Pairings: Harry/Garrus, F!Shepard/Tali, past Harry/Ginny, mentions of Ron/Hermione and Neville/Luna

NOTE: After the prologue, the actual Mass Effect series starts. This'll be in three Arcs: Mass Effect 1, 2 then 3, and then the Epilogue. Also, sorry about the delay. I was listening to Benny Hill throughout this whole chapter. For five hours.

Beast
Prologue II:
Growing Up

"You're vulnerable," Wrex grunts, and that's all the forewarning he receives before he's unceremoniously picked up by his neck and held under its arm. The other arm, he notices, goes behind its back to hold onto a rather odd-looking gun, and holds it at chest level. Its eyes—small, beady and blood-red—constantly swivel in their sockets as if looking for suitable prey, before they stop dead ahead where there are other humanoid creatures in armour.

Before he even has the forethought of releasing a frightened cry, it's on the move with him held protectively and tightly under its arm and close to its solid armour. The sound of bullets hurtling past them reaches his ears, followed by the dull thuds of quickened feet on dry desert sand. He flinches, his ears and nose burning, from the sound of the gun in Wrex's hand going off and the smell it brings with it. The sound continues to ring in his ears, minutes after the first shot of the gun. Being so close to the metallic thing hurts his ears, and the smell of the bullets leaving the gun burns his nostrils, but he's determined to keep quiet.

He's only just been born; he isn't so eager to die just yet.

The solid rhythm of Wrex running soothes him, as its further proof that they're still alive, even if he has no idea why they're being targeted. He lifts his head away from its chest and takes in the carnage that surrounds them. The peaceful desert that it had once been is covered in fire, smoke, bullet-shells, blood and death. The part-dead trees are nearly blackened by explosives, and up ahead, he notices ships hovering in the air, sending down troops dressed in solid black armour. They're all holding guns, with various types of weaponry strapped to their backs, and he can't for the life of him discern their species, much like the 'Wrex' that had found him.

The skin of the troops—as little as he can see of it—has oddly raised scale-like patterns on its face, with a head looking oddly reminiscent of a reptile. He sees no tail, and is quietly disappointed that they're not his species.

"Damn it!" Wrex growls lowly, startling Beast from his observations. He looks to the left, where it's looking, and finds a smaller ship than the one he'd seen, looking slightly damaged on one wing. Beast makes a noise in distress similar to the tone he hears, but he's not altogether sold on this "damn it"; the ship still looks functional. The smoke from the burning trees curls towards them, burning Beast's nostrils and throat. He hacks out a cough, and Wrex sprints faster towards the smaller ship, its arm tightening protectively around him. It dodges the bullets aimed at them professionally, taking out the people on their heels with its lone gun, its expression set in a fierce scowl.

He notices a slight ramp hanging off of the smaller ship, and he finally understands: this is their ship. They're going to have to manoeuvre themselves onto it without being shot down or worse. At the rate he's going, his throat is going to be beyond repair by the time they get to it. It's odd, though, since he's a fire-breather and smoke and fire shouldn't bother him, but it does. Maybe the fire they're making is completely different from his fire, and he's just too young to protect himself from it?

Wrex's breathing is starting to get faster, and shallower, but it doesn't faze it one bit; they're still running straight towards the docking ramp. Once its feet hit the solid white of the ramp, it begins to fold back up on itself. The red and beige coloured alien (and that's all Beast knows, as of now) starts to slow down until its walking instead of running. The ramp completely seals itself, once Beast looks back at it, and he hears Wrex exhale loudly. Beast hears the faint tinks of the bullets hitting the ship, and he lets out a loud exhale as well, nearly chuffing; the damage of the bullets are doing nothing to the strong shell of the ship.

It's very bland on the inside, he thinks to himself, as he looks around. It's almost like my egg. The area they find themselves in—the folded up ramp—is cream coloured, with grey trimming at the top and bottom of the walls. Brown and beige coloured boxes litter the area, and as he's thinking about what the boxes hold inside, Wrex ducks behind one. He's so close to the box that he can practically touch one—

"Don't. Move." The voice, Beast is confused to note, has an undertone of something—something that's similar to his own dragon-speech, but different. It tells him a completely different story from the confident words being spoken; underlying that tone is fear. Obviously, whatever—or whomever—the voice belongs to, is afraid that it will die. Seeing for himself what his Wrex is capable of… he's inclined to agree.

On the wrong side of Wrex and it's dead. Which it so happened to be, at the moment.

Wrex tenses up all of his muscles—which amuses Beast greatly, as tensing was kind of like moving—and snorts. "You think I'm going to listen to you, Turian?" The last word, "Turian" (whatever that was) is flung out as an insult, and Wrex turns his whole body to look the Turian dead-on.

