Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

[Dunkelzahn]

Summary:

It began with a quirk of timing, and it continued because dragons — such as the one which an eight year old Harry Potter had become — were very large and difficult to control.
Fortunate for everyone he's a nice kid, eh?​

Spoiler: SpaceBattles Thread Context, contains actual minor spoilers

I had put this on SpaceBattles before it got flagged for questionable content. I hadn't realized that the rules against certain things extended to the mentioning of a potential risk that those things might happen to a minor, so continuing on that site --- even if the thread gets unlocked --- is probably not advisable.

If they're uncertain about what's been posted so far, then a few of the less pleasant bits of Hermione's character arc (in which she narrowly avoids such a fate) and their aftermath (Harry didn't like the fact that she was targeted for such) are going to raise all kinds of hell.

In any case, my fault for not understanding their rules properly.

That said, at the risk of reducing the dramatic tension in the future chapters, rest assured, nothing sexual involving minors is actually going to take place in this story, no matter what the situation might threaten --- though there may be some characters who suffered such abuse in their past prior to their introduction to the story.

Seriously, getting dinged on that of all things was thoroughly unpleasant.

For that matter, nothing explicitly sexual involving adults is going to be written in this story. The worst is going to be implied off-screen events. Sexual implications will be used in this story for plot and character development as well as a bit of good humor.

Spoiler: Background

This is an expansion and continuation of Doghead Thirteen's story of the same name. I've been working on it, with the original author's permission, for some time now and posting on the CaerAzkaban Yahoo Group Groups.io group where the original author is a member. Given the much larger user base here, I'm hoping to get some additional feedback, as well as a place where the entire story can be read more easily than the increasingly difficult Yahoo Groups interface.

Well, that, and I thought some of you might enjoy the fruits of my labors as much as I do.

In chapter 2 there are some elements introduced from another companion story by Tsu Doh Nimh, Sort the Dragon, mostly a single character and the bones of a couple of scenes. It's a well-written one-shot if you care to check it out.

This is a Harry Potter and Shadowrun crossover, or to be more accurate it is a fusion of the settings. A third setting is also part of the mix, but it will be revealed when the characters find out about it in-story.

Spoiler: Organizational Note

Since it came up in the SB thread, note the numbers X.Y.Z denote Chapter X Section Y Scene Z. I'm posting one section to a forum post so that I have reasonably sized deliverables rather than waiting for a chapter that could run 50k to 120k words (chapters 1 and 2 respectively), and the scenes are named mostly for my convenience in my word processor (it lets me navigate easily and move scenes by dragging and dropping).

Anyway, here goes! Hope you enjoy.

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1 Enter the Dragon

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1.1 In which an outsized lizard happens

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1.1.1 An eventful trip

There are places in the world where reality isn't quite so real — though, perhaps it might be more accurate to say where it's a bit more real than usual — places where the fabric of the world bunches up like a poorly set table cloth and the dimensions are seen a bit edge-on instead of flat. In the ancient past, such sites were sought out, and upon them structures were built to harness and enhance them .

Most had been forgotten over the long millennia, buried by the dust of ages and lost to the ravages of time. Some, however, remained visible to this day, great rings of earth and stone rediscovered by Man and marked out for curious sorts to puzzle over. Perhaps the most famous such device lay on the Salisbury Plain, a ring of stone plinths laid out to exacting specifications known to the modern world as Stonehenge, but it is one of many that litter the globe, most vastly more potent.

Long before the squabbles between Rome and Carthage, the lore of the rings faded from living memory, and the arts required for their use faded likewise. The ancient structures were tools with which the greatest of magics could be cast, hoarding power in the wrinkles of the world for later use. But without the knowledge to use them, the rings lay dormant, unused yet operational, faithfully storing the power and lifeblood of the world in preparation for some future masterwork, some great purpose, yet to be imagined.

In the village of Avebury — built within one of those ancient works of earth and stone — on the evening of the summer solstice in the year 1988, a small family called Dursley had stopped on their way home from visiting Vernon Dursley's sister in Bristol, taking advantage of the late afternoon sunlight to explore the millennia-old edifice, more for a respite from the cramped confines of the family auto than any particular interest in the stones themselves. The luxury saloon would have been a sizeable vehicle for most, but it was decidedly undersized for Vernon, who found the bucket seats pinched his sides fiercely, and it promised to soon be too small for Vernon's young son, Dudley. In stark contrast, Vernon's wife, an inordinately thin woman by the name of Petunia, nearly vanished into the seat cushions of the front passenger seat; perhaps a bench seat would have allowed Petunia and her husband to average out comfortably.

In a sharp departure from their usual habit, the family of three had dragged along an unusual addition, Petunia's orphaned nephew, Harry Potter, who stayed with the Dursleys because he had nowhere else to go. The Dursley family generally held that young Harry was the ruination of any event he attended, no matter how minor, hence his poor acquaintance with the family dinner table and his slight frame. As such, Harry would normally have been fobbed off on an equally disliked neighbor, usually one Mrs. Figg, owner of an unmanageable number of cats and a collection of odd smells. Unfortunately for the Dursley peace-of-mind, Mrs. Figg had been unavailable, and they had been forced to allow Harry to accompany them.

So it was that Harry Potter came to be at the stone circle in Avebury at moonrise on the summer solstice of 1988.

A young boy of eight and not terribly enamored of history, Dudley saw nothing of interest in the ancient stones standing upright in the turf and was found the entire stop to be quite boring. In keeping with the family policy of blaming Harry for any and all problems encountered whenever he was present — and all too often whenever he wasn't — the rotund boy felt it perfectly reasonable to assume his cousin was responsible for the tedium and should be punished for his temerity. So, Dudley shoved the thin boy, and Harry was set stumbling toward a fateful meeting with an ancient piece of stone which was very much harder than his head.

Said meeting took place at the precise instant of moonrise and Harry's new megalithic acquaintance happened to be the one which would, in the circle's normal course of operation, be used to drain excess power in preparation for a delicate working.

Now had Harry been a normal child this would have done nothing, yet Harry was not a normal child. Harry was a wizard — albeit one ignorant of his heritage and untutored in the ways of his people — a wizard who had active power of his own flowing through his veins and infusing his blood with raw potential. Some of that potent blood had been introduced to an ancient magical device — primed and ready to activate — on the solstice, at moonrise, filled to the brim and beyond with the power accumulated over the course of millennia, and that infused potential triggered the stone to do as it was designed.

The gathering dusk lit up with a shaft of light brighter than the noontime sun, a light of all the colors of the rainbow and a few others besides, a light connecting the stone to young Harry's wounded head. A sound beyond sound echoed across the plain, and a cacophony of more esoteric forms of noise raced around the planet and diffused into the byzantine folds of reality. More power poured through that connection between the stone and Harry's head than had been used by every magical creature in every magical endeavor that had taken place since the stones last fell silent.

Normally — if such events were to occur frequently enough to be able to define a norm — a young boy such as Harry would not have survived such a discharge; indeed, he would have been annihilated, possibly even some distance into the past; such was the amount of power that flowed into him. In this case, however, Harry's magic, an almost sentient entity in its own right, lashed out in desperation, concocting and implementing a desperate solution on the spot to avoid dissolution.

Harry changed.

Power siphoned from the flow was used to spin substance from emptiness, and the young boy's form twisted into something new — something strong, something durable, something able to withstand the current. The flow of power ended as abruptly as it began, and Harry fell — no longer a critically-underweight eight-year-old boy.

1.1.2 A strange reaction

Thousands of miles away, in a cave sealed long before the circles fell silent, a massive eye opened; a voice deeper than human hearing and rough with disuse spoke in a rolling language not heard in millennia.

"What's that racket?"

A few moments passed with no further interruption before the eye closed heavily again — the owner dismissing the issue and returning to its rest. It was still too tired, the time still too early.

It would investigate later.

1.1.3 Thoughts in the aftermath

As the light faded and the echoes died out, Vernon Dursley blinked the afterimages from his eyes as he blearily examined the area, bewildered by this most unwelcome surprise, only to hear a young voice.

"Huh? Um, Aunt Petunia, why are you shrunk?"

Turning toward the voice — in the process taking in the expressions of horrified shock writ large on the faces of his wife and son — Vernon laid eyes on a decidedly terrifying-looking critter.

Its scales were the blue-black of fine steel tooling; Vernon recognized that immediately as a proud seller of fine drills, and it was about as long as the family car — near twenty-foot — a lot of which looked to be neck and tail. The creature — had it not been splayed awkwardly on the ground — would have stood at about Vernon's height at the shoulder, and it possessed a pair of wings, one of which was flailing clumsily in the air as the beast tried to right itself in a body it didn't seem quite able to work properly.

More than anything, it was that wing which caught Vernon's attention. Its flailing was taking it more than twice the height of that standing stone the boy had run into — a stone that was itself almost twice Vernon's height — and it was moving fast. Vernon's work selling drill tooling often took him into big, industrial facilities, and if the constant safety briefings from his clients had taught him anything, it was that when something that big moves that fast, that something is far deadlier that it really looks like it ought to be.

When Vernon saw the teeth looking like a peculiarly stout set of butcher's cleavers — now, where had he seen a cutter that looked like that before? — set into a jaw that could take the head off of a cow in a single bite, he realized that this critter looked like it ought to be very deadly indeed, and he made the sensible decision to tread very, very cautiously.

"Dudley, you shrunk too?" that voice piped up again.

On top of everything else, Vernon now realized that the young voice was issuing from the dangerous-looking beast itself. And that voice… that voice definitely sounded like his blasted nephew did when recovering his wits after a well-deserved cuff to the side of his freakish noggin. Did the new critter eat him or something? As long as the beast wasn't still hungry, maybe this wouldn't be too bad? Unless the critter was the boy…

…and didn't that seem like an all to plausibly freakish occurrence?

Vernon realized that he really shouldn't be taking this so well. It'd probably be for the best if he confirmed the facts of the situation before the shock wore off and he started panicking.

"Boy, is that you?" Vernon was thoroughly proud of that question. Here he came across an accidental dragon — because he was pretty sure that's what this critter was — and he managed not to stutter or anything. That was premium-grade stiff-upper-lip right there.

He had never felt so patriotic.

"Um, yeah. I feel kinda weird," his now-confirmed nephew continued, "nothing seems to work right anymore."

Fears confirmed, Vernon manfully put off his terrified gibbering for a later time — preferably when he was out of sight of his newly-draconic nephew — while he saw to salvaging the situation as best as he could. "You keep trying to work things out there, boy, and be proper careful, you're a lot bigger than you used to be," Vernon was still tickled by his even tone, surely no Queen's Guard in a bearskin could have done any better.

After the boy responded with a cheery, "Right!", Vernon turned to Petunia, still silently mouthing something or other in shock. "Pet, I think you'll need to drive the car home. I need to get a van; think I saw a dealership in Marlborough on the way out."

"Van?" Petunia repeated, blankly.

"A van," Vernon confirmed, "I don't think the boy will fit in the car, and we can't leave him here." Vernon's calm state of mind was starting to slip.

"But what'll the neighbors say?"

"What'll the rozzers say if we leave a DRAGON wandering Wiltshire?" Ah, there it went. "And what'll the bleeding DRAGON say if we try to ditch it?"

Whatever response Petunia had planned died on her lips, and she nodded reluctantly.

And so it was that an increasingly not-calm Vernon Dursley made a short, sharp visit to a local car dealership in pursuit of a van. He was satisfied with neither the quality nor the price, but the dealer could sense his urgency and took shameless advantage.

Vernon's smarting pride as a salesman did nothing to improve his mood.

A few hours later, the lemon of a van died as it pulled into the garage right next to the dragon, and Vernon put his family to bed. Hoping that a good night's sleep would prove everything to be a dream in the morning.

It would not.

1.1.4 In which Petunia does nothing useful

It had been several months since her nephew had turned into an automobile-sized dragon during their ill-fated rest stop at Avebury, and in the intervening time, Petunia had learned more about dragons and their physiology than she had ever wanted to know.

Well… except for that stint between learning her dratted sister was a witch and finding out that she, herself, was not. During that time, Petunia dreamed of being a magical veterinarian, caring for unicorns and pegasi and such. Back then, she would have eagerly devoured such knowledge.

Petunia's opinion of the magical world had soured in the intervening years, due partly to meticulously unacknowledged jealousy, but mostly due to long-buried grief-become-resentment over the loss of her sister to their secretive little world. So, Petunia now focused on the unpleasant realities of dragon feces and the problematic economics of paying for things to be turned into such, rather than the wonder of a flying, intelligent, magical, fire-breathing, and most importantly, friendly, reptile.

Petunia's was a sad existence.

As she sat at the kitchen table, drinking her sorrows away, Petunia reflected on the situation in which she found herself. It seemed to her that small dragons behaved in much the same way as small children, continually occupied with eating and sleeping, interspersed with bouts of defecating. It brought back memories of Dudley's infancy and magnified them to monstrous proportions.

On that first night, her dratted draconic nephew had eaten the entire contents of the garage: Dudley's bicycles, all three of them; the lawnmower; the grill; assorted hand tools; potting compost; garden pots; pesticides; fertilizers; a chest freezer and its entire contents; even the bloody van they had purchased specifically to haul his ungrateful reptilian bulk home — not even her poor innocent collection of lawn flamingos had escaped her nephew's ravening maw.

Oh, the flamingos!

Petunia choked up at the memory, before raising her glass for another sip. She had worked so hard for those, badgering Vernon into buying them then forcing him to cart them back from Harrod's. Even if she didn't dare to put them out since no one else on the street had them, now she didn't have that option because they were dragon food!

Why, not only would Vernon have to mow the lawn himself with the boy stuck in the garage, but they'd have to borrow a mower to boot! Petunia didn't know if she could stand the shame. It was bad enough that hiding her dratted nephew from proper folk kept her from entertaining as she wished — one of the few things for which Vernon was grateful to the boy — but now that dreadful Hyacinth woman down the street, the one married to poor Mr. Bucket, would have something to hold over her head.

Petunia could just hear her now, "Not able to maintain your own Lawnmower, are you? How Dreadfully Unfortunate! Have you and dear Vernon fallen on Hard Times? I had Wondered when you didn't Reciprocate after my Fantastic Outdoors-Indoors Luxury Barbecue hosted at our Glorious Bucket residence — that's pronounced 'bouquet', you know — but I hadn't Realized you were having Troubles of the Financial Sort. Simply Dreadful!" That woman would never shut up about it! She was almost as horrid a gossip as that woman at number 7 — or so Petunia had heard from her neighbor at Number 2.

At that point, a shirtless Vernon walked by the kitchen window carrying another hundredweight of coal across the back yard to the garage, following the frozen sheep carcass he had toted in earlier. It was very kind of him to avoid dirtying his shirts with coal dust again, but the sight of her husband's pale but increasingly muscular torso simply brought another problem to the fore of her mind.

Petunia almost despaired — Vernon was even losing weight! He was down almost eight stone since Avebury, and he was such a dreadfully handsome fellow. If he lost much more weight, Petunia feared she might lose him to that secretary of his. Petunia had seen the looks that woman was giving him at the last company Christmas party, and she would not stand for it!

That tore it!

She would simply have to sit down with her husband and figure out what was to be done about her sister's horrid brat. The situation was simply untenable, and Petunia refused to tolerate it!

Vernon would simply have to figure something out!

1.1.5 The lament of a salesman

Vernon faced a daunting task.

A young dragon, such as his nephew had become, seemed to live to eat, and it had fallen to him to keep the wretched beast sated, at least to the point that it didn't ravage the neighborhood in search of victuals. The glutton had devoured the entire contents of the garage the first night — including that lemon of a van he'd been forced to purchase.

While Vernon was not displeased to be shot of the reminder of that embarrassment of a transaction — and he certainly didn't mind the loss of those ridiculous lawn ornaments Petunia insisted on collecting — he was mightily irritated by the loss of his sales kit from Grunning's. Those drill bits were expensive, which was bad enough on its own, but far worse was the necessity of explaining that he needed a new kit at work. That had been unconscionably embarrassing, no matter how understanding his supervisor was.

Worse yet, he couldn't even use his nephew's testimonial for future sales — his customers wouldn't care that the drills were delicious!

It had been almost two months since his nephew became a dragon, and in the intervening time the reptile had grown almost five feet in length and put on a fair bit of girth. He was averaging twelve sheep, a quarter-ton of coal, 50 liters of petrol, another quarter-ton of scrap metal, and an unconscionably large volume of water per week. The great beast was also rapidly outgrowing the garage, and Vernon was working hard to keep the massive pile of dung he produced buried so the neighbors didn't complain about the smell.

At least his nephew had proven to be a remarkably polite dragon — proof that he and Petunia had raised the boy right, in Vernon's estimation. Now that he didn't have the excuse of physical intimidation keeping him in line, Vernon was forced to admit that the boy was quite well-mannered, if ravenous. In his new form, his nephew was now perfectly capable of doing anything he wished by force, and yet he still went along with Vernon's request that he stay hidden in the garage, despite obviously wanting to get out and about.

Vernon knew that his son, Dudley, had grown quite fond of his newly draconic cousin over the summer, and he could hardly begrudge the lad. Even Vernon couldn't help but acknowledge that the coolness factor of having a real dragon in the house made up for a lot of problems — even at his age. That the dragon in question was made of high-grade steel was something that Vernon found awesome beyond words, and that sort of wonder was something he thought the world had stamped out of him when he was a teenager.

Honestly, at this point, Vernon often caught himself wishing he didn't need to keep the boy a secret. The salesman within him could hardly imagine a better mascot for Grunning's Drills than a living dragon made of the same stuff as some of their best products!

Yet despite that, the problem of that monstrous appetite remained.

While Vernon had complained before about the cost of his nephew's upkeep before the events at Avebury — mostly because he felt like grumbling rather than any true concern — financial solvency was now a very real issue. The budget for dragon feed now exceeded their monthly mortgage payment, and it showed no signs of tapering off any time soon. The family savings would not be able to absorb the strain for much longer. And that was not to mention the fact that Harry really needed to be able to get outside and move — even Vernon had to acknowledge that the situation was unhealthy for the boy.

He'd have to see if his wife could remember how to contact those freaks her sister had run off with. Much as he disliked such weirdness, Vernon felt that they might be better equipped to deal with an outsize accidental lizard.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.2 Calling in wizarding assistance

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1.2.1 An unusual letter

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Chief Warlock of the International Confederation of Wizardry, Chief Mugwump of the Wizengamot, five-time Winner of Wizarding Britain's Most Fabulous Fashion Competition, and carrier of far too many names, found himself to be decidedly perplexed. His potions professor, Severus Snape, had relayed to him a most curious communication from an old childhood… acquaintance of his, Petunia Dursley, formerly Evans, in which urgent assistance was requested regarding the situation of her young nephew, Harry Potter.

Albus had placed the boy with his aunt and her family following the death of the boy's parents in the last insurrection. It was the least he could do after they had died while following him in the conflict — particularly when they had been two of his favorite students during their school years.

Petunia's note was horribly nonsensical, rambling on about topics ranging from mortgages to flamingos to hyacinths to dragons of all things and sprinkled liberally with assorted capitalizations. As an educator, Albus was thoroughly disappointed with her composition — he knew Petunia had not been qualified for Hogwarts all those years ago, but that was a question of magical talent, not scholastic. Surely the non-magical schools could produce better results than this!

Unable to make sense of the problem from Petunia's note but equally certain that she was quite desperate for assistance with whatever it was, Albus supposed there was no help for it — he would have to go visit Surrey himself.

1.2.2 A visit from a wizard

"You're that Dumble-whatsit fellow Pet was telling me about?" was the greeting received by Albus Dumbledore on arriving at Number 4 Privet Drive.

"I am indeed Albus Dumbledore. You are Mr. Vernon Dursley, I presume?"

Albus Dumbledore was not one to be rude, even in the face of such abruptness — though he did wonder what the difficulty was. The elderly wizard had even made sure to don a nice, subdued set of robes for this meeting to avoid just such a reception! Muggles always complained about his dress-sense.

"I am."

Vernon disliked the idea of being even moderately polite to one of the magical freaks that had stolen away his wife's sister — particularly one dressed so garishly — but if nothing else, dealing with a dragon for a nephew had taught him the value of restraint, if not tact. He was desperate at this point.

"Come in," Vernon finally remembered to invite the man inside, leading him into the sitting room where Petunia was waiting, glass in hand with an impressive-looking bottle full of decidedly less impressive-smelling brandy sitting next to her.

After several awkward moments of silence, Albus decided that if he didn't bring up the reason for his visit, no one would — despite his presence being requested.

"Your note said something about a problem with Harry," he prompted.

Vernon blinked, that getup was so obnoxious he had forgotten what he was going to say, "Oh, right… you see, back around midsummer we went to visit my sister in Bristol. On the way back, we stopped at Avebury for a short break, and… well…"

"The brat turned into a dragon," Petunia interjected in a loud, piercingly nasal voice, pausing to take a swig from her brandy snifter. "Really, Vernon, it's not that difficult to explain." She turned to the wizard in the room, "We can't keep him here. He ate the lawnmower and now we must borrow the neighbor's, and that Bucket woman won't shut up about it! You dumped the boy here, so he's your problem. Deal with it!"

"Young Harry turned into a dragon, you say?" Albus confirmed, somewhat taken aback by both the claim that a small boy managed to turn into a dragon and by Petunia's complete lack of concern for said boy. He decided to focus on the important bit and leave the rest of the woman's statement alone, along with her apparent drinking habit.

Vernon was somewhat embarrassed by his drunk wife. His sister was bad enough in that regard, and he was beginning to get some rather unpleasant inklings regarding Petunia's behavior when he wasn't home. Deciding to ignore the problem for now and hope it went away, Vernon volunteered, "Yes he did. It's probably simplest just to introduce you to the boy, er, dragon. Right, to the garage then."

Albus followed Vernon to the garage while Petunia stayed seated, not about to leave her brandy for such an insignificant thing as actually fixing her problems. As the door opened, the elderly wizard was treated to a thoroughly remarkable sight. In the middle of the garage — well, rather, sprawled across the floor taking up most of the garage — was a small black-scaled dragon of a breed Albus was not familiar with. While a dragon was an unusual sight for a suburban garage in and of itself, the fact that the beast in question appeared to be reading a book was the real shocker. As the co-discoverer of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, Albus felt he could safely say that this was not normal dragon behavior.

Had it been, he would dare say that he would not have been comfortable bleeding so many of them for that research.

"Uh, hullo Uncle Vernon." When the dragon spoke… well, Albus probably should have been less surprised than he was. "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry, boy," Vernon groaned, already on his way to the large chest freezer taking up a good chunk of the back patio. They didn't dare leave it in the garage with Harry — not after he ate the last one — and the garden shed was occupied with the other mainstays of the young dragon's diet…

"Uncle Vernon, could you grab some coal and petrol on the way back too, please? Thanks!"

…those were two of them, kept right next to the pile of scrap metal he managed to scrounge from some of his customer contacts. Vernon continued on to the shed with an affirmative grunt.

Dumbledore absently watched this byplay, still trying to process the situation, until he finally came to a rather startling conclusion.

"Harry? Harry Potter, is that you?"

"Yup!" came an immediate and proud response, followed shortly by a suspicious question, "Hey, how did you know my name?" accompanied by an equally suspicious look — a look that quickly changed to one of curiosity. "Hey, why are you all glowy? I never saw a glowy person before!"

"As it happens, I was a good friend of your parents before…" Dumbledore paused, the phrase 'before their deaths' on his tongue, before continuing, "when they were younger." There, that was a nice neutral phrase. "You sound rather remarkably like your father did in his youth."

Dumbledore had no idea what to make of the glowing question, but he did have a great deal of experience with young people due to his years as a teacher, experience which gave him a ready-made way to address such a question: pretend it didn't happen. Hopefully, young Harry would lose track in the confusion and not think to ask again before Albus had managed to think up a suitable response. Now he simply had to change the subject…

"Young man, what have you managed to do to yourself?"

"Well, I dunno really. Dudley shoved me and I cracked my head on this really big rock, and it hurt, and then there was all sorts of light, and it was really loud, and I fell down, and then the next thing I can remember I was tryin' to figure out how to flip back over usin' my wings, and I saw Aunt Petunia and it looked like she'd shrunk, so I looked at Dudley, and I saw he'd done the same, and then…"

Finally running out of breath, Harry paused long enough to notice the frozen sheep Vernon had dropped on the floor. Nicely distracted, Harry defrosted the carcass with a fiery snort, and then happily downed it in two bites before starting in on the sack of coal.

"This was when the ley lines went quite berserk, correct?" Dumbledore confirmed, beginning to make a connection between Harry's circumstance and a rather troubling anomaly reported to him in his capacity as Chief Mugwump.

"If that's what all the lights and noise were, then yeah, I guess." Harry replied with a distracted shrug, already shifting over his chosen drink consisting of a five-gallon jug of petrol washed down by an old oil drum full of water, which was then put under the tap again to refill.

Meal complete, Harry looked around, taking in the bare interior of the garage. "Man, I swear this place is so boring. One day, I'm gonna…" he drifted off, seemingly uncertain of just what he was going to do.

"Well, I suppose we should see what we can do to get you back to your old self," Dumbledore offered.

"Nah, I like this," Harry declined. "I'm big, and I get to eat as much as I want, and Dudley don't beat on me anymore. Don't gotta worry about getting' locked in the cupboard anymore, and if Uncle Vernon tries to hit me with his belt again, I can just sit on him till he stops tryin'." As Dumbledore's face turned thunderous and Vernon's turned white, Harry continued, "I wouldn't mind being able to turn into a person again, well, a people-shaped person, I'm still a person now, but just when I wanted to. Being a dragon is really awesome!"

"I see," Dumbledore said. "Well, we shall certainly not force you, if that is your choice." At this, Harry nodded in acknowledgement, and turned back to his reading, discussion apparently done for the moment.

Turning toward the white-faced Vernon Dursley, Dumbledore continued. "Vernon Dursley, seven years ago, when I left young Harry with you, I expected you to treat him as one of your own. I assumed that, as your nephew — a member of your family — you would do so automatically. It seems my assumption of basic human decency was in error…"

"Now see here, you!" Vernon interjected, face purpling with anger at the insinuation, "I looked after that boy as best as I was able, and I'll not have you saying differently!" Calming slightly, Vernon clarified, "Sometimes you need to apply discipline to raise them right, and that's all I did. And look how he turned out — turned into a dragon, and he's causing no trouble at all, aside from eating. That's proof we raised him right, right there!"

Stunned at this unexpected rebuttal, Dumbledore stayed quiet long enough for Vernon to continue.

"The only reason I had Pet contact you lot is because we can't afford to keep Harry here. He's eating us out of house and home. First night, he ate everything in the garage, including a Transit van I bought to get him home from Avebury. Between the sheep, coal, and petrol, we're spending more feeding the boy than we are on the mortgage, and I haven't even had the opportunity to break out the extra costs on the water bill! And in any case, it's not good for the boy to be cooped up in the garage because we can't let him out to walk about because of your bloody freakish secrecy bollocks!" Vernon lowered his voice. "It hurts my pride to say I can't provide for my family, but we need help with this."

Well, that put a different spin on things, then. "I see… while I still have reservations about your treatment of the boy, it seems that at least your intentions were admirable," Dumbledore allowed. "In any case, you are correct that this is no place for Harry as he is now."

Turning back to address Harry, Dumbledore continued, "Harry, I shall see to relocating you to the home of a friend of mine who will be able to provide you with much more spacious accommodations. I dare say that he will also be delighted with your company, as he has always been fond of dragons. I shall return tomorrow with several of my colleagues to arrange transportation."

"…okay." Harry said while Vernon's temper slowly cooled on the other side of the room.

1.2.3 An unusual errand

He had never expected that blasted, barely legible letter to precipitate this.

Severus Snape, Instructor of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, youngest Potions Master in living memory and semi-professional curmudgeon, had gathered with two of his senior colleagues, Filius Flitwick, the diminutive Professor of Charms, and Minerva McGonagall, stern Mistress of Transfiguration, at the request of Headmaster Dumbledore to assist with a spot of extra-curricular activity.

Coming, as the request did, just after the start of the school year — a time when the instructors were scrambling to get their students reacclimated to the exigencies of magical learning before they managed to kill or maim themselves after a summer without practice — it might seem surprising that several prominent teachers were willing to give of their time for something unrelated to their jobs.

That is, it might seem surprising unless the request was prefaced with — "There is something wrong with Harry Potter."

Snape himself was somewhat divided in his opinion of the child — on the one hand, the boy was the only son of his best — in truth his only — childhood friend, Lily Evans, and on the other hand, the boy was also the son of James Potter rather than Severus Snape. That was a slap in the face every time he thought of it, and he thought of it often. He would just have to see how the chips fell when he met the boy.

The rest of wizarding Britain, however, saw the boy as a larger-than-life figure, responsible for the death of the last Dark Lord before the brat was even out of diapers at the cost of only an oddly-shaped scar on his brow — credulous buffoons, the lot of them! Public opinion had inflated the boy's reputation to astronomical levels while conveniently ignoring the role his mother had played in the event — though to be fair, Severus himself studiously avoided any consideration of the possible role the boy's father might have played, in turn. In short, all this compounded folly meant that any news about the boy was bound to be met with rapt attention — warranted or not.

At least Severus was fairly certain that his two elder colleagues were interested in the brat as the son of two of their former students, rather than the overstated claptrap that was his public reputation. Otherwise he might have despaired completely. Regardless of their varied reasons for participating, however, a quick portkey transit brought all four Hogwarts faculty to a street in Surrey on a cool and quiet autumn evening.

Albus led off at a brisk walk toward one of the mass-produced, disturbingly uniform houses, his professors trailing in his wake automatically like a set of outrageously mismatched ducklings trailing after their ridiculously gaudy parent. As the odd procession approached the house — Number 4, Snape noted — he thought that the neighborhood suited his memories of Petunia Evans quite well: dull, pathologically conformist, and shockingly self-absorbed. Even the overlarge man who answered the door was no surprise. Snape idly wondered if he had always been so heavy or if Petunia had been fattening him up so she didn't have to worry about him running off with someone less mind-numbingly boring.

"Ah, Mr. Dursley," Albus greeted the large man, "I have brought along several of my colleagues to assist in relocating your nephew." The man nodded curtly and motioned them in and towards another door. By the positioning, Severus suspected it to be a door to the garage.

The large man volunteered, "Right through here, then. The boy's in the garage." So, he was correct. "Let me let him know you're coming first — don't want any problems."

What possible problems could arise from meeting a pre-teen boy? Snape wondered as Vernon opened the door and warned his nephew of visitors. It wasn't like they were walking into the lair of a…

"DRAGON!" McGonagall, his normally reserved senior colleague exclaimed. "Bludy hell! Whit's a feckin' dragon doon in thar?" Her normal slight Scottish burr had thickened abruptly to an impenetrable brogue which, taken with her highly uncharacteristic use of profanity, was a good indication that she was rather surprised. The accent only came out when Minerva was agitated, and the swearing when she was in shock.

Well she had a good reason, he supposed. "What, exactly, is that dragon doing in there?" Snape felt that he should back his senior colleague up in this instance.

A quick glance to the side informed him that his other colleague, Filius Flitwick, had reacted in an altogether different manner. In the intervening seconds, the diminutive man had managed to draw his wand and move far enough away to ensure that the three of them couldn't be caught in a single blast of fire from this new threat. The man might be a charms instructor now, but he hadn't forgotten his roots in the dueling circuit, it seemed.

The dragon then gave Snape his second shock for the night when it declared loudly, "Hey, my name isn't 'That Dragon', it's Harry. Harry Potter." Oh God in heaven, it even sounded like all his old, bitter childhood memories of James Potter. He'd have nightmares about this, Snape was certain. Heedless, the dragon continued, "and, well, I'm kind of hungry again."

"Oh God, not again!" Petunia's unfortunate husband seemed to echo Snape's own sentiments — though likely for different reasons — as he turned for another door on the back of the garage. Snape presumed that it led to the back yard.

"… this must be some tasteless jape," Snape declared, trying to convince himself. "It must be." Admittedly he hadn't thought Albus had it in him, but perhaps…

The dragon chimed in earnestly, "Um… no, I really am hungry."

"Not that! Blasted lizard!" the potions master snapped. "I meant that you cannot possibly be Harry Potter! I was acquainted — for better or worse — with the boy's parents, and both were quite decidedly human!"

"Sev'rus," McGonagall began, "It disnae strike me as a guid idea t' be hollerin' at a dragon. Ye kin wantae be canny." She was apparently still a little worked up.

Despite his senior colleague's nervousness, the dragon didn't seem too bothered by this. "Well, I kinda was human until those standing stone thingies lit up and made all the noise," it volunteered. "And, well, you know how easy it is to, well… misplace stuff like bein' a human and all. No reason to make a big situation about it or anything, I'm mostly okay with it."

Snape was having none of it. "This is preposterous!" He rounded on the surprisingly affable dragon, "I refuse to believe that…" The potions professor trailed off, noticing a particular detail for the first time and leaning in to take a closer look. "Bloody hell, it has the scar."

There on the dragon's brow was the dull and fading form of that infamous lightning-shaped scar that had so captured the imagination of the credulous wizarding public in the wake of the last war. It seemed that this bloody dragon might just be telling the truth. As Snape paused, struck by the realization, he was quite suddenly reminded that he was leaning dangerously close to a magical super-predator, friendly though it might be.

"Why does your head smell so tasty?" The question was posed in a perfectly innocent child-like tone, but it was all the more chilling for that.

"Er, I've got your sheep, boy! Delicious sheep!" Mr. Dursley interjected unexpectedly, having returned from his errand. "Don't eat the nice freak, er… man."

"Thanks, Uncle Vernon!" The dragon… Harry, responded before tucking into his meal with a blast of fire and a flash of teeth — very scary, pointy, dangerous-looking teeth. The Potions Master backed off adroitly, it was a potent reminder of just how deadly the dragon in front of them was.

"Ah, how many of those do you eat a day, boy?" Snape felt that he should make some conversation, hopefully distracting the boy from following up on the question of his apparently tasty-smelling head. He was rather attached to it, after all.

"Dunno, I don't count them," the dragon admitted.

Vernon, however, did count them, in great detail. "Twelve in the last week, along with six hundredweight each of coal and scrap steel, sixty-two liters of petrol, and about fifteen-thousand liters of water," he griped. "That's on top of him eating everything in the garage on his first night here — including a Transit van!" In the background, Harry chimed in indicating it was delicious.

"So, you've had a chance to break out the water bill, then?" Albus broke in unexpectedly.

"I have, but that's just what goes into him." Vernon went on, "The stuff that comes out the other end — God Almighty, the stench! Could knock a dog out a hundred yards upwind! And he craps out three wheelbarrows full every day!"

"It's not my fault!" The dragon sounded mildly distressed by the discussion. "It's got to come out somewhere, and you won't let me go to the woods. And, well, I just get so hungry."

"I know that, boy," Vernon said, surprisingly not unkindly. "But the fact remains that it is an issue, and between that and you eating everything in the garage on your first day here, well… we really can't afford to keep you here. Plus, keeping you cooped up in here — while necessary at the moment — isn't right for you. 'S why these folks are here."

Turning to the visitors, Vernon summarized, "We're at our wits' end, here! The boy's eating us out of house and home, and we just don't have the space for him to exercise properly. Pretty soon he'll outgrow the garage, and when we run out of money to feed him, he'll probably go on a rampage and eat half the neighborhood!"

"I'm not that bad!" Harry protested. "And I wouldn't eat anyone!"

"Yes, you are, boy!" Vernon insisted. "It's not your fault, but you are. And as for the second thing, you might not intend to, but hunger does funny things to people. Best just to arrange to keep you fed and avoid the issue entirely."

It was then that a rare, almost unheard-of sound rang out in the suburban neighborhood. Finally reaching the limits of his composure in the face of the absurdity playing out in front of him, Severus Snape laughed. It wasn't a very pleasant sort of laugh, rough and grating like he hadn't had much practice at it.

"Ha! I suppose we are to remove the blasted lizard from the premises, then?" He asked the room at large.

Albus replied, gloomily, "Yes, that was indeed the plan."

"To Hagrid?" Snape confirmed.

"There's no one better suited." Albus confirmed.

"Well, then, let us be about it," Snape declared with uncharacteristic levity. "His expression should be amusing if nothing else."

"Ye'r enjoyin' this far awfy much, Sev'rus," McGonagall chided, "th' boy's in a richt state."

"Minerva, I take my entertainment where it can be found." Snape intoned sententiously, "As it happens, it is far too rare a commodity to do otherwise."

1.2.4 Have fun storming the castle

It was a mismatched group that arrived at Hogwarts' primary portkey receiving point, a deceptively friendly-looking open grassy area at the bottom of the castle lawn. Innocent-seeming though it was, the area was within easy range and clear view of the castle's battlements in case of unexpected guests. On a magical front, the entire area was rigged as a death-trap. Detection and control wards invisibly festooned the area, and every seemingly decorative addition, from the statuary to the very paving stones of the pathway, carried enchantments of a dizzying variety.

It was peacetime at the moment, and the majority of the defenses were quiescent, leaving the dragon they had brought with them — who was again sniffing intently at Snape's apparently delicious-smelling head — as the greatest threat to the new arrivals.

"Stop that, you wretched lizard," Snape objected tiredly — he really would have to do something about that.

Even shared among four of the most powerful and well-practiced magicals in Europe, the energy required to carry a dragon the size of a small bus via portkey was significant. Snape and his colleagues were therefore understandably exhausted — though Severus, at least, refused to show it. The dragon in question was not tired in the least.

"Um, I kind of need to poo," the dragon said uncertainly.

"Then shit in the woods, you imbecile!" Snape snapped.

McGonagall growled, "Severus…"

Snape winced — Minerva had firm opinions on appropriate language around children. Normally this wasn't an issue — he refused to swear as a matter of principle, judging it a mark of a lesser mind. Such language generally only slipped out when he was tired or exceedingly emotional, which meant, in hindsight, that he had revealed more about his current state than he had intended.

Blithely oblivious to both Snape's biting tone and the interplay between the two adults, Harry explained, "Um, it's kinda close to the castle, and well, Uncle Vernon wasn't lying when he said my poo stinks." The dragon seemed a bit embarrassed at this admission, shifting his weight nervously between his various limbs — all six of them. It was an interesting sort of motion, quite novel really. "And I kinda-really-need-ta-go…" Perhaps that wasn't embarrassment, on reflection.

"Can you fly in a straight line?" Snape queried with a glare. If so, he could direct him farther out.

This time, the dragon did look nervous — though how he managed to convey such expressions with such a decidedly alien facial structure, Severus did not know. "I don't know! I never had a chance to try before 'cause I was stuck in the garage."

"Well, I suggest you learn fast, then." Snape suggested calmly.

"Okay!" With a course of action set, Harry set about trying to fly gamely, spreading his wings and galloping down the lawn while flapping madly. Surprisingly, he managed a clumsy lift-off, accompanied by an excited chant of "I'm flying, I'm flying!" The honeymoon ended, however, with a solid thump as the young dragon crashed headlong into the tree-line, snapping several of the smaller trees like twigs before an encounter with a large oak stopped him in his tracks — eliciting a plaintive, "Owie," as he slumped to the ground, and crushing the remainder of those broken trees to a pulp in the process.

"Height, boy! It's important!" Snape called out after him, manfully suppressing his own snickering. "You should probably work on your landings too!"

"Okay!" It seemed that even a midair collision with a hundred-year-old oak tree couldn't quash the young dragon's enthusiasm. All set for another attempt, the immediate reason for his attempted flight was suddenly rendered moot with an immense squelching noise. "Oh, I don't think I have to go anymore."

"Sweet Merlin, that is truly abominable!" Snape exclaimed, hurriedly casting a bubble head charm alongside his colleagues. "I don't suppose you will mind if I take a sample?"

Eye-watering stench or not, potions were Snape's one surviving passion in life, and this was a brand-new potential ingredient — eye-watering stenches were a hazard which came with the territory. At least this one didn't literally turn one's eyes into water — potions mastery could be a dangerous pursuit.

At the dragon's puzzled nod, Snape scooped up a small sample of the runny turd into a small crystal vial of which he kept a supply in his robe in case of just such an eventuality. Wrapping the sealed sample in a silk handkerchief, he nodded to Filius, who then vanished the rest of the mess and the stench with it.

"Wow, that's wicked!" the young dragon exclaimed. "Could I learn to do that?"

"I daresay you will, my boy!" Albus allowed warmly, seeming to have recovered his usual mien. "I daresay you will. Now, let us be off to where you will be staying. Hagrid is a dear friend of mine, and a suspect he will be quite thoroughly delighted to host you at his home! It is just this way."

1.2.5 Reflective Reptile

If there was one thing Harry James Potter — currently a little over eight years old and wearing the body of a great dragon hatchling of similar age — could tell you after the last eventful day and a half, other than that trees hurt when you ran into them, it was that Rubeus Hagrid was a wonderful fellow.

It'd been an eventful trip getting to that point for Harry. His last moments at the Dursley household had been both confusing and… well, he wasn't sure what to call the feeling, but had he a slightly more extensive vocabulary, he would probably have called it bittersweet. On the one hand, he was going somewhere with more food and more space, where he wouldn't stay cooped up in a garage all day, but on the other, he was leaving the only home he had ever known, and Vernon and Dudley at least, had actually started to be kind of friendly since he turned into a dragon.

Oh, well, no point in fussing over it now.

Then there had been so much new stuff! He met gobs of new people. Mrs. McGonagall, who sounded kind of funny and smelled a little like Mrs. Figg's cats, then Mr. Dumbledore had a long white beard like a skinny version of Santa Claus and glowed much brighter than the others, and there was even Mr. Snape with the delicious-smelling head! He didn't remember the name of the shortest one, but he seemed friendly enough too — Harry figured he could ask later.

Then they did that swirly moving thingy they called a portkey, which apparently moved them all the way to Scotland! That was weird but really neat. The four glowy people just did something which made them stop glowing quite so much, and then everything was spinning really slowly for a while, and then, bam! They were somewhere else!

So cool!

But the highlight of the day was definitely Hagrid. He was the best! Their meeting started off with the man really excited to meet such an incredibly gorgeous dragon! For his part, Harry thought it was really nice to meet someone who was so happy to see him — the boy decided to make a note to do that himself in the future. Then Hagrid offered Harry a place to stay in his barn, which was wonderfully large compared to the Dursleys' garage.

Even Hagrid himself was big! He was the first person Harry had met since his transformation that seemed sort of normal-sized.

The only downside of the encounter had been Mr. Hagrid's dog, Fang, which had whimpered rather pitifully on encountering Harry and had tried to hide under Hagrid's bed. Harry hadn't had good experiences with his Aunt Marge's dog, Ripper, but the other kids at primary had always talked about how fun their dogs were, and he'd hoped to find a dog he could be friends with.

Harry didn't know why Fang was so scared of him, anyway. It wasn't like Harry was going to eat him! Fang was a dog, and dogs weren't food; they were all dirty and stuff.

To top it all off, Mr. Hagrid introduced Harry to the wonders of the Hogwarts larder. It was this great big room which was kind of cold and there was loads and loads of venison, and pork, and beef, and even the old boring sheep, too. The best thing, though, was bacon. Harry had never had bacon before, 'cause Dudley had always eaten it before he could get any, and boy did he learn why; it was ever so tasty! And Mr. Hagrid said he'd be able to get him coal and petrol and metal scrap too, but not until the next day.

It was wonderful!

Mr. Hagrid even knew what to do about those itchy spots that had been bothering Harry for months. A bit of oil rubbed in between the scales and there was no more problem. Full of the dragon equivalent of junk food from the Hogwarts larder with a promise of more substantial fare the next day, comfortably free of itchy skin, and stretched out in a room more than big enough to fit him, Harry slowly drifted off to sleep after his momentous day.

This place was pretty all-right!

1.2.6 A tired self-assessment

"So," Albus Dumbledore began, accepting a glass of firewhiskey with a nod, "the boy-who-lived has become the dragon-who-lived, and we are left with the task of determining what to do with him."

After introducing the enthusiastic young dragon to the equally enthusiastic campus gamekeeper, the four staff members had retired to the headmaster's office to enjoy a stiff drink by the fire. Between learning of Harry's newly draconic form and schlepping said form across the length of the United Kingdom in one go, the tired group felt they deserved the relaxation.

As Filius finished passing around the rest of the liquor, Snape took a sip from his glass and offered up, "I can think of a few suggestions of what to do with him, but I am already aware that the rest of you will ignore them, so I won't bother."

McGonagall volunteered, "I would think the first order of business would be to determine how to change him back to normal."

Filius and Albus both attempted to speak at the same time, but the charms professor nodded for Albus to go first.

"In fact, young Harry has already expressed a desire to retain his current form, so we will respect his wishes on this front. I have already failed that boy three times over since the war — I will not do so for a fourth! Though he did express an interest in learning to take on a human form temporarily."

As Albus finished speaking, the charms professor spoke up, "As I was going to say, it is a good thing the boy is content with his change as there is no 'original form' to which to return him." At his colleagues' curious looks, he elaborated, "When we first encountered him, I'm afraid I cast several diagnostic charms on the boy by reflex…"

"Filius!" Minerva chided, with as much outrage as her tired state could support. Casting on others without permission was a terribly rude thing to do in polite society — particularly if one was not a Healer.

Flitwick colored in embarrassment, "A dragon just popped out of the woodwork in a London suburb!" He attempted to justify himself, "I was startled, and I cast on instinct."

"Why did you cast diagnostic charms on instinct?" Snape was curious — he wouldn't have thought of a diagnostic charm as a reflex casting in the face of a threat.

"It's a remnant from my time on the dueling circuit," the former dueling champion explained. "The situation was unusual enough that my first thought was that Harry must have been an illusion, so I cast a diagnostic charm I modified a while back to check for what the illusion was hiding. It looks for edges in magical constructs, because that's where spells can be undone or modified."

And consequently, where other spells can be hidden, his audience filled in for themselves. All three of his fellow professors were looking interested now.

"It's also a very light-touch diagnostic — it looks around the target rather than at it, so it won't trigger traps. Anyway, the charm determined that his form has no edges — at all."

This immediately drew a gasp from the transfiguration mistress in the room. "Without edges… that means the change is not a transfiguration. There'd be no way to undo it!"

Albus was nodding along with her while Snape was looking puzzled.

For his benefit, Minerva elaborated, "Any transfiguration requires magical input to maintain the change. Even ones which are self-contained or permanent have such connections, the edges that Filius' spell looks for, they are just… tied off, so to speak. A form without edges is not a transfigured form."

"Not just that," Filius interjected, "my spell looks for all edges, not just the cuts that you're speaking of, Minerva. Harry's form has no edges at all. I didn't even know such shapes existed! Any spell cast on the boy will need to forge its own connection to his magic, and I have no idea how to go about doing such a thing — outside overwhelming force, anyway, but the power disparity needed for that is ludicrous."

The charms master shook his head, "Any magic affecting that boy is going to have to originate from the boy himself. Either he'll need to learn the spell, or he'll need to actively guide others' spells into himself."

"Do you mean to say the boy has perfect magical immunity?" Snape shuddered at the implications. That sort of advantage was absurd!

The short man shook his head, "I doubt it's perfect — there's no such thing as a perfect defense. I simply have no idea how one might bypass it at this point." Filius drained the rest of his glass, "The fact remains, though, that no one is changing Mr. Potter's form except Mr. Potter at any point in the foreseeable future."

Albus calmly reentered the conversation with a suggestion, "In that case, perhaps it would be a prudent course of action to endeavor to teach young Harry a variant of self-transfiguration so that he might transform himself into a human if he wishes?"

Seeing that Minerva looked pleased with the idea, no doubt already planning lessons, he continued, "As we all know from Severus' unique insight, Voldemort," Albus took a sip as the customary flinch at the name of the last Dark Lord traveled through the rest of the group and his potions professor rubbed absently at his own forearm, "will be returning, and Harry will be at the top of his hit list."

"A dragon disguised as a human as a secret weapon?" Filius breathed, awestruck. "That would be an absolute nightmare to fight." He'd have to drop a suggestion to the Brethren that they search for a way to forge an alliance with young Harry, so they would never have to face him themselves. Flitwick might only be half-goblin, but even for a half-goblin, family was everything.

For his part, Snape was slowly coming to a horrifying conclusion, a conclusion that he desperately hoped was untrue. "Albus, please tell me that you didn't plan this." Everything was coming together so neatly that he felt he had to ask, but the amount of planning that would be required…

Albus almost snorted in laughter, "Ah, no, Severus, I did not plan this. It is a fortuitous accident, as it were. However, that does not mean we cannot take advantage of it…" the old man finished, leadingly. All three of his subordinates straightened with purpose at his subtle prompting.

Snape's mind ran through possible avenues of research and areas of application, finally settling on one to start off with. "I shall endeavor to investigate the boy's digestive processes immediately."

Flitwick — who had been running through a similar set of possibilities within his own specialty — had his train of thought screech to a halt at that apparent non-sequitur. "Why his digestive system? Not that it's a bad topic to study, but why first on the list?"

"In a surprise conflict with the Dark Lord, I suspect Mr. Potter is likely to eat the bastard in their first exchange. I wish to ensure that Harry's digestive tract is sufficient to destroy him or, failing that, prevent him from taking over." Filius nodded, that seemed reasonable. Snape continued, "The Dark Lord is bad enough now, I don't want to imagine him as a dragon, much less one effectively immune to outside magic." That prompted a shudder around the room, this time including Albus.

Minerva, ever the educator, was thinking more on the practical side of things. "I will need to start working with Poppy." Minerva elaborated, "The child is in our care, so we will need to establish a medical baseline, and he will need to have intimate knowledge of his own form and function if he is to learn self-transfiguration." She then nodded to Severus, "I suspect the process will also aid in discovering his bioalchemy, Severus."

The charms professor had come to some differing conclusions. "I believe I shall investigate the transformation event itself. Perhaps we could learn how to make such a magical structure in other situations. An edgeless magical shield, for instance, would be invaluable. I suspect our other colleagues would be interested in the project as well!" Filius looked giddy, "Oh, this will be the most fun I've had in ages!"

Dumbledore looked the hive of activity he had wrought with only a single sentence in the right ears at the right time and smiled. He had his own research to do, studies involving one of his mentor's longest-running research programs on ley-line flows and ambient magics. Nicholas had contacted him regarding some recent startling changes with very suspicious timing, but that was a topic for another place and another time.

"Professors, I commend you for your enthusiasm, but I must insist that Harry's situation be kept secret for now," Albus admonished, gently. "That secrecy is an ace that I do not wish to take away from young Harry before he can use it to best advantage."

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.3 Primary care physician

---

1.3.1 The Saga of the Greasy Hair

It was early morning on the following day, and the Hogwarts student body was abuzz with speculation. One of the prefects had spied the Headmaster leaving campus with three of the Heads late the previous night, then the next morning they were back, looking tired but excited about something.

Most suspicious of all, as of the previous evening, Professor Snape still had greasy hair, but now his hair was clean!

His first class almost didn't recognize him.

What on Earth was going on?

1.3.2 Eager anticipation

As the sun rose over the Highlands to the east, Hogwarts Castle casting its long shadow over the grounds, Harry bounced animatedly in anticipation. One of Mr. Hagrid's friends, another one he hadn't met yet, was going to teach him how to fly without running into things!

They were going to go up onto the moor across the lake where no one could see, and they were going to fly! Really fly! Without crashing! Well, hopefully without crashing, but there'd still be lots of flying anyway!

Ooh, it was going to be amazing!

But first, Mrs. McGonagall said he'd have to meet with another lady named Madame Pomfrey who was apparently something called a Healer to do something called 'diagnostics for establishing a medical baseline'. He wondered if a Healer was kind of like a nurse, since they were doing something with the word 'medical' in it? Well, he'd find out, he guessed.

Now he just had to wait. Apparently since she was a Healer, Madame Pomfrey had to stay in the castle during the day as part of her job, being 'on-duty' apparently. Not that he was sure what a 'duty' was or why she would have to sit on one all day. He'd have to ask Mr. Hagrid; it seemed a very silly thing for a nurse to be doing, and it was going to be a whole day until she was ready to see him!

Waiting was hard!

1.3.3 Enter, the Healer

Poppy Pomfrey was intrigued.

She had, of course, heard the Headmaster's request for help with an issue regarding Harry Potter the previous evening, though she had been unable to get away to assist. As the school Healer, Poppy was required to remain available during any times students were present on the grounds. As a boarding school, that meant she couldn't be traipsing off across the country during the school year, barring a medical emergency that couldn't be handled by anyone else.

She did, however, insist on looking the boy over when he was brought to campus. Poppy Pomfrey was the latest in a long, long line of Healers from the Pomfrey family — since before they had become Pomfreys, in fact. She had grown up at the feet of Healers, and she had been immersed in the mindset from her earliest memories.

While she had known she was going to be a Healer from her earliest childhood, Poppy had chosen to become a pediatric Healer because she wanted to work with children. Between the challenges associated with pediatric magical healing and the opportunity to help shape her young charges by providing advice, she had been quite eager to begin her practice.

Unfortunately, she had been sorely disappointed when she took her job at Hogwarts.

Pediatric healing was a prestigious and challenging field, considered in the Healing community to be the field's equivalent of curse breaking. Magical children often harmed themselves and others through accidental magic, and such unformed magic had no prescribed cures. Accidental magic was rarely fatal, so timing tended to be flexible, but the work was challenging and rewarding. Every case was a new case; there was no routine for the pediatrician in the magical world.

Hogwarts, however, only took students after their intriguing accidental magic difficulties were mostly over. By the numbers, accidental magic should continue into the children's late teenage years, but regular magic use meant that incidents were few and far between. Poppy's usual caseload was not full of unique cases of accidental magic reversal, rather she had the humdrum set of poorly-cast spell backfires typical of magical schooling, problems that were based on miscast versions of known spells that had been in circulation for centuries. Almost every case she had seen during her employment was already written up in one case study or other that she had been tested on during her schooling.

The mentoring front was even bleaker. Between the school bylaws — which interfered entirely too much with her business as a Healer for her peace of mind — and the attitudes ingrained into most of her charges before they came into her care, very few indeed were receptive to her teaching.

She remembered Granny's words, "Don't use magic around the house, you might need it for something important!"

It was a byline for any experienced Healer, and Poppy felt that it was excellent advice for anyone, but how could she teach the students to be mindful of their magic, to use it only when there was no other option? Their teachers encouraged them otherwise in every class, and their parents had been setting a contrary example from their earliest memories! Even the new-blood students, few that there were, were far too enthralled by magic at this stage to take her advice.

"Leave it be. Pain is a much better teacher than you can ever hope to be."

Another of Granny's favorites, that one was nipped in the bud by the school bylaws. Most of the ailments her students brought to her were minor things, and the only healing necessary was a little guidance before they could heal on their own. The bylaws required that she heal everything as fully as possible before the students were allowed out of the infirmary.

How was she supposed to allow nature to teach the children properly without leaving them with some lingering consequences? Many of those students returned again and again with the same issues! Leaving them a little reminder for a few days would teach them to be more circumspect. The best she could manage was ensuring that her potions tasted as vile as she could make them, a pursuit that the school potions master was pleased to assist with whenever possible.

Little Harry, though, he was young enough that she could guess whatever issue brought him to Hogwarts would be fascinating. If it wasn't, there would have been no reason to move the little fellow. She didn't know what the issue was — she had insisted on being kept in the dark to avoid biasing her diagnosis — but it was sure to be both interesting and non-life-threatening, the best kind of problem, in Poppy's estimation! He'd also be much younger than the rest of the students, a prime candidate to whom to pass on the family wisdom. Yes, she was looking forward to meeting the young fellow that evening.

As it happened, she would be proven right on both counts.

1.3.4 The Saga of the Greasy Hair – Reprise

Between classes that day, Severus Snape searched his private library, casting about for any possible alternative, but in the end, his search was in vain. His custom-brewed fire-retardant hair cream, a seldom-tested but still critical portion of his ensemble of potions safety gear, seemed to have no available substitute.

As the current version seemed to have the unpleasant side-effect of causing his head to appeal unduly to the nose of the newly resident dragon, the Potions Master reluctantly concluded that the extra risk of fire incurred by eliminating the cream was more acceptable than the extra risk of predation.

Perhaps he could acquire a hat in the same style as his robes until he discovered or created an alternative?

1.3.5 A simple checkup, unsimplified

As night finally fell and the students packed away to their beds with the arrival of curfew, five professors descended on Hagrid's hut to spirit young Harry away to the infirmary for his initial checkup, joined on the way out by a gamekeeper and a dragon. The number was, perhaps, excessive, but each had their reasons for being there, either to aid in performing the medical diagnostics, or to get the results firsthand for planning their lessons for or care of the young dragon.

In addition to the four he had met the day before, Harry met a new person, Professor Rolanda Hooch, who was a lady with a nice smile who also had eyes that looked like a cat's. He was kind of confused, because she didn't smell like a cat like Professor McGonagall, and Professor McGonagall didn't have cat-eyes even though she did smell like one. Both of them just laughed when he asked about it. Madame Hooch was the friend of Hagrid's who was going to be teaching him to fly! Harry also learned that the short man from last night's name was Filius Flitwick when he asked. It was good to know people's names, Harry decided, before finally turning to Professor Snape.

The young dragon's plaintive cry of, "Your head doesn't smell tasty anymore! What happened?", brought an uncharacteristic smile to the potions master's face.

On entering the castle and approaching the first turn on the convoluted path to the infirmary, the young dragon proved emphatically that five adult magical humans was still far from sufficient to keep him out of trouble.

On rounding the corner, Harry's voice sounded out with a panicked, "CNIGHET", loud enough to knock his companions for a loop, accompanied by a blast of fire which melted one of the castle armor stands like wax before an acetylene torch, left the wall behind a mess, and blew out all of the windows in the corridor.

As Harry slumped, panting slightly from his sudden exertion, the adults stared for a moment at the carnage, slack jawed. The armor was splattered all over the corridor in tiny glowing droplets, which would most probably not account for even half the original suit's mass, and the stonework was cracked, blackened, and partly molten in various spots, less so behind the armor, where the subliming metal offered some transient protection.

Professor McGonagall was the first to recover, with a highly appropriate, "Bludy hell!"

"And what exactly was that in aid of, you dunderhead?" Professor Snape chimed in, his rather pedestrian insult indicative of his surprise.

"It was a cnighet in shiny armor! I was sure it was going to hit me with a lance," Harry looked at the assembled adults suspiciously. "You didn't tell me there were cnighets here!"

"It was an empty suit of armor!" Snape snapped.

"I'm sure it was a cnighet! It looked just like the pictures in the books."

"Whit tha hames is a 'cnighet'?" McGonagall muttered.

"I assure you that whatever a 'cnighet' might be, there are none here!" Snape bellowed, turning pale in rage. Harry was used to Vernon's purple rage, so he wasn't sure precisely why Snape was yelling.

"It was a cnighet, I'm sure of it! Cnighets wear armor and ride around on big horses and stick lances into dragons to slay them. I'm not sure what 'slay' is, but it sounds scary! Cnighets are the murtle enemy of dragons; it says so in all the books. Everyone knows that!" Harry delivered this in rapid fire, finally giving his audience enough context to know what in blazes was going on.

Flitwick spoke up for the first time that night, helpfully providing, "It's pronounced 'night'."

"Are you sure?" the dragon asked. "Because it's not spelled 'night'."

"Quite sure," Flitwick confirmed, going on to explain, "the 'k' isn't pronounced anymore. It used to be in Middle English, but the pronunciation changed over the years." At his colleagues' odd looks, he went on, "Etymology is a hobby of mine. It mixes well with the love of old books."

"What's etymology?" the dragon had been sidetracked for a moment.

"It's the study of where words come from and how they change over time. Fascinating stuff!" Flitwick enthused for a moment, before remembering the situation. "Incidentally, that was an empty suit of armor, such as a knight might have worn, it did not contain an actual knight."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Oh, sorry," Harry looked appropriately abashed. "I'm sorry I flamed your armor, but it really looked like a knight!"

"You will be forgiven, so long as you promise not to flame indoors again." Snape thought this a reasonable precaution, and the round of nodding from his colleagues bore out his thinking.

"Okay," Harry nodded solemnly, promising, "I won't flame indoors unless it's really, really important." Which was not precisely the promise asked for.

At this point, Albus broke in to say, "That will be sufficient." Regretfully cutting off what promised to be a truly impressive rant from his potions professor. They really did need to get on with the infirmary visit though, and if he knew Poppy, she would insist on testing Harry's flame breath along with everything else.

That woman was thorough!

There was no reason to extract a promise from Harry and then have their colleague force him to break it a few minutes later.

That sort of thing set a poor precedent for children.

1.3.6 Physical examination

With the issue of the armor suits resolved, the remainder of the trip to the infirmary proceeded much more smoothly.

Madame Poppy Pomfrey had the distinct privilege of have the most subdued reaction to meeting Harry of any professor who had not been previously warned.

"My goodness, you are an interesting fellow!" Poppy's first words were anticlimactic in light of their explosive trip through the castle. An opinion that was written clearly on her colleagues' faces.

Harry, on the other hand, just beamed. This was another good one! Just like Mr. Hagrid, she was happy to see him.

"Just take a seat there, and we'll get right to business."

Poppy was quite pleased with this one, an accidental transformation into a dragon of a kind never seen before! This was groundbreaking! She was a little disappointed that her patient didn't want to change back since that meant that she wouldn't be able to document a treatment for him, but the challenge of working out how his new body functioned could prove to be quite a rewarding occupation in and of itself.

Once the Healer showed her patient how to actively allow spells to affect himself, her diagnostics proceeded apace, recording shape, composition, energy and fluid flows, even blood chemistry with a level of detail which would make non-magical medical technicians weep with envy. It was nearly an hour before she finished her preliminary diagnostics, during which time she did have Harry flame indoors again — twice.

Snape was unamused.

Seeing that her patient was starting to fidget a little, Poppy decided to conclude the current session. She had enough now to tell what was normal, the rest would be longitudinal studies.

"Well, Mr. Potter," she began in a brisk but friendly tone, "you are a very interesting young man. We'll be going over the details of your body in later sessions, but for now I'll touch on what you need for your flying lesson with Madame Hooch…"

Harry listened in rapt attention. Who knew his body was so cool! He knew his wings were awesome, but he had no idea there was more to it. He had something sort of like a rocket engine built into his spine? That was so cool!

Oh, Madame Hooch had said it was something more like the enchantments on a broom, no exhaust, huh. Harry couldn't tell if that was more or less cool than a rocket engine, but it was still pretty cool anyway!

It was some pretty good news to end the day.

1.3.7 Dragon-sitting

To Severus Snape's experience, dragons, particularly young dragons, lived a six-mode existence.

Those six modes could be summarized as 'Asleep', 'Eating', 'Reading', 'Defecating', 'Flying', and 'Asking all sorts of dunderheaded questions'.

Snape had no idea why Albus decided that he was the ideal dragon-sitter for those times when Hagrid was unavailable, mercifully infrequent though those times were. Were it anyone other than Albus, Snape would have suspected that it was some dastardly plot to get him eaten by the dragon in question.

Relative edibility aside, the blasted lizard never failed to irritate him! If it wasn't asleep or eating anything that was too slow to run away, the little blighter was either demanding copious quantities of reading material or otherwise bothering him when he needed to concentrate on his experiments!

"What's that, Professor Snape?" it asked, pointing to a bowl.

"Cold-pressed spungle oil, a common base for many ointments and creams," the man replied automatically. Snape sighed, how was he to get rid of the wretched beast? He would never get anything done at this rate!

"It smells really tasty." That was an expected reply by now.

"Everything seems to smell tasty from your perspective. Wretched lizard."

In the few days it had so far been at Hogwarts, the damned dragon had devoured a monstrous quantity of meat, lamp oil, what little scrap metal was readily available, and an unconscionable quantity of Snape's valuable potions ingredients. Snape had never thought to encounter a creature that could not only tolerate devouring an entire bubotuber without developing boils or any other ill effect but would enjoy the process enough to demand more!

The famously extensive Hogwarts larder was actually running thin, which led directly to his current predicament. Hagrid was unavailable for dragon-sitting because he was out securing contracts for scrap metal, coal, and muggle fuels to supplement the beast's diet before it managed to eat the castle.

Snape hoped that his laboratory would survive until the half-giant returned from his search.

"Not everything," Harry volunteered, oblivious to his companion's internal monologue, "I mean, wood smells kinda yucky."

"Dratted beast." Snape groused, almost automatically. Perhaps he should consider wood paneling for the laboratory? Or maybe some sort of wooden clothing? It was something to consider, in the meantime, he picked up the closest book, a dog-eared copy of Moste Potente Potions, and shoved it into the dragon's paws. "If you simply must stay awake, read this, and if you wish to eat something, ask an elf to bring you a meal."

"Oh, okay then!"

The dragon then shut up and the foul-tempered potions master realized that he wasn't as irritated as he had been before. Was he starting to go soft? He'd only been dragon-sitting for two days, how was the wretched lizard growing on him already?

He supposed the beast did have its uses. Its feces had proven to be a remarkably effective accelerator for potions usage — surprisingly less unpleasant to work with than the nearest alternative as well. Despite the constant questions, the dragon never repeated the same question twice, either, Snape supposed. Aside from the eternal 'where can I sleep', 'can I have something to eat', 'have you got a book I can read', and 'um, where should I go poo' type of questions. As those were easy enough to answer, 'In Hagrid's barn', 'ask an elf to bring you some food, dolt', 'here, read this and be quiet', and 'in the woods, you imbecile', the reptile's company was proving to be surprisingly tolerable.

At least the little bugger knew how to keep a civil tongue in his mouth.

"Um, Professor Snape, I've already read this."

"Then read it again, unless you've already memorized it."

"Well, I kinda remember stuff really well, right?"

"What, then, is the twelfth step of the brewing of Veritaserum?"

"Add the mixed ingredients to the dilute murtlesap base and bring to a slow boil until the brew begins to bubble."

"And the fourth step of the brewing of Skele-grow?"

"Chop the antler finely. No piece should be larger than the forepaw of a shrew."

"And the seventh step of the brewing of Post-Cruciatus Potion?"

"Add the bubotuber puss one drop at a time to the simmering mix; add each drop after the last has ceased to bubble."

Perhaps there was hope for him yet. Not that Snape would voice such a thing. Snape nodded, "I shall reserve judgement until we see how you can apply that knowledge you have crammed into your sizeable skull. Now, as I appear to have run out of volumes in my private collection for you to peruse, what sort of reading material do you desire?"

"Books about dragons would be nice."

"Very well, I will endeavor to locate volumes that meet your exacting specifications." Snape stood from the bench, "While I am so engaged, you must watch this potion carefully! If it begins to bubble, withdraw it from the fire at once. Failure to do so will cause it to explode most violently and, more importantly, will waste six hours of my valuable time. If that is to happen, I will refuse to allow you books for an entire week! Is that understood?"

"When it starts to bubble, take it off the fire." Harry dutifully repeated.

"Only to a distance of two handspans from the flame, mind!"

"Okay!"

"Take care that you do it boy, and do not otherwise interfere with it."

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.4 When Harry met Suze

---

1.4.1 Ill Omens

Magorian raised his gaze to the stars overhead, currently occluded by dark clouds beyond the boughs of the Black Woods, known to the human inhabitants of Hogwarts as the Forbidden Forest. The elderly chief of the Black Woods Clan of centaurs was currently very worried.

A hand's worth of moons had passed since the last grave omen, and now the Great Wyrm had been seen flying over the forest. The ancients' calendar, passed down through their oral histories, claimed that there were to be another four hands' worth of summers before these events were to come to pass, and Magorian had expected to grow old and travel to the final hunting grounds before then, leaving the problem to his sons. Why had this happened now?

Either something had changed, or something was very, very wrong.

At least the Great Wyrm wasn't lairing in the forest; that was the one saving grace of this situation. Magorian dreaded to think what it might mean for the Clan if that came to pass. They had enough trouble with the spider menace, and even at their best, his clan could not fight a Great Wyrm. There was precious little that could, and most of those things would be even worse news for the Clan.

If the worst came to pass, the secret histories claimed that it might become necessary to sacrifice fillies to appease the wrath of the Great Wyrm, and it was not like the Black Woods Clan had a surfeit of them. Even his eldest son, Bane, had only three wives!

What was to become of them?

His eyes returned steadfastly to the skies overhead, searching for a break in the clouds and the insight the stars could bring.

1.4.2 Inadequate rumors

It was inevitable; lock a group of several hundred children and teenagers in a relatively confined area for months on end, and gossip lines will quickly develop, allowing rumors to resonate through the group, growing stranger with each reverberation.

The current topic of choice was, and had been for more than a week, exactly what was distracting so many of their professors. Snape, Madame Hooch, Hagrid, Madame Pomfrey, even McGonagall, now, and there were some rumors that Flitwick and Vector might have something brewing that might or might not be related.

Older, but still fresh, topics included what exactly had caused that scorched spot near the postern gate and why Snape's hair was no longer greasy.

With each repetition, the stories grew more and more outlandish, sprouting conspiracy theories left and right. More enterprising individuals attempted to tie the various rumors together into a single interrelated whole. Some even tried to tie in those shockingly nasty smells wafting in periodically from the Forbidden Forest. The theories had gotten quite outrageous after a few days.

In an unusual twist compared to the usual course of such things, none of the outrageous conspiracy theories could hold a candle to the even more outrageous truth.

1.4.3 Reflections after a month

Albus and the three Heads of House had once again gathered for a discussion of the developments concerning their resident dragon — over stiff drinks of course. Things relating to young Harry tended to make more sense when ever-so-slightly buzzed.

This time, they were joined by the fourth Head, Professor Sprout, Madams Hooch and Pomfrey, and the young Professor Septima Vector, necessitating a change in venue from Albus' office to a little used, but still very well-appointed, staff conference room; the crowd had gotten to be a little much for the cozy sitting area in his office. The dragon of the hour was, to the best of their knowledge, peacefully sleeping in Hagrid's barn under the supervision of the gamekeeper himself.

As Flitwick again passed around drinks, this time shots of some sort of liqueur which looked for all the world like a perfect window into the starry night sky, Albus called the meeting to order. "So, now that you've all had a chance to play dragon-sitter, what does everyone think of young Harry?"

Snape grimaced, sniffing curiously at the unfamiliar drink, "I could wish that he was a slower reader and somewhat quieter. I suppose I should be grateful that the wretched lizard never asks the same question more than once."

"Severus," Minerva chided, "The boy is polite, respectful, intelligent, and friendly. What is your problem with him?"

"A bastard with exactly the same voice as that wretched lizard tormented me through my seven years as a student in this institution; that dratted dragon sounds entirely too much like his sire for my comfort!"

Having concluded his inspection of his glass, results apparently to his satisfaction, the potions master took a sip of the concoction. "If not for his voice," Snape allowed, "I might find his company… tolerable, but all too often I feel that I am in the same room as a young, dragon-shaped James bloody Potter."

"Ah… I see." The reply was voiced by Flitwick, but every professor old enough to remember Harry's father nodded in agreement. The man James had become had been good and decent, but during his childhood… "That is a disturbing image, indeed."

After a suitable pause for everyone to down a shot and refill their glasses in an effort to put said disturbing image out of their minds, Albus continued, "Well, does anyone else have an opinion on the dragon-shaped Boy-Who-Lived?"

"I must say, that I have never encountered another creature quite so hungry," Minerva began. "By Hagrid's commentary, the laddie eats more than the giant squid and whatever new three-headed monstrosity he's been raising under the name of 'Fluffy', combined. I confess, I have no idea where the boy puts it all."

"Indeed," Snape agreed. "Never had I thought to encounter a creature able to devour a whole bubotuber without ill effect, and I had thought that such a creature then asking for more would be an impossibility."

"I hadn't realized there was anything he couldn't eat." Flitwick said.

"He dislikes the flavor of wood," Snape helpfully volunteered, "and it seems that certain muggle plastics give him the runs."

Flitwick snorted, "You are a very strange man, Severus. You dislike the boy, and at the same time you seem almost fascinated by him."

"His body is extraordinary, a marvel of materials science and magic! His stomach juices have proven their ability to dissolve anything I have been able to test them against, even glass. I have no idea how he manages to avoid digesting his own internal workings. His bioalchemy seems to be based on iron and copper, with trace amounts of a host of other materials almost never seen in living organisms. His skeleton is composed mostly of aluminum, though I confess I do not recognize the manner in which it is alloyed and structured. What's more, despite drinking water in copious quantity, he retains almost none of it! The processes which support his continued existence take place in a molten iron substrate rather than an aqueous one; his bioalchemy resembles nothing so much as a furnace, burning tremendous amounts of hydrocarbons to heat and melt the metals that he ingests. It is as if he were a living machine! A being built not of flesh and blood, but rather living metal."

Snape took a moment to pause before snorting, himself. "I am certain that once you discover something about the dratted lizard which revolutionizes your own field you will be similarly excitable."

"He is a fascinating case," Poppy spoke up for the first time. "While Severus' description of his bioalchemy is accurate as far as it goes, the greater function of his body is amazing in its own right. He has flight organs arrayed beside his spine that work similarly to a broom, but do not push on the ambient magical field in the same manner. His reflexes are so quick I had to work with Filius to create a diagnostic spell capable of accurately measuring them. There is that marvel of a digestive system that Severus described, of course," Poppy nodded to the man in question, "but then there is his skin as well. The boy is able to maintain an internal temperature hot enough to glow white, yet his skin is barely warmer than human norm. Truly remarkable!"

"Do you have any idea how that flight enchantment works?" Flitwick asked, intrigued. All known forms of magical flight relied on ambient magic to work. It was the primary reason wizards had never traveled to the moon. "It might be another interesting topic to pursue."

"It might be," she allowed, "yet it remains a mystery at this time. I'll be happy to supply my measurements so far." The school Healer's expression twisted slightly, "There is one consideration, however, that must be addressed soon — the boy will need to learn occlumency sometime within the next few years."

This was unexpected enough that the room went silent for a moment, before Albus asked the question, "For heaven's sake, why?"

Occlumency was an advanced topic for a reason, its benefits were myriad, ranging from defense against mental intrusion to truly spectacular emotional control and near-perfect recall. However, teaching it to the young was always problematic — both because of the subject's difficulty and the hazards involved. For every successful student, there were three that came out of the training as emotionally stunted wrecks.

Albus sometimes wondered if that was why so many of his students from the darker families went so consistently and horribly wrong.

"I am sure you are aware of the cross-species fertility of highly-magical creatures?" Poppy looked about hopefully, but, finding only blank looks at the apparent non-sequitur, she continued, "Rubeus would be able to explain it if he were here."

She sighed before continuing with the air of a teacher delivering a remedial lecture. "Magic enhances biological function in general; that is why we live so much longer than muggles do. That rule also holds true for our various parts, magic makes them work better at whatever it is they are intended to do; it makes eyes see better, livers filter blood better, stomachs digest food better, and so on."

The Healer sighed, clearly irritated at having to explain what she felt was very, very basic magical biology. "That also holds true for reproductive organs and the gametes they produce. That is, for instance, the reason that veela reproduce almost exclusively with wizards despite the spotty history between our two races. Despite her near-human genetics, a veela's association with fire leaves her body temperature high enough to sterilize a non-magical man's contribution, making such couplings fruitless. A wizard's magic will overcome this."

Poppy took a sip from her glass, fortifying herself to continue. "Taken to the extreme, it is a property that experimental breeders have been taking advantage of for centuries. Many of the more… creative magical species owe their origins to breeding two dissimilar but highly magical species together. Despite the normally incompatible biology, enough magical strength will get the job done anyway and make something new. Breeders sometimes help the process along with spells, but for creatures of sufficient strength, they are not strictly necessary. The more power involved, the looser the requirements for successful breeding become."

"Mr. Potter has more than enough magic to make those requirements very loose indeed," the Healer sighed, "and therein lies the problem."

"How so, Poppy?" Dumbledore asked, white brow furrowed. "So far, all I can see is a good reassurance that Mr. Potter need not be lonely even if he fails to find any others of his species."

"Magic enhances everything, not just fertility," she replied, as if that should be enough explanation.

"And…?" he prompted.

"And male gametes are motile, Albus," Poppy said flatly. "They can move under their own power and, in this instance, are magically enhanced to an utterly absurd degree. Do the math."

Albus and his other colleagues did the math.

"Oh, dear," Albus summed things up quite well, as the rest of the room remained silent, contemplating the implications. "So, occlumency, you say?"

"Well in advance of puberty," Poppy confirmed. "One of the side benefits of occlumency is tight control over the body's autonomic functions, which should prevent any problems. To be honest, it might turn out to be unnecessary in the end, as this is all guesswork — I am feeling about in the dark here, after all — but the stakes are too high to run the risk."

The room fell silent for a time at that, the scale of the potential problem percolating through their thoughts.

"That…" Filius paused for a moment to collect himself, "that is rather overwhelming, isn't it?"

"Hundreds of them!" Snape gulped down the rest of his drink. "Merlin, there'd be hundreds of the blasted lizards, and they'd probably all sound like James bloody Potter, too. It would be a damned nightmare!"

"Perhaps so, yet it is a disaster that should be easy enough to head off," Albus cut off further discussion. "I shall begin his occlumency training forthwith, and it will require no further concern. What else do we have to report?"

"Harry's been coming along nicely with his flying lessons," Madam Hooch volunteered, eager to change the subject, "though he is still a tad clumsy. The boy's very considerate like you mentioned, Minerva," the flight instructor nodded to her senior, "but those wings! I've seen him accidentally swipe through a tree trunk as thick as my waist, and the boy barely noticed until the top fell on him. Was damn funny to see!" she chuckled at the memory. "Still, even without magic, that boy could tear through half the wizarding world on physical strength alone. Kind of awe-inspiring really."

Taking her cue from Rolanda, Minerva decided to give a status report on her instruction. Hopefully it would draw the conversation back onto more comfortable terrain. "He's been coming along nicely in transfiguration, as well. Harry has, just today, managed to change himself into a child-sized dragon. He cannot yet maintain it for more than a few minutes, but it is excellent progress. I expect he'll manage a human form by the end of next month. The boy is an eager and capable student — I truly look forward to having him in my classes in a few years."

"That is a theme I expect will continue, ad nauseum, in the coming years," Snape offered. "He seems to have an eidetic memory. Once I realized that he had read every book in my collection, I quizzed him on the contents and have done so several times since. I must say that if he were to sit his Potions OWL tomorrow, he would score a perfect O on the theory section. I confess I am looking forward to discovering just what he can do on the practical side of things with all that theory stuffed into his oversized skull."

"I think we all are eager to discover that." Sprout spoke up again, eager to get in on the potential academic prize, despite her absence during the dragon's initial retrieval. Someone had had to stay at the school in case of emergency, after all.

"I simply wish that he were a little less… annoying." Snape spoke up again after a moment's silence.

"You almost sound as if you are afraid of the boy, Severus," Minerva commented.

"Can anyone here honestly declare themselves completely unafraid of the blasted reptile?"

No one replied, prompting Snape to smirk before continuing, "I suspect that only Rubeus could honestly answer in the affirmative."

"…indeed." Albus spoke, "Though I must say that his, ah, lack of awareness of his own potential for mayhem is simultaneously a little disturbing and heartening."

"How so?" Snape asked, sounding curious.

"Well, I suspect the fact that he hasn't realized he could lay waste to a large portion of the surrounding area implies that he has little inclination to lay waste to much of anything," the elderly man replied.

"True enough," McGonagall allowed. "For the most part, his behavior reminds me of nothing more than my own son when he was young."

"A typical small boy in the body of a dragon — my nightmare is complete," Snape groaned. "I do hope we survive his childhood."

"Yes, sixteen tons of boisterous child is more than a little intimidating," Poppy agreed.

The staff settled into a companionable silence for a moment while savoring their alcohol.

"What sort of drink is this anyway, Albus?" Filius spoke up; he had been wondering since Albus had handed him the bottle to pour.

Albus smiled, "Ah, it is a creation of an old friend of mine who makes such brews as a hobby. He calls this one Starry Night, certainly not a terribly creative name, but that's no crime, and I think the taste makes up for it." He chuckled, "Since we seem to be making a habit of these meetings, I have decided to introduce you to some new forms of drink. Especially you, Minerva." The proud Scotswoman had been looking at her glass askance all night. "I know you would never drink anything other than single malt if I don't push."

"Not even water, had I my way," said proud Scotswoman agreed easily.

Sprout spoke up again, enthusiastically, "Oh! That sounds lovely! I do some brewing of my own, you know. Perhaps I could bring something next meeting?"

"I'm sure we would all be most appreciative, Pomona. We will eagerly look forward to sampling your efforts!" The old man continued, "Speaking of comestibles, Severus, how goes your investigation into the conditions in Mr. Potter's stomach?" It was a topic of some interest, after the reasoning outlined in their first meeting.

"It is slow going," Snape admitted, sounding not at all discouraged. His eyes gleaming with the enthusiasm of a great painter in front of his canvas, the potions master continued. "I am currently attempting to recreate the material of which his stomach lining is composed so that I might craft a vessel sturdy enough to hold for more than a few moments at the relevant conditions. I believe I am quite close, now."

"Good, good. Keep us apprised, Severus."

With that, the meeting settled back down for a moment before the young arithmancy professor, Septima, spoke up again. "Oh, I almost forgot to mention!" At her colleagues' encouraging looks she continued, "Filius approached me about improved diagnostic spells for Madame Pomfrey after her current set failed to determine Mr. Potter's magical strength." She nodded to the two persons so named. "I wasn't able to help at the time, but it later occurred to me that I could try a different approach for determining Mr. Potter's magical strength — or at least a rough estimate of it — using aura size."

She took another sip of her Starry Night. "As you know, aura is not normally used to measure magical strength because it is not a very sensitive measure. Albus' aura, for instance, would fill perhaps three-quarters of this room, were it visible, while a particularly weak new first year's might fill a quarter of the room. Not much difference in aura size for a tremendous difference in strength. I thought it could at least give us a range to tune a more sensitive measure around. Turning aura detection spells on Mr. Potter, however, revealed that his aura is not detectable from any distance less than ten miles, for the simple reason that his aura blankets everything within that distance."

"What!" It was difficult to determine who had spoken, as it seemed to be a general consensus among the rest of the staff.

Septima nodded. "I had much the same reaction, so I attempted the determine just how much power was involved in producing such an extensive aura, and, well, I'd appreciate it if someone would double-check my calculations, but they seem to indicate that Harry currently contains more magical energy than has passed through the Hogwarts warding scheme in the last thousand years. As we pointed out before, the kid seems quite content to behave himself, so I'm not worried about him turning that power on anyone undeserving, but it concerns me that he obtained that power through whatever incident occurred at Avebury."

She continued, visibly distressed. "I've not worked out just what that much power could do — aside from transforming an eight-year-old wizard into some kind of super-dragon hatchling, of course — but, I figured it could probably be pretty scary." On seeing the expressions on her colleagues' faces, Septima's voice turned sheepish. "And, well… I thought it was important that you know?"

The silence in the room after that report was deafening. That was a chilling pronouncement. The scale of the magical phenomenon that was Harry Potter had already boggled the mind, but this was something else again!

What would this new wrinkle bring with it?

It would seem certain research projects required more urgent handling. Priorities would need to shift…

…Pomona would need to break out the good stuff for their next meeting.

"For future reference, Septima," Albus' calm tone finally broke the stunned silence, "That sort of news should generally be reported at the beginning of the meeting."

1.4.4 Contemplations on the meaning of life

As the various dragon-sitters were sitting down to discuss their findings, the subject of their discussion was decidedly less asleep than they believed.

Like many large predators, dragons tend to be rather shockingly still by default. Harry's normal personality tended to keep him moving, but when his mind was occupied, his deeper instincts took over. As Harry had sat down in the large barn behind Hagrid's hut for a good think, it was perhaps understandable that his deeply-thinking pose had been mistaken for a deeply-sleeping one.

Harry had quickly come to the conclusion that the sorts of dragons written about in the various books he had managed to get his claws on through the assistance of Mr. Dumbledore's various glowy friends were not the same sort of dragon he was. It was pretty obvious, since they didn't eat metal and they couldn't talk.

This was a problem.

Turning into a dragon was the best thing Harry could remember happening to him, and he wanted to make sure he did it right by being the best dragon he could be! Doing anything less smacked of ingratitude.

Right now, though, Harry had no idea what it was that dragons like him were supposed to do. Were he human, he could look to his friends at Hogwarts for examples of what to do, but he was not. Who knew if good-human things to do were the same as good-dragon things?

He certainly didn't!

Attempting to address this lack, Harry had managed to talk Professor McGonagall into getting him some books that the non-glowy people had written on dragons to see if they had any ideas, though she insisted on dismissing the books as 'muggle fantasies'. Harry wasn't sure why she was so dismissive because they had lots of ideas and lots of different dragons to read about. They also seemed like a better choice than the ones the glowy people wrote about, since the not-glowy ones were about dragons that knights went after, and Harry was pretty sure he was that sort of dragon.

Was there something about people who glowed a bit that kept them from getting the right idea about dragons? Dragons seemed like pretty simple stuff to him, but maybe that was just because he was a dragon. Madame Pomfrey had been telling him about 'perspective' and 'point-of-view', and this sounded like it might be one of those things. He'd have to have another think on that later.

The different stories covered lots and lots of different kinds of dragons. He was sure they'd help him out somehow, but — none of them really fit right.

So, Harry had ultimately decided he'd have to figure it out himself. They might not be right in everything, but all those not-glowy-person fantasy things had to come from somewhere, right? Maybe they got bits right here and there. So, he'd read those books Professor McGonagall had given him carefully – he took notes on his findings and everything! – and he'd found some themes that seemed to be common to dragons that could talk.

Dragons who can talk needed to have a lair, and it should have treasures in it and preferably some damsels. Harry wasn't quite sure what the whole thing with damsels was, but the stories that mentioned them made it seem like they were really important.

Almost every one of the books — aside from those he had discarded because they didn't seem to be about the same sort of dragon he was — made it very clear that knights were out to get dragons, and he'd recently learned the whole 'slay' thing meant making the dragon dead, which sounded really nasty. As soon as he'd figured out what that was all about, Harry had resolved to flame any knights that seemed like they were out to get him, hard. He'd also keep an eye on those armor things around the castle, they seemed entirely too knight-like for comfort.

The thing that really bothered him was that the stories always made dragons out to be the baddies. He'd only found a couple that didn't, and they were pretty obviously not about the same sort of dragon he was. It was kind of sad.

How much of it was real, and how much was made up? Harry didn't know, but he did know that he was determined to do this being-a-dragon thing right!

He was going to be the best dragon ever!

And so, for the first steps down that path, he needed a lair, he needed treasures, and he needed damsels. Harry wasn't sure where to get any of them, but he figured he needed the lair first. He'd need the lair so he had a place to put the treasures and damsels anyway when he figured out how to get them. The problem was where to find a lair that knights couldn't get into.

After a bit more thinking, Harry resolved to ask Hagrid. Hagrid knew lots about dragons, and he knew where everything was around the castle and all sorts of other awesome stuff. He was sure to know where Harry could get a lair that knights couldn't get into!

He also needed to let the world know that dragons were the goodies, not the knights. Everyone would be better off if they weren't so confused about that.

He'd have to talk to the people that wrote all those stories and let them know what dragons were really like, once he figured that out himself. It was only right to help them out, since they'd helped him with the stories.

It was about this point that Hagrid walked in to check on his charge.

"Evenin', Harry," Hagrid said, stomping into the barn.

Hagrid was a very good stomper, made the ground go clump and everything. That seemed like something Harry would have to learn too — valuable life skill, stomping. Harry resolved to get Hagrid to give him stomping lessons someday.

"Hi Hagrid! There's something I wanted to ask you about…"

1.4.5 Harry goes house hunting

"… he wants what?" Dumbledore asked, perplexed.

"Harry says he's wantin' a lair," Hagrid repeated. "Says he needs it t' be somethin' he called 'knight-proof'. I 'spect he's lookin' fer a place t' make home; 'bout time fer the little feller, I'd say. There's a good place up inter the crags behind the forest, big cave with 'bout a hunnert-foot drop out the front an' plenty o' space up top. One o' the burns feedin' inter the loch runs outta it, too. Least that's what Madame Hooch says, she had a look 'bout a few years back. I ain't never been up there."

"That would be a good idea." Madame Pomfrey, who took the health of her young charge seriously and had been discussing her concerns about his lack of exercise beforehand, spoke up. "The poor boy needs more space to move around, and the cliffs are out of sight of the castle."

"Hmm, I must concur," Albus allowed. "Rubeus, if you and Madame Hooch could show him the cave during his next flying lesson? I suppose it is close enough that his tutors could visit the cave if it meets with young Harry's approval."

1.4.6 A hairy realtor

"I've found yer a lair, Harry," Hagrid said.

The young dragon had been dozing off before that statement, but the words immediately revitalized him.

"Really?" Harry was up and bouncing about, an action that involved all six of his limbs and his tail. Oddly enough, his head remained rock solid the whole time, gaze focused unerringly on his friend's face. If said friend were anyone other than Hagrid, he would have been rather unsettlingly reminded of a snake focusing on a mouse as its body coiled in preparation for a strike. Since said friend was Hagrid, he didn't find the reminder unsettling at all. "Ooh! Ooh! Where? Where? Can we go see? Is it knight-proof? Where is it? What's it like?"

"Easy there, Harry." Hagrid chuckled. "'S 'round the back o' the forest, up in the crags. Big cave, lots o' space fer ya t' stretch out an' move 'round, and no way inter it but flyin'. How 'bout we check it out t'night?"

"Ooh, that sounds amazing!"

"I'm glad the idea fills you with enthusiasm." Madame Hooch had entered the barn after Hagrid. "Well, then, let's go!" She was not eager to delay their departure any more than necessary.

After all, a dragon the size of a small bus bouncing excitedly is a disturbing sight.

At least, it is for people who aren't Hagrid.

1.4.7 New digs

Sunlight hitting his eyes gradually brought Harry out of sleep.

For a moment, he didn't know where he was. It wasn't the barn or the Dursleys' garage, and it certainly wasn't his old cupboard where he stayed before he turned into a dragon. There was sunlight streaming in from an opening in front of him, and he seemed to be resting on a rough rock floor. Where was he?

He opened his eyes to have a look around, and then he remembered the wonderful lair that his friends had found for him!

It was situated about halfway up a cliff, with the mouth shielded by an overhang. The lip was about a hundred feet off the ground, and there was about another hundred feet of cliff face above. The cave opened to the west with a view straight up the glen which climbed up to the moors and off to the sea. About half that view was taken up by the neighboring bluff to the southwest, whose light gray stone was currently reflecting the sunlight which had awakened him. The cliffs extended to the sides all the way around forming an isolated table-land separated from the rest of the plateau to the north by another steep-sided glen.

There was a stream running by his side through the cave — it was called a 'burn', he remembered Hagrid saying, though he didn't know why a stream would burn. The water flowed out of a crack in the wall in the back of the cave, travelled through the trench it had worn into the floor toward the cave opening, and Harry could hear the water splash merrily on the rocks far below. Madame Hooch had said something about an artesian flow, which he had gathered was a fancy way of saying the water ran uphill underground before coming out in the cave and acting normal again.

He'd have to learn more about that; it seemed like a funny thing for water to do.

Anyway, the mouth of the cave was big enough for him to take off easily, and there was a huge hollow space about fifty feet or so back from the lip which he could use to sleep in and store treasures! And, best of all, the young dragon could see absolutely no way that knights could possibly sneak in.

He had slept, and he was now feeling just a mite peckish, but the elves couldn't hear him out here so far from the castle. How was he going to get food?

Harry thought about that for a while, admiring his new lair in the meantime. Boy, that rock did look really good right now — he wondered what it would taste like. So, Harry tried it, taking a dragon-sized bite out of the wall of his new lair.

As he chewed his newly discovered food source, he realized two things. One, rock was not very filling, tasty, but he didn't think he'd ever get full on it; and two, despite the disappointing meal, he had just made his lair one bite bigger than it was before! The sheer bigness of it was already awesome, but Harry realized he could make it bigger any time he wanted.

That was amazing!

He could expand it to hold more treasures and damsels, and for when he got bigger, and if he wanted to make a library for all the books he wanted to get, and to make a potions laboratory, and whatever else he wanted! There was a whole mountain there, so he'd have all the space he'd ever need! The lair his friends had given him could get as big as he needed it to.

He made such great friends since he became a dragon!

Now he just needed treasures and damsels and his become-an-awesome-dragon plan would be well underway. He was pretty sure he knew where to get treasures, they were supposed to be at the end of rainbows, and he'd seen one of those just the other day out over the water — water which he could see from his new Lair, and wasn't that cool? He'd made sure to memorize where it had ended, one end on the sea and one end on the mountain, and Harry thought it would be a great idea to go give those places a good looking-over later that day once he'd made sure his Lair was all set.

1.4.8 The leading lady arrives

They had drawn lots to decide; it was the only fair way to go about it.

The worst case had come to pass for the centaurs of the Black Woods Clan, and the Great Wyrm had taken up residence in the forest. Worse yet, it laired above their most defensible campsite between the river and the Grey Cliffs.

There was no help for it; they would have to sacrifice a daughter to appease the Great Wyrm. The Clan could not afford another conflict on top of the ongoing war with the spider plague, much less a conflict with a Great Wyrm. That would be hopeless under even the best of circumstances.

When Bane, Magorian's eldest surviving son and heir, drew the shortest straw, he wept without shame.

It was a terrible duty, yet it was necessary nonetheless. If they didn't do it, they'd all be dead.

Proper dead.

So, at midnight, the warriors of the Clan, led by Bane himself, selected the fairest of his daughters, dressed her in her finest soft furs and linens, bound her wrists with silk rope, and led her to the edge of a clearing that laid within sight of the cave where the Great Wyrm laired.

And there, each stallion sadly glancing behind, they left her, one end of the rope tied about her wrists, and the other to a fallen tree.

There was no choice; the Great Wyrm had to be appeased, or they all died.

No choice at all.

1.4.9 When Harry met Suze

A new day dawned brightly at Harry's lair, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and the sky was blue. As the young dragon awoke, stretching widely, he once again marveled at the sheer space inside his lair, for when a young dragon stretched widely, he stretched very widely indeed. After spending most of his life cooped up, first in the cupboard, and later in the garage and then the barn, the ability to move freely was a coveted luxury for Harry.

It was a great day to be alive!

The boy bounded to the mouth of his lair. His Lair! His home, he was master of all he surveyed! What a wonderful feeling! He looked out over the landscape in wonder. Harry felt he could see past the edge of the world from here. The foothills to his left blocked off the view of the castle and Hogsmeade from here, and the rest of his mountain blocked off the closest town. The only trace of mankind was a single distant fishing boat and rail line. The rail was empty at the moment, but he could still hear the echoing growl of the morning train to Mallaig. It must have just passed out of sight. The rest of it, though, empty forest and moor until the water began, and then open blue off to the Isle of Skye beyond. And it was all his; he had found his home, and it was just lovely!

As his admiring gaze pulled back from the distant mountains across the sound and turned to much closer forest, Harry noticed something odd. Down there, just on the other side of the river, something was moving, something in greens, browns, and greys.

Harry looked closer, and he realized that he couldn't work out what he was looking at. He needed a better vantage point.

So, he spread his wings and glided down to the forest floor some distance from whatever it was. He approached all sneaky-sneaky, because it had looked kind of horse-shaped; Harry wasn't sure if it was a knight.

Nosing his way through the greenery, carefully avoiding making any crashing sounds, he slowly realized that what he was seeing was some kind of lady.

She was dressed up in all green, brown and grey, was tied up, and had most of a horse where her legs should be.

Harry frowned a bit, trying to work out why she was tied up and had horse instead of legs.

He wasn't sure about the horsey bit, 'cause the stories always had knights riding horses, but the stories didn't say anything about the knights and horses actually being stuck together.

Trying to get more information, Harry sniffed at the wind. He wasn't sure how much good it would do, since he didn't know what knights smelled like yet. Harry figured knights would probably smell like metal and person. She smelled of horse and person; he wasn't sure if knights would smell of horse and person too. The young dragon thought for a moment, she didn't look like she was wearing shining armor, but she might be wearing it under the furs and leather stuff he could see. But then he'd smell metal, the boy reasoned, that meant she probably wasn't wearing shining armor.

And if she wasn't wearing shining armor, then she probably wasn't a knight!

That established, Harry took a closer look at the horsey-lady. Her not-horse bits, pretty much all of a lady except legs, were dressed in some sort of cloth. It looked kind of like those fancy napkins Aunt Petunia used for special guests, but thicker, and it didn't smell the same. There were added-on fur bits and leather belts in not-belt places that seemed to keep the rest of her clothes from moving around much. The horsey bits, which were pretty much everything of a horse except its head and neck, 'cause that was where the lady's middle started, weren't wearing anything. Her wrists were tied behind her back with some sort of rope that looked a lot like milky-white plastic, and that rope was tied to a tree on the other end.

Suddenly, it clicked. A lady tied up outside a dragon's lair — this was just like that story with the damsel and that dragon that lived in the sea! Well, she wasn't naked like the one in the story, but he guessed it was kind of cold out, so that made sense. He'd never really understood that part of the story anyway. Harry nodded decisively. The lady with horse instead of legs was a damsel, and that made the question of what to do obvious.

"Grr, grr, GRR. I'm a big fearsome dragon, and you're a damsel, so I'm going to carry you off to my lair, grr!" He declared, stepping out of the undergrowth. He wished he had gotten those stomping lessons from Hagrid already. Harry wanted to do this right, and it just didn't seem proper that the ground wasn't shaking from his every step. He hoped the horsey-lady wasn't disappointed.

As Harry approached his new damsel, the thought ran through his head. Maybe damsels were some sort of treasure? If they were, then they were obviously a very important sort of treasure. The stories had always taken care to specifically name the damsels, and they never did that for the not-damsel treasures.

1.4.10 When Suze met Harry

Suze was certain she was going to die.

She'd had a bad feeling for one hand and one weeks now, a feeling that she would soon face an irrevocable change in her life, the death of her current existence and the beginning of a new one. For a centaur girl of just shy of three hands' worth of summers, that meant either death or marriage, and her father would not be presenting her to any suitors for another two summers, while the threat of death loomed constantly in the Black Woods.

As soon as her grandfather, Magorian, had grimly announced that the Great Wyrm had been sighted above the forest, Suze had known what form her doom would take. She had left it unspoken, but she was not surprised when she was chosen as the sacrifice to appease the Great Wyrm's wrath.

Her father had wept for her.

She had made her father cry! Did that mean she deserved this?

Suze did not resist when she was tied and led away to the last place she expected to ever see. This was her duty; she had been chosen to protect her family, and she would see her final duty through to the end. Death was over in a flash, but shame was eternal.

Father had said so, and Father was always right unless Grandfather said differently, and Grandfather hadn't said differently about that.

When she had seen her Father's shoulders shake, she had wanted to reach out and comfort him, but her hands were tied, so she could not. This was necessary; what needed to be done, must be done, and there was no reason to cry about it. She would do her duty. She was happy to see her father and brothers walk away from her. They would not face the same fate.

When the Great Wyrm emerged into the clearing, she held herself proud. Her Father's last words to her had been, "Be brave for me, my daughter," and she would not disappoint him on her last day.

"Grr, grr, GRR.," it said. Not a growl, it said 'grr', like a colt pretending to be ferocious. "I'm a big fearsome dragon, and you're a damsel, so I'm going to carry you off to my lair, grr!"

It sounded startlingly young.

The fine silk rope that bound her to the tree parted like dust under the beast's claws. It was woven from acromantula silk, the finest known. One strand of that silk could hold an adult stallion's full weight without even the slightest stretch, and fire was the only way the Clan knew to cut it. That rope was woven from five such strands, and those claws cut through it like freshly knapped flint through a colt's hair.

Surely, the Great Wyrm would eat her soon?

Again, she didn't resist as its mighty forepaws closed around her and lifted; to quaver would be to shame her family. This was her fate, and she would face it with dignity.

Oddly, it seemed to be holding her exceedingly gently.

Having picked her up carefully, it then proceeded to whisper out of the side of it's terrifying mouth, "Am I doing it right?"

"…what?" It was the first word she had spoken since the previous night. She hadn't quite been able to work up the nerve before.

"Well, this is the first time I've done this carrying-off thing, and I want to make sure I'm doing it right," it explained. "I'm a dragon, and I'm supposed to know about this stuff."

For a moment, Suze considered saying he was doing it wrong, she had been expecting to be eaten by now, after all, but she reconsidered. It was probably an exceedingly bad idea to say no to a dragon, she reasoned.

"I think you're doing it right," Suze said uncertainly. "I've never been carried off before either, so I'm not sure how it goes, but, well, you've done a very convincing job so far. You may need to work on your growl, though."

The dragon didn't seem at all displeased by her commentary. "Okay! I guess GRR! isn't really fierce enough. I've heard dragons should be very fierce when carrying off damsels."

"Umm, I suppose so, but well… um…" Why was the Great Wyrm asking for advice rather than eating her? This was not what she expected at all!

"Well," the dragon sounded resigned but determined, "I guess I'll just have to make it up as I go along." With that, he took off. The ground spun dizzyingly away beneath her as Suze was carried along for the ride, and then her captor landed with a bone-jarring thud in the entrance to his lair, where, to her continuing surprise, he set her down gently.

"…um, sorry, I haven't quite got landings down just yet."

As her eyes adjusted to the lower lighting of the cave, she glanced around. The entrance tunnel spread out — about six lengths in — into a hollow which was large enough to contain the Clan's entire Grand Encampment with room to spare. There were Great Wyrm-sized bite marks taken out of the cave walls in places, and a large pile of gold coins about two lengths across off slightly to one side of the space. The gold looked to have been recently retrieved from the sea, based on the barnacles and bits of seaweed covering it.

"Are you going to eat me?"

The dragon seemed rather taken aback by the question. "Um, I'm kinda not going to do that, I mean I wasn't planning to… unless you want me to?" he finished uncertainly. When she shook her head negatively, he continued, "I mean, it'd be awfully rude to eat anything that politely asked you not to, so…"

"Please don't eat me Mr. Great Wyrm!" Suze blurted out, before realizing that she spoke out of turn and covering her mouth in embarrassment.

It was about this time that another voice entered the conversation. "Good afternoon, you dratted liza… What in Merlin's name is going on here?"

A tall, thin human — she thought it was one of the wizards from the castle, but she wasn't sure; dealing with them was her Uncle Firenze's job and not for the likes of young fillies — had entered the cave using one of those flying broom thingies. The human had long black hair — meticulously cleaned, she noted — drawn back into a neat tail, a hooked nose set on a thin face, sallow skin, and voluminous black clothing which had an odd smell to it. It was the first human she had seen — she wondered how they got by with only two legs?

Unheeding of her thoughts, the man continued his interrogation. "From where, precisely, did you steal that gold, young man? And what is this young lady doing here?"

"Oh, hullo Mr. Snape!" The Great Wyrm seemed delighted to see this acerbic human. "I saw a rainbow yesterday, and I remembered that you were supposed to find treasure at the end of rainbows, so I remembered where the ends were, and when I checked out the one that ended in the sea, I found a really old ship that had sunk there, and there was this gold spilled all out over everything, and it was just scattered about, so I figured no one really wanted it, so I grabbed it and brought it back here. The water got kind of cold down that far, but it wasn't really a problem. And then, today, the horsey-people gave me a damsel! She was tied up outside my lair and everything; it was just like that story with the dragon that lived in the sea, you know? And anyway, now I've got treasure and a damsel, and I'm a proper dragon now! Isn't that neat?"

The human, whose name Suze could only assume was Mr. Snape, took a moment to consider that before shaking his head in dismissal. It seemed that he didn't want to know.

"I see," he said. "I have brought some new reading material for you, some of which you requested, and some provided unasked by your other tutors. I have also devised, in collaboration with Madame Pomfrey, several new diagnostic spells for use in determining the workings of your remarkable interior. If you would be willing to settle in for a little read and spare enough concentration to allow the spells to connect, I could cast the examination spells at the same time?"

"Okay!" came the Great Wyrm's cheerful reply.

"And, Mr. Potter," the man continued, "they are known as centaurs. 'Horsey-people' is unnecessarily impolite."

"Oh… sorry."

1.4.11 Suze meets Snape and finally gets an explanation

Snape cast the first of his new diagnostic spells while his draconic research subject had its nose buried deep in an arcane transfiguration manuscript written in a form of English so archaic that Snape could barely puzzle out the title. The dragon seemed to have trouble with neither the language, nor the subject matter.

If he recalled, Minerva had passed it on in response to one of the child's more complicated questions, and he seemed to find the answer as fascinating as he found nearly everything else. Snape thought the tome so dry he felt the need for a glass of water just from looking at it. As he recalled, it was that very book which turned him away from his quest to become an animagus in his youth.

As he completed the first of his diagnostic spells, the female centaur spoke up in a soft voice with a lilting accent that the usually misanthropic potions master actually found quite pleasant.

"How old is the Great Wyrm?"

"He is a little over eight years old, in your terms, a hand and three summers, if I recall."

"…so, he's just a colt?"

"Indeed." Snape confirmed absently, the bulk of his attention centered on the results of his spell.

"Hmm?" Harry looked up from his reading curiously.

"Go back to your book, wretched lizard! I am attempting to hold a civilized conversation with this fine young lady; your input is not currently required."

Suze recoiled, fully expecting the man to be torched before her eyes for his temerity. She was, therefore, quite flabbergasted by the Great Wyrm's cheerful reply. "Okay!" Followed by a return to his book.

"He is, quite frankly, a naïve child," Snape's voice was low as he spoke to the centaur girl. "And I do believe that it would be in both our best interests if you were to do your best to ensure that his inevitable maturation is a gentle one. I am certain that the reasons are self-evident."

Without waiting for a reply, he suddenly switched topics. "Ah, this is fascinating," His diagnostic spell had returned a result. "It seems that the dratted dragon's skeletal structure is composed of orichalcum — I wonder how it was grown?"

"I know that if the right parts aren't in someone's food, they won't grow proper. Isn't orichalcum really rare?" she asked. "Where does he get it from?"

Snape was pleasantly surprised, "You are quite a knowledgeable one, aren't you, young lady? Indeed, until lately the making of orichalcum was thought to be a secret lost with the makers of your kind; the only known source was the skeleton of the drake-dog. The secrets of making the substance were rediscovered by the muggles, of all creatures. They call it aluminum oxy-nitride, a term which only makes sense when one realizes that orichalcum is in fact a quite specific phlogistonic nitrate of the ignoble metal aluminum."

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Few did, until very recently. What is your name, young lady? You seem tolerably well-informed."

"I'm Suze, daughter of Bane."

"Daughter of Bane, you say? You have my commiserations." Snape returned to casting, "Now, let us see what we can see about this young man's stomach lining… hmm, a form of glass? Curious, there must be something I am missing about its structure…"

"…you want to know how the Great Wyrm's body works?"

"Indeed, young lady; indeed. I see tremendous potential in discovering the workings of his body; his stomach alone holds the potential to revolutionize potion making. The lining routinely withstands temperatures and compositions which rapidly destroy every other material I have tested. Should I succeed in determining how this is done, and further manage to reproduce it, I am confident that I will become quite remarkably famous, and more to the point, quite remarkably wealthy. Of course, I will have to share that wealth with the blasted beast, as I have it on good authority that trying to cheat a dragon is an enormously bad idea for those who prefer to continue to breathe. Quiet now, I must record these results."

"Um, Mr. Snape?"

"What is it this time, wretched lizard?"

"I, um, I've kinda got to learn how to growl better. You're a really good growler, could you show me how it works?"

Snape froze for a moment, quill still in hand, before he gave a hearty snort. "Young man, if you are quiet and allow me to write these results down, I shall see to it that you are given growling lessons by the finest growler I have ever known."

"Okay!"

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.5 In Which Harry Learns his own Strength

---

1.5.1 In the springtime of youth

Time has a way of passing when no one is paying any attention to it, and that holds true whether you're child or adult, dragon or human, magical or muggle.

That said, when you're young, it travels slowly. For an eight-year-old boy, a year is a very long time. For an eight-year-old who isn't in school and doesn't have people who insist on him doing chores, a day is a wonderfully long and full thing, and that holds true for any small child — even ones who've been turned into dragons.

Between lessons from his friends on the Hogwarts staff when the weather was calm enough for them to fly out from the castle, inventing new games to play with his centaur damsel, eating over at Hagrid's place, reading his way through his friends' personal libraries one borrowed armful at a time, seeing what sort of treasures he could scrounge up, and just generally stomping around his new home, doing all the things that eight-year-olds do when left to their own devices, Harry was a very busy dragon indeed. And he liked it that way because it was so very much FUN! There was always something to do, and none of it made his body hurt like the chores at the Dursleys' had, and people listened when he said he didn't want to do something.

It was brilliant!

As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks piled up enough to make a month or two, winter came to the Cairngorms painting the mountains white with snow and transforming the hills around the Lair — for that had become his home's official name, he had even added a placard to the side of the entrance — into a winter wonderland. On still nights, as they lay together and listened to the distant rumble of ships' engines on the other side of Skye echoing over the water just on the edge of hearing, his centaur damsel shared the names of the stars and what she knew of the stories they told. It was the same way Suze had been taught, herself, and had previously taught her younger siblings in turn.

When the wind picked up and the gales screamed in from the Atlantic, they watched as the winds tore up the water, whipping it into a frenzy of white, and blasted trees from the ground; it was an awe-inspiring sight for anyone, particularly so for someone who had never imagined such a storm before. Suze proved most glad of the heat put out by her dragon's furnace-like body, sheltering from the cold and wind by cuddling close to his belly. For his part, Harry liked to lay out of the wind but still in such a position that he could see out of his Lair to watch the clouds racing across the moon.

Spending so much time in the wintery forest, devoid of its obscuring summer finery, Harry quickly discovered deer — according to Mrs. McGonagall, that was the proper name for venisons that were running around — on the hills nearby and in amongst the dormant skeletal trees. After a while, he decided to find out whether they tasted as delicious as they smelled, and in his investigation, he received the second largest shock of his young life.

1.5.2 Blood spatter

Harry had been flying around aimlessly, just checking stuff out for a while and being disappointed at not finding any more gold at rainbow-end places when he noticed another one of those still-running venisons. He'd been meaning to give it a try for a while, just because he knew not-running-any-more venison was real tasty and the ones that were running around smelled real yummy. So he landed right in front of it, taking a moment to feel smug about how smooth his landings had gotten; he was really proud of that, especially with the amount of painful and awkward effort that had gone into it.

He then declared, "GrrrRRrrrr!"

The deer snorted a lot, backing away while waving its multi-pointed horns at him. Harry could smell the venison, and it smelled even yummier from up close, but he couldn't see it. Maybe the horns were in the way? He swiped at them with his paw.

He was surprised to say the very least when the deer's head splattered, painting the snow bright, steaming red.

1.5.3 The unlikeliest of counselors

Harry's Lair was oddly quiet that night, Severus Snape noticed as he set down on the lip of the entrance chamber. He was much less clumsy on a broom than he had been at the start of term; lots of practice flying to and from the Lair, he supposed. As the potions master walked into the main chamber, he noticed that it had grown much larger than before, new sections and passages seemingly clawed or chewed out of the solid rock.

Blasted beast really had no idea of his own strength. He'd grown at an absurd rate over the few months he'd been here. It was now reaching the middle of December, and the wretched lizard was already nearly half the size of the locomotive pulling the Hogwarts Express.

At least his growth had slowed recently.

The dratted dragon could normally be found lounging around the lip of his Lair at this time of day, tired from a day's worth of playing. Snape quickly schooled his features back into a scowl when he caught himself being sentimental, firmly reminding himself that the wretched beast was a dragon and therefore not worthy of such consideration from hard-working potions masters who should not be sentimental about such things.

Today there was no sign of the dragon; though his pet centaur, Suze, was hovering worriedly about the entrance to the Lair. The girl was a smart one, very well-educated by the standards of her kind, and unlike the rest of her Clan, she was willing to learn more.

"Where is that blasted dragon?" he asked.

"He's through there." She indicated a one of the recently opened passages, this one extending far enough to leave the granite of the main outcropping and enter a layer of orange and black striped gneiss from what he could see before passage bent to one side. "He's, um… upset about something, but I'm not sure what."

"I see," Snape said. He felt concerned for a moment before suppressing the impulse. That was starting to crop up more and more; he briefly considered whether he should see Poppy, then decided against it. Last time she had made some nonsensical crack along the lines of his heart growing three sizes that day.

It was just James Potter's brat, he assured himself. It must be something minor blown far out of proportion.

Beyond that initial bend, the passage was pitch black, and Severus was forced to use a light spell to find his way down it. The contrasting colors of the folded layers in the rock made for a strangely beautiful walk. After a few hundred feet, the edge of the light cast by his spell glinted off gold and illuminated the dragon's tail.

"What in Merlin's name is wrong with you, wretched lizard?"

There was a moment filled with the musical rattle of shifting gold as the young dragon turned around, and then he was suddenly faced by a tremendously large eye looking at him with — was that worry?

"…umm, hi, Mr. Snape." It was the first time in all his experience with the dratted beast that it had not sounded excited.

"I repeat; what precisely is the matter, young man?"

"Um… Mr. Snape, do people squish as easily as deer?"

"What exactly brought this on?"

"…well, I kinda thought that I'd see if venison that was still running around was as tasty as the kind that wasn't, but when I went to brush the horns out of the way, it kind of came apart on me and, well, it kinda went splat."

"I see." Snape said, nodding as he got the idea. "I'm afraid there is no gentle way to say this, lad but the vast majority of other creatures are indeed quite fragile in comparison to you."

"…oh. Um… I think, maybe, I shouldn't go places anymore…"

"Nonsense!" the potions master snapped, utterly incensed. "Desist with your self-indulgent depression, dolt! You may be sizeable and a tad unnerving, but that is no reason to hide yourself from the world! Don't you dare! What would your mother think, young man? I'll tell you what she would think; she'd be disappointed that her only son proved to be a coward!"

Snape's voice softened — somewhat, he was still Snape, after all. "You are a large and powerful creature, but that simply means that you must use good sense and self-control. You have the strength to do a great deal of harm, but by the same token you can do a correspondingly great deal of good; it is a matter of how you use your strength, and that choice is your responsibility!

"As a wizard, I have the power to kill with a word, the power to bring destruction without fail to any who anger me, but it is not something used casually, rather a last resort for when all else has failed. For you, it is the same with your strength, your fire, and the edge of your talons. Your physique is a weapon, indeed, and like all weapons it must be used responsibly; you must treat it with respect, but you must never be afraid of it!"

"If you are afraid of yourself, you will never amount to anything, and that, young man, would be an astonishing waste! I have not spent days and days drumming a measure of knowledge into your oversized skull for you to squander it out of cowardice, sulking away in this cave like some reclusive ignoramus!" Snape was back to full voice. "Do you understand me, boy? Do you?"

"…I guess."

"Don't guess, boy! Know! Guessing is for those who lack drive and purpose." Snape stopped to catch his breath. That was the most energetic speech he'd delivered in years. He shook his head, "Dash it, boy! You are a… a, a tolerable child, and I do not wish to see you waste away on account of some dead animal."

"…I'm sorry, Mr. Snape, but it just went splat, and I don't want that to happen to any of my friends."

"An admirable sentiment, boy, but hiding yourself in the dark is not the answer." Snape said, in perhaps the gentlest voice he had used since his childhood memories of green eyes so similar to the ones he was facing now — if admittedly, much, much smaller green eyes. "You have power, both physical and magical, and your responsibility is to use that power properly. Your intentions are in the right vein, but your course must be to learn how to control that power, not simply lock it away. Our choices define us far more than our abilities, and your power means that your choices will have greater consequences than most; therefore, I can only hope that you will be wiser about your use of power than most."

"Can you teach me how to use power wisely, Mr. Snape."

"I am afraid I am the wrong person to ask that question, my boy." When had the wretched beast become 'his boy'? "You should ask that of Dumbledore."

"I will."

"See that you do. Now come out here into the light; I have further diagnostic spells to cast and another load of books for you to read."

1.5.4 The circle of life

It took a great deal of discussion with both Dumbledore and Hagrid to get across to Harry that dead deer was where the no-longer-running venison came from, but they managed by early January. After that, Harry found enormously, if briefly, surprised venison to be thoroughly to his liking, though it never became the mainstay of his diet. That remained the province of Hagrid's scrap-dealership contracts and large quantities of fossil fuels.

Suze was able to brush up on her food preparation skills as some of her dragon's regular catch provided a welcome taste of home to supplement to her diet of human food supplied regularly from the castle, and Harry also became quite fond of meat cooked over a wood fire, both because the smoky flavor suited his palate and because of the associated memories of spending time with his damsel. As the occasional slowly became the customary, the Lair took on a much cozier appearance with the addition of myriad deer-leather household goods; Suze was always taught not to waste such things, an attitude she managed to pass on to her dragon.

It was another couple of months before Mr. Snape, Mrs. McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey finished their preliminary analysis of his body. According to them he was made mostly of all sorts of metals with interesting names, but he burned petrol and coal to keep the fires inside him blazing. That was so cool! It sounded like his tummy worked like a cross between a jet plane and a steam train, and Harry couldn't think of many things cooler than jet planes and steam trains!

Madame Pomfrey had said something else about an 'energy defect' which he gathered meant there was something more going on that they weren't sure of yet, but the jet plane and steam train explanation worked for him so far. The comparison was pretty good since things that got in the way of jet planes and steam trains tended to go squish, and the same went for things that got in the way of dragons.

Slowly, winter turned to spring, which brought with it tremendous sheets of rain that washed away the last remnants of the winter snows as gales rattled the land. The forest came alive from its winter hibernation, green flowing as new leaves spread across the trees and bracken covered the hillsides. Harry added the pungent meal of wild goat to his menu as the deer proved more adept at hiding in the undergrowth than they had at hiding in the snow, and the goats had the unfortunate habit of climbing things making them much more visible from the air. From time to time, he'd manage to take a stray sheep for a fluffy snack. The things almost seemed to keel over in fright before he even touched them.

The tremendous growth spurt which had defined his first few months at Hogwarts had tapered off for a time. He was no longer putting on an inch every night, and his appetite trailed off accordingly, in keeping with his more sedate rate of growth.

Spring turned to summer, bringing with it a plague of midges. The tiny menaces seemed to find Harry irresistible, but they dropped dead, exploding in minute puffs of steam after the first bite. Again, Suze took shelter by sticking very close to his flanks. She might be constantly brushing dead midges out of her hair, but she knew from bitter experience how irritating the swarms were without such a shield.

As his ninth birthday approached, Harry finally managed to acquire a human form, or rather, he managed to transform into an outward copy of his last memory of what his body had once been. As a consequence, his human form looked rather small for his age, lacking almost a year of development during what would have been a time of major growth. Learning to transfigure himself had taken forever from his perspective, but by any objective measure, his progress had been remarkable.

With his new form quickly came the discovery of a new game he could play with his damsel called 'horsie', a game that the pair took to with gusto.

As July drew to a close and his ninth birthday approached, for the first time in his life, Harry had trouble getting to sleep because of his anticipation for the day.

Birthdays were special, and everything was more special for dragons!

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.6 In which Harry makes an alliance

---

1.6.1 Unexpected results

"She still lives!" Bane said.

Ronan had to admit he was a little worried about his eldest brother. His chieftain's heir hadn't been the same since his daughter had been sacrificed to appease the wrath of the Great Wyrm. The life had seemed to drain out of him with each step he took away from the clearing where she had been left, and his eyes had not left her direction until long after she was no longer visible. By the time the party had returned to the Grand Encampment, Bane had been a shell of his former self, black fur dulled and shrunken in on himself in despondence.

Then, just this morning, Celestine had galloped into camp, eyes wide and face ashen, and immediately rushed to Bane, asking for a private conversation. Though he could not hear what was said, Ronan could see the life returning to his brother's form. Now Bane was standing next to Celestine by the great hearth, and the fire was back in his brother's eyes.

"Your pardon, Bane?" Tiberius said.

"Suze." Bane replied, and suddenly Ronan knew what had happened.

"I swear it is true," Celestine said. "I saw her half a day's swift run from here, not just alive but playing like yearlings with the Great Wyrm, itself; though, the beast has managed to hide its nature. It walks in the form of a young human colt of perhaps one hand and three summers, but its scent is unmistakable, and I witnessed its transformation."

"Impossible," Julius scoffed.

"Nay, brother, it is true, on my blood I swear it!"

"We must watch the stars carefully." Magorian pronounced. "What omen this may portend I cannot say, but we must decipher it, lest we learn the hard way."

"Agreed, Father." Bane agreed with a fierce nod. "I suggest that we maintain a close watch on the Great Wyrm, that we may discern its habits and nature. And, I pray, that we might learn how to avoid its wrath."

"I concur." Magorian agreed, and with the chieftain's agreement, the rest of the warriors nodded in assent. Authority had spoken.

1.6.2 Post-party musings

It had been, Harry decided as he lounged atop his gleaming, slightly less water-stained, golden hoard, a wonderful birthday indeed.

Mr. Flitwick had come by the previous afternoon and given him precise instructions on how best to enjoy a birthday, the most important part being that he was to lounge around and relax, maybe doing some lazy-but-fun things like polishing his gold until the sun came out from behind the Cairngorms. The tiny man had been adamant that birthday mornings were something best savored, and after that day, Harry reckoned he knew what Flitwick meant.

That morning had been really quiet and relaxed and stuff. He'd spent the morning polishing up his gold with Suze, removing all the barnacles and bits of seaweed that had been stuck to it for the last seven months since he had fished it out of the sea, and it gleamed like nothing else now. Plus, that faint rotten smell was gone, which was awesome! He figured he'd guessed right about damsels being a very important part of a dragon's hoard, what with how good Suze was at making his gold gleam properly. It was nice! Plus, the waiting for presents was even better all stretched-out like that, it felt sort of like chores, but good, since there was something brilliant waiting at the end of it.

When the sun was shining down from directly over his Lair, he and Suze set out for the castle. He wasn't sure why the sight of his centaur damsel galloping had been so weirdly cool, but it had been weirdly cool, so that was cool. He'd been a bit worried that a knight would jump out and try to steal her, but there had been not a speck of shining armor in evidence, and she'd stuck right to his shadow the whole way down the glen without any problems.

When he got down to the castle, he was pleased to note that there weren't any suits of armor scattered around anymore. They'd apparently been replaced with metal statue things that looked like the stone ones on top of that old church he had seen that one time, and they glowed a little bit. Harry wondered what they were for. Then he got to the Great Hall, and the thought had slipped his mind, for there had been presents!

And, oh, what presents they were!

Mr. Hagrid had given him a special kind of petrol drum that never seemed to run out of petrol. He'd apparently worked with Mrs. McGonagall to make it, and she had said it filled from a big tank somewhere else down by the Hogwarts rail depot through something called a portal, so it actually needed to be refilled sometimes from a train car, but trains were cool too, and now he'd have a reason to go look at them more often.

Just because she'd helped with Mr. Hagrid's gift, though, didn't mean Mrs. McGonagall didn't get him something else. He'd never imagined so many presents in one place just for him! He'd been very careful not to count them, though, that would have been behaving like Dudley used to, and he didn't want to do that; Dudley was nasty.

Mr. Dumbledore had given him a barrel of some sort of reddish watery stuff that smelled really tasty. He said he'd gotten it with the help of his friend Mr. Flamel, and that if you put steel in it, it would turn to real gold! Apparently, it wouldn't work for too long, but Harry figured when it stopped working it would probably taste very nice.

Mr. Flitwick had given him lots and lots of books, all kinds of books, story books, books on magic, books about different sorts of metal, books about dragons, and lots of other books about all kinds of weird stuff that sounded really cool. He'd even put them into a big chest like the sort of chest pirates buried their treasures in! Harry figured books were another kind of treasure, they had to be if they were packed into a treasure chest, right? He'd have to make another part of his Lair just to house them proper.

Mrs. Sprout had given him a cauldron packed full of gems that she said were the fruit of a very special tree that grew rubies instead of apples or something, and he figured they'd be just the right thing to scatter through his hoard to gleam all red and shiny. It kind of made him wonder what other sorts of plants were around, if there was one that grew rubies. He'd never really thought of plants as being interesting before. Mrs. Sprout got a very odd smile on her face when he'd said as much.

