Chapter 8: The Phoenix and the Hydra.
The dream began like all the others: with the sensation of flight. But this time, Daemyr was not Sunfyre soaring over the Carpathian peaks. He was a bodiless consciousness, floating over a nightmare scene.
Below him, an elegant city burned. The architecture was grand, with ornate roofs and wide plazas he had never seen. It was Paris, the jewel of magical France, but in his dream, Daemyr did not recognize it. He saw only agony. The sky was covered in dense smoke, and the air shimmered not with starlight, but with the sinister glow of a fire unlike anything he had ever imagined.
The flames were a deep, almost hypnotic cobalt blue. They did not burn like ordinary fire — they chose. Where they touched flesh, life was consumed in absolute silence. People disintegrated in an instant, swallowed by a light without heat, without fury, only purpose.
The stone remained cold, the wood untouched, the world motionless before the horror.
Screams echoed for a moment, then were torn from the air, as if they had never existed. And then, only emptiness remained — the invisible trace of a presence that saw all and forgave nothing.
His perspective shifted, and suddenly he was on the ground, in the heart of the blue chaos. That's when he saw them. Two men, the epicenter of the storm.
The first was a force of nature. His hair was such a light golden blonde that it appeared almost white, and his face was of an aristocratic, sharp beauty. He moved with theatrical, lethal grace, and from his wand spewed rivers of this devouring blue fire. His eyes were the most striking feature: one was an icy blue, the other, a warm brown. He laughed amidst the destruction, a sound of pure exultation.
The second man was his opposite, though no less powerful. His hair was a reddish-brown, and his blue eyes, behind thin-rimmed glasses, shone with a brilliant and perhaps slightly melancholic intensity. His magic was more contained, more precise, but no less destructive. He did not laugh. His expression was an enigma, a mask of calm and focus amidst the hell he helped create.
Daemyr could not understand the scene. The manic joy of one and the focused seriousness of the other... were they fighting each other, their magics clashing? Or were they allies, two sides of the same terrible coin, sweeping the city with their annihilating fire? The chaos was so great, the vision so fragmented, that the truth remained out of reach.
Then, the world fell apart. The blue fire, the ruined city, the two terrifyingly powerful young men – all disappeared, swallowed by total darkness.
Daemyr floated in the void.
And in the darkness, something opened.
A pair of dragon eyes, so large that each seemed like a moon, awoke before him. They were not Sunfyre's golden obsidian eyes. The pupils were vertical slits, and the irises... the irises burned with an internal flame of a sickly green. A green like that of the Killing Curse, a green of poison and unnatural power. There was an intelligence in those eyes, a cold, ancient, and deeply malevolent consciousness that stared at him through the void.
Daemyr awoke with a scream caught in his throat, his body covered in cold sweat. He sat up abruptly, breathing heavily. The silence of the fortress enveloped him — heavy, impenetrable — a brutal contrast to the chaos that still echoed in his mind.
But the vision did not leave him. It remained there, vivid, pulsing behind his eyes, more real than the stone of the walls around him.
The blue fire. The two men. And above all, the green dragon eyes, which had seen him, he was sure, as much as he had seen them. It had not been a dream. It had been a warning.
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Daemyr descended for breakfast feeling as if a shard of ice was lodged in his chest. The dream clung to him, the image of the green eyes and the blue fire refusing to disappear with the morning light. He was pale and silent, barely touching his food.
The family, however, was in a rare mood of lightness. Summer brought a pause in the rigorous routine, and the proximity of Daemyr's 11th birthday in October brought up the inevitable topic of his future. They knew that formal school letters would only arrive next year, closer to the enrollment period, but the debate over which path he and Vaenyra should follow was already a constant undercurrent.
"Summer at Beauxbatons is magnificent, they say," Lyra commented, a soft smile on her lips, planting the seed casually. "Young Rhaella Vharanor wrote to us about the gardens."
"Gardens do not forge leaders," Maeric retorted, but without his usual harshness. "Durmstrang's winter discipline, yes."
Aelarion watched the exchange with a pipe in hand, a playful glint in his eyes. Even Vaenyra, who was focused on her plate, seemed less tense. The future was still a distant discussion, not an immediate decision.
