Chapter 10

Harry first noticed that the Island had moods. Sometimes trails would lead to different places. Once, he ended up at the edge of a huge desert. Another time he ended up in a rain forest. He always turned around and went back to the cave when this happened. He politely told the Island that he wasn't big or smart enough yet to explore without his friends. The Island didn't seem upset about it so Harry didn't worry.

Scar called him to the treasure horde when the weather began to get colder. "Humans need foot protection," the great dragon explained and picked out some long silver pieces from his hoard. He carried them to the front of the cave with a puzzled Harry following. He selected a large boulder scratched out long thin lines with a single claw. "I'm going to breathe fire now, nestling," he said and Harry moved out of the way and watched with interest as Scar melted the silver into the thin lines of the boulder. Harry stared at the glittering molten silver and said, "You made a mold!"

Scar looked very pleased. "You are a smart nestling. Can you guess what they will be?"

Harry frowned, "I'm sorry, my Sire, but all I can think of is knitting needles."

Scar laughed, "That is exactly right. You are going to learn to knit."

The next day, Scar popped two silver knitting needles out of the rock and went with Harry to find the Unicorn herd. Dances was the first to see them, and Scar bowed to the herd, "I need someone to help me teach my nestling how to knit." Dances laughed, and came forward.

Harry already had a supply of knitting material in a bright blue that Scar had popped out of an old box made with jewels. It had no knitting needles, but the yarn was thick enough for a first lesson.

"The first thing you must do nestling, is set up the yarn on a knitting needle," said Scar. Then Harry realized why he needed Dances, because his claws were too large to deal with the needles he had made for Harry, so he was going to use Dances' horn to show him how to set up.

"Hey be careful," said Dances, "I need that horn."

"Sorry," muttered the dragon, while using his claws gently to set up yarn on the beautiful horn. Harry couldn't help it, he giggled. "I bet this has never happened before in all of history," he said.

"And it never will again," said Dances with a snort. "Keep still," said Scar. Harry watched carefully (between giggles) and was able to duplicate the action with his smaller dragon-made needles, and was soon figuring it out.

He quickly duplicated what Scar had done. "Whheeeee", said Dances, and quickly divested himself of Scar's knitting, and raced out of the cave, rejoicing in his freedom from crafting. Scar snorted.

Scar didn't know how to make socks, but they were able to measure Harry's feet and make tubes and finally sew them together with yarn. Harry was pleased

Next Scar gave him some kind of a hair brush which he was instructed to use to prepare wool and fur Harry gathered from thorn bushes and trails. Then he was given a golden spindle and figured out how to turn this into yarn. He would walk alone searching for food and spin as he walked. Harry liked the feeling that he was taking care of himself like a grownup. He never wanted to leave here, never.

Next came leather from animals that Scar had eaten. Since he usually ate things whole, providing uncooked and unchewed skins was a challenge. After that, prepping the leather took a lot of messy work, but Harry learned to tan the leather and made himself his own shoes, and finally, after trial and error, boots for winter.

Because winter was coming, Harry wouldn't have access to the magic fruit of the Isle as food, so he had gathered fish in a roughly made net and learned to gut and prep the fish and then to smoke it in the cavity of a dead tree. The fish was delicious. He also gathered fruit and dried it, after explaining the situation to the trees. Dances with Wind showed him roots that Dances felt were delicious. Harry wasn't sure they were that delicious but figured it was like eating vegetables and stored them carefully. He gathered grasses and nuts meticulously and ground them on a mortar and pestle made of stone that Scar made him, after several experiments where he destroyed the stones completely. He made nutty pancakes and stored roots with the dried fish for winter. He asked bees if they could share some of their honey and never got stung.

And he finished making his embroidered sign that said "Scar's Lair" with a laboriously done picture of Scar on it. Shyly he gave it to Scar on the first day of snow. "What is this?" asked Scar, tilting his great head to the side.

"It's a sign showing this is your lair, Scar." Said Harry, hoping Scar would like it. He put it up near the front of the cave so Scar could see it. "I know it is not a treasure, but I made it for you."

Scar was terribly pleased. "My definition of treasure just changed," he said.

Piers went to school that day dreading see Dudley and the gang, and thinking how Harry must have dreaded to see his face when he helped with all the Harry Hunts. God, he despised himself. But he was going to do better; for himself and Mum. And Piers realized when he sat down in homeroom that besides Dudley's gang, no one was a friend. He'd beaten up everyone or terrorized them.