimpressed by his silence. “King Galbatorix is mad,” he repeated, saying it in english this time. “You and I and our dragons are his slaves.”

“I’ll take the first watch,” Harry replied, turning away so Murtagh wouldn’t see his hands were trembling. He ate in silence, mind churning so fiercely that he could hardly swallow.

It was impossible to lie in english, or what they called the Ancient Language here. Therefore, Murtagh’s words had to be the truth, or at least what the man believed to be the truth.

“I’m not a slave, right?” he pushed across the bond to Tumbleweed.

Off to the side, he heard xer loud sigh over the spitting fire. “You have sworn to serve him. Tell me, Harry, where is the line between a servant and a slave?”

The difference was that Harry had never felt like a slave. And yet, Murtagh did. Suddenly, an idea came to him.

“Murtagh, have you sworn any vows to our king?”

The answering silence stretched so long that Harry thought Murtagh hadn’t heard him.

“If, theoretically, you were to ask someone like me a question such as that, the other person would say—” Murtagh cut off abruptly, making a tiny noise of pain that had Harry whirling to face him.

Murtagh just waved him off, then closed his eyes and blanked his face. “—the man would say that there are some things he is not allowed to say.”

Oh.

Oh God.

All that rot about freedom and fear, and the whole time Murtagh had been talking about himself.

“The king had you swear a vow not to tell me you swore a vow,” Harry concluded, letting the dots connect forwards and backwards. “That’s why you were in a tower bedroom for a week, he was, what, grooming you? The next generation of Dragon Riders, all under Galbatorix’s control. I bet he knows your True Name, too. And Thorn’s? Of course. It all makes sense now.”

Harry wanted to laugh, or cry, or both. And to think, he’d actually believed Murtagh cared about the empire’s people. All this time, it had been about Murtagh himself.

But Harry wasn’t subject to the same rules. He’d been named heir, Galbatorix called him son. He’d sworn only to serve and never to betray, which was simple enough. It meant he couldn’t fall into the same corruptness the last Order of Riders had suffered from. This was his empire now, too, and he wanted to do right by it.

“You’re aware,” Tumbleweed said, interrupting Harry’s spiraling thoughts, “that you don’t need to watch anything. I will guard us through the night.”

“I know. Thanks, love.” He’d only really said it to have some time alone. Having Murtagh around was nice, but there was this pain the man carried around. Like Slytherin’s locket around his neck, heavy and crushing as an anvil.

Curling up in his bedroll, Harry turned to the stars high above them, all new constellations he had learnt since coming here.

The maiden to the East, a constant presence to guide people home.

The sea-dragon to the west, guarding the waters so that man doesn’t venture beyond sight of Alagaesia’s shores.

And tucked away in the north where the Spine lay, always the last to come out, were three stars in a perfect triangle, bisected by a faint line, surrounded by a ring.

That is Death’s symbol, Harry’s tutor had said, because some things were true no matter which world he was in. It holds the balance of magic and the world. Chasing it is for dreamers—for fools.

Harry wondered how growing up under that symbol and in Death’s mountain range had marked Eragon and Saphira. He wondered what stories they would have to tell about the way magic felt there. One day, when his King finally deemed him strong enough, Harry knew he and Tumbleweed would travel to the Spine and find out what the Deathly Hallows were all about.

But for now, lying on the dusty earth with a fire crackling gently nearby, it was much more sensible to ground himself in the present moment.

Tomorrow, there would be monsters to slay. He could save the heavy thoughts for afterwards.

… xoxox …

The Ra’zac lair stunk of shit and decay. They had to leave the dragons outside the entrance, and Harry was glad Tumbleweed’s nose didn’t have to suffer with him. Then he remembered the Bubblehead Charm, which only took a few attempts to get right.

Murtagh even managed a weak smile in thanks as they moved deeper into the cave. Despair clung to the walls as if Dementors lived there. Harry was grateful that, despite the same wretchedness existing here, they weren’t using the creatures to guard a prison full of humans.

It was ironic how this world was less advanced, had less technology, and yet they had figured out a basic human decency that magicals in Britain had never managed.

At the first fork in the path Harry paused, feeling rather uncertain. His plan had been to come here and confront the Ra’zac and kill them, while the dragons and Lethrblaka fought in the open sky outside.

Being able to just waltz in like this was making him distinctly uncomfortable. On top of that this strange rock was blocking his magic, making it impossible to feel his connection to Tumbleweed outside. He sent a ball of light down each path before turning to Murtagh. “What do you think?”

“This is a terrible idea.” There was a weakness in Murtagh’s expression that Harry had never seen.

“It’s just darkness,” Harry reminded them both. The werelights returned, casting a soft glow. The sense of pervasive depression kept trying to pull Harry’s mind towards his grief, his pain, his anger, but he’d left that all behind in his old world.

This was his home now, he reminded himself firmly. He had a place here.

“Homenum revelio,” Harry cast, and even though the Ra’zac weren’t technically people, his spell caught something below them. Choosing the left path, he led the way down into the cliff.

They passed several offices and storerooms, nothing particularly interesting within them. As they got deeper down Harry could catch faint glimpses of the two minds by expanding his magic. He withdrew quickly though, not liking the way the walls seemed to be sticky, cloying, unnatural when his magic touched them.

It was a larger cave, like an atrium, that had him pausing again. Behind Harry Murtagh was breathing loudly, great rattling breaths that weren’t doing the man much good.

Then Harry heard clicking and felt the darkness deepening, and he knew they had been found. He pushed his werelight up to the ceiling, covering the cave in sharp shadows.

“You do not belong here,” the creature hissed.

Despair radiated off it, bearing down on him like that time by the black lake, where Sirius had almost been kissed.

Harry swallowed. Nobody could save him now but himself. Watching the towering Ra’zac, he understood he couldn’t talk it into letting him stab it in the back. Worse, he currently only knew where one of the two creatures was.

Then Murtagh was shrieking.

Harry spun to see him collapse on the floor, the second Ra’zac standing above the man with a small dagger in his hands.

There was a mad, clicking laughter from the first Ra’zac in the centre of the room. The sound had Harry’s hairs standing on end.

Oh shit, he heard himself think. His regrets were screaming at him, fear-anger-pain- you’ll never be good enough.

You don’t belong here, Harry’s thoughts yelled. He could feel the second Ra’zac approaching from behind, a slithering sound like robes over silver-wet leaves in the forest.

There was no centaur coming to save him. No fate, no Potter luck, nothing to protect Harry but his own power He spat out his pooling saliva and drew his sword.

Ra’zac are weaker in the sunlight, Harry remembered. He wished he’d thought to bring garlic, a silly hope—better than no hope at all.

You are Heir to the Brodring Empire, Rider of Tumbleweed, Galbatorix’s Wizard and Saviour and Son, Harry told himself. He wished the Ra’zac would stop stalling and kill him already, quickly like they had for Murtagh.

“Do you have the antidote?” Ra’zac one said.

“An insufficient amount for both.”

Harry’s thoughts grappled for space in his brain: Murtagh wasn’t dead, and these things were speaking parseltongue.

A sudden movement had Harry twisting and lunging, his body so tense and ready that he swung his sword faster than ever before. The blade cut deep into the monster’s chest.

For a moment Harry didn’t know who was more surprised, him or it, then the momentum was carrying Harry into a defensive stance. His body moved with the familiarity of thousands of hours spent practicing exactly this.

Ra’zac number two screamed, a loud and piercing sound that bounced around the cave like a bludger. Harry thrust his sword back at it, his Rider’s blade slicing the beast’s head clean off.

Its silence was almost worse than the screaming had been.

“No!” The remaining Ra’zac’s cry was brisk, a demand.

Despite it being alone, the feeling of despair pushing on Harry just got stronger. A memory shoved itself to the forefront: Sirius falling, his hand reaching.

“You killed her,” the Ra’zac stated, a foul sound like nails on a chalkboard. “Now, Rider, I will kill you.”

On Harry’s sword, blue-green blood shone dimly under the werelight.

This is the right thing to do, Harry reminded himself forcefully. Galbatorix would be pleased, and the people would rejoice at the ending of this plight, this evil, this—

—it moved, the charge almost instant. Harry raised his sword, catching the surprise on the Ra’zac’s hideous face, dodging its slashing claws.

For a breath Harry felt like in his quidditch days, just him flying through the sky, his determination entirely on the snitch until the game was won.

When the moment was over Harry was panting, the stale air in the cave creaking in his lungs. At his feet the second Ra’zac knelt, bleeding heavily, its hands clutching its wounded torso.

“You filthy abomination, corrupt rider, murdering coward, unnatural, freakish human—”

Harry stabbed his sword into the creature’s heart.

He propped himself up with his weapon, muscles exhausted and armour sticky with his own blood. A tendril of his magic and a stern command to heal had him feeling much better, though even more tired than before.

Reaching into the reserves of magic in his sword pommel, Harry let the gem’s stored energy soothe his aching body. “Accio antidote,” he said, feeding the spell as it brought a tiny bottle speeding towards him from a tunnel.

He gave Murtagh all of it, hoping the Ra’zac had known what it was doing. A healing spell took care of the pinprick on Murtagh’s neck, too. When nothing else happened, he took Murtagh’s limp body and hoisted him like an oversized child. The trudge to the spire’s exit was much faster than the way down had been, Harry’s mind spinning the entire time.

I killed them, he knew.

That’s four now. Quirrell, Voldemort, and two Ra’zac.

They were monsters, they deserved it—

I killed them. That’s four now. Quirrell, Voldem—

“HARRY!”

The sound of Tumbleweed’s bellow had him surfacing from the black of his thoughts. Murtagh felt heavy, almost waterlogged, but he was already moving and groaning incoherently. Harry set the man down in the large entrance hall, waiting for Thorn to land.

“I was so worried,” Tumbleweed kept chattering.

