Fire and Punishment
Lyra and Whispers missed breakfast as they refused to get up in the morning, one hungover from too much sugar and the other from too much sugar and an undetermined amount of alcohol. He brought breakfast to their room with a large amount of water.
Following breakfast, Harry was given access to a potions lab and began speaking to all the people who had volunteered to have his hair growth potion tested on them. The reserve had an extensive inventory for treating burns, cuts, reattaching severed limbs, dehydration, and general healing plus pain relief. There were also plenty of regular hair potions for regrowth, color, and even bottles of his ancestor's Sleekeazy Hair Tonic.
Remembering everything he had done with Fred, George, and Lee trying to figure out the mandrake ritual, along with snippets of memories from his science classes in primary school, he started his project. This would be slightly different as he had a completed project, though he might need to tweak it a bit. Regardless, if it was going to be a success, it would need to be flawless.
First, he spoke to each volunteer to find out what kind of dragon had burned them, where were the affected areas, how long it had been since the incident and anything they had already tried since then to regrow their hair. He was shown many different types of burns on many body parts; some of them didn't appear to have any damage to their skin, while others had deep burn scars. A few of them even had missing limbs or digits in the areas that were burnt making Harry certain that he did not want to be a dragon handler when he was older.
A few of the volunteers had been a bit hesitant to be working with a child, but after the previous night's displays of magic by Lyra and himself, they seemed interested in what else he could do. Brandt also acted as his assistant, prompting and facilitating the meetings. After gathering information from each volunteer, they were given a dose of regular hair regrowth potion to spread on and around the affected areas so Harry could see the results, even if there were none. These potions took a few hours to work, while in his experience, his potion needed to be combined with a full night of sleep to see any results. He didn't want to double up on the potions, so the testing of his potion would come the following night.
Lyra and Whispers had gotten out of bed around noon. They both moaned and complained about their current state as a result of their activities the previous night while they ate their breakfasts. Afterward, they just returned to bed to regain their strength. They eventually joined Harry for dinner. While they had all seen Tristan spending time with Charlie around the facility, Tonks and Alastor had been conspicuously missing.
Then the following day, Harry got to see the results of the basic potion for hair growth on those who had volunteered. There was no growth on the sites of the burns, though outside of the affected areas, everyone had results and between three to five inches of hair. All of them were given some of Harry's potion, some to apply topically, and the rest to drink before going to sleep.
Tonks and Alastor made a reappearance. The old Auror was still eyeing Brandt with suspicion and Tonks was carrying around an old book with no title that she would read at meals. While their actions were strange, they weren't providing any explanation, so no one asked for one.
In the evening, Charlie took the whole group to their nursery and infirmary, telling them they would get to see a baby dragon. The aurors were fully alert to prepare for the encounter though Tristan and Tonks were doing a bad job of hiding their excitement. The ginger handler led them to a door they had passed before but hadn't gone in because it was made of solid iron.
The inside of the room was circular. The center of the room was sunk by about thirty feet and had a large glass ceiling over the top. Three people were working in the room wearing white coats looking through reports and occasionally peering over the edge to what lay below. Charlie gestured the group to the edge. Looking down, there was a rocky environment with large lights along the sides from which they could feel the heat in addition to their glow. The rocks had a reddish tinge to them and the vegetation was sparse. One corner contained a cave but sitting on top of it, soaking up the heat from a nearby light was a small dragon.
The 'small' dragon was about ten feet long from snout to tail. It had the same color as the surrounding rocks, with a touch of purple added in a marble-like pattern. The entire body was covered by scales that slightly resembled a porcupine though they were shorter and thicker than the spines of that animal. The spikes were longer on the tail and stuck straight upward. It had a pointed face that looked like a metal mask.
After they had stared at it for a while, Charlie told them, "That's a Mongolian Iron-beak. Incredibly rare and one of the few extant dragons that don't have wings. Some muggle found an egg at a garage sale and tried to sell it to an antique show, as they thought it was some kind of art piece. Someone magical, who knew it was a kind of dragon egg, alerted their ministry and after a few arguments about who had authority over it, we got it and hatched the little guy."
"Anything particularly interesting about this breed?" Brandt asked.
"The thing that looks like a helmet on his face is as indestructible as they can get. A few times during their life it gets shed to grow a new one. They use it to break open the shells and thick skin of other magical animals, even fire crabs and manticores. They also have an appetite for birds and will roll around in various dead animals to get bits of meat stuck to their spiky scales. Then they just lay around until a bird or sometimes even another dragon will try to get some, at which point, that spiky tail will make short work of whatever has come to take their bait."
