Harry lay on his stomach watching television. He was pondering what his magic had recently revealed to him—the egg made from a blanket. His brother sat nearby, finishing an apple.
"Wow!" he pointed at the screen with his apple core, where at that moment they were showing a close-up of a dragonfly larva feeding. "That would be perfect for a horror movie! Better than 'Alien'!"
Harry evaluated this. Then he imagined that instead of an egg, he had made himself into a larva like that... and shuddered with both horror and delight. Another idea came to him that he wanted to immediately discuss with Mrs. Fields, and he bounded toward the phone... However, on the way he encountered his aunt, and couldn't help but ask her how realistic an unplanned trip to Manchester would be.
They shot him down immediately: outside the already established schedule, there was no one to take him and no time. And to let him go alone... No way. She preferred him alive. This was pleasant and still not quite familiar. But Harry finally calmed down and realized there was no particular rush. He'd go the day after tomorrow and discuss everything. And he could share with Dudley. Secretly.
The elder Dursleys didn't approve of horror films: Harry only watched them at the psychologist's, then retold them in vivid detail to his brother. Dudley was envious and dreamed of seeing them himself, but when he dared mention buying a cassette with the "It" mini-series... the scene that followed was better not remembered. Fortunately, Dudley didn't betray either him or the psychologist... or what was she, a psychotherap... Mrs. Fields, anyway. He said he'd heard the kids at school talking about it.
But his vivid imagination wouldn't let go. "What if instead of an egg I made a cocoon—I wonder how Dudley would scream if he came in and saw me like that? He wanted to watch... The main thing is, I know how to get out of a cocoon—they showed it on TV—through the back: so I need to hunch over, push with my back, and everything will tear from behind. This isn't as scary to try! I wonder, is there a program about hatching from eggs?"
Harry could barely wait for evening, and although his brother with slingshots, his aunt with books, and then his uncle with his calculations about "Gringotts" didn't give him much chance to think about the future experiment, it was still present somewhere in the background of his thoughts, occupying him like distant mountains occupy the horizon. And when Harry headed straight to his bedroom immediately after evening tea, Aunt Petunia even felt his forehead to see if he was getting sick. But he was just waiting for when he could finally wrap himself in a blanket and... try! After all, if something went wrong, Dudley would give him another punch...
Wrapping himself in the blanket, Harry imagined he was a dragonfly larva. In all the details, for some reason starting from the tail, but when he got to what was considered the mouth, he became frightened: what if Dudley ran away? What if he couldn't get out? He thought that from an egg, probably, he could also climb out like from a larva's cocoon... What if he had sharp teeth too... Drifting into sleep, he remembered the Alien and went cold. No, he didn't want to be like that. Norbert at Hagrid's was much more appealing... but stupid. I wonder, do smart dragons exist? And animagi, when they transform, do they become as smart as animals or remain like humans? Eh, should have finished reading that chapter... A recently read page with a spell flashed through his head, and this was the last thing he remembered before falling asleep.
***
Petunia slept restlessly: several times she woke up and listened, but everything was quiet in her nephew's bedroom. She got up as soon as dawn broke. For some reason, she tiptoed to Harry's room and listened. Silence. Behind the neighboring door, Dudley was snoring. She smiled, turned and went to the kitchen, deciding to first brew herself coffee and collect her thoughts. There was no point in waking her nephew at the crack of dawn.
"What's happening to me?" Petunia asked herself, sipping the hot aromatic drink. "Everything's quiet, peaceful. Why is my soul not at ease?!" She took another sip, grimaced, added half a teaspoon of sugar and drank some more. Nodding approvingly to herself, she went out and opened the door to the garden.
Fresh air, humid enough that sunbeams were visible in it, birdsong, young bushes of new roses where buds were already beginning to bloom—all this calmed her. She stretched sweetly. She wanted to walk barefoot on the grass glistening with dew (it had definitely rained during the night), but... would this be proper for a respectable wife and homemaker? Listening to her own house, still sleeping, she slipped off her house slippers...
Surprisingly, the morning walk in the garden helped her find the resolve to finally open her nephew's door. She gasped from the threshold: on the bed under the blanket lay something round, gray-brown, slightly larger than Harry. Leaning against the doorframe, she stared at the bed in fear for a long time, finally calling timidly:
"Harry? Are you... there?"
No one answered.
She should go closer, but... anxiety flooded back, and approaching this thing with empty hands... Maybe Harry was there, but what if he wasn't? Her bad premonitions hadn't been for nothing!
