Quirrell, however, was much braver than they had anticipated. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but he hadn't cracked yet. Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, the four of them would press their ears to the door to check that Cerberus was still growling inside, and Lizzie had started visiting him every other day instead of every week, as she was the only one who could get close to him without getting her head bitten off.
Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever they passed Quirrell these days, Harry would offer a smile, and Lizzie wouldn't glare at him. And yes, that was the best he got. And Ron had started telling people off for making fun of his stutter.
Hermione however, was thinking about more than the Sorcerer's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules for herself and color-coding her notes. Normally they wouldn't have minded, except for the fact that she kept nagging them to do the same.
"Hermione, the exams are ages away."
"Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicholas Flamel."
"But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."
"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me…"
Unfortunately, the Professor's seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was a bit hard to relax when Hermione was next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, the three of them spent most nights in the library with her, in the cases of Harry and Ron, trying to get through their extra work, or Hermione, trying to cram in as much study as possible, or Lizzie, trying to get them all to bed at a reasonable hour. She managed to speed through most of the work, except for History of Magic, which only Hermione found interesting.
"I'll never remember this," Ron cried one afternoon, throwing down his quill and staring sadly out the window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer. Lizzie longed to just abandon her work and run outside, where she only really felt alive under the sky with the wind whipping through her hair and caressing her face.
She had been looking through the books for a Goblin named Gorma but looked up when she heard Ron say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"
Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back.
"Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that caught their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He suddenly looked suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"
"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron pompously. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St-"
"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"
"There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact," said Harry, "about what's guardian the Stone apart from Fluffy-"
"SHHHH!" Hagrid said again, as Lizzie said "his name's Cerberus!" Harry stuck his tongue out at her and she stuck it back out at him. "Listen - come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'' think I've told yeh-"
"See you later then," said Harry.
Hagrid shuffled off.
"What was he hiding behind his back," Hermione said thoughtfully.
"Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?"
"I'm going to see what section he was in," Ron said, coming pack a moment later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table.
"Dragons!" he whispered. "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide."
"Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told us the first time we ever met him," said Harry, and Lizzie nodded along.
"But it's against our laws," said Ron. "Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlock's Convention of 1709, everyone knows that. It's hard to stop Muggles from noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back garden - anyway, you can't tame dragons, it's dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's got off the wold ones in Romania."
"But there aren't wild dragons in Britain?" Harry asked.
"Of course there are," said Ron. "Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic hushing them up, I can tell you. Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles who've spotted them, to make them forget."
"So what's Hagrid up to?" asked Hermione.
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 behind them quickly.
It was stifling 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 sandwiches, which they politely refused.
"So-yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"
"Yes," said Harry. There was no point beating around the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guardian the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Cerberus."
Hagrid frowned at them.
"O' course I can't," 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' Flu-Cerberus." Hagrid said, with a glare from Lizzie towards the end.
"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. She started talking and Hagrid started telling her about the teachers helping guard the stone, but it was all fading into background noise.
She felt her gaze being pulled to the fire blazing by a little nudge in her mind and saw what looked like an enormous black egg.
She heard them all yell, but her focus was completely on the egg. She felt pulled toward it, and she stood up and started walking towards the fire, sitting down in front of it and staring at the egg.
She heard Harry say "Hagrid-what's that?"
And then suddenly, it moved. She lurched back, and Hagrid stood up, shoving on kitchen mitts and grabbing the egg, plopping it gently on the table.
"It's almost out," he whispered, leaning in to peer gently at the egg.
Lizzie rushed over to the egg, which had deep spiderweb cracks all over it, and they could hear some sort of clicking noise coming from inside it. Some unknown instinct took over, and she reached her hand out, laying the tip of her fingers on the egg gently, and she whispered, 'come out little one. We're all waiting.' The others looked oddly at her, but then, all of a sudden, there was a scraping noise, and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; its spiny wings were huge compared to its body, its spine bulged out, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, and bulging orange eyes.
It sneezed, and a couple of sparks flew out of its snout.
"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," said Hermione, but Hagrid only chuckled and reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.
"Bless him, he knows his mommy!" said Hagrid.
"Hagrid," said Hermione, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"
Hagrid was about to answer when the color 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."
The four of them bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance, there was no mistaking him.
Malfoy had seen the dragon.
Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy's face during the next week made the four of them extremely nervous. They spent most of their free time in Hagrid's hut, Harry, Ron, and Hermione trying to reason with him, Lizzie just wanting to play with the dragon, who would only let her and occasionally Hagrid touch him.
"Just let him go," Harry urged, with a dirty glare by Lizzie thrown his way. "Set him free."
"I can't," said Hagrid. "He's too little. He'd die."
They all looked at the dragon. It had grown three times its length in just a week. Hagrid hadn't been able to keep up with his gamekeeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy.
"I've decided to call him Norbert," Hagrid proclaimed, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. "He really knows me, now watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mommy?"
"He's lost his marbles," Ron muttered.
"Hagrid," called Harry loudly, "give it two weeks and Norbert's going to be as long as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment."
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 spun to look at them.
"Charlie," he said.
"You're losing it too," said Ron. "I'm Ron, remember?"
"No-Charlie-your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!"
"Brilliant!" cried Ron. "How about it Hagrid?"
In the end, they wore him down, and Hagrid agreed they could send an owl to Charlie and ask him.
The following weeks dragged by. Wednesday night found Harry and Hermione sitting quietly alone in the common room. The clock in the wall chimed midnight just as the portrait hole burst open. Ron and Lizzie appeared out of nowhere as they pulled the invisibility cloak off. They had been down at Hagrid's hut, helping feed Norbert, who was eating dead rats by the crateful.
