Harry Potter: Dragon Whisperer

Articles and Letters

Monday, 15 August 1995

Weekly Column in The Daily Prophet

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Seeing Is Believing: The Antipodean Opaleye
by Harry Potter

For those of you who were either there for or perhaps read about or saw magical photos of the dragons at the First Task of the TriWizard Tournament last year, you would have seen four different types of dragon – the Hungarian Horntail, the Chinese Fireball, the Common Welsh Green and the Swedish Short-Snout. One type of dragon that almost no one has seen before in the British Isles is the Antipodean Opaleye.

Over the last few days, I've had the opportunity to visit with this rare and wonderful type of dragon at their home in the Australasian Dragon Preserve – the only place in the world that they can be found.

I can attest that they truly are incredibly stunning. Their pearl-coloured scales which perfectly reflect the sunlight do an amazing job of helping them stay hidden as they can blind anyone who sees them from the wrong angle. But their most distinguishing feature are definitely their eyes! Unlike us or pretty much all animals, Opaleyes don't have pupils, instead their entire eye is like a great opal, hence their name. The truly remarkable thing about their eyes is not just how many colours that they can produce but what those colours mean.

For most of us, body language helps us to understand what the other person is saying, that's not so easy when you're talking with a being that's so much bigger and more impressive than you are. Thankfully, there are ways to understand dragons, too – even for people who can't speak to them as I do. From my talks with some of the Opaleyes, most especially the Weyr Leader, Dankrum and Cantrum, the first of the Opaleyes that I got to meet, I've seen how the colours of their eyes reflect exactly what the dragons are thinking and feeling, something that I've not seen or heard of that anyone else, man or creature, can emulate.

But it's not just their eyes that make these dragons so brilliant. Sitting on your broom as you hover above the ocean as you get to watch the dragon who's flying beside you simply fold in his wings and plunge into the water below before re-emerging with two, three or more fish in his mouth (his breakfast) is a sight that I know that I will forever cherish.

If ever you get the chance to visit Australia, make sure that you visit my friends in the Australasian Dragon Reserve – both dragon and human – I guarantee that it's something that you'll remember for the rest of your life.

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10:00am

Tuesday, 16 August 1995

Wizengamot Chambers, Ministry of Magic, London, England

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"Here ye. Here ye. This fourteenth session of the Wizengamot in the year of nineteen ninety-five is called to order. All members are expected to have taken their Seats."

The shuffling and susurration that had been sweeping the great room ceased with the Herald's announcement.

"Scribe, are you prepared to fulfil your duties?" Chief Warlock Dumbledore asked the traditional question.

The Scribe, young Percy Weasley, didn't even blink at the question, his parchment already lay under his hand, his quill inked up and poised.

"I am," he replied.

Augusta Longbottom swept her eye over the sea of plum robes that made up her peers. She held no hopes that this meeting would be any different from any of the last few dozen that she'd attended. The agenda was well-known and the motion had already been set for more of the same. There were days, like today, when she looked forward to the time when her grandson came of the appropriate age to take his rightful Seat, the one that she currently sat Proxy for, and when she could retire to her leisure.