All around him, Diagon Alley was being razed to the ground. Death Eaters were running in every direction, chasing some, escaping from others, and some were just running to add to the mayhem.
The curse had come out of nowhere. Harry hadn't even seen the wizard who'd cast it. There was just a blinding flash of green one moment, and the next Ron Weasley was dead.
Just like that. So easily, his best friend of over seven years was just igone/i.
"No." Harry repeated. The Death Eaters faded into the background, with the noise and heat from the flames and curses. Hermione was no where to be found, and for once, he was glad she wasn't hanging over him. Gathering Ron's body close, he held on as if Ron's nearness would protect him. Holding close the body, he apparated away from the destruction moments before a hex found it's way into the spot he'd been occupying only seconds ago.
He appeared at the Weasley's doorstep, and gently laid Ron's body down. "MOLLY!" He called, anguish tearing at his voice. "ARTHUR! SOMEBODY!"
The door wrenched itself open so quickly that it was nearly flung off it's hinges. "Harry? What-" Molly stared out at him in shock, before turning her eyes downward.
"There was an attack," Harry mumbled. "Diagon Alley. I never even saw who hit him." Molly was beyond hearing him, however, in her grief at the loss of her youngest son. Harry turned from the house, and walked away. He looked back only once, seeing Molly still cradling Ron's lifeless body. "G'bye, mate," Harry whispered, and apparated to Hogwarts.
Pressing past the wards on the gate, he made his way towards the front entrance. Hermione ran out to greet him.
"HARRY! Where's Ron? Are you both alright... Harry?"
Her warm voice was all it took for the last of the strength to drain from him, and he slumped forward. "He's gone, Hermione," he whispered. She paled to the point that he worried for her, and then clasped onto him so tightly he couldn't breathe properly. She sniffled a few times.
"Gone?" Harry nodded, aware that they were being watched. Several students and some of the teachers had come out to see what news Harry brought. The fact that there were students there at all worried Harry, though at first he wasn't sure why.
"Why are there students here?" He asked. Hermione turned, bottling in her grief for the moment.
"Their parents thought it best they be brought here a little bit early, while there was less of a chance of an attack..." She trailed off, and whimpered, clinging to Harry again. His own grief threatened to close his throat, and he stroked her hair. The air around them grew heated, and Harry was aware of a faint hissing noise all around. Others were hearing it, too, and they looked around in confusion. It was Hermione who looked up first, and screamed before pulling away from Harry and racing towards the school. Others began noticing it, too, and Harry once again remained frozen in place as a massive fireball fell from the sky, aiming straight for Hogwarts. Belatedly, his instincts kicked in, and he began running from the fire. It left a great scar of smoke behind it in the sky, and when it hit the castle, it shook the ground. The people closest to the blast were rocketed off their feet, and the castle itself was incinerated. The people inside barely had time to scream before they died. Harry watched it all with wide eyes, the shock and terror of what he was witnessing to great to take it all in at once. Hermione was nearby him, having been thrown from the force of the blast. Harry, who'd been knocked off his own feet when the shockwave passed, crawled to her, fearing he'd find her dead. "'Mione," he murmured, smoke clogging his throat. Hogwarts was gone. Just like that, the castle had been set ablaze with hell from the heavens, and everyone inside was dead, and the castle was quickly becoming nothing more than a burned out husk. They'd never expected an attack like that. Everyone thought that the Death Eaters would sneak their way back in, as they had done with Malfoy's help the year before, or storm the front gates, but never had anyone anticipated an attack of such magnitude. They never even had any warning. Most of the Aurors, Hit Wizards, and Medi-wizards who would be needed to deal with the mess, were combing through the ruined streets of Diagon Alley. Harry drew Hermione into his arms, and realized that she was badly burned but still breathing.
"Oh, Hermione..." he whispered, and the tears flooded his eyes. "No. NO. NOOOO!" His fury and anguish ripped itself from him in a pained scream of loss and agony that defied words. Looking towards the burned sky, he saw another massive fireball, this one veering slightly north from the castle. Harry's eyes widen as he realized where it was headed moments before impact. This time, he heard the screaming, as the people of Hogsmeade ihad/i warning, having seen the first fire fall upon Hogwarts. Closing his eyes, Harry held Hermione close and trembled at the death and destruction of everything he held dear.
Night was falling by the time Harry moved. He lay Hermione down gently, and covered her with his robes, careful to leave her face exposed in case someone assumed her dead. Taking up his wand, Harry walked off Hogwart's grounds, and this time, he didn't look back.
Three weeks later found him in France, with a travel guide and a backpack containing his few possessions. His father's invisibility cloak, Sirius' broken mirror, some of his better muggle clothes that he'd bought recently, and his wand. He'd left England without a backwards glance, all the while hating himself for a coward. "I can't do this anymore," he'd told Hermione's comatose body at St. Mungo's. They were doing everything they could for her, but she, like the rest of the victims of that day, had been poisoned by the dark magic, and only Harry's distance from the school had preserved him. St. Mungo's was overwhelmed with the dying and injured, and the Ministry had been destroyed in much the same way as the school and village, flattening everyone within it to dust and ash. The Wizarding world was in chaos, and that was when Harry made his decision to leave. Even the Muggles knew something was up, and with the majority of the Ministry decimated, only those who hadn't been in the building at the time were spared. Teams of Obliviators were being worked to the bone, and it was Bill Weasley, scarred and terrified for his pregnant wife, Fleur, who'd stood up and took control while Harry hid out at St. Mungo's. The people were gathering, though, and wanted a more reliable leader, one they knew they could count on.
They were calling for Harry Potter, Boy Hero.
Harry had gone to the remains of Gringotts, still operating despite the attack - the only thing in Diagon Alley still standing - and converted fifty percent of his vault into Muggle money, and bought the first, cheapest ticket he could on the first, fastest plane out of England.
Stopping a passing muggle in the street, he flipped the appropriate page, and probably mangled his attempt to ask for the bus.
"Est-ce que, vous m'excusez pourriez me dire comment trouver la gare routière la plus proche?"
"Certainement. C'est allumé trois blocs en bas de la route, et puis gauche -- parlez-vous français ? English?"
