Jade Eyed Celestial
Keira's prompt: Harry finds himself in the world of Temeraire. As he is the only being with magic in a world full of dragons, he feels like gold or a second captain to them. How does he disrupt things?
(I truly miss esama's Temeraire/Harry Potter stories, now all deleted on this site, so this is a sort of dedication to that memory. Not that this story all that similar to esama's, but the prompt reminded me of them.)
0o0o0
"Harry, mate…?" Ron sounded unsure, and more than a little wary. His fingers reached almost unconsciously for his wand. They didn't quite grip at it, twitching away as if startled and fluttering back like a bird unsure of any safe perch during a storm. Harry tilted his head and tried to look down at himself; he had a black hide and turned his head as he studied them. He checked quickly for forearms or hind legs and found them, he had five toes that ended with talons, and wondered if he was some sort of lizard. He was just glad he wasn't a snake.
"Well, what am I?" Harry asked Hermione, who was opening and closing her mouth, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, a small smile playing on her lips. She wasn't as pale as Ron, but seemed just as taken aback, at least until he spoke – he could speak! – what animal could speak? Harry couldn't think of a natural animal, so his animagus form had to be a magical animal – which was very rare as he understood.
"Oh, Harry…only you." Hermione looked to Ron, who ran his hands through his hair making it a red mess of curls that looked like a flare of fire.
"Am I a lizard?" Harry hunched down, as small as he could be, so it was truly pathetic sight. Endearingly so, Harry's big green eyes looked up at them from the ground, as he had curled and coiled about himself, forearms tucked under his chest and his tail lashing the air like a worried whip, his wings had sort of cling to him so as to be as little as he could be – which was quite ridiculous. He was huge and there was no hiding it.
Hermione pressed her lips together, so she wouldn't make some crooning noise or babble reassuringly. Her eyes went to Ron pointedly.
"No, Harry, you're not a lizard, per say, more of a…" Ron trailed off, because Harry had quivered his spinal ruff, as if startled. It was quite an intimidating sight, like a primeval warding away of danger. There was a dinosaur that had done something like that, Hermione was sure, Dilophosaurus she thought its name might be.
"You're a dragon, Harry." Hermione decided to just say it, and Harry blinked at her, slowly and deliberately disbelieving. He smiled, and on a dragon it looked very much like a threat. All sharp teeth and whisker like tendrils.
"A dragon, 'Mione? Really? What kind of dragon?" It was clear enough Harry didn't quite believe her; he thought – perhaps – that she and Ron were playing some kind of childish prank.
"Well, actually, I don't rightly know…do you recognize his breed, Ron?" Hermione only knew that she's never seen his kind in the book Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit. Of course, that had been published in 1658, and a new breed might have turned up since.
"No, why would I?" Ron asked, and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"My brother isn't a dragon breeder, is he?" She asked drily, and Ron snorted.
"I don't really talk to Charlie about dragons, Hermione." Her eyebrows went up in curiosity and Ron saw his danger, that she was about to ask what he talked to his eldest brother about – when Harry interrupted, and Ron had never been so grateful for his best friend.
"You're both serious, I'm a dragon, a dragon, really, well, what do I look like?" Harry turned his head this way and that, as if trying to see his whole body but only getting glimpses of wing tip and tail.
"Well, you're black, and big and sort of snake-looking, you've got these odd six spines along your wings but five toes, and I don't know, maybe Cho Chang might?" Ron didn't sound sure of his suggestion and Harry blinked jewel bright green eyes. It was clear he was confused and at Hermione's frown, he wasn't the only one.
"Why, Cho?" Harry's wings spread nervously, as he hadn't really talked to Cho at all since sixth year, even when most of the DA were repeating seventh – or going into their seventh year - along with Harry and his friends. Cho though, she had graduated and was working in Hogsmeade.
"Well, mate, don't take this the wrong way, but you sort of look like one of their kinds of dragons, like the Chinese New Year one?" Ron seemed to be suggesting it as gently as possible, and Harry snorted with amusement.
"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Harry stood up, and up, and up and Ron and Hermione were both glad Harry had agreed to try the animagus transformations outside on the fringes of the Forbidden Forest rather than nearer to Hogwarts, like the Quidditch pitch or near the lake.
"Telling..." Ron sort of squeaked. Hermione was torn between stepping away from Harry to give him more – in her opinion - much needed space and possibly hurting his feelings, or laughing nervously.
"Alright, let's get going." Harry was looking at his wings as he moved them up and down gently, stirring up a wind that gusted down powerfully enough to stir up the forest floor. He seemed satisfied with that he did.
