A Dragon's Call

Prologue

His eyes had lost their glitter over the summer. His hair hung limply around his face in tangled knots of raven-colored silk. His glasses were battered, smudged, broken and all around worn out. But he still wore a small smile on his face and a hum still escaped his throat. Hermione couldn't help but to throw her arms around him in an embrace.

"Harry, we were so worried when you didn't show up at Lupin's!" Her head was buried in his shirt and her voice was muffled, but Harry understood her all the same. When she pulled away, her eyes were tear-stained and she hastily wiped them away with her sleeve.

"You look horrible mate! What happened to you?" Harry heard Ron's voice before he saw the boy himself. It had grown deeper over the long summer months but it still held a certain quality that simply screamed Ronald Weasley. Harry turned to face his friend and grinned.

Ron's voice wasn't all that had changed. The red head was now a full five inches taller and had a much longer nose than he had the last time they had seen each other. Even his freckles had begun to fade, making his face look horribly tan. But his eyes were still a playful brown, just like all the rest of his family but his mother who had blue eyes. Still the same pair of eyes Harry was used to exchanging worried looks with. The same Ron.

"I feel horrible Ron," was all he could say before putting his arms around the other boy in a friendly embrace, just like Hermione's had been. It had always only been friendly embraces and always would be. That's what they were, after all. Friends to the end. "And also very hungry."

Hermione's laugh held a worried tone to it and he could feel her eyes looking him over. She was just then noticing how thin he was, how much his ribs showed. But she said nothing, only pulling a Chocolate Frog out of her pocket and handing it to him. He gratefully took it and put it in his breast pocket. He would eat it on the train.

"Come on, we have to get to the train and we aren't going to do that standing here," he said, picking up his lone trunk from the ground and dragging it along behind him. The others quickly followed suite, filling him in on everything he had missed. He vaguely heard them, for he was simply happy to be back with friends, but he did notice one thing.

They weren't asking him where he had been.

There was a time and place for everything and sooner or later he would tell them. But not now. Not now.

*~*

Chapter One

As Harry's eyes fell on the structure ahead of him, its looming towers reaching to the sky, he thought it looked dark and forbidding. Granted, everything around him had looked that way for days but this was different. Worse.

"Harry, is there something bothering you?" Hermione's voice had a worried tone while still being slightly cheerful, if that was physically possible. He felt a hand on his shoulder but he brushed it away.

"I'm fine. I just have a stomach ache."

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Ron and Hermione exchanged glances, coming to some form of silent agreement and they left him sit there, the only sound being the gravel crunching under the carriage wheels.

He had once loved the castle with its many corridors and thousands of staircases. He and Ron had explored only half of Hogwarts and that had taken them four years to do. But now, as he watched it draw nearer, he again got that sense of evil from it. He tried to push it out of his mind but it just kept coming back up. Evil at Hogwarts. His hand went to his scar involuntarily and he heard Hermione make a squealing sound.

"Oh Harry, something is wrong. I just know it. We should go to Dumbledore when we..." she started but Harry, for the first time to his memory, snapped at her.

"I don't need Dumbledore! I'll be fine!"

She looked broken, as if someone had shattered her to pieces, but closed her mouth and sat back in her seat. Ron was nervously looking between the two, but mostly at Harry.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. It's just that my stomach hurts and I can't wait for the feast. When you haven't eaten in..." he said, and then stopped. Hermione had sat bolt upright and was staring at his chest as if she could see through clothing. "Never mind..."

"How long has it been, Harry?" she whispered. Ron had exchanged positions with her and was now slumped into his seat with her at attention. "How long since you've eaten?"

"Three days, four?" he said, turning out the window again. The castle was ever closer and his head had begun to burn from the evil coming from it. "Eighteen?"

"Eighteen days! Merlin's beard, Harry, why?" this was Ron's turn to be shocked. Hermione was speechless, her mouth hanging open. Harry just sighed and felt the carriage come to a halt on the road. He quickly stood up, checked his seat to see if any items had fallen from pockets, and then ran out the door, leaving his two friends behind.

As he walked briskly up the path to the castle, surrounded by fellow students doing the same to get out of the cold wind, he thought of everything that had been exchanged during the carriage ride. Hermione and Ron were worried and all he could do was yell and run away. He really did have a stomach ache after all now...

"Harry! Hey Harry, wait up!" Ron's voice called from behind him. He turned to see Ron running ahead of Hermione, her skirts hitched up to her knees so she could move quicker. With Ron's long legs it was no surprise that he had pulled ahead of her.

Harry stopped and waited for the two of them, smiling at a red-faced Hermione when she finally caught up with the two of them, and then looked up at the castle. It was dark and gloomy, scary and forbidding. It was home for nine months. He sighed. "Shall we go then? I do really want to get to that feast."

Hermione laughed, Ron chuckled and they made their way to the castle doors, pulling cloaks close. The air would be much warmer inside.