Mrs. McGonagall had given him a great big shiny sword she called a claymore and this little metal Rolls-Royce lady that flew and everything, made out of proper silver. She said the flying lady was for fun, but the sword was something every responsible young man should have, and she was happy to provide him with his first one.

Mr. Snape had given him two things, one was a great big chest of gold coins he said were something called 'royalties'. There was a lot less real gold in them than the ones in his hoard, but Mr. Flitwick said it was normal for coins to be a mix of metals, and the mix sometimes changed over time. The other was a special saddle and harness for his centaur damsel, which would make playing horsie ever so much more fun. It even had reins!

Harry wasn't sure why several of his other friends seemed so angry about that; maybe they were disappointed that they hadn't come up with such a cool idea?

Looking back at it, he did think he'd have to find a different way to attach the reins, though. That piece that was supposed to go in Suze's mouth looked like it would be uncomfortable, even if it was the right size, and he didn't want to hurt his damsel. Plus, that would make it attach to her head, and Harry still remembered how fragile heads were after the first time he splattered a deer, better to tie them on somewhere else less likely to splatter if he got a little excited. He'd been practicing his control, but better safe than sorry.

It'd also make it really hard for Suze to talk, and he liked talking to her — maybe they could make some kind of harness or something?

Ooh… that gave him another idea! He'd have to talk to Hagrid later.

He got other presents too, books and paintings and treasure and stuff, but none was as cool as the stuff his good friends gave him.

And there had been cake!

He resolved then and there to get his friends good things for their birthdays, even though he wasn't sure when they were and didn't have many ideas. He'd just have to think about it more.

1.6.3 Nefarious plans revealed

As soon as the birthday dragon was out of earshot, the questioning began.

"Whit in Merlin's name whair ye thinkin', Sev'rus?" Minerva was quite wroth with him, it seemed.

He supposed that she had good reason in this case; it would bear explaining.

He saw Albus off to the side, eyes twinkling merrily. The old man must have thought everyone would miss his gift of a reagent that could have originated from nothing other than the philosopher's stone. For a moment, Severus considered throwing him under the metaphorical bus to save himself an explanation, before he decided to let Albus have his victory — for now. He would probably be able to wheedle a sample out of the old man in return for letting things go in front of the rest of the staff; even the possibility of that would assuredly be worth his troubles.

Back to the angry Scotswoman, then.

"I shall assume that you have never had the displeasure to encounter the tremendous waste of skin known as Bane of the Black Woods Clan, else you would like as not already have determined my purpose in this," Snape said. "You should count yourself exceptionally fortunate for that, Minerva."

"Yer met Bane?" Hagrid asked, surprised.

"Indeed. I encountered the poltroon during one of my ingredient-gathering expeditions into the Forest." Snape confirmed.

"…I'm nae getting' yair drift." Judging by her tone, Minerva seemed to be reaching the limits of her self-control. "If ye cannae gimme a guid explanation fur daein' that tae th' lassie then ah will gie ye a proper seein' tae!"

"Frankly, Minerva, Bane is the most unutterably narrow-minded, anally-retentive, cretinous, self-important, objectionable, twinkle-toed dunderhead I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, which is no mean feat considering that I formerly associated with the likes of Lucius Malfoy." Snape informed her. "He is repulsive to the degree that, were it not for our friendly hyperactive reptile's pet, I would believe that the Ministry might have a point regarding centaurs. More to the point, young Suze has the grave misfortune of being one of the blowhard's daughters."

"Punishin' a wain fair tha sins o' tha faither isnae becomin' o' yeh, Sev'rus!" the transfiguration mistress hissed.

"What kind of imbecile do you take me for, Minerva? It has nothing to do with that! You know as well as I do that there is not the remotest possibility of our resident lizard using that gift in a way that will harm the girl; there is not the slightest risk of that." Snape dismissed the possibility out of hand.

"However, I would gladly forfeit a month's salary to see Bane taken down a peg or two," the sallow-skinned man continued, "and in light of the rant on centaur superiority I was subjected to upon our meeting, I can see him objecting quite strenuously to his daughter being, to quote a certain lizard, 'played horsie with'. Especially when the game involves a saddle and reins. Considering just how extraordinarily resilient that lizard happens to be, I foresee Bane promptly receiving the attitude adjustment he so richly deserves."

"So, the point is to get Harry to beat Bane up?" Dumbledore asked.

"Indeed, Albus, it is." Snape smirked.

"Severus," Poppy interjected with an artfully innocent tone, "where exactly did you manage to acquire that bridle? The size was suspiciously appropriate for a human female's head, and I'm fairly certain no tack shop would carry such a thing."

As Severus shifted uncomfortably, the Healer continued mercilessly, "I think I recognized the maker's mark, in fact, from a certain shop in Hogsmeade that patrons are reluctant to be seen entering. A pair of overly adventurous seventh years managed to get themselves stuck in one of her creations just last year; I had to go speak with the proprietor to determine how to release them. Very peculiar establishment, indeed."

"It was a special order," he temporized.

"A special order? From her? You weren't joking about being willing to part with a month's pay for this, were you, Severus?" Poppy was obviously not going to let this drop, judging by her amused tone. "Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that meeting!" She laughed mockingly, "Especially when you quoted sizes fit for a girl in her mid-teens, I can just imagine her expression!"

"Severus," Minerva sighed, apparently having put together the clues from Poppy's questions, "did you actually go so far as to spend a month's pay on…" she grimaced as if she had a bad taste in her mouth, "sex toys custom-fitted for a fifteen-year-old girl in pursuit of a prank on the girl's father?"

"Yes." Snape ground out, grudgingly. Tuning out the varied reactions of the rest of his colleagues, he turned to Poppy. "Did you have to point that out, Madame?"

"If you're going to play a prank, you should be prepared for some backlash," the Healer said, sententiously. "It's no fun unless there is both give and take; without that, it is simply abuse, picking on those who cannot defend themselves." Her tone turned arch, "Rather similar to a teacher taking advantage of their position to torment their students, I'd say. This Bane is unlikely to be able to step up to the occasion, so I did in his stead."

"You never do change, do you, Severus?" Minerva groaned. "How on earth did you get out of that shop without being cursed? You are a teacher, for Merlin's sake, you know how that must have looked!" Then she shook her head and changed the topic without waiting for his answer. "What happens, then, when Harry accidentally kills this Bane? That will not sit well with Suze, if he is her father. Are you willing to put the boy's friendship with his damsel at risk over a petty grudge?"

"I sincerely doubt that will happen," Snape scoffed, putting his embarrassment behind him with an act of will. "When all is said and done, he is a remarkably responsible young man. Or hadn't you heard what happened when he managed to knock a stag's block off? It took his pet centaur a week to persuade him it was safe to pick her up again. He will be appropriately moderate in his actions, never fear."

"Severus, you are not the only one who is fond of young Harry, and…"

"I am not fond of that dratted dragon!"

"Severus Snape, stop lying to yourself. It doesn't become you." Minerva said, making Severus feel like a naughty first-year again.

How did she always do that?

"Dash it, Minerva! I want to hate that wretched lizard! I'd love to hate James Potter's bloody spawn!"

Everyone went quiet, watching as his face screwed up into a grimace.

"But," he concluded with an aggravated sniff, "I quite inexplicably do not, and not merely because he represents the best chance for a more-or-less peaceful resolution to the goals I have been working toward my entire adult life."

"Do you really think he can manage to stop the Ministry's bigotry?" Flitwick boggled.

"Indeed, I do, Filius. You've recognized his kindly nature; how, precisely, do you think he will react to learning the current way of things?"

"Violently."

"Indeed."

1.6.4 A visit to Hagrid

Over the next few days, Snape's gift saw heavy use, indeed. Despite the trouble the potions master had gone through to acquire them, neither Harry nor Suze proved terribly enthusiastic about the bit and reins, usually leaving them out from the ensemble. Both were, however, quite fond of the saddle. Harry liked the extra realism it added to the game, and Suze liked the extra comfort of having some purpose-made padding between her aching spine and the enthusiastically — and perpetually — bouncing young boy.

After a week or so, though, when the initial gloss wore off the new gift, Harry remembered his idea from his musing on the evening after his birthday party. Games were always more fun when everybody could play, and he remembered how it felt to be left out from back before he turned into a dragon.

He didn't want that for his damsel! When he was dragon-shaped, he was more than big enough to give Suze rides too! He did it all the time carrying her in and out of the Lair, after all.

How was she going to ride, though?

He could carry her in his forepaws, but that wasn't in the proper spirit of the game. Her horsey-bits weren't really shaped right to sit on him, either, and even if they were… well, he had really big and kinda pointy scales on his back, and they moved back and forth a lot when he flew. Harry was pretty sure that sitting on them while that went on would really hurt!

He was equally sure, however, that Hagrid would know how to get around that problem.

This was the thinking that led Harry and Suze to approach Hagrid for advice on how to make a carrying harness, so Harry could carry his damsel on proper horsie rides. Hagrid would prove quite capable in this regard, eventually producing a carry-harness which would prove amazingly useful for this purpose and a wide variety of others over the coming years. The end product would be comfortable and durable and useful for all sorts of things beyond just hauling centaur damsels about.

Hagrid's expertise was often undervalued due to his rough appearance and humble mien; a veritable diamond-in-the-rough, Hagrid was.

Unfortunately, Hagrid would not have the opportunity to shine on this particular visit.

1.6.5 Murphy's Law interlude

Murphy is a cruel but fair overlord. He makes no exception to his Law; it is enforced without pity or discrimination. Young or old, rich or poor — none are safe, regardless of identity, or even species.

Sometimes, Murphy appears to take great glee in smacking down anyone or anything that gets cocky.

Thus it was that, as a young dragon-in-human-guise and his centaur damsel approached a certain gamekeeper's hut and knocked on its oversized door, a party of centaurs was patrolling the edge of the forest in the same area.

The fact that Bane was among this group of centaurs was, in hindsight, probably inevitable.

After all, no matter who you are, Murphy knows where you live.

1.6.6 The rash actions of a concerned father

Catching sight of the Great Wyrm and the young beauty the Clan had sacrificed to it, Celestine signaled to the rest of the patrol group to approach cautiously. Keeping a discreet eye on the Great Wyrm was a standing duty for all warriors of the tribe. While the rest of the party closed in, the Great Wyrm dismounted from the back of his prize, knocked on the gamekeeper's door, and was answered promptly by the large man inside.

As one of the finest warriors the Clan could boast, Bane was posted on the side of the patrol deeper into the forest in hopes that he would be the first to intercept any of the spider menace that detected the group. When the call came, he was therefore the last to arrive, and he did so just in time to hear the words, "I need help making a harness for Suze."

On hearing those words from an apparently human child and seeing his daughter wearing a saddle, Bane immediately forgot everything Celestine had said about the Great Wyrm's ability to hide his nature. He lost his senses and saw only red.

Seizing up a stout branch to use as a bludgeon, the towering centaur stallion went storming out from the tree-line and charged directly for the wretched human brat that was daring to treat his daughter as some beast of burden! Bad enough that it was forcing his daughter to wear a saddle, now it was trying to hitch her to a cart? He'd show that little bastard who not to mess with!

As he bore down on them, he barely noticed the human brat going "HEY!" or his daughter's strangled gasp of horrified surprise and frantic warding gestures when he abruptly found himself no longer looming over a small human brat.

Instead, he was nose-to-nose with the largest, scaliest, and most unutterably dangerous-looking creature he had ever seen in his life, and the frantic warnings Celestine had been yelling registered far too late. All of a sudden, he was no longer holding the cudgel, rather he was skidding along the forest floor with his ears ringing and thoroughly unable to determine a great many very important things, like what day it was, which planets were ascendant, or which way might possibly be up.

Peeling himself off the ground, Bane found himself once again nose-to-nose with the hot end of the Great Wyrm —

And it was inhaling very, very deeply.

It was then that he heard his daughter yell, "Please don't kill him!" and the Great Wyrm paused.

"...oh, um, well, he kinda jumped out and tried to get me — are you sure he isn't some kind of knight?" it said.

Odd, it sounded like some sort of… colt?

"Well, he wasn't one of those the last time I saw him." Suze told the Great Wyrm, coming up to stand beside him. She still had that demeaning human-made thing on her back, but oddly, she didn't seem to feel terribly demeaned.

"Are you sure? I mean, I still haven't figured out what knights smell like, but from the descriptions of them, they've gotta smell like armpits and horse, and he fits that pretty well. Since all those books are so wrong about dragons, I thought they might be wrong about what knights look like, too." An utterly massive eye peered at him from a distance far too small for comfort. "You're not a knight, are you?"

"No!" Bane declared. He resolved to cease his attempts to stand up until everything stopped spinning.

"Oh! Then you're just a big bully." The Great Wyrm's eyes narrowed. "Well, if you try to pick on my damsel I'll sit on you until you wee yourself!"

"Harry…" Suze said, "This is my father."

"…oh." The Great Wyrm glanced between the two of them several times. "Are you sure? I mean, I've heard dads and their kids are supposed to look at least a little like each other. I mean Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. And you don't look anything like this big meanie."

"She looks like her mother." Bane said. The world was starting to settle down, and his head no longer felt quite so much like it was packed in wool.

"Please be quiet, Father. You've already done enough damage for today." When had Suze become so outspoken?

"Damage?" Bane asked, blankly. "The only one damaged is I!"

"Father!"

"Well, it's not my fault you came at me with some big hitting stick like some kind of knight or something! I thought you were trying to slay me!" The Great Wyrm snapped, sounding oddly defensive.

"You are the one who treats my daughter as some kind of common riding beast!" Bane countered.

"Father! Be silent!"

"It's fun and she says she thinks so too!"

"You disrespectful…" Bane bellowed, once again attempting to stagger to his feet when he cut short and froze when Suze slapped him.

His daughter had been gentle and kindly since her first steps. She'd never raised her voice, much less her hand, to anyone before. The slap left him sitting, wide-eyed, on the grass with his jaw slack.

"Father, the Great Wyrm is one hand and four summers old. He is a child, Father, and I will not stand for you to raise your voice to him for a child's games."

Bane opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to process this shift in his reality.

"…we had thought that he would eat you," he said, utterly befuddled. "When will he return you to us?"

"It's not my fault you're a poo-poo head!" the Great Wyrm declared, leveling a truly fearsome glare at Bane, despite the childish vocabulary. "And it's not my fault you don't know anything about dragons! I don't eat anything that politely asks me not to eat them, and I never will! And you gave her to me anyway, and I don't see why I should give her back just because you were being wrong and silly! And you obviously didn't care about her anyway if you gave her away even thinking she was going to get eated! That's not very nice at all!"

Bane drew a breath, eyes bulging, as he prepared to explode into another vitriolic rant about this insinuation that he didn't care for his daughter's welfare, when he was cut off by an unexpected interruption.

As the Great Wyrm's heated tirade was starting to spew smoke alongside the childish outrage, Magorian, who had been retrieved at a dead run by one of the more level-headed centaur warriors as soon as Bane started his ill-considered charge, stepped in. "This is neither the place nor the time, son," the elderly centaur growled, highly disappointed in his heir's judgement at the moment. The hotheaded brat had almost gotten them wiped out by a Great Wyrm, one that was at least willing to pretend to be friendly, at that!

Bane nodded, grudgingly submitting to his father's command. He still glared at the Great Wyrm, though.

"I apologize for my son's actions; he often acts without thinking." Magorian apologized to the Great Wyrm after shooting another withering look at his eldest.

The Great Wyrm didn't reply to that, still glaring at Bane while slightly smoking, so Magorian continued speaking.

"We meant no offence by our actions; the ancient auguries foretold of a time when the Great Wyrms, such as yourself, would return to this world, bringing with them the eldest of magics. Perhaps the timing of the prophecy was in error, for they predicted your coming to occur some four hands' worth of winters hence at the shortest night. The ancients foretold that the Great Wyrm would have a terrible hunger for the flesh of maidens, thus, when we sighted you dwelling on the fringes of our lands, we feared you might perchance have come to destroy us."

Something in his speech had finally torn the Great Wyrm's attention away from his idiot son. It looked like he might not have his effort in raising the boy go to waste just yet.

"…I guess that's another story that doesn't get it right about dragons," the Great One said, sounding mightily perplexed. "And, um, they might have gotten the magic thing backwards because I became a dragon last year at midsummer when the moon just came up, and those ley-line thingies went all glowy when that happened."

"Hmm, we must look to the stars to discern the meanings of these omens."

"Father, why are you…" It seemed he might have spoken too soon about not wasting his effort.

"Bane, we gifted her to the Great Wyrm to do with as he pleased, for better or for worse. Let it rest; what is done cannot be undone. Instead, be grateful that we were mistaken about his intentions toward your daughter and rejoice that she still lives." The centaur chieftain sighed, "If we were in error about that omen, what other misinterpretations might we encounter?"

"That, I cannot say," Bane admitted, before glaring again at the Great Wyrm, this time with his best father-glower, the one he reserved for lusty young stallions that came sniffing about his daughters. "Just do not dare mistreat her, Wyrm, or I swear on my life there will be a reckoning!"

"Okay." The Great Wyrm sounded not at all perturbed by the threat. "And don't you go picking on her neither, or I'll sit on your head!"

"Peace, Great One, peace." Magorian said, and Bane was quite frankly astonished when the Great Wyrm reacted like any colt would have to a warning word from the great centaur chieftain.

"…sorry. He, um, he just kinda made me cross."

"He will atone," Magorian assured, shooting a commanding look at his eldest son. "And naught more will be spoken of Suze dwelling within your lair."

At the Great Wyrm's puzzled look, Suze spoke up. "Chief Magorian means that I will stay with you, Harry, no matter what my father might think on the subject."

Its eyes lit with understanding. "Oh! Well, it isn't like anyone could make me send you away," it declared. "You're really nice and I'd miss you if you weren't here."

"I… thank you, Great One," she said while blushing prettily. Not that Bane was in any state to notice, he was still boggling at how very obvious it was, in hindsight, that the Great Wyrm was still just a child.

"Great One, would you object if we were to return to our holdings near your lair?" Magorian voiced the question. The Clan had lost another three to the spiders in the past month, and remote possibility or not, this was perhaps their best chance to avoid losing more. "Our current lodgings are frightfully close to the spider plague, and the hunting is poor there."

"Well, since you were there before me, it wouldn't be very fair if I tried to make you go away," the Great Wyrm said, thoughtfully. "And I won't eat neighbors, that would be rude, and Mrs. McGonagall says that you shouldn't be rude, because being polite doesn't cost none and it makes everyone's day better."

"Wise words, Great One."

"And if you've got neighbors who aren't poo-poo heads," At this it shot a pointed glare at Magorian's eldest son, "it's a very good thing, because then they might be friends, and friends are the best thing ever, apart from treasures and damsels, because you need those to be a proper dragon!" A thoughtful look crossed its massive face. "Maybe friends are another kind of treasure? That would make sense. And… I guess it'd be nice to have more people to talk with; my friends at the castle are real busy so much of the time…"

Was this daunting behemoth in fact merely a lonely child?

1.6.7 When Spiders Attack

Scant hours after the nearly-disastrous encounter with the Great Wyrm of the Black Woods, the centaurs returned to their Grand Encampment, packed with the practiced efficiency of a race that had been universally nomadic for longer than written history, and set out for their campsite between the river and the Grey Cliffs, not far from the Great One's lair. Chief Magorian was not one to waste time when the lives of his people were on the line; with the spider plague, this meant that he scarcely remembered what the word 'leisurely' meant, at that point.

"Father, are you certain this is wise?" Bane asked. He and his best warriors were now escorting the bulk of their people in hopes of fending off spider attacks even as they walked toward the lair of the Great Wyrm, a place that not even eight hours ago had been believed to hold an even more certain death than the spiders. It was not a situation he relished.

"Nay. I am not certain, Son, but what choice have we?" his father asked in return. "It was merely a matter of time before the spider plague discovered our encampment so close to their nest, and we do not have the strength of arms to fight them from such a poor defensive position. All would have been lost!"

Bane sighed and nodded. The camp near the cliffs was a supremely defensible position, situated on a spur of land between the river and the loch, it left only a single approach, for the spiders could not swim because of their size. It was defensible from all approaches except the air, which was why they had been forced to flee at the Great Wyrm's appearance.

The Black Woods Clan had been caught between a rock and a hard place, but now it seemed the rock was a little friendlier than they had believed. They could only hope that the seeming was true.

If the mighty wyrm had hungered for the flavor of centaur flesh, then surely Suze would have been devoured long ago? Or was this some scheme to ensure a ready supply of such delicacies?

Just as Bane was thinking that, the other terror of the Black Woods descended on them in a wall of chittering chitinous, far-too-many-legged death. Just before they could reach their hope of safety, the one thing the Clan had dreaded for months had occurred; the spider plague had found them, and it found them on the march when their defenses were nearly nonexistent.

In a flash, half his warriors were struck down, paralyzed with venom and bound with silk. If the menace could be fought off, they could be saved, the venom acted slowly enough to be treatable, though recovery would be long, but the situation looked bleak, a pitifully small group of brave centaur warriors arrayed against a seemingly-endless sea of chitin and waving limbs.

"YOU LEAVE MY DAMSEL'S DADDY ALONE, YOU BIG CREEPY MEANIES!"

Following that unexpected bellow, a thunderous jet of blue-white fire exploded across the clearing, striking the largest spider, one more than thrice the size of a centaur, dead on and turning it to vapor between one instant and the next. Nothing was left but the stench of burning hair and embers floating in the wind.

"AND HER GRANDPA TOO!"

Bane's eyes threatened to burst from their sockets as the Great Wyrm barreled into the fray with all the grace and power of a living landslip, that is to say with no grace at all and with absurdly overwhelming power. It slammed another of the spider plague from its web with a single blow from its mighty forepaw, splattering the nightmarish creature against a tree trunk with a wet crunch. The impact was energetic enough to splash Bane with arachnid viscera from four lengths away.

He had been fortunate indeed, it seemed, to survive a blow from those talons.

"AND HER FRIENDS!"

Another blast of that shattering flame issued from the Great Wyrm's maw, and Bane would, ever after, swear he had seen rings of greater intensity rippling through the jet of beautifully deadly fire…

…and then, suddenly, the spider plague was fleeing. His daughter's captor had saved the Clan from certain doom…

"Mmm, tastes like scrunchy chicken in diesel, yummy!"

…and was now eating the fallen instruments of said doom with all evidence of relish.

Bane had to chuckle at the irony, the plague that had hunted them for so long was now prey for their new ally.

Perhaps Great Wyrms weren't so bad, after all.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.7 In which Harry gets to know the neighbors

---

1.7.1 Campfire stories

The trailing bits of summer rapidly faded to autumn, the change of seasons bringing with it yet more rain and copious piles of dead leaves to jump in. Students returned to Hogwarts with the start of term, leading to less company from Harry's friends at the castle. Fortunately, Harry had new friends in the form of his centaur neighbors with whom to keep company.

Despite their new ally breaking the spider plague, and with it the bulk of the restrictions on their movements, the Grand Encampment remained on the headland below Harry's Lair for the winter, the glow of cooking fires and the whiff of wood smoke providing a pleasant, homely touch to the glen below. By the time winter solstice rolled around, the Clan had almost gotten used to the comings and goings of the Great Wyrm, whether in the cute-but-hyper small human-looking colt shape or as dozens of tons of slightly unnerving scales and muscle.

In his human-looking shape, he was as agile as a mountain goat; in his true shape, he was like a gale and a landslip and a river in full spate all rolled into one. In both, he was cheerful, usually excited, playful, enthusiastic, helpful, full of questions, completely fearless, and energetic to a degree that rapidly exhausted anyone of more than a hand of hands' worth of summers, yet he was always almost exaggeratedly careful that no one got hurt.

He'd swiftly taken to listening in with evident interest when the elders taught the Clan's children, joining in outright when they lost the last vestiges of nervousness around him — predictably somewhat in advance of their elders. He also joined in with the children's games or inviting them to join him in his. The language of childhood play proved to be universal whether it took the form of various games of chase, in which Harry was declared to have an unfair advantage on account of being able to climb trees, or various derivatives along the lines of Cops-and-Robbers, Cowboys-and-Indians, Playing Soldiers, or whatever local variant is appropriate in any given time period, but essentially boils down to running about brandishing make-believe weapons and declaring "Pow, pow, you're dead!", "No, I'm not!", "Yes, you are!", and so on and so forth.

The Great Wyrm had introduced the "Cowboys and Indians" and "Playing Soldiers" variants to the Clan youngsters, and with them had come the horrors of cap guns and sucking-cup arrows acquired by said Wyrm from the toy shop in the local wandless human town of Mallaig. Despite the near-universal adult exasperation with the results of this parting from tradition, Bane couldn't find it within himself to be angry for long. After all, it had now been a full season since the Black Woods Clan had last lost a warrior to the spider plague, and it was the Great Wyrm's enthusiastic friendship which made that miracle possible. Seeing his friends and family come home safely from each patrol was well worth any quantity of stray suction-cup arrows and inordinately loud play from the children.

It had been a full season since the spiders had even tested their defenses, and that had been the full-scale assault which the Great Wyrm had so handily crushed before gorging itself on the corpses of the fell beasts.

He wasn't really sure when standing here, on the bluff that offered a clear view of the only approach to the current location of the Grand Encampment, had changed from a matter of tense sentry duty to a matter of form, but he was certain that they had the Great Wyrm to thank for it, when he taught the spider menace the true meaning of fear. The thought brought a grimly satisfied smile to Bane's face. Everyone in the Clan had lost siblings to the spider plague. His own father had once counted ten strong warriors as his sons, of whom only Bane and two of his brothers remained.

It seemed shameful that the changing times could perhaps be a good thing, but Bane had never been one to shy away from the truth, at least, not from truths hammered into him as thoroughly as this one was. He winced at the disjointed memory of skidding across the clearing in front of the gamekeeper's hut like a flat stone skipping across a lake before shaking off the memory.

As Bane returned to the formality of sentry duty, he steadfastly pretended to ignore the way most of the children in the Clan were snoozing in a played-to-exhaustion heap piled up against the young Great One, who looked to be in a similar state, the heat of his immense bulk fending off the chill of the highland winter from his much smaller playmates. When it came down to it, those children were in perhaps the safest place they would ever know, for Bane had no doubt that were something to harm even one of its playmates, the Great Wyrm's wrath would be terrible to behold. It was truly a mighty protector.

In the end, it mattered not. The Black Woods Clan owed the Great Wyrm a debt of gratitude, of blood unspilt, which would guarantee its welcome among them until the stars grew old and dim. He let his gaze stray to those stars for a moment, examining their positions behind the scudding clouds, trying to discern what futures they might foretell.

"Venus is bright this eve." That was his younger brother, Firenze.

"But Mars is rising," Bane said, "and the North Star shines strong."

"I will stand watch the rest of this evening, brother," Firenze told him. "You have stood far too many of late. Go and partake of some of the warmth by the fire."

Sighing, Bane rose, giving his little brother a companionable clout on the shoulder, and jogged off toward home, Wyrm, strong drink, good cheer, and strange portents of things to come.

Despite its appearance from a distance, he noted the Wyrm was, in actuality, wide-awake and listening raptly as Magorian told the eldest saga of them all; the tale of the birth into bondage of the centaurs, of Alpharias He-Who-Is-First-Among-Brothers, of the War of Gold and Ivory, of the patronage of the Darkened Mountain, of the fading of the Great Ones, of the disappearance of the Sun Elves, and of the once unfamiliar taste of freedom. It was told once per year, on the Solstice, yet all knew it by heart.

He accepted a stein of mead from a comely lass — one of his nieces, Firenze's eldest — and settled himself close to the Great Wyrm as Magorian drew to a close.

"Thus it was, and thus it shall be, until the lines awaken and the skies burn with blue fire when the Great Ones return to our world," the old centaur finished.

"These times are upon us, are they not?" Ronan asked.

"Perhaps," Magorian nodded. "I believe so. When summer comes, our clan shall host the Great Conclave, and we shall see."

"It is indeed an interesting time to be alive." Ronan said.

"Our kin from the farthest east would tell you that living in such times is a curse," Bane remarked.

"Yet does joy not hold the root of sorrow and sorrow the root of joy?" Celestine asked.

"Perhaps." Bane allowed.

"Then perhaps a blessing might hold the root of a curse, and the curse hold the root of a blessing." Celestine pushed.

Ronan scoffed, "Our Eastern kin look too closely at their navels."

"Perhaps, instead, they pay too little attention to the stars," Bane offered.

"Bane may have a point," Magorian said. "Mars has shone strongly these past few nights, but Venus grants us her light by evening, and the North Star is strong."

"That means that a time of lots of strife is coming, and there's humans involved, but there's hope in it, doesn't it, Mr. Magorian?" the Great Wyrm asked.

Magorian chuckled. "You have listened well to the Elders, young Great One. Aye, that would seem to be what is to come. I cannot say with certainty as we have not had a truly clear night in half a season."

"Maybe when me and Suze get her harness worked out, we can make another one for you, and I can take you up above the clouds, so you can see?" the Great Wyrm offered.

What was this? Bane hadn't heard anything of a harness for his… oh.

"You mean, the harness you were asking about when we first met was one to allow you to carry my daughter safely, so you could take her flying?" Bane confirmed.

The Great Wyrm nodded, enthusiastically. "Yep! Well, it started out as a way to let me carry her when we played horsie, 'cause playing's not so fun unless everyone gets a proper turn, but Mr. Hagrid managed to build it strong enough for flying too! We're still trying to get the straps right, though, so Suze don't hurt herself if I have a bumpy landing. Mr. Hagrid had examples to work from, but they were made for humans; centaurs are way harder to keep safe while you're carrying 'em."

Well, Bane certainly felt like an ass, now.

His humiliating defeat at the hands of the Great Wyrm came not in a valiant but futile attempt to defend his daughter's dignity, but rather because he objected to the Great One trying to keep his daughter safe during their play. He might need to work on looking before he charged into things in the future. His father's sidelong, knowing look reinforced that notion, much to Bane's embarrassment.

"Enough of this heavy talk, Father." Stars, shine good fortune down on Ronan for his obliviousness! "This is the longest night, let us warm it!"

"I concur, we have all been too solemn of late." Celestine agreed.

"Then let the revel commence!" The chieftain said, smiling in approval.

1.7.2 Christmas at Hogwarts

Following hard behind the longest night, Christmas had been the most wonderful Christmas Harry could remember. Not that he had many to compare it to, really. The previous year's holiday had been during such a chaotic time of transition that it had passed him by almost unnoticed, and before his transformation, the ones at the Dursleys' weren't really worth mentioning from Harry's perspective.

This year, though, had been amazing! Apparently, all his friends at the castle had been busy with the kids who couldn't go home for Christmas until they had gone to bed, but then they'd all met at Hagrid's house for a very special private Christmas.

His friends had gotten him tons of gifts, but he wasn't sure exactly how many. Present counting had been right out, as Harry still didn't want to be Dudley-ish.

He'd mostly got treasure for Christmas, and he'd been really glad for Mrs. McGonagall's help with picking gifts for his friends. He thought it was really neat how Mr. Snape struggled not to look delighted with the flask of big-spider poison; Harry couldn't blame him; the stuff was delicious! Mr. Dumbledore was the same way with all those sweets he had ordered from that one kid he met in the toy store at Mallaig who'd been selling them for something at his school.

There hadn't been many of his centaur friends who'd come, just Suze really, but that was okay. He understood that most of the centaurs didn't get on too well with glowy people on account of all the stuff Mr. Magorian had said poems about at the Solstice celebration, and that was fair enough because it sounded like the glowy people's ancestors had been really mean to centaurs.

Why would anyone want to do that, though? Centaurs were cool.

Harry relaxed in his Lair with Suze by the new Rayburn, a black and white fireplace-cooker thingy that Mrs. McGonagall had gotten for him which was nice and warm with a wood fire that smelled really nice, even if the smoke vented out through a really long pipe through the mouth of the Lair. Suze really liked it too, 'cause she didn't like the smoke so much from cooking inside before.

Mr. Flitwick had given him a dragon-size bed that fit in with his hoard, which was really nice of him! It was comfy, but he wasn't sure how long it would last. Harry could see whatever it was Mr. Flitwick did to make it strong enough to hold him, and it flickered every time he sat on the bed. He'd just have to enjoy it while it lasted! It was a really nice thing to do after all.

Glowy people were cool and so were centaurs, but dragons were definitely the coolest!

His life had gotten so much better since he turned into a dragon. He had friends and treasure and a damsel and a home. And he could defend himself; his centaur damsel had said that before centaurs were afraid of the big-spiders because big-spiders ate centaurs, but because Harry was a dragon he could eat the big-spiders instead, and they tasted yummy!

As he listened to the quiet duet of the crackling fire in the Rayburn and the shallow breathing of Suze dozing next to him, he idly picked a piece of something out from between his teeth. He wasn't sure what it was, but it smelled kind of like that huge tasty roast that Hagrid found, and the little floppy-eared squeaky people Mr. Snape called house-elves had cooked. It had gotten tangled up with some of the little colorful wires that ran all through the Toyota he ate earlier. Harry sighed, the brightly colored parts of those melted off fast, but the copper bits took a little longer, and in the meantime, they got wrapped around everything! Tasty though, and when mixed up with some prime beef, it made for just the thing for a before-bedtime snack.

He had to admit he felt kinda sorry for other people who weren't dragons. They'd never know how yummy a Toyota was since their teeth couldn't get through it.

This was definitely life the way it should be lived. He'd spent the day celebrating with friends, had plenty to eat, and now he was relaxing by the fire on a cold winter evening. He could do with a bigger lair, but that was easy because he just needed to bite off the right bits of rock. He could do with more treasures, but he just needed to find the right rainbows. He could do with more damsels, but he figured they'd come in their own good time.

For now, relaxing on his hoard, his centaur damsel cuddled into his side, her hair glinting in the orangey light from the Rayburn in his now toasty-warm Lair, at the top of a few hundred feet of cliff face to keep knights out, and belly full of good food, Harry was a very contented dragon, indeed.

1.7.3 Harry learns a new trick

The Solstice celebration was a scant few hands of days gone and was still warming the hearts of the Clan when Bane found himself once again on watch. As usual these days, he was using it mostly as an excuse to study the sky.

Venus was subsuming herself in the light of the moon when the Great Wyrm landed nearby.

"Hello, Mr. Bane," it said as it seated itself beside him.

"Well met, Great One." He couldn't go allowing the young ones, whatever their kin, to go without learning proper manners.

"Watcha looking at?"

"Venus hides in the light of Selene. It is a conjunction seldom seen, and its meaning is thus far hidden."

"Oh," the Wyrm looked wistful. "You know, I'd really like to go there someday, but I'm not sure I could fly high enough."

"…pardon?"

"To the moon." The Great Wyrm said this absently, as if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to have said. "The not-glowy-people flew rockets to the moon. They had to wear these big, puffy white things so they wouldn't go squish because there's no air up there, and they called going there 'Apollo'."

"A fitting name," Bane breathed in wonder. He was astonished that the wandless humans would have the respect and good sense to give such a portentous title to the grand endeavor that traveling to the moon must have been.

"Yeah, I think it's kinda cool that they give such good names to space missions."

"Indeed, travel such as you speak of must have been a grand undertaking and it bodes well to give it a title of such strength." Bane's imagination was caught by the idea as he gazed up at the moon in question. "What sort of conveyance could do such a thing?"

"The rocket ship they used was called the Saturn Five, and it was a bit more than twice as tall as the towers on the castle. I looked it up because it was neat to think of something that was still so much bigger than me flying. Rockets are really cool!"

Bane had trouble imagining an object of that scale which was designed to move at all, much less fly into the heavens. As he struggled to imagine it, the Great One had already continued.

"But I think the best part of it had to be looking down and seeing all the world laid out like a treasure in the sky."

"I cannot begin to imagine what it must have looked like…" Bane admitted. "What brings you here this night?"

"There's something I wanted to show you," the Great Wyrm said.

"And what might that be?"

"This."

The Great Wyrm's form flowed as swiftly as ever; Bane was long used to seeing it by now, as the Great Wyrm was wont to pop between forms as the mood took it. This was the first time, though, he had seen it take a form other than its own or its human guise.

Standing near the edge of the bluff was a centaur colt, looking to be perhaps one hand and three summers of age, with features like those the Great Wyrm wore when wearing the shape of a human.

"…remarkable," Bane said.

"Um, you ain't gonna be angry right?"

"Of course not."

"…well, Mr. Snape kinda thought you might get a bit, um, annoyed…"

"Your choosing the form of a centaur merely assures me that the ancient stories are correct, and that Great Wyrms are truly wise beings."

"Huh? I'm not sure I get it."

"Don't worry yourself about it, lad." Bane winced at how the Great Wyrm's new form had affected him. It wouldn't do to let his manners slip, even if the lad was unlikely to care.

"Okay. It's only the second form I've tried, and I wanted to show it to you." He nodded, "I'm not sure what I'm going to try next…"

Bane nodded, before volunteering, "Your friends shall soon be done with their lessons; perhaps they might wish to play?"

"Oh yeah, it's that time, isn't it? Bye, Mr. Bane!"

Bane chuckled; it seemed children would be children, regardless of what form they wore.

1.7.4 Springtime interlude

With Christmas but a fond memory, the rest of winter passed in an odd juxtaposition of icy weather and warm companionship. The threat of the spider plague was no more as Harry had hunted them quite heavily during the winter, and the vicious arachnids were now quite scarce. Harry was idly considering developing a way to farm the things.

The Black Woods Clan wintered below the Lair, and there was always much playing to be done. However, time passed as time always does, and winter melted into spring. With the melting snows and the revel celebrating the spring equinox, the Clan moved on with many thanks and promises to return again as the season allowed, as was their nature.

Now free from the spider threat, Harry's winter neighbors busied themselves with the myriad tasks of spring and summer which spread the Clan throughout the Woods and made visiting them a much more occasional activity for the young dragon.

With his professor friends busy with the winter term and his centaur friends scattered while foraging in the suddenly much less dangerous forest, Harry found himself with a surfeit of time and no ready-made distractions to fill it. There were always new things to explore, new rooms to excavate in his Lair, new rainbow-ends to search for treasure, and his damsel was always good company, particularly with the completion of the harness Hagrid had been working on.

Even so, Harry was quite glad for the diversion of Mr. Snape's arrival at the Lair in early May carrying a puzzling message from a Mr. Slackhammer 'cordially inviting' Harry and Snape to attend a meeting at Gringotts Merchant Bank in Diagon Alley, London, to discuss greatly important matters of business that might prove 'most lucrative'.

Once Harry learned that 'cordially' meant 'in a friendly manner' and 'lucrative' meant 'profitable', he was quite enthusiastic about attending, as he figured that it would probably involve new friends and treasure.

Snape's exasperated offer to buy him a dictionary proved his current meeting to be most lucrative, as well.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.8 Business ventures and broken trust

---

1.8.1 In Which an Industrial Giant takes its first steps

It was a rare sunny day in early springtime, and Harry, currently in his human-looking shape, hurried to keep up with Mr. Snape's longer strides as they walked through Diagon Alley towards the broad steps of the grand building called Gringotts. Harry wasn't sure why he needed to be in human form, or why he couldn't bring Suze, or why Mr. Snape insisted he wear a headband, but Mr. Snape rarely yelled about things that weren't important. It wasn't like it was a major hardship for Harry. The form might be a little cramped, but hands were handy, and Suze hadn't wanted to come anyway.

The building was all done up in white and gold, occupying a prominent corner in the heart of the busiest wizarding shopping district in all of magical Britain with a grand set up steps leading up to the main entrance, though Harry noted that lot opposite those grand steps was oddly empty. The main entrance at the top of those broad steps was flanked by columns and a pair of what Mr. Snape called goblins dressed in highly visible, very colorful uniforms and armed with big spear-axe-thingies that Harry would later learn were called halberds.

He was understandably surprised when they saluted him.

"Hi," he said. Mr. Snape had told him before they came that it was very important to be polite to goblins, but they didn't reply, just standing there all silent and guard-like. They reminded Harry of those soldiers in the red jackets and tall, fuzzy hats outside the Queen's palace in London, except they were, you know, goblin-shaped rather than human-shaped. Uncle Vernon had always made sure to point them out whenever they passed the area, and he had always seemed very impressed.

"Leave them be, young man," Snape admonished. "They are soldiers and they have a duty to fulfill."

The resplendently uniformed pair of guards remained stoically at attention; they didn't so much as blink. It was kind of impressive how still they could stand.

Inside the bank, Harry and Mister Snape joined a queue, and as Harry soaked in the appearance of the bank lobby, he figured goblins had the right idea. There was gold everywhere. There were even glittery bits mixed in, taking the form of massive crystal chandeliers and glass-encased lamps and candles.

Harry did wonder why they put everything on the walls rather than in a proper hoard, though.

Harry could recognize Mr. Snape's look as one of surprise when, rather than waiting for the queue to move along, they were approached by a well-dressed goblin in a three-piece suit who, once having confirmed that he was speaking to Severus Snape and Harry Potter, ushered them into a hallway off to the side of the big room where various goblins were doing bank-type stuff for various glowy people.

The room they were eventually shown into was a comfortably-appointed office with a big desk in the middle covered with important-looking paperwork. There were several chairs sitting across from the desk around a small table, and various shelves and filing cabinets lined the walls. All in all, it looked much like any executive-level office in a major company, albeit one from the previous century, done up in dark woods, green glass, leather, and brass while lit via gas lamp. The only major differences were the combined gun rack and ammunition locker on one wall and the office's occupant.

Behind that impressive looking desk sat a rather portly goblin dressed like an old-fashioned gentleman complete with collared shirt, necktie, and vest; the outfit would normally be completed by a tail-coat and stovepipe hat, both of which were adorning the coat rack just inside the office door. On looking up and seeing his guests, the well-dressed goblin immediately stood.

"Your guests, Mr. Slackhammer," their sharply-dressed escort introduced them.

"Aha! Mr. Snape, Mr. Potter, come in, do."

"Thank you, mister…" Mr. Snape prompted.

"Slackhammer, Crackjaw Slackhammer." The rotund goblin introduced himself. "Before we begin, may I offer you congratulations on behalf of the Brethren, Mr. Potter, on your most singular achievement of transforming into a Great Wyrm?" He respectfully inclined his head, "We were most impressed when the news was passed to us by our mutual acquaintance, Master Flitwick."

When Harry smiled and nodded proudly, the dapper goblin continued, "Take a seat then, gentlemen; there is much to discuss."

"Indeed?" Mr. Snape asked, "And what, might I enquire, would this business entail?"

"Ah, Severus — do you object to my usage of your given name?" At Snape's negative reply, Slackhammer continued with a somewhat shark-like grin, "It seems that your formula for the materials used for high-temperature cauldrons, based, no doubt, on Mr. Potter's quite remarkable interior, has fallen into the hands of the muggles."

"Oh dear," Mr. Snape said.

"Am I in trouble?" Harry asked.

"Yes, most unfortunate." Slackhammer agreed with a small, commiserating nod. "It seems that a group of colonial muggles going by the term 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration' have expressed quite the interest in your formula, Severus my dear fellow."

"And what kind of interest might that be?" Mr. Snape asked.

"What Mr. Snape said," Harry agreed, nodding.

"It appears that the muggles have contrived a method for catapulting an object so far up that there is no more air, and things forget which way is down. I understand that it involves placing the object on top of a very large pile of explosive materials and setting it off."

"You mean, like spacemen and moon-rockets and stuff?" Harry asked.

"Precisely. I am, of course, speaking of spaceflight." The goblin tilted his head to the Great Wyrm. "And it transpires that when things are dropped from such a prodigious height, they become quite astoundingly hot."

"…and thus, they must be protected from that heat, correct?" Mr. Snape checked, obviously starting to get the idea. "Otherwise they would burn to a flinder."

"Indeed, Severus, indeed," Slackhammer confirmed with a nod. "It appears that their finest exo-atmospheric vehicles have to date used a silicate material for this purpose. The material performs quite well under heat, but it is quite brittle and fragile under impact or vibration and must be replaced frequently. It is also quite startlingly expensive."

From what Mr. Snape had said, if a goblin said something was 'startlingly expensive' then it must really cost a pile.

"So, stuff made how Mr. Snape copied my guts is cheaper?" Harry asked.

"These muggle space-men believe that coating their vehicles in Mr. Snape's formula," Slackhammer elaborated, "based on your internal workings, Mr. Potter, would reduce the costs per launch of their exo-atmospheric vehicles by a substantial margin. They would gladly pay for the honor of utilizing a copy of your entrails to coat their vehicles, and pay to the tune of a thousand Galleons per hundredweight used. I am given to understand that the material in question will prolong the life of their current 'orbiters' by at least a decade and quite possibly hasten the development of improved successor vehicles which they are, in fact, designing around the material in question."

"So they want to use a copy of my tummy to coat spaceships, huh?" Harry asked, gob-smacked. "Wow, that's wicked!"

"I propose the three of us become business partners within this, ah, endeavor, shall we say?" Snape ventured. "To me, it falls to uncover further improvements upon this substance and others, to Mr. Potter it falls to inspire new improvements through his remarkable biology, and to you, Mr. Slackhammer, falls the distribution and production financing of these remarkably profitable materials. I suppose we should split the profits three ways, eh Mr. Slackhammer?"

"I'm good with that," Harry nodded agreeably, visions of great, gleaming stacks of gold and treasure filling his mind's eye. He almost expected there to be an audible ka-ching cash register noise, as he remembered from one of the TV programs Dudley used to watch that there were tons of just paint on a space rocket.

Slackhammer's grin got even broader.

"It seems to me, gentlemen," the dapper goblin remarked, "that everyone within this room is about to become quite startlingly wealthy."

1.8.2 An Odd encounter

It was about two weeks after the meeting with Mr. Slackhammer, and Harry was passing the time with his damsel enjoying the early-morning sunshine on the bluff opposite the Lair when Suze's eyes narrowed, and her gaze fell on something on another escarpment to the north.

"What's wrong, Suze?" Harry asked when he noticed her shift in attention.

"I think I see something on the other bluff," she pointed it out with a frown. "It looks like there's someone there, and he seems to be watching us."

Harry took a look in that direction and saw. "Well," he said matter-of-factly as he hauled himself up from his reclining position, "I guess I'll have to go make sure it's not a knight, then. Be back in a mo'."

With that said, he threw himself into the air and made a direct line for the cliffs in question, part of the formation that wrapped around behind the isolated butte that contained the Lair.

As it turned out, there was a man up there, and he had apparently been there for some time, judging from the tent and associated campsite. The man had one squinty eye that seemed to be looking at his nose while the other one looked normal, scraggly white hair with a receding hairline, and he was wearing the most absurdly bright overcoat Harry had ever seen, a major accomplishment for Harry who routinely associated with the likes of Albus Dumbledore.

"Oh dear!" the man declared as the bus-sized dragon he had been observing dropped down right in front of him, eyeing him with an eyeball significantly larger than his head.

"Hi, what are you doing up here?" Harry asked brightly before his voice shifted to a suspicious tone. "You're not a knight, are you?"

"Oh, heavens, a talking dragon! How remarkable!" the scraggly-haired man exclaimed. "In answer to your question, I find myself in these hills in pursuit of the species Haggii scotia trundulus, the Three-Toed Mountain Haggis, quite a delicious species in fact, and no, I am not a knight, I'm a zoologist. Er, um, you're not intending to devour me, I hope?"

"No, I don't devour anyone that politely asks me not to devour them."

"Oh, well, that's a relief, and I'd be much obliged if you would refrain from devouring me, please?" The man continued, "I say, are you by any chance a member of the species Draconis majoris tricornae, popularly known as the Three-Horned Hammer-nosed dragon?"

"Well, I'm not sure. Y'know, I've been trying to figure out what sort of dragon I am for absolutely ages — um, what do Three-Horned Hammer-Nosed Dragons eat? 'Cause I'm the only dragon I know of that likes the taste of Toyotas."

"I cannot say for certain," the man replied, "for you see, no one has ever seen a living example of the Three-Horned Hammer-Nosed Dragon, and its dietary habits are therefore still unknown. We only know of them from a single fossilized skull, and I must say, their cranial structure bears a marked resemblance to your own; the layout of your horns and the structures around your eye sockets are quite distinctive. I have no idea how in the world fossilization managed to transform a skull into orichalcum, but that's quite beside the point."

"Orichalcum, huh? Hey, I think maybe I'm that sort of dragon," Harry was positively delighted, "because that's what my bones are made of!"

"Remarkable, remarkable," the man muttered while scribbling furiously in his notebook. "Perhaps your species has some relationship to the drake dog, a member of the same phyla? I say, would you mind if I asked you a few questions about your eating habits, behavioral tendencies, preferred habitat, that sort of thing? Just out of professional curiosity, you see; I confess to having been quite fascinated by the examination of the skull of an apparent member of your species reported in the Journal of Cryptozoological Studies some years ago."

"Well, me being here is sort of a secret, so only if you promise not to tell anyone where I am or what my name is," Harry said.

"Well, that wouldn't be a problem; as you are a member of a species which can readily be presumed to be endangered, it does of course behoove me to keep the details of your territorial range strictly confidential, and as I cannot say I know your name, it would be very difficult for me to relay it to anyone, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, well, I guess, but just between you and me, my name is Harry Potter," Harry said.

"And I am Xenophillius Lovegood, but everyone seems to refer to me as 'Odd' and I can't say precisely why — are you, perchance, named after the famous Harry Potter? You know, the Boy-Who-Lived? Or is he named for you?"

"Well… I dunno," Harry admitted. "I mean, Mr. Dumbledore seems to think there's something really important about me, and according to The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts someone with the same name and scar as me who was born at the same time as me squished that Voldie-morts guy, and I almost think I'm him, but you know, I thought I got my scar in a car crash."

"Hmm… most intriguing, but, well, according to the on-scene reports, the Boy-Who-Lived is a member of the species Homo sapiens sapiens, popularly known as the human race," Odd said, making another note. "And, well, not to be rude or anything, but how in Merlin's name did you fit in a car? You're larger than most of them! Was it a very stretchy car?"

"Uh, well, no, y'see that was before I turned into a dragon. I used to be human."

"Turned into… Remarkable! That must have been a truly exceptional event, I cannot ever recall mention of a human somehow becoming a dragon of any species, much less one thought to be extinct… Extraordinary! What did it feel like?" Odd enthused, still scribbling rapidly.

"I dunno, I'd banged my head on a rock, and by the time I woke up, I'd finished turning into a dragon, and I was really hungry, so it was hard to notice much else about what it felt like."

"Ah, well that's a shame. It would have been quite fascinating information."

1.8.3 Scoldings

Two hours later, mind all awhirl from the million-and-one questions fired at him by his new acquaintance, Harry came in for a landing back at the closest of the Black Woods Clan summer encampments, where he had tracked Suze to after finding she was no longer on the bluff. They had been intending to visit her family anyway. There he found his centaur damsel waiting, worriedly pacing while checking the angle of the sun.

"Harry! There you are. Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Was that human a knight? Will we have to move?"

"…um, no. He was a zoologist called Odd Lovegood," Harry said, rather taken-aback.

"Oh, thank Selene!" she declared, hugging Harry about the neck — well as much of his neck as she could hug, the whole thing was rather beyond her arm-span. "I was so worried! Don't do that to me again!"

Bane, who'd been lounging in the sun nearby waiting to find out whether they would have to do something to help their ally — as unlikely as that seemed, given his strength — was treated to the rather startling sight of his slender-and-lovely daughter sternly telling off forty tons of dragon while said dragon acted like a colt who'd been caught out late after dusk.

His brain half-melted, the usually-stern centaur beat a hasty retreat.

1.8.4 Breakfast surprises

Two weeks later, picking up the latest issue of his favorite unintentional humor column, The Quibbler, Severus Snape spent several minutes staring blankly at the photograph on the front page before he declared, "Oh hell."

The potions master then beat a hasty retreat to the Headmaster's office to see what could be done, issue jammed firmly into his robe pocket.

1.8.5 Not so severe fallout

"Ah, Severus, what's the rush?" Dumbledore asked, popping a lemon drop as the man burst into his office.

By way of answer, Snape slammed the copy of the Quibbler down on his desk.

The cover photo of the conspiracy-theory-and-weirdness periodical sported a photograph of Harry, in dragon form and wearing one of his attempts at a friendly smile, against a background of heather and rock. Above the image was emblazoned the title 'Interview with a Dragon'.

"…oh dear."

"That is significantly milder than my own reaction, Albus."

"Yes, well, I'm politer than you are," Dumbledore said, leafing through the article to have a quick read.

"Didn't you read it?"

"I came straight here the moment I saw the cover."

"Ah, well, there's no mention of location or Harry's identity; however, the editorial appears to contain hints and speculation that, reading between the lines, gives the game away. And," Dumbledore grimaced, "I must say Odd is quite cunning, for a lunatic; he's arranged it so the last letter of each line in the article about Harry, if read in reverse order, spells out 'This dragon is named Harry Potter; the Boy-Who-Lived is missing. Coincidence? I think not.' It's a shame Odd's so crazy; he'd be brilliant if he were sane."

"Why that…" Snape's rant came to a screeching halt before it even got going. This was Odd Lovegood they were talking about. The man lived and breathed conspiracy theories and rumors — trying to run damage control on this would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Instead, he decided to take a different approach. "It seems it is time for a discussion with the dratted dragon on journalists and why it is prudent to avoid them."

1.8.6 A journalist burns his source

"But he said he's a zoologist, and that means someone who knows lots and lots about all sorts of animals!" Harry complained, sounding a touch defensive.

"Odd Lovegood, you… you…" Snape trailed off in a huff, rapidly shaking his head.

"Harry, some people are… not entirely honest," Dumbledore said, "sad as it is. Odd Lovegood is indeed a zoologist, and that does indeed mean someone who studies living creatures of all kinds, but his income comes from a magazine he publishes, thus he is also a journalist."

"He told you a half-truth, in other words," Snape explained. "That is, he told you the truth, but left out parts so as to lead you to an erroneous conclusion. At least his paper is primarily composed of wild rumors and conspiracy theories, and your name was only mentioned in code. It is unlikely that anyone who could cause problems for us will take the information seriously."

"He said my name?" Harry was troubled. "But he promised he wouldn't do that!"

"As I said, Harry, some people are not entirely honest," Dumbledore repeated, sadly. "In this case, it is unlikely to cause any major problems, but it is always a cause for caution. To be fair, Odd only stated your name in an anagram he worked into the text, so the argument could be made that he kept his word, technically. The man is oddly brilliant in his own peculiar way."

Flitwick, who had been silent to this point alongside his fellow Heads, Minerva and Pomona, spoke up in an attempt to distract Harry from this troubling development. "What was Odd doing up there anyway?"

"He said he was looking for the territory of the three-toed mountain haggis." Harry began, picking up enthusiasm as he remembered that part of the conversation. "What's a haggis? Is it tasty?"

"Och, well," McGonagall said, "the wild haggis is a terribly difficult creature to find; they only come out at night, and they live very high up in the mountains. That's why their legs are longer on one side than the other; it's so they can stay upright when they're running 'round the side of a mountain. To catch a haggis, you have to get it to turn 'round so it loses its balance and rolls down the mountain into a well-placed net."

"Really, Minerva, stop having the poor boy on," Snape complained with a glare.

"…huh?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"A haggis," Snape explained, "is a dish of Scottish origin, prepared from the less-than-appetizing portions of a sheep, mixed with oatmeal and spices and then cooked inside the sheep's stomach lining. The Scottish have all manner of shaggy dog stories to tell in an attempt to confuse the unwitting and English."

"Och, well that's what they want you to think," McGonagall remarked, conspiratorially.

"Drat it! Minerva, can't you see the boy is getting confused?"

"Mrs. McGonagall, can I get a haggis? It sounds tasty!" Whether it was actually some fantastic creature or just a Scottish dish like Mr. Snape said, Harry was game to try one.

"Of course, laddie, I'll arrange ye tha finest haggis in aw Scotland, whi' neeps an' tatties an' aw!" McGonagall told him, positively delighted in this interest in the heritage of the beautiful land he now called home. "It'll be Burns Nicht soon, we'll make a proper nicht o' it!"

"…oh God, why did you have to set her off?" Snape groaned.

"Awa whi' yeh, Sev'rus, yeh wee chewchter."

"Minerva, I am still quite unable to understand a word of your native accent; would you please stick to the Queen's English while speaking to those of us not of Scottish descent?"

"Wassock."

1.8.7 Musings on lies and liars

As it turned out, Mrs. McGonagall had made good on her promise of a haggis by the end of the summer, and it had been a celebration to remember at the Lair, replete with bagpipes, whiskey, poetry readings, and good company under the summer night sky.

The haggis was just as tasty as it sounded, though Harry found it to be very small, indeed. That was normal for human foods, he noted. Fortunately, he had eaten heavily before the celebration, and he was quite satisfied by the time the party wound down and his guests left for the castle.

As the fire in the Rayburn died down to embers and Suze dozed against his side, Harry thought back on the events that led to the evening's celebration — and his conversation with Odd Lovegood.

It had been the young dragon's first encounter with a person who deliberately played him false, and Harry found the encounter left a bad taste in his mouth. The man had seemed so nice, but then he had misled Harry about his profession and broken his promise not to reveal Harry's name to anyone.

Harry knew that the name was only published in a hidden code, but in a way, that made it even worse. He could have almost understood a slip revealing the name accidentally, but taking the time and effort to encode it like that meant that he had to have done it on purpose. The man had lied to him, and that made Harry kind of angry.

Harry sighed, his irritation slipping away with a light puff of smoke. He'd talked about it with Madame Pomphrey before, and while she had been sympathetic, she had also introduced him to something she called 'commensurate response'. So, even though Mr. Lovegood had been very rude by lying to him and breaking his promise, it would be too much for him to eat the man next time he saw him, because the man's broken promise wasn't as bad for Harry as devouring him would be for the liar.

Harry was not sure what to think of that.

It was even more confusing when he thought about what else he had found out. Mrs. McGonagall had been lying to him too, about the haggis being a special kind of animal. It really was a dish made out of sheep and oatmeal like Mr. Snape said. But that kind of lying didn't make him angry, because she was just joking around, and it was kind of confusing for him to think about.

What was the difference between funny lying and lying that made him mad? Was it because Mr. Lovegood had intended to deceive him, and Mrs. McGonagall hadn't? The problem was, she had intended to deceive him, but she intended it to be a joke that he would laugh at when it was revealed.

Did Mr. Lovegood mean to have it be a joke too? Maybe, but Harry didn't think it was very funny.

How could he know who he could trust to tell the truth about important stuff, now? He didn't know what to look for to be able to tell that Mr. Lovegood was lying. Was there a way to figure that stuff out?

It was all so complicated, and Harry decided he didn't like it very much. As the final embers died in the stove, leaving the faint moonlight as the only illumination for the Lair, the young dragon finally settled in to sleep, settling his head down on his forepaws, turned so he could see his damsel with one eye, taking comfort in her presence. His scales had grown thick enough to make cuddling very difficult on his side of things; he couldn't actually feel her there, so he had to make due with other reassurances.

He hoped none of his friends ever turned out to be the bad kind of liar. Harry didn't know how he'd handle that.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.9 In which Harry makes an enemy

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1.9.1 Diagon Alley chase

Perhaps a month after the impromptu and unseasonable Burns Night celebration at the Lair, the seasons turned and with the coming autumn the students returned to Hogwarts and Harry's professor friends' free time dried up like rain puddles on a warm summer day.

His centaur friends were still in the middle of their Grand Conclave which was interesting for a while, because of all the new people visiting, but quickly devolved into the elders just yelling the same things back and forth in slightly different ways. Harry thought the whole thing got very boring very quickly. Worse yet, all his young centaur friends had to be quiet, so they couldn't play like normal.

To complete his dilemma, Harry had managed to run through everything from his friends' personal libraries, so he had run out of things to read. There was still a lot in the Hogwarts Library, but those were enchanted so they couldn't be removed from the castle grounds, and his Lair was too far away to count.

With nothing to do and nothing to read, the young dragon had gotten so bored he had even started to read the dictionary Mr. Snape had gotten for him.

This last item was the final straw which had driven Harry to return to Diagon Alley for the first time since his travels with Mr. Snape. It'd be hours before anyone could come over from the castle, and the weather was too rainy to go flying with Suze.

After their first trip to see Mr. Slackhammer, Mr. Snape had left a two-way portkey behind in the form of an old brick. He'd said it was easier than trying to power one to carry them both himself, since it recharged on its own from the ambient energy, and afterwards he'd left it with Harry after explaining how it worked. Leaving it near Harry would apparently make it charge faster because he was so awesome.

This meant that Harry had a way to and from the Alley.

"What are you doing, Harry?" Suze asked. She'd been kind of clingy since the thing with Mr. Lovegood.

"Well, I'm bored, and all the others are busy and it's ages until anyone's going to come up from the castle, and I haven't got anything to read, so I reckon I'm going to go to Diagon Alley and buy some more books," Harry said, picking up the headband he'd worn on his last trip with Mr. Snape.

Suze frowned. "I think I'd better come with you."

And thus it was that the pair, human-form Harry and his centaur damsel, found themselves wandering, somewhat lost, down the main street of Diagon Alley when an unpleasant and thoroughly unwelcome voice came from behind.

"Boy! Why is your pet not on a leash?"

With a growl that carried over surprisingly well from his dragon form, Harry answered, "She's not my pet, she's my damsel," as he whirled around to face the unpleasant voice.

Said unpleasant voice belonged to an equally unpleasant-looking woman. Her appearance was startlingly toad-like for an ostensibly human woman, and she seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with a shade of pink that reminded Harry of a certain bottle his aunt had always pulled out of the medicine cabinet whenever Dudley would eat himself sick.

"She's your what? Never mind; filthy beasts like that should not be let loose in the Alley." With that offensive declaration, the squat woman drew her wand in a threatening action that was echoed by the three nondescript men accompanying her.

At this clear threat, Harry almost returned to dragon shape in order to roast them, but he remembered Mr. Snape, Mr. Dumbledore, Mrs. McGonagall, and Mr. Slackhammer had all been quite adamant that, although there would be a time when it became appropriate for him to reveal his nature, that time was still off in the future. He wasn't sure why, but just about everyone he respected who wasn't a centaur said so, and even the ones who were centaurs didn't say differently, they just didn't have anything to say on the subject. Harry figured he'd take their word for it until he was sure he knew what the deal was.

Without the option of reverting to dragon form and annihilating the threat that way, Harry and Suze were ill-suited to dealing with the situation, so there was only one option left.

"Run, Suze!" He grabbed her hand and bolted for Gringotts, half-dragging her behind him with his disproportionate strength. The woman's nondescript companions moved to block the pair, as their course took them close to the toad woman and her group anyway. Had they been selected for skill rather than political reliability, they might have realized something was wrong with the picture of an apparently nine-year-old human child dragging around a centaur, but they were not.

Suze immediately cottoned-on to what little plan her dragon had come up with, and she used her hold on his hand to swing him up onto her back, charging at a full run straight through the group of wand-brandishing wizards, bowling them over like ten-pins.

She didn't stop until she was in the Gringotts lobby and she calmly came to a halt in front of a half-dozen halberd-toting guards-goblins who had moved to intercept.

"We gotta hide, there's crazy glowy people, and they wanna do something nasty to Suze, and we gotta talk to Mr. Slackhammer!" Harry declared.

As if to emphasize his point, the doors crashed open behind him, and the pink toad woman and her plain-clothes security detail, now accompanied by a number of blue-overcoated official-looking people came barging into the building, only to skid to a halt in the face of the business end of a dozen of those nasty-looking halberds. There were now dozens of uniformed goblins flooding the foyer and separating Harry and Suze from their pursuers. Some were the brightly uniformed ceremonial guards, but the majority were now in olive drab and carrying a far different armament.

Out of almost everyone on the scene, only Harry recognized them immediately for what they were: guns. Hefty, great Army-looking things of a type he'd seen in pictures in one of the not-glowy-people history books Mrs. McGonagall had gotten for him back when he asked about dragons, pictures about a war in the Falkland Islands.

"Easy, you maggots!" bellowed an exceptionally ferocious-looking goblin who seemed to have traded in the rifle-or-halberd for a sword and an unnecessarily-large pistol, and was resplendent in what Harry recognized as the dress uniform of a goblinish Sergeant-Major. "That's the feller Vice-Chairman Slackhammer's been conducting business with!"

Much to Harry's relief, the goblins stopped pointing their weapons at him and Suze, saluted Harry, saluted the Sergeant-Major, and joined in with pointing weapons at the pink toad woman and the people with her.

"What is the meaning of this? Don't you know who I am?" The pink toad woman sounded a little freaked out. "I'm the Secretary of Wizarding Defense, and I demand that you immediately turn that filthy animal over to…" The woman trailed off in the face of a loud, intimidating, interruption.

"Are you," the Sergeant-Major roared, turning an oddly-brownish purple with rage as he seemed to inflate at a downright alarming rate, "personally responsible for a full nine-point-seven percent increase in Gringotts profit within the last calendar month? No, Madame Umbridge, you are not! The young gentleman here, as it so happens, is! Is that quite perfectly clear?"

The pink toad woman, apparently called Umbridge, turned very pale indeed. The blue-overcoated official-looking people started to whisper among themselves as well. Her security detail remained oblivious.

"Ah, Great One, if you and your lovely companion would accompany me?" That was a voice Harry was very glad to hear, and turning that way, he found himself looking at Crackjaw Slackhammer.

"What about them, Mr. Vice-Chairman, SIR?" the Sergeant-Major bellowed, snapping off a salute before angling a thumb in the direction of the pink toad-woman.

He was a very good bellower, Harry wondered if he would be willing to give lessons?

"Politely ask them to vacate the premises, Sergeant-Major."

"And if they don't, Vice-Chairman, SIR?"

"Then it will be time to be impolite, Sergeant-Major."

"Sir! Yes, Sir! At once, SIR!" The Sergeant-Major bellowed, saluting again before he whirled around and fixed the goblin soldiers with a ferocious glower. "Alright, you miserable maggots! You heard the Vice-Chairman, jump to it!"

"SIR!" the swarm of goblins barked, "YES SIR!"

"Gentlemen and lady, please be so kind as to vacate the premises AT ONCE!"

For that matter, was this goblin capable of not bellowing? Ooh, and how did he do that cool inflating thing? Harry wanted to learn that too!

The pink toad woman and her coterie beat a hasty retreat.

1.9.2 Umbridge fumes

"Those miserable beasts!" Umbridge muttered, glancing nervously at the doors to Gringotts as she and the three plain-clothes Aurors who'd been accompanying her withdrew alongside the group of uniformed Law Enforcement Patrolmen who had joined them.

"All due respect, ma'am, but what happened back there?" Auror Dawlish asked.

"Weren't you briefed on 'fire-arms'?" Umbridge snapped.

"…um, should I have been?"

"Yes!"

Auror Flint spoke up, "They're a form of muggle wand. They launch a small metal thing so hard and fast it'll go right through a wall and kill the bloke hiding behind the wall."

"So, I take it they're dangerous?" Dawlish asked.

"Very." Umbridge said, thinking back on the briefing she had first received when she had been promoted to Secretary of Wizarding Defense. Something about the goblin rebellion of 1899. It was information not readily available to the public. Nobody wanted a panic on their hands.

In 1899, after whatever had set those wretched goblins off, the Ministry had, as usual, expected to kick the doors down, fire off a few spells, slap a few more sanctions on the upstarts, and wash their hands of the matter. That was how it had always gone before.

But, it hadn't gone anything like that. Every Auror or Hit-Wizard who'd attempted to storm the bank had died on the receiving end of an infernal, not to mention loud, device of at-the-time unknown origin. After the second attempt to storm the bank, the then-Director of Magical Law Enforcement, along with a guard detail of fifty-five Aurors, had been cut down by another team of five goblins wielding more of the contraptions.

Based on circulating rumors, Ministry research into the devastating new weapons being wielded by the goblin rebels had revealed said gadgets to be muggle devices known as 'fire-arms', in specific a 'Maxim machine-gun' and a number of 'Lee-Enfield Magazine Rifle'. The astonishing destructive power that tests showed these peculiar contraptions to possess had scared the then-Director of Muggle Relations so badly he'd taken his entire family into hiding. It hadn't been long after that the Ministry had sued for peace.

That had been the first time in known history that a goblin rebellion had ended, as uncomfortable as it was to say such a thing, in victory for the wretched beasts. Worse yet, reports from the Unspeakables showed that the goblins had taken to the 'fire-arms' with tremendous — one might even say diabolical — enthusiasm.

She'd seen photographs of the 'fire-arms' those goblins had threatened her with today. Apparently, they were a type known as 'Ellwunehwun Self-Loading Rifle', and although of a shorter effective range than the bewildering assortment of 'Lee-Enfield', it could cast its projectile faster and more accurately than even the finest duelists, and like all such 'fire-arms' that projectile traveled far too fast to be effectively blocked or dodged.

With an attempt at a face-saving sniff, she made tracks for the Ministry.

1.9.3 Of guns and Goblins

"Where'd you guys get all the guns, Mr. Slackhammer?" Harry asked. "I thought guns were kinda hard to get."

Slackhammer smiled a little smugly. "Ah, Mr. Potter, that is courtesy of Gringotts holdings in the muggle world. As it so happens, Gringotts owns a small but significant portfolio of stocks in several firearms manufacturing concerns: the Birmingham Small Arms Company, Vickers Defence Systems, Heckler and Koch GmbH, and Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, to name those in which we hold the most substantial interest. As such, it is quite remarkably easy for us to acquire both weapons and munitions whenever we so desire, a situation that has proven most fortuitous on occasion."

"But how do you manage that with the not-glowy-people. I thought they watched that pretty closely?" Harry asked, puzzled. "I'd think they'd notice the guns were going somewhere."

"That is a story part and parcel to our winning independence from the wizards in the 1899-1900 financial year." Slackhammer explained. "You see, just prior to that time, the non-magicals were facing a rather unpleasant war in far southern Africa, and our leadership saw an opportunity. We offered our assistance in dealing with the native shaman, who had been wreaking havoc on the muggle command structure, and in exchange we were allowed to join the British Empire as an autonomous state. The only ongoing requirement is that we maintain a regiment that can be called upon by the Empire in magical conflicts." Slackhammer chuckled, "We would have done so in any case, as we will certainly treat our allies with respect commensurate with their own treatment of ourselves, so that is no trouble."

"Wow!"

"Indeed. That most lucrative deal led to our acquisition of firearms, and thence led to the events of the 1899-1900 financial year in which the Brethren won our autonomy from the wizards by force." The dapper goblin smiled proudly, "I confess that those events have caused the gun to attain significant cultural meaning within the Goblin Nation, to the point that no goblin with any sense would permit himself to be seen dead without at least one firearm within easy reach. Even the ceremonial guards at the doors to this bank carry decidedly non-ceremonial sidearms concealed upon their persons. It is courtesy of those magnificent devices that we were not utterly subjugated and likely nationalized by the Ministry of Magic almost a century ago."

"I guess that means you've got a gun, right Mr. Slackhammer?"

"Naturally; I never permit my Enfield Number 2 Mark 1 to leave my side," the goblin said, withdrawing a nicely polished revolver from beneath his desk. He showed it to Harry with a proud smile before returning it to its place. "It is of course merely one weapon within my private armory, some of which you can see behind you." At this, he nodded to the gun rack on the office wall which was fairly bristling with rifles. "At my rank within the Goblin Nation, I am expected to maintain a fitting collection of weaponry, both to equip myself and provide for my subordinates should they be unable. Our law holds that it is not merely the right of all to bear arms, but rather the duty of all to be armed and ready to defend the freedom of Gringotts as a corporation and the Brethren as a people. And, frankly, with our less-than-stellar magical gifts, without the gun we would be quite easily overwhelmed by the ranks of the wizards."

"I know a bow is more accurate, and an arrow flies far faster and is deadly at a greater distance than any spell," Suze joined the conversation. "Is the same true for these 'guns', Vice-Chairman?"

"Quite correct; a competently-trained shooter could put every bullet in a well-maintained revolver into a wizard before the wizard could cast but a single spell. Their magic does have the advantage of flexibility, a wand can heal as easily as it can kill after all, but for defense of one's home, kin, and livelihood, a well-tuned gun is a far superior weapon. And, no offense intended, Lady, the gun is significantly more powerful and vastly easier to learn to operate than the bow."

"None taken," Suze said. Today had not been the first time she wished her people had developed something with more punch than a short bow. She still remembered the sound of her arrows bouncing off the chitinous armor of the spider that had dragged down her younger sister years ago.

Slackhammer steepled his fingers as he considered something. "Hmm… On that subject, Mr. Potter, I do believe it might be prudent to see that you and your companion acquire a fitting armament. The humble gun scares the gold out of magical law enforcement and poltroons such as that Umbridge creature for a very good reason, after all."

"Y'know, I think that might be a good idea," Harry said. "And, ah, look, Suze is really good with a bow, but I was wondering if there weren't any better bows than the kind her uncle Ronan makes, not that Mr. Ronan's bows are bad or anything."

"There are indeed a number of bows of significantly more advanced construction than those made by centaurs, works of beauty though their traditional bows might be," Slackhammer confirmed. "Might it be possible to grant myself and a small number of my staff permission to visit your home? I can but guess that you lair in a significantly more remote location than here in London, especially considering you have a centauress for a companion; they are known for their liking of solitude, and it would be better to instruct you in the usage and upkeep of firearms in a secluded place."

"Well, my Lair's up in back of the woods behind Hogwarts; I guess you know where that is?"

"Naturally," Slackhammer confirmed with a sharp little nod.

"Mr. Vice-Chairman," Suze began, "I get the idea of being armed with something that scares the wizards, but isn't there some way I could accompany Harry to Diagon Alley without some sort of mess like today happening?"

"Hmm… I cannot say for sure. Perhaps one of my family solicitors could advise you on that, one moment…" Slackhammer wrote a quick note, rang a small bell, handed the note to the goblin who immediately came into the room, said "Take this to Madame Axetalon please, Mr. Steelhammer.", nodded his satisfaction when the other goblin rushed off with a cry of "At once, Mr. Vice-Chairman!", and sat back.

"I have taken the liberty of requesting the company of my family's most prominent solicitor, one Madame Shredblade Axetalon," he told Suze. "She is blessed with an eidetic memory, and her knowledge of law, both magical and otherwise, is without peer. She should be with us shortly. Now concerning travel to your most excellent lair, Mr. Potter, my people can be on the outskirts of Hogsmeade within eight hours by motor vehicle, and we can easily arrange a meeting place thereafter."

"Um, Suze, does your dad get angry about goblins?" Harry asked.

"No, Father admires them," Suze told him. "There's only a handful of Namers who have managed to get wizards to treat them with any respect at all, and goblins are the most recent."

"Respect from a wizard," Slackhammer chuckled, shaking his head. "That is indeed quite the undertaking."

"What do you mean?" the young dragon asked.

"I mean, pitiful as it is, most wizards are quite astoundingly bigoted," Slackhammer told him. "Exceptions do, of course, exist, such as Mr. Severus Snape, who treats all with matching honest dislike, or Mr. Albus Dumbledore, who is a fine gentleman as wizards go, but the vast majority have naught but disdain for any being who is neither human nor magically gifted. Why, most of their number look down on those members of their own species born without the genetic quirk of magical talent!"

The dapper goblin shook his head disparagingly before continuing, "There are only a handful of Namers, to use the centaur term, also known as sapient beings, who have managed to beat some respect out of the wizards. My kin managed that under the glorious leadership of Chairwoman of the Grand Board of Directors, Ragnak Shatteraxe, during the revolution often termed the Bold '99, when we introduced the wizards to the power of the machine gun. Our dear friends, the Veela, were able to achieve that same great and noble undertaking centuries ago due to their incredible talent for the manipulation of fire. Vampires and werewolves have won some modicum of regard, simply due to the immense difficulty of killing individuals of either species, but they have yet to win themselves the same rights veela and goblins hold. The centaurs chose to hide themselves away from the wizards, a wise choice given that they lack the blessing of the honest gun."

Harry considered that for a moment before setting it aside for further consideration later. "Um, if you're coming to visit, you should know that my Lair's up on a cliff, so I'll need to carry you in. I can pick you up, but if there are a few of you, that'll take a few trips."

"That is not a problem, Mr. Potter. We would be honored by such travel arrangements."

"Harry, the harness…" Suze prompted.

"Oh! Yeah, we made a carry-harness, so I could take Suze out flying with me without dropping her, so if you've got harnesses or something which we could clip on securely, I could carry all of you with that, I bet."

"I am certain we can arrange something, Mr. Potter." Mr. Slackhammer seemed pleased at the consideration.

"Mr. Vice-Chairman, Madame Axetalon to speak with you," a goblin in a sharp suit stated, sticking his head in the door.

"Ah, Madame Axetalon, come in, do."

The goblin who entered was smartly dressed and almost completely indistinguishable from the males of her species; if Harry hadn't been forewarned, he would never have realized she was female.

"A profitable day to you, Vice-Chairman Crackjaw," she said with a broad, toothsome grin. Her voice didn't betray her gender either. "Congratulations on your promotion; I can but say you've worked long and hard for your new rank, and it's about time your efforts were rewarded."

"Thank you, Solicitor Shredblade, and a profitable day to you too," Slackhammer said, his grin just as shark-like as ever, "but there is no need for you to butter me up. The chance of my aunt allowing you to be dismissed from your position with the Slackhammers is thin indeed."

Axetalon chuckled. "Director Hellblade Slackhammer has always been a superb judge of character, Crackjaw. So, I understand that you require my services?"

"Indeed, or rather my young associates here do. Madame Axetalon, the young lady is Miss Suze, daughter of Bane of the Black Woods Clan, and the young gentleman is Harry Potter, Great Wyrm of Hogwarts. Mr. Potter, Miss Suze, this is Madame Shredblade Axetalon, finest of the solicitors in my family's employ."

"An honor," the female goblin said, inclining her head politely.

"Hi!" Harry said with a big smile firmly in place.

"Well met," Suze intoned with a polite bow.

"Mr. Potter and Miss Suze face a perplexing conundrum that you might be able to provide an answer to," Slackhammer told Madame Axetalon. "You see, they seek a way that Miss Suze, being as you see a centaur, might accompany Mr. Potter to Diagon Alley without falling foul of the unashamed bigotry of the Ministry of Magic."

"Ah yes, the Wild Animal (Control) Act of 1847. I see, that is quite the perplexing conundrum, isn't it?" the solicitor mused, her eyebrows collapsing into a deep frown. "Hmm… it supersedes the Sapient (Mobility) Act of 1612… no, the Wartime Expenditures (Mobility) Act of 1941 does not present any loopholes for centaurs… Aha! Under the Steeds (Mobility) Act of 1513, centaurs may, if sufficiently controlled, be regarded as Steeds under the letter of the law. Miss Suze, Mr. Potter, tell me, did the wizards successfully verify your identity?"

"I dunno," Harry said, looking to Suze.

"Well, I don't know either," Suze said.

"They most assuredly did not," Mr. Slackhammer asserted.

"Excellent," Madame Axetalon declared. "Under the Criminalibus Iustitia Decretum of 438, any person, being, or creature suspected of a crime but not of verified identity may only be listed as a suspect for a maximum of two full seasons. Despite the conflict with the Criminal Justice (Identification) Act of 1837 which lists one year and one day as the maximum term, the older Decretum has not been repealed, so the more restrictive option takes precedence. Therefore, if you were to avoid Diagon Alley until the day after summer solstice, and thereafter pay any necessary regard to the Steeds (Mobility) Act of 1513, there is nothing beyond alteration of the letter of the law which they may do. And for all acts committed prior to said alteration of the law, you are of course covered by the Charter of Succession (Rights) of 1380."

"…um," Harry said, confused.

"In layman's terms," Axetalon elaborated, "Under the Steeds (Mobility) Act of 1513, in accord with the Charter of Succession (Rights) of 1380, with no alteration made by subsequent revision of said Charter, any creature regarded under the law as a Being, has, where not in contravention to the Servants (Control) Acts of 1394, 1440, and 1502, the legal right to possession of a Steed, defined as an animal, creature, or device utilized for personal transport. This definition covers horses, ponies, brooms, velocipedes, motorcycles, pegasi, cottages with animated chicken legs, and other more unusual creatures and devices, including, I might note, centaurs. The only exception to said right concerns flying carpets and automobiles fitted with more than three wheels, which are listed as Items of Muggle Origin under the Muggle Separation (Artifacts) Act of 1984. The steed or device must be, and I quote, 'controlled in an adequate and safe manner' as per the Animal Control (Domesticated) Act of 1422 and may be left outside any building within wizarding territories for a maximum of twelve hours."

At this point, Harry was very glad he had been bored enough to read the dictionary in the past few days. "Can I see the Animal Control (Domesticated) Act of 1422, so I can see what we have to do?"

On reading the Act in question, Suze muttered worriedly, "I get the feeling that Father won't like this."

Half an hour later, having gone over details of future travel arrangements, the young Great Wyrm and his damsel left for the portkey transition point which would take them home, accompanied by ten of 2 Company's biggest and meanest looking infantry-goblins. Back in his office, Vice-Chairman Slackhammer spent a moment checking financial reports, nodded his satisfaction, and then began to pen a note addressed to the Grand Chairman of the Board of Directors herself.

No foolish human would get away with threatening a business partner as profitable as Mr. Harry Potter on Slackhammer's watch, no SIR!

1.9.4 Umbridge faces Consequences

About an hour after she arrived back at the Ministry, as she was sulking in her office plotting revenge for her embarrassment at the hands of that boy, his centaur and the dratted goblins, Dolores Umbridge was thoroughly surprised to be summoned to the Minister's office.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Minister, sir?"

"Dolores, just what in Merlin's name have you been doing?" Cornelius Fudge complained. "I have no idea what brought this on, but Gringotts just sent me a letter declaring one Mr. Harry James Potter and all his dependents and associates to be, and I quote, 'an important financial asset of Gringotts' and, well, threatening sanctions if anyone within the Ministry is to, and I quote, 'interfere' with him. Your name is mentioned in a most unfriendly manner several times. Just what in Merlin's name have you been doing?"

Umbridge blinked, positively gob-smacked. She'd only been near Gringotts once in the past week, and that was… chasing that filthy centaur and the boy it seemed to belong to… Oh dear!

"I… uh… I," she stammered before swallowing a few times, "I encountered a child allowing his pet centaur to run riot in Diagon Alley, Mr. Minister, sir."

"And how does that relate to Gringotts?"

"Well, as per the Wild Animal Control Act of 1847 I moved to apprehend the uncontrolled animal, and the child immediately ran off with it. We gave pursuit, not using any spells so as to avoid injuring the child, you know how sensitive small children can be to stunners, and the suspect and his animal attempted to hide in the bank. We followed them, assuming our job was over, but we were shouted at most coarsely by the goblins, threatened with those infernal 'fire-arms' of theirs, and summarily ejected from the building. I returned directly here."

Fudge sighed, pinching his nose. "Dash it, Dolores, that boy's the Boy-Who-Lived, he must be. I wondered why the goblins were on about him now; no idea why the goblins are so up-in-arms about him and his pet, but they've got us by the financial throat. How do you think the voters would react to another goblin rebellion?"

"Surely it wouldn't come to that?"

"There's a financial breakdown attached to the missive I received, and somehow they've attributed a two-million Galleon profit in the span of a single month to the Boy-Who-Lived. That's no less than nine-point-seven percent of their profit over the last month. For Merlin's sake, the last Goblin Rebellion blew up over taxation reducing their profits by a tenth of a percent!"

"They'd go to war over a tenth of a percent?"

"Go to war? Merlin's sake, Dolores, they massacred seventy-eight Aurors, twelve Hit-Wizards, two Unspeakables, four innocent bystanders, and a Director of Magical Law Enforcement over a tenth of a percent! They kicked in the front door of the Ministry over a tenth of a percent! Imagine what they would do over nearly ten percent!"

"…oh dear, I didn't know that…"

"Blast it, you're the Secretary of Wizarding Defense! Knowing that is your bloody job! And now, you've nearly started a war over a leash-law violation…" Fudge's eyes turned cunning, "scratch that, you were the Secretary of Wizarding Defense."

"Sir!" Dolores gasped, "You can't be serious?"

"Of course I am, Undersecretary. I need to be seen doing something after all," the man finished smarmily. "Now I can contact Gringotts with an apology over the deplorable behavior of a member of the Ministry and report that she was punished, and you don't even lose much in the way of your salary. Everyone wins!"

But she would lose status! Oh, the humiliation. There would be blood for this! Though she raged internally, outwardly, she bowed her head, "Yes Mr. Minister, sir."

She would get even with those miserable goblins and that brat of a Boy-Who-Lived if it was the last thing she did.

And with his little pet, too!

1.9.5 Suspicious vans

On a deserted stretch of road winding through the coastal moors of the western Highlands, a quartet of white Transit vans slowed to a stop, miles from the nearest town, and a pair of unusually short figures, dressed in drab uniforms and toting very businesslike rifles hopped out of the back of the lead van, examined a cut in the hillside then waved the vehicles to follow them.

The odd procession quickly disappeared from sight into the sea of flowering heather, heading in the general direction a stand of trees below a cliffside some distance away, and leaving the road to its lonely existence, keeping company with the wind and the distant crashing of waves on the shore.

1.9.6 Hospitality

Harry was quite satisfied with the day.

A small platoon of goblins had arrived around noon on the second day after his overly exciting abortive shopping trip with Suze, bringing with them a selection of various firearms and complicated bows. They came in those same white vans that the plumber always used when he visited the Dursley house, and Suze led them into the forest where he had waited in dragon form with his harness so he could carry them to the Lair.

Along with the guns and the trainer, they'd also sent along another soldier, Corporal Hookknife, who was an engineer who was supposed to ensure their harnesses worked together and set up a proper and safe firing range. Harry got along with him famously, since he was impressed with the Lair and the improvements Harry had already made — calling it an 'eminently defensible home' — particularly since they had been made using only Harry's teeth and claws. The young dragon and the corporal had engaged in a rather animated discussion of possible future changes and the methods that could be used while the rest of the platoon unpacked and set up a temporary camp in one of Harry's recently excavated side rooms. It was a discussion that would spawn an almost endless series of home-improvements for years to come.

As it turned out, the Sergeant-Major — whose name was apparently Hooktalon — was able to talk without bellowing. When Harry asked, Hooktalon had explained that bellowing was an absolutely necessary talent for all Sergeant-Majors as it was required to maintain discipline and respect of the soldiers under his supervision. Since it was their job to be grunts, and it was their Sergeant-Major's job to think for his soldiers, it was thus the duty of any Sergeant-Major to bellow to get the message through their thick craniums; otherwise, the Sergeant-Major would be forced to give them firm kicks around their posteriors.

One of the other goblin soldiers, a grizzled old Color Sergeant called Griphook, had privately told Harry that the Sergeant-Major was in fact a big old pussycat whose bark was worse than his bite, but Harry decided it was probably safer not to risk it, especially since Corporal Mantrap said that anyone who messed with the Sergeant-Major was asking to have his or her lungs extracted via their nostrils.

Okay, so maybe there was a chance that Sergeant-Major Hooktalon bellowing was like Mr. Snape growling, but there was a chance it wasn't, and Hooktalon was scary!

After the squad had unpacked and gotten set up, the lessons on proper safety and handling began. The beginning consisted of seemingly endless repetitions of what Sergeant-Major Hooktalon called 'golden rules', all of which sounded very cautious but eminently sensible. Once he had seemed satisfied that Harry and Suze had gotten the message on the 'golden rules', the Sergeant-Major had them repeatedly take apart and put back together the guns until he was satisfied with their performance, and then he finally allowed them to riddle a number of targets with bullets.

Harry had to admit Suze was a far, far better shot than him. She'd demonstrated with her shortbow, showing enough accuracy to get a sniff and 'adequate' out of Sergeant-Major Hooktalon. Then she'd had a go with two rifles and received a brusque nod and a 'Well, young lady, looks like we've found something you're good at', which was high praise indeed coming from a Sergeant-Major, according to Corporal Mantrap.

It'd been fun, and there were now a pair of rifles stacked in a nicely polished wooden gun rack just to the side of the entrance to his treasure chamber. One was what the Sergeant-Major had called a 'Rifle, Short Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mark Three' — a name which Harry had thought sounded kind of back-to-front, and the other was one of the Falklands-looking guns, which Harry now knew was called an 'L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle', which sounded like it was the right way around.

Suze had her own set, though her gun rack was empty as she had immediately set to making a harness and ammunition bag using the copious quantities of tanned deer hide they had left over from Harry's winter snacking. Suze was most insistent that she would carry them on her at all times; the trip to Diagon Alley had made a big impression on his damsel.

It was funny really, when Harry'd seen the way the rifles slammed into Sergeant-Major Hooktalon's shoulder, he'd expected them to knock him flat, but they hadn't kicked at all. From the raised eyebrow and the comment of, 'Strong little whippersnapper, aren't you?', this had also surprised Sergeant-Major Hooktalon.

In addition to her new guns, they had also had a new bow for Suze. It was a weird-looking thing with a string that looped back and forth several times and pulleys at the ends of the bow. Bane, who had come by to pay his respects to Harry's goblin visitors, had taken one look at the thing and muttered and grumbled about 'new-fangled', but he went quiet and calculating after he'd seen it demonstrated.

The addition of the gun rack had also seen to the first real bit of organization in the Lair. Harry made a room specifically for his toys, because confusing one of his toy guns with the real thing would be a really bad idea.

You really needed to guard your guns as closely as you guarded your treasures and your damsels, Harry mused.

He'd long since worked out that damsels were an especially valuable sort of treasure since they were so hard to get ahold of, and, as he drifted off to sleep listening to his guests staying in the new guest quarters he had dug the previous day, he came to realize that the same held true for guns.

Anything difficult to get a hold of was probably a treasure, and swords counted as treasure too, so that meant weapons were treasure, and a gun was a sort of weapon. Sergeant-Major Hooktalon's statement that Harry should make certain that anyone who wanted to take Harry's guns away was forced to attempt to prize them from Harry's cold, dead fingers just served to reinforce that conclusion. Anything you had to put up a big fight to stop knights — or Bagginses or any other sort of baddie — taking away was obviously a treasure.

1.9.7 The world according to Dumbledore

"Mr. Dumbledore, I think there's kinda something wrong with the whole Wizardy World thingy," Harry said.

It had been five days since his overly-exciting visit to Diagon Alley, and one since his goblin visitors had left, leaving him with plenty of ammunition, firm instructions to practice every day, and a reading list from Corporal Hookknife on things to help him figure out how to do the stuff they had talked about. That was for later, though, for now, Harry and Dumbledore were lounging at the entrance to the Lair after Harry's latest Occlumency lesson.

Occlumency was apparently an important thing for him to learn; Madame Pomfrey had insisted, though he wasn't sure why. According to Mr. Dumbledore, it was supposed to keep people out of his head, and it helped with remembering things well. Harry figured getting into people's heads without permission sounded incredibly rude, so that was a good reason, but he already remembered things really well. Madame Pomfrey had insisted, though, so he figured there was some other reason they hadn't shared yet.

In any case, Harry figured it was entirely possible that memories were a kind of treasure because of that whole 'treasure the memory' thing people talked about sometimes, and so he figured he'd treat them as such until proven otherwise. It wasn't like the Occlumency lessons were difficult or anything anyway.

"And why would you think that, my dear boy?" the old man asked.

"Because, well, because that pink toad-woman said Suze isn't a person and because the goblins say they had to do lots of shooting before the glowy people stopped saying goblins weren't people," he said. "And, uh, Mr. Slackhammer kinda sounded like it wasn't just goblins and centaurs — he mentioned veela too, and it's got something to do with why you don't think people oughtta know I'm a dragon, hadn't it?"

"Ah," Dumbledore said with a resigned sigh. "Indeed, Harry; I regret to say it, but you are in fact quite correct. I have been able to, in my lifetime, make some small improvements here and there, but like all change, it is a slow process. And, indeed, that is why your transformation must remain a secret for as long as possible. The last thing the wizarding world needs is a civil war coming so close on the footsteps of Voldemort's last insurrection."

Harry nodded, his expression distant. "I guess," he said. "Mr. Dumbledore, how bad is it, really?"

"Not as bad as either Severus or the goblins would have you believe," the old man assured him. "Severus has had a rather rough ride of things, I'm afraid, and the viewpoint of the goblins is that of outsiders and outcasts. It is true that changes must be made to bring the cycle of war and destruction — of which Voldemort was but the latest repetition — to an end, but I do not hold that said changes should be made through bloody revolution, as Severus espouses."

Dumbledore shook his head sadly, setting his long beard swaying, "He cannot see it, but to tear the wizarding world down would be to destroy what good remains in it. He would, as the idiom goes, throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have, in my lifetime, made many changes. For instance, the Declaration of Brotherhood of 1920, which established the legal rights of muggles as people, was passed through without any bloodshed, and I have since managed to abolish slavery as a legal institution as of 1963 with the Magical Slavery (Abolition) Act." The old man continued proudly, "I am currently working to gather support for another Act which would make the hunting of several species, including centaurs, illegal. We have already managed to paint the hunts in an unfavorable social light, and we feel that we may be able to pass the Act soon as few want to do it anyway."

As Harry frowned at that, the elderly statesman continued, "I confess I have had to make some quite difficult decisions in my time, and I am well aware that there are further difficult decisions yet to come my way, but someone has to make those decisions for the greater good of all." He grunted as he levered himself upright, "Now, I must return to the castle; I shall see you the same time next week."

"…okay," Harry said absently, still frowning. Something about that discussion seemed wrong, and it really hadn't answered anything.

He resolved to keep niggling Mr. Dumbledore about it, and to see if Mr. Snape were more willing to explain things.

1.9.8 The world according to Snape

"Mr. Snape…"

"What is it now? Blasted reptile." This time, two days after Dumbledore's disappointingly evasive conversation, it was Snape who was at Harry's Lair.

"I'm really starting to think the wizarding world really isn't fair," Harry said.

"I see…" Snape muttered. His customary sneer vanished to be replaced by a frankly rather worried look. "And what, precisely, has brought you to this conclusion, young man?"

Harry gathered his thoughts for a few moments before he haltingly explained the events of his last visit to Diagon Alley. The potions master listened in complete silence, frown deepening the entire time.

"I see," he repeated once Harry had explained his attempt to get an answer out of Dumbledore. "You have indeed arrived at a quite incisive conclusion; there is indeed something quite wrong with this world we live in, and I confess I had hoped to protect you from those unpleasant truths for a little longer."

A wry, if grim, smile spread itself across one side of Snape's face — Harry was somewhat sad to note this smile looked as if it had settled comfortably on his older friend's face, unlike the happier one he had seen on a very few occasions which looked terribly out of place.

"I suppose I should have expected you to work out the basics of the situation; you're as sharp as your mother was. And, indeed, there is something deeply and horribly wrong with any so-called civilization that would treat any thinking being as an animal."

"How bad is it really?"

"Bad," Snape firmly stated. "Bad to the degree that even those wizards and witches not born of magical parents are considered little more than animals. Albus would have you believe in gently reforming it all over the course of decades, or more likely centuries. I believe that the goblin's example is the one that we should be following."

"You mean we oughtta machine-gun anything that tries to shove us about, right?" Harry confirmed.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Snape confirmed. "Our target, my boy, is the government of this cesspit that calls itself a civilization, but it would not do us well to act without suitable preparation, and we are as yet unready. I know well the consequences of marching into the fray unprepared…" The potions master trailed off, his eyes focused into the distance as his right hand rubbed absently at his left forearm.

"Mr. Snape?"

"My apologies, Mr. Potter," he visibly pulled himself back to the present. "I was lost in memory for a moment. In any case, I judge that we would be best served at this moment to keep our heads down and endeavor not to draw attention while we make the necessary preparations."

"I'm a big part of your plans, aren't I?"

"You most assuredly are," Snape said with a firm nod. "And not merely because you represent our best chance of an alliance with the goblins and our best source of the substantial quantities of capital our mission shall surely require. When the time comes, I suspect you shall find yourself at the forefront of this."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "I'll need to get stronger, won't I?"

"Indeed. The flames of freedom must be lit, and the torch will someday in the not-so-distant future be handed to you. It would be best for us all if you were prepared for that day."

"I know my kin will fight alongside you in this, Harry." Suze spoke up for the first time from her place at her dragon's side.

"How so?" Snape asked, curious why they would do so.

"We owe the Great Wyrm a debt of blood unspilt. A year has passed since last we lost any to the spider plague, and we no longer need fear them, for now it is they who know fear," Suze told him with conviction. "We owe him a debt which can never be truly repaid, and when the time comes that he makes battle upon his foes, my grandfather has declared that we shall go forth beside him."

"I see," Snape frowned. He then let out one of his dry and not-very-pleasant chuckles. "Then I suppose I should welcome you both to the revolution."

From then on, Thursday evenings were spent studying potions and plotting to overthrow the wizarding government, both of which Harry found absolutely fascinating and, in fact, quite fun.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

1.10 In which certain truths are uncovered

---

1.10.1 An unpleasant surprise

As the first month of the fall term drew to a close, the usual group of Hogwarts professors met for their now-customary ancillary staff meeting regarding the young Great Wyrm resident in the adjoining forest.

"So, we meet again to discuss our progress with young Harry," Albus began, again accepting a drink from his charms professor, Flitwick, who seemed to have developed a penchant for tending bar. The drink of choice this time was a faintly glowing golden brew provided by Pomona Sprout. Served in a beer stein, the brew was apparently a derivative of mead which was smooth, sweet, and which — the woman assured her peers — kicked like a mule.

Albus continued, "I for one, have been amazed at his progress with Occlumency. We proceed slowly, for I am loath to push too hard or too fast, but he has taken to the practice like a duck to water. I daresay he will come through the learning process unscathed." He took a celebratory draught of his glowing liquor, joined in doing so by Madame Pomfrey, who looked eminently relieved. Both then nodded their appreciation to the herbology professor. "What other progress is there to report?"

There was some back-and-forth among the group clustered about the staffroom fireplace to see who would report next. The group had expanded once again, this time, in addition to the four Heads, the Headmaster, Madams Pomfrey and Hooch, and Septima Vector, they were joined by Bathsheda Babbling, Professor of Ancient Runes, and the perpetually-intoxicated Sybil Trelawney, Divination instructor, the latter drawing an unpleasant look from Minerva McGonagall even before any words were exchanged.

"He's reached the end of what I can teach him," Madame Hooch began, apparently chosen as the first speaker by unspoken acclamation. "We've got him able to take off and land smoothly, and he can avoid stationary obstacles. The rest will simply have to come through practice, which he can do on his own. Teaching precision means close quarters flying, and I for one am not willing to risk my neck there."

That prompted an understanding nod from her colleagues. No one wanted to be in that position. Albus stroked his beard thoughtfully, though. Perhaps he knew someone who might be interested in helping…

"I take it that it that Mr. Potter's flying lessons have come to an end, then Rolanda?" Minerva confirmed.

"Indeed, that slot on his schedule is now open, at least until broom lessons next fall."

"I suppose I should continue then," the transfiguration professor said. "Mr. Potter has mastered transfiguring himself into a human form, as I am sure you have all seen. Additionally, he has extended his repertoire to include a centaur form as well as two bird forms, a seagull and a common pigeon," she relayed proudly. "I must admit, I was somewhat concerned about his choice of animal forms, as both are quite vulnerable to various predators, but it seems he maintains his strength in any transfigured form." The woman chuckled, "I was quite horrified when a hawk stooped on him in pigeon form, until he rounded on the bird and beat it senseless with his wings before proceeding to eat the creature."

"I believe my lessons with the boy will taper off into periodic sessions to check on his progress with new forms as he chooses," Minerva concluded. "At least until next school year, of course. I look forward to seeing what he can do with transfiguration outside this narrow application." Her voice turned challenging, "What news do you bring, Sybil? I have difficulty imagining young Mr. Potter taking an interest in divination of all things."

At this, Flitwick stepped in before Sybil could pull herself out of her glass — she was halfway through her second and had already been deep in her sherry before the meeting began. "Sybil is actually here because she was helping with a joint project I've been working on with Septima and Bathsheda."

As Minerva backed away from her aggressive stance, he continued, "In our last meeting, Septima sprung that aura estimate on us," while everyone chuckled, the young arithmancer's contribution sounded rather sheepish, "so we set out to examine the stone ring at Avebury."

The small man spoke further, "The device is surprisingly elaborate, and analyzing it has proven fascinating. As it happens, the standing stones are only the smallest part of the whole, the magical structure extends deep into the bedrock of the site — deeper than my spells can penetrate, in fact. There are inscriptions carved into the bedrock, on many levels of it, which led us to bring in Bathsheda. The languages involved are ancient even by her standards, so they have thus far defied translation, but examination of the rock that young Harry encountered allowed me to pull traces of the energy flow from the incident."

Flitwick's eager expression turned somber. "If anything, Septima's estimate was conservative — understandably so, since she was measuring the end effect rather than the causative flow from the incident itself, and there will always be losses. The energy transferred during that incident, if it were to be channeled into an equivalent blasting curse, would have left a crater miles deep and stretching from Dublin to Paris."

His audience gasped, stunned at that scale. Before they could speak, he continued, grimly, "That is the effect if the energy were channeled into a purpose; left unchanneled, the blast would have been smaller — still large enough to annihilate an area the size of London, mind — but the wild magic effects would have been devastating." His knuckles whitened as his grip on his glass tightened, "Everything from Iceland to the Urals, from the Arctic to Tunisia, would have been just as magical as the less pleasant portions of the Forbidden Forest! A full fifteenth of the world would have been rendered effectively uninhabitable." The half-goblin paused to take a drink.

"And what is the bad news?" Snape asked.

"Severus, this is no joking matter!" Minerva exclaimed.

"Had we dodged such a fate cleanly, Filius would be back to his usual cheerful self, as he is still attempting to fortify himself to continue, the explanation must indubitably get worse."

"Well reasoned, Severus," Flitwick acknowledged. "During our examination, Septima noted that the entire ring occupied a convergence of ley-lines and was intimately entwined with them, and Bathsheda thought to ask whether this was the only one. It seemed a decent question to ask, so we approached Sybil to scry for the other such intersections nearby." He nodded to Minerva, "No matter what you might think of divination as a means to predict the future, there is no denying its utility in learning about the present, and such magical flows are some of the easiest things to scry."

He took another drink, glass nearly empty. "With Sybil's help, we visited three such ley-line intersections within the Isles, there are several more, but those three were enough to give us an idea of what was going on."

Snape took a swig of his own, "I take it there were more of the things?"

"Of course there bloody well were! Every intersection we checked was home to one of those devices, all of them holding back tremendous amounts of energy. I have no doubt whatsoever that there is one of them at every intersection, at least in the Isles, probably around the world." The half goblin knocked back the rest of his drink. "Every single one can potentially end civilization as we know it and there are hundreds of the blasted things!"

"Have you any idea what triggers the rings?" Albus sounded troubled, and everyone in the room knew to be nervous when Albus sounded anything other than grandfatherly.

"No, and I am supremely reluctant to putter about with the things when a single misstep could annihilate Europe."

"We do have a single example of a safe activation and draining in the form of young Mr. Potter," Albus mused. "Can anything be gleaned from his experiences?"

"I have already approached Mr. Potter, and he was willing to share his memories of the event," Flitwick spoke again, "but his memories are fragmented due to the great strain he was under at the time. I was unable to glean anything useful. Anything we learn from Mr. Potter will need to be deduced from his transformation."

"It seems that Poppy and I will have a new project, then," Minerva spoke up, accompanied by a nod from the school Healer.

Snape spoke up again, "There are three witnesses remaining in the form of Mr. Potter's relatives."

"Will they be willing to share their memories?" Minerva asked doubtfully. "They did not seem terribly accepting of their nephew, nor of magic in general. I doubt they would agree to sharing memories."

"They will," Snape assured her. "One way, or another."

On that ominous note, the entire group finished off the remainder of their drinks. That hinted at things they felt they would be better off forgetting.

"Severus, be cautious," Albus cautioned. "We can ill-afford undue attention at this juncture."

His only answer was a dismissive scoff.

1.10.2 Reunion

The neighborhood had not changed in the last two years, it was still dull, pathologically conformist and shockingly self-absorbed. The houses were still disturbingly similar, to the point that even long-term residents would need the house numbers to tell them apart, but the atmosphere was quite distinct from that of his last visit, as Severus again approached Number Four, Privet Drive.

Where before the atmosphere had been stultifying, crushing those around it into its own pedestrian normality, now the house seemed to exude a sense of unassuming but still warm welcome, despite remaining otherwise indistinguishable from its neighbors. Had the boy's family moved? Or, and this was a horrifying thought, had he softened this much?

He supposed there was only one way to find out. Severus knocked on the door before retreating several steps away from the entrance. He could hear a cry of 'I'll get it' followed by the heavy clamor of a sizeable body roughly navigating a set of stairs, only for his knock to be answered by a young boy who was quite large for his age. The young man was heavyset but appeared to be in decent condition if his even breathing after his apparent hurried traversal of the house was any indication.

"Is this the Dursley residence, young man?" Snape asked. The question was only a formality, as the resemblance between the boy and his father was patently obvious, but even Snape felt the need to observe certain social niceties, particularly with those who had yet to do him any wrong.

The boy nodded, wide-eyed, as an irritatingly familiar female voice rang from deeper within the house. "Don't open that door!" Another, significantly lighter clamor followed before the voice sounded again, this time much closer. "Dudley Vernon Dursley! What have I told you about answering the door without waiting for me to come with you?"

The young boy, apparently named Dudley — an inward shudder of sympathy passed through Snape at the name; he'd thought 'Severus' was unfortunate — quickly turned to face his mother, a look of horrified contrition on his face.

"I've told you not to, that's what!" Petunia Evans's voice continued. Well, it was Petunia Dursley now; Snape had to remind himself. At her son's apology, she bent to give him a hug, before continuing, "Son, we ask you to do these things to keep you safe. Who knows who might be coming by? You should wait until your father or I are there before you open the door, do you understand?" He nodded. "Good! Now then, who is it at the door?"

"I don't know yet, he's just finished asking if this is the Dursley residence." At his mother's encouraging gesture, Dudley asked the obviously practiced question, "May I ask who is calling?"

"I am Severus Snape," he could see Petunia pale at the name, her eyes snapping to meet his through the partially-opened door, "and your mother and I were acquainted in our youth. I have come to ask some questions about a certain incident, some two years passed, involving your cousin, Harry Potter."

On hearing this, the young boy's eyes lit up with an enthusiasm to match the magnitude of his mother's apprehension. "You know Harry? How is he doing?"

"He fares quite well, young man, and has adjusted to his new home. I will inform him that you asked after him; I am certain he will be appreciative," Severus said before turning to Petunia, "As I mentioned to your son, I have some questions for your family, both you and your husband. Is he available at this time?"

"It will be a few minutes before Vernon gets home. May I offer you tea in the meantime?" The offer only came after a glance at her son. Presumably she realized that she had to set a proper example of hospitality for the boy. Severus got the impression that, had she her druthers, Petunia would throw him out on his ear. Though, judging by her whitened knuckles, she might settle for wringing his neck as well.

Naturally, Severus accepted her offer; tweaking Petunia's nose was a reminder of older, more pleasant times.

The tea was a tense affair. Dudley had rapidly realized that this was going to be one of those boring adult things and retreated up the stairs, declaring to anyone interested that he was going to finish his homework. Meanwhile, Snape sipped his tea after discreetly checking it for any deleterious additives; he was a potions master, after all.

The time before Vernon's arrival passed in tense silence with Petunia managing to show a truly prodigious degree of antipathy without actually saying anything. It was rather impressive; Snape hadn't known she was capable of expressing herself so effectively.

He was tempted to take notes.

It was this scene that an unfortunate Vernon Dursley encountered on his arrival home after work.

1.10.3 Unpleasant reminders

It had been a good day at work, Vernon Dursley thought as he pulled into his driveway. Ever since his nephew had moved to new accommodations, everything had been going his way on the job.

Despite taking almost a three-month sabbatical to look after his nephew the year before last, Vernon's sales figures since had more than made up for the loss. The additional contacts he had made while scrounging for scrap to feed the insatiable young dragon had expanded his customer base threefold, many of whom were small machine shops willing to deal with him almost exclusively because they were impressed by his character, and that he would go so far to look after his nephew's interests — he had presented it as feeding a hobby for the boy, rather than a thoroughly unbelievable medical issue.

His supervisor was impressed for much the same reason. Any man willing to take the time to look after his family despite financial hardship was a straight shooter in his boss' mind, and he'd made sure that Vernon would go far at Grunnings.

It helped that it was the truth from Vernon's perspective as well.

Life at home was another matter. Vernon's eyes had been opened by his enforced time at the house, and he was deeply disturbed by Petunia's behavior. She had misled him regarding both Harry's and Dudley's behavior, and in his ignorance, Vernon had almost done irreparable harm to both boys. Thinking back on his treatment of his nephew before the incident at Avebury still turned his stomach.

He had nearly filed for divorce until he had a solid man-to-man talk with Richard from down the street who had similar problems with his wife, Hyacinth. Richard had suggested counseling, and he and Petunia were able to work things out. Pet had been getting counseling of her own as well. It was expensive, but Vernon figured it was worth it to have a happy family. Dudders was healthier and happier than he'd ever been before, and Pet was much nicer to be around.

As he opened the door, his wife called out in that brittle voice she used when she was straining to keep from lashing out at something, "Vernon, we have a visitor."

As Vernon entered the sitting room, he understood why Petunia was having such difficulties. One of the freaks who had helped move his nephew had shown up and was seated, drinking tea. Vernon had decidedly mixed feelings about that sort, and Pet was much worse off than he was.

"Pet, would you like me to handle this?" he offered.

"Please," came the flat reply.

"You just go try to relax, Pet." As his wife walked stiffly out of the room, Vernon turned back to the dark-haired man. At least this one was dressed sensibly, if a bit old-fashioned.

He held out a hand, "Not sure if we were properly introduced last time, given all the bustle. Vernon Dursley."

"And I am Severus Snape," the now-named man replied, giving his hand a firm shake.

"You were one of the fellows who moved my nephew, right?" Vernon confirmed. When the visitor nodded in confirmation, he asked, "How's the boy doing?"

"The young man is doing quite admirably," the man said.

"That's good to hear," Vernon sighed explosively, "was afraid you were here to tell us something had happened to him."

"I am somewhat surprised to hear your concern," Snape remarked, "given my conversations with the boy and his recollections of his time under this roof."

Vernon had been afraid of that. His treatment of his nephew was a lingering source of shame. "I can understand that. I'm not proud of how I treated the boy back then. I… I was misinformed about the boy's behavior and was trying to correct things my son was doing, and my wife was blaming on Harry." He leaned back heavily in his chair. "Obviously didn't work since there was nothing to correct, and in hindsight I'm sure it drove the boy to distraction as much as it did me. It also let Dudders get away with all kinds of things. I just got more and more frustrated, and I was starting to turn into a person that I really don't like very much, looking back on it."

"I see."

"That thing at Avebury was probably the best thing that could have happened, really," Vernon mused. "Pretty sure a few more years would have ruined us all… By the way, I apologize for my wife's hostility. She's been working through some things, a lot of grief over the loss of her sister that she's just coming to terms with. She's got a lot of anger bottled up over your lot for stealing her away, right or wrong."

"I see; that is a depth of emotion that I had not anticipated from Petunia Evans," Snape remarked, surprised. "Congratulations on your wife's development as a person."

"Now see here! Where do you get off making remarks like that?" Vernon demanded.

"I grew up down the street from the Evans household, in my youth," the dark man replied calmly. "The sister you speak of was my best, and truly only, childhood friend. I knew Petunia quite well when we were younger, and it seems that she is much matured since then, if your statement is true."

"Oh," Vernon said, mollified. "I see." This was awkward, perhaps a change of subject?

"Ah, to go back to Harry, you see him often?" The man nodded, and Vernon continued. "Do you think you could give him a letter? I've been working on it for a while, so I could try to apologize. I would have sent it, but I don't know where to address the thing. Pet still breaks down every time I try to ask."

"I would be pleased to carry such a missive," it was hard to tell, but Vernon thought there might be a glint of approval in the man's eyes. "Perhaps, though, we should go on to the reason for my presence here?"

"Right!" Vernon was mightily embarrassed. That should have been the first thing he asked! Where was his professional demeanor? Business first, then personal talk.

1.10.4 Pleasant surprises

"I have come seeking additional information regarding the events which led to Mr. Potter's transformation," Snape began. "While Mr. Potter is quite disgustingly healthy, issues have arisen regarding the means which made his change in nature possible."

Snape had come to this house expecting to find a pair of at least semi-hostile dunderheads, instead he found a couple struggling through their preconceptions and repentant for past actions. This was rare enough in Snape's experience to warrant significant surprise, and he was impressed enough to offer more information than he otherwise would have.

"My colleagues have investigated the amount of energy which was discharged during that event, and it could have quite severe consequences if released incautiously," the potions master began, "Consequences to the tune of rendering Europe uninhabitable."

"My God!"

"Indeed, Mr. Dursley," Snape agreed. "It seems that the stone circle at Avebury was, in truth, a device intended to store tremendous amounts of energy for future use. If it were the only such device, there would be little cause for concern, as it has safely discharged with the only consequence being a rather oversized lizard who is thoroughly pleased with his new circumstances."

"Sounds like you've found more of them, though," Vernon said.

"Quite right. At least three more confirmed in the Isles, and possibly several dozen, with potentially hundreds or thousands worldwide," Snape elaborated. "Faced with such a clear and present danger, we are investigating just how the things work, but we are reluctant to meddle with any of them when the potential consequences are so high. I have come to attempt to convince you to share your recollections of the event, so that we might have a first-hand account of the activation of one of the devices."

"I'd like to help you, but I don't know how much I can tell you; I don't really know what you're looking for."

"With your consent, I can extract a copy of your memories of the event which we can then examine in great detail using a device available in our world," Snape offered. "The process is painless."

"I get keep my memories, right?" Vernon's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I know Pet said something about removing memories before…"

"That is known as obliviation, the process of blocking memories from future recall," Snape volunteered. "I find it to be a generally detestable practice, but this, I assure you, is a completely different process which copies the memories in question leaving your original memories fully intact."

"I'll help you out with that, then." Snape was pleasantly surprised by this development.

After an anticlimactic exchange in which he filled one of his ever-present sample bottles with Vernon Dursley's memories of that evening in Avebury and received an envelope to go with it, Snape thanked the man briefly and stood to leave.

"I must say, Mr. Dursley; I went on this errand expecting a distasteful chore based on what I had understood of Mr. Potter's past situation, but I find myself pleasantly surprised. You have recognized your own failings and are making admirable efforts towards correcting them, a quality that is all too lacking in most."

Snape nodded to the man, "I daresay you may well be able to repair your relationship with your nephew, as he is an agreeable sort. As the product of an… unpleasant family situation, myself, I can assure you that those willing to make such an effort as you have are rare, indeed. My own father was certainly not one of them. I offer my heartfelt felicitations."

With that, he swept out of the house and away to a secluded spot for his portkey transit. Vernon was left gaping on the doorstep.

1.10.5 New reading material

Time passed as it usually did, and Harry once again had a great deal to occupy his time. In addition to his games with Suze, he now had his first taste of letter writing, as the correspondence from his Uncle Vernon touched off a regular exchange among Harry, his uncle, and his cousin, who Harry had now learned was no longer nasty. His Aunt Petunia was apparently still working through things, but Uncle Vernon held hopes that they might eventually accept Harry's offer to host a Christmas celebration at the Lair someday.

Uncle Vernon said she was still working through guilt over how she behaved before. Harry didn't really understand why that would make you spend less time with the person you behaved badly towards rather than more trying to make things up, but he eventually accepted the explanation at face value. Aunt Petunia had never made sense before, so he figured there was no reason for her to start now, even if she was apparently nicer.

With his new experience at letter writing, Harry also struck up a correspondence with Corporal Hookknife, the engineer who had visited a while back. Harry hadn't yet been able to get the books on the list that the good corporal had left for him, and since he couldn't go to Diagon Alley until after summer solstice, Harry was at something of a loss on how to proceed.

The return letter got him all fired up for a new project.

It seemed that the books on the list weren't magical books at all. Apparently, the best books for the sorts of things he wanted to do to the Lair were written by the not-glowy people, and Corporal Hookknife suggested he go visit a public library. They might have the books there, and if not, Hookknife said they'd probably know where he could order them.

His glowy friends were really busy with the students, and they didn't have any new books for him to read in any case, not ones he could bring home, anyway. This new idea meant Harry would be awash in new reading material for years 'cause there were libraries all over! And he could fly all secret-like using the seagull and pigeon forms he had worked on over the summer for just that purpose, so that meant he could go anywhere in Scotland and back in a day. There were loads of libraries within that distance!

A quick bit of work gave the boy a second human form, this one an older gentleman who looked to be a little into retirement age modeled heavily on Magorian's human bits with human legs tacked on instead of horse — Hookknife had suggested it for actually going into the library, since they'd insist to see his parents if he went in looking like a kid, but people tended to ignore older people for good or ill. Harry soon found himself winging halfway across Scotland to Inverness, much faster than a pigeon could normally go on account of Harry's much greater strength.

1.10.6 An old Scotsman is surprised

It was looking to be a cold winter this year, he thought looking out at the steel-gray sky above the rooftops of Inverness.

In his youth, Aengus Leith had moved to Inverness to work in one of the distilleries, and over the course of his career there, he'd developed a liking for their product that was perhaps a touch excessive. Aengus had never found the right lass, and he was now the only member of his family still kicking, though he was proud of the wealth of good friends he had to his name. He now spent his twilight years in a miniscule flat one of those good friends was willing to let him use for cheap, freeing up the bulk of his retirement income to fund his lifelong love affair with single malt. He spent his days drinking and watching the birds as they flitted about the town.

He had just seen one particularly quick pigeon — male to judge from the iridescent green throat feathers — swoop down to a landing on the roof below his flat and walk with an odd sense of purpose to the edge of the roof, looking down the street towards the local library. It was odd but unremarkable, aside from the fact that its path took it perilously close to the local alley cat which was sunning itself on the roof in the autumn afternoon.

Aengus took a sip as the cat, a grizzled old tom, smoothly picked itself up and slinked off in pursuit of the bold grey bird. It looked like the old cat was going to eat well tonight. The old drunk lifted his glass in salute to the poor bird, only to be surprised when the cat's pounce ended with the cat falling flat as if it had jumped face-first into a fence post. The bird's head turned halfway around to stare with unnaturally green eyes at the bewildered cat half-draped over its back end before it let out a coo — a call that somehow managed to sound threatening even to Aengus' ears — and turned around with a deliberate stomp.

As the cat was shaking off its surprise, it was sent for another tumble as the odd bird puffed up threateningly before belting it with a wing, sending the old tom flying off the roof and into the alley with a yowl. Again, the pigeon surprised Aengus by following after the airborne feline with a deliberately predatory gait before gliding down into the alley and out of the old man's sight.

Perhaps he should have saluted the cat instead?

Old Aengus looked down at his glass before looking back out the window at the edge of the roof where the pigeon had disappeared. There was now a collection of other birds looking down into the alley with a sort of avian awe as a loud yowl echoed up from the alley until it was abruptly cut off by an unpleasant crunching sound.

That did it. The old man finished off his current glass before carefully capping the bottle and levering himself up out of his chair by the window. As he went for his coat, he shook his head. There'd be no more drinking alone if he was starting to hallucinate about god-pigeons that ate cats. It was time to go down to the bar, where at least a story like this one might get someone to buy his drinks for the night.

Properly attired for the evening, Aengus left the front door to the building just as a young lad who looked about eight years old ran out of the alley and almost bowled him over.

"Watch whaur ye'r gaun thare, young un'!"

The boy turned back to offer an apology, and then sped off toward the library after Aengus nodded in acknowledgement. The old man chuckled at the boy's enthusiasm before he was struck by just how unnaturally green the lad's eyes were…

He turned back to the alley next to his home that the boy had run out of, the same one the cat and the weird pigeon had disappeared into, before looking back toward the boy who had already disappeared from sight.

He shook his head. "Na, thay wull ne'er hawp it."

1.10.7 Schooling approaches

Harry's new library card soon took a proud place among his treasures, and he used it to its limits, quickly filling it with due date stamps as he read through dozens of books every week. He began with Hookknife's suggestions, but the public library stocked very few of them. The librarians were happy to direct either the friendly older gentleman or his eager young grandson — depending on whether he remembered to change before entering the library — to publisher's catalogues and book clubs that he could order books from — a service that Harry was quite willing to take advantage of — but order processing and shipping took six to eight weeks, and Harry needed something to read in the meantime.

Harry's horizons broadened considerably during that free reading time, and eventually he came to be almost grateful for the delays. There were so many things he never would have thought to look for if he'd been able to get just what he wanted exactly when he wanted it, and his almost random walk through the library were expanded in his book orders. Books on philosophy, religion and ethics shared shelf space with the Machinist's Handbook and a soft-cover DIY hydroelectric book. Architectural studies joined biology texts which sat next to physics treatises and political discourse, and books on every subject under the sun followed along in time.

Suze discovered just as much of a love of reading as her dragon did, though her pace was much slower, and many lazy autumn afternoons saw the pair lounging in the sun at the mouth of the Lair reading something esoteric and enjoying each other's company, but time passed as it always does, and with it, autumn passed into winter.

It was a stormy one that year, enough that Harry's offer to dig out a shelter for the Black Woods Clan at the base of the cliff around behind his Lair and out of the worst of the winds was gratefully accepted. Suze and Harry had to move their reading sessions inside, lest the winter gales steal their books from them, and the firelight proved decidedly inadequate for the task which brought Harry full circle to the reason he had gone on that trip to the library in the first place.

Much banging and frustrated book consultation ensued until eventually, there was a small waterwheel — built from a salvaged furnace fan and an alternator he picked out of his most recent lunch — installed at the mouth of the Lair which powered a small reading lamp for the two of them. After that, the violent weather became much more pleasant.

The winter gales continued to hammer the land through the solstice and Christmas and eventually transitioned into heavy rainstorms in the early spring. It was about this time that a new visitor began to appear at Harry's Lair.

On one of his visits, Mr. Dumbledore had brought along a phoenix by the name of Fawkes. The bird, a red-gold creature about the size of a very large swan and looking for all the world like a roiling mass of animated flames took an instant liking to the young dragon and his damsel and soon became a regular visitor.

As was his habit, Harry soon worked out a new game with his avian friend, tag. Fawkes was a wonderful flier, and their games of chase filled a gap in Harry's schedule that he hadn't realized he missed after his lessons with Madame Hooch ended. Harry was significantly faster than his new friend when traveling in a straight line, but Fawkes proved devilishly hard to catch, particularly when he did fiendishly devious things like changing direction. When the young dragon was all played out, Fawkes would often join the pair in the Lair for times filled with song and companionship.

Fawkes particularly enjoyed being bathed in Harry's fire for one reason or another.

As the heavy rains of spring gave way to the heat of summer, the school year came to a close, and the time for contacting new students approached. Several of Harry's professor friends came to his Lair for important discussions.

These discussions entailed important arrangements for Harry to attend Hogwarts as a student, starting with the subject of keeping his dragon-ness quiet and rapidly spiraled out of control after Harry apologetically explained his inability to sleep in any shape but his natural one, or rather, his tendency to spontaneously revert to his natural form if he was in any other shape when he went to sleep.

Considering that such a reversion would spell instant death to any of his roommates if he were to live in the standard accommodations, the school rules were quickly consulted to find some way of making alternative arrangements. Once that little wrinkle had been resolved by citing a rule about permitting students who live close enough to the castle to attend as day-students rather than boarding — it was a rule which was rarely exercised in the five hundred years since room and board fees had been lumped with tuition rather than charged separately; this coming year was unusual in that there would be a few other students in addition to Harry making use of it — they got on to the subject of where Suze was supposed to stay.

Harry got rather cross at the suggestion that it might be better if she were to stay with the other centaurs, and he got even more worked up at the suggestion that he might not be allowed to go to his Lair whenever he needed to make sure those nasty but tasty spiders weren't going after the centaurs again. After some snarky remarks from the resident potions master, who had once gotten rather ill from some badly-cooked acromantula, this was again resolved by reference to assorted entries in the mind-bogglingly complicated, not to mention huge, book of Hogwarts school rules. The thing was the size of a dinner table — one that could seat a family of five.

