Quirrell carefully checks the door to the stone labyrinth for any magical traps, traces, tripwires, or alarms while his master monitors the corridor. He knows that his body is failing, but there's a wild herd of unicorns in the black forest in Germany, so all they need to do is get the stone or its container and leave. Happy that there's nothing unexpected on the door he silently unlocks it and pushes it ajar just enough to use the lullaby spell through the gap. Wasn't that a surprise to find in a book about parenting charms in the library here.
The conjured harp quickly puts the beast to sleep. Easing himself into the room, he quietly locks the door behind him with a more comprehensive locking charm. Most of the school may be watching the dragon hatch outside, but most isn't all. Once the door is locked he levitates the sleeping canine off of the trapdoor and runs through the same process as before.
Happy that he's not going to be caught out, he eases the trapdoor open, pulls out one of the new supermops and casts a spell to allow him to see magic on his eyes. Carefully he moves down the pit checking for any magical tripwires or glyphs that could spell the end of this venture. A bluebell fire frees the way to the corridor at the bottom of the shaft. Rather than dismounting, he continues on the broom given that it is so easy to direct. Even being cautious it doesn't take long to enter a circular room full of flying keys.
Quirrell snorts derisively at Flitwicks trap. His magic sight allowing him to see the trigger on the brooms that makes the keys aggressive. Spotting the key he needs for the door, he conjures a bronze bird of about the same size before using a switching spell to swap their places. Just because they're masters of their art doesn't mean that they're infallible, as demonstrated by using a switching spell, after unlocking the door he lets the key rejoin the flock and moves into the next room. He shakes his head again as the anti-broom charms over the giant chessboard do absolutely nothing to the broom that he's riding. They could have at least revisited this challenge when they got the new brooms, but no. To cap it all, because he hasn't actually stepped on the floor yet the chess pieces haven't activated, so the magical crossbows that the pawns are equipped with don't even twitch. Finally he arrives at his own challenge, and with a casual flick of his wand he flash boils the blood in the trolls veins while raising a shield.
The Troll doesn't even have time to react as the stasis spell drops before it explodes messily before slumping to the floor, it's ruined skin showing the channels of its blood vessels. He continues floating forward and pauses at the entrance to the next room, the faint traceries of magical tripwires crisscross over the doorway. Given that this is probably his minions room, it's unsurprising that it's more through. No matter, giving himself over to his master for a moment is all that's needed for the tripwires to be re-anchored to the bottom of the door and he glides in. As he enters the room he facepalms with his free hand and then has to readjust his intent as the broom lurches towards the floor.
In front of him is an ingenious logic puzzle, but to the right is a archway leading into the next chamber. He's almost tempted to trip the spells on the door to see what the challenge was supposed to be. Instead he allows his master to do the same thing with the traceries across the archway.
"Quirrell, these were placed by Dumbledore, they are merely crossing in front of the archway. I fear that you will need to trip these spells my loyal servant."
At the sound of his masters voice, Quirrell almost jumps but manages to contain himself, instead saying, "Of course Master."
Then, being careful of where he placed his feet, he dismounts and puts the broom into a bottomless bag. He might send the hufflepuffs a note after this to thank them for the idea. As he steps through the doorway a sheet of black fire races across the wall behind him cutting off his escape route. At the same time the spell he's using to see magic is stripped from him. He reapplies it quickly and checks his clothing, and all of the temporary enchantments have been stripped. Including the portkey on his belt buckle. Given that his bag hasn't exploded all over the place, it, and hopefully it's contents, is fine. Standing in the centre of the room is a tall mirror that could easily show the half-giant's reflection. He cautiously steps around in front and looks inside. As he does he sees an image of himself holding the philosophers stone and handing it to his Master.
"This is it Master."
"Allow me to see."
He allows his master to use his body, and suffers through the uncomfortable feeling of being puppeted while he casts a diagnostic on the mirror.
"Well done, this mirror shows traces of the stone, and a strange enchantment designed to hold something inside it. Use the rope and get us out of here. We can work on unravelling the charms later."
