I own nothing. J.K.R Owns everything :(

Chapter 20: First Year (Part 10)

6th, August, 1998...

"We're going to skip a bit here." Harry said after everyone was comfortable in the living room after a delicious meal. "Basically Hermione here was driving me and Ron mad with studying," everyone laughed as Hermione glared at Harry. "And we had seen Hagrid in the library, he was looking up books on dragons, we went down to see him and we can start with that memory." he explained.

When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper's hut an hour later, they were surprised to see that all the curtains were closed.

Hagrid called, "Who is it?" before he let them in and then shut the door quickly behind them.

It was stiflingly hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate.

Hagrid made them tea and offered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused.

"Probably a good idea," James snorted.

"So - yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes," said Harry. There was no point in beating about the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Philosopher's Stone apart from Fluffy."

"Wonder what he's gonna tell them?" Sirius said eagerly.

"If you'd just shut up, Sirius, we'd find out!" Dora said irritably.

"What's up with you, Nymphadora?" he asked cheekily, clearly just amused by his cousins reaction. She glared at him.

"Don't - Call - Me - Nymphadora!" she said dangerously. Sirius looked taken aback at how fierce she had sounded.

"Merlin, are all women this scary?" he asked James.

"No. Just the ones we know." James replied.

"HEY!" all the girls said indignantly.

"Well, you are. Look at what you just did to poor Padfoot."

"Poor Padfoot? It wasn't poor Padfoot when you were throwing fire at him!" Dora cried.

James frowned.

"She's got you there, Prongs," Remus grinned putting an arm around his wife. "Good job, Dora. Not many people can shut this one up." Dora blushed slightly and grinned.

Hagrid frowned at him.

"O' course I can't," he said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn't tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts - I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know about Fluffy."

"They met him, of course." said James happily.

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on round here," said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice.

"Ah, yes." Sirius grinned. "Flattery works like a charm on Hagrid!"

"You should know! The amount of stuff you wheedled out of him when we were at school was bloody well amazing!" Remus laughed.

"Thank you, thank you!" Sirius grinned mock-bowing in his seat.

"That wasn't a compliment Paddy." James said.

"It was to me." he replied shrugging.

Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. "We only wondered who had done the guarding, really," Hermione went on. "We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you."

Sirius looked impressed. "You know what your doing." he said approvingly.

"Thank you." Hermione replied blushing.

Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Harry and Ron beamed at Hermione.

"You really are good at everything!" Ron said proudly to his girlfriend.

"Except chess." Hermione reminded him.

He just grinned. "Except chess."

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... let's see... he borrowed Fluffy from me... then some o' the teachers did enchantments... Professor Sprout - Professor Flitwick - Professor McGonagall -" he ticked them off on his fingers.

Minerva's jaw dropped. "I can't believe he told you that! He is so easy to manipulate!"

"We know!" the Golden Trio grinned.

"Professor Quirrell - an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Snape?"

"Yeah - yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

Harry knew Ron and Hermione were thinking the same thing as he was. If Snape had been in on protecting the Stone, it must have been easy to find out how the other teachers had guarded it.

He probably knew everything - except, it seemed, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy. "You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" said Harry anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"

"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly.

"And it better stay that way." said James firmly missing the looks exchanged by the Trio and Minerva.

"Well, that's something," Harry muttered to the others. "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling."

"Can't, Harry, sorry," said Hagrid. Harry noticed him glance at the fire. Harry looked at it too.

"Hagrid - what's that?"

But he already knew what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg.

"Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard. "That's - er..."

"A dragon's egg." Minerva whispered, finishing Hagrid's sentence for him. "I thought that was a joke. Sorry Draco, Harry and Hermione. I'll apologise to Neville the next time I see him as well."

"It's fine it did sound far-fetched." Draco said accepting the apology.

"And we weren't going to tell the truth and get Hagrid in trouble." Harry added.

"Hey Harry?" Ginny asked suddenly.

"Yeah Gin?"

"Why don't we ask Neville and Luna if they would like to join us?" she suggested. "We can explain what's happened with the people who returned and about Lycan's you never know Luna may know something's about them, you know what she's like."

"Yeah I'll go and ask them after this memory." he replied, "I'm sure Neville would like to know that the dragon was real and not just a story."

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune."

"How did you know what it was?" asked James curiously.

"That would be because of Charlie." Ron said.

