Dragon Flame

The dragon flame can be utilized for an array of things, from healing (often for Dragon Pox, as a cure-all alternative to Miss Gunhilda de Gursemoor's Cure, albeit a significantly more expensive one), to a useful weapon or fuel. Some excellent examples of these weapons include muggle weapons (namely 'rifles' or 'pistols') that have been tinkered with to fire dragon flame 'balls'. I have personally not encountered these, but have heard of their volatility and danger. Further study reccomended. 

-From the notes of Miss Adelaide Eloise Black (Born 1860, died 1893, notebook property of the London Museum of Witchcraft and Wizardry)

Perhaps I shouldn't have tested out my theories on dragon flame on a Hungarian Horntail, but I already had, so what I perhaps shouldn't have done didn't really matter anymore. 

Jackie, the female we'd brought overseas to work on at the Illevermorny Institute, so to say, the only place where magical creatures were permitted to be studied by MECUSA's law, was volatile, to say the least. She'd been snapping her jaws at the caretakers who came in to make sure she was still okay and hadn't chewed her chain off, and had nearly taken a bite out of me the first time I'd come in to see her. But she was a Hungarian Horntail, which meant her flame was strongest, and thus the perfect exemplar for my studies. 

"Miss Black!" Emily, my assistant called out in a panic, diving out of the way of a burst of flame, "Please get a handle on her!" 

I didn't think I'd be able to get a handle on a fully grown female by myself, but as I gripped my wand and yelled: Stupify! my prospects didn't seem entirely so bad. 

Nonetheless, I could already see Jackie slipping out of the hold I had over her. "Emily!" I yelled, backing towards the door with as much speed as I could, "Hold-" 

"Already done Miss, now RUN!" 

I spun around and sprinted for the iron door, just as Jackie managed to push out of the spell I'd cast on her. I could hear her breathing in, and I slipped past the door less than a second before a burst of that cursed, amazing dragon flame hurtled right for us. Emily slammed the door shut. 

"That-" 

Emily interrupted, "was life-threateningly stupid." 

I smiled. "Indeed. But it taught us something, didn't it?." 

Emily raised an eyebrow, "What, exactly?" 

"That," I spared a glance at the door, which was still intact, "dragon flame cannot penetrate iron." 

Emily narrowed her eyes at me, then realized I was trying to bring humor to the situation and rolled her eyes. Instead of saying something to me, she simply motioned that I follow her, and walked down the hall that lead to the living area of the Illevermorny Institute's study center. Then she sat down at the small coffee table in the center of the room, and finally said: "Accio coffee."

I smiled. "Only an American drinks coffee at this hour." 

"Only a britt," she replied as I walked over to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of the tea I'd made earlier, "drinks tea despite it being cold." 

"Americans invented iced tea," I reminded her. 

"Iced tea. Not room-temperature tea. It's cold on purpose and iced. And a muggle invented it, not a witch," she said this as though it changed something. Which, I supposed, to her and my family, it did. Although Emily was a half-blood of no particular name and was only here because her mother, the witch in her family, had paid a royal fee for her higher education at Illevermorny. 

"Stop complaining Em and drink your caffeinated draught of death." 

"Pah, you're just bitter. Like your tea!" She said. 

"Coffee is bitterer," I remarked. 

"Not if you load it with milk and sugar," she replied. 

"As one can do with tea." 

"As one can, but you don't. You insist on drinking it in its pure, dastardly form, which really is just disgusting!" Emily smiled as she said this, and I was glad she was back in a better mood, and not so angry with me. The woman could be a force of nature when she wanted to. It was why she was so good with the dragons I supposed. They saw her as a sort of matriarch. 

We talked for a few more minutes, which was mostly me buttering her up for the news I had to tell her. It was, to say it simply, bad news, and I didn't want Emily to overreact, as she often did with these things. Finally, after managing to find a good place to say this, I said: "I'm leaving tomorrow for England again. My mother wants me back by the start of the social season in London, for then marriage is on the table again. I'm twenty-nine, she thinks it is due time for a husband." 

Emily seemed to freeze for a second. 

Then, voice shrill, she said: "You can't be serious?" 

"No," I smiled, thinking of lightening the mood before it took a turn for the worse, "I can't be, for that is my brother." 

She clenched her jaw, "Can you be serious for once?" 

"No, I can't because-"

"Read the room, Adelaide. You're leaving in the middle of your studies, just as they start to yield fruit because your mother commands it. I thought you were twenty-nine, an adult? You should make your own decisions." Emily's point was accurate. It wormed its way into my mind and, just for a second, I considered it. 

"No," I said, bowing my head down, "Emily you don't understand. It is different for us purebloods. Continuing the line is vital, and, although old-fashioned, the best way is through marriage. The house of Black must endure, and I will be disowned if I don't follow my mother's ideas."

"You have money. You are intelligent. America is famous for bringing people from rags to riches." 

"And I also have a duty. To my family; to my siblings; and to the new generation of Blacks! Do you think I want them to be ordered around as I am? The oldest of my nephews is already twelve, Sirius, which means he has gone to his first year at Hogwarts and will be in his second by the time I arrive. I have not seen him or any others in my family for years. And lest you or I forget Emily, I love these people. They are my brothers, my sisters, and my mother and father godamnit. They raised me, and though their ideals may be flawed, they are mine too." 

"So you are a pureblood fanatic?" She asked. 

A panicked little resemblance of a laugh escaped me, "No! And most of my family is not either!" 

"Then why do you only marry other purebloods and disown anyone who dares not uphold your ideals?" She asks, and for a moment it seems as though she has experience with pureblood ideality. Then I remember who and what she is and I know she cannot, for no half-blood mother would act in such a way. 

"My mother is a kind woman, Emily, and it is not her choice. My father is a kind man, but they are his ideals. It is my mother's only job to uphold them, and if I can help her with that, after she has given me this great gift of allowing me to pursue my dreams for just a little bit, then it is my duty to. You cannot understand, Emily, and thus I do not expect you to," with that I stood, placing my tea down on the table and sparing her a nod of thanks, "my ship leaves at five tomorrow evening. You are welcome to come say goodbye before then."