Apart from the hiccup with Croaker, the school sailed through the week without issue until Thursday. Thursday was when Xangwei approached Hermione after lunch, during their free period.
"Mistress, I am unsure how to respond to this note." Xingwei hands over a note
Hermione reads the note, "Well, it seems fairly simple, he wants your advice on something in his hut. We can go as a group if you'd prefer?"
"If it pleases you, I would appreciate that Mistress."
The first year Hufflepuffs all decamped from the common room and made their way to Hagrids hut, along with their familiars. Xingwei tentatively knocks on the door to the hut, which has all the windows closed and smoke coming from the chimney. Given that there's still the dregs of snow on the ground in shaded areas, none of the children see anything wrong with this.
It took a while, but eventually Hagrid answered the door, looked out at the crowd of children then stepped out carefully and sighed while sagging against the door frame.
"Ah shoulda guessed you'd bring ya friends. Look, I ain't got room in me hut for all of you's so I can let 2 or 3 in as well as Xingwei."
Hermione looks at her familiar, "Well, it was your note, you decide."
"Mistress, I'd like it if you and Harry came with me, as well as Shenjing."
Shenjing starts, "Me? But I'm a blue dragon."
"You are, and that's why I'd like you to come. You grew up differently to us, so you might know different things."
With the decision made, the four of the file into the hut to find somewhere to sit down. An activity that gets derailed by Shenjing noticing the egg in the fireplace. Cocking her head to one side she walks over and picks it up with her bare hand.
"'Ere, be careful wit' that. It mustn't get too cold."
"What is it?"
"It's a dragon egg."
"Are you sure? It's a bit… small."
Xingwei looks at it critically, "I agree, are you sure it's a dragon egg?"
"Aye, the fellow down the pub said it was. Ah won it in a card game see. Fella 'ad terrible luck that night."
"How many limbs will it have?"
"Er, according to the books, six?"
"Could be a Dragling. Are they intelligent?"
"Not that we've noticed."
"Almost certainly a Dragling then. Well, what sort of advice do you want?"
"Ah, what's the best way to 'atch one?"
"Well, your fireplace certainly isn't it. Shenjing, do you think you could use a lightning bolt to split that large boulder by the lake into reasonably sized bits for a nest?"
"Oh yeah, what size bits do you want?"
"About half the size of the egg, one mo put the egg back for the moment and I'll go and grab the boulder."
It doesn't take long for two 80 foot tall dragons to create a nest out of the boulder. Once they're done, the stones form a rough plateau around 10 feet wide, with a slightly raised area in the centre that holds a larger stone steady. This stone has had a slight divot placed in it on top of it using a massive claw. Once it's finished, Xingwei ensures that all the children are out the way before breathing fire on the nest until the stones start to melt. She then carefully takes the central stone out and carefully lowers it into the lake until it stops glowing.
Once that's done Kuanwei takes the egg and gently places it in the divot of the central stone.
Once they're done, Shenjing and Xingwei both return to human sized and head over to Hagrid.
A pillar of fire appears a short distance away, as it disappears it reveals the headmaster and Fawkes, "What are you all doing? I've had a panicking students and teachers clamouring for me to do something."
Xingwei turns towards the Headmaster, "Mr Dumbledore, my apologies for causing panic amongst your students. We were just preparing a nest for a dragling egg. Mr Hagrid, as I was about to say, one of us will be by 2 or three times a day before the centre most stones stop glowing to reapply heat. This should provide the most consistent temperature."
"What's a dragling?"
"Oh, Mr Hagrid called it a dragon when we arrived. But the egg is far too small to be a dragon egg. Those would be around as tall as one of the children here. We'd also be able to breathe on it directly."
"But you can't raise a Dragon here, we would need to have the school registered as an official dragon sanctuary, training, and inspections."
Shenjing cocks her head to one side before returning to her natural dragon form, then in a voice that's felt more than heard she says, "Do you not feel that they would give you an exemption considering that we are technically teaching assistants."
