Harry Potter and the Dragon

XVII

So Short Love Is; So Long, Forgetting

Harry had to restrain a giggle when he showed up at the top of the stairs. At the bottom, the dragon was standing on his hind legs, clad with a bottle-green cloth that looked like velvet and Harry was sure it had been, till the day before, a curtain that hung practically unnoticed in the drawing room. He knew laughing would blemish anything the dragon had in mind, and also admitted that this was not the time to provoke him. Maybe later. So Harry went down the stairs, pulling a face he wished expressed no emotion whatsoever.

The dragon held his breath at the sight of the boy, who was coming down the stairs with such an enigmatic air that he couldn't tell if it was a fantasy provoked by his nervousness, or the product of how stunning the boy looked in the golden attire. Golden matches better with dark-haired people, he thought. Then, he could think no more. The boy was standing by his side, looking up to him, opening his mouth to speak.

"What's this charade about?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!!"

"Master! Master! No, Master!" Several voices of objects coming out of nowhere made the dragon refrain the impulse of pawing the boy he was facing.

"WHAT ARE YOU CALLING A CHARADE??!!" He had to control himself from expelling fire along with his words.

The household stopped at a distance, attentive to the development of the scene.

"Well, this is a costume party, isn't it? I see you're dressed as a window, and it looks like I'm impersonating a gold bell," said Harry casually.

"You think you're being funny. Well, you're NOT! In fact, you're being as SILLY as usual. And an ingrate as well. These astounding robes you're wearing belong TO ME!! So don't dare mock them, or stain them either! They're more valuable than your filthy skin!"

"Yours? And why would a golden git own a golden gown? It's a bit small for you, don't you think, -?"

"SHUT UP! Let's go eat! I'm starved!"

As unceremoniously as it had started, the candlelit dinner soon evolved into a regular meal. Harry was having his usual fun by taunting the dragon and the dragon death-threatening everybody as always, with a great display of flying flatware and swearwords. Lupin, Snape, and company, however, were even more strained than expected, since they could not just leave the dining room when they got fed up; this time they had to stay and supervise the boys' behavior to make sure things were not going to the dogs so soon.

As an attempt to cool the situation down, Lupin made the string quartet enter the place to regale both host and guest with some soothing themes. A cello, a viola, and two violins made a timid appearance, positioned themselves in a corner of the room, and started to execute a slow melody that made Harry yawn once or twice.

Even though distracted by fury, tension, and the piercing looks coming from the household, the dragon knew perfectly well that he had to restore to a more drastic maneuver if he wanted for dessert the golden cake across the table. Concentrating all his bravery in a single utterance, he said: "Would you like to dance?"

Harry looked at him astonished. "Is this some sort of date?"

The dragon didn't know what to reply, so he replied, "Do you have a problem with that?"

Harry released a snort the air he'd been holding. "I've been having a date with you for two hours and I didn't notice?"

"You're in the middle of a date, so you'll do what people do in dates. You'll dance with me," said the dragon softly but commandingly, staring right into Harry's eyes.

"Dancing clashes with my principles," said Harry, pulling a concerned face.

"Your principles? And what the hell is this rubbish about?" asked the dragon, frowning.

"About not dancing," answered Harry through a half smile.

"Spending my time with a fucking retard clashes with mine," smirked the dragon, "and all the same I'm here, doing exactly that..."

"Nobody's forcing you to do that..."

"Yeah, right..."

"Kick me out, then -!"

"Hey, you! Take your bows and go to the ballroom!!!" The dragon addressed the string quartet with a shout. "You'll gape at the ballroom. It's been recently repaired..." he said to the boy while standing up.

Harry remained seated though. "I already told you -" he began, but didn't continue because he started gaping right away, seeing the dragon was standing by his side, outstretching his paw as if intending to take his hand. "You're taking things very seriously, aren't you?" he asked, searching for the beast's gray eyes as well as placing his left hand into the right paw that was extended.

"I have no choice," answered the dragon while leading his guest to the ballroom. He was striving to keep his huge limbs steady, and to avoid tripping with his curtain-garment as well.