The thing, Beast is pleased to note, looks exactly like those humanoid creatures he'd spotted in the far distance. Its grooved and ragged face is a dark brown in colour, with light brown markings dotting over the bridge of its flat nose and face. In its hand is an assault rifle, nearly as long as its arm, and nearly twice as thick, pointed right at Wrex's heart. The vaguely reptilian humanoid—looking as confident as can be—looks down slightly, and stares at him with small, grey eyes. He curls in on himself at the scrutinising look, tucking his head closer to Wrex's chest with one eye keeping a look-out.

"Put your gun down," it spits at Wrex, its eyes never leaving Beast. Slowly, Wrex carefully places the gun it's holding on the ground and stands back up again, its face still set in a facial expression reminiscent of a sneer. "And the little one."

"No."

"No? You're not in the position to refuse, Krogan."

The reptilian humanoid steps forward, its gun still level with Wrex's heart, which is a very, very stupid mistake on its part. Beast hasn't known Wrex for all that long (considering he broke out of his egg maybe half an hour ago) but he knows body language—and the fact that Wrex is built a lot heavier than the reptile. In the split second it takes for the reptile to register surprise at its own actions, Wrex drops Beast to the ground, smacks the gun out of the reptile's hand as if it's nothing and grabs hold of its head. A buzzing sound splits the air, and Beast lets out a cry of distress, because the reptile is using his own language against him. The sound presses against his ears, and he quickly pushes his stomach to the ground, his clawed hands covering his eyes and ears. Because he doesn't want to listen to the frightened scream, the anger, the rage—anything.

With a distant crunch, the buzzing is gone. All of the negative emotions that have been poured into his language are gone, replaced by silence. Slowly, he takes his claws away from his face, and watches as the headless body of the reptile—sprayed with grey matter and blue blood—falls to the ground, with a toneless thud. Wrex picks up both of the guns, slinging one onto its back and keeping the other in its hand, grabs hold of his neck, and pulls him up under his arm again, keeping him close to the armour.

The sound of gunfire reaches his ears as Wrex makes his way through the multitude of stacked boxes. Another sound, getting louder, mixes in with the gunfire, and the ship rocks with the force. Wrex grunts, tightens its arm, and begins to jog, its powerful legs thumping against the ramp. They go up a slow elevator—and why do ships need elevators when there's stairs that do the same thing—and go right, where they enter a small alcove, with three separate doors. Windows separate the doors, showing off the interior of the small little rooms, which could hold maybe three Wrex's.

Wrex opens the door to the middle of one, plops Beast down onto the small seating area that's basically the whole of the little room and slams the door shut. The pounding of feet echo down below. His alien curses, pushes a button on the side of the room and their room ejects from the rest of the ship. They watch as five troops appear in the space they'd ejected from, take their guns out and open fire at them. Wrex grunts, pushes another button, and suddenly, instead of falling, they're being pushed up into the atmosphere.

His stomach, completely disinterested in the happenings of what's going on, decides to rumble quite loudly in the silent, small space they're in.

Wrex chuckles. "You won't be eating for quite a while."

'Quite a while' turns out to be a day. Apparently, if they had chosen a bigger escape pod, or even a small ship, they would've gotten to their destination sooner, but since they were panicked and backed into a corner at the time… they were forced to use the slower mode of transportation.

The area they arrive at is a dilapidated building with a large sign at the entrance, which has a blood red skull with the backdrop of black flames. No words surround it, but that's fine; the people that go there obviously know why they're going there and what happens inside. His belly grumbles again loudly, and Wrex chuckles again.

"You'll be fed soon enough," it says, hitting his fist against a large red button on the side of the automatic sliding doors. They both enter and the door shuts and locks behind them. Inside, Beast is fascinated by all of the different aliens he sees and the lights and music blaring all around them. Wrex takes them to the side of the large open floor, going through another door, another and another, until finally they stop in front of a door much larger than the few they had previously been through. Two aliens that look exactly like Wrex (except in different facial colours and features) cross their arms across their chests, each of them holding a gun casually pointing in their direction.

"You're late," the one on the left says flatly, eying Wrex up and down, its eyes lingering on Beast momentarily before looking Wrex in the eye.

"Ambush," Wrex replies just as flatly, and the one on the right of the door nods, presses the door button and lets them inside. Beast swivels his neck around to watch the door close and lock behind them, the aliens repositioning themselves. When he looks ahead again to see where they are, Beast is surprised to note a very slim blue figure with curling tentacles at the back of her head sitting in a chair behind a desk, her boots sitting casually on the desk with her hands behind her head and her knees crossed. "It's done," Wrex tells her.

