In the dark of the corridor, in the face of Filch's maniacal, gleaming eyes, this didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.
Harry and Hermione were marched in silence to Professor McGonagall's private chambers on the Second Floor of Gryffindor tower. All the way down, Harry felt his anxiety grow like a sickening, coiling knot in his belly. Wild, half-formed alibis chased each other around in his brain, tripping over each other to be considered and rejected first. Their excuse - such as it was - wouldn't hold water for a second. Harry was convinced of that. And even if it did, it would only lead to more awkward questions that he had literally zero idea how he was supposed to answer.
So, for the first time in their friendship, Harry's unwavering loyalty to Hermione was severely tested.
For Hermione's part, she seemed to be realising the foolhardiness of her plan, too. She was visibly trembling, looking down at her slippers and biting her bottom lip in her worry. She wasn't a girl who got into any sort of trouble, let alone court it as she had now. This was new territory for her, and her uncertainty and inexperience made her vulnerable to mistakes.
Not that either had much of a chance to make a mistake. Professor McGonagall was already up and waiting for them when they arrived. Evidently, Mrs Norris had raced along ahead of them to communicate the crime to her in her cat Animagus form. Harry was mildly curious as to how that actually worked, but such frivolous notions were driven from his head as soon as he saw the expression on his former guardian's face.
For she was utterly furious.
Never, not once in their relationship, in any of her incarnations in Harry's life, had he ever seen Minerva McGonagall so beside herself with anger. She glowered at them, breathing heavily like a dragon about to strike. The comparison drove Harry to remember why they were here in the first place, and he was almost about to tell her everything, when the rant she had been storing finally burst free.
"I have never been so angry with two students before!" she cried. "Two of you - out of bed - long after the curfew was in place. I'm disgusted. From my own house no less. I thought both of you would have had more sense, knowing the dangers out here right now! Explain yourselves."
It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a question posed by a teacher. Her courage and bravado gone, she simply stared at her feet and made soft whimpering noises in her throat. Harry, too, had forgotten the contents of the English Language. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, a little bit like a codfish, but no words came out.
"I think I've a fair idea of what was going on," Professor McGonagall continued. "Your fanciful heads have been filled with all the mystery of the object being stored below the school right now, so you thought you'd go looking for it. Who's idea was the suit of armour? Yours, Harry? Did you think it would keep you safe if you tried to pass Hagrid's little dog?"
Harry blinked. It was an out. A stupid one, but a believable one. Harry could play the hero, and it might keep Hermione from getting into too much trouble.
"Okay, y-yes, it was my idea," Harry mumbled, staring pointedly at Hermione when she looked on the verge of protest. "Ever since Sirius told me about it, and especially since we were attacked over Christmas, I've been thinking of trying to get to the Stone first. To keep it safe, you know."
"Safe!" McGonagall thundered. "You think you have more chance of protecting the Stone than a giant dog, a raft of enchantments and complex magic performed by Albus Dumbledore himself? I didn't think you that arrogant, Harry."
Ah, so there were a slew of other protections guarding the Stone. That was interesting, and Harry and Hermione had been right about that. They could discuss it later, but right now Harry had to play the foolish hero.
"I ... I just thought, you know, because I was part of bringing down Voldemort with the Stone, maybe I could protect it in some way nobody has realised yet. I was worried ... about Hermione, you know. I just wanted to keep her safe."
McGonagall's expression softened for a heartbeat, but it was back to stern stoniness just as quickly. This time, she turned it on Hermione.
"So I suppose Harry just roped you in to this idiotic scheme?" she asked briskly. "And you just went along with it?"
"He said he might need some help with a spell or two," Hermione lied. "But I wasn't about to let him go alone, and I didn't think he'd listen to reason to not go."
"Then both of you are as culpable as the other," Professor McGonagall frowned. "There is nothing that gives a student the right to be out of bed after dark, if not for attending classes. Nothing at all. You shall both receive detentions, and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."
"Fifty!" Harry cried. "That's harsh."
"Fifty each!" Professor McGonagall told him, breathily angrily through her long nose.
"Aunt Min - you can't -"
"It's Professor when we are on school time. And don't tell me what I can and cant do."
"But Hermione ... she didn't do anything!" Harry protested hotly.