Quirrell pulls the rope portkey out of the expanded bag and ties it off to the mirror before taking a good grasp of the other end and activating it. Hogwarts wards don't even flicker as the Headmasters portkey takes them out to the Farmers Market. Once there, it's a simple matter to unshrink a trunk and store the mirror inside before they both begin the trek to the German forest.
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Out in the school grounds the majority of the school, along with 3 dragon handlers from the Romanian reserve and 2 members of the DRMC, watch from seats in a transfigured amphitheatre as Xingwei carefully clears away the heating rocks that have surrounded the egg for the last month. The last dregs of winter passed only a few months ago leaving the ground a carpet of fresh green grass with a rainbow of colours from the various early spring plants, including bluebells.
Nervously Charlie Weasley walks into the blackened circle that used to hold near molten granite rocks not an hour ago. Once there, he turns and gives a dirty look to the other two handlers, who only speak very bad English.
"Good afternoon everyone. My colleagues and I are here to observe the hatching of this egg. As this is going to be somewhat of a learning experience for everyone over the next several years, while there are dragons in residence, I was elected to give you a quick run down on dragons. The first thing you need to be aware of is that, unlike the dragon behind me, the species' that we call dragons are all semi-sapient.
"What do I mean by semi-sapient? All of us here are sapient creatures, we can learn, communicate, and have a strong sense of self. Dragons almost have this. They can learn, to an extent, they can communicate but not complex thoughts, and they have a sense of self. So far as we have been able to discern, they have no culture of their own. They are driven by their instincts, and are unable to disregard them. Due to this they are considered to be a 5x creature, they cannot be tamed and they will kill wizards if given cause.
"All dragons are highly territorial, and need around 50 square miles of space as adults. Obviously, different species need more or less space. However, they are willing to share their territory with other species of dragon if the food supply is plentiful. This is how the dragon reserves work, we have farms full of domesticated cattle and we ensure that there is always plenty roaming the reserves for dragons to hunt. Another fact about dragons is that they are thermosexual, like non-magical creatures like crocodiles, turtles, and some snakes. This means that their sex is defined by the temperature the egg is kept at in the nest. Normally we'd be able to give a good estimate of what the sex of this dragon will be, however due to the fact that we don't know how long it was between being laid and Xingwei finding out about it, it could have already been sexed or it could be male. What we do know is that low temperature eggs are always female and high temperature eggs are always male. I have been assured that those of you taking NEWT Care of Magical Creatures will be learning about the mechanisms behind this, so I won't go into it now.
"As hatchlings, all dragons are food orientated, just like people. However, you need to be aware of the fact that you are food to a dragon. Hand rearing a dragon is always dangerous, and should only be done by people wearing dragonhide gauntlets." – Charlie pulls out his elbow length dragonhide gloves – "As you can see, my gloves are not just longer than the ones that you use for potions and herbology, but they are also substantially thicker on the back. This is because many dragon species are venomous, and they are born like that. Properly treated the venom of a hatchling can be cured in an afternoon, left to fester or if the source is unknown and it could take a few weeks of agony to be treated.
"The last thing to consider about dragons is that they are all endangered. Why? Like non-magical species like rhinos, elephants, and tigers, dragons are useful. Their hide is extremely tough and easy to work with for the protection it gives. Their venom, teeth, and blood are all useful reagents for potions. The ligaments around their hearts, known as heartstrings, are used in wand crafting. Even their bones are useful, though no longer used in Europe or America. Their meat is sold to races like Goblins as it is considered to be more flavoursome than farm animals, though none of you should ever try it as it is poisonous to humans. Even a small amount will see you laid up for weeks, and a piece the size of an average steak will kill you through magical overload."
