Chapter Text
There’s a thick layer of snow dusting the ground when Harry leaves the warmth of his cottage, soft rays of dawn light escaping between the heavy clouds above. It’s early- significantly earlier than Harry would historically prefer- but sleeping late into the morning is a luxury he easily sacrificed. He doesn’t particularly get much restful sleep these days.
His breath warms the cold air in front of his face in short, visible puffs as he begins the long trek across town. Predeal is small, with a population just barely large enough to earn it the classification of a town rather than that of a village. It’s a magical town nestled within a small valley, boasting a residential population of nearly 3,000 witches and wizards. Most are healers, blacksmiths, or tailors native to Romania.
A small percentage of the close-knit community are foreign-born. Like Harry, some hail from the British Isles. Most others are from France or Bulgaria, with the odd Norwegian mixed in. Luckily for him, nearly every resident has a rudimentary understanding of the English language. Even after a year of living in the country, his Romanian is quite shit.
The fresh snow crunches loudly beneath the dark dragonhide of his boots. He’s wearing his thickest set of robes, as is required in the harsh climate of winter so high in the Carpathian mountains. Wool lines the inside of his robes and the hood of his cloak, which is pulled up to cover most of his head. There’s a mask attached to the neckline that could be used to warm the lower half of his face, if he ever bothered to pull it up. He prefers to watch his breath cloud the air in front of him. The mask usually causes his glasses to fog up, anyways.
Harry clenches and relaxes his hands where they rest at his sides, feeling the dragonhide leather of his gloves stretch and tighten against his fingers. His fingers are cold, but they aren’t quite numb yet. A warming charm would help. But he rather likes the sharp bite of the frigid morning air.
He passes the last building at the far end of the town, following the footpath deeper into the looming mountains. The cottage is still dark, no hint of light or life displayed behind the small windows. None of the townsfolk are awake this early. Or, at the very least, none have bothered to leave their homes yet. It’s barely 6 am, after all.
He spots a distant figure on the footpath ahead of him, a blur of black robes against the stark white of the snow. A smile splits across his face as he catches a flash of bright red hair.
“Charlie!” He calls out, quickening his pace to a light jog. Snowflakes catch on the lens of his glasses, obscuring his vision with tiny droplets of water.
The figure halts, turning around with a dramatic swish of robes. Harry’s breath clouds the air in short, fast puffs as he slows to a walk beside the taller man.
“Wotcher, Harry,” Charlie says with a crooked grin.
“Hiya,” Harry replies. His cheeks are warm- definitely just flushed with cold and nothing else- as he greets the wizard.
The pair fall quickly into step with an ease that comes from months of routine. They share a comfortable, practiced silence as they follow the stone path. Charlie’s not much of a talker to begin with and Harry doesn’t particularly have much to say these days.
Charlie’s sporting similar robes to Harry, made from thick material, lined with wool and reinforced with dragonhide. His boots are older and more worn than Harry’s, as are his gloves. Unlike Harry, his hood is down, exposing the slight pink of his fair skin against the frigid winter air. His hair is a richer shade of red than Ron’s- no, Harry is definitely not comparing, he’s only making note of the difference- and it's tied up in a messy bun at the base of his neck. Scars are scattered across the slivers of exposed skin between his clothes, various burns and scratches and injuries that come from years of working with certain subset of dangerous magical creatures.
“First snow of the year,” Charlie notes. Harry hums softly at the observation.
It’s mid-October, just over a year since Harry had spontaneously decided to move across the continent to the harsh mountain range. He has no regrets in that regard. But it feels odd, that it has been over a year. A year without Ron and Hermione. The Weasleys. Ginny. Teddy and Andy. Nearly a year and a half since the Battle of Hogwarts. A year and a half since Remus, and Fred, and Tonks, and Snape and Colin and Lavender and-
He tries not to think about it.
It’s the first snow of the year, after all.
The dragons will be particularly calm today. It should be a nice change of pace from their usual chaotic behavior.
He mentions this to Charlie.
“I suppose they might be a bit calmer with the cold. I’m sure a few of them will be particularly sleepy,” Charlie agrees. He shoots Harry a glance, one eyebrow raised slightly.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, though. You should know by now that the dragons are unpredictable. You can never expect a calm day at the sanctuary.”
Harry huffs a laugh. Of course, the older man is right. The calmest mornings often lead to the most chaotic of days.
They’ve left the village far behind at this point, now hiking along a path that skirts around the mountain. There’s a rickety wooden fence to their right, just barely blocking off the steep edge of a rocky cliff. Harry brings himself a little closer to the solid security of the stoneface to his left.
The sky is beginning to brighten further, warm oranges and pinks dusting the clouds as the sun breaches the high mountain skyline. Harry inhales a sharp breath as they make their way around the final bend of the rocky footpath.
It’s a feeling that Harry still isn’t quite used to, even after a full year of mornings graced by the sensation. He can feel the warmth of the sanctuary as they approach, permeating the brisk air and melting the dusting of fresh snow from the ground. The air, the stone, the very mountain is buzzing and pulsating with ancient magic. Wild magic.
There’s a jagged fissure in the cliff face ahead of them, opening a gaping hole that seems to enter into the heart of the mountain itself. He takes a deep breath as they make their way towards the cave, feeling the gentle relief of warm air in his lungs.
As they step into the womb of the mountain, he forgets about the month, the year, the war, the people. There is no place for that here. It is, after all, a sanctuary.
The largest dragon sanctuary in the known world is tucked securely within the depths of the Carpathian mountains, nestled within a vast aperture along a cliff face that is just a short hike above the Prahova valley. The primary entrance to the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary is deceivingly small, seeming barely large enough to accommodate a young Welsh Green dragon. Harry can barely suppress a smile as the pair step easily through the buzzing wall of wards stretched across the jagged fissure.
The short tunnel widens dramatically to reveal the hollow expanse of the mountain. It’s shockingly loud, busy, populated with soaring dragons, gusts of wind accompanied by the flapping of leathered wings, bursts of fire and heat and magic. Even so early in the morning, Harry and Charlie aren’t the first sanctuary workers to have arrived. Some of the dragon keepers soar above them on the backs of their bonded dragons, beginning the day with an early expedition in search of injured dragons across the wilds of the mountain range.
Despite one’s expectations, the sanctuary itself is not dark or humid or chilled. The growing light of dawn streams in through gaping openings in the rock hundreds of feet above. Heat radiates from the smooth stone below, summoned by ancient spells of long-dead wizards, maintained by the current set of researchers and dragon keepers at the sanctuary. A bubble of magic covers the exposed openings, insulating the sanctuary from inclement weather while allowing their dragons ample space to fly in and out when they so choose, secure tracking wards monitoring their activity.
Several smaller, uneven fissures along the inner stone walls of the sanctuary make way for hidden nooks and wizard-made tunnels. The tunnels house various sanctuary efforts and projects, from the research workstations of dragonologists, to recovery spaces monitored by healers, to breeding dens and training spaces maintained by the dragon keepers.
Harry follows Charlie down the stone carved steps that wrap around the edge of the sanctuary, the pair making their way towards a sector that primarily houses the breeding dens. While Harry is still an apprentice, with no designated project or area of focus, Charlie is considered a rather experienced dragon keeper. His passion and primary oversight lies in caring for the incubating eggs, young hatchlings, and female dragons.
Female dragons, as it turns out, are not Harry’s area of expertise. They are exceptionally protective, aggressive, and far more prone to injuring their handlers- hence Charlie’s rather extensive assortment of scars and burns. Luckily, the scars are- mostly- several years old. Dragon keepers who work within the dens must take extra care to form bonds with the females and young mothers, learning their behaviors and gaining their trust. Thanks to Charlie’s extensive research and carefully-forged bonds with most of the females, he hasn’t received a life-threatening injury in several years. Smaller injuries are, of course, unavoidable in the profession.
Harry sucks in a sharp breath as a growl sounds above them, the loud beating of wings whipping strands of long dark hair across his face. A small female Hungarian Horntail soars over them, cutting them off just before they enter the jagged entrance to the breeding dens.
Small for a Hungarian Horntail, Harry reckons, is not nearly small enough. The beast must be over 30 feet in length and several tons in weight. Harry, with his significant lack of experience, has not managed to form a trust bond with any of the female dragons housed within the sanctuary. In fact, he’s somehow managed to do quite the opposite. Most of the females despise his presence. Especially this young mother in particular.
A gust of searing hot air huffs from the young female’s nostrils as she places herself firmly at the entrance to the dens, glaring at Harry through slitted yellow eyes. He feels the tight pull of dragonhide at his fingers as he clenches and relaxes his hands at his sides, forcing himself to breathe steadily through his nose.
In.
It’s strikingly familiar, the sight of the horned creature glaring at him.
Out.
Guarding its newest clutch of eggs.
In.
Harry is fourteen again.
Out.
Excited cheers in the stands above him.
In.
The hot breath of a Horntail singeing his eyebrows.
Out.
A spiked tail darting towards him.
In.
A graveyard.
In.
A flash of green light.
In.
Cedric-
In-
“Harry.”
A voice slices through the memory, forcing him to finally exhale. Charlie has a gloved hand on his shoulder, turning him carefully away from the guarded entrance of the breeding dens. His eyebrows are knitted together, slightly, a look of concern just barely flickering across his warm brown eyes. This isn’t a particularly rare occurrence, for Harry to panic at the sight of the Horntail. Still, it’s just as frustrating after a year of working at the sanctuary as it was the first time it happened.
Harry growls, tugging the tight gloves from his hands as he stalks away from the dens, from the dragon, from Charlie. The other wizard follows him silently.
Even after a year of training under Charlie as an apprentice, Harry is nowhere near as skilled as the other dragon keepers. He has only ever entered the breeding dens a handful of times, rarely even able to assist the other keepers in feeding the hatchlings. As passionate as he is about protecting and caring for the creatures, he has yet to gain the trust of any of the mothers. More frustratingly, he hasn’t managed to form a trust bond with any of the dragons under their care, not even one of the male Antipodean Opaleyes- the least aggressive of all dragon breeds. While some of the dragons at least tolerate him, a few even seeking his presence on rare occasions, none have formed a trust bond strong enough for him to ride them.
Harry doesn’t think he’s much of a dragon keeper at all, if he can’t even ride a dragon.
The Chosen One. The Saviour. The Boy Who Lived. Twice.
More like the boy who can’t even get this right, who can’t even ride a dragon after a year of training, despite the fact that he has literally done it before .
If Hermione were here, she would say that clinging to an Ukrainian Ironbelly as it tore through Gringotts didn’t really count as “riding” a dragon.
But she isn’t here. Harry hasn’t spoken to her in over a year.
“Harry.” Charlie’s voice cuts through his thoughts again.
“Charlie.” He answers, sharply.
The older Weasley brother is as patient with Harry as he is with a female Chinese Fireball- a breed of dragon known to be notoriously short-tempered. Harry is grateful, even if he doesn’t always show it.
“She can sense your agitation,” Charlie says, his voice deep and warm like the embers of a dragon’s nest.
“I’m not agitated.”
Charlie’s lips press together tightly as he tilts his head, watching Harry carefully. Harry is pacing, gloves in one hand, discarded cloak in the other. He always overheats rather quickly within the walls of the sanctuary.
“You’re too anxious. There’s far too much on your mind. She can tell.”
Harry just huffs an exasperated sigh. There’s always too much on his mind.
“You need to learn to control your emotions. To relax. Trust goes both ways, with dragons, and you’re always far too-”
“Apprehensive. I know.”
Charlie approaches him again, reaching up a gloved hand to ruffle Harry’s already messy dark curls. Harry’s cheeks warm- from the heat of the sanctuary, of course, nothing else- as he turns to look up at the older man.
“A healthy amount of caution is always best when working with dragons, Harry. And I’ve seen how much confidence, knowledge, and skill you’ve developed in just a year as my apprentice. But it's also clear that you’re nervous around the mothers and the hatchlings,” Charlie says. “Understandably so,” he adds.
Harry grits his teeth. Of course he’s bloody nervous around the young dragons and their mothers. He’s watched several keepers make one wrong move in front of a mother and receive rather nasty burns in return. And, despite all his best efforts, he can hardly approach one of the females without his mind involuntarily flashing back to the first task of that dreaded Triwizard Tournament-
“You’re exceptionally talented with the injured dragons when they’re recovering with the healers.”
Harry pauses.
This isn’t necessarily untrue. Harry can at least acknowledge that. In the past year, he’s more often found himself working with the dragon healers than anyone else at the sanctuary. At the very least, the injured dragons do seem to tolerate him. He’s not sure why the recovering dragons- creatures that are often at their most vulnerable- are able to trust him more easily than the mothers in the breeding dens. He reckons it’s a small blessing. It’s the one thing he’s managed to excel at, during his apprenticeship.
