When Lightning Struck

Chapter 6 - Dragon Heart

Part 21 - Hogsmeade

Meega had always had a passion for dressing up on Halloween, and she'd come up with some pretty impressive costumes without magic and on a very limited budget. Now that she had magic and pretty much unlimited spending, Her costume was definitely going to be impressive.

It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the school year, a month after school started and a month before the ball. After spending several hours with Mione in Zonko's (and coming out with a bulging bag) and half an hour in Honeydukes (which resulted in another stuffed bag) Meega had lunch. Then she was finally down to the main purpose for dragging herself out of bed and walking down to Hogsmeade early on a Saturday morning. Gladrag's Wizard Wear, as well as a few of the other clothing shops, had stocked Muggle clothing and magic and Muggle costuming.

After a several hour search, Meega had finally found the basic components for her costume. She was smiling as she left the shop, sure that she'd have the best costume of all. She wondered briefly what Draco was going as, then decided she didn't care. It would be fun, and his costume would definitely be dramatic.

She still had a while before she had to be back at school, and so Meega decided to go have a look at the Shrieking Shack, even though she knew that it was not and had never been haunted. She wasn't really paying attention as she walked up there, and was startled to see someone standing alone in front of the famous house and staring up at it. The figure was dressed all in black: slacks and a sleek turtle neck sweater, dragon hide boots, and their winter cloak with the hood up. Meega slowed, surprised to see someone else with similar taste. Since she could chose whatever she wanted to wear that day, she was wearing one of her favorite outfits: comfortably sleek black pants, a thick, fluffy black turtleneck sweater, black boots, and her winter cloak held close as a barrier against the chill. As she walked slowly toward the figure a sudden gust of wind threw back their hood and Meega inhaled sharply. It was Draco Malfoy. His white-blond hair and fairly pale skin made a dramatic contrast against his black clothing, though it was not the same effect that Meega attained with her long, dark hair and pale, freckled skin. Standing there alone he looked lonely and a little lost, making him even more attractive to a loner like Meega.

Draco must have realized that someone was there, because he turned to look at her appraisingly. Meega blushed under his scrutiny and quickly joined him up by the old house. Her blush amused Draco.

"Can the brave little Muggleborn not take a friend looking at her?" He said mirthfully.

"I can take people looking at me, it's them studying me or watching me that disturbs me. I feel like I'm an animal for sale, or one that's about to be dissected."

Draco laughed. "I've never met anyone who's as uncomfortable around people as you are. Most girls would start preening the moment they saw a boy that even just might be looking at them."

"Yeah, well, I've lived a very sheltered life."

"Mine has been anything but sheltered, and still we come out wearing basically the same thing."

"I like black," Meega said evasively.

"And it's an excellent color on you. You look very dramatic."

Meega blushed again. "So do you. But, then, you usually look dramatic. And the forlorn look is good for you."

"What?"

"That whole thing with standing by yourself on the hill and looking lonely."

"Oh. I was just looking at the Shrieking Shack. The most haunted dwelling in Britain, you know."

"Actually, it's not. It's never been haunted."

"What?"

"Remus Lupin was taken there through a secret passage to transform on the full moon while he was at school. The screams and howls and such were his."

"So it was a werewolf, not ghosts."

"Exactly."

"Have you managed to tell Mione that we're friends yet, as you think that it's so important that she knows?"

"Um..."

"I'll take that as a no."

"You try telling your best friend that you've become friends with her least favorite person."

"I've never done that," Draco said stiffly.

"Oh," Meega said in a small voice. "I keep forgetting that you've never managed to find a real friend before." Goyle had chosen Crabbe instead of Draco. Those two had been friends the whole time, but Draco hadn't been anything but a master that they were all too willing to give up when Pansy had taken Crabbe.

"It's not your fault, Meega. I just need a bit more time."

"I should be more sensitive about it. I wasn't thinking."

Draco laughed. "That's a first."

Meega grinned. "Well, the Hat did consider putting me in Ravenclaw."

"Is there any House it didn't consider putting you in?" Draco asked incredulously.

"Yes," Meega said, trying to keep a straight face. "Hufflepuff."

Draco stared for a moment, and then both Slytherins cracked up. Meega was laughing so hard that no sound came out. Her sides were aching and a glance at Draco revealed that he wasn't doing any better.

