Draco Dormiens Nunqium Titillandus –Hogwarts Motto ("Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon")
"Damn it, Godric!" Salazar Slytherin yelled at his friend. "Why the hell to you always have to do that?"
"Do what?" Godric Griffindor asked, ducking the fireball that shot past him.
"The dragon was asleep, for Merlin's sake. Who in their right mind would go up and tickle the stupid thing?"
Griffindor laughed. "Because he was there! He was asking for it by being there!"
"If we die, so help me, I will kick your tail from here to Tartarus!" Slytherin threatened.
"Come on, Salazar, where's your sense of adventure?"
"Back in my lab, with the experiment I left to, I thought, save your arse from whatever you had gotten yourself into this time. Your patronus said 'life or death'. It said that you needed me for a matter of life and death!"
"And this isn't a matter of life and death?"
"Godric, I swear—" Slytherin clenched his fist and turned away, huffing and puffing. He wasn't cut out for all this running. And he had almost perfected that luck potion. "You weren't in the middle of a life and death situation when I found you. All you found was a sleeping dragon. Why the hell was your first thought, 'Ooh, let's tickle it and see what happens'? Why can you never leave well enough alone?"
"Well—" Godric's voice petered out.
"If you say this is about Rowena again, I will cast a Body Bind hex on you and leave you for the dragon."
Godric blushed slightly, and Salazar slapped him upside the head.
"Just run, you stupid idiot," Slytherin wheezed. "And maybe I won't poison your food tonight, or tell Rowena how your hair caught fire."
Godric beat at the flame that singed his hair. "You wouldn't!"
"If you die, I'll make sure your epitaph is 'Death by Tickled Dragon'."
Griffindor skidded to a halt. "I think he finally gave up."
Salazar leaned against a tree, gasping for air. "How the hell do you get away with calling yourself an educator? That dragon was a female! You probably got way too close to her kindlings, considering the fact that YOU TICKLED HER!"
"Salazar, I'm sorry that I almost got you killed. Here. Happy birthday."
Slytherin grabbed the bag that his friend held out to him. Whatever was in it was warm and wriggled.
"Tell me you didn't."
Godric shrugged. "He was the runt. He's not going to be much bigger than a thestral by the time he's done growing. I figured he'd have a better chance with you than with his fellow kindlings."
The little gray-blue dragon stared up at Salazar with his dark, fathomless eyes. Godric was an idiot; it was another female dragon—the tiniest kindling he had ever seen—and she nuzzled her head against his thumb.
"You're still an idiot." Salazar looked up at his best friend, cradling the tiny dragon in the crook of his arm.
Godric grinned. "I know. But that's why you love me."
Damn that infectious smile. Salazar grinned back. "I'm still telling Rowena. She told me she was trying to figure out a motto for the school."
He disapparated, but not before he caught Griffindor's dirty look. Yes, he thought. "Never tickle a sleeping dragon." The shortest biography of the life of Godric Griffindor. He's never going to live this down.