An ear-splitting roar pierced the air. Over a dozen keepers had their wands in hand, pointed squarely at Norberta's moving chest. Her outstretched neck craned overhead while torrents of fire scorched the leaves of the nearby trees.
Draco caught a single glimpse of Hermione by his side, and one look at the worry that lined his features confirmed that bringing her along had been accidental. His face quickly reverted back to stoic.
"Get back," he ordered, knuckles blanch white as he gripped his wand. "Cast a Protection Charm around yourself and don't move."
The words were hardly past his lips before Draco sprinted to the scene and joined the keepers in trying to calm Norberta.
Hermione knew not to fight him this time. She did as Draco said and surrounded herself with a Protego Totalum.
Norberta's intermittent screeches were the only thing that paused her flames. It was a wonder and a terror to see Norberta in this state. Hermione was uncomfortably familiar with the dangers of the mighty, winged beasts. Dragons were untamable. Wild. Independent. When attacked, their resulting ire could rival the flames of hell.
Hermione's face was flush with the perimeter of the Protective Charm as she watched Draco and the other keepers' every move. Doru and Llewellyn were there, as was Charlie, and several others that Hermione assumed to be Norwegian Ridgeback specialised keepers. In the forefront was Draco, palms faced open and forward like Hermione had seen him do the previous morning.
"It's me, Norberta," Draco tried to placate her. "We aren't here to harm you."
Norberta released another thunderous cry and stood on her back legs so her gargantuan body cast a long, looming shadow over the keepers. Six different Stunning Charms shot through the sky and hit her hide simultaneously, but they bounced off her scales in a shower of fading red sparks. Her outrage heightened, and Norberta landed on the ground with a heavy force. It shook the ground like a small earthquake.
She opened her jaw, revealing a mouth full of fangs and the orange glow of a fireball forming in the back of her throat. Doru had just enough time to tell everyone to Apparate out of the way before Norberta scorched the ground in a ring of warning.
The flames torched a pile of leaves and erupted into a blazing spike, forcing Hermione to look away and shield her eyes. Yells erupted and echoed all around her. Commands. Shouts. Endless spells.
"Cast an Aguamenti!"
"Aim for her chest!"
"Stand back!"
Norberta raged on.
Nothing the keepers did helped.
Draco raced across to the other side where Charlie, Llewelyn, and two other keepers pointed their wands at the sensitive part of her underbelly.
"On my mark!" Llewelyn bellowed. "One, two—"
Hermione's attempted warning cry was lost in another deafening roar. Norberta whipped her tail in a swinging strike, barely missing one of the keepers as they all ran for safety.
The scene was chaos. Frantic. Urgent. If they didn't calm Norberta down soon, there was no predicting what damage the dragon may do next.
She wanted to help. Merlin, Godric, Circe, Morgana. She desperately wanted to help. But Hermione knew her limits, and this was one circumstance where all she could do was watch, no matter how much it distressed her.
Her eyes darted everywhere. From Draco to Charlie. To Markus and Aurel. To Doru, Llewellyn, and all the other keepers she didn't know by name. Each one trying to calm the beast. Each one an expert in their trade. Each one still unable to make it stop.
"We need backup!" Doru yelled as he shot yet another unsuccessful stunner.
Moments later, ten more keepers Apparated to the scene, including Julia.
"Wands at the ready!" Doru shouted in one of the rare seconds between Norberta's roars. "Stupefy on three!"
Doru gave the countdown, and all at once, upwards of thirty keepers shouted, "Stupefy," in unison, causing jets of spells to hit Norberta's thick hide at several different places.
Norberta let out another wail, weaker this time. Her attempt to burn them with one final roast produced nothing but harmless smoke. She staggered in position, long neck swaying like a flag in heavy wind, before her body collapsed on the ground in a rattling thud.
Hermione waited several, heart-pounding moments while she froze to confirm that Norberta had been successfully stunned. When Norberta hadn't moved and the shouts of Draco yelling carried through what remained of the still-standing trees, Hermione removed her charms and ran Draco's way.
