A/N: Written for the QLFC Round 4 - Creature Comforts.

Team: Montrose Magpies; Position: Captain.

Creature: Dragon; 988 words

Thanks to Firefly88 for beta-ing. Any remaining errors are my own fault.

First Days

The huge face framed by black hair everywhere is the first thing she sees as she shakes the remnants of egg shells off her head. It leans in far too close for comfort so she tries to snap at it, only to wince when it makes a booming sound from its mouth. Scared, she tries to bite at it, but it is fast and avoids her teeth. She feels something rushing up her throat and breathes out, letting a small flame escape from her mouth and she feels pleasure as it manages to light the big thing's hair on fire, briefly.

Later, as it feeds her some brandy with chicken blood, the dragon begins to relax. The world is strange and she does not quite understand what is going on yet – where are her mother and siblings, for example? – but she realizes the big thing wants to care for her. For now, she will let it. It keeps saying 'Norbert' as it indicates to her, so she accepts that as her name.

Every day she grows a little taller, and soon the big thing no longer scares her. It is a human she now knows, the knowledge coming to her from somewhere deep inside her own mind, albeit a very big kind of human. As she practices her fire breathing, the big human – Hagrid, he calls himself – laughs with joy, although she notices he always immediately douses her fire.

Hagrid has guests over frequently, always the same ones. A human boy with dark hair, with a scar that stinks of evil and makes Norbert want to stay away. A human girl with hair almost as untamable as Hagrid's, who annoys her greatly by always yammering on about something. And a human boy with red hair who is currently standing far too close to her. She growls to scare him off, but he ignores her, so the next time his hand moves toward her face she bites it. The boy lets out a scream and shakes her off his hand, but Norbert is pleased. Hagrid cradles her and begins singing a soothing song as the boy runs away. She only breathes fire on Hagrid one time as he sings for her.

The next time the three human children are back, Norbert tries intimidating the red haired boy again. She gets some pleasure from how he whimpers as she gets too close, hiding behind his friends. As Hagrid and the children talk she hears them mention her name several times but thinks little of it. Human speech is annoying to listen to, and she has better things to do. Such as figure out how flammable Hagrid's bed is…

Hagrid leaves her alone the next day, and Norbert is grateful for the extra room, needing it to try to stretch her wings. She has grown a lot by now and is almost at the size where she thinks she can try flying, but for that she needs to be outside. She has almost decided to try to burn down the door and go out when Hagrid returns, carrying a huge box.

"Here now, Norbert, in the box. It will be fine, yeh jus' trust me," Hagrid says, placing the box on the floor in front of her.

Norbert eyes it warily. Surely he does not mean for her to get inside?

"Come now, Norbert, off yeh go. All will be fine, I promise yeh," Hagrid says.

Norbert scoffs, a lick of flame escaping her mouth. Then, betrayal! Hagrid pushes her inside, his strength still greater than hers. Norbert roars in protest, but her immature throat is incapable of making much noise.

"All will be well, promised," Hagrid says, sniffling a little as he throws in the stuffed animal he has been trying to get her to sleep with, as well as some pieces of meat. Norbert is too affronted to care at the moment, snapping at the door as he closes it.

'Let me out,' she wants to yell at him, but speech is not something dragons are capable of. All she can do is try to break the door open.

She hears the three children return and then, to add insult to injury, her prison is covered by some cloth as they carry her outside – without her being able to see most of it! The trio carries her prison inside a huge human building, then up a long flight of stairs. Finally they stop and the cloth is pulled off her. Norbert stops struggling for a moment as she catches her first real glimpse of the outside world through the small openings in the door.

It is beautiful.

She ignores the noises the three children make as they wait, content to take in the sky, but all too soon the moment is interrupted by the arrival of several humans flying on wooden sticks. Norbert feels angry again, why can they fly while she is locked up?

Her protests are unheeded, unnoticed, as the new group of wizards picks up her prison, and they fly off.

Even the sights of a landscape passing under her are not enough to keep Norbert from eventually falling asleep, and by the time she wakes up her prison is on the ground again. As she sniffs the air, she smells something that is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. She gets no time to investigate though, as big human legs step in front of her prison and a face looks in.

"Is this the one?" an unfamiliar voice asks.

"Obviously, Weasley," a man scoffs. "Courtesy of your brother, one dragon."

"I thought he was pulling my leg… well, let it out then!"

Norbert sees her prison door open and rushes outside. The first thing she sees is a human with red hair, like the boy she had seen at Hagrid's, but behind him… Dragons. Many, many dragons.

Norbert finally is home.