"Yeah I'm a dragon tamer." Charlie put in. "I taught the twins, Ron and Ginny about most species of dragon when I was home at summer before I went to Romania to work." he explained.

"Cool." Regulus said as the others nodded.

"Won it," said Hagrid. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game of cards with a stranger."

"A stranger who just happened to have a dragon's egg?" Remus scoffed.

"Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."

"No shock there, really." Charlie said, "Norwegian Ridgeback's are quite vicious. Not as bad as the Hungarian Horntail's though."

"You can say that again." Harry grumbled making the people who knew what he meant to laugh and the rest to look confused so he added, "4th year." making them nod.

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" said Hermione.

"Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow.

"Reading won't be enough!" Astoria cried.

"Got this outta the library - Dragon-Breeding for Pleasure and Profit - it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on 'em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here - how ter recognize diff'rent eggs - what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."

He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," she said.

"See! Hermione will reason with him." Lily said hopefully.

"It's like you've never even met Hagrid!" James laughed. "You do know that he's wanted one for ages, right? He's not going to change his mind because of Hermione! He's probably not even listening!"

Hermione nodded, "He wasn't."

But Hagrid wasn't listening.

He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.

So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.

Harry said, "I'm going to go see if Neville and Luna want to join us." he left through the back door and there was a faint 'Pop' when he disapparated away.

"Who's Luna?" Lily asked frowning.

"Luna Lovegood. She's Xenophilius's daughter." Remus replied.

"She and Neville are my best friends. The newspapers have us three labeled as the 'Silver Trio' because our role's in the war were quite big if not as big as Harry, Ron and Hermione's parts." Ginny explained. "I think that's where they go the idea actually, those three are the 'Golden Trio' and we're the 'Silver Trio'." she added.

"True and probably is where they got the idea." Hermione agreed, "We led the resistance inside Hogwarts at first, but when we had to leave Ginny, Neville and Luna took over." she explained to the ones who didn't know about what their part in the war was.

"We had to do something." Ginny said as there was another three 'Pop's' signaling Harry's return with Neville and Luna.

"Hello everyone." Neville said as he walked in behind Harry.

"Yes. Hello everyone." Luna said dreamily looking as ever as if she had drifted in accidentally. Ginny got up and hugged them both then sat back down beside Harry.

"I'm guessing there's a few people you don't recognise?" Harry said from his seat. They both nodded taking the free seats beside Harry and Ginny.

"Well I'm guessing you both remember me?" Remus asked.

"Of course Professor Lupin." Neville said, "Though you look younger." he added.

Remus chuckled and nodded. "You don't have to call me Professor anymore just call me Remus." he said, they nodded, "And I am younger but still have all my memories from the war." he explained.

"Wotcher you two." Dora said.

"Hello Dora." Luna said. "It is nice to have you two back." she added dreamily.

"It's nice to be back." she replied.

"I think I can make a guess at who's next." Neville said looking at Sirius. "It's the scary mass-murderer Sirius Black. Isn't it?" Sirius nodded and stood up and mock-bowed making them laugh.

"That's me, well except the scary mass-murderer part." he said.

"We know Harry explained it to us before we came. Plus we were there the night you went through the veil." Neville explained as Luna nodded. "Harry would never lie to us about something like that."

"And the aura I can see around you is clear. If you were guilty it would be cloudy or cracked." Luna said absently.

"Aura?" Sirius asked.

"Yes I can see them I always have been able to." Luna explained. "It's like someones magical signature. I can see their personal colour, everyone's is different more like a fingerprint really."

Ginny frowned. "I thought you had figured out how to stop that?" she asked.

"Oh yes, but it is much more interesting with it." Luna replied smiling slightly. Ginny shrugged.

"We don't know who the rest of you are." Neville admitted.

"Well I'm James Potter and this is my wife Lily. We're obviously Harry's parents." James said.

Neville nodded. "That should have been obvious especially since Harry looks like you Mr. Potter."

"Please just call us James and Lily the Mr and Mrs thing makes us feel old." Lily said smiling as James nodded.

"Okay Lily and James it is then." Luna agreed dreamily.

"I'm Regulus Black, Sirius's little brother you won't have met me before as I died before most of you were born." Regulus said making them nod.

"Hi Neville, Luna." Fred called.

"Hello again Fred." they chorused, making everyone laugh as they looked at each other shocked.

"Okay now that everyone know's who is who, let's continue with the memories." Harry said making everyone nod. "We're skipping to the dragon hatching."

