Chapter 137: Little Dragon Looking for Mum
"There's someone outside. Watching!"
At Hagrid's shout, Harry bolted for the door, trying to catch the spy.
He came back a moment later, shoulders slumped. "They got away. Looked like…"
"Pretty sure it was Malfoy," he finished.
Ron shifted uneasily. "Then… then he might report Hagrid, mightn't he?"
Leonardo, busy mixing chicken blood into the brandy, gave a small shake of his head.
All four of them were in his study group these days, but Malfoy had not become Harry's friend. At most, he behaved himself during Leonardo's lessons. Outside them, he was much the same as ever.
Leonardo did not mind. Children's friendships were their own business. In his lessons, there was no bullying or ostracism, but what they did the rest of the time was their affair. There was too much to learn, too much to do, for him to police everything.
The rift between Gryffindor and Slytherin had been there long before him.
Unless he one day became a Hogwarts professor—or Headmaster—and had the time to address the school's culture, it would have to wait.
Honestly, Malfoy's persistence was something to behold. How had he even gotten wind of this? He had tailed Harry all this way.
Perhaps he wanted to be friends and simply could not say so. Of course, Malfoy's idea of friendship and how to go about it was… well. Questionable.
"Leonardo, about Malfoy?" Hermione asked, worry written across her face. If Malfoy was studying under him, then Leonardo could surely head him off.
Still stirring the mixture, Leonardo waved a hand. "It is all right. I will have a word."
As he prepared the hatchling's "baby food", he took another look at the hungry little dragon.
A normal Norwegian Ridgeback hatchling should be solid black, the scales a pure shade with no other colour.
Norbert, though, had threads of gold glinting across his body. Likely a result of the Qilin's cleansing flame used in incubation.
He was plump and sturdy, the picture of a healthy dragon.
It was his second time seeing a creature break out of an egg. The first had been Aurelius. The memory was strangely nostalgic.
Norbert stared back at him with bright orange‑red eyes. In them Leonardo saw a newborn's fear and curiosity—and a faint, inexplicable fondness.
"All right. Time to eat," Leonardo said.
He set the small barrel of brandy and chicken blood beside Norbert and, with his free hand, drew his wand. He flicked it lazily, intoning a spell for show.
A tiny flame, almost pure gold, drifted out of the fireplace and hovered before Norbert's snout.
The brandy and blood were only a supplement. A dragon's first proper meal had to be fire. Any ordinary blaze or magical flame would do, but the best, of course, was the parents' own dragonfire.
For now, Aurelius's cleansing flame would stand in. The egg had hatched well. This should be safe enough.
Norbert stretched his long little snout forward and sniffed. His white nostrils flared. He inched closer to the golden flame.
"Awuuu."
Without much hesitation, he gulped it down.
A few seconds later—
Hic.
A surprisingly loud burp burst from his mouth, a spray of sparks jetting from his nose.
Leonardo's shoulders eased.
With Aurelius lowering the temperature, that fire could be food. If he had to feed Norbert with ordinary magical flames, they would never match dragonfire. Norbert would start life at a disadvantage.
This way, he had something even better—fire from a Qilin, stronger than dragon breath.
After the first meal, Norbert suddenly lifted his head and peered up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Then he turned towards the barrel in Leonardo's hand. He stared into the liquid, and drool began to leak from the corners of his mouth.
Leonardo ladled a large bowlful and held it to his snout. Norbert buried his face in it and lapped greedily.
Seeing the hatchling eat with such gusto, Leonardo smiled, then glanced up at a particular beam in the rafters.
A shrunken Aurelius poked his head out and blinked at him in silent understanding.
"Master, when the little dragon swallowed the flame, I felt as if it and I… formed a connection. A special one," Aurelius said in his mind.
"I have had the feeling since it hatched, but it was faint. Just now, it settled."
A link.
So, using Aurelius's flame to incubate Norbert and then feeding it to him had bound the two together?
Was that Norbert's trait as a dragon, or something Aurelius brought?
"We can study it slowly," Leonardo said.
Norbert emptied the bowl quickly, and Leonardo refilled it.
How such a small body was meant to hold so much liquid, he had no idea.
It was a whole barrel, after all.
Magic was remarkable.
"Er… Leonardo," Hagrid ventured, rubbing his big hands together. He had been itching for some time. "Could I… have a turn feeding him?"
He had left that first, meaningful meal to Leonardo. The egg had been hatched with Leonardo's fire, and Leonardo had been present, tending things from start to finish. The first feeding had to be his.
But this was the second. And third.
Leonardo nodded at once and passed him the bowl.
Hagrid knelt and held it out, beaming, but Norbert's eyes flicked between the bowl and Leonardo.
With a little snap of wings, the dragonlet hopped, gliding down to Leonardo's feet. His claws scrambled, and in a moment he had scrambled into Leonardo's lap, squeaking insistently.
Hagrid and the others could not understand him and took it for play. Leonardo, carrying the unicorns' blessing, heard him clearly.
"Mum, do you not want me? Mum…"
"I do not want anyone else to feed me. Mum…"
Leonardo reached automatically to pick him up, then froze. "What did you just call me?"
"Mum," Norbert said, blinking up at him, then stretching his neck to butt the little horn on his head against Leonardo's hovering hand.
Leonardo felt a flush of embarrassment. How had he ended up as a mother?
To be fair, most newborn creatures in nature have the idea of a mother. They were born seeking her.
He was the first being Norbert had seen, and the first to feed him. It made sense that the little dragon had imprinted on him.
It might also be tied to Aurelius's role in hatching him and the bond between master and Qilin.
Although in that case, should Norbert not be calling Aurelius "Mum"?
"Ahem. I am not your mother," Leonardo said.
Norbert's head tilted, baffled. "Then who is my mother?"
Leonardo had no good answer. He had no idea where Quirrell had got the egg. It was almost certainly not stolen from a dragon's nest by his own hand. More likely, it had come via some illegal dealer.
"This is… complicated," Leonardo said at last. "Forget it. Take me for your fa—" He caught himself. "For your father."
Norbert did not really understand, but he could tell he was not being abandoned. He wobbled his head. "All right, Mum."
"Father," Leonardo corrected.
"Yes, Mum."
"…."