A/N: Welcome to my new story! I'm so excited to share this little tale with you all! It is completely written and clocks in at 9 chapters. I'll be posting a chapter a week.
This was a plot bunny born of a conversation with my real-life BFF and beta for this story brownlark42! It's based on a beautiful drawing done by Charles Urbach, you can see the drawing on the collage I made for this story either on my Tumblr at crochetawayhpff or Facebook Shan Crochetaway. To see more of Charles Urbach's amazing work, find him on Facebook at charlesurbachart.
Thorfinn as a berserker is inspired by Mary Royalle's A Thread Uncut one-shot. Go read it if you haven't, it's brilliant!
If you liked this (or hated it) let me know about it in a review!
Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Sometime in 1999
When Hermione Granger went missing from both the wizarding and Muggle worlds, it wasn't hard to find her. If one knew where to look. The trouble was that nobody actually knew where to look. It took seven long years for anyone to stumble across her. And even then, the two wizards who did find her mistook her for a dragon.
It was an easy enough mistake to make. Because at the time, that's what she was.
Our tale starts with our heroine attempting to learn to become an Animagus on her own. It was a dangerous challenge, made more dangerous by the fact that she hadn't told anyone about it. Animagi were rare—really rare—with only a handful registered in Wizarding Britain at any given time. Add that to the fact that by the time she started this attempt, Hermione Granger found herself extremely isolated from all of her friends.
The war had erased the reverence Hermione once had for the pursuit of knowledge through formal institutions. She had forgone the additional year at Hogwarts, instead choosing to study on her own and take her NEWTs when the Ministry offered them in the winter of 1998. She achieved all eleven NEWTs and determined herself fully capable of anything the wizarding world could throw at her. Including learning to become an Animagus on her own.
Hermione promptly moved into her parents' empty house in the exurbs of London and shut herself away with every definitive text on Animagus she could get her hands on. She followed all of the directions, keeping a mandrake leaf in her mouth for a solid month, meditating on her form (she was as shocked as anyone that her form was a dragon), and waiting until a really nasty storm brewed over London before attempting the spell for the first time.
The first time, only her right leg transformed into a dragon's leg. She also formed a huge wing on her left shoulder blade that threatened to topple her over as the rain streamed down from above.
"Bugger," she muttered to herself and concentrated on the counterspell. Thankfully, she was able to transform back into her usual self. That time.
The summer of 1999 was either especially stormy, or someone near London was messing with the weather. There were a number of record-setting gales that blew through central England that year. But we know what happened, don't we? Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, was damned determined to become an Animagus.
So she practiced. And practice needed the electricity and the magic that was inherent in lightning. Hermione, as we've already established, was not a stupid witch. Along with her Animagus texts, she had quite a few on the brewing of, especially nasty weather. When she felt confident enough in her abilities, she cast her first weather-related spell.
A once in a century type storm formed almost directly above the Granger household. Hermione was ecstatic that this spell, at least, worked exactly as it should and rushed outside to practice her Animagus form. She failed, again, and came back inside soaked with rain
Our heroine wasn't discouraged though. She knew that Animagi were rare. She knew it was an uncommon skill, but she didn't believe that she couldn't do it. For as long as she was alive, people, Muggle and Wizarding alike, had told her that she could do whatever she set her mind to. And Hermione had set her mind on becoming an Animagus.
After each successive failure, Hermione meditated on what the problem could be. Was it possible that her fear of heights was holding her back? Whoever heard of a dragon who couldn't fly, after all? Whoever heard of a dragon Animagus in the first place? After discovering her form, Hermione had researched through the Ministry archives in one of the few times she broke her self-imposed exile. She wanted to see if there had ever been a dragon Animagus in Wizarding Britain and discovered none. Granted, Animagus was an ancient spell, and the wizarding archives only went back three hundred years or so, but still. Hermione was quite certain she may be one of a kind.
And wasn't there a little pride with that? Pride in her abilities as not only the Brightest Witch of Her Age but also the only known dragon Animagus. Even if she hadn't fully completed the transformation yet, she knew that she would. There wasn't a spell that Hermione Granger had ever failed to perform correctly. Nor a potion she couldn't brew. She was, as stated previously, the Brightest Witch of Her Age.
It wasn't until the end of the Summer of the Storms, as the London Times had taken to calling it, that Hermione finally achieved that which she had been working on for months. She'd brewed up the largest storm she felt she safely could and stood beneath the falling rain, the wind whipping around her, waiting for the lightning to strike and the air to fill with magic. The rain drenched her clothes within moments, although our heroine didn't seem to notice as she tipped her head back and spread her arms, almost communing with the storm that raged above her.
"This time," she whispered, then shouted as lightning flashed and thunder boomed. When the storm had crescendoed to its highest point was when Hermione let loose the spell. Lightning split across the sky, striking the earth all around. Between one lightning strike and the next, had anyone in Hermione's neighborhood been looking out their window at the empty lot next to the Granger house, they would have seen what appeared to be a woman transform into a dragon.
Luckily for our heroine, nobody was looking and her transformation was complete. Success! Standing in her place was a large, red dragon. A Chinese Fireball, to be precise. The dragon looked stunned for a long moment, before letting out a roar the same time thunder rattled most of the windows on the street. A small fireball slipped past the dragon's lips and hit a nearby tree, sending it up in flames.
