Harry Potter gets smart and takes control - The Goblet

Chapter 23 Dragon Proofing

Notes:

Sorry it's late, honestly I keep forgetting I'm posting it here too. Opps.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Harry'd spend hours listening to the dragons, they're speech very similar to parse young but not quite. He'd felt he'd had it when he fell asleep. Almost felt as if something had clicked in his brain, he reached out with his mind, feeling their presence, feeling their magic, feeling their emotions and looked at them, willing himself to see, to understand.

And he'd almost had it. When he fell asleep.

His dreams were filled with a hissing language he could almost understand through his shut cupboard door. The dreams were full of a painful yearning sensation as he banged on it, desperate to be let out.

He woke up very early, only the intense sticking charm he'd cast the night before, had stopped him falling out of his tree.

Most of the dragons were asleep now, curled around their eggs, but the Horntail is away, dozing around her eggs, crooning to them, breathing fire on them. It was a different fire from the one she let out when first let out of the cage, it's a blue fire this time. Hotter, and makes the eggs glow slightly. It was fascinating to watch. Harry listened to her, focusing on the cadences of her voice. It was so very like parseltongue.

Charlie had been doing the early morning watch when he thought he saw something twitch in the far side of the clearing from where his boss and colleagues had set up their tents. Frowning and wondering if maybe the centaurs were back, he crossed around the edge of the pens to look.

Curled up in a small ball in the branch of a big old oak was Harry. Wrapped in a shabby but warm-looking hooded cloak, his face turned away from Charlie facing the dragons, was Harry. He rounded the tree to glance at Harry's face; it was half-covered by the hood.

Harry seemed both healthier now that over the summer but also not

While he's clearly gain some much-needed weight, he was still skinny and had huge exhausted bags under his eyes. Something about the way Harry held himself screamed 'stay away ', and it looked as if the boy carried the whole world on his shoulders, even curled up in the tree as he was. Charlie wanted to hug him tight and wrap him in a blanket with a hot cup of tea.

Instead, he glanced up at the glassy-eyed boy and said softly, "Hey Harry, good to see you again."

Harry jerked, was caught by the sticking charm and jabbed his wand in the direction of his attacker.

"Charlie!" He whisper yelled

"Sorry," Charlie murmured, putting a hand on Harrys back to steady him, his wide-eyed at the wand Harry suddenly had in his face, "I didn't mean to startle you."

Harry shifted on the branch, received the sticking charm. Harry rubbed his eyes and straightened his coat, it was still wonderfully warm.

"How are you Harry," Charlie said

"Fine," Harry said blankly he didn't feel much of anything this morning.

"I hope you're fine after this lot," he said grimly, "I didn't dare tell mum, she'd be having kittens already after that article-"

Harry scowled as he cut Charlie off sharply, "its all rubbish, she shouldn't believe it!"

Charlie nodded and said, "I know it was mostly rubbish, but I'll let her know Harry. You sure you're okay?"

Harry nodded but got distracted by the dragons behind him again.

The Horntail was still breathing fire, sleepily onto her clutch crooning softly.