Harry Potter FanFiction

Alatus

A daemon taking the form of a dragon is hardly unusual in the wizarding world.

Harry was shocked the first time his daemon tried the shape of a dragon: a Norwegian Ridgeback, rather smaller than Norbert. But Hermione (her daemon as a hedgehog on the library table, front paws in two different places in the open book) pointed out that magical creatures here were simply another type of creature, not a type of myth. The wizarding world has cats and kneazles, peacocks and phoenixes; daemons take whatever shape is theirs.

By fourth year, Harry was almost certain that his daemon would settle with wings. She had long since tried being an owl: snowy to match Hedwig, wise-looking horned when Harry had Hermione's help in being studious, and once a huge eagle owl when facing Voldemort.

She tried being a phoenix, of course, but that, Harry felt, would be an embarrassingly appropriate daemon for the Boy Who Lived, and he was frankly relieved when she took to being a more ordinary bird instead.

That summer with the Dursleys she restrains herself valiantly: a bat, a lizard, once in a moment of especial frustration a screeching bright parrot. But in the privacy of Harry's room she is the shape recognizably close to what will be her settled self, all wings and scales and whipping tail.

She is a dragon, and Harry cannot pretend he belongs in the muggle world.