Chapter 47 - Preparations

***** Regular Chapter Release ***** A/N: Well we're back. Missed you guys! My laptop crapped out on me the same week I got a new Solana phone so needless to say it was a big pain in the ass getting all my passwords reset. Apple really makes it so you don't have to remember anything.... but then if you switch... you're screwed. Side note..... Does anyone know how I can get my photos on my dead macbook? Do i need to take it to some hard-drive guy to extract the photos? I guess that's what I get for not paying for Apple cloud or whatever its called LOL. I'd say it was a nice 6 day break from writing.... but I was too busy and stressed IRL to really enjoy it tbh >.< ..... ANYWHO..... 2nd Chapter to come in some hours. I'm thinking about spacing it 12 hours apart just to keep the chapters going at a constant rate.... But undecided at the moments.... I guess I'll see how I feel. Got everything re-planned out now, so I'll be moving the story along and building back up my stockpile. Anyways, hope you all enjoy! *****

"I didn't keep you waiting, did I?" Khan asked.

"Not at all!" Poppy replied sweetly, smiling at Khan's arrival and subsequent greetings. "I was just at the post office. Gran told me to expect a package, but it looks as if she forgot to send it."

It was the middle of winter, and Khan was meeting Poppy in Hogsmeade a few days after their Horntail Hall adventure. Poppy had sent him an owl, asking to meet in Hogsmeade to discuss their newly found dragon egg.

"She didn't send me an owl this week either." Poppy followed up in thought. "Perhaps she's busy with her research."

Khan knew how important Poppy's Gran was to her. After leaving her poacher parents, her Gran was the only family she had left.

"What was she sending you?" Khan asked a little worried.

"Only some feed she's been developing." Poppy answered. "I was going to give it to Professor Howin for the Kneazles."

Khan smiled to himself at Poppy and her obvious love of magical beasts.

"What kind of research was she doing?" Asked Khan, now interested in Poppy's Gran, and her beast research.

"It varies from week to week, but it's always to do with creatures." Poppy replied. "Last week she was studying leg knots in plimpys!"

It seemed she also shared that love of beasts with her Gran, if she was studying leg knots in plimpys and able to develop new feed for the Kneazles.

Perhaps he should ask for some for his Kneazles in his vivarium.

"What did you find out about the dragon you were tracking?" Shaking his head of his thoughts, Khan got back to the matter at hand, the Dragon egg, and if Poppy was able to track the Dragon Mother.

They both were quite hopeful that the Dragon Mother would stick around looking for her egg, and wouldn't have left Hogwarts Valley so soon.

"I realized that she didn't know the poachers had her egg." Poppy spoke of the dragon mother with a sort of fondness. "So when she left Horntail Hall, she would've headed straight to her nest."

"So I went back to the tent to track her flight!" Poppy finished proudly.

"Wow well done! But how do you track a dragon long after she's gone?" Khan, always impressed with Poppy's beast knowledge and skills, could not help himself from asking and had to inquire and learn about dragon tracking skills.

"Oh its quite easy to track a dragon, as they are quite large." Poppy replied, in Jr. Prof. mode, as she usually got when she talked about beasts. "You just have to pay attention to the destruction the cause in their wake. Tree canopies, Burn marks... things like that."

"Well you certainly know what you're doing!" Khan complimented his best friend.

"I can't be 100% certain....." Poppy continued hesitantly. "But I have an idea of one place she may have been heading, and I thought we might go and see it for ourselves."

"Of course! Shall we leave now?" Khan replied, confident in Poppy's tracking skills.

"If that's all right." Poppy replied, worry creeping into her voice. "I want to see how she's faring since she had a collar on as well..... And she's likely frantic about her egg."

Poppy didn't want to impose on Khan with how busy he was with his other various adventures he had told her about, especially because he was her first 'human' friend at Hogwarts. But she was quite worried about the Mother Dragon, and had to ask her best friend for help to return the dragon egg.

She could only imagine the worry the Mother dragon had over her Baby Egg.

