The Big Four

As soon as he had arrived the man was gone again, jumping over the four and charging towards something behind them. There were the sounds of minor explosions all around as they sat up from the grass, the night sky above them painted an eerie orange by the flames.

'So…what happened?' Jack asked as Rapunzel touched the tip of her wand to her leg and uttered a few simple spells, sending a white sheen over the burn that was down it which began to melt away under newly growing skin.

'I, uh, apparated us all to Berk,' Hiccup explained as he looked around his old home, 'I also think we're under attack.'

As he said that a group of dragons flew over the edge of hill they were on and spotted the four with half-maddened eyes. Roaring they leapt at the four who raised their wands a fraction of a second too late. The dragons, however, were bowled over by another four dragons that ripped and bit at the attackers before making them retreat by flying back the way they had come.

'Well look who the Gronkle dragged in,' a familiar voice said from atop the blue Deadly Nadder, Stormfly. The four looked up into the face of Astrid who sat along her dragon in a nonchalant manner.

'As if we didn't have enough problems, now we have to add Hiccup to the list,' Snotlout joked as he smiled down to the four from the back of his Monstrous Nightmare, Ripfang.

'Is it another raid?' Hiccup asked back as Rapunzel turned to deal with Jack's shoulder which began to knit together quickly.

'Forty Gronkles, ten Monstrous Nightmares, a few Zipplebacks and the twins say they saw a Swedish Shortsnout,' Fishlegs related as fast as he could in the usual voice he used when discussing dragons.

'Not to break up the reunion,' Ruffnut said from her side of her and Tuffnut's Zippleback, 'but shouldn't we be, like, getting back to the fight.'

'No, we should take Hiccup to his dad first stupid,' Tuffnut mocked from his side.

'Actually that'd be great,' Hiccup interrupted before they could get any further into a fight, 'Take us to my dad, we'll do what we can from there.'

'Alright, get on,' Astrid agreed, nodding to the dragons. Each of the four quickly jumped behind one of the four Berkians, the moment they all touched the backs of the dragons their riders urged them forwards and up, leaping into the air.

'Told you he'd want to go to his dad,' Tuffnut continued towards his sister while Rapunzel, sitting in the fork between the Zippleback's two heads Barf and Belch, rolled her eyes.

'Shut up loser. You just wanted an excuse to get out of the fighting,' Ruffnut retaliated.

From the back of Ripfang Jack sat in a sort of half-crouch behind Snotlout, who had the only handhold on the dragon, its horns.

'So, uh, you and Hiccup,' Snotlout said awkwardly as he looked over at Hiccup who had his arms wrapped around Astrid's waist as they flew along on Stormfly.

'Yeah,' Jack said unsurely, not knowing where this was going.

'Are you guys…still going strong?'

'Very strongly yes,' Jack said, still unsure what was happening.

'So, you don't think Hiccup would mind if I told him that Astrid and I are sort of, uh…' Snotlout asked, pausing at the end and leaving the sentence to hang in the air unspoken.

'He already knows,' Jack answered matter-of-factly, not making eye-contact with the other boy in case he burst out laughing, 'Astrid told him.'

'And he was okay with it?' Snotlout asked hopefully, 'Even though he used to have a sort of thing for her.'

'He doesn't seem unhappy about it, but I think that's mainly to do with the fact he has sex with men now,' Jack answered, amazed at his own ability not to laugh when he saw Snotlout's face redden with embarrassment.

Luckily, that was when they arrived at the Great Hall, carved into a one of Berk's cliff faces, where Hiccup's father Stoic stood, surveying the battle. The four dropped from the backs of the dragons onto the ground, allowing the four Berkians to ride of and continue fighting the attackers. Merida was especially relieved to get off Fishlegs' Gronckle, Meatlug, as she had been forced to precariously balance on the dragon's stubby tail because the rest of the dragon had been taken up by Fishlegs.

'Hiccup? What are you doin' here? What is he doin' here?' Stoic asked in surprise at spotting his son, first talking to Hiccup then turning to his second in command.

'I apparated us here dad,' Hiccup explained quickly, pulling his dad's focus back to him.

'Lucky it was you that was doin' it,' Stoic rumbled, 'anyone else and they'd have been bounced back out ta sea.'

'How's the fight goin'?' Merida asked as she looked over the different levels of the village which were all covered in several stages of battle.

'Not well,' Stoic admitted with a warrior's knowledge of fighting, 'with Gobber takin' care of the other kids in Hogwarts we've lost our best smith. The others are doin' what they can but they can't get the weaponry fixed quick enough every day and it's hell fightin' dragon with shoddy blades, especially since we don't want ta kill them.'

