Hatchling

(Three Years Later)

Charlie Weasley was on Nimbus 9.  He had just graduated from Hogwarts and had already landed the job of his dreams!  Well.  He had landed the internship of his dreams anyway.  

So what if the pay was less than minimum wage back home and the odd jobs he was given were the most dangerous ones that nobody else wanted to do.  He was getting to work with real life DRAGONS!!!  The reserve itself was everything he had ever dreamed of growing up.  It was hidden in the mountains not far from Negoiu Peak, in a secluded canyon that was surrounded with layers upon layers of wards.  The only way in or out was an eight mile hike on foot, because of the anti operation wards.  Each species of dragon had their own territory mapped out with charms to keep them from crossing the boundaries and fighting over hunting land.  In each territory there was a small outpost of dragon tamers.  Their base and medical stations were in the center of each territory with each handler having their own quarters dotted throughout the landscape to make sure there was always someone close by in case of an emergency.  

Charlie had been stationed in one of the most difficult territories that was occupied by the endangered Hungarian Horntails.  There were very few wizards foolhardy enough to want to work at that post and as a result it was the one that he was able to snag a job in.  Hungarian Horntails were known for being one of the most vicious and aggressive breeds of dragon, that actively hunted humans for food.  This caused a lot of turnover of the staff on this part of the reserve.  Along with their viciousness, tail spikes, and fiery breath that could turn stone to molten lava in seconds, Horntails were shown being extremely fast in flight and extremely agile in the tight quarters of the caves they lived in.  This meant that when things got dangerous they turned deadly FAST.  

Charlie’s outpost was a small cottage that was carved into the stone in the side of the canyon 80ft up in the air.  He was the only person living at this station, because nobody else wanted to be this close to a nesting mother, let alone one that was a horntail and had lost her first clutch to raiders.  More than one tamer had lost their lives in better situations than this one and the last wizard brave enough to take up the post had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  

But Charlie was not a Gryffindor for nothing and he was not going to let the danger stop him from going for his dreams. Today on his list of tasks that had been sent with one of the reserves' many courier owls, was mucking out the dragon caves.  Normally dragons were very clean creatures, but a mother with a clutch close to hatching would refuse to leave her nest until the new generation had hatched.  They would even go so far as to refuse to eat until every egg hatched.  Horntails were even more protective than most and some dragons would starve themselves to death waiting for one last egg to hatch that had gone dormant for no known reason.  

But Horntails had reason to be overprotective.  It took 18 months for a clutch to hatch once laid and another 18 months for those hatchlings to mature.  The only dragons that took longer to mature was the rare Antipodean Opaleye that took almost 7 years to mature and was nearly hunted to extinction because of how long the hatchlings were forced to stay in such a vulnerable state.  Horntails were not much better off.  Their scales were one of the most impenetrable things on earth and as a result they were prized for the use of dragon leather.  In the past, some wizards had even tried to make dragon farms to raise horntails like cattle for slaughter.  They would clip the dragon's wings and declaw the hatchlings as soon as they were born.  Some had even had their teeth blunted.  These dragons then were forced to live out the 18 months until their maturity chained in a cell with their legs bolted to the ground and their eyes covered with blinds.  They were forced to be fed special diets so they could be fed through a muzzle to keep them alive until the wizards were ready to “harvest” them for their skin.  

It was a barbaric trade that had been outlawed around the globe, but some poachers still tried to keep illegal farms running in remote areas.  In his opinion, it was no wonder that the Hungarian Horntails had grown to love the taste of human flesh after so many years of atrocities.  Dragons were sentient beings that passed down knowledge and warnings to their children just as humans did.  Just because wizards couldn’t understand their language did not mean that the dragons were dumb animals for people to treat as livestock.  

Charlie loved dragons.  He had read everything he could about dragons and had tried for years to try to learn to speak to them.  The more he watched and learned about them the more he began to see that dragons were intelligent beings with a culture of their own.  He would do everything in his power to protect them.  Risking his life to muck out a cave for a stressed mother dragon was nothing compared to what he was willing to do to help them.  

As Charlie began shoveling manure over the side of the cliff outside the cave entrance, he was relieved to see that the mother was not home.  The last egg must have hatched at last and she had gone to hunt for their first meal.  It made him smile at the thought of the baby dragons taking their first steps into the world, but he wasn’t stupid enough to doddle and get caught so close to her cave when she returned.  He worked as quickly as he could in the hot sun trying to get out of her territory as quickly as possible.  Thankfully, most of the dragon dung was outside the cave entrance and he would not have to disturb the hatchlings and risk stressing the new hatchlings.  He was just about to pack up for the day when he noticed a white envelope stuck in the prongs on his manure rake.  Curious, he pulled it off to examine it.  

It looked like a Hogwarts letter.  The front was too dirty to read but the back definitely had the Hogwarts crest pressed into the wax seal.  He tucked it into his pocket to inform his mentor about later.  

