Chapter 12! Enjoy...

"John! It's good to see you, man! Are you alright?" asked Seamus who saw John at the Great Hall.

"Seamus, yeah I'm good. All better!" replied John.

"What happened? I mean on that day?" asked Seamus.

"Oh! That, that day I just messed up my potions, did something wrong I suppose," he replied. "Do you know where Ron, Hermione and Harry are?"

"Ron's in the hospital wing, a dog bit him or something. Harry is in the common room I think." John rushed to the hospital wing and saw that Ron was lying on one of the beds.

"Ron! Are you alright? What happened?" asked a breathless John.

"John! What are you doing here? You recovered?" asked Ron in return.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I recovered last week itself. What happened to your hand?"

"I… I can't tell you that, ask Harry," he replied. After talking to Ron for a few minutes, John went to the Gryffindor common room to find Harry and Hermione.

"John! You're back!" said Hermione as she gave John a big hug.

"You had us worried there, how are you?" asked Harry.

"Hi guys, I'm fine. I recovered last week itself, and here I am."

"What happened? It was Snape, wasn't it? We tried to tell Professor McGonagall, but she didn't listen. And then there was Hagrid and..."

Hermione stopped speaking and looked at Harry who was looking back at Hermione with confusion.

"Hagrid and? What's going on guys? Why is Ron in the hospital wing?"

Harry and Hermione gestured to John to have a seat in the corner of the common room.

"John, so much has happened since you left," said Harry and continued, "Hagrid got a dragon egg," he said in a whisper and gave a pause, but continued again after a moment, "Hagrid got a dragon egg and was looking at books about dragons in the library. That's when we found out. We tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen. A few days later we saw the dragon hatching in Hagrid's hut. But unfortunately, stupid Malfoy saw it too. Since dragon breeding is banned, we thought we'll help Hagrid get rid of the dragon. We wrote to Ron's brother Charlie about this, and he said some of his friends will help. Ron is in the hospital wing because the dragon bit his hand. Today, Hermione and I are going to Hagrid's hut and will take the dragon up to the Astronomy Tower," finished Harry.

"I've been gone a month and you guys have already managed to dig yourself into a mess," replied John after hearing the whole story.

"There's actually one more thing, Draco probably knows our plan," said Hermione.

"How?" asked John but continued speaking before anybody could reply, "No, don't tell, I'd rather not know. Wow!"

Even though John tried to reason his way into helping them, Harry and Hermione refused his help point-blank, stating how he had just recovered from Snape's potion and that this task will be done by them.

The doorbell rang and surprisingly it was Mrs Smith who opened the door.

"Good Morning, Daisy," greeted Mrs Smith.

"Good Morning, Mrs Smith," greeted Daisy and looked around the house but couldn't see John. As she took her usual seat, she asked Mrs Smith about where John was.

"Mrs Smith, where is John? Has he gone out?"

"John? He left yesterday itself Darling, he didn't tell you?"

"No, he didn't," replied an extremely disappointed Daisy.

The next morning when John woke up, the talk of the common room was the giant hourglass, and how Gryffindor had 150 points less than it had on the previous night. Soon the story would start spreading, and Harry went from being a hero to the most hated boy in the whole school. John heard first hand what happened the previous night, how they forgot their invisibility cloak, how Filch caught them and finally that Harry, Hermione and Neville were given detention and 50 points were taken from Gryffindor for each of them.

The exams were only a couple of weeks away and the 4 of them (Harry, Hermione, John and Ron) spent most of their time in isolation preparing for the exams and also avoiding people. A week went by and one afternoon Harry came to the library and told the other 3 about how he had seen Quirrell coming out of a classroom, almost about to cry. Apart from John, everyone was convinced that Snape had found out all the things needed, all the things apart from getting past Fluffy, to steal the philosopher's stone. John left the library citing that he was fed up with studying and took a detour to Snape's office.

"Professor Snape... Severus, do you have a minute?" asked John.

"Mr Smith, no I don't, but since you're here anyway, you may as well speak," replied Snape coldly.

"I have something to show you," said John and gave his watch to Snape. Snape took it from John and observed it for a good 2-3 minutes before speaking again.

"So, what are you doing here?" asked Snape.

"What do you think?"

"It looks good," replied Snape.

"Looks good?"

"Yeah, your watch, it's a good piece of work!"

"What? I didn't mean for you to look at my watch and judge its quality. Look at Harry's status, it shows danger."

"Ask him to stay away from Longbottom, he should be fine," replied Snape.

"You seem to be in a fun mood Severus, I, unfortunately, am not. This has been like this for over a month now. And you're welcome, my friends seem to think you're after the Philosopher's Stone. It's only because of me they haven't reassured themselves of that. Now, you don't want Harry to hate you, do you?"

"Are you threatening me, Mr Smith? That's not something you'd want to do!" retorted Snape.

"What are you going to do? Summon the Dark Lord?" retorted John back.

"How dare you..."

"How dare I? Now, tell me if Harry is in any danger."

"Yes, if he keeps interfering in Hogwarts business!" replied Snape.

"I'll try to stop him from doing that. I came here actually to ask for a favour," said John.

"What?"

"Not now, I'll ask when I need it." With that John left Snape's office.

The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione and Neville at the breakfast table. They were all the same,

"Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr Filch in the Entrance Hall.

Prof. M. McGonagall"

"At 11 PM? Why so late?" asked John as he looked over Hermione's shoulder at the note she was holding.

After their Potions class that day, John went to Professor Snape, to ask for the favour.

"Professor Snape"

"Not you again, what is it now?"

"I was hoping to ask a different one at a later time, but I need the favour and I need it now. Give me detention, I want to join Harry and Hermione in the forbidden forest."

"Gladly," replied Snape.

In the evening, Ron, Harry, Hermione and John were sitting in the library practising their charms and memorising the recipes of potions.

"I know what you, Harry, Neville and Malfoy will be doing at 11 PM," said John looking at Hermione, as the other 2 shut their books to listen. "I don't know why, but you guys are going to the forbidden forest with Hagrid."

"What?" exclaimed Ron as Hermione and Harry looked at John curiously.

"The forest? How do you know?" asked Hermione.

"I was talking to Professor McGonagall, that's when I found out," he replied.

All 3 of them were giving worried looks at John. John himself was anxious as he had noticed only a short while back that even Hermione's needle was pointing at danger now.

"Guys, don't worry! You'll be with Hagrid. Plus, if there was any danger, they wouldn't give you detentions at the forest," said John.

Just as he finished saying this, a note came for John, addressed from Snape.

"Detentions at 11 PM, meet Argus Filch in the Entrance Hall

Professor Severus Snape"

"You got detentions too?" asked Harry.

"I didn't submit my homework, that's why. But, I didn't think he'd add me to your group. I thought it was going to be writing something, or polishing trophies for Filch." lied John.

PS - This chapter got a bit delayed, but I promise to release the next one by end of this week. Ciao!