The loud knocking gradually penetrated into Harry's dreaming thoughts, and then there was a crash which most mornings would have had him jolting awake.

He had only had a couple of hours of sleep, though, and so he slowly mumbled his way toward wakefulness – the paper he was lying on rustling below him as he shifted.

"…how dare you! Breaking into our house in the middle of the night!"

"Shut up, Dursley, you daft old prune..."

"...what will the neighbours think?"

Still sort of muzzy, Harry yawned quietly.

"...'Arry Potter?"

"No, I'm Dudley Dursley..."

Fumbling around, Harry found the door to his cupboard and opened it. The piles of letters had been destabilized a bit by his movement, and he slid out into the hallway.

"What time is it?" he asked, yawning, then looked at the wall clock. "Five past midnight? Mf, it's too early..."

He turned to look at the cause of the noise, and saw a really quite amazingly tall man hunched in the entryway.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, fetching his glasses with his tail and putting them on his muzzle.

"...Merlin's beard," the very tall man said, his jaw slowly dropping. Harry tilted his head in confusion, and the man pointed at him.

"You're a dragon?" he asked.

"Yes?" Harry replied. "You're the first person to mention that, actually."

"Dragon?" Uncle Vernon said. "What's this about dragon? Is this more freak nonsense?"

"Freak!?" the big man roared. "He's not a freak, he's a cute little talking dragon – just look at 'im! Never seen a talking dragon before, but 'e looks..."

The big man paused, a smile spreading across his big bearded face.

"'e doesn't look like any of the dragons I know," the man added, as Harry padded a little closer and kicked a letter out of the way. "But it all looks beautiful, them wings and everything."

Then he finally seemed to lose whatever internal conflict had been going on, and swept the startled Harry up in a bear-hug.

After the initial shock, Harry was surprised to find he actually quite enjoyed the experience.

Twenty or so minutes later, the Dursleys had more-or-less given up shouting at the giant man – who Harry had learned was named Hagrid, and who had waved a big pink umbrella about to put the door back where it had started. Neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were really happy about the whole situation, but it seemed to Harry that they couldn't just stand there shouting at Hagrid for all that long in the middle of the night.

When he'd pointed this entirely sensible point out, the two adults had shouted a bit more, but then gone back upstairs with bad grace and locked their bedroom door.

"Still can't believe I found a talking dragon," Hagrid said, shaking his head as he examined Harry's wing shoulder. "And to find one in a Muggle house, too..."

"What's a Muggle?" Harry asked, curious, lowering his wing once Hagrid had finished looking at the joints. "Is that what Aunt Petunia was called before she got married?"

"What's that?" Hagrid asked. "No, no, she was an Evans. Must have been. Like Lily."

He paused, then frowned. "Oh, shouldn't have forgotten that. Came here with a job. Don't suppose you know which bedroom's called the cupboard under the stairs, do you?"

"That's my bedroom," Harry answered. "It's not very big but it feels nice and lair-y. Why's that?"

"Well, I'm after Harry Potter, that's why," Hagrid explained. "It's his birthday, an' I was told by Professor Dumbledore to deliver his Hogwarts letter."

"Oh, are you where all those letters came from?" Harry asked, picking up one of the ones which had spilled out of the cupboard. "I was wondering, but I'm afraid a lot of it didn't make sense."

Hagrid paused, looking from Harry to the door he'd come out of, then his gaze went to Harry's forehead.

Harry wasn't sure why. It was one of the places his otherwise-black scales had a little marking on them, a small thunderbolt-like shape… but was that unusual for a dragon or not?

Maybe it was.

"It can't be," Hagrid said slowly. "You're Harry Potter?"

"Yes?" Harry replied. "Is there a reason I shouldn't be?"

He twisted his head to look back at himself, in case he'd changed colour while he wasn't looking, and Hagrid put a hand on the curve of Harry's neck.

"You might not remember me, 'Arry," he began. "But I helped Professor Dumbledore bring you here nearly ten years ago, so you'd be safe. But you weren't no dragon then."

"I know," Harry replied matter-of-factly. "I was very confused when I changed into one, but that was a long time ago and I sort of assumed it was normal when nobody made any comment on it."

"They haven't?" Hagrid asked, now confused. "But… ah, that might be it. There's all sorts of magic what stops Muggles from seeing things they ain't supposed to see, and I remember my old Creatures professor telling me as how dragons is one of them things."

Harry digested that, then opened the letter he'd picked up earlier.

"So this isn't a letter for a dragon school?" he asked. "Why on earth would we need pewter cauldrons, then?"

This seemed to have stumped the big man.

"Cauldrons?" he repeated. "Well… for potions, o' course. What else?"

"I thought snacks," Harry suggested. "Perhaps as a way to prevent the owl shortage."

Hagrid looked confused by that, then shook his head. "No, Hogwarts ain't a dragon school, Harry… it's a school for wizards, like you."

"I'm a wizard?" Harry repeated. "I thought I was a dragon."

"Well, yer a dragon too, o' course," Hagrid said. "But yer a wizard, or you wouldn't be accepted. Like how I was."

