Chapter 4
When she woke up, Rhaenyra noticed her new curriculum on the nightstand next to her bed and was disappointed to find her first class starting so soon that she didn't have time to go looking for Hagrid. Rhaenyra grimaced in annoyance at the thought, but realized it was more important to get the letter to Aegon as soon as possible.
Rhaenyra quickly got up and dressed in her new school uniform, brushed her hair and put it half up, looking disappointed at her reflection. Her hair was not as neat as usual, when their house-elf Jolly had put Rhaenyra’s and Helaena's hair in fine intricate braids. Now her hair hung dull and straight without braids. Rhaenyra's face and blue-purple eyes were tired and puffy from crying and staying up most of the night. Rhaenyra was not great beauty even at her best, but the swelling of her face did nothing to add to her charm.
The other girls in the room were awake too getting dressed and ready. Only Daphne and Tracey were chatting to each other, laughing, but taking no notice of Rhaenyra or any other of their roommates. Millicent, too, had come into the room during the night after Rhaenyra had gone to bed and was now glowering at Rhaenyra with malice. Millicent was big and tall, and not particularly pretty, especially not with a scowling expression on her face. Pansy paid no attention to Rhaenyra either, but was the first to leave the room. Rhaenyra soon left after her with a letter written to her brother firmly in her hand.
After leaving the room, she followed a group of boys out of the corridor, who had come out of their room from the other side of the corridor just before Rhaenyra. The boys had been laughing at something, but fell silent when they saw Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra grimaced inwardly at how her company seemed to suck all the fun out of everyone and tried to ignore the boys as she continued on her way. However, she could feel the boys' stares, which made her uncomfortable. One of the boys cleared his throat drawing Rhaenyra's attention to him and they all stopped walking, though the other boys seemed reluctant to stop.
Among the boys was a pale boy with an arrogant smile, whose grin reminded Rhaenyra of her cousin Joffrey, who was always walking around so full of himself. The pale boy was accompanied by two gorilla-built boys with dark brown hair, a short light brown-haired boy who avoided looking at Rhaenyra and a dark-skinned handsome boy who was the one who had cleared his throat and now looked at Rhaenyra with a wide, friendly smile.
"Hi, I thought I'd introduce us, since you're new and don't know the crowd around here yet. My name is Blaise Zabini and I'm in fifth year like you," Blaise said, stretching his words a little playfully. Rhaenyra raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"I'm Rhaenyra Targaryen," Rhaenyra said, a little wary, not really knowing where to look and if possible feeling even more embarrassed not knowing what she was expected to say. Blaise smiled wryly at Rhaenyra's shyness as if he thought it was charming.
"Ah I know, you and your sister are quite the celebrities at Hogwarts at the moment," Blaise said with a little laugh.
Rhaenyra frowned at Blaise's words. "Why?"
Blaise laughed. "I don't think there are many situations in the history of Hogwarts where siblings, twins, end up in so opposing houses like Hufflepuff and Slytherin. It's quite a scandal."
The blond-haired boy grinned widely at her. "Your life must have been quite a torture so far. I'd rather die of shame than live with the knowledge that my sibling is Hufflepuff."
Rhaenyra flushed with anger and felt it override the shyness that had been bothering her. She glared at the blond boy in disgust. "You don't know anything about me or my sister. I don't care that she's Hufflepuff. In fact, I'd rather be Hufflepuff myself if everyone in Slytherin is a prejudiced jerk like you, whoever you are."
Obviously Rhaenyra's words were offensive, because the amusement on all the boys' faces disappeared so quickly. "You'd better watch what you say, Targaryen. You might not want to make enemies in your own house or you will find yourself completely alone. I'll overlook this one time when you don't know any better, but the next time you insult Slytherin in their own dormitory, you'll find yourself regretting it and a lot, I might say."
The blond boy spoke quietly, but so confidently that Rhaenyra felt the urge to take a step back. No one had ever spoken to Rhaenyra in such a threatening way and it scared her so much that she didn't know what to respond. The boy smiled knowingly when Rhaenyra made no reply.
"I'm Draco Malfoy and this is Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Theodore Nott," Malfoy gestured to the boys standing next to him and Zabini. "Welcome to Slytherin."
