"Brilliant." Harry clapped and startled a number of people. "That's sorted. Professor Snape's in charge of the potions lab and Bilbo's in charge of the kitchen. It's almost ten-thirty, let's split into our teams and let our managers work out what we need to do and where to put us. Bilbo? If we break for lunch at twelve, is that enough time for your team to make up enough for all of us?"
"Certainly. It might only be rolls or sandwiches, but there'll be enough for everyone." Bilbo waved his hands.
"Very good, we shall leave you and your helpers in peace." Snape stood. "Everyone else? If you would follow me, we can determine who is doing what task to ensure that we can start as soon as ingredients are prepared." He made his way from the pavilion to the path. "This way, if you please."
Harry nodded to Charlie and turned to look at Thorin. "Ready to do this?" He asked.
Charlie said nothing but nodded.
"I am." Thorin replied.
"Toss it." Harry told Charlie.
"Right." Charlie grunted as he threw a bundle of unsealed phials into the air. It sailed high and began to fall, but Charlie had drawn his wand and with a flick and a wish learnt in first year, he levitated the bundle into the middle of the massive treasury chamber. "Ready when you are."
"How significant is this explosion going to be, Harry?" Thorin asked.
"It's going to be big but we've enough time to get out of the chamber." Harry replied.
"Will it damage anything? The walls? The cavern? The stonework?" Thorin asked.
"Don't think so. It's only supposed to impact as a liquid, on non-cursed solid surfaces, so they should all be fine." Harry grimaced.
"But you're not certain?" Thorin raised a brow.
"Personally, no." Harry shook his head. "In the past, we've been told that some of these potions react badly to others, but I don't know what is meant by 'badly', none of the textbooks said. I think this is going to be violent, not physically, but the chemical and magical reactions."
"That is why you insisted that we work from here and not venture further into the chamber?" Thorin phrased it more as a statement than as a question.
"It is." Harry nodded.
"Oh, great." Charlie muttered. "We're stuck inside a cave with no idea how explosive these potions are going to be. Alright. Harry? Grab a hold of Thorin, if we need to apparate out, we won't have much notice."
Harry blinked. "Right, I can do that." And nudged his broom a little closer to Thorin, reaching out a hand and laying it on the dwarf's arm. "Ready?"
Charlie exchanged glances with Thorin. "Ready as we're going to get." The redhead sighed.
"Bombarda." Harry whispered, putting a carefully limited amount of power behind the exploding charm, knowing that the phials were going to explode.
But even so, he wasn't ready for the result. The phials, and the straps holding them together, were vaporised, and while that was sort of the intent, the reaction was way more powerful than expected. The potions mixed and clashed, this one burning into that one, this one boosting that one, this one sparking off of that one causing the next one to ignite and suddenly….
The chamber began to fill. A shimmering pale iridescent blue foam bubbled from nowhere, quickly filling the space.
The dragon's head rose, and it screamed, words may have been there but they were unrecognisable, it was more a scream of unarticulated rage. It rose from the mounds of coin and flew into the air, attacking the foam with fire.
"Oops." Harry winced as a tongue of flame touched the foam and the foam seemed to just race along the flame like… a flame along an oiled path. The foam reached the dragon's mouth and the dragon coughed spluttering, wrenching its head away from the foam. If turned from the foam and made for the chamber's entrance.
But it wasn't fast enough. The foam was engulfing the chamber, rapidly.
"Out!" Charlie yelled. "Out! Go!"
Harry and Thorin dragged their eyes from the chaos in front of them and darted through chamber's entrance, Charlie's frantic voice breaking through their shocked fascination. They twisted and turned, rising and dipping to avoid the walkways and stairs that rose in front of them. The foam was moving fast but the three broom-riders were faster, they reached the main entrance chamber to the mountain with no initial sign of the foam following them.
But the dragon was.
It burst through the wall, screaming in rage. Harry made out few words, 'fire', 'death', 'burn', but mostly it just screamed. As it went through the wall the massive tapestry began to fall, it tangled around the dragon and slowed its progress into the hall.
"We have to stop it." He yelled to Thorin and Charlie.
"Let it go." Thorin disagreed.
"No!" Charlie yelled. "We can't."
"Why not?" Thorin wanted to know.
"The wards will keep it around the mountain." Charlie reminded him.
"And Dale is within those wards." Harry added.
Thorin's eyes widened and he screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!" The thought of losing those in Dale, was extremely painful. Thorin knew that if it were to happen, it would destroy him.
