Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, Harry Potter belongs to whoever wrote him, Danny Phantom too, and the idea was originally Daitoshi's.
Prologue:
He felt the power growing inside him. Even more potent than the one he had felt on the last few days. It coursed through him, like liquid fire, twisting a stretching though his veins, hissing like a snake attacking it's defenseless prey. Pain erupting from every nerve in his body as he attempted to resist the voice in the back of his mind that was screaming at him to just relax and accept this strange energy.
His eyes were screwed shut against the pain, teeth bared in a silent snarl of defiance. A cold sweat had broken on his body as he shivered in pain, but still he furrowed his brow and curled up, stubbornly refusing to give in to the horrible pain. He would not let it win. Whatever it was...
Danny lay panting rapidly on his bed, body tangled up in his own sheets as he whimpered softly, and fingers clawing at the mattress. There was SO much energy inside of him, but he couldn't release it here! His family could get hurt, and he was wracked with pain whenever he tried to move as well.
Blasted stone!
-Flashback-
2 days ago
"I'm fifteen for crying out loud! You can't make me clean my room!"
"You already lost one bet with me, want to try for another, little brother?"
His face was turned in a playful scowl as Danny glared at his redhead sister, storming up the stairs in a huff and turning around at the top, only to cry out at his sibling.
"What horrors you inflict upon me! I shall never be the same again after this traumatizing event you have forced upon me!" His gestures were overly dramatic, sad features barely containing his urge to laugh.
His sibling turned around, with her own smirk as she played along, schooling her features into one of haughtiness as she looked up at him.
"Tis your own fault, foolish human! You made a wager with me, and lost terribly. Thus, you must do my bidding!" Jazz finished this with a repressed giggle, and a commanding gesture toward the doorway just visible in the upstairs hall.
"Go, you fiend! And complete this task you have wrought upon yourself!" Danny placed one hand over his heart, the other on his forehead as he pretended to sway.
"I am afraid, fair maiden, of the creatures that wait in lie for my presence in pretense to do wicked things." Jazz turned around, biting her tongue to stop laughing as she raised one eyebrow up at him, at what he suggested. He blinked at her, wondering why she did not reply before her insinuation dawned on him.
"EW! Jazz, you...you...!" He shuddered, sticking his tongue out at her and walking toward his room, intent on taking as much time as possible to fulfill his end of the bargain, even with a heavy blush staining his porcelain cheeks.
Young Daniel Fenton sat in the middle of his room, shoving stuff under his bed in a weak attempt to lessen the amount of cleaning he had to do. Unfortunately (or conveniently) He had forgotten that only a certain amount of space was available under his mattress, and had not yet realized stuff was being shoved out the other side. He gazed longingly at the sunshine spilling into his room from outside before realizing it was raining out. He frowned; still it would have been nice to not have to clean his room, even on a day like this
He listened to the patter of raindrops, and then stared at the strange glow bathing his wall. It finally registered that sunlight was generally yellow, not silver, and did not flicker. Danny pretended to keep 'cleaning' his room, while eyeing the glow from behind unruly locks of black hair.
Ever so slowly, he rose to his feet, peeking over the bed to see what had created the strange light, sending ghostly energy down his hand, contained within his body, ready to be released in the form of a powerful green orb.
Instead of a ghost, or something obviously harmful, he saw a dark purple gem, about the size of a grapefruit and shaped like an egg, throwing off that strange silvery glow. Taking in mind that a ghost may have planted it to harm him, Danny grabbed his basketball from under his desk, rolling it toward the gem. It bumped the egg shaped thing, causing the glow to ripple a bit, but did nothing else.
Encouraged by the lack of response, Danny grabbed a colored pencil (green) from his barely organized desk, crouching down and shuffling toward it, poking it once he was close enough.
When it still didn't respond, Danny decided to take a leap of faith and touch it. At first, only his fingertips brushed it, as one would with a potentially scalding hot object. As he grew more confident, he wrapped his fingers around it, gently picking it up. It was unexpectedly light, but he stood upright, shifting it to only one hand and opening his door.
Only to come face-to face with Jazz.
He yelped in surprise, accidentally dropping the jewel-egg. He stared at the falling stone, still numb from his sister startling him to react properly.
It met the hardwood floor outside of his room, and shattered.
His blue eyes took in the sparkling of crystal fragments and the ball of silver energy rising out of the shards before having the sense to push his sister away from it before leaping away. However, the energy zipped up despite his effort to avoid it, and plunged into his chest.
