Disclaimer – I solemnly swear that JKR owns everything Harry Potter. Whether or not I am up to no good with her characters is for you to decide.
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A/N – I'd like to take a moment to offer my deepest thanks to everyone for your response to Dragon Whisperer so far. 187 reviews, 1,196 Favs and 1,750 Follows after just two chapters is mind-boggling. I feel truly humbled. I hope that you all enjoy this chapter just as much.
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Harry Potter: Dragon Whisperer
Chapter 3 – Settling In
2:10pm
Tuesday, 25 July 1995
Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, Romania
.
"He's late," Alexander groused, not for the first or even the tenth time. "You did tell him that we were meeting straight after lunch, didn't you?"
"Yeah, Boss, I did," Charlie replied, fiercely keeping his desire to roll his eyes firmly in check.
"He was kinda occupied," Sirius put in. "Those dragons had him surrounded and then the big one – Ramaranth, you said, right? – she did lead him off deeper into the valley."
"With all the other dragons following," Charlie finished, shaking his head. "I've never seen dragons act like that before. Merlin, I've never heard of dragons acting like that before."
"True enough," Alexander grunted. "Still, when I say there's a meeting at one o'clock, I expect my people to be there on time, not an hour late and counting."
"I'm not sure that dragons can tell time," Sirius quipped.
Alexander shot the man a hard look and Charlie opened his mouth to say what he knew not, but something that would hopefully smooth things over. Alexander was, for the most part, an easy man to get along with but when it came to the smooth running of the Sanctuary, he simply had no patience for anyone not following his rules. Not that Charlie could blame him, this was a dragon reserve after all, people who didn't follow the rules more than likely ended up dead.
"Boss!"
The panicked yell from outside had the three seated at the table whipping their heads towards the door just as the door crashed open. The wizard standing there was wide-eyed, his chest heaving and his hair was a flying every which way.
"Boss! One of the dragons has broken from the canyon!"
"Damn!" Alexander swore, standing so quickly that his chair was knocked backwards and sent clattering to the floor. "Breed? Size? How high's it going?"
"The wards'll keep it from escaping," Charlie stated, also now on his feet.
Alexander shook his head. "Those wards might be strong and can give a nasty shock to a dragon but a determined one could bust through them. Well?"
This last was said to the handler who was quickly backing out of the door as his Boss strode towards him.
"Hungarian Horntail. Fully grown. Female by the size of her," was the reply.
"Ramaranth? Mikos, is it Ramaranth" Charlie asked urgently.
"Could be," Mikos shrugged.
"Boss! The dragon's headed this way!" another handler yelled.
"Wands out! Take cover!" Alexander roared, his wand already in hand even as he broke right, dashing towards the side of a building.
All around the small compound, handlers were doing the same, running for the nearest cover, be it building, tree or, in the case of one fast-thinking man, behind the stone wall that he'd just conjured all around him.
Sirius and Charlie, though, simply shared a look and Charlie could see his own thoughts mirrored in the other man's eyes. If this was Ramaranth …
And then the great black and bronze dragon appeared from over the treetops. Her wings were outstretched, barely flapping as she soared towards them. She was easily sixty feet long, although with her tail stretched behind her and her head and neck stretched out in front, she seemed much larger. From this angle, it was easy to see her four legs tucked up against her great belly. That was until she extended them.
At the same time, the Horntail's head swivelled down and around and seemingly targeting in on the two of them with her great yellow eye. Her wings flared and Charlie and Sirius took one last look at each other before breaking away, one left, the other right.
Wands everywhere raised taking careful aim, although, with the Horntail's massive bulk, she would be extremely hard to miss.
It wasn't until she'd landed right in the middle of the compound, causing the ground to shake and great clouds of dust to swirl up and around that anyone realised that there was more to this odd occurrence than they'd first thought.
The Hungarian Horntail seemed to shift awkwardly, lowering her front right side in a strange lean but the small figure that revealed itself as it shifted about on the back of the dragon accounted for it. Men and women, handlers that had worked for years and in many cases decades with dragons could only stare in bewilderment as a teenaged boy awkwardly swung his leg over the back of the dragon and then slid down the mountain of black flesh, somehow missing every single bronze spike in the process.
