Despite Diana's jabs directed towards Quirrell, Tilly felt hopeful about their newfound information.
The three of them had started to give each other knowing looks every time they passed the third floor. There had even been a couple of times they had pressed their ears against the door to see if Fluffy was still snoozing away inside.
Unfortunately, about a week after the match Tilly was suddenly hit with the reality stick when Hermione Granger brought up the fact that exams were ten weeks away.
How could I have been so careless!
Tilly loved Diana and Harry to death, but their method of learning was… not her style to say to the least.
This was part of the reason Tilly was grateful that she had become friends with Hermione. The two of them shared a lot of the same qualities. One of these things included understanding the importance of studying.
It had happened before the first Quidditch match. Everyone had been gossiping about Tilly's conflict with the troll. Hermione was the only person to ask if she was okay. After this, the two got to talking and ended up deciding to meet up to study together.
They kept doing this for a couple of weeks. Eventually, other people started to join them. First Neville. Then Esther. Diana and Tilly joined next, and Harry ended up dragging along Ron one day.
Tilly was surprised to see that Hermione seemed happy to have so many other people around. Tilly thought that it might be because she likes to share her knowledge with as many people as possible.
"Ten weeks!" Hermione said. "You should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into you."
"I know. There's just been so much stuff going on lately." Tilly said shamefully.
"I don't understand what you two are so stressed about. The exams aren't for ages." Ron said.
After hearing this, Hermione started to lecture Ron on the importance of studying and how you shouldn't leave ANYTHING to the last second.
Tilly looked over to Diana and Harry. The former had fallen asleep, and the latter had a copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi propped up on a pile of books. He wasn't actually reading it. Harry was too busy staring out the window at the light blue sky.
Tilly kinda understood why. It was the first hot day they'd had in months. All the snow had started to disappear, and all the green was starting to come back. Tilly guessed that Harry would rather be outside instead of stuck inside doing homework.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tilly spotted Hagrid. She pointed this out to Harry, who elbowed Diana to wake her up.
"Hello, Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?" Tilly asked as the three children made their way over to him.
Hagrid let out a yelp and quickly tried to hide something behind the pockets of his moleskin overcoat.
"Jus' lookin'," he said, in a quiet voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter? Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"
"You're not trying to change the subject, are you Hagrid?" Diana asked while stretching her arms.
"Wha'?! o' course not!"
"Then what are you hiding?" Tilly asked as she tried to look behind Hagrid.
"Is it about Fluffy?" Harry asked.
"SHHHH!" said Hagrid. "Listen - come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh-"
The three children gave each other confused looks.
"See you later, then." Harry said.
Hagrid rushed off. Leaving the trio to question what just happened.
"What do you think he had behind his back?" Diana asked Harry.
"I dunno, but I've seen him worried before, but not like this," Harry said as he watched Tilly start looking at the bookshelf that Hagrid had been standing at.
"I think I may have an idea." Tilly held up a book with the words Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide printed on the cover.
"Dragons?' Diana and Harry said in unison.
"Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I ever met him, " said Harry.
"Honesty, I hope that's not it. The Ministry doesn't let wizards keep dragons as pets. He could get in a lot of trouble." Tilly said.
"Let's not jump to conclusions." Diana grabbed the book off Tilly and started flicking through it. "If he likes dragons so much maybe he's just doing some reading on the subject."
"Who likes dragons." The three of them spun around to see Ron. Who had clearly gotten bored of sitting with Hermione.
"I do!" Harry said quickly. "We were just talking about what it would be like to have one as a pet."
"Good luck with that. It's impossible to tame dragons. You should see the burns my brother Charlie got from one."
"Isn't that a bit of over-exaggeration?" Tilly asked. "Piper was always telling me about the ones she's befriended before moving to Romania."
Ron's ears went red. He clearly didn't like being contradicted like that.
"Who's Piper? You've guys have mentioned her before." Harry asked.
"She was Head Girl last year. She helped me study for potions." Tilly said proudly.
