Harry sighed.
"Well, I guess I have to kill him now. I tried to ignore him, but if he's going to raise trouble like this–"
"HARRY!" Three voices yelled in unison, Neville, Hermione, and Hagrid all looking at him in horror, and even Norberta staring at him with wide eyes to mimic Hagrid.
"Er… it was a joke?" He attempted to pass it off. Whether they believed it or not, they moved on.
"Oh, Hagrid, you're going to be in so much trouble. The only way out is if you give it up."
"But give it up to who or where Hermione, and when?" Neville asked, "Malfoy's on his way to get a professor right now, it isn't like he's going to give us a day or so to plan."
Harry had a sudden idea and said, "Maybe you don't have to at all," and before any of them could say a word Harry pulled the invisibility cloak out of his pocket.
"We don't have to hurt anyone or make Hagrid give up Norberta. We just have to step outside and hide her under the cloak until Malfoy and whichever professors he brings are gone."
"But what if she burns the cloak?" Hermione asked. "Even ignoring how dangerous that would be for us, everyone would notice a floating flame."
Neville made an affirmative sound, backing Hermione up on this, and Hagrid looked like he was about to despair.
Harry walked up to Norberta and reached for her. She snapped once at his finger but he avoided her jaws and picked her up. Before she could do anything else he held her against his chest and started growling softly.
"Harry, what are you doing?" His friends looked terrified for him, but Hagrid understood and beamed.
"He's making her think he's another dragon, to soothe 'er, like singin' a lullaby."
"So, she won't breathe fire now?" Neville hesitantly asked.
"Unless she gets the hiccups," Hagrid honestly replied.
Hermione looked about to object again, but Harry briefly stopped growling to mouth, "Trust me."
The brainy girl sighed, "Alright," she took the cloak out of Harry's loose grip on it, "Neville, come on. We're not supposed to be out here either, so we need to disappear too."
Neville briefly looked about to object, but he glanced out the window and gasped, "Malfoy's back. He's bringing Snape, Professor McGonagall, and… is that Professor Dumbledore?"
Between being found out of bounds by two of the school's strictest professors and the headmaster, and huddling with his friends and a dragon, Neville found his courage and moved under the cloak.
Hagrid did his best to usher the invisible quartet out of his hut's back door to his garden.
Hagrid shut the door behind them and left them in the dark. The three of them considered moving to a window to look inside, but Neville pointed out that in the dark they might trip and drop the cloak, or worse, agitate the dragon, so they waited.
Harry couldn't see his watch – nor could he bring it to his face to look at for that matter – but as he rumbled and growled he counted. A minute or so later he heard a quiet conversation between the professors. McGonagall sounded annoyed at having being woken up, and Snape was defending Malfoy. Dumbledore seemed content to listen to them argue. A moment later, he heard Hagrid's front door open and then shut again.
The trio waited. Neville and Hermione both gave quiet, frightened gasps a few minutes later, as their now adjusted eyes could see Norberta's mouth opening wide… and then they sighed in relief as the hatchling only yawned.
Another few minutes later, they heard the door burst open, and Draco whining loudly, "Fifty points!? But I was telling the truth!"
"Hush Draco, that is enough," Snape's voice sounded icy but resigned.
"Enough indeed!" Professor McGonagall huffed. "A dragon egg! And trying to implicate your fellow students in such a lie. You are lucky that your Head of House and the Headmaster were able to talk me down from fifty points per person in your fabrication!"
Once the voices faded a bit, Hagrid let the trio back in.
"How's Norberta?"
Harry handed her back with a smile.
"She's sleeping like a baby, which means she's quiet now, but will probably be hungry in a couple of hours."
Hagrid chuckled. "Alrigh' you three, off yeh go. I told 'em that I kept yah late, but I also said that yeh're all in yeh're beds right now. Don't make me sound like a liar."
The trio set off, happy and wondering just how sleepy McGonagall had been that she was about to take off two hundred points from one student.
The next morning Harry and Hermione asked Neville about Nicholas Flamel, since he seemed to know so much.
Neville explained that in certain circles that his grandmother had to stay in for family politicking, the Flamels were always a topic of discussion because they had the one thing they all wanted: the Philosopher's Stone.
When they asked him to explain what that was, Neville elaborated that the stone was the crowning achievement of alchemy, that it could turn lesser metals into gold, and produce a substance called the Elixir of Life, which would extend the drinker's life indefinitely for as long as they continued to drink it.
Hermione was awed at the knowledge that creating such a thing would require. Harry was a bit less impressed.
When asked why, Harry explained that he had grown up without needing gold, and immortality simply did not appeal to him. However, his exact words were that he got by on the "bare necessities of life" which prompted Hermione to giggle and start humming happily for some reason, leaving Harry and Neville somewhat confused. Stranger still, Hermione's humming appeared to be contagious, and by the end of the day most of the muggleborn and muggle-raised students were humming the same tune, looking happy or nostalgic as they did so.
Later that week Harry introduced his friends to Fluffy, and after his obligatory "You shall not pass!" growl, the puppy was extremely happy to have visitors. The three-headed dog was in high spirits, saying that Hagrid had managed to visit him for a bit, telling him what a good boy he was and how good a job he was doing guarding the thing… which it really did not take much thought for the trio to conclude was the Philosopher's Stone. They were baffled as to why it would be at Hogwarts and not, say, Gringotts, but it was the only explanation that fit what they knew.
While Neville and Hermione weren't particularly surprised that Snape had tried to get past Fluffy, they were a bit shocked that Quirrell had the courage to make the attempt.
