Dragon Tamer, First Task

Harry Potter was very worried.

His name had come out of the goblet as the fourth champion in the Triwizard tournament. Something was definitely up and it wasn’t a good something. Harry was only 14 and the other three champions were all adults with at least 3 years more training than he had so far.

Now he was waiting his turn to go face a dragon of all things. It was the first task of the tournament and they were instructed to retrieve the golden egg from a nesting mother dragon. The egg would be among the mother dragon’s real eggs.

It was just his luck that he drew the biggest and meanest dragon they brought, a Hungarian Horntail. The dragon handlers always had issues with this dragon. She seemed to always be in a bad mood.

Harry was last, behind the other champions. He couldn’t see what they did to get by their dragon, but from the comments by the announcer and the reactions from the crowd, he could guess that they all were successful but perhaps had some close calls.

He heard his dragon before he got started. They had to remove the last dragon and her eggs then bring in his Hungarian Horntail with her eggs. He could hear her causing a fuss unlike the other dragons as they did this. Her roar was quite loud and menacing.

Harry thought back to what he had been told and taught by his godfather, Sirius Black, and his former Defense professor, Remus Lupin. When they found out he was entered into the Triwizard tournament illegally by someone whom they still hadn’t figured out who it was yet, they immediately came to his aid.

While Remus was a defense expert, he was also very knowledgeable of magical creatures. In fact, he almost went into the field of working with magical creatures full time but the war interrupted a lot of people’s lives.

When they found out via Hagrid that the champions were going to have to face a dragon, Harry immediately went to his two advisors and asked for help on how to get past a dragon. Remus spoke right up.

“We knew this already. I ran into Charlie Weasley and his fellow dragon handlers in the Three Broomsticks last week. I even asked them some questions about dragons to refresh my memory. Let me give you a bit of a history lesson, Harry.

“Wizards and witches have been handling dragons for a very long time. When they first started they had to train the dragons and convince them of several things so they could keep them safe and prevent any muggles from seeing them.

“One of the biggest things was getting them over their love for gold. I’m sure you’ve read or heard in many muggle stories about dragons and how they hoard gold? Well, that happens to be true or at least it used to be.

“The problem was not so much them hoarding gold, but the possibility of being discovered by muggles while looking for said gold. Naturally, they had to train them out of that. They used various forms of punishment to convince the dragons to not steal gold. Over the years that punishment changed as they found better ways to punish them for doing wrong.

“Another thing they started doing and still do today is to have spot inspections to look for gold where the dragon lives. The dragon reserves all over the world work together to accomplish this. They send one of their handlers to a different reserve to serve as the inspector. That way the dragons won’t recognize the handler by scent.

“The handler then dresses in a uniform the dragon will easily recognize and is given a special whistle that emits a sound only dragons can hear.”

“Is it like a dog whistle?” Harry asked curiously.

“Yes, only dragons hear on a different wavelength than dogs so a dog whistle won’t work on a dragon.”

“I see.” Harry replied.

“The inspector announces his presence to the dragon with the whistle and then steps out into clear view of the dragon so it can see his inspector uniform.”

Harry was then interrupted and told it was his turn so he stopped remembering his lesson and prepared to face his dragon.

He stepped out into the enclosure that was surrounded by the audience high up in the stands away from the fire of the dragons. He stopped behind a large boulder but he knew the dragon had detected him when he entered.

She was making all kinds of threatening noises as Harry stopped to concentrate.

Harry pulled out his wand and cast a spell on his clothes to change them to what he needed. He then put the whistle that was hanging around his neck in his mouth. Sirius had bought it for him. He blew it as hard as he could.

The dragon suddenly became quiet and started looking around frantically.

Harry then stepped out from around the boulder and into clear view of the dragon which had backed up into a wall and was standing on its hind two legs to get further away.

There were many reactions to this.

The people in the stands were confused over what he was wearing and why he would put himself in danger like that. The dragon could easily roast him from that distance, they were thinking.

The dragon handlers couldn’t believe their eyes. How did a boy of fourteen know about this trick? They were then wondering if he could actually pull it off. You had to be perfectly calm and show zero fear, especially around this Hungarian Horntail.

The dragon looked at Harry in his bright orange inspector’s suit and wondered why there was a spot inspection here and at this time. She wasn’t even in her cave back home. Nevertheless, she determined to cooperate fully. She was not about to get in trouble again. These inspectors offered nothing but cruel and unusual punishment when you did wrong.

She still remembers the punishment she had to endure the last time she messed with an inspector. Never again, she told herself. Never, ever again.

She watched as Harry inspected around all the boulders and when he levitated one up above his head to see under it, he had his back to her. She went back down on all fours to inch closer to him to be able to smell and identify him better while his back was turned.

Harry suddenly turned back toward her still levitating the boulder. He had sensed her getting closer and of course the audience reacted too. The dragon instantly went backwards and stood up again on two legs, looking as innocent as she could pull off.

Harry gave her a knowing look, put the boulder back down, and continued his inspection as if she didn’t exist.

Eventually, Harry made his way to the nest so the dragon watched him carefully out of the corner of her eyes as he inspected around the eggs. She still didn’t interfere though. Then suddenly she heard the inspector get angry and ask a question. His tone made her flinch.

“What is this?!” he asked loudly.

She reared back in fright and turned to see the man picking up one of the eggs. He held it up for her to see and smell. She then realized what it was.

It was gold.

Oh no! she thought. Not that. But where did it come from? She was panicking.

“Where did you get this?” he asked angrily.

She shook her head back and forth and took another step back away from him.

“Did you steal it?” he asked threateningly.

She shook her head no again.

“Well, where did it come from?” he asked like he expected her to know.

The dragon shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, but then she remembered the dragon handlers brought her here and carried in her eggs so she stopped and looked over at them. They even looked like they were guilty by the expression on their faces.

Harry looked over at them and saw the same thing. He then turned back to the dragon.

“I see now. It was a prank on me so they planted this fake golden egg here, just to see my reaction. No need to worry. You’re not in any trouble. I’ll mark you down as being a good dragon. I’ll be sure and take this fake egg with me too. Have a good day,” he said with a bow to the dragon then left.

The mother dragon relaxed finally and laid down next to her eggs.

That was a close one she was thinking. She also couldn’t believe that the handlers played a trick on the inspector and used her as bait. Just wait until she gets alone with them again. She’d show them what a prank looks like. That’s for sure.

Boy was she glad though. She didn’t think she could go through another punishment by an inspector. To this day she still can’t stand elevator music, but to force you to listen to it for three days in a row is pure torture. She still sometimes found herself hearing it in her head from out of the blue.

She shivered in remembrance at the mere thought of it.

That was definitely a close one she thought as her eyes closed in relief.

THE END