Disclaimer: See chapter 1

Chapter 2

Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere

The next day dawned bright and sunny, although Harry didn't notice, his mind being rather preoccupied by the thought of his imminent death at the hands (or rather, flames, claws, and teeth) of a dragon. Despite his hours spent worrying, he still had no clue what to do, and eventually decided he would just have to wait and see what the task actually was.

When he walked down the stairs to the common room, he found Hermione pacing back and forth anxiously. "Oh, thank goodness!" She exclaimed when she saw him, "I was worried you hadn't made it back last night."

"Hey!" Harry objected, "I said I would, didn't I?"

Hermione only sighed, although Harry could practically see the tension leaking out of her. "Come on," she said, "we better get down to breakfast."

"Don't want to be late for my execution, do I?" Harry asked wryly.

"Oh Harry, I'm sure it won't be that bad. They wouldn't make you do it if it was really dangerous."

Harry rolled his eyes and ducked through the portrait hole. They travelled down to the great hall in silence. Harry was comforted by the feeling of his familiar connection, although he knew that against a dragon even the voracious hunger of his Reaper would do little good.

Lessons stopped at noon, to give the students plenty of time to get to the grounds for the task, and so Harry had to endure several hours of pointed stares, whispers, and hurled insults, which he was surprised to find didn't particularly bother him. He just repeated to himself, "I am not alone", and thought about the swarm. He already had a digestion pool, what else could his Reapers become?

Feeling as if he was pulling the answer from some half-forgotten memory, it unfolded in his mind:

Synapse Node – cost: 80 bio-energy; generates synaptic link: 600m; overmind cognition +1

Hive Node – cost: 4200 bio-energy; generates synaptic link: 200m; ?; spawns: ?; overmind cognition +1; overmind tactical synapse 1200m

Spawning Chamber – cost: 120 bio-energy, spawns: infester, ?; generates synaptic link: 10m

Genetic Integration Chamber – cost: 960 bio-energy

Well, that was interesting. Harry knew that the synaptic link was the connection he had with his swarm – he was already thinking of it as a swarm, even though it was only him, a Reaper and a Guardian. Six hundred meters would be just enough to reach from the forbidden forest to the school, so it would let him maintain connection with the swarm while he was in Hogwarts. It looked like that was what he would need to build next.

Assuming he survived the dragon, of course.

Seemingly only moments had passed, before he found himself sitting in the great hall once again. Harry suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. "Potter, the champions have to come down to the grounds now" Professor McGonagall said, "you have to get ready for the first task."

"Yeah," Harry said distantly, standing and following her out. The sound of voices around him seemed somehow muted, as if they came from a great distance, and Harry felt his stomach churning. He hadn't eaten much, but worried that what he had managed to get down would shortly be coming back up. Maybe the dragon will find me so pathetic it won't eat me. Harry thought, Or maybe I'll just freeze up, and it will all be over quick. McGonagall was saying something, but he couldn't hear what. She led him around a clump of trees to a large tent, and Harry found himself suddenly wishing he could just run away, disappear into the forest – it wouldn't be so bad to lose his magic, would it?

Suddenly, he felt a warm hand in his, and turned to see Hermione standing next to him. "You'll be OK, Harry," she said, "I believe in you."

Harry felt an abrupt jolt, and suddenly everything snapped into focus. He could hear the dull roar of the crowd waiting for him, feel the bright sun on his face, and managed a small smile for Hermione before making his way into the tent. There, he came face to pale face with Cedric Diggory, whose shocked expression clearly showed that he had not known what they were going to be facing. Oh crap! Harry thought, "I'm so sorry Ced, I meant to tell you, really, I just... I forgot. I'm sorry." Cedric gave him an incredulous look, but said nothing, for which Harry was grateful.

It was nearly an hour (and three champions) later that Krum left the tent, leaving Harry alone. Luckily, this had given him enough time to make a plan, which he immediately put in motion by pulling Hermione's bag from his pocket and upending it on the ground. Commanding the Reaper to come out, he sent it burrowing underground, ordering it to follow him when he left the tent.

When Bagman called his name, Harry did his best to squash his terror down somewhere deep inside him so it wouldn't show, and slowly strolled out onto the ground. He was relieved to see that the dragon was clearly chained up, and unable to reach him as long as he didn't move into its range – which he had no intention of doing.

Harry took his time walking out, moving slowly so as to give his Reaper time to burrow into position under the dragon's nest. Drawing his wand with much dramatic flourishing, he loudly chanted an elaborate string of nonsense which he made up on the spot, finishing with a grand gesture in the direction of the golden egg.

At once, the egg disappeared. Harry, constantly able to sense the position of the Reaper, followed its path through the earth with his wand, tensing his arms and making a show of it, as if he was exerting enormous effort to keep it moving. Once the Reaper reached his feet, he had it shove the egg upward, thrusting it into the air in front of him, where he caught it in his arms.

