HUMUNGOUS AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is for a dear friend, Allie. She is known here as Harrypotterrox1, and besides being a wonderful Allie, she is also a beautiful writer on top of it. Its her birthday this September 6th, and she's a Draco fan, so this'll be my first birthday toast (but there will be many more as this will have more chapters to come.) to her. In the meantime you guys should R&R some of her fabulous writing, it is her birthday after all so have a heart! If I might be so bold…I also ask that when you review this story to PLEASE write 'Happy Birthday' for Allie, I think she would like that! Even if you don't want to write a review for my story could you just write a Happy Birthday for her? I'd so appreciate it. Thank you so much if you're listening.
-Belyakov
P.S if you read this after September the 6th belated Happy Birthdays are just as desirable. :)
If you want you can write Happy Un-Birthday. As Lewis Carroll said, "There are 364 days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know."
The Pure-Blood Prince: The Book of Dragons
Madam Pince noticed that blonde beast that was the Malfoy boy lurking in the dark of her library's restricted section yet again. But she couldn't spit out a word; he had the written permission of Professor Snape to visit here, which he flashed with a reproaching finger as she picked up her wand to curse him, then stopped in her tracks.
Draco watched the fireworks go off in the witch's angled face and turned up nose, and blew a kiss back her way. He leaned against the bookcases, threatening to tip them over, his nose stuck in a red and soft work of leather. A black satin bookmark fell onto the floor.
There was a gilded cursive on the front that was hardly legible it was so fancy. It was a pop-up book, and the oddities that stood up and crawled off of its pages provided some clue to what the extravagant hand might have been trying to say. Watercolor prints of dragons lifted their clawed and long feet and began to dance across the open chapter, drops of real fire sparked from their moving paper mouths, spilling a confetti of cinder and ash over her freshly cleaned and scented carpet. And when the puppet strings were pulled the wings moved up and down on the ancient and brightly-colored life forms. A few of them flew off the page, and kept on flying out of the open windows where there was spring and freedom from a paper cage, the smell of thousand-year old dust and the touch of a hand. They may not have known any light of day for centuries. The boy laughed watching them make their escape.
Draco touched his finger to golden scribble… A Secret History of the Dragon, spoke the book itself in a baritone's whisper, and the labyrinth of metal words could be understood.
Though he was having fun, the 14-year old felt down, he'd been walking the castle halls for hours, almost no people were there, just low chandeliers. He went through room after room, spaces big enough for a family of giants to dine within, with just the sound of his shoes against the polished floors to accompany him. His friends weren't there, they'd all gone down to the Black Lake… where the mermaids were, good old Snape had let that slip.
First he had to endure the indignity of being ignored by the Bloody Baron when he came to speak with him, and then he stooped to going to Gryffindor, (he had jinxed the password right out of longbottom) and striking up a conversation with their house ghost, nearly Headless Nick, who was as dull as the protective tips they had to place on their swords when they fenced. What could this man have possibly done interesting enough to be worth beheading?
He called his runaway house elf to him out of habit, even though it had been two years since Potter took his elf away and destroyed their magical contract with him. Potter who was presently cheating his way through the city of merpeople, when they should have been boiling him in a pot down there and eatting him for breakfast. That bastard Madeye was giving him all of the answers. You didn't have to be crafty enough to get your name on the back of a chocolate frog card to see that, Madeye pulled the half-blood clown out of everyone's sight, then next thing you know Potter knew how to fight a Hungarian Horntail tooth and nail… he just grew angry just thinking about it, and was ready tear the spine of the book in half. This was a book about dragons... it only reminded him of the applause and golden eggs St. Potter got when he slew one of them. What kind of duel was it anyway? Last he'd heard fighting a chained opponent was cowardly. Dumbeldore could spin anything. Only The Prophet told the truth these days.
