... A Sleeping Dragon
*****
She thought she’d been in a rage about the stories of Harry’s life at school previously, angry enough to lose control of a previously untried form. But this was an entirely new level.
It was probably good that she’d managed to put the enchanted mirror on the mantle as soon as she’d finished speaking with Harry or they were going to get a quick confirmation on whether the repair charm could work on a shattered mirror.
She still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to floo Severus.
All she knew what that she had, as she was still standing by the now empty fireplace, anger bubbling in her veins and causing her to practically vibrate as she tried to contain herself. She did NOT want to transform in the middle of the Den. She could feel the transformation to her Animagus form tingling in the back of her mind, straining to overcome her small human shape to allow her to rip through all that threatened her and her thunder.
Her nails dug into the meat of her palms, tiny pricks of pain the only indication that her nails were something other than their normal neatly filed shape.
She was done allowing anyone to hurt her clutchmate.
*****
Sirius bounded into the room.
“Hey, pup! I’m going to be heading out for a short bit. Everything-“
He froze as soon as he really took in the room, instantly regretting leaving Remus behind in his haste to see his beloved pup and see what exactly had Severus wary about Ari’s control when they hadn’t even shared the news from Headmaster Black. While nothing was rattling, or moving, the room was a clutter of small knickknacks floating in mid-air. Photos Arianna had lovingly pulled from the Evans vault showcasing the Potters’ few happy years with all four together. The small box of quill tips she kept at her desk for when she invariably wanted to change her writing style. Owl treats she stashed to pamper Hedwig, Archimedes, and Mercury whenever they brought her Gringotts’s approved mail.
Hundreds of small things stood frozen well away from any flat surface in a spiraling mess.
And at the center, stood his pup, shaking slightly and staring into the dark fireplace with a startlingly blank face.
“Pup?” he questioned, instantly on alert and easily sliding his wand out of its holster.
He vaguely heard the pounding of feet behind him, but he would worry about that in a moment.
Arianna didn’t even flinch or turn to look at him.
“Ari?” he called again, only to freeze again, long dead self-preservation instincts roaring their heads, when she jerked to look at him.
Instantly, he knew this was even worse than he thought. Her eyes were harder than goblin steel, the blue depths sharper than elvish arrows. Eyes he had seen before only in a much more masculine face. Eyes that had made him understand just how much of a mistake he’d made when he’d sent Severus after Remus. It sent a shiver of instinctual terror down his spine, for once feeling like actual prey despite his predator Animagus. Arianna was hard to anger. He knew that, had tested those boundaries frequently over the last few months even without meaning to.
And she was currently furious.
It was very obvious that she had barely a thread’s worth of control at the moment, ready to snap at the slightest provocation and Sirius was clueless to how that had come about. He knew she was angry about the Wizengamot meeting they’d attended only hours previously, but this was more than that. This was righteous rage. This was protective fury, just like James had shown when Sirius’ arrogance and desire to hurt Severus for being close to Regulus when Sirius had lost that right long before had nearly resulted in Severus dead and Remus either on the run or executed for something he had no control over. It was a fury that would burn nations and topple governments.
He had a strong suspicion it had to do with Harry.
Though, he very much doubted she had already heard about what his ancestor had seen. Which led to the question of what exactly had set her off that he himself didn’t know about.
“Ari?”
“They will pay,” she growled. Literally growled, her voice taking on the slightest hint of the multi-tones he now knew was the normal for dragons. Tharos wasn’t the most social of creatures, but he saw it as his duty to educate the various protectors of his Lady on the simple truths of dragons that only dragons knew.
It was not uncommon for him to line up the guard, Charlie, the Scamanders, Sirius, and anyone else who ventured into the Aiaia holdings vault to impart some new lesson on dragons, the practices of the former lady, the expectations of the guards, or any number of other topics he deemed important.
The lessons on dragons and dragon-kin were especially enthralling but Sirius knew few realized just why Tharos decided to focus on the few wizards and witches that descended from the even fewer dragons that once took human mates. He knew at some point, the information would be shared, but for now, it explained so much of his pups, so much of Arianna’s unexpected Animagus form.
