Chapter 14: To Hatch a Dragon

Summary: Harry's first two weeks at the dragon preserve go by quite quickly, and Harry finally hatches a proper dragon.

When Harry awoke the next morning, his head was swimming
with new information on Dragons and Old Magic. He had thought the influx of information was bad when he was awake, but it was a thousand times worse at night. Besides his first two dreams, he felt like he had swallowed Merlin's magic book, and several larger ones.

He cast tempus with a wave of his hand. 6:12 AM. Harry looked up to see Charlie still sleeping, and stood up to look at his surroundings properly. The room was slightly small but well managed, a wardrobe standing in a corner across from the bed, and a desk behind the door. Harry hauled his bag onto the desk, looking for a change of clothes. All he had were his Camelot clothes, but in this situation Harry thought they would be fitting. Charlie had been wearing short sleeves the day before, so Harry cut the sleeves off of a blue shirt and pulled it on.

Harry noticed his stomach making strange noises, so he left the room in favor of searching for a kitchen.

Harry avoided the closed doors he came to, certain that they were people's rooms. Finally, he found a kitchen, stocked with not only magical but muggle foods as well. He assumed there were some muggleborn dragon handlers here, because he doubted Lucky Charms were well known to many purebloods.

He opened up a cabinet and found loads of dairy products. For a moment he was confused why they weren't in a refrigerator, but upon sticking his hand in he realized it must be magically cooled.

It was an easy enough set up, so Harry was soon making eggs and bacon without a problem. As he did, he thought about everything he'd learned over the night, and wondering when he'd be able to actually hatch an egg. According to Killagarah, any dragon egg hatched by a Dragonlord would be naturally intelligent, but he would need to teach it English himself. Dragontongue - true Dragontongue, mind - would come naturally. And although it would be difficult, he would eventually be able to hatch a good number of dragons, and disappear them to where Killagarah was for the time being, so they could be properly taught. Maybe with more people, the entire race could change back again, but he didn't know how he could himself. He should probably use... He was still deep in thought by the time anyone entered the kitchen, and was abruptly startled when the man spoke.

"Did someone actually make breakfast?" The voice had a distinctive, thick Liverpool accent.

"Still making it, I'm afraid. I don't know exactly how many people work here, but I hope I've made enough."

The man snorted. "You could feed the dragons themselves with that much food. My names Carl," He reached out a hand which Harry took. "Charlie said he'd brought along a friend. I'll tell you, some of the lads weren't happy about having an extra mouth to feed, but you might've swayed them with this."

After taking a few moments to figure out what he had said, Harry laughed, watching the bacon so it wouldn't burn. "I've just gotten here from England, so when I woke up I was the only one awake. I figured no one would mind if I made breakfast."

"I doubt anyone would mind. That smells delicious. And there are only twenty people on this part of the preserve. We've got another team on the other end, but not much interaction overall." Carl informed him. It may have been a bit more helpful if Harry could understand him easily, but there was nothing he could do about that, so he just went back to cooking.

Harry heard people murmuring quietly behind him. "Right, eggs are ready if you want them." He called loudly. Carl, who had snagged a plate without Harry noticing, beckoned the others over cheerfully. They obviously respected Carl's opinion, because they looked at Harry with much less annoyance.

Soon there were about ten people gathered around, talking much more warmly to Harry than he expected. Harry assumed Carl's guess was right. They must not have many good cooks here. Well, at least no one would hate him. He may just end up with cooking duty every day though, which wasn't exactly what Harry had anticipated from this visit.

Charlie arrived a few minutes later, yawning and going to grab a plate. He passed the bacon once without noticing anything different, then immediately doubled back to get a closer look. He comically gaped, looking from Harry to the food and back again.

Harry laughed, and was joined by the dragon handlers already sitting down. "Did you make this, Harry?" Charlie asked, brushing off the laughter.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I may have used up a lot of your ingredients."

Charlie laughed. "I can see that! Don't worry, we can put it in stasis and eat it later."

Harry puzzled over that. He had never heard of a spell to freeze things in time - not at Hogwarts and not from Killagarah. He waited a few seconds to ask, "What's the spell to keep things in stasis?"

Charlie shrugged. "It's more of a ward than a spell, so I have no clue. You'd be better off asking Bill, he took ancient Runes."

Harry nodded. That explained why he didn't know it. Ancient Runes were partially based on Druid magic, and a lot of the advancements commonly used were very recent. He doubted Killagarah had access to that, holed up in his super secret dragon field as he was. Harry smiled at how much jumping through time changed his way of thinking. He doubted he'd be interested in the charm at all, before he went to Camelot.