She raises an eyebrow. Beast jumps out of Wrex's hold and places himself on the ground beside his imprinted parent, the spines on his back standing erect. The room is large, with open windows and tasteful décor, the walls painted a brilliant purple and orange with swirls delicately painted all over, but the room screams dangerous at him. He wants desperately to leave the room they've come into, but he can't, not without Wrex.

"Oh?" she says. Her pale blue eyes zero in on him, but dismiss him as a non-threat. She eyes Wrex lazily from her spot on the swivel chair, inclining her head towards the only available seat in front of the desk. Stiffly, Wrex sits in the chair. Beast, however, stays where he is; he doesn't want to be anywhere near her. "What about Hedox and his…" her lips pull down at the corners, "comrades?" The words are spat out in distaste, as if the very concept of camaraderie is foreign entities to her that shouldn't exist.

"Dead," Wrex replies. A slow smile stretches out on her face.

"And the proof?"

Here, Wrex grumbles a word under his breath, presses a few buttons on his omni-tool, and right before their eyes, nearly a dozen pictures of dead bodies—some with heads, some without, some in a pool of blood, some with their eyes open, some with not—can be seen on the floating screen.

The woman laughs as Wrex cuts the screen show off. Rifling around in a drawer in her desk, the woman sits up from her position and hands over a few orange cards over to Wrex.

"As capable as ever," she purrs. She slides her omni-tool on, and forwards a few names, locations and statements to Wrex's omnitool. "Your next assignment." She grins, licking her lips. "No timeframe."

Wrex nods, his eyes flickering over the newly acquired text on his omni-tool, then pushes himself to his feet. Beast, feeling safer now that they were heading out, feels his spines lower, squashing protectively against his back. He's picked up by the scruff of his neck and they leave the room, the blue-skinned woman watching them with her eerie, pale blue gaze.

After filling himself up on food, he's feeling content sitting in Wrex's lap in the middle of a large ship filled with other people on the main deck. These 'people' were essentially fleshy bipedal things with—what Beast assumes to be—some kind of protection on the top of their heads. They all carried weapons of different sizes, wearing armour that covered them from head to toe. There were others like Wrex on the deck as well, grunting to each other in low voices far away from their current position.

"We're going to Tuchanka," Wrex unnecessarily informs him. Beast twitches, stretching his claws, the sharpened points pinging uselessly off of the krogan's armour. He twists his neck, his eyes locked on to Wrex's slitted red eyes. He keens low in his throat. The alien stares back at him flatly, as if he understands Beast's reservations about this 'Tuchanka'. He has no idea what a Tuchanka is, but he'll defer to Wrex's judgement—Wrex obviously knows what he's doing. So saying, Wrex pats him briefly on the head and says lowly, "Tuchanka isn't the best place for hatchlings, but it's the best place for training."

Satisfied about Wrex's response, Beast curls up and lays his head down on the cool metal beneath his body. His legs tuck comfortably beneath him with his tail limply hanging against Wrex's thigh.

He doesn't sleep while lying there. Instead, he listens to the pleasant rumblings of the people and krogan around him as they discuss battle strategies, the weather (something Beast finds distinctly odd, considering they're in space—therefore what does weather have to do with anything?) and the different ways to kill someone. He strains his hearing, trying to listen in on some people at the other end of the deck, but fails miserably. He huffs in agitation.

"—you're not actually thinking about doing—"

"—and you would not believe how much the fucker bled—"

"—turians wouldn't leave us alone once they found out that—"

This isn't what he wants to hear. He opens his eyes for a visual, his eyes rolling and his neck twisting to get the furthest people into his line of sight. He wants to hear them, not anyone else; they seem particularly agitated, from what he can see of their body language. He cocks his head, his eyes fixed on them.

"—but don't you think we should think before we do something like that?" this voice sounds oddly dull to his ears, as if the words have been broken down and reformed wrong. The words come from an oddly shaped bipedal creature with darkened skin, as if it had been burnt beforehand but couldn't get the ash and soot off.

He felt a mixture of pity and amusement for that poor creature. He doesn't know what he'd do if things stuck to his scales.

"I can't see the problem," the other voice replies, its voice higher in pitch. The strange fleshy humanoid is different from the other one; shorter, less stocky and with those same strangle lumps on its chest as the blue alien he'd seen briefly before. "We just kill the krogan and take off with the black lizard."

"But what can we do with a lizard?" the other asks, clearly confused. Beast tenses, his spines creeping up into a standing position at the insult. He isn't some overgrown lizard like those turians he'd seen. He had wings.