"Oui, English," Harry said, looking relieved. "Je ne parle pas français." It was the first thing he'd learned to say without copying from his book.
"Of course, I tell. You are walking three roads down there, and may take a left at the third road, and begin walking for five roads." His voice was so accented that Harry had difficulty keeping up with his words. "At five roads, you find train station, and at six is stop for bus. Be having a nice journey, young man!" The muggle waved at him, and continued on, and Harry counted the roads he walked until he found the bus station. Stepping inside, he smiled at the woman behind the counter. "Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais? Je ne parle pas français."
She gave him an amused look. "Oui, I speak English. What may I help you with today?"
"Thank you," Harry breathed. Getting out of the airport without the book had been hell, and he'd turned around, gone right back in, and bought the language guide. "I need the cheapest fare to -" He looked up at the cities they'd take him to. "Stuttgart, Germany." It was the farthest east they'd go, and from there he'd be able to take a plane somewhere else. At least German was closer to English.
"You are in luck, Monsieur. We have a bus departing tonight at seven o clock bound for Stuttgart. Here is your ticket." He paid the money, and took the ticket, and wandered outside, realizing that he was hungry. A quick search brought him a McDonalds, a muggle restaurant that he'd never gotten a taste for, but he iwas/i hungry.
Walking away from the building a short time later, he was feeling faintly nauseous, and vowed to never again touch another McDonalds burger so long as he lived.
A look at the clock on the wall of the bus station revealed that it was only five thirty, and he had another hour and half's wait for his bus to depart, and the time made him anxious. He needed to be farther, before they decided that he was close enough to track down and kill, or before he lost his nerve.
Remembering what was waiting for him in England, he stiffened his resolve to never return. It didn't matter where he went, he'd be safe from Voldemort so long as he had a few large countries, and maybe a body of water or two between them. Thinking on where he would go, and what he would do - never about what had happened, or who he'd lost - took him straight up to six thirty, and the bus was calling for boarding. He was the only person departing from this station, and the bus was relatively empty, but he correctly assumed that they would be picking up other passengers along their trip.
They stopped seven times from Paris, France to Stuttgart Germany, and people got on and off, and Harry had to switch buses once, but when he made it, he breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing had swooped from the sky to kill him, or accuse him, and no masked Death Eaters were waiting as he stepped from the muggle transport. After so long as a Wizard, and brooms, flooing, and Apparation, it was strange to be back in Muggle devices and yet, at the same time, a welcome change. Thinking of the Floo, he thought of Hermione shouting through it at him for some last minute supplies in Diagon Alley, which made him think of Ron, and Hermione herself, and his eyes began welling up with tears again, and he was meant to escape this, not bring it with him!
The airport he found was small, and closed for the night when he arrived, but Harry was patient. He found himself a hotel room nearby, and bought another language guide. He almost threw away the French guide, and then decided last minute to dig it from the garbage bin and keep it as a memento of his blissfully short stay in France.
"Entschuldigen Sie mich, ich möchte eine flache Karte zum Bucharest, Romania kaufen," he read out of the booklet at the man behind the counter. He had blonde hair, and pale blue eyes, and for a moment Harry had to do a double take to ensure himself it wasn't Malfoy.
"Selbstverständlich. Das Flugzeug geht nicht bis den Morgen, aber ist hier Ihre Karte." The man handed him a small piece of paper, and Harry gazed at it a few moments, before thanking him.
"Danke," he said, waving as he wandered off, his nose already stuck into the book as he tried to decipher what the man had told him.
"Bitte," the man called back, a smile on his face as he watched Harry go.
The time until he arrived in Romania passed by in a blur of strange faces and strong drink. Harry was hung over on the plane, and spent most of the trip trying not to be ill. By the time he landed, jet lag was catching up with him, and he got the cheapest hotel room he could find, and still felt like they'd swindled him out of more money than they had any right swindling, but he was too tired to care.
He slept while his body adjusted to the time change, and when he awoke nearly two days later, he realized that his life sucked.
Here he was, in Romania, with little more than the clothes on his back. He had more than enough money to get him by, but he wanted more than getting by. He hadn't given thought to his life away from England, but now that he'd achieved it, he wanted to maintain it.
He was never sure later what made the decision that he'd stay in Romania, but just a week later he was glad of it. Remembering his early hero, Charlie Weasley, he fell in with the Magical community, and the first time he introduced himself to the shopkeeper, he'd shoved his hair back from his forehead, and introduced himself as James Evans. The witch smiled at him, and inquired after his health.
The first few months in Romania passed in a blur. Most of the decisions seemed to make themselves without his brain being an active participant in the choices, but as nothing had gone wrong yet, he felt comfortable, and settled in. He'd gotten a job with the old woman he'd first met, who called him Jamie and looked after him as though he were her own son. Harry adored her, and as he mangled her name every time he tried to pronounce it, called her Rose.
"Jamie, m'boy, get out here," she called to him. Harry walked out into the front of the store to help her, pausing to plant a kiss on her cheek as he passed. She'd been teaching him to speak Romanian, and often they went days without speaking any English at all.
"Hello, may I help you?" Harry asked, and the customer turned, blinking. It took Harry a few moments to recognize the man; it had been months since he'd seen him last. And it was just Harry's bad luck that his former Potions professor would turn up in the iRomanian/i Potions ingredients shop he worked at.
"Harry?" Snape breathed, and Harry shook his head. His hair was long, and he wore muggle contacts in his eyes to disguise the green with a muddy brown colour.
"It's James now," he said softly, then added, "May I help you?" Snape stared at him, disbelief written across his features.
"How on earth did you come to be in Romania?" Did the man not know how to take a hint?
"Mama!" Harry called back, switching to Romanian. "Tonight's not a good night for me, I don't feel well. Would you mind helping this man so I may lay down?" Snape shot him a startled glance at the easy switch into a foreign language, and Harry studied him out of the corner of his eyes. Time had not been good to him, he thought. His hair was longer and greasier than ever, and his face was smudged with dirt. His clothes were torn, and dirty, and for a moment, Harry wanted to invite him down to the pub for a drink, and catch up. He knew that Snape was on the run as well, but for the both of them to end up in Romania, at the same time, in the same small, out of the way shop was too much coincidence.
