Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Demons and Wizards and Dragons Oh My

A/N: 10/30/16 fixed a few glaring typos.

Chapter 1: The Mirror

It all started with a dragon egg. No, actually, that's incorrect. It all started a mirror (though I promise there was also a dragon egg involved).

Harry Potter was 18 (almost 19) when he found the mirror, fresh out of his last year of Hogwarts. After the war, the 7th year students were invited back to Hogwarts to finish their magical education - Harry, Hermione, and Ron were among those who chose to return. Harry was using the summer to do some soul-searching and maybe eventually some travelling before settling on a career to start training for.

In the mean time, he had a big job to do: cleaning out Grimmauld Place. See, Harry wanted it and the memories associated with it gone. Unfortunately, you can't just sell a house full of dangerous and dark artifacts, even in the wizarding world. So Harry had to clean it out by hand and decide what should be kept and what should be tossed. Hermione wouldn't let him just toss everything. She was probably right. She was usually right. But that still didn't make Harry want to clean out the musty old house.

Harry was going through the house putting muggle yellow yard sale stickers on things that should be moved to his Gringotts vault or a red sticker for things to go to his apartment. Draco Malfoy was sprawled out on the couch (after a thorough cleaning charm) and was idly using his wand to twirl designs in the air out of the heavy dust in the townhouse. Malfoy gave a great sigh, irritating Harry, as usual.

"You're supposed to be helping, you know," Harry scolded the blond wizard.

"It's just so boring," responded Malfoy, sitting up on the couch and looking like a regal prince sitting on a throne. He had grown up well and looked more like his father every day. Harry thought that was a good thing.

"The more you help the faster we get out of here," Harry said with just a bit of frustration. "I need to be done by five so that I get home and clean up. I have a dinner date with Ginny tonight," Harry informed Draco.

Draco gave another dramatic sigh and heaved himself up off the couch. "If I must," he drawled and started to go through the drawers of an old desk. Draco was one of the last heirs of the true Black-line, through his mother. As such, Harry had convinced him to come lend a hand (bribed him to come by telling him he could have any of the heirlooms that they came across that caught his fancy). Draco had his own set of stickers - his were green (obviously).

"It's been years now, hasn't it? I bet Weasellette is expecting a ring soon," Malfoy said. Harry had a feeling he was being taunted. He ignored him. They weren't friends. But the rivalry had definitely calmed down their last year of Hogwarts. Saving each others' lives will do that. It didn't mean they had to like each other.

"So?" Draco tried to prompt an answer out of the boy-who-lived.

"So what?"

"Why haven't you proposed yet?" Draco pressed. He was now bent over, looking over the titles of some books on the floor.

"Maybe we're just not ready yet," Harry absently said back. He was enjoying the scenery in the room.

"She's a Weasley. She's been ready since she met you," Draco said dryly, sending a Harry a sneer over his shoulder before going back to the task at hand.

Ginny's hero-worship part of their relationship had always been a sore point for Harry and Draco's comment made him give a noise somewhere between a grunt and a frog-stuck-in-throat croak.

"Maybe," Draco kept pressing, "It has something to do with the way you're checking out my arse right now."

Harry flushed and turned away guiltily, taking great strides to the other side of the room to work facing away from the sight of Draco's arse.

Draco gave a dark chuckle, amused at Harry's expense.

"Also," Draco continued, "That tramp stamp doesn't exactly scream straight."

Harry gave a strangled noise and pulled his shirt down from where it had risen up from crouching down to dig through old boxes. "It's not a tramp stamp!" Harry yelled. It was actually the symbol of the deathly hallows that had appeared on him when he had collected all three. Harry had thrown the ring and wand away, but the mark would not disappear. It was at times like this that Harry wished the mark was anywhere else, rather than on his lower back. He would have even taken it on his forehead instead.

Only minutes later, Harry found the mirror. He pulled a blanket down - the type meant to protect furniture when sitting for long times in an empty house - and coughed at the dust that filled his lungs at the action.

"Whoa," Harry breathed when his lungs were clear. His first reaction was to look into the mirror and was disappointed when he saw nothing but his own reflection: the mirror looked almost exactly like the Mirror of Erised, but the writing at the top was different.

Draco quickly pulled him away from the mirror with a painful grip on his wrist.

"What are you doing, idiot!" Draco spat at him, "You don't just look into magical mirrors you don't know anything about!" He threw the blanket back over the mirror, just in case. "You could've had your soul sucked out and trapped or you may have just released a demon!"