“Perhaps you could work with the healers today?” Charlie suggests. “I’m sure they would appreciate your assistance. I can handle the dens for the morning.”
Harry sighs. It will be a quiet morning, then. There aren’t many injured dragons in the recovery wing. He certainly isn’t upset about that fact- the fewer injured dragons, the better. And he had theorized it might be a calm day only just that morning, during their walk to the sanctuary.
But he had hoped, just as he did most days, that today would be different. That he would be able to work with Charlie in the dens. That he might form a trust bond with one of the dozens of dragons within the sanctuary wards. That he could feel the rush of adrenaline and excitement that came with soaring through the skies again.
It had been a long time since he had last flown.
One day, perhaps.
It’s only been a year since he arrived at the sanctuary. It took some of the dragon keepers years to bond with and ride a dragon.
It had taken Charlie Weasley only four months.
A wry smile twisted across Harry’s lips. To the recovery wing, then.
Harry is greeted enthusiastically by the healers when he arrives at their wing of the sanctuary.
“Zdrasti, Harry!”
A tall, rather muscular woman with pale skin and dark hair welcomes him first. Aleksandra Petrova is one of the most experienced dragon healers, having worked at the sanctuary for nearly twenty years. Before joining the sanctuary, she had been a student at the Durmstrang Institute in Norway.
Despite speaking both English and Norwegian, Harry has noticed that she prefers to greet him in her mother tongue, Bulgarian. He’s spent enough time with the skilled healer to recognize the greeting and to have a response readily prepared.
“Dobro utro, Aleksandra.”
She noticeably chuckles at his poor accent. Harry suppresses an urge to roll his eyes. Just because he knows a handful of words doesn't mean he’s actually any good at speaking the language…
“Bonjour, Harry! Ça va?” Another voice welcomes him from across the warm cave.
Clément Bernard, a thin man with dark skin and even darker eyes. He’s worked as a healer at the sanctuary for just over four years. Originally from France, the young man actually studied at the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in North America. Despite knowing English nearly as fluently as Harry or Charlie, the wizard insists on speaking to Harry in French whenever possible. Something about the accent sounding pleasant when it came from Harry’s lips, or something of the sort. Harry doesn’t actually understand French all that well, and although Clément had once explained his reasoning for the peculiar habit in his own mother tongue, Harry never bothered trying to translate it. He just entertains him when he can.
“Salut, Clément. Any new patients this morning?”
Clément huffs a dramatic sigh of relief from where he is crouched next to a box of various vials and potions, shaking his head slightly.
“Fortunately, Harry, I cannot say that we have any new injuries to report today. The keepers have not caught any injured beasts beyond the sanctuary walls and by Merlin’s blessing, none of our own have managed to hurt themselves in the night.”
“I suppose that is a good thing, is it not, Harry?” Aleksandra asks with a knowing smile.
In the many months that they’ve worked together, the witch and wizard have picked up on Harry’s frustrations with boredom and any semblance of quiet fairly quickly. Fortunately for him, they’ve learned how to keep him content and busy.
“Would you like to check on Lilje? I believe her dressings may need to be replaced,” she adds.
Harry agrees immediately, gathering the necessary dragonhide bandages and solvents to care for the older dragon’s wounds.
Lilje is one of the oldest dragons at the sanctuary, a Norwegian Ridgeback who had been rescued from near-death just over three months prior. Clément theorized her to be nearly two hundred years old, particularly due to the dull browning of her otherwise rusty red scales. She had been the first dragon to trust Harry immediately and wholeheartedly, allowing him to feed and care for her without so much as a huff of hot air. She actually showed noticeable excitement at seeing the young wizard, ears perking up and wings fluttering whenever she saw him. It wasn’t a trust bond- she was far too old to form such a bond, and he would never attempt to ride her- but it brought Harry some comfort that at least one of the dragons could trust him.
Aleksandra had suggested that Harry be the one to name her.
Harry had immediately chosen to name her Lilje. Lily, in Norwegian.
He carries the bandages and potions silently across the recovery wing, towards one of many dragon nests carved deep into the wall of the cave. This one, unlike most of the others, is actually occupied by one of the sleeping creatures.
“Good morning, Lilje,” Harry greets her loudly. He waits outside of the dark nest as the shadow of a large dragon stirs, patiently allowing her some time to wake and gain her bearings.
A reddish-orange snout peaks out of the small cave, nostrils flaring as she breathes in his scent. Harry smiles as a soft rumble begins to vibrate the stone at his feet. The vibrations that dragons summon within their chest when they are happy had once made him nervous. It’s loud, like the rumble of a motorbike, and jarring when one isn’t expecting to hear it. It wasn’t until Charlie described it like the purring of a contented cat that Harry came to look forward to the noise.
Lilje moves slowly, bringing her head fully out from the dark cave and into the warm light of the recovery ward. She presses her snout firmly into Harry’s chest, releasing a contented huff of warm air that slightly heats the dragonhide of his robes. Harry places his bundle of bandages and potions carefully on the floor before raising both hands to rub the top of her horned snout.
Her eyes are a deep green, so dark that they could almost be black if it wasn’t for the warm glow of the magically illuminated cave. She’s watching him lazily, slitted eyes laced with sleep. Harry can’t suppress the smile that the sight pulls across his lips. Dragons are far more expressive than he had ever expected, and the more time he spends with them, the more he notices just how intelligent they truly are. It frustrates him to no end, how the creatures are seen as mindless monsters throughout the wizarding world.
“I’m going to change the dressings for your wounds now, alright, Lilje?”
The dragon, obviously, doesn’t respond. Harry never expects them to. But all of the sanctuary workers- researchers, healers, and keepers alike- speak to the creatures as if they can understand them. And the rumbling purrs grow marginally louder as Lilje pulls herself further from the cave to allow Harry access to her injuries.
Across the leathered skin of her left wing, there are dozens of jagged slashes that split the sensitive flesh into gaping holes. When the dragon keepers had discovered her three months prior, barely alive, she had been starved and bleeding on a rocky stretch of Norwegian countryside. It had taken several keepers to transport her safely to Romania, and by the time she had arrived at the sanctuary, the healers were unsure if she would survive her injuries.
Harry is rather glad she didn’t succumb to her wounds.
But it is unlikely that she will ever fly again, a fact which anguished the healers. A flightless dragon, one beyond the power of magic to help, is a distressing sight. To render a dragon flightless is one of the worst committable crimes, in the eyes of the sanctuary workers. It's the reason why so many of the dragon keepers spend hours each day scouting for injured dragons and poachers across the continent.
It brings him some comfort that Lilje is old, for a dragon. That she spent the vast majority of her life soaring the skies. That she will spend the last years of her life warm, well-fed, and cared for within the sanctuary.
Harry carefully vanishes the dragonscale bandages that cover the edges of the gaping wounds. He hums absentmindedly, stroking the velvet flesh of Lilje’s wing with his free hand as he inspects the injuries. They had stopped bleeding months ago, though they are still scabbed in some areas. It’s a difficult area of flesh to heal, since dragon wings move so dynamically.
“You’re healing quite well, Lilje,” he says softly. He smiles as the dragon turns her head towards him, maneuvering her snout until one large green eye hovers beside his face.
“Hello, darling.” Harry reaches his hand up to stroke the softer flesh at the underside of her neck. He lets out a gentle laugh as the purrs vibrate his hand.
“I am quite happy to see you as well,” he hums. A warm exhale bursts across him once more, pushing long strands of hair away from his face.
“I’m going to put some salves on you now, alright? I know it's rather uncomfortable, but bear with me.”
Lilje stills as Harry dips his fingers into a jar of healing salve, placing it carefully along the injured flesh of her wing. The purring quiets, slightly, but it doesn’t entirely go away. Harry feels relieved when she doesn’t pull away or express discomfort.
When he finishes emptying the contents of three healing salve jars along the length of her wing, Harry begins to cover the salve in thin strips of dragonhide bandage. The expanse of her wing is rather large, so it takes him several bundles of the material to fully cover her injuries. It’s difficult work, covering both the bottom and top of her wing in the bandages. Clément has pointed out to him on multiple occasions that he could use magic to dress her wounds instead. But Harry prefers to do it by hand. It’s less uncomfortable for Lilje that way.
By the time he’s finished replacing the dragon’s wounds, ensuring she is otherwise healthy, and offering her several large fish as a treat, it's nearly midday. He excuses himself from the recovery ward for a quick lunch of cabbage rolls and polenta gifted to him by one of his neighbors, a kind elderly witch named Sarmiza, before returning to assist the healers with the remainder of their daily tasks.
Despite the calm of the day, Harry has enough tasks to occupy his mind that the afternoon flies by relatively quickly. It’s not until he hears a rather loud commotion from the center cavern of the sanctuary that he realizes the dragon keepers must have returned from their patrol. Judging by the sounds of panicked yelling and even louder roars echoing all the way to the recovery ward, they’ve managed to recover an injured dragon.
Harry is summoning supplies before Aleksandra or Clément can even ask, following closely behind the two healers as they run through the tunnels towards the main cavern. He nearly runs right into their backs when the healers freeze at the opening of the tunnel. His breath catches in his throat.
It’s a magnificent, albeit terrifying sight.
The creature is somewhat small compared to the other dragons at the sanctuary. It’s barely over 20 feet long, much of its length coming from the arrow-shaped spike at the end of its thrashing tail. Its wingspan is more impressive, with bat-like wings that beat heavily at the air around it.
Harry doesn’t care so much about its size, though. What’s far more intriguing is its distinct coloring.
The dragon is as pure white as the snow surrounding the mountain, bright scales reflecting the trickles of afternoon light above. Harry has never seen a dragon quite so white, almost silver in the light of the cavern. The albino Ukrainian Ironbelly trapped beneath Gringotts had been white, but its coloring was nowhere near as bright and beautiful as the dragon before him. The bright white is a stark contrast to the deep, ruby red blood that stains its flesh. It’s severely injured, clearly, despite the effort and strength it maintains as it tries to escape.
The dragon keepers are struggling to restrain it despite its smaller size, the five wizards and witches shouting haphazard spells in an effort to keep it on the ground. There are heavy, broken chains clamped around its four legs, but they aren’t attached to anything. Poachers, then , Harry thinks. There are scars, jagged and criss crossed, across its belly and along the underside of its neck. It must have been captured for a long time, then. Likely for its rare coloring.
Harry wracks his memory in an effort to remember which dragon breeds could produce such a stark white coloring. Ukrainian Ironbellies could, as he had seen, but this dragon has four legs, so it clearly doesn’t fit the two-legged beast’s classification. Swedish Short-Snouts are often a silvery blue, but this dragon does not have the characteristically short snout of that breed. The Antipodean Opaleyes are known for their beautiful, pearly scales, but that breed also only has two legs where this dragon has four. Perhaps it is a genetic anomaly? He would need to look into the beast's eyes to see if it lacks pupils like the Opaleyes-
The dragon roars loudly once again, its face whipping around the cavern as if searching for a means to escape. Its eyes land on the entrance to the recovery wing, on the healers and Harry’s obscured figure, and Harry gasps.
The beast is certainly not an Antipodean Opaleye. Its pupils are blown wide, panicked, nearly covering the dark iron gray of its irises. The features of its face are distinct, matching only one of the breeds that they care for at the sanctuary.
“A pure white Hebridean Black,” Aleksandra breathes out.
Harry has never heard of a Hebridean Black with such a pure, light coloring. Every recorded Hebridean Black in wizarding history displayed the characteristic black or dark gray scales of the breed. More surprising than its coloring are its eyes .
“La barbe de Merlin,” Clément whispers.
Hebridean Blacks are one of the easiest breeds to identify due to their distinctly purple eyes, a coloring which has never varied across any recorded dragon of that breed. Yet, right in front of them stands a white Hebridean Black with steel gray eyes.
The healers step closer to the dragon, further from the entrance of the tunnel, as the keepers finally manage to restrain the creature by securing the chains around its legs to the stone floor of the cavern. Harry tries not to grimace at the lack of humanity behind the tactic. They generally try to refrain from chaining or restraining the dragons when possible.
The dragon has stopped struggling, at this point. Its eyes haven’t moved from the entrance to the recovery ward since they landed on the healers. No, he realizes. It isn’t staring at Aleksandra or Clément- this becomes more evident as the healers carefully approach it from the side. The creature is staring directly at Harry Potter, dark gray eyes wide and unblinking.
Harry can’t seem to look away.
He’s never seen a dragon look at him with such emotion, such intellect, with something reminiscent of… recognition. As if the dragon knew him, had seen him before.
