8

Chapter 15 Finding Trouble

A/N *Quotes from the book set off*

Harry had been so excited to show off his new room to Ron that he had begged Snape to let him ask his friend over the very next day. Ron was impressed by the large garden, and the two boys spent most of the afternoon exploring. They discovered an old Anderson shelter in a disused corner of the yard and found a shop with piles of old Muggle furnishings and equipment. Even Ron found the antiques interesting.

By the time Snape called them in for dinner, the boys were covered in dirt and cobwebs. Harry's guardian looked them over with thinly veiled distaste and demanded they wash up as best they could and then declared that baths would be taken immediately after dinner. Harry didn't care. As far as he was concerned, the afternoon had been spectacular. Not only did he finally have a friend, but he also now had a home to share with him.

After some wheedling, Harry convinced Snape to let Ron sleep over that night. The guest room did not get used, though. Snape conjured another bed into Harry's room, and both boys talked and laughed late into the night, playing Exploding Snap, trading Chocolate Frog cards, and sharing stories. It was nice to have a room to themselves. Ron was used to having a house full of brothers, and Harry had only had a dorm or a cupboard before.

The next morning, they took turns outside on Harry's broom. They had both promised to follow Snape's long list of rules. Harry had been nervous about it at first. He believed that his guardian would not hesitate to take the broom away from him if he caught them using it without permission or flying it outside the yard. Harry had no desire to be seen by Muggles.

Once they had grown tired of the broom, Ron and Harry had wandered into the garage. Harry propped his broom into the corner and watched his friend examine the car curiously. While Harry had undoubtedly grown up around cars, he hadn't been in them very often. Ron, on the other hand, had minimal experience with Muggle vehicles.

"Snape can drive this?" Ron asked incredulously.

"Yep," Harry answered, leaning casually against the driver's door. "He said he grew up with Muggles."

"No way!" Ron scoffed.

"He said," Harry shrugged.

"But he's Head of Slytherin," Ron stated bluntly. "He has to be a pureblood."

"He's not," Harry insisted. "He told me. His dad was a Muggle."

Ron digested this information with a face that made him look constipated. He slowly moved his way around the car, eying it from every angle as he considered this groundbreaking new information. Harry figured he might be trying to decide if his friend was trying to pull his leg, so he added clarification.

"It's a wizard car."

"What does that mean?" Ron asked.

"I don't rightly know," Harry admitted. "It doesn't use a key to make it go. It goes faster without seeming like it is. It can get in tight spots, find parking spaces easily, and get around other cars. It's magic."

"Huh," Ron nodded, obviously unaware such things existed. "I wonder if my dad knows about these. I'm sure he'd want one. He loves all things Muggle!"

Harry said nothing. He was well aware that Mr. Weasley had more kids than he had money. Wherever Snape got his millions from, he was clearly loaded. This large house, the expensive car, and the entire wardrobe he had showered Harry with had come from somewhere. If Harry had learned one thing growing up with the Dursleys, it was not to ask questions. He hadn't asked. While the Dursleys had done everything to impress the neighbors, Harry got the impression Snape couldn't care less what other people thought. He did what he wanted. Harry quite liked that.

"Let's take it out," Ron suggested."

"Are you crazy?" Harry demanded. "He'd kill us!"

"Ah, come on, Harry. Snape is upstairs in the house, setting up his lab. He can't even see us from here.

"No," Harry said firmly.

"You're no fun," Ron pouted. "Let's just take it around the block. It'll be quick.

"No," Harry told him again. "You don't even know how to drive a car!"

"Well, you must. Didn't Snape show you?"

"Of course not!"

"Well, did he tell you that you aren't allowed to drive the car?" Ron asked bluntly.

Harry was puzzled at this. Ron was one of his best friends, and he didn't want to upset him. Still, he couldn't help but imagine that his guardian would be less than pleased if he found out that he and Ron were even looking at the car, let alone considering driving it.

"No, he didn't," Harry admitted.

"There you go," Ron said triumphantly.

"That doesn't mean that we can!" Harry tried to argue.

Unfortunately, Ron was already opening the car door on the passenger side. Harry felt his stomach drop. He opened the driver's door and sat inside when Ron sat down on his side. He wished Snape hadn't left the car unlocked and secretly wondered why he had.

Suddenly, the car roared to life. Harry turned to Ron in surprise and fear, but unfortunately, his red-haired friend looked just as shocked as he did. He was not going to be any help.

"What do we do now?" Ron yelped.

"I don't know!" Harry cried. "This was your idea."

"Turn it off!" Ron cried.

