Obliviate my Destiny {Book 5}

32. Final return

"TWO—"

"LISTEN TO HIM, PLEASE!" Harry yelled back.

"ONE—"

And then Harry, Ron and Hermione leapt from the dragon, screaming and I watched in horror as they became three tiny dots crashing through the sky like lightning. And then they disappeared from view; three bullets deep into the lake.

"HARRY!" I screamed, but seconds later I saw three dots surface from the water.

The dragon took another sharp sweep, and I screamed again. "Cole, what is going on?!"

"What I thought would happen!" he shouted, and then almost by magic, the dragon flew as smoothly as it had been for the majority of the journey. "This!"

"You knew it would try to throw them off?!" Gennie said. "Cole—"

"I had a dream." Cole said abruptly. "Two—one that said not to jump, one that showed Sam—"

"--climbing from her grave." Gennie and I finished in sync.

Uneasily I whispered, "We all had the same dream?"

"Well I think Smaug here fell asleep too," Cole said, stroking the dragon's neck. "It would explain why we dropped so much—Sam, or whoever it was sending us the dreams, all wanted us to see that. And they didn't want the others coming with us."

"So where are we going now?" Gennie said, and silence fell upon the three of us.

"Choose the dragon and you will have your answers....." I whispered to myself, looking out onto the indigo sky, the sun setting like a drop of blood in the distance. "I think we're going to find out whether Sam is alive or not."

***

What seemed like hours later, the sun almost a pinprick in the sky, Smaug began dropping height, and instead of seeing tips of clouds we could see mountain ranges and forests.

"Oh my god...." Cole whispered.

"What?" Gennie and I said together.

Cole took one hand from Smaug's neck, and pointed in the distance. There; in the distance in all its glory was Hogwarts. A dark prickling fear came over me, and I was reminded of how dementors had surrounded the school and so were human guards.

"He's not taking us there.... Look." Cole pointed, and Smaug took a smooth right, leading us away from Hogwarts and towards.... the forbidden forest.

"Of course," I breathed out. My term hidden in Hogwarts hadn't taught me much, but I knew that there weren't any wards on the forest.

Smaug circled around the dark forest several times before he dropped on the very edge of the forest. His entrance wasn't elegant; he crashed into three trees and scared a herd of unicorns as he rumbled onto the ground.

"That wasn't subtle at all, but thank you." Gennie said, climbing off Smaug gingerly and patting his neck.

She held out a hand and I slid off with ease, eyeing up the creature. Hesitantly I stood forward and rubbed at its scarred side. "Thanks, Smaug for not killing us."

Cole finally slid off the dragon's back, looking as if he was losing an old friend. He rubbed at Smaug's neck for several moments, before looking back at Gennie expectantly.

"We can't keep a dragon, Cole." She laughed.

"Imagine how many bad guys you could set on fire with him...." Cole said, but he sighed and lightly kissed the scales on the dragon's neck. Smaug roared, and fire almost hit Cole in the face. "Ah well, worth a shot—stay safe, Smaug."