Predictably, Harry asked if he could read it. A question which was answered, "Yes, but not until later."

From there it devolved into chatting about all sorts of stuff ranging from what to do about Harry's dietary requirements to what to do if Harry found any more damsels at Hogwarts. This particular point raised a hullaballoo until Harry put the kibosh on the discussion by declaring that it wasn't 'if' but 'when', and when he did he would just carry her off as was good and proper, thank you very much, and they had all better stop being so silly about it at once — or else.

With that put to rest and the thin curls of smoke accompanying Harry's last declaration still lazily rising through the air, the topic of guns was raised, and with it came another uproar. Once again, Harry had to snap a bit to get everyone else to start being sensible. As guns were hard to get, it was obvious that they were a kind of treasure, and anyway, Sergeant Major Hooktalon said that if anyone wanted Harry's guns then they should have to prize them from his cold dead fingers, so everyone had better stop being silly about it at once.

Once Snape had got done with his snigger-fit — it wasn't giggling, for Snapes never giggle; Snape had made that very clear — they started poring over the rules to work out how to make that not break the rules. The thing about guns was solved by citing a rule about carrying swords that never specified the sort of weapon it was talking about, and the thing about damsels was solved by the same bit of the rules they were using to let Harry stay at his Lair during the school year. Nothing said students couldn't go stay over at a friend's house overnight if they were invited, so that was okay.

Some further discussion later, Harry wished his grown-up friends a cheerful good night as they departed for their own homes.

He had trouble getting to sleep that night because he was excited, and he spent the following few weeks counting the days until July 28th​ when the Hogwarts letters would be sent out.

It arrived in its own good time.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2 Harry goes to school

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2.1 Final preparations

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2.1.1 A friendly shopping trip

Diagon Alley was strange place.

The first clue had been the terrible pun in the name, but Tony Granger's first visit had made the state of things abundantly clear.

It had started with the way he and his wife were unable to see the entrance until their daughter towed them there by the hands, and even when they could see the place, it was just a dingy hole-in-the-wall pub. What degenerate sort of society put forth that as their public face?

Then there was the entrance to the alley itself, which had been a plain, even grungy, brick wall behind said run-down pub. The bricks of that wall had folded away revealing the third clue in the form of the architecture, which not only looked to have been lifted from several centuries previous and not cleaned since — which to be fair, was not an unusual look for London — but also looked to be in need of drastic reconstruction. Half the buildings appeared to have somehow been halted right in the process of collapsing in on themselves. The wares on sale had done nothing to dispel the image, nor had their prices. Then there were the people and their absurd sensibilities regarding attire.

Robes were one thing, but the vivid colors and garish patterns were quite another.

However, in the face of all that, the thing that grabbed, and held, Anthony Granger's attention was the centaur loitering outside what seemed to be a second-hand shop near the entrance to the alley.

She was a gorgeous creature, not that he was sure any of those were the right term. From the bits that humans used as hips on up, she was the very picture of classical Grecian beauty, only departing by being somewhat wider and more muscular. From there down was what looked to be one of those mobile slabs of lean muscle that people who know about horses bandy terms like 'thoroughbred' about. Her hair and fur were a deep russet, and every part of her human-equine mish-mash anatomy was tightly defined. And if he'd thought that was strange, her clothing and the assorted equipment she carried on her person really took the biscuit.

In large part because she was quite visibly armed to the teeth.

Attached to the web-work of leather straps she had fitted tightly to most of her body — the interaction of which with her human-bits had captured Tony's attention for longer than he was strictly comfortable with — the centaur carried a military-looking gun, one of those with the bullets stored in a little metal box forward of the trigger, a disturbingly large number of extras of those little ammunition boxes, a second gun that looked like a hunting rifle with a very long barrel, yet another gun that he recognized as a shotgun from the westerns he used to watch as a child, a sizeable variety of knives of various makes, and a very modern high-powered pulley-operated compound bow — he was pretty sure he recognized it as a top-of-the-line Browning — complete with a quiver full of equally modern carbon-aluminum arrows.

In short, she looked like she was carrying enough weaponry to field a full squad of modern infantry in a combat zone.

Underneath that leather harness, her upper human-like parts were clad in a greenish-brown shirt of what looked like linen, cut in an unusual, vaguely-Asian, style with a deeply plunging neckline and accented by what looked to be carefully chosen furs of a soft grey-brown. She wore a brightly polished choker around her slim throat which carried an intricately engraved seal on its silvery surface centered under her chin. Her lower, equine, parts bore a western-style saddle and associated tack with several canvas shopping bags slung over it and, now that he'd gotten a better look, yet another gun attached to it, partially hidden under the bags. This time some sort of old-school bolt-action rifle. She also had some sort of bridle, complete with reins, strapped around her head, though the bit was currently missing from the ensemble.

It was about that time that Tony realized something very important; the oddly-dressed people around him in the alley — the ones he'd been very busy being unsure how to react to — very obviously didn't know how to react to the centaur either.

"Okay Suze, now we gotta go get a wand!" said a cheerfully energetic, and very young, voice, and the centaur visibly perked up as a small boy — perhaps two or three years younger than Tony's daughter by the look of him — came running over in that hyper-small-kid-running kind of way, carrying another well-packed cloth shopping bag with him. "Mr. Dumbledore says the best place for wands is a place called Ollivander's Wands Shoppe; he says it's just down thattaway past the expensive potions place."

"Okay, Harry," the centaur said, calmly taking the new bag from him and hooking it to her saddle alongside the others before giving the boy a hand up into said saddle and ambling off in the direction the boy had indicated, though Tony noticed that the reins remained looped over the saddle horn rather than in the boy's hands.

Then the boy seemed to notice the Grangers.

"Oh, hi!" he said in a bright, friendly tone. "You look kinda lost, 'bout as lost as me and Suze were the first time we came around here."

"Well… actually, yes," Tony admitted, dubiously glancing from centaur to small boy and back again several times. The centaur noticed his expression, giving him a wink and a shrug that did nothing to alleviate his confusion.

"Aw, don't worry about it, Diagon Alley takes a lot of getting used to at first, but once you've gotten used to it it's cool. Um, have you swapped out your pounds for galleons yet? They're not proper gold, but that's because goblins are sensible, and they keep most of the gold to themselves."

"…well, no." This time it was Sharon, Tony's wife who spoke up.

"Okay, then you gotta go to Gringotts. That's the bank; they're just over there." The boy pointed out an imposing white and gold structure at the central intersection of the shopping district directly across from an oddly empty lot. Given how crowded the rest of the alley was, Tony would have thought someone would have snapped up such a prime piece of real estate. As Tony frowned contemplatively, the boy offered brightly, "Hey, you want me to, you know, show you around? I've been here like six times, and I know the way everywhere here. Oh, but we haven't been introduced! I'm Harry, Harry Potter, and this is my centaur damsel, her name's Suze. Hi!"

Well, the kid was certainly friendly. "I'm Anthony Granger; call me Tony, everyone does. This is my wife, Sharon, and this is our daughter, Hermione."

"I'm the first witch in our family," Hermione volunteered. Tony had to smile at how pleased with herself she sounded.

"Wow, that's awesome! I didn't know not-glowy people could have kids who glow!" Harry enthused, obviously beyond delighted. "Hey, c'mon, there's all sorts of awesome stuff I've gotta show you! But first off, we gotta go to the bank. Let's go!"

Closer inspection showed the bank to have a set of broad steps leading up to an entrance guarded by a set of imposing silver doors and a pair of brightly attired guards carrying very nasty looking halberds. The guards were short, broad men with yellow-brown skin, protruding chins, neatly cropped white hair, long noses, and beady black rodent-like eyes. Those bright uniforms looked to be painstakingly maintained, and there was something about their manner which was reminiscent of the guards at Buckingham Palace as they stood there, alert and keeping a sharp eye on the passers-by.

"Are those goblins?" Tony asked as they approached.

"Hmm… Yeah, they sure are," Harry replied. "The one on the left is Corporal Mantrap, and the one on the right's a private, though I don't know his name."

"They're kind of fierce looking," Hermione muttered.

"G'morning, Corporal Mantrap!" Harry enthusiastically greeted the guard on the left, who promptly saluted.

"Mornin', Mr. Potter," the goblin growled. "Here to speak to the Vice Chairman?"

"Nah, I'm just showin' these guys around; they were kinda lost."

The corporal nodded politely and touched his cap, "Mornin' ladies, gentleman. A profitable day to yeh all."

"Morning," the Grangers said in a ragged chorus. Sharon, Hermione, and Suze immediately followed Harry into the building, while Tony paused to read the inscription on the silvery doors warning against thievery.

"Has anyone ever been stupid enough to try to steal those doors?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

Corporal Mantrap let out a rough chuckle. "A time or two," he said. "That's why the lot across the street is empty, the Bofors and Vickers make a bit of a mess." There was another dry chuckle. "Being un-magical and all, you'd know well what that means, eh lad? Head on in, yer missus'll be wonderin' where yeh've gotten to."

"…right," Tony said and entered the bank. The name 'Bofors' was vaguely familiar from his father's war stories, and 'Vickers' rang a bell too.

Weren't those the names of some very large guns?

"Okay, now you gotta go queue," Harry was just saying as Tony caught up with the rest of the group. "It shouldn't take too long because you picked the right sort of day and time to come. It's always quietest on Wednesdays and halfway between when people start work and lunchtime."

Business in the bank was swiftly concluded; goblins and non-magical bankers seemed to have similar ideas on the equivalence of time and money. There were odd looks from the rest of the clientele when those other customers realized how polite the goblins were being to the otherwise unremarkable group of muggles and muggle-born.

"I'm guessing there are male and female goblins," Sharon suddenly said, just after they'd left the bank.

Tony was wondering when she'd ask that, Sharon had been big into the feminist thing at university, though she'd calmed down a lot since graduation. He'd figured she'd feel the need to say something after the bank visit and its strangely uniform staff.

"Well of course there are," Harry said, shrugging matter-of-factly. "Where'd you think little baby goblins come from?"

"…er, right. So where are they?" Sharon asked.

"Where's who?"

"The lady goblins."

Harry snorted, "Didn't you smell? The goblin you changed your money with is a girl. I think her name is Meatshred Slackhammer; she's my friend, Mr. Vice-Chairman Slackhammer's, niece, I think. Oh, of course you didn't smell! Your nose ain't as good as mine or a goblin's." The boy nodded sagely at that odd statement. "You know, I think she might be going into heat, that's the only time it's easy to smell if a goblin's a mister or a madam, normally they just smell of goblin." The boy's face screwed up in confusion. "I'm not really sure what going into heat means, Mr. Vice-Chairman Slackhammer got all sorts of embarrassed when I asked, but I think it's got to do with that kissy-face making-babies stuff some grown-ups are into."

"…oh," Sharon said. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected them to be like humans, should I?"

"It ain't real important anyway," Harry continued. "When I asked, Color-Sergeant Griphook said that if you ain't certain whether a goblin's a boy or a girl, the proper thing to do is call 'em 'Mister' and if they're bothered by it, they'll tell you, and there ain't many that're bothered. I think Madame Axetalon's the only girl goblin I've ever met who makes a point of it, and I know lots of goblins."

"I take it you're quite familiar with goblins then?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, they're my friends," Harry said with a firm nod. "They're all sorts of fun, and treasure 's got to come from someplace, right? Anyways, I'm guessing you gotta get everything, right?" This last question was addressed to Hermione. "'Cause half the places on the school list are kinda expensive, and I know a couple of real neato shops where you can get half the school stuff for like half the price. 'Specially the potions stuff, the big place is a real rip-off." He indicated the bags hanging off Suze's saddle horn. "I've got my potions stuff already, an' I was going to head to get a wand next."

With that decided upon, they set off for the wand shop. All three Grangers were given quite a fright by the thinning-haired man who seemed to appear from nowhere, only for Harry to ask why he smelled like fish, and the rather crestfallen man, who introduced himself as Ollivander, explained that small quantities of cod liver oil were used in the making of the glue used to hold the different wand components together and the finish used to polish them. Thereafter, each child was subjected to a seemingly excessive battery of measurements of odd pieces of anatomy — why on Earth was the distance from left eye to right thumb with arm extended important? Particularly considering it would change as the owner grew, or even as the owner shifted posture for that matter — before being offered a whole string of wands to try.

Here, Harry became quite visibly concerned at the comments about the usage of 'dragon heartstrings' in wand construction, and he became even more concerned about Hermione being told that she was well-suited for wands constructed therewith, only to just as visibly calm down when Hermione — who had remained completely oblivious to his concern — spurred Ollivander into a twenty minute explanation of the behavior of various wand-construction materials including the various different heartstrings from different breeds of dragons. Apparently, Hermione's new wand contained a heartstring from a female Hungarian Horntail, a breed renowned for their strength and stubbornness under pressure and suited to people with the acumen to stand up for their beliefs even through immense difficulties.

With Harry relieved for reasons that escaped Tony, and Hermione pleased with the implications of her new wand, Harry was then subjected to a similar set of measurements before going through even more wands than Hermione had in the process of selecting one which was apparently the 'brother' of the one that had put the scar on his forehead; a scar that the Grangers hadn't noticed on account of it being hidden by the boy's immense mane of scruffy black hair.

After the wand shop, bags securely secured in either Tony's hands or on Suze's saddle, they headed towards the place Harry claimed had the best price on potions supplies. The trio of Grangers were somewhat nonplussed at the 'Oh no, not again' reactions from the staff on seeing the young boy marching in the door.

They were confused, that is, until they discovered how much of a skinflint he could be. He pissed, moaned, bitched, complained, criticized, questioned quality, and haggled the sweating shopkeeper down to just over half the stated price.

"We could have afforded, heck, probably thirty cauldrons at the price he was asking," Tony remarked.

"Sure you could," Harry allowed, "but money's gotta come from somewhere and why go spending more than a cauldron's worth when it's a cheap cauldron that ain't hard to melt, and you'll probably go through like a dozen of them? Especially when he was asking like twice what it was worth; it's just pewter and the bottom's kind of thin, and anyway, if you don't gotta spend another knut on something then your hoard's a knut bigger, isn't it?"

The boy finally paused for a breath before continuing, "Plus, Mr. Snape always says you should pay exactly what something is worth because if you overpay for things, then you're encouraging bad habits in the craftsman who made it, and if you underpay for something, then you're cheating an honest man out of the fruits of his labors. Those cauldrons were cheaply made, so you shouldn't pay too much, or you'll encourage people to make things even cheaper."

"Harry, how old are you?" Sharon asked. Tony could guess from her tone that she was getting rather irritated with the pint-sized boy's rambling.

"I'm going to be eleven next week."

"You're not very big for your age," Tony remarked. Then he winced as he realized how offensive that could sound.

Not that Harry was phased by any such implications. "Well, that's because I'm between growth spurts," Harry explained with a pragmatic shrug. "I grew real fast for 'bout eight months before I was nine, then it really slowed down; I only grew like an inch in the past year. I figure I'll catch up next time I have a growth spurt, so that's okay. Y'know, I've been a lot hungrier the past couple of weeks than since my last growth spurt stopped; me and Hagrid and Mr. Kettleburn think that means I'm gonna start growing real fast again pretty soon. It's gonna be a pain 'cause I'm gonna have to start eating tons again, but oh well, you can't grow without enough to eat, so that's okay, I guess."

No more was said on the subject as the group tore through the remainder of their shopping lists with little to remark on aside from Harry tearing huge chunks out of the list prices through unashamed haggling until the visit to the book store provided Tony with a revelation. His daughter was going to be a long-time friend of the boy for their shared love of reading, if nothing else. The two children had identical reactions to the store.

Hermione quickly blew through all the extra money Harry's skinflinting had shaved off their supply budget by loading up on even more books than those named on the school lists, while Harry, declaring that he already had most of the books on the list, headed off to load up on more esoteric books in languages and covering subjects that left Tony thoroughly bewildered.

Once they'd finally managed to drag the kids out of the bookshop, there was a brief upset with what seemed to be a family of Neanderthals in robes, during which Tony found his attention very firmly drawn back to the bewildering assortment of firearms Suze was carrying, specifically the old-style bolt-action rifle which had been attached to her saddle and which Harry had now shoved up the left nostril of this 'Crabbe' character.

As the group of troglodytes moved on in an uncharacteristic fit of prudence, Tony asked, "Mind if I have a look at that gun, Harry?"

"'Fraid I can't do that, Mr. Granger," Harry sounded apologetic. "Sergeant-Major Hooktalon would have my nadgers for boot-leather if I let anyone he wasn't sure knew how to safely handle a firearm handle it, and anyway, Mr. Slackhammer says that it's the duty and privilege of all thinking beings to have weapons and if anyone thinks different they can have our guns when they pry them from our cold dead fingers, and the same goes for swords and knives and such."

"…nadgers for boot-leather…?" Sharon sounded vaguely nauseated.

The clangor of a bell rang out over the alley and Harry froze, raising a finger.

BONG, one finger, BONG, a second, BONG, a third, BONG, a fourth, and silence.

"Four, phew, it's not five, so I'm not late. Um, I think that's everything you need for school, and I really oughtta go. I'll see you guys outta the alley, then I gotta go get my bum into gear. I've gotta be back to the Lair at half-past four so I can meet with Mr. Ronan to talk about seasons at a quarter to five, and then once it's six, I've gotta meet with Mrs. Sprout and Mr. Snape to go harvest potions ingredients that it's the right sort of time to harvest now."

Hermione checked over her shopping list.

"Yes, I think we've got everything," she said, "Did we remember the potions supplies?"

"Yes," Tony confirmed, "that was the third shop we visited."

"Oh, I must have forgotten to tick it off. In that case, that's everything."

"Okay, then I'll see you at the end of the month!" And the whirlwind that was Harry blew out of the alley with his centaur in tow.

2.1.2 Professorial speculation

Albus Dumbledore settled comfortably into his favorite armchair, a soft, velvety number that was tailored to his posterior — he wasn't a master of transfiguration for nothing, after all — and came complete with a matching footstool on which he rested his stockinged feet. He was seated across from the fireplace, currently dark on account of the summer weather, in the sitting area of his office, joined by the four Heads of House for the school.

The meeting had nominally been called for academic planning for the next school year, and the majority of the normal crowd that assembled to discuss their resident dragon was still off completing their various summer projects. Of course, this didn't keep the remainder of group from their usual ritual of passing around a drink, though it did influence the variety. Today's drink of choice was chosen by Minerva, and it was, predictably, a single-malt whiskey brewed and distilled not far from her family's home. Filius had once more volunteered to serve the drinks. Albus idly wondered whether he should introduce the charms master to his brother, Aberforth. They might strike up a friendship over a mutual love of tending bar.

The five professors had finished the necessary administrative tasks and were now lounging about, relaxing while they could before the noisy, hormonal gaggle of teenagers flooded into the halls with the beginning of the autumn term. The room was dimly lit by flickering flames in the gas lamps, and the companionable silence was broken only by the occasional clink of a glass against the table until Pomona Sprout spoke up.

"Hufflepuff, I think," she stated before taking another sip of whiskey.

"Hmm?" Albus said, echoed nonverbally by the inquisitive looks from her fellow Heads.

"I think Mr. Potter will be one of my Badgers."

It seemed that the young dragon would be a topic of conversation after all.

Albus had finished off his glass and retrieved his pipe, filling and lighting it in lieu of refilling the liquor. After he took an initial puff, he asked, "What makes you so confident, Pomona? Not that I disagree, I am simply curious."

"I stopped by Mattias' shop at the start of August to pick up some mandrake seedlings for the second years. A young muggle-born witch was there with her parents trying to shop for her supplies, and they were looking a tad overwhelmed with the sights, particularly a certain well-armed centaur. Young Harry noticed and took them under his wing — metaphorically speaking," she clarified at Severus' worried look. "The lad almost drove Mattias' poor apprentice to tears with his haggling over their potions ingredients. Last I saw, Potter had dragged the family into Flourish and Blotts. Any such good Samaritan is prime Badger material."

McGonagall gave an unladylike snort, "The boy stands up to authority and leaps to the defense of his friends in an instant," she countered. "He's as much one of my Lions as either of his parents. His constant talk of rescuing damsels speaks to his innate nobility. Mark my words, he'll be in my House come the Sorting."

"Ah, but he has an incredible love of learning, even an obsessive one at times," Flitwick interjected mildly. "I believe the boy's library is already larger than my own, and it continues to grow unabated. When he gets access to the school library, I'm sure there won't be a volume outside the Restricted Section he hasn't memorized by next summer. He takes the time to think through what he learns, too, and he is proving quite adept at logic and philosophy. I am convinced he'd do quite well as one of my Ravens."

Four heads turned expectantly to the potions master, the only Head who had yet to speak up. The man was quietly sipping at his whiskey. At their looks, he calmly asked, "What?"

Albus covered a smile by gripping his pipe stem between his molars. "I believe they are expecting you to claim that Mr. Potter is destined to be a Slytherin," he said before issuing another puff of blue smoke.

Snape snorted a far more impressive snort than that issued earlier by his colleague; his substantial snout giving him a decidedly unfair advantage in the contest. "That dratted dragon is about as subtle as, well, a dragon in a pottery shop — as ironic as that simile is. He has so little grasp of anything so much as resembling cunning that he answered every question put to him by Odd Lovegood last year without giving any thought to why the man was asking questions or what he was going to do with the answers. He didn't even bother to try to persuade you all to let him stay in his Lair or to continue expanding his collection of damsels from the student body; he just made the declarations and you scurried to distort the rule book in order to allow it. Your mental gymnastics in those attempts would not have been out of place in the muggle Olympics. The boy has developed nothing in the way of cunning because he has had no need of it."

His earlier snort was reprised in even more impressive fashion, "The boy has little ambition other than to be the best dragon he can manage to be, and while he may accomplish some very impressive feats along the way to that admittedly laudable goal, given his natural talents he will require little in the way of ambition to succeed at them. With neither cunning nor ambition, there is little to warrant the wretched lizard's inclusion among the Serpents, despite his scaly integument."

"Here I thought you had come to rather like the lad, Severus," Filius chimed in.

"I do not like the blasted lizard, Filius," Snape insisted flatly. "I will admit that the boy is tolerable company, and he is far and away the most interesting individual I have ever encountered. I could happily spend the remainder of my career exploring the functions of his bioalchemy, and I daresay I would expire before I ran out of new material to examine." Snape took another drink. "But for that very reason, I refuse to misrepresent the boy's capabilities. I would not do that to an enemy, much less someone I find passingly acceptable to deal with."

"I suppose that the large pile of galleons you have made from those studies does nothing to influence your opinion then, Severus?" Minerva asked archly before she savored another sip of her precious single malt.

"I will not deny it," Snape shrugged. "It was implausibly satisfying to buy a lifetime membership at Barret's and eat a celebratory meal there while Lucius and Narcissa waited impatiently to be seated. Though I honestly have no idea what I am to do with the rest of it. My laboratory is already superbly equipped, and I can only eat out so much before it eats into my research time in turn."

"I'm sure something worthy will come up eventually, Severus," Pomona assured him, "perhaps it will even be someone, hmm? It's not healthy for you to mope for so long after that blow-up with Lily — it's been over a dozen years! But regardless of his House, are you not looking forward to teaching the boy? Beyond the tutoring you have given him so far?"

Severus deliberately ignored Sprout's dig about his lack of a love life; she did that to everyone, and it wasn't worth the trouble to complain about any longer. He was firmly convinced that Pomona Sprout wouldn't be happy until everyone of an appropriate age for such things was paired off and happily turning out sprogs by the dozen; he suspected she might also insist on the ones still too young having someone already lined up for the job, too.

"I do look forward to exploring his capabilities with the practical side of brewing when we can finally get him into one of the safeguarded laboratories, yes. He has memorized all of the common potions books, and many of the less common ones in my own collection. Should he prove able to live up to my expectations, I would be willing to grant him access to my private notes in hopes that he might prove to be capable of attaining his own mastery and advancing the state of the art even further."

Snape then paused, taking another drink. "I am not, however, looking forward to the chaos that will inevitably dog his steps through these halls."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Severus, Harry is nothing like his father," Minerva said exasperatedly.

"I know that," Snape said, rolling his eyes. "And I feel the need to thank you for recalling that mental image, Minerva, I had almost managed to put it out of my mind. Merlin knows what the world would come to were it to house a dragon with James Potter's attitude! More than half the school would have been levelled by now, I am certain. I shall need to be cautious around boggarts in the future, for surely the next I encounter shall take the form of James Potter as a bloody dragon!"

"James was…" Minerva began.

"He was a bully," Snape interjected flatly. "And I was his favorite target." He held up a hand to forestall Minerva's counterargument, "I am not interested in debating ancient history, Minerva. I can admit that he may have changed somewhat after he and I no longer interacted, if for no other reason than respect for Lily's judgment — I checked her for love potions more than once, I assure you — but that does nothing to change my impression of the man. The last few years have convinced me that young Mr. Potter is nothing like his father; if not for his voice and choice of human form, there would be nothing to link him to the man. I will always hate James Potter, but I can accept and respect that his son is very different. His nature is all too painfully like his mother's."

"Is the comparison between father and son fair then?" Pomona asked.

"It was not I who made the comparison," Snape said as Minerva looked away in embarrassment. "I merely said I was not looking forward to the upheaval his presence will cause. You must admit we have contorted the spirit of the student rulebook and interpreted the remaining rules in a bizarrely creative manner in order to accommodate the blasted beast. I saw the draft of the acceptance letter for the first-year students, 'a cat, owl, toad, or centaur' as a pet? Until the students send their first letter home, I'd wager a month's royalties that the parents of the older students will have thought it a joke."

Pomona held out her glass for a refill from Filius, who obliged with a superbly smooth levitation charm without bothering to retrieve his wand — the undersized man was feeling lazy that evening. "If he is not like his father, then why do you expect him to cause so much chaos, Severus? Lily was one of the most even-tempered witches I have ever met — I mean, she was vicious when she finally got her dander up, but that took a great deal of doing."

Snape sighed and drained off the remainder of his whiskey. "Believe me, there is no comparison between the kinds of havoc the father raised and those his son will raise. Potter, that is James Potter, tormented other children under the guise of playing pranks for his own amusement. Harry Potter will turn the school on its ear by virtue of his species, not his attitude."

Albus puffed again on his pipe, eyes distant in thought. "Come now, Severus, surely it won't be that bad…"

"Have those execrable muggle sweets of yours rotted your brain as well as your teeth? Pomona just told us the boy has already made friends with a muggle-born first-year witch. I would not wager against her be becoming his newest damsel before the end of the year. If the boy's pedigree breeds true, and he is sorted into Gryffindor, someone like young Mr. Malfoy will see him and his blasé attitude towards blood status as a natural enemy. And because of the wretched lizard's relative immaturity, any malicious pranks played on him or his friends will be met with a direct response that will no doubt be swift, shocking, and most of all, childish, but it will be a childish response backed by enough force to level a small town! What do you suppose will happen when the son of a Governor ends up as a pile of malodorous fertilizer somewhere in the forest?"

"I doubt things will go that far, Severus," Albus assured him affably.

"Indeed," Minerva agreed, "If young Draco is anything like his father was at that age, young Draco will probably be unpalatable even to Harry's digestive tract."

"Minerva!" A trio of shocked voices drowned out a quiet snicker from the fourth.

"Oh, come now, I was being facetious," Minerva paused just long enough for her audience to calm down. "Harry drinks fuel oil like water, if anything the Malfoy propensity for oily hair products would make the young lad irresistible."

This time she was met with groans, to which she continued, "Seriously though, Severus has raised a good point. We have no idea how or at what rate Harry will grow. Intellectually he will certainly be capable of completing his schooling — even were he to stay just as he is now — but his emotional maturity seems to be several years behind his forthcoming classmates. If he continues to mature slowly, we may be faced with a situation in later years where his classmates are entering adulthood while he is still a young child, an exceptionally powerful young child."

"That's true," Sprout agreed. "If they survive their mating contests, dragons can live into their sixth century, but despite Lovegood's observations, we have no idea what species Harry is or what his expected lifespan might be. "If he's going to live for several centuries, he might well still be a child by the time he takes his NEWTs."

Flitwick chuckled aloud, to the surprise of his colleagues. "What?" he asked, taking in their expressions. "I'm beginning to suspect that young Mr. Potter will usher in a new era of civility at Hogwarts, at least when his fellows come to realize that they have the choice between being civil to each other and being sat-upon by a dragon the size of the Hogwarts Express engine."

Dumbledore echoed his charms professor's chuckle. "Indeed. Mr. Potter is quite fond of threatening to sit himself down upon those who annoy him. I think we shall have to impress upon the lad that sitting on his classmates is not a valid form of retribution."

"What would be a valid form of retribution, then?" Pomona asked, pointedly. "For a student who could, with little effort, lay waste to the entire school should he so desire, what is acceptable?"

Snape shook his head. "As usual, you have missed my point. I was not referring to the difference in maturity between the boy and his classmates. That will certainly be an issue, but it is not one that we are inexperienced in dealing with; our other students are hardly uniformly mature in any case. Though that does promise some small amount of amusement as well." He paused thoughtfully before continuing, "But no, I was referring to the boy's propensity for disproportionate physical responses. While I unfortunately missed the actual encounter, his centaur pet was, once suitably persuaded, willing to recount it to me. Those monstrous acromantulas happened by the centaur colony in search of a quick meal of horse-flesh. Instead, they met several thousand degrees of dragon-flame face first and have since almost been hunted to extinction."

Flitwick gave Severus a sly glance, "You wouldn't happen to have insisted on the story being recounted to you because of what happened immediately prior, would you?"

A smile of heroic proportions made itself known on Snape's normally stoic face. It was self-satisfied. It was smug. It proved beyond a doubt that even pleasant expressions were made thoroughly irritating by being displayed on the man's face, but it also indicated the success beyond even his wildest expectations of a well-laid plan. "Filius, I have no idea what you mean."

"The expression you wear suggests otherwise, my friend."

Pomona tilted her head to the side, "I appear to be missing some context…"

"Do you recall the gift Severus gave young Harry some two years ago, on his ninth birthday. The first birthday he spent in his Lair?"

Sprout frowned in thought, "Wasn't that the saddle and harness contraption for Miss Suze? The one he got so… oh dear!"

Snape's thoroughly smug smile looked like it wouldn't be shifted by anything less than a major tectonic event. "Oh yes, though the final trigger was not, in fact, my gift. Rather it was a thoughtful addition Mr. Potter came up with himself. In any event, when Bane encountered Harry in the process of asking about his new addition for Suze while she was wearing the saddle, the blowhard went berserk, snatched up a cudgel and charged in to attempt to beat the stuffing out of our young dragon."

"Oh, dear," Sprout repeated.

Nothing could convince Snape not to recount the story at that point. "Potter transformed back into his native form and backhanded the arrogant poltroon so hard that he skidded for some thirty yards across the forest floor and saw naught but his precious stars for the next several hours," the potions master sighed happily. "As attitude readjustment tools go, there are few more effective than the back of Mr. Potter's hand."

"What does Bane's humiliation have to do with the acromantulas?"

"After Bane could regain his feet with the help of fewer than two of his compatriots, Magorian, the centaur chieftain, persuaded Mr. Potter to allow them to relocate under his Lair, and not halfway through the move, they were assaulted by the spiders. The centaurs were trussed up almost without exception before Potter arrived on the scene. He hit the arachnids so hard that sympathetic resonance has probably instilled a mortal fear of dragons in spiders all across the globe."

Pomona looked concerned, "Does Bane still hold some ill will for the lad?"

The smugness in Snape's expression dialed back a few notches, but the man still looked inordinately pleased with himself. "No, oddly enough Mr. Potter's attitude readjustment backhand seems to have worked exceptionally well. He is still antisocial, of course — I expect nothing short of a complete lobotomy would change that — but Potter's hand seems to have instilled a new sense of caution and a reason to deliberate before taking action." His expression sobered, even turning a little grim. "If Potter decides to provide an encore of similar attitude readjustments to the student body, there is little beyond careful verbal persuasion that we could do to stop him."

Dumbledore glanced down, noting that his pipe had gone out. A quick flexing of magic remedied that, and the pipe flickered back to life. He absently blew a few smoke rings while he considered the account. "You may be right," he eventually acknowledged. "We will need to guide Mr. Potter gently and very, very carefully."

"Of course, I am right!" Snape once again proved his reputation for irritating abrasiveness well-earned. "I already plan to warn my Serpents against any action towards Potter, no matter what House he ends up in. Most will accept it, but I'm afraid a few die-hards will insist on learning the hard way."

He issued another of those very impressive snorts. "Having him here only during class time will help immeasurably, if only by reducing the number of opportunities for covert mischief by removing him from the halls and dormitories in the evening, but I hold little hope that the infirmary will not be heavily occupied with a number of long-term residents by the end of the year."

Minerva winced, but she nonetheless nodded, acknowledging the point. "Much as I am loath to admit it, I can easily envisage Mr. Potter inadvertently injuring a student enough to put them in Poppy's care for the long term. Even with his," she paused, her eye twitching, "exhaustively merry attitude, he won't let bullying slide. We will need to be even more vigilant for, and intolerant of, intimidation amongst the student body."

Dumbledore nodded, absently puffing at his pipe. "It is a fine line to walk. You know how much our society prizes secrecy, and how difficult it is to establish the truth. Even for children, without delving into restricted potions or legilimency, establishing a chain of evidence is often impossible; bullies don't generally act with unfriendly witnesses about. If we start punishing infractions on the basis of hearsay, I foresee a torrent of accusations from students with no true cause for complaint." He paused for another puff, "How to separate the kernels of truth from the chaff, though — that will require some thought."

"Perhaps we should not be too hasty," Snape said thoughtfully. "I find myself morbidly fascinated by the idea of how Potter would react to those insane Weasley twins. Perchance a single, sanctioned, attitude adjustment would be appropriate?"

"Severus!" Minerva protested, "That is beneath you!"

"Perhaps a smaller adjustment," the potions master mused, seemingly not noticing his colleague's protest. "But not too much smaller — yes, that would be most welcome."

"Severus!" This time it was Albus' turn to protest.

"Oh, settle down, Albus; I am only stirring the cauldron. I am sure those twins will fall afoul of Potter at some point, however. They will not be able to help themselves, if past experience is any guide. I am certain they will make a point of it, if only because their usual fare of prank potions will not influence Mr. Potter in the slightest. The two brats will likely take it as a challenge. It would be best, though, if Minerva, Pomona, Filius, and I impress upon our charges the magnitude of this shift. We are already warning them away from the third-floor corridor, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to include a new standard of behavior."

Dumbledore nodded, still absently puffing away at his pipe. "I suppose that is a reasonable course of action. Whichever of you is fortunate enough to have the opportunity, please ask Mr. Potter to see me after the welcoming feast so that I might discuss it with him personally." He sighed, breath laden with fragrant blue smoke, "I do agree though, that we must impress upon the students that from this year forth, any hint of intimidation tactics will be met with a swift response."

"From us, or from Potter?" Filius asked.

"Yes."

"Ah."

A few more moments passed in companionable silence before Albus' office clock chimed marking the transition from very late night to very early morning. Filius took this as his prompt to get some sleep.

"Well, I believe that I will seek out my bed. Good night to you all!"

Minerva and Pomona quickly followed along, leaving Albus and Severus alone. Albus slept less and less as the years passed and his magic took over more functions from his failing body, and Severus was long used to the irregular hours required of a potions master. When a brew required seven hours of stirring before introducing a critical ingredient, it didn't care if that seven hours would mean stirring until three in the morning.

"There is a possible solution," Snape offered, "though it smacks of using a flame whip to swat an annoying fly…" He paused as a thought struck him before clarifying, "…a normal fly, not one of Hagrid's."

There were flies, and then there were flies, Snape thought with a shudder.

"Oh?"

Snape nodded, deep in thought. "A time turner and an invisibility cloak, if any student is injured or makes an accusation, one of us could use them to verify the events in question, unnoticed. It would likely take only a few incidents before the students learned to behave themselves."

"You are right, that does sound excessive," Albus agreed. "What is wrong with engaging the portraits to assist?"

"Aside from the fact that the portraits sleep and move around? There is a significant fraction of the school which is free of portrait frames. Despite their perennial dunderheadedness in my classroom, the students are not stupid, Albus. If they get caught every time they are near a portrait, they will soon learn to avoid them."

"Perhaps a compromise then? We recruit our pigmented spy network, and I will fish out my time turner for those situations in which the portraiture fails."

Snape raised an eyebrow, "You are actually going to use my idea?"

"It is a bit drastic," Albus shrugged, "but it is certainly feasible. And the consequences of failure are quite… unpleasant. There has not been a violent death among the students during my tenure as headmaster, and I would prefer to keep it that way, particularly when the death would likely fall on the conscience of young Harry."

"Agreed." Snape nodded emphatically, thinking back on the first man he killed. That had been accidental too, but at least the man had richly deserved it.

"That should definitely not be on the boy's conscience if it can be avoided. Combat is one thing, but accidental killing eats away at you." He finished off another glass of Minerva's whiskey. "I confess that my Slytherins will likely be difficult to rein in. Perhaps four out of five automatically translate 'do not do something' into 'do not get caught doing something'."

"Hmm, it sounds as though you have a challenging year ahead."

"Indubitably."

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.2 Encounters on a rail

---

2.2.1 Proper livery

The platform was thoroughly intimidating.

Hermione Granger was on her own for the first time in the magical world. Her parents had been unable to negotiate the concealed entrance the Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and unlike the Alley, she could not lead them through. She had had to go in on her own. Between the trauma of having to walk face first into an apparently solid brick wall — out of curiosity, she had kept her eyes open, and she was still cursing herself for that decision — and being alone among a massive throng of new people while attempting to manage her absurdly heavy trunk, Hermione was more than a little nervous.

She was certain everyone else on the platform knew more about what was going on than she did, an intolerable state of affairs for someone who prided herself on her intellect. Unfortunately, she had no idea of what to do about it. The introductory packet she'd picked up at the bookstore had been thorough only in its inadequacy.

"Huh, that's interesting…"

Hermione perked up at something she recognized. That was the voice of that hyper gun-nut boy that had shown her and her parents around Diagon Alley back at the beginning of August. He'd been a bit irritating to be around, what with how energetic he was, but… well, she was sort of adrift at the moment, and any familiarity was good at that point as far as she was concerned.

Plus, anyone who liked books that much couldn't be all bad.

"What's interesting?" Hermione asked, wandering over in his direction. Suze was there too, informing her that the letter was probably not joking when it said 'cat, owl, toad, or centaur'. She also found herself wondering absently how it was that Harry was visibly taller than he had been the month previous.

Kids didn't grow that fast, did they?

"Hello, Hermione," Suze greeted her while Harry was still musing over whatever it was that had caught his imagination.

The centaur was, oddly enough, on a leash, which seemed rather strange to Hermione, but that was quickly overwhelmed as she was once again struck by how impressive a creature the centaur was. Suze topped out at eight feet to the crown of her skull — delicate for a centaur, not that Hermione knew that — and for a pre-teen girl, eight feet oozed 'wow'.

"Hmm, oh hi Hermione!" Harry finally managed to take note of her presence. "This train's interesting, that's what."

"Why? It's just an old train."

"Yeah, but everything else here is magic one way or another, and the train, well, it ain't magic. I mean, there's some fire magic in there, and I think it's sorta partway alive, but not the rest of it. It's just a big old steam engine, and I'm tryin' to figure out how you sneak a big old steam engine from London nearly to Mallaig."

"What's a Mallaig?"

"It's the muggle town a little way up the coast from Hogwarts. There's lots of boats and a really cool toy shop there, and it all sort of smells of kipper." Harry frowned thoughtfully at the train engine and failed to notice the amused glance from the soot-covered man who was watching from the locomotive's cab. Nor, for that matter, did he notice the dubious look Suze directed towards said soot-covered man when she noticed his interest.

"We'd better get on the train, Harry, or it might leave without us," Suze prompted. She seemed heartily amused by something about her own statement.

"Hmm, oh yeah, I guess we should," Harry agreed and followed along towards the carriages.

He glanced back at the engine again, "Y'know, it's funny, but it still seems like that engine is supposed to be black."

Hermione, trailing a little behind the duo while she struggled with her book-laden trunk, found herself wondering why the driver had responded to this by bursting out laughing.

2.2.2 Trouble boarding

Hermione had allowed herself to be swept away by Harry's exuberance. There was little choice, he looked like he knew where he was going, she didn't know anyone else on the train, and it would have been rude to leave without some sort of excuse, so she hurried along behind the boy and his centaur.

As the trio approached the train, they tried to board through the side door.

'Tried' being the operative word. As a centaur, even a petite centaur, Suze was pushing eight feet in height, and she was literally as big as a horse. Passenger trains, even magical passenger trains, would pose a bit of a challenge for the girl.

"Um, Suze, could you duck down a little?" Harry asked after looking at the situation with a puzzled frown for a moment.

As the centaur maid obligingly contorted herself in an effort to fit through a door designed for creatures of at most a third her size and of quite different proportions besides, Hermione stared incredulously.

"Harry," the frizzy-haired witch protested, once she had managed to register what she was seeing, "Suze will never fit through there!"

The small green-eyed boy scratched at his unruly mop of shaggy black hair. "Umm, maybe? What do you think, Suze?"

"I can manage," the centaur replied in a voice muffled by the fact that her body was currently filling the entirety of the entrance stairwell of the train car. "It's a bit of a squeeze, but I can manage." With that, she gave a final push and forced her way into the train, looking for all the world like one of those wildebeest she had seen on those television specials struggling to force its way up a steep muddy riverbank. Her abrupt passage prompted a chorus of protests from the other passengers displaced by her energetic entrance.

"Well, there you go," Harry said, his usual good humor back in evidence. "I'll grab Hermione's trunk and follow along." With that, and without even a by your leave to the owner of said trunk — not that she would have responded, gaping as she was at the spectacle of a centaur forcing her way into a passenger train — Harry hefted the monstrously heavy thing over his shoulder and followed along after his centaur.

Finally tearing her eyes away from where Suze had disappeared into the train when she felt the handle of her trunk pull away from her slack grip, Hermione was struck by yet another odd spectacle. Harry who, despite his recent growth, was still an inch or so shorter than her, had picked up the heavy trunk — the weight of which Hermione had been struggling to drag across the platform despite its wheels — with one hand as if it weighed nothing at all, slinging it over his shoulder casually and setting off after his centaur.

Her father had struggled, red-faced, under the weight of that trunk when he pulled it out of the boot of the car. It was heavy enough to squeeze an assortment of unrepeatable words from the usually well-mannered man regarding the sheer volume of books she had packed away for school.

In the moment it took her to process the scene, Harry had bounded up the stairs and disappeared around the corner, at which point she thought to call out, "Wait, Harry! You don't have to carry that; my trunk's got wheels!" while hurrying after the boy who had just absconded with the sum total of all the supplies she had brought for school.

As she rounded the corner into the central corridor of the passenger carriage, she absently took note of the various scrapes and tufts of hair that stood in mute testimony to the passage of an equine body rather too large for the vessel it was being shoved through.

Hermione had to wonder whether she'd be able to hold on to her sanity if this was what passed for normal in the magical world.

The somewhat frazzled girl finally caught up to her companions — and her trunk — only to be struck by a new spectacle. Suze had found an empty compartment about halfway through the carriage, only to get rather firmly wedged in place when she tried to enter through the door.

The centaur had managed to get her human-part into the cabin and the shoulders of her equine part before the tight quarters and her lack of lateral flexibility caught up with her, leaving her in quite the awkward predicament. The corridor was too narrow for her to twist her body the rest of the way around, and the polished wooden floor was too slippery for her hooves to find purchase to force her way through the door.

Harry was between Hermione and the discombobulated centaur maiden, and every cabin Suze had passed sported at least one curious soul peering out the door at the unusual sight of a centaur attempting to board the Hogwarts Express. It was a sight that was probably a historical first.

Just when Hermione thought she had reached her quota for surreal sights for the day, Harry once again proved her judgement to be hasty.

"Hang on, Suze," the boy said, setting down Hermione's trunk with a dull thud that belied any thought that he might have used magic to reduce the thing's weight in order to handle it so easily. He ran up behind the centaur maid and placed his arm under her barrel before calmly stating, "Ready? One, two, three…" and lifting Suze's entire back end just as easily as he had Hermione's trunk, using the height of the corridor and his own strength to realign the centaur's back end so she could pull herself into the passenger cabin with a flurry of thrashing hooves.

With the hallway now cleared of half a ton of centaur, the rest of the corridor became visible, revealing a half-dozen or so other students sprawled in a steaming red and angry heap where they had apparently been pushed back by Suze's passage. They did not look happy in the slightest.

Even though she technically wasn't responsible for the debacle herself, between the spectators and the angry glares, Hermione was flushed red with mortification. Once again, though, Harry's obscenely cheerful attitude seemed to turn the situation on its metaphorical ear. Despite the fact that the angry students had obviously been forced back and bodily piled up in the corridor, Harry simply picked up Hermione's trunk once more and gave a cheerful wave and a friendly, "Hi there! Thanks for letting us through!" before disappearing into the compartment after his centaur pet.

Left alone facing the glares of a corridor full of angry older students, the highly embarrassed first-year girl could only stand there, cheeks flushed.

One of the larger students who had been barreled over by the centaur on her way to the compartment finally regained his equilibrium enough to clamber to his feet and storm up to the cabin door, yanking it open and storming in with a blustered shout of "WHY YOU LITTLE…" before he was cut off mid-sentence by a mule-kick from the centaur he had previously been unpleasantly acquainted with. He skidded across the corridor, slammed into the opposite wall, and folded up on the ground with a pained grunt. Bent double, the upperclassman clutched low on his belly, curled up in a private ball of pain on the floor beneath the spiderweb of cracked paneling on the wall where he impacted.

Harry stuck his head back out the door with a concerned expression on his face. "Are you alright? You shouldn't sneak up behind a centaur, you know. It's not safe, 'cause they can't see back there and their first reflex is to kick first and ask questions later. It's instinctive, they can't help it."

Another older student from the tangle on the polished floor of the corridor — this one a girl with a pale complexion, dark chestnut hair, and matching eyes, whose green and silver-trimmed robes bore some kind of official-looking golden badge pinned to the breast — also struggled to her feet and approached the downed boy. She waved her wand a few times then nodded, seemingly satisfied with the results of whatever she had just done before she rounded on Harry with a heated glare.

"What is that creature doing on the train?" the witch demanded.

Hermione watched with bated breath as the affable cheer faded from Harry's face in an instant, replaced with something the frizzy-haired girl couldn't properly identify, "She's not a 'creature', she's my friend! And she's allowed on the train; it's not her fault this poo-head yelled at her from behind!"

Hermione had quailed at the older girl's tone, particularly coupled with that official-looking badge, and she was quite thoroughly impressed that Harry didn't so much as flinch. It seemed that the older girl was impressed too, since she quickly backed off from the much smaller boy.

Seeing the opportunity to temporarily remove herself from the spectacle of the hallway — and not incidentally, reunite herself with the comforting weight of her trunk and the books held therein — Hermione made a break for the doorway Harry was standing in. Harry almost automatically shifted to the side to allow her entry while keeping his oddly intimidating gaze on the older girl in the green and silver-trimmed robes until she finally turned away with an exaggerated huff and busied herself with the injured boy still leaning against the wall.

Shutting the compartment door behind him, Harry turned back to his friends. "Well, Suze, it looks like there's a bunch of grumpy bums here on the train."

In the meantime, the centaur maid had claimed one of the bench seats for her own exclusive use, settling with startling grace for such a large being with her legs tucked up underneath her on the cushions, her human-like torso twisted at the waist so she could lean back into the wall, hair just brushing the bottom of the luggage racks.

"We've only met a couple people, Harry," she offered. "The rest may be nice."

"Maybe," he said doubtfully.

Feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the entire sequence of events, Hermione began, "Um, maybe I should go…" before she took note of the dark looks on the faces peering in through the glass of the door to the hallway, "stay right here for a while."

Harry dropped Hermione's trunk onto the free seats opposite his centaur. "You can stay as long as you like!" he said cheerfully. "Did you bring anything to read?"

"Of course," she said, mildly scandalized at the thought. Hermione had not willingly gone without readily available reading material since she had grown old enough to hold a book unaided. "Didn't you?" She looked at the boy more closely, wait… "Didn't you bring a trunk with you?"

"Nah," Harry grinned at her cheekily. "I live near the castle, so I'm just going to classes during the day. The train ride's a tradition, though, so here I am. You should get out the books you want now, though, and I'll put your trunk up on the rack for you. This is the book I brought along to read." He pulled out a tiny box which rapidly expanded into a book the size of his torso with a tap from his finger after he set it on the leather seat next to her trunk.

Hermione opened her mouth to object that her trunk was too heavy for someone his size before she remembered the way he had manhandled it down the hallway as if it were weightless. Shaking her head, she quietly undid the latch, removed the four books she was currently reading, then paused for a moment and thought before she picked up a fifth and closed the trunk. Again, she was amazed as the slight boy picked up the trunk with no apparent effort — this time grabbing it by one end and lifting it by the handle as if it were no heavier than an empty cardboard box — so he could rest the other end on the rack and then slide it the rest of the way because he was too short to reach the rack normally. The fact that he pushed it in the last few inches using a single finger at full extension did nothing to diminish her amazement.

As she settled into the familiar comfort of her books, Hermione could only come to one singular conclusion.

The Wizarding World was mental.

2.2.3 All aboard!

James Coates, the regular driver for the Hogwarts Express, was still chuckling to himself as he hauled on the chain hanging from 45401's cab roof and the ever-faithful Stanier Class Five's strident whistle blared across King's Cross.

How that young whippersnapper with the pet centaur — must be a rule change — had known that a Black Five was supposed to be black without knowing what a Black Five was, well, that was anyone's guess, but given the chance he'd enjoy finding out.

"Wotcher laughin' at, Jim?" Michael 'Mac' McDonald, Jim's fireman, asked, his query punctuated by the responding whistle from the guard. As if it had been waiting for that sign, the starting signal dropped.

"I'll tell yer later, Mac," Jim said, patting the drake-dog who kept the fire nice and hot. "Okay, Smaugey, give the old girl a touch o' hellfire."

Smaugey gave out a happy little gronk and blew a jet of blue-white flame into the firebox. The drake-dog knew his business — he'd been part of the Hogwarts Express crew since its inception nearly a century past, and by human standards, he'd been old then. The little critter had fired many an engine in his day, and he'd likely stay on for a great many more — no one knew how long drake-dogs could hang around for.

Smaugey had picked up his current nickname from Jim's predecessor back in the forties, named after a character in some book or another, but he didn't care what they called him; so long as he had good company, good food, and a good job to do, the little drake-dog was happy as could be.

Jim's smile broadened as he gave the whistle another blast, heaved 45401 into gear, and began to ease the brakes off and the regulator open. Jim was of much the same mind as his drake-dog partner.

No railman, and very few others outside the profession, had ever been able to stand next the hissing, spitting iron monster that is a steam locomotive without half believing that the mighty steel behemoth is somehow alive, and Jim Coates was no exception. He'd been driving the Hogwarts Express since before any of its current passengers were so much as a funny glimmer in their parents' eyes, and he fully expected to man her footplate for decades to come. As long as his heart held out, he'd be right there at the regulator when the kiddies needed their ride, and between times he'd be right there keeping the supply runs going to keep them fed at their great drafty castle of a school.

Steam burst from her chimney like the hissing of a gigantic snake as the sixty-odd-year-old iron horse began to move with a great groan of bearings and a nice, solid clang as her pony truck battered across a rail joint. Mac grinned and slung another shovel of coal into the firebox in time with the chorus of clangs from her driving wheels hitting the place marked by a fishplate, and Smaugey gave it a good huff and a puff as the brakes came off completely and the first proper chuff burst from the faithful old locomotive, making the fire roar as the steam blasted its way through her smokebox and into the summer air.

The world had changed out from underneath the steam locomotive; the modern diesels had become cheaper and easier to run. It didn't take so much skill to drive a diesel; a diesel didn't need a talented fireman who knew when you'd need more steam and had her coaled up and ready to deliver. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could have a diesel up and ready to roll easy as starting a car. The pragmatic side of Jim Coates knew that a Class 37 was a good, efficient locomotive, but that 'tractor' just wasn't the same.

It wasn't a hissing, spitting metal beast; it didn't have the pounding white-hot heart and soul of a good old Black Five. You couldn't hear every part respond to the rails — it just wasn't proper.

Real locomotives, in his considered opinion, were seventy-odd tons of British iron, steel, and engineering with a hand-stoked fire, at least two big pistons, six or more driving wheels, and no fewer than two honest, highly-skilled working men paying her the attention she deserved from the footplate.

And, for as long as steam ruled the wizarding rails, as long as some bright-eyed kid from down south would pay for a ticket, he would be right there amidst the fire and the fury, listening to the wheels clickety-clack across rail joins and the exhaust hammer away like a machine gun with no need for any nancy heater as the roaring fire at her heart lifted sweat from his wrinkled brow.

This was most definitely life at its finest.

2.2.4 Awkward kids

An hour or so into the ride, Hermione was startled out of her reading by a knock on the door of their compartment, followed almost immediately by the knock being rendered irrelevant when the door was opened from the outside.

The interloper was another boy of about the same age as her, only this one actually looked like it. He sported orange-red hair, a threadbare checked shirt, patch-kneed denim trousers, and a rather baggy, dilapidated corduroy jacket.

"Heya!" he said in a cheerful voice. "Everything else is full, mind if I sit here?"

"Sure, c'mon in!" Harry's reply was immediate and equally cheerful.

Hermione gave a smile and welcoming nod before she frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, the train's been moving for an hour now, what were you doing before if you hadn't found a compartment?"

The newcomer colored in embarrassment, fidgeting a little, "Ah, well, I was sitting with a couple of my older brothers, but their friend brought a tarantula, and they got it out in the compartment, and I kinda don't like spiders, so I thought I'd go somewhere else…"

"Oh, that makes sense," Hermione said, nodding.

"Yeah, spiders are the worst," Harry agreed with Suze nodding emphatically. "Though some of the big ones are real tasty; just make sure you cook 'em up right, or you can get food poisoning. Mr. Snape says they taste a lot like shrimp, but I always thought they tasted kinda like chicken."

"Harry, blathering," Suze interrupted. The new boy had been turning steadily paler during Harry's discourse on fine arachnid dining, and Hermione couldn't say she blamed him.

"Oh, sorry, I have a problem with that sometimes," Harry apologized sheepishly.

"…I just hope that my brothers don't put that tarantula in my trunk while I'm gone. It'd be just like them to do something like that," the redhead said, obviously just wanting to put the topic of spiders behind him. "My name's Ron Weasley, by the way."

"I'm Harry," Harry said immediately and enthusiastically. "And this is Hermione, and this is Suze. Suze is with me."

"Hi," Hermione offered.

"Well met," Suze said.

The newly introduced Ron finally took in the centaur in the room as he looked up, and then further up, to see the source of the latest voice. "Wow! I guess they weren't kidding about centaurs in the letter this year. I thought the twins were just having me on."

"Well, actually that's 'cause of me. I said I weren't gonna come if Suze couldn't come-with, and Mr. Dumbledore said he couldn't be having that, so, well, Mr. Flitwick said he twisted some arms, but that doesn't sound like something Mr. Dumbledore would do, so I guess that's gotta be one of those 'idiom' things, and anyway, that's why they added centaurs to the list," Harry explained. "I mean, Mrs. McGonagall says there's more allowed than what's written down; she says that rats and hamsters and stuff's okay too, and she said a kid was once allowed to have a chicken, and Madame Pomfrey said there was apparently a girl who graduated a couple years back named Mindy that brought her collie named Buttons who was always getting himself hurt which was why Madame Pomfrey remembered them specifically, but they added centaurs just so there weren't gonna be any arguments."

"Yeah, I sorta knew that," Ron volunteered, digging a rather mangy-looking rat, greying with age, out of his coat pocket, "because Scabbers here wasn't against the rules or nothing when Percy had him."

"Huh, that's weird," Harry said, sounding puzzled. "Is that some sort of magic rat or something? Because it don't smell completely of rat."

"I don't think so," Ron said glumly. "All he does is sleep, eat, and, you know, widdle."

"Oh," Harry scratched his head, "I guess it musta just picked up your pocket smell."

"Hey, I don't smell!" Ron protested. "I had a bath this morning, and my clothes are right out of the wash."

"I didn't mean it like that," Harry protested. "You had bacon and eggs for breakfast, right? And I think, pork sausage with… sage."

"How'd you know that?" Ron asked, giving a suspicious look to his shirt front.

"Because I got a really good nose, see," Harry said, scratching his head. "I can smell the last few things a person ate for a few hours after they ate it, and everything smells of something. I mean, you smell like a person who had fried grub for breakfast and whose laundry got dried on a line close to an herb garden, and Hermione smells like someone who uses lemon-scented soap for their washing and handles books a whole lot, and Suze smells of person and horse and gun-smoke and that special kind of wax they use on composite bows, and this carriage smells like linseed oil and warm wood, and the engine smells like axle grease and coal smoke and hot metal, and the air 'round here smells like exhaust pipe and dead pigeon, and I guess I smell like Harry what slept in and didn't have time for a bath this morning."

"Huh," Ron said, "that's gotta be pretty awesome."

"Yeah, sometimes it's real good," Harry agreed. "Like when you're up on the moors and you can smell all the plants and where there's rabbits and deer and sheep and stuff, though deer poo kinda pongs, and then there's when the wind comes in off the sea and you can smell the salt and the seaweed and maybe a bit of engine oil from the fishing boats or the trains. Mallaig's nice, it all sorta smells of kipper and fishing boats when there ain't too many tourists around, but the seagull poo can get a bit much. London stinks though. I think it's because there's too many people what ain't washed and all them exhaust pipes and jet planes and somebody else's rotten kebab in the gutter and all that chewing gum and dog poo and things what died and went manky and all them stinky pigeons…"

"Harry, you're blathering again," Suze interrupted again.

Harry stopped halfway through opening his mouth to continue, considered that for a moment, then looked highly embarrassed, drew several deep breaths, and sat back down. It was at that point that Hermione realized she didn't know when he had stood up and started pacing the crowded compartment during his rant.

"…sorry," he apologized. "Like I said before, I kinda tend to blather when I get worked up about stuff."

"I'd noticed," Hermione said.

"Er, yeah," Ron said, obviously unsure what to say in response to that. "Hey, what Houses do you reckon you'll be in?"

This was something Hermione had thought of, so she chimed in, "I'm hoping for House Gryffindor! I read all about the Houses in Hogwarts, A History, and it sounds best."

"Well, my friend, Mr. Snape, says that there aren't any good Houses really," Harry said, frowning. "I mean, he says Gryffindors are mostly blood-crazed dolts who don't know how to identify a fight they can't win, and Hufflepuffs are mostly half-witted dunderheads who likely don't know how to tie their own shoelaces, and Slytherins are mostly degenerate sophisticates who can't get over some ancient foolishness about bloodlines, and Ravenclaws are mostly ivory-tower intellectual snobs who can't tell the difference between theory and practice, but Mr. Snape's kinda sarcastic like that."

"…oh," Hermione said in a small voice, her initial impressions crashing and burning.

"Well, so long as I don't end up in Slytherin, I'll be okay!" Ron chirped. "Mum says there ain't a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin House, and they're all slimy gits, and everyone knows Gryffindor is best because they're all heroes like Dumbledore and Harry Potter."

Harry looked at him for a moment before he started reeling off a list of names, starting with 'Roderick of Fife' and ending with 'Sirius Black'.

"…huh?" Ron asked.

"Well, those are all the Gryffindors I can think of that went all murderous and dark-magicky," Harry said, scratching at his head again. "And, y'know, Mr. Dumbledore was in Slytherin, and Harry Potter ain't been Sorted yet, so who knows where he's gonna be, so I guess your mum's either dumb or making stuff up, and making stuff like that up is, well, a pretty dumb thing to do. I mean there's already a billion-and-one stupid reasons for people to look down on other people, so why would you make up another one because of what a hat said to 'em?"

"…uh," Ron began uncertainly, "what? Hey! Mum's not dumb! You take that back!"

"Well, if she's not dumb, then why's she making stuff like that up?" Harry asked, crossing his arms stubbornly. "Only other reasons I can think of for someone to do that sort of thing are a whole lot worse than just bein' dumb."

"I don't have to listen to this rubbish!" The ginger one beat a hasty retreat back to the hallway.

"Yup," Harry said, exasperatedly. "Dumb."

2.2.5 Serious conversations

"That was kind of rude, Harry," Hermione said.

"Mr. Snape says being rude to people who are being rude to you is perfectly fair play as long as they aren't goblins or teachers because being impolite to goblins is bad for your financial status, and being impolite to teachers is bad for your academic standing," Harry said with a shrug. "And I don't like people assuming dumb stuff about me; it takes loads more than just not being dead to be all hero-y. If you ain't never had a rank to go with your name, then you ain't a hero, 'less you got something like a Gee-Cee tacked on instead."

"Gee-Cee… rank… wait, what? You mean you're that Harry Potter?" Hermione finally registered the implications of that statement. "That's what that strange Mr. Ollivander meant about wands and scars? Your wand is a copy of You-Know-Who's wand!"

"Well, if you mean that Voldemort guy what bounced a killing curse off my face, then yeah, that's me, and yeah, I guess that's what Mr. Dumbledore's friend, Mr. Ollivander meant, and yeah, that Voldemort guy's wand had a feather in it what came offa the bum of the same phoenix as my wand's feather came from, and that phoenix is Mr. Dumbledore's friend, Fawkes. He hangs out with me and Suze sometimes."

"Headmaster Dumbledore hangs out with you?"

"Well, sometimes," Harry allowed, "but I was actually talking about Fawkes, the phoenix."

"Oh, okay."

"But, anyway, the only way anybody knows about what happened to that Voldemort guy is because Mr. Hagrid — you'll like him, he's nice — says so, and he's real bad at lies, and he found me in what was left of Mum and Dad's house, and there was squished Voldemort-guy all over my bedroom, and I had blood all over my head, and my Mum was dead on the floor, and I don't remember any of that stuff, so I really can't say what happened."

As Harry's monologue continued, his voice got more and more agitated. "And how'd people know he bounced a killing curse off my face, anyway. I mean me and that Voldemort guy were the only not-dead people there until that Voldemort guy splatted, so how'd they work that stuff out? For all I know, Mum coulda jumped in the way and killed him back. I mean, sometimes when I useta get bad dreams, I'd remember this sorta green light coming for me and this really crazy voice laughing, and then I can't remember anything else, and there weren't anyone else there, so it's kinda weird that everyone assumes that that Voldemort guy bounced a killing curse off me."

"Harry, blathering," Suze broke in once again.

"…drat."

A freight train passed in the opposite direction. First announced by its brisk, twin-tone horn, the heavy roar of the diesel locomotive followed, and then there was the rapid-fire repetitive, slam-slam-slam of air hammering between the wagons and the carriages. All told, the encounter shook the entire Hogwarts Express and its passengers, serving as a nice punctuation to their conversation.

"You know, it said how they worked out what happened in Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts," the interruption had also given Hermione a chance to think on what was said. "It says they used the Reverse Spell on You-Know-Who's wand, and it came up with the killing curse as the last three spells cast. It also says the Killing Curse leaves a distinctive residue of dark magic on the victim, and you had that residue."

"Yeah, I know," Harry nodded, "but the Killing Curse leaves that same residue on everything nearby, so if he used it to kill Mum, then I'd have gotten it on me at the same time. And all the spells out of the guy's wand were killing curses as far back as they could read — which is seven according to some arithmantic principle I still ain't wrapped my head around proper, according to Mr. Flitwick — but that's not really saying much, 'cause when you cast one of those things, it blurs out over everything so you can't really tell if something else was cast or even how many of 'em were cast. And anyway, don't go believing stuff you read outta Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts too quick; it says stupid stuff about me what ain't true," he scratched his head. "I mean, I know that's what the government says happened, but governments are governments. Being stupid is what they're there for."

"You should respect the government!"

"Government's made of people, and Mr. Snape says they tend to attract the worst sort to 'em, usually the sort of people who want to run a government because they get an erection when they boot people around," at this point, Hermione started blushing madly; Harry, of course, didn't notice, "at least that's what Mr. Snape says, and I guess he'd know even though I still ain't sure what that means, and no one'll tell me because they say I ain't old enough if I don't already know, which is real dumb because how're you gonna find out in the first place if nobody explains it?"

"I guess…" Hermione said uncertainly.

"Anyway, you're gonna want to get over that automatic respect for the government, at least in the Wizarding World. I'm not really up to snuff on the current not-glowy-people's government stuff, but the one here ain't very nice at all," Harry elaborated. "Lot of bad sorts in there, and they do what the people with money tell 'em to do, and a lot of the people with money are even worse sorts…"

Hermione wasn't sure how to answer that; she had trouble believing that the government was as corrupt as Harry was implying — that sounded more like some sort of third-world tin-pot dictatorship than any sort of government that could possibly be tolerated in the British Isles! Instead, she decided to change the subject, "Harry what do you think happened with You-Know-Who, then?"

"Well, I dunno, do I?" Harry said. "Whatever happened, it left dark magic gunk all over everything, left a bleeding bit on my face, left my Mum and Dad dead, blew the wall off my room, and made that Voldemort guy go splat, and that's about all I'm sure of. I mean, they found that Voldemort guy's wand in its holster, so he couldn't have been pointing it at me when he went splat, and whatever they did with it, they couldn't have checked it out too well 'cause it got nicked by someone two days later — and if I ever find out who did it, I think I oughtta nick it right back, 'cause I figure any weapon somebody tried to slay me with is worth keeping — so that's a pretty big hole in the whole 'bouncy killing curse' idea."

Harry took a breath, continuing before Hermione could say anything, or for that matter, think of anything to say. "I know I didn't do anything, 'cause I was just a little kid, and what's a little kid gonna do if he's got that Voldemort guy screaming 'I'm gonna make you a dead little kid' in his face? And I don't think that Voldemort guy did extra stuff to make himself go splat because, well, what kind of rampaging dunderhead makes himself go splat on purpose? So, I guess Mum musta done something, but I don't know what, and all the books I could find made it out to be something special about my face. I mean, my face is special because it's my face, but not the making-Voldemort-guys-go-splat-when-they-Killing-Curse-it kind of special."

Hermione thought about that for a moment before deciding that she wanted to do more research. Harry's arguments made sense, once she was able to parse through his colorful phrasing, but they were in direct contradiction to her books — in contradiction with multiple sources even! She decided to change the subject, "What was that you were saying about 'Gee-Cees' and 'ranks' earlier?"

"What? Oh, the stuff it takes to be heroes, right?" Harry checked. He was now walking a bronze coin, a knut if she remembered correctly — Hermione rarely paid attention to money, leaving it to her parents for the most part — across his knuckles.

"Yeah, that."

Well, I was talkin' about soldiers and stuff," Harry said, flicking the coin up in the air, and then catching it with the same hand before it could hit the floor. "I've been reading a lot of stuff on history and wars, and I'm pretty sure hero-ing is part of being a soldier nowadays, especially if they've got medals and stuff, well, unless they're Nazis or Soviets or some-such. And I threw in the Gee-Cee bit cause that's the best they give to non-soldier types who manage to do the same kinda stuff. All the history books are way clearer on that than they are on any of the stuff I've managed to find on dragons, that stuff's hard to work out, and everybody seems to get bits wrong." Harry was then balancing the coin on one finger before the train hit a rough patch and dislodged it.

While the boy was recovering his coin, Hermione considered that. "I don't know, Harry. I mean, all that killing and, you know, bombs… it just can't be good."

"Well, that's all well and good if you ain't got some giant spider or something charging at you and wanting to eat your face," Harry said with a shrug. "Then if you ain't as awesome as me, you're gonna be real glad if you've got a well-tuned Ess Em Ell Ee or Ess Em Ell Arr or something else what's good at making holes in stuff." He held up his bronze coin at eye level and contemplated it for a long moment, "Or what if some barking-mad little guy with a stupid mustache went 'I'm gonna invade Poland, and you're next'? Then, well, you've either gotta really do for anything that tries to get you, or you're gonna get proper squished," there was a loud wrenching sound as he crushed the bronze coin between his index finger and thumb, "like that."

"It would be nice if we lived in a world where bad things only happened to bad people," Suze chirped up, giving Hermione an intense side-on look and reminding her that the centaur maiden was in the compartment with them.

It was amazing how Harry's presence seemed to overwhelm even that of a full-sized centaur stuffed into a train compartment, Hermione thought.

"But we do not," Suze continued. "The acromantulas have treated my kin as prey, as a tasty delicacy, for longer than I have been alive. Are you saying that we should allow them to devour us because they are thinking beings? Do not try to tell me that we should attempt to talk to them; that attempt was made in a time when I was but a pleasant thought in my father's head, and it is quite difficult to talk reason into any being that simply will not listen."

"It weren't my centaur friends that started the fire, and it weren't me neither," Harry said, flicking the mangled coin onto the floor, "but I'm sure gonna fight it, 'cause there ain't nobody what messes with my friends. There's this real good saying Master-Sergeant Griphook told me a while back, 'let he who desires peace prepare for war'. I reckon it makes sense, 'cause if you're ready for bad stuff to happen, then if it does happen, it's way likelier you and your friends are still gonna be alive when it's over."

"I guess…" Hermione said uncertainly. What was it with this conversation that brought up all these uncomfortable topics?

"That's what soldiers are for, Hermione," Harry solemnly continued, "That's what they do, it's their job to save the world."

Hermione paused while she digested that, before she picked up the coin Harry discarded. It was twisted and crushed to the point where it looked like a small piece of modeling clay someone had squeezed in their fist.

"…how strong are you, Harry?" she asked.

"Way stronger than I look," Harry replied matter-of-factly.

"He can pick me up without strain," Suze helpfully added, affectionately ruffling Harry's great black mop of scruffy hair.

Looking from the pint-size boy to the much, much larger centaur, Hermione found that hard to believe — temporarily forgetting the earlier incident where he did just that to get her into the compartment in the first place — so she said so.

"I find that hard to believe."

Harry shrugged, not at all put out, while Suze stifled a snort and wryly shook her head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, slightly put out. Were her new acquaintances having her on?

"I apologize, it is merely that Harry seems to have that effect on people. The legend and the reality are so far separated that few know how to respond."

"Oh…" the cabin fell silent for a time with Harry playing with another coin and Hermione contemplating everything she had just heard.

"Hey, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, Hermione?"

"What was that you said about something a hat says to someone?"

"Well," Harry began, "it's supposed to be a big secret because someone ages back thought that keeping everyone guessing was funny, but first-years get sorted by having a magical hat named Donald sat on their heads, and he has a talk with them in their heads and figures out what House they're gonna be in. I tried to get him to tell me how he works that stuff out, but he just laughed and told me he'd let me know if I ever needed to know."

This time, Hermione couldn't keep herself from stating it out loud, "The Wizarding World is mental!" to which her cabin-mates could only nod understandingly.

2.2.6 A boy and his toad

It was about this time that their cabin was visited by another boy who appeared to be about Hermione's age, this one in a kind of dumpy-looking tan-and-red-striped sweater who looked nervous to even be knocking on their cabin door.

"Um, hello? Has anyone seen a toad around here?" the newcomer asked.

"Nope," Harry said as cheerfully as ever.

"Did you lose one?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," the boy said, sounding depressed. "He was a gift from my uncle for getting in to Hogwarts, and now he's run off…"

"Maybe we can help?" Hermione offered.

"Ah," Harry sounded uncertain for once, "I probably shouldn't; animals always run away from me — except those stupid midges in summer — I'd probably just make things harder for you, sorry."

"That's okay," Hermione said brightly, "I'll still help you look… Um, I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name?"

The dumpy-looking boy now looked mortified that he'd forgotten to introduce himself, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I'm Neville Longbottom."

"Charmed," Hermione said in a perfunctory sort of voice, "I'm Hermione, this is Harry, and that is Suze," she said, indicating the relevant persons as appropriate. "Now let's go find your toad." With that Hermione briskly marched out of the cabin.

2.2.7 Coasting into the station

It was nearing the last light of day when 45401 came pounding her way down the glen towards Hogsmeade station, the beat of her exhaust hammering off the mountains and echoing across the moors, the elderly carriages of the Hogwarts Express clattering along the well-beaten rails of the West Highland Line behind her as Jim Coates closed her regulator and eased her brakes on. Steam hissed from her glands as she drew to a stately halt in the branch station that marked the sole ingress of the so-called 'muggle world' into the village of Hogsmeade across the loch from Hogwarts, and she sat, simmering, as her passengers poured from the coaches.

She was a notorious locomotive amongst the railway enthusiasts of Britain; her Midland Railway-style livery had drawn a lot of critical remarks, but her owners — an oddly hard-to-contact conglomerate known as Hogs Haulage, PLC — had so far proved unavailable for comment and had failed to return her to her proper livery despite myriad scathing letters from fans and old hands of the London, Midland, and Scottish.

Her haunts were hard to pin down, too. A lot of enthusiasts had tried to book a ride on the daily workings undertaken by Hogs Haulage from the far northwest to London and back without success; whatever the run they hauled those trains for, it was decidedly private indeed, as was the exact location where their locomotives were stabled and just why their owners had seen fit to paint them in such unprototypical livery.

Tut, tut!

At least 45401 and her stablemates had been saved from the cutter's torch. The number of fine old locomotives that had dwindled down to nothing in the scrap-lines was all too large as it was; for every locomotive that reached preservation, dozens had been met with the ignominious fate of being cut up for scrap.

Some had been less than twenty years old when they were withdrawn, a terrible waste of a perfectly good locomotive.

Most of the people who kept a weather eye out for the Hogs Haulage trains would have been quite scathing in their disbelief if told what the purpose of those trips was, but not all; one tiny handful knew what those trains stood for.

And the majority of that handful could use magic.

To the bulk of her passengers, 45401 was beneath notice; just the engine that hauled the Hogwarts Express today, nothing special.

To the few, she was a slice of history in carefully preserved steel, and in her time, she'd transported her fair share of fellow slices of history; the Boy-Who-Lived was merely the latest on that list.

Thirty feet from her smokebox and completely oblivious to the significance of the simmering sixty-odd-year old locomotive, Rubeus Hagrid was busy bellowing, "Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" at the top of his lungs. To him she was just a big old lump of red-and-black metal.

Her crew was already checking her over in preparation to return her to her place in the Hogsmeade motive power depot as the first-year students boarded the boats at the nearby jetty. Mac was unfastening her couplers as Jim went 'round seeing that the guard, Ivor McIver, had the coaches prepared for the shunter — an Andrew-Barclay 0-4-0 saddle-tank, originally purchased to help build the Hogsmeade spur line itselt — to haul them back to the carriage sheds for cleaning and for the Hogwarts house elves to transport the children's luggage up to the castle. The children always made a heck of a mess on the train, and the small contingent of Hogs Haulage house elves always tut-tutted about the drifts of sweetie-wrappers, soft-drink bottles, used chewing gum, and other such detritus.

By the time Hagrid was calling for the first years to mind their heads as they passed under the low entryway for the tunnel that led to the Hogwarts docks, more normally used to transport the food that those children would eat, Jim was backing 45401 past the coaches towards the point that led to the turntable and engine shed; as the students filed into the Great Hall, they were seeing that old Smaugey was fed and settled into his kennel; and by the time the Sorting began, they were leaving the shed on their way down to the Hogs Head Inn and a well-earned pint of Honest Abe's Old Peculiar.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.3 Administrative details

---

2.3.1 Arrival at a fairy tale castle

Hermione stepped off the train down onto the platform, taking a deep breath of the cool evening air as she did so. Even with the omnipresent scent of coal smoke from the old steam engine, the atmosphere on the platform was decidedly refreshing when compared to that of a train cabin occupied by a centaur for upwards of seven hours.

Thankfully, Neville's toad had proven more skilled at evasion than its pursuers were at tracking, and their search had stretched on until the announcement that the children should don their uniforms prior to arrival. Hermione had returned to the cabin long enough to retrieve her uniform, and then changed in the restroom before killing time wandering the train for the rest of the trip.

Hermione had been quite grateful for an excuse to get out of the cabin for a while, over and above getting away from the horsey smell. In truth, Harry was a bit much for her.

It was not that the boy was mean, or nasty, or anything — perhaps a bit rough-around-the-edges sometimes, but some of Hermione's uncles were like that, and she knew how to sort that sort of thing out. The problem was that Harry Potter was forceful. She felt like she got dragged along with him simply on the strength of his passage, like a leaf tumbling along before a breeze.

Sure, he was a friendly breeze, but that didn't do anything for the helpless leaf, now did it?

"Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" a hearty voice rang out across the platform.

Hermione turned to look, and her eyes bugged out at the sight of the voice's owner. He was enormous, not just impossibly tall — taller even than Suze — but impossibly wide as well both in shoulder and in girth. His hair and beard ran together into a mass of sufficient volume and density that he could be mistaken for a particularly prolific ambulatory shrubbery, and two beetle-black eyes peered out from the small patch of ruddy face not hidden by his bushy brown hair.

Hermione had thought her own hair was uncontrollable!

"Hey Hagrid!", Harry's familiar voice rang out with energy and enthusiasm as the small boy bounded across the intervening space. Hermione noted that Suze was nowhere in evidence.

"Hey, Harry," the massive man said in a friendly tone, his voice still ringing across the platform, even though he had lowered it to a more conversational tone. "I though' Suze were travellin' w' yeh?"

"I sent her home with my portkey," Harry explained with a shrug. "We couldn't get her turned around to get off the train." He looked over at Hermione, who had been absently followed Hagrid's instructions by walking over. "This is Hermione Granger," he introduced her, "I met her in Diagon Alley."

Hermione found herself quailing under the massive man's gaze, and she offered a timid, "How do you do?"

"'Ello, Miss," Hagrid said in a booming voice and with a broad, friendly smile. Hermione couldn't help but smile back. "Lookin' forward t' Hogwarts?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hagrid," she was much reassured by his friendly manner.

"Jus' Hagrid, Miss; Mr. Hagrid was me Da'. Yeh stick t' young Harry 'ere; he'll make sure yer all right."

Harry smiled proudly, "Hagrid here is Hogwarts' Groundskeeper, Gamekeeper, and Keeper of the Keys, and he knows absolutely everything there is to know about all sorts of really cool creatures! Centaurs, hippogryphs, unicorns, thestrals, even dragons! He's even helping me farm acromantulas, and he bakes the best rock cakes you've ever tasted!"

Hermione craned her neck to look back up at the large man, noting with some surprise that the small patches of his cheeks that were visible were flushed red at Harry's effusive praise.

"Go on, ye' little scamp! Head on o'er t' the boats, an' I'll gather the rest o' the firsties."

Harry nodded agreeably and took hold of Hermione's hand. "C'mon the boats are over here."

Hermione allowed herself to be dragged along; it seemed to be Harry's normal mode of travel, grab a nearby female by the hand and haul her along. Since she wanted to go that way anyway she decided not to object. "Boats, Harry?"

"Yeah, first years go to the castle in boats. The first time you see Hogwarts is from the shore of the loch."

"How did you know that? It wasn't in Hogwarts: A History?"

"'s what happened last year and the year before that," Harry explained. "I've been around Hogwarts since I was eight and I had to leave my aunt and uncle's house. It's okay though, 'cause I wasn't too happy there before… well, before I had to leave."

Before Hermione's curiosity could latch onto that suspicious pause, they arrived on the jetty, and he said with a theatrical wave of his arms, "Ta-da! There you go, Hogwarts!"

Hermione blinked at the marvelous sight before her, across the loch, gleaming like a jeweled crown in the gathering twilight was a castle properly deserving of being called 'magical'. Towers and turrets stretched up to touch the sky, impossibly thin for their stone construction, and the walled edifice spread out to encompass a massive area. Best of all to Hermione's young mind, was the reflection duplicating the vision in the dark, still waters below.

"It's not bad, eh?"

"It's incredible… beautiful…"

"C'mon, lets grab a boat."

2.3.2 Disciplinary inquiry

As the Great Hall slowly filled, Abigail pushed her way through the press on her way to the staff table. She had been selected as a Slytherin Prefect at the end of the previous year, and she took her duties seriously, both because she had agreed to do them and in hopes of proving herself worthy of being named Head Girl in her coming seventh year.

Flint had been kicked by a centaur on the train, and it was her duty to report it to her Head of House, so report it, she would — no matter how much he deserved it. Flint was a right prick.

Eventually, she managed to force her way through and found Professor Snape waiting impassively for the firsties to arrive for the Sorting. "Excuse me, Professor Snape?"

Snape glanced down at her, dark eyes noting the glittering new addition of the prefect badge, "Yes, Miss Abercrombie?"

"Sir, there was an incident on the train. Flint was injured when he was kicked by a centaur, and I escorted him to the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey instructed me to inform you of the situation and that he should be fine in a few hours but would not be able to attend the feast tonight."

"I see, thank you for your diligence, Miss Abercrombie. Was there anything else?"

Abigail's brown eyes blinked at the lack of surprise, "Er, there was a centaur on the train, sir, it kicked him."

"Yes, I heard you the first time, Miss Abercrombie. And?"

Abigail shifted defensively, "Um, I didn't think they were allowed, sir. I thought the Express was reserved for students only."

"It is."

There was another uncomfortable silence. Her Head of House's terse responses were not helping with conversational flow. "Er, the centaur can't be a student, can it sir? In Care, Professor Kettleburn said that centaurs are inherently magical creatures due to the circumstances of their creation, but they are unable to channel wanded magic."

A thin smile appeared on Snape's face, "Two points for your applied knowledge of centaurs, Miss Abercrombie. That will be all." He then turned back to scowling at the student body which was slowly separating itself into Houses.

Abigail frowned in surprise at the abrupt dismissal before nodding respectfully and stepping backwards. The Professor obviously knew of the centaur and appeared to have no objection. There was something odd, though. Professor Snape had confirmed that the centaur maid was not a student, but he was still unconcerned that she had been on a train exclusively reserved for students.

She would have to unravel that puzzle at a later date. For now, she needed to take her place at the Slytherin table and prepare to welcome the new students.

She barely managed to take her seat in time.

2.3.3 The Sorting

Out of all the incoming first-year students, only one knew what to expect, and since that one was Harry Potter, he was predictably far too excited about the situation to be coherent.

Hermione, still attached to him by the hand, found herself wanting to put her hands on his head to stop him bouncing as they listened to the scruffy magical hat he'd earlier claimed went by the name, Donald, singing some kind of vaguely bawdy doggerel. The hall was very impressive, and she supposed a singing hat was neat, but having an outrageously strong and hyperactive small boy fidgeting, giggling and pointing random things out tended to detract from the majesty of the spectacle.

The Sorting proceeded alphabetically by surname, and Harry amused himself by spotting kids he recognized as their turns came up, marking each with an 'I know him/her'; first in that category was one Hannah Abbot who he'd met in Diagon Alley that one time, quickly followed by her friend Susan Bones. They both ended up in Hufflepuff. Then Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, which Harry supposed was a good thing since that's where she said she wanted to go.

That Longbottom guy who, judging by the squirming lump in his pocket, had eventually managed to find his toad, got sorted into Gryffindor. Then there was that mad Draco kid, whose awesome first name did nothing to make up for his personality. He'd almost gotten his head sat-on on principle that one time they'd met in Hogsmeade on account of him being dumb and giving dragons a bad name by association. The blond dunderhead ended up in Slytherin, and Harry was sure Mr. Snape wasn't going to like that one bit. Then Mrs. McGonagall said 'Potter, Harry', and he bounded up to the stool for his turn.

While the other children had been nervous to one degree or another at facing the ordeal of being Sorted in front of the entire school, Harry was quite eager, enjoying the whispers and bated breath throughout the room. He was a dragon after all even if he didn't look it at the moment, and dragons were supposed to be impressive and awe-inspiring.

He figured he needed all the awe he could get.

2.3.4 Surprise!

As the Hat descended on the still slightly undersized boy and his great shaggy mop of black hair, the Hall was hushed in anticipation. This made the truncated scream of pure astonishment from the Sorting Hat all the more piercing in contrast.

"What the fu…"

The small figure seated under the recently screaming hat had already been the focus of attention for every person in the hall, but now each and every eye widened.

Snape leaned across to the Headmaster, "I thought the two had already met?"

"They have," Albus looked puzzled. "I wonder what's gotten the Hat all up in a tizzy?"

2.3.5 Sorting the dragon

Harry looked up as far as his eyes could go, even going so far as to tilt his head back a little. "Is there something wrong?"

In his mind, Donald's voice sounded like he was hyperventilating. "Oh my, you're a, a… I've never… Oh my!"

Harry reached up with his still very human-looking arm and patted the ancient hat reassuringly, "Are you alright?"

"I am most certainly not alright! That bast… er, never mind. Ooh, the Headmaster deserves a good… aargh!" the Hat paused and seemed to collect itself. "My apologies, Mr. Potter, and for your reference, you don't need to speak aloud; I am quite capable of communicating via your thoughts alone."

"Like this?" Harry thought very loudly.

"Perhaps not quite so forcefully," Donald gave the impression of a wince. "Goodness, I've never had to sort a dragon before. Have you always been a dragon? I didn't notice any indication when we met previously."

"I transformed into one when those standing-stone thingies went all crazy back a month or so before I turned eight," Harry explained in a much quieter, but still excitedly bouncy, mental voice. "I didn't meet you, though, until after I'd learned to transfigure myself into a human again."

"…and since we were speaking aloud rather than with me on your head, I didn't have the senses to tell the difference, I suppose," Donald concluded. "Understandable, though it still doesn't excuse Albus for not telling me ahead of time."

"Is there something wrong with me being a dragon," Harry asked, troubled.

"No, nothing wrong," Donald assured him, "I just like being informed of these things beforehand. Don't like surprises too much, you understand."

"Well, it's supposed to be a secret," Harry offered. "Some of the glowy people wouldn't like it too much if they found out I was a dragon instead of a person… well, I'm still a person, but a dragon-shaped person rather than a people-shaped person. Maybe that's why he didn't tell you."

"Well, I don't care if it was supposed to be a state secret, the old whiskered bastard should have bloody-well told me," the hat groused. "Please pardon my language, Mr. Potter. I find myself somewhat overwrought."

"Huh, why did he need to tell you?" Harry's face twisted into a confused frown. "Does it make some sort of difference in where you sort me?"

"No, it was more along the lines of not scaring the stitching out of me," Donald sighed. "Ugh, I'm too old for this sort of excitement."

Harry perked up; that sounded interesting. "How old are you, exactly? I mean, Hagrid said I might be around for a really long time because dragons can live for hundreds of years, and Madame Pomfrey said I might well live even longer than that, so I was wondering about…"

"Well, perhaps we should get on with our business first?" Donald interrupted before Harry could really get a good blather going. "As fascinating as your observations are, I fear that if we take too long to sort you there may just be a riot after my little slip up at the beginning. Feel free to visit during the year, it is always nice to get some company, and we could converse at our leisure, then. I'm sure the Headmaster would be amenable to allowing you to visit his office. I might even get you to play a prank on him for me. Well, on to the job at hand, hmm, interesting…"

The chance to talk to the hat sounded like it might be great fun, but Donald did have a point, Harry reasoned. "Your song said all the clever glowy-people get put in Ravenclaw; I like reading, can I go there?"

"So I see; so I see. You do have a powerful intellect indeed, Mr. Potter; however, I suspect your phenomenal rate of learning and memory retention would earn you more resentment than fellowship there. It is one thing for students to engage in friendly competition with others of similar ability, but to be effortlessly outclassed is another thing entirely. Your time in Ravenclaw would be troublesome, and while character-building, I dare say that annoying a dragon would turn out to be a little too exciting for members of that House."

Harry considered that. He had never really considered himself to be particularly smart, but he figured he'd take Donald's word for it. The hat was supposed to be the expert here. "If you say so. I don't want to annoy anyone if it's not for a good reason, and just being better at schoolwork seems like a pretty dumb reason to me. How about Gryffindor? I'm brave — I've even got a damsel — and you sorted Hermione there, and she's my friend."

"Mr. Potter, you are fearless, and with good reason! But I'm afraid courage is a very different thing from fearlessness. Courage is acting despite your fear, and you have yet to face any situations sufficiently dangerous to showcase your courage. Gryffindors as a group tend to leap into dangerous situations readily, yes, but a situation which is dangerous for a wizard would pose little challenge to one such as you. Conversely, a situation even mildly dangerous for you would be beyond deadly to a wizard, and I shudder to think what would happen should your housemates leap into such a situation after you. I suspect that my sorting you into Gryffindor would quickly lead to a marked decline in the House's population through attrition."

"Oh!" Harry said, taken aback. "That's not good at all! I guess Hufflepuff is the only one left then? Mr. Snape said I wouldn't make a very good Slytherin."

"Severus Snape's opinion matters to me not at all, Mr. Potter," the hat said testily. "For your information, I do not necessarily sort students into the House which most closely mirrors their personality."

"You don't? I thought you said in the song that that was your job?"

"It usually turns out that way, yes, but my purpose is to sort students into the Houses where they will grow and develop properly, the place where they would best succeed. When a student holds the attributes of several Houses, I try to sort them where they would be most effective. Now Hufflepuff would be delighted to have you as a member."

"You mean I'm going to be a Badger? Wicked!"

"You would certainly fit in there quite well; Hufflepuff itself would fare better for your patronage. The honor and prestige alone would do wonders for the House's reputation."

Harry frowned; the hat seemed to be stalling. "But where else could I go? You don't think I'd be any good with the sneaky people in Slytherin, do ya? Mr. Snape seemed to think the idea was pretty funny when I asked him."

The hat gave the mental impression of an exasperated sigh. "Mr. Potter, Professor Snape was correct to point out that you are not really cunning, or sneaky as you would call it. You are arrow-straight in a world full of curves. You have a child's view of the world, a view which would attract some derision from your fellow Slytherins. I wouldn't even consider putting you in that House were it not for one thing…"

"Really, what's that?" the young dragon asked curiously.

"You have an ambition Salazar himself would never have dreamed to even consider. You wish to change the world."

"Oh, that," Harry mentally shrugged, finding the action to be oddly comfortable despite doing it for the first time in his existence. "Well, Mr. Snape and Suze and me have all been trying to figure out how to overthrow the glowy people in charge so we can fix things up — when we're not learning potions, that is. Mr. Snape gets really loud when I try to talk about overthrowing while he's talking about potions."

The hat paused for a moment, "Yes, well, Professor Snape's protestations aside, that's my dilemma. I could put you in Hufflepuff, and you would be welcomed there, but the House would be the greatest beneficiary rather than you. Or I could put you in Slytherin, and you might not be so happy there, but you might be forced to develop some more subtle skills which would prove most useful for your grand ambition. Essentially you would cultivate a more delicate touch, an attitude that would serve you well with your goal."

"You know, from the reading I've done and the conversations I've had, I never would have guessed it would come down to deciding between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Those two don't really have a lot in common."

"Ah, but a good Slytherin knows how to work hard for his goals, though there are precious few in that House these days," Donald countered. "And few Hufflepuffs work hard for the sake of hard work, rather they pursue a goal, in other words, an ambition."

"Oh, okay. So where am I going?"

"Yes, yes. Where are you going? Hufflepuff, where you would do well, but the House would be great, or Slytherin where the House would do well, but you would be pushed on the path to true greatness?"

Harry waited with bated breath. This was perhaps the defining moment of his childhood… well, apart from the whole turn-into-a-dragon thing, it would be pretty hard to top that one.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shifted back to audible speech to declare Harry's fate at Hogwarts.

"Not Slytherin?" Harry thought. He figured it might have been nice to be in the same House as Mr. Snape.

"No, Mr. Potter," Donald replied in kind, "if placing you in Gryffindor would have decimated the House through attrition, putting you in among the Serpents would have led to their near-complete annihilation. As I said, the good Slytherins are rather light on the ground at the moment. I daresay that you will achieve true greatness eventually regardless of your House, and weighing a few years' delay in what promises to be a truly prodigious lifespan against the lives of a quarter of the school, well, it wasn't too difficult a choice to make. Good luck to you in Hufflepuff, and don't forget to visit!"

Harry took off the hat, set it on the stool and gave it a quick pat, "Thanks, Mr. Hat!", before he trotted over to the table trimmed in black and yellow.

2.3.6 An unexpectedly friendly outcome

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Up at the staff table, Snape looked faintly surprised at the outcome before muttering, "Blasted reptile."

Then he stifled a chuckle as he scanned the Gryffindor students' poleaxed looks, the Ravenclaws' wide-eyed startlement, the Slytherins' equally startled but calculating expressions, and the wild cheering and applause from the Badgers.

It seemed that Harry had, as expected, put a cat among the pigeons from the get-go.

2.3.7 Feast

After the uproar following the Boy-Who-Didn't-Snuff-It becoming a 'Puff, the Sorting proceeded apace, with the last student Harry had met, Ronald Weasley, joining the Lions, and some kid named Zabini — who Harry only remembered because his name was kind of unusual, what with starting with a 'z' and all — going to Slytherin.

It was followed by a brief bit of buffoonery from Dumbledore in which he imparted the grand words of wisdom, 'nitwit', 'oddment', and 'tweak' — from which some of the more obsessive Ravenclaws would spend weeks attempting to derive hidden meanings — which then led directly into the feast wherein a large room full of teenagers and near-teenagers consumed their fill, and a little bit more, of greasy, starchy, calorie-dense food.

Harry once again shocked the rest of the student body by practically inhaling the equivalent of an entire roast cow by himself while enthusiastically chattering away at a mile-a-minute with his new housemates. Harry counted it a great success when he managed to get the girls he ended up sitting between, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot, giggle fits and managed to get the older boy seated across the table, who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory, to snort so hard pumpkin juice came out of his nose.

Once everyone had eaten their fill — except for Harry, who regarded just one cow as little more than a light nibble and fully intended to eat enough to feel full when he got back to his Lair for the evening — Dumbledore again took center stage for a few announcements regarding a new staff member and some rule changes.

"The Forbidden Forest is, as its name suggests, strictly forbidden to anyone not accompanied by a staff member or a registered resident of the Forest. Lastly, but certainly not least, there is a hallway on the third floor which is likewise strictly off-limits as it contains a certain death for any who venture therein. It is marked and locked in a way which will require considerable deliberate effort for any student to unlock. I trust that no one will make the attempt, as doing so would be quite remarkably foolish."

Harry frowned for a moment at that. He alone among the student body had some idea of what was going on with that. A few days before, a fist-sized package had been delivered to the castle via armored car under the watchful eyes of no less than a full platoon of armed-to-the-teeth goblins led by Sergeant-Major Hooktalon. They'd even brought rocket launchers and a weird sort of gun with six barrels that rotated through one after another that they'd said they were going to mount on a stand inside the door.

The squaddies had seemed almost giddy about the thing, so Harry figured they didn't get to use it very often; when he had asked, they said they only got to use it this time because the client had a whole lot of money and he was willing to pay for the ammunition. It was called an 'Em-One-Thirty-Four Minigun', which seemed like an odd name to Harry since between the gun itself, the specially shielded battery pack, and the ammunition boxes, it probably weighed as much as two of the goblins themselves.

They apparently had orders to keep everyone but a few specific people out — namely Dumbledore, Hooktalon, Slackhammer, and some guy named Flamel — using force if required, and that was all they'd been willing to tell him. Their tone had let him know that it was something he ought not be pushing on, so he left them to it after extracting a promise to come by and look in on his marksmanship progress when they got a chance.

"Now then, it is time for us to get some sleep," Dumbledore concluded, snapping Harry out of his thoughts. "We've a big day tomorrow, after all."

Prefects went around gathering their respective Houses' first-years, and led each group out of the Great Hall in a great disorderly mob. Once everyone had been directed to their common rooms, it was time for the few students who would not be living in the dorms to be shown the way out, since it wasn't through the docks they came in by. In Hufflepuff's case, this group had two members, Harry and another boy by the name of Zacharias Smith who lived down in Hogsmeade, but the group included some few from the other Houses as well.

Escort duty was being handled by none other than Professor Severus Snape, and as the other students left with their parents, he intercepted Harry before he could trundle off into the Forest. "Mr. Potter, the Headmaster would like to speak with you before you head home for the evening. Please follow me," without waiting for an acknowledgement, Snape strode off.

Harry, quite used to this sort of behavior from the man, gave an acknowledgement anyway, "Okay!" and made good time keeping up with the older man's longer stride.

"Did Mr. Dumbledore tell you what he wanted to talk to me about?" Harry asked as they walked.

"I have an idea, but as there may be other things I will not speculate so as not to mislead you unintentionally."

"Umm, okay," Harry said uncertainly. "When do you teach us first-years?"

"Your class timetable will be issued tomorrow at breakfast, but traditionally I teach the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first-year students on a Thursday morning."

Harry nodded happily at that. He was beyond pleased that he would finally be able to be a student at Hogwarts and spend more time with his professor friends. Admittedly, it would mean less time spent galloping with his centaur friends, but that time was kind of limited anyway at this time of year.

As the pair continued to walk down the byzantine maze of Hogwarts' hallways, the companionable silence was broken again, this time by Snape. "Out of morbid curiosity, Mr. Potter, how many students did your centaur damsel's hooves injure on the Express?"

Eyes wide with awe, Harry asked, "How did you know Suze kicked someone on the train?"

Snape was disciplined enough to keep his tongue in check, and rather than retort that his last name was Potter, and therefore injuries among innocent bystanders were to be expected as he would have done with any of his peers in the staffroom; he instead went with, "I am a student of human nature."

Harry wasn't sure what to make of that reply, so he just decided to explain the incident to his friend.

"As you were not Sorted at that point, I shall hold off on deducting points." Snape sighed, "However, please direct your considerable intellect towards anticipating and avoiding such problems in the future. I am not so naïve as to imagine that you will be able to avoid trouble entirely, but if you at least promise to attempt to do your best to avoid discovery and keep collateral damage to a minimum, I believe I will have to be satisfied."

"Okay, Mr. Snape!"

There was that weaponized level of exuberance again. The blasted lizard was going to ruin his reputation at this rate.

They had finally managed to arrive at the gargoyle which concealed the entrance to the Headmaster's office. "My office is in the dungeons near the potions classroom, though I can be contacted using the fire in any of the common rooms in an emergency." He broke off for a moment to provide the password for the entrance, currently 'lemon drops', before continuing, "Now off you go, you wretched reptile. Our tutoring sessions will continue, but the location will shift to the potions classroom. Good night to you, and sleep well. You have a big day tomorrow."

"Good night, Mr. Snape! I'll see you tomorrow."

2.3.8 Gentle reminder

After Mr. Snape had left in a great sweeping billow of dark robes as was his custom, Harry bounded up the cool moving stairs into Mr. Dumbledore's office. The large office, more accurately an office suite, was mostly filled with interesting things. Little devices that spun about and periodically emitted puffs of smoke, moving magical portraiture, all sorts of colorful knickknacks glowing with various kinds of magic to Harry's senses, and reams upon reams of parchment. Mostly though, there was Fawkes.

Harry really liked Fawkes.

The phoenix made for great company. He was nearly as cheerful as Harry was, and he made you feel better just by being around. Harry aspired to do the same someday, though he had no idea how he might manage it. Phoenixes apparently had some innate magical effect that did that, and Harry would probably have to make a similar thing if he wanted to brighten up people's moods with his mere presence.

The roiling mass of vaguely bird-shaped flame chirped a friendly greeting to Harry, followed by a hopeful questioning tone.

"It's good to see you too, Fawkes," Harry said, fearlessly reaching his hand out to pet the incarnation of fire. "And sorry, but the room's too small to transform and give you a fire bath. If you come by the Lair when I get back though, I'd be happy to, and I'm sure Suze would like to see you too!"

"Ah, Mr. Potter, it is a delight to finally welcome you to Hogwarts as a student!" the Headmaster said, stepping out of an adjoining room that appeared to consist mostly of a cozy-looking sitting area before a fireplace. In the time between the welcoming feast and his current meeting, the man had exchanged his relatively subdued robes with multicolored stars and moons for a much more lurid set with animated patterns and everything. "I do appreciate your self-discipline in refraining from transforming within my office, as well; I know how persuasive Fawkes can be when he wants something. Sorting the paperwork again would be quite tedious."

"You're welcome, Mr. Dumbledore," Harry said, perfectly seriously.

"Yes… did I hear you say correctly that Fawkes enjoys being bathed in your flames?" the elderly man asked. "I must say that I had not realized such things were enjoyable for phoenixes or I would have sought to provide him with such previously."

"He said that other fires aren't hot enough for him when I asked before," Harry explained.

"I wonder if that is why he has seemed so much healthier recently?" Dumbledore mused, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "He hasn't undergone a burning day in six months or so, and his flames have seemed much more energetic than usual… hmm, most remarkable. In any case, I suppose we should get back to the topics at hand."

"Right!"

"How was your train ride, young man?" Dumbledore asked. "The Express has been a beloved tradition for the best part of a century. I trust that it was quite memorable for you?"

"It was great!" Harry said enthusiastically. "I sat with Suze and a girl I'd met at Diagon Alley before, and we read lots, but Suze had to take the portkey back to the Lair because we couldn't get her back out of the compartment."

The Headmaster nodded sagely, "I suppose I should have anticipated that, though it does beg the question of how you managed to get her into the compartment in the first place — an enigma I am sure to enjoy pondering at a later date. As it is, there was no lasting harm done. Please take a seat, there are a few things to discuss." As his young guest took a seat on one of the visitors' chairs arranged before the desk, Dumbledore indicated a candy dish on the edge of said desk. "Lemon drop?"

The young dragon looked longingly at the sweets, he could certainly smell them from here, and they smelled delicious, the same sort of tangy acid smell to be expected from good, strong, goblin tea — or a leaky car battery, they were pretty similar.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass for now. Hagrid left me a couple of cars up on the bluff by the Lair, and I don't want to spoil my appetite. Maybe next time?" he finished hopefully.

"Quite responsible," Albus approved, nonetheless popping one into his own mouth, "and I will quite happily offer you the same opportunity on your next visit. Now, have you had an opportunity to read the copy of the school bylaws I lent you?"

Harry nodded, "I did, though Suze and me had a bit of a laugh at some of the sillier rules. I hope you don't mind?"

"Of course not, some of those rules are quite silly, indeed," the man's long white beard danced as he gave a hearty chuckle. "My favorites are some of the rules regarding the etiquette involved in the concurrent carrying of swords and wands put in place in the thirteenth century; why, to follow them all would require no less than three hands!"

Harry grinned, recognizing the rules the man was referring to. "It got even worse in the sixteenth century when they added the ones for guns, 'cause they didn't do anything to invalidate the earlier ones for swords and they used 'and' instead of 'or' for left or right-handed carry, so by the rules you technically need to be carrying four swords, two pistols, two rifles, at least seven knives, and thirteen wands with a hand for each one."

The old man laughed delightedly, "I must admit I had not made that connection before, though I see it now that you've pointed it out. Come to think of it, that would have been a much better choice when we were trying to find a way to justify carrying your armament on campus, hmm. Well, what is done, is done, I suppose."

"Yeah, well, I've been thinking, remember how the goblins helped Suze and me to get away from that crazy toad lady in the alley last year? All those laws with numbers after the names?"

"I do have a passing familiarity with the legal code, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore assured him, amused. "It is, after all, my responsibility as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot to be the highest arbiter of such matters in the land."

"Right!" Harry said enthusiastically, completely unembarrassed by what many others would consider a major oversight. "Anyway, the rule book sorta reminded me of them, and I was wondering whether I could get a copy of all the rule books with the laws that I could read? I don't want to have to bother the goblins all the time whenever someone tries to be a poo-head, so I figured if I knew all the laws, I could make sure to only do things that are allowed, even if everyone thinks they're not allowed."

There was a slight pause as the older man waded through that morass of dialogue, "I see. Are you thinking of practicing law when you graduate from Hogwarts? Do you wish to become a solicitor or barrister? With your prodigious memory, you would be a formidable opponent in the courtroom."

"Nah," the dragon waved the idea off. "They sound like really boring jobs. I just want to know so I can deal with it if I have to. Plus, if we ever want to change the laws to be fairer, I need to know what we've got now to avoid running into the same problems."

Albus beamed at that, it seemed that his earlier urgings about working within the system had borne at least some fruit after all. "Well, it is always a good thing to have more people familiar with our legal system, and I am certain I could authorize an expenditure from your trust account for the purpose of acquiring the relevant materials. The legal code is quite extensive, however, so you will be in for quite the read, and keeping up with the continual additions, modifications, and indeed, contradictions, can be both tiresome and expensive."

"Thanks, Mr. Dumbledore! Um, before I forget, Donald also invited me to come talk to him from time to time during the year, is that okay?"

"Donald?"

"Yeah," at the elderly wizard's puzzled look, Harry offered, "You know, Donald, the hat?"

"The Sorting Hat is named Donald?" that was news to Dumbledore. He'd always just called it the Hat.

"Uh huh," Harry nodded. "He told me when I first talked to him last year."

"Well, I suppose you learn something new every day," Albus mused. "I will certainly not get in your way on that front, though if you wish to meet with him in my office, I will of course, need to be present. There are a great many fragile and important things in here, after all. Perhaps…" He stood up and went to a shelf, withdrawing the Sorting Hat and setting it on his desk, "Hat — or Donald, I suppose — Mr. Potter tells me you would like to speak with him during the year?"

The Hat awoke groggily, "Yes, yes I did. Why, is he here to talk already?"

"Hi, Donald!" Harry greeted.

"He is here, but I daresay it is too late in the day for a proper conversation when he has classes tomorrow. No, I wished to ask whether you would like to be relocated outside of my office so that you might be available for discussions with students without requiring my presence? The castle certainly is in possession of a surfeit of rooms, it would be no trouble to set something up."

The hat scrunched itself up in concentration before it responded, "You know, that sounds rather nice. I think I'll take you up on that."

"Then it shall be done," Dumbledore said grandly before faltering slightly as a though occurred to him. "Though it may take a few weeks to set up the appropriate wards, Merlin knows what the Weasley twins would load you down with without proper warding."

The hat shuddered, "Take your time, then, Headmaster. No need to rush, and it would be good for Mr. Potter to get a few weeks of class under his belt before we talk again anyway." Donald turned to the young dragon, "You've got a lot on your plate right now, don't be too rushed about coming to see me while you're so busy. I've got plenty of time, and from your statements earlier, you're not hurting for it either."

"Okay, Donald!"

"Before you put me away, Albus, I insist on attending that staff meeting you lot always hold after the Welcoming Feast; I've got some things to say to you," Donald said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Now finish your discussion with Mr. Potter before it gets so late the boy falls asleep on the way back to his Lair." Its piece said, the hat returned to looking like an ordinary, if battered, piece of apparel.

"Yes, well… I suppose that brings me to the first item I needed to discuss with you, Mr. Potter. I understand that several of the Hogwarts faculty are your friends and you are accustomed to referring to them as such, but during the term, you should address them by their proper titles. It is a sign of respect for their positions, and it is intended to help maintain discipline among the students, which can be quite necessary due to the oftentimes hazardous nature of magical instruction. Thus, Severus should be referred to as Professor Snape during the term, for instance. When in your Lair or during breaks, you may of course refer to us by whatever moniker tickles your fancy. Indeed, whilst there, you may refer to me as 'that barmy old codger' should you feel so inclined."

"Okay, Professor Dumbledore."

"Excellent, now, additionally there are a few things I must discuss with you about how you interact with your peers…"

2.3.9 Laying down the law

Snape strode purposefully down the corridor towards the Slytherin common room, his darkly dyed robes billowing about him. Arriving at his destination, he whispered the override password from within a silently-cast muffling charm; the potions master had no desire to see what mischief his Serpents could cause with an override password at their disposal. As it was, he still changed the thing every other week.

All conversation ceased as the potions master billowed into the room like a particularly taciturn storm cloud, and every head turned to face him.

Snape took his time looking around the room at the faces of his students, not incidentally allowing time for tension to build. Say what you would about his social acumen, Snape certainly knew how to work a room.

"I have announcements to make. Prefects, summon our wayward Serpents."

All six of the prefects nodded and immediately bolted for the various dormitories to roust up any students that had thought to go to bed early. Snape meanwhile glared at the rest of the student body. When all had been assembled, he spoke in a low, clear, but still vaguely ominous voice.

"This year, things have changed."

The students knew better than to interrupt.

"Historically, punishments for rule infractions have been dispensed only when there was sufficient evidence to support such actions. There have been instances in the past where rules have been broken, but in the face of limited or inconclusive evidence, punishments were avoided."

"This state of affairs is no longer in effect."

Several hushed conversations sprang up almost immediately, only to be quelled by Snape with a sharp gesture.

"The unofficial rule, 'no witnesses, no crime' should be considered obsolete. If an allegation is leveled against you, you shall be punished. If it later turns out that you were falsely accused, then your accuser shall be punished twofold. This warning is being given to every student in the school. There will be no bullying, no intimidation, and no extortion. There will be no accidental spell-fire in the hallways when no witnesses are present. There will be no sabotaging of equipment or schoolwork when no one is watching. The rules have not changed, but the level of evidence required for their enforcement has. Neither I nor any other staff member will protect students from the consequences of their own actions."

"Are there any questions?"

A few hands rose, causing Snape to sigh internally. What was unclear about his speech? He had attempted to make it as clear and unambiguous as possible. He nodded to the nearest hand, belonging to Mr. Flint, who had not been present at the feast as he recalled. Poppy had done good work, it seemed.

"Does that include the Express, sir?"

"Naturally."

Flint grinned as if he had just won the lottery, "I was attacked by a centaur on the train, sir. Whoever owns it is responsible…"

Snape kept his face deliberately blank as he interrupted his student, "Have you been practicing quidditch over the break, Mr. Flint?"

"Yes, sir," the boy seemed puzzled over the apparent non-sequitur.

"Did you sustain any injuries to your eardrums?"

"Sir?"

"Is your hearing compromised?" the potions master clarified.

"No sir."

"Did you happen to be struck about the head by a bludger repeatedly, perchance?"

"No, sir," Flint repeated, confused.

"Odd, you seem to be rather less intelligent than I recall. Perhaps Madame Pomfrey released you from her care prematurely? Did you not hear me say that false accusers shall be doubly punished? Detention, Mr. Flint. Tomorrow with me, and next Friday with Hagrid."

"But I was kicked…" Flint objected.

"You stormed up behind a centaur while screaming threats at her master," Snape raised his voice over the boy's objections. "Had that particular centaur been carrying her customary armament, I would either be filling out the reams of tedious paperwork associated with your gruesome demise while the elves were scrubbing your remains off the inside of that carriage, or you would be spending the entirety of the fall term under Madame Pomfrey's tender mercies."

Snape turned away from the rapidly paling Marcus Flint and toward the rest of the students watching raptly. "How much clearer can I make myself? Every student in this school is being told exactly the same thing. I suspect the many, many dunderheads amongst your number will take quite some time to comprehend what is essentially a very simple concept, but the few among you blessed with even a modicum of critical thought should come to grips with it quite easily."

One trembling hand rose from the mass of quivering students.

"Yes, Miss Smith."

"Why, sir? I mean, why the change?"

Snape stared at the fourth-year girl until she thoroughly regretted asking the question. "The reason matters not; I am not interested in your objections, only in your compliance. Is that understood?"

"Good, now there is one thing left to drill into your thick skulls," Snape took a deep breath. "Potter is to be left alone."

That pronouncement triggered another wave of whispers. Abigail Abercrombie, his promising sixth-year prefect raised a tentative hand.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?"

"Do you mean Potter is to be… alienated?"

Snape almost snapped at the girl before he thought back on his statement and realized it was a reasonable interpretation of his words. "No, no, by all means, associate with him, befriend him, do your homework with him, or ignore him as you will. In that respect, he is to be treated as any other student at this school. But he is not to be targeted for any prank, bullying, or scheme. Leave. Him. Alone."

"Sir? You just said any bullying will be punished…"

"Do not be an imbecile. I am well aware that many of you are even now reworking your various schemes with the new rules in mind, trying to find some way around them, so that they cannot be traced back to you. I know that in the past, many of you have come to equate the admonishment 'do not do something' with 'do not get caught doing something', and I fully expect some of the more cerebrally-deficient among you to test our resolve. Hopefully, after the first few are sent home in disgrace, the rest will get the hint and fall into line. Beyond that, I am giving you one warning, and one warning only. Leave Potter alone."

Glaring about the room, he noted that all the students were nodding in acceptance. Whether they acted the part would remain to be seen.

"Very well, if there are no more ridiculous objections, I will retire for the evening. Prefects, drill the usual expectations into the new students. The rest of you, off to bed."

With that he swept out of the room amid his usual billowing robes. He was almost to his quarters when he was interrupted once again by a voice calling out his name. He turned to see the same sixth-year prefect jogging up behind him.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?" he prompted harshly.

The girl winced before soldiering on. "Sir, many of the students are talking, wondering why Potter is getting such favorable treatment. I'm afraid I already overheard the first-year Malfoy saying he was already planning a prank on him."

Snape closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Surely Lucius had drilled at least a modicum of subtlety into his son. For all his numerous and grievous faults, at least the elder Malfoy knew when to be discreet, but apparently his son was cut from a different cloth. As a Slytherin, being overheard planning rule-breaking was even worse than getting caught doing the deed. "Very well, I shall see to it that young Mr. Malfoy learns to regret his actions. Perhaps dodging a bludger with 'Potter' written on it for an hour will hammer the lesson home?"

"Yes, sir," Abigail said. "Um, is Potter going to be a problem for the school?"

For a long moment the potions master regarded the young witch before asking, "What makes you ask that?"

Abigail fought to keep herself from biting her lower lip. "Well, such a fundamental change in the school culture would only come about after a major incident in the school, probably something happening to a student from a powerful family. I can't think of anything from last year that might have prompted such a change, so logic dictates that the change must be because of something new to the school this year. The only incoming student with political connections is Bones — at a stretch, maybe Malfoy since his father is a governor — but neither one of those is really prominent enough for this, nor are they at any particular risk that I know of, certainly not enough to precipitate such a massive cultural shift."

"Continue."

"Well, eliminating political weight, the only name with enough cultural weight to warrant such a thing is Potter." At her Head of House's nod, she continued. "Er, well… I only really worked it out after you told us about the changes. You said there would be zero tolerance for any intimidation, even assigning a couple of detentions to Flint for claiming he had been attacked on the train. Even after that, though, you still singled out Potter and warned us away. It would be one thing if Potter were some special snowflake who couldn't take the pressure and needed that level of protection, but I met him on the train. He seemed unconcerned about the stares he got there and later at the feast, and he stared me down on the train after Flint got kicked. I was going to lecture him about respect, but… sir, I couldn't meet his eyes."

"His eyes?"

"He… there's something about him, sir, something… powerful? And I think you know what it is too, and that's the reason for the warning."

The potions master leaned back, face expressionless for a long moment before it suddenly broke out in a smile. "Miss Abercrombie, I am delighted that someone in Slytherin with the ability to use their brain is finally doing so. In the few hours since you have been back at Hogwarts, you have shown that my decision to make you a prefect was well-considered. Take twenty points. Continue as you have been and there is no doubt in my mind that you shall be occupying the Head Girl's suite next year."

Abigail brightened inwardly at that, long conditioning in Slytherin keeping her from showing any reaction externally. "Thank you, sir."

Snape nodded. "Good, keep an eye on things. I will not ask you to be a snitch, but if Potter ever looks to be losing his temper, get a staff member, any staff member. The portraits will assist."

"Yes, sir. Um, sir, if he's so dangerous, should he be here at all?"

Snape gave a smile of pure satisfaction. "Oh, yes. That is unquestionable. Tell me, Miss Abercrombie, have you ever heard of the supposed Han curse, 'may you live in interesting times'? With Potter here at Hogwarts, times will be most interesting indeed."

Uncertain how to respond, Abigail simply nodded. "Good night, sir."

"Good night, Miss Abercrombie," he turned to go on to his quarters, before he said over his shoulder, "It is a pity you did not follow your train of thought all the way to the final station."

Abigail fought down an embarrassed blush as the Head of Slytherin strode away in his cloud of billowing robes.

What had he meant by that?

She strolled slowly back to the dormitories, pondering those parting words. She was certain that the rule change had come about due to Potter's arrival, Snape had all but confirmed it, but what conclusion should she have drawn? What else was there?

She absently answered some questions from the first-years and shooed the rest off to bed, still thinking hard as she settled into her private room.

What had Snape meant?

What was the rule change meant to accomplish? Originally, she had assumed it was for the protection of some incoming student, but as Potter was the cause that couldn't be the case. She had quailed under those emerald eyes, and he had only been mildly put-out with her. Any new first-year who could stare down a sixth-year prefect before attending his first classes needed protection from no one.

If the rule was not in place to protect Potter, then what was it for? Rules were always put in place for a reason. It might not be an altruistic reason — as a Slytherin, Abigail was certain most of them probably weren't — and for older rules it might not be a currently relevant reason, but there was always a reason.

Then the epiphany struck.

The rule wasn't put in place to protect Potter from the students; it was put in place to protect the students from…

Abigail swallowed as the implications sunk in. The professors had introduced an incredible change — a change of rule and tradition, of culture that had been in place for the better part of a millennium — to protect the student body from one, single, first-year student.

Just how powerful was Potter?

The ambitious teenaged girl licked her suddenly dry lips. Add a few years, several inches, and some weight to the boy's young frame — yes, yes, that image was — hmm. Abigail turned out the lights and settled into bed pulling the covers up to her chin and squirming about a little to get comfortable, glad once again for the private room that came with the prefect badge.

It was only five years' difference in age, practically nothing for a witch — well, for now it was a problem, but that would cease to be an issue long before she had planned to snag a husband. She could afford to wait, and the thought of such a dangerous individual was… intoxicating.

In the meantime, that intense emerald stare would feature prominently in her dreams.

2.3.10 Always attend the organizational meeting

At approximately the same time that Abigail was riding her train of thought to the final station — a station which was a few stops down the track from the one her Head of House had intended — the professors had once again gathered in their customary conference room. There were class schedules to finalize for the coming morning.

Almost the entire staff had chosen to attend, with three exceptions. Hagrid had opted to stay with his pets at his hut since he didn't teach classes and wasn't much of a night-owl unless he had a solid, practical reason. Filch, the perpetually grumpy Caretaker, declined to attend because he also had no classes and was rather bitter about his station in life anyway. The new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, one Quirinus Quirrel, declined with only the stuttering explanation that he had something better to do.

Naturally, his colleagues decided to stick Quirrel with all the worst time slots in return.

This time, the professors had chosen to forego their usual alcoholic adventures in deference to the early school day on the next morning. Well, that, and the fact that everyone was still stuffed almost to bursting with the elves' cooking from the feast.

"Lemon drop, anyone?" everyone, that is, except Albus Dumbledore.

Magic was powered by food, and the stronger the magic, the more food was required. Albus had eaten more than anyone but Harry Potter at the feast, and yet he was only pleasantly full at the end of it and, not even two hours later, was already game for more. Harry of course, had gone on to consume another three tons of scrap metal, coal, and diesel immediately after the appetizer that was the Welcoming Feast.

That was not to say that anyone would have taken the man up on his offer even if they weren't stuffed to the gills. Albus' tastes in lemon drops tended to be — unique. Everyone present had, at one point or another, taken him up on his offer, to their immediate regret. The things were just about acrid enough to etch glass, and the entire ordeal had taken on the character of an informal hazing ritual over the past few decades.

When no one accepted his offer, Albus tucked the tin away into his robe pocket before he began, "Well, that was an eventful Sorting, I suppose. Does anyone have anything to bring up before we get to the meat of this discussion?"

"Aye, that I do!" came an unexpected voice, one originating from Albus' own robe pocket. "And get me out of here, you bearded twit! Who carries ancient magical artifacts wadded up in their bloody pocket like a used handkerchief, anyway?"

"Ah, yes, Donald," Albus said, fishing the Sorting Hat out of his robe pocket and setting it on the table. "I presume that this is the reason you insisted on attending this meeting?"

"Yes, it is," the hat agreed. "I felt the need for an appropriately appreciative audience for this. Ahem… Why, you smarmy, inconsiderate, scraggly-whiskered bastard, did you feel it appropriate not to warn me that young Mr. Potter was in fact a bloody dragon? Was it some sort of prank? A 'let's see if we can scare the old hat enough for him to crap out his lining on some poor child's head' sort of thing? How would you like it if I went and dropped you on some dragon's head out of the blue? Huh? You wouldn't, that's how!" Donald's rant reached a crescendo. "Just for that, I'm going to get back at you, somehow. I don't know how, and I don't know when, but someday, when you least expect it, pow! You'll get yours, Albus Dumbledore! And then you'll be sorry for trying to put one over on old Donald."

The entire room sat in shock for a moment at the Sorting Hat's unexpected vitriol before Albus managed to shake off his shock. "You mean to say that you were unaware of Mr. Potter's nature before the Sorting?"

"Yes, you geriatric imbecile! Has your comprehension of the language gone the same way as your sense of common decency?"

"But how?" Albus actually sounded bewildered, a first for many of the professors. "You spoke with him several times; how could you not have known…?"

"I spoke with him, 'spoke'. I didn't Sort him. There is a difference. When speaking with someone, I only have what is said to go on, and… well, it's a sort of rudimentary short-range vision. Nothing in my conversations with Mr. Potter prior to the Sorting gave me any indication that the boy was aught but human."

"I see, then I must humbly apologize, Mr. Donald, as the incident was caused by a defect in my understanding."

"In that case, I suppose I will spare you the worst of my eventual retribution, but you should fully expect pranks! And… what are you laughing at, Severus Snape?"

The potions master had been chortling since the hat's rant had revealed its prior ignorance of Mr. Potter's nature. At being called out by the sentient apparel, be explained, "I was simply amused that you were unaware of the boy's nature before the Sorting and the remembrance of the Sorting ceremony in light of that new knowledge. I assure you; no insult was intended."

"No insult was intended, eh?" Donald said. "Well, then I'll tell you that no insult is intended when I say that you should keep your crooked beak out of matters of Sorting!" the hat rounded on him.

"Excuse me?" Snape was confused.

"Mr. Potter was quite insistent that you had told him he wouldn't be well-suited to Slytherin House, as if you had some special insight into the Sorting process," the hat explained. "On the contrary, I'll have you know that my final decision came down to a close judgement between Slytherin and Hufflepuff for the boy, so kindly keep your conspicuous conk out of the Sorting! I do not dictate matters of potioneering to you, and I won't suffer such meddling in my own field."

Snape ignored most of that statement in favor of wondering, "How on earth could Mr. Potter be considered for Slytherin?" His tone was much the same as one a man might use upon being told that the moon was, in fact, made of cheese.

"It's not just a matter of where a child will fit in best, but rather where they will succeed best. The boy is lacking in cunning and soft skills, true, but where better to develop them than Slytherin?" the hat explained. "In any event, my piece is said, carry on." And the hat stilled once more.

The staff sat in bewilderment at that odd interlude for several moments before Pomona spoke up, "What a day to have to stay dry!"

"Hear, hear!" or similar came from her colleagues.

Albus cleared his throat, calling the attention of the staff, "There is one important item we must address before tomorrow — the question of class schedules."

He was answered by a round of groans. This was a chore they all hated, hence their tendency to put it off until the very last moment, such as midnight on the evening before said schedules were to be handed out.

Thus, the arguments began. At least it had been several years since the last time one of them devolved into a fistfight.

There was, however, one notable exception — to the arguments that is, not the fistfights.

"Severus, Minerva, and Filius, are you certain you wish to handle all four Houses in one session per week per year?" Dumbledore asked, his voice doubtful. "I know it has been some few years since I was in the classroom rather than administration, but that number of students in one room seems a recipe for disaster, particularly in your practical classes, Severus."

"No, Albus, I am not certain; I tend to agree that it will be pandemonium for at least a time," Severus agreed, "but we have little choice. Our research into the circumstances and particulars of Mr. Potter's transformation require more time than we would otherwise have available."

"Aye, we're this far," Minerva held her index finger a short distance from her thumb, "from finally working out exactly what young Harry managed to do to himself at Avebury, and I, for one, am increasingly certain that we must pin that down sooner rather than later. Everything indicates so far that Filius' estimates of the potential destructive power of these devices was spot-on."

