The Dragon King Bloodline of Hogwarts

Chapter 8 Dragon Egg

Mr. Granger kept his promise at Florin Fosco's ice cream shop and bought everyone a cone.

Hermione sat down on the bench next to him. "Is it good? Do you have ice cream in your world?"

Viserys held the ice cream cone, looked down at it for a moment, and then took a bite.

“I don’t have ice cream in my world, but there were things like it,” he said. “Snow was brought in from the North, mixed with honey and berries. My mother had the kitchen make it once.”

"The North?" Hermione's spoon stopped in mid-air.

"The North is the northernmost of the Seven Kingdoms, and it snows even in summer. By the time it reached King's Landing, half of the snow had melted. The kitchen staff pressed the rest into the ice cellar, mixed it with honey and berries, and served it." He paused. "Rhaegar took one bite and put it down, saying it was too sweet."

"Your brother ate it too."

"I've eaten." Viserys' voice remained unchanged. "He died at the hands of the usurper, as did my father. My mother died in childbirth on Dragonstone while giving birth to my sister."

Hermione's spoon fell back into the paper cup with a soft sound. "The Seven Kingdoms, is your family noble, like in fairy tales?"

"You ask if my family is noble?" Viserys looked at the half-melted ice cream cone in his hand. "The Targaryen family has ruled the Seven Kingdoms for nearly three hundred years, and my father was a king."

He paused for a moment.

"I was five years old when the usurpers rose up. My father’s Kingsguard stabbed him in the back with a sword, and my brother Rhaegar was smashed in the chest with a hammer at the Trident. My mother took me and Daenerys and fled to Dragonstone. She bled all night when she gave birth to me and took one last look at me before she could name me."

He switched the ice cream cone to his left hand.

"Sir Darryl led us to Braavos. He was my father's captain of the guard, and he taught us to read, to use a dagger, and to survive. He died last year. Since then, it's just Daenerys and me."

He took a bite of the ice cream cone; the waffle cone crunched between his teeth, very crisp.

"So, they used to be nobles, but they aren't anymore."

Hermione didn't speak. She looked down at her chocolate ice cream cone, the melted edges dripping down the crust, which she didn't wipe away.

"Your sister," she began, her voice softer than usual, "is called Dani."

"Daenerys," Viserys said. "She's three years old, and she loves picture books."

Hermione switched the ice cream cone to her left hand and rubbed her right hand against her knee. Then she said something, her voice soft but each word clear and forceful.

"I'll help you find a way back. I mean, I'll look carefully, not just flip through the pages."

Viserys didn't say "thank you." He shoved the last bite of the ice cream cone into his mouth, swallowed, and stood up.

"Let's go. Professor McGonagall is waiting."

Hermione stood up, her hand covered in melted chocolate ice cream cone. She glanced down at it, then wiped it on her skirt.

Viserys walked ahead. He didn't look back, but he walked slowly.

Hermione followed him and stood beside him.

McGonagall glanced at her pocket watch. "Gringotts. Last item."

Dumbledore said someone left him something at Gringotts. He implicitly assumed it was Damon, but Dumbledore didn't confirm.

Gringotts' marble hall was very high, and the magical lights in the dome cast a cold, white reflection on the floor. Viserys walked behind McGonagall, his hawthorn wand tucked inside his robes. Hermione walked beside him.

A goblin emerged from behind the tall cabinet, his eyes etched with fine lines, his fingers exceptionally long. His name was Lagno, Gringotts' senior account manager, and his tone carried the same air Viserys had seen on the face of the keyholder of the Braavos Iron Vault—a certainty cultivated from handling far too much gold.

"Gringotts has been in business for five hundred years," Lagno said. "It is the safest vault in the wizarding world."

Viserys paused for a moment.

Five hundred years... no, Damon was a person from a thousand years ago. When Gringotts opened, Damon had already disappeared for five hundred years.

He didn't say anything, his hand tightening slightly inside his sleeve before relaxing.

McGonagall took a small golden token from the inner pocket of her robe and handed it to Lagno. The goblin took it, traced the edge of the token with her fingernail, and nodded. "This way, please."

The train sped through the sloping tunnel. Hermione sat opposite Viserys, gripping the edge of her seat, the wind whipping her hair back. Her eyes were wide as she watched the vault doors flash past on either side of the tunnel, each with a different lock. Lagno stood at the front, still explaining the anti-theft waterfall, the dragonscale safe, and the key charm only goblins could use. Hermione listened intently, while Viserys didn't register a word she said.

He was thinking about that time difference: five hundred years, a thousand years, with a five-hundred-year gap in between. The contents of the vault weren't stored by Damon, but by someone who came later. A later entrant entrusted Gringotts with the safekeeping of a batch of items, awaiting someone who needed Targaryen blood.

who.

The moment the vault door opened, the pile of Galleons bathed the entire vault in a pale gold light. There were fifty or sixty thousand of them, neatly stacked on the left side of the vault, piled up to half a person's height from the ground. The coins on the edges were covered with a thin layer of dust, indicating that no one had touched them for a long time.

