Beneath Azure Skies.

Part 2 of The Heart of the Dragon.

To those of my readers who haven't read Part 1 of The Heart of The Dragon (On Crimson Wings), I recommend that you do so, or you'll be missing a great deal of the context of this story. To those who have, I hope I can impress you equally with the sequel here presented...

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, the world or the characters. They belong to J. , with gratitude for letting us play with them. The challenge comes from GoldenSteel, with gratitude for the ideas. The only thing I could lay claim to are the story and plotline, but that just seems greedy...

Draconic Communication is indicated this way: ¤I'm a Dragon, too!¤

Chapter 1: A Debt to Settle.

Vernon Dursley was not a nice man. Not even his neighbours thought so, although they smiled with fragile expressions and nodded at the right places so as to escape his noxious presence that much quicker. He spent far too much money for him to have come by honestly, with a new car showing up every time someone else had one that seemed in any way better than his. The sheer size of the man's own son indicated no shortage of food, so the citizens of Privet Drive could see no reason why the supposed 'incurably criminal' boy should be underfed. Especially as overworked as he seemed to be, with the Dursleys apparently leaving the worst of the chores to accumulate through the school year for the youth to deal with on his return. Indeed, Petunia Dursley in particular was known to claim all credit for her gardens, debatedly the best in the Drive, but no-one had ever seen anyone other than the nephew working on them. So it was that the man at number 6, one Darius Byrde, vindictively and maliciously took up the noble pastime of pigeon-racing. Vernon hated the man, especially while washing his car so as to give the best impression to his co-workers.

It was a bad year for the Dursleys. Someone had cut off the stipend they were supposed to receive for looking after Harry, so Vernon had been unable to purchase a new car to show off when Darius' old Fiat had given up the ghost and been replaced with a decent Ford station wagon. That had the fat man out of sorts. Dudley's activities were finally catching up to him, as the bullying that had taken place around the neighbourhood was being pinned on 'either a large, fat boy, or a small killer whale with neither decent morals nor sense of direction'. That hardly fit the image the inhabitants of Privet Drive possessed of the scrawny, wiry, bespectacled boy that was Harry Potter. Petunia's attempts to turn all blame to the young 'hooligan' instead brought the gossips of the neighbourhood to question the veracity of all rumours with the horse-faced woman as their origin.

The final straw arrived in the form of their trip to Kings' Cross Station to pick up their charge, where they waited several hours before a scruffy-looking man in a suit and trench-coat (which was suspiciously close enough to robes for Vernon) inquired whom they awaited, in quite a helpful manner. The belligerent reply from the oversized Vernon did not seem to please him.

"If you must know," he was informed, as the Dursley patriarch fumed and turned an interesting shade of red, "we are here to collect our worthless freak of a nephew."

Shrugging aside the rancor pouring from the Dursleys, Sirius Black fought back a grin. "That's a wonderful thing," he replied. "But it's absolutely useless for finding him in a train station. What's his name?"

Reluctantly, as if the name were being dragged from him with red-hot pliers ('Now, there's an idea,'mused the canine animagus) Vernon answered. "Harry Potter."

"Oh dear," Sirius said, affecting an air of upset and worry. He was no great shakes as an actor, but then Vernon was decidedly un-perceptive. "My son goes to this boarding school up north, and there's a boy with that name in his classes. I was told that Harry Potter wouldn't be on the train this year." Sirius was quite proud of that line, even if he was trying to pat his own back. There wasn't a single statement there that was a lie, and yet if taken as a whole, it was a load of utter codswallop. "Something about a girl, and marriage, and spending time with her parents... It was quite a mess, you understand." He looked in both directions carefully, as if to be sure no-one could hear him. "I was told that there were dragons involved, and if there're... well, their sort around, then those things would certainly be a possibility, wouldn't you say?"

The Head of House Black bit his cheek lightly to refrain from laughter as the Dursleys half-stormed and half-fled from the station. Taking an enchanted hand-mirror from his pocket, he spoke quickly and quietly, holding it as most would a mobile phone. "Moony."

"Padfoot," came the reply. "You know, staring at your earwax is not the best way to spend the day."

