DPASW BOOK FOUR:The Gray's Secret

The Gray's Secret - Chapter 3

Montrose, Scotland: Four days before the Wizengamot Weekend.

Lord Zazo clicked his tongue as he and his companions waited for their guest to finally appear.

They’d chosen the Wizard’s Wand for their meeting point—a pub famous for its cheese and niffler pies—not because it was the best Montrose had to offer, but because it was pretty much all Montrose had to offer. Well, that bit that was magical, anyway. The magical population of Monrose had swelled over the last hundred years, from just over a hundred at the turn of the century, to nearly five hundred today, but over that same time, the central enclave, where magical business was officially allowed to be carried out, hadn’t grown a buggering inch.

Lord Zazo would have loved to put their guest up in his glorious and incredibly expensive manor house, but that wasn’t possible, because he didn’t have one. Not many lords did.

Those lords whose families had graced them with such good fortune tended to be the default leaders. Not necessarily because they themselves were such amazing politicians, but because on the one hand, money talks, and on the other, because plotting the glorious future of the noble Wizarding race felt so much more on brand when done in grand dining rooms with mahogany tables, silver cutlery, and giant marble pillars, rather than in the tiny booth of a smokey tavern with damp floorboards, rotting thatch, and a draft with an all you can eat pass.

This was not how Lord Zazo imagined his first encounter with their soon-to-arrive guest would go. He’d been looking forward to this meeting of minds for a while and in his imagination he’d always pictured it as him turning the corner in Slytherin Manor, or maybe Malfoy Manor, and there he’d be. Tall, ominous, and masked.

“Ah, Lord Zazo,” he’d say in a deep rumble and a nod. “I have been looking forward to meeting a mind so much like my own.”

And he’d nod back. “As have I, Lord Thlytherin. As have I.”

And then, they’d talk. About everything. The future of the Wizarding race. The Albion. The Magical Empires of the past. The true nature of Power. And Lord Slytherin would listen.

Although, in a pinch, he’d settle for a discussion about getting the Wizard’s Wand a new thatched roof.

Lord Zazo glared around him. Then at his watch. Then at the door. Then in a voice several octaves higher than the voice he always imagined he used, he declared, “He ith late.” His gaze swung to his companions. "He thaid he’d be here at ten, but it’th five patht ten. Hith tardineth ith quite evident."

His two companions glanced at each other.

“Meby he isnae comin’ by floo,” said Hamish McGregor, the Mayor of Magical Montrose. “Meby he arrivn’ on dragon back.”

“Land dragon,” said William ‘Willy’ Sinclair, Captain of the Montrose Magpies Qudditch team, sounding far more tired than a strapping young man his age should. Probably his having to deal with Hamish all the time. “His betrothed is a land dragon,” the boy clarified. “He isn’t going to walk all the way through the Scottish Highlands on the back of a giant fifteen ton bloody monster. The muggles would spot it. And it’s too slow.”

“Ay denae know ‘bout no land dragons,” McGregor countered. “They sayin’ dragon and dragons fly. Why canae’ the lass nae fly?”

Willy sighed. “Because it’s not really a Dragon, Uncle. It’s called a dinosaur and they all died out before humans evolved. People are just calling it a land dragon.” He looked towards the fireplace. “No idea why,” he muttered not quite under his breath. “It’s not like dragons have feathers.”

“If the lass be havin’ feathers than by Merlin’s beard she should fly, right enough,” McGregor said. “Birds have feathers and birds fly. Are ya sure she canae fly?”