"Didn't you pay attention to it? It has wings. What kind of lizard has wings?"

The other one hesitates. "Well, we don't know much about the rest of the universe, so we can't exactly assume—"

"Beast," Wrex rumbles. Beast snaps back to himself and looks up at his alien. "Stop growling."

He hadn't even been aware that he'd been growling.

When they arrive at Tuchanka, Wrex grabs him and stuffs him under his arm. His walk is steady but brisk and he barely feels jostled, even if he does feel a lot like freshly killed prey about to be taken to a den and eaten.

This 'Tuchanka' is a barren desert filled with nothing but debris and oddly coloured plants that had no business being in this hot climate. The heat on his back makes him feel oddly content; he feels like he could fall asleep right where he is. Maybe for a couple of days or even a couple of months—he wouldn't be at all opposed to going into a light hibernation period of a few years. The heat is simply divine.

He closes his eyes involuntarily, a contented rumble grumbling from his chest.

"You better not fall asleep on me," Wrex mutters, almost in resigned amusement. A loud clatter echoes into his ears and he opens his eyes, his head whipping up sharply to try and find the source of the noise. The sound, apparently, comes from a damaged piece of wood that looks, almost vaguely, like a door. The door isn't a door anymore. More like a decorative, wooden rug.

It has its uses. Well, it will have uses, but he doubts its ever going to be a door again. It'll probably be reduced to kindle-bark.

Wrex steamrolls his way into the little wooden hut, with its dirt and grime and leaves, and sets Beast down on the ground, his whole attention seemingly on the glowing orange of his omni-tool on his wrist. Beast knows better, however. Wrex wants to see how he'll react to the different surroundings. If Beast had been anyone else, or any other dragon, he'd probably burn this little wooden hut down. Instead, he just sits there in docile silence.

Wrex crosses his arms, his eyes moving from the orange glow to Beast. They stay in this position in silence, Wrex cataloguing Beast and Beast waiting for orders—or anything, really. Eventually, Wrex grunts in apparent approval and speaks, his voice low, "I noticed the bastards on deck that had an interest in you. You noticed, too. This makes it easier. We have approximately three weeks to get you into fighting form. That means I have to train you to use your fire; that pitiful little plume of smoke wasn't a real fire."

Beast puffs himself up indignantly—that was a real fire!

Wrex rolls his eyes at him but doesn't comment at his obvious posturing. He deflates slightly and keens, lowering his head to stare at the ground. It wasn't a real fire, he admits. It was just some smoke and a bit of fire that has honestly taken them both off-guard. So he'd… have to concede… that he needs training.

Fire-breathing and hunting, it turns out, comes naturally to him. He hardly needs any prompting to crisp, maim and kill when he's up against something bigger and spikier than him that would eat him alive if given half the chance. He finds this out when Wrex dumps him in a nest of varren (as he'd later learned from his master-parent-father-caregiver-feeder-alien) that come at him with the intent to kill him and eat him.

Frightened out of his mind, he'd breathed fire on the whole six of them and ran for it. He'd flapped his wings uselessly (his wings were just a bit too fragile right now to actually use them for anything useful) and come to a skidding stop near a dry shrub, four burning (and on fire) varren hot on his heels.

After that, burning things and hunting them came much easier to him. Kill them before they kill you.

Of course, he wasn't just hunting bull-headed varren. That was a little bit too easy, since as soon as they got a whiff of him, they ran at him with the intent to kill, so he didn't even have to bother tracking them or doing anything to get their attention other than existing, really.

He hunted pyjaks, even though they were even less of a competition than varren. Varren, at least, knew when to run away. Pyjaks, it seems, have no sense of self-preservation.

The things that he had trouble actually hunting were little desert lizards that liked to pop in and out of the sand like little moles, something that infuriated Beast a hell of a lot. He could never seem to catch a pattern to their random popping and running and jumping and being general nuisances, so tracking them from one place to another was often filled with his internal grumblings and screams of frustration.

He eventually learned, though.

And once he learned, he killed the little shits just so he didn't have to hunt them anymore.

"You still need improvement on your fire-breathing," Wrex comments. Beast snarls and shakes himself. He'd been continuously breathing fire for thirty seconds. He was a little baby dragon that had literally hatched three weeks ago; of course he needs improvement—

["You're perfect the way you are, Harry," Hermione mutters into his hair. He shakes his head and mutters into her collarbone, his voice lost to the skin beneath his lips. "Ginny doesn't need to fix you—you don't need improvement. You just need people to be there for you. It's okay. Tell Ginny."

A sniffle is her only answer and she shakes her had almost fondly, her arms wrapped around his torso firmly.]

