Chapter 2: The Power of Language

Cold air hit a young dragon's face like a blast from a cannon. For a few seconds, he was blind, and then his eyes cleared just as fast, turning wide and alight with rapturous joy as he took in the sight of the world from an aerial view.

It had taken nearly two years but through sheer determination and grit – and gluttony, Harry had finally gained an adequate amount of muscles on his bones to carry him on his first successful flight. The skies were not his alone to claim however, for other creatures of all nature littered the sky like confetti of a summer wedding, the gayest of colours so bright against a perfect sky. The silver linings of the clouds were being sliced by vast, beautiful wings, standing prominent in the empyrean.

The lay of the land was spread beneath him like a living map as he soared freely. Steep gullies, babbling streams and nascent rivulets snaked and curved across the rugged landscape like blue veins, providing the realm with a precious lifeblood that both nourished and provided.

It was peace itself ascending to the heavens, seeing the view usually bequeathed only to birds, their birthright and domain. He glided onwards, above snow-capped peaks and over lush verdant forests before finally turning back the way he came, the horizon now all but the familiar lands of his home. He began to lose height. The frigid wind curled around his aerodynamic frame and whipped his face until he eventually spied the entrance to his cave from afar and dove down towards it with the warm currents at his back.

I could do this forever. Harry thought dreamily, memories of Quidditch games with his precious godfather Sirius rising to the surface of his mind.

The landscape's vibrant hues gradually transitioned to shades of sombre colours as he neared the trough in the valley that was the Withered Heath. Fire had tainted the earth grey, stripping the once-proud trees of their virescent beauty, leaving their gaunt, skeletal remains rooted to the barrel soil. They seemed to reach out to the sky like pallid, gnarled hands, as if desperate to latch on to the realm, whole again.

Despite the unfettered flames, blackened remains, and splintered bones, thrummed life.

Large nests and eyries that comprised of soft wood entwined with loose feathers were empty no longer. Gaping holes and dens in the side of the mountains, littered with tiny sparkling crystals not unlike the stars of the night sky, were abandoned no longer. Curious earthen and clayey abodes that were made from thickly felted plant fibres and compacted with mud dotted the river banks and were teeming with the first signs of activity.

This meant only one thing: breeding season was about to start.

This season of courtship and mating for the dragons was not annual as one would expect, but rather quinquennial – reoccurring only once every five years. From all across Middle-earth would the males of their species return from their journeys and adventures, where the most ferocious and virile of creatures would be impressing the newest generation of females, while the more scholarly and learned ones saw this period as an opportunity to spout wonderful and embellished stories of their findings and exploits to whomever chose to listen.

Unfortunately, his species was oviparous.

Now, in nature, the young of creatures that bear eggs are often less likely to survive against predator attacks, deadly temperature changes, and other environmental issues. To counter this unnecessary loss of life, the dragons throughout the Second Age had adapted accordingly, opting to stand in vigil during the perinatal periods of a mother's life and tending to their offspring until they could talk, fly and hunt independently.

This however, meant that parental care over time was eventually and inevitably consigned to the draconic matriarchs, leaving their mates free from duties to roam the world. In this day and age, once the males had cast their seed, they would leave and abandon the Withered Heath, carrying neither intellectual nor emotional attachment to their mate and progeny.

Harry had never met his father, but he didn't really care, for humans and dragons were different. His mind then paused, his mind flashing back through all his past lives and experiences. But were they truly different though? Both were sentient, both were cunning, both were cruel, both coveted shiny trinkets and baubles above all else, both were–

He shook his head, trying his best to clear dark thoughts that sought to cloud his mind.

Harry then gave a thoughtful chirp as he dived even lower, ignoring the aches and pains in his young muscles from flying continuously for the past three hours or so. He began to follow the meandering course of the river through the Withered Heath in one final burst of activity, twisting and turning in the air in a show of aerobatic display that only a Seeker could produce. Daring to fly close to the water, so close that he could see the smoothness of the black rocks underneath its rippled surface, he extended one wing and skimmed it carefully across the water's top, as if somehow reaching for a Golden Snitch.