Harry swallows hard when the dragon releases a long, hot exhale through its nostrils, eyes unblinking as they stare at him. Aleksandra and Clément quickly get to work ordering the dragon keepers around, securing each of the dragon’s limbs and its wings so they can safely inspect its wounds.
The dragon doesn’t move, even when Aleksandra uses a spell to secure an invisible muzzle around its snout. It does release a pained whine, almost a growl, when her hand grazes over the wounds on its back and tail. But still, it doesn’t look away. Harry almost forgets how to breathe, in the minutes that pass between them.
He only looks away when Charlie stands in front of him, blocking the dragon’s eyes from Harry’s line of sight.
“Alright, Harry?” He asks. Charlie’s covered in soot and his eyebrows are singed, likely due to a young hatchling who had been too enthusiastic about dinner, but he’s grinning. Harry has no doubt that the wizard is incredibly excited about the rare creature they’ve managed to bring into the sanctuary.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry says shortly. He’s too intrigued about the dragon behind Charlie to really care about pleasantries. “Have you ever seen a-”
“A white Hebridean Black? Never. I’ve never come across one in any written records, either.” Charlie finally turns back towards the dragon, standing next to Harry. Harry swallows hard as he glances back at the creature. It still hasn’t looked away.
“It's certainly a rarity. No wonder the poachers had it guarded so securely. I heard from the other keepers that they had to put up quite a fight for him,” Charlie said proudly. He frowns after a moment, looking between the dragon and Harry a few times. His lips purse slightly.
“He must like you,” Charlie says eventually. “Or he wants to kill you.” Charlie laughs, smacking a playful hand against Harry’s shoulder.
“Right,” Harry breathes. He reckons the latter statement is more likely to be accurate.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Okay LISTEN. I'm sorry. I totally dropped off the face of the earth. But I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS FIC. So I had to keep writing it. Your comments also made me feel guilty.
Short chapter but consider it an apology as I write the next one.
Chapter Text
In the year that Harry has been at the sanctuary, he has discovered three fundamental truths about himself. Who would have thought that the act of fleeing one’s home and moving across the continent to a foreign country would inspire a bit of self-reflection?
The first of these three truths is that Harry James Potter is traumatized.
Unequivocally, entirely, and quite truthfully traumatized.
The boy can hardly sleep, struggles to find any sort of appetite, and regularly has panic attacks at the slightest inconvenience to his person.
It’s a miracle in itself that he’s actually been able to come to terms with the realization that he is Not Okay.
In all honesty, Harry became aware of the fact that he was- is- Not Okay long before he moved to Romania. In the months following the War, he was hardly actually cognizant or mentally present for the circumstances which went on around him. He must have technically been there, during that time, he’s certain of that much. But it doesn’t feel like he was. Moreso, it feels like it was all a dream.
His memory of the summer of 1998 is severely lacking.
There are bits and pieces that Harry can recall. He had worked closely with the Ministry, testifying and weighing-in on several death eater trials as an honorary member of the Wizengamot. He played a role in sending dozens of death eaters to Azkaban with sentences that varied in severity.
His feedback determined the life sentences of Amycus and Alecto Carrow, Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood, Walden Macnair, and Lucius Malfoy. His feedback also determined the more lenient house arrest dealt to Narcissa Malfoy.
The only trial which Harry truly remembers, and regrets, is that of Draco Malfoy. Despite his best efforts to convey Draco’s innocence- “innocence” in that he had been coerced as an underaged wizard and threatened with the torture and murder of his parents if he did not join the Dark Lord- the Wizengamot sentenced him to six months in Azkaban. Harry can vividly remember the boy’s face, gaunt and haggard from weeks held in Azkaban before his trial, crumpling as the sentence was delivered. The tears streaming down his face. The haunted look in his steel gray eyes when they made eye contact.
It was during this time that Harry determined he could not become an auror- that he no longer wanted to. Witnessing and participating in the trials was one thing. But he had shadowed the aurors in those months after the war, worked closely with them in gathering intel and reprimanding any suspected death eaters and death eater apologists. And he hated it.
Sure, he hated the paperwork. He hated searching for intel. He hated hunting down dark wizards. But most of all, he hated fearing for his life. Fearing for the lives of his friends and colleagues. Harry had fought and fought and fought for every damned moment of his life and he was tired.
He is tired.
Of fighting, of watching people he cares for get injured, lose their lives. Is it too much to ask for Harry Potter to live a calm, quiet life? To pursue a passion, rather than pursuing that which is expected of him?
By the end of the summer, Harry had withdrawn entirely from his work with the ministry and the auror unit. He simply ignored the letters and questions and inquiries until they inevitably gave up. The newspapers began to question his inactivity in the ministry and sudden lack of public appearances, but Harry didn’t make much of a point to read the newspapers anyway. He simply locked himself up at Grimmauld place, disabled his flu network, and disappeared from the world.
The world, unfortunately, included his friends as well.
Despite their unyielding efforts, Harry eventually came to ignore the frequent letters from Hermione, Ron, Andromeda, Molly, even Luna. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see them, that he didn’t miss them or care for them. He just couldn't find the energy to write them back. Or to even open the letters and read them. By the end of that summer after the war, Harry wasn’t doing much of anything other than lying in Sirius’ old bed, in Sirius’ old room. Which didn’t help the situation all that much, to be surrounded by his dead godfather’s belongings.
In his isolation, the nightmares worsened. He awoke frequently. Constantly. Screaming. Watching his friends die horrible, gruesome deaths, over and over again. He was at the graveyard. At the Malfoy manor. The ministry. Hogwarts. Surrounded by screaming and blood and green flashes of light and-
crucio imperio confringo abscido totalum diripo ignis liquefacio oblido viscera eiecto sectrumsempra avada kedavra avada kedavra avada kedavra avada kedavra-
So he left. He left Scotland. He left the British Isles. He fled across the continent to the only isolated place he could think of, the only place he had once heard described as a sanctuary for the most terrifying, powerful, magical of creatures.
Because that’s what Harry Potter is, isn’t it? A terrifying, powerful, magical creature? What better place for the slayer of dark lords, the defeater of death, the one creature more powerful than the darkest wizard in wizarding history.
He left. He collapsed at the borders of the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, dying of body, dying of soul, and it was Charlie Weasley who caught him. Charlie Weasley who took him in, fed him, gave him warm clothes, and offered him sanctuary. Charlie who offered to teach him, train him, guide him in the efforts of dragon keepers.
And, while it didn’t stop the nightmares, it did give Harry something he hadn’t even known he was searching for.
A sense of peace.
Purpose.
One beyond that of being a weapon, of being a threat.
Peace and purpose in the form of a community of misunderstood outcasts.
Harry understood rather quickly why Charlie had left his home in favor of the sanctuary. Charlie isn’t much like the other Weasleys at all. He is brave, yes. He has the red hair, the fair skin, the freckles. But the man prefers silence over loud conversation. Peace and tidiness rather than a full house bustling with people. He appreciates the opportunity to isolate when overstimulated, to set boundaries with his personal space, to be alone with the quiet of his mind. The dragons, of course, are excused from these preferences. These preferences, Harry has learned, are mostly regarding other wizards and human beings.
The pair quickly bonded over these preferences.
So.
Those pesky fundamental truths that Harry has discovered about himself.
His trauma and anxiety and panic attacks, yes, those are all bundled up into one of the truths he has uncovered while in Romania.
The second? Well.
Charlie Weasley is bloody hot.
Like, really bloody hot.
Okay, no, that isn’t the second truth. At least, not in its entirety.
The second truth is that Charlie Weasley is bloody hot and Harry James Potter is not nearly as straight as he once believed.
For most of his strange and tumultuous life, Harry has been under the rather common impression that he fancies girls. Women. Individuals of the opposite gender. Sure, he didn’t really have time to explore his options and think otherwise, but he didn’t really need to. He knew Hermione was objectively attractive, he fancied Cho Chang, he dated Ginny Weasley, and he had been well and truly attracted to them.
But, sure, maybe with some self reflection, he has come to realize that his admiration of Oliver Wood wasn’t solely because of his quidditch skills. And Cedric- a graveyard, the spare, green light- had gained his attention long before the Triwizard Tournament. Harry could even admit that Draco Malfoy, the git, is objectively attractive with his pale skin and white blond hair and sharp gray eyes-
Right then. So, the actual second truth is that Harry Potter has realized he is bisexual.
It’s not a super useful truth for him to have come to terms with, he’s quite aware of that. But it’s a truth about himself that he’s been able to discover because he is alive, he survived the war, and he’s no longer fighting for his life every waking moment of each day. It’s a piece of himself that he might have discovered sooner, when he was younger, if he hadn’t been preoccupied fighting Voldemort each year.
And it’s something he has discovered by himself, without the help of Ron or Hermione or his friends, as much as he loves them all dearly.
No, it doesn’t count that Charlie technically helped him discover his sexuality, because Charlie did nothing but exist. Hotly.
It also happens to be one of the few things in Harry’s life that he is able to take control of. How he navigates his sexuality is his choice and nobody else’s. He gets to take the time to develop crushes. To form relationships. To experience romance, tender touches, and the heartbreak that may come with it. No more clumsy, haphazard kisses with the threat of death over their heads. No more rushed relationships built upon a looming war, lacking foundation beyond the bond of trauma. This time, in the life that Harry is beginning to build for himself, he gets to choose and experience things as he wants them.
Of course, there is only so much Harry can truly have control over. So, alongside his newfound ability to experience a queer relationship, he has also had the opportunity to experience queer rejection.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as when Cho declined his invitation to the Yule Ball.
But it was quite mortifying nonetheless.
Turns out Charlie Weasley, in all his rugged attractiveness, is very much asexual and not particularly interested in the extended company of anyone other than the dragons at the sanctuary.
It took one drunk night- a night in which Harry had clearly had far too much firewhisky- and a sloppy attempt at a kiss for Charlie to shut down Harry’s slow-building crush. It was awkward, and messy, and the next few days were a bit uncomfortable for both parties, but they got over it all fairly quickly.
Now, the crush is more of a joke between the two than anything else. Their personalities complement each other well, and although they aren’t nearly as close as he is with Ron, Harry is endlessly appreciative of Charlie’s friendship and mentorship. And sure, he’s still quite appreciative of Charlie’s face and build and the way he handles baby dragons, but the attraction amounts to nothing more than a slight flush of his cheeks and the occasional shy smile.
Let’s move on from that.
The third fundamental truth is that a dragon has never bonded with Harry Potter.
Furthermore, a dragon has never preferred his company over at least one other wizard or witch in the sanctuary.
Every dragon he has encountered over the past year has at the very least preferred the company of Charlie to Harry, even Lilje. Charlie has various hypotheses and reasonings behind this, from Harry’s inexperience with dragons to the bottomless anxiety that emanates from his core, but the fact remains that dragons do not prefer Harry’s company.
Especially freshly rescued dragons.
More especially, freshly rescued dragons who had been captured and injured by poachers.
So, when Harry wakes up early the next day, the last thing he expects is for a dragon to choose him .
“Merlin’s beard, can someone please just HOLD HIM DOWN-”
Harry arrives at the entrance of the sanctuary just before dawn to hear the chaotic clash of roaring and voices yelling over one another. He stumbles down the stone stairs, shedding his thick cloak as he runs towards the source of the chaos.
The recovery wing is a rather large space, meant to accommodate several dragons in a multitude of smaller caves that branch off from the primary medical cave. The primary cave, while large and fully equipped with objects to heal and handle dragons, is not meant to accommodate five wizards and a thrashing Hebridean Black, no matter how small the dragon might be compared to other varieties. This is made explicitly clear to Harry as he watches potions and salves crash against the stone floor and walls of the cave, thrown across the room by a large and thrashing white tail.
Harry just barely manages to jump out of the way as a large wing whips towards him, instead hitting a box of dragonhide and smashing it against a wall.
“Charlie!” He calls, trying to get the attention of the frantic dragon keeper.
Along with Aleksandra, Clément, and two other keepers, Charlie is desperately shouting restraining spells in an attempt to bind the dragon enough for them to administer a calming drought. The spells do little to actually restrain the creature, instead angering it further.
Harry ducks under the dragon’s tail as it whips across the cave, desperately attempting to get to Charlie’s side so he can attempt to help.
“Charlie! What can I do?” He shouts as the other wizard comes back into view.
The minute Charlie’s eyes land on him, they widen in obvious panic.
“Harry, you have to get out of here! It’s not safe-” Charlie is interrupted by a large, scaly paw that hits him square in the chest and sends him sprawling across the cave.
“Charlie!” He cries.