“I killed them,” Harry replied. That was four people his hands had ended. Four living, breathing, feeling beings with hopes and dreams and conscious minds.

“The Lethrblaka are no more,” Tumbleweed announced, pushing images into his mind while Harry was helping Murtagh get into Thorn’s saddle. “They were crunchy.”

That distinct satisfaction coming across the bond had Harry spitting onto the rancid cave floor. Thorn took off in wordless disgust, but Harry was too busy with his roiling gut. “Please tell me you didn’t eat them, Tumbleweed.”

“I didn’t eat them?”

Harry groaned.

His mind went back to the Ra’zac lying on the rocky ground, blood mixing with grime and sweat. “We’re not supposed to eat our enemies.”

“You are a human. You do not understand these things.”

Through xer mind, Harry watched Murtagh dismounting Thorn by their campsite, the other man looking unsteady but coherent enough.

“I’m going to check if there’s anything else here before we leave. Murtagh’s in no shape for flying home anyway.”

For all they knew there was a nest of Ra’zac eggs or even little hatchlings stashed somewhere here. Leaving them to die of starvation would be awful, but leaving them to become the next Ra’zac would be even worse.

If Voldemort had taught Harry one thing, it was to end your enemy when he was down, rather than holding monologues, gloating, or drawing out duels that could have been finished with a single spell.

Renewing his bubble-head charm and his werelight, Harry turned back towards the catacombs’ reaching darkness.

… xoxox …

Up next: Harry finds things in Helgrind that he wasn’t prepared for. Galbatorix finds out what Harry did and sends him on another mission.

Shoutout to my beta Talesoftime, who discovered all the ways I can’t spell ‘homenem revelio’.

My lovely reviewers, your round of encouragement with the last update was very motivating, so thank you. I’ll see you in the comments. And to my lovely lurkers, thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

The corpses were still just as ugly, the walls just as cloying.

Homenum Revelio, Harry cast.

He almost fell over in his surprise. Two people, there were two people somewhere here. His spell had never been following the Ra’zac.

So much for Alagaesia being better than his old world. So much for this not being a prison, no place of torture.

Harry strode down the crude stone halls, letting the magic lead him deeper, deeper.

“Hello?” he said, sure that they were here, but seeing only a dead end.

“Who are you?” a man’s voice replied. He sounded angry over an undercurrent of tired.

“Where are you?” Reluctantly, Harry reached out and touched the walls, yanking his hand back as the stone started to leech his magic.

“I said who are you?”

This was stupid. Harry didn’t want to be here, exchanging how do you dos with when they could be leaving. “Stand back, I’m getting you out of here.” He fed the Bombarda more and more magic until he realised it wasn’t doing anything except draining him.

Harry swore. “I’ll find another way, hold tight.”

Murtagh had wanted them to bring a ball of string here, probably because his mother had read him too many fairy tales. Hermione, bless her, had insisted Harry be prepared for everything, and Ron had taught him that chalk was much more useful.

“Point me.” Harry let a small stick hover on his palm. He marked the tunnel he’d come from and moved on.

There were endless branching corridors. There was even a room-like cave with a nest full of bedding. Harry took the eggs he found there and realised he couldn’t break them, couldn’t drop them, couldn’t hack at them with his sword.

All he could see was Tumbleweed as xe had hatched, Thorn’s brilliant, brimming magic. Norberta coming out of the fire.

Hagrid had loved Aragog, and it had been both terrifying and wrong but—

—Harry bundled up the eggs and added them to the bag slung over his shoulder. The bottles of poisons and hopefully also antidotes that had made up the Ra’zac apothecary clinked unhappily.

“Hello?” Harry called out again, standing before a heavyset metal door. The Homenum Revelio had him sure this was the right place, and he didn’t know where else to look.

“Who are you?” It was a woman’s voice this time, trembling halfway between courage and fear.

“I’m here to get you out,” Harry said. “My name’s Harry, who are you?”

“K—Katrina,” she coughed.

Alohomora had the lock clicking open. The door was as repulsive as the walls.

“Can you push open the door, Katrina? And do you know about the man that’s being kept nearby?”

The hinges screamed like the Ra’zacs had while dying. A pale face blinked into Harry’s werelight.

It was like looking at a ghost. Her black curls were tangled down to her shoulders, her eyes were sunken and gaunt. Harry wasn’t sure if she’d eaten in weeks, she was so thin. It had bile rising in his throat again.

“Shhh,” he said, reaching out a hand to touch her arm. “Strengthen,” he whispered in english, letting some of the stored magic from his sword flow into her until she was less waxen.

“Sloan,” Katrina whispered, leaning into Harry’s touch. “My father. I thought him dead to those monsters.”

“I can carry you while we look for him if you promise not to hurt me.” Something about her had him feeling wary, or maybe it was the air in this place. The way her eyes kept darting around, the way she licked her lips, it was like Bellatrix Lestrange laughing from a wanted poster.

“I promise,” she said softly. “Please, my father…”

Harry was still feeling unsettled. “No, I meant in the ancient language. Here, just repeat after me—”

The vow washing over them both was a small comfort in this ugly fortress. “Let’s go find Sloan, then.”

It took another hour of searching before Harry was back to the same fork he’d started at. They’d tried every other way, he was sure, and he was starting to get very tired. Katrina’s grip around his neck had gone slack.

“Hello Sloan,” Harry said wearily, standing once again before the wall that separated him from the man. “Do you remember how you got in there? I can’t find any doors.”

“How do you know my name?” the man hissed back, terror thick in his voice.

“Father?” Katrina said.

“Look, you can have your reunion later, we need to leave.” Harry tried not to bite out the words, tried to ignore the way he’d never, ever have a conversation with his father again.

“They blinded me. I don’t remember how I got in. Katy, love, are you okay?”

“Alright, stand back. I’ll try to break the wall again. Bombarda.”

The walls ate his magic, but he kept pushing, fuelled by the sound of Katrina’s sobbing.

His sword’s stone was half empty, almost a year’s worth of spare energy siphoned off before going to sleep.

Then the ground lurched. “What was that?” Sloan yelped.

A great thunderclap sounded very high above them.

Shit.

Harry moved on instinct, curling himself around Katrina and protecting their heads while he threw up his strongest shield, all while Helgrind collapsed around them.

Dust and rubble.

It sounded like the world was ending for a very long time, and then everything was dark and Harry wondered if he would be waking up in King’s Cross again.

He wished he’d stop feeling so tired. His sword’s pommel was entirely drained.

“HARRY!” he heard rumbling through his mind. His ears could hear nothing but ringing.

Tumbleweed clawed them free from their tiny hollow, the shield and bubble-head charms having kept Harry and Katrina alive.

Homenum Revelio proved that Sloan hadn’t been so lucky.

It took three days of rest before Harry and Murtagh had gathered enough strength to fly home.

… xoxox …

“Son,” Galbatorix said when they landed. He’d trimmed his beard and bathed in the time they’d been gone.

Harry had to hear his words through Tumbleweed’s mind—his spells hadn’t managed to heal his or Katrina’s eardrums.

“My King,” Harry said. He dismounted and knelt, ignoring the way the bustling courtyard had stopped to watch. “Please, I tried to serve you in this. I killed them for you, the Ra’zacs’ terror is ended.”

Something like shock flashed across Galbatorix’s face, but it was gone before Harry could properly grasp it.

“I’m tired,” Harry said then. “Katrina, Murtagh, and I need healing.”

Galbatorix nodded and turned to lead them to the infirmary.

The best healer in the king’s army set them all to rights within half an hour. The itching of Harry’s eardrums was awful, and afterwards it felt like the whole world was shouting.

“Thank you for saving me, prince Haraldr,” Katrina was saying. Her bones weren’t quite as obvious anymore, though she was still terribly thin. Already, her cheeks had gained a bit of colour, but it only emphasised the fear in her eyes.

“It’s just Harry,” he told her. Somehow, he still felt terribly tired. The complete lack of stored energy in his sword was making him feel anxious, naked.

“Yes, oh Harry, prince of Alagaesia,” Murtagh chimed in, “Thank you for saving us all from the great evil of a giant rock, we’re so grateful you collapsed an entire mountain.”

Harry didn’t have the energy for this. “Shut up,” he said, and walked away.

…

Shruikan’s looming form was comforting and desolate.

“You killed them,” the dragon stated. “Well done.”

It would be nice if he didn’t sound quite so surprised about the whole thing. “Thanks?”

“Do not fret, the king will forgive you.” A large, black eye blinked slowly from the darkness. “Your use exceeds theirs.”

Harry needed to be forgiven? The Ra’zac had been awful, and a few looks into their records had already shown that they had been the source of the piracy issue several merchants had been complaining about. They had also kidnapped two citizens, and took endless sacrifices from the people of Helgrind.

“I did the right thing. This serves the greater good.” The words had gained a dull echo from how often he’d said them.

Four, he’d killed four beings now: Quirrell, Voldemort, and two Ra’zac. He wasn’t sure if he should regret never having learned their names, or if that was worse.

“Haraldr.” Galbatorix pushed his way into the room, a pouch of what were unmistakably dragon souls in his hands. “You did what you thought was right for the kingdom.” The King settled into his throne, leaning forward and resting his elbows against his thighs as he looked down at Harry.

Then the king said those words again. Hero, Rider, Wizard, Son.

“Swear to me these things:

“The next time you have an idea of how to best serve the realm, you will come to me and demonstrate its merit.

“You will do what I tell you to the best of your abilities while acting prudently and cautiously, taking care to preserve your own health as you travel and follow my orders.”

Harry repeated the words, his tongue moving of its own accord. He felt almost violated by the act—if Galbatorix had just asked, he’d probably have done it anyway, but like this his mind was screaming at him to rebel just on principle.

The new orders were to fly north to Teirm and find out where the villagers of Carvahall were, and also to look into which merchants the Ra’zac had been attacking.

