The quiet rustle of horses at a brisk canter broke the otherwise stillness of the forest this late Winter. Snowfall was rare within the Spine, and this season was no exception, even if the unnatural balmy temperatures had not driven away any frost. Three elves sat low over their hurrying steeds, exchanging wary glances about the evening gloom. They had taken little rest of late, and the fatigue showed as the silently urged one another onward, weary senses alert for the slightest sign of the enemy.

That sign came like a crackle of thunder in the quiet woods. From somewhere ahead, a milky pale man with deep red hair emerged from the treeline, a wayward branch crushed underfoot. By his smile the noise was no accident. Such a distance as separated them still was nothing to a Shade. "You know your fates, little elves," he said. The next moment he had crouched to the ground and then sprang forward with a harsh flutter of wind in his wake, and the riders cried out and split off amid the trees. He landed exactly where the third rider had been, sniffing at the air to be certain, before his smile sharpened and he began to race after her.

Some several minutes later and the three elves reunited upon the same the path that they had originally set out for. What weariness had been present within them was gone; their bodies were pressed flat up against the thrusting backs of the galloping steeds, heedless of the reckless speed that was required to out-pace the threat of a Shade.

Their daring was in vain, nevertheless. Though bred true and bred hardy, their foe had laid out other traps ahead of time, and as they rushed toward escape, unseen wards sapped upon the strength of their fabulous horses, so that within little time at all of converging, they had begun to tire and slow. The first elf cried out in dismay as he scanned the mind of his trusted companion and found it exhausted beyond due reason. The others too realized the truth of their situation, and the second male flanked the female as he drew bow and nocked a swan-feathered arrow.

The soft whoosh of air with each leap of their hunter could not conceal the crushing of the grass in his wake, and as the foul creature burst from the distant trees, the first arrow flew with a clarity of aim that would have amazed even the best marksman. It missed by inches as the Shade twisted in upon himself in mid-motion and landed far short of the intended position, his smile now edged and hard, and then he charged forward again. No banter passed his lips this time, nor did the elves waste any of their breath trying to argue against the spirits in possession of the former man. They pressed their minds together and shouted their assault against him as one, a determination that this mission not fail after decades in the making.

The Shade merely laughed as the magicks of the King deflected their otherwise threatening spells aside, and the strain began to display upon their features the closer he pushed forward, until less than a dozen feet separated they from their doom.

Then the rumble of actual thunder rocked the branches. The fabric of the air overhead began to buck and fold in upon itself as if some vast, invisible creature were contained and struggling to free itself. This warping of nature was not immediately noticed by any of the four, given the deafening strength behind the noise; such that it felled the Shade to one hand into a crouched position, blood leaking from his ears as much as the sensitive elves' own. After a tense moment the thunder resumed and the sky crinkled, splintered, and burst wide open, exposing a pulsating gap to realms great and distant. A remote shape within the unnatural breach grew closer in mere moments and, at last, emerged with a catastrophic and fiery crash.

The aftermath of Harry Potter's arrival in Alagaësia resulted in the immolation of all who had been present save for the gift which the female elf had protected with such bravado to the very end, and even its own innate shielding had begun to fracture.

With steam still rushing up from his clothing and hair, and cold sweat coating his exposed skin, the muddy-green eyes of the wizard spread open and he glanced around the environment for a moment or ten. His hands and boots were damp with something he thought he should recognize, and sure enough the crushed chest and lower torso of some kind of human-like creature was apparently his landing pad in this place. "Huh." Lifting up the hand that was currently soaking in stale, viscous fluid, he sniffed the substance for a moment before whipping his head away and coughing harshly.

"Son of a bitch, what was this ruminating inside of?" He coughed again to clear the terrible stench from the back of his throat and hastily climbed out of the creature, making sure to grind the heel of his boot into its fanged-face in the process as he stripped off his gloves and dropped them into the gulf of its chest. The smoke by then had more or less faded as the sweat dripped off of his skin, and he stood up properly a moment later to go over the scene once more; he was always a little fuzzy after a trip, due in no small part to that part of his brain that couldn't even conduct a damn Floo trip in his native worlds without throwing him to the floor.

