Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" by Dylan Thomas
Dyre did not appear at the wand weighing ceremony. How he managed to elude a marauder and Dumbledore was a mystery. Victor informed them that he had not returned to the ship but also warned that if Dyre did not wish to be found he would not. His bed remained made, his room untouched. Not even his clothes were taken.
For two weeks, James and Lily stood on pins and needles. The inheritance potion had come back. There was no need to review the result. Now with unquestionable proof, they could do little more than frame the damn thing on their mantel for all its use. Lucius had looked into the old laws. From the moment of Harry's 'death,' Karkaroff owned the boy. Or at least, the headmaster of Durmstrang did. It was blunt for a law. Karkaroff's claim on him was authentic.
They could purchase the boy, which Lucius had tried as soon as the potion came back, but it was in vain. Dyre had spoken truth. Karkaroff would not part from him.
It was a cold November day when Lupin, Sirius, James, Lucius, and Draco sat in the stands. The sky was cloudy grey, threatening rain. Thunder was in the distance. The champions and staff had been called to the tent, and they could only wonder if Dyre would appear.
Dragons. They had to fight dragons. Diggory was green about the face, but to his credit, his eyes were firm. Fleur was consulting one last time with her headmistress, her long hair tied in a thin strip down her back. The judges were debating the consequences of their missing champion, Dumbledore petitioning for only a few more minutes wait, when Dyre emerged from the entrance.
A photographer's flash greeted him. Dyre stoically ignored the woman in the purple suit with the alligator handbag trying to take his comment. Lily exhaled her breath in a loud puff. Without a word, Dyre joined his competition. Crouch held out the bag.
The Hungarian Horntail.
Severus cursed beneath his breath. Perhaps the boy truly was cursed. The miniature dragon spit fire on his palm. In his normal servant attire, Dyre hardly looked capable of facing a dragon with only his skin to protect him. He was to go last.
As the teachers trickled out, Lily hovered by the entrance, desiring just one word to her boy before he faced his probable death. Though she would never let that happen, contest be damned. Dyre looked up suddenly. His sparkling eye, tired but deep, met hers, echoing familiarity. In response to her distress, he offered a small smile. Lily's hand shook, and she moved to approach him. Dumbledore caught her shoulder, shaking his head towards Rita Skeeter in the corner.
The roar of the crowd could be heard outside the tent as Fleur battled for her golden egg. Diggory paced the room, running spells beneath his breath. Dyre sat on the infirmary beds lining the far side of the tent, placed in case of an emergency of course. The dragon sniffed out the boundary of his hand, its mace-like tail scraping his palm.
Dyre stared at it, wondering if his life was really worth his secrets.
"Hey," someone whispered behind him.
Dyre looked up, seeing no one but Diggory in his anxious fidgeting.
"Behind the curtain."
Dyre turned. A faint silhouette greeted him. The body touched the fabric so faintly that it could have been the wind.
Draco?
"Um, listen, I know you're pretty good at dueling but this is, um," the boy stammered, reminding him of Neville. "Can you do this, Dyre?" he eventually got out, worry coloring his words.
Dyre looked to the entrance, where a little beyond the curve another tent met him. Still, the great roar of fire and anxious shouting brushed the cloth. Stamping shook the ground. He thought about what he would have to give up to win, to survive. He turned back to the boy on the other side of the tent. He could see nothing of him but a hazy outline, but he could imagine so vividly the clear crystal eyes, like smoldering ash below yellow locks.
"Yes, I can."
The figure expelled a breath. "Ok," he said in complete trust. "I just… I just wanted to know. Even Victor was rather dubious about this."
"Tell him it would take more than this to fell one named after the Great Harold Wartooth."
"Alright," Draco said, and Dyre could hear the smile in it.
The boy lingered for a bit before finally leaving, not finding anything else to say. At least that's what Dyre thought before the curtain shifted and a hand scrambled to encompass his own through the slit. Dyre stared at it, the long fingers much smoother than his calloused, scarred ones. It retracted quickly.
"Ok, well, um. I guess I'll leave now."