"Of course, Jamie! I would not have called you but I needed to get something for another man, you go, lie down, feel better." She responded in kind, leaving Snape glancing back and forth between them, puzzling out what they were saying, and if it had anything to do with him. Rose came out, and Harry bent down to kiss her cheek, and smiled. "Good night, Jamie," she said.
"Good night, mama," Harry whispered, and took himself up the back stairs into his room. He looked around at the few things he'd collected in the six months since he'd moved in with Rose, and sighed. He was going to miss this little room above the shop.
But he couldn't stay any longer, and he knew it. If Snape knew where to find him, exiled or not he could contact someone in England, and inform them, and maybe turn over Harry's location for his own safe return, and that wouldn't do. He packed everything he could into his backpack, and when he looked at the things that wouldn't fit, he cast a spell on the pack to allow more into it, much like the spell on the tents at the World Cup. Thinking back to fourth year made his eyes well up with tears, as he remembered Ron and Hermione, and then just as suddenly as the thoughts had come on him, he shoved them away.
Sighing, he waited until he heard Rose closing the shop up, and went down to her. She saw his backpack, and the look on his face, and her eyes welled up with tears. "My Jamie," she whispered. "I have loved you as my own. You will always have a home here to return to, should you need it."
Harry had told himself he wouldn't cry, but when she offered him her home, even as he was leaving, his eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry, mama. That man today.. he would bring me back, to England, and I'm never going back. I have to leave before he returns. I love you, mama, and I'll come back when it's safe, I promise."
They hugged, and he kissed her cheek again, and then stole out into the night. It wasn't until he was farther away from the small suburb outside of Bucharest that he realized that she'd put a charm into his pocket. Pulling it out, he saw a hippogriff surrounded by a winged serpent. It didn't move, although he expected it to, and it hung on a simple leather strip that he slipped over his head. He picked up a map of Romania, and pressed his finger down onto it after closing his eyes. Checking, he found it had come down on Piatra Neamt, and chose his path northward towards the city.
"He's living in a potion shop just outside of Bucharest," Snape said quietly into the fire. "I found him by complete accident. He doesn't look a thing like his old self, however, and he speaks Romanian like he's been living there all his life. Even his English was accented. He's got some kind of glamour over his eyes; they're brown, and his hair is nearly halfway down his back. He wasn't expecting to see me."
"I understand. I'll be there just as soon as I can get out of the country. Thank you for coming to me with this, Snape. The resistance is small, but we're growing."
Snape allowed himself a rare smile. "With you at their head, I'm surprised they're growing at all."
His partner scowled. "With Potter gone, Voldemort is gaining support. People are going to him, just because they think there is no other alternative than for him to win. Finding support has been a task, but word of mouth spreads faster then Granger or Lupin, and many have sought us out. Voldemort suspects nothing, so far. I intend to keep it that way until we can bring him back."
"Good luck," Snape whispered. "Bring Freedom."
"Freedom," the other man said, and disappeared from the fire. Snape settled into the chair with a bottle of whiskey. He'd started with a glass but the conversation warranted more than that, and he'd abandoned it to the sink.
It took a week for Harry to make it to Piatra Neamt on foot, and he was fairly surprised. He'd been expecting it to take much longer than that, but then, he supposed the occasional bus ride or lift from passing strangers helped hurry the journey. By sheer accident, he walked straight into an encampment of Dragon Tamers, out in the wilderness hunting, and asked to join.
"I'm from England, almost a year ago. I had a friend who came here to tame dragons; Charlie Weasley."
"Ahh, Weasley!" One man, clearly the leader, stood up. "I remember Weasley. A better man there never was. A friend of Weasley is a friend of ours. What is your name?"
"Evans," Harry said. "James Evans."
Upon arriving in Bucharest, he was surprised to see none other than Severus Snape waiting for him.
"How did you know I was coming today?" he asked, and Snape smirked.
"I didn't. I guessed. You didn't turn up yesterday, and no one had seen you, so I tried again today, and here you are."
He scowled. "I could have been here sooner, but Voldemort is beginning to take hold on even the Muggle side of it, and getting a plane to France was damn near impossible. I had to take a boat in the end, and spent the next twenty four hours puking my guts up. I am never getting on another boat so long as I live," he muttered. "Never."
Snape surprised him by tossing his head back and laughing. "Come on. The sooner we get started the sooner we can get back to England with him."
He nodded, and followed Snape back to his hotel room. From there, they went back to the shop Snape had found Harry in originally, and he brought a photograph of Harry before the old woman.
"Harry Potter," he said, gesturing. "Have you seen him?" She smiled at him, recognising the picture.
"No," she said. "Jamie." She hunted around behind the counter for a moment, and came up with a muggle ball-point pen, then took the picture and coloured on the eyes, and drew the hair out. "Jamie," she said again. "Gone." Snape had said brown eyes and long hair, he mused, and scowled into the shop.
"Gone? When? Where?" This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd originally thought, then.
"Gone, seven days ago. Left. Don't know where. May I help you?" She smiled again, and he scowled.
"Senile old woman," he muttered, and took himself out of the shop. Snape met him at the door of the hotel room, looking amused.
"You didn't find him so easily, then?" the Potions Master asked, and he shook his head.
"Wasn't expecting to, but I hoped." He sat down and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Said he left seven days ago - I'm betting he took off right after you walked out the door."
"Probably. I'll ask around; I've been here a while, and it won't look as strange as somone as new as you poking around in their business."
"Alright."
Harry had been with the Dragon Tamers for over a year, bringing his total time spent away from England up to one year, seven months, and eighteen days. After Snape's appearance in Bucharest, he'd headed north, and fallen in with the band of 'merry men' as they sometimes referred to themselves as, and hunted Dragons. Truth be told, Harry had never been happier in his life. For the first time ever he was totally and absolutely free. There was no one telling where to go or what not to do, and there were no deranged psychopathic wizards trying to kill him. For that matter, there were no sane, slightly mad, or even mostly deranged wizards trying to kill him.
To his absolute delight, no one had been trying to kill him in over one year, seven months, and eighteen days, save for the last dragon he'd come across, and he knew enough of Dragons now that it wasn't taken personally. Shortly after joining with Raul and Luis, he'd found a dying mother, her draclings scattered in pieces around her, save one.
