WARNING! WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS VERY FRAGMENTED AND WILL NEVER BE FINISHED! MANY SCENES ARE DODGY, EXPERIMENTAL, SORELY IN NEED OFSANITYFICATION AND FUCKED UP! INCOMPLETE ABANDONED FIC IS INCOMPLETE AND ABANDONED! CHOPPINESS AND MISSING SCENE BREAKS ABOUND! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

Hi all! Doghead13 here, and I'm afraid that this is not a notice of resumption of this fic, nor is it a finished artefact. That is unlikely to ever appear: the frenzy of inspiration in which the original was churned out has long since died.

Instead, this is the scratch file for the fic: this is the fragmented, incomplete, needing plenty of revision and stuff like that, what exists beyond the original first part of the fic. I don't expect to ever finish this thing - other projects have grown to replace it on my priority list - but nevertheless, here it is.

It should give you a reasonable impression of where I wanted to go with this thing and what made it a Shadowrun cross. The stumbling block that killed it relates to the way one of the big sources of inspiration was Calvin and Hobbes: maintaining the essential 'Calvin-ness' while having his character grow and mature was like trying to... well, it just wasn't happening and that's about all I have to say about that.

To Su Doh Nimh: if you want to use, abuse, spin, fold, mangle, or reject as 'Nah, I've got a better idea' any component of this, go right ahead. I've thoroughly enjoyed what you've put together so far, and this file is posted largely for your benefit.

Stay awesome, all.

- Doghead13, 26/07/2016.

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The inside of the train was, Hermione mused as she seated herself, just as old-fashioned as it's exterior.

It was quite unlike the modern trains she'd travelled on a few times (mostly on school trips,) unlike the open insides with rows of pairs of seats down each side, it had a corridor along one side and little six-seat compartments all along. Everything was spotlessly clean polished wood and metal instead of grubby plastic, the window had little slide-down panels at the top, and there was an angled grille along the side of the compartment below the window through which she could feel warmth – it was startlingly unlike B.R.

(Then again, unbeknown to Hermione, it was also startlingly -like- B.R., if one were to travel back to the B.R of the 1950s.)

She, Harry and Suze had seated themselves in the first empty compartment they came to, Suze having walk at a stoop and duck under doorframes to get there; the front of the train seemed to be occupied entirely by a lot older kids, probably in their last year or so at Hogwarts, with the kids getting younger as you went back.

As Harry, fed up by her struggling, humped her school trunk onto the overhead luggage rack – all made out of old-fashioned-looking shiny steel – she heard someone slamming a door just back a bit down the train; a man in a smart uniform walked past on the platform.

"Heya!" said a cheerful boy's voice. "Everything else is full, mind if I sit here?"

"Sure, c'mon in." Harry said.

Stopping peering after the guard, Hermione looked at the new occupant of the room; a red-haired boy about her age, dressed in a rather threadbare check shirt, baggy corduroy jacket and patched-kneed denim jeans, dragging a trunk.

"Thanks," the boy said, humping his trunk up onto the rack with startling ease, "I'm Ron, Ron Weasley."

""I'm Harry," Harry said, immediately and obviously enthusiastic, "This is Hermione and this is Suze, she's with me."

"Hi." Hermione said.

"Well met." Suza said. She, being the wrong shape for the seats, had settled herself in the middle of the floor.

"Wow," the ginger boy mused, scratching his head once he'd flopped into a seat, "I guess they weren't joking when they said centaurs were okay, I thought it was the twins playing silly buggers."

"Well actually that's coz of me, I said I weren't gonna go if Suze couldn't come-with and Mr Dumbledore said he couldn't be having with that so, well, Mr Flitwick says he twisted some arms but that doesn't sound like something Mr Dumbledore would do so I guess it's gotta be one of those saying thingies and anyway that's why they added centaurs to the list, I mean Mrs McGonagall says there's more allowed than what's written down, she says rats and hamsters and stuff are okay too and she says one kid once was allowed to have a chicken but they added centaurs so there weren't gonna be no arguments."

"Yeah, I sorta know that," Ron said, producing a decidedly mangy half-bald old rodent that had been in his pocket, "Because Scabbers wasn't against the rules or nothing when Percy had him."

"Huh, that's weird." Harry said. "Hey, is that some sorta magic rat or something? It's just it don't smell completely of rat."

"I don't think so." Ron said, giving the rat a glum look before stuffing it back in his pocket. "All he does is eat, sleep and, you know, widdle."

"Oh." Harry said, scratching his head. "I guess it picked up your-pocket smell."

"I had a bath this morning and my clothes came right out the washing." Ron sounded a bit defensive about that.

"Aw, that wasn't what I meant." Harry told him, waving it off. "You had bacon and eggs for breakfast, didn't you? And I think pork sausage."

"Well yeah, how'd you figure that out?" Ron asked, dubiously checking the front of his shirt.

"Because I got a really really good nose," Harry said, scratching his head, "I can smell the last few things someone ate for a few hours after they ate it and everything smells of something, like you smell like person who had fried grub for breakfast and Hermione smells like person who uses lemon-scented soap for their washing and Suze smells of person and horse and gun smoke and that special wax you use on a composite bow and this carriage smells like linseed oil and warm wood and the engine smells like axle grease and coal smoke and hot metal and the air round here smells like exhaust pipe and dead pigeon and I guess I smell like a Harry what slept in and didn't have time for a bath this morning."

"... oh." Ron said. "Huh, that's gotta be pretty awesome."

"Yeah, sometimes it's real good, like when you're on the moors and you can smell all the plants and where there's rabbits and deer and sheep and stuff thought the deer poo kinda pongs and then there's when the wind's coming off the sea and you can smell the salt and seaweed and maybe a bit of engine from fishing boats or the trains. Mallaig's nice, it all sorta smells of kipper and fishing boats when there ain't too many tourists around but the seagull poo can get a bit much. London stinks though, I think it's because there's way too many people what ain't washed and all them exhaust pipes and jet planes and someone else's rotten kebab in the gutter and all that chewing gum and dog poo and things what died and went manky and all them stinky pigeons,"

"Harry, you're blathering again." Suze pointed out as the overexcited boy paused for breath.

Harry stopped halfway through opening his mouth, considered that for a moment, looked highly embarrassed, drew several deep breaths, and sat back down, causing Hermione to realise she couldn't remember at what point in the prior burbling he'd stood up and started trying to pace around the somewhat crowded-by-centaur compartment.

"... sorry." he said. "I, uh, kinda tend to blather when I get worked up about stuff."

"... I'd noticed." Hermione said.

"Er, yeah." Ron mused, scratching his head. "Hey, what Houses d'you reckon you'll be in?"

"I'm hoping for House Gryffindor!" Hermione declared. "I read all about the Houses of Hogwarts in 'Hogwarts: A History' and it sounds best!"

"Well, my friend Mr Snape says there aren't any good houses really," Harry said, frowning, "I mean, he says Gryffindors are mostly blood-crazed dolts who don't know how to identify a fight they can't win, and Hufflepuffs are mostly halfwitted dunderheads who likely don't know how to tie their own shoelaces, and Slytherins are mostly degenerate sophisticates who can't get over some pre-Atlantean foolishness about bloodlines, and Ravenclaws are mostly ivory-tower intellectual snobs who can't tell the difference between theory and practise, but Mr Snape's kinda sarcastic like that."

"... Oh." Hermione said, her initial impressions crashing and burning.

"Well just so long as I don't end up in Slytherin I'll be okay," Ron chirped up, "Mum says there ain't a wizard who went bad didn't come from Slytherin and they're all slimy gits. And everyone knows Gryffindor is best because they're all heroes like Dumbledore and Harry Potter."

Harry looked at him for a moment, the started reeling off a long list of names beginning with 'Roderick of Fife' and ending up with 'Sirius Black'.

"... huh?" Ron asked.

"Well, those are all the Gryffindors what were into dark artity stuff and murdering I can think of," Harry said, once again scratching his head, "And, y'know, Mr Dumbledore were in Slytherin, and Harry Potter ain't been sorted yet so who knows where he's gonna be, so I guess your mum's either dumb or makin' stuff up, and makin' that sort of stuff up is, yeah, pretty dumb – I mean, there's already a billion and one stupid reasons to look down on people so why make up another one because of what a hat said to 'em?"

"... uh." Ron said. "... what? HEY! Mum's not dumb! You take that back!"

"Well in that case she's makin' stuff up and that's dumb," Harry stated, crossing his arms and glaring through his fringe at Ron, "And people who do dumb stuff are normally dumb, and dumb people are annoying."

With an aggravated cry of, "I don't have to listen to this rubbish!" the ginger one beat a hasty retreat, very nearly stepping on Suze's tail as he went.

"Yup," Harry said, with a faintly aggravated shake of his head, "Dumb."

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Disclaimer: Unable to publish disclaimer.

There is a dragon in the way.

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Enter the Dragon.

A Doghead13 fanfic

Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.

Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.

Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH

This is not a drill.

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Chapter 2: Educating the Dragon.

(In which our outsize reptile has quite the excitable first year.)

"That was kinda rude, Harry." Hermione said.

"Mr Snape says being rude to people who're rude to you is perfectly fair play so long as they're not goblins or teachers because being impolite to goblins is bad for your financial status and being impolite to teachers is bad for your academic performance." Harry said with a shrug. "And I don't like people assuming dumb stuff about me, it takes loads more than just not being dead to be hero-y, if you ain't never had a rank on your name you ain't a hero unless you've gotten something like Vee See on your name."

"Vee See... rank... wait, what, you mean you're THAT Harry Potter? That's what that weird Ollivander man meant about wands and scars! You mean your wand is a carbon-copy of You-Know-Who's wand!"

"Well if you mean the one that Mouldy-whatsisface galoot bounced a spell off the face of then yeah, that's me, and yeah, I guess that's what Mr Dumbledore's friend Mr Ollivander meant, and yeah, apparently Mouldy-whatisface's wand had a feather in out off the bum of the same phoenix as my wand's in-it feather came from and that phoenix is Mr Dumbledore's friend Fawkes who I don't know proper yet and I'm not sure if that's important yet. But, y'know, the only way I'm sure I was there when that Mouldy-whatsisface went squish is because Mr Hagrid – he's really cool, you'll like him – says so and he's real bad at lies and he found me in what was left of Mum and Dad's house and there was a squished Mouldy-whatsisface all over my bedroom and I had blood all over my head and my mum was dead on the floor but I don't remember any of that stuff so I can't really say what happened and how'd people know he bounced a Killity Curse thingy off my face anyway, I mean me and Mouldy-whatsisface were the only not-dead people there until Mouldy-whatsisface splatted so how'd they work that stuff out, for all I know my mum coulda jumped in the way and killed him back, I mean sometimes when I usta get bad dreams I'd see this sorta green light coming for me and this really crazy voice laughing and I can't remember anything else and there weren't anyone else there so it's kinda weird that everyone assumes that Mouldy-whatsisface creep bounced a Killity Curse thingy off me."