"No problem at all!" Khan waved her off, pulling both Highwing and Sepulchria out his Knab-Sack for Poppy and himself to ride on.

Khan was just as worried about the Mother dragon as Poppy was. He knew how protective Mother's could get, and could only imagine how strong that instinct would be in an apex Magical Beast, like a dragon.

As they both took off towards the dragon nesting grounds Poppy had hopefully tracked accurately, Khan hoped that their return of her dragon egg would go smoothly.

*****

Khan was on an early morning run around the lake, alongside the large Prince this time, the very next day after himself and Luna had encountered the dragons.

As a result, found himself thinking about that particular adventure with Poppy, and them attempting to return a dragon egg to the nesting dragon mother.

Needless to say, It did not go smoothly.

Poppy had been right in her assumption, and that the Mother did not even know the poachers had taken her Egg.

As a result, they both had found the dragon mother enraged upon returning to her nesting grounds, and finding her dragon egg missing.

The Dragon Mother being enraged and quite aggressive, had chased them across destroyed ruins, bellowing dragon fire at them angrily.

Khan, even with all his ancient magic, could not do anything to the Dragon, spending most of his time running and dodging for cover with Poppy.

It was only when they had finally managed to return the dragon egg to her nest, that the Dragon mother finally stopped attacking them, finally realizing what the 2 students were doing.

All this trouble, and all they were doing was returning a dragon egg.

Now as a champion for this Triwizard Tournament, he had to do the opposite, and steal a dragon egg from a nesting Mother?

How the hell was he supposed to do that?

Sure, he was stronger now, and had stronger Ancient magic, but he did not want to harm the nesting mother more than necessary.

*GRUFF* *GRUFF*

Prince came lumbering up behind Khan, carrying a medium sized tree in his mouth, wagging his tail excitedly, interrupting Khan of his thoughts and memories, stopping his run in the process.

*BOOM*

He dropped it by the now stopped Khan, looking at him excitedly, tail wagging back and forth, as if urging him to throw the rather large tree.

Khan snorted to himself in amusement of his large friend, reminding him of a dog wanting to play fetch with a stick.

Only this stick was a large tree.

Taking out his wand, Khan casted a quick Levioso/Depulso Combo on the tree, launching it flying away, much to the chasing Prince's amusement.

Khan and Prince continued on their run, Khan launching the tree away every time Prince returned with it, until he eventually came upon a worried looking Harry and Hermione after he had launched the tree away again, walking around the lake.

"Good morning you two!" Khan greeted his younger friends. "Did you have a good rest of the night? I remember you had a few appointments still Harry?"

Khan remembered Harry's 2 late night appointments as the reason for them both leaving to return to Hogwarts ahead of him.

Unfortunately for Harry, he didn't stay, and ended up missing Khan and Luna's discovery of dragons.

"Good morning Jordan." Although Hermione greeting Khan with a small smile, he could tell from her body language, that she appeared quite worried about something.

"Jordan!" Harry greeted Khan, with a bit of relief in his voice? "My appointments.... they were fine.... just worried about the first task."

Harry looked at Khan pointedly, as if to communicate some hidden message.

Khan was quite confused at his younger friends actions, and just had to clarify what exactly was going on.

"What is with yo-"

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Khan was interrupted by Hermione screaming in fright.

Whipping out his wand, he looked around, to see what had startled her, only to see Hermione staring in horror at a large approaching mass.

It was Prince, lumbering back happily, tree in his mouth!

"G-Graphorn! On Hogwarts Grounds!" Hermione cried out.

"That's Prince!" Khan happily introduced the large Graphorn, who had arrived, and dropped the tree in front of Khan, as per routine. He really did take after his pops, Lord of the Shore. "He's a beast partner of mine.... such a good boy!"

Khan conjured a large brush, proceeding to coddle Prince, scratching him on the underside of his belly, causing him to forget all about the tree, and roll on his back, giving Khan better access.

