The tremor started small.
Just a vibration, really. The kind of thing that could be dismissed as wind against stone or the natural settling of ancient architecture. But Neville, who had spent seven years around Herbology greenhouses and had developed an almost supernatural ability to sense when something was about to explode, went rigid.
"Everyone away from the windows," he said, his voice cutting through the exhausted silence. "Now."
Years of war had taught them not to question that tone. They moved—some diving for cover, others grabbing weapons, all of them responding with the instincts of people who had survived too many near-death experiences to ignore a warning.
The tremor grew.
Stone groaned. Dust fell from the ceiling in streams. The ancient pyramid that had stood for over four thousand years suddenly felt very, very fragile.
"Is it an earthquake?" Katie asked, bracing herself against a pillar.
"No," Bill said, his curse-breaker senses clearly screaming. "This is targeted. Controlled. Something's doing this deliberately."
"Something or someone?" Tonks asked.
"Does it matter?"
The floor beneath them rippled—actually *rippled*, like water rather than stone. Daenerys felt Silverwing's alarm spike through their bond. The dragon was still outside, too large to fit comfortably in the pyramid, and now she was roaring a warning that echoed across the ruins.
"The dragons sense it," Charlie said, moving to the window despite Neville's warning. "All of them. They're panicking."
"Then we need to calm them down before they fly off without us," Daphne said, already moving toward the stairs.
"No one goes outside," Amelia commanded. "Not until we know what—"
The world *screamed*.
That was the only word for it. Not a sound, exactly, but a sensation that bypassed ears and drilled directly into their skulls. Pain and rage and something so ancient that human minds weren't equipped to process it.
Daenerys fell to her knees, hands pressed against her ears even though she knew it wouldn't help. Around her, others were doing the same—some crying out, some simply frozen in shock.
And through it all, a voice. Not High Valyrian. Not any language that humans had ever spoken. But somehow, impossibly, they understood it anyway.
*THIEVES. VIOLATORS. THEY RETURN.*
"Oh fuck," Ron said, which pretty much summarized everyone's feelings.
The scream ended as abruptly as it had begun. In the sudden silence, they could hear the dragons outside—all seven of them, roaring in response to whatever that had been. And beneath that, something else.
A rumble. Deep and constant. Like the world's largest engine starting up after centuries of sleep.
"The Fourteen Flames," Hermione gasped, scrambling to the window. "Look!"
They looked.
In the distance, all fourteen volcanoes were erupting simultaneously. Not the lazy, constant burning they'd maintained for four hundred years, but *real* eruptions. Lava fountaining hundreds of feet into the air. Ash clouds billowing up to blot out what little light penetrated the perpetual twilight. And at the center of them all, where the caldera of the largest volcano gaped like a wound in the earth—
Something was rising.
"What is that?" Susan whispered.
"Nothing good," Sirius replied.
"That's not helpful, Sirius."
"I wasn't trying to be helpful. I was trying to be honest."
Hermione had pulled out her omnioculars, the ones she'd modified to see through magical interference. She trained them on the central volcano, adjusted the focus, and went very, very pale.
"It's a dragon," she said. "Or—it *was* a dragon. Once. Before the Valyrians—oh gods."
"Before the Valyrians what?" Harry demanded.
"Before they experimented on it," Hermione said, lowering the omnioculars with shaking hands. "The ritual I found. The one that went wrong. They were trying to bond humans and dragons, but they needed a powerful enough dragon to anchor the spell. So they found one. The oldest one. The biggest one. And they—"
"They used it as a battery," Bill finished, his voice hollow. He'd clearly reached the same conclusion through different means. "Blood magic requires a source. A sacrifice. They sacrificed a dragon. Probably the mother of all dragons, judging by that size. And when the ritual failed—"
"It didn't kill her," Luna said dreamily, though her usually serene expression was troubled. "It just made her angry. So, so angry. And then she destroyed everything."
"And she's been sleeping since then," Hermione continued. "Using the geothermal energy from the volcanoes to sustain herself. Waiting. But we brought dragons back. Living dragons. And that magic—it's calling to her. Waking her up."
"Can we put her back to sleep?" Ginny asked.
"How?" Hermione asked helplessly. "We're twenty-one wizards and seven young dragons. That thing out there is—" She consulted her omnioculars again. "Conservatively? Four times the size of the largest dragon ever recorded. And she's made of lava and rage and four hundred years of accumulated death magic."
"So we're fucked," George summarized.
"Comprehensively fucked," Fred agreed.