When they finally managed to stop laughing Draco looked thoughtful for a moment. "But it almost said 'Hufflepuff.'"

"I was being awful to it. Then I threatened its life, if it has one, and it shut up. I didn't, but it Sorted me properly anyway."

Draco looked mildly interested. "I've never heard of something like that happening before."

Meega giggled. "It probably has. Between Fred, George, James Potter, and Sirius Black, somebody has to have taken it upon themselves to annoy it. It did swear for the first time, though."

"It swore at you?"

Meega nodded solemnly. "It was telling me to shut up. Again. I told it that I didn't know it could and it said that it had picked up a few things but never had before. Too many mischief makers too close together, I suppose," she said innocently.

"With that face it's probably just you," Draco said lightly.

"Hey! I'm innocent, I tell you!"

"Unless the charge has anything to do with a particularly intelligent prank."

"I haven't pulled a single one yet."

"And the key word there is 'yet.'"

"Well... yeah."

"I see a Zonko's bag. Something big in planning?"

Meega grinned. "Of course."

Part 22 - One is Silver; the Other, Gold

"Who was that guy you were talking to by the Shrieking Shack?" Mione asked that night in the Gryffindor common room. "I never really got a good look at him because the two of you were laughing so hard."

"Er... it was Draco Malfoy," Meega muttered, barely audible.

"Did you say that was Draco Malfoy up there with you?" Mione squeaked, stunned. "Did you cast laughing jinxes on each other or something?"

"No, he was already up there when I went to have a look at the Shrieking Shack. He's still very upset about loosing Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle, you know."

"So? What does that have to do with you two laughing?"

"I said something rather insensitive. When I apologized I told him that I hadn't been thinking."

"That set you off?"

"No. He said it was a first and I told him that the Hat had considered putting me in Ravenclaw."

"And that set you off like that?"

"Nope. He asked if there was any House that the Hat didn't consider putting me in and I told him Hufflepuff. When I said that we both started busting up. I know that it's not funny now, but it sure as heck was at the time."

"You know, you've really been acting weird about Malfoy since Pansy broke up with him."

"Well... Er... You see, that night..."

"What the heck happened, Meega Ororo Kyl-Derc?" Mione demanded, alarmed and slightly outraged.

"Nothing!" Meega answered, blushing. "We had a little chat and... well... strictly speaking... we became friends."

"You what?"

"You see? That's why it took me two weeks to tell you! I knew that you'd totally freak! He's not a bad person! He can't help how he was raised or who he was born!"

"He can help how he acts!"

"Exactly what has Draco done in the last two weeks? He didn't have anything to tell him that he should act any differently. He honestly thought that Harry separated himself from the rest of the school because he was stuck up!"

"Harry?" Mione squeaked with her eyes wide. "How can Harry come off as stuck up?"

"He's famous and antisocial. The second often comes off as arrogance and the first both demands that he be overly social and encourages the belief that he is stuck up. And if this entire House would stop staring at me, then I could have a fight with my best friend in peace!"

Almost everyone in the common room jumped and hurriedly went back to what they had been doing, a good deal of them still halfway watching Meega.

Part 23 - Dragons

::You're upset, Okassama,:: Assina said that night, her glow muted with worry.

::I'll be all right, love. Mione's just not speaking to me for a bit. She'll get over it. Once she didn't speak to me for five days because I said that Legolas was addicted to shampoo.::

::If you're sure, Okassama...::

::I am. Go play with Salzari and the others.::

::Yes, Okassama.::

As Assina flitted out of her otherwise empty dorm, Meega looked at her things and realized how drab an impersonal they were. Smiling, she decided that it was time to make herself at home.

The mirror had to be the first thing. It currently was a large oval with a thin gilt frame. She thought for a moment, then smiled and concentrated. The frame thickened, becoming thick ebony with ornate whorls. A dragon crawled out and curled itself around the edge of the frame, its body over the glass with its tail down one side and its neck down the other, her head raised slightly to look at her, its wings partially opened. She was beautiful, deep blue fading deep down to green on her belly and legs, her spinal ridge a dark golden yellow and her wings fading from blue to yellow through the green. The dragon stirred slightly as the talking mirror got used to her new movable portion and then moved to look at herself.

"I like what you've done with me, but you'll have to turn me back at the end of the school year."

"I know, but there's no reason I can't have you how I like you for now. Besides, it's easier to talk to a little dragon than a voice that comes out of nowhere."