He hears Aleksandra curse loudly and watches as she pulls away from the dragon, running in Charlie’s direction.
“Harry, mon cher, you must go! Find the other keepers and tell them we need help,” Clément yells.
Harry almost scoffs.
He probably would have, if the situation weren’t so dire.
He’s Harry Potter after all.
Self-hatred be damned, everyone should know by now that the bloody savior of the wizarding world won’t ‘go find help.’
So, of course, he does quite the opposite.
He runs to the side of the cave, away from the group of keepers and healers, and throws a sharp stinging hex at one side of the dragon’s snout.
Harry swears the recovery wing goes silent. Things seem to move in slow motion. The dragon turns towards him, snarling, jaws snapping open as Aleksandra’s muzzle charm breaks. Harry feels the heat of its breath against him, dragon saliva dripping against his robes, and he swears he’s finally going to die. This is it, it has to be, because he’s pissed off a vicious, injured, wild dragon and now it’s going to eat him.
And then his eyes meet a slitted black pupil surrounded by stormy gray.
The dragon’s mouth shuts so fast that Harry feels the hot dragon breath rustle his hair.
Its tail immediately stops swishing, wings tucking against its body as it slowly lowers itself into a crouching position in front of Harry.
Harry remembers to breathe, eventually, and takes a step back as he gasps for air. He clenches his hands until the leather of his gloves pinches the skin, then unclenches, and repeats the motion until his breathing evens out. He hardly dares to blink as the dragon continues to stare into his eyes.
The storm of emotion he sees in the dragon’s eyes almost knocks him off his feet. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before, anything he’s ever experienced with any other dragon. In an instant, Harry knows that this dragon sees. It understands . It knows . It’s a level of consciousness and awareness that surpasses anything Harry thought dragons capable of.
He can’t shake the feeling that this dragon somehow knows him . There’s recognition there, in the swirls of gray. And… trust.
The dragon trusts him.
Harry’s not sure how he knows.
He moves his hand forward slowly, despite Clément and Aleksandra’s frantic shouts.
Because somehow, he does.
He knows the dragon won’t hurt him.
He trusts the dragon.
Because he knows the dragon.
He hears Aleksandra’s gasp before he fully registers that his hand is resting on the snout of the dragon before him. When he looks up towards the others, they’re all staring in confusion. Charlie is sitting up, one hand against the side of his head, eyebrows knit together.
“Do I have a concussion?” Charlie asks shakily.
“Yes.” Aleksandra and Clément say in unison.
“But you are also seeing a dragon that likes Harry Potter.” Aleksandra adds, crossing her arms as a smile forms on her lips.
Chapter Text
There’s a raw, burning ache in Harry’s chest that settles in sometime after the dragon stops snarling.
He hasn’t slept. Not really, not since the previous morning. The adrenaline wore off hours ago, and what remains is a thick, buzzing weight behind his eyes. An exhaustion too tangled in nerves to allow for rest.
His limbs ache with it. His head is fogged, vision dull at the edges. But his hands are steady, at least for now.
He stands in the narrow corridor that leads to the dragon’s new recovery den, shoulders hunched slightly under the weight of his cloak. The thick wool smells faintly of smoke and pine sap, and the collar itches where it rubs against his neck. The air is cold this morning, sharp and dry, and it stings his cheeks where his scarf doesn’t quite cover. He could cast a warming charm, but he doesn’t. The bite of cold in his lungs makes him feel real, here , grounded.
He glances toward the cave again, then away.
Aleksandra had pulled him aside the night before, long after the sanctuary had quieted, her arms crossed and jaw set as she cornered him near the staff common area. She didn’t waste time with small talk.
“He will not let anyone near him,” she said.
Harry had nodded. “I figured.”
“I mean anyone, Harry,” she added. “Not Clément. Not the other keepers. You saw him try to kill Charlie.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to do about that.”
Her eyes narrowed, sharp and assessing. “He did let you touch him.”
“That was-” Harry exhaled, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “That was different. It was chaos. He was panicked. I- he was reacting to the situation.”
“He was reacting to you,” she said plainly. “And now you are assigned to him. Until further notice.”
“Aleks,” Harry muttered, “you know that’s not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Because dragons don’t like me.” His voice was quiet, tight. “You’ve seen it. They don’t trust me. I can’t bond with any of them. Not even the Opaleyes. I’ve tried everything. And this one- this dragon- it’s feral . It’s injured . You want me to approach it after it almost took Charlie’s ribs out of his body?”
Aleksandra’s expression didn’t waver.
Harry clenched and unclenched his hands inside his gloves, the worn leather groaning softly at the seams.
“I can’t be trusted with him,” he said, throat dry. “I’ll make it worse.”
“You won’t,” she replied, and for once her voice softened, just slightly. “Because you’re the only one he doesn’t try to kill on sight."
Harry’s jaw worked as he tried to find something else to say. But she turned before he could find the words, already striding away down the corridor.
“Tough luck, Potter,” she called over her shoulder. “Looks like you’re the dragon’s favorite.”
Now, as the first pale thread of dawn winds its way through the sky above the mountains, Harry stands at the threshold of the dragon’s cave, cloak drawn tight across his chest and fingers twitching slightly beneath his gloves.
The recovery den isn’t large, not compared to the vast hollows that house the sanctuary’s permanent residents. But it’s deep, carved into a quiet corner of the recovery wing and shrouded in a dim, pulsing warmth that comes from ancient heating wards embedded in the rock itself. The air is thick with the scent of scorched stone and old magic. Still. Undisturbed.
The dragon is curled at the far end, a long, pale silhouette against the warm rock. He hasn’t moved, not since Harry arrived.
Harry swallows. The edge of his tongue feels too dry.
He doesn’t step inside. Instead, he crouches at the cave’s mouth, resting his arms on his knees, boots crunching slightly against frost-dusted stone. The position is uncomfortable. He knows his legs will fall asleep eventually, but it feels... appropriate. Like lowering himself makes him less of a threat. Like it shows he isn’t here to fight.
He watches the dragon in silence for a long while. The only sounds are the occasional creaks from deep within the mountain and the low hum of containment wards buried in the walls.
Harry flexes his hands inside his gloves, again and again, until the stiffness fades.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he says aloud.
His voice is rough, dry around the edges, but steady.
The dragon doesn’t move. Doesn’t so much as flick its tail.
“I’m not a dragon healer,” he continues, more to himself than anything. “I’m barely even a decent keeper.”
He lets the words hang in the air for a beat. Then another. Still nothing.
“So,” he murmurs, “I suppose we’re both just trying not to fall apart.”
Another long silence.
He shifts his weight slightly, adjusting his posture. “You won't eat.”
Still no reaction. The dragon’s breathing is steady. Slow. Harry watches the rise and fall of its flanks, the slight twitch of a muscle along its side.
“Don’t blame you, really,” Harry mutters. “I wouldn’t eat either, if I’d just been dragged out of Merlin-knows-where in chains.”
He stares down at his gloved hands, the creases in the dragonhide leather familiar, almost comforting. He brushes a thumb over one of the seams.
After a moment, he says quietly, “You know, I used to dream about dragons when I was little.”
The words leave his mouth without permission. It’s not what he planned to say. He hadn’t planned to say anything, really, but it comes out all the same.
“I didn’t know they were real. Not then. Just saw one in a cartoon, I think. One of Dudley’s programmes. Big thing. Wings like sails.” He pauses. “It breathed fire. Burned everything down. I think I liked that part.”
Still, the dragon remains silent.
“I thought they were supposed to be evil,” he says. “But then I met one. A real one. Fourth year. She nearly killed me.”
He smiles faintly, but there’s no humor in it.
“I was fourteen. I remember thinking I didn’t have a chance in hell. She was guarding her eggs. I was just a kid with a wand and some stupid plan about flying.” His breath catches, then steadies. “Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have made it out of that, you know?”
The cave feels quieter now. The air heavier.
Harry shakes his head. “Not just that. Hogwarts. The war. All of it.”
He exhales slowly through his nose.
There’s no response. Of course there isn’t. But something about the stillness of the cave feels different now.
Eventually, Harry stands, knees aching as blood rushes back into his legs. He stretches out one at a time, then shifts his cloak to sit more comfortably on his shoulders.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he says softly.
He hesitates, then adds, “I’ll leave some food. You don’t have to eat it. Just... it’ll be here. In case you change your mind.”
The dragon doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t lift its head. Doesn’t blink.
But as Harry walks away, something in his chest feels marginally lighter.
And he doesn’t look back, but he knows he’s still being watched.
When Harry arrives the next day, the food has gone untouched.
He sits cross-legged at the entrance of the cave now, shoulders hunched, fingers curled tightly into the damp lining of his cloak. He can’t feel the tips of them anymore. There’s a dull throb beneath his gloves where cold has begun to seep in through the creases of worn leather, but he doesn’t bother fixing it.
He’s always preferred discomfort to stillness.
The dragon hasn’t moved since he arrived. It’s still curled at the back of the den, long body coiled tightly inwards, massive tail wound protectively around its flank. Its wings are half-tucked, one stretched just slightly out of joint, the delicate membrane along the top still torn and scabbed. Blood has dried in dark rust-colored streaks down the creature’s side.
Harry’s tried not to look too closely at the wounds. Something about them makes his chest twist.
He’s set the food down again. Two mountain trout, freshly caught and gutted, charmed to preserve them and keep them warm. They’re resting on a flat slab of stone near the mouth of the den, closer than yesterday but still a respectful distance from the dragon itself. The fish don’t smell bad yet. But they will soon, if they stay there long enough.
He half expects the dragon to look away from him at some point. To sleep. To blink.
It doesn’t.
The storm-gray eyes remain fixed on him, unwavering.
The intensity of that stare is unsettling. Not hostile, not anymore, but piercing. Intent.
Harry shifts slightly, letting out a slow breath through his nose. The cold tightens his lungs. He tugs his scarf higher up over his mouth, letting his glasses fog for a moment before pulling the wool down again. Too warm against his lips. Too cold on his cheeks. He’s never found a balance.
“You’re watching me,” he murmurs, barely audible through the wind.
He doesn’t expect an answer. Still, the dragon blinks, once. Slowly.
Harry’s breath catches. He doesn’t say anything else.
For the next hour, he simply sits, shivering occasionally, listening to the distant groans of the mountain and the faint hiss of wind through the carved rock.
When he finally leaves, the fish is still sitting there, untouched.
The next day, Harry brings apples.
He doesn’t know if the dragon likes apples. He’s not even sure where the thought came from. But some dragons enjoy fruit as a treat on occasion. And there was something oddly hopeful about the pile of green fruit in the dining hall’s kitchen basket, and his fingers had acted before his brain could question it.
So now there’s a linen pouch of fresh trout and four crisp apples nestled between them. Two are slightly bruised.
He sets the pouch down just inside the den and then retreats back to his usual place, settling onto the smooth stone with a sigh. The ache in his back from sitting crouched for so long yesterday hasn’t faded, and the left knee of his trousers are damp with melted frost.
“You know,” he starts, eyes on the apples, “I don’t even know what to call you.”
A flick of gray in the shadows tells him the dragon is awake. Still watching.
“Not that you have a name,” Harry says. “Not a real one. And the poachers probably just called you that thing or it or Merlin knows what else.”
He shrugs, hugging his arms around his knees. “Lilje got hers because she trusted me. I suppose that’s not on the table just yet.”
He glances up.
The dragon’s body is still curled tightly, but it’s no longer resting its head on its paws. The snout is slightly lifted, sharp eyes trained on Harry’s face with a startling stillness.
Harry licks his lips.
“Lilje’s a Ridgeback,” he says quietly. “They rescued her from Norway last spring. She was dying, when she got here. Too old, too weak. She barely had enough breath left to snap at Charlie when he tried to feed her.”
His voice drops lower, more thoughtful. “She’s doing better now. Won’t ever fly again, but... I think she’s alright. She’s comfortable. Safe.”
He watches the dragon for a long time, then lowers his gaze.
“I talk to her too,” he mutters. “She never answers, obviously. But I think she listens.”
The dragon doesn’t move. But its gaze hasn’t wavered either.
Harry breathes out, shoulders curling inward against the wind.
“I used to talk to Ginny this way. After the war.” His voice catches briefly, but he pushes through it. “We’d sit in silence for hours. Both of us pretending like the other might eventually say something useful. Neither of us did.”
He sniffs once, then pulls his gloves tighter over his wrists.
“I think we were both grieving things that never actually existed.”
Silence. The kind that settles deep.
“I know you’re scared,” Harry whispers finally. “I am too.”
The next morning is gray, overcast, with a slow drizzle of freezing rain that sticks to Harry’s robes like a curse. His cloak is sodden by the time he arrives, and he’s soaked through to the knees. He doesn’t speak as he sets the food down. Doesn’t even look the dragon in the eye.
