Stares in shock at the sheer amount of reviews on the first chapter alone.
I honestly didn't expect that amount of LOVE for Raptor. Fortunately I already have four chapters written of it, and yes it's a Jurassic Park cross. Once I have more than five it will become a full story.
It was official... Harry loved his new familiar.
Talon not only helped with the absurd number of cats roaming the neighborhood (thank you Mrs. Figg for not getting your cats fixed...), she also kept his aunt and uncle from bothering him.
All Harry had to do to get them to leave him alone was let them meet Talon for about five minutes, then keep bringing her out to remind them that yes, she was real, and yes, she would eat them when Harry gave the command.
Watching her tear apart one of Mrs. Figg's cats had been a very...graphic...demonstration of what Talon could do to them.
Not even Dudley was willing to go anywhere near Talon when she was out...and Harry let her out regularly.
The best part, the absolutely best part of it all?
Not a single soul in Little Whinging would believe Vernon if he told them his delinquent nephew had a velociraptor as a pet. If he did tell, they might start to question his word on Harry, or worse, his sanity.
Which meant Hedwig was allowed to stay out so long as Harry agreed to keep his new pet far, far from them.
House elves were...interesting. One second Dobby tried to get Harry in trouble, the next he couldn't get away from Talon fast enough.
Sure, he had to make sure the raptor was inside her mini tropical climate, but it was so worth not having a fake underage magic charge on him.
However Vernon very nearly overcame his fear of Talon long enough to try and strangle Harry for dealing with the elf. So Harry gave him something else to focus on.
A chance to be rid of him for the rest of the summer. He did need to let the cat population grow again, and Mrs. Figg was starting to ask questions about her missing pets.
The last thing he needed was for her to figure out why there were only a small number of cats compared to the fifty that had originally been roaming around because she never bothered to have hers fixed.
Vernon dumped him off at the corner a few blocks from the Cauldron, and Harry adjusted his baseball cap before going in. So long as no one recognized him, he could get some shopping done on both sides.
It was in the muggle world that he found his first big clue towards where Hagrid had managed to acquire a velociraptor egg.
iNGen was a relatively muggle company that had been making some very odd purchases over the years while under the control of the eccentric John Hammond. Rumor had it he was up to something very big indeed, something involving large quantities of fossilized amber, ostrich eggs, and a few islands off Costa Rica.
What little information there was happened to come from a smaller project abandoned in favor of something grander and considerably more expensive.
Something involving the word Jurassic.
Raptors were from the Cretaceous period, not the Jurassic...but the egg Hagrid had hatched Talon from had been an ostrich egg, so it was a pretty good place to start. Plus quite a few experts on cloning had been pulled in on the project.
It was unusual enough that someone did an article wondering what Hammond was up to this time.
All of it easily obtainable by an almost twelve-year-old boy with a raptor for a pet.
Time to test the waters with the eccentric millionaire.
The goblins seemed...happy?...about Harry's interest in his finances. So much so that his investment manager agreed to look into John Hammond's newly acquired islands and possibly see if he would be interested in a new investor.
One who might eventually insist on seeing what he was up to.
Harry couldn't access the main vault (surprising him when he found out the one he normally accessed was his trust fund) but he could work with the goblins to make investments on his behalf, for a percentage.
When he converted some of his gold bullion into cold hard cash (having quickly figured out it was easier to covert on the muggle side than vice versa), Harry immediately rented out a hotel, claiming his grandparents would be picking him up in a few days.
More than enough time to sort out his finances in peace without having to worry about someone trying to bring him back to his aunt and uncle's house. Especially since he claimed his last name was "Swift".
Hermione was having a very, very bad summer. It started with the knowledge that Harry would be taking a dangerous animal home with him (though for some reason it seemed to understand him, which always worried her) and eventually ended in her parents taking her to a natural history museum to try and take her mind off things.
Instead it only made her anxiety worse.
"Hermione sweetie, you really need to calm down."
