He took his vorpal sword in hand; / Long time the manxome foe he sought—
"I have a mission for you," Galbatorix said.
It was an overcast Sunday, another dust storm having swept in and turned the skies amber.
"Eragon and Saphira have been sighted near Gil'ead. They freed the elf Arya, and Durza assures me they will be headed immediately for the Varden lest she die of poison. Your mission is to intercept them. This is important, Haraldr. Can I trust you?"
The solemnity of the situation, the entire weight of his King's words turned the air thick with gravity. "You can trust me," Harry replied, then echoed Galbatorix's army's motto. "I will serve."
Though he received a smile in return, it was heavy. "Thank you, Harry. My dear, dear boy. You have done so much for me, and yet I find myself needing to ask you for more."
Harry swatted his confusion aside like a fly—so far he'd served mostly as a minor politician, an emissary, a figurehead, and a scout. It hadn't been much in return for the place Galbatorix had granted him by his King's side. "I don't understand," he admitted when the silence had stretched beyond comfort.
"A vow, son. I need you and Tumbleweed to swear a vow in the Ancient Language for me that you will do your best to capture Eragon, Saphira, and Arya before they enter the Beor mountains—without unreasonably risking your life and limb, nor theirs."
It was a solid construction, a vow like the ones in his old world had been worded. Harry thought over it for a minute before nodding. "I swear it," he said, repeating the phrase in what he privately still thought of as English. The second the magic passed his lips, he could feel it pulling him towards Tumbleweed's saddle.
Galbatorix still had mission-relevant information to share, he told his magic sternly, and the itch to carry out his word subsided for a minute.
"I am proud of you, my son," the King said.
And then he said several words in English, combining heir and dragon rider, wizard and saviour, wrapped into a spell that resonated and bubbled and swelled within Harry like a Patronus.
"That's my Name," he realised. Tears came to his eyes, heavy with some overwhelming emotion he couldn't have identified even if he'd tried.
"Not a bad name," Tumbleweed said from within him. "Albeit, there's distinct room for growth."
Xer name probably held the word 'critic' within it, Harry thought, but he would never stop feeling fondness for xer.
"Swear to serve me, that you will always be loyal to me, to never betray me," Galbatorix said, and Harry had spoken the corresponding words before the next breath had fully passed his lips.
Galbatorix nodded then, satisfaction half-hidden by his neat beard. "Good. Good. Prepare yourself to leave immediately, I shall meet you in the eastern courtyard."
All the sensations jostling within Harry had him feeling unbalanced, he almost tripped in the halls on the way to his rooms. He changed clothes on autopilot, barely listening to Tumbleweed give the same vow Harry had, though Galbatorix evidently didn't know xer name yet.
That didn't matter, of course. With Harry vow-bound, Tumbleweed was equally bound. They shared a mind, were two halves of a whole. He hurried for the courtyard, taking a pack of military rations from the store-shed on his way.
"This is a dragon's heart, a soul," Galbatorix said, and handed Harry a velvet bag that seemed to hold a bowling ball.
Harry took it on instinct, fastening it to Tumbleweed's saddle as his vow pushed him on. He needed to leave, to stop Eragon and Saphira from reaching the Varden. "Yes, my King. What am I meant to do with it?"
"A dragon is not an it, Haraldr," Galbatorix chided, but with warmth. "She will tell you as you travel. Fly towards the Hadarac desert, then follow their trail. Fly swiftly, Xerophyte. Bring me Eragon, Saphira, and Arya.
"Do not disappoint me, boy."
Harry clasped his King's hand in farewell, jumped onto Tumbleweed—and they were off, wind already screaming in his ears.
A few quick spells took care of that.
Once Tumbleweed had reached her usual altitude, winging steadily east at a pace xe could easily keep up all day, Harry turned to the dragon… soul? that Galbatorix had given him. He could feel nothing when reaching out his mind to it, so he squeezed his hand through the bag's opening.
"Hello," he offered. "Who are you?"
"Children these days, no manners at all, well I never, if I could I'd give you a nice roasting until you'd be lobster-red—"
"Begroeting," he interrupted, lest she come up with a way to actually roast him using magic. "I'm Harry, Rider of Tumbleweed and heir to the Broding Empire. How do you do?"
"Hmph." The spiky feeling of her mind unbristled. "I am Ulpukka. The King Galbatorix told me you are on a mission to capture a dragon. Have you ever captured a dragon before, young man?"
"No," Harry admitted easily. The most he'd ever captured was a snitch, or the horntail's golden egg. "What are you, Ulpukka? How can you be a soul and a heart?"
"Some things, you are not yet ready to learn, child. You only must understand that I can teach you, and that I can lend you my strength when your need is great. Try it now, cast a spell while drawing from my magic."
Harry tried a colour changing spell, and by the time Ulpukka was satisfied his pack had cycled through the entire rainbow twice.
While Tumbleweed flew steadily onward, Harry indulged in a nap.
… xoxox …
It was night before they reached the desert, with Tumbleweed stopping only twice to eat and drink. Harry channelled magic to xer so that they might keep moving, the vow they had made pushing them onward even while it drained them of energy.