The dragon was startled by the sudden flaming tree, even though she knew the neighbors would just assume a lightning strike. It wasn't the first tree to have been sacrificed to the Summer of Storms. Although, it would be the last.
The dragon stumbled back, away from the burning tree and directly into a fence behind another neighbors yard. The storm still raged, and the smell of rain and lightning were overwhelming. The thunder was too loud to let her think. Fighting panic and knowing she had to get away, she unfurled her massive wings and began beating them, hard. When she didn't lift off, she began running and beating her wings at the same time. Finally, just before stampeding into yet another neighbor's house, the dragon took flight.
She worked her wings hard, trying to gain altitude despite the wind and rain attempting to keep her down. The dragon took to the air and disappeared into the stormy clouds above.
None of the neighbors noticed. The flaming tree took good care of that and several responsible residents called emergency services.
The last storm of the Summer of Storms was the biggest one yet. It smashed through every record ever set, as if it was the final blow-out goodbye from the rampaging gods above. Our heroine, now a dragon, found herself flying high above the clouds, above the storm, above the London metropolitan area. She had no idea how to land, where to land, or how to transfigure herself back into Hermione Granger. Instead, she took off for the East. Surely, she would come across a safe place to land soon enough. Perhaps on the continent somewhere.
Almost ten hours later, the dragon was still flying, beating her wings fast. Her panic had subsided, and she found herself over a large mountain range that seemed to be deserted. Feeling a calm come over her, the dragon began her descent. She thought that once she reached the ground she would be able to Transfigure herself back into a human and get back home.
It was at that point that our heroine considered that perhaps she should have asked for help when starting her bid to become an Animagus. It's not like she didn't know any Animagi. In fact, one of her favorite professors and the current Headmistress of Hogwarts was a very famous Animagus. She surely would have helped Hermione achieve her dreams.
Too late now, thought our heroine as she landed clumsily on one of the smaller peaks, clutching a large boulder as she tried to steady herself. If dragons could frown, this one would absolutely be frowning as she looked around. There was snow beneath her feet, which meant that it would probably be cold once she transformed back. The air was likely thin, and she had never been at this elevation as a human. Perhaps she should attempt to move lower?
The dragon began waddling down the side of the mountain. Now that she was on her feet again, all her human fears of heights and flying came rushing back. The last thing she wanted to do was take to the air again. She would just walk down to a lower elevation, beneath the snow line at the very least and then Transfigure herself back into being a human.
Unfortunately, that's now how our story ends. Poor Hermione could not Transfigure herself back into being a human, no matter how hard she tried. Worse yet, as a dragon, she couldn't do any magic. She couldn't perform any of those handy little weather spells she had become so good at. The ones that helped with the transformation in the first place.
Our heroine was stuck.
All was not lost, however. Below the snow line, and within the dense conifer forests, our dragon found a very convenient cave. It was large, large enough to fit her in it and still have room left over. Shelter figured out, our heroine decided to try and explore the world around her. Perhaps if she found out where exactly she was, she could find some help.
Flying was still out of the question. Our dragon even attempted it once, but at the last moment, skidded to a stop when her wings refused to budge. She didn't want to fall off the cliff. Instead, slowly, carefully, she picked her way down the side of the mountain and into the valley below.
The valley contained a small village and the dragon knew she needed to stay away from that, so she circled as far away as she could until she came across a place with something that smelled delicious. The smell was coming from a building that appeared different from the scattering of rustic cabins and shops in the village. It was a larger, rambling building made from a mix of stonework and wood, with a large sweeping porch entrance and over a dozen stove pipes popping up through the roof. It was unfortunate for our dear heroine that the longer she stayed in her Animagus form, the harder it was to think like a human. She ambled her large body toward the aroma of cooking food until the first screams started.
In her panic, she screamed too, which caused a burst of flame to come from her mouth and engulf the entire porch. Scrambling to get away, the dragon rushed back up the hillside, not caring about leaving a trail and knocking down any tree in her path. The villagers could see the dragon as she moved through the trees. They spoke a language she didn't recognize and she was pretty sure they were Muggles. Which meant that whichever country she was currently in would be sending its Ministry out. Perhaps that would be alright, but the dragon was terrified as she retreated back up the hillside to her cave.
A day later our dragon was dehydrated and hungry, so she went in search of something to eat. She found the forest surrounding her teeming with wildlife and soon had crunched her way through a brace of rabbits and two mountain goats. She also found a small river with cold, freshwater, and she took note to check back later to see if there were fish. Satisfied, she decided to head back down the mountain to inspect the damage from yesterday. With any luck, the wizards from the local Ministry would have been and gone already.
Neither dragon nor the human trapped inside could have told anyone precisely why she was reluctant to be found by the local Ministry. Perhaps it was her hardened distrust of the British Ministry causing her to distrust all Ministries.
The building was still standing, although there was a large charred portion that the dragon felt some shame over. There was not a human soul in sight. The dragon remembered a delicious smell coming from the building and decided to do a little investigating. What she found was some sort of cooking school. In fact, the dragon had stumbled across Scoala Culinara Balan, the best culinary school in the Balkans. All the dragon cared about was the reading material she had discovered. The books called to her like gold and riches called to other dragons, and she grabbed as many as could fit in her mouth before making her way back up to her cave.