The Grey-eyed Serpent

Chapter 14: Fathers and Dragons

Dearest daughter of mine,

Oh, dear. However, did he acquire the dragon egg? Illegally smuggling a dragon egg would get him a ticket to Azkaban. I will be contacting my Romanian friend and we'll see if he'd be willing to house a Norwegian Ridgeback. I advise you to tell a professor or Dumbledore, no matter how senile he is these days, he would never let Hagrid keep a dragon. Expect us in 2 days, darling. I love you, my little Alix.

From your beloved dad,

William Clementine

Alix smiled at the letter. She will be seeing her father! Oh, she was missing her family terribly these days, it was exciting to know her father would be coming to Hogwarts. "My father is coming with his friend from Romania to transport Norbert," she said to Sue and Anthony who had been informed of the happenings last night. They were at the great hall, eating their breakfast before they attend their classes.

"That's great," Sue said.

"I still don't know what came into Hagrid's head when he accepted that dragon egg," Anthony said, still disturbed that the half-giant had agreed to take an illegal dragon egg. He seemed to not care about his chances of being imprisoned in Azkaban just for a dragon egg.

"He probably was blinded by the dragon egg that he wasn't able to think clearly. Still, it doesn't mean what he did was right. He didn't even think that the dragon egg could have been taken through unethical ways. It could have been bought from a dragon poacher! Didn't he think of that?" Alix whispered angrily. It really was a foolish decision. Hagrid is an adult! Surely, he knows better than that? Dragon poachers are known to kill dragons just to obtain materials from them rather than licensed dragonologists who obtain materials from an already dead dragon.

Dragons are rapidly decreasing in the wizarding world because of poachers. They are considered extremely endangered with how few of them are left in this world. Britain's minister, Fudge, doesn't really care about protecting magical creatures from hunters, therefore, there are a lot of creatures that you cannot find anymore in wizarding Britain. Because of the decreasing population of dragons, dragon eggs are considered sacred. Every single dragon egg is registered into the Romanian ministry to keep track and protect them. Alix wonders why the British ministry didn't do the same when dragons were still abundant in the country.

The next two days were in shambles. The student body had somehow heard of a rumour concerning Hagrid's dragon egg and rumours had spread around the castle how the half-giant would end up in Azkaban. Hagrid doesn't seem to have heard or realized the rumours about him though as Alix noticed how merry he still seemed to be.

William Clementine came during Alix's history class with Professor Binns. The ghost professor was discussing the history of soulmates which almost all the students had already known about, except the muggle-borns who were still unfamiliar with the history and concept of soulmates.

"Soul magic was said to be the most ancient and powerful magic there ever is. It is said to be the foundation of all magic. Soul magic is the first-ever magic that our Goddess has blessed us" Professor Binns explained, his voice drowsy and monotonous. It was no wonder the students fall asleep in his class. Thankfully, Alix had a lot of previous tutors who were even more boring than Binns.

"And with that blessing includes our soulmates. The bearers of half our soul, as the historians would say. Now, we don't know much about the secrets of soul magic nor did anyone succeed to know. We don't know why some muggle-borns are not blessed with soulmates and even some purebloods. Only Lady Magic herself knows the answer. We don't know how magic chooses someone for us. We know almost nothing and that is why I cannot provide any more information for you all" he added and the class who were usually asleep listened intently. Maybe it was what they were expecting to hear from history class. Well, the talk about soulmates was enough to wake someone up regardless of how boring the professor is supposed to be.