DISCLAIMER; I own nothing but my own characters. All characters, settings, spells, races, etc. that are included in the HP books are property of J.K. Rowling. Any other books, movies, shows, etc. that I may mention or draw from are property of their own creators and/or designers. I will most likely draw on some of the other fanfictions I've read, so if you see your stuff here, well, it belongs to you.

*HPWD*

Chapter 13; The Scorched Summer; Begin Arc 2

*HPWD*

Life in the Dursley household was perfectly normal, thank you very much, as both Petunia and her husband Vernon Dursley would declare to any who would bother to listen. But, as is often true with those who hold to something so closely, everything was not normal with the Dursleys. You see, they had a secret. No, nothing like you're thinking. Instead, this secret had a name. What was that name, you ask? Well, it-

"HARRY POTTER!"

Kalinth sighed, as his "uncle" bellowed up the stairs to his tiny room. Crumpling the piece of paper on his desk, the currently elf-shaped draconic shapeshifter tossed the ball of paper into the air, making it burst into flames with a quick thought. Though it was amusing to write about what might had happened had the true Harry Potter survived his birthing, it was only a pastime, and had no real use. After all, who would want to read about the life of an angsty teen who attended a school that most didn't even know existed?

Shaking his head, Kalinth walked out of his room, distractedly waving his hand behind him to activate the wards embedded in the runes lining the doorframe. Lightly trotting down the stairs, he rounded the corner only to nearly barrel right into Dudley.

Nimbly dodging around the walking baby whale, Kalinth ducked into the kitchen where the rest of his "family" waited. Wordlessly, he looked between Vernon and Petunia, a question in his eyes. Early on in the summer, they had all decided that the magic lacing his voice disturbed the two greatly, and it was best for him to not speak around non-magicals after he had re-awoken his true power during the previous school year.

"Vernon and I are going out to supper," Petunia supplied as her husband simply grunted and scowled. "Since Dudders is off to tea with his friends, you cannot be seen skulking around the house by yourself. We'll be back shortly after dark, and I do not want to see you a moment before or after 9 PM. Do I make myself clear?"

"Aye," Kalinth ground out, a deep growl tinting his voice. As Vernon started to open his mouth, a quick glance and snarl from the elf was enough for him to rethink saying anything.

Baring his teeth in a savage grin, Kalinth stalked out the door, headed towards the local park, the only place around that he could clear his head.

*HPWD*

"Let go of me! HYYA!"

"OW! You'll pay for that, you little bitch!"

A long, tapered ear twitched as its owner squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, before snapping them open.

Sitting up on the branch of the oak tree he was perched in, Kalinth peered out through the dense foliage to see Dudley's full group of 5 arrayed before a young girl. She couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 winters old, by the elf's estimation, and had her back to the tree line of the forest that bordered the park. Piers was holding his left hand in pain, sporting what seemed to be a broken wrist.

Reaching out with his mind, Kalinth gently brushed against the girl's panicked thoughts, giving her the idea to dart into the forest. Spinning around, she did just that before Dudley's gang could react.

Guiding her to his current tree, Kalinth leapt lightly down to the lowest possible branch. As she approached, he whistled quietly to get her attention. Snapping her head upwards, she spotted him in the branches. As a fearful look came over her face, he smiled gently, extended his hand towards her and glanced meaningfully back towards where the gang was bashing through the brush.

Glancing back and forth a few times, she seemingly made her mind up, looking up at Kalinth and giving him a firm nod. Backing up a few steps, she took a running start, leaping as high as she could to grasp his forearm. Seizing her, he hauled her upwards. Instead of setting her down on his current branch, the elf swung her around so she was riding piggy-back on him, before leaping into higher branches.

Setting her down in a secure nook, they watched anxiously as the gang milled around for a bit before giving up and heading out to find another victim. Sighing in relief, Kalinth turned to his young companion, summoning a small ball of white light to hover over his shoulder as he did so.

