Heroes Assemble!

Now, That's A Distraction!

"Hey! Hold on there!" the keeper called, chasing after him. "Vipertooths are vicious. Even a nip from one can kill you, what with the venom in their teeth. And they seem to have a sweet tooth for humans."

Harry simply waved a hand at the protest and continued around the bend before stopping dead.

Before him was a great bowl, surrounded by mountains – the dragon reserve itself. And in that lightly forested bowl were the residents, over a hundred bronze dragons.

Peruvian Vipertooths may be the smallest of all dragons, but they were still fifteen feet long with great wings that were only a shade or two lighter than their copper bodies. Not that they were completely the one colour, their ridges that ran from the back of their head all the way down to the tip of their tail were jet black.

Tapping his finger to his throat, Harry channelled enough magic to ensure that his voice would be heard by the dragons below.

"§Hello. Can you understand me§?" he called, his voice echoing down into the bowl.

Harry's eyes remained fixed on the dragons but in his peripheral vision, he noted that the dragon keeper took a number of quick steps backwards and that his wand had fallen into his hand. The fact that said wand was still pointed at the ground was enough to have Harry ignoring it. For now.

Heads of dozens of dragons turned sharply at his echoing voice until almost every single one of them was pointed straight up to where he was standing, their long necks stretched as far as they could go. And then the great wings of three of the Vipertooths unfurled and they leapt into the air to fly higher up the bowl to where Harry was standing.

Harry stayed perfectly still as the three, one slightly larger than the other two, landed just at the very top of the cliff. Their heads moved sinuously as they seemed to study him, their eyes firmly fixed on him.

"§Hello. Can you understand me§?" Harry asked again, having firstly cancelled the sonorous spell.

"§We understand you, Speaker§," the largest of the dragons replied.

Harry couldn't help but smile. This was the first time that he'd ever attempted to talk to a dragon and it'd worked! Oh, it wasn't perfect, he had to listen hard to understand what the dragon had said – it definitely had a very thick accent, but whether that was because the tongue of dragons was almost too far from the language of snakes or because these dragons were from Peru was anyone's guess.

"§Thank you for coming to speak with me§," Harry said, giving a short bow but not breaking eye contact.

"§We have not had a two-leg ever try to speak to us before§," the lead dragon replied.

"§I have a special gift which allows me to do so§," Harry replied. "§Perhaps none with this gift have ever come here before§."

"§Perhaps§," the dragon allowed. "§What is it that you want, Speaker§?"

"§I come asking for aid§," Harry said, picking his words very carefully. "§There are some very bad two-legs that want to hurt other two-legs and I am not strong enough to stop them by myself§."

"§You are wise to recognise the strength of dragons, Speaker§," the dragon said, its head still moving from side to side. "§But why should we care what two-legs do to other two-legs§?"

And that, Harry knew was always going to be the tricky part.

"§I was hoping that we could come to an agreement. If you consent to help me, then I would make sure to give you what you want§," Harry replied.