"Hagrid has a dragon in his hut," she hissed at Blaise as they marched towards' the ground keepers' hut.
"His WOODEN hut?" Blaise clarified.
She nodded, "Yep."
His mumblings didn't sound too happy behind her as Lucy went up the steps and knocked on Hagrid's door. Lucy was glad that they had stopped for tea with the giant man several times over the year so it wasn't just a pair of strange first years knocking on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked as he opened the door a crack.
"Hiya, Hagrid! Blaise and I were out walking, and we figured we'd stop by and say hi," she chirped happily.
"Now's not really the bes' time, Lucy," Hagrid said, trying to shut the door.
She dropped the cheerfulness, "Hagrid, I know you have a dragon in there."
The door swung open as his mouth dropped, "Blimey, how'd you know that?"
"I have many talents," Lucy said simply as she pushed the door open enough to walk in. Blaise rolled his eyes towards the sky but decided to follow his crazy friend.
"I guess it can't hurt if you get ter see little Norbert if ya already know about him," Hagrid said. A smile settled on his face as he gestured towards the young hatchling sitting in the fireplace.
"Hagrid, you do realize your hut is wooden, right?" Blaise asked, standing close to the door while Lucy went all the way over to the dragon.
Lucy blocked out their talking as an accented voice hit her ears. Hagrid and Blaise kept talking as though they couldn't hear anything.
"Small human, Mommy brought me food?"
Mommy? Does that mean?
Lucy sent a startled look at the dragon before checking that Hagrid and Blaise were both engaged in their argument before leaning closer to the dragon.
"You sssspeak?" she asked it. The dragon pulled itself back and its eyes seemed to open wider.
"Yessss, but how do you sssspeak?" the dragon asked.
"I don't know, I can talk to snakes but I've never understood dragons before," she told the small creature.
"Snake speakers can often speak to dragons as well. The memories of my ancestors flow through me, and I can see several memories of other dragons speaking to snake speakers," she told Lucy.
Lucy's mouth twisted, so dragon's pass memories through the generations, huh. Learn something new everyday. She wondered if the blocks on her magic had something to do with why she'd never been able to talk to dragons before.
She turned back to Hagrid and Blaise who were still arguing the merits of having a fire breathing dragon in a wooden hut.
"Hagrid, surely you know that this won't work for ever? Eventually, she's going to be too big if nothing else," she said with a soft and gentle voice.
Hagrid sniffled, giant tears welling up in his eyes, "I suppose you're right, but Ah'm gonna miss him so much. And where could he go anyway?"
Lucy pretended to think for a minute, then snapped her fingers, "Weasley's have an older brother who's a dragon tamer at one of the reserves. Maybe he can help us."
The other two stared at her in confusion.
"How do you even know that? I didn't think you ever talked to Weasleys?" Blaise asked.
She shrugged, "The Twins are pretty cool. We'll be back soon Hagrid, be careful!"
"He's keeping a dragon in his WOODEN hut?" Hermione's voice could get so high pitched.
Blaise nodded emphatically, "I said the same thing!"
"Has he lost it?" she asked.
Lucy shook her head, "Nah, he's just always really wanted a dragon. If someone gave you the opportunity to become head librarian at Hogwarts, wouldn't you take the job even though it would be really rough with all your school work to do?"
Hermione thought about it, "I concede the point. What are we going to do though?"
"I just need to talk to the twins," Lucy said with confidence.
Hermione paused, "Uhm, that could be a problem."
Lucy glanced at her, "What?"
"Everyone in the Gryffindor tower knows that they're in the hospital wing. The third year boys are all complaining because they can't go into their dorm."
"What do you mean they're in the hospital wing?" Lucy asked.
Hermione spread her hands, "They were experimenting with a new potion and it accidentally blew up. They'll be fine, but Madam Pomfrey said she didn't know how long it would be before they woke up. It's all through the Gryffindor tower."
Lucy growled.
This was horrible.