He patted the drake on the back. "Yer mum and dad were a witch and a wizard too. Though neither of 'em ever turned into a dragon…"

"They were?" Harry asked, interested, and not surprised by the bit about neither of his parents turning into a dragon. "Well, my uncle and aunt told me they died in a car crash-"

"A CAR CRASH!?" Hagrid bellowed.

"-but if magic is meant to be secret then I can see why they said that," Harry went on, thinking hard, and absently scraping some letters over with his wing as he did so.

That announcement took the wind out of Hagrid's sails, and he mumbled something about that making sense actually.

"Could you tell me about them?" Harry went on, then yawned. "I, ummm… sorry, it's still very late…"

"'course I'll tell you about James and Lily," Hagrid promised. "Could do it over cake, too, I picked one up for your birthday. 'course, I didn't know you were a dragon then..."

Harry's tail flicked from side to side a little, but then he yawned again.

Thinking about it, he decided that his aunt and uncle probably wouldn't mind if he slept on the sofa so long as he kept his claws out of the seats. So, with Hagrid's bemused and interested help, he put some of the letters on the sofa and bedded down to resume his interrupted slumber.

The second time Harry woke up, it was to a much gentler knocking – the sound of a claw rapping smoothly on the window.

Yawning, he turned over, and thumped unceremoniously to the floor.

"Huh? Wossat?" Hagrid asked, jumping awake from where he'd been lying across most of the length of the room. "You all right, lad?"

Harry nodded, looking around for where he'd left his glasses last night, and spotted them over on the table.

Rolling upright and retrieving them, he inspected the window where the noise was coming from. An owl was perched outside, knocking regularly on the window for attention, and Harry glanced at Hagrid.

"Well, go on then," Hagrid invited him. "Let 'im in, he's probably got the paper."

Harry opened the window, wondering what Hagrid meant, and watched with some surprise as the owl flew neatly in before putting down a small newspaper in front of Hagrid.

The big man rummaged around in his coat, producing all kinds of strange things like a birthday cake and a family of mice. One of the latter nearly got away, but Harry pounced on it before it got under the sofa and returned it to Hagrid.

Finally a small bag came out, and Hagrid counted out some odd-looking coins into a pouch attached to the owl's leg. This seemed to satisfy it, and it flew back out of the window as Hagrid returned most of the things to his pockets.

"Those pictures are moving," Harry noticed. "Is that magic?"

"'course it's magic," Hagrid chuckled. "It's the Daily Prophet, it's always like that."

He read it, and Harry used a chair as support to look over his shoulder. Half the stories were about things which he didn't really get the context of, like a recent election of a Minister for Magic or a story about a badly made pewter cauldron melting, and besides he was distracted by something else.

"Was that owl making a delivery?" he asked. "That's very clever."

"Hm?" Hagrid replied, then remembered who he was talking to. "Oh, that's right. Owl post, best way to send letters if you ask me. A good post owl will find who you sent the letter to no matter what."

"So that's what it meant about awaiting my owl," Harry said, pleased to have the answer. "But does that mean I'll have to send one today?"

"Don't worry, 'Arry, I'll tell Professor Dumbledore personally," Hagrid assured him. He checked the time, then put the paper down and reached for the birthday cake he'd put aside earlier.

"Don't suppose you've got any plates?" he asked. "May as well have a sweet breakfast an' all, it is your birthday."

Harry went to fetch two plates, two forks and a spoon, not knowing whether Hagrid would prefer one option or the other, then went back to get a knife after realizing that they would need to cut the cake.

There was no sign of the Dursleys while they had their meal, and Harry wondered if they were just waiting until they were absolutely certain the big man had left. It was still quite early, but they had to be awake by now – especially after Hagrid had sung Happy Birthday loud enough to rattle the windows – and normally a Harry birthday wasn't much different from any other day in the Dursley household.

"So, what did yeh think?" Hagrid asked, suddenly sounding quite nervous. "Wasn't sure what kind'a cake you'd like."

"Oh, it was very tasty," Harry assured him, licking his muzzle to get the last of the icing off. "I've never got to eat the candles before."

"Well, them candles aren't exactly what most people eat, but – well, who knows with dragons, eh?" Hagrid asked, giving Harry a scratch behind the ear and chuckling at the little dragon's happy reaction. "Still, best be getting into London, got to get yer school things."

"I've only been to London a few times," Harry told him. "I flew there because there's a really good library, but it takes all day and I usually have chores."

"Well, I don't rightly think flying's the answer," Hagrid mused, scooping up most of the things he'd left lying around. "I've got a big flying motorcycle, but Professor Dumbledore told me it weren't a good idea to fly it around in daytime and I think he's right… still, Dumbledore gave me some Muggle money for the train."

"Can wizards fly around?" Harry asked. "I know dragons can, obviously…"

"Well, there's plenty of ways of flyin' for a wizard," Hagrid answered. "There's me motorcycle, or there's brooms, or flyin' carpets… oh, and there's all sorts of animals too, like a thestral or a hippogriff – beautiful creatures, beautiful. But most of 'em are a bit big to fly around in a city and such."

"I think I understand," Harry nodded, to show he was keeping up. "So I'm okay to fly around because people without magic can't tell I'm a dragon, but that's not what happens for something like a hippogriff?"

Hagrid gave him a thumbs-up. "Good lad. Now, er… where's the train station?"

"I think I know where the nearest one is," Harry replied. "Should we tell Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon that we're leaving?"

