Chapter 13 – Sights Unseen
The next few weeks passed by quickly as a relentless march of schoolwork, flying lessons, and the odd bit of weekend fun in between all the homework. All the teachers ever spoke about were the exams that loomed over the horizon – all of them except Professor Quirrell, who hadn't seemed to notice what time of year it was. Harry privately doubted Quirrell had bothered to write an exam.
Professor McGonagall led the charge by assigning her classes a long essay each week and, seemingly because he didn't want to be outdone, Professor Snape assigned an essay and an ingredient case study at the end of every week. Even Professor Sprout had started to assign proper essays!
By the time the Easter holiday rolled around, Harry felt completely and utterly burned out. He felt like he'd earned himself a long, relaxing break, and he was determined to get it, despite the massive pile of homework he had yet to do.
To that end Harry had convinced Tracey and Millicent that it would be good fun to meet up with their Hufflepuff friends and have another day of games and general playing in a nice, quiet section of the dungeons.
"…so I think, after my last vision, that it was Maleficus Gnarl with poisoned Firewhisky in the Arboretum!" declared Susan. "And I've just won, because I'm right."
"You have to go to Azkaban if you're wrong," warned Ernie. "So are you sure you want to guess now?"
Susan hesitated.
"Yes," she said. "I'm sure." She reached forward to touch the oversized toy crystal ball at the centre of the game board, and her eyes turned milky white as she received a vision. After a minute her eyes returned to normal and she sighed. "I was wrong!" she said.
Her piece on the game board – Madame Larcenia – disappeared and reappeared in the section of the board meant to represent the wizarding prison, Azkaban.
"Who'd you guess?" asked Millicent.
"She can't tell you that!" said Ernie, quick enough that Susan had no chance to answer. "That would ruin the game!"
Harry had absolutely no idea which of the remaining players – Susan, Ernie, or Millicent – possessed the guilty piece. He had a feeling that it wasn't and couldn't be Susan, since he didn't think she was good enough an actress to be lying about who she thought the killer was, nor did he think that she would willingly send herself to Azkaban and waste one of her lives. As he had already been knocked out for his second completely wrong guess – Professor Porphyrius in the Orrery with an enchanted quill – he could have touched the crystal ball to receive the vision of the murder, but he thought it was more fun to wait until the end.
Tracey, however, sat there with a smug smile on her face, since she had immediately sought out the vision after being knocked out of the game. She whispered something to Justin, who had also looked at the vision, and both of them sniggered.
Ernie moved his piece – Nooky the House-Elf – from the Orrery to the Garden, then touched the crystal ball for a vision clue. After a few moments he emerged from the vision muttering to himself.
"I know who, and how," he said, mostly to himself as far as Harry could tell, "but if I get the where wrong, she wins the game…"
"Well, we've got time to play again," said Tracey. "Dinner's not for ages yet."
"Right," declared Ernie, "I'm ready to win. It was Madame Larcenia with a silk scarf, obviously; anyone with sense can see that. I thought it was in the Boudoir, you know—it fits! But it was actually in the Garden!"
Ernie touched the crystal ball and came out of the vision smirking.
"I win!"
Susan huffed.
"Ooh, I was so close! I thought you would have to think it was Millicent who was the killer because I sent myself to Azkaban! I hate Killer! Let's play Classic next time!"
Harry touched the crystal ball to view the vision. He believed Ernie, but the ball provided totally immersive visions of the murder, and Harry wanted to see. Besides, he knew the others would be arguing the merits of Classic or Killer for a little while, so he wouldn't miss anything anyway.
The vision showed Madame Larcenia committing the murder with a silk scarf – although not in the way Harry had expected. When he came out of the vision the conversation had moved on somewhat.
"Let's play again," said Millicent. "Classic, like Susan said."
"Actually, does anyone know where the kitchens are?" asked Justin. "I heard one of the upper-years say you can get snacks there if you're nice, and dinner is an awfully long time away."
