The next few weeks were once again relatively calm, at least in the sense that they weren't bothered by any of the other students. The Snake Squad had grown somewhat hesitant to confront them in any way, though Draco suspected it wouldn't last all too long. They would begin their insults and shoving once the teachers stopped paying closer attention to them and their House stopped acting as if they were disgraces for losing them 75 points in one day.

The calm seemed to remind Hermione that they were at school, and had been dragging them all off to the library whenever possible to study for their final exams, which were still weeks away. Ron and Harry complained almost every single time they went, and more often than not would at some point begin talking about something completely unrelated to the homework or class they were working on, but still, they came with every time and didn't leave until Hermione and Draco did. The latter of the two agreed wholeheartedly with the first, and at times was even more enthusiastic than her, though this mainly came from the fact that he hadn't studied for the final exams at all before all of this and really wanted to take Hermione's place as the top of their year, mostly just to annoy her. Okay, and to be able to brag about it a bit, but like, who wouldn't?

Draco, in an attempt to get Harry and Ron to at least try and study, had come up with a way of getting them to want to know the answers when he or Hermione quizzed them on things. Every time they got the correct answer to a question the person who answered got to pick a Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean from the box that Draco had managed to get away with sneaking into the library every single day without Madam Pince noticing it and the person who asked the question had to eat it, no matter how terrible it was. How the librarian hadn't thrown them out yet when one of them started choking on an awful one, or laughing at the person who had to eat the bean, none of them knew. It certainly got Harry and Ron motivated to know things, just so they could watch Draco and Hermione (who hated the "game", but participated anyway because she hated them being so incompetent when it came to schoolwork) eat the grossest flavors they could find in the redstriped box that Draco had ordered from the Honeydukes in Hogsmeade via owl because he couldn't go yet since he was only a first year.

"I can't remember half of these things! Now I have to… now I have to eat this." Ron said as he wrinkled his nose in disgust, his blue eyes narrowed in suspicion while he held up a peachy orange colored Every Flavor Bean that was specked with darker orange spots, one Saturday. He looked away briefly from the bean and out the window nearest them which revealed the first really nice day of the spring; bright, forget-me-not blue skies stretched for miles, not a cloud in sight, and the trees of the Forbidden Forest swayed ever so slightly in the distance due to the soft breeze blowing outside.

"It's really not that difficult, Ronald, honestly. You just need to focus a bit more." Hermione said without looking up from the essay she was writing on Emeric the Evil for History of Magic, her quill scratching against the scroll of parchment she had spread out in front of her as she wrote sentence after sentence at a speed that seemed almost inhuman.

"But it is! How are we supposed to remember the difference between a hex and a curse?" Ron exclaimed, waving his hands around frantically as if to emphasize his point. He froze however the second Madam Pince looked up from the book she was reading behind her desk, her dark eyes glinting over the top of a pair of glasses that rested on the bridge of the old, stern woman's nose. Draco had to place his hand over his mouth to stop himself from snickering at the look on his redheaded best friend's face as he stared back at the librarian, completely frozen with his arms still spread wide.

It took Ron about fifteen seconds to move again and the only reason he did was because out of what felt like nowhere a tall, hairy man wearing a thick fur coat despite the late spring-time warmth in the air stepped out from one of the sections of bookcases right near where the four first year Gryffindors were sitting. "Hagrid!" Draco called out to the man, ignoring Madam Pince's angry glare that was sent his way, and the person he was addressing stopped on his way towards the door. He turned around and rather quickly moved his hands behind his back, as if he were hiding something from them.

"What are you doing here, Hagrid?" Ron asked him then and Harry looked up from the Herbology book he was reading, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. The raven-haired boy instinctively pushed his round glasses, which had slipped down slightly while he had his nose in a book, back up the bridge of his nose.

"Jus' lookin." The Hogwarts Gamekeeper responded vaguely, his tone sounding unsure. This immediately caught all four young Gryffindors attention and Ron dropped the Every Flavor Bean he still had in his hand onto the table they were sitting at, Harry placing his book next to it. "An' what're you lot up ter? Not still after Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?" Hagrid suddenly went from looking nervous to suspicious, his dark eyes narrowing as he looked down at them.

"Oh, we figured that out ages ago," Ron said, almost off-handedly, though Draco could still hear the smugness in his voice that the redhead was trying to hide. "And we know what the dog's guarding, it's the Philosopher's St-" Hagrid interrupted him before he could finish speaking however, an alarmed expression on his face as he frantically looked around as if to make sure nobody had heard a word of what Ron had just said.

"Shhh!" The Gamekeeper hissed and glared down at them, though the look was more panicked than angry. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

"As a matter of fact, there's a few things we wanted to ask you, Hagrid," Harry started and Draco turned to stare at the raven-haired boy in shock, really, he thought it was a good idea to talk about this with Hagrid in the school library? "about what other than Fluffy is guarding the stone-"

Hagrid seemed to have the same idea as Draco on the matter of discussing things like this so out in the open, where everyone could hear them, and he once again hissed at them: "SHHH! Listen - Come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind yeh, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I told yeh -"

Harry interrupted Hagrid before he could say anything else and, with a somewhat forced seeming smile on his face, said: "See you later, then." The gamekeeper nodded ever so slightly and then quickly left the library, once again hiding whatever he had in his hands.