"Prob'ly best," Hagrid agreed. "Oh, that reminds me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that bit with the door. I'm not really supposed to do magic, but I'm allowed to do a bit when getting your Hogwarts letter to you… not sure if the door counts..."

Harry found it quite funny how much trouble Hagrid had with the money. He didn't laugh, because the big man was so earnest, but it did make him wonder how money worked for magical people – the only magic money he'd seen so far was the little bronze coins, and they didn't look that different from pennies in how they worked.

There was easily enough to get the two of them a train ride from Little Whingeing to Waterloo Station, and from there they made their way across the river to Charing Cross road.

"So, where are we going, Hagrid?" Harry asked, trotting alongside with little half-flaps of his wings for speed – as he'd learned already, Hagrid could move fast when he wanted to.

One of his wingtips nearly knocked someone's hat off, and he winced before furling them. "I didn't know there were any of that kind of shop in London, but I haven't really checked. Are they in the Yellow Pages?"

"The what?" Hagrid said. "Nah, it's the Leaky Cauldron we want. It's special – Muggles go right past it without seein' it. Kind of like you, actually."

Harry nodded, seeing the parallel. "So… that means that anyone in it is going to be a wizard or a witch? Or someone else magic?"

"Thas' right," Hagrid agreed.

"That's going to be strange," Harry observed. "Or… different? I've only just found out most people can't tell I'm a dragon and now I'm going to be in a room full of people who can."

"Don't worry, lad," the big wizard (?) told him. "The barkeep, Tom, he knows me. You'll be fine – ah! Here we are."

Hagrid turned off the street, into an old-looking pub, and Harry followed along a step or two behind.

It took his eyes only a moment to adjust to the lower light, and almost straight away there was a shout of surprise – then a shriek, and someone knocked a table over and spilled what were probably alcoholic drinks across the floor.

Within a few seconds all the strange characters in the Leaky Cauldron were hiding away from Harry and Hagrid, and then the man behind the bar gestured at Hagrid with a beer mug.

"Rubeus!" he called. "How many times do I have to tell you about bringing in your little beasties!"

"But-" Hagrid began, and the man – presumably Tom – kept talking.

"But nothing! Last time it was a manticore! And the time before was that griffin, wasn't it?"

"Hey, now, she wouldn't hurt a-"

"That griffin terrorized half the customers!" Tom declared. "It took me weeks to get rid of all the feathers – and we're still finding manticore spines in the corners of the room after that one panicked!"

Harry tilted his head, wondering if that was going to be the last word, but Tom just kept right on going. "Rubeus, I know you're not a malicious man – no, I do, I've known you long enough for that. But everyone knows your heart's bigger than your head, and you always believe the best of even the most dangerous creature. And maybe you can manage them, but this… why do you have a dragon here?"

"Orders from Dumbledore," Hagrid managed to say in the first gap more than a second long.

"Oh, Dumbledore!" Tom replied, sounding a bit mollified. "Well, I suppose he knows better… all right, but if this dragon of yours causes any trouble then it's you who's paying for it! And your tab!"

"Sorry about that, Harry," Hagrid said, once they were in the little alley at the back of the Leaky Cauldron. "I should'a thought how it'd look when I brought you in… I hope yeh don't feel upset about it."

"Did you bring a griffin through to get their Hogwarts stuff as well?" Harry asked, wanting to make sure this was cleared up. "Or a manticore?"

"No – no, Harry, that weren't about Hogwarts stuff then," Hagrid answered him. "Most all the students who've been to Hogwarts 'ave been human, or mostly human… that's why they don't think of it, I reckon."

He thought about it, then rummaged in his coat and pulled out a yellow tea cosy. "Was knitting this last night," the giant man explained. "Maybe it'd make you look less scary, give them summat to think about?"

Harry accepted the tea cosy, and put it on his head. He'd never really worn anything like it before, not having had a woolly hat back when he was still human, but it didn't feel too bad.

"So… where do we go from here?" Harry asked. "Do we just go over the wall? Or is it magic?"

"Oh, it's magic all right," Hagrid replied, getting out his umbrella and tapping on the bricks. "Three up… and two across..."

As he finished, the bricks all moved aside – sliding away and reforming into an arch, through which Harry could see a street full of all sorts of strange shops.

There was one which sold nothing but owls, another which described itself as a joke shop, and right down the far end of the street there was a big marble building which looked very important. There weren't all that many people in the street yet, but there were a few – a family out shopping, a woman hurrying down the street towards the Leaky Cauldron, and a man wearing a very strange-looking robe festooned with pictures of chess pieces.

"Diagon Alley," Hagrid announced. "Come on, first thing we got to do is to get to Gringotts – that's the bank. Run by goblins."

He set off, and Harry hurried to keep up – using his wings to help out again, taking advantage of the much less crowded streets.

Nobody screamed this time, or shrieked, though the woman who'd been walking quickly down the street saw them and stopped in her tracks.

"Good morning," Harry said, waving at her as they went past, though the only response he got was a wordless stare.

Well, maybe she was tired. It was still quite early in the morning, after all.

When they arrived at Gringotts bank itself, Hagrid's confidence was a far cry from his trouble with the paper money and the ticket office out in the Muggle world. He strode straight up to one of the open counters, and announced that he was there both to make a withdrawal from Mr. Potter's vault and to pick up a 'you know what' from another vault.