"How? I don't know how I turned it on!" Harry was beginning to regret ever going into the garage. He looked behind them and saw that the garage door was still closed. He gulped.

"Just don't touch anything else," Ron suggested. "Snape is sure to hear that the car's started, and he'll come down and rescue us."

"But you said earlier that he's three floors up and wouldn't even know we are here," Harry reminded him.

"Hmm," Ron looked ready to be sick.

"Okay," Harry looked at the controls. "I'll just find the button to turn it off. I think I remember what Snape did …"

Leaning forward to look at the dashboard, Harry accidentally leaned onto the gear lever and bumped it. Almost before he realized what was happening, the car was slowly moving backward.

"Oh, no, what did you do?" Ron cried.

"I don't know," Harry started to feel sick.

He grabbed the lever and tried to move it back into park but couldn't figure out how since there was nothing that looked like park. Then he somehow overcorrected, and they were moving faster backward. They were headed right for the garage door.

Both boys screamed as the boot of the car hit the garage door. They were going fast enough that they went through the door and were halfway out of the garage before the car stopped. Fortunately, Harry could see Snape running out the kitchen door waving his wand at the car by that point. It stopped.

No one moved. Harry's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and he had his head down, looking at his lap. Ron was staring forward, but Harry could tell that he was just as terrified by their experience. By the time they had collected themselves, Snape was opening the door. Harry and Ron exchanged glances that clearly said, "It was nice knowing you."

"Inside," was all Snape said.

The boys rushed to obey. Harry didn't know where Snape wanted them to go, so they both ran inside the house and ended up sitting on the window seat. There they watched outside as Snape drove the car back inside the garage and surreptitiously repaired the damage. Fortunately, the house was far enough removed from the road that no Muggles had seen the boy's misadventure, or he would have had to remove some memories too.

"I wonder how many potions use first-years as ingredients," Ron muttered as he looked out on the drive.

"Fingers, internal organs, often blood," the boys heard Snape say from behind them.

Harry slowly turned around so that he was facing his guardian. He was having a hard time looking up to meet the man's eyes, though. Harry was ashamed that he and Ron had done something so reckless and foolhardy as to drive the car through the garage door. He could only imagine what Snape thought of him now. Next to him, Ron gulped.

"We're really very sorry, Sir," Harry began. "We didn't mean to. It was an accident."

"I am sure it was, Harry," Snape told him sternly. "I would never expect you to drive intentionally through a door. What I can't quite figure out is why you were in the car in the first place, let alone why you turned it on and drove it."

He said the last three words slowly so that each one seemed to be a sentence on its own. Harry bit his lip and looked at Ron, who looked like he was about to pass out and was no help in this matter. Harry sighed.

"Mr. Weasley, I think it is best that you get packed to go home, if you have not done so already," Snape told Ron. "I will take you through the Floo so that I can explain this situation to your parents. I wouldn't want you to forget any of the details when you tell them."

"Yes, Sir," Ron said miserably, heading up the stairs.

That left Harry alone with his guardian. Giving the man a wretched look, he knew that excuses and apologies would not do him any good here. He was in trouble, and he knew it. He had no idea what Snape was going to do to him. There weren't any cauldrons here for him to clean yet, but Snape was nothing if not creative, and he was sure that the man had all manner of disgusting potion ingredients still to be prepared for his new store. It was not a cheery thought.

"Please go make sure that Mr. Weasley does not miss anything, and then you two come right back down here," he ordered Harry.

"Yes, Sir," Harry responded with a nod.

When Harry got to his room, Ron was shoving his clothes and the other belongings that the boys had managed to scatter around Harry's room into his worn canvas duffel bag, which was a loud orange color. Harry walked over to his desk and grabbed a Quidditch magazine, and handed it to his friend. Without a word, Ron took it, placed it on top of his bag, and then zipped it closed.

"I'm sorry, Ron," Harry said. "Will you get in trouble?"

"I 'spect so," Ron answered with a shrug. "Mum will likely yell a bunch and send me to my room for a while. Then dad will get home and ask me a ton of questions about the car." Ron grinned.

Harry tried to smile in return. One of the things he liked about his best friend was that Ron never seemed to take anything too seriously. Harry tended to be the opposite. The two boys had lived very different childhoods.

"Anyway, I should be apologizing to you," Ron turned to Harry, tossing his duffel over his shoulder. "It was my idea. Snape looked livid."

"He is. I am definitely in big trouble. But I got in the car with you. That's my own fault," Harry shrugged.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts," Ron said.

