Chapter 2: Whispers of Jade and Shadow
The bond with Veridian was unlike anything Aerion had read about in the Vaelaros family dragonlore. Valyrian Dragonlords commanded their beasts through a mixture of inherent bloodright, shared lineage with the creatures of fire, and often, sheer force of will. It was a partnership born of dominance and mutual reliance. His connection with Veridian, however, was deeper, a silent symphony of shared thought and emotion, woven with the subtle threads of Legilimency and the foundational magic of his soul. Voldemort's mastery over magical creatures, like the Basilisk, provided a template for control, but Flamel's understanding of harmony and interconnectedness tempered it into something far more profound.
Veridian, from the moment of her hatching, seemed to understand him, not just his commands, but his intent, his moods. She grew with astonishing speed, her jade scales taking on a brilliant, multifaceted sheen, her bronze-streaked wings strong and sure. Within months, she was the size of a large wolf, and already her intelligence was unsettling to the handlers his father insisted upon, men who were used to hatchlings being little more than feral, fiery appetites. Veridian was calm, observant, her molten gold eyes often fixed on Aerion with an eerie knowing.
"She's… preternaturally intelligent, this beast of yours, Aerion," Maelys conceded one afternoon, watching as Aerion, now sixteen, guided Veridian through complex aerial manoeuvres high above the Vaelaros estate. They flew without saddle or chains, a rarity for such a young dragon and rider. Aerion simply sat perched on Veridian's strong neck, his hands resting lightly on her scales, their movements a fluid dance. "Your mother's Northern blood, no doubt. They say the savages of Westeros whisper to beasts."
Aerion offered a slight, enigmatic smile. "Perhaps, Father. Or perhaps she simply understands the value of a gentle hand." Inside, he cataloged his father's comment. The 'savage blood' excuse was a useful veil for his abilities. He would cultivate it.
His days were a careful balance. Publicly, he was the diligent scion, excelling in his studies of Valyrian history, rhetoric, and the arts of war. He learned to fight with the short sword and spear, his movements economical and deadly, a precision honed by Voldemort's dueling experience adapted to physical combat. He was not the strongest, but he was the quickest, his green eyes seeming to anticipate his opponents' moves – a trait many attributed to intense focus, but which was often augmented by fleeting precognitive flashes from his greensight or subtle legilimnetic cues.
Privately, his true work unfolded. His chambers, warded with spells that would have made a Hogwarts professor proud, became his sanctuary and laboratory. The magically extended trunk, outwardly a simple Valyrian chest of dark wood bound with bronze, was his greatest treasure. Within its expanded confines, he had established a small study. Here, by the light of a softly glowing orb conjured with wandless magic, he pored over texts stolen during cloaked nocturnal excursions to other family libraries and even the sanctums of Valyrian loremasters. The Elder Wand, disguised as a plain ebony rod he claimed was a gift from his mother's far-off land, lay on his desk, not often wielded but always present, its immense power a comforting thrum against his senses. He knew better than to rely on it openly; its legend, even in this world, might have echoes, and its true power was a secret to be hoarded.
He translated Voldemort's darkest spells into High Valyrian, meticulously comparing their structure to the blood magic formulas he uncovered. Valyrian magic was potent but often crude, relying on raw power and sacrifice. Voldemort's spells were intricate, precise, requiring skill and intent over brute force. Flamel's alchemical knowledge allowed him to understand the fundamental energies at play, bridging the two systems. He found that certain Valyrian rituals, when combined with Harry Potter world spellcraft, yielded results far exceeding the sum of their parts. He was careful, always experimenting on inanimate objects or, in carefully controlled circumstances, on vermin he captured. The Unforgivable Curses remained locked away in his mind; their use was too distinctive, too risky, and for now, unnecessary. His goals were creation and preservation, not overt destruction, at least not yet.
His warging abilities grew exponentially. He started with the vermin in the lower levels of the estate, then progressed to the hunting hawks, feeling the exhilarating rush of flight through their eyes, the sharp focus of their predatory instincts. He learned to subtly influence them, guiding their hunts. His mother, Lyra, noticed his unusual affinity with her small caged songbird from the North. "He sings for you, Aerion, as he sings for no other," she'd remarked, a soft smile touching her usually melancholic features. Aerion had merely stroked the bird through the bars, feeling its tiny life force, a minuscule consciousness he could easily touch and soothe. He wondered if Lyra herself possessed a stronger, suppressed version of this gift. If so, it was too deeply buried by years of Valyrian disdain for him to awaken without risk.
His greensight remained a torrent of often confusing images. The Doom of Valyria was a recurring nightmare, always fire, smoke, and screaming faces melting like wax. He saw flashes of the future beyond: strange ships sailing west, a wall of ice, cold blue eyes in the darkness, and sometimes, a hidden island shrouded in mist, dragons circling snow-capped peaks – Skagos. This vision, in particular, felt like a promise, a destination. He began researching Skagos in the Valyrian archives. It was dismissed as a desolate, savage island off the northern coast of Westeros, inhabited by rumored cannibals and shunned by most seafarers. Perfect. Its very undesirability was its greatest defense.