"Going, going where?..." It was a fair question in Hermione's opinion, but Harry looked at her as if she were slow and she realized with a slow creeping dread in what direction this was going. In the, let's fly on a dragon again! – only this time the dragon would be Harry who was a excellent flyer on a broom stick but who had never flown with wings before. Harry was a natural flyer, it was true, but this was an entirely different kind of flying and Hermione had never liked her feet to leave the ground, ever.
"Oh, no, no, that is a bad idea, a terrible, horrible, horrible idea!" Hermione was shaking her finger as if scolding Harry, and she had a giddy moment of how that must look, a tiny witch telling off a twenty ton dragon.
"No, it's a bloody brilliant!" Ron who had been a bit pale and sick looking now had regained his spirit and color, and Hermione wished he did not sound so enthusiastic about it. Hermione closed her eyes, knowing there was no hope, and that she was going with them because she wasn't going to let them go alone and get themselves killed, no, she was going to get herself killed as well, because that was simply the kind of witch she was.
Ron took her hand, and led her forward, probably thinking it was for the best that Hermione didn't see how she got onto a dragon to begin with. Hermione inwardly agreed and said not a word against it as she settled his shoulders and dug her fingernails into his hide. She felt Ron sit behind her and she kept her eyes shut tightly as Harry began to move beneath the both of them. There was a running leap and the beat of wings and Hermione felt the sickening certainty that they were all airborne.
"Alright, 'Mione?" Harry sort of had to shout to be heard above the wind he made all on his own. Hermione opened one eye, and than stared about in wonder. The world was wide and wonderfully lovely and she might not like flying, or heights, but seeing this view was worth a great number of unpleasant things.
"Alright, Harry." Hermione answered, patting the hide underneath her hands, Harry's shoulders.
"Wait until he lands!" Ron was enthusiastically earnest and perhaps he didn't mean to tease but Hermione elbowed him just the same for ruining her mood. On a dragons back, it was a short flight to Hogsmeade, and Harry sort of landed hind legs first and with an awkward hop and skip settled onto the ground. Hermione needed no help getting off, and was the second one to settle her feet on the earth. As short as the flight had felt, it was twilight, with more darkness than natural light to be seen. So it was that Harry hadn't made a big fuss over landing in the nearby mountains of the village.
"We'll go get Cho, Harry, just, I don't know, sit here and don't eat anything – or anyone." Hermione waved but didn't look back as she hustled out of sight with Ron at her side. She still heard Harry's hiss at her back, and hoped he was teasing.
A brisk walk brought them into Hogsmeade proper, and down at the end of the right hand street the lights were on which made Ron sigh with relief. Cho Chang worked at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop and was just closing up when Ron and Hermione came in. She wore around her neck the gold D.A. coin, and seeing them she smiled, her fingers going to touch the coin unconsciously. She did it out of habit, Hermione could tell.
"Ron, Hermione, it's good to see you both, how have you been?" Cho locked the door behind them, gesturing for them to sit at a table; when they took seats she sat down with them keen to catch up.
"We've been alright, no sign of Voldemort, not that we expected there to be, but…well, it's good to be sure now - we've been keeping busy, the three of us, we've been practicing to become animagus." Hermione glanced at the D.A. coin, wondering if it was alright to let Cho know like this. It wasn't exactly a secret, what they were doing – it was in fact sort of in memory to the Marauders', Harry's dad and Sirius.
"I trust your training is going well?" Cho sounded just the slightest bit confused to why Hermione was telling her, but wasn't about to say anything if they had both come to see her. It was rare she saw Hogwarts students just wanting to visit.
"Well, actually, Harry has finished it just tonight, but we don't know what he is." Ron told her, fiddling with the D.A. coin about his wrist, he wore it on threads of red and brown and a single strand of black hair – all of those he loved, all of them who had made it – and Fred, who hadn't. The coin rested on his inner left wrist.
Cho Chang's eyes were so wide and suddenly concerned, that Hermione shot a glare at him and hurried to reassure her.
"We know what kind of animal he is, but we don't know what exact breed, and we – that is, the three of us, were hoping you'd come and see him. Harry, he's near here. It's just a short walk really…so will you?" Hermione hoped, and Cho, seeing no harm in it and curious besides, stood up with a smile.
"Well, of course, what are we waiting for?" Cho let them out, locking up behind them, and following them out of Hogsmeade along a trail that led to the mountains. It was a good hiking path and led by caves that Cho didn't like during the day and would hate to go into at night, but she didn't say anything like that.