"What do you think he was hiding behind his back?" Hermione asked them the second Hagrid was gone, her brown eyes alight with curiosity and a strange amount of excitement.

"You think it has something to do with the Stone?" Harry asked as a response, though his eyes, unlike the brunette's, were glinting with concern, as well as a very small amount of curiosity that was just barely there.

"Either that or something equally as mysterious." Draco muttered and frowned in the direction Hagrid had walked off in.

"I'll go see which section he was in." Ron said, drawing the blond's attention back to his friends, and stood up. The redhead paused for a second in front of the line of bookshelves and then disappeared around the same corner Hagrid had emerged from just a few moments prior. Harry frowned after him and Hermione, who probably knew her way around the library better than anyone in the school besides Madam Pince, looked as if she wanted to stand up and follow him. In fact, she almost did, only to stop in the middle of standing up when Ron came back, a stack of books piled in his arms.

"Dragons!" He whispered, sounding equal parts excited and nervous as he did so. With a loud bang that caused the librarian to look up again with a death glare aimed in their direction the youngest Weasley son dropped the books he had grabbed from the shelves, most likely at random, unceremoniously onto the table. "Hagrid was looking for books about dragons! Look: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno: A Dragon Keeper's Guide." Ron slumped back into his chair and looked over the different books that had different amounts of dust gathered on them. Obviously, no matter how surprising, dragons were not a very common interest in students.

"Hagrid does kind of have a thing for dragons…" Draco muttered under his breath as he reached across the circular table and picked up the book lying on top of the small pile that was laying on the parchment Hermione had been writing her essay on. The look on her face suggested that she was not happy about that fact, but she didn't say anything, likely waiting until she knew if the books damaged her writing in any way before she did.

"Yeah, on the day I first met him he told me he's always wanted to have one." Harry agreed and leaned over so that he could look at the thick, slightly dusty leather-bound book Draco had begun flipping through over the blond's shoulder.

"He said that when he met me too. A bit mental, if you ask me. My name got him started on it, and if I'm remembering correctly it took us a while to get him back to talking about something else again." Draco shook his head slightly and frowned down at the book opened in front of him. How could someone actually want to own a creature like this?

"But owning a dragon is illegal." Ron had a shocked look on his face as he said this and he stared down at the cover of the book in front of him, which had a dragon with huge wings and a lot of spikes breathing fire on it. "The Warlock's Convention of 1709 banned dragon-breeding, everybody knows that. It's to stop the Muggles from noticing us if we have a dragon in our back garden - besides, you can't tame dragons, it's too dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's gotten from the wild dragons in Romania." A grimace tugged at the redhead's lips, his blue eyes momentarily becoming a bit unfocused, as if he was remembering something not exactly pleasant.

"But there aren't wild dragons in Great Britain?" Harry demanded, his voice sounding awed and fascinated, yet also a bit fearful. His emerald green eyes were a bit wide behind his round glasses, and he was staring at Ron, obviously nervous about the answer he would receive to his question.

"Of course there are." Ron said and there was a hint of excitement in his eyes as he did so, a grin tugging at his lips. Maybe Charlie isn't the only Weasley who has a bit of a thing for dragons… Draco thought with a mix of confusion and a tiny bit of fear for his redheaded best friend. "The Common Welsh Green and the Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has their hands full trying to keep them hidden, that I can tell you. Our kind constantly have to put a bunch of spells on the Muggles that spotted some, to make them forget." Draco grimaced himself at the last sentence, knowing full-well how often Muggles needed to be obliviated. He had been seen once, when he was about nine years old, flying his broom around in an empty field near the Malfoy Manor with Blaise and Theo and his father had gone up to the Muggle and had muttered a quiet spell and then another that made the man turn and stumble off, as if he wasn't fully in control of himself.

"Then what on earth's Hagrid doing?" Hermione looked equal parts confused and concerned, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion and her dark eyes slightly distant, like they always were when she was trying to figure something out that didn't exactly make sense.

"Maybe he's just interested in knowing more about them?" Draco suggested, though even he could hear the doubt in his voice. A small frown tugged the corners of his lips downwards and he turned a page in the book lying open in front of them, a picture of a scarlet red dragon curled around a couple eggs, smoke curling up from its nostrils greeting him on the next one. It seemed highly unlikely that the reason he was there was simply interest, especially considering one of the things Hagrid wanted more than anything was an actual dragon, meaning he likely already knew pretty much everything about them.

"Let's just hope that's all it is…" Ron muttered, grimacing down at the book about "raising" dragons, his previous interest and excitement on the subject of dragons gone.

About an hour later, when Madam Pince had seemingly had enough of them disrupting her precious silence in the library and had thrown them out, the four first year Gryffindors made their way down to the wooden hut that the Gamekeeper lived in. "I doubt he'll give us any actual answers, he's too loyal to Dumbledore." Draco said as they walked down the path leading from the castle down to the border of the Forbidden Forest, which even in the mid-afternoon in late spring looked dark, eerie, and dangerous.

