The Existence of Dragon Fae
Those red eyes continued to stare down at him, curious and watchful, and Harry could only frown up at Lilia. His mind was reeling, the little snippets of information compounding into varying realisations that were shaking the very core of the foundations that his world of understanding was built on. Harry Potter had been human, just as the sky had always been blue and the grass green. There was simply no changing that because they were supposed to be ironclad facts.
Yet those foundations had been cracked by Lilia’s blasé statement that he was not in fact quite as human as he had once believed himself to be. Then again, he wasn’t completely Harry Potter, so to speak, because his name was also Gladius Draconia. Surely it should have been obvious by the time he had shrunk, grown horns, pupils become slitted, reptilian things, and had then learnt he’d hatched from an egg…? Apparently not, part of him had long since decided as he sat there, curled up against Lilia as he held him like something so infinitely precious.
He wasn’t used to being something so precious, something inside him rumbling and content to be held there like the child he seemingly was and wasn’t at the exact same time.
“What am I, then?” he asked, throat feeling as though a desert had taken residence up in it, even as he met those red eyes once more, and he shivered ever so slightly as Lilia’s gaze felt as though he were gazing into his very soul itself.
Lilia tilted his head, forehead crinkling up in confusion. “We are fae, Gladius, and you specifically are one of the Dragon Fae.”
Harry blinked, brow furrowing, and his hands left their handhold behind Lilia’s neck, fumbling to grasp at the horns growing out of his head. “Dragon?” he echoed, remembering the majestic, fiery, absolutely terrifying creature he had once outflown on a broomstick to get the prize of the golden egg. He closed his eyes, remembering then what had happened after that point. Cedric falling, eyes glazed over, Voldemort rising from the cauldron in the graveyard, Umbridge carving the words ‘I must not tell Lies’ into his skin… He had been riding on the high of helping his godfather escape the law, and then his fourth year of Hogwarts had come along to remind him of the lingering threat to his life.
A gentle touch at his annoyingly pudgy cheek made him open his eyes. “You are upset,” Lilia said plainly. “Why?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, wondering just then how he was supposed to explain his past – unbelievable as most of it seemed to be, if his Fifth Year had been anything to write home about. Not that he’d actually had a home to write to… “The past is the past.”
“Ah, yes,” Lilia almost purred, hoisting him up slightly higher, and part of Harry wasted no time in nuzzling his face into the crook of the elder fae’s neck. To him Lilia was a strange blanket of safety and security that Harry didn’t understand in the slightest. He just wanted to feel safer than he ever had even when everyone around him had been calling him Harry Potter rather than Gladius Draconia. “I do so long to hear about that mysterious past of yours that has kept you from us for quite some time.”
Those words felt like more of a threat than a promise, and Harry could only shiver, even as a sudden shift of air told him that people were already beginning to leave the large hall.
“Yet I suppose that can wait for just a little while longer,” Lilia said, looking away from him and glancing around at the number of robe-clad students milling beside them, all of them seeming rather confused and lost as to what to do. “It seems that once again Malleus was evidently not informed that his presence was required at an official ceremony,” he murmured, a frown overtaking his face. “No matter. All who were assigned to House Diasomnia, follow me!” he called, and Harry could only blink as Lilia shifted his grip on him once again and began to walk towards a set of doors. “I just hope he doesn't sulk about this… especially since you turned up here today,” Lilia continued, and Harry could only wonder about who this Malleus was, and why his name seemed so familiar to him. “Though perhaps it was for the best he didn’t,” Lilia said, those red eyes finding his own once more. “I could barely contain myself when I spotted you. Your brother, elder brother, I suppose now, has less control than myself,” he remarked.
His thoughts ground to a halt at that. “Brother?” he echoed, eyes widening as his stomach seemed to wring itself and twist up into knots at that word.
“Do you not remember his presence, at the very least?” Lilia asked, tilting his head curiously. “You were born to the same clutch… though twin eggs are a rare occurrence, that was what you and Malleus were. There were even hopes that you would both hatch together when the time was right,” he murmured, looking infinitely wistful in that moment. “Though that wish did not come to pass…”
Harry blinked, brain trying to compute all that information and utterly failing. “A brother?” he asked, tugging on the robes Lilia wore, entirely uncertain as to how he felt about the information that he seemed to have a relative there. One who wasn’t the Dursleys. He swallowed thickly, mouth suddenly feeling incredibly dry once more. “I have… a brother?” he said, more to himself than anybody else, even as he tried to get that fact through his thick head.
“Yes, Gladius,” Lilia spoke, his voice like a balm to his uneasy mind. “Malleus has missed you – I know that for a fact.” His words left no room for doubt, and yet still—
“Will he like me?” he asked, the question leaving his lips before he could think better of it. To the Dursleys he had been blood family as Harry Potter, and they had still hated him well and truly. Who was to say the relatives of Gladius Draconia would be any different? “He… won’t hate me, will he? My brother?” he questioned, brow wrinkling with worry at the thought. What would he even do if the answer was that he’d hate him?
A hand came back to his cheek, cupping it and forcing him to look Lilia in those red eyes and that slitted pupil which watched him with a curious, earnest regard. “He will not hate you, Gladius,” Lilia said with such a certainty that Harry felt his fear ebb ever so slightly. “That much I can guarantee. When he was younger, he often hoped that you would be found and returned to us… he even saved you a place at the little tea parties he liked to throw…” Lilia chuckled, fondness suffusing his expression. “That hope dwindled over time, the longer you were missing. It was his wish that you would be found, and it would seem, after all these long years, that wish of his has finally been granted.”