Blaise laughed at her, "Well, which Weasley do you want then? Percy or Ron."
She looked up to the ceiling, silently asking for patience, "Obviously we can't go to Percy. He'd probably get Hagrid sent to Azkaban or something."
Hermione actually hid her grin behind her book, but Blaise just laughed at his best friend, "I guess that means you have to go talk to the youngest Weasley."
She grabbed both of their robes, "Nope, you are not abandoning me, you two are coming with me."
They both grumbled and complained, but refused to admit that the tiny first year actually had some impressive arm muscles. Eventually the trio found themselves in front of the youngest male Weasley who squinted up at them in the afternoon sun with suspicious eyes.
"What do you three want?" his lip curled slightly.
Lucy decided to keep things as simple as possible, "We need the assistance of your brother Charlie."
"Charlie? How do you even know him?" Ron asked.
"We don't, but I do know he's a dragon tamer. The twins told us," they hadn't but it was an easy way to explain why she knew about him.
"What do you need a dragon tamer for?" he asked.
"We're doing an extra credit assignment on dragons," Hermione piped in.
Those were the magic words. All of the suspicion flowed out of his eyes until only disgust was left.
"Course you'd be stupid enough to ask for extra work. Like we don't already get too much. Whatever, I'll send him a letter saying that you guys go to school with me and have a question for him. Just wait an hour or two so my letter gets there first. And only cause I already had to send my mum a letter so I'll be at the owlery already," he told them, before laying back in the sunny patch of grass.
The trio shared a disgusted look at the boy's attitude, but accepted his statement and turned back to the castle.
It took them a little while to write the letter. Lucy and Blaise disagreed with how much they should admit in a letter, while Hermione made them rewrite it twice before it was neat and grammar free enough to pass her inspection.
Eventually it read:
Dear Mr. Weasley,
We heard from your brothers that you are a dragon tamer. If you know of our groundskeeper, then you should know of his attitude towards animals. He has a new pet that would be best handled by someone such as yourself. Just wondering if you could help him out so that nothing happens to his job and nice wooden hut.
Many thanks,
Lucy Ogden, Blaise Zabini, and Hermione Granger
"I still think we're revealing too much. What if Dumbledore or someone else intercepts the letter and reads it? Hagrid could get fired for sure," Blaise complained.
"We have to reveal enough for him to know its serious. But, why would anyone intercept our letter? We're just three first years," Lucy said.
It was Hermione who snorted, "Lucy, you get in more trouble than a seventh year, and I think everyone knows that by this point of the school term."
They wandered back down to Hagrid's hut and convinced him to take tea outside with them. Great rivulets of sweat ran down his back from the heat of the hut. Hermione and Blaise both wrinkled their noses slightly, though very discreetly.
"Hagrid, how did you even get a dragon's egg?" Lucy asked him, putting up a charade so she wouldn't seem too suspicious.
"Ahh so you don't know that one? Well, some bloke had one at this card game a few weeks ago. Seemed like he just wanted it off of him. Just wanted some info about Cerberus, and I told him about how music puts them ter sleep," Hagrid paused and scratched his head, "Shouldn't have said that. Ignore I said that, alright?"
"Why would it matter if we knew how to put a Cerberus to sleep?" Blaise asked.
Lucy smirked as Hermione's mouth dropped, "Hagrid, do you mean that there is a Cerberus hidden on the third floor corridor?"
Hagrid bit down on a rock cake, "I didn't say that!"
"Well, you aren't denying it!" Hermione countered.
Hagrid shuffled them out of the hut soon after that once he had received promises from them that they wouldn't do any exploring to actually see the dog and a promise that they'd come back if they heard anything from Charlie.
"So what's the Cerberus guarding?" Hermione asked the other two. Lucy constantly had to revel in just how sharp the other girl's mind was.
"Guarding? Who said anything about guarding stuff?" Blaise asked.
This time Lucy added in, "Cerberus are famous in Greek mythology for being guard dogs such as the original one who watched over the gates to Hades' realm."