"Could we run?" Alicia suggested. "Get the dragons, fly as fast as we can, and hope we make it past the Smoking Sea before she fully wakes?"
"The Smoking Sea is hundreds of miles across," Charlie said. "Our dragons are fast, but not that fast. And they're young. They'd tire. We'd have to land eventually, and if we land in the toxic water or on one of the cursed islands—"
"We'd die," Tracey finished. "Probably horribly."
"Why is it always 'probably horribly'?" Ron asked. "Just once, I'd like the death threat to be quick and painless."
"Wrong friend group for that," Lee said.
The rumbling intensified. Through the window, they could see more of the ancient dragon emerging. A head the size of a house, scales that looked like cooled magma, eyes that burned with literal fire. Wings that were tattered and torn but still vast enough to block out the sky when they spread.
"She's beautiful," Daenerys breathed, unable to help herself. Despite the terror, despite the impossibility, part of her recognized what she was seeing: the ultimate expression of dragon-kind. The apex predator. The thing that all other dragons had descended from.
"She's terrifying," Harry corrected.
"Both things can be true."
The ancient dragon—because what else could they call her?—pulled herself fully from the caldera. Lava cascaded off her scales. The ground shook with each movement. And then she spread her wings and *roared*.
The sound was physical force. It shattered what remained of the intact windows in the pyramid. It sent them all staggering. And it carried a message that needed no translation:
*I AM AWAKE. I AM FURY. I AM THE END OF ALL THINGS.*
"New plan," Harry said, his voice carrying that particular quality that meant he was about to suggest something monumentally stupid. "We fight."
"Absolutely not," Hermione said immediately.
"We can't fight that," Amelia added. "It's suicide."
"We don't fight to win," Harry clarified. "We fight to slow her down. To buy time. Hermione, you said she's made of death magic, right? Accumulated over four hundred years?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then maybe we can drain it. Seven dragons, twenty-one wizards, all of us working together to siphon off the magical contamination. Make her mortal again. Make her *killable*."
"That's the craziest thing you've ever suggested," Ron said.
"Is it crazier than breaking into Gringotts on a dragon?" Harry asked.
"Yes!"
"What about jumping through the Veil of Death?"
"Also yes!"
"The time we fought Voldemort in a graveyard?"
Ron paused. "Okay, that one was pretty crazy."
"We've survived everything else," Harry said, looking around at all of them. "Every impossible situation. Every time the odds said we should die. We survived because we worked together. Because we trusted each other. Because we were too stubborn to give up."
"This is different," Daphne said quietly. "That thing out there—it's not Voldemort. It's not even a threat we can properly comprehend. It's a force of nature."
"Then we become a force of nature right back," Daenerys said, surprising herself. She moved to stand beside Harry, Brightroar heavy in her hand. "We have seven dragons. We have magic from another world. We have each other. That has to count for something."
"It counts for a slightly more interesting death," Sirius said. But he was grinning. "I'm in."
"Of course you are," Amelia sighed. "You've never met a terrible idea you didn't immediately embrace."
"It's part of my charm."
"It's part of your death wish."
"Both things can be true."
One by one, they committed. Not because they thought they could win—no one was that optimistic—but because the alternative was running until they died of exhaustion or toxic poisoning, and at least this way they'd die fighting.
"Right," Bill said, immediately falling into tactical planning mode. "If we're doing this—and apparently we are—we need to approach it systematically. Hermione, you're on magical theory. Figure out how to drain death magic without killing ourselves in the process. Charlie, you coordinate the dragons. Make sure they understand what we're trying to do. Amelia, you're on battle coordination. Everyone else—"
"We're on trying not to die," George finished.
"Our primary specialty," Fred added.
"Right," Harry said. "Let's save the world. Again."
"Just once," Ron muttered, "I'd like to save the world from somewhere comfortable. With snacks. And minimal death threats."
"Keep dreaming, mate."
They had perhaps thirty minutes before the ancient dragon would be mobile enough to come for them. Thirty minutes to prepare for a battle they had no business fighting.
Hermione worked frantically with her books and notes, muttering about magical theory and energy conversion and things that made Daenerys's head hurt. Bill and Amelia planned defensive positions and fallback points. Charlie worked with the riders to prepare the dragons, explaining through bonds and instinct what they needed to do.
And Harry stood at the window, watching the ancient dragon test her wings, his green eyes distant.
Daenerys moved to join him.
"This is insane," she said quietly.
"Completely," Harry agreed.
"We're probably going to die."
"Almost certainly."