"It's on this level, isn't it?" said Tracey. "But I don't know where…"
"It's behind a painting," said Harry. "I saw someone go in, so I asked Shafiq about it, and there's this painting of some fruit in a bowl, and to get in you have to, erm, tickle the pear."
Susan giggled.
"Really? You just—you really have to tickle a pear? Not even a password?"
Harry shrugged.
"Yeah, well, that's what he said, anyway. I did see someone do it, as well… And they didn't use a password. Might as well give it a go, right?" he said.
The children gathered up the various bits and pieces of the games they had brought with them and put them away, then Harry led them towards the kitchens.
"Who works in the kitchens, anyway?" Harry asked. "It is elves, right? That's what everyone says but I've never seen one… Although I suppose I don't actually know what they look like, so maybe I have."
"You aren't supposed to see elves," said Ernie. "It's the mark of a good elf that you only ever see the results of their work and never the work itself, you know."
"Does your family have an elf, Ernie?" asked Tracey.
"Well, of course we do," he said. "The Macmillans are an old family! Our elves were bound to our home centuries ago. We only own two at the moment though—Blippy and her baby, Bloppy. Mum says we might want to get Blippy a companion, but Dad says two is enough for us."
"What do you mean, 'own?'" asked Justin. "That sounds like… well…" he looked towards Harry.
"Slavery," said Harry. "The Muggles banned that ages ago, you know."
"It's not slavery!" said Ernie.
"Are the elves paid? Do they get time off? Can they decide to quit?" asked Justin.
"Well, no," Ernie said. "But it's not like that," he protested. "Elves don't want to have those things! They don't want to be paid, they just like working—it's not the same thing at all." Ernie looked towards Susan. "Help a chap out, will you?"
"He's right," said Susan eventually. "It's not like when Muggles had slaves! Some people don't treat their elves nicely but it's—well, my Aunt Amelia said that elves need to work for wizards! They don't like living on their own, see, they have to live in wizard houses… We have an elf and she's part of the family."
"It still sounds like slavery to me," said Harry, "but if the elves like it… I dunno," he said. He shrugged. It wasn't something he could fix right that moment, so he put it out of his mind. "Anyway, the kitchens are just up here—"
Harry paused when he saw a hunched over adult form swaying just beyond the kitchen portrait.
"Oh, her," he said. "That's the Divination Professor, what's her name—Trelawney," he whispered to his friends. "I think she might be drunk."
Tracey giggled.
"Really? In the middle of the day?"
"She's got some bottles, look." Millicent pointed towards the bottles she held in her hands and had stuffed in her robe pockets.
Professor Trelawney turned and stared right at the six children.
"Who are you? Where am I? What's going on here?" she demanded. She brandished one of her bottles and used it as a pointer. "Tell me!"
"Merlin, she really is up in the air without a broom," muttered Ernie.
"You're outside the kitchens, Professor," said Susan. "We're just first years, we were playing…"
"First years? Professor? Kitchens? I don't… what's happening…?" Trelawney slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. She held her head in her hands and groaned. After a few moments, she whipped her head around to regard the children again. "Who are you? Where am I? What's going on here?"
Harry slowly backed away.
"You're at Hogwarts, Professor," Susan tried again. "Outside the kitchens—we're just a bunch of first years, I'm Susan Bones… we were just playing games and we found you outside the kitchens. Do you want us to get some help?"
"No, that can't be… I don't understand," said Trelawney. "Hogwarts…"
Trelawney started to wail.
"I don't think she's drunk," Harry said. "Something seems wrong…"
"You don't think it could have been—" Tracey glanced at Harry. "—Sirius Black, do you?"
Harry grimaced. He certainly hoped not – as embarrassing at it would be for Trelawney to be found drunk by a bunch of first years that was the better outcome for Harry. Better by far. Black running around the castle wasn't something he wanted to think about – yet again.
"Maybe we should find a teacher," suggested Justin. "Well, you know, a different one…"
"Professor Snape is closest," said Millicent. "His office is near here."