"Right; trees, atypical. Warm weather, the same. Ground-up pseudovampire, probably normal for this world. Oh. Flash-fried Thestrals', and charred maybe-vampire's atop them. And what's that glint there?" Walking over to the bundle of cloth still clinging by a thread to the nearest of the deceased figure's shoulder bones, he rummaged around and felt a large spherical shape, which upon removal was revealed to be an opaque ruby about the size of an ostrich egg. He tossed it from hand to hand, weighing the crystal curiously, and was surprised when a faint brush of emotion protested, coming from the object in his hands. He rapped a knuckle against the surface and heard it echo before muffling against something within, adding to the spiderweb of cracks.

"You alive in there?" He asked as the same soft emotion cried out shriller than before in alarm. "Huh. Great, finders-keepers. I could always use a little entertainment while I try to figure out where Voldemort's hiding in this world." By the time he had finished his sentence, the numerable cracks converged and finally broke the entire shell apart, leaving a tiny, gooey red lizard with equally tiny wings clutching at his robes.

"What do I name you?" Harry pondered quietly a few days after initially hatching his new pet from its' egg. A flash of images from the brush of thoughts in its mind tried to suggest something, Thorn, Beroan, Ingothold, but he swatted them aside and pointed a warning finger at it disapprovingly. "What did I tell you about banging around inside my skull with a thousand fiery images of mayhem and doom?" He chastised the dragon.

A wave of irritable apology followed as the dragon nipped his finger sharply enough to draw blood. "Right. Names- either Avada Kedavra, just to freak the hell out of Voldemort when he hears me say the name and then you come hurtling out of a subspace portal directly above his head, thus inciting the single best death I could render against him, or..." Harry trailed off in thought, and nodded. "Ferrovax, after that bastard in the last world. You even look a little like his real form, actually. Huh." Looking closer, he could make out certain similarities between the cosmic being and his own diminutive lizard, and if the way it wormed into his mind so easily was any indication, allowing it to learn any real Name magic could become highly bothersome.

Only a couple of weeks after winding up on this world, where dragons did not attempt to eat you, where magic did not respond as it should when chanted aloud so much as faintly stir and falter, and where he had twice-now encountered something to give a troll a run for its money in the ugliness department, and Harry Potter was finding himself very much unhappy about his general sense of affairs.

Normally when he made a jump between worlds, the inherent lull pulled him in a direction where he could either A, acquire something to make his job easier, as in the case of foreign magicks, new tools, and on occasion allies for that particular circumstance assisting them with their own particular woes, or B, a Voldemort had already arisen; this was most often the case in their home system, though it was not unusual to find that one had also wizened up to this little song and dance and was trying to expand into new dimensions.

He had yet to encounter both a foreign world and a Voldemort who had set up shop there in all of these decades, and for that reason Harry felt confident enough to confirm that this was the former rather than the latter situation, and that his newly acquired weapon of mass intimidation and spit-firing was the reason he had been spun out here, though he was as yet unsure what to do about it.

The downside to this usually favorable matter was that his dragon was growing, and how.

Already as long as he was tall, Ferrovax was hunting and snatching up all manner of squirrel, rabbit, and it had lead him into the troll-like creatures while chasing after a doe more than once. It had been in that first unfortunate encounter that he confirmed that his natural magic was still locked behind the rules of this reality. The minor inroads he had managed did not matter when he found himself surprised and caught around the arm by two enormous hands on a moment's notice. Even with years of physical upkeep, without the time to prepare, he hadn't fared much better than the aforementioned small game did in his dragon's maw, and if not for one of the less preferred flavors of foreign magic he had picked up, blood magic, Harry would not have escaped from that meeting with just a broken arm.

