Ravenclaw's Shadow

Chapter 55

On the first official day of the program, we walk into the communal area after breakfast to see five places around the end of one table set out with parchment, quills and ink.

"What the hell is this?" Tilly asks, picking up a quill.

"You use it to write," Lucas says.

"Yeah, in the eighteen-hundreds," she says, "haven't you heard of the ball point pen? Or, I dunno, notebooks?"

"It's how we do things in Europe," Andrei says, sitting down at one of the places. We follow suit, Tilly still looking at the quill with a wrinkled nose. 

"Good morning!" a tall woman called Selena walks in and over to us, "I'm your teacher for... Well, as long as it takes."

She grins and sits down at the head of the table.

"So, even though part of the program here involves study, we think the best way to learn is to get out and do things," she says, "but first, I'm going to tell you a bit about the sanctuary here, while you take notes."

"Fuck," Tilly mutters, splattering ink all over the table, "sorry."

She clears it up with a flick of her wand and tries again. Selena chatters on about the sanctuary while we scribble down notes. About five minutes in Tilly sighs loudly.

"Sorry," she says, "but how the heck am I supposed to write with this thing?"

I look at her parchment and see it covered with splotches and words that the ink has run out halfway through. Selena laughs.

"Have you met Jo?" she asks, "she's from Australia too. She couldn't get the hang of it either."

"Can I go and get a pen and notebook?" Tilly asks, "I won't be two minutes."

"Go on, then," Selena agrees. Tilly runs out and returns a couple of minutes later with a book and a couple of pens.

"Thanks, sorry for interrupting," she says, pushing the parchment away. Selena continues, listing off some rules, things like not going into enclosures alone, not feeding the dragons anything other than their prescribed diet, and not falling asleep in the dragon enclosures.

"Has that happened before?" Lucas asks.

"Let's just say last year we started with five and ended with four," Selena says with a grimace.

After Lunch Selena tells us to put on our protective gear and follow her.

"We're just going to see some of the orphan babies today," she says, leading us into a small building, "these guys will still mess you up, though, if you're not careful."

We walk in and there are small cages lining the walls. We look in and see tiny baby dragons.

"They usually stay here for a couple of weeks before we take them into the enclosures," Selena says, "they grow quickly, but they're also at more danger from other dragons because they don't have parents to protect them."

"What happened to their parents?" Tilly asks, poking her fingers through a cage to pet a dragon.

"Mostly killed by other dragons," she says, "we can protect the dragons here from wizards, but not from each other. Sometimes we'll put them in with the Welsh Greens until they're big enough to fend for themselves. The Welsh Greens don't bother with them unless they threaten their young."

She beckons to us and leads us down the other end. She lifts a small, dark dragon out of its cage and holds it up to us.

"Who can tell me what this is?" she asks.