In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 344: Firenze (2 in 1)

The hide around the eye was very weak, so Jon's blasting curse caused the Norwegian Ridgeback's left eyelid to bleed out, and at the same time stimulated its aggression.

It swung up its wings and rose from the ground, ignoring the two Patronus that had climbed on top of it, and flew directly towards Jon's direction.

When Jon had collected the golden flying snitches in the afternoon, he had also looked into a lot of information about this batch of dragons that had been bought by the judging team of the Triwizard Tournament and used as props for the task.

These dragon species had obviously been specially hand-picked by someone, and the vast majority of them were female dragons in heat, a time when most of them would be violent, restless and difficult to tame, which was why those Romanian dragon trainers had largely left them alone after throwing them all into the Forbidden Forest in one go.

It was just that they were restricted to a certain area so that the dragons could not leave that part of the restricted area and destroy the ecology of the forbidden forest excessively.

In fact, despite being restricted in such a manner, the original inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest had suffered greatly because of the problems that had arisen due to these dozen dragons.

Just like the herd of Unicorns that Jon met when he first entered the Forbidden Forest, their original territory was taken over by a dragon, and the herd itself was attacked, and if it wasn't for Jon's help, one of the young Unicorns would have had died as a result.

Even the Unicorn herd had met with such a fate, so one could imagine the plight of the other Forbidden Forest creatures.

If Dumbledore had been in charge of Hogwarts Castle, and Hagrid had been the Gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys and Grounds, they would not have allowed this to happen, and even if the tournament venue was to be within the Forbidden Forest, they would not have let the dragons in.

And at that moment, Jon stood at the very edge of the restricted area where this Norwegian Ridgeback Dragon had been placed, watching it rise into the air and soar away from the entrance to the valley it had originally guarded, forming a shadow that enveloped the sky above him.

Hot dragon blood was dripping to the ground and the Ridgeback made no attempt to hide its anger at the sneak attack as it opened its mouth wide in the air, sparks bursting from its dark throat!

"Roar!"

The sound of the dragon's roar resonated throughout the forbidden forest, and countless birds shot up into the sky, while at the same time as it sounded, the temperature began to rise dramatically!

Orange-coloured flames with dragon magic attached to them fell from the sky, and Jon was already prepared for this, as he activated the levitation charm on his ring and flew up into the sky before the dragon's breath was spat down.

Because he was so small, overshadowed by the dragon's huge body, and because one of its eyes had already been injured by Jon's blasting curse, which blurred some of its vision, the Ridgeback, who was venting its fury on the ground, did not notice the ant's ascent.

And that's what caused the dragon so much trouble later.

Jon had noiselessly arrived at the Ridgeback's side, aimed his wand at its other intact eye and began to hold it together with both hands in the same manner as he had used against the manticore.

Without using any more powerful spells, Jon used a straightforward two-handed spellcasting technique and cast a Stunning Spell.

A far thicker, brighter red beam of light than the normal spell cut through the entire night sky in an instant!

It was only at this time that the Ridgeback Dragon's other intact eye perceived a sudden, blinding flash of light illuminating its entire eye socket, but by the time it was trying to make a defensive move, there was no time to react, and it didn't even have time to close its eyelids!

The Stunning Spell, as simple and straightforward as it could be, plunged straight into the Ridgeback Dragon's eye sockets, and the effect of the spell passed through its eyeballs and into its brain at the first opportunity!

All of a sudden, the entire body of the Ridgeback Dragon, which was still spewing dragon breath from its mouth, became rigid.

It could be seen that it was so affected by the spell that even its wings could no longer be swung, nor could it maintain its flight in the sky. But even though it had been hit with such a powerful Stunning Spell at the weakest point of its defence, it still had no intention of falling to the ground and was still trying to stay conscious.

This time, instead of aiming at the Ridgeback's half-closed, intact eye, Jon aimed directly at its wounded eye.

After a few more shots of normal Stunning Spell, it eventually failed to maintain its flight in the sky, and with a last resentful glance at the figure flying in mid-air, it fell to the ground with a crash, causing the whole ground to tremble violently.

Having successfully brought the Ridgeback Dragon down, Jon didn't stop the spell-casting action in his hands as he continued to use the Stunning Spell on the fallen dragon over and over again, while still managing to find time to collect the golden flying snitches that were nearby.

With a dragon to knock down, a Centaur to save and a tournament to juggle, Jon couldn't let this trip go to waste, at least he had to get everything he needed to get his hands on.

And just as Jon had taken down the Norwegian Ridgeback, in the valley, Hoss, with Cedric, soon found the remaining group of Centaur in the Forbidden Forest.

As Cedric had told Jon, there were hardly any adult males left, they were all old, young, women and children, and even the few men that were left were crippled, with either a missing arm or a broken finger.

The Chief of these Centaurs is a handsome adult male Centaur with curly platinum hair and surprisingly blue eyes.

His name is Firenze, and only one of his beautiful sapphire eyes remains, the other one is covered by a black eye patch, and Cedric knows that it was blinded by Auror's spell.

When Cedric found them, the Centaurs didn't seem to have any intention of resting; they were all armed with bows and arrows in one hand and torches in the other, as if they wanted to fight to the death against the dragons that guarded the entrance and exit of the valley.

"What are you trying to do with all this? Firenze."

Cedric, who appeared like the wind on Hoss, startled many of the Centaurs, who at first raised their bows and arrows, but at the sound of Cedric's voice and the sight of the familiar face, they all lowered their weapons again, obviously familiar with the young student.

