FicWad

Edit on 1/15/2021: Just making it easier to read, not changing any plot elements. This chapter remains a bit of history/backstory avalanche, but hopefully it remains interesting. If you’re new, please keep reading, the next few chapters are much better!

I don't own Harry Potter or Warcraft. Reviews put a smile on my face! Our characters get a taste of time-travel Bronze style this chapter. Yes, it’s the normal direction, it’s but much faster than normal!


Chapter 5: Dreaming an Emerald Dream



When he fell asleep and found himself in the Dream with everyone else, Harry found he could easily see why this place had been named the Emerald Dream. A green mist hung everywhere, and he could feel something in the air that was new to him. He waved a hand through a bit of mist and reveled in the sensation of Life, and Wild Nature that permeated everything. Soon, he followed the sound of voices to the rest of the group. Oddly he found that Stine was the only one that seemed to be completely solid, the others while not translucent, still felt like they weren’t really there.

Alira felt like that as well, but gave off a sense that fully there or not she was part of this realm, that it was her birthright, and that it served her. He smiled as he saw the two groups of dragons mixed together conversing about this or that. Hermione was reading a book Sirius had sent, marked with a note that read “Most Important.”

Stine was making his preparations, carving runes in a pattern around an area about the size of a baseball diamond. Aurogos was giving basic instruction on the “Mortal Form,” and some tips on how to find the right form to wear. (‘Blending in’ was mentioned at least three times in as many minutes, with glances at Stine.) Apparently, Stine had been busy because by the time Harry had been acknowledged by the group and read the title of Hermione’s latest fascination, Stine was ready to activate his array.

Like Tendrion, Stine had enough power to use many more forms of magic than he had the fine control to shape, so he made use of an exterior focus to shape the magic as necessary. Unlike Tendrion, he had been taught many things by various instructors of the Bronze Dragonflight, and had once been given time compression and dilation barrier arrays and instructed to explain why these would not have worked at Ahn'Qiraj. He eventually arrived at the answer that there was no way for such a large barrier to be powered at all, and certainly not safely. Though a small area in a plane of reality not strictly tied to physical properties as the waking world should be doable.

Stine set the compression runes for seventy-three days, as some fast math in his head showed that number to produce the most time for his available power while maintaining the highest stability. There had been some discussion over whether he should be inside or outside the effect, as they had limited supplies preserved; but since no one thought food was going to be their main problem in the days ahead he was staying inside the area of effect.

It didn’t hurt that the array would stay just a little more stable if he remained inside and fed the runes small bits of power as time progressed. Thankfully, Senastrasz had already set up a camp’s latrine ward; a handy bit of magic that converted bodily waste into nutrients in the soil while it eliminated smells along with the positive effect of converting most of the waste water into magical energy that fed the nearest ley-line. Finally done with the last runes, Stine decided to activate it as fast as possible. This realm was a bit unnerving for him, since by its very nature the Emerald Dream altered one’s sense of time.

Little changed when the runes glowed amber for a moment, gave a brighter pulse of light, and settled down to a barely noticeable glow; seemingly to no effect save that the various green hazes outside the marked boundary froze. It wasn’t that they were stopped, only that time withing the sphere marked out by the circle was moving much faster. If you looked very closely and were patient, you could see the glow near where Stine had activated the circle recede around the formed circle. When the glow faded around the entire circle, the effect would end.

Now that they were ready to start, Harry suddenly realized he had no idea how to teach a language to anyone. Hermione, seeing the predicament, walked over to the trunk and levitated out a blackboard with chalk, and a book on English as a Second Language. She got a strong hug and a whispered thanks in return as Harry gestured the dragons around and started using the chalk to write out the English alphabet on the board as he explained the various sounds associated with the letters.

Hermione had decided to let Harry manage the early lessons while she read the books Sirius had sent, something to get her mind off the strange sensation of Harry’s dream body pressed against hers. (They were both still wearing the suits from earlier, but the physical touch here was somehow more, she had felt a burst of his emotions when he touched her.)

Hermione was already through the first chapter when Harry finished writing out the alphabet. The mind arts scared her, to be honest. She could understand why Sirius felt they needed to be protected against, so she learned as much as she could. By the end of the first week, she was already constructing a mental fortress, trying to make it something no wizard would understand.

After discussing it with Harry on one of his breaks where he spoke with her as the dragons worked on teaching those who didn’t know their second form how to attain it she decided to take something from cinema and chose to forge a mock up of a Star Destroyer. She forged it out of living steel that could alter every hallway and deck, turrets and endless warriors and droids everywhere, including Imperial Stormtroopers that had learned to shoot straight. Not to mention the endless holding decks where intruders would be caught in every time-space mambo-jumbo she’d ever seen in science fiction. If an intruder somehow got past all that, various decks would randomly vent into space, where once an intruder was caught in the vacuum an endless hail of fire and fighters would assail them.

.........

For not being an English teacher Harry still did fairly well, especially after the first few hours as he gained confidence. Everything was strange here, the only individual that required rest or food was Stine, because his physical form was present, interacting with their mental forms. Still, he was able to keep up fairly well. After the first week the dragons began to speak in halting, broken English. Harry suggested they try to say everything in English for now, except if they had questions about words or syntax. From there Hermione began to help, and he spent time learning about mental defenses.

Harry spoke to the others, learning about various places on Azeroth, and trying to decide defenses that would work best. He read Hermione’s collection of books for ideas, and ended up shaping his mental defense as a model of Isengard, surrounded by Fangorn forest. His model had additional water in between the outer walls and tower proper, with huge clumps of trees he was slowly animating into living things. In the event of an attack, as soon as an intruder was sighted, great Ents of every shape and size would spill out of the forest, to reinforce the central tower that was the center of the entire mindscape.

If the main walls were breached, many well-armed (Especially the ones with more than two arms.) Naga would wait until the intruder was nearly at the main tower before spilling out of the water and charging their foe from all sides. He tried to make the Tower of Orthanc as impenetrable as it was in the books, but didn’t quite succeed. Instead he shape the tower to be larger on the inside than out, and filled it with an endless array of creatures.

Deciding to go even farther than that, Harry only left many false memories within that tower. Real ones he kept in a dragon burrow deep beneath the earth with the only way in through so many layers of solid rock apparition. (Once he learned the Azerothian Teleport spell, he would throw up powerful apparition wards within the tower.) If possible, most of the defenses wouldn’t kill, but instead restrain, for with some real work and input from Alira he created a special creature that would attack mental probes and steal knowledge from them. Also, He threw in a bunch of dragon guardians. Every dragon he’d ever seen in life or books even.

Building mental defenses took a great deal of time, but the discussions helped the dragons learn a new language too. By the end of the first month they were mostly fluent, had started their own mental defenses, and the first four had learned most of what they needed to gain their mortal forms. After six weeks had passed everyone could speak English, albeit with strange accents all around. Another week, and the drakes were fully aware of the problems facing Harry Potter, and plans were starting to be forged.