He just sits.
He has nothing to say today. Nothing that matters. His chest is too tight, his thoughts too loud, and there’s something unbearable in the stillness of the world that makes words feel wrong .
So he doesn’t use them.
Instead, he curls into himself, robes clutched tight around his shoulders, his forehead resting lightly against his knees. The cold seeps in through the stone beneath him, deep into the joints of his spine, and he lets it.
The dragon is quiet.
And then, just once, a soft sound.
Not a growl. Not a purr. Just... a breath. Deeper than the others. Closer.
When Harry finally lifts his head, the dragon has shifted.
It’s subtle. Barely more than a few feet. But its coiled body is angled more directly toward the cave’s mouth now, tail curled loosely rather than defensively. The snout is lower, eyes blinking slowly. Studying.
Harry doesn’t move. Doesn’t let his face betray anything. He just buries his face back into his knees with a soft sigh.
Days later, Harry’s up before dawn again, boots crunching softly along the frost-laced path toward the recovery wing. There’s a fresh haul of river trout wrapped in linen under his arm, the parcel still warm and slightly damp, water spots seeping through the cloth and brushing wet against his robes.
He barely makes it halfway to the tunnel when Clément materializes from the side corridor like he’s been waiting. He’s holding a mug of something steaming and smelling faintly of cinnamon, hair immaculately tousled, robes pressed.
“You spoil him, mon cher,” he says with a smile, nodding toward the fish. “All this, and he still refuses to let you touch him."
Harry exhales through his nose slowly. “He hasn’t mauled me. I think that’s as close as he gets to trust right now.”
“Perhaps he just has taste. A rare thing in dragons and men alike.”
Harry rolls his eyes, though his ears flush under the chill.
“He doesn't like anyone,” he says shortly.
Clément’s eyes flicker with amusement. “And what does he think of you, I wonder?”
Harry looks away, shifting the parcel against his hip. “I’m not sure.”
“Hmm.” Clément sips his drink and leans casually against the stone wall. “Still not eating?”
“Not yet.” Harry’s voice drops slightly.
“I'm sure it's only a matter of time. He has an attitude, that one. I'm sure he'll give in to hunger eventually."
Harry huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Well, he’s got a regal glare at least.”
Then he adds, almost as an afterthought, "and I hope so."
Clément’s gaze softens as he watches Harry retreat down the hall.
The den is dim when he arrives, but not silent. The dragon is awake, Harry can feel it before he sees it. The quiet pulse of breath, the shift of massive lungs, the subtle weight of its gaze hanging in the air.
The trout are still warm in the linen when he unwraps them. He places them carefully on the smooth stone slab just inside the cave’s curve, closer than before. The dragon doesn’t move, but his eyes are open, slitted gray watching from the shadows. Unblinking.
Harry lowers himself to the ground slowly, settling into the familiar place he’s carved out near the threshold. He doesn’t speak, not this time. The silence feels steady. Tolerant, almost.
He sits there for a while, knees drawn to his chest, listening to the cave breathe around him. The dragon doesn’t shift, but the tension in the space is different. Less like waiting. More like… coexisting.
“I’ll be back tonight,” Harry murmurs after some time. “You should eat if you're hungry.”
He doesn’t linger.
That evening, he tells himself he’s only stopping by to check in. Just for a few minutes. The air has dropped below freezing, and the stone walls near the east corridor have begun to crackle with frost at the edges. Most of the sanctuary is asleep. The hearth in the staff wing had gone out hours ago.
The cave is dark when he arrives, the low-burning torchlight in the corridor casting amber shadows across the floor. The dragon is curled deep inside, a pale arc of bone and scale barely distinguishable from the stone wall. Still, unmistakably, awake.
And the fish are gone.
Harry doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even sit at first. He just stands there, blinking the exhaustion from his eyes, the chill pressing through his cloak in slow, creeping fingers. He feels like he’s been holding his breath all day.
He’s not sure what finally breaks him. Probably the fish.
One minute he’s lowering himself to the floor, drawing his knees up toward his chest. The next, his eyelids are far too heavy, and the ache in his spine is dulled by the warmth radiating faintly from the walls.
His body folds in on itself without resistance, and sleep takes him by force.
When Harry wakes, the world is wrong.
It takes a moment to understand why.
His glasses are still on, slightly crooked, one lens smudged. His head is pressed against the chilled stone wall, skin damp where his breath has left condensation. His fingers are stiff, curled beneath his cloak.
The cave is very still.
And very warm.
Unnaturally warm.
His body registers it before his brain does. That sudden heat, heavy and close, like standing near a furnace.
And then-
He lifts his head. And stops breathing.
The dragon is right there.
No longer curled at the far end of the den. No longer a distant shape watching from the shadows. Now, his massive body is sprawled across the stone just feet away, coiled near the entrance, flank arched in a loose crescent that nearly surrounds where Harry lies.
His snout is level with Harry’s torso, resting lightly on the floor. Those storm-gray eyes are open, wide, focused entirely on him.
Watching.
Harry’s lungs seize. His stomach flips.
He scrambles halfway upright with a sharp intake of breath, cloak sliding off his shoulder, elbow scraping stone as he pushes back instinctively.
Too close. Too close.
Every inch of him goes taut, his body locked in that moment between flight and freeze. The dragon doesn’t move. Doesn’t shift, doesn’t bare his teeth, doesn’t blink.
But he’s watching.
Harry swallows hard, heart hammering against his ribs like it’s trying to escape. He’s been around dragons for a year. He’s seen them in flight, seen them wounded and healing, roaring and burning. But this closeness is something else entirely.
There’s no barrier here. No Charlie to protect him.
Just breath. And heat. And the possibility of something going very wrong, very quickly.
Harry doesn’t know how long they stare at each other- seconds, maybe. Or years.
Then, the dragon blinks.
And the sound that follows is so soft, so unexpected, that it knocks the breath right out of Harry’s lungs.
A rumble.
Low. Gentle. Rolling out from deep within the dragon’s chest like the purring of a creature far smaller, far less terrifying. It’s not loud, not threatening, but Harry feels it. In the stone beneath him. In the air between them.
The dragon hums once more, just slightly louder.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he closes his eyes.
And exhales a long, even breath.
Within seconds, his body stills. And he’s asleep. Just like that.
Harry remains frozen for a while longer, shoulders tense, pulse fluttering behind his ears. The quiet is heavy again, but not like before. Not empty. Not cold.
His heart finally begins to slow.
The warmth lingers, wrapping around him like a blanket. Eventually, Harry eases back down to the floor, eyes still fixed on the pale curve of scale beside him.
He doesn’t close his eyes again. Not yet. But he doesn’t move away either.
He just lies there, listening to the breath of the dragon beside him. The sound is slow. Steady.
And when sleep comes again, it’s without resistance.
It’s been three days since that night.
Three days since Harry woke to find the dragon pressed close enough to feel his breath, his heartbeat, the slow rumble of his contentment.
Three days since the dragon slept beside him.
And in those three days, Harry hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
He still visits every morning, of course. Still brings food, fresh trout charmed to twitch faintly and keep the blood warm, apples if he can get them. Still sits in silence or mutters bits of conversation, his voice low and even, filling the air between them with nothing in particular.
But something’s changed.
There’s a tension building in his chest now. Not fear, exactly, though fear lingers at the edges of it. Not dread, either. But a slow, undeniable pull toward action. Toward doing something more than just sitting on the edge of this creature’s life, hoping for permission to exist in the same room.
Because the dragon, this wild, wounded, unbelievably rare creature, still isn’t healing.
The scabs on his wings are drying unevenly. The gouges along his back are deep, still raw around the edges. Some of the older wounds have begun to look infected, the surrounding skin puffy and discolored.
Harry watches him in silence one morning, chin on his knees, eyes fixed on a slice of broken scale along the dragon’s flank.
The dragon watches him back.
And Harry thinks, This isn’t enough anymore.
He brings supplies the next day.
Not just food, but a full kit: charmed linen bandages, vials of burn salve, antiseptic potion brewed by Aleksandra herself, and a few cloths warmed by a charm. He doesn’t hide them. Doesn’t pretend that this visit is the same as the others.
He knows the dragon sees everything he carries.
But the dragon doesn’t move. Doesn’t shift away. His eyes flick from the bundle of supplies to Harry’s face, then back again.
Harry sits as usual, cross-legged, calm on the outside, heart thudding on the inside, and waits.
The fish is devoured quickly. The dragon’s movements are still careful, but he no longer eats like a creature expecting his next meal to be stolen. He eats knowing Harry will bring more. Knowing he can eat in peace.
That alone feels like a miracle.
When the fish is gone, Harry speaks. His voice is steady.
“I need to clean your wounds.”
The dragon doesn’t react.
Harry pulls his gloves off and tucks them into the front of his robes. His hands are cold, but his palms are dry. He takes a slow breath, steadying himself.
“I know you don’t like it when anyone gets close,” he says. “But you’re not healing on your own. And I can’t keep watching you bleed every day.”
Still, no movement. The dragon’s eyes are fixed on him, sharp and unreadable.
Harry inches forward, just a foot.
The dragon doesn’t flinch.
Another foot. Then another.
Harry kneels now, just at the outer edge of the dragon’s reach. His fingers tremble slightly as he unscrews the cap on the antiseptic.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmurs, more for himself than for the dragon. “You know that, don’t you?”
The dragon’s gaze narrows. Not in warning, just in assessment.
Harry dips a clean cloth into the solution and wrings it out. His throat is tight. His heart feels like it’s caught between his ribs, struggling to find room.
He raises the cloth, slowly, and reaches forward.
One inch.
Two.
He’s not breathing.
And then-
His hand rests lightly against the edge of the dragon’s front leg, just below a long, shallow gash. The skin is hot beneath his fingers, the scales coarse and rigid, tinged with something warmer beneath.
The dragon doesn’t move.
Harry gently presses the damp cloth to the wound and begins to clean.
He works slowly. Methodically. Every movement, achingly deliberate. He narrates softly under his breath, not just out of habit but to fill the air with something, anything.
“This might sting a little,” he says, dabbing along the edge of a scab. “But Aleksandra says the formula numbs quickly.”
A low breath huffs from the dragon’s nostrils. It’s not aggressive. If anything, it sounds resigned.
Harry glances up once to find the dragon’s eyes half-lidded. Watching him.
Not with suspicion. But with still, heavy patience.
He finishes cleaning the leg and moves to the side. The deep ridge across the dragon’s ribcage is more jagged than he’d realized. Harry has to cast a careful numbing charm before wiping the edge.
“There we go,” he whispers.
But when he reaches one of the older wounds, nestled into the softer folds behind the dragon’s front shoulder- one that’s partially scabbed but clearly infected- the second his cloth makes contact, the dragon jerks.
Not wildly, not with teeth. Just a full-body snap, fast and visceral, a low, guttural sound tearing from his throat as his tail lashes once against the stone.
Harry freezes. His heart climbs into his throat. The cloth falls from his hand.
But the dragon doesn’t turn on him.
In fact, when Harry dares to look, the creature is completely still again. The heavy muscles tremble beneath his hide. His head is bowed, eyes tight, nostrils flaring. He looks... frightened. And ashamed.
Harry’s breath escapes in a slow, shaky exhale. He reaches again, carefully and retrieves the cloth from the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “That one must’ve hurt like hell.”
The dragon’s eyes open. They meet his. And Harry swears- he swears - he sees guilt written there. Not anger, not a warning. But something weary and wordless, almost like an apology.
“No, don’t,” Harry says quietly. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s alright. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
A slow blink. The tension drains out of the dragon’s shoulders.
And not for the first time since caring for this dragon, Harry feels something warm in his chest.
He keeps going. Cleaning the wound again, gentler this time, cooling the edges with a different salve. He keeps talking, about the weather, about a hatchling that bit Charlie on the wrist earlier that morning. Nothing important. Just steady words, easy words, so his own hands don’t shake and the dragon doesn’t get spooked.
At one point, when he moves toward the base of the dragon’s wing, Harry pauses.
“This bit’s the worst of it,” he says quietly. “I’ll stop if it’s too much.”
The dragon doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t growl. Doesn’t so much as twitch a claw.
So Harry keeps going.
He works for nearly two hours. By the time he finishes the last dressing and wipes the excess salve from his fingers, his knees are numb and his hands are shaking from the strain of staying so still. But he hardly notices the ache in his joints.
Not when he looks up and finds the dragon watching him again, eyes heavy, body relaxed.
That same new, impossible trust.
Harry breathes out slowly, gathering the empty vials and bloodied cloths back into the satchel.
