Tom Collivander and the Order of the Thunderbird, A Potter Parody

by Jonathan Lockwood

  *

  Apart from the odd conversation with Ryan, Clara or Hermione, Tom kept to himself for the rest of the holiday. He’d spent so much time sorting out problems with other people that he just wanted to take a step back and have some time for himself. He spent most of his time in the gym, bulking up, sometimes with Ryan. By the end of the holiday, he’d improved his bench press by 20kg to a mean 150kg.

  The day before term started, students arrived back at Hogwash, mainly by fire powder. It was an odd experience, even for a wizard, to be sitting in the Ravensnore common room, reading a book, whilst about 100 people came shooting out of the fire place within a few hours.

  The book he was reading was a spin off from Newt Scamander, Fantastic beasts and how to cook them. It had been a late Christmas present from Bonky. He’d just reached a section on roasting a chimera when Amber appeared out of the fire place. She flung herself into his arms once she spotted him and they caught up on their separate holidays. Or rather Amber told Tom about hers and he listened. It turned out that she had been on a hiking trip in the Lake District. As she recalled a particular incident involving a cat, her father and a patch of black ice, Mark came out of the fire place. He took one look at Tom and Amber and said in a commanding voice, “Quidditch meeting, now.”

  Tom was surprised to hear the tone of Mark’s voice. He normally sounded so laid back. “What’s up?”

  “I’ll explain when the whole team is here. Go find them will you?”

  It took 10 minutes for Tom and Amber to get back to Mark with the rest of the team. He’d cleared out a corner of the common room so that they could have some space and privacy. Mark and Ryan man hugged and then Ryan sat down with the rest of the team and Mark spoke. “First off, I think I speak for the team when I say Amber and Tom, congratulations on sorting things out between you two, we’re all happy for you.” There was a general murmur of agreement. “Secondly however, I want to warn the two of you. If relationships go sour, it can be the breaking of a team. Please don’t let that happen. I like both of you but if you get in the way of our cup chances, I’ll have to remove you from the team. Something I’d rather not do as you are both miles better than any alternative that I’m aware of.”

  They both said, “We understand. We hope it doesn’t come to that either.”

  Mark nodded and continued. “Good. Now that that’s out of the way, I want to draw your attention to our upcoming match against Slytherdin. We only scraped a win last game, that can’t happen again. We have the most talent of all the houses but we need to go out and prove it. That is why I’m scheduling practise three times a week from now until the match in three weeks’ time.”

  Everyone agreed. They all wanted that cup and were willing to put in the work to get it.

  “I’m surprised. I thought you’d all groan at the prospect. It’s good to see you taking this as seriously as me,” said Mark.

  “You can count on us,” said Cho.

  “We’re with you,” added Natalie.

  “We’ve got your back,” finished Ryan.

  “Excellent. Well, that’s all I wanted to say. First practise is tomorrow at 8, see you then.”

  Tom spent the rest of the day with Amber in his room. They didn’t discuss much but just being with each other made them happy. The next day term started again and Hogwash got back to normal day to day functioning. The teachers were all much stricter this side of Christmas. They kept drilling into the minds of the fifth years how close there exams were and how important they were for their futures. This also meant that the students had to spend more of their free time completing extravagant homework. Due to Tom’s natural academic ability, he didn’t require much more time to do the homework than before, leaving him time to pursue his own activities. Since Mark had returned, Tom and Ryan had showed him the gym as well so now they sometimes worked out together. He’d also devising plans for how he was going to trick Harry into letting him teach him.

  He had been planning to do it during the next DL meeting. However, a week had passed and Harry still hadn’t scheduled one so Tom decided to try a different approach. He planned to use what leverage he had to his advantage and that leverage was Hermione. He started to text her before realising that he hadn’t told her, or anyone else, the really clever part of his phone signal discovery. By the way he’d made the magic work, each individual device had to be tinkered with, by him, to work on the Hogwash network. This sounds like a nuisance but it meant that Tom could regulate who was using phones at Hogwash.

  He’d already tinkered with Amber’s before giving it to her but currently, they were the only two. With that in mind, he sought out Hermione during their next lesson together, care of magical creatures. It was the perfect class to do it in because they weren’t limited on space and whatever creature they were studying usually made a lot of noise. This week, it was sphinxes (a baby one thankfully).

