AN: This story idea, Harry living as a hermit on an island with sea serpents, is obviously inspired by a really cool ficlet esama wrote a long while back. I became rather obsessed with the idea for a few years, writing page after page and drawing so many dragons. Ah, maybe I'll binge Temeraire books some time and work on this more, cause it really deserves to get fleshed out more than it has.
Harry's home was quiet, something he prized far above physical comforts and the entire reason his home existed where it did, but that didn't mean it was some ramshackle hut he'd set up to keep out the rain. No, his home, while offering all the peace and solitude he desired, was also quite comfortable- more so, perhaps, than it had any right to be, having been built by Harry himself.
It was a simple building, made of stone and clay and thatch, and was mostly round, if one left off the small toilet and bath rooms branching out of one wall. But it was also fairly large, the circular room taking up a sizable space and the ceiling arching up to the lowest branches of a tall, twisting tree which grew in the middle of the room. This tree was actually the main support for the ceiling, it's branches being both strong and very long, reaching out to almost the edges of the stone walls. Secured to the branches were rope and waxed cloth to hold up the thatch, leaving only a small opening on one side over the pit fire Harry cooked with. The fire pit, as well as the bed, some bookcases, trunks, a dresser, and all his collected knick-knacks were arranged around the large room along the walls.
The reason for this large but simple design, as well as the open layout, was for the sake of his companion, a rather pushy and deliberately oblivious sea serpent he'd named Silver, who never seemed to care if she happened to crush a chair or two under her bulk when following him inside. She was also the reason he no longer had any chairs.
Luckily, many kinds of feather, cotton, and straw cushions, along with an assortment of rugs, meant that sitting on the floor wasn't so bad. They were also sea serpent proof.
Harry had longed for a home for, well, most of his life, and while he'd gone through many periods of thinking he'd given up on the whole idea, he felt that this place he'd built- far away from absolutely everyone- was as close to perfect a home as he would ever get. An uninhabited island so far from any continent and almost removed from the trade currents, was the perfect place for him. Because, he'd finally realized, he didn't want to give up on having a home- he only gave up on people.
Or, at least people who were human anyway, sea serpents were alright as far as company went, so long as one didn't mind getting wet a lot of the time. Which, with a bit of careful spellwork, Harry didn't mind at all.
So, Harry's home was quiet, year in and year out, and he settled into the rhythm of seasons on his island, growing food and hunting seals, swimming with Silver and other sea serpents. He became content with speaking to the sea serpents in their own tongue, sometimes forgetting that he'd ever known any language but their sibilant singing and roars. His life was constant and peaceful and he was happy with it.
Then, one day in early spring, the solitude he'd fled to the end of the earth for was finally interrupted.
"Harry! Harry stop them now!" Silver's hissing complaints shook the walls of Harry's home and caused the thatch to send down a rain of dust. "Harry! Wake up!"
"Oh, can't you be quiet," Harry muttered, slowly digging himself out of his nest of furs and woven blankets. "I'm awake," he yawned as his head finally broke out of the warm burrow into cooler air. "What is it that couldn't wait till later?"
"Men!" Silver said indignantly. Her coils had stretched and wrapped up to fill the whole large room of the stone hut, making the wide space seem cramped and tiny. "They're on the beach and they're stealing my seals!"
"Oh." Harry yawned again and flopped back into bed. "Well, they've done that before. Just stay out of sight and they'll leave soon enough."
Harry was just making himself snug and warm once more when his blankets, and he with them, were yanked violently off the bed to tumble in a mess across the floor.
"Not like this!" Silver snarled. She glared down at him, clearly not willing to let him sleep while this invasion was going on. "There are so many more men than usual! And they're taking lots more of my seals! And they have a dragon and I'll bet that beast will take some of my seals too!" With each statement, Silver's voice grew louder, more guttural and ended every word with a hiss, so that her last echoing shout was one long drawn out screeching hissss.
"A dragon?" Harry asked from the floor. Silver nodded with another sharp hiss. "Hmmm."
It had been ages since he'd last seen a dragon, since in fact, he'd left the mainland for his island. The people who sailed past this part of the world did not particularly get along with dragons. Dragons also didn't tend to like being away from land, so weren't likely to get along with anyone who sailed. The very idea of a dragon traveling with humans on a boat seemed absolutely ridiculous- even the Han had never done it.
It… could be interesting to see.