“I’ll change the bandages in two days,” he says, his voice rasping slightly now from the chill. “Maybe sooner if they start slipping.”
The dragon exhales slowly, head lowering to rest again on his massive forearm. Not in exhaustion, Harry doesn’t think, but in acceptance.
Harry stares at him a moment longer, then murmurs, half to himself, “Thank you.”
He doesn’t expect a response.
He gets one anyway.
Just before he stands, a sound rolls through the cave- softer than before, barely a hum. That quiet, reverberating purr , echoing low in the stone.
Chapter Text
It becomes a rhythm, somehow.
Wake up early. Make the long trek to the sanctuary, usually without company. Wrap fresh trout in linen, check the salves. Walk the quiet, carved path toward the recovery wing, boots echoing against stone. The air is always cool in the mornings, biting at Harry's cheeks, the silence of the mountain broken only by the crunch of gravel and the soft rattle of potion jars in his satchel.
He sits just inside the mouth of the cave, where the shadows begin to stretch long and the heat from within doesn’t quite reach. He listens to the wind. Watches the way dust glows in the angled light. Waits until his heartbeat steadies, until the chill settles into his bones like a grounding weight.
Watch. Wait. Breathe.
And then, he begins.
The dragon no longer tenses when Harry approaches. No more sharp flicks of the tail or warning flares of breath. He doesn’t move, not much, but he watches everything- eyes tracking each shift of Harry’s hands as he unseals jars, rewraps bandages, cools the burns with trembling fingers and whispered charms. There’s something unsettling about being observed so closely, but Harry has grown used to it. Sometimes he imagines the dragon is cataloguing each motion, memorizing the cadence of his touch.
It’s this new stillness that undoes Harry, more than anything. Not the hiss of pain, not the heat of breath. The stillness.
It’s not lifeless. Not fear.
Just… trust.
Harry used to fill the silence with stories, mutterings, nervous chatter meant more for himself than for anyone else. He’d ramble about the weather, about what he overheard in the staff lounge, about the stupid things Clement had said. But lately, he’s found he doesn’t need to. The cave doesn’t feel empty anymore. The silence has shape now. Structure. Like stone arches and vaulted ceilings. It holds.
He thinks the dragon prefers it this way. And maybe Harry does too.
He’s learned how to listen without needing sound. The subtle ways the dragon communicates have become as familiar as speech. The way he shifts ever so slightly if the salve stings. The twitch of a muscle near his eye when Harry touches the torn edge of wing membrane. The way his breath hitches when Harry gets too close to an old scar that hasn’t quite faded.
They talk through touch now. Slow. Careful. Honest.
And the dragon listens.
Sometimes- only sometimes- he responds. A low exhale when Harry presses a particularly tender spot. A soft, grating hum when the salve cools a burn. Once, when Harry dropped the jar of antiseptic and cursed under his breath, the dragon made a sound that might have been a snort. It echoed against the stone like a ghost of laughter, catching Harry so off-guard he just stared for a moment, blinking, before letting out a shaky breath of his own.
“You think that’s funny, do you?” he’d muttered, crouching to retrieve the jar.
The dragon had only watched him, eyes steady.
And slowly, impossibly, the wounds began to heal. The worst of them, anyway. The swelling began to go down. The scabs cleared. Harry doesn’t allow himself pride, but he does let himself breathe a little easier when the dragon begins to sleep deeper, longer. Eating more. Moving more.
Sometimes, when the wind outside howls through the stone cracks in the mountain, the dragon shifts to face him while Harry works. Not out of defense, but curiosity. There’s an intelligence in that gaze, sharp, unwavering. A knowing that burns through Harry’s walls like fire through parchment. It’s unnerving. It’s comforting. It’s both.
One morning, as he’s crouched beside a pale stretch of flank, dabbing salve into the ridge of an old gouge, the words fall from his lips before he’s ready for them.
“You might know me better than most people do.”
It’s quiet. Unadorned. Vulnerable, even. He doesn’t look up.
The dragon tilts his head, slow and deliberate, a single blink punctuating the weight of the moment. The lamp light catches in his eyes, turning the gray to silver.
Harry rubs at the bridge of his nose. His gloves are off. His fingers sting from cold and salve residue, knuckles dry and pink. The ache is familiar by now.
“Not that that’s saying much,” he mutters. “I haven’t exactly let anyone close lately.”
His voice echoes back to him off the cave walls, softer than it sounded in his own head.
He expects nothing. Expects silence.
But the dragon breathes out, slow and low, a sound that isn’t quite a sigh, but isn't just air either. It hums low in his throat, a resonance Harry can feel in his own chest more than hear with his ears. A vibration through the stone.
It’s not a sound of agreement. Not disagreement either.
But it's a sort of acknowledgement.
And Harry feels it again, that warmth in his chest. The feeling of being understood. Trusted.
He looks at him for a long time.
“I don’t know what that says about me,” Harry says finally. “That it’s easier with you than with anyone else.”
The dragon says nothing, of course. Just breathes, slow and even.
That afternoon, Harry stays longer than he means to. The cave is warm, golden where torchlight filters through the corridor and softens across the stone. He’s finished tending to the dragon’s side, applying some more salve, smoothing the edges of the fresh bandages. The air smells faintly of ash and clean linen, sharp and crisp.
The dragon is curled near the front now, head resting on one massive forearm, eyes half-lidded but watchful.
Harry sits near the wall, legs stretched out, cloak bundled under one arm. His fingers are dry and chapped from potion residue, but he doesn’t bother with a charm. He flexes them absently, watching the dragon’s chest rise and fall.
He watches the dragon’s chest rise and fall, the smooth rhythm of breath, the flick of a single talon twitching against the stone.
“You’re not the worst company,” he mutters eventually.
One of the dragon’s eyes cracks open again.
Harry grins a little. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
A low breath escapes the dragon’s throat.
Harry exhales, too. He lets his head fall back against the stone wall.
“I keep thinking I should give you a name.” The words come slow, easy, but they catch a little in his throat.
The dragon doesn’t move. But the silence feels charged.
Harry rubs at his jaw, the scrape of stubble loud in the quiet. “I mean. All the dragons here have got names. There’s Lilje. One named Rurik. You know, even the bloody hatchlings get names. You should have one too.”
He looks over and meets the dragon’s gaze.
“But then… I dunno.” He frowns slightly, thinking.
“It feels strange. Like maybe you already do. Have a name, I mean. And not just from the poachers. Not something they called you.” He pauses. “Something real. Something yours.”
The dragon’s eye narrows a little. Not in warning. But in attention.
Harry shrugs.
“It just doesn’t feel right. Naming you, like you’re mine.”
He looks down at his gloves, the worn leather soft at the seams. His voice softens.
“You’re not. I mean- I’m here. I take care of you. But that’s not the same thing.”
A long, slow exhale rolls through the cave. Warm. Steady.
Harry glances up.
“You’ve lived a life before this. You’re not a blank slate. You’re someone.”
The dragon doesn’t answer. Of course not. But a soft rumble begins to vibrate the floor beneath him. And he can’t help but smile as the dragon purrs steadily in agreement.
Harry lets the silence settle again. He doesn’t speak for a long time, just sits in the golden hush, letting the quiet wrap around him.
Eventually, as the light begins to fade and the cave cools, he stands. Brushes off the backs of his trousers. Pulls his cloak around his shoulders.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hesitates, just for a second.
Then: “Whatever your name is… I hope you get to hear it again.”
__
The following evening, after dinner and a conversation with Aleks and Clement that he barely remembers- something about salve formulations, or maybe potion harvesting- Harry slips out of the staff wing with his cloak half-fastened and the chill curling down his neck like a breath.
He doesn’t go to the dragon's recovery den right away.
Instead, he turns down a quieter corridor, past the hatchling roosts where tiny scales rustle faintly in nests of moss and wool, past the dim alcoves where bundles of herbs hang to dry. His boots strike softly against the worn stone floor, the noise swallowed quickly by the thick, enchanted walls.
The older recovery dens are tucked deeper into the mountain. These ones are permanent- caves warmed by old magic, made soft with layers of straw and thick cloth padding. A kind of sanctuary within the sanctuary.
Lilje’s den is where it’s always been. A hollowed alcove near the rear of the wing, its mouth half-draped in thick woven curtain to keep the warmth in. There’s a faint shimmer of wards around the entrance- familiar, harmless, more a formality than a defense
A sliver of orange-red scale catches the light from within, glinting like copper in the low torchlight, and a reddish-orange snout peeks out from the straw shadows inside.
Harry smiles despite himself, stepping softly to the threshold. “Hello, darling.”
Inside, Lilje lifts her head slowly, eyes the color of deep-set emeralds shimmering in the dim light. She doesn’t bother rising. She shifts instead, her long neck curling slightly, wings creaking softly as they fold tighter. And then, with the slow, deliberate comfort of routine, she leans forward and presses the broad length of her snout into Harry’s chest.
The breath that follows is warm and steady, fogging his glasses and ruffling his already messy hair.
Harry laughs quietly, bracing a hand against her scales. “Still doing that, are we?”
She lets out a low, rumbling purr, one that vibrates through her snout and hums faintly against his ribs.
He lowers himself with care to the floor just outside the ward line, cloak pooled beneath him. The cave’s warmth spills out toward him, wrapping around his ankles and wrists, soaking into the chill that’s worked its way into his bones.
Lilje doesn’t move again. She just watches him lazily, her deep-set eyes half-lidded, tail curled in loose comfort around her feet.
They sit like that for a while. Harry’s legs stretched out, hands tucked beneath his knees.
“I used to come here every night,” he says eventually. “Back when no one else could stand me. Or I couldn’t stand them. You didn’t mind.”
The heat from her body bleeds across the boundary between them, a comforting against the cool air.
“You were the first one who didn’t look at me like I was either some sort of a god or a mistake."
She purrs again, deeper this time, a slow vibration that fills the small den. Harry smiles again, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“I haven’t been here much lately. I'm sorry about that.”
He glances toward the slope of her shoulder, where the faded scars still glint faintly beneath her scales. Ones he used to dress in long, quiet evenings, hands shaking more than he’d ever admit, whispering soft apologies into the flickering torchlight.
“You healed well. Better than anyone expected. Strong old girl, aren’t you?”
She doesn’t answer, of course. But the way she blinks- slow, deliberate- feels close enough.
He watches her for a long time, letting the silence breathe between them. It’s a good silence. Familiar. But it’s not the same.
Harry lingers until the torchlight begins to dim behind him.
Then he stands, stretches the ache from his legs, and brushes straw from his trousers.
“Sleep well, Lilje,” he murmurs.
She watches him go, purring faintly.
She watches him go, still purring faintly, as Harry steps back into the corridor. Toward the dragon who doesn’t press into his chest, doesn’t purr at his touch, but watches.
And waits.
He’s only just rounded the corner toward the corridor when Charlie appears from a side alcove, stepping out like he’d been waiting- or maybe just knew Harry would come this way.
His gait is relaxed, almost lazy, but Harry knows better. There’s intention behind it. That quiet concern Charlie never names aloud, but wears like a second jumper.
Charlie’s dressed in his usual layers, sleeves rolled high despite the chill. The cuffs of his jumper are smudged with soot, and there’s a fresh nick along his collarbone, just peeking out beneath the frayed neckline. A graze, by the looks of it. Nothing serious.
“You making the rounds again, Potter?” he asks, voice light.
Harry gives a tired sort of shrug. “Just visiting Lilje.”
“She still your favorite?”
Harry’s mouth tugs up at the corner. “I think I’m hers.”
Charlie grins. “Definitely.”
They walk side by side for a moment, steps soft over worn stone. The lanterns above cast them both in long shadows.
Charlie glances sideways. “You alright?”
Harry doesn’t answer immediately. Then, “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
Harry exhales slowly and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Tired.”
Charlie nods. “How’s he doing?”
“The Hebridean?”
Charlie gives him a look. “No, the hatchling with the crooked wing.”
That pulls a quiet snort from Harry. “He’s healing. Slowly.”
Charlie’s quiet for a moment, eyes scanning the corridor ahead. “Is he letting you treat his wounds okay?”
“Better than before. He doesn’t flinch now.”
“That’s something.”
Harry glances down the corridor. “He still won’t let anyone else near him though.”
“Yeah. Clement tried again this morning.”
Harry raises a brow. “How’d that go?”
“Got singed eyebrows and a bruised ego.”
Harry huffs out a quiet breath.
Charlie slows, stops near a stack of old crates pressed against the wall. “But he lets you in.”
Harry doesn’t look at him. “He just doesn’t hate me quite as much as everyone else.”
Charlie tilts his head. “You've been assigned to dragons before, and none of them went quite like this.”
