Disclaimer: Is there actually a point to putting this here? I mean, it's a fan fiction site, I would hope the original authors knew I'm not trying to steal their work.

"Now, I want this to be completely understood. Under absolutely no circumstances is Vitani's, as well as any other student, staff or faculty's, life to be threatened in this castle. The founders erected this school as a place of unity of learning and ideologies, not as a battleground and as such, any physical, mental or verbal acts of violence will not be tolerated in this school. Any such acts will garner detentions, suspensions and expulsions from Hogwarts. This proclamation is neither new nor original; it has always been a part of the foundation of order in this school. This is your first and only warning; heed it."

It was the first night back. Dumbledore stared out among the Slytherins spread throughout the common room. His usual ice-blue eyes were particularly cool as he spoke to them, and Vitani, standing next to Snape off to the side, could not think of a time he looked this grim except when the troll had broken into the castle. His strong voice, stance and gaze commanded all attention; even Malfoy and Pansy were somber and quiet as Dumbledore finished. He turned to address Snape.

"I would like a word with you in private, Professor Snape."

Snape gave a small curt nod and both exited through the stonewall to Snape's office across the corridor. The moment the wall sealed behind them the somber illusion shattered. It was as though they had all jolted from a deep sleep. She suspected that many of the Slytherins were more like opossums than snakes.

There was an instance of hesitation before the Slytherins jumped near Vitani, but Farley and Korn got between them.

"Suspensions and expulsions aren't a joke. Don't make an enemy out of someone that isn't a threat to you. You disagree, so what, big deal, you don't have to kill her over it. Get over yourselves; you're blowing this thing up out of proportion. Just ignore her, and if I hear one word of protest I'll hex you."

The Slytherins stared at the rigid, cross-armed stance of Gemma and Gary flexing his biceps, and grumbled as they all left the common room to their dorms. Vitani sighed as the last of the students filed through the doors. At that point she felt an arm being placed on the top of her head. Gemma was so much taller than she was; most people were taller than she was, so Gemma was using her head as an armrest.

"It's only your first year and already you're causing a ruckus," she said as she gave Vitani a noogie, "freshmen are so irritating."

Vitani released herself from Gemma's grasp and shook her hair back into place.

"Thanks so much Gemma; it's nice to hear you have so much faith in me."

"But I mean, seriously! You're like the cause of all the disruption in this house!" she laughed.

"I didn't exactly plan on turning the house upside-down."

"It is not your fault, this would have happened eventually."

They both turned to Korn, who was gazing out of one of the portholes into the murky lake water.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

He continued to stare out into the dark water and spoke.

"It is not uncommon for snakes, as well as consuming other animals, to hunt down their own."

He stood still, silently gazing into the water for a long moment as the two girls watched him. Then he turned swiftly, causing them to flinch, and made his way toward the boy's dorm. The two girls turned toward each other, one tiny, one tall, their eyebrows rose in bemusement.

Vitani broke the gaze and walked toward her dorm, Gemma following behind. She opened the first year door to be met with hushed whispers. When she closed the door behind her the whispers stopped. Pansy, Tracey and Millicent were all turned away from her, quietly unpacking the few belongings they had brought back home with them. Daphne was sitting on her bed watching them. She gave Vitani a sideward glance and shrugged.

It was going to be a very interesting spring.

It was on her way from Herbology that she saw him.

She had never gotten to know the gatekeeper other than the time he had brought all the first years to the castle. She saw him occasionally tending to the grounds, coming from the forest and at the staff table. A few times he had come over to the Gryffindor table when she had been there to talk to Harry and his friends. Without any real conversations with the overgrown man, she could only gather that he was a gentle giant, and overly friendly with the Gryffindors. Harry, Ron and Hermione certainly seemed to like him.

So it was odd when she saw him that morning, acting uncharacteristically secretive as he trekked across the grounds from the gates of the school to his small home. Rather than his usual open, gigantic person tromping away to work, he was slightly hunched over, futilely attempting to make himself look smaller, something clutched in his arms. It would have been quite comical if it were not so suspicious; he kept sweeping his large shaggy head left and right as though searching for onlookers, and then quickly slammed his door behind him.

She was not the only one to notice his odd behavior. The Slytherins took it for sport and all cackled as they began to verbally abuse the giant buffoon. The Hufflepuffs whispered to each other, confused and slightly afraid of the man they had thought was an open and jolly fellow.

She mentally scoffed at them. Probably he was hiding some personal secret, nothing incriminating or frightening enough to garner such attention. And her point was proven when at lunch, Hagrid acted just as he always had.