On the flip-side, the tapering spear of red through one eye and out the back of its obnoxiously thick skull had done for the creature in the heat of the moment. With that done, he had set and sealed his arm in place until he was any surer that he wouldn't end up lopping it off by mistake while trying to heal the limb with his native spells, and promptly chewed the dragon's ears off for two minutes for nearly getting them both killed.

He wasn't exactly concerned for his own life, blood magic being one of those reasons once it started to run, but the overgrown lizard was another story.

Then they had found themselves in the same situation again a few days later, as if to test his patience. He'd managed to avoid breaking his other arm in the rush, though this time he had brought out steel from his flapping robes, and he followed that rather more messy affair by muzzling his dragon and binding its limbs together in heavy elven rope he was still carrying in his pockets. It if had been good enough for a feral hobbit a few worlds behind, it was good enough for a growing dragon.

He'd left Ferrovax thus bound and out of trouble next to the fire to stew on its behavior until he had cleaned up and the meat they had acquired for that stupidity was mostly done cooking. The talk had followed.

"You pull that stunt again and I'm taking a chance on transfiguring a bloody chain to hold you around camp when I'm not looking," he'd warned. "You leave the perimeter when I'm pissing and I'll let you fight your own way past the beast, got it?" A shaky tendril had pressed against his thoughts and he'd grimaced. "Right. But it came this close to cutting my johnson off with those talons since I had to respond immediately to your cry of concern," he'd responded to its message, then loosened the main knot and dragged the rope free.

Ferrovax had rolled upright and keened in a mixture of rough apology, hunger, irritation, and what might have been a threat in return, and Harry barked a laugh and offered the mostly cooked leg. "That's more like it. No 'sorry' while we're together," he'd answered even as he brought up his own hunk of dinner.

Few sensations in all of creation could compare with the simple joy of wind ripping through your hair and the whistling in your ears that accompanied riding a solid broomstick.

But sitting atop a sixteen foot long dragon from tip to blazing tip, with a wing span almost to match, rushing and diving and spiraling about with not so much as a bloody saddle strapped to its back and just his own natural grip, however tight that may be? Yes, after a good Firebolt, Harry Potter could place riding a dragon commando, completely unaided by magic of any sort to glue him down, as the greatest sensation he had ever felt. His heart was rapping out a heavy staccato beat within his chest, and he could hardly hear over the blood thundering through his ears, eyes squinting against the fierce gusts and torrents that tore and dragged at his thick battle robes as easily as his hair.

And when they entered free fall together?

There was nothing else like it in the breadth of all creation.

Chasing a snitch at a dead-set course for the ground didn't even compare, not when he was lifted up and left hanging by his fingertips dug deep beneath the scales around the shoulders. A few wondrously long, exhilarating moments passed them by, Harry resisting the urge to holler uproariously, before in a twirl of natural talent they were righted again scant feet above the ground and directly over the small herd of deer on the run. Ferrovax snapped up a good sized doe with a flick of the neck and slammed it against the truck of a passing tree to kill it, and with the added weight began to quickly slow down as the wings adjusted their rhythm and settled the hind-feet down first several seconds later. Harry slid off the scaly side and landed with a muffled thump by comparison to the thud of his walking siege-engine, and together they began to trot over the well-known paths in this remote mountain range toward the camp established ahead amidst the trees.

Later that night, Ferrovax stirred and spread his maw wide, revealing the rows of growing fangs already two and a quarter inches deep and half as much wide. Dried blood caked the ivory and sat around his rough lips and snout where he had gorged himself on the plump doe just a few hours ago, and a few remaining strings of muscle were caught here and there his teeth curved. On the outside of the camp lumbered a hulking shape that stood easily eight feet tall, with curling rams horns spiraling away from either end of the massive head. The arms were at least as wide around as the dragon's own meaty shoulder, and those wide jaws filled with equally sharp teeth looked to be capable of opening large enough to bite straight through his wings in three or so attempts.