Interested to see what was going on, Harry reached up to the counter with a paw and pulled himself into an upright position. The goblin on the other side of the desk seemed quite surprised to see him, and gave Hagrid a quelling glance, but Harry's pleasant greeting and cheerful wave with his free paw seemed to help lighten the situation.

Once Hagrid had finally managed to dig a key out of his pockets – which seemed full of even more outrageous things than he'd produced in Privet Drive – the goblin teller summoned another, by the name of Shardmouth, to take them down to the vaults.

That was when Harry was introduced to the carts of Gringotts.

"These are pretty fun!" he said, one paw on the tea-cosy Hagrid had given him and the other on his glasses to make sure neither would blow away in the racing wind around the rattling cart. "What do you think, Hagrid?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Hagrid replied. "Can't this thing slow down?"

"Not on this route," Shardmouth answered.

Harry turned from wondering what would happen if he opened his wings to full extension, and whether that would slow the cart down. "I know that we're told to look out of a vehicle if we feel carsick."

"Don't think that'd help," Hagrid mumbled.

He was about to say something else, but Harry saw a burst of flame off to the side.

"That was a dragon!" he said, as they passed over a big underground lake. "A really big one, too – do they keep their money down here as well?"

"I can assure you that the only bank used by dragons is Gringotts," Shardmouth told him, with a sly little smile.

Harry absorbed that as they dropped deeper into the caverns, until their cart finally came to a halt by a small door.

Hagrid got out and took several long, deep breaths, while Shardmouth turned the small golden key in the door and opened it.

The door swung open, letting out a cloud of green smoke that made Harry cough, and when it cleared he saw the inside of his vault.

It was… full of money.

More than that, it was full of gold and silver as well as the little bronze coins which Harry had already seen – mounds of it, piled more than a foot high.

"All yours," Hagrid said, as Harry stared. His ears perked up, sending his glasses clattering to the floor.

Then the black dragon bounded forwards, taking two long loping steps before diving into the mass of metal with a crash which sent precious metals everywhere.

Twenty minutes later, Shardmouth and seven other goblins finally managed to extract Harry from his vault.

"You all right, lad?" Hagrid asked, returning Harry's glasses. "Bit of a funny turn, there?"

"Sorry," Harry said, ruffling his wings and looking down at his feet. "I… well, I suppose it's the first time I've really had anything I could think of as mine, let alone a proper hoard..."

"Don' worry," Hagrid assured him. "Want me to get the money for your school things?"

Harry thought about that question, firstly seeing if it made him come over all possessive again and then about what he actually wanted.

"...I think I'd better help you," he said. "To make sure I don't do that again, and because I'd like to get a bit extra – do they turn gold into pounds here?"

"We offer that service, yes," Shardmouth provided, as the other goblins watched on attentively.

Harry nodded. "Okay, that's good… it's because I'd like to take some books to school to read. Unless the school has a library with stories in it?"

"Hogwarts has got a great library," Hagrid replied. "But I don't remember any Muggle books in there. 'course, it's been a while since I visited..."

"Well, I think I'll get some anyway," Harry decided. "It'd be nice to have some I can read at home, instead of having to go to the library to read."

Harry more-or-less had to guess how much money it would take to buy the books he wanted, and when they got back up to the surface – after another trip even deeper into the earth to get the thing Hagrid had been sent for – it turned out to be about a hundred pounds.

He wasn't quite sure how much it would cost to get the books he was thinking of, but a hundred pounds sounded like enough for quite a lot of them. It wasn't as much as Dudley's presents had cost that year, of course, but that wasn't really much of a concern for Harry.

"Right, that's that done," Hagrid said, as they walked out into the sunlight. "Best to do your books and wand last, you ask me… I'd say the robes might take a while. You come with me, Madam Malkin's who we need to see."

"Does she know how to do robes for dragons?" Harry asked, then looked around with surprise at the sound of crashing glass. Someone coming out of the potions shop had dropped a bubble-shaped glass beaker about when Harry had asked the question, and Harry looked for a moment longer before shrugging his wings and turning back to Hagrid.

"Tell the truth I'm not all that sure, really," Hagrid admitted. "But I'm sure we'll think of something, lad."

"Oh, what would happen if I flew up there?" Harry added, a new question distracting him. "Is this part of London – if it is, could I come back in again by flying down again? Or is it that you can only get in through the Leaky Cauldron?"

Hagrid looked up at the sky, then down at Harry – whose wings were twitching a little as he thought about flying.

"Don't know that either, Harry," the big man said. "But best you find out later, I'd say. Don't want you to get lost or anything."

Harry nodded, seeing the wisdom there.

When the giant pushed the door open to let Harry through, a short witch smiled – then actually caught sight of him, and the smile turned slightly fixed.

"This here's Harry," Hagrid said, introducing the drake. "He's for Hogwarts. Listen, Harry, do you mind if I go and get something to steady me nerves in the Cauldron?"

"That's fine," Harry replied, remembering how Uncle Vernon sometimes needed a bit of a drink of brandy to calm him down. Harry had always wondered what it tasted like, given how it smelled, but that was something he knew he'd have to wait for until he was old enough.

