HP: Fairy Tale Wizard - 168

Chapter 168: The Dragon’s First Appearance

“Put down your wand. Please do not attempt to take hostages around you, as this will only aggravate your crimes.”

Scrimgeour rapped the female Auror beside him on the head. “You’ve been dealing with the Muggle government too much—you’re muddled! Since when does the wizarding world have laws like that?”

He touched his wand to his throat; his already powerful voice boomed like thunder with the Sonorus Charm. “Reckless Dark wizard! I knew you’d return to your crime scene to break the Statute of Secrecy. I suppose that seems very ‘cool’ to you, doesn’t it?”

“Heh. When we dig up your other crimes and lock you in Azkaban to await the Dementor’s Kiss, you’ll learn what ‘cool to death’ really feels like!”

Sterling felt as though he’d just heard a very cold joke.

The Dementor’s Kiss was capital punishment in the wizarding world; paired with “cool to death,” it was darkly comic.

So cold. Was someone quietly casting a Freezing Charm?

Sterling glanced at the wary Esley and finally confirmed that the “Dark wizard” Scrimgeour meant was himself.

This had to be a mistake. If Muggle police came to arrest him, he could accept that his Obliviate hadn’t been delicate enough and left a trail. But Aurors?

For Merlin’s sake—he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Sterling slipped one hand behind his back. A gossamer‑thin page unfurled in his palm, and magic became a pen’s tip as he began to write Scrimgeour’s full name.

The leader’s identity wasn’t hard to guess. With this many Aurors—and the wizarding population already small—this was nearly a full mobilization. The one who could stand at the front under such circumstances was the head of the Auror Office.

If he could open the “box” on Scrimgeour, Sterling could discover where the misunderstanding began—and how to resolve it.

Unfortunately, this time he faced a battle-hardened Auror director—and a paranoid Auror hero hidden behind him.

Moody noticed instantly that Sterling’s hidden hand was moving. Who knew if it was gestural spellcasting? The Indians were infamous for clever tricks.

He raised his arm and bellowed:

“The Dark wizard is resisting. As briefed—saturate with spellfire!”

Esley: Huh?

In the same instant, a spell Sterling didn’t recognize hooked Esley around the waist and yanked him out of the tavern.

In the process, Esley smashed through glass back-first, head-butted a wooden window frame in half, and then skidded across an impressive stretch of flooring. Honestly, Esley probably wouldn’t have chosen to be “rescued” like this.

But Aurors didn’t care about such “minor” injuries. A few of them forced a potion down his throat and left him, turning their full attention—and their wands—on Sterling.

Sterling’s right eyelid twitched.

The next moment, a perfect volley of “Expelliarmus” screamed down like a rain of red arrows, falling stars from the sky. The tavern’s ceiling was nearly obliterated at once. On top of disarming, the spell carried serious kinetic force.

A single well-cast Disarming Charm could knock a grown wizard flat; if they lacked physical toughness, getting up again would be no small feat.

All the more so when dozens fell at once.

Sterling immediately summoned demonflame to incinerate collapsing timber and plaster. But incorporeal spells couldn’t be burned. He could only take the blunt route—

Manifest things into the path of the incoming spells and let them collide until he’d cleared enough space to slip through.

He thrust up his left hand. Square stones gushed from his palm, smashing into the falling Disarming Charms and shattering in midair.

Before the broken stones could hit the floor, Sterling dispelled them back into raw magic and reclaimed it. In under a minute, everything above his head was clear.

Elsewhere wasn’t so lucky. The tavern took the full brunt of those impacts, reduced to wreckage—no, not even wreckage. A crater.

Sterling flexed his wrist. The upward force required to manifest matter into the air left his forearm tingling.

Aside from that, he had spent very little. The shattered stone became magic again as it fell, and he recaptured it. The whole exchange had cost him almost nothing.

“Aurors, I think there’s been a misunderstanding—”

He tried a smile to ease the tension, but the Aurors still stared as though they’d seen a ghost.

“Was that Transfiguration?”

“I didn’t see any base material. Even with my magical eye—those blocks surged from his hand out of thin air.”

Moody and Scrimgeour muttered to each other.

“Could be some obscure branch—plenty of Dark wizards have crafts we don’t study. Master-to-apprentice secrets.”

“Doesn’t matter. All roads lead to Rome. It’s not the combination spell we planned, but that magic must tax him. It’s doing the job of wearing him down.”

“Did you see him wield Fiendfyre like a finger-flick? We have to take him, whether or not he’s the one who broke the Statute of Secrecy.”

“Think of Paris—of that horizon of flame!”

Scrimgeour’s eyes steeled. He raised his wand high; a blazing fire-drake roared from the tip and snapped at Sterling as he advanced step by step.

Ordinary fire, to deal with me?

Sterling shook his head and flicked his hand. Demonflame, born from nothing, swallowed the drake. The great serpent of fire didn’t even graze his hem.

Moody went straight to directing the Aurors. They didn’t change spells. They stuck with the office’s most practiced signature—Disarming Charm.

With numbers like this, coordinated spellwork could easily produce effects greater than the sum of its parts.

Unfortunately, most of this unit had grown up in a time of peace.

