Secondly, this is the last chapter of Harry's first year. I'll be uploading the first chapter of Harry's second year on Sunday if everything goes well. The story is already more than halfway written, so updates will be regular...at least for as long as I keep this pace up :x
Enjoy!
Also, your comments give me life :D
Minerva McGonagall had seen her fair share of things in her life. Yet this was still in the top ten of the list.
"LET THE DRAGON LIVE IN FREEDOM!", Harry Potter was screaming through a Muggle megaphone that he had gotten Merlin knows where in front of the crowd of journalists, school staff and students gathered to observe the officials of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau enter the Forbidden Forest.
Ever since the dragon had made its first fiery appearance the school had been in turmoil. Several parents sent Howlers to complain, Dumbledore was on the floo on a daily basis with the Ministry and the school staff had their hands full trying to keep the students out of the Forbidden Forest and away from the dragon.
It was putting a huge amount of stress on everybody, Minerva had just seen two weeks before Quirinus burst into tears in the middle of the staff meeting when Dumbledore had stressed how it was a death sentence to currently brave the Forest.
Soon the press had also arrived and if not for the wards they would probably had tried to sneak in to try take a few photographs of the dragon.
It really wasn't an easy scenario, but then Harry Potter had to get himself involved.
At the beginning he would only talk loudly in public places how the dragon was a marvel of nature and how wonderful it all was, but then when the Daily Prophet started reporting that there were people who wished to see the dragon executed he completely changed his tactics.
It had all started with giving impassioned speeches about dragon rights in the middle of corridors, the Great Hall, at classes, at detention for disrupting classes, at the boy's bathroom, at girl's bathroom – which got him another detention in which he also gave impassioned speeches – and finally at the school grounds.
What was worst is that his theatrics had got other students' attention and now he had a group of roughly forty students, from various years – though mostly first years – joining his protests at the grounds and also making a nuisance of themselves. The worst of all was that the press had taken notice of them. Upon their first allowed incursion into the school grounds to document the proceedings of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau they'd easily spotted Potter standing on top of a crate that smelled suspiciously of dead rats as he gave one of his infamous speeches.
The press loved him, but they loved him even more when he realized he was The-Twin-Brother-Of-The-Boy-Who-Lived and instantly put him on their cover pages. Having the actual Boy-Who-Lived appear at the protests instead of just his twin also helped the cause a lot.
Worst of all was that Potter had somehow managed to drag poor Hagrid into all of this. Though to be honest it probably wasn't so difficult. Minerva, like everybody that knew the man knew he was overly fond of dangerous creatures. Hagrid had even participated in the contest to name the dragon, in which Potter had put out a blackboard on the grounds and accepted name suggestions for the dragon from the public. Hagrid's proposal of naming it 'Norbert' ended up winning, even if there were many accusations of cheating since many believed the name 'Dragoney McDragonface' would be the winner.
As the first official of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau entered the Forest the protests ramped up in noise, Potter clapping two pans together while he screamed, "ALL DRAGONS DESERVE FREEDOM!", his megaphone at least for now forgotten.
Hagrid was playing the ukulele, or at least he was trying to. He'd commented to Minerva that Potter had convinced him that all peaceful protesting should have ukulele playing so he'd decided to volunteer.
"Sweet Merlin", said Filius as he held his hands over his ears.
"Where did he even get those pans?", wondered Minerva, only barely restraining herself of following Filius example.
"Where did they get the ukulele?", wondered Sinistra.
"Oh look at the nice floral arrangement the children of the fifth year did!", enthused Pomona as she pointed at the flower arrangement that said older students were making to float up in the air. The arrangement read 'Freedom for Norbert'.
The fifth years seemed to be having a blast by making the letters float around their little gathering of protesters. One of them sent up an arrangement that formed the word 'McDragonface' and tried to replace 'Norbert' in the air, but Potter dropped his pans and tackled him before they could get further.
Hagrid gave his ukulele to Malfoy – perhaps the most surprising member of the little ragtag group – and ran to pick Potter up before it could all come to blows.
Just as Minerva was starting to think she should step in the ground Potter for tackling his fellow student and not letting them go afterwards there was a loud roar in the Forest, followed by screaming and then finally the officials of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau came running out, making a beeline for the school gates.
Potter immediately stopped harassing the fifth year student and gave a cry of victory.
"NORBERT IS FREE! NATURE HAS PREVAILED!"
"I'm not even going to get into the argument that a Norwegian Ridgeback is never going to naturally appear in Scotland. The temperature here is far from what it would consider ideal", said Filius as he shook his head at everything that was happening.
"Oh, his argument is that they are getting displaced out of Norway by us humans, who I might add he calls the true plague on the earth", explained Pomona.
"Charming little fella isn't he?", joked Filius with a chuckle and began to amble back to the castle with the rest of the teachers.
Minerva sighed and followed along, "Has anybody seen Severus? I worry about him. Ever since Potter got sorted into his House he's almost all the time exhausted and the fact that he couldn't talk Potter out of his protests was a huge blow on his pride."
"It was foolish of him to attempt it though, I'm sorry to say", said Sinistra.
Minerva couldn't help but nod, "He is a very difficult child. Thank Merlin I got his brother."
"How's Jimmy doing lately? I saw him come out of his corner in the classroom on his own the other day and I couldn't help but be amazed", said Pomona.
"Oh, it's all this excitement of the dragon. Whatever Harry is, he's good for his brother. Really helps to bring him out of his shell, even it is by giving him overexposure to other people."
"Harry does have a big circle of friends", mused Filius, "Almost unusually so."
Minerva hummed in agreement, "Who's up for some poker later tonight?"