"Relax, Malfoy," Harry responded, uncovering mirror to get a better look. "You're over-reacting. Look, nothing has happened. It doesn't feel dark," Harry mused, studying the inscriptions around the edge of the top of the mirror.

"Morgana's tits, Potter! Don't blame me if something bad happens because of this. I warned you! And, please, by all that is Gryffindor in you, don't read the inscription aloud! You need to find out what it means first!"

Draco was cute when he was angry and red-faced and with a sudden clarity, Harry realized why he always picked fights with the blond in school.

Harry shook his head to clear it of distracting thoughts and stuck a red sticker to the mirror. His curiosity could wait till later.

They finished up, perhaps a little lazily, as Harry knew he had gone through a couple of rooms and put yellow stickers on the first three items he saw before moving on.

Before Harry and Draco parted ways, Draco said, "Scarhead, after you break up with the Weasellette tonight on your date," which made Harry sputter, "there will be no hard feelings if I start going out with her, right?"

The prat didn't even wait for an answer before apparating away.

"It's not you, it's me."

Harry could only stare at Ginny across the table. He had just picked up his water to take a sip but he was stuck with it halfway up to his mouth.

"I'm about to start playing for the Holyhead Harpies. I'm going to be travelling for half of the year. I want the opportunity to explore my options, Harry!" Ginny explained.

Harry finally was able to put his glass down, so jerkily that he almost spilled it across the table.

"You mean date other people," he said hoarsely.

"Well, that's part of it, yes. Harry, we're not a very passionate couple. We're boring and I want to be swept off my feet. I love you, I'm just not in love with you. "

"Ok," Harry said.

"And Harry, I don't know if you've noticed," Ginny continued, "but defeating You-Know-Who changed you...wait, did you say ok?" She looked as though she had been hit by a confounding charm.

"Hold on!" Harry protested sitting up and getting angry for the first time that night, " Finish that thought! How have I changed?"

"All the fire in your eyes is gone," she started to say.

"Are you saying I'm the boring one in this relationship?" Harry cut in.

"I'm not sure this is the best place to talk about it," Ginny hesitated looking around the establishment warily. The fame was nice but it also meant very little privacy in the wizarding world.

Harry waved his wand harshly under the table and discretly put up some privacy spells. "Well, you bloody started this conversation, you're going to bloody well finish it! So, answer the question."

Ginny's lips thinned into a strict line. Harry knew she wanted to scold him for his language. Thank Merlin she was holding that back. "Yes, you're boring."

"How so? Don't we hang out the same as we always have?"

"Yes Harry and that's the problem! We should be closer now, more in love, but it's like you're stuck in time. Harry, I moved into my apartment three weeks ago and you haven't even asked to stay over once. Any time I try to initiate anything you have something to do or somewhere to be or a headache!"

Harry sat with his arms crossed, looking at the candle on the table and thinking over what Ginny had said.

"I'm boring," he groaned.

"Now, I hope we can be friends still Harry. I do love you, you know. Just not the way that I need."

"I'm boring," Harry groaned again, more morosely.

"It's not the end of the world, you know. Some people need boring. Just not me." Ginny finished up the wine in her glass, wiped her lips on her napkin delicately, and stood up from the table. Harry noticed several of the men from other tables checking her out. Ginny was wearing a dress that showed off her legs, made shapely from quidditch, and the dress had a deep dip in the back that showed off her feminine frame. Harry was watching the way the adam's apple bobbed with every sip of his beer on a man with good jawline at the bar.

Ginny eyebrows rose.

"Ginny," Harry said, "I'm gay."

"I know Harry. I just didn't think I should be the one to say it first," she kissed him on the cheek, laid three sickles on the table for her meal and left the restaurant.

The next day, Harry moved to Hungary to work as a dragon tamer. Harry was determined not to be boring anymore.

It was years later that Harry discovered the mirror again. It had been shoved into storage and forgotten for the longest time, but Harry found it again when he bought his first house. The Hungarian Horntails had just gone into hibernation for the Winter and Harry had just gone through a rather nasty break-up with his now-ex-fiancé (though that's a story for a later time) and Harry had plenty of free time to try to distract himself through by finally setting his house up. He was almost done. Unfortunately.