"Harry! Parseltongue, cast in parseltongue, before it reaches the gate." Charlie yelled.
§ STUPIFY! § Harry yelled in parseltongue, pumping as much power as he could behind the charm.
The dragon's scream cut off so suddenly that the silence was nearly deafening. A count of three and the dragon began to fall. To Harry, it seemed like it fell in slow-motion, the beast's tail hitting the great chamber's floor, followed by its body and neck, then its head and lastly its wings.
"Look out!" Thorin yelled at the same time as the dragon's head hit the tiles. "The foam!"
"We have to deal with the dragon, now." Charlie said.
"It's a dragon." Thorin said. "Leave it."
"The charm will eventually wear off, we have to take it with us, if we don't, we'll be back in the same position, later." Charlie argued.
"So, what do we do?" The dwarf asked.
"Whatever it is, we have to do it fast." Charlie replied. "The foam is covering it, if we don't act, we might lose sight of the beast." He pointed to where foam had reached the dragon and was rapidly filling the chamber, engulfing the dragon as it went.
"§ REDUCIO §" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the dragon and watching as it shrank from sight, foam covering it. "Accio dragon." He held out a hand and prayed that the foam would not block the charm. It seemed like an inordinate amount of time before his seeker-trained eyes picked up movement. "What the hell…?" He frowned as a bright fluorescent yellow object flew towards him. His hand darted above his head and grabbed the object and when he brought his hand in front of him, he saw a long slender lizard with wings. "It worked!" He crowed.
"Brilliant. Cheer later. Escape now or be swallowed by foam. Move!" Charlie ordered.
The three looked at the still coming foam and turned to face the gates at the far end of the long hall.
"We don't have time to go through the guard station." Charlie warned. "Thorin's not experienced enough to take the turns at the speed we need to, to get out."
"Then there is only one thing to do." Thorin sighed and let his broom float towards the floor.
"Fuck that!" Harry snarled. "Get your ass back up here, dwarf! Leave the exit to me." He pointed his wand at Thorin's leg and sent off a stinging hex, when Thorin didn't move fast enough for his liking. "Move!"
"Argh!" Thorin screeched but one look at Harry's face and he knew the young wizard was not giving him an option. His broom rose and followed Harry's order towards the gate.
When they were about fifty yards from the gate, Harry cast a high-powered blasting hex at the rubble blocking the gates. "§ DEPRIMO. §" Harry didn't even slow down and as the rubble burst away from the point that his hex impacted, he just cast again. "Protego Duo." This time he used a more common shield charm taught at Hogwarts for NEWTs, spoken in the traditional Latin. The three riders burst through the cloud of rubble dust and into clean air, they didn't slow down, though, they kept their brooms pointed at Dale and Harry waved Charlie on. "Go, warn them. I've barely got enough strength to keep my broom aloft for long enough to reach Dale, anything else is out of the question. Go."
"I shall stay with him. Go." Thorin said.
"Thanks." Charlie nodded and encouraged his broom to its maximum speed.
"What is it, that you hold, Harry?" Thorin asked.
"This?" Harry replied tiredly, holding up a hand.
"Yes, that. What is it?"
"I think it's the dragon." Harry answered.
"The dragon? But it's… It's yellow…" Thorin grimaced in distaste.
"I think the foam did that, but I'm not sure. It could just be how it was always going to react to our type of magic." Harry explained.
"Is it dead or just unconscious?"
"Just unconscious. I don't know how long it will stay that way, I hope it's long enough for Charlie to make up a rune-cage for it."
"And what of its new size? How long do you think that will remain?" Thorin asked, trying to keep Harry awake.
"I did that in parseltongue, with as much power as I could, so… a while. Maybe a few days." Harry shrugged and his broom dropped lower. "Shite, I'm losing power fast. Thorin, I'm going to pass out soon. Tell Charlie to drop the bloody thing into stasis, I can deal with it when I wake up." Harry's broom stuttered and faltered. "I'm done." Harry whispered and slid sideways from his broom.
Thorin lurched towards him and strong arms grasped at the wizard. "I have you, my friend, I have you. Just rest."
"…" Harry made an unidentifiable sound and surrendered to the indignity of being manhandled.
"Oh, my word…" Narcissa's voice made Harry look up but it wasn't him she was looking at. He turned in the direction she was looking.
"Oh…" Was all he said.
"Was that supposed to happen, pup?" Sirius landed beside them.
