Disclaimer:
I do not pretend to own the Harry Potter world or any character within it: that right belongs to the eminent J. K. Rowling, to whom I most respectfully yield.
Neither do I pretend to be an expert on the early legends of King Arthur and the fabled Isle of Avalon. They belong to posterity and my imagination.
If, in writing, I offend someone, I apologize, but stand by my opinions.
I write this solely for my own amusement and for the appreciation of my audience. NO monetary gain whatsoever is intended.
I have no money, don't sue me, I'm not worth it, and there are bigger fish to fry.
Chapter Nine
"Hagrid, what's that?" Hermione pointed to a long, mucus-y trail of slime that led from the paddock that served as their classroom to Hagrid's wooden hut.
"Oh, that?" Hagrid said in a tone that didn't fool Harry in the slightest, "That's nothing, nothing at all, lemme jus' clean it up then an' we'll not see it again."
"Why don't I give you a hand with that?" Anna, shed of her trailing robe to protect the pristine white from the Care of Magical Creatures class, grabbed a mop and headed for his hut. "After all, you do have a class to teach."
"No, no thas' all right," Hagrid protested, but to no avail. For all his bulk, he couldn't move quite as quickly as the fleet young woman, and she had the cabin doors open, mop in hand, before he could stop her. In a large cauldron, on the fireplace, was a pot full of slimy, headless, tail-like, creatures which squirmed in a great bunch.
"Well, well" Anna said, amused, "If it isn't Manticore spawn. Hagrid, honestly, where so you get these things? As far as I know Manticore spawn are a class A Non-Tradable substance, and for good reason, there's no way to control them once they pupate. You ought to know that."
"Well, now," Hagrid blustered, "They're not all that bad"
"Don't tell me you have one that's already pupated!" Harry exclaimed, not quite believing his own voice, "Hagrid, they're impossible."
"Nonsense," Hagrid said briskly, "The trick with any beast is to figure out what calms them, all you've got to do is feed 'em some chicken livers mixed wit' a good shot of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey an' they settle right down."
"You do have one that's pupated," Ron exclaimed, wide eyed and astonished, "Hagrid, where is it?"
"I don' know what you're talking about," Hagrid said loudly, "C'mon. Back to class now, all of you." Hagrid used one powerful arm to propel the four of them out of his hut and back to class, where they were supposed to be observing the antics of a set of Imps and Pixies.
"He does have one," Harry whispered, "I know it!"
"Where can you keep a Manticore?" Anna whispered back, "They're huge, not to mention they stink and are impossible to control. One won't fit in the castle."
"Yeah, right" scoffed Ron, "That's what we thought before we met Fluffy. That thing fit in the castle just fine."
"Fluffy?" asked Anna.
"A three headed dog Hagrid bought to guard the Sorcerer's Stone in our first year, real nasty creature. Hagrid kept him on the third floor corridor, on the right hand side. He stood over a trapdoor that led to the chamber." Harry clarified.
"On the third floor corridor, the right hand side, and a trapdoor?" Anna repeated, as if remembering something.
"Yes," Hermione, "We ended up there by mistake once, running away from Filch. It was kind of deserted, no classrooms or anything. Still is, as far as I know. No one really goes there."
"I should imagine not," Anna murmured, then shook her head and grinned. "Maybe we should send Malfoy in, give him another set of lumps to go with the first."
"Why don't we," muttered Ron, "He's being such a pain in the …"
"Ron" Hermione warned.
"…rear," Ron said defiantly, glaring at Hermione "Harry, you should have seen to it that he had to leave school permanently and not just for a week."
"Well it was a long and interesting week though, wasn't it?" Anna said smugly, while Ron and Hermione blushed.
The week after the Slytherin vs. Griffindor match Ron and Hermione spent furiously not speaking to each other, as they dealt with the inevitable consequences of having shared their first kiss in such a public fashion.
Eventually, with the return of a severely un-amused and very vengeful Draco Malfoy from the Hospital Wing, they finally faced up to the fact that they would have never done anything quite so publicly unless they really did have something going on between them.
It was still a touchy subject, and mentioning the incipient relationship was enough to send them both into paroxysms of endless blushing and blustering, to no end of amusement from the assembled Griffindors, who'd watched them fight like an old married couple for years, and, most of all, from the other Weasleys', Ginny and the twins, who teased them to no end.
"Whoa there!" everyone heard Hagrid exclaim, "Will ya' look a' that!"
From the treetops drifted down, almost lazily, an extremely small and very blue dragon. She was no bigger than Harry's Hedwig, and indeed resembled more of a brightly winged lizard than any dragon Harry had ever met.
"Wicked," Ron breathed, "I never seen one like that!" Ron's brother, Charlie, was a Dragon Keeper in Romania. If there was any kind of weird dragon, Ron'd know about it from Charlie.
"That's because they're not supposed to leave Avalon," Anna sounded annoyed, "Gwendolyn, what are you doing here? And quit that, you're as vain as Rosebriar."
The electric blue dragon steeped its lazy descent and folded up its wings, quite politely, on Anna's shoulder. It hid behind her head, sneaking into her hair. If it had cheeks, Harry would have thought it'd be blushing.