"Is it just going to lay there?" Tonks asked. Lyra nodded along to the question.
Charlie whistled at a woman in a white coat. She walked over to a table that had a number of colored jewels embedded into the wood. Tapping her wand on a red stone dimmed the lights in the enclosure, then on a blue stone, which opened a door and a creature scurried out. It was a mouse the size of a small bear though its back was encrusted with sapphires that sparkled in the low light.
Brandt stared at the little animal, and turned to Charlie, "You're going to use the Iron-Beak to break the shell of the Jeweled Armor Rat?" Charlie nodded. "That's ingenious," he added.
The lounging dragon began to stretch as Moody spoke up for the first time in a while, "Those things are a blight on the Statute of Secrecy. Most magical rodents are, but this one isn't a natural evolution. Some idiot tried to create mice covered in jewels and didn't limit their breeding potential in hopes of getting rich." He let the idea wash over the group. "He has been in prison now for seventy-eight years. It's very hard to capture those rats and even harder to remove their shells to get the gems as they will disintegrate if not broken off within minutes of their death."
The dragon had now rolled over and was sniffing the air. The jeweled rodent knew it was being hunted but the only place to hide was in the cave underneath the dragon. When the predator spotted its prey it jumped from the top of the rocks it had been sleeping on and bounded towards it in a manner that resembled a playful otter. The shelled mouse tried to run, but a scorching blast cooked it alive, killing it on the spot. The dragon finished its approach and stood above its kill, letting out a roar. Though, since it was still technically a baby, it came out high-pitched, which caused giggles from Harry and Lyra. From there, it moved to have its head above the shell and stretched its neck and head higher above the smoking corpse and then slammed the silver, pointed beak down into the gemmed shell.
A loud crack was heard and chunks and splinters of blue stones scattered around the enclosure. The dragon repeated the action several more times until a large section of the shell cracked away and exposed the spine of the animal. It then just stuck its whole mouth inside the exposed back and started to eat. While it was distracted eating, the three wizards in white coats began summoning all the chunks of jewels to them and storing them away. After quickly inquiring that they were going to sell them, Brandt approached the woman who had let out the mouse to buy a large number of the pieces. As he was negotiating, the pieces that were still attached to the shell of the rodent suddenly turned gray and then into dust as the dragon continued its meal.
"Does he have anyone to play with?" Harry asked.
"Unfortunately, we don't have any others his age," Charlie said sadly. "We are working to get a surrogate mother to look after him, but the Russian preserve she's at is insisting we buy her instead of borrowing. That's why we have started harvesting the mice."
"How long will it take?" Harry asked. "How much more do you need?"
Charlie didn't know so he asked the woman Brandt was buying the sapphires from.
"At the rate that he's eating the mice, we should be able to make the purchase in about five months." She didn't look happy at how long it would be.
Brandt saw a calculating look on Harry's face and pulled him aside with Lyra, casting a multi-layer privacy spell as he went. "I don't think you have enough money to purchase a dragon for them. I bought a small chunk just now and it cost as much as all of the sales your cuddling stuffed animals would make in a year."
Lyra perked up, "But we don't need money if we have gems? They're selling those blue stones, right?"
Harry was nodding along, "Do other colors sell well?"
Brandt tried to play it a bit innocent, as he said, "Many colors sell well. Those red rocks by the scary tree would sell for about three times as the blue ones here for the same size. Alternatively, selling a single one of the buffalo on the island would possibly be enough to purchase the dragon."
"We've read about re'em," Lyra supplied. "These are very small."
"It also would be killed," Harry added, trying to measure the cost in his mind.
Brandt decided to give a little push, "The money will be returned, it's just about getting it quickly. I can get the funds from the re'em the quickest. I can help you with the money if you want, but I was planning on surprising you by using that money to hire the Whimsical Wands to be your tutors along with Stevens in the fall. They would do a great job in helping you get stronger."
Harry felt a tingle in the magic around his heart. Looking at Lyra he saw she was feeling the same. He had promised himself to get stronger, he needed to be much more powerful in order to one day confront the poachers that had killed so many of the Hidden. Looking at Lyra he could see she was thinking the same thing.
After sharing a nod with his sister, he told Brandt, "Take one of the re'em. It will help this dragon and it will help us."
Brandt gave them a silent nod and popped the privacy bubble, turning back to the others. "Sorry if that was a bit rude, Mr. Potter and Miss Black are interested in providing the reserve with a loan to help purchase the surrogate mother from the other reserve."