The crowd, which had been filled with muttering and the occasional hurled insult while Harry was performing his pantomime, fell silent for a brief moment before erupting – cheers from the Gryffindors, jeers from the other three houses.

Harry held the egg above his head, so that everyone could see he had it, before turning and making his way quickly back to the tent. He needed to get the Reaper back in the bag before he was called back to the castle. It could burrow only slightly faster than a person could walk, and it would be a disaster if he was dragged off somewhere before he could retrieve it.

Unfortunately, he didn't make it to the tent, being intercepted by Madam Pomfrey before he got half way there. She dragged him off to the side, informing him in no uncertain terms that he was going to have a thorough health examination whether he wanted to or not.

Harry allowed her to drag him into the medical tent, where she spent a busy five minutes waving her wand around him before harrumphing loudly and declaring that she supposed he was maybe possibly not injured in any way. "And see that you stay that way!" she added, before heading off to tend to her other patients – Harry could see Cedric smothered in burn paste, apparently his attempt had not been so successful, although he did appear to have managed to retrieve the egg.

As soon as Madam Pomfrey was no longer looking in his direction, Hermione darted in, wrapping her arms around him in a quick hug before pulling back and staring up at him with wide eyes and launching a rapid stream of questions. "How did you do it? What spell was that? Where did you learn it? Was it from a book? Do you have the book? Can I borrow it?"

"Woah, woah," Harry said, "slow down." Harry leaned in closer, to whisper in her ear "it wasn't a spell – I just had the Reaper fetch it for me".

"Harry, that's cheating!" Hermione gasped, then clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Cheating, eh? I should have known you'd have something like that planned. Everything always comes to you." came a familiar voice, as Ron stepped through the canvas tent flap.

"Ron." Harry replied coolly, "Did you want something?"

"I was going to apologize. Facing a dragon... that's tough. I really thought for a moment that I might have been wrong, but then of course you just breeze through it, like you do everything."

"Ron," Harry started to say, before just sighing heavily and pushing past him out of the tent. He set of at a rapid pace in the direction of the forbidden forest, not even turning when he heard Hermione run to catch up with him. "That git" she said companionably. "Where are we going? You're not going back to that pool thing, are you?"

Harry glanced at her. "Yes, but not for long. I only need to stay out there long enough to gather enough bio-energy to build a synapse node, then I can direct it from the castle – should only take me a few hours."

"Ok then, a long as we're back before curfew. I've got my books with me, we can do some revision! It'll be nice and peaceful in the forest" Hermione said excitedly. Harry only rolled his eyes.

Together they headed back to Harry's digestion pool, his Reaper burrowing along beneath their feet. The instant Harry stepped into range of the node, he felt as if he a weight was lifted off his shoulders, that he hadn't even noticed he had been carrying. Feeling the connection re-established was like stepping out of the hot sun into cool shadow; the only way Harry could think to describe it, was that it felt like coming home... or what he imagined that would be like, never having lived somewhere he truly considered home.

Once there, he triggered the pool to spawn a dozen new Reapers, which he immediately sent out to gather food. A Reaper cost 1 unit of energy to make, and could be re-digested for 0.8 units, so practically speaking, when using them to gather biomatter they actually only cost 0.2 units of energy.

Harry worked until nightfall, directing his Reapers to travel as far as they could within his range. He wanted to leave as many trees standing as he could, so he didn't end up with a huge empty patch in the middle of the forest, particularly since he suspected he was close enough to the castle that it might be visible from the astronomy tower.

To Hermione's disappointment, this required all of his attention, living him little ability to practice spellwork with her. Still, she stayed with him until the sun began to set, and he finally declared he was finished. "So you have enough bio-energy for the synapse thingy?" Hermione asked him.

Harry thought for a moment, reaching out to the swarm. Stored bio-energy: 237 units.

"Yep." Harry smiled. "I actually have enough for the synapse node, and then some!" Harry's smile fell. "But, it's going to take several hours to complete the morph, so I won't be able to do anything until it finishes. Better get started."

Harry ordered two Reapers spawned. He set one of them to morph into a synapse node, and had the other one hop back into Hermione's bag, much to her dismay. They then headed back to the castle, where Harry was entirely unsurprised to discover that no-one had missed him. When he stepped through the portrait hole to Gryffindor tower, he saw that they had apparently started a party in his honor, and raised a cheer as soon as he appeared.

He knew he should be upset at the fickleness of his so-called friends, avoiding him one day then throwing a party for him the next, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. They are all so small, he thought to himself, so limited. His thoughts were still back in the forbidden forest, and the crowded and noisy common room seemed stifling by comparison. So he plastered a smile on his face, and pushed his way through the crowd to the stairs to his dorm. Just a he was about to go up, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Tensing, he turned, to see Hermione looking at him seriously. "They don't know." she said, "they don't care. But I do."

For a brief moment, Harry's forced smile became genuine, but he couldn't think of anything to say beyond a simple "thanks".