The boys went back downstairs and into the sitting room. Snape had enlarged the Muggle fireplace that stood on one wall to make it easier to step into, and it was now connected to the magical Floo Network in a limited manner. He hardly wanted just anyone to be able to get to his house. The Weasley home was connected, though, as were several Floo nodes at Hogwarts, including his quarters, his office, Dumbledore's office, and the infirmary.

Snape told Harry that since he was complicit in the whole mess, he might as well come too, and much to Harry's chagrin, he came back through the Floo to drag Harry to face Mrs. Weasley. He would much rather have been turned into potions ingredients than to stand there and listen to her wring her hands and bawl them out for doing something so dangerous. As he headed up the stairs toward his room as he had predicted, Ron stopped to whisper to Harry that it was as bad as a Howler. Harry didn't know what he meant, but he agreed that Mrs. Weasley had certainly howled.

After apologizing for his ward and making Harry apologize again, which he was more than happy to do, Snape took Harry back through the Floo. They went into the breakfast room, and Snape set a cup of tea and a plain biscuit in front of Harry, but the biscuit tasted chalky, and the tea smelled like sewer water. Harry felt awful.

"Nothing to say, Mr. Potter?" Snape drawled.

"I already apologized," Harry mumbled.

"I see. That clears you of responsibility, then?" Snape demanded.

"No, Sir," Harry admitted.

"What do you have to say for yourself, then?"

With a sigh, Harry put down the cup he had never intended to drink. He had always wanted parents, but this was the part he was still rubbish at. While Harry wanted to be loved and cared about, he hated to disappoint the person who cared about him. He finally looked up to meet Snape's eyes.

"Ron wanted to look at the car," Harry began. "I didn't think there would be any harm in just looking at it." Snape nodded, and he went on. "He wanted to know how it worked, and I told him the little I knew. Then he got in. I don't know how the car was unlocked; I swear!"

"Accidental magic, I suppose," Snape mused. "That is not the point, though, is it? Regardless of whether the doors were open, you should not have gotten into the car and definitely should not have started it. If my Potions lab or store were unlocked, would it be fine for you to walk right in?"

"No, Sir," Harry shook his head. He couldn't imagine doing that.

"The issue here is not so much that you did something that you know you were not supposed to do, but that you let someone else talk you into it," Snape told him. "That concerns me. We have discussed letting others influence you."

"But Ron's a kid," Harry protested.

"Yes, he is your age, but he obviously has influence over you," Snape said. "I never said that the only ones who would attempt to influence you would be adults. In fact, I seem to remember telling you that other children would know who you were and that you should be wary of some of them."

"Well, yeah," Harry admitted. "But Ron's not like that. He doesn't care that I'm famous. This had nothing to do with me being Harry Potter."

There was no response to this from Snape for a moment. Then he took a sip from his tea and looked at Harry pointedly as if asking him to consider his last statement. Harry did, but he refused to think that his friend cared about his fame. Ron had been excited to meet him on the train and had asked to see his scar, but he hadn't been the only one. The house and car had also interested Ron, but not for the same reasons. Ron cared about them because they were nice things, Harry realized. They might be two sides to the same coin.

Realizing this, Harry felt somewhat deflated. He looked down into his teacup. It had never occurred to him to question Ron's friendship because he had just been too grateful to have a friend. It might have made him a pushover.

"I am not telling you not to be friends with Mr. Weasley, Harry," Snape told him in a voice that was now much gentler. "I am simply reminding you that you need to be careful sometimes. Today you let your guard down. You could have been seriously hurt. I need you to be more careful, both in your alliances and in your choices. The decisions you make need to be your own."

Harry's response to this was a solemn nod. He realized that Snape was not cruel in pointing this out. He wasn't forbidding Harry from being friends with Ron either. He was trying to tell him not to let anyone influence him and remind him of how many people would be trying. Sometimes Harry found it exhausting to be Harry Potter.

Satisfied that his message had gotten across, Snape nodded. "I want to do a full diagnostic on you to make sure you were not injured in the crash. I offered to do the same for Mr. Weasley, but his mother is going to do it."

After making sure that Harry had not been injured, Snape set him down at a table in his new attic potions lab with a barrel of flobberworms from whom he was to harvest mucus. It was disgusting, but he figured he was being helpful. He had only finished three jars when Snape told him to stop and take a shower before dinner.

The rest of the holiday passed much the same way. Harry helped Snape prepare the store and the lab, and Snape even let him help prepare some of the potions. They made a few excursions into town for shopping trips, and Harry decorated his room with a lovely oil painting of a beach and a few knick-knacks. He also brought some back for his bedroom at Hogwarts.