"What!?" Charlie was flabbergasted. "Does he realize the cost? I mean that's obviously what you were talking about for so long, but still. Are you sure?"
The woman Brandt had been speaking with earlier pushed Charlie aside, "Shut up, match head. Stop trying to dissuade them." Speaking to Brandt, "What kind of interest are we talking about?"
"None… but we would take prices on dragon parts out of the reserve at cost for the next five years."
"No," she replied sharply. "We will add a sixty percent markup instead of the standard."
"It was worth a shot, sixty is agreeable. I can have the money for you in a week or two." Brandt shook her hand.
As soon as she released his grip, she tossed her white coat onto a chair and dashed out of the room.
"Are you really getting Harry and Lyra to buy a dragon?" Tonks asked and Brandt nodded.
"How much are we talking about?" Tristan asked Charlie.
"I don't even know how to put it in simple terms or galleons. We are about thirty percent of the way to our goal. The original price quoted to us from the Russian reserve was two and a quarter metric tons of gold or equivalent."
While that figure washed over the heads of Harry, Lyra, and of course, Whispers; everyone else was in shock.
Moody grumbled a bit, "I do hope you're not forcing these children to give up their inheritances." He looked angrily at Brandt.
"Calm down." He smiled, amused a bit at getting under the old Auror's skin. "First of all, it's a loan, and second of all they both have resources outside of Gringotts. I was just trying to make sure that they knew what they were getting into."
"We're helping a baby dragon! What's wrong with that?" Lyra asked Moody accusatorily.
"You don't understand the amount of money you are playing with. However you're getting your hands on it is either dangerous, illegal, or too risky for someone your age."
"We need to do this," Harry said firmly. "I trust Brandt."
There was silence for a bit before Tristan broke the silence, "Hey, just out of curiosity, what is the standard markup on dragon parts? You seemed happy with sixty percent."
"The dragon reserves control the entire market on dragon parts," Brandt told him. "Most parts have a markup of about five hundred percent."
"More for the rarer breeds," Charlie added, tilting his head towards the enclosure where the Iron-Beak was back in his resting spot on top of the cave, the silver mask over its face now stained with blood. "Are you planning on reselling anything?" he asked Brandt.
"Probably not, just a few personal projects, plus anything the kids want. I'm sure they'll want to have some fun with dragon parts in the direction they're going with their studies."
"Whatever," Moody growled and stalked away, though Brandt could still feel the old man's eye on him.
The following day, Harry got to see the results of his potion on the volunteers.
Nothing. There was no change.
Just to be sure, Brandt asked one of the healers who worked at the reserve to check each volunteer. After a thorough exam, it was determined that the potion had nearly worked and most of the hair follicles for each person had healed very slightly, but something wasn't perfect in the recipe.
Harry spent the afternoon in the research library trying to see if there was some difference between dragon fire and phoenix fire that would account for his problem. The research room was in a circular room, bathed in orange light. Charlie explained that the light was the result of a spell that eliminated humidity that could damage the books. There were large sections of the walls that didn't contain books but were instead covered with ancient paintings of people and dragons. Many of the people wore what appeared to be dragon scales and teeth as ornaments on their bodies.
Charlie saw Lyra looking at the paintings as Harry and Whispers sat at one of the study tables looking through a stack of books.
"Ancient dragon handlers used to wear dragon parts to help protect them before fireproofing and apparation were created," he told the blonde girl.
"But how would a necklace help?" she asked. "It doesn't seem like it would provide much protection."
"Shamanistic magic," he told her. "They could invoke magical effects from the world around them. That type of magic disappeared slowly after wands were invented."
"I can do that," Lyra said simply. "Harry can too."
"No shit?" he replied with surprise. "Let's go get you some dragon parts to play with while Harry studies." He looked over to an empty corner, "Hey Nimmy! You want to stay here with Harry?"
"You can see her too?" Lyra asked as the disillusionment faded on Tonks.
"What? No. What? Do you mean you knew she was there? I saw her following us earlier and assumed she was still here."
She walked over, and said, "This little girl is full of surprises. I'll go with you. Moody will take over for me."
The storeroom they arrived at was filled with both dragon parts and the equipment they needed to run the facility. Incredibly organized and sectioned off so that certain dangerous materials would only be handled by those trained in handling them safely. Each aisle was relatively short but the number of them went on seemingly endless in either direction from the entrance. Charlie led them through the aisle to a desk on the other side where a man with gray hair and spectacles sat. Behind him was a window that appeared to look out over a beautiful fjord, the land covered in snow. As they were underground, and nowhere near Scandinavia, it was obviously not real, but still a gorgeous sight.
