0200 hours, Canna Isle. Scotland.


Two figures trekked along the crest of a steep hill on Canna Isle, hardly visible in the winter downpour and not far from where they had apparated in a wee bothy. The landscape was rock and dirt and patches of snow, solid beneath the backdrop of clouds tumbling darkly into one another - the smeared sky broken through by the odd breach of lightning, crack of thunder. All of it distant.

Balfour Spectre shoved one foot in front of the other as he took his lover's hand once they had reached the point at which the earth fell away to a vast but shadowed valley beneath. They were both in dark green wellies and Anoraks to match; hoods pulled up to keep the rain out of their eyes.

"I'm going first," he turned and leaned to speak into Johann's ear. "Careful on your way down, love."

Lightning lit up the valley, an incandescent moment in which a large and shifting silhouette could be glimpsed - over sixty feet long, a crown of spikes across her magnificent head and a row upon row running along the blackened edges of her spine. The Hungarian Horntail had risen to her front legs, claws digging rifts into the hard ground.

One yellow eye gleamed, flicked up to him as he slowly managed the slope and made his way down, boots slipping on the odd strip of ice or mud. Her tail jerked abruptly but Balfour paid it no mind, as if though that whip of a spikes had not long ago put him in hospital for a week.

She was called Nidhug. In Norse mythology, a wyrm that fed on the roots of a legendary tree. And on corpses. It was no incidental name.

The creature turned its head with unhurried deliberation, obviously in some pain, fixing him with her unwavering gaze. Even through the sound of rain and thunder, Balfour could make out her laboured breathing. Crackling like a dry forest fire in her scaled chest. He lowered his hood.


"It's only me, it's only me!" he called out with a wide, sad smile and his arms widespread - wand in one hand, as a precaution. "Hello there gorgeous. Come now. Only me."

Nidhug lowered her head to the ground, legs folding beneath her in resignation that broke Balfour's heart. Horntails put up a fight. Healthy Horntails did, anyway. For weeks she had been unable to breathe a proper flame or take flight.

The wizard glanced over his shoulder to watch the other man, squinting as rainwater got into his eyes.

He held out a hand for Johann to take, but turned his attention back to the dragon whose single large eye (she had lost one to him in a fit of rage not two months ago) observed them warily.

"I've brought a friend for you-" Balfour told her in a soft voice, trying to ignore the reddened edges of her scales and the weak smoke drifting from her nostrils. "- you must promise not to try and eat him."

It was bloody freezing. Johann was very glad of the warm anorak against the cold weather. Two in the morning wasn't an unfamiliar time, but stalking along hills on Scottish islands at the hour was rather different. He was both excited and absolutely terrified at the prospect of what lay ahead.

Balfour had shown him what Nidhug had done to him within the first day of being together. "If you think I'm a beast, you really ought to meet our dragons. The best of them gave me this, but she's improved in character since."[1] A great scar across his chest. Even on the ridge of a hill, Johann could visualise it. It had been a year or so after the even that he'd first seen it, but it looked just as angry.

But she was sick, and Johann could see this tore his lover apart in a rather different way than the claws had him. The epidemic had been a deep preoccupation with Balfour when they'd met. Much as he knew Balfour berated himself for talking shop at home, he paid keen attention to it, because it was important to the other wizard. Which was why he was on the side of a Scottish hillside at two in the morning.

Wellingtons were not the most exciting presents to recount to family and friends to receive, but for a wizard who'd not owned any since childhood, they were a cherished gift from Balfour, and essential if he was going to keep up.

Trampling along behind Balfour, Johann reached his hand up to wipe cold rain out of his eyes, pushing his sodden curls out of the way beneath the hood. Eventually the ground fell away and Johann misplaced a foot, stumbling as he was taken aback by the sight in the valley below. The rain was lashing down on a scaly form below them in the dark, picked out by the flashes from above.

She was enormous, bigger than any dragon Johann had set eyes on. He'd not seen all that many in his life, but still, this was the biggest living creature he'd encountered. He could hardly take his eyes off her in the descent, arms out to either side to keep his balance, not quite as surefooted or familiar with the valley as Balfour.

As they reached the basin, Johann hung back, but not too far away from Balfour, glancing up at Nidhug, and watching his lover's body language. Balfour had explained many an entertaining story on how to address dragons. Even without being so close to a dragon it was clear that the enormous beast was in pain, and as she turned her head, her missing eye became apparent. Poor thing, even if she had torn Balfour in two, he couldn't help but feel sorry for her. The story of her missing eye had been recounted at home the day it happened. Balfour's vocabulary had made Johann feel it had been as painful as losing his own eye.

He reached for Balfour's hand and approached, tentatively. Opened his mouth to say hello, and realised his voice had been swallowed up with his hammering heart and awe of the scale of the beast before him.

"H- hello." He greeted, lifting his other hand to wave gently at the dragon, and glanced to Balfour, as if to say like this right? "… beautiful." He dropped his hand back to his side and puffed out his cheeks, gripping Balfour's hand slightly.

