Section 5.8 - Reunion
Dunkelzahn
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5.8 Reunion
5.8.1 Detrimental familiarity
He had known as soon as Mr. Potter had winged away that it was a fool's errand to try to chase him. Tracking a pigeon in flight was hard enough, much less capturing it, and that was especially true for one with that degree of strength and intelligence. Attempting to chase Mr. Potter down would have been a terribly silly way to go about things.
Ambushing him was much more realistic.
Fortunately, Albus knew enough about the situation to pull off such a thing. His young charge had been kind enough to announce his intentions, after all, and that was enough to tell the Headmaster exactly where he was going.
Miss Granger was currently being held in protective custody at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and as a long time member of the Ministry, the old wizard knew how to get there very quickly, indeed. One quick apparation and a short walk had him at the DMLE before his student crossed the M25. By the time Harry fluttered to a landing at the Ministry street entrance, the elderly wizard had already grabbed a cup of tea, had a short but friendly conversation with the DMLE receptionist on night duty, and settled in to wait in one of the scant smattering of chairs that served as the waiting area for the DMLE Night Desk.
Of course, as might be inferred from the lack of a proper reception area, the Night Desk was a very small operation, one which was not well-known even among Ministry employees. Added mostly as an afterthought to the group tasked with handling emergency floo calls, the Night Desk was located near their offices just a few dozen feet down the hall from the floo receiving area… an area coincidentally almost diametrically opposite the much more extensive main reception desk which had been built to serve the Ministry's street entrance.
Dumbledore, one of those exceedingly rare politicians who actually took the responsibilities of his position seriously, naturally knew all about the Night Desk, having been responsible for overseeing and approving Departmental budgets for decades. In the course of doing his due diligence on the matter, he had even visited the place quite a number of times. To him therefore, it was the natural place for anyone seeking access to the DMLE to go when outside normal hours. Sadly, it never occurred to the man that such might not be the case for everyone.
To be fair, it had been a very long day.
Thus it came to be that Dumbledore was still waiting for his charge to arrive when Amelia Bones stormed through the lounge in a hurry.
5.8.2 Storm front
"Emergency at the Department!"
That had been the message she had woken up to that morning, delivered by a girl from Communications who was near-breathless with panic by the time Amelia had finally dragged herself out of bed to answer the repeated, insistent floo calls. Her first attempt to press for details had revealed only that the message had been sent at the behest of one of the duty squad Aurors who had arrived at the girl's desk both in full combat harness and at a dead run.
That little detail had been enough more than enough to clear the last of the sleep from the Director's mind. Fortunately, by the time the Director had shimmied into her old armor and returned to the floo to come through, the girl had calmed enough to pass on a little more information, including a location and a name.
Harry Potter.
Given recent intelligence, Amelia had therefore arrived at the night desk mentally preparing herself for the worst.
Instead, she found herself greeted by an unexpected Albus Dumbledore.
She was not entirely sure what to think of that, so she decided to ask.
"Albus," she called ahead without slowing down appreciably. "What brings you to my Department at this godforsaken hour?"
The man raised a single snowy white eyebrow.
"I have reason to believe one of my students might be showing up soon…"
"Black hair, green eyes, temper like the North Sea in a heavy gale?" she interrupted.
"Ah, he has already arrived, then?" the older wizard grimaced. "I had hoped to head him off."
"Wrong entrance, as I understand it," Amelia explained. "I'd imagine he arrived from the street entrance, given the reports I've heard."
The man's flowing white beard twitched as his eyes narrowed.
"In hindsight, that makes a great deal of sense, though I still wonder…"
At that point, Amelia made a snap decision.
"Come along, Albus," she invited, "you can ask him when we get to to the conference room."
If the report from her officer was to be believed, she could use the assistance.
To his credit, the old man fell into step immediately.
"What has transpired?"
"Property damage and terror as of the last report," she deadpanned. "Fortunately nothing irreparable yet."
"I see," the wispy ends of the much older man's white mustache waved slightly as he sighed. "Then let us ensure it stays that way."
The Director of Magical Law Enforcement nodded firmly.
During that brief exchange, the pair's brisk walk had carried them deep enough into the Department to round the corner into section's the main tunnel. As they did so, both froze midstep.
Ahead lay a scene of absolute devastation. Everything within ten yards of the next major intersection was simply gone while more sporadic damages extended out for another dozen. Benches were splintered; potted plants were shredded; even the stone walls themselves sported slashes dozens of feet long and both wide and deep enough for Amelia to sink her hand in up to the elbow.
Wordlessly, she rushed forward, looking about in horror. A similar path of intermittent destruction stretching off into the distance down the adjoining hallway. In the other direction, just a short distance farther down the main drag, a large wooden door that normally shielded the main bank of conference rooms hung awkwardly from a single hinge, its knob and a good chunk of the wood to which it had been attached now only a ragged hole. Across the corridor opposite the door, there was a rough divot gouged out of the solid stone wall about the size of Amelia's head. On the floor below it, half-buried under a loose pile of shattered stone from the wall, she could see a similarly size mass of splinters.
The former Auror hissed through her teeth as she realized what she was seeing.
That was the missing…
Someone had literally ripped the knob off that door and casually tossed it away with enough force to shatter stone.
When she had heard the report of 'property damage' from her subordinates, Amelia had imagined a bit of destroyed furniture, perhaps some broken glass… the sort of thing one might expect from a particularly severe bout of accidental magic. This looked more like the aftermath of a pitched battle. Given what she knew of him and his capabilities, this was definitely within the last Potter's capacity, but accidental?
No, Amelia refused to accept that. There was no way this had been accidental!
What on earth had the boy done?
What had her men done to trigger this?
Why…?
Her increasingly frantic musings were then interrupted by two words from Dumbledore.
"I see."
In those two words, Amelia could hear a note of worry, not a common thing to hear from the man considered by most to be the premier wizard in Europe.
With that, the elderly man continued towards the ruined door, leaving his younger counterpart scrambling to keep up with his longer stride. In the few moments it took them to cross the distance, Amelia came to a very important realization: she had heard worry in his voice, that was true.
More importantly however, what she had not heard was surprise.
The old man had expected this appalling level of damage… no, that worry meant that he feared it could get worse.
"You expected this?" the Director hissed, grabbing the man's elbow in an iron grip and tugging him to a brief stop outside the door. "Why? Why would Potter attack my Department? What have we done to warrant this?"
"I highly doubt that this was intentional, Director Bones," Dumbledore offered, "much less an attack."
"Unintentional! How does this," she gesticulated back at the ruined hallway, "happen unintentionally?"
The older man fell silent, eyeing Amelia in consideration.
He was hiding something.
Her eyes narrowed.
What was he unwilling to say?
Something about Potter? The Director's eyes narrowed. What could Potter be keeping secret that could cause such widespread destruction?
The hallway looked like some great beast had clawed its way through a space too small for it. That would certainly fit with the boy's dragon form, yet it would not fit with Dumbledore's 'unintentional' assertion. Animagus forms were soul-deep transformations, moving from one form to another took concentration and effort because both forms were stable. No animagus form would slip because of a fit of temper, in either direction. It just didn't…
Amelia's eyes shot open.
Unless what the boy did was not an animagus transformation. Air whistled between Amelia's teeth as she sucked in an awed breath. If it was not, then all that remained was free-form self-transfiguration, and…
"Potter is having difficulty holding on to his transfiguration, isn't he?" she hissed.
That clarified a great deal in Amelia's mind. Of course it raised even more questions; however now was not the time to address them.
"Yes, I believe that to be the case," the elder wizard agreed. "May I ask how…"
"Deep mind scan on Miss Granger," she volunteered, heading off his unvoiced question even as she let go of his elbow and they began walking once more.
"How did you…" the Chief Warlock began with a puzzled frown before trailing off.
The pair managed a few more steps in silence before the man's expression suddenly cleared.
"The in flagrante loophole!"
He turned his head to give Amelia a pleased nod, "Well played, Madam."
"Thank you."
That exchange was enough to carry them through to their destination, one of half a dozen metal doors dotted along the side corridor. It was at least still properly hung, for which Amelia was grateful, though on opening the door, she was less so. It was hard to miss the way the green paint on its interior had blistered up in the clear shape of a smallish hand at about waist height. Less immediately identifiable were the great triangular tears that dotted the door and, as she cleared the doorframe, the wall in which that door was set at seemingly random, widely spaced points.
A view from the other side of the room would have made it obvious that those tears lined up with the fingers of that hand-print, as if left by a large clawed hand overlaid on the human one…
…a clawed hand with a span significantly wider than the door itself.
Amelia did not have time to wonder at that, though since within moments of entering the room such details abruptly ceased to be noteworthy, drowned out entirely by the singular being occupying the room.
"WHERE IS HERMIONE?"
Despite his current slight human form, the dragon in the room seemed to fill it entirely.
"I beg your pardon?" the Director replied, dazed and a tad lightheaded as she attempted to adjust to the sheer quantity of magic leaked into the air by the irritable Potter.
"HERMIONE GRANGER," the boy's incongruously and profoundly deep voice clarified. "I CAME HERE TO GET MY DAMSEL BACK. THEY SAID THEY NEEDED YOU TO DO THAT. NOW YOU'RE HERE, AND SHE ISN'T!"
"Right," Amelia shook her head in an attempt to speed her recovery.
It didn't help.
"Right," she repeated, buying time.
Looking around for something to jog her memory, her eyes caught on a splotch of red, the familiar hue enough to spark a memory.
Aurors!
Now that she had remembered, she was able to focus enough to note the other splotches of the same color scattered about. The duty squad was still in the room, faithfully standing guard. How far gone was she that she had missed an entire squad of her Aurors in the room?
A moment later, Amelia shook her head. That wasn't important right now. Her Aurors were the important thing.
Aurors could help with this.
"Weasley," Amelia's voice crackled with command as the familiar weight of duty settled on her shoulders like an old familiar cloak, restoring her equilibrium. "Retrieve Miss Granger, now!"
Her Auror wasted no time even nodding in acknowledgment before he left the room at a sprint.
"She will be on her way presently, Mr. Potter," the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement informed him, slipping fully back into her role and using it as a shield against the gathering storm that glowered at her from the other end of her conference table.
"GOOD."
With that terse reply, the room fell into a tense silence, only broken by the occasional low crackle of snapping wood fibers as the Potter heir's grip on the table edge continued to slowly tighten, his bare fingers inexorably tearing their way through the thick wooden slab.
It was at that point that Dumbledore felt it appropriate to speak up.
"What happened, Mr. Potter?" he asked, sounding more than mildly horrified. "You were doing much better than this when I last saw you."
"I DON'T KNOW!" the dragon-in-human-form, the table giving way with a bang as his grip suddenly turned white-knuckled at the admission. "I WAS DOING FINE, AND THEN I LET A LITTLE SLIP AND NOW I CAN'T STOP!"
That final word came out punctuated by a burst of magic that shoved the massive table nearly six inches and set the splintered remains of the tabletop that remained in his grip cheerily burning.
Harry showed no indication of even noticing the open flame enthusiastically licking at his fingers.
Everyone else in the room, however, noticed it quite clearly.
"Mr. Potter… Harry, you must calm yourse…"
"DO YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?"
As Harry bellowed, he snapped to his feet between one heartbeat and the next, the motion so sudden that the impact with the back of his knees threw his heavy wooden chair back hard enough to splinter against the wall.
As everyone else in the room flinched back, the elderly wizard at the focus of that terrible rage kept absolutely calm.
"If you know that, Mr. Potter, then you must know that this display of temper does you no favors."
