The Necromancer

Chapter 19

Harry frowned. “I’ve never even seen a dragon.” He’d heard of them plenty, from stories his family members told him over the years, of course, but he had no idea what they actually looked like.

“Dilby!” Sirius yelled, putting his cup of tea down on the table. “Bring us all the books about dragons from the library!”

It took a few moments, but then Dilby popped into the room, balancing a few huge stacks of books in his spindly arms, which Sirius and Remus managed to catch before they toppled over.

Before long Harry had a large book in his lap, filled with moving pictures of huge, fire-breathing monsters. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put a bunch of kids in front of those things, honestly?

“There were no dragons in Santika?” Voldemort asked quietly as he looked from Harry’s face back to the book his Harry’s lap.

“No. There weren’t any magical creatures there, not like you have here, at any rate.” That reminded Harry he needed to figure out which magical plants and animals he wanted to add to the island, on top of the hedgehogs and co. Perhaps he could give his young assistants some more research to do.

“Dragons are hard to fight with magic,” Barty said in his usual enthusiastic tone. “But their eyes pose a weakness. There are plenty of curses that would let you magically gauge out their eyes.”

“Or you could give it conjunctivitis with a charm,” Remus said pleasantly, which caused Sirius to roll his eyes.

“Yeah, Moony, let’s piss the dragon off some more by giving it itchy eyes.”

“The Killing Curse is only illegal to use on human beings,” Voldemort pointed out and when everyone gave him disbelieving looks, he added, “Just in case things go wrong.”

They all sipped their tea and argued for a good half hour on how to combat a dragon in a way that let you steal a golden egg from their nest, as Barty explained was the ultimate goal. By the time their tea was finished, Harry had plenty of ideas on how he could survive the task, at the very least. Harry wasn’t concerned about winning anything, since he didn’t even want to be a part of the tournament in the first place. He just wanted to survive the whole thing with both his body and his magic intact.

“There is one last thing I would ask of you,” Voldemort said politely while he placed his empty cup on the coffee table. When Harry nodded in reply, he asked, “Could I see the prophecy orb?”

“Sure.” Harry got up and gestured for Voldemort to do the same. “It’s in my library.”

“Library?” Barty shot up from his chair is if someone had just ignited a magical firecracker under his arse.

“Follow me,” Harry said with a grin, and he led the whole procession out of Black Manor and towards his castle.

As they were walking, Harry remembered what Remus had told him earlier. “If your werewolf friends are ready to move here, I can have houses ready for them in a few days.”

“You would just give them houses?” Barty asked, with a curious frown. “For free?”

“I did so at first in Sildar, the magical society I built in Santika,” Harry said while everyone seemed eager to hear his explanation. “But that caused some strife and jealousy eventually, so we came up with a housing program for anyone who wanted to move to the island. Any new citizen could get a magically constructed house for free if they signed a contract that they would live in it themselves for at least five years. After those five years, if they sold the house or rented it out, half of the earnings would go to Sildar’s government and they could keep the other half. If they lived in the house for a continuous fifteen years, however, they then owned the house outright and they could keep any earnings from a potential sale.”