MAGIANIMA // Hermione Granger

It Sucks

Night had fallen and the grounds were plunged into darkness, the trees surrounding Atlas and Harry as they followed behind Hagrid and his apparent date, Madame Maxime, hunching over them like daunting, grasping claws. They were going deep, deep into the forbidden forest, further than Atlas had been in a while and she was starting to get tired, her feet aching and back hurting just as much from having to bend over so the cloak didn't reveal her ankles. The castle and the lake were out of sight by now and instead, the evidence of solitude was clear all around them. No soul to be seen, no sound, even the trees seemed to hold no life.

Where ever Hagrid was taking them, Atlas knew it wouldn't be a typical date venue. She started to wonder. Did the first trial have something to do with the forest? That would be too favourable of the Hogwarts champion(s) though, wouldn't it? And she knew Karkaroff and Maxime wouldn't have allowed it or agreed to the first trials setting. So what? What could possibly be kept in the Forbidden Forest that didn't offer some sort of advantage to her and Harry?

That question was soon answered.

After stumbling over a large tree root, Atlas cursed, loud enough for Madame Maxime to hear but, thankfully, she hadn't, for the word had been drowned out by a ferocious sound. Harry went as pale as a ghost while Atlas felt her throat go dry, her eyes wide and mouth just as gaping. She took a subconscious step forward, forcing Harry along with her as a blaze of firey light lit up the front of her face.

Dragons. Four fully grown dragons. Atlas would have been excited, ecstatic even if she hadn't known these were the beasts she were to face for the first trial. A loud boom echoed through the trees when one of the dragons pushed itself to its hind legs in anger and collided with the floor once more, harsh clouds of hells flame expelling from their snout. She glanced them over, eyes nervously flitting across each set of scales to determine their species while Harry clutched her hand in fright.

There was a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might, Atlas knew it to match the description of a Common Welsh Green; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air, a Chinese Fireball; a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, a Hungarian Horntail; and finally, the one Atlas almost fainted at the sight of seeing.

An Albanian Agoniser.

The Agonisers shed plate Atlas had sat above her bed paled in comparison to the sleek and healthy shine of the scales on this beast's form. It glistened a deep garnet red in the fire it had surrounded itself with, black specks littering its sides like freckles upon skin, two horns reached high into the sky, those were at its crown and the rest settled at its chin. A thin layer of black skin blanketed its eye momentarily as it blinked, purely pearlescent scleras with a tiny tint in shade to its pupil hid beneath and Atlas was lost to them in an instant.

It was calmer than the others, magnificently so considering its renowned temperament. That's when Atlas saw her, gently stroking the underside of its chin down to its gullet. Isabella Krase, the supposed prick that had not been responding to her letters and now she knew why. There was no way the school owls would venture into the territory of a dragon let alone four, not even Kalo would be so daring and he was no regular bird.

"Izzie! I need you over here!" That voice, it sounded like Charlie. Atlas tore her gaze from the Agoniser and watched as, indeed, Charlie Weasley called for the woman's help from where he stood trying to wrangle with the Hungarian Horntail. "Izzie!"

"Wait a moment!" Bella uttered a few words to her placid dragon friend and quickly ran over to the dragon closest to the fence, holding her hands up as she tried to tame the beast's fury. "It's no good, I've not worked with her long!"