11

"I heard that the Hogwarts end of year exams were supposed to be horrible…" Taylor came out of her Levitation class pleasantly happy. "But that was a breeze!!"

"Speak for yourself…" Chad wasn't quite that sure and caught up with Troy coming out of his History of Magic class with Professor Caenarvon. Gabrielle came up behind Troy and leaned close to him with a light smile.

"So…" She looked to Troy. "Have you decided who to take to the Graduation Party at the end of the week?"

"Hmmmm…" Troy gave it deep thought and looked her over as if he had to consider it. "I was thinking maybe Sharpay…" He teased her, but she refused to be mocked. She started to turn from the walkway out on to the courtyard outside, but realized she was being teased and looked back to Troy with a big beaming grin.

"You are taking me, right?" Taylor confronted Chad.

"Well, if I got to… I got to…" Chad refused to debate it.

"Ryan Evans asked me…" Kelsey came up behind Gabrielle.

"I knew you two were getting to be more than friends…" Troy mentioned and turned back to Gabrielle. "How are you guys doing in broom riding now? Is William still plowing through everyone like a jet fighter?"

"He's been doing really well lately." Gabrielle confessed. In Madame Hooch's class, she herself was getting very accomplished with her broom riding that both she and Kelsey could match each other in flight. Madame Hooch wanted to submit both their names to the Quidditch try-outs next year when they returned as Second-Years. After watching all the games, they were both more than eager to try, but after watching what it took to win the five team Inter-School Quidditch Match against Wiz-Tech and the three other wizard schools, they both started seriously debating the concept much more. On the other hand, William had finally gotten control after swapping brooms for a newer recent model, and he and Ryan were sneaking off to patrol the grounds near the lake. The other side was out of bounds, and Hogsmeade was definitely off limits until they became Second Years. Defense in the Dark Arts was getting more and more interesting as studies turned to evil spirits and the objects to repel them. The journey from class to their common room took them out one of the front arches and along the path to another exterior entrance to a chamber with a stairway to the main hall. Looking up, they saw Hagrid sitting at his hut across the grounds and tossing scraps of food at Fang near him at the ground.

"I wonder how Hagrid is doing with Dudley." Troy looked up.

"They must be happy." Chad grinned. "You know… the first time I met Hagrid, he said he wanted a pet dragon. Now, he's finally got one. Me, on the other hand, I'd…"

"Wait!" Gabrielle in her Hogwarts uniform stopped and looked back at them. "Hagrid wanted a… How could I be so stupid?" She shook her head. "Troy, as rare as dragon eggs are, isn't it odd that someone just happened to have one where Hagrid could have it?"

"Yeah, but…" Troy tried to answer her, but she raced off path toward Hagrid's hut. Troy and Chad hurried to catch up with her hurrying across the lane into the direction of the hut, stopping right before Hagrid and Fang sniffing at Chad's feet.

"Hagrid…" Troy stopped to meet him. "How's Dudley? He's must be up to two feet by now."

"At least…" Hagrid sat at the bench amidst the students filing past and tossed Fang the last of his sandwich. "But I really don't know. Dumbledore learned about him and recommended I send him to live with other dragons down under in a dragon preserve in Australia." He pulled out a blue handkerchief with white spots to blow his nose. "He just left this morning."

"I'm sorry…" Both Chad and Gabrielle tried to assay his feelings.

"I mean… what if he ain't happy with other dragons?" Hagrid was sitting and still a bit taller than them. "Fang and I are like the only family old Dudley's has. What if he forgets me?"

"Don't dragons remember everything?" Troy knew his dragon facts. "They can live for almost five hundred years."

"Hagrid…" Gabrielle turned their visit into an interrogation. "Do you recall who gave you the dragon egg? What did they look like?"

"I don't rightly remember." The giant groundskeeper answered. "She had her hood pulled over."

"What did you two talk about?" Chad tried to remind him another way. "Did she ask about Hogwarts?"

"No, we talked about the types of creatures I've taken care of and told her that after Muffin, that taking in a dragon was no problem at all." He beamed happily to talk about something he loved so much. "You see… the trick to raising any creature is knowing how to calm it. With Muffin, all you got to do is play him music and he goes straight to sleep, and with Aragog…" He caught himself way too late again. "I shouldn't have told her that!"

