It was in the first week of Harry Potter’s sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry just came from a long dressing down in the Potions lesson by Professor Snape because Harry hadn’t had an opportunity to do his summer assignments being locked into his room without his trunk at the Dursleys. He entered the Gryffindor common room and sat next to his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

Harry’s two friends were just doing their Transfiguration homework: practising to transfigure a mouse into a cat. Still having the words of the menacing Potions professor in his mind, Harry absentmindedly took one of the stunned mice from a box, sat it next to the box on the floor and pointed his wand at the small animal. Suddenly, a huge animal had taken its place. Everyone in the Common room anxiously looked at the unknown animal.

“That’s a dinosaur,” Neville, who wasn’t only very interested in plants but also in dinosaurs, spoke up excitedly. “A Lesothosaurus Magicus I think.”

The dinosaur had a pretty blue-green colour and was about two meters tall. Harry gave Neville an anxious glance. “Is he… I mean… Are these kinds of dinosaurs dangerous?”

“Harry!” Hermione addressed him in her most incisive tone. “Either you transfigure him back or let me call Professor McGonagall. We cannot have a dinosaur in the Common room.”

‘Hello,’ Harry suddenly heard a soft voice and gave the dinosaur a shocked glance; by the lack of reaction from his friends he noticed that they hadn’t heard the greeting.

Harry had a special ability. He was able to transform into any animal he wanted, and he could understand every kind of animal. ‘Hello,’ he hesitantly answered the dinosaur. ‘I’m Harry. Can you promise that you won’t hurt any of my friends?’

‘Oh, yes; I don’t have a name; maybe you can give me one. And I won’t hurt anybody but I’d prefer to be outside.’

Harry remained thoughtful for a moment before he answered, ‘All right. Give me a minute and I’ll take you outside.’ He turned back to his friends and said, “It’s all right. He told me that he wouldn’t hurt anyone here, but he wants to go outside, so I think I’m going to take him to Hagrid.”

“I’ll come with you, Harry,” Neville told him. “But how will we get him out of here?”

“Oh,” Harry said. He hadn’t thought about that at all. “Maybe he can fly. Let me ask him.” ‘Sorry, but how can we take you outside? Can you fly?’

‘Yes, I’m able to fly. I can even take you with me if you wish,’ the dinosaur answered immediately.

Harry and Neville stepped close to the dinosaur, and someone opened the window so that the dinosaur could just fly outside with the two students on his back. An instant later, they found themselves in front of the huge main entrance doors near the lake. They took the dinosaur to Hagrid, who promised immediately to look after him. Hagrid showed Harry and Neville to the area where he planned to keep the dinosaur and the two boys took out their wands and put the strongest wards around the area they could manage. The dinosaur couldn’t escape from the area, which was large and even reached into the Forbidden Forest, and nobody except for Hagrid, Harry and Neville could see the dinosaur.

Harry and Neville promised Hagrid and the dinosaur to come back the following day and to think about a name for the animal before they headed back to their Common room.

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During the next few weeks, Harry and his friends joined the dinosaur every day. Harry had adjusted the wards around the animal so that Hermione, Ron, Luna, and Ginny were also able to see the dinosaur. Harry had named him Aki, and the children often took him to the lake, so that he could bathe or even play with the Giant Squid for a while. Although other people couldn’t see the dinosaur because of the wards, animals obviously were not affected by it. Students and teachers, who heard the noise the animals were making, only thought the Giant Squid was having a lot of fun recently.

One day in November, however, Hagrid told Harry, “Harry, I’m sorry, but Aki needs a companion. He needs another dinosaur in order to be really happy.”

“Oh,” Harry said flabbergasted. “Why didn’t I think of that? Do you have a rat, which I could transfigure? I hope I’ll be able to do it again.”

Twenty minutes later, a dinosaur lady, whom Harry called Fuyu, joined Aki in his pen, and Aki thanked Harry gratefully. Harry, his friends, and Hagrid watched amazed how the two dinosaurs happily played together.

A few months later, Aki told Harry excitedly, ‘My wife has laid two eggs; I’m so happy, Harry!’

Harry excitedly told his friends about the eggs, and everyone waited anxiously until the babies hatched. One day at the end of April, they saw two baby dinosaurs near their parents that were trying to fly. Fuyu proudly told Harry that it was a girl and a boy, and the friends had lots of fun watching the baby dinosaurs. They named the girl Haru and the boy Natsu.

