Speaking in Tongues – Chapter 1 – Celticas

Reading Time:
9 Minutes

Harry Potter stood in the very centre of the large tent. Outside he could hear the crowd roaring as Viktor Krum battled his dragon. Harry was next and all he wanted to do was run as hard and as fast as he could. But where would he run? If he ran he would lose his magic, which after the last three and a half years was starting to sound like an acceptable exchange for his life. But that would dump him back out in the muggle world which would get him sent back to the Dursley’s full time quick smart. He had to last until he was seventeen. If he could do that, he would be free. They couldn’t force him back to the Dursley’s or back to Hogwarts for another terror filled year.

A scream from the crowd pushed his already pumping adrenalin up into the stratosphere. Any second he would go out there alone with only his wand. Every other danger he had faced since starting at Hogwarts he had had Ron or Hermione by his side. Except this one. Ron hadn’t even stood by him before it. His brain spun as he considered whether he would have survived without them. Whether he would survive this without them.

A whistle split the air.

Any second Ludo Bagman’s unnaturally enhanced voice would call him out to face a fire-breathing, horn-tailed, giant flying reptile with nothing but his wits and hopefully a summoned broomstick.

“AND NOW!”  Bagman’s voice called.  “OUR FINAL CHAMPION, AGAINST THE

FEROCIOUS HUNGARIAN HORNTAIL! HAAA-RRY POTTE-RRRR!” His voice rolled out in the same way that that the American wrestling announcers talked on the television shows that Dudley loved to recreate with Harry as an unwilling participant.

Harry took a deep breath and stepped out into the bright sunlight. The dragon was all he could see. Its head was in line with the bottom of the stands that were at least a floor above the ground.

He drew his wand, ready to cast on the signal.

Bagman’s whistle blasted out again and startled the dragon. Her head swung around as she crouched even lower against her nest. Harry raised his wand and filled his lungs. Except it wasn’t a spell that burst forth. It was a shape that looked like a patronus, except he hadn’t cast anything and it wasn’t turning into his stag.

The apparition was much too small. About the same size as his snowy owl Hedwig, it launched forward even as the indistinct shape was still struggling to solidify. It touched down on the bare rock halfway between Harry and the crouched dragon. A sharply pointed reptilian head swung around with a forked tongue flicking out to scent the air. It was a tiny, almost see-through dragon.

The crowd was silent in the stands. Stunned at the appearance of a spirit animal when everyone knew Harry Potter was mundane. He was as stunned as any of them.

A whispering, hissing voice echoed in the silent.

“Greetings great mother.” The little dragon said to the big dragon. “My sentinel and I do not want to be here any more than you do. They twist us as they twist you. Sneaking a frozen egg into your clutch.” Keeping crouched low to the ground the little dragon inched forward, clearly putting itself in a submissive position to the Horntail. “Would you gift us with the frozen one so that we may all return to our dens?”

Harry felt like the whole world held its breath as the Horntail stretched her neck out to sniff at the spirit dragon. The world sighed when she huffed out a spark of fire in the little dragon’s direction before plucking the golden egg out of her nest. With a precise flick of her head, she sent it sailing through the air for Harry to easily catch.

Cradling the egg close to his egg, Harry wasn’t quite sure what to do. It had all happened so fast that everyone was staring at either him, the little dragon, or the big dragon. Or trying to stare at all three. The little dragon made it easier for them by launching themselves into the air and gliding over to Harry.

“Hello little one.” The dragon said. Harry knew they were only speaking to him. “I am sorry I could not be here earlier. There was a wall keeping me away.”

“That’s okay.” He whispered back. It would be better is there was no chance of anyone hearing him, but he didn’t know how to do that. He still wasn’t sure what was happening. “You’re here now right?” It was a rhetorical question.

“Yes.” The dragon answered anyway. Their tongue flicked out to taste his check before the little creature turned misty and floated back into him.

Harry staggered. The adrenalin he had been buzzing with disappeared from his system. An arm wrapped around his shoulders and guided him out of the stadium and into a second tent. He was so exhausted he couldn’t even see straight.

“Onto the bed Mr Potter.” Madam Pomfrey was apparently the one guiding him.

She had to help him drop onto the cot they were standing next to or he would have fallen. “Very good Mr Potter. Lay down for me now.” Harry was asleep before she had her wand in hand.

= + =

This was purgatory, Draco decided. Sitting on a knife’s edge waiting for Harry Bloody Potter to try and get himself killed. Again. Draco had to believe that the other boy’s luck would hold and the DRAGON wouldn’t fry the idiotic Gryffendore. Sitting in the midst of the other Slytherin fourth years he couldn’t let his nervousness show. As usual, he had to bury everything he felt as deep as he could. Though the nerves weren’t letting him bury it very deep.