The boy, Harry, landed roughly, stumbling and wands that had been lowered snapped back as the great dragon head twisted about to come snout to body with the teen. Everyone there could hear the hissing that was typical of dragons coming firstly from the Horntail and then from the teen. What was even more unbelievable was the way that Harry had laughed, reached out a hand and patted the dragon before stepping back and giving her a short bow.
The great dragon head dipped in reply before she crouched slightly and leapt, her wings flapping hard as she fought for height. Handlers everywhere came out of hiding to watch as she twisted about and flew back towards the forest in the direction of the canyon from which she'd come.
"Harry!" Charlie called as he strode towards the boy. "Are you alright?"
"Only you, Harry, only you," Sirius laughed as he, too, joined them.
"Yeah, sure, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" a puzzled Harry replied before looking at his watch. "Damn, I'm late. Sorry about that. Good thing Ramarath gave me a lift, hey? Can you imagine how long it would have taken me to climb back up out of that canyon?"
"You rode a dragon," Alexander stated as he joined them, his eyes fixed on Harry.
Charlie noted that their Boss wasn't the only one staring. Near as he could tell, every one of the thirty-two dragon handlers at the Sanctuary had now surrounded them, each and every one silent and staring at the boy who had just done the impossible.
Dragons were the most dangerous creatures on the planet. It was a well-known fact. Even subduing one took, at minimum, eight wands and a good dose of luck. They weren't creatures that anyone could take lightly. You didn't go near one by yourself. You didn't attempt to touch one unless you knew that they were unconscious and you had serious back up standing by. And you never, ever even considered sitting on one. Except in every dragon handler's dreams, there every one of them had soared high and far.
"You rode a dragon," Alexander repeated with a shake of his head. "How?"
"Well it wasn't easy," Harry replied. "Not exactly the most comfortable – I kept thinking that I was going to slip off. Thankfully Ramaranth didn't mind when I grabbed onto the spike that was right in front of me."
"But how'd you do it?" Demmy, one of the younger handlers, blurted. "How'd you get her to let you ride her?"
"I didn't exactly have much choice," Harry shrugged. "She kinda insisted. And I get the impression that what Ramaranth says, Ramaranth gets."
"She insisted?" Alexander repeated faintly before shaking his head and clearing his throat. "Right. She insisted. You, lad, are going to shake things up around here. But next time, tell us before you do something crazy and impossible like that."
"I'll do my best, Sir," Harry replied. "Um, if it's not too much trouble, could I get something to eat? I kinda missed lunch and I'm starved."
Charlie wasn't the only one to laugh at that.
"Sure, Potter, one condition," Alexander replied. "You tell us about your time in the canyon this morning."
"Deal," Harry grinned.
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2:40pm
Tuesday, 25 July 1995
Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, Romania
.
"… and then I spent the rest of my time in Ramaranth's cave," Harry finished.
"So, you would have seen her fledglings?" Dena, Alexander's second, asked eagerly, leaning across the table from where she sat beside the Boss.
Harry looked up and nodded as he spooned up some stew.
Currently, the entire population of the Sanctuary was surrounding the table that he was seated at. Everyone was staring at him, focussed intently on what he was saying. To be completely honest, he found it a bit disconcerting, something akin to when he first entered the Wizarding World. Or his first few weeks at Hogwarts. The fact that some of the handlers were even taking notes on what he was saying was enough to make him shake his head.
"The Handbook says that at this age they'll be starting to determine dominance," Mikos stated, lofting a dog-eared book and waving it around.
"Handbook?" Harry asked.
"Dragons, the Complete Compendium," Alexander answered. "Charlie'll get you a copy."
"Okay, thanks," Harry nodded. "Um, dominance? Let me think. Well, I guess you could say that there was a pecking order. Spekith definitely had the biggest personality, I'd say – barely let her brothers and sister get a word in and always wanted my attention. Painzz is the quiet one. I had to go over to her before she'd speak to me. As for Potteth and Harreth … hmm, they're definitely somewhere int the middle, too alike to differentiate after a first meeting. Kinda like your brothers, Charlie."