She turned around and went to arm herself. No, she didn't take the "bulldog," although she spent a couple of minutes turning it over in her hands while thinking. Kitchen utensils seemed more appropriate for some reason. Habit, probably. She wanted to return to the bedroom and wake Vernon: she would feel much more confident with him, but her husband had had a difficult week... Or maybe just not rush anywhere for now, and it would wake up by itself? She sat back down on the bed, deep in thought, resting her cheek on the rolling pin.
The creak of the door in her son's room made her jump. Her child had woken up and immediately went to his brother... He shouldn't go there alone! Shaking the confused and sleepy Vernon, she hurried to her son.
***
Mother and son stood silently staring at the gray-brown leathery... egg—no other word could be found. When Petunia pulled Dudley away from his brother's bed, he had already thrown back the blanket that covered "this monstrosity" (as Petunia whispered), and now they were surveying it in all its glory.
"Harry!" Dudley shouted, but the egg didn't respond.
He jerked forward, but his mother held him tight.
"What could hatch from... that?" she asked, and Big D unexpectedly became thoughtful. He supposed nothing but Harry would emerge, but... better check.
"I'll be quiet," he promised his mother, gently freeing himself from her hands. Then he approached the bed and carefully knocked on the egg. "Harry, are you in there?"
Something rustled inside, the egg stirred, its surface trembled... a quite distinct grunt was heard from within. They pulled the eager-to-help Dudley back toward the door as he resisted. But then a crack ran silently across the surface, and this somehow seemed frightening... Another one... Holding her breath and gripping the rolling pin tighter, Petunia tried to push her son behind her. Where was Vernon?!
And then the egg burst, turning inside out like an ugly bud breaking open. On the bed sat... a dragon. Rather, a little dragon. Small—about the size of the boy himself—with beautiful coffee-with-cream colored skin on the sides, smoothly transitioning to dark chocolate on the back.
"Where's Harry?" Big D asked in bewilderment.
The little dragon looked at his paws and convulsively exhaled.
The fiery spit spread across the bed, but the beast quickly fell right onto the flames and almost immediately extinguished them. Dudley gasped. Petunia bit her lip, re-gripped the rolling pin, and regretted not bringing a pitcher of water—she should run get one... but couldn't force herself to move. She couldn't even call for her husband.
The little dragon looked... frightened. For some reason he stretched his wings forward, looked at them, then rose on his paws... peered under his belly... and with a heavy sigh fell onto the burned bed.
"Harry, is that you?" Petunia asked timidly. Though she thought she already knew the answer.
The little dragon opened one eye and nodded.
"Wow!" his cousin rushed to him, ignoring his mother. Petunia lunged after her son, and...
***
"Well, what's wrong with touching a dragon? He's warm, tame... er... domestic."
Vernon skeptically raised his eyebrows, but his wife continued:
"He responds to the name Harry. And his skin is so... pleasant," she justified herself to her husband, who couldn't get a bite down his throat at breakfast.
And what father of a family could get it down, having to breakfast with a living and, damn it, real dragon instead of his own nephew? His head raced with everything: here was the house burning, here they were taking his nephew—that is, the dragon—to the zoo, here journalists were overwhelming them... scientists... special services arriving! The opening prospects made the poor man's hair stand on end. What appetite could there be: tell him what to do with a dragon?! And he still had to go to work... What would his wife do with... this? What if something got into its head?
"He's calm, right, Harry?" it was simply awful to call this animal by his nephew's name, but it behaved quite similarly to him.
"He's cool!" the beaming son patted the dragon's back and stroked the glossy brown neck, not forgetting to chew: breakfast was almost festive.
The dragon, just like Harry, sniffled...
Yes, this breakfast in the Dursley family was worthy of separate description. First they had to decide how to feed a dragon and whether to let him at the table (the question "what to feed" somehow didn't arise). Getting used to her nephew's new appearance, Petunia started talking about washing and brushing teeth, but as soon as the beast opened its mouth, she... changed her mind. It was hard for her to leave her child alone with... this, but watching how the little dragon nuzzled her son, she decided to risk going to the kitchen. The family still needed to be fed. Especially now. She just left a bucket of water next to Harry-dragon, just in case.
Separately, one could describe how they helped the animal, tangled up in its own legs and wings, descend the stairs... Dudley laughed, and Petunia would have joined the fun if she hadn't been so scared. Vernon accompanied them, holding a fire extinguisher at the ready. Not without reason: getting angry, the little dragon repeatedly let out fiery volleys, so the staircase in the house now resembled the dessert "negro in foam" from a distance.