Then he had to swear to follow the next set of demands, which Galbatorix would send him, to the best of his abilities also.

While his mouth formed the vow Harry looked into Shruikan’s great black irises, which brimmed with sadness and empathy.

You are just a pawn on his chessboard, Murtagh had said, but Harry hadn’t wanted to believe him.

That very night, both riders packed their bags and took the dragon souls they were given as an energy source. Murtagh flew south claiming Very Important Business.

Tumbleweed took Harry north with a thunderclap of xer wings and a dull, throbbing silence in their minds.

… xoxox …

The first week spent in Teirm was rather dull. Harry left Tumbleweed to explore the surrounding lands and even venture into the Spine by xerself, while he went undercover.

His first attempts at blending in were wildly unsuccessful, but after changing inns twice Harry managed to get a hang on how to act as a passing trader. It was a bit like infiltrating the Ministry, but this time he was alone, and Galbatorix’s offices of shipping had almost no security.

A bit of reading old logbooks, whilst cross-referencing with the Ra’zacs’ records, showed that specific merchants had been targeted because they’d been sending suspiciously large numbers of shipments south.

South, where the Varden was.

It was so obvious that Harry had trouble understanding how Galbatorix hadn’t known this was happening. The Ra’zac had been the king’s servants, after all, and Harry’s pirate-seeking mission had been expected to turn up nothing from the start.

Either his King was massively incompetent at running his kingdom, too busy diving from one research project to the next, or—

—but no, why would Galbatorix have sent him to uncover this if he’d known exactly what Harry would find? Maybe there was a different message here: the Ra’zac had been doing Galbatorix’s dirty work, and now that they were gone either Harry or Murtagh would have to start doing less palpable tasks.

Things like hiring pirates to attack merchant vessels that were channelling resources to the Varden.

Or cultivating that wide collection of poisons and antidotes. Eragon had killed the Shade, so Durza’s resources were gone too. Murtagh’s mother had disappeared at some point; she’d been one of Galbatorix’s most trusted.

Was that why Harry was here? To realise that he would have to start doing unpleasant things in service of the realm, not just showing off his magic at banquets or visiting other cities’ stuffy nobles to remind them their taxes were overdue?

He ended up stumbling upon the knowledge of where Carvahall’s people had buggered off to by complete accident. While sitting in his usual tavern quietly siphoning energy off the sailors and military men for his stores, Harry encountered a shielded mind.

In itself that wasn’t unusual, nor that the man was wearing a hooded cloak. Many magicians lived in Alagaesia and cloaks weren’t illegal.

But this man got up, leaving as soon as Harry had brushed his mind against his—that was suspicious.

Curiosity killed the cat, Harry knew, but curiosity had also gotten him to seven horcruxes, had saved Flamel’s stone, had freed Sirius, had accomplished so, so many other things.

Curiosity was Harry’s greatest weakness and his greatest strength. He slipped off his stool and followed the man out, easily tracking the empty space where a mind should have been through the web of magic around Teirm.

The man was pretty good at double-crossing his routes and making sure he wasn’t being followed, but Harry had been sneaking around all his life. Eventually, the stranger went home.

Jeod, one of the merchants whom the Ra’zac had been targeting.

His wife was furious with him, enough for Harry’s sharp hearing to pick up the sound.

Tired of standing around and eavesdropping, Harry knocked. The house fell into silence.

“Let me in now,” Harry said. Jeod’s wife opened the door. “Tell me all you know about the villagers of Carvahall,” he told Jeod once they were all sitting in stilted silence on worn couches, holding small cups of tea.

The man dropped his cup, but nobody moved to clean it.

“You can torture me, I’ll never tell,” Jeod said. He had smoothed his trembling hands over his soggy trousers.

“I’m honestly not interested in torturing you.” Was that what the Ra’zac had done all day? But Harry knew he was on the right side of this conflict, Jeod and the Varden were the ones causing all the issues. “Tell me the truth. Or tell me why you’ve been sending ships to Surda. Fuck it, just tell me something, I’m tired of this.”

Jeod’s wife whimpered.

Harry sipped his tea.

“I trade with Surda, hence—”

“Stop. The truth, please.”

“You can torture me, I’ll never tell.”

Rubbing his face, Harry sighed. “Fine, fine, whatever. Look, I can hand you in to the king’s army and they’ll do god knows what, or you can tell me what I want to know and I’ll leave here. I don’t actually have orders at the moment beyond finding out what’s going on.”

“Swear it, swear you’ll leave us be, us and the people of Carvahall.”

Helen got up promptly and went back to the kitchen. Harry made his vow. He was getting tired of vows, too. Like endless strings tying him into a net until he couldn’t move anymore without getting tangled up in so many words. Was this what Snape’s life had been like in the end?

“We’re leaving tonight.” Jeod said. “There’s a ship in the harbour that the villagers are boarding and then we’re off for Surda.” The man’s hands were still shaking.

“But, why?”

Surda was just dust and desert and even more poverty. Running a war wasn’t cheap for Galbatorix, and it was even more expensive for the Varden.

“The Ra’zac and the king’s army attacked their village. They want revenge.”

Finally, finally some answers.

“I killed the Ra’zac. They won’t be hurting anyone ever again.”

Jeod’s surprise was all over his face. “I thought they were serving the King? You’re the King’s man through and through, they say. A magician like no other.”

“I prefer wizard.” Harry ignored the rest of it. He hadn’t realised Jeod had recognised him, or that merchants gossiped about his values, his morals, or whom he served. “What’s so great about the Varden, then? Why is war from their side better than war from ours?”

“Have you seen Galbatorix’s empire? It’s awful. All of it. The people live in poverty, fear, or both. We need a sane ruler. You work closely with him, you must know that he’s mad.”

“Jeod!” Helen’s voice called from the other room.

The man swallowed thickly. Harry watched him through hooded eyes.

Why did he still feel so tired?

“I swore I would fly north and find out where the villagers of Carvahall were, and to look into the piracy issue. I’ve finished that now, I suppose.” The magic of the vow wasn’t pushing on him anymore. “I also swore to leave your house and not return, once you spoke your truth. I think you’re ready for me to follow through on that now?”

Somewhere along the way, Harry had lost track of where the line was between good and evil.

Right and wrong.

Black and white.

Outside, he could hear a clock tower chiming.

Thanking them for the tea, Harry walked towards the harbour, finding the Dragon’s Song moored in the southern fringes. When one of the guards nearby stopped Harry, he very sternly sent the man away to mind his own business.

Watching carefully, he saw the signs of the ship being loaded for a long journey. The boat sat heavily in the water and the people kept on bustling well past dusk and into the night.

Then a man with a hammer almost bashed Harry’s head in.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Harry shouted after he’d dodged and disarmed the idiot. Harry had to wave off the nearby guards. “I’m fine, this one’s just had too much, I think.” He studied the man, looked at the fear and the calculating glint in his eyes.

He looked familiar, actually. Tumbleweed had nothing useful to say, but after a bit of searching Harry realised this was the man from the wanted posters. “Roran,” he said, satisfied when the man flinched. “Jeod said you’d be here.”

The betrayal and rage were pouring off Roran in waves. “That traitor—” he was spitting, but Harry was tired, so tired.

“Shut up and get on your boat, Roran. Here, take your stupid hammer, too.”

Good and bad, black and white.

The ship’s sails were grey in the moonlight. Harry watched the oars slice through the choppy harbour water as it slipped out into the night.

“That was a very stupid thing to do,” Tumbleweed said, showing Harry xer view of the Dragon Wing‘s sails catching in the wind.

“Our orders were to find them, not to capture any of them. Galbatorix should have given us a better vow. Or maybe he should have just asked like a normal person instead of making us swear it. I’m not a trained dog to jump when he says jump.”

Harry’s mind went back to the story Jeod had told of a pair of monsters razing down a village full of innocents. Of a woman who got her husband back as only a pile of gnawed-upon bones.

Either Galbatorix knew none of this was going on, in which case he was a terrible ruler—

—or he knew of all of it: Durza manipulating the urgals and poisoning the elven princess, the Ra’zac torturing Eragon’s village, people being killed and their livelihoods bankrupted for daring to send shipments south.

The same king who had stolen another man’s dragon only to bind it to himself; had that been a mercy or an abomination?

Giving Harry a home and bringing him and Tumbleweed together, was all that just making Harry into the king’s weapon?

Galbatorix had reminded Harry of Dumbledore so often, with his brilliant mind and his genial smiles, his power hidden beneath a coating geniality. What was the Greater Good? How could it be wrong to want to end a war, to stop the urgals from menacing the people, to create dragon Riders free from corruption and chaos?

Would Harry’s every action as a Rider be an order wrapped in a vow, something for him to follow to the letter or have his magic force him to obey?

If Harry was just a pawn on a chessboard, how could he know if he was playing for the right side?

The gates above Nurmengard had those words on them too. The Greater Good.

What was it Dumbledore had planned in his youth? Benevolent rule over all muggles, because the people were too stupid and pathetic to take care of themselves?

When Harry returned to his inn, there was a messenger from Galbatorix waiting with a scroll.

Haraldr, you must fly south to Surda and search out Eragon. Observe him until you have a sufficient opportunity to incapacitate him, then capture him and bring him back to Uru’baen.

Harry settled his tab with the barkeep and penned a quick note to Galbatorix with the information he’d learned from Jeod. Even though it was too early, he had the gates opened so he could leave this wretched place. Tumbleweed flew into the sunrise with Harry, his heart so heavy it was a wonder xe could lift off at all.

Chapter Text

TW: throwing up, no details. Also, murder.

If Harry had to summarise the Varden’s camp with one word, it would be dusty. The desert sands coated everything in a fine layer of grime no matter how often it was cleaned. Most people had given up, deciding to live with the grit in their hair, their armour, their underclothes.