Her point was disproven several days later, however, as she watched the golden trio grumble into their common room. She had been squished between the twins on one of the plush red loveseats near the fire, showing them some of the manga she had brought back from home. They had become entirely fascinated by the Hitachiin twins in Ouran High School Host Club, and wandered off with the first few volumes. As they trooped up the staircase the golden trio approached.

"I can't believe it, I can't bloody believe it."

"Ron, hush, you're attracting too much attention."

"I can't bloody believe it."

"Believe it!" Vitani exclaimed as she threw one of her manga books into Ron's face.

"Ouch! What'd you do that for?" he scowled as Harry chuckled at the book in Ron's hands, "and what are you laughing at?"

"I'm laughing at Vitani's choice of throwing object," he said as he took the Naruto volume from his friend's hands, "Very appropriate Vitani."

"I try," she shrugged her shoulders, "and what is Miss Scarlet so excited about?"

Ron scowled again at the pet name and was about to retort when Hermione cut in, "It's nothing."

"Nothing is never actually nothing, in fact, nothing is usually something very, very important." She narrowed her eyes at Hermione, "You know I'll just get Harry to tell me."

"He wouldn't dare," she huffed and then both girls turned to glare at Harry.

"Uhh…" he gulped.

"Harry," Vitani began, "I suppose you've read Ouran Host Club at some point."

"I might have," he said, bemused at the sudden change in conversation.

"Then I hope you know it won't take much to connect you to Haruhi and have the Weasley twins torture you for the rest of your school career."

His eyes grew to the size of saucers in terror, "What are you implying?"

"I just gave Fred and George the volumes. It won't be long before they pick up the Hitachiin twin antics as their own. They may even see you as Haruhi before I even suggest it.

Harry shivered at that point and his eye began to twitch, no doubt imagining the horror that would befall on him. Ron, who had steadily become more confused as the conversation went on, was now completely baffled and stood there, watching his best friend fight off his imagination. Hermione's eye was also twitching, but in irritated astonishment.

"You gave them something that will make them act out even more?! As if they weren't completely out of control before?!" she gritted through her teeth.

"It could be worse, I could have given them some volumes of Bobobo-Bo-Bobobo."

Hermione immediately turned to Harry, not knowing but guessing what that meant. Harry's face completely blanched and he hugged himself, before a massive tremor swept through him. He looked like was going to go into shock.

Hermione turned back to Vitani looking positively frightened and defeated.

"Fine, we'll tell you."

A few minutes later she sat on the loveseat, completely and utterly baffled.

"He has a…"

"Yeah."

"And he won it in a…"

"Uh huh."

"And he's gonna raise…"

"Yep."

"In a wooden house?"

"That's what I said," grumbled Hermione, shaking her head in irritation. "He's got some, some cooked up fantasy about raising it like his baby! You should have seen him gazing at it in the fire, like a blooming mother!"

"He's completely mental," Ron summed.

"He can't really help it, it's been his childhood dream having a dragon. Maybe this experience will snap him out of it," shrugged Harry.

"Harry, I don't think you really understand the problem here," stressed Vitani. "This isn't Puff the Magic Dragon or a cute, orange Dragonite or small, injured Toothless; this thing's going to get huge, fast. It's going to be sneezing fireballs every which way and biting everything within reach. Before long it will go from breaking fingers to breaking skulls, tearing the curtains to tearing our skin, and sweeping the floor with us with its tail. It'll outgrow Hagrid's house in a month, and that's if it doesn't burn it down first. Dragons are way too ferocious to deal with; even Hagrid won't be able to keep up with the creature. Of all the dangerous beasts he could have brought home, it had to be an illegal dragon."

From the trepidation on his face, it looked like she'd made her point completely clear.

That aside, it wasn't like she was going to miss the opportunity to see a dragon hatching.

"I mean, it can't be so dangerous newly hatched, can it?" Ron had asked Hermione a few mornings later. A note had come from Hagrid and Harry had called Vitani over from the Ravenclaw table.

"That doesn't matter, we can't just skive off Herbology!"

Luckily Vitani didn't have this problem. She was free from her potions class with the Ravenclaws today. Someone had attempted mixing some rather lethal ingredients yesterday and the dungeons were still being aired out.

"Come on Hermione, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?"

At that moment Vitani took the liberty of elbowing Ron in the gut.

"The hell-"

"Shut up!" Harry whispered.

They could see Malfoy a few feet away, paused, his head tilted toward their conversation. How much had the little rat heard? He had a rather wicked expression that she didn't particularly like.