Hearing him speak seemed to comfort the witch slightly, and she crouched down a little to reach Harry's level. "It's nice to meet you, dear – I'm Madam Malkin."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, as Hagrid left, and Madam Malkin blinked in surprise.

"Goodness," she said, after a moment's thought. "Well, dear, I'm afraid we don't have any standard style robes for you, but I'll get my assistants and see what can be done. If you'll just come through into the fitting room..."

Harry followed her into the back of the shop, where there was a boy standing on a footstool with his back to the door while a second witch fiddled with the robes he was wearing.

"How are you getting on?" Madam Malkin asked the boy, and got a sort of nervous shrug in reply. "We've got a custom job to do, but I'm sure Ermintrude should be able to keep working on you while that's going on. If you'll just pop yourself up – oh, that's going to be a problem, isn't it..."

"Is that you, Draco?" the boy asked, sounding worried.

"Well, sort of," Harry replied. "But my name's Harry Potter."

The boy turned suddenly to look, heedless of the pin-work Ermintrude was doing up until that moment, and got a glimpse of Harry for only a moment before slipping and nearly falling off the stool. The stool actually clattered to the ground, but Madam Malkin had pulled a wand from somewhere and was floating him in mid-air so he didn't actually land.

"Careful now, dear," she advised, as Ermintrude put the stool back and two more witches came in. "You don't want to take a tumble, do you?"

As she spoke, Harry inspected the other footstool to see if he could think of a way to stand on it, then dismissed the idea in favour of something else.

Pushing it to the side, he reared up on his hind legs and let himself almost overbalance – coiling the lower half of his tail into a circle, and resting on that as well as his hind legs as a sort of tripod.

"Does this work?" he asked.

"Oh, good idea," Madam Malkin told him. "You two should just talk amongst yourselves while we work on this, don't worry."

There was a slightly awkward silence, which Harry decided to break. "Who's Draco?"

"Draco Malfoy," the boy clarified. "He's one of the other Pureblood boys this year. He makes me nervous, but – oh, um, I'm Neville Longbottom."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, then realized he'd already said that. "It's nice to meet you. What does Pureblood mean?"

"It means a wizard or a witch who's got wizard and witch parents and grandparents," Neville explained, sounding confused. "How do you not know that? You're Harry Potter!"

"Well, I didn't actually know I was a wizard until this morning," Harry explained. "I got some letters several days ago, but it wasn't until Hagrid told me about it that I knew."

"But you're famous," Neville protested. "You're the Boy who Lived… though I didn't know you were a dragon."

Harry shifted a little to let the witches measure where his wings were attached. "What does boy who lived mean?"

"Oh, uh..." Neville began, trying to think of how to say it. "There was a really bad wizard, called, um… it d-doesn't matter. And..."

The whole story, with several questions by Harry, took about fifteen minutes for Neville to tell. In that space of time Harry learned that an evil wizard had terrorized the country; that he and his followers thought that pure-blood meant they were better than other wizards; that nobody had been able to stop him; and that, nearly ten years ago, the evil wizard's reign of terror had been abruptly ended when he tried to kill Harry – and vanished.

Harry also found out where his odd lightning-bolt-shaped marking had come from (and he had to admit it made a little bit more sense than the idea it had been from a car crash) and that he and Neville were only one day apart in age.

"Gran said that we shouldn't go out shopping on my birthday, and of course we only got my Hogwarts letter a few days ago," Neville was explaining. "So, um… that's why we're doing it so late, because everything else was about the party."

Harry's tail flicked idly, then he felt a faint jab.

"Oops, sorry," one of the witches said. "Are you all right?"

"I think so?" Harry replied. "I've never hurt myself with a needle or anything before."

Madam Malkin inspected the needle, which was in fact bent at the tip by its encounter with Harry's scales, then waved her wand and fixed it. "Nearly done, dear..."

"My aunt and uncle don't much like throwing parties for me," Harry told Neville. "I don't really mind, but my cousin gets loads of presents and he just throws tantrums and breaks them."

Neville winced. "Wow… it's kind of funny to think about Harry Potter having an, er..."

He flushed. "I was going to say a normal life, but you're a dragon..."

"There you go, dear," Madam Malkin said. "I'm very sorry for the wait."

Harry dropped back onto all fours, and was quite impressed. The material of the robes moved to let him go on all fours without a problem, it let his tail out, and when he experimentally unfurled a wing there was even a slot for that.

"We do robes for Quidditch, and we used the same ideas here," Madam Malkin explained, as Harry walked around in a circle to try them out – keeping his tail clear of Neville's footstool, to save his new friend a second tumble. "I trust you find them satisfactory?"

"Well, I think they're all right so far," Harry replied, spreading both wings this time and bringing them down slowly to check the travel. "What do you think, Neville?"

After a pause, surprised that Harry was asking his opinion, Neville started. "Oh – I think they're all right..."

"That sounds good, then," Harry decided. "How much are they?"

"If you'll just give us a minute, we'll make up the other two sets with the same pattern," Madam Malkin requested, twirling her wand to do just that. "And there's the hat, and – well, a few quick modifications to the winter cloak-"

"Oh, you don't need to bother," Harry tried to say. "I don't know if I'll ever use it, I never really feel cold."

