Happy New Year!

I would first like to apologize for the time it has taken for me to create this chapter. Apart from simply not having any inspiration when it comes to writing these last couple of months, I've also been busy with looking for jobs. Hopefully, I will be able to update more regularly this year.


By light, be purged!

Over the next couple of weeks, Halios, Seren, Neville and Hermione spent a lot of time at Hagrid's, helping him with the egg. It was two weeks later when the egg began to hatch.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, when the four friends were making their way down towards Hagrid's hut. He had not long ago sent a message to them, saying the egg was starting to hatch. Reaching the hut, they knocked on the door. Hagrid answered and ushered them inside, where the egg sat in the middle of the table, cracks spreading over its surface.

"Welcome, yer just in time. It shouldn't be long before he hatches, now." Hagrid said.

"Thank you, Hagrid", Halios answered. "We wouldn't want to miss this."

Stepping inside, they all gathered around the table, watching the egg. Slowly, the cracks grew, and they could see the dragon hatchling move inside. After about thirty minutes, a piece of the shell fell off, and the hatchling poked its head out, looking directly at Halios.

Not long after that, the hatchling had successfully crawled out of the egg, and was now sniffing the air inside the hut.

"Oh, ain't he a beauty" Hagrid gushed, reaching out to pet the dragon. The hatchling looked at Hagrid before burping out a burst of fire, setting Hagrids beard alight.

"Oh, feisty little bugger, eh?" Hagrid said with a smile, as he patted hid beard in order to put out the fire.

The rest of the group were all looking at the dragon hatchling, Neville with trepidation and Hermione and Seren with interest. But Halios had a strange look on her face when looking at the hatchling. Slowly, she reached out to touch the dragon. The hatchling noticed this, and were observing her movements in case she would try to hurt it. As Halios fingers touched the head of the dragon, a light formed around the hatchling. Quickly drawing her fingers back, Halios looked at the hatchling with a strange look on her face, while the light shone brighter for a few moments before going out.

Hermione was the first to speak. "What was that?"

"I... I don't know" Halios answered, a bit stunned. Meanwhile, the little dragon was acting a bit strange. It no-longer acted as an animal, but more like a very young person, which was noticed by those who were looking at it. Halios soon noticed it too, and after observing the hatchlings behaviour for a while, had an epiphany.

"I think I know what has happened," Halios began. "On Nirn, there are Dragons, not the kind you have here on Earth, but Dragons non-the-less. These Dragons are highly intelligent, having their own language, and also being able to speak the tongues of mortals. They are known as the Children of Akatosh, the Dragon God of Time, since it is said that the first dragon was born of Him. I think what happened here was magic giving similar intelligence to this hatchling, but that was all it did, since no matter how magical a dragon of earth is, it is still only an animal, not a divine being, unlike the Dragons of Nirn."

The rest listened to Halios explanation in fascination, even the young dragon were paying attention to her.

"So what does that mean?" Hermione asked.

"I believe it means this young one will be able to learn how to speak as a human, doesn't it?" Seren said, turning slightly towards Halios in the end.

Halios nodded at that. "Yes, that is most likely, IF I'm correct. Only time will tell."

Hagrid looked like Christmas had come early, and was beaming with joy. They spent another hour with Hagrid, before saying goodbye and returned to the castle.

Over the next week, they spent a lot of their free time at Hagrids hut, trying to teach the young dragon to speak. While they hadn't been able to make the hatchling speak, they could see that he (for apparently the young dragon was a male, at least they believed him to be since he had nodded when asked if he was a male) understood everything they were saying. All to soon, the day the dragon handlers would come arrived. Hagrid was of course sad, but he understood that the young dragon would like it better amongst its own kind. They had explained what would happen to the dragon (which had been named Norbert by Hagrid, for some reason), and about an hour before the dragon handlers planed arrival, they had fed the sleeping potion to Norbert, so that he would be asleep during the flight to Romania.

After saying goodbye to a sad Hagrid, they slowly made their way up to the top of the Astronomy Tower, where they would meet the handlers. Since it was close to curfew, they had to be careful as to not be detected. Reaching the top of the tower without any difficulties, they sat down and waited for the handlers to arrive. After about an hour, they could see some dark spots flying over the forest towards them. Soon, six persons stood with them on top of the tower. One of them stepped forward, and as he came closer, they could see his red hair.

"Hello, I'm Charlie Weasley. I take it you are the ones that had my brothers send me a message about a dragon?" he said.

Halios stepped forwards.

"Yes, that's us. I'm Halios Meridian Sheoth, and these are my friends," she said, introducing them as they stepped forward. "Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom and Seren Black-Weiss."

"Good to meet you all." Charlie said. "Now, I take it you have the dragon ready for transport?"

"Of course." said Seren, pointing towards a cage, in which Norbert slept soundly. "Though we must warn you. Halios magic had a strange reaction to him, and he is now much more intelligent than a normal dragon. We believe he even might be able to learn human speech, if given enough time."

This statement chocked the handlers, and they began talk quietly amongst themselves. Charlie looked a bit shell-chocked before looking over towards the dragon with a look of contemplation on his face.