"Wait wait wait," Sirius exclaimed, holding up his hands, his whole body turned to face Harry a look of immense amusement on his face. "Potteth? Harreth? Spekith? Painzz? That's Ramaranth's baby's names?"
"Yeah," Harry replied feeling his cheeks heating up.
A couple of slaps on Harry's shoulders accompanied the laughter that rang through the great wooden hall.
"You, lad, are going to do some good here," Alexander said. "It's obvious the dragons already love you. And having you to translate means that you're going to be worth your weight in gold. Dena. Grab a crew and see about that Ridgeback's hind foot. Left, wasn't it, Potter?"
"Will do, Boss," Dena said, rising from her seat.
A gesture was enough to have a team of eight following her from the room.
"Jacob," Alexander continued. "Head down to the flocks and do a count. If the dragons are getting hungry, we better make sure none of them have been doing some 'poaching'."
A short, heavyset man with a great handlebar moustache nodded once and promptly disappeared along with two others.
"The rest of you know your jobs. Get to them."
In a pack, the rest of the dragon handlers and support personnel dispersed, most out the door, although a few disappeared into different parts of the Great Hall.
"Well, you've definitely made an impression, Harry," Charlie grinned at him. "Riding a dragon! Wait until that news gets around! There's been a few parselmouths over the centuries working in one Reserve of another, but none have ever attempted to ride on the back of one!"
Harry stared at Charlie's bemused and shaking head. Apparently, what he'd just taken as a quick, awkward way of getting up out of the canyon was a bigger deal than he'd realised.
Alexander slid the folder that was in front of him across the table to Harry who took it, pushing away his now finished bowl in the process.
"Your schedule," Alexander said simply. "You can go through it properly later. In basic terms, your mornings are for the Sanctuary. Charlie here'll be your Master."
"Master?" Harry asked quickly, looking up from the opened folder.
"Yeah, Charlie's the Master, you're his Apprentice. Means he's the one responsible for teaching you how the Sanctuary works, the tricks of the trade, everything that you need to know to work with dragons," Alexander replied. "If you've got a problem, go to him. But if everything goes the way we expect, you'll finish our contract with a Magical Beasts Master Certificate under your belt."
"What about when Harry goes to the other Reserves?" Sirius asked.
"Charlie'll be going with you," Alexander replied. "Which is a bonus for us as well. He'll be learning about the types of dragons that we don't have here and will bring that knowledge back to share with us. He'll also help to tie the Reserves closer together."
"And my afternoons are for my lessons?" Harry asked, looking at the piece of parchment that detailed his timetable.
"And evenings, too," Alexander nodded. "'Cause this is just how we'd like things to go. If situations crop up, then it'll get altered, sometimes with little to no warning."
"I believe the muggle expression is 'never work with animals or kids'," Charlie said.
Harry blinked at him. "That's in showbusiness. But I get your point. Animals, dragons don't work to a schedule. Like today when I was supposed to be back here for lunch but ended up being really late."
"That's it exactly, lad," Alexander beamed. "Doesn't mean that I don't expect you to follow my rules as much as possible – you work for us, not the dragons."
"You sure about that, Boss?" Charlie grinned.
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4:55pm
Tuesday, 25 July 1995
Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, Romania
.
For the most part, Harry's magical trunk which now sat in the middle of the wall across from his desk, had been unpacked. Most of his clothes had been hung in the cupboard or placed in the shelves that he'd found on the left side of the cupboard behind the sliding doors. Above the inside of the door to his room, Harry had found a pair of short, wooden poles – the perfect place to store his Nimbus Two Thousand.
The desk, Harry'd decided, had had to move. No longer was it situated directly under the window. Now, it was off to one side, still allowing a view if he sat at it but also ensuring that there was plenty of room for a very special someone.
"This is a brand new country," Harry said, stroking Hedwig's chest as she sat on the perch that he'd built for her. "There's no telling if there are other owls around or dangers that you're not used to, so be careful going out there. Oh, and keep away from the dragons – I don't think they'd try to eat you, but better safe than sorry."