Dumbeldore... Moody was just doing the servant drudgeries. It was Dumbeldore who was really rigging the games so that he could make his puppet shine. How beautifully he played it. The shock and outrage when his favorite was picked by the Goblet, which he had bewitched to spit out the name Harry Potter, sneaking into kitchen in the dead of night like a common criminal and laying a cheap first year's spell. Either that or he as good as told Potter how to do it, he was practically bragging about how he was going to do it the night before.
He ended up where he was his godfather Professor Snape came to rescue him and sent him to the library where he might learn something of greater value than the number of cracks in the ceiling, and recommended this book because it was on his namesake, the Dragon.
His bangs spilt over the charred papers, he climbed a step with the book and reclined on the banisters monkey-like. Was this a joke?
The music of a mandolin rang out of the pages, and the scents of every cherry blossom and lotus in all of Japan leaked out of the paper textures. A lady with hair the color of a cave blowing across her face appeared, wearing a high crown of dragon's eggs and a gown of scales in every hue a rainbow came in. She rode upon a dragon no differently than had it been a horse to carry her, but instead of across earthly kingdoms the two made their way across the sea. She traveled playing the boxwood instrument that made the sounds that filled the library up.
Words animated in blue at the border of the drawing reading Benzai Ten, the 7th god of luck and fortune, the Dragon Princess. The letters sweated with water from the seas she sailed across. Bubbles came out of the pages.
Draco got curious and tried to pop one of them. He stuck his finger in, the bubble popped, and a tiny piece of paper fell into his hands that read: A kind and precious spirit born of a royal family of dragons. He stared at the little label, holding it gently.
More bubbles began to rise off the pages, Draco swiped at them but could not catch any.
The sound of a rushing shore was in his ears, and a snowy foam sprayed this way and that, specs of it getting on him, stinging his eyes. A sand just as white poured off the page and resembled pixie dust.
Scraps of the princess' biography continued to float around the room, this time a piece of paper flew away on a green set of heavy dragon wings: She lives upon water and speaks to we humans with art, that is her voice, poetry, music, paintings. She shares the spirit world she was born to with us through her heavenly creations.
On another that steered itself with angel feathers was written: She is beautiful, though 8 are her number of arms. We can learn Benzai Ten that beauty can be so very different, her own husband is a fierce and 5-headed dragon without a human form.
Words wrote themselves in the sand as if there were an invisible hand pressed to the book to spell them out: Her heart is full of love, she sees no ugliness in the world, and is known to bring lovers together.
A woman's voice whispered: Sarasvati is her name in India.
The glass of the water also reflected these words, backwards, the way they would be if carved into a mirror: Long lives, great wealth, and others to love them, anything a person could want for, come to those who cross her path. She is a goddess of goodwill and charity.
The last message was written on a pearl that rolled around on the page, changing from Kana to English: She is best remembered for using her charm and wisdom to dissuade hungry and rogue dragons from attacking villages of people.
Draco stared at the floating sentences, blowing their way back and forth about the ceiling, a mobile of words all but hanging from hooks.
Absently he touched the sketch of the dragon master, who had very few words left to remain at her side, most of them had flown away. She had her back to the reader and was staring at the setting sun she rode her dragon chariot towards. Her hair glowed with the heat of fire opals.
His clumsy finger fell onto her dress. The dress felt of cloth, not dried ink and paper. Upon touching his skin ribbons, veils and trains began to come off of the storybook pages just as the runaway dragons had done, wafting in midair. The yellow yards she was wearing spilled down the binding, dangling there above the mopped floor. It continued to hang and wave, the image of human hair come loose.
The growing clothes made their way further around the floor. He stared, and couldn't make a sound.
Parts of the dress' rags curled around his foot like an animal's tail. He jerked his leg away and slammed the book closed, his back to the wall.
The illusion had disappeared, only the faint echo of a woman humming a word or two in a song was left in the room.
He laughed a little, he wasn't scared. He reopened the book to return to the story of the ancient goddess. Meanwhile a few torn pieces from her gown, the section of sunshine, had transformed into big, yellow balloons. The balloons bouncing down the aisle, turned the corner and went on to the next.