"She and Charlie are dating," Diana said bluntly.
"They are not!" Ron argued.
"I think they would say otherwise." Diana was clearly teasing Ron, but despite that, it was true that Piper was dating Charlie (along with another lovely lady, the name of Penny).
The lot of them were eventually kicked out of the library for being so loud. When Ron headed back to Gryffindor Tower in a huff, Tilly and co decided it was a good time to go see Hagrid.
Harry and Diana raced each other down to Hagrid's place, while Tilly followed closely behind. When the three of them got there, they noticed the curtains closed and the door locked. They all give each other a look before Harry tapped his hand on the door.
"Who is it?"
"It's the garden thieves, we're here to steal all of the pumpkins." Diana deadpanned.
Hagrid opened the door and rushed the three of them inside. The first thing Tilly noticed was how unnecessarily hot it was.
"Hagrid, why do you have the fire going? It's boiling in here." Tilly asked.
Hagrid avoided the question by offering the three of them tea and sandwiches. Tilly polity refused both.
"So, yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"
"We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy," Harry said. Not wanting to beat around the bush.
Hagrid frowned at him.
"Of course I cant, he said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' 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 abou' Fluffy."
"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on around here," Tilly said in a sweet and flattering tone.
Hagrid's eyes lit up, and Tilly could tell he was smiling under the beard.
"We only wondered who had done the guarding, really."She went on. "We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you."
Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Harry and Diana both smiled at Tilly and gave her a thumbs up.
"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... let's see..
Hagrid processed to explain how he let Dumbdore borrow Fluffy and listed off all the teachers who had contributed to the protection of the stone.
Professor Sprout - Professor Flitwick - Professor McGonagall - Professor Quirrell - Hagrid mentioned Dumbledore adding something - and of course, Professor Snape.
"Snape?" Harry said curiously.
"Yeah - oh no, yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."
Tilly looked over to Diana and Harry but didn't say anything. Tilly had already decided that Snape was definitely up to something. It reminded her of something Hela once said. 'If you want to destroy something, you do it from the inside.'
"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?" Diana added on.
"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly.
Harry let out a sigh of relief at Hagrid's answer.
"Hagrid, can we have a window open? The heats getting to me." Tilly asked as she walked over to one of the windows.
"Can't, Tilly, sorry," said Hagrid.
Hagrid's eye flicked over to the kettle and back to Tilly.
The three friends looked over to it suspiciously.
"Hagrid, that's not what I think it is?" Diana asked.
But it was pretty oblivious what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a black egg that was about the size of a soccer ball.
"Um," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, "That's er..."
"Oh my god, it is!" Diana said excitedly. "Where did you get it? Can't have been easy."
"Won it," said Hagrid proudly. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."
"Where are you gonna send it when it catches?" Tilly asked.
"Well, I've bin doin' some readin' , said Hagrid. "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 I 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."
The more Hagrid continued to talk, the more nervous Tilly got. She liked Hagrid a lot, but she had to admit that this didn't seem like a good idea.
"You're planning on keeping it here?" Harry asked.
"You live in a wooden house, Hagrid," Diana said. Her excitement from before had somewhat disappeared had been replaced by concern. It didn't seem like Diana was expecting for Hagrid to actually keep it as a pet.
Hagrid ignored them and continued tending to the fire while humming to himself.
Interesting, another thing to add to the list of ever-growing concerns this year. They couldn't let anyone find out about the baby dragon that was sure to pop out of its shell at any moment. Tilly didn't want to imagine the kind of trouble Hagrid could find himself in.
"I wonder what it's like to have competent adults at school." Diana joked as they made their way back to the castle.
A couple of days passed with nothing significant happening. This resulted in Tilly remembering back to the beginning of the year. When the biggest thing going on her and Diana's life was wanting to start a club. Any discussion of S.P.H.I.N.X had all but disappeared in the last couple of months.
