He was falling, no he was about to die. The seven-year-old looked around him and saw only the blackness. Why did these things always happen to him, couldn't fate let him catch a break? It was just unfair. Just yesterday he thought his life would get better after the Dursleys had announced that he would be accompanying them on their trip to Arthurs's seat in Edinburgh they wanted to hike, which usually meant they drove or traveled there by means necessary, and got some photos to show the neighbors. After that, they would eat anything they could get their hands on. Usually, Harry would not accompany the Dursleys this time though, his usual caretaker Mrs. Figg could not take care of him. The trip would take too long to leave him alone in the house. So the Dursleys decided it would come with them. He could be helpful by carrying the bags on the hike and all.
All started well for Harry, he would not have to sleep in the cupboard for the duration of the trip and because appearances have to be held up, he even got his room. Sure the lowest possible category in the hotel they booked, but his room was not a dark, stuffy cupboard under the stairs. Even his clothes were his size, secondhand sure, but his size. He didn't know how he got to the Dursleys, he only knew his parents were gone and Petunia was his aunt. They didn't hit him physically, but he got only scrapes from the meals he had to cook for all of them. His birthdays were usually skipped, and his name he only knew now because the homeroom teacher in his school had called out his name without him knowing. Before that, he simply regarded himself as 'boy' like his aunt and uncle. They didn't love him that was a safe bet and something Harry already knew, but he hadn't an alternative so he endured.
So how by the name of the lord, had he got into the situation of falling to his certain death? It all started with the main part of their vacation, the hike. Harry had to carry all the backpacks. Looking back, he should have asked himself how he was able to lift that much weight. Through a tiny gap, he was able to see a bit of the way before him. Cautiously placing his steps he was moving forward. Sometimes Dudley would bump into him, only for him to have to adjust everything. With each step, the weight seemed to decrease a bit. Something was answering his inner pleas but the exhaustion still was getting bigger with each minute. Nearly on his last breath, they had reached a good spot for a family picture. Harry would take it of course. The only ones who should be in those were the Dursleys. He was allowed to put the bags done, took said pictures, and enjoyed the break. He sneaked some small sips from the water bottle and could feel the wind brushing his face. Suddenly there was something different, a warm welcoming embrace. Like that of a mother holding her child. Something Harry had only imagined how it could feel, till this warm breeze of wind. Something deep inside of him responded. At the same time, he got a splitting headache. Something pushed him looking at one of the walls. Slowly he walked at the stone wall, reaching out with his right hand. As he laid the hand on the black stone he could feel a jolt of energy rush through him. His arm began to sink into the stone, it was like the material wasn't even there in the first place.
Unbeknownst to Harry, Dudley witnessed that at this very moment, something freaky was happening to his Cousin. Every time that happened his Dad would scream around and punish the Freak. Always rambling about how important it is to be a normal upstanding citizen. As Dudley got older he tried to gain the approval of his father by adopting his stance on his Cousins freakishness. He started to attack Harry every time he did something not normal. Resulting in getting presents from his dad. He didn't know that it was wrong, nobody told him so, hence he didn't think twice as he saw his cousin's hand vanish into the rock. His idea was to charge at him and pull him back but as he charged at him, his overweighted body paired with poor coordination and the rush of the moment let him stumble. So instead of pulling him back, he pushed him. Dudley looked in shock as his Cousin tried to grab something, failing to do so, and then simply fell into the rock screaming. Dudley joined in with the screaming of his cousin who seemed to get further away with each second. The Dursleys were alarmed and looked at what happened. Petunia was a bit faster in regaining her wits and asked Dudley what happened.