"Perhaps that's so, dear, but I take pride on providing robes for all occasions," Madam Malkin told him. "And there you go!"

Hagrid had been waiting outside for some minutes by the time Harry left, and was duly impressed by the new robes – especially when Harry demonstrated that he could fly even while wearing them, rising to about the level of the second floor and hovering there for a long moment before dropping back down two stories to ground level.

That done, their next stop was a general supply shop with all sorts, and Harry managed to restrain himself from sampling half the potions ingredients on hand while they picked up the cauldron, phials and scales, plus a collapsible brass telescope. Hagrid also asked what kinds of protective gloves were available, which prompted Harry to pull himself up to the counter-top and ask where they got their dragon hide, and the resultant conversation left Harry faintly disturbed but satisfied that almost all dragons didn't speak.

He was still grateful that they had managed to get a pair of Manticore skin gloves instead, though – while Hagrid was fairly sure that Harry's scales would be as resistant to potions as conventional dragon hide, finding out that this was incorrect would be quite inconvenient.

"Three things left on the list," Hagrid said, as they left that shop. "Books and wand, plus me present for you. Thought I'd get you an owl, dead useful."

"You've already given me a big birthday present just by introducing me to all this," Harry protested, but Hagrid waved him off.

"Nah, call it last years' then or something. Besides, an owl'll carry your post and everything, and I'm sure them Dursleys don't have one of them," Hagrid insisted. "How'd you keep in touch with any friends without one?"

The streets were growing a little more crowded, and the sight of Harry drew more and more stares, but Hagrid just forged ahead – leading Harry to Eeylops' Owl Emporium.

It was a dark place, and probably normally a silent one, but as soon as Harry entered the whole shop was full of hoots and barks and flapping wings as just about every bird in the place startled or began trying like mad to escape.

"Excuse me?" the man behind the counter asked loudly, sounding distressed. "This is – goodness!"

"Sorry 'bout this," Hagrid said, spreading his hands and trying to make soothing motions. "It ain't their fault, it ain't 'is fault, he can't help how he is..."

As they talked, both raising their voices to be heard over the din, Harry looked around with a sigh.

Maybe he'd just have to do without a pet, if this was how owls and cats reacted to him. He didn't know he got on so badly with animals, but then again a lot of the animals he'd met before hadn't had a problem – it was just those cats the lady who lived not-too-far away from Number Four Privet Drive.

As he was pondering this, there was a quiet preck from nearby.

Harry turned, and saw the noise had come from one of the owls. Unlike the rest, this one – a beautiful snowy owl – wasn't freaking out at the sight and smell of a dragon, but was just looking out from under its wing with an affronted expression.

"Sorry about the noise," Harry said, and the owl clicked its beak. "I didn't know they were all going to get so loud."

The snowy owl tilted its head and blinked sarcastically, before putting its head under its wing and going back to sleep.

Ten minutes later they left with the snowy owl, who turned out to be a female. Harry hadn't thought of a name for her yet – a male would have been easy and would have ended up as 'Ruth' – but he was sure he'd find something somewhere.

"Books next?" he asked Hagrid.

"Nah, I think yeh might take a while in there," Hagrid replied with a chuckle. "No, best thing is to get yer wand next. Then you can spend a while on the books, mebbe after lunch, an' we can get you on the train back to them Dursleys."

So saying, he led Harry to a particularly old-looking shop, one with a peeling sign over the top that said it had been established in 382 BC. This sounded very strange to Harry, who was fairly sure that London wasn't that old, but he supposed that perhaps the shop had moved here later after being established somewhere else.

When they entered, it was to find a tiny room with a single chair and rows and rows of small boxes lining every wall all the way up the ceiling.

"There must be thousands of these," Harry said, looking around. "How many wizards get wands here?"

"All of them," said a soft voice.

Harry's ears twitched, nearly unseating his glasses again, and he held his wings to his side as he turned around.

The old man who had spoken examined Harry carefully, looking him up and down, then spoke again. "Harry Potter."

"That's me," Harry confirmed, then frowned – tilting his head on one side. "How did you know? Most people just stare."

"I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Mr. Potter," the old man said – Harry assumed he was Mr. Ollivander, after the name of the shop. "And I never forget a wand, you see. Your body is different to what I was expecting, but your eyes… they are very similar to your mother's eyes."

"Really?" Harry asked. "I've never seen a picture, and mine are slightly slit now but they didn't used to be."

"It is the shade, Mr. Potter," Ollivander told him. "Unforgettable. And once you realize, the scar… well, it just confirms what I already knew."

He stepped back a pace. "But to provide a wand for a dragon, now… quite a different experience. Your mother's was ten and a quarter inches, swishy, made of willow. Good for charms. While your father – mahogany, eleven inches, more powerful and pliable as well. That one was a wand for transfiguration."

"What does that mean for my wand?" Harry asked. "Is it like the average?"

"Not at all, Mr. Potter," Ollivander corrected. "Not at all. The wand chooses, and wands are quite individual – each with a core of a powerful magical substance. And there is a third wand which has shaped your life," he added, touching the scar on Harry's forehead. "Thirteen and a half inch yew, and very powerful."