"Mr. Weasley, how can I help you today?" he asked.
"Nimmy, Lyra, this is Barnabas, but you can call him Barney."
"I'd prefer if you don't," he interjected.
"Fine," Charlie started again, gesturing to Lyra. "This little firecracker claims to be a shaman. We want to check out some random parts for her to play with."
The man peered over his glasses at Lyra, reminding her a lot of Madam Pince. After he had gleaned enough from his scrutinizing glare, he told Charlie, "Nothing over a Class E material, no internal organs, everything needs to be returned undamaged by noon tomorrow."
Charlie gave him a snappy military salute and took a shopping cart that was to the side of the desk and started leading them away. He took them around ten aisles from the desk to one that was filled with teeth. He gathered only small ones that could fit on a necklace or other type of jewelry from as many breeds as he could. Then they moved on to scales, then tongues, and even took a few jars with eyeballs inside.
After a long and arduous checkout process, he took them to a room with sturdy stone walls that had a greenish hue and a room to the side that had a tiny window in it towards the main area. Charlie took them into the stone room and unloaded their supplies before speaking to them.
"This room is where we test the durability of dragon scales and leather before we sell them. Also, some clients insist on a demonstration before purchasing. The walls are made from olivine excavated out of the mantle of the earth and are designed to withstand specifically explosives and fire, including veela flames and even fiendfyre. Essentially, I want you to know that there is nothing you can do to damage them so don't worry about holding back."
Lyra nodded in understanding and took one of the dragon fangs and exited the booth to the main room. Before channeling her magic, she held the tooth in her hands. It was about half as long as her knife, the end sticking out a few inches past her fist as she held it by the root. It had a few stains on it but was smooth all the way to the tip. She poked the end with her finger to find it wasn't sharp, however, it would certainly poke a hole through just about anything given enough pressure.
Holding it like her knife, she pushed her magic into it. It didn't feel dangerous, just like a blanket around her, keeping her safe. After nothing else seemed to be happening, she let the magic dissipate and looked up towards Charlie and Tonks peeking through the window.
"Did anything happen?" she asked. Tonks replied in the negative. "I felt something happen," she told them.
Charlie stepped out from the bunker, "The teeth were supposed to be talismans for protection."
"It's probably against fire," Tonks guessed with a shrug. "They must be very resilient to fire as it comes out of their mouths."
"It's worth a shot, I'll go get a suit," Charlie said as he exited the room.
When he came back he was pushing a suit of armor built for a woman on a mannequin. It was completely made of dragonscale and would cover Lyra with no gaps, even on her face. While it would be extremely heavy, the fact that it was all one piece meant that it would support a lot of its own weight and just make it very hard to move around. That it was all one piece ended up posing a small problem as Lyra needed contact with the fang in order to create the magic. The problem was solved by removing a small scale on the glove, just enough to make a connection.
She couldn't see out of the suit, so Tonks positioned her in the center of the room, conjured scraps of paper, and stuck them at various places around the suit. When she was ready, Tonks told her to do her thing with the fang and Charlie let loose a basic fire spell.
After ten seconds under fire, he stopped to show that all the paper on the side of Lyra's body that wasn't holding the dragon fang had been burnt off. On the other side, there were single scraps towards her head and feet but the center of her body was untouched. Charlie was astonished and asked to take the test up a notch.
With a fang in each hand, she was almost completely untouched except for spots around her head and feet, though the armor prevented any actual burns. From there, Charlie used greater fire spells. As the flames grew hotter, the areas that were protected shrank. After using a spell that conjured green fire, both of the fangs cracked and needed to be replaced.
"How are you doing there, Lyra?" Charlie asked.
"A little tired," Lyra admitted.
"Do you have enough in you for one more?"
She nodded as Tonks asked hesitantly, "What are you going to do?"
He led her back into the bunker and fished out two fangs, both black with veins of red and orange running through them.
"There's a spell the handlers who go into the field learn that is kind of a last resort to fight a dragon if we absolutely have to. If ancient wizards used this technique to protect themselves against dragon fire, it would have to protect against a spell of this level."
Tonks looked a bit concerned, "If anything happens to her…"
"She's got the armor, so even if there's a problem, it will be ok. We are in a protected room and the healers are next door if we need them. If anything happens to her, you can do the same to me."
Tonks drew her wand, just in case she needed to help Lyra or kill Charlie as he brought her the black fangs and covered her in bits of conjured paper. Charlie told her to put as much as she could into the fangs and tell them when she was ready. Even with her face concealed, one could tell she was concentrating, then shifted into a stance she had learned for fighting with her knives and called out she was ready.