"None of this would have happened if you had demanded Auror intervention the first time we noticed something suspicious!" Draco boomed, voice dripping with acid as he glared at Doru with heavy disdain.
"We didn't have a firm enough case," Doru justified. Exhaustion from the past several moments seemed to weigh on him. "For all we knew, Nevarth was sick. He had no indications of other harm."
"Then you should have done something after the attack on Urso. Or stormed into the Ministry on Friday after what happened with Viscer!"
"Draco, you need to—"
"I will not calm down, Charlie," Draco snapped, casting his friend a look of contempt. His pointed glare returned to Doru. "This is your fault because you didn't go to the Aurors on Friday and demand action. And it isn't just blood this time."
Hermione let out a soft gasp, and the argument stilled as the involved keepers turned her way.
Charlie's face was stern. "Hermione, you shouldn't be anywhere near here. This is serious business."
"I'm perfectly capable of casting the necessary charms to protect myself," she said, stepping closer to the conversation.
Draco's eyes followed her as she stood between him and Charlie, but it was Doru's glare that landed on her the sharpest.
The senior dragon keeper turned to Charlie with a frown. "It was my understanding that your visitor was only here for the weekend."
"She was, but we asked her to stay."
The displeasure on Doru's face deepened. "It's not safe for her to reside on the grounds anymore," he said, not looking at Hermione as he spoke. "If she's extending her visit, I'm sure we can coordinate accommodations for her at the Dennfyre."
Draco crossed his arms against his chest. "She's proven herself more than effective at protecting herself," he swiftly stated. His mouth pursed with distaste. "Not to mention that she's been infinitely more helpful for the investigation than you have."
Llewellyn seemed to have just noticed the dispute and approached the conversation, but Doru didn't pause for his input. "She is not a dragon keeper, and I will not have her as a liability. From now on, she is to stay in the designated visitor areas and must be off sanctuary property by nine at night. And that decision is final."
Doru started to walk away, yet Draco shouted after him.
"The only reason there's potential danger here is because of your incompetence!"
The blackened leaves beneath Doru's feet crunched as he paused in his path and turned back around.
"You're upset, Draco, so I will not fight with you any further," the older wizard said, a sense of calmness returning to his tone. "Let there be no mistake who is in charge here. Charlie requested special permission for Miss Granger, which I granted for two nights, before matters took a turn for the worse." He levelled his stare. "Now, you can continue yelling at me about what has already happened, or you can let me go to the Ministry and speak to the Aurors myself. Which would you prefer?"
Draco scowled. "I'm coming with you."
"No, you are not," Doru shot back. "You're too angry, and I don't need you causing a scene." His gaze flicked to the still-stunned dragon. "And we're going to need someone Norberta trusts to be here when she wakes up."
His jaw set tightly, but Draco didn't argue. The decision was already made.
Doru gave instructions to Llewellyn to watch over the sanctuary and collect reports from the rest of the keepers who had been dispersed to check on all the other dragons. Seconds later, they both were gone, leaving behind Draco, Hermione, Charlie, Julia, and a few other straggling keepers.
The mask of outrage had yet to fade from Draco's face. He stalked towards Norberta without another word. Hermione observed with numb silence as she watched Draco's rigid form. Where she stayed the next few days felt like little importance compared to whatever had happened to Norberta.
One of the other keepers injected a dark purple draught into Norberta's neck, yet Draco walked right past him and towards the mouth of the cave.
"You should stay with him."
Hermione looked over at Charlie who had Julia standing right beside him.
"Not going to take Doru's directive to immediately banish me back to the visitors section?" she said with a displeased humph.
Charlie shrugged, a weak smile on his lips. "Norberta's sedated now and you're already out here, so what's the rush back? Doru's at the Ministry and Llewellyn's with the other keepers. I won't tell if you won't." His expression turned more solemn as his attention fell off Hermione and back towards Draco. "Besides, if my suspicions are correct, you're the one he's going to want right now."