Ever since he was deracinated from his old world and deposited in this strange land called Ennor – the Sindarin name for this continent – he knew that there was no one who belonged in the air more than him. As the roaring wind whispered in his ears, the cool air caressed his face, and the rays of incandescent sunlight kissed his scales, he almost wished he had been born a dragon instead – not just his previous lifetime, but all the way back to his very first.

However, since this was his first flight, and he was daydreaming, naturally, he crashed.

A squawk of surprise issued from his jaws when one of his wings dipped too deeply into the water, causing him to tip forward and plunge head first into the river. A deluge of water rushed past his open mouth and down his gullet as a wave of ache and cracks in his bones accompanied it. Bright spots danced at the corners of his vision, temporarily blinding him and making his head feel like the thing inside of it was static as he sank like a stone to the silty surface of the river bed.

Strangely, his body didn't hurt as much as it should have. An overwhelming number of phantom pains that stemmed from his previous humanoid state of existence eventually gave way to a gentle numbness. Flexing his limbs while still underwater, he realized in surprise he could still move and began hastily swimming to the surface through the pristine mountain water.

A fit of wracking coughs was the first act he performed upon breaching the surface, interspersed between taking in deep gulps of air to steady his heaving chest. Fearing the worst, he hastily swam to the side of the river with powerful rhythmic strokes before propping himself up against a partially submerged rock to inspect the state of his body more closely. After a full minute of thorough checking, he came to an unsettling conclusion: the random cuts and bumps on his body were already showing the first signs of healing. Although he knew dragons were born with extremely fascinating abilities, he also knew that accelerated healing was definitely not part of their repertoire.

A faint gasp of realization issued from his jaws as an epiphany hit him straight on like a truck. The cogs and spurs in his brain were turning faster than ever now, granting him an inkling as to what was happening.

Magic.

It was here, in the midst of this strange world, that magic still flowed rampant and wild. A surge of energy coursed through his veins when he focused intensely with all the willpower he could muster, still familiar with the framework and nuances of magic from his prior experiences as a wizard. His efforts were rewarded as his eyes suddenly saw a faint shimmer burst into existence in front of his waking eyes, coating flora and fauna alike in a resplendent and glorious display.

He had been blind, but now he saw.

With a jolt, he realized that this type of magic was something fundamentally different from what he was so used to. Magic here was contained within the sights, sounds and smells of this world. Perhaps 'contained' was the wrong use for magic of this world, unlike his own, where such power had been dammed up and caged. Whereas his old world had gradients of magical power – steeped where witches and wizards were clustered, and sparse where Muggles dominated – every bird, rock, and tree in this land gave off susurrations of power instead, undulating in unseen waves that would have intoxicated him if he focused hard enough.

Here, it seemed as if magic was in symbiosis with reality.

Almost delirious with excitement from his accidental discovery, he tried to focus and channel this latent energy through his body to perform a feat of wandless magic, daring to touch the building blocks of which – unbeknownst to him – had set this very world in motion. However, the more he tried to reach out, the more the power retreated in turn, keeping him tantalizingly just a hairsbreadth away out of its touch.

Harry growled in infuriation at the denial of what was his birthright, but soon relinquished all his efforts after fruitlessly trying for a few more minutes.

"Why can I sense magic, but not touch it? Regardless of my situation or life, I could always harness it with relative ease," he muttered to himself, "Perhaps… it's because I'm in another world?"

A light bulb suddenly switched on in his head. He began to use a scaly claw to prod his chest at odd angles, clinically and systemically, as if trying to detect for abnormalities that lay on his being. After a minute of tense searching, a small smile crept onto his lips, relief flooding his system as he finally found a faint trace of what he had been look so hard for: his magical core. It still existed within him – albeit muted. Spinning and gyrating endlessly, his happiness was so great it seemingly transcended the mortal plane as his core spun ever faster.

