HP: The Dropout Who Saved the World

"(What is that? Oh my God—a person riding a dragon!)"

"(It's the missing kid from the papers! We found her! And the Ukrainian Ironbelly!)"

After landing on a large clearing to rest, a string of words in an unfamiliar language reached Jane Yu's ears.

She guessed it was Romanian, as the group of people rushing over seemed highly skilled in handling the Ukrainian Ironbelly.

"(Go get Charlie Weasley, those Brits—! Have them translate—!)"

Soon, Jane saw Charlie Apparate in, narrowly avoiding the sharp tail spike of the fallen Ukrainian Ironbelly.

"Merlin's beard—what a scare, nearly got impaled—Yu, you actually rode a dragon here—I knew you'd be alright!"

The moment he saw her, Charlie exclaimed loudly, his broad, freckled face filled with astonishment.

"Good thing you landed here—if you'd ended up in Transylvania, you'd have found vampires!"

Another dragon tamer who had arrived later laughed heartily, slinging an arm around Charlie's shoulder, and said:

"Charlie, good thing you landed here—you could've ended up on a vampire's head!"

"Shut it!" Charlie elbowed him, making the dragon tamer double over with laughter. Then he introduced her, "Have you seen the papers? This girl, Yu Jane, she rode that Ukrainian Ironbelly across the English Channel, flying all the way here to the reserve!"

"That's incredible!" The dragon tamer was wide-eyed, giving her a thumbs-up. "So the rumors were true! I heard about your dragon-taming feat in the Triwizard Tournament, but I didn't expect you'd tame another one—a fiery, aggressive dragon that had been mistreated no less—"

The two of them started playfully roughhousing, throwing punches and kicks at each other.

"What are you going to do with this dragon?" Jane asked. "I don't want it to be reclaimed by Gringotts' goblins—"

"What Gringotts? What goblins?" Charlie and the dragon tamer exchanged a mischievous glance, a look that gave his honest face a hint of the Weasley twins' signature mischief. "This is just a dragon that fought with wizards in the wild and came to the reserve for help! We're dragon protectors, after all—we can't just stand by!"

The dragon tamers present all laughed heartily in satisfaction.

"Let's go!" Charlie patted her shoulder with a smile. "You have no idea how much chaos your disappearance after the Gringotts explosion caused. Everyone in Europe who can read a newspaper knows about it—Professor Dumbledore has been frantic looking for you. The International Confederation of Wizards, various Ministries of Magic... all received his requests for help."

He grabbed Jane's arm, seemingly intending to Apparate with her, but he paused awkwardly, his freckled face showing a trace of embarrassment.

Another dragon tamer immediately caught on, pointing at him with one hand and clutching his stomach in laughter with the other.

"Oh, poor Charlie—five-mile Apparition misplacement—nearly got skewered by a dragon's tail—oh, and that poor Muggle granny—"

Charlie angrily put the laughing friend in a headlock, nearly shoving his fist into his mouth.

After rummaging through his pockets for a while, he finally pulled out a Portkey.

After the familiar spinning sensation, Jane found herself brought to the dragon tamers' living quarters within the reserve.

"I would've taken you around the reserve to study dragons more, but now we need to use the Floo Network to get to Beauxbatons." He pulled out a small jar of Floo Powder. "Everyone's been so worried. Recently, Headmistress Maxime and Hagrid searched all over Europe for you. They even came here, but alas, there was no trace of you in Romania."

He seemed about to ask her how she'd been surviving, but just then, a door opened in the distance, and another voice called out:

"Charlie—I heard that dragon-taming girl has arrived—has the offer been prepared yet—I need to have a good chat with her!"

Charlie immediately tensed up, and the memory of writing an offer during the Triwizard Tournament seemed to surface. Without hesitation, he pushed Jane into the fireplace:

"Quick, go, before my boss finds you—unless you want to spend three days and nights discussing ideals or flipping over in front of a dragon—"

As the greenish-yellow flames roared in the fireplace, just before being transported away, Jane heard:

"We can watch dragons, mermaids, and vampires together, talk about life goals, discuss dragon diets, dragon habits, and even dragon languages—"

Ziwe, is that you, Ziwe?

She felt a shiver run through her body. As she tumbled out of the fireplace, she heard a chorus of exclamations.

"Yu Jane?—This child—how—"

She looked up to find herself facing a line of people:

Beauxbatons' Headmistress Madame Maxime, her mentor Newt Scamander, and the LeMay couple...

The four of them were anxiously discussing something!

"My goodness—what a hard time you've had, child!" Madame Maxime's heavy footsteps made the floor of the headmistress's office tremble as she approached. "Where on earth have you been? We know you can tame dragons—but with no news for so long, we thought... we thought..."

The elegant headmistress's face was full of concern. She pinched Jane's cheek and patted her head.

"Look at you, what have you become? Everyone's been worried sick! Mr. LeMay's crystal ball could only show untraceable locations, and Professor Scamander tried using animals to track the dragon, but the trail was intermittent—how did you survive in the wild? Living rough, it must've been so hard—"

Jane touched her face, finding it hard to associate her chubbier, chip-eating, soda-drinking cheeks with "living rough."

"I'm sorry to have worried you all," she said sincerely, expressing her gratitude and apology. "I stayed in a Muggle town for a while, without an owl, and accidentally injured someone. I had to care for him until he recovered—later, I released the dragon back into the wild, and now I'm here for school. Am I still in time for summer homework?"

But her words trailed off as she noticed the increasingly heavy expressions of the people in front of her.

Madame Maxime and Newt exchanged a glance.

As if reluctant to dampen her enthusiasm, Newt hesitated before speaking:

"...Yu... I'm very sorry... no one wanted this... but unfortunately... you can't stay at Beauxbatons anymore... there was an incident..."

~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~

Welcome to visit my Patreon, read the early chapters, and enjoy your reading!

 patreon.com/DarkGolds