A/N. Hello all. Sorry for the delay in updating. There was a big plot hole (which actually started in the last chapter) and I had to do mass editing of it and this one (and the next one...) to fix. But here is an update finally. Thanks to everyone who posted reviews! Those always make me happy :-D A gold star to anyone who knows where I got the title of this chapter, heheh.

Chapter 8
Big Dolphin Brain

While everyone sat in stunned silence, Harry and Ron bolted down the steps to the hatching ground. Both boys disregarded and jumped the low wall separating them from Hermione, and ignored the shouts of people telling them to stop.

"Hermione!" Ron and Harry said together as they half ran, half slid, through the sand to her side.

The baby queen turn to them and barred her teeth was a low growl.

"Sod off!" Ron snapped at the creature. Evidently it understood because it jerked its head back in surprise and then haughtily jerked its head around as if to snub Ron.

"She's still alive," Harry said as he watched her chest gently rise and fall with each shaky but regular breath. "She's lost a lot of blood," he gently pressed the sleeve of his tunic against the side of her face where a particularly deep slash had narrowly missed her eye. "She's ice cold… Ron we've got to get her out of here somehow."

Ron nodded and started reaching for his wand, but before he could draw it F'lar's commanding voice filled the arena.

"I hope everyone will enjoy the feast that has been prepared. I think you all know where to find it." F'lar said. His statement bluntly told everyone to get out. (The rest of the dragons had finished hatching shortly after the queen, so technically the hatching was over anyway).

The Weyrleader quickly strode over to them. He was promptly followed by Lessa and a woman Harry hadn't seen before.

Lessa barely glanced at Hermione before kneeling beside the other unconscious girl.

Harry found himself being gently pushed out of the way by the woman he didn't recognize. She tut-ed softly as she started assessing the damage while carefully pressing a clean cloth to some of the gashes.

Harry and Ron both bit their lips, resisting the desire to use some simple healing charms on Hermione (after she had passed out the week before, she had made sure to teach Harry and Ron at least the basics).

F'lar seemed to suspect what Ron and Harry were thinking, (the fact that Ron had been slowly reach towards his wand also might have tipped him off).

"Don't even think about it," he hissed as he shot his hand out, firmly wrapping his fingers around Ron's upper arm.

"I think she passed out from the shock of being struck by her own dragon," Lessa said, interrupting the exchange of glares between Ron and F'lar. Then, without another word she grabbed both the girl's shoulders and gave her a hard shake.

The girl gasped as her eyes snapped open and she sat up sharply, narrowly avoiding head butting Lessa.

"What happened?" She blurted, looking around frantically.

"You should be more concerned about the welfare of your hatchling," Lessa told her sternly.

The girl turned bright red at the reprimand from the Weyrleader and quickly collected her dragon and left the hatching ground.

"That should be enough to move her," the woman tending to Hermione said, shifting uncomfortably in the hot sand. Harry suddenly became aware of the slight burning feeling in his feet.

"F'lar, would you mind? Try to hold the cloth against her neck. Not to hard, but firm enough."

The Weyrleader's facial expression stated quite clearly that he did mind, nevertheless he bent down and easily picked up Hermione.

Harry felt his stomach turn as Hermione's head limply rolled onto F'lar's shoulder; F'lar carefully held the already blood soaked cloth in place.

F'lar began leading the way out of the hatching ground. Lessa and the other woman quickly joined his side; neither of them seemed to acknowledge Harry or Ron's presence.

"We've got to get out here before something else happens," Ron growled, more to himself than Harry.

Harry and Ron both started heading towards the entrance to the hatching ground.

"Lord Jaxom!" called a voice.

Harry and Ron both turned around and saw that two people still remained in the seats around the hatching ground. There was a younger boy standing by the same wall that Harry and Ron had disregarded earlier, and an older man who was still in his seat.

"Sir?" the younger boy called back.

"Come along now," the old man instructed.

The boy hesitated, and then suddenly jumped the wall and started running across the sands.

"What the bloody…." Ron started.

"He's going for that egg!" Harry said. He suddenly remembered the smaller egg he'd spotted at the beginning of the hatching. "It's shaking, why didn't it open like the others?"

Ron shrugged. "We have chickens back home; occasionally you find an egg that won't hatch."

At that moment the boy reached the egg and with a quick movement he kicked the little egg.

"What the hell is he doing!" Harry gasped.

Ron stared. "Good question," he instinctively put his hand on his wand.

The boy ran over to where the egg had landed and succeeded in ripping a section of shell off revealing the membrane.

"Jaxom! What are you doing!" Lessa had come looking for Harry and Ron, but she arrived just in time to see the boy pull out his knife and slice the membrane.

A little white head popped out and looked directly into Jaxom's eyes.