"Harry, blathering."

"... aw drat."

Announced by the brisk twin-tone 'Ba-Dip'(1) of it's horn, a diesel-engined freight train swept past in the opposite direction – first the heavy agricultural-tractor roar of the locomotive, then the slam-slam-slam of air being buffeted between wagons and carriages – causing the entire Hogwarts Express to shake and rather nicely punctuating their conversation.

"You know, it says how they worked out what happened in 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'," Hermione said, "It says that they used a Prior Incantum on You-Know-Who's wand and it came up as the Killing Curse having been cast as the three most recent spells, and it also says that the Killing Curse leaves a distinctive trace of dark magic on the victim, and you had that trace."

"Yeah I know, but that Killity Curse thing leaves that stain stuff on everything around it when it goes off to the point that it'd be enough for my mum to get hit with it to leave it on me and anyway all the spells outta that Mouldy-whatsisface guy's wand for as far back as that Prior Incantum thingy can go – and Mr Flitwick says that's seven because of something arithmantic I really ain't got my head round – were Killity Curses and if it's more than one you can't tell how many Killity Curses have gone off someplace because they all sorta smear together. And anyway, don't believe stuff you read outta 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' too quick, it says stupid stuff what ain't real about me," He scratched his head, "I mean, I know that's what the government says happened, but governments are governments. Being stupid is what governments are there for."

"You should respect the government!"

"Respect Maggie Thatcher? Ain't you never heard of miners' riots an' poll tax?"

"... oh. Yeah, I guess..."

"See? Governments are just governments, they weren't there and they don't know what's going on and most of the time the people running them are the sort of people who want to run a government because they get an erection when they boot people around, at least Mr Snape says so and I guess he'd know even though I still ain't sure what that means and nobody'll explain because they say I ain't old enough if I don't already know, which is real dumb because how're you gonna know stuff if there ain't nobody's explained it? And, y'know, they say that Mouldy-whatsisface guy's wand was in it's holster when they found it so whatever happened I'm pretty sure he wasn't pointing it at me and I'm not sure if they checked it out enough since it got nicked like two days after they found it and nobody ever saw it again, if I ever work out who's got it I'm gonna nick it back because I reckon any weapon someone tried to slay me with is worth keeping."

Hermione stared blankly at him.

"... Harry, what do you think happened?"

"Well I dunno, do I? I mean whatever happened it left that dark magic stuff all over the place, left a bleeding bit in my face shaped like a lightning bolt, made my mum dead, blew the wall off my room, and made that Mouldy-whatsisface guy go splat, and that's about all I'm sure about. I know I didn't do nothing, what'd a little kid do if he's got a Mouldy-whatsisface screaming 'I'm gonna make you a dead little kid' in his face? I mean I don't think that Mouldy-whatsisface guy did extra stuff to make himself go splat because, what kind of rampaging dunderhead makes himself go splat on purpose? So I guess Mum did something but I dunno what and all the books I could find came up with all sorts of implausible ideas for how it could be something special about my face. I mean, okay, my face is obviously special since it's my face but not in the making Mouldy-whastisnames go splat when they Killity Curse kind of special."

"It's pronounced 'Voldemort', Harry."

"I know that, but people seem to go twitch when someone says 'Voldemort' and they do that trying-not-to-laugh snort when I say 'Mouldy-whatsisface' and I don't much like making people go twitch and I'm not gonna say 'you-know-who' because how am I gonna be sure if the person I'm talking to knows who? What if there ain't nobody's ever told 'em? And besides, someone who couldn't even Killity Curse a little kid proper is obviously a complete waste of skin and don't deserve respect so I'm gonna keep calling that popinjay something that makes people laugh."

"He scared a lot of people really badly, Harry."

"Hermione, I'm gonna let you in on a big secret, most people are stupid and I mean so stupid I'm surprised they don't need a map to wipe their bums. People who're scared of a twit who couldn't properly Killity Curse a little kid are obviously imbeciles because that twit couldn't properly Killity Curse a little kid and who's gonna be scared of someone who goes splat when they try to Killity Curse a little kid?"

"... I thought you said he didn't try to hit you with the Killing Curse?"

"Well I dunno!" Harry complained, frustratedly throwing his arms up in the air, "I mean everyone seems to think so and I don't remember that stuff, I mean all I'm saying is maybe it wasn't that Killity Curse thingy but people thinking it was is probably a good thing since it maybe means less people are just gonna poo their pants and fall over when someone yells Arabia Carnival!"

"That's 'Avada Kedavara', Harry." Hermione said, pretty certain she'd got the pronunciation right – she'd read it in 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'.

"And I know that too, Arabia Carnival is me pulling legs and making people snigger same as when I say Mouldy-whatsisface, it's because not being scared of stuff is the first part of working out how you're gonna go stomp all over the stuff you're not letting scare you," Harry declared, still immensely frustrated, "And, hey, if I'm wrong and that Mouldy-whatsisface guy did bounce Killity Curses off my face that means Killity Curses bounce off my face so I don't gotta be scared of 'em anyway, and if I'm right and it was something even weirder and scarier than Killity Curses that bounced off my face that means stuff that makes Killity Curses look like tickling hexes bounces off my face so I don't gotta be scared of Killity Curses anyway because my head is far too awesome for that."

Here Hermione momentarily wondered whether the right term was 'overinflated', then chided herself for being unnecessarily mean.

"So," Harry continued rabbiting on, "Whichever way it is I'm gonna be okay so long as I don't get cocky because Sergeant-Major Hooktalon says getting cocky is a good way to get dead and I don't wanna get dead but then I guess the only people who do got it even worse than I did before, uh, before that whole thing with standity-stone thingies going all glowy and stuff, and I'm glad I've never been onea 'em because Sergeant-Major Hooktalon says suicide is a cowards way out and I ain't no coward!"

"Harry, blathering." Suze remarked.

"... drat."

"What was that you were saying about 'vee see' and ranks earlier?" Hermione asked, deciding she wanted the subject changed until she'd had time for some research about the prior one.

"What, the stuff it takes to be heroes, right?" Harry checked. He was now walking a knut coin back and forth across his knuckles.

"Yeah, that."

"Well I was talkin' soldiers and stuff," Harry said, flicking the coin up in the air then catching it before it could fall on the floor, "I've been reading a lot of stuff about wars and history and stuff lately and I'm pretty sure hero-ing is part of being a soldier especially if they've gotten medals and stuff, well, unless they're Nazis or Soviets or some-such. All the history books are way clearer about that than any of the stuff I've managed to find about dragons, that stuff's kinda hard to work out and everyone seems to get bits wrong." He was now balancing the coin on the end of one finger; the train proceeded to dislodge it by hitting a bumpy section of track.

Hermione considered that while Harry was recovering his coin. "I don't know, Harry. I mean, all that killing and, you know, bombs... it just can't be good."

"Well that's all well and good when you ain't got this great big enormous giant spider or something charging down on you and wanting to eat your face," Harry said with a shrug, "Then if you ain't as awesome as me you're gonna be real glad if you've got a well-tuned Ess Em Ell Ee or an Ess Ell Arr or something else what's good at making holes in stuff. Or what if some barking mad little guy with a stupid moustache went I'm gonna invade Poland and you're next?" (1) He held the bronze coin up at eye level and contemplated it for a long moment, "Then, well, either you gotta really do for anything that tries to get you or you're gonna get proper squished," There was a loud wrenching sound as he crushed the coin between his fingers, "Like that."

"It would be nice if we lived in a world where bad things only happened to bad people," Suze chirped up, giving Hermione an intense side-on look, "But we do not. The acromantulas have treated my kin as prey, as a tasty delicacy, for longer than I have been alive; are you saying that we should allow them to devour us because they are thinking beings? Do not try to tell me we should attempt to talk to them; that attempt was made in a time when I was but a pleasant thought in Father's head and it is quite difficult to talk reason into any being that simply will not listen."

"Weren't my centaur friends started the fire and it weren't me neither," Harry said, flicking the mangled coin onto the floor, "But I'm sure gonna fight it 'coz there ain't nobody messes with my friends. There's this real good saying Master-Sergeant Griphook told me a while back; 'let he who would have peace prepare for war'. I reckon it makes sense 'coz if you're ready for all sorts of bad stuff to happen then if it does happen it's way likelier you and your friends are gonna still be alive when it's all over."

"... I guess." Hermione muttered.

"That's what soldiers are for, Hermione," Harry solemnly told her, "That's what they do, it's their job to save the world."

Hermione paused, digesting that, then frowned and picked what was left of the coin up.

It was crushed to the point of looking like a small piece of Playdoh someone had squeezed in their fist.

"... how strong are you, Harry?" she asked.

"Way stronger'n I look." Harry said.

"He can pick me up without strain." Suze helpfully added, fondly ruffling Harry's great mop of scruffy black hair.

Looking from pint-sized boy to sizeable centaur and back, Hermione found that somewhat hard to believe, so she said so;

"I find that somewhat hard to believe."

Harry shrugged, not at all put out, while Suze stifled a snort and wryly shook her head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, slightly put out.

"I apologise, it is merely that Harry seems to have that effect on people. The legend and the reality are so widely separated that few know how to respond."

"... Oh." Hermione said, and they lapsed into silence for a while, Harry playing with another coin and Hermione distractedly contemplating everything she'd just heard.

"... Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah Hermione?"

"What was that you said about something a hat says to someone?"

"Well," Harry said, "It's supposed to be a big secret because someone ages back thought keeping everyone guessing was funny, but how first-years are sorted is they get a magic hat called Donald sat on their head and he looks in their brains and has a talk to them in their heads and figures out what house they're gonna be in, I tried to get him to tell me how he works that stuff out but he just laughed and said he'll tell me if I ever need to know."

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It was nearing the last light of day when 45401 came pounding her way down the glen towards Hogsmeade station, the beat of her exhaust hammering off mountains and echoing across the moors, the elderly carriages of the Hogwarts Express briskly clattering across the well-beaten metals of the West Highland Line behind her as Jim Coates closed her regulator and eased her brakes on; steam hissed from glands as she drew to a stately halt in the branch station that marked the sole ingress of the so-called 'muggle world' into the village of Hogsmeade across the loch from Hogwarts, and she sat, simmering, as her passengers poured from the coaches.