When he opened the book he was on the wrong page, he found himself looking at a page made out of wood. There was a rosewood engraving that depicted a sinewy dragon winding up the side of a plain, wooden throne, one that appeared from a poor country. The dragon held up a mask between his talons, bringing it close to his face. The mask the dragon carried was of a human's face, a handsome young man. Buds of snowdrop flowers grew from seedlings and opened around parts of the bark to form words, they spelled the title of the story: The Lindorm Prince
A few petals grew old and died, and brown and wrinkled things fell of the crown of the woodworkings, the crown of flowers, and hit the floor near Draco's feet.
A rolled scroll fell out of the book at the same momeny, but it was bound to the page with a chain and lay dangling down in its bond.
Draco pulled the scroll out of the loop, broke a seal of old and spotted dragon claws, and whispered aloud: There was once an aging Sweedish queen who wished for children…
"A muggle story…" he sighed and gave his arms a good stretch.
He reached into his pocket and got himself a yellow apple his mother had sent him from the new groves she was designing around their manor. This would be a long, boring one, he would need something to steel himself with.
He sat on the ground, one hand on his face and continued the story chewing a mouth full of fruit pieces, some spraying out of his mouth as he went on: She asked the court witch what should be done to remedy her barrenness, and she supplied her with two enchanted onions and said that should she eat them she would have twins, each substance represented a child. In the lady's haste, curiosity and excitement she devoured the first whole, without peeling or dividing it, or having the vegetable so much as boiled.
Draco put the apple down.
Growing ill from the act, she took her time eating the second, carefully removing its skins and allowing it to roast. After this the queen did conceive, and did deliver two children as promised, but they were as different from eachother as night is from the day. She bore one lovely child, the youngest, a little boy sweet as anything, but an odd first-born as rough and divided in its layers of skin as the entire onion she partook of, he was a dragon child, scaled and horned. And so came to power the very first of this land's dragon monarchs, but the story of his life was stranger than the tale of his birth…
He looked back at the book he'd sat down next to him, and noticed that the pictures in the woodwork had started up a round of animation. He watched a moving image of the high and mighty queen hurling her non-human child from the windows of the tower down to earth, whilst still cradling the prettier child in her arms. The unwanted baby sprouted wings and flew away. He later glided down onto the grass, and hid himself in forrests, where the eyes of wild animals stared at him in the dark with murderous teeth and smiles.
He picked up the book to see better, but the pages began to turn to another part of the book, either by his loose grip, by the wind or of their own accord.
This section was headed in violet writing, the words were carved onto an amethyst plate which boarded the white paper: The Magic of the Dragon
A black hand began to write itself: To invoke the spirit you must first decide whom you wish to conjure;
The writing began to change color as it moved onto the next line, this time the writing appeared in bright blue ink: Every dragon will respond to a different offering and a different name.
There was a series of a green spirals and brocade forming an illuminated manuscript that depicted a dragon's pantheon.
The page suddenly changed its appearance, the paper much grew older, near deterioration, as if it were several thousand more years old. The foreword melted away to reveal a map of an ancient world animating itself. Tiny footprints without a body made their way across the map, as if belonging to ghosts of the book. The sound of screeches and pain began to clamor from the paper, and Draco quickly slunk deeper into the back of the library, into the shadowiest corner, rubbing the thick and fabulous cover, not wanting anyone else to become interested in his finding.
He looked over his shoulder and made sure that he was deep in the dark, and would not be seen by a living soul. He held the book to him then took out his wand and whispered lumos, and his hawthorn caught alight.
He touched the words with the lighted fire so that he could see his own hand in front of his face, then breathed the word evanesco. With this magic word the book slowly dipped itself into disappearing ink and could not be seen by anyone, only felt in his arms, and it felt heavier than ever it was, as though he was carrying a tombstone instead. For good measure he tucked the book into his school robes and made his way out the door. He could not help but feel that rows of faces were staring at him in the library and knew him for what he was, and that he might end up in an Azkaban prison cell, rather than expelled.
To be continued...