Dyre chuckled softly, determined to show the world precisely why he should never be underestimated.
o.O.o
Lucius sat next to Karkaroff, who looked very pleased with this turn of events. His dark eyes held an ugly malice and he rubbed his hands together greedily. Lucius was disgusted. The elder Malfoy strongly believed the Dyre would come out of this alive. Watching him duel had been as grand as watching Dumbledore. He had no doubt that whatever secrets the boy held he would survive this.
He looked to his tense guard. James was chewing clean through his lip, his eyes horrified by the rocky course and single bolt of chain below them. Lily soon joined him, her eyes as frantic as his. She fingered the wand beneath her sleeve. Sirius and Lupin as well were terribly tense, their hands clinging to one another desperately. Dumbledore as well was showing signs of tension.
Severus sat beside him, glaring at Karkaroff. The dark man sent him an intense look but said nothing. His wand was laid in his lap, gripped loosely, though Lucius held no doubt to how alert the man was.
They watched Fleur struggle through the task, darting strategically between the rocky crags. She aimed exclusively for the beast's eyes, and they all wished they could tell Dyre to do the same. The creature was smart though and shielded itself with its clipped wings. Eventually, she constructed a decoy, managing to slip through in its distraction and grab the egg. It was well done, but she had taken up too much time.
Cedric's dragon was fiercer but not as smart. He was able to easily hit the creature's eyes. It roared, rearing back and stepping all over its prized eggs. Points were deducted for that. He shoulder was singed, the robes completely burnt, but he had a triumphant grin on his handsome face.
Next was Harry.
o.O.o
The sky was as grey as stone but teeming with life. The clouds rolled like the belly of a great beast. The barest sprinkle preceded the storm, lending dark dots to the stones around him. In the close stillness of the storm, everything was muted. His feet made no noise as he moved over loose stone. As he melted into the shadow of a nearby nook, the heavy crunch of a great weight pressed into the gravel. A single squat forearm appeared in the space of the crag. Fat talons the length of his thigh scraped the ground, smooth scales as hard as diamonds covering the bulging muscle of her limb. She sniffed the air, growling far above the reach of his gaze. The purple-grey of her scales was iridescent, murky as upset river silt and opaque. Only the great beasts of the heavens gave off such unnatural gleams.
Of course, the handlers did not know this. Did not know that they had a queen in the midst of peasantry, that they had chained a great sovereign of the skies. Her talons slid over the gravel, making deep indents on the ground. Four stubby legs graced the long body of the beast. She was low to the ground and sleek as a serpent, a great Wyrm of the Celtic isles. Her tail slid behind her lazily, like a cat. Her slit eyes, a large grey not unlike the Malfoy childe, were wise and cold as mountains, stung with the anger of her abasement. Smoke drawled lazily from her nostrils. She raised her muzzle in the air, sniffing the ozone-intensified air.
Ihh can sssmell you, egg-thieffff, she drawled, coating her coarse voice with the thick slur of feminine deception.
Dyre slid like a wraith among the rocks, making not sound, his grey attire making him uniform with the harsh stone.
You hhhave nowhere to run. Nowhhhhere to esssscape. I will find you, egg-thiefff. Unborn killhher.
She was staying close to her nest. Her nastily spiked tail curled around the eggs, the gold looking obscenely ostentatious among the grey. Her head turned, and Dyre just barely slid back into the shadow, pressing himself to the unyielding stone.
I sssssmell your fear. Ihh will find you. Ihh will crussssssh you. Ihh will ssssavor the tassste of your flessssh in my belly.
Dyre moved among the rocks, invisible even to his confused audience. He slid expertly along the back of an overhang, experienced with the rocky terrain of the Jötnar's Forest and the mountains drawn like silent sentinels around Durmstrang's mighty mead halls. His hand found purchase like a rat among the rocks, shifting seamlessly, belly to the ground.
What fear do you ssssmell, Great Mother of the Wyrms? he asked, cupping his hands so his voice echoed across the wards.
She raised her head, intrigued while everyone else looked confused, standing in their seats to spot him. Yhhou ssspeak the tongue of Greatssss? Why do you attack my unbornsss?
