"You have got to be kidding me," Sybill said, pacing her classroom.
Right after her breakfast, Minerva had gone up to the North Tower, to inform Sybill that she should under no circumstances open the door to classroom eleven until further notice. She had resisted the temptation to tease Sybill with how the fates should already have informed her of this, and had told her about the castle's newest inhabitants.
"You are not letting those beasts stay in the castle," Sybill huffed. "You just… You just can't…"
"It appears I did," Minerva said, raising an eyebrow. "At least for now, until we have a better plan."
"Shouldn't we leave it to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures?" Sybill said, walking over to pick up quill and parchment. "I can write to them now and it should be taken care of by noon."
"Yes, I'm sure they would take care of it," Minerva said thoughtfully, "but I seriously doubt they'd do so without asking questions. And it does look like we have a flock of illegal dragons in the castle. We don't want Hagrid to get in trouble about that while, this time, he might be innocent."
"Hagrid? So that's what has been going on down in that hut of his? He's been breeding illegal monsters?" Sybill was outraged. "Well, in that case, maybe he should be held accountable."
"He said he didn't know," Minerva said, shaking her head. "And I know how that sounds. But Hagrid isn't such a good liar, is he? He told me he just bought the egg in a decoration shop in Diagon Alley. That it looked like a purple and green ceramic egg. He showed Olympe and me a shard of it that he had kept, and I must admit it was easy to be fooled. So he brought it home, intending to make it a Christmas gift for Olympe. But it turns out that Miss Granger has been teaching him during her free hours."
"Minerva… You're not making any sense. What does Miss Granger have to do with any of this?"
"Nothing directly. But she left Hagrid homework for the extended break, which he has eagerly started on the evening of the 30th. Apparently he and Miss Granger are convinced that he will be ready for his OWLs by the end of this school year, so it was about time that he practised Multiplying Spells…" She gave Sybill a meaningful look.
Sybill gasped. "Oh no… The egg?"
Minerva nodded. "He thought that giving Miss Granger a copy of it would be a wonderful way to show how much he had learned. But right when he did the incantation, his dog bumped into the table and a bag of flour fell on the ground. He doesn't know how many times he sneezed, but… by the time he came back to his senses, the whole cabin was filled with eggs."
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Sybill huffed. "That man is a menace."
Minerva rolled her eyes. "Of course he isn't. I think it's very good that Miss Granger is helping him. In fact, I feel like we should have done something ourselves since his name has been cleared… Anyway, at the time he just thought he had a lot of Christmas gifts ready. But then the eggs started cracking. And when they hatched, he suddenly had dozens and dozens of dragons to take care of."
"And a fine job he did," Sybill said, wrinkling her nose as she looked out the window at the slightly scorched, completely snowless beech tree.
"Oh, it's not that bad. He counted them and they're all safely inside now," Minerva shrugged. "Though he feels terribly guilty."
"As he should," Winky piped up, shuffling over to set a teapot rather aggressively down on the table by Minerva's chair. "He has been in the kitchens, he has. Taken all the bacon. There was none left for Miss' breakfast. I had to make her porridge instead. Porridge…!" The elf glared at Minerva as if she too was a bowl of the detested substance.
The Headmistress couldn't suppress a smile. "In fact, that's not what he was most concerned about. He was thinking more about our having to deal with them, and he feels like he's been a bad mother for letting them escape," she said, amused.
"Escape? He should have handed them over the second they hatched," Sybill said, glancing down at the parchment as if still considering her duty to report this.
"Perhaps he should," Minerva shrugged. "But I don't blame him for not wanting to get in trouble. Not after he finally got the pet he had always dreamed of - well, a lot of them. And they aren't really dangerous. Olympe said that she suspected this breed would not grow much larger than a cat."
"But they breathe fire!"
"Yes, well, fortunately the castle was prepared for some fire. If we just keep them in that classroom for as long as they're here, no harm will be done," Minerva said.
"And what will happen when the students return? Tell me that? Do you think they'll just respect a 'Do not open - dragons within' sign?" Sybill began pacing again.
"I'm sure we'll have found some sort of solution by the time they're back," Minerva said.
"You better," Sybill said. "Or I am writing to the school board and telling them exactly what has been going on at this school since you took over."