Chapter Text
The snow fell in thick, unrelenting sheets across Moscow's ancient streets. Even through the heavily tinted windows of their rental car, Vernon Dursley could barely make out the ornate buildings that lined the road. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles white with tension, as he navigated the unfamiliar streets.
"I still don't understand why we had to bring him," Petunia hissed, turning to glare at the small figure huddled in the backseat. Two-year-old Harry Potter sat strapped into a child's seat that was far too big for his malnourished frame, his emerald eyes wide as he stared out at the foreign landscape.
"The neighbors would talk if we left him alone for two weeks," Vernon growled, his jowls quivering. "Mrs. Figg broke her hip, remember? Besides, this trip is my chance to secure the biggest deal of my career. The boy will stay in the hotel room."
Petunia sniffed, adjusting her fur-lined coat. "Just make sure he doesn't do any of his... abnormalities while we're here. The Russians already make me nervous."
Vernon grunted in agreement, turning down a narrow side street. The Grunnings drill company had sent him to Moscow to negotiate a potential supplier contract, and Vernon wasn't about to let anything—especially not his freakish nephew—ruin this opportunity.
As they drove deeper into the city, Harry pressed his tiny palms against the cold window, watching the swirling snow with fascination. He hadn't spoken a word since they'd left England. At barely two years old, his vocabulary was severely limited—a result of the Dursleys' neglect rather than any natural delay.
The car suddenly sputtered, the engine making an alarming grinding noise before cutting out completely.
"Bloody hell!" Vernon slammed his fist against the steering wheel. "Not now!"
"Vernon, where are we?" Petunia's voice rose with panic as she peered through the windshield at their surroundings.
They had turned onto what appeared to be a dead-end alley. But something was strange about this particular street. The buildings seemed to shimmer slightly, their architecture more fantastical than the rest of Moscow—towers spiraling at impossible angles, windows that appeared to change shape when viewed from different angles.
"I don't know," Vernon muttered, attempting to restart the car. "The GPS must have malfunctioned."
Harry felt it immediately—a warm, tingling sensation that spread through his small body. Magic. Unlike his aunt and uncle, who remained oblivious to their surroundings, Harry could sense they had somehow crossed into a magical district of Moscow.
Vernon finally gave up on the car, his face purple with rage. "I'll have to find help. We can't stay here."
"In this blizzard?" Petunia protested, but Vernon was already unfastening his seatbelt.
"There were shops a few blocks back. I'll go find someone who speaks English." His gaze shifted to the rearview mirror, where he caught Harry's eyes. Something dark and calculating crossed Vernon's features.
"And I'm taking him with me."
"What? Why?" Petunia asked.
"I don't want him alone in the car with you. Who knows what freakishness he might do." Vernon's voice dropped to a whisper. "Besides, I've been thinking... about a permanent solution to our problem."
Petunia's eyes widened slightly before her expression hardened. She gave a barely perceptible nod, looking away as Vernon unbuckled Harry from his seat.
"Come, boy," Vernon ordered, roughly pulling Harry from the car. He didn't bother with the child's thin jacket, exposing the toddler to the biting Russian winter. Harry whimpered as the cold air hit his face, but knew better than to cry.
Vernon dragged Harry by his arm through the deepening snow, moving further into the alley rather than back toward the main street. The magical buildings loomed on either side, windows glowing with strange, multicolored lights that danced across the snow. Harry felt the magic growing stronger, pulsing around them, but Vernon remained blind to it all, his mind fixed on his grim purpose.
When they reached the darkest part of the alley, where the streetlights no longer reached, Vernon stopped. He looked down at the small, shivering boy. For a moment, something like hesitation crossed his face—a flicker of humanity quickly extinguished by years of cultivated hatred.
"Your kind doesn't belong with normal people," Vernon said coldly. "Consider this a favor. Maybe your freakish people will find you. Or maybe you'll freeze. Either way, you're no longer our problem."
With that, he pushed Harry down into a snowdrift and turned away, not looking back even when Harry let out a soft, confused cry. Vernon Dursley trudged back through the snow toward the car, already constructing the story he would tell—how the boy had disappeared during the confusion of the car breaking down, how they had searched but found no trace.
Left alone in the gathering darkness, Harry Potter curled into himself, his thin pajamas offering no protection against the biting cold. Tears froze on his cheeks as he watched his uncle's retreating form disappear into the swirling snow. He didn't understand what was happening, only that he had been left behind. Again.