"Alright," Harry said, standing and untangling his limbs from the many covers piled around him, "we'll go see about this 'dragon-and-men-stealing-your-seals' business."
"Finally!" Silver hissed at him and began sliding and twisting her long thick body out the wide doorway to wait for him.
Harry, meanwhile, moved over to an ancient and worn chest and pulled it open. Soon he'd yanked out an old set of travel clothes he'd magicked long ago to not wear or tear and put them on in place of his everyday tunic and belt. A warm leather cloak went over it and his nicest, and oldest, boots were jammed onto wrapped feet and then he was out the door, climbing onto Silver's back so she could rush them both down to the beach to save her meal.
Once he saw the beach, Harry could understand why Silver had come to him so upset. It wasn't just that the men down there were taking seals, they were killing them and only dragging away the largest. Dozens of wasted seal corpses, mostly yearlings and infants, were strewn across bloody sand while sailors with hooks and rope and spikes hauled dozens more back to row boats waiting at the water's edge. A huge boat, which indeed had a dragon on it, was anchored out in the small bay beyond the beach, and Harry could see men leaning over the sides with yet more hooks, pulling confused and terrified seals up in nets and gutting them.
Harry knew he'd been away from the world for longer than he could recall, but he remembered when people were always hungry, were always searching for food, and even when they came upon a bounty, none of them ever wasted as much, killed as much, as the men before him now were doing.
Silver hissed and rumbled under him, hiding just behind the crest of a rock outcrop, she clearly hoped Harry intended them to attack these interlopers, and drive them away from what wasn't theirs to destroy. But, Harry was still curious about why a dragon would ever travel on a boat in the first place and, he glanced out at the dragon sitting on the deck of a truly massive ship, he wasn't sure fighting would be in his and Silver's best interest anyway.
"Let's ask them where they're going," Harry said slowly, eyes trailing over the boat, the dragon, and the tiny people he could see moving on the deck. He was certain the ship was European, because no other people around the world made hulls and sails quite like that. But he was equally certain the dragon was Chin, because a dragon with those black scales and ruffed head could only be the rare Tien Lung. What on earth were they doing together?
"What?" Silver hissed in outrage. "Aren't we going to stop them from taking all the seals?"
"Of course we'll stop them." Harry patted the top of her head, between the spiky ridges that continued down her neck and along her whole body. "Just, I want to know about them first, and I think simply appearing before them will be enough to stop them without having to ask."
Silver snarled softly. "Why do we have to talk to them at all? They shouldn't be here! Especially not with a dragon!"
"Yes," Harry said, rubbing her head more slowly as he gazed out at the dragon on the ship. "That is rather odd. But that's why I want to ask them about it."
Silver let out a huff, but seemed to have calmed down enough to indulge Harry's curiosity without trying to kill the sailors. "Well, I hope your asking is worth all those seals! Even I can't eat them all you know!"
"I know, my dear, but lets go soon, I think they're getting ready to leave."
Indeed the men on the beach had stopped outright killing seals and were simply picking through the dead ones and hauling them away to the row boats. Seals crushed one another in their rush over the beach, desperately trying to avoid the men and escape to the water.
When Silver's body whipped around the curve of the rocky crest onto the sand, the hunting men froze in stunned silence before they too made a mad dash for the sea and the boats waiting for them.
"Hey! Wait!" Harry tried calling out from Silver's back, but they didn't seem to hear him and didn't pause. All but one man piled into the row boats, tossing aside heavy seal carcasses and taking up oars as they shoved off. Harry watched them go and directed Silver over to the fallen man, abandoned and struggling in the wet sand.
"Hello there," Harry said in English, mainly because he'd lost track of European ships and the differences between them, and partly because he always hoped to hear English when he met Europeans. "It seems your party has left you."
The man twisted in his crumpled place and stared up at Silver's snarled mouth in horror as his own gaped open like a fish's. Harry hopped down from Silver's back and walked slowly toward the poor sailor with his hands held out soothingly, hoping a human figure separate from the scary sea serpent would put the man at ease. Wide eyes flicked over Harry for a moment, until the scary sea serpent next him let out a great echoing roar that went on and on and on, out to the ocean and sending ripples on the water, out past the ship in the bay.
The frightened sailor fell to total panic and scrambled madly up from the sand to go running down the beach, away from Silver and Harry, his gasping screams fading as he went.
"Well, damn," Harry said, and he lowered his hands as he stared after the rapidly retreating figure. The man was pretty quick for a sailor.