Chinese Fireball Dragon

Introduction

Have you ever wondered how many dragon species are there in the world, and how those types are spread in much different areas of our globe?
Today we will talk about one of the most aggressive and stubborn dragons on Earth, and the only one whose nests have been discovered to be placed in Asia: the Chinese Fireball.

The Chinese Fireball, or Liondragon, is the only dragon species that lives in Asia, as previously mentioned and as the name may suggest. This dragon has been much studied by wizards and witches who have been deeply involved in magizoology research: Newt Scamander, the famous writer of “Fantastic beasts and where to find them”; Charles Weasley, also famous for his studies on Romanian Dragons; Quong Po, a Chinese dragonologist whose story will be soon covered in this class.

The Ministry of Magic has classified the dangerousness of this type of dragon with the maximum mark XXXXX: this means that the Chinese Fireball is a known wizard killer and impossible to train and domesticate.

Biology

Like all the other dragons, the Chinese Fireball is taxonomically linked to reptiles and birds, though very distant in the systematic tree, due to a much different anatomy and physiology, both related to the fact that this creature has magical powers, spitting fire being the most known one.

Equipped with smooth and scarlet flakes, the Chinese Fireball has a crown of golden tips around the chunky nose, and very protruding eyes. When angry, it emits a mushroom-like flame from its nostrils. It weights two to four tons and the female is much larger than the male. They build their nest into hidden caves that are built by the female on the mountains. The female produces one or two eggs every year. The eggs are crimson coloured and sprayed with gold; the eggshell has a lot of magical properties and it is much used by Chinese wizards and witches to perform different kinds of magic, from simple charms to very hard to brew potions. The Chinese Fireball is aggressive, though more tolerant than other dragons towards their own species: sometimes, it agrees to share its territory with up to two other specimens.

History

The magical properties of the eggshell of the Chinese Fireball have been discovered by the famous Chinese dragonologist and skilled potionist Quong Po (1443-1539).
Quong Po did a lot of research on this type of very dangerous dragon. He climbed mountains, cast powerful defence spells, was sent to the hospital many times because of several and severe wounds and burns. He risked his life many times in order to be able to collect at least one of those deep red and gold, big, beautiful eggs. He loved dragons and never wanted to hurt them; this made things be even more dangerous, since he would never use damaging spells on those creatures. After 30 years of research and attempts in stealing eggs, he finally succeeded in his purpose and brought an egg to his big laboratory in Beijing. He did not want to break the entire dragon egg, because he also wanted to put it in an incubator and wait for the hatching, so that he could then study the behaviour of the young dragon and then release it. He made a very small hole in the shell and collected just a little bit of yolk and a small piece of shell. He analysed the genetic material and did not find much in the yolk. Nevertheless, he found a lot of interesting features in the shell. In addition, he also found out that crushing the eggshell with a pestle and mortar would result in a fine powder that would increase the magical properties of the shell itself. He discovered that the powdered shell of the Chinese Fireball could be successfully added to many already existing potions in order to better some particular effects they have on the drinker.

The Chinese Fireball has been used in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament in 1994. Durmstrang student Victor Krum had to face this dragon in the attempt to steal the golden egg. He used the Conjunctivitis Curse to cause irritation in the dragon’s eyes and to make it temporarily blind. This made Victor steal the golden egg, but it also made the dragon break some of its real eggs, and this caused a loss of points for the Champion.