"Yeah, but if we get him to slip up like last time we'll find things out that we can at least look into so we have some idea what's protecting the stone in case Snape somehow manages to get past the dog and someone needs to stop him. We'll need to know what to expect." Harry said and Draco stopped mid-stride to turn and stare at the boy in shock, his grey eyes wide.

"Know what to expect? Are we going to go after him if he manages to get in? Harry, that's… that's dangerous. Really dangerous." The blond said, his voice sounding a bit higher than usual and the boy he was addressing looked down for a second before redirecting his gaze to meet Draco's. His green eyes had a determined glint in them that hid the shimmer of fear and understanding that also shone in their depths.

"I know, but if it comes to it, I'm going after him. If I do nothing, then more people might get hurt. If Snape manages to get in, I'm going to go after him, and you can't stop me, Draco." For a few seconds Draco held his raven-haired best friend's stare, wanting to try to convince him to not even think about doing that, but knowing it wouldn't help. Harry had too much Gryffindor bravery in him, and had much too big of a hero complex, something the blond had managed to figure out on his second day of school when he had defended Draco, even though he hadn't liked him at all back then. He looked down with a sigh, breaking his eye contact with Harry and turned away to continue on his way toward Hagrid's hut.

"C'mon, Hagrid will be expecting us…" The blond said quietly and once again began walking down the path as if they hadn't stopped in the first place. He didn't see Harry's frown, or hear his equally as defeated sigh before following him, Ron and Hermione making sure to stay with the other two.

Nobody said anything after that until they reached the hut at the border of the forest, where they all hesitated for a brief moment. All of the curtains were pulled shut, blocking any light from coming in through the windows, and smoke was billowing out of the chimney like a dark stormcloud, despite the warmth of the day. What was Hagrid doing in there? The four of them all shook themselves out of their momentary daze rather quickly and made their way towards the front door, Harry rapping three times against the wood.

"Who's there?" A deep, heavily accented voice asked from behind the door, which remained firmly shut until Harry yelled that it was them. It was then yanked open rather quickly and all four of them were pulled inside by Hagrid's huge hands, the door slamming shut behind them.

The first thing Draco noticed inside was the heat. It hit him like a brick wall and he grimaced, finding it somewhat difficult to breathe almost immediately. The air was thick and incredibly humid, the stone floor seeming to shimmer as if it had multiple spells placed on it that were meant to create shields. A huge fire, even larger than the blond had seen in the Gamekeeper's fireplace during the middle of the winter, blazed in the grate, casting strange shadows and flickering orange light on the walls of the hut.

"Here." Hagrid said a few seconds later as he led them over to the table that Draco, Harry, and Ron had sat at with him the very first time they came to visit him and poured tea into four cups, which he then handed out to them. "Stoat sandwiches?" He offered then and all four first years shook their heads, sipping their tea so that he didn't question their decline for the food. Not only did Draco not particularly want to eat stoat, he was also pretty sure the bread would crack his teeth, or at least leave them aching for days as his biscuits had. "Alrigh', wha' did yeh wan' ter ask me?" The Gamekeeper finally asked with a sigh, sitting down across from them.

All of them opened their mouths to begin talking at once, but each of them froze before a single word was spoken. After a second Harry interrupted the silence, his green eyes holding the same determined glint they had on the way to the hut as he looked at Hagrid. "We were wondering if you could tell us, what's guarding the Philosopher's Stone besides Fluffy." He said rather bluntly, not even attempting to stall the question.

Hagrid hesitated for a long moment, his eyes narrowed with a suspicious glint in them that proved he knew they were up to something. "Can' tell yeh tha' o' course." He said finally, his voice uncertain. "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? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

Hermione sighed slightly, as if she were disappointed and also a bit exasperated. "Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you know it, you know everything that's going on round here." She said softly, her tone of voice obviously intended to to flatter the Gamekeeper. Hagrid's beard around his mouth twitched slightly, showing that he was attempting not to smile, the brunette's compliment working surprisingly well. "We only really want to know who does the guarding. We were wondering who Dumbledore trusts enough to ask for help, besides you, of course." Hermione continued and Hagrid's smile grew as he puffed out his chest proudly. All three boys beamed at their best friend, knowing that she had just succeeded in getting them answers.

"Well, I don' s'ppose it could hurt yer tell yeh that…" He said, still looking a bit uncertain, but otherwise willing. "Let's see… he borrowed Fluffy from me… then some o' the teachers did enchantments… Professor Sprout — Professor Flitwick — Professor McGonagall — " he ticked the names off on his large, calloused and slightly scarred hands, 1 - 2 - 3 - . "Professor Quirrell — an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, and Professor Snape." Hagrid continued to count off on his fingers, not noticing the quartet's shocked looks until they exclaimed in unison.

"Snape?"

