Maurise smoothly slipped his wand back into his robes, raising his hands slightly to show he meant no harm. "How exactly did you find this place?" he asked, feigning innocent curiosity. "I am simply conducting a perfectly ordinary magical experiment."
He remembered his previous outdoor advancement rituals. None of them had ever attracted this kind of official attention.
Seeing Maurise stow his wand, the tall wizard visibly relaxed. His tone softened considerably. "Hogsmeade and the perimeter around Hogwarts are heavily monitored zones. I strongly suggest you find a more remote location for your experiments next time."
As he spoke, he pulled a small crystal ball from his pocket and scrutinized it for a few seconds.
"Oh, it isn't Dark Magic," he muttered to himself in relief. He then produced a small notebook and a quill. "Let us not waste any more time, sir. I would like to finish my shift as soon as possible. Just give me your name for the report. A name is all I need."
Maurise was not exactly thrilled about handing over his real identity and was just about to invent a completely fabricated one.
However, right at that moment, the bone dragon's advancement ritual reached its grand finale.
In the center of the magic circle, the last tendrils of the stormy grey mist were violently sucked into the dragon's massive skeletal frame.
VMMMMM!
With a deep, resonant hum, the glowing lines of the magic circle faded away, its purpose fulfilled.
The newly evolved bone dragon stood silently in the center of the frozen clearing. Its sheer size was far more imposing than before. The bones had taken on a profound, heavy, dark-silver hue, giving the creature a terrifyingly metallic texture. Its massive skeletal wings were fully unfurled, surrounded by lingering currents of magical grey air.
Furthermore, the soul fire burning in its eye sockets had condensed, dancing with a sharp, intelligent light.
The advancement was a flawless success.
The bone dragon turned its massive skull toward Maurise and slowly, respectfully, lowered its head.
With the obscuring mist finally gone, the two Ministry wizards were suddenly granted a crystal-clear view of the towering undead beast.
They both sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air simultaneously. Their eyes bulged with absolute, unadulterated disbelief.
Maurise decided he had overstayed his welcome.
"Ah, look at the time. I really must be going," he said cheerfully, waving a hand at the petrified officials. "If you really must put a name on your report, you can call me..."
He paused for dramatic effect. "...Knight!"
Leaving behind the wildly mysterious and slightly melodramatic alias, Maurise let out a sharp whistle.
The bone dragon's wings snapped open. Its colossal body surged upward, its jaws expertly and gently plucking Maurise from the snow by his waist, tossing him gracefully onto its broad back.
The maneuver looked rough, but it was executed with pinpoint precision.
The moment Maurise landed on the dragon's spine, he utilized his bone-summoning magic to sprout skeletal clamps from the soles of his boots, fusing them seamlessly with the dragon's vertebrae. He was locked in tight.
Perfect.
The bone dragon gave a mighty flap of its wings, kicking up a blizzard of snow. In the blink of an eye, it carried Maurise up into the gloomy winter sky, vanishing into the clouds.
The two Ministry employees stood frozen, staring blankly up at the empty sky.
A full thirty seconds of dead silence passed.
"Er..." The short wizard slowly turned to his colleague. "What is the protocol here? Do we chase him?"
Chase him? With what? The man was riding a flying, highly lethal-looking skeleton dragon and had disappeared in three seconds flat. It was blindingly obvious they had just encountered an incredibly powerful, eccentric wizard.
They had not even brought their brooms.
The tall wizard let out a long, exhausted sigh. "Forget it. Let us just pretend we saw nothing but a stray Kneazle. We were sent to investigate an anomalous magical fluctuation. The source of the fluctuation is gone, which means our job here is done. Come on, let's go write a heavily redacted report."
As underpaid government workers, ignoring massive, life-threatening problems was simply a survival instinct. They were paid the exact same amount of Galleons either way. Why invite an early grave?
***
Meanwhile, Maurise was utterly intoxicated by the thrill of flight.
Despite cruising through the freezing winter air, he was completely comfortable. Encased in his airtight bone armor and layered with warming charms, the biting wind was entirely a non-issue.
Every time the bone dragon accelerated, Maurise felt a powerful thrust push him back, accompanied by the roaring whistle of the wind breaking around them.
