The ritual was about to start. Dany, Pyra, and I gathered a vial's worth of blood each and surrounded the three eggs in the middle of a ritual circle I've drawn. This one came from Grindelwald, and it was ancient. It didn't even use Latin for crying out loud, it actually used ancient Greek instead.
"Hmm~ Hey Pyra? How bad of an idea do you think it is to try to hatch them with Fiendfire? They should be immune to it, no?"
"I mean, yeah, they are immune to it, but what they are not immune to is the underlying chaos of the spell.
That could seriously mess up everything. Just use Incendio." She said after thinking about it for a bit.
"What's Fiendfire?" Daenerys asked curiously.
"Oh! It's such a cool spell. It burns everything it touches, even magic."
"Yes, what she said. But it's also very dangerous. Which is why she will not use it, right, Emily?" Pyra said with a warning glare, the problem was that I found it more cute than threatening.
"Okay, okay… Let's start then. Let's each choose an egg. I'm taking the black one!" I excitedly pointed at it. Pyra took the green one, and the last one, the gold one, was for Dany.
"Now just pour the blood on top of it, and I'll get to work." Which we all did simultaneously, and then, thanks to the magical circle I placed them in, the blood started to be absorbed into the eggs.
"That's done, now the fire. INCENDIO!" An enormous stream of flames emerged from the tip of my wand, rapidly enveloping both the eggs and the ritual circle in flames. Now I just had to sustain it for as long as the eggs were absorbing the fire.
The fire started to rotate around the eggs, almost cocooning them in it, which I didn't expect would happen. Somehow, thanks to the dragons, the fire became alive and resonated with the eggs.
"Wow, that's beautiful." I murmured as I continued to supply the magical fire. The dull colors the eggs had previously were long gone, and in their place were three vibrant ones. Then suddenly, our surroundings began to hum with magic, the fire swirled faster and faster around the eggs, forming what was beginning to look like three tiny tornadoes of fire and magic, and then it happened.
The fire vanished, it was completely absorbed by the eggs in an instant, and the ritual circle emitted a faint glowing pulse. Without warning, cracks began forming across the eggs, and the enormous magical power of the dragons began to seep through.
"Uh… maybe I used a bit more magic than I needed to? Newborn dragons should definitely not be this powerful, right?" I smiled awkwardly at the girls.
"No, it was supposed to go like this. It's the result of the familiar ritual combined with our blood. Neither of us is ordinary after all, and the dragons take after us." Pyra reasoned, and when she put it like that, I had to agree. Pyra and I were outliers, and Dany was powerful too. Nowhere near our level, sure, but powerful nonetheless.
A series of loud cracks interrupted any further talks, and all of us excitedly stared at the eggs. The black one split first, unveiling a tiny dragon with almost obsidian-like rough scales, with spots of crimson sprinkled in. Its crimson eyes scanned its surroundings with curiosity as it let out high squeaks.
The green one was next, the shell fragmented and revealed a more serpent-like dragon. Where mine was rough, Pyra's was sleek. Its shimmering green and bronze scales reflected light like a precious stone. The golden one hatched last, revealing a small but majestic-looking dragon with golden-white scales that sparkled like my treasures.
The three hatchlings fixed their eyes on us, and then, with clumsy and unsure movements, tried running to us. It was cute to see them stumble all over themselves.
"Kyaa! Look at my baby!" I shouted and ran. That broke whatever spell we were under, and both Pyra and Dany shouted excitedly and ran too. I scooped the little guy or girl, I dunno yet, and nuzzled its cheek.
"Oh my god, Emmy! They are so cute."
"Thank you, thank you." Dany looked at the verge of tears as she squeezed her dragon.
"Hahaha~ You're welcome, girls! Have either of you thought of names yet?" I laughed.
"Yeah, Mythra, after my sister. You?" Pyra said happily.
"Inky." My hatchling squeaked in protest.
"That's how you name a cat, you know? And it doesn't seem to like it either."
"Ugh— Fine. How about Melas?" I said, looking at Pyra and then at my dragon, who let out happy squeaks this time.
"Really? Melas?... well, at least it sounds nice." She sighed. Mostly because she understood what it meant: Black. Just in ancient Greek.
