Chapter Summary: In which Rapunzel catches a certain Slytherin trio red-handed and Hiccup makes a new friend.
A/N: I am so sorry. We were having internet problems, so that's why this chapter is a little late. Thank you for your patience.
I wanna say thank you for all your continued support. Thanks for your kudos and comments and subscriptions and just for reading, too. Yeah I'm looking at YOU. Thank you, your part of what makes my day. : )
When Rapunzel decided she wanted to go to the Library, she did not intend to talk to three Slytherin boys who were very clearly trouble. Of course, she never intended to meet another princess at school, either. But that was mostly because she didn't know there was one.
As she strode down a corridor on the fifth floor, mentally listing all of the books she wanted to look for, a group of three first year looking boys with robes lined with green came round the corner. Each of them were laughing at something one had said, and each were holding a pint of butterbeer. Rapunzel frowned and stopped.
"Where did you get those?" She asked.
The effect of these words was a bit comical. All three of them looked at her with wide eyes, clearly not having seen her there, and they took a moment to register what she'd said before hiding the drinks in various places (in their robes, behind their back, in their bag), as if that would make it so that she'd never seen them at all. All three started talking at once, voicing excuses from "In the dungeons" to "Stole them from a centaur and a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest". Rapunzel was unimpressed.
Her eyes roved over their Honeydukes bags. "You've been in Hogsmeade." The three boys immediately stopped talking and looked at her like a bunch of deer caught in the headlights.
The boy with white hair gave a very forced laugh. "That's ridiculous! We're not allowed in Hogsmeade till third year! Besides, it's not even time for that yet, how would we get in?"
He had a point, but Rapunzel came from a magic family and she wasn't completely stupid. "Hm, maybe a secret tunnel of sorts," she watched their reactions carefully. "One that goes into the cellar of Honeydukes or perhaps the back room of the Three Broomsticks or one of the other shops. I'm right, aren't I?"
They stood still for a split second before the auburn haired one blurted, "You won't tell anyone, will you?" The one who'd spoken first face-palmed.
Rapunzel folded her arms for a moment. Then she grinned. "One condition."
"Yes?" The first boy looked cautious.
"Show me."
Rapunzel made her way back up toward the Gryffindor common room, the library forgotten completely in the excitement of what she had just seen. Jack, Hiccup and Merlin, as she had learned, had shown her the spell to make the statue move aside. She hadn't gone down it, wanting to show Merida, so that was what she was doing now.
On her way up, however, she heard a thud and a curse in an empty classroom, and she decided to investigate. She crept over to a classroom door which was slightly ajar, wondering if maybe there was a crup in there or perhaps a streeler or a doxy. And if there was? Rapunzel stubbornly ignored that question.
Brushing back her golden braid and leaning cautiously around the door, Rapunzel peered into the room and discovered that it was not, in fact empty. Professor Ogglebert stood in the evidently disused classroom next to a toppled chair, apparently the cause of the thud Rapunzel had heard. He glared at it, gave it a kick, then coughed at the small cloud of dust that erupted from the floor.
Rapunzel watched as the professor searched the vacant room thoroughly from top to bottom, looking in the corners, under chairs, and tapping everything in sight with his wand, muttering. Every once in while, he would whip his head around to look at the door and Rapunzel would pull back quickly until he turned his back.
Should a teacher be acting so suspicious? Rapunzel didn't think so. She frowned, watching for a moment longer before slipping away to keep heading up to the Gryffindor tower, wondering about what she had just witnessed.
The next couple of weeks went by fairly slowly for Hiccup, going to class, doing homework, and the occasional trip down to Hogsmeade. One Friday afternoon, when the weather was warm, Hiccup was down near the lake, having decided to relax at school instead of going to Hogsmeade with Jack and Merlin. They had promised to buy him some candy and butterbeer, and Hiccup had grown up in a semi-wizarding community.
As he walked slowly along the edge of the water, Hiccup thought about home. Berk was an island filled with muggles and wizards both, but any muggle living there knew about magic and most even took part in it, except Mildew.
Hiccup had been warned that a lot of the things that went on on Berk were technically illegal so he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Well, okay, there was no 'technically' about it. But that didn't stop him from thinking about it.
He had heard the story many times since he was a small child and could barely walk. His mother, Valka, had grown up on the island when it was mostly populated by muggles. Even back then, Berk's entire population knew about magic and monsters and Hogwarts. For some, this made the world a scarier place, but Valka loved magic as if she were a witch herself. She had hoped dearly for a Hogwarts letter, and she was very disappointed when she didn't receive one.
However, when Valka was thirteen years old, she found an egg that was obviously magical. She brought it home and hatched it. Her parents were fortunately not home when it happened, so they didn't hear the very loud explosion and Valka, being a crafty and resourceful girl, managed to put the fire out before they returned.