"Ooh, that would be delightful, I do enjoy crushing all of you", said Pomona.
"I'll bring the Firewhiskey", said Sinistra.
The next day the Daily Prophet's cover story is how the officials of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau, while trying to restrain Norbert the dragon, got ambushed by Centaurs and were forced to retreat.
It also reported that no more raids on the Forest were planned for the foreseeable future.
Harry was seated in Professor Snape's office, practicing how to sit his final exams.
"How about I fake trying to cheat off Draco?", Harry asked as he chewed on the end of quill.
Professor Snape made a face, "Don't put that in your mouth, it's uncouth. And no, no cheating, fake or otherwise. You'll be under enough scrutiny as is."
Harry sighed and took the quill out of his mouth, "Fine, fine."
"What has you so distracted?", Professor Snape asked after a while, in which Harry had done little more than stare into the distance.
Setting down his quill Harry sighed again, "There's something weird going on with Jimmy. He told me recently that Professor Quirrel is evil."
Professor Snape looked alarmed by this, "Did he say what gave him that impression?"
"No, just that he was evil and about to steal something. Seamus seemed to agree with him. Dean not so much, but Dean is the most sensible out of all of them", Harry sighed again, "And Dean got sick yesterday, he's at the infirmary now, so who knows what Jimmy and Seamus are up to now."
Professor Snape abruptly stood up from his chair, "When was the last time you saw your brother?"
"Um, about before I came here? That's when he told me about the whole stealing thing and that nobody was listening to him and then he and Seamus went off. They didn't look too happy – Professor where are you going?", Harry called after Professor Snape as he raced out of the office.
'Maybe he really needed to go to the bathroom', suggested Voldemort.
"Well, he could just have said something", mumbled Harry out loud, not bothering to hide Voldemort's existence when they were alone, "Hopefully he'll get back soon. I still want to ask him if he could tutor Jimmy in Defense so that he won't feel the need to slander teachers to get a good grade."
'Well, Quirrel is a terrible teacher, there's no denying that.'
"Yeah, but he's not a criminal", said Harry.
After Professor Snape didn't come back for the better part of an hour Harry left him a note on some parchment and went to the library to fake his studying for his final exams.
It was just about dinnertime when Gemma Farley came to the library for him.
"Your brother is at the infirmary", she informed Harry, "Your parents are already here. Professor Snape said you should also be there."
Harry hurriedly packed up his things and raced to the infirmary.
He found Jimmy laid up in a bed, covered in bandages and his right arm in a casket and James fawning over him. There was also a woman with bright red hair sitting at his bedside. She wasn't saying much, but when she looked around and presumably didn't find Madame Pomfrey in the near vicinity she opened her robe and took out a martini glass.
'Oh! It's Lily!', said Harry.
'Did he fall off his broom again?', wondered Voldemort.
"You can come closer Harry", Dumbledore called. Harry hadn't even seen him, but now that he looked he saw Professors McGonagall and Snape coming out of Madame Pomfrey's office, followed by the mediwitch herself.
"Mrs. Potter, is that a martini?!", exclaimed Madame Pomfrey when she came to stand at Jimmy's bedside.
"Um", said Lily, looking a bit frazzled before she took a long sip of her martini, not looking at anybody present at the infirmary.
"What happened?", asked Harry as he came to stand by Jimmy's bedside.
"Young Jimmy here uncovered the most nefarious of plots that out very own Professor Quirrel had come to device to steal a precious object under Hogwarts protection. To do this he and Mr. Finnigan courageously went through all the obstacles that had been put in place to protect this very item and successfully managed to defeat Quirrel before he could steal it. Never before had such courage been witnessed before."
Both Professor McGonagall and Snape looked at Dumbledore in clear bewilderment.
"The chess pieces only let him through because he was crying Albus!", hissed Professor McGonagall.
"Crying requires great courage Minerva", answered Dumbledore.
"Mr. Finnigan set himself on fire when he was trying to escape the Devil's Snare!"
"He braved his greatest fear."
"Albus!"
"My sweet son, so brave!", wailed James over the still unconscious Jimmy, "I knew he'd be the best Gryffindor!"
"Sure hun", slurred Lily as she swayed where she sat.
Professor Snape flared his nostrils, turned in a way that made robes twirl dramatically and left the infirmary.
"But I don't understand. Professor Quirrel wasn't a criminal", said Harry.
"Alas, my dear Harry, he was. We were all deceived by him. None of us saw this coming. At all."
Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes.
'Well, at least this means you'll have a better teacher next year.'
"Okay", said Harry, "Is Seamus okay? And is Dean still here?"
"Mr. Finnigan is over here", Professor McGonagall guided Harry to a curtained off area where both Dean and Seamus were resting on their respecting beds.
"Hey! Harry, how's Jimmy", greeted Seamus, who was red as a tomato on the few patches where his skin peeked through the bandages.
"He's asleep", said Harry and went to sit on his bed, "What happened exactly?"
"Oh, just these two", sighed Dean, "They've been at it the whole year, driving me up the wall with their conspiracy theories and whatnot. I would have gone with them though, really, I would have. But then I really started to feel under the weather yesterday, just when the plan to stop Quirrel was taking off too! In fact, I still feel a bit peaky", Dean coughed twice into his closed fist.
Harry stared at Dean.
Dean stared at Harry.
Harry could see sweat beading on Dean's forehead.
"Okay. Hope you both get better soon!", Harry said and went back to his brother's side.
'He's so faking it.'
'Totally.'
All comments are welcome, I'm writing as fast as I can so you might spot some grammar errors. Please don't hesitate to tell me! :)
Also, this is still under its working title, any and all suggestions for a new name are welcome