Draco and the Dragon

One fine spring day, Richard was in the library, proof-reading his Arthimancy homework when Draco slid into the chair next to him.

"The gamekeeper has a dragon's egg," he whispered smugly.

"A what?" Richard said absentmindedly, scratching his ear with his quill.

"A dragon's egg. I heard Potter and Weasley talking about it."

"That's illegal," Richard mumbled.

"That's right." Draco smirked. "Think it'll hatch?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Richard frowned over his parchment.

Richard was lost in the assignment and barely noticed when Draco slipped away.

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While passing in a corridor between classes, Draco caught Richard's sleeve. "How big do you think the egg would be?"

"Egg?"

"The dragon egg."

"I don't know. Probably the same as the ones we saw on our field trips. As big as your book." He pointed to the one Draco was holding.

The boy looked at the book in awe.

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Richard was finishing dinner in the Great Hall. Draco slid onto the bench beside him.

"How long do you think it will be before it hatches? The dragon egg," Draco asked eagerly.

"I think five weeks, maybe six: I don't know. Ask Cedric Diggory. His dad knows dragons. Or one of the Weasleys -- their brother works with them."

"You go ask, then tell me!" the eleven-year-old ordered, his grey eyes shining.

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Richard was outside the castle that evening with Matt and some other Ravenclaws, watching birds and identifying them for their Care of Magical Creatures homework. Draco hovered hesitatingly outside the group.

Richard sighed and walked over to him. Speaking lowly, he told Draco, "I asked Professor Kettleburn, and he said it depends upon the species. Four to seven weeks."

Draco nodded and grinned, and then ran back to the castle.

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A few weeks later, during morning break, Richard was sitting in his favourite window in the Ravenclaw Rehearsal room, reviewing his History notes and trying to remember where Ballindaloch Castle was when the door flew open and Draco burst in.

Draco looked hurriedly around the empty room and then slammed the door shut. "Hagridhasadragon!"

Richard peered back, puzzled. "Huh?"

Draco glared at him and took a deep breath, willing himself to speak slower. "Hagrid has a dragon. There's a dragon. In Hagrid's hut."

"That hut is too small for a dragon."

"It just hatched."

"What?"

"It just hatched! It was BRILLIANT! I saw through the window! Hagrid has a baby dragon in his hut! We could get it for my dad. It's just a baby." The eleven-year-old boy exclaimed hurriedly.

The twelve-year-old boy frowned thoughtfully. "I think possession of a dragon is illegal. And the gamekeeper lives in a wooden hut. Why would he have a dragon?" Richard put the book on a nearby shelf, and then climbed out of the window and sat on the floor beneath it, where he could lean back while he watched Draco pace back and forth.

Draco was very excited. "That oaf is always doing stupid things, collecting stupid animals, even when my father went to school here he was doing it. I don't know how he got one, but I saw it. What if it were an Hungarian Horntail! My father would love it!"

"Well, if it were a Welsh Green, we could give it to my mum, or if it were a Hebridean Black, maybe Professor McGonagall could keep it in Gryffindor Tower. And Flitwick collects likes to collect Chinese Fireballs; you should see his office. But it's still illegal, and dangerous. He lives in a wooden hut. Where would your dad keep it? In a barn? What would your mother say? How do you know Hagrid has one?"

"I just told you, I saw it. I followed Potter…"

Richard snorted.

"…And watched through the window. I ran off before they could see me."

"I'm sure they saw you," Richard replied grimly. Draco didn't have the slightest idea of subtlety.

"Anyway, there it is. Do you want to see it?" He stopped pacing and waited.

Richard gave an exasperated sigh. "Sure, you and I will go up and knock on his door. 'Excuse me, Mr. Gamekeeper, but may we please see your highly illegal and extremely dangerous baby dragon? We promise not to tell more that twenty people, the Ministry of Magic, and at least one school governor. Actually, hand him over to us right now, and we promise to only tell the governor.'" He smirked at Draco.

The eleven-year old boy looked relieved. "That's exactly what you'll do. We can do it tonight!"

Richard shook his head. "Can't. Got detention."

Draco frowned. "Not Quirrell, again."

Richard nodded.