"Right, well… you chaps go grab Snape, and we'll watch her, yeah?" said Ernie. He gestured to the Slytherins. "Since he's… you know."
"Yeah, alright," said Harry, although in truth he didn't feel that much better about bothering Snape during the holidays than he suspected Ernie and the other Hufflepuffs did. Still, he know that they couldn't just leave Trelawney where she was, and whatever was wrong with her did seem like the sort of problem one went to a teacher about instead of a prefect.
It was just a shame that Snape was the closest teacher.
The three Slytherins hurried towards Snape's office, and although Harry did know the general location, he had never actually been inside – thankfully, he had never been called there like some of his classmates.
"I saw Trelawney having a weird conversation with Quirrell over Christmas," said Harry as they walked through the dungeons. "That wasn't the first time I ever saw her—she doesn't come to meals usually but she was at Christmas lunch. She'd had a bit to drink then. When I saw her with Quirrell, Quirrell was being really strange, asking her about prophecies and stuff. Wouldn't leave her alone. He wanted to walk her back to her rooms, but she wasn't interested. She had bottles with her then, too, and she was drunk, worse than at the Christmas feast… but she wasn't acting like she was just now, so I definitely don't think it's from alcohol."
"I have seen drunk people act like that before, though," said Tracey. "There's a Squib that lives in my village, he gets drunk and wanders through the streets all the time. Mam always says to stay away from him, but Nan says he's harmless…"
"Was Quirrell being stranger than normal when you saw him?" asked Millicent.
"I don't know," said Harry. He shrugged. It was difficult to tell with Quirrell what was usual and what was strange. "He's always really weird… but I think so. He was being really pushy."
"D'you reckon we should say about that to Snape?" wondered Tracey aloud.
Harry paused. "Yeah, maybe. But they were just talking… I wouldn't want to go starting rumours."
Quirrell was an odd man, but Dumbledore had given him a job – twice – and it seemed far more likely to Harry that Trelawney had had an accident or been attacked by Sirius Black than it having anything to do with Quirrell.
"I think you should say something," said Millicent. "I know he's a teacher now but one of the fifth years said he was creepy when he was at school. It wasn't that long ago either—she was in school with him just a few years ago."
When they reached the door, all three of them hesitated. Although kinder to his own students in Slytherin, few of them ever wanted to go to his office unless absolutely necessary.
"You should knock, Harry," said Tracey. "He likes you better than me."
"Are you mental? He hates me!" said Harry. Snape never treated Harry especially harshly – especially not in comparison to the way he was with Gryffindors like Longbottom – but Harry noticed the look Snape always gave to him, and it wasn't a very nice one.
"You're both babies," declared Millicent. She banged on the door.
"You may enter," said Snape after what felt to Harry like an entire lifetime.
Harry lingered outside the door until Millicent shook her head and barged through it.
"Sorry to bother you, Professor Snape," she said immediately, "but it's an emergency!"
"Well?"
Millicent shoved Harry forward, and he glared at her.
"Oh, er—we were playing games with Ernie and Susan and Justin—from Hufflepuff?—and when we were coming back through the dungeons near the kitchens we saw the Divination professor and she didn't look very well, sir, so we stopped to ask her if she was alright," said Harry, "but she sounded really confused and kept asking us where she was. When we left to come get you, she was sat on the floor upset that she was in Hogwarts."
"Say about the Quirrell thing," whispered Tracey.
"Oh! And at Christmas time, when I was—" Harry paused, not wanting to admit to sneaking about the castle after dark, "er, when I was going back to the Common Room one night, I saw Professor Quirrell talking to her, asking her about Seeing and stuff. They were both acting really weird, Professor. I wasn't going to say anything—it seemed private, but..."
"Miss Bulstrode, Miss Davies, you may wait outside. I must speak further with Mr Potter," said Snape. "Out!"
"Sir?" asked Harry when the girls had left.
