"You're telling me Potter sold a dragon's egg to this oaf? And my father got in trouble for a few measly torture devices! A dragon could destroy this whole place!"

"Will you keep your voice down?" Ron hissed. "We don't want to get Hagrid in trouble."

"You don't. I have no problem with…"

"Malfoy, we're trusting you not to tell anyone," said Harry. "It's the only reason we're telling you at all. Now, do you want to go see a dragon hatching for the first and maybe only time in your life, or not?"

"No!"

"We're not going yet," said Hermione. "We can wait until after Herbology, we have classes, we'll get in trouble…"

Ron groaned. "Hermione, do you know how many Herbology lessons we have per year? Like a hundred. Do you know how many times we're going to get to see a dragon hatching ever? Once! It's a life experience, Hermione! Do you really want to tell your children that you had a chance to see a dragon hatching but you had a Herbology class that was more important?"

"If we fail Herbology we won't pass the year and then we'll never get good jobs and then we'll die of starvation and won't be able to tell our children anything!"

"We're not gonna fail Herbology, we've got you!"

"I'm sure dragons take ages to hatch…"

"I'll leave you three to work that all out between you," said Draco. "I have Potions."

"Malfoy, if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I'll skin you alive," said Ron, momentarily distracted.

"I'm terrified," said Draco. He collected his worksheet and his quill and sauntered off.

"Bloody hell," said Ron, "why did we tell him?"

"Oh, be quiet, Ron," said Hermione. "Come on, we've got to get to Herbology."

"You mean to Hagrid's."

"No, I mean to Herbology."

"Bloody hell," said Ron, "why did we tell her?"

Hermione managed to carry her point, but the second the bell rang, they dropped their trowels and raced off for Hagrid's hut.

"Sorry we couldn't come right away, Hagrid, someone insisted on going to…" Ron had his explanation half out his mouth before he stopped short and stared at the person who had opened the door.

"Hello," said Draco. "Won't you come in? You've nearly missed it, it's been hopping about on that table for ages, it's all cracked and nearly out."

He gestured vaguely into the cabin. They all stared at him.

"What are you lot gaping at? Potions let out a bit early and I'd nothing else to do."

Hermione blinked several times, collected herself, and cleared her throat.

"I presume this means you won't tell anyone," she said.

"It's nearly out," said Hagrid as they entered. He gave Draco a quick look and grabbed Harry by the arm.

"Look here, Harry," he whispered. "Malfoy there sor' of pushed his way in, said he knew abou' the egg, says he's not here t' spy on me. D'yeh trust him?"

Harry looked over his shoulder at Draco, who was leaning over and watching the dragon's egg. He looked like someone who was exerting all their effort not to look interested.

"Not generally," Harry said. "But I don't think he'll tell. Not if he wants me to keep helping him with his Potions homework, anyway."

"Are you two going to come watch, or what?" called Ron.

They drew their chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath.

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped on to the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; Harry thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body and it had a long snout with wide nostrils, stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured.

"Gorgeous," said Draco. "All that inflammable mucus." But his eyes were bright and he watched the creature with ill-concealed fascination.

Hagrid ignored this and reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

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

"Hagrid," said Hermione, "how fast do dragons grow, exactly?"

Hagrid was about to answer when a sudden bang of the door opening made them all jump. The dragon squawked and let out a burst of flame that ignited Malfoy's cuff. He squawked too.

"Sorry," said Coach Potter. Harry froze. "That door of yours opens a bit too easily, Hagrid. Morning, you lot. Guess I missed the hatching?"

"You told him?" yelped Ron.

"Help!" screamed Draco. Hermione tried to grab his arm to make him stop waving it about.

"You'll just make it worse, stop! Stop! Malfoy, just…"

"I'm on fire!" he shrieked. "That bloody lizard is trying to incinerate me! Somebody do something!"

"Whoa now," said Coach, striding quickly across the room. He produced his wand and pointed it at Malfoy. Harry and Ron both darted forward, but Coach waved them off. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt him. Aguamenti!" A jet of water shot out of the end of his wand and reduced Malfoy's sleeve to a soggy, sodden, fireless mess.

"Useful little spell, that," said Coach.

"My robe," moaned Draco.

"You're welcome," said Coach, flinging himself into a chair. "Now, let's see that bloody lizard of yours, Hagrid."

"How…if you don't mind my asking, sir," said Hermione in her most respectful voice, "how did you know about…about this?"

"What, the dragon's egg? Hagrid told me about it weeks ago, didn't he? I was always interested in animals. Felt a sort of kinship with them. He sent me a note this morning, but I had a meeting…Hallo there, draggy. Hallo. Please don't try to incinerate me; I'm ever so much nicer than young Malfoy…"

He made soothing noises and rubbed the top of the dragon's head. Harry held his breath, waiting for it to eat his arm, or at least leave him incapable of holding a wand.

Instead, it closed its eyes and began to—there was no other word for it—purr. Jets of steam issued from its nose. Hagrid looked as though he might cry with happiness.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco stared at him and at each other and began to edge toward the door.

