Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. Inc., Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Raincoast, and any other affiliated party.
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Chapter 6: Into the Dragons' Nest
Harry, Ron, and Ginny landed with a thud on rocky ground. Ron seemed to have hit his rear end quite hard.
"Owe," he said. "Portkeys, the best way to travel. Yeesh." He stood up and looked around. He eventually located what appeared to be a large blue log and sat down on it. "Good thing they got these logs here," he said with a grin. Harry and Ginny, however, looked skeptical.
"Blue logs?" said Ginny. "Do such a thing actually exist?"
"Well, if they don't exist than how can I be sitting on one?" said Ron sarcastically.
Harry suddenly realized something. "Er, Ron, I don't think that's a log."
Ron snorted. "Well, Harry. If it's not a log, than what am I sitting on?" Suddenly, the log started moving! With a swish, Ron was flung off whatever it was he was sitting on and smashed into a rock wall, face first. He silently slid down.
What had appeared to be a log was in fact the tail of a blue dragon with large shiny eyes. It seemed to be quite angry for having been disturbed from its sleep. It breathed a burst of fire that nearly singed the Mage Knights. With a scream, the three dashed behind the rock wall.
"Way to go, Ron," said Harry.
"Oh, like I knew it was a dragon," said Ron. "And I also suppose I knew it would get that angry."
Ginny snorted. "Ron, you remember the Hogwarts motto, 'Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus', right?"
"What?" asked Ron, looking confused.
"Never tickle a sleeping dragon," supplied Ginny.
Ron snorted, "Yeah, sure I knew that."
"Quiet," hissed Harry. He looked out from behind the rock to see if the dragon had gone back to sleep. "Its an opaleye, they're one of the most docile of dragons but still quite dangerous if aggravated like this one is. Its just a juvenile though so I suppose…"
"Uh, Harry," said Ron, as he tapped Harry on the shoulder.
"Not now, Ron."
"Uh, Harry, you should really turn around."
Harry whipped around angrily as he said, "Well, what is i…" Harry stopped short when he came face to face with an even larger opaleye dragon. The dragon gave off a mighty roar and flames as the three Mage Knights scrambled away, looking panicked. After running for a while, the three made into a large clearing, surrounded by more rock walls.
"Well, I guess we shook off those dragons," said Ron. He couldn't have been more wrong when another dozen opaleye dragons crawled into the clearing from behind the rock walls, effectively surrounding the three. The Mage Knights froze as the dragons all burst out a gust of flame! Having nowhere to escape, Harry, Ron, and Ginny used a blast of magic to escape upwards.
After flying through the air for a few minutes, screaming all the while, the three Mage Knights landed in a heap on one of the rock walls.
"Isn't life fantastic?" said Ron. "We come all the way to Durmstrang only to end up as dragons' dinner."
"We must be in a dragons' nest," said Ginny.
Ron snorted. "Oh, like that wasn't obvious."
"Well we have to figure out some way to get out of this mess," said Harry. After some quick thinking, the three decided to sneak past the dragons as secretly as possible.
Harry, Ron, and Ginny silently crept past the rock walls trying to make as little sound as possible. After crawling a couple of meters, the three were almost out of the nest when Ron stepped on a twig. Immediately, the dragons were upon them and the Mage Knights were forced to run back into the nest as they avoided claws, teeth, and fire. Soon, the knights found themselves cornered.
"What do we do now?" shouted Ginny.
"What do you think we do?" said Harry. He drew out his sword. "We fight!"
"Are you crazy?" yelled Ron. "Why not just serve ourselves to them on a silver platter?!"
"We've fought a dragon before, Ron."
"That was just one horntail. And my emphasis is on the word 'one'!"
Harry ignored Ron as he leapt forward. With a boost of magic, Harry leapt some twenty feet into the air and swung his sword sideways at one of the opaleyes! Although, the blade was unable to pierce the tough dragon scales, Harry still managed to knock the dragon off of its feet.
Ron and Ginny also drew their swords reluctantly. "I've always thought he was a little crazy," mumbled Ron. "But I didn't think it would run that deep."
"Ron, just shut up and work on getting out of here!" yelled Ginny. She leapt forward and rolled beneath another dragon's leg. Not taking any chances, Ginny even managed place a blow on the dragon's left hind leg as she rolled away. The dragon howled in pain.
This left Ron in the dragons' mercy. As the dragons' charged at him, Ron suddenly remembered something Hermione had once told him. "The eyes!" Ron fired a Conjunctivitus curse at the dragons' blinding them. The opaleyes started thrashing about, but Ron managed to sneak his way around them. 'Guess I ought to thank Hermione when I see her,' he thought.
The three knights had once again made it to the edge of the nest when the last opaleye swooped down in front of them.
"Scatter!" yelled Harry. The Mage Knights darted in three directions, temporarily confusing the dragons. However, it soon let the dragon instinct of targeting virgin maidens take over and chased after Ginny. Ginny rolled back and forth avoiding the flames issued by the dragons. Eventually, she managed to get her footing and shout "Reducto!" The blast caught the dragon in the eyes and it hollered in pain. Not missing their chance, Harry, Ron, and Ginny leapt into the air and swung their swords at the opaleyes head! The combined blow knocked the young dragon unconscious.
Overcoming the final obstacle, Harry, Ron, and Ginny made it out of the dragons' nest. Harry turned to his two friends and asked, "You two OK?"
Ron was burned black and he actually had smoke issuing from his body, but he grinned and said, "Never better."
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Really? You look you've just gone through a volcano."
"Oh, and I suppose you look any better," said Ron. Ginny also had steam coming off her armor and she was filthy due to all of the rolling she had done.
Ginny turned back to Harry and said, "At least we now know why this part of Durmstrang is sparsely populated."
"Yeah," said Harry with a smile. "We may have ended up in an opaleye nest but it would have been a lot worse if we had landed in the middle of a village."
"Yeah, we'd be less burned," said Ron. Harry couldn't help but grin.
"Well, come on boys," said Ginny. "We need to get to the royal capitol as fast as we can and we aren't getting any closer just standing around here."
Harry sobered up and nodded. "Hermione's there. I need to get there as fast as I can. God knows what they're doing to her as we stand around." He shuddered at the thought and tried to ignore the lump in his throat as he thought of Hermione's predicament. Within seconds, the Mage Knights had started the long journey to their destination on foot.
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A/N Well, how was that. After all the seriousness and sadness of the previous chapters, I really needed some comic relief. So did that bring a smile to your face? I hope so. I'll answer some questions people have in the next chapter. R/R. Next: So what is happening to Hermione at this moment?