The magic of the alley seemed to respond to his distress, the swirling snowflakes around him briefly glowing with an emerald light that matched his eyes. But the magical response only caused the temperature around him to plummet further, as if nature itself was responding to his abandonment with appropriate fury.
Harry's eyelids grew heavy as the cold numbed his small body. As consciousness began to slip away, he thought he saw a dark figure approaching through the blizzard—tall and imposing, moving with preternatural grace.
Nikolai Volkov moved through the magical district of Moscow like a shadow, the heavy snowfall parting around him as if afraid to touch the Dragon Mafia Don. At forty-five, he cut an intimidating figure—six-foot-four with broad shoulders, raven-black hair streaked with silver at the temples, and eyes that shifted between steel-gray and reptilian gold depending on his mood.
He had not planned to walk through Charodeystvo Alley tonight, but something had called to him—a disturbance in the magical currents that flowed beneath Moscow's ancient streets. Something powerful, something... dying.
Nikolai's heightened senses detected it first: the scent of foreign magic, wild and untamed, yet tinged with the unmistakable essence of death. Not the decay of mortality, but something more profound—a connection to Death itself.
His eyes shifted fully to gold, pupils narrowing to draconic slits as he followed the magical signature. The Dragon Don rarely moved openly through the magical district, preferring to conduct his business from the shadows, but tonight something compelled him forward without concern for who might see.
The magic led him to a small, crumpled form half-buried in snow at the darkest end of the alley. Nikolai's breath caught in his throat as he knelt beside the child—a boy no more than two years old, with a mop of unruly black hair. The boy's skin had taken on a dangerous bluish tint, his breathing shallow and fading.
But what truly captured Nikolai's attention was the raw magic emanating from the child. Even unconscious and freezing, the boy radiated power unlike anything Nikolai had encountered in decades. And there, just visible beneath the thin fabric of the boy's pajama shirt, was a scar shaped like a lightning bolt—a mark that pulsed with dark magic and something else, something ancient.
"Что, чёрт возьми," Nikolai muttered, his voice a low rumble that resonated in his chest. "Who would abandon such a child?"
He placed a hand on the boy's chest, feeling the faint heartbeat. Nikolai closed his eyes, extending his magical senses further. What he found made his eyes snap open, now burning with fury. This child had been touched by Death—marked, but not claimed. More than that, the boy carried a fragment of another's soul, embedded in that unusual scar.
Without hesitation, Nikolai removed his heavy dragonhide coat and wrapped it around the child. The coat, lined with the scales of Nikolai's own dragon form, immediately began to warm the boy.
"Hold on, malysh," he whispered, gathering the child into his arms. "Death has not come for you tonight."
As Nikolai stood with the boy cradled against his chest, he caught a scent on the wind—the lingering odor of fear, hatred, and something unmistakably muggle. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the now-empty alley. Whoever had abandoned this magical child would be found. The Volkov clan had eyes everywhere, and Nikolai's vengeance was legendary.
With the child secured in his arms, Nikolai stepped into the shadows between two buildings—a patch of darkness deeper than should be naturally possible. The shadows enveloped them both, and when they receded, the Dragon Don and the boy had vanished from the alley.
The Volkov compound stood on the outskirts of magical Moscow, unplottable and hidden behind layers of ancient wards. From the outside, it appeared to be nothing more than a dilapidated industrial complex. Reality, however, was dramatically different.
Nikolai materialized in the grand entrance hall, still cradling the freezing child. The hall, with its soaring ceilings and walls of black marble veined with gold, echoed with his purposeful footsteps.
"Dmitri!" Nikolai called, his voice reverberating through the mansion. "Anya! I need assistance immediately!"
A tall, lean man with sharp features appeared instantly at the top of the sweeping staircase. Dmitri Petrov, Nikolai's right hand and head of security, took in the situation with a single glance.
"Master Volkov," he said, rushing down the stairs. "What has happened?"
"Found this child abandoned in Charodeystvo Alley," Nikolai replied, moving toward the eastern wing of the mansion. "He's freezing to death. Summon Healer Sokolov—now."
Dmitri didn't waste time with questions, immediately pressing a runic pendant at his throat to send the message.
As they strode through ornately decorated corridors, doors opened automatically before Nikolai, the mansion itself seeming to respond to its master's urgency. They entered a warmly lit chamber with a large fireplace, which blazed to life as they entered.
