The icy potion slid slowly down Harry's throat, a chilling sensation giving way to something deeper. Moments later, the liquid—brimming with raw magical power—burst forth near his heart. Wave after wave of energy coursed through him, filling his body with a tingling hum before gathering toward the surface of his skin.
Then, as the magic pooled at his flesh, it began to reshape him. Harry was overwhelmed, drowning in a flood of searing pain that erupted from every corner of his being. Under the relentless grip of this transformative force, his body felt like a lump of clay, kneaded and twisted at the whim of the magic—stretched into a rectangle one moment, flattened into a square the next, then rolled into a sphere. His bones creaked and shifted, stretched thin and crushed flat in an endless cycle of torment.
After what felt like an eternity, perhaps deeming its work sufficient—or perhaps because Harry's mortal frame had met some arcane threshold—the agony gave way to a new sensation. His body began to swell, inflating bit by bit. His skin bulged with grotesque, fleshy lumps, as though something alive writhed beneath it. The clothes he'd worn dissolved into the grotesque mass of sprouting tissue.
Ten seconds passed. Thirty. A minute. Three. The Harry who once stood in the open glade of the forest was gone. In his place loomed a monstrous slab of flesh—nearly two meters tall and three meters long—roaring incessantly. With each passing moment, it grew larger still. From its back sprouted two long, tentacle-like appendages, limp and draped over the pulsating bulk.
If anything of Harry remained recognizably human, it was his brain, shielded by magic from the moment he'd begun his Animagus transformation. His soul, meanwhile, cowered within that fragile sanctuary.
…
"Odd," Harry muttered to himself. "Wasn't I just casting my Animagus spell in the woods near the Forbidden Forest? Why's it suddenly so dark?"
In pitch blackness, he groped along a rough, unyielding surface—cold rock beneath his fingers. For reasons unknown, neither the spells of Faerûn nor the charms he'd mastered at Hogwarts worked here. Wandless and powerless, he stumbled forward.
After ten minutes of fumbling in the dark, he collided with a wall—hard, coarse, and strangely alive. He rapped his knuckles against it. Not metal, not wood, not stone, not earth. The faint ridges under his fingertips felt like the hide of some enormous creature.
Then, mere feet from his face, a crescent of cyan light flickered into existence in the void.
"Thou hast finally arrived," a voice rumbled, deep as rolling thunder, shaking Harry back a few steps.
"Excuse me… who are you?" Harry asked, his tone cautious, deferential before this unknown presence.
The cyan crescent rose swiftly, rounding into a full moon. A bolt of lightning, thick as a barrel, crashed down from above, illuminating the being before him in a blinding flash.
"I am Ansur! Guardian of Baldur's Gate!"
A mature bronze dragon, towering over forty feet, unfurled its wings. Its head reared high, a proclamation to the world, and in that instant, the darkness shattered into blinding daylight.
Crested with ridges and grooves, the dragon's head bore a crown of curved horns. From its jaw and chin sprouted long, jagged spines, echoing the symmetry of its crest and horns. Between them stretched a maw lined with razor-sharp teeth, flanked by eyes that gleamed like luminous green orbs. Scales of burnished bronze clad its body, rippling over muscles that pulsed with raw power. Its massive wings, shimmering in the same metallic hue, carried the weight of a mountain's fury.
Harry stood dwarfed beside the dragon's clawed toes, craning his neck to behold this legendary creature. The name Ansur was familiar—far more striking in life than as the skeletal wyrm he'd once known.
"So, ever since that battle, you've been… inside my mind?" Harry asked, gazing up at the beast.
"To be precise, the remnant of my soul, bound to that helm, fused with yours," Ansur replied, folding its wings and sprawling lazily before him. It yawned, a cavernous maw stretching wide. "But calling it 'living in your mind' isn't far off, I suppose. Still, little Harry, are you sure you want to keep chatting? Your body out there isn't exactly in top shape."
With a claw, Ansur traced a circle in the air. An image shimmered into view: a writhing mass of flesh sprawled in the heart of a woodland clearing.
"What is that?" Harry stared, horror creeping into his voice. He had a sinking suspicion, but he needed Ansur's confirmation.
"What do you think?" The dragon shot him a sidelong glance. "The magical world forbids transforming into magical creatures. Your body, it seems, aimed to become a dragon—not some lesser wyvern, but a true dragon. The gap between man and dragon is vast, though. Even with my power flowing through you, it's near impossible. When flesh forces what it cannot achieve… well, there's your result."
"Ansur, sir, is there any hope for me?" Panic clawed at Harry's chest, though he fought to keep it at bay. He knew bronze dragons well enough—Ansur's calm demeanor was oddly reassuring. After all, they were, in a way, one now.
"Under normal circumstances? None," Ansur said with a toothy grin. "But I am Ansur. So long as you haven't turned into a mind flayer like that fool Balduran—irreversibly, that is—I've got a trick or two."
The dragon beckoned Harry to place a hand on its claw. The moment he did, his vision blurred. Suddenly, he stood in the forest clearing once more. A tingling itch spread from his chest outward. Looking down, he watched as hard, yellow-green scales erupted across his skin, racing to cover his body.
In mere seconds, a fledgling bronze dragon reared its head, letting loose a tender roar to herald its birth to the world.
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