Unofficial Portkey Archive

We had just arrived at the stop near the dragon reserve. I looked down at the boy and told him we were finally there. Of course, I have no idea of what stop he was getting off at, but it seemed to make him happy. He tried to follow us off the train, but we ran and ended up losing him somewhere in the dining car using a series of complex flanking maneuvers. Sometimes, it's difficult to be humble when you are an insidious genius like myself. I began to laugh maniacally, but stopped when Ginny furrowed her eyebrows at me. It's hard to be so misunderstood.

We walked up to a nice enough looking fellow on the train platform and asked him if he knew where the reserve was located. He informed us that all we had to do was head north on the main road until it turns into dirt and keep following it for about a half mile and then we'd see it, or most likely smell it from there. I thought how great it is that no matter where we go, everyone's native language was English. It made me realize how much respect I had for the author of this story, to be so enlightened with his oppressive English-centric version of reality. Moving on, we thanked the nice man for the directions and began to make our way. Ginny later asked me why we would be able to smell it.

"Dragon poo," I said, "very caustic stuff."

I imagined all the jokes that I could tell her about that, but then I remembered the author of the story doesn't do potty humor. I was really upset about that, because I really enjoy good potty humor, but what can I do? I'm just a fictional character. So, I decided to get him back by saying, 'dragon poo,' a whole bunch of times in the next part of the story. I began to snicker and thought about how funny this was going to be.

"Dragon poo!"

"What?" Ginny asked.

"Dragon poo!" I replied with enthusiasm.

"Uh, huh? And you're telling me this why?" she asked with one of her eyebrows raised.

"I don't know," I answered, "I just like to say dragon poo."

"Oookay, then. You just go ahead and do that Harry." she said with a dismissive wave.

I went ahead and made up a little song, right there on the spot. It went a little like this:

OOOOOOOOhhhh, dragon poo!

Sweet dragon poo!

I love you so, yes I doooooooo!

Because it's funny to say dragon poo!

The song had about twenty seven more verses, but it was getting hard to keep the material original. Plus, if I kept on going, the author might kill me off

"Harry?" Ginny said in a highly irritated voice, "What is wrong with you? You seriously need to have Hermione back in your life. If you sing one more verse of your 'dragon poo' song. I will be forced to do terrible, horrible things to you."

I sat there looking at her with sweet rapture in my eyes. She tried hard not to notice, but after awhile I think it started to make her nervous.

"What?!" she finally exclaimed.

"You are so sexy when you say 'dragon poo'. I wonder if Hermione would say that for me."

"Errrr… you need help Harry."

Well, back to more important issues. We had just come across where the road changed from being paved, to being a single lane dirt road. I assumed that they had this place so far out here to prevent anything terrible from happening if one of the dragons escaped. When we got closer I knew that I was wrong... terribly wrong.

"Ha-rry, I…" Ginny was trying not to lose her lunch, "I have never smelled something so vile in my entire life!"

I wanted to make a snappy comment, but my gag reflex was on high alert. I could barely take a breath without having to have a serious talk with my esophagus about keeping the peace with my stomach and large intestines. I had a hard time imagining myself wanting to work here. What were those Weasley boys thinking?

By the time we made it to the front gate, we were both leaning on each other for support. It was the longest half mile I have ever walked in all my years. But for our love of Ron, we pushed ourselves and accomplished the nigh impossible. If he did not appreciate what we were doing for him, I decided to hold him down while Ginny hurt him in all kinds of new and inventive ways.

"Do you think that Ron will come back with us?" I asked her.

"What do you mean? We're just going to take him back with us, right?"

"Well, yeah, but what if he's really happy here?"

Ginny thought about that for a minute and then gave me a very thoughtful answer, "Too freaking bad! He's coming home! He's my brother and I need him. If he thinks that some stupid little Romanian girl is more important than me…"

She started to tear up, "She had better not be more important than me! Or, I'll…"

I waited for a moment. "Or, you'll what?" I asked softly.

"I'll go back home with a broken heart and never be the same again," she answered quietly.

I took a deep breath, choked on the nasty smell in the air, and made a determination that no matter what the circumstances were, Ron was coming back with us.

"Ginny?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you noticed that there doesn't seem to be any people anywhere?"

"I just realized that too, isn't that weird?"

"I'm thinking it's more than just weird. I think something is very wrong here."

We both looked around and saw that all the buildings and stalls were absolutely devoid of life. I could feel my heart beating loudly in my ears. I hated to admit it, but I was beginning to imagine some very scary and nasty possibilities. I pulled out my wand and Ginny seeing me, did the same. I started to poke my head into some of the surrounding structures. The place was an absolute mess. Tables and workbenches were overturned. Cages lay empty and open. Doors were often broken off their hinges. Either they had just held Woodstock 3 here or there had been some sort of battle.

