We're off to see the Dragon

"So, that Kíli, now there was a lump of whiskery beefcake that seemed to have the hots for you," he asked playfully.

"Please, did you see his beard? And the smell," she said as her perfect nose scrunched up at the thought of the lovestruck Dwarf.

"Definitely a disappointing growth, I'll grant you," admitted Harry, deliberately misinterpreting her words. "The fat one though, he had a real beard. It's not even worth having one if you can't tie it in a bow on the top of your head. Do it properly or go home."

"Most Elves do not grow beards," said Tauriel as her lips twitched in amusement. Harry was quite impressed by how quickly she'd adapted to his attitude. "I have never seen any facial hair on an Elf, it simply looks… strange to my eyes. To say nothing of their height, they are not like to get taller."

"I'd say it was a pity if I wasn't actually pleased," said Harry honestly.

"They're not following us," said Tauriel after looking back towards where they had left the company of Dwarves behind. Deliberately changing the subject, Harry noted.

"Didn't think they would," Harry admitted to her, letting it slide for now. "To be honest they'd just slow us down. Can you see which way they're going?" Not that he especially cared but if they were headed straight for the mountain by boat then Harry would need to pick up the pace to get there first.

"They make for Esgaroth," she said after another glance back to the distant river.

"Ahhh, well, I suppose we can take our time then," said Harry happily. He picked up a single flat stone from the ground and skimmed it out over the lake. He kept walking but every now and then would see what he'd call a 'prime skimmer' and would stop to cast it over the still waters at their side.

There was a short silence filled with the occasional splash before Tauriel spoke up again.

"Why would you wish to fight the dragon when it is no concern of yours?" she asked and Harry thought he detected a certain amount of doubt in her tone. He could understand her misgivings, dragons weren't really things to be trifled with. It was a good job he had no intention of merely trifling with the thing.

Harry shrugged easily. "I may as well, it gives me something to do," he said confidently.

"Is that the only reason?" she asked with more insight than Harry would like. He often lamented his weakness for perceptive women. His life would have been so much easier if he could just settle for a bimbo.

"Yeah, all right. I also want to help the short arses, even if they do smell funny. I'm not completely heartless," he admitted grudgingly.

She glanced at him then before saying lightly, "Some of them are taller than you, you know."

"Height is a state of mind," said Harry while making a dismissive gesture. "You don't need to be taller than the other guy to look down on them."

Tauriel smiled at his reasoning. "You seem to be gaining some familiarity with the Elvish frame of mind," she said.

He scowled, the expression, as always, looking completely out of place on his flawless features. "Piss off, I know you find Legolas and Thranduil just as stuck up as I do."

Her pure high laugh rang across the shale-strewn shoreline. "I would not put it in those terms," she said after she recovered. "But I would not disagree with you in the sentiment."

"What can you tell me about the dragon?" Harry asked to change the subject. He was of the firm opinion that anything personal that did not involve sex should be left well alone.

"Smaug?" she asked, "I have never seen him but I hear tell he is longer than even the greatest trees of Mirkwood are tall, that he towered over the city of Dale and crushed buildings beneath his claws."

That was… quite substantially larger than any dragon Harry had encountered. This thing sounded like it could be up to fifty meters or more. That was a lot of claw, fire and scale.

His step only faltered very slightly, he wasn't going to bow out now. If a bunch of Dwarves thought they could take this creature on then Harry Potter wasn't going to be cowed.

"Concerned?" Tauriel answered in some amusement. Apparently his reaction hadn't got past her.

"I expected bigger, actually," he said with some bravado. "We'll be done in no time."

"Of course," she said, managing to sound as if she had no doubts whatsoever. Harry supposed that having hundreds of years of experience would make anyone pretty confident of their ability to survive. That, and he'd seen her using that bow of hers.

Still, though. She had no magic and the aforementioned bow was unlikely to do much more than piss off a dragon of that size. She must have some pretty impressive brass ones hanging between her legs, or whatever the female equivalent was. Harry hoped she didn't have anything hanging down there. He wasn't entirely familiar with Elvish sexual dimorphism but was firmly of the opinion that testicles would ruin a perfectly good experience.

They both continued along the shore. Harry occupied his time either needling Tauriel over her ever lengthening list of suitors or walking just a little closer to her than propriety would dictate.