I do not, my lady, Dyre said, hidden above the overhang. One of your little onesss hasss been exchanged for a lie. I wasss tricked into coming here to take it back.
Tricked, you ssssay, she said, searching him out among the rocks. Not a clever hhhhuman, she mocked in a wry hiss.
And of you, my lady? Dyre asked, crawling forward. You have been horribly missstreated here. You have been ssseparated from your unbornsss. You have been chained. They have cast ssspellss on you, tried to sssubdue what cannot be sssubdued, taken what can never be taken. Have you too not been sssubject to trickery and outrage?
Yessssss, she hissed, hatred coiling her tongue. I will ssssslay thhhem. Ihh will murder thhhhhem all! I will paint my belly withhh thhhheir blood! Thhey will know what it meansss to trap me hhhere!
Pleassse, my lady, Great Mother of all, will you not allow me to retrieve the lie amidssst your little onesss. I mean no harm to you or your kin. For they too wisssh to sssubdue in me what can never be sssubdued.
She was silent in contemplation, low growls still accompanying her anger.
Ssshow yourself to me, hhhhuman.
Dyre was prepared for this. He flung himself off the overhang. His hand and foot found purchase on the shadow of the cliff, the rest of him visible for all to see. Shouts echoed from behind the barrier. Fingers pointed. Mouths gaped. Dyre did not turn to see the horrified expressions on his parents' faces as he revealed himself to the monster, hanging defenseless from the overhang. He had eyes only for the dragon.
She regarded him silently, her old eyes taking in everything about the shape of his face, the jagged lightening bolt scar, the green eye as brilliant and deep as the winter trees, and the white one, concealing much more than it impaired.
Indeed thhhey hhhave, little one, she said in a baritone roll. It hasss been a long time sssssince I have ssseen thhhat eye or converssssed with one of Deathhhh'ssss playthhhingssss.
You honor me, Great Mother, Dyre said respectfully, inclining his head.
Yhhou tell me hhone of my unbornsss hasss been ssssstolen from me, she said. You pressssume muchhh to make sssuch a claim.
I mean no dissshonor. I wisssh only to leave you in peace.
In peasssce, you ssssay, she said, eyes shining like hot coals. She rose up to an impressive height, her chest, with its light silver scales, massive and commanding. My kind and I will have no peassssce while hhyou and your forefatherssss walk thissss earthhhh.
Dyre did not like where this was going.
Yhhou will to have my unborn? Are yhhou to be the knight to sssssslay me? Lie or not I will fight for thhhhose in my charge, little Deathhhhh. Hhave you the courage to fassssce me?
Before Dyre had the chance to react, she was calling fire from her throat. Dyre watched it move from her belly up her esophagus to her narrowed mouth. Yet still he could not tell his hand to release the rock. The conversation had change so abruptly. The time he had to save himself was used up with his shock. As the pillar of fire ran towards him, slowly/quickly illuminating the shadow of the cliff, he could only watch his death approach him.
Salvation came not in the quick mindedness of the sixteen-year-old clinging to the rocks, but in a stroke of luck. The rock beneath his fingers broke. The stone crumbled, and Dyre was falling. His foot lost hold of the underside of the cliff, and he was airborne, moving through the wind and the impeding current of storms like an abandoned rag doll.
And the fire passed over his head.
Dyre hit the ground harshly, fracturing his arm. He rolled downward, cutting himself on stone. It tore through his clothes, dragging his flesh, surfacing flesh whorls of red. He felt it rub into his face, his shoulders, his legs until there did not seem to be a part of him not penetrated by rock and dirt.
Finally he stopped, landing in a broken lump in the ground at the dragon's feet. He felt the great sucking of air as she drew in oxygen to fuel the leathery muscle holding in the gases of her fire. In a whoosh her chest contracted. Dyre had seconds and this time, he did not let shock impede him.
He gained his feet smoothly despite his pain. Avoiding her talons, he skirted away into the rocks once more. Covered in blood and open sores and his arm fractured, his area for success and survival had gone down drastically. He moved quickly among the rocks as she roared, flinging out her tail to trap him in avalanches. He smeared his blood everywhere, making his scent hard to detect. He wiped the blood from his eyes, trying to find some advantage in this chaos.