The small wards around the edge of their camp should have alerted his Rider as they usually did whenever one of the grimy and vastly dangerous beasts lumbered toward it, but on this morning the Rider's breathing did not change, and his mind when reached out toward came across blank and empty. It was for that reason that Ferrovax had awoken in the first place, having heard the crunch of branches and twigs giving way before the giant of an opponent. The fell thing squatted down by the edge of their camp and examined Ferrovax in turn with eyes that were neither beady nor cumbersome and slow, as the previous two smaller foes had been. It had a gaze that was strong, bright, and intelligent beyond reason, demonstrating an underlying wit in that it had not stepped inside of the ring of stones that marked out their border and awoken the Rider even if it did the dragon.

Ferrovax knew the wards would not stop it; after months of practice, he had gleamed from his Rider's frustrations that they were just noise, only there to alert he and Ferrovax, not stop intruders. That was what he himself and his Rider were for, and his Rider seemed to be away from his body as was wont to occur so often these days since their encounter with that old mage down in the remote town and the hard lesson reminded of that day.

For a long time the creature stared without flinching or showing any sign that it recognized the threat of the dragon, and no sense that it was wary could be felt at all toward the Rider either. Then his Rider's chest heaved and there was a bare moment for the creature to turn toward him before the human rolled upright and pointed his shaft of too-smooth wood at the giant, and invisible chains wrapped about and yanked the hulking figure forward and up into the air. The Rider examined it with those tainted, unhappy green eyes Ferrovax knew so well.

"I finally figured out what you things are called, Urgal," he said neutrally, examining the increased bulk of it after another moment and waving the rounded stick again so that it was brought closer into their camp. For the most part the now-named Urgal did not struggle or respond, though it bared the fangs just a little more and squinted the eyes as if truly seeing him for the first time. Ferrovax rose up onto his own hind legs and approached without caution, having never seen his Rider lose control once magic was at long last wrought with the stick.

"You're a different breed, though, aren't you?" he asked. The great Urgal snarled at the dragon as Ferrovax approached, but the eyes returned to his Rider as the nostrils flared, scenting the air. "Well? For what reason do you come here and intrude upon our camp, Urgal?" Harry asked again in an even tone.

What he had learned through much more careful observation down in the village reminded him of the same crap that had surrounded any of the old races in his natural system - a bitter stigma surrounding trolls, giants, gnomes, goblins, and house elves. Urgals were apparently afforded no respect for any reason, though by all accounts they weren't reasonable creatures and hardly more intelligent than the average bull, bear, and beast of burden. Certainly the pair they had already fought had demonstrated a savage yet simple intellect.

This one proved the exception to their rules, which meant that there were others in this world, and that meant he couldn't put it down as ruthlessly as he had the others. Even if it was making things rather difficult doing little more than grumble at them rather than converse.

"Either spit out your explanation or I'll have kill you like I had to do the other two. I'd rather not. There's a welcome spark of intelligence within your eyes, and you haven't tried to fight my control very much, which means you must have had an idea of what I'm capable of before approaching tonight."

"I am no mere Urgralgra, human," the lumbering creature spoke up at last in a voice that rumbled like gravel swept up in a mudslide. "I am of the high Kull of our race, just as you are of the Riders of your own. I come to barter your service, if it will please you to hear it; many of your men march along these paths of late, and we are two less with your hand at fault. But that is what you are wont to do, just as we are wont to violence." He lowered his head enough to match Harry's gaze easier.

Harry scoffed. "That isn't exactly what your kind are renowned for, bartering the services of other races, from what I've gathered. But you're mistaken if you believe I'm going to just slaughter a group of men for no reason. What have they done to you and yours to mark them for death?"

The Kull-urgal bared his fangs now. "You would want these men dead, Rider, or are you in league with the mad king as well? Will our lands never know peace at the rule of you and your dragons?" he demanded.

