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imjustgoose · 14 days

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Harold Trotter and The Draconic Boogaloo

I wrote the next chapter for my strange fanfiction. I'm quite pleased at how it turned out. Just like before, you can read it on Ao3 here and leave comments, kudos or likes wherever you please! I hope you enjoy reading! |

“Did you hear about what really happened to Dolores?” Minerva whispered to Miraak, who sat by her side during assembly. The school year was about to start again, with cheer in the faces of students again. Miraak leaned in close to her with a calculated smile.

“Yes, terrible business to be attacked by…what this world calls centaurs. In my realm, we simply call them-”

“Welcome everyone to another exciting year at Hogwarts! Please, let the first years feel especially welcome as they feast with us for the first time tonight!” Dumbledore loudly interrupted what was likely going to be a racial slur from Miraak. The hall erupted with clapping and some cheers from the students. He simply rolled his eyes and gave a few claps. The tink tink from his gauntlets turned a few heads, but he wasn’t fussed.

“I’ll tell you about what we call centaurs later. I expect nothing but the finest sweets in exchange for such gossip,” Miraak spoke softly, in a voice made of gravel. Minerva giggled and gave his pauldron a fond pat before focusing back on Dumbledore.

“Tonight, I am very pleased to welcome back our former potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, who is eager to get back to teaching.” Dumbledore gestured to the old man on his other side. Miraak found older mortals amusing, their feeble movements and grey hair would never grace his person. “Now, enjoy the feast!” And Miraak would do just that. In a manner found only in children’s tales, he piled his plates high. Fried chicken legs, saucy kelpie ribs, salted broccolini, sausages, buttered corncobs, roasted newts, baked potatoes and a total of 48 oysters surrounded him. When he began dousing the oysters in lemon and Chinese Fireball sauce to slurp them up, Professor Snape eyed him with scrutiny.

“48 oysters, Miraak? One should hope you don’t lose your stomach from the overconsumption of shellfish,” he drawled. Miraak looked up from his plate with a splatter of hot sauce on his face.

“I have been invited here to feast. A dragon will eat when he is offered food so graciously, Severus,” he answered sharply. Snape quirked a brow and looked at Miraak’s goblet.

“Lemon wine, too? Such a voracious…app-e-tite,” Snape punctuated each syllable as he spoke. Miraak only snorted and feigned a look of pride.

“You sounded that word out perfectly. You’re doing very well with your basic speech work after years of stuttering from being bullied, keep it up! Ten points to Slytherin!” Miraak grinned before moving onto his fifth plate of oysters. A few teachers chuckled at the exchange before turning back to their dinners.