Harry shrugs. “He’s different.”
“You’re different with him.”
Harry finally looks over, something sharp in his eyes. But Charlie’s not teasing.
“He’s not just some beast you’re treating. I’ve seen how you sit with him. How you talk. Hell, how you wait. I don’t know you to be a particularly patient man, Harry.”
Harry frowns. “It’s my job.”
Charlie’s voice is quiet. “Doesn’t mean it’s not more than that.”
They stand there a moment longer, the sounds of the sanctuary distant and muted.
Charlie pushes off the crates. “I’m not trying to pick on you. Just checking in.”
Harry nods. “Thanks.”
Charlie gestures toward the corridor. “Go on. He’s probably wondering what’s taking you so long.”
Harry’s smile is faint, but real. “Night, Charlie.”
Charlie nods. “Night.”
As Harry walks through the recovery wing, toward the dragon’s den, he feels the tension in his body begin to melt. Not disappear, but unravel slowly, thread by exhausted thread.
He’s wrecked. Worn down to the seams. Each step feels borrowed, like he’s moving through someone else’s body. There’s a heavy, dragging quality to his limbs, his boots scuffing quietly against the stone with a rhythm that doesn’t quite match the beat of his own pulse.
Sleep has been worse, lately. What scraps he’s managed have been shallow and short-lived, haunted by nightmares more often than not. And the weight of that is catching up to him- bones aching, muscles tight, every breath heavier than the last.
There’s a dull throb behind his eyes, not quite a headache but the warning edge of one. His chest is heavy, like something has settled in behind his ribs and made itself at home. No amount of coffee or brisk air or cold water splashed on his face has managed to shift it. The very idea of making the trek back to the cottage feels absurd.
Impossible, even.
He thinks about the path. The uneven steps carved into the mountainside, slick with mist. The sharp wind that slices through his coat on the ridge. The aching, endless curve of slope between here and there. And his body recoils at the thought.
Not tonight.
So instead, he drags a blanket from the supply alcove, folds it under one arm, and continues down the corridor that leads to the recovery dens.
The dragon’s cave is quiet and warm when he arrives.
The low lantern light is flickering gently across the stone, throwing soft golden shadows against the walls. The dragon is lying near the center of the den, eyes half-open, limbs tucked neatly beneath him. Watching, as always.
Harry doesn’t say anything. He just steps inside, the echo of his boots soft against the stone. He crosses the cave with slow, deliberate steps and drops the blanket near the back wall. It's closer than usual. Not beside the dragon, but not as far as he normally keeps.
He doesn’t have it in him to care if it’s too bold.
He shrugs out of his cloak, folds it over itself, and lowers himself down onto the stone floor. His knees crack. His spine protests. He’s not old by any means- nineteen, barely- but the work ages him. Or maybe the war did. Or both.
He leans back against the wall, lets his arms hang limp over his bent knees. He hasn’t bothered to take off his gloves or boots. There’s dried potion residue at the base of his fingers, faintly sticky, but the idea of moving again is unthinkable.
The dragon watches him.
There’s something different about his eyes tonight. Not suspicion, not the cautious tension that used to greet Harry every time he entered. It’s something gentler. Something almost like... concern.
Harry notices. But he doesn’t have the energy to process it.
He huffs a breath and tips his head sideways against the wall. “Don’t mind me,” he mutters. “Just too bloody tired to hike down a mountain.”
The dragon’s eyes narrow slightly. It’s not aggressive, just contemplative.
Harry closes his own eyes. Just for a moment. He breathes in the smell of ash and clean linen and the deep, earthy scent of dragon hide. It’s familiar now. Grounding.
His shoulders slowly begin to sink.
The minutes pass without fanfare. The cave is warm and still. The firelight licks across the stone in slow waves. And Harry’s body begins to give.
His thoughts begin to drift sideways. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. He tells himself he’s just resting his eyes for a minute. Just resting his legs. Just waiting for the strength to stand back up again.
But the wall is warm against his back. The flickering torchlight softens every sharp edge. His body sinks under its own weight. His jaw goes slack, his knees drift outward. The aches in his bones fade to a low, far-off hum.
He doesn’t even notice when it happens. Just one blink that lingered a little too long. One slow breath, a little too deep. And then the world slips sideways.
The dragon watches.
At some point- minutes later, maybe hours- Harry stirs faintly. Not fully awake. Just enough to shift in place, muttering something under his breath. A grimace crosses his face.
And when he opens his eyes, bleary and raw, he realizes he’s not alone against the wall.
The dragon has moved.
His massive body is still curled near the center of the den, but his head- his heavy, scaled snout- is now resting gently against Harry’s leg. Not heavy. Not confining. Just there.
Warm. Solid. Breathing.
And purring.
A low, constant sound, reverberating through the stone. A vibration more than a noise. Steady and soft and impossibly close.
Harry doesn’t move. Just stares down at the dragon’s face. Its eyes are closed for once, rather than watching his every move.
His own breath catches in his throat. He lets it go slowly.
And then, because there’s nothing else to do, because he’s too tired to question what it means, he lets his eyes drift shut again.
The dragon doesn’t stir.
And neither does Harry.
Not until morning.
Harry wakes slowly, not with a start but with the dull heaviness of a body that hasn’t slept well in months. His back aches from the stone. His left arm has gone half-numb beneath him. His mouth tastes stale, his eyes are gummy at the corners, and a knot at the base of his neck throbs each time he shifts.
But there’s warmth pressed close to him, steady and heavy, that doesn’t belong to the wards or the cave itself.
When he turns his head, he sees it. The dragon’s snout resting against his hip, close enough that each breath fans warm against his thigh. The scales gleam faintly in the half-light, pale against the darker stone.
For a moment, Harry just stares. He doesn’t feel alarmed. Not even surprised. Just caught in the strangeness of it all. That this creature, who wouldn’t let anyone else near him, has chosen to fall asleep here.
His chest tightens in a way that isn’t fear.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough.
The dragon’s eye opens a fraction. Gray, bright in the dimness. It lets out a soft huff of smoke through its nostrils, almost as a greeting.
Harry shifts carefully, drawing his knees up and bracing his arms over them. His joints complain at the movement. He rubs the heel of his palm against his eye, then lets out a slow breath.
The words come out before he has time to really think about them.
“I thought leaving would fix me.”. His voice sounds too loud, even though it’s barely above a whisper. “Like if I just crossed a border, I could leave the rest of it behind too.”
The dragon doesn’t move, but his eye stays fixed on Harry.
“Didn’t work,” Harry mutters. “Turns out you bring it with you. All of it. Doesn’t matter if you’re in London or… or here. It all just follows you.”
He scratches absently at a seam in his glove, thumb worrying at the worn leather.
“I lasted two months at Grimmauld Place before I couldn’t stand it anymore. Too many ghosts. Too much silence. Every room was someone else’s, and they were all dead.” His mouth twists. “And when the letters kept coming, I couldn’t even open them. Hermione, Ron, everyone. I just… couldn’t.”
The dragon’s breathing is steady, but his gaze hasn’t shifted. It’s an unnerving kind of attention, patient and sharp at once.
Harry swallows, throat tight. “I tried to do what they wanted. The Aurors. The Ministry. I thought maybe if I hunted down the last of them, if I made myself useful, it’d mean something. But every day I went in, I felt less like a person and more like a bloody headline. The Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived. Not Harry.”
The words scrape as they leave his throat, but they keep coming. “And then Malfoy’s trial…”
Something in the air stills. Harry feels it, though the dragon doesn’t so much as twitch.
“I gave them everything I had. Told them he was just a kid, that he didn’t deserve Azkaban. I thought- I don’t know- I thought if they listened to me, it would prove I wasn’t just some figure they wheeled out for convenience.” His jaw tightens. “But they didn’t. They put him in Azkaban for six months. And I watched him crumble when they said it.”
The memory makes his stomach twist.
“That was the moment,” Harry says quietly. “That’s when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t sit there and pretend the system gave a damn about anything but appearances. I left a week later. Didn’t say goodbye. I just packed a bag and walked out.”
He leans his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes briefly. His voice softens. “I came here because dragons don’t care who you are. They don’t ask for anything. And even when they don’t like you, at least you know it’s real.”
For a long moment, the only sound is breath- theirs, the mountain’s, the faint pulse of magic in the stone.
Then the dragon shifts. Not away, but closer. His jaw nudges against Harry’s shin, a deliberate press of weight.
Harry’s breath catches. His hand hovers, then lowers slowly, brushing along the curve of it’s snout. The dragon, surprisingly, leans into his touch.
“You weren’t supposed to let me close,” he whispers. “And yet here we are.”
The dragon exhales, a long, low sound that rumbles faintly through the floor.
Harry keeps his hand there a moment longer, then lets it fall. His chest feels raw, but not as heavy as it did the night before.
He pushes to his feet with a groan, gathering the blanket and shrugging his cloak back on. At the mouth of the cave, he pauses. Looks back.
The dragon’s eyes are still on him.
“I’ll see you later," Harry says. It's not quite an afterthought, but it comes out sounding like a promise.
Chapter 5
Notes:
This chapter is the inspiration behind this entire story. I hope you like it :)
Chapter Text
The path from Predeal winds steep and familiar beneath Harry’s boots, the air crisp with frost that clings to every breath. It’s later than usual; the sun has already cleared the peaks, and the sky above the valley is a warm orange, smeared faintly with gray at the edges. His cloak is heavy with damp, wool prickling at the back of his neck, and his satchel bumps rhythmically against his hip with each step.
He slows as he steps past the wards and into the cavern.
The sanctuary is louder than it should be at this hour.
He hears it before he sees it- raised voices, the pounding echo of boots against stone. By the time he rounds the last bend, his chest is tight, half convinced the sanctuary is under attack.
His stomach drops.
Inside is chaos. The cavern floor is thick with movement: keepers shouting across the space, their voices colliding in sharp echoes. Clément striding toward a cluster of witches with his hair wild, hands carving furious arcs through the air. Aleksandra barking orders in Bulgarian, her voice cutting and cold.
Harry freezes at the edge of the steps, breath caught, trying to make sense of it. For one dizzy second, his mind leaps to the worst- an injured dragon loose in the cavern, another poacher attack, something catastrophic.
Then Charlie spots him.
Breaking away from a knot of red-faced handlers, Charlie crosses the cavern in long strides, robes unfastened, hair escaping the tie at his neck, soot smeared across one temple. He looks like he hasn’t slept.
“Harry-” His voice is sharp, breathless. He catches him by the shoulder before Harry can move any further. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Walking in from the village,” Harry answers automatically, throat tight, though he hadn’t hurried a step. “What’s happened?”
Charlie doesn’t answer right away. His grip tightens. For a moment, Harry sees something rare on his face- hesitation. Then Charlie’s voice drops, low and grim.
“He’s gone.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They hang in the air between them, impossible.
“Who-?” Harry asks. His throat feels dry.
Charlie glances toward Aleksandra, pacing tight circles, muttering to herself. Toward Clément, who is snapping at two younger keepers in rapid French, his gestures sharp and furious. Then back to Harry.
It clicks.
“What? Charlie- how? When-”
“His den’s empty. Wards intact. No alarms. No breach. Just- empty.”
Harry’s pulse spikes. Cold floods his chest.
“That’s not-” He stumbles over the words. “That’s not possible. The wards-”
“Exactly.” Charlie’s hand drops from his shoulder. His expression is grim, shadowed. “It doesn’t add up. A dragon doesn’t just walk through intact wards. Someone let him out. Or took him.”
Harry’s stomach twists. His mind races. Took? Who would dare? None of the keepers, surely, not after what they’d seen that dragon do.
His eyes flick instinctively across the cavern. Aleksandra, Clément, the junior keepers. Faces pale and angry, voices raised. And for a moment, horribly, he catches the edge of suspicion in their glances.
Charlie must see it too, because his grip finds Harry’s shoulders again, firm and insistent.
“Harry,” he says, low and fierce. “It wasn’t you. I know that. They know that. Don’t think anybody thinks you took him or let him out. Not after everything you’ve done for him.”
Harry swallows, but his throat stays dry. He forces himself to look back at Charlie. “So what are we doing about it? They can’t have gone far. Have you sent riders? Anyone-”
“Harry.” Charlie’s voice cracks with exasperation, rising to meet his panic. “Of course I sent riders. As soon as we discovered he was gone- barely an hour ago. They picked up a trail south, but it ends near the ridge. The dragons won’t fly past it. You know how it is, out there in the Carpathians. Wild. Uncharted. And there’s a storm rolling in- you can hear it already.”