"IF KNOWING THAT WERE ENOUGH, THEN I'D NEVER HAVE GONE OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE!" the boy dragon somehow managed a hiss loud enough to rattle the skulls of everyone in the conference room. "I KNOW I NEED TO CALM DOWN, I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW!"
"That is most concerning," Dumbledore muttered with a thoughtful frown.
Across the room, Harry's growling had now become a near-constant rumble, as his aura continued to intensify, showing no signs of abatement.
"This must stop, Harry," the old man stated again, "and if reason is not enough, then perhaps we ought attempt a different approach."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"
"Sometimes…" he began, his beard shuddering slightly as he worked his jaw nervously. "Sometimes when a person is lost in emotion, a shock to the senses will give them something that will help cut through the haze and guide them out."
"WHAT KIND OF SHOCK?" Harry cocked his head curiously.
"A slap is traditional, though I suspect it would be less than effective in this case," Albus glanced at the splintered chair behind his charge and let out a wry chuckle. "I would likely break my own hand before I could hit you hard enough for you to notice."
"THEN WHY BRING IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?" the dragon growled irritably.
"Because there might be another way to shock your system," the old man explained, "one that does not involve physical confrontation."
"I don't think that's a good…" Amelia attempted to interrupt, having some idea of where this was going.
Unfortunately, she had been mostly forgotten by the two biggest players in the room.
"GO AHEAD," the dragon spoke, giving to indication that he had heard her. "AT THIS POINT, I'M WILLING TO TRY ANYTHING."
And with permission given, Albus began. His student needed a shock, and if physical ones weren't going to work, then he needed something else. Conveniently, he had managed something similar recently, and as much as he disliked the idea of using it on someone he actually liked… well, sometimes needs must while the devil drives, and all that.
Still the Potter heir was a far cry from his last target; he would need to pull the technique off perfectly.
Concentrating, the elder wizard delved deep into his memory, reviewing once more exactly what he needed to do, trying to recapture the necessary mindset…
All of a sudden, it clicked into place.
Feeding magic into the technique, the old wizard's presence seemed to swell as he artificially boosted his aura as high as he could push it. Hopefully the introduction of a threat, even a minor one, would change the landscape enough to shock his student out of his current spiral and restore his equilibrium.
It worked… from a certain point of view. The attempt surely did trigger a change… in much the same way that one could douse a campfire with naptha.
That terrifying aura, more than enough to reduce the likes of Lucius Malfoy to the point of spontaneous organ failure, was to the young dragon as a fluttering red cape was to an enraged bull: a challenge.
And, in Harry's current state, a challenge could only ever warrant one response.
His body seemed to move on its own, stepping forward and batting the heavy conference table aside with the back of one hand, sending it skittering across the floor only to slam heavily against a thankfully empty section of wall.
The technique's failure was obvious, and Albus reacted quickly, already reining in his aura before the table even hit the wall. Unfortunately, even that reaction was too late. Even as the newly upset table clattered against the floor, the dragon-in-human-form had already stalked the length of the room, his transfigured form quivering and twisting in unnatural ways following the vagaries of his own faltering concentration.
As he looked in his student's green eyes, Albus realized the depth of his error. In those eyes there was nothing of the happy boy he knew, no hints of the pleasant times and conversations the had shared over the last few years. In those hard, predatory eyes, Albus could see nothing but his own violent death.
Albus Dumbledore, Defeater of Grindlewald and the most powerful wizard west of the Urals, froze.
The great wizard did not freeze because he feared defeat.
No.
The great wizard froze because he knew the price of victory.
Despite his massive advantage in power, the last Potter still lacked the skill necessary to use that advantage to full effect. His lack of skill, however, did not make the boy any less dangerous. Attempting to handle an enraged Harry Potter with kid gloves would mean certain death, even for the likes of Albus Dumbledore.
Survival meant responding in kind: meeting deadly intent with deadly intent.
Yet this was his own beloved student, the only child of two of his other beloved students! For a dedicated educator, the boy might as well be his own grandson! How could he justify such a price, especially in a situation brought about through his own poor judgment! How?
How could he bring himself to…
"Harry!"
Fortunately, the arrival of the young Miss Granger spared him the agony of finding out.
Shooting through the door at a dead run, the young girl launched herself at her friend, wrapping him up in a great hug, and thus the spell was broken. As the Potter boy caught her in his own arms, those hard green eyes suddenly softened, and just like that, Albus' student was returned to him… still angry, oh so very angry, but no longer outright murderous.
That, he found on brief reflection, was something he could deal with.
Now he just had to do so.
5.8.3 Glimmers in the eye
Harry breathed deeply with his nose buried in the frizzy brown mass of his damsel's hair, inhaling the familiar scent while otherwise holding himself quite thoroughly still.
It helped.
It helped a very great deal.
Getting Hermione back, safe by his side, had finally been enough to take the edge off. The anger was still there, no mistake about that. The young dragon was still just as cataclysmally enraged as he had been, but now it was no longer constantly intensifying. It was as if whatever force had been driving the process had decided that it had done its job and was no longer needed.
The ridge had been crested, and Harry was still in control, if only barely. If he could control himself now, then that control would only improve with time.
He had this.
Taking one last fortifying whiff, the young dragon looked up with fresh eyes, now able to feel a faint pang of regret at the looks of fear on the faces of the adults in the room. It wasn't much, but he counted it as progress.
"WHERE…" he began, only to pause and look down when he felt Hermione flinch and whimper slightly where her head rested against his chest. Trying his best to modulate his voice, he tried again.
"WHERE ARE THE DEAD MEN WHO TOOK MY HERMIONE?" he asked in a slightly quieter bellow.
"Of those who carried out the raid, all but one are dead," Amelia volunteered.
"AND THE LAST?"
"Will be dead soon enough," she replied. "Once we are certain he has given us all the information he has to give, he will have his trial. He has already agreed to a guilty plea in exchange for a reduced sentence."
Anger flared again, "REDUCED SENTENCE! I THOUGHT YOU SAID HE WOULD BE DEAD!"
"And I did not misspeak," the head of the DMLE countered calmly. "Kidnapping with intent to enslave is punishable by up to life in Azkaban. Execution is a lesser penalty in the eyes of many."
"I SEE," Harry nodded before shooting the woman a gimlet stare, "AND THE ONE WHO GAVE THE ORDER?"
Amelia hissed in irritation.
"We are still investigating that," she temporized, "and I am afraid we do not know at this time."
"WHEN WILL YOU?"
"I am afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing…"
"WHEN?" Harry ground out. "YOU SAID YOU HAVE A COOPERATIVE INSIDE MAN. YOU MUST HAVE SOME IDEA!"
Madam Bones mumbled something unintelligible.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY LEADS?"
Obviously she had not mumbled unintelligibly enough.
"Look, Mr. Potter," Amelia said, "frankly, our witness is almost useless. The job was arranged through a cutout, and every lead we have attempted to follow up on has ended at a burned-out crime scene. Our witness lost his foot escaping just such a hit. Someone murdered the rest of his team and firebombed their safehouse right before we picked him up, and whoever it was seems to be an expert at covering their own tracks. We are still keeping an ear to the ground, but at this point, my investigators are not holding too much hope."
"YOU'RE JUST GIVING UP!"
"We are damned well not 'just giving up', Mr. Potter!" Amelia snapped, eyes flashing, "And I'll not have you insinuate such again! Not about my men!"
"IT SOUNDS LIKE IT!" Harry snapped back. "YOU JUST SAID…"
"There is nothing. To. Be. Found!"
"THEN TRY HARDER!"
"It's not a matter of trying harder, Mr. Potter. My men are working their asses off trying to…"
"THEN WHAT IS IT?"
"They can't find something that isn't there!" she yelled. "That's the problem, Potter! My men are good, they can make a whole lot out of very little, but even they need something to work with. There is nothing there, every lead we have found is dead and burned beyond recognition. We can't do anything with that; no one can!"
"THEN LET ME TRY!" Harry hissed. "IF YOU CAN'T DO IT, THEN LET SOMEONE ELSE TRY."
The Director seemed to shrink in on herself.
"I can't do that, Mr. Potter."
"WHY NOT?" he demanded. "JUST GIVE ME THE EVIDENCE FOLDER, IT CAN'T BE THAT HARD!"
"I've taken oaths, Mr. Potter," she explained. "Regretfully, I cannot disseminate information obtained via law enforcement methods outside the Department except when presenting evidence to the court."
"WHAT KIND OF DUNDERHEADED RULE IS THAT?"
"One of mine, actually," Albus interjected, reminding the rest of the room of his presence for the first time in a while. "In the past, it had been common practice for various corrupt Ministry personnel to turn the DMLE into their own private blackmail mill. The oaths are intended to prevent that. It was either that or crippling their ability to gather evidence entirely. I judged the conditional secrecy oaths to be the lesser evil."
Harry shot the old man a betrayed look. Albus returned one of apologetic resignation.
"ISN'T THERE A WAY TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION?"
"No, I'm afraid there is not, Mr. Potter."
The dragon fell silent for a time as he considered the problem. Eventually, his expression shifted from disappointed to sly.
"YOUR OATH JUST SAYS YOU CAN'T GIVE IT TO ME, RIGHT?"
"Yes," the Director said leadingly.
"WELL, WHAT IF I JUST TAKE IT?"
Amelia's eyes narrowed. "Then I would be obligated to stop you, Mr. Potter. Or failing that, I would be required to take it back."
The dragon's reply was a single skeptically raised brow.
Amelia scowled at the implied opinion of her chances of doing so. As much as it rankled, she couldn't help but admit, at least in the privacy of her own head, that his reaction was not an unreasonable one.
"YOU KNOW, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PRETTY GOOD…"
"No, Harry!" a new voice entered the conversation. "You will not put Madam Bones in that position!"
Hermione had pulled back from where she had buried her face in her dragon's currently-human chest.
"BUT…"
"No 'but's, Harry!" she insisted, poking him in the chest. "Madam Bones' people saved me, and they've treated me well! I am not going to repay that by letting you walk all over her. Plus what do you think Susan would say? Hmm?"
"SUSAN?" Harry screwed his face up in puzzlement. "WHAT DOES SUSAN HAVE TO DO…"
"Susan Bones," his damsel said leadingly.
At his continued blank look, the bushy-haired girl spelled it out.
"Madam Bones is Susan's aunt."
"OH…" the young dragon seemed to deflate as he dropped the idea. "WELL, THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK THEN."
The conference room fell silent for a time until an olive branch came from an unlikely source.
"Perhaps in a few days, once tempers have cooled, we might meet and see what we can work out," Amelia offered. "If nothing else, I'm sure our investigators would like to pick your brain for any insight you might offer."
Harry nodded gravely. "I'LL DO THAT."
And on that note, the meeting ended.
5.8.4 In the wake
"Boss, what was that?"
The question from her Auror roused Amelia from the relieved reverie she had fallen into when Albus had finally led the human-shaped typhoon that was the Boy-Who-Lived out of her department and off to the portkey transit point. Having met the boy in person now, she counted herself lucky to have gotten off with so little damage.
The girl's memories had not done justice to the reality that was Harry Potter.
Not by a long shot.
"Boss?"
"Not my secret to tell, Weasley," came the belated response. "Suffice it to say, the boy is powerful."
"Powerful?" the squad leader's once-more-helmeted head tilted to a skeptical cant. "Boss, Dumbledore is powerful, and when I got back here with the girl, that kid was inches away from killing him where he stood! 'Powerful' doesn't even begin to cut it."
