Neville and Harry sweated as they carried the heavy cauldron through the forest to Hagrid's hut, made more awkward by the fact the cauldron was suspended between two long carry poles for a stretcher style carry, and covered with an illusion cloak.

"Blimy Neville, this is ruddy heavy. Why do you have to be so damned tall, it shifts all the weight to me." Harry complained.

"Don't complain Potter. The Astronomy tower is seventeen floors high, and the short guy goes first. I will have the heavy end up every flight and around every corner." Neville complained.

Harry hissed "Shhhhhhhh" louder than was strictly speaking necessary. "You shouldn't have said that. Malfoy might be listening."

Neville felt a mosquito land and bite him on the end of the nose. "Circe's tits Harry, if he was within a mile we would be able to smell the grease he uses to slick his hair back. I swear he milks Snape's greasy locks for it." Neville swore, and pretended hard not to notice that a nearby holly bush was shaking and sputtering in rage.

"Oi, secret thingy coming through. Open the ruddy door." Harry yelled, kicking Hagrid's closed door. Milicent opened it with a disapproving frown.

"What part of the secret, and stealthy, part of the plan did you find required you to shout at the top of your lungs?" The Slytherin asked coldly.

Harry and Neville blanched, exchanged a look, shrugged, and chorused "Sorry" in two part harmony before disappearing inside Hagrid's hut.

Hermione was clearly lecturing Hagrid, who was twisting an iron fire poker into something like a clover and staring at the ground, looking like a nine foot six hundred pound five year old getting scolded by his babysitter.

"Honestly Hagrid, why did you have to tell Draco of all people." Hermione was asking.

"It weren't my fault!" Hagrid gushed. "I owe Professor Dumbledore everythin' and Draco said he would get him fired. He peeked in the window and heard the egg banging on the sides of the cauldron and he swore he caught me hiding something dark like a Dementor, tormenting it until it was mad, then getting ready to release it in the school to attack students. He said he knew Dumbledore was just using me as an excuse to attack the pure blooded families that oppose him.

I can't let myself get used against Dumbledore. I told Malfoy that dragon's aren't dark, and this one hasn't even hatched yet." Hagrid said defensively.

"Hagrid!" Hermione shouted

"Griffindors." Milicent cursed.

"Wicked!" George cheered happily, as if this was a wonderful development.

"Telling him it's a dragon really isn't helping." Hermione said. "Besides, you can't cook Dementors in a stew pot of we just would have baked their problem away instead of sacrificing prisoners to them in Azkaban for the last few centuries. Now Draco knows to bring Snape here to catch you and the dragon."

"Oh you sweet summer Hufflepuff." Sighed Fred.

"Sad really." Agreed George. "Almost see why they need a seeing eye Slytherin."

Milicent massaged her forehead, the Griffindor headache fully in force. She sighed and translated for her innocent Hufflepuffian friends.

"Draco won't lead Snape here, that would only get rid of Hagrid. Dumbledore isn't involved unless he gets caught smuggling it inside the school." Milicent said. Then she frowned, turning to glare at the two Griffindors.

"Plus, it's SO MUCH EASIER to catch us on the frigging stairs to the Astronomy tower with a freaking cauldron full of hot coals and an egg on a seven foot long stretcher going up seventeen floors of stairs since we announced to Draco what our plan was."

Fred grinned and cheered "Without an audience, my dear Slytherin..."

"There just aint no show!" Concluded George happily.

Neville and Potter struggled out the door with a stretcher holding something invisible, but supposedly heavy, underneath. They moved slowly and furtively; their steps muffled by magic cast upon their shoes.

Draco sprinted to the hall, the unfamiliar sweat making his hair uncomfortably sticky, and a stitch in his side arguing that Pucey had a point about needing to stop skipping the Quidditch cardio routine just because he's a seeker. He would tell Professor Snape, they would catch the Blood Traitor and the Mudblood. Dumbledore's involvement, real or implied would be enough for Draco's father to either oust him completely, or force serious concessions.

They were on the third flight of stairs when a black smoke flowed past them, and resolved into the form of the black clad potions master. Harry's blood went cold, because he knew from fragments of Voldemort's memories that particular spell was a Death Eater exclusive. A limited form of apparition that worked even under anti-apparition wards.

"Mr Potter, I should have known this kind of lawlessness was to be expected. Your father also thought he was above the law. Dealing in restricted magical creatures like dragons is enough to get you a stint in Azkaban, unless you choose to 'buy' your freedom by sacrificing someone more...important?" Snape sneered, reaching out to rip the invisibility cloak off to reveal...