—and what the hell was that? He freezes, his head cocking from side to side, his eyes roving around the barren wasteland. He could've sworn he'd seen two humans embracing, but that's impossible—only he and Wrex are here.

"But that'll have to do," Wrex muses as if to himself. "We have to get back to the ship."

Getting onto the ship isn't the difficult part, since Wrex sort-of owns it and the people on it. The difficult part comes when they actually get onto the ship and Wrex's underlings point their guns in his face. The guns are loaded and they all seem impassive, as if this is just one of the inevitable things of the world.

Wrex looks from one person to another, his face set in a fierce scowl. "So you're double-crossing me?" he demands.

The apparent leader of the operation—the woman that had been talking to the burnt-looking one before in the main deck—steps forward and seems to be looking down at him, even though he's a good head and a half taller than her.

"We were never loyal to you," she informs him. The people behind her nod in agreement. It's shocking to Beast—sure, he knew there was something wrong going on between this woman and the other man, but to bring Wrex into it? He bristles, growling, his spines shuddering and snapping. They make a crackling noise as he snarls, his tail whipping behind him. The blunt bulb at the end of his tail is a good thumping object to use. He could probably take her, if he burnt her first.

She's just a bit too tall for his tail to be of any use at all.

"So, what, you're going to kill me? Go ahead," Wrex snorts dismissively. Beast pauses and looks up at him, his spines stiff on his back. What? Wrex would just give up—? "See if you can when you're on fire."

The woman frowns. "What do you—?"

That's the only thing she gets out before Beast is snarling and breathing fire at her. Her hair goes up in flames and her amour heats up a brilliant red. He smells the burning of flesh and hears the high pitched screams—

["NO! HARRY!" Ginny screams, tackling him to the ground. He rolls with the impact, a bright blue spell whizzing over the top of his head. He grunts, pushing her off of him, stands, and helps her up, his wand flicking in the direction of the other person that had tried to handicap him. A plain looking man with brown eyes and brown hair greets his eyes, before he whispers a spell.

He pushes Ginny behind him as his spell whispers out of his wand and flies at the other man, who barely dodges in time. He whispers lowly to her, "Get the kids. Run."

"I can help—"

"And who will help the kids?" he demands. He sends off another spell, turns towards her and kisses her on the lips briefly, before pushing her away. "Go. I'll be fine."]

—and turns away, smacking into Wrex's leg. His alien pulls out a shotgun, cocks it and opens fire. Beast ducks behind Wrex's legs, twisting around until he's safe behind some cardboard boxes. They won't last long, but at least it'll give him time. Anyone that ventures too close to him will be burnt and (hopefully) bludgeoned to death.

The smell of gun smoke and burning flesh burns through his nose, but it's not an unpleasant smell, not like it had once been when he hadn't been expecting it. It's surprisingly nice; the smell of burnt flesh, actually, smells appetising. His stomach gives a gurgle and he chuffs at it, a little amused. Now wasn't the time, though.

"Beast!" Wrex snaps and Beast turns his head, just in time to see someone coming at him with an assault rifle. If he gets hit, he's dead. He's still surprisingly fragile for a dragon, and his scales won't be able to stop the bullets from piercing his organs. He snarls and smoke rises from his nostrils; he uses it for cover. He spins around, the bulb of his tail smacking into the person's ankle. He hears them cry out in pain and he sprints out of his cardboard cover, ducking behind even more boxes and listening for the heavy breathing of his alien.

He can't hear Wrex over the sound of gunshots, screams and people speaking. He steps cautiously away from the cardboard boxes and thinks a bit to himself, wondering how he could use them for anything other than cover. He rumbles pleasantly when the idea comes at him. He breathes in a lot of air and exhales it as fire, the burning, burnt orange red consuming the flammable cardboard and making it go up in flames.

It spreads from box to box. He quickly wheels away from it, his eyes searching through the smoke for his alien—there. Wrex is near the back of the room, surrounded by three creatures—two human and one krogan—so he rushes towards him, his claws clacking against the metal. An explosion from behind him rocks him forward; more screams curl around into his ears and he snarls, trying to ignore the obnoxious noise.

He comes charging at them and slips between their legs, his tail hitting them in the shins and ankles as he goes. It does nothing to them, since they're wearing appropriate armour, but the clinking of metal brings their attention down to him. In that instance of distraction, it costs them their lives; Wrex savagely crushes one human's head with his hand and shoots the other between the eyes. The krogan tackles Wrex and swats the gun away from him. Snarling, Beast backs away, his whole body tense.

He can't do anything; he's so small and if he were to flame that krogan, he doesn't know if he'll be able to avoid flaming his alien, too.