The wards protecting the crowd simmered as debris struck the shield. She was sparing no reserve in this attack. She was testing him. She was goading him as she herself had been goaded. Dyre took sort of his surroundings, seeing the different escape routes, ambush points and concealing alcoves.
There. She had taken out nearly the whole cliff. It was slick with loose rocks, impossible for even a human like Dyre to maneuver on. It led right to her eggs, which were unguarded as she prodded the western side of the grounds.
What was one more secret really?
Dyre recalled the promise he had made Draco. To survive, which had somehow turned into to win.
Slowly and meticulously, Dyre got into position.
His arm ached with the bone fracture, and he hoped it still had enough strength to carry him. He favored the arm as he once more slid belly down over the rough stones. Dirt grinded into his many wounds. The dragon's fervid trampling shook the ground. Her roars shouted his cowardice. She thought he was mocking her in his silence.
She was getting angry.
Dyre braced himself on top of the tall pile of rubble and mutilated stone. The audience had not caught sight of him yet, watching the dragon upend half the course. Dyre closed his eyes and stood.
The transformation was slow without a wand to steady him, but Dyre hoped it was still fast enough to give him time. A shout from the stands heralded the crowd's attention. The subject of over four hundred avid stares did not deter him, could not deter him as the earth shook and trembled.
His torso shifted, elongating so that his hands met the ground with his feet. His center of gravity lowered itself. His neck lengthened. His robes turned to short course fur, thick and puffy on his chest. His five fingers moved together, turned hard and black. His many cuts revealed themselves on his pelt. His head grew heavy with the weight of bone. His blood mixed darkly with his black hide, his body much thicker than his surefooted father. Broad shoulders, straight and proud, crested his head, framed by the tall crooked limbs of his antlers. A wreath of white fur choked the black hart's thick throat.
There was little similarity between this proud beast and the nimble boy darting between the crevices of the course. Save only in the long jagged streak slicing his long face in half. The milky white of his blind eye was no different than when it had laid inside a human. His other eye was pitch, round and equine.
All of a second did he stand still, grounding himself from the vibrations of the change, before he darted down the hill. The rock moved with him, sliding, but his agile legs vaulting onward, heedless on his shaky ground. He was shift and sure, heeded by the long stretch of his bone grey antlers.
As the crowd watched in shock, entranced, the dragon caught sight of him. Realization colored her deep eyes. She tried to turn, tried to call in the air needed to belch out a great pillar of heat, but her back was to him, and what was smooth in the air was too ungainly on earth. Still she tried, opening her great maw wide to spew forth flames.
Dyre vaulted and changed midair. It was quicker the second time. Only his upper half fully human, he twisted. The fire blistered his back but his hands reached the egg. They slid over gold, plucking it from the nest. By the time he hit the ground, shoulder impacting brutally in his effort to cradle the egg, he was once more fully human.
The handlers were running out. Mission completed, they struggled to stun her. As Dyre watched, he knew. He knew that her pride was too strong, her will too resilient to let it end like this. Perhaps if the handlers had stayed back, if they had allowed him to bow his head to her, thank her for the honor of battle, things might have ended differently.
But there was no use in pursuing what-ifs. The fact of the matter was that this magnificent beast, who was jaded and mocked and degraded, had set her hungry eyes on Dyre, and the handlers could not subdue a queen.
When she broke the chain, Dyre had already slipped the egg into his uniform and was morphing again. The break of metal seemed to echo in his ears. His body was sore and exhausted from blood loss. Still, he was skipping over fire, ducking as he tried desperately to avoid her ire. Without that chain to crowd her, he was cornered here. He barely made it before debris closed over the exit. He sprinted through the tents, passed the stunned faces of the other two contestants, hearing her roar in outrage behind him.
Other than his serpent tongue, he had no guiles against the beast. So he ran. People were running outside the tents, incoherent screams playing undertone to the heavy howling of the dragon. Dyre turned his head, horrified to realize that she had somehow managed to gain the air. A lone black deer in a flood of students, she spotted him immediately. With a steady, overwhelming bawdy keen, she dove for him.
