Harry Potter: Dragon Whisperer

What?

11:53pm

Wednesday, 17 August 1995

Australasian Dragon Preserve, Australia

.

SPEAKER!

Harry bolted upright in bed, instantly wide awake. Not that he'd really been asleep.

SPEAKER!

He clapped his hands over his ears, even though the roar was as much in his head as an audible sound.

SPEAKER!

His eyes widened as realisation hit. It'd happened. The trap! The eggs! In an instant he was up and racing for the door.

The flicker of memory, one where this had happened before and he'd raced out in just his pyjamas pants in answer to a dragon call – even if this time he was wearing a shirt as well, it being winter here in Australia – prompted him to remember the slap over the back of the head that he'd received for his recklessness. Thus, Harry thrust his hand behind him even as he kept moving forward. The feel of his wand slapping into his palm gave him hope that this time, he wouldn't get in so much trouble.

A vicious, ice-cold wind had him flinging his arm up to shield his eyes, even as the door to the cabin was all-but ripped out of his hand. He blinked up at the black sky where the barest shapes of clouds swirled above.

No, he realised. Not clouds. And the sky wasn't starless. There were pinpricks of white up there; they were just overpowered by the multicoloured glow of gleaming points of light every which way he looked. Lights with a decidedly red tinge. Eyes. Dragon eyes. Hundreds of them. The sky was filled with dragons. Every Opaleye, it seemed, was hovering over the camp, their wings beating to keep them steady, the resulting downdraft rippling his clothes against him and whipping sand and every loose object into a frenzy.

SPEAKER!

The roar of the combined dragons was almost unbearably loud and Harry winced, clapping his hands over his ears once again, a futile effort that did nothing when the noise seemed to be coming from inside his mind just as loudly as from outside his body.

§I'm here!§ he yelled.

Vaguely, Harry recognised that there were others bursting from their own cabins, but he ignored them, his focus on the dragons above.

Concentrating, he caused a ball of light to appear directly in front of him. A narrowing of his eyes had it doubling, tripling in size and intensity before he banished it to hover a metre above and in front of him.

Now, he could see.

The ground around him burst into being as though it was daylight, not that Harry really noticed, his concentration fixed on dragons above him. Not that he could see much up there. Even squinting, it was hard to make out exactly which dragons were closest to him – the scales from their underbellies only enhanced and reflected the light that he'd projected.

§Cantrum! Dankrum! Where are you?§

A dragon descended in front of him, his long sinewy neck extended down, well past his lower legs to stare at Harry.

§Zanzyn!§ Harry said, recognising the scar that extended down from the dragon's lower jaw to his neck.

§Speaker! We need you!§ Zanzyn stated.

§I'm here!§ Harry reassured him. §What's happened? Is it the clutch?§

§The clutch remains safe and untouched,§ Zanzyn replied.