"You-, you're- you're a wizard!?" she half gasped, half questioned, staring in amazement at the small floating ball of light.

"Indeed," Kalinth said, chuckling. "And judging from the rather unique letter sticking out from your pocket, I can guess that you would be newly informed that you are a witch, yes?"

At her shy nod, the elf smiled gently, settling down to answer the deluge of questions that soon followed.

*HPWD*

Kalinth growled to himself as he stalked up the steps into his room at the Dursley's. Of all the times dementors had to attack, it was when he and Dudley were walking home under an uneasy truce. At least the girl – Donna Noble, he had found out – was safe at her home.

As he approached the door, it slammed open from the force of his magic swirling around him. Tossing the crumpled letter from Mr. Weasley aside, it was quickly shredded by his aura, before bursting into flames.

Stopping for a moment, he calmed himself, the raging maelstrom of his magic easing off. Holding out his hand, Kalinth summoned his staff to him. As it materialized, he grasped the shaft of polished white wood. Tapping the butt of the staff on the floor once sent all his possessions either into his personal pocket storage dimension, or into his school trunk. A second tap on the lid of the trunk shrunk it down to the size of a matchbox. Picking it up and slipping it into a pouch on his belt, the elf turned and sat cross-legged on his bed, staff lying horizontally across his lap. Now all he had to do was wait.

*HPWD*

Crash!

"Watch it, Tonks! We don't know how long they'll be gone!" A low, gravelly voice whispered down in the kitchen.

Ears twitching, Kalinth snapped his eyes open, getting up out of his meditative pose. Shrinking his staff down to its wand form, he slunk out of his bedroom door, and ducked into a darkened corner of the hallway, calling the shadows to surround him. Flipping up the assassin's cowl of his armor, he watched and waited.

Within moments, a group of six came trooping up the stairs, pausing in front of Kalinth's bedroom door. Spotting Remus at the back of the group, he crept up behind the were-wolf. Grasping Remus' hair, Kalinth pulled his head back he placed the edge of a dagger against the were-wolf's throat.

"What is my wife's favorite element?" he growled in Remus' ear.

"Harry?" the were-wolf said, startled. In response, Kalinth simply pressed the blade a bit more firmly against his skin. Lowering his voice so only the elf could hear, he continued. "Oh, right, sorry. You don't have a wife, you have a life-mate, and her preferred element, though she can't wield it well, is water."

"Indeed."

In a sudden burst of movement, Remus tore away from the dagger as Kalinth relaxed, grabbing the hilt and ripping it from Kalinth's grasp as he went. As he held the elf at knife-point, he asked his own question.

"What was in the fish tank sitting next to my desk the first time Harry Potter came to visit my office?"

"A grindylow," the elf replied calmly.

Satisfied, Remus handed the blade back to the elf, before enveloping him in a tight hug. Startled, all Kalinth could do was awkwardly return it.

"Oh for goodness sake, enough with the wishy-washy tender stuff. We'll have time enough for that later!" Moody snapped.

"Good to see you too, Alastor," Kalinth chuckled. Peering around at the unfamiliar faces, he started to move down the steps. Turning his head to the side, he tossed his question over his shoulder. "Who's with you anyways? I know Tonks from Hogwarts and Mr. Shacklebolt from a few interviews in that rag of a paper, but I'm afraid I've never met the rest of you."

As Alastor didn't seem very forthcoming, Remus took up the slack and answered for him as they reached the kitchen.

"Well, over here is Dedalus Diggle." The short little man trailing behind Moody raised his hand and waved cheerfully. "He was with the original- Well, I'll just let Professor Dumbledore explain that one, if you don't already know about it. Over next to Tonks we have Hestia Jones, also one of the old group." Here the middle-aged brunet gave a short, curt nod, which Kalinth returned. Obviously, this was not a witch that liked to play around while on missions. "And if I might ask, why are we already down here? I can understand you thinking we're here to take you to our place – which we are – but don't you still need to get packed?"

Kalinth simply pulled out his shrunken trunk.