"Yes," Filius agreed, "and we will not possibly be able to repeat what Mr. Potter managed until we know exactly what he managed to do — well, I suppose we might have been able to manage it by simply trying things until it worked, but I suspect the error rate in that process would leave the entire planet uninhabitable in more cases than not."

There was a round of nodding from the various professors who had been present at the previous meeting, before Albus spoke up.

"In that case, it is perhaps time for me to reveal the results of my own investigations regarding the incident."

Snape sighed, "Is there a particular reason you declined to mention these studies at any previous meeting?"

"For one, I was not certain they were cogent to the topic at hand, it was a research project I had taken on in conjunction with one of my own mentor's longest-running experiments, and though the timing was highly suspicious, I had no confirmation that the events I was investigating were, in fact, directly related to the incident at Avebury," the elderly wizard offered. "Closer analysis has revealed that the coincidental timing was indicative of a causal relationship, and with that, I received permission from Nicholas to let you in on the results."

"You received permission?" Filius asked, intrigued. "This was a secret project, then?"

"Yes, though I remain uncertain why Nicholas insisted on it being so. The project is one to provide a long-term baseline measurement of magical background field," Dumbledore explained. "As you might expect, the work is just as tedious as it sounds, and I do not really see what harm could come from publishing the results." He sighed, "Sometimes I wonder whether Nicholas keeps secrets simply because he enjoys keeping secrets."

"I feel as if I should make some sort of comment about pots, kettles, and the color black at this juncture," Snape said wryly, "but in the interests of keeping the conversation going, I shall refrain." The exasperated looks from Minerva, Filius, and half the remaining staff told Albus that Severus was not alone in that sentiment.

He coughed uncomfortably before resuming, "Well, yes. In any case, in the weeks after young Harry's transformation, the average magical background levels rose by nearly ten percent before levelling off again. Most of my time on the project over the last two years was spent verifying the clocks on the various sensors to account for instrumental error in the recorded logs, and the end result of that has allowed me pin down the point of inflection at which the rise started… to a time coincident with moonrise in Avebury on the 1988 summer solstice."

"Precisely the timing associated with Harry's transformation, as we determined from Mr. Dursley's memories," Filius concluded.

"Exactly," Albus agreed. "That was the piece of evidence that convinced Nicholas to allow me to include the rest of you on this. The two events were too closely synchronized; the idea that they might still be unrelated strained credulity."

"So we have another consequence of draining the devices," Filius summarized. "Apparently, draining this one increased the… global?" at Albus' nod, he continued, "…global magical background energy by ten percent. I'm not sure off-hand what that means for our investigation but thank you for sharing the information."

"What it means, is that this fits the pattern of the Anomalous Excursions of 1883," Albus interjected. "Which in turn means that we have another datum."

"So, this is not the first time?" Minerva asked.

"No, it is not," Albus confirmed. "Though, as indicated by the name, we do not know the cause of the Anomalous Excursions, we now have two incidents to investigate, and with two incidents, we might perchance be able to learn what is common between them and what is unique."

"Thank you, Albus, that is most helpful," Filius said.

"I believe Nicholas shall be amenable to sharing our log data in the future, given the current situation," Albus continued. "In the meantime, confirmation that the event is not unique has lent a little more urgency to our research here, I do believe. Given the consequences of a single event, with multiple ones looming, the survival of all life on this world, not just magical life, appears to be hanging in the balance."

There was a round of solemn nodding, and the class schedule was argued no more.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.4 In which Harry goes to Class

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2.4.1 First class jitters

As he winged his way to the shore of the loch — the closest point to the castle which was both open enough to reach by flight and still hidden from the castle by the tree-line — carrying his centaur damsel carefully in his forepaws, Harry considered the previous day.

It had been eventful one.

Taking the train to Hogwarts had been silly, but he supposed it had been fun nonetheless. Harry figured it was okay to do silly things if they were fun — so long as they didn't hurt anybody, anyway. Mr. Dumbledore had insisted it was traditional.

Maybe silly-but-fun things were what 'traditional' meant?

He thought it meant something that was done the same way for a real long time, but there were other things that were done the same way for a real long time — like breathing — and they didn't get called 'traditional'. It was just the only way anyone knew how to do them. So, he guessed 'traditional' meant there had to be some other way to do whatever it was, and people did it the 'traditional' way because they'd been doing it that way for a long time.

Come to think of it, didn't that mean that the traditional way had to be a little bit silly? People didn't talk about 'traditional' when they were doing something the easiest or slickest way it could be done — then they talked about 'simple' or 'optimal' — and if they weren't doing that, then Harry figured they were being at least a little bit silly.

Good thing he'd figured out being a little silly was okay, because doing stuff the optimal way all the time sounded like it'd be right boring!

The pair had reached the shore during Harry's musings on the nature of tradition and constructive silliness, and Harry and his damsel had wordlessly switched roles, with Suze now carrying Harry in his human form as she jogged toward the castle — it was definitely a jog, not a trot. Centaurs do not trot, canter, or gallop, and they take grave exception to any insinuation otherwise; any similarity between their gait and the aforementioned methods of equine locomotion is pure happenstance.

Anyway, practicality aside, the train trip yesterday had been fun, and Harry had confirmed his opinion that trains were cool. He'd long wished he'd had a train set ever since some vaguely remembered event in which Dudley had played with one when they were younger, and he'd not been allowed. The misty remembrance of the event had lasted much longer than the train set itself, but spending time around that big snorting, chuffing, smoking beast of a locomotive had crystallized that desire and brought it to the fore.

Harry couldn't help but feel an odd sense of kinship with the thing given their similar physiology.

Searching out a dragon-sized train set would have to wait, though, because classes started today, and Harry was really looking forward to them. Over the years since he'd left Privet Drive — of the time before which, only the very last was remembered with any clarity — his lessons with his professor friends had got him caught up with what most of the Wizarding-raised students would have learned before attending in matters practical. A few fields, such as advanced transfiguration topics, actually saw him years ahead of his peers, and, on matters theoretical, he was far ahead of his peers in every subject taught in the school — and not a few others besides.

Honestly though, Harry wasn't sure how all that learning would hold up when he actually got into classes, so he was looking forward to finding out even if he was a little nervous.

With a cheerful wave to a small patrol from the Black Woods Clan led by one of Suze's cousins, the pair left the forest and continued up the lakeside path to the castle. Another wave to Hagrid in the middle of mucking out the thestral stables saw them to the castle gates, and Harry leaped down lightly from Suze's back. They had foregone the saddle recently as it was really quite a lot of work to put on, and since Harry had recently learned that bouncing as he did was rather uncomfortable for Suze when he was on her back he had stopped doing so quite so much. As they entered the courtyard he saw Mr. Filch busily sweeping up the small amount of detritus which littered the area, mostly a few leaves and some sweetie wrappers which had stuck to the older students' robes when they left the train.

Mr. Filch was a real sourpuss, but Harry paid it no mind. According to Professor Snape, the man was a squib, which Harry had learned meant the man wasn't able to cast magic, even though he could see magical stuff. To Harry's senses he looked like a sort of dimly-lit glowy person — like his glow was shining through that dark glass they use for some bottles when there's stuff in them which doesn't play nice with light. Since Mr. Filch was like that but he was still in charge of cleaning up a magical school, Harry figured he had some decent reasons to be kinda grumpy. Regardless, Harry didn't think that him being grumpy was a good reason to be rude to the man, and so he gave a cheerful good morning as he headed into the castle.

On their way to the Great Hall, the pair caught up with a few of the other non-boarding students who were suitably gob-smacked at the looming presence of his centaur damsel — centaurs were really good at looming, and Suze managed well even though she was rather petite as centaurs went. For her part, Suze was marveling at just how small humans looked from her angle. Unsurprisingly, Harry was a special case in Suze's mind — she always saw him as the Great Wyrm who happened to be masquerading in a human shape.

Harry had already eaten a good deal of breakfast, so he was treating breakfast at the castle as a bit of a top-up for the morning. Of course, despite that fact, he still ate enough to make even Ron Weasley, the other big eater of the student body, feel a little inadequate, and Ron ate enough to make other people sick to their stomachs just looking at him eat. The important bit for Harry was getting the class timetable, and he was absolutely delighted to learn that, despite his statement of the usual schedule the previous night, Professor Snape's was the first class of the day!

"I heard this Professor Snape bloke's a right arse," Zack Smith said, dubiously contemplating the timetable.

"He used to be pretty difficult to deal with," one of the upper-years — a lanky sort of girl with shaggy bubblegum-pink hair — said, "but he's gotten a lot better over the last couple years."

"Well the important thing with knowing Mister, sorry, Professor, Snape is being able to tell when he's actually angry and when he's growling because he likes growling," Harry volunteered. "You can tell when he's really angry because he goes even whiter than normal, and you can't see his lips anymore, and he stops using complicated insults and starts shouting."

"You know him?" another upper-year student asked, one to whom Harry had not yet been introduced.

"Yeah, he's one of my business partners, and we get along pretty good," Harry said, nodding firmly.

"I must admit, I'd never realized he got along with anybody," Cedric Diggory — the older boy who'd snorted his pumpkin juice because of one of Harry's jokes at the feast — spoke up.

"If Mr. Snape doesn't like someone, they really know it," Harry explained with a shrug, "and if he says something is 'acceptable' or 'tolerable' that's him saying he really likes it."

"I thought he hated my guts!" the pink-haired girl said, startled.

"Huh?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Tonks," she said, "and…"

"You're the Tonks what gets worked up about her first name, right?" Harry butted in. "'Cause he said something about you right when last school year would've been ending. We were talking about how to tell the difference between properly-made and badly-made-but-still-works potions, and he used some of yours as examples of how it ought to be done. He said something about them being good enough to sell, and, well, he's real particular about what he will and won't sell. I asked, and he said that any customer with the sense to approach a master craftsman deserves the absolute finest quality regardless of product."

"Huh…"

Harry shrugged, "I told ya' it's real hard to tell what he's thinking."

2.4.2 To the laboratory!

Having spent a couple minutes silently stalking about the room, dark robes billowing, Snape stopped in front of a blackboard and whirled around and spent a moment contemplating his significantly-larger-than-normal class. Having all four Houses in a single laboratory class was proving to be an intimidating prospect.

Snape had always been one to attempt to accomplish as much as possible with any given action, and his teaching had been no exception. By careful application of bias and psychology, he had long been tailoring his classes to produce useless cronies among his enemies, and tough competent survivors, ready for anything life threw at them, among the few fair-minded children that passed through his classes.

After less than a decade of such work, he had already managed to clean up the youngest of the Auror corps by weeding out the undesirables from their applicant pool on account of the potions requirement. Miss Tonks — set to graduate with honors this year — was one of his most recent successes, though he was certain she was under the impression that he was out to get her.

On the other hand, Bole, a seventh-year of his own House — both an unashamedly violent bigot and descended from a long line of such, whose father had been an enthusiastic participant in the Dark Lord's little power play — was set to graduate in the middle of the pack and had been forced to abandon his dreams of entering and perverting law-enforcement in favor of a sinecure in his uncle's pub.

A little constructive mollycoddling went a long way.

The approach made him more enemies than friends, but Snape had long despaired of having friends — and if he was going to have enemies anyway… well, he figured it might as well be for a good cause.

This year, though, was different.

Enforcing the necessary discipline in the lab was always a challenge, and if he were to use his traditional methods… well, he didn't want to imagine the likely results with this large a group. He could only keep a good eye on so many cauldrons before something would slip. Snape might be willing to destroy potentially innocent children's dreams in pursuit of his goals, but he fell short of being willing to write off the survival of two-thirds of the class as collateral damage for the cause.

It seemed he would actually have to teach properly for once — Minerva was sure to be delighted.

"I must admit," he began, "that I am stymied. It is my tradition to, at this time, single out the most prominent member of an incoming class of students and demonstrate how little he or she knows of the exacting and magnificent art of potions, but at this moment in time, our most prominent incoming student is, of course, Mr. Potter, and I am aware that his knowledge of potions is acceptable."

He paused while everyone looked at Harry, who didn't know to get uncomfortable or anything — dragons liked to be admired.

"Thus, Mr. Potter, for the next few minutes, you will keep your eternally-ravenous jaw firmly shut. Is that understood?"

Harry made an enthusiastic affirmative noise while keeping his mouth firmly shut as requested.

"Good," Snape said. "Now then, might anyone among you — excepting of course, Mr. Potter — be aware of the precise reagent composition of orichalcum?"

Silence — apart from Harry's enthusiastic nodding with his teeth clenched together which was managing to rattle his stool a little.

"Hmm, so none of you are up to date on recent alchemical discoveries — perhaps I should enlighten you. Orichalcum, also known as mage-bronze or mage-glass, is a structured phlogistonic nitrate of aluminum, known to muggles as aluminum oxy-nitride. The material draws its name from its thaumo-chromic reaction to magical fields, transparent in low-magic environments and gaining a greenish-brown metallic luster in the presence of large amounts of ambient magic."

"Interestingly, it is the muggles to whom we owe the rediscovery of the material, for the magical methods of its creation have been lost since the library of Alexandria was misplaced during the Roman conquest of Egypt. Now, who, if anyone, among you might tell me where one would acquire a bezoar if one were seeking to harvest a replacement for the one in your potions kit?"

Hermione Granger's hand shot up.

"Well, young lady?" Snape growled.

"In the belly of a goat, sir."

"Correct, perhaps there may be some hope for you after all," he said. "That said, do not call me 'sir'; I work for a living. The correct term of address is 'Professor Snape'. Might anyone, excepting Miss Granger, be aware of the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence replete with rolling of eyes from the resident boy-shaped dragon and squirming effort to keep from raising her hand again from Hermione. Eventually, the same chubby dark-haired boy who had lost his toad on the train raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Longbottom?"

"Th-there's n-no difference; th-they're the same p-plant," the boy stuttered.

"Are you certain, Mr. Longbottom? You wouldn't want to be embarrassed on your first day, would you?" There was some tittering from the Slytherin quadrant of the room.

Longbottom swallowed nervously before continuing, "I'm s-sure, Professor Snape."

"Good. You are, as it happens, quite correct." Snape's glower swept the room. "You, you, you, and you!" he pointed out four of the Slytherin students who had giggled at Longbottom's nervousness, "Three days' detention each! I will not have cronyism or toadying within this chamber! The preparation of potions is an exacting art, and if you mess it up — which judging by the unutterably gormless expressions on most of your fool faces, you most assuredly will — it can be quite decidedly hazardous!"

"You will all be quiet! You will speak only when given permission! You will pay attention! You will be careful! You will follow instructions religiously! Because if you fail to do so, you will likely blow yourself sky high, and I. Will. Make. Your. Life. Unutterably. Miserable. Do you all understand me?"

"Yes, Professor Snape!" the entire class chorused.

"We shall see," he drawled. "By the by, Miss Granger, Mr. Longbottom, five points each for actually possessing the intelligence to both await permission to answer and for possessing a modicum of knowledge of matters alchemical. Mr. Potter, you may now cease to keep your mouth quite so rigidly closed."

From there, the potions professor launched into a five-minute lecture on the preparation of the potion they would be working on for the day; a potion used for cleaning metals which was easy to prepare — according to Snape — but which would usually produce a rather loud bang if the preparation was done improperly.

Nearly half the class got bangs and got snapped at. Most of the remainder got a sharp nod when Snape checked out their potions, while a few got a quiet "Acceptable" and a handful of points.

Those few were Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, and a Slytherin girl named Pansy Parkinson.

One unfortunate, Neville Longbottom, found himself on the receiving end of a rapid string of spells aimed at his cauldron by Professor Snape — who none but Harry could tell was mildly panicked — and was then the subject of a sharp five-minute lecture on safety protocols after his cauldron started to melt.

Snape then proceeded into a lecture on what made the potion work, and how to tell — and cause — the various failure modes of the potion. It mostly seemed to boil down to how the ingredients were sliced and what order they were added in. What had gone wrong with Neville's potion — an issue of improper order of addition — had produced a potion which, according to Professor Snape, was caustic enough to etch glass. He then assigned homework for the next lecture later that week, and dismissed the class, calling Harry back for a quick word.

"What's up, Professor Snape?" Harry asked once the other students were gone.

"Two subjects," Snape said, pointing at Harry's cauldron, "Although a passable effort, you and I both know you are capable of better than your efforts today; you have achieved acceptable quality on this brew in the past."

That was true; he had used it to clean his gold properly last winter. The sea-stains were finally gone. "I'm sorry, I just was kinda excited, y'know, and I messed up choppin' the spriggan leaves, right?"

"Indeed, kindly be more patient in the future."

"I'll do that!"

"Good."

"What was the other thing you wanted to talk about, Professor Snape?"

"Mr. Slackhammer has requested a meeting at our earliest convenience, and I have suggested we visit Gringotts this coming Saturday, if you have no objections?"

"Yeah, that works for me."

"Good, I shall make the necessary preparations. Do you still have the rechargeable portkey in your possession?"

"I sure do!"

"Good, I shall see you later then, young man."

2.4.3 First-world problems

Following Potions, a simple pattern began to emerge which boggled the minds of all those who were not on the staff, starting in Filius Flitwick's classroom when — on his first attempt to cast a levitation charm — Harry's feather proceeded to launch itself into the ceiling with a mighty crack, leaving a smoking hole in the stone lined with the charred remains of the feather. The distinctive whip-crack of a small object breaking the sound barrier had a student hailing from Dublin — who had been raised in Belfast up until his parents relocated to avoid certain unsavory recruitment efforts — ducking under his desk.

The pattern continued in the first Defense against the Dark Arts class, when a simple stunning hex more-or-less obliterated a practice target and reduced the enchanted stone wall behind it to sand. The incident left Quirrel incomprehensible from stuttering for a week and his classes as little more than a study hall for the same period.

In transfiguration, Harry turned a simple matchstick into a 'needle' which would look more at home on a construction site than in a sewing kit. Minerva would later admit to her colleagues that she had never seen anything like it, and she was tempted to donate the results to Barrs for the production of Irn Bru.

Flying lessons — the first for Harry since Madame Hooch had pronounced him 'good enough' with his wings — saw Harry attempting to fly a broom for the first time, only for the broom to shoot off with a horrifyingly loud 'twang' and bury itself to the bristles in a grassy knoll before bursting into flames.

It quickly became apparent that Harry was suffering control problems to a degree that Septima Vector declared to be 'epic'. It didn't take long for her to figure out that Harry was putting more magical energy into his casting than all his classmates put together — though honestly not too much more. A situation that led her to the conclusion that his control was actually quite good, proportionally speaking, considering his reserves were proportionally far higher than the cumulative reserves of his classmates. This was a good thing, for if his control was proportionally bad…

Well, if his control was proportionally bad, his classmates would not have survived the aftermath.

Proportionally good control or not, it was not good enough to effectively use the spells he was learning, which led to the staff quickly devising an intensive series of lessons and exercises to help Harry drastically improve his control of his magic. Harry's classwork quickly devolved to listening to the lecture, trying the practical once, having the professor clean up the aftermath of his attempt, and then spending the rest of the time practicing his control.

To say that Harry was unimpressed with this intense regime of finesse and control training would be… well, it would be to lie through one's teeth. Harry being Harry, he took it all in stride and — once he wrapped his head around why he needed all the extra work — became quite smug about the whole business. It was a turn of events that prompted Snape to comment jokingly to Minerva that if the boy's head continued swelling it was likely to burst, which was answered with an amused chuckle by the older Scotswoman.

By the time Friday evening rolled around, a twofold set of rumors were flying around the school. The first was regarding the Boy-Who-Lived's apparent power level — several upper-year students, including notably one sixth-year Slytherin girls' prefect, had connected the dots about why half the firsties were treating Harry like his wand might go off any minute. The second was about why the staff seemed to be in such universally high spirits, sans Filch who was always grumpy and Quirrel who hadn't been the same since that unfortunate vampire encounter in Albania the previous summer.

The other conclusion that everyone had arrived at — based on direct evidence rather than rumor — was that the Boy-Who-Lived was immature, hyperactive, almost obnoxiously good-natured, self-assured to the point of outright arrogance, and so completely laid-back about everything it was a wonder the boy wasn't horizontal.

You'd have sworn he was eight, tops, but nothing phased the kid.

Nothing.

2.4.4 Product rollouts

Saturday arrived, and with it, Snape and Harry were in Diagon Alley bright and early for their meeting with Slackhammer. On arriving at the Bank, they were ushered into his office with a series of salutes from the guards resplendent in Gringotts Regiment dress uniforms.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, Mr. Snape, welcome, welcome," Slackhammer greeted them in his usual manner, rising to his feet and bowing a greeting to his business partners. Despite Harry's best efforts, he had never managed to get the dapper goblin to use any form of address more familiar than 'mister' — he had a suspicion that the attempts had become a game between the two of them by this point.

The broad, shark-like grin on the goblin's face told both Snape and Harry that the news was good and that the scent of profit was in the air.

"A seat, gentlemen," Slackhammer offered, gesturing for them to make themselves comfortable in the armchairs which found their way into his office whenever he was expecting important guests like his business partners. Harry knew that because the few times the dapper goblin hadn't been expecting him, he'd seen the chairs brought in. "Would you care for a refreshment?"

"A small firewhiskey please, Mr. Slackhammer," Snape requested.

"I'd like a cup of goblin tea, please," Harry added. Goblin tea was strong stuff and would certainly not suit the palate of the small human boy that Harry currently seemed to be, being ferociously acrid and enough, even when at room temperature, to take the roof off one's mouth. Served at the preferred temperature of just below boiling, well, few non-goblins tried it more than once, but the young dragon found it to be to his liking, reminding him of the tangy gush of biting into a car battery with just a little charge left but without the sweet aftertaste from the lead.

The dapper goblin rang a small bell and his batman immediately appeared, bowing in response to Slackhammer's, "The usual, thank you, Corporal Steelhammer," before disappearing to see to it.

"Now then, gentlemen" Slackhammer continued without waiting for the drinks to be served. Time was money, money was ammunition, and ammunition was freedom, and as a consequence, waiting around while there was business to discuss was considered boorish — possibly treasonous — behavior by right-thinking goblins. "I have recently had some quite intriguing possibilities brought to my attention concerning your analysis of the materials composing Mr. Potter's brain and nerves."

"Concerning my examination of Mr. Potter's central nervous system?" Snape asked, very surprised. "While the materials involved are quite fascinating in their make-up, I confess I fail to see how they might be applied in practice, hence why I have not endeavored to refine my methods for producing them artificially once I made enough to explore their energy of formation. Their mechanical properties are little different than those of mild steel, and their thermal properties, while impressive, are far inferior to those of our current refractory product."

"For an answer to that, Mr. Snape, one must look to the fields of electronics and electrical engineering," Slackhammer told him. "It seems Mr. Potter's nerves are composed of what is referred to as an ultra-high-temperature superconductor, a substance which has been highly-desired in those fields of endeavor for many decades but had long been considered unobtainable. As a member of our company, in the person of your esteemed self, has developed the means to produce the given substance, and as it happens, it is cheap and easy to do so — and judging by your statement it may become more so in short order — well gentlemen, if you thought the sum we earned from NASA was substantial, you haven't seen a damn thing yet!"

Corporal Steelhammer returned, placing a tray carrying the requested drinks on the coffee table and passing them around.

"Thank you, Corporal Steelhammer."

"M' pleasure, Mr. Vice-Chairman, sir," the other goblin replied before seeing himself out.

"How might such a material be so valuable?" Snape asked.

"In order to explain that, Mr. Snape, we must delve into the nature of non-magical technology and its relationship with the fundamental natural phenomenon known as electricity. Just as magical technology does, all non-magical technology is designed to use one or another form of energy in order to do something else. In the magical world this is generally done by using magic to accomplish some task. In the nonmagical world, the process is somewhat more complicated, since magic is not available to work as a near-universal mediator. In its place, specific tools are built for specialized purposes, which has led to the plethora of different technologies seen in the modern world."

Slackhammer's explanation paused for a moment as he sipped his drink, "However, non-magical humans have, over the years, developed a tremendously deep understanding of electricity, producing ways to convert it to and from almost any other type of energy imaginable — with the obvious exception of magic, since that has been thus-far concealed from them. Thus, electricity has become the basic means of energy exchange in their technology, providing everything from heating and movement to process control, communications, and information processing. To put it bluntly, in a very real sense electricity is to modern non-magical technology what magic itself is to technology in the wizarding world."

That triggered a gasp from the potions master and a sharp look of interest from the young dragon.

"A major limitation of electricity, however, is the difficulty inherent in making it go where you want it to go, as should be readily apparent any time you look out into a thunderstorm. Non-magical humans do this through the properties of various materials which either permit or resist the flow of electricity through them — called, rather sensibly, conductors and resistors — but all these materials have their own limitations and caveats. Any conductor actually presents a small amount of resistance to electrical flow, a resistance which manifests itself in problems ranging from minor inefficiencies all the way up to excess heating and catastrophic failures — any conductor, that is, except the class of materials called 'superconductors'."

Seeing the dawning realization on his partners' faces, the dapper goblin continued, "A superconductor is a material which, at some range of temperatures, has precisely zero resistance to electrical flow, a property which makes such a material much sought-after in the development and improvement of technology. Many such materials have been discovered, but all have exhibited this property only at exceedingly low temperatures, temperatures so low that the high-temperature superconductors developed some five years ago are so called because they exhibit the property of superconductivity at temperatures which can be attained by cooling the material with liquified nitrogen alone, rather than requiring even more elaborate cooling measures — measures which, as you might guess, are both technically difficult and quite startlingly expensive."

"Thus, a material which could provide such performance all the way up to the temperature of molten steel…" Snape had managed to find his voice.

"…would be in startlingly high demand?" Slackhammer finished Snape's statement. "Yes, it would indeed. We are currently sitting on a material which could not only improve the performance of nearly every industry on earth by a considerable margin, but which could also usher in entirely new industries by means of making previously unattainable design parameters practical. The engineering corps assures me that an initial introduction into the power distribution industry will be well received, as a drop-in replacement to their current lines will provide them with an immediate fifteen-percent reduction in overhead by eliminating transmission losses, and they suspect introduction into the computer industry will be just as profitable in the long run, both because of the superconductivity and the nanostructure of your neural tissue. Other markets are still being explored."

"The computer industry?" Snape asked.

"What do you know of the internal function of computers, Mr. Snape?"

"Very little, I must confess," the potions master replied. "I am aware of their existence, but even in my excursions into the muggle world I have not interacted with them at all that I am aware."

"I ain't used one since I turned into a dragon," Harry volunteered. "They had Commodore C64's and BBC Micro's at the primary school I used to go to when I lived at the Dursleys, and we used 'em for some of the classes, but it was mostly learning to type, I think." He hadn't really thought about that in ages!

"You lost me at the 'see-sixty-four' part," Snape muttered.

"And how much do you know of said computer's construction?" Slackhammer asked intently.

"Well, not a huge lot, I mean, I know they got microchips and stuff in 'em, and I know those are made out of silicon with really, really tiny wiring and stuff on 'em, and I know what transistors are and how really, really tiny they can get, and I know what bits, bytes, and kilobytes are, but…"

"That knowledge will suffice here, Mr. Potter. If I were to tell you that your brain matter functions much like a vast network of computers formed by transistors manufactured at the molecular scale, well, do you understand what I mean?"

"Wow! Um, well, I think so…"

"And if I were to tell you that our, as of yet small, number of employees believe that they can reproduce that material in the form of a processor chip for a computer?"

"Oh, wow! That'll be worth a whole lot of money, won't it?"

"Am I to understand that these materials would allow us to corner the market on these 'computers', Mr. Slackhammer?" Snape asked, doing a darn good job of pronouncing a word he had heard perhaps ten times in his life, most of them in this conversation.

"Quite correct, Mr. Snape," Slackhammer confirmed. "And the market for that technology alone is enough to make a king's ransom look like the sort of pocket change one might find dropped carelessly in the street. Should we go ahead with this, barring some unspeakable disaster, everyone within this room will become so phenomenally rich that I guarantee we shall not need to work another day in our lives, or in our children's lives, no matter how long those lives might be," he nodded to Harry, "and that is without mentioning the myriad other potential uses for such a material."

"Mr. Slackhammer, what sort of money are we talking about here?" Snape asked.

The dapper goblin let out a dry chuckle, "Frankly, Mr. Snape, of the two technologies the bulk superconductor is the more valuable by far; there is barely an industry which could not put it to good use. Yet Mr. Potter's brain matter is worth enough, as a technology, to earn an estimated two to three billion galleons per annum at current market levels."

The sharply dressed goblin noted his business partners' flabbergasted looks.

"Gentlemen," he said, "welcome to the big leagues."

2.4.5 The afterglow of a good deal

It didn't take House Hufflepuff long, a few hours, tops, in fact, to notice that Harry seemed a little dazed when he came to visit on Saturday afternoon. He spent the time wandering around with a big, silly grin on his face, but when asked about it, he could do nothing but giggle. It had raised the suspicions of a few of the older girls who looked at their fellows speculatively with eyes narrowed —

Nah, he was way too young for that.

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, the House had collectively dismissed the matter as the Boy-Who-Lived being weird.

Out of everyone, Suze came the closest to getting a straight answer on Sunday, and that was a huge, cheesy grin and a mutter of something about gold.

She shook her head; he'd tell her when he felt like it, and that was good enough for her.

When the Hogwarts rumor mill noticed that Snape also seemed to be in a similar daze and was being far less unpleasant than normal, it really got going — for a few hours before everyone quashed the rumors out of fear that someone might jinx it.

They knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

2.4.6 With great power comes great…

"Ladies, gentlemen, other beings, welcome back," Snape greeted his class. It was now Monday morning shortly after breakfast, and the first-year students were back for another laboratory session in the potions classroom.

He gestured at their readied potions kits, especially Neville's cauldron.

"It has come to my attention that I have failed to properly impart to you the true hazards that the ingredients upon your desks represent. You may believe me to be severe, particularly in light of my first name, but I assure you I am not demanding of you simply for my own amusement."

He paused for long enough for the students to recognize the fact that he had not only made a joke, but he had made a joke with himself as the butt. There were some obedient giggles from the class, to which he replied with one cocked eyebrow and a faint smirk. The discussion with Mr. Slackhammer had left him with an uncharacteristically sociable disposition for the past few days, and the entire student body had absolutely no desire to be the one to trigger a relapse back into his usual dour mood.

"In this room, there are a great many layered charms and wards intended to ensure the safety of all who prepare potions herein. These charms are placed for a vital purpose: to blunt the effects of the potions brewed herein. This might seem counterintuitive, but it must be understood that potions are uniformly volatile. They must be in order to attain the spectacularly useful results that they are intended to produce. It is an unfortunate corollary to this, that errors in the brewing process will often produce equally spectacular unwanted effects."

"The metal cleaning potion we prepared last week, for instance, will with a certain combination of errors, produce a substance capable of dissolving glass as easily as water dissolves table salt. Within this room, those effects are blunted, suppressed, and controlled. Mr. Longbottom, if not for those charms, your attempt would have melted clean through your cauldron, your desk, and the floor underneath, taking your legs off at the knees in the process. Even with the charms, had I not acted as quickly as I did, you and your neighbors would still have been subjected to corrosive fumes which would have been survivable only through the rapidly applied talents of our admirably capable staff Healer."

"I clarify that, through her efforts, you might have survived, not recovered, as you would have been rendered quite permanently blind. That, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely how deadly potions can be if improperly prepared, and that is the potential hazard of a very simple and mostly safe potion considered suitable as an entry to the subject."

"For those of you who choose to pursue the art as a career — even as a practical hobby — rest assured that the risks will only worsen," Snape continued. "Those same charms which blunt the effects of potions mishaps also blunt the effects of potions successes. There is a reason that even those potions which are brewed properly in this class are discarded, and that reason is that they are mostly ineffective, performing the correct actions, but with so little power as to be ultimately useless. In order to produce potions possessed of their full advertised effect rather than a pale echo, they must be brewed outside of such protections. Potions masters such as myself are in high demand for precisely this reason."

"Frankly, I am severe and exacting as any failure to do so on my part may cost you your lives in the future. I am demanding of you because I must be so — that is the nature of potions as an art."

"I trust that you all understand this?" There was a round of nodding and 'Yes, Professor Snape'-ing. "Good. Today, we shall be preparing a potion for the treatment of burns such as those which would have resulted from improper preparation of last week's potion. Note that, if prepared incorrectly, it may explode with sufficient force to drive fragments of your cauldron clear through a thick stone wall, a force that, despite my perennial complaints regarding the thickness of your skulls, would prove quite decidedly lethal for you and anyone standing near you. I add that, within this room, said detonation would simply blow unpleasantly spicy muck to ceiling height and earn you a detention. The primary reaction concerns…" and Snape went off on a five-minute tangent about reactions and reactivity and precautions for the prevention of making things that blow up unintentionally.

Once again, on the completion of the class, Hermione, Draco, and Pansy got approving nods and points, this time joined by Harry. Neville didn't manage to get his cauldron to erupt, but did earn a lecture on how, again due to the addition of ingredients in improper order, his potion would cause a horrific, scarring rash, and if applied to burns as intended, would likely result in the even more horrific death of the recipient.

Once he'd explained about the differences between failures, mediocre successes, and superb results, how they could be detected, how they could be produced — this time, the issue was mostly the timing of additions, though ingredient preparation was still critical — how it all worked, and what homework would be required, Snape dismissed the class.

"A moment of your time, Miss Granger," he added, shaking off a shudder at the way Harry bolted out the door with a declaration of hunger.

Hermione warily waited as the rest of the students departed; she received puzzled looks from several students, especially Draco Malfoy, whose puzzlement was also tinged with jealousy.

"What is it, Professor Snape?" she asked once they were alone.

"Mr. Longbottom needs help, young lady, and your attempts have so far proven to be of acceptable quality," Snape informed her, tapping her cauldron. "I would appreciate it if you were to render to Mr. Longbottom a little assistance in comprehending my lessons; in future lessons, students shall be paired, and I wish you to work with Mr. Longbottom so that you might prevent any further catastrophic failures on his part."

"Will it impact my grades?" Hermione focused on the important bit for her.

"Frankly, young lady, if Mr. Longbottom's performance should improve due to your assistance, I will happily apply his improvements to your grade as extra credit. The young man is lacking in confidence, and that lack translates into a failure to add ingredients in their proper time and order, I believe. I hope your surprising levels of attention to the subject might guide him onto a path that will not result in blowing himself to pieces and rendering the Longbottom family extinct."

"Okay, Professor Snape."

"Good, and Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor Snape?"

"Please do not attempt brewing outside the class as yet. Seeing you blast yourself into a grease smear would be most unpleasant, and the vast majority of potions are not so forgiving as those I give my first-year students."

"Yes, Professor Snape."

"Good, run along, young lady. I have kept you from your meal long enough."

Snape watched her go, then sighed as he glanced back at her cauldron.

It was a perfect burn treatment potion, Snape sighed as he set about emptying it out for disposal. It was a shame it had been brewed under the suppression charms, the quality was more than good enough for sale, and it would have reduced his workload for supplying the infirmary significantly.

As he moved on to cleaning up Longbottom's — attempt — he sighed again. The only other cauldron of saleable quality was produced by Mr. Potter, and Severus knew well enough that no matter how much talent the wretched lizard had for the field, he would not be making a career of it. There were too many other things he needed to do, many of which were — much as Snape loathed the admission — more important than potions.

At least he knew he had one student who might go on to become great in the field. If she produced work of this quality as a first-year, what might she do later on?

After his friendship with Lily had collapsed, Snape had always thought his prospects for immortalizing himself by contributing to the next generation were nonexistent, and he had focused on working in the shadows where his efforts would be remembered by neither friend nor foe. He still had no prospects for contributing his blood to the future generation —he doubted he ever would, better to let his cursed father's legacy die with him, rather than pass it on to another unfortunate soul — but the possibility of an apprenticeship…

Perhaps he would be able to leave a legacy after all?

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.5 In which there are growing pains

---

2.5.1 Ravenous appetite

By the time Snape had finished his cleanup and arrived at the Great Hall for lunch hour, the scene he had vaguely feared was already in progress. Harry Potter was eating. No, that statement was insufficient —

Harry Potter was EATING, capitalization required.

He would later learn that Harry was working on his fourth roast cow when Snape entered the room, but he could tell enough from the deadly hush in the hall; the bug-eyed, slack-jawed looks on every face present as they looked at the scene of gastronomic devastation taking place at the Hufflepuff table; and the disturbingly small population of cutlery remaining near the boy.

As Snape approached, another fork — this one previously resting beside the plate of a bewildered Cedric Diggory seated across from the ravenous first-year — vanished into the rapacious maw of the boy-shaped young dragon.

Snape's gaze swept up to the staff table and caught Madame Pomfrey's eye who gave a slight nod and quietly withdrew from the table. For Snape's part, his wand flicked out, and a quick spell levitated the loudly complaining Lizard-Who-Would-Not-Stop-Eating by means of his school uniform, quickly dragging him out of the Hall and off to the Infirmary.

"What the hell are you thinking, you bloody reptile?" Snape growled as soon as their odd march took them out of earshot of the Great Hall.

"Hungry!" Harry declared, attempting to swipe off the head of one of the animated gargoyles which had replaced the suits of armor as castle defenses. He only succeeded in catching a horn, snapping it off at the base as the construct dodged out of the way. In between bites of his new prize, he elaborated, "I ain't never been so hungry before, I swear I could eat two whole trains!"

"If you eat the Hogwarts Express, I shall be downright furious, you idiot lizard!"

"But I'm HUNGRY!" the preteen dragon wailed.

"And you shall have all you can eat shortly, just remain calm!" Snape snapped, failing to take his own advice.

"Getting' hungrier," the severity of the situation made itself clearly known as the boy's voice dropped to a wall-shaking inhuman bass.

A moment later, the door to a side chamber next to the infirmary which had been prepared on the suggestion of Silvanus Kettleburn and Hagrid after they had judged Harry's appetite to be again rapidly increasing, burst open and Snape just managed to get the young dragon through the door before his levitation charm failed as Harry resumed his natural form, removing the clothes that had been anchoring the charm into whatever magical condition such things go into — it was still a current topic of investigation, fourteen thousand years after the question was first posed, though the investigation had restarted independently several times during that period.

The dragon, now the size of a small locomotive, fell on the extensive piles of things only he would find tasty, or for that matter, edible, like a ravenous… well… dragon as the rest of the staff finally caught up with the potions master at a dead run. Metal, glass, and frozen meat splintered as draconic teeth closed on them, and the small group of Hogwarts staff beat a hasty retreat from the carnage.

Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall, the rumor mill had long since passed the point of 'batshit crazy' and was rapidly approaching 'tinfoil-hat crazy' — a term that oddly enough was independently developed in the wizarding world after the 'tin' in 'tin-foil' became aluminum, with the ignoble metal believed to block supposed broadcast mind-controlling magic just as well as the conductive barrier blocked supposed broadcast mind-controlling radio waves.

2.5.2 Logistical difficulties

"So, Potter's appetite," Snape began, killing the mood in the staff room, "how are we going to deal with it."

After a decidedly eventful afternoon, the staff had gathered once again after dinner for an informal meeting. Oddly enough, Quirrel was still involved in whatever that 'other business' had been which had kept him from attending the start-of-term staff meeting and gotten him stuck with all the worst class time slots. One would think that after getting stuck with office hours during both lunch and dinner hour as well as both the first and the last time slots every day of the week, he'd be more eager to attend these things.

Albus was beginning to wonder if the man was really fit for the academic life at all — he wasn't even showing up to meetings for the free booze!

"How is he?" Minerva asked Poppy in concern.

"He's stopped eating — finally. I… well, Rubeus and I had to refill that room twice over — the elves refuse to go anywhere near him in this state. He's eaten three times his weight over a period of four hours. I've no idea where he put it all — there must be some sort of expansion effect on his stomach, or possibly a pocket space. I've got a weighing charm on him, and his weight stayed the same through the entire ordeal, so wherever he put it, it is not currently interacting with gravity." Poppy sighed, "Once he finished eating, he demanded the company of Suze, and on her arrival, he curled up around her and promptly fell asleep."

"Reckon he'll be growin' like a mushroom now," Hagrid said happily, with a bright look most of the staff had come to associate with Hermione Granger after having her in class for the past week. "Yeh see, it's usually the way o' things fer young dragons ter get mighty hungry fer a few days before they go inter a big growth spurt," he nodded to Madame Pomfrey, "In the run up t' it they're likely t' eat sev'ral times their own body weight each day."

"Are there any warning signs we should be watchful for in the future?" Snape asked.

"Nah, well, nothin' anyone e'er wrote down. Some o' the best dragon-handlers say they get a feel fer it, but…" Hagrid shrugged expansively, and when a half-giant shrugs expansively, he takes up most of whatever room he's in.

The room settled into a contemplative silence before Hagrid spoke up again, "Sorry, but, er… I need t' go get a couple o' extra loads o' feed fer young Harry an' contact the suppliers t' let 'em know t' up the shipments fer a while. We only got enough fer t'morrow if he keeps goin' like this, an' we can't afford the fees to portkey tha' much stuff las' minute." With that ominous pronouncement, the half-giant exited the room.

"What are we going to tell the weans?" Minerva asked.

"A very good question," was Snape's non-reply.

"I seem," Filius offered, "to remember a certain magical disease which causes massively increased appetite accompanied by a related lack of expansion in girth. As I recall, one of my distant cousins died of it, though for the life of me I cannot recall the name. It was before my first days as a student here."

"Babington's Syndrome," Poppy interjected with a snap of her fingers. "One of the few commonly fatal forms of accidental magic. It is usually indicative of a massively powerful youngster coming into their magic too early, their magic uses more calories than they can eat, and they instinctively try to compensate but make the situation worse in the process. It'll fit with the rumors about Mr. Potter's magical strength, and it's also easily, if tediously, treatable when caught early enough, so there won't be any awkward questions when Mr. Potter survives. It's even commonly recurrent until adulthood, so we won't have to look for new explanations in the coming years." The Healer nodded to her diminutive coworker. "A very good suggestion, Filius."

Her colleagues were looking at the Healer with undisguised shock.

"What?" she asked, nonplussed.

"How do you remember all these things?" Minerva asked. "I know it's in your field, but I know I still have to look up obscure transfiguration methods. You just recited minutiae about a rare childhood ailment with only the barest hint of the symptoms — you didn't even take a moment to think about it!"

"I am a pediatric Healer," Poppy replied, as if that explained everything. Seeing the uncomprehending looks, she elaborated, "There is a reason pediatrics is considered to be the premier specialization in magical healing."

"I suppose there is, at that," Minerva said in admiration.

2.5.3 Shared worries

Hermione Granger was consumed by a singular, vitally important question — one she shared with the entirety of House Hufflepuff — what was wrong with Harry Potter? The odd boy felt like her only friend in the whole wide world, though she didn't fully understand why she thought of him as a friend — she'd only spent time with him twice, once shopping at Diagon Alley, and then on the train. Hermione hadn't even seen him outside of classes for the last week!

Maybe it was because he was the only one who had reached out to her?

Well, if that was the reason, she supposed she had a second friend now.

Susan Bones had invited her to join the Hufflepuff vigil as they waited for news about their missing housemate's health, and Hermione found herself currently in the homely Hufflepuff common room — cutely called the Sett — ensconced between Susan and her best friend, Hannah Abbot, while being kindly introduced to everyone by a dashingly handsome third-year by the name of Cedric Diggory.

The Sett had a totally different feel from the Gryffindor commons. In Gryffindor, you were expected to fend for yourself — you stood on your own two feet or you got flattened. Conflicts between Lions were their own business, and the rest of the House would step back unless things got truly out of hand. Oh, if you were facing a fight outside the House, then your housemates would step in, but Hermione gathered that was more to get in on the action than out of any sense of protectiveness.

Hermione was sure the Lions didn't mean anything bad by it; in fact she had a sneaking suspicion that it was their way of being friendly — refraining from butting in on other people's fights as a sort of weirdly-twisted courtesy. That said, it was a courtesy that Hermione could do well without.

Honestly, it was only a bit over a week in, and Hermione was already regretting talking the Hat into sending her to Gryffindor. She could hold her own — at least verbally — but Hermione was not good at making friends, and without someone like Harry who would barge in and make himself her friend by hook or by crook, well… Hermione was feeling more than a little lonely in the House of the Lions. She had yet to find any sort of refuge in her House, and she had no idea how to go about carving out a place for herself.

Having seen the alternative, she was kind of wishing she'd argued Donald into sending her to the Sett. In fact, hindsight being what it was, and Hermione being who she was, she was already constructing the set of arguments she could have used to achieve that outcome. Here, even though her uniform was trimmed in Gryffindor red and yellow, she was already one of the 'Puffs, simply because she had a friend among their number. Just by stepping through that door, she was already part of the group.

It was something of a revelation for the perennially lonely girl.

Her parents were good people, but they were busy good people, and the bushy-haired girl had spent more than a few birthdays home alone with a good book. Sharon and Tony Granger's patients came first at all times — that was how they'd built a very successful and well-to-do private dental practice. Being willing to go in to the office at stupid o'clock in the morning to deal with someone's toothache came with the territory. It was also — when Hermione thought rationally about it — the reason they could afford to pay the cringeworthy price-tab of a Hogwarts education, for which she was grateful. However, at the end of the day, that gratitude did little to blunt echoing void of an empty house.

Hermione had grown up lonely, and that sort of thing was rarely rational.

Thus, the feeling of belonging that permeated the Hufflepuff common room was pretty alien to her, almost — but not quite — enough to make her shy away from the unfamiliarity of it all.

Almost, but not quite. And when it comes to things like that, 'not quite' means 'making this lonely child latch on like a drowning person clings to a lifebuoy'.

House Hufflepuff makes you feel like you'll never, ever be abandoned again, and when you've spent most of your life mostly alone, that feeling is something which should probably be a controlled substance.

Thus, she was almost, almost but not quite, disappointed when Professor Sprout arrived at last with news.

2.5.4 Growing closer

For once in her life, Hermione had a book in her hand which she was ignoring in favor of something else. It was not another book — that had happened often enough to be unremarkable by this point — no, this time, Hermione was ignoring her book in favor of a boy.

After Harry's episode in the Great Hall the previous Monday and her nervous wait for news of his condition in the company of the amazingly welcoming Hufflepuff House, Hermione had made it a point to spend more time with the small, hyperactive boy in hopes of being able to use the term 'friend' to refer to at least one person without any further qualifications necessary.

Today found her spending the morning free period in the library, reading with Harry and Suze.

Finding common time had been difficult for the last few days, as Harry routinely disappeared into the infirmary for large stretches of time for the treatment of his strange illness called Babington's syndrome. She had tried to look up more on the condition, but it was apparently rare enough that it was barely mentioned in any of the books in the Hogwarts Library.

Professor Sprout had been rather reticent about the whole thing when she explained the situation, which — she revealed when asked — was because she was just as unfamiliar with the condition as her students. She did say that Madame Pomfrey had recognized the illness as soon as she learned of Harry's symptoms, though, which Hermione found duly impressive.

Harry was currently fidgeting a little while still somehow remaining completely absorbed in his current reading, a dusty-looking volume detailing the runic schema and internal energy flows of the so-called lighting-rod enchantments. It was a topic quite beyond her, an in fact, she only knew that much because she had asked him outright. She couldn't even read the title.

The book was written in Greek — an ancient scholarly dialect of Greek at that — and Harry had explained that he was reading this book, rather than one of the hundreds of derivative works written in a more accessible language, because the other ones all glossed over some of the minutiae he was interested in.

Between today's reading and his other eclectic choices over the past few days, Hermione had learned that her friend was able to read at least seven different languages beyond his native English, four of which were dead. The ancient form of Greek the boy was reading was a new one, one he was apparently learning on the spot judging by the translation dictionary — a centuries-old text itself, matching the ancient Greek dialect with Latin equivalents — which lay open on the table and the slowly increasing rate at which the boy was turning pages.

Hermione found that fact more than a little intimidating.

The bushy-haired girl was quite confident of her own intelligence, and she was game for learning almost anything, but the idea of sitting down to read a scholarly tome on a subject that wouldn't even be available for her to take a course on for another two years, written in an ancient language that she didn't know… well, that was a little much, even for her. It was the first time she had encountered another person her age who was objectively better than her at an academic pursuit, and Hermione wasn't precisely sure how to handle that.

She was sure, however, that she wanted to be friends with him.

Now she just had to figure out how to start a conversation. She'd not realized just how useful Harry's 'blathering' was for that purpose — no matter how irritating it could be.

2.5.5 Self-examination

With the end of October was fast approaching — and with it, the end of Harry's second month of schooling — Harry found himself lounging on the lip of the Lair, Suze tucked comfortably into his side, and gazing out over his domain.

The forest below the Lair had nearly donned its fall vestments, painting the glen in reds, yellows, and oranges. The flowering heather on the coastal moors even cut a thin strip of purple in the distance dividing the waters of the loch from those of the sound beyond. Beyond that, the blue-gray of the water merged smoothly into the gray-blue of the cloudy twilight sky. Not ten minutes before, the vibrant sunset had lit up those clouds to match the fall foliage below, but now there was just enough haze in the air to hide the Isle of Skye in the distance.

For all the world, it looked like the ocean just went on forever.

It had been nice to meet so many new kids, Harry reflected. He hadn't had so much fun meeting new people since that first winter with the Black Woods Clan! The Hufflepuff students were almost universally friendly, which was real nice, and Hermione had been practically glued to his side whenever she could manage it ever since that embarrassing incident at lunch when he'd lost control of his appetite.

Had he been in human form, Harry's embarrassed blush at the memory would have been quite obvious. Being levitated out of the Great Hall by Mr. Snape while whining about being hungry was indubitably the lowest point of his academic career to date. It seemed Uncle Vernon had been right all those years ago about hunger doing strange things to people. Harry would have to let him know in his next letter.

The time spent with Hermione as a result, though — that was nice. She didn't seem to talk very much on her own, but she was always game for a good conversation, and they'd started talking more in the last few weeks. It was fun! Lately she'd seemed kind of sad about something, though. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

He shook his great draconic head in dismissal. He'd have to give that a bit more of a think.

On the topic of his unreasonable appetite, Hagrid had predicted the really intense hunger would taper off into a slightly elevated appetite during the rest of the growth spurt, and Harry was happy to confirm that was indeed the case. He was now eating about twice as much as he was before the spurt started, but nowhere near what he had been during the transition. Regardless, he was still putting on a steady inch every night, according to Madame Pomfrey's now daily checkups.

Harry's massive head turned to eye his damsel for a moment before turning back to the slowly darkening Highland landscape. Suze had nodded off at some point as she leaned against his front-shoulder, sheltered under his wing as she watched the sunset with him. Letting out an almost inaudibly-deep rolling chuckle, pitched beyond the range of most human's hearing but still intense enough to feel, he gently gathered her up in his forepaws and carried her into the Lair proper to sleep, away from the autumn chill.

Lots of new friends, lots of old friends, lots to learn, lots to do, and lots and lots to eat — it sounded like a recipe for good times to Harry.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.6 Carnage in the loo!

---

2.6.1 In which pre-teen drama takes center stage

The last day of October had fallen on a Thursday that year, and the day had dawned cold and wet, a condition which had not changed in the hours since. Professor Flitwick had just dismissed his first-year Charms class, but the diminutive teacher had held Harry back for something or other — if Hermione had to guess she would say it was probably something about his control exercises, if the past few weeks were any indication.

Lately it seemed like her hyperactive friend was doing those literally all the time. When he was reading, he'd have little lights orbiting above the page; when he was eating, he'd levitate more food over to his plate in a complicated aerial dance; walking down the hallway, he'd be bouncing in truth rather than only figuratively, using his magic to catch himself just above the floor and push himself back a little way into the air.

It was getting quite decidedly silly, in Hermione's considered opinion.

In any case, Harry's after-class teacher's conference had Hermione waiting for him outside the massive charms classroom as the rest of the students slowly filtered past, and she was thus in a prime position to overhear bits of their conversations as they passed. One in particular caught the bookish girl's attention.

"…don't know where she gets off, bein' all nosy and pushy and stuff!"

That was one of her housemates, a boy by the name of Ronald Weasley — the same redhead who had briefly shared a compartment with her and Harry on the train before he had run afoul of Harry's Harry-ness and had stormed off in a huff.

Whenever the students were allowed free seating, they tended to divide themselves up along House lines. Hermione of course, sat next to Harry, and thus she customarily marked the boundary between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Today, Ronald had been seated on the Gryffindor side of her own position. Since so many of his students wouldn't be able to concentrate while waiting in eager anticipation for the Halloween Feast, the professor had decided to make it a review day, and since he had been having trouble, Hermione had tried to help Ron out with his pronunciation on the levitation charm.

He had not been terribly receptive.

Sadly, Hermione had gotten rather used to that by now.

Seamus Finnegan — another of the Gryffindor boys in her year, who for some reason always smelled faintly of whiskey — agreed with the redhead. "Yeah, just 'cause she gets it right away don't mean she's got the right to rub it in our faces like that!"

As she recalled, Seamus had managed to set his feather on fire — again, and not from moving too fast like Harry had managed back when they first learned the charm; the thing had just burst into flame without moving at all.

The rest of the first-year Gryffindor boys — all two of them — walked along with the pair, though they weren't participating in the grousing. Dean, a dark-skinned boy who was a little tall for his age, was scribbling away in his ever-present sketchbook as he walked, somehow managing to avoid running into anyone, and Neville, her partner in potions class of late, was following along quietly with his eyes firmly down.

She had to wonder who Ronald and Seamus were talking about? Whoever it was, they seemed to really have it out for her.

"'It's lev-i-OH-sa not levio-SA'," the redhead was saying in a mocking falsetto, "seriously, who does she think she is?"

Wait, that was… they were talking about her!

"And precisely what is wrong with me trying to help you with your spell-work, Ronald?" Hermione broke in.

She was not going to stand for that, no sir!

The scruffy-looking redhead wheeled to face the new voice, and on seeing her face, flushed red as he twisted his face into a sneer.

"You're a right nightmare, that's what!" he snapped. "Always gotta know it all, and you're that dungeon bat's teacher's pet! It's no wonder you ain't got any friends!"

That hit a little too close to home, and Hermione's eyes started to water. She knew that wasn't right — Harry was her friend, and she'd been spending a lot of time with Neville too, but Harry wasn't there, and Neville was just standing there, and he wasn't saying anything, and the girls were just walking away like they hadn't heard anything, and… and…

Hermione burst into tears and bolted, so upset she didn't even realize she'd left her notebooks behind.

Some things you don't put behind you in just a month or two.

2.6.2 Unfortunate hesitation

Neville watched his lab partner — a girl who had never been anything but friendly and helpful — run off in tears after his ginger git of a dorm-mate tore into her for no reason Neville could see.

He watched as the redhead muttered to himself and stormed off up to the dorm without even seeming to notice his target's departure or the effect his words had had on her.

He watched and struggled to decide whether to go after Ron and punch his teeth in, or to go after Hermione to make sure she was alright, or to do something else like tell a teacher or something. In the process, he ended up standing there like a useless lump.

"…I am such a woosie," he muttered.

2.6.3 Misgivings

Meanwhile, Harry had just finished his conference and gone back to his seat to grab his bag, eager for lunch. Mr. Flitwick had had some questions about his progress with the control exercises. Harry had answered them, and in response, the diminutive former duelist had proposed a new exercise, which he had then proceeded to demonstrate.

It was the coolest thing Harry had seen since he'd first realized that those wings that kept flapping around that evening at Avebury were attached to him!

Mr. Flitwick had explained that it was important to be able to direct magic where he wanted it to be in addition to being able to direct it to a specific purpose. To that end, Harry was supposed to push unformed magic out of his body at various points.

Then the man had proceeded to set his own arms on fire.

It wasn't really real fire since it didn't burn anything, but it looked just like the real thing.

And then the diminutive professor had made it change color!

Harry had received express instructions from his new favorite professor to learn how to set himself on fire and do it as soon as possible. Then he was supposed to repeat that feat again and again everywhere he went until he could do it at least as easily as he could move his arm.

To Harry's preadolescent mind, there could be no doubt: this was the best homework assignment in the history of homework assignments!

Bag retrieved, the young dragon bounced out of the classroom, eager to share the good news with his bushy-haired friend. Afterwards, he had already resolved to go tell Suze, who had decided to stay in the library and read today — she'd found a book on old woodworking potions that she was researching so she could teach her uncle Ronan — and after that he was going to lunch.

Harry looked around the now-empty hallway — Hermione was nowhere in evidence.

That was odd. His currently human face twisted itself into a puzzled frown. She'd said she was going to wait for him… maybe she'd gone down the hallway to find a place to sit and read or something? A quick sniff directed him a little way down the hall to a small pile of notebooks haphazardly stacked on a windowsill. Those were Hermione's notebooks, alright, but there was no Hermione to go with them.

Huh?

He looked about for a few moments before trying to track her scent again, but the notebooks were all he could distinguish from the olfactory jumble laid down by all the other students. Dragon noses were good in comparison to a human nose, but then pretty much every other creature with a nose had a good nose when compared to humans. Dragon noses were not really meant for tracking.

"Well, she must have had something important come up," Harry mused. He looked back at the notebooks — those really shouldn't just be left lying about the hall. He gathered them up, saying to one of the portraits, "Can you let Hermione know I picked these up if she comes looking for them before I find her? Thanks!"

He'd have to keep an eye out for his friend to return her notebooks.

2.6.4 Swelling concern

Lunch came and went with nary a sign of Harry's bushy-haired friend, and he was growing a mite concerned. If something had come up, then that was fair enough, but to miss a meal? That seemed a a step too far to the young dragon's sensibilities.

That said, whatever it was that interrupted her had done so right before lunch — highly inconsiderate of whatever it was, really — and he supposed he could see things running a little long.

History followed, which Harry considered to be a mostly useless class. It was taught by Professor Binns, a ghost of man who had died peacefully one day during the 1823 school year and then gone right on to continue teaching his classes. The specter had purportedly been known for putting classes full of energetic teenagers right to sleep while he was still alive, and that dubious talent had only developed further since his departure from the mortal coil.

Unfortunately, that was the only thing about Professor Binns which had developed since his death. The professor was now a ghost, just a dusty and dim echo of the soul that was the original Professor Binns, and like all ghosts he did not learn or develop — not even so much as to produce a new lesson plan or shift to another already prepared one. He only ever covered one topic, the goblin rebellions, and he essentially repeated about two weeks' worth of lessons.

He certainly hadn't updated his lessons to account for the results of the Bold '99, and he refused to do so no matter how much Harry tried to yell at him for such a gross oversight. The rebellion was about as central to the understanding of goblin culture as anything Harry could think of, and Harry had quickly deemed the class to be utterly useless. From that point on, historical accounts had become a new priority for Harry's ongoing literary acquisitions.

One might wonder why the school allowed such a situation to continue, and Harry's summertime investigation of the rule book had revealed a disturbing answer.

Apparently, tenure was a real pain-in-the-neck.

Harry now used the class as a free-reading period, during which he tried to focus on history out of a sense of situational appropriateness. Hermione wasn't there either, but that was to be expected. History was shared with the Ravenclaws; only potions, transfiguration, and charms included all four Houses at once.

Transfiguration, though, was the last class before the Halloween feast, and when Professor McGonagall's classroom also proved to be devoid of frizzy brown hair, Harry got downright worried. Worried enough to ask around a bit, even approaching the professor after class. Professor McGonagall hadn't heard anything about Hermione, but she promised to look into it.

So it was a very concerned young dragon that walked into the Great Hall for dinner. The place was festooned with Halloween-themed decorations. The usual floating candles were joined by floating jack-o-lanterns, conjured bats — Harry could see the magic in them — swarmed about the ceiling, and the lighting was all in contrasting shades of warm fiery orange and cool twilight bluish-purple.

As he passed the Gryffindor table, Harry overheard a troubling bit of conversation.

"Y'know that Hermione Granger?" one of the first-year girls said. It was the one with the identical twin in Ravenclaw. 'Par'-something as Harry recalled.

It suddenly struck him then that he really ought to pay more attention to people's names. What good was it to have such a good memory if he never bothered to pay attention to that sort of thing?

"'Course I do, Parvati," Lavender Brown said.

She was another one of the Gryffindor first-years, with a slightly pudgy face and hair that couldn't seem to decide if it wanted to be blonde or brown. Harry remembered her name because he thought it was a bit peculiar that she was named after two different colors when he heard it at the Sorting.

"She's in the downstairs loo — the one just down the hall from Snape's classroom — and she's been crying for a while," the now-named Parvati replied. "She's really upset about something. I wonder what it could be?"

From her manner, Harry gathered that this was some sort of juicy gossip, so he turned to Hannah when he got to the Hufflepuff table. She was really into the whole gossip thing, so she'd probably know what was what.

"Hannah?"

"Hmm?" the girl looked up from her conversation with Susan.

"I heard Parvati and Lavender sayin' somethin' about Hermione," Harry prompted, and a surprised look passed between Susan and Hannah. Harry was not one to be interested in gossip normally.

"Well, yeah, you know the downstairs toilet, just toward the stairwell from Professor Snape's lecture hall?" Hannah explained. "We saw her there just after Transfiguration, and she's really upset."

"What happened?" Harry asked. Hannah and Susan failed to recognize how upset Harry was getting, though the older students cottoned on quickly.

"I'm not sure," Susan said, brow furrowed in puzzlement, "I asked her what was wrong, and she said something about Ron Weasley and wanting to be left alone."

There was a noise like a string of tiny firecrackers going off in the vicinity of Harry's knuckles, the sound causing Cedric — who was sitting across the table — to flinch as the anatomy in question quickly turned a bloodless yellow-white.

The normally affable third year knew what he had just seen. The last time he'd seen someone that pissed off was after Charlie Weasley caught his girlfriend coming out of the broom-closet on fourth floor with that what's-his-name arse from Ravenclaw.

He shot a pair of surreptitious glances at Eric Cadwallader and Maxine O'Flaherty, two of his fellow Quidditch fanatics.

"We'd better sort this out," he hissed, answered by a round of nodding from the pair.

Harry, deep in a funk, didn't notice the byplay. Not that he would have if he were fully alert either — the young dragon still had a long way to go in developing his situational awareness.

"You sure she wants to be left alone, Susan?" the boy asked.

"I think so," Susan said uncertainly. "I mean, she kept saying 'leave me alone' when me and Hannah tried to find out what was wrong."

Cedric again glanced concernedly at Eric and Maxine. That was not a good sign, not at all.

"Aw, blast it," Harry muttered. "I hate it when I can't do something."

"Are you sure, Harry?" Cedric asked, leadingly. "I'd be happy to go see if we could help her out a bit — maybe talk things over?" Eric and Maxine were nodding encouragingly at the smaller boy.

"Not just now," Harry said with sad conviction. "If she said to leave her alone, then we gotta leave her alone. It'd be rude to butt in if she don't want us to, and you shouldn't be rude if you don't gotta be, 'cause that's not very nice."

No 'Puff argued with that.

It had, after all, taken the collective House Hufflepuff less than a week to determine that arguing with Harry was an exercise in futility. You could argue until you were blue in the face, but Harry would only come around when he was good and ready. You just had to stick with him and keep hinting until he picked things up himself — the only 'Puffs who hadn't picked up on that were Zack Smith, who was more than a little bullheaded himself, and Nymphadora 'Don't-Call-Me-That' Tonks, who was far too busy with her excessive number of NEWT courses to bother herself with firsties, even ones who had helped her understand the strange and disturbing mind of Severus Snape.

2.6.5 Troll watching

Celestine watched in narrow-eyed consternation.

He was on patrol duty with several of his fellow warriors near the grounds of the wanded-human school on the evening of their strange celebration of the spirits and the dead. Their reasoning for choosing a time right in the middle of the autumnal season to host such a celebration, rather than a proper transition like the equinox or solstice, escaped the centaur. Selene was even waxing full — every colt knew that the new moon was the time for the dead, not the full one!

Crazy humans.

But the centaurs also knew that they should be watchful on this night. Even if the stars carried no special portents for the day, the crazy humans believed the day carried import of its own, and where there was both magic and belief odd things were wont to happen.

For good or ill, however, the odd thing which had caught Celestine's attention on the outskirts of the Forest this night was most assuredly not caused by wild belief-magic. No, it was a robed human leading a quartet of mountain trolls of all things through the protections of the human school. Celestine knew of no reason for such a thing to be permitted; not even the wizards were silly enough to want such creatures around their young. He would have liked to interfere — on behalf of the Great Wyrm who had friends in the castle, if for no other reason — but he could not.

He looked regretfully at his beautifully crafted short-bow and sighed. Neither he nor any member of his patrol was carrying anything that could be of use against even one such beast, let alone four backed by what was almost certainly a wizard. Troll hide was thick; troll muscle was hard; and troll bones were both. Centaur arrows would do nothing but attract the beasts' attention, and close combat with a troll was suicide for most beings, centaurs included. Celestine was rather enjoying the respite from mourning newly fallen companions.

Hopefully Ronan would soon suss out the trick to those pulley-things on that ingeniously-designed bow the Great Wyrm had gifted Bane's daughter, and he and his companions could start carrying something with a little more stopping power — but for now, it looked like the wizards would have to fend for themselves.

For now, Celestine would have to content himself with passing a warning on to the Gamekeeper.

2.6.6 Warning received

"Stop where you are!" a strident yet very businesslike voice rang out from concealment near the entrance to a certain corridor on the third floor of the castle. The tone hinted that noncompliance would be a decidedly bad idea.

Hagrid stopped obediently from his headlong rush towards the goblin defensive emplacement.

"Good! There you are, been lookin' fer ya'," the half-giant replied, seemingly unfazed by the harsh tone. "Got sumthin' t' tell you lot. Celestine, one o' the centaurs in the Forest, 'e saw four trolls being brought on the grounds by somebody wearin' robes. Figgered whate'er it is yer guardin' 'd be the onl' thin' worth tha' much muscle, so I thought yer ought t' know."

"Understood, and thanks for the warning. Good man." A shadowed gesture toward the darkened doorway triggered some shuffling and scraping sounds as if something heavy were being wrestled into a new position. "Is there anything else?"

"Ya' got any idea where Perfesser Dumbledore is? Oughtta tell 'im next, I reckon."

"The good Headmaster should be in the Great Hall, but this is urgent enough for us to use the communication method he gave us," the goblin said, finally revealing his position by coming into the light. "We'll pass it on for you. If you could step into the side hallway and clear our field of fire, you can wait to hear his response yourself."

"Right," Hagrid agreed. "How's Fluffy likin' it in there, anyway. Firs' time the pup's been off on 'is own fer so long; bet 'e's getting' a mite 'omesick."

2.6.7 Lockdown

The Halloween feast continued as the massive herd of teenagers and almost-teenagers packed away truly prodigious amounts of food. There was much laughing and merriment to be had — everywhere but one particular corner of the table trimmed in black and yellow. There, Harry distractedly picked at his food — he still managed to tuck away more than any ten of his tablemates combined, but it was clear that his appetite wasn't up to his usual standard.

The rest of the Hufflepuff table had grown quietly concerned about the missing Gryffindor firstie whose absence had so troubled their oddest member, but… well, everyone was hungry, and it was a Halloween feast, so there was a fair bit of eating and merriment going on among those sufficiently far away not to actually see the moping young dragon.

Just as the tables were populated by yet another course — this one the first wave of desserts — the more attentive denizens of the Great Hall noticed the Headmaster give a subtle jerk and lift a hand to one ear before paling. This strange event was rapidly overshadowed by the main door bursting open to admit a figure not often seen in the Great Hall this year, one Professor Quirinus Quirrel.

The man gasped out, "Troll! In the dungeons! I thought you might want to know," before collapsing in a faint in the middle of the suddenly-silent Great Hall.

The silence held for a few startled moments before the Hall erupted in noise as the students recovered enough to react, but not enough to react well. The semi-orderly meal was suddenly a chaotic mass of panicked children, and the noise rapidly approached deafening before the sharp retort of a cannon-blast charm went off at the staff table.

The Headmaster stood to his full height, unseen but still acutely-sensed magic swirling in an imposing manner as he calmly addressed the suddenly silent students, "It seems that we have a situation, children. Prefects, remain here with the rest of the students, our intruder seems to be in the dungeons, and the halls are not safe. Keep your fellow students here, and keep the door closed." He turned to the staff, "Professors, with me. We will search the school for our wayward troll and deal with it, standard search assignments — and be sure to ask the portraits and ghosts for assistance where possible."

The elderly wizard shot a mildly disgusted look at his currently unconscious Defense professor before lifting an odd device to his mouth and speaking quietly as he strode through the doors of the Great Hall, "Corporal, please ask Rubeus to come to the Great Hall and guard the students in the event that the troll comes here… four, you say? I see, thank you." He gestured to the other professors following in a suspiciously military-looking fashion behind him, raising four fingers then pointing down different hallways in quick succession before giving another odd gesture then tapping his ear.

The hunting party swept out of the room as the great wooden doors slammed shut behind them.

2.6.8 Out of bounds

She hadn't been sure how to react at first, but now that she had been given an objective, Abigail Abercrombie was all business. While the Head students and the rest of the prefects were still reeling from the sudden change in circumstances, Abigail was already moving. A lot of times, the best way to lead is simply to be doing something rather than standing around all gobsmacked.

"Alright, you heard the Headmaster! Get back to your tables!" she shouted in a tone that would brook no nonsense. "Prefects, get a head count. I'll secure the door!"

Not even thinking about who was giving them orders, the student body and her fellow prefects moved automatically to fulfill them as Abigail made her way to the main door — only to see a certain green-eyed firstie whose suitably-aged image had featured prominently in her dreams for the past few weeks making a deliberate bee-line for the same place.

What was this?

2.6.9 A rescue mission

Harry reacted to the news of a troll in the school rather differently than the other students — and not just because he was more likely to look at a troll as a potential snack than as a potential threat.

"I'm goin' to get her," he said, immediately standing up.

"Huh?" Hannah asked.

"Hermione don't know about the troll, so I'm gonna go get her and make sure she's safe.

This had caught the attention of Susan as well who said, "I'm going with you!"

"No, you're not," Harry insisted.

"Why not?" Susan protested. "You're my friend, and Hermione's my friend too, and we don't leave friends in the lurch. Not in Hufflepuff!" This had Hannah, Cedric, and the rest of the students in earshot nodding in agreement and shifting in preparation to get up and help.

"I'm goin' down to find her, and you're all stayin' here where you're safe," Harry insisted.

"But you've not got any better chance of fighting a troll than we do," Hannah insisted. "The more people we have, the better…"

She trailed off as Harry reached out grabbed a carving knife from a nearby platter — eight inches of tempered carbon-steel blade and a four-inch tang wrapped up in a well-seasoned oak handle — and proceeded to wad it up with one hand as easily as if it were made of tissue paper. Even when he squeezed down on the edge, the steel gave way before his skin so much as took a nick. When she examined it after he dropped the mess of twisted steel and splintered oak on the table, Hannah could even see the boy's fingerprints impressed into the metal.

Every jaw dropped among those who were paying attention to the tableau.

"I'm way stronger than I look," Harry said, entirely unnecessarily. "I gotta go now, see you later." And with that, he set off at a sprint.

2.6.10 Casualty

"Hold up there, Potter!" Abigail called out to the boy before he could open the door. "Where do you think you're going? The professors said no one was to leave the Hall, and it's my job as a prefect to make sure that happens and the rest of the students are safe."

Those same intense green eyes turned on her again with more force behind them than there had been on the train — a lot more. Tonight was going to be interesting after lights-out, she decided after assessing the fluttering going on in certain central portions of her anatomy. For crying out loud, the boy hadn't even hit puberty yet!

Those eyes were dangerous!

"My friend, Hermione Granger, wasn't at the feast, so she don't know about the troll," the boy explained, fidgeting impatiently. "I'm gonna go get her and make sure she's safe." He was obviously uncomfortable with waiting, but the boy seemed to think her objection reasonable enough to at least answer.

"Missing student, huh?" That was bad — really bad. "Let me check to see if anyone knows where she is now before we go," Harry nodded impatiently. "Which House?"

"Gryffindor."

"Gotcha," she looked over at the Gryffindor table and caught sight of a distinctive head of red hair. "Weasley!" when the prefect turned, she said, "Got a report of a missing student, one of yours, one Hermione Granger. You know where she is?"

"Wherever she is, she's not here, Abercrombie," the redhead said grimly, "and we don't have any report of her going to the infirmary. I was just about to ask around when I didn't find her during the headcount."

She turned back to Harry, "You know where she is?"

"Susan and Hannah said they talked to her in the girls' loo downstairs after class, she was cryin' so she probably ain't moved." The boy was obviously struggling to remain patient with her.

"Which one?"

"I… I know which one, but I can't think how to describe it," Harry was obviously frustrated. "Just, let's go get her already!"

"Right," she nodded, starting to work the doors while calling over her shoulder, "Weasley, you and Clearwater get over here and take over door duty. I'm going with Potter to retrieve our missing firstie." The door fully opened, she motioned to Harry, "Lead the way, Potter."

The small boy took off at a sprint, setting a pace Abigail was hard-pressed to match even with her longer legs, and he took the stairs at a pace that made it obvious he had no fear at all of falling over the edge. It was possibly the fastest traversal of the labyrinthine castle Abigail had ever borne witness to — much less participated in — and yet they were still almost too late.

As the pair drew within sight of the bathroom near Professor Snape's lecture room — so that was the bathroom he meant — they were struck by an almost tangible stench just before they caught sight of a hulking, grey-skinned creature plodding down the hallway. It was human-ish in shape — though the arms were much too long and the legs were much too short — and it was half-again the height and nearly five times the heft of the Hogwarts Groundskeeper.

More importantly, it was salivating at the sight of something it saw through the door of the girls' loo — something that was currently screaming in a panicked girlish voice — and limbering up with a club that looked like it was made of the better part of a hundred-year-old oak tree.

This was very, very bad, Abigail thought. She was in her sixth year, but trolls were tough opponents even for an adult witch — and she had two firsties to look out for in close quarters with the damn thing. She knew Potter was powerful, but he wasn't trained to use that power yet, and that troll was no training dummy. What was she going to do?

Then, the decision was taken out of her hands.

"Hey, you! You stop lookin' at my friend like she's gonna be your dinner, stinky!" her pint-sized companion called out fearlessly. As the troll's attention turned to the pair in the hallway, the smaller of whom was still walking calmly towards it, much to the larger of the pair's dawning horror, the boy continued. "Are you gonna stop bein' mean now, or will I have to do something unpleasant to you?"

Merlin, that boy had a set of stones on him!

Unfortunately, Abigail was now certain neither of them would survive long enough for her to find out just how impressive a set he was packing — even if she didn't wait until finding out would be anything other than grossly inappropriate, more's the pity.

By way of answer to Harry's question, the troll took two long steps toward him before that club lashed out at distressingly high speed and connected with a horrible meaty slam, sending Harry flying into and through the foot-thick stone wall of Snape's lecture hall.

Abigail fell to her knees in shock. Ambitious Slytherin she might be, but she was both a teenager and a generally decent sort, and this was the first time she'd seen any real violence. Harry had just died! One moment he'd been there, the next he was gone — just like that! Another kid, just a few years younger than her, just snuffed it — he was one she was supposed to be responsible for, too!

Abigail was still staring blankly in shock as the troll advanced towards her, club poised to strike. Just as she collected herself enough to recognize the situation and realize she was about to die, the club swung and was intercepted inches in front of her face by an absurdly intense surge of magic and sent flying off down the hall behind her.

She recognized the feel of that magic — it was the very same feeling that called to her from those green eyes she was so alternately intimidated and enticed by.

The troll was slammed into the wall opposite where Harry had disappeared by what looked for all the world like a black-scaled tree trunk turned horizontal, and the towering odiferous beast went crashing through the wall to land in a shattered heap on the bathroom floor — not that Abigail noticed.

Her attention was captured by a familiar green eye peering at her with undisguised warmth and concern in a scant moment that seemed to stretch out for minutes to her adrenaline-distorted perceptions. Between the emotion, untainted by calculation or self-interest — a rarity in her life since she was Sorted into the House of the Serpents — and the still-building adrenaline which her body had yet to realize was unneeded after the sudden reversal of fortunes, Abigail couldn't really focus on anything else but that wonderful eye for a few crucial moments.

By the time that her rational mind managed to catch up enough for her to realize that warm, concerned green eye had to be at least as big as her own head, her forehead caught a piece of rubble from one of the two still-collapsing walls and it put her out like a light.

2.6.11 Kaiju battle

Today had been a nightmare, Hermione thought — before internally flinching at the word, hearing the echo of it as voiced by a certain Ronald Weasley.

First, that… that stupid ginger ingrate and that stupid Irish lush had snapped at her for some stupidly incomprehensible reason after she'd stupidly tried to help them, then she'd stupidly let their idiotic and patently false invective get to her, and then she'd stupidly holed herself up in a stupid bathroom and cried her stupid eyes out. She'd even stupidly chased off Susan and Hannah when they'd tried to be nice to her.

It was all just so… so… stupid!

And here she'd sat feeling sorry for herself while she missed out on what the upper years had said was always a spectacular holiday feast. She'd been looking forward to it all week, particularly since her parents had always refused to allow her candy on principle, being dentists and all. Here she was, her first Halloween away from her parents' oppressive anti-confectionary autocracy, and she was holed up in a bathroom crying over what some redheaded jerk said to her rather than indulging her curiosity about what all those sweets tasted like.

Hermione was certain her day couldn't get any worse.

Had she been more experienced, she would have known better than to taunt Murphy.

It began with a stench that made Hermione gag. The hint of bile in the back of her throat was actually a relief for the girl because the taste was, in fact, less unpleasant than that smell. At first, she thought one of the toilets had broken, and she quickly left the stall she had been crying in to investigate, but everything seemed intact. Then she heard a slow thumping in the hallway and a low groan before there was some snuffling about the door.

Hermione had shot straight past 'nervous' and taken a flying leap into the realms of 'terrified' when the bathroom door was torn from its hinges to reveal the massive face of the most unutterably scary thing she had ever seen, which served quite well to push her the rest of the way into a full-bore gut-clenching, heart-racing, freeze-in-place panic. It was some sort of grayish malformed humanoid thing carrying a terrifying club and sporting an equally terrifying hungry expression.

At that point, screaming incoherently seemed an eminently appropriate course of action.

As the creature readied itself to force its way through the too-small doorway into the bathroom — presumably to eat her; given the way the rest of her day had been going, she didn't think she'd be lucky enough for it to be after tea and conversation — she heard a most welcome voice from the hallway.

"Hey, you! You stop lookin' at my friend like she's gonna be your dinner, stinky!"

She knew that voice.

The creature turned and ambled threateningly down the hall towards… Harry! That thing was going to eat her friend! Concern overwhelmed her, and at that moment she proved why the Hat had been content to Sort her into Gryffindor, sprinting towards the door which the utterly terrifying creature had just left.

"Are you gonna stop bein' mean now, or will I have to do something unpleasant to you?"

Yep, that was definitely Harry.

She arrived just in time to see her friend catch the wrong end of the monster's club and be sent rocketing through the opposite stone wall. As might be expected, Hermione froze at the scene. She'd just seen her best friend in the whole world get smashed by that big hulking gray whatever-it-was, and she had no idea how to process that.

The bushy-haired girl was still staring at the hole her friend had been smashed through when the wall suddenly burst outward around an utterly massive black scaly hand with fingers tipped in claws that had to be as long as her legs. As the sound hit, a roar that seemed to shake the castle around her, a similarly-proportioned arm followed the massive hand, and the whole assemblage struck the big smelly grey thing — which was no longer the most unutterably scary thing she had ever seen — palm-first and smashed it through the wall next to her so hard that the grey monster ended up lying in a broken heap on the bathroom floor.

As Hermione turned back to follow the arm to its source, a massive, three-horned reptilian head with a color scheme matching that of the arm burst through the same wall with another great tearing bang. The head alone had to be the size of her father's car!

The newly arrived — and entirely unexpected — dragon glared at the broken monster for a moment before stating "That hurt," in an oddly-familiar and incongruously high-pitched voice. The terrifying reptile then turned to look at something on the floor a little way up the hallway when she saw its intensely green eyes widen in… concern? "Hey, are you okay?" it said, "Miss? Oh, man, I hope she's okay! Gotta get her to Madame Pomfrey."

The massive reptile looked to be trying work out how to carefully scoop something up off the floor, when the grey monster proved to be more resilient than it had first seemed — pulling itself together enough to muster a groan and shift a little. That caught the dragon's attention, and its increasingly-familiar green eyes snapped over in Hermione's direction, prompting the girl to squeak and duck back into the doorframe — all that was left of the bathroom wall at this point.

"I think I've had just about enough of you, stinky," the dragon said, before its jaws descended on the gray thing like an obscenely massive set of scissors, ripping it clean through in a welter of gore beyond anything the bushy-haired twelve-year-old had ever imagined possible. The massive reptile only let out a surprised sounding, "Hmm, yum, tastes bacony!"

Hermione couldn't manage to produce more than a terrified squeak as the titanic dragon proceeded to gnash its way through the rest of the grey behemoth in a few absurdly huge bites before shrugging off the rest of the wall it had emerged from and turning towards her before it winced.

"Ow!" the creature muttered, "Must've got one of the bones stuck in my teeth." It prodded about its teeth with a tongue larger than Hermione. "Ow! Oh man, it's stuck in there good!" Seeming to dismiss the matter for the moment, it turned to her. "Hey Hermione," the black-scaled leviathan said concernedly, "are you okay?"

She could only nod in silence, still terrified.

She'd known the wizarding world was mental, but when had it turned into a B-movie monster fight? At least the special effects were good, the girl thought with a touch of hysterical whimsy; not even the big gray thing had looked like a man in a rubber suit.

"Good, um, do you know how to move somebody safely if they got knocked on the head real hard?" it asked. "I wanna get the girl who was helpin' me to Madame Pomfrey, but I know you're s'posed to be careful with head injuries…"

What? The topic was so incongruous with the appearance of the massive creature that Hermione was struck speechless. Luckily for her sanity, she was spared from having to answer by a strident interruption.

"What in the HELL is going on here?" came the tremendous bellow of an arriving — not to mention unutterably incensed, you could tell he was when he swore — Severus Snape. "And what exactly inspired you to revert to your usual outsize reptilian self in front of a student, just like we had decided you most definitely should not do, Mr. Potter?"

"It was the troll, and Hermione didn't know about it, so I was going to let her know about it so I could keep her safe, and then the other girl insisted on coming, and then the troll was going to devour Hermione, so I devoured it, but the other girl got hurt when a bit of wall hit her, and Hermione says she's okay, but we really need to get the other girl to the Madame Pomfrey 'cause she's got a head injury, and Madame Pomfrey always said those are tricky, and…"

"I believe I understand the situation, Mr. Potter," the calming potions master said. "You said there is another injured student here?"

"Yeah, she's over here," the dragon jerked its head in the opposite direction, where it had been looking concernedly before the — Hermione supposed it had been a troll based on the dragon's commentary — had unwisely made its continued survival known.

"Well then, you blasted lizard, kindly change back to your human form so that I may see to your injured compatriot," Snape snapped.

"Um, I got one of the troll's bones stuck in my teeth, so I don't think I oughtta do that, Mr. Snape," the dragon said. "It's kinda bigger than my leg when I'm human-shaped, and well…"

Snape sighed, "Very well then, kindly move your head off to the side so that I may pass."

The dragon did so, revealing a girl in green and silver-trimmed school robes, the lapel of which sported a brightly burnished gold Prefect's badge, splayed out over the rubble with her brown hair matted with blood seeping from a shallow scalp wound.

"Miss Abercrombie?" Snape said with concern, hurrying over to his fallen charge, he cast a series of diagnostic charms to determine her state. "Hmm, skull is intact, minor bleeding, but some swelling…" He broke off long enough to conjure a sheet of paper with his wand which then proceeded to fill itself out with a message as he dictated, "Poppy, you are needed on the second floor, hallway five. Possible concussion on a sixteen-year-old female, Abigail Abercrombie. Potter is involved and in his large form. All trolls are accounted for." With another flick, the paper folded itself into an intricate origami crane and winged its way off swiftly towards the infirmary.

"You did well not to move Miss Abercrombie, Mr. Potter. Doing so might well have caused significant damage if done incautiously." He sighed, "We shall wait here until Madame Pomfrey arrives with the correct tools to aid her, then you shall both accompany us to the infirmary. Miss Granger, are you intact?"

"I think so. Umm… what's going on?" the overwhelmed girl squeaked.

"Are you an imbecile, girl?" Snape snarled. "Did you think it an error that I called this wretched lizard 'Mr. Potter'?"

"Hey, that ain't fair; she didn't know!" Harry protested, keeping an equally concerned eye on both Hermione and the newly identified Abigail.

Hermione thought for a moment. The dragon had emerged from the same wall Harry had been smashed through by the troll. Its voice sounded remarkably familiar, and it shared those uniquely green eyes with her friend, and the blathering… oh.

"Harry?"

"Yep," the dragon — no, her friend — replied in his usual irrepressibly cheerful tone.

"Thanks for coming to help," she said faintly.

"No problem," he said amiably, "you're my friend, after all." He seemed to think for a moment before saying in a moment of insight, "Just so's you know, the rest of the 'Puffs wanted to come too, but I made 'em stay on account of there bein' a troll on the loose."

Hermione gave a weak and watery smile, and Harry's insight was well-rewarded.

2.6.12 Medical emergency

Poppy Pomfrey arrived on the scene at a dead run.

She had been anxiously awaiting the results of the search in the Infirmary. Four trolls in a school full of children was a recipe for tragedy, and she knew she would have to act swiftly to save anyone attacked by the wretched things. The blunt force trauma from a troll attack was usually instantly fatal, but if the victim survived the initial impact, then there was sepsis to deal with.

So it was that when she received Severus' message — he was the only person she knew who bothered with using the original paper cranes rather than the less artistic, but much simpler, paper airplanes — she was both primed for action and relieved.

Just one 'possible' concussion — from a troll attack? Heaven's mercy be praised!

That said, time was still critical, and she was still sprinting. Head injuries could be tricky.

As she rounded the corner the Healer came upon a scene of devastation. Two entire walls were torn out and scattered along the hallway. There was a patch of blood spatter and assorted viscera covering a region half the size of her infirmary which she immediately disregarded — the smell and slightly-off color betrayed its trollish origin — and the massive black draconic form wedged into the hallway was definitely Mr. Potter.

Another first-year, a girl with bushy brown hair that Poppy had yet to meet in the course of her duties, sat quietly on a chunk of stone rubble, staring off into space. Probably in shock — she'd have to run a diagnostic in case the girl was injured but hadn't noticed in the confusion.

Severus Snape was waiting for her to arrive, tapping his foot impatiently and staring down at something laying on top of the rubble in the middle of the hallway, something that Mr. Potter's head was hovering over protectively. That must be her primary patient.

Diagnostics were cast before she even finished her run, and by the time she stopped next to the fallen girl, Poppy had confirmed Severus' diagnosis and begun treatment. Concussions were easy to treat with magic — not simple by any means, but easy. A few minutes' work had the internal blood vessels healed and the associated swelling eased, fluids redistributed by means of magical transportation to the rest of Miss Abercrombie's body. All easy work, but not simple — sort of like writing a term paper. Moving the quill is easy, but you're still exhausted by the end of it.

"She's safe to move, now," Poppy spoke for the first time. "You were right about the concussion, Severus. It was mild, but present. Let me do a quick check on Miss…?"

"Hermione Granger," Snape supplied.

"…Miss Granger, to see if she is injured before we head to the infirmary."

"Hermione said she was okay, though," Harry spoke up, puzzled. "Why do you need to check?"

Poppy spoke even as she moved to examine the dazed girl. "Note her pallid complexion and dilated eyes," she explained in the tone of a teacher giving a lecture, "as well as the shallow breathing and how she is swaying in place as if she's about to fall over. Those are all symptoms of a condition known as shock, which can be induced by a variety of situations and injuries." The hovering dragon nodded worriedly. "Shock does not necessarily indicate that the sufferer is injured, but it can mask symptoms like pain. Sometimes a person in shock will not notice major injuries they've received; therefore, it is a good idea to verify their self-diagnosis, just in case."

"Oh!"

"As it happens, Miss Granger was correct in her self-assessment. She is uninjured, and we can now relocate to the infirmary for further treatment," Poppy concluded. "Mr. Potter, why are you still in your natural form?"

"Ah, I got a troll bone stuck in my teeth and I can't get it out," he explained. "It's bigger than my leg when I'm human-shaped, so I can't really change until I get rid of it."

"I see, well that is a challenge," Poppy was almost pleased. Removing a magically-resistant bone from a child's teeth would certainly be a first for her — mostly because humans didn't generally eat magically-resistant creatures. "Well, let us be off." She turned back to Miss Abercrombie.

"Um, Madame Pomfrey?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Since I'm dragon-shaped anyway, would you like me to carry Abigail for you?" Harry offered uncertainly.

Poppy considered that, the girl was stable, and she was planning to petrify her anyway to keep her head immobile, so it wouldn't be a problem. Why not? She shot off the appropriate jinx at her unconscious patient.

"That would be quite helpful, thank you, Mr. Potter."

Harry gently scooped up the sixth-year girl in his massive forepaws and shifted his weight onto the knuckles of his tightly folded wings as the two staff members got to their feet. Miss Granger did not, still staring off into the distance, eyes unfocused.

"Well, Miss Granger," Severus spoke up in a mocking drawl, "are you coming, or shall I have Mr. Potter pick you up by the scruff of your neck and carry you like a recalcitrant kitten?"

Her eyes suddenly opened wide at that threat and focused on what was in front of her for the first time in several minutes. Hermione quickly got up and followed the strange procession to the infirmary.

Behind them, the hallway stood empty and silent aside from the occasional clatter of shifting rubble and the slow drip of shattered plumbing.

2.6.13 Choose your own adventure

In the Great Hall, the students waited impatiently for their professors to return. Only ten minutes had passed, but in the situation they were in, ten minutes seemed a very long time indeed.

About two minutes into the wait, they'd heard a weird sort of droning buzz, muffled by the intervening walls, which had sounded on and off for almost two minutes, and then a couple minutes after that, there was another muffled sound, this one a tremendous crash, followed hard-on by another crash, a tearing sort of roar, and then yet another crash before everything fell silent again.

What on earth had happened?

At about that time, the door had opened to admit Rubeus Hagrid, who tipped an imaginary hat to the students, and then proceeded to close the door behind him, pull out a truly massive set of keys, and lock the doors to the Great Hall.

None of the students had ever seen the doors of the Great Hall locked before.

The large, hairy man then reached into a small bag and withdrew a crossbow which looked more like a medieval artillery piece than a man-portable weapon and an axe of utterly absurd proportions, neither of which should ever have fit in that tiny bag. The man cut a rather terrifying figure, with his crossbow in one hand and an axe resting over his shoulder, looking like the imposing guardian of some legendary stronghold. For the first time, many of the older students remembered that in addition to his role as the castle gamekeeper, the large, generally amiable man was also the Keeper of the Keys — the proverbial guardian at the gate — and now they knew a little of what that meant.

Some sounds started to drift through the room as children got bored with the waiting and realized that there was still a great deal of perfectly good food on the table that no one was eating, but conversation remained hushed.

Then the students went silent as they heard a regular thumping sound, as if there was some giant creature walking through the halls outside. It was getting closer, closer, now it sounded like it was right outside the doors!

There was a great, tearing crash!

"Watch where you're going, you dunderheaded klutz!"

"Sorry, Professor Snape! I'll try to be more careful next time."

"See that you do, Mr. Potter."

And with that, the thumping resumed, fading into the distance.

When the professors finally gave the all-clear twenty minutes later and Hagrid unlocked the doors, the students were treated to the sight of what remained of one of the guardian gargoyles, the left one of two flanking the entrance to the Great Hall — normally an intricately detailed metallic statue the size of a large man, it was now flattened to the point that it's remains had been forced into the cracks in the stone floor.

What had happened?

The Hogwarts rumor mill decisively entered the tinfoil hat regime.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.7 Discussions and recovery

---

2.7.1 In which enlightenment is attained

On their arrival at the infirmary, Madame Pomfrey immediately absconded to one of the private treatment rooms with the now barely conscious Miss Abercrombie. The sixth-year needed further treatment post haste.

The girl had awoken during her ride in Harry's forepaws only to see that same great green eye she had seen before peering down at her as she was held gently. Between the head injury and the early stages of the troll sepsis —predictably contracted through her open scalp wound — Abigail was hardly coherent, and she would remember very little of the events of that night beyond the feeling of Harry's magic sliding over her when he stopped the troll's club from liquefying her and the recurrent image of that warm green eye.

As for the rest of the group, well, they were less urgent cases.

"Both of you, remain exactly where you are! And no playing the fool!" Snape snapped before he stormed out of the infirmary, leaving a large dragon and a small bushy-haired girl seated in a side room just off the infirmary proper — oddly enough, a room almost identical to the one which had been converted to Harry's dedicated emergency-rations room.

"Okay, Mr. Snape!" Harry chimed in, the excitement of the evening causing him to forget to use the appropriate address of 'Professor'. The same excitement caused Snape to forget to care about his error.

"I hope Abigail is gonna be okay," Harry said when Snape had left the room. "I feel kinda bad for her getting hit by that rock since I was the one who broke the walls."

"Madame Pomfrey said she'd be okay, Harry," Hermione offered, focusing on her friend at the moment — partially because he obviously needed reassurance, but also because she needed to focus on something so she didn't go spare in the wake of the day's events.

"Huh, well I suppose you're right," Harry agreed, much reassured. "Madame Pomfrey's really, really good at that stuff, so she'd know."

"Harry… what's going on?" Hermione asked plaintively, in desperate need of answers now that Harry had settled down.

"Hmm? Oh, well, I'm a dragon, right. It happened when those standing-stone things went all wonky after I knocked my head on one of 'em, and I don't really remember what happened next 'cause I was too busy seein' stars," the dragon explained with a shrug. "We still ain't really sure how it worked, but Mrs. McGonagall says she thinks they're real close to figuring it out now."

"Er, when what happened?"

"Huh?"

"When the 'standing stones' went 'all wonky', what happened?"

"Oh, I turned into a dragon," Harry explained easily, as if turning into a dragon was no big deal. "I used to be a human, but you know how easy it is to misplace that stuff sometimes, huh? But don't have, you know, a big situation about it. I'm cool with it — aside from the whole 'not being able to let people know' bit. That gets kinda annoying sometimes, 'cause I don't like not telling my friends about it. It don't seem quite right, honestly."

Harry sighed, "But people are stupid, and that means I gotta look human most of the time. I mean being human's pretty cool too, because you can get into buildings and turn pages better and sit around with more of your friends 'cause you don't take up the whole room, but I don't like hiding, you know?"

"Oh, um, look… I guess you can change back and forth between dragon-form and human-form, right?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I mean, not right now, because I got a troll bone stuck in my teeth, but normally, yeah. That's how I got back out of that busted-up wall the troll smashed me into with its club!"

"Okay."

The pair fell into a companionable silence for a time. Harry periodically glanced over at the door to the private treatment room into which Madame Pomfrey had disappeared with Abigail — for whom he was still rather concerned — while Hermione simply enjoyed the silence after a far-too hectic day. Eventually though, the bushy-haired girl spoke again.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, Hermione?"

"Thank you."

"Aw, it ain't nothing. You were in distress, and there's some stuff a dragon's gotta do because if he didn't, he wouldn't be a proper dragon, and anyway, there ain't nobody allowed to pick on my friends, and I don't care if the somebody who tries it tastes like bacon."

The dragon nodded decisively at that, despite the fact that his conclusion made little in the way of sense.

"…am I your friend?" Hermione asked tentatively. She vaguely remembered him saying something to that effect, but a lot of the last hour or so had gone a bit fuzzy in her memory.

'Course you are! Weren't for you, I wouldn't know trolls tasted like bacon, and you're really clever, and I like spending time with you, and anyways, ain't no way nobody can have too many friends because friends are the best thing ever! Well, maybe apart from damsels and treasures and… I think guns, but then guns and damsels are two sorts of really special treasure because they're so hard to get, so that's obvious."

"Maybe friends are another kind of special treasure?" The boy's voice had turned speculative. "That'd make sense; I'll have to have a good think on it later."

Hermione digested that for a few moments before she asked, "How'd you know where I was and that the… the troll was going to come in?"

"Well, I didn't know the troll was going after you specifically until I saw it going into the loo where you were, but we all found out about the troll being in the castle when Professor Quirrel came in to the Hall and told everybody. And my friend Hannah, she said earlier that you were in the downstairs girls' loo all upset and stuff because of somethin' or other, but you said you wanted to be alone, so I didn't want to push or nothin', but then we found out about the troll, and someone needed to come let you know, and I said I was gonna do it."

The dragon finally paused to take a breath before continuing. "And then Susan, she wanted to come with to help, 'cause I was her friend, and you were her friend too, and Hufflepuffs don't leave our friends in the lurch, and everyone nodded and they were gonna come with, but I made 'em stay 'cause the troll might've hurt 'em, but they didn't want to stay until I showed 'em a little about how strong I am, then they were okay with it, and I left. But then Abigail — though I didn't know her name then, right — insisted that looking after the students was her job 'cause she's a prefect, so she came along, and then there was the troll and it tried to hit me, so I hit it, and Abigail got hurt, and then I devoured the troll and got a bone stuck in my teeth, and then Mr. Snape came, and then Madame Pomfrey came, and now we're here!"

Hermione digested that for a few more moments before coming to a very pleasant conclusion. It seemed Harry wasn't her only friend in the world; he was just her closest one.

The recounting of the tale had apparently reminded Harry of troll bone stuck in his teeth, because he had started rooting around between his teeth again with his tongue.

"Ouch!"

"Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, but I can't get my tongue under that troll bone to get it out, and when I try, it jams in and that really hurts."

"Let me have a look," she might not be a dentist, but she had certainly heard her parents talk shop enough for something like this. She got up and headed over to Harry's head. "Say, 'aah'."

"Aah," Harry said, terrifying mouth opened wide. Hermione certainly had plenty of space to work; Harry's mouth was bigger than her personal area in the Gryffindor dorms.

The offending bone was as thick as Hermione's wrist, and the end was jammed as deep into Harry's gums as her forearm was long. The end of the bone in contact with the gums was even sizzling a bit. There was no way she'd be able to move that thing; it'd be like ripping out a street sign by the pole!

But Harry was her friend, and that meant something to Hermione. If she had to attempt the impossible to help her friend, then she would give it her best shot! With that in mind, she gave it a yank.

"Ow!" Harry declared, flinching back, and in the process yanking the bone out of her hands.

"Sorry!"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow. I think my mouth's bleeding a bit," Harry said before he noticed Hermione shrinking in on herself. "Aw, don't feel bad, Hermione, it's not your fault, I just got stuff jammed in my teeth, and that sort of stuff happens, right? I mean, last time it was a driveshaft, but that came out real easy because the stuck-in bit got melted."

"…you know," Hermione offered, "Mum and Dad are dentists. They might be able to help."

"Well, maybe we'll try that if Madame Pomfrey can't help," Harry told her pragmatically, nodding firmly before they lapsed into silence again.

Eventually, Hermione broke the silence. "What's with Professor Snape, anyway? I can't tell if he hates everyone or what?"

"Oh, well, Mr. Snape, I mean Professor Snape, he's just a little hard to read sometimes…"

Harry happily launched into a discussion of one of his favorite people who was chronically misunderstood, and thus often required some editorializing. One topic lead to another, and the pair continued companionably for some time.

It was nice to have friends to talk to.

2.7.2 Protective potions master

As Severus Snape left the Infirmary, he seethed inwardly.

Four trolls had gotten through the school's defenses. Four of the blasted things!

Even one would have strained credulity, but four? If not for Mr. Potter's intervention, Miss Granger would have died with certainty and Miss Abercrombie might well have died trying to save her.

For all that Harry was obviously blaming himself for getting Miss Abercrombie involved — something Snape had noted and had resolved to speak with the boy about later — Snape knew better. Miss Abercrombie took her duties seriously, and she thought through things — probably why he was fonder of her than any of her fellow prefects. Miss Granger's missing status would have been discovered eventually, and Miss Abercrombie would have gone after her regardless — in all likelihood too late to do anything but get herself killed as well.

A silvery-white messenger spirit, a variant of the patronus charm-class, appeared before him to deliver its message. A phoenix — so it was from Dumbledore — calling for an emergency staff meeting. He turned toward the stairs.

Four trolls! This had to have been an attack, and an attack implied an attacker. Someone had tried to kill his students… had tried to kill Miss Abercrombie and Miss Granger, his favorite prefect and his most talented potions pupil in years…

…and as soon as Snape found out who was responsible, that someone was going to burn.

2.7.3 Minor irritation, major bloodletting

Albus Dumbledore looked out over a sea of carnage.

His links to the school wards had allowed him to home in on the trolls as soon as whatever concealment had allowed them through the wards dissipated, and he had made haste, arriving on the third floor just in time to see the Sergeant Major's squad open up on the three trolls which had assaulted their position.

It had begun just minutes ago with an odd whine which then deepened into a roaring drone as a stream of glowing projectiles had streamed from the goblin position at the oncoming trolls. The troll skin had resisted for a moment before the bullets penetrated enough to begin tearing fist-sized chunks out of the troll, coming so fast it didn't even have time to fall over before the stream cut it in half.

The other two followed-suit in short order, dead before the bottom half of the first troll finally managed to fall over, and the gun fell silent for a moment before the whine started again, and the gunner swept over the downed trolls, pausing at each head to obliterate it in a gruesome display of calculated savagery.

Albus had to admit, the goblins did good work.

Trolls were disturbingly durable creatures, and many a wizard had died to a 'dead' troll which was carelessly allowed to recover enough to be dangerous. Better to be safe than sorry.

As the echoes of gunfire died out, he heard a distant series of crashes, a roar, and then silence, at which point the wards informed him of the demise of the last troll.

"Corporal, a report on your status please," Albus asked as he approached the Corporal on duty.

"Sir! Three hostiles neutralized at this location. You're standing in them right now, sir," the Corporal — Mantrap he thought the name was — explained. "No friendly casualties, sir. Your man Hagrid informed us earlier that one Celestine, a centaur, had warned him of a robed man leading a group of four trolls on campus. I'd suggest you confirm the whereabouts of the fourth beastie, but based off that roar just now, I'd guess Mr. Potter has dealt with it."

"That would fit with the reports from the wards, but Severus is on his way to verify that right now." Since he had switched them to emergency status, the wards were tracking all the staff right now… or at least they were supposed to be. The wards were reporting Quirrel as being in his quarters, which made no sense. The man had passed out in the Great Hall — a question for later. "You said the report indicated a robed man?"

"Well, technically a robed human, your man didn't specify sex. We reported to you as soon as the report came to us."

Albus stroked his whiskered chin, "So we have another potential intruder, then. Thank you, Corporal, please stay on alert. Perhaps we can catch this person red-handed." The elderly wizard's eyes flashed as his magic flexed subconsciously. Mild-mannered Dumbledore might be, but he sincerely disliked people taking liberties with the wellbeing of his students, and leading trolls onto campus was most assuredly taking major liberties.

After the Corporal replied in the affirmative, Albus added, "If you encounter the intruder, please attempt to leave him or her capable of speech, I have some rather pointed questions to ask."

The goblin smiled toothily at the man's tone. It seemed there would be no arguments with that order.

Albus swept out of the hallway, a surreal picture of brightly colored robes with cheerful dancing jack-o-lanterns soaked up to mid-calf in troll blood and leaving a smeared trail of the same wherever he walked. A quick charm had rendered the blood sterile to ease cleanup by removing the risk of sepsis, but the blood itself was just as resistant as the rest of the beast and would have to be cleaned out the old-fashioned way.

His wand flicked out, and a bevy of messenger patroni appeared before winging their way off through the school.

There was a staff meeting to run, and some pointed questions to ask of his current Defense professor.

2.7.4 Taking responsibility

The mood in the staff room was decidedly more grim than usual. It was hardly a surprising shift; the school had been attacked, and while the weapons used were destroyed, the mind behind it was still at large.

A final sweep of the school had turned up no sign of another intruder. The wards reported all-clear, but that was less than comforting. The wards had also reported all-clear until the trolls were well inside the perimeter, so their mystery intruder had already proven capable of circumventing them. Without evidence one way or another, though, they had had to drop the lockdown and send the students to bed. A state of alert could only be held so long — particularly with teenagers in the mix.

Albus looked over the room. "I am pleased to see you all here, though we still seem to be missing several of our number," he began. "Rubeus has already reported to me personally, and he is currently attempting to track down the trolls' entry point at my request. Argus has been briefed and is cordoning off the two battle-sites. The troll blood must be disposed of and the sites decontaminated that our students might remain healthy, and in the case of Mr. Potter's fight, it is also critical that we ensure the structural integrity of the castle. However, we are still missing our Defense Professor," he concluded with a frown.

Quirinus Quirrel, a man who had no valid excuse for refusing to attend this meeting.

"Minerva, Filius," the two snapped to attention, "Quirinus has avoided our meetings for too long, see to his attendance," he paused, considering for a moment, "take three of the gargoyles with you to convey the importance of this, Minerva."

"Yes, Albus," the Scotswoman acknowledged with a firm nod.

"As the Heads are already aware," Albus addressed the rest of the faculty, "an unknown individual managed to deliver four mountain trolls into the castle. They were sighted by one of our centaur neighbors who was kind enough to relay a warning through Rubeus which arrived just before the attack was launched. The trolls have been dealt with, three by a Gringotts security team posted here for unrelated reasons, and the fourth through the intervention of Mr. Potter."

"Three students encountered the troll Mr. Potter dealt with. One, Miss Abercrombie of Slytherin House, was injured by falling debris; the other two, Miss Granger of Gryffindor and Mr. Potter, are uninjured, though Mr. Potter currently has a troll bone stuck in his teeth. We were lucky in this instance; had Mr. Potter arrived even thirty seconds later, we would be mourning the loss of Miss Granger."

"The infiltrator's whereabouts are still unknown."

"Sir," Septima Vector spoke up, "don't the wards report the location of any intruders to you?"

Albus sighed, "They do, Septima, but as they did not report the trolls until they were already in place to attack, we must assume that the intruder has discovered a way to circumvent at least the detection layers of the wards."

There were a number of gasps at that revelation. Hogwarts was known as the most secure place in the wizarding world precisely because of those wards, and the idea that this intruder could effectively ignore them at will was quite troubling.

"Be aware that we may yet find an intruder to deal with in the future, and be on the alert for any suspicious characters," Albus concluded. "Now our only remaining order of business is our negligent Defense professor."

As if summoned by his words, the door opened again, revealing a rather disheveled Quirinus Quirrel flanked by a furious-looking Filius Flitwick and a bone-white Minerva McGonagall, lips thinned in disapproval to the point that they were no longer visible. Three silvery gargoyles stood behind the trio.

"Albus," Minerva began, "we found Quirinus in his quarters, and he was…" she trailed off, seemingly unable to voice the rest of her report due to being entirely too incensed.

"Drunk!" Filius filled in angrily. "The irresponsible twit was intoxicated to the point he couldn't even walk straight, and he had to have gotten to that point after he delivered that entirely inadequate warning in the Great Hall. It took five sobering charms to get him here!"

Albus' expression turned thunderous. "Quirinus, what do you have to say for yourself?"

The man turned his head away, saying nothing.

"I see," the Headmaster said quietly. The rest of the room was silent. "Quirinus, I understand you are having trouble dealing with that vampire encounter in Albania, and I sympathize, but you have responsibilities as a member of this faculty. If you cannot fulfill them, then you should step down." Albus sighed, "I had wondered when you burst into the Hall and passed out over a single troll. You should have had no trouble dealing with a single troll, and even four should not have been a problem; they are after all a specialty of yours…"

Quirinus' head drooped in resignation.

"Your cowardice almost led to the deaths of three of our students, Quirinus, and returning to your quarters to drink yourself into oblivion, leaving the rest of the student body undefended in the process, was inexcusable," Dumbledore continued. "Your performance was so egregiously unacceptable that you will be docked half your pay for the year for this debacle, and one more incident will lead to your immediate dismissal. Do you understand?"

The Defense professor hung his head before nodding in acknowledgement. It was a fair penalty.

"Very well." As the man turned to go, Albus called after him in a friendly voice, "Oh, Quirinus?"

The defense professor stopped.

"If you are truly having so much trouble dealing with your memories of a vampire in Albania, allow me to offer you this truth to assist in fortifying your constitution."

Dumbledore's presence swelled, blood-soaked robes swirling about his feet. "I am much more frightening than anything you might have encountered in Albania, and if your ineptitude results in any more injuries among my students, or Merlin forbid, anything more permanent, I will ensure that you understand that truth to the deepest reaches of your being."

His presence faded back to normal as Quirrel stood frozen in place.

"Sleep well, Quirinus."

2.7.5 Discussions in the aftermath

Harry had been enjoying his conversation with Hermione for a while now, they'd managed to exhaust the topic of how to translate 'Snape' into the Queen's English, and the discussion had been all over the place since. Hermione wasn't talking much; the dialogue consisted mostly of her asking a question and Harry then running with the topic until he slowed down enough for her to ask another one.

It was the first time Harry had been able to talk with his bushy-haired friend without worrying about keeping being-a-dragon secret. It was pretty fun. So fun, in fact, that Harry was almost disappointed when Madame Pomfrey emerged from the room where she had taken Abigail.

Almost, but not quite.

"How is Abigail, Madame Pomfrey?" he asked.

Hermione looked on silently, still rather dazed by the whole thing.

"Miss Abercrombie will be back in excellent health in a few days, Mr. Potter," Poppy replied.

Harry looked relieved and then puzzled. "Was the knock on her head that bad?" he asked. "It didn't seem that bad when it happened."

"Were it just the head injury, she would have been up and about already," Poppy said. "The real issue was the sepsis."

At the children's puzzled look, she went on, "Trolls are dangerous for several reasons: they are strong, deceptively fast, and quite durable, but they also carry a more insidious biological weapon in the form of their stench. I'm sure you both noticed the smell of that troll that Mr. Potter dealt with — any open wounds exposed to that stink will become invariably infected, and Miss Abercrombie suffered such a wound to her scalp. She will recover, troll sepsis is a known problem with a known solution, but it will likely take several days for her to be ready to face the world again."

"Oh, man," Harry said, "I knew I should'a made her stay in the Hall, but I couldn't think of a way to explain without tellin' about bein' a dragon, and everyone said I shouldn't do that."

"I'll not have you wallowing in guilt over this incident, wretched lizard," a familiar voice cut in from the doorway.

Snape had returned.

"Miss Abercrombie is one of my prefects, and I know her quite well. Rest assured that had you not involved her, she would have involved herself. Miss Granger's absence would have been noted, and Miss Abercrombie would have taken it upon herself to investigate," the potions master said with quiet certainty. "Had you managed to avoid bringing her with you, the only change would have been that she would not have been with you had she encountered one of the trolls — and then she would have died quite messily."

"Oh," Harry said in a quiet voice.

"You performed admirably, Mr. Potter," Severus assured him. "Miss Granger is alive at this juncture solely due to your actions, and Miss Abercrombie likely also has you to thank for her continued survival. Do not castigate yourself over what was, by any reasonable estimation, the best possible outcome of the situation in which you found yourself; sometimes tragedies are unavoidable. Simply be grateful that Miss Abercrombie will recover without any lasting issues."

"Okay," Harry said more firmly as Hermione gently patted his arm in an attempt to be comforting. It wasn't terribly effective, as he couldn't feel her gesture through his scales.

The girl spoke up for the first time since Madame Pomfrey had entered the room, "Trolls?"

"What was that, Miss Granger?" Snape asked.

Hermione swallowed until she managed to find her voice, "You said 'trolls', as in more than one troll," she gulped again, trying to wet her suddenly dry mouth. "Does that mean there are more of those things?" She leaned in closer to the dragon's shoulder as Harry looked at her in concern.

Snape considered the question for a moment, "Four trolls were let into the castle by an unknown agent. Mr. Potter dealt with one, as you know quite well. The other three ran afoul of the goblin security team guarding the third-floor corridor, which you might remember the Headmaster mentioning in conjunction with dying a horrible death during the welcoming feast. The trolls did not heed the Headmaster's advice, and so his prediction was proven accurate. Judging by Dumbledore's robes, I would guess the troll blood was ankle deep in the aftermath."

"Oh! Is Corporal Mantrap okay? How about…" Harry began worriedly only to be cut off by another recent entrant into the conversation.

"Mr. Potter, the goblins suffered no casualties. In truth, when I left, I believe they were discussing the possibility of roasting the remains of the trolls which attacked them," yet another voice interjected from the doorway. "Now, I do not know whether the meat will prove palatable, but they are most welcome to try."

Albus Dumbledore had arrived in the Infirmary.

"Oh, hi Mr. Dumbledore!" Harry greeted the man cheerfully. "I'm glad they're okay, and you should let them know that troll tastes a lot like bacon; it's delicious!" His draconic face fell slightly as he clarified, "Oh, but they should watch out for the bones, though, they stick in your teeth somethin' fierce, and I still haven't been able to get the one that got stuck in mine out."

"I see," the elder wizard nodded gravely. "I assume that is why you are still in your native form, then?"

"Yep," the huge head nodded emphatically.

"Speaking of which, Mr. Potter, lean down here and let me take a look at your teeth," Madame Pomfrey butted in. There was no room for misplaced courtesy when one of her patients was on the line. "I'll see about getting that out right away."

The witch bustled over as Harry obediently lowered his chin to the floor and opened his mouth as wide as he could.

"If I might, Harry, I do have a request for you," Albus began, seemingly oblivious to the witch in the boy's mouth.

"What is it?" Harry asked, mysteriously intelligible despite his mouth being so thoroughly occupied. Though Poppy did smack him on the tongue when it squirmed about and spoiled her grip on the troll bone.

"As I heard Severus mention, the trolls were let in by a currently unknown agent, and we do not know if said person is still on the grounds. Once Poppy has extracted your inconvenient troll bone, might you be so kind as to bend your impressive olfactory capabilities to the task of tracking down the miscreant? One of the centaurs, Celestine, reported the intruders to Hagrid, so you will have a starting point." Albus chuckled, "I'm afraid Hagrid's hound, Fang, though it does have a very good nose, took one whiff of the site, and ran away whimpering. The trolls, I assume."

"Yeah, Fang's a bit of a wimp," Harry chuckled. Poppy yelped at the sound. Then his eyes narrowed doubtfully, "I'll give it a try, if you want, but I found out this morning that my nose ain't really good for tracking when I tried to look for Hermione after Charms class. I got to her books, but then all the other people's scents drowned hers out. I figure I might not even be able to smell whoever it was over the troll-smell."

There was more rather undignified squawking from the woman working on Harry's teeth as his mouth moved slightly in time with his words.

"Well, I would appreciate your efforts, whatever you may find, Mr. Potter. One more thing…" Albus began, only to be cut off by an irate Madame Pomfrey.

"Blast it, Albus! Stop asking the boy questions while I'm shoulder deep in his mouth! So help me, if you ask him one more bloody question before I am done with him, I will throw you out of my infirmary on your ear!"

With her piece said, Poppy gave the job another twenty minutes' worth of the old college try — interspersed with half-stifled swearing — before she finally gave it up. Troll bones were simply too magically resistant to get a good hold on with her spell repertoire. She sat down to think for a few minutes while Harry rested his aching jaw.

Hermione gave her two before raising the possibility of contacting her parents, the dentists, and asking for their help.

A twenty-six-minute discussion on precisely what a dentist's job was and how they did it ensued, before Madame Pomfrey agreed to the idea of sharing space in her infirmary with an outside specialist — even if only temporarily.

Albus Dumbledore — patiently waiting with his mouth firmly shut while his eyes twinkled madly — was then consulted, and Minerva was brought in on the discussion since she was the only faculty member who had actually met the Grangers, having been the one to deliver Hermione's letter and introduce the Grangers to the magical world. Shortly thereafter, the transfiguration mistress left for Crawley on the odd errand of soliciting a dental house-call for a pre-teen dragon in order to remove the troll bone stuck in his gums.

It was the oddest errand she'd been sent on in quite some time.

2.7.6 Draconic dental work

"Well, Mr. Potter, you seem to be taking very good care of your teeth, very clean, no plaque build-up at all. What exactly have you been eating? Do you make a habit of eating trolls?" Tony Granger asked.

Despite his conversational tone, the dentist was currently sweating bullets for a variety of reasons. There were, of course, the physical reasons — the furnace-like breath regularly wafting from the dragon's throat, the heavy protective gear and respiration equipment, the much larger and heavier tools he was using in comparison to his normal kit. Perhaps most importantly, though, was the fact that he was voluntarily up to his arse in an extremely large dragon's mouth.

Although, come to think of it, it would probably be a lot worse if he were there involuntarily, wouldn't it?

In any case, uncomfortable position or not, there was no help for it. He owed the young Mr. Potter a good turn for saving his dearest daughter from being eaten by a troll — a troll whose arm-bone he was currently attempting to extract from the gums between Harry's first superior molar and his second superior pre-molar. Or at least, that was where it would be in a human jaw, Harry's teeth were like nothing he'd ever seen before. The cutting and grinding edges were arranged completely differently, so he wasn't sure just what to call them.

Heck, the things looked more like something out of a documentary on industrial mining than anything else, maybe with some scrapyard-flair mixed in. They certainly didn't look like any teeth he'd ever seen on a human before. Scary looking chompers, though, he thought as he shook his head.

He held out his hand to the world at large and requested, "Tongs."

The school nurse slapped the requested implement into his hand a little testily. He supposed he could relate; heaven knows how irritated he would be if some other dentist came into his examination room and started using it for himself. If it was truly necessary, he'd allow it, but he figured he'd probably be acting a lot like this Poppy Pomfrey.

"No, sir," the dragon said, "this was the first time I've eaten a troll." The boy was remarkably coherent, given how little his jaw and tongue moved. Tony took a moment to consider that before dismissing it as just another bit of magical weirdness, probably the same reason the dragon could speak in the same sort of pitch he remembered from when it was human-shaped in Diagon Alley even though it had to have vocal cords as long as Tony's forearm at the moment.

More importantly, he could see the iron bar he'd improvised as a spreader to keep the dragon's mouth open straining against those few involuntary muscle movements, starting to give way. Tony shuddered. He'd better move this along, that bar wouldn't last much longer, and when it went, he'd be one twitch away from getting the world's worst haircut — right across the waist.

Was that bar starting to glow?

"OW!"

There! He'd finally managed to get the blasted thing loose, though he'd fallen back when it gave way. That was irritating. There he was, holding an arm bone longer than his leg — a lot longer, come to think of it — aloft triumphantly after the first sapient inter-species extraction, and he was doing so while flat on his arse in a puddle of dragon-drool. It painted an undignified sort of picture — though the air out here was blessedly cool in comparison to the dragon's jaws. Speaking of which, he looked up…

…and proceeded to work some moisture back into his suddenly dry mouth.

His stumble had come none too soon, it seemed. The sharp pain must have caused Harry's jaw to twitch a little too strongly, and his makeshift prop folded like a wet napkin. He'd probably have been suffering from at least a row of deep lacerations if not for that extremely fortunate tumble.

Bloody hell, had his patient just swallowed that iron bar?

"Daddy! Be careful!" his daughter yelped from where she was watching off to the side of the room safely wrapped up in Sharon's arms. His wife had made a beeline for her as soon as she'd heard the word 'troll' and seen the way their daughter twitched with each mention thereof. It was the reason the good Madame Pomfrey was currently serving as his vaguely hostile assistant.

"It's alright honey; I was clear before Harry's teeth got me, and I've just got to check for any debris and clean out the wound now. Open up again, there Mr. Potter, we're just about done," he reassured himself as much as his daughter. Just about done, indeed, then he could put this crazy situation behind him.

"Daddy! Honestly, can't you see that you're hurting poor Harry?" his daughter complained, throwing off his train of thought yet again. Poor Harry? Tony shot a dirty look at his wife, who was using their daughter's voluminous head of hair to smother a fit of giggles at the situation. He was the one who had just narrowly avoided death, and his daughter was concerned about his almost-killer's minor discomfort?

Bloody teenagers! God only knew how bad she'd be in a few years. Tony shook his head in disbelief. He knew it would happen eventually, but in his daughter's first year at boarding school? It was obvious, he'd already lost her to, well… to this Monster!

He sighed; Sharon's father had laughingly warned him of this when he'd brought Hermione home from the hospital, but he'd hoped he'd have at least a couple decades with his little girl before this happened. Though who'd have thought the man who took his daughter away would be the dragon from the fairy tale, rather than the knight?

No help for it, he supposed.

If he was going to make a habit of this, he'd have to invest in some better tools, he thought as Harry worked his jaw for a moment before opening back up as wide as he could. Honestly though, what sort of dental tools could hold up to use with a dragon of all things?

Centaurs, dragons, trolls, the fact that those things even existed was throwing him for a loop, and never mind being asked to extract a part of the latter from between the teeth of the second while the first hovered at the side of the room like a concerned parent. When he'd first encountered Suze in the Alley he'd been thrown, but he'd dismissed it as the magical world being weird. The weirdness had only really been driven home when he'd encountered it in his professional capacity.

"Just about done, Harry. Madame, could you rinse out the wound, please? I need to do one last check for any embedded splinters of bone, and then we'll let it heal naturally." As the witch stepped up with her wand, he considered the situation. Harry seemed like a decent sort, if a bit hyper, so that was good. All told, he supposed Hermione could have done worse for herself — he just wished it hadn't happened so bloody early! He turned back to the now-cleared wound to give it a final examination.

"All done then, Mr. Potter," he said, backing away and stripping off his heavy leather gloves.

"Thanks, Mr. Granger! And thank you Madame Pomfrey!" The woman in question gave him a friendly pat on the — ear, maybe? Tony wasn't really up on the naming conventions for dragon anatomy, but it was about as far up on the side of the reptile's head as the woman could conveniently reach — before walking towards another room with a deliberate stride that told Tony she had another patient to see. "That feels a lot better already," the dragon said, already prodding at the area with his man-sized tongue.

Tony took one look at that massive tongue before a horrible thought struck; he glanced over at his sweet not-quite-teenaged daughter, currently sheltered in her mother's arms, then back at that tongue and shuddered inwardly. No, not going to think about that, not at all! Instead he nodded in acknowledgement of his patient's thanks and set about removing the padded gambeson that the school's headmaster, the white-bearded fellow off in the corner, had conjured up out of thin air for him. "Happy to help, Mr. Potter. Thank you for saving my daughter from that troll."

"Of course," the dragon said happily. "She's my friend, so there was no way I wouldn't save her from getting devoured."

With the gambeson removed, and with it most of the dragon-drool, Tony found himself the target of a massive hug from his daughter as his wife picked up the after-orthodontia conversation.

"Now Harry, you really must remember to properly chew your food," Sharon smoothly lectured. "Getting food stuck into your gums like that could lead to an infection, and in this case particularly, could lead to an abscess, which are thoroughly unpleasant both to have and to treat." She was always better at this sort of thing while Tony was a mite better at the more finicky hand work. Their complementary abilities were part of the reason their practice worked so well. "Has this sort of thing happened to you before?"

"Only once," the dragon said, "but that was a driveshaft from that one little car I ate, and it was really pointy on the end. It's why Hagrid tries not to get Hyundai scrap anymore. That one wasn't such a problem, though, because the part that was stuck just melted. I'm not sure why the bone was so difficult."

"Drive-shaft?" Sharon's eyes narrowed, "Harry, apart from trolls and drive-shafts, what does your diet consist of? Are you getting plenty of calcium and fluoride in your diet? What about vegetables? Enough protein?"

With his arms still full of bushy-haired daughter, Tony looked at his wife incredulously. He'd always wondered just how much Sharon ran on autopilot during these discussions, and he supposed he now had an answer. Vegetables? With those teeth? Seriously, Sharon!

Harry, though, took her questions in stride, as — it was becoming increasingly apparent — he always did.