She was a notorious locomotive amongst the railway enthusiasts of Britain; her Midland Railway-style livery had drawn a lot of critical remark, but her owners (an oddly hard-to-contact conglomerate known as Hogs Haulage PLC) had so far proved unavailable for comment, and had failed to return her to her proper livery despite myriad scathing letters from fans and old hands of the London Midland and Scottish.

Her haunts were hard to pin down too. A lot of enthusiasts had tried to find a way to book a ride on the daily workings undertaken by Hogs Haulage from the far north-west to London and back without success; whatever the run they hauled those train for it was decidedly private indeed, as was the exact location their locomotives were stabled and just why their owners had seen fit to paint them in such an unprototypical (3) livery.

Tut, tut!

At least 45401 (and her stablemates) had been saved from the cutter's torch. The number of fine old locomotives that had dwindled to nothing in the scrap-lines was all too numerous; for every loco that reached preservation, dozens had been met with the ignominious fate of being cut up for scrap.

Some had been less than twenty years old when they were withdrawn – a terrible waste of a perfectly good locomotive.

Most of the people who kept a weather eye out for the Hogs Haulage trains would have been quite scathing and disbelieving if told what the purpose of their trips was – but not all. One tiny handful knew what those trains stood for.

And the majority of that handful could use magic.

To the vast majority of her passengers, 45401 was beneath notice; just the engine that had hauled the Hogwarts Express today, nothing special.

To the few, she was a slice of history in carefully-preserved steel and, in her time, she'd transported her fair share of fellow slices of history; the Boy-Who-Lived was merely the latest on that list.

Thirty feet from her smokebox and completely oblivious to the significance of the simmering sixty-some year old locomotive, Rubeus Hagrid was busy bellowing, "Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" at the top of his lungs.

To him, she was just a big old lump of red-and-black metal.

Her crew were already checking her over in preparation to return her to her place in the Hogsmeade motive power depot as the first year students boarded the boats at the nearby jetty; Mac unfastening her couplers as Jim went round seeing that the guard, Ivor McIver, had the coaches prepared for the shunter – an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 saddle tank, formerly property of a Speyside distillery – to haul them back to the carriage sheds for cleaning and for the Hogwarts house elves to transport the children's luggage up to the castle. The children always made a heck of a mess in the train; the small contingent of Hogs Haulage house elves always tut-tutted about the drifts of sweetie wrappers, soft drinks bottles, used chewing gum, and other such detritus.

By the time Hagrid was calling for the first years to mind their heads as they passed under the low entryway to the tunnel that led to the Hogwarts castle docks – more normally used to transport the food those students would eat – Jim was backing 45401 past the coaches, towards the points that led to the turntable and engine shed; as the students filed into the Great Hall, they were seeing that their drake-dog was fed and settled in the kennels, and by the time the Sorting began they were leaving the shed on their way down to the Hogs Head Inn and a well-earned pint of Honest Abe's Old Peculiar.

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Out of all the first-year students, only one knew exactly what to expect, that one being Harry Potter who was, being Harry, far too enormously excited to remain coherent at this point; Hermione found herself wanting to put her hands on his head to stop him bouncing as they listened to the scruffy old magical hat he'd earlier claimed was named Donald singing some sort of vaguely bawdy doggerel. It was all very impressive but having an outrageously strong and hyperactive small boy fidgeting, giggling and pointing things out beside you made for a bit of an unneeded distraction.

The sorting proceeded alphabetically by surname, and Harry amused himself by spotting kids he recognised as their turns came up, marking each with a cry of 'I know him/her'; first in that category was that odd girl Hannah Abbot he'd met in Diagon Alley one time and then her friend Susan Bones, both of them ending up in Hufflepuff, then Hermione ended up in Gryffindor which was pretty good since that was what she'd said she wanted to do, then that mad kid Draco whatsisname who'd nearly gotten his head sat on for being dumb the time they'd run into each other in Hogsmeade went to Slytherin which Mr Snape probably wasn't going to be very happy about, and then Mrs McGonagall said "Potter, Harry." and Harry came happily bouncing over to the hot seat enjoying his audience and the bated breath all over the room. Maybe he didn't look like a dragon right now but he was a dragon and dragons are supposed to be impressive and that means he needed all the awe he could get.

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'Ah, hello again Harry, it isn't often I get to talk to someone more than once. Doing okay there, sonny?'

'Yeah Mr Donald, I'm doing good.'

'Glad to hear it. Hmm, so where shall I put you then?'

'Well, I dunno really, I mean, Mr Snape says there aren't any good houses really and I guess I'm not really bothered since it isn't a part of where I'll be living but I guess you already know that I mean Mrs McGonagall says you can see everything in someone's head when they're wearing you, huh?'

'Aha, no preference, now that's a fun challenge right there! Hmm, I confess I'd half expected Gryffindor or Slytherin, but neither would suit you at all. You'd do quite well in Ravenclaw but I think you'd lose patience with their cliques before long... aHA! I know just the place for you, sonny;'

The next part was bellowed out loud:

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

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Up at the staff table, Snape looked faintly surprised and muttered, "Blasted reptile."

Then he stifled a chuckle as he saw the pole-axed looks on the collective faces of House Gryffindor, the startled looks on the collective faces of House Ravenclaw, the quietly-discussing-what-this-meant looks on the collective faces of House Slytherin, and the way House Hufflepuff were collectively yelling and applauding.

It seemed that Harry had, as they'd expected, put a cat among the pigeons from the word go.

-/-/-/-/-/-

After the uproar related to a certain boy-who-didn't-snuff-it becoming a Puff, the sorting proceeded apace; it was followed by a brief bit of buffoonery from Dumbledore that led into the arrival feast, whereupon Harry once again gobsmacked everyone in the room by seeming to inhale what amounted to an entire roast cow while enthusiastically chattering away at about a mile a minute at the surrounding swarm of Puffs; this he counted as a great success as he gave the girls he'd ended up sat between (Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot) giggle fits and managed to get the older boy opposite them (who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory) to snort so hard his pumpkin juice came out of his nose.

Once everyone's appetite was sated (aside of course from Harry, who regarded just one cow as a light appetizer and intended to eat enough to feel full when he got back to his lair) Dumbledore made a few announcements about a new member of staff and some rule changes, in particular the bit about the Forbidden Forest;

"The Forbidden Forest is as the name suggests strictly off limits to anyone not accompanied by a member of staff or a registered resident of the Forest. And last but quite definitely not least, there is a hallway on the third floor that is likewise strictly off limits as it contains a certain death for any who venture therein. It is marked, and locked in a way that will require considerable deliberate effort for any student to unlock; I trust that nobody will make the attempt as it would be quite remarkably foolish."

Harry frowned for a moment. Out of everyone in the student body, he alone had a rough idea what was going on with that; a few days before, a fist-sized package had arrived by armoured carrier under the guard of four squads of armed-to-the-teeth goblins led by Hooktalon, they'd even brought rocket launchers, and had been handed over to the Hogwarts staff. A full squad of said goblins were now camped out in that passageway, which had been heavily fortified complete with rocket launchers; they'd been instructed to scare off any students, and warn off or if they pushed it machine-gun or rocket any non-students who weren't Dumbledore, Hooktalon, Slackhammer, or someone called Nick Flamel. Harry knew this as one of the goblins standing guard down there was Master-Sergeant Griphook, who'd explained he'd be unable to attend Harry's marksmanship lessons until the mission was completed, and had sworn the young dragon to secrecy on the subject.

"Now then, it's time for us all to get some sleep." Dumbledore declared, rising to his feet. "We've a big day in the morning."

Prefects went round calling the attention of their houses' first year students, leading each house to depart the Great Hall in a disorderly mob.

Once everyone had been directed to their House common rooms, those few first-year students not residing at the castle were shown how to get to the way out; in the Hufflepuff case, this meant Harry and a boy named Zack Smith who lived down in Hogsmeade – and that was about that.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Would anybody," Dumbledore asked, "Care for a lemon drop?"

He and the teaching staff were now in his office and about to begin the final pre-term meeting; everyone of course refused the offer of a lemon drop. Most of those present had accepted a lemon drop, once; none had ever accepted a second lemon drop, the things were just about acrid enough to etch glass, suiting only Dumbledore's overly resilient palate.

With that formality out of the way they had one very important thing to resolve that evening;

"Now we must organise class schedules." Dumbledore continued, and there was a round of groaning – not one of the teachers enjoyed that particular task, thus their habit of putting it off until the absolute last second.

But they all had to admit, it had to be done in time for the students to receive their timetables at breakfast in the morning, and that meant that now was the only time they had left.

So the arguments began. Throughout, there was one distinct peculiarity;

"Severus, Minerva, Fillius, are you all quite sure about having students from all four houses as single classes?" Dumbledore asked, once the not-in-the-know members of staff had departed.

Snape grimaced. "No, Albus, I am not; I predict pandemonium. However, our experiments require more time than otherwise available, so..."

"Aye. We're this far," and McGonagall measured half an inch with her forefinger and thumb, "From finally working out what exactly Harry managed to do to himself at Avebury, and myself I'm beginning to believe that the sooner we make those final connections the better for us all."

"The magical energy, the 'current' if you like," Flitwick said, "That ran through Mr Potter's body in that moment at Avebury... Albus, the only way in which his transformation could possibly have occurred is if more magic flowed through his body in that second than flows through Hogwarts in a century!"

"It was quite seriously that intense?" Sinestra asked.

"Quite so." Flitwick confirmed. "Aurora, it has proven quite impossible to detect Mr Potter's aura from a range less than fifteen miles for a reason similar to the way one cannot see all of Hogwarts from the front row of Severus's classroom."

"Fifteen miles?" Sinestra boggled. "But, but, but Albus's aura only covers a region a hundred yards across!"

"Precisely." Snape chirped up. "That reptile's aura contains more magic than those of every other living thing in Britain – combined. It is at its core intense enough to alter the laws of nature within his body; how else do you suppose a being weighing more than ten tons yet the size of a young adult Hungarian Horntail is able to fly as easily as a seagull?"

"And I hate to repeat myself, but the laddie's transformation couldn't have happened without a magical charge greater by a few orders of magnitude than any recorded since the anomalous excursions of 1883." McGonagall put in.

"Whatever happened that evening in Avebury," Flitwick took over, "It seems to have involved enough magical energy that, if channelled through a single Reducto, it would have obliterated everything within a hundred and twenty-five miles, bedrock included, in a blast that would make the mightiest of volcanoes seem like a tickling hex – and you all know how inefficient such a rudimentary blasting curse is."