"Where are you going?" said Coach. "You can give him a pat if you like!"

"Er, er, er, we've got to be, er, going," said Ron. "We've got…things. Stuff, you know."

"Oh, come on, just a pat? You won't be able to much longer. He's not big enough to eat you yet."

"Even small dragons have venomous fangs, though," said Hermione.

Harry could've sworn the Coach's eyes flickered toward him.

He's gonna kill me and he's gonna do it right under Hagrid's nose, thought Harry. The perfect crime. You get one of Hagrid's monsters to kill me and the monster takes the rap and Hagrid gets fired…

"Well, just keep away from the teeth, then, eh?" said Potter. He ran a finger down the dragon's spine and it stretched out and yawned, sending a blast of hot air across the room.

Draco nudged Ron. "Go on, Weasley," he whispered. "Remember? This could be your one and only chance to touch a real live dragon! It's a life experience! Do you really want to tell your children that you had a chance to touch a real live dragon but you had stuff to do?"

Ron informed Draco what, in Ron's opinion, Draco should go and do.

"Oh, come on," said Hagrid. "He wouldn' hurt a fly, this dragon wouldn'! He's jus' a little playful is all."

"How long are you planning on keeping the playful little beggar, Hagrid?" Coach asked. "You don't have room for a full-grown dragon in here."

"Well, I can' let him go," said Hagrid. "He's too little. He'd die."

Coach had stopped stroking the dragon, and it opened its eyes and playfully tried to scorch the skin off of Coach's hand.

"Somehow I think he'd be fine," said Coach.

"I always thought these things were supposed to be kept away from people," said Draco. "I mean, they're dangerous. Aren't there wizards trained to handle this kind of thing?"

"Yes, like Ron's brother," said Hermione.

"S'right," said Ron. "They've got reservations to keep them in and they help raised orphaned babies and that. What's that look for, Harry?"

Harry collapsed into bed. The past three weeks had been positively harrowing, and it was a relief to know that at least one small trouble was off his plate.

Harry's idea to send the dragon (christened "Norbert" by an enamoured Hagrid) to Ron's brother's dragon reservation ended up taking three weeks to work out: a week to convince Hagrid, a week to fix it up by post with Charlie, and a week to wait for Charlie's friends to get to Hogwarts on the way to Romania. Meanwhile the four of them began to spend Fluffy-free evenings helping Hagrid wrangle Norbert—much to Draco's irritation.

Draco hadn't been helpful. After being bothered for an answer, he'd finally agreed that he "wouldn't miss Hagrid's shack burning down for anything", and said he wouldn't tell anyone.

"As if the poor little dragon would do a thing like that," said Hagrid when Draco had gone. "Bless him, look, he can hardly get enough flame to light a candle…Is that Malfoy a friend o' yers?"

"No," said Ron.

"Well…" said Hermione.

"Yes," said Harry.

Hagrid raised his eyebrows. "Well now," he said. "I never woulda thought yeh were the type, any o' yeh…"

"He helped Hermione when she was in trouble," said Harry. "And he's been giving us a hand with this sort of extracurricular project we're working on. He's not as bad as he looks."

Hagrid looked dubious, and in all honesty Harry couldn't really blame him.

When Ron had had to go to the hospital wing with what he claimed was a dog bite, Draco (annoyed at having to take Ron's Fluffy-watching shift) visited him and pretended that he was going to tell Madam Pomfrey what had really done it. Ron pointed out that Draco would get in just as much trouble, but still Draco being in on the secret hadn't made anyone particularly comfortable.

They also had to deal with Coach, who seemed to spend as much time with Hagrid as they did and frequently offered to walk them back. In fact, of late he seemed to be everywhere they were. He kept popping into their classes for not-really-plausible reasons, and he'd started coming to Gryffindor Quidditch practices again. All of them.

"Why don't we just get Coach to bring it to Charlie's friends?" Hermione asked. "He doesn't want Hagrid to get in trouble either. And that way we won't risk being caught out of bed."

"Doesn't matter who's carrying the crate, if they get caught, Hagrid's going to be in trouble," said Harry. "And the only way to make sure the crate's not caught is to use the Invisibility Potion, and there's no way I'm telling Coach Potter about that."

The plan itself, though, worked like a charm. Ron was still in hospital, so Draco had had to watch by himself for a couple hours while Harry and Hermione dragged Norbert away from Hagrid's weeping embrace, but, Draco sighed, he was "used to it by now". The two crate-bearers were able to dodge Mr Filch, Mrs Norris, and even Professor McGonagall, and give Norbert to Charlie's friends on top of the Astronomy Tower completely without incident.

Harry now shifted his pillow to stop the jar poking him in the back of the head. With Norbert gone, he thought drowsily, all he had to worry about anymore was exams, Quidditch, the impending summer vacation, nightmares about his parents exploding in a flash of green light, and a psychopathic power-hungry child-killing authority figure well on the way to immortality.

Piece of cake, he thought, and fell asleep.