It was in this moment of relative calm that the sound of flapping wings cut through the tranquility. A tawny owl, with the insignia of the *Daily Prophet* on its leg, landed on the open window sill, offering the rolled-up newspaper.
Maeric, as always, gestured for a servant to pay the owl and bring him the newspaper. It was his way of staying connected to the pulse of the wizarding world, a habit that many in the fortress considered an eccentricity.
He unrolled the parchment on the table, his eyes scanning the front page. The slight smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a frown of surprise and disdain.
"Unbelievable," he murmured, more to himself.
"What is it, Maeric?" Serena asked, noticing the change in his expression.
Instead of answering, Maeric held up the newspaper for everyone to see. The headline, in bold, black letters that seemed to scream from the page, dominated everything:
**FURY IN MOULD-ON-THE-WOLD: WIZARD ARRESTED FOR BRUTAL ATTACK ON THREE MUGGLE YOUTHS!**
Below, a magical black and white photograph showed a distinguished-looking man, with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing eyes, being led away by aurors. His expression was defiant, without any trace of remorse.
"Dumbledore..." Lyra read the surname softly, frowning. "Have I heard that name somewhere? An old lineage, perhaps?"
"Not a prominent one," Maeric replied, his eyes fixed on the article. "Just another family from magical Great Britain. But what he did..." He began to read aloud, his voice filled with a dark fascination. "His name is Percival Dumbledore. He was arrested yesterday in Mould-on-the-Wold after attacking three Muggle boys with a violence that aurors described as 'savage and uncontrolled'. The children are hospitalized at St. Mungo's, but are expected to recover."
"Attacked Muggle children?" Lyra whispered, horrified.
"Keep reading," Aelarion said calmly, his pipe paused on its way to his mouth.
Maeric nodded. "The most intriguing thing is this: Dumbledore refuses to give any reason for the attack. He does not deny guilt. He simply accepts the sentence. The Wizengamot, in the absence of a defense, sentenced him to life imprisonment in Azkaban." He lowered the newspaper, a sneer on his lips. "A pure-blood wizard, rotting in Azkaban because of some Muggles."
Maeric's sneer was the trigger.
"Behold the weakness of the British wizarding system!" he repeated, throwing the newspaper onto the table with contempt. "A man commits an act of violence, and instead of investigating the provocation, they lock him up to appease the Muggles. Pathetic."
"He attacked children, Maeric!" Lyra retorted, horrified. "There is no provocation that justifies such brutality. And we ourselves live with Muggles in Nova Valyria. The blacksmith, the baker... they are our neighbors. The solution is not violence, but discretion."
"Discretion is what makes us vulnerable," Serena interjected, her voice cold and practical, aligning herself with Maeric. "If wizards lived openly, Muggles would learn their place. They would learn to fear and respect. Situations that lead to such... explosions... would not happen. In Valyria, we never hid our capabilities."
As the discussion flared, Daemyr barely heard the words. The news of the "savage and uncontrolled" attack echoed in his mind, overlaying the images of his dream. The devouring blue fire. The ruined city. The fury of the blond-haired man. Percival Dumbledore's violence, for a reason no one knew, seemed like a small spark compared to the hell he had witnessed in his vision.
"Power does not make us equal to others, but elevates us above them," Aelarion said with the serenity of one stating a fact, not a provocation. He lit his pipe, and the flame reflected in his ancient eyes. "In Valyria, we did not ask to rule; it was simply our place. Dragons do not contend for space with smaller flames; they reign because they were born of fire."
He took a long puff. "The error of the modern wizarding world is not secrecy, but fear. They fear Muggles, and they fear themselves. What this Dumbledore did was an act of desperation, for a reason he considers more important than his own freedom." He looked directly at Daemyr, as if he could see the echo of the dream in his eyes. "The question you must ask yourselves, as you prepare to enter this world, is not whether you should rule or hide. It is how to live with the power you possess without becoming monsters... or victims."
Aelarion's words hung in the air. Daemyr felt a shiver.
Monsters.
The word made him think of the two men in his dream, and the ambiguity of their actions.
And victims. He thought of the people disappearing in the blue fire.