Before he could continue any further, a wave of frigid numbness swept over his lower body without warning, causing him to look down blankly at a sea of blue that was rushing around his midriff. He then chuckled, only now remembering how he ended up in the watery mess.

"I hope no one saw me crash. Oliver Wood himself wouldn't have been too happy with my performance," Harry grinned widely, noting with faint interest that the twinkling that had once coated the world was now softly evanescing into albescent rays of sunlight.

Instead of quickly clambering out of the freezing mountain waters, he flopped back down into the crystal-clear liquid in a very undragonlike manner and floated lazily on his back, letting the slow current taking him back downstream as he let all thoughts drift out of his mind.

If an observer was present during his musings, the red dragonling would've been a most curious sight to behold.

Unfortunately, an observer was present – a group of them to be specific, and they heralded their presence with a cacophony of growls and hisses.

"What foul tongue did you just speak in?" a voice demanded out of the blue, speaking in the universal language of dragons, Kulkodar-Flas.

Harry lifted his head out of the water from the noise, slightly annoyed that his meditations had been interrupted when he noticed who had spoken. He then temporarily ignored the speaker and began to leisurely swim over to the embankment of the winding river, taking his own sweet time and ignoring from the looks of perplexity he induced from his display of carefreeness.

He dragged his waterlogged body out of the water and shook himself like a wet dog, much to the disgust of his observers, before assessing the creatures before him.

There were three of them, one in the centre flanked by two others. He instantly recognized them as cold-drakes, or Helkalokë. Though lacking the ability to breathe fire, they were nonetheless strong creatures after they were fully matured, with iron-hard scales, wicked claws, bold tails, and terrible fangs. The trio that stood before him however, had features absent of those aforementioned due to the fact that they were whelplings themselves and were only slightly older than he was.

His mind drifted, remembering a rare time when his mother told him a story of the world beyond these slopes, one of great war that raged merely two decades ago between the cold-drakes and the Dwarves that burrowed deep into the mountainous slopes of Ered Mithrin. It was a bloody and vicious conflict, one which culminated with death of the Dwarven king, Dáin I, and his son Frór in Thikil-gundu, 'The Steel Keep'. Bodies etiolated and spirit broken, the king's remaining sons fled their great halls with their people and were cast out from their homes into the frigid snow.

Even now, the exodus of the Dwarves to the Iron Hills, a range of great hills in the north-eastern regions of Ennor, continued. On the back of stirring breezes, there were also faint whispers that Thrór, a descendent of slain king, was leading some of his people to the abandoned subterranean city of Erebor, which lay beneath a lone mountain northeast to the forest of Mirkwood.

His mind snapped back to reality from issue of a guttural growl.

"Ûrdínen. Answer the question."

Harry gave a small frown when he heard his nickname: Ûrdínen. As all nicknames did, they originated from Quenya – the archaic language of the immortal Elves – and his roughly translated to 'the silent fire'.

"I spoke in a tongue called English, are any of you familiar with it?" he responded honestly in the same language, completely ignoring the hostile attitude.

The drake on the left spat at the ground in displeasure at his response, releasing a nebulous stream of ice that created a small frozen patch on the blackened ground.

"That tongue is a pain upon all who lack such familiarity," it growled back, "It grates on the ears and grinds on the heart. To think that you of all creatures would hoard such a treacherous display of linguistics. Your arrogance truly knows no bounds."

Harry raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Dragons were masters of riddles and wordplay, but these whelplings clearly still had a long way to go.

"Would you like to learn the fundamentals of English?" he asked in a kind voice, seeing through their ploy and getting straight to the point.

The drakes recoiled in surprise from his abrupt question.

"How dare you assume–" came a conflicted hiss.

Without waiting for an invitation, Harry promptly sat down on a dry rock and began to orate. The combination of his eccentric boldness, impressive oratory style, and flawless elocution shocked the other dragons into a stunned silence even long after he began. However, slowly but surely, the floodgates of their hearts opened, and they sat down and began to actively take part in his teachings, extremely vocal in some cases.