Now Harry does hear it- the low moan of wind threading through the fissure, the bitter edge of cold sweeping in past the wards. A storm. He pictures the ridges, the cliffs half-swallowed by snow, the violent suddenness of Carpathian weather. No sane rider would risk it.
“Harry,” Charlie presses, voice softer now, almost pleading. “There’s no way he’s flying through that. We wait it out. When the storm clears, we’ll track him again.”
But Harry’s not listening anymore.
His pulse is pounding. His legs twitch toward the storage alcoves. His mind is already past the ridge, already out in the storm. He sees flashes of white scales buffeted by snow, sees the dragon in chains, body falling through the air.
Before Charlie can finish, Harry is moving, striding fast across the cavern toward the cupboards where the spare brooms are kept.
“Harry Potter- don’t you even think about it.”
Charlie’s shout echoes across the stone.
Harry’s hand closes around the polished shaft of a Thunderbolt.
Charlie is running now, fast, tall strides eating the distance between them. But Harry is faster once his feet leave the ground.
By the time Charlie reaches the storage alcoves, Harry is already astride the broom, already tearing past the wardline and into the frigid, screaming air.
Charlie’s curses follow him out into the storm.
The air knifes across Harry’s cheeks as he bursts through the wardline, the sudden drop in temperature immediate, brutal. The thunderbolt responds beneath him with eager precision, but even the broom can’t shield him from the violence of mountain air this high up. His fingers ache where they grip the handle, dragonhide gloves stiffening against the cold.
The world opens out around him in staggering, merciless expanse. The Carpathians roll southward in sharp ridges and plunging valleys, their slopes dusted with snow that glints faintly orange beneath the late morning light. The forests below look skeletal, stripped down to black trunks and brittle branches. Thin rivers snake pale and sluggish through the lowland, ice already forming along their edges.
Harry leans forward, urging the broom faster.
The air grows harsher with each ridge he crosses, the gusts tearing at his cloak, numbing his face until his lips burn. He squints into the horizon, his glasses fogging at the edges, and pushes harder. Somewhere out there- somewhere just ahead- he’ll find him. He has to.
The first sign of the storm is subtle: a distant seam of gray crawling along the southern horizon, darker than the rest of the sky. The clouds drag low, heavy with snow, their bellies sagging over the peaks. The wind sharpens as Harry climbs, shifting in direction without warning, buffeting the broom from the side so violently he has to clamp his knees hard to stay seated.
The ridge looms before him, jagged black rock scoured with ice, its crown disappearing into the lowering cloud. Harry bends low over the broom, heart hammering, and surges upward.
The wind hits him full force at the crest.
It tears the breath from his lungs, slamming into his chest hard enough to stagger the broom sideways. Snow whips sharp across his face, a thousand pinpricks against his skin. His eyes water instantly, and he has to tilt his head down to shield them, vision blurring.
The south ridge drops away beneath him into a wide, savage valley. But the storm is no longer distant- it’s here, swallowing the sky whole. White whorls of snow obscure everything beyond a few hundred meters. The air howls, carrying with it a bone-deep cold that sinks through cloak, robes, skin.
Harry’s jaw clenches. His shoulders hunch against the force of it. He forces the broom lower, angling into the valley where the gusts are fractionally less violent.
He doesn’t think. He can’t afford to. All that exists is the line of the broom under his hands, the raw burn of air in his throat, the relentless churn of snow around him. His body moves on instinct- shift left, brace, duck- just to keep himself from being thrown.
Minutes pass, or maybe hours. Time doesn’t feel real in the storm. Every gust is a new battle, every lurch of the broom another test of will. His muscles scream with the effort of staying balanced.
And still, he presses forward.
He has no plan beyond this. No map, no markers, no beacon. Just the raw certainty in his chest that he’ll find him.
The wind claws at him again, a sudden downdraft nearly wrenching the broom from his grip. He curses, steadying himself, heart hammering in his throat. His knuckles ache from clenching too tightly.
And then-
Through the swirling curtain of white, something flickers.
Not rock. Not snow.
A glint. A shimmer of pale against the storm, sharp as bone, vanishing almost as quickly as it appeared.
Harry’s breath catches.
Harry leans forward, the broom straining as he forces it into the storm. His lungs seize against the cold, every breath shallow, ragged. Snow claws at his glasses, blotting his vision white. He swipes at them with his sleeve uselessly.
But the glimpse is enough. He knows what he saw.
The dragon is out here.
He follows the space where the scales had been, scanning desperately through the storm. Every shape is suspect- ridge, drift, a curl of cloud that might hide wings. His heart is hammering so loud it drowns the wind.
Another flicker- closer this time. A broad sweep of something pale cutting across the storm.
Harry urges the broom faster, teeth clenched, fingers numb against the handle.
“Come on-” he mutters, voice lost to the gale.
The wind slams into him from the side, nearly toppling him. He jerks hard to the left, shoulder wrenched, his knees clamping to stay mounted. His stomach lurches. For a dizzy moment he thinks he’s going to spiral down into the valley, but the broom steadies.
The dragon is fighting too. He can see it now, clearer between the breaks in the snow: a massive, pale body heaving against the current, wings thrashing with desperate force. Not gliding, not soaring- struggling. Each movement looks wrong, labored.
Harry’s chest tightens. He’s still injured. Still too weak for this.
The sight propels him faster, reckless, until the broom’s bristles hiss against the wind. He has no thought but to reach him, to get closer.
A sudden downdraft slams into the valley, dragging both dragon and rider downward in an instant. The dragon drops first, wings snapping open to slow the fall, but the movement is uneven, jagged. His body twists awkwardly in the air, tail lashing.
Harry dives after him, snow biting at his face, vision fractured by white. The air grows sharper, colder, as they descend. His broom shudders under the force of the wind, every muscle in his body screaming to hold it steady.
Below, through the storm, a dark sheen appears. At first it looks like shadow, the absence of snow. Then it gleams- flat, glassy, endless.
A frozen lake.
“Fuck-”
The dragon plunges lower, spiraling out of control. His wing catches on the gale, snapping his body sideways. For one breathless instant, Harry thinks he’ll recover. But then-
The pale mass collides with the ice.
The sound is deafening, a crack like thunder splitting the valley. Shards explode outward, fragments flashing sharp as glass. The dragon’s body crashes through, sending up a geyser of black water against the white.
Harry dives. It’s instinct, of course- not thought. The broom screams under the strain, his fingers clawing the handle tighter, his body flattened against the wood. The cold air lashes at his lungs, a thousand knives.
And then the storm surges sideways, an updraft catching his broom with brutal force. The shaft twists violently, jerking out from under him.
Harry loses his grip.
The world fractures- sky, snow, ice, water- everything blurring together. The cold swallows him whole, biting through robes, skin, bone. His lungs seize as he plunges beneath the surface, the roar of the storm replaced with the muffled, crushing silence of ice water.
He kicks upward, panic wild in his chest, but the weight of his robes drags him down. His limbs burn. Water presses in from every side. His vision narrows, black creeping in at the edges.
The lake is knives in his lungs, in his bones, in his skull. Harry can’t tell which way is up, can’t tell if he’s still falling. Something clamps around his arms- hands, human hands- and then the world lurches.
He’s dragged onto the surface coughing, choking, the air just as sharp as the water. His chest convulses, ribs seizing, and lakewater spills cold and bitter from his throat. He tries to breathe again and only manages another fit of coughing.
A voice cuts through the roar of the storm. Rasping. Rough. Frantic.
“Potter!”
His eyes flicker open for a moment, catching only a blur of white, a shadow bent over him. Fingers pat his cheek, grip his jaw, shake him once, hard.
But his body won’t answer. His eyes slide shut again.
The hands don’t let go. They hook under his arms, hauling him across splintered ice and into snow that crunches deep, unforgiving, under his weight. His body jolts over ridges, the drag relentless. He wants to groan, to curse, but nothing comes out. His head lolls sideways, snow biting his cheek.
The storm howls. Branches creak.
The hands tug harder. Step by staggering step, they drag him toward the dark line of trees. His boots leave twin furrows in the snow.
Finally, they stop. Harry’s back hits rough bark as he’s propped upright against a tree, head sagging forward.
A mutter. The rasp of cloth. Then a sudden tug at his robes, pockets shoved through with desperate hands. For a heartbeat Harry panics- wand, no, not that- but the thought fizzles before it can sharpen. He’s too cold to cling to it.
“Tergeo,” the voice rasps, and water is siphoned sharply from his hair, his sleeves, pooling dark in the snow.
“Impervius,” the voice forces out, wand pressed against Harry’s chest, his gloves, his boots. A shimmer coats the fabric, pushing the sleet away before it can soak back in.
And then, “Calefacio.”
Warmth spreads slowly, blooming beneath Harry’s skin, seeping deep into his chest, his arms, his legs. Not enough to banish the cold entirely, but enough to dull the sharp edge of it. Enough for the ache in his fingers to spark into painful pins and needles as feeling begins to crawl back.
The wand presses again, against his wrist this time, his throat. “Calefacio.”
Harry gasps sharply, air rasping down his throat. His whole body shakes, violent, uncontrollable.
The voice is closer now, harsh with desperation. “Potter. Wake the hell up.”
He forces his eyes open. Just barely. Long enough to catch a pale shape bent close, breath steaming in the cold. For a moment, through the blur, it looks like his dragon- broad, white, steady. Sharp grey eyes watching over him.
Relief floods him. Of course. He found him. He’s safe.
But then the image sharpens. Not scales. Not wings.
Skin.
A face, gaunt and pale, grey eyes wide, blond hair plastered dark with water.
Not a dragon. A man.
Draco Malfoy.
Harry blinks again. And again. As if somehow, blinking will clear the image in front of him.
But the face doesn’t dissolve. It doesn’t blur into scales, into a snout or wings. It stays stubbornly human. Pale skin. Grey eyes sharp with panic. Wet blond hair dripping cold down a jawline he knows far too well.
“Potter.” The voice is hoarse, strained, but unmistakable. “Stay awake.”
Harry’s lips part, but only a thin wheeze escapes. His throat feels raw, lungs burning. He wants to demand where his dragon is, wants to ask what Malfoy is doing here, but the words tangle somewhere behind his teeth.
He feels hands- Malfoy’s hands- pressing the wand to his chest again, a burst of warmth soaking into his ribs. Then his arms, his legs. The pain in his fingers shifts, sharper now, stabbing pins and needles as blood rushes back. He shudders violently, his whole body rattling against the tree trunk.
Harry coughs, hard, water spilling from his mouth, and his head snaps forward. Malfoy catches his chin at once, steadying him. His grip is firm, steady despite the tremors in his own hands.
“Breathe,” Malfoy orders. “Just- bloody- breathe, Potter.”
And Harry does. Short, shallow gasps at first, then longer, rougher pulls. Each one cuts, but it’s air. Real, solid, burning air.
When he can finally lift his head, his vision clears enough to take in more than Malfoy’s face. The snow-packed forest looms around them, black trunks like spears stabbing at the white sky. The frozen lake glitters faintly through the trees, fractured and broken where the dragon- where they- had fallen.
But there’s no dragon now. Only a boy who shouldn’t be here.
Harry’s gaze snaps back. Malfoy is kneeling in the snow across from him, robes torn and soaked, steam rising faintly from his shoulders where the warming charm still clings. His lips are blue, teeth clenched tight as he forces his own breath steady.
For a moment, they only stare at each other. Neither speaks. The storm moans through the treeline above them, snow hissing sideways in the wind.
Harry swallows hard, throat aching. His voice comes low, rasped.
“…Malfoy?”
The name feels foreign in his mouth. Heavy, wrong, impossible.
But Malfoy doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t deny it.
He only exhales- shallow, sharp- and mutters, “Finally.” His voice is different from how Harry remembers it. It’s rougher, raspier, as if it hasn’t been used in months.
Harry stares at him, unblinking. His chest is still heaving, every breath a jagged cut of air, but all at once he’s not cold anymore. He’s burning.
Because it doesn’t make sense. None of it.
The dragon was there- his dragon- snow-white scales gleaming against the storm, eyes like steel. Harry remembers chasing him, reaching for him, watching him fall. He remembers ice, water, claws scraping at the surface-
But no claws grabbed him. Hands did.
And those eyes staring into his now, raw and frantic, are the same storm-gray he’s been staring into for weeks.
Harry’s pulse kicks hard, a violent jolt that seems to rattle the world around him. His thoughts splinter, crash, then rearrange themselves with brutal clarity.
The impossible coloring. The refusal to let anyone else near. The way the dragon watched him. Listened. Trusted.
A dragon doesn’t vanish from a warded den. Not unless it can walk out on two feet.
It hits him all at once. A glass puzzle shattering and slotting back together in the same breath.
“It’s you.”
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