"And yet—"
"And yet we're doing it anyway," Harry finished. "Because that's what we do. We stand up to impossible things and refuse to back down until they become possible."
"Or until they kill us."
"That too."
She took his hand. "If this is it—if this is how we go—I want you to know that these seven years have been the best of my life. You saved me, Harry. All of you. Gave me a family when I had nothing. Taught me what it meant to be loved."
"Dany—"
"Let me finish," she interrupted gently. "I jumped into that harbor expecting to die. And in a way, I did. The girl who jumped died that day. And what emerged—what you all helped create—was something I never imagined I could be. So thank you. For everything."
Harry pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "We're not dying today."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me. We're not dying today, we're not dying tomorrow, and we're not dying until we're old and gray and surrounded by grandchildren who think we're making up these stories."
"That's a nice dream."
"Then let's make it real."
The ancient dragon roared again, and this time it was closer. She'd finished testing her wings. She was ready to hunt.
"Positions!" Amelia called. "Everyone knows the plan!"
"We have a plan?" Ron asked.
"We have a plan-shaped outline of vague intentions and desperate hope," Hermione corrected.
"Good enough!"
They mounted their dragons. Seven riders, seven bonds, seven connections between human and beast that defied explanation. Silverwing rumbled beneath Daenerys, and she could feel the dragon's fear—but also her trust. Her absolute certainty that her rider knew what she was doing.
Daenerys wished she had that certainty herself.
"Stay in formation," Charlie called. "Remember—we're not trying to fight her directly. We're trying to draw off the death magic. Harry's team will work the siphoning spells while the rest of us keep her distracted."
"Distracted," Tracey repeated. "We're going to distract a lava dragon the size of a castle."
"We've done stupider things," Daphne said.
"Name one."
"The Yule Ball."
"That was different!"
"Was it though?"
The ancient dragon took flight, and the world shook. She was ungainly—four hundred years of sleep had left her muscles stiff, her movements uncertain. But she was *fast*. Impossibly fast for something that size.
"Here she comes!" Neville shouted from his position with the ground team.
"Ground team, defensive positions!" Amelia commanded. "Remember—if any of those riders fall, you catch them!"
"No pressure!" Lee called back.
The seven dragons launched as one, rising to meet the ancient terror. And Daenerys, riding Silverwing into what was almost certainly her death, felt a savage joy rising in her chest.
If they were going to die, at least they'd die like dragon lords.
The battle for Old Valyria had begun.
---
The ancient dragon moved like living cataclysm.
Despite her size—perhaps *because* of her size—she didn't so much fly as remake the sky around her. Each wing-beat sent shockwaves through the ash-choked air. Lava dripped from her scales and ignited the ruins below, turning Old Valyria into an active war zone.
And she was *singing*.
Not roaring anymore. Singing. A wordless melody that predated language, that resonated in the bones and made the blood remember things it had never known. Dragon-song, pure and terrible and utterly hypnotic.
"Don't listen!" Hermione's voice crackled through the communication charms, high and urgent. "It's a compulsion! She's trying to—"
But Daenerys was already listening. Couldn't *not* listen. The song called to something deep in her Valyrian blood, something that recognized this creature as kin and ancestor and god all at once.
*Come, little daughter. Come and burn with me. Come and be ash and glory.*
"Dany!" Harry's shout cut through the spell. "Snap out of it!"
She shook her head violently, the motion nearly unseating her from Silverwing's saddle. The Ironbelly had banked sharply, instinctively moving away from the ancient dragon's path, and only years of bonding kept Daenerys from falling.
"I'm—I'm alright," she managed, though her voice shook. "The song. She's in my head."
"Can you block it?" That was Luna, surprisingly focused despite the chaos.
"I don't—" Daenerys stopped. Thought. "Maybe. If I sing back."
"Sing what?" Tracey asked.
"Anything. Everything. Drown her out with something else."
It was absurd. Ridiculous. The kind of solution that only worked in stories or dreams or moments of absolute desperation.
Daenerys began to sing.
Not High Valyrian—she'd tried that first and the ancient dragon had simply laughed, a sound like mountains cracking. Instead, she sang the Hogwarts school song. That deliberately terrible, wonderfully chaotic anthem where everyone picked their own tune and tempo and it became glorious cacophony.
"*Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts*," she sang, her voice amplified by magic and carrying across the battlefield. "*Teach us something please!*"
For one perfect, insane moment, the ancient dragon *hesitated*. Her song faltered. She clearly had no idea what to make of this tiny creature singing back at her in a language that didn't exist when she'd gone to sleep.