Harry spent the rest of breakfast hearing about the dragons, and specific spells he needed to know if dealing with them. Since everyone agreed that Harry was acceptable at taking care of himself in the presence of dragons, he was allowed to follow them out to see the magnificent beasts, but always with three experts until he was able to protect himself. Carl was the one who mostly trained him, much to the others' relief.

"You'd do well as a teacher, Carl." Harry said as he shielded against a blast of flame. He was easily the most friendly and outgoing person there, besides Charlie.

"Absolutely no chance." Carl said with a cheerful grin. "Nobody would understand me, for one."

Harry smiled at the joke, but persisted, sending a cutting hex back. "We've dealt with worse. And after a week I think I got much better at puzzling out your words."

"Puzzling them out, you were? That looked like plain confusion to me. Sometimes you didn't even respond." He howled with laughter.

Harry shook his head, grinning at his new friend. He had never been ten minutes in Carl's company without the other cracking a joke. He had heard much the same thing from Charlie, who fondly compared him to Fred and George. Despite their friendly banter, though, Carl taught him a lot about defense and dueling, the latter of which wasn't touched upon at all by Killagarah. He didn't bat an eyelash at Harry casting everything wandlessly, which Harry quite appreciated.

But despite all of his training the first couple days, it took a bit to get where he wanted.

Of course, Harry's main goal was to be alone with a dragon egg, so he could hatch it, but he had to get permission to be alone with the dragons themselves first. That took an admittedly longer time than Harry wanted.

It was actually only an emergency that got Harry in charge of keeping an eye on the eggs. It was two weeks into his stay, but by then Harry had already turned into an extra pair of hands.

"It's good to see you're doing so well." Charlie said as they walked out to see Norberta.

Harry grinned, "It's a lot harder than it seemed, and I didn't even have to learn to control the dragons!"

Charlie laughed. "You didn't expect to be a fully qualified dragon handler in two weeks, did you?"

Harry looked sheepish. He kind of had. Or maybe he was. He never tried to speak dragontongue to one of them, sure it wouldn't work because they were not 'Dragon Lord Dragons.' Charlie noticed his expression and laughed again. He turned to their approaching destination, only to see abandoned eggs and a puff of fire from the distance.

"Blast! Harry, Norberta's fighting another dragon! Keep her eggs warm, they need to be kept under flames!"

Harry yelled a positive response, and took a long moment watching the eggs. He held his hand out, but he didn't cast a spell. Something told him the time was right, he should hatch one now. He gently picked up one of the green-gold eggs, charming the others to remain warm.

Setting it apart from the others, Harry held out his hand, and closed his eyes.

He was determined to hatch the egg, and nothing would stop him. The Dragonlord magic responded to that demand, and somehow, inside his head he heard words swirling around, words he had never heard of but somehow understood. They flowed through his head, jumbling and rearranging until only one remained. It was completely natural to say it, easy to let it roll off his tongue, even knowing the full intention to bring a baby dragon into the world.

"Reniatar."

As soon as the words left his lips, the egg began to crack. A fiery gold tipped snout poked its way out, the color turning a pale green as his eyes appeared. Golden claws on a dark green leg breached the egg's shell, and in under five minutes Harry could see the entire baby dragon. It was a beautiful blend of green and gold, all of the scales were a range of greens while the claws, wings and snout were pure gold. It squeaked, and tumbled over towards Harry.

"Hello, Reniatar." Harry said softly. The dragon bowed it's small head in respect, but only for a moment. After paying respects to its Lord it happily chirped and rushed forward clumsily.

Harry laughed, and stepped towards the little creature. He held an arm out, which Reniatar immediately jumped to. He looked at the other eggs contemplatively. In his mind, billions of names swirled around, trying to fit to each one.

He heard a low voice in his head, rumbling, "Congratulations, traveller. You have hatched your first dragon egg. It is interesting, the name you picked. The name Reniatar means rebirth, and we can only assume that it bodes well for the intelligence of the dragons."

Harry gave a soft smile. He still had plenty to do, but something told him that the work would be worth it.

Word Count: 1,810

AN:Sorry about the short chapter, everyone. I should also warn you that I'm going on holiday to Germany for the next few weeks, so I won't be posting for a while. Don't worry, I'll (hopefully) have time to write some, so you all should have a chapter when I get home.

Also, does anyone know what they call the dragon language? I called it dragontongue, but I have no clue if that's right.

So many things to say today! I promise this is the last one. Do you all like my OC? I'm considering making him the fifth year defense professor. My idea is that Umbridge wouldn't have as much of a reason to be there if 1. There was a willing volunteer, and 2. the whole Voldie's back idea isn't as widespread. Thoughts?

Thank you all for reading!

SH