This Sunday is going to be Mothers Day, I used to look forward to it, but my mom passed away months ago...so...it's going to be a mite painful this year.

I don't own Harry Potter.


Harry once again stayed up late, unable to sleep, trying hard to process what he had heard Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell spoke about. Snape wanted the stone, and he was going to try and steal it. It made sense that he would want to know what came after the dog when it came to the stone's defenses, so asking the one teacher he could intimidate would make it a lot easier.

Hagrid had said that Professor Sprout, McGonagall, and Flitwick had added to the defenses of the stone, along with Snape and Quirrell. He couldn't see Snape being able to intimidate them, Quirrell was easy to see...McGonagall? It was laughable.

Hagrid...there was another thing that weighed heavily on his mind...he had that dragon now. Hagrid was either in complete denial or he just didn't see the future approaching at breakneck speed. Fang, the school owls, the school livestock was one thing, Fluffy and a dragon are something completely different.

Normal animals do...normal damage. Magical animals...do worse damage. Fluffy could easily eat, or stamp on anyone in it's path and reduce the castle to rubble, or at least a very large chewed up doghouse. A dragon? Hagrid lived in a wooden house! The moment the dragon would be able to breathe fire, the whole house would be gone and it's not as if he would be able to hide the dragon anywhere else. Once his house was gone up in smoke, the secret of the dragon would be out.

Harry sat in the darkness when he heard the creak of the floorboards. He looked over and saw a sleep ruffled Ron lighting his wand, yawning and ambling towards the bathroom. Ron saw that Harry was watching at him and startled.

"Wh-What are you doing up?" asked Ron.

"Can't sleep." said Harry.

"How come?" asked Ron.

"Really?" said Harry raising one of his brows.

"Ah, never mind." said Ron looking sheepish. "Come on Harry, he's an adult..."

"An adult that's making a stupid decision. Come on, we'll talk downstairs." said Harry nodding over to the sleeping figures.

"Sure, just let me use the loo." said Ron. "I'll be right down."

Harry grabbed his bathrobe and slipped downstairs. He looked around carefully and saw that the fire was crackling merrily in the fireplace and the seats beside the fire were mercifully vacant. No one else was in the Common Room, so Ron and he would have privacy.

He settled back in the armchair and waited for Ron to show, which he did a few minutes later.

"Alright, Harry." said Ron. "Everyone else is asleep now." said Ron. "What's stopping you from sleeping?"

"Hagrid and Snape." said Harry.

"Like my mum says, kids shouldn't worry about adults, they want to sink themselves in the muck, let them." said Ron.

"I don't have much faith in the judgment of most adults." said Harry with a rueful smile.

"Huh?" asked Ron.

"It's nothing, Hagrid's not thinking straight...he's got a dragon now and he wants to keep it. It's his dream pet, I'd be the same way with a horse...but horses don't breathe fire or fly." said Harry. "And a horse isn't illegal."

"Well, no...but what can we do?" said Ron. "He's gone completely mental. He wants to keep the thing, and there is nothing we or Hermione can do...Everyone always says that Hagrid only listens to Dumbledore. Well, when it comes to him getting in trouble. And if we tell Dumbleore...Hagrid's doomed."

"Well, he'll have to listen to someone else when it comes to that dragon, if what you say is right. He could face some heavy legal problems." said Harry.

"You don't know the half of it, My dad heard about one guy trying to breed dragons way off in the country, you know, miles away from any muggle or any muggle town, they nailed him with a seven thousand galleon fine. Not only that, he also had to spend a few years in a Ministry holding cell."

"Holding cell? Like jail?" asked Harry.

"Yeah, there's two different places for criminals, if you're not a murderer or something like that, you just spend your time in a holding cell in the Ministry. Dad says it's a damn sight better than the alternative." said Ron.

"So, if Hagrid get's caught with a dragon..." said Harry.

"It's not good." said Ron. "He can get pitched in the Ministry, prison, and fined. And Hagrid would never be able to pay off the fine."

Harry pulled his knees up to his chest. They had to get rid of that dragon, there was no other alternative. Sure an egg was easy to hide, for the most part, but if Dumbledore were to look out and see a fully-grown dragon bounding about the grounds...

Ron looked worriedly over to his best friend. Harry's skin was getting paler and paler, just like when he found that mirror.