And then the others joined in.
Harry first, because of course it was Harry, his voice cracking on the high notes but determined. Then Daphne, pitch-perfect even while dodging gouts of lava. Fleur added a French accent that somehow made it worse and better simultaneously. Susan belted it out like she was at a Quidditch match. Tracey and Gabrielle harmonized—badly, but enthusiastically.
"*Whether we be old and bald, or young with scabby knees!*"
The ground team picked it up, their voices rising from the pyramid. Ron, off-key and proud of it. Hermione, clearly dying inside but doing it anyway. The twins in perfect synchronization, because of course they were. Hagrid's bass rumble that shook the stones.
"*Our heads could do with filling, with some interesting stuff!*"
Even the dragons seemed to understand. Silverwing added a rumbling counterpoint. Fury screeched along in what might generously be called a melody. Copper, Moonshadow, Goldhorn, Émeraude, and Azur contributed their own variations on the theme.
The ancient dragon stopped singing entirely.
She hung in the air, wings beating slowly, her burning eyes fixed on them with an expression that might have been confusion or might have been rage or might have been something else entirely.
Then she roared—properly this time, without the hypnotic compulsion—and dove.
"SCATTER!" Charlie's command was unnecessary; they were already moving, seven dragons breaking in seven directions as tons of living lava plummeted through the space they'd occupied.
The ancient dragon pulled up with impossible grace for something that size, banking hard and coming around for another pass. And this time, she breathed.
Dragon fire was one thing. Daenerys had seen plenty of that—white-gold flames hot enough to melt stone, to turn iron liquid, to reduce bodies to ash in seconds.
This was something else.
The ancient dragon's breath wasn't fire. It was *annihilation*. A column of heat and magic that didn't burn so much as erase. Where it touched the ruins below, stone didn't melt—it simply ceased to exist, leaving behind voids that exposed deeper layers of the buried city.
"That's not fire!" Bill's voice was barely audible over the roar. "That's—that's *unmaking*! Raw entropy given form!"
"Can we survive it?" Amelia demanded.
"No!"
"Then DON'T GET HIT!"
The seven dragons wove through the air in patterns they'd practiced but never imagined using like this. Formation Delta became Formation Desperate. They split, regrouped, split again, creating a moving target that was impossible to pin down.
And through it all, Harry's team was working the spell.
It wasn't one spell, really. It was twelve spells layered on top of each other, all of them theoretical, none of them tested, and several of them probably illegal in every jurisdiction that had opinions about magic. Hermione had designed it in thirty minutes of frantic calculation, and it was either going to work or kill them all.
Possibly both.
"I need her closer!" Hermione shouted from her position on Neville's broom. She'd refused to ride a dragon—said she needed both hands free for casting—and had instead convinced Neville to ferry her around on his Cleansweep while she worked. "The magical signature is too diffuse at this distance!"
"Closer to the thing that breathes death?" Ron yelled from his own broom. "Are you INSANE?"
"Demonstrably! Now GET ME CLOSER!"
Harry made the decision without consulting anyone. He urged Fury into a dive—straight toward the ancient dragon's head.
Fury, being Fury, decided this was a *brilliant* idea and dove with enthusiasm that bordered on suicidal glee.
"HARRY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" At least five people screamed this simultaneously.
"BEING BAIT!" he shouted back. "HERMIONE, WHEN I SAY NOW—"
"I KNOW WHAT TO DO!"
"DO YOU?"
"NO, BUT I'LL FIGURE IT OUT!"
They closed the distance impossibly fast. The ancient dragon saw them coming—how could she not?—and her burning eyes fixed on this tiny challenger with something that might have been amusement.
*Brave little spark. Come. Let me show you what real fire looks like.*
Harry felt the mental contact like a physical blow. The ancient dragon was *talking* to him. Not in words, but in images and emotions and concepts that human language was too clumsy to capture.
*You carry dragons, little spark. Young ones. Untested. Do you think they make you my equal?*
"I don't need to be your equal," Harry said, surprised to hear his own voice speaking aloud. "I just need to be fast enough."
He pulled up hard. Fury responded instantly, wings tucking, body rolling, avoiding the snap of jaws that would have swallowed them whole. They skimmed along the ancient dragon's neck, close enough that Harry could see the patterns in her lava-scales, the way death magic crawled across her hide like living shadow.
"NOW!" he screamed.
Hermione cast.
The spell was invisible at first—just a ripple in the air, a distortion that might have been heat shimmer. But where it touched the ancient dragon, the death magic *reacted*. It peeled away in strips, drawn toward Hermione's spell-work like iron to a lodestone.
