Dragon Hunt

Dudley Dursley stared at the ceiling dreaming of university. Finally he would be out of his parents’ house. He loved his parents, but his father was slowly going insane and while his mother adored him, she also backed his father in everything making it impossible to deal with them much longer.

He heard a quiet tapping at the window and looked to his clock. It was past ten. His friends knew that his father would blow a gasket if he snuck out on a school night, but he dragged himself to the window anyway. He didn’t see anything, but opened the window to look below. He felt himself pushed backwards by an invisible force and landed on his rump.

When he looked up, his cousin was standing over him looking angry and focused. “Harry?” he asked nervously.

“I need a favor,” Harry said. “I’ll be honest. It may be dangerous. On the other hand, it may just be really boring.”

“We’re family, Harry,” Dudley shrugged.

“I’m going to cast a spell on you,” Harry warned.

“Will it hurt?” Dudley asked.

“No,” Harry said. “It will just make it impossible to speak of this to anyone but Dobby—” The house elf popped in on cue; Dudley looked startled and fascinated, but quickly focused back on Harry. “I will keep you from talking about this to anyone but Dobby, myself, and my mate.”

“Mate?” the chubby man asked.

Harry sighed. “My lover, Draco.” He raised his wand and cast the spell. Dudley shivered, but then noticed no difference. Harry continued, “I may very well die and if I do, Draco will come and retrieve what I am about to leave in your care. And if we both die, Dobby?”

“Yes, Harry Potter, sir? Dobby will do whatever Harry Potter asks of him.”

“The egg stays with Dudley until Draco or I come for it personally. If both Draco and I die, take the egg to Charlie. After our son is bo—hatched, he is to go into the care of Ron and Hermione. Do you understand me?”

“Your son?” Dudley asked. “Hatched?”

Harry shook his head. “In short, my mate laid an egg.”

“Right,” Dudley said quietly. Harry lifted the precious egg from the bag strapped to his chest. He handed it tenderly to Dudley. Even Dudley recognized the life in it and gasped. “Your son is in an egg, got it.”

“Just keep him hidden and safe. You don’t need to worry about it at this point. Just make sure he stays warm: room temperature or a little warmer. He’s independent until he’s hatched. Dobby, I need you to answer Dudley’s calls for the time being. If he needs help with the egg, you help him. If there are any problems here, I need you to get word to the Order.”

“Dobby will do his duty for Harry Potter,” the funny little elf said with a salute.

“Dudley, that’s my son you’re holding,” Harry reminded, stepping closer to brush his palm over the smooth surface.

His cousin looked down at the swirling green and silver surface of the egg. “I understand, Harry. I’ll take care of him,” he promised.

“I have to go,” Harry said. Before Dudley could say goodbye, Harry had disappeared and a swish of air moved past him.

“Harry Potter has to go save his mate. Master Malfoy has been kidnapped by the Dark Lord,” Dobby explained nervously.

“Should I be worried?”

“Only for Harry Potter and Master Malfoy.”

When Harry stepped through the floo into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, his council was waiting for him. And when he thought of them as his council and advisors, the full weight of his position his him. He was the leader of an army. Not because he was a seasoned soldier or a great strategist or even had any clue what he was doing. No it was because when he was a year old some lunatic marked him and chose him and made him the only one who could.

And now that lunatic had his mate, his love.

“I’ve checked the manor. Voldemort and Draco are not there,” Snape began quietly, skipping pleasantries and chitchat.

“Do you believe he suspects your defection?” Sirius asked. Even he seemed surprised by the concern in his voice.

“No. If he did, when he summoned Draco and I, he would have held me as well. My belief is that he does not suspect betrayal to ideals, only to his bed,” Snape said. Harry growled at the wording, but refrained from argument.

“So here’s what we know,” Harry started. “Voldemort is in an unknown location with a hostage. He can, at a moment’s notice, summon Deatheaters to his side. How many can we expect if he calls?”

“Honestly,” Snape sighed. “I’m not sure. The Marked are close to fifty in number, but he has followers who are not Marked. They can’t be summoned as quickly or easily, but they can be summoned and they rank in the hundreds.”

“So surprise will be crucial,” Harry concluded. “If we get there fast enough, we can get Draco and kill Voldemort before he has a chance to get everyone there.”

Snape shook his head. “If Dark Lord is simply murdered, the Deatheaters will either go rogue or go into hiding to wait for an opportunity to continue his work.”

Remus nodded in agreement. “It would be worse than it is now. They’d be unfocused and wreaking havoc. Voldemort provides focus and control.”

“So you’re saying we leave him alone?!” Sirius said incredulously.

“No,” Harry snapped. Snape opened up his mouth to argue, but Harry held up his hand. Snape obeyed the unspoken command before he realized and then looked both shocked and dismayed at himself while Harry spoke. “They’re saying we give him the chance to call the Deatheaters and wipe out enough of the ranks to keep them from moving forward with any plans Voldie has been cooking up.”

“Correct,” Remus said quietly.

Moody cleared his throat. “Severus, is there a way we could control the arrival of the Deatheaters? Somehow hold them off into waves we can dispose of?”

Snape frowned deeply. “When a Deatheater gets the call, he or she must apparate to the Dark Lord. And to do that without rousing suspicions, he or she must excuse themselves from their current situation. For example, if I were summoned while teaching a class, I would have to dismiss the class.”

“So, we need to have some situation that will cause many Deatheaters to be slow to respond?” Remus mused.

“What about something at the Ministry?” Mr. Weasley offered. “Many of Voldemort’s inner circle have infiltrated Ministry offices. If there were some kind of Ministry emergency, they would all be called into a meeting from which a pretty damn good excuse would be needed to get excused from.”

“We just need to cause a big enough emergency,” Sirius muttered.

“Unfortunately, the only kind of things that would be considered that big of an emergency would be a Deatheater attack, but if we staged one of those, they would know something was up. They’d suspect a diversion of some kind,” Moody explained.

“What about the school?” Harry asked suddenly.

“Excuse me?” Remus asked, confused.

“What about a revolt at the school?” Harry asked. “From Draco’s information, there are a number of Junior Deatheaters walking the halls waiting for Voldemort to call for them. I can easily start a riot with a few well-aimed spells and well-chosen words.”

Ron smiled brightly. Hermione nodded, accepting the upcoming battle. “Especially when tensions are already so high among the Slytherins,” she added. “I’ve been hearing the rumors of Draco’s so-called treachery and some have been asking around about who might be Draco’s girlfriend.”

“What exactly is starting a riot going to accomplish?” Snape asked coldly.

“It’s perfect. If the fighting is severe enough that we push some of the Junior Deatheaters to use Unforgivables, the Ministry would have to call a pretty big meeting to address it, especially considering that the majority of the students involved would be both underage and connected to people at the Ministry.” Harry looked around at all of the faces watching him closely. He watched as they all silently mulled over the plan, seeking to find a flaw.

“It would leave us weak,” Snape started. “Myself and our student members would be unable—“

“Not if we all feigned injury that required us to be in medical observation. It would also thin some of Voldemort’s lower-level ranks,” Harry said sternly. “As for yourself, I think it quite plausible that all professors would need to stay here if the school was as volatile as we can make it seem.”

“The boy makes sense,” Moody grumbled.

The gathered council began to talk about specifics, how the riot in the school could be controlled and still warrant the assembly of Ministry officials. They figured how Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Snape would smuggle themselves out. Moody cleared his throat. “Now, how do we find the bastard?”

Harry stepped forward once again. “Once Dr—“ He didn’t finish his mate’s name as he collapsed to the floor. Harry!