The Philosopher's Stone pulsed with gentle warmth in its leaden casket within his trunk. He had begun to utilize it, with extreme caution. Valyria ran on gold and slaves. He needed the former to acquire resources, particularly ancient texts or rare ingredients for his magical research that were not readily available even to a Vaelaros. He would take common stones, bits of discarded metal, and in the dead of night, transmute them into small quantities of pure gold, or sometimes silver, shaping them into unmarked Valyrian honors or pre-Freehold coinage that would attract less scrutiny. He never created large amounts at once, always just enough for a specific purchase, usually made through carefully selected, unsuspecting intermediaries – a freedman merchant known for discretion, a purveyor of rare goods in the lower city. His wealth was a silent, growing river, its source utterly untraceable.
He also began to seriously consider the properties of the Elixir of Life, not for himself yet – he was young, and the Doom was still decades away – but for Veridian. Dragons lived long, but not forever. If his descendants were to be immortal, their dragon companions would need to be as well. The thought of an immortal council of dragon-riding wizards, each paired with an eternally loyal, magically enhanced dragon, was a potent vision. He would need to experiment, to see how the Elixir interacted with draconic physiology. That, however, was a project for when Veridian was fully grown and his sanctuary more established.
One particular pursuit was the acquisition of more dragon eggs. The Vaelaros had only two breeding pairs of dragons, and Ignis, his father's mount, was aging. Opportunities for new eggs within the family were limited. Stealing from other Dragonlords was an act of war, something his cautious nature currently forbade. But he listened to whispers in the slave quarters, in the marketplaces, stories of lesser families falling on hard times, of remote outposts where wild dragons were rumored to nest, or even of eggs laid by riderless dragons that had gone feral in the Valyrian hinterlands. These were threads to be pulled, gently.
His cousin, Vaella, who had claimed her fiery hatchling, Ignar, around the same time Aerion claimed Veridian, remained a useful contrast. She was everything a traditional Valyrian Dragonlord aspired to be: loud, arrogant, quick to anger, and fiercely possessive of her dragon. She and Ignar were a whirlwind of chaotic energy, often seen racing recklessly above the city.
"Still playing with your green lizard, cousin?" Vaella taunted one day, as Aerion and Veridian practiced intricate, almost balletic, flight patterns. Ignar, a creature of orange and black, shrieked and spat a plume of flame that Veridian dodged with contemptuous ease.
"Precision has its own beauty, Vaella," Aerion replied calmly, his voice carrying easily over the wind. Veridian let out a low, rumbling growl that made Ignar sidestep nervously in the air.
"Beauty won't win you battles!" Vaella scoffed, though a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face. Veridian was already larger than Ignar, her movements more controlled, her golden eyes unnervingly intelligent.
Aerion simply smiled. No, but cunning and overwhelming, hidden power will. He had no interest in Valyrian power squabbles. His sights were set on a far grander, more enduring stage.
His relationship with his father remained formal. Maelys Vaelaros acknowledged Aerion's skill with Veridian and his academic prowess but remained wary of his son's quiet intensity and his green Stark eyes. "You are… an anomaly, Aerion," Maelys had said once, after Aerion had flawlessly recited a complex lineage of dragons and their riders for three generations back. "Brilliant, undoubtedly. But Valyrian fire needs to burn outwards, not inwards." Aerion accepted the critique silently. Let them underestimate his fire; it would keep him safer when the true conflagration began.
One evening, as a blood-red sunset bled across the Valyrian sky, Aerion sat with his mother in her small, Northern-themed garden within the estate. Lyra Stark was tending to a patch of stubborn wolfswood saplings she'd managed to cultivate.
"The air feels heavy tonight," Lyra murmured, her gaze distant. "Like the sky is holding its breath before a storm."
Aerion felt it too. A pressure in his temples, a vague unease that often preceded a significant greensight vision. He focused, gently probing the future. The images were clearer this time, more terrifying. He saw not just fire, but the Fourteen Flames, the great volcanoes that were the heart of Valyria's power, exploding in a catastrophic chain reaction. He saw the land itself shattering, the sea rushing in, dragonflame meeting molten rock in an apocalyptic inferno. He saw faces he knew – his father, his cousins, Dragonlords of great renown – consumed by ash and fire, their arrogant screams silenced forever.
The vision left him breathless, a cold sweat on his brow despite the geothermal warmth of Valyria.
"Aerion? Are you unwell?" Lyra asked, her hand cool on his forehead.
He shook his head, composing himself with effort. "Just a passing chill, Mother." But the certainty of the Doom settled deeper into his bones. It was not a matter of if, but when. Twenty-six years now. A grim countdown had begun in his mind.
