10

Taylor claimed that she had watched Gabrielle tumble off the moving staircases while she was racing to Gryffindor Hall to keep from breaking curfew. Her heroism and care of Gabrielle netted her ten points for her house, and Gabrielle was warned by Professor McGonagal the punishment for being a few seconds late was not worth risking a fall from the moving staircases. Although a few Slitherin students were spreading jokes about Gabrielle being clumsy, it wasn't exactly clear if Sharpay had put the facts together. If she had, she wasn't letting on. Gabrielle spent one day in pain and medication and a second to recuperate and then the next day was back in class back to full health and spirit.

"I never liked Sharpay…" Troy confessed over dinner what Gabrielle had overheard the other night. "We were friends as kids when our families met for wizard outings, but Chad and I mostly hung around her brother back then."

"Dude…" Chad dropped his chicken bone to his plate and sipped his pumpkin juice. "If everything what Gabrielle is telling us is true, she's got to be going after the Crystal Key, and whatever she plans to do with it, it can't be good!"

"But who's going to believe us?" Gabrielle ate some of her Yorkshire pudding. "I mean, if we could get one adult to listen to us…" They suddenly had the same thought at the same time. There was one adult who would listen to them.

"Hagrid!!!" They all jumped up at once; Chad trailing behind to finish off another drumstick and grab a few Brussels sprouts to eat on the way. From Slitherin Table, Sharpay's gaze followed them leaving the assembly hall.

"They're up to something." She told Tawni and Lily.

Hagrid's hut was on the north section of the property beyond the courtyards. It was a good run from one part of the castle to the other and then out the walkway to the lane heading to Hogsmeade. By time they reached the lane, they were out of breath. Hagrid's little one room thatched hut with the smoke-billowing chimney was not far from the edge of the Dark Forest. Troy, Chad and Gabrielle ascending on it like young trick-or-treaters. Troy knocked eagerly.

"Sorry," Hagrid looked out. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not in fit shape to entertain tonight." He closed the door.

"We know about the Crystal Key!" The three Gryffindors chorused with urgency and Hagrid opened the door up to them.

"Oh…" He looked at them astonishingly worried. "Well…" He gestured them in with a quick look out as Troy entered his hut ahead of Gabrielle and Chad. The shack was surprisingly warm and comfy. The furniture was large for a person of Hagrid's size, but every ounce of space was being used.

"Hagrid…" Troy looked up to the gentle giant moving back to his seat at the fireplace. "We think Sharpay's trying to steal the Crystal Key!"

"Od's Botkins!" Hagrid stoked his fire to grow hotter. "You three aren't still going on about that, are you? I mean… Miss Evans isn't going to be stealing anything she already owns."

"What?" Gabrielle was taken aback as she, Troy and Chad looked at each other confused.

"You heard me…" Hagrid looked at something in the kettle on his fire. "Now, I'm a bit busy being preoccupied now…"

"Her family owns it?" Gabrielle was incredulous.

"Of course," Hagrid sat back in his large chair and noticed Fang had woke up. Fang was a huge dog of indeterminate breed. Large and black with drooping ears, he looked like a cross between a Great Dane, a Saint Bernard and a Bloodhound. He sniffed Troy curiously and started slobberingly licking the young visitor. "It was a wedding gift from Professor Danvers to the Evans when they got married and it has been kept here ever since for security reasons. If Sharpay or her brother wanted to see it, all she'd need to do it is get permission from Professor Dumbledore or a teacher, and she ain't going to take it in front of them."

"So she can't get it herself." Chad rationalized. "She needs a teacher to do it, but what's to stop her from going by herself?"

"Don't you get it…" Gabrielle spoke up as Troy tried to stop Fang from slobbering him up. "It's protected by other things as well like spells, traps and enchantments…" She sniffed the room. "What smells like wet dog?"

"That'd be me." Troy wiped a handful of dog slobber out of his hair.