The dragon on the mirror laughed, and Meega went on to her vanity. A sliver dragon sat with its wings opened and its tail wrapped around its feet, its hands raised to support the glass top. Its horned head and one of its hands, which held a beautiful, simplistic dish to hold her odds and ends of Muggle makeup, passed through the glass. The dish was round and fairly shallow, delicately carved with repetitive linear designs. Her beside table she transformed to match, though without the bowl. The hand coming through the table would hold her glasses at night.

Her desk she changed to ebony as well, the legs becoming sensuous rearing dragons and the handles on the drawers becoming small silver dragons. The plain bookends she transformed into pewter. One had a base of stones and a wall of fire rising up, a dragon sitting on its hind legs on the stones and smiling as it apparently examined the flames. The other had a base of pewter crystals, the dragon seated on them recoiling from a wall of waves.

She transformed her bed to ebony, the four posts turning to the same rearing dragons that supported her desk, darkening the emerald hangings and bead spread to a deep green that was one of the colors that she was most comfortable around.

The wardrobe she changed to ebony, the handles to rearing pewter dragons, but left it mostly alone.

The last thing was the lamp mounted on the wall above her desk. The brass oil lamp she changed to near black metal, a dragon's head protruding from an elaborate iron collar. In its mouth was a thin chain, from which hung a metal topped glowing orb with a ring around center, diamond shaped spikes hanging down from the bars that joined ring to lid. Finally finished, Meega flopped on her bed and smiled at her handy work. Soon after she was asleep.

Part 24 - Draconis

"So, have you talked to your Gryffindor friends at all today?" Draco asked the next evening.

"Er... No. Mione's not speaking to me."

"What? Why not?"

"Um... we had a little... chat... yesterday, and, well... she wasn't too happy about it."

"This is because of me, isn't it?"

"Er..."

"It is. I shouldn't have tried to get you to tell her."

"She would have figured it out sooner or later, and then she'd really be mad at me."

"And she's not now?"

"Not really. She'll adjust. Once she didn't talk to me for five days for insulting a fictitious character. It's not my fault that he was the only one in the movie who never got his hair messed up at all. Give her a week, maybe two, and she'll be talking to me again." Meega could tell that this was going to bother him until Mione was speaking to her again, and so tried to think of something to distract him with. As she glanced around, she saw a chain just peaking out from the collar of his robes. "What's that?"

Draco looked where she indicated and blushed very slightly. "Nothing really. A medallion my father gave me when I started Hogwarts."

"May I see it?"

Draco hesitated a moment, then pulled the long silver chain. On the end, hanging from a small ring that ran through the triple loop at the top, was a pewter ring with a square emerald at each of the compass points. A bronze dragon sat above the bottom stone, its tail hanging down behind the ring, looping once and ending in a little spike. It was roaring, head raised and thrown back, its wings opened to its full three-inch wingspan just above the jewels on the side, one passing behind the ring and the other in front of it.

"It's beautiful," Meega breathed, touching the dragon's little head with a delicate finger.

"It's been passed down for generations, given to the oldest son when he goes to school," Draco told her quietly.

Meega smiled softly. "I've always loved dragons. The real ones are a bit... disappointing."

"What?"

"The ones I read about for years were intelligent, superior to humans, the most wonderful sentient creatures that you could ask for, as full of life as magic, and they lived a long time. You actually kind of remind me of what one might be like if they somehow got trapped in human shape. That never happened with a dragon in any story I've read, but a human once got stuck as a dragon and a unicorn as a human."

Draco cocked an eyebrow in mild interest. "Muggles dream up the most amazing things."

Meega smiled. "There's less limit on what they believe magic can do than on what it really can do. Some probably believe that magic can raise the dead."

Draco nodded solemnly. "They don't know much about magic at all."

"It's a wonderful thing for the Wizarding World, Muggleborns. They don't have the restraints of other wizards, and so can think of things in different ways and expand what we can do with magic."

Draco laughed. "You have very interesting ideas, Meega, and my father wouldn't approve of them at all."

"You can call me Mia if you want, you know. What do you think of my ideas?"

"I think that you see things that other people don't. You understand something of them that few do, and yet you hide from them. I think that you're the most interesting person I've ever met, Mia."

Meega smiled, giving Draco a quick hug, then yawned. "And it's time for this interesting person to go to bed."