Harry Potter And The Slytherin’s Prince - Chapter 48 Norberta

Ron and Harry were discussing, what to do now in the corner.

“What is he saying?” Harry asked,

“I don’t know.” Ron said shrugging, “I guess he is just playing along, but our main focus is to find out the correct time when Draco will take the Dragon away.”

Harry nodded, thinking that he was just trying to impress the girls but the whispers seemed familiar to him, he couldn’t completely understand it but it seemed very familiar, even though he couldn’t tell what he was saying but he could at least understand that, he was trying to calm the Dragon down.

On the other hand, Draco was having a conversation with Hagrid.

“I’ll be taking the Dragon tonight.” Draco said, “Could you please help me look after it till then? Taking the Dragon in broad daylight might prove to be a little difficult.”

Hagrid nodded, “So hav’ yeh thought o’ a name fer the Dragon?”, he asked.

“Nope.” Draco said, “Haven’t really got into thinking about it, do you have a suggestion?”

Draco asked looking at Hagrid’s excited face,

“I sure do.” Hagrid said, “How about Norbert?”

Draco smiled and said, “Sure, we can name it that but it’s not a he but a she.”

“What?” Hagrid said shocked, “Really?”

“Yeah! you can identify it by just looking at it.” Draco said, “You can see it for yourself.” He said picking up the Dragon from the table.

Hagrid looked at it and said, “I didn’t think of the possibility that it could be a female.”

“It’s okay.” Draco said, “The name is pretty good maybe we can change it to Norberta.”

“Yes, ‘s a good name.” Hagrid said nodding, “But are yeh okay wit’ me naming her.”

“It’s not a problem.” Draco said smiling, with his new plans he couldn’t fulfill the promise of letting Hagrid visit the Dragon so he could at least let Hagrid name it.

“Your name is Norberta, from now on.” Draco said tickling the Dragon, “Do you like it?”

The Dragon jumped happily as if it really liked the name.

“Your whispers real’y seeme’ ter calm it down.” Hagrid said. “I wonde’ which book did yeh learn it from.”

“Oh! It’s an old Malfoy family book.” Draco said.

Hagrid nodded understanding that it was a secret since it involved family books.

Draco lied but he had at least studied a lot about the Dragons in the past few days, learning many things about them.

Dragons are basically giant winged, fire-breathing reptilian Creatures. Widely regarded as terrifying yet awe-inspiring, they can be found all over the world and are frequently referred to in Asian and medieval European folklore.

Able to fly and breathe fire through their nostrils and mouths, they are one of the most dangerous and hardest to conceal creatures in the wizarding world. The Ministry of Magic classifies them as XXXXX, which is a rank for known wizard killers that are impossible to train or domesticate. Despite how dangerous they are, there are people who are trained to work with them, called dragon keepers, or dragonologists. Who basically train them enough to study them, by providing food for them. A wizard who trades and sells dragon eggs (which is an illegal activity) is referred to as a dragon dealer. Dragon dealers are hard to come by since most of their business comes from stealing and fighting with Dragons and the latter half is even more dangerous due to continuous raid from the Ministry of Magic.

Hagrid was very worried about the Dragon since it required a lot of taking care of during their first few months. In the early stages, Dragon mothers breathe fire on their eggs to keep them warm due to this they did not keep their eggs in nests, in fear of burning the place down.

The dragon’s first fire breaths, usually accompanied by thick grey smoke, appear when the dragon is around six months old. However, the ability to fly is normally developed later, at around twelve months, and the dragon will not be fully mature until it is two years old and ready to live on its own. The book that Draco read, ‘Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit’ states that a person is required to feed a baby dragon a bucket of brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour, which proves that its a lot hard to take care of since it requires constant care.

Not much is known about dragons social behavior, however, it seems that, at least with the Chinese Fireball, females are generally larger and dominant over males. The book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them states that sometimes females oust males from their territories, at least with the Antipodean Opaleye. Due to this female Dragons tend to be more powerful than male ones.