Harry and Hermione were offered training under Aurogos once in the real world and both eagerly accepted. Much of what he would teach them involved sensing magic, of grasping the concepts which eluded concrete definition. Apparently, every student would need to learn to mentally grasp magic in their own way, and each way would differ greatly.

Alira explained that practicing spellcasting in this place wouldn’t be terribly helpful because it was more a dream than a physical place. The two teens did get in much practice with Transfiguration though, at least the visualizing portions anyway. With better organized minds, the teens were able to drastically improve their memory, letting them retain most of the spells in the books added by their Head of House and Harry’s Godfather.

Eight weeks in, they had met all of their primary objectives. Stine offered to break the magic early, but since it was already cast, Harry choose to spend the rest of the time getting to know all of them.

Stine volunteered tales of his service to the Bronze Flight, slipping in and out of the timeways, and some of the very strange fellow Bronze Dragons he’d worked with. Apparently, he had briefly apprenticed under a dragon named Chronormu, (“When she isn’t a dragon, she’s a short gnome. Why? I have no idea.”) until he gave his apologies and resigned, choosing a slightly less strange master to study under.

Talion told them of hatching from his egg, how his brothers and sister fought and ended the weakest among them, and how the survivors were left to fend for themselves in the Badlands. How he survived off carrion and what tiny creatures he could hunt for years; he told them how he spent his first decade avoiding predators, mortal adventurers, and the orcs that served Nefarion. (Fellow Black or not he in no way wanted to end up as part of a Chromatic dragon. Carefully listening to the groups sent to gather whelps paid off.)

Talion told them he eventually reached the age where he needed a Broodmother’s help to grow, but by then there were none that he knew of. Needing a Broodmother’s aid, he traveled North to where he felt the power of the Old Gods the strongest. He told them that Tendrion took him under his wing and protected him from the violent bullying, how he felt part of a group for the first time as part of the group that eventually traveled here. Talion laughed as he told them that he got a lot of jokes about being Tendrion’s ‘cave warmer’ but it was factually true, if not as the implied insult intended. He’d been faithfully serving as a space heater for the group since Tendrion asked him to join.

Senastrasz told them tales about his time as a Skyrazor, an aerial combat specialist. He had just turned fifty years old and clearly remembered when his Flight was enslaved by orcs and turned against the humans and their allies. He described the horror that set in as the magic which bound him as a member of the Red Dragonflight was twisted and warped, how his will wasn’t strong enough to resist. In the spirit of being open, he told of the degradation of having an orc ride on his back and sacking a human town.

He described seeing a human woman and several children fleeing and tried to let them go, but the orc told him that if he didn’t kill them now, a dozen whelps would die slowly instead. How he hunted them down, making every tracking mistake that wouldn’t be obvious with tears trailing from his eyes as he chased them down. How gleeful he was when an elven arrow pierced the orc’s head and he felt cold steel against his throat. He’d explained quickly that the orcs had stolen an artifact and bound his kind to their will through their Queen. Senastrasz had told the rangers his speech and mind were his own but his actions were not.

After that, he was restrained and spent the rest of the war in Gilneas in a cage next to a hospital, trading meals for what healing he knew how to perform until he felt the binding on him release at long last. The Gilneans were isolationist, but honorable in their own way. Senastrasz had told them all he could about how to exploit the compulsions he was under; it wasn’t as if he minded healing humans and elves for his meals.

In the end, a number of other Reds ended up in the same position he was in, an older drake began occupying a cage next door after a few months. His actions helped a lot of whelps to survive that otherwise would have been killed, he’d heard about a sort of zoo in Quel’Thalas that consisted of a Broodmother kept in magic chains and every whelp the Alliance of Lordaeron captured. Yes, they were gawked at by children, but they also lived through the war and didn’t hurt anyone else once they were caught. (Well, not seriously in any case. Whelps have both sharp teeth and flaming breath, and some injuries are to be expected in the best of times when dealing with them.)

Senastrasz told them how he thanked the humans for keeping him out of the fight and for their hospitality. (He’d been kept in a cage, but he at least had room to move and stretch. He’d even been allowed to fly from time to time, because he was growing mad confined to the earth.) Senastrasz spoke about the horror at finding so many family and friends had died and of his joy at finding a single sibling and close friend still alive after all the war and desolation. Though he admitted to becoming perhaps a touch overprotective, he had rarely left Dalistraza’s side since.

(Senastrasz did not share his thoughts about the visit he’d received from the mortal form of Korialstrasz, and the jealousy that he hadn’t been strong enough to resist the controlling magic himself. ‘Krasus’ had spoken to the humans, told them that this was a noble creature under dark magic and he was working to free all their kind.)

Caliona had a similar early experience to Talion, but she was given to a Broodmother to raise. She told tales of being raised on lies, of having evil cloud her every thought but being unable to recognize it. She told them all of the shame she now felt at her actions, and how she felt when her clutch went into battle together for the first time against a vastly more experienced company of Greens, how rage griped her heart as the saw her siblings fall from the sky. How she survived a glancing blow by falling to the earth below, injured but ready to fight; and how surprised she was when the Greens left her for dead.

Caliona told them of returning in shame to the base, lethal acid eating at her wounds. With fondness she remembered a drake named Tendrion that had taken a Green Dragon they had captured to her cave and offered the Green her freedom for treating a Twilight drake. That dragon had gone free, something that had perplexed her endlessly.

When she had threatened to expose Tendrion to their leadership for that, he admitted to her that he had also given the dragon a number of stolen eggs. He hadn’t lied, he never lied to any of them, but out of necessity he used inflections to let her read meaning into words that wasn’t there. At the time she assumed the eggs had been infected with some virulent curse that wasn’t there and deceived herself. Caliona easily forgave him for that now.

Vespiona took over the tale as Caliona stopped speaking. She and Ralion had similar beginnings to the others of their kind, but when they were ready to be sent out to push the front lines, lines that were now in the Twilight Highlands, Tendrion had intervened. He came to the camp commander, a cruel Black dragon, and told them he needed at least a few drakes for a special project; he was forming a strike force to spread death and fire where their enemies felt safe.

Talion and Caliona were with him already, and after a careful inspection and speaking to the commander, he picked out herself and Ralion to join him. She could tell he wanted to bring more, but in hindsight he was limited by not wanting to attract attention and the difficulty of convincing brainwashed individuals to follow him. Together, the five of them went on a grand adventure, roaming high and low. She told them of their days flying free, hunting and eating animals not tainted by the magic of their home, and that learning to work together in a group was the high point of her life.

When Vespiona became choked with emotion from the memories of the first good parts of her life, and a beloved leader and mate no longer with her, Ralion spoke up. He’d been doing a lot of thinking since they’d been in the Dream. He told them of the stories they shared at night, full bellies under the stars. How Tendrion told stories to carefully test their reactions and once he had an idea how they thought, he started to change it. He found that their willing rebellion at that time impossible, so he did everything he could to chip away at their loyalty to the Old Gods.