"My friend is living with a carnivorous lizard that is more intelligent than most of the students at my school, and is bigger than he is, and you expect me to calm down?" said Hermione.
"How about we go visit the dinosaur exhibit?" suggested her father.
"I'd rather see the one on science that doesn't specialize in things long dead," said Hermione.
Had she known exactly what Talon was, she might have been more interested and far more worried about her friend's health.
As it was, she missed yet another opportunity to figure out the true nature of the rather terrifying Talon.
Harry didn't know what possessed him to teach Talon Morse Code, but it was the best money he had ever spent.
While he could guess the basic gist of what Talon was trying to impart in her usual manner of speaking, having a common language was much easier...and made translation interesting.
He always knew Talon was infinitely smarter than most of his fellow classmates. It took her a week to figure out Morse code, since she couldn't read. It took him a few days longer before they were holding long conversations involving her clicking her large claw on something hard and him responding with a claw he bought online.
You really could find anything on the internet these days.
Harry looked up when he heard the crash, and found Errol out cold on his bed. Hedwig hooted in disapproval. She barely tolerated Talon's existence as it was, and Talon had apparently come to the conclusion the owl was part of the 'Pack' considering how she treated Harry.
So long as it kept Hedwig from being eaten, Harry wasn't going to ask.
He read the missive, looked at the comatose Errol, and got an idea.
Errol needed the retirement, and he wasn't going to embarrass the Weasleys. Though if they did want him he'd have to warn Ron about Talon coming along.
He sent his reply back with a cheap barn owl with a note at the bottom stating that he was Errol's replacement and that he'd send Errol back when he recovered. Surely Mrs. Weasley wouldn't take offense to him giving the poor owl a break, right? And if she did, then she could always pay him back the five sickles he spent on the barn owl.
He made sure to mention that as well. And that he didn't mind if she paid in installments. A sickle here and there when they could afford it.
Ron took one look at the reply and paled.
"Oh bloody hell...I forgot about that thing..." said Ron at the table.
"Ronald! Language!"
Fred read over his shoulder and winced.
"It might not be a good idea to bring Harry over mum... though maybe he could get rid of the gnomes in our garden or something..." said Fred.
"Wait, you mean he actually managed to get that thing approved?!" said George, staring at Fred in something almost akin to horror.
"Boys, what is going on?" demanded their mother.
"Talon," said Fred, George and Ron at once, before shuddering. Percy shuddered as well when they mentioned that name.
"Who or what is Talon?" asked Arthur.
"Harry's new familiar. Hagrid got some weird egg last year playing poker, and it apparently bonded with Harry instead of him. I guess he got the familiar application approved, because he said if he came over Talon would be coming with him," explained Fred.
"And why do you all seem less than enthusiastic about this?" asked Arthur.
"That thing is creepy. It almost looks like it's planning to eat you alive after playing with you first," said Ron emphatically.
"Yeah...we've had to avoid the forest since she got too big for us to avoid," said George. One near run-in with a half-grown Talon was enough for them. They were just lucky Talon got distracted by her favorite snack of Acromantulas.
Molly didn't like the sound of this at all.
"What does this Talon look like?"
"A small dragon without wings or ability to breath fire. And the Ministry officials had to run tests twice to confirm she wasn't a magical pet before Hagrid was allowed to keep her penned in the forest. I think Harry had her trained to go after the large Acromantula population to keep her entertained," said Percy.
"She has these wicked claw things on each foot. And she's fast. Really, really fast," said Fred.
"But the worst part of all is her eyes. They're the same color as Harry's, but it's almost like she's thinking when you look at them. As if she's planning the best way to take you down and eat you," shuddered George. That had been the primary reason they avoided the forest after the run-in. He still saw those eyes in his nightmares.
"This creature sounds dangerous," said Molly, and you could see her thought patterns.
"Harry has her more or less trained. She avoids the castle and the village, and he makes sure that she only goes after things he approves of. She's nearly gone after Draco a few times if Harry hadn't stopped her," said Ron.
