Harry Potter: Dragon Whisperer

Mysteries Revealed

12:15am

Wednesday, 10 August 1995

Near Valbonë, Albania

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The forest was wild, uninhabited. Few animals lived there. Fewer humans ever ventured within its borders.

Superstition and rumour ran rife throughout the surrounding countryside. Whispered tales of dark magic and ancient secrets, death and chaos, disease and enchantments filled pubs, sending shivers racing up and down spines and causing people to look over their shoulders more than they watched where they were going.

This was true not only in the magical enclaves that dotted the country, but also in the non-magical villages as well.

Even the animals sensed the wrongness that shrouded the forest, refusing to go near it, bucking and pulling and racing as far away as they could get.

Well, most animals. Not all. And not all humans.

Some actively sought out that bastion of darkness, drawn to a place where those like them could find a place to hide from the outside world, a place where they could strike out from and prey on those weaker than them.

One such animal, a snake, as it turned out, had slipped into the forest some days before having escaped from the captivity that had held it for longer than it cared to remember. It had travelled far and wide, over many lands and seas in its captivity, seeing things that many like it had never encountered before.

While at first the fear of captivity, of the men that had encaged it had been its driving force, that fear had recently been replaced by hunger. This was a cold place, this forest, with prey far and few between. Cold-blooded creatures needed warmth and nourishment to sustain it.

From where it lay coiled about a branch, the weak moonlight doing nothing to warm the scarce patches on its skin, it flicked out its tongue, tasting the air as it had done countless times already since it had taken up its position.

This time, though, this time, there was something new, something different, something alive.

Again, its tongue tasted, gathering information on distance and direction.

Prey was close and coming closer.

Slowly, the snake worked its body around, shifting about so that it could strike the prey as it passed below.

Again, it tasted and was pleased to note that the prey had stayed true to its path, a path that would bring it directly below where the snake lay hidden, still as a stone.

Finally, when the last warmth of the day's sun had disappeared and the coldness of the ground and air had begun to assert even more of its hold, the prey came into sight.

The snake watched it, judging distances.

The mouse was small, barely even a meal at all but in these woods, all food was precious and the snake had no intention of letting it escape.

At long last, the prey was there! Directly below and the coiled snake struck out, its mouth wide, its fangs bared.

The mouse below froze and the snake struck.

But before it could do anymore, a sharp pain stabbed it through its eye and all consciousness evaporated. But just before all thoughts of itself were lost, however small and fleeting that had been, the snake once again saw the strangest of sights that it'd seen in its travels: a great fire-breathing dragon standing perfectly still, conversing with a small man in the ancient tongue. Why it remembered this, it had no idea, nor did it have the time to wonder for the snake was gone, in its place was something ... else.