If Rhaenyra had not yet been frightened, her face now surely revealed the fear she felt as she recognised the boys' surnames. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Nott. All names she had heard thousands of times from her parents. Her parents had always said the biggest reason for moving away from England after the Wizarding War was precisely because so many Death Eaters had gone unjudged and walked free. Malfoy stared at Rhaenyra in a bored manner as he spoke, but his eyes were watchful for Rhaenyra's reaction. Rhaenyra swallowed hard, turned her gaze from Malfoy and started walking as fast as she could out of the Slytherin dorms. She could distantly hear the boys laughing as she got out of the dungeon. She felt a deep embarrassment at her cowardice for having been startled by a few teenage boys over their names. She berated herself for her patheticness all the way to the dining room. She felt she should have guessed that almost all the boys her age were the offspring of Death Eaters. It would not be possible to avoid them altogether, even if she would want to, as the lessons were together and most of the free time was usually spent with your own house dorms.
Her owl landed during breakfast to bring the Daily prophet, and Rhaenyra tied Aegon's letter to the owl's leg and sent it on its way. Not so surprisingly, the paper contained news of her and Helaena beginning studies at Hogwarts, and even more scandalously, completely opposite houses as one can get. Apparently, as a general rule, the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins were not usually getting along so well. Rhaenyra sighed in exasperation, clearly feeling the eyes of others on her again.
After eating, she got up and saw that Helaena was waiting for her at the door and looked relieved to see her sister.
"Are you okay?" Helaena asked cautiously in Valyrian. The sisters always spoke Valyrian to each other.
"Yeah, I guess so," Rhaenyra shrugged dismissively.
"Did you send a letter to Aegon?" Helaena guessed and Rhaenyra nodded. Helaena looked thoughtful before continuing. "I don't think he'll do anything. He believes in Dumbledore's assessment of your safety at Hogwarts."
"Maybe...but what about my comfort? Everyone in Slytherin seems to hate me more or less, and half of my peers are practically mini versions of the Death Eaters," Rhaenyra hissed in frustration at the situation. Helaena looked at her with wide eyes and bit her lip as if she didn't know what to say to make it easier.
Helaena's gaze went distant for a moment. "Beware of bigotry and fear, they will only bring misery and grief," Helaena said in a thoughtful voice and Rhaenyra rolled her eyes.
"How did you get on with the Hufflepuffs?" Rhaenyra asked, changing the subject. Helaena shrugged and smiled slightly. "It's okay. Everyone was nice and friendly. Maybe a little too talkative."
"Luckily we have some lessons together, so we see each other during the school day and then in our free time we can meet as much as you like." Helaena continued fervently, taking her hand.
"Thanks, I'll need it, because I don't want to spend any more time in Slytherin dorms than I have to," Rhaenyra grimaced at the thought and changed the subject again, "When do your lessons end? I was thinking of going right at the end of the day to spend time with Vhagar, Syrax and Caraxes."
Helaena dug out her curriculum and they compared them. They really did have some lessons together during the week and their day both ended at the same time, so after dinner they agreed to go to the dragons together. Rhaenyra went to her charms class as scheduled.
In class, Rhaenyra got as far away from the Slytherin boys as possible and sat alone. The class was shared with the Ravenclaws, and none of the Ravenclaws sat next to her. Rhaenyra's thoughts were not distracted even by the lesson, as it was a charm she had learned earlier, so Rhaenyra chose to concentrate on staring out, avoiding looking at anyone, even though she felt the stares on her back many times during the lesson.
The next lesson was divination, followed by dinner. Rhaenyra did not hear a word about the divination class and only thought about the upcoming meeting with Helaena to go see the dragons.
****
Hagrid's shack was easy to find from the descriptions given to them and they knocked on the door of a small shack at the edge of the forest.
"Who is it?" There was a shout from inside.
"Ermmm... this is Rhaenyra and Helaena Targaryen. We're here to see Hagrid," Rhaenyra called back, a little hesitant at first. The door opened and out of its mouth peered a man of enormous size, with a tangled hair and beard. The man's face twisted into a wide smile.
"You probably want to go to the dragons, right?" The man asked.
"Yes."
"Let's go then, they've been pretty bored. Impossibly cute creatures. I'm Hagrid by the way," Hargrid said, smiling widely. The girls nodded enthusiastically. Rhaenyra had never heard anyone call dragons cute before. At least he had some sympathy for dragons.
Hagrid smiled happily and came out of his shack taking a big bag of meat with him. "Just follow me and I'll take you."
Hagrid set off to lead the girls towards the Forbidden Forest. In the forest, Hagrid instructed them how to identify the path that led to the dragons. The Forbidden Forest was a dense, old forest and although it was still a sunny day it didn't provide much light through the thick forest. The journey was long enough for Hagrid to give a long account of the dragons to the girls, happily telling them all about how he had come to the place he had chosen for the dragons, how Vhagar had tried to set Hagrid on fire several times (though Rhaenyra knew that if Vhagar had been serious, Vhagar would have succeeded) and what he had given them for food and so on.