"Be careful, James," Luis called, and Ranjya, his fiancee, circled closer. "She'll not be wanting any company right now." Harry nodded, but he'd been doing this for nearly a month now, and was confident in his ability to cast the correct charm for flame-repelling, and the spell for keeping his feet firmly on the ground, no matter how hard the dragon pulled. Raul snuck up next to her head, and drew his sword before offering up a prayer.
"For the Great Mother, return to your mother's mother. She will receive you warmly, for you have given your life in protection for your youth. May you be reborn healthy, whole, and loved, as you have loved. Be free, Mother." On 'mother' he plunged the sword into her brain, silencing her roar of pain. Harry flinched, unable to watch the blood seep out around the blade. Keeping his eyes averted from the dead mother, he wouldn't have noticed the small movement coming from the bushes otherwise. Turning his back on Raul, Luis, Ranjya, and the others, he crept cautiously towards it, and was knocked over in surprise as a foot long winged lizard launched itself at him, growling. Steam filtered from its nostrils and it bared its teeth, but it did no real damage - having bested Harry by climbing on top of him, it wasn't sure what else it was to do next. Harry cautiously reached up, and stroked the ridges above it's eyes, and was surprised again when the baby dragon settled down and started making a purring noise deep in it's chest.
It was Ranjya who found them that way, and she tossed back her head and laughed. "Look like James' found himself a friend!" she called, and Luis followed her over.
"You've got two choices now, James," he said, looking serious. "You can kill her, or you can keep her."
"I can keep her?" Harry asked, startled anew. He'd thought that they'd make him leave her out here.
"She'll die if she's out here alone, James," Ranjya said softly, kneeling to pet the dracling. "Better to do her the mercy of killing her swiftly now than letting her starve to death."
It took Harry only moments to decide what to do with the young dracling. "I'll keep her, if it's alright," he pronounced firmly, and Luis and Raul nodded approvingly.
Ranjya knelt beside him again, and lifted the dracling into her arms. "I'll teach you of being a mother, James," she said quietly. "She'll grow quickly, so make sure you can hunt enough to feed the both of you. She's past the milk stage, thank the gods, but she'll require a lot of meat, often fresh. You can do this?"
Harry climbed to his feet, repairing the damage done to his clothes by her talons. "I'll have to, won't I?" he asked, and took the purring dragon back into his own arms.
The baby dragon, named Draci after Harry's old nemesis at Hogwarts, was more than a handful, and was often a pain in the rear. Raul's group were a happy lot, however, and dealt with her minor scrapes and tussles good naturedly. She learned the rules of the camp, and was never far from Harry. It wasn't long before she was not only hunting for herself, but bringing kills back to be shared amongst them all, though she never acquired the taste for her meat to be cooked, as her human flight preferred. She was dark green, almost black in the right lighting, and true to form, had two long, golden horns extending down the back of her neck. Luis often commented how strange it was that she had two, as most Romanian Longhorns had only one, hence the name, to which Harry laughingly replied he'd never done things the normal way, and now that he had a dragon, he wasn't about to start.
She grew rapidly, as they'd warned, and one year later had become the size of a small sedan. Harry had taught her one or two words, much to Luis and Raul's surprise - they rounded up dragons for the Reserve, and didn't spend much time around them. She often spoke 'hungry' and 'tired' or 'thirsty' and if Harry was gone from her side for more than a few hours would start up a wailing 'JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!' until he returned. The nearby towns the Tamers frequented had become used to James and his dragon, and Harry had no qualms about taking her right up to the door of the stores he'd go into and leaving her outside for a few moments. Often, if the door wasn't solid, she'd poke her head in and look around.
"What?" She called. "James, what?" The storekeep glanced over at her and laughed, seeing her poking her nose at the cat he kept.
Harry hurried over, seeing the door open and the unmistakable smell of burnt things that accompanied her. "Oh, Draci, that's a cat."
"Cat. What cat?" The nosy dragon poked at it again, and was rewarded with a plaintive meow as the cat rubbed against her scales. "Cat what?!" she nearly shouted, and Harry winced.
"She likes you. Keep your voice down, we'll get kicked out!"
"Sorry," Draci purred, nuzzling Harry as the cat had nuzzled her.
Snape had aparated into the small town on the outskirts of Turda, and strolled immediately inward, wondering what had taken his contact from England so long to track one wayward boy. He'd been told their meeting place was in a small restaurant called "Billy's", a foreign affair that had been there as long as anyone could remember. He was making his way with single-minded determination when the sight of a long, scaly tail stretching out into the road distracted him. He followed the tail up to it's car-sized body, and noticed the wings flexing, and stopped short as he realized he was about three metres from a dragon.
Blinking at the sight of the dragon poking it's head into the door of the shop, he followed it up. "Excuse me," he called. "There's a dragon on your doorstep." Laughter issued from inside, and Snape had to shift himself violently to avoid being trampled as the beast backed out of the store, turning to look at him. Snape felt uncharacteristically afraid as the dragon pierced him with blindingly molten gold eyes, and he had backed up a few steps when it opened its mouth, but when words - not flames - issued forth, he nearly did himself in by fainting.
"James! Who?" Excitedly, the dragon poked its head back in, repeating its question. "Who! Who? James!"
"Draci, calm down! If you set fire to anything in Mr Rastal's shop, we'll get kicked out! I like this shop!"
The urge to faint passed, as an ice cold rock formed in his stomach. iI recognize that voice.../i To his great surprise, Harry Potter emerged from the shop, cuddling the dragon's snout, and smiling. His hair was longer than ever, brushing his waist now, and his eyes were still brown, but the scar was unmistakeable.
"Who? James, who?" The dragon repeated, and turned to glower at Snape, who felt himself pale as Harry's gaze snapped up to him.
"Not you again," he snarled in Romanian.
"Yes, me," Snape said idly back, in the same. "That's a very nice dragon you have."
"I don't have her," Harry said, switching into English. "She's family. Why are you here?"
"What?" Draci asked, nudging him. Harry put a quelling hand on her neck, and she stiffened, feeling his tension. "What say?"
"She talks," Snape whispered, his curiousity starting to overwhelm his fear at finding the massive beast and his surprise at running into Potter again.