"I see." Dumbledore said. "Yes; uncovering the facts is indeed of the utmost importance. Minerva, Severus, Fillius, if you require any assistance in your research or your teaching, don't hesitate to ask." The old man directed a grim look around the office. "All of you, whatever support you might give them, do not hesitate. The survival of all life in this world, not merely of magical life, might conceivably be in the balance."

There was a round of solemn nodding, and thus it was decided.

-/-/-/-/-/-

Sitting upon Suze's back as she jogged down to the castle, (Yes, jogged. Centaurs most definitely do not trot, canter, or gallop, and take grave exception to any contradictory claims) Harry found himself in a state of high excitement once more.

Yesterday had been interesting, even though him taking the train to Hogwarts had, when it came down to it, been silly; but that wasn't a big deal, like a lot of things that were silly it had been fun and anyway he now reckoned trains were pretty cool; he'd long wished he had a train set and riding a proper steam train, with chuffs and everything, had made that desire crystallise.

Anyway today there'd be classes, and Harry was really looking forwards to them. Over the years since he'd left Privet Drive (which now seemed like some sort of an unpleasant dream) his friends from the Hogwarts staff had got him caught up to what most Wizarding-raised students would have learned prior to Hogwarts in matters practical; on theory he was far ahead of his peers, but he wasn't sure how that would hold up in practise and was really looking forwards to finding out.

Waving a cheerful greeting to a small patrol of centaur warriors, they exited the edge of the Forest; another wave to Hagrid, who was dunging out the thestrals' stables as they headed up the lawn, and Harry leaped lightly down from Suze's back as they arrived in the courtyard where Mr Filch was sweeping up assorted litter that'd made it's way in – mostly leaves and the likes from the windy night they'd had, a few sweetie wrappers left by the arriving students, that sort of thing.

Mr Filch was a real sourpuss, but Harry didn't mind. Mr Snape had explained Filch's status as a squib, and how that made life difficult for the small man, so Harry reckoned it made sense that Mr Filch was kinda grumpy; he said a cheerful good morning, disregarded the way Filch grumped, and headed into the castle, catching up with a couple of other non-boarding students, most of whom got suitably gobsmacked by having a centaur loom over them.

(Centaurs could do a lot of looming. Fully upright, even a petite and slightly-built centaur like Suze could look Hagrid straight in the eye. For her part, Suze was in the process of contemplating just how small humans looked from her angle.)

He'd already eaten a good deal of breakfast, so what he had at the school meal was just a top-up despite being enough to make Ron Weasley feel a little inadequate; the important bit was getting his class timetable, and he was absolutely delighted to find that the very first subject of the year was Potions with Professor Snape.

"I've heard this Snape bloke's a right arse." Zack Smith said, dubiously contemplating the timetable.

"He used to be pretty difficult to deal with but he's got a lot better over the last couple of years." one of the upper-year students – a lanky girl with shaggy bubblegum-pink hair – remarked, looking up from her breakfast.

"Well the important thing with knowing Mr Snape is being able to tell when he's actually angry and when he's growling because he likes growling." Harry said. "You can tell when he really is angry because he goes even whiter and you can't see he's got lips any more, and he stops using complicated insults and starts shouting."

"... you know him?" another upper-year student, to whom Harry hadn't yet been introduced, asked.

"Yeah, he's onea my business partners and we get on pretty good." Harry said, nodding firmly.

"Must admit I hadn't realised he actually liked anyone." the boy who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory mused.

"If Mr Snape doesn't like someone, they really know about it." Harry explained, shrugging. "And if he calls something 'acceptable' or 'tolerable' that's him saying he likes it."

"... I thought he hated my guts." the pink-haired girl said, startled.

"Huh?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Tonks." she said. "And-"

"You're the Tonks who gets worked up about her first name, right?" Harry butted in, "Cuz he said something about you right about when last school year would've been ending, we were talking about how to tell the difference between properly-made and badly-made-but-works potions and he used some of yours as examples of how it oughtta be done, he said something about them being good enough to sell and, well, he's real particular about what he will and won't sell – I asked and he said that any customer with the sense to approach a master-craftsman deserves the absolute finest quality regardless of product."

"... huh."

Harry shrugged.

"Toldja it's hard to figure out what he's thinking."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Having spent a couple of minutes silently striding around the room, Snape stopped in front of the blackboard and whirled round to spend a moment thoughtfully contemplating the class.

"... I confess," he said, "That I am stymied. It is my tradition to, at this time, select the most prominent member of an incoming class of students and demonstrate how little he or she actually knows of the exacting and magnificent art of potions, but at this moment in time our most prominent incoming student is of course Mr Potter and I am aware that his knowledge of potions is acceptable."

He paused while everyone looked at Harry, who didn't know to get uncomfortable or anything; dragons like being admired.

"Thus, Mr Potter, for the next few minutes you will keep your eternally ravenous jaw firmly shut. Is that understood?"

Harry made an enthusiastic 'Uh-huh' noise that didn't involve opening his mouth.

"Good." Snape said. "Now then, might anyone among you – excepting, of course, Mr Potter – be aware of the precise reagent composition of Orihalcum?"

Silence. Well, apart from Harry nodding and grinning with his teeth firmly clenched together.

"Hmm, so none of you are up to date on recent alchemical discoveries... perhaps I should enlighten you. Orihalcum, also known as mage-iron or glass-steel, is a structured phlogistonic nitrate of aluminium, known to muggles as aluminium oxy-nitride. Now, who if anyone might be able to tell me where one might acquire a beozar?"

Hermione Granger's hand shot up.

"Well, young lady?" Snape growled.

"In the belly of a goat, Sir."

"Correct; perhaps there is some hope for you after all. That said, do not call me 'Sir'; I work for a living. The correct term of address is 'Professor Snape'. And might anybody – excepting Miss Granger – be aware of the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence replete with Harry rolling his eyes, and then a chubby dark-haired boy hesitantly raised a hand.

"Yes, Mr Longbottom?"

"Th-there's n-no difference; th-they're the same p-plant."

"Are you quite certain of that, Mr Longbottom? Wouldn't want to embarrass yourself your first day, would you?" There was some tittering from the Slytherin portion of the room, and Longbottom swallowed a couple time.

"I'm s-sure, P-Professor."

"Good; you are, as it so happens, quite correct." Snape swept a glower around the room. "You, you, you, and you! Three days detention each! I will not have cronyism or toadying within this chamber! The preparation of potions is an exacting art, and if you mess it up – which, from that unutterably gormless expression upon your fool faces, you most assuredly will – it can become quite decidedly hazardous! You will all be quiet! You will speak only when given permission! You will pay attention! You will be careful! You will follow instructions religiously! Because, if you fail to do so, you will likely blow yourself sky-high and I. Will. Make. Your. Life. Unutterably. Miserable. DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND ME?"

"Yes, Professor Snape." everyone chorused.

"We shall see. Oh, and by the way? Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom, five points each to House Gryffindor for actually possessing the intelligence to both await permission to answer and for actually possessing a little knowledge of matters alchemical. And Mr Potter, you may now cease to hold your mouth quite so rigidly closed."

He then proceeded to go into a five-minute rant about the preparation of the potion he'd selected for this first class of the year; a potion for the cleaning of metals which, according to Snape, was easy but would, if one messed it up, usually produce a rather loud bang.

Nearly half the class got bangs and got snapped at. Most of the remainder got a sharp nod when Snape checked out their potions; a few got a quiet, "Acceptable" and a handful of points apiece.

Those few were Hermione, Draco Malfoy, and a Slytherin girl named Pansy Parkinson.

One unfortunate – Neville Longbottom – found himself on the receiving end of a string of spells aimed at his cauldron by a Snape whom none but Harry could tell was slightly panicked and was then subject to a sharp five-minute lecture on safety procedures, after his cauldron started to melt.

Snape then proceeded on a rant about what made that potion work, why it worked, how to tell (and cause) the difference between the ones that worked well and the ones that merely worked (it mainly boiled down to how evenly the ingredients were sliced and the lack of any acrid smell) what had gone wrong that turned Neville's attempt into something Snape described as 'corrosive enough to etch glass' (a matter of wrong order of ingredient addition) and what homework he expected; with that done, he dismissed the class, calling Harry to wait back for a brief word.

"What's up, Professor Snape?" Harry asked once the rest of the students had gone.

"Two subjects." Snape said, and pointed at Harry's cauldron. "Although a passable effort, you and I both know that you are capable of better than that; you have achieved acceptable quality on this brew in the past."

"... I'm sorry, I guess I kinda got overexcited and got sloppy chopping the spriggan leaves, right?"

"Indeed; kindly be more patient in future."

"I'll do that."

"Good."

"What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?"

"Mr Slackhammer has requested a meeting at our earliest convenience. I have suggested that we visit Gringotts this coming Saturday; will that be acceptable?"

"Yeah, that works for me."

"Good; I shall make the necessary preparations."

"Okay, Mr Snape."

"I shall see you later then, young man."

-/-/-/ -/-

Following Potions, a simple pattern that mindboggled everyone not a member of the staff rapidly began to emerge, starting in Fillius Flitwick's classroom when, on his first attempt at casting a simple levitation charm, Harry's feather proceeded into the ceiling at several thousand feet per second with a whipcrack one Belfast-born first-year reckoned was unnervingly like a bullet going overhead; the tip of his wand was left glowing red-hot and dribbling smoke.

This pattern continued in the year's first DADA class, when a simple stunning hex more-or-less obliterated the practise target and converted a block in the stone wall behind to sand, causing Quirrel to become utterly incomprehensible from increased stuttering for days; it continued in Transfiguration (McGonagall privately admitted to her colleagues that she'd never seen anything like it, in between joking that she should probably donate Harry's 'needles' to Barrs for the production of Irn Bru) and flying lessons, wherein (much to everyone's horror) the broom produced a tremendous TWANG noise and shot forwards like a crossbow bolt out of under Harry's hand, proceeding to bury itself to the bristles in a nearby grassy knoll.

It transpired that Harry was suffering control problems of a degree that Aurora Sinistra declared to be 'Epic'; it didn't take she and Vector long to figure out that Harry was putting more magical energy into each casting than every one of his classmates combined; he was experiencing equal trouble with every class that involved active magic.

To say he was less than impressed with the resulting intense regime of finesse tutoring would be to... well, to lie through one's teeth. Harry being Harry, he took it all in stride and rapidly became quite smug when he got his head around exactly why his magic kept going spectacularly wrong, causing Snape to privately remark to McGonagall that if Harry's head kept swelling it would likely burst; the barely-detectable smile on the acerbic man's face when he said that demonstrated that he was joking, and the Scotswoman just chuckled and shook her head.