Hagrid nodded, hesitating then when he saw how wide all of their eyes were, even Draco's, despite how strongly he had refused to think his godfather guilty before. "Yeah - yeh aren' still on abou' that, are yeh? Listen, Snape is helping protect the Stone, he's not abou' ter go an' steal it." The gryffindors all looked at each other, and Draco knew exactly what they were thinking, even if he himself didn't fully think it could be the full story. If Severus was there when they put the protections around the stone, then it wouldn't have been very difficult for him to discover what the others' spells were, meaning he likely knew everything besides how to get past Fluffy, and Quirrell's wards, it seemed.

"You're the only person who knows how to get past Fluffy, right, Hagrid?" Harry asked, his tone anxious, but also excited, and his green eyes glinting. "And you wouldn't tell anybody, even one of the teachers?"

Hagrid puffed out his chest again, a proud grin on his face. "Nobody besides Dumbledore an' meself know." He said and all four of them let out a relieved sigh, which the gamekeeper somehow missed.

"Well, that's something…" Harry muttered to the other three, and they nodded. Hermione then tucked a strand of dark, bushy brown hair behind her ear and let out a small sigh as she briefly wiped her forehead, which was beaded with sweat, with the back of her hand. In that moment Draco realized once again how scorching hot it was in the hut, and absentmindedly ran his hand through his platinum blond hair to get the slightly sweat-soaked strands out of his face. "Hagrid, could we open a window, or something? I'm burning up here." Harry asked, his eyes on both Draco and Hermione, obviously having noticed their discomfort and likely having his own.

"Can't, Harry, sorry." Hagrid said, his tone rather apologetic, though he, instead of meeting any of their eyes as he answered, directed his gaze onto the fire still blazing in the fireplace.

"Hagrid, what is that?" Harry demanded suddenly and Draco turned to look at the flames as well, his eyes growing about twice their size when he saw the ink blank ovoid lying below the kettle that was constantly hanging above the fire.

"Why do you have a dragon egg?!" Draco demanded before he could stop himself, his jaw dropping in shock as he stared at the egg that sat in the heart of the flickering orange flames, his face growing even paler than usual. "Hagrid, you know how dangerous those are, right?" The blond received no answer, though he likely would have if Ron hadn't spoken as well.

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" The redhead's voice was awed, and he stood up to get closer to the fire, leaning forward to get a better look as his blue eyes glimmered with fascination. "It must've cost you a fortune."

Hagrid looked down slightly, as if embarrassed before he too moved closer to the fire, a grin on his heavily bearded face. "Won it." He said, sounded a bit dazed, though whether it was because he was happy, or because the heat in the place must've been affecting him at least to some degree, Draco wasn't sure. "Las' night. Was down in the village, ordered meself a drink or two an' got inter a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was pretty happy ter get rid o' it, if I'm bein' honest."

Draco and Hermione both stared at the Hogwarts Gamekeeper in shock, neither of them fully sure what to say for at least 30 seconds straight. "But what are you going to do when it's hatched?" Hermione finally found her voice and Hagrid hesitated for a moment before answering her question.

"Well, I read a bit." He said and went over to his large bed that filled about a third of the hut, pulling a thick book out from under his rather flat looking pillow. "From the library - Dragon Breeding For Pleasure and Profit - 's a bit outta date, o' course, but everythin's in it. The egg needs ter stay in the fire, 'cause the mother's breathe on 'em, yeh see, an' when it hatches, feed it a bucket o' brandy an' chicken-blood every half hour. An' there, look, how yeh identify the dragons from the eggs - what I've got here, is a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, the Ridgebacks." Hagrid had a grin on his face and stared at the egg resting in the flames with an almost loving expression.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden hut." Hermione said, looking very much equally terrified, dismayed and shocked. The Gamekeeper didn't seem to hear her however, just continued to stare at the egg in fascination as he poked at the fire.

About a week later, at breakfast, they got their first news on the dragon egg since the day they found out. It came in the form of a very brief letter brought to Harry by Hedwig, that had only two words written on it in Hagrid's recognizable scraggly hand-writing: 'He's hatching'

The moment Ron read the note he jumped up from his seat at Gryffindor table, an excited look on his face as he leaned forward towards them with his school bag already slung over his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go! We could skip Herbology, I doubt anyone would notice we're gone." The redhead said and nodded his head in the direction of the tall, golden double doors that led out of the Great Hall, his blue eyes glinting in the morning sunlight streaming in through the windows and a wide grin on his face.

"No! Ron, we can't. For one, we have exams coming up and if we miss even one class we could fail them because we didn't learn something we need, and for two, it would be too suspicious to go! We could risk getting Hagrid caught!" Hermione snapped and stood up as well, grabbing her bag and the book she had had propped open on the table in front of her. Ron hesitated for a moment, the grin on his face flickering as he thought about whether maybe the brunette was correct. "Anyways, I am going to Herbology, and I hope you three do as well."

With that said Hermione stormed off towards the doors, her curls bouncing against her back as she walked. All three of her best friends stared after her for a moment before Ron took off, following the brunette and leaving Harry and Draco still sitting at the table. "We should probably go with them before they murder each other, or someone else." Draco said and his raven-haired best friend nodded before jumping to his feet, almost forgetting his bag in his haste to leave the hall. "Hey! Wait a second, Harry!" The blond yelped and pushed himself up from the long bench, jogging to catch up with the other boy, who had a small, amused smirk on his face.