But, he doesn't have to worry, since the next time he looks over to Wrex, he finds him standing over the dead body of the krogan, the front of his armour splashed with red.

"I feel like you're more trouble than you're worth," Wrex mutters to him as they sit in the pilot's room. The pilot—a mousey man with greying hair and amber eyes—merely keeps his attention on the screen in front of him, only occasionally switching gears and pushing buttons when needed. "Sure, you can breathe fire. But you can't actually bludgeon anything yet. Your kind is supposed to be extinct." He grunts, his heavy brows furrowing. "I have to keep you a secret for as long as I can… that means," he snarls, turning towards the pilot, "you don't breathe a word about Beast."

The pilot nods frantically, his eyes swivelling to eye Beast with a frightened look. "I—I won't, I swear, just don't kill me, I'll pilot and do anything—I just—I won't tell anyone—"

Wrex grunts in approval and turns towards Beast with a thoughtful look. "I wonder how big you'll grow to be. Dragons,"—a choked noise escapes the pilot's throat, as if winded—"grew to be the size of ships, even bigger, depending on their species. I've never seen your species before, but… then, I didn't know many dragons."

Beast cocks his head curiously. He'd be as big as this ship when he gets older? Well, it's not like he doesn't mind—he's all for it—but where would he sleep if he couldn't fit in here? Would he even be able to breathe in space, or would he have to find a large enough breathing mask to fit his muzzle? The most important question, of course, would be could he fly beside the ship? Space is odd, and doesn't act as the ground he treads on, so he isn't so sure if he'd be able to fly in space without it being incredibly taxing.

"Beast, you're getting too big to fit through the doors," Wrex grunts in amusement. Beast makes a low keening noise, his head lowering to the floor, the scruff around his neck feathering against the metal. His big, green eyes stares at Wrex with sadness. It's true; he can't fit through the door anymore. His bulk is just too wide for the doors and he's too heavy for the elevators. He can't even be tucked under Wrex's arm anymore. He can't lie on Wrex anymore.

If anything, Wrex can lie on him, which he does regularly.

A hissing noise blows past his lips and he huffs, a spiral of smoke curling from his nostrils. He turns his head away, as well as his body, and slinks further into his room. It's not even his room; it's just the loading dock. But he can't get through any doors, so how could he get to his room, even if he had one?

Wrex pats one of his budding horns on his neck, his armoured hands going lower to his neck and scratching at the scales that are blistered and angry. A cluster of spines are coming through his soft skin and his roughened scales, which is, apparently, a sign of maturing into a bigger dragon—which sucks. He doesn't want more spikes and spines. Even the bulb on his tail has grown a cluster of spikes, something he has to be vigilant about at all times—it wouldn't do it he accidentally killed Wrex or one of their allies.

"We could find a more suitable ship," Wrex finally suggests into the silence. Trilling, Beast rubs the top of his head softly against Wrex's thick armour. A rumbling, deep laugh escapes Wrex. "Don't get too used to the idea—we won't be able to afford it for a while."

Beast slumps.

The room is bigger than he remembers. Even his nest is bigger than he remembers. He stretches and freezes, his eyebrows furrowing—and. That. His eyes pop wide open. Beast doesn't have eyebrows! He's a dragon full of scales and spines and spikes and spurs and scruff and—

["C'mon mate, show us your animagus! It can't be that bad," Ron wheedles, his arms clasped behind his back. He rocks back onto his heels and quickly amends, "it can't be worse than mine, at any rate."

Harry shakes his head with a laugh. "Yours isn't that bad either, you know? I always thought you acted like a—"

"Don't say it—!"

"—dog!"

Ron slumps over, his shoulders hunching over and making him appear smaller. Which is ridiculous, because Ron is the tallest bloke Harry knows. He grumbles some words under his breath that Harry doesn't catch—not that he would want to, of course. They're probably all expletives aimed at his person because he wasn't a dog like Ron.

"Being a dog isn't bad," Hermione points out with a roll of her eyes. "At least you can stay on the ground and not look like a complete idiot. An owl for Merlin's sake. Do you know how much of an idiot I look when I'm hopping around? No? Well then be grateful that you get to be adorable and—"

"Hermione," Harry hurriedly interrupts. Ron gives a near-silent sigh of relief from beside him; they'd just escaped a lecture by the skin of their teeth. "Look, I'll show you, but—I don't think this room is quite big enough—"

"Big?" Ron asks incredulously. "What do you mean by—"]

—and his name isn't Beast.