"Look at me, Potter," said Snape. "Now, tell me, as much as you remember: what did Professor Quirrell and Professor Trelawney speak about when you saw them?"
"Quirrell was just—I mean Professor Quirrell, sorry, sir—asking her about the things she was Seeing, and she said something about seeing death, and Quirrell asked her if she saw him die. She said, er, I think that she'd never looked? She was drunk, I think, and he asked her if he could walk her back to her quarters, but she went into the kitchens instead. He waited around for a bit and then he just left." Harry tried to remember any other details, but he couldn't think of any. At least none he wanted to say – Quirrell had waited on the stairs up from the cellars, but Harry couldn't mention that without incriminating himself. So he thought what he'd said was already enough. "I think that's it, sir. You don't think Professor Quirrell did—"
"I do not believe there is any evidence of that," said Snape. "It is most likely a private discussion between two colleagues that you happened to overhear, and nothing at all to concern yourself with, Potter. Do you understand?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, sir." Harry paused. "Sir—do you think maybe—could Sirius Black have got into the castle again and—"
"Perhaps," said Snape simply, giving away nothing about what he actually thought. "Such concerns should give you reason to move about the castle in a more ... careful ... manner than you otherwise do, alone at night." Snape stared right at Harry, a look so piercing Harry had to look away.
"Nevertheless, I shall award ten points to Slytherin for you and each of your friends for bringing this to me right away," said Snape. It was, Harry thought, the very first time Snape had given him points. Perhaps a bit unfair that he hadn't given any to the Hufflepuffs, but that was Snape all over. "Speak nothing of this; it would not do to besmirch what little reputation Professor Trelawney has left. Is that clear?"
Harry nodded again.
Snape put the parchment he'd been working on into a drawer and stood up.
"Come with me."
Snape left his office and Harry, along with Tracey and Millicent, followed him back through the dungeons towards the kitchens where their Hufflepuff friends waited with the ailing Divination professor. As Harry, Snape, and the others returned to entrance to the kitchens Trelawney sat against the wall, rocking. She cried into into her hands, choked sobs interspersed with that horrible keening wail.
"No, no, no..." she said. "The Curse... It is the Curse of Cassandra... I am victim!" wailed Trelawney.
"She started crying not long after the others went to get you, Professor Snape," said Ernie. "She just keeps crying and saying she's cursed. We weren't sure what to do..."
Snape knelt in front of the crying woman and took out his wand. He performed a series of wordless spells on her, and then tried to get her to look at him. When she managed it, he pointed his wand right at her and muttered something too quietly for Harry to make out the incantation.
Snape got to his feet and pulled the confused professor up from the cold dungeon floor.
"Sybill, you are at Hogwarts. You have been in an—an accident," he said. "Come with me to the Hospital Wing so that Poppy can see to your condition." Snape turned towards the children. "Your discretion in this matter is noted. You may return to your … play." He waved them off.
Although they had been given permission to continue playing, after seeing Trelawney in such a state none of the six children really felt like returning to their games. Instead, after a stilted conversation, the two groups went to their separate Common Rooms to wait until dinner.
Trelawney's accident and the potential for it to have been the result of another infiltration of the castle by Sirius Black brought with it a greatly increased Auror presence, and the end of Hogsmeade weekends for the upper years for the remainder of the year. That didn't bother Harry and his friends, since first years weren't allowed to go to Hogsmeade anyway. Nevertheless it cast a pall over the whole school, which was only slightly improved by the advent of Easter Sunday itself, and the Easter half-term break.
Easter Sunday at least brought with it a nice little haul of Easter eggs for Harry and the other boys in his dormitory. Harry's aunt – and uncle, whose money it was, although Harry knew it would have been Petunia doing the choosing – sent him Cadbury eggs, a selection of different sweets, and a little card, which Harry had expected. Neither of them especially religious, Harry's aunt or uncle never went to church, but did always mark Easter with some eggs and a nice meal. What was a lot more interesting was when Harry found an assortment of more magical chocolate eggs from a range of different chocolatiers. Unlike the rather more plain wrapping on his Cadbury eggs, the wizarding eggs had magically animated animals such as dragons, phoenixes, and unicorns on the wrapping, including a dazzling array of creatures he didn't recognise.