Tendrion taught Ralion everything he thought a leader should know, because Tendrion thought he would be a good one some day. He shared hints of their adventures, how Tendrion had whipped together a plan that let them bring a lone clutching dragon to the ground with barely a scale out of place. He shared that after talking to the Red alone, he told the others that she had lost faith in her gods and had agreed to follow them and serve as their group’s Broodmother, so long as they protected her clutch.

Ralion admitted to seeing the great trepidation on her face as Valistraza introduced herself and began sharing meals with them. She was so pregnant that she couldn’t hunt easily anymore, and had been losing weight before they found her. She was hoping to reach Outland, though that wasn’t a terribly safe place to be, it was the best she could think of for her clutch. She needed to find a place with enough food and where those that saw her wouldn’t report back to her Dragonflight. When Tendrion explained his purpose was to find a new world to settle, all five of them had cheered.

During some of the star-lit discussions she mentioned how a group of whelps had gone missing in an area where Tendrion knew there was no Twilight activity, Flight or Cult. (Tendrion had gotten the latest reports from the camp commander, and in hindsight when he lost the documents near an Alliance patrol, it could be assumed what he had done with them.) On a hunch, they had found the remains of a mage portal that led somewhere east of the Swamp of Sorrows, and made their way there.

Making their way over the swamp they were spotted by a Goblin (This brought up a discussion of two races that, when their names were spoken in either Draconic or Parseltounge produced the same word. Perhaps their races shared a common ancestry somehow? This also brought up the fact that both worlds had humans, which was a rather interesting thought.) town that was new enough to not be on their maps. News of this eventually began the pursuit by the group of drakes and their mortal hunting partners. Harry remarked that they seemed nice enough when he met them.

Ralion told them how they’d found a mage’s tower built on a small island far off the coast, and between the six them ambushed and killed the Mage as he stumbled out of bed. Valistraza had been merciless once she’d scented whelp’s blood on a dissection table. Everything the mage had they’d taken, including the seventy-eight whelps in his cages. (It should have been ninety-two. Not one felt bad about burning him alive after that.) There were all five original Flights represented in his collection, Black, Blue, Bronze, Green and Red, but he had also collected Chromatic, Netherwing, Twilight, and some dragons their group actually couldn’t identify.

This derailed the discussions for some time, as they discussed various groups of dragons. Eventually Aurogos asked a rather odd question. “These whelps, are they flesh and blood?” Which led to discussion of the various elemental creatures that looked outwardly like dragons, the Stone and Storm dragons. Aurogos lamented that the popular name for the elemental creatures conflicted with the Storm Dragons that lived on the large island where he had spent his apprentice years.

After some discussion, it was decided that the insane mage had somehow gotten his hands on the flesh kind of Storm Dragon, and that they were intelligent, had magic involving thunder and storm, and were generally decent folk (if a bit prideful) but had some outliers. Aurogos suggested that they simply bind all the whelps to Harry when they open the sphere, just to prevent them causing all sorts of problems.

Ralion, getting back to his tale, told them how his group had released all the whelps, and when they began to fight, Tendrion had bellowed out that he had claimed them as part of his new Dragonflight. Half again the size of most other drakes, Tendrion had lowered his voice and told them that there was so much war and suffering on their world, so many lives lost time and time again, that he was leaving it and taking as many as he could with him.

Tendrion had told the whelps that as the leader of the group that rescued them, he was taking them with him, and they could hate him for it, but at least they would be alive if he had anything to say about it. Only in hindsight did they realize that Tendrion was pouring his heart out to the young dragons. At the time they assumed he was just saying what he needed to so they’d follow. He then introduced Valistraza and told the young ones that they would answer to her as their new Broodmother and that she answered to him.

Sadly, feeding that many voracious little mouths was no small matter, so the group had decided to seal the lot of them inside a stasis-prison sphere the mage had apparently been using. After looking at his notes, it had a complete stasis option added to it, so Tendrion had decided to place the whelps inside for safe keeping. Valistraza joined them, as she said she was only a month now from laying her eggs, and they would be faster without her.

Directly after that, Tendrion had gone to the greatest (And most greatly disorganized.) library on Azeroth, though it was also the most dangerous. Tendrion had left them on the edge of the swamp of sorrows and ventured in alone. He came out shaken, but with several books in his pack, and a sense of urgency that he hadn’t had before. When asked he’d told them Karazhan was the kind of place that liked to drive people mad, and the tower had a will of its own.

Tendrion only made it out alive because a spirit wearing a hood had approved of him and spoke with him often in the months he’d spent searching the library. (That part was hard for the others to believe because from their perspective he’d been gone two days.) Tendrion also said the walls between dimensions and even time were weak there, but he wouldn’t use that place for their portal off world because of the massive demonic taint there.

From Karazhan, they had slipped into Duskwood, hoping to make use of the ley-lines that flowed into the permanent Emerald Dream portal there. Sadly, the local guards attacked them and they had to flee. Ralion said he was so desperate to save his sister who’d taken an arrow to her lungs and was quickly losing the battle for life that he had abducted a priestess, (Easily identified by the robes and the staff gleaming on her back.) telling her to save his sister and she’d be released and paid.

The frightened young woman did save Ralion’s sister, though she exhausted herself healing Vespiona and removing the arrows Ralion picked up abducting her. When at first she’d balked at that, Tendrion had simply told her that he was her lift back. Despite the voices in his head that said to simply kill the human and consume her flesh (“I was really, really sick of eating roast spider at that point, okay?”) Ralion had dropped her off on a main road near a human settlement. Where she promptly ratted them out despite the gold coins they’d paid her for the healing.

Aurogos and his group had picked up the rumors directly from the priestess where she sat in the town’s jail for fraternizing with the enemy. (Senastrasz piped up there, saying they arranged to have her sent to Stormwind for judgment with a note explaining, and requesting leniency. In truth, healing an enemy that was acting out of established norms under duress wasn’t a great offense, but a spectacle had to be shown to discourage it from becoming common practice.)

Both groups had their first real combat with each other in southern Duskwood, before Tendrion executed the first of many escape strategies. From there they’d often had battles that in retrospect felt more like spars as they pursued and escaped and laid false trails.

Dalistraza, (“You can just call me Dali if you want, I don’t mind.”) began with mentioning her happy childhood, frolicking with other whelps including her brother through the fields of Vermilion Redoubt in what was once known as the Highlands. She talked a little about the Broodmother that raised her, and explained a good deal about what that position entailed. According to a Broodmother was responsible for the complete health and care of whelps from hatching to when she bathed them in a very special magical fire and the once-whelps emerge from the flame as drakes.

