The boy who was trolled
Chapter 10
…
Something was wrong, he knew it the moment he achieved consciousness. His body ached, that was normal. It was the feeling he'd come to associate with another reset, or waking from a three-day bender, thank you Sirius.
It was everything else that was wrong. For starters, his body was not ten years old. It wasn't eleven either, or twelve, or thirteen. He wasn't sure, but it felt like he was at least eighteen. He was full grown anyway, and naked as a jaybird.
That was the next thing. He hadn't woken up naked with a hangover in at least three resets so it probably wasn't that. Though if Luna showed up with a python draped over her he might have to reconsider.
"Where am I?"
He couldn't see. At least that hadn't changed. He pushed himself up into a kneeling sit and focused on integrating his last life. Noting special, he'd toyed with Voldemort a few years before sealing him away and moving on with his life, again.
He waited till he'd processed everything before making a slight adjustment to his eyes and taking a look around. He'd long ago learned a trick for fixing his poor vision and good thing, or he would have missed the magnificent splendor all around him.
He'd spent more than his fare share of time in various forests and woodlands, but he'd never seen anything like this. Trees rose up hundreds of feet like titanic towers of green. The normal sized trees squeezed in between seemed like pygmy's walking among giants.
A gentle breeze kissed his skin and blew old leaves into the air. Nearby a bush shook before producing a fuzzy sort of rabbit creature. It twitched its nose and rubbed its face before looking around and hopping away, not even sparing Harry a glance.
"Must be busy" he mused.
Taking in his surroundings he came to the obvious conclusion, he was not in his cupboard. In fact, he could confidently say, he was not in Britain, or Ireland. He wasn't sure it was a stretch to say he wasn't anywhere in Europe either.
He'd seen much of Europe and never been anywhere like this. This was different, new. He didn't like it.
New was rarely good, for him anyway. New always brought problems he would doubtless be expected to solve. And even if he wasn't, he'd still probably be inconvenienced by whatever it was and wind up doing it anyway.
He thought about just sitting there, waiting for whatever it was to come find him. That lasted for about five minutes when his boredom and his curiosity ganged up on him and forced him to go exploring.
Probably for the best, his butt was starting to itch.
His walk through the forest brought out his old druid who marveled at the vibrance of every living thing. All the trees, great and small were brimming with life. Animals darted between trunks and scurried around under bushes going about their business with such industry it was a sight to see.
The forbidden forest had been nothing like this. The life there had been cold and dank, almost necrotic at times. This place brimmed with warmth and vitality.
His musings were interrupted by a sudden wind and a long dark shadow falling. Something massive flew over, high up above the tree tops. A low rumble like thunder shook the trees and every living thing cowered in its hole or fled. All but Harry.
Harry had seen many a strange beast in his day but never anything of this magnitude. He had little doubt what it was, but the size. He'd never even heard of a dragon this size, but there was no question that is what it was.
The shadow began to pass but Harry ran after it. It may have been foolhardy and reckless, but on the other hand it was foolhardy and reckless, two perfectly good reasons to do anything.
As he chased the long patch of dark he noticed the trees began to shrink. It was hard to tell at first but when he could clearly make out the tops he knew he must be coming to the edge.
His assumption proved true, the forest fell behind giving way to a vast open field and Harry got his first look at what he'd been chasing. It was leviathan, the most enormous 'thing' he'd ever seen. The body alone was gargantuan but it's wings, reaching out for miles in either direction made it seem all the more massive. Certainly bigger than all the smaller dragons that swarmed around it.
Harry hadn't even time to wonder at what they were doing when the titan gave off a roar that shook the earth and everything else for miles, including Harry. A single stroke of its giant wings sent it sailing up beyond the clouds and out of sight while also blowing the smaller dragons into a hissing spitting fury descending toward the earth.
"Well this can't be good."
The swarm of dragons hit terra firma like a meteor. Harry felt the impact even well away from the landing zone as he was.
His distance did not save him from being noticed however, and a trio of those still in the air stooped at him like giant falcons, strafing white hot lines of fire across the ground he had but a moment before been occupying.
"Shit!"
The short distance apparition had saved him from flaming death, but it wasn't enough to lose them. They zeroed in again like winged bloodhounds and attempted once more to turn him to cinders.
Again, he avoided then turned to face them. He dared not try a long-distance movement, having no idea where he was, which left him with only one option.
He waited till they turned for another run then, digging his hands into the ground he yanked out a massive earthen clod. Spinning around twice he hurled his projectile at the largest of the three, knocking the surprised beast from the air and crushing it under the heavy clod.
The attack, surprising to the dragons, cut short their attack and the other two fled to the sky.
Harry didn't expect they'd stay up there long and wasn't about to give them the chance to regroup. Crouching slightly, he sprang from the ground, shooting into the sky like a giant naked arrow.
He buzzed the dragons once to rile them further before turning back to face them. They were clearly agitated by his presence in the sky, but it didn't stop them long. Streams of fire flew his direction only to stop just short and begin coalescing into a single ball.
Their attack continued till they ran out of breath, in which time Harry's fireball grew bigger than either dragon.
While the dragons caught their breath, Harry compacted his giant fireball into a white-hot sphere the size of his head. Seeing their attention return to him, he wound up and threw an inside slider directly between the two dragons.
The orb exploded like a half ton of TNT, sending both beasts hurtling toward the ground at fatal velocity.
Floating in the air half a mile up Harry could still feel the heat of the field below him burning. Off in the distance dragons continued to swarm and burn. He didn't understand. He had absolutely no point of reference for any of this.
To make matters worse, a new party joined the fray when a group of giants approached and began hurling boulders at the dragons.
Some of the dragons stopped swarming and started attacking the giants but Harry remained where he was, silently watching.
Things had changed. This was all new and he didn't like it one bit.
But why, why had it changed? He didn't know, and he liked that even less.
It did however answer the question that had been at the back of his mind since his first reset.
No, this was not happening by accident. Someone was fucking with him. And it was high time he figured out who.