His eyebrows furrow further on his face and his mouth twists down into a frown. He knows his name is Beast, but yet, he knows that his name is Harry as well. He knows he's human and at the same time dragon. He's half and half, and that's so confusing but it makes sense—

A keening whine escapes his throat when he looks down at himself. He still has his precious, onyx scales. But they're not all over him as they used to be. They're just in splatters and clusters up and down his arms and legs and chest. He feels his face with shaking, roughened hands. He's got more scales on his face, most on his nose and chin. His horns are still fixed at the top of his head—and instead of a smooth, scaled head, he has fur—hair—on top.

He grabs a piece and winces, not expecting the sudden jolt of pain running in his scalp, and down to the base of his neck. He eyes the piece. It's curly and black, just like his scales and he breathes in shakily. He's not—he's not all that different from usual. He's just—he's just less dragon and more human.

He rubs at his arms, feeling the cool scales beneath his hands and the spines that are lying flat against his skin. He whimpers, his eyes closing as his hands come up to shield his face. It's—so—foreign.

His body is foreign and he just wants to get out of it—

"Who the hell are you?" Wrex bluntly asks at his door. He startles, falling ungracefully to his butt, his arms flying out on either side of him. He keens, a loud, mourning sound and scrambles to his knees—and fails, the spurs on the back of his legs digging into the backs of his thighs. He whines and shakily gets to his feet. He trills as he stumbles over towards Wrex, who has an expression of incredulity, suspicion and bafflement on his face.

It would've looked funny if he didn't feel so—so not Beast or Harry. He's a bastardised version of both. He flounders a bit once he's in reaching distance of Wrex, who seems to be deciding on whether or not to take out a gun and shoot him right then and there before he gets too close. He shakes his head frantically, his black hair whipping around his face and some of it sticking to his lips.

His chest rumbles. He opens his mouth to speak, but—instead, it's… he doesn't speak. He makes an odd, chirping wail instead. Mortified, he looks down at the ground.

"… I have got to be going crazy," Wrex mutters to himself, before the krogan seemingly finds the courage to ask, "Beast?"

Chirping happily, Harry-Beast flings himself at Wrex and nuzzles his nose onto Wrex's face, who seems to just be standing there shell shocked in bewilderment. With his newfound digits, he wastes no time in patting Wrex's head while he nuzzles him. An explosive, exasperated sigh leaves Wrex's lips.

"Of course." He pauses and Harry-Beast pulls away, looking at Wrex who seems to be looking thoughtful. A truly, bloodthirsty grin takes over his features. "You'll be able to come on missions with me now without arousing suspicion."

Harry nods and chirps in agreement and goes back to nuzzling the cantankerous krogan, who mutters threats under his breath.

"… but first I'll have to teach you how to speak like a proper—human."

The most frustrating thing about being able to speak, Harry-Beast feels, is that he has a certain undertone to his voice, as if he has an extra vocal cord that he needs to be using at all times. It is, apparently, something the turians have. Instead of being able to speak like a proper human, Harry-Beast speaks like a turian; something that rankles Wrex like nothing else.

Perhaps it's just a carry on from being a dragon.

It's probably why he likes being a dragon better than being a human-dragon-turian hybrid. At least when he's a dragon, he's no longer Harry-Beast; he's just Beast and he can just pretend that his human-walking episode never happened.

Harry-Beast fidgets with his armour. It doesn't feel right; his scales can protect his insides and can do a lot better protecting him from bullets and shrapnel and fire than the flimsy armour, but he needs to be covered when he's Harry-Beast. His skin is a lot more fragile (like when he was a little dragon, just broken from his shell) than he's used to. He's not comfortable with the fact that he needs to compromise with actually having armour verses being protected.

He huffs and crosses his arms, leaning against the krogan beside him. "They're taking too long," he grumbles to Wrex. "I want to stretch my wings and go home." He keens quietly to Wrex and rubs his helmet-covered head against Wrex's face.

Wrex sighs. "Stop that."

"Not until I have to leave," Harry-Beast—Harry mutters. He twitches, his head lying against the krogan's shoulder. He has to remember that he's Harry like this. He's not Beast. Beast is ferocious and decidedly not fragile or squishy. Beast is everything that Harry is not. Harry is everything that Beast is not, and that—he wants—

[Ginny looks down at James, her smile warm and affectionate, her arms wrapped around his chest. James's flushed, scared face meets Harry's long muzzle and he shakes his head, turning his face into Ginny's chest. His hands clutch at her sky blue dress. "It's okay, James," Ginny whispers into his ear, nodding at Harry. "That's daddy."

"But—" he sniffles, refusing to look in Harry's direction, "—daddy's scary."

"He may look scary, but he'll never hurt you," Ginny soothes, patting his back. "He'll turn back, and he'll be the same daddy as he always was."