"And no way would Dumbledore miss out on that symbolism," Hermione added.
Lucy drew the other two close to her, "Listen, I may or may not have been eavesdropping on Potter and Ron, and they said that whatever is being guarded on the third floor is connected to a break in at Gringotts."
Hermione's eyes widen, "Someone survived breaking into Gringotts?"
Blaise nodded, "Yeah, it was all over the newspapers, all anyone could talk about for weeks. And now, based off of Hagrid, I guess Dumbledore brought it here."
"Then it's definitely not something first years should be messing with," Hermione said.
It seemed like the end of the conversation for now. In a way, Lucy was kind of glad; she wasn't sure that she should really involved Hermione and Blaise in this.
It took three days for an unknown owl to drop a letter off in her porridge bowl at breakfast. She picked it out of the bowl and wiped off the one corner before opening it. Once she had read over it, she leaned over towards Blaise who she was sitting with and pulled his head down.
"Don't act guilty, it'll just make people more curious," he grumbled at her.
She grinned at him, "Right, I'll try to keep that in mind. We got a reply from the Weasleys' brother. Anything he can do to help Hagrid, he's in. Said he would stop by tomorrow night to check in. He's even going to let Dumbledore know that he's going to stop by to have tea with Hagrid, so we don't even have to try and sneak him in or anything."
Blaise snorted, "And he'll just be allowed on Hogwarts grounds?"
"He is a Weasley, why would Dumbledore tell him no?"
"Fair point."
The next evening, the three students met at the foyer door exactly thirty minutes before curfew. They wouldn't be in trouble if they were caught now, but they would have to hurry. Lucy bemoaned the loss of her invisibility cloak once again, but decided she would insist on Carver teaching her that invisibility trick he did.
Mollified in her own head, she followed her two friends out to Hagrid's hut.
Outside the hut, a broad redhead stood next to the half giant. His hair was cut close to his scalp, and his thickly muscled arms were crossed over his chest. Freckles and half healed burns covered most of the skin that was visible.
"I'm really glad ter see ya Charlie," Hagrid was telling him.
Charlie started to scold Hagrid but the grin on his face and in his eyes nullified everything he was saying, "Can't believe you actually got a dragon egg. And that you waited until after I graduated!"
"Sorry, buddy, no one were selling while you were in school," Hagrid replied. "Lucy, Hermione, Blaise, good ter see you!"
The group allowed them to be shuffled into Hagrid's hut where Charlie looked at the baby dragon with no small amount of adoration. The dragon tried to bite him as he got closer, and Charlie looked like he was going to cry.
"Aww, she's just a baby! Look at her, trying to bite my arm. Her instincts are so good," he cried as he got even closer to the agitated dragon.
"Is he crazy too?" Blaise asked Lucy. She shrugged, even in her old life, she'd never had much interaction with Charlie. Clearly he felt the same way about dangerous animals that Hagrid did.
"Still Hagrid, you can't really keep a dragon in your house," Charlie said, seriousness causing his smile to shrink slightly.
"That's what we've been telling him too!" Hermione cried.
"There's not enough room in here for her to learn how to fly and that could really damage her wings," Charlie continued.
The three stared at him blankly.
"Oh yeah, cause it's the wings we're worried about," Blaise rolled his eyes.
On the other hand, Hagrid seemed to take that way more seriously than he had their concerns about his wooden home. Tears started to well up in his eyes.
"You're right, oh course, Ah didn' even think about his wings! Ah could'a hurt him!" Hagrid started to wail. Charlie grabbed what looked like a bath towel off of the counter and handed it to the half giant who used it like a hanky.
"I have a spot lined up at the reserve I'm working at. My team and I will be able to take good care of Norbert," he patted Hagrid on the shoulder, "Though Norbert is actually a girl, so maybe we should call her Norberta?"
Hagrid wailed harder, "Ah've been calling her a boy, might've messed up her identity!"