'Problem solved,' Hiccup said assuredly, rolling his shoulders in readiness, 'Gobber trained me since I was a kid, I know as much about metal as anyone.'

'I'll watch his back!' Jack shouted back to the others as he and Hiccup ran off in the direction of the forge.

'I suppose we'll just hold the forte then!' Merida shouted sarcastically at their back before they descended onto another ledge of the village.

'Do you have any wounded? I could take a look,' Rapunzel said, turning to Stoic who nodded and pointed a thumb behind him into the Great Hall.

'We've probably got more scattered about the village,' he added, stopping Rapunzel before she headed through the large wooden doors, 'but we can only grab so many in the middle of battle.'

Merida and Rapunzel shared a look and nodded at one another before turning and walking to their duties, Rapunzel into the Hall and Merida into the fires of battle.

'Oy, what are ye doin'?' Stoic's second in command demanded as Merida went out, making her stop and turn nonchalantly.

'Well we can't just let those injured sit out in the cold now can we?' She asked knowingly before running off between two burning wooden houses.

Hiccup and Jack dodged and darted around rings of fire as the dragons above them flamed into the night air. For Hiccup it was quite a nostalgic experience of the time before Berk had made peace with the dragons, as if nothing had changed in the last seven years of his life.

'Watch out!' Jack cried as he thrust his staff ahead of Hiccup at the Monstrous Nightmare that had flown down at him while he was momentarily distracted by the onrush of memories. A gleaming net spun from ice and mist shot from the tip of Jack's crook and caught the dragon in mid-air, causing it to tumble to the ground in a heap as the net closed around it.

They ran on, passing the Berkians that were fighting on foot or using bucket chains to deal with the fires. Some greeted Hiccup with surprise as they saw him and the white haired boy charge passed while others were too busy with their jobs to notice they were there at all.

'So what were you and Astrid talking about while we were flying?' Jack asked innocently as he used the winds to fly them over a pile of fallen rubble and landing again without breaking his stride.

'She's been catching me up on what's been happening over here, why?' Hiccup panted as they were forced into a full run by a toppling house above them.

'Snotlout was worried you might try to make a move,' Jack joked as the last of the burning wood fell behind them which was lucky considering Hiccup had to slow down so he had the breath to laugh.

'It's funny,' he said when he'd regained his composure; 'I always used to be jealous of Snotlout for being one of the cool kids. Now he thinks I'm competition.'

'Not much of a competition, you'd sweep the floor with him,' Jack joked as he watched Hiccup send a bucketful of smoked eels towards two dragons that had been following them, causing the two to hiss and scatter as they saw what was hurling at them.

They reached the forge and barely had enough time to slow down from their run before they went through the door. Inside the room was hot from the fires of the forge and filled with the sound of the pumping of bellows and the hitting of steel. A few people were stood around separate anvils and forges, mending weaponry and armour in such a desperate rush they only noticed Hiccup and Jack enter the room when one of them finished refitting a sword and looked up at them.

'If you need your weapons fixed you'll have to rely on your magic for a while, we've not got the manpower,' she said as she wiped her brow and grabbed a dented axe from a rack beside her.

'You do now,' Hiccup said as he removed his jacket to leave only his short-sleeve shirt on and put the jacket on a hook he knew would be there. He headed towards the main forge and anvil in the middle of the room, Gobber's forge and anvil, and began to bark out order to the other blacksmiths who perplexed at first but heard the knowledge in Hiccup's words and got to work immediately.

'Jack, could you support the others out there until we can get them resupplied?' Hiccup asked as he set to work fixing a dragon net.

'Do you even have to ask?' Jack grinned as he backed out of the hot room, not quite able to stop himself looking at Hiccup's bare arms one last time before departing. He swung his staff around himself and shot up into the air on icy winds and circled around to see who needed his help most. Eventually he decided on two large Gronkle riders who were being chased down by a Monstrous Nightmare and two Zipplebacks.

He flew forward and sent a hailstorm horizontally at the attacking dragons, blinding and annoying them enough to distract them from the two Gronkle riders. The four Zippleback heads screamed angrily, spewing green smoke at Jack who diverted it with the winds which meant that when the cloud was ignited it exploded back in the Zipplebacks' many faces. The Monstrous Nightmare came at him next, diving from above and snapping at him with its jaws, he dodged around them by a fraction of an inch and spun around to face the dragon again as it hovered on a thermal from a fire below. The two Zipplebacks then emerged from the smoke of their own explosion below him and all four heads made a grab for him at once, forcing Jack to raise himself higher even though all it achieved was them following him together with the Monstrous Nightmare.