Now, he finally had the time to figure out what the mirror did, if anything. The first thing he did was fetch a quill and parchment and wrote down the inscription from the top of the mirror: usamihs ukozustes o atana in okak on ihsataw aw ihsataW. It seemed like absolute gibberish and after checking through endless language dictionaries and every translating spell he knew, he had to agree with his initial thought that it was gibberish. He threw down his quill and rubbed his eyes, trying to remembering everything about the Mirror of Erised. It showed you your heart's desire. Did it have an inscription? Yes, but something was funny about it. Harry itched his beard in thought. Oh, yes. Harry's beard. Harry wasn't a fan of facial hair. But after a couple of years, he realized that Ginny (married with two kids now to, goddammit, Draco Malfoy) was more right than she realized when she had accused him of being stuck in time. He hadn't aged a day (or grown a fucking inch). At first, he thought he was just baby-faced but after confronting ten years of Weasley Christmas photographs were he looked the exact same from age 17 to 27, Harry had to admit that something was going on. Then he gotten on the bad side of a fighting pair of Hungarian Horntails. He knew he had gotten an arm bitten off and he had gotten a tail spike through the heart. There was blood, a stub of an arm, and a hole in his shirt to prove the injuries...but no open wounds. It had all miraculously healed (and some skelegrow later had fixed the missing arm). So Harry did the only thing he could to look older: grow a full man's-beard. It did make him look older but it was just so damn itchy.

But back to the Mirror of Erised. Erised was backwards for desire and the inscription had been backwards as well: mirrored. if you will. Harry tried writing it out backwards: Watashi wa watashi no kako ni anata o setsuzoku shimasu (*send any complaints to google translate).

Now, it still seemed like gibberish, but a bit more recognizable. Looking through his books again, he decided it was Japanese, but translating it was still taking some work. He was not proficient enough at the language to get a good start and, frustrated, Harry sent off an owl-order for a Japanese Language Potion that would teach him the language. Harry continued setting up his house, resigned to wait on the potion.

It took a week to come, but it was so simple after he took it (other than the massive headache and spells of dizziness that were expected side-effects of the potion) that it was worth it.

"I connect you to my past," Harry said aloud, not realizing he had said it in Japanese. That was a fault with taking a potion to learn a language. Much like parseltongue, the speaker couldn't really tell they were hearing or speaking in another language and they didn't have control over which language they spoke. "What the fuck does that mean?" He looked into the mirror again. He definitely didn't see any of his past there. No cupboards under the stairs, or dark lords, and not even any dragons from his recent past. Even studying it closer he couldn't see anything until he looked into his eyes. There was something silver there, moving in the reflection of his pupils. It looked like a small child, with long silver hair. Harry leaned forward to try to make out more details and not blink. He got so close he thought he would hit his noise on the surface of the mirror, but instead, the mirror surface just rippled like metallic water.

"Oh shit," was all Harry had time to say before he was sucked into the mirror.

"Sesshomaru, sweetie, come away from that. It's very fragile," his mother chided.

"I wasn't going to hurt it, mother," Sesshomaru said. He was rather calm for his young age, quiet and reserved. "I just wanted to look at it."

His mother smiled at him, and motioned with her clawed hand to come over to her vanity where she was brushing her long silver hair. Sesshomaru had matching hair, as all dog demons did. He also had the marks of a daiyoukai. He would be powerful when he was grown. "I know, dear, but it was a gift from your father. It's rather rare, but more than that, it's precious to me."

She started brushing his hair and smiled at the face he made when she pulled a tangle a little too hard. He was her heart. She only had him and the mirror to remember her time as Inu no Taishō's lover. His heart was hers no longer, but she still remembered their time together fondly. He still visited, but he came to visit his son, not her.

"You're father will be here soon. What do you say we get the cooks to make something extra special for dinner?" She ruffled his bangs as she finished brushing his hair. He frowned and tried to pat them flat again.

"Ningen stew?" Sesshomaru suggested.

"Sounds delicious," his mother agreed, "I'll go let the cooks know to start preparing it." She left him alone, which gave him an opportunity to check out the mirror again.

It was larger than any mirror he had ever seen before. And it was so clear. He could see everything behind him perfectly. He looked real enough that he thought that he could reach up a touch his mirrored self. He took a quick look around to make sure that he would not be caught before he brought his hand up to the mirror. He paused for a second before he touched the cold surface. It was smooth and hard. He allowed himself a small smile which quickly turned into a frown as the surface of the mirror suddenly started rippling. He jumped back in shock, right in time to dodge a man falling right out of the mirror as if it were a pool of water!

The man groaned before picking himself off the ground. "Oh, my back!" he complained, rubbing at the described hurt. The man then noticed Sesshomaru, standing there with his mouth open.

"You'll catch flies like that," the man said and reached over and (touched!) closed Sesshomaru's mouth by lifting his chin up.

"There, all better," the man claimed before looking around. "Well, let's see, what have I done now?"