As Harry entered the ballroom, he realized the dragon had been serious about the reparations. It was so beautiful that he was transported to some sort of celestial dimension, in spite of the fact that the columns were shaped as snakes and the fresco on the vaulted ceiling portrayed wrathful imps. The walls were made of crystal-clear panes, allowing the Milky Way to permeate the place two hundred and seventy degrees round. The boy was deprived from his aesthetic bliss by the sound of both music and the dragon's voice.

"I know it's not easy for you to dance with me since I'm eleven feet tall, but I think we should give it a try anyway," the beast said thoughtfully, secretly expecting Harry to refuse; he just wanted to know his reaction to the idea of being in close contact.

"I guess you're like twice my height...I don't think we'd look decent dancing..." Harry giggled nervously.

"Nobody's looking at us. That's not a reason to decline my kind and tempting treat," winked the dragon.

"Nobody? It seems to me that this room is full of objects..."

"Like any normal room should be... Why don't you better focus on what we're doing?!"

"We're arguing as always! I'm completely focused!" snapped Harry.

The dragon's patience was probably the only fragile thing in him. Therefore, it was the first thing to flutter away in a moment of such tension. In a flash, he grabbed Harry and lifted him from the floor.

"What are you doing, asshole?!! Put me down!!" the boy bellowed, before seeing the dragon was intending to waltz with him instead of whacking him. "You're a downright idiot! What the fuck are you doing?"

"Shut - up! I'm trying to count," replied the dragon in mock tones.

"Let me down, you tosser! This is not funny!" Harry struggled.

"Who said I want you to have fun?"

And ignoring Harry's complaints, the dragon twirled around the ballroom for the ten longest seconds of his life regarding his number of heartbeats. When he put him back on the floor, he was relieved to see that the boy wasn't as mad as he could have been. In fact, adopting a painful expression, he spoke like this:

"Git. You crushed me... I wish I could to do the same to you so you could see how it feels...!"

"I wish you could... so you could see that what's left of us will be nothing but a crush," said the dragon.

"Shut up, you idiot," Harry felt silent for the shortest couple of seconds of his life, a pause that almost went unnoticed. "Listen, why don't we sit over there and look at the stars? This room's view is extraordinary..."

"I have a better idea. Why don't we go flying?"

"You mean Seeking? We won't see the Snitch in the dark -"

"I mean flying. So we can give a shit about darkness..."

"All right, then. I'll go fetch the broomstick."

Harry turned around and started to walk, but stopped at the dragon's words. "Don't. You can sit on my back..."

"Ready to ride, huh?" he said through clenched teeth while walking back.

"Up yours!" snapped the dragon. "You better shut up and come!"

Harry followed the dragon to the balcony and there he climbed on his back. In spite of the fact that it wasn't the first time he'd done this, he felt strangely nervous about the ride. He grabbed the green cloth, and when he was ready the dragon took off, darting into a cool airflow that helped them rise faster, and higher, chilling him to the bone and making him happy in a curious way. Harry loved flying, and even if he preferred steering, being led implied the interesting asset of never knowing when the course was going to change; like being in someone else's hands... a recurrent, nasty sensation of old, that this time retrieved him a visceral pleasure he had no intention to decipher.

The dragon felt absolutely elated. He was glad the boy could not see the mawkish countenance that now had come to replace his former face for life, for he didn't believe it was fair to be deprived from that feeling once you'd been familiarized with it. He soared over the centaur-infested forest, dark as its inhabitants' arcane daftness; over a starlit lake, in whose surface, the milky belt that slashed the skies imprinted the slanting shape of a sterling fish, which squirmed and shone as if proclaiming the nature of the water's contents; around a proud hill, who boasted of being the only notorious nearby top, but who knew nothing of what being on top of the world felt like; over villages populated by common people and farm fauna, just mortals, who obviously ignored there was magic as spellbinding as that spiraling over their heads.