"Well, I'm not sure about the calcium and fluoride, 'cause I don't think they're usually used in steel, which is most of what I get from the scrapyard. I mean, they use limestone as a flux, but it gets skimmed off, so you don't get it in the scrap. Fair bit of aluminum and copper, too and little bits of other metals. I think the coal's got some sulfur and stuff in it, but I know the fuel oil's pretty light on minerals, 'cause it's refined a lot before I get it. Some of the rocks near my lair might have calcium and fluorides in them, though. I'll have to check," a head nearly as large as than the Granger family car nodded enthusiastically as Sharon's eyes grew wider and wider at the long list of not-normally-edible things the dragon was casually mentioning. "Um, on the vegetable stuff, I eat a lot of devil's snare, because it grows really fast and Professor Sprout always has extra around. It's like a sort of combination between mint and lemon, real tasty! I know there's lots of other magical plants which are real tasty, but I don't get 'em very often because they're kinda expensive."

The dragon frowned thoughtfully, and Tony couldn't help but wonder how he managed to be so expressive with such an alien face. "Maybe Professor Sprout would help me set up a greenhouse at my Lair so I could grow some more? That might be cool!" he said, obviously warming to the idea. "I'll have to ask. Um, and I eat lots of beef and pork and sheep and venison and bacon and other human-sorts-of-food at school, so there's that for protein. And roasted acromantulas are really tasty, too, but there aren't so many of those left, now," the dragon finished, almost regretfully.

Hermione had looked up during her friend's dissertation on his eating habits, and her eyes had gone almost as wide as her mother's, who was still struggling to process the unexpected responses to that very routine set of question.

Hah! Giggle at his near-death experience, would she? Now, Sharon was having the weirdness smack her in the face. She ought to be grateful she wasn't hip deep in the dragon's mouth when she was going through it! Then his daughter worked her way through what the dragon had been saying.

"Scrapyard? Devil's snare? Acromantula?" She sounded absolutely horrified. "Harry, those are giant spiders! What are you doing eating those? Those are dangerous, you might get hurt!"

Wait, what? Dangerous to the beast whose mouth he'd just been rooting around in? With those teeth?

What exactly was his daughter dealing with at this school anyway?

"Ah, Miss Granger, you seem to be laboring under a few misconceptions. Please calm yourself," a dark-haired man who had been silent to this point spoke up. "And Mrs. Granger, I feel I should clarify some things about your patient's biology in comparison to the human norm. Mr. Potter's body utilizes iron, copper, aluminum, titanium, gold, and numerous other metals in the same capacity yours or mine — or quite nearly any other creature aside from the drake-dog and certain magical plants, for that matter — uses carbon-based proteins. Technically speaking, iron is the basic building block on which his biology is built, displacing even water from its place as the primary medium for life-sustaining reactions. Carbon is used in some quantity, but the reactions are completely different from its uses within your physiology, serving mainly as an energy source with some utility as an alloying agent in his teeth and some regions of his scales," the man explained.

"His remarkable digestive tract is rather more like a living blast furnace than the acid and enzyme bath used by human-kind, though it does use some rather fascinating substances which manage to act as enzymes despite operating at a temperature sufficient to boil lead — ah, but I digress. On the subject of devil's snare, according to Mr. Potter, the plant tastes like a cross between parsley and lemon-mint; I believe it supplies certain trace minerals common to such plants in addition to a potent magical accelerant, which renders the species unsafe for human consumption but seems to be quite delicious to Mr. Potter's palate. As for the acromantula, Miss Granger, they are indeed giant spiders, and they are indeed extremely dangerous, but not to put too fine a point on it, so was the troll you encountered earlier today. Acromantula are approximately as threatening to Mr. Potter as a lobster in a grocer's tank is to you, and I have found that, properly grilled," at this, the man shot a pointed glance at the dragon in the room, who managed to look sheepish, "they are actually quite delicious, reminiscent of grilled shrimp basted in butter."

"Sorry, Professor Snape," the dragon apologized, "I didn't know you could get sick from eating undercooked acromantula."

"Harry, just what possessed you to try eating a giant spider rather than more… normal food?" Sharon asked, looking faintly nauseated.

"Well, for a start, they tried to pick on Suze's family," Harry explained as Suze nodded from her place at his side where she had managed to relocate while everyone else was busy discussing draconic gastronomy. "And then, well, I was kinda hungry, and there were a bunch of them just layin' around afterward, so I gave them a try, you know, like Mr. Slackhammer told me, 'Waste not, want not'. But I tried them, and they tasted good! Sort of like crunchy chicken in diesel — I think the diesel-taste is from the shell, because Mr. Snape didn't try that."

As Sharon tried to process that, the dragon continued. "I wish I'd known how tasty spiders were when they used to crawl all over me when I got sent to the cupboard when I was little," Harry remarked offhandedly as his form flowed back into that of the pre-teen boy they remembered from the alley several months previous, "then they would've been tasty instead of creepy."

"Why would you ever be put in a cupboard, Harry?" Sharon checked, her tone sharp. It seemed that with the boy back in a more relatable form, her training as a physician was coming back to the fore, and one thing physicians were trained to look out for — particularly with children — was abuse. Tony stifled a wince as he saw the tears brimming in the corners of his wife's eyes and the way her fingernails were biting into her palms. Sharon had always been one to get personally invested in such things too.

Her husband thought it was one of her better points — no matter how scary she was when she did so.

"Oh, they didn't really need me to do anything, doing better than Dudley on a quiz, or when the washing machine broke and needed fixing, or when I got blamed for Dudley nicking something from the corner shop. I always wondered what that stuff was about."

Sharon looked like she was about to wring someone's neck as soon as she found out who was to blame. Hermione was in a similar state, though she managed to make it look cute — it was entirely possible that Tony was biased. On a more serious note, he couldn't tell if this was an improvement over her earlier post-troll emotional state or not. Normally he'd ask Sharon, but she was unavailable at the moment. Even that Minerva McGonagall was looking rather murderous.

Were her pupils slitted?

"I mean, Uncle Vernon apologized in his letter, and he tried to explain, so I think I sorta get it now," Harry continued, oblivious to the feminine wrath building in the room. "He said that Aunt Petunia knew magical kids could do stuff accidentally, 'cause she grew up with my Mum, but she didn't know exactly how that stuff worked, so she just ended up blaming everything on me, 'cause why wouldn't she, if she knew I could've done it and there weren't no way for her to tell the difference? And Uncle Vernon wasn't home during the day, so he just took Aunt Petunia's word for it. So he tried to teach me proper, and for little kids that means punishments for doing bad things. Then since I didn't do the bad things in the first place, I didn't know what I was doin' wrong so nothin' changed, and it looked like it weren't working, so he got real frustrated and stuff. It really weren't nobody's fault, just one of those 'unfortunate misunderstanding' things."

The boy sighed, "At least me and Uncle Vernon and Dudley get on pretty good now — well, we write back and forth. Aunt Petunia still won't write — Uncle Vernon says she feels too guilty about how things happened. I don't really get Aunt Petunia sometimes…"

"So, you were placed with your Aunt and Uncle, but they were not informed of how to raise a magical child, so they had difficulties with it?" Sharon's voice sounded collected, but her eyes told a different story.

"I guess?"

"Did anyone ever check in on you?"

"Um, I dunno? I don't think so, but I don't remember too much about what happened back then, not like since I turned into a dragon."

"Do you know who placed you there?" Again, the kind voice was at sharp odds with the steel in Sharon's eyes. Hermione seemed to have caught on to her mother's train of thought as well and was looking cutely outraged. Tony was subtly edging towards the door. He wanted no part in the coming discussion.

Harry shook his head negatively.

"Na, bit ah ken," that faint Scottish burr Tony had always found quite charming about the woman who had introduced his daughter to magic by turning their coffee table into a pig — and thankfully, back again; he liked that coffee table — had thickened until it was nigh-impenetrable. "Albus, whit dae ye hae tae say fur yersel'?" This time, Snape was the one edging towards the door. He knew that tone all too well, and every time he heard it, it made him feel like a wet-behind-the-ears first-year all over again.

"Hmm?" the elderly man looked up from his reading. He had been busying himself with some of his usual headmaster-related busywork as he waited for Harry to be available to attempt to track the intruder's scent. "What was that, Minerva?"

"Why did you leave a magical baby with a non-magical family without explaining how magic worked?" Sharon explained, accusingly. "A situation which led to the child being abused!"

"Ah," Albus said in realization. "Yes, that was a major failing on my part. I will attempt to explain, but first, a time-sensitive matter." Ignoring the feminine outrage at his delay, he turned to the rapidly retreating Severus Snape. "Severus, our intruder is still at large; now that Harry is available, please escort him to Hagrid so that he might assist as much as he is able with our search for the person behind today's assault."

Harry perked up at the reminder, pulled away from his curious staring at the strangely behaving women.

Snape nodded, grateful for the excuse to leave, "Come along, Mr. Potter. It seems we still have work to do."

"Right!' Harry said, heading for the door with Suze trailing along.

Tony took the chance to sneak out with them.

2.7.7 Grave discussions

Harry couldn't help but wonder what was going on as he left the Infirmary. Hermione, her mum, and Mrs. McGonagall had been acting so weird. There was a voice that sounded like it was just a bit short of yelling about something or other, but it shut off with a sort of squelching noise and an odd flash — to his eyes, no one else's — as the door closed. This room had another one of those silencing thingies like Mr. Flitwick had put on the room where he was supposed to go if he got really hungry again. He couldn't tell if that voice that got cut off was Hermione or her mum, they sounded pretty similar.

It must be great to have a mum.

Well, he did have a mum, but she got killed by that Voldemort guy, so he couldn't talk to her and stuff. Come to think of it, didn't they put people who'd been killed in boxes and then bury 'em somewhere so you could go visit with 'em and remember 'em and stuff?

"Mr. Snape?"

"What?"

"You knew my mum, right?" Harry asked. At the man's nod, he continued, "I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a mum when I heard Hermione and her mum together, and it got me thinking. When people get killed they get buried in boxes in a special sort of place and stuff, right?"

"That is correct, Mr. Potter," the potions master explained in a rather softer than normal tone of voice. "A deceased person is generally buried in a box called a coffin on a small plot of land called a grave within a designated area called a graveyard. The graves are usually marked in one manner or another as well, wizards traditionally use carved stones called, rather unimaginatively, gravestones."

"Okay, um… I was wondering, do you know where my Mum is buried? I think I'd like to go see sometime. And Dad too, come to think of it."

"Yes," Snape said seriously, "as it so happens, I do know where she is buried, in Godric's Hollow. As is customary for married couples, both of your parents are buried in adjacent plots, so a single trip will take you to see both graves. I will see to it that you make such a journey as soon as is practical — it is important to know where you come from."

"Thanks, Mr. Snape."

"You are most welcome, Mr. Potter. For now, however, we must attempt to search out the culprit behind today's troll infestation."

"Right!" He did have something important to do, didn't he? The poo-head who had set those trolls on everybody was still around, and he needed to help try to find him. "I'm supposed to be following from where Celestine spotted the guy, right?"

"That is correct."

"Then wouldn't it be faster for me to fly on over and ask him where he saw the guy. I mean, the other students are all asleep now, right? So, there shouldn't be anyone to see me."

"I suspect that there are many still awake after the eventful evening. You would be hard-pressed to avoid detection now, particularly under the full moon. We will meet Hagrid at the front doors, and he will take you the rest of the way."

"Oh," Harry said, disappointedly. As he had noted multiple times in the past — waiting was hard.

The rest of the walk was quite quiet

2.7.8 A sinking feeling

Tony watched as the boy-who-was-actually-a-dragon and his pet centaur jogged to keep up with the extremely large and hairy man who met them at the main door of the castle. Why on earth did the first boy his daughter had shown an interest in have to be so completely immune to fatherly intimidation?

What horrible crime had he committed to deserve that?

The irritated father sighed, there was no profit in getting all worked up about it, he supposed. Judging by how she'd reacted before they left the infirmary, trying would just see Hermione furious with him anyway.

"So, I gather the troll that attacked my daughter was brought into the school by someone," he began, asking the sallow-complexioned man whose name was apparently Snape.

"That is correct, per the report of a centaur patrol which spotted the intruder leading four trolls with him," Snape replied.

Tony considered that for a moment, "If a centaur patrol saw them, they why didn't they take care of the issue themselves? Seems like a patrol ought to be armed, and, judging by Miss Suze; three or four of them should have been able to deal with most anything, I'd think."

"Ah, Miss Suze's customary armament is not representative of centaurs as a whole; rather it was acquired by Mr. Potter through his contacts at Gringotts. Sadly, despite the ongoing efforts of Miss Suze's uncle Ronan, the pinnacle of centaur weapons technology remains the recurved short-bow, and while their craftsmanship is superb, they lack the stopping power to deal with even a single troll, much less a group of four backed by a wizard."

"Really? I'd think they could get a pretty impressive draw strength on one of those bows, judging by Suze's size and musculature." Archery was a hobby of his. "With three or four firing from concealment, they should have at least been able to disable the trolls, I'd reckon."

"You seem to underestimate the lethality of a troll, Mr. Granger, despite recently extracting the arm-bone of one from our young dragon's teeth," Snape countered. "That bone — which had it been intact, would have been nearly two-thirds your height — came from the troll's forearm. The entire beast is a humanoid engine of destruction, nearly half again the height of Hagrid, the Groundskeeper currently leading Mr. Potter on his search, and perhaps five times his mass. They customarily carry clubs constructed from felled trees — the one that almost ate your daughter carried one comprised of a section of oak trunk as thick as your waist and twice your height — and they can swing them fast enough to take your head off before you fully register the movement."

"Worse yet, they are covered in a thick gray hide sufficient to turn anything which would be unable to penetrate well-made steel-plate armor, and their muscles are quite nearly as hard as the wood comprising their clubs. I am given to understand that firing an arrow into them is rather like doing the same to a large tree. Arrows are useless unless fired from a ballista, or perhaps the crossbow that my colleague, Hagrid, carries. Even for centaurs, with their rather imposing size, close combat with a troll is suicide. Worse yet, the beasts emit a toxic stench, contact with which will cause any open wounds to develop a thoroughly unpleasant infection which is quite difficult to treat, thus even successful close combat with a troll often proves ultimately lethal. Then there was the backing wizard to deal with…"

He shook his head in dismissal. "No, our neighbors were kind enough to deliver a warning, which was far more generous than we had any reason to expect."

"And there were four of those things here?" Tony asked in a choked voice. "With Hermione?"

"Miss Granger encountered only a single troll," Snape clarified. "The others ran afoul of certain security measures located on the third floor."

"Oh, just one horrifying plague-ridden murder-beast," Tony snarked, "I feel so very much better about this situation."

Snape said nothing — of course, it didn't really warrant a reply.

A few moments passed as the pair stared out into the darkened courtyard before the worried father hit upon another question. "You mentioned that the centaur's warning was 'more generous than you had any reason to expect' — why is that? I mean, I'd think that you'd let your neighbors know about that sort of thing as a matter of course."

"Ah, that is an unpleasant topic — most unpleasant," Snape grimaced in the manner of someone attempting to find the appropriate words to deliver some thoroughly ugly news. "I believe Minerva was the one to inform you of your daughter's magical talents. Am I mistaken in that belief?"

At the answering confirmation, Snape continued, "My colleague has the unfortunate habit of painting things in the best possible light, and her description of our world is no different. To put it bluntly, the wizarding world is a brutish and exceptionally scary place where might is the first and final arbiter of right, and it is largely inhabited by unutterable bastards who would not piss on a burning orphan unless they could see an immediate profit in doing so."

Snape paused to take a calming breath.

"More to the point, among wizards, oppression and exploitation are the normal state of affairs, with the strong taking whatever they can manage from anyone the can overcome, extort, or swindle. Non-human sapient persons such as centaurs are easy targets. For better or for worse, centaurs in particular have little that anyone wants, and are thus generally treated as filthy animals unworthy of interacting with so-called 'decent' folk," the potions master scoffed. "There is something horribly wrong with any so-called civilization in which a being capable of speech — and in fact quite civilized, such as that wretched lizard's pet centaur — is considered an uncontrolled wild animal."

Snape shook his head at the idea before continuing, "It is therefore quite unexpected that our forest neighbors would bother to relay a warning at all, instead of sitting back to enjoy the schadenfreude. I suspect, in truth, that the warning was delivered solely because of Mr. Potter's alliance with the Clan and his known fondness for certain individuals within the castle."

This was sounding worse and worse to Tony Granger. Just what sort of hellhole had his precious daughter gotten herself mixed up in? As the concerned father was trying to work out just what he should ask, the potions master continued to elaborate.

"Other species have suffered much worse than the centaurs. I am sure you are familiar with the goblins, for instance. Extraordinarily attuned with earth in a way unmatched by any since the stone-men of legend, they were, until less than a century ago, kept as an enslaved nation and forced to mine and craft riches for their wizard overlords — when they weren't being harvested for potions ingredients, that is. That state was only changed through the application of copious amounts of violence at the end of the nineteenth century. Veela were in a similar situation prior to winning their own autonomy — also through violence — nearly a millennium ago."

"Veela?" Tony was unfamiliar with that name, unlike the centaurs and goblins.

"Veela are a universally female race, believed to be descended from nymphs and possessed of a surpassingly strong control of the element of fire. As they also uniformly possess a superlative beauty and innate magics intimately tied to sexuality, I assume I need not elaborate on the sorts of depravities to which they were subjected."

The dentist's nauseated expression gave Snape all the confirmation he needed.

Snape laughed, a bitter, mocking sort of sound, "No, the wizarding world is not a nice place, and perhaps the worst of it was saved for our own kind."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked, though he had a horrible idea that he knew exactly what Snape meant.

"In addition to vulnerability, the sorts of monsters that infest the wizarding world seek utility. Goblins were enslaved for their talents as miners and craftsmen, veela for the sorts of depravities vulnerable women have been subjected to since time immemorial; centaurs, on the other hand, were simply driven into the outskirts then left mostly alone, because the monsters who did so saw little other utility in them. There is one species, however, that is of greater utility to wizards than any other…"

"Their own."

Yep, that is exactly what Tony had been afraid he was about to hear. "I have a bad feeling about this…"

"Rightly so, and it will only get worse from here on out. Wizarding industry relies almost exclusively on the labor of magical craftsmen, and magical labor does not come cheap," Snape sneered. It was a disturbingly natural-looking expression on the man's face. "It is distressingly common to find vulnerable magical children — and those born to non-magical parents such as your daughter are the most vulnerable of all — disappeared from the streets only to show up in 'contract labor'." The sallow-skinned man practically bit off the term. "The institution is effectively slavery in all but name, where they will then be forced to work for no pay until they die or are 'repurposed' for more sinister roles. Most support the manufacturing industry, but a fair number are funneled into those roles which were previously fulfilled by the veela." The man's dark eyes flashed with tightly controlled rage. "Between compulsions and mind-magics, they will even do so to all appearances willingly — denied even the basic freedom to bemoan their fate. Worse yet are the ones destined for supplying the black-market for ritual components…" At this Snape trailed off, shuddering.

Tony Granger considered that for a moment before his thoughts turned to outrage. "Why didn't she tell us about this? That, that… woman, led us to believe that this was a wonderful opportunity for our little girl, not some… Orwellian dystopia full of monsters in human skin!"

"To be fair to Minerva," Snape said, "I have seen more of the dark side of things in my life than she, due to my own regrettable choices. She has never had the misfortune of encountering the evidence that I have, and much is the sort of thing one is reluctant to believe of one's fellow men if not seen first-hand. She knows things are bad, but she remains optimistic."

His tone turned darker, "Then there is the other side of the coin to consider. Your daughter was already known to the wizarding world, and as an intelligent, fertile Hogwarts-aged witch, she would make a prime catch for the markets. It is the sad truth that I would fully expect her to have been snatched up within weeks of your refusal, had you been unwise enough to reject the Hogwarts offer. She would be subjected to a fate which I will not force you to hear spoken of, while you and your wife would either be dead, if the kidnappers were lazy, or left with no memory of ever having a daughter and under compulsion to have more children for them to take later, if they were not."

Tony was still struggling to find his voice when the dark-haired man continued. "By enrolling in Hogwarts, however, law and custom places her under the protection of the Hogwarts Headmaster and her Head of House, respectively, during her schooling. Few are those who would risk the wrath of Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. It is not ideal, but she will have a much better chance of defending herself with a Hogwarts education under her voluminous head of hair and another seven years to improve herself."

"Those born to non-magical families are some of the most vulnerable members of our sick, twisted facsimile of a society, and it is always the most vulnerable who pay the highest price, Mr. Granger. Those who do not find patronage tend to disappear quite quickly to truly unenviable fates."

"Why shouldn't we just run, go to America or something?" Tony was grasping at straws at this point.

"And where would you go, Mr. Granger?" there was that mocking laugh again. Tony was really starting to hate that laugh. "Britain, festering cesspit that it is, is one of the most progressive polities in the Wizarding World. Our unfortunates are caught up in 'contract labor' because slavery has been outlawed since 1963, nonmagical persons such as yourself are legally considered persons under our laws since 1920, and the centaurs are left mostly to their own devices because hunting them for sport has become unfashionable in recent years — all through the efforts of our esteemed Headmaster. Most other nations are not so fortunate."

"The Confederacy, our neighbors across the Atlantic — a direct descendant of the Haudenosaunee Nation, rather than the non-magical colonies you are no-doubt familiar with — are some of the best, it is true, but they are insular and clannish to an absurd degree. If you are not negotiating on behalf of a large group — causing you to be directed to the central council — then you will be subjected to whatever the local tribes decide to do with you. Some will be kind, some will not, and there is no way to tell which beforehand. Most other magical nations in the world are far worse."

"Trolls, giant spiders, dragons, slave markets… Look, Professor. Sharon and I, we know next to nothing about… about this world, and by God, it scares the Hell out of me! I just don't want Hermione to get even more entangled in all of this."

"If you were not scared, I would despair for your intelligence, Tony, but quite frankly, your best opportunity for keeping your daughter safe lies in her becoming quite inextricably 'entangled' — to use your term — with the young dragon you just so capably treated."

"If this world is so bloody ugly, Professor, then why the hell should I let my daughter wallow even deeper in it?" Tony demanded. "I'm her father! I'm supposed to be looking out for my daughter's best interests! I'm supposed to protect her!" He buried his face in his hands and mumbled, "How am I supposed to protect her when she's off facing danger in a place I can't even follow?"

"Even if you did pull her back now, the only elements of this world that would respect your decision are those about whom you need not worry in any case. Your daughter is involved now, and she has been since she had her first episode of accidental magic; there is no way to extricate her safely," Snape laid the situation out mercilessly, though not unkindly. "Given that, what exactly do you expect to be able to do to protect your daughter when the government in general and the individuals in power in specific regard those of us with non-magical parentage as barely worthy of the term 'human'? The phrases bandied about are 'mudblood' or 'muggle-born', and I apologize for having used either within your hearing as both are quite disgusting epithets."

"And how is staying in that situation any better for my daughter?" Tony snarled.

"It is the safest path forward," Snape calmly insisted. "You were apparently not listening when I outlined this previously, therefore I will reiterate: there is nowhere to run. Your daughter's options are to seek powerful patronage and with it powerful protection, to learn enough to become too powerful for any to oppose her, to learn enough to hide herself away as a hermit for the rest of her days, or to accept the inevitable and give up. I firmly hold the latter two options to be unacceptable, and the second is likely unfeasible for Miss Granger — her magical strength is insufficient for that path unless she were to delve into truly horrific arts. However, your daughter is already well on her way to obtaining the first."

"You mean Harry?" the dentist scoffed. "How is he in any better position? And for that matter, why would he help?"

"Yes, I do mean Harry," Snape confirmed. "As to how he is in a better position to protect your daughter than you are yourself, there are several reasons. Firstly, although you seem to have somehow managed to put the fact out of your mind despite having spent the better part of an hour hip deep in his mouth, he is an excitable seventy-ton dragon able to bite through a car with the same effort you or I would use to bite through a biscuit. Secondly, although he is still underaged and therefore lacks most of the attendant influence, he is the patriarch and sole surviving member of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, and as such he has… certain political and legal immunities and benefits. Thirdly, he is quite admirably protective of anyone he considers a friend. Fourthly, he is the only creature ever known to have survived being struck by the Killing Curse, the flat-out deadliest spell known to wizard-kind. Fifthly, he is almost sickeningly good natured; the only thing I can categorically say I dislike about him is his habit of rampantly chattering away at a mile-a-minute. Aside from his frequent babbling, he is a surprisingly tolerable child, and I do not as a rule like children, so that is saying something. And sixthly, I have watched that boy dismember an acromantula the size of a small cottage for having the temerity to threaten one of his friends. I have absolutely no doubt that any being that dared to pose a threat to one of his own would meet a similarly ignominious end."

"…and you think he'd have a go at anyone who had a go at Hermione?"

"Think? Mr. Granger, he bodily devoured an adult mountain troll because it attacked your daughter. Remember? The reason you are here at this time?"

"Ah, yeah," Tony acknowledged sheepishly.

He must have gotten really worked up to have forgotten that particular gem.

The two men lapsed into silence for a few moments, staring out into the darkness of the front courtyard as they waited for Harry to return with results in his search.

"What's with those 'acro-mantula' things?" Tony eventually asked. "You've mentioned them several times now."

"Acromantulas are a species of giant arachnid," Snape explained. "They treat any creature less than twice their size, human beings included, as prey. Their origins are obscure, but it is known they did not evolve naturally. The leading theory is that they were part of a botched experiment, much like the duck-billed platypus; though I suppose it is possible that they may have been created intentionally. Wizards have made worse things — after all, basilisks and nundu exist."

The potions master shook his head in disgust at the idea before continuing, "In any event, the original instigator of the mess is unknown, and will likely remain so, thus the intention behind that particular bit of idiocy will remain a mystery. When hatched, acromantula are the size of a large man's hand and are able to prey upon species as large as the common housecat. As they age, they grow continuously. The largest known specimen was approximately eight yards long in body, with legs of similar length. They are clever — the largest are capable of speech — quick, ruthless, and utterly voracious predators."

As Snape paused to take a breath, Tony let out an awed whistle.

"Quite," the potions master acknowledged with a nod. "Their silk is immensely strong, with a tensile strength which remains unmeasured to my knowledge due to lack of equipment sufficiently strong to test it to failure. The diameter of the strands limits its value for the textile industry, as depending on the producing spider's size, it can range from the thickness of a dandelion stem up to the thickness of a human finger. However, I do understand that the centaurs use the silk extensively for producing exceptionally strong rope. The venom, on the other hand, is an ingredient in several remarkably versatile potions. Although deadly in all but the most minute of doses, if administered in sufficiently dilute quantities it is part of the simplest treatments for collywobbles and the dragon pox. In a less dilute form, it is excellent as an active ingredient in metal-polishing potions designed for magically-active metals like gold and mithril."

"They sound like they could be useful," Tony offered.

"Indeed, they can be," Snape agreed, "though the damage they cause to the local ecosystem within their territorial range is extensive and generally exceeds the benefit of availability of their potions reagents. In this area alone, they are primarily responsible for the extinction of at least twelve native species and endangering a further twenty-seven, four of which are the source of truly unique reagents. Until that dratted dragon came into the picture, the only things preventing them from boiling out of that forest like a plague of elephant-sized locusts were the typically low wintertime temperatures of this area and a hard-fought defensive action over some fifty years on the part of the local centaur clan."

Tony thought for a moment, "I bet there'd be a way to captive-breed them, you know, to milk their silk and venom."

"It has been done, primarily by removing their limbs; however, they are quite capable of regenerating amputated limbs in a matter of days, and strict vigilance is therefore paramount." Snape shrugged. "Personally, I am of the opinion that your kind, non-magical humans, are best suited to contain and control those brutes, but those in position of authority have other ideas."

Just as Tony was considering that, Harry jogged back into the light, accompanied by Suze.

"Hey, Mr. Snape, Mr. Granger, Hagrid took me over to where the trolls came in, but I couldn't make anything out from the smell, sorry," the dragon reported apologetically. "It just smelled like troll. We did find out they came in through the lake-side gate, though, and they took the north stairwell, if that helps."

"I see, thank you for your efforts, Mr. Potter," Snape said. "I shall relay your findings to the Headmaster."

"Right! Um, I'm going to go back to the Lair and get somethin' to eat, now. Do you think you can let Hermione know I'll be by to see her tomorrow?"

"I'll do that, Harry," Tony volunteered as the young dragon thanked him then jogged off towards the tree-line, centaur damsel in tow.

Best to be on good terms with his daughter's new protector, he supposed.

2.7.9 Night terrors

The infirmary was dark and silent but for the muted ticking of the clock above the door and the occasional whine of the wind past the windows. Although Hermione had avoided injury, Madame Pomfrey had offered her a bed for the night to spare her the late-night trip through the castle after her ordeal. The clock had quietly struck midnight half an hour ago, and her parents had left an hour before that, but Hermione was still awake despite her exhaustion.

She could not sleep; there was still too much to think about.

She had almost died that evening. Her thoughts kept circling around that truth, unable to leave it be.

She had almost died in a bloody school bathroom, eaten by a troll, and she had managed to avoid that fate not through the intervention of the teachers, not through her own skills and grit and intelligence, not even by chance… no, she had survived because her friend came to save her and happened to be able to turn into a bloody dragon!

This bloody wizarding world was mental!

Hermione had been slowly adjusting to the idea that the wizarding world was a very different place than she was used to. Beyond the fairy-tale aesthetics and the wonders of magic, there were different standards for personal behavior and different acceptable levels of personal danger. That giant gray monster, though… that thing had driven home just how different things were, and Hermione was still trying to process that.

It seemed the wizarding world was a Grimm Brothers fairy tale rather than Disney adaptation Professor McGonagall had described all those months ago.

Hermione could sort-of deal with her friend turning into a dragon. After all, Professor McGonagall could turn into a cat, as she'd demonstrated in their first transfiguration class what seemed like ages ago, so turning into a dragon didn't seem too far-fetched. Hermione figured that was just another wrinkle in her relationship with Harry. He hadn't told her before, but he seemed eager to talk about it after she'd found out…

…and the boy had saved her life.

She supposed she could cut Harry some slack on not telling her he could turn into a dragon, especially if he had some trouble staying in human form at times. She figured that'd be pretty embarrassing to talk about. A weird animagus form was hardly something to get worked up over, not in comparison to almost getting eaten…

…and there she was, back to the troll!

She shivered, despite the charmed infirmary blanket.

Hermione hadn't felt safe since Harry had left the room on that errand for the Headmaster. She'd managed to put it out of her mind for a while by going along with her mother and Professor McGonagall when they chewed out Headmaster Dumbledore — she blushed at the memory; what had she been thinking, chewing out the Headmaster? — but as soon as that passed, she'd been shivering periodically in a state just short of terror. Despite that, she'd managed to put on a brave front for her parents; she didn't want them to worry when they got home.

Her dad had passed on a message from Harry that he'd be coming to see her in the morning, and she was looking forward to it, and to the feeling of safety she'd come to associate with her savior. As long as Harry was with her, no weird magical monster was going to be able to jump out of nowhere and eat her.

"Harry would eat it first!" she whispered to the room at large, trying to convince herself she would be safe.

Now she just had to hold out until morning, alone in the dark, quiet infirmary, with nothing to read to take her mind off things — just her and her increasingly brittle thoughts.

It would be another three long hours before exhaustion finally managed to drag Hermione into a still-fitful slumber.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.8 Winning friends and influencing people

---

2.8.1 In which a wellness check is performed

The new day dawned bright and sunny, and Poppy took a moment to enjoy the pleasant scenery through one of the infirmary windows before she turned back to her twice-hourly check on Miss Abercrombie's condition. The girl's health had been stable and progressing normally, but that could change at any moment.

Troll sepsis was a thoroughly unpleasant malady.

The other patient currently under her care was in much better condition. Miss Granger was sleeping — not particularly peacefully, true — but sleeping, nonetheless. The monitoring charms indicated the poor girl hadn't fallen asleep until well into the wee morning hours, and Poppy could well imagine the thoughts and fears keeping her awake that night.

Mental trauma was always problematic, and it was not something magic had ever been developed to cure. For that matter, there was widespread doubt among the Healing community that such magic should ever be developed. Any spell that could do so would essentially allow the detailed editing of another person's mind. The potential for abuse was even greater than that of the abomination known as the obliviation charm.

In any event, all Poppy could offer was a warm bed and a safe room for the girl. Miss Granger would just have to work through things herself.

As she thought that, the Infirmary door quietly swung open revealing Mr. Potter in his human form — it had taken ages to get him to remember to open that door quietly, as she recalled — and with him, another treatment option for Miss Granger. Friends were almost always a good idea in these sorts of situations.

"Good morning, Mr. Potter," the Healer greeted her guest.

"'Morning, Madame Pomfrey!" he replied with a broad smile. "Is Hermione around, still?"

Poppy nodded and gestured toward the appropriate bed where the bushy-haired girl's eyes had snapped open at the sound of her friend's voice, despite her still-sleepy state. The school Healer watched, amused, as the girl practically apparated out of her bed and attached herself to the young dragon like a limpet mumbling something too low for the Healer to hear.

A good idea, indeed.

Eventually the girl seemed to realize she was still in her clothes from the previous day, and she had not had a chance to bathe since the previous morning. Miss Granger broke off from her embrace with her new friend to scamper off to her dorm to take a shower. Poppy chuckled. She would be fine — eventually.

"Um, Madame Pomfrey?" Harry asked after his bushy-haired friend had left the room.

"Yes?"

"How's Abigail doing?"

"Miss Abercrombie is progressing well. I fully expect her to regain consciousness within the next three to four days, as is normal for troll sepsis when properly treated."

"Huh. Do you think you can let me know when she wakes up?"

"Why do you need to know that Mr. Potter?" Poppy asked.

"Well," Harry began, looking uncertain for once, "I feel kinda bad about how a bit of rubble hit her when I broke the wall, and I wanted to apologize."

"I see. Well, I am technically not supposed to release the details of another student's medical treatments," Poppy began. As Harry's face fell, she continued, "but I can certainly ask her if she would be amenable to meeting with you when she wakes up."

"Do you think she would?" Harry asked, brightening.

"I am almost certain of it, Mr. Potter," Poppy assured him. "Now, off to breakfast with you!"

As she watched the young dragon leave through the doors of her domain, Poppy cracked a broad smile she had been suppressing since she had heard Harry's reasoning for wanting to meet with Miss Abercrombie. As if the girl wouldn't want to meet with him!

Yes, she was injured, but she was injured by a shard from one of the thick stone walls the boy shattered in the process of protecting her from the troll that was trying to eat her. That was not the sort of thing likely to inspire dislike.

The Healer chuckled aloud as she turned to her morning routine in the infirmary. If Harry were any older, she would rather expect Miss Abercrombie to snog the living daylights out of him after hearing his apology. As it was, well, she suspected that Miss Abercrombie's interest would be quite firmly engaged.

At their age, five years was a significant gap, but a few years out of Hogwarts… well, a few years out of Hogwarts that difference would be effectively nothing. It would all hinge on whether the interest waxed or waned in the meantime, and the boy had just saved Miss Abercrombie's life in a particularly dramatic manner.

And some things, well… for good or for ill, some things you don't put behind you in just a month or two.

2.8.2 Return to normalcy

In the aftermath of the troll attack, the campus quickly returned to normalcy. Meals were served on schedule, classes resumed without fanfare, and students quickly fell back into their habitual behaviors. With the rigid institutional silence on the matter, memories of the troll attack quickly took on a fuzzy and dreamlike air.

Removing the Halloween decorations from the Great Hall helped this along immensely. For all but three of the students, the Great Hall was the setting for all the excitement, and the Hall during Halloween was almost unrecognizable in comparison to the Hall during the rest of the year.

In the nonmagical world, that sort of information control might be considered an art, but in the magical world… in the magical world, that sort of thing was a matter of engineering, routine engineering at that.

Hufflepuff met Harry's return with much warmth and concern, and Susan and Hannah were particularly glad to learn that Hermione had emerged unscathed, though the rest of the House was not far behind. The tale of the Slytherin Prefect who had insisted on accompanying their wayward member attempting to save a Gryffindor firstie at great personal risk was met with a great deal of admiration and concern at her condition.

Most of the House hadn't been aware that there existed Slytherins so altruistic.

However, even more than the concern, the tale was initially met with disbelief. Harry claimed to have punched out the troll and then ripped it in half. Blind loyalty could only carry them so far in accepting Harry's word. After investigating the relevant hallway and finding the walls reduced to rubble and House Elves in protective gear scrubbing away at a blood stain the size of their common room, however, that disbelief shifted firmly to amazement.

Harry's reputation quickly gained a decidedly intimidating edge among the Hufflepuffs.

By way of contrast, House Gryffindor's reaction to the events of Halloween was comparatively lackluster. Hermione's suspicious absence during the excitement was hardly noted upon. When she showed up none the worse for wear the next day, the prefects quietly marked down her safe return, and that was that. Not even her roommates commented on it.

This did nothing to improve Hermione's disposition.

Her own House had barely remarked on her near murder. There was not a single peep, even from the girls she shared a room with, ones who certainly would have known of her absence during the night. The contrast with the Hufflepuffs was stark. Susan and Hannah had sought her out between classes and positively gushed over her before dragging her off to the Sett where she was greeted by warmth and concern from all comers, even those members of the House she hadn't met yet.

It was almost enough to make her break down in tears yet again.

Almost, but not quite.

Instead, the next few days saw Hermione clinging even more tightly to Harry's side, even going so far as to shadow him when word came from Madame Pomfrey that Miss Abercrombie was once again conscious.

2.8.3 Miserable morning

Abigail felt utterly miserable as she clawed her way back to consciousness. Her body was achy and weak; her skin was overly sensitive, preventing her from resting comfortably no matter how she contorted herself; her stomach was vaguely unsettled; her nightgown was plastered to her body with sweat while she was simultaneously shivering with chills; and to top it all off, she felt both insatiably hungry and disgusted at the very thought of food — at the same time.

She was, without any shadow of a doubt, sicker than she had even imagined it was possible to be while not being on the verge of death.

So, when Madame Pomfrey quietly opened the door and asked her how she was feeling, Abigail said as much.

"I had no idea it was possible to feel this bad."

"Good!" the healer said in a disgustingly cheery voice. "That means you're coming along nicely; troll sepsis is a thoroughly unpleasant condition, Miss Abercrombie. You're doing quite well to recover consciousness after only three days!"

Well, that was something, Abigail supposed. "How much longer?"

"I believe you should be up and about within another five days, seven at the outside," came the reply. "Though you will feel just as miserable as you do now until that point." The healer gave an apologetic shrug, "There's no helping it."

Ugh.

As Madame Pomfrey bustled her way out of the private treatment room, Abigail's thoughts turned back to the incident that led to her current misery. There had been a troll in the school, and she had been trying to retrieve a student safely before it found her. She had failed.

And as a consequence of that failure, that troll had almost killed her.

She shivered at the memory, not that anyone would be able to tell in between all the shivering due to the chills wracking her body from her illness. That was the closest she had ever come to death; she could still remember every detail of the bark on that troll club just inches away from her face before it was batted away almost negligently by Harry Potter's magic, magic so intense that she could feel it sliding along her skin.

She shivered again at the memory — for different reasons this time.

She had known he was powerful, but that… that was absurd. The first-year had just been batted through a stone wall. There was no way he had held on to his wand through that, much less kept the presence of mind to cast properly, so blocking that club had to have been done wandlessly, and that sort of acceleration was impressive in any situation, much less one with such a handicap. Just how powerful was that kid? And that was at eleven! How strong would he be when he was fully grown?

And what would he be like then? Hmm…

Before she could go too far down that path of speculation, Abigail's body reminded her with another wave of nausea that it was in no condition to entertain her usual flights of fancy. Right. Not the time for that now, she supposed. What else did she remember from that night?

The wall Harry had been batted through had practically exploded into the hallway when something burst out of it and punched the troll away, and then she remembered staring into that big green eye again, this time full of warmth and concern directed her way rather than mild annoyance — and wasn't that an improvement over that first time on the train…

…again, not the time, Abigail.

Unfortunately, it seemed that warm green eye was all she could remember before she lost consciousness.

Wait, what happened to the girl they had gone to save? Was she okay? For that matter, was Harry? Sure, he was powerful, but he did get put through a stone wall at the very least, and then he expended all that magic saving her. Did he have the reserves to absorb that much damage and power expenditure without a problem?

"Madame Pomfrey?" Abigail called.

"Yes?" The Healer popped her head back through the doorway.

"Are Potter and…" the prefect's face screwed up in thought for a moment as she tried to recall the girl's name, "Granger, wasn't it? —anyway, are they okay?"

Madame Pomfrey smiled warmly. "Yes, both of them are just fine. Mr. Potter dealt with the troll handily, and neither suffered any injuries."

"How?" At the Healer's curious look, Abigail elaborated, "How did Potter deal with the troll? I mean, he's a firstie. I know he's strong, but what did he do to deal with that thing?"

"I believe he punched it through a stone wall," Pomfrey explained, "and then he tore it in half when it tried to get back up."

"He killed that thing without using magic?"

"Yes," Madame Pomfrey seemed rather amused at her disbelief. "He is a rather formidable young lad, isn't he?"

Abigail was at a loss for words, her jaw soundlessly working as she tried to wrap her head around that idea. After allowing the Slytherin girl to cogitate for a few moments, the Healer went on, "Speaking of Mr. Potter, he has expressed a desire to speak with you when you are available."

That pulled Abigail out of her spiral of incredulity. "Why does he want to speak with me?"

"I gather that he wishes to apologize for accidentally causing your head injury when he punched the troll through a stone wall after it tried to club you to death." The Healer chuckled, "He seems to feel quite guilty about the whole affair. It's rather cute really."

"Why would he feel guilty about that?" Abigail asked, frowning in puzzlement. "He saved my life, and despite how unpleasant I feel now, it's infinitely better than being dead."

"You would have to ask him," she returned. "Would you like me to let him know you are awake?"

Abigail considered that for a moment. On the one hand, she did not feel up to entertaining visitors at this point, much less her kind-of-sort-of-maybe-eventually crush. On the other hand, he did save her life, and she did owe him for that. If he was feeling that bad about it… well, there was really only one thing she could do to help at this point.

"Yes, please."

2.8.4 Unwarranted apologies and new friends

Harry was nervous as he approached the door to the infirmary.

He'd managed to accidentally hurt someone, just like he'd been terrified of doing back after that incident with the deer. He'd been trying to save her from that troll — and he'd succeeded — but Abigail had still gotten hurt because of what he'd done, and he had promised himself that he wouldn't do that to anyone.

Now he had broken that promise, and Harry was finding the resultant state highly unsatisfactory.

The only possible fix he could think of was apologizing to the person he'd hurt and hope she'd forgive him. It was the first time Harry had felt the need to apologize for something serious, and that sort of thing was difficult no matter who you were. For this reason, he paused long enough to take a deep breath before opening the infirmary door.

Nervous he might have been, but Harry remained Harry. There were limits to how much he would allow himself to concede to anxiety — limits which usually fell at the point just before it might inconvenience him — better just to forge ahead.

"Hello there, Mr. Potter," came the greeting from Madame Pomfrey as she noted who had entered her domain. "And Miss Granger? Did you come with Mr. Potter or for another matter?"

Hermione had been shadowing him for the past few days whenever they were not in classes and he was in the castle. In the process her presence had become so ubiquitous that Harry hadn't even consciously realized that she was with him while he was walking to the infirmary.

"I'm just here with Harry, Madame Pomfrey," the girl answered.

"I see," the Healer acknowledged. "Well, Mr. Potter, are you here to see Miss Abercrombie?"

"Yeah."

"Very well, I will see if she is feeling well enough for visitors," she acknowledged before disappearing once more into the treatment room.

"Harry," Hermione asked, "why do you look so nervous?"

It was a question that had been gnawing her for some time now. 'Harry' and 'trepidation' didn't fit together in her mind.

"Well, I just need to apologize for Abigail getting her hurt when I broke that wall, and it's the first time I ever had to apologize for something serious like that," Harry explained. "You know, I apologized all the time for stuff like accidentally breaking something or asking questions out of turn or stuff like that, but this is the first time I ever had to apologize for something actually important."

Hermione considered that for a moment. "I don't think she's going to be very mad about that. It was an accident, and you did if while saving her from the troll. I'd think that would count for a lot more than accidentally hitting her head with a rock."

"Maybe," Harry allowed, doubtfully.

Before Hermione could say anything else, Madame Pomfrey returned.

"Miss Abercrombie is ready to see you, Mr. Potter," the woman said. "Miss Granger, if you could wait there, Miss Abercrombie is still not feeling very well, so I would like to limit the number of visitors."

The bushy-haired girl nodded easily before settling into one of the visitors' chairs near an unused bed. Harry made his way over to Abigail's room and entered the door.

The room was sparsely furnished: a single bed in the middle of one wall, a small bedside table holding a pitcher of water and a glass, and a larger side table along another wall which was laden with a panoply of neatly organized bottles of various potions. The air smelled of a much, much fainter version of the troll stench mixed with a variety of other potions-type smells and the smell of sweat, and the bed was occupied by the sixth-year girl who had helped him on Halloween.

Abigail looked like death warmed-over.

Her skin was pallid and sweat-drenched, and she shivered frequently even while fanning herself in an attempt to cool down. Seeing her in such a state just made Harry feel guiltier.

When she smiled at him, he felt even worse.

"I'm sorry," Harry blurted out without any preamble.

Abigail looked puzzled for a moment. "What are you apologizing for? You saved my life from that troll."

"Well, yeah," Harry allowed, "but you still got hurt from a bit of stone from one of the walls I broke while doing that, and that was my fault 'cause I wasn't as careful as I shoulda been, and 'cause of that you got a cut, and 'cause of that you got sick, and 'cause of that you've been unconscious for a couple 'a days, and you look like it's been real unpleasant, and well, it's my fault, so I wanted to apologize for it!"

Abigail took a few moments to process that through her still-fevered mind. "I'm still not hearing anything that you need to apologize for, Harry."

"I hit you with that rock!"

"That was an accident though, right?" Abigail sounded puzzled. "I mean, you didn't throw it at me or anything?"

"Well, no, but I did break the wall it came from, and that's the only reason it hit you."

The older girl nodded in acknowledgement before continuing, "And you broke that wall in the process of defending me from that troll, right? Not because you thought it would be fun to break a wall or anything?"

"Well, yeah…"

"And that troll was about to kill me…" she winced at the mention, "…with its club before you blocked the hit?"

"Well, yeah…"

"So, you stepped in to save my life, and I got a little hurt in the process by accident," Abigail concluded. "I'm still not seeing anything you should be apologizing for. I mean, yeah, I've felt better, and I've looked better," she winced again, "but I have to think that this is a fair sight better than being dead!"

Harry nodded. "I know! But, well, I still hurt you accidentally, and I'd promised myself I wasn't gonna do that after that one time with the deer a couple a' years ago, and I broke that promise, and I figure that warrants an apology!"

"You promised you weren't going to accidentally hurt me a couple of years ago?" Abigail cocked her head curiously. "We hadn't even met then…"

"No, I promised I wasn't going to hurt anybody on accident after I accidentally splattered a deer a couple of year ago. Mrs. McGonagall had said that venison came from deer, and I really liked venison, but I didn't really get that it was just another name for dead deer 'cause I was just a little kid, right? So I was trying to get at wherever it kept the venison, and I smacked the antlers out of the way, and then its head sort of exploded, and then I got really worried that I'd accidentally do that to one of my friends, and so I was gonna stay at home, but then Mr. Snape came by and set me straight on just bein' careful around people. So I made myself a promise that I was gonna be careful and never do that to anybody I didn't mean to, but now you got hurt, and I didn't mean to do it, so I broke that promise, and… well… I really don't like breakin' promises." Harry trailed off looking almost despondent.

"So, it's more that you broke a promise than it was the actual injury, huh?" Abigail mused. "Well, Harry, it sounds to me like you should be apologizing to yourself more than to me. It was a broken promise made to yourself, after all, not to me," she said. "Maybe you should just try again and try to keep that promise next time?"

"That sounds like a good idea, but you still got hurt, and I oughtta do something to make up for that! The only thing I could think of to do was apologize."

Silence fell as she thought about that for a moment.

"Something to make up for it, huh?" Abigail's expression turned artful. "Well then, I suppose I could see fit to forgive you for your error if you would do something for me…"

"What's that?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Well, it seems to me that one can never have too many friends," Abigail said slyly, "so how about you be my friend, and we can both call everything even?"

"Really?"

She nodded.

"I can do that!" Harry smiled.

"It's a deal then," the sick girl said firmly, then her expression turned to something Harry couldn't quite identify as she proposed, "How about we seal the deal with a hug?"

Harry enthusiastically complied.

2.8.5 Good deals

As the Healer escorted her energetic visitor from the room, Abigail collapsed heavily back into her pillow. It had been difficult to stay up and coherent for that conversation — she really did feel terrible.

But the effort had been more than worthwhile!

Despite her physical state and her Slytherin-trained emotional control, Abigail couldn't keep a goofy smile off her face. She'd helped her savior feel better about things; she'd learned more about the boy she had been developing an interest in; and she'd befriended said boy — and that was not to mention the more prosaic value of that contact! In addition to being a first-year sufficiently powerful to catch her interest across a five-year age gap, Harry Potter was also a cultural icon, and his friendship would open a lot of doors for her down the line.

It wasn't that she intended to use the boy… well, technically she did intend to use him, she supposed, but she did not intend to take advantage of him. Abigail fully intended to be an excellent friend to Harry because he was Harry, and what she had seen so far showed him to be eminently worthy of friendship. However, that didn't change the fact that the Boy-Who-Lived would be an excellent contact in the future as well.

She was a Slytherin after all, and there was nothing saying you couldn't get ahead in life while being a good friend, now was there? And on top of it all, she managed to finagle a hug out of the deal.

That hug was amazing!

"Is that so, Miss Abercrombie?"

That voice shocked Abigail out of her reverie as effectively as a bucket full of ice water. Madame Pomfrey had apparently returned to check on her after escorting Harry out of the room.

"Did I say that out loud?" Abigail asked with a rosy blush.

"Yes," came the amused reply. "Yes, you did."

"Oh," she squeaked.

"So, Miss Abercrombie, what was so 'amazing' about that hug?" Poppy asked with a smirk. "Will I need to arrange a chaperone for the two of you? You are five years his senior, after all. After he graduates that won't make much difference, but for now…"

"No! It's just… um, well, it's just you can feel his magic just under his skin, right?" Abigail tried to explain. "And it was just like when he blocked that troll's club from hitting me. I could feel his magic sort of sliding over my skin then, and it just felt so warm and safe and good…" the girl trailed off, realizing that her explanation was not helping her case for having the self-control necessary to avoid the necessity of a chaperone.

Poppy, however, was not riding that train of thought, rather she was frowning thoughtfully. "You can feel his magic, huh? That could be bad…" she muttered. The Healer's wand shot out of her wrist holster, and she began casting another set of diagnostics.

Abigail finally managed to drag herself far enough out of her embarrassment to notice the woman's actions. "Is there something wrong?"

"The rest of us can't feel Mr. Potter's magic as a matter of routine, Miss Abercrombie, certainly not from casual contact," Poppy said. "Either you have developed new sensory abilities, or you are suffering from traumatic oversensitivity. Either can be problematic. New sensory abilities can be useful, but they will require so much training that you might need to put off graduation for a year or two. Oversensitivity, on the other hand, would mean some extra steps in your recovery and several more potions…" As her diagnostic charms returned results, the Healer let out a sigh. "And oversensitivity it is."

"What does that mean?" Abigail asked.

"It means that you were too close to Mr. Potter's spell when he blocked that troll club, and, for lack of a better term, his magic burned itself into yours," Poppy explained. "It's not dangerous, but it does leave you overly sensitive to the magical signature involved, much like a minor burn leaves your skin overly sensitive to heat. Don't worry, it is easily treated, now that I know about the issue."

Abigail frowned at the comparison to a burn. "It didn't seem painful in the slightest, though. The opposite if anything… Are you sure we need to fix it?"

"So I gathered," the Healer said with an amused smirk. "It is analogous to a burn, but the analogy is not exact. The stimulus is situationally dependent, like most things dealing with magic. You think well of Harry, so for you the feeling is positive. Someone with the same condition caused by a near-miss of a curse would feel quite differently."

"Oh!" Abigail nodded. That made sense.

"Though I will point out something that is relevant to your situation," the Healer was smirking again. "The feelings produced are proportional to the amount of magic you encounter. Mr. Potter is fantastically resistant to magic, so almost none passes through his skin passively. Just how do you think you would react in your current state if he were to actively cast in your vicinity?"

Abigail pondered that for a moment before blushing a deep red, her mind following the path the Healer had laid out.

Oh!

"Just picture it," Poppy continued mercilessly, "there you are, in the Great Hall sitting with your friends at dinner, and Mr. Potter summons a plate from down the table. You know how bad his control still is, so a wave of his excess magic washes over you from across the room, and bam, you're face-down in your mashed potatoes shuddering your way through an…"

"Okay! Okay, we'll fix it," the embarrassed sixth year said. "Just please let it drop?"

"Very well, Miss Abercrombie."

The room fell silent for a for a time except for the clinking of glass as the Healer measured out the appropriate prescriptions for dealing with this new issue.

"Um, Madame Pomfrey?"

"Yes?"

"Will you be telling Harry about that magic burn thing?"

"Of course not!" the woman sounded scandalized. "Mr. Potter has no business knowing your medical history without your permission."

"Oh, good!"

"Though I must say I'm surprised that you don't want to try to parlay that into another 'concession' from Mr. Potter," that sly tone was back again. "Really, Miss 'Be-my-friend-and-call-it-even', after that line about sealing the deal with a hug? I'm surprised at you!"

"Hey! I did that because he was being silly about needing to be forgiven for saving my life, of all things," Abigail protested. "Well that, and I've been interested in him for a while now, but it's really hard to strike up a friendship with someone in another House when you're in Slytherin, doubly so when going across a five-year age gap."

"I also know Mr. Potter, Miss Abercrombie," Poppy did not sound convinced. "He is always eager to make new friends; had you walked up to him and introduced yourself, you could have become his friend in moments."

"Well, now I know that," the sixth-year said snippily. "I had no way of knowing beforehand, though."

"Aside from asking Mr. Potter."

"I've been in Slytherin for five and a half years, Madame Pomfrey!" Abigail protested. "I know it's silly, but you don't do that sort of thing in the dungeons! We just take advantage of opportunities when we see them."

2.8.6 Working ruminations

That had gone well, all things considered.

It was the evening after his fateful apology to Abigail, and Harry had returned to the Lair for the night. Suze was out visiting with her Uncle Ronan, sharing her findings about those woodworking potions she had been researching, and playing with her youngest newborn cousins. Young centaurs were apparently very sensitive to foreign scents, so they wanted to get the little ones used to Harry's scent by proxy through Suze before they introduced him to them directly. It was apparently more than a little terrifying on a deep, instinctual level. This left Harry alone in the Lair until he would fly down to pick her up in a few hours.

Accordingly, the dragon was currently in one of the Lair's deeper chambers which he had designated as a lab, reworking his latest research attempt. The work was hardly exciting — tediously repetitive would be a more accurate summation — but it was what it was. His calculations had called for carving the same runic sequence on a pair of silver hemispheres in twenty evenly-spaced locations — the previous attempt using eleven had been horribly inefficient — and that was that.

At least it was simple enough for Harry to allow his mind to wander where it would, giving him time for reflection while accomplishing something useful.

Suze had often said the same thing about her weaving.

And so, Harry reflected on recent events.

The troll attack had been an objectively bad thing, Harry decided. Yet a lot of good things had come out of it. Hermione had been put in real danger, but the two of them had gotten a lot closer after he saved her. He'd accidentally hurt somebody, but then she had become his friend as a result.

He'd even found out that trolls tasted like bacon! Harry figured that was an important thing for a dragon to know. The goblins had been nice enough to share some recipes with him if he ever managed to get more troll to try them out. They seemed a lot less common than acromantula, and they were really bony too. They were tasty, though, and unlike bacon, they came in reasonably sized portions!

Harry finished the last design on the first hemisphere before setting it down and taking up the other one. The rich purple marking lacquer had dried nicely, and he was all set to lay out the positions with a needle.

Hermione had been sticking really close all the time, now. Harry wasn't sure what was going on there, but he was glad for her company nonetheless, and he made sure to let Hermione know that. She'd probably tell him about it eventually. He could wait until she was ready.

Abigail had been a nice surprise too! He'd gone into that room today not really knowing what to think, other than knowing that he wasn't happy with how he felt about the situation, and he'd come out with a brand-new friend. She'd even given him a hug!

Hugs were great!

Hopefully, Abigail would get better soon, and then they'd be able to spend some time together finding out about each other. She was in sixth year, so she probably knew some cool stuff. Maybe she'd even be interested in what he was working on now? Well, he supposed it couldn't hurt to ask.

Layout completed; Harry set in with a needle file to deepen the bright silvery patterns he had laid out. He was really looking forward to getting that air compressor he'd ordered so he could run a die grinder. The catalogue hadn't specified it needed a compressor to run, and he'd had to wait another ten weeks to get the silly thing shipped after he found out.

Hopefully it'd would be worth the wait.

Anyway, hopefully Abigail would get better soon, and then they could spend some time together!

Harry worked away at the silver for another half-hour before he nodded in satisfaction. Attempt fifteen was done and ready for testing.

The young dragon slotted the two hemispheres together with an insulating wooden ring serving as the join, leaving a hole conveniently sized for a wand between them. A pair of terminals were then fitted into holes in the silver and wires were connected leading to a perfectly ordinary lightbulb.

Harry pushed his wand into the hole and channeled magic into the focus. The silver glowed with an eerie light, and then the bulb lit up. It was pathetically dim — channeling the same amount of magic into a light charm would have lit the entire room like the noon-day sun — but it was definitely glowing. Harry smiled broadly.

Success!

2.8.7 Honest self-reflection

It had taken another week for Abigail to heal enough to be released from Madame Pomfrey's care, a week during which she was visited every single day by one Harry James Potter, most of the time accompanied by one Hermione Granger. As a result, the delay was less grating than Abigail had feared it would be.

In fact, aside from being sick as a dog for most of it, it was kind of nice.

As Abigail prepared herself to leave her accommodations of the last two weeks, she was finally able to avail herself of the infirmary showers, much to her relief — cleaning charms could only handle so much, at the end of the day. As the hot water washed over her, she mused on the recent sequence of events.

In hindsight, insisting on going after Hermione that Halloween night had been a mistake. As it turned out, Harry had been more than capable of handling the situation himself, and she had done nothing but delay and get in the way. But in the end things had turned out alright, everyone was still alive, if a bit banged up in her case, and that was the important bit.

That said, Abigail did not regret her choice to go along. She had had no way to know beforehand that Harry was more than capable of handling the troll without her, so she had made the best decisions she could have made given what she knew at the time. She had done her duty as best she knew it at the time, even if that duty had come close to killing her. That said, she was hardly going to sit on her thumbs in the future and repeat the same mistakes!

Freshly showered and feeling clean for the first time in weeks, Abigail gathered up her wand from the bedside table and set out from the infirmary with a friendly wave to Madame Pomfrey.

Improving her own capabilities would come on its own through her classes; she was hardly a slacker, by any means. Rather, it seemed to her that her biggest mistake that night had been her poor knowledge of Harry Potter. If she had known even a little of his strength, she would have been able to handle the situation much better; she would have at least known when to back off and let the miniature powerhouse deal with the troll.

Getting to know Harry Potter better did indeed seem like the best course of action to Abigail, and not just to be better prepared for future troll incursions.

Abigail still blushed at the memory of essentially blackmailing Harry into becoming her friend — she blamed the fever for it, really — but it was perhaps the best thing to come out of this whole incident. The boy she had been so interested in was now quite happy to spend time with her, and he was even more than she had expected him to be.

He had been by the infirmary, bright-eyed and cheerful, to see her every day of her convalescence — no matter what was going on, no matter how busy he was — and he was always delighted to see her. That sort of cheer was simply not present in Slytherin, and Abigail found that she quite liked it now that she had gotten a taste.

By contrast, House-mates — girls that she had lived with for five years — had been by all of once in a sort of perfunctory 'I know we're in the same dorm, so I kinda have to show up to see how you're doing' sort of manner.

To be fair, they had apparently shown up a few times before she had awakened only to be turned away by Madame Pomfrey, and they had gotten a little bit irritated at the whole business by the time she was awake enough to see them. But showing up in the face of understandable irritation or not, they certainly hadn't thought to help her out by retrieving her assignments for her! By way of contrast, when Hermione had brought up the topic of missed classes, Harry had made it a point to get Abigail's assignments from her various instructors and bring them by the very next day.

Just a week in, during which time she had not left her bed in the infirmary, Harry had already proven himself a better friend than any she had made over the past five years in Slytherin.

That had to be the best favor she ever called in!

Savoring that thought, Abigail stopped to rest, leaning against a wall and looking out over the lake through one of the arrow slits lining the hallway. It was a crisp November evening in Scotland, the moon shone down on the windswept lake, glittering along the choppy surface — a beautiful night to be back on her feet, even if she was still dog-tired all the time and would be going to bed again as soon as she got back to her room.

Abigail stayed there for a few moments before the whistle of the daily train as it arrived from London echoed softly across the moonlit lake reminding her that there was more to life than woolgathering and she needed to get to it.

It was still a long walk back to the dorm.

2.8.8 Logistical Interlude

Even as the echoes of her whistle died out and the locomotive, an LNER Class V2 by the name Coldstreamer, hissed to a stop, the Hogsmeade shunting yard was already a hive of activity, shunting locomotive clanging along as the daily supply train was disassembled and its cargo dispatched to its various destinations about the town. There was a great deal of work to be done, and a great many people employed in the doing.

Most young people never stop to think about supply lines — about how the makings of dinner, and everything else for that matter, get from the point of production to the point of consumption. It's one of those things that just happens in the background as far as most are concerned, and that applies whether or not the young person in question is magically gifted.

At Hogwarts, most of them, if asked, would shrug and say, 'who cares?' Others might guess at something to do with portkeys and maybe house-elves.

The same goes for most anyone who isn't in the supply, haulage, or retail businesses. Most people have no idea how their dinner got from point A to point B, beyond muttering something about the shop and a farm and, er, lorries?

Once again, that applies whether or not the people are magically gifted, though your average witch or wizard on the street would readily assume that their dinner made its way to the shop at which they purchased it via portkey or maybe a house-elf.

Very few witches or wizards would suggest that the supplies they took for granted came via lorry or train, depending on where they called home, yet those few would be entirely correct.

For the population of Hogsmeade, life wouldn't grind to a halt if the daily train from London didn't come, but it would become a great deal harder.

Just for the nearby school of Hogwarts, keeping a few hundred hungry magical teenagers fed and the castle lit and heated gulps its way through several tons of supplies every day. Potions classes at a school such as Hogwarts require nearly a ton per week of raw ingredients — and with their potential volatility, those ingredients shipped in an average of nearly seventy tons of packing material; cleaning supplies are used up by the gallon day in, day out, and an average school year will require sixteen tons of parchment (enough to entirely fill a standard four-wheeled British Rail box van), eight-thousand gallons of ink, and nearly a hundred-thousand quills.

In the past, Hogwarts and the town of Hogsmeade had been supplied by thestral-hauled flying cart and relays of house-elves, but then the muggles drove the railway through the mountains, and enterprising wizard eyes turned to the mighty iron horses that pounded down those glens.

And what they noted was the cost. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the railway worked out cheaper than thestrals, house-elves, or portkey production — especially if you used a drake-dog to get a diminished load of coal to fire the boiler. Drake-dogs were a jumpy and excitable lot despite their longevity, but as long as you had something to bank their flames and someone's attention to keep them focused on the job, they were just the business for raising a good head of steam. A drake-dog might eat as much as four house-elves, but one drake-dog and a few tons of coal was far cheaper than feeding the hundreds of house-elves that it would take to keep Hogsmeade and Hogwarts supplied.

Perhaps it could have been done by portkey, or perhaps not. A portkey doesn't last forever; after a dozen or so trips, slightly longer if made by an expert, it would begin to wear out. And that said nothing of the energy required to operate the things. A portkey had to be recharged after each use — and doing so quickly required energy from a person rather than ambient magic. Producing enough portkeys to supply Hogsmeade from London would have required enough energy to kill seventy wizards per day through exhaustion; at nonlethal levels, it would mean a workforce approximately the size of Hogsmeade itself — just to produce the portkeys needed to supply the town.

All of that meant that Hogs Haulage was founded in 1894, immediately after the Mallaig Extension Railway received Royal Assent — an occurrence which was, at least in the magical world, suspected to have come about through judicious use of compulsion charms on the part of the company founder. The intervening seven years saw a tremendously successful marketing campaign run through the greedy wizards of Hogsmeade, and there was such a demand for cheap freight by the time the line was finished that the first supply run took place shortly after the line opened in April of 1901.

At first, the train was a weekly event, however, a town of ten-thousand wizards can guzzle its way through many a ton of supplies every day. The train quickly became Hogsmeade's sole supplier of stock for the town's shops: ale and firewhiskey for the pubs, food for the inhabitant's tables, packing cases of potions ingredients, kegs of butterbeer, coal for the household fires, ton after ton of pumpkins to be pressed for juice, supplies for the castle, and transportation for those few passengers unable to apparate or unwilling to floo. By the time the first students travelled on the inaugural run of the Hogwarts Express in September of the same year, freight trains were arriving every two days.

In the years since, those trains had become a daily visitor to the gradually growing wizarding town. As the availability of cheap freight became a reliable constant, dozens of wizarding businesses opened branches or relocated entirely to the only all-magical town in the country. Between the constant flow of grain to supply the likes of Ogden's Distillery, additional parchment and ink for the twelve different publishing houses calling Hogsmeade home, the additional eighteen tons per week (plus packaging) of potions ingredients for Sparky's, the Malfoy-family owned, state-protected, producer of floo powder, and all the rest of the thriving industrial sector, there had been even been rumors about doubling up a couple of days per week.

That, however, was still off in the future. For now, the daily train left Hogsmeade at nine o'clock sharp in the evening and traveled all night, arriving in London at around seven the next morning. There a replacement crew arrived by floo, and that locomotive was handed over as the London shunters and freight handlers assembled the train that'd travel north. The crew that had driven all night returned home by floo, and the train departed London at nine in the morning, to arrive back at Hogsmeade at seven in the evening.

Two hours later another crew would take another train, behind a different locomotive — one of the nine main-line locomotives in the Hogs Haulage roster, all of wildly varying vintage, from a pair of century-old ladies originally built for the Highland Railway to one of the youngest main-line steam locomotives in Britain — on their way south to London.

Muggle and magical alike, freight was the lifeblood of civilization.

2.8.9 Make-up work

Abigail groaned tiredly as she plonked herself down heavily at the library table in front of her books and the accumulated work left over from her convalescence. She was still weak and exhausted from the weeks in the infirmary, and the hefty pile looked quite intimidating.

"This is going to take forever!" she complained to the world at large.

It seemed like new work was stacking up as fast as she could deal with the old, and between that and resuming her duties as a prefect… well, Abigail was starting to miss the inside of the infirmary. She looked across the table at her companions who were also just sitting down and smiled.

At least she was in good company.

"Is it a lot of work to catch up, Abigail?" Hermione asked.

The bushy-haired first-year girl had grown much more talkative in the past few days, not that that took much given how mouse-like she was at first. She had yet to waste Abigail's time with silly questions; though that was not to say that she asked no questions, nothing could have been farther from the truth. Fortunately, however, everything she asked or volunteered was well thought out, and she probed into everything.

In fact, Abigail was fairly sure that she had learned her lessons better through fielding Hermione's endless stream of questions than she ever had through attending class.

"It is… it most certainly is," Abigail sighed. "The work seems to pile up as fast as I get through the older stuff. Honestly, I'm just glad this happened in my sixth year rather than during one of the major testing years. If this had happened last year when we were reviewing for OWLs? Ugh!"

"Is there anything you're having trouble with?" came the bright and helpful question from her other companion, Harry. It was a question that Abigail was almost coming to dread. It had been embarrassing when she learned that Harry actually knew her lessons better than she did. She had five full years of magical schooling on him, for crying out loud!

She was supposed to be the experienced older woman in this scenario, not the naïve ingénue requiring education in the ways of the world.

Harry's intelligence had not been something Abigail had been aware of before. Power and confidence, sure, but the quickness of mind he showed so casually and the sheer dedication required to see self-education through to that level were not things she would have associated with the apparently scatterbrained first-year. Aside from the embarrassment of being shown up by her new, much younger, friend, it was a most welcome surprise.

Seriously, the boy just kept getting more interesting the more she learned.

That said, embarrassment or not, Abigail was not one to turn down freely offered help, particularly if it also netted her more time with her kinda-sorta-eventually crush. So, she did her best to fight down her embarrassment and go on. The struggle must have shown on her face because Hermione shot her a look of sympathy and shared exasperation. It seemed the younger girl must have had her own share of similar moments before.

"Yeah, Harry, I apparently missed the introductory lessons on human transfiguration, and I was trying to figure out the whole section on safety concerns. I've read through the text five times now, and it's just not making sense!" Abigail brought her fist down firmly but quietly on the text in question. "I mean, some of the issues it raises make sense; the bits about completeness, humor passthroughs, iso-functional points, and holographic visualization make sense. They're the same things we had to remember for animal transfigurations before, so it makes sense that they would apply to human transfigurations. I just don't get why it suddenly jumps into mental contamination filters!" she whined in frustration. "I mean, that's the kind of stuff we got into last year in Defense when we were talking about compulsions, why would it come up now?"

And of course, despite her frustration with the topic, the boy just nodded. Arrgh! Why on earth had he been reading ahead on human transfiguration? That wasn't the sort of thing that came up in light reading, for Merlin's sake!

"Oh yeah! I remember getting into that a couple of years ago," Harry began, the revelation prompting both Abigail and Hermione to close their eyes in exasperation. "The reason for that's actually 'cause of the basic nature of transfiguration, right? When you transfigure something, you're not actually changing it into something else; you're just puttin' some magic on it to make the world think it's somethin' else. You're actually using magic to control the interface between the transfigured object and the rest of reality."

"Right, that's first-year stuff I sort of vaguely remember," Abigail nodded uncertainly. "It never really mattered to the practicals, or even to the tests as I recall, but I think I remember the lecture. How does that tie in, though?"

"Well, it's funny you mentioned compulsions, really, 'cause you can look at transfiguration in a completely different way that's functionally equivalent. See, instead of saying you're changing the interface, you could also say that you're compelling reality to see something that's not strictly true. Like you're telling reality, 'see this mouse, well, it's totally a snuffbox, not a mouse', and then you compulsion-charm reality into agreeing with you," Harry nodded matter-of-factly, as if he had not just said something utterly outrageous. "It takes a whole lot of math to prove, but the two resulting magical structures are really the same thing. The compulsion-charm reference frame is really hard to use for casting though, so classes teach it the normal way."

"Anyway," the boy continued, "when you're dealing with non-sapient stuff like inanimate objects or animals — stuff without a mind or will — that equivalence doesn't really come up much. It's just a fun thing people found out, right. A bit of… oh what's the word for that sorta thing?"

"Trivia?" Hermione volunteered.

"Yeah! Trivia! Thanks, Hermione," Harry said. "Anyway, it ain't important for anything practical until you start transfiguring things with real, complicated minds. But when you do, if you're not careful, you impose the compulsion on the target's mind as well as reality, and the target gets all kinds of confused. Starts thinkin' the transfiguration's actually reality and such. Magical people can usually sort things out eventually, but you do that to a non-magical person or even a squib and you get real issues. It's even worse if you screw it up during self-transfiguration," he shuddered. "That's something you don't want no part of. It gets self-referential, and your own magic starts reinforcing the transfiguration. That's the current theory on how they got those quintaped thingies over on Drear."

"Huh," Abigail said. "Now why couldn't the book have explained it like that? That was much easier to follow, thanks!"

Harry smiled, "No problem!" He paused for a moment before continuing more seriously, "Um, Abigail?"

"Yes?"

"That'll probably work for your essay, but you might want to go to Professor McGonagall to actually get the safety lecture in person. I mean, I know how to do the stuff myself, but I'm sure I'd forget to tell you something or other if I tried to teach you everything, and with human transfiguration…" Harry frowned, "well, that'd probably kill you, and that would be really, really bad."

"Will do, Harry," Abigail reached over the table and ruffled his messy hair affectionately. "She had already insisted, but thanks for caring!"

That got yet another bright smile from the younger boy, and Abigail set about writing out her transfiguration essay. The other two had their own work to do, though Harry's looked suspiciously like independent research given the haphazard mishmash of runic array descriptions and some sort of arcane diagram containing all sorts of right-angle lines, dots, odd symbols containing lines and dots, and zig-zag lines. Abigail had taken ancient runes herself, as well as the enchanting and warding extra lectures, and she knew what those systems generally looked like, so she was certain Harry was working on something extraordinary.

Harry's cogent and sensible explanation led Abigail to finish her essay in short order, it was only eight inches anyway, and the conversation kicked back up again as she took a short break to recover her strength — stupid lingering symptoms.

"Um, Abigail?" Hermione began.

"Hmm?"

"What sort of career are you looking to get into after school?"

The question was typical of what she had learned about the younger girl. Hermione always planned as far ahead as she possibly could; she had to be the most risk-averse kid Abigail had ever seen! That said, Abigail could see Harry perk up at the question in interest. Was he already thinking that far ahead, too? She would never have guessed.

Again, with the hidden depths, it seemed!

"Well, I'm still trying to figure that out, actually," Abigail began tentatively in answer to her junior's question. "Our society has got a lot of problems with it, and I've always wanted to do something to make a difference, you see? The thing is, though, it's really hard to do anything influential as an individual in this society. Right now, I'm thinking of either getting into journalism with the Prophet or joining the Ministry." Abigail grimaced in distaste, "Neither option's really a good one though, so I'm hoping something else will come up."

"Why are those bad options?" Hermione asked, puzzled. "I mean, journalism is an important profession; Mum says it's the cornerstone of a healthy democracy! And the government is the logical place to go if you want to change how things are run, right?"

"Well, you'd think so," Abigail temporized, trying to work out how to explain her misgivings without destroying the younger girl's faith in the world, "but well, we don't really live in a healthy democracy." She failed to find such a method. "And that means there aren't really any real ways for journalists to change things, because the paper will only print what the powers that be allow. I mean, I might go and try to persuade people to change things behind the scenes, but as a journalist, even if I write the truth, there's no guarantee it will get printed."

Harry was nodding along with her conclusions as if he fully expected it, while Hermione looked deeply troubled.

"What about the Ministry?" the younger girl asked, almost desperate sounding.

"Um, well that might work, in principle… eventually, I suppose," Abigail said, almost apologetic. "The thing is, getting anywhere in the Ministry is a long, long, uphill slog, especially if you're honest. And, if you want to get through faster in either job, well there are ways, but they're more than a little distasteful, particularly the options available to me as a woman — or what I might get forced into if I put myself in that position."

She trailed off and shuddered a little in disgust at the idea while Harry's grip across the way caused the table to groan in protest. Odd, Abigail hadn't expected the boy to follow her oblique reference, yet another strange thing to add to her growing image of her totally-not-yet-a-crush.

"What do you mean? Is that like bullying?" Hermione asked. "Because I've had to deal with some of that." Apparently, she wasn't quite as perceptive as the younger boy.

"It's a bit of unpleasantness that you really don't need to know about yet, kiddo," Abigail averred. "You should probably ask your mother when you get home. It's the sort of thing you'll want family around to help you process. Anyway, do either of you have any plans in that regard?"

Hermione shook her head, but Harry perked up.

"Well, I've got a materials science joint venture going, and we're doing pretty well at the moment," Harry said proudly. "I've been thinking lately of getting into the logistics business, though. Got some ideas there."

Abigail was shocked. Harry was already running a company? "How did you get that going so early?"

"Oh! Well, I provided some samples I got through a bit of a magical accident," Harry explained proudly. Hermione — suspecting just which accident he was referring to — stifled a snort. "And Mr. Snape managed to reverse engineer how to make them, and Mr. Slackhammer has been marketing them and handling the production. We've got two major products right now, and we're looking to expand more."

"So, you're doing well?" Abigail confirmed.

Harry nodded.

"Okay, so what was that about logistics?"

"Well, I've been thinking about how we get food and stuff to everybody. Did you know that Hogsmeade and Hogwarts are all supplied by Hogs Haulage? They're the train company that runs the Express." At the answering nods, he continued, "Well, I figured that would be a good business to get into, 'cause everybody needs to eat, and they ain't never gonna stop needin' to, so there's some job security there."

"I'd considered working for one of the big freight companies too," Abigail said. "But I ran into a few problems. Hogs Haulage isn't really growing; they're content to sit on what they've got — and with the job retention they have, there are no openings. The only one that really grows is the Happy Elf Trucking Group that runs the road freight services, and they're owned by Malfoy's father. I wouldn't work for that slimeball if it was a choice between that and starving!"

Harry's expression turned contemplative as the older girl continued. "Most of the businesses are like that; the average wizarding industrialist is not the sort of person you want to meet in a dark alley at night." Abigail sighed, "That's the main reason I was considering the Prophet or the Ministry. Not exactly spoiled for choice here."

Harry still looked thoughtful as Abigail turned to the next assignment on her mountain of parchment, and the table soon fell silent aside from the scratching of quills.

Even as she worked though, Abigail had to wonder: what exactly was Harry considering behind that puzzled-looking face of his?

2.8.10 Circuitous ways

A darkly robed and hooded figure strode confidently through the quiet hallways of the fourth floor pausing periodically to wave its wand at the floor below and then flinch. The general build of the shadowy fellow would indicate a male, but magic being what it was, that was by no means certain. Each spell cast brought a new flinch.

The stones below were too thick to break through, quietly or not. Enchanted stone was not immutable on its own, but three-foot thick enchanted stone was too much for a single wizard to beat. It seemed the only way in was through the goblin's defensive position, and that position had proven itself quite impregnable to conventional assault.

The first assault had used three trolls, after all — three of the blasted, malodorous creatures — with a fourth to divert attention! If those trolls hadn't been sufficient to win their way through, then there was nothing to be done about it in any case.

Brute force entry was not a viable option.

That conclusion had led to the current excursion, testing the defenses from an oblique direction. The best way to get through a defense, after all, was to avoid engaging it entirely. Unfortunately, it seemed there was no way through these defenses at all. Every wall, the ceiling, and the floor were all at least a yard thick, and given the nature of the castle stone, there was no way he'd be able to force his way through.

There was no point in looking further, best just to give it up as a bad… Before the thought could play out fully, the dark figure fell to its knees in pain before rising and again beginning to cast diagnostic charms.

Perhaps something had been missed.

Most would have known better than to test a goblin defensive position in the first place. Anyone reasonable would certainly have given up after a probing force of three fully-grown mountain trolls was turned into bloody chunks before even seeing the defenders. Any sane person would have been sorely tempted to give up on seeing the rest of the target enveloped in enchanted granite more than a yard thick.

The figure quietly cursed the fact that he was none of those things. Driven by a monstrous Master and the iron-hard control spells that had been cast, the robed individual had no choice, no matter how he cursed his fate. The only way out now was death — and suicide was not an option permitted by the Master's commands. He could only hope that death would come at the hands of someone other than the Master.

Dying at the hands of that monster would mean succeeding at the task it set him, and despite appearances, allowing the Master to succeed was the last thing he wanted. His Master had found him that one day during the previous summer, and his defenses had proven inadequate, to his eternal shame. Now, hemmed in by compulsions and outright mental domination, he could not act contrary to the Master's commands…

…but there had been no command against hope.

And the dark figure hoped with every fragment of his tattered will that the Master's plans would fail, even as he did his level best to complete the task the monster had set.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.9 Schoolyard misadventures

---

2.9.1 In which the rumor mill finally serves a good purpose

All was quiet in the Hufflepuff common room as Harry wrote his homework assignment for transfiguration. In the short time between classes, he had chosen to go ahead and finish up the work Professor McGonagall had assigned that morning rather than have it continue hanging over his head for a week. Much easier to just do it immediately after it was assigned and then be able to forget about it in his bag.

It wasn't like he had time to do anything else in the twenty-minute break, either. Twenty minutes wasn't even enough time to eat a light snack!

The older students had finally stopped complaining about the changes in schedule and the oddly apportioned break times. Apparently, before this year, charms, transfiguration, and potions had been split into two groups with shorter periods, rather than the current situation with everyone in a single session, and that schedule had kept very uniform gaps between classes, while the current one had oddly-timed holes in the daily grind. Different timings every day of the week.

Harry had no idea why it had taken them most of a year to adjust; it seemed to him like the regular timings would have had to have been boring. To his way of thinking, it was much better to have a little variety in the day. It gave so many opportunities to get things done so he didn't have to worry about it in the evening when he usually spent time with his friends!

Then again, he supposed, pausing in his rapid scratching at the page for a thoughtful moment, most of the other students never seemed to take advantage of the extra time to do homework. Maybe they couldn't crank out an essay in ten minutes? Harry shook his head. Nah, of course they could! It wasn't like he was ever really that smart.

If he could do it, Harry was sure most of the rest of the kids could, if they tried.

Harry finished up his essay with a flourish just as Susan and Hannah walked into the room. He gave them a friendly greeting as he got up to go to lunch. Hermione should be out of her class now, and they usually met up with Abigail at the Great Hall.

"Harry…" Susan began, uncertainly.

"Yeah, Susan?" Harry answered cheerfully.

"I think Hermione's crying back in the library again," the girl said. "She looked upset when she rushed by going that way. I thought you'd want to know."

Harry's cheerful expression suddenly terminated itself, replaced by a black glower.

"Right, I've just about had it with this," he stated, turning back to the door with firm purpose.

"Had it with what?" Hannah asked, puzzled.

"Had it with this sittin' back and watchin'."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere much, just gotta talk to a lady about some stuff," Harry called back to her in a truly unenlightening turn of phrase. "Thanks for letting me know about that."

With that, the young dragon left the room at a dead sprint.

"You're welcome!" Susan called after him, though he was already out of earshot in the twisting castle hallways.

"What was that supposed to mean?" Hannah asked the world at large.

"…well, I don't really know," Susan admitted.

The rest of the world failed to reply.

2.9.2 An offer she could totally refuse

Harry slowed down as he approached the library door so as not to slam it open loudly; Madame Pince was even worse than Madame Pomfrey about him doing that, so he had decided to humor her. He was in a hurry, but not that much of a hurry. Hermione wasn't going to notice another few seconds' delay.

A quick reconnoiter of the library revealed a bushy head of brown frizzy hair lying face down at their usual table, and Harry swiftly made his way over.

"You're still getting picked-on, ain't you?" Harry said.

Despite the phrasing, it wasn't a question.

"What about it?" Hermione asked doubtfully. "It's not a big problem."

"You've been crying in the library, sounds like it's a problem to me," Harry countered.

"You don't need to get involved, Harry. I'm a Gryffindor, we're supposed to handle this stuff ourselves!"

"Really?" Harry asked. "That a House rule or sumthin'? 'Cause I ain't ever heard of it."

"Well, I think it is?" Hermione said uncertainly. "Everyone seems to act like it is, anyway."

"You know, if you want, I can do something about it and help get you out of there," Harry explained with a shrug. "Aw, don't look at me all growly-like, I don't mean sitting on anybody's head or the like; I mean, I can, you know, carry you off, and then you'd be staying at my Lair."

"Your Lair? Aren't the Hufflepuffs in dorms too? I remember there being hallways off of the Sett like the ones in Gryffindor."

"Well, mostly," Harry allowed, "but students who live close enough to the castle don't gotta stay over at the castle if they don't want to, and I live over on the other side of the Forest, and that's close enough, so I live there. I just come visit the Sett pretty often, too."

"Then how would I stay at your lair?" Hermione asked. "I don't live that close to the castle."

"Well, the rules say kids can sleep over with friends who aren't staying at the castle if the friends are some of the kids who live really near to the castle, and the rules don't say how often you can do that, especially if the kid who's staying over is a… what's the word? You know someone who's being taken care of by somebody else…"

"A dependent?" Hermione supplied.

"That's right! Thanks, Hermione!" Harry said. "…especially if the kid who's staying over is a dependent of the kid they're staying with; then they ain't allowed to stay at the castle anyway!"

"But I'm not a dependent! Well, not of anyone but Mum and Dad," Hermione protested.

"I could kidnap you, and that way you would be."

"… isn't that against the rules?" Hermione asked in a quavering voice, sounding like she was afraid one of the pillars of her worldview was about to be shattered.

Harry snorted before fishing about in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a pouch from which he withdrew a tiny book, perhaps the size of Hermione's thumbnail. He set the miniature tome on the table in front of them and tapped it with his wand, and Hermione goggled as the tiny thing expanded into a gargantuan leather and brass-bound behemoth which covered the entire reading table to a depth thicker than Harry's torso and went on to hang over both sides.

It was that big, and it was still closed!

"…er," Hermione's usual eloquence escaped her.

"Ain't much of anything that's against the rules if you know how to say it right," Harry said.

"How on Earth can a school have enough rules to fill that?" Hermione hissed in disbelief.

"Well, it's because they've been making rules for like a thousand years, and once something's a rule, it don't never stop being a rule, they just add more rules to it if they feel like it. My solicitor, Madame Axetalon went through it once so she could confirm I was interpreting stuff right, and she says there's even more loopholes in the Hogwarts rules than there are in the laws about owning dragon eggs, and she's real good at spotting that kind of stuff. It's her job to do it, and she's rich. And, well, there's a rule that says if someone is someone else's pet, then ain't no one can stop the someone-who's-a-pet from staying with the someone whose pet they are."

"…isn't that against the law?" Hermione asked, hopefully, then started getting worried when Harry grimaced.

"The Wizarding world ain't a very nice place, Hermione, and it don't matter what anybody told you," he hedged.

"You mean, it is legal?" Hermione sounded like she was going to be sick.

"Yeah."

Hermione thought about that for a long moment while staring at the massive book of rules.

"How can they do that?"

"Same way they can say my Suze is an animal because she ain't human. Same way as it took the goblins lots and lots of shooting to stop the laws calling them animals, and I'm meaning loads of machine gun kind of shooting, not someone with a rifle kind of shooting. There's a lot of not-nice people out there, Hermione, and they don't much like people like you, and if they knew I'm a dragon, they wouldn't much like me, neither. 'Course that means I'm gonna have to do something very unpleasant to some people soon to get 'em to stop. But then, they oughtta learn that you really don't wanna make a dragon angry, and from what Mr. Snape says, they never learn anything what's not taught to them the hard way."

Harry's blathering dissertation had given Hermione some time to sort her thoughts out, so she focused on the important bits.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Well, when I found out about you getting bullied, I picked out like five ways I could help using the rules, and I asked Madame Pomfrey about which one was best, and she said the pet option was the best of the bunch for a bunch of reasons," Harry replied.

"Would I ever be able to stop being your… your 'pet'?" she asked, struggling to force the last word out of her throat. It was never something she had imagined uttering in this context.

"Well, yeah, any time I said so, and you know, I'd say so if you wanted me to. I mean, it'd be really rude not to!"

Hermione nodded, well aware of Harry's Snape-imparted stance on manners.

"Apart from the whole me-not-needing-to-live-in-Gryffindor-tower thing, what else would it mean? I mean, law-wise?"

"Well, the main thing is it'd allow me to really smash people's faces in if they messed with you; I mean, it'd be legal for me to do it — I could totally still do it even if it were illegal, but then I'd have to deal with the consequences of it. This way, there'd be no issue," Harry said with a shrug. "Other than that, it'd mean you'd have to do stuff I told you, but I ain't gonna do that unless it's important anyway."

"I'll need to think about this," she said.

"Sure," Harry said with aplomb. "It ain't like it's an offer that's gonna go away or nothin'."

Hermione nodded distractedly, still staring at the ludicrously massive book of rules as she fell silent for a few moments.

"It's insane," she eventually said quietly.

"What is?" Harry asked.

"That something can exist right here in Britain that's so… so wrong!"

"Yeah, I know," Harry agreed with a shrug. "Way I see it, I'm going to be a good little boy-who-ain't-snuffed-it 'til we decide it's time for people to know I'm a dragon, then I'm gonna stomp all over 'em because I don't like people who mess with my damsels, and they'd better take real good notice, 'cause there ain't nobody who don't take notice when a dragon says they gotta take notice." He clenched his fist and grinned widely. "Well, I guess I'll wait… unless they take my treasures away first, because if that happens, they're gonna find out just how good the Hogwarts motto advice really is."

"The Hogwarts motto?"

"It says 'never tickle a sleeping dragon' in Latin. I'm not sure why they always make mottos in Latin, but I guess it's because it looks all motto-ey."

"Huh."

"Hey, uh, and Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Guns and damsels are very valuable sorts of treasures. Thought you'd wanna know," Harry rose to his feet. "Well, I'm going to lunch. You up for coming along?"

Hermione shook her head, "I think I'm going to spend some more time thinking things over. Can I look through the rule book?"

"Sure, just tap it with your wand when you're done, and it'll shrink back down," Harry said. "You know where to find me if you got any questions." He turned away towards the door before calling over his shoulder, "It's that Ron Weasley, innit?"

"What about it?"

"I'll fix his shit," Harry told her, and then he left.

Hermione spent a few moments staring after him before turning back to the rule book and standing up so she could open the silly thing. She spent a few moments struggling before she went looking for Madame Pince to get some help.

2.9.3 That's him told

At breakfast the next morning, the Weasley brothers, all four of them, were quite surprised to say the least when they and their fellow Gryffindors were just entering the Great Hall for breakfast, and a certain pint-sized Hufflepuff who they all agreed should have been a Gryffindor because hey, he was HARRY POTTER, got in their way.

"What?" Fred Weasley, one of the third-year twins asked, but the boy hero ignored him in favor of glaring fixedly at his youngest brother, Ron.

Then the short-arse Boy-Who-Lived surprised them all by reaching out and casually picking up the much taller Weasley brother by the front of his robes, lifting him completely off his feet with one hand and a complete lack of any visible effort and banged him against the nearest wall.

Several of the Gryffs went immediately for their wands, but the words that came tumbling out of the young Potter's mouth stopped them in their tracks.

"Hermione nearly got her head smashed in because of you, you ginger cross-eyed Sassenach," the Boy-Who-Lived growled. "And that was bad enough, but then you didn't stop. Real gutsy of you. Real Gryffindor courage, pickin' on someone who's too nice to fight back. Well, that's over with, Ron Weasley. I'm a 'Puff, and we don't let nobody mess with our friends. You keep pushin' my friend Hermione around, and you're gonna find out what it feels like to have your face used to bust open a door; you understand?"

Ron let out a terrified squeak that Harry interpreted to mean 'yes'.

"Good," Potter said, unceremoniously dropping the terrified redhead into a heap on the floor before he went storming off.

Fred, and his other brothers, George and Percy exchanged side-on glances.

What had their youngest brother gone and done this time?

2.9.4 What can you do?

Later that day, Harry was sitting in his study period, known more generally as History of Magic, and his mind was wandering. This was not an unusual occurrence, given the generally poor teaching of the incorporeal History professor, Cuthbert Binns, but Harry usually tried to focus his efforts on learning history, even if it was self-study.

Today he was finding that to be impossible.

Recent revelations had shown that his friends were having trouble. Hermione was dealing with bullying, and he already knew where that led. Harry's memories of Hermione's terrified screaming in a ruined bathroom were still quite fresh in his mind. Harry didn't like that situation.

He didn't like it at all.

Unfortunately, Harry couldn't really think of anything else he might do to help. He had already made the offer to carry Hermione off and remove her from the Gryffindor dorms, and he had put the main perpetrator on very public notice. If he did anything more than that, Harry was pretty sure Hermione would be quite cross with him, so that was stuck for the moment.

The recent conversation with Abigail on the other hand, had revealed that she was facing her own difficult choices coming out of school. Unlike Hermione's screaming, Harry didn't have a visceral reference for the sorts of revolting and degrading situations she had referred to, but he had a general idea from his conversations with Mr. Snape, and they sounded really, really bad.

Harry was perfectly aware that, given the nature of the wizarding world and his chosen mission of cleaning it up, in the coming years he was likely going to have more visceral references for that sort of thing than anyone could ever want. When that time came, Harry really didn't want to have the knowledge that his friend Abigail had faced something similar lingering in the back of his head.

Just thinking about the vague, ill-defined possibility of that made Harry angry and uncomfortable. He couldn't imagine how bad it would feel if it actually happened!

The question became, then, what could he do about it?

Harry had already been seriously considering purchasing Hogs Haulage, mostly because trains were cool, and he thought it would be neat to own the train company — and by proxy, the trains — outright. But his conversation with Abigail had brought other possibilities to light.

Harry had not been aware of the competition in the logistics industry, nor had he been aware of the Malfoy interest in the trucking industry. Mr. Snape had made it abundantly clear that Lucius Malfoy was a bad man, responsible for a great deal of trouble and hardship over the years, and Harry was certain that sending less money in the man's direction would be better for everyone involved. Purchasing and expanding Hogs Haulage to undercut his sales and thus his profit margins might just be the ideal way to do that…

…while also getting to play with trains. There was no reason not to enjoy himself at the same time, after all.

Plus, that expansion would mean more jobs for motivated and resourceful people — people like his friend, Abigail. That would keep her out of the Ministry and the press, which would be a good thing as far as he was concerned. Her assessment of the situation had hardly been flattering after all.

That could definitely work, and like all good business deals — as Mr. Slackhammer was so fond of saying — it was a deal in which everyone won. He'd have to start work on the problem soon. Business research into Hogs Haulage and the potential markets for rail expansion could begin immediately, but personnel — that he wasn't sure how to handle. Bringing Abigail in on the rail venture would require bringing her in on the underlying reasons for the expansion if he wanted her to do the job he had thought of for her, which would mean bringing her in on the revolution, and Harry wasn't sure how to go about that.

He figured Mr. Snape would know, though. Harry would have to talk with him at the first opportunity. Luckily, Christmas break was coming up. The boy-shaped dragon nodded to himself, that would do nicely. As Binns dismissed the class, Harry was impressed.

That was the most productive history class he had ever had.

2.9.5 One man's helping hand is another's threatening fist

Hermione Granger was in her favorite place, the Hogwarts library, with her nose buried in a book and her mind occupied. Far from the concerns of her schoolmates, she was lost in the words of a man long dead, making notes with one hand while she turned pages with the other. She was in her element, though she did miss her radio from back home. Some quiet music to play in the background would help her focus.

She'd been reading the Hogwarts rule book for the better part of the last two days, and even she had to take a break from that monster. It wasn't so much the volume of text — were it just that, she would have had no issues at all; she had read more than that in one sitting before, though her mother had brought her food at the time — rather it was the content of the thing.

The Hogwarts rules were an absolute mess, full of contradictions and blatant unfairness. As Harry had said, depending on how you put it, just about anything could be permitted by the rules, and again, depending on how you put it, just about anything could be against the rules, as well. If the text in question had been historical or hypothetical, she might have enjoyed the process of puzzling out the meaning of the book and tracing the motives of the various authors.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a historical legal system, nor was it hypothetical. It was a small subset of the very rules under which she was expected to live her life, and she had just found out that those rules offered her no real protection whatsoever and in fact, opened her up to exploitation in a number of terrifying ways.

Hence her break for some light reading on the history of alchemy in a dusty five-hundred-year-old tome the size of her torso. At least alchemy followed some semblance of a pattern.

Her happy relaxation time was rudely interrupted by someone sitting down across from her and politely clearing his throat.

Looking up from her notes, she found one of the Gryffindor prefects, Percy Weasley, looking back at her.

"Hmm?" she asked warily.

"Hello, Hermione," Percy greeted her. He sounded worried.

She wasn't sure why he was worried, as he also had his younger brothers, the notorious prankster twins, Fred and George, flanking him as he spoke to a girl four years his junior.

"Er, hello?" Hermione said, shifting her chair back in case she felt the need to leave in a hurry. These were Ron's brothers after all.

"We've got the idea that our little brother's being a right prat," the left-hand twin said.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hermione asked doubtfully.

"Aw come on, you think anyone in Gryffindor tower hasn't noticed how you're out of the tower real early in the morning and don't come back until nearly curfew?" the other twin asked.

"Just leave me alone," Hermione told him. She thought she could see where this was going, and she didn't like it. "I've already got enough trouble dealing with one Weasley without you three joining in."

"Listen, Hermione," Percy said, "Gryffindor is supposed to be almost like a family. We're not as close as the 'Puffs, but we're no cowards, and what kind of yellow git doesn't stand up for his own?"

"Apparently the sort called Weasley!" Hermione snapped, standing up. Coming as it did right after reading on the massive self-contradictory mess that was the Hogwarts school rules and its institutionalized injustice, this conversation was just the sort of thing that Hermione had feared might come to pass.

She really wished she had one of Harry's guns with her right about then.

"Look, what we're saying is, if one Weasley does something wrong, it's the responsibility of all Weasleys to…" Percy started, but Hermione wasn't listening anymore.

Instead, she grabbed her notebooks and fled the library.

2.9.6 Holes dug deeper

"Oh, hell," the left-hand Weasley twin, Fred, muttered.

"Fred, Perce… this is real bad, isn't it?" his twin brother asked.

"Yes," Percy confirmed solemnly. "What in Merlin's name has Ron been doing to her?"

"We'd better make sure he gets his head on straight," George agreed with a grim nod.

"Yeah," Fred said.

The family Weasley lived by three simple rules. Rule One was: family first. Rule Two was: no making the family look bad.

And Rule Three was: muggleborns have it too rough anyway.

"We'd better have a word with Ron," Percy said.

"Yeah," the twins confirmed.

It was better that they handle this than have their parents get involved. Their father, Arthur, was too nice to really hammer the point home, and their mother, Molly, would go completely overboard to compensate.

"What's all this noise?" the librarian, Madame Pince, asked in a scathing tone.

"Sorry, Madame Pince. We'll pipe down," Percy apologized.

"See that you do," she admonished with a glare. "This is a library, not a madhouse."

The redheaded trio nodded.

"Please keep these books together for Hermione Granger," Fred asked quietly. "Our brother's got her real upset, and she ran off."

The librarian's disapproving look vanished like a morning mist under the noon sun as she realized what had been happening.

Weasley family justice was well known to the staff of Hogwarts.

"I'll do that, young man," she said. "You run along now."

"Yes, Madame Pince," Fred said as he and his brothers quickly left the library exchanging meaningful glances.

2.9.7 Helping a friend

Abigail had just left the sixth-year transfiguration class, and she was tiredly making her way off towards the Great Hall for lunch. The past few weeks had been exhausting, and transfiguration was one of the worst of the lot as far as she was concerned. So much concentration, particularly to get all the fine details down. McGonagall was a slave-driver.

Adding that on top of the make-up work from her convalescence made for a truly nightmarish schedule.

So, when Abigail noticed Harry's cute little hanger-on rushing through the hallways in a troubled manner, she was more than a little irritated at one more thing being piled on her already-burdened shoulders. She shouldn't have to deal with whatever the girl's baggage was on top of everything else…

…but she was a prefect, and that was her responsibility, no matter how tired she was.

Plus, the kid had become something of a friend over the past couple weeks, and Abigail was nothing if not serious about her friends.

"Hermione!" she called after the girl.

The girl paused and turned around. "Abigail?"

Abigail noted the tears in the younger girl's eyes, and she sighed.

There went her lunch break.

2.9.8 Searching for information

"Excuse me, Mr. Potter," a somewhat more reserved greeting took place at the Hufflepuff table during lunch.

"What do you want?" Harry growled as he recognized the fiery red shock of hair atop Percy Weasley's head.

"I want to know what my youngest brother's been playing at, so the twins and I can get him to sort his act out," Percy stated bluntly. "Look, Gryffindors do not bully other Gryffindors. A bully is a coward, and we are not cowards. Ron's forgotten that. He's made your friend, Hermione, scared of all Weasleys, and it's up to me and the twins to get his head out of his arse. To do that, we need to know just what he's been doing, and Hermione won't talk to us."

"I don't know much," Harry growled. "What I do know is it's his fault that troll nearly got her, and I wasn't joking when I said I'll smash his face in if he keeps picking on her. You better watch out too; I've heard it's a prefect's job to stop other kids in his house being berks, and you better do your job, or there'll be trouble. I don't like what I've been seeing you Gryffs get up to, and if it keeps going on, someone's gonna need their feet taken outta their earhole. That Ron better stay away from Hermione and my 'Puffs, or he's gonna get his attitude adjusted big-time. There ain't nobody picks on my friends!"

"There's no need to threaten me, Mr. Potter," Percy said, slightly surprising Harry by not sounding angry. Rather he sounded apologetic. "When one Weasley's being a twit, it makes the whole family look bad, and that just isn't done. We'll give Ron a pointed reminder, and that's a promise."

Harry contemplated that for a moment.

"You'd better," he concluded. "'Cause I don't care about any of that stuff with her parents not being able to do magic; she's brainy and there ain't nobody picks on my friends."

"Count on it," Percy told him. "We keep our promises."

Harry gave him a searching look which lasted for a few moments, and then the Boy-Who-Lived nodded gravely.

"Okay," he said, and Percy headed for the Gryffindor table with an answering nod.

Harry spent a few long moments staring at his plate before muttering something Snape-ish sounding and going back to eating.

2.9.9 Missed meals

As Hermione walked off, somewhat less distressed than she had been half-an-hour previous, Abigail sighed exasperatedly.

Pre-teen drama was just as silly as teen drama.

Apparently, the entire situation boiled down to one of the Weasley brothers making an ass of himself and Hermione taking everything in the worst possible light. The most recent issue was quite obviously, from her outside perspective, a misinterpreted attempt to fix the situation on the part of the boy's older brothers.

That said, emotions were emotions, and trying to explain the reality of the situation to a distraught girl right in the middle of puberty was an exercise in futility. All Abigail could really do was offer an understanding ear.

She would also approach her fellow prefect and advise that the obtuse ginger consider the appearances involved before he brings two of his brothers along for a delicate meeting. She was sure the boy had meant well, but seriously, of all the cack-handed ways to approach a conversation with a bullied pre-teen girl, he decided to bring along the goon squad!

She took a look at the time before deciding that she had just enough time to hit the kitchens for a snack before her next class started. Lunch in the Great Hall was a lost cause at this point.

2.9.10 A Weasley family intervention

Classes were over for the day, and the three oldest Weasley brothers found their youngest counterpart sprawled out over one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room, a worn, comfortable thing with upholstery that almost matched their Weasley family hair.

The rusty red color would also be convenient if they didn't like his explanation for his behavior. Easier to clean, you know, no one'll notice if you miss a few spots.

"Bloody hell!" Ron croaked, going white as a sheet, and his trio of brothers' worry immediately evaporated.

Ron had always been as transparent as a window, and it seemed that upholstery cleaning would not be an issue this afternoon.

"I… oh crud, sure I yelled at her a bit, but… I, oh boy, she nearly got got by that troll?" The youngest Weasley slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. "Oh bloody hell, I've been a right git…"

"What'd you say to her, anyway?" Fred asked.

"Well, I can't really remember," Ron admitted. "It wasn't much — I know because I always remember when I've really gone off on somebody. I mean, I'm pretty sure we've said worse to each other over who got the last sausage."

"When all is said and done we're quite a rowdy family, Ron," Percy explained. "I guess, being an only child, she's not nearly as used to yelling matches as we are."

"Fred, George, Perce, how the bloody hell am I going to make this okay?" Ron asked, running his hand through his hair as he looked down at the floor.

The brothers fell silent for a moment before Fred piped up with a suggestion.

"I've heard that Malfoy twat and his mates going off on her. How about you do what we should have been doing all along and cut the great git down to size next time he starts in on her?"

A round of thoughtful nodding began with Ron and slowly propagated through the brothers.

None of them had the faintest idea of what they had just begun.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.10 On damsels and in-laws

---

2.10.1 Flying off into the sunset… and losing your bags on the way

Abigail had tried to reassure her that the older Weasley boys were not, in fact, out to get her, they were just insensitive prats who were trying — clumsily — to help fix things, but Hermione wasn't so sure that Abigail had an accurate read on the situation. They just kept watching her, like they were on the lookout for something to happen so that they could take advantage, and it made Hermione uncomfortable.

Even if Abigail was right, and they were doing something silly like trying to make up for her treatment by looking out for ways to help her, it still didn't change what she had been reading of the school rules. Nor did it change what she had been able to find written on the law of Wizarding Britain.

And if the Hogwarts' rules had been upsetting, the law of the land was bone-chilling.

Hermione did not want to have to deal with the Gryffindor dorms on top of everything else, and even if she didn't know what to do about the laws, she did have an offer for getting out of Gryffindor.

Hermione had taken the better part of two weeks to come to that conclusion, most of which time was spent immersed in research in the library, and that conclusion had led her to this point, searching out Harry to ask him a very important question just a couple weeks before the Christmas holidays.

"Harry?" she asked the boy as she walked with him towards the school exit after dinner.

"Wassup, Hermione?" the young boy replied absently, before catching sight of her expression as he turned to hold the door for her.

As they walked out onto the deserted castle lawn, his expression sharpened and his attention focused, and Hermione asked seriously, "Look, if you carry me off, will I really not have to stay in the Gryffindor dorms anymore?"

"Why's that?" Harry asked, immediately concerned.

"It's nothing," Hermione sounded way too hurried when she said that, her speech echoed in her walking pace as Harry jogged slightly to keep up on their way along the path towards Hagrid's hut. "I just… I just wish I hadn't talked the Sorting Hat into putting me in Gryffindor."

"Well, yeah," Harry allowed, pulling ahead and turning to walk backwards so he could continue the conversation. "If I carry you off, well, obviously you've gotta stay at my Lair instead of anyplace else; it's how being the damsel of a big ferocious dragon works. I can get you a chain or something if that helps?"

"Oh, good," Hermione said as they rounded Hagrid's hut and arrived in the clearing Harry usually used to take off from on his way home, "I'd like you to carry me off, Harry."

Very abruptly, a solid metal dragon the size of a small locomotive, whose weight was a topic most people found somewhat uncomfortable to contemplate, was looking down at a delicate damsel very literally asking to be carried off, and what self-respecting dragon doesn't know exactly what to do in a situation like that?

Harry demonstrated just how much better he had become at growling since the last time he had found a damsel to carry off and declared, "I'm a dragon, and you're a damsel, and I'm gonna carry you off!" Then, with another ferocious bone-shaking growl, he put action to words.

As she was gently gathered up in that same massive clawed hand which had so thoroughly smashed the troll back on Halloween, Hermione gulped. The reality of being carried off by a dragon was somewhat different from what she had imagined. Her world lurched, and they were abruptly in the pitch-black moonless night sky winging their way off towards Harry's Lair.

Oddly, she was not nearly as nervous as she always had been on a broom. Perhaps it was the darkness, so she couldn't see how high she was? Or maybe it was the rock-solid grip Harry had on her — with talons large enough that she had trouble reconciling them with her concept of hands? Whatever it was, Hermione counted the security as a minor blessing.

She had barely had time to register that they were in the air before Harry came in for a relatively smooth landing on the lip of a small cave which was lit from within. The light illuminated just enough of the surroundings for Hermione to realize that they were high on the side of a sheer cliff face, and then they were inside.

As Harry set her down with great and exaggerated care, Hermione paused to take in her surroundings.

The cave itself looked to have started as one of those worn when an underground waterway comes out of a cliff. The stream responsible for its formation was now confined to a central channel which had been worn away through the center of the cave, and it flowed out and off the edge through a metal grille in the wall at the lip of the cave. The burble of flowing water provided a nice ambiance within the cave, in addition to the crash of water faintly heard from where it fell to the stream far, far below.

However, the naturally formed cave had obviously been heavily modified, expanded through excavation and changed through what seemed to be melting. Several dividing walls, such as the one at the lip of the cave into which the grille was set, seemed to have been added by piling up broken rubble and melting it into place. The natural floor of the cave had been flattened, and several more passages had been dug deeper into the cliffside.

The stream had been covered over for much of its length by another metal grille flush with the rest of the floor, and the entire area was strewn with cushions and blankets and curtains and rugs and just about anything that could possibly be made using deer hide. Off to one side, there was a collection of other furniture, including a pair of beat up and sagging sofas, several armchairs in similar condition, a hefty wooden kitchen table with similarly sturdy straight-backed chairs surrounding it. The centerpiece of the arrangement was a great white and black Rayburn with a fire merrily crackling away inside it radiating endless waves of warmth through the main cavern.

Everything was lit by warm electric lighting, the electricity for which was obviously provided by a small waterwheel which was housed in the same wall through which the stream exited the cave. It was obvious because the cabling supplying power to all the lights was quite visibly tacked up on the walls. The workings of the waterwheel were visible where an access panel had been pulled off for what looked like recent maintenance, judging by the collection of scattered spanners and a welding torch sitting on the floor next to it.

Behind the couches was an immense collection of books stacked in dozens of piles each taller than she was. Looking at the mess made her fingers itch to organize them. The rest of the room was not spared from the clutter, as every available surface — including in various places the floor — was covered in the assorted flotsam and jetsam that tended to accumulate in the workshops and studies of less than tidy individuals the world over. The mess ranged from the books she first noticed, to toy guns, to carefully labeled potions, to tools, to toy models, to great sheaves of doodles and writings and notes, to a tangled collection of maps, to a giant globe. There was even a great stack of carefully arranged gold bars off to one side.

In short, the entire place might as well have had 'scatterbrained preteen child lives here' lit up in neon signage across the entire room.

"Okay," she said, still looking around, "that's me carried off, but… um, couldn't you have waited long enough for me to get my stuff?"

"Oh! Um, sorry, I kinda didn't think of that," Harry admitted.

"Um, what's going on?" came another voice from one of the passageways deeper into the Lair.

"Oh, Suze! Check it out; I carried off another damsel!" Harry announced enthusiastically.

"I see," the centaur maid acknowledged with a grave nod. "But what was it that she was just asking?"

"Oh, well, I got kinda excited when she asked me to carry her off, and I didn't think to have her pick up her stuff before we left, so…"

"Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go tell your friends at the castle about it, so they could bring her things?" Suze suggested reasonably.

"Right!"

And with that, the dragon swept out of the cave, off to see his professor friends at the castle to let them know about his new damsel.

2.10.2 Inter-damsel communications

As she watched Harry take flight from the cave lip, Hermione asked, "Suze — what is it Harry means to you?"

Suze's expression immediately changed from gentle amusement to a look that Hermione recognized quite easily.

It was the kind of expression she was used to seeing out of the corner of her eye when she was curled up by the gas fire in the living room with a good book on a cold night, and her mother looked at her — a slight, soft smile, the sort that told you that all was well with the world.

"In the beginning, he terrified me," the centauress admitted. "I believed he was a dread beast, come to lay waste to all. I believed he would devour me, but where we expected a fell destroyer, instead we found a kindly child. Then, as I was first becoming fond of him, he saved the lives of Father, Grandfather, warriors of my kin — two of my uncles, my eldest brother, one of my cousins — Father had spoken words that should surely have earned all of my kin Harry's enmity, yet he struck against the spider plague as if it was his own kin and home they threatened. Until that time, but three summers past, we were sore pressed. Myself, I have lost four brothers, a sister, my mother, one hand of uncles, two aunts, and two hands and two cousins to those fell beasts within the span of the seasons that I recall myself, yet since the day the Great Wyrm descended upon their hordes, they have not spilled a drop of centaur blood."

"By the debt of blood unspilt, he is one of us, a young warrior of the Black Woods Clan, and his foe is ours — yet at the same time, he is the Great Wyrm of these lands, and thus lord of all he sees. To our knowledge it is a situation unique within all the tales of our past, and… I would wish to see good come of all this. At the side of our Great Wyrm, perhaps we might no more need to cower and hide in forgotten corners of this world; perhaps with his aid we might one day be able to walk the paths your kind have forged with our heads held high. And his aid is something that, once granted, I have never known to be withdrawn. House Hufflepuff suits him well, for he is steadfastly loyal to those he has deemed his own."

"You love him, don't you?" Hermione checked.

"Though they call him my Master and me his vassal… he is like a son, or a younger brother," Suze said. "And to him, it is as if I am the elder sister he never had — or the mother he never knew. Perhaps someday there may be more to it than that — despite sentiment, we are certainly not bound by blood. Even within the Clan stranger matches have come about. We might read the portents of the stars, but the future is a secret untold even by Selene. Night brings naught but hints to the paths we might travel, and who can truly know what the omens we have seen seek to tell us?"

Further discussion was cut off as, with a tremendous blast of cold air and a crash of talons against rock, Harry landed in the mouth of the cave, flanked by a pair of broom riders, Professors McGonagall and Snape. The generously sized cave suddenly seemed cramped.

"I confess I had wondered at what time the blasted reptile would decide to increase the breadth of his collection," Snape stated by way of greeting, leaning his broom up against the wall across the lip of Harry's Lair. "My congratulations on your promotion in life, Miss Granger; he is a dratted dragon and a wretched lizard, and he quite assuredly needs the aid of level heads such as your own to aid him in avoiding any further foolishness in the future."

"Hey!"

"Don't you say a single word, daft boy! Recall that this is term time, and you are not entitled to answer your teachers back!"

"Ok, Mr. Snape," Harry grumbled. "Old sourpuss."

"Insolent glutton!" Snape snapped.

"Foul-tempered poltroon!" Harry snapped back.

"Blithering cross-eyed pillock!" Snape returned. "Ha! You're still thirty years too early to out-insult the master, boy!"

"How about 'slobbering armpit-sniffing reprobate'?" Harry asked. "I thought that was a pretty good one."

"Perhaps," Snape allowed thoughtfully. "Hmm, yes, I'll bear that in mind for the next time Goyle fouls up."

The irritable potions master noted the way Hermione was now looking at him as if he'd grown a couple of extra heads.

"What? Do you quite seriously believe I have no sense of humor, Miss Granger? Odd, I had thought you to be better suited to House Ravenclaw."

"You do realize Filius would become quite insufferably smug if he heard you saying that, don't you Severus?" McGonagall checked, looking amused and blowing Hermione's mind in the process. The Gryffindor first year had never seen her Head of House wearing anything other than a stern expression before.

"Naturally. And I likewise realize he would be looking insufferably smug at your expense, Minerva," Snape countered, whereupon McGonagall blew Hermione's mind once again by mock-scowling and childishly sticking her tongue out in Snape's direction. "Now that we're done demonstrating to Miss Granger that we are just as human as any, perhaps we should get down to business?"

"That's a good idea, Mr. Snape," Harry said, brushing some of the clutter out of the way to settle his bulk down into the middle of the room.

"Aye, now," McGonagall said, "seems tae me it's an open-and-shut case. It's nae like our Harry's ever changed his mind, now is it?" Hermione's mind skipped once again when she heard that; she was used to a faint Scottish accent coming from her Head of House but not that tangled knot of Scottishisms.

"I change my mind sometimes, Mrs. McGonagall," Harry protested, sounding somewhat defensive. "Usually when I find out I've been really wrong about stuff, because not changing your mind when you find out you've been wrong about stuff is… is…"

"The mark of a willfully-ignorant blundering pillock?" Snape helpfully suggested.

It was at that point that Hermione realized she was starting to get accustomed to the shocks to her worldview.

"…is the mark of a willfully-ignorant blundering pillock — thank you, Mr. Snape — and I ain't no way one of those!" the massive dragon in the room finished.

"Well then, since that is the case, I'd hope you'll bring my first-year down from this lair o' yours fair lessons, laddie," McGonagall sternly lectured, wagging a finger but failing to contain a smile.

"I don't think Hermione'd let me not do that," Harry said, scratching at his head.

"What I want to know," Hermione said, "is why nobody's asking my opinion."

"But you said you wanted me to carry you off," Harry said, sounding puzzled. "Why would I ask your opinion again after you already told me?"

"Not you," Hermione waved him off with a vague gesture, "the professors! I'd think they'd want to confirm that I was willing in this sort of situation!"

"Well, don't just sit there and glare then, girl," Snape said, cocking an eyebrow. "I trust you understand the ramifications of this situation?"

"Look, I made sure I knew what I was getting into," she snapped, before pinking as she realized she had just snapped at a professor. "It's not a big deal; you don't need to be so serious about it."

"And tell me, Miss Granger, why precisely do you believe we would be taking this seriously if it were not?" Snape asked, his eyebrow remaining cocked.

"…what?" the bushy-haired girl asked blankly.

"You are neither hard of hearing nor an imbecile, Miss Granger," her potions professor countered.

"Mr. Snape, if you don't stop growling at my damsel right now, I shall be forced to lick your head," Harry stated authoritatively.

"Dratted dragon!" Snape snapped. "I am attempting to impart the gravity of this situation to Miss Granger, and you are not helping!"

"And you're growling at my damsel while you're doing it, and that ain't helping neither!" Harry growled back, his voice dropping into octaves well below those of the deepest human voices in which sound was more felt than heard.

"Tha both o' ye' eejits cool doon richt tha' noo!" McGonagall interjected forcefully, giving Hermione her latest shock. The transfiguration mistress' diction had plummeted from its usual faint accent to a rolling Gaelic-influenced Scots brogue as thick as ten-day-old porridge as she very abruptly proved herself to be a bona-fide local lass.

"We are attempting to have an intellectual disagreement here, Minerva," Snape said calmly.

"An' yeh kin cool doon or yeh kin tak yair backside raight tha fook doon tha castle, yah gurt great chewchter!" McGonagall fairly growled, then spun around and stabbed a finger at Harry. "An' yeh too, laddie! Quit yair blatherin' on an' act lak a responsible dragon fair a change or maself'll hae tae gie yeh a guid clip roond yair lug!"

"Well, I suppose that's us told, eh Mr. Potter?" Snape said with a sidelong glance at the dragon in the room.

"Yeah, I think so, Mr. Snape," Harry nodded.

"Guid," McGonagall said, her accent starting to fade. "Now I'll be having a wee word with Miss Granger in private. You four take yair backsides through there and wait 'til I tell yeh we're done."

"No, you and Hermione can go through there if you really think it's so important," Harry said, crossing his forelimbs and settling in even more firmly.

"Oh, aye?" McGonagall challenged.

"Aye," Harry growled, glaring back. "I'm no gonna move on that, Mrs. McGonagall, and if you think different, well, you're out of luck, 'cause I don't trust nobody on this stuff."

"Looks like that's you told too, Minerva," Snape remarked, ignoring the venomous glare this earned him with aplomb.

"Yeah," Harry confirmed, voice dropping back into that spine-chilling snarl. "It is."

There was a short pause everyone in the Lair — bar Suze who had never lost track of the fact — reminded himself or herself they were dealing with a multi-ton, magic-resistant dragon. A dragon who tended to be a mite touchy about those things — and people — he regarded as his own.

Hermione took advantage of the pause to recover somewhat from the repeated shocks this conversation had subjected her to, in fact she recovered enough to think back on something she had heard earlier in the conversation which she was still curious about.

"Professor Snape," the girl began, "what did you mean earlier about me being better suited to Ravenclaw? I thought the Hat sorted based on personality. Did the Hat make a mistake when it sorted me? Was I not brave enough for Gryffindor?"

"Miss Granger, you misunderstand me. The Sorting Hat sorts first by customer preference, second by whatever the customer in question truly believes to be the most important: loyalty, courage, knowledge, or ambition. If the Hat sorted by whatever was strongest in an individual's personality, you would most assuredly have been sorted into Ravenclaw due to your all-encompassing and quite insatiable thirst for information. That, not some nebulous 'brave enough', is why I believe you should have been a Ravenclaw, or possibly a member of my own House due to your immediately apparent ambition to know all that there is to be known. It is for the same reason that I believe most of the House I have the misfortune to administrate should have been sorted into Hufflepuff, as they are largely execrable sheep wont only to obediently follow along in the footsteps of whichever imbecile was foolish enough to first blunder along a certain course. For the same reason, I believe that most of House Hufflepuff should have been sorted into my House for they are by and large cunning little rapscallions indeed, ready and willing to do the work needed to bring their ambitions into reality."

"What about Harry?" Hermione asked. "What House should he have been sorted into, using your way of meaning 'should'?"

"That is difficult to say," Snape admitted. "Either House Gryffindor as he is one iota short of fearless, House Hufflepuff as he is quite fanatically loyal to any whom he has reason to deem a friend and never mind his remorseless and in fact relentless ferocity in the protection of one like yourself whom he has declared a damsel, or House Ravenclaw as he has an utterly insatiable appetite for raw knowledge; one would have to be the Sorting Hat to say for certain. The only House to which I can categorically state he is unsuited is my own, as his sole ambition is to be the perfect dragon by his own peculiar definition of 'dragon', though I have cause to believe he is expanding his personal ambitions. All things change with time."

"Severus," Minerva cut in, "As I recall, the Hat took you to task for your speculation about Sorting after the opening feast. I would have thought that being told off by a piece of headgear would have made you reluctant to continue the practice."

"Miss Granger asked a question, Minerva," Snape said, "and I will not deny my student her answers on account of a millennium-old piece of fabric."

"Um, Mr. Snape," Harry cut in, reminding them all that he was still in the room, "I think Donald also considers how different people will get along in the Houses too. He told me that his final decision was between Hufflepuff and Slytherin for me, 'cause I was better suited to Hufflepuff by personality, but I'd learn more in Slytherin. He said he sent me to Hufflepuff because he didn't think there'd be many survivors if he put me in Slytherin."

"And there you have it, Miss Granger," Snape allowed. "Proof that you should always be skeptical of new information no matter who presents it to you. Regardless of the reasoning, I believe that a child's House plays entirely too large a role in how they perceive the world during their schooling."

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall began, "I do believe it is about time for me to take you aside and explain the proprieties involved in keeping your newest damsel."

"Really?" Harry asked doubtfully. "I thought I was doing pretty well with Suze."

"Yes, but Suze was somewhat older than you when she first became your damsel, so she knew enough to guide you properly," McGonagall said. "She is also a centaur, and human girls are somewhat different, if for no other reason than that Miss Granger comes from a significantly different culture."

"Oh," Harry said. "That makes sense."

And with that, the young dragon ambled off after the stern Scotswoman for a serious discussion on the proper care and handling of small British girls.

"You think the House system is broken, don't you?" Hermione checked as the pair left the main room of the cave complex.

"Indeed, Miss Granger," Snape confirmed. "The House system as it stands is most assuredly broken. It is my belief that we would all be better served by such a system if the students were to, at the barest minimum, be re-sorted after each two years of their time at Hogwarts — preferably at the beginning of each week; opinions can change with remarkable swiftness and fluidity during one's youth. I realize that the ideal would be quite difficult to implement, but it is not yet a crime for a man to dream."

"Not yet a crime?"

"Not yet," he confirmed.

At her continued look of puzzlement, Snape snorted. "Miss Granger, imagine a world without restriction or check on the activities of the powerful, and you have the Wizarding World. Some of this is an unavoidable consequence of the nature of our magical gift; there are some few individuals so much more powerful than their fellows that the only real restriction on their behavior is their own moral character. Albus Dumbledore is one such person, and Mr. Potter here is well on his way to becoming another. Unfortunately, magical power is not the only form of exploitable power we must contend with. There is also the power of information control."

"What do you mean, Professor?"

"Since the Wizarding World began withdrawing from the world at large more than a thousand years ago, we have developed frighteningly powerful methods for controlling perception and memory — even thought, itself! As a society, we routinely use spells designed to subvert the memories of others, things like that abomination known as the obliviation, and even spells designed to directly alter others' will, like compulsions. They were necessary to maintain the curtain of secrecy, but they are spectacularly prone to corruption, particularly given the mindset engendered by their use."

"The mindset?" Hermione sounded troubled.

"After the separation, secrecy became paramount, and the lives, even the very thoughts of non-magical persons became simple obstacles to that goal. They went from being priceless treasures to simple trash to be removed when it became too inconvenient," Snape sneered. "And what is the difference between the lives and thoughts of non-magical humans and those of magical ones?"

"I… I don't know, Professor."

"There is none," Snape said flatly. "No matter what justification, magical superiority or whatever the malarkey of the day is, there is no intrinsic difference between the two. Thus, the entire idea is based on a lie, and philosophy based on such a foundation will eventually collapse. In this case, by its very nature it denigrates the lives and memories of magical persons as well as those of non-magical persons because there is no way to differentiate between the two. It is, at its black and withered heart, the essence of evil, and we see the effects in our society now."