When the question of exclusion from the table arose, the dragon bulged its green eyes and real tears ran from them. Vernon mentally spat and waved his hand. Having used up a couple of kitchen towels on the crying beast, Petunia gave up and put a metal dish on the table. The dragon settled on the floor: he wouldn't have been able to sit on a chair anyway. Petunia habitually placed cutlery nearby. The dragon sighed sadly, looked at her reproachfully, and his stomach rumbled loudly. She quickly filled his improvised plate...
The dragon tried to eat neatly, as much as this was possible without hands. The decent pile on his dish quickly disappeared. He carefully picked up crumbs with his long forked tongue, making everyone except Dudley flinch, and periodically cast endearing glances at Petunia: breakfast was pancakes with maple syrup, and the dragon's appetite turned out to be... quite dragonish. And his eyes... Lily's eyes, yes. She also knew how to beg for treats. Petunia wiped away a tear that had welled up.
"Too bad you can't talk... You really can't?" Dudley wouldn't detach from the dragon, being in complete rapture with him. This wasn't bulldog puppies... This was...
But then the dragon tensed up... And let out some inarticulate sound.
"No, dear, it's all gone... both flour and eggs," Petunia admitted in a trembling voice.
At that moment the dragon rushed to the back door, just like Aunt Marge's dogs when they needed to be let out...
So she acted on autopilot after that.
***
Waking up inside the egg, Harry wasn't frightened at all this time, but did as in the movie: arched his back up and pressed against the hard shell, trying to push through it. It wasn't working well: for some reason it stretched a little instead of breaking. He strained harder, grunting with effort, his prison silently cracked, and he saw his bed.
He saw it somehow strangely... Then he heard his brother's question and understood. Then there was no time to think, he had to put out the bed. And then... he couldn't manage to return to himself. And that was scary.
Dudley helped a little with his cheerful laughter and... affection. His cousin's hands surprisingly calmed him as soon as they touched his hide.
"I could use your cheerfulness," Harry thought, but couldn't speak. And that was bad. Everything was bad... Aunt and uncle looked at him like... like an enemy. His legs wouldn't obey, his arms... wings—he didn't know what to do with them at all. How do these animagi even move? Horror... He counted his legs: four... Not a Norwegian Ridgeback... And how was he supposed to use them now?!..
The stairs... I hate it! Oh. Can't... Can't do that. Maybe just roll down? Ah... Ow, that wing really hurts... Oh... what smells! Food!
When his stomach cramped with hunger, he realized things could be even worse. But Aunt Pet... Tears welled up in his eyes. Everything passed as soon as they piled a decent heap of food on his iron dish. He tried very hard to behave properly, ate everything down to the crumbs and... was there perhaps more? Life began to seem not so hopeless. He'd eat, rest, and he and his brother would figure something out. But at that moment his stomach suspiciously rumbled.
At first Harry held out: he simply couldn't imagine how he could use the... er, facilities as a dragon. However, apparently something from what was offered at breakfast didn't agree with the dragon stomach, and soon he was forced to jump up, realizing that as an animal he could theoretically go... under a bush, and quickly darted to the back door. Fortunately, by this time he had more or less mastered his limbs and wasn't carried away too much. To the garden, everything to the garden!
A thought about dragon manure flashed through his head, and he rushed to the low bushes they had planted quite recently.
"My roses!!!"
But his aunt's wail could no longer prevent anything...
***
A woman in the prime of... years, a teenager, and a dragon sat on the back porch and looked at the five-foot-tall vigorously grown bushes on which buds the size of a couple of Vernon Dursley's fists were beginning to open.
More precisely, a shocked woman, a cheerful teenager, and a terribly pleased dragon whose head ridge the boy was scratching.
"The experiment succeeded," Harry decided joyfully and mentally chuckled, "the excrement succeeded too."
Judging by his aunt's expression, she definitely wouldn't let anyone take him from the house. Even her own husband. The result they were observing was impressive: the flowers were simply stunning.
"DragoHarry," his cousin addressed him. "Is it okay if I call you that? Because you're not exactly... not quite Harry. I mean... Hey, don't be offended! I just suggested..."
And Draco Malfoy flashed before Harry's eyes. The associations seemed absolutely disgusting to him. He wasn't Draco! And didn't want to have anything in common with him!
A tremor slowly ran through the dragon's body, then he convulsed... The Dursleys jumped up, but beside them on the grass lay a completely happy Harry, catching his breath. In pajamas and without glasses. Dudley jumped up and hugged his brother:
"There! It all worked out!"