However, the dragon knew the sky dancing shouldn't last long because his rider would be shivering from cold and craving for his bed before confession time came. So he dived back to the manor and landed softly on the balcony. Harry dismounted him and, as expected, started to rub his hands and ears fiercely. The dragon's enraptured mind had a bright idea: "I have a bright idea! Come with me!" he said darting into the manor.

"Wait! I think I'll go get a cloak..." the boy tried to say, his face muscles frozen.

"You won't need a cloak where we're going!" clarified the dragon, walking briskly. "We're going to my spectacular, refined, and most-coveted-on-earth wine cellar!"

Harry, trying to keep up, snapped back, "I've been to your damn wine cellar! It's freezing down there!"

"I can take you to some warmer place down here, if you prefer..."

"You've been making very curious remarks for a while now... What's the matter? Are we in the dragon's rut season?"

The dragon halted, faced Harry, and said: "Go and fetch your FUCKING CLOAK!! I'll be waiting for you down there."

And thus he departed from Harry, who went hastily to get his cloak because he was in need of a run since he was very much cold.

***

It was impossible that Harry or the dragon could even guess what time it was, or care less about it, since both were absolutely drunk. Empty bottles, just a few by the boy and quite a lot by the beast, lay as smashed as those mismatched receptacles that now cupped their contents. Harry was sitting on the floor, his back resting on a shelf, his legs sprawled, and an idiotic grin on his face. The dragon was in a similar position in front of him and had one bottle in each paw.

"Lookie 'ere; I have... Pinot Blanc... n' here... Haut-Brion... Now... I'll blend th' best... rosé... inne world!!" Once he said this, the dragon raised his fore paws, upturned the bottles, and let the wine fall into his snout.

Harry saw him and exploded into a violent but voiceless spasm of laughter, which soon became voiced and sent merry ricocheting notes clashing with the wet cellar walls. The dragon suspended his double-hued drinking and, over the boy's contagious joy, he said invitingly: "Wanna try rosé?"

"You... you... you have this thin' on roses, don't you?" Harry gibbered in between giggles.

"Nuh uh, you wrong... wrong... wrong... 's a funny word... I gots a thing on yew,"

"You... dragon... Whuddya mean?" asked the boy, his irregular peals deriving into a smile.

"You haven't seen my... yew shrubs?" The dragon pulled a sort of scandalized expression, "They gives me all the wood my fire neededs..." and then he laughed.

Harry took a sip from his bottle and fell silent, looking away. Although his brain wasn't generating too many logic thoughts, it was impossible not to notice that the dragon had been acting strange tonight. There had been a few cryptic remarks that had started as innocent as weather talk and had ended up being suggestive insinuations. There had been far too many, very much atypical comments, coming from a fabulous, mythological creature, who theoretically belonged to the realms of fantasy and who, in spite of that, was speaking as mundanely as a street rat. All the things that he (that sulky and playful spirit embodied into a monstrous living armor) had said could be summed up into an utterly nonsensical idea.

And then, out of the blue, Harry understood what his sober self hadn't been able to grasp. He also knew that it was the right moment to feel alarmed by this rare revelation, but he instinctively decided not to use his scarce reasoning power to unveil neither that absurdity, nor the abrupt need of sniggering that had suddenly invaded him. Amazed by how weird feeling self-conscious was, Harry couldn't think of anything else and, therefore, kept silent.

The host ceased to laugh and began to observe his guest. Moreover, his guest's blurry physical presence combined with a clear mental absence. He had been restraining for a while the impulse of unlocking his heart, but to see the boy behave like that (stare lost in space as if appraising the state of affairs) made him think that maybe things were escaping his claws.

Maybe the boy already knew it. Maybe he knew the truth. He knew what hid behind the rudeness, what lay under the panic, and what had been, for a while now, above everything else. It was so obvious a truth: monstrous as its holder, entrancing as its inspirer. So easy to perceive it was that the dragon was sure the boy could feel, in his own veins, the torrent of galloping green blood cells that leaped, flapped and swelled to set him into motion, to help him get over with it. The boy knew. He knew he loved him. And if the boy felt squeamish about it, the dragon had no idea. Fear of rejection was what drove the dragon to quickly destroy that disturbing silence and, therefore, to speak.