"You're enormous - mammoth - so erm, so good to meet you at last." It was ever so odd to address a dragon. For the wizard so easy to make conversation with another human being, he was suddenly falling over his words. "I'm not tasty to eat - well," he glanced to Balfour, damp cheeks blushing in the dark, "Not to dragons, far too bony and chewy."

1.	Sept 10, 2010 I'll be Yours

His lips pressed together into a fond, emotional smile as Johann spoke to the beast. He could just make out the flushed cheeks in the shadow of the Anorak hood - hiding beneath wet curls that looked as black as night. "Not to dragons," his partner clarified, " far too bony and chewy."

Balfour took his hand and looked back at the golden yellow eye that seemed to have lost a bit of its caution. He raised his other arm and stepped closer to the head, felt the temperature rise upon closing the distance between them. It was rarely chilly to be around dragons. Certainly not around Nidhug.

"Tired already, old girl?" he remarked before very slowly laying one hand on the plane of her jaw - right where the long, incisive line of that mouth ended. Nidhug bared her teeth and a warning rumble emitted from deep within. "Not tonight. You don't have to put up a fight. We're long past that, promise."

He ran his blistered fingers across the muzzle, soothingly, feeling more than seeing the deteriorating textures that left uneven grooves in what should have been glossy black scales. Another flash of lightning showed a scattering of lost scales across the valley floor.

Balfour gently guided the other wizard's hand to the dragon's head, pausing as Nidhug blinked slowly at them, and pressed it to a space by the steaming nostrils. He met with his lover's gaze, hand still on Johann's. "Thank you," he swallowed - glad for the cold rain to hide the emotion. "She hasn't very long. Tonight, we think, or tomorrow."

Nidhug growled, perhaps in understanding of tone more than words, another rumble in her chest. It reverberated through her and tickled their fingertips. Balfour closed his eyes for a moment and savoured the feeling of something living and breathing beneath his hands.

Something magnificent. He was so grateful to be able to share it with Johann, this sensation. It gave him a notion of peace to have these two worlds in one space.

Johann's breath caught in his throat as he watched Balfour reach out and touch Nidhug. The sight of all her teeth within feet of him induced an instinctive transfer of weight backwards, anticipating the need to flee. Balfour's hand held him in place, and the relaxed tension in his partner's arm reminded Johann of the advice before the visit. If he was nervous, like most animals, they would become nervous. A sixty-foot, sick and nervous hungarian horntail was curtains. Enormous scaly curtains.

There was such a great heat from her, it quite surprised him. His hand felt as if it were pressed to a cauldron sat warming on the fire. He'd felt dragon hide, but never on the animal itself. Although as he understood, Nidhug's scales were deteriorating with the illness, they were still quite something in comparison. Magnificent, intricate. He was fascinated, his fingertips tentatively feeling while Balfour pressed his hand to the scales with enough pressure that the dragon would understand.

Amazed, Johann shook his head gently, taking it all in. He was touching a Hungarian Horntail. Things he'd read about in books, seen in photos, heard more than a dozen stories about over drinks in and out of Death & Co. He looked to Balfour, sobered by his words, remembering at once that this was only possible because this extraordinary, incredible creature was dying. It was the most bittersweet consideration, and Johann's fingers curled lacing with Balfour's, a lump in his own throat for the words and the expression adopted to deliver.

"Ahh!" Johann exclaimed quietly at the sensation beneath his hand of Nidhug. "It's not fair, not fair at all." He murmured to the dragon, shaking his head, "But, all things will die." Johann swallowed, sinking to a crouch balanced on the balls of his feet. His cold limbs felt glad of her warmth. "The stream will cease to flow, the wind will cease to blow; the clouds will cease to fleet…" He stroked his hand gently, steadying his tone, "… the heart will cease to beat; For all things must die.All things must die." Despite himself, he sniffed and wiped at the end of his nose, blinking and looking away from Balfour down the mountainous form of Nidhug lying in the valley.

"Ugh," he coughed softly, feeling so very sad. It was a shared sadness, Balfour's sorrow which he shouldered because it mattered so very much.  Johann wiped his eyes, remembering he was meant to be there for them both, even if he was unsure how much comfort he would be to a dragon when he didn't speak its language. "Is there anything to make her more comfortable, to make it easier?" He asked, the faint chatter in his mind sarcastically suggested he might donate two week's worth of sleeping potion. It would be worth every drop.

The plunging, sorrowful feeling in his chest was soothed only by his partner's voice.


It was one of the first things you were taught as a child on the Spectre estate - the trees, the plants, the animals will die. Often they will die while we continue to live on. As it turned out, knowing something did little to prepare you for the actuality of losing someone you loved. Balfour thought of how he might have lost Johann late last year.

He looked at the other wizard, words stuck thickly in his throat as he tried hopelessly to wipe away tears lost to the downpour. Nidhug blinked again but this time closed her eye tiredly even as she continued to breathe; he felt the rise and fall of each shallow breath with one side of his hand, Johann with the other.

Balfour dropped to muddy earth, joining him, knees resting against the slop of soiled and melting snow.