Tumbleweed landed in a tired heap of scales and sand. "I must rest. We will be unable to capture even a tallow deer if we continue on now."
Harry agreed, and evidently the magic did too as it stopped its steady hourglass trickle of lost magic. He summoned water from the ground and held it while Tumbleweed flopped into the pool to drink.
"That's entirely unhygienic," he told her, watching the grit on xer long neck scatter into the water.
"Make me a bigger pool, then. I must bathe. There are insects on my scales, Harry. Insects."
But the summoning spell was tiring Harry out quickly, and that was only from holding about a bathtub's worth. "Scourgify," he cast instead, watching Tumbleweed's full-body shudder in response.
"Acceptable," xe said, then stretched out across the cooling sand. "Now you can bring me a nice deer. One with antlers, those are lovely and crunchy."
"Your wish is my command," Harry threw back fondly, twisting to apparate to the nearest plains. Tumbleweed had spotted some antelope on the way over, those should do the trick.
When Harry returned xe was already asleep.
"Ulpukka," he asked the dragon-soul, holding it in his hands, watching the fire cast it into a brilliant orange glow, "We've reached the desert, you said you'd tell me the most effective way of finding Eragon and Saphira now?"
"Honestly, Harry, you must use your mind. Not a whit of logic in you, I can tell. What are they teaching children these days?"
Somehow, the warmth glowing from the ball in Harry's palms tinged all her words peach, lessening their blow to a tickle. Chewing on some jerky, Harry pondered the dragon's words, accustomed to having to unpack riddle-speak before he could find the meaning underneath.
After some time Tumbleweed stirred, promptly tearing the antelope in two. The sound of breaking bones wasn't helping Harry think at all.
"It's not a riddle," Tumbleweed finally said, rubbing xer scales clean again on the sand. "You should cast out your mind, like a net."
Intertwining himself with Tumbleweed's warm, already dozing self and tapping into Ulpukka's magic, Harry projected his thoughts up and across, checking each compass-point in turn.
The first thing he noticed was that there were a lot more snakes, lizards, beetles, and plants hidden in the dunes. They were easy to ignore, their consciousnesses pinpricks in his field of awareness.
The desert was teeming with life, but there was no sign of dragon, elf, or rider.
"You must assume they have already passed. Tomorrow, Tumbleweed will fly faster and farther to gain on them. We have more magic, there is a chance you will catch them still," Ulpukka said, her voice seeming to boom in Harry's head like when Dudley used to turn up the kitchen radio.
He closed his mind and centred himself, marvelling at the irony of how he'd ended up grasping occlumency entirely by accident. "What do I do when we catch up?"
"Tomorrow, as we fly, I will teach you both aerial combat manoeuvres. They will do you very little good without practice, but the other dragon is even less experienced than you. Remember also that they are overburdened and desperate. Desperation makes for strong fighters, but it also makes your enemy stupid."
Harry wished once again for his holly-and-phoenix, the way it had glowed hot and alive in his hand. His world's magic hadn't carried the same costs, but every time he attempted casting those spells through the gedwëy ignasia they wouldn't work the same. The Alagaesia-equivalent spells all drew from his magical core much more heavily, and Harry's greatest fear was accidentally draining himself with a careless Expelliarmus.
"I will help you, child. Rest now. No harm can come to you from snakes and beetles, but your tiredness may cost you our lives tomorrow."
When they weren't speaking in riddles, Dragons were rather annoyingly blunt. Harry huffed to himself, drawing out a sleeping sack and huddling under Tumbleweed's wing.
Around him, the world was shaded green. Harry dreamt of the lights in the Slytherin common room, where Malfoy's hair was turning bright red and Ron, by his side, was transforming into Voldemort.
… xoxox …
The morning was bitingly cold, even with Tumbleweed's warmth radiating beside him. A series of warming spells, another antelope for breakfast and they were off, racing south on a direct line through the Hadarac Desert.
Ulpukka served as both a source of entertainment and a deep well of magic, letting Harry siphon great amounts into Tumbleweed to sustain xer during the long flight. Still, their vow punished them, as if it thought they weren't doing their best to fulfil it. The loss of energy was like a mosquito, more annoying than draining, but on top of everything else it was making Harry very cranky.
The grit pressed into Harry's eyes, and his muscles were aching from holding himself in the saddle. He didn't dare complain though, or Tumbleweed would—rightfully—find a way to bite his head off while flying. The sun baked down on him, the sweat made his skin itch, and all the while his vow in the ancient language pressed him to hurry, hurry, hurry southward.
That night, as Harry poured as much healing magic into Tumbleweed as he could muster, he felt the thought pop back into his mind like the weeds in Petunia's garden, except this thought screamed and wailed like an uprooted Mandrake.
Heir and Dragon Rider and Wizard and Saviour, Galbatorix had named him.
It was a great compliment that his King knew and understood him so well, but it also made him feel exposed. Naked. Was he really so transparent? He remembered standing in the Quidditch changing rooms, a tiny first year watching the others shower out of the corner of his eye and wondering why he was so…small.