The ancient dragon *screamed*.
Not in pain—not yet—but in fury. Something was *touching* her, something was taking what was *hers*, and she would *not allow it*.
She rolled mid-air, trying to dislodge the magical contact. Harry and Fury had to dive again, narrowly avoiding being crushed. But Hermione held the spell, her face twisted in concentration, sweat pouring down her face despite the Bubblehead Charm.
"It's working!" she gasped. "I can feel it—the death magic is *draining*—but there's so much of it! Four hundred years of accumulated curse-work! I can't hold this long enough to—"
"You don't have to!" Luna's dreamy voice cut in. She'd maneuvered her dragon—she was riding Goldhorn, borrowing Susan's dragon because Susan was better at combat flying—into position on the ancient dragon's opposite side. "You just have to start it. The rest of us will amplify!"
"Luna, you can't—the magical theory alone—"
"I don't need theory," Luna said serenely, already casting. "I can *see* what you're doing. The pattern. The flow. It's quite beautiful, actually."
Her spell locked onto Hermione's, and the effect doubled instantly. The ancient dragon bucked like a wild thing, her movements becoming erratic.
"Everyone who can cast at N.E.W.T. level or higher!" Amelia's voice cut through the chaos with parade-ground authority. "Lock onto Hermione's spell! Channel magic through it! We drain her together or not at all!"
One by one, they joined the working.
Neville, his hands shaking but his will iron-strong. Ron, swearing creatively but casting with the precision he'd learned in the war. Ginny, Bill, Tonks, all adding their magic to the drain. Even Hagrid, his wand-work crude but his heart huge, contributed what he could.
The ancient dragon realized what was happening too late to stop it. They weren't fighting her. They were *stealing* from her. Taking the accumulated death magic that had sustained her for four centuries and pulling it away.
*NO! YOU CANNOT! I AM THE FIRE ETERNAL! I AM—*
"You're tired," Daenerys said quietly, urging Silverwing closer. She could feel the dragon's exhaustion now, through the bond they all shared with their mounts. "You've been awake and angry for so long. Don't you want to rest?"
*REST IS DEATH.*
"Rest is peace," Daenerys corrected. "You didn't choose this. The dragon lords did this to *you*. Used you. Tortured you. Turned you into a weapon when all you wanted was to fly and hunt and sleep in the sun."
*They took EVERYTHING—*
"I know," Daenerys said, and meant it. "They took from you. They took from my family too. We're both victims of dragon lords who thought they could control the world. But we don't have to keep living in that pain. We can let it go."
The ancient dragon's movements slowed. The death magic was streaming off her now, drawn away by thirteen wizards working in concert, and with each moment she looked less like a creature of lava and rage and more like... just a dragon. Old and tired and hurt.
*What comes after?* The mental voice was quieter now. Almost afraid.
"I don't know," Daenerys admitted. "But it has to be better than this."
The spell reached critical mass.
The death magic, four hundred years of accumulated curse-work and pain and fury, tore away from the ancient dragon in a single catastrophic release. It formed a visible cloud above the ruins—a roiling mass of black and red that seemed to scream with a thousand tortured voices.
And then Hermione, thinking faster than anyone had a right to, cast one more spell.
"*FINITE INCANTATEM!*"
It shouldn't have worked. The Finite spell was for ending minor enchantments, not for destroying accumulated death magic that predated most modern spell-work. But Hermione had modified it, strengthened it, channeled every ounce of magical knowledge she'd accumulated through seven years of obsessive study.
And it was enough.
The cloud of death magic *screamed*—properly this time, with sound—and then it *dissipated*. Not destroyed, not really. Magic couldn't be destroyed. But scattered. Broken down into component parts. Rendered harmless.
The ancient dragon fell.
Not dramatically. Not with a final roar or a theatrical death scene. She just... fell. The magic that had sustained her was gone, and what remained was flesh and bone and exhaustion beyond measure.
"CATCH HER!" Daenerys didn't know she was going to scream it until she did.
All seven young dragons responded. They dove as one, wings spread, forming a living net beneath the falling titan. It shouldn't have worked—she was easily three times their combined mass—but dragon magic didn't always follow physical laws.
They caught her. Barely. All seven dragons straining, wings beating furiously, fighting to control the descent.
And they brought her down. Not gently—there was nothing gentle about tons of dragon impacting the plaza in a controlled crash—but they brought her down *alive*.