"Are you... all right?" Petunia inquired.
"Thank you... Thank you, aunt," Harry beamed like summer sunshine. "Phew. I was so afraid I wouldn't be able to change back when it didn't work the first time!"
"When did you try the first time?"
"Almost immediately after I ate..." Harry blushed. "I didn't mean to, aunt... forgive me..."
***
Returning to the house, namely to the bedroom, was like a journey through places of military glory. They were tired of laughing, remembering how he had breakfast, how he conquered the stairs, what uncle and aunt did, and how it all looked from the side... Finally, Petunia, wiping tears of laughter, realized she should calm her husband down and went to the phone.
"Animagus transformation, you say... Can you now again... you know, into a dragon?" Dudley was already missing his "pet" a little. "You were so cool!"
Harry shivered. It was a bit scary... and therefore he didn't want to. And anyway, he needed to finish reading the book—the chapter! He muttered something unintelligible to his brother, grabbed the huge tome from the table and hid behind the old, worn and partly chewed cover of "Advanced Transfiguration." Big D, squinting and tilting his head, read the title and sighed heavily. If you want a dragon, you have to be patient... He sighed again, looked at his cousin who wasn't reacting to anything, and trudged downstairs to the TV.
Alas, his mother was there, engrossed in another stupid soap opera for housewives. Without taking her eyes off the screen, she hugged her son who had plopped down beside her.
"Sometimes nothing calms the nerves like a soap opera..."
Dudley never understood why there was so much to worry about—it was Harry, just in a different form... which he immediately said. But his mother puzzled him by saying he couldn't know for sure what remained of the human in the animal and what emerged from the animal.
"Probably Harry's reading about that now," he thought. "Or maybe he already read it?"
Big D's thoughts and actions didn't particularly diverge, so after a few minutes he was already peering over his cousin's shoulder into that same huge book. Finally, Harry looked up from reading and looked at him. Dudley asked... and immediately got a small popular lecture on animagus transformation, so now he could be considered an expert on it. Among muggles, of course.
"So you can't do it too often?" he clarified with Harry.
"Actually, you can... You can't do it for too long—then the wizard and his animal begin to... how to put it, merge. And besides, it takes a lot of energy and strength, you simply," Harry grinned, remembering his breakfast, "won't be able to feed me."
"What do dragons eat anyway? Meat?"
Harry thought. An interesting question... And he shared his thoughts about possible business with his brother. Dudley was delighted and dragged him downstairs to tell mother. She was naturally interested, but...
"It's impossible—people won't believe us, considering us charlatans or magicians when they see the result. That's one. And two..." she sighed. "I wouldn't want THIS to be with us... it smells too strongly... hmm."
"But the stench passes quickly," Dudley noted. "Though... yes, my eyes almost teared up. Your dragon is strong!" he chuckled and poked his cousin in the side.
"We need to look for ways to remove odors!" it occurred to Harry, and he almost started upstairs to his books.
"Wait. What about the first thing?" Dudley sat armed with... a notebook and pen?!
Harry's eyes widened. For the first time he had seen his brother voluntarily take writing materials in his hands...
"We need to understand in what concentration and in what quantity this would be acceptable... So people think it's just some particularly high-quality fertilizer," suggested Mrs. Dursley.
"Garden Miracle!" Dudley came up with a name.
"If we divide it into small pieces..."
"Harry, can you transform now?"
Vernon Dursley, humming along to his car radio and occasionally smiling into his mustache, was driving home with a gift for his nephew that the boy had long dreamed of. A brand new bicycle stuck out of the half-open trunk. The man was already anticipating the boy's delight, and most importantly... he smirked at this thought—a dragon definitely wouldn't be able to pedal! And never mind that he and Petunia had planned to present this on his birthday... Safety above all!
In the living room he found his wife and son, was about to call his nephew, but his wife gently covered his mouth with her palm, and his son whispered:
"Dad, don't make noise..."
"What happened? Where's Harry?"
"He's in his bedroom practicing being a dragon..."
Vernon went pale... it took his wife and son considerable effort to calm him down, and then they simply led him to the back yard. There his eyes grew almost as large as those roses, but surprise was quickly replaced by a business-like squint...
***
Vernon Dursley, humming along to his car radio and occasionally smiling into his mustache, was driving home with a gift for his nephew that the boy had long dreamed of. A brand new bicycle stuck out of the half-open trunk. The man was already anticipating the boy's delight, and most importantly... he smirked at this thought—a dragon definitely wouldn't be able to pedal! And never mind that he and Petunia had planned to present this on his birthday... Safety above all!