Harry's wings were starting to unfurl despite himself, and he furled them again with a faint clatter of wing membrane. "So… do I have to try all the wands until I find one which fits? Or does one just jump into my paw?"

"Not quite, Mr. Potter, not quite," Ollivander answered. "We shall see what we can do to find you a wand, most certainly..."

As it transpired, the process of selecting a wand had two main phases.

The first phase was that Mr. Ollivander began taking measurements. Length of dominant foreleg, length of non-dominant foreleg, distance between pupils, head diameter, height of shoulders, separation between shoulder girdle and hip girdle… the tape measure took over by itself after the first dozen or so, and after a little obvious hesitation also measured Harry's main wing spar, alar phalanges and tail length.

"How do these measurements help?" Harry asked.

"Bone structure, very important," the wand maker told him, taking boxes down from the high stacks of them all around the room. "Yes, very important..."

Mr. Ollivander waved his hand, and the tape measure clattered to the floor. He then unboxed a wand and handed it to Harry. "Try this one, ebony and phoenix feather, seven inches."

Harry took it, and Ollivander immediately took the wand back. "No, perhaps not… maybe this one, beechwood and unicorn hair..."

That more-or-less set the tone for the second phase of selecting a wand, which was that Mr. Ollivander handed Harry wand after wand to try and then took them back less than a second later.

The whole thing was quite mystifying to Harry, who looked around at Hagrid as he was passed yet another wand. "Is this normal, Hagrid?"

"Eh?" Hagrid replied. "Well, of course it's normal. Got to keep going until you get a wand with a good reaction."

"But there seem to be a lot of them," Harry replied, waving at the big pile building up on the chair.

"Don't worry, Mr. Potter, we have many wands left to try," Ollivander said, retrieving another wand from the set. "Try this one."

Harry immediately felt the difference when he took it, a tingle running up his arm and through his wings. This time he was able to give it a wave, and a shower of orange sparks bounced through the room all at once before slowly fading away.

"Ah, excellent!" the wandmaker said, as Hagrid applauded. "You see, Mr. Potter, there is always a wand for the wizard!"

He began packaging up the wands which hadn't worked, one at a time, then paused. "Though… it is surprising that it is that wand which reacted to you, Mr. Potter. You see, wands are known as brothers when their core comes from the same animal, and that wand's core is a phoenix feather… and the only brother to that wand, why, it gave you that scar."

"You mean it was a wand that belonged to that dark wizard?" Harry asked, moving his wand to between his thumb and foreclaw and touching the scar on his forehead. "Nobody's told me his name yet."

"I am not surprised, Mr. Potter, not surprised," Ollivander said, nodding slightly. "In the past, to say his name was to call down terrible misfortune. But you should not be too worried by the match, Mr. Potter… thirteen-and-a-half inch yew is a very different wand to eleven-inch holly, and of course He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did do great things."

"I don't think it's really right to say they were great things," Harry protested. "I know what you mean, but – oh, I was going to ask..."

He indicated the wand he was holding in a forepaw. "Is there a good way for me to carry this? When I walk it's going to be hitting the ground a lot."

Mr. Ollivander examined Harry up and down with his luminous eyes.

"Perhaps in your pockets, Mr. Potter?"

"Oh, yeah, good point," Harry realized. "I'm not really used to having pockets."

"What kind of wand do you have, Hagrid?" Harry asked, as they left Ollivanders several galleons lighter and one wand richer.

"Well, I used to have a big oak wand," Hagrid replied, sounding embarrassed. "It got snapped in half when I was expelled, though… still got the pieces, mind."

He held on tightly to his umbrella as he said it, and Harry thought about that for a long moment.

"My goodness, is that a dragon?" someone asked. "Rubeus, where on earth did you find robes for a dragon?"

"Madam Malkins?" Harry answered, looking up at the man who'd spoken. "She did really well, they fit great so far – I can even fly in them."

"This here's 'Arry Potter, Dedalus," Hagrid added. "I'm helpin' him get his Hogwarts stuff."

"Oh, goodness – it is?" Dedalus asked. "But – I never thought – goodness!"

He offered his hand, and Harry shook it a little awkwardly. "Daedalus Diggle at your service, Mr. Potter! Such an honour, it really is… and thank you for all you've done."

"I'm afraid I don't really remember any of it," Harry confessed. "It was all quite a long time ago and I was very young."

"Oh – I suppose, yes, but nevertheless – thank you," Mr. Diggle reiterated. "It's a pity my son already has all his Hogwarts things – I'm sure he'd be delighted to meet you!"

Seeing Mr. Diggle talking to him seemed to break the ice, and three or four more witches and wizards approached Harry to shake his paw.

It felt like quite a long time before Harry and Hagrid managed to reach Flourish and Blotts, the bookshop on Diagon Alley, and Harry was bright and alert when they did – looking around with amazement at the books, which were much more impressive-looking than most books he'd seen in the library. It seemed like they were all hardback, and usually quite beautifully made, though most of them didn't have any pictures on the front cover.

The book list from the Hogwarts letter was what got them started, mostly volumes which looked like school textbooks but which were magic school textbooks – and therefore much more interesting – but Harry wasn't willing to leave it at that, and as soon as they had the final book on the list (a book about self-protection) he loped up to the counter and asked the shopkeeper where the fiction books were. That got him pointed to an aisle up against one wall which was full of paperbacks, and when Hagrid caught up with him Harry was already staring at one book in particular.