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A few days later, Harry had a huge fight with Professor Snape after blowing up his cauldron in Potions class. The professor was so mean to Harry that the boy hurried out of the classroom, tears running down his cheeks. As it was still in the middle of their double Potions period he just left the castle and visited his dinosaur friends.

‘What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?’ Fuyu enquired.

‘Oh, it’s just that I have a very mean professor,’ Harry answered upset. ‘I wonder if we could play a prank on him’ he then added thoughtfully.

‘Shall we take him somewhere?’ Aki enquired, and Harry’s eyes started to twinkle mischievously.

Harry transformed into a dinosaur as he always did when he was visiting his friends alone and thought about Aki’s suggestion. Finally, he had an idea, which he shared with the dinosaurs, and when they agreed he informed his friends as soon as the lesson was over.

The first Saturday of May was a Hogsmeade weekend. Early in the morning, Harry had extended the wards around the dinosaurs so that Professor Snape would be able to see them. Afterwards, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Luna, and Ginny worked together to throw a strong Safety Charm around the dinosaurs, so that nobody should be able to hurt them. Finally, Harry transformed into a dinosaur, while his friends headed to Hogsmeade. Together with nearly every student above third year Professor Snape was heading to Hogsmeade, when suddenly a herd of dinosaurs appeared out of nowhere, grabbed him, and took him to a place he couldn’t recognize.

The professor soon realized that neither Apparition nor his Emergency Portkey worked in the area and looked around in order to find a way to return back to the castle. He even tried to use magic against the dinosaurs but nothing worked. Suddenly, one of the smaller dinosaurs addressed the man in a voice that the professor could understand even if he wasn’t able to recognize it.

‘We know who you are. You are the meanest professor we’ve ever heard of. We will let you go if you promise us to be nicer to the other Houses in the future.’

“Who told you about me, and what do you want?” Snape asked, keeping his face blank. It was void of any emotion.

‘Can’t you see that we are dinosaurs? A dinosaur told us of course. And we already told what we want. We want you to be nicer!’ the dinosaur replied, getting impatient.

“All right, I’ll promise that I will try but it’s not easy because I have to pretend to hate everyone except for the Slytherins because of the Dark Lord,” Snape answered, while keeping his mask safely in place, as he knew that there was no other way to escape from the huge reptiles.

‘If you don’t keep your promise, we’ll bring you here again,’ the dinosaur threatened, while the other dinosaurs were standing around them. ‘This is Dinoland and no human can escape nor survive here.’

Finally, Snape agreed to their conditions, and the dinosaurs brought him back to Hogwarts only a few hours later. None of them noticed that the wards around the dinosaurs had failed because of the Spells Professor Snape had tried to cast against them and the group didn’t remain unseen.

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On Sunday morning, there was a huge headline on the front page of the Daily Prophet:

The revival of the dinosaurs – caused by Harry Potter

Immediately after breakfast, Harry was called to the Headmaster’s office. Very uncomfortably, he noticed that Professor Snape was present as well.

“Mr. Potter, I’m going to expel you,” the Potions professor told Harry, a menacing expression on his face.

“All right, Sir, but all my friends will come visit you again, and we’ll have a nice barbeque together in Dinoland.”

Suddenly, the Professor towered over Harry, his wand trained on the boy. “You…”

“Severus! Harry!” Professor Dumbledore suddenly shouted, giving them both a disappointed look. “You are both behaving like five-year-old children. We cannot have such behaviour here. Now, tell me exactly what happened and I’ll let you in on my idea.”

They talked and planned until lunchtime, when the students, who were already gathered in the Great Hall, stared at the professor and the student who were known as bitter enemies, entering the Great Hall together.

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Two weeks later, Snape was called to the Dark Lord. As he had planned with the Headmaster and Harry he took Aki, the male dinosaur, with him. While Snape Portkeyed back from Riddle Manor, Aki took Voldemort with him to Dinoland, where his family was already waiting for him.

After that incident, the dinosaurs happily lived together in Dinoland. Sometimes, they flew to Hogwarts in order to visit Harry and Hagrid. However, nothing more was heard of Voldemort. After a short while Snape’s Dark Mark faded into non-existence together with Harry’s scar.