It didn't take them long to catch up to Ron and Hermione, despite their head start, and by the time they did the two were arguing once again, the redhead obviously having gotten over his momentary hesitation on going to Hagrid's. "C'mon, Hermione, people skip class all the time. Nobody will question it, the worst that could happen is we lose a few points for ditching." He said and Hermione sighed, trying rather unsuccessfully to hide her exasperation as she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, lose points, Ron. You already lost 25 points by deciding you were going to get yourself into a fight with Zabini. Gryffindor isn't exactly happy with you for almost putting us behind Ravenclaw in the House Cup. If you lose us any more points, everyone's going to hate you." She stopped in the middle of the courtyard they were walking though and turned to face Ron, her brown eyes glinting in annoyance as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"So what? Hermione, how many times in your life do you get the chance to see a dra-" Draco's hand cut the redhead's words off as he, rather abruptly, clamped his hand over his mouth when he spotted a flash of dark green robes out of the corners of his eyes. Pansy and most of the other first year Slytherins were coming up from the lake, where they had likely been instead of going to breakfast doing who knows what, and were all very much so capable of over-hearing anything Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Draco said when speaking at normal volume.

"Shh!" The blond hissed, glaring at the redhead in an attempt to get him to not protest against him stopping him from speaking instead of just telling him to stop. "Not here. They could hear, and then we'd all be in trouble, Ron." Draco subtly tilted his head in the direction of the slytherins and Ron's eyes followed his movement. He felt his best friend close his mouth, obviously getting the message to not try and say anything. The redhead then raised his eyebrows when the blond made no signs of moving his hand. Quickly he pulled his hand back and grimaced down at it, wiping his palm off on his robes.

"Fine, we'll go to class, but just to make sure those snakes stay off our back and don't get too suspicious. We're going during break later though. I need to see that, Charlie will be so jealous, he's never seen one hatch before!" Ron said, lowering his voice so the Slytherins that had just passed by them wouldn't hear and Harry and Draco both nodded in agreeance. Hermione however still seemed hesitant as she slowly nodded, reluctance shimmering in her eyes before she turned away and continued on her way to the greenhouses, the other three slowly following.

"It's nearly out." Hagrid told them the moment he opened the door for them later that morning, his face bright red with excitement. The four first years had immediately thrown down their quills, grabbed their bookbags and bolted towards Hagrid's hut when the bell signalling the end of class rang. All of them were excited to see the baby dragon, even Hermione, who had previously thought it would be too dangerous to go anywhere near one. The Hogwarts Gamekeeper pulled them inside the small wooden cabin that stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and, as he had done the last time they had come over, he quickly slammed the door shut behind them.

Draco looked around the one room of the hut, which was somehow even warmer than it had been the last time they were there, subconsciously fiddling with the sleeves of his robes, wishing he didn't have to wear that part of his uniform when it was so boiling hot outside. Out in the sun was bad enough most of the time, the greenhouses and Hagrid's hut were whole new levels of nightmarish heats that made Draco regret not having found some way to learn a cooling charm so that everything at least wouldn't feel as dreadfully warm.

The ink black dragon egg, which had previously been sitting in the center of the fire that still for whatever reason blazed in Hagrid's fireplace, was lying on the table. Huge, spider-web like cracks covered most of its surface and every few seconds it trembled, as if something was moving inside of it while small clicking noises could be heard. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all immediately rushed towards it, pulling their chairs closer to the table so they could get closer looks at the egg as the cracks steadily grew bigger. Draco, on the other-hand, stood back for about thirty seconds, suddenly rather hesitant to get near the egg. What if the second it escaped the egg it jumped out at one of them and attacked? What if it set fire to their robes, or the curtains that hung from the window right behind the table?

Still, if either of those things, or something else bad, did happen, it would be better to at least be closer to help. With a small sigh that Draco wasn't sure of the emotion behind, he pulled his own chair closer to the table, leaning forward slightly to see the egg, which seemed to be slowly turning and very strongly trembling as the dragon inside attempted to break free, better. Suddenly, not even a minute after the blond had sat down with the other three gryffindor students, a piece of the shell came flying off. With a yelp Draco lept back out of his chair to avoid being hit by the sharp shard of black dragon egg, and the other three followed suit, jumping back as more pieces began to fly in all directions as if they were bursting from cannons.

A small, inkblack dragon with bony wings that were larger than the rest of it sat in the middle of where the egg had just been laying, its nostrils flared dangerously. Bright, orange-red eyes that glowed like dying embers stared up at them and, despite how dangerous it was and how much Draco didn't want to get any closer to the creature than he already was, the blond found himself taking a step forward. The baby Norwegian Ridgeback sneezed then, sending sparks sparks flying. A few of the small little orange specks just barely missed landing on his robes and instead flickered and died out as they drifted towards the floor.