"I've known her since she was only a few months old," Harry answered tersely. "She's grown up talking."
"What say, James?" Draci pressed, and Harry lapsed into Romanian.
"This is a bad man, Draci," he said, holding her. "Bad man. I'm telling him to go away."
"Go away, bad man!" Draci snarled at Snape, smoke trailing from her nostrils. Her wings flared up behind her, and she raised up to her full height. Snape nearly tripped over himself he stepped back so quickly, and hurried away. iWe've got you now, Potter,/i he mused to himself, and heard the voice of the dragon behind him.
"I do good, James! Good! Bad man go away!"
"You did good, Draci, but come on. We've got to leave..." He almost turned back to eavesdrop some more, but his need to talk to the tracker was overwhelming. By the time Snape and his cohort made their plan, and went in search of Harry, he'd disappeared again.
Harry had taken Draci on the road, this time alone. "We're going away," Harry said by way of explanation.
"Away?" She'd replied, not comfortable with the smells. She wasn't dumb - teaching her to talk and understand proved that beyond any shadow of a doubt - but she didn't understand why they needed to go. "Where? Luis?" She asked, and Harry shook his head.
"Not to Luis, or Raul. They'll understand why, I told them a long time ago that I couldn't stay forever." He would miss them, and his job. He'd enjoyed camping out in the Transylvanian wilds, rounding up Dragons to bring back to the reservation. Charlie still worked there, but as he was never needed to actually go TO the reservation, the two men never ran into one another. As far as Harry knew, the only ones from Home who knew where he was were himself, and Severus Snape.
Snape was a bit of an enigma. He'd always been a mystery, veiled in shadows, his true intentions never coming quite forth, but Dumbledore had had absolute faith in him, and had his faith returned in murder. Snape was trusted by Voldemort, too, and that was enough to damn him in Harry's eyes. And now, for whatever reason, he'd got it into his head to follow Harry. While it would be harder to run with Draci, as people would remember seeing a dragon passing through, and the strange white boy who accompanied it, he also had a year and a half's knowledge of how to get by in the wild, and Draci was more than happy to hunt for them both if he gave the word.
"We're going south," Harry said finally, pointing.
"South!" Draci replied eagerly, bouncing beside him. Harry went back towards Bucharest the same way he'd come north, walking some of the way, and taking a bus for others. Draci understood to follow his bus whenever he got on one, but he mostly avoided them for her sake. This time, instead of stopping, he went all the way out of Romania and into Bulgaria. At what he considered 'the border' he stopped, and dug a deep hole. Draci paused to watch him instead of going on, as was her wont.
With miserable ceremony, Harry laid his wand to rest in the ground between Bulgaria and Romania, three feet down, where no one would find it again. When the last of the dirt had been pushed back over it, Draci nuzzled against him, purring as she had when he'd first found her. Harry leaned against her solid flank and cried, knowing even as he did so that it was a necessary step. If he wanted to leave his old life behind forever, he'd have to leave all of it.
"Come, Draci," he said some time later. "We're going to Bulgaria for a while."
Harry spent only as much time in Bulgaria as it took to pass through into Turkey. The magic there was old, and deep, the land steeped in it. Harry began practicing to draw on the magic around him, rather than focusing his own magic through his wand. To his great surprise, he found that it was easier - there was less of a drain when he pulled from the land, and his spells were stronger, lasted longer, and did more damage. He accidentally let loose a stunner on a terrified passerby who'd happened upon a sleeping Draci, and the man had been put into a coma for three days. From then on, Harry began working on focusing his pull rather than just throwing everything available into whatever spell he happened to be casting. He never stopped in any one place very long, always feeling as though he were being followed or watched wherever he went, and it wasn't until he was near Malatya on the eastern side of the country, that he caught a glimpse of his follower. A flash of white blonde hair, and a familiar sneer, and Harry was up on Draci, riding her into the nearby forest cover. She couldn't fly yet, but she could support Harry's weight on her back, and as she moved faster, he often used her as a mount, much to her own delight. He ran into Malfoy again outside of Akcakale, on the Turkey/Syria border. This time the man nearly stepped on Draci, who was practicing her chameleonic talents and doing her damndest to pretend that she was a rock. When Malfoy made a near miss with her tail, she stood up and snarled at him, startling a few decades off the blond's life, Harry would have bet anything. "Draci! Come! We're leaving!" Harry snapped, and she left Malfoy where he'd fallen, barely slowing to allow Harry to jump onto her back as she passed him. Malfoy watched them in complete surprise, not having known he was so close to his quarry.
"Damn!" Draco swore, and Harry grinned as he raced away. Harry paused outside of Saluq in Syria, realizing that the magic around him was getting stronger. Draci was increasing in size almost daily, it seemed, and had now begun flexing her massive wings, attempting to lift herself off the ground. Harry often sat on her, hoping to train her to fly with him, and her vocabulary increased as she aged. At Abu Kamal on the Syria/Iraqi border, she'd surprised him by turning her head and forming a complete sentence.
"James, why does that man follow us?" Harry blinked at her in surprise before laughing. "Is this funny?" she asked, looking put out.
"No, not funny," Harry replied. "I just hadn't realized you'd gotten so good with talking."
"I practice, while you sleep. I sometimes listen at doorsteps, like in Home. I would like to learn English, but first, why does he follow?"
"He follows, I think, because he doesn't like me, and he wants to kill me. Or at least, he used to. I don't know any more. I know that I'm not going to let him get near you."
"I protect you, James. Now, english. Teach me to talk in your tongue, James."
Months passed, Draci grew stronger, and more intelligent, and Draco Malfoy was never more than one or two cities behind them. Harry figured it had been approximately four years since he'd left England, and he missed it less and less every day. With Malfoy on his heels and Draci at his side, he felt he had everything he needed to just keep going. He developed an amazing aptitude for languages, picking up words here and there until he managed coherent sentences. He still picked up a dictionary wherever he went, adding it to the collection in his back pack. He'd almost forgotten that his name was Harry Potter; he'd been James Evans for so long that he responded automatically, rather than forcefully, and even the few Harry's he'd met no longer made him nervous. Because of Draci, he spent much of his time on the outskirts of cities, roaming forests and deserts, keeping out of the way of every one who might kill him. Because of this forced exile, he was surprisingly behind the times when it came to events in England, and when he came upon a magical community, he was shocked at the headlines they'd brought him.