"Like I said, Auror, it's not my secret to tell," Amelia repeated. "The only reason I know is because of the deep scan we ran on the girl when you brought her in. You know those are classified to hell and back if they come back negative."
The room fell silent for a beat.
"Right, I'll accept that," Auror Weasley conceded. "Just tell me one thing, Boss."
"Hmm?"
"Is he a threat to us?"
When Amelia remained silent, her Auror rushed to explain.
"I mean, I get the impression that we only survived this one by the skin of our teeth, and we were only fray-adjacent. He wasn't even angry with us! What if we're not so lucky next time?"
"Keep an eye on him, sure," Amelia nodded slowly, as if coming to a decision. "But no, I don't think he's going to be a threat, not directly anyway. Part of my reasoning for offering that meeting with the boy is to build some rapport with him before something sets him off again. Hopefully, we'll be starting from a better place next time. For the rest…"
She paused.
"For the rest, just keep the school motto in mind, and you should be fine."
Slowly, Weasley's featureless steel helmet began to nod.
"Guess that makes sense. There was a fair bit of provocation involved."
"Indeed," his boss nodded in grave agreement.
"Never tickle a sleeping dragon, huh?" Weasley chuckled. "After tonight, I think I can see it! He's easily as dangerous as one."
The Director stifled an amused snort at the irony of that statement.
"He certainly is," she agreed instead. "And whoever kidnapped Miss Granger did a lot more than tickle him."
Everyone in the room, even those in the squad who had thus far remained silent, nodded in unison at that truth.
Then Matt Weasley burst out laughing.
"Something funny, Auror?" Amelia asked with one raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, heh… yeah Boss," Weasley managed to choke out. "Just remembered something."
"Oh?"
He nodded.
"Was thinkin' back to that day I was staking out the registry, and saw those two come through. We were so sure he was trying to enslave the girl. Then we just saw how they interact with each other, and it struck me just how wrong we were. Just struck me as funny, is all."
This time, Amelia did not suppress her snort of amusement.
"Too bloody right you are on that," she agreed. "If that girl isn't the next Lady Potter, then I'll eat my hat!"
That prompted a much-needed round of laughter from the duty squad, bringing them the rest of the way down from the combat high they had been pinned at for the better part of an hour.
"Right, you lot!" Amelia clapped her hands together and stood up. "Since Mr. Dumbledore has been good enough to promise to return shortly and clean up after his wayward student, that means we are all on to the Healers for an after-action checkup. Hop to!"
Despite their chorus of groans, her men fell into line. Like she had told Potter, her men would do their duty. From pursuing seemingly hopeless cases to going to visit the Healers despite lacking any obvious injuries, her men would perform to the highest standards.
When they arrived at the Healers' station, Amelia made sure she was the first in line. Like always, she refused to send her men anywhere she was unwilling to go.
That was why they followed.
5.8.5 Rain
Hermione stumbled slightly when the portkey dumped her off unceremoniously at the Lair, only to be steadied immediately by Harry who had arrived with her. As her world stopped spinning and she took in the familiar scenery of the comfortable cave dwelling which had become her home over the past year and a half, the frizzy-haired girl breathed a deep sigh of relief as the last of the tension drained out of her.
It was over.
So powerful was the feeling that the girl remained caught up in it for a time, meekly following along as her friend gently guided her over to the Lair's main sitting area and called out to the Lair's other inhabitant.
"SUZE, WE'RE BACK!"
Her friend's voice was enough to snap Hermione out of her reverie, loud enough that she flinched away from it. Behind her, she could feel Harry tense in return as he felt her reaction. His words a few seconds later sounded strained, yet a great deal quieter.
"Sorry, Hermione."
She nodded and was about to thank him when her fellow damsel trotted out from deeper in the Lair and the sight of another familiar face distracted her.
"Suze!" she greeted.
"Well met, Hermione Granger," the centaur maiden returned with a smile, "and well come, as well. I understand you have had a difficult time of it."
Another warm hug followed, and then the three settled down in their usual places near the Rayburn by unspoken agreement.
"It was horrible," the bushy-haired girl began quietly. "We'd… Mum and Dad and I had just gotten home when they came in through the windows, and there was broken glass everywhere and blood and…" she trailed off, her voice falling to a whisper.
"…and I killed one of them."
She fell silent. After a few moments in which no response came, she looked up nervously, only to find her audience patiently waiting for her to continue. Suze even gave her an encouraging nod.
Hermione frowned. "You're not going to say anything?"
"Um… good work?" Harry ventured.
"Indeed," Suze echoed. "you have done well in defense of your family."
The bushy-haired girl's jaw dropped.
"But… but I killed a man!" she protested. "Killed one and wounded another!"
"Oh!" her male friend's green eyes widened in realization. "Don't feel bad, Hermione! It was your first time; you did really well by just not freezing. No one's going to fault you for only winging the second one. I'm sure you'll get better!"
Hermione stared incredulously.
"I mean, the only thing you might have been able to do better would have been to use your emergency portkey," Harry continued, "but I get how you were worried about what might happen to your parents if you left. I think you did really well!"
Off to the side, Suze nodded in solemn agreement.
The bushy-haired girl worked her jaw for one long, incredulous moment before shaking her head and deliberately ignoring that particular bit of insanity.
"Well, anyway, then they stunned me, and I came to already standing on a stage being sold," she trembled a bit with the memory, prompting Harry to reach over and lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. She scooted a little closer in response. "Then there was this bright light and really loud sound, and the Aurors came in…"
With that began a long and emotional retelling of the ordeal that had been her last few weeks, pouring out her troubles and travails to her friends. Through it all, Harry and Suze could do little more than offer the girl a sympathetic ear and, in the young dragon's case, a shoulder to cry on. Eventually when she had talked and cried herself out, one last trouble managed to slip out as she leaned tiredly against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Harry. So sorry."
"What for?"
"I should have listened," she said. "If I had just listened to you then none of this would have happened. It's all my…"
"Hermione, it's not your fault," Harry interrupted firmly.
"But…"
"No 'but's! Look at me." When she had turned to meet his eyes, Harry continued, "There was no way for you to know about this. I knew it was a risk, but it was only ever a general possibility. I told you about it, and we took precautions. That those precautions did not work is my fault, not yours!"
Wide-eyed, Hermione slowly nodded.
"Okay."
With that, the last of the energy seemed to seep out of her, and those wide eyes slowly, inexorably drifted shut. When it became clear that she was on the verge of falling asleep against his shoulder, Harry carefully gathered her into his arms and put her to bed.
5.8.6 Petrichor
Hermione managed a tired smile as she heard the odd muffled slurp of the deerskin curtains adhering to the stone of her bedroom's doorway with a sticking charm, sealing it off from the rest of the Lair. It was thoughtful of Harry to remember. Turning her head, she buried her face in the soft comfort of her pillow, inhaling deeply of the scent.
It was the scent of home… of safety.
Her slight frame went limp as she relaxed completely into the embrace of the bedding. It had been far too long. She was back home. She would be visiting her parents soon. She had told Harry everything, and he had forgiven her.
Hermione hadn't realized before just a few minutes ago just how worried she had been about that conversation. Until that desperate apology had slipped out seemingly of its own accord, she hadn't even consciously realized that she was feeling guilty; though with its removal, the pall that guilt had cast over the past few weeks was patently obvious.
She was exhausted and wrung out, her eyes puffy from crying, yet Hermione felt better now than she had in weeks. Once more she knew where she stood, and with that firm footing, all that remained was to put her life back in order. Hermione knew all about organizing things especially her own life, as her study schedules could attest. She'd had one put together even before the end of school, and if Hermione had her druthers she would be stepping right back into it, her only concession to recent events being bumping stunning and binding charms up to the head of the schedule.
Even on the edge of sleep, the bushy-haired girl grimaced at the memory of the telltale glint of light visible through that unknown man's head.
Grimacing into her pillow, she reflexively shied away from that train of thoughts. Much better to focus on her her own business rather than Harry's. Hermione had already seen the results of involving herself in that, and she wanted no part of it! Much better to leave it to her friend; he'd take care of it. As long as she did what he asked and left the details to him there would be no need for her to get involved in that madness again.
That was the way, just like she should have done this time: listen to Harry, stay out of his way, and everything would be fine.
If she just did that, she would be safe… just like she used to be.
5.8.7 Ozone
As he left Hermione's bedroom and closed the full-length curtain behind him, Harry absently flicked a finger behind himself, effortlessly casting the charms needed to seal the deerskin against the stone and silence the room against external noise.
"How does she fare?" Suze asked from across the main room of the Lair, still in the seating area they had been using as Hermione relayed the emotional tale of her ordeal.
She was met with silence for a long moment.
"She'll be okay, I think," Harry eventually said with a slow nod.
"And you, Great One?" Suze shot him a pointed look.
There was a long silence.
"I've been better," he finally replied.
Suze nodded gravely and gave him a hug.
"What are you planning to do?" he asked after his centaur damsel let go, noting she had changed into her usual forest gear.
"Unless you have need of me," she began, glancing back over her shoulder at the bright morning sky visible through the Lair entrance, "I had thought to visit the Clan and see the little ones, something simple to keep me occupied while I adjust to the change in time."
"Sounds like a good idea. I think…" the young dragon paused, apparently thinking better of what he had been about to say. "I think I'll find something to do around here. Tell them I said hello."
Suze nodded and turned to go retrieve her usual portkey. Before she triggered it, she paused and offered, "Great One, are you certain you do not wish to join me? The little ones adore you, and they are always up for a good game or two. I know how much you have enjoyed that in the past."
Green eyes brightened momentarily at the offer before they dimmed again, and Harry shook his head. Frowning down at his own hands, he clenched them several times.
"No, I think I need to go blow off some steam first," he explained regretfully. "I'm still not sure I trust myself yet."
Suze nodded gravely.
"In that case, I shall take my leave." Once more, she hugged him tightly. "I hope you feel better soon."
Then she released him and activated the portkey in her hand.
Harry stared at the newly empty space for a few long moments before shaking his still currently human head and turning towards the tunnel that led deeper into the Lair, into the newer areas he had dug over the past several years. Blurring into his native form, he took off at a brisk walk.
As he negotiated the ever-expanding maze of tunnels that made up the Lair, searching for a likely rock face he remembered from past excavation, Harry thought back over the past dozen or so hours. Now that he was coming down from the unusual circumstances — first that preternatural state of calm, and then the nigh-uncontrollable hyper-aggressive rage — and descending back into the realm of comprehensible states of mind, he was finally able to start coming to terms.
While he had certainly paid a price for the privilege, he was pleased to have gained some insight into his own psyche, particularly that delayed anger mechanism. Now that he understood it better, he would not make the same mistakes again: not in using it so lightly, nor in releasing it prematurely.
That was the one good thing, and the safe return of his damsel was the other.
Both of those were very good things, indeed… which was lucky for him, because everything else was terrible. Harry Potter, the Dragon of Hogwarts, had botched it by the numbers.
He had failed as a friend, allowing Hermione to staying behind with what turned out to be dismally inadequate security measures and setting her up for that terrible ordeal. In the same breath, he had failed as a Head of House by providing inadequate protection to his ward and being caught too far out of position to make her attackers sincerely regret their life choices He had only been spared complete defeat by the fortuitous intervention of a third party. It had been an utterly humiliating first showing in his capacity as Head of House,.
On their own, those were bad enough, but mistakes were an unavoidable part of growing up. Harry had made enough of them over the years to know that, and he knew how to deal with the aftermath. Were it not for the auror intervention, that would have been a different story of course, but the fact remained that they had intervened, and Hermione was safe. Compared to that, his own embarrassment was inconsequential; he would deal with it.