Quickly, the Monstrous Nightmare struck, pushing off from one of the Zipplebacks with its hind legs to accelerate at Jack faster and take him off guard, which it nearly did. Jack, however, managed to make an awkward twirl in the air, rolling off the dragon's snout and spinning down its back, heading for the Zipplebacks as he went. Thinking fast, Jack used the momentum of the twirl to his advantage and went into a full dive, going into a spin as he did, between the heads of the Zipplebacks which followed him down and were caught in the snow lassos that weaved out from Jack's staff as he passed them. With a deft movement with his wrist Jack had the two dragons tied to one another and attached the other end of the joined lassos to a large block of ice that would weigh the dragons down for the rest of the night and most of the next day. Giving a jaunty wave, Jack let the winds catch him and rose into the air once more as the Zipplebacks tried to break their fall as best they could.

He was caught almost instantly by the Monstrous Nightmare that now had flames running along its body. Jack yelled as the flames touched his skin and burned his blue hoodie while the dragon's talons gripped down hoarder on him, almost making his drop his staff. He clung on to it though, tightening his grip until his knuckles turned white, and the staff began to glow blue and white from its core. Jack could feel the power from it coursing up his arm and touched the palm of his empty hand against the burning chest of the Monstrous Nightmare. The flames around his hand died down instantly and Jack pushed the power further along the dragon's hide, unsure of what he was doing but sure it was going to work. Slowly at first but gaining speed with every second the fires began to die down around the dragon, swept away by an icy blue aura that spread out from Jack's hand. The Monstrous Nightmare didn't realise what was going on until it was too late and its fires were burnt out with a final snap, screeching in rage it tried to close its jaws around Jack's neck but he blocked the dragon's fangs with a wall of ice that sprouted from his hand, causing them to skitter along its smooth surface. With an effort, Jack pushed the snapping mouth away and brought round his staff, wrapping the dragon's long snout in ice chains and hauling on the end of them to make the dragon plummet from the sky as its balance was broken, letting go of Jack who spun away as it fell.

Jack watched the dragon drop the last few feet to the ground and summoned winds beneath it to stop a heavy landing and let it settle gently down onto the grass where the icy chains around its snout dug themselves deeply into the earth. Breathing deeply, Jack hung motionlessly in the air for a moment to let the blood return to his limbs from where the dragon had hold of him.

'You are so lucky that my boyfriend would've killed me if I'd hurt you,' he panted at the dragon below him which didn't seem to hear or was now ignoring him angrily. Sighing, Jack turned in the air and spotted another group that need help who he rushed off to immediately.

'Mrrgh, who're you?' the half-conscious Berkian asked Merida as she grabbed him and pulled him onto her shoulder.

'The one gettin' ye out of here,' Merida stated triumphantly as she hauled the man along, keeping her wand drawn as the dragons, and Jack now apparently, flew over them in the sky.

'Where's m' dragon?' The man mumbled slightly as he began to take a few shaky steps, easing Merida's work and helping them move a little faster.

'I though ye were one of the ground warriors,' Merida said perplexedly, she hadn't seen any dragon fall from the sky around where she'd found the man.

'I am, he's a te…a terri, a small one,' the man finished lamely as Merida looked about in the grass around them for any sign of a small dragon.

'Can't see a thing,' she said worriedly, she knew leaving a Berkian without their dragon wouldn't end well; she'd seen the look of loss in Hiccup for the last few months. 'What was his name?'

'Dribble,' the man managed in his concussed state, ''Cause when I firs' got him he…'

'I think I get the idea,' Merida interrupted as she raised her wand, 'Accio Dribble!'

Nothing happened and Merida gritted her teeth, it was unlikely to have worked considering how immune to magic dragon scale was but it was still irritating. Instead she'd need to use an alternative and dug into in of her pockets for a small leather bag. She let the man down onto the ground and took a pinch of dry earth from the pouch and flung it around her in a circle before tucking away the pouch filled with what remained of the Dunbroch soil. She raised the palm of her right hand and slammed it into the ground now covered in the earth of the land she ruled, sending out a faint pulse of blue flame that fanned away from her and spread over the grass until a small, unconscious figure was lit up by the flames some way off. She ran down to it before the power in the earth died away and the fire faded, finding a small Terrible Terror curled in the grass she took him in her palms and ran him back to his owner who tucked him away in a special pocket that was designed for the little dragon.