The golden trio went off to Herbology after breakfast, Ron and Hermione bickering all the way out the Great Hall. Vitani went down back to the dungeons to her dorm to retrieve an enchanted camera and cat-Akane, and made her way back up and onto the grounds. She trekked across the grounds, passing some older students who had off, and approached the large, roughed wooden door to Hagrid's cabin. She gave three loud raps on the door, but Hagrid did not open it right away.

"Who is it?"

Vitani nodded to Akane and the cat opened its mouth.

"It's us Hagrid, let us in," came the perfect imitation of Harry's voice.

Hagrid immediately opened the door with a beaming smile, but frowned when he saw only tiny Vitani and her cat standing in front of him.

"Err… yeh're not Harry," he said, confused.

"I am not," she said simply.

"Uh… wha' d'you want?"

"Harry and co. are at Herbology. They said they'd come during break to see the… well, you know."

His eyebrows rose, "Yeh know 'bout the dra-"

"Yes!" she cut in quickly, "so let's not keep the door open for too long, 'kay?"

"Well, alrigh'," he shrugged, turning back into his cabin, "but, could yeh keep yer cat outside, gives me the sniffles."

"What cat?"

"The cat on yer shoul-" he turned back to her and flinched when he saw, not a black cat hanging on her shoulder, but a small black dog.

Hagrid blinked, bamboozled, "there was a cat on yer shoulder."

"There's a flat-coated retriever puppy on my shoulder," she said as said puppy jumped off and scrambled on its little paws toward the sleeping boarhound in Hagrid's cabin.

Hagrid shrugged his shoulder's, "Alrigh' then."

The entirety of the wooden house was a single room. To one side was a large bed with a patchwork quilt draped over it. Out the back door she could see a rather large garden and several chickens scratching at the dirt. Several pots, pans and kettles stood near an open fire, where the large black dragon egg lied, a long crack scarring the surface.

"Be an hour or so, enough time for the others to get here," he said with a bounce in his step. "Can I offer you some tea and scones?"

She accepted the tea but quickly gave up on the rock hard scones that nearly chipped her teeth. She made small talk with him as she set up her camera. She set a small timer on the camera to take a photo every few seconds so later she could turn it into a sort of flipbook. She would send it to her friends back home.

An hour passed and the five sat, gathered around the table Hagrid had just set the egg on. The dragon was only one crack away from being free. There was a sudden scraping noise and then the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table, its limp black body resting from its tiresome task of hatching. It was oddly proportioned; its bat-like wings were much too large for its slim body, its tail too long, its nostrils too wide and its orange eyes almost bulging from its head. It sneezed and a couple of sparks flew out of its snout. If it weren't for the fact it would turn into a vicious monster in a matter of weeks, she'd almost think it was cute.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

"Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!" said Hagrid.

"Hagrid," said Hermione, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"

Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face; he leapt to his feet and ran to the window.

"What's the matter?"

"Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains- it's a kid- he's runnin' back up ter the school."

Harry bolted to the door and looked out, and from Vitani's seat she could see his fist clench.

"It's Malfoy."

The next week was nothing if not a stressful nightmare. When they weren't sneaking between classes and breaks to help Hagrid with the vicious black reptile, they were tiptoeing through the day avoiding Malfoy's mischievous eyes. As the days went on the black terror, or Norbert as Hagrid liked to call the creature, grew more rapidly; it tripled in size by Thursday, its fangs lengthen, and its claws sharpened against Hagrid's floorboards. Hagrid's house had become a disaster zone of wood chips, chicken feathers and blood. But the worst part about the week was Hagrid's ever-growing enthusiasm. The more aggressive Norbert became, the more motherly Hagrid acted.

"I expected Hagrid to know better than this," Vitani said one day when Ron came into Charms with a crude bandage over a rather vicious looking bite, "I'd have thought he be more careful with the creature, know its mindset."

"Hah! He's plenty careful with that monster; he didn't even care when it bit me. He treats that thing like his own baby," scowled Ron, hugging his hand to his chest.

"That's my point; for someone who's always wanted a dragon, he sure doesn't know how to take care of it."

"The dragon looks pretty happy to me…" muttered Ron.

"Physically, not mentally. Dragons are precocial, the mother takes care of them as eggs, but the moment they hatch she ditches them and the hatchlings fend for themselves. Norbert isn't taking to Hagrid's overbearing affection because that mother-child bond is lost to dragons. More than likely Norbert sees Hagrid as a giant hindrance from what it wants to do most, tear apart small mammals and begin teaching itself to fly."

"Well that's just dandy and all, but it's not like Hagrid can just let loose Norbert on the grounds," said Hermione.

"It doesn't matter," muttered Harry, watching Malfoy watch them, "we have a plan."

"Hmm."