"I don't think it was supposed to, but I kinda figured that something might…" Harry whispered, the lack of a pull on his magic by a broom, letting him stay conscious for a little longer.
"What happened to him?" Narcissa went into her professional mode.
Thorin lifted Harry's hand that still held the shrunken dragon. "He stunned and then shrunk the dragon." He replied.
"That's the dragon?" Sirius squawked.
"It is." Thorin nodded.
"How big was it?"
"His head was about twenty foot from snout to crest." Charlie answered as he joined them. "Euan's bringing a carpet." He looked up at the mountain. "Whoa…"
Thorin turned to face the home he was hoping had survived the… Pale blue iridescent foam was bubbling out from every gate, door, window or crack in the mountain. Most of the bubbles were popping in the sunlight, but a few broke free and wafted away on the breeze.
Harry began to chuckle. "Where's Headley? He needs to see this." And he kept snickering to himself.
It took a few minutes before whoever had gone to fetch the boy in question, had returned. But when he did, the lad took one look at the mountain and stumbled over to Harry.
"Not my fault. Not my fault. You can't blame me this time. Not my fault." He chanted as he hugged his tired brother.
"Would someone like to explain?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow in question.
"When Headley was still Dudley, he tried to use a muggle washing machine." Harry answered. "But he put in ten times the amount of laundry liquid than he needed to. The laundry flooded with foam, then the kitchen and the overflow started creeping into the dining room. The laundry and the kitchen were shoulder deep in this purple foam that stank of lavender."
"Oh, wow, that's… wow…" Sirius stammered. "James did that once. Lily made him clean it up by hand and took his wand off him until she was happy with his job."
Remus snickered. "I remember that, it took him two whole days."
"Only 'cause he wasted a day begging and whinging for his wand. Once he realised Lily meant it, it only took him a few hours." Sirius smirked.
"So, who do we blame this on?" Remus asked.
"Can't blame me, Severus wouldn't let me touch the potions." Harry huffed.
"Too true." Remus nodded.
"But you know Snape's going to still try and pin the blame on you. Right?" Sirius added.
"Of course, he is. That's why it's so good, that he never let me work in the lab." Harry grinned back. "Tell Charlie to put the dragon" he led up the hand holding the shrunken dragon, "into stasis. I can look to making the size change permanent, with a parseltongue password, once I wake up. And on that, I'm going to pass out, now." And that's exactly what he did.
When Harry woke, the world around him was just beginning to lighten, the odd ray of sunlight crept through a dense bank of clouds to the east. He was laid out on a bed in an almost intact house in Dale and had the uncomfortable sense that he was being watched, he could feel someone staring at him. He turned to his left and saw only a stone wall, but to his right he saw his family. Sirius and Remus were leaning against each other, Headley and Teddy on their laps, both boys focusing their eyes on Harry.
"Urgh…" Harry grunted, and Teddy laughed, the little boy leaning forward and reaching for Harry.
"Steady there, Teddy." Harry blinked as Oliver swooped in, from seemingly nowhere, and slid the baby from his father's lap and deposited him on Harry's.
"Hey, little man." Harry voice was quiet, but he no longer felt drained. "How long have I been out, huh?" He might have been speaking towards Teddy, but the question was directed at Oliver.
"Two days." Oliver held out a mug of water to Harry. "Sip not gulp, please."
Harry grinned and shifted Teddy to one side and arranged his fingers around the mug. "Hey, Headley, how you're doing?"
"Better now that you're awake." The boy replied. "You had Thorin freaked out, he wasn't sure that Miss Sissy knew what she was talking about, when she said you'd be asleep for two days."
"If he hangs around long enough, he'll learn." Harry grinned.
"But it was these two that were the most panicked. Not at first, but then Miss Sissy made them read your patient file and by the time they got to the end of your second year, she had to give them calming draughts." Oliver added. "Although, I admit, I wasn't much better. I know I was there for your first year, but hell Harry, things got worse from there, didn't they?"
Harry nodded. "Dementors, hippogriffs, werewolves, dragons, acromantulas, resurrections, black quills, duels, illegal guerrilla training, thestrals, ambushes, inferi, Death-Eaters, Horcruxes… Oh, yeah, significantly worse."
"You're lucky we love you, pup." Remus gave him a half-hearted glare, the effect ruined by Sirius, still asleep, drooling on Remus' shoulder.
"I know." Harry gave his surrogate father a soft smile and smothered a laugh, when his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten in two days. "Breakfast?" He asked.