Dyre ran again, his foreleg trembling dangerously with the strain. Everything was in chaos. There were children here, children who were running like headless chickens in the fray, too stupid to take shelter or heed the adults trying to herd them in the castle.
Dyre could not stay here. He ran towards the forest, hoping that the trees would yield him some shelter. He could only hope she would have enough respect not to scorch the ancient wood. The mighty flapping of her wings drowned out the thunder. As Dyre was pursued, fire making him skid to the right, the heavens unleashed its bowels. The light drizzle that had marked its coming yielded to a maelstrom.
Dyre ran on, blood frothing from his muzzle. The shouts were growing dimmer. Behind him, he could not hear his family, accompanied by so many others, weaving magical nets to drag the dragon down. He could not hear the Great Mother's agonized scream as her prey was carried from her, did not feel the ground shake with her struggles as she was finally bored down.
All Dyre saw was the forest, the blessed darkness that had given him shelter for these past weeks. The limbs reaching out in welcome to him, the coldness in the rain and in his limbs bearing him further and further away from the castle. Even when he passed the boundary of the forest, Dyre did not stop running, the fire following him turning somehow into a green curse.
o.O.o
"Dy-re! Dyyyyyyy-reeeeeeeee!"
Shouts and touches pocked the forests. The altruistic smear of phoenix fire stood out in the backdrop of rain and dense wood. The calls echoed, overlapping so that not once did the boy's name not serenade the night.
James raised a hand to his mouth, calling out again. The torch in his hand flickered, cracking. The entire Hogwarts staff was in the forest. Roughly half the students had forsaken their dinner to search for the lad, young voices lending strength to the coarse calls of the adults. Severus shouted out beside him, cursing the lad as he yelled. Moving into the darkness, the torches stood out like will o' wisps. Navigation spells were skewed by the intense magical concentration of the woods, even the magnetic pull of compass charms spinning wildly.
"Dy-re!" he shouted again, his throat having long turned hoarse. Rain hit the back of his hand, dripping from the trees.
Even now, James wasn't sure whether he should be looking for a buck or a boy. The black beast, standing like a symbol for glory, above the rocky crag had been one of the most magnificent things James had ever seen. Its bulk was thicker than James' slender roe stag. The antlers were masculine grey, formidable in their wiry strength, sharp and long. The white frock that coated his front lent him a proud potency.
It had only been for a moment before Dyre had sped like lightning, vaulting over jagged boulders, but the crowd had been mesmerized by this tall beast challenging a dragon the same way it would a rogue hound. Karkaroff's jaw had dropped.
It was surprising enough that he could speak to dragons.
"Dyyyyy-reeeeee!" he called, met only with echoes.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Lucius looked down at him, the touch lending a strange hollow grace to his sharp face. His lovely hair was plastered to his face by the rain and the drying spell on his clothes was wearing thin.
"We'll find him, James," Lucius promised.
James nodded, not wanting to waste his voice on anything other than his son's name.
"James!" Lily shouted, struggling through the low limbs and bushes to reach him. James ran to meet her, steadying her by her elbow as she huffed.
"What is it? Have you found him?"
She panted. "There… is a trail of blood. It might… be his."
Lucius and Severus went with him, guided by Lily, who did not lack for pace despite her exhaustion. Sirius, Lupin, and Dumbledore were hunched over a broken branch. The forest was littered with them, softened by dead leaves and pine straw. The rain was making it difficult for Lupin to track a scent as well. However, this branch was sprayed with blood, and Lupin could clearly tell that it was Dyre's.
"Father!" Draco shouted, accompanied by Victor. "Did you find something?" he asked, his young grey eyes hopeful.
"Perhaps," Lucius allowed.
The nine of them cluttered around the branch like it was the breath of the world.
"Well, he went this way several hours ago," Severus said. "At least we have a trail."
"Yes, my boy," Dumbledore agreed. "Shall we?"
He didn't need to ask. Already they were rushing ahead, desperation fueling their speed. Shouts of "Dyre!" heralded the night.