In the living room he found his wife and son, was about to call his nephew, but his wife gently covered his mouth with her palm, and his son whispered:
"Dad, don't make noise..."
"What happened? Where's Harry?"
"He's in his bedroom practicing being a dragon..."
Vernon went pale... it took his wife and son considerable effort to calm him down, and then they simply led him to the back yard. There his eyes grew almost as large as those roses, but surprise was quickly replaced by a business-like squint...
***
The experiments that fascinated the whole family continued for three days. Everyone participated, even uncle after work, despite some inconvenience which, however, was resolved by a simple muggle method—namely, a thick cotton-gauze mask. During this time they discovered that for rapid (but not minute-by-minute!) plant growth, just a teaspoon of this was enough. They also "invented" a dung-meter—from a large syringe, slightly enlarging its opening.
Petunia tried to cheapen the process by intensive feeding of her nephew before transformation into animal form, but alas, nothing worked. No matter how much Harry ate while being himself, as soon as he became a dragon, an unpleasant emptiness was felt in his stomach.
The Dursleys sighed: food was needed. A lot. A very lot. The fertilizer was getting expensive... Vernon, grunting, was recalculating something in his son's notebook. On the second day the nephew tried chewing... everything. And unexpectedly realized he liked it! Trimmed branches from the garden and just hay—rather, mowed grass—went down especially well. The family cheered up: it turned out feeding a dragon wasn't such a difficult task. The main thing was not to give him maple syrup... Yes, it turned out that maple syrup acted on Harry-dragon exactly like a laxative.
Workers called by uncle quickly attached some kind of shack to the garage, where further experiments continued. And aunt gradually began supplying (not for free, naturally) those neighbors she considered most loyal with miraculous fertilizer that distant relatives who had long ago emigrated overseas had supposedly sent her. Soon almost all the housewives with any green plantings in the town wanted to be friends with her...
To incoming commercial offers, the Dursleys responded identically: "No-no, this isn't production, a one-off batch, a chance occurrence"... But Vernon was already eyeing either a plot for a house or a house with a plot in London. Why think small? They also opened an account at a decent bank for their nephew.
In the shed-extension, five filled and carefully closed containers awaited their turn. Harry remembered what Madam Sprout said about composted manure... Moreover, after a year it almost stopped smelling.
Dudley and Harry giggled, imagining all sorts of pranks with the dragon, like how at school Harry would approach Draco... and whisper in his ear that he was also a dragon... And then show him. Harry had fun wholeheartedly, but of course realized that dreaming wasn't harmful. He would never do anything like that. First, it wasn't worth revealing himself. Second... it could become dangerous. And not just for Malfoy. While he couldn't stand the white-haired aristocrat, he still preferred to see even his disgusting face intact, not to mention other schoolchildren. But to singe Crabbe and Goyle's pants... Why not dream!
Harry was getting better and better at transforming. Especially if for transformation into Dragon he imagined Draco's face... And to change back he just had to remember the bicycle.
***
Work with the psychologist also seemed to be nearing its end. He had managed to brilliantly realize the idea with which it all began, and now the boundaries of his mind and memory were guarded by such serious guys as the Alien and the Predator. There was also a knife-wielding doll, a girl with eyes without pupils, while a couple of the most colorful but tough characters from "The Living Dead" and a mummy, alas, were rejected. Their place was taken by the horrifying clown from "It." The main thing, on Mrs. Fields' advice, was not to use anything that would be scary stories from the wizarding world. Though he had gotten acquainted with dementors from afar and gained a certain respect... But it was interesting—if "It" were pitted against a dementor, what would happen? What about the Alien?
Harry now rightfully considered his mental protection practically perfect—he himself would be afraid to go in there if his guards didn't hide in their chambers when he wished it. And he did wish it: he enjoyed visiting his own "memory library." But extracting new memories somehow didn't work. Though he didn't particularly grieve about this—there were enough activities. He discovered that in dragon form he could read, turning pages with his nose. The main thing was not to breathe at that moment: his heat could easily ignite both paper and parchment, and how the latter stank... Harry quickly learned to hold his breath.
He also had to prepare for visiting the bank. Goblins were serious business. Though he still hoped Uncle Vernon would decide to keep him company. He had become so impressed with his uncle's business acumen during the "manure epic" that he was ready to entrust him with all the contents of his vault in full confidence that he wouldn't lose out.