Something twisted inside of her, the constant impulse to find the logic in every situation compelling Hermione to retort that he was Charlie's best mate, not her, but that protest died before it reached her lips. Emotions between Draco and Charlie had been fraught just a few minutes earlier, so it wasn't unreasonable to believe that she would therefore be Draco's preferred choice at the moment. After all, Charlie had seen them interact at breakfast. Clearly she and Draco had reached some sort of amicable truce.
Over the course of the next few minutes, all remaining keepers departed the area until Draco was the only one left. Hermione kept her distance as he walked around Norberta at sluggish speed. When he looped back around, he stopped in front of Norberta's snout and sat on a patch of exposed dirt, bending his legs so his arms could rest atop his knees.
It pained Hermione to see Draco in this state, almost as much as it pained her to have witnessed Norberta under such distress.
The sun was now high above the mountains, the calm of morning long forgotten. The echo of Norberta's roars still rang in Hermione's ears, and with no other nearby noises, it was like silence had a sound.
A gentle breeze brushed past Hermione, and she let the wind force her into motion. She joined Draco on the ground in front of the dragon. With the commotion having faded to stillness, Hermione let her focus properly fall on Draco. His hair had slipped out of the bun, and the sun-kissed pale locks framed his stare into Norberta's closed eyelids. Her heart panged at the anguish hiding behind his grey eyes, but her entire chest clenched when her gaze dropped to the burned through holes in his sleeve and the angry red skin underneath.
"Draco," she gasped. Her breaths grew short as she propped herself up on her knees to face him better. "You're hurt."
"Doesn't matter," he deadpanned, but the instant Hermione yanked up the scorched fabric and exposed the burned skin, Draco let out a sharp, wincing hiss.
The pink flesh was raw, though she was relieved to see no evidence of blistering. Norberta's flames must have only licked him.
"Don't worry about it," he said, more urgent this time.
He tried to pull his arm out of her grip, but that only caused Hermione to hold his wrist tighter.
"I know a charm for this," she said, using her free hand to retrieve her wand. "I memorised bunches of helpful spells back in the day in case they ever became necessary."
The tip of her wand found one of the patches of pink just below the bend of his elbow, but Hermione had barely opened her lips to speak the incantation when her heart hitched. In her frantic rush to tend to Draco, she hadn't paid enough attention to which arm the burns were on.
Her movements froze, gaze now fixated on his left forearm. She could feel Draco's eyes bore into her while his shallow breaths were the only sound between them.
A lump formed in her throat. She must not have noticed it at first because it was almost entirely unrecognisable. While the scarred outline of the skull and serpent was still there, it was covered by a mountainous landscape with a waterfall flowing into a river. Above the mountaintops was an expanse of dotted stars.
Her actions took on a mind of their own, and Hermione dropped her wand to graze her fingers over the tattoo. She stared at it for several seconds before Draco said anything.
"I got it almost as soon as I arrived here," he said, voice just above a whisper. "I couldn't look at it anymore, not even the faint parts that remained. So I covered it with the mountains that were already helping me forget about so many other things."
Her fingertips brushed over the river whose curve followed the serpent's faded body to mask the original mark even further. "It's beautiful."
Draco pulled his arm out of her grip. "No, it's not," he sneered. "Even covered, I know what's underneath."
He got to his feet and retrieved his wand before casting his own Burn Healing Charm and tugging the shirt's fabric to his wrist. He stalked back to the mouth of the cave, and the soft huffs of Norberta's slumbering snores pulled Hermione back to why they were there.
She scurried after Draco. "You said to Doru that it wasn't just blood this time," she said once she caught up to him. She walked quickly to keep up with his pace. "All the other attacks had been male Common Welsh Greens, but Norberta doesn't fall under either of those categories."
Draco stalled, and Hermione witnessed the anger play out on his face.