They had been drilled into passable discipline, but teamwork? Turn the clock back eleven years.

If they switched to varied spells now, Moody would’ve wagered his eye and his wooden leg that they’d douse fire with water on one flank while somebody detonated a Blasting Curse into it on the other.

It felt like wasting a lifetime’s honed skill. Yet even so, this attack did work against Sterling.

If they had hurled elemental magics—Aguamenti (water), Glacius (ice), Incendio (fire)—Sterling could have burned everything with demonflame. If it had a body, it could burn.

But against purely energetic spells, he had little choice except to blunt them as before.

He did have a book in reserve—but that was the last resort.

Annoyance flared, at last. A blind bombardment without the barest cause—and he had done nothing wrong.

He’d shown clear intent to stand down, and still they attacked. Did they take him for clay to be shaped?

Worse—he’d been in the middle of getting somewhere with Esley. Another step, and Esley would have told him everything he knew about Andrew.

Now it was ruined.

Never mind the tavern in pieces—Esley’s “rescue” alone would put him in St Mungo’s for a fortnight.

He grew angrier the longer he thought. Heat welled in his chest. He sneezed involuntarily—two jets of searing flame blasted from his nostrils and melted deep pits into the paving stones.

Even Moody paused. He and Scrimgeour traded a baffled look.

What branch of magic was that?

Pure white fire? Fine. There were pink flames; white wasn’t that strange.

But fire from the nostrils—that was very strange.

Moody had never seen it before. No case like it in the whole wizarding world.

As Sterling lifted his head, Moody and Scrimgeour’s faces twisted—and not just theirs. Everyone who met Sterling’s gaze felt a rush of terror.

It wasn’t on the mind. It was a warning in the body.

It came from those gold slit pupils—clearly not human.

They were the colour of molten gold. One look sent a chill crawling up the spine. Even Moody had to look away lest his hands start to shake.

“Keep casting! Don’t stop!”

Scrimgeour’s cry rang out. But not everyone wore the title “elite” so well as he and Moody.

Fewer than half the wands rose. Many of those hands trembled. Who knew where those spells might land—friend or foe?

Faint red lights flared. At least those who could still raise a wand were true veterans. No one failed a cast, to be mocked to the grave.

But those weak Disarming Charms—Sterling swept a hand down the air before him and scattered the spells aimed at his face. Others struck his body.

They sank like stones into the sea.

Sterling didn’t even grunt. His stride didn’t falter by a heartbeat.

In truth, he could scarcely spare a thought.

Deep inside him, the Dragon Magiv—long smothered beneath the Hero Magic—unfurled its wings and launched itself into The Author’s Witness, pressing a pure-white dragon’s head onto the cover.

Dragon Magic, initial mastery.

Combined with Original Magic, a specialised derivative was born—Dragonshift.

The world drowned in boundless light, yet it brought no discomfort. He felt like a child in the womb, stretching freely—

“Call for backup!”

Moody caught an Auror who had been flung headlong and roared, hauling him upright by the collar.

“Captain Moody—every combat-capable Auror has been deployed! Only reserves and clerks remain—”

“I said call the Ministry for backup!”

Scrimgeour, skidding in from a brutal tumble, seized the Auror’s other lapel. Blood scraped across his brow added to his authority.

“Magical Law Enforcement? Department of Mysteries? Scrape up anyone you can think of who can fight. If anyone has objections—or if our idiot Minister tries to hobble us—”

“Make them think of Paris!”

Moody bellowed and flung himself back at the “man” weaving through the ranks.

Old as he was, his magic hadn’t dimmed with age. A few Aurors even saw him use some Dark Magic—and no one objected. He was saving their lives.

Thanks to him, no Auror suffered truly dreadful injuries. But he could do no more than that.

At last, fatigue edged into his glow.

The figure standing there, staring up at the sky, could hardly be called human any longer.

Two spiralled horns curled from his brow. Scales, gleaming like polished steel, banded his fists and forearms.

A nictitating membrane covered those golden eyes. Each blink was a drumbeat. Thunderous heartbeats rolled down the street.

He—no, it—was undeniably draconic.

If not a dragon, then something very close indeed.

Moody didn’t know why wizard-kept dragons would be linked with humans, or why, in some draconic strengths, this thing surpassed dragons by far. But he knew this had gone past the Auror Office’s remit.

Few could mount an effective resistance under that gaze. And if they did—so what? Disarming, Cutting, and even Dark spells—Moody tried three kinds.

Nothing broke those art-piece scales.

Even so, both Moody and Scrimgeour had noticed that this “Dark wizard” had not aimed to kill. Each time those ground-rending fists reached a witch or wizard, they slackened at the last instant. Otherwise, the street would look like a tinned-tomato factory.

But it was far too late to weigh whether he was wronged.

He had to be stopped—Moody felt it.

If not, the end of the Statute of Secrecy would be today.

That grim sense proved true when a pair of white wing membranes burst Sterling’s shirt and spread wide.

“We must not—must not let him fully become a dragon!”

Moody struggled to his feet. From Sterling’s point of view—

“Oh? A little ant still standing? Impressive. Rare breed!”