First Encounter (Harry Potter)

First Encounter (a Harry Potter fanfiction)

Mum was at home with the new baby, a scrappy little mandrake they decided to call Ronald Bilius, which was fancier than he deserved. So Charlie and Billy and Dad got to go to the Scottish Highlands on their own for a little holiday, to rest Dad's nerves. George and Fred, the two-year old twins, were too young to go off by themselves with the older boys, and so would stay at home with Mum. 

"It's not much of a vacation for Mum, is it?" Dad muttered as the boys settled into the abandoned crofter's hut halfway up a bare, rocky hill. The thin May sun did nothing to warm the stone walls, and only a faint spray of anaemic light sifted through the poorly-thatched roof. 

There was little to do inside except play with the stones and bits of charcoal left over from the family of sheep herders who had lived there long ago, but had since abandoned the place. The shepherds had been forced from their cold mountain home by British soldiers of almost two centuries past. Never would the shepherds know that a different band of outcasts now sheltered under their roof on that craggy elevation where no one ever came. 

With a few swipes of his wand, Dad soon had a fire crackling on the hearth, porridge bubbling in the old iron pot, and soft-mattressed cots lined up against the wall. To be fair, the pot did try to run about before he coaxed it back onto its hook, and to Charlie the first batch of oatmeal looked a bit too much like cooked sheep pellets. 

Fed and restless, the boys ran out into the cold afternoon, with not a thought for their father who sat on the edge of the longest cot, running his fingers absently through his thinning reddish hair, staring into the fire. 

Outside, the quarrel started almost immediately. "I'm going back down the hillside," said Bill. "There's a stream below, see. I've got a pin here, and I'll make it into a hook. Dad always complains we never do anything for ourselves, so I'll show him. I'll catch our dinner." 

Charlie shook his head. He wanted to go up, to scale a rocky path which seemed to lead right up to the glossy blue plate of the sky. "I don't want to. There's a cave up there, you can see it from here. I'm going up to explore." 

"You've got to come with me, you sprat. Dad'll have a fit if I let you go off on your own." 

"Make me. I'm going." 

Billy was two years older than Charlie, but much to Billy's shame, his eight year old arms and chest were thin, and he and his brother were of the same height. More than once, Billy had smarted at the occasional punch from Charlie's fist, or a slam of Charlie's thick shoulder. They were on holiday, and Billy didn't feel like a fight. Let the sprout fall off a cliff, for all he cared. He was going to catch a fish, just like the people did who lived in the village below, and he would bring it back to Dad. Maybe that would cheer Dad up. 

So Billy shrugged as if to say, What do I care? and off he went, down to the rocky river swollen with spring rains. 

As his brother went down the path, Charlie ascended. Rocks sprayed as his boots slipped on the gravelly path. He sweated, and for the first time since they'd arrived, the sun felt warm on his face. It was very quiet except for the low constant hum of the wind. 

The cave mouth was smaller than he thought, and he had to bend over to crawl inside. Almost at once he landed on a sharp stone, and the fabric of his breeches tore at the knee. Mum will howl like a banshee, he thought. She's always complaining about the mending, even though the wand does most of it. But he wasn't scratched at all, so on he went. He'd only travelled a few more feet on his hands and knees when a sharp pain stabbed through his right hand. Jumping up, he hit his head soundly on the tunnel roof. Tears threatened, but he fought them back. That's all he needed, to run back to Billy and Dad, blubbering like a baby. Like that screechy tadpole Ron, or those whiny twins, whose noses always dripped snot and whose shrieks filled the rickety, crowded Weasley house. 

Charlie put his fist to his mouth, a bit alarmed at the blood which poured from the little line of holes across the side of his hand. Something had bit him! Ahead of him he saw nothing but black, and his thick frame blocked most of the late-afternoon sun. Then something at his feet flashed bright and glassy, with a shivery noise like bangles tinkling against metal. He reached out without thinking and it bit him again, harder. Charlie howled, but at the same time grabbed the wiggling form. It felt like metal, cold and snakelike, as its small muscular body thrashed. Its teeth were still buried deep in the round muscle of his thumb. 

He wedged the writhing body between his knees, and remembered how Bill had once caught a garden snake by pinching it behind the jaw, right where the head and neck met. As Charlie grabbed for the creature's neck, it sank its teeth in even farther, and now his hand began to go numb. Poison? he thought, with a flash of fear. Mum will be so mad. Even if it kills me, she'll bring me back from the dead just to kill me all over again. 

Then, as if his hand knew just where to go, he grabbed the squirming creature right behind its head and held tight. Its jaws snapped opened wide as Charlie tried to grasp its twisting body with his bloody hand, but the creature kept slipping away. Finally, with hands and knees working together, he managed to subdue it. He turned around carefully, angry that his breeches and tunic were sprayed with blood, but at the same time curious. It wasn't the creature's fault, after all. Charlie had come into its den, surprised it, and so of course it would bite. 

In the slanting sun, he finally got a good look at what he held in his gore-wetted hands. It was about a foot and a half long, its wings still bud-like and its sharp-toed legs still short and lizard-ish. Even though Charlie held it firmly behind the head, it still snapped its jaws open and shut, so that its teeth made tiny clicks. Beneath the blood its vermilion scales interspersed with gold sparkled, and if Charlie hadn't known better, he would have said each one was a ruby mounted on a tiny gold coin. 

"Oh, Merlin's beard," he said to himself, glad Mum wasn't around to hear him swear. "Wait till Billy sees this." 

The creature relaxed a bit, as there was nowhere for it to go. Or perhaps it had just worn itself out. Charlie stroked its belly, where the scales smoothed out into soft flexible plates. Its tiny eyes glittered like fire. Soon it was altogether limp, although Charlie kept a firm hold on its head. He didn't quite trust it yet. But it was beautiful, even though its wings were small for its size. If left alone, and if it got enough to eat, its small wings would spread, and might even grow large enough for the creature to fly. Charlie knew enough about dragons to know that some could fly far better than others. Some lived deep in the earth, ruling the caves instead of the sky. This might be an earth-bound one. 

Perhaps Charlie needn't bring it to Billy after all. They were going to be here for weeks. The cave could be his secret. He could come up here with a candle, and there might be more dragons, deeper in the cave. Anyway, the numbness in his hand was wearing off, replaced by a rhythmic throbbing which slowly grew less painful with each beat. 

Reluctantly, he set the baby dragon down gently on the cave floor where the earth was smooth and there were no stones. It twisted itself onto its feet, hissed a few times, and then skittered into the black so quickly that it might have disappeared entirely. 

Charlie found a rag in his tunic pocket, and even though it was grey and streaked with dirt, he shook it out and wrapped it around his wounded hand anyway. The curious excitement which had come over him when the dragon-let had submitted to his grasp still stayed with him, even though the creature was gone. 

"I'll come back," he declared into the cave's darkness, as if the creatures who lurked within could hear him, could understand. "I'll come back."

(the end)