THE ARISE OF A LITTLE SISTER[Percy Little sis of boy who lived (Book 1)]

CHAPTER 22 : NORBERT ... UNICORN ... CLOAKED MAN

HARRY POV

Quirrell, however, must have been braver than we'd thought. In the weeks that followed, he seemed to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't appear as though he'd cracked yet. Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Just in case, whenever we crossed the third-floor corridor, we checked that Fluffy was still there. Anyway, exams were nearing, and we had lots of homework. Hermione and Laia tried to help us study together. One day when we were at the library, Hagrid came in with some books. We asked him about security measures for the Philosopher's Stone. He showed us and asked us to meet him at his hut, then left. When we searched the section where he took the book, it was about dragons.

An hour later, we knocked on the hut's door. Hagrid was cautious, but he let us in. It was incredibly hot inside. He refused to tell us any information about the Philosopher's Stone, but in the heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg.

"Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard. "That's – er..."

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune."

"Won it," said Hagrid. "Last night. I was down in the village having a few drinks and got into a game of cards with a stranger. I think he was quite glad to get rid of it, to be honest."

"But what are you going to do with it when it hatches?" said Hermione.

"Well, I've been doing some reading," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this out of the library – Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit – it's a bit out of date, of course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on 'em, see, and when it hatches, feed it a bucket of brandy mixed with chicken blood every half-hour. And see here – how to recognize different eggs – what I've got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."

He looked very pleased with himself.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," Laia said. But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire. 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. Proving our worry, Malfoy found out. No less than Malfoy, during breakfast time, Hedwig brought another note from Hagrid. He had written only two words:

"It's hatching."

So, we were off to the hut. We all drew 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 onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella.

Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, and it had a long snout with wide nostrils, 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 Laia, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"

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

"What's the matter?"

"Someone was looking through the gap in the curtains – it's a kid – he's running back up to the school." I bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance, there was no mistaking him. Malfoy had seen the dragon.

In the next few days, we tried to convince Hagrid to let Norbert, the baby dragon, go free. He kept on refusing until Norbert bit Ron. Ron asked his brother Charlie to get rid of the dragon. Finally, we were going to get rid of Norbert and Draco on Saturday night. The only problem was the Invisibility Cloak only covered two of us with Norbert. So it was decided Hermione and I would hand over the dragon, while Ron's bitten finger was swollen twice over. Laia said she had classes on Saturday with her special teacher.