AN: as promised, we're back into the thick of things, no more filler chapters for a while (or forever, I doubt I'll need more worldbuilding).
As always, I'm not either R. Garfield nor J. K. Rowling.
CHAPTER 9 – Day of the dragons
It took Madam Pomfrey two days to reestablish Chandra's health and an additional one for the elderly headmaster, but after all of that they could reconvene in Dumbledore's temporary study, that is to say an abandoned classroom thoroughly cleaned.
Of course, before the meeting, the pyromancer dosed herself with some mildly potent calming draught, just to be safe.
"I'd like to start this meeting by saying that I'm sorry about your office," said Chandra sitting at the transfigured desk "I shouldn't have lost control like that."
"And I'll reiterate that it was mainly my fault, like many other things," answered Dumbledore with extreme calm that belied his tiredness before his usual twinkle reentered his eyes "But let's not think on the past too much, it makes me feel old. As I was saying the other day, you're absolutely essential to Voldemort's fall. There's the prophecy of course, but there is also the fact that you are a symbol of hope for wizards."
"A symbol they were pretty ready to discard after that that article in the paper," reminded him Chandra.
She hadn't forgotten how people had looked at Ajani, Liliana and herself too, all just because someone said so. She would still fight for their freedom, it was kind of her job after all, even if sheep seldom really wanted it.
"I'll be the first to admit the wizarding world isn't perfect, that its populace tend to take anything in the paper as godsend, and that a libel law would go a long way in helping," said the headmaster with a sigh and a placating gesture "But now there is no threat to their lives, if Voldemort came back they'd surely rally up to you."
"I really hope we won't need it, but we'll see."
"On that note, there is a third reason for my desperate actions," admitted the elderly man looking uncertain "But I'm not sure how much your mind his safe. This is an incredibly dangerous secret to know, you see, and giving it to an unprotected mind would be extremely risky."
"Jace, our mind mage, once told that my mind would be too dangerous to try reading or controlling even in the case he could actually grasp it," explained the girl with a sly smile "He can use telepathy with me only because I've let him in."
"Would you let me test your mental resilience?" asked Dumbledore showing her his wand "The mind arts are little explored in the Wizarding World, but keeping this safe is paramount."
Chandra only nodded.
"Legilimens," chanted the headmaster staring her in the eyes.
She felt a gentle pressure against her mind and knew he was probing her defenses.
Chandra had never actually studied what Dumbledore knew as occlumency, but she had grown up in a monastery where meditation and mental discipline were the basis of their teachings. Also, her mind tended to be too chaotic and volatile for most people to take a peek. She seriously doubted that if Jace couldn't do it, Dumbledore or Voldemort had any hope of succeeding. Bolas probably could, but he was a millennia old dragon archmage with no morality to speak of and the ability to shatter minds by touch alone, things like that tended to stack the deck in his favor.
After a couple of long minutes of searching, the headmaster grimaced, drew back from her mind and said: "I see what your friend meant, my dear. You have some basis of occlumency, but the way your mind actually works is your greatest defense. It's essentially impossible to navigate for a well organized mind and more than a bit painful. It's really fascinating."
She wasn't actually sure it was a compliment, but decided to roll with it. Better not test how good that calming draught actually was.
"Thanks. Now, the great secret?"
"Voldemort should have died that night thirteen years ago. Nobody could have survived the backslash but he had done extensive preparation to avoid leaving this life," explained Dumbledore solemnly "He created something called horcrux, anchoring some pieces of his soul to objects to prevent his permanent death. While even one of those foul things survives, he can come back as many times as he wishes."
"He messed with his soul?" exclaimed Chandra, her eyebrows disappearing behind her bangs "That's stupid with a capital S."
"Indeed it's dangerous and far darker than most people are comfortable with, fortunately."
"So, he's a lich? With his soul stored away in some phylactery?"
"I fear I've never heard the term lich but the idea is remarkably similar. His soul was shredded and each fragment was hidden separately in various objects, all of them with some special meaning to him. I'm not sure how many he has created though."
"At least tell me you have some idea on what to look for or where."
"Some, yes," he said, then he took a steadying breath and continued "I fear you have one such fragment in your scar."
Silence reigned for a minute and the old man thanked Merlin for the calming draught.
