Chapter One: Bricks and Rumors 

Pheromonus was the sort of boy who made teachers sigh. Not because he was unkind or disruptive—although there were moments—but because he floated through his days like someone waiting for a far more interesting story to begin. 

He sat at the back of Algebra, pencil twirling between his fingers, occasionally flicking paper airplanes that landed with uncanny precision. Equations escaped him. He much preferred the geometry of baseball arcs or the science of social stunts. His locker was a shrine to disorganized boyhood: crumpled notes, game cards, and at least three lopsided baseball caps. 

What no one discussed aloud—but nearly everyone whispered—was how much time he spent locked in the boys’ bathroom. It was a mystery older than sophomore year. Some said he napped. Others claimed he practiced his speeches for the inevitable moment he’d ask a cheerleader out. Which cheerleader? Well… all of them, probably. 

Pheromonette, on the other hand, was a storm in a cardigan. 

Raised by a mother who believed that “an idle mind is the devil’s amusement park,” she never had a free moment. When she wasn’t buried in schoolwork, she gave lessons at of the local ice rink or volunteered in the hospital’s pediatric ward. She wore oversized sweatshirts and messy buns like armor, moving with the quiet efficiency of someone who didn’t expect life to slow down for her. 

But she noticed things. Especially him. 

They never spoke. Their classes were different, their friends moved in opposite circles, and yet—there were glances. Glances long enough to wonder. 

Chapter Two: When Fireflies Dance 

Prom arrived like a comet—sudden, glittery, and loud. Pheromonus went with a gang of friends, unwilling to choose between the many possible “maybes” on his radar. 

Pheromonette wore a dress the color of ashes of roses—soft, unusual, unforgettable. Her hair, normally twisted into thoughtless knots, fell in waves down her back. She was, in short, unrecognizable, and she liked it that way. 

She didn’t go with a date. She didn’t need to. 

Instead, she danced with her girls, arms locked together in something between a circle and chaos, laughing with abandon and bumping into people with absolutely no shame.

Pheromonus noticed. 

He crossed the floor to her as the DJ spun a melody no one could resist. “May I have this dance?” he asked, voice steadier than he expected. 

She looked up, and for a heartbeat, the entire gym fell away. 

“Sure,” she replied, smiling with a kind of quiet surprise that changed everything. 

The dance floor blurred. They stepped outside. The night was warm, fireflies stitched between shadows. There, under the moonlight, they began the first page of something neither of them had planned. 

Chapter Three: Shadows in the Foundation 

They fell into a rhythm as natural as seasons. They bowled through winter, lay under cherry blossoms in spring, dove into waves during summer, and walked on leaves that crunched like brittle gold through autumn. 

But when Pheromonus introduced her to his family, the dream fractured. 

His mother smiled politely but turned cold as porcelain. She offered warnings masked as concern. 

“She’s tired all the time, poor thing. Is that… ambition?” 

“She doesn’t come from our kind of people.” 

“She’s… distracting you.” 

Pheromonus didn’t argue. He didn’t rebel. He simply chose silence.one 

And so their love went underground, like something buried in frost. It didn’t die—it just hid. But they weren’t the only ones keeping secrets. 

The school had tried to build an auditorium for years. Every time construction began, something happened. Concrete crumbled. Steel twisted. Foundations collapsed without reason. Rumors grew louder—spirits, sabotage, cursed ground. 

Then, the headmaster, in a moment of theatrical desperation, announced a prize. “Whoever solves the mystery of the cursed auditorium will win their college fund.”

That night, students armed with energy drinks and sleeping bags staked out the site. Most fell asleep by midnight. 

But not Pheromonus and Pheromonette. 

Chapter Four: Fire Beneath Our Feet 

Nestled under the stars, the two nearly drifted off when a tremor rippled through the ground. A second later came the roar—low, primal, shaking the bones of the earth. 

They scrambled to the edge of the ruined foundation—and what they saw defied every storybook they’d ever read. 

There, beneath the ground, in a hidden crevice no one had known existed, two dragons fought. One red. One white. 

They twisted and clashed, flame against frost, rage against memory. Their roars split the night, and their breath scorched the air. The auditorium never stood a chance. 

Terrified, the two ran all the way to Pheromonette’s garden shed, where they sat until sunrise, hearts hammering, swearing secrecy. 

They needed help. 

So they went to the only adult who might believe them: Mr. Astericks, the school counselor. 

Chapter Five: The Man Who Found George 

Mr. Astericks had a way of appearing when students were most in need. He didn’t so much guide as illuminate. Most of his advice sounded like riddles, but they always seemed to work. 

This time, however, he listened in silence. No nods. No murmurs. Just a faraway look in his eyes. 

“Come back in a fortnight,” he said quietly. 

That night, something strange happened. The cactus on his windowsill bloomed—a single flower the color of flames. It was a sign. It always had been. 

He packed his bag and vanished into the Catskill Mountains..

Chapter Six: The Oracle of the Caves 

After days of travel and stranger dreams, Mr. Astericks found George. 

George defied category. He was neither man nor beast. He shimmered and shifted like a thought half-formed, and his laughter echoed even when he didn’t speak. 

George, it turned out, knew all about dragons. 