A spell kept Harry’s blade glamoured and safe, but to avoid suspicion he had to suffer the dirt just as much as the rest.

Lady Nasuada was obviously a competent war general, growing her allegiances and the Varden’s coffers with lace, of all things. Murtagh had been given the order to watch her, having Thorn himself serve as an oversized owl to bring reports back to the king.

Harry’s mission was always surrounded. Six elves circled Eragon like glorified bodyguards. Saphira, in all her magnificence, often lay about just being present.

Lady Nasuada was a competent general, and she knew what a dragon and Rider could do for morale.

In Harry’s two weeks of watching, he’d accidentally managed to get enlisted into an actual division of the Varden’s army. Lady Nasuada was a bit too competent a general, noticing a single unassigned ‘soldier’ to get noticed so soon.

She also had a lot of mouths to feed, so the wagons bringing supplies south were the most common target for raids. Harry’s division was a small group, not even thirty men.

Galbatorix’s supply chains were massive and moved slowly down army-engineered roads. The king’s men were set up at several strategic locations north of Surda, making it impossible for the Varden to attack the Empire itself.

Though he really didn’t want to fight against his people, Harry had to pull himself together and take part in at least one battle. He was hoping for a nice fake injury. Nothing to get him left behind on the battlefield, of course, but serious enough to take him out of the running for the next while.

Of course, while the Lady Nasuada was a competent war general, some of her commanders were rather crap. With the way Harry’s superior was planning the battle it was likely Harry wouldn’t have to fake an injury at all. Did the man not know about the archers that guarded all the king’s wagons?

Funnily enough, it was Harry’s vow to serve Galbatorix that had him keeping his mouth shut, otherwise he’d have gotten himself in all sorts of trouble.

“The mission is to capture Eragon,” Tumbleweed liked to remind him several times a day.

…

Harry didn’t even get a horse to ride into his first battle. He was just a foot-soldier like the dullest of the Varden’s men, armed with a sword that was barely sharp and horribly balanced.

The lot of them were huddled behind an outcropping, waiting for their chance to shoot crossbolts at the passing wagon and the soldiers defending it.

For all the good that was doing, they might as well have been flinging tickling charms, or poo.

In his first and only battle as a soldier of the Varden, Harry killed three more men. Laughing men who kept getting up when they were hurt.

Soldiers without pain or self preservation who fought harder than any normal man would.

The whole thing was nightmare-inducing enough, and if they would just shut up.

Only half of their raid group returned to the Varden with the wagon. Harry’s “wounded” sword arm wasn’t questioned, but Harry’s mind couldn’t stop asking:

Had it been Galbatorix who’d made these soldiers?

It was such a mad idea that it had be the king’s. Men who will stand up with arrows in their skin and laugh, laugh, laugh as they faced down their deaths.

Nobody questioned it when Harry was throwing up behind the medical tent, either.

“Thank you for your service,” said a young voice with a northern accent.

Harry wiped his mouth and stared. There Eragon was, no bodyguards, no Saphira, just a man with a blood-red sword at his side and an easy smile on his face.

The vow had been to follow orders, and the king’s orders had been to observe Eragon until Harry had sufficient opportunity to incapacitate and kidnap him. For some reason the vow was barely niggling at him now, just a quiet voice suggesting that this was an opportunity, was it sufficient enough?

“I could heal your arm for you, if you like?” Eragon was already reaching out to where Harry was crouched on the floor.

Harry almost fell as he shrank back. “No!” Shit, shit, think fast, “I don’t want to fight them again. Not yet.”

Apparently that had been the right thing to say. Eragon continued smiling. “Let me take you to lunch then, I know for sure your stomach’s empty.”

This, too, was an opportunity. Eragon even turned his back on Harry as he led the way to the nearest mess. “What’s your name?”

“I’m just Harry.” The words slipped out before he could think, too busy telling the voices in his mind to shut up. He was meant to be Evan Jameson here, but then again he wasn’t meant to be having lunch with the Last Free Rider, either.

Talking with Eragon was effortless, they somehow both had the same sense of humour. At some point an elf guard joined them and Harry was sure he’d be found out, but all the elf did was comment that he wasn’t eating meat.

How could he eat flesh when he kept picturing the way the Ra’zac had eaten one of the villagers from Carvahall, even sucking the marrow from the bones?

The elf didn’t wait for an answer, just pushed over a bowl of nuts and dried berries. For some reason Harry couldn’t grasp, that small kindness moved him almost to tears.

… xoxox …

That night when Harry met up with Murtagh, the man was smiling, his face soft for the first time in…ever, really. “She’s so wonderful, my Lady Nasuada,” Murtagh crooned, cradling his cup of coffee like it held the answer to everything.

There had been a time when Harry looked at Murtagh and smiled like that. He stamped down his jealousy, his scorn, his incredulity. “Do tell.”

“She has this thing where she rolls her eyes when she thinks nobody is watching, whenever the men are all being idiots, and then she sighs with her shoulders like this—”

“Yeah, okay, you don’t need to tell me.”

“—and she has this strange magical child who always guards her and I realised there was absolutely no possibility to assassinate my Lady so I went to the place she visits at the weekends and Harry, she smiled at me. She actually looked at me. It was perfect.”

“You’re a total sap, Marty.” The name finally got the usual scowl back onto Murtagh’s face, which had Harry laughing in turn. “Hang on,” he said, “did you say you’re meant to assassinate her? And here I thought my mission was hard.”

“I’m not going to do it. Thorn and I are running away.”

They were literally already in an entire different country, and that was on the king’s orders. What would running away look like, then?

Though Harry did want to see the Spine, or even the elves in the north. They’d probably know all about ancient magic, maybe even about the Hallows?

But no, it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

“I didn’t realise that was something you could do. Vows, and all that?”

“I had thought—but I can feel his hold on me loosening. They are just ideas planted in my mind, no longer inevitabilities.” Murtagh grabbed Harry’s arm tightly and whispered the rest, a low urgency giving his voice colour. “He knows my Name, see, that’s who I was, who I am, but I realised: what if I become someone else?”

For a moment Harry thought of Tonks, always in transition from one moment to the next. Endless possibilities to become.

He remembered the way her patronus had changed from a bear to a wolf when she’d fallen in love.

“Oh,” Harry said. There was something clawing within his chest, something between envy and betrayal. “Good luck,” he wished, and at the same time he felt like he’d lived his whole life for others and now there was nobody left who wanted to be on his side.

Had they not been building something together, he and Murtagh? Trust, at least, maybe even some affection? He’d been picturing those lips at night sometimes, those angry lines on that sour face, and wondering how that frown would gentle if he kissed it.

Meanwhile, Murtagh had just used Harry and moved on.

… xoxox …

“You look awful,” Eragon said, swinging into the seat beside Harry during breakfast the next morning.

Harry wished bitterly for the Varden to have at least a thousand more soldiers, just so that Eragon could find someone else to bother this morning.

“Don’t you have an empire to fight? A king to overthrow?” Harry’s weak tea was doing little to make him feel better. “What’s the Varden fighting for anyway? Nobody ever gives me a straight answer.”

Eragon’s look was almost shrewd, but his face was still too boyish, probably just as young-looking as Harry’s own.

“Galbatorix is mad. He’s had twenty years and things have only gotten worse, for everyone. Alright, the schools and trains lately have been pretty good, but word is that’s all the green rider’s doing.”

“The green rider?”

“Xerosis or something, I keep forgetting the name. It’s really dumb-sounding.”

In Harry’s mind, Tumbleweed roared, but Harry ignored her. Finally, he was getting answers. “Things have gotten worse, so they must have been bad before, too?”

“The last order of Riders were a corrupt bunch who went around doing whatever they wanted, just because they could. They got richer and fatter, and when Galbatorix got angry with that he offed them.” It looked strange, seeing that boyish face mime slitting his own throat. “People were scared of the Riders then, and they’re scared of the king now. That’s not how things should be. A king serves his people and helps them to better themselves in every way he can.”

Thinking of Murtagh’s words last night, Harry twisted his face into a smile. “Or maybe a queen, huh?”

“Yeah. Lady Nasuada would be great. But don’t come to me for politics, I’m crap at all that.”

A Rider after Harry’s own heart. They could leave politics to Murtagh and Nasuada, then, and go off flying in the Spine or visiting the elves or exploring the far reaches of the Hadarac desert.

Closing his eyes Harry could picture it, could feel the sun on his skin and taste the ferns and the waterfalls. “I think I’d like that,” he realised. Sure, he and Tumbleweed would have obligations, but not orders. Not vows.

They wouldn’t be pawns on a chessboard, they’d be soaring in the sky.

Eragon clapped his hand on Harry’s shoulder, almost knocking the glamour off him with his sheer energy.

For the rest of the day Harry walked through the Varden’s camp, listening to the noises: chatter, laughter, smithing, children.

Galbatorix’s men hardly talked at all outside their stations, he realised suddenly.

As he passed by the Lady Nasuada’s tent he saw Murtagh loitering across the courtyard, pretending to sweep the streets. When he spotted Harry he nodded, a grin stretching across his face until it was almost goofy.

In all the time they’d spent together, Harry had never managed to get Murtagh to look so happy. And he knew he should be glad for the man, be pleased in turn that Murtagh had a chance to change, but instead all Harry had was a chest full of wriggling worms.

A sense of loneliness, yearning, betrayal.

The next time Eragon sat down beside Harry for a meal, Harry slipped him one of the poisons he’d gotten from the Ra’zacs’ stores. That night while Eragon was busy crapping his guts out, Harry fed him the antidote and cast Stupefy. The elves were off following a trail Harry had laid them. Nobody even questioned Harry as he carried a man-sized bundle to the edge of the Varden’s camp.

Saphira was bellowing, waking the camp and adding to the chaos. Harry put Eragon on the back of a very strong looking horse and trotted them off to where Tumbleweed was waiting to fly them back to Uru’baen.