Dragons are generally highly aggressive towards anything, even wizards, and will sometimes attack humans without provocation at all. Due to their unhealthy and unpredictable behavior, many incidents have occurred over the years. The Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709, due to understanding the dangers in the earlier period as it couldn’t be tamed and even if it were, due to its huge size it was easily identifiable by muggles.

The historic event like using the single largest Memory Charm cast in recent memory was in 1932, are linked with Dragons. The Memory charm was used because of a dragon swooping down on a beach filled with Muggle holidaymakers.

Draco himself seemed to have a connection with Dragons since his first name comes from the constellation The Dragon (“Draco” in Latin). Also, The motto of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is Draco dormiens numquam titillandus which is Latin for Never tickle a sleeping dragon.

Dragon’s had a lot of uses other than being big and dangerous, some tamed Dragons were used to guard places but since Dragons cannot be domesticated, despite individuals trying to do so. However, it is possible to condition them via torture to make them somewhat subservient, as Gringotts Wizarding Bank had done to the one guarding the lower vaults, who had been trained to expect pain upon hearing a certain noise.

Many useful materials come from dragons, but they are hard to obtain since it takes almost half a dozen wizards just to stun a dragon. The selling of dragon products is closely regulated by the Ministry of Magic, and only dragon species that are over-breeding are killed to make these items.

The materials that came for Dragons included its blood. The uses of it were hard to find out but Dumbledore had managed to come up with 12 uses of it, but most of the uses were stupid like cleaning an oven or being used as a spot remover. Powdered Dragon claw is used in potions which boosts your mind for a few hours, even though no proper experiment has been done on it, it is said that it leaves the user’s mental capability worse than before.

Dragon dung is sold as a fertilizer and it’s very expensive, Draco even owned some for his expensive and hard to grow plants and herbs. Dragon eggs are classified as a Class A Non-Tradeable Material by the Ministry of Magic. Despite the ban, many dragon eggs can still be found on the black market. Chinese Fireball egg shells are highly prized as potion ingredients by Chinese witches and wizards, said to heal a lot of diseases and make the body strong.

Dragon heartstrings are used as wand cores and its horn and liver are used for potions as well. The Dragon hides are used to make clothing. Where Muggles would wear leather, wizards wear dragon hide. The skin is very tough, impervious to some spells, and provides the same physical protection as leather, while at the same time having the same texture and appearance as snakeskin. Dragonhide is used to make gloves, boots, jackets, and shields. In high demand at the moment is the skin of the Swedish Short-Snout as it is very durable and cheap. Draco’s suitcase was also covered in Dragon’s hide but he wasn’t sure which species of Dragon was it made out of and last but not least it’s meat was considered a delicacy in a lot of countries, but a special method was required to cook them and only highly trained professionals were able to do so.

Muggles believe that dragons are a mere myth, but have been known on occasion to glimpse these beasts. To prevent them from being seen by Muggles, and to protect them from poaching, dragons are kept on dragon reserves around the world, most of which are far from human habitation. The reason, Dragons are more dangerous is because of its skin as it repels most spells thrown at them and the only spells that are work are the spells such as the Stunning Spell, some spells can affect dragons if aimed at the right spot, or if cast by several people at once or by a very powerful wizard.

The known curses that work were the Conjunctivitis Curse, which blinds the Dragon but a good aim is necessary. Draconifors a transfiguration spell which turns statues of Dragons into real one giving Dragons a real fight and the stunning spell which stuns the Dragon temporarily. It is said that there are many dark curses which affect the Dragons since they have more harming property than a normal spell.

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Two things I want to clear up:-

1) The ability of Draco is similar to Parseltongue but is completely different so Ron and the others don’t suspect much since talking to Dragons is not heard of.

2) I wanted to use this chapter to explain everything about Dragons so when I use some of the terms in the future chapter, many people wouldn’t be confused.