Moonpetal and Frost-scar Moss

"Merlin's beard!" Ron exclaimed. "It's a dragon egg!"

"That's right! It's a Norwegian Ridgeback egg!" Hagrid's face lit up with a proud, besotted smile, like a father about to welcome his first child. "I won it from a strange man in a cloak at the Hog's Head last night! I've always wanted a dragon, and now I finally have one!"

Harry and Hermione were both stunned.

Hermione quickly recovered from her shock, her face filled with worry.

"Hagrid! Have you gone mad? Keeping a dragon is against the law! The Ministry of Magic passed the Ban on Experimental Breeding of Dragons over a hundred years ago! They'll take your dragon away, and they might even send you to Azkaban!"

"That's only because they don't know how to get along with dragons!" Hagrid waved a hand dismissively. "Norwegian Ridgebacks are very gentle, as long as you understand them. I'll raise this one just fine, just like my little Fluffy!"

Lin Yuan slowly walked over to the table and reached out a finger, as if he wanted to touch the dragon egg.

"Don't touch it! It's hot!" Hagrid cried nervously.

Lin Yuan's finger stopped an inch from the shell.

He closed his eyes, as if sensing something.

A moment later, he opened his eyes and looked at Hagrid.

"Keeping a dragon is indeed against the law. It'll bring you trouble in the ordinary world."

He paused, his tone growing more solemn.

"But more importantly, its presence is like a torch in the night, drawing the attention of those driven by desire and darkness. Some things are far more dangerous than Ministry officials."

Harry and Hermione understood the warning in Lin Yuan's words.

They knew that the "unwanted attention" he meant was very likely Snape!

He would surely be drawn to the dragon egg, too, and seize the chance to find out how to get into the restricted area on the fourth floor!

But Hagrid was still caught up in the joy of having his own little dragon. Lin Yuan's Zen-like warning went in one ear and out the other.

"You do love saying mysterious things," Hagrid muttered, lovingly wiping the hot egg with a soft cloth. "My little darling won't attract anything bad. I'll protect it."

Watching Hagrid remain so stubbornly set on his course, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all felt their hearts sink.

They had a premonition that a huge problem was slowly hatching inside the little wooden hut.

The trouble came sooner than they'd imagined.

A few nights later, an owl brought them a hastily scrawled note with just two words: "It's hatching!"

The three of them immediately pulled on the Invisibility Cloak and hurried to Hagrid's Hut in the middle of the night.

As soon as they stepped inside, they saw Hagrid kneeling on the floor, drenched in sweat, his eyes fixed on the dragon egg on the table.

The egg was shaking violently now. More and more cracks spread across its shell, and it made a crisp cracking sound. Blinding golden-red light burst through the fissures, making the entire hut look like the inside of a steel furnace.

"Bang!"

With a loud crash, the shell shattered completely.

A little black creature, wrinkled all over, struggled out of the fragments.

It didn't look cute at all.

It looked more like a shabby black umbrella that had learned to walk.

Its body was scrawny, a pair of absurdly large wings stuck to its back like a bat's, and tiny sparks kept puffing from its nostrils.

"Isn't it... adorable?" Hagrid gazed at the dragon, his voice choked with emotion and brimming with a father's love.

He reached out to stroke the little dragon's head.

But the dragon whipped its head around, opened its mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, and let out a spiteful sneeze.

A few sparks landed on Hagrid's beard, filling the air with the stink of singed hair.

"Good heavens," Ron whispered. "It looks vicious."

"It's not vicious! It just doesn't know you yet!" Hagrid immediately defended his "child," then announced, "I'm going to give it a name. How about... Norbert!"

Norbert clearly didn't think much of his name.

He wobbled a few steps across the table, then spotted Ron, who was pointing at him.

Maybe Ron's red hair stood out in the firelight, or maybe Norbert simply didn't like the look of him.

He suddenly flapped his misshapen wings and launched himself at Ron like a little black cannonball!

"Ah!"

Ron screamed. Norbert had already sunk his teeth into his hand.

With a piercing cry, Ron snatched his hand back.

Several deep puncture wounds stood out on the back of his hand. The skin around them blackened and began to rot before their eyes, and the stench of burning protein instantly filled the hut.

"Oh, Merlin's beard!" Hagrid cried, flustered.

Hermione went deathly pale, and Harry was at a loss.

"Quick! Get him to the Hospital Wing!"

"No! If Madam Pomfrey finds out it was a dragon, Hagrid will be done for!"

The hut descended into chaos.

Just then, Lin Yuan stood up.

His calm voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable authority that instantly cut through the commotion.

"Everyone, stay calm."

He walked over to Ron, who was grimacing in pain, and looked at his hand, which had already begun to swell and turn black.

"Dragon venom has entered his body, and the fire poison is attacking his heart. An ordinary healing spell won't work. It'll only make the poison more active," he said matter-of-factly.

"What do we do? It feels like I'm going to lose my hand!" Ron cried.

Lin Yuan didn't answer. Instead, he turned and pushed open the hut door.

"Lin Yuan? Where are you going?" Harry asked, confused.

Without looking back, Lin Yuan scanned the ground around the hut.

The edge of the Forbidden Forest was dark and damp, and many unusual magical plants grew there. His mind worked like an extraordinarily efficient processor, swiftly matching what he saw with his knowledge of Herbology.

Soon, his gaze settled on a damp, shadowy corner where enormous tree roots sprawled across the ground.

A few unremarkable plants grew there, their leaves speckled with silver as though they held the light of the moon.

Beside them grew a dark green moss that hugged the ground and felt cool to the touch.

"Moonpetal is cold in nature and can counteract fire poison. Frost-scar Moss is a powerful painkiller and promotes tissue regeneration."

He quickly stepped forward and carefully picked several Moonpetal leaves and a small piece of Frost-scar Moss.

His movements were so practiced that he looked like an experienced Potions master.

Back inside, he poured a little hot water from the kettle by the fireplace into a bowl, then added the two plants and quickly mashed and mixed them with a wooden stick.

Before long, he had made a bowl of dark green paste that gave off a fresh, herbal scent.

"Hold out your hand," he said to Ron.

Ron held out his hand, uncertain.

Lin Yuan dipped the stick into the warm paste and spread it evenly over Ron's wounds.

"Sss—"

When the paste touched the blackened wounds, it made a faint sound like cold water hitting a hot iron. Wisps of black smoke rose from the wounds—the dragon venom being neutralized.

Ron gave a low groan, but soon he was amazed to find that the burning pain was rapidly giving way to a cool, soothing sensation.

As Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid watched in shock, the blackened, swollen skin on the back of Ron's hand quickly returned to normal.

In less than a minute, the skin around the wounds had regained its natural color, leaving only a few punctures that were still oozing a little blood.

"This... this is incredible!" Hermione stammered. "I've read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. Moonpetal and Frost-scar Moss do have those properties, but they couldn't possibly work this fast! How... how did you do it?"

"It's just the proportions and the technique," Lin Yuan explained casually. "Eastern Herbology pays more attention to the way different ingredients work together—the 'sovereign, minister, assistant, and envoy'—to draw out their deepest medicinal properties. It's nothing complicated."

With the air of someone describing the most basic procedure, he made a craft capable of driving the Healers at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries wild with excitement sound utterly effortless.

His skill not only dealt perfectly with Ron's injury; it also raised Lin Yuan's image as a "mysterious and powerful Eastern genius" to an even higher level in the eyes of the trio and Hagrid.