Valka named the dragon that hatched from it Cloudjumper, and she raised him to adulthood without anyone finding him. But of course, you can't hide a dragon on an island the size of Berk without being found out eventually. Most people took it surprisingly well when a friend of Valka's stumbled upon Cloudjumper's cove one day. Some even asked her to teach them how to train a dragon.
Eventually, most of the people of Berk had a dragon in the family, and of course that attracted attention from the Ministry. They sent Stoick to do the job of memory-wiping. But when he arrived at the island, he realized that was easier said than done. There was, after all, nearly an entire island's population whose memories he would have to wipe.
Stoick soon found that Valka defended the dragons with every ounce of her heart. He caved and decided that he could help them hide the dragons from the Ministry, casting various charms around the island itself.
The people of Berk had emerged from the trial happy and relatively safer than before. Valka and Stoick had eventually fallen in love and married, and then they had Hiccup, who was now at Hogwarts.
As Hiccup's thoughts trailed through his head, he wandered dangerously close to the Forbidden Forest. He didn't notice, however, unitl he looked up and saw the trees mere meters away. He had turned abruptly, ready to head back to the castle, when he heard a faint scrabbling sound in the trees.
He looked back instinctively, just in time to see a purplish flash of light through the trees. He stood for a moment, considering his options. He could drag himself back up to the castle and pretend he hadn't noticed anything, or he could investigate... in the Forbidden Forest.
Well, Hiccup thought resolutely, making up his mind and darting under the cover of the trees. Curiosity might've killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.
Unfortunately, Hiccup didn't find the source of the weird purple light quite as soon as he would have liked to. He pushed his way determinedly through the undergrowth, thorns snagging his robes and scratching his face. He turned to glance back once and tried not to be nervous when he realized he couldn't see the castle.
Finally, he stumbled out into a clearing that was smoking slightly in the middle, the blackened ground suggesting a fire had been there moments before. Hiccup crept cautiously forward, his eyes darting around the shadows.
Reaching the blackened patch of ground, Hiccup bent down and scanned the area. Something thin and smooth caught his eye, and he reached over to pick up... a scale? He frowned. This was much larger than your average scale. What kind of creature could have scales this size?
Suddenly, Hiccup's eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. Fire. Smoldering ground. Huge scales. He felt a bit giddy as it dawned on him just what type of creature was living in the forest.
Clearing his throat, Hiccup spoke up in Dragonese, the language of the dragons that Hiccup had taught himself through years of observation. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Stupid. Even if the dragon was in the area, it wouldn't show itself just because Hiccup asked it nicely.
He heard a low hissing sound in answer, but he couldn't hear well enough to understand it. The hissing faded quickly, and before Hiccup could so much as bat an eye, a big black shape hurtled at him from the trees, knocking him to the ground and pinning him with strong claws. The dragon hissed into Hiccup's face.
"What are you doing here? And how come you can speak Dragonese?" The dragon's lips drew back in a snarl, revealing white teeth that could probably rip Hiccup to shreds if the dragon wanted to. It's big green eyes stared into Hiccup's, mesmerizing and hypnotic. Hiccup shook his head vigorously. He couldn't let himself fall under the dragon's spell.
"Ah," Hiccup tried to think of something to say. It wasn't easy, with a fire breathing dragon pinning him to the ground with its teeth mere centimeters away from his neck, but he managed. "I saw something explode and I thought, 'hey, I'm gonna go check that out'. And I can speak Dragonese because... I'm secretly a dragon myself." As if.
The dragon stared at him with its huge green eyes. Hiccup blinked rapidly. The dragon blew smoke into Hiccup's face. "Nice try. I'm not stupid, you know. I know a human when I see one. What are you doing here?"
"I think the real question is 'what are you doing so close to a castle full of witches and wizards? Do you, I dunno, have a death wish or something?" Hiccup was deliberately avoiding the question, mostly because a) the dragon didn't seem to believe the truth when he heard it, and b) now that he actually listened to himself, Hiccup realized just how stupid a decision he'd made.
The dragon snorted, and a spark of fire landed in Hiccup's hair. He patted it out quickly. "Yeah, right. I'll bet no one would dare. Azkaban is s'posed to be a pretty horrible place for people."
Hiccup frowned at that. "Azkaban?"
The dragon lifted his head and puffed out his chest proudly, suddenly much less hostile, although his claws were still pressing Hiccup into the ground. "Yup! I'm one of the last of my kind. If any wizard tried to kill me, he'd probably get thrown in with the dementors."
"Okay, first of all, how do you even know about all this? I mean, you're a dragon. Second, what kind of dragon are you, exactly? And third, can you please get your claws out of my chest?"