… xoxox …

“You have done so well, my son,” Galbatorix praised, but the words were hollow and all Harry felt was empty.

The king went to put his new Rider into his prepared rooms, a glorified prison cell in the north tower up ten flights of stairs.

He left Harry and Tumbleweed in the courtyard to exchange looks. At least a few good spells managed to clean away all the dust.

“I feel used,” Harry thought, scowling into the rising sun.

By Murtagh, by Dumbledore in his old world and now by his King.

“You’ll feel better after you sleep,” Tumbleweed crooned.

“I’d rather go flying, if you’re still up for it?”

He fell asleep to the wind buffeting him, to the lullaby of powerful wings.

Harry woke in a place so vivid and vibrant it felt like he was dreaming. “Is this real?” He asked the waterfall, the ferns, the lone deer that scampered into the undergrowth.

A hot burst of air on his neck comforted him. Turning, he saw Tumbleweed’s head had emerged from the pond. She looked like the Loch Ness monster, if Nessie had been real, green, and pretty.

Nearby, a bunch of toads were ribbiting their hearts out.

“We completed our mission,” Harry said, not quite sure whom he was saying it for.

He wasn’t really sure why he’d done it, in the end. The voice of the vow in the back of his mind had been getting quieter and quieter every day.

Had he been changing without even noticing?

Harry thought of how he felt, separating the threads of emotions out until he could properly put a name on it.

“I feel betrayed,” he understood.

Murtagh hadn’t even cared enough to realise Harry would be hurt when the man had cast him aside.

Galbatorix had taken him in and brought him to Tumbleweed, but he’d always been trying to use Harry, as a source of alien information, as a political figure, as an errand boy and a sworn servant.

The king calling him ‘son’ had rung empty, hollow words over his hollow chest full of malnourished promises and hot air.

They’d meant to destroy the rebellious Varden, create a new Order of Riders, bring the Empire into a new era of peace and prosperity.

The next time you have an idea of how to best serve the realm, you will come to me and demonstrate its merit.

He’d sworn the oath, but Harry knew that his vows no longer held him—because he’d had an idea, a terrible idea on how to serve the realm, and he felt no desire to move at all.

Murtagh would probably like it. He was always too fond of killing.

“I am my own man,” Harry realised, liking the sound of it so much that he repeated it aloud. “I am my own man. Not Albus Dumbledore’s boy, not Galbatorix’s son, not the abused kid living in the Dursleys’ cupboard waiting for someone to come save him.”

Tumbleweed said nothing, xer presence solid and comforting at his back.

He dozed in the dappled sunlight to the sound of the waterfall and the toads and his dragon-partner’s soft humming. When he woke the stars were already out, the mark of the Hallows hanging directly above him.

Harry wasn’t sure if his idea was that of a fool or a dreamer, but he did know it had merit.

… xoxox …

Galbatorix was in his study, scribbling at something with the usual mad glint in his eye. Harry set down a strong cup of tea for his King and took his own wine-goblet in hand. “We did it,” he said, the words thick on his tongue. He lifted his cup in toast and drained it, not wanting to be sober for this. “There are three of us riders now, all on one side, united for the cause of a better Alagaesia.”

The king smiled and drank, his eyes crinkling fondly the way they used to when Harry was making snide comments during long dinners, or making the world revolve around Lady Flederlaken.

A second helping of wine made things easier, the words churning inside him until he let them out. “You gave me Tumbleweed, and you called me son. I’m always going to be grateful for that, nobody ever did that for me before, and—

As Galbatorix drained his own cup, Harry began to cry. The king just looked on, genial and bemused, one of his hands twitching for his pencil to continue whatever mad project he’d been engrossed in before Harry came in.

“But you’re not right,” Harry whispered. “You’re not making things better. You’re not the king this nation needs, and I swore, on my name and on my magic, to serve this kingdom.”

He watched as Galbatorix’s face began to turn blue, the man’s eyes watering as he wheezed for breath.

Harry watched, wrung his own hands, and did nothing. “I’m sorry,” he wept, “and I’m not sorry.”

From one moment, one second to the next, the King was straining, clutching madly at his own neck—and then he wasn’t.

All the way across the castle, Shruikan let out a mad bellow. The walls and floors trembled.

“He’s leaving,” Tumbleweed said, sharing xer view of the black dragon clawing his way through the walls that had become his prison, a prison of fancy portraits, fine velvets and marble statues.

This was a place where the Malfoys would have felt at home, and that really wasn’t a good thing.

.oOo.

AN: Did the build up make sense to you? I wanted the regicide to be inevitable and unexpected. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings.

If you haven’t already, go read my other stories in this series. I’ve a new Twilight crossover that’s taking off.

Chapter Text

Even from the king’s study Harry could hear the sound of crashing stones and rubble being knocked loose. Shruikan climbed up the side of the castle, there was a moment where a single great black eye passed by the nearest window.

Then it was gone. A shadow fell over the city as Shruikan threw himself into the wind and flew east towards the desert, the rising sun warming his back. His morose bellow seemed to linger in the air.

“It is a good place for him to die,” Tumbleweed said. There was a mercy in death, and the dragon would find peace in the heat and the sandstorms. Nothing but open sky and lonely goats.

Harry looked down at Galbatorix’s body slumped in his office chair. “This is not a good place for him to have died.”

I killed him, he knew.

It was eight now. Quirrell, Voldemort, two Ra’zac, three laughing soldiers—and his King.

Someone was knocking on the study’s door. Jolting, Harry saw the man he’d killed and realised that he had to choose his way forward: Gryffindor or Slytherin.

Harry stepped up to the door as it was opening, obscuring the servant’s view of the room. “What is it, Gerlinde? Do we know where Shruikan is going?”

“I’m searching for our King,” the woman said. “I can’t find him m’lord Harry, and the dragon—”

“Has anyone checked his chambers yet?”

Though he didn’t believe in luck anymore, Harry crossed his fingers behind his back.

“No my prince, we didn’t want to disturb him, but…”

The relief that washed through him was almost as strong as Harry’s guilt. “I’ll go, Gerlinde. Fetch some tea from the kitchens, he’s not a morning person on the best days.”

She nodded and bustled off, calling out orders to the rest of the staff as she went. Harry let his shoulders slump.

…

He could that Gerlinde had arrived by the sound of a full tea service shattering on Galbatorix’s marble floors.

Harry looked up from where he’d arranged the king in his bed, a spell having turned the corpse’s skin waxen and grey. “He’s gone, Gerlinde.”

I killed him, it’s eight now.

“Stop that,” Tumbleweed chided. A wash of green light bathed the room as xer head nosed through an unfastened window. “Tell the lady to go inform all the other people.”

Said lady was sitting on the floor amidst broken china.

“Reparo,” Harry said, watching the pieces fall back together again. He managed to salvage enough for the single cuppa he pressed into Gerlinde’s hands. “Deep breaths,” he reminded them both. “We’ll get through this.”

He left her planted on an overstuffed armchair, with a corpse and a quarter of a dragon for company. “He’s dead,” Harry said, over and over.

I killed him.

Galbatorix was a monster. It was for the greater good.

“He’s dead. Spread the news. Send word to the other cities. Send a white flag to the Varden. He’s dead. Our King is dead.”

The church bells tolled from sunrise to sunset, every chime a reminder.

Dead dead dead dead, they rung.

‘Mur-der-er’ they toned.

He had Gerlinde tell Eragon, making sure the other Rider got on the fastest horse they had before Saphira showed up to claw Uru’baen apart.

.oOo.

Within the week, the people crowned him. King Harry, he insisted, shrugging off Galbatorix’s attempt to call him something fancy for the rubbish that was.

They all answered his invitation: Lady Nasuada, King Orin of Surda, Queen Islanzadí of the elves, Nar Garzhvog of the urgals. The prissy dukes and duchesses from the cities called it scandal, but Harry was tired of living for other people’s approval.

They held the peace talks outside in an open courtyard, with Tumbleweed’s massive body forming a half-circle around them all. Harry couldn’t help wondering where Eragon and Murtagh were, why all the duties of being Rider and ruler had fallen solely onto him.

“We demand the blueprints for your trains,” King Orin said.

“We demand pardon for all dwarf and Varden men who committed crimes against the crown during this war,” King Orik said, “We wish to travel and trade freely.”

“We demand access to the next dragon eggs,” Arya said. She was beautiful, but not the same way Eragon’s panther-like bodyguard had been.

“A leader of a human nation should be human, selected by humans, and serve for a term much shorter than the human lifespan,” Lady Nasuada demanded.

“Our clans need land to live, hunt and grow,” Nar Garzhvog said.

Harry listened as they spoke, taking notes and thinking furiously. In the back of his head, he could still hear the bells.

“As a dragon Rider, I serve the greater good of Alagaesia,” Harry replied, falling easily into the words his tutors had pounded into his skull. “I will not be bound by vows, but we will work out a treaty where the empire you envisioned can become. I’ll stand at sovereign at first, but if the people will it I’m more than happy to hand over the reins to Lady Nasuada.”

He sighed as he watched the confusion and shock playing across all their faces.

“Running a nation is a fuckload of work, and I’m not interested. What kind of things had Galbatorix been saying about me that you all look so surprised?”

They wouldn’t meet his eyes then. At least for the Kull it was out of respect. Harry bared his throat in return, satisfied by the smile there.

“Right,” Harry decided, pushing to his feet. “you lot can bicker out a plan of what you want to happen next, I have to go make sure Lady Lorana in Feinster doesn’t do something unreasonable. She’s got a fair bit of magic and not near enough common sense.”

When Harry found her summoning a Shade in her living room, like a lamppost from an Ikea catalogue, he wished his description of her had been a little less flattering.

From Haraldr to King Harry to Shadeslayer, it seemed an empty dream to be just Harry ever again.