The ancient dragon lay there, breathing heavily, her scales no longer glowing with lava-heat. Just dark. Cooling. Normal.
Daenerys dismounted before Silverwing had fully landed, running across the broken stone toward the fallen titan. Distantly, she heard Harry shouting her name, heard others calling warnings, but she didn't stop.
She approached the massive head—still larger than she was tall—and looked into eyes that no longer burned with fire. Just exhausted gold, ancient and weary.
*You freed me,* the mental voice was barely a whisper. *Why?*
"Because you deserved freedom," Daenerys said simply. "And because I know what it's like to be used as a weapon when all you wanted was to live."
The ancient dragon considered this. Then, with effort that was clearly agonizing, she lowered her head until her snout touched the ground in front of Daenerys.
*I have a name,* she said. *I had forgotten it. Four hundred years of rage and pain, and I forgot my own name. But I remember now.*
"What is it?" Daenerys asked gently.
*Valryon. I was called Valryon, in the days before the Freehold. When there were still nests in the mountains and the sky was clear and humans were just another prey animal that sometimes put up interesting fights.*
"Valryon," Daenerys repeated. "It's beautiful."
*It's mine.* The dragon—Valryon—closed her eyes. *I am dying, little spark. The magic that sustained me is gone. I have perhaps hours. Maybe less.*
"Is there anything we can do?"
*You've done enough. More than enough. You gave me back my name. You freed me from the rage. That is more than I had any right to expect.*
"There has to be something—"
*There is.* Valryon's eyes opened again, focusing on Daenerys with sudden intensity. *My blood. Before I die, take my blood. Mix it with yours. Seven young dragons, seven riders. You can finish what the dragon lords started. But do it right. Do it with consent and love instead of force and torture.*
"I don't understand," Daenerys said, though part of her thought she might.
*The ritual,* Valryon explained. *The binding between dragon and rider. They wanted to make it permanent. Unbreakable. So that a dragon lord and their mount would be truly one being. Two souls sharing one purpose. They almost succeeded. But they used *me* as the power source, and they didn't ask permission. So I destroyed them all.*
"But if we—if we did it right—"
*Then you would have something beautiful. Something the world has never seen. True dragon riders. Not masters and servants, but partners. Equals.*
Daenerys turned to look at the others. They'd all landed now, dragons and riders and ground team, and they were approaching cautiously. Harry reached her first, his hand finding hers automatically.
"Dany? What's happening?"
"She wants to give us a gift," Daenerys said slowly. "Before she dies. A ritual. The one the dragon lords tried and failed. But done right this time. With permission."
"What kind of ritual?" Hermione asked, her academic instincts clearly warring with her exhaustion.
*The kind that will make you legends,* Valryon said, and everyone startled—apparently she'd opened the mental channel to include all of them. *The kind that will let you fly without saddles, fight without fear of falling, live without fear of separation. Your dragons will share your magic. You will share their strength. What one knows, both will know. What one feels, both will feel.*
"That's—" Hermione stopped. Swallowed. "That's incredible. But also terrifying. To be that connected to another being. To lose that much of yourself."
*You lose nothing,* Valryon corrected gently. *You gain everything. Your small dragons are young. Barely more than wyrmlings. But with my blood, with this bond, they will grow faster. Stronger. They will live as long as you do—or you will live as long as they do. And when one dies, the other will follow. True partnership. True unity.*
"Death pact," Sirius said quietly. "That's what you're describing. If the dragon dies, the rider dies. If the rider dies—"
*The dragon dies,* Valryon confirmed. *Yes. It is the price of such connection. But it is also the promise. You will never be alone. Never be separated. Not in life, and not in death.*
Harry looked at Daenerys. "Do you want this?"
She thought about it. Really thought about it. Being bound to Silverwing so completely that they would share a lifespan. That if one died, both died. It was terrifying. It was absolute. It was forever.
"Yes," she said. "I want it."
"Then I'm in," Harry said immediately.
"Me too," Daphne added.
"Obviously," Fleur said.
One by one, all seven riders committed. Not because it was safe—nothing about this was safe—but because they'd already chosen their dragons. Had already built bonds that ran soul-deep. This was just making it official. Making it permanent.
Making it *real*.
*Then we begin,* Valryon said. *And we must hurry. I can feel my hearts slowing. Time is short.*
The ritual was surprisingly simple.
Valryon bit her own tongue—gently, precisely—and let her blood pool in her mouth. Ancient dragon blood, thick and dark and shimmering with residual magic. Then she spat it out, creating a pool in the center of the plaza.