Dudley explained what he saw what he was about to do, and what happened after that. The screams of his cousin had subsided into a ghostly silence and a sobbing Dudley. He was a ruffian at most times but what was the reason for that? If you look closely enough it was the negligence of his parents to install some values into him, but even the seven-year-old knew what would happen if somebody screamed this long and was silent afterward. He never intended to do this. He just wanted something new from his dad to help him with his cousin's freakishness. Petunia consoled her child and talked with Vernon in hushed voices. Vernon carefully approached the rock laying his hand on the stone like it would eat him any second. Nothing happened, it was a stone. Hard, solid unforgiving. He even tried Open! Sesame but nothing worked. They quickly traveled back home. Telling everyone who asked that their nephew had a family member in the States who emerged and had taken him in. A certain Mrs. Figg had heard nothing from that for a long time, and after that, she thought it was a decision by the same man who had placed her here. She sent a last owl to the man before relocating back to her family lands. It was easier for her animals to flourish in the magical environment of the magical home than in the muggle neighborhood. Unfortunately, the Owl, the trinkets monitoring Harry's health, and everything were not noticed by the Headmaster of Hogwarts. He was away from his desk on a summit of the International Confederation of Wizards in Kairo, in his function as the Supreme Mugwump. His personal Elf would sort everything that didn't sound urgent into chronologically
sorted stacks of paperwork.
As brilliant as he was in doing his magic, educating young teens and adults. There was one thing he sorely lacked. Administrative skills and Organization. He rarely took to those stacks trusting in his elf and Minerva handling things while he tried to hold the peace so to speak.
Harry stopped his screaming, he just wished to survive this fall, to be somewhere safe and warm. He felt it again, the same feeling he had last week as he suddenly was on the roof of his school after Dudley and his gang chased him in the break. He felt like being compressed through a narrow tube-like thing, he could not breathe for a second. The feeling vanished shortly after he heard a small pop sound. Slowly he opened his eyes. He seemed to be in a cavern of sorts. Dark Stone like that he put his hand in before he fell right through. On the falls were glowing stones and on the ground occasionally were mushrooms that glowed also. Some steps back he looked up to see a big tunnel leading upwards. Luckily his sight was good enough to let him see just enough see, that a try to get back up was fruitless. His only possible exit would be to go through the cavern, he was scared though. The width and height looked like around fifty feet and was too smooth to be of natural design. Something or somebody had made these holes into the stone and those glowing stones and mushrooms did not look like those they had been shown in the school. With slow steps and slightly shaking he made his way from the tunnel where he had fallen deeper into the cavern. He even was smart enough to use some of the glowing shrooms to place them in the direction he had come from. The smell was something he could not describe, it smelled damp sometimes and at other times he could smell seawater. If he could get to a coast he maybe would be able to get back to England somehow. So every time there was a fork he would place something to remember where he came from and try to smell where the salty air would come from and take this route.
Harry had no sense of time and how long he walked and searched for the possible exit but his senses were on high alert as he heard something slithering in his direction. The faint noise was something in the silence of the cave he quickly recognized. In thought, he was cursing and hoped the snake would not be aggressive. Harry was, in contrast to what his teachers and relatives thought highly intelligent. He just did not show it. He read very much in the Library every time he got the possibility to do so. For some reason, he could remember most things he found interesting. As he was told they would travel to the capital of Scotland and knowing his luck he looked up all the possible threats to his health if Dudley had some new idea of a Joke. So he knew the moment he heard the snake, and seconds after he saw it, he recognized the pattern on the back. That was an adder, even if the glowing pattern was something the tour guide had not mentioned. The adder was the only native snake to Scotland and was venomous but also not very aggressive. Harry used that and slowly tried to dodge the path the snake was about to take. It looked like it worked before Harry missed a step and stepped on one rock while still looking at the snake. The Rock hits a mushroom while Harry tries to stay upright.
The snake looked like it did not like the disturbance and looked straight at him.
"Stupid human, nearly hit me with that stone."
Harry furrowed his brow and he had learned with his relatives was quick to apologize, never recognizing that he was hissing like the snake.
" Sorry, it was not my intent to hit you."
The snake looked at him and his tongue came out once, twice it looked like it blinked.
" You are a speaker? Well, I accept your apology. What is a human hatchling speaker, doing in the glowing depths?"
Now Harry blinked.
" You can talk? Speaker? Hatchling? Glowing Depths?"