Viserys wasn't unfamiliar with gold; the Red Keep's vaults were piled high with tax money from the Seven Kingdoms, but that was being squandered by those damned usurpers. The gold here was enough for him and Daenerys to live on for the rest of their lives.

He looked away and then saw the stone platform. On the right side of the vault, there were two things on a low stone platform.

A grayish-white egg, larger than his three fists put together, with a dull shell and fine but dark texture. It was a dragon egg from his own world.

Viserys reached out and touched it. The records said that living dragon eggs were warm, and would vibrate slightly when placed against the palm of the hand, as if something inside was breathing. This one was not; coolness seeped into his palm from the shell, the coolness of an inanimate object. It was asleep.

Hermione asked in a low voice, "What is this?"

“A dragon egg,” Viserys said, pausing for a moment, “is a sacred relic of House Targaryen in my world.”

Hermione's breath hitched for a moment. "Can it hatch?"

"It is a Targaryen tradition that whenever a member is born, a dragon egg is placed in the cradle. Whether it can be hatched depends on whether the dragon egg approves, but without exception, the incubator must have the blood of a dragon king."

Viserys picked up the dragon egg from the stone platform and held it in the crook of his left arm, then picked up the second item.

A ring, made of dragon bone, slightly darker than the shell of a dragon egg, with an aged ivory hue. Engraved on the ring face was a line of text he couldn't understand, the letters containing diacritics, neither High Valyrian nor Westeros Common. The inner ring was smooth, without any markings.

He turned the ring over to look at it against the magical light; the engraving on the ring face was very faint.

"Hermione," he said, handing her the ring, "have you ever seen this script before?"

Hermione took it and brought it close to the ring, her lips moving as she slowly read aloud.

"Je...suis...restée."

She looked up. "It's French, Je suis restée—I stayed." She paused, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. "The word 'restée' ends in a silent 'e,' which is the feminine form. The person who wrote this was a woman."

Viserys took the ring back, in French, "I stayed," said the woman.

He put those words together. Dragon eggs, only those with extremely deep ties to the Targaryen family can obtain them. Not Damon, the timing doesn't match. But she knew Damon, knew Damon's prophecy, that Targaryen descendants would come into this world. She had lived in France, she left her words in French, not Gaiarian or Westeros common language, she chose the language she had learned in the wizarding world.

I stayed, but she wasn't forced to stay; she chose to stay.

Viserys slipped the ring onto the ring finger of his left hand; the dragon bone felt slightly cool against his skin.

The inner ring tightened for a moment, and the dragon bone seemed to come alive, adjusting slightly along the curve of his finger before settling down, the size just right.

Recognize God.

Viserys tried to touch the inside of the ring using the incantation recorded in Damon's Notes, but found nothing. There was indeed space inside the ring, but he was using the wrong incantation and couldn't open it. However, he could sense the vibrant energy of the Valyrian dragons inside. He didn't force it and lowered his hand, realizing he lacked the right method.

Hermione watched him put the ring on. "Do you know who she is?"

“I don’t know,” Viserys said, cradling the dragon egg in his arms. “But she comes from my world, lived in France, and knew my ancestors. She left the dragon egg and the gold she earned here, waiting for someone she will never meet.”

Hermione thought for a moment, "Did she wait for it?"

Viserys looked down at the dragon egg in his arms. "I don't know yet."

McGonagall waved her wand gently, and Galleons from the left side of the vault began to fly in batches into the purse she had taken out, which was enchanted with a Stretch-Without-Trace Charm. Mr. Granger stood in the doorway without entering, his gaze fixed on Viserys' left hand holding the dragon egg. He thought to himself, "This egg is so big, how long will it take to eat? I wonder if it'll taste good."

As they left the vault area, Lagno locked the door with his key. The wind in the tunnel carried the chill of the underground as the train climbed upwards. Hermione walked beside him without speaking, but her gaze occasionally fell on the dragon egg in his arms, as if looking at something she couldn't fully understand yet, but already knew was very important.

The dome of the hall reappeared overhead, and the marble floor reflected the magical light, a cold white.

The runes in Viserys' palm suddenly burned intensely, the heat penetrating deep into his bones. She had arrived.

He turned around abruptly, pressing his right hand against the dagger and using his left hand to protect the dragon egg tightly to his chest.

The magical light at the highest point of the dome flashed, and golden-red flames plummeted straight down from the very center of the dome, crashing onto the marble floor. Just before they touched the ground, the flames contracted, condensed, and a figure emerged from the center, wearing a dark cloak with a hood obscuring half his face.

He heard screams behind him, and the rustling of fabric as fairies rose from behind the counter. They were activating the alarm.

The priestess raised her right hand, and flames surged from her palm, forming a golden-red wall of fire that rose from the ground, trapping them within.

The priest looked at him through the wall of fire, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"You got it," she said, her voice low but barely audible, "faster than I expected."