Hagrid, who seemed completely unaffected by the danger the dragon was posing to him, stretched his hand out towards it, seemingly intending to cradle the creature's head. "Isn't he beautiful?" He murmured, his fingers almost grazing the dragon's black scales, only to be stopped by the Ridgeback snapping at him, almost taking the tips of Hagrid's fingers off with its razor-sharp teeth. "Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!" The gamekeeper's voice was soft and awed, once again sounding loving as it had last time. How could someone sound loving when speaking to a dragon?

"Hagrid…" Said Hermione, who seemed to have somewhat similar thoughts to Draco, her brown eyes glimmering with slight concern and fear. "How quick do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow?" She looked nervously down at the not exactly small baby dragon that had tiny wisps of smoke curling out of its nostrils and then back up at Hagrid.

"Well, the females tend ter grow faster 'n the males, but really it depends on how much an' how well yeh feed 'em. Some jus grow quicker 'n others. Some start breathing fire around a month or so after they hatch." Hagrid shrugged a bit, as if none of those facts were concerning in the slightest, and Draco found himself staring with wide, grey eyes at the reptile sitting on the table before once again scrambling backwards, away from it.

"Hagrid! You'll set the whole grounds on fire if you keep a dragon like that here! You're going to get caught!" Hagrid seemed to pale ever so slightly at Draco's words, his excitement deflating somewhat, but he said nothing in response, simply stared out through a tiny gap in the curtains at Hogwarts.

For the next week Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco spent almost all of their free-time in Hagrid's hut instead of the library, all thoughts of final exams having practically disappeared from their minds for the time being. They were all too preoccupied with trying to convince Hagrid to find some way to get rid of the dragon before it started to become too dangerous to even be near, which so far was rather unsuccessful. Hermione had already tried to convince him to talk to the Care of Magical Creatures professor about where he could get the dragon to have a safe life, but he had refused because he didn't want to get rid of it. Draco had also suggested finding a place in the Forbidden Forest where he could make a sort of habitat or pen for the dragon to live, but Hagrid had said he couldn't do that either.

"Just let him go." Harry said eight days after the dragon had hatched. They had just finished Transfiguration class and had run down to Hagrid's hut so they could visit him for a little while before Harry had Quidditch practice. "Free him."

Hagrid shook his head quickly, his dark eyes twinkling in a sad way, like letting the dragon he had owned for a week free into the wild was something he just couldn't imagine doing. "I can'. He's too small. He'd die."

Small?! That thing's not bloody small! Draco thought and looked up from the dragon which had grown to at least three times its size over the past week. The sparks it had sneezed out on the first day had morphed into small flames, and smoke was constantly curling up out of its nostrils in small swirls. Hagrid, who claimed that the dragon was easy to take care of, had already started ignoring his jobs as Gamekeeper in order to watch over it so it didn't burn down his whole hut, which had slowly begun getting messier and messier. Empty whiskey bottles and chicken feathers covered the floor like cherry blossoms under a tree in the middle of spring.

"I wan' ter name 'im Norbert. He knows me pretty well now, look. Norbert! Norbert! Where's mummy?" Hagrid looked down at the dragon which just barely fit on the table, his dark eyes swimming with tears. Draco couldn't tell if the tears were of joy or sadness, but either way he didn't get it. The creature he wanted to name had already set fire to his bed at least once, had almost bitten both Fang's tail and Hagrid's fingers off and had probably emptied at least half the school's chickens of their blood, thereby killing them. Even Ron, who at first had found the dragon fascinating and cool wanted nothing more than for Hagrid to get rid of it.

"He's lost his marbles." Ron muttered so that only Harry and Draco could hear and the blond snorted with laughter, quickly covering his mouth with his hand to stifle it as he nodded in agreement. That was one way to put it, though Harry didn't agree, or disagree, with the two other gryffindor boys.

"Hagrid, in two weeks Norbert will be as big as your house, if it isn't already burned down by that point." Harry said, quite obviously avoiding eye contact with Ron, as if he could stop himself from making any signs of acknowledging what the redhead had said by doing that.

"Someone's bound to notice something soon, what with us coming here every day after classes, you not doing your job as much, and the windows always closed and the curtains constantly shut despite it being late spring. Someone'll notice eventually, and you won't be able to avoid any blame or trouble if someone tells Dumbledore." Draco added, his former amusement at Ron's statement gone as if he had never felt it.

Hagrid looked down slightly, growing dejected suddenly as he bit his lower lip rather nervously. "I... I know I can' keep 'im forever, but I can' jus dump 'im. I can'." He said, voice cracking slightly with an emotion that could likely only be described as grief and desperation. Harry's green eyes suddenly lit up, however, and he turned away from the gamekeeper to face Ron with an excited look on his face as if he had just realized something important.

"Charlie." The raven-haired boy said, looking expectantly at the redhead, who turned to face him with a confused and bewildered expression. Draco on the other hand wasn't all that confused, he was pretty sure he knew what Harry meant. It was rather obvious really, if you thought about it, but then again Ron was not exactly the quickest to realize something. While he may be pretty smart under his severe lack of motivation to study and do homework, he was thick when it came to the obvious.

"You've lost it too." The redhead muttered and lifted his hands as if he was planning on grabbing Harry's shoulders and shaking him, only to think twice about it and dropped his hands again. "I'm Ron, remember?" Draco scoffed slightly and opened his mouth to explain what Harry had meant, only to be beat to it by said raven-haired boy.