"Intent activated shrinking charm. I enchanted it while I was still at the castle. How are we getting there anyways? Apparition?"

"No," Remus replied. "Apparition, Portkeys, and the Floo network can all be traced. We'll be flying."

"Smart, but did you think of communication? It's kinda hard to hear each other over the rush of the wind." At their sheepish looks, the elf just shook his head. "Kids these days," he muttered before continuing. "No matter. I'll just link us into a Hahnuv Lox." (A/N; Yes, I know that in Dovahzul, hahnuv is mental, while hah is mind. It just sounds better to me, so there.)

"A Ha-whatchamacallit now?" Tonks piped up, confused beyond belief. First, she was informed that the first-year kid she had met in her last year at Hogwarts wasn't human in the least, then she had to accept that he was much much older than 11, and was a powerful draconic battlemage on top of that.

"A Hanuv Lox," Kalinth replied calmly. "A Mind Web. It's perfectly safe, the dragon flights used to do it all the time. That is, until the demons reduced them to their current state in a last act of evil before they were sealed away," Here, he frowned, getting a far-off look in his eyes before seeming to shake himself. "Anyways, you'll feel a light brush on your minds. That's just me, so if you have any Occulemancy shields, I would ask you to let the thread in. Here we go in 3… 2… 1… and relax…"

Extending his mind outwards, Kalinth gently probed those around him, drawing a thread of their consciences into his own mind and creating a delicate web out of the strands of thought. As soon as the last threads were connected, the assembled wizards and witches gave a sudden jump as they realized they could sense each-other's emotions, and hear any thought directed towards them.

"Ok," Hestia said out-loud. "That's just weird. I like it!"

Shaking his head, Kalinth lead the way outside, ignoring Moody's grumbling of "dark magic" and "bloody annoying dragons."

Now out on the lawn, the various wizards and witches lined up in a rag-tag formation.

"Alright, listen up!" Moody barked. "Tonks, Jones, Diggle, Lupin, you're our flankers. Stay on our sides and keep rotating. Kingsley, you have rear guard, I'll take point," he paused as yellow sparks were sent up from over the woods. "Alright then, prepare yourselves!"

As the others arranged themselves, pulling out and unshrinking brooms before mounting them, Kalinth stood in the middle of the group, looking rather amused.

"Harry!" Looking to his side, Kalinth spotted Tonks looking at him in confusion. "Where's your broom?"

"I'm a dragon, Tonks," he quipped back. "There's no way I'm going to go flying on a piece of wood for the first time in two months."

Grinning, she nodded in understanding. The elf knew she was mostly just agreeing with him to prevent a longer conversation and risk irritating Moody; until you had flown on your own wings, you would never know what true freedom felt like.

As she watched, Kalinth focused and let his form flow and shift into something much more suited to night flying than his usual shapes. When he was done, he stood low to the ground on four short, but powerful, legs. His body and tail were extremely streamlined, with two massive wings folded upon his back. At the base of his tail were a pair of smaller fins to help with smaller adjustments, while the two fins on the tip of his tail lent incredible aerial agility to his form. His wide, spade-shaped head and short snout allowed him to cut through the air with minimal effort, while the array of sensory fins on the rear of his skull provided detailed information about air pressure, currents, temperature and the like. From nose to tail, he measured in at about 30 feet long, with his wingspan measuring at an astounding 100 feet and the entirety of his body being covered in shiny scales that were such a dark blue, they looked black. (A/N; I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this, aren't I? Just think of Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon movies with both tail-fins, and much bigger. Body about half again as big as in the second film, and double the wingspan.)

Moody gave a grumble at his form, but didn't complain too much, since it truly was suited for night flying, what with the cat-like eyes and such. Just then, a shower of green sparks burst over the forest.

"We're clear!" Moody called. "Let's move, people!"

Snorting and shaking his head, Kalinth simply stood from where he sat on his haunches and waited. Within seconds of Moody pushing off, the riders were in the air, waiting for the dark-scaled dragon to catch up with them.