"Hush, Remus," Sirius scoffed. "Two serves of bacon and a side of toast have been served. Let the Big Reds know, okay?"

Remus Lupin nodded. He wasn't entirely sure what the Crimson Couple were up to, nor why Sirius had named them Mahogany and Russet (or when they were together, the Big Reds), but when Sirius had approached him with the chance to really prank the three people who were directly responsible for the torture Harry'd been forced to call a childhood, he was in. When Sirius' trial a month or so back had cleared his name, Remus had felt somewhat ashamed that he'd ever believed the man who was his best friend (or at least, one of them) to be capable of selling out his brother-in-all-but-blood. Now he put away his mirror and howled. No-one can match a werewolf when it comes to howling, and Remus' cry was heard at least a mile away. By an incredible coincidence (yeah, right), that was exactly how far he was from the public park near Privet Drive. Two figures in crimson greatcoats glanced at each other and grinned. Together, they turned toward Privet Drive and began walking.

The wasted (as the Dursleys saw it, at least) journey to and from King's Cross Station had left Vernon in a foul temper. His rants were barely muttered, and yet they were quite clearly audible to the other occupants of the car. Petunia had her own choice additions to the mix, and Dudley was a little put out that his favourite quarry, indeed the only quarry that didn't have any adult protectors, wasn't coming back. As they pulled into the driveway, Vernon glared at their neighbour, who nodded politely with a pleasant little smile as he scattered some feed for his pigeons. Petunia bustled inside, realising that she was the one who'd be cooking now and moving to get something started. Last, Dudley decided to round up his gang and see if there was anyone worth hassling at the local park.

It was at the corner of Privet Drive that the small band of hooligans spotted a likely target, and Dudley grinned. It looked to him like Potter had been forced to come back anyway, that would give him someone to work his frustrations off on. Oh, and he'd brought some slag with him, too. Well, he'd soon fix that...

Harry saw the small killer whale that was his cousin, and the handful of delinquents that made up his gang. Rubbing the wedding band on his left hand for reassurance, he glanced over at his other half. "Last chance, Mine," he whispered. "Say the word, and we're gone."

Hermione shook her head. "We'd just have to deal with it later anyway. At least this way, it's done. And it's not like they can hurt us, either."

His mate's support echoed through him, their link soul-deep and stronger than ever. As the young thugs approached, Harry went over her words, and the allusions therein, as he identified the members of his cousin's 'hunting party'. There were only four of them, being Dudley, Malcolm, Douglas (Harry'd never bothered learning if those were their first or last names, and didn't really care) and last the weasel-faced Piers Polkiss.

In an office deep within the Ministry of Magic, Walden Macnair was fuming. He'd been lucky to find an ally in his crusade against the monsters, someone who wanted Potter gone so the Ministry (and therefore they) would be able to confiscate the wealth he possessed. But with the Daily Sage under his thumb, they had to be circumspect until it was under their thumb instead. So this roundabout method. His 'partner-in-crime' would deal with the problem, he was certain... until he felt the chill presence that swept overhead, sucking away the joy from his mind. "No," he thought, shuddering inwardly. "She wouldn't... would she?"

He re-assessed what he knew of his ally, and quickly concluded that not only would she, she already had. Realising exactly what was going to happen, he grinned. Either Potter would defend himself, and they'd get him for the Statute of Secrecy, or he wouldn't, in which case it wouldn't matter. Then, with the erstwhile Duke of Slytherin out of the way, he could finally deal with those blasted lizards...

Harry watched carefully as his cousin approached, noting the way large sections of his arms and abdomen... jiggled... as he walked, no, swaggered (or at least thought he did) towards the young wyrms. How had he ever been afraid of this soft, fat child? Intellectually, he understood that at one point he'd been just as squishy, but he had a hard time recalling the emotional context. As Dudley's gang placed themselves in a line, he saw them glance at the over-sized teenager, seeking a clue to guide their actions.

"Hey, Pot-head," Dudley sneered, while Harry rolled his eyes at the insult. "Where'd ya find the girl, and how much did you have to pay her? Don't worry, she won't be lonely, we'll take care of her after we put you inna hospital for wastin' Dad's time and fuel."