"No, Charlie, your brother Charlie." Harry said, a hint of amusement audible underneath his slight exasperation. "In Romania. The Dragon-tamer. We could send him Norbert. Charlie could take care of him and then let him out into the wild!"

Ron's blue eyes lit up in a similar fashion to Harry's and a grin split across his face, all of the confusion wiped clean away. "That's genius! How about that, Hagrid?" The redhead looked over at the gamekeeper expectantly, his eyes seeming to twinkle in a weirdly excited way.

"I… Alright." Hagrid said after a moment and looked down at Norbert, tears shimmering in his eyes once again, though this time Draco was sure they were of sadness.

Over the next couple days things just seemed to get worse with the dragon. It had continued to grow at the same rapid pace and needed much more than just buckets of chicken blood and whiskey to eat. About midway through the week Norbert started eating crates full of dead rats, which Hogwarts had surprisingly a lot of, and the four of them had decided they would take turns helping Hagrid feed the dragon.

"He bit me!" Ron said the moment he came into the Gryffindor Common Room, letting Harry's invisibility cloak that he had borrowed fall to the floor. It was late Wednesday night and all of the other gryffindors, even the fifth and seventh years that had begun staying up till the early hours of the morning studying for their OWLs and NEWTs, had gone to bed, leaving Harry, Hermione, and Draco alone while Ron was down at Hagrid's Hut.

"I won't be able to hold a quill for at least a whole week. I'm telling you, this dragon is the worst animal I've ever laid eyes on, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it's a sweet, cuddly little bunny rabbit. After he bit me, Hagrid told me off for frightening it. And while I was leaving he started singing him a lullaby!" The redhead collapsed into his usual chair, placing his right hand, which was wrapped in a rather bloody handkerchief, onto the table in front of him.

Just as Draco moved his chair a bit closer to Ron's and reached towards his hurt hand to see if it was as bad as the amount of blood suggested something scratched at the window their table was in front of. The blond looked up in surprise, trying not to show his flinch, and saw a familiar snowy owl fluttering outside the window, a letter tied to her leg.

"It's Hedwig!" Harry stood up quickly and let his owl inside. She immediately perched on the raven-haired boy's shoulder, extending her leg with the letter towards him. "Charlie responded!" He sat back down in his chair, opening the envelope and unfolding the letter as he did so. Draco and Hermione both got to their feet, while Ron simply moved his chair closer to Harry's, and they crowded around the raven-haired boy to read the letter with him.

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 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

Draco and Hermione, having finished reading just a second or two before the other two, glanced at each for a moment, then looked at Harry and Ron. "We have the invisibility cloak. That shouldn't be too difficult - I think it's big enough to hide three of us and Norbert under it." Harry said and looked at his best friends, glancing worriedly down at Ron's injured hand.

"It's the best chance we've got." Draco agreed and glanced at Ron too, wanting to drag the redhead off to the Hospital Wing to get his hand fixed, but knowing he couldn't for a few different reasons. A concerned frown tugged at the blond's lips and he sighed as he sat back down in his own chair. "Who's going? Because… Ron, if that gets infected or is really bad already, I don't think you should go. You could make it worse, or -" Ron interrupted Draco with a laugh, his blue eyes glinting in amusement.

"You're almost worse than mum." The redhead said and Draco blinked at him in bewilderment.

"What?" His voice sounded sort of high and confused even to him and he stared at his redheaded best friend and then the other two as well, both of which were attempting to stifle their laughter with their hands.

"Nevermind, mate." Ron said, still grinning at the blond.

The next morning Draco's concerns turned out to not be for nothing, overnight Ron's hand had swollen to twice its size and throughout all of breakfast he complained quietly that it felt like it was pulsing with fire. Draco wanted him to go to the Hospital Wing, no matter the risks, but both Harry and Hermione disagreed and said that there was a chance Madam Pomfrey would recognize the bite as a dragonbite and that it wouldn't be a good idea. This was proven wrong later, however, when by lunchtime Ron's hand was no longer just swollen and hurting, it had also started to turn slightly green, as if the dragon's teeth had been venomous or something, though Draco couldn't remember ever having heard of that before.

After dinner Harry, Hermione, and Draco all ran to the Hospital Wing to check on Ron, finding him sitting up in bed with an empty plate lying next to him. His injured hand had proper bandages on it and seemed significantly less swollen, though the fact that the redhead was still in the hospital and that his hand still had bandages proved that he likely wasn't all better.

"How are you?" Draco asked and Ron shrugged slightly, a small frown on his face. He bit his lip nervously and scrunched his eyebrows together in a somewhat concerned look, blue eyes a bit distant.