Ron stopped just ahead, a clear grassy area that had no trees, but the trees were still very tall around there. There was Cho thought, a sort of rocky outcrop that sprawled across the ground. She had never been this way, but trusted Ron and Hermione to know what they were doing – to a point.
"Harry, you awake, mate?" To Cho's surprise, Ron went walking right up to the rocks and rapped his knuckles against them, playfully. Cho sucked in a sudden breath, backing away as the rocks seemed to shake and stand up. They weren't rocks at all; she realized quickly, it was Harry.
"A dragon..?" Cho was proud of the fact that she didn't sound shocked or surprised, just sort of factual.
"Yes, a dragon." Hermione agreed, eyeing Cho with a touch of envy at her apparent bravery.
"Lumos maxima!" Cho waves her wand in a place vaguely above Harry's head, and what she sees makes her go very still.
"You don't know what breed of dragon." Cho said, faintly, as if she couldn't believe it.
"No, do you recognize it?" Hermione asked, sure by her reaction that she did.
"Tien-Lung, we'd say Celestial. The Emperor's dragon – they, they died out along with the Imperials and the Jades, the Emerald Glass and the Plums, the Scarlet Flowers and Spirits – and nearly all of them, save the lion like Fireballs. The Celestials though, they were our greatest loss…with their death went our hearts." Cho's great grandmother had been the first partner to a young Scarlet Flower, and had mourned her dragon's early passing for the rest of her life.
Cho had heard how if only that Scarlet Flower had lived, her great grandmother's daughters would have likely been partnered to Nügua too. There was a shrine in her mother's house to her great grandmother and the Scarlet Flower both.
"How did they all die out?" Harry Potter asked softly, and Cho studied the skies.
"When Napoleon fought, he had aerial corps, dragons – and in answer, the whole world seemed to go to war on the backs of dragons, they were at the middle of it all. It seemed never likely to stop, that long war; only there was the dragon plague, and that…that stopped them all, humans and dragons both. The world watched as dragons died, one by one, first one dragon, and then a whole breed. The sickness warred with them, and they lost. Did you know, once, fire breathers were the rarest kind of dragon? Now, now they are all that are left of the whole species!" It hurt Cho to know that, and she took a shuddering breath hoping to gain back her calm.
"They call it the war that was never won, now, when they call it anything at all. Mostly, it's not talked about." Neither was it written down, Cho knew, it was an almost forgotten bit of history.
There was a cry like nothing Cho Chang had ever heard before, it was healing as much at it was something to be heard and enjoyed. A flare of fire, like a seed, erupted upon the ground near Harry's feet and when the fire formed a shape, it was Fawkes who looked them all in the eye, brave and defiant.
"It's alright, silly bird, they aren't going to hurt me." Harry muttered to the phoenix, a bit rueful. Cho knew that what she had said had hurt Harry, had worried him, and that Fawkes had come in response to his feelings. It had never occurred to Cho or Hermione or Ron that something so peaceful as the Headmaster's phoenix could be so fiercely protective, but he was a strong and magical bird. He was no familiar, but a friend to Harry.
Fawkes kept an eye on the three, but crooned up at Harry soothingly, and Cho realized that was song was for Harry, to heal the hurt he felt because of Cho's words. It was not meant for Cho, but it helped her as well, three generations of her family had mourned deeply for their lost potential partnering dragon. It was a deep loss, and it was a hurt felt world wide.
Only some never knew, like Harry hadn't, and for the first time Cho felt pity for them instead of disgust. They didn't know why the world mourned, what fit in the echoing emptiness that dragons had left, but they surely felt it all the same.
The tone of Fawkes's song changed, suggested, and Harry heard that, understood the music's suggestion – because it was suggested to him, and he listened. Cho wondered what Harry was hearing.
"What is he saying, Harry?" Cho asked, knowing it was important to do so. Harry had tilted his head, ruff up and quivering.
"Fawkes, he says I can change it, that I can heal it, I only have to…to follow him back?" Harry spoke to Fawkes, as if to be sure – only Hermione seemed to realize what he meant quickly. The lull of the song wobbled between two notes, one sweet and one painfully bitter.
"I-in time?" Hermione blurted out, Harry's green eyes caught Hermione's brown, as alarmed as she was.
In a flare of phoenix fire, Harry Potter was gone.
0o0o0
Lung Tien Chuan is hatched under the watchful and hopeful eyes of Prince Mianning of China, his egg is pearl white and it shakes and shivers, and only the Prince sees it when lightning coming from within the egg makes that first critical crack. The egg quivers apart and there is Chuan, with inky black hide dotted with shades of blue and his eyes, his eyes are like jade.