As Blaise tucked into an exquisitely decorated egg, he glanced over at Harry.
"Oh, my mum did say something about… well, have a try of one—it's real Bavarian chocolate, made by elves! We have them every year!"
"Er, thanks a lot!" said Harry. Was he supposed to have got his friends eggs, too? No one had said anything, so he hadn't. He felt like a bit of pillock. He reached out to grab one of the boxes, and saw the note that came attached.
Dear Harry,
These chocolate eggs are expertly made, using a secret recipe known only to the elves. They only make one hundred eggs each year. Thank you for being such a good friend to my son.
Yours sincerely,
Livia Zabini
Harry opened the box and took out a chocolate bar wrapped in a waxy wrapper painted with dancing house-elves and took a bit. It was before breakfast, but the rules seemed different enough on Easter Sunday that chocolate seemed appropriate. Immediately a warm, fuzzy feeling filled his entire body, as the best chocolate he had ever tasted melted into his mouth. Unlike Muggle chocolate, this particular bar felt almost quivering with flavour, and it didn't stop at just his tongue.
"These are really good," he said between mouthfuls of chocolate. Harry checked the box to see there were two eggs inside, along with another two chocolate bars.
I'll save those for later, he thought.
Harry picked up another box of eggs, this one wrapped in a kind of waxy paper with animated bees on it. He read the tag.
For Harry,
Happy Easter from the Macmillan family,
Kind regards,
Algernon, Mairi, and Ernest
Harry hadn't been expecting anything like this – something from his aunt and uncle of course, as they usually did at Easter – and didn't know quite what to do. He supposed it would be appropriate to send a letter saying thank you to Blaise's mum and Ernie's family; that was surely the least he could do considering that he hadn't got anything for either of them.
"What's everyone's plans for today?" asked Draco. He was surrounded by a mountain of eggs and other bits of confectionery, all of which looked far too expensive and fancy to Harry to actually eat. Most of them looked like ornaments rather than sweets. "The weather board said it's sunny all day, so I thought we should grab the girls and all go sit by the lake."
"Yeah, alright," said Blaise. "Not a terrible idea. Harry?"
Harry shrugged. It did sound pleasant, although spending the morning with Pansy or Draco didn't rank especially highly on his list of things he wanted to do. If everyone else was going, though, he thought it could still be a fun day.
He said as much.
"Yeah, alright. We should ask the girls though. Didn't Daphne say they were going to have a pyjama party?"
"Oh, you're right," said Draco. "Crabbe! Go see if the girls are up for the lake, would you?"
As usual, Vincent did what Draco asked without complaint. Harry thought it a little unfair that the other boy was always relegated to being Draco's assistant, but the dynamic had apparently existed long before the boys arrived at school, so he doubted it would change now.
When Vincent had left, Draco spoke again.
"I wonder what they've done about that professor they found yesterday," he said, speaking about Trelawney. Harry hadn't said anything about his involvement in it – Snape had implied that would be best, and the others had all agreed not to say anything either. To Harry, it felt like private business. After all, who could say they would want everyone talking about them going mad and wandering around the school? Of course, news of Trelawney's condition had managed to spread around the school almost immediately despite that, given the circumstances.
"St Mungo's probably," said Theodore. "She went mad, didn't she? So she might not be coming back."
"I asked Gemma Farley," said Blaise, "since they tell prefects things sometimes, and all she said was Trelawney had an accident, or something like that. D'you reckon it's a side-effect of being a Seer? Or do you think it was something to do with Black?"
"Is she even a Seer?" scoffed Draco. "All the uppers say it's just a doss class. Maybe she's faking it."