"Wait the dragon was real?" Neville asked shocked. Harry nodded

Then, one breakfast time, Hedwig brought Harry another note from Hagrid. He had written only two words: It's hatching.

"AWESOME!" yelled James and Sirius.

Ron wanted to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut. Hermione wouldn't hear of it.

"Hermione, how many times are we going to see a dragon hatching?"

"Even you have to admit that's gotta be more interesting than a stupid Herbology class!" Regulus snorted.

"It would have looked suspicious if we hadn't gone to class." she replied.

"We've got lessons, we'll get into trouble, and that's nothing to what Hagrid's going to be in when someone finds out what he's doing -"

"Shut up!" Harry whispered.

Malfoy was only a few feet away and he had stopped dead to listen.

"Sorry." Draco said. "I was trying to find out something that would get you in trouble again." he admitted wincing.

How much had he heard?

"All of it." Draco told them, making them groan.

Harry didn't like the look on Malfoy's face at all.

Ron and Hermione argued all the way down to Herbology, and in the end, Hermione agreed to run down to Hagrid's with the other two during morning break. When the bell sounded from the castle the the end of their lesson, the three of them dropped their trowels at once and hurried through the grounds to the edge of the Forest.

"What I wouldn't give to see a dragon egg hatch." Sirius sighed breathlessly.

"Yeah. We're about to see a memory of one though." James grinned.

Hagrid greeted them looking flushed and excited.

"It's nearly out." He ushered them inside.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it.

They all 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 women, except Luna who just watched curiously, gasped. James and Sirius edged forwards excitedly as did the rest of the boys, except Charlie who had seen a dragon hatch before.

The baby dragon flopped down on to the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; Harry thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella.

"Cool, it looks kinda gross though." Sirius commented.

"Baby dragons always look weak and like they haven't got that much weight on them, they don't start looking powerful until they're about 1-year-old." Charlie explained as Teddy who was still on Andy's lap woke up and looked at the dragon curiously before looking at Dora.

"Mummy." he said reaching for her. Dora picked him up then sat him on her knee.

"Remus can you clean your shirt before Teddy sees it? Your covered in blood." Dora asked making Remus nod and take his wand out and cast a cleaning charm on his shirt making it clean again. "Thank you."

"I actually forgot to do that earlier. It wasn't completely healed when you cleaned it earlier Andy." he explained, "It must've soaked through with the last of the healing." Andy nodded.

Harry quickly explained to Neville and Luna what had happened as they looked confused.

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.

"And pretty soon the whole cabin will go down in flames!" Astoria said dramatically.

"Merlin, I hope that doesn't happen!" Lily gasped.

"Don't worry, it won't," George assured her, while adding under his breath to Fred, "and we're supposed to be the dramatic ones!" making Fred smirk.

"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 mummy!" said Hagrid.

"Did he just say -" Regulus started incredulously.

"Yup, I'm afraid he did." James confirmed.

"Has Hagrid gone mad?" Andy asked.

"You know, he may have." Sirius laughed.

"Sirius!" Lily scolded him.

"I was just kidding!"

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

"Very." Sirius answered her.

"You're not Hagrid, Snuffles." Hermione pointed out.

Sirius pouted as James laughed at the name

"It is fast though." Charlie added, "Ridgebacks take about a week to be classed as a threat due to the fact their poisonous, three months and there deadly." he explained.

Hagrid was about to answer when the colour 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."

"Me." Draco said making them all groan again.

Harry bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking him.

Malfoy had seen the dragon.

James swore under his breath so Lily wouldn't hear. Sirius did the same, but with more profane words, only he wasn't as successful with keeping it quiet and Remus heard him.

"Stop that or I'm Silencing you!" he warned him taking his wand out again.

"Yes, Snuffles, it is a very bad thing to swear in front of children." Harry scolded nodding at Teddy who was playing with his wolf again and not paying the slightest bit of attention.

"Sorry." Sirius said. "And quit calling me Snuffles!" he exclaimed.

The Golden Trio looked at each other. "I don't think we will stop calling you Snuffles." Ron said for them. "It's quite fun." Sirius growled.

"Bad dog Snuffles don't growl at people." Harry mock-scolded prompting Sirius to turn into his big black dog, Padfoot, and stalk towards Harry who smirked and changed into Shadow and growled at Padfoot who retreated behind Remus.

"Come on Paddy. You can't honestly be afraid of him?" Remus chortled. Padfoot nodded and changed back into Sirius.