"He says his name is Ruth!" Jaxom shouted.

There was an audible groan from the elderly man in the stands, as Lessa, who had started running towards Jaxom, skidded to a halt.

-----

Lessa had promptly shooed Harry and Ron from the hatching ground, and the two of them returned to their room. There they were finally introduced to the woman, Manora, who had been properly bandaging Hermione. At first they were tempted to kick the woman out and heal Hermione themselves, but, under her care Hermione's breathing had stabilized and she seemed no worse the wear. They concluded it'd be best not to raise unnecessary questions.

Manora was a very chatty person and immediately started talking on about things going on in the Weyr. Somehow she already knew about the young Lord Jaxom and the white dragon, and she immediately began rambling about that.

"I don't know what Lord Jaxom is going to do with that creature. He can't very well keep it. He's a Lord! Not a Dragonrider! I understand it's barely bigger than a firelizard, but still! Dragons belong in a Weyr!"

Manora paused long enough for Harry to be able to quickly jump in with a question.

"Was that a firelizard that attacked the queen at the beginning of the hatching?"

"Oh I'm sure he was just trying to protect Brekke." Manora said with a sigh. "Brekke lost her queen in that horrible mating flight ten days ago. Where Lessa and F'lar got the idea of re-impression I'll never know."

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance.

"Firelizards are funny little creature, real dragons in the miniature as they say, legend says the great dragons now were breed from them." Manora smiled. "You should see Menolly's she can get her's to sing."

"Menolly?" Ron jumped in quickly.

"Oh yes, she has nine of them." Manora had replied.

Before Ron could ask more about Menolly, Manora announced she was finished with Hermione.

"The best thing for her right now is rest."

Harry and Ron nodded pretending to agree.

The door had barely closed before Harry and Ron had their wands out. Very carefully the two began casting healing charms. There wasn't going to be a Madam Pomfrey around to fix any mistakes they made.

After about fifteen minutes of charms, Hermione woke with start. She gasped in fear at an invisible enemy and protectively covered her face with her arms.

"Hermione it's okay!" Harry said quickly.

"It's over! We're here, it's alright," Ron added.

Hermione slowly lowered her guard and cast frantic looks at Harry and Ron. She was pale, hyperventilating, and still covered in bloody bandages (Harry and Ron hadn't removed them yet just in case they hadn't performed a charm properly).

"It's over?" She whispered her voice cracking as she spoke.

"It's over," Ron repeated calmly.

Hermione sat up (neither Harry nor Ron saw the point of trying to make her lay down). She was still glancing around frantically as if worried that a dragon was going to pop out of nowhere (or perhaps between?) and attack her.

"The little queen spoke to me, in my head," she started. "She must have been speaking to

Talina too, I'm not sure though."

Harry assumed Talina was the girl who had impressed the dragon.

Hermione curled up slightly and hugged her knees. "She said something was wrong," Hermione started visibly shaking, "and that one of us shouldn't have been there at all." Hermione was trembling so bad that Harry wanted to stop her from continuing, but like with Voldemort's rise for him, it was probably better for her to get it all out.

"Then she got angry. She said we were trying to confuse her, and that none of this was right." Hermione said now with tears running down her checks. "Then she attacked," her voice was barely above a whisper. "I shouldn't have been down there… I shouldn't have been down there… I shouldn't have been -"

"Hermione, it's not your fault," Ron interrupted her.

"Don't you see Ron?" Hermione practically shrieked at him. "The dragon was right! We shouldn't be here! This is all wrong! Talina should have Impressed the dragon, I shouldn't have even been there! I don't know how we got to this upside down planet, or how we are going to get back home, but what I know for certain is we shouldn't be here!"

"Hermione!" Ron grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Even if we shouldn't be here it's not your fault that you were down there!" He shouted in her face. "Do you understand me? It is not your fault!"

Hermione nodded in agreement, and Ron let go of her shoulders. She curled up a bit more and hugged her knees tighter to her chest.

"We all know we shouldn't be here," Harry said slowly, "the question is how do we get home?"

"I don't know," Hermione said quietly shaking her head. "I don't know," she kept quietly repeating over and over "I don't know… I don't know… I don't know…"

Ron grabbed her shoulders again. "Hermione stop it! No one knows, but we have to figure it out! There is a good reason you've been at the top of your classes four years running at Hogwarts! So just calm down and use that big dolphin brain of yours!"

Harry and Hermione stared at Ron. Then Hermione burst out laughing. "'Big dolphin brain?'" she asked, choking back more laughter.

Ron's ears turned pink. "It's something mum says when we're acting stupid…"

Even if it was strange, Ron's dolphin comment seemed to be what Hermione needed to snap out of it.

After helping Hermione remove the bandages, the three sat down and started trying to work out what was going on, and how they were going to fix it.