Finally, they arrived at a rocky clearing, sheltered by large trees, but much brighter than the rest of the forest. At the edge of the clearing was a dark cave. Rhaenyra knew immediately that her dragons were in the cave, for she could practically feel her blood singing whenever she was near them.
Rhaenyra started to run, and the dragons seemed to realize that Rhaenyra was close too, as their cries could be heard from the cave. The dragons were chained in the cave, screaming viciously as they tried desperately to fly to Rhaenyra. The dragons had grown again and were now waist high as Rhaenyra came to them.
"Careful!!" Hagrid exclaimed in a worried voice as he came up a little behind her with Helaena, remaining standing at the mouth of the cave. Rhaenyra turned to face Hagrid.
"They would never hurt me or Helaena," Rhaenyra said confidently and then continued irritated, "why were they locked up?"
"Ermm, we couldn't take the risk of them flying free here and getting too close to the school," Hagrid said.
Rhaenyra huffed and crouched down next to Vhagar. "Calm down, I'll let you go, but you can't attack anyone unless I specifically order you to. Likewise, flying too close to strangers is forbidden," Rhaenyra said in Valyrian to the dragons and all three looked expectantly at Rhanyra with their intelligent eyes. Vhagar gently nuzzled her hand and rubbed her head with a loving look in her eyes. Rhaneyra stood up and took out her wand, pointing it at the metal chain around Vhagar's neck.
"Alohomora," Rhaneyra said and the lock on Vhagar's neck fell to the ground. Hagrid let out a gasping sound.
"You let them go?" Hagrid asked nervously. Rhaneyra rolled her eyes and Vhagar turned to look hungrily at Hagrid, but didn't attack him, even though she was free.
"They are not a danger to anyone unless I specifically ask them to be. Dragons are intelligent and understand when I warn them to avoid other people and stay hidden," Rhaenyra explained confidently and moved over to Caraxes and conjured his collar open as well while Helaena did the same for Syrax. They went out with the dragons and all three took flight as soon as they got out. Vhagar and Caraxes, as was their custom, immediately began to brawl with each other in the air. Hagrid shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncertainly, but did not seem to be afraid. Helaena and Rhaenyra watched the dragons fly and play.
"Vhagar, Syrax, Caraxes! Are you hungry? We brought you food," Rhaenyra had to shout, for the dragons had risen so high that they would not have heard Rhaenyra otherwise. The dragons turned in mid-air and came down at speed, landing in front of the girls. Helaena dug out huge chunks of raw meat from the bag they had brought from Hagrids shack and threw them to the ground in front of the dragons. Vhagar, the biggest of the dragons, picked up the largest piece and snarled warningly in the direction of her siblings. Syrax and Caraxes fought over the same piece of meat, though each had their own.
"Oh, come on. Syrax, take this piece," Helaena said gently, and Syrax went to nibble the piece in front of Helaena.
"Why are you speaking to them in a different language?" Hagrid asked in a voice full of wonder as he watched the dragons eating.
"Valyrian dragons only understand the Valyrian language. They differ significantly from other dragons in that they do not understand speech," Rhaneyra explained as she looked fondly at her dragons.
"Why only Valyrian?"
"Nobody knows, but I guess that one of our ancestors used strong blood magic to make a connection with dragons in ancient Valyria. That connection and magic has been preserved through the centuries in dragons of the same lineage," Rhaenyra explained thoughtfully.
"Maybe you can teach me the language, so I can do better with them when you're not around," Hagrid asked hopefully. Rhaenyra agreed, because it was a good idea and the dragons would be more sympathetic to Hagrid if they understood him.
They spent the rest of the time teaching Hagrid a few important words in Valyrian. Hagrid wasn't a quick learner, but by the end he knew how to say "no" and "hide" in Valyrian. The dragons watched the teaching with interest, Vhagar leaning her head on Rhaenyra's lap for attention and Caraxes flying above them, but low. Vhagar watched each turn of Caraxes with a wary gaze. Syrax was next to Helaena on the ground, chewing on a massive piece of bone. Eventually Hagrid realized how late it was and said it was time for the girls to go back.
They made a wistful departure. Rhaenyra promised the dragons she would come again the very next day and told them to stay hidden, but to trust Hagrid. Back they walked in silence.