No, his worst failure, the truly egregious bit, had been his loss of control.
That initial exclamation back in Vancouver had come very close to injuring his friends… at the very least. If not for Mr. Snape's timely interference, and if he had not accidentally come across that entirely unexpected control pathway, Harry found it all too easy to imagine having gone on to finish the job by accidentally destroying the plane on the flight home. That was not even getting into his idiocy at the Ministry which would certainly not be winning him any hearts among the staff there.
Despite knowing just how dangerous his voice alone could be, he had let his surprise get the best of him at that airport. Later, despite knowing just how much he owed them and how important a good working relationship would be in the future, he had let his impatience get the better of him at the DMLE and exploded at the staff there. The sheer ingratitude he had shown there was mortifying in hindsight.
While he didn't fully blame himself for losing control of his temper, given the novel weirdness in play, he did blame himself for giving it the occasion to happen in the first place. He had poked that particular button not even two hours after he had personally concluded it was too dangerous to experiment with. That was inexcusable.
On top of those increasingly poignant regrets, though, there was still his anger, both the remaining reservoir he had developed earlier and some entirely new bits born of listening to the distress in his human damsel's voice as she related her perspective on what had befallen her in his absence. It was under tight control now, but it was certainly not going anywhere on its own, and given his recent track record, Harry felt he really ought to do something about it soon.
Thankfully, he thought as he finally came to the end of the line before a sheer wall of pink granite which formed the end of his current tunnel network, he now had something not only safe to vent on, but which could actually turn that venting to a gainful purpose.
As he stared at the stone for a long moment, Harry's currently reptilian visage slowly twisted itself into an ugly snarl as he finally… finally allowed his control to slip. With it went the iron hold he had been keeping on his temper, and with an inarticulate bellow, he lashed out at the wall, driving the claws and fingers of one great fore-paw deep into the wall, shoving the solid granite aside with an indescribable sound. Great iron muscles shifted under scaly hide as the stone groaned before giving way with a great tearing bang. As it did, Harry briefly found himself holding a great handful of solid granite before it too shattered under the inexorable force as his grip continued to tighten, casting a shower of stone shards across both himself and the tunnel floor.
As the last of the stone flakes tumbled to the ground with a tinkling clatter, the floodgates opened, and the irate dragon struck with tooth and claw, sundering ancient stone like paper. A bite here, a clawed out hollow there, and the occasional wing strike that shattered a dozen of cubic yards at once: with each blow a tiny fraction of Harry's frustration and anger seeped out and evaporated away, but it was not enough… nowhere near enough. He needed more.
Emerald eyes seemed to narrow and then dull slightly as their transparent inner lids reflexively slid shut. The iron dragon seemed to swell as he drew a great breath; the world seemed to pause for a moment as he held it; and then…
And then, there was fire.
5.8.8 Thunder
"Why thank you, little one; that is kind of you."
Suze smiled warmly as she bent to receive a hand-woven circlet of wildflowers from the pudgy hands of one of her youngest cousins. The young filly gave a happy smile and a burbling laugh as her much-admired elder relative reached up to settle the gift firmly on her own head. Her little cousin gazed up in adoration for a few more moments before a call from her fellows frolicking out in the meadow caught her attention, and the youngster promptly ran off to join them.
Suze looked over the scene fondly, drinking in the atmosphere.
Peaceful times with family, clear skies and sunny weather: these were the sorts of things that made life worth living. It would have been nice to share it with…
As Suze heard a faint boom echoing off the surrounding hills, like thunder in the distance, her smile faltered, and she sighed.
She remembered well the dark times, before the Great One had delivered them from the spider plague. She remembered times such as these were ephemeral no matter how pleasant they were. She remembered danger was always coming, it was only a question of when; and she remembered that troubles were to be faced promptly because attempting to ignore the truth, no matter how difficult, always ended worse than the alternative.
Now, Suze knew of two such dangers: one via an ominously cryptic warning from that mysterious fellow they had met at the lakeshore across the sea, and the other the inevitable follow-through on the events that had precipitated that 'thunder' she could hear despite an intervening layer of granite hundreds of lengths thick.
Trouble was coming, and her Harry would be in it up to the withers. Great One he might be, but Harry was still very young; he would need help.
The centaur maiden's smile firmed.
One way or another, he would have that help; Suze would see to it from her place at his side.
5.8.9 Plans
Stone ran like wax, flowing down the walls in white-hot runnels and dripping from the ceiling only to evaporate in the incandescent air before reaching the boiling floor. The hellish scene filled the entirety of the massive cavern — more than fifty meters wide, roughly the same in height and over twice that in length — though it varied in intensity from a dull orange glow near one end to a blinding yellow-white at the other.
At the center of that yellow-white glow stood the shadowy form of a great dragon, normally silvery scales almost black when viewed against the glow surrounding it, alleviated only by a slight glow around their thinner edges. The creature's breath came heavy and rapid as it surveyed the scene with a calm, tired air.
"Finally!" Harry exclaimed between great panting breaths of the superheated mix of oxygen and silicon vapor that filled the hotter end the room.
He had been beginning to fear he'd be stuck with that boiling pit of barely-controllable fury permanently. Thankfully, venting seemed to have done the trick; though Harry wasn't certain whether the cathartic destruction or the resulting exhaustion had been most effective. For now it would remain a mystery because he was unwilling to experiment to find out, both because he did not relish the thought of descending into that state again so soon and because he didn't have the time right now.
Now that he was calm enough to feel comfortable being around people again, he had work to do.
Hermione Granger, a young girl he had taken under the aegis of his House, had been kidnapped the moment he looked away. It was a brazen act of provocation, and it was not something he could allow to pass even if he were able to somehow set aside his own emotional stake in the situation, not after registering Hermione's servant contract publicly. That announcement had turned what would have otherwise been a personal vendetta into a matter of cold, hard duty.
As the Head of House Potter, he was obligated to look after members of that House; it mattered not whether that membership was by blood, by custom, or by contract. Now a young Head would normally be granted a grace period until he reached a certain age, even by his enemies. It was a custom akin to those regarding the proper treatment of prisoners of war or the respecting the sanctity of a truce, and its violation would bring everyone down hard on the offender, lest society collapse into a Hobbesian nightmare in rapid order. However, by that same registration, Harry had effectively declared himself ready to engage, waiving any claim to that grace period.
The dragon had not been concerned with that consequence for himself, for obvious reasons, and had considered it worthwhile to add an extra layer of deterrent around Hermione. However, now that she had been attacked, it meant he was on the hook for taking vengeance. It didn't matter that the aurors had stepped in in his absence. It didn't matter that no lasting harm had been done. What mattered was that one of his own had been publicly assaulted, and he had to extract punishment for that offense.
Lesser Houses might be able to get away with leaving the task to the proper authorities, but not an Ancient and Noble House like House Potter. Failing in that duty would damage his pride, but more importantly it would ruin the reputation his forebears in the position had built over centuries, and damage his political position. It would be a sign of weakness, blood in the water, and no doubt the sharks were even now circling, looking to rip bits off his House to enrich themselves.
He needed to make an appropriate statement to ward them off, and appropriate, given the severity of the offense, meant bloody. Either a little bloodletting now as a preventative measure or an ocean of it later fending off those that would have otherwise been reluctant to attack.
Having caught his breath, Harry frowned and turned to go, his claws sloshing through the ankle-deep lake of near-boiling stone that filled the newly-excavated room.
That was how politics worked in the wizarding world, after all; and quite frankly, Harry had no real qualms about shedding it, not after what had happened to his damsel the minute he turned his back. He still, however, faced one seemingly insoluble problem: whose blood would it be?
He had no idea who the responsible party had been. The aurors had not been able to track them down, and despite his earlier words to Madam Bones, now that he had calmed down, Harry didn't hold out too much hope that he would be able to do much better. He might be willing to dabble in less than strictly legal methods of investigation which were not available to the DMLE, but he was also much less skilled in the art and had only come to the party long after any trail had had plenty of time to cool. Any progress he might make would be attained through sheer happenstance, and happenstance was not sufficient for his purposes.
What was he to do? He couldn't let it ride for long, but without knowing who was responsible there was no target to hit. It wasn't as if he could just pick someone annoying and call it good; his conscience wouldn't allow it… not to mention, it would almost certainly, barring a very unlikely happy coincidence, leave the actual perpetrator to go scott-free.
The young dragon continued to consider the situation as he walked, sloshing through the molten cavern and off into the hallway beyond. A few dozen yards in, he encountered a great pile of fine grey-white dust filling the tunnel to well above even his eye-level.
"What is this?" he muttered, frowning curiously at the strange and unexpected addition to his Lair.
A tentative taste revealed them to be something not too dissimilar to fly ash yet much finer. After a bit of thought, the dragon realized that the stone filling the space which had become his new room had had to have gone somewhere. There had been much more than even he could eat in a single sitting, and despite vaporizing the rest with his breath, it wouldn't have gotten all that far before it cooled down to much to go further. This had to be it: vaporized rock that had fallen like snow as it cooled, the wind of its own passage blowing it into a drift.
Nodding in satisfaction, he forded the powdery obstacle with little difficulty, only to find himself immediately faced with another barely a hundred feet farther along.
"Huh?"
Pushing through again revealed a third, and then a fourth, and so on. By the time it petered out, he had passed more than a hundred of the cursed things, and he had fine stone dust everywhere.
"Well, I guess the first order of business is to give the Lair a good mucking out," he said to himself, groaning slightly as he tried in vain to shake the dust from between his scales. "So at least that's a start. Too bad the rest isn't quite so…"
The dragon trailed off, cocking his great head. as the thought resonated with something he had once heard.
"A good mucking out, huh? Maybe…" he muttered under his breath as he turned to head back to the living area of the Lair and its attached exit. "Mr. Snape ought to be back by now. I'll go talk to him; he'd have a better idea whether it would work, and what I need to pull it off…"
He hadn't made it more than a few steps before he stopped.
"…in the morning," he amended after a bit of thought. "I'll go talk to him tomorrow."
They could both use a bit of time to decompress before getting into any serious talk, and for the conversation to come, they both needed to be in top form. Harry didn't want to miss anything obvious because of fatigue, neither of them could afford it going forward, not with the approach he was thinking of.
In the meantime, Harry figured he might as well ask around with the goblins to see if anyone had a use for a few million cubic yards of not-particularly-pure fumed silica… or, failing that, at least find some place to put it. He eyed the nearest pile skeptically. You could only dump so much dust out the front door before it became an environmental hazard.
Maybe Mr. Snape might want to look into it for potions? It had been vaporized by dragonfire and recondensed; that might have introduced some magical properties; though it certainly wouldn't use all the stuff. As for storage, expansion charms or a persistent transfiguration? Expansion charms would certainly work, with the added bonus of leaving the dust thaumaturgically unaltered in the event that Mr. Snape did find a use for it. Though that meant he'd need to learn the spells first, and that would take some time… that and quite frankly, he'd prefer a ward-based expansion option to reduce maintenance.
Of course a ward-based option would mean yet another complication to that ward scheme he'd been working on off and on for the past year, and that had already been a headache and a half! Between the capabilities he wanted to include — particularly allowing the wards to grow with the Lair as he expanded it — and the stubborn magical nature of the living bedrock, he had had a deucedly difficult time of it so far, and he'd not even begun laying them out yet!
Harry shook his head, that could wait for now, until he learned whether the additions were even necessary. Then winced at the scratchy grinding of the now-omnipresent dust between his scales caused by the motion. The wince quickly firmed into a determined expression as the young dragon set out purposefully for the Lair entrance.