By the time Friday evening rolled around, a twofold set of rumours were flying around the school, the first around the Boy-Who-Lived's apparent power level (several upper-year students having connected the dots about why half the firsties were treating Harry like his wand might go off at any minute) and the second about why the entire staff (sans Filch) seemed in such high spirits.

The other conclusion that everyone had arrived at was that The-Boy-Who-Lived was immature, hyperactive, almost obnoxiously good-natured, self-assured to the point of outright arrogance, and so completely laid back about everything it was a wonder he wasn't horizontal.

You'd have sworn he was eight, tops, but nothing fazed the kid.

Nothing.

-/-/-/-/-/-

Saturday arrived and with it Snape and Harry were into Diagon Alley bright and early for their meeting with Slackhammer; they were directed through to his office with a round of salutes from resplendently dress-uniformed guards as soon as they arrived in the bank.

"Ah, Mr Potter, Mr Snape, welcome, welcome." Slackhammer said, rising to his feet and greeting his business partners with a cordial bow. Despite Harry's best attempts over the years, he'd never managed to get the dapper goblin to be any more personal than 'Mr' on anything even approaching a regular basis.

The broad shark-like grin on Slackhammer's face told both Snape and Harry that the goblin's news was good.

"A seat, gentlemen." Slackhammer continued, gesturing them to the comfortable armchairs that were to be found in his office whenever he was expecting to entertain important guests such as his business partners; Harry knew that because the times Slackhammer hadn't been expecting him the armchairs had been brought in for them. "Would you care for a little refreshment?"

"A small Firewhiskey please, Mr Slackhammer." Snape said.

"I'd like a cup of goblin tea please." Harry added. Goblin tea was strong stuff; it most definitely would not have suited a human palate, being ferociously acrid and hot enough to take the skin off the roof of your mouth, but the young dragon found it to his taste; the flavour reminded him of a car battery.

Slackhammer rang a small bell, and his batman immediately appeared, bowing in response to Slackhammer's, "The usual thankyou, Corporal Icefang." before quickly disappearing to see to it.

"Now then, gentlemen," Slackhammer continued; waiting around when you could be discussing business was considered boorish by right-thinking goblins, "I have recently had some quite intriguing possibilities brought to my attention, concerning your analysis of the materials composing Mr Potter's brain and nerves."

"Concerning my examination of Mr Potter's central nervous system?" Snape asked, very surprised. "While the materials involved are quite fascinating in their make-up, I confess I fail to see how they might be applied in practise."

"For an answer to that, Mr Snape, one must look to the world of electronics and electrical engineering." Slackhammer told him. "It seems that Mr Potter's nerves are composed of what is referred to as a room-temperature superconductor. And as a member of our company – your esteemed self – was able to decipher how exactly to replicate the given substance and, as it happens, it is cheap and easy to do so... Gentlemen, if you thought the sum we earned from NASA was substantial, you haven't seen a damn thing yet."

Corporal Icefang returned, placing the drinks on the coffee table, and passed them round.

"Thankyou, Corporal Icefang."

"M'pleasure, Mr Vice-Chairman sir." and the other goblin departed once again.

"How might the structure of Mr Potter's nerves be of such value?" Snape asked.

"Severus, a superconductor is a substance in which a voltage or temperature curve is impossible – if one end, so to speak, is heated, charged, cooled, the entire length follows suit instantaneously. Such materials usually only function in this way at extremely low temperatures, so much so that the operating temperature of so-called 'high-temperature superconductors' is typically well below the freezing point of water. The technological potential of a superconductor not merely able to function at room temperature, but at a temperature as hot as molten steel, is simply limitless. I have taken the liberty of patenting the fabrication process in our company's name, and I currently have electronics manufacturers, electrical power suppliers, research laboratories, myriad companies the world over in every sphere of industry, clamouring for use of that technology; I assure you that there is absolutely no sphere of technological endeavour in which this substance cannot be gainfully and profitably applied. And I have had certain technologists of my acquaintance take a look at your analysis of Mr Potter's brain matter, and the potential technological applications of that data... Boundless in the region of computing. Tell me, what if anything do you know of the internal function of computers?"

"Very little, I must confess." Snape admitted. "I am aware of their existence, but that is all that I know."

"Well I ain't used one since before I turned into a dragon." Harry said. "They had Commodore C64's at the school I usta go to when I lived at the Dursleys and we used 'em for somea the classes..." He hadn't really thought about all that in ages.

"You lost me at the 'See sixty four' part." Snape muttered.

"And how much do you know of said computer's construction?" Slackhammer intently asked Harry.

"Well not a huge lot, I mean I know they got microchips and stuff in 'em, and I know those are made outta silicon with really really tiny wiring and stuff on them, and I know what transistors are and how really really tiny they can get, and I know what bits and bytes and kilobytes are, but..."

"And that knowledge will suffice here, Mr Potter; if I were to tell you that your brain matter functions much like a vast network of computers formed from transistors manufactured at the molecular scale, well, do you understand what I mean?"

"... wow. Well, I, um, I think so?"

"And if I were to tell you that our as-yet small number of employees believe that they can reproduce that material as a form of processor chip for a computer?"

"... wow. That's be worth a LOT of money, wouldn't it?"

"Am I to understand that these materials would allow us to corner the global market in these 'computers'?" Snape asked, doing a damn good job of correctly pronouncing a word he'd used perhaps five times in his entire life.

"Quite correct, Mr Snape." Slackhammer confirmed. "And that market alone is worth enough to make a king's ransom seem like the small change one might occasionally notice dropped in the street. Enough that if we are to go ahead with this, barring some unspeakable disaster, everyone within this room will become so phenomenally rich that I guarantee we shall not need to work another day in our lives and nor shall our great-grandchildren, regardless of how long those lives might perhaps be – and that is without even mentioning the myriad other potential uses for both materials."

"Mr Slackhammer, what sort of money are we talking about?" Snape asked.

Slackhammer let out a dry chuckle. "Frankly, Mr Snape, the potential markets available for these technologies... Of the two, the superconductor is by far the more valuable; there is barely a single industry or machine that could not put it to good use – and yet Mr Potter's brain matter is worth enough, as a technology, to earn an estimated two to three billion Galleons per annum at current market levels."

The rotund goblin noted his associates' flabbergasted looks.

"Gentlemen," he said, "Welcome to the big leagues."

-/-/-/-/-/-

It didn't take House Hufflepuff as a unit long – a couple hours tops, in fact – to notice Harry seemed a bit dazed and distracted even by what they currently considered his usual standards; he spent Saturday afternoon wandering around in a cloud with a big silly grin on his face, and when asked just giggled. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, they'd shrugged it off as the Boy-Who-Lived being weird.

Suze came closest to getting a straight answer, and that was a huge cheesy grin and a mutter of something about gold.

She shook her head. He'd explain himself when he felt like it.

When the Hogwarts rumour mill noticed that Snape too seemed to be in a bit of a daze and was being far less unpleasant to be near than normal, it really got going.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Ladies, gentlemen, other beings, welcome back." Snape said. It was now Monday morning shortly after breakfast, and the first-years were back for their second Potions class of the year.

He gestured at their readied potions' kits, especially Neville's cauldron.

"It has come to my attention that I have failed to properly impart to you the true hazards that those ingredients upon your desks represent. You may believe me severe, especially considering my given name, but I assure you that I am not demanding of you simply for my amusement."

He paused to let the students work out that he'd just made a joke with himself as the butt; there were some obedient giggles, to which he replied with one cocked eyebrow and a faint smirk. He'd been in an uncharacteristically sociable mood since sometime on Saturday and the entire student body had absolutely no desire to be the one who made Snape's almost-cheerful mood revert to his usual sour disposition.

"In this room, there are many layered charms for the safety of all who prepare potions herein. These charms are here for a vital purpose; potions are universally volatile. Their function depends on reactions that, if incorrectly performed, will almost inevitably have unpleasant side-effects; that metal-cleaning potion that you prepared this time last week can, with a certain combination of errors, become corrosive enough to etch glass. Within this room, those unwanted side-effects are suppressed and controlled. Mr Longbottom, your attempt would have melted clean through the floor, removing your legs at the knees, if it was not for those safety charms; that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely how deadly a badly-prepared potion can become."

"Frankly, I am severe and exacting as any failure to do so on my part may cost your lives in times to come. I am demanding of you because I must; that is in itself the nature of potions as an art."

"I trust that you all understand this?" There was a round of nodding and 'Yes, Professor Snape' ing. "Good. Today we shall be preparing a potion for the treatment of burns. Note that, if prepared incorrectly, it may explode with sufficient force to drive fragments of cauldron clean through a thick stone wall; I add that, within this room, said detonation would merely blow unpleasantly spicy muck to ceiling height and earn you a detention. The primary reaction concerns..." and Snape went into a five-minute rant about reactions and reactivity and precautions for the prevention of things that blow up.

Once again, once the potions were prepared, Hermione and Draco and Pansy got approving nods and points, this time joined by Harry; Neville didn't manage to get his cauldron to erupt, but became the target of a lecture about how, due to the addition of ingredients in the incorrect order, his potion would cause a horrific, scarring, rash.

Once he'd then explained how and why the differences between failures, mere successes, and superb performances had occurred (mostly about timing of the addition of ingredients, though the accuracy of ingredient preparation factored into it) how it all worked and what homework he expected, Snape dismissed the class.

"A moment of your time, Miss Granger." he added, shaking off the way Harry had rocketed out the door with a declaration of hunger.

Hermione warily waited as the rest of the class departed; she received puzzled looks from several students, especially Draco Malfoy.

"What is it, Professor Snape?" she asked once they were alone.

"Mr Longbottom needs help, young lady, and your attempts have as yet proved to be of quite acceptable quality," Snape informed her, tapping her cauldron, "I would appreciate it if you were to render Mr Longbottom a little assistance in comprehending my lessons; in future lessons students shall be paired, and I wish you to be paired with Mr Longbottom so that you might prevent any further catastrophic errors on his part."

"Will it impact my grades?" Hermione asked.

"Frankly, young lady, if Mr Longbottom's performance should improve with your instruction I shall assign his improvements as extra credit to your grades. That young man is utterly lacking in confidence in his own abilities, and fails to add ingredients in the correct order due I believe to his uncertainty; I believe your surprising levels of attention to the subject might guide him onto a path that shall not result in him blowing himself to pieces."