Mianning can not help but stare at those eyes, for he has never seen a Lung Tien with eyes like these. He swallows his fear, that this is not a Lung Tien but a Lung Qin. There is no real way to know until he is almost a year old.
"Why are you staring so?" Lung Tien Chuan asks of the now Crown Prince of China, his tone impudent.
"Your eyes, they are…" Chuan sees them in the glass mirror that had caught the sun and warmed his shell, they are green instead of the usual Lung Tien blue, and it seems to please him. Or relieve him.
"There is nothing wrong with my eyes, Prince Mianning." Chuan yawns, those same odd eyes squinting shut tightly as the rest if the little body stretches as if glad to be free of the shell and out and about in the world. Mianning is well aware that dragons can hear what is said outside their shell. Lung Tien or Lung Qin, Mianning can not help but be charmed and kisses the dragon's nose, knowing this dragon will be his partner for life and his companion as Emperor.
"It is as you say, Lung Tien Chuan." Mianning notes the startled stillness that comes over Chuan, and worries that he has not been as attentive to the Lung Tien egg as he should have been. It was his duty, no - for his pleasure as a future ruler, and it aches in him that he's failed at this first most important task. He vows to let Chuan know he is welcomed into this world with all his due praise and pampering, for the Lung Tien and Lung Qin are the partners of princes and princesses of China – the only companions who's loyalty can not be swayed.
Mianning had commissioned a gift when Lung Tien Qian had laid her twin eggs, it was a necklace of gems of every hue and at it's center point a pearl surrounded by jade and gold. He holds it out for Chuan to see, and the just hatched dragon's eyes are wide at the sight. Mianning hopes that means he is pleased as he drapes over the dragon's neck.
"You can't give this to me!" Chuan sounds outraged, and Mianning finds he fears those words like he has feared nothing in his life, flinching from them inwardly in confusion, as he dazedly wonders if Chuan rejecting him? It had never happened to any Prince or Princess companioned to a Lung Tien – or Lung Qin.
"Why not, do you not like it? I can have another made – one that suits your pleasure this time, if you do not." Mianning is quick to suggest and sooth the newly born dragon, who gives him a look of utter horror. The little wings spread out, damp and wet and waving like an outraged thing.
"What am I going to do with it?" Chuan demands in a soft hiss, and Mianning realizes he's insulted him, somehow.
It's then, looking into those green eyes, that he realizes that Chuan has lived before this life – and must have been someone of great honor and importance to remember it, for remember it he must, to have no instinct to keep a pearl, which is like his egg, and treasured by all newborn Lung Tien, held in honor of their hatching and their chosen royal companions.
Mianning keels so he is at eye height of Chuan and reaches to stroke the black hide, soothing. Lung Tien have been born before this, who remember the life they lived, and they are more precious by far for that reason –Mianning is determined to be a worthy companion and win this dragon's heart, his companion's trust. It will not be easy, he knows, but it will be worth it.
"It is only a gift, to show our bond on this day of days, it's only meaning is in that – not, not some collar or leash to show my ownership of you. That is what it means; never anything less, nor anything more." At his touch and calm words, Chuan is settled and soothed.
"Must it be so, so...gaudy?" It's almost a whine, and Mianning can not help but laugh softly. Chuan is clearly one who will never value treasure.
"No, it can be a simple thing – if you desire, perhaps a gold chain and a pearl." Chuan's nose twitches as if he smells something that stinks and Mianning hides a small smile as he continues. "Or a pearl earring, perhaps only a pearl ring?" Chuan noses his hand, content and breathing regularly in and out half asleep and Mianning takes that as being a good enough suggestion. He promises himself to find just such a ring in the morning, and if one does not suit Chuan, one will start to be made so anew before tomorrow dawns.
It is not yet dawn and Lung Tien Qian arrives with Lung Qin Shu and Lung Qin Mei, the three have come, Mianning knows, to coo and coddle the newly hatched dragon. It is not often a Lung Tien or Lung Qin is brought into the world, rarer yet for one to have been born once before this life, and remember. Mianning has sat by Chuan as he slept, and when Qian sees him she nuzzles his warm little body. Chuan goes perfectly still at the touch, alarmed at the size and sight of his mother.
"Good morning, my son." Lung Tien Qian greets, her black hide going translucent with her advancing age. Mianning has never thought to look into how old she is, and it alarms him suddenly, that he does not know – but Lung Tien are not women, and they do not have much motherly feeling for those eggs they lay. Yet always have the Lung Tien been fond of Lung Qin and those of their own breed.