"I'll see to it, you stay here." Oliver ordered.
"Ta, Ollie." Harry turned back to Remus. "What happened to the dragon? Did Charlie put it under stasis like I asked?"
"He did. We're just waiting for you to wake before we decided what to do next." Remus tilted his head from side to side and listened to the cracks as the tension in his muscles released. "Oh, much better…" He groaned in relief. "So, the dragon… Hermione and Garrick spent the last few days transferring all the unbonded booster crystals that were partially drained, but not fully, from one crystal to another. We now have seven fully charged, unbonded crystals, that we think you should use as your power supply when you work on the dragon, that way you're less likely to drain your core and have to deal with magical exhaustion, again."
"Yeah, that might help." Harry nodded.
"And Snape figured out a way to shrink the crystals so they can be worn… Actually he come up with a… novel idea. The crystals are fully charged before shrinking and being slotted into a holster, that is a cuff that can be worn on your wrist." Remus explained. "That way it absorbs any excess magic from you and can disperse it back as you need it."
"Handy." Harry nodded again.
"It's more than just that, Mr Potter." Narcissa said as she entered the room. "As the crystals are unbonded, anyone above a certain competency level, can use them. Garrick suggested that we reverse the flow of transfer from a crystal to a person's core, as a way to quickly and safely deal with magical exhaustion. A few of us were hesitant to allow this but Hermione, Luna, Severus and Padma were able to provide the arithmantic equations to support the theory and Oliver stepped forward as the first test subject. Since then, we've tested it on both males and females of different ages and core strengths and all of them recovered within minutes."
"Whoa…" Harry gasped.
"Indeed." Narcissa nodded. "Hermione has most of the magical adults charging crystals that she plans to transfer to unbonded crystals for you to use. There are seven already charged and we would like to use them to restore your core levels. Even though you are awake, my scans say that your core level is less than fifty percent of what it should be. Given how badly drained you were after casting just two spells on the dragon, you're going to need your core to be as close to full strength as you can get."
"I know, and yeah, a boost sounds great." Harry agreed.
"Excellent." Narcissa scooped Teddy up and Oliver laid a tray on his lap. "You'll want to do this before eating, it can make you nauseous and anti-nausea potions will only make it worse, as they clash with the transfer. Once the transfer is complete, the nausea settles almost instantly. You know how to push your magic into a crystal, simply hold them the same way and focus on the magical flow going from the crystal back into you. The enchantments on the crystal will encourage the reservoir to empty once a connection has been made."
"Okay…" Harry looked at the tray and the seven glistening crystals that lay on a clean white napkin. He picked up the first crystal and concentrated, magic flooded into him, making his head swim. "Whoa, head rush…"
Two hours later, he sat in a triangle with Charlie and Remus on a carpet flown by Bill. "Are we ready to do this?"
"Ready." Charlie answered.
"Good to go." Bill added.
"Ready." Remus nodded.
"Right. Hold him out." Harry directed and Charlie held out a dragon still under stasis. "The Rune cage is ready?"
"Ready." Remus touched the edge of a large tray with nine small rune stones on it, that formed a circle, that sat on the carpet between the three men.
Harry nodded. "Alright. Charlie? Drop the stasis." Charlie flicked his wand in a complicated but elegant movement and the shimmer that had surrounded the dragon faded away. "Great. Drop him down into the cage." Charlie lowered his wand and the shrunken dragon lowered with it. The dragon lay in a crumpled heap on the tray between the runestones. "Remus, activate the cage." Remus nodded and tapped his wand against each stone, and they watched as the runes activated and tendrils of light left stone some sliding across the tray and others arching up and forming a dome above it.
"Done." Remus huffed.
"Brilliant." Harry's smile was just as bright as his voice, before he focused on the dragon. "Rennervate." He whispered.
The dragon woke with a start and looked from one man to another.
"Thieves, intruders. You will burn…" The silky voice was slightly hissy, clearly declaring the animal's reptilian heritage. An orange glow backlit the scales around the small beast's chest and golden red flames burst from its mouth, but the beast was shocked, even stunned, that the flames were stopped before they reached the men. "What is this? Magic? How dare you use magic upon me, the greatest of all dragons?"
"The greatest of all dragons, you say?" Harry snorted and dropped a single coin into the rune cage.
The dragon jerked back from the coin, shock followed by horror crossing its face. "What did you do to my gold?!" It screeched.
"Nothing to the gold." Harry laughed. "Look around, greatest of all dragons and see how insignificant you are."