"She can probably do the basic stuff like scrying and horoscopes," said Theodore, "even if she isn't a Seer. Anyone can do those bits."
Harry didn't know all that much about Divination. As much as it pained him to agree with one of Draco's opinions, almost everyone said Divination was pointless unless you were a 'true Seer', which was meant to be extraordinarily rare and couldn't be taught anyway. And Draco had at least steered the conversation away from one about Sirius Black, which had been growing incredibly tiresome over the past few weeks.
"People say she only got the job because she made a proper prophecy," said Blaise. "It makes sense though, doesn't it? Why would anyone employ a Divination teacher who can't See?"
"Well, we are talking about Dumbledore," said Draco. He sighed. "Where's Crabbe? We're wasting the morning sat here in bed!"
"You could have gone yourself if you thought it would be faster," Harry pointed out. "And we're not even ready to go. We're all in pyjamas."
Draco rolled his eyes. Nevertheless, he did start looking for an appropriate set of robes to wear, so Harry considered the exchange a win for him. Soon enough all four of the boys left in the dorm were dressed and ready to spend the day lounging at the edge of the lake. They just had to wait for Vince to return with news of what the girls wanted to do.
Harry spent the time playing cards with Blaise while Draco paced and Theodore read a thick, old-looking book covered in copious amounts of dust – although on second glance, Harry thought the book itself was creating the dust rather than being simply covered in it. He wondered idly what it was about.
Eventually Vince came back.
"The girls want to come," he said. "I had to ask Gloria from second year to go in though, and she said we owe her a favour now…"
"Ugh, you dunderhead," said Draco. "Well, nothing to do for it now, I suppose. And you owe her the favour, not us. Remember that. Let's get going."
All the boys left the dormitory to go wait for the girls in the Common Room. It took the girls another half an hour to get ready to go, but eventually the Viper group first years found their way into the queue for the Dark Detector. After being confirmed safe they poured out onto the grounds to look for a spot by the lake.
Harry thought it would have been much better if they had left earlier: it seemed as if half the castle had the exact same idea to go and sit by the lake, and all the nicest spots were already taken. They'd even had to wait in a massive queue for the Dark Detector. After a few minutes of searching, and more than a few minutes arguing about the decision, the first years managed to select a spot closer to the Forest than most of them felt comfortable with, but which did at least have a sturdy tree for them to sit against.
Harry had looked forward to spending the morning eating chocolate and lounging next to the lake, but all any of his classmates appeared to want to talk about was Trelawney and her mysterious accident. Harry, along with Tracey and Millicent, sat there more or less silently as the others concocted ever more implausible scenarios involving the professor.
"Maybe she looked into her crystal ball and saw a vision that sent her mad," suggested Daphne. "I heard it happens to Seers sometimes."
"She's probably not even a real Seer," sneered Pansy. "Everyone knows she's just a drunkard."
"I don't think that's fair," said Tracey. "I know everyone says she drinks, but no one says she's drunk in lessons."
"Oh, what would you know?" said Pansy. "I heard it from the girls in fourth year. They said they could smell it in her tea in lessons. Victoria was there as well."
"That's right," added Victoria Runcorn. "And if they could smell it in lessons then you just know she has a problem."
"Maybe," said Blaise. "But you don't go mad from drinking a bit too much brandy, do you? They said she was fully bonkers, like she didn't even know where she was! We've all seen drunken uncles, but in the morning they go back to normal—mostly."
"Speak for yourself," said Draco.
Harry grew increasingly bored and more than a little frustrated with the topic of conversation. Snape hadn't seemed to think Trelawney's condition was a result of her drinking, and although he hadn't shared his thoughts about what it was with Harry, Harry didn't think it was either. It felt increasingly likely, to Harry at least, that Sirius Black had been involved. He'd got into the castle once, after all. Maybe he'd come back, and the Divination professor had been unlucky enough to get in his way.