Hermione's voice held the tiniest fraction of dragonfear as she struggled not to let it hammer the boys who were attempting to give her a once-over, hindered by the concealing coat she wore. "Is he always like this?" she asked quietly, in a stage whisper that Dudley and his friends didn't realise she wanted them to hear.

Harry, on the other hand, made no attempt to 'conceal' his words. "No, he must be having a good day," he replied. "I mean, the insults, a three-syllable word and a somewhat coherent plan? That must have strained the bone he uses for a brain. I'll bet he used up his whole week's 'clever and witty' on those."

The obese bully may not have been very smart, but he could recognise when he was being insulted, especially when Piers' snigger, cut off quickly (no sense ticking off someone weighing four times what you did, after all), told him so. Of course, Dudley's problem was that Harry was correct, in a way. He had no prepared response, no quick wit to make a comeback, so he went with the old standby... he answered Harry with his fist, driving the bunched knuckles into the side of his cousin's head.

Arabella Figg felt the presence of the dementors immediately, and dashed to her floo before she'd thought. After Albus' incapacitation, she didn't know who she was supposed to contact about this sort of thing. Making up her mind as quickly as she could, she sorted and discarded people before she realised she was taking too long. A handful of floo powder hit the fire as she called out the connection she wanted. "Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Law Enforcement!"

The pain that came as a result of Dudley's forceful swing, backed by a fair amount of boxing training, was everything he could have dreamed of... were it not for the fact that instead of being inflicted on Harry's skull, the expected agony was instead all concentrated in Dudley's own fist, as the bones gave way before what felt like solid steel. From the crunch, and the way the over-sized bully collapsed and cradled his injured limb, Hermione would have guessed the brute to have broken not just his knuckles, but the hand and possibly the wrist behind them as well. As Piers stepped forward, obviously to grab the 'frail, defenceless girl' and use her as hostage to stop Potter, he was halted in his tracks by her chilling glare, fueled with enough of her dragonfear to freeze the marrow in his bones. She tightened her self-discipline even further as the first hint of urine made its way to the young wyrms' noses. Polkiss, a large stain developing around his crotch, fled. The other two, of sterner stuff, remained... until the temperature began to drop, even further than the inclement weather called for. As the two mundane boys ran, Harry and Hermione spotted the bedraggled, tattered cloaks that heralded the cause of the sudden, soul-biting chill that had sprung up. So did Dudley...

As Harry's second-worst tormentor screamed in panic, Hermione quickly glanced around... there was no-one nearby, although Privet Drive wasn't too far off, but the fact that dementors were here at all was not just a shock, but a horror. If they were here after a fugitive, then they'd be hunting that person, and Harry had been very susceptible to them when he'd met them before, in Third Year. A glance at her mate revealed that not only was he not scared of them, he was positively incensed at their presence. If they weren't here after a fugitive, then they were either hunting the only two magicals within a mile, or they were rogues, escaped from the control the Ministry claimed was ironclad, and loose among people with no defences against them... people who, if what Professor Lupin had told them in Third Year was anywhere near accurate (and he was the best Defence teacher they'd had in the past four years), couldn't even see them coming. Although Dudley's eyes were tracking them exactly...

As she pushed that aside to deal with later, Harry stepped forth, placing himself firmly between the dementors on his side and his cousin. He might not like the waste of flesh (and what a waste), but not even he deserved the fate that a dementor would deliver. As Harry breathed inwards, deeply, Hermione turned to the other side, in time to spot two more dementors, and followed her mate's example.

The utter chill that surrounded the dementors held off the dragonflames that poued from the Crimson Couple's mouths just long enough for the soul-eating monstrosities to realise exactly what they were up against before the fires swept them away, leaving naught but a fine powdery ash behind them. As Dudley stared in horror at his cousin and the girl, he drew himself in tight against the terror that the dementors had exuded, a faint echo of what he'd been feeling, but enough to be going on with, in his opinion.

