Hermione had been flung through what looked like termite made passages, until, seconds after casting a cushioning charm, she had landed among the ruins of what looked like fossilized termite mounds. She had brushed herself off, cast a quick medical charm to make sure she was okay, and then started walking along the only available path.

At least, she thought, this isn’t like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book, where there’s a hundred and one different plot choices. There seems to be just this one option. Still a nice, safe adventure.

Still, the singular plot choice seemed to be leading her somewhere with unforeseen dangers. Alone, the prospect of meeting with a dragon, of large size and potentially vicious personality, was intimidating. She thought of the Weasley brothers, their fascination with adventures, and with dragons in particular, and was suddenly amazed at their bravery. She continued along, expecting at any moment to see piles of bones and treasure, guarded by a toothy, scaly beast.

Turning the corner, she was faced with the first fork in the road. She closed her eyes. The magnetic force she felt with Qazal in the dunes was stronger here, and she could perhaps use this to guide her. She turned to each side, and, feeling an almost unperceptively larger pull on the right, started along this path. A few steps further and she stopped.

She groaned as drops of what she hoped was water fell on her head. She looked up. Above her, in a nest made of grass, was a sleeping dragon, which appeared to be drooling, as it snored, onto her head.

That can’t be right, she shouted to herself. It’s small! It’s far smaller than the tamest dragon that was at the Triwizard Tournament. This must be a child! Yet, I see no other… or signs of any other.

She stomped her foot. No! I refuse to believe this piddly child is the toothy, scaly beast the Himba all say causes the fairy circles. I fell so far! How would his puny blasts of fire even make it to the surface, let alone scorch the grass?

She continued stomping her feet, until she realized, in her frustration, she had woken the dragon. She stopped, paralyzed by fear. Though she had maligned it in her mind, she knew even the smallest dragon could still potentially burn her to a crisp.

The dragon opened its eyes slowly, revealing strikingly green irises. It yawned, and Hermione was struck by how smooth the teeth were, probably from its diet of grass.

This dragon is a herbivore! It probably gathers the grass it needs to survive by creating sinkholes in the ground, where the fairy circles appear.

She let out a sigh, as she realized she was likely not going to be eaten. The dragon imitated her, letting out a small puff of air from its mouth as well. It was as if the dragon were trying to understand her, but it smelled rotten, like methane.

Hermione idly thought of those Muggles who theorized that methane leaks caused the fairy circles.

Covering her nose, she grimaced, hoping to disguise her disgust. The dragon swung its tail towards its mouth, and peeked playfully out from underneath it – however, the gust of wind from the tail swooshing through the air sent Hermione flying backwards, falling onto her butt.

Concerned for its new plaything, the dragon got to its claws quickly, and scurried over to Hermione. It nudged her with its nose, making a cooing sound.

“Uggggh, I’m alright, you soft beast,” she said to it, hoping it would understand her as peaceful by her placating words.

“You know, you’ve caused quite the mystery for the folks above. All those Muggles think you’re not real, and they can’t see that all those scientific things they measure and claim to cause the fairy circles are caused by you. You’re like a giant cow, eh? You eat so much grass that your very breath is methane. So then, when you want to eat more, you breathe up at the earth, and the methane kills the plants, which then fall through sinkholes to your lair…”

Hermione, excited by the thought of all the ways the dragon fit in with the Muggle hypotheses, began to ramble and pace the lair, while the dragon sat bemusedly on its hind legs, watching her.

All this time, the dragon hadn’t said a word – not that it could – nor had it offered any suggestions, like the bird had. So, Hermione continued rambling and formulating ideas without any sort of input as to the trueness or falsity of her ideas, and by the time she had run out of breath, she had already written the outline of a landmark paper in her mind.

“Oh! I’ve forgotten myself. There’s a curse on you, it’s said. So that magical beings feel your pain? Do you know how it can be lifted?” She stared expectantly at the dragon. It seemed to look expectantly back at her.