After a few more minutes of talk, the group made sure the cage that held Norbert was safely placed between their brooms, before saying goodbye and taking off. Watching the group disappear over the Forbidden Forest, the four friends began making their way towards their respective common rooms. That was when things fell apart.

As they came down from the tower, they ran into the caretaker, Mr. Filch. Since they were out after curfew, he took them to Professor McGonagall, who was not amused. After giving them a 20 points reduction, each, she informed them that they would be serving detention with Hagrid the following night. Once she had finished her lecture, she escorted them to their dorms. Once inside they quickly went to bed.

The next day after dinner, Mr. Filch led them down to Hagrids hut, going on and on about how the detentions were better in the past, giving anecdotes about how he used to string bad students up in the dungeons and whip them. He then went on about what kinds of creatures lived in the forest, and how they would love to devour any student who entered after dark.

It wasn't until they reached Hagrids hut, and Hagrid told him off, that he shut up. After sending Filch away, Hagrid turned to the four students.

"Right. As yer hav' been told, ye all will be helping me tonight. Something in the forest has been killin' Unicorns, so we're going to go in there and see if we can find any trace of what did it. We'll be splittin' into two groups, one with me, the other will be taking Fang. Now, who goes where?"

Halios and Seren looked at each other, before turning to Hagrid. "We'll take Fang" Seren said. Nodding, Hagrid gives her the leash, before picking up a crossbow. Turning to Hermione and Neville, he tells them to follow him. Seeing Hagrid, Hermione and Neville walk into the forest towards the lake, Halios and Seren takes Fang and moves in the opposite direction.

Slowly, they move deeper into the forest, keeping their eyes open and senses sharp, in order to spot anything out of place. After about thirty minutes of walk, they noticed some strange silvery substance on the ground. Following the trail of silver deeper into the woods, they came upon a clearing, where-in a Unicorn lay. It wasn't until they saw the silvery substance pool beneath the Unicorn that they realized, it was its blood. Something had been harming the Unicorn. Most likely the thing Hagrid had told them to find some trace of.

It was then Halios saw something moving towards the Unicorn from the trees on the other side of the clearing. Whatever it was, was crawling close to the ground, covered in what seemed like a large, black cloth. Slowly, it reached the Unicorn, before leaning over its side and pressing its face into the Unicorns wound.

At this point, Seren took an involuntary step backwards, and ended up stepping on a fallen branch that broke with a loud snap. The sound caused the creature to raise its head from the Unicorn, and look in their direction. Most of its face was covered by a hood, but they could see its mouth, with silvery blood dripping from its corner.

Slowly, the creature began moving towards them, and it was then Halios could feel the darkness and evil the creature possessed. Quickly, she began to pray.

"Oh Meridia, Lady of Light and Infinite Energies, hear thy child's prayer. Send thy Light down on the creature before me, so that it may cleanse it of all evil."

From the skies above, a powerful ray of light came down on the creature, trapping it. It let out a high-pitched scream, before a shadow left it, shooting away into the distance. Once the shadow had disappeared, the creature slowly turned to dust. Once nothing remained of the creature, the light slowly went away, and with a thanks to Meridia, Halios slowly moved towards the Unicorn.

"Halios, what are you doing?" Seren asked.

"I'm going to try to heal the Unicorn."

"You can do that?" Seren blinked.

"Perhaps, if its wounds aren't to severe."

Reaching the Unicorn, Halios looked at the wounds. They were large, but they didn't seem to have hit any major arteries. That meant that she could heal them, but she didn't know if the Unicorn would survive the blood-loss. But, a small chance was better than no chance, so Halios began healing the wounds.

While she was healing the Unicorn, Hagrid – having seen the light – came to the clearing, followed by Neville and Hermione. Once he saw the Unicorn, he asked Seren what had happened. She explained that they had found the injured Unicorn in the clearing, and had observed as some strange creature had entered the clearing in order to feed of the Unicorns blood. Shocked by that, she had accidentally stepped on a branch, which had attracted the attention of the creature. As it had made its way towards them, Halios had prayed to her Mother, which led to the light cleansing the creature, which had turned to dust. Halios was now healing the Unicorn, and that was when they had reached them.

Thanking Seren for the explanation, Hagrid moved towards Halios and the unicorn.

"Will he live?"

"Perhaps," Halios answered. "While I can heal the wounds, I can't do much about the blood-loss, so it's up to chance if he will have enough strength to live once I'm done."

A few minutes later, the wounds were healed, and they stepped back to give the Unicorn more room.

Slowly, on shaky legs he stood, before nudging Halios with his head and then move slowly into the woods.

"Well, that's all we can do, now." Hagrid said, before turning around. "Come, it's time to head back to Hogwarts."

Slowly, they made their way back to Hogwarts, and after saying goodnight to Hagrid, they all went back to their dorms to sleep. They had no idea what news awaited them the next morning.


And there you have it. Now, I'll be finishing the next chapter in my story 'Hollow Magic', and then I'll begin the next chapter here. Hopefully, it won't take too long. Until next time.

- Baleygr