"Whuzza matter?" he asked.

"Uh? ... er..." was all Harry managed to say.

"Why don't you come here... an'... sit on my lap?"

Harry laughed so hard that, magically, the dense atmosphere that had been suffocating the dragon dissolved. "You kinky dragon... Wanna, wanna spank me?" he struggled to say, tongue tripping and twittering at unison.

"Nooo! I'd never do somepthin' like THAT!" Answered the dragon, encouraged by laughter. "I'm a sweet boy... my temper's tempered wif... 'cause my fire's searin' my soul, and... and... Just listen... listen to this poem I just writed..." The dragon concentrated and let his bodyweight rest on his right elbow. "My love... is quite blind, i's true, 'cause / My heart... has been ripped inta two, since / My mind's... has been blown by you, so... / Why don't you come an' blow me inna loo?"

'Fuck you,' Harry muttered. He had stopped laughing. The dragon cackled a little, but then pulled a serious face, sat straight, and started to stab the boy with his blade-like pupils. The boy felt the beastly gaze lacerating him and glanced back. The ridiculous idea of standing up and going closer to the dragon didn't move as fast inside his mind as his staggering legs on the floor, which vanished as fast as a wink the distance between them. Leering, the boy sat in the dragon's lap as carefully as he could. And, after casting a quick, unsettled look at the face above him, he let his temple clumsily rest in the beast's chest.

"You smell g...g...good..." boy babbled blurredly.

"I-I know," beast answered awkwardly, trying to make his shaky voice cloud the storm of feelings hammering inside, fighting for freedom.

"And your scales aren't 'z cold as I thought they be..." boy commented casually.

"They couldn' hardly be," beast managed to mutter; letting his right paw land softly on the dark, glossy head of the boy he was nesting.

"And your heart's pumpin' hard..." boy remarked roguishly, a glint of mischief in the corner of his unfocused eye.

"Not... not jus' my heart," dragon hissed huskily, the tips of his claws devouring every hair strand they could perceive, which in spite of growing as wild as untouched vegetation, unwillingly retrieved the wildest of caresses.

"You're nice, d'you know that?" boy murmured melodiously, closing his eyes and snuggling on the beast's lap.

"Oh, fuck..." whispered the dragon, eyelids falling, intimately thanking the fact that he was a scale-covered being and therefore incapable of sweating and thus damping the boy. He also wondered, queries clashing, if the boy would appreciate having for a cradle a quaking, turned on bear, or if the boy was able to swim, in case he started to melt and form the world's largest pool of drool. And next, he thought of how wonderful it would be to make love to that small and fragile and beautiful being, and how hard a thing being beast had become, and about the curse... He took a breath. He wasn't scared anymore. He had never wanted something so badly...

But Harry spoke first. "Who'dja write that poem for? The blond git?"

The dragon took his time, but finally answered "No. 'S for you..."

"Bastard... What kind of po'ms didja make for him?"

"Bad ones..." And after a pause, the dragon added quickly, "D'you... d'you wanna see him?"

"Who?"

"The blond git, asshole!"

"Where iz 'e? 'Z'e here?"

"Yeah... here... cramped inna little space you left 'im..." The dragon removed a claw from the boy's head and pointed to his chest.

"You... ate him?"

"I knew you was gonna to say somepthin' stupid like that! But, well... you bein' dumb iz one 'a the things 'it made me fall like a fool..."

Harry looked up. "So-so-so... where's 'e at?"

"Come with me,"

The dragon softly motioned the boy to move away, came to rest slowly on his four legs, and imprinting an invisible but continuous double 'S' on the floor, he made it to his den. Harry followed him giggling, his feet moving awkwardly, his mind one step behind, his hands seeking the stability of swirling surroundings. After climbing down the stairs and tripping all the way, he finally irrupted in the beast's lair and said while bundling his cloak: "He's not 'ere..."

"Yeah, he is... Both my greates' shame and treasure's is here."

"I... I 'member my first time 'ere... you almost... killed me..."