  “Tom, what’s up?” asked Hermione, bewildered, as she saw him come over.

  “I need to borrow your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it doesn’t work at the moment, haven’t you noticed?”

  “How do you know it isn’t working?”

  “Hermione remember, I designed the network. No device will work at Hogwash unless I al-tinker with it.” He’d almost said allow, which would have made him sound like some kind of dictator.

  “Oh, of course. I think I’ve got it here,” she said and rummaged around in her bag till she found it. “Here you go.”

  She passed it over as they heard Hogrod raise his voice. “Come on Hermione, you’ll know the answer.”

  She looked flustered, turned around and said, “Sorry, can you repeat the question?”

  “What’s the proper way to feed a baby sphinx?”

  “Oh, one person needs to hold it by the back of the neck so it can’t pounce or bite you whilst another feeds it pretty much any animal from a distance. By putting the meat on the end of a stick for example.”

  “Excellent, 10 points to Gryffinchair. Can you show the class how to do it? Ron can help you out.” She looked worried at the prospect but agreed and went over to the animal.

  Whilst the class was distracted, Hogrod leaned into Tom and whispered, “Come to my hut tonight, 7pm.”

  He said nothing more and went back to the class to ensure their safety. Tom assumed it had to be about Lyrotth and got all excited. The rest of the day couldn’t go quickly enough for him. He was eager to see the dragon again. At 7pm sharp, he knocked on Hogrod’s door.

  Hogrod opened up. “Good, you’re here. Just wait a moment.” He went back inside and Tom heard a series of bangs and crashes. Moments later, Hogrod came back out with a coat on and a crossbow in hand. “What’s that for Hogrod?” Tom asked, pointing at the crossbow.

  “Just a precaution. The centaurs are getting angrier by the day and they can get seriously dangerous. They once led a riot in the forest to get rid of all the unicorns.”

  “I didn’t know there are unicorns in the forest!”

  “There aren’t. The centaurs succeeded,” said Hogrod, regretfully.

  Tom offered his condolences and they set off into the forest in a rather somber mood. They followed the same route as before and this time, Tom had a vague idea what path they were taking to reach Lyrotth. It seemed to take less time than before and soon they were at the clearing. “She’s grown!” was Tom’s immediate response.

  “Aye, they grow pretty quick. Dragons do when they’re young. Only problem is they never stop growing and they can live forever, some say.”

  “She’s young!”

  “Oh yeah, only 4 years old.”

  “No way! She’s the size of a house.”

  Hogrod chuckled and said, “Now listen, I haven’t just brought you here for fun. Remember last time, you stayed back here whilst I went over? Well this time, I want you to get closer. Not too close. Stand about 20 feet in front of her and wait. I’ll be on hand in case anything goes wrong.”


  Tom was amazed at himself that he went through with it. In the end, his curiosity outweighed his fear and he headed into the clearing. Lyrotth started to growl but didn’t move so Tom continued walking till he was 20 feet away. After a few minutes of him standing there, she looked up at him and stared into his eyes. It unnerved Tom but he stared back. She stopped staring fairly quickly and started to groom herself. Tom thought it was safe to look away and he turned to find Hogrod. Hogrod beckoned him over, away from Lyrotth.

  “Excellent. Lyrotth is taking to you Tom.”

  “How can you tell? She barely even looked at me.”

  “It’s not just about visuals with dragons. They have much keener senses than we humans do. She will have been smelling you. Not just your scent though. Dragons have the ability to smell emotions. They can find out who a person really is. They can feel inside your soul and sense your being.”

  “How come I’ve not learnt about this?” he asked in astonishment.

  “It’s not common knowledge. Few know the true powers of dragons. This is just one of the talents I know of and expect they can do more than what I know.”

  “Can I get closer?” Tom asked eagerly.

  “Not tonight Tom, you’ve done enough for one day. Come back with me again tomorrow at 7 and you can try then.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  The trip back to Hogrod’s cabin went without incident, thankfully. Tom bade goodnight to Hogrod and went back to his room, where he modified Hermione’s phone before turning in. He found it hard to sleep that night, knowing that tomorrow he might actually touch a live dragon.