The dragon looked from the gold to the men and its eyes widened. "What did you do to me?" It whispered.
"We shrunk you." Harry shrugged.
"Shrunk? Shrunk me! How dare you?! Unshrink me! Unshrink me, this instant!" The dragon demanded.
"No." Harry's casualness vanished and in its place as a hardened warrior. "No, we won't be unshrinking you. You need to learn the repercussions of your actions. You killed people and stole their money and their lives. It's time to accept your punishment."
"I answer to none!" Smaug declared.
"That might have been the case before, but not anymore. Now you answer to us. Don't you get it? If we release you… like you are right now… any bird or predator could kill you. You're almost defenceless."
"Nooo…." The dragon whispered. "No, no, no."
"Yes." Harry leant back. "So, here's the way it's going to happen. I'm going to knock you out, enlarge you slightly, lock it all with my magic, so that I am the only one that can release you. Then I'll wake you up and you will have a choice to make. Once we've cleaned away the poison that you pumped into the mountain, you can work with Charlie, here" Charlie grinned and gave a wave, "and whoever Thorin, King Under the Mountain assigns to the treasury, to sort, clean and process the treasury's contents. Or I will allow you to guard my personal treasury, but you will answer to me and Charlie. If… at any point you try and go against our directions, I will shrink you to the size of a gnat and keep you in a cage that I will wear as jewellery. Do you understand?"
The dragon tilted its head and growled as it thought. "What of food? Will I be fed?"
"Yes, food will be provided."
"You will give me food and gold to sleep in?" The dragon asked.
"Gold, silver, gems and jewellery." Harry agreed. "As well as plush velvets and fine silks. If you stay with me. If you choose the mountain's treasury, I can't guarantee the fabrics. The gold, silver, gems and jewellery, yes, but not fabrics."
"Will I be allowed water to bathe in? Metal to burnish my scales? Sharpen my claws?"
"Of course."
"Will I be allowed to fly?"
"Definitely. I love to fly and would never deprive someone of that joy." Harry assured the dragon.
"Fly? You can fly? How?"
Harry laughed. "Magic, of course."
"You are a wizard?"
"I am."
"Very well, wizard. I will stay with you. I will guard your treasury and you will tend me." The dragon permitted.
"Excellent. I am Harry, this is Charlie, Remus and Bill. Settle yourself down and I will get started."
The dragon curled around on itself, much as a cat or dog would, and lay its wings flat along its back, its head resting on its tail. "I am ready. Begin." Its tenseness belying its words.
"Stupefy." Harry grinned as the dragon went limp. "Release the rune cage." Remus nodded and tapped a rune, slowly, the rune-lit dome and lines faded and once the runestones went dark, he nodded again. "Take us down, Bill." The carpet descended and hovered a foot above the ground.
Harry flicked his wand levitated the unconscious dragon to the ground. "Lift us up… stop here. Thanks." He glanced at Bill as the carpet halted. "§ Finite Reducio. §" The dragon enlarged and kept enlarging until it was its original size. Here, Harry paused, lifted a crystal and let it restore his core before he began the next stage. "§ REDUCIO, cincinno mutatu mihi. §" This time he didn't put quick as much power behind the charm and released his magic slower, a set size clear in his mind. He wasn't aiming for quite so small. He wanted a dragon about the size of a small dog, not something the size of an immature weasel or overgrown rat.
Once the dragon was the size he wanted, Harry picked up another crystal and let it drain into his core.
"That's enough for today, Harry." Remus ordered. "Charlie, you wake the… Smaug. It has a name, if Harry's going to keep it as a pet, we had best get used to addressing Smaug by its name." As he spoke, he lowered the carpet to a stop beside the Whippet-sized animal.
"You got it." Charlie nodded. "Rennervate."
The dragon woke and shook its head. "I do not like that." It said.
"Hopefully, I won't have to do that to you again." Harry said.
"What is to stop someone else from doing it?"
"I've locked the changes to my magical signature, without that, no one can change anything about you." Harry assured the dragon.
"Good. I am… hungry. I would eat."
"Sure, come on, hop up here and we'll get you something to eat, then I'll show you my treasury. Alright?" Harry patted the carpet and Smaug stood and stretched, his wings spread, and his neck rose, while his tail was pushed out behind him. Then he nodded and leapt into the air, flying in a circle before landing on the carpet and looking at Harry, closely.
"You will make a reasonable attendant." He nodded again. "I shall stay with you."