"Okay, Professor Snape."

"Good. And, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor Snape?"

"Please do not attempt to brew potions outside of class as yet. Seeing you blast yourself to a grease smear would be most unpleasant, and the vast majority of potions are not nearly as forgiving as those I foist upon my first-year students."

"Yes, Professor Snape."

"Good. Run along now, young lady; you have a meal to attend."

Snape watched her go, then sighed and glanced back at Hermione's cauldron.

"Well, we shall see." he muttered. "Twinky!"

"Mr Snape Sir is calling for Twinky, yes?" Twinky the house elf asked, appearing.

"Indeed." Snape pointed at Hermione's cauldron. "I would appreciate it if that, once cooled, were to be added to Madam Pomfrey's supplies."

"Is Miss Pomfrey Ma'am's supllieses not being Mr Snape Sir's own brewingses, Mr Snape Sir?" Twinky asked, thoughtfully sniffing at Hermione's cauldron.

"Correct."

"... but isn't Mr Snape Sir being a great and wise alkermisterer, Mr Snape Sir?"

"Twinky, this," and Snape pointed at Hermione's cauldron once again, "Is of a quality on a level with my own."

The little elf went rather pop-eyed. She'd heard that before about perhaps a dozen students, tops, none of whom had been first-years; nodding rapidly, she put on a set of oven gloves, carefully picked the cauldron up, and popped away.

Snape allowed himself a dry chuckle as he began clearing up the stinking mess Neville had produced. It hadn't taken him long to impart to the house-elves that cleaning up their own messes was a matter of pride to alchemists and it was a master's business to ensure that his students' messes got dealt with; house-elf pride and honour wasn't so different.

Besides, he liked doing things with his hands. He never would have become an alchemist if he hadn't felt that way.

-/-/-/-/-/-

By the time Snape arrived in the Great Hall, the scene he had vaguely feared was already in progress; Harry Potter was eating.

That may not sound like much, but the third whole roast cow was on it's way down the hyperactive pint-sized boy's throat amidst a deadly hush; every eye in the hall was riveted to Harry, and half the cutlery at the Hufflepuff table was missing.

As Snape approached, a fork that had been sitting unused in front of a slack-jawed bug-eyed Cedric Diggory vanished into the ravening Potter's insatiable maw.

Snape swept his gaze to the staff table and caught Madam Pomfrey's eye; he produced his wand and, with a quick flick, departed with a levitating and loudly complaining Lizard-Who-Won't-Stop-Eating in tow, rapidly followed by a certain exasperated mediwitch, a hand-wringing herbalist, and a very thoughtful Dumbledore with a half-eaten roast cow levitating along beside him.

"What the hell were you thinking, you wretched reptile?" Snape growled as the procession proceeded towards the infirmary.

"Hungry!" Harry declared, attempting to grab the helmet off a suit of armour, which dived for cover, "I ain't never been so hungry afore, I swear I could eat two whole trains!"

"If you eat the Hogwarts Express I shall be downright furious, you idiot lizard!"

"But I'm HUNGRY!" the part-time preteen boy wailed.

"And you shall have all you can eat shortly, just remain calm!" Snape snapped, failing to take his own advice.

"Gettin' hungrier!" and the severity of the situation was underlined as Harry's voice dropped to an inhuman castle-shaking roar.

A moment later the door to the side chamber off the infirmary that they'd prepared when they realised his appetite was rapidly increasing crashed open, the small group of staff having broken into a dead run; a moment after that Snape lost control of his levitation spell as Harry, on seeing the small mountain of things only he would regard as tasty (or, for that matter, food) within, erupted back into his dragon form and descended on them like several tons of very hungry metal-munching winged lizard.

Metal, glass and frozen meat splintered as draconian teeth closed on them, and the small group of Hogwarts staff beat a hasty retreat.

Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall, the rumour mill had long since passed the point of batshit and was rapidly closing on conspiracy theory.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"So. Potter's appetite. We're going to have to deal with this sooner or later."

And with that Snape spelled the death-knell for the mood in Dumbledore's office, in which a fair number of staff were gathered for today's informal after-dinner meeting.

"How is he?" McGonagall asked, turning to Madam Pomfrey.

"He's stopped eating. I... well, I and Rubeus had to refill that room twice over. He's eaten three times his own weight over a period of four hours – I've no idea where he put it all, I'm starting to think there's some form of expansion effect upon his stomach – and once he was done eating he demanded Suze's company; as soon as she entered the room he curled up around her and fell asleep."

"Reckon he'll be growin' like a mushroom now," Hagrid chirped up (Not that 'chirp up' is the best description where concerning our favourite half-giant) with a bright look most of his audience found immediately reminiscent of Hermione Granger, "Yeh see it's usual fer young dragons ter get mighty hungry fer a few days before they go inta a growth spurt," he nodded to Madam Pomfrey, "In th' run up ter it they're likely ter eat sev'ral times their own weight each day."

"Are there any warning signs we should be aware of in future?" Snape asked.

"Nah – well, there ain't none anyone's ever written down. Somea the best dragon-handlers get a feelin' when one's gonna do it, but..." and Hagrid shrugged expansively, causing a rather startled ferret to plop out of his sleeve and land in Dumbledore's lemon drop bowl.

"Rubeus, you appear to have mislaid a ferret." Dumbledore said.

The ferret gave Dumbledore a measuring look, then demonstrated itself to in fact be a Jarvey by flipping him off with both forepaws and declaring in a smooth baritone, "Fuck you guv'nor, and your little dog too. And your dear old mum. You wanna piece of me, I'll bite your nadgers off!"

Some ten minutes later, the foul-mouthed (and unfortunately magic-resistant) mustelid having been retrieved, the group returned to their seats and the subject.

"What are we going to tell the weans?" McGonagall asked.

"A very good question." Snape said.

"I seem," Fillius said, "To recall a disease that causes a magically enhanced insatiable appetite and related lack of expansion of girth. One of my elder cousins died of it - dash it, I can't remember the details, it was before my first year as a student here."

"That does sound familiar now you mention it," Poppy said with a nod, "I'll check my library at once."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Hermione Granger, age twelve, had a vitally important question. That question she shared with the majority of House Hufflepuff, and concerned the well-being of someone who currently felt like her only friend in all the world; Harry James Potter.

It was Susan Bones who invited her to join the Hufflepuff vigil as they waited for word; she found herself in their homely common room, being quietly introduced to everyone by a dashingly handsome third-year by the name of Cedric Diggory.

It was a totally different feel to Gryffindor ground. In Gryffindor, you were expected to fend for yourself; you stood on your own two feet or got flattened. In Hufflepuff, as soon as you were into their common room (cutely called the Sett) you were 'one of us'; you were something second only to family, and for the alienated young witch that was something of a revelation.

Her parents were good people, but they were busy good people and she'd spent more than a few birthdays alone with a book – Tony and Sharon Granger's patients came first at all times. That's how they'd built a very successful and well-to-do private dental practise – by being willing to go into the office to deal with someone's toothache at stupid o'clock in the morning – and that was, when you thought about it rationally, what was paying the cringeworthy price-tab of Hermione's Hogwarts fees – but that wasn't to say she hadn't been lonely and things like that aren't entirely rational.

Thus the feeling in the Hufflepuff common room was pretty alien to her – almost, but not quite, enough so to make her shy away.

Almost, but not quite. And when it comes to things like that, 'not quite' means 'making this lonely child latch on like a drowning girl clings to a lifebouy'.

House Hufflepuff makes you feel like you'll never, ever, be abandoned again – and when you've spent most of your life alone that is a feeling that should probably be a controlled substance.

Thus she was almost (almost, but not quite) disappointed when Sprout arrived with, at last, news.

-/- Fragmentation; some kind of staff meeting -/-

"You're a right nightmare!" Ron snapped. "Always gotta know it all, no wonder you're that greasy git's teacher's pet! It's no wonder you ain't got any friends!"

Hermione burst into tears and bolted, so upset she even left her notepads behind.

That one had hit entirely too close to home.

Ron also left the table, going storming off up to his dorm without actually realising the effect he'd just had.

For his part, Neville Longbottom sat there in a quandary about whether to go and punch Ron in the teeth or to go and make sure Hermione was going to be okay or to do what – so he ended up doing nothing.

"... I'm such a woosie." he muttered.

-/- Fragmentation; later that day -/-

"Y'know that Hermione Granger?" Parvati said.

"Course I do." her less-flighty twin sister replied.

"She's in the downstairs loo, crying on about something." From Parvati's manner, Harry got the sense that this was supposed to be a juicy piece of gossip.

So he immediately looked at Hannah since she usually knew the gossip.

"Hmm?" Hannah said.

"Padma an' Parvati were saying something about Hermione." Harry prompted. A surprised look passed between Hannah and Susan.

"Well, yeah, you know the downstairs toilets just towards the stairs from Professor Snape's classroom?" Hannah explained. "We saw her in there earlier on, just after Transfiguration, and she's really upset."

"What happened?" Harry asked. Hannah and Susan failed to recognise quite how worked up he was getting, though most of the older Puffs cottoned on at once.

"I'm not sure, I asked her what was wrong and she said something about that Ron Weasley and wanting to be left alone." Susan said.

There was a noise like a string of tiny firecrackers from the region of Harry's knuckles, which caused Cedric Diggory (currently seated opposite the trio) to flinch.

(The usually-cheerful third-year knew what he'd just seen. The last time he saw someone that pissed off was after Charlie Weasley caught his girlfriend cheating on him with that what's-his-name arse from Ravenclaw.

He gave Eric Cadwallader and Maxine O'Flaherty surreptitious elbow nudges.

"We'd better sort it out." Cedric hissed, and there was a round of nodding from the rest of the Puff's Quidditch fanatics.)

Harry, deep in a funk, didn't notice the byplay.

"Sure she wants left alone, Susan?" the boy hero asked.

"She kept saying 'leave me alone' when me and Hannah tried to find out what was wrong." Susan explained.

(Cedric glanced concernedly at Maxine and then Eric.)

"Aw blast it." Harry muttered. "I hate it when I can't do something."

"Is there anything we might help with, Harry?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked, leaning forwards to see past Susan.

"Not just now." Harry told the Eton-set lad. "If Hermione wants left alone, well, we've gotta leave her alone."

No Puff argued with that.

It had, after all, taken the collective House Hufflepuff less than a week to realise that arguing with Harry Potter was absolutely pointless, no matter how hard you worked at it – you just had to stick with him and keep hinting till he came round by himself, and the only Puffs who hadn't figured it out were Zak Smith, who was kinda bone-headed like that, and Nymphadora 'Don't-Call-Me-That' Tonks, who was way too mired down in her excessive number of NEWT classes to worry about firsties.