Hedwig gave a soft prekk and nipped at his ear. Then, with a short hop, she jumped, spread her wings and soared out through the open window.
Turning about, Harry took in his room. It still felt very bare to him, even with the perch, trunk and broom in their places. With a quick decisive nod, he crossed to his ebony trunk, opened the third compartment and raced down the stairs. Within minutes he was back, two pieces of furniture in his hands. The bedside table went between bed and desk while a focussed, wandless sticking charm was used to apply the shelf to the wall above his bed.
One more trip down and back up had the last of the items that he was after at that moment – his carving tools, a handful of different types of small blocks of wood and the figurine of Ramaranth that he'd once carved. All were placed on the shelf above his bed, so as to be close to hand in case he wanted to do some carving at any point.
The figurine had been a last minute decision. Normally, it resided in the special cabinet that he'd made and attached to the wall of his workshop with all of his other figurines. But after a moment's consideration, he decided to have it up here – after all, there was not a shred of doubt in his mind that a whole host of dragon figurines would soon be carved to add to his collection.
"Unpacked?" Sirius asked.
"Still want to bring up my easel and some paints, but that can wait until tomorrow," Harry replied, glancing across at his godfather lounging against the doorframe.
"Good, come on out and we can fill in the rest of your timetable with your subjects for each day," Sirius said.
"Magical as well as normal," Harry reminded him.
Sirius simply nodded before stepping out of the way and leading Harry to the dining room table. There, Harry found two pieces of parchment, one much smaller than the other.
"My timetable?" Harry asked, head cocked as he touched the largest piece.
"Yep. Well, it will be," Sirius replied. "Basically, it's an enlarged copy of the one that Alexander gave you, but with enough room now to fill in timeslots for the subjects that you agreed to take in the Contract that you signed."
This last was said as Sirius pointed to said contract – the second piece of parchment on the table.
"You've already put some thought into this," Harry noted.
The timetable had columns for all seven days of the week with every morning blocked out with the words 'Dragon Stuff' written across them. Monday to Friday afternoons were divided up into two, two-hour blocks, the first from one until three; the second from three thirty until five thirty. There was also a block in the evenings between seven and eight thirty.
"I thought that you could do two magical subjects every afternoon and then one of your muggle subjects in the evening. Weekend afternoons and evenings are free time or catch up," Sirius suggested. "What do you think?"
"I don't see a problem with it," Harry replied. "But what about my tutors? Do we know who they are or even if this will work for them?"
"Apart from Remus – who should be arriving the day after tomorrow – I don't have a clue who the Reserves have hired for you," Sirius replied. "But I can't see it being a problem, after all, Alexander gave you this set up, so you'd assume that he'd worked something out with whoever he's hired already."
Harry nodded absently as he ran his eye down the list of magical subjects on his contract. There was nothing there that was new to him, not after his spending the past year at Hogwarts studying them. Most of them he'd really enjoyed, like Ancient Runes, Charms and Transfiguration. Others, like History of Magic and Astronomy were okay as far as he was concerned, but not something that he loved. The rest – Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy – fell somewhere in the middle.
"Obviously, Remus and I'll fit in around the others," Sirius continued. "And the fact that we're going to be teaching you two subjects each should make it easy for us as well. But I was thinking that we spread out your wand classes so you only have one of them a day."
"Makes sense," Harry nodded. "Uh, Sirius? You've got five evenings blocked out for my normal subjects but I'm only taking four – Art and Design, Fine Arts, Mathematics and Biology."
"I figured that you could you the extra one as a spare in case something comes up. Or for your language classes," Sirius replied.
"Languages, right," Harry replied, only just then remembering that there was a clause in his contract saying that he was required to learn the four main languages of the different Reserves around the world. "Forgot about them."
Over the next quarter of an hour, the two of them debated which slots to assign to each subject. After all, if they were asked for their preferences – which they assumed was quite likely – they actually wanted to be able to answer the question. Finally, they had something that they were both happy with.
"Right, that's done," Sirius said as he finally laid his quill down. "And just in time, too – it's just about time for dinner and I've been told that it's the one meal that everyone around here is required to attend."
"But I had a late lunch," Harry half-protested. "I'm really not all that hungry."