She didn't want to admit it out loud, but Tilly felt a little bitter about it. She had gotten herself so excited over it too. Making a place where other people like them could feel safe. She wasn't mad at Harry or anything. It was out of his control. It was more like she was mad at the circumcises.
Stupid rock
Stupid Snape
On one bright morning while the trio were enjoying breakfast, Hedwig brought Harry a note from Hagrid with the words 'It's hatching' scratched onto it. All food and morning reading was instantly abandoned, and the three rushed out of the hall.
"Dragon, Baby Dragon, Dragon Baba." Diana said. The three of them continued towards Hagrids Hut until Harry stopped them.
"Where do you three think you're going?" Standing before them was Mafloy with the usual mean look he had on his face.
"None of your business Malfoy," Harry yelled, and Malfoy's ugly grin got a bit wider.
They all stood there for a while, just staring at each other. Diana eventually put her arms around Harry and Tilly and started to walk off. There was no way they were going to get down to Hagrid's at that point.
They waited until morning break to try and head back down to Hagrid's again. When they arrived, Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited.
"It's nearly out."
Tilly took a look at the egg. It was covered in cracks and was moving around a LOT. She heard a weird clicking noise coming from inside.
Everyone inside the hut leaded forward and nervously waited.
The egg eventually split in half and the baby dragon came tumbling out.
To be honest; it was probably one of the weirdest things Tilly had ever seen. It looked like a black sheet had got caught in a fan or something.
The jet black dragon wobbled around the table for a little before opening their bright orange eyes. Out of nowhere, it sneezed casting Diana to jump back to avoid getting burnt. She made a surprised noise that reminded Tilly of an angry duck.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid cried happier. Harry and Tilly both let out an ugh sound. He reached out to give the dragon a pet on the head. Causing it to snap its pointy teeth at him.
"Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!"
"Oh yeah, that's how I greet my dad. By trying to bite his bloody finger off." Diana said. Clearly not happy about nearly getting her hair lit on fire.
"Hagrid?" said Tilly, "How fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"
Hagrid opened his mouth to answer but stopped when he saw something in the window.
"What's the matter?" Tilly asked.
"Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains, it's a kid, he's runnin' back up ter the school."
Harry rushed over to see Mafloy running off into the distance.
"Malfoy's seen the dragon," Harry said, angrily.
Tilly felt her heart drop into her chest. This was bad. Very very bad.
The next week was absolute torture. Malfoy always had this stupid look on his face. It had put everyone on edge. When they had the chance, the three of them had been going down to the hut to try and talk Hagrid into sending the dragon away.
"Just let him go," Harry urged. "Set him free."
"I can't," said Hagrid. "He's too little. He'd die."
Tilly looked at the dragon. It had grown three times in length in just one week! It also seemed dead set on getting up in Diana's personal space as much as possible.
"I just want him away from me!" Diana said. The dragon flared its nostrils and gave her an evil look.
The dragon had been keeping Hagrid busy all week. To the point where he had forgotten all about his job and gamekeeper. The place was a complete mess. The floor was covered in chicken bits and empty bottles.
"I've decided to call him Norbert," said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. "He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mommy?"
"AhhH, Get away you!" Diana shouted as Norbert got a little too close for comfort.
"Hagrid," said Tilly firmly. "You're ignoring what's happening. In a few weeks, Norbert will be three times the size of the house and Mafloy will tell someone what's been going on! You are not going to be able to hide him!"
Hagrid bit his lip.
"I, I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't."
Harry suddenly turned to Tilly.
"Your friend, what's her name?!"
"Piper?"
The pieces suddenly clicked in Tilly's head as well. Piper was in Romania. Studying dragons.
"We could send Norbert to her!" Tilly shouted.
"She can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!" Harry finished.
"Amazing, the sooner he's out of here, the better!" Diana shouted as she ran out the door.
Tilly and Harry turned to Hagrid. Silently asking for his permission. In the end, he was no match for the puppy eyes and agreed.
A week went by, and the trio found themselves sitting in the hideout waiting for Piper's answer.