It looked like the snake was sighing as it hissed shaking its head.
" It is always the same with the hatchlings, too many questions at once. I will indulge you for a moment though. You are small and scrawny so a hatchling and no adult. The smell of an adult human is different. A speaker is a witch, wizard, or magical being able to speak the tongue of snakes. A magical skill nobody living in this century knows where it came from. Glowing Depth is the name of this system of caverns. Some magical creatures have retreated to this place to live their life in peace because your kind hunts them down for reasons."
Harry blinked again, that was much information in a short time so he didn't really come up with an instantaneous response. He managed one after collecting his thoughts. That he was a wizard and magic was real would explain so many curious things that happened to him. He would have to take the words of the snake at face value. Well if a talking snake was not something that would be solid evidence for magic existing he would not know what would be. Yeah, and falling through solid rock and teleporting should also count.
" Yeah sorry about that, I am Harry Potter and I kind of have fallen into the caverns because I was pushed by my fat cousin"
The snake hissed a bit aggregated.
"Did you bite him? Or why did he push you without reason? You should bite him when you see him the next time. Bite! Bite! Bite! Well sorry, I digressed there. You humans are so confusing sometimes. I am Basil. A glowing adder, I will have to take you to the governess of this cavern though. Besides some magical snakes, there are others down here and they are a bit more hostile. Follow me, Hatchling Harry!"
With that, the snake slithered away and Harry followed him and tried not to throw another stone in Basil's direction by accident.
" Err, Basil, what kind of animal is this governess?"
Basil didn't stop leading them through the caverns.
" The Governess? A dragon. I think you humans call them Hebridean Blacks. Be polite and respectful and don't come too close to her nest and you should be fine"
Harry again was about to curse his luck as they turned a corner and entered a very big cave he could not see the roof, which lay in the dark, and from the measurements of the imposing dragon he looked at the space was very much needed. The onyx black dragon was huge. More than forty feet long. the two horns, pointing upwards were nearly twice the size of his arms. The two horns on the side curled like that of a goat are of a similar length he estimated. As the snake and Harry took one step into the cavern of the dragon it opened one eye. The brilliant purple met his emerald green ones. In the next moment, Harry saw pictures he recognized as memories of himself rushing before his mental eye. It took seconds but felt like he lived through all of his seven years in a matter of seconds. The headache he could feel after that let him press a hand to his forehead. The images were a blur, but because this one scene had burned itself in his memory thanks to the nightmares, this green light with the screaming women was more present than ever. Whatever the dragon did it looked like it had read his thoughts.
" I see. Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lived. Yes, I can do that if I want to Hatchling." This time Harry focussed more on the voices around the word he had understood. The hissing he had heard with Basil sounded a bit more exalted from the Dragon. It was more like a deep vibration in the air like a rumble.
" The reason for that is that we Dragons are more evolved in most cases as the most magical snakes. It is a very curious happenstance that you have come to this place of all things. Basil go look for one of the elves. I think I require their skills with this one." The snake slithered away. While Harry tried to keep up with everything. The Dragon had his eyes on him again.
"You can stay here for the next time. We will arrange for you to be fed and watered. About your clothes, we will have to see what to do about them when you need new ones. What I have seen in your memories of your short life on this plane showed me that you could need a new roof above your head maybe. In the five centuries, I lived I never had seen someone so clearly marked by fate and magic it is refreshing. I had seen you want to know more about magic. I will teach you about it. If you want to ask the questions why I should do that. At the moment you could call it an experiment. As I tasted your magic when Basil lead you to my abode, I played with the idea of just eating you. With your memories though. I saw a possibility for the beginning of something."
Harry thought about it, it all sounded so crazy. A five-hundred-year-old dragon who wanted to teach him about magic, just because he had fallen here. I thought back to the moment before he put his hand into the rock. He concentrated and he remembered the moment. It was like something had called to him to be here. Maybe he could find out what happened to his parents. Who he was and why the Dragon gave him the moniker, the Boy-who-Lived.