Holding his wand with two hands, and standing like he was going to thrust a broad sword forward, he called out in a dramatic and powerful incantation;
"EVOCCO FUROR IGNIS DRACONIS!"
As the fire exited his wand, it sounded like a dragon roaring as it rushed towards the armor-clad girl, washing over her for nearly ten seconds before abating. Lyra was still up but had fallen to one knee. Most of the paper was gone, but it still remained in pristine condition on her arms, shoulders, and neck. Tonks rushed forward to help her.
"Don't touch her!" Charlie warned. "You'll burn your hands off. Lyra, are you ok?"
She sounded breathless as she replied, "I'm really hot."
Tonks and Charlie went in turns conjuring ice around her, which melted almost immediately until the armor was cool enough to help her remove it. Piece by piece it came off to reveal a very tired little girl with what looked like a very bad sunburn on her whole body. The pink skin did not match well with her blonde hair.
"You know what this means, right?" Tonks asked.
"That Lyra, and probably Harry too, are able to replicate a kind of magic seen only in wandless cultures and ancient civilizations. It could open whole new avenues of magical research!"
"Well, I guess that too," Tonks spun her wand in her fingers. "I was referring to giving you the same complexion as this little girl."
Charlie looked fearfully at his old girlfriend and sprinted to the door. He blindly dodged two stunners and leaped straight through a magic lasso that she had used to capture him previously, then disillusioned himself and continued running.
"Run! I will find you!" Tonks yelled after him. Looking back at Lyra, "Let's get you to the infirmary."
It took about thirty minutes for the healer to get rid of the sunburn which he told them repeatedly should have been much worse. On the way back to the library, Tonks mentioned to all the handlers she passed that she was looking for Charlie Weasley and hoped he would be present in the tavern later. That and a reward would be given to those who delivered him.
Harry wasn't in the library but had left a note that he had returned to the potion lab. When they arrived, Lyra waved to an empty spot where Moody was standing inside the door, then looked to Harry, who was wearing a dragon-hide coverall and slowly stirring a large cauldron with an oversized wooden spoon that was on fire. There were the charred remains of what looked like three other spoons in a barrel filled with water nearby. Lyra was about to greet him but Tonks stopped him.
"Not yet, he's counting." She pointed to his lips and he was indeed counting what seemed to be a very high number.
After another few minutes, he yelled out, "Five hundred!"
He yanked the giant spoon out of the cauldron and the fire in the handle spread to the end that had been submerged. Harry tossed the flaming spoon into the barrel with the others, eliciting a large hiss as it fell beneath the surface.
"Is it done?" Lyra asked.
"I really hope so," Harry replied as he ditched his coveralls and grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat from his face. Seeing Lyra peering around the room, he added, "Whispers was bored and went exploring with Tristan."
"Are you going to explain what you were doing?" Tonks asked.
Harry held up a finger as he drained an entire glass of water, then took a deep breath, "So I figured out I was combining two steps with the wood ash from a firebird. I needed to use it both as a tool to heal the damage to the body and as a counter to the magic of the firebird specifically. So for dragons, I split the step in two, first adding the wood ash from the hoohoos and then adding wood ash from a dragon."
"And the spoon?" Lyra prompted.
"At first I tried to add bits of the ash and then stir, but it seemed to sink too quickly and wouldn't dissolve. So I spoke with one of the handlers who looked after the Iron-Beak if I could get it to set the spoon on fire and then let the ash fall as I stirred."
Tonks was about to ask a question, but Harry preemptively answered, "I did five hundred stirs because I had to figure out how much ash was falling each second and keep a constant stirring until I had enough for this large of a recipe. I found out with two other failures that if I let the spoons burn more than one hundred and fifty full stirs, it breaks down too much to keep going, so I split the whole process into four spoons of a hundred and twenty-five stirs each. It was one thousand five hundred seconds and I needed to do one full stir every three."
"We can round up your test subjects at dinner," Tonks told him. "I think you need a bath first and Lyra can tell you about invoking the power of dragon teeth to become fireproof."
As they walked back to their room, Lyra gave an animated retelling of what they had been up to. Most of it didn't surprise Harry, though he was interested in her interaction with the dragon fangs. Because Charlie had fled the room, none of the materials has been returned and Lyra still had the black fangs, one of which she gave to Harry. His sister explained that she felt something like an umbrella opening in front of her, but as much as he tried, Harry couldn't get a reaction from the black fang, passing it back to Lyra.