"The egg that was born with mine, my twin, where is he?" It is clear that Lung Tien Chuan knows of Lung Tien Xiang, and while it is true that before there has never been kinship feelings between dragons, that the family they have is a thing they know out of friendship or respect and loyalty or not at all – they had had to be told from before the shell not to mate with their cousins and siblings for it was not the proper thing – in Lung Tien Chuan's green eyes is that kind of worry, for kin.
Mianning runs his fingers against that smooth and silky hide. His dragon has lived before and one day he hopes to get the name of who he had been, before. Or who he will be, for time does not flow one way for souls. That name would be honored, but sometimes dragons never tell and the historians must guess.
"There can not be two who are to be Emperor of China. We sent him to be companion of the Emperor of France." Lung Tien Chuan stills and quivers. He turns away and raises his wings as if to shrug away the world.
"You will send for him, or I will be companion to no one." Mianning looks to Lung Tien Qian in sudden wide eyed distress; she blinks blue eyes at her just hatched son as surprised as the Crown Prince is.
"I will speak to the Emperor, and see what is to be done." Lung Tien Qian assures the both of them, and goes. Mianning stays silent and hurt at Chuan's side, while Lung Qin Shu and Lung Qin Mei try to get the little dragon to engage in conversation, to interest him in anything but being sullen and silent. They try deep into the day, and it is with no word to any of them that Lung Tien Chuan gets up and goes outside, sunning himself in silence. Lung Qin Shu tries to get him to eat, trying any number of dishes but Chuan touches not a one - Lung Qin Mei offers drink, but Lung Tien Chuan simply stubbornly closes his eyes and will have nothing to do with any of them.
Mianning knows this can not go on, Lung Tien Chuan must drink, must eat, or he will die. The Crown Prince of China sees his father approach and stands to greet him.
"Lung Tien Qian tells me that he longs for his twin." The Jiaqing Emperor does not have to say how strange this is. His own companion is sister to Lung Tien Qian, but rarely do the two care so much for the other as Lung Tien Chuan has shown.
"He does not speak, nor eat or drink." Mianning is fearful of what his father will think, but not what he will do.
"Why do you not follow your instincts and intellect, Lung Tien Chuan?" The Jiaqing Emperor asks softly and directly, for he is among his family and this is no court of China but the garden of their ancestral home.
"What I must do, I can not do alone, if anyone can help me, it is Lung Tien Xiang. I must prevent what is to come." The Jiaqing Emperor studies the green eyes that glint like precious jade. He nods slowly, as solemn and serious as if Lung Tien were grown and a wise advisor.
"I will task it to one who will not fail. Will you eat and drink with me?" The Jiaqing Emperor's servants have set out a pavilion, and it is to that which he gestures. Lung Tien Chuan looks to Mianning, who nods, and follows where Lung Tien Chuan goes.
It is there where Lung Tien Chuan tells them what will be, that all dragons will become sick and his whole race will die, and only a dozen races may survive – but never will they thrive as now. They can not doubt him, as on the third day, a phoenix sings the young dragon awake with the sunrise, and the entire palace sees them greet each other as old friends.
One day, Crown Prince Mianning knows, Lung Tien Chuan will go with the phoenix he calls Fawkes, and he will go with him and see the life his dragon left behind.
Fawkes the Empress calls Fenghuang, and it dwells with the Empress and the Emperor's daughters and wives and mistresses, and rarely does Lung Tien Chuan see his friend, for Mianning fears that one day he will go and not tell him.
A necklace of five different colored feathers the Empress makes for Lung Tien Chuan, a blessing to come and go where he wills, for he will always be welcome in any room of the Emperor's home. Lung Tien Chuan waits and watches and grows, and he does not do it in vain, when Lung Tien Xiang comes, his black hide scarred with bullets and a nobly born soldier whom hardly ever leaves his side.
Fenghuang gives five feathers to Lung Tien Xiang and when the two and all their escort go, Lung Tien Chuan still speaks to his twin without words, but within, and from what happens in the world Mianning knows those words are heard in turn by to Lung Tien Xiang. It is not a imagining, but magic, and the whole world never knows it is changed for the better until Mianning is seventy and Lung Tien Chuan and Lung Tien Xiang meet with face to face once more and they ask Fenghuang to take them and their companions, a Emperor and a Admiral, to go to the future they have forged anew.
The phoenix's flames take them, and what they find no one knows, for they five do not return.