*Mix your blood with mine,* she instructed. *Riders and mounts both. Let it mingle. Let it become one.*
Daenerys drew Brightroar—it felt appropriate, somehow, to use a Valyrian steel blade for this—and cut her palm. The pain was sharp and bright, and the blood that welled up looked almost black in the crimson light. She walked to the pool and let it drip in, watching her blood mix with the ancient dragon's.
Around the pool, the others did the same. Seven riders, bleeding into the waiting magic. And then the dragons approached, each one carefully nicking their own scales with claw or tooth, adding their blood to the mixture.
Seven young dragons. Seven riders. One ancient titan's final gift.
*Now drink,* Valryon said. *Riders drink the blood. Dragons drink the blood. Let it flow through you. Let it *change* you.*
Daenerys knelt and cupped her hands in the pool. The blood was warm. She expected it to taste terrible—to taste like blood and metal and death.
Instead, it tasted like *fire*.
Pure, clean, beautiful fire. It burned going down, but it was the burn of transformation, not destruction. She felt it spread through her body, felt magic she'd never imagined reshaping her on a fundamental level.
And then Silverwing was there, the Ironbelly's massive head lowering to drink from the same pool. Their eyes met.
And the bond *snapped* into place.
Not the comfortable connection they'd built over years of working together. This was something infinitely more profound. Suddenly, Daenerys could feel *everything* Silverwing felt. The dragon's hunger, her joy at flying, her love for her rider. And more—she could feel the dragon's *thoughts*. Not words, but concepts and images and pure emotion.
*Pack-sister-rider-mine-love-protect-fly-together-forever*
"Silverwing," Daenerys breathed, and heard her own voice echo in the dragon's mind.
*Partner-equal-one-being-two-forms-together-always*
Around the plaza, the other bonds were forming. Harry and Fury, the connection explosive and fierce. Daphne and Copper, cool and calculated but no less deep. Tracey and Moonshadow, soft and protective. Susan and Goldhorn, solid and enduring. Fleur and Émeraude, graceful and proud. Gabrielle and Azur, young and enthusiastic and absolutely fearless.
Seven bonds. Seven riders. Seven dragons.
*It is done,* Valryon said, her mental voice already fading. *You are the first true dragon riders since the Freehold fell. Perhaps the first true dragon riders that ever existed. The dragon lords commanded. You partner. That is the difference. That is what will make you legends.*
"Wait," Daenerys said desperately. "Don't—there has to be a way to save you—"
*I don't want to be saved, little spark. I've lived too long already. Four hundred years of torture. Four hundred years of rage. I'm tired. And now, at the end, I get to die free. Die knowing my last act was creation instead of destruction. That's more than I ever hoped for.*
The ancient dragon's breathing was slowing. Her scales were cooling further, losing even the residual heat. But her eyes, when they met Daenerys's, were peaceful.
*Tell them,* she said. *Tell whoever comes after. Tell them that the last dragon of the true old blood died free. That she chose her ending. That she left a gift for the future. Tell them—*
She stopped. Took one more breath. Released it slowly.
And was still.
For a long moment, no one moved. No one spoke. They stood in the plaza—twenty-one humans, seven dragons, and one ancient corpse—and felt the weight of what had just happened.
Then Silverwing lifted her head and *sang*.
Not the hypnotic compulsion of Valryon's battle-song. This was different. A mourning cry, pure and high and achingly beautiful. A goodbye to an elder. A thank-you for a final gift.
The other six dragons joined in, their voices weaving together in spontaneous harmony. And through their new bonds, the riders felt everything the dragons felt. Grief. Gratitude. Wonder. Joy.
It was too much. Daenerys found herself crying, tears streaming down her face, and she wasn't alone. Harry was openly weeping. So was Fleur. Even Daphne had moisture in her eyes.
"We should bury her," Hermione said eventually, her voice rough. "It feels wrong to just leave her here."
"We couldn't move her even if we tried," Bill said. "She's too large. Too heavy."
"Then we make this her tomb," Sirius decided. "The plaza. We mark it somehow. Make sure anyone who comes after knows what happened here."
"I can do that," Neville said. He knelt, pressed his hands to the broken stone, and *pushed*. His magic—that deep, earth-rooted power that had always been his strength—flowed into the ground.
The plaza transformed.
Plants began to grow. Not the twisted, poisoned vegetation that sometimes appeared in the ruins, but real, healthy plants. Grass. Flowers. A garden in the midst of desolation. And at the center, where Valryon lay, a tree began to rise. Fast-growing, magical, its roots wrapping gently around the dragon's body until she was no longer a corpse but part of the landscape. Part of something living and beautiful.
