The Necromancer

Chapter 21

“Is it dead?” a blond boy yelled loudly, breaking the silence, and at once dozens of people started muttering and speculating.

Fucking hell, what a mess.

Harry’s mind went into overdrive, analysing the situation and quickly realizing he couldn’t explain to the tournament officials how the dragon had dropped dead without seemingly a single curse fired. But wait, as the blond boy’s comments just proved, the people in the stands didn’t actually know for sure if the dragon was dead, at least not yet.

At once, Harry used a tiny amount of his necromantic powers to give the dragon’s dead body a small jerk, as though the beast was unconscious but trying to wake up.

Immediately a loud ‘Oooooh’ echoed around the arena from the spectators realizing the dragon wasn’t dead, but could in fact wake up at any time and burn Harry alive, perhaps even succeeding during its second attempt.

Harry wasted no time in executing his original plan for kidnapping a live dragon. The fact that the dragon was now dead didn’t bother him one bit. That was what resurrection rituals were for, if Rigel wanted to be a dragon. Or if he didn’t, then Harry could simply turn the dragon into an inferius. With confident steps, Harry walked around the dragon in a large circle, inscribing the necessary runes into the stone to create a portal that would open up under the dragon and transport it instantly to Harry’s backyard on Magica. He also wove a few runes for a preservation charm into the circle, so the body wouldn’t start decomposing. And every few seconds, Harry would make one of the dragon’s legs or wings twitch, as though it were still alive, so the spectators were none the wiser of what had actually happened.

Before activating the portal, Harry gently placed the eggs outside the circle, since he had no use for a whole bunch of baby dragons. They’d grow up to be big dragons, with big appetites, and Magica could not support enough livestock to feed half a dozen hungry dragons.

Picking up the golden egg, Harry stepped out of the circle and with a wave of his hand he activated the runes. Instantly, a golden portal burst to life under the lifeless dragon and without any pause the whole beast fell through as if disappearing into nothing at all.

There were many shouts of surprise coming from the stands, but Harry ignored those and closed the portal again by deactivating the runes. Then he waved his wand around briefly to charm away the runes entirely. He didn’t want anyone to get hold of a runic sequence that opened up a portal right to Harry’s home.

Applause echoed around the arena as Harry left it with confident steps, even though his face still felt like it was on fire.

“This way,” the school healer said, grabbing Harry by the elbow.

“What’s the damage?” Harry asked as he followed her into the first-aid tent where he sat down on the edge of a nearby bed.

“Third-degree burns on your face and upper body,” the healer said while she waved her wand over him. “But a burn salve will fix that right up.”

“My great-grandmother invented that salve,” Harry said to make a bit of conversation as the healer returned with a large jar of green paste. “Charis MacMillan-Black.”

“How nice,” the healer said, opening the jar. “That beard is going to have to come off for me to treat your face, Mr Potter.”