Nodding with the knowledge of a job well down, Merida half-carried, half-tugged the man back into the Great Hall and had him sit on one of the benches to wait for a healer's care. Turning back to go outside once more she was stopped by Rapunzel who stuck her hand out absentmindedly as she passed.

'Don't bother, there's no one else out there who needs attention,' she said as she ground herbs in a pestle, 'I think the fighting's started to die down.'

'How do you know?' Merida asked in surprise.

'I'm not sure. I just have this feeling that everyone who needs to be healed is here,' Rapunzel replied with a shrug and Pascal held up his hands in a manner that said he had no idea either but they should just go with it.

'So what, we just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?' Merida asked, horrified at the thought that the fight was going to end without her.

'Don't be too disappointed, I think we won't be waiting long.'

Rapunzel was right as in the next minute or so the Great Hall burst in with the rest of the triumphant village and their dragons pouring in through the doors, Hiccup and Jack among them while Stoic lead the charge. As the entire crowd entered the Hall and began to make celebratory toasts to the four who'd hastened their victory and healed their wounded, the morning sun rose over the horizon and burst through the doors with a golden light that shone for a brief moment on Rapunzel's hair, as if caressing it.

Jack groaned, putting an arm over his eyes as Hiccup sat up on the edge of the bed. It was mid-morning and the boys were only just getting up, as was most of Berk considering the village spent half the night fighting the latest dragon raids. Jack leaned out from the covers and wrapped his arm around his boyfriend's waist, gently trying to pull him back into bed even as he resisted.

'Why are we getting up? We don't have to get up until twelve,' he complained as Hiccup resisted his pull, attempting to tighten one of the screws along his prosthetic leg.

'Fred's going to be on the air in a minute,' Hiccup reminded him playfully as Jack fell, defeated, back onto his back.

'Is there any chance we're going to see some action?' He asked in the tone of someone who knew not to expect a yes. The morning after the four's arrival at Berk, Rapunzel had sent a patronus report to Fred and Flynn detailing their discovery, escape and current location and a day later they received a reply:

'We've shared your information with the Guardians and they say you lot should stay put for now. If the situation in Berk changes to anything more than dragon raids you'll have to pull out, but for now the Council don't know where you are and that's the way we should keep it. Until the time is right we all need to wait to strike the finishing blow against the Council. Until then, Love you.'

Since then the four had remained in Berk, helping to rebuild the village by day and fighting the raids by night, as well as providing any information they could take from the scouting missions they made every few weeks. It had been getting harder to stay put though as April turned to May, Jack and Fred both worried about their sisters in Hogwarts where rumours about the Herbology lessons taught by Scoria Mulciber, including being force fed poison plants, began to circulate during the Easter holidays. Merida and Rapunzel were both missing Fred and Flynn, having now spent several months away from them while Hiccup thought he was beginning to suffer from flying withdrawal without Toothless.

'It'll happen eventually,' Hiccup replied optimistically, 'the Guardians just need time to get everything prepared.'

'So until then,' Jack returned slyly as he grabbed Hiccup by the waist and pulled him back onto the bed, kissing the side of his neck playfully, 'we can stay in bed.'

They wrestled playfully on top of the sheets for a few minutes until Jack managed to grab both of Hiccup's wrists and push him, laughing, back onto the bed.

'Okay, okay,' Hiccup said as he laughed, 'I'll stay but just for a few more minutes.'

'Fine with me,' Jack smiled as he bent down and kissed Hiccup who returned it, stroking his hands down Jack's bare chest as Jack slid his shirt over his head. For a while they forgot about Fred's pirate radio show, they forgot about the war and its future, all they needed right now was each other.

By the time Jack and Hiccup arrived at the Hall where Rapunzel and Merida had taken the radio, Fred's show was wrapping up, allowing them to hear only the last few reports.

'As ever the Big Four are continuing to make the Council's life a living hell everywhere you look. Thanks to their most recent excursion they were able to supply the resistance with enough information to make a raid on our most hated Minister for Magic's country home. Unfortunately neither Mulcaster nor his son were there at the time but several dark artefacts were removed nonetheless, as well as multiple copies of future plans our dear Minister has for the country. With this information at our disposal we'll be able to strike an even greater blow against the Council's rule and we'll keep you updated in the coming days. We're about to turn over to Maximus now who will give his usual tribute to those who have passed on at the hands of this war. Our next show will be within the next week and the password will be 'Mad-Eye'. Stay safe and keep an ear out for us.'