Halfway through dinner, Tristan and Whispers entered the room with the woman who has been working with the Mongolian Iron-Beak and Tuuk. Whispers spotted them and dashed across the room. Straight to Tonks.
Pulling on her shirt, he growled out, "Wee catch Charlie!"
Tonks happily looked to Tristan for a better explanation, who told her, "Whispers is quite the tracker. He led the three of us to where Charlie was hiding in the fertilizer storage room. He's all tied up now in the tavern."
Word spread through the dining hall and as everyone finished eating, a procession of around sixty people made their way to their drinking hall. Upon entering, they saw Charlie, tied to a chair and placed behind the warded bar so he couldn't escape even if he got the ropes undone. One of the handlers volunteered to serve drinks so they could take him out and levitated the chair, with him in it, over onto the dueling platform.
Tonks jumped up with him and conjured a gag into Charlie's mouth before he could say anything, then addressed the crowd, "Today, Charlie and I witnessed something incredible! Lyra Black was able to protect herself from simulated dragon fire using shamanistic magic shown in the paintings in the library." There were many astonished gasps and muttering from the room as she continued, "When I voiced concern about using such a powerful spell against a little girl, even one who could protect from regular fire and wearing dragon scale armor, Charlie told me with confidence that I could do to him whatever happened to her back. Even under all the protection she had, she still got something similar to a bad sunburn and this coward fled before I could enact his punishment."
There were boos from all over the room and Charlie looked embarrassed.
She continued, "First to the captors, what do you want for finding him?"
Tuuk spoke up, "I want a photo with Kathy Ireland."
"Done! Though your friends still need to pick someone else for your embarrassing photo."
The woman who worked in the nursery didn't want anything but said she'd save her favor for a rainy day. Tristan said he had something in mind but would wait a bit. Whispers asked for a watermelon.
Turning back to Charlie, she used her wand to strip him down to his underwear, still tied to the chair. He looked afraid as Tonks took a step back and raised her wand.
"Garri wiirra!" As she cast the spell, a cone of orange light came out and covered his whole body. When it stopped, Charlie had a light tan over his whole body.
He looked confused at what had just happened, but then looked at Tonks, who smiled sinisterly before casting the spell five more times. After she had finished, he had gone from a light tan to a crispy red, covering all the skin on his body. With another flick of her wand and the ropes loosened and slid down his skin causing him to scream a bit through his gag. When the ropes were off he carefully reached up and took off the gag.
"Lyra's burn wasn't nearly this bad!" he yelled at Tonks as the room laughed at him.
Before he could get up, Tristan hit him with a petrification spell so he couldn't stand up, then unfroze his face.
"Sorry buddy," he told Charlie, "but I thought that she might do something like this, and now I'm going to ask for my favor from her."
Tristan began whispering in Tonks's ear. After a few seconds, she jumped back and started repeating, "No, no, no, no."
Tristan gave her a playful grin, "Consider it my reward for catching Charlie and not waking up Moody on the island. It's either this or a dragon."
"Fine," she told him bitterly.
Tonks cast a spell at the ground and a large wall of earth erupted from the floor, then stepped behind it.
"What did you ask her to do to me?" Charlie asked fearfully.
Tristan ignored him, and faced the curious crowd, "Today! Tonight! Right now! You will all witness the deepest and darkest fear of Chuckles Weasley. This is not what a boggart might show him, this is something that is deeper. This might even be something that would terrify a dementor."
The crowd was looking curious, and Charlie looked confused and scared.
"Hey asshole, I'm ready," Tonks spoke up from behind the wall.
"Then without further ado…" Tristan ran over to the bar where Harry and Lyra were sitting, a bit confused at what was happening.
From behind the wall, a foot stuck out. It was almost human, except a bit orange with long black claws at the end of the toes. As the leg came out, it was covered in black hair above the ankle. The leg got shaken and the toes wiggled around a little bit before Tonks stepped out all the way. She was shorter than usual and a bit plump, with short black hair covering her whole body. The exceptions were thin fingers with the same black claws as the feet and an elongated nose that looked a bit like a cross between a duck and an anteater. She also had grown a long floppy tail covered in the same black fur.
"AHHHH NIFFLER!" Charlie screamed, and everyone else just laughed.
Tonks proceeded to do an elaborate dance around and on Charlie as he screamed and rocked back and forth in the chair. Harry and Lyra found it hilarious and imagined it must have hurt a bit when she sat on his sunburnt body and continued the dance. It went on for about five minutes with a few people, including Tristan taking pictures, before she ducked back behind the wall, presumably to change back. While the party continued, Tristan unfroze his friend and helped him to the infirmary to get the sunburn treated.
