Two Months

His days in this unexpected world are invariably exhausting and at night, Harry has taken to curl up against Fortuna's familiar body and stroke her muzzle gently, lulling her to sleep. The last few weeks have been such a roller coaster of emotions and novelties that he is rather overwhelmed: the rhythmic motion is just as soothing for him as for her.

She is a delight, his dragon is.

Never in his life could he have imagined the depth of the love they share. Faint recollections of what he'd been taught of familiar bonds dance in his mind, but even his friendship with his beloved owl is a pale shadow in comparison to his and Fortuna's relationship.

He wonders if Hedwig would have liked her.

As wonderful as the dragonet is, however, the whole situation her hatching has thrown them in is rather overwhelming.

Not that he isn't used to being swept up in overpowering adventures; he is quite the expert at it, truly, but even he is rattled by the latest absurdities in his life. And when he dares to contemplate the future...

Sometimes he's just grateful that the gruesome pace of their training keeps him from thinking too much; but even with the challenging thrill of aerial manoeuvres and the gruelling effort of endurance training in the air he isn't always able to forget the precariousness of their situation.

Guilt for his friends consumes him. Will they forever be dragged into his own messes?

Hermione, especially, seems to be having a hard time coping with the state of affairs and every time Harry lands, high on endorphins and the exhilaration of flying, guilt swamps him because he likes it here – there are things he could do without, and things he misses, but on the whole, this is a good life. And he has Fortuna.

But what about his friends?

On the other hand... what if they were to go back? What would happen to his dragon?

Would Fortuna find a place to be herself in his world? Would she forever have to hide? Would she like it or hate it? Would she be able to cope with the twists of his Potter luck?

He already loves her too much to even think of his life without her.

Just like the other captains have told him, the bond between them is undeniable, unbreakable, and very much the best thing that ever happened to him.

He has no answers to his doubts; all he can do, for now, is settle in his new life and hope for the best.

Fortuna grows quickly and becomes, in his humble opinion, ever more beautiful.

She is, he is told, a cross between a Malachite Reaper and an Anglewing.

"Reapers are fairly common," the jovial dragon surgeon in charge of her health explains to him the very first day. "Especially the Yellows. They're the golden-hued middleweights, I'm sure you've seen quite a few. Everybody likes 'em for their even temperament, but they're quite slow; slower even than the Regal Coppers, who are our biggest heavyweights. Some people don't think much of them, because they're so common, but they're wrong. No-one's better than a Reaper!"

"A dragon with even temperament?" he cannot help but ask, amused.

"Yeah, well. Almost all British dragons are quite reasonable creatures, when you compare them with, I dunno, the Turkish Kaziliks for instance," the other jokes. "And it's all down to the Reapers: they're almost always good humoured in character an' the halfbreeds all turn out calmed down, even the most intractable breeds. Malachites are less clannish than the Yellows, and less chatty, but don't ye worry. Your gel there, she'll be a sweet one, I c'n tell. Quite hardy, untroubled by all but the worst extremes of heat or cold, an' not fastidious in her diet at all, which is more 'n can be said of most."

Harry strokes the pale green markings gently and coos at the dragonet. "What about her mother?" he asks.

"Ach, her, now. An Anglewing – middleweight, and very adroit. Fantastic fliers, the Anglewings are, and hopefully her heritage will balance out the slowness of her Reaper sire," comments the dragon surgeon sagely.

In this, Fortuna exceeds all expectations. She flies higher and faster and more enthusiastically than anyone had predicted. Harry is positively delighted.

He strikes a friendship with Lieutenant Robert Trenholme, who is hoping to become their first officer and has a romantic soul and a dry sense of humour Harry enjoys a lot, and with Lieutenant Maria Berriman, who will one day captain her mother's Longwing, Fiera, and has a good head on her shoulder and a no-nonsense attitude in quickly bringing him up to speed on this society's unwritten rules.

Trenholme lends him an immensely interesting book by a Sir Edward Howe, Observations on the Order Draconia in Europe, with Notes on the Oriental Breeds.

Much to Hermione's amusement, Harry quickly becomes somewhat of an expert on dragon breeds.

"It's interesting," he protests when she teases him about studying without a test looming on him, and he smiles widely. "I sort of understand Hagrid and Charlie now..."

Hermione can only laugh.

He learns that all dragons are helplessly possessive, attracted to shiny objects and hoarding treasure whenever and wherever possible – hardly a surprise; that only some dragon breeds can breathe fire, but others can spit acidic venom – both highly prized traits because of their usefulness in battle.

There are breeds, he finds out, that have rather unique traits such as the ability to make sharp turns in mid-air (which Fortuna has inherited from her Anglewing mother), or the ability to see clearly at night (like the French Fleur-de-Nuit he cannot wait to catch sight of).

He learns the classification system and the typical formations and the regular combinations for a dragon's crew; how to move on Fortuna's back while in the air, how to communicate mid-flight, how to interpret signals and commands from other dragons.

He is rather fascinated to learn that dragons don't weigh anywhere near as much as they look to because their bodies develop compartments that get filled with lighter-than-air gas, helping their aerodynamics – that's what allows them to flight. He is bewildered by just how much they eat, and the odd rituals they work out among themselves for the feeding times.

Most of all, he learns that the breeders' authoritative expertise isn't all that useful because every hatchling is, in fact, unpredictable and will grow up much as it wants to, no matter what his or her lineage.

Fortuna was supposed to be a stout middleweight: the range of Reapers can vary within the breed more than most, but still usually remains between 12 and 15 tonnes and Anglewings are in general slightly bigger than that, so the experts estimated that she'd end up weighing something like 14 to 16 tonnes. She's nowhere near that and all her growth seems to be in length – she passes 40 feet, with a nicely proportioned wingspan of 65 feet, before she's six weeks old, but she remains extremely lean: it isn't very likely that she'll become much bigger soon.

They were hoping she would be a good flier, but didn't expect her to be anywhere near fast, nothing like a Winchester or even a Greyling to be sure, nor as manoeuvrable as an Anglewing.

Instead, she is brilliantly fast and insanely more skilled in flight then even the ever-praised Xenicas.

Everybody marvels and rejoices, the manoeuvres she can pull off enough to off-set the disappointment at her small size. Harry preens and decides they're well suited indeed.

The two of them love to measure themselves against the Winchesters, without a doubt the fastest dragons in the British Isles: impromptu challenges over the lake become a frequent event and a source of a highly competitive betting pool.