England was under Martial Law, Voldemort taking the opportunity to take over. Harry's flight from his homeland had spurred him on to greater heights of destruction and madness, and England was slowly breaking down. Dark Creatures roamed the streets untamed, people were dying by the thousands, and not even the muggles were safe. More and more people were siding with Voldemort, if only to be out of his target range - if they were on his side, and unimportant, he rarely noticed them, which made it safer. Harry had fled the small town as fast as his feet could carry him, and he nearly went right past Draci, who caught up to him shortly after he'd fallen to the ground breathless. The night air was cool in his lungs and against his heated skin, and though she pressured him to reveal what had happened, he simply clung to her and cried.
He was halfway through Saudi Arabia, trying to push thoughts of England from his head, when he saw the road sign leading to Riyadh. He knew of the city from the small community he'd settled with for a few days, and knew that Draci would be welcomed there, and turned towards it. He'd picked up more arabian looking clothes, though they did nothing to hide the sun from his skin. He was burned as brown as any Arab man, and with his dark hair and contacts, fit in quite well. It was in Riyadh that his next great surprise sprung itself on him.
Draci tugged him out into a deserted section of the city, mostly ruins of the old country, and flashed him a draconic grin before lifting herself off the ground, and flying. Whooping and hollering, Harry ran with her as far as his feet would take him, celebrating. "You did it, Draci! You're a real dragon now!" Later, she curled around him to keep him warm in the desert night air.
"I am glad to fly," she said quietly. "Now we do not need to walk so far." Harry laughed.
"You've still got a bit of training to do before you can fly with me, sweetheart," he told her. "You may not think much of flying with me, but you'll have to strengthen your wings and your back, and learn to balance me so that I don't slip off - don't worry, I'll learn too, but it'll take some time. Do you know where you want to go?"
"I do not like this desert air. I long for the forest, where it is green, and everything is not burned brown by the sun. Even you are brown!"
"It helps," Harry whispered. "It helps me to escape my past." Throughout their journey, he'd told her of his life, and she'd done what she could to tell him it was alright.
"No one could have expected you to stay," she whispered as he told her of his exodus. "Not after that. If I lost you here, in this miserable desert, I never again would come back. You are my only friend, James."
Harry gripped her neck firmly, hugging her tight. "You are my friend, too, Draci," he whispered. Neither slept well that night.
Aware that Draci was sick of the desert, Harry turned them east again, towards the greener places. Gradually, he became aware that he was no longer being followed, and wondered what had become of Malfoy.
"Perhaps he stood too long in our dust and was struck down by lightning," Draci suggested, amusement colouring her voice. Harry had laughed for hours over that, and Draci took every opportunity to needle the blond for his entertainment.
"I know what happened to him," she announced one day as they were crossing the border into Yemen. Harry, on her back, rubbed his hand along the spines at her neck.
"Oh?" he asked curiously. She turned her head, nodding at him.
"He realized that I was not stone, and his jaw fell to the ground, and while it was there, the drool fell out and stuck him fast."
Harry howled with laughter at the images she created. When she wasn't thinking up dire fates for Malfoy to have befallen, she was telling stories. Draci told wonderfully imaginative stories, with princes and princesses and fairies and merpeople, and unicorns, and dragons, and wizards, and witches, and muggles, and snakes. Anything she saw was liable to become another tale, and Harry swore that one day, he was going to write them down and sell them as childrens' books. The credit, of course, would go to Draci Evans, and no one would ever need to know that the author was in fact, a dragon.
In Yemen, near the city of Aden, Draci surprised a few decades off of Harry's own life, by suddenly stopping and lifting them both into the air. Harry clutched at her shoulders, but didn't fall, and thumped her for scaring him.
"Don't ever do anything like that again!" he said, and laughed. She laughed with him, and took him across the Gulf of Aden towards Somalia, in Africa. Harry realized he'd been six years on the road with his dragon, and wondered where the time went. It seemed only a few months ago he was struggling to communicate with the French woman at the bus station. So much had happened in the interim that he hardly felt like himself any more. He liked the nomad he'd become much more than the boy hero everyone had expected back Home. Without his friends, he would have failed anyway, and running, while cowardly, was his best hope for surviving. He and Draci spent almost a year in and around Mogadishu in Somalia, when Draco Malfoy finally caught up to them, catching them in the act of bathing.
Harry stripped to the skin, leaving his clothes and backpack in a neat pile beside Draci's stone form. She'd discovered a small oasis in the middle of a large forest that reminded Harry of the Forbidden Forest outside of Hogwarts. Briefly, he wondered if they'd burned it to the ground, or if it just stood silent guard around the ruins of his beloved school. Shaking off the bad memories, Harry dove into the waterfall-fed pool, floating calmly. He swam for a while, then stood on a ledge near the waterfall, and dipped his head under it. His hair reached his knees now, and he often braided it to keep it out of the way. His hard living and constant travel had worn away the slight flab he'd developed doing nothing but Quidditch, and he was almost slender in his thinness. In fact, he often thought that if his chest were bigger, or if he chose to wear a padded bra, he'd be mistaken for a woman! It was an intriguing thought, and he often entertained ideas of strolling back into England disguised as a Turkish woman, covered from head to toe in veils and secrets. He shook the notions away as quickly as they came; he never wanted to return to England, and that was that. Tilting his head back into the spray of icy water, he wondered what had happened to Malfoy. Had he indeed been stuck to the ground by his own drool, or been struck down as Draci had suggested? The ideas made him smile, and it was only Draci's surprised shout that gave him enough time to dodge the streak of red light that came his way. Floating in the water, he dredged up all the natural energy he could from the water, and cast it at whoever had sent the stunner at him, effectively canceling out the next one.
"Who are you?" he demanded, standing up despite his nudity. He had nothing to be ashamed of, and his clothes would have hampered him if it came to a fight. "Come out!"