Nobody wanted to investigate.  While it was an interesting mystery of how a Hogwarts letter could have gotten into the horntail’s cave, nobody cared enough to run the risk of approaching a nesting mother so soon after her clutch had hatched.  It would be suicide to try.  

Charlie might be reckless, but he wasn’t stupid.  He placed the crumpled letter in a draw and left well enough alone.  

***

Harry crooned softly to his newly hatched nestmates.  His nest-mother Helga had just left to hunt for the first time in 18 months.  The wait had been long and Harry had been left to fend for himself for the most part for the past year and a half.  But that was ok.  Harry was old enough to take care of himself and had been long before he had found Helga.  

When he had first found his way to the dragon cave he had been terrified, but Helga had taken him into her nest and treated him like one of her own, despite what the other dragons thought of him.  Helga had taught him how to find water and hunt for himself.  Although he did have to go about things a little differently than the other dragons.  He couldn’t fly on his own or move fast enough to catch prey with his claws like she did, so she taught him how to ask his magic for help.  It took him many tries, but eventually he remembered something.  The flash of a green light that he instinctively knew would bring death.  

The next day when she took him out hunting, he thought of that green light as he watched the rabbits in the clearing below their perch.  He focused on the one nearest to him that was round with tender meat.  He felt the magic in his core flicker and come to his call and he asked magic if it could give the rabbit a swift painless death.  

In answer a bolt of green light shot from his fingertips and struck the rabbit.  He watched as the animal fell limply to the ground and the others darted for their burrows.  Harry climbed down from the cliff his mother was perched on and retrieved his prey and when he showed her what he had caught, she had nuzzled his belly with her giant snout and rumbled with pride for her hatchlings accomplishment.  

After that day, Harry learned how to ask his magic for the things that he needed to survive.  He could catch prey with ease and prepare and cook it with a thought.  Whenever he was thirsty, he could ask the nearby stones and they would flow with clear cool water for him to drink.  When his clothes from his old life were worn away to tatters, he gathered some of his mother’s shedded skin and with a wish formed it into leather clothes and boots for himself to wear.  

All in all, life was peaceful.  Up until mating season arrived on the reserve.  

Harry could sense it when the other dragons around them started to get restless.  Helga and him hardly interacted with the other dragons in the territory and the few times he had seen the other dragons she had to fight them off before the other dragons could eat Harry.  Humans like him were loathed by their kind, Helga had told him of the stories about what people had done to their kind in the past and Harry felt sick every time he thought about how the dragons had been caged and treated like meak prey.  He understood why they were so angry and went out of their way to hunt down the people that had wronged them, but he also didn’t want to see his mother die protecting him.  Every time he saw her bare her fangs to protect him, Harry was filled with terror.  He knew she was willing to die to protect him, but Harry didn’t know if he could live with himself if she did.  He would rather die himself, than be alone like that again.  

So when she told him that they would both have to migrate to the breeding grounds and join the rest of the dragons, he began to panic.  He begged her not to go, or to leave him behind, but she refused.  “If any of my kin try to harm you hatchling, I shall kill them all,”  she told him.  

“Please.  I don’t want you to get hurt protecting me!”

She bared her teeth in a bloodthirsty smile, “Then we will kill anyone who tries together.”  

And so they had gone to the breeding grounds.  Many of the dragons had tried to kill him that week, but they all learned quickly not to come between Helga and her “odd hatchling.”  The other dragons eventually accepted him, if very grudgingly.  And Helga battled the males with teeth and claw until she found one strong enough to be worthy to mate with her.  

A few days after they returned to their home, Helga laid her eggs and settled in for the long arduous task of guarding her nest.  For the next 18 months Harry had hunted for them both and slept curled around the eggs to help his mother keep them warm.  And now that they were all here, Harry didn’t know what to do with all the love he could feel growing within him.  He felt like he was about to burst!  

While his mother was gone stretching her wings for the first time in over a year and hunting for their family, Harry sang to his new nest-mates in their dragon tongue.  He had been able to understand Helga somewhat when he first met her, but the language was heavily accented and Helga had worked hard to help him to learn how to speak proper draken and leave behind the “simplistic language of their inferior Wyrm cousins”.  

The new hatchlings were adorable!  Dark charcoal scales and covered in bronze spines just like their mother.  Carefully he scratched one behind its razor sharp neck spines and had to dodge quickly as his spiked tail began to wave around wildly in ecstasy.  Harry laughed as his gold eyes rolled back in his head with pleasure as he continued to scratch the perfect spot with his legs out of danger from those wickedly sharp spikes on his tail.  All the baby dragons were about the size of a large house cat at the moment, but they would grow quickly and be ready to leave the nest in another 18 months.  The same amount of time it had taken them to hatch from their eggs.  

Something about that thought already had him feeling lonely.