What I'm Looking For...

So now we had something else to worry about; what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.

“Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, as evening after evening we struggled through all the extra homework we were getting. Hermione had now started making revision timetables for us as well. It was driving me mad.

Then, one breakfast time, Calandra brought me a note from Hagrid. He had written only two words: It’s hatching.

I wanted to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut but Hermione wouldn’t hear it.

“Hermione, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?” Ron asked.

“We’ve got lessons, we’ll get in trouble, and that’s nothing to what Hagrid’s going to be in when someone finds out what he’s doing-“

“Shut up!” Harry whispered.

Malfoy was only a few feet away and he had stopped dead to listen. How much had he heard? I didn’t like the look on his face at all.

Ron and Hermione argued all the way to Herbology and in the end, Hermione agreed to run down to Hagrid’s with the us during morning break. When the bell sounded from the castle at the end of our lesson, the four of us dropped our towels at once and hurried through the grounds to the edge of the forest. Hagrid greeted us looking flushed and excited.

“It’s nearly out.” He ushered us inside.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. We all drew our chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath.

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped on to the table. It wasn’t exactly pretty; looking a bit like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body; it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes. It sneezed; a couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Hagrid murmured.

He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon’s head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

“Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!” said Hagrid.

“Hagrid,’ said Hermione, “how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”

Hagrid was about to answer when the colour suddenly drained from his face – he leapt to his feet and ran to the window.

“What’s the matter?”

“Someone was lookin’ through the gap in the curtains – it’s a kid – he’s runnin’ back up ter the school.”

I bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking him. Malfoy had seen the dragon.

---

Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy’s face during the next week made us very nervous. We spent most of our free time in Hagrid’s darkened hut, trying to reason with him.

“Just let him go,” Harry urged. “Set him free.”

“I can’t,” said Hagrid. “He’s too little. He’d die.”

We looked at the dragon; it had grown three times in length in just a week. Smoke kept furling out of its nostrils. Hagrid hadn’t been doing his game keeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over the floor.

“I’ve decided to call him Norbert,” said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. “He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where’s Mummy?”

“He’s lost his marbles,” I muttered to Ron.

“Hagrid,” said Harry loudly, “give it a fortnight and Norbert’s going to be as long as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment.”

Hagrid bit his lip.

“I – I know I can’t keep him forever, but I can’t jus’ dump him, I can’t.”

Harry suddenly turned to Ron.

“Charlie,” he said.

“You’re losing it, too,” said Ron. “I’m Ron, remember?”

“No – Charlie – your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!”

“Brilliant!” said Ron. “How about it, Hagrid?”

And in the end, Hagrid agreed that we could send an owl to Charlie to ask him.

---

The following week dragged by. Wednesday night found Hermione, Harry and I sitting alone in the common-room, long after everyone else had gone to bed. The clock on the wall had just chimed midnight when the portrait hole burst open. Ron appeared out of nowhere as he pulled off Harry’s invisibility cloak. He had been down at Hagrid’s hut, helping him feed Norbert, who was now eating dead rats by the crate.

“It bit me!” He said, showing us his hand, which was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. “I’m not going to be able to hold a quill for a week. I tell you, that dragon’s the most horrible animal I’ve ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you’d think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit. When it bit me he told me off for frightening it. And when I left, he was singing it a lullaby.”

There was a tap on the dark window.

“It’s Hedwig!” Harry said, hurrying to let her in. “She’ll have Charlie’s answer!”

The four of us put our heads together to read the note.

‘Dear Ron,
How are you? Thanks for the letter – I’d be glad to take
the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won’t be easy getting
him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over
with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me
next week. Trouble is, they mustn’t be seen carrying
an illegal dragon.
Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at
midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and
take him away while it’s still dark.
Send me an answer as soon as possible,
Love,
Charlie’

We looked at each other.

“We’ve got the invisibility cloak,” said Harry. “It shouldn’t be too difficult – I think the cloak’s big enough to cover two of us and Norbert.”

It was a mark of how bad the last week had been that we all agreed with him. Anything to get rid of Norbert – and Malfoy.

There was a hitch. By morning, Ron’s bitten hand had swollen to twice its usual size. We didn’t know whether it was safe to go to Madam Pomfrey – would she recognize a dragon bite? By the afternoon, though, he had no choice. The cut had turned a nasty shade of green. It looked as if Norbert’s fangs were poisonous.

Harry, Hermione and I rushed up to the hospital wing at the end of the day to find Ron in a terrible state in bed.

“It’s not just my hand,” he whispered, “although that feels like it’s about to fall off. Malfoy told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow one of my books so he could come and have a good laugh at me. He kept threatening to tell her what really bit me.”

“It’ll all be over at midnight on Saturday,” I said, but this didn’t soothe Ron at all. On the contrary, he st bolt upright and broke into a sweat.