"One of the keepers had gotten an early start on his daily check-ins and saw smoke billowing in the nearby distance," Draco said through a tight jaw. His attention fixed ahead of him. "After determining the source, he alerted Doru and Llewellyn, and this was the scene they fell upon." He turned to face Hermione. "The dragons aren't vicious when unprovoked. We've built a home for them where they're supposed to be free from harm." A dark, menacing gleam tainted his normally silver gaze. "But if you take a mother dragon's egg from her, there's going to be hell to pay."
The statement cut through Hermione like razor sharp daggers. It was only then that Hermione realised where Draco had led them. At the mouth of the cave was the nest of stone where the midnight black eggs laid arranged in a circle. Only now, instead of seven, Hermione counted six.
Her heart plummeted.
"No wonder Norberta was so upset," Hermione said, a sudden ache in her chest. Her vision cast over to the potion-induced dragon, now seeing the similarities between how Norberta had reacted compared to the four dragons she'd watched during the Triwizard Tournament.
Draco's mouth set in a grim line. "I presume that's also why it was so difficult for us to stun her. Usually, we can stun a dragon with only three or four keepers. But with the ancient magic imbued in a dragon's hide, it's theorised that, just like with human magic, the strength of the magic can become more powerful and protective when love is involved. All she wanted to do was protect her eggs."
He paced towards Norberta and placed a hand on the scales on the thick of her torso. "Whoever is attacking our dragons saw that they could get away with the blood and now went for something more valuable." The bitter words came off his tongue like poison. "Blood replenishes. Eggs don't."
His hand remained on Norberta's hide for several seconds before he whipped around to face Hermione. A trace of hope gleamed in his pewter gaze. "That spell you did with Viscer, can you do it again?"
That spark of hope flared inside Hermione as well. "Potentially. But first, we'll need to see if the culprit left any evidence."
They searched the surrounding area. No inch of ground was left unexplored. Yet as the minutes toiled on—ten, twenty, over a half hour—and they found not a single item out of the ordinary, any amount of hope dimmed. Either nothing was left behind, or it had been charred to blackened dust.
Hermione and Draco slumped to the ground and rested against one of the trees that had escaped Norberta's wrath. Disappointment ate at them both.
"I still don't trust the Auror department," Draco said, words tight and clipped after silence had reigned between them for several minutes. "Now that a dragon's egg is involved, they may assign someone actually competent to the case, but that isn't enough. I won't let them conduct some shoddy investigation. This just became personal."
His expression grew graver, and Hermione scooted closer, heart lodged in her throat.
"We'll figure it out together," she assured him despite waves crashing in her stomach. "We can expand our research, see if there are any potential leads in Verdell, consult Charlie—"
"Charlie can't know."
Hermione startled. "Why not?"
"You were right about not letting people know the real reason for you staying. Charlie included," Draco resolved without any sign of hesitation or doubt. "The more this goes on, the more I agree that it's someone within the sanctuary instigating the attacks. Or at least giving information to someone on the outside. If the other keepers find out what we're doing, it may cause them to hide something from us."
"But surely you don't suspect Charlie."
Draco shook his head. "No, but he's too close to Doru, Llewellyn, and their end of the investigation. Implicating Charlie would put him in a difficult position, potentially damaging Doru's trust in him—even if Doru has already botched this every step of the way. I won't make Charlie choose between helping us and becoming assistant senior dragon keeper. So, no. No Charlie. Our best chance at success is to keep this between us."
Draco met her eyes, both stern and soft. He was placing all his faith in Hermione. She wouldn't let him, or the dragons, down.
Silence once more blanketed over them while they watched Norberta sleep. Through the thin distance that separated them, Hermione could feel the tension in every muscle of Draco's body. She knew the pressure Harry used to place himself under when he felt it was his responsibility to fix things. Apparently, Draco wasn't much different.
She rested her head on his shoulder while her hand found his. She gave his hand a comforting squeeze, the assurance that she was there to help. That's all she intended it to be. But when she made to slip her fingers out from his, he squeezed her hand tighter, holding her in place.
The sun rose higher in the sky, and Hermione lost track of how much time they sat there, watching the heartbroken mother dragon.