And right now, he was seeing that heritage make itself known. In probably the worst place possible.
“Ari, you have to control yourself or there’s going to be damage you may not want,” he ordered, edging closer through the myriad pieces of a life she was easily controlling in her anger, and somehow managing to keep her eye.
He prided himself that he didn’t shiver in fear at the way she snarled at him, the various items floating around the room seeming to twitch as if to attack him.
“Control?” she hissed, eyes flashing dangerously and seeming to take on the red of her other form as she stared him down. “I’ll show that manipulative, neglectful, oblivious, bastard control.”
*****
The shade of white her already naturally pale godfather could turn would, on a good day, caused no small amount of entertainment for Arianna. Today was not a good day. But she didn’t particularly care that the blood drained from his face at her words. Or that he seemed seconds from trying to bolt for the door in an effort to get away from her anger. Or seconds from bolting to her to try and hug her. She couldn’t really decide which was more likely from the man.
His Gryffindor tendencies would most likely point to the hug. The lingering effects from Azkaban, even with his potions and continued mind-healer appointments would most likely point to the hasty exit. He was enough of a mix of the two at the moment that she didn’t know which would win.
But his instinctive action was overridden by a very obviously trained response to orders.
“Get her outside!” Snape bellowed, panting slightly in the doorframe as if he’d run from Hogwarts itself instead of the entrance to the Den. “Now!”
Sirius did as ordered immediately, darting through the cloud of items to engulf her in his still slightly thin arms. It never even seemed to occur to him that he jumped at the barked order of his once enemy.
The uncomfortable twist of apparition distracted her from the sudden, but familiar feeling of her skin being not quite large enough to hold her body. Of being too fragile to protect. Too useless. Too weak to protect her clutchmate.
*****
Sirius dropped his arms from around his goddaughter the moment he could feel the ground beneath his feet steady, backing away quickly from the enraged redhead. He was grateful she’d tweaked the wards around the massive Hufflepuff property to allow certain individuals to apparate within the wards from anywhere. His inclusion in those people (and perhaps the tweaking itself) had nothing to do with the massive amount of whining he’d done after having to walk from the entrance hall to Ari’s office at the exact opposite side of the property one too many times. Not even the secondary point she’d added had decreased his whining.
And he’d insist on that fact as often as necessary for people to believe him.
But being able to apparate from the depths of the Den to the edge of the vast, if deserted, farmland the Den was surrounded by served him well today. As soon as he’d released her and backed away, Arianna turned and flashed him a smile. It wasn’t her normal smile though. The smile he loved on her face was warm and welcoming. It split her face and carried into her eyes, lighting them with a sparkle of laughter and mischief. She had different versions of her blinding smile and he’d had a re-introduction to each of them over the last few months. The smug one that showed she had a prank planned. The proud one she shot Harry or had whenever she thought of him. The one with a slight edge that showed she was beginning to lose her patience with his stupidity. All had that warm, welcoming base and always managed to warrant at least a small smile of his own in return, as if he was thanking her for smiling at him. It never mattered his own mood.
This was nothing like any of those smiles.
This was teeth and danger and a level of rage neither her parents, grandparents, nor brother had ever shown him.
Her grandmother hadn’t even come close when confronting Walburga about her treatment of him when he finally ran away. And that was a level of rage that he had never seen before. Enough that even the unflappable woman who gave birth to him had actually baked away from the enraged Euphemia Potter.
Arianna, though, was somehow worse in the way that she actually seemed to gleam with her rage.
Then he noticed she was actually gleaming in the early evening sun. Rainbows of light bounced off iridescent scales and he backed away farther to give her space.