“Midnight on Saturday!” he said in a hoarse voice. “Oh no – oh no – I’ve just remembered – Charlie’s letter was in that book Malfoy took, he’s going to know we’re getting rid of Norbert.”
We didn’t get a chance to answer as Madam Pomfrey came over at that moment and me us leave, saying Ron needed sleep.

---

We would’ve felt sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say goodbye to Norbert if we hadn’t been so worried about what we had to do. It was very dark, cloudy night when Hermione and Harry left for Hagrid’s hut. They had decided I shouldn’t go because I’d make too much noise.

I sat by the window in the common-room all night, waiting for them to return. A while after they had gone, Neville slowly walked down the steps from the boys’ dormitories. He didn’t notice me sitting in the shadows, and went straight out the portrait hole.

I sighed and walked over to an armchair, where I curled up and quickly fell asleep.

“Corey, Corey, wake up” someone said, slightly shaking me.

“No, go away,” I mumbled, covering my face with my arm.

“Samuels, wake up. Now” Harry said impatiently.

I slowly opened my eyes, Hermione and Harry standing in front of me.

“It’s done, but we lost 150 points, fifty each; Neville was there as well.”

At first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the house points next day thought there’d been a mistake. How could they suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday? And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lost them all those points, him and a couple of other stupid first years.

From one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the house cup. Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn’t trouble to lower their voices as they insulted him. Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering, “Thanks Potter, we owe you one!”
Only Ron and I stood by him.

“They’ll all forget this in a few weeks. Fred and George have lost loads of points in all the time they’ve been here, and people still like them.” Ron said.

“They’ve never lost a hundred and fifty points in one go, though, have they?” said Harry miserably.

“Well – no,” Ron admitted.

“Don’t worry, Harry, It’ll all be fine,” I reassured him.

Hermione and Neville were suffering, too. They didn’t have as bad a time as Harry, because they weren’t as well known, but nobody would speak to them either. Hermione had even stopped drawing attention to herself in class, keeping her head down and working in silence.

Ron, Harry, Hermione and I kept to ourselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells of by heart, memorise the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions...

A week before exams were due to start, Harry and I heard something on our way back from the library. We heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As we drew closer, I heard Quirrell’s voice.

“No – no – not again, please –“

It sounded as though someone was threatening him, and we moved closer.

“All right – all right –“ I heard Quirrell sob.

Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; I don’t think Quirrell had even noticed us. We waited until Quirrell’s footsteps had disappeared, then peered into the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end.

Harry was halfway towards it before he stopped. He turned around and walked back out of the classroom with me. He had promised himself he wasn’t going to meddle with other people business anymore.

We went back to the library where Hermione was testing Ron on Astronomy. We told them what we’d heard.

“Snape’s done it, then!” said Ron. “If Quirrell’s told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell –“

“There’s still Fluffy, though,” said Hermione.

“Maybe Snape’s found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid,” I said, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding us. “I bet there’s a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?”

The light of adventure was kindling again in Ron’s eyes, but Hermione answered before Harry could.

“Go to Dumbledore. That’s what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we’ll be thrown out for sure.”

“But we’ve got no proof!” said Harry. “Quirrell’s too scared to back us up. Snape’s only got to say he doesn’t know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor – who do you think they’ll believe, him or us? It’s not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore’ll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn’t help us if his life depended on it, he’s too friendly with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the better, he’ll think. And don’t forget, we’re not supposed to know about the Stone and Fluffy. That’ll take a lot of explaining.”

Hermione looked convinced, but Ron didn’t.

“If we just do a bit of poking around –“

No,” I said flatly, “we’ve done enough poking around.”

---
The following morning notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione and Neville at the breakfast table, telling them about their detentions.

At eleven o’clock that night, they said goodbye to Ron and I in the common-room. Ron and I talked about exams, before both of us fell asleep in the armchairs. I woke up just before they came back, and when they woke Ron up he shouted something about Quidditch fouls.

Harry started telling us what he’d seen in the forest; a hooded figure, which a centaur called Firenze thought was Voldemort. Harry paced around in front of the fire, shaking.

“Snape wants the stone for Voldemort ... and Voldemort’s waiting in the forest ... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich...” Harry muttered.

“Stop saying the name!” said Ron in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear us. Harry wasn’t listening.

“Firenze saved me, but he shouldn’t have done... Bane was furious... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen... They must show that Voldemort’s coming back... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me... I suppose that’s written in the stars as well.”

“Will you stop saying the name!” Ron hissed.

“So all I’ve got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone,” Harry went on feverishly, “Then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off... Well, I suppose Bane’ll be happy.”

“Harry, everyone says Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won’t touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that’s a very imprecise branch of Magic,” I said, trying to comfort Harry.

The sky had turned light before we stopped talking. We went to bed exhausted, our throats sore.