This was an entirely different sensation compared to galloping on the ground with his skeletal unicorn. It felt infinitely freer. It was as if the entire world had been unfurled beneath his boots.
The bone dragon seemed equally enamored with the skies. Occasionally, it would get playful, executing a sudden, shallow barrel roll.
"Knock it off!" Maurise laughed, scolding the beast mildly, but his mood was the best it had been in months.
It made perfect sense why wizards were so obsessed with flying on brooms. Taking to the sky was genuinely addictive.
Braving the wind and snow, Maurise took the dragon on a massive victory lap around the surrounding mountains. They flew high over Hogsmeade village and even buzzed past the towering spires of Hogwarts Castle.
Overall, the bone dragon's stamina, top speed, and maneuverability were staggeringly impressive. Not only had its flight capabilities improved exponentially, but its intelligence had also spiked. It could now understand and execute complex flight patterns based on Maurise's subtle commands.
Sharp turns, steep dives, vertical climbs... it handled them all with buttery smoothness.
However, doing all those aggressive maneuvers back-to-back did leave Maurise feeling exceptionally dizzy.
About twenty minutes later, Maurise reluctantly signaled the dragon to return to Hogwarts.
They selected a secluded, snowy clearing near the western edge of the castle grounds for their descent. Maurise dispelled his bone armor, hopped off the dragon's back, and landed softly in the snow.
He reached up and patted the dragon's freezing, metallic skull. "Good boy. You did absolutely brilliantly."
The bone dragon lowered its head further, radiating waves of deep contentment and loyalty through their mental link.
Just then, his shadow-bird, Cinder, fluttered down from the sky. It landed heavily on Maurise's shoulder and began squawking urgently, flapping its wings to pantomime a message.
"Are you saying someone from the castle spotted me? Who?"
Fireworks mimed stroking a very long beard.
"An old man with a long beard. Ah, Dumbledore. Well, that is perfectly fine then."
Maurise was just about to recall the dragon when a sudden burst of golden and crimson flames erupted a few yards away.
Fawkes the phoenix had arrived, bringing two very important passengers with him.
Albus Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall materialized in the snow.
Dumbledore, wrapped casually in a thick blue traveling cloak, wore his usual serene, grandfatherly smile. He curiously examined Maurise and the towering undead monstrosity standing beside him.
Professor McGonagall's reaction was vastly different.
The absolute second her boots touched the ground, she lunged forward. She forcefully shoved Maurise behind her back to protect him, raising her wand and pointing it dead at the dragon's skull, her face pale and rigid as if facing a mortal enemy.
"Minerva, please calm yourself. That creature is not an enemy," Dumbledore's steady, soothing voice echoed in the clearing.
"Albus! Look at it! What on earth is that thing?" McGonagall's voice trembled with a rare, highly uncharacteristic panic.
She kept her dueling stance rock-solid. In her highly experienced eyes, a massive skeletal dragon appearing on school grounds was undeniably a threat of the highest order.
Maurise couldn't help but find the situation slightly hilarious. "Professor McGonagall, please don't be alarmed. This big guy is just my pet."
"What?" McGonagall froze, lowering her wand a fraction of an inch as she repeated the word in pure disbelief. "Your pet?"
"Yes, ma'am," Maurise nodded candidly.
To prove his point, he turned to the terrifying undead beast and gave a clear, calm command. "Say hello. Try to be friendly."
Strangely enough, ever since Dumbledore and McGonagall had appeared, the bone dragon had been frantically transmitting feelings of sheer terror across its mental link with Maurise.
Upon hearing the command, the massive dragon lowered its skull until its jaw was practically resting in the snow. Moving at an excruciatingly slow, cautious pace, it shuffled toward the two transfixed professors. It gave a pathetic, trembling little shake of its massive head in greeting.
There is really no need to be this terrified, Maurise thought, completely baffled.
It seemed that, aside from Maurise himself, the bone dragon possessed a deep, instinctual, marrow-deep phobia of human wizards. It wasn't just Dumbledore and McGonagall. It had acted the exact same way around the Weasley twins earlier.
Why was it so terrified?