Chapter seven

The Man-Mountain

After regurgitating all the food he had recently eaten, Spyro staggered back over to Dumbledore, who seemed to not be fazed at all by the journey. He saw Cynder stirring, before she realised what happened and vomited a good deal of food waste and poison onto the ground, almost splattering Dumbledore's robe as she did,

"W-What was t-that?" Spyro asked whilst trying to stay steady,

"Apparition," The man explained, before adding "it is a form of teleportation, the travel-sickness feeling will pass over time." He then walked over to a wooden hut that was on the edge of a dark forest, and knocked three times on its rather large wooden door.

"If I have to choose between almost certain death or escape by that method…" Cynder whispered to Spyro, "I would rather take my chances with almost certain death!" Before Spyro could agree, the hut's door flew open, to reveal a man that seemed larger than any humans the two dragons had seen before! He looked like he was the size of an Ogre! He had a bushy black beard and long black hair, he was wearing a brown overcoat with a light grey cardigan underneath, he was also wearing dark brown trousers with a large leather belt.

"Professor Dumbledore, sir, why have you come over here?" The man-mountain asked, clearly confused until he noticed the two dragons behind Dumbledore, causing his jaw to drop. On seeing this, Dumbledore nodded before asking,

"May we come in?", the man nodded and stepped aside, allowing both dragons and wizard to enter the hut. As Spyro looked around, he noted that it seemed comfy; it had a fireplace, a large table, a few large chairs, a large dog bed in the corner, and a huge dog in said dog bed. The dog walked over to the two dragons, sniffed them slightly, before trotting over to the man-mountain and resting at his feet. Dumbledore has sat down on one of the chairs and started explaining what was going on, "now, Hagrid, I know you have a love of dragons and understand them slightly better than any other staff member," on this the man-mountain nodded,

"That is true professor Dumbledore, but after Norbert…" Dumbledore cut him off with a wave of his hand,

"Yes, why should I bring two dragons with me when you struggled with one? Well, may I introduce Spyro and Cynder," he gestured to the two dragons at this, before continuing, "and they are basically more human in the mind department than any other magical creatures, and as they will be staying at Hogwarts for a while, they will need a place to stay without being found by other students, and as you understand dragons as you do, I believe that they would be safe here."

"Yeah," Cynder pointed out, "but I would like to mention that we are technically about 17 years old, so we are legally adults in your world," and as per usual with normal humans, the man-mountain was gobsmacked on hearing her talk, "and yes, we can talk" she added, before adding a little bow, "Cynder, pleased to meet you mr…"

"Uuumm… o-oh Rubeus Hagrid, but everyone just calls me Hagrid" The man-mountain introduced himself, still sounding slightly shaken about the dragon's being able to talk. Spyro then stepped forward, bowed respectfully, and said,

"Spyro, it is nice to meet you Hagrid,"

"Um, it's nice to meet you both too, but how are you both able to talk?" Cynder rolled her eyes at this, she could bet anything that she would end up having to explain this a lot.

"We were hatched like that, and we aren't even staying here! Are we Spyro?" She then looked over to Spyro to see him looking sheepish,

"Yes, about that Cynder, Hogwarts is the only place we can get the stuff you need if someone tries to invade your mind again," and he could tell that she wasn't happy about that due to the death glare she sent him. "Sorry…" she decided to let him get away with this, and she secretly agreed that she would quite possibly die from the pain she had felt earlier if it wasn't for, whatever had happened.

"Fine, then I guess this would be an okay place to stay," she gave in, but she wouldn't be so open to anything else, she would make sure of that.

"So, Hagrid," Dumbledore spoke up after the dragons had decided to stay, "just be sure to not let any students notice them during their stay. I am sure they can entertain themselves during the day," the dragons nodded at this, "so, I will leave you to it, and Spyro, Cynder, if you need to see me for any urgent reason that means that you will be willing to show yourselves to the students, then my favourite sweets are Liquorice-Wands," and before the duo could ask what he meant by that, he spun on the spot and disappeared in a small flash of light, leaving the two dragons alone with Hagrid, who was clearly excited at having dragons for company.

"So, you two are the Avalarian Ignitus' from the challenge earlier," he checked, "If you are so nice, why did you attack Harry and not just let him get the egg?"

"Because we needed time for the chains to break for us to escape," Spyro explained, Cynder nodded,

"And we didn't want to give the boy an easy ticket, the other dragons put up a good fight during their time in the ring, so we definitely deserved a bit of fun," she chuckled as the look on the "chosen one's" face when he got hit by her Fear came to mind.

The rest of the day was spent answering Hagrid's many questions about them, and Cynder couldn't help but feel that she was getting a sense of déjà vu, the man was that similar to Charlie. It was only when night fell when Spyro and Cynder decided to explore their surroundings, so they jumped out of the window, and flew around the castle in the cover of clouds and darkness. It was a majestic sight, and they took at least half an hour to actually fly around the whole place! It was that huge! They then landed on the roof of the tallest tower to talk in private,

"I can't believe that Ignitus is alive!" Spyro exclaimed in joy, and Cynder couldn't blame him, the dragon had been like a father figure to Spyro after he had left his dragonfly family behind.

"I know, and The New Chronicler too!" Cynder pointed out, "maybe we will run into him again one day."

"Maybe…" Spyro drifted off as a feint memory came back to him, a memory from when he was about to repair the world, "Cynder, when we were about to die, did you say something to me?" Cynder recoiled in shock as the same memory flew back to her! She did remember what she had said! She couldn't help it at the time, as they were supposed to die there, but she knew the cat was out of the bag now,

"Yes…" she confessed,

"Did you mean it?" Spyro asked her, and as he looked at her in the moonlight, her beauty leaped out more than usual to him, she smiled nervously and nodded,

"Do you feel the same?" She asked him, seeming extremely anxious now,

"Of course Cynder," He then said four words that broke though Cynder's tough exterior and made her feel like a free dragon more than ever, "I love you too", and out of nowhere, Spyro kissed her! Neither of them knew how long they stayed there, was it a few minutes or hours, but it didn't matter, all that mattered to one was the other, and they both knew that no matter where they ended up, they would at least be together.