"Fine. I told Madam Pomfrey it was a dog that bit me. Not really sure she believes me, but she didn't question it, so… I suppose it doesn't really matter." Ron paused for a moment then, and a few seconds later, a bit hesitantly, glancing in the direction of Pomfrey's office, continued. "Parkinson showed up here a little bit ago, hurt herself in Transfiguration or something, I think. She saw my hand while Pomfrey was wrapping it. I don't think she knows anything, but she certainly suspects us now. We should try to be more careful around her and the other Slytherins when we talk about this. At least until Saturday. Well, Sunday, technically." Draco frowned at his best friend's words, knowing he was right. Pansy and Blaise had already shown that if they found out anything that could get them in trouble, they used it against them. If they found out about Norbert Hagrid could get thrown in Azkaban and they could be expelled.

"It'll all be over on Saturday. Well, the Norbert thing at least. We still have the st-" Before Harry could finish speaking, the door to Madam Pomfrey's office burst open and she came strolling out. Immediately she shooed the three that weren't her patient away, and told them they could come back the next day, but that it was almost curfew and that Ron needed rest.

"Goodnight." The three gryffindors all said at practically the same time to Ron and then all fled the Hospital Wing, heading back to the Common Room where they didn't have to worry about Pomfrey finding anything out.

Saturday morning Ron was released from the Hospital Wing, though Madam Pomfrey told him he wasn't allowed to leave Gryffindor tower to do anything besides go to meals and the library. He had wanted to come with them as well to help with Norbert, but even Hagrid seemed to find this a bad idea, so he reluctantly stayed back in the Common Room, catching up on the homework he had missed over the last two days while he waited for Harry, Hermione, and Draco to return.

"C'mon, it's almost eleven, we should get going, There's no telling how hard it might be to get Norbert up to the Tower…" Draco said, glancing up at the clock standing against the wall in the common room after they had been working on all the essays their teachers had assigned for them to write over the weekend for hours on end. He stood up, and Harry and Hermione both did the same, while Ron stayed put, a small, nervous smile on his face.

"Good luck." The redhead said and they nodded, Harry reaching towards the cloak which he had laid over the back of his chair before they started working so that they wouldn't have to go up and come back down from the dorms in the middle of the night. They threw it over themselves and then quickly, all huddled rather closely together under the cloak, left the tower and headed down towards Hagrid's Hut.

The sky was dark and cloudy above them as they snuck through the school grounds, not a star or the moon in sight. Their footsteps were muffled by the soft end of spring grass and they somehow managed to keep themselves hidden from Peeves, Mrs. Norris, and Filch the entire way down towards the edge of the forest.

"He has loads o' rats an' a bit o' whiskey fer the trip." Hagrid told them when they finally, at about twenty after eleven, made it to his house. He was standing outside with a huge crate that had a tiny bit of smoke curling out of it on one side, meaning it likely had Norbert inside of it. "An' I packed his teddy bear, in case he gets lonely." As the gamekeeper said this a loud ripping noise came from inside the crate, as if some sort of clothing item or… stuffed animal had just been torn in half.

"Bye-Bye, Norbert." Hagrid sobbed as Draco, Harry and Hermione threw the cloak over the crate and then once again all got under it themselves. Despite the fact of how strange it seemed to the blond that the gamekeeper cared so much about the animal that had almost killed him, hurt Ron, and almost burnt down his hut, he couldn't help but hate that this was hurting Hagrid so much. It almost made it not feel right taking Norbert away, but he knew they needed to, otherwise the school would just have even more problems. "Mummy will never forget you!"

With that said, the three first year gryffindors all grabbed the crate and started the painful task of carrying the crate to the castle and up several flights of moving stairs. "Really wish I already knew how to cast a Feather-Light Charm…" Draco muttered under his breath as they dragged the crate up the staircase leading to the second floor. His arms and legs already felt exhausted and like he was about to collapse. Hermione snickered slightly at his words, though it was obviously a bit strained.

"That's a year three level charm, Draco." She said and the blond looked up at her in surprise, his eyebrows raising slightly.

"How do you even know that?" He demanded, but got no response from the brunette besides a small smirk that said she wouldn't be telling him anytime soon. The rest of the way up to the Astronomy Tower was quiet, though they did almost run into Mrs. Norris on the seventh floor, only just managing to slip past her by sneaking into an unlocked abandoned classroom. By the time they finally reached the tower it was already five minutes past midnight, and just a few minutes later four brooms came into view, heading towards them.

Handing Norbert over to Charlie's friends sort of blurred by in Draco's mind, nothing really sticking out to him beside the fact that they were planning on flying all the way back to Romania with the crate attached to their brooms. Just as they took off, the dragon-crate somehow suspended in between them, the school's clock tower struck half past midnight and as they disappeared into the darkness of the night the bell sounded two times, echoes of it bouncing off the many towers and walls of the castle.

The three waited a few minutes, staring off after the four brooms and one dragon as they vanished from view, before quickly going down the stairs of the tower so they could get back to the common room and tell Ron they'd finally gotten Norbert off their backs. Only too late did they realize they had forgotten the invisibility cloak up at the top of the tower, where it would likely stay until they managed to sneak back out to get it, if they did somehow get the chance.

"Well, well, well." The voice of Filch cut through the silence of the corridor at the foot of the spiral staircase leading down from the Astronomy Tower and all three of them flinched back when the caretaker of Hogwarts's face appeared out of the darkness, illuminated only by a lantern he held in his hand. "We are in trouble."