"Shoulda eaten ya then... you was all soaked in chocolate..."

Harry chuckled, letting his body fall inelegantly on a heap of straw. "Ch-chocolate and me don' get along... I'm too sour..."

The dragon smirked, rummaging around his bed. "I only hadda lick it off, then," he said casually, producing a silver mirror from the straw. "Look," he extended his loaded paw towards Harry. "Wi' this thing, you can see anything ya wanna see. You c'n ask for the blond boy. It'll show 'im to ya,"

"Anything?" asked Harry, placing his fingers around the handle.

"Anyone," answered the dragon leaving the mirror in the boy's hands. Then, he sat upon his straw-bed, his eyes glued to the boy.

Harry looked at his own reflection in the mirror. Anything. Anyone. A word nagged intensely in his brain. A word not said in a long time. A face not seen for a while. A face he loved, and longed to see...

"Show me... show me Hagrid," requested Harry.

The mirror started to sparkle and thin, tickling beams of bright green light enveloped its handle and flat silver body before conceding its asker his treat. Harry squinted at the sudden luminosity and, when it was over, gazed at the strange scene that was developing inside the frame.

His foster-father, beloved friend and devoted ex-protector, lay motionless in an unknown territory that uncannily resembled the Northeast mountain landscape. Despite blind terror overwhelmed him, Harry could distinguish several bruises and dark-purple bloody blobs all over the half-giant's face. The boy panicked and began to call Hagrid desperately.

"He can't hear you! Get a grip!" The dragon snatched the mirror from Harry's hands.

"But-but he's hurt! I gotta go save 'im! I gotta go! He's hurt! I just... I just hope he's not ..." Harry stood up and darted to the den's entrance. The dragon, sober enough from frustration, after taking two fast steps obstructed the boy's way out. "Move! Move, you... you stupid! I gotta go save 'im!" Harry cried.

"There's nothin' you c'n do, you hear me?! Nothin'!" bawled the dragon.

"Lemme pass, you son of a bitch, LEMME PASS!"

The dragon didn't move. He was aghast. Harry wanted to go away, to save his former guardian. He wanted to leave. Harry wanted to leave. All Harry cared about was that idiot, a man that belonged to his joyless past. He, the dragon, was part of his joyful present, but Harry didn't even ask him for help, he just wanted to go away. That was his wish; he hadn't asked to see the blond boy, because the half-giant, that wretched ugly oaf was more important for him than any other thing in the world, more important than this bright scaled, winged, trodden insect. Everything was finally clear. The voluble dragon's heart, beating in a beastly manner, had been finally humanized, become vulnerable and turned into debris.

Suppressing an agonizing tantrum, the dragon spoke in a low voice. "I won't move away if you don't calm down." Harry looked up to him. He was shivering. It was obvious that he was fighting with all his might a strong desire of punching him below the waist (the only place he could reach). Ignoring the boy's glare, the beast tonelessly stated: "You may leave. You're no longer my prisoner. I release you. Go away. Go away as fast as you can. I don't want to see you anymore."

"Really?" Harry asked, astonished.

"Yes. Go away now. Go save your friend. Take my broom. It's yours now. I hope you save him -" The dragon shut up. He couldn't go on.

"Thank you," was everything the boy managed to say.

Since the dragon had moved back to his bed Harry advanced hesitantly to the corridor in front of him, but before he started running, lucidity restored, he heard the beast say, "Take this... if you like. You can see me, or what's left of me, whenever you want to. I don't need it anymore. I've seen too much. Now, I wanna sleep..."

Harry turned around and saw the dragon holding the mirror. Not knowing why, he retraced his steps and took it from the trembling paw. "Thanks," he said again, this time intending to smile. Then, he took off out of the room as fast as he could go.

Once by the nearest window Harry took off, but remembering that Ron would never forgive him for going away without him, he flew to his room to get in through the window, grabbed the sleeping cup to plunge it into his pocket, and finally rose in the air, decided to disguise his darkened figure in the little darkness that was left in the cold, pale gray day that was dawning in the east.