"Let's go, Aerendyl," Moody sent through their mind-link, impatience tinging his mental voice.

With a quick mental growl in Moody's direction, Kalinth crouched, extending his wings to their full span. Leaping into the air, he gave them a few strong strokes to get himself moving, the air reverberating with each down-stroke of the massive swaths of leathery membrane.

Shooting upwards past the broom riders, he tucked his wings in and twirled, elated to be in the air again. Flipping over, he dived back towards the rapidly climbing group, flaring his wings at the last possible moment to come into an awkward hover in front of them. This form was meant for speed and agility; hovering didn't count and was actually rather uncomfortable as he hung awkwardly in the air before them.

Wordlessly, Moody scowled at him, before shooting off towards the North-East at the top speed his broom could handle. Huffing in slight annoyance, Kalinth lazily gave his wings a few strokes, angling himself to follow along behind Moody, the others falling in around them.

As Remus had a rather old and tired-looking Cleansweep that was ancient even before he was at Hogwarts, they couldn't go particularly fast, maybe about 45-50 mph, or around 70-80 kph. This meant that the trip would take at least an hour of constant flying; and that was if Moody didn't want to dodge all around the countryside. (A/N; Yes, I'm aware that the real Surrey is only about 20 or so miles away from London. However, everyone in the books always makes it out to be much farther than that, so I'm going with about 60 miles or so; something the Dursley's wouldn't be completely against if they had another reason to go into the city besides dropping Harry off at the station, yet not so close it would make driving or flying there pointless.)

"Alastor!" Kalinth called through their link once everyone had reached an appropriate altitude. "Don't bother weaving around like I know you want to. I'll keep an eye out for any pursuers. Just take us right to HQ, alright?"

Moody grumbled a bit, but did adjust his course accordingly. Satisfied, Kalinth rolled his wing-shoulders in a very specific movement. As he grunted in slight discomfort, the main support bones for his wings dislocated very slightly, his muscles locking up around it, preventing his wings from flopping around uselessly. Unfortunately, it also prevented him from deviating from his chosen path. Now in "lock-wing" as the dragons of old had dubbed it, he settled in for a long glide.

*HPWD*

An excited bellow of "KAL!" greeted him the moment Kalinth opened the door to what was supposed to be his room in the old, decrepit house. Startled, he reacted on instinct and went to grab his supposed "attacker" with one hand while the other was pulled back and his hidden blade extended.

"Whoa, Kal! Please don't stab me!" The panicked cry made Kalinth blink in surprise, as if seeing the person he was pinning to the wall for the first time. Stepping back, he released his hold on Hermione's hair, retracting his blade as he went.

"Sorry, Hermione," He mumbled, rubbing the back of neck in embarrassment.

"Don't take it personally, 'Mione," Ron spoke up as he walked over from his bed on the far side of the room. "He's done that enough to the rest of our dorm that it's not even funny now. We're so used to it, we just generally ignore him when he decides to start scaring people again."

"Nice to see you too, Ron," Kalinth chuckled. "So, how have you been?"

"Meh, alright, thanks. It's Mum; she's going insane over this house. It's a-EEP!" Ron suddenly jumped and audibly squeaked as Kalinth interrupted his response with the tip of blade just a hair's breadth away from the bridge of Ron's nose.

"It's 'EEP,' Ron? Is that what this house is to you?" Hermione said with a teasing grin on her face. Ron just scowled as they broke down laughing.

*HPWD*

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and the purpose of your visit," The cool, feminine, magically generated voice rang through the tiny telephone box that served as the entrance to Britain's Ministry of Magic.

"Arthur Weasley, escorting Harry Potter to a disciplinary hearing."

As Arthur stopped speaking, there was a quiet chime, before two silvery badges clinked out of the coin return chute. Scooping his up, Kalinth frowned at the conjured material, before hooking it into his belt, which was oddly absent of any sort of weapon. He quickly returned his attention to the ride as the booth started to lower into the ground at an alarming rate. Squeezing his eyes shut as the ground came up to meet them outside the glass, the elf tried to calm himself, humming a short tune under his breath.