Snape shortly had to obliviate himself of that very moment, for the pain of being patronised by the bitchy dragon who took his job was too much to bear.

~~~~~~

“I can’t believe we have that bleedin’ maniac for a teacher again,” Ron grumbled as he walked with his friends to their Defence Against the Dark Arts class. Harry didn’t respond, but Hermione felt the need to silence his gob with a zipper charm.

“He can hear you, Ronald! Don’t you remember that he can hear almost anything?” She chastised him, “I quite like him, actually. He’s mysterious and a good teacher. Certainly beats having Voldemort, Coc- I mean Lockhart or a death-eater in disguise for a teacher. At least he’s a responsible adult! He actually teaches us things!”

“Are you mad? He’s a psycho! He’s also in Slytherin!”

“YES!” A familiar voice boomed across the corridor. Miraak looked down at his students from where he was perched on a pillar before jumping down gracefully and landing in front of them, “the house of the Serpent! I am ambitious, cunning and I am a real dragon! A serpent with wings.”

“Professor Miraak! It’s good to see you again!” Hermione went to shake his hand. He eyed her hand curiously before taking it. On instinct, she shook it politely, but Miraak decided to send a small bolt of electricity to her palm, causing her to rip her hand away with a yelp.

“Pruzah! How I have missed tormenting the youth and teaching them how to be warriors! I feel….ahhhh. Potter, why is your nose mishapen?” Miraak ceased his torment for a moment to look down and inspect Harry’s nose, twisted and bruised.

“Oh, um reading. It was a….gripping novel,” Harry lied worse than the Last Dragonborn when they ate the rest of the leftover Bosmer Beignets.

“Mmm, it is broken,” Miraak’s voice softened for a moment, “did someone do this to you?” He pressed his fingers to Harry’s nose.

“No! Can we just- Argh, let’s just go to class,” Harry pulled away from his touch. If Miraak had been less professional, hot flames would burn in his throat at the thought of someone hurting his children. Instead, his draconic pupils narrowed, but he put on a smile and looked behind the three to see his other students waiting patiently.

“You will stay behind after class, Potter. Welcome students! Vosaraan! My classroom has been rearranged!” Miraak waved the group over before dashing to his classroom. What had once been a generic classroom had become what Dumbledore described as a ‘shrine worthy of the most evil cults, with a touch of whimsy’.

“How’d you get the budget for this stuff? Looks like you had a day out in Knockturn alley,” Seamus marvelled, looking at the many dragon skeletons hanging from the ceiling. One dragon skeleton lay on the floor, coiled around an ancient throne where Miraak had placed a table with a fancy goblet and a plate. A strange being grumbled in a nearby cage, eyes glowing blue and form swaying lightly from the ancient armour hanging off its body.

“What? These are all mine, Finnegan! Relics of my conquests and artefacts with magic unknown to your realm!” Miraak gestured to everything in the room, “Back in my day I had a temple dedicated to worshipping me. More than twenty dragon skeletons laid dormant in the snow around my temple after I killed and ate their souls . I sat on this throne when I’d watch traitors dangle helplessly in cages. Humans, Elves and Beastfolk who dared to defy me made very good fodder for my enchanting services, for their souls were the most potent of all. Ahhh, good memories!”

“You killed people!?” Ron gawked at him, paler than usual.

“Only the ones who didn’t like me.”

“But, surely you heard me talking before? I don’t like you!”

“And have you felt alive since I started teaching?”

“What- no?”

“Then write your obituary, Weasel. I shall not be laying flowers but I will attend your funeral for the refreshments,” Miraak finally silenced Ron and stood still in front of the class, waiting for everyone else to be seated. He caught sight of Draco, but more concern bled into him when the boy didn’t laugh at the torment of a Weasley. If Miraak was capable of one thing, it was knowing his students well.

“Professor? Are you alright?” Hermione asked out of the blue. Miraak’s face must have looked concerned again, given that he still couldn’t hide his emotions. He let out a small sigh and began wandering around the room, his eyes not leaving the students.

“I know that this year may be a bit…unnerving. You are getting closer to the end, but I will make sure you are prepared,” he stopped to sit on a desk and cross his arms, “you have endless resources to help you, including myself. So, do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of melancholy as I once did. It can… krii , it can be the end of you.”

Miraak worked hard to bring up the mood in the class. It seemed that a lot of students were feeling stiff, especially when Dean spoke up.

“It’s hard to feel okay, Professor. Ever since the Dark Lord-”

“Perished? Yes I take full credit for that. He was an easy foe, really.”

“No, he’s still alive!”

“What, HOW!?”

“I don’t know how, Professor! He’s just been sighted again!”

“ RUTH! How dare he live!? I killed that hairless creature and took his wand!” Miraak pulled the bone wand from his pocket and flicked it at the Draugr in the cage. The undead simply started dancing, causing Miraak to look back at his students, “If he still lives I will hunt him down….in my spare time. Grading papers takes a lot of my free time, these days. I should have you all battle dragons for your exam just to save time and paperwork.”

“Harry fought a dragon in fourth year!” Seamus's words immediately stilled Miraak's anger, prompting him to stare at Harry with hardly-subtle pride and amazement.

“You survived? Tell me, did you feel power coursing through your veins? Did you strike it down and take its bones to be fashioned into weapons? Or perhaps…you awakened a new power within you?” Miraak closed in on Harry, his hands on his desk and eyes locked on him.

“Oh, no I just took the golden egg. We needed to for the trial. The dragon lived, I had to run away from it.”

“……”

“Professor Miraak?”

“Three hundred points from Gryffindor.”

“WHAT!?”

“Four hundred points to Slytherin.”

“He’s totally unfair!”

“I am perfectly fair, Weasel! Now, we shall see where you’re all up to…..”