Broodmothers spend a century as apprentices and understudies, they learn practical care, how to treat common health problems, dealing with mineral deficiencies, how to ensure mental health. They learn to treat anything from a scraped scale to lung infections. Not only that, but they also serve as emotional support, career guidance, givers of romantic advice, and a shoulder to cry on. A good Broodmother provides a stable foundation for their charges to build on the rest of their life; a very hefty responsibility. Usually they raise not only their own children, but others who work for the Flight, not just by adoption but often providing daycare and child-rearing for others who require it.

Dalistraza explained that it wasn’t unusual for the powerful maternal instincts to extend beyond their kind, and they would often take in starving, abandoned and unwanted children of other races. Many of those, when offered the chance to rejoin their people after learning a trade and reaching maturity, instead chose to remain among the dragons, and (shockingly to the dreaming teens) often had children with the drakes they grew up with.

Senastrasz and others were eager to cut in with stories of the great generals and smiths that the halfblooded dragons often served as. Generally referred to as Dragonspawn, they usually walked on four legs with a humanoid body attached where a neck would be on a dragon.

Chirping in, Stine offered a thought: “You know my mortal form? Like that but ‘dragonish’ instead of ‘tigerish.’ Oh, and even if they look slow, hulking and stiff they’re actually a lot more agile and fast than you’d expect. Unless they’ve gotten musclebound, or fat.” Dragonspawn differed from Drakonid in that Drakonid were usually bipedal, and were once mortal servants of dragons or adopted members of their Flight.

“It gets more confusing though, because the traits that typically define them can mix if they have children with each other or a mortal. There’s a reason we usually refer to both groups as Dragonkin, even though technically that term would include us here as well.” Senastrasz spoke as he took over from his sister.

“Notice I haven’t used, and won’t, the term pure in reference to us or other dragons. The truth is, between the mortals that have joined our flights, and the children they’ve had, there’s a little human, elf, or what have you in all of us save the Aspects or other truly ancient dragons at this point.

“It hasn’t changed us much, and you wouldn’t see the differences unless you compared us as full adults against Nozdormu, or the females against Alexstrasza and Ysera. Younger generations tend to be more varied in build, more lithe or sturdy. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aurogos has Tauren or Taunka in his bloodline, though what the heck they’d be doing with the Blue Dragonflight I have no idea. Our, what is the word? Genitals also resemble what would be more typical on a mammal than a reptile in modern times.”

At incredulous looks from the teens, Black and Twilight drakes, he shrugged and continued. “We don’t typically wear clothing in our real forms, as our scales usually cover what needs to be covered. Besides, it’s very uncomfortable wearing clothes over scales. Dragonkin often wear armor, but whelps, drakes like us, and adult dragons rarely have anything on at all. I’ve seen my Flight’s Aspect a few times, even her mortal form shows more skin than Hermione here is showing now.”

Completely ignoring Hermione’s blush and stuttering, Dali continued her tale after a sour look at her brother for interrupting her. She told them about her decision to be a healer, and bits about her apprenticeship under a strict old Dragonspawn. Her old teacher was harsh, gruff, and had no bedside manner, but was one of the best healers around and Dali was honored to learn under her.

When her master had come up to her after Dali had just finished a healing effort that was more reconstruction than healing (“One thing I learned, dumb males showing off for females cause so many injuries it’s insane. This drake in particular lost control during some aerial stunt and immediately landed on a nice, soft wall of granite. And then a tree. And then a second tree. And then the ground, which was mostly rocks.”) and simply told the drake that her apprenticeship was finished, there was nothing more she could teach; that moment was one of the proudest of her life.

When the Red Dragonflight was enslaved, she was lucky enough to be among the Bronze dragons, helping to mend some nasty wounds from a Devilsaur that had wound up in their Caverns, (It was stated, and agreed by all of them that weird things happened in the Caverns of Time. Add in a whelp’s prank going wrong, and things get weirder.) and she, and her large cohort of fellow healers sat out the entire enslavement of their Flight as guests of the Bronze Dragonflight.

Later, there was much debate among the Reds as to how deliberate the whole event that kept the least combat capable and arguably most useful group of dragons out of the hands of the orcs. As a whole, the Bronze Flight was sworn to protect the timeline, but it wasn’t impossible for individuals to act to prevent suffering.

When the group turned to Stine to ask him, he simply said he had no knowledge of this event, as he was born some five-thousand years ago, though he himself was only thirty-two years old. When pressed further as to whether Bronze Dragons would alter events, to change time or only guard it, he had a rather surprising response.

“I did, when I chose to join the hunting party with you four and the mortals. I had been seeing my own future enough to know I ended as part of the Infinite Dragonflight. I seem to have lost my way in the next decade and joined, I would have died in the Infinite attack trying to prevent the opening of the Dark Portal. I… I didn’t like that ending, so I was desperately trying to find an alternative.

“The Bronze Flight believe, above all our other dogmas, that there is only one true timeline. I find myself doubting whether or not that’s true, because when you asked me to join you Aurogos, I was looking at my own path in time and I saw a flicker of a different way forward, just for a second, and I chose to go with you after the path whose end I could not see. Now I know I couldn’t see it because Time is far less, porous, I guess is the best word on this world. To what end will we reach? I have no idea, but it might just be better than where we were headed back home.

“And every choice, every path taken causes ripples, but we never completely know where those ripples end. Before anyone says anything, I don’t regret my choice. Life or death as myself is preferable to existence as an Infinite, even if it turns our I would have lived longer as one of them.” He looked directly at Harry, as if sensing the doubts within him attempting to push forth again. “I do not regret my choice, my Lord.”

That actually stopped the discussion for a time. Dali finished her tale, basically she’d traveled from place to place and healed many. Senastrasz, her full brother had informed their command structure that he was going where she did as a bodyguard, he had lost every other one of his siblings in the years of war, and he would not lose her as well. Given that healers tended not to be great combatants, there really was no trouble with him keeping an eye on her and the others.

Dali and her brother had eventually been assigned to Hyjal, and kept many people alive together. While he wasn’t a trained healer, six years in Gilneas healing every injury he could had given him a good deal of practical experience. Senastrasz doubled guarding the healers with healing those he was able to, leaving the more complex injuries to those better trained, taking a bit of the stress off them after every battle.

When a group formed comprised of mortals and Aurogos to hunt down the remaining pockets of the Twilight Cult and Flight, they both joined up along with Alira, who had been doing badly as a warrior. A bit of a mis-matched group, and with significant friction between the Reds and the Blue, they slowly pulled together and got rather good at their job, adding more mortals as they went.

Dali couldn’t look at the Twilight drakes when she spoke of seeing awful things as they did their business. When they were done, and Hyjal was as clear as it could reasonably be, they decided as a group to head over to the Eastern Kingdoms and poke around a bit.

Sure, they probably should have reported back to their commanders right away, but honestly they were all enjoying a little bit of freedom and had all seen enough suffering and war for a lifetime, so they decided to sweep the southern parts of the Eastern Kingdoms. It had proved more a vacation than anything else. The mortals were being paid by the week, so they ended up checking for evil in all sorts of places, like beaches and forest glades.