The headmaster quails at the size of the blue dragon in front of him, and makes the mistake of stepping a little too close to one of the children. This causes the curse to activate, and the awkward hug now looks like a hug being made for reassurance.
The result of this encounter is that the headmaster sends a message to the DRMC, who send a letter back stating that there should be a representative by the name of MacNair coming on Saturday, so they're have them take a look first.
With that surprise out of the way, one of the four dragons ended up needing to stay beside the nesting area. Not because it needed constant attention, but because some of the students in the school had terminal levels of ignorance and stupidity. At least that's the only explanation they could come up with for attempting to walk on rocks that were not only glowing red, but were also soft. It was a request made after the second Gryffindor ended up in the Hospital wing with burns through their feet, hands and face.
That evening at dinner, the headmaster stood up and addressed the school.
"Good Evening everyone, as you have probably noticed, we have a nest for a dragon's egg near the Games Keepers Hut. I would urge you all to avoid trying to walk to the centre to look at the egg, as the stones are far hotter than a wood fire. A consequence of this is that you would need specially enchanted dragon hide shoes to be able to do so. A flame freezing charm will not cut the mustard for this I'm afraid. If you choose to ignore this warning, then be aware that you will be spending at least a week having the muscles, skin, and ligaments regrown in the Hospital wing."
As he sat down, Xingwei stood up from her place, "I would also like to point out an important fact that the headmaster mentioned. These stones are far hotter than a wood fire. This means that your brooms are likely to also catch fire if you try and circumvent the warning by using them. If you fall in nearer the middle, other people may not be able to pull you out alive."
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Friday manages to pass mostly without preamble, though it does appear that the Ravenclaw NEWT students have taken the admonishment about the stones as a challenge rather than a warning to keep away. As such, it's not long until there's again a full size dragon watching over the stones to ensure that none of the experimenters harm themselves or others.
As such it will come as no surprise to the residents of the school that there was a dragon in attendance shortly before breakfast as Madam Umbridge led her entourage of ministry employees, including the DRMC hatchet man, MacNair. Now there is something very important you need to know about MacNair, that is that he gets his jollies from death. Specifically, causing death. Since the end of the last war, his favoured prey has been too dangerous to hunt without repercussions. Since then he had thrived on potential extermination assignments, if more exterminations happened than were strictly necessary. Well, he is a noble so nobody is going to say anything. A consequence of this is that he places muggles below goblins, and all other magical creatures below that in his hierarchy of intelligence and worthiness.
This explains just what happens when they catch sight of a large glowing orange disk or rock with an egg in the centre, a 140 foot [nose to tail] dragon dozing between it and the Forbidden Forest. McNair's wand flicks into his hand as he sees Umbridge take a deep breath. When she screams, it's into a silenced bubbleheaded charm. Once she pulls her want he snatches it from her and hands it to Madam Bones, who is obviously made of sterner stuff than he expected. Something he'd need to keep in mind when his master returns.
Indicating for silence, he carefully walks up to the glowing circle and crouches down next to it. Holding his hand over it, he nods. A small Dragon Nest, though he's never seen the rocks glow quite like this. Experimentally he casts a cooling charm on one of the rocks and smiles when it turns black, that tells him that the rocks can't be that hot. Of course, if he'd brought in an expert from one of the major sanctuaries, they'd have told him that that particular test only works on opaleye nests because they use rocks with a high tin or copper content, which has a much lower melting point to the granite that is common in Scotland. It's why there're fairly easy to corral compared to larger breeds like the Horntail or Ironbelly. Thus he makes his penultimate mistake when he casts a cooling charm on his dragonhide boots along with activating the protective enchantments in his boots.
As he's about to step on the nest, the dragon opens an eye and in a deep rumbling voice says "That won't protect you. Just thought I'd warn you."