For now the lake was calling his name: he needed a bath in the worst way.
5.8.1 Detrimental familiarity
He had known as soon as Mr. Potter had winged away that it was a fool's errand to try to chase him. Tracking a pigeon in flight was hard enough, much less capturing it, and that was especially true for one with that degree of strength and intelligence. Attempting to chase Mr. Potter down would have been a terribly silly way to go about things.
Ambushing him was much more realistic.
Fortunately, Albus knew enough about the situation to pull off such a thing. His young charge had been kind enough to announce his intentions, after all, and that was enough to tell the Headmaster exactly where he was going.
Miss Granger was currently being held in protective custody at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and as a long time member of the Ministry, the old wizard knew how to get there very quickly, indeed. One quick apparation and a short walk had him at the DMLE before his student crossed the M25. By the time Harry fluttered to a landing at the Ministry street entrance, the elderly wizard had already grabbed a cup of tea, had a short but friendly conversation with the DMLE receptionist on night duty, and settled in to wait in one of the scant smattering of chairs that served as the waiting area for the DMLE Night Desk.
Of course, as might be inferred from the lack of a proper reception area, the Night Desk was a very small operation, one which was not well-known even among Ministry employees. Added mostly as an afterthought to the group tasked with handling emergency floo calls, the Night Desk was located near their offices just a few dozen feet down the hall from the floo receiving area… an area coincidentally almost diametrically opposite the much more extensive main reception desk which had been built to serve the Ministry's street entrance.
Dumbledore, one of those exceedingly rare politicians who actually took the responsibilities of his position seriously, naturally knew all about the Night Desk, having been responsible for overseeing and approving Departmental budgets for decades. In the course of doing his due diligence on the matter, he had even visited the place quite a number of times. To him therefore, it was the natural place for anyone seeking access to the DMLE to go when outside normal hours. Sadly, it never occurred to the man that such might not be the case for everyone.
To be fair, it had been a very long day.
Thus it came to be that Dumbledore was still waiting for his charge to arrive when Amelia Bones stormed through the lounge in a hurry.
5.8.2 Storm front
"Emergency at the Department!"
That had been the message she had woken up to that morning, delivered by a girl from Communications who was near-breathless with panic by the time Amelia had finally dragged herself out of bed to answer the repeated, insistent floo calls. Her first attempt to press for details had revealed only that the message had been sent at the behest of one of the duty squad Aurors who had arrived at the girl's desk both in full combat harness and at a dead run.
That little detail had been enough more than enough to clear the last of the sleep from the Director's mind. Fortunately, by the time the Director had shimmied into her old armor and returned to the floo to come through, the girl had calmed enough to pass on a little more information, including a location and a name.
Harry Potter.
Given recent intelligence, Amelia had therefore arrived at the night desk mentally preparing herself for the worst.
Instead, she found herself greeted by an unexpected Albus Dumbledore.
She was not entirely sure what to think of that, so she decided to ask.
"Albus," she called ahead without slowing down appreciably. "What brings you to my Department at this godforsaken hour?"
The man raised a single snowy white eyebrow.
"I have reason to believe one of my students might be showing up soon…"
"Black hair, green eyes, temper like the North Sea in a heavy gale?" she interrupted.
"Ah, he has already arrived, then?" the older wizard grimaced. "I had hoped to head him off."
"Wrong entrance, as I understand it," Amelia explained. "I'd imagine he arrived from the street entrance, given the reports I've heard."
The man's flowing white beard twitched as his eyes narrowed.
"In hindsight, that makes a great deal of sense, though I still wonder…"
At that point, Amelia made a snap decision.
"Come along, Albus," she invited, "you can ask him when we get to to the conference room."
If the report from her officer was to be believed, she could use the assistance.
To his credit, the old man fell into step immediately.
"What has transpired?"
"Property damage and terror as of the last report," she deadpanned. "Fortunately nothing irreparable yet."
"I see," the wispy ends of the much older man's white mustache waved slightly as he sighed. "Then let us ensure it stays that way."
The Director of Magical Law Enforcement nodded firmly.
During that brief exchange, the pair's brisk walk had carried them deep enough into the Department to round the corner into section's the main tunnel. As they did so, both froze midstep.
Ahead lay a scene of absolute devastation. Everything within ten yards of the next major intersection was simply gone while more sporadic damages extended out for another dozen. Benches were splintered; potted plants were shredded; even the stone walls themselves sported slashes dozens of feet long and both wide and deep enough for Amelia to sink her hand in up to the elbow.
Wordlessly, she rushed forward, looking about in horror. A similar path of intermittent destruction stretching off into the distance down the adjoining hallway. In the other direction, just a short distance farther down the main drag, a large wooden door that normally shielded the main bank of conference rooms hung awkwardly from a single hinge, its knob and a good chunk of the wood to which it had been attached now only a ragged hole. Across the corridor opposite the door, there was a rough divot gouged out of the solid stone wall about the size of Amelia's head. On the floor below it, half-buried under a loose pile of shattered stone from the wall, she could see a similarly size mass of splinters.
The former Auror hissed through her teeth as she realized what she was seeing.
That was the missing…
Someone had literally ripped the knob off that door and casually tossed it away with enough force to shatter stone.
When she had heard the report of 'property damage' from her subordinates, Amelia had imagined a bit of destroyed furniture, perhaps some broken glass… the sort of thing one might expect from a particularly severe bout of accidental magic. This looked more like the aftermath of a pitched battle. Given what she knew of him and his capabilities, this was definitely within the last Potter's capacity, but accidental?
No, Amelia refused to accept that. There was no way this had been accidental!
What on earth had the boy done?
What had her men done to trigger this?
Why…?
Her increasingly frantic musings were then interrupted by two words from Dumbledore.
"I see."
In those two words, Amelia could hear a note of worry, not a common thing to hear from the man considered by most to be the premier wizard in Europe.
With that, the elderly man continued towards the ruined door, leaving his younger counterpart scrambling to keep up with his longer stride. In the few moments it took them to cross the distance, Amelia came to a very important realization: she had heard worry in his voice, that was true.
More importantly however, what she had not heard was surprise.
The old man had expected this appalling level of damage… no, that worry meant that he feared it could get worse.
"You expected this?" the Director hissed, grabbing the man's elbow in an iron grip and tugging him to a brief stop outside the door. "Why? Why would Potter attack my Department? What have we done to warrant this?"
"I highly doubt that this was intentional, Director Bones," Dumbledore offered, "much less an attack."
"Unintentional! How does this," she gesticulated back at the ruined hallway, "happen unintentionally?"
The older man fell silent, eyeing Amelia in consideration.
He was hiding something.
Her eyes narrowed.
What was he unwilling to say?
Something about Potter? The Director's eyes narrowed. What could Potter be keeping secret that could cause such widespread destruction?
The hallway looked like some great beast had clawed its way through a space too small for it. That would certainly fit with the boy's dragon form, yet it would not fit with Dumbledore's 'unintentional' assertion. Animagus forms were soul-deep transformations, moving from one form to another took concentration and effort because both forms were stable. No animagus form would slip because of a fit of temper, in either direction. It just didn't…
Amelia's eyes shot open.
Unless what the boy did was not an animagus transformation. Air whistled between Amelia's teeth as she sucked in an awed breath. If it was not, then all that remained was free-form self-transfiguration, and…
"Potter is having difficulty holding on to his transfiguration, isn't he?" she hissed.
That clarified a great deal in Amelia's mind. Of course it raised even more questions; however now was not the time to address them.
"Yes, I believe that to be the case," the elder wizard agreed. "May I ask how…"
"Deep mind scan on Miss Granger," she volunteered, heading off his unvoiced question even as she let go of his elbow and they began walking once more.
"How did you…" the Chief Warlock began with a puzzled frown before trailing off.
The pair managed a few more steps in silence before the man's expression suddenly cleared.
"The in flagrante loophole!"
He turned his head to give Amelia a pleased nod, "Well played, Madam."
"Thank you."
That exchange was enough to carry them through to their destination, one of half a dozen metal doors dotted along the side corridor. It was at least still properly hung, for which Amelia was grateful, though on opening the door, she was less so. It was hard to miss the way the green paint on its interior had blistered up in the clear shape of a smallish hand at about waist height. Less immediately identifiable were the great triangular tears that dotted the door and, as she cleared the doorframe, the wall in which that door was set at seemingly random, widely spaced points.
A view from the other side of the room would have made it obvious that those tears lined up with the fingers of that hand-print, as if left by a large clawed hand overlaid on the human one…
…a clawed hand with a span significantly wider than the door itself.
Amelia did not have time to wonder at that, though since within moments of entering the room such details abruptly ceased to be noteworthy, drowned out entirely by the singular being occupying the room.
"WHERE IS HERMIONE?"
Despite his current slight human form, the dragon in the room seemed to fill it entirely.
"I beg your pardon?" the Director replied, dazed and a tad lightheaded as she attempted to adjust to the sheer quantity of magic leaked into the air by the irritable Potter.
"HERMIONE GRANGER," the boy's incongruously and profoundly deep voice clarified. "I CAME HERE TO GET MY DAMSEL BACK. THEY SAID THEY NEEDED YOU TO DO THAT. NOW YOU'RE HERE, AND SHE ISN'T!"
"Right," Amelia shook her head in an attempt to speed her recovery.
It didn't help.
"Right," she repeated, buying time.
Looking around for something to jog her memory, her eyes caught on a splotch of red, the familiar hue enough to spark a memory.
Aurors!
Now that she had remembered, she was able to focus enough to note the other splotches of the same color scattered about. The duty squad was still in the room, faithfully standing guard. How far gone was she that she had missed an entire squad of her Aurors in the room?
A moment later, Amelia shook her head. That wasn't important right now. Her Aurors were the important thing.
Aurors could help with this.
"Weasley," Amelia's voice crackled with command as the familiar weight of duty settled on her shoulders like an old familiar cloak, restoring her equilibrium. "Retrieve Miss Granger, now!"
Her Auror wasted no time even nodding in acknowledgment before he left the room at a sprint.
"She will be on her way presently, Mr. Potter," the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement informed him, slipping fully back into her role and using it as a shield against the gathering storm that glowered at her from the other end of her conference table.
"GOOD."
With that terse reply, the room fell into a tense silence, only broken by the occasional low crackle of snapping wood fibers as the Potter heir's grip on the table edge continued to slowly tighten, his bare fingers inexorably tearing their way through the thick wooden slab.
It was at that point that Dumbledore felt it appropriate to speak up.
"What happened, Mr. Potter?" he asked, sounding more than mildly horrified. "You were doing much better than this when I last saw you."
"I DON'T KNOW!" the dragon-in-human-form, the table giving way with a bang as his grip suddenly turned white-knuckled at the admission. "I WAS DOING FINE, AND THEN I LET A LITTLE SLIP AND NOW I CAN'T STOP!"
That final word came out punctuated by a burst of magic that shoved the massive table nearly six inches and set the splintered remains of the tabletop that remained in his grip cheerily burning.
Harry showed no indication of even noticing the open flame enthusiastically licking at his fingers.
Everyone else in the room, however, noticed it quite clearly.
"Mr. Potter… Harry, you must calm yourse…"
"DO YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?"
As Harry bellowed, he snapped to his feet between one heartbeat and the next, the motion so sudden that the impact with the back of his knees threw his heavy wooden chair back hard enough to splinter against the wall.
As everyone else in the room flinched back, the elderly wizard at the focus of that terrible rage kept absolutely calm.
"If you know that, Mr. Potter, then you must know that this display of temper does you no favors."
