One had to admit, it was oddly touching that the "old uncle" still cared so much about Ian. Unfortunately, Ian wasn't even here, so the sentiment was, well, pointless.
"You needn't worry about Ian at all," Dumbledore suddenly said with a light chuckle. "Your young successor is far from weak. He possesses magic and power far beyond your imagination."
"I believe that even if we die here, he'll survive just fine." The old Headmaster's tone carried genuine emotion, as though he knew much more than either of them did. Indeed, in terms of sheer strength, even Dumbledore himself wasn't certain he could stand against the Ian of now.
"This…" Snape's expression twisted sharply. Dumbledore's words left him visibly shaken. He couldn't tell whether the man was indifferent to Ian's fate, or whether he truly had that much faith in him. If it was the latter, that was far more unsettling.
"Um… can we not die?" Hermione interrupted timidly. She was still just a child, and the very mention of death filled her with instinctive dread.
Dumbledore turned to her, his blue eyes twinkling with warmth. "Of course you can, my dear. Death only comes when you are ready for it. That is one of the special privileges of young witches and wizards." His words carried a hidden meaning, though Hermione couldn't make sense of it at all.
Snape's mouth twitched. "Now isn't the time for jokes, Albus." The Potions Master clearly thought the Headmaster was just making light of the situation.
"Very well." Dumbledore reached into his robes and drew out a pocket watch. Its hands spun backward rapidly, and instead of numbers, each tick mark bore a different map of the Forbidden Forest. When the cover snapped open, a burst of golden light shot out in all directions, as though the device was conducting a vast scan.
"To unravel a mystery," said Dumbledore mildly, "one must first understand its purpose. After all, if it went to the trouble of trapping the three of us here together, surely it didn't do so merely to hear me tell a bedtime story."
Now that was true cold humor. Hermione stared wide-eyed, while the ever-stoic Snape's eye twitched at the corner.
…
Meanwhile, deep within the Forbidden Forest, an uncanny ravine split the earth apart as though torn open by divine force. At its center stood a colossal bronze door, half open, with thick, swirling mist seeping through the gap.
This mist sometimes coalesced into twisted human shapes, and other times scattered into glittering motes of light. It was as if the door connected to some nameless, ancient dimension.
Ian stood before the valley, his eyes fixed on the chaotic depths within.
Beneath his feet lay the corpse of an ancient Dragon, its titanic body sprawled like a mountain. Even in death, its dark-gold scales shimmered with metallic brilliance. Its once-sky-shading wings now drooped lifelessly across the cracked earth, tattered like cloth, yet still majestic enough to make the modern hybrid dragons look like fragile hatchlings.
Yes, this was a true Dragon, pure-blooded and ancient.
"The Gate of Time and Space?" Ian murmured. His wand spun lightly between his fingers as dragon blood trickled through the scorched soil, forming a dark red river that reeked of sulfur and iron.
Clearly, such a creature shouldn't exist in the current age. It was only natural for him to suspect that this bronze gate led to an ancient timeline. Nothing else could explain how a dragon like this had emerged.
"I didn't disrupt history," Ian said under his breath, lips curling in faint amusement. "History came knocking on my door and asked to be accepted."
He crouched down, raising his wand to begin extracting the precious materials from the dragon's body: the Dragon Crystal Heart, Marrow, Scales, all priceless, long-lost potion ingredients.
Yet just as his wand lit up---
"ROAR!"
From within the bronze door came a deafening, earth-shaking bellow!
It was another dragon's roar of pure fury, a sound so immense that it felt solid, hammering against the air itself. The ground quivered, loose stones lifting into the air as Ian's robes whipped violently in the storm of magic and wind.
He snapped his head up. Countless distorted lights and shadows flickered within the chaos, as if thousands of unseen hands were clawing through the folds of time itself. Then, as the mist within the bronze gate churned violently, a second ancient Dragon burst forth, wings unfurling wide enough to blot out the fractured sky!
Its presence was overwhelming, its sheer mass oppressive. Twin eyes blazed like twin suns, so bright and searing they were painful to look upon. From deep within its throat, an orange-red glow began to bloom, the unmistakable sign that dragonfire was about to be unleashed.
"Again?" Ian raised an eyebrow. He had clearly been through this before.
"Fine," He muttered, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Then I'll just collect double the materials and win twice." There wasn't the faintest hint of fatigue in him. His magic surged around him like a vast ocean, crashing endlessly against the Dragon's suffocating pressure.
"ROAR!!"
The dragon opened its massive jaws, and a torrent of white-hot fire erupted like a flood from the abyss!
But Ian didn't retreat. Instead, he advanced, his wand cutting a perfect arc through the air. And in that instant, he seized control of the dragon's flames.
If Grindelwald had been here, he'd surely have been proud. Unfortunately, there was no audience. No one to witness it.
The inferno that should have reduced Ian to ash froze midair, then, like a tamed beast, coiled itself around him in a spiraling dance of molten gold. A flick of his wand, and the flames turned back upon their master.
But Ian wasn't done. Within that single spell, he wove his signature technique, the Invisible Tempest. Countless unseen blades formed within the searing air, weightless and formless, yet sharper than any sword ever forged. As the storm swept through the flames, the Dragon's enormous body was torn apart by invisible edges, the very air around it howling with violence.
Ancient Dragons were renowned for their high magical resistance. But then again, Ian was a Legendary Wizard.
The dragon screamed in agony, thrashing wildly in its berserk frenzy, but could not break free from the fiery prison. Its struggles grew desperate, and then came one final, heart-rending roar.
BOOOOM!
Its massive body crashed to the earth, shaking the ground with the impact.
"The second one," Ian said calmly, lowering his wand in satisfaction.
Then he turned, and froze.
The corpse of the first dragon, the one he'd slain earlier, was gone. Vanished without a trace. Not even ashes remained.
Before the young wizard could wonder whether some thief had stolen his spoils,
BOOOOM! The ground shook again.
"ROAAAR!!!" Another dragon's cry.
Another Dragon burst from the bronze gate.
But this time, Ian's attention was sharper. He looked closer, and saw it. The first dragon's body was fading, dissolving into nothingness. And when he turned back to the one now lunging toward him, His eyes widened in shock.
Because he finally understood, perhaps...
He had been fighting the same Dragon all along.
(End of Chapter)
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