When he finished taking pictures, Brandt had corralled all the volunteers for Harry's potion and gathered them by the bar. He took notes on the dosages as Harry administered the topical part of the potion and gave them all small vials to drink before going to sleep. As an added precaution, Harry also warned each volunteer not to drink anything magical while the potion was working. Now all they had to do was wait.
The potion was a resounding success. Brandt made sure Harry was in the potions lab early in the morning to be available when the volunteers came in. Nearly all of them were already waiting for him when he arrived, all with massive amounts of hair growing from the spots that had been treated along with light fuzz over every other area of their skin that grew hair.
Pictures were taken, notes were recorded, and so far there were no side effects that could be found. However, when everyone was finished, there were still five volunteers unaccounted for.
Harry asked, "Where are… Rachel, Mordy, Miguel, Grendel, and Biano?"
No one was quite sure, so search parties were formed to track them down. Those to be found first were Rachel and Mordy as they were engaged and shared a bunk. When the door to their room was opened, hair came tumbling out. The ones that found them had to use cutting jinxes to mow through the massive amounts of hair to eventually find the couple pinned under the massive weight of a room full of hair coming from their own heads and bodies. They had managed to separate themselves from the hair but it was just too hard to move even after that.
Miguel was in the infirmary as his finger and toenails had also had extraordinary growth. When he had woken up, the hair on his leg had grown a foot long in the treated spot, but he also had three-foot-long finger and toenails. Grendel and Biano had just gone to work after trimming their new heads of hair and didn't bother to check-in.
Miguel admitted right away that he had ignored the restriction on alcohol and drank a type of alcohol made from a magical cactus. That set off a round of panic from other volunteers that admitted they also ignored the restriction on alcohol. After finding out what everyone had to drink, only Miguel had something with a magical ingredient.
The only thing that was different with Rachel and Mordy is that said they had sex before going to sleep. Two of the other volunteers admitted to hooking up with someone as well, but not with someone who was also part of the study. They seemed a bit embarrassed to be admitting it to a teenager but Harry just wrote it all down without batting an eye.
Brandt proposed a test to get as many other couples as possible to take part in the study for their last night at the dragon reserve. Half would both take the treatment and the other half only one would. It took some convincing from Bramdt for them to have their sex lives to be used as an experiment, mostly because the initial request came from a kid, but also because of what happened to Rachel and Mordy.
After a full day of working on his project, Harry found Lyra in the armor testing room, playing with her fire magic. Tristan, Alastor, and Tonks were camped in the bunker watching her play with the various fire spells she knew and having a drink. Harry shielded himself from the flames and dashed into the room to join them. Whispers jumped out of a corner to surprise him but he just stepped out of the way and sat in an empty chair.
"How goes the project?" Alastor asked.
Harry smiled, "We are testing one more side effect. Apparently, mating couples who are both taking the potion makes it go out of control."
They all looked strangely at his use of the term "mating couples," but didn't ask him about it.
"Does your sister ever get tired?" Tonks asked. "She's been going without a break for nearly an hour."
"She seems to be able to reuse fire when it's hers," Harry commented. "When she was dueling Draco, he collected some of the fire she used on him and returned it in a large blast and it didn't phase her at all."
They watched through the window as she cast the fire tongue spell she had just learned toward a small fire in the corner. The whip of fire absorbed the flames there and made it thicker before she waved it around more.
"Do any of you want to fight her?" Harry asked.
"I did earlier," Tonks replied. "She's strong but no match for me."
"I'll fight both of you," Tristan suggested with a shrug.
A few minutes later after the room had cooled down and Harry and Lyra had discussed strategy, they faced off from opposite sides of the room. Moody set up a ventriloquist charm inside the room and commanded them to stand at the ready. Harry had just his wand drawn while Lyra had just her staff, her wand still holstered. There was no trace of a smile on Tristan's face and looked like he was taking this seriously.
As soon as Moody called for the start, Lyra flooded the room in dark smoke. As it spread, they saw Tristan tap himself in numerous places with his wand and fire a purple spell toward Harry. Not knowing what it was and if his shield could absorb it or not, he chose to dodge. However, the moment he did, it changed trajectory and hit him in the side.
He didn't feel any different, so he started casting floating pulses of magic in a widespread direction towards Tristan's position even though they were in total darkness now. Lyra had started her own part of the plan and ignited the ceiling in flames which began to creep towards the walls to slowly envelop the room in fire.