"That growl was scary." Lily said, "But even I could tell he wouldn't do anything. Would you Shadow?"

The wolf shook his head as Teddy spotted him and shouted "Wolf! Wolf." before reaching for Shadow who came closer and sat with his head lowered so Teddy could clap him with help from Dora.

"Oh yeah you two haven't seen our forms yet have you?" Ginny asked Neville and Luna who both looked shocked. They shook their heads so Ginny changed into Misty and Remus into Moony.

"Wow." Neville whispered shocked as Misty walked over to them and sat down, her head level with Neville's even when she was sitting. She stood up and changed into Ginny again.

Gin? Can you tell Dora that Teddy has a handful of fur on my neck please?Shadow sent silently.

"Dora, Harry said that I've to tell you that Teddy has a handful of fur on his neck." she said sounding amused.

"Oop's sorry. I didn't notice." Dora replied apologetically untangling Teddy's hand from Shadow's fur. Shadow changed back into Harry who chuckled making Teddy pout, "Dont worry Teddy, you'll see Shadow again later." he promised, Teddy smiled like he understood perfectly.

"Right we're going to skip until the night we got rid of the Dragon. We had convinced Hagrid it was best if it went to live in a colony and had written to Charlie and set up a way to get it to Romania." Hermione explained.

Hagrid had Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.

"He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a muffled voice. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely."

"A teddy bear?" James cried incredulously. "What on earth does he need a teddy bear for? He's a bloody dragon! He'll rip it to shreds!"

From inside the crate came ripping noises that sounded to Harry as though teddy was having his head torn off.

"Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed, as Harry and Hermione covered the crate with the Invisibility Cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mummy will never forget you!"

How they managed to get the crate back up to the castle, they never knew. Midnight ticked nearer and nearer as they heaved Norbet up the marble staircase, then another - even one of Harry's short cuts didn't make the work much easier.

"You knew short cuts?" James said happily.

"Yes! And he doesn't even have the map!" Sirius cried.

"Where d'you think it is? Still in Filch's office?" asked James.

"Nope it wasn't." Fred started.

"We had it." George finished grinning.

"We gave it to Harry eventually though." Fred added.

"So that's where you got it from then." Remus said amused. "I had wondered about that." Harry just grinned sheepishly.

"Nearly there!" Harry panted as they reached the corridor beneath the tallest tower.

Then a sudden movement ahead of them made them almost drop the crate.

Forgetting that they were already invisible, they shrank into the shadows, staring at the two outlines of two people grappling with each other ten feet away. A lamp flared. Professor McGonagall, in a tartan dressing-gown and a hairnet, had Malfoy by the ear.

"Sorry Draco." Minerva apologised.

He shrugged. "As I said before, it did sound far-fetched."

"Detention!" she shouted. "And twenty points from Slytherin. Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you -"

"You don't understand, Professor, Harry Potter's coming - he's got a dragon!"

"Sorry." Draco said, again.

"Well, at least Minnie will never buy that story!" Sirius laughed. Minerva glared at him.

"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on - I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"

The steep spiral staircase up to the top of the tower seemed the easiest thing in the world after that. Not until they'd stepped out into the cold night air did they throw off the Cloak, glad to be able to breathe properly again. Hermione did a sort of jig.

"Malfoy's got detention! I could sing!"

"Don't," Harry advised her.

Chuckling about Malfoy, they waited. Norbert thrashing about in his crate. About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness. Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed Harry and Hermione the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them.

They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then Harry and Hermione shook hands with the others and thanked them very much.

At last, Norbert was going... going... gone.

"Hooray!" they all cheered.

They slipped back down the spiral staircase, their hearts as light as their hands, now that Norbert was off them.

"Uh Oh!" James cried.

"What? The dragon's gone!" Sirius yelled happily.

"Did they put that cloak back on?" James asked worriedly.

"Nope." Hermione said solemnly. "We forgot it."

No more dragon - Malfoy in detention - what could spoil their happiness?

"Getting caught." James muttered.

The answer to that was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs.

As they stepped into the corridor, Filch's face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.

"He's even worse than a teacher!" James cried.

"Well, well, well," he whispered, "we are in trouble." They'd left the Invisibility Cloak on top of the tower.

"Okay let's have a break for Dinner." Harry said. "It's only 4pm so we can continue at 5.30." everyone nodded and started talking while Molly, Lily, Andy and Cissy all went to make dinner.