" Well I say let's don't waste time Governess" he tried to sound determined to work with this Dragon even if it was a surreal experience. With magic in the game could something be surreal or was it just magic?
Two years later, Glowing Depths
A nine-year-old Harry Potter was sitting on his bed. Much had changed for the young wizard. In his room were two bookshelves, one for mundane things like his school books and another for the books he got for the wizarding world. Because he could not go out for long times. He looked like a healthy nine-year-old, he even had shed his glasses. But that was exactly the problem, he looked like a nine-year-old. After Onyxia had literally taken him under her wing he learned everything about the night his parents died. He was famous in the magical world and too young to appear in the mundane one regularly without an adult. With the help of Tinky an independent House Elve, he was able to set up a good and working system for his needs. He had created an Alias at the Goblin Bank Gringotts under the Name of Duncan Dealanach, which was Gaelic for Lightning. Each day he made his rounds through the caverns collecting leavings from the inhabitants and selling them to Gringotts. Most of the time things like scales, Eggshells, hair, and such. It was not much but enough to get him enough wizarding currency to provide for himself. Tinky would sell his collected things to the Goblins and buy the things Harry needed. Even the mundane school books. With the help of the books, he was not falling behind in his education. Onyxia was a fountain of never-ending knowledge but most of it was outdated or only related to the magical world. For everything else, Harry had to teach himself. He loved it to be honest, he was independent at the sweet age of four as he had to help Petunia in the Kitchen. After that with each year he had more chores and with the chores came independence. The Dursleys had not cared for him, here he part of a community of animals. He was the only human of course but he could speak with some of them. Most of the time he talked with Tinky who had found a liking to the young wizard. After the Master that abused her had died, she left and found this place. Thanks to the ambient magic the elve could survive. She loved to do some things for the kind wizard with the lightning bolt scar. With all the tasks it was on his ninth birthday, and she asked if she could bond with him. After some explanations of why that was needed, Harry agreed and after that, Tinky looked like she had gotten back many lost years. With the newfound energy, they had adventured a bit more into the caverns.
Most of the time they were a group of four. Basil the Snake, Tinky the Houseelve, Harry, and the newest part of the Group, Erebus, he was seven years younger than Harry and the son of Onyxia. He hatched in the night from the last of July 31th two years ago. After Harry learned that Dragons could absorb much knowledge of their parent if they had the time to go through the process he was a bit jealous that Erebus already knew so much. He even was able to communicate with Harry easily with Parseltongue. At the moment he was as big as Harry's head and sat on his shoulder. Harry was holding onto his Staff. Something he needed one whole year to make and contained a shed Talon of Onyxia herself. The Staff, made out of cherry wood Harry had gathered, could be shrunk and extended to a degree and was used by Harry to carve Runes or focus his magic. At first, that hadn't helped much but after getting told how magic in most living things worked thanks to some books and the Dragon Governess it was something he could work on. To use your inert magic you would have to connect to it. Humans had described it as a core. That was a false assumption if you would listen to an old dragon. Magic was everywhere in the body. It had no core. How much somebody could hold into himself was limited to easy factors. Your overall physical condition, how much you and your magic were in synch, and how often you used it. If you wanted to simplify it was much like a muscle. The more you trained and carefully stretched it to its limits the more it would grow. The Origin of magic though was shrouded in mystery. The Dragons always had it. When the humans came into the mix were not part of the Knowledge Dragons had given their children. But you could strengthen your connection with the help of magical creatures.
Something Harry had gone through on the night of the winter solstice. The ritual was in an old book Tinky had found in a second-hand store. With the help of Onyxia who delivered another talon and some scales Harry had prepared everything like the book told him to. It was a simple rejuvenation ritual. What none of them had calculated was that Harry had used freely given self-collected ingredients. Some with strong inert magic and a direct connection to him. The Results were easily amazing. His Eyesight was on the scale of some avian hunters, his body was more durable and resistant, and he was faster and stronger to some degree. The only downside till this moment was a much stronger metabolism. He needed to eat a higher intake of nutrients than a kid.
