HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 426

Chapter 426: The Dragons in Distress

In truth, even if Harry had not come to him, Sean would still have gone looking for him to resume their training.

Because before Harry ever approached Sean, Dumbledore had. The Headmaster wanted Sean to teach Harry Occlumency.

After Sean had learned Occlumency from Snape, Dumbledore had immediately noticed that the connection between Harry and Voldemort was growing deeper and more frequent. He could no longer ignore it, and so entrusted Sean with teaching Harry how to close his mind.

These past weeks, Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix had been trying to track Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but Voldemort was maddeningly slippery. Every time Dumbledore and the others followed a trail, it was severed at a crucial point. Without hard evidence of Voldemort’s presence, the Ministry of Magic kept unrelenting pressure on Dumbledore and continued to hound the Order.

Even with Sean acting as a go-between so that Scrimgeour and his Aurors cooperated covertly with Dumbledore and the Order, Scrimgeour’s people were only a small fraction of the Ministry’s Auror force.

On that point, Umbridge had not been entirely wrong. The number of Aurors in the Ministry really was quite high.

Sean glanced at the latest Daily Prophet in his hands. Reports of sightings of the six escaped dragons had been getting more frequent. Wizards from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and Aurors had already clashed with them several times. If the dragons had not been so numerous, and if the Chinese Fireball had not been so strong, they might already have been cornered and put down.

Looking at the moving photographs of the dragons, Sean suddenly realised they might not have come to settle a score with him at all. Otherwise they would not be circling so stubbornly around the areas near Hogwarts. They were clearly trying to get inside the grounds, but could not break through the school’s defences.

His fingers tapped lightly on the tabletop.

Six dragons…

It was not as if he could not afford to keep them.

After nightfall, Sean changed into Muggle clothes and was about to cast a Disillusionment Charm and slip out of Hogwarts.

At that moment, Kulkan shot out of nowhere into his arms, grinning. “How can you go out and have fun without taking me?”

“I am not going out to play. I am going to meet those six dragons.”

“You have finally come round and decided to find me something tasty?”

Sean flicked her on the head. “Eat, eat, eat. That is all you think about. Those six dragons are not for you to snack on.”

“Stingy.”

“This has nothing to do with stinginess. In your current state, you do not need to eat magical creatures’ flesh and blood any more. You are just greedy. I am not so flush that I can let you chew your way through rare magical beasts just to please your palate.”

“Fine, fine. I can wait. The Bulstrode estate will be yours sooner or later. I will just eat then. It is not as if I cannot endure a month or two.”

Sean rolled his eyes, chuckling. “In a month or two, the Bulstrode estate will still not be mine.”

“No matter. With my help, you will be close enough.”

He did not bother arguing. He just reached up and stroked Kulkan’s small head to calm her down, then gave his wand a light flick and vanished from the spot.

Bang. Bang.

The Chinese Fireball and the Antipodean Opaleye thudded down onto the ground, dropping five cows at their feet.

They had taken them from a nearby Muggle ranch. Lately the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Aurors had been tightening the net around them. Even so, the humans had still not managed to find Sean’s trail.

“Are we really going to keep looking for the chief?” the Common Welsh Green rumbled.

The Chinese Fireball glanced at it, then snapped its jaws shut around one of the cows’ necks. The remaining cattle trembled in terror.

It tore off a leg, chewed twice, swallowed, then growled, “Finding the chief is not up for debate. We will find him. As for those human wizards, they will not catch us.”

The Hungarian Horntail killed another cow, ripped away most of its flank and tossed it toward the Common Welsh Green. “Eat quickly,” it snarled. “Once we are done, we move. Those human wizards will not give us time to feed and rest. We have to race them.”

At its words, the Common Welsh Green nodded and bent to its meal, gulping down great mouthfuls of beef. The other dragons lowered their heads and began to tear into the remaining cows as well.

They were in the middle of their feast when a burst of red light exploded high above them like a firework. A heartbeat later, white mist billowed into being all around, coalescing into figures: wizards Apparating into place in a wide ring around the dragons.

The instant they saw them, the six dragons did not hesitate. They spread their wings and lunged for the sky.

But the wizards had already raised their wands. Beams of white light shot upward, bursting in midair and fusing into a colossal, dome-shaped shield that sealed off the entire area, locking the six dragons in.

A roar tore the air.

All six dragons bellowed their fury and, under the Chinese Fireball’s lead, poured gouts of dragonfire into a single point on the white barrier, trying to burn a way out.

As the flames hammered the ward, ripples spread across its surface, converging where the fire struck. The dragons were not wizards. They did not know the properties of such a shield and had no easy way to escape.

“We cannot break it. What do we do?” the Welsh Green roared.

“Leave it to me,” the Chinese Fireball answered.

With a thunderous roar, the Fireball turned into a streak of gold and red, hurtling again and again into the barrier. Each impact sent ripples shuddering through the ward. Now and then it spewed a barrage of fireballs to keep the encircling wizards at bay. For a time, none of them could get close enough to attempt a capture.

“What now? That Chinese Fireball has gone mad. We cannot get anywhere near it.”

“We wait. That one is a Dragon King, one of the rarest of its kind. If we can take it alive, we must not kill it. A living Dragon King is worth far more than a dead one.”

No sooner had the Head of the Department finished speaking than a fireball burst overhead. The explosion was blocked in time by several rapid Shield Charms, but the heat still singed his eyebrows.

He drew his wand without a word.

“Forget whether it lives. Take it down.”