"Those same minds which have been conditioned to think of all else as worthless in the face of their own self-interest now run our society, both in the government and private sector, though there is little enough separation between the two in the cesspit that is wizarding Britain. It is a place where price-fixing and monopolies are routine, and in fact, are often aided and abetted by government, where health and safety standards are nonexistent, where useless addictive products are pushed on unsuspecting people routinely, and where the very concept of a fine, upstanding government official is treated with the same sort of skepticism the non-magical reserve for tales of unicorns and dragons. And it is a place where that same government not only maintains a propaganda rag masquerading as a legitimate newspaper, but also maintains an entire department devoted to directly controlling the thoughts and memories of other people."

"Is it really that bad?" Hermione was more than a little appalled at the description.

"Wizarding Britain is a hellhole that has managed to immerse itself in all the worst excesses of both socialism and capitalism at the same time," Snape sneered again. "It lacks the necessary checks of an ingrained morality required for capitalism to function properly, and as it does in all government systems, the scum rises to the top in the public sector with no institutional checks and balances to keep them from becoming tyrants. What sort of system do you think would arise from such a morass?"

Hermione fell silent.

"The concept of human dignity, and indeed, common decency has fallen by the wayside in our community. It is said that, within the mundane world, the rich get richer whilst the poor stay poor — ha! They think they've got it tough, do they? Quite frankly, if our problems were as few as theirs, we would be laughing!"

2.10.3 On the nature of public personae

About an hour later, Hermione's things had been delivered, and the professors had left on their brooms. Hermione was seated on one of the couches while Harry dug away at another part of the cave to create a small alcove which could be curtained off for Hermione's usage.

Mrs. McGonagall had been quite insistent that it would be most improper for Hermione to sleep in the same warm, comfortable pile that Harry and Suze did. Harry wasn't precisely sure why that was the case, but he accepted it nonetheless, particularly when it was reinforced by Hermione's massive blush of embarrassment when he asked her for confirmation.

It wasn't like digging out a few thousand cubic feet of rock was difficult anyway, and they had plenty of deer leather for curtains.

While Harry busied himself with digging, Hermione considered her conversation with Professor Snape, and during a lull in the noise, when Harry was attempting to figure out how to turn a corner in the small space, she commented, "The professors are very different when they're not, you know, in school."

Harry let out a grunt of effort as he strained to reach around the corner of the wall he had left for Hermione's privacy so he could dig out space for a closet. "Yeah… I know." Another grunt, "I asked Mr. Flitwick about it — not Professor Flitwick, because he wasn't being a professor then — and he says there's a very important difference between when they are and aren't being professors."

There was a bit of harsh scrabbling and then an explosive sigh of relief as Harry finally managed to break out the last few chunks of rock from the very hard-to-reach back wall of Hermione's future room.

That accomplished, the young dragon continued, "He says that when they're at school and being professors, they have to be respectable authority figures because the kids need respectable authority figures, so when they're not at school, that's when you get to know the real people instead of the professor masks they use for the job."

"That makes sense," his new, human damsel nodded slowly as she considered the idea.

"I mean, it's not that they're really different people, they just sort of relax more. Like I've never known Mr. Snape to laugh when he's being Professor Snape, and I've never heard Mrs. McGonagall call someone 'yeh auld eejit' when she's being Professor McGonagall, and I've never seen Mr. Flitwick do shadow-puppets when he's being Professor Flitwick, but they're still the same personalities, just more subdued. I can see though, how people who've only known them when they're being professors are going to think they're these serious people who you've got to respect and everything. That's how I figure you get kids to take you seriously about this whole education thing."

"It's obvious that you respect them, Harry, so why do you think other people wouldn't?" Hermione asked.

"I respect them because of who they are, because of what they can do," Harry explained. "I respect Mr. Flitwick because he's a three-times world champion duelist. I respect Mrs. McGonagall because she's a lovely old lady that can turn a desk into a real live pig as easy as I can eat a rasher of bacon. I respect Mr. Snape because he's invented more potions than I've had hot dinners, and because he ain't scared of nothing at all. I respect Mr. Hagrid because he knows exactly how to find the bad bit and get oil onto it when my skin gets real itchy and dry because my body's growing too fast for it even when I don't tell him where it's itching. I even respect Mr. Filch because even though he can't do any magic, he still manages to keep the whole castle clean and properly organized despite people like those Weasley twins making a real mess, and because anyone who's nice to cats can't be all bad."

"I didn't take you for a cat person."

"Cats are okay; you know where you stand with a cat — if you make a cat cross, it'll let you know right off, and the same goes for a cat that likes what you're doing." Harry grimaced, "Well, that, and dogs always run away as soon as I get close to 'em, no matter how friendly I try to be."

With that, Hermione discovered that a pouting dragon looked very strange indeed.

2.10.4 Stymied investigations

Weeks passed, and soon the end of the fall term arrived once again, and as the students prepared eagerly for their Christmas break, whether they were to go home or stay on campus, the staff once again met to discuss their progress over exotic drinks.

The crowd was sizeable, with the usual suspects showing up. Quirrel was still absent, though no one could find it within themselves to blame the man after his terrifying dressing-down by the Headmaster over his behavior on Halloween.

The rest of the staff were privately certain that they'd be hiding in some remote corner of the castle too if they had been on the receiving end of that.

As had become his habit, Filius found himself tending bar, passing about portions of an odd sort of alcohol provided directly from the distillery of Madame Sprout, this time a strong, smoky liquor which somehow managed to look like a colorful deluge of falling autumn leaves. It even rustled when swished in the glass.

"This is a fine accomplishment, Pomona," Albus praised after taking a sip. "I don't believe I have ever encountered a magical liquor with so many masterfully-incorporated effects in all my days. And you have managed to keep it from tasting of burnt magic, too!"

"Thank you," the rather homely woman said, face reddening somewhat at the effusive praise.

"Indeed, a remarkable synthesis," Snape volunteered. "Managing so much so smoothly demands consummate skill. I offer you my professional respect."

Minerva had been staring at her glass disapprovingly after taking a sip, almost betrayed by the fact that she found herself genuinely liking a liquor other than her beloved local single-malt, before she took another sip and attempted to bring the meeting to order.

"So, I suppose that we should discuss our progress during the term," the Scotswoman began. "Has any progress been made on identifying the miscreant who brought those trolls into the school?"

"None, I am afraid," Albus said. "The culprit remains at large, and we have no clues as to his or her identity."

"How have your students adjusted after the troubles?" Pomona asked, before continuing proudly. "I know my Badgers have pulled together nicely."

"My Ravens hardly noticed, as near as I can tell," Flitwick said. "There is some wild speculation about the motivation for the attack and the means used to repel the trolls, but nothing of substance and, I'm sad to say, nothing particularly well thought-out." The diminutive man sipped at his drink before shaking his head, "Very shoddy work for my Ravens; I can usually expect better from them even in idle speculation."

"My Lions took a while, but they eventually realized one of their own had been attacked, and they've been looking out for Miss Granger since," Minerva volunteered. "It's almost a shame that she ran off with Mr. Potter; I think she would have found quite a few friends had she stuck it out for a few more months. Ah well, no use crying over spilt milk." She took another almost reluctant sip of the leafy brew.

All eyes turned to Snape expecting him to inform on the state of his own students.

The potions master looked up from his drink inquiringly.

Minerva sighed, exasperated. "How have your students taken the situation, Severus?"

Severus smiled at once again tweaking the noses of his coworkers. "They are their usual self-absorbed, dunderheaded selves. With the sole bright exception of Miss Abercrombie, the incident had as much effect on my Snakes as a rock thrown into a lake. There was some temporary excitement, but the students quickly fell back into their normal habits."

"And how has Miss Abercrombie reacted?" Flitwick asked. "She has always been a favorite of mine in class."

"She had recovered admirably, and she has made a friend in Mr. Potter," Snape said. "They tend to study together, along with Miss Granger, and they seem to be getting along rather famously. It is a rare occurrence for one of mine to manage to pull themselves together into something admirable."

The school nurse snickered at that, poorly attempting to stifle her mirth with her drink.

"What is so funny about their friendship, Poppy?" Pomona asked, somewhat miffed at the apparent mockery. Friendship was very important to her.

"Ah," Madame Pomfrey managed to get her giggles under control, "Miss Abercrombie is… interested in more than simply friendship with Mr. Potter, in fact. I will not share the details, but she seems to be one of those who likes her men strong, if you catch my meaning."

"Oh, dear," Pomona said. That was unexpected. "Is it something I should be monitoring as Mr. Potter's Head of House? She is more than a little old for the boy at this point."

"No, she is quite in control of herself," Poppy reassured her. "I have no doubt that she will maintain that self-control admirably, but I'd be willing to bet that she will make that interest clear before she graduates, depending, of course, on how she reacts when she eventually learns of Mr. Potter's nature." The nurse chuckled to herself once more, "Mr. Potter seems to be acquiring an embarrassment of potential romantic entanglements already, between Miss Abercrombie and Miss Granger; his school years might just become quite the drama."

Severus shook his head in disgust at the idea before sipping at his drink once more.

"So long as there is nothing untoward going on, I suppose there is no harm in letting things play out," Albus opined. "Speaking of Miss Granger, how is she faring after her relocation?"

"She has settled in quite well," Minerva volunteered. "Mr. Potter dug out a small apartment for her use the same night he carried her off, and between Miss Suze's skill with deer hide and Mr. Potter's transfiguration abilities, it is quite well-appointed. Mr. Potter will, of course, be flying her in to school every day when he comes in himself, and the rest of the administrative details have already been discreetly handled."

"That was well done, Minerva," Albus approved. "There was no need to leave anything unhandled and attract attention to the boy before he is ready for it." The elderly wizard nodded sagely before relaxing back into his chair for another sip. "And how goes the research into the Avebury incident?"

"We have confirmed the energy levels involved in the transformation to be consistent with Filius' earlier estimates," Septima Vector reported. "That was calculated by totaling the amount of magic involved in the various ley line effects observed, the energy inherent in Mr. Potter's form as determined from detailed studies of his aura, as well as the energy of transformation of Mr. Potter's physiology as determined from Severus' studies. We have confirmed that the problem is just as dire as we had feared."

There was a murmur of discussion in the room for a moment before the Runes professor spoke up.

"Further examination of the Avebury site and the three others within the Isles have revealed just how much we have lost over the years," Bathsheda shook her head in disgust. "Perhaps one in five of the symbols used in the inscriptions are intelligible; even then, they are only found in the oldest of our records. Judging by the drift rates in runic languages, I would estimate the rune systems used were devised twenty thousand years ago — at the very least. The origins of these things are ancient beyond belief."

The woman took a drink before continuing, "Trying to discern their function from the writings themselves is an exercise in futility; we will have to do a detailed functional analysis as well in order to assign meanings and then extrapolate from there." She sighed, "This would probably be the most fascinating runic puzzle I had ever heard of, if not for the necessity of sitting on top of the world's biggest explosive while trying to solve it."

"Aside from the difficulties in understanding," Filius took up the discussion, "our work with Sybil leads us to believe that there are at least eight-hundred of the things spread throughout the world in a decidedly nonuniform pattern. Fortunately, she has been able to give us very precise measurements for where the things are in relation to her at the time of her divination…"

"I can imagine her definition of precise," Minerva scoffed.

"Do not dismiss it so readily, Minerva," the diminutive man chided his colleague. "This application is quite different from her usual tea leaves and palmistry. Sybil actually gave us a list of distances accurate to within a mile for the devices within the British Isles, and she assures me that the precision will stay within twenty miles even for the other side of the globe. We have some promising beginnings. I propose that we return with decent maps for our next meeting to see if we can put a face to the problem. Problems always seem to get easier to deal with when you can put eyes on them."

"Speaking of eyes," Poppy spoke up, "have you considered bringing Mr. Potter along for your examinations of the devices? He can see magical fields naturally, mind, and that might give you some new insights."

"A capital idea!" Flitwick enthused. "Perhaps we invite him to our next project meeting?"

"I might suggest that we also ask Mr. Potter to review Mr. Dursley's memories in light of his superior senses," Severus added. "He might be able to glean more than we have."

"Wouldn't that be dependent on Mr. Dursley's senses, rather than Mr. Potter's?" Minerva asked.

"No, Minerva," the Headmaster interjected, "the function of a pensieve for viewing memories is actually another quite fascinating application of divination. You see, when you view a 'memory' in a pensieve, you are actually scrying into the past using that memory as a targeting catalyst. That is why 'reviewing' a memory can reveal things which you didn't observe in the original memory and why the memory is viewed from a perspective outside the head of the contributor. It is one of the most reliable divination methods. Only determining the future is so terribly 'wooly' as you are so fond of putting it. Divining the past and present is actually quite dependable given the appropriate conditions."

The stern Scotswoman looked rather like she had bitten into a lemon.

"It seems that we will be meeting with Mr. Potter after the Christmas break, then," Pomona remarked. "It sounds like a practical idea, but I must ask, what will we do about the alcohol? The boy is underaged, after all."

"Oh dear," Filius said, clutching his glass protectively, "I hadn't considered that."

As his colleagues expressed similar concerns, Severus spoke up, "Mr. Potter tends to prefer Goblin tea, so we could simply provide that if you are squeamish about pouring alcohol into the blast furnace that is the boy's digestive tract. Though I have no idea why you would be concerned — the stuff will cook off before it gets halfway down his gullet."

"Ah, good," Albus said, "I too had been worried about foregoing our alcohol. Good show, Severus."

"Lush."

2.10.5 Not-so-suspicious sedans

On a deserted stretch of road which had hosted an odd procession of white vans the better part of a year previous, a small family sedan trundled through the winter landscape of brown shrubbery interspersed with pockets of windswept white snow before it pulled over at a familiar cut in the hillside.

A well-to-do British man left the car to look doubtfully at the passageway, comparing it to a photograph he pulled from his pocket before nodding in satisfaction and returning to the vehicle. The car then pulled off the road completely and slowly passed through the hill and out onto the moors.

Inside the car, the man's wife asked, "Tony, are you sure we're going the right way?"

"I think so, Sharon. That cut in the hillside looked just like the photo Hermione sent us, and we've been able to keep driving this far. If there weren't a path here, we would have gotten hung up a long time ago."

"But didn't she say there was a forest here?" Sharon insisted. "I don't see any trees."

"I know, Sharon, but we only have the directions we were given to go on. Hermione said someone would meet us when we got close enough. We're just going to have to trust in those directions."

"Well, if you're sure…" Sharon trailed off, looking out on the surrounding moor doubtfully.

It was another three minutes before they were approached by the very same centaur maiden they had encountered back in August.

2.10.6 Puddle jumper

Tony Granger stumbled over to brace himself against the blessedly solid stone wall.

After exchanging greetings with Suze, she had directed him to a secluded clearing just inside a forest that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere as he drove, and he had parked the family car under a sturdy tree just in time to yelp in startlement when his daughter's dragon friend suddenly landed behind the car with a heavy thud.

A quick greeting had then led directly into the young dragon gently scooping him, his wife, and all their luggage up in one massive hand while his centaur securely clipped herself to a harness around the dragon's massive scaly torso. Then, Tony most assuredly did not scream as he was carried through the most disturbing flight of his life up to that point, after which he and Sharon were safely deposited on a generally level stone floor.

Harry had been very careful, but Tony had honestly never been happier to be on solid ground once again.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" his daughter asked.

Looking up, he saw his Hermione looking at him in concern from where she was wrapped up in his wife's arms. Sharon, for her part, was looking at him in amusement. She always did like rollercoasters, crazy woman. He returned her amused look with one of mild disgust, which only made her giggle.

"I'm alright, honey," he mustered the effort to say. "Flying simply doesn't agree with me, it seems."

"I know," his absolutely saintly daughter commiserated. "It took me all week to get used to Harry carrying me down from the Lair."

"So, you have to make that flight every day?" his wife asked.

Hermione nodded.

Tony shuddered at the idea of going through that every day. "Why on earth doesn't he have a stairway?"

"Because that would defeat the purpose of having a knight-proof lair," Harry cut in matter-of-factly. "This way you have to be able to fly to get in, and knights can't fly."

"I see," Sharon said. Tony could tell his wife was barely suppressing yet another fit of giggles. "Do you have that much of a problem with knights, young man? I didn't think they were particularly common any longer."

"Well… not yet," the young dragon allowed before continuing seriously, "but all the stories I could find always talked about knights coming along and sticking unsuspecting dragons with their lances and making them dead, and I don't really see why I should risk it when I can just not build a stairway and not have to worry."

"Sensible, I suppose," Sharon allowed.

And with that, the group moved on into the Lair proper to get warmed up by the Rayburn.

2.10.7 Still sinking…

After a few minutes of pleasant small talk around the stove, Hermione and her mother had retreated to her bedroom in the Lair to discuss whatever it is that mothers and daughters talked about with each other in such a situation. Tony had no idea what they would be talking about, but he trusted his wife to let him know if he needed to handle something.

In the meantime, Tony Granger decided to have a bit of a talk with the young… man… dragon… whatever, who had so quickly become so important to his daughter. There might not be much he could do about the situation as a father, a truth that had been hammered home by his discussion with that Snape fellow back at Halloween, but he could certainly find out more about things. Maybe he could even offer some advice?

"So, Harry," he began casually, "what prompted you to carry my daughter off like a sack of potatoes from the grocer?"

Perhaps he wasn't quite as sanguine about the situation as he had thought.

"Well, she was bein' bullied by some of the jerks in her House, right?" Harry explained gamely. "So I offered to carry her off so she didn't have to stay there, and so I could step in to defend her from stuff. I mean, I would have protected her anyway, but that might have brought some trouble if we weren't careful about it, and it's just simpler to have it so she's my dependent from the perspective of the school."

"Wait! Carrying her off makes her your dependent?" the dentist interrupted incredulously. "How does that work, exactly?"

"Well, by the school rules, when I carried her off, she became my pet, and that made her my responsibility, and since I don't live on campus, that means she can't either, so then…"

"Wait one bloody minute!" the outraged father hissed. "My daughter is considered your pet?"

"Well, yeah," Harry confirmed. "She is until I say she ain't anymore, and I'd say that whenever she asks, so it's not really a problem for her."

"Couldn't you have picked something less… degrading than 'pet'?" Tony most assuredly didn't whine.

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "Well, I could have gone for a servant contract or given her a House Potter torc, but the second one would have been essentially permanent — I mean, there are ways out of that, but it's basically a vassalage thingy, and even if we did break it off all friendly-like, people would assume it was because Hermione did something really, really bad; so that would go badly for her. I didn't want to rush."

"What about the servant contract you mentioned?"

"Well, she doesn't really have any skills yet that I could be hiring her for, so… well," Harry winced, "um, a servant contract without an accompanying silver torc would basically be seen as…" he trailed off.

"What would she be seen as?"

"Well, the way Madam Pomfrey explained it, Hermione's just about old enough to get pregnant, so…"

"I think I understand," Tony cut off the explanation, feeling rather sick to his stomach, before continuing out of morbid curiosity. "What would 'an accompanying silver torc' mean?"

"Well, that would mean just about the same thing, but with the further intention to build something more permanent, either a concubinage or marriage arrangement." Harry said with the air of someone repeating an earlier explanation that they weren't entirely solid on the meaning of themselves. "The pet thing might sound a bit bad, but the social connotations are that she's a playmate, not anything more… sexual? Is that the right word? I mean, I like Hermione, and even though I don't really get what it's all about, I gather that might be something to look into in a few years, but I thought it'd be a bad idea to rush into something permanent over some bullying."

"I appreciate that, Harry," the girl in question's father said reluctantly. "Why do you know so much about this anyway? Doesn't seem like something you'd have looked into on your own."

"Well, before I made Hermione the offer, I talked it over with Madame Pomfrey, and she made sure to explain things to me, so I could look out for Hermione okay," Harry said proudly. "I still don't really get what the deal is about sex and stuff, but Madame Pomfrey said she'd explain to me when I got old enough to understand." The young dragon frowned, "She said it would only make sense after my body grew up a bit more and that I had to finish learning occlumency before then. Do you know what she meant by that?"

The father of a young daughter decided to answer that with another question. "Do you know what sex actually is, Harry?"

"Not really, just that it has something to do with making babies and stuff."

That was a relief! For a minute there, he thought he was going to have to worry about his daughter getting into certain things long before she — or he — was ready for them.

"A lot of the stuff that has to be explained is instinctive reactions that you won't even start feeling for a few more years," Tony explained. "If you're not feeling them yet, then trying to explain will just confuse you, or worse, it might make you think something is wrong with you for not feeling them. It's best just to wait for the right time."

"Okay," Harry agreed affably before dropping the subject in one of those rapid changes so typical of young children and setting off in an entirely different direction.

"Oh, do you wanna see my new gun? At my last marksmanship lesson, Sergeant-Major Hooktalon said I was good enough with my Lee-Enfield to start handling an L1A1!" In the middle of the excited babbling, the dragon shifted form into that of a small boy and scampered over to a neatly-organized gun rack beside the cave entrance, picking up the gun in question and professionally, if a little slowly, verifying that it was unloaded before bringing it over to show it off to his friend's father.

"Um, Harry," Tony began, looking nervously at the scary-looking black rifle, "isn't that the same sort of rifle the Army uses?"

"Yep! Isn't it neat?"

"Well, I suppose, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal for private ownership in this country. I looked into the gun laws after we met in Diagon Alley, and they were pretty adamant about it. Even the other one," Tony indicated the Lee-Enfield, "requires a gun license, and you're not old enough to get one of those."

Harry grinned as he patted the L1A1 he was holding, "Well, yeah, it's illegal for humans to own much guns. Mr. Slackhammer says he hopes they get over that silliness before something bad happens to them because of it, and I agree with him 'cause it seems like a really dangerous thing to do, but I'm a dragon, so I don't gotta worry about that stuff."

"…what?"

"Well, they ain't written no laws about whether porpoises are allowed to own guns, have they? And they ain't written no laws about whether dragons are allowed to own guns, have they? And they ain't written no laws about whether centaurs are allowed to own guns, have they? They've only written laws about whether humans and goblins are allowed to own guns, and since I'm not a human, and I'm not a goblin, then laws about humans and goblins ain't laws about me," Harry elaborated.

"…I don't think that's how it works; they're laws about people," Tony objected. "A porpoise isn't a person, it's an animal. You're a person, you talk too much not to be, and centaurs and goblins are definitely people."

"No, porpoises are definitely people, they swear too much not to be," Harry objected. "And Madame Axetalon says those laws don't apply to not-human people. She oughtta know, she's a not-human sort of person, and anyway, goblins got a whole lotta laws for themselves. Didja know it's illegal for a goblin older than ten not to own any guns? And since I'm a declared asset of goblin-kind it's illegal for me not to have any guns too."

"That's different from British law, Harry," the dentist said.

"No it ain't; the goblins have been conglomerating… contradicting… centrebr… um, sending, yeah, sending soldiers to fight wars and stuff with the non-magical government since the first Boer War, and they're officially a regiment in the British Army, and it's all written down in laws and stuff even if most people don't know about those laws because people who don't glow ain't supposed to know about goblins. Mr. Slackhammer says it's classificated top secret because the wizards would really freak out if they knew."

"Huh…" Tony wasn't sure what to make of that, so he paused for a moment before an earlier statement from Harry caught up with him. "Wait, porpoises swear?"

"Lots and lots and lots," Harry nodded emphatically. "I ain't never heard a porpoise say something where some part of it weren't 'fuck'."

"How can you hear porpoises say things?"

"Well, I found out how porpoises are all sweary same time I found out them whistly noises they make is talking. It was that time I went for a swim in the bay and bumped into one and he got so in my face and squealed at me so hard, I figured I'd better check if his squealing actually meant anything but thweet, and when I told Mrs. McGonagall what he'd called me, she said she'd have to scrub out my mouth with soap if I swore like that any."

"Check out if it meant anything?" How would one accomplish that?

"Well, yeah, if I concentrate real hard on talking, things just start making sense after a while."

"I wish I'd had that talent for my language requirement in college," the dentist remarked. "What did the porpoise say?"

"He said, 'You fucking great lump of fucking fuck! Can't you see I'm swimming here, fuckface? I'll take a fucking dump down your fucking blowhole if you don't get your fat fucking tail the fuck out my way, you fuck! What are you fucking goggling at me for? For fuck's sake, you're just like all those fucking beach-swimming fucks, too fucking retarded to understand a fucking word a dude fucking says, aren't you? Fuck off outta my fucking way, fuckface?' So I said, 'Fuck you, fuckface', back the same way as he said stuff and got outta his way. He got all sorta surprised and cross about that and started really yelling at me. Well, after a while, I sorta learned how to talk porpoise by mistake. I think it was while I was waving him around by the tail."

"Huh," that was a rather impressive tirade, come to think about it.

"Just so you know, porpoises really don't like being called fuckface. It makes 'em real cross," Harry solemnly warned his friend's father. "I had to grab Two-Fucking-Bubble-Spiral by the tail and fly around waving him about before he stopped trying to get me whenever he saw me. He went swimming off Skye-way after that, and I ain't never seen him since. My porpoise friends call him a right sore loser."

"Well, that's good advice I had never expected to hear," Tony said contemplatively. "Even his name had 'fuck' in it, huh?"

"What did you just say in front of an impressionable child, Anthony Granger?" Sharon Granger's voice snapped in an unexpected and strident demand.

Unfortunately for Tony, his wife and daughter had chosen that moment to return from their private conversation.

It took almost twenty minutes to explain himself to his wife's satisfaction.

2.10.8 On stories and families

The second day after Christmas found Harry lounging at the lip of the Lair with Suze by his side nestled under a wing as they watched the snow fall in companionable silence. The snow drifted down gently in fluffy fat flakes, falling almost straight in the oddly still air. A windless day in the Highlands was an unusual occurrence, to say the least.

The Grangers had left shortly after celebrating Christmas proper, taking their daughter with them to visit extended family. His newest damsel would be returning via portkey when she was done. The round of holiday visits was apparently a family tradition, and Harry could sort of understand the reasoning. It made him wonder if he should go visit the Dursleys some time.

Maybe he should ask Uncle Vernon next time he wrote? It'd have to be a day trip, since he still couldn't keep a shapeshift while he slept, but it might be worthwhile.

During their visit, the Grangers had introduced him to several new Christmas traditions which he hadn't known about before. One was the Christmas tree which occupied a corner of the main room of the Lair. It smelled nice and was real pretty all lit up with electric lights he and Mr. Granger had purchased from a general store up in Mallaig, especially after it got dark at night. Mrs. Granger had also given him a little model set she called a 'nativity set' which was apparently supposed to tell the story of Christmas.

Harry had always liked stories, and it was nice to get some background on the holiday. When he'd asked his professor friends, they had always just blown it off as something that was mostly meaningless tradition, something that served as an excuse for a party in the winter cold. He'd have to ask them again now that he knew more of what to ask.

Mrs. Granger had made it sound like it was a really big deal, after all.

Speaking of important things, Harry had forgotten to ask Mr. Snape about bringing Abigail in on the secrets when the potions master was over for his Christmas celebration. He'd have to drop by the castle and ask before classes started back up.

In the meantime, Harry's thoughts stilled for a time in favor of simply enjoying the company and the calm snowfall as it painted the glen in a pristine coat of white. It was rare enough and beautiful enough to be worth watching carefully.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.11 Actions speak louder…

---

2.11.1 In which personnel issues are addressed

The Christmas celebration had passed, and the next term loomed ahead, but Severus Snape had still anticipated a few uninterrupted days of research before his demesne was once more invaded by clumsy, dunderheaded children masquerading as prospective potioneers. It was therefore with some trepidation that he answered a polite knock on his laboratory door to find Hogwarts' resident dragon, thankfully in human form, seeking his company for something.

At least it wasn't one of the dunderheads, he supposed.

"What brings you to my door so soon after your Christmas celebration, Mr. Potter?" the potions master asked in a tone which implied there would be hell to pay if his visitor answered poorly. As usual, the wretched lizard reacted to the implicit threat with nary a trace of concern.

"I had meant to ask you about something, but I forgot at the party," the young dragon explained cheerily.

"Very well," Snape supposed that was acceptable. It was, however, no reason to interrupt his work. "Come in then — I suppose I can permit you to bother me while I work."

As the young Potter leaned comfortably against the wood-paneled wall of the laboratory — much to Snape's disappointment it seemed the paneling idea was a bust — Snape prompted him to speak up.

"Well, speak up, boy. What did you wish to ask of me that couldn't wait for the start of term?"

"Well," the boy began, "I was talking with Abigail a few weeks ago, and the topic of what she was going to do after she graduated came up, and she mentioned she was having trouble deciding, particularly 'cause of all the crap she'd have to deal with 'cause she's a girl."

"Yes, that is an unfortunately likely outcome," Snape said with evident distaste, even as he steadily stirred one of the five cauldrons bubbling away on his workbench.

"Yeah," Harry said sadly. "Anyway, another thing came up in conversation about logistics and how Lucius Malfoy was in charge of the biggest wizarding trucking company, and I thought of how to tie that in to a business idea I was already thinkin' about and was going to bring up next time we talked to Mr. Slackhammer, and I figured I might be able to offer Abigail a job working on my idea so she wouldn't have to deal with all the nasty stuff."

"So long as you can make that work, young man, I do not see why you need my advice," Snape said approvingly. "You have a good head for such things, and you hardly need my permission."

"Well, thing is, the expansion I was thinking about would be both to grow my new business and to cut Mr. Malfoy's profits, and if Abigail were going to be in on that, she'd kinda have to know why we're doing it, so she could make good decisions," Harry said.

Snape looked at the young dragon searchingly for a moment before confirming, "So you wish for me to verify that she can be trusted with knowledge of our goals?"

"And probably with knowing I'm a dragon, too," Harry added.

"Why do you trust me with that judgement more than you trust yourself?" Snape asked.

"Well, you always talked about how you were effectively a double agent for years — triple agent really, if you think about it — so I figured you'd be better at making that call than me, since I haven't done any of that sort of thing."

"Well reasoned, Mr. Potter, well reasoned indeed," Snape said. "It will take some time to make such a determination, as it must be done subtly, but I will begin when Miss Abercrombie returns to the castle."

"Thanks, Mr. Snape!" the dragon chirped before looking at the cauldron's more closely. "Hey, what are you working on anyway?"

2.11.2 Unwarranted attack, unasked for defense

Hermione had arrived back at the Lair just the previous day, after a little more than a week of visiting extended family gatherings with her parents. It had been fun but exhausting, particularly since she just had to deflect whenever anyone started to ask about her schooling.

The Statute of Secrecy had to be the most irritating thing she had yet encountered in the Wizarding World, and that was no small feat!

Of course, the bushy-haired girl thought as she walked through the hallways towards her first class of the winter term, Ronald Weasley was rapidly approaching second place on that list. The boy and his brothers had taken to following her around ever since that day when Percy Weasley had confronted her in the library, and Ron was at it again just as soon as they had returned to the castle, following just far enough away from her not to seem threatening, but still always there.

It had been creepy enough for her to ask Harry to carry her off before Christmas, and yet they kept it up. Well, she could only hope that they would get bored eventually.

And then, to complete the trifecta of irritation, the current second place holder of most irritating aspects of the Wizarding World appeared before her, blond hair slicked down to his skull like a particularly silly-looking helmet and face screwed-up in an exaggerated mask of contempt.

"Well, look who managed to sneak back in after the break," the blond, named Draco Malfoy, drawled to his ever-present flunkies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.

The trio of Slytherin first-years were perhaps the most obnoxious in the school, though, given that Crabbe and Goyle almost never spoke, most of the obnoxiousness was concentrated within the person of their blond leader. The blond had made it a point to belittle and irritate most of the first-year class, particularly anyone born to non-magical families — 'mudbloods' he called them — and he made it a special point to seek her out.

Hermione suspected it was because she did better than him in class.

"I suppose it's too stupid to understand when it isn't wanted," the twit continued in what was obviously intended to be an intimidating voice.

Well, Hermione was having none of that! Her roommate spent most of his time as a dragon, after all, and if that didn't intimidate her, then nothing would. On top of that, she had learned during the last term that if she didn't do something to fix her problems, then nothing would get done at all.

"I know perfectly well where I am wanted, thank you very much," Hermione countered primly. "And presently, I am wanted in class, something you would obviously have known, Draco, were your own understanding not so sadly limited. Do try to find your way to class on time," she added in as insultingly condescending a tone as she could manage. "With your grades, you can't afford to start missing them. I know that with only a single term to learn your way around the castle, you will likely find that difficult, but try to keep up."

Performing her best approximation of a haughty sniff, Hermione set off briskly for her original destination, drawing even with a quietly chortling Ron Weasley just in time to hear a hissed spell coming from the sputtering blond menace she had just left behind.

She didn't recognize the incantation — something she resolved to remedy at her earliest opportunity — so she didn't know what to expect when it hit, but whatever it would have been, Hermione certainly didn't expect the hard shove from Ron Weasley's shoulder slamming into her midriff, abruptly forcing her out of the way of the curse Malfoy had just cast. Whatever it was, it passed by her ear, and she could see it continue on to slam into a wall leaving a gouge about the size of a grown man's fist in the enchanted stone.

Hermione gaped at the damage to the stone from her vantage point sprawled out on the stone floor. If that had hit her head…

The bushy-haired first-year swallowed reflexively even as she managed to tear her eyes away from the hole in the stonework and turned back to her assailant.

She was just in time to see the blond would-be murderer double up over Ron Weasley's fist buried in his solar plexus. As the twit collapsed, Ron stood between Hermione and her assailants, wand out and casting a rapid series of assorted jinxes and hexes. There was a trio of pained yelps as Malfoy's two cronies fell down to join their leader in a jelly-legged, bat-bogeyed, embarrassing tangle of limbs, only for Ron to finish up with a thrown potion which rendered all three temporarily blinded, glowing, and unconscious — with bunny ears.

Though Hermione didn't know it, that had been Fred and George's addition to the plan.

"Bloody hell!" Ron said. "Are you okay?"

"Ow, ow, ow, I'm okay, I'm okay what happened?" Hermione said as she recovered her wits and registered that her contact with the floor had been a little rough.

"That great twat shot a bloody blasting hex at the back of your head!"

"…I, oh. Um, well, thanks, I guess?" Hermione said as the ginger boy helped her to her feet.

"Well, um, no prob, um… Look, I know I've said some dumb stuff, and I'm sorry about that. I mean, I didn't mean for you to nearly get skelped by a troll, I just… I know I'm pretty bad at charms, and, well, I guess I kinda snapped when you reminded me, right? But anyway, it don't matter for nothing because you're a Gryffindor, and Gryffs are supposed to stick up for Gryffs, and I know I'll probably be in a heap of trouble, but I don't care because nobody says any sort of bollocks about Gryffindors, and if they think they can just go around hexing one of us, then they've got another think coming, and never mind if they try to kill one of us like that slimy git just did!" the youngest male Weasley emphatically stated, stuffing his wand back in his back pocket.

Hermione stared at him for a moment, her opinion of him edging up from rock bottom. Perhaps Abigail had been onto something about the Weasleys trying to make amends?

"I would have been okay," she said, more to reassure herself than anything.

"Wasn't the point," Ron told her, shrugging. "I mean, I owe you one, right, because I opened my gob like a great twerp, and that nearly got you killed, and my mum'd have my guts for garters if she thought I was being a bully! I was being a great twat, and that's the last thing I wanna be, just gimme one chance and I'll try to sort my head out — and anyway, next time I open my trap and say something dumb, just tell me to shut my gob before I get my foot caught in it, okay?"

Hermione considered that and then nodded. She could do that.

"Apology accepted," she said and headed for her class, rubbing at her hip where she'd bruised it when she fell.

2.11.3 In for the penny, in for the pound

Behind her, Ron spent a moment considering the unconscious Malfoy, then shrugged and planted his hobnailed boot firmly between a set of goalposts with all his might. He figured that if he was going to be in a heap of trouble anyway, he might as well give Malfoy something to really think about.

"Don't mess with my Gryffs, you shite!"

Blow delivered, the boy withdrew to a short distance to await what was coming to him. He didn't have to wait long before a thin-lipped Minerva McGonagall descended on the scene.

2.11.4 A partial observer

Just down the mostly deserted hallway, one Marcus Flint watched as Ronald Weasley delivered a mighty blow squarely to the future of the Malfoy family.

The animated paintings had fled in search of a professor as soon as the altercation had begun, and Marcus had noticed the commotion in the paintings from the next hallway over. Sensing some good blackmail material, he had gone to the source of the disturbance, and it had paid off. The sixth-year Slytherin was the only witness to Mr. Weasley's surprisingly vicious action.

This… this had possibilities.

2.11.5 Bearing false witness

"It saddens me to announce that we must address a disciplinary matter on this first day returning from our winter celebrations," Albus Dumbledore announced to a suddenly quiet Great Hall during the busy lunch hour. "It seems that there was an altercation this morning between one Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy which has left Mr. Malfoy in Madame Pomfrey's care for the foreseeable future."

A susurration of low talk swept through the student body only for them to fall silent once more as the Headmaster continued. "Mr. Weasley has given us his version of events and has graciously submitted himself to our judgement. As Mr. Malfoy is still unable to give his side of the sequence of events, we must ask if there were any other witnesses to the events in question, that we may properly assess punishments."

At this, Marcus Flint shot to his feet from the Slytherin table, "Headmaster, I saw the fight, myself. Was too far down the hallway to interfere in time, but given Malfoy's behavior, I honestly wasn't too inclined to in any case."

"I see, Mr. Flint," the old man said. "And what is your account of the events?"

"I showed up just after Malfoy cast a spell, I'd guess a blasting hex, judging from the chunk it took out of the wall," Marcus explained. "Weasley was in the process of punching out Malfoy, then he took Crabbe and Goyle down with a set of hexes and some kind of topical potion. Then he helped his housemate up — frizzy-haired girl whose name I don't remember — I think she was the target of Malfoy's blasting hex. She left, and then Professor McGonagall showed up, and I figured I didn't need to interfere."

"That matches with Mr. Weasley's testimony, Mr. Flint," the old man stroked his beard contemplatively. "But there was one more injury to Mr. Malfoy that was not accounted for by either of your testimonies…"

Marcus screwed up his face in mock thoughtfulness for a moment before he opened his eyes in mimed realization. "Oh, you mean the groin shot?" Marcus gave an entirely genuine flinch, that had been unpleasant to watch, even if the target was the little blond turd. "I saw Weasley get him with his knee, but I didn't know it had been that bad. It was while Weasley was taking him down after Malfoy cast that blasting curse at the girl. Malfoy didn't go down until the punch, so I thought the knee hadn't connected properly."

"Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Flint," the Headmaster sighed. "It seems that we have enough information to decide on how to deal with the situation now, thank you. You may all return to your meals, students."

And with that, the Headmaster swept out of the room. Only after the adults had left, did Marcus's expression twist into a satisfied smile. Five-parts truth, one-part lie and they had swallowed it whole! He'd earned a favor from the Weasley brothers that he might be able to cash in some time in the future, but that was the lesser prize.

The real prize was taking the Malfoys down a notch, and his manipulations had prevented them from taking proper revenge. Lucius had thrown Marcus' uncle to the wolves with his ridiculous 'imperius' defense, and this would go at least a small part of the way towards redressing that insult. The rest would come later. His father had told him once of a slow sterility curse in the family library, and now that there was a plausible cause to cover their tracks… oh, yes.

The Malfoy family would die with Draco, and the Flints would make sure of it.

2.11.6 Facing the music

"Six months' detention…" Ron muttered, slumping inwards on himself. "Oh, boy."

Fred gave his youngest brother a companionable clout on the shoulder as they walked back towards the Gryffindor common room. "Buck up, Ron. You really learned Malfoy one."

As they passed through the portrait-covered entrance to the common room, Ron glumly confirmed, "Um, you're remembering I busted one of his bollocks open and lost us every point we had, right?"

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke, 'cept maybe that cunt, Stoker," Katie Bell told him from her seat on one of the common room couches, "and I reckon seeing that arrogant little bastard cut down to size like that was worth five hundred points any day." Katie was a chaser on the House quidditch team, and so her opinion held some real clout with Ron, who was an insatiable fan of the game.

It was why his brothers had asked her to speak up beforehand, drawing on their friendship as teammates. None of the brothers wanted their efforts to get Ron to shape up to go to waste over something as worthless as the future of the Malfoy family. It wasn't like any Weasley would have shed a tear over the extinction of that blight on society.

"Amen to that, Katie," Lee Jordan, another close friend of the Weasley twins, echoed. "Oi, Ron, next time one of those twats messes one of us around, let me and the twins know, and we'll cover for you, right?"

"Yeah, count on it, bro," Fred agreed, flashing a thumbs-up to his friends from behind Ron's back.

2.11.7 Mitigating consequences

"You realize that Lucius and Narcissa will be out for blood, do you not, Albus?" Severus Snape stated more than asked from his seat in the Headmaster's office.

Before Albus could respond, Minerva objected, outraged, "The laddie was defending his housemate from a murder attempt by their son, Severus! How on earth could they object, when the injury wasn't even intentional?"

Snape replied, "Provoked or not, unintentional or not, the Malfoys are vindictive, self-absorbed monsters. It might have been better for the Weasley boy had he been expelled; at least then, the Malfoys might not have pursued him for further revenge."

"Severus, expulsion was unwarranted, and you know perfectly well that it would not have helped in any case," Albus chided.

"True," the potions master reluctantly allowed.

"In any event, we must do what we can to ensure the safety of our students," Albus continued briskly. "Minerva, please alert Mr. Weasley's father to the situation so that we can allow him to take what steps he deems necessary. Perhaps a disciplinary visit to properly scold the boy would give him appropriate opportunities…"

"I will see to it immediately," Minerva said briskly before sweeping out of the room.

After the woman had left the room, Severus spoke up once more. "Albus, are we certain that our students were telling the truth? It is exceedingly difficult to cause that sort of injury with an incidental blow from a knee. The situation might benefit from the use of your time turner."

"No, I am not certain," Albus allowed, "but given the corroborating testimony from Mr. Flint, a young man who should have every reason to back Mr. Malfoy over Mr. Weasley, we have no cause to make use of my time turner and invisibility cloak. Should we set this level of uncertainty as a precedent, we would end up four years older by the end of the term."

The two men settled into a contemplative silence for a time before Albus broke it.

"Severus," the bearded man continued, "when you next speak with Lucius, be sure to inform him that Arthur has already been alerted to the situation. It may help to delay his response long enough for the Weasleys to prepare properly."

Severus nodded as he rose to leave the office. It was a fair point; Lucius had always been overly cautious when it came to risking his own skin.

2.11.8 Parent-teacher conference

Bright and early the next morning, Arthur Weasley, proud father of six sons and one daughter, approached the gates of Hogwarts for the first time in almost a year, the last time having been a disciplinary meeting to discuss a surprisingly inventive prank his twin sons had pulled. The tone of that visit, however, had been an even mix of punishment and amused boasting at the boys' talent . This time, Minerva had implied that there was more to discuss than simply discipline for his youngest son.

The lady in question was waiting to meet him at the gate.

"Arthur, it is good to see you again," the transfiguration mistress greeted. "Come, walk with me to my office, I have Ronald waiting for us there."

As the pair set off, Arthur asked, "What exactly has Ron done to prompt this visit? He was never one for pranks before…"

"He stepped in to defend one of his housemates from a blasting hex cast by Draco Malfoy, and he was perhaps a wee bit overenthusiastic…"

Huh. Well, Arthur wasn't sure just how to handle that as a father. On the one hand, it was his duty to raise his son properly, and violence was generally not something one should resort to immediately or casually. On the other hand, he also knew the Malfoy family quite well, and there had been bad blood between their Houses for over seven hundred years — bad blood to the tune of a private, and therefore quite illegal, blood feud. Plus, the circumstances had to be considered…

"Where was the blasting hex aimed?"

"At the girl's head," Minerva relayed in a deeply disapproving tone. "It was fairly anemic as far as blasting hexes go, but had it connected it would have had a chance of killing the poor girl. We are waiting for Mr. Malfoy to regain consciousness before we determine whether he should be disciplined for unacceptably reckless behavior or for attempted murder."

Ah, well that gave some context. Arthur couldn't say that he disapproved of his son's actions in that case, and going by her tone, he suspected Minerva felt much the same. Not that she would ever say as much. Still, calling him in for this seemed a tad excessive.

"In that case, why have you called me in?" Arthur asked. "The case seems fairly straightforward, no need to involve me in the boy's punishment."

Minerva frowned uncomfortably, "That would be true, except for the nature of the injury sustained by Mr. Malfoy. Your son managed to rupture the boy's testicle, damaging it to the point of requiring amputation. Madame Pomfrey was able to repair the other one —mostly. The boy will be able to father children, but Poppy is not certain whether his fertility will ever reach normal levels as he matures."

Arthur winced, "Ah, that would explain things."

"We have no baseline for his condition before the incident, and low fertility has long been common among the pureblood population which calls into question whether the injury is the cause of the condition, but Severus raised concerns about the Malfoy family's reaction," Minerva said delicately. "They are not ones to give the benefit of the doubt about such things."

Indeed they were not, Arthur's face screwed up in thought as they ascended the stairs. So the Malfoys were likely to be out for blood, and this was as much to give him time to prepare as it was to discipline Ronald. He'd have to speak with his eldest, Bill, about arranging wards for the Burrow. The family home would be a prime target.

The children would be safe at Hogwarts, and Bill could take care of himself — not to mention his fellow cursebreakers would not take kindly to an attempted hit on their compatriot.

A company full of angry cursebreakers was a hornet's nest even Lucius couldn't pay someone enough to poke.

Charlie, though… his second son was working at a dragon preserve in Romania, and despite the reputation, a dragon preserve was fairly safe for a prepared wizard. He'd have to let him know to be on the lookout. Arthur shook his head, this was going to be a mess, but even so, he couldn't help but take pride in his youngest for acting in defense of another.

And if that defense resulted in the Malfoy line finally ending in the next generation, childless and unlamented … well, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

2.11.9 Coming clean

Ron waited in his Head of House's office for his father to arrive staring down at his own hands where they were folded in his lap. He was having a dreadful time. Six months' worth of detention and five hundred points was one thing. That was just some time out of his day and a bit of halfhearted disapproval from his peers.

Disappointing his father was an altogether different animal.

He looked up as the door opened, and his father entered the room with a stern expression on his face. Then he looked back down at his hands as Professor McGonagall explained the situation to his father before his father asked her if he could speak to Ron alone.

As his Head of House left her office, his father asked, "Ronald, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"Um," Ron struggled for a moment. He knew it was a bad thing, but this was his dad! Lying to his father was a few steps too far, even by omission. "Well, I actually knocked Malfoy down with the punch to his gut, the groin shot was after he was already out of it." Ron winced. "I just, well, I figured if I was in for it already, I might as well make it worthwhile, so…" he trailed off.

2.11.10 Parenting is hard

Arthur looked down at his son, that was… not unexpected. He had thought there was something missing due to his boy's reaction during Minerva's explanation, and the truth of the groin shot was something that made sense.

The Malfoy men had always been effete little brats, and Arthur had taught his boys how to throw a proper punch. A son of Lucius Malfoy taking a knee to the groin and still coming on was something Arthur had had trouble believing.

That said, kicking the boy while he was down was more than a little out of line.

"Son," Arthur began gently, "I know I've told you before, kicking a man while he's down is not a gentlemanly thing to do." Ron hung his head even further. "Also, while I can understand the sentiment, you should reserve that sort of attitude for more serious issues than a schoolyard fight."

"But he tried to kill Hermione!" Ron objected. "That's a serious issue!"

"It is, and I'm proud of you for stepping in on the girl's behalf," Arthur clapped his son on the shoulder. "But that issue had already been resolved when the boy went down."

"Oh," Ron acknowledged glumly.

"Do you understand why what you did was a bad thing?" he asked to ensure his son understood the situation.

"Yes, Dad," Ron answered, "I shouldn't have kicked Malfoy when he was down and couldn't defend himself."

"Good lad," Arthur smiled and ruffled his son's hair before giving him a hug. "Good lad."

"Now the detention is going to stand," he said. "It was well deserved after all."

Ron nodded staring down at his feet without a hint of complaint, as he usually did whenever he was being told off and he knew he had really mucked things up.

"And, Ron," Arthur dropped the stern lecturing tone.

"Dad?" his son said, looking up.

He knew he really shouldn't, but he just couldn't resist.

Ron's jaw dropped as Arthur solemnly grabbed his son's hand in the Quidditch-style high-five handshake and said, "Good shot, son."

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.12 Unintended consequences

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2.12.1 On the importance of measurements

At the end of the first week of the winter term, the time had come around once more for the staff of Hogwarts, or at least a chosen subset thereof, to gather in their increasingly well-appointed staff room to discuss their ongoing projects. The usual suspects were still missing, but as Filius made the rounds passing out drinks — drinks of his own make this time — the room hosted three highly unusual additions.

Two were students. The third was a centaur.

"Thank you all for coming," Albus began, "particularly Mr. Potter and his two guests. Miss Granger, Miss Suze, please be welcomed!"

"Um, thank you," the bushy-haired girl squeaked, horribly intimidated at the thought of meeting with so many teachers at once. For her part, the centaur maiden solemnly nodded.

"It falls to me to explain that we have made something of a tradition of indulging in unusual beverages on these occasions," the elderly wizard continued. "As these are generally alcoholic in nature, Filius has agreed to provide non-alcoholic alternatives for those who are underaged, if you would alert him to your preferences, it would be much appreciated.

"I'd like water, please," came Hermione's response, while Suze graciously accepted the same and Harry requested a goblin tea, prompting a smile from the half-goblin professor.

"We have asked Mr. Potter to come in order to obtain his insight into a few knotty problems we have encountered in our ongoing research into the circumstances of his transformation," the Headmaster said to the new arrivals before turning to Harry specifically. "Specifically, Mr. Potter, we are hoping that your talent for languages and your ability to see things that wizards cannot might provide more insight into the structure of the devices which triggered your remarkable change."

Harry nodded agreeably while sipping his tea, "I can do that!"

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. If you would, Bathsheda and Septima will join you in the pensieve we have set up with your uncle's memories of the incident, and they will direct you further."

Harry gulped down the rest of his boiling-hot cup with no sign of discomfort and scampered over to the professors so named before all three of them dunked their heads into what looked like a particularly wide bird bath full of silvery liquid that looked suspiciously like mercury and promptly vanished from view.

Hermione gaped at the sight, while Suze took it all in stride.

"While Mr. Potter is occupied," Filius began, "let us continue our investigation into the worldwide problem. Girls," he said, indicating the two younger visitors, "if you have any insights, feel free to speak up. No need to waste your time just sitting there!" The diminutive man smiled brightly. "In our last meeting, we attempted to plot the locations of the various nodes as revealed by Sybil's efforts, and we have done so, as you can see here," he flicked his wand, and a large sheet unrolled with a world map drawn and small pins embedded at various points both on and off the various landmasses.

"It is apparent that our plotting efforts leave something to be desired," the small man said sadly. "Almost half of our plotted locations are underwater, and we know from our studies that ley lines do not form defined intersections within the ocean, due to seawater's high magical conductivity. The things spread out over truly massive areas in the sea."

Hermione looked at the map, a horribly inaccurate thing — she could tell — even in comparison to the cheap world maps that had adorned the walls of her primary school classroom. It looked rather like it had been hand drawn by someone with only the vaguest notion of geography and then never checked against real measurements.

As her scholarly disgust with the poor excuse for cartography welled up, the professors around her floated various theories on why the ley line intersections — or whatever it was they were looking for, Hermione really didn't know — were in places where they were certain they could not possibly be, until she snapped.

"This is really a rather bad map," Hermione said politely. Well, it was Hermione after all, so it was a polite and gentle snap.

"And where would you suggest we obtain better?" Snape asked, cocking an eyebrow. Something in his manner gave her the idea that he knew what was coming.

"Well," Hermione said, a little flustered at the attention, "there's the Ordinance Survey maps, or maybe something like a National Geographic Atlas. I'm starting to think that muggles are quite a lot better at map-making than wizards, and if there's any islands or anything that're hidden from muggles, we could easily add them to a good map. It's one of the things I've noticed that are most different between the wizarding world and the muggle world, measurements are much more precise and consistent in the muggle world."

Snape considered that for a long moment before looking to his colleague. "Filius, will you be able to work with such a map if I go and obtain one?"

"Absolutely," the half-goblin was almost vibrating with eagerness, "accurate maps would be a godsend."

He flicked his wand and looked briefly at the resulting smoky numbers. "My usual bookseller is open for another half-hour; I shall return shortly."

And with that, the potions master swept out of the room at a rapid clip, leaving Hermione's frizzy hair fluttering in the process.

The room fell silent for a time, before Dumbledore again broke the tableau. "That was a remarkable insight, young lady, for one so new to the wizarding world. Congratulations, and thank you." Hermione colored at the praise. "We had been struggling with that very issue for the last month."

"Um, thank you, Headmaster," the girl stammered. "It may not help, but at least it should be a real issue if it doesn't, rather than the map."

Minerva smiled proudly at her student as she raised her glass in salute and then sipped her drink of choice — the local single malt, of course; if Filius was offering a choice, then there was simply no other option.

"Um, not to be too much trouble, Professors," Hermione began after she calmed down a little, "but what are we trying to plot on the map?"

"Oh, dear," Minerva exclaimed, "I cannot believe we forgot to explain!" she hung her head in exasperation. "Well, I suppose I'll have to remedy that right now." And so, she did.

2.12.2 Earthshattering insights

About halfway through Minerva's explanation, Harry and the two professors who had accompanied him finished up their investigation with the sad conclusion that the pensieve didn't support whatever methods Harry used to see magic, so he would have to investigate in person. His uncanny linguistic talent was, however, able to offer some significant insight into the meanings of the runic inscriptions, so it was not a total loss.

By the time the transfiguration mistress' explanation was finished, Severus had returned with a detailed atlas and a cheap, mass-produced world map he had picked up at the local service station near his home, which was nonetheless of far greater use than the wizarding map they had been using. Filius fell on the thing, and using a series of absurdly abstruse charms, he had the entire list plotted out in just a few minutes, and it was then down to verifying them individually.

"This makes much more sense," Septima said as she examined her fiftieth pin. "Everything I've checked so far is on land."

"Same here," Filius echoed. "All on land, though I feel like something is missing in a couple of places when I look at the whole thing."

Bathsheda chimed in as well, "I know what you mean, you can follow the pattern, there's a certain flow to it, but there's a few regions that don't make sense, like there ought to be extra points that aren't there and the flow is disrupted." She frowned, "Filius, are you sure you got the whole list?"

"Absolutely. Where do you think there are missing points?"

"One's in southern England, another is in Anatolia, and the third is in the East Indies," the runes professor said slowly. "I don't see any others…"

"Could the southern English one be Avebury?" Minerva volunteered.

"That… that would make sense," Bathsheda said, with growing excitement as she added a different-colored marker to Avebury. "Then… would the others be similarly discharged nodes?"

That question prompted everyone in the room to take a closer look at the two other areas of the map she had indicated. After much head scratching and contemplation, Bathsheda took out a protractor and mapped out where she thought the missing points would have to be for the magical flows to work intuitively — it was a surprisingly common technique in spell design. The one in England mapped to Avebury, as expected. The one in Turkey came out to a point on the coast of the Black Sea some distance east from Istanbul. The one in Indonesia, though…

"It should be… here," the runes professor said as she finished her measurements. "In the Sunda Strait, between Sumatra and Java."

"There is naught but a few islands there…" Snape said thoughtfully before passing his colleague a more detailed atlas. "Perhaps if we map it to a closer projection?"

A little more work led to a circle on the map which should house the missing node.

"There's naught but some tiny volcanic rock called Anak Krakatau there," Snape said. "Likely miserable and storm-wracked."

"Did you say Krakatoa, Professor?" Hermione said as her attention jerked away from the book she had taken up while the professors worked through a problem so far over her head she couldn't even follow along properly.

"No, the name is Anak Krakatau," Snape clarified, showing her the map to illustrate his point.

As she peered closer, her eyes widened, "It is! Oh my God!"

"…I beg your pardon?"

"Krakatoa was an island in the straits between Sumatra and Java that erupted in, oh, 1882, I think, no 1883 — it was 1883." That year raised a number of eyebrows among the rest of the professors. "The island was almost completely destroyed by a series of volcanic explosions. I can't remember if it was three or four — it's been quite a long time since I read about it — anyway, the explosions were audible in Australia, and I can't remember whether it was four or five days later that they were still recording the pressure wave going around the planet." She made a rough scrawl on the map. "That's about the shape of the island that was there before the eruption, if I remember correctly."

"Someone give me the thaumometer graph readings for the years 1882, 1883, and 1884," Septima said, sounding alarmed and abruptly leaving off in her survey of the various plotted locations. McGonagall, who was nearest to that shelf, hastily dug out the box of files in question and handed them over. "Miss Granger, I will need the exact date and local time when these… these eruptions occurred."

"The book I have on the subject is back at home, Professor," the bushy-haired girl said apologetically.

"I will handle that," Snape volunteered. "Miss Granger, if you would, please write out the title of the volume in question. Your parents will still be awake at this time, correct?" At the girl's nod, he went on, "I will apparate there and retrieve it, then. Minerva, if you would relay the appropriate coordinates, please." As Hermione scribbled out the title in question, the transfiguration mistress did as requested, and for the second time that evening, Snape left the room in a hurry.

Through all of this, Septima did little more than grunt in acknowledgement as she and Filius pored over the records in question.

"…why is it that Professor Snape always seems to be the one who goes and runs errands to the muggle world?" Hermione asked Pomona Sprout, who was seated next to her watching the proceedings closely, sotto voce.

"Severus was born and raised among muggles," the woman explained, "in Sheffield, if I remember rightly, and unlike most wizards and witches with his background, he has maintained some contact with his roots."

Some fifteen minutes later, Severus returned with a familiar book in his hands, which Hermione immediately opened and paged directly to the chapter and page in question without even consulting the index. She then pointed out the relevant dates to the feverishly working researchers.

"…thanks," Septima muttered, giving the passage a quick read before frowning to herself and returning to the thaumometer records.

Everyone in the room instantly knew when she had found it. Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes visibly bugged out, she went white as a sheet, and she started very quietly swearing up a streak that'd make a sailor nod in respect.

"Septima?" McGonagall asked tentatively. Hermione got the idea that this was not normal behavior for the young woman.

"Not yet!" came the snapped reply. "Filius, check this for me," she demanded, pointing out the relevant section of records.

The half-goblin took a quick look himself, and his eyes bugged out as well as he took a second closer look before he began swearing as well — in Or'zet. Only Dumbledore and Harry were able to follow well enough to be suitably impressed.

"I wasn't mistaken, then," Septima sounded resigned, though her hands were shaking.

"How bad?" Dumbledore asked with a truly un-Dumbledore-ish level of concern apparent in his voice.

"Miss Granger is quite correct," came the reply. "Look, the thaumometer spikes massively, reaching the limit of its recording capabilities, four times throughout the afternoon and evening of August 26, by Hogwarts time, in the year 1883, and from that point onwards, the background levels remain at an overall 10.28 percent increase over the previous levels."

"The Anomalous Excursions…" Minerva breathed in realization.

"And these coincide with the eruptions?" Albus confirmed.

"To the second," Septima confirmed, staring fixedly at her notes as if searching for some further revelation.

"Well, it seems we have tentatively identified an example of one of these devices overloading," Albus said. "It does serve as excellent motivation, I do say."

The adults in the room imbibed in a round of drinks to settle their nerves, as did Hermione, though her water may not have had the desired effect. Harry simply looked proud that his damsel had contributed so critically to the investigation, and Suze stood calmly by his side, facing the news with her usual aplomb.

Just as her colleagues were starting to recover their equilibrium, Septima voiced her thoughts on the matter and stunned them again.

"But why was the explosion so small?"

"I beg your pardon?" Severus asked, understandably a little shocked at the descriptor applied to one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.

"When Filius and I worked out the potential power of the Avebury event," the concerned arithmancer explained, "we figured that an undirected explosion would have left a crater the size of London and rendered Europe uninhabitable due to wild magic effects. This one removed less than a sixteenth of that material and the Indies are no more magical than the rest of the world. What happened?"

"Perhaps the device was smaller?" Pomona offered uncertainly. "If Avebury was a particularly powerful example, that might account for the situation."

The room fell silent as the various experts in the room tried to incorporate this new information into their previous understanding of the situation. They did not have much luck, until the smallest adult in the room brought up another point.

"We might want to consider the other mystery here?" Flitwick proposed, tentatively. "We know what happened at Avebury, and there's a good chance that the local intersection was involved in the Krakatoa eruption. We've found out there's another point missing in Turkey, though. What happened there?"

That question brought a new wave of silence to the group, until Albus broke said silence with a bit of additional information. "I do not know, but I can assure you after having gone through our entire body of records during my calibration efforts last year that there are no other similar events on record."

Poppy, who looked like she was struggling with the beginnings of an idea, then raised the question, "How far back do the records go?"

"Nicholas has been running the measurements for nearly four hundred years, but you are correct, they would not have recorded anything happening before that point." Albus grimaced, "Though I would be reluctant to speculate on just what the world would have been like to live in a world before that release. If the amount of magic increased similarly at the time, most of the world would have had magical levels low enough to make even basic charms exceedingly taxing. I daresay the Dead Zone would have been completely uninhabitable for magicals."

As the school nurse seemed to be working through her own ideas, Harry decided to speak up and satisfy his own curiosity. "Dead Zone?"

"Oh?" the old man looked over at the dragon who had been silent for quite some time. "Ah, yes, Mr. Potter. The Dead Zone refers to the region with the lowest magical background levels in the world. It extends from Sinai in Egypt north through the Jordan River valley all the way beyond the Sea of Galilee and into Lebanon. As I recall, it encompasses the entirety of the non-magical nation of Israel, most of Lebanon, and small regions of Egypt and Jordan."

Albus chuckled, "I can relate from personal experience that, at least prior to your transformation and the attendant increase in ambient magic, performing even the simplest magic there was quite taxing, if I do say so myself — akin to attempting to breathe at the top of the highest mountains in the world. Further reducing that level by a fifth — I do not believe it would have been possible to cast any magic there at all, simply surviving would have been a major challenge."

"Why did you go there, if it was so hard?" the dragon asked, curiously.

"Ah," the old man chuckled with uncharacteristic embarrassment, before continuing "it was on account of a dare with a youthful friend of mine." His expression fell, "I do miss those days…"

"I wonder if the device in Turkey did something similar to Avebury?" Poppy suddenly interjected into the mostly quiet room, interrupting the quiet conversation between Harry and Dumbledore. "If we assume that the node disappeared before our records were being kept, and we look for unexplainably powerful individuals who appeared in the area more than four-hundred years ago…"

"We have Mr. Tepes, who first exhibited his absurd magical strength some five centuries ago," Snape finished for her with a shudder. "That does seem plausible, and it would explain how such an absurdly powerful individual appeared seemingly out of nowhere."

"And if we assume that these devices tend to discharge into already functioning people or events," Poppy theorized, "Could it be that the Krakatoa device simply boosted an already present eruption? It would fit with the way undirected magic acts in living beings, amplifying the function of their various organs. Could it amplify the function of a volcano as well?"

The question prompted a round of contemplative looks from the adults, an interested look from Harry, and nothing at all from Hermione, who had fallen asleep during the one of the lulls in the conversation about half an hour previous.

"I believe it is possible," Filius acknowledged quietly. "And I will attempt to verify it in the near future. For now, though, I suspect we have gone on for long enough as Miss Granger has been kind enough to point out." He gestured to the gently dozing girl. "There is a great deal of new material to work with, and I suggest we retire for the evening to think things over."

2.12.3 Rude awakenings

It had been three days since he had awakened in the infirmary, three days of sitting painfully as he waited for his injuries to heal, three days of embarrassing sessions with the school nurse prodding things with her wand that were only supposed to be prodded by his future wife, and Draco Malfoy was still attempting to process what had happened.

It had started the same way it had so many times: he'd go put the frizzy-haired mudblood in her place; she'd run off crying like the inferior creature that she was; Crabbe and Goyle would laugh with him; and they'd go on to class. But it hadn't gone to script.

This time, instead of running off crying, the mudblood had shot back with a condescending insult of her own and gone on her way as if she owned the place! And to make matters worse, the Weasel had laughed at him because of it.

It was intolerable!

Father had always said that Malfoys were better than the rest and that it was his duty to uphold the family name. So, he'd done the right and proper thing and shot a blasting hex at the mudblood for what she said. She was just a worthless mudblood, and the reputation of the noble Malfoy family was infinitely more valuable than her pathetic little life.

Just like his father always taught him.

Then everything was a painful blur followed by darkness. From what the professors had told him, the Weasley who had been laughing at him took exception to his perfectly reasonable correction of the mudblood's behavior and assaulted him like some kind of common muggle. The boy sniffed dismissively. Typical of the poor excuse for a wizarding family that their youngest couldn't even face him with a wand like a proper wizard. He was probably too weak.

Worse yet, the teachers had agreed with the ruffian's reasoning! Sure, they gave six months' detention, but when Draco explained his perfectly good and just reasons for retaliating against the mudblood, they told him that it was attempted murder and the only reason he was avoiding prosecution was because of his age. As if you could murder a mudblood! It wasn't like they were people! They'd said something about expulsion once he got out of the medical wing, but Draco was sure his father would put paid to that idea.

No, the most important thing was his injury, and that was what was keeping Draco up at night. Apparently, in the scuffle that blasted Weasel had struck him in the groin hard enough that one of his testicles had to be amputated, and Draco had no idea how to process that truth.

He was the sole heir to the Malfoy family, and it was his sole responsibility to father the next generation of the family. Yes, he was also supposed to manage the family assets, but his father was healthy, and by the time that became an issue, Draco fully expected to have great grandchildren of his own, so his primary duty — his purpose — was to father children to carry on the Malfoy name.

Despite that, he had lost one of the boys, and according to Healer Pomfrey, his future fertility was not assured due to the damage. It put his responsibility as the heir to the Malfoy family at risk.

It put his very identity at risk and threatened to set him adrift.

That pathetic Ron Weasley might well have destroyed the great and noble Malfoy family. Worse yet, it was on account of a mudblood!

Oh, there would be a reckoning, Draco's thoughts turned dark as his shocked horror sublimated to rage. There would be a reckoning, indeed…

…when he told his father about this!

2.12.4 An unwelcome suspicion

The weeks since winter break had ended had passed strangely for Abigail, and the reasons for that were all down to the behavior of her Head of House.

Outside of class, the man was normally about as talkative as he was soft and empathetic, which was to say he was normally about as talkative as a brick. Since the break, though, he had been strangely attentive, singling her out for discussions on the nature of wizarding society and government and paying uncharacteristic attention to her responses.

They were generally philosophical discussions, and she had learned a great deal from them, but such things were atypical, at least for Professor Snape. Had it been Professor Flitwick, she would have thought nothing of it, but Snape — with Snape, she got the impression that he was fishing for information.

She wasn't sure what he was looking for, but it had been enough to make her nervous.

Then just last week, he had started discussing the sorts of unpleasant back-room dealing and extortion she had brought up obliquely when Granger had asked about jobs, and she had a sinking feeling that the man might possibly be looking to arrange that sort of quid-pro-quo with her.

It was more than a little shocking to Abigail.

The sixth-year was under no illusion that such things didn't happen — it was the wizarding world, after all, and that sort of scum infested all levels of the establishment. It was even common knowledge that Snape had once had a certain Dark Lord's mark on his arm, but he had stayed out of prison because Dumbledore had vouched for him. More than that, though, she had gotten the impression that Snape was mostly asexual, and this was about the least pleasant way she could imagine to learn otherwise.

Abigail had tried to hint that she was not interested, but the increasingly urgent hints hadn't seemed to register on the man.

She certainly hoped she was mistaken, but she was beginning to worry in earnest. Abigail shuddered at the thought, nervously fingering her wand. Despite being a potions master by profession, her Head of House was no slouch with a wand — much better than she was with her almost six years of education — and there wasn't much she would be able to do about it if he chose to force things.

Maybe she should talk to Harry? Her younger friend knew Snape pretty well; maybe he would be able to offer some insight, or failing that, at least rein the man in if the situation deteriorated.

2.12.5 Vengeful thoughts

A blond man walked briskly down a luxuriously appointed hallway lined with moving portraits of similarly blond men before coming to a stop before an otherwise innocuous looking door. He knocked quietly.

"You may enter," came a feminine voice from within as the man's equally blonde wife invited him to enter her private solar.

"Thank you, Narcissa," the man, Lucius Malfoy, said as he entered the room. His wife's solar was even more luxuriously furnished than the hallway leading to it, though it was noticeably devoid of portraiture. Narcissa was fiercely protective of her private time, and so she tended to restrict access to her personal space, even from the painted personality imprints so ubiquitous in the wizarding world.

She was also violently protective of her private space. There was a reason he had learned to knock early on in their marriage. Lucius had good reason to interrupt his wife's time to herself in this case, though, and Narcissa had almost been expecting him.

"Lucius, what has happened?" she asked.

Lucius had been called by his old acquaintance, Severus Snape, a former colleague in service to the Dark Lord and one of the closest approximations Lucius had to a friend, which was why the he had named the man godfather to his only son and heir. Lucius was well aware that Severus hated him, but he felt he had a good handle on Snape's motivations, which made him predictable, to Lucius' mind. Predictable was something Lucius could work with.

Though there was no way the head of the Malfoy family could have predicted this outcome.

"Draco, he…" Lucius sat down quite heavily. "He was involved in a… a, a melee with one of the Weasley brats."

"He is well, isn't he?" Narcissa asked, increasingly worried at her husband's demeanor.

"It… it seems that the Weasley brat struck our son in the fundamentals…"

"Oh, my!"

"…so hard that Draco's left testicle had to be amputated," Lucius finished. "Healer Pomfrey expects our son's fertility rate to be somewhat depressed, though she stressed that she was uncertain whether it was an already-existing issue or if it was caused by the injury."

Narcissa's blue eyes flashed with a hot rage as she spoke, "Husband, we are going to make that Weasley brat wish he had never been squeezed out of his overly fertile mother, is that quite clear?"

"Perfectly. As it so happens, I am of a similar mind," Lucius agreed with a similar tone. "Though it may take some time. Severus mentioned Dumbledore had already arranged to inform Weasley of the issue, so they will have prepared."

He had also mentioned that Draco was set to be expelled for the behavior that had led up to the incident, a process that Lucius had handily quashed using his influence with the board of governors. He couldn't dictate to all of the members, but he could to enough of them. It could be quite useful to know where the bodies were buried, a lesson he had learned well.

His elves tended pigs for exactly that reason, after all.

"We will not leave this to simmer, Lucius!" Narcissa insisted, bringing him back to the present. "At least our initial vengeance must come swiftly. Perhaps we should lead with an indirect blow?"

Her husband nodded thoughtfully, "When I spoke to our son, Draco mentioned something about a mudblood girlfriend of the Weasley brat…"

"Then we know where to start," Narcissa said darkly, eyes murderous. "You will contact the Averys, I assume?"

"That was my intent," her husband confirmed. "I was also planning to ask around with several of the usual buyers. Some of them owe us favors that we might redeem in pensieve memories of the girl's eventual fate. They should prove useful when we finally acquire the brat responsible."

Narcissa smiled a smile that turned her otherwise attractive face into something completely different. "That would be lovely, Lucius — just lovely. A pensieve as a torture device —you always did have an excellent head for ideas. I knew there was a reason I didn't have you murdered before the wedding."

As her husband smiled proudly, she asked, "Don't the Weasleys have a young daughter as well?"

2.12.6 Personnel reports

As the first-year potions class drew to a close once again, Snape called out, "Mr. Potter, please speak with me after class. The rest of you are dismissed!"

As the children filed out of the room, the young dragon-in-human-guise bounced up to the front and leaned against the front row of laboratory benches. "What do you need, Mr. Snape?"

"I have completed my evaluation of Miss Abercrombie, and while I am uncertain of her willingness to participate, I am certain of her loyalty and friendship to you. If you bring her in on the secrets we had discussed, she is unlikely to betray your trust."

"So I can tell her?"

"That is correct, Mr. Potter."

"Thanks, Mr. Snape!"

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.13 Deepening relationships

---

2.13.1 Unexpected reasons

The next day, the weirdly apportioned class schedule was such that Harry and Abigail had a free period during the Gryffindor first-years' history class, leading to the pair coming together for a study session in the library, sans Harry's usual bushy-haired compatriot.

It was the ideal time for Abigail to bring up Snape's strange behavior.

"Harry," she began as they were shuffling through their notebooks to bring out their current assignments, "I've got a question to ask you."

"Oh? What's up?"

"Professor Snape has been acting a little off recently, and I was wondering if you knew why?" Abigail asked neutrally.

"How so?" Harry asked, concerned. "He seems to have been normal around me."

"He's been asking me a lot of questions when he normally wouldn't, stuff about our society and some of the less than pleasant stuff like we talked about that one time last term with Hermione. It's been kind of weird, honestly."

"What's wrong with that?" Harry asked, looking puzzled. "He and I talk about that stuff from time to time too. I mean…"

"…no, I mean it's like he's been feeling me out before asking me to do something…" she trailed off uncomfortably.

"Oh! You noticed that? Wow!" Harry said, surprising Abigail. "He was trying to feel out how you'd react if I asked you about something, 'cause I wasn't sure how you'd react, and he's better at that stuff than I am."

"What?" Abigail asked flatly.

Harry had been behind that line of questioning? She had thought better of him than that! And wasn't he way too young for that sort of thing anyway? And for that matter, why would he ask a professor to help him on such a thing rather than asking her himself?

It wasn't like she would have shot him down if he'd just asked himself! If he was old enough to ask, he was obviously old enough to…

Before she could work herself up even further, Harry continued, typically oblivious to his listener's growing ire. "After our talk before, I was thinking about how you said the Malfoys were in charge of the trucking company, and I thought I oughtta do something about that, right? So I was thinking about buying Hogs Haulage anyway, but I was gonna do it 'cause I wanted to play with trains, basically, then after we talked I thought about expanding it so I could make more money and maybe undercut the Malfoys at the same time. And you were talkin' about all the crap you'd have to wade through when you got a job and how you thought about getting into the logistics business, but your only option would be to work for Lucius Malfoy, and you said you wouldn't do that in any case 'cause it would mean working for a slimeball…"

Wait, what was Harry saying? That was…

"So, I thought, 'maybe I could take care of both things by hiring Abigail'!" Harry continued, unabated. "'Cause that way, you could work for someone who won't do any of that nasty stuff to you, and I could get someone to help with expanding the business properly, 'cause I trust you, and I won't have the time to run the thing, but you could be in on things and let me know if I needed to step in with whoever I hire to run the business!"

That… actually sounded kind of nice, come to think of it, but then why had Professor Snape been…

"But, part of that was making sure you knew everything you needed to know about overall strategy and what we're trying to do with this and other stuff, and since some of the stuff we're trying to do is fixin' society up into somethin' worth bein' part of, a lot of that could be really bad if we let other people know about it too early," Harry blathered on. "I figured I could trust you, but Mr. Snape has a whole lot more experience with the spying and counter-spying thing, so I asked him to make sure I was right about bein' able to trust you, and he agreed. He said he wasn't sure you would want to join in, but he was sure I could definitely trust you to keep a secret, so now I'm telling you about…"

"Oh, thank Merlin!" Abigail exclaimed with an explosive sigh of relief.

"Huh?"

"Um, well, when Professor Snape started to ask about my opinions on all this stuff, particularly the treatment of women in the workplace, I thought he was trying to hint at something unpleasant," Abigail explained delicately. At Harry's confused expression, she elaborated, "I was afraid he was trying to hint at initiating such a situation with me."

"What? But Mr. Snape would never…"

"I tend to agree, which is part of why it was so disturbing," Abigail said. "Then when you said he had been inquiring on your behalf…"

In an unusual fit of perceptiveness, Harry's jaw dropped in flabbergasted horror, making it patently obvious that was a possible interpretation that had never crossed his mind. A situation which had Abigail giggling in relief. That did wonders for her peace of mind.

Misunderstandings were unpleasant at times.

"That wasn't what I meant to do at all," Harry protested when he managed to find his wits again. "Really, I didn't mean…"

"I know that, now," Abigail assured.

"Okay," Harry said uncertainly. "Anyway, we've got a lot of stuff we're planning, and if you want to work on it with us, you're welcome, but you gotta promise to keep it quiet so we don't get in trouble, or worse, not get it done!"

"Now that is a promise I'll be happy to make," Abigail said.

Harry smiled at her, and it made the conversation entirely worthwhile.

"So, here's what we're…" Harry began, only for Abigail to interrupt as she looked to the library clock.

"Harry, it's time for class!"

"Oh! We'll have to talk about it later, then," Harry said with a thoughtful look on his face even as he gathered up his notebooks. "Do you think you could come over tonight?"

"I'd be happy to!" That was an offer Abigail had no intention of turning down.

"Cool! I'll ask Mr. Snape if he can show you how to get to my Lair," Harry said happily as he turned to leave the library at a brisk pace. His next class was on the other side of the castle.

Abigail's class was much closer, and so she was rather leisurely as she walked. It most assuredly had nothing to do with the lightness of her step or her broad irrepressible smile. Abigail was much too good at hiding her emotions to let such a thing slip, no matter how much reason she had to celebrate.

Harry was starting to trust her more, and that just made Abigail's day. It was good progress to her way of thinking.

2.13.2 Juicy gossip

The Hogwarts librarian, Madame Pince, watched one of her favorite students walk out of her domain wearing a broad smile and practically dancing through the door in happiness. It was a far cry from the apprehensive manner the girl had shown when she walked in.

She had always found it difficult to avoid laughing at the Slytherin students' attempts to be subtle and secretive. As a rule, they were generally quite bad at it, but in cases like this one, they looked so cute when they tried.

It was sort of like watching a kitten try to growl, honestly.

But more to the point, Miss Abercrombie was walking on air after she had a serious discussion with Mr. Potter.

The librarian smiled in anticipation; she could hardly wait to tell Poppy!

2.13.3 Evening commute

"Professor Snape?"

The rest of the day had passed in a pleasant state of anticipation for Abigail after her morning discussion with Harry, and come evening, she had approached her Head of House for his assistance in visiting her not-quite-love-interest at his home.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?"

"Harry told me this morning to ask you if…"

"You have decided to take him up on his offer, then?" her professor inquired.

"Well, he didn't have the opportunity to explain much," Abigail temporized, "but I'm perfectly willing to keep his explanation to myself regardless of whether I join in."

"That is acceptable, Miss Abercrombie," he acknowledged. "Are you comfortable on a broom?"

"Yes," she affirmed.

"Then follow."

2.13.4 Revelations and affirmation

She could see why Harry called his home a 'Lair'.

As Abigail followed her Head of House's broom through the gathering twilight as they flew over the Forbidden Forest, she saw a series of cliffs, and as they rounded the south side of an isolated table-like outcropping between a pair of river valleys, she saw a warmly glowing opening about halfway up the sheer cliffside. As they drew closer, she was able to make out the small figure of her friend standing on the lip of that opening with Granger and the centaur girl he had had with him the first day on the train.

Abigail had almost forgotten about her! Huh. Why hadn't she shown up to their study sessions?

As the sixth-year touched down on the oddly expansive lip of the cave, behind a chest-height wall, she was greeted enthusiastically.

"Hi, Abigail!" chirped Harry. "I'm glad you came!"

Granger limited herself to a shy smile, but the centaur gave a neutral nod.

It would probably be best to apologize for their first meeting, come to think of it.

"Glad to be here, Harry." Abigail responded. "Would you mind introducing me to your friend? I don't believe I caught her name the first time we met."

Harry looked puzzled for a moment before his eyes widened in realization. "Oh! I hadn't realized — This is Suze, she's my first damsel. Normally she would have been around with us in the library, but she's been working on a project with her uncle Ronan, so she's been doing her own research lately." He turned to the centaur in question, "Suze, this is Abigail Abercrombie, and she got caught up in the troll thing at the castle with Hermione. She's been a pretty good friend ever since."

"Well met," Suze intoned in a polite, but not quite friendly, tone.

"It is good to meet you too, Suze," Abigail said in a friendly tone. "I apologize for my behavior on the train at the beginning of the school year. I'm afraid I wasn't aware that you were authorized to be on the train, since I thought it was only open to students." Abigail bowed her head in apology.

"So you did not interfere because of my kind?" Suze asked skeptically.

Abigail winced, "To be perfectly accurate, your species did alert me to the situation. Truthfully, had you been a human girl, I probably wouldn't have noticed that you weren't a student. Since you are a centaur, and we were taught that centaurs are not capable of using a wand, it was fairly obvious that you weren't a student, whereas if you had been a human girl, I'd likely have assumed that you were going to put on your uniform later." Her expression firmed, "If I had noticed a non-student human girl on the train, though, I would have taken the same action."

The centaur maiden gazed down at her searchingly for a few moments before smiling in a much friendlier way. "In that case, I suppose that I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

Satisfied that his friends were getting along, Harry chose that moment to invite them all in to sit down in the utterly massive main room of his dwelling place. As she walked along behind her diminutive friend through the massively outsized tunnel into an even more massive room, they walked toward a few couches arranged in a sitting area on one side of the expanse. They looked rather like the furniture from her old dollhouse when compared to the scale of the room.

In addition to the massive room they were walking through, Abigail noted several other passages, similarly oversized, leading off further into the mountain. Everything was lit up with oddly shaped glowing glass jars attached to the walls with some sort of smooth black rope strung between them.

As she picked her way through the room, Abigail was unsurprised by the clutter. It was to be expected; she had made enough checks on the Slytherin first-year quarters in the past to know that — most young boys had similar ideas on neatness. She was surprised at the sheer size, though; why on earth did Harry need so much space?

Building into a cave wasn't so surprising. Wizards ran the full gamut from opulent mansions to one eccentric friend of her family that had built a home into an old shoe; a cave in the back woods was almost normal by comparison. She could have understood if he had simply built into a large cave, but the walls showed signs of excavation, and that meant the massive proportions were intentional. She could have understood, she supposed, if he had built a home scaled for the comfort of his obviously treasured centaur friend, but even Suze was still decidedly miniature in comparison to the scale of the cave, even those portions which were dug out manually.

Well, maybe she could ask after Harry finished explaining what he had asked her here to explain? She took a seat on one of the couches across from the boy in question.

"So, we were talking about plans for society this morning, right?" Harry led off.

At Abigail's affirmative nod, he continued, "Well, the wizarding world is pretty bad with the slavery and bigotry that's incorporated into everything. I mean, the goblins had to do a whole lot of shooting to get the law to stop calling them animals, and even though Mr. Dumbledore managed to get slavery outlawed back in 1963, people are still using contracts and spells to force whoever they can into slavery, even if they don't call it that anymore." Harry frowned, "Mr. Snape told me about all that stuff, and I don't like it, so we're planning to do something about it. We wanna make it a place we can be proud to live in, rather than the… the…" Harry trailed off as he tried to come up with an appropriate descriptor.

"Festering malefic cesspit?" Snape supplied.

"Yeah — festering malefic cesspit that it is now," Harry finished. "Thanks, Mr. Snape." The man nodded in acknowledgement.

Abigail leaned forward; this sounded intriguing. "What are you planning to do about it, exactly?"

"Well, Mr. Dumbledore thinks we should just keep at trying to persuade people peacefully, but Mr. Snape thinks that there's some people who just don't learn anything if it isn't beaten into 'em. I'm kinda thinkin' we'll need some of both, but I ain't sure exactly how much of each. I figure we'll figure that out as we go. Thing is, though, there's some stuff we'll need no matter what we do, and one of those things is money. It takes a lot of money to run a war, and it takes nearly as much to use more peaceful methods. Plus, we want to take as much strength away from the jerks who are behind all the problems as we can, and that means taking money away from them. Stealing it would be really hard — what with all the different places you can stash money — but we can out-produce and undercut them in business, then we can accomplish the same thing by taking away the means to make more money."

"So, you are going for economic conquest, then," Abigail mused. "That… has some potential."

"While we are doing that for now, Miss Abercrombie," Snape added, "when Mr. Potter reaches his majority and assumes control of his House, we will begin using his political strength to assist."

"And when it is needed, I'll kick in the force to deal with the ones what don't listen to anything else," Harry finished emphatically.

"It's good that you have more than one option," Abigail said doubtfully. "But I think you're going to need more than just yourself for the force part. I know you're strong, but are you really that strong?"

Harry simply nodded, much to Abigail's frustration, before Snape interjected once more. "Mr. Potter, perhaps you should reveal your nature to Miss Abercrombie so as to explain your confidence?"

"What do you…" Harry began before interrupting himself, "Oh, you mean tell her how I'm a dragon?"

Abigail gasped as Snape scrubbed at his face in frustration, "Yes, that — wretched obtuse lizard."

"Okay," Harry turned back to Abigail, "right, so I'm a dragon."

They sat for a moment in silence before Abigail said leadingly, "You don't look like a dragon…"

"Oh, right," the small boy jumped up from the couch and walked into the open area of the cave, his form flowing as he went into something much, much, much larger. The shifting form darkened to a deep grey, almost black, and became covered in thick-looking scales. An utterly massive pair of wings unfurled from the still changing back, and a long tail extended across the room. The echoingly massive cave suddenly seemed almost cramped.

It certainly explained the architecture!

"So, that's why you knew so much about human transfiguration!" Abigail realized as she tried to work through her shock at seeing her almost-but-not-quite love interest turn into a nightmarishly powerful magical creature.

Harry nodded his massive head, now sporting a trio of rearward-facing horns, "Yep, Mrs. McGonagall taught me so I could change back into a human. I've managed to learn to transfigure myself into a centaur, a seagull, and a pigeon too," he finished proudly. Oddly his voice hadn't changed, despite what had to be a heroically proportioned voice-box. Those shockingly intense green eyes hadn't changed either, aside from increasing in size.

Neither did their effect on her — which probably revealed something about her own proclivities that she was not certain she felt comfortable exploring.

In an effort to take her mind off of uncomfortable self-examination, Abigail searched frantically for something to move the conversation, "Wait, you said 'change back into a human'. So, you were human originally?"

"Yep," Harry said, "I got caught up in something at the stone circle in Avebury when I was eight, and I ended up becoming a dragon. It's cool though, being a dragon is awesome, 'specially now that I can turn into a human when I want so I can visit with my friends in the castle and go out with people who aren't in-the-know yet."

Abigail sighed in relief. He was a boy who had been changed into an animal, there were all kinds of old tales that told of that sort of thing, even ones where the unwillingly transformed person got married and lived happily ever after… eventually.

She could work with that.

A small portion of her insisted that those stories only went forward to the marriage and 'happily ever after' after the transformation had been reversed, but the rest rationalized that Harry could shapeshift at will, so that counted.

It totally counted.

Plus, he had saved her from the troll, so that counted too.

"Anyway, so I'm a dragon, and I'm the Head of an Ancient and Noble House, and Mr. Snape, Mr. Slackhammer, and I are working on building up enough money to beat out everyone else in wizarding Britain," Harry laid out while Abigail struggled to recover her equilibrium, "and I'm thinking that we need to start cutting into the enemy positions before it comes down to actual fighting. So, since we talked about Malfoy and the Happy Elf Trucking Group he runs…"

Harry paused, looking at his friend in concern. "Um, Abigail, are you okay?" She kept staring blankly at him. "You haven't said anything, and you're looking kind of out of it… is it 'cause I'm a dragon?"

Hearing his uncertainty, Abigail's attention turned outward again, and she stood, walking over to the nervous dragon and gesturing for him to lower his head before hugging his muzzle as well as she could manage.

"Thank you," she said simply.

"What for?" he asked as she pulled back.

"For saving me from the troll."

"Didn't you already thank me for that?"

"Yes, but it bears repeating," Abigail said, "and I wanted to make sure you realized that you're still my friend. Remember, that was the price," she teased.

Harry smiled, and Abigail couldn't help but wonder how he managed such an expressive gesture with such an alien facial structure.

"In regard to the project, I'm in," she continued.

Crushes on massive scaly monsters aside, the revolution they had spoken of was exactly the sort of thing she had always hoped to be a part of. The fact that it would give her decent employment and a chance to spend time with her friend-who-might-eventually-become-something-more was just icing.

At that point, Snape and Harry went into more detail on the plan as it was currently plotted and her role in it. The conversation lasted for several hours before Abigail had to leave if she was to return in time for her patrol as a prefect.

2.13.5 No turning back now

Abigail mused on the new, honestly rather shocking, information as she went through the motions of her nightly patrol looking for curfew violators.

She was now up to her neck in serious business, majorly serious business, and to be honest with herself — and Abigail always tried to be honest with herself, even if she wasn't always successful — she was mightily afraid of what might happen. The course of action Harry had outlined was the sort of thing the ministry would not take kindly to.

It was the sort of thing that saw people disappeared.

Abigail was even more afraid though, of what might happen if she didn't get in on this at the ground floor. There was no question in her mind of the need for armed resistance; the fact that even she had immediately assumed the penalty for this would be an assassination and coverup from the government rather than a trial and lawful punishment was proof enough of that.

More than that, though, Abigail had felt Harry's power in a deep and personal way during that troll incident, and even though her sensitivity had faded, seeing and feeling his native form had done nothing but reinforce that impression.

When she put her arms partway around his muzzle, Abigail knew then and there that anything Harry set his mind to he would accomplish — the power and presence she had touched was overwhelming even as he sat quietly in his Lair — and Abigail wanted in, no matter how scaly he was.

The dragon thing gave her a bit to consider on the potential relationship front, and she was no longer quite so certain she wanted to pursue that option, but she was absolutely set on keeping Harry as a friend and getting involved in his revolution.

On the topic of a potential relationship, well, she'd just have to think on that a little while she was alone in her room, see if anything in her feelings had changed on that front now that she knew of her friend's nature, or if she still found the idea as exciting as ever.

She was sure she could come up with something or other.

2.13.6 Bank transit

It was a fine morning in early spring, and the marble and gold lobby of Gringotts Merchant Bank was filled, as usual, with surly wizards arranging their various financial dealings with equally surly goblins across a collection of high counters arrayed along one side of the expansive room. Unlike the rest of the crowd, one pair of seeming humans, a young boy and a remarkably unpleasant-looking man, made their way confidently to a guarded hallway where they were nodded through cordially.

If any of the bank's customers had been attentive enough to notice, they might have wondered what the two were up to; however, wizards and witches like most humans were generally too self-absorbed to notice such things unless they are exceedingly blatant. Thus, business continued with its usual uninterrupted surly misery.

2.13.7 Investments and planning

In a familiar office, Severus Snape and Harry Potter sat in their usual chairs across from the smartly dressed Vice-Chairman Slackhammer. The usual round of beverages had already arrived, and Harry sipped his goblin tea as their host relayed their progress in the sales of their bulk superconductor line.

"Gentlemen, as of January, we have partnered with a wire manufacturer for the production of superconducting wire," the dapper goblin reported. "Sales are already backordered for full production capacity for the next eight years, and we do not expect there to be any reduction in order volume for at least the next three decades. Our partner is exploring the potential market for other form factors, but we expect wire to remain our primary product for the foreseeable future. Sales of our high-strength refractory continue to increase — though at a more modest rate — as we locate new industries which have a use for the material." The goblin smiled a predatory sort of smile, "Profits are currently significant, but we anticipate upwards of fifty-million galleons per month by this time next year as we increase production capacity."

"That is excellent news, Mr. Slackhammer," Snape said. "Are there any plans for the structured material?"

"We have plans for that product class, but they require significantly more engineering before they will come to market," Slackhammer said apologetically. "The potential is there, but incorporating it into a working computational device is proving difficult. We are investigating the possibility of forming a research division, but unfortunately, despite our current admirable liquidity, the nation has been required recently to funnel almost all of our share of the profits into updates to our most sacred armaments," the gentleman goblin gestured towards his office gun rack which now sported a significantly more threatening-looking array of rifles.

Harry had a thoughtful look on his face as he said, "Would it make sense for me to put up money for a research division?"

The dapper goblin looked intrigued, "Would you be interested in developing this as a personal holding, or are you thinking of more of a loan to the company?"

"Well, I run into stuff I wanna learn more about all the time, and it'd probably be useful to have people around that know how to do that sort of thing, so… maybe a personal holding?" Harry said uncertainly. "I don't really know where to start though…"

"We could manage the startup for you, for a fair price," Slackhammer offered eagerly.

"How much?"

"The majority of the expense is tied up in salaries for the current research work, as our potions master," he nodded to Snape, "has already learned how to make the material. The current issue is design. Total setup costs and research would amount to approximately five percent of your current after-tax income, at current estimate." At the dragon's uncertain look, he offered, "For the next two years, we would be pleased to provide the managerial services at cost, as we have a strong stake in your initial research projects, which would reduce your out-of-pocket expenses to four percent of your income."

"I think that sounds like a good idea, then," Harry said. "Um, speaking of investments, I had another idea recently." The boy-shaped dragon paused long enough to dig a grubby page of notes out of his pocket before unfolding it and reading. "Um, Mr. Slackhammer, the Hogs Haulage people are the ones what run the Hogwarts Express, right?"

"Indeed, they are," the goblin replied, looking expectantly at the boy with the air of a father waiting for his child to take his first steps.

"Cool," Harry said. "Um, when I looked it up, Hogs Haulage is one hundred and sixteen galleons and twelve sickles each share, and it says there are ten thousand shares in the company, um, uh, owned by… a hundred and fifteen different people, I think? One of which is me, and I've got nine and a bit percent, and the rest of it is for sale, so don't that mean the train company's for sale?"

"Please allow me to verify your researches, Mr. Potter." Slackhammer rang a bell and motioned for his aid to bring him the appropriate documents. After a review of the current prices, he said, "Essentially, yes."

"And it said in my last balance statement," he pointed to another number on his note, "I've got, um, fifty-seven million galleons in fluid assets, so that means I can afford to buy the train company, right?"

"That is correct," Slackhammer confirmed.

"Then I think I'd like to buy the train company, Mr. Slackhammer," Harry said, looking up from his notes.

"What makes you consider this is a wise investment, Mr. Potter?" Slackhammer asked, setting down his customary whiskey in favor of listening more closely.

"Well, it's not all that; part of it's that I've got fifty-seven-and-a-bit million galleons in my vault and I can afford to buy stuff because I think it's cool," Harry explained. "And I was looking at the train in London, and I'd like to be able to say it's my train, and I don't think it's wasting money because I think I know how to make it more profitable."

"And how do you propose to improve the profitability of the company?" the goblin asked leadingly.

"Well, for a start, there's more places with lots of magical people in Britain than just London and Hogsmeade, so there's more places it'd be worth having a train for magical people go," Harry said. "Birmingham and Liverpool would be really worth having trains for too. There's more magic people living in each of them than in Hogsmeade. So, there's that. And did you know, they're building a railway to France?"

"Ah, yes, the Channel Tunnel project, quite the impressive engineering task," Slackhammer said.

"Well, I was thinking maybe I could have trains from London to Paris and stuff too, once it's finished," Harry said. "I mean, there's lots of magic people in Paris, and loads in Bruges and stuff too, and all the trains that aren't in places that used to be Russian can have trains the same size as British trains, well, apart from, like Spain, right? Plus, I figure, you can't transport magic stuff on a non-magical train, but there ain't nothing in the rules about transporting non-magical stuff on a magical train, so I figure we can expand eventually into non-magical freight and use magic to keep our fuel and maintenance costs down low enough to be profitable while charging less than other companies."

Slackhammer smiled proudly, "I do believe you have thought through this well, though I will defer to Madame Axetalon on the legality of your non-magical freight proposition."

"Well, even if that don't work, I still got another angle — did you know it's cheaper to send ten tons of stuff to Hogsmeade by train than it is to send a ton of stuff to Sidealong Road in Liverpool by lorry?" Harry continued. "Well, I found out Lucius Malfoy owns the company what runs that, Happy Elf Trucking Group, and Mr. Snape was always tellin' me how bad a person he was, and I figure undercutting him and takin' money away oughtta be a good idea in general."

The dapper goblin banker's proud smile took on a predatory edge, "Ah, Mr. Malfoy, quite. Yes, economic warfare is another excellent justification for your purchase."

"And finally, Sergeant-Major Hooktalon has been telling me about supply lines and stuff, and I figure it makes good sense for me to secure a freight service that can get stuff to me at my Lair, so I can make sure I can eat and stuff." Harry concluded.

"Yet another excellent idea, if one has the wherewithal, which you do, Mr. Potter."

"Then I'm gonna buy the train company," the dragon said firmly.

"I shall arrange for it at once," Slackhammer turned to his telegraph sender and began tapping out something in rapid Morse code, muttering under his breath, "Ah, they grow up so fast."

Snape shot Harry a sidelong look, "How much of that was made up to justify playing with trains?"

"Hey!" Harry protested, "All of those reasons were legitimate, I just started from the playing with trains thing."

"Mr. Snape, regardless of his reasons I concur with Mr. Potter's decision that the purchase of Hogs Haulage would be a wise move," Slackhammer remarked without looking up from his telegraph.

"And why is that?" Snape asked.

"I am given to understand, based on both past experience and Mr. Potter's opinion on Lucius Malfoy, that all of us in this room are of a similar mind on the subject of wizarding 'justice' and the current state of what passes for law within the magical parts of our civilization?" Slackhammer asked, still tapping away.

Snape raised an eyebrow, before responding, "I believe you are correct in that assumption" when he realized that the goblin was not looking at him.

"As you are no doubt aware, the Goblin Nation is one of the few non-human polities to achieve a measure of independence and self-government within the so-called 'Wizarding World'," Slackhammer continued. "What you likely do not know, is that we are at constant risk of reconquest, hence the ongoing military expenditures I mentioned earlier today. It is relatively unusual for a year to go by without the Ministry making some form of attempt or dirty trick intended to bring goblinkind back under their direct control. The social system that gives rise to so-called 'Dark Lords' is not only bad for business, it is bad for goblinkind, Mr. Snape, and I and my fellow board members have begun to investigate certain methodologies for stymieing said social system."

He looked up from the sender as he finished with a flourish, message sent.

"I am given to understand," he said, "That during the years leading up to the abolition of slavery within the non-magical society of North America, fleeing slaves escaped via a hidden network of pathways and safehouses referred to as an 'underground railroad', and I reckon it poetic that those from our homeland should begin their journey to freedom aboard a train."

"We could bring them to Hogsmeade," Snape mused, warming to the idea, "but what then?"

Slackhammer smiled thinly, "Then, Mr. Snape, Gringotts, PLC's container ships sail daily from the port of Glasgow, travelling to places all over the globe; perhaps they could carry… a little extra cargo. For charitable reasons, you understand."

"We do, indeed," Snape echoed the thin smile.

"Then that's what we do," Harry said decisively. "You bring my gold up by lorry now; why not bring it by train? We could have special coaches that burglars can't get into, all armored and stuff with guards with big machine guns, and that way the people who really, really need to not be here anymore could ride north with my gold and get on a boat in Mallaig that'd take them to the ship that'd get them way away from those Sassenachs and all their pish."

"I must," Snape muttered, "remind Minerva to desist using Gaelic foul language in front of the impressionable dragon."

2.13.8 Humble beginnings

It took Gringotts some two weeks to buy out enough of the Hogs Haulage shareholders to give Harry a majority stake in the company and some say over the functioning of the railroad. The time was spent mostly in ensuring the transactions were quiet enough to avoid driving the cost up, a process which involved a wide variety of Gringotts holding companies buying the shares piecemeal and then selling to the Potter account at cost.

The process would continue slowly over the course of the next few months if everything went according to plan on the financial front. On the off chance that someone noticed the pattern and bothered to investigate, the price might rise significantly, hence the cautious approach.

Luckily for the Potter bottom line, wizards tended towards complacency, particularly those who held stock in a business as lackadaisically managed as the Hogs Haulage. It had not been a particularly lucrative property for over sixty years, but it was a steady source of income — the sort of investment that attracted people looking to invest but unwilling to put in any attention or effort.

The company had fallen into this state in large part because there had never been any attempt to expand the business to new routes after the company's founder died in 1924… less than a week after attending a social gathering hosted by one Abraxas Malfoy. The founder had been in his fifties, hale and hearty, but no investigation took place after it was declared by the coroner — one of Abraxas' cousins — to have been a result of 'natural causes'.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Happy Elf Trucking Group was founded less than eight weeks later, immediately after the next head of Hog's Haulage was found to have been embezzling from the company and thrown in prison without trial by the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement — a man married to Abraxas' aunt.

In any case, the rank-and-file of Hogs Haulage remained entirely unaware of their quietly proceeding change in ownership, and even had they known, they likely wouldn't have cared. They were much more concerned about their cargo than the vagaries of backroom business deals. Despite their lack of awareness of the fact, their first run under new management was in the process of rolling out on a grey drizzly morning in early March.

Driver Jim Coates, his fireman Mac, their guard Ivor McIver, and the crew drake-dog Smaugey, had just completed receiving locomotive number 70015 — a British Rail Standard Class 7 Pacific by the name of Apollo, the youngest of the Hogs Haulage roster — from their colleagues Keith Moss, Jim's younger brother Stanley Coates, and Murdo Hagrid the hag-blooded first cousin of the Hogwarts groundskeeper. Having got done giving the locomotive a thorough once-over, Jim's crew was speaking to the shunting foreman about the day's cargo as they watched a novel sight.

The King's Cross shunting locomotive — a Hunslet 'Austerity' 0-6-0 saddle tank — was carefully moving down onto the mostly-assembled train with three oddly-painted and modified BR Mark 1 coaches. From the look of them, two were obviously Brake Gangwayeds but had their windows, small in the first place, mostly blocked up and covered with sturdy metal hatches. The one in the center was some type of fully van-sided coach, maybe from the old travelling post-office, and all — as well as being absolutely festooned with rivets — were crouched on their suspension, adequately demonstrating that, whatever their contents, it was just a tad heavier than what a BR Mark 1 coach usually carried.

And all three were painted an oddly familiar green and gold.

"What's the crack?" Jim asked, nodding to the strangely painted coaches and calming old Smaugey's nerves while he was at it; the drake-dog kept nearly flaming whenever the Hunslet chuffed.

"Gringotts bin settin' up somefin' up norf," the shunting foreman, a Londoner by the name of Kelly Brown, explained with a shrug. "That 'ere's the strong van, sixteen ton of valuables they got 'idden in it I 'erd. 'Em other 'uns got a couple dozen goblins in 'em, armed ter the teef I'll bet." He nodded firmly.

Jim dubiously peered in the open door on the side of one of the BG's as it rolled past him; he found a khaki-clad goblin dubiously peering back at him from around a cigarette and along the top of a decidedly threatening assemblage of metal pipes and boxes; Jim knew what crossbows did, and anything that had a trigger was definitely bad news in his book.

Come to think of it, he recognized the color scheme, green and gold, the company colors of Gringotts.

"What'd they be takin' sixteen-ton o' valuables to Hogsmeade for?" Mac asked, peering over Ivor's shoulder at the goods manifest.

"Well, that'll be vehicle number four," Ivor said. "Lemme see… sixteen point one five ton for… Harry Potter?"

"Yup," Kelly confirmed with a nod, "Sixteen-ton fer 'Arry Potter 'imself. Way I 'ear it this'll be right regular, they were 'aulin it up by road, but it's grown ter the point it's cheaper fer 'em ter send it by rail."

"Sixteen-ton o' valuables?" Mac boggled. "Ain't the Boy-Who-Lived what, eleven or twelve, just started up Hogwarts and all?"

"Yup," Kelly said. "Me youngest's in 'is year, she is, different 'ouse though. Surprised the Richards outta me when my Lavender told me 'e'd ended up an 'Ufflepuff; allus figgerd 'e'd be a Gryffindor."

There was a dull thump and a cloud of feathers as Smaugey flamed a pigeon that'd startled him during the meaningful pause; Jim gave him a clip around the ear, and Smaugey gave an apologetic yip.

"Well, I'd like ter know how he's earning hisself that kinda money," Mac said.

"Well, I dunno much, but 'e's got 'em goblins proppa 'et up." And with that, Kelly headed over to what would be the rear end of the three coaches when the completed train was in motion.

Jim, Mac, and Ivor contemplated the trio of green and gold coaches for a moment as Kelly busied himself checking they were properly coupled and braked to the fitted vans that formed the rear half of the train while one of his lads uncoupled the shunting locomotive from the leading Gringotts coach.

"Any word on how his load'll be handled up north?" Jim asked Kelly as he walked back over and started waving the shunting locomotive to back up and get the next wagon.

"'S 'ter be picked up by some noo sub-branch 'em goblins 'ave set up in 'ogsmeade; right 'ush-'ush it is," Kelly told him.

"Huh," Jim said. "Interestin'."

"Yer better start gittin' 'er ready ter 'ead norf," Kelly said.

"Aye, s'that sort o' time," Jim agreed, and he and Mac headed for the 70015, eagerly followed by Smaugey.

The shunting locomotive hissed past with the second-to-last wagon, a four-wheeled refrigerated van laden with food for the kiddies at Hogwarts, as they walked; the only remainder was the train's solitary passenger coach, currently loading at the nearby platform. Wasn't usually many passengers — the twelve they'd seen boarding today was more than normal — but there were enough across the year to pay for the upkeep of the coach and make a little black, so the service stayed.

"Got a funny sorta feeling about them goblins, Jim," Mac said.

Jim nodded. Thinking back there'd been talk around the depot about more and more goblins taking the Hogsmeade train. Hadn't the gaffer said something about the little buggers nosing around the office?

Well, whatever, it wasn't Jim's problem, nor was it Mac's. In about five minutes time, they'd be backing 70015 down onto the train, and perhaps five minutes after that — no, a glance at Jim's watch showed it to be a bit over six minutes; they had a total of eleven minutes thirty seconds before the starting signal would clear — they'd be on their way home to Hogsmeade.

2.13.9 In the springtime of youth

As the last of the snows melted from the surrounding highlands, spring came to the Black Woods with a vengeance.

With the suppression of the acromantula population over the last few years, all sorts of critters, both magical and not, came bouncing back into the open, including at least four of the species thought to have been hunted to extinction by the chitinous menace.

While his classes occupied very little of his time — theoretical work was a breeze for the young dragon, and first year classes consisted of little but theory — Harry managed to keep himself busy between his control exercises and his own independent studies. That is not to say his friends were neglected.

During the course of the winter term, Hermione managed to badger her friend into excavating and furnishing a proper library, set into the northwest wall of the main room of the Lair about halfway up from the floor. It sported a sitting area on the mezzanine overlooking the main room and a series of shelves arranged in rows, which she then took palpable pleasure in neatly organizing and filling with his massive collection of books and manuscripts. She even created a card catalogue.

It was the most fun Hermione had had in years.

As the weather warmed, Abigail became a more frequent visitor to the Lair as well. Her duties as Slytherin girls' prefect made for odd visiting hours and irritatingly frequent trips back and forth, but she made sure to make time to show up at least a few times a week. Between her evening visits to the Lair and the continuing study sessions in the library, Abigail was quite pleased with the progress of her friendship with the resident dragon.

It was an idyllic sort of spring, but like all good things, it eventually had to come to an end, and it did so as the seasons rolled around.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.14 Out of time

---

2.14.1 Out of options

End of term exams approached, and with them would come the end of the school year. Across the school, the staff busily readied themselves for the rush, preparing the tests that would be administered in the next few weeks.

In one office, nearly a week ahead of the time that such a thing would be expected, one class' worth of such examinations lay completed and ready to hand out. Each year matched with an answer key done up in red complete with annotations on how to assign partial credit. On top of the pile of parchments laid an envelope addressed to Albus Dumbledore. The rest of the desk was neatly sorted and done up, almost as if the owner had put things in order in anticipation of a long trip.

On the other side of the office, said owner stood before a bubbling cauldron and prepared to decant its contents into specially prepared glass canisters. Charmed imperturbable on the inside surface and extremely thin-walled, they looked rather like glass Christmas ornaments — with good reason, for that is what they once were. Within each one was an un-charmed glass vial containing the last of the ingredients required to complete the concoction.

If he were lucky, the inner vial would dissolve too quickly for him to seal the outer container, and his suffering would be over except for the dying — honestly a minor thing at this point, by his reckoning.

If he were unlucky, well… it would be just the weapon needed to break the goblin defense on the third floor — and he was sure his soul would be damned for eternity for using it.

And again, his earthly suffering would be over except for the dying. No change there.

Hands moving quickly, the incomplete potion was transferred, and the repurposed ornaments were melted shut with a tightly-controlled flame charm just in time to hear the slight crunch of breaking glass and the sudden sizzle as the potion in the spheres changed its nature dramatically.

Damn.

He could only hope the goblins were up to killing him tonight — he was out of options.

2.14.2 Night assault

The hallway was quiet and dark, and Corporal Mantrap struggled to stay awake for his guard shift in the third-floor hallway of Hogwarts. He commanded half of his section on the current shift, and his second would be taking over with the other half in just over two hours. Nothing had shown up in the hallway before their position since the beginning of the shift, not even that cat Filch kept around.

It had been a rather boring deployment all around, no action outside that one spot of excitement with the trolls back in the autumn, and the job was going to come to an end in just another month or so when the prize would be moved to another location. It was almost to the point where Mantrap was hoping for another bit of action — just to ward off the boredom if nothing else.

Almost… but not quite.

The corporal was a veteran soldier, and he had more than enough experience to appreciate boredom for what it really was: safety. If things got exciting for a soldier… well he wouldn't be bored, but there would be a whole lot more blood to deal with and a whole lot more dead friends to grieve. So that 'not quite' meant Corporal Mantrap was perfectly content to watch a mind-numbingly boring empty hallway for hours on end in the middle of the night…

"Hey, look alive there, soldier!" he barked at one of the gobs manning the gun emplacement who was starting to nod off.

…and he was quite happy to force the rest of his section to do so too. The soldier in question snapped back to wakefulness and sounded off an acknowledgement and an apology.

The acknowledgement came just before the quiet crash of breaking glass.

The corporal was already thumbing the safety off on his rifle and looking down the hallway for the telltale signs of a disillusioned intruder when the pair of gobs manning the emplacement screamed in agony. Mantrap snapped back to look at them and was horrified to see them missing an arm each and some sort of dark liquid eating its way through his soldiers' torsos. The gun itself was already a loss, melted through just forward of the ammunition feed.

It was the last thing Corporal Mantrap would ever see, as it was at that point that the fumes from whatever it was that was eating his men alive reached him and rendered his eyes pits of hellish agony, burning straight through his eyelids even as they reflexively closed.

"Gas!"

It wasn't a chemical agent he was familiar with, but the vector was obvious. Chemical weaponry was not something they had prepared for on this deployment — assuming that there was a way to contain the damned stuff even if they had. His gobs had fallen silent at the gun — probably dead from what he had seen before he lost his sight — and if he judged properly from the quiet swearing from the other side of the hallway, the other two had probably been rendered as blind as he was.

Regardless, his soldiers were well-trained, and they rapidly fell silent as they strained to listen for an approaching intruder. Blind fighting was a necessity in the tunnels at times, though no one was could really claim to be good at it. The best they could hope for at this point was to hear a footstep and then pray and spray in the right general direction.

While his men were doing that, Mantrap himself groped blindly for his radio to warn the rest of the guard company. The burning in his lungs told him he probably wouldn't survive much longer himself, but a warning would give the rest of the boys a chance. He had just managed to locate the radio when it fell apart in his hands with an electronic squeal as a silent cutting curse destroyed it, removing his left hand in the process.

The intruder must have silenced himself. Damn!

Another ominous tinkle of broken glass heralded the outbreak of yet more screaming, this time from his other two squad-mates, and Mantrap knew that the situation had gone from grim to completely black. The enemy had killed the last of them, then, the bastard!

As the last gob alive at the post, there was no reason not to go out swinging. His fallen mates would hardly begrudge him an accidental bullet or two to their corpses in exchange for the possibility of taking out their killer. Mantrap braced his L1A1 as best as he could before pointing it in the general direction of where he remembered the hallway to be and emptied the clip as fast as he could work the trigger, slewing the gun in an attempt to cover the whole hallway.

As the rifle clicked empty, the corporal ejected the magazine then reached for a reload with his remaining hand, pinning the rifle in place with his stump, only to be engulfed by a wave of fire which had him writhing on the floor in agony as he attempted to put out the flames. He managed to smother the last of them just as his thrashing brought his head into all-to firm contact with the wall he had been crouched next to, and Mantrap knew no more.

2.14.3 Unwanted success

As the corporal stilled, a pair of shoes appeared in the middle of the hallway, and then a distortion slowly traveled upward revealing a dark figure. The man was wearing standard dark-colored wizarding robes with the unusual addition of a purple turban as he allowed his disillusionment charm to lapse. He panted while clutching at his side to stanch the blood flow from a grazing bullet wound sustained in that last blind spray of bullets.

That had been a close one.

After the miserable failure of his Halloween gambit during the previous term, Quirrel had planned carefully for this moment. The trolls had revealed the futility of a frontal assault — despite his master's arrogance in believing otherwise — and Quirrel had scrambled for a means of neutralizing the goblin defensive position. He had finally hit upon the idea when he overheard some of his first-year students talking about a safety lecture from their potions class.

That metal cleaning potion Snape had led off with for the first years could be easily converted to his purposes, with both a directly damaging component to take out the fortifications and the deadly gas for killing the guards. It was admittedly risky; any misstep would have led to his own gruesome demise. Ever since he had begun creating the potion and its delivery device, he had been one misstep, one piece of cracked glass, away from a closed-casket funeral.

It was in large part why he had latched on to the idea.

His master was a cruel and demanding one, and Quirrel served neither willingly nor eagerly, but the domination methods the monster had used left him little room to act. For the better part of a year since he had fallen victim, the man had been searching for a loophole, some way out, and he had hit upon the desperate idea of taking risks which were more likely to be fatal than successful.

The Master had commanded that he be willing to die in order to complete the monster's goals, and Quirrel had chosen to interpret that literally. He could not deliberately sabotage his own efforts, but he could choose the riskiest options that still held a faint chance of success and hope that statistics caught up with him before success. It was a poor option, but it was the best he could manage.

Death was mightily attractive in comparison to the Master's service.

"Shit," the turbaned man quietly cursed in the silent hallway. Why couldn't the goblins have managed to find something he had missed? He was tempted to kick the fallen goblin before him in frustrated anger. Barring some fortunate circumstance, his foolish gamble looked like it was going to pay off.

It seemed that Hell smiled up at fools just as much as Heaven smiled down on them. More's the pity.

As Quirrel cast a minor healing spell to seal his wound and a numbing charm to hide the pain, deliberately avoiding cleaning it first in hopes that it might come back to haunt his Master later, he continued on. The next room saw him face to face… to face… to face… with a three-headed dog larger than the staff table in the Great Hall.

The mutt was enormous and deadly looking, snarling viciously as saliva dripped from its three sets of massive jaws, but Quirrel quickly lulled it to sleep with a music charm cast at the prompting of his increasingly eager Master. The enslaved man had not held out much hope for the efficacy of the rest of the traps; the goblins were by far the deadliest of the lot. None of these would kill him before the Master had his chance.

Dumbledore was away on business, the goblins on guard had been silenced before they could raise an alert, the shift change wouldn't occur for another two hours, and Quirrel himself was the staff member on duty for this portion of the castle. Everything was set for Quirrel to succeed in his theft on behalf of his Master. No one was in position to stop him now…

…least of all himself.

It was truly a shame, Quirrel quietly despaired, even as he pushed further into the defenses.

2.14.4 Business?

"What do you mean the Minister is unavailable?" Albus demanded irritably. "His letter was most insistent on an immediate meeting."

First the Minister had called another one of his inane 'emergency consultations', and now he lacked even the basic decency to let his security know a guest would be arriving. Sometimes it was the most unlikely things that made him question his decision to refrain from fixing things through brute magical power.

It was sad how many of those unlikely things involved the current Minister and his cronies.

"I apologize, Supreme Mugwump," the thoroughly uncomfortable auror on guard duty apologized. "The Minister is in a meeting at the moment, sir, and he left strict orders that he is not to be disturbed."

"A meeting at eleven in the evening?"

"His wife, sir…" the guard explained in a mildly nauseated voice.

"His wife," Albus flatly echoed.

"Yes, sir."

"And why is he holding this meeting in his office?" Albus was almost afraid to ask.

"I wouldn't presume to speculate, sir."

The uncomfortable silence was broken by a loud slap and a high-pitched effeminate squeal.

Albus covered his face with his palm in disgust.

"That's him now, sir," the auror offered in a disgusted tone.

At the elderly man's questioning eyebrow, the auror elaborated helpfully, "His wife brought along a… toy, sir."

"She carried it in?" Albus asked incredulously. "Out in the open?"

"Not exactly, sir," the guard hedged, flinching at yet another squeal. "Her… skirt wasn't thick enough to hide it properly, sir."

Oh.

What had he been doing with his life that it had come to this? Albus shook his head in disgust and settled in to wait.

2.14.5 Sacrificing a pawn

Screaming in agony, Quirrel burst through a wall of black flames into a barren stone room.

"Damn it!" Why couldn't Severus have used something properly lethal? The potions master had gone and gotten Quirinus' hopes up when he had left poison in every bottle of his little logic puzzle, and then he hadn't had the stones to follow through and make the fire properly lethal!

Chintzy bastard!

Not bothering to pat out the residual flames — Quirinus was well aware he was about to die when his evil bastard of a Master body-jacked him, and he was doing his level best to leave that body in as poor a condition as he could manage within the confines of the Master's commands, a final act of spite — the unfortunate defense teacher walked toward the single piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room.

It was a mirror, oval in shape and full-length, mounted on a rather ornate stand, and the man could feel the magic imbued in it like sunlight on a summer's day. There was an odd inscription emblazoned across the top of the frame beginning with the word 'Erised'… ah.

That was a name he knew. The mirror that showed naught but the heart's desire. The thing was a legend in the cursebreaking and defense circles, held up as an example of how even the nicest of things could be turned into the vilest of weapons. Many a wizard had wasted away, unable to look away from the images it showed.

It would make sense, then, for Dumbledore to have hidden the stone in such a way that one had to look into the mirror in order to find it. A potential thief would catch sight of whatever seductive vision the mirror showed and be paralyzed, making for an easy capture.

Genius!

Quirrel knew his limits, and he knew that one look in that mirror would be his undoing. If his mental defenses were strong enough to resist that cursed mirror, he never would have been ensnared by the Master in the first place. Better still, his master's commands would not only allow him to take this opportunity, they would force him to!

Bless you, Albus Dumbledore!

Quirinus wondered what vision of desire would capture his fancy and keep him paralyzed until the compatriots of the goblins he had killed came by to slit his throat in well-deserved revenge. Perhaps it would be a vision of the monster who did this to him writhing in agony, enduring all the tortures of hell?

That'd be his guess. Just thinking about it warmed the cockles of his heart.

With a newly lightened step, Quirrel boldly rounded the mirror, stopped in front of it and locked his eyes on its surface only to see — his own reflection.

A reflection that then proceeded to shrug apologetically and hold out a blood red crystalline stone in the palm of its hand before slipping it into its own pocket while holding Quirrel's horrified gaze with its own regretful one.

"No… no," Quirrel stuttered aloud, even as his hand, driven by the compulsion spells, reached down into that same pocket on his own person. "It's not possible! He couldn't have done something so… not when it was so close to… if he had just left well enough alone…"

His hand closed on a hard, angular stone in his pocket that most assuredly had not been there before.

"Damn you, Albus Dumbledore!" the broken man yelled. "Damn you to hell! If you had just left the mirror alone, it would have gotten me and that bastard for sure! Why… why did you have to get cute about it?"

And then the spells completed, a surge of magic coursed through both the stone and the man, and the turbaned figure erupted in a welter of blood as its flesh reconfigured itself with a wet squelch, quickly taking on a new shape starting with a face on what used to be the back of the man's head. All the while, blood flowed over the stone and took on a glowing silver hue before flowing back into the rapidly shifting figure.

A newly reconfigured arm reached up and pulled the bloody remains of a purple turban away from the new figure's face, and the newly revealed eyes glowed red as they looked down at the stone held in its other hand.

"Yes," it hissed in a sibilant tone which had little in common with a normal human voice. "Excellent work, Quirinus. Excellent work, indeed."

There was a hissing chuckle. "Ah, that potion was inspired, I must say — oh the screams! I shall have to remember it for the future. And that delicious ending, the desperate man presented with one last hope only for it to be snatched away — ah, if only Albus had actually intended to be so cruel, I might be envious. How marvelous!"

A quick bit of spell work repaired and adjusted the shredded and ill-fitting robes that were still draped over the man's new body, and the red-eyed man conjured a mirror — he knew better than to look into the one already in the room. Now that its alternate enchantment was in all likelihood spent, he had no desire to risk himself to its seductive imagery.

"Not bad for being dead for a decade, I suppose; though the red eyes are new," the man said examining his reflection closely. "I do believe I like them."

A flick of the erstwhile defense professor's wand dismissed the mirror.

"Now for some unfinished business…" the macabre blood-soaked figure spun on its heel and walked briskly out the way his unfortunate former host had entered, "it wouldn't do to leave the Potter job undone. Entirely unprofessional!"

2.14.6 Realization

"Albus? What are you doing here?"

Dumbledore had to acknowledge, his many, many other faults aside, Cornelius Fudge had some of the most impressive emotional control the elderly wizard had ever encountered. It was either that or the man simply had no sense of shame whatsoever… which sounded more plausible, come to think of it.

Whatever the reason, there was no hint in the Minister's voice or demeanor of what the man had been doing in his office for the last half hour, though the rather portly man did lose some points for sitting too stiffly. Understandable, certainly, but it detracted from the performance.

"Minister, you demanded that I meet with you immediately — half an hour ago," Albus handed the man the memo which had been delivered just before Albus had intended to go to bed.

The Minister of Magic looked curiously at the parchment in question before stating firmly, "Albus, I sent no such request. Who gave it to you? Should we contact Amelia about a forgery?"

"You didn't send it?" Albus frowned. "It arrived in the usual manner, and I thought nothing of it. Hmm, what was that in service of, I wonder?"

From the doorway, the Minister's long-suffering bodyguard spoke up tentatively, "Um, sir? It occurs to me that the only things that note accomplished were getting you here and making you annoyed at the Minister for wasting your time. Since I don't believe you are the sort to hold a grudge with someone over something that they didn't do, and I don't think anyone else believes that either, that leaves only one possible motivation for sending the note. I believe it was a means of removing you from your school, sir."

Albus' eyes widened, and he shot to his feet, an odd device appearing in his hand from within his robes. "Corporal? Are you there, Corporal?" There was no response.

"Cornelius, please pass that on to Amelia and ask her to investigate the forgery," Albus said indicating the parchment.

As the Minister nodded agreeably, the Headmaster excused himself, "It seems that I have some urgent business to attend to at Hogwarts, good evening, Minister." And the room was suddenly one person emptier.

"Did he just apparate right through the wards, sir?" the auror on duty asked the Minister.

Cornelius waved off the man's question. "He always does that," he said dismissively. The minister dropped the forged memo on his desk to deal with in the morning. "We're done here for the evening; I'll be leaving now."

"Aren't you curious about what's going on in the school, Minister?"

"Albus will deal with it, and if he doesn't then as long as I don't know about it, it's not my problem."

"What about the students, sir?"

"Like I said, not my problem," Cornelius shrugged on his coat and reached for his bowler. "If some of the little monsters die on Albus' watch, he'll get blamed for it, and the only way I can catch heat is if I was aware of the problem; therefore, I will go home and go to sleep without looking into things."

"I see, sir," the auror said uncertainly.

"You'll understand eventually, son," the Minister said magnanimously.

As the portly man left the room, his bodyguard muttered under his breath, "God, I hope not," before following dutifully along.

2.14.7 Blast from the past

At the Lair, Harry and his two damsels were engaged in their usual nightly ritual.

They had returned from the castle after dinner and had gone through their evening chores. Suze had worked on her spinning because her shirts were starting to wear out again; Hermione had curled up with — or more descriptively, around — a book, given her usual choice in reading material; and Harry had eaten his second, much more substantial, dinner.

Afterwards, the trio had come together to watch the sunset from the lip of the Lair, and then with the fall of night, they had returned to the sitting area intent on reading for a time before they sought their various beds.

While not strictly a part of the routine, it was not unusual — particularly since the incorporation of Hermione into the group — for this evening reading period to run rather longer than was prudent for growing children, which was why, when a certain blood-drenched figure burst into the Lair along about midnight, all three of the Lair's inhabitants were still wide awake.