"I think I might have accidentally removed it already," slowly revealed Chandra looking pensive.
"You removed it?" asked Dumbledore trying to think how it could be possible without the girl killing herself and coming up with absolutely nothing.
"It happened some time ago, on my first foray on Zendikar... Something to do with Ugin's Eye and ghostfire, it's a long story... I always wondered what that black ichor from my scar was..."
"Would you permit me to check?" he asked, urgency clear in his voice.
Again, the pyromancer simply nodded. It was in her interest as much as his after all.
The headmaster reclined back, staring at the girl speechless. His spells confirmed the girl's story.
It looked like he had yet another sin to atone for.
The rest of November flew by with comparatively little excitement.
Chandra followed through with her intention of visiting the Care for Magical Creatures lessons, held by the gentle groundskeeper, and fell in love with the creature they were studying, the blast-ended skrewts, which in turn won her Hagrid's forgiveness for her treatment of the headmaster. The skrewts were unarmored, shrimp-like creatures that moved around by propelling themselves with fiery bursts and seemed to disrespect any outside imput, doing only what they wanted, what was there not to like?
She also paid visit to various Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. The contents were interesting, especially when dealing with the so called "dark creatures". She was sure a good two thirds of Innistrad would take offence to that classification though.
She also discovered that professor Lupin had been an old friend of her birth parents, so they spent a couple of afternoons talking about them over tea. She didn't particularly care for the Potters, she'd never actually ever even heard of them up to the previous month, but it was interesting to unearth her roots.
It felt a bit like returning home and reuniting with her mom, albeit more bittersweet.
On November the twenty-fourth, Chandra ate a big breakfast and proceeded to ignore Hermione's panic in favor of focusing on the task. She had long since learned that focus was more helpful than mindless worry, or at least it kept her from burning up.
Once in the champions' tent, she discovered that both the foreign contestants appeared to be very worried, like they knew already what the task entailed. Chandra guessed that the giantess and the Sarkhan Vol lookalike had been less correct than Ajani and Dumbledore.
It turned out, as explained by the fattish man that introduced himself as Bagman, that the task consisted in stealing a golden egg from a nesting mother dragon. From the three champions' expressions, her guess had been spot on. The order of the contestants and which dragon they'd face was balloted.
Since she had drawn the Hungarian Horntail, the last dragon, she sat in a corner of the tent and waited her turn, listening to the commentary. Apparently, Hogwarts' champion had gotten injured but retrieved the egg, the other boy had blinded his dragon, which resulted in all the real eggs getting smashed, while the French girl had put her dragon asleep with some kind of racial power. Chandra guessed they had done ok against such odds.
When she was finally called, she calmly walked into the arena, while actually reminiscing her last two battles with dragons and her visit to the arena on Kaladesh. She dearly hoped this one would turn out better than any of those.
As soon as she walked on the battlefield, she took another page out of Gideon's book and surveyed the situation: right in front of her was a massive creature covered in dark scales and spikes crouched above a nest. She also immediately saw something that made her sad. And more than a bit mad.
"Chained?" she muttered looking at the sturdy looking links limiting the dragon's movements "That's horrible. Really, what's with people and arenas?"
The beast roared its challenge, or rather, its disdain over being detained, and she shook her head to banish the distracting thought and focus back on the task.
With a smirk on her lips, she started walking towards the dragon while donning her goggles. If these wizards wanted a spectacle, she would make sure to give them one.
The dragon spat a torrent of blue-orange flames at her. She responded in kind, rising a hand to spew her own stream of fire. The two attacks met halfway, stalling themselves in a contest of strength.
Then Chandra did the unexpected.
"Come on big girl," she shouted throwing a decently sized fireball at the chain with her free hand "Time to dance!"
The whole audience stilled as the attack connected, making three massive link glow a dull red. When nothing seemed to happen, the spectators roared.
"Pay attention girl, you might free the beast!" came Bagman's voice over the din of the crowd.
The dragon, on its part, halted the flow of flames and watched the strange human female carefully.
Chandra ignored them all, muttering to herself about "not hot enough", pausing only to cut her own stream.
She raised both hands this time, her hair burning up once again as she focused her attention on the still glowing links. She molded her flames in a new, larger fireball, then compressed and threw it.
The chain glowed decidedly brighter, a nice sunshine yellow hue.
