"Squeeee… Squeeee… Squeeee..."

With a groan Minerva rolled over, waving her hand around, hoping to hit the alarm. Then, after bumping her fingers against the heavy wooden nightstand, she realised that she had not had a Muggle alarm in years. Frowning, she dropped her arm over her eyes.

"Squeeee… Squeeee… Flap, flap, flap - whoosh!"

"What…" Jumping from the bed, she grabbed the jug of water on the night table and splashed it over her smouldering sheets. Four small dragons, sitting next to each other in a neat row, looked up at her with innocent eyes.

Minerva let out a very long, tired sigh. "Let me guess. Hagrid named you four James, Sirius, Remus and Peter." One of the little beasts flapped its wings a few times before dropping heavily on top of another. "Yes," Minerva murmured. "Definitely Sirius..." She rubbed a hand over her face. "You're not the only ones out, probably. Sybill will be delighted."

At the thought, anger raged once again through her veins. How Sybill had dared to imply that Minerva was the worst Head Hogwarts had ever seen... As if it were her fault that the Battle had left so many scars. She knew she should have solved everything by now. That Albus probably would have. But it wasn't as if Sybill had offered any help at all. All she had done was nag about having to leave her classroom, and then she had not even left the school as Minerva had asked her to. If her sole contribution consisted of comments on the proceedings from the sideline… And now of course the dragons were out of their assigned classroom. Minerva could only hope they didn't make it all the way to the North Tower to give Sybill something else to moan about.

With a sigh she glared down at the dragons. One of them let out a frightened squeak and rushed back out of her room through the keyhole, immediately followed by the others in a flutter of tiny flames. Minerva frowned as she walked to the door. Surely they were actually too big to get through there... Yet a closer look told her that the wood around the lock had been burned away until it was just the right size for them.

Fantastic. So they were intelligent, too.

Telling herself that delaying would only make it worse, Minerva quickly got dressed and went downstairs, all the way looking for signs of the creatures. Once she had passed the gargoyle, she didn't have to look hard. Here and there she could spot fluttering wings and dark shadows disappearing behind harnesses. She decided she would leave them be for now and make her way to classroom eleven first, so she could at least lock in those who were still there. As she entered the corridor, she saw Hagrid's giant form, struggling with about fifteen of the creatures who seemed to have gotten tangled in his hair.

"Take it easy, take it easy," he protested. "I've go' yer breakfast. If yer'll jus' le' me ge' it into the room, so yeh can share it with yer brothers and sisters."

"Hagrid…" Minerva said. "Why are the dragons out?"

"Professor…" Hagrid gasped, almost dropping the large crate he was carrying. "It wasn' me. I swear… Some o' the little rascals got impatien' an'… well… they sort o' burned down the door…"

"Yes, so I see," Minerva said. "Apparently the heat-repelling spells don't work against dragon fire."

"I guess no', Professor. I'm really sorry abou' this. I'll pay fer a new door. And whatever else they wreck. They don' mean ter be bad. They're jus' hungry. We ran out o' bacon yesterday an' I had ter go down ter Hogsmeade this mornin'. Bought everythin' they have, but it won' last us through the week."

Minerva sighed. "Better lock these ones back up," she said, gesturing at the crown of dragons around the gamekeeper's head. "And Hagrid… When they're all found, they'll really have to go."

Hagrid hung his head, but did not protest as he carried the crate towards classroom eleven.

Suddenly, an earsplitting screech echoed down the corridor. A moment later, a large swarm of tiny dragons pelted around the corner, yipping and crying in panic.

Minerva gasped and ducked.

"Yeehaa!" Fred cried as he zoomed after the dragons on his silvery broomstick, followed by a group of laughing and screaming ghosts. "Better prepare a blocking spell, Professor!" he yelled as he flew over Minerva. "We can get them back into the room, but it will be your job to keep them there."

Surprised, Minerva watched as they entered the room. With some quick wand work she managed to lock it off as soon as Hagrid had come out. Then she looked at Fred, who had glided back through the wall. "Thank you," she said.

"No need to thank us, Professor," Fred said, saluting her. "It's great to be useful." He turned to the other ghosts, who were drifting out to join them, laughing and slapping each other's backs. "You two," he said, pointing at a couple of Ravenclaw girls. "Take the upper floors. Hufflepuffs do the dungeons and Gryffindors… Follow me!" And he was off again.

Minerva and Hagrid both joined the search, wandering around the castle all day and finding dragons in the most unlikely places. At some point, Minerva discovered the reason why she kept finding confetti ghosts everywhere, as one of the dragons was playing happily in Peeves' secret supply of the cursed things. Of course the little beast was completely covered in the sticky ghosts by the time Minerva plucked it out of them. Her own hands were in much the same state when she had returned the happily struggling beast to its siblings, since it had been burping out confetti all the way there.

She found another one by the entrance to the library, relieved that she was there in time. Cringing at the thought alone of what Madame Pince's reaction would be if anything happened to the books in her absence, she proceeded to check the rest of the library very carefully.

In the late afternoon, she was startled by a girl's sobbing and crying. Entering the Prefects' bathroom, she discovered that it was Myrtle, who was trying to scare a group of dragons, but they ignored her and cheerfully played in the water. Minerva could only guess how they had managed to turn on the taps. One of them was particularly reluctant to leave the rainbow-coloured steam it had created and almost burned her hand, but eventually she could return them all to the classroom, where Hagrid informed her that he had counted them again and there was only one missing.

They continued to look for it a while longer, but hungry and tired after running around all day, Minerva decided that it would show up at some point. The dragons had proven undetectable by her spells, but she informed the ghosts that they could warn her any time of the day or night if they found the tiny creature that was still lost in the castle.