It took almost an hour and a lot of tears, but they eventually got Norberta secured in a special transportation cage that was much larger on the inside.
"She won't feel cramped at all," Charlie said as he strapped the cage onto his broom. "I visited with my brothers earlier, so I think I'm all set to go."
He stopped in front of the three students and met each of their eyes in turn. His eyes crinkled slightly as a smile spread on his face.
"Listen you three, I really appreciate this. You helped this dragon, and you helped Hagrid, who is one of my closest friends. This could've gotten him into a lot of trouble, so thanks. If you ever need a favor with a dangerous animal, just send me an owl, alright?" he told them.
They nodded mutely back at him. Lucy noticed that a blush had spread across Hermione's cheeks. She grinned in her head, that crush wasn't there last time.
The friends stood next to Hagrid until Charlie was just a tiny speck in the sky and then they couldn't see him at all.
"Alright, you three, I'm gonna pull out something a bit stronger. Better get back into the castle," Hagrid instructed them, still sniffling.
They turned away after waving goodbye to him and started trudging up the steps to their respective dorms. They paused at the doorway and looked at each other.
Lucy was the first one to start laughing, "That was awesome."
Blaise laughed too and Hermione even giggled a little, "It was kind of cool to see a dragon get rescued and sent to a dragon reserve."
"You mean, kind of cool to see the dragon tamer who rescued him," Blaise sneered at Hermione who tried to hit him. Lucy laughed even harder at realizing that Blaise had seen the blush too.
"Shhh, shhh," she warned them when Blaise started complaining at the whacks.
Hermione gasped, "Oh my goodness, we're out after curfew!"
"Indeed," a voice drawled behind her.
The three turned slowly to see Professor Snape standing behind them, scowling.
"I almost didn't believe my eyes when I looked out my window to see three small bodies moving across the grounds after curfew with no concerns. Let's see, that'll be fifty points each from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor," he said.
Lucy looked mutinous that Blaise didn't get points taken away too, but didn't say anything because Hermione already looked like she had started to cry.
"Plus detention for all three. On Saturday," he continued. "Now, I suppose I'm going to have to walk each of you back to your dorms to prevent any other mischief."
The three had done a complete 180 from their happier selves of just minutes ago. The general atmosphere was rather miserable as they were each delivered to their places, starting with Hermione who was silently crying. Lucy was the next one to be dropped off at her dorms, and she frowned at the thought of how the morning was about to go.
"Hey, I think there's a mistake," a Hufflepuff said the next day when they noticed the Slytherin and Hufflepuff had gone from a tie to Slytherin having a clear lead. Gryffindor had been in third place and now it was last.
"Ask Ms. Ogden and Ms. Granger why the scores are so different this morning," Snape drawled as he walked past them on the way to the high table. A cruel glint in his eyes said that he was laughing at the two's misery.
Lucy shrunk down in her seat slightly, "Snape caught us out after curfew."
"What was that? Did you say that Snape caught you out after curfew and took off fifty points from each of you?" Alex asked.
She nodded, "And detention. Blaise was with us, but he only got detention."
Unlike her original timeline, that little fact changed people's attitudes. While a few students were mad at her for losing the points, the people who mattered had decided on loyalty to her and complaining about the unfairness of Slytherin not losing any points for the same misdeed.
Plus, this time is was only 50 from her house instead of 150.
Her yearmates were the ones most annoyed, something about it didn't look good on their class.
So she put up with having to work with Ravenclaws in any classes without her two friends. In the end, it wasn't a big deal that her classmates were ignoring her because it was basically what they already did.
Then Saturday came, and they had detention with Hagrid.
"Sorry you got detention for helpin' me," Hagrid told them.
"It's all good Hagrid. It was our fault for getting caught, plus it was worth it," Lucy told him. Blaise and Hermione shot him looks that said it was clearly not alright, but smiled and nodded at Hagrid when he looked over at them. Hagrid's face brightened.