Chandra smirked and readied herself for another hit.
The audience screamed and some of them started running.
The dragon handlers poured into the arena, very conscious that those chains could hold only so much abuse before breaking. They had told the organizers of needing specialized chains, but the budget hadn't permitted it.
Liliana, in the stands, was holding a panicked Hermione in her seat while chuckling amusedly to herself.
The judge panel was discussing of disqualifying the girl, while Ajani simply shook his head. He should have seen this coming.
The dragon spat a torrent of flames again, this time on the chain to help the weird human female. Nothing bad could come out of it.
The chain broke before the third fireball had to be thrown, an everyone stilled.
The dragon roared its happiness before turning towards the handlers, fangs glinting in the light.
The wizards stopped in their tracks. They were in a bad position, the casualties were sure to be heavy.
"No, bad dragon!" shouted Chandra hitting the beast massive head with a weak fireball "No harming humans ok? You're free now, take your eggs and go!"
The dragon turned towards the weird human with the flaming hair and tilted its head to the side. Hadn't it been a multi-ton apex predator it could have been defined cute. It then ducked its head under its belly to take its eggs in its mouth, leaving behind the funny tasting one and the ones that were already dead thanks to the humans' carelessness.
The handlers stared at the scene, unsure of what to make of it: in front of them, a witch was speaking to a dragon like it was a dog and it was acquiescing with her requests.
The massive creature then spread its wings and, with a mighty pounce, flew up and away.
Chandra waved the dragon goodbye then calmly strolled towards the discarded eggs and grabbed the golden one, a big grin plastered on her face. Once done, she turned towards the designated exit and walked out of the arena.
"Let's see the damage," the gruff voice of the school nurse greeted her before the woman shouted "Sweet Merlin, your hair is on fire!"
"What? Oh, sorry," she commented extinguishing her hair with a thought "I forgot about it."
That was as far as the discussion with the nurse got before the whole judge panel came in, loudly demanding an explanation for what happened.
"Ok, first of all," said Chandra raising a hand in a placating gesture "Nobody said what we were supposed to do with the dragon. If something wasn't permitted you should have stated so. Second, I despise chains, as in I find them absolutely abhorrent. And last, you should count your blessings it listened to me and didn't go on a rampage. That would have been a problem."
"That's what I'm interested in actually," said Dumbledore jovially smiling at her "Dragons usually don't listen to people."
"Who cares about that!" vehemently protested the mustachioed man that she had discovered was from the ministry "What about the muggles?"
"Who?"
"Non magical people," politely explained the headmaster.
He and Ajani were obviously smirking under their whiskers.
"Uh, ok..." said the girl, still visibly unsure "What about them?"
"How do we explain the dragon when they'll see it?" demanded the ministry official, his face red with obvious fury.
"I don't know," admitted Chandra shrugging her shoulders "And sincerely I don't care either."
"Listen here, you-" started the man before being cut by the pyromancer.
"No, you listen. Were you hoping nobody noticed how awful those chains were? Low quality and pain spells to help subdue those poor creatures. Count your blessings little man, because if it had been someone else in my place you'd all be dead, with four rampaging dragons on the loose."
She was obviously referring to Sarkhan-Vol. It was hard not to think of the mad shaman when she had his twin brisling in front of her face.
"You cannot speak like that to me, I'm-"
"Again, I don't care who you are," stated Chandra igniting her free hand "Or maybe you're fireproof, little man?"
The mustachioed ministry employee remained conspicuously silent.
Dumbledore and Ajani looked on the scene with a disproving look.
"Thought so," smirked Chandra extinguishing her hand before pointing to the bed where the Hogwarts champion laid "Now, how about helping in patching up that poor boy laying there, burns are a real pain."
As soon as the short man filed away, followed by the foreign headmasters, Dumbledore and Ajani expressed their disappointment in how she had dealt with the man, who she learned was named Crouch.
"I know I know, not one of my most diplomatic moments," admitted Chandra shaking her head and rising her hands in a placating gesture "But hey, I got the egg and saved the day, I say it went great."
The dragon reached the nearby mountain range and touched down with a mighty fwomp. The collar still hurt, but it was slowly fading. The mother decided to think of it later, she had a more pressing task on hand: time to build a new nest for the eggs.