Galbatorix had called him heir, dragon rider, wizard and saviour. Betrayed and Survivor, he had named himself.

Harry was a work in progress, a continuation, an act of becoming.

He was alright with that.

.oOo.

Harry got back to Uru’baen once he’d spent a fortnight convincing himself that his people wouldn’t do anything idiotic.

Armies from both sides had been packed up and sent home. There was a massive queue of soldiers, the Varden’s and Galbatorix’s, snaking through the city all the way to the throne room. While Nasuada presented her vision of the future of Alagaesia, Harry walked back to Shruikan’s old prison with its southern wall covered in scaffolding.

Nasuada and her plans could wait another day. All of his people had come requesting an audience with Harry, and he’d be failing his duties not to listen to what they needed.

A home to replace the one they’d lost.

New land to live off.

Someone to help them till their land, now that their sons had been crippled.

“I want him to feel again,” a woman said, holding her husband’s hand while the man laughed and laughed. Harry didn’t tell her that death would be a mercy to him.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. It was the only problem that could be fixed by magic.

The endless hours spent listening filled him with helplessness. His tutors had taught him geography and geopolitics and mapreading, but nobody had ever said that a family needs this much land to feed themselves, a mill needs this many people to keep making clothes, a city only needs this many taverns if soldiers pass through the land with coin.

An empire can lose this many able-bodied men before it begins to collapse.

At the end of another exhausting day, Harry found Murtagh and Eragon waiting for him in the dining hall. Eragon looked wary, and Murtagh looked smug.

“You might have showed up a bit sooner, you know,” Harry said to Murtagh. “Tell your Lady I hope she has a plan for all this, because I bloody well don’t.” He helped himself to a plate of steamed greens, wishing he could go back to when venison was still appealing.

Harry didn’t want to meet Eragon’s eyes, so he spoke to his peas instead. “I’m sorry I kidnapped you. For what it’s worth, you’re the one who convinced me to…to do it.”

“Do what?”

Harry looked at him, this farmboy from a northern village who’d been given a dragon only to have the responsibility of a world thrust upon his shoulders. Until last week, he’d probably thought he’d have to kill the king himself. King Galbatorix, a Rider more than a century older than Eragon, wielding magic the boy couldn’t even dream of.

Maybe Eragon been living in a cupboard too, back with his uncle and cousin up north. Harry’s heart went out to him.

He was just a kid with a smudge of sauce on his chin.

“Holy shit,” Murtagh said. “Holy shit, Harry, you killed him?”

Instantly Harry pushed out his mind, checking if anyone was close enough to listen. It was just the three of them and Eragon’s furry bodyguard. Harry huffed, sending Murtagh a glare for good measure, but the man was just grinning.

“I didn’t think you had it in you. I thought you loved the man.”

I did love him, Harry didn’t answer. Maybe I still do. He gave me everything.

“Hush, child,” Tumbleweed said. “I will eat Murtagh, if you like?”

“Maybe later, dearest. Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” Eragon said, his voice very quiet, “have we met?”

“Hullo,” Harry said. “I’m Harry, partner of Tumbleweed. The king used to call xer Xerophyte. How do you do.”

“Eragon Shadeslayer,” the boy replied, spine straight and sauce still on his chin, “pleased to meet you.”

Murtagh scoffed, his chair scraping loudly as the man got to his feet. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it, I have better places to be.”

“We’re not—” Eragon was blushing.

“Tell Lady Nasuada to come talk with me over breakfast about how to run this empire. You can join us too, as consort.”

The sound of Murtagh’s barked laugh grated against Harry’s nerves. He couldn’t believe he’d actually liked the man once, that he’d appreciated that heart of solid coal.

Lady Nasuada could have him. Maybe she’d find a diamond in there somewhere.

“My cousin finally arrived here,” Eragon said softly into the sound of clinking cutlery. “He’s looking for his fiancee Katrina.”

Shit, Harry had forgotten all about her. He pushed out his mind again, looking for Gerlinde and knocking against her mediocre mental defenses. “Can you find Katrina please, the woman I brought back from the Ra’zac? She’s from Eragon Shadeslayer’s village.”

Gerlinde was in charge of all the staff, Harry was fairly certain she knew everyone in the castle.

By the time they’d finished dessert, she was bustling into the hall with Katrina trailing behind her. “You might be king now Harry m’lord, but you don’t go talking in my head,” Gerlinde said.

“My King.” Katrina didn’t look up from the floor as she curtsied.

“Katrina!” Eragon cried, and that was that.

Harry let them have their reunion. Withdrawing, he thanked Gerlinde, promising to make it up to her somehow, maybe some chocolates from the western markets?

Gods, he was so grateful she’d taken care of Katrina when he’d abandoned her here, in a city full of dangers.

“She worked well in the kitchens, it was no trouble,” Gerlinde just said, but Harry could tell she was pleased to hear that he needed her.

Across the room Harry exchanged looks with the elf, the one whose name he still hadn’t caught. He had bright yellow eyes like Madam Hooch’s, and Harry’s thoughts kept circling around to what it would be like to run his fingers through that dark blue fur.

“You’re incorrigible,” Tumbleweed said, and Harry only laughed. Xe’d been eyeing Saphira all day and they both knew it.

.oOo.

Over the next month Harry and Nasuada worked their way through every person queueing for an audience. They set up a committee to reallocate lands, and a round of councillors to debate over issues for hours until the lot compromised.

After the second time at the roundtable, Harry had actually jumped out the window onto Tumbleweed’s back to go flying, and from then on he just let the council present their decisions to him. They were cleverer than him, anyway. Nasuada had helped bring together the best knowledge from the elves, the dwarves, the army, the merchants, even the urgals.

Harry knew when he was out of his depth, and he preferred to let them do their job.

Meanwhile Eragon had somehow gotten the idea that he needed to go exploring, so they packed his saddlebags and sent him off to have his adventures. When he came back after a month carrying a dozen dragon eggs, the entire council could have kissed him.

At that point Harry left them to it, not wanting to get mired in the day-to-day of dragon distributions.

Tumbleweed had chosen him, he was sure that the other dragons would choose their riders just as carefully, all the while completely ignoring whatever the elves wanted or the humans wanted.

Some things just were.

The sky was blue.

Half his soul was now a green dragon.

And every night, when the bells tolled, Harry heard their accusation ringing in his ears.

I killed them, he knew. He counted the dead in his head and wished they’d let him sleep.

.oOo.

“Tumbleweed and I are leaving,” Harry announced one morning to Lady Nasuada, Murtagh, Eragon, and Blödhgarm. “I need to be somewhere without bells for a while.”

“You’d like Ellesmara,” Eragon suggested. “There’s magic there like you wouldn’t believe. Saphira and I will miss you.”

It was hard not to feel fond of the kid, and he knew Tumbleweed would be pining at least a little.

“Bring me a souvenir?” Murtagh asked.

Harry wouldn’t be missing him at all.

… xoxox …

Chapter Text

Liothar is Blödgharm's cousin in canon.

xoxox

The elves were weary, deliberating for a day before they allowed Harry to enter their borders.

It all just looked like forest to him, but if the elves were sure where their lands ended and begun, he wasn’t going to question it.

“A Rider should not be a king,” Queen Islanzadí said as the forest’s warden sat pondering Harry’s fate. She was decked out in a gown of swan feathers. It made her look like a misshapen owl.

Of course, she was a very, very beautiful misshapen owl. It was ridiculous how pretty these people were.

“I’m serving as a figurehead, really. Lady Nasuada is running things now, she’s proven herself a competent general and an excellent leader.”

Harry wished Tumbleweed would come back so that it wasn’t just him and the crowd of elves watching from across some invisible line. Their constant whispering was just out of earshot.

Whenever Harry tried reaching out with his mind, it was like magic herself slapped him. Rude.

“We do not appreciate violence here,” the queen’s daughter said.

Eyeing Arya’s blade, Harry scoffed. “You’re just as fond of pointy metal as the rest of the people around Alagaesia seem to be.” Going by their faces, nobody found that funny.

“The sword you wield once belonged to another woman,” said a white-haired elf wearing a heavy apron.

“It’s a Rider’s sword, and I’m a Rider.” Harry shrugged.

The others gasped as the lady stepped towards him. Even on springy moss, she moved like she was stubborn. Harry could tell she was an elf after his own heart. When she reached out for it, he handed over his sunset-coloured blade in its holster.

She was surprisingly nimble as she waved it about “This is a fine weapon, and it suits you well.”

“Ulpukka was a friend.”

She turned. “Gilderien, you old fool, let him in. There’s no cause for your dithering and you know it.”

“He has blood on his hands.”

As if Harry hadn’t been aware of that. Eight, he counted them every night. He’d given up on finding names for the laughing soldiers, but their faces haunted him. Their cackling would sound like Voldemort, which would shift into Quirrell clutching at his neck before he collapsed into dust.

“I’ve come here to find peace,” Harry said again. Aunt Petunia would have loved these gawking, judgemental, holier-than-thou bigots. “If you’re going to be difficult about it, Tumbleweed and I can go looking in the Spine instead.”

“Only fools and dreamers chase that mountain.” Queen Islanzadí’s voice was soft as she asked, “Which of those are you, Harry Shadeslayer, Rider of Tumbleweed, King of Alagaesia?”

“I’m just Harry.” The words sounded worn-out.

Finally the forest-warden nodded. “May the stars watch over you, Just Harry, and may you find what you are searching for.”

With a small bow to the wizened elf, Harry collected his pack and entered Ellesmera.

.oOo.

They didn’t grant Harry the rooms Eragon had stayed in, the ones that should have been his as highest-ranking Rider. That didn’t matter, though.

The out-of-the-way little tree he’d been assigned barely fit Tumbleweed’s bulk even after Harry had shoved the worn furniture into the corner. They made themselves a nest of blankets in the middle of the only room. Harry woke every morning in awe of the home that had been grown, or rather sung, from a stout oak. It reminded Harry of being hidden away.