"Well, shouldn' be too bad. We'll just be goin' in the forest. Somethin' been attacking the unicorns, and Ah want ter catch it," Hagrid told them.
The three shared looks and eye rolls. Only Hagrid would think going into a forbidden forest at night to hunt down some sort of creature that was attacking unicorns would be not too bad.
This time, Lucy was sent off by herself with Fang while Blaise and Hermione stayed with Hagrid. To be fair, those two were both pretty white with terror.
She stumbled slightly as her foot caught on one of the roots. Lucy swung the lantern out to glare at the offending branch properly, when Fang went crazy and ran back the way they had come, pulling the leash out of Lucy's hand and knocking her off her feet in one move.
The forest was plunged into darkness.
Grabbing the lantern quickly, she used a quick spell to light it again. Relief filled her when she could once again see.
The relief faded as she heard the shuffling sound ahead of her. Her muscles tensed as she settled unconsciously into one of the defensive positions that Carver had taught her.
A hooded figure stood up in front of her, silver unicorn blood dripping down the front of the cloak.
The shape was different from the last time around, and she was finally statisfied that whoever Voldemort was possessing, it wasn't Quirrel. Still that satisfaction was short lived as the creature turned to her.
She pulled out her knife and held it in a slightly shaky hand in front of her.
The figure paused when it saw the knife.
Eventually, it turned around and disappeared the other way.
Lucy rushed up to the unicorn.
It wasn't dead yet.
She wondered.
In desperation, she thought about everything Carver had taught her so far about angel magic. She swung her arm and tried to remember the feeling when Carver had healed her body four years ago. Emotions of terror and a desire to help the poor creature pushed out everything else in her brain, and inexplicably, she felt her hand start to warm up and glow. The same glow that Carver had when he did Angel magic.
The torn gash on the unicorn's throat started to mend together until the blood had stopped. The wound was not gone, but it was much better. She doubted the unicorn would die now.
She was stopped by an arrow pointed into her face, then muscled arms grabbing her around her waist. Lucy found herself thrown over someone's shoulder. Looking down, she realized it was a centaur.
Hagrid burst into the clearing then, "Firenze, what are you doing?"
"The child needs to be seen by the elders," he replied.
"Lucy need ter go back ter the castle with me!" Hagrid argued.
Firenze paused, "The stars had accepted the death of the unicorn tonight, but now Mars is not as bright."
"Firenze, please," Hagrid argued.
Firenze sighed, but sat Lucy back on the ground. Lucy took several reassuring breaths as Hagrid came over and pulled the girl behind him.
"Lucy Ogden, I will be telling the elders of the actions here," Firenze says. "Mars has been growing brighter, but now it is dimmed slightly."
Lucy nodded, "Right dimmer, good."
Hagrid quickly ushered the three children back to Hogwarts, keeping a hand on one of them the entire way.
"Head ter bed you three," he instructed them as he dropped each one off at their dorms.
Lucy was the last one, and he paused like he was going to ask her something. She looked up at him and saw confusion. Then he shook his head and used a giant hand to gently prod her towards the door to the Hufflepuff dorms.
"Go on, Lucy, you need sleep after all that adventure," she smiled up at him and went in.
Her body felt exhausted, and she was asleep before her head hit the pillow, still fully dressed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She was woken up by eyes staring at her.
Lucy blinked up at the brown eyes meeting her own blue and groaned.
"Carver, what time is it?" she asked. The bright sunshine coming in through the windows suggested it was not early, but she still felt exhausted.
"Noon, all of your yearmates have gone to lunch, and it was safe for me to show myself. What you did last night was exceedingly foolish," he frowned at her.
She frowned back, "What was I supposed to do? Let the unicorn die? I had to try something!"
"That much angel magic burning through you could have killed you," he said.
"But it didn't, and the unicorn lived," she countered.
"The centaurs are curious about you now," he said.
"That could be good or bad," she said.
