Chapter Text
Though no one had noticed, it had begun a little over a month ago, in a cramped hut filled with heat, magic, and anticipation. Seeing a dragon hatch was a truly once in a lifetime opportunity. Harry had been able to practically taste the magic in the air as he and his friends and the friendly half-giant Hagrid had surrounded the egg as it rocked and twitched.
With each crack of the egg, something inside Harry cracked as well. Little by little the cracks grew until finally the head of a dragon breached the shell and the eleven year old had let out a happy sigh, a feeling that he understood to be relief for the baby dragon enveloping his body.
It wasn't just relief.
Unknown to the young wizard, the intense magical experience that was a dragon's hatching was able to completely break a maliciously placed seal to subdue and cage his soul, hindering him from the ability to undergo the transformation that he would naturally go through once he hit the age of sixteen.
In an ideal world, his inheritance would now come when it was supposed to.
Of course, this isn't an ideal world.
Harry Potter had never known peace.
So it came as no surprise to the boy that he would face down a fully grown adult wizard by himself. (His parent's murderer on the back of the man's head was a bit of a surprise though.)
Harry knew how to survive. Fighting for his life was pure instinct. When the man's hands wrapped around his throat and squeezed, only to then jerk back from pain, it was simple for Harry to take the advantage he was shown.
From deep within himself came a cry as he wrenched himself at his attacker, small hands reaching out to grab the man's face in a punishing grip. It wasn't a cry of desperation or despair, but instead a war cry. A scream of a call to arms, to fight to survive.
And so the transformation that would have come naturally as his sixteenth year dawned was instead brought out violently at eleven.
His hands became claws and great big wings that dwarfed his tiny body emerged from his back. The scream that left his newly fanged mouth continued, echoing powerfully in the underground chamber.
As the man tried and failed to fight back against the ferocious eleven year old, the quiet sound of portals opening could be heard. The scream had called in reinforcements.
It was unneeded.
Harry, with a savage snarl, clung to the crumbling man as he burned alive from his very touch. Within moments the man died, a viciously screaming spirit emerging from the lifeless body, which was then scooped up by one of the many who had portalled in.
As the newly inherited dragel swayed, victory singing in his veins, he smiled. The fight was done.
His eyelids fluttered closed as his small body crumbled beneath him. The last thing Harry was aware of was the feeling of arms circling his waist and exclamations of worry ringing in the air.