"Draco as in Draco Malfoy?" asked Arthur, his estimation of the beast going up.
"Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott...a bunch of Slytherins from our year. Though they've quit going after her when she nearly bit Malfoy's arm off."
The only reason Talon hadn't been put down for that was because Harry had started the application for bringing his new familiar home the day before. Nobody wanted to piss off the Boy-Who-Lived over the matter of a pet. Especially when Harry provided memories of Malfoy deliberately antagonizing his familiar previously.
Well...that and the fact Talon would absolutely go into the forest and pick them off if they tried to hit her with spells.
"...Perhaps I should see this Talon firsthand. Did the letter say anything else?"
Ron was about to say no, but Fred had a larger attention span.
"Harry said we could keep the barn owl he sent it back with, so Errol can get a break from the long flights. And if you wanted to pay him back he didn't mind if you did it in bits and pieces, since he knows we're not exactly rich," said Fred, reading the letter.
"How much was the owl?" asked Arthur.
"Five sickles, and he got the most reasonably priced one," read Fred, squinting at the letter.
"Did he say where we could find him?"
"According to this he's withing walking distance of the Cauldron and usually eats lunch there...but he has to keep Talon in her trunk, otherwise she might cause problems," read Fred.
"I'll go visit Harry and see if we can't work out an arrangement," said Arthur.
Arthur found Harry reading something that looked like an investment sheet. Harry noticed him immediately.
"Um...who are you?"
"I'm Ron's father, Arthur."
"Sorry. Should have guessed by the hair color."
"It's quite alright. My sons were someone...perturbed...when you mentioned your familiar. That and I was hoping to come to an arrangement over the owl you sent."
"Like I said before, I know how touchy Ron gets about the fact your family isn't rich, so I was hoping to avoid him being overly jealous over an owl of all things."
Arthur nodded in agreement. The fact was Harry had also spared his ears from Molly's temper.
"Thank you for that. While I understand the intention behind it, Molly would have thrown up a fuss about charity. However I was more concerned about this...Talon...of yours."
"We should really find a place where I can let her out. It's not that I don't trust you, but I really don't want to explain to the people at the hotel why I'm bringing an older man to my room alone," said Harry wincing.
Arthur ran that through his own head and winced as well. Harry was definitely more sensible than Ron.
In a discreet park with a few wild dogs, Harry let his familiar out.
Arthur could see why she unnerved his sons. There was an intelligence there that people weren't used to seeing in the eyes of an animal, and this one was clearly a meat eater.
The only reason he didn't immediately go for his wand was the fact that this...Talon...stayed close to Harry and didn't go after the dogs, though she was clearly eying them like they were prey. He could also see why his son described her as a 'small dragon without wings or fire'. She had the same head shape as a dragon with all the teeth and claws of a predator.
Be that as it may, Arthur was very uncomfortable around the beast...and he knew Molly would never allow the creature anywhere near the Burrow once she saw it. She'd correctly assume the animal would give Ginerva nightmares.
Still, that didn't mean he couldn't keep an eye out for Harry, despite his rather terrifying bodyguard in Talon.
"We'll be coming to Diagon for school supplies next week. You're welcome to join us," said Arthur.
"You know if you wanted I could loan your family enough galleons to get Ron a new wand. I'm tired of him complaining about his in the common room."
"With a similar payment plan like the owl?" said Arthur.
Harry nodded.
"If your wife asks, just say I'm trying to foster a long relationship with the Weasley family with no strings attached. Though I'm not particularly interested in signing any marriage contracts until after I've graduated," said Harry quickly. He remembered Ron had a sister, and the last thing he wanted was to be stuck with a betrothal contract because he happened to loan them some gold.
Arthur nodded in agreement.
"I can bring the standard loan agreement between families...and a book on contracts from home. It doesn't get much use these days, I'm afraid."
"Gentleman's agreement then, sealed with a handshake?" suggested Harry.
Arthur firmly shook his hand. At least with Harry there was little chance of him holding the loan over his head for the next two generations, like most pure bloods.