The change had happened too quickly before, too unexpected for him to actually take in the shift, but now he watched in a sort of stunned fascination as she snarled, finally breaking the terrifying smile to bend as the dragon inside her started to bubble out. It was a seamless as before, and perhaps as quick, but time seemed to slow enough for him to watch as her scales replaced her pale skin, her limbs elongating and wickedly sharp claws dug into the grass. Her clothing, unlike all clothing and held things when an Animagus transformed, ripped instead of shimmering out of existence, to be hidden in the space between until she shifted back. Her horns pushed into the air through her hair and she gave her massive head a quick shake as the last of the red strands disappeared. Wings erupted out of her back, causing a slight breeze as they gave a quick flap.
Finally, the fully shifted dragon settled on the winter grass, taking up what seemed like far more space than Sirius expected. Granted, the last time he’d seen her fully transformed, they were inside Gringotts and the room had suddenly surged in size to accommodate the massive dragon, but now she seemed larger. Her wings were spread, arching close to the tops of some of the trees. Some of the ancient English oaks on the property.
But she wasn’t just tall. She was broad. Even curled in the tight ball she was, she was about the size of 4 Privet Drive, something Sirius was sure the muggles that lived there would be aghast to learn. Certainly, she was large enough to easily swallow the whale of a man that called the place his home. She may have a slight issue getting his bulk down her elegant and somewhat slim neck, but her belly would have no issue burning him to a crisp. And her long teeth would easily bite through his largest limb.
With the pale cream of her scales reflecting the rainbows of before even farther, with the warmth radiating off her in the chill December evening, with the glistening of the dying sun on her red eyes, she was breathtaking. He’d thought so before, but now he could more easily see her and wasn’t worried about her accidently squishing his beloved godson lying prone and healing in a bed by her feet.
He took all of this in so quickly, it was a shock he missed her sudden attention on him.
Those glittering red eyes he’d admired before inches from his face should have alarmed him, in conjunction with her still visible anger, but all he did was squeak softly and pull back.
“Ari?” he questioned, hands at his sides with the palms out. He still stood poised to flick his wrist for his wand’s release, but he was not stupid enough to assume he could get the needed number of stunners off at her before she ate him if her dragon had taken hold. A normal dragon took six or seven. A normal small dragon. She was anything but.
This could go horribly wrong if she was completely out of her mind.
He may be brash and arrogant and any number of uncomfortably accurate but disadvantageous traits, but he was not stupid. Even Snape could admit to that at the worst of their rivalry. None of the Marauders were or they never would have been able to do most of what they had, especially the map. So he wouldn’t attack. But he was not suicidal anymore and he desperately wanted to keep his life and limb for his family. If he had to try something, he would.
“Black, back away slowly,” Charlie’s calm voice interjected into his stare-down with the dragon. His tone was mild but strong enough to brook no arguments.
Sirius felt his head nod without his permission and, as instructed, slowly backed away from the massive dragonesque face that had pinned him in place. Only to freeze when the creature with wings brushing the tops of trees and teeth he suddenly couldn’t look away from growled lowly.
He swallowed thickly and resisted the urge to shut his eyes like a child trying to hide from something scary in the safety of the back of his eyelids when there was an answering growl behind him. Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he winced at the spattering of black scales on Charlie’s cheeks, sparing a moment to wonder when exactly that little fact had developed.
The growls coming from Arianna shifted and Sirius zoned on her again, cursing his disastrous luck to be pinned between two previously suppressed dragon Animagi… He narrowed his eyes at her when he noticed a certain spark in her eyes. Then almost issued his own growl when he recognized the familiar twinkle in the strange red.
“Really?” he demanded, dropping his wariness instantly and almost smacking the suddenly smirking face in annoyance. “You are enraged enough to almost transform in the Den you love, but still have enough calm to prank me?”
“Yes,” Arianna rumbled in English, unrepentant.
“And you claim to not be like your dad,” he muttered in exasperation.
“Marauder Heir,” she denied.
“Tharos taught you?” Charlie asked, sauntering closer to stand next to Sirius and calling his attention to her English, without the multi-toned rumble of what he’d come to understand was normal Dragon-speak.
“Yes.”
“Favoritism,” Charlie protested with a laugh, crossing his arms and smiling at her. His scales still gleamed like the night sky, but it was obvious he had control of it.