"Oh," The dragon looked down, as if just now registering the death grip he had on Hiccup's shirt. He disentangled it. Hiccup breathed again. "Whoops. Sorry about that. It's kind of a habit. Once I got attacked by some idiot Whispering Death, so now it's just reflexes. But anyway... I'm a dragon, sure. That doesn't make me stupid. Only the really dumb dragons don't know at least something about you guys, like the hogflies. Seriously, their so stupid. Once, I met a hogfly who flew too close to a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus, thinking it was an island, and got blown up by those creepy laser eyes."
Hiccup got to his feet, nodding impatiently. "Yes, that's very interesting, now what are you?"
The dragon flicked an ear in annoyance. "Hmph. I thought you'd know. It's not like I'm super dangerous or anything..." Hiccup stared blankly at him. He huffed a breath of smoke indignantly and dropped the sarcasm for a more dramatic tone. "I'm a Night Fury. The last one, as far as I know."
Hiccup opened his mouth to say something and closed it again, not quite sure what to say. He looked over the dragon, noting how he seemed to be still growing, not quite an adult yet. He wasn't very big, at least not yet, for a creature that was famed to be the Dragon No One's Ever Seen. Now that he wasn't being the most hostile creature in existence, he looked almost cute. Though Hiccup wasn't stupid enough to ever tell him that.
"Okay..." It suddenly occurred to Hiccup that he was standing here having a casual conversation with the supposed offspring of lightning and death, or some other superstitious mumbo jumbo. "Ah... do you have a name?"
The dragon seemed to contemplate this for a minute, then said, "You can call me Supreme Force Who Squashes His Enemies."
Hiccup snorted. "Oh how very modest. So, you don't have one . But I do have retractable teeth. And tail fins. Not every dragon has tail fins, you know. And I have these awesome wings-" he spread the wings in question dramatically, reminding Hiccup of a peacock, "-and I'm super majestic and scary and intimidating. But I don't really have an official name, no."
"Well, what do other dragons call you?"
The dragon managed to look irritated. "Sometimes I'm just That Night Fury, and sometimes I'm called some unpronounceable word in some dead language or another. I'm pretty sure it translates to something along the lines of 'that arrogant little sod'. It's very rude, and it doesn't even fit me."
Hiccup disagreed. But he didn't say so, considering he was just one mood swing of the dragon's away from becoming a charred pile of melted goop. "Hmm. Well, you need a name, and I might as well be the one to give it to you."
The dragon drew himself up proudly, the spitting image of arrogance. "Okay! If you can think of a name worthy of the Awesome Night Fury Who Is The Last Of His Kind..."
Hiccup's eyes glinted evilly. "Okay then... Toothless."
His face dropped immediately. "Wha- no, no I am not going to be called Toothless, thank you very much."
"Too late! I'm going to call you Toothless, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"Oh really? Then I'm going to think up a name to call you, and I'll call you by that for the rest of forever!"
Hiccup shrugged. "Oh, you don't need to. I've already got a horrid name: Hiccup."
Toothless blinked. "Well. Someone's parents hate him."
"Yup," Hiccup nodded solemnly. "Fortunately not mine."
Suddenly, Hiccup looked up at the slowly darkening sky. He cursed. "I need to get back to school. They'll notice I'm gone and I'll probably be in detention until I graduate if I'm caught alone in the Forest after dark." He turned back toward the castle, desperately hoping that was the right direction.
"You'll come back, though, right?" Toothless's gaze never left Hiccup's face. "The only company I have out here are unicorns, centaurs and giant spiders. The unicorns are extremely naive and kind of stupid, a bit like hogflies, the acromantulas are kind of psychotic, and the centaurs are the most superstitious bunch of cabbage heads you will ever meet. None of them can understand me anyway, and the few things I can understand the unicorns saying always have something to do with 'the one light' or some stupid thing."
Hiccup blinked. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, I'll come visit sometimes. I could use it."
He turned and ran all the way back to the castle. Merlin and Jack were already in the common room by the time he got back, demanding to know where he'd been (as far as they knew, he simply lost track of time). It turned out he had missed dinner, but he didn't mind. When they finally settled into bed with the rest of their classmates, Hiccup slipped into dreams of his new friend, sleeping out in the woods.
A/N: For those of you who haven't read the books, the Dragonese thing is actually canon. He apparently taught himself by observing the dragons in the cliffs, and it's apparently considered nerdy to speak the language (in book canon, there is no war with the dragons except ancient history).
So, do you like Hiccup's history lesson there? : ) Do you like my characterization of Toothless? What's Ogglebert hiding? How do you think the friendship with Toothless is gonna play out?
See you guys next week!~ ; )