The Summoning of the Dragons

Chapter One, Hermione's Secret

Harry Potter sat up in bed from where he had lain curled in a ball, the way he still preferred to slumber, even ten years after the last time he slept a night cramped in the cupboard under the stairs when he was eleven. He reached for his glasses on the bed table and looked at the clock: 12:01.

He wondered what had wakened him. Moonlight suddenly broke through the clouds outside, and poured in the window staining the room silver. He listened for a moment but the only noise was Hedwig's soft hooting from her cage and the rumble of thunder in the distance.

He walked across the room to his pet. "Time to hunt, is it Hedwig? Well have a good stretch then." She jumped from his arm through the open window and disappeared like a white sheet billowing in the wind of the damp night.

"Harry? You awake? What are you doing?" A messy red head appeared from behind bed curtains on the opposite side of the room.

"Sorry Ron. Just letting Hedwig out for a bit."

"Your scar hurting again?"

"No. It's not that." Voldemort was no longer a threat to Harry, and yet, his scar would stab and throb at times and wake him in his dormitory. Ron joked Harry was just trying to get out of exams at the wizard university they attended, lost from all Muggle records and secretly tucked in the green hills of Scotland. McGregors was a school for gifted witches and wizards who planned to enter the DADA. Being so, one would expect it to be a stuffy place full of egotistical types -- but it was quite the opposite. McGregors was known quite as well for its Quidditch Team, the McGregors Manticores, and the after-game parties, as its distinguished alumni.

"Is it Hermione, then?" Ron waited.

"I don't think so. Unless you know something I don't?" Harry wasn't sure he wanted to have this conversation, particularly in the middle of the night.

Ron looked chagrined. "Hmph. I couldn't figure her out even with a map lately. Draco enrolls mid-year -- and as a freshman no less -- and her and him are suddenly old friends? This is DRACO MALFOY we are talking about. She bloody well has some explaining to do, if you ask me. You saw her today, laughing with the stupid git in the hall. Why didn't you say something then, Harry? Why turn the other way?"

"Hermione takes her fellowship in Potions very seriously, Ron. Draco is the star student in his class. It's only natural that she would spend extra time with him." Harry climbed back into bed as he said this and rolled on his side, not facing Ron. His words echoed Hermione's from yesterday. She had said, "Harry, it's not like you to be jealous. Draco has grown up a lot since Hogwarts. It would do you well to get to know him better, yourself. 'Never miss the chance to make an ally,' isn't that what Remus -- Professor Lupin -- always says? You never know when you might need to call on one ..."

He added resolutely, "She's just doing her job."

"Really? In the corridor during mid-day break?"

Harry sighed. "Shut it, alright Ron? I'm not worried about Hermione and you shouldn't be either."

Ron was quiet for a moment. He pulled the curtains back around his bed. "Well then why aren't you sleeping, Harry," he said, and closed his eyes.

Harry lay awake awhile longer before finally curling his body and tucking in his knees, and succumbing again to sleep, only to dream fitfully of the room closing in on him, the walls getting closer ...

And dragons.

***

Hermione peeked round the corner of the hall leading from the girls dormitories to the Common Room shared by the boys in her level. She whispered, "Quietly. And straight back to your dorm, Draco, the last thing you need is more trouble."

"Yes, mum," Draco said, then paused. "Hermione, when are you going to tell Harry?" he demanded, one more time before leaving.

"Soon." Hermione looked tired suddenly. "I just don't know how I can give him one more thing to worry about."

"If I were him, I would want to know."

Hermione sagged. "You're right. The sooner he knows, the more time he has to make plans. Why does everything always happen to Harry?"

Draco smirked. "Just lucky, I guess."

"You still smirk?" Hermione teased. "You've been so smirkless lately I'd nearly forgotten."

"I make smirking look good," Draco said, matter-of-factly. "Besides, it scares off your boyfriend and Weasley. Ron looked like he wanted to curse me right in the hall today when he saw me with you."

"Well, he doesn't understand."

"No he wouldn't." Draco looked pointedly at Hermione.

"Yes, I know, soon," she repeated.

Draco sneaked silently across the common room to the boys' dorms. Just before disappearing up the stairs, he turned and half-smiled at Hermione, standing in her doorway, still not in her nightgown even at this hour. "Night," he mouthed, and disappeared.

Hermione smiled back, then quickly frowned. She turned silently around to her own dormitory and was enveloped by the night. Outside, the storm found new vigor and a bolt of lightning flashed outside her window, reminding her of Harry's scar, perfectly etched on his forehead. The first time she had kissed him, it had been there, her lips pressed against the smooth, cold scar.