"Harry...it'll be alright, My older brothers always said that Dumbledore always protected Hagrid when he did something wrong, he'll save him." said Ron trying to soothe Harry's fears.

"Ron...this isn't a drunken brawl in a pub...this is a freaking dragon...in a bloody school!" said Harry shortly. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm going to do a bit of reading, I'll bring the books down here, you go back to sleep." said Harry standing up suddenly.

"I don't mind staying up." said Ron, trying to stifle a yawn behind his hand.

"Don't bother, I can go days without sleep and still function normally." said Harry.

"How can you?" asked Ron.

"Lot's of sleepless nights." said Harry walking up the stairs.

Ron watched Harry climbing the stairs, he was always so secretive about his home-life and never spoke of it except that once. He wanted to know what was going on in his house, but Harry never said, and if Harry didn't want to talk about it, he never talked about it.

Harry reached into his trunk and pulled out several books and carried them downstairs. If he was going to help Hagrid in any way, he'd have to study two things, Norwegian Ridgebacks, and magical law.

The next morning, Harry sat at the breakfast table in the Great Hall, scribbling away in his notebook. There were several ways he could help Hagrid, getting (and finding) a magical solicitor to help Hagrid when the worst came to pass. Harry learned that the only way Hagrid could escape any sort of repercussions would be if he didn't know it was a dragon egg...and no one in their right mind would believe that Hagrid didn't know what what creature belonged to what egg.

Getting off Scott free was out of the question, the only other way he could save himself, was by mediating the damage...getting rid of the dragon was one thing...and that was it.

"Hey, Harry, what are you doing?" asked Dean coming up behind him.

"Just some last minute work." said Harry putting his notebook away.

"Yeah, me too...hey, Seamus should be done with his detention with Professor Sprout last night, want to have our Poker night tonight?"

"Sure, I can send Hedwig down to the village." said Harry.

"I'll run up and get the guys' money." said Dean.

"It can wait till tonight, I've got some money on me." said Harry. He looked up and saw Hedwig fluttering down to the Gryffindor table, "Hey Hedwig..." he said as he stroked her feathers.

"Think you can do a delivery for me?" asked Harry. Hedwig gave a soft hoot and nibbled his finger affectionately. As she nipped at a bit of bacon on his plate, Harry wrote down his order and gave it to her, then began to ladle scrambled eggs as she flew off.

Hermione dragged them off to the library to do some studying for the exams that were so far off that Harry and Ron both groaned.

'Come on, Hermione, the tests are weeks away, we've got loads amount of time to study." said Ron.

"Those tests are crucial! I don't' want to even think about what would happen if we failed them!" scolded Hermione.

"Hermione, we're getting decent marks in our classes, we're not going to fail anything." said Harry.

"You two won't be able to ask me for help on anything!" shot Hermione.

"Oi, we do our work!" said Ron, Hermione looked at Ron with a hand on her hip.

"Of course you do, but I go through your guys' work before you hand it in to smooth it out." said Hermione. "I won't be able to do that during the exams."

"We know that Hermione, we're going to study...but it is weeks away." said Harry.

"That's why it a good idea to start now." said Hermione. "Less stress later."

"Sure, have all the stress get done and over with now, so we can continue on with it all till after the exams." said Ron rolling his eyes.

Harry smiled between the two of them, if he didn't know any better, he would say that they were childhood rivals...he thought it was sort of...sweet, annoying at times, but sweet. Like a little boy's crush, throw mud on a girl you like so she'll never know.

So...despite spending all night, his nose buried in several books on magical law and the anatomy and behavior of Norwegian Ridgebacks, he was back to reading about potions that he hoped he would never have to drink, spells from both Charms and Transfiguration and plants that held magical properties that Aunt Petunia could never dream of having in her garden.

"Alright you two, who created the Vigor restoring potion?" asked Hermione reading aloud from a book, trying to quiz her two friends.

"Uh...Albert the lazy?" said Ron. "I don't know."

"Harry?" rounded Hermione.

"Uh...Alphonse Rederickson?" said Harry jerking awake from his slight dozing.

Hermione looked at him, than looked down at her book. "That's right."

"Oh that's nice, don't' believe us when we answer a question you put to us." said Ron.

"Well, it's just...Harry was asleep." said Hermione.

"I was paying attention." said Harry.

"You were half asleep." said Hermione. "But no matter, you got it right."

Ron and Harry exchanged significant looks. Harry's intelligence nearly slipped.