"Can't you stay out of trouble in his class?" he whined.

"I wasn't in class. Cormac McLaggen spilled his books all over the Charms corridor and I was Summoning them when Quirrell saw me using magic and gave me detention. Any other teacher probably would have taken points, Flitwick would have given points, and Filch would have made some snide remarks, but it was Quirrell."

Draco snorted. "That's what you get for being a Mungo and helping idiots. When will you be done with detention?"

"Probably after I write, 'I will not use magic in the school corridors' one thousand times. Do you know how many quills that takes?"

"Hope I never find out," Draco sneered.

"Anyway, it'll probably be really dark when I'm done. And I don't fancy taking strolls across the school lawn at night."

"Is it a full moon tonight?" Draco asked, peering out the window.

"Don't know and it doesn't matter. There's other stuff in the Forbidden Forest, and I doubt if they stay in there all night. It's dinnertime, we've got to go."

Draco glared at him. "Well, a lot of help you are, Gitfellow."

"Anytime, Dray," Richard replied as he got up off the floor.

Draco slammed the door on his way out.

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A couple of weeks later, Richard was in the Potions classroom doing his daily inventory of the Potions cupboard. Draco was sitting on a table behind him in the darkened classroom, fingering a letter he'd gotten out of a book he took from Ron Weasley. The letter told when Charlie Weasley's friends were coming to secretly collect the baby dragon.

"Look, isn't there anyway you can skip out of detention tonight? Potter's going to be taking the dragon away," he whined. "A real live Norwegian Ridgeback! Don't you want to see it?"

"You've told me that ten times already," Richard answered, exasperated. "If I could get out of it, don't you think I would have? I know what it's going to be: 'I will not throw ink-bottles', one thousand times. This teacher is going to kill me with all these stupid detentions. I wasn't throwing ink-bottles! I didn't throw any ink-bottle! I didn't even touch it! Anyone else in that classroom could have made it fly, and I'm the one who gets the blame! Would you mind helping me out here? Just take notes, please? If I'm late, it'll probably be another thousand."

"Course not," Draco coolly replied. "You need the hand exercise. They're coming at midnight. You should be done by then."

"At midnight, the Professor is patrolling the corridors. Looks like we need another four jars of beetle eyes. Where did they all go?" he wondered aloud as he made his notes. "Besides, didn't a Norwegian Ridgeback kill your uncle? You saw what it did to Weasley's hand."

"Snape wouldn't be at the Astronomy Tower then, would he, if he's in the corridors." Draco smirked. "Forget Weasley. And I don't know if a Ridgeback killed my uncle or if it was some other dragon. He died before I was born. And that's how my father inherited the money, and that's how he paid for you, so it was a good thing, then, or who knows what would have happened to either of us. Maybe that's why my parents named me Draco, in honour of the dragon that made them rich."

Richard peered into a barrel of pickled slugs. "Your father probably would be in the World Cup, playing Beater, you'd probably have a different mother, and you'd be going to school at Durmstrang. Maybe you would have been 'Draco' anyway. I still would have been born at Castlerigg, but I would have had someone else be my benefactor, I'd have a different last name, but I'd still be here at Hogwarts, and I'd still have detention with Quirrell in that stinking office. Two more bags of nettles."

"It'll be worth it to see the dragon! Can't you come after detention?"

"Looks like someone's been in the cinnamon sticks again. Why doesn't he just ward this cupboard?" Richard frowned, counting the contents of the box. "After my detentions, Quirrell escorts me to the Ravenclaw mirror, and makes sure I get into the common room. Between him and the Professor, Filch, Peeves, the tell-tale Bloody Baron, and the fact that the stairs between floors five and six are gone at eleven p.m., what are my chances of getting over to the Astronomy Tower?" He went back to talking to himself, "Need another four jars of slugs, five more pounds of Boomslang skin, the Doxy eggs need to be replaced – there's a stink – and… "

Draco gave a long sigh. "Gitfellow, Gitfellow, where is your sense of adventure?"

"Tucked up in bed. Dray, you're sitting on my extra parchment."

Draco stood up and let Richard retrieve the parchment.

"You'll be missing out. When will we ever see a Norwegian Ridgeback up close?"