The miniature dragon was truly magnificent; the tiny scales were cleverly joined, and darker on the back then the belly, which was as sky blue as Anna's eyes. The tail was as thorny as any Norwegian Ridgeback, but small, and a thin plume of smoke ascended from somewhere under Anna's tunic, which it was attempting to climb under.
"Ouch! Gwendolyn, stop it!" Anna squirmed, "Get out! Hagrid, help me here!"
"Oh aren't you the cutest thing," Hagrid's voice was as sickeningly sweet for this dragon as he'd been for his 'baby Norbert' "C'mere, c'mon now, Daddy Hagrid wont' hurt ye, come now"
The dragon obediently perched in Hagrid's enormous sheltering hands, wings slicked down, and head bobbing shyly. With the smoke stopped billowing, Harry could see that the little dragon was seated as neatly as any housecat, and holding one slightly singed bit of parchment.
"Gwendolyn you better damn well have a good reason for being here. Blessed be! You're not supposed to have left Avalon!"
Anna lectured the dragon as though it could readily understand, hands on her hips and shaking a finger at the beast sitting in, and scorching, Hagrid's hands. It hung it head, tucked it between its forelegs, and made a little whimpering, squeaky sound.
"I know," she said sympathetically, stroking the dragon's neck, "I missed you too, but that doesn't give you permission to just waltz about Britain in search of me"
The dragon, Gwendolyn, gave an indignant chirrup and pulled the bit of parchment out in its mouth and stretched out its abnormally long neck. It handed the piece of parchment to Anna, before retreating back to the cover of Hagrid's hands.
"Oh Goddess," Anna took the bit of parchment and read it slowly, "I take that back, lovey, you are supposed to be here. Are you sure this is accurate?"
Gwendolyn said nothing, but arched her neck over Hagrid's hands with an expression that said very clearly, 'would I be here if it wasn't?' Anna sighed and tossed the letter into the sir, Gwendolyn letting out a plume of vivid blue flame, crisping the letter mid-flight.
"C'mon then," Anna held out her arm for Gwendolyn to perch on, "Let me take you back up to the tower and tell the house elves what they're going to have to deal with." Gwen did nothing more than squeak and cower down further into Hagrid's hands.
Anna sighed, letting her arm drop, "Just peachy," she muttered, "Of all the messenger dragons in the entire bloody world, I got to keep the bashful one." She grabbed her robe and slid it back on, adjusting the hood carefully, "Gwendolyn, come!"
The tiny dragon squeaked shakily, and then shot from Hagrid's hands to Anna's hood in a sudden flurry of blue. She chirped excitedly, hiding behind the waterfall of Anna's curls and inside the generous fabric of her hood.
Unless you knew that a dragon was hiding there, the only indication of the animal was the occasional squirm and squeak from the lump in her robe. Ron walked behind Anna all the way back to the castle, staring intently at her back, as was most of the entire class. Malfoy was whispering excitedly to Goyle and Crabbe, no secret what he was scheming about.
"Whoa, I never knew that there were such things as messenger dragons" Ron exclaimed for the tenth time, poking the lump and watching it squeak and roll away, "Where do you get them?"
"They are bred exclusively on Avalon," Anna explained, "And only leave rarely; we use them more for the hide, blood, and hearts, instead of buying the bigger varieties from the mainland. It's taken centuries of breeding to get them down to a useful size, but we've managed."
"Wicked" Ron exclaimed, "And her name's Gwendolyn?"
"Aye," Anna agreed with a grin, "and she terribly bashful. Got a scare once when a message she was delivering was sent across a real dragon's territory. It jolted her out of a year's growth and she's never quite got her nerve back."
Within an hour the entire school knew that Anna had a blue dragon that lived in the hood of her robe and there was a crowd a corridor wide that followed both of them from class to class. Gwendolyn never poked her head out of the hood, just squirming and carping occasionally.
Crookshanks thought that this new creature was a marvellous treat and followed Anna around the Griffindor common room quite intently. The only way she could persuade Gwendolyn to get out of the hood was to have Hermione settle Crookshanks in the dormitory and then spread out her robe on her lap in a kind of nest.
The little dragon curled up like a cat and napped, letting little plumes of smoke out of her nostrils as she breathed. As soon as she calmed down a little, she could be persuaded to allow petting, although when Ginny touched her, she got burnt by the heat. Anna, with her body and clothing warded against flame, hadn't even noticed that her pet was toasty enough to give a decent burn.
Gwendolyn slept at night, hanging upside down like a bat from the rafters, and for the remainder of the term spent her days in Anna's hood. She did come out once, during potions, when the silence had convinced her that no one else was there.
Snape, who had been watching carefully for an opportunity to take off points, roared, "Ten points from Griffindor and if I see that dragon again in my class it will be potions fodder!"
Gwendolyn leapt out of the hood, quite terrified of Snape's voice, and pelted a blue fireball at the potions teacher. His greasy hair went up like tinder and still hasn't grown all back, but his protestations to have Gwendolyn as 'potions fodder' went unheeded because he'd been the one to scare her in the first place.
As Christmas approached, the heat from Gwendolyn's body made the air steam a little around the hood, causing it to appear as though Anna was constantly aflame. No one complained about it, for they found out that standing next to Anna was a quick way to warm up after a long bout of snowball throwing