Startled he looks around for anyone that could have said that, after all dragons are just dumb beasts. Assured that it's probably an enchanted warning, he carefully steps onto the glowing rocks. He's about half way across when his robes catch fire. Almost negligently he casts an augmenti to put out the flames and douse the rocks beneath him. Unfortunately, as any vulcanologist would have been able to tell him, introducing water to near molten granite that is almost 1,200oc (~2100oF). Rather than turning the stone black and lowering the temperature, the stones instead explode where the water actually manages to get between the gaps and then turns into steam a fraction of a second later. This releases the molten insides that are a bright orange in colour up into his face and on his hands. He falls backwards and to one side, landing on his back near the centre of the nest. By the time the dragon has retrieved his body and placed it by the group, that is standing there stunned, his brain has already been irreparably cooked, though he is still breathing, and the brain can probably be healed, he is almost certainly no longer MacNair.
"Madam Bones, I'm sorry I didn't pull him out before he used water, I assumed that he knew what he was doing. Not even the Gryffindors were dumb enough to use water while they were actually standing on the nest."
Amelia nods, while hiding her shivering at what happened to MacNair. "Do you think you could get him to St Mungo's please?"
The dragon shimmers and turns into Wulian, "Sure, can you make sure that none of the students attempt to get onto the nest while I'm gone."
Mutely Madam Bones nods, not trusting herself to speak, as while she's met all the dragons before, this is the first time she's seen them as a dragon and a human. Once Wulian disappears, the group relaxes and Madam bones notices Moody hold his wand by his thigh rather than at the ready. As they keep an eye on the nest it takes them an embarrassingly long time to realise that Madam Umbridge is still silenced. Doris flicks her wand, and bursts the bubble head and releasing Umbridge from the spell.
By the time that Wulian returns, Madam Umbridge has managed to regain her composure. Never noticing the anti-nausea potion that Doris swallowed discreetly.
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Harry sits at the breakfast table nervously wearing her green witches casual skirt and blouse combination, a complimentary shawl over her shoulders and held in place with a simple cloak pin. Her hat sitting loosely on her head where she's not quite got the hang of placing the hat pins yet. The reason for her nervousness is sitting at the Teachers table chatting to the headmaster. A Headmaster that came in this morning without hugging anyone. She glances over to the corner of the room where Morgyn is chatting to the Grey Lady, probably trying to persuade her to let him cast dedeathify on her. No, it's the fact that L is here officially that has her nervous.
Harry knows it's irrational, but it feels like she's losing something that was only hers. A wave of silence spreading out from the entrance pulls her attention away from her fears, and nearly untouched breakfast.
Standing in the doorway is a short and dumpy witch of late middle age. Her lurid pink cardigan, matching handbag, and blond perm do little to detract from the fact that time hasn't treated her face well. The heavy makeup doing little to hide the occasional warts dotting her face, which, coupled with her wide mouth, make comparisons to an amphibian hard not to make. Flanking her are two unknown Aurors, a short sweet looking woman with an easy smile, wearing her hair in a low ponytail. On the other side is a grizzled old man who has more scars than untouched skin on his face, what's left of his dark hair cropped close to his head. A large white scar going through one eye draws attention to the fact that the eye itself is not only fake, but also moving independently of the remaining eye, even looking behind him occasionally as it scans the room. A thump as he move slightly draws attention to the wooden peg leg that makes Sally-Anne shudder visibly. Standing behind them is Madam Bones in her work uniform.
The moment is broken by a Fulgent flash of light in the entrance hall that catches the closer students off guard, as evidenced by their screaming while clutching their eyes. While the group in the doorway are rubbing the spots out of their eyes, caused by the indirect exposure, Sunbeam glides through the hall to land on Harry's shoulder. Professors Tonks and McGonagall both move into a much-practiced dance as they start to cure those afflicted, aided by some of the nearby upper years that have learnt the spell needed.
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As her eyes clear, Madam Umbridge's eyes focus in on the phoenix that is now sitting. Narrowing her eyes she marches over to the young witch. Scanning over her attire she quickly analyses her position in society and places it as lower as her own. Looking at the way the hat has been put on, it's likely that she has a betrothal contract with someone of higher status though. She discretely checks her own small hat that is all but invisible from the front, showing off the expensive perm.
