"Another one?" Harry asked reluctantly, watching the title flicker out before the rising glow of the sun, high above the atypical Scottish village.

Ron groaned. "Harry, can't you just be satisfied and enjoy the film?" He asked in return.

Not in particularly, no, Harry thought, given we've seen just about every sword and sorcery muggle fantasy film since they first developed the art a century ago.

Aloud, he said, "How about something different next time? Something without a lumbering, flame-breathing beast?"

Neville spoke up before Ron could. "Does Godzilla count? I thought you didn't have anything against him, though..."

Harry brought up his bottle of butterbeer and chugged it down as he thought. Good on you, Neville, prodding a hole in my argument.

He was silent long enough for the other two men, one his fellow Auror, and the other a Professor at the school, to turn up the volume and begin playing the film again.

"Actually, Godzilla was more of an atomic-energy kind of monster. Nice try, but I'm not nursing a bottle of fire whiskey this time, guys." He interrupted with a soft smirk curving up the edges of his lips.

"Dammit, Harry!" Ron bellowed in frustration. "Fine! You pick out the film next time, you bloody arse!"

Harry leaned over and flicked his empty bottle into the bin next to the telly. "Agreed. Reign of Fire." He stated almost as soon as his best mate finished.

Both of the other men frowned at him, and Neville actually lit his wand with a quiet "Lumos," before asking, "Isn't that another film you despise?"

"No. At least they got the details right that time, I could almost swear they had a muggleborn from the Tournament on as graphic artist." He answered.

"Oi! Will you just conjure the fire whiskey and let us get on with this?" Ron interjected before the conversation could derail any further.

"Right-o, ol' chap." Harry mock-responded, already holding a pre-transfigured and shrunken bottle in one hand as he poured into a shot-glass held in the other.

With a grimace Ron pressed down on the play button and resignedly sank back into the couch.


Screams rent the air as fire and flame spread in thick, billowing streams across the low level hovels and otherwise pitiful looking shacks.

Dissolute squalor encompassed the low lying village in all its burning glory, and men, women, and children were snapped up into the surging rush of it all indiscriminately.

"Pass the bottle back, Neville," a quiet voice intoned at the same point as a great, red leather-winged beast descended from on high and spewed another torrent from its jowls.

"Ssh!" Another voice complained as the dying screams suddenly grew louder.

Almost unheard came the clink of glass brushing against alike before a bottle passed in front of the beasts nose.

"Harry!" The same voice as before bitched as the action before them suddenly and violently halted, then seemed to flow in reverse for several lengthy seconds until the obstruction was out of sight.

The initial speaker shrugged as he leaned forward and downed the remainder in one slow, loud gulp, straight from the neck.

An exasperated sigh rang out before the action halted once again.

"Look, Harry, if you want to get drunk off your arse, by all means. That's what these nights off are for. But at least cast a silencing charm on yourself so the rest of us can watch the movie in peace!" Neville, ever the mediator in these things, piped up for the umpteenth time that night.

Harry shrugged noncommittally, then brought up his old and worn holly wand, and a moment and two swishes later he mouthed something noiselessly at the other two on the blue couch.

Neville smiled wearily, then turned back to the third member of their troop and waited.

The large red lizard leaned down and snapped up a hastily crawling child between its ivory fangs, swallowing in two efficient crunches and a gush of blood spilling over the rugged lips.


Half an hour later and the second conjured bottle had finally penetrated his occlumency shields.

He watched as the lone survivor of the doomed village dove from the overhanging ledge of the cave and onto the back of the red scaled dragon's upper back, then as he grappled with a set of spines emerging from the sides of its neck for support, all the while struggling not to be spun off into what would surely be a fatal landing.

The action was sufficient for a muggle-made film, but compared to the real-life equivalents available throughout the world, it was a poor substitute.

And he would know, having done it before his eighteenth birthday in the middle of a large scale spell-assault inside of an underground cavern.

Compared to that, what the would-be-hero had just done was about the same as wrangling up an irritated Hippogriff; dangerous if you were lazy, but not of the same magnitude.

As the furious struggle continued on screen, his mind and the fierce ale lead him toward other thoughts regarding dragons, and in particular back to the time of his fourth year at Hogwarts.

A rough smile graced his lips as he remembered, briefly closing his eyes as the details came to mind a little hazily.

The sheer terror invoked at the Horntail's presence, bearing down menacingly over her nest of eggs and breathing out threads of sharp gray smoke; her yellowed eyes, narrow and fierce above the long maw, and the way they tracked his movements.

The exhilaration of racing among her spouts of brilliant, orange and yellow flame, and feeling the rush of scorched air press against his arms and face, weaving a deadly display of close calls and near misses.

And, of course, snatching the golden victory-egg from the heart of her nest and slipping past the whistle of talons, as long as his forearm, as they sank toward his unguarded backside.

Good times,he thought, as his eyes flickered back open, and he felt a disappointment ring in his heart as the dragon on the telly thrashed and spun the poor sap off, only to see the man dashed against the rocks below.

Something within him changed at the sight of it, kindling a desire to relive the sensation, to succeed where the character before him had just failed.

One too many muggle fantasy films had finally done the inevitable to his sense of reasoning, Harry thought through the light buzz of fire whiskey- he was going to saddle and ride that bloody Horntail, even if it killed him.

And he knew just the man to contact to set the situation up.


"How in the hell did you convince me to go along with this, again?" Charlie Weasley asked quietly, well aware of the slumbering dragon a couple of hundred feet ahead of them and her abundantly sensitive hearing.

Harry shrugged. "Two failed Killing Curses, mate? Five encounters with Voldemort? Ten more years of hard Auror trials besides?" He answered.

Charlie grimaced. "You weren't drunk during any of those events, now were you?" He asked heavily.

"I'm a mean drunk, Charles. I'll firewhip her ass if she gets antsy, or Imperius. Don't look at me like that- I've contested Voldemort's mind enough times, I think I can handle whatever she has inside of that thick skull." Harry shot back, already leaving a low red trail in the dirt in preparation.

Charlie paused him with a hand on the left shoulder. "Harry, whatever this is, you shouldn't let it push you into going forward. You're too young for a mid-life crisis, but I can't honestly label it anything else."

Harry shrugged loose. "I've already been killed before, you know. The second time the curse hit me, in the forest. I'm not afraid of facing down the old man a third time."

Silence hung in the air between them at that for a long few seconds, before the other man sighed and hefted the leather harness in his other hand over one shoulder.

"She won't stay down for more than a few seconds once this touches her back, and I can guarantee you fire and claws are going to come the instant the straps reach her belly," he said. "You need to be up and running before that moment."

Harry grinned. "That the way to do it. Your count." He said.

"Don't make me have to write mum with your demise, Potter," Charlie ordered with a grimace, and at the fierce look he received, brought the saddle into the air with his wand and began to levitate it slowly forward.

"Three... two... one..."

Ten seconds later, the roar echoed off of the cavern walls and down among the hills for a half a mile around.

Atop it, the exhilarated screams of a young adult wizard, spanning much, much farther in the minutes ahead.


Another challenge response from DLP, my own to be honest. I went over the initial word-count by about four hundred or so words.

Line: One too many muggle fantasy films had finally done the inevitable to his sense of reasoning, Harry thought through the light buzz of fire whiskey- he was going to saddle and ride that bloody Horntail even if it killed him