Heroes Assemble!

Mopping Up

"How are they?"

Harry looked around from where he was kneeling beside the wing of the smallest of the three dragons to see a concerned and somewhat apprehensive Sam standing a little ways off.

"It's alright, Sam, you can come closer, they won't hurt you," Harry reassured him. "And to answer your question, they're doing alright, healing up nicely."

"Glad to hear it," Sam replied as he approached.

Harry was amazed that he was able to say it. The injuries, especially the one to the wing membranes of the smallest dragon, had been quite severe. Phoenix tears, however, seemed to do just as good a job of healing dragons as they did humans. Even Hagrid had agreed to that when Harry'd used Teddy to get him back on the line this morning and to show him how things had progressed overnight.

Whether or not the skele-grow had actually done anything to help the largest, the male, with his broken bone was hard to say. What was apparent was that the broken bone, as seen through the Expecta-Vision glasses was nothing more than a hair-line crack this morning.

"§We are well enough to travel, Speaker§?" the male asked.

"§You both still need more time to heal completely, but you're well enough to travel by portkey§," Harry replied.

"§Then you will uphold your end of the bargain, Speaker§," the dragon stated.

"§I will§," Harry replied.

Glancing around, he found three large sticks and quickly retrieved them. Then it was a case of turning them into portkeys, including adding a touch of his Head of House Black ring to them as well to ensure that the wards would accept them. One by one, he then moved between the three dragons, giving them the sticks to grasp in their paw.

"§Are you ready? This won't be pleasant§," Harry warned.

"§We are prepared, Speaker§," the male dragon stated.

Then, after a final nod, Harry said a single word.

"Activate."

Instantly, the three dragons disappeared in a swirl of colour.

"Woah!" Sam said, taking an involuntary step backwards. "Where'd you send them? Back where you got them from?"

"No. That wasn't the deal," Harry replied with a headshake.

"Deal?" Sam questioned.

"Yeah," Harry grinned. "In order to get them to come to fight for us, I had to agree to their terms."

"What'd you have to give them? A pile of gold each? Only, I've heard that dragons like that sort of thing," Sam said.

"Not quite," Harry replied. "No, I've given them a new home on the island that I own, a place where they can be free to stretch their wings and fly whenever they wish and as far as they wish, without restrictions. A place where they can even have young if they so choose; because of overcrowding, the Reserve where I found them had made it so that each female dragon could only have a single egg hatch within their lifetime."

"Not a bad deal, then," Sam nodded.

"No, it's not," Harry agreed. "Especially when you add in the fact that I've only got a week to ensure that I send in large flocks and herds of cows, sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas to the island as well – at least a hundred of each."

"That's a lot of food for three dragons," Sam commented. "How much do they eat anyway?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Harry replied. "But they'll fish as well and they're smart enough to make sure that they don't eat too many from each herds so that their food source can last for years."