¤I suppose we'll have to go for the quick version,¤ Harry rumbled, looking into Hermione's eyes, and although Dudley couldn't understand a word of it, the girl nodded. As the two stepped back, their forms grew and shifted, twisting and stretching in ways the obese teen knew normal people couldn't, until there before him, two Dragons, huge and red, took to the skies. Mere minutes later, the pops of Wizardly apparation sounded, and a number of aurors arrived, along with a Ministry obliviator. While Dudley never did recall what had happened that day, he could never hear his cousin's name again without feeling the primal, little-monkey part of his brain send a shudder of primordial 'please-don't-eat-me' level terror down his spine.

Vernon was almost impossibly muggle, as the pure-bloods would have said it, and so didn't register the arrival of the dementors, being distracted by cleaning and polishing his car after Darius Byrde's pigeons had flown over it. He had been forced to do it again just minutes later, in fact, and was glaring at the birds when they suddenly scattered. Deciding they'd been intimidated by his own imposing presence (regardless of what the truth might have been), Vernon turned to go inside, dusting his hands together in victory.

The sound behind him was reminiscent of someone emptying a cart-load of manure by simply dumping it from a height, only louder, and Vernon Dursley froze on the spot. The smell was somewhat like a sewage treatment plant, but stronger. Vernon turned around and stared at the spot his car, a convertible sedan, stood with the top down... It was still there, it was just filled with and covered in dung of an unknown origin, although the beating of enormous wings suggested some kind of unnatural bird...

Of course, if he'd retained enough presence of mind to look up, he might have seen the two Welsh Reds as they pulled for more altitude, but by the time he'd recovered enough from the shock, they were hidden amongst the clouds, and the aurors were coming up the street with an obliviator. Petunia, inside had caught one whiff of the draconic manure and fainted.

For some unknown reason, the Dursleys' car had a terrible problem with the paint job almost burned off in places, and a lingering smell had become infused into the leather seats that made the driver and passengers quite green no matter how many times it was scrubbed out.

The failure of the dementors made the one who sent them absolutely livid. Dolores Umbridge had been most displeased by the way Amelia Bones' supporters had reacted to her taking the reigns of the DMLE and the subsequent ousting of the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister from the post. Perhaps she had been a little petty about this particular response, but the second Potter used his wand, she would have had him... or so she thought. One of her more courageous toadies (as the rest of the Ministry called them, much to her ire) had brought a flaw in her plan to her attention. Potter's cousin already knew of the magical world, so using a defensive spell in front of him would not have been a violation of any laws, particularly as Potter was also the Duke of Slytherin and legally emancipated, thus rendering him above the Decree for Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. She would need something else, something more, and it had to be legal... she had several of her lackies and lickspittles hard at work to find some way she could deal with the brat. Dumbledore was out of the way, and You-know-who was dead... even if he wasn't, her aims were very similar to his...

Sev was having the time of his life. Mr and Mrs Tonks were great parents, he felt, and Nym-... no, no, don't even think that name, Tonks... was a wonderful big sister substitute. The strangeness he saw in them sometimes was easily attributed to the mean man he'd once been, before he'd obviously picked on the wrong person. Some of the things he'd found out his old self had done had him not wanting to remember, but occasionally the thoughts were there in his dreams... say rather, nightmares... and the boy woke screaming, with flares of accidental magic producing wisp-like lights in the darkness of his room.

"Tonks," he said, hesitantly.

"Yah, Sev?" The metamorphmagus had often wondered if and when she'd get a little sibling, but she'd certainly never thought it would be Severus Snape filling the spot. Where the hook-nosed Potions Master had been thoroughly dreadful, Sev was almost a literal angel.

"I was just wondering about your name," he replied, circumspectly. "I know you don't like your first name, but it's confusing to me. I say Tonks, and I get three answers... you see? I don't think I'd have liked being 'Nymphadora' if I was a girl, either, but what's your middle name?"

"Worse," the pink-haired (for the moment) auror said, a flat response that pretty much ended that line of the query.

Sev shivered a little. "Okay," he responded, sweat breaking out on his brow. "There isn't, nor ever was, any middle name." Tonks nodded. "So how about, since you don't like your first name, we cut it up?"

The puzzled look on the face of his sister-substitute prompted Sev to explain. "Like, Severus sounds all grumpy and gruff, but Sev has more, I dunno, energy in it. So what about..."