"Do not think me a fool, Harry," McGonagall snapped. "I know that you two are trying to cover for the other, and Miss Granger's thoughtlessness here is not becoming of her. But you are both guilty in this little caper, and you both will be punished for it. Now get straight to bed, both of you. If I hear that you take even the slightest detour on the way back to the Common Room, that points deduction will be tripled!"
Harry and Hermione trudged back to bed in silence. Harry couldn't sleep. A hundred points lost in a single night! He hadn't thought about that part of the punishment. What would the other Gryffindors say when they saw the hourglass in the morning? How would they react when they heard that famous Harry Potter had gone seeking more glory, and cost them any chance they might have had at winning the House Cup?
He felt truly awful. But the fallout was worse than he'd imagined.
The first bleary-eyed Gryffindors thought there must have been a mistake, when they say the House Cup points hourglass the next day. Indeed, some Muggleborn students suggested that maybe the batteries needed changing. But by the time they'd explained to their Magicalborn counterparts just what batteries were, the truth had started to filter out.
Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had been caught out of bed for a midnight tryst, and the whole school was soon talking about it.
Now Harry wasn't entirely sure what a tryst even was, but when he tried to ask Hermione about it she simply hushed him crossly, and ducked low to her cornflakes as though trying to hide in them. But it was a futile effort. She had been right about one thing, though, not a single student believed the story about them trying to get through the locked door on the Third Floor corridor.
"Stupid!"
"Idiots!"
"Bloody lovesick kids ... a hundred points ... all for a sloppy snog!"
Such comments followed Harry and Hermione wherever they went. Harry got it worse, on account of who he was, but Hermione came in for her fair share of nastiness, too. What Harry found most bizarre was that it was only the girls of the castle who gave Hermione a hard time, and it was as much over the silly rumours as it was the points loss. Harry didn't understand that at all. And some of the boys actually seemed more interested in her now, which made Harry unreasonably cross. Students he didn't know very well started trying to talk to Hermione, so Harry had taken to growling at them until they went away. He didn't want his best friend any more upset than she already was.
For three days, Harry and Hermione were given the silent treatment by other Gryffindors. This was made worse by the Slytherins, who kept thanking them for their efforts when they passed either in the corridors. Draco Malfoy was particularly gleeful about all this, offering his services to help Harry lose even more points whenever he wanted to. He declared that his legend would be secured if he helped Gryffindor post the first minus House Points score in the one thousand year history of Hogwarts.
So they kept their heads down. Neither drew attention to themselves in class; Harry worked harder, but more often alone, during Quidditch practice, seeing this as his best chance of recovering points for his House. In the evenings they worked quietly on homework pieces, choosing a cramped table in the corner away from everyone and struggling to see their parchments under the fluttering lights of the tiniest torches in the room.
On the morning of the fourth day, they each received a summons to detention that evening. They came from Professor McGonagall, but Harry also picked up a little note from Hagrid, on which he'd scribbled just two words.
She's hatched.
Harry and Hermione had relayed their plan in full to Hagrid two days ago, and after much cajoling he'd finally given in. He felt guilty that Harry and Hermione had gotten themselves so deliberately in trouble and was now duty-bound to repay them. In any case, Norbert - as he'd dubbed the baby dragon - had already singed off one of his eyebrows as he tried to sing it a lullaby.
That night, at eleven o'clock, Mr Filch collected Harry and Hermione from the Entrance Hall of the castle and led them down to Hagrid's Cabin. He was waiting outside with Fang the boarhound, who was leashed up and ready to go. Hagrid was carrying a crossbow and a quiver of arrows, and Harry shuddered as he saw this image of battle-readiness.
"Dont be too friendly with 'em," Filch sneered. "They're here to be punished. So punish 'em."
"They're going into the Forest, that's punishment enough," Hagrid barked in reply. "Now get going. I'll see them back up to the castle at dawn."
"What's left of them, you mean," Filch leered back with a twisted grin. Then he turned and stomped back up the sloping lawns, his gas lamp swaying against the dark night.
"You alright, you two?" Hagrid asked as soon as Filch was out of earshot.
"Yes but, Hagrid, why do you have a crossbow?" Hermione asked in a shaky voice.