"That thing has it out for me!" Diana shouted at Harry. "I'm not going anywhere near him, after what he did!"
A few days earlier they had been trying to help Hagrid feed Norbert when the dragon sneezed leaving a small burn mark on Diana's hand. Her original opinion of curiosity towards the dragon had shifted entirely by this point, and she was happy to avoid him at any cost.
There was a sudden tapping at one of the windows.
"Hedwig!" Tilly cooed fondly.
Tilly rushed over and opened the window for the owl. She took the small envelope from them and read it out loud.
"Dear Tilly, How are you?
Thanks for the letter, we'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. Charlie, Penny and I are coming to visit a friend soon. Trouble is, we can't be seen carrying an illegal dragon. Can Hagrid meet us outside his place at midnight on Saturday? We can meet you there and take the dragon away while it's still dark.
Send me an answer as soon as possible."
Love, Piper. "
They all looked at one another.
"Alright, nice," Harry said. "We let Hagrid know about the plan and let him handle it from there."
Diana started frantically nodding her head. Anything to get rid of Norbert, along with getting Malfoy off their backs.
For the next couple of days, everything seemed to be going okay. Tilly had even managed to find some time to do some extra studying. She got the feeling that she should get as much as she could before the exams at the end of the year.
Tilly had been happily jotting down some transfiguration notes when a voice she was coming to despise more than anything broke her train of thought.
"Hello there."
"Please leave me alone, Malfoy."
"Why would I do that?"
Tilly decided to ignore him. Hopefully, he would get bored and go away.
"See any dragons lately?"
"..."
"You know this situation really goes to prove what idiot that friend of yours is."
"..."
"Maybe it has som-"
Tilly saw an opportunity when Draco lent in a bit. She let out a fake sneeze towards Malfoy's face, causing him to jump back in disgust.
"Why you little, UGGH!"
Tilly put a finger to her lips and shushed him.
"No yelling in the library."
Malfoy's face went so red that Tilly thought he may explore. He stood there fuming for a few seconds but then moved to knock Tilly's books off the desk. Tilly let an annoyed huff and moved to pick up her things.
Malfoy started shuffling through everything, causing Tilly to smack his hands away.
"Go away."
"What? I'm just trying to help."
"I don't need your 'help'. Please leave me alone."
Tilly was still on thin ice with a lot of the teachers at this point. Especially Snape. She's been trying her hardest to stay quiet and out of trouble lately, but thanks to Malfoy that has gotten a lot harder.
"What's this?" Malfoy said as he picked up Piper's letter.
"Please don't." But it was too late. Malfoy already scanned the letter.
"Well well well."
Tilly could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes. She wasn't going to be able to take much more of this. She snatched the letter out of Malfoy's hand and rushed out of the library.
She found Harry a little while later and explained what had happened.
"Okay, okay, okay, So we need to somehow distract Malfoy from going to Hagrid's on Saturday," Tilly said while rubbing her face anxiously.
"How are we going to do that?" Harry asked.
"Maybe we stay under the invisibility cloak and keep a lookout. If he heads towards Hagrid's, we knock him out or something."
"What if he brings a teacher?"
"Umm, we'll rush down and warn everyone?"
"Are you sure about this, Tilly?"
"Absolutely not, but it's my fault Mafloy found out. I should have burned or something."
"It's Malfoy's fault. Everything that's been happening for the last couple of days has been his fault."
"I wish I could believe that…"
The next morning Harry and Tilly met up with Hagrid to make sure he understood what he needed to do. When they got there, the two of them heard a loud bang one from inside the hut. They awkwardly sucked air through their teeth but knocked on the door anyway.
All said and done; Tilly did feel sorry for Hagrid in a weird way. She listened as Hagrid said his goodbyes and explained what he had packed for Norbert.
"He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey," Hagrid said with tears in his eyes. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely."
Tilly distinctly heard the sound of something ripping from inside the crate while comforting Hagrid.