"Hermione, how about we take a break? I'm getting hungry and it's nearly time for lunch, we've been sitting for hours." said Ron.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but closed the book. "I suppose." she said.

"She won't admit that she's hungry too." muttered Ron.

Hours later, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ron and Harry were sitting around a round table in the dorms and tossing little bags of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans in the center.

"Is Hermione serious about starting to study for exams?" asked Seamus.

"It seems so...are you in or not?" said Ron.

"Yeah, I'll raise to a cauldron cake...we've still got ages till the exams are due anyway!" said Seamus.

"She's nervous..." said Harry, "Call."

"So am I, but I don't want to start just yet." said Neville. "So...what classes do you think is the hardest for you guys."

"Raise...two cauldron cakes." said Dean. "Oh, I don't know, I could use a little more work on my charms I suppose. I didn't score very high marks on my last test." said Dean.

"Yeah, I could use a bit of help in Transfiguration." said Ron. "I'm out."

"Astronomy." replied Seamus.

"Potions." said Neville quietly.

"Us too." said everyone at the table together.

"Man...I'm not looking forward to taking that exam." said Dean.

"He's going to be even more foul on that test, I can feel it." said Seamus.

"Oh no..." said Neville weakly.

"All we have to do is get an 'Acceptable' and he won't be able to fail us." said Ron.

"That's going to be really hard." said Neville looking pale.

"Don't be too sure, we share the same class with Crabbe and Goyle, compared to them, we should get A's pretty easily. All we need to do is follow the formula in our books." said Harry. "We're allowed to have our potion books with us."

"Yeah, but when are we going to be able to practice all those potions?" said Dean. "Full House."

"Well, Hermione once said that all our potions' ingredients are in the students storeroom for our use, we just need to find the time and someone older to watch us so we don't fry ourselves." said Harry. Dean, Ron, and Neville all looked at Seamus. "Straight."

"Hey! It's been months since I've set anything on fire." said Seamus indignantly.

"Seamus, it was last week." said Ron. "You burnt the couch in the Common Room."

"That was an accident!" said Seamus. "Flush."

"And the rest of those incidents were on purpose?" said Neville with a raised brow. "Straight Flush."

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" said Seamus.

Harry looked over at Neville's cards..."Nev...that's not a straight flush."

"Great, then I win!" said Seamus.

"That's a Royal Flush."

"I hate you." said Seamus.

"Why don't we just hand you all the candy?" said Dean tossing his cards down.

"This is more fun, and gives you more of a chance to win something." said Neville pulling all the candy towards him.

"So, who are we going to get to watch us practice potions?" said Ron. "I can't picture Percy giving us the time to do it."

"We can always ask, lay it on thick that it's his duty. And if that doesn't work, go to McGonagall and tell her that he won't help us...that'll get him off his high horse for a moment." said Dean.

"Yeah, then he'll moan and criticize us and we won't be able to talk to each other. I'd rather take the risk and not have anyone watch us." said Ron.

"Well, we'll just talk to McGonagall and see where that takes us." said Harry as he dealt out the cards once again. "Until then, what's buzzing around the school?"

"Draco and Pansy are going out together, they made it public." said Dean taking the cards in hand and looking at them.

"Aw, and here I thought I was his one true love. Dealer takes two." said Harry. "Wonder what made him choose her, she's not exactly the best looking girl in Slytherin."

"If there was such a thing as a good looking Slytherin, then the Greengrass sisters would be my nomination." said Seamus.

"His parents must have picked her out, there is no other way that he would want a girlfriend so early in his term here at school." said Ron. "The Malfoy family is always trying to marry off their kids early, promote their linage and nonsense like that."

"Man, and I thought my family was mad." said Dean.

"I just hope that my parents didn't try and do that." said Harry tossing in a pumpkin pasty.

"All pureblood families do it, well, the ones that haven't exactly evolved into modern times." said Neville. "My Grandmother tried to arrange a marriage for me...but...she and I didn't like each other at all...didn't help that her parents were outed as Dark wizards."

"That'll put a damper on anything." said Ron, "All in."

The next morning, a letter from Hedwig sent everything that Harry, Ron and Hermione had ever expected their day to go into a ever changing spiral.

It's hatching.


Thanks for reading! Please review!

This is the first Mother's Day without my mom...so...what are you all going to do with your moms to celebrate this Sunday...Enjoy the day with your mothers for me.