Harry looked over to Ferrovax and felt the dragon's tendril of thought weave into his own. I have flashes of memory, of another Rider and dragon, Harry-kin-slayer-partner-of-mine, Ferrovax answered. It was impossible to keep the growing dragon out of his mind, and Ferrovax had eventually started drudging up memories of other worlds, of other fights and the like, and it knew enough to know that he had fought numerable dragons and had slain those that were in his way. So far, Ferrovax had proven remarkably accepting of his history of slaughter, if only as past transgressions that had little to do with the present, and the fact that their bond had never felt much true malice. Ferrovax continued his thought after a moment, adding, Emotions are dim-dark-cold, where they dwell.

Harry nodded and looked back to the Kull-urgal. "Say I believe you. Say I wanted them dead. What do you get out of having these men slain and gone?" He asked curiously. "I've got enough blood on my hands to make me question your intentions. Do you desire to make up for your lost hunters with our addition, as it be, or is it something more than that? I've heard enough of your own kind recently to make it seem all to easy for you to attack the moment my guard is down."

The Kull-urgal let out a noise of protest, but he at least reclined his head so that the neck was bare, as was tradition among their kind to show not only respect but that they trusted the other not to readily kill them or attack too soon. "I am a Kull, Rider; by my honor and that of my ancestors I would not harm you by intent, only in the heat of battle and the cloud of blood-lust or other untoward factors disguising your form from my eyes!" he boomed proudly. "These servants of the great traitor I would kill readily in the open field if that were possible; but they are traveling quickly, and journey through our territory without heed of the warnings, few as they are, that we have set out for men. They are marked for death, but so too will we die without the kin you have taken from us, were we to charge in now."

Harry looked into the Kull's eyes and flicked up against the surprisingly ready shielding he found there. After a moment he looked away and slashed his wand down toward his right hip, and the Kull dropped to the ground with a tumble, crashing before the banked fire and the remains of the deer carcass.

"'Mad king', 'Traitor', these names are not given lightly. I was distantly aware this... area, had a ruler, though I hadn't gathered exactly what sort. But if this is another Dragon Rider, I am more than willing to find out what they're capable of. Give us a few minutes to prepare, and then lead us toward these men you want slain, and after the fact point us toward his direction. In another few weeks I'm quite sure we will be able to fly there," Harry responded and sat back down where he had been laying.

The Kull rose, and dragged the carcass with him, eying the remaining scraps of meat and marrow available. At a nod from Harry the Kull continued, "You are rough and powerful, Rider. But our agreement is not set so easily; if you are to walk our path now, and to be believed in full, I must see that your strength is not by magic alone," he said, snapping off a handful of ribs and crunching noisily.

Harry stowed his wand away and looked at the Kull with irritation. "You are quite taller than I am, let alone physically stronger. What exactly did you have in mind?" he asked.

Swallowing thickly, the Kull looked at him. "If you can stall my movement for a time, that will be enough."

Harry leaned back and shed his heavy battle robes, standing up. As he rose he was shaking his head, but he flexed his arms - the right fully healed by this point - and rolled his shoulders around in preparation. "You're mistaken if you take me for another simple human, even as a Rider. I've lived for long enough and trained hard enough that I can set aside magic on occasion. I may not be able to throw you very far, but I could stop you if I really had to."

At those words the Kull's throat rumbled in satisfaction, and he rose, tossing aside the carcass to finish later, before thrusting his hands out and toward Harry's own. Their fingers crashed together and the gripping strength of the Kull was revealed as Harry's hands began to creak drily. It wasn't just a matter of physical mass, it could break his hands by sheer exertion.

If he wanted to prove that his words were more than just bravado, he would need to finish this quickly, and use tact. Harry spread his legs and dug his heels into the hard dirt, and with the height difference, there would have been no difficulty in pushing him to the ground in the following moments. But Harry used that very weight to his advantage. He shifted his own and twisted to one side, so that the Kull stumbled forward as the left arm surged ahead of the right. Harry used the creature's heavy mass against it and bent down at the same time, so that his shoulder was beneath its wide set, broad chest, and lunged up and backwards with all of his remaining strength in his lower body. It was hard as hell even so, yet Harry lifted the Kull off of his feet just the scant inches he needed to and threw him head first toward the treeline and dirt behind him.