"It but me!" he yelled, showing them his hand, which was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. "I'm not going to be able to hold a quill for a week. I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I ever met." He continued to rant to them as Lizzie pulled him over to the couch, sitting him down and cleaning and bandaging his hand better than just a handkerchief.
There was suddenly a tap on the dark window.
"It's Hedwig!" Harry said, hurrying to let her in. "She'll have Charlie's answer!"
The three of them put their heads together and read the note:
Dear Ron,
How are you? Thanks for the letter - I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon. Could you get the Ridgeback up to the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's still dark. Send me an answer as soon as possible.
Love,
Charlie.
They looked at one another.
"We've got the invisibility cloak," said Harry. "It shouldn't be too difficult - I think the cloak's big enough to cover two of us and Norbert."
It was a mark of how big the last week had been that the other two agreed with him. Anything to get rid of Norbert - and Malfoy.
There was a problem.
By the next morning, Ron's hand had swollen to twice its size, even with Lizzie's careful administrations. They didn't want him to go, worried Madam Pomfrey would recognize it as a dragon bite, but she gave him no choice. The moment she saw a slight tinge of green around the cut, she practically dragged him into the infirmary, insisting it could be poisonous.
They visited him at the end of the day to find him in a terrible state in bed.
"It's not just my hand,
He whispered, "although that feels like it's about to fall off. Malfoy told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow one of my books so he could come and have a good laugh at me. He kept threatening to tell her what really bit me - I've told her it was a dog, but I don't think she believes me - I shouldn't have attacked him at the Quidditch match, that's why he's doing all this,
They tried to calm him down, Hermione said in a soothing tone, "It'll all be over at midnight on Saturday," but that didn't soothe him at all. On the contrary, he sat bolt upright and broke into a sweat.
"Midnight on Saturday!" he said in a hoarse voice. "Oh no - oh no - I've just remembered - Charlie's letter was in that book that Malfoy took, he's going to now we're getting rid of Norbert."
They didn't get a chance to answer. Madam Pomfrey came over at that moment and shooed them out, saying that Ron needed sleep.
"It's too late to change the plan," Harry told them. "We haven't got time to send Charlie another owl, and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert. We'll have to risk it. And we have got the invisibility cloak. Malfoy doesn't know about that."
They found Fang sitting outside the door with a bandaged tail when they went to tell Hagrid, who opened a window to talk to them.
Hermione and Harry went over and started telling Hagrid about Charlie's letter, while Lizzie fawned over Fang, examining his tail and murmuring to him softly.
When she heard that Norbert had been the one to hurt Fang, and bit Hagrid, she stood up, walked over to the door, and said, "Alohomora." The door unlocked with a click, and she walked in to find Norbert snarling while tugging on Hagrid's boot. Feeling a prickling under her skin, she yelled, "Norbert, no!" He immediately let go of Hagrid's boot and tromped over to him, staring at her.
"It's alright, he only got my boot - jus' playin' - he's only a baby, after all."
Lizzie looked incredulously at him. "Hagrid, baby or not, he'll hurt you one day."
He sat down on the chair, and said, "No, he couldn't. And besides, Lizzie, what did you just say, that made him back off like that."
She looked up from where she had been scratching Norbert under the chin, something not even Hagrid could do without getting his hand chomped off.
"What do you mean. I said, 'Norbert, no!"
"No you didn't," said Harry, as the other three walked through the open door, giving Norbert a wide birth.
"I course I did Harry, don't be stupid."
"No, you didn't. You were like growling and grunting, and it was all weird. It was like you were talking to him," Hermione said.
They stayed for a few more minutes, telling Hagrid the details of their plan, before walking back, Lizzie arguing with the other two the whole time about her 'talking' to Norbert.
They probably would have felt very sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say goodbye to Norbert if they hadn't been so worried about what they had to do. Hermione had been worrying so much, and she wasn't even going. They decided Lizzie should go, cause she was the only one who could keep Norbert calm, and Harry because it was his cloak and his idea. It was a dark and cloudy night, and they were already running late because they had to wait for Peeves to leave the entrance hall.
Norbert was packed and ready in a large crate when they arrived.
"He's got lots o' lots an' some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a muffled voice. "An' I've packed his teddy bear 'case he gets lonely."
From inside the crate came a ripping noise. Something that sounded suspiciously like a stuffed bear getting its head torn off.
"Bye-bye Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed as they covered the crate with the cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mommy will never forget you!"
How they got that crate back to the castle, they never knew. Midnight ticked nearer as they heaved the dragon up the staircase in the entrance hall and along the dark corridors. Up another staircase, then another - even one of Harry's shortcuts didn't make the work easier.
"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. They shrunk into the shadows, staring at two people tussling in the dark ten feet away. A lamp flared.
Professor McGonagall, in a bathrobe and hair net, had 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. Harry Potter's coming - he's got a dragon!"
"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 then. Not until they'd stepped out into the cold night air did they throw off the cloak, glad to be able to breathe again. Lizzie was practically buzzing with excitement.
"Malfoy's got detention! I could fly off this tower!"
Chuckling about Malfoy, they waited, Norbert, thrashing around in his crate until Lizzie stuck her hand in, and he just laid his head on her hand.
Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed them the harness they'd rigged, so they could suspend Norbert between their brooms. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it, and then shook their hands and thanked them before flying away.
At last, Norbert was going…going…gone.
They slipped back down the spiral staircase, their hearts as light as their hands. No more dragon-Malfoy in detention-what could ruin this happiness?
The answer was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. As they stepped into the corridor, Filch's face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.
"Well, well, well," he whispered, "we are in trouble."
They'd left the invisibility cloak on top of the tower.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this. Next, chapter you're going to get a real surprise. Leave guesses about the surprise in the comments. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ ✧ﾟ・: *