A solid gold enchanted cauldron marked with intricate Viking engravings and runes, the sigil of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Longbottom being most prominently displayed.

It was Neville that answered. "Sorry professor, but while there are lots of dragons carved on it, there are eight legged horses, snakes, giant wolves, ships and a fair number of ladies in states of undress. It isn't actually a dragon, just my family's cauldron. Could you maybe move, its a great heavy beast of a thing, solid gold an all, and we have fourteen more flights of stairs to the Astronomy tower."

Snape peered inside. The Cauldron was empty. Heavily enchanted, one of the most potent and pure cauldrons he had even seen, in fact, but it was in the end, simply an empty cauldron.

"And why, Mr Longbottom, did you feel the need to conceal it under and invisibility cloak?" Snape sneered.

"Solid gold, innit?" Harry grunted, settling his end on the ground. "All kinds of dodgy people creeping about, sneaking and following people. Half of them are probably thieves." Harry said piously.

Snape snapped his head back as if slapped. Being accused of thievery by a student was not where he expected this conversation to go. Still, he had experience with Potter's father and his so called pranks. he would not be distracted.

"And why, Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom, could you not use a school cauldron, and for that matter, why are you taking it up to the Astronomy tower and not the potions dungeon?" Snape said, ready to catch them in their lies, his Legimancy out passively to catch the first hint of deception.

Harry grinned. "Well, Nev and I blew up four cauldrons so far this year."

"Five" Corrected Neville.

"Four!" Countered Harry. "That last one had a crack in it from some idiot casting an ice enchantment on it in the class before ours instead of just letting it cool down on its own and wait to start brewing. I am not taking the blame for that." Harry argued.

"Either way, no one is going to let us borrow the golden cauldrons the Potions Lab reserves for NEWT students."

Snape winced at the memory of the two children's toll on his precious cauldrons. While not intentionally destructive, the two had both struggled with control until just lately and had indeed proved dangerous on the more potent brews. He was sure he would rather resign than let these brutal badgers around the golden cauldrons that represented ten years of scrimping and saving in his potions budget.

"Why do you need a golden cauldron, and why in the Astronomy tower Potter, stop dodging the issue." Snape snapped.

"You need the star sightings based on your birth month, and Harry and I share the same birth day, so it makes sense that we make the Animagus Insight potion together. It doesn't make sense to have the potion brewing nineteen floors away from where you have to make the measurements to time each step." Neville said.

"Plus it stinks!" Harry put in.

"Plus it stinks." Agreed Neville.

Snape remembered James Potter's little band of Animagus idiots and sneered again. That was so like Potter. He opened his mouth to tell them it was an illegal potion without signed permission from a Head of House before Harry reached back and pulled Neville's out from his pocket, and handed both over. Neville sweating heavily, as he still had to hold up his end of the cauldron and didn't have his hands free. Snape knew he was being played, there is no way they didn't know about the dragon being smuggled up to the tower, but if Potter didn't have it, who did.

A voice came from down the stairs.

"Professor Snape! Granger and Bulstrode have another cauldron, and they are sprinting up the sixth floor stairs!" Draco shouted.

Snape's eyes flew wide. There was a secret passage on the sixth floor that exited on the nineth floor of the Astronomy tower. Potter and Longbottom were delaying him!

Snape turned and charged up the stairs, ready to trap the girls foolish enough to think they could get the best of Severus Snape. He had played Dumbledore and Voldemort off against each other and lived. No first years were going to make a fool of him!

"Hup Hup Hup Hup Hup!" The girls chanted as they trotted like show ponies up the stairs with a cauldron between them.

"Stop right there! Drop the stretcher right now." Growled Snape, almost out of breath as he came up behind them.

"That would be" Said Hermione (and that was true)

"Unwise." Said Milicent. (also true)

Inside the common iron cauldron, and egg rocked violently back and forth.

Snape had enough of being told what to do. Children played games and thought there were no consequences. Foolish children played games unaware that the prices for those games were sometimes not simply a laugh, but innocent blood. Memories of his own brush with death from a Marauder prank flashed up in Snape, and something ugly flowered inside him. Snape drew his wand and prepared to put the illegal dragon out of the realm of living problem and into the realm of material evidence and potential potion ingredient.

"I really wouldn't" Said Hermione (and that was true)

"Do that." Completed Milicent in all seriousness. (also true)

"Sectumsempra!" Snape roared as his cutting curse slashed into the egg, cutting it in half and making the cauldron ring.