"Ginny?!" I whispered with a harsh intensity.

"What?" she said nervously.

"I'm pretty sure this wasn't a concert."

"Harry? I am not currently inside your twisted little mind, and you haven't been thinking out loud again, so I have no idea of what you are talking about."

I ignored that last statement and explained, "I think the dragons are all loose. From the looks of the cages and stalls, there has to be about thirty of them. We are in very big trouble."

I could literally hear Ginny swallow from four feet away. I'm guessing she was as appropriately concerned about all this as I was. Then the strangest of all things occurred. I heard singing and the singing was so awful that it made my ears want to bleed. I could tell by her cringing that she heard it too. With a knowing nod toward each other, we carefully made our way closer to the unharmonious racket. We both kept our heads down and used whatever we could for cover.

"…. our …"

I thought that I could make out a word or two, but I wasn't completely sure.

"… king …"

I could hear a great deal of commotion going on as well.

"… is …"

We came around a corner and hid behind a small copse of trees. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen. There were a number of wizards and witches that were manacled together. All of them had looks of disgust and hatred on their faces. To add a big question mark to the scene, was a huge number of dragons sitting around with large flagons of ale; and they were all cheering and singing in an addled stupor. I could see them staring in drunken adoration at one person. My eyes went as wide as saucers. There in a makeshift throne sat the most pathetic, dejected creature a wizard could ever lay eyes on. The dragons started singing the song again, this time leaving no doubt.

"Weasley is our king!"

I heard Ginny groan, "You have got to be kidding me."

I sincerely wanted to defend my dearest friend, but I had a nagging feeling that this whole scene somehow at least partially involved Ron. If I were to guess what two words he might be pleading with, in a squeaky voice, right now they would be, "help me." If it weren't for all the dragons, I'd probably have laughed right out loud.

I motioned to Ginny to back up. We needed to find a place to hide and come up with some kind of plan. I had faced a single dragon before in my fifth year, but there is nowhere in any spell book or history book anywhere that gives instructions on how to handle a whole gaggle of drunk, fire-breathing, reptilian wyrms of death and destruction.

I whispered to Ginny, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah. We really should have saved Hermione first."

Yep, she was thinking what I was thinking.

We found a small shed to hide in. We both looked at each other with blank expressions. I decided I had better ask her if she had a plan first. If she asked me first then I'd actually have to come up with something and right now, I had nothing.

"So, Harry, what's the plan?"

Crap.

I sat there in dejected thought for quite awhile and began pacing back and forth. Then an idea hit me from out of nowhere.

"I have it!" I declared.

"Seriously?" Ginny said.

"Yeah," I was surprised as she was, "what did every dragon have in common out there?"

"They should all have their larynxes forcibly removed?"

"That too, but what else?"

"They all… they were all drinking ale."

"Exactly!" I said excitedly, "We need to find their source of ale and pour some Draught of the Living Death in it and sit back and wait for all the dragons to fall into a deep sleep. Then we can free all the dragon wranglers and let them take over from there. What do you think?"

"Harry, that's twice now you've come up with a truly inspirational idea. Let's do it."

"I saw an apothecary shack back near the entrance. We can sneak back there and get the ingredients and brew the potion. Then we'll find the dragon's ale and make our move."

"The plan is simple and straightforward. I really think this will work," Ginny beamed.

With the wisdom of my years I told her that you should always keep a plan simple.

"Why, is it because the simpler the plan the more likely it is to succeed? Or is it that the simplest plans are usually the best plans? Or …"

"Uhh, no. It needs to be simple enough that no one forgets what they're supposed to do. Ever wonder why Draco's plans were always kept so simple?"

Ginny pondered a moment, "Crabbe and Goyle?"

"Exactly," I reassured her.

She sat there for a second and then punched me in the arm, "Wait a minute, you jerk! You essentially just told me that I'm Crabbe or Goyle. You came up with the plan, so what does that leave me? I'll tell you where that leaves me… as the stupid sidekick!"

I cringed. I was going to pay for that later.

We hurried back to the shack I had seen earlier. Ginny wanted to make the potion, but I insisted that I should do it. As I was gathering the ingredients I needed, I thought back fondly on my years in Professor Snape's potions class. I thought about how well I had done in it and how often Snape had complimented me on my good work.

"Here, you'd better do it," I whispered to Ginny.

It was going to take a bit for her to brew it up. So, I sat there and thought about Hermione some more. It made me feel happy just to think about her cute smile.

"What do you think Hermione is wearing right now?" I asked kind of day-dreamy.

Ginny looked at me in exasperation and said, "She's probably lounging around completely naked thinking about how hot you are."

"Wow! Really?!"

"No."

Those Weasleys, they're such kidders.