“Oh,” Harry mumbled, uncertain of what he was supposed to say in response to that. Certainly, he’d fought a dark lord, organised a resistance group, taught a bunch of other students how to create a patronus charm, and even went on the run – however briefly – from the real government… yet he was stumped by the matter of family, and part of him couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by that fact. It seemed like such a trivial thing to be so worried over.
“Honesty is the best policy,” he could almost hear Hermione say in response to that, and oh how his heart ached at the thought of her voice. What he wouldn’t give to have her there, by his side, offering words of encouragement… Yet he’d made the decision to leave her behind somewhat, and the results of that choice were his to bear.
He had left her behind, after all, chasing whatever had been behind that mirror – the world now in front of him. Hermione would have wanted him to make the most of it, and Ron too; they both would have, and Harry couldn’t help but agree as he sat there in someone’s arms, wondering what his two best friends would have said if they could see him now. Lilia watched him carefully, eyes straying between him and the path he was leading the gaggle of other students who’d been at that orientation.
The walk took them through the winding corridors, and Harry could only muse on how he thought they were nearing their destination when their group came up on a set of mirrors. He barely caught a glimpse of the large, ornate mirrors they passed – yet they weren’t quite mirrors, so to speak. They didn’t show the reflection of him, Lilia and the rest of the group as they passed by. Rather, they showed ornate buildings, sometimes dripping in purple elegance, sometimes sporting heart motifs and large, sprawling gardens, and yet there was only one mirror-passage that he found himself transfixed by.
It was the same mirror-passage that Lilia stopped by, a haze of greenish-mist hovering on the outskirts of the world within that mirror. There was a castle in the frame, distant and yet looming, delicate spires rising to pierce the low-hovering clouds which seemed to crackle every now and then with an ominous green colour, and the path which led up to the grand structure was littered with rose bushes and their thorns which snaked around the deceptively delicate petals. There was an echo of familiarity to the image, and it was one he couldn’t quite put his finger on as he clutched at Lilia’s robes for some sense of balance.
The sensation of passing through that mirror-passage was a strange one, a ripple of something whispering against his skin, and then it was like he was outside. The air was fresh – lacking the stagnancy of an enclosed space – and neither did he feel cloistered or enclosed, as he occasionally had inside a magically expanded place.
“It’s not quite the same as Briar Valley, but for now… it’s home,” Lilia said, watching him with an indulging smile as he looked around at what would also presumably be his home for the foreseeable future. He had no idea what or where Briar Valley was, though he suspected that one day he would see whatever place Lilia was talking about.
“Briar Valley?” he echoed, glancing searchingly into those red eyes which seemed to have the answers to all of his questions. Just as he probably had most of the answers to Lilia’s questions about his own past. Not that he quite understood how his egg had landed up in the hands of Lily and James Potter in the first place – when he was supposed to be Gladius Draconia.
“Ah, you were only an egg when you were… lost, so it makes sense that you’re unfamiliar with the area… though have you not heard of the name? I daresay plenty of other continents have heard of Briar Valley, no matter where you were raised,” Lilia explained, hand coming back up to muss up his hair. Harry couldn’t find it within himself to ask Lilia to stop. “Where were you raised, Gladius? I can scarcely believe that none of the searchers your grandmother sent out were unable to find you…”
Harry tilted his head, remembering the darkness he had stepped into when that voice had told him to take the hand reaching for him. It had seemed magical, strange – even considering all his years spent at Hogwarts – and distinctly unearthly. “I was raised in a place called Little Whinging, in Surrey,” he informed the elder fae, even as part of him already expected the sort of answer that statement would bring.
“I… have never heard of that place,” Lilia said, proving his suspicions well and truly correct, even as they started up the path to the castle. His new apparent home. It wasn’t Hogwarts, and yet there was a similarity there to another castle he had called his home away from ‘home’. “Is it in the Queendom of Roses, perchance?”
“It’s in England – the United Kingdom,” Harry explained, similarly drawing a blank as the what or where the Queendom of Roses was. “Though I have a feeling you won’t have heard of that place either…”
“And you would be correct, little dragon,” Lilia said flatly, looking puzzled.
“I haven’t heard of the Queendom of Roses,” Harry added, earning himself another curious, searching glance his way, even as he hummed in contentment. He was happy there in Lilia’s arms, and he couldn’t help but wonder if his brain had been affected by his shrink to well under-four-foot.
“This world is vast,” Lilia murmured, still looking incredibly perplexed at the idea of England. “Perhaps there are some small isles I am unaware of—”
“No,” Harry mumbled, resting his had against Lilia’s shoulder properly. “I don’t think England exists in this world,” he said, feeling those piercing red eyes turn somewhat calculating as they stared at him properly. “I don’t know how I ended up there, but I don’t think I can go back to England. To… Hogwarts,” he added, sorrow filling him at that thought. He had chosen to leave, and part of him was glad he had. He just missed his friends who had been by his side for what felt like his entire life up to that moment, and he regretted the fact he hadn’t been able to see the rest of the burials of Hogwarts’ dead.
“Tell me of England then, and this Hogwarts, little dragon,” Lilia said, and Harry could only presume that little dragon was going to be an ongoing nickname of his. An endearment, Hermione would have called it. Whatever it was, it made his heart leap.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, well aware of the others following in Lilia’s footsteps like lost ducklings as he pushed the door open and entered the foyer of the small castle. Well, Harry mused, it was small in comparison to Hogwarts, that was. “I spent years there… and there are quite a lot of tales to tell…”
“I would think we have plenty of time,” Lilia answered, smoothing down his hair which still somehow managed to be a bird’s nest despite the length it had gained since he’d shrunk.