Harry rolls his eyes. How could he be anyone else other than he was? Just because he was a dragon didn't mean anything—he's still him.]

—he wants to be Beast right now. He never wants to be Harry. Harry's small and fleshy and fragile. Beast is so much more and at least Beast can protect Wrex.

A rustling of leaves greets his ears and they both stand up straight, Harry-Beast—Harry, you're Harry now you're not Beast—turns and steps away from his krogan and his back straightens, his arms moving to fold behind his back instead of in front of him.

Two turian come out of the foliage. One looks at Harry and then to Wrex, while the other calmly makes their way towards them. When they're standing a good feet away from them, Harry and Wrex glance at each other, then at the nervously shuffling turians. He raises an eyebrow that they can't see.

"We brought your goods," the turian on the right says. The inflection under his tone of voice—those separate vocal cords—suggest that he's telling the truth. There's nothing else, but then again, the turian could be lying. You can use those cords to lie, but not convincingly.

"Show them to me," Wrex demands, and the turian on the left hesitates. That brief hesitation makes Harry hesitate as well, because why would they be hesitating—

—and that brief moment of hesitation is all they need. Humans and turian alike step out from the foliage, with their guns at the ready, and they open fire. Harry isn't quite fast enough to dodge bullets and some slam into his armour with frightening force. He'll be bruised later, he just knows it. He spins around, makes sure Wrex is fine (he's always fine—nothing can really kill him short of blowing up the planet he's on) and ducks out of the way of the bullets streaming at them.

He nimbly moves out of the area; everyone else is preoccupied by Wrex. They don't care about Harry. That moment is the moment he takes to change into Beast—Beast, who is getting progressively bigger and meaner and spikier. He lets out an ear-splitting cry that jolts all turian in the area. It staggers them momentarily and he jumps into the sky, unfolding his wings and turning around until he's just above the hoard of double-crossers. He opens his mouth and spews out burning, red fire.

It catches on some turians and some trees. Everything is burning and it smells of smoke. There are screams and cries and it's the only thing Beast really cares about—he cares about keeping Wrex safe and alive and away from the double-crossers.

A few bullets graze his scale amour. It'll only make him shed later, so he doesn't worry about it and he continues on, flapping his wings until he shoots up higher. When he's as high as he wants to be and they're all but little hedgehogs on the ground, he dives at them, pulling his wings in close to his body and his tail ramrod straight. He swoops and grabs a couple of humans and turians in his claws and flies up high again and shreds them until they're nothing but meat and skin.

He screeches and comes back into a dive, swooping once again. This time, instead of grabbing onto the little creatures, he breathes fire on them.

They burn.

"—can't believe they double-crossed me. Again," Wrex grumbles and Beast trills in amusement, his head lying against the cool metal of his hanger. He doesn't know why Wrex can't believe it. If it's happened once, chances are it's going to happen again and again until you get better or new people for the job. Wrex rolls his eyes at him. "I thought they'd at least listen to me, but no. They have to go and get themselves killed."

Beast chuffs. Wrex's right, of course; they should've listened to the krogan about double-crossing him. He'd said before that if they double-crossed him, they'd end up dead. And did they listen? No. Idiots.

"I'll have to recruit again."

Beast sighs, turning his head away. Recruiting wasn't… difficult. It was just tedious. They didn't even need any underlings, since they got most missions completed by themselves anyway. He knows why Wrex wants them (just in case Wrex or Beast got into trouble and they needed some kind of backup) but they didn't really need any more. Plus, Beast is everything that Wrex needs. He doesn't need anyone else.

Wrex is his.

Beast will stop at nothing to keep his parent-krogan-caregiver-friend safe. Just like he'd once done with his other friends—the ones he dreamed about. So when he gets a strong feeling of wrongness, he follows his gut instinct and keeps to Wrex's side like glue. The special glue that didn't wear off after only a week in the rain.

He can tell Wrex is bemused by the sudden over protectiveness, but he's not about to explain—what would he say? That he 'had a feeling'? Wrex wouldn't buy that for a second and he sure as hell wouldn't listen to Beast if he so much as breathed a word about the feeling.

So instead, he just sticks to Wrex like glue.

It works, in the end. Because Wrex could've had his skull caved in, if Beast hadn't interfered and gotten his ribs caved in, instead.

"Fade will pay," Wrex informs him when Beast wakes up in his nest. He furrows his brows—because what did Fade have to do with anything? At his apparent confusion, Wrex continues gruffly, "Fade is the one that nearly killed me and you. He'll die by my hand, whether he likes it or not."

Beast huffs out a tired chirp.