"Place him here," Dmitri said, quickly clearing a velvet chaise near the fire. "I've alerted the healer. She will arrive momentarily."
Nikolai carefully laid the boy down, removing his now-thawed coat. In the light of the fire, the child's condition became horrifyingly apparent. The boy's arms were stick-thin, his collar bones protruding sharply. Beneath the oversized pajamas, his ribs were clearly visible. And there, on exposed portions of his skin, were bruises in various stages of healing.
"Bozhe moy," Dmitri whispered, his normally impassive face contorted with shock. "Who would do this to a child?"
Nikolai's response was a low growl, so inhuman it made the windows rattle. His eyes blazed gold, and for a moment, his skin seemed to shimmer with the hint of scales beneath.
"Someone who will not live to see the next full moon," he promised, his voice deeper, rougher—the voice of his dragon.
The door burst open as a small, white-haired woman hurried into the room, carrying a large leather bag. Healer Sokolov had served the Volkov family for thirty years, unfazed by their draconic nature or criminal enterprises. She took one look at the child and her professional demeanor cracked.
"Step aside," she ordered, not caring that she was commanding the most feared man in magical Russia. "This child needs immediate attention."
Nikolai moved back, watching intently as the healer pulled out her wand and began casting diagnostic spells. With each spell, glowing runes appeared above the boy's body—most flashing an alarming red.
"Severe hypothermia," Sokolov muttered, her wand moving in complex patterns as she worked. "Malnutrition... evidence of long-term starvation... multiple improperly healed fractures..."
As the list of injuries and ailments grew, Nikolai's expression darkened. The air in the room became superheated, the fire in the grate turning momentarily blue with intensity.
"Nikolai," Dmitri warned quietly, noticing the dragon magic leaking from his master.
With visible effort, Nikolai brought himself under control, though his eyes remained draconic. "Will he survive?" he asked the healer.
"Yes," Sokolov replied, now administering potions directly into the boy's system through a spelled syringe. "But he will need extensive treatment. These injuries... this isn't just neglect. This child has been systematically abused."
Nikolai moved closer, studying the lightning bolt scar on the boy's forehead. "And this? Can you tell me about this mark?"
Sokolov paused, her eyes widening as she noticed the scar. She cast another, more specific diagnostic spell, and the runes that appeared made her step back in shock.
"This is dark magic," she whispered. "Very dark. And there's something... inside it. A fragment of another's magical signature."
"A soul fragment," Nikolai confirmed grimly. "I sensed it in the alley. Someone has violated this child's very being."
"There's more," Sokolov added, pointing to a series of runes floating near the boy's magical core. "His magic has been bound—partially suppressed by external spells. Strong ones. The work of a very powerful wizard."
For a moment, the room was silent except for the crackling of the fire and the child's now steadier breathing. Nikolai's mind raced. A magically powerful child, connected somehow to Death itself, carrying a soul fragment, with artificially bound magic, abandoned in his territory? This was no coincidence.
"Dmitri," Nikolai said finally. "I want everything we can find on this boy. Check with our British contacts. That accent I caught from his scent—definitely British. And the magical signature of whoever bound his power."
"Yes, sir," Dmitri nodded. "And the muggles who abandoned him?"
Nikolai's expression would have made hardened killers tremble. "Find them. I want to know why they were in magical Moscow with a wizard child they clearly despise. And when you find them..."
He left the sentence unfinished, but Dmitri understood. The Dursleys had made a fatal mistake entering the domain of the Dragon Don.
As the healer continued her work, the boy's eyelids fluttered. For a brief moment, brilliant emerald eyes—unnaturally bright with magical potential—met Nikolai's golden gaze. In that instant, Nikolai felt something he hadn't experienced in decades: a profound, protective instinct that went beyond mere sympathy.
"Ya zashchishchu tebya, malysh," Nikolai whispered, gently touching the boy's cheek. I will protect you, little one. "From this day forward, you are under the protection of the Volkov clan."
The boy's eyes closed again, but his small hand moved, fingers wrapping around Nikolai's much larger one with surprising strength.
In that moment, Nikolai Volkov, the feared Dragon Mafia Don of Russia, made his decision. This child—this remarkably powerful, terribly abused boy—would not only be protected. He would be adopted. Brought into the Volkov clan by blood and magic, raised as Nikolai's son and heir.
The magical world would soon know a new name—not Harry Potter, the abandoned boy, but Mikhail Volkov, son of the dragon.
And may the gods help anyone who tried to harm him again.