~Chapter 31~ Blood of Red and Gold – 31 July 1995

Chapter Summary: Dimitri/Harry is saved in a way that no one expected.

~Severus~

Cold fear pulsed through him as he saw Dimitri collapse, but he ignored the need to rush to his godson's side and forced himself to remove the threat first as he saw how Voldemort held him close. He silently cursed himself for not checking Dimitri over after the woman bumped into him. He'd known something wasn't right, but like a fool, he'd believed that Dimitri would handle it or that Death had warned him. Dimitri himself had once warned him that he didn't know about everything that would happen.

He hurriedly removed his potions kit after pushing the woman to her knees and fell onto his own next to Dimitri. He tried to place a bezoar in Dimitri's mouth, but whatever it was that had been injected into his body had made his saliva almost acidic and the bezoar didn't last long enough to counter it.

He knew that potions wouldn't work so he tried another one, but that one disintegrated even faster and he frantically reached for another before a hand on his wrist stopped him and his head snapped up with a cutting remark, only to catch the look on Sirius' face.

The man was looking in Salazar's direction and Severus felt his breath catch as he turned his head to do the same. Salazar's gray eyes now looked stormy and Severus watched in awe as his power manifested around him as streaks of electricity that danced in the air around him.

Salazar lightly hovered a hand over Dimitri's chest and closed his eyes as he visibly started guiding his shadows into Dimitri's body to try and purge the poison. There were gasps of amazement at the show of power and Severus would have been tempted to block the image of his mate from the rest of the people in the room if Dimitri's life hadn't been in danger.

At first, it looked like it was working, but after 20 minutes it became clear that it was only slowing the poison down and Severus watched in worry as perspiration started to form on his mate's skin. He stepped forward and grasped the man's hand, only to grit his teeth as pins and needles rushed up through his arm and into his body. It wasn't painful, but only just barely.

Salazar seemed to be in some kind of trance as he didn't seem to realize what to was doing. The feeling became even more intense until Sirius hurriedly placed a hand over Severus' to help. This effectively seemed to bring Salazar out of his trance and Severus saw the elder man glancing between him and Sirius in horror as he paled and quickly pulled his power back in.

For a moment, it felt like the very air itself had been deprived of oxygen, and Severus and Sirius quickly leaned forward to catch Salazar as he fell forward.

~Sirius~

He felt hopeless as he watched as first Severus and then Salazar tried to heal Dimitri, but nothing worked. He mentally rushed through every scrap of knowledge he had, but it was a painful realization that nothing he knew would be able to help Dimitri in any way. A cracking sound echoed through his ears and he looked down to find that the protective bracelet around Dimitri's wrist had snapped in half.

A furious growl followed by an anguished scream made his head snap up and he felt pure terror mixed with awe as he watched Voldemort visibly tear the witch's soul from her body.

He knew a similar curse. Had even stumbled upon it once during his days as an Auror. It allowed the caster to remove a person's soul from their body so that their minds wouldn't seize under great amounts of torture done to their body, while they still feel every single moment of it, but what Voldemort had just done, was through pure anger and magic alone.

He watched as Death grasped the witch's soul by the throat before an eerie whistle echoed through the air and a red portal opened up in the middle of the room. Everything was silent for a few moments before a howl echoed inside the room and two monstrous hounds appeared. They seemed to be held together by fiery sinew and blackened bones and Sirius' gaze snapped to the witch's soul as she started begging for her life to be spared but to no avail.

Sirius forced himself to watch as the witch's soul was thrown to the hounds. One caught the soul by the arm and the other by the leg before they started fighting over it. Death ordered the hounds to 'escort' the soul to her future residence and the hounds disappeared with their prize while still fighting over it.

The portal faded and the entity turned toward Voldemort, "Her soul will never find peace again, that I can assure you."

Sirius heard a broken sob echo out from in between the Death Eaters and his grip tightened on both Severus and Salazar as he gazed down at Dimitri's pale form. His mind had stopped working properly after witnessing such brutality and he tried to scrape his thoughts together as he heard Voldemort order one of his Death Eaters to move the woman's body to the lowest cells for now.

A hand lifted his head and Sirius found himself looking into Salazar's questioning gaze. He didn't want to leave Dimitri, he needed to know that the young man was safe, but he'd had enough training to know that his mind was in shock and that he wouldn't be able to help anyone in such a state. Azkaban seemed to have left its mark after all. He closed his eyes and swallowed tensely, then nodded. Salazar's magic touched his own and then he knew nothing more.

~Salazar~

He felt torn as he allowed his magic to take Sirius to their rooms at Hogwarts. He should have realized how much something like this would have affected the other man. Guilt rushed through him at the thought but he forced it down and turned back to Dimitri to try and save him some other way. He would help Sirius once they managed to stabilize Dimitri.

Shadow magic wasn't helping at all for some reason, even though Dimitri was the Master of Death. Was there something that they were missing? If only Helga were…

His eyes widened and his gaze snapped to Dimitri's face as he remembered Dimitri's tale of the Chamber of Secrets and how he'd managed to remove Gryffindor's sword from the hat. Godric had even tried to guide Dimitri to his hidden rooms the night that he and Voldemort had officially met…Dimitri, or rather Harry Potter, was Godric's heir!

Salazar sat back and yanked a mirror from one of his robe pockets, "Godric, Godric! Answer you old fool!"