"Not Nym," the auror said hurriedly. "A lot of the bad feelings came from words that used that syllable."

The dark boy shook his head, his long, clean, black hair flicking back and forth. "No, and Dora... Dora just sounds too, well, too plain and drab." He tapped his chin, an action that Tonks had watched him copy off Harry. "Howsabout... we chop off the 'Nym' and the 'Ora' and that leaves... 'Fade'. Yeah, Fade, 'cause you can just become someone else and fade away in a crowd."

"Sounds like young Sev has a Marauder name for you, cousin," came a voice she recognised. The entrance of Sirius Black into the library where the two were supposed to be studying startled both, and Sev quickly raised his book and hid his face. "That never worked when I tried it, either," the animagus commented.

"But, Sirius," protested the newly christened Nymphadora 'Fade' Tonks, "I'm not an animagus."

"So? If that was a requirement, we wouldn't have been able to include Moony," Sirius answered her remark. "Lycanthropy prevents the animagus transformation just as much as metamorphing does, you know. You simply have to have a unique talent and receive a name that reflects it, and young Sev here is a bright lad to suggest one that fits you so well. I may not have liked Snivellus, but I can't bring myself to hold it against this boy... they just aren't the same person."

The boy in question peeked out over the top of his book. "Really?" he asked. One of the things that had worried him about staying with the Tonks family was how the people he'd been mean to would take it... If Sirius Black, the one he'd been worst to next to James and Harry (it had been embarrassing to discover that the boy he'd been copying had been the one to stop him and the one he'd... no, Severus had... tormented the worst) was willing to see him as a different person, then maybe he could see himself as someone different, too.

Sirius grinned, amazed at himself. It was almost impossible to believe that he'd be willing to look out for Severus Snape like this, and if someone had told him so as little as a year ago, he'd have called them madder than Dumbledore. "Yep. And it might even be that you get your own Marauder name, too."

Harry and Hermione landed, still dis-illusioned from their flight, in the Grangers' backyard. Emily Granger's weyr was a good ways off from here, but still this place held her scent as strong, her right of domain patently obvious. The Crimson Couple pushed themselves back into human shape as they dropped their charms and quickly moved inside, handing off their greatcoats to Dobby to place in the front hall coat room. Only then did they begin to relax. Harry walked over to the perch by the front window in the lounge room, where Hedwig waited patiently. The snowy owl was much larger, easily the size of the Black Eagle that had delivered Harry's Gringotts notification the previous school year. A few other changes had occurred, too. For a start, her talons were now a silvery colour, and two tufts of feathers had twisted up and out into horns... but for all her changes, she was still Hedwig. If anything, she was a little smarter, and she was as easily able to understand, and at times anticipate, Hermione as much as Harry.

Crookshanks had changed as well, gaining enough size to put him as an equal with a German Shepherd dog, and smoothing out his build somewhat, as he now resembled nothing so much as a miniature golden-furred tiger with reddish stripes. His claws, too, were the same silvery colour as his counterpart's, and his understanding had also grown. The changes that had occurred to the two familiars had been slow, gradual, and easily overlooked in the excitement of the previous year, what with the Tournament, their own transformation, and of course the Trial of Sirius Black.

The transmogrification of their familiars aside, the two young wyrms had other responsibilities to deal with, and spent the time before the Grangers returned from their dental clinic working on their summer homework, and once that was done with, Harry's estate management. This led into Hermione's estate management, since she had claimed her vault at Gringott's shortly after getting back from Hogwarts. It got even more complicated when they found that while Harry might not own the school, the Duke of Slytherin certainly owned the castle it was in and the surrounding valley. This gave him certain rights and responsibilities... Aragog for instance. An acromantula colony like the one in the Forbidden Forest had to be dealt with as soon as possible. That was on their unofficial schedule for the next month, and the month after had no plans beyond Harry's birthday... although Hermione wouldn't let the green-eyed youth make any plans around that time, neither did she tell him what plans she was making. Fair's fair, he thought, and started making plans for the next September...

It was at this point that an owl landed in the Grangers' front window, bearing an official letter from the Ministry, addressed to one Harry James Potter.