At the moment he was on the scale of an adult human. Harry calculated when he would reach maturity he would be at the Intake of a professional athlete. What had really changed in him thanks to the ritual was his connection to his magic and the ambient magic around him. He could feel it, and he even could feel if it would be bad for him or not. Something that helped him navigate the caverns. Without it, he would have run into many more problems than he had. Most of the time if a more aggressive animal had tried to attack Harry after he got through the magic boot camp he just used his staff to send it flying away.
That was a year ago, now he had Erebos who could already use his fire to a certain degree, and thanks to the runes he studied under Onyxia and with his books he had no problems using them in battle. Not all things had gone to plan though. After Onyxia still had to protect her eggs and sometimes had to establish her dominance. She even lost a part of one of her horns in a fight. He would regrow and Harry had it stored away but after she had used some draconic magic to heal herself and had scanned Harry before that. After the Rejunvation she had hoped he would be clean so to speak. But she had found out that he had something dark in his scar. Something that was beyond her knowledge. That was the reason Harry and Erebos were in the Dragon cave looking up at her.
" Hmm. I once had felt a magic that was like this but different. Something very human though. I think I won't be able to help you cleanse this. At the moment it seems not to damage you in any kind of way I could look for."
Harry was standing on a Dragon rune that glowed in the same purple as Onyxias eyes. That was the Katalyst for all magic Dragon could use outside of their defenses and fire. With the Talons and Claws, they would carve runes into the ground and fill them with their magic.
"I think, I have an idea how and who could help you. There is one race of creatures who has lifespans matching and surpassing ours. An Elder of the Vampires would be able to help you I think. I once met one vampire in my time as a hatchling. They lived in France maybe you could use some connections and get them to let them look you over. Vampires will want something in return so don't go unprepared but I have a feeling that the price they will ask of you will not be unreasonable. How is Tinky moving forward in locating your ancestral home?"
After Harry had studied some tomes on the history of magical Great Britain he found some references to his family. The Potters were a secretive bunch but they are one of the oldest houses in Britain thanks to some marriages and so Harry did his homework and uncovered some statements, that he should have some inheritance.
" She had located the Potter Elves yesterday I think? I spoke to Lordey, the Head Elf. He was very enthusiastic and told me he would prepare the grounds. Contrary to popular belief my home still stands firm and awaits my return."
Harry replied with a big grin.
" Tinky is more excited than I am, I think she missed it to be a real Houseelve and the prospect of manor grounds, chores, and such. I will miss you all though. Even if I now could apparate back here I think I will have to prepare for my trip to France and all that stuff. I will miss you, Xia"
The old Dragon rumbled in laughter for a bit and looked at her Son.
" You still want to accompany him?"
Erebos nodded his head his Voice a bit deeper. Even in Parseltongue.
" I will need my own nest and the manor grounds sounded lovely Mother."
The old dragon nodded approvingly.
"That you do. It seemed that fate had connected you two if I think about the day you hatched. Then this wizard appears exactly on the day I awoke after the memory transfer. You nearly share your Hatching days. The years between you symbolize a strong magical number. That is too many coincidences to be called as such. You will need each other in the time to come."
A short silence followed the words and only three distinct popping sounds were the reason the silence was broken.
"Master Harry, we are ready for you and Master Erebos." the distinct voice of Lordey could be heard. The boy gave him a short nod. The elves collected his belongings first and shortly after Harry and Erebos left the Glowing Depths too. Leaving one Dragon and her eggs she breathed some fire on and enclosed in her wings. Without anyone listening the Dragon spoke to herself.
" Sometimes you have to be reborn to live again. The day for that will come for you and after that which path will you choose to fulfill the role fate and death have given you? When will you find out the burden your ancestors have left you with? I wish you all the best and hope you bring the change magic needs before she dies" After that Onyxia activated the runes of her chamber that would block nearly anything from entering and did what she did best after her race was hunted to extinction. She waited.