They did, however, check for any rumors to follow up but found nothing until visiting an inn at the township of Lakeshire in the Redridge Mountains. Stories of a Red Dragon flying with Twilight Drakes sent them rushing to the Goblin Town of Bogpaddle in the Swamp of Sorrows, and from there everyone knew the story. She did say that their goal was to at least question the Twilight group because their actions were so strange and that they had guessed that the Red Dragon and whelps had been put into the stasis sphere they started carrying.

More awkwardness abounded, and Aurogos again went over the process for discovering and using a Mortal Form with the younger drakes. They were pretty sure they’d be able to manage their second forms nearly as soon as they got out now. Stine checked the magic decay of the circle fairly often as their time drew closer to ending.

Eventually, Alira began to speak, talking about her aspirations to be a Broodmother for her Flight, and how they were dashed, or at least put on hold when she was sent out to fight. Hurting others, even if they were lost to the Old Gods, was anathema to her, and it often came close to getting her killed. She had been assigned to a squadron of veteran Skyrazors, now a mixed group of Greens, Reds, Bronze and even a few Blue drakes.

In a quiet voice she mentioned that was unusual because the Reds and Blues didn’t along very well since the war. Changing subjects with a sad glance at Aurogos, she told them stories about how bad she was at combat, and how when she tried to fight Tendrion, he simply laid her on her back, talon at her throat in only a few seconds. He’d actually spoke with her then, accusing her of not being any kind of warrior, and she had very quickly pointed out she was a Broodmother apprentice, and had been conscripted.

Alira told them about the sadness on his face at that, before it hardened and instead of removing her jugular, he spun around and just dazed her with his tail (but not the bone club at it’s tip) and commanded her to “Stay down.” And she had. She’d watched him gather his group and escape into the shadows, trying to figure out what kind of an enemy pitied her.

The Green drake told the group during later engagements he’d whispered to her, telling her she shouldn’t be fighting, that it was a cruel world that made one like her, that only wanted to nurture others, to make lives better end them. He’d told her that this world didn’t deserve her loyalty, and that she should seek another. She had been impressed with his skill, fighting others and still using a bit of magic to only be heard by her even as he matched Senastrasz and Stine together while Ralion took Aurogos briefly and the females drove off the mortal’s mounts and stole their supplies.

She’d told them that if the Twilight Dragonflight ever had a champion, it was Tendrion. She told them that when she saw the portal, she was conflicted about leaving everything behind and following him, even before they learned about the tainted water, but had resolved to do her duty first.

Aurogos did not want to share much about his life, so Harry went next. He told them about how his parents had died, how he could hear his mother pleading for his life when near a Dementor. He told everyone present about how he had grown up with his aunt and uncle who bore him no love at all, and in fact a good deal of hate. Harry told them of the bullying from his cousin, and the punishments from his uncle. He told them of how often he was hungry, making food for his relatives and being fed only scraps. With a bit of a hollow laugh, he told them about his accidental magic growing up, including the Boa Constrictor that for all he knew could be living in sunny Brazil right now.

Harry had already mentioned some of his adventures at Hogwarts, but now he described how he felt during the events, how terrified he was of the Basilisk, how out of his depth with Quirrel, his rage at the escape of Pettigrew and his hate of the Ministry. First for never giving his godfather a trial and now for trying to kill him over the summer before putting him on trial for failing to die.

And Harry told them something he’d never admitted to anyone before: He told them about the deep, crawling horror he felt when he came across something in a book on dangerous magical creatures and realized how very close he came to becoming an Obscurial. He explained that the phenomena occurred when a magical child consciously suppressed their magic and it instead turned inward, forming a very dangerous parasite that destroyed everything around it.

As Hermione drew him into a hug and told him he wasn’t alone anymore that she wouldn’t let him be. She again felt his emotions, and he found himself relaxing into the comfort, feeling her emotions in turn. One by one, the dragons nudged forward and told him that they were with him as well.

Hermione, still in physical contact smiled to herself at the steel that shone through Harry then. Harry would do right by his followers if it killed him, and his followers would be working hard to ensure that it did not. Over the last few months in this place she’d brushed against each of them and felt their earnestness. They weren’t perfectly happy about how they got here true, but now here they would make the best of it. Dark Lord or no Dark Lord.

Smiling, now in his human form, Aurogos finally broke down and shared his story as they waited for the spell to run out. There really wasn’t much else to do, everyone by now had built a formidable mental defense, they just needed actual sleep and some time in the real world to finalize the defenses. His own was built around the Nexus and Oculus, he almost pitied anyone that crept into his mind, the later was a pain to navigate even for Blue Dragons at times.

Aurogos had liked the way Harry had shaped his defenses as a massive diversion, and he had taken the idea to heart. His memories were placed within the Eye of Eternity, but the only way in required a puzzle that wasn’t visibly a puzzle to be used at the core of the Nexus and throughout the Oculus in places where a pebble could be moved with no hints of where it needed to be. Reaching the memories in a reasonable amount of time required teleportation, and he had blocked it to anyone but himself.

For his story, Aurogos told them about how fractured the Blue Dragonflight was while Malygos brooded in his madness. He hatched in the Cerulean Sanctum in Dragonblight and rarely left it, save for a few trips up into Wyrmrest Temple proper, until he became a drake. Like most of his kind, he wanted to become a great and powerful user of magic and help his Dragonflight recover their lost prestige and purpose. He explained that it was hard to earn an apprenticeship with the greatest among them, so he studied long nights as a whelp and young drake.

What elders their flight had were scattered, and the best master on the continent he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. “Saragosa always had a reputation, whispered among the drakes. She was cruel whenever she could get away with it. Some of her apprentices went missing, one was found with a crushed neck washed up on a shore miles from the Coldarra. I should say the especially talented ones went missing.” When he felt ready, even though it was a hard flight, and he found himself wishing he could portal his way there but unable to before he had visited the location himself, he flew until he had left the continent of Northrend behind.

He stopped at different islands, some barren barren and desolate, on others he slept high in trees at night because they were decidedly not. Eventually he made his way to the Broken Isles (“I know its an odd name for an island, okay? But from the air it actually sort of looks like three or four different island have been combined together badly.”) and visited the Green Dragon enclave and the Night Elves there for a time. He would have stayed longer but the purple elves were rather unfriendly to magic users.

After getting some directions from a Green Broodmother happy to have something new to entertain her clutch for a few days he made his way to a region called Azsuna. There after some searching he found the Azurewing settlement, and after introducing himself he made his case to the oldest Blue Dragon still sane. It took some convincing, and the ancient dragon had warned that the drake would need to put a lot of real work in, but in the end it was worth the effort.

Compared to the Blues living at the Nexus, the Azurewing proved more focused, cooperative, and generally much happier than those in Northrend. When he asked Senegos about it, his master had replied that all creatures need a purpose, and usually leadership. At the Nexus, there was an absence of direction and leadership. When Aurogos mentioned Saragosa, and the rumors about her, Senegos had told him that if their Flight had real leadership, she would have found herself cast out long ago.