"I wasn't lying about dark things going on in the Forest," Hagrid replied, seriously. "Yeah we got to deliver baby Norbert to the other dragons, but we got to keep an eye out for whatever it is that's lurking in the Forest. Filch is a mean old coot, but he ain't wrong. It's dangerous in here, so stick close to me and stay alert. And stay to the path. Come on."
Hagrid strode over to a spot behind his hut, emerging with a wheelbarrow, inside which was the sleeping dragon. It was an ugly looking thing and even though the scudding clouds often obscured the bright moon overhead, Harry could just about make out what resembled a crumpled, black umbrella wrapped in the neon pink blanket, which was now blackened and fire-damaged. It was only the steam rising from its considerable nostrils that hinted to its being alive at all.
"Phew! That stinks!" Hermione whispered, pinching her nose against the acrid scent of Norbert.
"All babies smell like that from time to time," Hagrid quirked happily. "She just needs changing."
Harry blinked at the very startling idea of a dragon in a nappy. He turned to look up at Hagrid. "So, Norbert is female."
"Yeah ... I think so," Hagrid replied. "Hard to tell, as she tries to bite me if my hand gets too close to check."
"Bite you?" Hermione quavered. "Even at such a young age?"
"Well yeah, but she's just teething," Hagrid returned blithely. "Come on, lets get this over with."
The Forest was dark and silent. Every twig that cracked underfoot sounded out like snapping bone. Harry looked down to watch his step, careful as he'd twice almost trodden on Hermione's toes where she was walking so close to him. As he was scanning the damp detritus of the Forest floor, Harry noticed something glittering and shiny dotted here and there.
"Hagrid - what is that?" Harry asked, pointing at a larger splattering on a tree stump as they passed.
"Unicorn blood," Hagrid informed him. "Something's been attacking them. That's why the Forest is so dangerous right now. Don't know what it is, and I've found two dead so far. Monstrous thing, it is, to slay a unicorn. Whatever's doing it must have no morals, or no worries about leading a cursed life."
"What do you mean?"
"It's powerful stuff, unicorn blood. Drinking it will keep you alive even if you're at Death's Door. But you've killed something pure to sustain yourself, so you're cursed as soon as the first drop touches your lips. But there's some as don't mind that, Dark Creatures and Wizards and so on. And its them we need to watch out for."
Harry tread with even more care and alertness now. Every sound, every creak of movement drew his attention and his wand. And with each abrupt snap of his head and tautening of his body, Hermione tightened her grip on his forearm. Harry hadn't even noticed her taking it, but he wouldn't dream of telling her to let go. Not only was he comforted by having her so near, where he could keep an eye on her, her presence also gave him the courage he might need, to fight whatever it was that was lurking just out of sight in the shadows.
They seemed to walk for hours, right into the very heart of the Forest. Harry was just about to give up on these caves, when Hagrid suddenly led them through a clearing to the base of a sheer rock face, that seemed to sprout up out of nowhere. The moon had broken through the canopy above, dappling the branches in stunning hues of grey and silver. There was a chilly mist hanging at knee-height all around the clearing, and Hagrid pushed the wheelbarrow through this to the mouth of the cave.
"Right, this is your bit," Hagrid announced, stepping away from the wheelbarrow. "I don't think I can bear to say goodbye to little Norby. You be good. Mummy will never forget you."
For a wild moment, Harry thought Hagrid was about to bend down and give Norbert a goodbye kiss, but he seemed to reconsider a second later and instead moved away to the edge of the clearing.
Harry turned to Hermione. "Okay then. This is your moment. What's the plan?"
"Well, we ... er ... take the baby inside, I suppose," Hermione mumbled. "We'll push it to the other dragons and see what happens."
"And if the dragons attack us? What then?"
"We leg it!"
"Good plan," Harry smirked. "Do you want to push the baby or lead the way?"
"I'll push. It'll be good practice for later life."
Harry felt his heart leap into his throat as Hermione ducked her head away, embarrassed. Why did this keep happening to him? And what even was it? Maybe he was sick and needed medicine. He'd have to ask Sirius, or maybe Neville might know. Sirius would probably just tease him or something. Either way, Harry put it from his mind and walked cautiously towards the cave. The crooked mouth was jagged and foreboding, filling Harry with a sense of trepidation before he'd even set a single toe over the threshold.