For a moment all he felt was mind-numbing euphoria, a glazed expression coming over his features as he stumbled back, sitting down on his bed. , placing a hand on the spot where the orb had entered. A hole was burned in his shirt, and as he twisted his neck to look at it, he saw the quickly fading shadow of what seemed to be a dark green snake curled in an elegant circle, silver wings branching off toward his collarbone.
When he realized Jazz was next to him, shaking his shoulder gently, eyes filled with anxiety, he had to consciously hold back from lashing out at her in annoyance.
Something was different, he felt it, but couldn't place how or what was different. In a soft voice, he simply said.
"Jazz, I'm fine, just... anxious. I don't know what that thing did to me."
At her persistence to pester him about how he felt, he simply growled, reaching over to his desk and sketching the strange marking that had already faded from his chest and showed it to his sister.
"This showed up on my skin where the stuff hit. If you want to look it up, go ahead. I want to sleep."
Jazz eyed him darkly, saying quietly.
"It changed you, Danny."
"I know"
His voice was even softer than hers, barely a whisper, but heard none the less.
"I need to think. Please go away, Jazz."
She nibbled on her bottom lip before nodding and leaving, careful to leave his door open. In the next day, Danny was struck with random intervals of pain, bolts of fire striking his head, hands and chest, leaving him with an intense headache by the time he went to sleep, and trembling fingers he had trouble hiding from his worried sibling.
With his parents out of town for the week, and it being summer vacation with the annual Manson's overly priced vacation. While Sam was in France for the next few days, Tucker had chosen this week to go to the tech convention being hosted in a city he had trouble remembering the name of.
In other words, aside from his sister, he was alone.
The day after that, he was literally pain-free. He had accidentally cut his finger while making dinner (jazz was at the library researching the symbol he had sketched) and didn't notice until the green peppers sported a few red-brown splotches.
It wasn't deep enough for him to worry about anything being severed, but definitely deep enough that he should be hissing in pain at the very least.
Hissing.
Hmm...
A strange image popped into his mind, of a pitch black snake hissing tenderly at him, dark eyes sparkling. He blinked it away, staring at his now-bandaged finger with a look of curiosity. Then, Night had hit, and he woke up at three in the morning, pain streaming through his veins.
End Flashback
His breathing harshened as his back arched, a pained groan slipping from behind his teeth.
He had been cut, zapped, burnt, bludgeoned, tranquilized, stabbed, and had various other means of bodily harm inflicted on him, but nothing compared to this.
Christ, this was awful.
As another, rougher burst of fiery pain lanced through him, Danny finally cried out in true agony, eyes rolling up into his head as he slipped into unconsciousness.
As if sensing his weakness, the energy twisted, seeping into his spirit and binding itself to his energies. Though his ghost portions allowed him to manage a good portion without harming him, the rest of the energy was just in too great amount to sustain within his slim human body.
So, instead of ripping the body apart like most raw magic would, it simply altered his body to be able to contain the energy provided.
Thick tendrils of white light flared outward from Danny Fenton's prone form, twisting together and apart, slowly forming the shape of an elegant dragon, wings outstretched, before whipping around and plunging back into his chest.
The winged snake insignia flared briefly with green light before fading again as the boy's body twisted into a figure not known in Amity Park, or most of the human world for that matter. Only the faint sparkle of silver scales was seen before the body vanished, only a small plume of smoke left as evidence to his previous existence.
That and a rather messy room.
The sensation of falling was what finally woke Danny, his initial grogginess replaced with an adrenaline rush fierce enough to power a city for the night.
When his brain processed what was happening through the rushing of wind in his ears and the pounding of his heart (A little more rapid than normal)
He heard a few people scream below him as he allowed his instincts to take over, wings snapping open and slowing his fall just enough for him to stumble roughly onto a dusty ground, only half-aware that his eye level was a little lower.
The color scheme seemed a little off. There were more blues and greens than usual, even in places where he knew red was supposed to be. As he turned his head around, he also noted that his neck was rather long, for him to turn his head that ...far...
His eyes had caught view of his body and the base of his own neck, shocked into not moving.
He...
Was a dragon.
A friggin Fairy-tale dragon.
He had a slender, lizard like body, that was as narrow but not exuberantly so, fitting a large ribcage with a wide regal chest leading to a long thick regal neck that at the moment was twisted back to look into the window.
At the end of the neck sat a large head. His snout was long and round, and his head was large going upward in to a crown of horns that went upward and curved outwards at the ends. Then, between those, as if symbolizing his unwillingness to give in previously shown was what appeared to be bangs of hair! Dark bangs of midnight black hair that fell on his eyes, just like they did when he was human, sprouting on the back of his neck and ending at the back of his head, making way for pearly scales.