Senegos had gone on to explain that he had once approached the Dragonqueen Alexstrasza at the Ruby Dragonshrine and told her of the plight of the Blue Dragonflight, how they were leaderless, and were losing their purpose in the wake of that great defeat during Neltharion’s betrayal. He told Alexstrasza their numbers were still so low due to the lethargy and despair that clung to their flight. He begged her to help them, and when she admitted she did not know how, he had, in his desperation, asked her to choose a new Aspect for their flight.

This had earned him her immediate ire. Malygos was her brother! He responded that for trying to preserve her brother, she could lose his Flight and all his children instead. When she accused Senegos of trying to usurp the position for himself, he had exploded at her instead. He had screamed at her that he didn’t care who the new Aspect would be, as long as she picked one with a level head and good heart. He just didn’t want to witness the slow death of his people anymore.

Alexstrasza had sent him away empty handed that day, unwilling to tear the power of the Titans from her brother, killing him in the process. Feeling especially bitter, Senegos had shouted at her as her guards shoved him away that if she left their Flight to wallow in despair she would come to regret it eventually, that all that suffering wouldn’t be confined to the Blues forever!

“He was right, of course. I came to respect Senegos as I learned from him. He didn’t just teach me magic, he tried to impart perspective as well. He introduced me to many of the mortal races, tried to show me their accomplishments. When Senegos introduced me to the Highmountain Tauren, he made a special point to introduce an individual that was going by the name Ebonhorn, who I’m certain was actually a dragon. I really don’t know why there was so much emphasis on that individual, but he proved rather friendly, as if he’d been living among the Tauren so long he’d adopted their mannerisms instead of his Flight’s.”

Moving on, he told them of how Senegos had introduced him to other groups, friends he’d made over the years. Senegos had access to Uldum, as he had been assigned to check up on the area from time to time and brought Aurogos with him on an inspection. At a large Titan outpost he never learned the purpose of Senegos introduced him to a group of Titan Watchers and requested the drake be added to the extremely small list of individuals granted access to the area.

“One thing I’ve come to learn is that the Titan constructs, especially the older ones, tend to look down on creatures of flesh and dragons in particular. I have no idea why, but it’s always been true that assignments that deal with them are not sought after. Earthen tend to be better about it, especially the ones made more recently. I think that the ‘Forge of Wills’ takes something from the person using it and includes that into the constructs it produces.

“Titan constructs also have trouble grasping the idea of age. Senegos had simply told them he was old, so his position would eventually be occupied by another. When the living stone creatures became belligerent, we just left.”

Next the Blue drake shared a few humorous tales of times when the two of them had slipped unknown onto the Wandering Isle, his master’s magic making them appear as Pandaren. “He told me that this was a good place to practice blending in with mortals, as the locals sometimes saw through illusions and deceptions, but typically were friendly enough that I’d get off with a warning and a stern look at worst if caught. I blended in pretty well, until this little urchin began pestering me and started throwing these little melon things that were too ripe to eat. He ran off and sounded an alarm when the fruit left me sopping wet but my illusion dry, and since it wasn’t my spell I couldn’t alter it.

“I was taken before their elder, where Senegos was enjoying a meal with the old Pandaren. I found out that a smell from something they were eating didn’t agree with me, and I ended up accidentally using my breath attack and freezing the whole table. That old Pandaren just picked up his tea slush, sipped it, and went back to eating the frozen meal like it was a new delicacy. Later, Senegos told me that he had put a tracking spell on this island years ago when it came near his home out of curiosity. The entire island was actually a turtle, mind you, and when he realized that his first thought was the people living on it were crazy, and his second thought involved which spells to place on the creature’s mind to prevent it from going under the water or, you know, rolling onto its back.”

After a few more funny stories of his life, his expression dropped. Obviously pained, he spoke of a visit to Quel'Thalas. He told them of the grand celebration for a new class of understudies joining the Farstriders and Magisters that lasted a week, and how he suddenly realized his Flight lacked this vibrancy, this zeal for life. To his grudging surprise he found himself enjoying the pageantry and atmosphere. He even bought a number of the enchanted brooms he found at a small shop as souvenirs.

Aurogos told them about meeting a retired Magister, Alain Sunchaser, an old friend of Senegos. There he met a fellow apprentice Daelin Salonar, a young elf working hard to live up to his family name. He told them how he corresponded with Daelin for almost two decades; though there was a bit of a problem when the more numerous Red drakes that ran the courier system were enthralled, it was soon started up again thanks to Green drakes gifted with invisibility spells by his Flight.

Aurogos spoke of how that apprentice and his master promised to spread the word when they were told about the truth of the fate befalling the Reds, and they both understood why the other Flights feared entering the war themselves. “If the Horde had captured the other Flights as well, it would have been a massive disaster. Ysera and Nozdormu have enough power to do terrible things if they fell. And at the time, Malygos was sitting in his lair almost catatonic. It ended up not being as awful as it could have been, my friend later wrote to tell me about a sort of zoo the elves and mages constructed that started with a few dozen whelps and a Broodmother.

“I’m sure it was humiliating having people throw in bits of meat and lots of little animated patchwork leather golems, but it was apparently very entertaining for the masses to see baby dragons lay waste to small armies of the things. Gold is crucial in wartime and their patrons kept the zoo fed. They ended up stocking it with more and more drakes and whelps as time went by, right up until the Dragon Soul was destroyed.

“One day years later I got a letter with a package. It was an urgent plea for help, and all the children that had been in their village. That old Magister had used some impressive spellwork to contain them all within a small crystal and keep them in stasis. I was still living with Senegos even after my formal apprenticeship ended, performing various tasks to keep dangerous knowledge out of the wrong hands and keep the ley-lines flowing smoothly.

“Senegos was under orders from our Flight and the Dragonqueen not to interfere in the affairs of mortals without direct permission from our leadership. He never even slowed down as he ordered the children sent to the three Broodmothers of his settlement, ordered all our warriors to report in and all the foodstuffs we could share with mortals packed, and as much weapons and armor as possible taken with us.

“Twenty minutes later he tore a portal open to the gates of Silvermoon City, and we realized we were much too late. When we realized there wasn’t much fighting going on right then, I told my old master I was going to look for our friends. I took to the air, looking for the old Magister or his apprentice, and found Alain in the village square. He was alone, bound to a destroyed tree with the rest of the town’s inhabitants dead all around him. Alain was nearly dead, the foul magic laden on him to keep him suffering was the only reason he hadn’t died already; the magic was crafted so that when he gave into the torture, he would become a twisted undead servant of the Lich King, and all his friends with him.

“I looked at the enchantment that bound the old man there, hoping to find something to save the old man, but it was too clever and twisted. In the end, I simply talked to the old magister, told him the children were safe, even now being looked after by the Azurewing’s Broodmothers. I couldn’t lie to the old man; I told him that his nation had fallen, but there were survivors. And in the end all I could do was make his time as an undead abomination brief.