"Here he is professor," Said Hermione (a lie!)

"Just like you ordered." Said Milicent (another lie!)

From the egg burst a really aggravated Peeves the Poltergeist. Angry at being trapped at the orders of Professor Snape, Peeves decided to wave the "no prank the professors" rule the Bloody Barron made him follow.

"Snapy locked up Peevesy? Then pants to Snapy!" Cheered Peeves as he tore Snapes pants and undergarments down around his ankles, and then pulled his robes up over his head. Peeves then began to spin Professor Snape around in circles while the Professor began to shoot curses wildly from his wand until he finally bellowed a loud "Expecto Patronum" and a large silver doe chased Peeves down the stairs, passed Longbottom and Potter where they still struggled up the stairs with their heavy burden.

Snape pulled up his pants as the two first year girls exchanged a grin and said.

"That was" said Hermione (true)

"Brilliant!" said Milicent (also true)

Pointing his wand at the pair, he cast coldly. "Finite Incantum" and the illusions covering Fred and George Weasley fell away, showing the pair that had been imitating the first year girls.

"Weasleys," Snape hissed. "What were you doing, and why were you glamoured as first year girls. His eyes flashed with dark power and his Legimancy pushed against them.

"We were going to take Peevesy," Said Fred (true)

"To the top of the tower." Said George (true)

"Then toss him off!" Said both (also true).

Snape ignored the fact you could not drop a Poltergeist to its death, as it was already a spirit, and moved on to the key point involving dragon smuggling.

"Why," Intoned Snape with the seriousness of a hanging judge "were you disguised a Miss Granger and Miss Bulstrode?"

Fred and George shared a grin.

"It's because if anyone saw us" Said George, (truly)

"They would assume we were playing some sort of prank!" concluded Fred in outrage (but truthfully)

"Which we were." Admitted George. (truthfully)

"Almost always!" Fred Agreed.

Outside of the Astronomy tower, about fifty yards north of it, a strange sight awaited Charley Weasley as he sailed his broom towards the tower for his dragon collection.

He had a heavy firepot under his best featherlight charm suspended under his broom, and the figure he was approaching had no such caldron. Although, considering what he saw, he supposed she didn't need one.

Hermione was warm, which she thought was to be expected considering she was on fire. She wasn't the biggest fan of flying brooms, but they were beginning to grow on her. Why would anyone walk up seventeen flights of stairs lugging a cauldron when they could just hold the egg in one hand, sit on one's broom, and ask your fire nicely not to burn the broom. Noodle was wrapped around the broom like a medical cardecus, supposedly for Hermione's security, but probably because it was warm.

Charlie pulled up beside the burning witch and smiled politely.

"Nice night for a bonfire." Charlie said, never being gifted with small talk like Bill was. Honestly, burning witches riding snake wrapped brooms offering free dragons hundred of meter into the air was not covered at all in his etiquette lessons, and that is a deficiency he was really feeling right now.

"Every night is a good night for a bonfire if fire likes you enough." Mused Hermione.

"I suppose we should have asked for some sort of super secret identity thing, but you kind of look like someone hit Ron Weasley against a rock enough times to give his cheekbones some definition, and get the Neanderthal brow ridge under control." Hermione said, holding out the egg bare handed.

Charlie took it quickly, his dragonhide glove stopping the very hot fire from searing his fingers off. He dropped the egg carefully into the firepot then saluted the little witch jauntily.

"Well, I don't suppose there can be two witches hanging out mid air on fire giving away dragon eggs, so we probably don't need code words or secret handshakes." Said Charlie.

"You can tell Hagrid thanks for the dragon, and stop picking up strange magical creatures in dodgy card games in the pub." Charlie said seriously.

Hermione frowned. "He has done this before?"

Charlie grinned. "All the time. Keep me in mind if he brings home a Hydra!" Charlie said as he flew off into the night, wrapping himself in some serious invisibility charms.

Hermione drifted down the outside of the Astronomy tower, seeing the flashes of spellfire and catching the mad laughter of other Weasleys and wondered if Snape was going to keep them in detention all through Yule, or would he be so sick of students he would retreat to his own home for some therapeutic cauldron alone time? She could faintly feel Harry and Neville through their bond, and they seemed deeply amused and only slightly scared, so while Snape was most probably shooting at them, he was not shooting anything too serious. She and Noodle would wait for them in Hagrid's hut where it was warm and no one was hexing them. The day had been saved, the dragon was homed, and it didn't feel like anything permanent was done to her Hufflepuff boys. Mischief managed.