"What about you?" I asked Deanerys, who was intently looking at her hatching.
"I want to name it after my mother, but I'm torn between Rhaellion and Rhaevis." She grumbled.
"Rhaevis." I said.
"Rhaellion." Pyra echoed at the same time.
"Pft! Great, that really helped." She snorted.
"Pyra… Rhaevis is the superior name in every sense."
"Please, I don't want to hear that from a woman who named her dragon 'Black'." She deadpanned.
We bickered for quite some time, with amused Daenerys watching from the sidelines. She spoke up after five minutes, looking like she had made up her mind.
"Alright, you can stop now. I'm going with Rhaevis. The little one seems to like it better."
"Yay! I win. See Pyra? They know what's up." I cheered and struck a victory pose, giving both girls a peace sign. Melas squeaked excitedly too.
"That's right, buddy. Tell 'em!"
"Don't encourage it, Emily." Pyra sighed.
"Hehe~ Somebody is just angry that their name didn't win~" I said teasingly.
"I'm not!" She huffed and puffed her cheeks.
"Suure~ Come on, buddy, let's show you your new home." I scooped Melas up into my arms.
"Isn't the house cramped enough as is?" Daenerys asked.
"The house is, but the tower has plenty of space for the three of them, and the stones can't be melted by their fire either."
"Then it will need some serious remodeling, they will outgrow the doors very quickly."Pyra said.
"We wanted to do that anyway. Adding a large enough opening won't be an issue."
"Umm~ Emily? I don't think the tower will be big enough. Dragons can grow to be very large, you know?" Daenerys said hesitantly.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I can make each floor as big as I need it to be with simple space-expanding charms. They will have enough space even if they grow up to be as large as mountains." I reassured her.
"Oh…"
—
In the coming weeks, the prison got a serious glow-up. Though only on the inside, as I really wanted to preserve the unsettling look it had. The lower floors were now more like open pastures. The narrow halls and the cramped cells were gone, and in their place was now a nice grassy carpet.
I–uh– I borrowed it, along with other plant life from a meadow near White Harbour, as the weather there was warmer and more things grew there overall. The only shame was that I didn't stay long enough to see people's reactions to a three-square-mile area of land just disappearing.
But what can you do? I'm sure the rumors will spread, and by the time they get back to us, they will be absolutely ridiculous. So there was at least that to look forward to.
Each hatchling got its own personalized 'fire area', in the form of a big fire pit filled with Gubraithian Fire. The fire would never go out, no matter what happened, so the dragons would always have something to curl around and stay warm.
The task of turning the upper floors into our new home was an undertaking and a half, to say the least. I blasted so many walls to turn it into a nice open space and built a big staircase leading to the top. That's when the easy stuff stopped, though, because next came decorating and furnishing, and let's just say that we were traveling a lot for that. I didn't really care about that, so I left it up to Pyra, seeing as we lived together anyway.
The furniture she picked was from the North. She liked the aesthetic it had. Decorations, though, were a bit more difficult. Some she got from our treasury, and some she bought in Pentos. Why? Don't know. I'm just glad she likes it. Because if it were just me, I'd be satisfied with a mattress on the floor.
Kinvara just brought things from Red Temple, and let's just say that everything was really… well, it was really red. Red lacquered wood, red tapestries, and red fabrics. It gave off an 'I really like fire' impression. Plus, she pleaded for the same fire pit the dragons had, so there was that as well.
Dany, bless her heart, tried to be modest about it, but when Pyra all but dragged her with her to do the shopping, she relented. She tried to find some dragon-themed decor, but there was almost none in Westeros. Guess why.
Still, by the end of it, Azkaban was almost unrecognizable in the best way possible. I got my wish, and the prison was still scary from the outside, and the girls transformed the inside into a nice and surprisingly cozy place. It was hard not to smile when we finally toured the place once it was complete.
"Not so scary after all, huh?" I said with a grin once we stood inside.
"No. Well… as long as I don't see the outside." Daenerys grumbled good-naturedly.
"I still think that's the best part. Such an ominous tower, and on the inside? Just us, the girlies." I grinned even wider, and both Pyra and Daenerys rolled their eyes.
"Don't forget about the dragons."
"I didn't. Have you seen them? Such divas already, they count as girlies too."