Ethereal

♦ 016 ♦

The Goblet of Fire

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

On Sunday morning, Sadie and Hermione were eating breakfast with Ginny when Harry joined them. Harry waited until Sadie and Hermione had swallowed their last spoonful of porridge, then dragged them out onto the grounds. There, he told them all about the dragons, and about everything Sirius had said, while they took another long walk around the lake.

Alarmed as she was by Sirius's warnings about Karkaroff, Sadie and Hermione still thought that the dragons were the more pressing problem.

"Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening," Sadie said trying to stay calm, "and then we can worry about Karkaroff."

They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple spell that would subdue a dragon. Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they retired to the library instead. Here, Harry pulled down every book he could find on dragons, and all of them set to work searching through the large pile.

"Talon-clipping by charms. . . . treating scale-rot. . . . This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy," Hermione said frustrated.

"Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate, but Sirius said a simple one would do it. . . ."

"Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Sadie, throwing aside Men Who Love Dragons Too Much.

She returned to the table with a pile of spell-books, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop at his elbow.

"Well, there are Switching Spells, but what's the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous. The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon's hide. I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall, unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers. . . ."

"Hermione," Harry said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I'm trying to concentrate."

"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Hermione irritably as Viktor Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books. "Come on, guys, we'll go back to the common room. His fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering away. . . ."

And sure enough, as they left the library, a gang of girls tiptoed past them, one of them wearing a Bulgaria scarf tied around her waist.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

When Sadie woke up Monday morning, she and Hermione met Harry in the common room and they made their way to the Great Hall. When they finished breakfast, Harry turned to Sadie and Hermione.

"Sades, Hermione, I'll see you in the greenhouses," Harry said. "Go on, I'll catch you up."

"Harry, you'll be late, the bell's about to ring. . . ."

"I'll catch you up, okay?"

"Okay," Sadie said, "see you there." Sadie and Hermione exchanged looks as they made their way to greenhouse three.

"Sades, Hermione," Harry whispered, when he had sped into greenhouse three about twenty later, uttering a hurried apology to Professor Sprout as he passed her. "Sades, Hermione, I need you to help me."