This year was barely started and already he felt as if he had aged a hundred years. Each passing day became harder to keep up the apparent feud. The best he was managing this year was vague disinterest. Keeping up the antagonism was starting to hurt in ways he didn’t understand.

At the moment though, he was breathless watching Viktor Krum shoot spell after spell at a dragon who is was just getting angrier. Finally, a conjunctivitis spell landed just right and the Chinese Fireball reared back and roared, shooting flames 20 feet into the air. In the confusion, Krum darted forward and snatched up the golden egg and sprinted out of the line of fire.

For as elegant as the boy was on a broom, he looked frankly ridiculous on the ground and Draco could not understand why all of the girls were tittering after him. The crowd ‘ooh’ed in sympathy when the dragon stumbled forward and trampled half of her eggs. That was going to lose him a lot of points.

Draco wondered how they had gotten approval for the use of nesting mothers past the Ministry, there wasn’t a single species of dragon in the world that wasn’t endangered. Before he could think about it any further, a wave of unimaginable anxiety crashed through him followed by a spiral of loneliness. The feelings that were definitely not his own made him want to scream to try to release some of it. Only long years of his mother’s training kept him in his seat.

Sona appeared on his lap. The fluffy cat pushed her head against his chin, purring and honking at him in comfort. Both of his hands sunk into her thick fur. She had first appeared to him the morning he went to Diagon Alley to collect his first year supplies. The sound of her purrs and the pinprick of her claws as she made biscuits on his lap had woken him before the sun had risen.

She was tiny then. More fur than cat. Although she was still about 50% fur, even worse during winter. She had spent the day in his pocket, chatting to him about everything around them. The only time she had stopped was when they were in Madam Malkin’s being measured for his uniform. She had peeped out of his pocket with her sunshine eyes to stare at the tiny boy on the other stool.

It wasn’t until they had left that Draco realised he never got the boy’s name. He had been so nervous about meeting someone new that he completely forgot to introduce himself or get a name in return. The tiny kitten in his pocket let him know exactly how dumb he had been. Which was so unfair. She could have said something!

He had introduced the kitten to Mother that night when they finally had a moment alone. The moment she saw the animal she had quietly closed the door of his room and whispered urgently at him to hide it.

The conversation that followed would always stay with him.

“Dragon, no one else can see her. She is your spirit, your soul.” She twitched the blankets lying over his legs until they were perfectly straight, a nervous habit that he also had.

He had followed her warning religiously. No one other than his mother had ever seen Sona. The manul, as he had learnt the cat was mid-first year, knew to only appear in her spirit form when others were around. He suspected that Blaise, whom he had shared a room in since first year, knew something was going on. Although what the other boy thought it was Draco had no clue.

Bagman’s overenthusiastic announcement of Potter’s name drew Draco back to the present. The Chinese Fireball had been replaced by a truly massive Hungarian Horntail. The vicious creature was crouched low over her nest and eyeing everything around her with fear fueled hatred.

Potter was tiny compared to the Horntail. His dark hair blending in with the dark basalt landscape the Dragon Tamers had conjured for the Horntail. Draco watched, breath caught in his chest, as Potter ducked behind a boulder before he could be spotted and drew his wand.

A burst of pale blue magic flew out the end of the wand. As it shot forward it coalesced into a tiny spirit dragon. It was barely half the size of Sona. The manul had stopped her circuits of Draco’s lap to look down in astonishment with everyone else.

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was famously a mundane. His parents had been a strong Guide/Sentinel pair. Many believed they would have developed into an Alpha pairing if they had lived to see their second maturation. It was almost of unheard of for such a strong pair to produce a mundane child. Though Draco had heard whispers that many believed Potter had been driven dormant by the killing curse and Dumbledore was lying about the boy’s status to protect him from the scorn that being dormant brought.

The tiny dragon hissed at the giant. The sound reverberated around the arena. Draco recognised it, although he wasn’t sure from where. It appeared that the two dragons were having a conversation. Potter for his part was leaning out from the small protection that the boulder gave him and gaping at the reptiles. Each hiss was audible as the crowd was still sitting in stunned silence.

Draco’s hands were clenched in Sona’s fur so tightly that he could feel the wiry guide hairs cutting into his skin.

Eventually the Horntail turned away from the spirit dragon and threw the golden egg at the stunned Gryffindor. 

The crowd erupted. Some cheering for Potter, others calling him a cheat. The roar of sound was a wall that the judges had no hope of climbing, so instead gave in to the inevitable and threw their scores into the air even as Madam Pomfrey was leading the stumbling Boy-Who-Lived out of the stadium.

Draco knew he couldn’t stay amongst his Slytherin classmates who would undoubtedly spend the whole evening ridiculing Potter as a cheat and a show off. In the confusion, he slipped out of the stands and up to the castle. He was sure Potter would be taken to the Hospital Wing and he wanted to see if he could find out what was happening.