~~~~~~

“Potter, I told you to stay,” Miraak called out to Harry from where he dangled from the ceiling beam by the toes of his brassy boots, “Sit. We have much to discuss.”

“After that lesson? I’m not sure I’ll be able to have a proper conversation,” Harry spoke with slight jest as he settled back in his desk area. Miraak scoffed and waved him off.

“Learning to speak to spirits from their bones whilst upside down is no small feat, but it won’t damage you permanently,” Miraak countered with his arms crossed. Suddenly, he jumped down onto Harry’s desk, startling the boy, “Someone has hurt you. I don’t wish to force you, but if you don’t tell me it will make everything much more difficult than it needs to be.”

“Do I really have to?” Harry asked, shifting uncomfortably. He looked as if he were in pain, which would make sense.

“Now, Potter. I won’t ask again,” Miraak demanded in a low, careful voice. His fingers curled into the wood of the desk, eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Can you maybe not tell anyone about it? It’s…I think it might be because of something dangerous,” he whispered. Miraak was immediately intrigued further, mulling over each possible outcome that Harry could relay to him. Petty squabbles over partners flittered across his mind a few times, it seemed likely enough.

“You have my word, Potter.”

“It’s Draco. He’s upset about his father going to Azkaban…who is a Death Eater.”

“That gives him no right to-”

“I know! I know. There’s more to it than that…. I saw him at Borgin and Burke’s with other Death Eaters, performing some kind of ceremony. Nobody else believes me,” Harry explains, lowering his gaze to his desk. Miraak let out a breath and held his hand to Harry’s nose, allowing Healing Hands to channel through his fingertips and heal Harry’s nose.

“It can completely isolate you, to shout into a void that will not listen. But I will listen,” Miraak reassured him, his voice low and rumbly. Harry’s nose went back into place without any pain, carefully unbreaking. Miraak slowly pulled his hand away and offered a warm smile, “ Drem , you look much better now.”

“Thank you, sir! That feels much better than when Luna tried to-” Harry stopped for a moment and squinted his eyes, “did you smudge my glasses? They look horrible.”

“Hmmm, no. Even if I did touch your glasses, my gauntlets are clean,” Miraak defended, his head tilting as he watched Harry take off his glasses and rub them. Harry took his time trying to clean them before slowly stopping and looking up at Miraak with wonder.

“Professor….what spell did you use?” He asked, watching each line and stray hair on Miraak’s face.

“A most basic healing spell. Are you unsatisfied with your nose?”

“No, no! It’s not that…it’s just that my eyesight, it’s…” Harry trailed off before slapping a hand to his mouth in amazement, “You healed my vision!?”

“Is that why you wear those wires around your eyes? Your vision was impaired?”

“You didn’t know?”

“It’s not a problem in my realm.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest Professor.”

~~~~~~

Further into the school year, Miraak had unfortunately been forced to take sick-leave due to contracting oyster pox. When the Dragonborn entered Miraak’s bedroom with a cup of tea, they looked at him with worry.

“I don’t mean to alarm you, but the school was attacked,” they sat on his bed as they spoke. Tea almost spilled from how quickly Miraak sat up.

“Attacked? No, I must be there!” Miraak scrambled to get out of bed, but was stilled by gentle fingers on his chest.

“You will die if you exert yourself. Aghhh, I told you to not eat five plates of oysters! You know that four is your limit!” They chastised him, sighing when he didn’t relent, “ Drem , please. You likely won’t be going back to teach anyways.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“The Headmaster was killed by…I think the message said ‘Snap’?”

“Dragonborn��.fetch my travel bag.”

“Miraak, you can’t!”

But Miraak would.

Miraak will return in: Harry PotRoast and The Dragon’s New Clothes, Part 1

~~~~~~

Miraak's language key, translated by Thuum.org:

Pruzah = Good

Vosaraan = Make haste/Quickly

Krii = Kill

Ruth = Rage (Used like how you'd say 'damn!' when annoyed