"So, the Boy-Who-Lived," an unpleasantly sibilant voice sneered from the entrance. "Ha! The Boy-Who-Won't-Live-Much-Longer, rather!"

The red-eyed and nose-less man hissed a laugh as the centaur in the room went for her rifle and knocked her unconscious with a silently cast stunner. He would have to remember to punish it later for its temerity in not waiting patiently to be killed. There was a proper order to this sort of thing, after all.

"Who the dickens are you?" Harry demanded, rather justifiably put out at the sudden home invasion. "And what do you think you're doing; how'd you find here to get in; and what reprobate gave you a nose-ectomy?"

"Are you an imbecile, boy?" the nose-less man growled — rather poorly, to be honest; the hissing really killed the effect.

Harry looked rather less than impressed.

"I am Lord Voldemort!" the intruder proclaimed, sounding rather put out that he had not been recognized.

It had only been a decade, surely his reputation hadn't faded so quickly?

"And I am here to finish what I started ten years ago when I killed your parents! Of course I found you, I'm the Dark Lord, and you didn't even try to protect against scrying! Terribly sloppy of you — though I suppose it's to be expected; you are a child, after all. Perhaps I should wait for any future child enemies to grow up before murdering them?"

The creepy-looking man paused for a moment, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. Adults did tend to be more professional adversaries, and the ultimately futile struggle was the best part of the whole business. "Something to consider I suppose…"

"What about the nose-ectomy?" Harry prompted curiously when the intruder drifted off before he finished answering his set of questions.

"Oh, yes, quite — terribly sorry, I got a tad distracted there," the self-styled Lord Voldemort apologized absently before shifting back to a hissing approximation of dramatically carrying voice. "And — what in Salazar's name is a nose-ectomy?"

"Huh. Nah, you can't be that Voldemort-guy; he splattered himself when he bounced a killing curse off my face," the young dragon countered.

Harry wasn't buying what this guy was selling; his face was way too awesome to leave survivors.

"And since you found my Lair, you can't be half as stupid as someone who managed to splatter himself while trying to kill a baby. And since getting your appendix taken out is an appendectomy, I guess getting your nose taken off is a nose-ectomy."

The red-eyed fellow who was most assuredly Lord Voldemort, no matter what his soon-to-be latest victim insisted, drew himself up for another round of argument before deflating.

"Why am I discussing noses with the Potter brat?"

He shook his entirely nose-free head in disgust before continuing, "Feh! Claim what you like, that mudblood bitch of a mother of yours did… something! A ritual! It caused my curse to rebound, not your face! And as I have progressed further along the path to immortality than any other, all it succeeded in doing was destroying my body, which — with the aid of my most excellent, if unwilling, assistant, Professor Quirrel, who unfortunately perished in the process — I have regained!"

"No, one of my friends has a photo of the mess. That Voldemort-guy was definitely splattered all over the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling, and the door, and my crib, and the windows, and the hallway outside the door, and…"

"That's enough, brat!"

"Anyway, I mean he went splat! And when I splat things — or I suppose, when my face splats things — they stay SPLATTED!"

"I have only one thing left to say to you, foolish brat, avada kedavra!"

And with that, a sickly green light shot out of the intruder's wand. Harry only had just enough time to say "Hey!" before the curse hit.

"And now," Voldemort declared, turning to Hermione, "for you, mudblood! You have the honor to be the second slain by me in this, my new…"

"You've got no idea how much that stings!" Harry loudly declared, sitting back up from where he'd slumped down on the couch.

This was sufficiently strange to throw Voldemort off-track in mid-monologue.

"…actually, I have," Voldemort countered. "By the way, avada kedavra."

He turned back to the quivering Hermione.

"Where was I? Ah, yes, you…"

"I'm done talking to you! Nobody just…" the Boy-Who-Just-Wouldn't-Freaking-Die declared, popping back up.

"Avada kedavra, goddamnit!"

"OW! Nobody just comes in here throwing…"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"…killing curses and…"

"AVADA KEDAVRA! WILL YOU JUST PLEASE DIE ALREADY?"

"…threatening my damsels!"

"AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The Boy-Who-Just-Kept-Popping-Back-Up seemed to be staying down this time, so the highly irritated Dark Lord once again returned his attention to Hermione.

"Finally! As I was saying…"

That was when an enormous set of teeth descended on him from above. Harry, his piece said, had reverted to his native form and gone for the bite. Nothing accidental about it; that was intentional, through and through.

Harry briefly chewed, swallowed, and belched, then said, "Huh."

Hermione, who had managed to get her teeth unclenched, let out a distinctly shell shocked-sounding squeak.

"'S'funny. I didn't expect enemy to taste like pork." Harry continued, "Wonder who that was? Sure can't have been… oh boy, dragon gas!"

With that, he spun around quickly, sticking his tail and backside out over the lip of the cave, and released what had to be the most epic fart in known history.

After all, flatulence is usually composed of methane or some such rancid gas, not screaming, disembodied, horribly-traumatized-due-to-just-having-passed-through-a-dragon's-digestive-tract shades of Dark Lords.

Hermione, still plastered to the couch where she'd been wishing desperately there wasn't a Voldemort between her and the guns, blinked several times and managed to get out a stunned, "…uhhh…" between struggling not to giggle in hysterical relief and struggling not to freak out.

"Huh, that was weird," Harry remarked, bemusedly scratching at his head — which, coming from a dragon the size of a not-so-small aircraft, looked somewhat strange to say the least — and peering after the spectral Voldemort. "Stuff doesn't normally do that when I eat it; I guess I better see what Mr. Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey think about that."

He cast a finishing spell — one of the few charms he could now safely manage after nearly a year of constant control exercises — at his centaur damsel in order to remove the stunning spell. It was not the prescribed counter, but it was close enough that the disparity in strength more than made up for the mismatch in spell choice.

As Suze struggled to her feet, he continued, "Oh well, he tasted like pork, so that's all… um, oh boy, aw man, I don't think enemy went down so good."

As the philosopher's stone that Voldemort had been carrying when he assaulted Harry's Lair went to work on the dragon's largely-iron physiology from its new home in the same dragon's absurdly magical gullet and caused him to pass out with a fever, the last thing he heard was Hermione and Suze frantically yelling his name.

As far as Hermione was concerned, this was definitely a valid justification to pitch a fit of the screaming meemies.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.15 Aftermath

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2.15.1 Battlefield forensics

Sergeant-Major Hooktalon had been awakened from a sound sleep by a glowing white phoenix carrying thoroughly unpleasant news. Their employer, Albus Dumbledore, had been unable to contact the defense team using their prearranged communications, and he was concerned about the situation.

Upon arrival at the school, his scout's report had been even worse, telling as it did of the mutilated corpses of five of his best gobs killed by some sort of chemical weapon in between the painful hissing as the scout was treated for exposure to whatever the blasted stuff was. If not for the profits resulting from their association with the little Potter gent' she'd have been blinded permanently, as it was the scout would be off-duty until she got fitted for a prosthetic set of eyes.

Nasty stuff.

The company was on high-alert and waiting on the arrival of the local potions expert, Severus Snape, to advise them on how to proceed. Hooktalon wasn't going to throw good gobs into a meat grinder without a very good reason.

Speaking of Snape, the man of the hour approached at a dead run. It was good to see that sort of concern in a wizard, no matter how abrasive the fellow was; though any good feeling had a hard time squeezing through around the towering rage currently suffusing the Sergeant-Major.

"What has happened?" the potions master demanded, no panting or shortness of breath. He seemed to be in good condition, too.

"Our on-duty guard contingent was wiped out, some kind of chemical weapon. Scout's report says it melted through our machine gun and four of our gobs. Gas too — it blinded our scout even after what looks like about an hour's time."

After a split second of consideration, the dark man replied, "That matches fourteen different potions to my knowledge. I will need to investigate personally. How closely could your scout approach before she was affected?"

"Eight yards," Slackhammer replied.

"That limits the number to four," Snape said, "but all four can be mitigated through the use of the bubble-head charm. I will investigate personally." And with that, the man's wand flickered and twitched as he swept off towards the site of the attack fifty feet down the hallway.

Hopefully, that would deal with the issue and his gobs could set about finding the bastard responsible for all this.

Sooner than even Hooktalon had hoped — that Snape fellow knew his business — there came a rush of air followed by a sharp crack and a call of "All clear!" from the wizard. The scouting group approached, led by their coldly furious Sergeant-Major.

"The remaining fluid is inert; it has already dissolved everything that it can. It is still deadly-poisonous, but it is reasonably safe to handle so long as you do not ingest it," the potions master reported. "The gas was more troublesome, but I have compressed and contained it for proper disposal in the future." He motioned to a small glass vial held in his non-wand hand. "The potion in question was a deliberate mis-brewing of a metal-cleaning potion which I taught to the first-years in the fall term — the first class, as I recall. I then detailed how badly it could go when brewed outside of suppression charms as an example of why I demanded their best behavior in class."

"Are you saying that one of your first-year students did this?" Hooktalon growled.

"Unlikely, Sergeant-Major," Snape clarified, "look at the pattern, two points of origin, at the locations of your soldiers. The brewer created this intentionally and managed to pack it into a thrown container which shattered on impact. The level of skill required to pull off such a feat is monumental, as is the level of risk. Whoever created this weapon had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever — which admittedly fits with some of my more dunderheaded students, but none of those have the necessary skill to survive the attempt."

During the conversation, the group had been walking cautiously forward through the various defenses which had been put in place by the professors. All of them had been dismantled with extreme prejudice, until they arrived at a simple table with a collection of vials on its surface in front of a curtain of black flame.

"This was my contribution," Snape offered.

"A logic puzzle?" Hooktalon scoffed.

"A trap," Snape corrected. "Every vial contains poison."

"Then how did our intruder get through?"

Snape pressed his wand to the door frame containing the fire, consulting the ward records. "It seems our intruder simply ran through the fire on the way in. There is no record of an exit!"

"Tough bastard," Hooktalon said in grudging admiration even as he motioned for his infantry to ready for combat. On seeing his gobs at the ready, he said to Snape, "Open it up!"

The flames guttered out, and the goblins swept into the room in an obviously practiced and professional manner. After a few moments of carefully peering about the room, watching for the tiny shimmering distortions that betrayed a disillusioned wizard, the all-clear call came back.

"Do not look into the mirror," Snape warned even as he walked towards a bloody puddle in front of the mentioned device. There had to be an entire person's worth of blood pooled on the stone floor.

"That's a lot of blood, but where's the body?" came growled question from the Sergeant-Major.

"Sir, I found this!" one of the soldiers came up with a blood-soaked scrap of purple cloth.

"Quirrel," Snape snarled.

"He was scheduled as our staff liaison at the time. Betrayal?"

Snape nodded, "Either that or outside control. Given the blood, I suspect he was the target of a body-reshaping spell, and I know of no reason the man would be willing to go through with such a thing for his own benefit. The spell is absurdly painful and quite permanent. It effectively rips the caster's body to shreds and sticks them back together in a new configuration, hence all the blood loss. It is not dark in and of itself as it harms only the caster, but the only known means to survive the process involves unicorn blood and a set of personal enhancement spells requiring the depraved sacrifice of several dozen children — or, as we see now, I suppose, the use of a philosopher's stone."

"Sir! There's a blood trail leading back through the door!"

"Does it continue on the other side of the door?" Snape asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Control then… likely possession," the potions master concluded. "Had Quirrel known how to bypass the fire ward, he would have done so on the way in. Whoever or whatever is wearing that body now is much more skilled with wards."

"Do we have any idea where the bastard went?"

"We can only follow the blood trail, Sergeant-Major — follow along and hope."

2.15.2 A shot in the dark

Suze's world sharpened as the adrenaline hit.

Harry had just collapsed, looking worse off than she had ever seen him. That sort of thing was not supposed to happen to Great Wyrms, particularly not to her Great Wyrm, and the centaur maiden refused to stand for it.

The problem, though, was that she had no idea how to help.

Had it been acromantula venom, she would have known what to do. The same held true for snake bites, eating the wrong mushrooms, broken bones, deep cuts, and any number of other ailments that tended to crop up in forest living. This issue was not among those, and the only course Suze could think to take was getting help from someone better qualified.

She looked toward the cave entrance. The problem with that course of action was the hundred-foot sheer drop between her and any potential help. She would do no one any good by jumping to her death.

Suze assessed her assets. Her sister damsel was less than useless at this point, crying inconsolably as she hugged the Great Wyrm's unconscious head. The girl was still young, she supposed; though at her age, Suze had been helping to fight off acromantula raids like the one that had taken her younger sister. Perhaps humans grew more slowly? She shook her head, dismissing the issue as irrelevant for the moment. Aside from Hermione, she had her weapons and the contents of the Lair, neither of which, unfortunately, included communications devices.

That lack was an oversight she would have to remedy in the future, Suze resolved as she fought to keep her growing panic down.

Her eyes flickered, casting about the Lair in search of something she could use until her eyes lit on Harry's toys. Gathering up one of them — a sort of doll fashioned in the semblance of an odd creature, something Harry had called a 'dinosaur' — which was made of a material which had the strange property of glowing in the dark without any magic involved, she swiftly walked over to parchment-laden table and pulled a scrap of the stuff out of one of Harry's notebooks on which she swiftly scrawled a series of the Clan's rudimentary trail markings. The symbol for danger, another for help needed, and then her personal sigil which she had crafted on reaching maturity the year previous.

She then wrapped the parchment around one of her carbon-aluminum arrow shafts, firmly tied the glowing toy onto the same arrow, and jogged to the cave entrance. Once there, she picked out a tree along one of her Clan's usual patrol routes and let fly, the arrow wedging into the tree at head height, just as she had intended, glowing toy still attached.

Now she would just have to wait... well, wait and hope her cousins hadn't gotten complacent in their patrol schedules. Once she got their attention, the ground would be within shouting distance.

2.15.3 Lost trail

With Snape in tow, the goblins managed to track the increasingly intermittent blood traces through the castle all the way to the main entrance, at which point the droplets became too infrequent to mark a reliable trail. The squad had just spread out to better search the area when Albus Dumbledore arrived on the scene.

"Severus, report!" the old man snapped.

"The goblin security team on duty was killed by an assailant we believe to be Quirinus Quirrel, judging by the distinctive purple turban left behind. He was able to blast his way through most of the defenses, in the end simply charging through my flame ward into the final chamber. There we found a massive amount of shed human blood, which I believe to be indicative of a spell of the corpus reformandam cycle," Snape grimaced. "Given the lack of an accompanying corpse, I suspect the intruder was successful at retrieving the philosopher's stone and used its healing properties to obviate the need for the supporting rituals. The intruder then left by way of the same path, this time skillfully bypassing my flame ward in such a way that no record of his or her passing was left. We followed a blood trail to this point, and we have as yet been unable to progress further."

"You suspect coercion then," Albus concluded.

"Possession, actually," Snape clarified, "ending in reforming Quirinus' body to suit the tastes of his killer."

"Have you attempted divination?"

"As a tracker?" Snape said incredulously. "We have no idea of the culprit's identity, and even the blood left behind will have no connection to it now. It is Quirrel's blood, after all, not his killer's."

"I have a suspicion…" the elderly man held his wand flat on his open palm and concentrated on his memories of one, particularly unpleasant person. The wand floated above his wrinkled palm, only to spin aimlessly. "Damn."

At that moment, there was a deep thumping and rhythmic shaking of the ground which was quickly revealed to be the Hogwarts Groundskeeper jogging at a deceptively fast clip towards the castle.

"'eadmaster Dumbledore! You gotta come quick, 'Arry's mighty sick, 'e is!" the massive man said. "Ronan came 'bout in a 'urry ter tell me. Some feller came by an' tried ter kill 'im, but 'Arry ate 'im, then 'e got real sick!"

"We are on our way, Hagrid," Albus said seriously. "Please retrieve your broom and relay our goblin friends there yourself. We will go ahead." Even as he spoke, Albus' wand was flickering. A broom was summoned from his office, and several messenger patronuses winged their glowing way off to rouse relevant personnel.

2.15.4 A missing stone

Dumbledore and Snape were the first to arrive at the Lair, and a remarkable sight greeted them.

"What in Merlin's name," Snape murmured, "has that blasted boy gone and done to himself this time?"

"He's… he's turning into gold," Hermione stated the obvious, having recovered her wits somewhat with the arrival of trusted authority figures.

"I have reason to suspect he ate the philosopher's stone," Dumbledore said.

Snape looked quite like he was going to fly off the handle at any moment, looking back and forth between the old man and the very ill young dragon, before he abruptly settled on letting out a bark of harsh laughter.

"Oh, Merlin, he would, wouldn't he? Idiotic reptile."

Albus had taken the moment to send off yet another patronus messenger with an update to his old mentor — and incidentally, also the owner of said stone — and a request that the even more elderly man come by to help save the young dragon.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Hermione asked as Suze hovered about the slowly changing bulk concernedly.

"I am afraid I have absolutely no idea, Hermione, my girl," Dumbledore sadly told her. "We have, as it happens, never seen anything even remotely like this before. At the moment, we can do naught but await Nicholas' arrival and hope."

2.15.5 The Alchemist's assessment

Nicholas Flamel, creator of the philosopher's stone and the world's preeminent alchemist — a title he had held for the better part of six centuries — arrived at Harry's remote lair just as the goblin contingent and the school groundskeeper did, a feat made rather impressive by their wildly disparate starting locations. Flamel had been in his vacation home on a tiny island magically hidden away in the southern Mediterranean, while the others had been less than three miles away on the campus grounds.

The old man had also started traveling some five minutes later.

The Alchemist was an unassuming-looking man with brown hair and eyes, of less than average height — though he had been considered tall in his youth — who looked to be somewhere between thirty-five and sixty. His skin was ruddy with sun from his interrupted vacation with his wife, Perenelle, who had elected to finish sleeping before dashing off to Scotland for god-knows-what-reason at the request of her husband's old student.

On entering the cave, Flamel made a beeline for the dragon, ignoring the various persons in the room and casting diagnostic spells as he walked. Eventually, he put his wand away and simply laid a hand on the massive sleeping dragon, seemingly entering into some kind of mystical communion with the boy.

"Hmm, most intriguing," Nicholas spoke his first words since arriving. "I have never seen anything like this before. I'm sorry, Albus my boy, but I cannot say for certain exactly what is happening within this creature's body."

"Will he be okay?" Hermione asked.

"I cannot be certain, young lady," Nicholas admitted. "But to that end, I suppose we'd better begin making more detailed examinations."

"Will you be okay?" Hermione asked him.

"Of course!" the youngish-looking man declared, obviously nonplussed. "Why on earth wouldn't I be?"

"Um, I thought since Harry ate your stone…" the young girl ventured.

"Oh, pish-posh and tommyrot! It's easy enough to make another one, and I won't need to worry about that for decades yet," Nicholas told her, waving off her concerns. "It's not like I was at death's door when I made the first one. This'll be the fifth, they do tend to run out from time to time."

The Lair fell silent for a time as the ancient alchemist and his somewhat younger protégé devoted their considerable talents toward learning as much as they could about the young dragon's plight. They were joined shortly by Madame Pomfrey as soon as she recovered her bearings after apparating in.

"Mr. Snape," Hooktalon said as quietly as he could manage — being a Sergeant-Major had its downsides, few though they were — "The thief's been eaten, and the treasure's been disposed of the same way, it seems to me that our company's got nothing more to do here. As Mr. Dumbledore's second on our contract, do we have your agreement that our contract has been honorably discharged?"

"You do," Snape said solemnly.

"Thank you," Hooktalon said just as solemnly. "And in your capacity as a faculty member in good standing of the institution of Hogwarts, we request permission to return to the castle and see to our dead?"

"Granted," Snape said. "A note on the handling, those bodies should undergo a class two decontamination before burial to avoid long-term issues with the burial site. The potion used is no longer caustic, but it remains exceedingly toxic. Your medical personnel will know what the term means."

"Acknowledged."

"And please," Snape asked glancing significantly at the massive bulk of the very sick dragon in the room, "if you would alert Mr. Slackhammer as to Mr. Potter's predicament, it would be much appreciated. We do not know enough about the situation to know how to handle this, and any relevant expertise would be greatly appreciated."

The Sergeant-Major gave a solemn nod himself before he and his men affixed ropes to the wall at the lip of the cave and proceeded to rappel down the cliffside. Riding behind a wizard, relying on the good will of that wizard for survival, was something no self-respecting goblin could handle too much of, not after so much bitter history.

For the infantry-goblins, they had hit their weekly quota with that one broom ride.

2.15.6 Goblin assistance

Well before the next sunrise, Snape's quiet request bore fruit in the arrival of a quintet of goblins to the Lair by way of a portkey. To Hermione's eye, they seemed a thoroughly impressive group, for all that they were little taller than she.

Four out of the five were dressed in ornate military dress uniforms and holding automatic rifles in a letter-perfect present-arms parade rest; the fifth was somewhat overweight and clad in a Victorian-looking suit replete with silken cravat, precise top-hat, and mirror-polished cane. One of the four rifle carriers had a white armband around his left bicep, marked by a blue Caduceus, and a second wore a smart peaked officer's cap and a truly ferocious expression. Hermione thought she recognized the second goblin from somewhere before.

Had he been one of those who had come last night?

From the two-part brass collar around the cane's handle and the telltale bulge in the left armpit of the beautifully tailored suit jacket, the oddly familiar goblin carried at the very least a sword-cane and a handgun. Hermione realized at once that Harry had not been at all joking about the importance of weapons to goblins.

"Mr. Vice-Chairman Slackhammer!" Dumbledore declared, sounding tired but pleased, or at least doing a good job of faking the latter. "Welcome, welcome! And to your companions the same! What brings you to our young dragon's abode today? I'm afraid he is more than a little indisposed at the moment."

"Ah, Albus, my dear fellow," the dapper goblin doffed his top-hat to the old man, "it is for precisely that reason that we have arrived. We have come to understand that one of our most valuable of customers has been taken quite gravely ill. I am accompanied by Sergeant-Major Hooktalon, who is already known to you," here the goblin in the peaked cap touched said cap with his right hand, "Medical Officer, First-Class, Grindbone," here the goblin with the white armband touched his helmet with his right hand, "Foundry Specialist, First-Class, Flame-Eye," here the left-hand rearmost goblin touched his helmet with his right hand, "and Colour Sergeant Griphook," here the right-hand rearmost goblin touched his helmet with his right hand, "all of whom have shown a certain interest in the well-being of our eminently valuable customer Mr. Harry James Potter. It is our hope that Medical Officer First Class Grindbone and Foundry Specialist First Class Flame-Eye might possibly be able to assist your own medical staff in in ensuring the swift return to health of Mr. Potter, while Sergeant-Major Hooktalon and Colour Sergeant Griphook have volunteered themselves and their personnel to ensure the security and safety of Mr. Potter's valuable holdings in this area during his time of sorrowful incapacity."

Grindbone and the fifth goblin, Flame-Eye, quick-marched to stand in front of Dumbledore, whereupon both saluted.

"Medical Officer, First-Class, Grindbone, and Foundry Specialist, First-Class, Flame-Eye reporting for immediate duty, Mr. Dumbledore, SIR!" Grindbone barked.

"Thank you, gentlemen," Dumbledore acknowledged. "Your patient, as you can see, is over here," he gestured to the mottled gold and black mass breathing shallowly near a rather disheveled seating area. "You will be working with our school Healer, Madame Pomfrey, and my mentor, Nicholas Flamel." The brown-haired man waved jauntily while the woman in question grunted absently as she continued to focus intently on her spellwork. "Potions Master Snape will be in attendance after breakfast to offer his assistance where needed, as I will be required to return to the school for the day."

"So what do we have going on here?" Flame-Eye began in a businesslike tone.

Flamel spoke up, "It seems that the young fellow here has managed to ingest my stone, and it is having absolutely fascinating effects on his anatomy…"

Hermione's attention was pulled from the conversation by an unnecessarily loud statement from one of the other goblins.

"Mr. Vice Chairman, SIR! Permission to speak, SIR!" the goblin with the peaked cap barked, saluting.

"Permission granted, Sergeant-Major," Slackhammer acknowledged respectfully.

The Sergeant-Major saluted Dumbledore.

"Mr. Dumbledore, SIR, it is my belief that the young Lord Potter's enemies might take this opportunity to do his possessions and associates grief while he is unavailable to task himself in the defense of home and family, SIR! I confess I have some liking for the kid as he has shown himself to be acceptably competent in the handling of weapons, and I would not wish to see his belongings unduly messed with behind his back, SIR!" Hooktalon barked.

"You're talking about his Lair and the centaurs, right?" Hermione butted in curiously.

Hooktalon saluted her. "Yes, Ma'am! Indeed I am, Ma'am! The moment those centaurs threw their lot in with our valuable customer, Mr. Potter, their problems became our problems, Ma'am! And I'll be damned if me and my lads let some damned arachnid mess with a good kid's home and kin, Ma'am!"

"I hate bugs, Ma'am," Colour Sergeant Griphook remarked calmly.

"I LOVE bugs!" Hooktalon roared. "They make for a splendid grill roast! Tasty with brown sauce! Colour Sergeant Griphook, you and your lads make damned sure Mr. Potter's belongings here in his home don't come to grief, me and my lads will make damned sure his centaur allies are secure, and we'll share the barbecue at the end of the deployment!"

"That sounds like a bargain to me, Sergeant-Major Hooktalon," Griphook said.

Hooktalon nodded sharply. "Good! Medic Grindbone, Specialist Flame-Eye," he barked. "You'd better make damn sure the young gentleman makes a swift recovery, or there'll be hell to pay!"

"SIR! YES, SIR!" came the response from both goblins, who had snapped to startled attention at being so addressed.

"I know I may sound harsh, but right now Mr. Potter is under your care, lads — you do your damn best, and we'll see what we'll see! The young gentleman isn't just a nice kid, he's responsible for the biggest upswing in Gringotts' profit since the machine gun and before the machine gun, the steam engine! That kid is worth nearly ten percent of Gringotts monthly profits, and if he kissed the dust, even the vipers in our legal department would cry! You take damned good care of the young gentleman, and me and my lads will cover the rest! That all clear, soldiers?"

"SIR! Affirmative, SIR!" came the shouted acknowledgement.

"Good! Get to work then! HUT, HUT, HUT!"

With that, Hooktalon saluted Slackhammer once more and then disappeared with another portkey, presumably off to organize his troops below in the forest, even as the medic and foundry specialist turned back to their conversation.

Hermione could see why even Harry thought Sergeant-Majors were scary!

In the ensuing quiet, Hermione tried to pick up where she had left off earlier in listening to the discussion on Harry's health, only to find the conversation had drifted off into esoteric technical realms where she was entirely unequipped to follow, so she made her way over to Suze and gave the centaur a hug. In an odd reversal, while Hermione had been unable to function before help arrived, after it did, Suze had been all but inconsolable at Harry's illness.

The young witch didn't really know what to do for Suze, what to do for Harry, or for that matter, what to do for herself, so she settled in to provide comfort for the first and watch over the treatment of the second. As for the last, well… she'd have to see how that went.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

2.16 Recovery

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2.16.1 The best kind of friends

Abigail arrived at breakfast with a skip in her step and a song in her heart.

Lately, things just seemed to be going her way!

Her recent meeting with Harry had shown her a way forward which would help her to make the world a better place and make a respectable living for herself — without running the risk of being forced to prostitute herself along the way. She'd been talking over the various plans with Harry for the last week, and there was so much… She would have wonderful work to do for the rest of her life!

Better still, she knew that she'd earned Harry's trust — enough that he had brought her in on a potentially lethal secret in the form of that political reform. That trust was pure gold right there, as far as Abigail was concerned.

All told, she was looking forward to meeting up with Harry once again, to plan, to talk, and heck, to enjoy each other's company. Therefore, she became rather concerned as breakfast dragged on, and Harry's scruffy mane failed to show itself in the Great Hall.

Her mood dropped like a stone when an utterly exhausted-looking Albus Dumbledore stood up to give an announcement.

"It is my regretful duty to announce that your defense professor, Quirinus Quirrel, was killed last night when, under the spiritual possession of a still unidentified entity, he stole an object which had been entrusted to the school for safekeeping and attempted to murder your classmate Mr. Harry James Potter. Mr. Potter remains in critical condition in his home, and cannot be relocated at this time…"

The announcement went on about a substitute healer while Madame Pomfrey was occupied, and some such things about substitute teachers for similar reasons, but Abigail had stopped truly listening.

What on earth had managed to hurt Harry enough that he was in critical condition?

And more importantly, how could she get over to see him?

2.16.2 Breakthrough

"Aha!" Snape declared, looking up from Grindbone's microscope. "Take a look at this, ladies and gentlemen."

It had been several hours since the goblins had arrived, Hermione had fallen into a fitful, exhausted sleep leaning up against her fellow damsel who remained watchful. Snape had tagged in for Dumbledore some two hours previous.

In the intervening time, Grindbone had managed to set up a rudimentary field laboratory which had been put to work processing various biopsy samples. The usual fare of diagnostic spells was just short of useless without Harry awake to allow them purchase.

Suze watched warily, though with dry eyes, as Snape, Pomfrey, Flamel, Flame-Eye, and Grindbone crowded around the microscope.

"Fascinating," Flamel murmured, "and oddly… familiar?"

"I've seen something like this before, sir," Grindbone volunteered. "During the fighting in Egypt two years back — a young Rupert who got hit by a Midas curse when we fought off that Imperial raid. We tried all sorts of things, but in the end, we just kept pumping him full of blood-cleansing potions and a couple of potions for controlling the transmutation of metals 'til he pulled through."

"Indeed?" Snape asked, glancing at the massive patient and his increasingly gold-mottled hide. "Yes, this does rather resemble the Midas curse, doesn't it?"

"I concur," Nicholas said. "Poppy, Specialist Flame-Eye, your thoughts?"

"Looks like the young gentleman's metallurgy is altering itself from the ground up, sir," Flame-Eye said. "Seems similar to the forging of mithril but involving different metals. His magic reactivity is shooting up like a mortar bomb, though, I'd say we need to concentrate on controlling that."

"I am uncertain that we should," Poppy countered. "From what I can see, that reactivity seems to be a biological response to the issue — almost a magical immune response. Whatever it is, the boy's magic is moving with a purpose, it is palpable. If we interfere too much… well, sometimes in healing, the only thing to do is keep the patient safe and fed and let their instinctive magic deal with the rest."

"Respectfully, Ma'am, that may be, but if we don't at least slow it down, whatever it's doing is likely to kill him, just like a fever can kill a gob even if it is a natural immune response," Grindbone countered.

"I see, controlling the reaction itself rather than preventing it?" Poppy checked.

"That's right, Ma'am," Flame-Eye said. "It's like Medic Grindbone said, Lieutenant Crackjaw — that's the fellow what got hit with the Midas curse, he's my cousin — he's been composed of solid gold since '89, and it hasn't slowed him down none. Made the lucky Rupert rich off his own skin flakes, too, Ma'am. The trick is controlling the rate and letting the lad's magic do its thing in its own time." The foundry specialist rooted through his own pack before pulling out a collection of vials, "These here are the foundry potions we use for controlling the magic reactivity of mithril during its forging, it might be wise to test 'em on a sample of the young gent's blood at once, Ma'am."

"I'll handle that," Madame Pomfrey volunteered. "You boys keep trying to make sense of his bioalchemy — there's life in the lad yet!"

Grindbone, seeing that the situation had turned away from his area of expertise once more, addressed the raptly watching Suze, "You okay there, Ma'am?"

"I am sound," Suze said in a brittle tone of voice that hinted she was anything but okay. "I am, yet I worry about my Harry a great deal."

"Aye," the medic said kindly, "and so do I. A handful of discoveries stemming from the young gentleman's biology have netted the Goblin Nation enough money that we're cycling in new armaments a decade early — and who knows what other miracles his health might lead to?" Grindbone began once again spreading assorted tools out on the table behind the microscope which had recently caught so much attention before he began setting up a field sterilization oven. "Ma'am, do you know what this is here?"

"No," the centaur maiden sniffed back more tears which had started to flow during the discussion, "I regret to say that I do not."

"It's a sterilization autoclave," Grindbone explained, "made to kill off anything that might cause infection, so we can use our tools safely. Now we've gone through a lot of what I brought pre-prepared trying to pull samples from the young gent' — those scales are a pain to deal with — so I'll need to clean and sterilize some of our tools before we use them again, would you like to help with that?"

She dashed the tears from her eyes and nodded, gently laying the still sleeping Hermione down on the couch next to her and rising to her feet, "Yes, yes… better to be doing something useful than just sitting here worrying! What should I do?"

2.16.3 On the mend

"Reactivity is holding steady, ma'am," Flame-Eye reported from his position monitoring the physical magical field sensors in place. "Temperature too."

The group had managed to rig up a dragon-sized intravenous drip over the past several hours out of a steel oil drum and a charmed length of glass tubing from Snape's lab, both of which had been thoroughly difficult to properly sterilize. Through it they had been delivering a custom-brewed stabilizing potion — produced to order by the Hogwarts potion master under the direction of Flame-Eye. The had been monitoring Harry's condition closely ever since.

"The newly transmuted material in the lad's scales has changed completely," Nicholas reported from his monitoring location perched on a massive, scaly shoulder, enchanted magnifying lens in hand. "It is now a silvery color, but it has gone through thirty-seven visibly distinct variations so far. I believe his bioalchemy is in the process of evaluating different options, as absurd as that sounds."

"I am growing concerned about the boy maintaining this level of magical activity," Poppy said. "He's not eaten in almost twenty-three hours, and given his previous food intake, I would expect him to be near starvation at this point. I have no idea how to get food into him without his cooperation, though — we can hardly give him a molten steel injection!"

"There's no help for it, ma'am," Grindbone offered. "We'll just have to trust that his body will wake him up when he needs food — unless Specialist Flame-Eye has any ideas on that front?"

"No, sir," Flame-Eye averred, "I know metals, but I have no idea how to make a safe intravenous mix for the young gent'. I may not be a medic, but I know how important it is to get concentrations right on the saline bags from back when I went through the standard first-aid course. Figure the potions are okay, but not anything in bulk; we're much more likely to kill him by trying that than we are to help."

"Hmm, that would be an interesting challenge, I say," Nicholas cut in. "What do you think the limiting factors would be on such a…"

"Reactivity is dropping like a stone!" Flame-Eye cut in. "Dropping… dropping… dropping… and leveling out… and now he's back down to the levels you'd quoted as a baseline, ma'am. Whatever his system was doing, I think it's got it done."

The room waited with bated breath for something further to happen, and they were quite disappointed when nothing did.

"So, how are we to feed the wretched lizard until he awakens in his own due time?" Snape asked. "If an intravenous nutrient drip is infeasible, where does that leave us?"

"Um, what about intubation?" Hermione spoke up for the first time, having been awakened from her most recent nap by Flame-Eye's excited announcement about the precipitous reduction in the resident dragon's magical reactivity. "If you could make a nutrient slurry, then you could pour it down a tube into Harry's stomach and let it digest normally."

"We'd have to get his neck straightened out," Grindbone said speculatively, looking from the nearly semicircular bend Harry's neck had assumed when he collapsed to the walls and ceiling of the cave, "but I think we could manage that with some help from the Colour-Sergeant's gobs to handle the rigging. And powdered coal and iron aren't too hard to get…"

"Back at work we've got tons of the stuff," Flame-Eye volunteered, "makes measuring out alloys a lot simpler… well it's actually powdered coke, but it'd be better than nothing. Got other powdered metals, too, come to think of it if he needs 'em."

"I can put together a recipe for that based on Mr. Potter's past diet," Poppy volunteered, already sitting down with a parchment and quill.

Grindbone nodded, "Thank you, Ma'am! Mix it with water or fuel oil and that's the nutrient slurry put to; I'd think the only problem left would be heat, do we have any tubing that can handle the young gent's gullet?"

"The refractory material I reverse engineered from Mr. Potter's stomach lining should work admirably," Snape offered. "However, I have no means on hand for forming it into tubing."

Flame-Eye spoke up, "I think one of the lads from the experimental division was working on — I think it was rocket fuel lines — using that material. Something about light-weighting and eliminating excess shielding… they might have a sample we could use."

At the group's general acclamation of this course of action, Flame-Eye went off to arrange transportation through Griphook's contingent, Poppy's recipe in hand, and the cave fell silent for a time, interrupted only by Nicholas' occasional muttering as he puzzled out the composition of the various striations that had formed in Harry's scales.

Taking the opportunity presented by the lull in the work of keeping her friend alive and getting him healthy again, Hermione obliquely approached a question that had been nagging at her for some time.

"What sort of profits does Gringotts make each year?"

Grindbone blinked at the non-sequitur, then chuckled. "Well, strictly-speaking I shouldn't tell you that, ma'am, but it's about two and a half billion galleons as of last fiscal year."

You could almost see the gears whirring under Hermione's bushy brown hair for a long moment, before her eyes bugged out as she got the idea.

"Wait, what, that's fifty pounds to the galleon, and Harry's…" she swallowed heavily. "You're saying he's earned you people over two billion pounds in the last year!"

"You've seen his bullion stash?" the medic gestured to the neat stack of gold bars off to one side of the room which was almost three times the size of the wood stove charged with heating the place. "That is composed of about a tenth of his share dividends and interest over the last three years."

"…my God. How much is he worth?"

"Sorry, ma'am, but that comes under client confidentiality. That said, I am allowed to tell you that Mr. Potter is one of the three most affluent clients Gringotts has ever served — and the other two are his business partners." Grindbone angled a thumb over his shoulder at the chunky automatic rifle he had slung on his back. "Let's just say, on the change from those three's transaction fees, the Goblin Nation is going from thirty-year-old SLR's and Lee-Enfields older than your grandparents to brand new top-of-the-line gear like the H and K G41 rifle I've got here — and there are two and a half million battle-ready gobs in this world."

As Hermione attempted to wrap her head around this new information about her friend, Flame-Eye returned via portkey, accompanied by three additional uniformed goblins each handling a pallet jack full of bagged powders, a fourth handling another pallet jack containing four steel drums, a serious-looking industrial drill fitted with a long mixing attachment, and an oddly-colored length of small-diameter tubing. The same smartly dressed goblin who had introduced the specialists so many hours previous appeared seconds later.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I need to get back to work now," Grindbone broke off their conversation and got back to work.

Noticing the bewildered-looking girl his subordinate had just summarily left hanging, the newly arrived Vice Director Slackhammer decided to help. It would be ill-advised to interrupt working gobs who knew their business, anyway, no matter how curious he was about his young associate's condition.

"Miss Granger, I believe," at her absent nod, he continued. "Mr. Potter has spoken fondly of you in the past. I am Vice Director Crackjaw Slackhammer, Mr. Potter's business partner. How do you do?"

Hermione shook her head in an effort to clear it, her bushy hair waving, "As well as can be expected, I suppose. It's a bit of a shock."

"May I ask what you were speaking about with the good Medical Officer?"

"I was trying to wrap my head around why you are going to so much trouble for Harry, so I asked about your profits, since the very loud goblin earlier said he was worth ten percent of your profits, and then he told me — Oh! He said he wasn't supposed to tell me about that — um, he won't get in trouble, will he?"

"Did he tell you about our current projections?" the dapper goblin asked seriously.

"No, he said 'last fiscal year'."

Slackhammer chuckled, "That is acceptable. Past records are technically public knowledge, though we generally do not advertise them. Had he shared current values; he would have faced disciplinary action."

The young girl sighed in relief that she hadn't gotten the helpful goblin in trouble.

The rotund goblin smiled a toothy smile, "By way of explanation, Miss Granger, young Mr. Potter has a quite distinctive and most pleasing scent that all goblins are easily able to detect."

"Really? What does he smell like?"

"Profit," Slackhammer said simply.

"…uh."

"Gringotts is after all a merchant bank," the dapper goblin continued, "and like all banks, we are investors in people, Miss Granger. When an entrepreneur has a fine product, we are eager to ensure said product arrives at a profitable market, for a modest fee, of course. A deal where everyone wins is good for business, and things that are good for business are good for Gringotts. We move money around so that our clients need not go to the related effort, charging a small fee for the convenience, of course, and as you are no doubt aware, money makes money. Money is of limited value if it is merely sitting around in a vault; it is when one makes one's money work that it is prone to increase in quantity."

"To the majority of a bank's customers," Slackhammer continued, "the bank itself is there to make sure no harm may come to their money for as long as it remains theirs, and for that our payment is the dividends we accrue through using money entrusted to us to finance loans and to maintain an interest in varied corporate assets; that is how we can afford not to charge a handling fee to those customers who step into our branches to conduct their financial business."

The dapper goblin chuckled. "Almost half of the financial assets of wizarding Britain are stored day-to-day at one Gringotts branch or another. The fare your parents paid for your journey to Hogwarts, much of the money that your parents spent during your visit to Diagon Alley, the fees that your parents paid for you to attend the Hogwarts institution, they are stored at Gringotts branches whilst they await a decision as to where to spend them on the part of those who earned them by providing you and your family with the products and services involved. With those liquid assets, we are able to fund loans and engage in dealings within the corporate world, whether magical or not. That, Miss Granger, is what a bank does; that is what we are here for."

"Okay, but how does that involve Harry?"

"As it so happens, Mr. Potter and his business partners have several products quite superior to their nearest competitors, and there are plentiful, well-funded customers eager to apply said products to practical purposes. Of course, we charge a modest fee for currency conversion, such as pounds, or dollars, to galleons, or further to that point, gold bullion, and there are, of course, banking fees involved in the myriad related transactions. Any deal that is profitable to everyone involved is a deal we are proud to play a part in; the end customer is receiving a superior product, the producer gains a profit in providing that superior product, and we make our customers' lives easier via administrating the flow of trade, and, in many international avenues, providing transport for the product itself. Of course, we charge a small fee, we would be unable to continue providing services to our clients otherwise, and never mind bringing in the profit that feeds us and allows our children to rest easy at night."

Seeing that the Medical Officer was beginning to stand back and allow the technicians to do their work as instructed, the Vice-Chairman saw the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity regarding his young business partner.

"I hope that I have provided some small measure of enlightenment to you, young lady, but I believe that I must engage in a conversation with Medic Grindbone at this juncture," Slackhammer said. "If I may be excused?"

"Certainly," the young girl said, flustered. "Thank you for your time, I didn't mean to take so much of it!"

"It is no trouble, no trouble at all. Fare well, young lady!"

2.16.4 Tragic context

With the young Mr. Potter's condition no longer quite so critically concerning, Albus Dumbledore finally had time to breathe, time to sit in his office and rest after nearly sixty hours of activity, time to reflect and get his bearings — and with that time, came the realization that he had yet to report his professor's death to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

So much for time to breathe.

As it was now after normal business hours for the Department, the Hogwarts Headmaster made his tired way over to his office floo connection.

"The Ossuary," he spoke as clearly as he could manage while throwing a pinch of floo powder into the flames. When they turned a lurid lime green, indicating a solid connection, he stuck his head into the fire, once more marveling at the absurdity of wizarding ingenuity.

"Amelia?" he called.

"What on earth is so urgent that you felt the need to call me at home, Albus?" a stout, grey-haired woman sporting a monocle, who looked to be in her later middle years snapped peevishly. "I had just sat down for an evening cup of tea."

"I am afraid I have some rather unpleasant news to report, Amelia…" the elderly man explained.

"And it couldn't wait a few hours until morning?"

"No, no it could not," Albus said tiredly. "In fact, I am afraid I have been inappropriately lax in taking this long to report it; my only excuse is that the aftermath of the event has left me with a rather urgent set of tasks which I felt took priority at the time."

Amelia's interest was piqued. "Oh?"

"I am calling to report the death of one of my professors, Quirinus Quirrel, under strange circumstances which we believe involve possession by at least a class three spiritual entity," Albus said.

Amelia's gaze sharpened, enough that Albus could see it even through the flame. As she took up a quill and began feeling around for some parchment she said, "Continue."

"On the evening before last, I was summoned via a memorandum to the Minister's office for an 'urgent' meeting," Albus began.

"That was the forged memorandum Cornelius forwarded to me, correct?" Amelia asked, beginning to take notes on a ledger she kept by the fireplace for just this sort of thing.

"Yes, it was," he confirmed. "After Cornelius informed me that he had not requested my presence, I realized the memorandum had been forged. When the auror on duty… I'm afraid I didn't catch his name…"

"I can find out from the duty roster, continue."

"Thank you. The auror on duty raised the possibility that the forgery was sent in order to remove me from the school. I have had a rather valuable research sample on loan from Nicholas for the past eight months, and I had contracted a security team to protect it when it was not under my personal protection…"

"Nicholas?" Amelia asked.

"Flamel," he clarified.

"Please tell me you didn't have the philosopher's stone on Hogwarts grounds," she pleaded.

"I would be happy to leave that out of the report if you wish, Amelia."

"Damnit."

"Carrying on, I immediately attempted to contact the security team and was unable to do so, so I contacted their supervisor to alert him to the situation, and he sent an investigatory team while I returned to the castle at best speed." Albus paused for a moment. "The guard detail had been killed, messily, via a potion-based attack, and the perpetrator had managed to penetrate the defenses. Once he arrived at the stone, he managed to retrieve it, and was then subjected to what we believe to be a ritual of the corpus reformandam sequence…"

"My God!"

"…which used the stone to allow the body to survive the side effects. Given that a rather distinctive clothing item was left behind, we believe the perpetrator was originally our Defense professor, Quirinus Quirrel. It is here that we believe Quirinus was fully taken over by some sort of possessing spirit, as it was then able to cleanly bypass the defenses the intruder had powered through before…"

"Indicating an unexplained increase in skill, thus the likelihood of a changed persona," Amelia concluded.

"Precisely," Albus said. "From what we have been able to determine, the possessor, having terminated Quirinus, proceeded to Mr. Potter's home and attempted to murder him but failed when Mr. Potter proved more dangerous than anticipated."

"An eleven-year-old fought off what had to be at least a class three entity possessing an adult wizard's form?" Amelia asked incredulously.

"Yes," Albus confirmed.

When he gave no indication he was going to continue, Amelia prompted, "Albus?"

"Huh?" the elderly man awoke with a start. "I beg your pardon, Amelia, I have not slept in the last — sixty-five? — hours, it begins to wear after a time. Where was I?"

"The entity had just failed to assassinate Mr. Potter," she prompted once more.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Potter managed to destroy the body, sending the spirit off elsewhere, but in the process the boy had a thoroughly unpleasant reaction to the artifact the intruder had stolen. Between myself, Severus, Poppy, and two specialists provided by Gringotts we have spent the last two days attempting to heal Mr. Potter from an ailment distressingly similar to, yet frustratingly distinct from, the Midas curse," Dumbledore explained. "Hence why it has taken me an inappropriately long time to report the death of my employee."

"I see," Amelia said. "I suppose the delay is acceptable, though it seems you have done most of the investigative work already. What do you know of Quirrel's initial motives?"

"Nothing," he said flatly. "We have not even looked in his quarters yet — I was hoping to be able to offload the responsibility on you so that I can get at least a few short hours of sleep."

"Of course," the Director of Magical Law Enforcement said. "When do you anticipate Mr. Potter being available for interview? And were there any other witnesses?"

Albus sighed, "Mr. Potter has not yet regained consciousness, though a friend of his, Hermione Granger, witnessed the attack. Unfortunately, as the incident involves the — well, the thing that you asked me not to tell you was in the school — Nicholas has already announced his interest in the situation per the Secret Treaty of 1487, thus witness accounts will be transcribed and delivered with proprietary information redacted by Nicholas' hand."

"Oh, yes," Amelia said, voice thick with disgust, "that gem of a treaty. Why on earth was that travesty permitted anyway?"

"Because Nicholas threatened to transform the entirety of the old Roman highway network to gold and devalue everyone's currency if they didn't," came the matter-of-fact response. "He can be quite… persuasive, when he puts his mind to it."

"Why was that called the Secret Treaty, anyway?" Statement taken; Amelia decided to take the opportunity to satisfy a long-standing curiosity. "It's hardly a secret after all, and the title sounds ridiculous."

"At the time, the statesmen involved in the debacle were so embarrassed at being outmaneuvered in their attempt to seize the stone that they attempted to bury the resulting treaty from public scrutiny by leaving it without a title," Albus explained tiredly. "It was still published, however, and one of the scribes had a personal interest in embarrassing one of the politicians involved — something about the scribe's daughter eloping with the statesman's son against both sets of parents' wishes — so he took the blank title as a challenge."

"Ugh, it never changes," Amelia groaned. "I will have an investigation team on site first thing tomorrow morning. Get some sleep, Albus."

"I do believe I shall, Amelia," Albus acknowledged. "Quirinus' quarters have been on lockdown for the past twenty-seven hours, so I hope the site will be secure, but I am afraid I didn't think to secure them earlier. Good evening."

And with that, the fireplace went black before flaring back to a cheerful orange glow.

2.16.5 Worried friend

It had been almost four days since she had last seen Harry — or Hermione for that matter — and Abigail's concern was rapidly transforming into panic. The professors were almost universally distracted, exams were approaching and with them the end of the school term. When the school term ended, she would have no way to contact Harry if he got better. He had explained in passing that most sensible animals, including owls, refused to go anywhere near him — she could understand their reasoning, she supposed — and with no way to contact him, there would be no way to find out how he was doing or to help if he needed it.

Worse yet, her primary contact for all things Harry had been absent for two days, presumably tending to the great scaly lump himself.

Thus it was, when Snape showed up to dinner, Abigail jumped on the chance to find out what was going on, despite the man's bedraggled and positively exhausted demeanor.

"Professor Snape," Abigail demanded, "how is Harry?"

The dark man gave her a long, unamused look, at which she flushed in embarrassment.

"Sorry. Excuse me, Professor?" she gave it another shot.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?" he replied.

"How is Harry?" she asked.

The potions master sighed, "The boy is now in stable condition, and we have managed to devise a method to keep him fed whilst he is incapacitated. We still have no idea when he will regain consciousness."

"Can you tell me what happened to knock him out like this?" Given the boy's nature, Abigail had thought him immune to this sort of thing. It was… oddly endearing to learn that he was not completely invulnerable.

Huh. What an odd concept.

Abigail would have to have a think on that later.

"Not here," Snape averred.

"Then, can I visit the Lair?" she asked.

"I see no reason that you should not," the man allowed. "I will be returning for another shift after dinner, retrieve a broom and meet me at the front gate in," he eyed his plate, "twenty minutes. I am afraid I have neglected to keep up with the prefect schedules, will that interfere with your duties?"

Abigail's mood fell, and along with it, her face. "Yes, I've got patrol tonight, I almost forgot…"

"I would be happy to cover for you, Miss Abercrombie," a new voice cut in. "You are scheduled for nine to eleven in zone four, correct?"

"Mr. Weasley, why were you eavesdropping on a private conversation?" Snape asked forbiddingly.

"Well, I was going to ask Professor McGonagall about our homework assignment," Percy Weasley explained somewhat awkwardly, "and then I heard Miss Abercrombie asking about Mr. Potter, and… well, everyone has been a bit worried about him since the Headmaster's announcement, but I know he and Abercrombie are close, and I felt I owed Miss Abercrombie a good turn after she set me straight on that incident with Granger…"

"What 'incident' with Miss Granger?" Snape asked sharply.

"Ah," Percy sounded somewhat taken aback by Snape's uncharacteristically energetic response as he attempted to explain. "Our youngest brother, Ronald, was acting up with her, and we — that is myself and my brothers, Fred and George — wanted to find out what was going on so we could set him straight, so we went to ask Miss Granger about what had been going on…"

"And you failed to realize how the approach of three older boys, brothers to her tormentor, would be seen by the girl?" Snape palmed his face in exasperation. "Gryffindors."

Percy grimaced, "It is rather obvious in hindsight, but unfortunately it was not so at the time. In any case, Miss Abercrombie explained my error, and as thanks," he turned to Abigail, "I wish to reiterate my offer to cover her patrol this evening so that she can go visit her friend."

"That would be much appreciated, Weasley. Thanks!" That was a relief.

Twenty minutes later, on the dot, she was drifting over the treetops trailing her Head of House as he made his tired way back to the Lair. On landing on the now-familiar ledge, she was taken aback by the squadron of goblin guards and the bustling activity in the main chamber of the Lair.

She was much more taken aback when she got a good look at the enormous bulk of her friend Harry.

"He's turned gold!" were the first words out of her shocked lips.

"Yes," Snape acknowledged, waving in response to a tiredly departing Suze as she walked down one of the inner passages of the Lair, presumably to get away from the bustle and get some much-needed sleep now that the wizard had arrived for his shift. "A result of ingesting the philosopher's stone along with the remains of your Professor Quirrel."

"He ate the philosopher's stone?" Abigail exclaimed.

"Yes, and it has been a struggle to keep the dratted dragon alive through the aftermath of that debacle."

From there, Snape went on the relay an abbreviated account of the past few days, and it was almost entirely un-reassuring to Abigail as she took in the totality of her friend's situation.

Harry's head was rigged up in a sort of rope harness in which it hung limply, connected by various pulleys and riggings to anchor points set into the walls and ceiling that kept it carefully positioned in such a way that his neck was stretched out straight from his torso. The ropes were supplemented by wooden blocking in strategically chosen places to take some strain off the dragon's neck. Aside from his carefully positioned head, the rest of him was just sprawled haphazardly as if he had taken a tumble and been unable to move again — which was a rather accurate description of what had happened, come to think of it. It was an unnatural and disturbing tableau to see her usually energetic and bouncing Harry in such a state.

Though to Abigail's mind, the worst bit had to be the long tube carefully threaded down Harry's gullet.

People just weren't supposed to have tubes sticking out of them! She could understand the reasoning when Harry's innate magic resistance was explained to her — switching spells just wouldn't work through his skin, much less the skin and intervening flesh to his stomach, and just shoving food down his throat ran the very real risk of choking him to death — but that didn't make the device any less barbaric to her mind. Nor did it make seeing her closest friend in such a state any easier.

She had to do something!

"Professor, what can I do to help?"

"At present, Miss Abercrombie, you can assist me with preparing Mr. Potter's next batch of nutrient slurry," he gestured to the steel drum full of diesel and a collection of bags partially full of various metallic powders, though the pallet off to the side seemed to consist entirely of full bags. "It is a mildly taxing process, as the fluid becomes quite viscous as the proportion of powder in the oil increases. Levitate one of the bags of powdered iron from the pallet off to the right, and we will begin."

Putting words into action, the potions master began adding oil to the empty barrel set aside for mixing.

Easily holding the bag in place above the drum with her levitation charm as her instructor gradually poured its contents into the oil while stirring, Abigail eyed the narrow tube projecting from her friend's mouth and asked the obvious question, "Professor, if the slurry gets that thick, how do you get it through that tube?"

Snape grunted as he made a particularly vigorous attempt at moving the now much more sluggish stirring bar, "One of our goblin colleagues produced that odd if wonderful contraption," he gestured toward a terribly complicated conglomeration of pipes and boxes arranged in a pattern that made absolutely no sense to the pureblood girl. "It consists of an internal combustion engine which burns this oil," he gestured to the drum he had been pouring from earlier, "in order to rotate that shaft," he gestured again, "which drives that device," another gesture, "which he called a hydraulic pump. It causes a fluid to move by applying tremendous pressure — to the tune of more than a thousand times your weight per square inch of cross-sectional area — which is sufficient to force our nutrient slurry down the tube into Mr. Potter's ravenous gullet." He grunted once again with the effort of stirring. "We seem to be reaching the point where I will be forced once again to use that infernally loud stirring contraption…"

He paused in his efforts, removed the iron bar he had been stirring with and retrieved a terrifying-looking device consisting of a large yellow box with various handles poking out of it attached to the end of a long steel rod with vicious-looking spiraling blades arrayed about the other end.

What on earth was he going to do with that?

"I do apologize for the noise, Miss Abercrombie," Snape said, before laying the thing on the ground and giving one of the handles, which proved to be attached to the end of a length of cordage, a sharp tug. Several repetitions of this strange action led to the device emitting a faint plume of thin smoke and growling in a puttering and decidedly disagreeable way. The potions master then picked the thing up and inserted the bladed end of the device into the mixing barrel.

"I find this device thoroughly unpleasant to use," the man shouted over the noise of the apparent mixing device in his hands, "as it is both unwieldy and imprecise — also quite loud — but it does provide sufficient power to mix such impressively intractable mixtures as our current brew." With that, he pulled a trigger under one of the other handles and the device roared, turning the shaft and spinning those vicious-looking blades under the surface of the liquid. The stuff which had previously been so frustrating her Head of House now flowed like water.

Huh. That was actually rather impressive.

During one of the lulls in activity, she shouted back, "Why not just use a stirring charm?"

To which her instructor replied, "Mr. Potter requires a batch of this size every two hours. Even trading off, we would not have been able to keep up for more than a handful of days before Madame Pomfrey and I collapsed in exhaustion, Miss Abercrombie." He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Wrestling that mixing device around seemed to be a significant effort. "I know that it is not readily apparent for much of the Hogwarts curriculum," he huffed another breath, "because we have learned to manage the process well for our students over the last thousand years," and another, "but casting magic costs just as much effort, one way or another, as doing the work by hand," and another. "It is simply a type of effort to which many of our fellows are much better suited than the more physical alternatives."

They returned to the task, Snape carefully measuring out differing amounts of the various other powders and adding them to the thickening slurry, mixing well, until he finally pronounced the process complete, shutting off the infernally loud yellow mixing device at the same time, which he then released, leaving it planted, upright and unsupported in the slurry.

That did get thick quickly.

"Miss Abercrombie, please retrieve the end of that hose… the black one with the red flag tied to it," Snape requested as he removed the mixer and replaced it with a lid sized for the mixing drum with a long tube sticking through it. She did so, and he proceeded to hook the end onto the lid and cover the drum. "Now the green one." This one he affixed to the end of the tube leading into Harry's mouth. "And now we start the transfer process." The potions master went up to one portion of the morass of pipes and boxes Abigail hadn't been able to make sense of earlier and turned something.

She had thought the yellow thing was loud, but now she could barely hear herself think!

The potions master had pushed the lid on the drum slightly to the side, and she could see the fluid level gradually lowering as the thick slurry was sucked up through the tube. She followed along the hoses with her eyes to the absurdly loud pumping device, and then along the other hose to the tube jammed down Harry's… Abigail shuddered.

She still couldn't get used to that… and she didn't want to get used to it, for that matter. That was not how her friend should be, so she shouldn't get used to it!

Pumping the drum of nutrient slurry dry took perhaps ten minutes, during which Abigail had nothing to do but think about the situation and watch Harry's deathly-still form. The noise from the pumping device was too loud for any conversation with Professor Snape, even if they shouted. Thus, when the pumping was complete, and her Head of House turned whatever it was that he had used to start the thing back to the off position, the distressed sixth-year had had plenty of time to come to a conclusion.

"Professor Snape," she began after her ears finally stopped ringing, "may I have the recipe for that nutrient slurry?"

"Why do you ask, Miss Abercrombie?" he said.

"Harry is my friend, and he needs help," she said firmly, "so I'm going to help. If I take care of at least some of this, then you and Madame Pomfrey will have more time to try to figure out how to fix him."

The man stared at her blankly for several moments, though Abigail got the impression that he was seeing something else.

"Professor?" she prompted.

"I apologize, Miss Abercrombie. I am afraid I was lost in a memory. Your phrasing reminded me of… someone else I once knew." The potions master shook his head. "In answer to your request, our current mixture consists of seven parts fuel oil, four parts powdered iron, one part powdered copper, …" He continued in that vein for some time, eventually touching on the operation of the hand-mixer and the hydraulic pump, which were actually somewhat more complicated than they had first seemed.

By the time she had learned the process to Snape's exacting specifications — a process which had attracted the attention of a curious Hermione from where had been attempting to bury her worries under a torrent of reading under a silencing charm up on the library mezzanine — Abigail's visit had stretched out to the point that Harry required another batch, a batch which Abigail prepared herself under her potions instructor's supervision. Handling the mixer was even harder than it had looked, which had been the main reason, she learned, that Hermione had not been permitted to help previously, but the sixth-year managed, nonetheless.

After that, Abigail sought out her long overdue bed, but she became a frequent visitor to the Lair for the rest of the spring term, faithfully helping to care for her sick friend and eagerly watching for any signs of stirring from the insensate young dragon. Unfortunately, the end of the school year came, and with it her reluctant departure, before Harry awakened.

It was a thoroughly unpleasant end to a term that had been going so well.

2.16.6 Awakening

Severus Snape found himself on dragon-sitting duty once more.

The term had ended nearly five days previous, and with it, most of the urgent demands on his time. The potions master had chosen, for reasons he carefully did not explore, to fill the slack in his schedule by taking over more of the monitoring shifts to watch over the blasted lizard.

He had never thought there would come a time when he missed the boy's incessant questions!

As it was, the sun had fallen hours ago, and the last batch of 'food' for the boy had finished making its way into his insatiable gullet some half an hour previous, leaving the Lair quiet indeed. Miss Granger had gone home to her parents for the weekend, no doubt to seek some comfort in their presence, and even Miss Suze had gone to visit her extended family, provided convenient transportation to the ground via an offer of a reusable portkey from a concerned Crackjaw Slackhammer several days previous. The potions master supposed she had found the ongoing quiet of the Lair too disturbing, now that the monitoring had become a routine rather than a frantic scramble to keep the young dragon alive.

Snape could sympathize; the atmosphere was all too conducive to quiet introspection.

Ever since Miss Abercrombie had inserted herself so forcefully into the rotation of caring for the dratted dragon, one memory in particular had been most insistently cropping up, a memory of a slight, redheaded girl with emerald green eyes…

"You're my friend, and you need help, Sev, so I'm going to help!"

The potions master rubbed at his arm, the site of the long-healed bruising that had precipitated that declaration all those years ago; it had been a gift from his father. That conversation with Lily had catalyzed Snape to act, and those actions had precipitated the argument which led to the resolution of his troubled family situation — a resolution which had left him orphaned.

He did not… could not, regret it. Had he allowed the situation to continue, Lily would have surely involved herself, and that would have exposed her to his father, and that would have been unacceptable. It was about keeping Lily safe.

Snape let out a bleak chuckle; in his life, it was always about Lily.

"What are you laughing about, Mr. Snape?" came a thoroughly unexpected, yet thoroughly welcome voice.

The man turned to the dragon in the room, a dragon who had somehow managed to speak clearly despite the tube extending down his gullet and who was now looking around the Lair as well as he could by moving only his eyes.

"And why is my head all tied up?"

All in all, it was typical Harry, and Severus was thoroughly relieved at the indication that his young friend had come through his ordeal at least mostly intact. So relieved in fact that he felt it necessary to express the sentiment aloud.

"Harry James Potter," the potions master snarled, "if you ever do something even half so foolish again, I shall never forgive you!"

…well, he was Severus Snape, after all.

"…huh?"

"What madness possessed you to eat the philosopher's stone, you terminally incautious lizard?"

"Um… is that a part of a someone who says he's that Voldemort guy?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, this guy with no nose turned up, right, and he said he was that Voldemort twit, only he can't have been, because when I splat stuff, it stays splatted. And he kind of threw a whole bunch of those killing curse thingies at me — they really sting, you know — so I got kinda angry and, well, ate him. He came outta the other end as some kinda screaming ghost-fart-thingy, and er, I started to feel really weird and…"

The dragon trailed off for a moment as he went cross-eyed staring at his nose with a ridiculous-looking perplexed expression.

"Hey! Why's my nose changed color?"

 

[Dunkelzahn]

3 Pantry Raid

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3.1 Outpatient

---

3.1.1 Friends

Shortly after discovering the changed state of his nose, the bewildered young dragon also noticed the feeding tube extending from under that recolored snout, which prompted yet another explanation, this time detailing just how long Harry had been unconscious and the lengths to which his various friends had gone to help him.

"Wow!" Harry exclaimed, moved by the devotion his friends had shown.

Some time passed before he could say anything else, though eventually he recovered enough to elaborate.

"I have some good friends!" He paused thoughtfully before continuing, "Really good friends."

Of course, that was followed by a complaint that the feeding tube sticking down his throat was mightily uncomfortable, now that he knew it was there, especially since his potions master friend insisted that he not bite it off.

"If you swallow that tube, young man, there is no telling what it might do to you," Snape insisted. "It was specifically chosen to be undigestible, even for you, and I suspect it would be at the very least exceedingly uncomfortable for you to pass through your digestive tract."

After his latest… experience with extreme indigestion, Harry was tentatively willing to concede the point.

"I am reluctant to leave you unsupervised so soon after regaining consciousness; therefore, I shall alert Miss Suze to your recovery, that she might monitor your health until my colleagues have a chance to run a full set of diagnostics," the dark man continued as he sent off another of his paper crane messages. "After she has taken over here, I shall retrieve a flame-freezing potion and return forthwith to extract your feeding tube."

"Why do you need a flame-freezing potion?" Harry asked curiously.

"While I am uncertain of your reaction to such," Snape said, "many humans experience a vomiting reflex in such situations. With humans, such an occurrence is unpleasant but not particularly dangerous, but given the conditions in your stomach, being drenched in your vomitus would be quite lethal in the absence of protective magics."

Harry had just enough time to say "Oh" before he was interrupted by a centaur maiden at full sprint.

"Harry!" Suze cried. "You're awake!"

At that point, his centaur damsel did her level best to hug the stuffing out of her dragon, an attempt that basically amounted to plastering her human-like torso against his cheek with her arms spread wide. It was not terribly effective at stuffing removal, but it was the thought that counted.

Harry certainly appreciated the effort.

While Harry and his centaur damsel reacquainted themselves with each other, the potions master returned to his laboratory, retrieved one of his strongest flame-freezing potions, and fired off another set of crane-memos to pass on the good news.

The Lair was about to become significantly less quiet.

3.1.2 Diagnosis

Snape returned and removed the feeding tube without incident; as it turned out, Harry did not experience any vomiting reflex as the tube was withdrawn. Snape set it aside for later study, noting some oddly colored deposits on the stomach-end of the device. He had expected some residue, melted iron and such, but Snape was fairly sure that there were colors in that mass which should not have formed at all from the ingredients in the nutrient slurry they had made. There might be some odd alloying process going on, or perhaps something more interesting.

Five minutes later — less than half an hour after he had sent the original message — for Poppy, Nicholas, Grindbone, and Flame-Eye to arrive at the Lair, and it had taken less than half a minute after that for Poppy and Nicholas to begin casting diagnostic spells. They only delayed even that long because that was how long it took Harry to figure out how to allow the spells through his defenses. It was unclear whether this difficulty was due to his recent physiological changes or simply his long inactivity.

Suze refused to leave her dragon's side, despite Nicholas' insistence — apparently, a number of his diagnostics were dependent on the target not being in contact with anyone else. She did, however, eventually acquiesce to wearing a pair of protective gloves which the Alchemist normally kept on hand for handling volatile samples. Thy served as a magical barrier for the diagnostics while allowing her to stay in physical contact with Harry.

Nicholas pronounced the setup, "Good enough."

Grindbone and Flame-Eye, unable to actively cast such spells on their own, took advantage of their wizard colleagues' preoccupation to introduce themselves to their patient.

"Mr. Potter," Grindbone began, "Medical Officer, First-Class, Grindbone, at your service!" The goblin gave a salute, "Mighty glad to see you up and about, sir!"

Harry, who had long become used to Madame Pomfrey and Mr. Snape hovering about and casting diagnostic spells while he did something else, responded enthusiastically. "Oh! You're the medic Mr. Slackhammer sent over to help, right? Thanks!" At Grindbone's nod, the young dragon turned his massive head to look at the other goblin. "And you're… Flame-Eye, I think Mr. Snape said?"

"Foundry Specialist, First-Class, Flame-Eye, at your service, Mr. Potter!" the goblin said proudly.

"Foundry Specialist?" Harry said. "That means you're one of the Engineers, right?"

"That's correct, sir," the goblin confirmed. "Foundry operations operate under the Logistics Division of the Engineers."

"Cool! Hey, do you know Corporal Hookknife? Ever since he came out here with Sergeant-Major Hooktalon to set up my shooting range, we've been keeping in touch by letter, and he's helped me a whole lot on setting up my Lair. I mean, I wouldn't have ever figured out how to set up the turbine to run the lights," the dragon pointed towards the equipment cabinet at the cave entrance with one claw, "if he hadn't told me about the books to look up! And he pointed me to books on wiring, and books on machining, and books on welding, and books on structural engineering, and books on water treatment, and books on excavation, and books on electrodynamics, and books on calculus, and books on batteries, and books on metallurgy, and books on…"

"Harry, blathering," Suze's perennial refrain was voiced once more.

"…oh, drat. Sorry, I have a bad habit of doing that."

Flame-Eye smiled, "Quite alright, Mr. Potter. It's always good to see enthusiasm, particularly in youngsters like yourself. Now, I can't say I know your Corporal Hookknife, but given his mission to come out here and set up a range for you, I'd suspect he's part of the Field Division, which is the other major branch of the Engineers."

"What's the difference between the two branches?" the dragon asked.

"To explain it like the recruitment officer did back in the creche, Field Division goes places and makes stuff there," the foundry-specialist explained, "while Logistics makes stuff here and sends it places."

"Okay," Harry nodded slowly, "I guess that makes sense."

The conversation might have continued were it not for the characteristic whoosh of flame from an arriving phoenix. Harry turned to greet his friend, Fawkes, and had just enough time to get out "Hi, Fawkes…" before he caught a bushy-haired missile with his face.

"Harry, you're awake!"

It seemed Fawkes had brought friends.

3.1.3 Good news, everyone

Seated at his desk, Albus unfolded the paper crane memo and smiled.

It seemed Mr. Potter had regained consciousness, and that was the best news he had received all week — not that that was a particularly high bar to clear. Amelia's investigation of his defense professor, detailed in the report currently sitting in the middle of his desk, had been singularly enlightening — and depressing… so many missed opportunities culminating in such a tragic outcome.

Albus was not looking forward to the next staff meeting.

Setting that aside, he would have to go congratulate Mr. Potter on his recovery shortly — just as soon as he finished a reply to Amelia. But first, it seemed his potions professor had suggested Albus contact Miss Granger to inform her of her friend's recovery. It was an oddly considerate request; Severus was not normally one for such niceties.

Albus smiled.

It was a reassuring reminder that the man had a heart. Sometimes, even Albus had his doubts, despite his faith in the repentant spy's good nature. Severus was a very good spy and was thus quite difficult to read when he so chose. It was good to see even that sort of faint confirmation.

"Well, Fawkes, my old friend," Albus turned to address the living flame perched in his office, "it seems Mr. Potter has regained consciousness. Would you be willing to take a note to his friend, Miss Granger, to alert her to that fact?"

Fawkes chirped a cheerful affirmative, and after Albus wrote a note to that effect, grasped the message in one fiery-taloned foot and took off, vanishing from the office in a rush of flame.

The elderly headmaster smiled after the wondrous bird for a time before he turned back to his earlier letter with a sad sigh.

If not for that bird, he sometimes wondered whether he'd be able to keep going.

3.1.4 Warm reception

At the Granger family home in Crawley, Hermione paced the living room worriedly, much to the concern of her parents.

It had been three days since they had brought their daughter home in hopes that a change in scenery would help her deal with her emotions in a healthy way.

It hadn't, and the girl had alternated irregularly between desperate research and distraught pacing ever since.

"…but it could completely change Harry's biochemistry, and people don't survive that sort of thing! Not even if they can turn into dragons! I mean, Harry's tough, but how do you just tough your way through your guts turning to gold?" the bushy-haired girl babbled worriedly. "You can't do that and live through it!"

"Hermione," her mother soothed, "you said your professors and that — Healer, was it? — Madame Pomfrey were doing their best to take care of him. Even the goblins sent some help. I'm sure Harry will be fine."

"But Mum, Headmaster Dumbledore even said he had no idea how to fix it or even what was happening!" the girl said, still distraught. "And nothing I've been able to find says anything about how to fix this sort of thing, aside from saying that you can't!"

Sharon had no answer to that — nothing her daughter hadn't already shot down multiple times, anyway — so she settled for giving her daughter a hug.

"He's my best friend," Hermione sobbed into her mother's shoulder. "What am I going to do if he doesn't make it?"

The hug tightened. "You'll get through it somehow, baby, and your father and I will help you, no matter what."

On the other side of the room, Hermione's father made to say something only for his statement to mutate into a muffled curse of surprise as a bonfire flared up near the kitchen.

"What the bloody hell?"

Hermione looked up. "Fawkes?"

The vaguely avian mass of flame chirped in a positive sort of tone before ambling its way over to the girl. It hopped up on the arm of the couch near where Hermione was standing with her mother and offered a rolled parchment, miraculously unburned, to the girl who tentatively took the note and began to read.

Her father looked over to his wife and mouthed the question, "What's this?" to which his wife shrugged and tightened her hug.

"Harry's awake!" Hermione squealed. "Oh, we have to go see him!"

"Right, I'll fire up the car," Tony Granger began, glad to have a clear course of action to help his daughter — driving the length of the British Isles was a small price to pay — only for the fire-bird to interrupt once again with a chirp and a proffered wing.

"Really?" his daughter asked the fiery thing. "Oh, thank you very much!" She turned to her parents, "Fawkes offered to take us there now!"

"And how is it going to do that?" Sharon asked.

"Phoenixes can teleport using fire," her daughter explained, "and they can carry tremendous loads, but they are really independent and will only do so when they deem it appropriate. It's considered a great honor for a phoenix to consent to spend any time with you at all, doubly so when they offer to carry you somewhere."

"Huh," Tony said. "Hermione, how do you know this bird, exactly?"

"He spends a lot of time with Harry at the Lair," Hermione answered absently. "They play tag, and Fawkes apparently likes it when Harry breathes fire on him. But seriously, can we go, Daddy?"

The dentist looked to his wife for confirmation and received a shrug, so he went along with it. "We can go, sweetie."

He then looked doubtfully at the fire…bird…whatever, it was big, nearly the size of his daughter, but it certainly didn't look up to carrying three people, two of them adults.

"So, how do we go about this?"

By way of answer, the phoenix hopped onto Tony's shoulder, its weight giving him no trouble despite its size — must be some sort of magical effect. The bird was barely even warm, despite the flickering flames, but Tony got the firm impression that the bird's firm self-control was the only reason he wasn't crisping — an impression reinforced by the exaggeratedly cautious way it closed its claws on Tony's shoulder.

The bird's demeanor reminded Tony of his brother, Bill. Bill was the athlete of the family. He'd played rugby when they were younger and could have gone professional. Instead, he had chosen to enlist and ended up in special forces. Between natural talent and training, it had left Bill by far the strongest man Tony had ever met.

His brother had had that same walking-on-eggshells attitude the first time he picked up his infant niece — the attitude that said he knew perfectly well that if he did the slightest thing wrong, the fragile life he held in his hands would not survive, and he didn't want that to happen, so he was being extra careful.

This bird was acting precisely the same way around Tony, a fully-grown, reasonably sturdy man.

It seemed that this was another hilariously lethal magical creature encounter for the scrapbook. The Granger patriarch seemed to be amassing quite the collection of those.

Once the bird settled, it motioned for him to grab hold of his wife and daughter — at this point, Tony didn't even bother to wonder how the bird got so good at charades — and then the three disappeared in a rush of flames, off to Scotland and a recently-awoken friend.

3.1.5 Lurking danger

As the crackling of flames faded with the departure of the family via phoenix, the house fell silent. Then at about the same time a certain dragon was accosted by a bushy-haired projectile, that silence was broken. The door splintered and exploded into the entryway and several of the living room windows shattered, spraying glass all over the room.

Five men, dressed in dirty but serviceable clothing, burst in through the violently created entrances only to stop in confusion as they realized the living room was empty. As the thugs exchanged looks, puzzled, one of them, seemingly the leader, motioned to two of his fellows to search the rest of the house. As they went, the leader turned to one of his remaining compatriots.

"Wot the 'ell?" the man said. "I thought ya said they were in the gaff!"

"Dey wuz!" his compatriot protested. "Dey wuz rite in e'yer juss tree minutes ago!"

"'eaven and 'ell they're not 'ere na, 're they? So where did they scarper to, then?"

The third spoke up, "There's sum magic... recent stuff... I fin' they left just as we were settin' up ter come in."

"They knew we were comin'?" the first asked, worried. "Aahhht from our geezer at the bloody office?"

The two who had been sent off to search the house came back with negative results.

No girl, no family, no paycheck.

"Nuffin' from the geezer at the office," the third spoke up again after consulting a self-updating parchment. "...nuffin' garn on there; we're crystal!"

"Maybe the bloody twist apparated?" the leader said.

"Ay thought she wuz twelve?" the second challenged. "Gerraway she could do dat, not carry'n 'er parents wi' 'er. 'ad ter be a portkey, must 'uv 'ad fuckin' off planned."

The leader thought for a moment, "We daan't kna wagwan 'ere, so we need ter find aahhht." He motioned to the third man, "Put sum monitorin' charms in, 'idden." The third man nodded, setting about the task. "We'll figure it aahhht an' 'ave anovver go." He motioned to the two searchers, "Get the damage fixed up, then we leef everythin' sugar."

"De gaffer isn't go'n ter like this," the second thug warned. "'e wanted de bird fer auction next week, sounded like 'e 'ad a lot rid'n ed it."

"'e's got more ridin' on us not gettin' nicked!" the first countered. "We daan't get the twist, 'e daan't get paid, but we get nicked, 'e loses everythin'! The fuckin' pitch will get over it."

As the third thug finished planting their hidden monitoring charms, the others completed the repairs of the windows, and retreated through the front door. Another quick repair charm later, and the house was left looking exactly as it had fifteen minutes previous…

…five minutes before the promise of comfort and safety from the cozy family home had been proven a bald-faced lie.

3.1.6 Physicians' conference

Gathering their information had been the work of about half an hour, and the diagnostic team was just settling down to digest what they had learned.

"I suppose the first thing to address is Mr. Potter's health," Poppy began. "His body has somehow managed to reestablish stable metabolic function. Internal structures which were damaged by the uncontrolled transmutation have been restored, either to their original composition or to superior ones. Our patient is no longer in danger of death, though for the life of me, I have no idea how he managed it!"

"Speaking of superior compositions," Nicholas said, showing his usual lack of regard for the conversational mood in favor of pursuing his own interests, "the lad's scales are amazing! The process of controlling the effects of my stone seems to have resulted in a series of layers of different alchemical alloys, some of which I've never encountered in all my centuries of investigation!"

"Certainly, the largest is gold," the young-looking man explained, tapping each layer as he went on the scale sample he had somehow managed to shave off of the dragon, "terribly boring gold, but then he went through mithril, adamant, eighteen other metals which I have seen before in the lab but never bothered naming, and then a further twenty-seven which I have never seen before! The final choice is in the latter category, though I am not yet certain of the properties it will…"

"On the topic of the boy's scales," Poppy broke in, knowing from recent, exasperating experience that Nicholas would babble on for hours about his field if given the slightest opportunity, "they seem to be pulling away from the underlying skin in a manner I am unsure how to interpret…"

"Hmm?" Nicholas looked up from his study of his precious sample. "Oh, that, it is common enough. The boy is going through the process of molting. If you've spent any time around reptiles, you know the signs. I remember from that time back — oh it was about two centuries now — when I was fascinated by the composition of snake venoms. I kept thousands of the things around back then — eventually got rid of them when Penny got fed up with them finding their way into the bath…"

The healer sighed in relief. "Well, so long as it is temporary. I thought dragons didn't molt, though?"

"Not normally," Nicholas allowed. "They do drop scales, however, when they suffer from severe scale damage, and I'd imagine having one's outer integument spontaneously change from relatively sturdy iron to buttery-soft gold qualifies handily."

"Fair enough," Poppy allowed. "Severus, have you anything to add?"

The potions master nodded. "Two things. One, the previously noted energy defect in Mr. Potter's metabolism has increased. He is obtaining more energy from his food than should be possible given its composition and the reactions we assume it is undergoing…"

"Did you account for the absorption of environmental magic?" Nicholas cut in.

"Yes," the potions master answered flatly. "Previously the defect was small, and we assumed we were simply not accounting for something the wretched lizard was eating. Now, however, the energy defect is a significant fraction of his total diet — approximately sixty percent, in fact — and we have the unique situation where we have accounted for every dram of the boy's food intake for the past several weeks. It is no longer possible to assume away."

The ancient alchemist nodded thoughtfully before his eyes fell on the discarded feeding tube lying forgotten off to the side. "I have a thought…"

He walked over and began examining the encrusted end of the tube which had been down Harry's gullet.

When his compatriots waited for him to continue, Nicholas waved them to continue, "Carry on, this may take a moment, I'm listening."

Snape looked at the man dubiously for a moment before continuing, "Secondly, Mr. Potter's bulk composition has changed in an unexpected manner."

"How so?" Flame-Eye spoke up for the first time with Grindbone looking on attentively.

"His body now contains significant traces of elements that I know were not present previously and could not have been introduced through his food. I have not tracked down the specific locations yet, but the dratted dragon's body now contains upwards of two kilograms of iridium, and a tenth of that in osmium, to name the most egregious examples. Some of the others could have conceivably been contaminants, but those two…"

"Given their relative abundance could not have shown up in anywhere near that quantity without specific attempts to add them," the foundry specialist finished. "Aye, something strange is going on there."

"He's transmuting them!" Nicholas broke in excitedly. "His physiology has learned to imitate the stone, and it is transmuting new materials to make up for nutritional deficiencies. It also explains the energy defect; he must be transmuting some lighter elements along the way towards iron to power the whole process. A little excess in that sort of thing goes a long way."

"Are you certain?" Snape asked. "It does explain our observations, but the risks…"

"Yes, I am certain," the alchemist said. "Look here at the residue on the feeding tube." He poked at a porous brown bit of metal. "This is a bismuth-bronze alloy — see how the flat of my knife slides over the surface? Given the location, this deposit could only have come from the nutrient slurry, and we included copper but no bismuth. I'd be willing to bet the pores in the material are where antimony formed and vaporized out before it could mix, it's a standard alchemical reaction path if you don't work to limit it. This entire thing looks like some of my failed attempts at recreating orichalcum using the traditional suspension of molten bronze, specifically the ones I carried out at too high a temperature."

Nicholas shook his head in awe, "Our young friend is a living alchemical reactor."

"But the energy output…" Snape said with a worried frown. "How has Mr. Potter not exploded yet?"

"You said the defect existed prior to his ingestion of the stone, correct?" Nicholas confirmed. At Poppy's nod, he continued, "The boy must have already been doing it, and the stone just helped him improve. If he hasn't exploded already, he's unlikely to do so now."

After a few moments to let that digest, Poppy asked, "Is there anything else you've noticed? It seems Miss Granger is starting to slack off enough on her grip to allow Mr. Potter to hear our assessment."

Negative indications came from the rest of the team. It seemed it was time to break the news to their patient.

At least none of the news was particularly bad — nothing they had been able to find so far, anyway.

3.1.7 Health assessment

It had taken nearly an hour for Harry to persuade Hermione to relinquish her death-grip on his face, at which point she settled for sitting on the top of his head in an effort to make sure he couldn't go anywhere. It was a great deal more effective than the death-grip had been for that purpose anyway, mostly because Harry feared she might fall if he moved incautiously.

Between Suze, her side plastered against Harry's cheek as closely as she could manage, and Hermione, seated primly on the crown of his head just forward of his horns, Harry and his damsels presented quite a ridiculous scene when the time finally came to present the results of the extensive battery of diagnostics Poppy and her colleagues had run over the past couple hours.

"Well then, Mr. Potter," the healer began, "you have slept through quite the eventful end of term after consuming the philosopher's stone."

"Um, how did that happen, exactly?" the dragon asked. "I mean, I thought I ate that guy that kept throwing killing curses at me and threatening my damsels, not some kind of rock."

"We believe the intruder stole the stone from where it was being kept under guard in the castle," Snape volunteered. "He must have had it on his person when he met his end in your jaws."

"Oh… okay," Harry said thoughtfully before his face twisted in concern. "Wait, was that what Corporal Mantrap was guarding? Is he okay?"

"No, I am afraid Corporal Mantrap did not survive the attack," came a new voice as Albus Dumbledore alighted in the entrance to the Lair. "He and four others from the security detail were killed by the intruder."

"No," Harry whispered, distraught. Suze leaned in reassuringly and Hermione patted his head comfortingly, though he felt neither attempt, his scales being what they were. The dragon closed his eyes as a great silvery tear welled up, "Corporal Mantrap is dead? But…but he was going to come over to check on my shooting after his deployment! He can't be dead!"

"Sadly, circumstances have conspired not to allow him to make good on that promise," the elderly headmaster said sympathetically.

The young dragon sighed, "Oh. You said the rest of his squad got killed too?"

"Four of them, yes."

"Well… well, shit," Harry said.

In an attempt at comfort, Dumbledore offered, "You will find over the course of your life, particularly in your case given your projected lifespan, that death of your friends and loved ones is something you must learn to deal with." The man sighed, "It is unfortunately inevitable. The only advice I can offer is to remember them fondly, cold comfort though it is."

The dragon was silent for a moment, "Well, at least we got the guy that did it, right? Who was he anyway? He said he was that Voldemort-guy, but that can't be right. When my forehead splats something it stays splatted."

"That… that is a complicated question," Albus temporized. "The one who attacked the goblin position was not strictly-speaking the same person who attacked you…"

"You mean he got away?" Harry demanded, smoke curling up from his nostrils.

"Again, not exactly," the elderly man explained. "The man who launched the attack was your defense professor, Quirinus Quirrel, who we have reason to believe was under the domination of a spiritual entity. That entity then used Nicholas' stone to take over and reshape Quirrel's body to suit its needs. That entity is the being who attacked you, Mr. Potter."

"What do you mean, 'under the domination of'?" the young dragon cocked his head curiously.

"We have every indication that Quirinus was attacked and enspelled at some point last summer, and from that point his every action was controlled and driven by the will of another being, the same being who attacked you after killing his pawn and stealing poor Quirinus' body. Evidence found since the incident implies that your professor fought the control as well as he was able, attempting repeatedly to…" the man trailed off with a sad look on his face. "Well, let us say that Quirinus was unable to control his actions despite his best efforts at thwarting his controller. The details are still under DMLE investigation."

"But why didn't he just not do it?" the dragon asked, puzzled. "I mean, compulsions can't be that hard to shrug off. And couldn't he have worked around them anyway, maybe come to you for help?"

Snape cut in, "Mr. Potter, you have a rather… unique viewpoint when it comes to compulsions in that your metaphysical structure allows you to easily shrug off the worst of them. The rest of us are… not so fortunate," the potions master concluded with a grimace. "I will endeavor to explain the ramifications to you at a later date, in the meantime, I believe our delays are tempting the good Healer's patience."

A quick glance at the woman in question revealed her irritable expression and peevishly tapping foot, prompting everyone to quickly shut up.

"Thank you," the healer began. "As I was going to say, Mr. Potter, your ingestion of the philosopher's stone has had some far-reaching effects on your physiology, some of which are readily detectable, and some of which will likely only become apparent over time. Perhaps the most obvious is the change in your scales."

"Is that why my nose changed color?" the dragon asked.

"That is correct Mr. Potter, though the color will not persist," Poppy said. "Nicholas has hypothesized that your body managed to test many different ways in which to incorporate the stone into its function, which resulted in a variety of changes in your scales before you seemed to settle on a final material. Your scales are currently composed mostly of gold because that was the original reaction before your magic attempted to guide it in a different direction. Close examination will show your scales to possess striations of a great many different alchemical alloys."

"If Nicholas' hypothesis is correct," the Healer continued as her patient raised an arm to take a close look at his scales, "your scales will take on the last composition attempted, which is a dark silvery gray, a few shades lighter than your previous coloration." The nurse paused for a moment. "We will be able to say for certain in a few weeks when you finish molting."

"I'm molting?" Harry asked curiously, looking up from his examination. "What's that mean?"

"It means that your body is shedding your current set of scales so it can grow new, undamaged ones," the healer explained as the dragon's eyes widened. "The current set has already separated from the living parts of your skin, so they'll start falling off any day now."

"You mean I'm gonna be bald!" came the horrified exclamation.

Snape burst out laughing.

3.1.8 Instincts and baldness

It had been a stressful way to wake up.

Harry stared thoughtfully into the night outside the Lair. The trees atop the opposing bluff were barely visible in the light of the waning moon, and with the electric lights disconnected from power, the Lair was dark. Harry could just make out the faint glow of the inherent magic the infantry-goblins guarding the entrance to the Lair while he recovered. Come to think of it, he would have to see if he could arrange to retain a few of the goblins, at least until his scales grew back in.

He knew he was going to be a bit vulnerable for a while without those scales — well, relatively speaking anyway, he was still a giant dragon — but the reality of his coming ordeal hadn't really hit home until the first of the dead golden scales had dropped off his neck and fallen the half-dozen feet to the stone floor, landing with a startlingly loud bong. Harry sniffed; at least human hair had the basic decency to just sort of drift quietly to the ground when it fell out. His scales seemed to feel the need to make a big production out of it.

It wasn't fair!

The young dragon sighed quietly before checking again on his damsels to see if he had awoken them inadvertently. Suze still napped tiredly against his side; Harry had never seen her as frazzled as she had been when he awakened, so he was loath to disturb her rest. Even Hermione had grabbed one of her blankets and curled up against his forepaw. Given her apparent dislike of the idea of sleeping with him and Suze when he first carried her off, Harry took that as an indication that she found his illness just as stressful. Even Hermione's parents had joined in, insisting on sleeping nearby in the same room, and dragging Hermione's bed out for that purpose.

Her dad had made it a point to tell Harry he was going to be keeping an eye on him, too! Harry thought that was really nice of him, and he had made sure to thank him for being such a good friend — though Harry wasn't rightly sure why that had set Mrs. Granger giggling.

Come to think of it, Mr. Snape had said Abigail helped a lot with taking care of him too; maybe she was worried? He figured he ought to tell her he was okay, but how? Wizards always used owls, but the things wouldn't let him get close enough to give them a letter to take to anyone. The last time he'd tried to go to the owlery, it was like a pillow factory exploded — feathers flying everywhere while the owls desperately scrambled to get away from him.

Harry screwed his eyes shut in concentration as he struggled to think of an alternative. How could he get in touch with Abigail? He didn't know where she lived, and messenger birds didn't like him, so… wait, messenger birds; Mr. Snape used that thing where he wrote a note and animated it into a paper crane to fly to somebody! That didn't look too hard.

Harry resolved to ask for tuition in such when he next saw his surly friend.

With that issue resolved for the time being, Harry turned to the problem of his friends' concerns. The all seemed to have taken his illness really hard, and while that was kind of flattering, after a fashion, he really didn't want to worry everyone again. It didn't seem like a pretty mean thing for him to do. The problem was, though, that Harry wasn't sure exactly what he could have done differently. It was a tough question.

The last two times, he'd eaten something he shouldn't have, so maybe he should try to avoid that? Except… well, the troll bone thing was more eating it too fast, than eating the wrong thing, per se. Had he eaten slower, then he would've had time to ease off before the bone got jammed between his teeth, so that was more of a "good manners" kind of thing. The last one, though, that was definitely eating something he shouldn't've.

The only problem was, he hadn't meant to eat the stupid rock in the first place!

Harry glared at his golden, slowly-shedding nose, irritated at the memory. That jerk who had attacked him and threatened his damsels had been carrying it on him when Harry ate him. How the heck was Harry supposed to know what people were carrying when they did stuff like that? It wasn't like they'd be willing to give him a list of everything they were carrying so he could tell whether it was safe to eat them or not! If they were that considerate, the issue wouldn't've come up at all! The young dragon's expression turned thoughtful as a radical idea took root.

Maybe he ought to reconsider his policy on eating enemies?

Harry thought back on the attack and what had been going through his mind at the time. He'd felt strong annoyance, outrage, protectiveness, and then he made a conscious decision to answer the situation with violence. The decision was a deliberate one, but upon making it he'd had a towering impulse to bite down on the enemy. As Harry tried to consider other methods he might have used, running through imagined scenarios of how he could have handled the last incident, it seemed like biting was the endpoint of just about every sequence he could imagine.

Grabbing something with his claws was a prelude to finishing with his jaws. A wing-strike was intended to stun before, again, going for the throat with his teeth. Just about every idea that seemed like a natural thing to try was a setup for that final bite.

There was his fire — that was also tied to combat in his head, and not every usage of it was immediately followed by biting, though most were — but fire was kinda indiscriminate. He couldn't have used that so close to Hermione in any case, and if he was honest with himself, Harry was a bit reluctant in general to use his fire in anger for just that reason.

Harry could imagine just smashing something with his hand or wing or smacking it with his tail, but that always seemed more of a… deliberate action rather than natural one. Was that the right way to put it?

In human shape, he punched things — that was the natural way to attack in that form; it was how the body was wired — in dragon shape he bit things for much the same reason. Anyway, it wasn't something he could picture doing in the heat of combat; if he got worked up to the point where he committed to real violence, he was going to end up biting his opponent, and given the size difference — well, there was no way they weren't getting eaten if that happened.

Kind of a weird thing to think about, really.

Gaining control of those instincts was going to take a lot of work, if he could manage it at all. They seemed to be in-built — he certainly hadn't fought enough trained such reflexes through practice — but humans trained themselves to do all sorts of difficult things, so he ought to be able to do the same, if he worked at it hard enough.

He would have to try it and see.

But that begged the question — what other things had he been doing instinctively? Were there issues there which would come back to bite him later like this one had?

That was something he didn't have an answer for. Automatic instinctive responses were by their nature kind of hard to recognize. He'd have to keep an eye on things.

Harry sighed, but that was something for the future. For now, Harry was going to enjoy the company of his damsels and rest after his trying ordeal, assured of the knowledge that he had some truly amazing friends.

And he was going to try keep his mind off his inevitably approaching baldness. At least it would be temporary.

3.1.9 Recovery and resolutions

Harry had broached the topic of instruction on the animated memo spell with his friend, Mr. Snape, the next morning, and shortly thereafter his days became filled with small gouts of flame as he set paper after paper on fire, accidentally packing them far too full of magic. It was a rather discouraging process for the young dragon, yet he remained resolute.

Abigail would get that note if it was the last thing he did! She deserved at least that much.

While minor explosions filled Harry's summer days, the turmoil in his other relationships started to subside. Suze and Hermione slowly adjusted to the idea that Harry was back and unlikely to disappear, and their desperate attempts to keep him in sight fell back to a healthier level.

After two days, Hermione had calmed enough to return to sleeping in her apartment in the Lair, and with that norm reestablished, her parents returned home to catch up with their somewhat-neglected dental practice. After a week, Suze finally returned to some of her personal projects, no longer insisting on being in physical contact with her dragon at all times.

All the while, golden scales fell like oddly-shaped hail.

Harry remained under close observation for the better part of another week before Poppy pronounced him 'probably stable' and cut his checkup schedule back to his previous biweekly visit. With that, the various helpers who had come to look after the sick dragon began preparing to leave, and at that point Harry hit on an idea.

His talks with Flame-Eye, Grindbone, and Griphook — the Color Sergeant who had been looking after the security of his Lair for him while he was indisposed — had at one point touched on Sergeant-Major Hooktalon's inspirational speech regarding looking out for Harry in his time of need.

And with that had come the idea of a celebratory spider-barbecue.

3.1.10 Barbecue

Atop the outcropping housing Harry's Lair was a patch of essentially untouched scrubland which Harry had chosen to use to host his celebratory barbecue. To that end, Harry had prepared three large cooking fires in a large clearing he had stomped out of the vegetation. The result was a scene from a bygone era. Sunset over the Highlands saw an eclectic group gather about three crudely constructed bonfires set in a rough clearing in the middle of what appeared to be otherwise virgin wilderness.

The young dragon had invited everyone who had participated in the efforts to fix him up and a few more besides. Goblins were far and away the most heavily-represented in the gathering, including everyone from Grindbone and Flame-Eye to Sergeant-Major Hooktalon and all his men, well, at least the ones who had been involved in the Hogwarts defense.

The service-goblins made for a fun, if rather rowdy, crowd, and the bawdy singing and drinking had begun among the group before the sun even properly set.

Even Vice Director Slackhammer had made the time to come, cutting a very dapper figure who looked quite out of place among the primitive décor. He had brought with him, at Harry's request, some of the surviving family of Corporal Mantrap in order to honor Harry's dead friend.

Harry's friends from Hogwarts comprised the next largest group. Of course, Madame Pomfrey and Mr. Snape made the time to come, and they were joined by the rest of the usual suspects working on the ley-line nexus devices. Even Sybil Trelawney had managed to fish herself out of her sherry long enough to put in a token appearance. Albus had come, and he had also brought along two more guests that Harry had invited but not yet had the opportunity to meet.

Obviously, Harry was there as were his damsels, along with several of Suze's family. Harry had carried Magorian and Bane up personally. Sadly, his human damsel's parents had begged off, claiming appointments at the practice had backed up too much for them to get away.

Suze's family had each brought along a freshly-killed deer as a token of their regard for Hooktalon's assistance in fending off the few remaining acromantula during Harry's convalescence, and Professor Sprout had eagerly provided mead — this time a long-time favorite variety, which her family produced in bulk, rather than a novelty brew.

Harry had, of course, obtained a fair amount of food via his usual means of asking Hagrid for it, but the unquestionable crowning glory of the cookout was provided by the hosting dragon personally — three massive acromantula, the largest Harry had left after his snacking over the past two years. Each was about the size of a large van.

It seemed to Harry that presenting them to the group would be a great way to start off the party — even if the young dragon was, for once, a little embarrassed about his appearance. He still had patches of golden scales on him, but most of his skin was now… well, kind of polka-dotted, with tiny silvery new scales growing in on the backdrop of his jet-black bare skin. Honestly, Harry thought he looked more than a little silly.

Silly looking or not, he was nonetheless determined to approach his first public-speaking engagement gamely.

Focusing on the task at hand rather than worrying about speaking in front of a crowd while essentially naked, the currently rather mangy-looking dragon alighted at the edge of the group of partygoers, carrying with him the three spider carcasses which, taken together, bulked nearly as large as his own torso.

He hoped he had enough food for everyone.

As every eye on the plateau turned to Harry, the dragon raised his voice slightly, "Um, thanks everyone for coming! I… well, I really appreciate everybody looking out for me while I was sick, and I'm sorry to have worried everybody. Anyway, I wanted to thank everybody, so I decided to throw a party! Um… I brought some acromantula," he gestured with one foreclaw to the bus-sized pile of freshly-killed spiders. "They're really tasty!"

Harry's voice turned a bit uncertain, "Well… um… anyway, I usually eat them raw, but Mr. Snape got sick before when we didn't cook 'em enough, and Sergeant-Major Hooktalon had mentioned having a barbecue and how he knew how to cook bugs really well, so I was kinda hoping I could get some help getting them cooked…"

A bout of raucous laughter rang out from the goblin contingent as the Sergeant-Major so mentioned gaped in momentary disbelief before shaking it off and stepping gamely up to the task. "Right you are, and help you'll have, Mr. Potter! You lot! Set about dressing those carcasses so we can get them to a good size for roasting! The young gent was kind enough to provide us with a good spread, we just need to get it on the table! Hop to!"

"But Sarge," came a loud voice from a goblin somewhere in the middle of the crowd, "what about the brown sauce?"

That prompted another round of laughter from his troops. The 'I love bugs — or snakes, or rats, or whatever the problematic wildlife on any given deployment — they make for a splendid grill roast! Tasty with brown sauce!' was one of the Sergeant-Major's favorite lines, and his troops had heard it enough times to know exactly where the young dragon had gotten the idea, even if they weren't there to hear it personally. That someone had finally called him on it, especially someone so innocently serious in the way only young children can be, had the entire platoon tickled pink — well, not really 'pink' but 'tickled a sort of greenish khaki color' didn't have nearly the same ring to it.

The fact that they were going to get some good grub out of it only made the whole thing better.

Taking some pity on the goblin officer with whom they had become well-acquainted over the past few weeks, Bane and his father ambled over to offer their expertise in acromantula butchery and, not incidentally, to drop off the deer they had brought before the blood stains on their festival-best got any bigger.

As the area around the cooking fires devolved into the chaotic-yet-purposeful mess inherent in the task of butchering and roasting three animals which massed more than most of the guests combined, Harry smoothly shifted into his human form for the first time in several weeks in order to make his rounds as the host, his damsels in tow. Safely navigating the crowd in his native form would have been nerve-wracking. With most of the goblins caught up in the serious business of a good barbecue, the young dragon's path took him first to his wizarding friends, and a few greetings and thanks were exchanged in the usual way of such things.

As Harry neared the area where Albus was chatting with a much younger-looking couple, the elderly wizard called him over, sounding rather jovial after a few tankards of Sprout's mead.

"Harry, my boy, come over here! I would like to introduce you to someone."

"Uhm, hello?" the small boy-shaped dragon said as he jogged over to the trio.

"This is my mentor, Nicholas Flamel and his wife, Perenelle," Dumbledore introduced his companions. "Nicholas was kind enough to aid in your treatment after your unfortunate ingestion of his stone."

Harry's eyes lit up. "Oh, I wanted to meet you! Um, thanks for helping," he said earnestly.

"Think nothing of it, Mr. Potter," the young-looking man said. "Yours was a fascinating case! I'll have research material for the next three centuries out of this!"

"Okay, and… um, I'm sorry about eating your stone, too," the currently human-shaped dragon apologized. "I mean I didn't know the guy was carrying it, so I didn't mean to eat it, but I still did, so sorry about that."

"Oh, it's quite all right, no great loss; they're easy enough to reproduce when you know how," Nicholas said, waving it off. "That said, I do believe you owe me five-hundred and twelve galleons, six sickles, and a knut to pay for the ingredients for a replacement."

Harry thought about that for a moment, a little nonplussed. "That seems reasonable."

"Normally, I would have objected to my husband's miserly behavior," the alchemist's wife spoke up for the first time, elbowing said husband when he made to object to her description, "…oh hush, Nicholas! You paved the pathways in my vegetable garden with solid gold gravel! We hardly need quibble over a few hundred galleons!" The young-looking woman turned back to Harry. "However, I felt that it would be a good reminder for you to watch what you put in your mouth in the future, young man. My Nicholas tells me you almost paid dearly for that this time, and if this helps you remember to avoid such issues in the future, then it is money well spent!"

Harry nodded at her reasoning, and then the conversation turned to some of Mr. Dumbledore's more esoteric political efforts which soon had Harry wandering off to talk to other people. He learned from Miss Vector that Mr. Snape had gone off on a run to his local grocer to pick up ingredients for Hooktalon's famous brown sauce, which had Harry feeling kind of bad.

He should have asked the Sergeant Major about it before putting him on the spot like that; not having the ingredients on hand must have been really embarrassing!

The spiders had been properly butchered, and they were now sitting in a large number of relatively small pieces — the largest of which were about the size of a smallish pig — on jury-rigged racks above and around the large fires Harry had built earlier with his damsels' help. With that accomplished, most of the goblins left the meat to cook and began to enjoy the party.

A few groups broke out instruments, ranging from several harmonicas to mouth-harps to one well-traveled fellow who broke out a knife and hunted down a hollow branch to make a didgeridoo which made for an interesting sort of effect with the droning buzz echoing off the surrounding cliffsides.

Not to be outdone, Harry's friends from the school broke out their own instruments, Minerva with her bagpipes and Flitwick with his low-pipe in particular for a rather eclectic impromptu performance. As the mead continued to flow, the music only got more involved, traditional Or'zet drinking songs rang off across the hilltop followed by Scottish folk music in a cheerful sort of competition.

Harry sat enjoying the spontaneous concert for some time before eventually moving on, eventually coming to Mr. Slackhammer and a pair of goblins he didn't know who smelled a little like Corporal Mantrap.

"Ah, Mr. Potter! Your gathering has thus far been quite splendid, a true delight to attend!" the portly goblin greeted his business associate. "I am greatly looking forward to sampling your roast acromantula; Mr. Snape's account of his past experience has set a high bar, indeed."

"Thanks for coming! It's nice to be able to have a party for once," Harry replied. "I mean, Mrs. McGonagall helped me have that Burns Night one, but that was only about five people." The young dragon turned to the dapper goblin's companions. "Are these…"

"Ah, yes," Slackhammer's mood turned more serious, "allow me to introduce to you Shatterclaw, honorable mate of the late Corporal Mantrap, and Clawhammer, their eldest daughter." The two goblin females nodded to the dragon in human form.

"Um, well, thanks for coming," Harry began. "When I found out Corporal Mantrap died, I wanted to do something, 'cause he was my friend, and well, I thought inviting some of his family to the party would be a good way of remembering him. I mean, he was going to look in on me to check on my marksmanship progress after this deployment, and he didn't get to do that, so I thought having you guys come would be almost like having him come over, and I thought you might like it, too? You know, knowing that I miss him too."

"Your invitation was well received, Mr. Potter," Shatterclaw assured him. "And you are correct, it is good to know that Mantrap will be missed by others outside the family. Even aside from that, it is good to meet you, as well."

"Well, thanks!" Harry said. "I'm glad it was well received. Wish I could have done something for him, though."

"At least you managed to kill the one responsible for my father's death, Mr. Potter," Clawhammer spoke for the first time. "That counts for a great deal."

Harry grimaced. "Well, I thought I did, but Mr. Dumbledore said it was more complicated than that. Something about 'mental domination' and spiritual possession. It was really confusing, and Mr. Snape hasn't had the chance to explain to me like he said he would…"

"I see," the young goblin said in a dangerous sort of voice. "The killer is still alive, then?"

"Maybe?" Harry frowned uncertainly. "It was really hard to follow. I know the guy I ate said he was that Voldemort guy, but I'm not so sure he was telling the truth about that, and after I ate him, he came out as some sort of screaming ghost-fart-thingy. You might want to ask Mr. Dumbledore; he could probably explain better," the young dragon pointed across the crowd. "He's over there talking with Mr. and Mrs. Flamel, if you want to talk with him."

"I believe we will do so," Shatterclaw said, her eyes glinting darkly. "Information is key for properly dealing with such things. Thank you for your invitation… and for the advice." With that, the goblin stalked off purposefully, followed closely by her eldest child.

The young dragon turned to his business partner. "I hope I handled that right," Harry remarked. "I mean, I knew I should do something, but I've never had to try to help people after they lost somebody before."

"You did very well, Mr. Potter," Slackhammer assured him. "I believe their clan was rather disappointed that the culprit had died so quickly. This will give them something to occupy themselves with while they grieve, and it gives the opportunity for potentially gaining closure."

That… didn't seem quite right to Harry, but he supposed he was pretty young yet, and they were goblins. The human-shaped dragon nodded slowly; it was probably best to defer to the experience of his elder business partner on the subject.

"So, Mr. Slackhammer, I've been thinking," Harry changed the subject. "I wanted to thank you for all the help when I was sick, what with the medical help and the food and the security and all. That was way more than you had to do, so thanks!"

"Not at all, Mr. Potter, not at all," the rotund goblin replied. "Our association has been spectacularly profitable for all involved and well worth the costs incurred in providing assistance."

"Well, that doesn't mean I shouldn't thank you, so thanks again," Harry said. "And, um, I was wondering, well, you probably noticed I'm kinda not gonna have my scales for a while until the next set grows in after the philosopher's stone thing, and I'm feeling kinda well, like I'm not…"

"You are feeling somewhat vulnerable at the idea of being temporarily deprived of one of your chief defenses?" Slackhammer offered.

"Yeah," Harry hung his head. "I was wondering if I could maybe hire Griphook's squad to look after the Lair? You know, just 'til my scales grow back?"

The dapper goblin turned thoughtful. "Well, Mr. Potter, I do believe something could be arranged in that regard…"

With that the pair fell into a discussion of pay rates and details during which Harry learned a great deal about both the logistics of small modern military groups and the ancient art of haggling. Even after the deal was reached, Slackhammer took it upon himself to explain to Harry how he could do better at negotiations in the future.

The pair continued in that vein until the strident voice of the Sergeant Major called out that the barbecue was ready.

The spread was massive, mountains of roasted acromantula took center stage; though it was no longer in recognizable spider-shape, thankfully for peace of mind of most of the participants in the feast. The meat ended up tasting a great deal like a cross between shrimp and lobster, and most found it to be good eating, particularly when accompanied by the Sergeant Major's brown sauce. For those who couldn't handle the idea of eating giant spider meat, there was a still very impressive array of more traditional fare, and everyone in attendance ate their fill — except for the host of course.

Harry's appetite left no survivors.

As the celebration wound down, the buffet dwindled, and Mrs. Sprout's barrels of mead emptied, Harry looked out over the crowd of his friends enjoying themselves on the roof of his home. As more of the guests ate their fill, more mouths became unoccupied, and the earlier instruments were joined by voices. As the evening was wrapping up, the contented dragon was currently listening appreciatively to Mrs. McGonagall's final rendition of The Parting Glass as she prepared to retire for the evening.

As far as ways to celebrate recovering from an illness went, this was a pretty good one, in Harry's considered opinion — he just wished he could have invited Abigail too. But that aside, Harry was certain of at least one thing.

The barbecue had definitely been a good idea.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

3.2 Unpleasant truths

---

3.2.1 Business trips

A week after his guests had gone home well-sated from an evening of good food and better companionship under the summer night sky, Harry had rid himself of the last of his golden mange, and his new scales had grown to the point that they now formed more of a houndstooth pattern than polka-dot. It was a significant improvement in the young dragon's considered opinion.

Harry had stacked the shed scales neatly in one of the deeper chambers in the Lair in case he wanted to do something with them later; waste not, want not, and all that. If nothing else, he figured he'd probably melt them down for bullion; they probably contained more gold than the rest of his bullion stash, though it was a bit hard to be sure without actually melting them down.

He'd been meaning to expand his workshop anyway, and that would be as good an excuse as any. He had a couple of large pieces of equipment on order, but they'd be a while yet; right now, it was basically a room with a sturdy table and good lighting. A small-scale foundry seemed like a good next step while he waited for some of the other equipment he had on order. Gold melted easily, and he was sure it'd be pretty fun to cobble something together for that purpose. It was something to consider, in any event.

That said, his new scales might be growing in well, but boy did they make him itch while they did! Harry had thought it was bad when he was little, but at least then it had only been spots where he had grown a little too fast for the scales to keep up. This time it was everywhere, and he couldn't even scratch! While his scales would easily turn his talons, his bare skin was not so durable.

In a futile attempt to distract himself from the blasted itching, the dragon's attempts at mastering Snape's message spell redoubled, and while it did little for the itch, it did wonders for his proficiency with the spell. Over the course of a few days, Harry went from exploding parchment to a serviceable animated crane, and with that breakthrough, the young dragon finally managed to send off his long-delayed letter to his friend, Abigail. The messenger crane might have been a little quirky due to the spell still being overcharged, but he figured it would get there okay.

With that issue finally resolved, Harry had just gotten to the point of resigning himself to endure the long, itchy process of letting his new scales grow to full size when his professor friends reminded him that they had planned to take him on a field trip to several of the stone rings in order to get his view on how the devices were structured, and Harry seized onto that new and welcome distraction with all six limbs.

So it was that Harry found himself charging a portkey to carry himself, his damsels, and three of his professor friends to Avebury on a lazy summer afternoon in early July.

3.2.2 Avebury

Hermione silently cursed herself for her curiosity as she leaned against her friend's not-quite-as-scaly-as-normal side. Why had she agreed to come along on this trip, again?

When Harry had asked if she wanted to join him for a trip to see several of the famous stone circles, the girl had jumped at the chance. She had always wanted to go visit the great archaeological sites, but with her parents' schedule at the practice, she'd never had the chance. Now her friend was offering to take her, not just to one such site, but to three in one afternoon?

Of course, she had agreed! How could she not?

Well, when they arrived in Avebury via portkey, she had quickly learned how. She had been immediately drenched to the skin by a soaking rain pouring out of a flat grey sky, a rain that showed not the slightest hint of letting up any time soon. The circle was large, and it housed an entire community, so the portkey had brought them down in the middle of a copse of trees to the northwest of the ring proper — just north of the local museum, according to her tourist guide.

Unfortunately, while they were ideal for blocking line of sight, the trees did nothing to block the rain.

Luckily, Professor Flitwick had quickly cast a notice-me-not, and then Harry had transformed, providing the entire group an instant, mobile pavilion by extending a helpful wing to keep the rain off them from above. A quick round of drying charms later, and the group was ready to get started. Accordingly, they had their somewhat awkward way through the tree-studded lawn and up onto the outer earthwork of the ring, Harry's wing providing the equivalent of a shared umbrella.

The view was not nearly as impressive as Hermione had hoped.

She knew from her reading that the outer ring was the largest Neolithic stone circle in Britain. Over a kilometer in circumference, the outer ring of standing stones was surrounded by a ditch which was itself encompassed by the ring-shaped earthen mound on which she was currently standing. Two smaller non-concentric stone rings stood within the outer ring, and two stone-lined avenues marked out paths to the center. She imagined it would have made for an impressive sight, were it not for the rain-limited visibility.

Before her stretched a ditch following the curve of the ridge, and beyond that stood the line of stones, again following the same curve. As it was, Hermione could barely make out the sheep grazing fifty yards past the line of stones gently curving off into the gray downpour to either side, much less the far side of the ring. If she squinted, she could just make out a low hedgerow to the right of the sheep, marking — she supposed — the edge of the town built inside the ring.

As far as Hermione could see, there wasn't much to look at, but she seemed to be alone in that regard. Within moments of settling in on top of the earthwork, the expedition immediately devolved into Harry describing some arcane vision only he could see, and Flitwick, Vector, or sometimes Babbling asking for clarification of something Hermione didn't even know enough about to imagine.

By the time Hermione had puzzled through the abstruse dialogue and formulated a reasonable question, the conversation had already moved on through four different topics, leaving her hopelessly behind. The bushy-haired girl's fingers itched for something to write with, so she could at least attempt record what was going on to make sense of it later, but she had unfortunately not thought to bring anything along.

It was tremendously frustrating.

As the time passed, the group would periodically shuffle around to different vantage points in order to get a different perspective on whatever invisible thing Harry was looking at. The dragon-shaped boy seemed to be able to see all the way to the other side of the ring without difficulty, despite the intervening rain — and buildings, as she discovered on some of the later shuffling transits — but apparently the magical device had a great deal of three-dimensional structure, necessitating the shifts in viewpoint. It must have been a fascinating sight…

…which left her even more exasperated at her inability to see it.

She had expected… well Hermione wasn't quite sure what she had expected, except that it would have been more exciting than this. Dodging traps while sprinting through a collapsing ancient temple, it was not.

All those movies had lied to her!

Her lack of expertise left her unable to follow the conversation; her lack of writing tools left her unable to write down notes for later review; and the weather left her unable to go exploring on her own: all of which combined to force Hermione to count the time leaning impatiently against Harry's side and watching the rain roll off his wing-sail as the damp slowly and uncomfortably wicked through her leather shoes, reduced to fending off the occasional suicidally stupid sheep. After a quarter hour, the bored girl was very much regretting her choice to leave her reading material behind.

They stayed for nearly three hours.

3.2.3 Stonehenge

From Avebury, another portkey took the group a little less than twenty miles south to the famous Stonehenge, another of those historical sites that Hermione had so wanted to visit. Again, the rain showed no sign of abatement; though Hermione held high hopes for the last site on the list, it was far enough north that it had to be outside this weather system.

Once again, the soaking rain had them all huddling under Harry's wing; however, the conversation was a little more relatable — at least for a time.

"Ouch!" Harry winced. "Ah, man that's bright!"

"That stands to reason, I suppose," Vector chimed in. "This device has yet to be discharged, after all."

"What can you tell us about the structure?" Flitwick asked.

"I dunno," Harry said, squinting at the ground below the standing stones. "It's all one big bright thing, can't really see any detail."

The professors fell silent for a moment as they considered what to do before Flitwick spoke up once again. "Mr. Potter, I have an idea, please allow this charm through your defenses."

At the dragon's nod, he cast. "Whoa! Who turned out the lights?" Harry asked. He held one of his claws up in front of his face. "I can barely see my hand!"

"It is a dueling spell I learned some time ago, essentially the inverse of the supersensory charm," the diminutive professor explained. "Most confuse its effects with those of the blinding curse, and thus they use the wrong counter. Please tell us what you can see of the device now, Mr. Potter."

"Oh, right," Harry turned back to the circle. "Oh, wow, that's really clear now! Right, so it's got the rings we talked about before…"

From there, Hermione was once again lost to the discussion as the professors asked for clarification and busily sketched diagrams and made theories. Once again, the rain kept Hermione from going and exploring the ring on her own, taking in the atmosphere of ancient history.

The bushy-haired girl was beginning to despise rain.

After another four hours, the rain was just beginning to let up, and Hermione was greatly looking forward to finally getting to walk over and touch the stones…

…just in time for the portkey to the last site.

3.2.4 Stenness

This time, they appeared under a clear sky, though after her repeated drenchings, Hermione was feeling a bit chilly in the cool summer afternoon on the southeastern shore of the Loch of Stenness. The bushy-haired girl was happy to count her blessings, though; she'd take a chilly breeze over a chilly downpour any day of the week. Hermione's relief was quickly overshadowed with concern, though, when her friend let out a sharp exclamation of pain.

"Ouch!" Harry snapped flinching away from the ring. "Oh, man! That's even bright through my eyelids!"

Flitwick quickly offered, and the same charm was cast — and then cast again, before Harry could make out any detail. As the adults settled down into another question-and-answer session with the mostly blind dragon playing the part of an oracle, Suze took it upon herself to stand guard over the partially-incapacitated Harry, rifle in hand.

Hermione, on the other hand, took the opportunity to explore a bit. The stones stood in the middle of a fenced field separated from the adjacent loch by a narrow two-lane road. As she approached the stones, standing majestic under the late afternoon sun with their weathered gray surfaces contrasting sharply with the lush green summer grass of the surrounding pasture, the girl began to get a feel for the place.

Hermione knew from her reading that these stones were believed to be more than five thousand years old, but she had not realized just what that meant until that very moment, looking up at a foot-thick slab of stone nearly three times taller than herself, brightly lit by the late-afternoon sun.

That stone had been set in place more than five-thousand years ago by people just like her. There had been people on this spot, growing up, raising children, building things, living out their lives — with all the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs that that implied — for all that time.

When the Magna Carta was signed, that stone had already been standing for more than four thousand years. When Arthur reigned in Camelot, that stone had been standing for more than thirty-five hundred years. When Jesus was nailed to the cross in Jerusalem, that stone had been standing for more than three thousand years.

When Rome, the so-called Eternal City, was founded, that stone had already been standing for longer than Christianity had existed in modern times.

People, people just like her, had been living and loving, dying and grieving for all that time. With that realization came a sense of continuity the young girl had never felt before. Five thousand years of human history; five thousand years of stories, all played out while that stone stood its vigil…

It was hard to wrap her head around.

The real kicker, though, came when she turned to look back over the loch and leaned back against that stone to watch the setting sun, and she saw the dark bulk of her currently dragon-shaped friend silhouetted against the reddening sky. Her friend, Harry, was helping their professors learn about a device — of which the stone she was leaning against was but a small part — which was still in perfect working order after five thousand years of continuous operation.

She was leaning against a piece of machinery which had not been merely standing in mute endurance for five thousand years but rather had been operating as designed uninterrupted for five millennia, and it was one of hundreds like it spread across the world. She was leaning against a stone which was perhaps the most impressive piece of engineering the world had ever known, and with that startling realization came another.

Engineering takes practice.

To create a piece of machinery, magical or otherwise, as enduring as the one she was leaning against took practice and repetition, planning and prototyping, iteration after iteration of slowly improving designs. She might have accepted a single such device just happening to stay functional for all that time on the first try — maybe — but for hundreds of them to do so?

Modern historians were fond of measuring the progress of history through the progress of technology. The space age succeeded the atomic age which succeeded the industrial age and so on and so forth back to the iron age, the bronze age, and finally the stone age. Everything that came before, from the first time a proto-hominid picked up a rock and used it as an improvised hammer up to the superbly engineered device currently at her back, had been lumped under that single heading.

Just how much history had been lost to the sands of time — just how much had been forgotten — that that sort of range was collapsed into a single category? Primitive societies didn't produce technological wonders like the stone she leaned against. That was the product of centuries, or more likely millennia, worth of coordinated research and development.

How far back did her heritage stretch?

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the vivid sunset dulled to the muted colors of twilight, prompting the young girl made her way back across the field. Hermione nodded affably to a watchful Suze as she approached, settled in comfortably next to her scaly friend, and smiled as she came to a pleased conclusion.

She was glad she had come on this trip after all.

Rain or no rain.

3.2.5 The Devil's toolbox

"Um, Mr. Snape?" a familiar voice sounded as Severus Snape passed the main castle entrance on his way to the kitchens.

During the summer break, the potions master preferred to take his meals in the closer quarters of the old servant's dining hall near the kitchens. The Great Hall always seemed rather depressingly empty without the dull roar of the student body. Severus Snape had had more than enough depression in his life without courting more through his choice of dining venues.

"What do you want, Mr. Potter?" he asked without turning to face the voice. The potions master did, however, moderate his stride slightly to accommodate the shorter strides of the dragon's human form.

There was a quick shuffle as the young Potter scrambled to catch up. "Um, if you've got the time, you mentioned before that you'd explain more about compulsions and their ramifications…"

Snape sighed, there went his chance for a pleasant lunch.

"Very well, you may join me for lunch where I will explain." In fact, speaking of joining — "If I may ask, Mr. Potter, where have you left your usual entourage?"

"Hmm?"

"Since your illness, Miss Granger and Miss Suze have been effectively grafted to your side," the potions master elaborated. "Yet they are not present now. Where are they?"

"Oh, well, Hermione found something in my collection of books which got her all excited. I'm not sure why, they were all books I had other copies of that I know she had seen before," the dragon answered, "and since we were in the castle, Suze decided to go check on something in the library for her project with her uncle, Ronan. They're trying to find a local substitute for one of the ingredients in a wood-strengthening potion to use for his pulley axles."

That caught Snape's professional interest. "What ingredient are they attempting to replace?"

"Some sort of lacquer made from the wings of a magical beetle native to the Congo," Harry replied. "I offered to just buy them a big supply, but since they're trying to produce weapons for themselves, they want to make sure they have reliable sources for all the ingredients."

"Understandable," Snape mused as they continued to walk. "I must admit wood strengthening potions have not been a major study of mine, though I am familiar with the beetle in question. As I recall, the exoskeleton of the common cockroach can be substituted in most situations, though the distillation of the lacquer in that case requires the use of a specially-prepared cauldron — a faceted granite basin with runic inlays of mica on the inner surface as I recall."

"That sounds hard to make," Harry commented.

"Quite so," the potions master acknowledged. "Even though the Congolese beetles are nearly twenty-thousand times as expensive as the cockroaches, the cauldron is still the less economical choice — even in volume brewing — as the cauldron would wear out before the initial investment was recovered. It was a case study on brewing economics I reviewed during my mastery studies."

With that, the pair arrived at a large dining hall — three doors down on the less-used side of the hallway housing the Hufflepuff dorm entrance.

"Wow! I've never seen this room before," the excitable dragon said. "What is it for?"

"It is the dining hall for the servants' quarters," Snape explained. "Prior to the incorporation of house elves into the castle, it was, like most others, operated by human labor. Helga Hufflepuff was said to have insisted on her House being placed in close proximity to the servants' quarters to remind her students of the value of good, hard, work."

"That makes sense," Harry said before frowning. "Wait, I thought the house elves were contracted back in the six-hundreds and Hogwarts wasn't founded until 997; why didn't the castle employ them from the start?"

"That actually ties into our proposed topic of discussion," Snape sighed as he and the young human-shaped dragon took a seat at one of the simple tables. "Brownies, the minor fae that were the — ancestors, for lack of a better term — of our current house elves," the sallow-skinned man nodded in acknowledgement to the house elf currently serving his lunch and Harry's much larger light snack, "chose to serve in family homes. Brownies liked to work, but they preferred serving individual families where they could become a valued part of that family. While the differences in mindset implicit in their nature as fae made for certain, sometimes deadly, complications, family was always the end goal, and the introduction of the contract simply laid out behavioral expectations. The new house elves still wanted to be part of families."

The dragon nodded in between bites of his food; attention raptly focused on his teacher.

