Dumbledore chuckled and summoned himself a glass of lemonade as well.
"Zhang, drinking excessively won't improve your magical abilities. Otherwise, the most powerful people in the world would all be a bunch of drunks.
"But in reality, truly powerful wizards almost never drink to excess. Take me, for example."
Dumbledore winked at him, crossed his legs, and folded his hands over his knee. His tone grew a little more formal.
"Hagrid has already given me a general account of what happened.
"Zhang, I have always believed that people must take responsibility for their actions. I believe you would have escaped unharmed even if that dragon had gone berserk, but that does not mean what you did was right.
"The Ministry of Magic originally intended to launch a thorough investigation into the illegal dragon-keeping and the breach of secrecy. After all, smuggling and privately keeping dragons are very serious offenses.
"But the pure-bloods rallying around your family brought their influence to bear and forced the matter to be dropped."
Zhang Xiao fell silent.
Had he really been a teenage boy, he might have... no, he definitely would have resented it. I can protect myself. Who asked you to meddle?
I can go wherever I please. That's my freedom!
But Zhang Xiao knew perfectly well that, because of him, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, Madam Hooch... even Hagrid had spent almost the entire night worrying about him and running around on his behalf.
His father had been taking action too. On the surface, he had merely gotten drunk and taken a dragon out for a spin, but in reality, it had set a great many people in motion behind the scenes.
Dumbledore looked at him and said earnestly,
"Zhang, perhaps you already understand this, but I still wish to tell you: power must