“Alain Sunchaser choked out a request for the Blue Dragonflight to care for the children, to spare them the suffering of life among the survivors. He died with a smile on his lips when I told him we had plenty of beds and food at the Azurewing Repose. When the old elf, his apprentice that had become a friend, and the rest of the town rose to their feet and charged at me, I just let go of my anger and burned the undead abominations to ash.

“I was going to head straight back, but while I was looking around for survivors, I found a band of very small risen dead hunting a band of dirty, desperate and exhausted survivors. When I heard the small undead that had been given speech taunting their parents and friends, I let them taste fire.

“I’ll never forget walking past the burning undead children, towards the main hunting party with rage and tears, shedding my true form for the ease of shaping magic as a mortal. I screamed at the main host of undead as I gathered all my magic and burnt them away. In the end, I exhausted myself and lost consciousness, and it was only thanks to the survivors that wasn’t my last day alive.

“Once rested I opened a portal to Silvermoon city and brought them to the other survivors safe and sound. Senegos was arguing with an elf in ornate red and gold armor. Before I cut in to defuse the argument I realized this was Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider, the new ruler of a broken people. When Senegos, looking so very old in his High Elf form left through a portal with a promise to send as many supplies as possible through to the survivors, whether the Prince wanted them or not, I stayed for a moment. There wasn’t much to say, really, but I tried anyway.

“When I returned, I told Senegos of Alain’s last words. We went to where the children had been tended to by the Broodmothers, and he told them the truth of what happened. He told them that the oldest of his mortal friends had asked that they be cared for, and he would honor that last request. The children thrived under the care of the Blue Dragonflight, though they never forgot their people. When the adolescents learned what the so-called Blood Elves were doing to feed their addictions to power, and the effects it caused, they decided to remain among the dragons. Taught by the oldest practitioners of magic, they learned to control their hunger and beat their addiction to the Sunwell’s magic with will and support.

“Luckily, there was always something that needed doing, and they quickly found themselves apprenticed when they reached the age to choose their paths. Senegos even convinced some of the local Night Elves to teach them the ways of the forest. Those kids would have had a bright future among the dragons, if not for the Nexus War.”

Aurogos went quiet for a long time after that. Senastrasz was about to give the group a general outline of that debacle, but the Blue drake spoke up first. “Malygos the Spell weaver served as the Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight from the uplifting of the dragons by the Titans until the end of the Nexus war. I’m not as familiar with the story as the old dragons that were alive then, but ten-thousand years ago Malygos stood with Deathwing, the Betrayer, then known as Neltharion, and argued for the creation of a weapon they named the Dragon Soul. The same item later became known as the Demon Soul, and it was used to bind the Red Dragonflight to the will of the Dragonmaw Clan of Orcs.

“Each Aspect placed into the small disc a piece of their power, of their very essence. I suspect Malygos, who at the time considered Neltharion his most trusted brother put more of himself in than any other. In any case, Neltharion betrayed the other Flights and after that battle, seven out of ten Blue Dragons lay dead. Senegos himself bears horrific scars from that day, though he usually keeps them concealed by magic.

“Malygos went into seclusion after that, the loss of so many and his guilt combined with the damage inflicted by the Dragon Soul drove him mad. He remained in that broken state of melancholy and despair for ten-thousand years, and he was slowly dragging the rest of us down with him. Later, Tyrygosa brought a number of Netherwing Dragons into the Nexus, the Blue Dragonflight’s home. She wanted them to gain enough power for themselves to break magic that was binding them. Sadly, the Nether Dragons had been used so many times that they no longer trusted and tried to steal all the power of the Nexus for themselves.

“During this, Malygos awoke in his lair and found the Nexus in Chaos. When he heard some of the arrogant claims of dragons drunk on power, in his madness he consumed the Nether Dragons and their power. From that point he began to regain his vitality and seemingly came out of his madness. For the first time I can remember, my Flight began real celebrations, it felt like we had a purpose again, like we could regain our pride!”

Aurogos laughed brokenly for several long moments. “I went to the Nexus then, along with the High Elves that had sworn to serve the Blue Dragonflight. We presented ourselves before the Aspect as his loyal servants just before Malygos declared war on all other users of arcane magic, the Kirin tor in particular.

“It is a difficult thing to ignore the orders of your Aspect. There is a power, a magic, that runs through the Dragonflights and binds them together; it is part of our very core. This is why the Black Dragonflight followed Deathwing and why the Reds served the Horde; it is difficult to say no.

“Senegos did ignore the call, he took steps to forcibly keep his brood out of the war, but I was too weak, and too close. I considered the young elves my friends, they were at least assigned to the Nexus itself, under Telestra, the Dalaran turncoat. I… ended up joining a group of Azure Skyrazors and learning to fight in the skies. I was good at it, as long as I could keep enemies away from me. I hated the armor we were issued. Supposedly it was for protection, but some of the runes also increased our aggression to the point where strategic thinking and complex spellcasting became difficult. I was not able to remove it myself, and the wyrm in command disliked my attempt.

“When it became apparent we lacked the numbers to fight off the Reds, Kirin Tor, and the rest of the world at once, Malygos ordered the few eggs we did have imbued with magic to make them hatch faster, and as drakes instead of whelps.”

Aurogos shuddered. “You don’t want to know what the long-term effects of forcible aging like that are. Between us here and the Broodmother in stasis, we can help our Twilight dragons through most of the problems caused, but Malygos pushed so far beyond what was done to them. If any had survived they’d have gone mad with pain within a few decades, if not worse. Saragosa was given free reign on our enemies, and she no longer hid her cruel nature. All the worst elements of our kind seemed to come out, fanned by Malygos himself.

“When Saragosa was killed by a former torture victim, Malygos took the Red Dragon and bound her within the Nexus, carved runes into her flesh, and flooded her with so much power it turned her scales Blue as it tore at her mind.

“In the back of my mind, I knew we were becoming twisted versions of what we once were, but it didn’t fully come into focus until during a battle between packs of opposing Skyrazors when I followed an injured Red to the ground. He was a healer, not a fighter, I could see him healing himself. It’s hard to fight through the pain and heal major injuries, but he was doing well. I wanted to spare him, if he gave his world to withdraw from the war, but I couldn’t. Though I fought myself, I attacked and killed him easily, the dull roar of rage shouting down my conscience.”

Ignoring the horrified looks all around, Aurogos started to laugh, though it was not a joyous sound. “And, it was all for nothing you know. We were outnumbered six to one by the Reds despite their losses in the Second War, throw in the Kirin Tor and those mortal adventurers fresh from Outland and the Sunwell Plateau? We were doomed from the start. Malygos got us killed in droves, caused suffering across the world, and ended any chance of us coming back to strength.