“Oh bother. Nothing on this vacation seems to be easy,” she sighed. She cast a diagnostic charm on the dragon, who, oddly, sat very still. It appeared there was a small blade stuck into its back, just below the base of a spike. On closer inspection, it looked like a traditional Himba blade, like she had seen the dancers carry during their performance the night before.

“Did someone try to hunt you, once?”

Getting no reply, she carefully levitated it out of the dragon, trying not to cause the dragon further pain, which, of course, was difficult, since the wound had healed in the centuries since it had been injured. Using equipment from her expandable bag of things she thought useful, she tidied the wound, and spoke motheringly to the dragon.

The dragon nuzzled her affectionately, and she pet it.

“Well, at least there won’t be any pain for the passers-by to feel, now. If only I knew how to lift the curse, or if there were a curse to be lifted… So far it doesn’t seem as if there’s a logical link from the knife to a curse…”

She turned away, and began to search the perimeter of the lair. Her determination was back, as well as an urgent need to get some sleep. Figuring it was near ten p.m., she worked quickly, hoping she could, if all went well, be in bed by midnight.

At each pass of the perimeter, turning over stones and revealing nothing but grubs, she grew more and more annoyed. Bed seemed further and further away. Finally, she sat down on a rock and faced the dragon.

“Could you, sweet dragon, show me the way to go next? May I find the person’s skeleton who hurt you? Or, else, the Himba say that if someone finds the cave, they can pick one thing from the lair…? Whatever suits your fancy,” she sighed, placing her chin in her palms.

The dragon merely looked up, near where its nest lay. She followed its gaze, and gasped. Above her were thousands of drawings, depicting a great battle on the grassland which drove the dragon underground. There were people, drawn in red clay, who probably were the original Himba people, looking frightened at the gaze of the dragon. They threw their weapons at it. In another drawing, a large red figure with a glow around it stood in front of the dragon, and seemed to be speaking to the crowd. In fact, as she looked, the pictures began to move, enchanted, and acted out the scene. Mukuru, original ancestor to the Himba, protected the dragon, and flew him down through ancient termite mounds into his underground home, where they lived together until Mukuru’s end. The Himba, above, remembered the dragon, but forgot about the battle. Through their traditional magic, they weaved a mythos so strong that any foreign magical being who came near felt touched by its power. This, they perceived as a curse, but it was really a side effect of their strong belief. In the final panel, Mukuru and the dragon lay side by side, happily and peacefully, while a person stood in the doorway of their cave. From the looks of it, the person was drawn with white skin, and carried a wand. Hermione assumed that to be her, and was fascinated by the predictive capacity of the drawings. Either that, or they were drawn as time went on.

Either way, I could spend ages in here looking at them… but I can’t. I must get back to poor Qazal, who probably thinks me dead. I must write a report of my findings, so that at least the magical community knows the truth of the fairy circles!

With this resolution, she picked up the blade she had removed from the dragon, said her goodbyes to it, and Apparated to the edge of the hole, where she found Qazal waiting, just as she had left him, with eyes wide open and an air of incredulity.

---

Over the next few weeks, she found it difficult to think of anything else. She postponed her return to the Ministry, pleading a case of travel fever, and spent hours writing a review of her findings to present at next month’s Care of Magical Creatures Colloquium. Now that the lair had been discovered, it was of paramount importance to her that the creature within be protected, especially considering its importance to the ecosystem and its vulnerability. Such a sweet, round toothed little dragon would naturally be a strong target for poaching, if news of its discovery got out before protection was put in place for it.

In addition to this, Hermione wrote to Charlie, asking if he would Floo over, and give his opinion on the dragon. Could it successfully be introduced to other species, and perhaps bred? Should it be left alone? At what point in its life cycle was it, exactly? All these things were better left to the dragon expert.

Of course, it had been ages since she had seen Charlie, and this was also a nice excuse to catch up. When he arrived, she had a nice, cool Shirley Temple waiting for him, and a seat on the verandah.

“First things first,” she said to Charlie. “Food--you must be famished. I know I was.”