"You, with the phoenix, what is your name?"
Nerves clearly on show, the young witch answers, "I've been called Dani, Ma'am."
"Dani, I am Madam Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the Minster of Magic." She astutely ignores the whispered 'first name Um, from Umbridge?' from a peasant that is obviously either a mudblood or second generation, mainly because she recognises that Heiress Greengrass is the recipient of the whisper.
"Dani, can I ask just where you were able to obtain such a rare familiar?"
The young witch pulls out a book on etiquette, one of the basic primers, further cementing in her mind that she's low born. Briefly glancing at a page she looks up at her, before standing and curtsying. "Madam, my apologies, but I do not understand your question. After all it is quite clear that you are capable of asking your question."
Umbridge doesn't see the sagging relief from Heir Malfoy at the Slytherin table behind her, if she had she may have re-evaluated her approach instead of asking, "Will you tell me where you obtained such a rare familiar?"
"Certainly."
The silence draws out for a moment before Umbridge realises that is the only answer that she is going to get. Frustration mounting at the obstinate refusal to answer her questions, she pulls out the writ that she had drawn up, "This is a declaration from the government that empowers me to request the information about the source of these magical creatures. Will you comply with this writ?"
The young witch nods gravely, "I will Madam."
"Well?"
The young witch looks at her with a confused expression, "I don't understand."
"I want you to tell me where you got your familiar."
"I have gathered that madam, but I am waiting for you to ask me."
"I have asked you multiple times, none of which you have actually answered."
"I'm sorry Madam, but as far as I can tell, you have yet to ask me."
Umbridge wracks her brain for what point of etiquette the young witch might be stuck on. She's followed all of the social niceties for dealing with a lower-class individual. Introduced herself and her position, asked them to volunteer the information, and finally showed that she has the authority to demand the information.
"Where did you get your familiar?"
"From a familiar orb."
"What is a familiar orb?"
The young lady takes a strange object, a blue orb on a black base, out and places it on the table beside them, "This is."
Her palms itch at the sight of the orb, what does it contain? A phoenix, something more powerful?, "Where did you get that orb?"
"I bought it?"
"Where did you buy it?"
"A shop."
"Where can I find this shop?"
"You can't."
Umbridge feels like screaming, as this is like trying to prise information out of the heads of one of the great houses.
"Can you show me where the shop is?"
"I can't."
Her face starts to mottle beneath her makeup as she struggles to keep her features under control, only succeeding due to reminding herself that not only is the head of the DMLE here, but so is the chief warlock. In a tight voice she finally asks, "Can you take me to the shop?"
"I can't I'm afraid."
"Is there anyone that can?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"My familiar can."
"Will you let your familiar take me?"
"You'd have to ask her."
Gritting her teeth at needing to speak to a beast, no matter how noble, she grinds out, "Will you take me to the person Dani bought your orb from?"
She barely acknowledged the shouted cry of "Eyes!" from somewhere as her attention was taken up with just how sharp those talons look when they're coming straight at you. She has just enough time to realise that she's no longer in Hogwarts, but is instead standing in-front of a mansion before the phoenix pushes off her chest and disappears in a Fulgent flash of light, causing her to scream in agony as she clutches her eyes.
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Back in the main hall, some of the students are caught off guard when Sunbeam returns in a Fulgent flash of light mere seconds after she left. As the few victims of the flash are dealt with, Madam Bones walks down to where Harry still stands with the book in her hand.
"Heiress Potter, would you mind if I had a quick look at the book in your hand?"
Harry smiles, "Just Harry please, and sure."
She takes the book and looks at it briefly, long enough to see that it's open to the page titled 'Families of the Wizengamot and their position in society', Potter is underlined near the top and Umbridge is on the next page under Elected Houses with a notation saying 1956 for the last time they held a seat.
"Thank you Harry. Please tell me, why did you treat Madam Umbridge that way?"
Harry laughs, "There's no way I was going to treat anyone that's Mean, Evil, and Hates Children, any other way."