Was that really all there was to him? Was that his fate, to serve and serve, until the end of the world? A life lived in terms of his relationships to others?
On the other hand, what was wrong with that? Shouldn't it be a good thing, to know who he was? To be the kind of person who does good deeds for others? Hermione had never properly gotten around to explaining where the problem was with him having a saving people thing.
The second day flying through the desert was even more miserable than the first, their moods only shifting with the first sight of green that appeared on the horizon halfway in the afternoon.
When Harry told Ulpukka, she insisted he replenish Tumbleweed's energy completely with her magic, until her voice became sluggish and the pulse of her soul slowed by half.
As the sands and shrubs below them shifted to grasslands, Harry cast out his mind, following the bubbles of life that showed there were people nearby. A bunch of southern wildlings were gathering a funeral pyre. They pointed and shrieked, ducking at the first sight of Tumbleweed, so Harry yanked into one of them, connecting his consciousness to the man's.
He tried to be gentle, but his vow had spoken about his life and limb, not this stranger's. Harry tore through the man's thoughts, seeing an altercation with Saphira, Eragon, and—was that Murtagh Morzansson who lopped off the wildling leader's head?
"We're close, Tumbleweed," Harry said, leaving xer to focus on the flying. "Head south-east, we've almost caught up to them."
The vow was screaming in their heads now, louder than the wind, louder than the humans, louder than the bellowing Urgal-cries echoing through the nearest valley.
Hoping that these were Durza's Urgals and a part of the empire's army, Harry and Tumbleweed quickly followed the noise.
They were greeted by a scene of Eragon and Murtagh on horseback, while the Kull troop were dithering before a surreal wall of mist.
Harry's first sight of Saphira took his breath away.
"She's so beautiful," he said, and then Tumbleweed was spiralling away from the dragon rushing at them.
Their vow yanked them back towards the trio. Tumbleweed spotted the elf Arya barely visible strapped to Saphira's belly.
The Kull were shooting arrows and charging at Eragon and Murtagh, even as the two were running towards the nearby lake.
Meanwhile Saphira batted through the air, dodging swift and nimble. She swooped again at Tumbleweed, both beautiful and frightening.
The dragons clashing high above the ground had Harry's teeth jarring. He could feel Tumbleweed's tired muscles as if they were his own, he could feel his need to capture her but had no idea how to make that work.
"Break the saddle," Ulpukka called as the dragons scrabbled in midair.
Harry could feel his stomach in his ears. The ground was approaching fast, too fast—
Tumbleweed broke away first, getting in a good kick to Saphira's jaw as xe pulled out of the dive.
In nineteen years of near-death-experiences, Harry had never felt so alive.
"I can't break the saddle, the vow told us not to risk their lives," Tumbleweed growled. "Every other attack fails and drains my magic instead. How did the King think this would work?"
"How am I supposed to know," Harry yelled back, hugging tight to his dragon's neck as xe turned back towards the lake. "I can't give you more magic, if this isn't working let's go for the horses instead."
The vow was ringing in his ears, making it hard to think beyond the desperate pull towards their mission. Capture them before they enter the mountain. Don't risk anyone's lives or limbs.
We swore to do our best.
Eragon was screaming something at the cliff face. The horses were rearing, almost unseating the farmboy-turned-Rider.
Saphira rushed at them from behind, forcing Tumbleweed to dodge downwards.
They fell into the lake with a crash.
The shock was worse than the cold, and the cold was worse than not knowing which way was up, which wasn't as bad as needing to breathe.
It was, all of it, terrible.
Harry poured all he could into Tumbleweed, trusting the dragon to bear them to the surface, even if he didn't know where that was.
Ulpukka touched his mind, her words still sluggish from what she'd let him pull from her before. "I have more to give," she insisted. "Take it all, my child. Use it well."
Trusting—later he'd wonder why he was always so trusting—Harry drained Ulpukka's magic right into Tumbleweed, filling xer muscles with more energy as xe bit into Saphira's leg, clouding the water with blood.
Harry really, really, really needed to breathe.
Then Saphira was gone, the vow was no longer there, Ulpukka's voice had become quiet.
It was just Harry, surrounded by a vast emptiness, almost like mist—
—or a train station.
Maybe this time, I can learn how trains work, he felt himself thinking—
But then Harry breathed.
His lungs felt like they wanted to cough right out of him. Still, he breathed again.
"Harry!" Tumbleweed cried. "Harry. Harry, please, never do that again."
"Alright," he agreed, busy with the act of pulling in air through his lungs.
"I got Murtagh's horse," Tumbleweed said, nudging the shivering beast with xer snout. "It's not being very horsey."
Around them the Kull were retreating, apparently not wanting to chat with Harry about what had just happened.
"Murtagh loved that horse. You did well, Tumbleweed." Harry snagged the reins, briefly liking the way all three of them were equally wet and miserable. He cast a simple drying spell, watched the water wring itself from his clothes. "Come on. Let's go back home before the Varden find their bows and arrows."
Day 18 of an update every day this month. The entire fic is now up on ao3. Thank you for reading :)