"You have a Graphorn as a partner too?" Harry clarified, stunned at sheer number and variety of Khan's beasts. He had already met Stella the Golden Unicorn, and now he was meeting this Graphorn? How many rare magical beast partners did Khan have?

'No wonder Khan didn't seem that worried, even knowing the first task involved dragons.' Harry thought to himself. 'He can probably even tame this dragon, if he has all these rare beasts listening to him.'

"Oh yes! I have quite a few battle beast partners!" Khan replied happily, always excited to brag about his beasts to his trusted friends. "I have Yama and Silverwing as well!"

Khan summoned the Silver Hippogriff, and the all-white thestral to show his friends, much to their excitement.

Luckily for Hermione and Harry, they both could see thestrals thanks to Khan and his small killing spree of the death eaters at the world cup.

Hermione in particular, was enthralled by Silverwing. Having just rescued Buckbeak and Sirius the year prior, Hermione had a clear fondness for hippogriffs.

She bowed quickly to Silverwing, before eagerly rushing up to pet her when she returned the bow.

Khan meanwhile, turned to Harry. "I have something to tell you Harry... The first task is dragons."

Khan was worried about his younger friend, as it was clear he was not ready for a tournament of this level.

Even he was worried with his ancient magic about fighting a mother dragon..... How could Harry, who had just learned the summoning spell, have any hope of success?

The least Khan could do, was inform Harry of his findings the previous night, to hopefully give him a bit of preparation time.

".... I know." Harry hesitatingly responded after a few moments. "I was secretly following Hagrid in my invisibility cloak last night, and well...."

Harry faded off, but had said enough that Khan could conclude that Harry was also present last night, alongside himself and Luna, and had witnessed his confrontation with the Dragon Tamers.

Although Khan felt slightly sheepish that he had mistaken the dragon tamers for poachers, he still felt angry at the tournament organizers for using nesting mother dragons in the first place.

"Started formulating a plan then? Our task is in a few days after all." Khan asked.

Harry shook his head.

"Hermione and I were in the library this morning looking up books on dragons, but we couldn't find much." Harry replied, worry clear in this voice. "Mostly care/cleaning spells, such as 'talon-clipping or treating scale rot', or warnings such as 'None but the most powerful of spells can penetrate their thick hides, owing to the ancient magic that imbues them.'"

"We're out here brainstorming ideas now, but truthfully, we'd still be in the library, if it wasn't for Krum and his posse of fans, disturbing everyone." Harry finished.

"Krum still slouching around the library is he?" Khan commented aloud, more to himself than anyone else. "Well no matter.... it's probably too late to learn something new in preparation for the first task anyways."

"Do you have any advice?" Harry asked hopefully. "I know you're a champion yourself, so I won't ask for your strategy.... but maybe some tips?"

"Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do myself....." Khan responded thoughtfully. "And you probably don't have enough magical power to get through their hide...."

Unfortunately both Khan and Harry could not take that option of overpowering the dragon with spells; Khan since he did not want to harm the nesting mothers, And Harry since he probably doesn't have enough magical power to adequately piece through their tough hides.

"Wait seriously? YOU don't know what you're doing to do?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well.... they are mothers..... I don't want to harm them if possible." Khan replied. "Honestly, I will probably just do what I always do."

"Which is?"

"Just some advice my mother gave me previously..... Never steered me wrong, even when I was new to adventuring and didn't know any spells..... Khan followed up. "Believe It or not, but I was battling Goblins only knowing how to basic cast and protegeo early in my career. Yet I was still able to survive, and even learn to thrive in battle... How?"

"By Leaning into my strengths! Growing up my parents ensured that I was trained athletically..... and those trained reflexes helped me survive encounters I was underprepared for! Thus I will probably end up doing the same thing here." Khan finished.

"But I haven't got any strengths!" Harry complained aloud, before he could stop himself.

"Well... dont sell yourself short, Harry! You were one of the only people in class, to successfully fight off the Imperius Curse after all." Khan placated his younger friend.

"Everyone is good at something.... think about what yours is, and use it to your advantage."