"One of these days, Potter's going to get you for all this spying on him."

"Blast Potter."

"Well said. That's probably what the dragon will do to him, and you'll be rid of him." Richard gave a final count to the bottles on the bottom shelf and shut the cupboard.

"Why don't you have Crabbe or Goyle go with you?"

"Because they don't understand how important this is, and you do!" Draco pointed out.

"I'm flattered, but I still just can't, as much as I want to," Richard replied, making a final note and placing it on the teacher's desk.

"Well, can you at least help me with my History now?" Draco whined, pulling out the assignment from his book bag.

"Sure." Richard sighed, glancing at the hourglass. "Hand it over." The two boys sat down at a table and went over the younger boy's essay, and then it was time for Richard to go to Quirrell's office.

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The teacher sat doing paperwork. Behind him was a large mirror, reflecting the back of the turban. The reflection of the turban seemed to stare down at the boy as he silently squirmed in boredom as he wrote the same line one thousand times: "I will not throw inkbottles". When it was over, the teacher silently walked the student to the Ravenclaw tower, where a two-way mirror covered its entrance. Richard gave the password ("Charles Dodgson") and went through the mirror.

Richard crouched on the other side of the mirror, watched Quirrell leave, and waited a few more minutes, in case the teacher returned. It annoyed him that Quirrell now knew the new password, and he wondered if the teacher snuck into the common room after dark, and then dismissed the thought as foolishness. He went to his room where everyone else was asleep. He ate the dinner roll he had saved for this time, and went back down to the common room for a few more minutes. It was now eleven fifteen. He decided to make a try to see the dragon. After all, it was still a baby, and he'd missed all his other chances of going to Hagrid's hut.

He slipped back out the mirror, and made his way over to the missing stairs. He was sure there was a short-cut, but where? A ghostly shimmer nearby caught his eye, and Richard felt a rush of relief; the Grey Lady would know how to get around the stairs!

A short while later, Richard carefully made his way past the third floor corridor, which had no odour this time. He was puzzled by it, but didn't stop to wonder. He almost made it to the tower door when he heard Draco and McGonagall's voices. Draco had been caught! Richard stopped, saw Mrs. Norris pussyfooting down the hallway, and knew that his chances of seeing the dragon were next to nil. He waited a while longer, but nothing else happened, so he went back to the Ravenclaw tower and back to bed.

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Breakfast brought the owls, and Draco's mother's daily package. Richard noticed that Draco look peaked and annoyed, and pushed the package aside without opening it. Then Draco scowled at him.

Richard took a breath and finished his cereal, drank down the last of his pumpkin juice and grabbed a hard-boiled egg. He excused himself from the Ravenclaw table and went over to the Slytherin table. Crabbe made way for him to sit next to Draco. Draco glared down at his plate, moving the bacon around in a circle.

"Blast Potter."

Richard glanced over to the Gryffindor Table and saw that Potter and his mates were leaving the Great Hall.

"You seem to be in one piece. So do they."

"The dragon's gone. You can tell by the big oaf, sitting there bawling." He glared at Hagrid, who looked sorrowful at the High Table. "I didn't even get to see it. A Norwegian Ridgeback. Now I'll never see one up close. Got caught before I could see it," he said sulkily.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. I did make it down there, but I was at the first floor landing when I heard you and McGonagall, so I didn't get to see it either. Sorry," he repeated.

"Yeah." Draco replied listlessly. "Now it's probably on its way to Romania, I'll bet. And I've got a stupid detention. What am I going to tell Father?" Draco looked at Richard for help.

"I don't tell him when I have detention, and I'm sure not going to waste any ink telling him about yours. Any idea what it'll be about?"

Draco shrugged. "Probably lines, like yours."

Richard remarked. "Then let me guess: You'll write, 'I will not delve after dragons,' one thousand times. It'll be dull, but you'll get through it. Any idea when?"

"I don't know." He scowled. "Maybe she'll forget it."

"She won't forget!" Richard said cheerfully. And with that, Richard gave a hearty clap on Draco's shoulder, a nod to Crabbe and Goyle, and headed off for class.

Author's Notes: beta-ed by Somigliana