"Hagrid," he said, confused. "I'm in this one."

Hagrid took a look at the cover and chuckled. "No, lad, that's a Norwegian Ridgeback. Lovely type o' dragon, mind. Lovely beasts."

"No, that's not what I mean," Harry explained, turning the book over to show the back cover and the short blurb on it. "It's a book about human me fighting a dragon."

Hagrid peered closer, his lips moving slightly as he read.

"Ah," he said, wincing. "Yeah, that's a mite odd. Not sure where this whole idea of writin' books about yeh came from, an' I can see how you'd find it all weird..."

Harry put that particular book back on the shelf, and looked at the other ones he'd pulled down. It seemed as though Wizarding fiction books did have cover pictures, and he'd gone through finding just about all the ones he could which featured a dragon somewhere on them.

"Do you read any of these, Hagrid?" he asked, looking at a book called Tooth and Fang which seemed a bit more to his taste.

"No, not much of one for stories like that," Hagrid told him. "Much prefer books about real creatures an' how to take care of them, and suchlike."

That got him a nod from Harry, who understood what Hagrid meant.

"I wonder if I could get all of these," he said. "How many knuts in a galleon is it?"

"Seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle," Hagrid answered promptly.

"Okay, so these are..." Harry began, adding up in his head. "Well, if I only get four of this big series of them for now, that's about fifteen sickles. So less than a galleon… is that okay?"

"Harry, that money's yours," the big man told him. "I wouldn't tell yeh it wasn't a mistake to spend the whole lot on sweets, but don't be worried about buyin' some books."

Harry nodded, thinking about that, then looked at the rest of the bookstore.

"...what other creatures books are there?" he asked, ears perking up a little. "Maybe I could get some of those as well. And maybe another history book..."

The idea of having a nice big book collection, made up of his books that he owned, was very tempting indeed.

It was at least two in the afternoon when Hagrid finally managed to drag Harry out of the bookshop, pointing out that they had lunch to get, and the twine-tied packages full of books stacked up were higher than his snoozing snowy owl's cage.

As they ate lunch – a hearty meal from the Leaky Cauldron, with Harry lying on the bench on one side of a booth table and Hagrid taking up the entire other side – Harry asked one of the questions that had been bothering him.

"How am I going to get all this stuff home, Hagrid?" he said. "And where am I going to keep it? My cupboard's a nice lair, but..."

"Ah, well now," Hagrid replied, thinking about that. "I'm sure them Dursleys will sort summat out if you tell 'em, and if not then you get that owl of yours to bring me a letter. I'll be right down an' make sure you're all sorted."

Harry nodded. "And… um… if you can help me get it all to the train, I think I'll be okay at the other end."

"Good lad," Hagrid told him. "Might be I could see about making them lighter?"

"That's not really the problem," Harry told him, and ate another bite of steak. "It's just trying to carry them all at once, but… I think I'll be okay."

"Good lad," Hagrid repeated, giving him a scratch under the chin. It might have felt quite surprising, but Harry found out that it felt a lot like a different sort of hug – caring and gentle, and from a man like Hagrid who'd shown him nothing but kindness today it was just a pleasant thing to happen.

"Oh, and here's your train ticket," Hagrid added. "First o' September, Kings Cross. It's all on there."

"Thanks, Hagrid," Harry said, taking the envelope and putting it with the rest of his new things, then picked out some of the big, hearty chips and ate them as well. "This has been a really odd birthday, but it's been really nice as well."

Hagrid's help was invaluable in getting Harry's things down the road, across the river by Underground Train – another new experience for Harry, who nearly caught his tail in the door – and then onto the train from Waterloo Station back in the direction of Surrey.

The young dragon watched from the window until Hagrid was out of sight – which happened quicker than he expected, the big man vanishing from view when he blinked – then stepped back to lie down across two seats and watch the countryside go past.

"Excuse me, young man?"

Harry looked around, surprised, and saw a woman giving him and his packages an odd look.

"Why are you wearing a dress?"

The dragon looked down at his Hogwarts robes, and felt a faint heat in his cheeks – realizing that, while she couldn't see that he was a dragon, she could see his clothes.

"I just got them today," he explained. "They're a school uniform and they had to be fitted, and I was so busy shopping I forgot to change out of them again."

"Oh, I see," the woman said, nodding in understanding.

Harry stretched out his wing in front of his pile of supplies – books, owl and equipment – and much to his relief the woman didn't ask about any of those things and sat back to read a book.

That sounded like a good idea to Harry as well, so he got one of the novels out of his new purchases and began to read it.

It seemed like it wasn't actually the first book in the series, and it was about an Auror – which sounded like a magical policewoman – investigating a murder where the victim had been killed by being set on fire.

The fact that there was a dragon on the front cover made Harry fairly sure he knew how it had been done, but there was always the possibility that that was a fake-out. Besides, it did seem quite well written.

AN:

And now a small subsection of the Wizarding World knows about Harry, and Harry knows about a small subsection of the Wizarding World.

Funny the changes that can result from a shorter train journey and an earlier start.

In case you're wondering, the reason why Harry thinks of Ruth as a boy's name is because of the White Dragon from Pern.