Safe and sound like the cupboard under the stairs.

It fell somewhere between comfort and heartbreak, only bearable whenever Tumbleweed was there to light up the ceiling with xer scales.

Harry spent his days wandering through the elven city and the surrounding forest, his eyes delighting in finding the line between deliberate and wild.

Tumbleweed didn’t fit well between the trees, so xe would fly long distances, basking in the sun and the challenge of the hunt. Harry’s meals were delivered to his rooms twice a day whenever he wasn’t there, and he often wished he’d gone flying instead.

“You have come here to find contentment, not to fly away again,” his dragon only chided. “Besides, I am rather preoccupied with my own searchings. We should leave each other in peace so that we can come together in joy again.”

None of that made much sense, but Harry swallowed his sense of abandonment for xer sake. He’d rather leave xer to it while he preoccupied himself with soul-searching.

For all that he was looking, Harry kept losing more of his normalcy. Sleep was replaced by a repeating string of vivid nightmares. He missed conversation, too. The worst times in his life he’d been alone, usually a month at a time every summer where nobody even spoke his name.

Boy, he was sure the elves were sneering behind his back. Human. He doesn’t belong here.

Only Arya would actually talk to him, always a welcome contrast to the constant whispers just on the edge of hearing. When he’d gone searching for peace with the elves, Harry hadn’t been expecting this.

“They think Galbatorix poisoned your mind,” Arya explained, joining him one morning for a long walk.

“Maybe he did.” Harry sighed, wishing he could forget, wishing he could feel a little less broken.

He’d done everything he was supposed to do, hadn’t he? Why wasn’t he just settling down for a quiet, cushy life of exploring the land and fiddling with new ways to cast magic?

It should have been so simple.

“They will respect you more if they see you bettering yourself. You could go to the sparring fields in the mornings, or visit Rhunön in her workshop. She likes you, you know. Perhaps she will help you improve your grasp of our language.”

At that, Harry laughed. He’d come here for peace, not more fighting, and he doubted they’d like it if he walked anywhere armed.

As if magic wasn’t the deadliest weapon he had.

The collection of poisons from the Ra’zac still lived in his knapsack, warded to hell and back in a corner of his rooms.

Swallowing every bitter retort, Harry answered the easiest of her statements instead. “What makes you think I don’t speak the Ancient Language?” he said in english.

Suddenly Arya was laughing, like a melody. “After ten days you’ve been here! Harry, you’re impossible.” Then she grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards the oak he’d been living in. “Liothar,” she called, a smile in her voice. Her laughter was infectious, but Harry didn’t get what was so funny. “Liothar!”

An elf approached from a tree only just down the path. Harry couldn’t tell what gender they were, but he knew he wanted to run his fingers through that wonderful speckled brown fur.

“Tell him what you told me,” Arya demanded of Harry.

“Erm, I don’t want to try sparring?” Some minutes had passed, and for all his grasping he still couldn’t figure out the joke. “I don’t want to learn smithing? And I’m fluent in english, thanks very much.”

“I greet you, Harry. May good fortune rule over you,” the elf said, breaking into a smile. He did some strange gesture where he touched his fingers to his brow, then his lips.

Oh. Of course there was an elf version of a handshake, and Harry had been bungling his courtesies. No wonder they’d all been whispering about him, muggle-raised, half-blood, orphan.

Harry mirrored the elf’s movements easily enough. “I greet you Liothar. May good fortune rule over you, too?” By Arya’s laugh, he could tell he’d gotten it wrong, but Harry was used to making mistakes. “Are you related to Blödhgarm, by any chance?” Like Eragon’s bodyguard, Liothar had soft-looking hair on his head that also covered his chin and neck, a contrast to the mostly hairless elves. “The furry look is fantastic.”

Liothar’s grin was so easy to return. “He’s my cousin. This a family…affliction.”

“Can I touch it?”

Oh no, Harry was mortified he’d actually said that. He’d been low-key meaning to ask Blödhgarm the whole time in Uru’baen, but the blue-haired elf was intimidating.

Thankfully Arya had melted away, so only Liothar was there to see Harry’s idiocy.

“Of course you may touch me, but you have to take me to dinner first.”

Then Harry was laughing, laughing like he couldn’t remember having laughed before. He clutched at his side and wheezed for a bit, ignoring the way there were tears in his eyes, ignoring how his new elf-friend had come over in concern.

“I’m alright,” he hiccuped.

“Certainly.”

Taking the hand that was being extended to him, Harry let Liothar pull him back to his feet. “What’s a good place to eat, then?”

.oOo.

Harry’s entire life had been a lesson in ignoring the public’s gaze as he went about his daily life. That long practice didn’t make the many elf-eyes watching him and Liothar in the dining hall less irritating, but it did mean Harry was very good at pretending not to care.

“You might have told me there’s an actual place you lot go to eat,” he grumbled into his salad, spearing up a bean and gesturing with it.

“You could have asked,” Liothar said.

Harry wasn’t even sure why he was still smiling back.

After they finished eating Harry couldn’t think of a reason to part ways, so he let Liothar lead him through the forest, all the while laughing and talking about little things like their favourite foods, or about how music was the strangest magic of them all.

It was the most normal Harry had ever felt. He went to bed that night grinning to himself, Tumbleweed’s body and mind cradling him into green-speckled dreams.

.oOo.

Suddenly Liothar was everywhere, accompanying Harry on his walks, showing him the hidden trails, his favourite paths, and the way the birds sung if he stilled to listen.

They talked about their cultures and where they’d come from. Harry spoke about how he’d gone from a cupboard to a castle to a tent in the forest, then back to a castle. And how the whole time, he’d never really understood the meaning of home.

“Home is where the heart is,” Liothar explained.

“You sound like a Hallmark card, or a doormat.”

“My friend, did all the carpets in your original world speak?” the elf asked, and then they were laughing again.

One day, Harry realised that the reason he wasn’t sleeping like before was that he was having waking dreams instead. His ear-tips were becoming pointy, magic’s blessing on the Dragon Riders.

But what stood out to Harry the most was the way his mind had stopped showing him nightmares. When he walked past the gong, gong, gong of Rhunön’s forge all he heard was hammer on steel.

The melancholy that had been a splinter in his heart had just…melted away.

“I killed him,” Harry found himself telling Liothar one day, his words whispered into the night sky as they lay watching the stars.

“Perhaps you saved him, hmm?”

Harry turned to look at Liothar’s face, the warm brown of his soft hair just as visible under the night sky. “I know he had to die, but I wish it hadn’t been me to do it.” The words didn’t feel right, so he pondered them some more. “Or maybe I’m glad it was me, so that the last person he saw was somebody he cared for? I dunno. I just…don’t know.”

It was strange how the ancient language worked, how it let him say anything he wanted from one moment to the next, so long as he was convinced it was true.

Liothar turned briefly and smiled before letting his eyes go back to the blanket of stars draped across them high above.

“I wish…” Harry murmured, stopping himself from tracing his finger over that lovely furry cheekbone, “I wish I knew what I wanted. I feel like my whole life has been me being yanked around by a chain from one mess to the next, with fate and prophecy and all that. I’ve done my bit. I’ve saved two worlds. I suppose I don’t really know what to do with myself now.”

“Elves live very long lives, and I am only young.”

Harry waited for his friend to collect his thoughts.

“A life has merit to our people,” Liothar said, “regardless of what you choose to do with it. Many choose a craft to hone, but others still flit about like a bumblebee on a summer field. We are beings, not doings.

“But I see the way you are always thinking about how magic works, attempting new ways to cast spells. Where I make a fairth, you will sit and say Expecto Patronum for hours watching the white mist gathering around your fingers. You see the world like a sail sees the wind.”

“That’s beautiful, Liothar, but it doesn’t make very much sense. I’m a sail? You’re ridiculous.”

The elf smiled. “You are singularly the most beautiful person I have ever met.”

Harry swallowed the words that had all lumped together in his throat. The sheer honesty of it, the look of vulnerability softening that wonderful face. “Would you mind if I kissed you?” he said then, words coming out before his fear could swallow them.

Then the elf was laughing, and Harry was laughing, and when their lips met it was soft and sweet and bumbling, Liothar’s beard tickling Harry’s chin even as Harry’s hands finally got to bury themselves in that headful of fur.

Their kiss didn’t work particularly well, but that was just because Harry wouldn’t stop smiling.

Over Liothar’s shoulder he saw the Hallows twinkling at him from the midnight sky.

Fool or dreamer? Hero or victim? Orphan or son?

Harry closed his eyes and leaned into Liothar’s warmth. Right now, in this moment, he was Just Harry.

He was enough.

xoxox

Chapter Text

Day 11 of a post every day this December. Enjoy!

Tumbleweed radiated smugness as xe introduced Oromis and Glaedr.

“You’re not clever just because you can keep a secret,” Harry told xer while his hands went through the familiar movements of the elvish greeting.

He could feel Tumbleweed’s hot breath on his neck as xe laughed. “Secrecy? The world could have ended in the past month and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

Harry had never wanted to see a dragon imitate a kissing face, but he couldn’t unsee it now. He shoved xer shoulder; he might as well have shoved a wall.

“You know, that’s not what I meant. It’s you I’m proud of. I chose the greatest Rider of them all. They should all envy me.”

Again, Harry shoved xer. Inside his chest, it felt like his heart had grown to twice its size.

“Are we interrupting something important?” Oromis said.

“No, no,” Harry replied, turning back to face his fellow Rider. “It’s an honour to meet you, Oromis-elda. We’d be blessed to study under you for a while.”

.oOo.

“I have never had a king break bread with me before,” Oromis was saying. They had moved the dining table outside to watch their dragons basking in the afternoon sun.

The elves’ society was matriarchal, a testament to their good sense. “Never have I ever won a duel against an elf,” Harry said.

