Lesson Learned // Harry Potter

Chapter 18: The Search for the Lost Soul

So there we were, flying across vast plains and fields looking for pigs. Because wild boars/pigs were one of the main diets of the Chinese Fireball, the other being humans, Charlie suggested to look for pigs first. Then once we find some, we should try to find any dragon footprints and try to track it from there. It was going to take a long time because we first had to fly north towards the area of the Chinese Fireballs and then search for the boars, which would be harder because they've been sparse in Romania. Charlie estimates it would take a couple of weeks to find the boars and then find the footprints to track. Because of natural occurrences in the ground, the tracks could've been washed away or the dragon would've moved on by the time we got there and found the tracks. Nevertheless we were still searching. We do some walking in big clearings and other places were dragon tracks could potentially be.

So far we've been walking/flying for a week now and found nothing. Draco's getting grumpy and doesn't talk much anymore. Izzi and I are definitely more positive about this but even we too have become less talkative.

Was it even worth it? I asked myself as we were edging along a marshy bog, looking for more footprints.

I was leading the group when I suddenly hear behind me, "oh my gosh watch it! You almost pushed me into the water." I looked behind me and saw Izzi and Draco were arguing again.

"Would you guys please stop arguing? Come on it's only been a week and you are already at each other's throats. Just apologize to one another please?" I said, walking over to them and standing between them

"Fine. I'm sorry Izzi," Draco said, actually sounding sorry for once. Wow this trip has changed him I thought.

"And I'm sorry for snapping at you," Izzi said, sticking her hand out for Draco to shake.

"Thank you. Now can we get on with it?" I asked, turning around to lead the way again. We had barely gone ten feet when I again heard the familiar "Watch it you almost pushed me in!" I whipped my head around to see them smiling and trying to control their laughter.

"Wow Anne. Chill out a bit," Draco said, laughing at me. I just laughed and continued walking.

We finally made it out of the boggy mess and was able to get back on our brooms. We flew for a while until we finally came to an open field with a clearing in the middle.

"Guys this looks like a good place to look for dragon tracks," I called behind me.

"And look over there," Izzi said, pointing to the corner of the field.

"Pigs!" I exclaimed. "I never thought I'd be so excited to see pigs," I laughed. "Let's touch down and see if we can find any tracks.

"Okay," Izzi said, leading the way down to the ground.

So we landed and split up around the premises of the field to look for footprints and whatever else you look for. We searched for a couple hours, took a lunch break, and continued looking.

"Hey guys! Over here!" I heard Draco say as he beckoned for us to come over to where he was squatting.

"What is it?" Izzi asked as we walked over.

"Look," he said proudly, pointing out some tracks in the dried mud.

"Oh nice job," I said, examining the tracks. "They look like either a younger Ukrainian Ironbelly or a middle aged to adult Chinese Fireball. I'm leaning towards the Fireball because the talon marks aren't that deep whereas if it were the Ironbelly, the talon marks would be much deeper.

"Wow how do you know all that?" Draco asked.

"Hermione's not the only person who studies a lot," I said smiling.

"Okay now we need to decide whether we follow it or not," Izzi said. "How long ago was the dragon here do you think, Anne?"

"Um probably a couple of days ago because the tracks look pretty recent and the mud doesn't look too worn away."

"Okay so we should have some luck in finding it right?" Draco asked.

"Probably," I said bluntly.

So we spent a lot of time tracking the tracks (lol). We walked around a bend in the path through the field after a while of tracking and we saw the tail of a dragon sticking out of some bushes.

"Guys?" Draco said. "Is that the dragon that we'be been tracking for days?"

"I think so," I whispered. "See. Look at its feet. They match the footprints."

As we were discussing in a bush, the dragon came out and we all saw that instead of a Chinese Fireball, what stepped out of the brush was instead a Ukrainian Ironbelly, a semi-rare dragon who was the biggest dragon breed known and was semi-aggressive to humans.

As it ambled off down the path away from us, Draco stood up and yelled, "are you freaking kidding me? We spent eight days tracking this thing, something we didn't even want in the first place! That's it! I'm going home!" And he stood up and started stomping back the way we came. Izzi and I just stayed where we were, waiting for him to come back. When he didn't return we stood up and started to head back as well, when we heard a high-pitched squeal coming from further up the path.

"Oh no," we both said as we sprinted up the path and came into the clearing to see Draco face-to-face with two full grown Chinese Fireballs.

"Oh gosh. What have you gotten yourself into," I mumbled as my mind started turning to think of a way to get Draco out of this rut. "Okay Draco. Just back away slowly and don't look them in the eye," I called to him, careful not to scare the dragons too much.

That was when I took a closer look at the two and realized one fit Charlie's description perfectly. That must be his dragon I thought. I looked at the other one and it was slightly smaller so I figured it was a female. So that's why he left I thought. He wanted to get a mate.

Meanwhile Draco had gotten away and now was cowering in a bush. "Okay dragon. Let's do this."

After a long struggle with the dragons, we managed to tame both of them. And by we it was mostly me. But here's the rundown: we first cast a sleeping spell on Charlie's dragon, and I tried taming the female dragon. We kind of just seemed to "talk" but it wasn't talking. But after we finished, she ended up trusted me and only me because that's how dragons work. I decided to name her Belle because "Belle" means "beautiful" and she was a beautiful dragon. Then after I tamed her, we calmed down Charlie's dragon and that was basically it. But taming Belle was a hassle. There was some fireball-throwing and I did get burned but I healed myself afterwords so it was fine. But overall I learned that taming dragons isn't that hard but it's not that easy either.

A/N: Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this new chapter. I honestly don't know if this one is as good as some other chapters I've written but then again I'm doing this at 12:00 am so my writing skills are not the best lol. But anyways remember to comment what I should add and what I should take out for the later chapters and vote for it. If you could that would be awesome! Thanks!
~Grace 🐘