Dragon's Lair
It turned out to be quite a bit nicer in Scotland. After many, many cracks, Harry arrived in the Outer Hebrides to a choppy wind, but no rain. This did mean that Harry was now getting cold, fast, and it took several warming charms to counteract the biting Scottish wind.
Flying over the islands that made up the archipelago, Harry soon found what he was looking for — a small island, steep, rugged, no sign of human inhabitants. He landed next to a cliff face and immediately got to work.
"Defodio!"
The gouging charm ripped through the stone, creating a very definite indent in the cliff face. He kept his focus on the charm and watched as it started to hollow out a cave.
Several hours later, Harry was exhausted, but had succeeded in digging himself a passage way leading to two hollowed out rooms. Really. He collapsed against a corner wall. Things would be a lot easier if he could just use Gringotts for his bank vault. But he really didn't want to have to explain where he was getting constant influxes of muggle money. Much better to deposit it all in one go when he introduced the wizarding world to Lord Slytherin. Plus it would be good to have an emergency stash in case Gringotts was unavailable for whatever reason.
Having gotten his breath back, Harry picked up his wand and conjured a small camping bed, complete with sleeping bag, threw up a notice-me-not on the entrance, along with a couple of temporary detection and muggle repelling wards, and lay his head down for a good long kip.
...
FWHOOOOOSHHHHH!
Heat and light filled Harry's world.
"AAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNGH!"
A roar, louder than anything Harry had ever heard, shattered through whatever final remnants of sleep he'd been hanging on to. He struggled out of the sleeping bag and snatched at his wand. He was still in the cave he'd dug last night, but something seemed to be making a good attempt at joining him.
FWHOOOOOSHHHHH!
Outside the doorway he'd carved last night, leading to the hallway that led straight to the outside world, a train of fire was crashing its way through his makeshift hideaway. The heat was incredible.
When the fire stopped, he pounced over to the doorway, cast the strongest shield charm he knew, rolled into the corridor, and aimed down his brand new, powerful as hell wand, ready to take on whatever the world had thrown at him.
Filling the space of the entrance of the passage was a head — a head with midnight blue scales, spikes, and a few sharp teeth visible along a large closed mouth. A single dark-blue eye pressed against the passageway opening. It was a dragon.
"FUCK!" Harry shouted, rolling back into the room he'd been in before, just as another train of fire thundered past where he'd been crouching moments earlier.
"A dragon! A mother fucking dragon!" Harry screamed at the roof, "Seriously!? Why not a hydra while you're at it! Or maybe a nundu! Because, you know, I don't have enough crap to deal with already!"
His shield would've held for a while, he knew, but it would also have drained him a lot for no good reason. He glared at the doorway and tried to think snakelike thoughts before scream-hissing,"$Hey! Winged Serpent! Would you mind not toasting me? I mean you no harm!$"
There was silence for a moment, before another train of fire answered his call, forcing him further into the room, arms held protectively against his face. It roared again.
Well, it might have worked. Old Voldy had always been too much of a pussy to go one-on-one with these buggers.
Harry hit himself on the head with his wand and felt the familiar egg dribbling over his body, signalling the sensation of being disillusioned, then disapparated with a crack.
He appeared, floating, some fifty metres behind the dragon, which was now scrabbling at the entrance. He recognised it as a Hebridean Black. A very sarcastic part of his brain screamed, 'A Hebridean Black!? In the Hebrides?! No really?, but he shoved the git into an occlumency prison to focus better on the task at hand.
The dragon seemed to realise Harry wasn't there any more, and turned to look for him.
Harry shot towards the beast and passed just beyond its lunge range.
Probably both seeing the change in colour of Harry's body as he moved, and picking up his smell, the dragon reared onto its hind legs and with one more deafening, "AAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNGH!" leapt into the sky.
Harry didn't look back. He sped away from his cave, trying to lure it out as far as he could.
Come on. He dodged a random fire ball. These guys were known for being aggressive bastards. He'd see just how far it would go.
Thirty minutes of chase later, and it was still right behind him.
Okay. That was more than enough of this bullshit.
Crack!
Harry appeared back at the entrance of his cave and immediately started the complex wand movements for one of the most overpowered charms in the wizarding world's arsenal… The fidelius charm.
Ten minutes later and he'd finished the wand waving work and switched to using his wand to carve the runes at each corner of the cave. The fifteen-inch yew focus had never meant to be for carving work and the runes were massive as a result, but they'd do for now.
Fifteen minutes after that, Harry ran to the cave's entrance and started the visualisation exercise, putting his master occlumency to good use, imagining the cave in every minute detail with pin point accuracy. It was a good thing the cave was so basic or this would take ages.
He opened his eyes, and saw the returning dragon in the distance, surrounded by a team of wizards on broomsticks, all shooting red spells at the fearsome creature.
He smiled and brought his wand up and down in a single strong gesture, touching a single rune on the floor, and channelling all the power he could into it.
"Fidelius Occultum!"
And knowledge of the cave, and its soon to be hoard of treasure, disappeared from the world.
...
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