Later that night, the two of them waited in the courtyard with the cloak over their heads. After about 15 mins of waiting, they heard two voices coming from the entryway.
They moved towards the wall into the darkness, somewhat forgetting the fact they were currently invisible.
Tilly spotted the light of a lamp and watched Professor McGonagall walk down the hall in her pyjamas while pulling Malfoy by the ear.
"Detention!" she shouted. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you!"
"You don't understand, Professor. Potter and Blake! They have a dragon!"
"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on, I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"
It took all of Tilly's willpower to not burst out laughing. After all that. The all dread of getting caught or Mafloy telling the teachers what was going on, and in the end the bloody idiot got himself caught.
Tilly and Harry looked at each other and waited. When they were sure that Professor McGonagall was gone. They looked at each other again and started uncontrollably giggling.
"That was so perfect." Harry smiled.
"Did you see the look on his face? That was priceless."
The made a couple more jokes before Harry grabbed Tilly's hand and started heading down the path to Hagrid's.
"Don't you think we should go to bed?"
"What for? McGonagall's being distracted by Malfoy, and I don't think anyone else would be down at Hagrid's right now."
Tilly let out a worried hum.
"And besides, I want to meet your friend."
"You wanna meet Piper?"
"Of course, after hearing the way you talk about her, it's hard to not want to meet her."
This put a smile on Tilly's face. If it had been any other day, she would have insisted they go back, but due to her lack of sleep and the joy she got from seeing what happened to Malfoy, her whole brain 'Why not?'.
The two of them started running down the steps to Hagrids. Lucky not slipping on any of them on the way down.
They got there just in time and heard several voices and some laughing. Tilly was immediately able to spot a tall, curly-haired girl, who she recognized as Piper.
Piper was trying to give Hagrid a hug but was having a hard time of it, due how much taller he was compared to her.
Two other people were standing there; a tall ginger-haired boy with a ponytail, and rosy-cheeked blonde girl.
"Piper!" Tilly said as she ducked out from the cloak.
Piper turned around with a surprised look on her face, that quickly changed to joy when seeing her friend.
"Tils! How are you, love?"
"Pretty good actually."
Piper kneeled down to give Tilly a hug. After they were done Tilly motioned for Harry to come over.
"Piper, this is my friend Harry." Tilly turned to Harry. "Harry, this is Piper, Charlie, and Penny.
All five of them said their hello's and Piper smiled down at Harry. Offering him a hand for him to shake.
"So, you helped take down the troll, did ya?"
Harry's face went red.
"How'd you heard about that?"
"Let's say my brother can be a bit of a chatterbox," Charlie answered. This caused Piper to give him a knowing look while Penny let out a giggle.
They all continued talking for a little while. They eventually got onto the topic of Norbert.
"It really is a shame that he can't stay here, Hagrid," Penny said, and Harry and Tilly gave each other incredulous looks.
"It's bin gettin' harder fer those poor creatures in the sanctuary. Breaks me heart when we have ter kick some o' 'em out."
"Sanctuary?" Harry whispered to Tilly.
"It's kinda where they keep all the creatures for the Care of Magical Creatures class."
Harry nodded his head with a vague understanding of what she meant.
Harry eventually asked how they planned to get a Norwegian Ridgeback all the way back to Romania. This caused the group of twenty-somethings to brag about the harness they'd rigged up.
With help from Hagrid, they all buckled Norbert safely into it, and after reassuring Hagrid again, they said their goodbyes and lifted off the ground.
"Bye-bye, Norbert!"
Once they had all disappeared from sight, Tilly and Harry said their goodbyes to Hagrid and ducked back under the cloak. They thought they were pretty much home free until they rushed into the main hall a bit too quickly.
Peeves had been flooding the place, and they didn't notice the water all over the floor. Causing the two to slip and land flat on their backs.
Filch looked down at them with a gleeful yet threatening smile on his face.
"Well, well, well," he whispered, "We are in trouble."