'Oddly short today,' Rapunzel mumbled to herself thoughtfully, turning down the volume of the radio slightly as Maximus's voice came on beginning to list the names of the reported dead and missing since the last show. Once Maximus had regained the strength to walk about Dunbroch Castle he had begun to assist Fred and Flynn in their work which included the unhappy job on the radio, apparently he'd chosen to do it because he knew someone should. The four always kept this on but at a lower volume so as to be background noise, it was difficult to listen to after a while.

'And where have you two been?' Merida asked Jack and Hiccup as she spotted them coming in. By the looks of the quiver slung around her shoulder and the targets lined along the walls, so spiky with arrows they looked like hedgehogs, Merida had been training again. 'Ye missed most of the show.'

'Sorry, we overslept,' Jack grinned while Hiccup made a theatrical yawn to help their case which didn't seem to fool Merida for a minute.

'Was there anything important that we missed?' Hiccup asked, now feeling a little bad for missing on what was so important for Merida who rarely had the chance to hear her boyfriend's voice any other way.

'No, it seemed oddly empty actually,' Merida admitted as Rapunzel joined the group with Pascal on her shoulder.

'There must be something going on,' Rapunzel reasoned, 'some big story that they're saving up for before talking about.'

'We haven't heard about anything like that though,' Hiccup said uncertainly.

'I think we're about to,' Jack said as silver light flashed through the large double doors of the Hall and coalesced into a magpie which hopped onto Rapunzel's waiting hand.

'It's time,' the patronus began abruptly in Flynn's voice as it hovered slightly above Rapunzel's palm, 'The documents we stole from Craven Mulcaster turned out to be endgame plans. It's all stuff like using the Hogwarts students as hostages against the rogue teachers and sending in an army, led by Terror, to obliterate all the strongholds that still fight against the Council, Berk and the Dunbroch land included.

'North and the others are going to make a stand and take Hogwarts back before they have the chance. It looks like it's going to be the big one since I doubt the Council will sit back when they find out. We can't just bring in our army straight away though, the Dream Eaters inside will just use the students against us. Instead North wants us six to rendezvous with him and the teachers outside Hogwarts and drive out the Dream Eaters before they know what's hit them. We're meeting at the Shrieking Shack at six o'clock tonight; see you all then.'

The Patronus vanished into puffs of silvery mist, leaving the four sitting quietly, unable to speak for a moment. Slowly they began to regain normal breathing patterns as the news wore off and they prepared themselves for what they'd been hoping for.

'Well that was unexpected,' Hiccup stated obviously before turning to Jack, 'Also, I told you so.'

'Ha ha,' Jack said sarcastically as he took Hiccup's hand.

'Finally, I can get a good workout,' Merida said excitedly, standing up hurriedly as adrenalin pumped through her, 'We've spent too long cooped up on this island.'

'I'll get our stuff sorted out,' Rapunzel said in her getting-things-done voice. 'We can leave things like clothing and the tent back here but we might need the books, you never know.'

With that the rest of the day was spent in preparation, each of the four gathering what they thought might be useful in the battle and stuffing it into the supernaturally large pockets of Rapunzel's bag. Fred and Flynn meanwhile were gathering their own supplies and preparing an excited Toothless for apparition along with them. Many people across the country also began to receive messages to be ready for when the time came, telling them exactly where they were going and what the signal to come was. When five to six came around the four gathered together where they had first arrived at Berk and clasped hands, looking one last time over the layered island village they thought together of the abandoned shack and vanished.

They reappeared a second later outside the dilapidated, wooden walls that they'd only seen from afar before. Before them a sleek, black shape uncurled itself and hurled toward Hiccup, knocking him over and proceeding to lick him vigorously as he laughed. Merida and Rapunzel turned and met the gazes of Fred and Flynn, immediately bringing them forward into a kiss several months overdue.

Jack, for his part, let them all get on with reuniting and walked over to the half-hidden sleigh, attached to ferocious looking reindeer and containing Professors North, Bunnymund and Maximus, who sat slightly slumped in his seat. All sat around a map that Jack recognized as Fred's Marauder's Map and were pointing at various points of interest to them until North looked up and noticed Jack.

'Ah, Jack,' He said enthusiastically, 'are you ready for the making of the trouble?'

It's time for the final battle to begin. Who's excited? Because I know I am, considering what's coming soon.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and thanks for your reviews as ever :)

Until next time, have a good weekend