Or maybe he'd been looking for prophecies. Or... well, it could be anything, really; Harry had next to no idea what motivated a wizard like Sirius Black, only that it couldn't be anything good.
"They don't send you to St Mungo's for a hangover," said Harry. He paused. "Well, maybe they do, but it seems like the sort of thing you could go to the Hospital Wing for, right?"
"Well, that's probably true," said Daphne after a few moments. "I bet Madame Pomfrey does keep all those potions around for the teachers. We have them in the potions cabinet at home, so they must have them here."
Harry zoned out of the conversation as it erupted into an argument over whether or not Hogwarts professors or their apprentices were allowed to be given anti-hangover potions and stared into the Forest. He found it quite mad that they were all sat there knowing that it contained man-eating giant spiders, but as none of the teachers seemed to find it all that concerning, Harry supposed it wasn't such a big deal. It was presumably safe enough, given that there had never been an incident before, although Harry did wonder.
Not too far from the edge of the Forest stood a large hut, or a very small house, which Harry thought belonged to the Groundskeeper. Jets of flame kept popping out of the narrow chimney every so often, which Harry thought didn't look especially safe in light of the house's wooden nature. He supposed it could have been charmed safe, but it still felt like an unwise choice to burn such a large fire in such a small wooden space.
Harry nibbled a piece of chocolate and blissfully ignored the current topic of conversation. The pumpkin patch that had provided pumpkins for Hallowe'en had been planted with something, maybe even pumpkins for next year's Hallowe'en – Harry had no idea when they were usually planted. He did wonder why they were grown outside the Groundskeeper's hut instead of in the many greenhouses, but perhaps the greenhouses were only used for magical plants.
Or maybe the Groundskeeper liked to grow pumpkins. Harry supposed there were stranger things going on at Hogwarts than that.
A flicker of yellow-orange flame caught Harry's attention again, forcing his gaze away from the vegetable patch and back at the misshapen wooden house. Flames licked all around the wooden building, dancing higher and higher.
Harry nudged Theodore.
"The Groundskeeper's house is on fire," he said. "Look."
"Oh, Merlin," said Theodore. The already quite pale boy turned even whiter. "That can't be good."
"Should we do something?" asked Harry, although he wasn't sure exactly what they could do. He didn't know the spell to conjure water, and none of them had a bucket to get water from the lake. One by one the other Slytherins and many of the other students enjoying a bit of peace on the grounds started to notice the rapidly burning hut.
Thankfully, Harry realised he didn't need to help when the hut's owner, Hagrid, burst out of the burning shell of the building swearing. He wailed as the small house, which as far as Harry knew was the man's only home and contained all of his possessions, burned down.
The large man stood, almost as if frozen, as he watched the building burn. In the distance Harry could hear shouting that sounded like some of the professors, but as the hut burned to the ground, Harry could swear he saw something still alive inside the conflagration.
"That's a dragon!" he shouted. He'd never seen a living specimen before, but he knew what they looked like, and Hagrid had a baby dragon sat in what had once been his fireplace. "A bloody dragon!"
"It really is!" said Millicent. "Bonkers." She stood up and brushed past Harry for a better look.
"Who keeps a dragon inside a wooden house?" said Pansy.
"An imbecile," said Draco.
By that point some of the teachers and one of the Aurors had arrived at the site of the fire and had started putting it out. All of them had noticed the dragon, though Harry thought it would have been hard not to notice the screeching, fire-breathing lizard sat amidst the burning building.
"Oh, Hagrid," Harry heard McGonagall say. "What have you done?"
"E's only a baby!" said Hagrid. "I didn' think…"
"Oh, Hagrid," said McGonagall again, "you never do." She shook her head and turned towards Flitwick. "We'll have to sedate the dragon. Stunning spells on the count of three?"
The small professor nodded in agreement.
"Just the two of us should do it on one this small!" he said.
The two professors kept on talking as they moved closer to the dragon, but they soon moved too far away for Harry to hear what they said. Seconds later twin jets of red light shot at the dragon hatchling, and it fell still in its bed of ashes and twisted metal which used to be Hagrid's home.