A great thud echoed about the camp, crashing the large oak to the ground with an even louder clamor. Yanking his hand free from its temporarily slackened grip, Harry stepped around pressed his left foot atop the Kull's head, in between the horns, as he stared down at the stunned figure and collected his breath; it had been too long since he had used his entire body for this sort of thing. Too many worlds since he had to rely on just the strength of his body, even with the few magical augmentations that helped with that.

The Kull snorted and blew blood out of his shattered nose as his eyes focused, and he raised one hand limply and tried to rise. In response Harry adjusted his posture and pressed down all the harder against the forehead. "Do you concede defeat?" After nearly a minute of futility, the Kull had still failed to remove Harry from the humiliating position. His throat rumbled in a terrible growl, but at length he said, "I concede this defeat, Rider. Let me up!"

Harry relented after a moment more, drawing his foot away and quickly stepping back out of range of the remaining arm, and with a glance and a flicker of a thought to Ferrovax, he turned away entirely and returned to his seat to draw up his robes again.

The Kull rumbled heavily as he tried to rise and found one arm would most definitely not support his weight any longer, snapped as it was from the hard crash.

Harry mulled over the risk of trying to heal such a wound. Assuming the magic responds correctly, which I haven't seen with this sort of spell lately. He could do it with the potions he was carrying around, though that would take more time than they probably had.

The Kul rose with half-lidded eyes. There was only pain there, not any anger, unless it was at himself, rather than with Harry. To him, the Kull rumbled with a brief approval.

"You have done well, Rider, for the differences between us. I will keep this wound and any scarring as a sign of our agreement, and as proof further that you are worthy to the rest of my clan and kindred to fight beside us. Long has it been since a man could halt an Urgralgra, and never before one of my stature without the aide of many others and weaponry in their hands. It is an honor to be the first, Rider, where none before have tread."

Harry nodded once - that fit with what he was expecting after what he had learned about their race. "As I said, then, give me five minutes to make my preparations and then guide us toward these men that should be slain. I'll have a good time finding out what I need from them, and just as I've shown that I am capable of competing with you, so too will I show that I am capable of competing with they as well."

The Kull grunted and lumbered several feet past the ward of the camp, which sent a dry buzz through Harry's head for the second time that night, and then carried on still until its heavy footfalls could no longer be heard. When he was sure that the Kull was out of sight, Harry reached into his robe's inner-armory, one of several enchanted and sewn-in mokeskin pouches, and picked from the enchanted pocket one of his lesser replacement wands, placing his nearest-original safely in the concealed space, and after locking the spare in around his wrist, he also drew forth a single sword to aide him.

Slytherin's Bane, so named for the betrayal in one possible history against Gryffindor's Sword in the age of the Founders, caught the faint light of the dying fire with the gleam of rich silver and green. The guard depicted a pair of king cobras, and at the top and bottom the maw of a basilisk, as if the blade was merely emerging from the jowls of the legendary beast. Unseen runes, long recovered, translated, and rewritten, made sure that it would never again betray the wielder by choice.

Chapter One concluded.

A/N:

Heads up, here; this is In media res, or in the middle of. This is a part of a wider, grander-themed Dimension Hopping!Harry Potter story, set a few hundred years or so after he first started out. I don't have the rest of it yet compiled in a straight-forward passage, and chose to really settle down and start writing one of the dimensions of his journey that struck my interest. If I ever get the rest of it done I'll likely post it separately, as this story is meant to be something of a stand-alone - it's rather hard to bring a fully developed Dragon through the dimensions.

It is also no where approaching the end of the journey, either, so Harry may be here for a good, long time. We'll see as we go. Thank you for reading.