He shook his head, "Foolishness. Still, I suppose it is good that we now know for certain that you will be able to wield angel magic."
She finally sat up in bed with a grin, "Yep! Now I'm motivated to work even harder because I know I'm definitely going to be able to wield it."
"Oh, are you saying you weren't trying your hardest before?"
She argued with him for a while longer before grabbing clean clothes and heading to the bathroom to change. His needling didn't bother her, she knew by now that he had truly been concerned last night and this was the only way he knew to express that concern.
It was only 12:30, so she could still grab lunch if she hurried.
In the Great Hall, Hermione actually waved her over, "Lucy, I've been waiting for you all day. What happened last night."
Lucy looked at the other Gryffindors looking at the two curiously, and said, "Tell you later. Let's find Blaise and meet in the library."
Lucy made a sandwich and brought that along as they left the room in a hurry. It didn't take them long to find Blaise, who didn't need convincing to go with them.
"Well, what happened with Hagrid?" she asked them.
Blaise huffed, "Nothing. It was terrifying, but nothing actually happened. We saw your light go out and then Fang came running up to us whimpering without you. Hagrid took off running towards you and we followed. There was this bright glowing white light, but it was gone when we reached you. Instead, all we saw was you thrown over the shoulder of this centaur."
"Ok, well, Fang took off all of a sudden and knocked me over. It caused the lantern to go out. When I relit it, this figure in a long cloak stood up. He stood up, but his mask was on so I couldn't see anything of his face. But the unicorn blood was dripping down the front of his cloak. I pulled out my knife, and I guess it startled him because he decided to turn around and leave," Lucy said.
"How do you know its a he?" Hermione asked.
Lucy paused, "Well...I guess I don't know for sure."
"What happened next?" Blaise asked.
Lucy rubbed the back of her neck like she was embarrassed, "I guess I had some accidental magic. I was just so scared for the unicorn because it looked pretty bad. Next thing I know, my hands are glowing and the wound healed some. Then, the centaur, Firenze is grabbing me and throwing me over his shoulder. You were there for the rest."
The two stared at him.
"You healed a unicorn," Blaise hissed.
Lucy nodded, "Yeah, I guess so?"
"That's a big deal. The unicorns are sacred to the centaurs from what I've read. That must be why they wanted to take you back to the herd. And don't think we aren't going to discuss why you are still caring around that knife," Hermione told her.
Lucy shrugged, "First of all, clearly there's a good reason why I'm carrying it around. That thing has saved my life twice now. Second, it doesn't matter who they're important to. The poor creature looked like it was in so much pain. It didn't deserve that."
"I can't believe someone was drinking the blood of the unicorn. That's really bad. Like really, really bad. Like so bad I don't even have words for it," Blaise said.
"Well, who would be that desperate?" Lucy asked.
Blaise stopped, "No way!"
Hermione looked between them, "What am I missing?"
"Voldemort disappeared all of those years ago, but no one actually found a body, right? What if he didn't completely die. After all these years, he would be desperate enough to do anything, right? Who else would be sick enough to risk the consequences of drinking unicorn's blood?" Lucy asked her.
Hermione paled slightly, "You think you went up against Voldemort in that forest."
Blaise scoffed, "There's no way."
He took in their serious faces.
"There's no way," he repeated. "Right?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's note:
Hey guys, sorry for the long break between updates. Dudes, it's been nearly an entire year. My apologies. I've started two new stories (check my bio if you want to read them). I'm trying to get the one down before the end of summer because it really shouldn't be that long whereas this one has the potential to be really long. So I kind of directed all of my attention to those two. Still, it's cruel to make y'all think I abandoned this one, so here's an update. No hard feelings?
Let me know what you think of the update. Do you guys like how it's going so far? Any constructive criticism or anything I can do to improve my writing? I love to hear from you guys, it makes my day! Also, I changed the summary for this story. Is it good? Do you guys think it will draw in more readers? Is it authentic to the feel of the actual story? Comment below with any suggestions :)