He had thin legs, just supportive enough to hold him up, ending on clawed talons that had black scales, almost like a sock of fur that you see on kittens and dogs, only that these were of scales. With wiry muscle on his...shoulders? Two bat-like wings sprouted from just behind his shoulders, furled loosely against his sides, and he felt a dull ache in his mid-back, where they connected to.
His tail was also long, swishing like a cat's, and had a thin razor on the tip of it that rose upward to form a sort of scythe when he thought about it.
Ignoring the rest of the people around him (who were quite steadily approaching panic) he took a few hesitant steps toward a shop window (his human mind was intent on his reflection in the window, while the quiet, nagging part of his mind encouraged him to go inside and find a snack of the various birds and other creatures.)
Danny saw, to his utter relief that despite everything his eyes remained beautiful sapphire pools, that were now slightly slit but rounder than any reptiles should have been, and the image of a winged snake appeared to be inked onto one of his broader chest plates.
His dragon mind heard a series of small 'pop's and yelled at Danny. 'Wake up, you moronic human! Turn around! DO SOMETHING!'
Startled by the emotions in his mind, the teen-turned-reptile turned around awkwardly, not quite used to having for legs to keep track of.
In front of him, around a dozen men and two women were approaching him cautiously, strange sticks pointed at him, while a few of them were murmuring soft phrases that were obviously meant to 'calm him down'
You know, the little mutterings you say to a really big stray dog you want to approach, but are not sure whether or not it has rabies? Yea, those kinds of phrases.
Danny snorted, shaking his head in amusement at the people. Most of them were pausing in their approach, seeming to loose nerve now that he was facing them.
One of them, however, jut continued toward the odd silver dragon, lowering his wand slightly and reaching out an empty hand, palm up for him to 'sniff'. In his mind, Danny was laughing his arse off, having not quite come to the full realization he was no longer human, or even that he was still in reality.
Instead of ignoring the man in black, he rolled his eyes (something that looked quite strange for an animal) and obediently lowered his neck nosing the man's gloved palm, looking up at his face with amusement.
Shock showed plainly in his brown eyes, his mouth slightly open. However, the man quickly got hold of himself, and made a good deal of a show of putting his stick back onto his belt. (Apparently it was some sort of weapon?)
The red-haired man moved slowly to pet his nose, something that continued to amuse Danny to no end. This was getting to be a very weird dream.
Charlie slowly moved closer to the dragon, rubbing its forehead gently and staying clear of the delicate-looking spikes, wondering just how it was possible for the beautiful creature to have hair, but was careful not to touch them too much. Some dragons were very touchy about their frills, and some were even hyper-sensitive, and he could never know for what use the "hair" could be for.
He didn't recognize this strange silver dragon as any known breed, but really didn't want to get on its bad side. It looked young, judging by its size it, he was pretty sure that it would have been capable of fitting into the pet shop it was currently outside of if it curled up a bit, meaning it would be easier to subdue it than a larger dragon if things got out of hand. He hoped that wasn't the case
He spoke again, placing his hand against the top of its neck, and slowly working down, pushing gently on the creature's shoulder.
"Hey, buddy...Could you please move? You are scaring some people and we need to get you out of here before everyone starts panicking again. They calmed down when we got here because they know we work with dragons. So, will you come with us?"
He took a small breath to continue, but stopped when he found the elegant head faced toward him, eerie blue orbs staring him directly in the face. There was a strange calculating gleam in that gaze; much different than any other magical animal (barring Dumbledore's Phoenix) he had ever seen.
Charlie froze, not sure if he had touched somewhere he had not supposed to. His hands were still on the Dragon's shoulders, but when he had made that last question, he had given it a little push toward the other dragon tamers.
Shit.
However, instead of lashing out like the man had expected, the reptile simply gave him a weird look and took a few cautious steps toward the other wizards, it's neck lowered as it peered at the nervous wizards. It stopped abruptly when a few of them raised their wands, and the understanding look vanished from its ethereal eyes when one of the rookies shot a stunner toward its face, probably aiming for the eyes.
When the light skimmed across its muzzle instead, knocking the head roughly to one side. It threw its head back with a small cry; its neck stretching upward, wings snapped open slamming down as the dragon lifted into the sky.
Double Shit.
A provoked, unknown dragon in a crowded alley that was slowly (Note the slow part) being drained of civilians was almost as bad as a new mother Ash winder getting angry in a forest. If they survived, he would give the rookie quite the lecture.
Scratch that, If HE survived.
As the dragon lifted off the ground, four small paws grabbed him around the thighs and chest, lifting him from the earth as well. He was quite thankful the dragon did not have its talons unsheathed.