"This egg belongs to a Norwegian Ridgeback, and it is classified as part of the subspecies of Wyvern. Despite what the books in the library say, it only has 4 limbs plus a tail. The misconception comes from the printer rather than Mr Scamander making a mistake and was corrected in the 1970 reprint of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The Ridgeback is one of the less intelligent dragon species, and also one of the more dangerous species. Not only do they mature quickly, developing fire at between 1 and 3 months of age, they are also one of the venomous species of dragon. They are also fast, cunning, and stealthy. You can expect one to grow to around 20 feet long from the nose to the base of the tail. It can run faster than most brooms can fly, and its sense of smell means that it can track you from around 20 miles away. We're lucky that its smaller cousin is now extinct, Micheal Crichton released a novel last year about dinosaurs being recreated. If you read it, the Velociraptor as described is very close to the dragon that I'm talking about, except it could also breath fire and had wings. It was so close that we were asked to review copies of the book to determine if there was a lost colony out there somewhere. I hope to the Morrigan that there isn't, as we deliberately drove them to extinction around 120 years ago.
"However, I digress as that's a Mastery level subject for Care students. In appearance it is similar to a Hungarian Horntail, though the Horntail is far more intelligent, has 6 limbs, and isn't venomous. It also grows to around twice the size of a Ridgeback. Once it's hatched the mother would typically bathe the hatchling in a light fire to clean it of the residue from the egg. It would then be fed a diet of scrap meat, anything from rabbits to the foreleg of a hunt. This will continue as it grows rapidly and learns how to do things by watching it's mother over the next 6 months. After 6 months, the mother would start to bring back live food as it starts to explore the area around the nest. Ah… It seems that the dragon is starting to break through the shell. Headmaster, would you do the honours and project an image of the egg for everyone to see?"
Charlie takes a few steps back before scarpering back to the seats when another 6 dragons appear to watch the event.
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As the first piece of the egg fell to the platform the egg had been situated on, there was a collective in breath amongst the students, with those on the front few rows staring intently at the egg while everyone else watched the much larger projection. Once the first piece landed it seemed like only a few minutes before the hatchling was being bathed in the lightest possible flame that Xingwei could produce. Once the flames die down, Hagrid stands up and carried a platter with a chopped rabbit on it. Kneeling on the floor he feeds a piece of meat to the young dragon, which sniffs at his hand before taking the bloody meat with a quick snap of its jaws.
It doesn't take long to eat half the rabbit, once it has it settles down on the plinth and goes to sleep. Hagrid smiles before pulling a teddy bear out of his pouch and tucking it under one paw, he then covers the hatchling with a small blanket. Minerva then stands up and with a flick of her wand levitates the plinth into Hagrids hut where the hatchling will be staying for the first month while the dragons and dragon handlers work out the best place to site the artificial nest so that Hagrid and the care classes can easily get to it, but the rest of the student body needs to put in some real effort to get there.
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Albus hurries through the school when he feels his alert ward trigger on the final room. He curses under his breath that Voldemort's follower chose today of all days to attempt to take the stone. With the elder wand it is trivial to bypass the different protections that the other teachers provided. That's why he spent so much time on the mirror, he'd even tested the enchantments himself and they were clearly working. Perhaps too well, as he'd been unable to retrieve the stone since he completed them.
With a wave of his wand he dispels the black fire that not only hides the exit to the final room, but also spells almost certain doom to anyone that's foolish enough to try to cross it in the other direction. Stepping through the archway, he freezes in place as his brain tries to tell him that the mirror is not there. Something that should be impossible for anyone that was residing in the castle, with the possible exceptions of Pomona and Andromeda. None of the students would have the knowledge to remove the charms he put on the mirror that are keyed to his own magical signature. And none of the teachers that have the knowledge would have the power.
Pulling his wand he starts to cast detection spell after detection spell trying to find the mirror that he's sure should be there. The mirror couldn't be shrunk or transfigured, he'd ensured that it was too large to fit through the archway no matter how they tried to put it through, and he knew that all portkeys had been stripped from the intruder as his charms over the doorway had transferred a portkey to a pebble in the corner along with a few other enchantments. Eventually, he conjures a chair and sags into it as he's exhausted all of the diagnostic spells that he knows without needing to check a book. With a defeated expression he stares forlornly at the space his mentors only chance to extend his life sat.