Harry led Hermione to the cave entrance and looked inside. And he was immediately gripped by a paralysing fear.
For it was utterly black inside.
There was not a chink of light to be seen, not even a pinprick. Harry was overcome with a thrill of this elemental terror. His neck prickled cold with it, his palms clammy as he considered the prospect ... and wondered if he could even do this part.
"Are you coming?" Hermione quirked jokingly from the palpable gloom ahead. Then she saw how Harry was frozen in fear and hurried back to him. "What's wrong?"
A shameful heat rushed across Harry's skin, and he was sure he was flushing all over. He had never felt more of a coward, more ashamed in his whole life, and in front of a girl who was showing her fearless side to boot. He could barely speak with the sense of disgrace flooding him.
"What is it? You can tell me," Hermione whispered, quite gently, sounding surprised rather than judgemental.
Harry took a shuddering breath. "I ... I ... I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"The ... the dark," Harry confessed in a muted mutter. "I know it's stupid, considering where I grew up and everything, but I've always been afraid of total darkness. I don't know if I can go in there."
Hermione looked at him with her soft eyes. She wasn't pitying him, she wasn't laughing at him as he expected ... she was understanding. She didn't even need to say it out loud.
"I know it's scary," she soothed. "But I'm here with you, and we'll face it together. Here, take my hand."
"You won't let go?" Harry replied quietly.
"Not unless you want me to, or you feel comfortable enough."
"Promise?"
"I promise," Hermione whispered faithfully.
She held out her hand and Harry slipped his digits between hers. Her skin was cool to the touch, and it doused the flames of shame raging over his own flesh. Hermione held on tight, squeezed encouragingly. Harry took strength from that, took a steeling breath ... then took those first steps into the black unknown.
But they hadn't gone more than three feet or so when they had to stop and draw breath. Or try to find another way to breath, actually ... for it absolutely stunk in here!
Without thinking, Harry pulled his hand from Hermione's grip to cover his nose. He was panicked in the dark for all of three seconds though, as Hermione instinctively snatched her forearm around his just to reaffirm that she was still there with him, something Harry was eminently grateful for.
"What is that?" Hermione cried, her voice funny where she had pinched her nose. "It's disgusting!"
She wasn't wrong. The whole place was dense with a dank, rotting smell. The air was stagnant, as if the very particles were putrefying all around them. Stench of decay clung to their nostrils, making their breathing heavy and laboured as they struggled to find the will to move forward.
"I don't know!" Harry choked back. "But it smells like something died in here."
"What could have died to cause this bad a smell?"
She had to ask ...
Suddenly, with the most abrupt lack of warning Harry thought possible, there was a feral, guttural sort of roar, the beat of powerful wings ... and a gout of flame struck at them from a point high above.
"Dragon!" Harry yelled, tugging Hermione clear of the flame just in time. "Run!"
So they did, mindlessly and with no idea of direction. The huge beast swirled and shrieked above them, blasting fire in long streaks of red and amber. It threw parts of the vast chamber into stark relief, revealing pillars and statues and monoliths, one of which Harry dragged Hermione behind, pinning her in place as a burst of flame broke against the stone and flanked them like two searing hot barriers.
"What are we going to do?" Hermione yelped.
"I don't know!" Harry called back, as the dragon soared past and screeched angrily yet again.
"We have to get back to the baby!" Hermione cried. "It's our best hope!"
"Where did you leave it?" Harry yelled over another blast of fire.
"Just behind us!" Hermione shouted in reply. "Grab my hand, and when I say run ... just run!"
Harry reached out and Hermione snapped her fingers back into his. He could feel the pattern of her frantic breathing as her shoulders heaved up and down. She waited, and waited, and then ...
"Now!"
They raced out and took off into the darkness. The dragon must have sensed that and shot another arrow of fire at them. Harry saw the wheelbarrow just up ahead, illuminated by the incandescent flame, and his heart was filled with hope that they might just get out of this alive ...
And then, up ahead ... a heavy crash suddenly blocked their path.
For the dragon had landed right in front of them, it's nostrils flickering with the fire building there ...