“So, what set you off?” Sirius asked, ignoring the flirting in front of him before he started throwing hexes. He was too young for his pups to start courting. Far too young.
“Speak later,” the dragon hissed. “Adaya goes to Hogwarts.”
Sirius winced, knowing he couldn’t stop her and brain frantically trying to re-work plans to adjust for the sudden trip. Even if he’d already had plans to go and had wanted to let her know he would be gone before, they were useless now. He knew there would be no stopping her and if they wanted to keep to their goals and even some of the timeline they’d planned on, this would take some work. He spared a short thought to start referring to the Opaleye as Adaya instead of Arianna. It would help a number of plans he was starting to put together and it wouldn’t do for him to give the whole thing away because he forgot.
“We’ll meet you there,” he muttered, quickly conjuring a piece of parchment and one of the pens Harry had bought for him in muggle London so he could start making lists and plans to review with Artair, Theseus, and Moony. “We need to stop by the bank again…. And I’ll have to alert Theseus of the change. Maybe I can catch Eir…”
He trailed off as he started writing frantically, barely noticing that he was using Charlie’s back as a desk without permission or grumbling.
*****
Adaya chuckled when it was evident the dog was oblivious to his continued muttering. Her mate was a good mate, patient and accommodating of their thunder. He didn’t even flinch when the dog used him as a desk, only nodded to the cat as he joined them on the lawn. She smelled the tension in the cat, but ignored it as her rage started building again.
She would not stand for this any longer.
With a large surge of her wings, she took to the air and left the dog and cat with her mate. She ignored the indignant squawks of the human forms of her thunder as her somewhat awkward take-off produced a gale that almost knocked the tiny figures to their bums.
An amused rumble did not escape her jaws.
Then she was above the trees and taking her first flight without a broom. It was beautiful. Everything sparkled to her eyes, making the rare sunny evening even brighter. While she had expected some struggles due to the vast difference in how to fly with wings, she did not expect the instincts that allowed her to practically dance in the air. To find the updrafts and scent the oceans so far away. To practically see the currents she road as a witch with ease. It was glorious and she spent a few moments simply reveling in her new skill. Then she screamed her pleasure and fury to the sky, both happiness at flying and the strength of her Thunder, and a warning to those that had threatened it all.
Once she was certain her call would reach its intended targets, she spared a glance to her mate and then set her sights to the north.
She had a clutchmate to see. And a bone to smash with a few threatening him.
*****
In the ancient castle that was a dragon’s destination, an equally ancient entity heard the call to arms that a dragon’s roar could be to those it considered under its protection. And practically danced in glee. As much as a thousand year old stone castle can dance. Her halls rang with the roar, amplified by Hogwarts herself. Much like her beloved Lord, she was done with sitting back. While she knew she’d not had the strength to protect her charges before, too weak from too long separated from the lines of her beloved Founders, too strangled by dangerous, hateful magic, she still felt the pressing weight of guilt at the atrocities done within her halls and on her grounds. By those that should have been willing to give their lives for those entrusted to their care.
If she amplified the call even more around certain individuals, ones that had heard a similar call earlier in the year and had brushed it off as nothing, well, no one would be able to say why their chairs and windows rattled with a roar that sounded on the other side of the country.
And it would not be her decision if the warning was again ignored.
*****
Harry froze in his seat as soon as the stones beneath his feet started vibrating, a spoonful of mashed potatoes instantly motionless halfway to his mouth. The spoon clattered to the table suddenly and he ignored the raised eyebrows around him as he blindly reached to either side of him for Ron and Hermione’s hands. Only to tense again when Hermione easily took his offered hand but Ron’s was somewhat smaller than he expected.
Luna squeezed his hand tightly back before he could withdraw it.
When he looked to Ron, he noticed that the very walls around them seemed to shake as well and he tensed farther, only to practically melt when the familiar roar of a dragon followed the shaking, to echo in the air around them.
“Harry?” Ron finally asked softly, garnering Harry’s attention.