This vision spurred a new urgency in his research. He needed to understand the cataclysm, not just to escape it, but to potentially harness it. Voldemort's soul, ever attuned to the darkest currents of magic, felt a perverse draw to the sheer scale of death that was coming. So many souls, a dark whisper echoed in his mind. The Philosopher's Stone… it could be made infinitely more powerful. Flamel's knowledge confirmed the horrifying possibility: the Stone drew upon life energy, and a cataclysm of such magnitude would release an unimaginable torrent of it. A Stone empowered by the Doom of Valyria… its capabilities would be legendary, far surpassing Flamel's original creation. It could guarantee immortality for legions, transmute mountains into gold, fuel spells of world-altering power. The thought was both monstrous and intoxicating. It solidified his resolve: he would not just survive the Doom; he would profit from it in a way no one could imagine.
His quest for dragon eggs intensified. He began to subtly use his growing network of informants – slaves he'd discreetly helped with small acts of kindness or untraceable gifts of coin, merchants indebted to him for his 'wise' financial advice (gleaned from his advanced understanding of economics). He heard a rumor: a minor Dragonlord family, the Terryns, living on the periphery of the Valyrian peninsula, had suffered a series Vof misfortunes. Their patriarch was dead, their lands failing, their two dragons old and one barren. They had one unhatched egg, a clutch from years ago, long thought dormant, which they were now desperate to sell to avoid utter ruin, a quiet, shameful transaction.
This was an opportunity. Buying an egg, even a dormant one, was less suspicious than theft. He approached his father.
"Father," Aerion began, choosing his moment carefully when Maelys was in a relatively good mood after a successful flight on Ignis. "I have been considering the future of House Vaelaros. Veridian is strong, but a single dragon line is vulnerable. I heard a whisper… that House Terryn has an egg they might be willing to part with. Old blood, from before their decline."
Maelys frowned. "The Terryns? They are a fading ember. Their egg is likely stone. Why waste resources on such a gamble?"
"Even a stone can sometimes hide a spark, Father," Aerion said smoothly. "And if it hatches, it is another dragon for our House, acquired for a pittance. If not, the loss is minimal. It shows foresight, an investment in our strength. Other Houses are always looking to expand their dragon stock." He played on his father's pride and paranoia.
Maelys considered this. Aerion's recent successes with Veridian, his growing reputation for shrewdness, lent his words weight. "A dormant egg… it is a long chance. But the cost would be low. Very well. Investigate. But if you pursue this, it is your folly, and your coin, even if I provide it now as an advance on your inheritance."
Aerion internally smiled. His 'coin' was readily available. He used some of his transmuted gold, laundered through several transactions, to make a generous offer to the desperate Lord Terryn, a pale, nervous young man barely older than himself. The negotiations were swift. For a sum that was a fortune to the Terryns but a calculated expense for Aerion, he acquired the egg. It was a mottled grey and black, cold to the touch, showing no outward signs of life. Many in his own household, including Maelys, privately thought him a fool.
Aerion took the egg to Veridian's lair, a now vast cavern deep beneath the estate that he had subtly enlarged and warded himself, using spells to soften and shape the volcanic rock. He placed the cold egg near Veridian, who regarded it with curious golden eyes.
"We will awaken it, my beauty," Aerion murmured to his dragon, stroking her jade snout. He began a quiet ritual, drawing on Valyrian awakening chants, but infusing them with his own potent magic, channeling a sliver of the Elixir's essence (not directly, but its resonant energy) and a spark of his own life force through the Elder Wand, disguised as his focusing rod. He poured his will into the cold shell, day after day, week after week.
Months passed. The Doom was now twenty-five years away. Aerion turned seventeen, then eighteen. He was a young man now, tall and lean, his ashen hair gaining more silver streaks, his green eyes holding an ancient, unsettling depth. His mastery of Valyrian customs and his own formidable intellect made him a respected, if somewhat aloof, figure among the younger Dragonlords. Veridian was magnificent, a creature of deadly grace and startling intelligence, fiercely loyal to him alone. No one questioned their bond anymore; they marveled at it.
One night, a faint warmth emanated from the grey-black egg. A tiny crack appeared. Aerion, alerted by Veridian's soft croon, rushed to the lair. He watched, his expression unreadable, as the shell broke apart. A small, dark grey dragon, almost black, with eyes like burning coals, stumbled out. It was weak, but alive. It looked at Aerion, then at Veridian, and let out a shaky hiss.
Aerion named him Umbrax, for the shadows he was born from and would one day command. The Vaelaros household was stunned. Aerion had done the impossible, hatched a stone egg. His reputation grew, now tinged with awe and a little fear. Maelys looked at his son with a new, complicated expression, a mixture of pride and profound unease.
Aerion now had two dragons. Veridian, his jade queen, and Umbrax, his shadow. His plans were solidifying. The future sanctuary on Skagos, the immortal council, the legacy of wizard-dragonriders. The Doom would come, and he would be ready. He would rise from its ashes, not as a conqueror of a broken world, but as the silent guardian of a new beginning, his power hidden, his lineage secured, his thirst for knowledge eternal. The souls of Valyria would empower his Philosopher's Stone, and with it, he would build an empire of secrets and shadows, an eternal haven for his children of magic and fire. The weight of Voldemort's ambition and Flamel's wisdom settled upon him, no longer a burden, but a mantle of destiny. He was Aerion Vaelaros, and he would outlast them all.