Harry Potter: Dragon Whisperer

The Speaker has Spoken

2:34am

Monday, 8 August 1995

Romanian Dragon Reserve, Romania

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Harry raced through the door of the hut, his feet skidding on the dirt as he changed direction.

"Harry! Wait!"

He heard Sirius' voice, but ignored it. Waiting wasn't an option. The dragons needed him. Even now he could hear their roars echoing from the valley or was that inside his head? Viciously, he shook his head. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting to them as quickly as he could.

A sharp stone dug into the ball of his foot and he hopped a couple of steps, glaring daggers at the ground itself. He hoped that he didn't step on anything else that he couldn't see.

And then it hit him. What in the world was he doing running in the first place? He was a wizard with a flying broom and everything.

Harry thrust out his hand behind him even as he kept running forwards, willing his magic to summon his broom to him.

The darkness was something else that a wizard shouldn't have to put up with either. A flick of the wrist of his off-hand conjured a ball of light; a push-flick of his fingers sent it sailing ahead of him.

A whistling of wind behind him had Harry twisting about to see his broom shooting straight at him from behind. Unerringly, he snagged it straight out of the air even as he jumped and threw a leg over it. Even before his feet found the stirrups, he was laying low over the Nimbus Two Thousand and willing it to speeds even faster than he'd ever flown before.

He raced at the trees that forested the mountainside. Flying through that, especially at this speed, at night, he knew, was akin to suicide. Harry did the only thing that made sense, he pulled back on the shaft and soared straight up. Even at that angle, his feet still clipped a few high branches, sending a rain of leaves falling to the forest floor below, not that Harry even noticed.

His ball of light may have been moving fast but with the speed that Harry was urging his broom to, it meant that he nearly overtook it.

And then the end of the trees was directly below him and Harry dived. The wind whipped at his hair and pants and his bare chest and he was forced to squeeze his eyes into slits. He passed the edge of the cliff and kept going, shooting straight down the side of the canyon.

Even with the light from his light ball, it was near-impossible to tell exactly where the floor of the canyon was. Harry strained his eyes, searching for it. And then it appeared as if out of nowhere at the very edge of the light and Harry pulled up sharply. The nose of the broom barely cleared the ground, as did his toes and a whirlwind of dust was kicked up in his wake behind him.

§SPEAKER!§

§SPEAKER! WE NEED YOU!§

The roar of the dragons was almost overwhelming from down here and, with the echoes that reverberated up and down the canyon, impossible to tell exactly where it was coming from. But it wasn't just dragon roars heard through his ears, he was sure of it. It also sounded as though the voices were coming from inside his own head.

Whatever it was, all it did was increase Harry's sense of urgency.

He knew this canyon. He'd flown down it every day since he'd been here. Multiple times. Now he used that knowledge.

It was all but pitch black, only the light from his ball that was now at his shoulder was allowing him to see anything and at that, only what was in its circle of influence. Everything outside was pitch black, hidden from him even with the small amount of light that the moon was providing.