The dragon moved first.
It lunged forward with a thunderous beat of wings, heat rolling off its scales in suffocating waves. The ground shook beneath its weight, talons gouging deep furrows into stone as it reared, jaws opening wide enough to swallow a horse whole.
Harry did not flinch.
His Na'vi body responded before thought could intrude, knees bending, weight dropping, tail lashing behind him to anchor his balance. The roar he had loosed moments before still vibrated in his chest, not bravado but challenge, a hunter's declaration made to be heard.
Big, a distant, pragmatic part of him noted. Strong. Territorial. Predictable.
Fire blasted toward him.
Harry sprang sideways in a blur of motion that left the crowd gasping. Where he had stood, the stone blackened and cracked, heat distorting the air. He landed lightly, claws scraping sparks, and rolled into a sprint that carried him straight toward the dragon rather than away.
This was not recklessness.
This was how one survived creatures that could kill you with a single misstep.
The dragon's head snapped down, teeth scything through the air where Harry had been a heartbeat earlier. He slid beneath its jaw, feeling the furnace-heat of its breath scorch across his back, and came up beneath its neck, eyes tracking muscle and scale.
There.
He flicked his wrist.
Magic surged, not flaring outward in a flash of light, but flowing through him like a current finding its course. The spell he cast had no incantation, no wand movement as the professors would recognize it. It was closer to intent than language.
The ground beneath the dragon's foreleg softened.
Stone flowed like wet earth, destabilizing the beast's stance. The dragon bellowed, wings flaring as it fought for balance, claws scrabbling uselessly. Harry was already moving, sprinting up a fallen pillar, leaping from it with impossible force.
He landed on the dragon's shoulder.
The crowd erupted.
Harry's fingers dug into the ridges between scales as the dragon thrashed, trying to dislodge him. Flames licked dangerously close, heat searing along his arm, but pain registered distantly, filtered through decades of learned endurance. He had clung to beasts far worse than this, in storms and battle, with death yawning beneath him.
He leaned close to the dragon's ear and shouted, not words, but will.
The magic carried it.
The dragon froze.
Not tamed. Not controlled.
Heard.
Harry felt the creature's rage, its hunger, its fear, raw and overwhelming. He did not dominate it. He did not bend it to his will.
He acknowledged it.
For one breathless moment, predator and prey balanced on the knife-edge of mutual recognition.
Then the dragon shook him loose with a violent snap of its neck.
Harry flew.
He twisted midair, tail snapping for balance, magic cushioning the impact as he hit the ground in a controlled roll. The dragon surged forward, fire blasting again, and Harry answered instinctively, thrusting both hands out as the earth rose in a jagged wall, stone hissing and glowing as flames crashed against it.
The heat was immense.
Harry closed his eyes.
Eywa, he thought, not a prayer, not quite. A grounding.
The wall held.
The dragon circled, enraged now, and Harry moved with it, never turning his back, senses locked on the subtle shifts of weight and breath that telegraphed its next strike. He darted forward, then back, drawing it away from the nest where the golden egg gleamed between scorched stones.
When the moment came, it was sudden and absolute.
The dragon reared to unleash another torrent of fire.
Harry ran straight at it.
He leapt, higher than any human body should have been capable of, and twisted in midair, magic surging through his legs and spine. His claws closed around the egg as he passed, momentum carrying him clear just as flame roared past beneath him.
He landed hard, skidding across stone, clutching the egg to his chest.
The dragon screamed in fury.
Harry did not look back.
The whistle sounded.
Silence followed then the arena exploded into noise.
Dumbledore POV:
Albus Dumbledore had not sat down once since Harry Potter stepped into the arena.
He stood now, hands braced on the railing, eyes bright behind half-moon spectacles that reflected firelight and motion alike. He had seen many things in his long life, dark lords rise and fall, magic twisted into horrors and miracles alike but this…
This was new.
"That was not Transfiguration," Bagman breathed beside him, pale and exhilarated. "Was it?"
"No," Dumbledore said softly.
Karkaroff's expression was thunderous. "Illegal," he snapped. "There are rules—"
"There are outcomes," Madame Maxime countered coolly, her massive arms folded. "And the boy achieved his."
Dumbledore's gaze never left the figure on the arena floor, Harry, shifting now, painfully, visibly, blue skin giving way to human as the magic receded. The boy staggered, caught by mediwitches rushing forward, clutching the egg with hands that trembled from more than exhaustion.
Animagus, Dumbledore thought.
But not in the way the Ministry understood.
Not at all.
The judges conferred, voices low and urgent.
"Speed," Bagman said. "Bravery. Innovative magic—"
"—dangerous magic," Karkaroff interjected.
"—effective magic," Maxime corrected.
Dumbledore raised one hand, silencing them gently.
"Whatever else we may discuss," he said, "we must acknowledge that Mr. Potter faced the dragon directly, minimized collateral damage, and retrieved the egg without unnecessary cruelty to the creature."
He paused.
"And he did so under extraordinary personal risk."
There was a moment of reluctant agreement.
Scores were written.
When they were announced, the crowd roared anew, numbers high enough to leave no doubt that the First Task had been irrevocably altered.
As applause thundered through the arena, Dumbledore finally allowed himself to sit.
His expression was calm.
His thoughts were not.
You have walked another world, he thought, watching Harry Potter disappear into the medical tent. And you have brought it back with you.
Somewhere far away, a dark presence stirred, uneasy, curious, wary.
And for the first time in many years, Albus Dumbledore wondered whether prophecy had ever truly understood the boy it claimed to define.