"No. We've... tried. She won't take anything," he pulled himself together to respond but the crack in his voice gave it away. "I couldn't save--  I kn-know it wasn't my fault..." Balfour sighed deeply and leaned his forehead against Johann's shoulder, holding on to the sleeve of his Anorak with his free hand.

Nidhug was the last of the infected. He thought that maybe she held on for as long as she did to have that ridiculous honour, some final way of saying she wouldn't give up without a struggle (and with dragons, everything was a struggle).

He swallowed back a sniffle. Knox and Johann and beautiful, dying creatures. Every now and then they all made him feel like a little boy with nowhere else to go.

"Could we stay until she...?" Balfour didn't look up as he asked. "You don't have to. I don't mean to make you come out like this."

There was, at the end of this night, the promise of curling up in bed with Johann, the both of them dry and warm. In each other's arms. Just not yet.

He'd known and fought her for so long. Had told her about Johann with feverish joy - gods knew if dragons really understood, he liked to think so. Had spoken to her about Alex, how much his goddaughter had grown, how proud he was. About being an uncle, about love, the natural world, the stars, poetry, love. Everything that would die with her.

Balfour slid his hands away from both dragon and wizard, to press the heels of them to his eyes. "We're going to catch cold," he muttered with a sad laugh. "I'm so sorry."

Johann stayed steady as Balfour rested his head.
"No, it's not your fault." He echoed, going to kiss the top of Balfour's head instinctively. He realised the two of them had their hoods up, slick with rain, so he turned his head instead and rested it against his lover's instead. Their anorak hoods swished against each other, but otherwise all was quiet in the valley. Nidhug's warm breath came with a faint rattle, smoke from her nostrils snaking up through the raindrops. He followed it up into the sky until the water stung his eyes.

"We're staying." Johann replied firmly to Balfour's suggestion he wasn't expected to stay. He'd asked if we would stay. Despite the assurance, it was spoken with affection to the other wizard. He could hear the emotion creeping into Balfour's voice without needing to see an expression. "I'll stay as long as you both need." They weren't expecting him in on Level Five and sleep would wait for love and beloved dragons drawing final breaths.

"Bah, what's a day or two of pepper-up potion." Johann shrugged off the almost certainty. "Steam rising from my ears might draw out a smile." He shuffled his feet and nodded to Nidhug's nose, "Ill timed impression, perhaps." He winced and ran his hand slowly over the dragon's scales, keeping a wary eye for any movement or suggestion it was causing her distress.

"She'll keep us warm enough." He lifted his other hand a moment to join his first, feeling more bold a moment to explore. The dragon's breath held a strange smell charred meet though as if a few days sat. The damp earth beneath and stone left a tang beneath it which Johann was sure would commit to deepest darkest memory, to spring up again at an unexpected moment and bring him right back. Death was sad, but death was marking the end of a journey, and each journey, and it's story, had a beginning.

"Tell me again," he began, switching hands to reach out and tug Balfour's anorak hood forward above his forehead to protect his face. "Tell me how you and the other girlfriend met." He tilted his head towards the girl in question. "How she fluttered her yellow eyes at you across the room and swayed her tail." He smiled and wiped a long finger down Balfour's nose, chasing away a drip.

Balfour glanced up, staring searchingly through shadow for his lover’s expression.

“I thought she would be the death of me,” he found the reassuring smile that had seen him through before, and shifted his soft gaze to Nidhug. It had been the first day at the Ministry, since he’d come back from being abroad. “She was magnificent, Johann. All fire and scales - she could breathe flames as far as she was long. Love at first sight.”

Nobody could say otherwise. They called him crazy for going right back the next day and the day after, trying to figure out why she’d been so difficult to handle. They never found out. Balfour thought that maybe she was lonely.

He felt a kinship with her.

His hand felt for Johann’s, breathing in deeply; he caught little of the smells, accustomed as he was to being around the creatures. What, to others, were formless silhouettes in the night, Balfour saw as familiar markers of a landscape often tread in worse conditions. He continued in a hoarse voice.

“Three rib bones broken and a dislocated shoul— careful, girl, it’s okay.”

The dragon’s long and spiked tail dragged across the valley floor, sending ripples through the mud and a tremor through the earth. Balfour slipped an arm across the other wizard - cautioning but not quite pulling him away from Nidhug. She made a raspy, booming noise in her throat that he recognised as a cough.

“Not long now,” he turned his head to look up at the closed eyelid, which fluttered uncertainly. Balfour looked back at Johann and leaned in so that the tip of their hoods touched, mist of breaths flirting. It means the world to me, he wanted to say, that you understand and accept this part of who I am.

That you want to be a part of it - even the sad and unbearable moments.

“I love you,” he said instead and let go of Johann to crawl a little closer to the dragon’s head, angling himself so that he could lean his right shoulder against the hard jawline while still holding his companion within sight. It worried him that she had no reaction to this.

Nidhug was burning up, a living volcano beneath her scaly surface. Balfour closed his eyes, determined to listen to her breathe until she no longer could.