"A weirwood," Luna breathed. "Neville, you grew a weirwood. How?"
"I don't know," Neville admitted. "I was just thinking about what she deserved. About how to honor her properly. And the magic just... knew."
The tree finished growing. White bark, red leaves, and carved into the trunk by magic rather than hands—a face. Not Valryon's face exactly. Just something that suggested dragon. Something ancient and wise and at peace.
And beneath it, words in High Valyrian that wrote themselves into the wood:
*Here lies Valryon, First and Last of the True Dragons. She died free and left the world better than she found it. May all who read this remember: Power without consent is tyranny. But partnership freely given is the strongest magic of all.*
"That's perfect," Daenerys said quietly.
"Yeah," Harry agreed, his arm around her shoulders. "It really is."
They stood there for a while longer, letting the grief and wonder settle. Then, slowly, they began to organize. To pack up. To prepare for the next stage.
Because they still needed to get to Westeros. Still needed to figure out where—and when—they were. Still had a world to explore and possibly conquer.
But they were different now. Changed on a fundamental level. True dragon riders, in a way that even the ancient Valyrians had never managed.
"Right," Amelia said eventually, falling back into her organizational mode because someone had to. "We have supplies for another three days. The dragons can carry us—especially now that the bond is stronger. We pick a direction and we fly until we find civilization."
"Which direction?" Tracey asked.
"West," Daenerys said immediately. "Westeros is west of here. Past the Smoking Sea. Past the ruins. There has to be land eventually."
"And when we find it?" Susan asked.
"Then we figure out what year it is," Hermione said. "What the political situation looks like. Whether Daenerys's family is still in power. What threats exist. We adapt. We plan. We survive."
"Our specialty," Ron muttered.
"Better than our specialty," George corrected.
"Our *brand*," Fred finished.
Harry looked at all of them—his family, his army, his partners in every insane adventure. "We've fought a war. Died and come back. Jumped through dimensions. Fought a lava dragon. Become the first true dragon riders in history. What's a little conquest compared to all that?"
"Potentially boring in comparison," Sirius said.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Amelia cautioned. "First we find civilization. Then we conquer it."
"Always with the proper priorities," Sirius said fondly.
They prepared to leave Old Valyria behind. The pyramid was abandoned, the temporary camp broken down, everything packed into expanded bags or loaded onto the dragons. And as the blood-red sun—or what passed for sun in this cursed place—began to set, they mounted their dragons one final time.
But it was different now.
Daenerys didn't just sit on Silverwing. She *merged* with Silverwing. Felt the dragon's strength as her own. Felt the wind in her wings—because they were *her* wings now, in a way they'd never been before.
*Ready, partner?* she thought.
*Always,* Silverwing responded. *Fly?*
*Fly.*
They launched as one—seven dragons and seven riders, moving with perfect synchronization because they were no longer separate beings. They were partnerships. They were weapons and wonders in equal measure.
And as they flew west, leaving the ruins and the ash and the tomb of the last true dragon behind, Daenerys felt something she hadn't felt since jumping into Pentos harbor seven years ago.
Hope.
"Think we'll make it?" Harry asked, Fury keeping pace beside Silverwing easily.
"I think," Daenerys said, grinning fiercely, "that Westeros has no idea what's coming."
"Good," Harry said. "I like surprises."
"You're going to fit right in with my family's chaos."
"Your family?" Ron's voice crackled through the charm. "Mate, we're ALL your family now. For better or worse."
"Definitely worse," Hermione added.
"Mostly worse," Neville agreed.
"Catastrophically worse," the twins chimed in together.
"But also kind of brilliant," Luna said serenely.
"That's our motto," Ginny declared. "Catastrophically brilliant."
"I'm putting that on a banner," Lee said.
"You're not putting that on a banner," Amelia said.
"I'm absolutely putting that on a banner."
They flew into the sunset—or what passed for sunset in the Smoking Sea—and behind them, in the plaza where an ancient dragon had found peace, the weirwood tree grew tall and strong.
A marker. A monument. A reminder.
Magic could destroy. But it could also heal. Could also transform. Could also give gifts beyond measure to those brave enough—or stupid enough—to accept them.
And ahead of them, somewhere beyond the horizon, Westeros waited.
It had no idea what was coming.
Seven dragons. Twenty-one wizards. And absolutely no sense of when to quit.
The conquest of Westeros was about to begin.
But first, they had to find it.
---
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