A disgruntled growl echoed from the mirror as Godric, or rather Peeves' face came into view, "What is it? I'm busy…"

Salazar didn't even bother to answer as he turned the mirror around to show Dimitri's unconscious form. It was met with silence from the other end and Salazar frowned as he turned the mirror around again. Surely his old friend hadn't frozen in shock?

But the mirror was blank, showing that the connection had been cut off. Barely a few seconds went by before a crash was heard and Salazar's gaze shot to the doors as they slammed open, revealing Godric in his original form, in the flesh.

He looked to be in his early 30s with red hair cut short and his green eyes blazing. Golden dust seemed to appear in the air around him as he moved and the closer he got to Dimitri, the more his form seemed to blur and change until golden wings protruded from his back and golden horns from his head. His arms became scaled towards his wrists and sharp claws tipped off the ends of his fingers.

Salazar was relieved when the transformation didn't go any further as Godric's legs tended to snap when they realigned themselves. He froze slightly as he noticed the pure fury on his old friend's face and he remembered the reason why they had chosen Hogwarts' motto in the first place…Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.

~Voldemort~

He'd heard Salazar calling for Godric for some reason, but he hadn't known why until the Gryffindor founder appeared at the door. There was no more denying the fact that Lily Potter had to have been descended from the man in some way now that he saw what Godric really looked like.

The air thickened with power and Voldemort watched as the man's form slowly merged with, what seemed to be, a golden dragon's. Surely it couldn't be, right? Golden dragons had died off many years ago due to people believing that the golden scales brought luck to the wearer.

Surely Dimitri couldn't be…? Voldemort closed his eyes with a sigh, of course, he could. He had wondered whether the boy had liquid luck running through his veins after listening to some of the things that had happened to him in the other dimension. Though at the time it had only been an expression, not a possibility.

He glanced back towards the group of people that were still huddled together. A wave of his hand forced most of them to forget the encounter with a widespread obliviate before they were mentally urged to return home. Come morning they would simply believe that the drinks had gone to their heads.

Lucius, Narcissa, Barty, Bellatrix, and the Twins dutifully raised their wands in a silent oath before they stood back to watch what would happen next, each willing to move at a moment's notice as soon as Voldemort needed them.

He wanted to get closer to his mate again, to hold him now that the threat had been taken care of, but the creature in him recognized that Godric was the only one that would be able to help at the moment and it whined in frustration.

~Godric~

The moment he'd seen Dimitri's pale form through the mirror, something inside him had ceased functioning properly. He'd come to care a lot for the young man that magick had recognized as his heir, both in blood and in magic, and seeing him like this…a growl left his throat as he turned to Salazar. "Who did this?"

He felt a nudge against his mental walls before Salazar projected the incident into his mind and the only thing that stopped him from rending the woman's body apart was the fact that they needed to take care of Dimitri first.

Godric bent down and gently removed the young man from Severus' grasp. He then looked directly at Voldemort, "You cannot follow where we are about to go. Trust me when I say that your mate will be safe with me." He did not give the man a chance to protest as his magic carried them to a pocket dimension that he'd once used as a haven before meeting the other three founders.

The dimension only held the basics, but it was the altar in the middle of the dimension that he headed towards. He paused in his step as a familiar gravestone came into view and he suddenly remembered why he'd left the dimension in the first place.

His wife had been unable to endure the strain that the dragon blood caused during her pregnancy, but she'd hidden it from him because they had been on the run from knights at the time. One of them had seen his human form when he'd changed to try and save a child from falling from a tree and they'd been forced to leave their land as the lord of the area issued a reward for anyone that could catch him.

The knights hadn't given up though and Godric finally managed to form this pocket dimension with his magic, only to notice that his wife was slowly dying. He'd tried to find a cure and had even been prepared to remove the child from her body to spare her life, but she'd refused. The day she died, she took most of him with her, but she also gave him a reason to keep going.

His son was named Merlin, and he'd taken on his mother's maiden name of Embrys in honor of her sacrifice.

Godric smiled sadly as he continued towards the altar. That little menace of his had worshipped the ground that Salazar walked on and it wasn't a surprise when he was sorted into Slytherin. It made him proud to see the mark that he'd left on history.

He laid Dimitri down before stepping back and cutting his palm with one of his claws. He could sense the dormant dragon blood within his heir so the ritual didn't carry a great risk to the young man, but he still needed to be careful.

He made a small cut in Dimitri's palm before pressing their hands together and closing his eyes to chant, "Heir of my blood, blood of my heir, son of my house, awaken…"

Godric continued chanting for what felt like hours until he felt the cut on Dimitri's palm close up. It was the only sign that the ritual was a success. A breath of relief escaped him as he sat back and he was shocked to find that he felt slightly dizzy. A frown formed on his face before he opened his eyes and he almost fell back in horror as he realized that the entire altar was covered in black blood.

He bent down to remove Dimitri from the altar as it started bubbling from the poison that had been in the black blood but he barely managed to pick the man up before a golden light almost blinded him.

The weight in his arms suddenly became a lot less and he opened his eyes in a panic to find a baby golden dragon sitting in his arms. He stared at it in shock until it tilted its head cutely and let out a "Kio?" sound.

Godric froze in terror, "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

Salazar, and Voldemort, were going to kill him!

(A/N: I wanted to post this earlier today, but my fingers had a mind of their own again. Hope you enjoy it :))