Wish
Harry gasped as he ran. His lungs felt like they were burning, but he knew he had to keep going. If they caught him he was dead. It had been a long time since he had been this scared of being caught by Dudley and his gang, but they had a new member.
Before, everyone in his group of bullies had thrown their weight around to get what they wanted (quite literally). They were all the biggest kids in the grade and used that to pin their victims down and beat them to a bloody pulp. But for the last couple of years Harry had been able to outrun them. For a while they had only been able to catch him if they caught him off guard and ambushed him. As a result Harry had become quite the paranoid 4th grader and was even able to avoid their plans most of the time now.
But the bigger boys seemed to have finally figured out a solution to that problem. A new boy, Kyle, had moved to town. Kyle was a year older than the rest of them, but had been held back a grade. He was still bulky like the others but it was all muscle and he was tall with really long legs. One stride of his seemed to take three for Harry and as a result Harry had started getting caught a lot more often.
But today was different. Kyle had gone to visit his uncle, who was a cop in a different town nearby, over the weekend and had nicked his taser off his belt. The way that tool had sparked and crackled had promised a world of pain. Harry had never run so fast in his life, but even still the older boy was catching up fast.
Desperate, Harry ducked under an overpass and headed toward the shadier part of town. It was the wrong direction from the house on Privet Dr. but it had a lot more allies and hiding spots. He would get punished for being late getting home, but that was going to be the case anyway if the other boys caught him.
He panted as he wove his way around abandoned buildings and warehouses, keeping to the shadows so it would be harder for them to keep sight of him. But eventually his luck runs out, just like it always does. He turns the corner only to find a dead end. The brick walls of the alley are several stories high and the buildings have been abandoned long enough that there isn’t even a dumpster to hide behind. Harry turns around to try to get back to the street, but Kyle is already blocking the end, the rest of the boys not far behind.
Harry looks up at the towering brick walls surrounding him and thinks back on the book they had been reading in class. He thinks about the castles, knights, and dragons in the story and wishes with all his heart that he was far away. Somewhere nobody would find him that was guarded by dragons so nobody would ever be able to hurt him again. As the group of boys approach, they jeer and laughing to each other about what they plan to do to him and Kyle holds the sparking taser in his hands, smiling viciously and Harry flinches away from the sound.
That’s when Harry starts to feel an odd tugging sensation and he suddenly feels like the world is spinning away from him.
***
Helga let out a mournful cry as she curled her spiked tail around the fragile pieces of her first clutch of eggs. Egg snatchers had snuck into her cave while she was out hunting and in her fury she had blasted them with fire so hot that they had turned to ash on impact. But when the men had collapsed they had dropped her precious eggs and shattered them on the ground. Many mothers were known to die of heartache after such a loss. Her cries could be heard across the reserve, echoing against the hard stone around her like the haunting call of a whale deep under the sea.
A CRACK sounded at the entrance of her cave and she was instantly ready to fight. But to her confusion all she found was a tiny boy staring up at her in shock. She lowered her head and glared at the trembling human hatchling before her. He was thin and sickly looking and smelled of blood and pain, but he held his ground as she approached. She bared her teeth. It would serve those Egg Crushers right if she devoured their hatchling in return for what they had done.
But before she could strike, a tiny hand reached out to stroke her snout gently. She paused, and watched the hatchling warily. “You’re beautiful,” the boy said in heavily accented Draken, staring up at her with wide eyes.
“Beautiful and deadly,” she said, indicating the broken eggs on the ground. “You shall pay for what your kind have done.”
The boy looked at the broken eggs with horror that faded to a deep sadness and finally resignation. As if the boy was quite used to being blamed for things he had not done. He looked up into her big golden eyes and did not flinch from the anger and pain he saw there. “I’m sssorry for your losses.”
She waited for the hatchling to run or beg, but he remained where he was. “Do you not fear death?” she asked.
The boy shook his head. “You ssseem too kind to make it hurt for long and then no one would ever be able to hurt me again.”
Despite herself, her mothering instincts twanged at the statement said with such honesty. What kind of monsters had this hatchling met that made a bloodthirsty dragon seem kind? “Who has been hurting you, hatchling?”
“My nestmatesss often tell me that it would have been better if I never hatched. Sssometimes I wonder if they are right.”
Helga pressed her snout against the boy’s soft and vulnerable underbelly. The boy flinched as if expecting death, but did not pull away. She let out a humming noise from deep in her chest that vibrated through his small frame as a form of comfort. “Then you shall stay here in my nest instead, and if they ever try to take you back I shall kill them where they stand.”