Life as an Auror by SHallow

"Finally up, Potter?" a silky voice startled me as I fluttered my eyes open.

"Professor?" I mumbled, grasping around to look for my glasses. Suddenly the spectacles were thrust into my groping hands.

"You are back!" I exclaimed happily, momentarily forgetting myself and hugging Snape around his belly, burying my head in his signature black robes.

"Er... Potter, as much as I enjoyed being bitten by Nagini, would you please let go of me before I cruciate you?" he said awkwardly pulling my head away.

"Now he finally hugs you after mocking behind our back for so long," portrait Snape huffed in annoyance. "Perhaps we should employ these death defying gryffindorkish attempts at foolhardy more often, it does seem to instill respect in these awful dunderheads."

"Aw c'mon Professor - you like me now. Besides which, I do believe I may have done the same thing had I agreed to the hat and joined Slytherin."

Both Snapes held their sides as I saw them laugh, the first honest laugh I had ever heard from him, "The day you come to Slytherin would be the day hell froze over, you are a dumb lion through and through Potter."

I grumbled under my breath just about to retort as Khadir came into view." My patient is finally up! As you can see, your professor is well and perfectly healthy and recuperated from his own injuries while you filled out your nearly depleted Magical Core."

"Yeah well, he would have been a squib had he travelled even a bit more as he had planned," Hassan smirked. "You should be immune to the dragonblood trees soon, although I think that you would also need to be reminded why not to approach them too often with another English wizard ever again."

"Excellent point Hassan," Snape sneered, "If his brain actually comprehends the threat later on, that is."

"Oh Severus, he will certainly understand. Mr. Potter,"Khadir said, helping me off the bed, "As I had told you before, until you become entirely, certainly, immune to the affects of the dragonblood tree, you will remain working like a muggle. Enhancing your other strengths including physical and mental. Our first lesson will be on the trees themselves;the greatest threat to wizarding society."

"Yes sir, I mean Janab." I stumbled across the porch as he led me outdoors.

"Dragonblood trees were made billions of years ago when the first dragons roamed the world. The dragons couldn't find shelter because their breaths would annihilate most wood, and stones did not offer the warmth or the magic that the dragons needed. After much liberation, the dragons used their innate magic in creating trees merged with stones, impervious to fire but held with strong magic that came from the magical cores within dragons and other magical creatures themselves. The magic forged helped seed a new culture, where dragons could coexist together in harmony with all the warmth and place they xould need. Soon after, they grew soft, since other magical beings could not attempt to come near them without being magically exhausted. Until a few muggles breached the land. Kings and knights came to claim the land, and the dragons were quickly killed, there blood seeping through the ground and into the trees, some dragons turning into the trees themselves. Only the immune can now venture close by, or the fierce and strong. You could have died Mr. Potter, it is only through sheer dumb luck that you did not become a part of these trees yourself."

"What are the magical properties?"

"the greatest is obviously poison, the most lethal of all wizarding kind which does not kill but rather renders the wizard no longer magical. A variation was created a few years ago which did the opposite and made a person more powerful by adding the dragon's magic into the wizard, eventually the wizard died because his core was not equipped to handle the magical influx. Wands cannot be made, because they amplify the magic far too much than needed."

"So it's like a nuclear bomb for wizards?"

"In a way, Harry, but not truly. If there were no roots and the trees stood by themselves, the power would only pass a few metres in all directions, the roots mess things up. While the nuclear reactors could create bombs from small atoms, this tree would barely kill a few thousand compared to the millions of an atomic bomb."

"Oh. What would happen if I touched it?" I asked.

"Why don't you have a go at it and see what will happen?" he chuckled grimly.

"Er... Yes, sir?" I said reaching out for the bark with my hand shakinh in dread.