She took it like a champion, reacting only with brief words or a single raised eyebrow. Harry felt supremely validated in his decision to let her come along. She was always good for a sarcastic remark and had a truly impressive ability to absorb Harry's own snark without any real reaction.

Harry had long grown out of the romantic notion of love at first sight, but he wasn't entirely inured to the thought of 'fuck it, she'll do'.

o-o

Dale was a mess. Completely ruined in a way that left Harry without a comforting sarcastic recourse. Ordinarily he'd make some joke about how they should at least have tidied up if they were going to have guests, which would be greeted with disbelieving or disgusted looks from the people accompanying him. Here there were black bones in places on the streets, some of them were too small to be adults.

He was an arsehole, yes, but he wasn't completely heartless.

Tauriel appreciated his silence, she evidently had a bit of an issue with death as a concept. Harry felt that was a bit strange as surely most of the stuff she'd ever known that wasn't specifically Elvish had died at some point. Nonetheless, he held his tongue and they made their quiet way towards the mountain.

"Did you have a plan to get in?" Tauriel asked as they approached the front gate.

"What?" asked Harry in surprise. "Why do we need a plan? There's the front door right there." He pointed at the gargantuan steel door flanked by towering Dwarves carved into the rock of the mountain. Short man syndrome writ large.

"It is locked," she said simply. As if that explained everything; it really didn't.

"Then we'll open it," said Harry, still a little confused about what the problem might be.

"It is a Dwarf door, spelled to only open from within," she explained when she realised he was becoming increasingly lost.

"Wait, are you saying the dragon's locked in there?" he asked suddenly realising what that would mean. The dragon had been stuck in there for, what, sixty years? Surely it had starved to death by now.

"No," she said patiently. "Smaug is inside, only he may open the great gates."

"... Smaug is smart enough to open these gates without just knocking them off their hinges?" Harry asked eventually.

"Of course, dragons have a great intellect and possess a cunning beyond any other," she answered.

Well that made things even more interesting. A fifty meter long intelligent dragon. This really was going to be an interesting day. When he'd set out he hadn't really been expecting any kind of challenge. He possessed the Elder Wand and had been the most powerful wizard in his previous world. He could take down a dragon.

Or at least he could take down sensible dragons. The dragons in Middle-earth were a bit ridiculous to his mind. If you were already a hundred meter long flying lizard with scales as hard as steel and fire breath as hot as a forge then surely being a genius was overkill?

Oh well. He looked at the door before him. It was indeed spelled in some way, pretty nice work actually. Of course the mountain surrounding the door wasn't so well protected. He decided that drilling through the side of the mountain was probably the fastest way in rather than trying to undo the charms on the gate.

*BOOM*

Tauriel was startled by the sudden explosion. "You do-"

*BOOM*

"-realise-"

*BOOM*

"-that this-"

*BOOM*

"-is sure-"

*BOOM*

"-to wake-"

*BOOM*

"-the dragon," finished Tauriel as Harry inspected his handiwork. That hadn't taken long at all. He glanced at her.

"He was going to wake up some time," he said reasonably. "May as well be now, polite knock and all that."

His caution was still well drummed into him from his long years as an Auror and he applied a number of protective charms to both of them. The main event was the mother of all flame freezing charms. It wouldn't do to get barbecued, that would be embarrassing.

He squeezed through the small tunnel he'd carved through the stone of the mountain for a few meters until he reached the interior of the mountain.

Huge was his first thought. The halls of Erebor looked like they'd been made to accommodate Dwarves the size of the stone guardians who stood outside. He couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps Dwarves really had once been that big. That would be ironic.

He looked back at the just appearing Tauriel and took a moment to appreciate the wonderful view he had of her cleavage, a thing he rarely got to see from this angle due to his annoying lack of altitude. "So where's thi-" he began saying when his words were cut off by a whistling sound from above.

The earth shook as the great dragon, Smaug, fell from his perch upon the roof above and landed on the ground before them.

He towered over the two interlopers, easily more than twenty meters tall and with gold and jewels encrusted over every inch of his hide. His wings were spread wide and stretched far into two halls that split off to the sides of the main one, his claws left deep indentations in the ground where he'd come to rest. His teeth were the size of Harry and his eyes shone with malevolent intelligence.

"Well bugger me sideways," said Harry conversationally, "he's as big as you said."