“They can’t be slain,” he said, sniffing at a strange mushroom. “Not these ones. They’re tied to the land. But they can be… relocated.” 

“To where?” asked Mr. Asterix. 

George’s eyes glinted. “Crooked Swamp Cave. Southern Jersey. A place where magic still sleeps.” 

“But how do we ask dragons to move?” 

“You don’t ask,” said George. “You think. Dragons read minds. They sense truth. No deceit. No tricks. If the intent is pure, they’ll listen.” 

Mr. Astericks returned with a plan. And two apples. 

Chapter Seven: The Fire Beneath the School 

Scene 1: The Final Campout 

The wind whispered across the school grounds, curling through the yellowing blades of grass and rattling the corners of the tent pitched near the half-built auditorium. Inside, three sleeping bags rustled slightly, their occupants silent but very much awake. 

Pheromonus stared up at the fabric ceiling above, heart thudding in his chest. Pheromonette lay beside him, her fingers twisted into the hem of her jumper. Mr. Astericks sat cross-legged near the entrance, his face lit only by the flicker of a dying torch. 

No one spoke. The weight of what they had come to do was too large, too strange for words. Suddenly, the earth shuddered. 

“Did you feel that?” whispered Pheromonette, sitting up. 

Before either boy could answer, the ground beneath them throbbed again—deep and rhythmic, as if something ancient stirred in its sleep.

The air changed. A faint scent of burnt metal and ozone drifted in. Then, from the half-built foundation ahead, a plume of orange flame burst skyward with a roar that turned blood cold. 

The dragons had returned. 

Scene 2: The Confrontation 

Pheromonus was on his feet before he had time to doubt himself. His knees trembled, but he clenched his fists and took a step forward. 

“We can’t run,” he said, voice louder than he meant it to be. “Not now.” 

Pheromonette joined him without a word, her face pale but resolved. Mr. Asterix sighed, pulling his coat tighter, and followed. 

The red dragon was first—bursting from the cracked earth like a volcano made flesh, its eyes a blaze of molten fury. It snapped at the sky, flames spiraling in whips of heat. 

Then came the white—gliding upward with a sound like ice cracking across a frozen lake. It hovered above them, ghostlike and quiet, smoke trailing from its nostrils in coils. 

Pheromonus held his ground, stepping into the scorched zone between the beasts. He lifted his hands. 

“We aren’t your enemies,” he said loudly. “We know you’re angry. But there’s a better place—somewhere you can fly free.” 

The red snarled. The white remained silent, its gaze fixed and unsettling. 

“They can hear your thoughts,” whispered Mr. Asterix urgently. “Think it. Every word. Every image.” 

Pheromonette closed her eyes, heart pounding. She pictured the Crooked Swamp Caves. Vast and forgotten. Safe. She sent them her memory of George’s description—sinkholes and silence, the smell of moss and untouched air. 

She let the dragons feel what she felt: that they were beautiful, but lost. That they deserved peace. 

The air shimmered. 

The dragons… paused.

Scene 3: The Choice 

There was no sound but the flutter of wings, the soft scrape of claws on earth. 

Then, slowly, the white dragon descended. Its snout lowered until it hovered just inches from Pheromonette’s face. She didn’t flinch. 

Instead, she met its gaze. “We’ll show you,” she thought, with everything she had. “We’ll keep it safe.” 

The red let out a sharp snort of flame—then followed the white, wings beating once, twice, and lifting them both into the sky. 

Together, they circled the ruins of the auditorium once… and vanished into the stars. No explosion. No final growl. Just a hush. 

The ground was still. The spell was broken. 

Pheromonus let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. 

Mr. Astericks grinned, hands on hips. “Well, I’ll be roasted on a Tuesday… it actually worked.” 

Scene 4: The Ribbon and the Rumors 

Two months later, the auditorium gleamed under a cloudless sky. 

The crowd gathered in waves—students, parents, faculty, and even a few skeptical contractors who still refused to walk near the foundation barefoot. 

The headmaster, wearing a bowtie in school colors, stepped onto the stage and cleared his throat. 

“It is with great pride, and still a fair amount of disbelief, that I declare the official opening of our auditorium!” 

The ribbon was cut. 

Applause roared. 

Pheromonus and Pheromonette stood to the side, hands almost touching. They were no longer just classmates or a secret couple. 

They were the students who had tamed dragons with nothing but hope.

Mr. Astericks clapped from the back, wearing a ridiculous pin of a dragon curled around a school bell. He gave them a subtle wink. 

Rumors would swirl for years. Some said they’d struck a deal with ancient spirits. Others believed the auditorium was protected by enchantments. No one guessed the truth. 

Not really. 

Scene 5: A Final Promise 

That spring, Pheromonus and Pheromonette returned one last time to the field, just as the cherry trees bloomed. 

They didn’t speak much. 

At the edge of the trees, Pheromonus bent down and scratched something into the bark with a small knife. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

He grinned. “Just leaving a message. In case they ever come back.” 

She peered at the carving. It read: 

“Here lies fire. Loved. Welcomed. Remembered.” 

She kissed his cheek. 

Far away, deep beneath the crooked caves of South Jersey, the dragons stirred in their slumber, warmed not by fire—but by memory. 

inspired by JK Rowling, co-created with ChatGPT