"You asked for it," came a vaguely familiar voice. "I was trying to do this the easy way, however." Draco Malfoy emerged from the trees, and Draci was on her feet immediately, snarling and showing her teeth. Malfoy held his hands up, his wand dangling loosely from his fingers, and he set it by the waters edge and backed away from it. To Harry's surprise, he stripped off his shirt and trousers, explaining after he'd clothed himself. "I'm entirely unarmed," he said. "The same cannot be said for you. I know you don't have a wand on you. How did you stop my magic?"
"Why should I explain to you?" Harry asked. The years and travel spent hunting him down hadn't been as kind to Malfoy as they had to him. He looked a touch sunburned, and his clothes were filthy, as if he'd been wearing the same ones for days on end and rolling in mud. His hair was short, but long enough to be pulled into a dirty ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he looked as though he hadn't slept well or eaten a decent meal in weeks. "You look like hell," he added against his own will.
Malfoy gave him a look that was pure interest. "You don't," he said speculatively, and Harry felt the ridiculous urge to cover his body.
"James," Draci said softly, and Malfoy jumped back several feet.
"Sweet Morgan, mother of Mordred!" he shouted, looking up in unadulterated terror at the dragon that had come from seemingly nowhere. "The last time I saw you you were tiny!"
Draci gave him a snooty look, and turned back to Harry. "James," she said again, and switched into Romanian. "I don't like him. He smells like he's been sleeping with sheep, and from what you've told me, the fact that he's followed you all the way here cannot bode well."
Malfoy watched the words flow easily from the mouth of a dragon, and though his mouth hung open in surprise, he managed to keep his comments to himself. When Harry answered back in the same tongue, he wondered again if it had been wise not to learn the languages of the places he'd been, as Harry obviously had.
"I know, Draci," he said. "But I'm stronger than him now, even when he has his wand, and if need be, you can pick me up out of the water and we can get away. If he's followed me HERE, of all places, then maybe it's time I stopped running." Turning to Malfoy, he narrowed his eyes. "I'll talk to you, but you leave your wand with me while--"
At Malfoy's confused look, Harry blinked, and then blushed slightly under his tan. When was the last time he'd blushed? Switching to English, he repeated his words. "I'll talk to you, but your wand is mine while you're here. Draci doesn't trust you, and neither do I, but if you're here, you must have something to say."
Malfoy nodded, then fell to his knees. "Please, Harry, please come back!" he whimpered, and Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. "We need you! It's terrible back home. Voldemort has taken over everything. He's destroying England. No one can stop him, and most of the Order is gone."
"Why should I believe you? The last time I saw you, you were running like a coward away from the Death Eaters and Dumbledore's death - that you couldn't even do yourself!" Harry couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"I was pardoned before Voldemort destroyed the ministry. I've joined the fight against Voldemort! He killed my family - not just my mother and father, but my aunts and uncles, grandparents. Everyone is gone."
"Then get your scrawny white ass back to England and take your revenge! Don't follow me around like a lost puppy!" Harry snapped, his patience fraying. Seeing his old nemesis on his knees and begging so piteously was upsetting the world order he'd created for himself. It was him and Draci versus everyone, and now Malfoy was trying to bring that apart.
"I can't. The prophesy. You're the only one who can take him down. And now, I know you can do it. I'm one of the strongest wizards still left to the side of the Light, but you stopped my spell as though it were a noisy bug near your ear. You've got to come back and help us! Please Harry!"
"Shut up!" Harry shouted, even as Draci reared up, smoke falling from her nose.
"Why does he call you Harry, James?" she asked in English. "Why? Who are you, Malfoy, that you can come here and expect him to return with you? We are happy! Leave us to it."
Malfoy looked as though he were about to wet his pants, he was trembling so hard. Harry took an almost pity on him, even as his heart hardened against Malfoy's pleas.
"Look," he said. "I'm not going back. Not for anything, or anyone. There's nothing there for me anymore. Nothing!" Malfoy looked like he was about to open his mouth again, but Harry silenced him with a look, rising out of the water. Malfoy's mouth dropped open at the sight of him, and he stared unabashedly as Harry dressed. "I'm never going back, Malfoy, so you can just go back and fight your own fight."
"I'm not going without you, Potter," Malfoy said, getting to his feet as soon as Harry was covered. "I followed you out six years ago to bring you back, and I'm not going back without you."
"Then you can keep following me forever," Harry snapped, turning to Draci and switching into Romanian. "He calls me Harry, because that used to be my name. Harry Potter was a boy who lost everything, and everyone dear to him. I am James now, because James is stronger, and the only thing I have to lose is you."
"You'll never lose me!" Draci said, flames leaping from her nose as she spoke. "Never!" Malfoy leapt back, thinking that she was about to attack. Harry leaned up and hugged her tightly. "Lets go, Draci," he whispered, and pulled on his back pack even as he wrapped the scarf around his face to protect him from the sun. He jumped onto Draci's back as she lifted off, the downdrafts flattening Malfoy into the ground.
"WAIT! POTTER!! HARRY!!!"
Draci circled a few times before flying off back towards Mogadishu. Draco Malfoy watched them go, tears prickling at his eyes. He'd caught the name James, and Harry Potter in the rapid language that flowed smoothly from Harry's mouth, and wondered what they'd discussed that had the dragon so inflamed.
He retrieved his wand, and apparated back into his hotel at Mogadishu, calling Snape's mobile phone to report.
"Snape," came the voice at the other end. Draco finally allowed the tears to fall.
"I found him, Severus," he whispered, wetness coating his cheeks. "I found him, and that ruddy dragon. She's massive now. I tried, I tried to talk to him, but he said he's never going back." Actually, now that he thought about it, Harry had said there was nothing there for him. Maybe he just needed a reason to go back?
"Is he well?" Severus asked, after a brief pause. Draco fell back onto the dingy bed he'd sat on.
"I'll say. I've never seen anyone more well in my life."
"Draco, tell me you didn't waste time ogling him," Severus said, sounding bored.
"He was naked!" Draco said in his own defense. "And excuse me for needing a moment to compose myself, my entire life has only revolved around him for the past fifteen years!"
"Compose yourself now, Draco," Severus said. "Tell me exactly what happened."