At the end of the week, they returned to Hogwarts. Snape gave Harry the choice of sleeping in his room in the dungeons or the tower. Harry decided to stay in their quarters. He was enjoying getting to know Snape better and feeling like they were a real family. He was also still relieved that Snape had only made him prepare potions ingredients, rather than turning him into potions ingredients as punishment for what he had done with the car.

The best part of being back at Hogwarts for the second week of the Easter holiday was that Ron and Hermione had also come back early. Ron confided to Harry that he hadn't been in much trouble for the car incident. His dad had been very excited, and Ron told Harry that he might call on them at home sometime that summer. Harry groaned at the thought. He didn't think Snape would enjoy Mr. Weasley interrogating him about the car and reminding him about their misadventure.

Harry was studying hard, trying to demonstrate to Snape that he was taking his studies seriously. He was in the library with Hermione and Ron when Hagrid came in and invited them back to his hut. Since Hagrid wasn't the intellectual type, they were all pretty curious, and Ron, never one to mind his own business, went to check the section Hagrid had been wandering in. He came back and told the others that Hagrid was looking at books about dragons. Harry decided to see what his friend was doing, even though Snape would never approve of Hagrid having a dragon, and he hoped his guardian never found out.

Harry had been surprised to find out that there were dragons in the wild. He wondered where Hagrid could have gotten one, especially after Charlie'd told him having one was illegal. During the conversations in the summer with Ron's older brother, Harry had learned a lot about dragons. He didn't want Hagrid to get into trouble for having a dragon. When they got to Hagrid's hut, it was roasting. Hagrid definitely had a dragon or thought he did.

There it was. In the fire sat a large, shiny black egg. Harry gaped at it without meaning to. He wondered where in the world Hagrid had gotten it. They tried to distract the man with a conversation about the Philosopher's Stone, which distracted Harry as he heard Hagrid answering Hermione.

*"We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you."

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

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

"What?" Harry demanded.

"Oh," Hagrid looked at Harry. "I guess I shouldn'ta' told yeh that. I imagine Snape never mentioned it to yeh eh?"

Harry shook his head. He had never asked Snape about the stone. Harry knew that his guardian would disapprove of him asking, and he didn't want to get backed into a situation where he was forbidden from getting involved. It was better that Snape didn't know he was looking into it. Snape was worried enough about Quirrell. Harry could not see why, if Quirrell was one of the teachers supposedly protecting the stone.

The three friends constantly worried about Hagrid and the egg. Harry avoided his guardian for fear that Snape would read in his mind that Hagrid was waiting for an illegal dragon to hatch. He didn't want to be responsible for getting Hagrid into trouble. They had to keep the secret not only from the adults but the other students. Harry shushed Hermione when she was speaking about it too loudly while Malfoy lurked nearby.

While he was worried that Malfoy might have heard about the dragon, there was nothing that Harry could do about it. When Hagrid sent word that the egg was hatching, the three trudged down to his little wooden hut and watched. It was terrific, but Harry was also nervous. Seeing the leathery wings of the little Norwegian Ridgeback made it real. They were now conspirators to a crime.

As Harry watched the baby dragon with a mix of fascination and horror, Hagrid jumped up and ran to the window. Harry followed him just in time to see Draco Malfoy running off into the night. He gulped. He was sure that Malfoy would run right to Snape.

"Maybe you should go after him?" Ron said uneasily as they headed back to the castle.

"What good would it do?" Harry said bitterly. "He will go tell Snape just to get me in trouble. That will be the end of Hagrid's dragon."

"Do you think we'll get arrested?" Hermione asked.

Ron shook his head. "I doubt it. I think that Hagrid will probably get a fine, though."

Harry looked back at the wooden hut next to the forest and thought about Hagrid would feel losing his new pet. He felt sorry for the man. Malfoy might have just wanted to see a dragon. Maybe he wouldn't do anything about it.

The smug look on Malfoy's face that week made Harry think he might have been wrong to believe that the Slytherin had a softer side. He might have been a closet dragon-fan, but he was enjoying making Harry and his friends squirm. He hadn't told Snape about the dragon, and Harry knew he was taking advantage of making them wonder when he would.

When they finally couldn't take it anymore, Harry decided to talk Hagrid into giving up the dragon. He would let "Norbert" go since the baby dragon was too little to survive independently. He did finally agree to send the dragon off to Charlie. Harry was relieved, but that left another problem. They now had to smuggle a baby dragon to Romania.

Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (p. 249). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.