Still, it wasn't like there was anything that they could do about it, so they went about their business. They studied, they watched a couple of Quidditch games, and basically acted as normal students.
The other two were reluctant to go, but Harry made frequent visits to Hagrid and Norberta. The Norwegian ridgeback looked at Hagrid as her mother, but quickly came to regard Harry as something like a big brother.
Months passed, and Harry was happy at Hogwarts. He saw how his parents would have been happy to come here and he realized that he would be happy to return here. The only thing he found upsetting was how upset Hagrid was getting; apparently, something was killing the Forbidden Forest's unicorns, and according to centaurs, even drinking their blood. When Harry asked what could do such a thing, Hagrid said that he didn't know; nothing and no one with an ounce of sanity would drink unicorn blood because even though it could keep a person alive, it would be "a cursed life." It wasn't clear what that meant, only that the consequences were very severe.
Finally, after their exams (which left Hermione in a constant state of jittery paranoia that she had somehow failed), Dumbledore left. The trio realized that Snape and/or Quirrell would make their move today – Dumbledore was reputed to be the only person that Voldemort had ever feared, so of course a pair of greedy professors would wait until he was gone to make their move.
Harry was all for charging off to stop them immediately, with Neville reluctantly but loyally backing up him. Hermione was the one who said they should tell Professor McGonagall. Harry privately doubted that she would take them seriously, but he would support his friend, so they accompanied her to tell the professor what they knew.
McGonagall was… less than pleased. She did not take points or give detentions due to being so startled at what they knew, but she still told them in no uncertain terms that no one could steal the stone, and that they had better forget all about it.
In other words, the meeting was a total bust. Dumbledore was gone and the staff wouldn't help, which left only one option, an option that left Harry feeling giddy despite the severity of the situation: they would have to stop the bad guys themselves.
Slipping away from professors and through the crowds beneath the invisibility cloak, they made their way to the forbidden corridor.
Thankfully, nothing bad had happened to Fluffy. The giant puppy was curled up in a corner, listening to a harp that was playing by itself, leaving a trap door that he normally stood or laid on exposed.
"Well, only one way down!"
"Harry wait!"
Too late. Harry had jumped into the hole and landed on something squishy. His friends followed, and Neville started promptly freaking out.
"Devil's Snare! We have to burn it before it strangles us!"
A pair of incendios later (technically three, but Neville's wand once more failed him) the mobile plant had released them and they went into the next room.
The room was filled with flying keys, obviously only one of which would open the door. While Hermione and Neville worried about how neither of them were good with brooms and Harry had not practiced before, Harry took a look at the door, backed up a bit, and dropkicked the door. There was a blue flash of magic he didn't notice, and it immediately flew open, no brooms needed, and no keys disturbed.
After they quit gawking, Neville and Hermione followed him into the next room, which appeared to be a colossal set of wizarding chess. That was problematic. None of them had much experience playing the game, and none of them were very good at chess in the first place. Still, they had to give it their all.
Harry had no doubts that once circumstances improved his friends would mock him for choosing to replace the queen. Hermione took the place of the bishop beside him, and Neville took the rook.
It was a close game, and they could all admit that it was mostly luck that pulled them through, but not without cost. Harry and Neville had needed to perform the lesser known chess move "Queen's castle," to avoid having either of them killed by the opposing chess pieces, but the result was that a shattered knight's shards flew at Neville.
He attempted to use wingardium leviosa to move the shrapnel up and over his head, but the only result was that one chunk broke his wand and another struck his head and knocked him out. However, taking that knight was a tactical error that left the enemy king open to attack. Hermione's next move completely blocked off any of the king's next moves, and none of the other pieces were in a position to respond, so Harry's next move was checkmate.
Reluctantly, they left their friend and went to the next room.
The stench of troll, even worse than the one that had attacked the girls' loo, assaulted their nostrils as they entered, but the sight of the unconscious creature was definite proof that someone had come before them. Holding their noses against the olfactory assault, they entered the next room–
Only for the door behind them to burst into violet flame, and the door in front to do the same with black.
"Are we trapped here?" Harry was shocked. What were they supposed to do here?
"No we're not, look!" Hermione pulled a parchment off a table of several bottles and showed it to him.
Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.
"Er… what?"
"It's a logic puzzle! Most wizards don't have any skill with logic at all, but really, the solution is…"
Here, Hermione went on to solve the puzzle using a sequence of logic that Harry could not fathom in the least, until Hermione presented him with a bottle and grabbed one for herself.
"That one," she gestured to the one in Harry's hand, "will take you forward – there's only enough for one person, and you're much braver than me."
"And the one you're holding?"
"This one will take me back. I need to get Neville to the hospital wing somehow."
Harry nodded, "Hermione, you're right, but as soon as you do that, there's one more thing you need to do." As she looked at him intently, Harry explained, "You need to go to the owlery and get my owl, a snowy one that I still haven't named, and send her after Dumbledore. He needs to get back here; I'm going to be outnumbered in there and might not make it back out."
Hermione gave him a bone-crushing hug, her eyes damp at the thought of her friend dying, but she controlled herself and quaffed her potion. Harry watched nervously, hoping that she was correct.
She shivered a bit. "Cold! Very cold! Good luck Harry, I'll get help!"
She ran through the purple flames unharmed and Harry let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Turning towards the black fire, Harry walked towards it. Harry drank the last of the potion and waited, until suddenly he felt a chill spread from his gut to the rest of his body, and ran through.
Author's Note: The text that is both centered and in italics is from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone. If you're reading this note, the next chapter, the conclusion of first year, should be up in a few minutes.