They told her about Ron's brother later at dinner that day, and the plan to send Norbert off to Romania. At the same time, Vitani gave Hermione a large urn like bottle for her and Harry's future visits with Norbert.

"It contains a lethal concentration of the Draught of Living Death. Well… its lethal to humans. It should keep Norbert asleep for at least a few hours and calm a few more. Just pore a little on the rats Hagrid gives to him."

The days kept counting down to the time Norbert would be gone. The date had finally been set to Saturday, and while the golden trio waited for the two dreadful weeks to be over, Vitani kept an eye on Malfoy. She followed him from classrooms and through corridors several feet behind, one or twice intercepted by Pansy's gang. For the moment, it looked as though Malfoy was simply keeping them all in suspense. On Friday, the day before Norbert's send off, she highly suspected that Malfoy in fact had no intention of telling any of the teachers about the dragon, when she overheard a conversation in the common room.

"Sure, I mean, I could tell the teachers, but would they really believe me? All the staff's too friendly with that oaf, and Snape might take DeVera's side if she said anything," at that point he'd turned in her direction across the room, making sure she was focused on the homework she was doing and then continued, "in any case, I need to catch them with the thing. For now, I can just keep them on their toes," he smirked wickedly and Crabbe and Goyle cackled softly.

Still she watched him from the corner of her eye as she went through her day, still with the same devilish smirk plastered on his face. At the same time, horrid news had come from the trio. Ron was in the hospital wing with a green swelled hand. What's worse, Malfoy had taken the chance when Vitani had to fend off Pansy to bully Ron in the hospital wing and had left with the knowledge of Saturday's plan. There was nothing they could do; Saturday was already upon them.

Harry and Hermione had used the urn of draught to great effect and they brought it with them to Hagrid's Saturday night. Vitani could see the doors of the castle open and close from one of the high windows on the fourth floor. More than likely it was they under Harry's cloak. A moment later they disappeared into Hagrid's cabin. She herself was draped in her own black cloak, Akane, blending into the shadows of the corridors. She waited near the staircase and watched for the two to come from Hagrid's cabin. Just as they'd entered the castle again, Malfoy appeared, sneaking up the opposite staircase steps on his way to the Astronomy tower.

Oh no you don't, she thought, taking off toward him. As she dashed from shadow to shadow she passed by McGonagall's office and paused. Malfoy was taking his time, trying to be quiet rather than quick. In a few moments he would pass by her office door and go up the next flight of stairs. Standing between the door and the stair was a suit of armor, gleaming in the moonlight from the window. She could hear Malfoy's steps coming around the corner and she darted behind the armor, holding her breath. When he passed and started up the stairs she came from her hiding place. She placed her right foot solid against the back of the armor and shoved. The resounding noise was earth shattering in the still of night, the metal clangs echoing through the castle. Vitani darted away and watched from the corner. She had achieved her desired effect; she heard Malfoy stumble on the steps just as Professor McGonagall leapt from her office, clad in tartan bathrobe, and ran in the direction of the noise. Moments later and McGonagall had him by the ear, yelling at his feeble attempts to save himself from detention.

She chuckled to herself and heard others behind her do the same. She stood still in place as something whooshed by her and she could hear the quiet snarls of Norbert under the cloak. Her job seemed to be done as she watched the tower hatch open and close quietly. She waited there, just incase someone or something passed by, but all was quiet in the corridor. She slumped against the wall; tired from the stress, grateful she had Sunday to sleep. From her place near the stair, she heard the faintest meow.

She lifted her head to see the bright yellow eyes of Mrs. Norris, her eyesight easily spotting Vitani in the shadows. She darted away just as Vitani whispered, "Stop her!"

Akane transformed into her fox form and darted after the cat, growling down the staircase. Vitani, now without her cloak, also ran down the steps and hid in the first place she could find, a small abandoned classroom on the sixth floor. Five minutes later Akane, scratching and whining at the door to be let in, joined her. A moment later and she heard the gentle padding of paws and the thumping of human feet as they raced up the steps. Yet another moment later she heard multiple sets of feet march down the steps and pass by the door. She peeked outside just as they began to descend the next staircase. Filch was herding Harry and Hermione down, with Mrs. Norris trailing behind. There was no sign of Norbert. They had succeeded, but at what cost?

Yes, some snakes do eat other snakes, notably the king cobra and a few others. Snakes, especially large ones, also have a habit of eating large prey including, but not limited to, lion cubs, eagles and badgers (hint hint).

All the dragons I listed are: Puff the magic dragon (duh), Dragonite (Pokémon), and Toothless (how to train your dragon-movie/TV). Hopefully someone got at least one reference.

Because Akane can transform into others, people included, she can also mimic voices.