"IF KNOWING THAT WERE ENOUGH, THEN I'D NEVER HAVE GONE OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE!" the boy dragon somehow managed a hiss loud enough to rattle the skulls of everyone in the conference room. "I KNOW I NEED TO CALM DOWN, I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW!"
"That is most concerning," Dumbledore muttered with a thoughtful frown.
Across the room, Harry's growling had now become a near-constant rumble, as his aura continued to intensify, showing no signs of abatement.
"This must stop, Harry," the old man stated again, "and if reason is not enough, then perhaps we ought attempt a different approach."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"
"Sometimes…" he began, his beard shuddering slightly as he worked his jaw nervously. "Sometimes when a person is lost in emotion, a shock to the senses will give them something that will help cut through the haze and guide them out."
"WHAT KIND OF SHOCK?" Harry cocked his head curiously.
"A slap is traditional, though I suspect it would be less than effective in this case," Albus glanced at the splintered chair behind his charge and let out a wry chuckle. "I would likely break my own hand before I could hit you hard enough for you to notice."
"THEN WHY BRING IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?" the dragon growled irritably.
"Because there might be another way to shock your system," the old man explained, "one that does not involve physical confrontation."
"I don't think that's a good…" Amelia attempted to interrupt, having some idea of where this was going.
Unfortunately, she had been mostly forgotten by the two biggest players in the room.
"GO AHEAD," the dragon spoke, giving to indication that he had heard her. "AT THIS POINT, I'M WILLING TO TRY ANYTHING."
And with permission given, Albus began. His student needed a shock, and if physical ones weren't going to work, then he needed something else. Conveniently, he had managed something similar recently, and as much as he disliked the idea of using it on someone he actually liked… well, sometimes needs must while the devil drives, and all that.
Still the Potter heir was a far cry from his last target; he would need to pull the technique off perfectly.
Concentrating, the elder wizard delved deep into his memory, reviewing once more exactly what he needed to do, trying to recapture the necessary mindset…
All of a sudden, it clicked into place.
Feeding magic into the technique, the old wizard's presence seemed to swell as he artificially boosted his aura as high as he could push it. Hopefully the introduction of a threat, even a minor one, would change the landscape enough to shock his student out of his current spiral and restore his equilibrium.
It worked… from a certain point of view. The attempt surely did trigger a change… in much the same way that one could douse a campfire with naptha.
That terrifying aura, more than enough to reduce the likes of Lucius Malfoy to the point of spontaneous organ failure, was to the young dragon as a fluttering red cape was to an enraged bull: a challenge.
And, in Harry's current state, a challenge could only ever warrant one response.
His body seemed to move on its own, stepping forward and batting the heavy conference table aside with the back of one hand, sending it skittering across the floor only to slam heavily against a thankfully empty section of wall.
The technique's failure was obvious, and Albus reacted quickly, already reining in his aura before the table even hit the wall. Unfortunately, even that reaction was too late. Even as the newly upset table clattered against the floor, the dragon-in-human-form had already stalked the length of the room, his transfigured form quivering and twisting in unnatural ways following the vagaries of his own faltering concentration.
As he looked in his student's green eyes, Albus realized the depth of his error. In those eyes there was nothing of the happy boy he knew, no hints of the pleasant times and conversations the had shared over the last few years. In those hard, predatory eyes, Albus could see nothing but his own violent death.
Albus Dumbledore, Defeater of Grindlewald and the most powerful wizard west of the Urals, froze.
The great wizard did not freeze because he feared defeat.
No.
The great wizard froze because he knew the price of victory.
Despite his massive advantage in power, the last Potter still lacked the skill necessary to use that advantage to full effect. His lack of skill, however, did not make the boy any less dangerous. Attempting to handle an enraged Harry Potter with kid gloves would mean certain death, even for the likes of Albus Dumbledore.
Survival meant responding in kind: meeting deadly intent with deadly intent.
Yet this was his own beloved student, the only child of two of his other beloved students! For a dedicated educator, the boy might as well be his own grandson! How could he justify such a price, especially in a situation brought about through his own poor judgment! How?
How could he bring himself to…
"Harry!"
Fortunately, the arrival of the young Miss Granger spared him the agony of finding out.
Shooting through the door at a dead run, the young girl launched herself at her friend, wrapping him up in a great hug, and thus the spell was broken. As the Potter boy caught her in his own arms, those hard green eyes suddenly softened, and just like that, Albus' student was returned to him… still angry, oh so very angry, but no longer outright murderous.
That, he found on brief reflection, was something he could deal with.
Now he just had to do so.
5.8.3 Glimmers in the eye
Harry breathed deeply with his nose buried in the frizzy brown mass of his damsel's hair, inhaling the familiar scent while otherwise holding himself quite thoroughly still.
It helped.
It helped a very great deal.
Getting Hermione back, safe by his side, had finally been enough to take the edge off. The anger was still there, no mistake about that. The young dragon was still just as cataclysmally enraged as he had been, but now it was no longer constantly intensifying. It was as if whatever force had been driving the process had decided that it had done its job and was no longer needed.
The ridge had been crested, and Harry was still in control, if only barely. If he could control himself now, then that control would only improve with time.
He had this.
Taking one last fortifying whiff, the young dragon looked up with fresh eyes, now able to feel a faint pang of regret at the looks of fear on the faces of the adults in the room. It wasn't much, but he counted it as progress.
"WHERE…" he began, only to pause and look down when he felt Hermione flinch and whimper slightly where her head rested against his chest. Trying his best to modulate his voice, he tried again.
"WHERE ARE THE DEAD MEN WHO TOOK MY HERMIONE?" he asked in a slightly quieter bellow.
"Of those who carried out the raid, all but one are dead," Amelia volunteered.
"AND THE LAST?"
"Will be dead soon enough," she replied. "Once we are certain he has given us all the information he has to give, he will have his trial. He has already agreed to a guilty plea in exchange for a reduced sentence."
Anger flared again, "REDUCED SENTENCE! I THOUGHT YOU SAID HE WOULD BE DEAD!"
"And I did not misspeak," the head of the DMLE countered calmly. "Kidnapping with intent to enslave is punishable by up to life in Azkaban. Execution is a lesser penalty in the eyes of many."
"I SEE," Harry nodded before shooting the woman a gimlet stare, "AND THE ONE WHO GAVE THE ORDER?"
Amelia hissed in irritation.
"We are still investigating that," she temporized, "and I am afraid we do not know at this time."
"WHEN WILL YOU?"
"I am afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing…"
"WHEN?" Harry ground out. "YOU SAID YOU HAVE A COOPERATIVE INSIDE MAN. YOU MUST HAVE SOME IDEA!"
Madam Bones mumbled something unintelligible.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY LEADS?"
Obviously she had not mumbled unintelligibly enough.
"Look, Mr. Potter," Amelia said, "frankly, our witness is almost useless. The job was arranged through a cutout, and every lead we have attempted to follow up on has ended at a burned-out crime scene. Our witness lost his foot escaping just such a hit. Someone murdered the rest of his team and firebombed their safehouse right before we picked him up, and whoever it was seems to be an expert at covering their own tracks. We are still keeping an ear to the ground, but at this point, my investigators are not holding too much hope."
"YOU'RE JUST GIVING UP!"
"We are damned well not 'just giving up', Mr. Potter!" Amelia snapped, eyes flashing, "And I'll not have you insinuate such again! Not about my men!"
"IT SOUNDS LIKE IT!" Harry snapped back. "YOU JUST SAID…"
"There is nothing. To. Be. Found!"
"THEN TRY HARDER!"
"It's not a matter of trying harder, Mr. Potter. My men are working their asses off trying to…"
"THEN WHAT IS IT?"
"They can't find something that isn't there!" she yelled. "That's the problem, Potter! My men are good, they can make a whole lot out of very little, but even they need something to work with. There is nothing there, every lead we have found is dead and burned beyond recognition. We can't do anything with that; no one can!"
"THEN LET ME TRY!" Harry hissed. "IF YOU CAN'T DO IT, THEN LET SOMEONE ELSE TRY."
The Director seemed to shrink in on herself.
"I can't do that, Mr. Potter."
"WHY NOT?" he demanded. "JUST GIVE ME THE EVIDENCE FOLDER, IT CAN'T BE THAT HARD!"
"I've taken oaths, Mr. Potter," she explained. "Regretfully, I cannot disseminate information obtained via law enforcement methods outside the Department except when presenting evidence to the court."
"WHAT KIND OF DUNDERHEADED RULE IS THAT?"
"One of mine, actually," Albus interjected, reminding the rest of the room of his presence for the first time in a while. "In the past, it had been common practice for various corrupt Ministry personnel to turn the DMLE into their own private blackmail mill. The oaths are intended to prevent that. It was either that or crippling their ability to gather evidence entirely. I judged the conditional secrecy oaths to be the lesser evil."
Harry shot the old man a betrayed look. Albus returned one of apologetic resignation.
"ISN'T THERE A WAY TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION?"
"No, I'm afraid there is not, Mr. Potter."
The dragon fell silent for a time as he considered the problem. Eventually, his expression shifted from disappointed to sly.
"YOUR OATH JUST SAYS YOU CAN'T GIVE IT TO ME, RIGHT?"
"Yes," the Director said leadingly.
"WELL, WHAT IF I JUST TAKE IT?"
Amelia's eyes narrowed. "Then I would be obligated to stop you, Mr. Potter. Or failing that, I would be required to take it back."
The dragon's reply was a single skeptically raised brow.
Amelia scowled at the implied opinion of her chances of doing so. As much as it rankled, she couldn't help but admit, at least in the privacy of her own head, that his reaction was not an unreasonable one.
"YOU KNOW, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PRETTY GOOD…"
"No, Harry!" a new voice entered the conversation. "You will not put Madam Bones in that position!"
Hermione had pulled back from where she had buried her face in her dragon's currently-human chest.
"BUT…"
"No 'but's, Harry!" she insisted, poking him in the chest. "Madam Bones' people saved me, and they've treated me well! I am not going to repay that by letting you walk all over her. Plus what do you think Susan would say? Hmm?"
"SUSAN?" Harry screwed his face up in puzzlement. "WHAT DOES SUSAN HAVE TO DO…"
"Susan Bones," his damsel said leadingly.
At his continued blank look, the bushy-haired girl spelled it out.
"Madam Bones is Susan's aunt."
"OH…" the young dragon seemed to deflate as he dropped the idea. "WELL, THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK THEN."
The conference room fell silent for a time until an olive branch came from an unlikely source.
"Perhaps in a few days, once tempers have cooled, we might meet and see what we can work out," Amelia offered. "If nothing else, I'm sure our investigators would like to pick your brain for any insight you might offer."
Harry nodded gravely. "I'LL DO THAT."
And on that note, the meeting ended.
5.8.4 In the wake
"Boss, what was that?"
The question from her Auror roused Amelia from the relieved reverie she had fallen into when Albus had finally led the human-shaped typhoon that was the Boy-Who-Lived out of her department and off to the portkey transit point. Having met the boy in person now, she counted herself lucky to have gotten off with so little damage.
The girl's memories had not done justice to the reality that was Harry Potter.
Not by a long shot.
"Boss?"
"Not my secret to tell, Weasley," came the belated response. "Suffice it to say, the boy is powerful."
"Powerful?" the squad leader's once-more-helmeted head tilted to a skeptical cant. "Boss, Dumbledore is powerful, and when I got back here with the girl, that kid was inches away from killing him where he stood! 'Powerful' doesn't even begin to cut it."
"Like I said, Auror, it's not my secret to tell," Amelia repeated. "The only reason I know is because of the deep scan we ran on the girl when you brought her in. You know those are classified to hell and back if they come back negative."