“I survived the final push of the Nexus War by being sent against Wyrmrest Temple, but I abandoned my mission when I could. When Malygos died so too did the unity of our Flight. I returned to the Coldarra to find it in disarray, the Red Aspect there in person, ordering her Flight to begin pulling out. Corpses had been left everywhere, and inside the Nexus, I found a paladin in bloodied armor and a chipped warhammer that bore a large piece of purple crystal as the striking surface. He slid into a fighting stance when he saw me but relaxed when I told him the war was over, and I was just looking for my friends.

“It turned out he was a friend of the dragon Keristraza, whose corpse still rested in the middle of the room. I offered to help him lay her to rest, since no one else had done it, and together with a fair bit of magic we moved her corpse outside under the stars and burned her on a small pyre. He said he’d been part of the group that went after her, and he was hoping despite what the other Reds said that he could save her. In the end, she couldn’t fight what was being done to her as she begged for death, and there was nothing else he could do.

“I told him about the orphans from Quel'Thalas, and how they’d grown up alongside our kind, how they were so proud to join our ranks. When the pyre had burnt out he took a small vial of the ashes with him, looked at me and said he was sorry. Then he summoned his charger and rode off towards the Reds that were maintaining an evacuation service till everyone was off the island. He never did give his name.

“When I searched, I found most of them, dead in the halls. One was half-eaten by her own hound. I just quietly gathered them up and burned them right in the halls of the Nexus where they had been so proud to be stationed the last I’d seen them. I’m sure I angered more than a few of the surviving wyrms with my actions and the materials I used, but I still don’t care.

“I left and never returned there. I left and just flew until my wings throbbed, then I used magic to reinforce myself and just kept flying. Days later, the pain from what I’d been doing to myself now a blaze of agony, to my own surprise I found myself at the Azurewing Repose. Senegos came out, I must have tripped a ward, and he just looked at me. I couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. But, when I couldn’t walk or stand anymore he just picked me up and carried me into his home. There were Greens everywhere, and I saw the others there were asleep and being cared for by the new guests. I finally gave into exhaustion as he carried me through the halls of his home.

“Senegos never said anything about the pointless war I’d fought or what I’d done to myself. When I woke up I found him examining a piece of my armor, and I was so glad to have it off I burned it as soon as I could take my mortal form. I choked out that the elves I’d left with were dead, though I couldn’t find all the bodies. He just told me to rest, and I did.

“As soon as I was healthy enough to move again I prepared to leave, and I heard a cocky Blue drake complaining about being kept out of the war. He probably didn’t deserve all the things I screamed at him, I went on for a long time and there was a crowd watching when I was done. Senegos had heard and saw me leaving. With a sad look in his eyes he told me to take care of myself and that I’d always have a home here. I left and spent the next year doing the tasks my Flight was charged with around Kalimdor. I visited Theramore briefly, earned a bit of gold doing some odd jobs and left quickly. After the Cataclysm I headed to Mount Hyjal when I saw the fires.”

No one was quite sure what to say at that. Aurogos had always seemed so strong to everyone that had known him; the group hunting with him never brought up the Nexus War, knowing it would likely be a touchy subject. After a moment, Harry stood and walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. They had all been sitting in a circle of comfortable chairs provided by Alira, so Aurogos had to look up, but not by much. Not trusting himself to say much, Harry kept his thoughts brief. “I want, I need you, all of you to help me. If nothing else I will be a better leader than you’ve had before if it kills me.”

So close, the Blue drake wearing a human skin could feel the sincerity, the determination to do right by all of them. With a small smile, he replied the only way he could in the circumstances. “As you wish, my Lord.”

From there, the atmosphere gradually lightened as more discussions took place. It was decided that some of the drakes would enroll in the school, assuming they could work out a deal that would let them advance in the classes as soon as they could perform the practical portions. After listening to Hermione describe some of the magical theory, Aurogos described it as ‘mostly wrong.’ She was indignant about that, but he replied his kind had been studying magic for twenty-thousand years now, and asked how long her species had been doing the same and keeping notes.

A lot of the history they’d discussed had holes filled in, and Ralion mentioned that their group had a copy of the Red Dragonflight’s archive, which contained many recordings of historical events, taken from the memories of those that witnessed them. It was a surprise all around that Tendrion had simply walked into the Red’s archives at one point, claiming to be an undercover Blue and requested a copy of it all, and then gotten away free and clear. After much discussion it seemed their wards only reacted to corrupted drakes, and Tendrion had simply walked in. Apparently he returned several eggs to them as proof he wasn’t evil. Even Senastrasz and Dalistraza agreed that it was very clever, and apparently accomplished with no injury to anyone.

As they waited for time to run out, the only other thing of note that occurred was a discussion of the Twilight’s ability to phase out of reality. Ralion had heard only rumors, but it seemed their ability was linked to something called the ‘Twilight Realm’ that could be accessed by mature Twilight dragons. The drakes seen sinking into this realm were using some instinct and quickly exhausting themselves trying to hold between the two realms.

When asked if anyone ever taught the Twilight to use it, Alira had scoffed at the response. “Well then of course you’re not doing it right! It takes enormous amounts of practice for Greens to sink into the Emerald Dream like you’re describing. I can even open a small portal with some effort. But the problem you’re describing with exhaustion sounds more like an issue with not having enough control, and using much more power than is needed. If the three of you want to work with me, I think we can improve your control drastically.” Needless to say, she had three volunteers quickly.

Eventually, the time compression ward fell. It had worked as intended and their minds had learned for seventy-three days. Rather quickly they replaced everything into the trunk as they got ready to head back. Stine slipped into the trunk and rejoined the waking world, thrown like unloved luggage. Taking a moment to concentrate, Alira looked over her companions (After that time together, she counted both the Twilight group, Hermione, and her Lord as close friends.) as she prepared the magic to wake them all waking. But, when she looked at Harry, there was something hanging near him. Something bound to him so close it must have been pulled into the Dream when she pulled her Lord in, but not so tightly that it had joined them in the compression bubble. Something evil.





.........


Author’s Note: I appreciate every review! I love hearing that people enjoy this fic. My goal for this fic is that you don’t need experience with the Warcraft lore to follow it, so let me know how I’m doing. Please also let me know if a character list in the notes would be useful for keeping the drakes straight. (I still need my notes to keep physical traits straight at times, especially the mortal forms.)

I’m going to try to keep new chapters around 10-12k words. I know readers like the big chapters, but it turns out editing something that big gets to be a bit difficult.

Next chapter begins to deal with what Alira saw at the end.



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On FanFiction . net, Wizard Runemaster- An altogether more badass Harry magicks himself to Azeroth in the early years of wow. A very fun story where the only thing that twigged me was the Black Dragonflight having the power of choice, being able to simply choose not to be evil. (I’m all for changing cannon, but sometimes it’s like playing jenga.) Just a minor gripe though, overall it’s a great read. I still have hope that enough positive attention on this story will convince the author to continue part two.