"We're running low on food, Cedric." Firenze's blue eyes showed joy at the sight of Cedric's appearance, but the seriousness and gravity that had always been maintained on his face did not abate much, "If we continue to wait here without enough food, everyone will starve to death, even if we can only get one out, it's better than all dying here."

Cedric saw the paleness on the Centaurs' faces and knew that they had all been trapped in this valley for half a month, unprepared for the appearance of the three dragons that had sealed the exit, it was time for their food reserves to be depleted.

"I've got help to rescue you! He's now trying to hold back the dragon at that exit in the northwest corner of the valley, so we'll go over there now and try to escape straight away!"

Without any unnecessary pleasantries or questions, Cedric spoke extremely fast and gave Firenze and the others a clear picture of the current situation.

Hearing his words, the gloom on Firenze's face completely turned into one of excitement.

He immediately greeted his people and followed Cedric and Hoss, who had the good sense not to speed up too much, and occasionally turned back to look at the young females and throwing winks at them.

"You got in touch with Dumbledore!"

While running towards the exit of the valley where the Norwegian Ridgeback was, Cedric glanced with a slightly embarrassed face at Firenze who was expecting a positive answer from him.

"No, I haven't been able to contact Dumbledore, they've been heavily guarded by many Aurors since they arrived at Hogwarts and no one has had easy access to them."

In response, Firenze gave another new name.

"Is that Rubeus Hagrid outside? If there had been a chance to return to the castle, he would have come along, and would surely have taken it upon himself to find a way to come to us in the Forbidden Forest!"

Cedric shook his head once more, this time not letting Firenze continue to guess, but simply naming who it was that had come.

"It's Jon Green."

The Centaur had spent years hiding in the Forbidden Forest and certainly didn't have much access to the outside world, so the name Jon was clearly unfamiliar to them.

"Who's that? Someone from the Order of the Phoenix?"

"It's the champion representing Dumbledore in this Triwizard Tournament."

"Which means he's still just a student?" A Centaur who had overheard their conversation exclaimed from the sidelines, "A student dealing with a Dragon? You're not joking, right? Are we going to collect his corpse now?"

His words made Hoss unhappy; Jon was at least his "best mate" and had thought of his marriage, and now he was being spoken to like that, which didn't sit well with Hoss.

Cedric did understand that Centaur didn't really mean much harm, after all, normal people wouldn't normally believe such things if they heard about them, even the elite of wizards might not be able to fight a dragon alone, let alone a student attending a wizardry school.

But he didn't explain much, any explanation wouldn't be as good as the facts before their eyes, and after seeing the facts, all explanations would be superfluous.

Although Cedric had only really met Jon today, he had complete confidence in the boy who had already been renowned throughout Europe.

The Centaurs could not move as fast as the racially gifted Hoss, but at a full gallop they were not that slow either, and it took them less than ten minutes to reach the exit of the valley where the Norwegian Ridgeback was staying, and by then the behemoth had simply been missing.

All they could see as Firenze and the others arrived was a boy picking the golden snitches that were flying around.

And the tremors produced by the horses' hooves trampling on the ground had long since caught Jon's attention, and he saw Cedric, who was leading the way on the back of Hoss, and right beside Cedric, there was a Centaur with long platinum blonde hair and one eye.

They were followed by a group of old and sickly men, some of the Centaur men looking around nervously as they made their way to this intersection.

"Where's the bloody dragon?"

Jon didn't answer back, he just waved his wand behind him and recited a stunning spell.

Following the bright red that was extremely conspicuous in the darkness, the Centaurs all saw the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon lying in the meadow.

They had been besieged by the Aurors in the Forbidden Forest for so long that no fool was left to survive.

The fallen and unconscious dragon was laid bare before them and with Jon the only one present, combined with what Cedric had said to them on the way, every one of the Centaurs could guess the somewhat absurd truth.

Compared to the rest of his people, Firenze was still very calm.

He was considered a wise man among the Centaur, well versed in astronomy and divination, and well aware of the fact that some of the best cubs among the wizards could be better than they could imagine given their long years in the Forbidden Forest.

"Hello, Mr Green, my name is Firenze."

The current Centaur chief extended a hand of his own to Jon in a friendly manner.

Firenze.

This name was not really new to Jon; in the original book, the Centaur in front of him had even served as a Professor of Divination at Hogwarts Castle, whose attainment and philosophy in divination held high regard, or at least was considerably better at teaching than his other peer, the one who had uttered the Saviour's Prophecy.

Jon held out a hand to shake his.

"Hello, Firenze, just call me Jon, Hagrid has mentioned your name to me."

Hagrid had indeed mentioned Firenze's name to Jon, telling him to go to Firenze for help if he was having trouble finding the Centaur named Parson.

It was clear that Hagrid had faith in Firenze, and he felt sure that he would still be alive, which was indeed the case, this Centaur indeed survived, except that he was missing an eye.

Jon had pretty much collected all the golden snitches around this Norwegian Ridgeback, and without any unnecessary pleasantries with Firenze, just after once again casting a stunning spell on the unconscious dragon lying on the ground, he said that they should better get out of here and find a safe place before talking.

Jon had plenty of patience to kill and peel the Norwegian Ridgeback hide if he didn't think it was too much of a coincidence that there were three dragons trapping the Centaurs in the valley.

Every dragon is a treasure, no less so than a Basilisk.

But it was too much of a hassle to deal with one, and after the tournament, Jon had to worry if the judges would come after him for it, as these dragons are protected species.

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