Sirius gave him a non-plussed look. "I thought you were supposed to be a teenaged boy? And they're always hungry!"
Then, before he could reply or dodge, Harry felt Sirius' hand close around his bicep, yank him to his feet and pull him towards the door.
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6:35pm
Tuesday, 25 July 1995
Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, Romania
.
Introductions, names and faces, had come at a steady pace all through dinner. Every single person who worked at the Sanctuary, it seemed, had made it their duty to come over to talk to them. From beside him, Charlie had done an amazing job with the introductions but by the fifth, Harry had already been feeling overwhelmed; by the tenth, names had begun to blur and faces to jumble.
"Don't worry, Harry," Charlie whispered, leaning close as the last of them – as far as Harry could tell – left to return to their own seat. "It might seem that there's a lot of us, but really, there isn't."
"There might not be a lot compared to Hogwarts or something," Harry countered, "but I've got more than just human names and faces to memorise."
Charlie cocked his head at him, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Dragons, Charlie, dragons," Harry explained. "I had dozens of them telling me their name this afternoon as well. And I do not want to find out what an insulted dragon is like if I forget their names or get them wrong."
"He's got a point," Sirius said from Harry's other side.
"Yeah, I guess so," Charlie agreed. "Never thought of it like that – it's not like we've ever known the dragon's names in the first place in order to have to learn them. That'll be something for all of us to learn, something that you'll have to teach us."
The idea of making some kind of book with every dragon's name and description or better yet, a photo, flashed into Harry's mind, but before he could pursue it, a loud knocking on the table that Alexander was now standing at interrupted him.
"Right, you lot, listen up," Alexander said causing the Hall to quiet within moments. "I'll start tonight's announcements with giving a Welcome to the Sanctuary to Harry Potter and his godfather Sirius Black. If you haven't already done so, make sure you introduce yourselves before you leave here tonight. Lad, you've already proven to us that we made the right choice in getting you here and you've already done two things that we never thought possible with dragons by going into their Canyon alone and then riding on the back of one. We look forward to working with you."
The Hall instantly erupted with not only applause but also with whistles and yells of welcome and encouragement.
"Alright, that's enough," Alexander said after a minute and once again, the Hall quickly settled for him. "Assignments for tomorrow. Nothing new apart from the fact that Charlie here's now got himself an Apprentice. But if things go the way I expect, be prepared for things to change up as we start learning more about our dragons. That's it from me. Delilah?"
A woman who looked to be in either her late twenties or early thirties with long, light brown hair and a slim figure rose with a bundle of envelopes in her hand which she held up for all to see.
"Delilah's pretty much in charge of a lot of the daily running of the Sanctuary," Charlie explained quietly.
"But I thought Alexander was in charge," a confused Harry said.
At that, Charlie shook his head. "Alexander's in charge of the Sanctuary in terms of the dragons. Delilah looks after all the other stuff that keeps things running smoothly – food, housekeeping – we don't have any house elves here – portkeys, correspondence, …"
"Correspondence?" Sirius asked. "Don't owls just bring their letters straight to whoever it's for?"
"Not here," Charlie replied. "Too dangerous to us and the owl. Just think what it'd be like if we were working with a dragon when an owl turned up. Either we'd get distracted and potentially hurt or the owl would get eaten. No, all mail goes to Delilah, both in and out and she hands them out once a day."
"Harry Potter!"
Harry looked up, blinking.
"Harry, you've got a letter, come up and get it," Delilah called.
"I've got a letter? But I only just arrived," Harry protested even as he was pushing his chair back to get up.
"I'm guessing you're going to want this one," Delilah said with a huge grin on her face. "It's obviously been sent by express portkey and the writing … that's a girl's handwriting if ever I saw it."
A few jokes were already being thrown Harry's way at Delilah's comments but when she lifted the letter up to her nose and smelt it, the whole room, it seemed joined in on the teasing.
"Thanks," Harry said as he took the letter.
He knew that his face was red and that he'd all but run the last few steps but the moment that he'd glanced down at the writing on the front, he didn't care. He recognised it. Delilah was right, it was a girl's.
Daphne, Harry thought.