Harry was always acritical and patient. Despite having such a fiery disposition, he learnt that dragons were disturbingly persistent once they had made up their minds, not stopping for a second until they achieved their goal. This instinct also was applied most liberally to academic attainment, making him enjoy this little pedagogic role as the cold-drakes learnt in utmost earnest.

"Well done," he said proudly after two hours of rigorous study, a wide and triumphant smile stretching across his face, "I think that's all for today."

Shouts of protest made him chuckle out loud. He then gazed upon the trio of young dragons, eager for more knowledge with not a single affliction of life on their shoulders. A wave of compassion suddenly suffused through his body, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So, he began teaching them a great many other things.

Though dragons were cruel, greedy creatures that held only avarice in their hearts, their young were for the most part unaffected. He often wondered when did the bondage of Darkness settle upon their innocent and curious souls and turn them into the beasts that could only be satiated by the lustre of shining coins and gleam of dazzling jewels.

"You lot like gold and silver, don't you?" Harry suddenly interjected, completely halting the flow of the previous conversation.

"Of course, who doesn't?" one of the drakes answered without pause, a baffled look sprouting across its face as if unable to comprehend the concept of disliking precious metals.

"Well, if you keep killing the Dwarves, then who will be left to unearth minerals and craft such wonderful jewels?" Harry articulated slowly and clearly, "Dead miners and lapidarists would only hinder that of what you seek."

Looks of uneasiness took hold of the cold-drakes, "You... speak the semblance of truth, Smaug," the one in the middle hesitantly replied after a sustained silence.

They were no longer calling him by his nickname now.

"So?" Harry asked expectantly.

The drakes looked at him blankly.

"So?" they echoed back in confusion.

"So, stop killing them," Harry said simply, "Wouldn't it be more lucrative for you if you worked with the Dwarves instead of–"

He cut himself off when his keen eyes realized with a start that it was nearly dusk. With a quick recap and a hasty goodbye, he turned on the spot and promptly left, slightly regretting that he couldn't fully arrive at the crux of the matter for he had a far more important task ahead of him. They called frantically to him, but he'd already taken flight and was gone with the wind, only realizing a few feet off the ground he had completely forgotten to get their names.

It didn't matter however, for the seed of change had already been planted within their hearts – his work was done for the day. As he flew silently in the air, his mind began to wander. If he could change the hearts of three dragons, surely, he could do so with his entire species. A sudden flash of insight filled him with courage and determination as an idea rose to the top of his mind.

Since ancient times, every civilization's ruler has had the same idea. When people unite under one will, they become stronger than the sum of their parts. And what do rulers use to bring people together?

Language.

A/N: If you have any thoughts at all, please drop a review! I read them all and will try to respond to anything related to the story accordingly. Thanks for being awesome!

Like in the Harry Potter universe, magic can be an 'external' flashy phenomenon, seen similarly from the Witch-king of Angmar's sorcerous abilities. However, further comparison of magic between Earth and Arda now becomes tricky, for Tolkien never explicitly defined magic, only that he categorized it into two divisions: Seen and Unseen magic, which are then both subcategorized into racial magics (though it's not really magic in the traditional sense). Without going into too much detail, we know that magic in Arda is not limited in quantity, but rather limited to its users. With this, we can assume that that magic is everywhere but simply not assessible to many. Harry, who is already extremely familiar with magic, can effortlessly sense this but not necessarily tap into it at this point in time.

Dear Pack Rat, I can understand how you can draw similarities between dragons and snakes, but remember dragons are not simple beasts, but are intelligent creatures with independent wills, consciousnesses, speech, and highly developed minds capable of leading armies into battle (The Sack of Nargothrond, FA 495). Dragons grow slow and take a long time to mature, so it would make logical sense to they will be completely helpless during the first few years of their lives and need care from others. Additionally, no matter how territorial a species is in nature, seasonal breeding does change the standard behaviour in animals (wolves are an exceptional case of this).

Just a heads up, this story will be split into three arcs for those who want a idea of the long term: 1) Harry's stay in the Withered Heath, 2) once he leaves home, and 3) his journey beyond.