"For that reason, public institutions, places like the Ministry or Hogwarts, were not sought-after posts," Snape continued. "A school such as Hogwarts houses no close-knit family with which to integrate, thus house elves were not interested. That changed with the use of compulsion spells."

"So, the house elves are only here because they're being forced to be?" Harry asked, frowning. "That doesn't sound like something Mr. Dumbledore would let happen — I mean, I could see it happening somewhere else where he's not in charge, but at his own school? There must be something else going on."

Snape nodded, "Well-reasoned, Mr. Potter; were it simply a case of breaking compulsions, I am sure Albus would already have done so. The crux of the matter is the nature of the spells used and their interaction with the nature of the fae. While mental spells cast on a human or human-like person only affect the behavior of the targeted person, creatures of the fae are affected differently. The fae are more spirit than flesh, and thus they are more magically realized ideas than they are biological creatures. Mental magics attack those ideas and twist them, which is both why the brownies became house elves when they went under contract and why house elves have remained under compulsion generations after the last such spell was cast; the effects of the spell are passed down through the fae methods of reproduction."

At the dragon's puzzled look, Snape sighed, "Perhaps I should begin more generally so that you might better understand the nature of such magics. What do we mean when we speak of control?" The potions master paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "When one considers the possible means of controlling the actions of another free individual, there are many avenues to consider. For example, one could simply ask. If I were to ask you to pass the salt, you would most likely do so, and I would have successfully controlled your actions. That sort of control is a voluntary one, you freely chose to do what I wanted you to do for your own reasons."

As Harry nodded with a thoughtful expression, Snape continued, "Were I significantly stronger than you, I might have the option of bodily forcing you to take certain actions. For instance, your Miss Granger used such methods at several points to prevent Mr. Longbottom from adding ingredients in the wrong order in my class. That is another means of controlling another person, an involuntary one. Miss Granger forced Mr. Longbottom to stop his actions rather than allowing him to choose to stop."

"Neither of those seem too bad," the young dragon commented. "I mean, the one is just being polite, and the other was to help Neville."

"The two examples I presented are moral uses of control," Snape agreed. "There are, however, immoral ways to control others using the same methods. If, for instance, someone were to ask you to use your great strength to raze Hogwarts to the ground, killing all within, you would, in all likelihood, refuse because you would not freely choose to do such a thing."

"Of course not!" Harry exclaimed, horrified.

Snape nodded. "However, if the same person were to ask you the same thing, but this time the request were accompanied by a threat to kill Miss Granger in a horribly grisly manner should you refuse, then would you make the same choice?"

"What?" the human-shaped dragon hissed in a horrified whisper which quickly shifted to an angry basso-profundo growl. "No way, I'd eat the guy! No one threatens my damsels!"

"And you would be in the right to do so, in all likelihood," Snape allowed. "But what if you were not so powerful that you could prevent the threat from being carried out? At that point, the choice becomes less clear, and you must weigh the outcomes against one another: do you care more about Miss Granger or your friends at the castle?"

"People really do that kind of thing?" Harry asked.

"Mr. Potter, that form of forcing behavior is common enough to have a variety of names depending on the nature of threats made and the actions demanded. Threatening the release of privileged or even falsified information is usually called blackmail; threatening economic consequences is usually called extortion or racketeering; and threatening physical violence is often simply called a threat or coercion, though there are a wide variety of other terms used in various circumstances."

That revelation had Harry looking rather like he had smelled something unpleasant.

"Another option would be to control the information that a person uses to make decisions," the potions master continued. "If, instead of threatening Miss Granger to force you to raze the castle, our hypothetical dastardly fellow managed to simply kill her and then lie to you convincingly enough to have you believing that the inhabitants of the castle had done so instead, then you might choose to destroy the castle on the basis of that information. By controlling your knowledge of the situation, your actions would have been controlled."

Harry grumbled at that for a few moments before he asked, "What about the physical one, where you actually force someone to take an action they don't ultimately choose to do?"

Snape grimaced. This was not going to be a pleasant part of the conversation, given Harry's age. "Without magic — and I have been saving the inclusion of magic in the mix for later in the conversation — that is a somewhat more limited subject, as the line between physical coercion and physical violence is somewhat blurred. There are only so many actions a human body can be unwillingly forced into performing in any meaningful way."

"What do you mean by a 'meaningful way'?" Harry asked.

Snape thought for a moment. "For example, going back to the salt-shaker, if I were to grab your hand with my own, move it over to the salt shaker, squeeze your hand shut with my own, move it in front of myself, then force your hand back open and take the shaker from you, would you say that I had forced you to pass me the salt shaker, or would you say that I had grabbed the salt shaker myself in an unnecessarily invasive and irritating way?"

"Oh, I think I get it now," the human-shaped dragon said. "It's 'cause it's really obvious that the other person is doing it, right?"

"Exactly. Without magic — because a great deal about this discussion changes when magic is considered — meaningful direct physical coercion is, in my experience, usually limited to forced sexual acts," Snape said with a disgusted grimace.

"Oh," Harry said, looking puzzled. "That's more of that kissy-face, making-babies stuff? 'Cause I don't really get that yet."

Snape snorted at that, his sizeable proboscis lending the sound a certain gravitas. "Yes, it is related to that, and I am grateful that you do not yet understand. As a child you should not be forced into such things too early, rather you should come into such knowledge as your body becomes ready to make use of it. Forcing such things to progress too quickly promotes misunderstanding, and, particularly in such a deeply rooted and emotionally charged facet of the human experience, misunderstanding promulgates suffering. With that in mind, I will simply inform you that the act of forcing an unwilling person to engage in such actions is called 'rape', and it is a grave and terrible act of evil. To return to our topic of discussion, though such things can be forced using threats, they are also some of the few actions which can be meaningfully forced on someone by main strength as well."

"Okay," Harry said uncertainly. "But what about when you bring magic into the picture? You said a lot of stuff changes, but how does it change things?"

"It does indeed," Snape said. "Perhaps the most obvious change is that many more actions can be meaningfully forced through the use of magic than without. To revisit the salt shaker once more, if this time, I were to use a charm to animate your arm, or worse yet, one to stimulate your muscles in such a way that your arm moved, apparently on its own, to pick up the salt shaker and pass it to me, would you then say that I had forced you to pass me the salt shaker?"

"Oh, I think I see the difference," Harry said thoughtfully, imagining the situation. "Yeah, that does have a really different feel to it."

"To all appearances, including your own perception of events, you would have taken an action at my behest without deciding to do it yourself," Snape elaborated. "That subtle difference can have a great deal of impact on the person being controlled. Such spells exist, and their existence means that main force can be used to meaningfully force an entire range of actions through magic."

"There is also the standard use of threats to coerce behavior. In this realm, magic mostly makes such threats more easily enforced, opening new mechanisms for carrying out the threats issued and, more cogently, providing means of enforcing such coerced decisions once made," Snape explained. "Magical contracts are particularly notorious in that regard. There is one aspect, though, which magic changes greatly, and that is in making your inner thoughts available to others. How often have you heard someone say something to the effect of, 'If you even think of doing that, you'll be sorry!'? With magic, such threats become possible to enforce, and if you make someone unable to even consider a course of action, how could they possibly follow it?"

Harry nodded slowly.

"A similarly insidious use of controlling magic is in the use of compulsions. As I am certain you have encountered in your reading, compulsions are a class of spell which induce a desire to take a certain action in the target." Snape grimaced, "Such spells essentially force a choice on the target by manufacturing a seemingly internal impulse to take a certain action. It is often difficult for victims to discern between such compulsions and their own unforced choices, causing them to question their own will."

"For reference," the potions master continued, "based on the evidence I have seen, I believe a combination of these methods — compulsions and direct mental control — was used to force Quirrel's actions which led to your extended convalescence."

Harry again nodded thoughtfully, a little more appreciative of why Professor Quirrel had been unable to shrug off the magic. That sounded pretty tough — if it managed to connect.

"Perhaps the subtlest tool in the devil's toolbox, however, lies in the realm of information control. A skilled user of mental magics can, using the obliviate charm, control a person's very memory, rewriting their knowledge of the past at will." Snape sneered. "While a person is not completely a product of their experiences, those experiences inform their convictions, and alterations to their memory can cast a person adrift without the hard-earned knowledge and experience that would normally guide them home, making them far more vulnerable to other mental magics — or even to basic suggestion for that matter. A skilled obliviator can convince almost anyone of almost anything, and even an unskilled one can reduce a breathing, thinking person into a docile unthinking puppet with a single spell."

"These are the tools which have built the festering cesspit that is the modern wizarding world," the potions master concluded. "They are tools from which you have little to fear, Mr. Potter. Due to your nature, non-magical threats are for the most part irrelevant to you, and magical threats slough off your scales like a light rain from the castle roof. The only real threat such things can impose on you comes through attacks using your friends as proxies."

"Anyone who tries that is gonna get eaten," Harry said as darkly as he had ever said anything before, his native ultra-deep bass leaking through in his agitation.

"An eminently appropriate response, I would venture," Snape concurred. "The problem, however, lies in the vulnerability of your friends. The monsters currently in power for the most part gained their position through the skillful use of these tools of manipulation in combination with a firm understanding of human psychology and a complete absence of any semblance of basic human decency."

"Using those three things, a sufficiently skilled wizard can take an unwilling victim and wipe their minds to the point that they remember no other life but captivity over the course of a single hour. Given another few days, they can be broken of any semblance of disobedience, and within a week, they will be not only obedient but in fact eager to serve in any capacity, no matter how dangerous or degrading," the dark man growled. "It is a toolbox designed to turn the magnificent and sacred marvel of the human person into an undignified and broken commodity to be sold to the highest bidder and discarded on a whim."

Harry was silent for a moment as he tried to digest that horrifying idea. In the end, he could only conclude, "That is really, really bad."

Snape's dark eyes seemed to burn with an almost religious fervor, "That is the horror of the wizarding world, Mr. Potter. That is the ultimate reason for our plans to overthrow the wizarding government, and that is the reason I will see this wretched wizarding world torn down at any cost."

3.2.6 Vengeance delayed

"Lucius, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Narcissa had just come from a meeting with one of her factors — the one she usually had looking over her husband's actions to ensure he wasn't getting away with lying to her. Not that Narcissa minded a little lying — in fact she expected it; she didn't want her marriage to be too boring, after all — but she couldn't have him getting away with it. It would set a bad precedent. This time, her spy had relayed a troubling bit of news.

"Regarding the Weasley operation?" Lucius confirmed.

"Have you botched anything else that badly recently?" his wife asked archly.

"The job is still on," the blond man assured his wife, "it has simply suffered a slight delay."

"Lucius, we cannot allow our execution to be so lackadaisical," Narcissa insisted. "Vengeance delayed is vengeance that loses its impact!"

"I do apologize, dear, but the men are working as fast as they can," Lucius said. "They will take the mudblood on the next available opportunity. Unfortunately, she has yet to return to her residence, and there are no other leads on her location."

Narcissa's foreboding expression told Lucius all he needed to know about her opinion on his excuses, prompting him to offer, "I do, however, have another lead on our other target."

"The Weasley daughter?" Narcissa confirmed. At her husband's nod, she continued, "I had expected her to be the more difficult target of the two."

"It is more of an unexpected windfall than a cunning plan, I am afraid," Lucius averred. "Our benefactor entrusted to me a certain artifact which was to be released into the possession of a likely victim on a certain signal. That signal just arrived…"

"…and who better to offer up than the youngest of the Weasley brats?" Narcissa finished. "Perhaps you are still worth keeping around," she allowed. "What is your method of delivery, not another group of footpads, I hope?"

"No, I would not presume to rely on such for the execution of our benefactor's request," Lucius agreed.

"Then what is your plan, Lucius?"

"I will be planting the device personally. I will even have the opportunity to strike the Weasley patriarch in the process! It should be a grand time."

Narcissa sighed, "I shall have the elves obtain bruise ointment in preparation."

"Narcissa! Where is your confidence in your husband?" Lucius demanded in an exaggeratedly scandalized tone.

"Where it generally is, husband. I am confident that you will succeed in your scheme, and I am equally confident that you will not come out of a fist-fight with Arthur Weasley unscathed," Narcissa said. "I am supportive, but I am also a realist."

"Fair enough."

3.2.7 Welcome messages and awkward conversations

Abigail was worried.

When the end of the school year had come, she had been forced to leave despite Harry's condition, and not knowing what was going on with her friend had been eating at her ever since. Abigail was not one to leave a job half-done, nor was she the sort to leave her friends in the lurch. In fact, had it not been for her ambition to do something about the state of the wizarding world and her place in it, the Hat likely would have insisted on placing her in the Sett.

Regardless of her anxiety, there was little Abigail could do about it now. Her parents would hardly allow her to run off to some boy's house during the summer — not without at least meeting him first, and Harry was hardly in a condition to make a good first impression! In any case, when she had floated the idea to her mother, Abigail had been met with the eminently reasonable argument that Harry was already being cared for by an impressive collection of very professional and competent adults, and that Abigail shouldn't worry so much.

She could see the point. Harry was strong, and he did have an amazingly skilled group doing their level best to fix him up, and while Abigail was confident in her abilities, she was also realistic about them. There was a reason she had only been able to help by keeping watch over the boy and feeding him — healing was well outside of her skill set.

Without any way to help, she tried to keep herself occupied and bury her worries under a bustle of activity. Unfortunately, she had finished her summer homework within a week, and she was left with the choice between starting her review for her NEWTs — the horribly unpleasant exit testing she was due to take during the next year — and finding something else to do. Abigail couldn't quite muster up the masochism necessary to voluntarily start a review for those things quite this early, so she was left with the second alternative.

To that end, she was walking through the gardens outside her family home. Just as she rounded the old sprawling oak tree she had so loved climbing when she was little, she was treated to an odd sight.

Sylvester — one of the many near-wild cats which called the property home after her paternal grandmother's pet had proven to be a tad indiscriminate — was stalking a water-stained and somewhat tattered paper crane. The folded paper crane — the animated type she had seen her Head of House use for messages from time to time — had alighted on one of the garden benches and was visibly searching this way and that for something.

As the girl watched in bemusement, Sylvester pounced, knocking the paper crane off the bench where it skidded through the dirt and gravel garden path. Now covered in smudges, the animated crane climbed back to its… well it didn't properly have feet, but back to an upright position before it turned its paper head and gave the impression of squinting as it settled firmly into its position. The two wings came up in a boxing guard, and the thing's entire posture screamed challenge.

It was an offer that Sylvester was eager to take up, and he pounced again — this time with the height of the bench to his advantage — only for his target to dodge to the side of his forepaw and strike the inside of said appendage with an absurd amount of force for a piece of folded paper, eliciting a pained yowl as Sylvester scrambled for distance.

As the cat collected itself — hissing feline imprecations at the indignity — Abigail came to a realization that had her stepping in to interfere in the miniature grudge match. The animated memorandum was familiar, but the absurdly lifelike personality and strength to handily fight off a tomcat were not. She knew for a fact that the original spell was capable of neither of those things, and they smacked of a spell overpowered nearly to the point of failure.

And that… that had Harry written all over it. It had to be him… otherwise it would mean there were two of him!

Abigail was fairly certain her sanity would not survive that sort of revelation.

As she stepped into the fray, Sylvester took the opportunity to flee in search of easier prey, and the paper crane… well, for lack of a better word, craned its head back to take in its new challenger. On seeing her face, the construct flinched in surprise before one of its wings mimed reaching into a pocket for something. The wing came up as if it were holding a picture to compare with Abigail's appearance. The construct then nodded firmly, fluttered up to land in her outstretched hand, and unfolded itself, leaving a smudged, tattered, but still quite readable note in the girl's hand.

It was from Harry! She read eagerly.

Apparently, he had awoken just a few days after the end of the term, and the note went on to say — before she could even work up a proper case of outrage over how long it had taken him to contact her — that he had started learning how to cast the memorandum animation the next day, finishing it only a day ago. He'd found the detail work to be quite difficult to pull off, as his notes had kept exploding.

Abigail looked up from the note, frowning as she considered that — why hadn't he just asked someone else to contact her? That was the obvious solution. Instead Harry had focused with a single-minded intensity on learning a new spell to send a message to her, stubbornly refusing to consider giving up and pursuing any other…

Oh. Abigail reached up to massage her temples with her free hand as she groaned in exasperation.

It was Harry! Stubbornly pursuing the first solution he hit on, no matter how difficult it was, well, that was just what Harry did. He'd change his mind if given a good reason — and she'd make a point to bring it up when they next met for precisely that purpose — but 'it's hard' wasn't an excuse as far as Harry was concerned. That stubborn refusal to back down was part of what made Harry, Harry. In any case, the letter sounded like he had tried his best to do right by her. There was no reason to get upset over him falling short despite that effort.

Teasing him about it later, though, Abigail thought with a mischievous smile, that was certainly fair game… just to make sure the lesson stuck, of course.

Though come to think of it, why didn't Professor Snape let her know Harry had recovered? He could have contacted her at any time, and he knew how concerned she was! She frowned again; didn't he care enough to bother…

Oh, right. Abigail chuckled ruefully and she shook her head. She had answered her own question again. Expecting empathy from her Head of House was like expecting blood from a stone.

Putting such speculations out of her mind for the moment, Abigail turned back to Harry's letter.

Harry went on to thank her for all that she had done to help while he was sick, explaining that Professor Snape had told him about it, and he really appreciated her for being such a good friend. That line had her blushing hotly for a moment before she whirled around as she heard her mother's warmly amused voice from just over her shoulder.

"I see that your young beau has awakened, Abby. Congratulations!"

"Mother!" she protested, embarrassed.

"Daughter!" she mimicked teasingly. "He is something special then? You're not usually one to be this flustered over an invitation to meet at Fortescue's."

"Fortescue's?" Abigail hadn't read that! She turned quickly back to the note.

"You mean you hadn't gotten to that part yet?" her mother asked, surprised. "What on earth were you blushing about, then?"

Abigail blushed again, this time in embarrassment. "The part about him appreciating me for being such a good friend," she muttered reluctantly, knowing her mother was going to get that answer out of her one way or another.

"I see," her mother's tone softened, losing its teasing edge. "I suppose he is special then, if our little Abby is over the moon about his friendship alone. Is this the one you had been hoping for?"

"Maybe?" Abigail said uncertainly. "I mean, I really like him, but he is still pretty young…"

Her mother's gaze sharpened, "How young are we talking here?"

Abigail flushed again as she squeaked, "This was his first year…"

"A first-year!" her mother exclaimed, "Abigail Agatha Abercrombie, what possessed you to pursue an eleven-year-old boy? Your father and I raised you better than that!"

"I wasn't planning on doing anything about it right now!" Abigail protested. "And by the time I'm thirty it wouldn't make a difference!"

"And that's almost twice your age now! How are you going to maintain your self-control that long, young lady?" her mother admonished, "If the boy is enough to attract your attention so firmly at the age of eleven, you're going to have a real time of it, I'll tell you! How hard do you think it will be for you in a few years when he actually hits puberty?"

"It's not that… well, not entirely that, it's just… look, let me explain?" Abigail pleaded.

At her mother's nod, Abigail explained, starting with her encounter on the train and Snape's explanation and going on through the troll incident when Harry saved her life and then his subsequent apology. She touched on the time they spent together and the study sessions and a heavily edited version of their discussion in the spring term.

"You are not telling me everything, Abigail," her mother admonished. "I thought you were going to explain?"

"Harry told me a lot of things in confidence, mother, and I will not break my friend's trust," Abigail said firmly. "Nothing revealed in that conversation has anything to do with a potential relationship in the future aside from the trust he showed by telling me about it. It was all about his future business plans and how he thought I might fit into them."

"He offered you a job?" the elder Abercrombie asked. "I'm not sure how I feel about that…"

"You think I wouldn't do good work?" Abigail said in a brittle sort of voice.

"No, not that," came the reply. "I'm just not sure about the idea of you eventually dating your employer — it is rather inappropriate."

"Oh," her daughter said. "I hadn't actually considered that."

She truly hadn't made the connection between the tentative job offer and Harry being her boss. That would be inappropriate, wouldn't it? It was something to keep in mind.

Though — an older version of Harry with those green eyes of his, wearing dress robes? No, too bulky, perhaps a suit and tie, definitely a green tie to match those eyes, and a nice, sturdy desk in a private office — hmm, something to consider from more than one perspective, she supposed. She shook her head clear before her mother noticed her distraction.

Her mother most assuredly had noticed but decided to forgo the teasing opportunity for once in favor of keeping the conversation on track. "I suppose there is time yet before it would become an issue. What would this job have you doing?"

"The details were pretty light, we were at the very beginning of planning when he got sick, but basically, I'd be helping with the expansion of a freight business that he wants to push into new markets. He thinks I'd be pretty good at the organization and managing necessary to do so."

"A senior management position for a girl right out of school?" her mother asked doubtfully.

"Probably not, I'd guess it'd be a management-track job working for whoever he ends up hiring to run the thing." Abigail explained. "Plus, he wants someone he can trust who is in on his plans to be able to offer input on what to do from a strategic point of view."

"And what sort of things could he have you know that he couldn't trust his primary manager for?" her mother asked skeptically.

Her daughter fell silent for a moment considering her response. "Do you remember what happened to Alice?" Abigail asked. "From back after my first year?"

Her mother winced; Abigail never talked about Alice anymore, not since the incident. Alice had been one of her daughter's childhood friends, a muggle-born witch who had once lived two blocks over. During the summer between Abigail's first and second year, she had disappeared and her family home had burned to the ground. The official investigation never went anywhere, but everyone knew how that sort of thing went.

Among those who didn't outright shun the non-magical world, well… everyone had at least one such story.

Everyone who was decent hated those stories.

"We're going to make sure that stops happening," Abigail said firmly.

But everyone also knew what happened to people who objected to such things too strongly, and almost everyone made the decision, conscious or not, that they didn't hate those stories enough to risk their own necks and those of their families to stop them from happening. It was an ugly and brutish moral calculus.

Apparently, something about this Harry had changed that calculus for her daughter.

The concerned mother watched her daughter carefully for a long moment more before she sighed and gave her daughter a hug.

"Just be careful, Abby."

3.2.8 Requiem and future plans

For the first time in months, the staff conference room once again played host to another discussion furthering the ongoing project to deal with the ancient magical battery apocalypse. Once again Sprout had broken out one of her newest attempts for the occasion, a faintly glowing blue liquor which induced a mild floating sensation in the drinker for a few moments after each sip. Once again, Filius had been tapped to serve the drinks, though he seemed distracted this time around, a distraction that was likely centered around the massive sheaf of notes the diminutive man had brought along to the meeting.

"I suppose it falls to me once again to begin our meeting." And once again, Albus led off. "It has been an eventful time since our last gathering — events which were largely driven by the actions of our late defense professor, Quirinus Quirrel. Everyone here is familiar with the aftermath of those actions, Mr. Potter's illness and subsequent recovery, yet the sequence of events leading up to those unfortunate circumstances has not yet been shared."

The elderly wizard sank heavily back into his chair only to perk up as he took a sip of his electric blue drink, "Ah — that is quite an interesting drink, Pomona. Thank you for sharing." He sighed, "After we managed to stabilize Mr. Potter's condition, I contacted Madame Bones to report Quirinus' death, and she investigated the situation, She has recently shared her preliminary findings with me. They cover only those actions taking place up to the theft of the stone, as from that point, the events come under Nicholas' purview."

"That was fast," Septima Vector commented. "Normally that sort of investigation takes months, not weeks. Particularly when there are no witnesses to question, and the only living witnesses are excluded by the timing."

"That would normally be correct, Septima," Albus acknowledged. "In this case, however, it seems Quirinus left a note sitting atop a pile of answer keys prepared for his end of term testing."

"Answer keys? He had everything ready that far ahead?" Babbling asked. "Odd, I hadn't thought him the type."

Albus explained, "Per the note, Quirinus was perfectly aware he was about to die, and he attempted to carry out his responsibilities as a professor to the best of his limited ability, which in this case led him to preparing his tests for the end of term ahead of time. Unfortunately, the delays associated with Mr. Potter's illness prevented us from receiving them in time to use."

The Headmaster's fist tightened around his glass. "In his letter, our colleague confirmed he was unwillingly possessed by an entity, left unnamed in Quirinus' writing because of compulsions placed on the man. It forced him into the actions he undertook with the intent of taking full possession of our friend's body upon his acquisition of the philosopher's stone…"

"…an intent which was fulfilled on that fateful night."

"Dear God!"

It was an exclamation that only Severus failed to echo, having already suspected. Mental domination of various flavors — of which possession was the most irremediable — was an unpleasant fact of life in the wizarding world, used for various purposes ranging from the supposedly-noble pursuit of maintaining the secrecy of the wizarding world all the way down to corrupting the political process and coercing children into the flesh trades.

Although they were a fact of life, actually encountering such heinous uses of the magics tended to touch a deep atavistic chord. Mental dominance magics were insidious, powerful, and profound, striking at the very bedrock which made up one's identity. Not only did that sort of magic force one to act according to the will of the caster, but all too often it did so by masquerading as one's own will. In skillful hands, the magic was could be nearly indistinguishable from the target's own will and choices.

In such cases, not only was the victim only forced to take actions they found utterly abhorrent while still finding them utterly abhorrent, but they had to deal with the self-loathing and horror associated with doing such things by all appearances willingly. All too often the cognitive dissonance was too much to handle, plunging the victim into a fugue state in which they simply went along with the compulsions without further resistance.

The spells were monstrous manifestations of evil, yet they were an inescapable fact of life in the wizarding world; everyone was at risk from them, yet few had any means of defense.

To hear that one of their long-time coworkers had been struck down by such hit just a little too close to home.

Albus paused for another fortifying sip as the conference room lapsed into silence, and then he continued, "Quirinus detailed, to the best of his ability, his efforts to first resist his Master — a term which was apparently forced by the possessing spirit — and when that proved to be beyond his abilities, he attempted to find a way to kill himself and thereby thwart the spirit's plans."

His audience remained dead silent.

Another pause, and another sip later, "The identity of the possessing spirit remains uncertain. It identified itself as 'Lord Voldemort' to Mr. Potter, though our resident dragon has his doubts. I must admit it is possible that the spirit was lying; there are many reasons for such an entity to assume a false name, particularly one as steeped in fear as that of the most recent pretender to the title of Dark Lord. We are also certain that it escaped, passing through Mr. Potter's digestive tract traumatized but mostly whole."

"We must be vigilant for future incursions, but that is a problem for the future. For now, we must mourn our lost comrade and regroup," Albus raised his glass. "On that note, I salute our recently fallen colleague, Quirinus Quirrel. In the end, our fellow was unsuccessful in his fight against the darkness, but he fought with everything he had left to him, willing to sacrifice even his own life, and despite the ultimate failure of his efforts, his struggle was nonetheless noble. To fallen friends!"

The rest of the room raised their glasses in tribute to their fallen compatriot. It was a moving story, even with this sparse level of detail, and it would become more so when Albus made Quirrel's final letter available for them to read… after the investigation was closed, of course.

In the silence following that toast, Severus was the first to speak. "Albus, have you passed that information on to the goblins? I suspect that they would be keen to know the true nature of the creature which indirectly killed five of their own."

"As it happens, Amelia already has," Albus chuckled at the potions master's surprised look. "Quirinus was quite clever in finding a roundabout means of posthumous revenge. It seems that he incorporated a request for the disposition of his remaining worldly goods within the letter; thus, Amelia was required to turn over the relevant portions of the letter to Gringotts for processing, per Ministry regulation. He left his remaining assets to, and I quote, 'the families of the victims of the recent violence at my place of work in hopes that they will make use of them to attain proper closure'. A rather neat way to get a message through any attempt at a bureaucratic coverup, I'd wager. Amelia was thoroughly amused."

At that, Filius let out a harsh laugh. "Oh, that got a message through, alright! I had wondered why the Brethren were becoming so curious about what was happening here, but a message like that would explain a great deal."

"I see," Albus said. "Well, Filius, be sure to keep them well-informed. On that note, I suspect from the pile of notes you have brought with you that you have something to tell us yourself, Filius," the elderly wizard prompted.

"Ah, yes," the half-goblin said as he managed to contain his mirth. "As most of you are aware, Septima, Bathsheda, and I recently traveled with Mr. Potter and his damsels to three of the ley-line nexuses in order to examine the devices there. First was Avebury, chosen to illustrate a discharged device, then Stonehenge, then Stenness up in Orkney."

He paused to shuffle through his notes for a moment. "There was some difficulty in observing the still-active ones at first, Mr. Potter's vision seems to find them blindingly bright, but we were able to use an old dueling charm to remedy the issue — two of them stacked in the case of Stenness."

"Which charm?" Albus asked.

"Sensory attenuation."

"Two of them?" Albus confirmed, surprised. He was familiar with the charm in question. "I take it the Stenness node is a powerful one, then?"

"Tremendously so," the half-goblin confirmed gravely. "It actually seems to be a union of seven different nodes in the area which are linked in a tiered structure. Only one of the others is unburied, known as the Ring of Brodgar, but Mr. Potter was able to pick out the overarching — or 'underarching' I suppose, as the linkages are formed within the bedrock — structure quite easily."

"Fascinating…"

"We do have excellent news to report, however," Filius continued. "The structures, though unique in their particulars, share certain easily-recognized design elements, including that which we believe Mr. Potter triggered back in '88!"

"So that means…" Snape prompted.

"We are confident that we can safely initiate a similar draining procedure on the rest of the nodes!" Filius said enthusiastically.

Septima cut in, "We believe our first attempt should be made using a relatively small node in order to limit the severity of any unexpected mishaps. I would lean towards Stonehenge, myself. We chose it this time because it represented the lowest extreme on the spectrum of nodes within the Isles; Stenness was at the other end. We are only waiting on Mr. Potter to be available for the attempt."

"While I understand the enthusiasm, I would suggest waiting some time before going through with the plan," the school healer spoke up on behalf of her most interesting patient. "Mr. Potter has just undergone a major shock to his system, and I recommend that we wait at least until his scales have grown back before pursuing such a course. His capacity to absorb magical energy seems to have increased greatly since the incident, but I wish to confirm it is a permanent effect before we go packing him full of enough magical energy to annihilate Great Britain."

"I would add the additional caveat that we wait until a reasonably lengthy break," Snape interjected. "In the event that the wretched lizard experiences difficulties with the process, it would be preferable for him to have a clear schedule to deal with them."

"Winter break, then?" Filius proposed.

"Presuming that Mr. Potter has fully recovered by then, yes," Poppy agreed.

From there the conversation drifted back to their tragically fallen compatriot they spent the rest of the night in remembrance. Before his odd behavior over the last year, Quirrel had been well-liked among the staff, and his changes had been rather poorly received as a result. Now that the reasons were known… well, that sort of struggle demanded recognition, even if it had been ultimately futile.

Quirinus Quirrel fought it to the bitter end, and in that end, he had paid the ultimate price. He had fought the good fight, and his story was a good reminder of why it needed to be fought.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

3.3 Nervous encounters

---

3.3.1 Tentative reunion

Harry walked alone from the portkey arrival point in Diagon Alley towards Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. Abigail had owled a reply to his note by way of Mr. Snape, and its arrival had prompted the young dragon's trip to the Alley to meet with his friend.

Suze had opted to stay home for this trip. While the centaur maiden was still somewhat clingy after his illness, she had reluctantly concluded that Harry was less likely to have trouble in the Alley if she stayed out of it, judging from past experience.

Well, that had been one reason, but there was also the fact that Harry was planning to meet with Abigail for an unspecified but probably significant length of time, during which the centaur maiden would have been stuck loitering awkwardly outside the shop. Even among those Alley concerns willing to do business with a centaur, few of the tightly-packed shops had the physical facilities to accommodate one.

As for Hermione… well, as he had mentioned to Mr. Snape the previous day, Hermione had become quite preoccupied of late with a large collection of very dusty and tattered books which Harry had managed to pick up from a rather disreputable bookseller in Knockturn Alley a little over a year previous.

At the time the young dragon had been unable to personally explore the Alleys — he had been waiting out the aftermath of his encounter with that toad woman in the Alley — but he had not yet discovered the public library system. As a result, he had been searching for new reading material by the rather clunky means of floo calls to various magical bookshops. At one point, his search had led him to contact the Knockturn bookseller in hopes that despite its rather poor reputation it might have something worth his time. On the recommendation of the, admittedly rather shady, salesperson, he had ended up buying, sight unseen, a large box from the used section.

As it happened, the box had been full of dusty, non-magical titles which the proprietor's grandfather had picked up from an estate sale some two centuries previous. Such things sold very poorly in Knockturn, so they'd been sitting in the shop picking up dust and occupying shelf space ever since, and the clerk had been so happy to finally find a buyer that Harry picked up the whole lot for a song.

When he got them back to the Lair, the young dragon had been rather disappointed with the poor physical condition of the books; magical titles of similar age tended to be protected with preservation enchantments, but these were not. He had set them aside for a time, and by the time he finally got around to doing a proper accounting of them, Harry found that he had already purchased — and read — newer editions of almost all of them, so he put them in a box and proceeded to forget about the whole lot, writing off the purchase as a loss and the box as a disappointment

On the other hand, when Hermione had discovered the box and had read the title of the manuscript on the top of the stack — featuring the words 'Hamlet' and 'Shakespeare' with a publication date in 1603 — she had been rendered speechless for nearly a minute before she managed to properly process what she was seeing.

At that point she had let out such a shrill scream of excitement that both Harry and Suze came running to see what was wrong.

In any case, Hermione was now tied up in her self-appointed task of adding a rare books section — with appropriate preservation measures and everything — to Harry's library. As a result, she didn't have time for ice cream, not if it meant interrupting her rare book time. Ice cream was a far lesser concern.

For that matter, so was sleep, as shown by the bushy-haired girl's bed, which had lain untouched for nearly thirty-six hours.

So it was that the young dragon made his way alone to see his friend — his friend who had made such an effort to take care of him before she was forced to leave, his friend to whom he had taken so long to get a proper note letting her know he was okay. He'd tried to explain why in that note, but, well…

He really hoped Abigail wasn't mad at him.

3.3.2 Joyful reunion, heavy conversation

Abigail waited by the entrance to Fortescue's, anxiously scanning the Alley for Harry. It was mid-morning, after the rush getting to work and before the lunchtime crowd, and the shopping district was mostly empty, so she figured her boisterous friend would be easy to spot. But as the minutes ticked by and she failed to catch sight of his unruly mop of black hair, Abigail started to wonder if something had happened.

It certainly wasn't like Harry to miss a meeting with a friend?

Come to think of it, Abigail thought with a frown, his scales had been black before the incident when they turned gold. Her eyes widened as she gasped at the thought. Had his hair changed color too? God, she hoped not! She liked Harry's hair; blond would not look good on the boy. Well, aesthetically, she supposed blond would work with his eyes — but that was hardly worth mentioning.

Those eyes would go with anything!

Though, as far as combinations went, Abigail was rather partial to how they would look with her own deep chestnut. Her lips curved into a gentle smile as she imagined such a combination looking up at her as it was cradled in her own arms, then her eyes glazed over as her thoughts drifted to the mechanics of how such a combination might arise. A long moment passed before she snapped back to the present and shook off the images… and the rosy blush that had accompanied them.

There was a place and a time for that sort of thing, and it was neither here nor now!

In any case, Abigail didn't like her men blond. It was a recently discovered aversion, formulated after having to deal with Draco Malfoy in Slytherin House for the last year. Admittedly, the little brat was only a single example of an irritating blond male, but he was a stupendously irritating example. Sometimes one bad experience was more than enough to put you off for life.

Just as Abigail looked up to give the Alley another once-over, this time looking for similarly shaggy blond hair, she was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Hi, Abigail!" Harry greeted her cheerfully.

"Harry!" Abigail exclaimed, whirling to face her friend.

There he was, right beside her… and he still had his same black hair!

"Oh, thank God!" she said, wrapping Harry into a firm, relieved hug.

Whether it was relief at seeing her friend awake again or at seeing his still-black hair was something even Abigail couldn't say; though she figured it was probably some combination of the two. Whatever her reasons, her embrace was quite happily and enthusiastically returned.

Harry's hug was gentle and firm, but it had not the slightest hint of give to it. It was a hug that made it perfectly obvious to Abigail that he was far, far stronger than she was, while at the same time making it equally obvious that he was being very, very careful not to hurt her by hugging too hard. It made for a rather heady cocktail, as far as Abigail was concerned, one that most certainly suited her tastes.

Again, not the time, Abigail!

"Um… so, did you want to get some ice cream?" Harry offered. "My treat!"

With that, the reunion moved inside, and the pair soon found themselves seated at a small table to one side of the mostly empty shop, ice cream in hand.

"So, I know I already said in the letter," Harry began, "but I wanted to apologize for taking so long to let you know I got better. I would've sent something right away, but… well, you know how animals always run away from me, right?"

Abigail nodded.

"Well, owls do that too, and I didn't know where you lived, so I couldn't take it myself, and I wanted to tell you personally, so I didn't want to have someone else tell you — it just didn't seem right. So, I had to figure out how to get you a letter, and then I thought of Mr. Snape's message spell — with the paper cranes and everything — and I thought it didn't look too hard to do, but it still took me a couple weeks to get it down. Paper can hardly hold any magic at all! I think I wrote you about four or five hundred notes before I managed to get the one that didn't explode when I tried to animate it, and that one was still…"

Abigail smiled as she reached out to her friend, laying a gentle hand on his wrist and snapping him out of his blathering. It seemed Harry was back to normal.

"It's fine, Harry, I'm just glad you're okay," she assured him. "Though I do have to wonder — why didn't you write a note and have someone else owl it for you?"

The older girl nearly lost her struggle to avoid giggling at her friend's flabbergasted expression.

"Oh, man! I hadn't thought of that!" Harry exclaimed, palming his forehead in embarrassment and narrowly avoiding smearing himself with his ice cream. "That would have let me invite you to the barbecue, too! Aww! I feel really silly about that now."

"What barbecue was this?" Abigail asked as she took another lick at her own frozen dessert.

"Well, after I got better, I wanted to thank everybody, and Sergeant Major Hooktalon had brought up the idea of roasting an acromantula to celebrate, so I hosted a cookout on top of the Lair. We had bonfires and singing and everything! I wanted to invite you, but I hadn't figured out the spell yet, and I didn't think of asking somebody else to post it," Harry finished on an apologetic note.

"Roasting an acromantula?" she echoed in a sickly tone.

That sounded… unpleasant.

"Yep! I brought three of them, 'cause I wasn't sure one would be enough for everyone; there were a lot of people, and I know I can eat one or two of the big ones in a sitting," the human-shaped dragon elaborated. "I mean, I know I eat more than other people, but I wasn't sure just how much more, and I didn't want to be a poor host…" Harry trailed off before his eyes lit, and he offered, "Maybe I could cook one up for you sometime?"

"I see," Abigail said neutrally.

Odd as the fear of running out of roasted spider was, she could follow his reasoning. The standards of good hospitality were… not quite universal, but certainly widespread. Although she wasn't sure how she would react to being served a roasted spider as large as her bedroom. It wasn't something she had ever had reason to imagine before.

Abigail saw no reason to imagine it now, either.

"How about we just treat this as our own private celebration and call it even?" she proposed.

"Are you sure?" her friend asked searchingly.

"Yes," she nodded emphatically. "There's no reason to go to the trouble of roasting up another of your spiders just for me; I certainly couldn't eat enough of it on my own to be worth the effort. Wasting food is a terrible shame after all."

"Well, okay," Harry allowed reluctantly. "Still seems like you're missing out, though. I mean, the ice cream is tasty and all, but it's barely a snack."

"That's fine," she assured him hurriedly, "I like ice cream!"

The young dragon nodded dubiously. "Um, well, I guess we oughtta talk about some of what we were discussing before I got sick then, Mr. Slackhammer said…"

That sounded like a segue into something that shouldn't be discussed in public just yet, best to make sure it wasn't.

"Wait, Harry," Abigail interrupted firmly, "let me do something first."

Her friend looked a little puzzled but nonetheless nodded agreeably. As he watched her intently to see what she was going to do, Abigail quietly drew her wand and waved it subtly at the table.

"There," she said, satisfied, as she slipped her wand back into its holster on her wrist, "I put up a privacy charm. Now we should be able to talk about business stuff without anyone overhearing."

Harry looked interested. "What kind of charm?"

"It's one that Professor Snape teaches to some of his House members when he thinks they did something worth rewarding," Abigail explained.

It was nice to find something that she could explain to her much younger friend — the boy was entirely too well-read for her peace of mind at times.

"I think he made it himself, because it's a fair bit better than the standard silencing charms. Basically, it works by scrambling the sound coming from the area rather than silencing it. That way you have unintelligible buzz coming from the conversation rather than silence."

"Why is that better than silencing it?" Harry asked curiously. "I mean, either one would be impossible to snoop on, right?"

"That's because of human nature," Abigail explained. "People are curious, and if they see a conversation going on, but they can't hear it, they'll be curious about what is being discussed, because obviously, if someone went to the trouble to silence their conversation, then there's something worth listening to."

At her friend's understanding nod, she continued, "On the other hand, we block out unimportant stuff all the time from our senses because otherwise we could never focus enough to get anything done, so most conversations we're not actively involved in are an unintelligible buzz anyway. When someone overhears a conversation obscured by the charm, they tend to just figure it was too unimportant for them to care about, because if it was interesting they would have paid closer attention. The deception breaks down if someone is actively trying to eavesdrop, because then they'd realize that something had been done to obscure the sound, but unless they really work at it, Snape's charm is a lot subtler."

"Neat!" her younger friend said. "I never would have thought of that!"

Abigail perked up at that admission, feeling unreasonably pleased to play the role the knowledgeable and experienced older woman for once in her relationship with Harry. She had five years on the young dragon — five years of extra magical education — and yet she had been consistently asking him for help on her schoolwork after her illness in the fall term. Explaining something that Harry hadn't known beforehand had just about made her day!

She hadn't realized just how much that had been getting to her.

"Anyway, you were saying something about a Mr. Slackhammer?" she prompted.

"Right," Harry visibly collected himself, "Mr. Slackhammer is one of my business partners, and he's the Vice Director of the Diagon Alley branch of Gringotts. Anyway, aside from that stuff, he also helps me out with other business decisions and that kind of thing. So, he's been the one helping manage buying out the rest of Hogs Haulage. Anyway, he was saying that he expects the buyout to finish sometime around the beginning of September. I already have majority ownership, but by then it should be full ownership; some of the other stockholders are really hard to get ahold of apparently."

"Congratulations!"

"Thanks!" the currently boy-shaped dragon positively beamed for a moment. "Anyway, back before I got sick, we were talking before about a job for you in Hogs Haulage working on expanding the business," Harry continued. "Mr. Slackhammer is working on finding me a management staff for the business, one that will be sympathetic to the other stuff we're trying to do, but like I said when we first talked about this, we want to keep the details… well, not secret, 'cause Mr. Slackhammer is making sure to pick people who feel like we do about this stuff, but we want to make sure the senior management can truthfully say they didn't know about the secondary reasons we're doing some of the stuff, you know, if they get called to testify under truth serum or something…"

"You mean 'to maintain plausible deniability'?" Abigail asked.

"Is that the word for it?" Harry asked in return.

"It means something similar to what you were describing," she confirmed. "So, the idea would be to have me take on a low- to mid-level position in the company, something high enough to be involved in the decision-making process so I could offer input on your behalf but low enough not to be under public scrutiny, and then act as your voice in the company?"

Abigail wasn't sure how much she liked that idea. It was a valid tactic, but simply being the hidden mouthpiece seemed like a bit of a waste — she could do more than that.

"Well, there's that, but I thought you'd also be good at a lot of the organization and planning we'll need to expand rail services into new areas, you know, sorta like how you got everything organized when the professors went after the troll back on Halloween," Harry said, unknowingly echoing her own thoughts. "We've got a lot of that coming, and I figure it'll be enough to keep you pretty busy for a long time."

Internally, Abigail sighed in relief. That was good to hear, she could handle doing the covert communications thing as a side duty, but she wanted something with a little more substance for a career.

"That sounds like a good idea," she continued aloud. "I know we talked about it a little, but what sorts of expansions are you considering?"

"Well, I figure its best to look at what we want to get out of it first," the boyish dragon began, "that way if you have better ideas you can bring them up. I've got a few different reasons for buying the train company, and a couple of them are personal. One was that I think trains are cool, and the way I see it, it'd be even cooler if they were my trains."

Abigail snorted at that.

"The second one was that it makes sense to secure your own supply lines, Sergeant Major Hooktalon was explaining that to me a few months ago, so having a freight company capable of supplying my Lair made a lot of sense — you know, so I can eat and stuff. Otherwise, if you're relying on someone else to supply your food, they can starve you if they want to, and I eat enough I wanted to make sure that wasn't an issue."

At that, Harry blushed for a reason Abigail wasn't certain of, prompting her to ask, "What are you thinking about that has you so embarrassed?"

The young dragon looked mightily uncomfortable before he sheepishly explained, "Well, you know how hungry I got back early last school year? You know, when I was eating everything at the table and Mr. Snape had to levitate me out of the Great Hall?"

"Oh, I remember that," she said. "What was that about anyway?"

"Um, well, I was hitting a growth spurt, and I get really hungry when that happens," Harry explained. "I just couldn't think about anything but eating! Anyway, afterwards I was thinking about something Uncle Vernon said before I came to Hogwarts when I was eight. He was worried he wouldn't be able to afford to keep me fed and I'd go on a rampage and eat half the neighborhood…"

"Why would he say that?" Abigail protested, aghast. "You'd never do such a thing!"

"I know! I said the same thing," Harry acknowledged, "but Uncle Vernon pointed out that hunger does funny things to people, so it was better just to make sure I stayed fed and avoid the issue entirely. And… well, that time in the Great Hall really made me wonder how it would go if I really did get really hungry and I didn't have enough to eat. I mean, when Mr. Snape was levitating me down the hallway, I was trying to grab the gargoyles and eat them on the way, for goodness' sake! Back in fall term, Hagrid and Madame Pomfrey had set up a room with a bunch of food for me 'cause we were kinda expecting something like that to happen eventually, but if we hadn't, I don't really know if I'd have been able to stop, and I don't like that — that not bein' able to say for sure I'd never do something that bad," Harry trailed off for a moment.

"Anyway, so one of my reasons for buying Hogs Haulage is to make sure I can keep my pantry full and avoid having to learn the hard way whether or not I can control myself in that situation."

That had gotten dark quickly.

Abigail had to admit, her younger friend had painted a chilling picture. The image of her nigh-unstoppable juggernaut of a friend rampaging about in his natural form, devouring everything in sight in a futile attempt to satisfy his ravenous appetite was one that would probably haunt her nightmares for quite some time; though it was a mark in Harry's favor that it obviously haunted his nightmares too. Abigail wasn't sure exactly what she could say to that, so the silence stretched for a few moments.

Still, she realized as she watched her friend's expression become more and more distressed, she had to say something.

"It's good that you're taking steps to address the problem," Abigail said, trying to put her thoughts into encouraging words. "That's really all you can do, I'd think. I mean, yes, the idea of what you could do is pretty scary" — really closer to spine-chillingly terrifying, but saying that wouldn't benefit anyone — "but everyone is capable of doing bad things."

As her friend listened attentively, the older girl continued, "I mean, we've talked before about the state of the wizarding world and some of the bad things people do in it. I'm a witch, and there's nothing they do that I'm categorically incapable of doing. I just happen to believe that supplanting someone else's will with my own or selling other people like cattle is a bad thing to do, so I don't do it. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you will."

That sounded trite even to her own ears.

Seeing her friend's still troubled expression, Abigail tried another tack. Though this one was a little more difficult for her to talk about, as it touched on parts of herself she wasn't really comfortable acknowledging to herself, much less admitting aloud.

"Or… well, for something a little closer in nature, when we talked about my future employment prospects — you know the conversation which led to all this —" at Harry's nod she continued, "I mentioned how I was reluctant to go into the Ministry or the Prophet because I didn't think I could do anything there, but also because of the sorts of unsavory things that might be demanded of me if I did, as I would be a young, vulnerable woman in a bad situation."

Harry nodded again, eyes hard. "Yeah, that's a big part of what got me started on the train thing — or at least what pushed me to do it now rather than in a few years."

Abigail smiled weakly — Harry's concern for her was sweet, but it made what she was about to say even harder to admit.

"Well, part of the reason I was so concerned was that when I imagine myself in that situation… I can't say for sure that I wouldn't do it." At her friend's shocked gasp, she hastened to explain. "I know using my body that way is wrong. I know it's demeaning and an affront to my dignity as a person and a terrible thing to do to myself. I know all of that!"

Her voice fell to a quiet whisper, "I know all that, but if the price on offer was important enough. If it were for my family's safety — and that's certainly not off the table for the sorts of people I'd have been working with — or maybe even if it were for support on a particularly important cause, something I really believed in, I can't say for certain I would never do such a thing. And just like you said, Harry, I don't like that uncertainty — I don't like the part of me that says, 'Well, maybe I might do that horrible thing if the circumstances were important enough, even though I know it's horrible.'"

"I don't think you'd ever do something like that, Abigail," Harry said with conviction.

"Thank you, Harry," she said warmly. "But my mother told me something similar to what your uncle told you. Just like hunger, there are other circumstances that do funny things to people. Everyone has limits, prices they're not willing to pay, and I don't know what mine are."

"And like you said, if I can, it's better to avoid putting myself in a position to find out the hard way," Abigail finished quietly.

The pair had long since finished their ice cream, and Harry was currently looking down at his hands while crushing the paper napkin which had been wrapped around his ice cream cone into an already tiny and still ever-shrinking pellet. He was obviously lost in thought, which prompted Abigail to end on a more upbeat note.

"And so, when my wonderful friend offered me a chance at working in a place where I could be a part of something great, where I could make a good living, and where such things were far less likely to occur, I jumped at the chance." The older girl reached out to lay a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. When he looked up, she continued, "You're trying to do the right thing, Harry, and you're being careful about hurting anyone else along the way. That's all you can do — that's all anyone can do, really."

As Harry smiled at her, Abigail breathed an internal sigh of relief — that had been hard!

How did her mother always make that sort of thing look so easy? Abigail had admitted something to Harry — to her kind-of-maybe-eventually crush — that she had never wanted to acknowledge to herself, much less anyone else, but it was the only thing she could think of that was in roughly the same vein as her friend's concerns and had enough impact to be effective.

Regardless, she was happy to have helped Harry — though, with that accomplished, she was also quite eager to move on to a different, hopefully less embarrassing, topic.

"So, Harry, what other reasons did you have for buying Hogs Haulage?" Abigail prompted in a blatant request to change the subject.

It was a blatant request that Harry was happy to seize on himself. "Right! Um, well, one is that I think there's a lot of potential for the company to grow. There's a lot more places where magical people live than just London and Hogsmeade. I mean, Liverpool and Glasgow each have more magical people in them than all of Hogsmeade, so I figure there'd be good money in sending magical trains there too. Plus, they're building a new rail connection to France, too, so that'll open up all of Europe that didn't used to be Russian, 'cause they used a different rail gauge…"

"That seems pretty reasonable," Abigail mused. "Why didn't Hogs Haulage do that already? I mean the rails are already in place, right?"

"I'm not sure, but Hogs Haulage hasn't really done much of anything to expand the business since the original founder died back in the mid-1920's," Harry said, sounding puzzled. "I'm not sure why, but they've just been sitting on the one route and sending more trains as demand increases."

"What year did he die?" Abigail asked. After her conversation with Harry, she had started doing some research on their potential competitors, including the Malfoy's Happy Elf Trucking Group, which had been founded in…

"1924," Harry supplied.

"I think I can guess what happened then," the older girl said, sounding disgusted. It fit far too well. "Abraxas Malfoy founded the Happy Elf Trucking Group during that year. Since he was a Malfoy, I'd bet he had the Hogs Haulage founder assassinated and then killed or threatened everyone that tried to do something with the company since to protect his trucking company. It fits with the family's reputation. We'll have to be cautious going forward with this."

"What do you think we should do?" Harry asked, concerned. "I mean, they're not going to be able to do anything to me, but what about you and anyone else I hire?"

"I'm not sure," Abigail didn't have any prior experience with this sort of thing. Slytherin dorm politics could be rough, but not that rough. "I mean, long term, finding a way to neutralize the Malfoys would probably be our best bet, but I don't know about short term. Maybe Professor Snape or your Mr. Slackhammer would have a better idea?"

"Right, I'll ask them about it," Harry promised. "Um… but that kinda brings up the last couple of reasons. One is to try to undercut Malfoy in the logistics business and deny him funding and resources. It's cheaper to send stuff by train than by lorry, so if we can go cheaper, his customers will stop doing business with him and start doing business with us. I figure that's a good step."

"It is," Abigail agreed.

"And there's one more thing that Mr. Slackhammer brought up," Harry paused for a moment. "Um, how good is that privacy spell, I mean, I know it's subtle, but how hard is it to break?"

"I'm not sure, but I know it can be done," she thought back. "I remember back in my second year, one of the seventh years got caught for something he had been planning with his friends under the charm. I'd bet Snape at least has a way through it…"

"…and if Mr. Snape knows a way through it, then other people probably do too," Harry finished for her with an understanding nod. "Well, there's another reason, but it'll have to wait for better security. Maybe next time you visit at the Lair?"

"That sounds good!" Abigail had been pleased with Harry's planning so far, and she could wait for a little longer to be informed of the rest — particularly when the wait said good things about his good sense. She was also pleased at the implied future invitation to his home; though she now had to find something else to talk about. "Um, until then, have you been working on anything else since you woke up?"

"Oh, yeah!" Harry said. "After I figured out the message spell, we went on a bit of a trip to check out some of the stone circles; that was pretty neat, though the things were bright enough it was like staring into the sun."

"That's for that project you've been working on with the professors, right?" she confirmed.

"Yep," her friend nodded. "We think we've figured out how to drain the things now, so we can really get started on them. We're going to try the first one over Christmas break!"

"Huh, that sounds kind of interesting — do you think I could tag along for that?"

"I don't see why not," Harry said. "If you'd like, we can ask Mr. Flitwick — he's organizing the trip, so he'd probably know. Anyway, I've also been working on that one project I've had going for a while…"

"That's the one you were engraving all those silver spheres for, right?" She couldn't think of any other major projects Harry had going — not that she knew of anyway.

"Yeah," the boy-shaped dragon confirmed. "I was working through the fifth revision, but the runic system's now got a forty-seven-fold symmetry, and the engraving is just getting way too tedious to do by hand, so I ordered a CNC lathe with a milling arm to do it for me! It's going to be so cool!"

"A what now?"

As her enthusiastic friend launched into an explanation of just what he meant by that term — apparently it was some sort of non-magical contraption specifically designed to shape round-ish things very precisely according to a supplied plan — Abigail thought back on her recent conversation with good cheer. Harry was healthy, they were back together, at least for a little while — and she'd have a chance to say a proper goodbye this time, so that was a plus — and they had a solid plan on where to go next.

As far as Abigail was concerned, it was a wonderful way to spend a summer morning.

3.3.3 Literature search

As he walked away from the ice cream parlor, Harry had a happy bounce to his step. His meeting with Abigail had gone very well indeed in his estimation. She hadn't been mad at his delay in contacting her — though she had given him a bit of friendly ribbing. Harry wasn't too bothered about that. He could deal with some teasing, but it would have been far worse if he'd disappointed his friend.

The rest of the discussion had been really nice too! The hunger thing had been bothering him — not enough to be debilitating or anything, but a sort of niggling doubt in the back of his mind — ever since that time back in the fall. He'd known it was something he had to deal with. He'd known intellectually that he was doing the right thing — it was a pretty clear extension of Mr. Snape's reasoning from back when he first killed that deer — but it was nice to have Abigail actually state her approval of the precautions he was taking.

And, as shocking as it had been to hear her say it, it was nice to know that he wasn't the only one who faced similar problems; though the idea of his friend being put in a position such as she had hinted at still made him feel really weird. It was a mix of several things he couldn't quite identify, but he was certain it was an unpleasant weird feeling. Harry shook his head.

Maybe he'd understand better when he got older? Madame Pomfrey had sort of implied that before when they'd talked about what to offer Hermione when he carried her off. Well, that was something for the future. For now, Harry was going to take advantage of his trip to try to pick up information on his recently discovered nemesis.

Alchemy.

After he had become a dragon, Harry had fallen into a trap in his thinking. It had seemed, reasonably so at the time, that he was effectively invulnerable. As a dragon, Harry was bigger than most everything, stronger than most everything, and more magic resistant than even several wizards working in concert could actually overcome. He routinely snacked on some of the most dangerous magical creatures known to the wizarding world. It had seemed to Harry that the only threats he had to worry about were threats to his friends, or, worse yet, the threat he might accidentally pose to his friends.

Harry had assumed that would continue, but his encounter with Mr. Flamel's stone demonstrated otherwise. That stupid rock had come closer to killing him than anything else he could remember, and it had done so while he was in dragon form. It meant that alchemy was capable of threatening Harry.

It meant that alchemy was a potential enemy.

Sergeant Major Hooktalon had told him that it was best to know as much about your enemies as you could, because then you could prepare for facing them, and then they'd be less of a threat. It was that sage advice that had Harry entering Diagon Alley's premier bookshop with a determined expression on his currently human face.

As the door opened, a bell sounded alerting the shopkeeper to his newest customer.

"Hello, and welcome to Flourish and Blotts! How can I help… Mr. Potter?" the store manager, handling the floor while his staff caught an early lunch, sounded rather startled at his customer's identity. "What brings you back so soon, my young friend? I'm afraid we haven't acquired anything new since your last visit — the publishers don't work that fast."

The shopkeeper chuckled a bit at that. Harry had essentially bought out his stock of anything that looked interesting to the young dragon over the past few years, and the two had a good working relationship, even though Harry still had yet to catch the man's name. "Or is it that you've developed a new interest, hmm?"

"Well, I was kinda interested to see if you had anything on alchemy," Harry said.

That wiped the smile right off the manager's face and replaced it with a very grave sort of expression. "Alchemy, you say?"

Harry nodded earnestly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but alchemy is a restricted topic," came the very serious reply.

"It is?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Yes. Restricted by both the Ministry and the Alchemists' Guild," the manager explained, "and with good reason, I understand."

"I didn't know that," the young dragon said. "Do you know why it's restricted?"

"Only that alchemy is very dangerous and should not be dabbled in without proper instruction," the man said firmly. "I am not permitted to sell from the restricted list to anyone without a member-in-good-standing of the Alchemists' Guild vouching for the buyer in-person at the time of purchase and a law-enforcement representative present as a witness. There are even security measures on the books themselves that prevent anyone from directly handling them without those conditions being met."

"Oh, wow! That's some heavy security."

The man smiled apologetically, "It is indeed, Mr. Potter. I am sorry I can't do more for you, but now that I've explained that, I actually need to report this conversation to law enforcement."

"Really?" Harry said, worriedly. "Am I in trouble?"

"Not at all," the manager assured him. "They never pay much attention to the first occurrence, but they do start to take notice when people try more than once because of how dangerous alchemical experimentation is."

"Oh. Um, well, thanks for telling me," the dragon called after the man who had retreated to a back room, presumably to use the floo.

Huh. That had gone off in an odd direction.

3.3.4 Consulting primary sources

It was only the middle of July, and it had already been an eventful summer.

Safely ensconced in the peaceful and productive sanctum of his private laboratory, Severus Snape sighed, having trouble remembering the last time he had been embroiled in so many major events in such a short period of time.

June had seen Quirrel's final gasp, the likely rebirth and immediate re-disembodiment of the Dark Lord, and the sickness and recovery of Lily's infuriatingly reckless son which had lasted until early July. His recovery had thrown even more work Severus' way in the form of a tremendous number of assays aimed at determining the dratted dragon's new baseline composition and metabolism, a task which had necessitated dusting off Snape's old and neglected skills at alchemy of all things due to the irksome lizard's incorporation of the philosopher's stone into his new metaphysical anatomy.

While the term 'alchemy' was commonly used as an umbrella for the entire magical branch of chemistry, in practice most such things came under the heading of 'potions'. What people generally meant when they spoke of alchemy as a field of study was active alchemy, or the direct use of magic to catalyze transmutation reactions.

The risks of potions were very grave and very real, as he had made a particular point to explain to his classes the previous year, but the risks of alchemy were orders of magnitude worse. Snape had taken up the study during the darkest hour of his life. Late in his school years, his relationship with his best friend had collapsed due to his own stupidity, and he had thrown himself into the subject with abandon, holding the vague hope that an ill-conceived experiment would end it all. Later, when he had recovered his equilibrium — and his sanity, for that matter — Snape had given up on furthering his alchemical studies as not worth the risk, and he had just been forced to revisit them.

All in all, it had been a very nervous few weeks.

At least the blasted beast knew how to throw a good barbecue. Snape never would have thought to pair a brown sauce with acromantula — given the similarity to lobster, it had always seemed like more of a lemon-butter dish to him — but the end result had been surprisingly delectable.

In any event, the assays were done — he had survived them all; Lily's boy was off pursuing his own activities; and Severus Snape had settled into the welcome, relaxing routine of brewing potions in his laboratory when, once again, he heard a knock at the door. That the potions master could identify the visitor by the sound of the knock told him in no uncertain terms that he had been getting too many visitors recently.

"What do you require so urgently that you have seen fit to interrupt my work during the summer recess, Mr. Potter?" the potions master snapped through the still-closed door.

"Um, I had a question about something I found out at Flourish and Blotts," the dragon said through the door.

"That was singularly unenlightening, Mr. Potter. We both know you can do better," Snape replied sharply, still through the closed door.

"Um, the store manager told me it was a restricted topic, so I'm not sure if I should be too loud about it," Harry temporized.

That narrowed down the possibilities. Snape ran through the list of Ministry-restricted topics he knew of, and then compared it to the list of things the dragon had encountered recently that he might be curious about, and he came up with a singular match.

It would be alchemy, wouldn't it?

"Come in then, Mr. Potter," Snape said tiredly, wand flicking into his had to unlock the door.

As the currently human-shaped dragon leaned against the still-useless wood paneling of his laboratory wall, Snape began, "I believe I know the thrust of your inquiry, Mr. Potter, but on the off chance that I have incorrectly deduced your purpose, please enlighten me."

"Right, well, I was thinking about what happened with Mr. Flamel's stone, and how it almost killed me, and I figured it would make sense for me to know more about how it worked, so I could avoid that sort of thing in the future. So, I wanted to learn more about alchemy, but when I went looking for books…"

"You learned that the topic is heavily restricted," Snape finished for the young dragon. "I see. Unfortunately, while I have some experience with matters alchemical, I am not qualified to instruct on the matter."

"Really?" Harry asked, sounding very disappointed.

"Yes. Fortunately for your curiosity however, we do have a qualified alchemist on staff in the person of your Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore," Snape continued.

"Really?" Harry said. "Do you think he'd be willing to talk about it?"

"I am certain that he would be so," the potions master said, sending off one of his ubiquitous memo-cranes even as he spoke. Grudging fondness for the dragon aside, Snape was looking forward to getting back to his down-time, and the sooner he could fob this explanation off onto someone else, the better. "He should be available now, but I have sent off an inquiry about such. If you will wait quietly, I will pass on Albus' reply when it comes in."

"Okay, Mr. Snape," came the usual irrepressibly cheerful reply.

With that, the room fell silent for several minutes aside from the crackle of flame and the bubbling of his cauldrons. There was nothing unusual in these batches, simply routine supplies for Poppy; it was probably the only reason he was spared the dratted dragon's usual string of questions.

Shortly thereafter, a ghostly phoenix showed up to deliver the message, "Send him up."

"It seems the Headmaster is ready to see you, Mr. Potter," Snape said.

"Thanks, Mr. Snape!" came the cheerful acknowledgement as the wretched lizard left the room to Snape's brusque nod of acknowledgement.

And with that, the potions master returned to his work.

3.3.5 Office visit

"I understand that you have questions regarding alchemy, Mr. Potter," Albus began as the currently boy-shaped dragon entered his office for the first time since the previous September. He smiled as Fawkes trilled a greeting to the newcomer and the boy took the time to wave in return. "Please take a seat, such explanations can take a fair amount of time."

Harry took the offered seat. "Um, yeah. So after the philosopher's stone thing, I figured it would be a good idea to learn more about alchemy and how it works, since it almost killed me and all, but when I went to see if I could get a book on it, they said it was restricted, and then I asked Mr. Snape, and he directed me to you," the dragon summarized.

"I see — an eminently sensible train of inquiry, though I do warn you that the study of alchemy is a long and dangerous undertaking," the elderly wizard warned.

"That's what the manager at the book shop said," Harry replied. "Why is it so dangerous? I mean, isn't it about changing one thing into another thing? Transfiguration does that too, right? And even though it can be dangerous, it's not a restricted topic."

"The danger of alchemy lies in the nature of the forces and energies it manipulates. Transfiguration, though it might outwardly resemble alchemy, is a completely different phenomenon," Albus explained. "I assume, having been taught self-transfiguration by Minerva, you are aware of the alternate formulation of transfiguration?"

"The one where you can look at transfiguration as casting a compulsion charm on reality, right?"

"That is the one, Mr. Potter," the man confirmed. "That alternate formulation reveals a central truth of transfiguration in all its myriad incarnations — the magical discipline of transfiguration, despite its misleading name, does not actually change the underlying nature of the target of the spell. Rather, a transfiguration changes the way in which the target interacts with the world around it without changing the object itself."

At Harry's rapt expression, Dumbledore continued with the lecture.

"For instance, were I to transfigure this brass paperweight," he gestured at a brass disk on his desk, "into lead, it would change color. It would feel heavier. If you were to bend it, it would bend more easily. But all of these changes are facilitated by the magic of the transfiguration actively imitating lead. Magic interacts with the light to change the color; magic interacts with gravity to increase its influence; and magic cooperates with you to bend the real brass with the ease of pure lead. Nothing of the basic physical nature of the paperweight is changed by the transfiguration, and magic is used to make up the difference. It is also for this reason that every transfiguration can be reversed — at least in principle."

"Okay," Harry said, nodding to indicate his understanding so far.

"For alchemy, none of that is the case," Albus said with a sharply dismissive gesture. "Alchemy does change the underlying nature of the target. Were I to transmute this paperweight into lead, it would actually become lead. It would look like lead because it would interact with light in the same way that lead does. It would be easier to bend because lead is easier to bend. It would even weigh more than the equivalent volume of brass because lead is denser than brass — and it is in that final change where the inherent danger of alchemy lies."

At the dragon's puzzled look, the former apprentice to Nicholas Flamel elaborated, "Were I to attempt to transmute that paperweight into an equal volume of lead, despite my strength, I would surely die of exhaustion before completing it."

As his student reared back in shock, the elderly man continued, "On the other hand, were I to transmute this same paperweight to an equal volume of ice, I would die just as surely in a massive release of magical energy more than sufficient to level this castle despite its protections. This danger has been known for millennia, though the underlying reasons remained unclear until a rather remarkable insight was published by a young Jewish man in the first few years of this century. Mass and energy are interchangeable, and a very small amount of the former is equivalent to a very large amount of the latter."

"You're talking about Albert Einstein, right?" Harry asked. "The Jewish man you mentioned, I mean."

"That is correct, though I am surprised you have heard of him," the elderly wizard said.

"They taught about him in primary… well, not much more than him being a really smart guy who came up with really important ideas, but I knew the name, so I started reading more when I got the chance," the dragon said. "The mass-energy equivalence is in one of his 1905 papers — they were really interesting reading! So, alchemy is restricted because if you're not careful you can blow everybody up, right?"

"That is correct, my young friend."

"So how do you avoid doing that, then?" Harry asked. "I mean, you're an alchemist, and Mr. Flamel is an alchemist; you both do alchemy, and you're both still alive, so how does that work?"

"A great deal of practice, calculation, and control," came the headmaster's answer. "To go back to the paperweight example, if I were to transmute the paperweight safely, I would need to alter both its composition and volume smoothly to maintain equivalent mass. However, as you know from your control exercises, your magic will follow your will and your visualization. If you err in either of these, your magic will attempt to make up the mass difference from your own reserves. Too large an error in one direction — for myself, the margin is slightly less than a tenth of an ounce if I am fully rested — will drain the caster dry, killing him in the process. Too large an error in the other direction will release the excess energy into the world, to even more catastrophic results."

"But how do you practice safely?" the dragon asked, thinking back on his own misadventures in magical control. "I mean, if you've got that small a margin, no one would ever live long enough to become an alchemist!"

Albus laughed, "You are quite correct, Mr. Potter. Well considered! There are a pair of special cases, one reaction which will not pull more energy than the caster has available and another which will shut itself down if it proceeds too quickly rather than catastrophically releasing energy to the environment. Nicholas developed them early in his life, which he tells me is a large part of why he managed to survive long enough to produce the philosopher's stone. Admittedly, the reactions are useful for little other than practice, as the products involved are water and an inert and otherwise useless sludge, but within the scope of the exercise, they are invaluable!"

The boy-shaped dragon thought about that for a time, "Do you think I could learn those?"

"You are interested in learning more even after hearing of the dangers?" the elderly wizard asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Harry said in a determined tone. "Even if I don't end up doing anything with it, I still need to know how it works."

Albus Dumbledore met his young student's earnest gaze for a long moment before nodding his head. "Very well," he acquiesced. "We will begin your instruction as soon as I manage to free time in my schedule. Do not attempt any practical exercises without my express permission and do not even consider attempting any new ideas you have before consulting me. If you attempt either of those things, your tuition will cease immediately, and — assuming we survive the experience — I will be thoroughly cross with you! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Dumbledore," Harry said as he nodded gravely himself.

As the young, boy-shaped dragon left his office, the room fell silent for a time, interrupted only by the occasional tick or whirr from the myriad of strange devices littering the headmaster's office, as the elderly wizard stared after the long-since departed youth while lost in thought. Eventually Albus Dumbledore sat back in his chair and let out a sigh.

"Fawkes, did I do the right thing? Young Harry was so intent on learning, and I certainly want to encourage that, but… alchemy is dangerous, after all."

The fire-bird trilled reassuringly in response.

"I hope so, old friend. I hope so."

 

[Dunkelzahn]

3.4 Conspiracies

---

3.4.1 Sibling rivalry

Nearly five hundred miles south of Hogwarts, the early morning sun smiled down on rural Devonshire. Pastures of rich green waved under a gentle breeze hemmed in by neatly laid hedgerows. Deep within one of those hedgerows lay the small magical hamlet of Ottery-St. Catchpole, hidden within an expanded space. At one end of the hamlet sat an oddly-constructed home, known to the locals as the Burrow.

The residence had perhaps three right-angles to its name — at least two of which were accidental — yet it still managed to tower some four stories over the surrounding gardens while sitting on a narrow base and canted off to one side in stark defiance of gravity.

Magic could cover for a multitude of architectural sins.

Despite the precarious construction, the house glowed with warmth, welcome, and security. The Burrow was the Weasley family home. It had sheltered and comforted six generations of the red-haired clan, and that history positively echoed through the structure and the magic woven into it.

Today the current matron of the family, Molly Weasley, had made the most of the weather by sending her children outside for chores. Indoor tasks could wait for a rainy day. The chores ran the usual gamut for a country home, ranging from drying the laundry and watering the flowers to the far less pleasant task of de-gnoming the vegetable garden. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mischief-prone twins of the family had been assigned the latter.

"Brother, I've been thinking," George Weasley said to his twin as he tossed a gnome over the garden wall.

"A dangerous activity, to be certain; your mind is a treacherous place," his twin brother replied in a mock-serious tone even as he snatched up another of the potato-shaped menaces to all things vegetable. "What has captured your thoughts on this fine day, brother mine?"

"Our younger brother's recent exploits," the first twin explained. "Specifically, I am concerned about this six-month detention."

"Ah, yes," Fred acknowledged. "He's grown up so fast!"

"Indubitably!" George gushed. "I am ever so proud of little Ronniekins, though not so proud as to stop calling him by that nickname."

"Certainly not!" Fred exclaimed. "Little Ronniekins is our only younger brother; we can't give up our nicknaming privileges over something as trivial as six months of detention! It would have to be over something truly praiseworthy."

"Like what?" his twin asked.

"I don't know," Fred admitted. "Saving a bunch of children from a burning orphanage?"

"That might buy a week, at most," George scoffed, grunting as he tossed another gnome over the fence. "He's a wizard!"

"Scoring with one of the Harpies?" Fred offered.

"Scoring with the starting lineup of the Harpies," George clarified.

"Why George, how scandalous! We wouldn't want to corrupt our little brother," Fred objected sententiously. "He'll have to make honest women out of them or nothing at all."

"All of them?" George asked.

"At the same time," Fred confirmed.

"So, he's always going to be 'little Ronniekins'?"

"Probably," Fred shrugged. "So, what were you thinking about our youngest brother's exploits? Aside from being proud as punch, I mean."

"Well, it occurs to me, brother, that little Ronniekins is not cut of the same cloth as us," George explained. "Sadly, our little brother seems to see his punishment as an onerous burden rather than the badge of honor it truly is."

"Alas, I do believe you are correct, my dear twin!" Fred agreed. "Whatever shall we do?"

"As I see it, as older brothers it is our solemn duty to join our younger sibling in his punishment as a grand show of brotherly solidarity!" came the exaggeratedly pompous reply.

"Of course, that would require us to engage in mischief sufficient to guarantee at least two months of detention, so that we might honestly join him in his endeavors," Fred mused.

"Ah, but if we truly wish to walk a mile in his shoes, as it were, we must aim high!"

"Six months then?"

"Such things are difficult to plan for; it is difficult to know just how the professors will react," George countered. "We should aim even higher, lest our teachers feel unaccountably lenient."

"Plus, we would reclaim our titles as the true troublemakers of the family," Fred pointed out.

"A welcome bonus," his brother allowed. "But what should we do?"

"Well, we do have an example of behavior that has proven to net six months of detention," Fred offered, "and Malfoy does have a testicle left…"

"But that would most likely see us expelled rather than detained," George pointed out. "There's no guarantee that Malfoy would give us an opportunity, and there's even less of one that the professors would believe it unintentional."

"Not to mention that it would be terribly derivative," Fred agreed.

For a time, the two brothers fell into a silence punctuated by the startled cries of the gnomes they were throwing out of the garden. They needed something serious enough to warrant major punishment, but lighthearted enough to avoid expulsion. It couldn't target a single individual, the severity required would make it too mean-spirited, and that would see them expelled. Perhaps a different target, relatively minor mischief in a more serious venue, perhaps…

Giving another gnome the heave, Fred's eyes lit up. "I have it!"

"Oh? And what do you propose, dear brother?" George asked curiously.

Fred told him, and George's grin grew to disturbing proportions.

"Brilliant!"

3.4.2 Arguments and lessons

It had taken Albus nearly a week and a half to arrange time in his schedule for the young dragon's first alchemy lesson, during which time July passed into August along with the boy's twelfth birthday. Late in the first week of the month, Albus Dumbledore finally found himself touching down on the lip of Harry's Lair.

Leaning his broom up against the wall, he nodded in acknowledgement to the goblin security team still on duty at the Lair entrance.

"Has there been anything of interest, Corporal?" the elderly wizard asked with a conversational tenor, passing time as the security team went about their business confirming his identity and his reason to visit the Lair.

"Nothing at all, sir. Been a quiet deployment since the barbecue," the goblin, one of Griphook's squad if he recalled, replied. "The young gent's almost grown his scales back in, and we figure we'll be headin' out along about the time your students head back to their classes."

"Ah, that is a balm to the soul," Albus sighed. "I had hoped the boy would heal properly. You have my gratitude for looking out for him."

The goblin laughed aloud, "And we're happy to do so! Even aside from the business relationship, he's paying us handsomely for our time, and he's a good lad. Brightens your day, talkin' to him does!" Another goblin came from deeper inside the entrance and signaled the one Albus was speaking to. "Well, looks like you check out, and Mr. Potter was expecting you. Head on in."

The elderly wizard entered the Lair proper to an interesting scene.

"I'm just saying you've spent way too much time in the library, Hermione," the young dragon was saying. It looked like his scales were nearly grown back in; only the barest tracery of black skin remained visible between the dark silver of his new scales.

"I have not!" a young feminine voice protested from among the neat rows of shelves up on the mezzanine to the side of the main cavern. "I just need to get these books properly preserved and displayed. I'll be done soon enough."

Albus nodded to Suze as he drew even with the centaur, who was near the Lair entrance working methodically on her spinning and studiously ignoring the argument echoing through the Lair around her.

"But I don't think you've been sleeping enough," Harry countered, concern in his voice. "I promised your dad I'd take care of you, and you were falling asleep over your food today…"

"I'm fine!" Hermione insisted.

"…and you were only eating today 'cause I made you," the dragon continued without acknowledging her protest. "You forgot to eat yesterday! You forgot to eat, Hermione! That means there's somethin' wrong, right there."

"I'll be done soon enough!" came the irritated reply.

"You've been working on that for four weeks!" Harry protested. "It's just a box of old books! They've sat for centuries already, letting them sit for a few more hours so you can take proper care of yourself isn't gonna hurt anything. Heck, I've even got newer editions of most of 'em!"

That brought the bushy-haired twelve-year-old storming out into the open to plant her hands aggressively on the carved railing serving as the edge of the library mezzanine.

"Just a box of old books? Old books!" she screeched indignantly. "You had first-edition printings of the complete set of Shakespeare's works! Including all the unauthorized quarto printings! You had printings of the lost plays! You even had handwritten original scripts! That's not a box of old books — that's history! Do you know how many collections like that exist in this world? Do you, Harry? One! And it's sitting right here!" The irate girl jabbed her finger back in the direction she had come from.

"And it's not going to go anywhere if you take a few hours to sleep, Hermione," the dragon explained calmly.

"Why aren't you more excited about this?" Hermione shouted, clutching at her bushy hair in frustration. "It's the Bard! In his own handwriting!"

"What? They're good plays and stuff, sure," Harry said. "But I like reading the newer versions 'cause the paper's nicer and the wording 's a bit more polished and they don't do those annoying typesetting things where they use 'f' when they really mean 's'. Those things are so old, I'm afraid they'd fall apart if I tried to handle them! Don't really see what the appeal is anyway."

"Well, it is a big deal, you… you scaly philistine!" Hermione huffed in frustration, folding her arms across her chest. "Take my word for it."

"Hey! Just 'cause I want my friends to be healthy and I like reading legible books don't mean I don't like art!" the dragon said defensively. "Heck, I don't know why you're getting' on my case for that when you ain't even touched the pensieve recordings of the plays that were in the next box over. Those were worth lookin' at, and they don't crumble when you so much as look at 'em funny."

Albus noted that the girl turned a rather alarming shade of white.

"The what?" she squeaked.

"The pensieve recordings of Shakespeare's plays," Harry said matter-of-factly as his human damsel's mouth worked soundlessly, trying to form a response that wouldn't come. "They were in with the books, but when I went through it the first time, I moved 'em to another box so they weren't scattered all through everything. I watched 'em after Christmas last year when you were off visiting your family."

"Oh, is that why you borrowed my pensieve, Mr. Potter?" Albus interjected, alerting the young dragon his presence.

"Yeah, thanks for that, Mr. Dumbledore," Harry nodded to his new visitor. "I didn't really know what they were until we had that one meeting where I had to check out Uncle Vernon's memories. I knew they didn't smell like mercury, even if they looked like it, so I held off on eating 'em. Glad I did!"

"You almost ate…" Hermione still hadn't noticed the newcomer. "I can't believe you! You almost ate the only surviving recordings of the Bard's original plays, and then you watched them without even telling me about it!"

"I would've asked you, but you weren't around!" Harry said defensively. "I mean, Suze watched 'em with me, and there would have been plenty of room for one more!"

"Suze watched them too? And you didn't think to offer again when I got back?" Hermione accused, sounding rather thoroughly betrayed. "I'm named after the queen in The Winter's Tale, you know! I'd have thought it would have been obvious I'd be interested!"

"Well, it didn't come up!" Harry tried to defend himself. "I mean I was gonna offer, but you were tired when you got back, and then you seemed kinda off for the first week or so, and I was waiting for you to feel better, and then we had that meeting where we found out about Krakatoa, and then I had to return Mr. Dumbledore's pensieve, and things just seemed to keep happening…"

"Don't you try to pin your thoughtlessness on me, mister!" Hermione admonished.

"Sorry?" Harry offered uncertainly.

The bushy-haired girl glared at the young dragon for a long moment before letting out an inarticulate scream of frustration and storming back into the stacks.

"Are you okay?" Harry worriedly called after her.

"Don't talk to me right now!" Hermione's voice snapped from out of sight.

Harry stared after her for a time looking rather crestfallen before Albus decided to interrupt again. "Did I come at a bad time, Mr. Potter?"

"Maybe?" he offered. "I'm not really sure what I should do about Hermione."

Albus chuckled, "I suspect that waiting is your best option at this point. If Miss Granger has been sleeping as little as you implied, her behavior may be due in large part to fatigue. She will likely be more agreeable when she is rested."

"Really?" Harry asked hopefully. "I was trying to get her to sleep, but she wouldn't listen."

"Of course, I cannot say with certainty, but it is the course I would take, given what I have seen of the situation," Albus averred. "Although, I might suggest asking around about purchasing a pensieve of your own. She will likely insist on watching those memories soon after she rests."

"Can't I just borrow yours again?" the dragon asked.

"I would be willing to lend it to you, were I able; however, I am afraid Nicholas has borrowed my pensieve for the foreseeable future," Albus apologized with a rueful chuckle. "My old Master has an unfortunate tendency to borrow equipment and then forget he has it — a consequence of his advanced age, no doubt. It will likely take some doing — or possibly a major crisis requiring its use — to retrieve it from his clutches."

"Oh," came the disappointed reply. "I guess I'll have to start looking then."

"In any case, pensieves, though fascinating, are not the reason I have called upon you this afternoon," the elderly wizard began in a chipper tone. "I am here to give you your first lesson in the ancient and dangerous field of alchemy."

That got the dragon to perk right up, "Oh, yeah! I'd almost forgotten. So, do you want to do that here, or should we go to one of the labs?"

"You have laboratories now?" Albus asked, intrigued.

"Well, it's more that I've got my workshop plus a couple new rooms dug out for new projects when they come up," the dragon said bashfully.

Albus chuckled. "Alas, I am afraid that our tour will have to wait in that case. Most of the first lesson will be a retelling of our first discussion in more detail, and the only practical exercise I will be teaching you today requires the use of water as a starting point," the elderly wizard gestured to the stream flowing through the center of the room. "Real water not conjured. Thus, remaining near your source for such makes sense."

"Fair enough," the dragon allowed before gesturing to the sitting area below the library. "Would you like to take a seat?"

And with that, the white-bearded alchemist took the offered seat and began to speak, "In our first discussion we addressed the nature of the forces governing alchemy and the energy implicit in them. We will, of course, discuss these in greater detail in the future, but for now, I feel it is appropriate to cover the various tools of alchemical transmutation and their different uses. The examples we discussed previously dealt with the direct casting approach, in which the caster directly controls the reaction. This is the first method I will be teaching you, and it is considered the least hazardous."

"That's the least hazardous?" Harry asked, with a frown.

Albus nodded. "From an outside perspective, yes. From a personal perspective, all are equally dangerous, but caster-controlled processes will generally stop after killing their originator, limiting the damage to the surrounding environment," the elderly wizard explained. "The other methods, involving runic control systems in the one case and potions-assisted runic control systems in the other, have a tendency to be much more persistent and thus affect a much larger area."

"Oh."

"To continue, runic systems are conceptually quite simple, though their execution is anything but. In essence, the runic system is a physically embodied version of the caster-controlled spell. The runic systems run into difficulty in that they generally cannot be adjusted mid-use; thus the design must account for the precise nature of the target as well as the transmutation desired. As I am certain you have learned — from your potions studies if nothing else — absolutely pure anything is nearly impossible to acquire, a happenstance which reduces the general utility of the runic system significantly when used in isolation."

At the dragon's understanding nod, the wizard went on, "Potions present a method of getting around such difficulties by breaking up the target into extremely small pieces using a solvent and preparatory reactions to create a particular species of the target, and then performing a direct casting or runic transmutation specifically targeting that form. That is actually the preferred method for most alchemical experimentation, as it is perhaps the most reliable option for the vast majority of useful transmutations. It is for this reason that alchemy is often used as a more inclusive synonym for potions, as well as being tied closely to the non-magical study of chemistry. A successful alchemist must be supremely skilled in both fields as well as his own."

"How does that work?" Harry asked. "I mean, potions are really messy mixtures of lots of stuff. Wouldn't that make everything even more complicated?"

"It might seem so at first glance," Albus acknowledged, "but breaking the target down in a potion happens in a predictable manner, and each piece is both nearly identical and easily identified through magic. For instance, in the alchemical preparation of lead, it is normally converted to white lead, which is a carbonate of lead. In this form, a transmutation can be targeted at those bits of lead attached to a carbonate group, which is much easier to specify via runic languages than metallic lead."

"Oh! So the extra bits act sorta like a flag to show the magic where to go?" Harry asked.

"Exactly!" Albus congratulated his student on his insight. "The more information available, the more precisely the target of magic can be identified. Many fields of magical endeavor make excellent use of this property."

Harry thought for a moment before venturing, "Isn't that how a pensieve works? The memory provides a ton of information, and then the pensieve uses that to pick a time and place to scry, right?"

"Precisely, Mr. Potter! Precisely," Albus confirmed with a quick smile. "However, now that we have touched on the general structure of the field, I am afraid we must return to the basics, and that means another safety lecture, followed by your first exercise."

"I get to do an exercise already?"

"Indeed, Mr. Potter," Albus confirmed. "And it will be a boring and exhausting one."

Harry gulped apprehensively as the old wizard launched off into a detailed description of his new exercise, including a more involved rehash of his first talk on the dangers of alchemy.

'Boring' and 'exhausting' didn't sound like very much fun.

3.4.3 Homework

Two days had passed since Harry's first alchemy lesson, and the Lair was quiet.

Suze was absorbed in her spinning, a perennial activity for the young centaur maiden. It seemed to Harry that his first damsel spent perhaps half her time preparing nettle fiber for her weaving.

Before he'd carried Suze off, Harry had never realized just how much effort went into the production of cloth. Back when he was little, it was just one of those things that was in the store, and his perception of that had not changed when he started buying his own clothing after he learned to transform back into a human. Seeing Suze make her own shirts from scratch was an eye opener.

Honestly, it was kind of cool seeing his damsel take a great pile of stinging nettles and turn them into the soft woven cloth she made her shirts out of. She'd even made one for him once, and it was awesome! It felt so soft! It was also a whole lot of work, stripping the stems, soaking them for a couple weeks in the stream below the Lair, combing out the fibers, spinning them into yarn as she was now, then eventually weaving the whole lot into cloth then sewing a shirt out of it. The whole process took months, occupied tremendous amounts of time, and parts of it stank to high heaven, but the end result was so unlike the original plants that it was almost like magic!

His damsel was awesome.

Speaking of damsels, Hermione was sleeping again. True to Mr. Dumbledore's prediction, his human damsel had gone to bed on the evening of their argument, slept until noon, and then apologized for her behavior. Also true to the headmaster's prediction, she had been mightily irritated that she couldn't watch those plays right away. Harry was relieved he had already put out inquiries about purchasing a pensieve through Gringotts. He was fairly sure that had been a large part of Hermione's decision to forgive him.

Harry himself lounged in his native form, a comparatively miniscule bowl full of water sitting innocuously in front of him. The water contained within had been absorbing both his complete attention and a tremendous amount of magic for the last few hours.

Mr. Dumbledore had given him some homework.

The first of a pair of complementary training exercises originally developed by Nicholas Flamel, the task had Harry attempting to transmute an arbitrarily chosen fraction of the water into an inert, oily, pearlescent sludge which was significantly denser than the original water. The more of the water Harry converted, the more energy the process consumed.

Unlike most other transmutations, this particular reaction was self-limiting; it would not progress without positive thaumic pressure from the alchemist. Thus when the caster ran out of available energy and stopped pushing — a point which would be reached significantly earlier than the level of drain which would cause permanent harm — the reaction would stop on its own, rather than sucking energy out of the caster in an attempt to run to completion. Effectively, the exercise served as a relatively safe way for a student to build their control in preparation for other endothermic transmutations, which was a fancy way of saying transmutations that absorbed energy according to Mr. Dumbledore.

It was really, really hard!

At the outset Harry's control in this exercise had been no better than it was in others; nevertheless, the young dragon persevered. Dumbledore would be testing his progress in the next lesson, and if he had improved sufficiently, Harry would be allowed to work on the next exercise. That one was supposed to develop control of the transmutations that released energy — the fancy term for which was 'exothermic'.

But for now, it was best not to get ahead of himself. In the present, Harry was going to do his homework because he didn't want to disappoint his teacher at their next lesson. With that in mind, a flex of will brought his magic to bear once again; his intent was focused; the water was targeted… and once again, Harry's head fell onto his front paws when a wave of exhaustion overcame him as a little over half the volume of water turned to sludge.

He had been aiming for a tenth. Harry had a lot of work to do yet.

At least it was a novel exercise for the young dragon, though the repeated waves of exhaustion were a new and uncomfortable experience. He recovered quickly, but for a few minutes at a time, Harry was more tired than he ever remembered being since those dull, vaguely remembered times before his transformation. In sharp contrast to every other control exercise Harry had tried to this point, this one was fully capable of taking everything Harry could throw at it. He'd not accidentally transmuted the entire bowl of water even once!

During one of his exhaustion-enforced breaks, Harry had given some thought to precisely why the exercise could consume so much energy, and it hadn't been all that difficult to figure out.

One of the books Harry had picked up along the way had dealt with the basics of nuclear power, and a particular comparison had stuck in his young mind. No discussion of matters nuclear would ever be complete without at least touching on nuclear weaponry, and this one had been no different, making the offhand claim that the bomb dropped on Nagasaki had converted only about a gram of mass into energy.

He was working with a mixing bowl that held about a gallon of water, converting it to the same volume of sludge would increase the mass by about twenty percent. A quick check using the Nagasaki figure as a baseline had told him the energy embodied by changing a bowl full of water into a bowl full of that sludge would be equivalent to a bit less than a sixteen-megaton yield.

As the dragon tiredly sloshed the excess water out of the bowl and poured the sludge off into a steel drum he was keeping nearby for that purpose — Mr. Dumbledore had told him to keep it so he wouldn't have to make more for the second exercise — Harry took a good look at the half-full drum as he rested for a moment. The contents of that drum represented the result of about four hours' worth of practice.

Per the descriptions in that same book, they also represented the energy equivalent of a moderately-sized strategic nuclear arsenal, more than enough to kill an entire nation if it could be released quickly enough. The dragon closed his eyes thoughtfully.

Magic was always a hard thing to get a quantitative handle on, and doing so was a bit of an eye-opener for the young dragon. So far, his largest control error had amounted to about an eight megaton yield, a bit less than four hundred times the yield of that bomb in Japan. The revelation left Harry quite relieved that he now had an ideal exercise for safely learning proper magical control.

Harry had enough problems with controlling his physical strength without worrying about accidentally annihilating London if he got startled on a shopping trip — not that his magic had ever shown a tendency to flare up like that, but still… Even if he never did anything else with alchemy, the effort would have been well spent just for that!

Feeling his strength returning, Harry refilled the bowl from the stream and got back to work. Mr. Dumbledore had been good enough to teach him, and the young dragon refused to disappoint.

3.4.4 Diagon revisited

The Hogwarts letters arrived less than a week later — still well before Harry's next alchemy lesson — hand-carried by an uncharacteristically flustered Minerva McGonagall. The normally stern Scotswoman had forgotten about Harry's awkward owl situation when she was sending out the letters for the year, hence the somewhat-delayed and apologetic hand-delivery after her earlier owls returned, feathers ruffled and messages undelivered.

Thus it was that Harry, Suze, and Hermione set out for Diagon Alley, not on a quiet day when they could avoid the back-to-school crowds and spend all the time they wanted browsing through the bookstore, but rather on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

"I never knew it got this crowded," Hermione remarked as she walked at her friend's side through the congested street. It was almost shoulder to shoulder throughout the Alley. "I mean, there's got to be ten thousand people here. I didn't even know there were that many wizards!"

"Mr. Slackhammer says there are maybe five or six hundred thousand in Europe, and probably two-thirds of them are in the UK," Harry offered. "No one's got an accurate count, though."

On his other side, Suze watched the crowd in wary silence. She was done up in her usual Diagon Alley attire, including that ridiculous bridle. She had little to contribute to the discussion, having even less knowledge of wizarding demographics than Harry. Fortunately for them all, she did contribute by helping the pair of children to negotiate the crowd of adults safely. The wizards still had no idea how to react to a centaur in their shopping district, and so they usually defaulted to getting a bit of distance to gawk at the unusual sight, allowing the trio to move freely through a crowd that parted almost automatically before them.

"How can hundreds of thousands of wizards hide in a country the size of the United Kingdom?" Hermione boggled. "I mean, we don't have that much space!"

"I think it's because of how much wizards tend to clump together," the currently human-shaped dragon said. "I mean, take the Alley here, for example — how much space do you think Diagon Alley takes up in London?"

The bushy-haired girl's face screwed up in thought. Space expansion charms made that a tricky question to answer. "I don't know, maybe as much as a department store?" she guessed.

The young dragon shook his head. "The entire thing fits into the space between the brick façade and the inner wall of the Leaky Cauldron," he explained. "Found out about that when I was talking with Corporal Hookknife about magical architecture. If you actually work it out, the Alley houses about three hundred permanent wizard residents, and Gringotts worked out that it averages about five-hundred customers, guests, and other transient people at any given time, so Diagon Alley averages a population density of about eight hundred per square foot of real space."

"All of this fits in one square foot?" Hermione gasped looking around at the stores with renewed wonder.

"Well, most of it," Harry qualified. "A few places, like Gringotts, are just storefronts with portals to other places. The eight-hundred people figure though is just the Alley proper."

"But at that density…" Hermione trailed off, doing some math in her head, "all of wizarding Britain would fit inside my parents' kitchen!"

"Yep!" Harry chirped. "I mean there are some big spaces like the Black Woods, places that are so magical that they had to be hidden away if you want to maintain secrecy, and some people buy real houses in the non-magical world, but overall, it's still pretty small."

"…I knew there was some of that," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I mean, while you were sick, Abigail was telling me about one of her friends whose family lives in a shoe, but I didn't know that was normal!"

With that, the trio drifted off into silence. Lunch time approached, and they had already handled most of their shopping already. Braving one of the Alley restaurants in this crowd would have been unpleasant even for Harry and Hermione alone, and Suze' presence made it a near impossibility, so they made their slow way towards Flourish and Blotts, intending to finish off their last errand quickly before returning to the Lair for their meal. They would likely have skipped the bookstore entirely were it not for the Defense class reading list which surprisingly contained several titles which were missing from the dragon's extensive library.

The queue extending out the front door of the establishment put down any notion of a quick last stop. Hard.

"Oh, man," Harry whined. "That's gonna take forever, and I'm getting hungry! Maybe we should come back later?"

"That sounds good," Suze offered her opinion. She had no desire to wait outside and be gawked at for as long as it took to get through that line.

"Maybe it's just some event going on?" Hermione proposed, "Let's get closer so we can at least see what's going on. We might just be able to bypass the whole thing."

As the group drew closer, they finally caught site of a sign.

"'Meet the gallant Gilderoy Lockhart, Hero, Adventurer, and Bestselling Author'," Hermione read. "Oh, it's a book signing, and he's the author of all the books we're supposed to get!"

Harry's eyes lit up. "Oh, good! The line is probably just for meeting the guy, so the counter should be free! We'll be in and out in a minute."

"What kind of thinking is that?" Hermione objected. "The author is right here; we ought to get our new books signed!"

"But why?" Harry complained. "The line's really long, and it's not like some guy's signature is going to change anything important about the book. You read a book for what it says, not for a name some guy scribbled in it after the fact."

"But they'd be signed by the author!" the bushy-haired bibliophile insisted. "That's important!"

"Why?" her friend asked. "The books would say the same thing, signature or no signature."

"Because… well," Hermione struggled to find a way to put the concept into words, only to settle for, "signed copies are worth more when you sell them?"

"Really? That sounds like a good reason," Harry perked up, only to turn thoughtful for a moment, "but I'm also really hungry..." He paused for a moment, presumably to consider the tradeoffs. "Really hungry. Um, how much more are books usually worth if you get them signed?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said. "Maybe ten or twenty times more?"

Harry's expression turned thoughtful as he worked through those numbers in his head before shaking his head in the negative. "Nah, not worth it. The books aren't so expensive that I'd risk being hungry for too long around so many people."

With that odd statement, he set off for the second door to the shop — the one which wasn't packed full of hopeful wizards and witches out to meet a celebrity — dragging Hermione along like an anchor behind a storm-driven ship. A relieved Suze followed before peeling off to wait outside the door.

"Harry!" his bushy-haired boat anchor protested. They had just gotten to the door when Hermione managed to find her voice fully. "Harry James Potter! You didn't need to drag me into the store!"

"What?" Harry looked back at his friend, then down at their joined hands. "Oh, sorry Hermione, I didn't realize I was dragging you."

Hermione shook her head in exasperation and was about to respond when she was interrupted by a loud voice.

"It can't be… Harry Potter?" the voice, a male one, said from a table not far away.

The pair turned to face the new voice, finding a blond wizard in his late twenties. He was dressed in flamboyant baby-blue silk, and he had a beaming, artificially wide smile plastered across his face, teeth glinting unnaturally in the store's low light. The women on the scene were practically swooning in his presence.

Harry thought he looked kind of shifty.

"Yeah," Harry responded carefully. "Who're you?"

The dandy seemed more than a little taken aback at not being recognized, though he recovered gamely. "Why, I am the person you've come to see, Gilderoy Lockhart! I suppose it is understandable for you to be overwhelmed enough to forget why you came here in the face of my august presence," he allowed magnanimously, while motioning to another man carrying a bulky wizarding camera. "Quite alright, my boy, no offense taken."

Harry frowned. "No, I just came to get my schoolbooks for next year." As the photographer attempted to grab his arm and hustle him over to stand with the foppish author — an attempt that yielded the man nothing but a mildly strained shoulder — the young dragon continued unphased. "It's why I came in through the other door," Harry gestured to the door behind him, incidentally breaking the photographer's grip without noticing, "rather than waiting in line with the people who wanted to see you."

Seeing that his photographer was not making any progress, Gilderoy stepped up his game, announcing loudly, "Well, never mind that, intentional or not, you've had the good fortune to meet me nonetheless! And in commemoration of our meeting," the man continued his frantic hidden gesturing to the photographer, "I will gift you, and your lovely companion of course," he nodded absently to Hermione who blushed rosily at the attention from the handsome author, "with a complete collection of my books each, signed personally!"

"Um, thanks, I guess," Harry said frowning in puzzlement as to why the strange man was suddenly giving him things. He was still frowning when the preening author handed him a bag containing a massive pile of books while smiling to the camera off to the side. The distracted frown made for an interesting contrast with Gilderoy's gilded smile when the camera finally flashed.

With that the encounter was over, and Harry walked off toward the counter with his and Hermione's new books as Lockhart turned back to his adoring public. Hermione followed along with her friend, almost hyperventilating at the excitement of it all.

"Hello to you, Mr. Potter," the manager greeted the young dragon at the counter. "You've picked an exciting day to go shopping."

"I guess," came the noncommittal reply. "Um, we needed to get a few new books for our school reading lists. We thought we had them all, but there were a bunch of last-minute additions…"

The man chuckled, "I do believe you have two copies of each those in your bag, Mr. Potter."

"Really?" Harry asked skeptically, giving the things another look. "They don't look like textbook sorts of books."

"They are, indeed," the manager confirmed.

"Oh, well, I guess we're done then," Harry said. "Thanks!"

As the pair turned to walk back out the door, the manager smiled and shook his head. The young Potter's encounter with Mr. Lockhart had been hilarious. That kid was always fun to talk to — well, at least when he wasn't required to report the conversation to law enforcement; that tended to put a damper on such things.

Outside the crowded bookshop, the lumpy bag was quickly transferred to Suze's saddle horn, and the trio set out for the portkey transit point. In passing, Hermione noted a minor scuffle off on the other side of the street between a man with familiar red hair and another man with blond hair of his own coiffed in a similarly familiar slicked-down style. Her mind wandered back to a certain incident that had happened months previous — the scene seemed like an odd sort of echo of the earlier incident, just with older boys.

Hermione wondered for a moment whether the two men were related to the two boys who had so irritated her during the previous schoolyear, but she quickly shook her head in dismissal and moved on to more important things, like trying to keep up with her sometimes-dragon-shaped friend's hurried pace towards the portkey transit point.

Harry's stomach waited for no man.

3.4.5 The red tide

Meanwhile, back in the Alley, Arthur Weasley was busy being fussed over by his wife, Molly. A short, plump, rather dowdy sort of woman, Molly's nurturing personality and rock-solid devotion to her family more than made up for any shortcomings in appearance as far as her husband was concerned. There were nice things, like appearances, and then there were important things, like loyalty and love, and in Arthur's estimation, knowing the difference between the two was the key to fulfillment in life.

Molly also sported a head of red hair not dissimilar to Arthur's own, a circumstance which was entirely coincidental, no matter what his detractors tried to say — the inbred twits. Speaking of inbred twits, Molly was current fussing over him in the aftermath of his recent tussle with just such an inbred twit. Lucius Malfoy, current head of the Malfoy family, had accosted Arthur's family as they left Flourish and Blotts and made disparaging remarks about his wife and daughter, to which the protective family man had responded quite predictably — removing the sneer from Lucius' face with his fist.

"Really, Arthur," his wife was saying as she neatened her husband's hair with her fingers. "You simply cannot allow that man rile you up like this!"

"Molly! I couldn't let him spout off about that sort of thing!" Arthur protested. "He implied that you…"

"Arthur," Molly interrupted firmly, raising her voice just enough to carry to the surrounding crowd without being obvious about it, "we both know that I have engaged in no such behavior, and nothing Lucius Malfoy or anyone else can say will change that. But you must account for Mr. Malfoy's situation!"

At her husband's puzzled look, she forged on quickly. "His accusations were both completely baseless and horrifically inappropriate — terribly uncouth, really, ill-fitting for a man of his station — but the poor unfortunate sees our wonderful family, the bountiful fruits of our marriage — six strong, talented sons and our beautiful daughter — and... well, I'm sure he can't help but compare them to his own rather pathetic showing."

The redheaded woman fussed entirely unnecessarily over Arthur's collar as she elaborated, "Lucius Malfoy simply cannot bring himself to acknowledge your plainly evident superiority as a man, so he lashes out! It's quite obvious if you care to look," she said matter-of-factly. "The poor fellow struggled so much and for so long bring himself to provide his wife with even a single, rather unhealthy-looking child — a feat which he has been unable to repeat in the dozen years since, I might add!"

"Projecting your own shameful inadequacy onto others is a perfectly understandable thing for someone to do in his situation, dear," she continued with almost angelic sweetness. "It's wrong, certainly, but we must treat the poor unfortunate with compassion and understanding. Dear, just imagine how the man must feel, afflicted with that sort of… deficiency!"

Molly leaned closer to hide a wicked smile completely at odds with her saccharine tone of voice as the surrounding crowd tittered with laughter at Lucius' expense. At least a few of them had caught on to the subtext, and that would ensure the rumors spread.

Molly's chosen weapon was subtler than her husband's fist, but in many ways it was even more vicious.

"Now then, dear, let's go, we've got shopping to take care of," she said, having finally finished with straightening out the imaginary wrinkles in her husband's attire.

With that, the red-headed family set off to finish their shopping.

In a quiet voice, Arthur spoke to Molly, "Love, you did hear what Malfoy implied about our little Ginny, didn't you?"

"Of course, dear," Molly assured him in a similar tone, hard eyes glinting protectively. "Why did you think I waited to interrupt until after you'd beaten him bloody?"

She squeezed her husband's hand. "I know you want to do more, Arthur, but be patient — and keep up on your dueling skills. I just publicly cast aspersions on Lucius's manhood and implied his heir was illegitimate. With any luck, he'll feel it necessary to call you out for the insult, you will kill him in due course, and then the issue will be resolved in the open without waiting for the usual Malfoy trickery."

"That would be the ideal outcome, Molly, but I fear you overestimate the Malfoy sense of honor and fair play," Arthur sighed. "But thank you for your efforts, in any case."

"Any time, dear," his wife assured him.

In a louder voice, she addressed their children, "Dears, we have a great deal to do yet today, and I'm afraid that we have significantly less time to do it in than I would like. Percy, would you mind taking your brothers with you to handle the rest of your shopping while your father and I take Ginny to get her wand?"

"Of course, Mother," Percy acknowledged.

"Um, Mum, Dad?" Fred interrupted. "George and I were hoping to take a bit of time to look into things for the business we're hoping to start after we graduate. Do you mind if we take care of that?"

"What business is this, boys?" Molly asked skeptically.

"A joke shop," George stated proudly. "We figure it makes sense to scout out the competition now —"

"—and to build a reputation," Fred continued, "so people know to come to us for the finest of joking ideas and pranking paraphernalia —"

"That's why we have put so much effort into building our pranking skills during our school years," George took up the conversation.

Molly shook her head skeptically, "Boys, do you really think…"

"Molly, I think I know how to handle this," Arthur interjected. Seeing the sly look on her husband's face, Molly held her peace for the moment as her husband puffed up with theatrical pomposity. "Now boys, I know you are eager to do this, but you must realize that building a successful business is a great undertaking, demanding hard work and sacrifice. It's not something to which just anyone is suited…"

"We know that Dad!" George protested, sounding mildly outraged at being talked down to in such a way.

Which was precisely the response his father had been hoping for, "…so, if you want to do this, I'm afraid I must insist that you and your brother write up a detailed business plan before the end of the summer." That outrage would ensure the boys would be eager to meet his challenge and prove him wrong.

"But Dad, there's only a week left…" Fred protested weakly.

"Well, if you're not up to the challenge, I suppose you won't be able to…"

"We'll do it!" George interrupted firmly.

Arthur smiled as he looked over to the eldest of his sons currently present, "I believe Percy would be happy to assist you with the accounting details, as he has made a study of such things."

Percy, catching on to the thrust of his father's gambit, perked up. "Oh, certainly, Father, I would be delighted." He turned to the twins; whose expressions reflected a rapidly growing horror. "It is wonderful to see you two taking an interest in the practicalities of business, excruciatingly boring as they can be, and I would be more than pleased to assist you in your endeavors."

And Percy would indeed be pleased to assist, they were his brothers after all. That it would also present a prime opportunity to get back at the twins for their antics over his prefect badge the previous year was simply icing on the cake.

The twin expressions of dawning horror as they realized that they had been had were reward enough, but Percy felt the need to twist the metaphorical knife. "Though I also must insist that we review your proposed product line to explore their appropriateness. I know you two have had a regrettable tendency to exceed the bounds of good taste in your pranks in the past, and doing so when trying to build a good name for your business… well, that might well be devastating to your future success, don't you agree?"

"Right," George squeaked, sounding more than a little sick at the prospect. "Thanks, Percy."

"We'll be going now," Fred said hurriedly, dragging his twin off into the crowd.

"Meet back at Fortescue's in two hours, dears!" Molly called after the pair, receiving a shouted acknowledgement.

As the rest of the family split up into two groups to go about their business, Ron asked his brother, "What just happened? Why did you agree to help them with a prank business? I thought you hated the twins' pranking!"

Percy just laughed before he motioned to his youngest brother, "Come along, Ronald, I'll explain while we shop."

3.4.6 Clandestine mission

As the twins made their way through the crowd, the sickly expressions fell off their faces to be replaced with mischievous grins.

"How do you think Percy will react when he finds out we've already got a detailed business plan?" Fred asked his brother.

"I don't know, brother," George offered with a sly grin, "but I bet it won't be as funny as his expression when we give him our product notebooks."

"True," Fred laughed, "he's going to regret that proviso when he's stuck reading through that stack!"

Both brothers fell silent for a time as they pushed through the knot of shoppers clogging the entrance to the Alley.

"You know, brother, I feel kind of bad about lying to Mum and Dad," George remarked as they finally approached the sealed portal to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Whatever do you mean, brother?" Fred asked innocently. "We are going to work on the business."

"But we implied we were going to check out Zonko's," George countered.

"We said both checking out the competition and building our reputation," Fred insisted as they waited for the bricks to shuffle out of the way revealing the Leaky Cauldron exit. "This is going to build our reputation."

"I know it's technically what we said," George allowed, "but you know perfectly well it's not what we implied."

As the pair made their way north along Charing Cross, Fred considered that. "I know, George, but you have to make some sacrifices in the name of adventure and progress!"

George considered that for a quite a while as Fred navigated northeast along Shaftesbury using the street map they'd picked up in Flourish and Blotts. Local maps of the surrounding city were among the few non-magical publications the shop carried. He spoke up again just as they turned north onto Bloomsbury Street.

"Fred."

"Yes, George?"

"I know we've got to be ready to sacrifice things for adventure and progress," he continued. "But are you sure our family's trust is the right thing to be sacrificing?"

"Stop worrying, brother, it's not going to be that bad," Fred protested. "It's not that big a thing we're doing, they'll get over it. I mean, we even told them what we were going to do. We'll just get grounded or something."

"Yeah, I guess," George allowed. "Mum's going to go spare, though."

Fred had to nod at that, "Yeah. What's with that anyway? I mean, she's going to know we got back safely, since she's not going to find out until after we're at school. How does she manage to worry retroactively, anyway?"

"I don't know," his brother admitted, before his voice turned more optimistic, "but we're going to get a howler, for sure."

Both boys smiled at that — those howlers always seemed to be the finishing touch on their mischievous escapades — but the smiles melted off their faces as they passed in front of the British Museum.

"Blimey, that place feels creepy," George commented, rubbing at his upper arms as he looked suspiciously through the black iron fence at the columned building. "It feels like that one time when Peeves went on a tear — you know, until the Bloody Baron smacked him down — but loads worse."

"Back in first year? Yeah," his twin nodded, peering at the carved name to the right of the gate as they hurried by. "The British Museum — huh, I remember Dad talking about that place before when his department got called out to handle it a couple years back. He said the building felt like it had tons of poltergeists there, but no one could find anything. I think he said they decided it must have been some artifact or other back in the storerooms, but there's tons of stuff in there. Dad said if it wasn't bothering any of the muggles, there wasn't any point in trying to find it in that mess."

"Must be some bloody artifact," George remarked, shivering as they turned the corner. "You mind if we cut over a few blocks on the way back to avoid this place?"

"Fine by me, brother," Fred said fervently. "Fine by me."

By unspoken agreement, the twins picked up the pace to just short of a jog until they were halfway across Russel Square, at which point they slowed to a brisk walk. Exiting the green space onto another street, they took in the sights as they walked through the rows and rows of four-story brick buildings.

"What do you think these are, George?" Fred asked, gesturing to the buildings. "Houses?"

"Way too big for that, I'd think, brother," his twin remarked, thinking back on the various wizarding houses he had seen. "The Burrow is maybe an eighth that size, and we're a big family!"

"I don't know," Fred said. "If you didn't have expansion charms, you might build that big."

"Huh, maybe," George looked at another building speculatively. "Do you think…"

The two brothers were still chatting about the differences in housing between the nonmagical world and the magical one when they finally spied some familiar scenery in the form of the dingy-looking yellowish front of King's Cross station with its twin glassed-in arches.

"A fine job, navigator," George said to Fred.

"Thank you, brother mine," his brother allowed. "Now, on to the platform."

The two brothers made their way into the station, coming to a certain innocuous-looking pillar between platforms nine and ten. Leaning against the side without the portal, Fred surreptitiously drew his wand, using George's body to block it from view, and activated an invention of theirs from the last year, an enchanted piece of parchment which stored a notice-me-not, which he then proceeded to clip prominently to his brother's hair.

What little attention passers-by had been paying the twins fell away at the sight, and George posed for a moment, batting his eyelashes.

"What do you think, brother? Does it make me look pretty?"

"You forget, twin-of-mine, that I am scheduled to be the pretty one for the day," Fred proclaimed, pompously.

"Well, fudge," George groused. "At least no one can see me, then."

"Too right," his twin replied. "Let's get to work."

With that, the two boys drew a pair of bright orange wax crayons — conjured while they were still back home and the magic would be attributed to their parents by the ministry sensors — from their pockets. Armed with the crayons, the two brothers proceeded to rub around the edges of the portal, highlighting the physical edge which was covered by the illusion and providing a protective layer for the brick to contain the results of their next step.

Fred then withdrew a vial of an electric purple potion along with two red hairs. He uncorked the vial and added the hairs, causing the potion to bubble briefly and start to glow. When the bubbling stopped, the redhead splashed it onto the illusory wall. The boys held their breath as the purple liquid glowed faintly, spreading along the semi-corporeal wall seemingly of its own accord and seeping into the fabric of the spells as it went. The creeping purple glow stopped neatly at the conjured wax from the crayons.

"Phew, I am glad that worked," George said with an explosive sigh. "That was a tough one to work out!"

"Too bloody right," Fred agreed with a sigh, "those lunar calculations were a pain in the arse. Now we've just got to wait 'til the glowing stops."

"Right," George said settling down into silence for a moment. "Hey Fred?"

"Yeah, George?"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, brother?"

"I think so, George."

"Right," George nodded before beginning. "I spy with my little eye something — yellow!"

The two brothers played their childish game for nearly six minutes before the portal finally stopped glowing.

"Do you think it's a problem that it took six minutes instead of five?" George asked.

"It shouldn't be," Fred said doubtfully. "No help for it now, anyway."

Pushing a little magic to his fingertips — a trick their eldest brother had taught the pair on one of his visits home after he began his cursebreaking career — the redhead snapped the two conjured crayons in half, breaking the conjuration and causing both the crayons and the wax they had left on the wall to dissipate in a puff of dispersing magic. The two brothers walked back into the crowd before removing George's headgear and hiding it in a pocket.

As Fred and George exited the station back onto the sidewalk, they both grinned at the execution of a most excellent prank.

"Fred," George said to his brother, "the opening feast will be a night to remember!"

3.4.7 Night visitor

Two nights after the trip to Diagon Alley and just a few days before the beginning of his second year in Hogwarts, Harry rested quietly in his Lair. Both his damsels had been asleep for hours; Suze safely by his side, and Hermione tucked away in her room.

As a dragon, Harry slept deeply, but he also remained aware of his surroundings to a certain extent in much the same fashion that many other large predators do. Thus, when a small, muddy-colored figure with disproportionately large, pointy ears and bulging round eyes appeared in the darkened Lair with a quiet pop of displaced air, muttering something about a 'bad master' and 'needing to protect Harry Potter', that small figure was immediately confronted by an open green eye that seemed to be bigger than it was, an eye that was bright, aware, and looking at him curiously.

Unsurprisingly, this prompted the small figure to freeze immediately in shock.

"Who are you?" the owner of that large eye asked curiously. "I didn't think any of the castle elves would come this far out on their own." When the small figure remained frozen in shock, he prompted, "Um, hello? Are you okay?"

"Dobby is Dobby," the small figure introduced himself as he finally recovered enough to speak in anything other than a near-inaudible squeak, "and Dobby is not a Hogwarts elf. No, Dobby is not."

"Oh! Sorry for the mistake," the dragon apologized. "The castle elves usually don't like visiting me, so I don't know too many of them. So where are you from?" Harry paused a moment as he looked down at the now fully awakened centaur damsel seated nervously at his side motioning frantically at him while she groped around in the dark for something near her side. "Oh, and what are you doing here?"

"Dobby cannot say where Dobby is from because Dobby's bad master has commanded that Dobby not say. Dobby is sorry, Great Dragon, sir," the house elf replied. "And Dobby is here to protect Harry Potter from the bad master's plots, Great Dragon, sir."

"You're here to protect me from something?" the dragon asked as his damsel finally managed to find what she was groping for and brought her rifle up into her grip, finger on the trigger and safety off. Since the intruder had not yet proven hostile, she had the business end of the gun pointed not-quite at Dobby, rather than squarely at his face.

"No," Dobby said, puzzled, as he quickly tried to clarify, "Dobby said Dobby is here to protect Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a great wizard who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when Harry Potter was very small, and Great Dragon sir is a Great Dragon, Great Dragon, sir, not a great wizard."

"But I am Harry Potter," Harry said. "That's my name."

"But Harry Potter is a wizard. Was the Great Dragon Harry Potter sir named after the great wizard Harry Potter sir?" Dobby ventured.

"No, I used to be a wizard," Harry explained, "but then I had a bit of an accident at Avebury, and I sorta misplaced the whole 'being a human' thing. You know how that goes."

"Oh, yes," Dobby nodded knowingly, "bad master forgets all the time and does things humans is not supposed to be doing to other humans, but Dobby does not remember bad master ever changing shape before when he did, just changing clothes. Great wizard Harry Potter sir must have been a truly great wizard to have done so to become Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir."

"Thanks!" Harry said. "Um, what was that you said earlier about protecting me from something?"

"Dobby said Dobby is here to protect Harry Potter sir from Dobby's bad master's plans. Bad master plans to set a great danger on the school. Harry Potter sir cannot return to Hogwarts!"

"What kind of danger is it?" Harry asked, utterly unphased at the idea of another danger at school.

"Dobby cannot say, Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir," the house elf answered. "Dobby is sorry."

Harry was starting to warm to the discussion at this point as he shook off the last vestiges of sleep. "Do you know what the danger is, but you're bound not to say, or are you unable to say because you don't know in the first place?"

"Dobby is bound to protect the bad master's secrets, Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir," Dobby answered.

"So, you're bound by compulsion and dominance magics? Mr. Snape told me about those," the youthful dragon mused. "I take it you're working within the bounds your master placed, so you've got a lot of restrictions, right?"

"Yes, Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir, Dobby is bound by many magics and commands," the elf confirmed.

"Are there any particularly relevant to your visit today?" Harry asked. "That might give me a better idea of how to phrase questions to get around them."

"Dobby must protect the bad master's secrets; bad master's plans are secret; Dobby must not talk to bad master's enemies; Dobby must iron his hands each time Dobby does not serve bad master's best interests; and Dobby must shut his ears in the oven door every time Dobby insults bad master."

"So trying to figure out specifically what the danger is would make you interfere, then?" At Dobby's nod, Harry continued. "How are you getting around the command about talking to your master's enemies?"

"Bad master named wizard Harry Potter as enemy," Dobby explained slyly. "Dobby has learned wizard Harry Potter does not exist. Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter was not named enemy."

At this the dragon smiled, that reminded him of something Mr. Slackhammer had told him about contracts and negotiating during their conversation at the barbecue. People would always find the loopholes in a deal if you didn't find them first.

"I see, and by setting punishments for not serving his best interests and insulting him, your master effectively gave you free reign to work against his interests and insult him at the cost of those punishments. That's very clever!" As the house elf beamed at the praise, the dragon thought for a moment more. "Um, before I start asking about the danger at Hogwarts 'cause I know you might need to leave if I ask the wrong question, why do you keep insulting your master all the time if you have to punish yourself for it? I can see why you'd work against his interests and take the punishment, but why the insults when he can't even hear them?"

"Dobby insults bad master to force Dobby to remember, and Dobby uses punishments to keep Dobby's focus," the elf explained. "Bad master is bad, and by saying bad master is bad, Dobby remembers even though Dobby enjoys work. Punishments remind Dobby of why bad master is bad. They keep Dobby from thinking bad master is not-so-bad."

The small creature's bulging eyes glittered darkly, "Bad master is bad; slavery is bad. Without pain, Dobby might forget. Dobby's father's father's father remembered before the magics were placed, when house elves were free. Dobby remembers stories. House elves love work, but house elves are not slaves!"

"Pain helps Dobby focus; helps Dobby remember that bad master is enemy."

Despite the simplistic diction, the combination of manic dedication and sheer malice the small creature managed to pack into that one word was chilling. Suze recoiled from it; that sort of enmity and commitment were a terrifying combination, even when directed elsewhere. Her dragon, being made of somewhat sterner stuff — largely iron — remained focused on the puzzle of how to get more information from his impromptu visitor without triggering the compulsions to defend his master's secrets.

"I guess that makes sense," the dragon allowed. "Um, about this danger, is it actually a threat to me? You know, now that you know I'm a dragon and not a wizard?"

Dobby eyed his host appraisingly, "Maybe? Dobby is not sure. Danger is great, but Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir is also great."

"Would it help to know I'm made of iron?" Harry offered.

Dobby's already bulging eyes bulged even more. "Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter is made of iron? Dobby does not think danger is a threat to Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir. Dobby is not sure what can be threat to great dragon made of iron!"

"Right! Then I'll have to keep an eye on the castle to make sure my friends are safe from whatever it is," Harry concluded. "Is there anything else you can tell me, Dobby?"

"Dobby does not think so," the house elf's face screwed up in an exaggeratedly intense frown of concentration. "There is much Dobby would like to say, but Dobby is bound not to say it."

"Well, thanks for letting me know what you could," Harry said kindly. "Would you like some tea or something before you go?"

"Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter sir thanks Dobby and offers Dobby tea?" Dobby exclaimed incredulously before his voice dropped to a breathless whisper, "Like he would offer a proper guest?"

"Of course," Harry said, puzzled, "why wouldn't I? You've been friendly, and you've been mostly polite aside from the sneaking in in the middle of the night thing — and I can understand why you did that, given the 'talking to enemies' rule, since you thought I was still covered by it. There's no reason for me to be rude, and I'm not going to be rude without a reason!"

"Oh, Dobby is honored! So very honored that Great Dragon Wizard Harry Potter would treat him with such respect! As an equal!" Dobby seemed to be shivering in excitement, but then he stilled, "But Dobby cannot stay longer. Dobby must return to do some housework poorly so that bad master will not get suspicious of Dobby's ironed hands. Bad master is arrogant and gullible, but bad master is also observant."

"I see," the dragon replied, "thanks again for the warning, and try to stay safe."

With that, the diminutive intruder disappeared from the Lair with a soft pop, leaving the cave in silent darkness once more. After a few moments passed, Suze felt comfortable enough to reset the safety on her rifle with a soft click and ask, "Harry, what manner of creature was that? It looked like a house elf, but the feeling it gave off… I have rarely felt such a thing."

"He was a house elf," Harry reassured her as she put her gun back where it had been. "I think he's just one that remembers what house elves were before they were enslaved. I did some reading on them after I met Frizzy — she's the castle elf that delivers our food and stuff out here — and Mr. Snape filled in a bit more. House elves were originally minor fae," at that word, Suze gasped, "that were called brownies around Scotland. They were called other things in other places. Anyway, back before they were enslaved, brownies liked to help people around the house in exchange for a bit of food and being a valued part of the household, but if they were mistreated they could be really dangerous."

"Of course, they could be dangerous! They are fae!" Suze hissed. "Why on earth were wizards foolish enough to invite fae into their homes?"

"Um, I kinda gather they didn't really have a choice," Harry said. "The brownies just kinda moved in without asking. Anyway, 'cause they're fae, and they can be kinda spotty about what they consider mistreatment…"

Suze snorted, "That is an understatement."

"…wizards got the idea that they really oughtta put some guidelines on the interactions between wizards and brownies, so they put a contract in place which laid out what was okay and what wasn't. That's what turned them into house elves. I gather that worked pretty well for a long time, but later some wizards decided it wasn't enough and they started putting on more and more compulsions and control magics and stuff, and well… Mr. Snape told me that kind of thing works kinda weird with fae. Frizzy tells me that most elves are pretty happy with their lives, because most people don't go out of their way to mistreat them and they like their work. The ones that are actually treated like family are the happiest, but some wizards do mistreat them, and when they do, well… I guess they eventually get Dobby."

"Indeed," his damsel agreed. "What insanity possessed wizards to not only bind a fae, but then whip it into a frothing rage? What happens when the leash slips?"

"I kinda get the impression that it might be a habit," Harry said, sounding puzzled himself. "A lot of the wizarding world seems to be built on being jerks to everyone just because they can, from what Mr. Snape tells me. It's a big part of what we're trying to fix."

The centaur maiden shuddered with a chill at the idea of a fae with a grudge, despite snuggling into her dragon's warm side. "Harry, you know, that is the second time in the last two seasons that we have had an uninvited guest in the Lair. This one proved friendly, but the one before…"

"Huh, you're right," Harry frowned. "I probably oughtta look into wards or something, then."