The room fell silent for a beat.
"Right, I'll accept that," Auror Weasley conceded. "Just tell me one thing, Boss."
"Hmm?"
"Is he a threat to us?"
When Amelia remained silent, her Auror rushed to explain.
"I mean, I get the impression that we only survived this one by the skin of our teeth, and we were only fray-adjacent. He wasn't even angry with us! What if we're not so lucky next time?"
"Keep an eye on him, sure," Amelia nodded slowly, as if coming to a decision. "But no, I don't think he's going to be a threat, not directly anyway. Part of my reasoning for offering that meeting with the boy is to build some rapport with him before something sets him off again. Hopefully, we'll be starting from a better place next time. For the rest…"
She paused.
"For the rest, just keep the school motto in mind, and you should be fine."
Slowly, Weasley's featureless steel helmet began to nod.
"Guess that makes sense. There was a fair bit of provocation involved."
"Indeed," his boss nodded in grave agreement.
"Never tickle a sleeping dragon, huh?" Weasley chuckled. "After tonight, I think I can see it! He's easily as dangerous as one."
The Director stifled an amused snort at the irony of that statement.
"He certainly is," she agreed instead. "And whoever kidnapped Miss Granger did a lot more than tickle him."
Everyone in the room, even those in the squad who had thus far remained silent, nodded in unison at that truth.
Then Matt Weasley burst out laughing.
"Something funny, Auror?" Amelia asked with one raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, heh… yeah Boss," Weasley managed to choke out. "Just remembered something."
"Oh?"
He nodded.
"Was thinkin' back to that day I was staking out the registry, and saw those two come through. We were so sure he was trying to enslave the girl. Then we just saw how they interact with each other, and it struck me just how wrong we were. Just struck me as funny, is all."
This time, Amelia did not suppress her snort of amusement.
"Too bloody right you are on that," she agreed. "If that girl isn't the next Lady Potter, then I'll eat my hat!"
That prompted a much-needed round of laughter from the duty squad, bringing them the rest of the way down from the combat high they had been pinned at for the better part of an hour.
"Right, you lot!" Amelia clapped her hands together and stood up. "Since Mr. Dumbledore has been good enough to promise to return shortly and clean up after his wayward student, that means we are all on to the Healers for an after-action checkup. Hop to!"
Despite their chorus of groans, her men fell into line. Like she had told Potter, her men would do their duty. From pursuing seemingly hopeless cases to going to visit the Healers despite lacking any obvious injuries, her men would perform to the highest standards.
When they arrived at the Healers' station, Amelia made sure she was the first in line. Like always, she refused to send her men anywhere she was unwilling to go.
That was why they followed.
5.8.5 Rain
Hermione stumbled slightly when the portkey dumped her off unceremoniously at the Lair, only to be steadied immediately by Harry who had arrived with her. As her world stopped spinning and she took in the familiar scenery of the comfortable cave dwelling which had become her home over the past year and a half, the frizzy-haired girl breathed a deep sigh of relief as the last of the tension drained out of her.
It was over.
So powerful was the feeling that the girl remained caught up in it for a time, meekly following along as her friend gently guided her over to the Lair's main sitting area and called out to the Lair's other inhabitant.
"SUZE, WE'RE BACK!"
Her friend's voice was enough to snap Hermione out of her reverie, loud enough that she flinched away from it. Behind her, she could feel Harry tense in return as he felt her reaction. His words a few seconds later sounded strained, yet a great deal quieter.
"Sorry, Hermione."
She nodded and was about to thank him when her fellow damsel trotted out from deeper in the Lair and the sight of another familiar face distracted her.
"Suze!" she greeted.
"Well met, Hermione Granger," the centaur maiden returned with a smile, "and well come, as well. I understand you have had a difficult time of it."
Another warm hug followed, and then the three settled down in their usual places near the Rayburn by unspoken agreement.
"It was horrible," the bushy-haired girl began quietly. "We'd… Mum and Dad and I had just gotten home when they came in through the windows, and there was broken glass everywhere and blood and…" she trailed off, her voice falling to a whisper.
"…and I killed one of them."
She fell silent. After a few moments in which no response came, she looked up nervously, only to find her audience patiently waiting for her to continue. Suze even gave her an encouraging nod.
Hermione frowned. "You're not going to say anything?"
"Um… good work?" Harry ventured.
"Indeed," Suze echoed. "you have done well in defense of your family."
The bushy-haired girl's jaw dropped.
"But… but I killed a man!" she protested. "Killed one and wounded another!"
"Oh!" her male friend's green eyes widened in realization. "Don't feel bad, Hermione! It was your first time; you did really well by just not freezing. No one's going to fault you for only winging the second one. I'm sure you'll get better!"
Hermione stared incredulously.
"I mean, the only thing you might have been able to do better would have been to use your emergency portkey," Harry continued, "but I get how you were worried about what might happen to your parents if you left. I think you did really well!"
Off to the side, Suze nodded in solemn agreement.
The bushy-haired girl worked her jaw for one long, incredulous moment before shaking her head and deliberately ignoring that particular bit of insanity.
"Well, anyway, then they stunned me, and I came to already standing on a stage being sold," she trembled a bit with the memory, prompting Harry to reach over and lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. She scooted a little closer in response. "Then there was this bright light and really loud sound, and the Aurors came in…"
With that began a long and emotional retelling of the ordeal that had been her last few weeks, pouring out her troubles and travails to her friends. Through it all, Harry and Suze could do little more than offer the girl a sympathetic ear and, in the young dragon's case, a shoulder to cry on. Eventually when she had talked and cried herself out, one last trouble managed to slip out as she leaned tiredly against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Harry. So sorry."
"What for?"
"I should have listened," she said. "If I had just listened to you then none of this would have happened. It's all my…"
"Hermione, it's not your fault," Harry interrupted firmly.
"But…"
"No 'but's! Look at me." When she had turned to meet his eyes, Harry continued, "There was no way for you to know about this. I knew it was a risk, but it was only ever a general possibility. I told you about it, and we took precautions. That those precautions did not work is my fault, not yours!"
Wide-eyed, Hermione slowly nodded.
"Okay."
With that, the last of the energy seemed to seep out of her, and those wide eyes slowly, inexorably drifted shut. When it became clear that she was on the verge of falling asleep against his shoulder, Harry carefully gathered her into his arms and put her to bed.
5.8.6 Petrichor
Hermione managed a tired smile as she heard the odd muffled slurp of the deerskin curtains adhering to the stone of her bedroom's doorway with a sticking charm, sealing it off from the rest of the Lair. It was thoughtful of Harry to remember. Turning her head, she buried her face in the soft comfort of her pillow, inhaling deeply of the scent.
It was the scent of home… of safety.
Her slight frame went limp as she relaxed completely into the embrace of the bedding. It had been far too long. She was back home. She would be visiting her parents soon. She had told Harry everything, and he had forgiven her.
Hermione hadn't realized before just a few minutes ago just how worried she had been about that conversation. Until that desperate apology had slipped out seemingly of its own accord, she hadn't even consciously realized that she was feeling guilty; though with its removal, the pall that guilt had cast over the past few weeks was patently obvious.
She was exhausted and wrung out, her eyes puffy from crying, yet Hermione felt better now than she had in weeks. Once more she knew where she stood, and with that firm footing, all that remained was to put her life back in order. Hermione knew all about organizing things especially her own life, as her study schedules could attest. She'd had one put together even before the end of school, and if Hermione had her druthers she would be stepping right back into it, her only concession to recent events being bumping stunning and binding charms up to the head of the schedule.
Even on the edge of sleep, the bushy-haired girl grimaced at the memory of the telltale glint of light visible through that unknown man's head.
Grimacing into her pillow, she reflexively shied away from that train of thoughts. Much better to focus on her her own business rather than Harry's. Hermione had already seen the results of involving herself in that, and she wanted no part of it! Much better to leave it to her friend; he'd take care of it. As long as she did what he asked and left the details to him there would be no need for her to get involved in that madness again.
That was the way, just like she should have done this time: listen to Harry, stay out of his way, and everything would be fine.
If she just did that, she would be safe… just like she used to be.
5.8.7 Ozone
As he left Hermione's bedroom and closed the full-length curtain behind him, Harry absently flicked a finger behind himself, effortlessly casting the charms needed to seal the deerskin against the stone and silence the room against external noise.
"How does she fare?" Suze asked from across the main room of the Lair, still in the seating area they had been using as Hermione relayed the emotional tale of her ordeal.
She was met with silence for a long moment.
"She'll be okay, I think," Harry eventually said with a slow nod.
"And you, Great One?" Suze shot him a pointed look.
There was a long silence.
"I've been better," he finally replied.
Suze nodded gravely and gave him a hug.
"What are you planning to do?" he asked after his centaur damsel let go, noting she had changed into her usual forest gear.
"Unless you have need of me," she began, glancing back over her shoulder at the bright morning sky visible through the Lair entrance, "I had thought to visit the Clan and see the little ones, something simple to keep me occupied while I adjust to the change in time."
"Sounds like a good idea. I think…" the young dragon paused, apparently thinking better of what he had been about to say. "I think I'll find something to do around here. Tell them I said hello."
Suze nodded and turned to go retrieve her usual portkey. Before she triggered it, she paused and offered, "Great One, are you certain you do not wish to join me? The little ones adore you, and they are always up for a good game or two. I know how much you have enjoyed that in the past."
Green eyes brightened momentarily at the offer before they dimmed again, and Harry shook his head. Frowning down at his own hands, he clenched them several times.
"No, I think I need to go blow off some steam first," he explained regretfully. "I'm still not sure I trust myself yet."
Suze nodded gravely.
"In that case, I shall take my leave." Once more, she hugged him tightly. "I hope you feel better soon."
Then she released him and activated the portkey in her hand.
Harry stared at the newly empty space for a few long moments before shaking his still currently human head and turning towards the tunnel that led deeper into the Lair, into the newer areas he had dug over the past several years. Blurring into his native form, he took off at a brisk walk.
As he negotiated the ever-expanding maze of tunnels that made up the Lair, searching for a likely rock face he remembered from past excavation, Harry thought back over the past dozen or so hours. Now that he was coming down from the unusual circumstances — first that preternatural state of calm, and then the nigh-uncontrollable hyper-aggressive rage — and descending back into the realm of comprehensible states of mind, he was finally able to start coming to terms.
While he had certainly paid a price for the privilege, he was pleased to have gained some insight into his own psyche, particularly that delayed anger mechanism. Now that he understood it better, he would not make the same mistakes again: not in using it so lightly, nor in releasing it prematurely.
That was the one good thing, and the safe return of his damsel was the other.
Both of those were very good things, indeed… which was lucky for him, because everything else was terrible. Harry Potter, the Dragon of Hogwarts, had botched it by the numbers.
He had failed as a friend, allowing Hermione to staying behind with what turned out to be dismally inadequate security measures and setting her up for that terrible ordeal. In the same breath, he had failed as a Head of House by providing inadequate protection to his ward and being caught too far out of position to make her attackers sincerely regret their life choices He had only been spared complete defeat by the fortuitous intervention of a third party. It had been an utterly humiliating first showing in his capacity as Head of House,.
On their own, those were bad enough, but mistakes were an unavoidable part of growing up. Harry had made enough of them over the years to know that, and he knew how to deal with the aftermath. Were it not for the auror intervention, that would have been a different story of course, but the fact remained that they had intervened, and Hermione was safe. Compared to that, his own embarrassment was inconsequential; he would deal with it.
No, his worst failure, the truly egregious bit, had been his loss of control.