When the booth finally came to a stop, he couldn't wait to get out, bursting through the door and into the Atrium of the Ministry. Taking a few deep breaths and closing his eyes again, Kalinth jumped as Arthur laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You alright there, Kal?"

Shakily nodding, Kalinth opened his eyes, noticing the multitude of people milling around them.

"I hate confined spaces like that while underground. I can handle caverns just fine, but shut me in a tiny box like that and then start lowering that box into the ground. Oh boy, you have a problem there. I had forgotten why I never used the visitor's entrance…"

Nodding, Arthur gave Kalinth's shoulder a final reassuring squeeze before letting go and heading for the desk at the far end of the Atrium. Approaching the desk, the rather bored-looking wizard sighed, folded up his magazine, and looked up at them.

"All visitors must submit to letting their wand be ID'd, so if you please," he said, gesturing towards what looked like a set of old brass scales with only one dish. Shrugging, Kalinth withdrew his was from his wrist holster. Letting it drop gently into the dish, he waited patiently as the machine ticked and whistled for a moment, before spitting out a piece of parchment. Ripping off the stub, the security wizard read off in a bored tone.

"Thirteen-point-seven inches long. Wood of Yggdrasil. Combined cores of powdered greater dragon scales, greater gryphon feathers, storm phoenix feathers, and bound by dragon blood. Been in service for… more than two hundred years. That correct?"

"Aye," Kalinth growled out.

"Very well then. You get this back," the wizard stated, extending Kalinth's wand back to him. "And I keep this stub. It will automatically self-destruct once you are out of the Ministry buildings."

"Thank you," Arthur said, just a tad impatiently as he grasped Kalinth's elbow and lead him towards the lift. As they went in, Kingsley managed to dart in just before the doors shut.

"Morning, Kingsley. How are you this morning?" Arthur greeted warmly.

"Fine, thank you, Arthur, but you two won't be if you don't hurry," he said, quickly overriding the preset destination that Arthur and Kalinth had entered into the lift's mechanism. Punching in another floor, he continued. "They moved the hearing. It's down in the old trials rooms next to the DoM in two minutes."

"Merlin's beard," Arthur gasped. "Why would they do such a thing?!"

"To discredit me," Kalinth supplied before Kingsley could. "If I show up late to the hearing, it doesn't look good, plus if I'm late enough, they can decide the verdict without me."

"Indeed. I would suggest that you two hurry."

"Yes, thank you Kingsley. Kal, we'll just barely make it, so here's what's going to happen. I can't go in, since I'm not involved with the case. Just be yourself, but if Fudge is in there, remember; do not, whatever you do, reveal you are anything but part Elf. If they realize that you are really a full-blood dragon, no matter how intelligent or powerful, they will remove any all rights, making you nothing more than an animal. We can't let that happen."

As he had been speaking, the lift had clattered to a stop and the doors opened, letting them out. Nodding as Arthur stopped his instructions, the two hurried along the corridor to the only door with any light coming from under it. As Kalinth placed his hand on the knob to open the heavy door, Arthur placed his hand on the elf's shoulder once more.

"Good luck, Kalinth. I suspect you'll need it."

"…in the room? I repeat, is Harry James Potter present?"

Fudge's pompous voice drifted out from the room, making the two wizards grimace.

"Thanks Arthur. I do believe you're correct."

Nodding to the red-head, Kalinth turned and took a deep breath, before steeling himself and pushing open the door to the courtroom.

*HPWD*

A/N; Well, this was longer than I was expecting. Hopefully this will be a trend that continues. Yes, I know this one skips around a bit, but I needed to get to the trial. That's where the fun stuff starts. I have also decided to post these as I finish them, meaning you might get a few a week, or one every other month; I'll see how it goes. I hope you enjoyed it so far!