-/- Fragmentation; same evening; arrival of Quirrel bearing troll-related bad news -/-

"No." Harry said.

"What?" Susan asked.

"I'm goin' down and finding her, you're goin' to the Sett." the pint-sized boy firmly instructed her.

"But you've got just about as much chance as us fighting a..." Hannah abruptly cut off when Harry reached out, grabbed the faceplate of a nearby suit of armour between forefinger and thumb, and crushed it utterly flat with no visible effort at all; he crushed it so thoroughly he left very visible fingerprints stamped into the metal.

"I tole you I'm way more'n I look." he said. "I gotta go now, see you later." And, with that, he took off at a sprint.

-/- Fragmentation; this scene needs lead-in -/-

"You wanna stop being mean now or am I gonna have to do something unpleasant to you?" the pint-sized boy cheerfully asked.

By way of an answer, the troll lashed out with its club; there was a horrible meaty slam as Harry went flying into and, with a splintering crash, clean through the wall.

"Durr, me 'ungry." the troll stated, casually advancing on Hermione.

She screamed again.

That was when, with another tremendous crash (this one seeming to shake the whole castle) a scaly arm longer than the troll was tall came bursting through the wrecked part of the wall where Harry had disappeared, snatching the brute by the leg; a split second later, with another tearing bang, a three-horned reptilian head the size of a small car finished the demolition of the wall.

"That. Hurt." the newly-arrived (and quite unexpected) dragon stated.

Its jaws closed like some set of gigantic obscene scissors on the troll's upper half, ripping clean through, and the dragon let out a surprised mumble of, "Mmm, yum, bacony!"

Hermione couldn't manage to produce more than a terrified squeak as the titan proceeded to gnash it's way through the remnants of the troll while heaving the rest of the wall off and advancing on her.

"YumyumyumOW!" it said. "GRRKLE! OWdrat!"

Hermione squeaked again.

"What in the HELL is going on HERE?!" came the tremendous bellow of an arriving (not to mention unutterably incensed, you could easily tell that when he actually swore) Severus Snape. "And why exactly did you have to revert to your usual outsize reptile self IN FRONT OF A STUDENT just like we decided you MOST DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT, Mr Potter?!"

"It was the troll an' Hermione din' know 'bout it an' it woz gonna devour her so I devoured it an' it tasted like bacon but I think I got a troll bone stuck in me teeth an' I don't think I oughtta change back because the troll bone's bigger'n my arm when I'm human-shaped I think, Mr Snape." the dragon replied, frowning.

"... I see." the foul-tempered potions master replied, calming down slightly. "You will both immediately accompany me to the infirmary and there will be no backchat!"

"Okay." the dragon said.

"... what's going on?" Hermione squeaked.

"Are you an imbecile, girl?" Snape snarled. "Do you think it an error that I called this wretched lizard 'Mr Potter'?"

"Hey, that ain't fair, she din' know!" Harry declared.

"... wha, wha, I, uh, wha?" Hermione squeaked.

"Oh for all the... foolish girl! Come on, get your behinds into gear AND DON'T YOU DARE EAT THAT ARMOUR, POTTER!"

"... still hungry Mr Snape."

"Drat it! I'll have the house-elves provide you a meal once we're in the infirmary, you no longer have something jammed between your teeth, and we're no longer in danger of running into more dunderheaded fools lolly-lagging around the damn castle when they should be in their dorms!"

"It's that Ron Weasley's fault, he was bein' mean to Hermione an' she was hidin' in here bein' all sad an' stuff an' she din' know about the troll!" the dragon firmly declared. "An' you'd all run off someplace before Susan remembered 'bout that!"

"This is neither time nor place for a post-mortem, Potter – get your behind into gear and COME ON!"

"Oh alright then."

"Well, Miss Granger? Are you coming or shall Mr Potter have to pick you up by the scruff of the neck like a badly-behaved kitten?"

Her eyes like Frisbees, Hermione followed dragon and potions master without a word.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Both of you remain exactly where you are! And no playing the fool!" Snape snapped, and went storming off, leaving large dragon and small bushy-haired girl seated in the side room at the back of the Hogwarts infirmary.

"Okay, Mr Snape." the dragon said, then settled down on it's haunches with a barely-stifled giggle.

"... what's going on?" Hermione plaintively asked.

"Oh, um, well I'm a dragon, right, it happened when those standing stone thingies went all glowy after I banged my head on 'em a few years back an' I don't really remember what all happened because I was too busy seeing stars." the dragon explained with a shrug. "We still ain't really sure how it worked but Mrs McGonagall says she's startin' to get an idea about it."

"... er, what happened?"

"Huh?"

"When the standing stones went 'all glowy', what happened?"

"Oh, I turned into a dragon. I usta be a human but you know how easy stuff is to misplace sometimes huh? But don't have a big, you know, situation about it, I'm cool with it 'coz being a dragon's really awesome apart from the whole not being able to let people know bit, sometimes I just wanna go flyin' down Diagon Alley an' yell LOOKIT ME I'M A DRAGON because people gotta respect dragons because we're awesome and cool but all sorts of people are stupid and that means I gotta look like a human mosta the time."

"... oh. Um, look, I guess you can change back and forth between dragon-form and human-form, right?"

"Yeah, that's how I got the other side of that busted-up wall after that troll hit me with his club." the dragon confirmed with a nod, and Hermione suddenly realised just how much like the weird kid called Harry Potter it sounded, and what, exactly, Snape had been on about.

"... Harry?" She checked.

"Yeah?"

"... thankyou."

"Aw, it ain't nothing, you were in distress and there's some stuff a dragon's just gotta do because if he didn't he wouldn't be a proper dragon, and anyway there ain't nobody allowed to pick on my friends and I don't care if the somebody who tries it tastes like bacon."

"... am I your friend?"

"Course you are, weren't for you I wouldn't know trolls taste like bacon an' Master-Sergeant Griphook likes the way you smell, you can tell 'coz he nodded at you, an' you're really clever, an' anyway ain't nobody can have enough friends because friends are the best thing ever, well, apart from damsels and treasures and I think guns but then guns and damsels are two sorts of really special treasure because they're hard to find so that's obvious."

Hermione spent a few startled moments digesting that, then asked, "How'd you know where I was and that the, the t-troll was going to come get me?"

"Well I didn't know the troll was after you till I saw it going into the jurden with its club an' everything, my friend Hannah – she's really nice, I think you'll like her – she said earlier she'd seen you down in the downstairs girls jurden all upset and stuff because that Ron Weasley done something, and then after Mr Quirrel said there was a troll downstairs my friend Susan – she's just as nice as Hannah and I think you'll like her too – reminded us you were down there last any of us knew, and all the teachers had already run off to go get the troll so I thought I'd better go let you know about the troll, only when I got there it turned out the troll was out to get you so I thought I'd better see it off, then when it hit me with that club I got really cross and I kinda lost my temper and bit it, and, well, it was really tasty but it's got nasty sharp pointy bones that get up between your teeth and stick in that meaty bit where your teeth stick out of and that hurts." He spent a moment rooting around between his teeth with his tongue (which was easily as big as Hermione) then stopped doing that with a pained yelp.

"Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, but I can't get my tongue under the troll bone at the right angle to hook it out and when I try it jams in and that really hurts."

"Let me have a look." she said, getting up and heading over to his head. "Say 'aah'."

"Aaaah." Harry said, opening his fearsome jaws as wide as he could.

The troll bone was as thick as Hermione's wrist, and the end jammed into Harry's gum was sizzling a bit; something told her that inside Harry's dragon body was very very hot indeed, especially considering the way being near where his throat went past his football-sized tonsils was like when you're too close to a furnace.

Disregarding that, she gripped the jammed-in bone with both hands and pulled.

"OW!" Harry declared, flinching back, and the bone yanked itself out of her hands.

"... sorry." she said., withdrawing.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Aw man, I think my mouth's bleeding a bit. Aw, don't be upset Hermione, it ain't your fault, I just got stuff jammed in my teeth and that kinda stuff happens, right? I mean last time it was a driveshaft but that came out pretty easy coz the bit that was stuck in melted and that's why I don't eat Hyundai's any more, they got nasty pointy spiky driveshafts."

"... you know, Mum and Dad are dentists. They might be able to help." Hermione said, partially because she felt bad about having hurt his already-hurt mouth.

"Well mebbe we'll try that if Mrs Pomfrey can't help." Harry pragmatically told her, nodding firmly, and then they lapsed into silence – uncomfortable on Hermione's part and puzzled on Harry's part.

"Professor Snape's kinda scary." Hermione eventually said.

"Aw, he's not so bad." Harry told her, accompanying his comment with a reptilian shrug. "He pretends he hates everything but I know he doesn't even though it's kinda hard to tell; when he likes something he goes less white and you can see he's trying not to smile and sometimes he gets this sorta excited gleam in his eyes then starts talking and talking and talking about things, normally about how his research works but sometimes he gets, well, for-Mr-Snape-excited about other stuff, and, well, when he does that asking him things before he's finished talking isn't a good idea, he gets really cross and starts yelling when someone breaks his train of thought, and I guess that's fair since interrupting is rude. And, well, Mr Snape gets really cross when people are rude."

"But isn't him going on about everything being stupid a bit rude?"

"I think Mr Snape not growling would be like he wasn't breathing, it doesn't really mean anything unless he starts shouting – if he's not shouting it's just him being Mr Snape. He says being growly all the time is useful because if people think that if they make you angry you'll pull their lungs out through their noses they're less likely to do anything that'll make you angry. Except goblins, he says being growly at goblins is enormously bad for your financial status."

"Trying to annihilate my carefully-crafted reputation, Mr Potter?" said a certain acidic voice, causing poor Hermione to nearly jump out her skin.

"Um, no, I wasn't Mr- um, Professor Snape. I mean, you've gotta admit Hermione's the only person who don't muck anything up in your class and I figured she deserves to know what you're really meaning when you growl."

"I see." Snape said. There was a woman Hermione hadn't offhand met before standing beside him, and she was pretty sure this woman was the school nurse; accompanying them was Harry's pet centaur. "Very well; and both of you kindly keep that information strictly confidential." With that, Snape whirled round and strode off.

"... scary." Hermione said.

"Nah, he's just being Mr Snape."

"Severus tells me you've something stuck in your teeth and can't change back, Harry dear." the woman said.

"Yeah Mrs Pomfrey, I think it's troll leg-bone." the dragon admitted, then paused to poke around in his mouth with a talon again. "OW!"