Harry didn't even think, didn't even have time to ... he just pushed Hermione out of the way, as the snort of flame erupted from the dragon at such high speed that there was no possible chance of escape ...
"No!"
Harry spoke the word in complete, desperate instinct. The fire - which was a moment from hitting Harry square in the face - veered up and over his head ... and made no more impression than a gentle Summer breeze on his scalp as it passed him.
A pregnant silence filled the place, punctuated alternately by the dragon's heavy puffs, Hermione's little whimpers, and the beat of Harry's rampant heart, that he was sure was the loudest sound of the lot. He didn't even have to think about what had happened ... somehow, he just knew.
It was as if he'd always known ... and he knew what to do next, too. Knew that he could talk to this dragon, as though it were his native language, but that he had somehow, inexplicably, forgotten how to speak it.
First snakes ... now dragons, too. Harry wondered what other secret languages he held inside.
He took a cautious stride forward, and the echo of his footstep carried to Hermione, who shrieked out in blind terror.
"Harry - be careful!"
"It's alright, it's alright," Harry hushed back. "She doesn't want to hurt us. We just frightened her, that's all."
"We ... frightened her!" Hermione breathed in astonishment. "How do you know that?"
"I just do, I cant explain it," Harry replied through the darkness.
He eased himself down to sit on his ankles and looked at the dragon in front of him. He could see her massive skull, lit up in flashes of red and ochre, as she puffed out what Harry was now certain were startled, unsure breaths. The realisation was fundamentally astonishing to him. He looked up at the dragon's hulking frame.
"It's alright," he soothed to her. "We're not here to hurt you. Come here."
"Come here!?" Hermione cried shrilly. "What are you doing!? Have you lost your mind!?"
"Sshh, a minute!" Harry implored.
He couldn't see Hermione, but he could sense her huffing crossly at him, wherever she was, probably with her hands planted on her hips, as was her way. But then the dragon starting moving. She lumbered forwards, not at all gracefully, until she was practically nose-to-nose with the boy on his knees in the dark. His tiny head - which she could crush to ash with a single stroke - against her massive skull, which was about the size of a double-decker bus.
But the boy was the one in complete control.
Harry reached up carefully, and touched the dragon's skin. It was crazily soft, that was the first surprise. More like feather than scale as Harry tracked his hand across it. But then, something else hit him - a burst of sad emotion that most definitely was not his own. It was so heartsick and melancholy that Harry felt like crying with it.
Just then, Hermione spoke out. "Harry! Are you still alive? Or has the dragon eaten you?"
Harry chuckled at that, and the sensation thawed his heart.
"It's okay, come closer," Harry whispered to the darkness. "Follow my voice."
"I don't need to, I can see, you know."
Harry jumped slightly, startled that Hermione was so close behind him. So close, in fact, that her hot breath tickled his earlobe.
"Are you ... talking ... to her?" Hermione whispered gently.
"In a way," Harry nodded. "But it's more like I know what she's feeling, and I'm trying to tell her it's alright, but it's not words I'm using. I know I'm doing a horrible job of explaining this. Just trust me that I know what I'm doing."
"I do trust you," Hermione replied, her voice sounding almost surprised that this fact was ever in doubt. "So ... what is she feeling? Are you sure she's a she?"
"Positive," Harry grinned in the dark. "I think she might have swatted me across the room if I had suggested she was a boy."
The dragon snorted then, as if affronted by the notion. It was a huff worthy of Hermione, herself, and it made the girl giggle as she heard it.
"Well, I understood that!" she laughed. "But what else is she feeling?"
"That's the thing," Harry replied sadly. "I know the feeling running through her. I think we both do. It's heartbreaking to say it ... but I think she's lonely."
The dragon mewled as if in conformation and Hermione let a pitying sort of sigh escape her throat. She cautiously traced her hand up and eased it onto the dragon's snout, and the great creature actually turned into the touch, as if seeking comfort from it.
"Harry!" Hermione whispered, low and miserably. "I can feel that!"
"You can too?" he replied in amazement.
"Yes ... oh, Harry ... she's so sad! ... so upset! Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Fetch our makeshift pram," Harry instructed. "I'll try and tell her what we're offering."