"Night Harry," she said to herself, "please forgive me ..." She fell asleep there across her bed, still in her Potions robes.

Chapter Two: The Potions Master

"Try to choose carefully when the great choices must be made. When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing, and I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are."

~Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore

***

The cauldron simmered and shifted colors, maturing from crimson to black. "Nearly ready," a voice whispered lovingly to the potion. The potion master turned away and looked out the window to the west, past the castle and grounds of Malfoy Manor. His blonde hair was neatly parted in the middle, his robes impeccable, his eyes cold and unyielding. He was but a young man, but his eyes belied his youth.

A gentle knock sounded on the door. "Master Declan, dinner is ready sir," said one of the house elves who waited on the family. A caged black bird screeched in the corner of the room.

"Tell mother I will take it here in my wing," Declan said.

"Can Nobbin get you anything, else Master Declan sir? You is not looking well. You is looking flushed, you is." The small creature's eyes fell on the bubbling cauldron and a strange scent filled his crooked nose. It was intoxicating, foul and sweet. He faltered, "Nobbin ... Nobbin could bring you ..."

SLAM. The door closed on Nobbin's nose and a squeal came from the other side, quickly muffled. Nobbin's voice shook as he slunk from the west wing, holding his nose in his hands, "Well, if you will not be needing anything, Nobbin will go back to the kitchens, sir!" The little house elf stumbled off, affected by the odor lingering still in the hall.

But Declan Malfoy paid no heed. He was already bending again over his beloved potion. "They are coming," he said as he watched it carefully. He let the black bird out of its cage and it perched on his shoulder. "Soon, my pet." The black bird screamed. It's wings fanned out and beat against the dead air in the room. Long after his dinner grew cold outside the door, still he watched the potion and added new ingredients. The potion grew fouler as the day faded into night, the light went from dark to darker in the storm. Far away, other wings were beating a path towards the east, from lands ancient and far, leathery wings pounding, pumping away the distance.

***

Professor LeVey was winding up his history of non-western magic class, teasing the students with bits of trivia about great witches and wizards from history. "Yes, Grindelwald waged war against the giants, he led the drive to exile them away into the mountains. And yet there is strong evidence that he himself had a measure of giant blood in his family, on his mother's side. So he essentially destroyed the wizarding world's peace pact with the giants because he was picked on at school. Just another sad little child trying to get even."

Ron's attention drifted across the room where the first years were waiting for the chimes to sound for afternoon session. Draco Malfoy sat on the stairs outside the classroom alone, but dictating the conversation among the first years. The chimes sounded and Malfoy stood to go in. "Where are his books?" Ron wondered. "Is he too cool to carry books?" Draco took his seat. "Accio "McGregors: A History" he said. A moment passed, then the green volume came zipping through the air, whistled past Ron's left ear where he stood in the doorway, and landed soundly in Draco's hand. Ron looked at Draco's face, expecting him to be smug; but quite the contrary, he was opening the book and totally ignoring two giggling witches in the row behind him.

Ron's watch sounded off, "You're late!" and Ron went to meet Harry for lunch.

***

Hermione drew in her breath. It was time to talk to Harry. She turned a corner and there he sat, relaxing in the McGregors rose garden, his nose in a book. The picture of him with all his dark hair among the crimson roses looked like a painting. She remembered Harry at Hogwarts, cutting classes and goofing off with Ron when he wasn't finding bigger trouble to get into. "I guess he just needed to find something he wanted to read about besides Quidditch" she thought. Harry loved Quidditch. She wondered if someday, perhaps, he would wish he had taken the opportunity after Hogwarts to play instead of entering a life of defense -- fighting on the side of white magic for balance in the world. She knew he would be a great leader; Harry inspired confidence from everyone around him. He was not only talented (and gorgeous, she thought as an aside), but he knew how to bring out the heroic in other people. He allowed people who were close to him to shine; he never took the spotlight, though it found him more than occasionally. He lifted up everyone who worked with him -- on special projects, on the Quidditch field, whatever he was doing -- and made them want to be better. Harry put the book down and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. Her conscience prodded her forward.

"Harry, I have to talk to you."

Harry smiled at Hermione and scooted down on the bench so she could sit. He kissed her lightly hello and felt tension in her temple. "What do you have to talk to me about?" he asked. "We are supposed to meet Ron."

Hermione nervously twisted the hem of her robes. "Harry ..."