The next time he ran into Malfoy, he was alone, Draci having opted to stay behind in their sanctuary. Having found them there once, Harry was expecting Malfoy to assume they wouldn't be back, and had gone back for that exact reason. He was in town, buying fruit and some bottled water, and Malfoy bumped into him at the market, completely on accident.
"Excuse me-" he started, and then blinked. "Harry?"
"Evans," Harry said icily, and paid for his produce. Malfoy followed him to the edges of town, and Harry's well-earned indifference melted away. "Call me James, and I'll talk to you," he said finally. Malfoy blinked.
"Alright, James," he said uncertainly, and Harry reached out into the power surrounding them, and apparated them both back to Draci's side. Malfoy immediately toppled over, clutching at his head, but Harry sat down calmly and began eating his fruit.
"Did you bring anything back with you?" He asked Draci, noticing that she was licking her bloody mouth clean. She nodded, and dragged forth a pair of rabbits, slightly charred and smoking, but otherwise whole. "Ooh, rabbit," Harry said, and stuffed the fruit into his mouth while he dug his knife out of the pack. Malfoy was still righting himself from the influx of power not his own, and when he next glanced over at Harry, he was surprised to find him naked from the waist up, his sandals and shirt next to Draci, who was purring contentedly. Harry was wielding a wide-bladed knife easily, skinning the rabbits, and cutting away parts like their feet and ears and- Draco shuddered, looking away as Harry calmly beheaded the rabbits. The heads he chucked into the forest, uncaring of the blood that splattered across him. The feet and ears, and other tender parts he offered up to Draci, who gave a dragonly grin and ate them in one bite. With one hand, Harry started a fire in a small pit next to the dragon, and set up a spit, cooking the skinned and gutted rabbits. To Malfoy's utter and absolute horror, he reached with one bloody hand back over to the fruit, and ate it, blood and all, before tossing the inedible seeds into the surrounding woods.
"that's disgusting," he whispered, and Harry looked back at him, then down at himself in surprise, as if only then realizing that he looked like a barbarian.
"Sorry if I offend your delicate sensibilities, Malfoy, but I've been by myself for a long time." He did wash his hands off in the water, however, and Draco watched mystified as the stream coming from the small pond carried it away. He took the time to assess the changes in Harry.
He was whipcord thin, but his muscles stretched the skin across his back and arms, lending him a wiry sort of strength. Draco hadn't fared nearly so well on the nigh-on seven year hunt, and had more often than not gone hungry. His muscles were there, but not nearly so defined as Harry's were, and the other man made him feel small, despite the distinct height difference - Harry would never be tall, not like Draco's willowy length, but he made up for it in stature. To his great surprise, Harry tossed him some fruit and a bottle of water.
"You look like you haven't eaten in weeks," Harry said by way of explanation, motioning a hand in the direction of Draco's ribs, which protruded through his skin.
"I haven't, really," Draco said, and tore into the fruit with abandon. When Harry offered him a second, he didn't turn it down, though he shook his head at the proffered third. "What will you eat?" he asked, somewhat jokingly.
"Well, there's fruit in the forest, it's just not as good as what they get in the market. It's a simple thing for me to apparate in and buy some more, and anything I can't take care of myself, Draci gets for me." Draci's eyelid twitched at the mention of her name, but she otherwise slept on.
Draco, who had been expecting another frosty brush off, took in the details with surprise. When Harry handed him a stick with what looked like a nearly whole rabbit still on it, his stomach nearly turned. Seeing the look on his face, Harry shrugged, tearing off some of the meat from his own rabbit and chewing softly. "God, that's good," he murmured, swallowing worshipfully. Draco iwas/i hungry, despite the fact that the food he was expected to eat really did make him sick, and he delicately tore off his own strip and swallowed it. It was tender, and flavour burst across his tongue and before he'd even finished chewing he had another piece in his mouth, moaning around the meat.
"This is the best thing I've ever eaten," he said, honestly, and Harry flashed him a grin. HIs hair was down, and falling around his shoulders, and Draco suddenly wished that they'd been friends so long ago at school. He knew that Harry was a loyal friend; Granger had proven her point again and again, despite being Draco's most loyal supporter herself. They'd worked out their differences when she'd awoken from the coma after the attack on Hogwarts. Harry had been long gone, and Voldemort was gaining strength with each passing day, and Draco had taken her aside and explained, and told her he was beginning a resistance movement against Voldemort. Charlie Weasley was holding down the fort in Harry's absence, but he had a job to return to in Romania, and the people refusing to join Voldemort needed a leader. Draco intended to become that leader.
When he'd informed his ragtag group of crusaders against Voldemort that he was going in search of Harry, he was met with disdain, disbelief, and scorn, but he'd left anyway. And now, after a long, hard search, here he was, five feet away from the man who had consumed so much of his life, and like a rock, Potter was stubbornly refusing to come back.
Meanwhile, Harry was giving thoughts of his own a run around. He couldn't keep running forever, no matter how hard or desperately he wanted to. And Malfoy seemed genuine, and the detection spell he'd cast as soon as Draco had occupied himself eating told him that there were no untoward intentions behind his visit. He really wanted Harry to come back to England, and fight Voldemort.
He closed his eyes, leaning against Draci, who started purring loudly. "Draci," he whispered. "I think..."
She answered him in kind, replying in Romanian. "You think? What do you think that you need to hide from Malfoy?"
Draco blinked at them, hearing the sibilant hiss of Dragon-speak form his name.
"I think... it's time I went Home," he whispered, and Draci's purring increased.
"You will take me home to your England?" she asked. "We will fight this Voldemort?"
Draco's interest was captured completely when she said England, followed by Voldemort. What was Harry telling her?
"Malfoy," Harry said, turning to him. "Fine," he said. "I'll go back to England."
-FIN-
AN: WHAT DID YOU THINK!? I love this. I love Draci, and I love the idea of an exotic Harry, and a nice, rebel-leader Draco... It's all fun. I don't know where this idea came from... just that it's here. And I wasn't sure how to finish it. At first, Harry was going to win, and rebuild Hogwarts, and all that and a bag of chips, and then I thought that that ending sucked, and asked my girlfriend who told me to twist it, and make Harry lose in the end, and I wasn't sure which I wanted to do more, so I just left that part off. I may write a sequel to this, depending on how well it's received. Remember to feed the author!