Hermione did as she was told and Harry tried, not at all eloquently, to communicate their intentions to the dragon. When Hermione returned, the huge animal sniffed cautiously at the wheelbarrow, causing the whelp inside to wake and call out. Hermione backed away, unsure, and fell into Harry's lap, where he held her still. It was best, he thought, not to spook a potential new mother and daughter as they met for the first time.
For a moment, it seemed like it wouldn't work, and Harry was quickly scheming a way to escape. But then, a series of plodding crashes from nearby announced the arrival of the male dragon. The female greeted him with welcoming fire, and Harry saw, from the flash of light, the wingless state of this even more gigantic creature.
But being wingless had robbed the dragon of none of it's hunting skills. He deposited the carcass of a dead deer at the feet of his mate, who immediately began tearing shreds of flesh to feed to the hungry whelp.
"Oh, Harry! Look!" Hermione cooed. "I think we've done it! What are you sensing from them?"
"Gratitude," Harry grinned. "Deep, pure gratitude!"
"Come on, we can slip away while they are occupied."
"Um ... you'll need to get up off me, first."
"Then let me go."
Her tone was foreign to Harry. It wasn't a plea for release, but something else entirely, in a language Harry very definitely didn't understand. What he did know was that releasing Hermione from the grip his arms had around her wasn't entirely something he wanted to do. She was warm, and there was something comforting about the solidness of her body atop his. He wouldn't mind if she was this close again, not that he could imagine a situation where that would happen.
They would just have to have more adventures, just in case a chance to rescue her cropped up again.
But for now, the next challenge was to get away from the dragons unharmed. Hermione eased herself up and tugged Harry to his feet. They held hands in the dark, hurrying away towards the glimmer of starlight beckoning from the cave mouth some distance away. Hermione led the way, darting through that stench that neither noticed anymore, and back to Hagrid, who was waiting for them.
"Well?" he asked anxiously. "How did it go?"
"They've taken Norbert," Hermione announced gleefully. "Harry was brilliant, absolutely amazing! It's all worked out perfectly."
Well, almost ...
For as Hermione was singing Harry's praises, he looked over her shoulder. There, on the cusp of the forest clearing, a bright puddle of shining unicorn blood caught Harry's eye. And hunched over it ... a hooded figure drinking from the puddle.
"AArrgghhh!"
Harry's scream startled everyone, including the hooded figure, who looked Harry right in the eyes. But Harry could only hold his gaze for a second, as Hagrid scooped him up under one arm - taking Hermione under the other - and charging away from the scene, thundering through the forest like a force of nature. He didn't stop until they had reached the courtyard leading to the Entrance Hall.
Finally, Hagrid stopped to draw breath, and plonked Harry and Hermione back to their feet. "Get inside! Now! Don't argue."
"Hagrid!" Harry breathed. "What was that?"
"Was it the thing that's killing the unicorns?" Hermione added.
"Of course it is, and why didn't I think of it sooner!" Hagrid cried, slapping his dustbin-lid sized hand to his forehead.
"Think of what?" Harry implored.
"What's going on?"
Harry turned in utter surprise to see the owner of a new voice striding towards them.
"Sirius? Lyra? What are you doing here?"
"We heard about your detention," Sirius revealed, as he came to halt at Hagrid's side. "Minerva didn't believe your story and neither did we. We thought at least you'd gone for a secret snog! She asked a few questions of your classmates, and it didn't take long for Mr Longbottom to confess. Where's the dragon?"
"We delivered it into the care of dragons in the Forest," Harry explained. "But there's more."
And he explained everything they'd seen. Sirius listened and absorbed in deep seriousness. Then Harry had a question of his own.
"So, why are you really here? If you know about the dragon, there must be more to this visit."
"Blame me," Lyra stepped in. "Your parents were able to find the report about the rogue dragon breeders, and the name of the dealer raised a major red flag with me. His name is Jopari, and I've heard that before."
"Where?" asked Hermione.
"It was the name given to Will's father by a tribe of Tartars," Lyra confessed. "It's an alias he uses when he dips his toe into the magical world here. He set up the finding of the dragon eggs ... and he's helped Tom Riddle get a body in this world. Come on, let's get a cuppa and I'll tell you all about my meeting with Will Parry."