"Harry, just stop poking at it already!" Hermione requested.

"... ow, ow, ow. Er, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

"Harry, what've you gone and done to yourself?" Suze asked; the 'this time' was unsaid but definitely implied.

"Well I ate a troll and it tasted kinda like bacon but I got one of it's bones stuck in my teeth..."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Just outside the infirmary, Severus Snape paused, ran the last few minutes over again in his mind, and grimaced.

"Drat that reptile, he's mellowed me."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Twenty minutes of half-stifled swearing later, Madam Pomfrey declared the bone (which, counter to Harry's guess, was not a leg-bone) jammed beyond her ability to remove, partially as, being a part of a troll, it was naturally highly resistant to magic, as was Harry's mouth as it was a firmly-attached component of a dragon.

Thirty seconds after that, Hermione had suggested her parents again. The next twenty-six minutes she spent explaining what a dentist is and what they do.

Albus Dumbledore was quite promptly called for, and he then requested the presence of Minerva McGonagall as she'd actually met Tony and Sharon Granger and thus had a measure of them; shortly thereafter, she took off via Portkey and then Apparation to go and ask if they'd be willing to assist in this matter.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Well it seems there is some scoring on your teeth, Mr. Potter. This canine has a particularly large score. What exactly have you been eating? Do you make a habit of eating trolls?" Tony Granger asked, sweating profusely from the heat coming from the blast-furnace of a stomach of the dragon, the heavy protective gear and respiration equipment, the tools he was using, and the fact that he was voluntarily up to his arse in an extremely large dragon's mouth. He owed young Mr. Potter a good turn, for saving his dearest only daughter from the aforementioned troll, which seemed to have part of it's arm firmly wedged between Harry's first superior molar, and his second superior pre-molar. "Tongs."

Suze slapped the requested implement into his waved-around hand.

"No thir! 'ant et 'un 'efor!" replied Harry, trying to avoid running his tongue over Tony while the man was extracting the troll chunks from his mouth. "OW!"

That last was a result of Tony finally managing, aided by the pair of blacksmith's tongs, to drag the offending bone out.

"Tony! Careful now!" Sharon Granger lectured. She was against the back wall of the room, holding onto Hermione, who'd taken to twitching violently at every repetition of the word 'Troll'; this had immediately directed her mother's centre of focus onto a certain distraught daughter, leaving Tony knee-deep in dragon drool and with a certain centaur as an assistant.

Centaur. Dragon. Troll. The mere fact that those things EXISTED was enough to throw Tony for a loop, and never mind being asked to extract a portion of the latter from the teeth of the second while the first did a remarkably competent job of passing the necessary tools. He'd been thrown the first time he'd met Suze, but had shaken it all off with a, 'this wizarding stuff is weird'; how weird hadn't really sunk in until he ran into all this in a professional capacity.

"Daddy! Be careful!" shrieked Hermione, biting her nails to the quick, as she watched the procedure with an evident mixture of interest and fear.

"S'allright, Harry won't hurt me, I've almost got it!" Tony said with a laugh. The bone had splintered a bit and he was now using more familiar tools – pincers – to extract the fragments.

"Daddy! Honestly, can't you see you're hurting poor Harry!" Hermione complained, causing a brief double-take.

"Anthony Granger, the poor boy is already in enough pain as it is! You stop lumbering around like an elephant in his mouth, it's not like we have any anaesthetic proven to be safe for a dragon." Sharon added.

Tony's jaw dropped, as he turned to look at the two most important girls in his life.

'I am a twitch away from being an after dinner dessert to this beast of a dragon, who just ate a 9 foot bloody troll like a damned treacle tart, and they are worried about me hurting HIM!?'

Tony shook his head. He knew it would happen eventually, but in his daughter's first year, he knew he had already lost her to this, this, well, this Monster!

Oh well, Sharon's father had laughingly warned him when he had brought Hermione home from the hospital. He had hoped he could keep his little girl all to himself for at least a couple decades, but it looked like it was already too late.

Who would have thought that the man who took his daughter away would not be a shining knight on horseback, but a dragon more likely to flambé the knight?

With a sigh, he returned to work. Stupid boys, eh, dragons. "Hold on just a second there Harry, almost... almost... There! Got it!" He proudly turned with the severely charred remnant of the troll's arm, expecting the accolades of his daughter and wife. He idly wondered how he could publish this in the Dentist's review. First sapient interspecies extraction? Safety techniques for the hygienic maintenance and upkeep of the orthodontia of a pre-adolescent dragon?

While Tony was ruminating on the fame this could bring him, he suddenly realized that his wife and daughter were not congratulating him for his daring and skill, but that blasted lizard!

"Now Harry, you really have to learn to chew your food! Why, that could have affected your permanent teeth if we hadn't gotten it out of there, or you could have gotten an infection, or even an abscess!" Sharon warned.

"We?" muttered Tony.

"Be quiet, dear. Now Harry, besides troll, what does your diet consist of? Are you getting plenty of calcium and fluoride in your diet? What about vegetables? Are you getting enough protein?" Sharon asked.

Harry was greatly enjoying the attention, as he worked his jaw back and forth, getting the feeling back. "Well, Mrs Granger, I'm pretty sure I get plenty of the first from the scrapyard where Hagrid gets me Toyotas, and I really like Devils' Snare as it's nice and minty, and I love the taste of roasted Acromantula, but there ain't so many left now." he happily explained, delighted to no longer have a troll bone jammed into his gum.

"Scrapyard? Devils Snare? Honestly, Harry! Who lets you eat that kind of thing! Devil's Snare is dangerous and could kill you! Wait! Did you say Acromantula? Those are giant spiders Harry! What do you think you are doing? You could be hurt!" Hermione declared, instantly and absolutely horrified.

"Ha! Please calm yourself, Miss Granger. Mr. Potter's body utilises iron, steel, aluminium, titanium and other metals in much the same manner as yours or mine utilises carbon-based proteins; technically speaking, iron is the basic building block upon which his body is built. I am given to understand that he consumed all of the contents of a garage the night upon which his remarkable transformation occurred." Snape remarked. "As for his remarkable digestive tract, it's fires are fuelled by vast quantities of hydrocarbons; think of his bioalchemy as being much like a living smelter. And as it happens, according to Mr Potter, Devil's Snare tastes like a cross between parsley and lemon mint; I believe it is due to the precise composition of reagents within the structure of the plant in question, in addition to potent reactile accelerants it contains traces of minerals usually acquired from certain herbs... As for the Acromantulas, yes they are indeed giant spiders, but you should bear in mind the fact that they pose as much threat to Mr Potter as a chocolate frog to you or I. I find that when properly grilled they are quite the delicacy myself." Snape explained, idly glaring at the suddenly bashful dragon who was looking anywhere but at the potions master.

"Sorry, Professor Snape, I didn't know that you could get solomonella from undercooked Acromantula," Harry mispronounced, looking somewhat embarrassed; nobody corrected him, partially because he was somehow managing to be too cute to correct despite being a multi-ton dragon,

"Harry, just what made you try eating giant spider, instead of a, well, I guess a nice balanced diet?" asked a quiet Sharon Granger.

"Well for a start they tried to pick on Suze's family." Harry explained. "And then, well, they taste kinda like scrunchy chicken in diesel and they don't make me fart which chickens do, I think it's the feathers, and anyway I got a score to settle with spiders."

"And pray tell, why would you have a score to settle with spiders?" Sharon asked.

"Um, well... backwhenilivedinthecupboardtheywouldcrawlallovermeandscaredme." whispered a suddenly shrinking Harry Potter, seeming to literally fold in on himself, going from a large dragon, to a small pre-teen boy. "They're creepy." The boy still had the gorgeous rich emerald eyes of the dragon, but now had a tousled head of dark hair that had both Granger women itching to run their hands through it.

For different reasons, of course.

"Why would you ever be put into a cupboard Harry?" Sharon checked, and Tony stifled a wince as he saw the tears brimming in the corners of his wife's eyes and the way her fingernails were biting into the palms of her hands.

That was Sharon firmly into mama-bear mode and when that happened the best thing to do was dive for cover; when something got her maternal instincts going, she was absolutely remorseless.

Snape was considering her, an unreadable look on his face; Suze looked worried, Hermione looked scandalised, and Dumbledore was idly tapping one foot and humming along to an unheard-but-jaunty tune.

The potions master proved himself quite sensible in Tony's educated opinion when, in response to the remarkably similar glares directed his way by both female Grangers (not to mention one female centaur and one school nurse) he grimaced and angled a thumb at Dumbledore.

"Oh, they didn't really need me to do anything, doing better than Dudley on an exam, not knowing how the footie went when Uncle Vernon had to work late, or when I got blamed for the stuff Dudley nicked from the corner shop..." Harry rambled, shrugging.

Suze hugged him with one arm for a moment.

"Have you settled the score with the spiders, Harry?" Professor McGonagall asked, adding her glare to those being directed at the still blissfully humming Headmaster.

"Huh? Oh, yeah I guess. I mean there were loads of them before, now it takes me ages to find any. But Hagrid said he gotten a big sack of their eggs from the nest, and he said he knows how to raise them so as long as I don't get too guzzle-guts, I should be able to still have some sometimes." Harry explained, immediately cheering up.

"Yes, Harry, one must be mindful of restraint and balance, as even the spiders play a vital role in the ecosystem of the Forbidden Forest. For the Greater Good of the Forest you really will have to learn to control yourself." a certain headmaster provided, before returning to humming.

"... greater good of the forest?" Snape muttered, firmly shaking his head; Tony was pretty sure he saw a look of mixed disgust and disbelief flicker across the man's face. "... introduced species, ecological disaster, greater good?!"

"They're really yummy and, y'know, they tried to eat my centaur friends! They taste sorta like a hairy chicken but with diesel on, and they're really scrummy when they're roasted proper. Hey, uh, I think the troll didn't go down too good, and I need to...uh, you know..." explained Harry as he held his stomach, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Come along boy, I'll escort you to the forest so you can take care of your necessities," interjected a worried looking Snape, seeing the fierce looks being directed towards the still obliviously humming Headmaster.

"I think I'll come with you, Professor. I'd like to see the grounds while I'm here and talk to Harry as well." Tony added, now out of his protective gear but still holding the blacksmith's tongs in one hand, while he placed the other firmly on Harry's shoulder. He was no longer in dentist mode, but still had a strong urge to inflict pain. Then there was the fact that he recognized the look on his wife's face, and had no desire to be hit by any of the splash damage; when Sharon Granger went balli