*~*

"I'm sorry that it is so cold in here but our fireplaces won't start. They will be fixed soon, I assure you," Dumbledore's voice rang out over the heads of a sea of shivering students. Somehow, the old man didn't seem affected at all by the freezing temperatures of the room. In fact, he had taken off the top layer of cloaks that all of the other staff wore. Harry was pleased to see that Snape wasn't coping with the cold as well. In fact, the Potions teacher looked frozen to his chair. "Now, as always, our sorting comes first. Minerva?" Dumbledore sat back down in his chair and Professor McGonagall stood up, the sorting hat in hand. Harry was among those that groaned softly.

"Hungry... very hungry..." came the sounds of Fred and George down the table. Harry looked at them and couldn't help but smile. They had pretended to faint and were laying their heads on the table, stooping over in their seats. McGonagall coughed and set the hat down.

Harry made the time pass during the hat's speech and the sorting itself by laying his head on the table as the twins had done and tried to sleep. Just as he had begun drifting off Hermione nudged him in the side. He tried to ignore her but she just did it again.

That was when he opened his eyes. He was no longer in the Great Hall, no longer at Hogwarts. He was now surrounded by a field of flowers with no sign as to indicate where exactly he was.

The flowers were very beautiful and two in particular caught his eyes. Two blue roses sat on a bush, perfectly sitting there as if nothing else in the world mattered. And to the flowers, nothing else did. He gingerly bent down to pick them. One for Ginny, one for Hermione.

"Don't touch the flowers, Harry," a voice behind him said and a hand was placed on his shoulder. He whirled around to see a lady, her face beauty enough to rival the flowers. She had long, flowing white hair and was completely garbed in white silks. "They don't like it."

"Who... where am I?" he asked. She laughed and put a finger on the tip of his nose. They stood there for a moment, completely silent. Harry was waiting for her to speak again. Her voice was wonderful. He strained to hear her soothing voice. It made him feel warm, made him feel as if he was invincible.

"You're at Hogwarts, making a scene of yourself," a sharp voice in his ear hissed. He blinked and the field was gone. The girl was gone. Everything had turned to blackness, and then slowly faded to the Great Hall. Everyone was looking at him, lying on the floor. Hermione was next to him, as was Ron, and they helped him to his feet.

He looked around the room. Some people had gone back to looking at Dumbledore who was apparently in the middle of giving the rules of the year, others just tore their eyes away from him when he looked their way but then locked on to him again when he turned. Only the Slytherins kept eye contact. Or at least the ones who had their eyes open. Most of them were squeezed shut from laughing.

One face stood out in that crowd of Slytherins.

Lucius Malfoy's face loomed over him. The man spat at the ground and laughed.

Draco Malfoy's blond hair was vibrant against the dull colors of the rest of his house. Most had darker hair but not Malfoy. Most were tall and lanky. Not Malfoy. Most were stupid and dull. Not Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy had always been an annoyance. A bother. A thing that should be kept under watch at all times. But Harry, for the first time in his life, found the pale boy to be... scary. Truly and uniquely scary.

His father, the famed Lucius Malfoy, had been one of the men who had... no... He wouldn't push himself into that yet. He didn't want to start crying here or even worse, run out of the room. He had run out on Hermione and Ron because of what happened and he would probably run out again.

"Harry, are you sure you don't want us to tell Dumbledore anything?" Ron's voice asked in his ear. Harry nodded his head, wiped a strand of hair out of his eyes, and watched the Headmaster intently but not hearing a word that he said.

His mind was racing with thoughts again. He could feel the evil pulsing from this building again but he tried to ignore it. He tried to hold himself back but if something didn't happen soon he was going to scream in agonizing pain. No one else seemed to feel the pain and anguish that surrounded them. Just him.

Luckily, as he opened his mouth to cry out, the Headmaster clapped his hands and food appeared in front of them. Ron, who was usually the one to eat the most on the Gryffindor table, stared open mouthed as Harry lunged for the food nearest to him. Food was keeping him from screaming. Food was SO good.

*~*

"Uh... Harry?" Hermione, who had been trying to ignore the spectacle of Harry's eating for the past ten minutes, had finally snapped. "You should try tasting the food."

He didn't reply, only looked up at her with a strand of chicken hanging from his mouth. They all laughed at him until he realized what he had dangling from his mouth. After that he didn't bother looking up at all.

He hadn't realized how hungry he really was. Eighteen days had been long, the first few the worst, but after awhile the dull pain seemed to have softened and nearly gone away. But now that an endless supply of food lay before him he planned to eat and never get that pain again.

"Well well... dinner and a show," a drawling voice came from behind him and Harry didn't have to look to see who it was. Just like with Ron at the station he knew Draco's voice when he heard it.

"Oh just go away. I will have you know that Harry hasn't eaten in a while," Hermione said from Harry's left. He set down his slice of bread, wiped any and all food from his face and turned to face the blond boy.

"Why is that Potter?" Draco asked with a sense of knowing. Of course Draco would know what had happened to him, if only in parts. Lucius must have gone around for days about how he had... no, never mind... with no food in his mouth he could likely scream.

"Sod off Malfoy. Go tell your father to sod off too," Harry said low enough that it was nearly a whisper. Malfoy, however, heard him.

"What, don't like my father? Pity, he seemed to like you," he retorted and strode off. Hermione and Ron, as well as most of the Gryffindor table around them, looked to Harry for knowledge of what he was talking about. Harry only sat back down and gingerly took a sip of pumpkin juice.

*~*