He turned his green eyes towards Sesshomaru and winked, "I'm always getting into trouble."

Sesshomaru took off from the room, yelling, "Mother! A man just fell out of the mirror!" Harry heard the boy yelling all the way down the hall and decided to leave as quick as possible once he heard the boy ask, "Can we eat him?"

Before leaving, Harry shrank the mirror, but a few protection charms on it, and then pocketed the mirror assuming it was his only way home. With a sudden flash of inspiration, Harry also transfigured a nearby pillow into a mirror that looked just like the one he took and left through the window. It was best to get as far away as possible. He didn't make it very far because he discovered the castle that he had found himself in was floating in the air! He didn't have his broom with him, so he took a deep breath, focused on the ground he could see far below, and apparated.

Once he was on solid ground, he focused on getting the hell away from the floating castle as fast as he could.

It took nearly two weeks for Harry to find a suitable place to stop and study the mirror. The land he had found himself in was dangerous and full of beasts. The people called them demons and they tried to eat him at every turn. Apparently, he smelled delicious. Finally, he found a cave which he warded to keep people and demons away, as well as to protect it against the weather and destruction. He wanted to explore this land some more, as it seemed to be way in the past, but first he needed to check in with his friends to let them know he was okay. He hoped the mirror worked both ways.

It turned out rather simple to return. This mirror had a different phrase, once he had written it out in the mirrored order: Watashi wa jibun no shōrai ni anata o setsuzoku shimasu.

Harry tried to make sure he did everything the same, even peering into his eyes as he said, "I connect you to my future," then touched the surface. He was spat out onto the floor in his study and he immediately rushed to the floo to call Ron and Hermione.

"Hi Harry," Hermione greeted, looking confused at his face floating in the flames of her kitchen fireplace.

"Hermione, I just wanted to let you know I'm fine," Harry told her.

Hermione looked a bit skeptical as she took in his dirty appearance. "That's nice, Harry. But I don't understand. Is there a reason you shouldn't be fine?"

Harry's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "I've been gone for two weeks!" he informed her.

She laughed. "Oh, Harry, I think you just fell asleep and had a weird dream. You just had dinner with us last night."

"Really?"

"Really Harry. You shouldn't scare me like that," she said, still chuckling like it was a grand joke.

"Oh, okay..." Harry said, unsure.

"Go take a shower and get ready. Don't you have date with Zabini tonight?" she reminded him.

"Yeah, I guess I'll just go," Harry said, still completely befuddled. He pulled his head out of the fireplace and looked down at his outfit. It was in shambles and he had three visible claw marks though the fabric of his jeans. There was no way it was a dream.

He was a distracted date that night, but luckily Blaise Zabini didn't even notice, easily filling up the silence for both of them. Even later, in bed after some mind-blowingly good sex, Harry couldn't get it out of his head. Eventually, he had to just turn over and forced himself to count sheep until he fell asleep.

It was two years later when Harry decided to explore the mirror again. He had been distracted by the holidays, his godchildren's birthdays, and then work at the dragon's keep. But what really made him take another look at the mirror was being holed up in his house, hiding. Rather unfortunately, Harry had been attacked by some lingering supporters of the Dark Lord that had held their grudge a lot longer than Harry had thought humanly possible. Now, being attacked wasn't really cause for concern - he had survived many near-death experiences and had reached the conclusion himself that it would take something really big to kill him, like the apocalypse. And while he wasn't happy with that, he was dealing with it in his own way (i.e. just pushing it to the back of his mind and trying to forget about it). No, the problem with being attacked was that it happened quite publicly in Diagon Alley. He had gruesomely been hit with a dark cutting curse right across his throat. And then, right in front of an Unspeakable out on his lunch break, he had miraculously healed, disarmed his attackers, and, after a cleaning spell, had gone on his merry way shopping.

The Department of Mysteries had been trying to bring him in ever since, the Daily Prophet had been full of stories about him, and people we're writing in other times they had seen him die only to heal. They were calling for investigations into the source of his immortality, some even claiming that he had stolen the Dark Lord's immortality when he had defeated him. Some said he was sacrificing babies. Many wanted him to release how he had done it so that they could follow in his footsteps. The Weasley's were being hounded for information. In short, he was tired of the attention and wish he could get away from it all. So he made his farewells, promised to visit again if he could, packed what he needed, entrusted the mirror to Hermione and Ron, before stepping through it to get some peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet was far from what Harry received on the other side of the mirror.

A/n: In chapter two we will finally get to the dragon egg.