The name Dumbledore was no longer just that of a stranger in a remote country. To Daemyr, it sounded like an omen: the harbinger of a time when power, violence, and secrets would intertwine until nothing pure remained.
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October 13, 1891
Time passed, and summer gave way to the melancholy of autumn. The Carpathian mountains dressed in gold and rust, and the air grew colder, sharper. The debate over the Dumbledore case subsided, but did not disappear, becoming a silent tension beneath the surface of life in the fortress.
On his 11th birthday, Daemyr woke up without any dreams. For the first time in months, his mind was quiet. The celebration in the dining hall was subdued. There were small gifts, books on magical theory and ancient artifacts, but the family knew that the true gift – the decision about his future – was yet to come. The school letters would not arrive until next summer, and for today, there was a truce.
After breakfast, when Daemyr thought the formalities were over, Maeric and Aelarion approached. They did not bring a traditional gift box. Instead, they levitated between them a dark leather briefcase, almost black, reinforced with polished silver corners. In the center of the lid, embossed, shone the emblem of House Lhaerys — an eye surrounded by stylized flames, as if observing destiny itself through fire.
Daemyr looked at the gift, confused. It was elegant, but it seemed... mundane.
Maeric, with a surprisingly practical and even slightly proud tone, broke the silence. "When you go to school... whichever one... you cannot take a dragon through the corridors." He gestured to the briefcase, which landed softly on the floor. With a metallic click, he opened the clasps.
Inside, the briefcase had no velvet lining or compartments. It was a window. A window to a sunny blue sky, with white clouds lazily floating by. Daemyr leaned in, gaping. The interior was visibly, impossibly, larger than the exterior.
"This briefcase was enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm, similar to those used by magizoologists," Aelarion explained, his voice soft and satisfied. "We adapted it."
He gestured for Daemyr to look closer. Below the miniature sky, there was a familiar landscape: rocky peaks, a small green meadow, and a dark cave – a perfect replica of Sunfyre's habitat high in the mountains. There was space for short flights, rocks for him to warm himself, and a safe silence.
"He will be safe, comfortable, and always with you," Aelarion continued. "Without the outside world needing to know."
Daemyr was speechless. He looked from his grandfather to his father, and it was Maeric's expression that surprised him. There was pride there, a seriousness that was not cold. Maeric placed a hand on Daemyr's shoulder, a gesture so rare that the contact seemed to burn through his clothes.
"Your grandfather believes your path is at Hogwarts. I believe it is at Durmstrang," Maeric said, his voice low and firm. He paused, and his gaze met Daemyr's. "But no matter where you go, you are a Lhaerys. And a Lhaerys never abandons his dragon. This gift... is to ensure that."
In that moment, there was no debate, no conflicting ideologies. There was only a father giving his son the tools to survive and maintain his identity, regardless of their disagreements. It was an act of love, expressed in the only way Maeric knew: through strength, practicality, and protection.
Daemyr looked into the magical briefcase again, seeing the small sun shine over the miniature landscape, ready to receive Sunfyre. For the first time, the idea of going to a distant school did not seem so daunting. He would not be alone. The weight of the nightmare and the family debate was still there, but now, he had a gift that represented the union of his two greatest influences.
Daemyr wasted no time. With the briefcase firmly in his hands, he ran to the dragon stables, where Sunfyre was perched on his favorite rock, purring softly. The dragon, now a year old, was a magnificent creature, its golden scales gleaming even in the dim light of the enclosure. He raised his head, his golden obsidian eyes fixed on Daemyr.
"Look what I have, boy," Daemyr whispered, opening the briefcase and tilting it so Sunfyre could see inside. The dragon tilted his head, curious, and let out a small purr when his eyes met the miniature landscape. He sniffed the air, recognizing the familiar scent of the mountains, and then, with a surprising leap for his size, he poked his head into the briefcase.
Daemyr laughed, a light, happy sound that had not been heard in a long time. Sunfyre squirmed, exploring his new home, and Daemyr felt the magical connection between them strengthen. The dragon was happy. And Daemyr, for the first time since the dream, felt a pang of hope. The world outside might be dangerous, full of mysteries and heated debates, but he would not be alone. He had Sunfyre. And now, Sunfyre had a piece of home to take with him.