Of course, nobody had taught the elves muggle drinking games. Harry rolled his eyes and went back to his soup.

.oOo.

“You are remarkably good at clearing your mind,” Oromis told him. That morning, he’d left Harry deep in the forest for a day of meditating. It had been peaceful, though Harry’s arse hurt from sitting.

“I had a terrible teacher,” Harry replied. Perhaps teacher was a misnomer when Snape had never taught. “One of my tutors explained it though. ‘The mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily,’” he quoted. “The trick, then, is thinking of something when you’re meant to be thinking of nothing, and returning to it every time you drift off.”

“You’re supposed to be flying now, not talking,” Tumbleweed chimed in. “I promised Rhunön you’d visit, she wants to make you something shiny. We should leave before dark.”

“The dragon who owns me says I have to go,” Harry told the elder elf. “We can talk magical theory some other time.”

.oOo.

They talked a lot of magical theory, him and Oromis, him and Queen Islanzadí, him and Arya. Harry tried to talk to Liothar about it too, but his good friend said ‘not to take the magic out of magic.’ Sometimes Harry wondered if Liothar wasn’t also a bit intimidated by the company.

Instead Harry and Liothar talked about transitioning from good friends to lovers to mates. At night they whispered their dreams in each other’s pointed ears. Harry wanted to travel the Spine. Liothar wanted to see where the sea cascaded off the edge of the world.

“It might be round,” Harry had said.

Liothar smiled and kissed him. “If the world has no edge, we might just keep chasing the horizon forever.”

When Oromis finally deemed Harry ready to leave Ellesmera again, it was with an oak-and-brightsteel staff on his back and a husband by his side.

.oOo.

Alagaesia was barely recognizable as they made their way home to Uru’baen. A railroad criss-crossed the landscape, connecting the corners of the nation. They stopped to let Tumbleweed hunt, and found Urgals and dwarves moving freely.

“What’s this?” Liothar asked about a big building near Gil’ead’s centre. He was wearing a spell that made him look human, but it couldn’t mask his sheer presence.

Harry stared past him at the building, his chest welling with awe. There were so many children, all lined up before a large vat of stew. He and Liothar walked in to the large mess hall to find large blue letters on the wall. ‘Education is the greatest equaliser.’ “This is a school,” Harry realized. They watched the first children pack away their bowls and run squealing for the doors, right past a line of dragon eggs.

“When did this happen?” Harry asked the soldier standing guard.

“‘s the lady Nas’ada’s orders. All kids to be in school half days for a chance at being one of them Riders.” He turned to the side and spat. “Couldn’t pay me enough to get on a dragon. ’fraid uv heights, I am.”

Liothar laughed. “Wonderful,” he said, then repeated it in Common.

“Y’er a long ways from home, laddies.” The soldier gave them a hard look. “There’s no point stealing ’em eggs. Dragon’s gotta choose ye, and they’s picky.”

“These people have no idea,” Liothar said with wonder. “After all you’ve done for them, they have no idea.”

“Excuse me.” The matron was frowning at them, hefting her copper ladle. “Who are you? This is a place of learning.”

Harry took Liothar’s hand and pressed a kiss on his glamoured cheek. “I’m just Harry,” he said, smiling. “Don’t worry, ma’am, we were already leaving.”

Tumbleweed picked them up from the city gates. Harry made sure everyone was watching as he and Liothar walked hand in hand to his dragon. The setting sun made xer sparkle like a statue blown from glass.

He’d never seen so many laughing children. People reached out to wave. There were no beggars with distended bellies and hopeless eyes. Nobody asked him to fix their problems with magic the way King Galbatorix had always feared.

Watching the little faces shrinking as they flew into the fading sun, Harry wondered if one day it’d be his children shrieking with laughter as they raced down Gil’ead’s streets. He’d never wanted them before, but now, with Liothar at his back, he felt like they could do anything.

.oOo.

“You’ve done amazing work,” Harry told Lady Nasuada when they landed in Uru’baen. She’d come to greet them in the courtyard, perfectly calm while the guard around her looked harried. Harry smiled at the sight of Thorn nuzzling into Tumbleweed’s side.

Meanwhile Murtagh was nuzzling into Nasuada’s hair. Harry had no trouble ignoring him completely.

She was smiling. “You laid a pretty decent foundation and gave me a lot of gold from your coffers,” she said. “Still, I’ll take a compliment where it’s given.”

Harry pulled his husband forward and started the introductions.

.oOo.

“Married, eh?” Murtagh leered. Dinner had been a lot less stilted than Harry had feared. Liothar’s Common was very formal, but his effortless charm made up for it.

Harry shrugged. “And you’re having a bastard, are you?”

Murtagh looked down. “We wanted to wait for your return,” he said, “Nasuada believed it’d be better if you bless and officiate our marriage. As I know her, she’s got it all planned out.”

“Lady Nasuada’s a wise woman. Much cleverer than you.”

“I’m a lucky man.” Murtagh’s entire face relaxed at her name. Harry could see how thoroughly falling in love had shifted Murtagh’s identity. This was a different man than the one who’s lips Harry used to stare at so longingly.

“My apologies for—I’m sorry I doubted you, before.” To Murtagh’s credit, he said it meeting Harry’s eyes. “I made things rather harder for you than they already were. All you wanted was to help.”

Harry’s smile felt bittersweet. He did not look at those lips, he didn’t care for them. They were fickle, and Harry deserved better. He had better. Waiting for Harry in their chambers, Liothar was probably entertaining himself going through the closet. “You’re an arse, Murtagh. But, apology accepted. I forgive you.”

Then Harry turned away, ducking up a hidden staircase to his rooms.

In a corner of his heart, he could hear Tumbleweed humming.

.oOo.

The wedding was a hideous thing that Galbatorix would’ve been proud of. Liothar and Harry were decked out in matching royal purple. Murtagh wore red, while Nasuada’s blue wedding gown was ridiculously lacey. Harry was glad he wouldn’t be around to witness the resulting fashion trends.

The three dragons circled the sky during the ceremony, highlighting it with a display of green, red, and blue flames. To the assembled crowd Harry announced, “You have voted for Lady Nasuada to continue her office. My husband Liothar and I will spend the coming weeks touring the Federal Republic of Alagaesia as your royal figureheads.”

There were cheers and more dragonfire. Harry was very pleased to have ducked out of his own ridiculously pompous wedding.

“And here I had been anticipating the sight of you in a blue dress,” Liothar murmured as they stood and waved at the crowd.

“Hey, no,” Harry said, grinning. “If anything it’d be green, like my dragon.”

The people roared as Liothar leaned over for a chaste kiss. Harry couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over so he could go back to being Just Harry again.

.oOo.

After visiting seven cities over ten days, Harry felt like he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. There had been so many hands reaching out just to touch him. Somebody had even thrust a baby into his hands for him to bless.

“I don’t bless babies,” he’d said, handing it right back. That would be the last thing he needed, parents lining up before the capital hoping for a chance that he’d give their baby some magical gift. “Magic won’t fix your problems. You do your best to be patient and kind with it, alright?”

“A person isn’t an it,” Liothar murmured in Harry’s ear.

“A baby isn’t much of anything. Just a container of human potential waiting for their parents to fail them.”

“Did your parents fail you?” Liothar asked much later, when it was just the two of them on Tumbleweed’s back flying toward the stars.

Harry thought of the three memories he had. “No, not Harry, please.” “You’re so brave, my son.” “It doesn’t hurt. Just like falling asleep.”

He thought of old men with twinkling eyes telling him who he was supposed to be. “My parents died. But they weren’t the ones who failed me.”

Up ahead, the familiar constellations twinkled at him. Fool. Dreamer. Madness lies here, the Hallows crooned. Harry could feel the warmth of Tumbleweed’s smile as xe winged steadily to the Spine.

.oOo.

The air was restless. Harry had walked through the peaceful forest for days with the sun on his skin. He could practically taste the dew on the ferns. While Tumbleweed and Liothar had gone exploring the snowy peaks, Harry had been listening, and it was this particular waterfall that was calling to him.

Slowly, he took off his clothes, folding them. He raised his hand to his throat just to check, but all that was left of Voldemort was long-healed scars. Harry dove into the lake not knowing what he was searching for.

Around him, the water was crystal. There were a few translucent shrimp darting about, visible only in the beams of sunlight. Harry came up for air and dove again.

At the bottom of the lake, where the water had pounded the rock into a sculpture, was a small black stone. Harry’s heart ached with the familiarity of it. It lay there, just within reach, but—

—Harry had never been the strongest swimmer. He tossed a pebble over and watched it hurtle away under the waterfall’s pounding flow. There was no way Harry could swim in that current without it killing him.

With his next breath, Harry found himself formulating the spell. It would cost him a lot of energy, but that stone, he knew that stone. It was what had been calling him to this mountain from the first time he’d seen the Hallows in Alagaesia’s night sky. Harry reached out his hand, magic pooling in his gedwëy ignasia.

Harry stopped. He swam back to the surface. He climbed out of the lake. He dried himself off and put his clothes on again.

Inside his head he could hear them calling like sirens.

“Tumbleweed!” Harry cried out, though it couldn’t drown them out. “Liothar, Tumbleweed!”

It didn’t take more than ten minutes. The whole time, Harry kept his back resolutely turned. He was done with destiny. He was done with prophecy.

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

“Harry?” Liothar said, jumping down to stand before him. “Are you alright?”

Holding Liothar’s soft hand, Harry turned for one last look. Then he faced forward again and smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Never better. Let’s go fly to the edge of the world.”

The end.

This was a writing exercise in proper plotting, it just happened to take the shape of a fic that I got to share with you all. It's been a blast. Thank you for sticking with me and supporting me.

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• Peter Pettigrew's story, where you'll see the humanity in the rat as he tries to redeem himself by honouring the Potters' sacrifice.
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