He just shook his head and reached for his spoon again, letting Hermione have her hand back. He tried to give Luna hers, but she held on tightly and smiled reassuringly at him. A shrug was all he gave in response before starting on his food again. He may not necessarily be hungry, but he knew better than to not try.
If Snape’s concern wasn’t enough, he knew the consequences if he didn’t try and his sister found out. It wasn’t worth it not to take a few bites more.
Especially with whatever was coming.
*****
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was not a man that cowered easily. He was also not a man to appreciate plans falling through with the regularity that had become normal over the last few months. He was also not a fool. He knew there was a reason so many of his issues had cropped up since a certain lady had sat in the Wizengamot for the first time. However, he was not amused that she had managed to escape Riddle’s clutches so easily. And with such little damage. It has been risky to leak the information on Malfoy, even riskier to learn the information that Malfoy was defecting, but it had been worth it. Even if he’d had to practically stalk the entrance to Gringotts to see who exactly was working with Sirius and who might have gained favor from the mysterious woman. To have seen Sirius meeting his cousin and her husband had been pure luck and he would need to remember to have Severus brew him some more of the wonderous liquid luck for the future, despite the tight restrictions he’d had put on the potion in recent decades. It would not do for everyone to have as much luck as he enjoyed with it.
And yet, here he was, sitting in his office and having a staring contest with the phoenix he claimed was his familiar for generations.
“I know you can translate dragonspeak,” he growled at the ridiculous bird. It did not truly matter that Fawkes was not his actual familiar. Nor that his own phoenix had fled long ago, despite the truth of his House’s history with the creatures. Fawkes was tied to the school, a long forgotten remnant from a time long past, and therefore bound to Albus as Headmaster. And he was being especially difficult about this latest unknown that had the possibility of ruining even more carefully laid plans.
A second dragon call like that within a year was not good and he was no fool. He needed to know what caused the dragon to call loud enough to reach Scotland and if there was anything to be done to stop it. Reserves were the only places left for the creatures and the dragons that cowered there had yet to issue such calls. He didn’t even know what kind of dragon it was, despite the research he’d done with Nicholas into the uses of the creatures’ blood.
“Two such calls in the last six months is not normal. That they reach these halls even less so. Tell me what the dragon said in its call. I must make my way to the Great Hall and would prefer to know before then,” he ordered, fingering his wand in silent threat.
Fawkes only blinked innocently at him, unbothered.
“Useless bird,” Albus snarled before he fired a silent Crucio at the phoenix. Not for the first time, he watched as the bird writhed in pain in the cage he’d shoved it into after the latest attempt to escape. It caused no small amount of amusement to see the glorious firebird to thrash in the small space and he allowed it to continue for a few minutes before he finally lifted the curse. It would do no lasting damage to the bird, though it may spark an early burning day if he held it too long. As he’d found out last year. “Remember who you answer to,” he said plainly. “We’ll try again after the meal.”
With that, the Headmaster banished the still twitching bird and its cage to the hidden, spelled room he’d installed decades ago to prevent anyone from discovering the truth of many things. And made his slow way to the Great Hall for dinner, mind whirling still.
Too many unknown variables had appeared lately and he would know the answers to the questions he had. He would find solutions to the ones he could control. The new Lady Aiaia was too unpredictable, too connected for such a short time in the public view, to be left alone. With his plan to have Voldemort remove her from the board failing spectacularly, he would have to adjust accordingly. If he couldn’t have her killed, he’d have to see about some potions. Perhaps marry her to someone in order to gain a previously untapped family or ally.
If he was exceedingly lucky, Tom would try again to gain her loyalty. Her power on the wrong side would probably be enough to gain him the throne in an emergency session of the most loyal of the Wizengamot. He’d have to carefully plan that as a contingency. It would not do to have too many of the wrong sort show up and derail his plans. And if he was placed on the throne, he could use the power to gain enough time to recreate the stone Nicholas had once held.
A dragon in the wild, however, would not be acceptable. Especially on top of the other issues. He would need to know if the calls they’d been subjected to were the same dragon and, if so, what the dragon was roaring about. And where it was nesting.
So much yet to discover…