He watched the ground fall away as his companions shouted in fright. He was the best one on the team, and just got friggin kidnapped by a dragon
Bloody hell
Charlie Weasly watched the ground speed by under them, alarmingly fast. They sped over a lake in under twenty seconds and over a forest in half that time.
Forest? I thought we were in London? Diagon Alley
Suddenly, a foreign mind brushed over his, carrying words in a strangely accented voice.
I am sorry, sir... I wanted to talk with you alone, and get away from the others. My instincts took over. I am still trying to figure out how to land without squashing you.
Charlie stiffened at the voice, and its words.
Please brace yourself
The Weasly heeded the words, feeling the heavy winds buffeting him as the dragon's wings pumped in effort to hover. Charlie still stumbled when he hit the ground, but was able to catch himself in time to see the dragon land heavily beside him, wings tucking up to his sides.
"You're able to understand my words"
He faced the dragon squarely, his stern face masking his inner excitement. If this creature could actually understand the English language enough for mind-speak and clear English, it would be the scientific discovery of the century.
Yes
The dragon watched in amusement as the man leapt into the air, whooping in excitement. After a few minutes of watching the man make a fool out of himself, Danny took pity on his pride, coughing quietly. The man stopped jumping around like a lunatic, realizing he had an audience.
"Do you know where we are?
Danny blinked twice, looking around.
I see a village, and a weird-shaped house on a hill. I saw it in your memories, I think, but up close.
Charlie's mouth dropped open, staring at the dragon in awe.
"You flew from London to Ottery St Catchpole in... very little time. Do you know how long a Hungarian Horntail would take to fly that distance?"
The dragon looked at him quizzically, head tilted slightly.
"Nearly three days"
The reptile blinked, emotions very hard to read on its...his face. The mental voice was definitely male.
He made a soft huffing noise that rather resembled a chuckle, forelegs grabbing Charlie by the shoulders and flying toward the odd house, keeping low to the trees, as per the Weasly's rather panicked request. A few moments later, Charlie was placed gently on the front lawn while the dragon sat back on his haunches, waiting for Charlie to move before landing on all four paws, wings furling up to his sides.
"Hey...Um... Dragon? "
He turned his head toward the man, staring unblinkingly at him.
"Could I go inside without you flying off? I should tell my team that you haven't eaten me or anything..."
The dragon nodded, sitting down in a catlike manner, tail curled up around his hind legs, wings slightly spread in relaxation.
As Charlie approached the door, it was flung open, and a short woman burst out of it, tackling the Red-haired man in a smothering hug, despite her small stature.
"CHARLIE WEASLEY! You have NO IDEA how worried I was when I was flooed by the ministry THE MINISTRY for merlin's sake! They told me you were kidnapped by a weird dragon that appeared in Diagon Alley and no one was able to track you! Are you alright! Did you kill the Dragon that did this?"
"No, mum, and I am perfectly fine, if not a little windswept. I have been flying with him since he picked me up in the alley. And no, I didn't kill him. It would be a crime against all discoveries in the world if I were to kill the only dragon in history that could understand and speak a human language."
He heard a light snort in the background, as if it was the dragon's way of saying 'Damn Right it would!'
Charlie grinned like a maniac, saying quickly to his mother, who had taken the chance to look over and see the source of the odd noise, only to gasp at the sight of a rather large silver dragon sitting on the lawn, examining a gnome with mild interest. It shook its tiny fist at him when he exhaled, humid breath almost sweeping the bugger off its feet.
"Mum, this is the dragon. He is really nice, just didn't like it when one of the rookies hit his nose with a stunner."
The woman shifted slightly, glancing from the sparkling reptile to her son, speaking softly.
"You said it can understand...and speak...English."
Charlie nodded happily, and looked over at the silver dragon with hope. Instead of the usual amusement and curiosity sparkling in his orange eyes, Charlie only met the cold stare of an animal.
"Dragon? Could you please talk to my mum?" The warm eyes only seemed to get colder as the reptile lifted itself from the sitting position with a strange air of annoyance.
"Dragon?"
He visibly winced as a cold mind-voice cut across his thoughts, saddening the man.
I am not some freak to be put on display, Charlie. Remember that.
Wings spread, muscles tensing for liftoff, but paused as he heard the man's voice.
"I'm sorry, dragon; I didn't mean that, I didn't mean to offend you, I just..." The dragon had already lifted into the air, circling the house once before flying toward the clouds.
"Dragon! Wait!" Charlie shouted uselessly at the clouds, feeling a strange sense of loss at the absence of the silver-scaled creature. He jumped slightly, when a hesitant brush of mind-speak met him.
My name...is Phantom