Gabrielle made a face of sheer terror and raced back to the castle. Hagrid rose upset with what he'd done and fretted about his breach of castle security. Chad and Troy chased Gabrielle in through the archway they had emerged from just moments ago and headed to the first floor classrooms under the second floor library in the school. They raced past their Defense class straight into the potions class of Professor McGonagal, the head of Gryffindor House. She was working at her desk at the head of the room as they barged in and raced up the middle of the room.

"I have to see Professor Dumbledore!" Gabrielle was distraught as Troy and Chad caught up with her.

"I'm sorry…" Minerva spoke warmly and removed her glasses. "But Professor Dumbledore had a meeting with the Ministry of Magic. He should be back by tomorrow afternoon." She leaned back as if they were her grandchildren. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"We know about the Crystal Key!" Troy and Gabrielle looked at each other briefly. "We think someone is going to steal it!"

"The Crystal Key?" Minerva looked at them surprised. No student was supposed to know about that! "I don't know how you students learned about that, but I assure you, it is very well protected. Now, forget you heard of it, and…"

"Professor McGonagal…" Chad tried to tell her what they had learned. "You have to believe us, but we think…"

"Mr. Danforth…" Their mentor and teacher tried to assure them with decorum and understanding. "Believe me when I tell you that that key is protected and guarded by spells and traps from the combined teachers of Hogwarts. It would be dangerous for anyone untrained to go after it, but… if it will assure you, I'll alert the other teachers to your fears, and we will confirm it is still protected. Will that suffice?"

"Well," The three looked amongst themselves. "I guess…"

"Very well, now please…" Her voice became more authoritative. "Return to your dormitory."

The three of them turned round feeling defeated, and Professor McGonagal restored her spectacles to review the student's lessons. She was more dismayed by their allegation than by the mere suggestion that anything so well guarded could be stolen. Gabrielle, meanwhile, drifted onward unsure and preoccupied. That key was in danger and she was sure of it.

"She seems pretty sure of their defense." Troy remarked.

"Just like Custer at Little Big Horn…" Chad quipped.

"Troy, I can't get over this feeling that if that key was stolen, and we did nothing about that we'd be just as guilty for doing nothing as the person who actually stole it." Gabrielle walked back and around a circle. "I've never felt so helpless." She pulled her hair back distraughtly to briefly reveal the small scar above her right eye. "It's almost as if… this was what I was here to do. As if it was my…"

"Isn't this interesting…" The voice of Severus Snape, their potions teacher came slowly out of his classroom. "Now, what would three young students be doing in on a day… just like this?" He stood in those dark pilgrim clothes, his dark cape hanging down off his shoulders. Standing in his shadow, Gabrielle looked up to his dour non-expressionist face and his dark eyes looking her and her friends over. Chad and Troy drew silent as well after experiencing several of his angry classroom tirades. Gabrielle personally noted he had a fine thin coat of dust to the back of his cape from the third floor corridor.

"If one didn't know better…" Snape drew his cape over him as he stood out of the sunlight. "One might think you were conspiring against… one of your own." He noticed Gabrielle looking at the dust on his person. She looked up to him knowingly as if she had discovered a secret about him, but what? He returned a different look at her, which was equally curious, but suspicious of her seeming nature as well. He looked over the three of them and turned with a flourish toward the other pathway, leaving them behind to their contemplating.

"What happened to you guys?" Taylor and Kelsey were standing at the archway to the dormitories. "You were right behind us, and…"

"Taylor…" Gabrielle looked to them. "I think I figured out how Sharpay is going to steal the Crystal Key; she has Professor Snape helping her."

"He had dust on him…" Chad had noticed. "Just like we got from the Third Floor."

"I don't think she has it yet." Troy wasn't convinced as the five of them talked. "If she had it already, she would have already used it, and we would have noticed." He paused. "Tonight, I'll go check and see if anyone else has been up there."

"I'll go with you." Chad patted Troy on the back as his partner.

"Me too!" Gabrielle added.

"No, it'd be too dangerous."

"In that case, I'll go with you." Taylor shook her head at him. "We are not a couple of scared females."

Troy and Chad looked at each other out of disbelief.

"Troy, I'm a part of this." Gabrielle resisted their concern. I have to help." Gabrielle looked to her friend from Hufflepuff House with the glasses. "Kelsey?"

"Well," Kelsey looked at them. "I guess I've never seen a three-headed dog before…"

"Fine…" Troy responded as their unofficial leader. "The five of us up against Sharpay. We're all in this together…" He placed his hand out and Gabrielle put hers in followed by Taylor, Chad and Kelsey.

"Don't be starting a musical here now, dude…" Chad commented.