Chapter 1: The Portuguese Blue-Belly

(post card of a local beach)

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I started writing this story in the fall of 2006 with the idea of depicting what the wizarding world might be in this country. I wanted it to start in the Algarve and then move on to the Açores. To do this I had to think of how this would happen, hence the invention of the Portuguese Blue-Belly.

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The Portuguese Blue-Belly is a dragon that is almost extinct. Unlike the Portuguese people who seem to thrive in other places all over the world, this particular breed of dragon cannot survive outside of his beach environment. Believe me, we have tried on several occasions to send the Blue-Belly to the dragon reserve in Romania and they pine away and die within months. Therefore, I, Bernardo Silva, am the keeper of these particular Blue-Bellies. There are deserted beaches here and there on the coast where there are sanctuaries set up for them that have muggle-repelling spells and are unplottable. They are quite shy and are most active at sunrise and sunset when they fly over the sea and catch fish and other types of seafood to eat. When they are sleeping they look like sand dunes because their scales are sand colored. Their belly and the undersides of their wings are sky blue. Their eyes are the color of the sea: one moment they are sea green, the next they are any shade of blue or grey depending on the state of the surrounding sea.

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Over the years, I have been able to get close to them. I'll never forget the day ten years ago when my family which consists of my wife, Julia, my sons Diego and Tiago and my daughter, Lena, was having a picnic near their beach. We had been clam digging all morning; I can still see little Lena in her pigtails digging furiously and not having much luck but having a good time anyway.

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"Mama, look! I got one!" she screamed with pleasure; she was only seven at the time. My two boys were having better luck but they were older and better at it; they each had a bucketfull.

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"Pai#, can we stop now? We already have a bucketfull," they asked, then silently waited for an answer. They were such good looking boys; dark hair and eyes just like their dad, already eight and nine years old.

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"Yes, I can see that you have plenty of clams, go ahead and play but don't go too far," I ordered. So they started building sand castles and I told Lena to go ahead and join them.

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I stole a look at my beloved wife, Julia; after ten years of marriage, we were still going strong, there she was with her beautiful light brown hair streaked with blonde and laughing hazel eyes. We looked at each other and smiled.

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"Why don't you read the newspaper or something, I'll start on these clams with the help of the elves," she remarked with a twinkle in her eye.

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While Julia started preparing the clams with the help of the elves, I sat down and started reading my newspaper, 'Diário Diário§' or D.D. as everyone in the wizarding world called it. I had one eye on the paper and one eye on the kids.

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When Julia and the house elves started the actual cooking, a lovely mouth watering smell filled the air. After one intake of heaven, I noticed that the dragons were coming over sniffing the air. They were not going for the kids, apparently they really enjoyed the aroma of the clams we were going to eat, so I managed to get Julia's attention and she backed off with the house elves. The dragons came over and ate every last clam that was in the cauldron shells and all. We were delighted even though we didn't get any clams!

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That was the beginning of our family's relationship with the dragons. We decided to name the male dragon Omar and the female Marisa. The dragons were young at the time and ever since that day of the clams we have spent many happy hours in each other's company (and countless clams!).

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When my sons went to the USA on a school trip five years ago, they brought back some enchanted surf boards. I thought they were pretty cool myself; I really enjoyed surfing knowing I wasn't going to fall off. The dragons though, were on them every chance they got! They spent hours on those unsinkable boards just having fun, they only stopped recently when Marisa laid her first batch of eggs. I guess you could say that responsibility has kicked in now that there was going to be a family to take care of.

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As well as being the keeper of these Blue-Belly dragons, I also manage my part of the magical forest of the Algarve together with my wife and about a hundred house elves. My two sons, Diego and Tiago, have already grown up and are now living and working in Lisbon. My daughter, Lena, has just graduated from the Tambangaisa Academy for witches and wizards. She will be staying on at the school as a caretaker of the greenhouses.

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One day early in the morning I was checking some trees lining their beach for bowtruckles and wand quality wood with two of our house elves, Jojo and Mojo, when we stopped and admired the two dragons. As I gazed at the sea from the pine covered cliff I was standing on, I could see Omar flying lazily in circles looking for something to eat. The sun was just coming up. Suddenly Omar dove into the water and flew out clutching two squid and a cuttlefish. Flying to the shore he landed and proceeded to gently roast his food with his firey breath. I could see his sky blue belly and underwings as he sat there enjoying his meal. Marisa was guarding her shell pink eggs in the nest made out of dried sea weed, gently breathing fire on them every now and then. After a last look at her eggs, she flew off over the water to get something to eat. She finally spotted something and dove in, however, she came up out of the water fighting a shark which was biting her as she blasted her most intense fire at him. The shark gave up badly burned but Marisa's front paw was in bad shape. Omar rushed out to help her get back to dry land.

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I could see that she was bleeding badly, so I rounded up Jojo and Mojo and we hurried down to the beach for a closer look. Although the blue-belly is not very large; it's about the size of a big horse, its breath is the hottest of all known dragons when it gets really angry. When we got to the beach, we stopped to give Omar time to see us; it's not a good idea to rush at a dragon, and he looked at us with his eyes that were the exact color of the ocean behind him as he silently begged me to help his mate. I grabbed one of the surf boards, that had been left on the beach and transfigured it into a stretcher with my wand. The I placed Marisa gently on it with the help of Omar, Jojo and Mojo. I strapped the stretcher under my broom and set off for home, Jojo and Mojo had already apparated.

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#pai-father

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§diário diário-daily diary