"Waste of a bloody time if you ask me…" Hagrid continued as he reached to a line of towels hanging to dry over his head and gave one to Troy to clean himself. "No one knows how to get past Muffin but for me and Dumbledore…" He caught himself a bit late again. "I shouldn't have told you that. I should not have told you that." He suddenly became aware of a pecking… a pecking noise at his kettle pot.

"Is Poe's Raven back again?" Chad looked around. He watched as Hagrid swung his copper kettle out of the fire and brought it over to his table under the window. The three Gryffindors gathered before him as the pecking turned to cracking and faint chirping. From the kettle, Hagrid took out what looked like a large speckled brownish to tan ball cracking a falling apart in the small towel it was wrapped in. Leaning in closer, Troy realized it was not a ball, but an egg larger that any egg he'd ever seen before. The shell cracked in two halves and a small reptile head peeked out looking around.

"Hagrid," Gabrielle was entranced by the tiny creature. It looked like a regular lizard but it had properties like a long-necked alligator. "What exactly is that?"

"I got him off a young lady at the pub." Hagrid was beaming at it as Troy and Chad came around. "She was about to discard it, and I offered to buy it off her. Didn't know what she had. Just about saved him I did."

"I know what that is." Troy slid in at the table next to Gabrielle. "That's a Cherokee Chahuru dragon. They're practically extinct! My uncle in Scotland knows all about dragons after raising them in Mongolia." Troy added. "He now lives near Loch Ness."

"Isn't he beautiful!!!" Hagrid was crying like a proud father as the young heir to the dinosaurs cooed and coughed. "He thinks I'm his mommy. I think I'll call him, Dudley!" He reached down to stroke Dudley from behind the head and down his long neck. "How about that, Dudley?" The tiny creature belched and hiccupped up methane from its body igniting into flames from the oxygen in the air and the sparks it could generate. The fire burst wasn't bad, but it gave Hagrid a start as he quickly started patting off the flames melting part of his beard and scorching his upper vestments.

"Of course," Hagrid tried to assure his guests. "He'll have to be trained up, of course. Dudley…" He shook his finger at his new pet. "Dudley… Wait, who's that?" He noticed faces in his front window to the school. Troy, Chad and Gabrielle looked round briefly just in time to see Sharpay, Tawni and Lily peeking inside then ducking down and racing back to the school. They were not supposed to be off school grounds after dark and neither were they!

"Sharpay!!!" Gabrielle winced of fear.

"Professor McGonagal is not going to go lightly on this!" Chad reacted.

"How'd I get tossed out of school?" Troy started imaging his future. "You see, mom, we thought one of the other students were trying to steal this key…"

"Wait a second…" Hagrid looked round. "Miss McKessie asked me to get this to you. Maybe it can help…" He produced the invisibility cloak with a knowing grin. It did come in handy. As Sharpay, Tawni and Lily told Professor McGonagal of the three students having left the grounds unsupervised, the four of them stood at the entryway for the three to return. As they waited, something passed by them unseen breaking the dew cast on the castle grounds from the late winter air and casting shadows only after they had passed their meeting party.

"What smells like wet dog?" Lily and Tawni sniffed the air.

"Professor McGonagal…" Sharpay looked up happily. "Maybe we should go after them."

"I don't think so, Miss Evans…" Her teacher stood waiting. "If anything, I'm thinking this is a wild goose chase because if they were out visiting Hagrid, we would have seen them return by now. On the other hand, I have detected three other students who have been out after dark."

"Really?" Sharpay lit up and looked to Lily and Tawni. "Who did you catch?"

"You three."

"What?!" The three girls shrieked.

"Fifty points from Slitherin… each." She turned to head into the castle in the direction of the ascending staircase to her tower quarters, leaving behind three cursing and swearing Slitherin ladies as three Gryffindor students already made the Great Hall and head to their common room. Screaming her head off, Sharpay kicked a statue and broke her toe. Lily and Tawni looked at each other as Sharpay hopped around on her good leg.