Dear Viktor,

Hermione frowned over her piece of parchment. And nearly crossed out the two words she had written. She hadn't even gotten past the greeting and she wanted to scrap everything she had.

I guess you could say that I have the two most daft friends in the entire school. Malfoy has Crabbe and Goyle, but everyone knows their more cronies than friends. Not sure which is better.

And not only that, but Harry's been friendly with the gamekeeper Rubius Hagrid since before he came to school. I'm not sure Hagrid's in his right mind. He won a dragon egg off a peddler in a pub right around Christmas.

I'm not even sure how someone managed to get their hands on a dragon egg. It seems insanely dangerous. And even if it wasn't that dangerous, the dragons and eggs are guarded very well by the keepers on reserves. So says Ron.

His brother's one of the newer keepers on the reserve in Romania so Ron thinks he knows everything about dragons.

Hermione paused and rolled her eyes. She knew that Ron was just trying to be as cool as he thought his older brothers were. She thought it was ridiculous. The twins weren't trying to be Charlie or Bill. And there was no way that Ron could be any of them. And then there was Percy, who the twins and Ron thought was a bit of a prat.

Hermione didn't think he was. She figured that in terms of rules and expectations, he was somewhat similar to herself. And he at least understood the value of personal space.

I don't know if you have any suggestions. This is probably not a situation that you've ever been in before. But if you have any idea of what to do, this would probably the best situation to help. You've been wonderful in all the help you've given so far. But I am at a loss.

She signed the letter and sealed it with a spell she'd found in a book over Christmas. Viktor had helped her practice. She was pretty sure that none of the other first years were going to get into her mail in the first place. And no one else took much interest in her.

Viktor read over the letter Hermione had sent him. He wasn't sure exactly how to respond. Trolls getting into the school was bad enough. He'd been nearly mad enough to storm Hogwarts and try and get the idiot headmaster removed from his office.

Thankfully, he'd had enough sense to know that a twelve-year old's letter wasn't enough proof. But he was slowly collecting evidence. Any rumors were written down and documented. He might not be able to do much at that moment, but he would be ready for when he could.

Hermione,

You need to convince this Hagrid to get rid of that dragon. It might be small now, but they grow quickly. In a few months he won't be able to conceal it anymore and the ministry will take both it and him.

If it were Viktor there, he would have let the oaf get taken by the ministry. There were rules for a reason. And this Hagrid had obviously never been a dragon keeper. If he had he wouldn't be so anxious to have one for himself.

But he had no clue what Hermione felt for the man. And Viktor wasn't about to suggest that she let someone get arrested if she liked them. That would come back to bite him later. He was sure of it.

I don't know what is going on there, but I'm not a fan. If you would like to come to Durmstrang, I would be more than happy to arrange a tour. Not sure you would like our headmaster more than yours. He can be irritating.

It was as much as he felt he could say on the subject. The truth was that he hated his headmaster himself and did as much as he could to stay out of his path. But he was better at keeping his students safe than Dumbledore clearly was.

Viktor just prayed that his friend was going to be safe for the rest of the school year. He knew he wouldn't handle it well if anything happened to her. And his nerves were already under tremendous strain.

A/N: so I seem to have gotten my stories a little out of order. Oh well. I'm updating. If you're reading 1603 then you've probably already read the news. But for those of you who haven't, I'll put it here too. I'm engaged. And planning a wedding for June. So it's a bit busy right now. I'm still writing. I'm just not going to be as regular about posting. Not that I have been recently. Sorry about that.