Hermione recognized Nidhoggr, the dragon gnawing at the root of the world tree Yggdrasil. She’d loved mythology as a child—in the days before magic and dark lords became real—and spent hours poring over books of Greek and Norse legends. Hogwarts had concentrated on those legends that were true, and let the rest go. She had thought there was a kind of unease around the bloodier stories, a desire to shy away from ugly topics.