That initial exclamation back in Vancouver had come very close to injuring his friends… at the very least. If not for Mr. Snape's timely interference, and if he had not accidentally come across that entirely unexpected control pathway, Harry found it all too easy to imagine having gone on to finish the job by accidentally destroying the plane on the flight home. That was not even getting into his idiocy at the Ministry which would certainly not be winning him any hearts among the staff there.
Despite knowing just how dangerous his voice alone could be, he had let his surprise get the best of him at that airport. Later, despite knowing just how much he owed them and how important a good working relationship would be in the future, he had let his impatience get the better of him at the DMLE and exploded at the staff there. The sheer ingratitude he had shown there was mortifying in hindsight.
While he didn't fully blame himself for losing control of his temper, given the novel weirdness in play, he did blame himself for giving it the occasion to happen in the first place. He had poked that particular button not even two hours after he had personally concluded it was too dangerous to experiment with. That was inexcusable.
On top of those increasingly poignant regrets, though, there was still his anger, both the remaining reservoir he had developed earlier and some entirely new bits born of listening to the distress in his human damsel's voice as she related her perspective on what had befallen her in his absence. It was under tight control now, but it was certainly not going anywhere on its own, and given his recent track record, Harry felt he really ought to do something about it soon.
Thankfully, he thought as he finally came to the end of the line before a sheer wall of pink granite which formed the end of his current tunnel network, he now had something not only safe to vent on, but which could actually turn that venting to a gainful purpose.
As he stared at the stone for a long moment, Harry's currently reptilian visage slowly twisted itself into an ugly snarl as he finally… finally allowed his control to slip. With it went the iron hold he had been keeping on his temper, and with an inarticulate bellow, he lashed out at the wall, driving the claws and fingers of one great fore-paw deep into the wall, shoving the solid granite aside with an indescribable sound. Great iron muscles shifted under scaly hide as the stone groaned before giving way with a great tearing bang. As it did, Harry briefly found himself holding a great handful of solid granite before it too shattered under the inexorable force as his grip continued to tighten, casting a shower of stone shards across both himself and the tunnel floor.
As the last of the stone flakes tumbled to the ground with a tinkling clatter, the floodgates opened, and the irate dragon struck with tooth and claw, sundering ancient stone like paper. A bite here, a clawed out hollow there, and the occasional wing strike that shattered a dozen of cubic yards at once: with each blow a tiny fraction of Harry's frustration and anger seeped out and evaporated away, but it was not enough… nowhere near enough. He needed more.
Emerald eyes seemed to narrow and then dull slightly as their transparent inner lids reflexively slid shut. The iron dragon seemed to swell as he drew a great breath; the world seemed to pause for a moment as he held it; and then…
And then, there was fire.
5.8.8 Thunder
"Why thank you, little one; that is kind of you."
Suze smiled warmly as she bent to receive a hand-woven circlet of wildflowers from the pudgy hands of one of her youngest cousins. The young filly gave a happy smile and a burbling laugh as her much-admired elder relative reached up to settle the gift firmly on her own head. Her little cousin gazed up in adoration for a few more moments before a call from her fellows frolicking out in the meadow caught her attention, and the youngster promptly ran off to join them.
Suze looked over the scene fondly, drinking in the atmosphere.
Peaceful times with family, clear skies and sunny weather: these were the sorts of things that made life worth living. It would have been nice to share it with…
As Suze heard a faint boom echoing off the surrounding hills, like thunder in the distance, her smile faltered, and she sighed.
She remembered well the dark times, before the Great One had delivered them from the spider plague. She remembered times such as these were ephemeral no matter how pleasant they were. She remembered danger was always coming, it was only a question of when; and she remembered that troubles were to be faced promptly because attempting to ignore the truth, no matter how difficult, always ended worse than the alternative.
Now, Suze knew of two such dangers: one via an ominously cryptic warning from that mysterious fellow they had met at the lakeshore across the sea, and the other the inevitable follow-through on the events that had precipitated that 'thunder' she could hear despite an intervening layer of granite hundreds of lengths thick.
Trouble was coming, and her Harry would be in it up to the withers. Great One he might be, but Harry was still very young; he would need help.
The centaur maiden's smile firmed.
One way or another, he would have that help; Suze would see to it from her place at his side.
5.8.9 Plans
Stone ran like wax, flowing down the walls in white-hot runnels and dripping from the ceiling only to evaporate in the incandescent air before reaching the boiling floor. The hellish scene filled the entirety of the massive cavern — more than fifty meters wide, roughly the same in height and over twice that in length — though it varied in intensity from a dull orange glow near one end to a blinding yellow-white at the other.
At the center of that yellow-white glow stood the shadowy form of a great dragon, normally silvery scales almost black when viewed against the glow surrounding it, alleviated only by a slight glow around their thinner edges. The creature's breath came heavy and rapid as it surveyed the scene with a calm, tired air.
"Finally!" Harry exclaimed between great panting breaths of the superheated mix of oxygen and silicon vapor that filled the hotter end the room.
He had been beginning to fear he'd be stuck with that boiling pit of barely-controllable fury permanently. Thankfully, venting seemed to have done the trick; though Harry wasn't certain whether the cathartic destruction or the resulting exhaustion had been most effective. For now it would remain a mystery because he was unwilling to experiment to find out, both because he did not relish the thought of descending into that state again so soon and because he didn't have the time right now.
Now that he was calm enough to feel comfortable being around people again, he had work to do.
Hermione Granger, a young girl he had taken under the aegis of his House, had been kidnapped the moment he looked away. It was a brazen act of provocation, and it was not something he could allow to pass even if he were able to somehow set aside his own emotional stake in the situation, not after registering Hermione's servant contract publicly. That announcement had turned what would have otherwise been a personal vendetta into a matter of cold, hard duty.
As the Head of House Potter, he was obligated to look after members of that House; it mattered not whether that membership was by blood, by custom, or by contract. Now a young Head would normally be granted a grace period until he reached a certain age, even by his enemies. It was a custom akin to those regarding the proper treatment of prisoners of war or the respecting the sanctity of a truce, and its violation would bring everyone down hard on the offender, lest society collapse into a Hobbesian nightmare in rapid order. However, by that same registration, Harry had effectively declared himself ready to engage, waiving any claim to that grace period.
The dragon had not been concerned with that consequence for himself, for obvious reasons, and had considered it worthwhile to add an extra layer of deterrent around Hermione. However, now that she had been attacked, it meant he was on the hook for taking vengeance. It didn't matter that the aurors had stepped in in his absence. It didn't matter that no lasting harm had been done. What mattered was that one of his own had been publicly assaulted, and he had to extract punishment for that offense.
Lesser Houses might be able to get away with leaving the task to the proper authorities, but not an Ancient and Noble House like House Potter. Failing in that duty would damage his pride, but more importantly it would ruin the reputation his forebears in the position had built over centuries, and damage his political position. It would be a sign of weakness, blood in the water, and no doubt the sharks were even now circling, looking to rip bits off his House to enrich themselves.
He needed to make an appropriate statement to ward them off, and appropriate, given the severity of the offense, meant bloody. Either a little bloodletting now as a preventative measure or an ocean of it later fending off those that would have otherwise been reluctant to attack.
Having caught his breath, Harry frowned and turned to go, his claws sloshing through the ankle-deep lake of near-boiling stone that filled the newly-excavated room.
That was how politics worked in the wizarding world, after all; and quite frankly, Harry had no real qualms about shedding it, not after what had happened to his damsel the minute he turned his back. He still, however, faced one seemingly insoluble problem: whose blood would it be?
He had no idea who the responsible party had been. The aurors had not been able to track them down, and despite his earlier words to Madam Bones, now that he had calmed down, Harry didn't hold out too much hope that he would be able to do much better. He might be willing to dabble in less than strictly legal methods of investigation which were not available to the DMLE, but he was also much less skilled in the art and had only come to the party long after any trail had had plenty of time to cool. Any progress he might make would be attained through sheer happenstance, and happenstance was not sufficient for his purposes.
What was he to do? He couldn't let it ride for long, but without knowing who was responsible there was no target to hit. It wasn't as if he could just pick someone annoying and call it good; his conscience wouldn't allow it… not to mention, it would almost certainly, barring a very unlikely happy coincidence, leave the actual perpetrator to go scott-free.
The young dragon continued to consider the situation as he walked, sloshing through the molten cavern and off into the hallway beyond. A few dozen yards in, he encountered a great pile of fine grey-white dust filling the tunnel to well above even his eye-level.
"What is this?" he muttered, frowning curiously at the strange and unexpected addition to his Lair.
A tentative taste revealed them to be something not too dissimilar to fly ash yet much finer. After a bit of thought, the dragon realized that the stone filling the space which had become his new room had had to have gone somewhere. There had been much more than even he could eat in a single sitting, and despite vaporizing the rest with his breath, it wouldn't have gotten all that far before it cooled down to much to go further. This had to be it: vaporized rock that had fallen like snow as it cooled, the wind of its own passage blowing it into a drift.
Nodding in satisfaction, he forded the powdery obstacle with little difficulty, only to find himself immediately faced with another barely a hundred feet farther along.
"Huh?"
Pushing through again revealed a third, and then a fourth, and so on. By the time it petered out, he had passed more than a hundred of the cursed things, and he had fine stone dust everywhere.
"Well, I guess the first order of business is to give the Lair a good mucking out," he said to himself, groaning slightly as he tried in vain to shake the dust from between his scales. "So at least that's a start. Too bad the rest isn't quite so…"
The dragon trailed off, cocking his great head. as the thought resonated with something he had once heard.
"A good mucking out, huh? Maybe…" he muttered under his breath as he turned to head back to the living area of the Lair and its attached exit. "Mr. Snape ought to be back by now. I'll go talk to him; he'd have a better idea whether it would work, and what I need to pull it off…"
He hadn't made it more than a few steps before he stopped.
"…in the morning," he amended after a bit of thought. "I'll go talk to him tomorrow."
They could both use a bit of time to decompress before getting into any serious talk, and for the conversation to come, they both needed to be in top form. Harry didn't want to miss anything obvious because of fatigue, neither of them could afford it going forward, not with the approach he was thinking of.
In the meantime, Harry figured he might as well ask around with the goblins to see if anyone had a use for a few million cubic yards of not-particularly-pure fumed silica… or, failing that, at least find some place to put it. He eyed the nearest pile skeptically. You could only dump so much dust out the front door before it became an environmental hazard.
Maybe Mr. Snape might want to look into it for potions? It had been vaporized by dragonfire and recondensed; that might have introduced some magical properties; though it certainly wouldn't use all the stuff. As for storage, expansion charms or a persistent transfiguration? Expansion charms would certainly work, with the added bonus of leaving the dust thaumaturgically unaltered in the event that Mr. Snape did find a use for it. Though that meant he'd need to learn the spells first, and that would take some time… that and quite frankly, he'd prefer a ward-based expansion option to reduce maintenance.
Of course a ward-based option would mean yet another complication to that ward scheme he'd been working on off and on for the past year, and that had already been a headache and a half! Between the capabilities he wanted to include — particularly allowing the wards to grow with the Lair as he expanded it — and the stubborn magical nature of the living bedrock, he had had a deucedly difficult time of it so far, and he'd not even begun laying them out yet!
Harry shook his head, that could wait for now, until he learned whether the additions were even necessary. Then winced at the scratchy grinding of the now-omnipresent dust between his scales caused by the motion. The wince quickly firmed into a determined expression as the young dragon set out purposefully for the Lair entrance.
For now the lake was calling his name: he needed a bath in the worst way.
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