Deciding he needed to move or be hit, he turned to move, only to find his knees didn't work the way they were supposed to. It was as if his kneecaps were on the wrong side of his legs and he fell to the ground in a heap. Just because he was down, didn't mean he was out, so he turned invisible and started to crawl across the room to the other side casting small balls of magic that moved imperceptibly slowly the entire time that would act as mines that would feel like a punch to the legs if someone ran into them.
The other benefit of being so low was he could breathe better. The fire on the ceiling was consuming all the oxygen in the room. However, as time passed, he couldn't see anything else happening. The fire was still burning in the darkness but he heard no more incantations from Lyra, not any spells from Tristan. As he began to get short of breath in the dwindling oxygen supply, he began to wheeze and moments later got hit by a spell and was knocked unconscious.
When he woke up, he was sitting next to Lyra on the ground, the room returned to its original state. Tristan stood in front of them with Alastor, Tonks, and Whispers waiting for them to regain their wits.
As Lyra shook off the effects of the stun she tried whispering before yelling at Tristan, "You silenced me!"
Tristan nodded as Harry added, "You did something to my knees…"
"Transfiguration hex," he replied. "I reversed your kneecaps. I took away your mobility and Lyra's communication. Then I just sat in the corner with a bubble head and flame-freezing charm to see what you would do about it. Lyra tried to burn down the room and Harry turned invisible and stayed below the fire and darkness to try to find me."
"How did you know what I was doing?" Harry asked with shock.
"Human presence revealing spell. When it looked like you were both going to suffocate, I stunned both of you and got rid of the fire and smoke."
"You know too much magic!" Lyra complained. "It's not fair."
Moody took over, "You're right. It's not fair, nothing ever is. You play to your strengths, Tristan is much stronger than both of you. Lyra only beat that dragon handler because he was just playing around. Neither of you has a chance at a fully trained wizard in a real fight. If you ever get in a fight, end it as quickly as possible without longer effects like you tried to do this time. Either that or you escape."
Tonks added her two bits, "You'll both learn how to undo Transfiguration effects in school this year. Try to figure out other ways to fight against effects like silencing, deafening, and blinding. Depriving someone of their senses is always a great way to throw them off balance."
Both Harry and Lyra nodded along with the lesson before helping each other to stand up and head toward their dinner.
The morning had Harry's hypothesis proven correct. The 'mating couples' that he had administered the growth potion to that had had sex under its effects had exponential growth that threatened to bury them in hair while they slept. All other results were as expected as well. As they prepared to leave, they said goodbye to everyone they had met, and left the reserve with a large batch of the potion for future burn treatments.
Most of the reserve showed up to send them off as Charlie escorted the group to the mirror that would take them out of the Lidenbrock pocket they were currently in. After a short jerk, they appeared in the same building as before completely empty of all the others that had been there to see them off. Once Charlie led them through the door and back outside, Brandt dug out a length of rope for their portkey as the building vanished behind them with Charlie still there.
"Are you not going back, Chuckles?" Tonks asked him.
"Nah, I'm heading to England as well. My family got to visit my older brother in Egypt the last few weeks, so I figured that I'd go see them now that they're home."
"Thirty seconds!" Brandt alerted them as he strung their luggage together and held up the length of rope for everyone to grab. Charlie took a few steps back.
With everyone holding on, Brandt counted down, "Three, two, one!"
There was a snapping noise that knocked them all over and their portkey and luggage vanished, though they were now lying on the ground in front of Charlie who looked at them strangely.
"I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen," he smirked.
"Did you make that portkey too?" Harry asked angrily. Brandt looked a bit ashamed.
Looking at the redhead, Brandt asked, "Any chance your portkey is going to the London terminal?"
"I've got a special pass to skip customs. Direct jump home, sorry. You're still welcome to hitch a ride though."
"Can't be any worse than the last two portkeys he's made," Tristan grumbled.
The group gathered around as Charlie pulled a bike tire from his pocket and removed the shrinking charm on it.
"It's a floater, so feather-fall charms for everyone," he said without explanation, then tapped himself on the head with his wand. Looking at his watch, "One minute."
Alastor grumbled as the other three adults started casting a spell on themselves, "The portkey will spit us out in mid-air." He cast the spell on himself as Tonks started the spell on Lyra, Brandt on Harry, and Tristan on Whispers. He could feel his body lighten slightly. "You're going to float to the ground but you should run in the air while you do so to keep from tripping when your feet hit the ground."
They all grabbed the old bike tire, with Whispers using his other arm for a tight hold on Harry's leg, just in time for them to vanish when the portkey tugged them away.