"It took two stunners to bring it down!" shouted Millicent. "Only two! I heard full-grown dragons need ten or twenty wizards to keep them controlled." She paused. "Well, I suppose it was from McGonagall and Flitwick, and it's a baby, but still..."
"Yeah," said Theodore. "We're lucky it didn't get any bigger, or it would have been loads more resistant to magic…"
"Where do you even get a dragon from, though?" asked Tracey, bewildered. "Like aren't the eggs meant to be really illegal?"
"Well, he probably knows all sorts of criminals and the like," said Draco. "I mean, look at him—the man's a half-wit and clearly not fully human. I bet he had something to do with the Acromantulas in the bloody Forest. What do you expect from someone like that?"
A few murmurs of agreement coursed through the group. Harry thought Draco's assessment a little unfair, although probably not entirely inaccurate from what Harry had seen. Even he knew that it was illegal to breed and own dragons, and he had only known about their existence for less than a single year. Harry did feel some sympathy for the man – his house had just burned down, after all, and he was probably going to go to prison. Even so, the situation felt wholly avoidable.
"It's been an eventful Easter, hasn't it?" said Blaise cheerfully. "One teacher goes mad, and the groundskeeper gets done for keeping an illegal dragon!"
"It's like I keep saying," said Draco, "under Dumbledore this school's gone to the dogs. Invasions from a wanted murderer, unqualified teachers, man-eating spiders, and now a dragon! This'll see the silly oaf sacked, if Dumbledore wants to keep his own job. Dragons at a school?"
"It was only a baby dragon," said Millicent, shrugging. "And how often do you get to see one of those?"
"That's not the point," said Pansy. "A proper teacher could have handled one, but the groundskeeper can't even do magic! He's not allowed."
"This is boring," declared Daphne. She turned towards Harry and offered him a piece of chocolate. "Want to trade one of your bars for mine? I've been dying to try the Dancing Elf Easter batch but we haven't managed to get on the list. Mine are Honkle's Finest, so you won't be getting something worse, just different."
"Yeah, okay," Harry said. He took the still-wrapped bar of chocolate Daphne offered him and swapped it for one of his own Dancing Elf bars that Blaise's mum had bought for him. He unwrapped the bar carefully to preserve the wrapper, and then took a bite. The chocolate was every bit as good as the Bavarian stuff, but had some sort of spice mix added to it that gave it a nice, and very different, feel. As the chocolate made its way to his stomach he could feel it leave a tingly warmth behind which quickly spread through the rest of his body.
"This is really good," he said.
This exchange prompted some of the others to begin chocolate trades of their own, and soon enough discussion turned to whose chocolate was the best rather than the situation with the groundskeeper and the illegal dragon hatchling – at least until a distraught Hagrid and his dragon hatchling walked past with a gaggle of teachers led by the Auror on Black-watch.
"I wonder what's going to happen to the dragon," said Millicent after it had gone.
"Sent to the Ministry, I should think," said Theodore. "Destroyed, maybe sent to a reserve if it's lucky."
Harry was, however, more interested in what would happen to Hagrid than the dragon. As novel as seeing a dragon hatchling was, Harry assumed they would simply send it to a dragon reserve of some kind, since most dragons were apparently endangered. Dragon breeding was illegal, after all, and it had burned down school property, so Harry assumed Hagrid would receive some sort of punishment. Would the giant man be sent to the wizard prison? Harry hoped not. Everything he had heard suggested it was an awful, awful place suitable only for the vilest of criminals, and the groundskeeper seemed careless more than horrible. If Azkaban was where the wizards like Sirius Black was sent, it seemed entirely inappropriate for something like illegally keeping a dragon.
Especially since no one had been hurt.
The thoughts eventually faded away and Harry spent the rest of his morning up until lunch lounging at the edge of the lake with his friends eating chocolate.
