AUTOPHOBIA - G. WEASLEY

First year: Hagrid's Dragon

✯ CHAPTER TWELVE ✯

❝Are you telling me I look six hundred?❞

April, 1992.

QUIRELL MUST HAVE been braver than the children thought he was. In the weeks that followed the victorious Quidditch match, he seemed to be getting a bit paler and thinner, but he hadn't completely cracked yet.

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Estella, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe.

According to Hermione, however, the four of them had much more important things to be worrying about than just the Philosopher's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and color coding all her notes. Estella, Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away," whined Estella, after Hermione had ranted on about how she needed to get it together for the fifth time that day. "I understand it's important to study, but you're taking it to a whole new level here."

"They're in ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicholas Flamel."

"Are you telling me I look six hundred?" Estella rolled her eyes. "That's rude."

Ron suddenly looked over at them both, narrowing his eyes. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it's an A."

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me. . . "

Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Estella, Harry and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work.

"I'll never remember this," Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming.

Estella was so busy looking through her notes that she didn't look up until she heard Ron say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"

Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

"Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He looked suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh no, we found out who he is way back in January," Estella said, narrowing her eyes.

Ron nodded. "Yeah, and we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Philosopher's St--"

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

"There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact," said Harry, "about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy--"

"SHHHH!" said Hagrid again. "Listen -- come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh--"