Dumbledore's half-blood grand-daughter: Year One

Chapter Fourteen: Hagrid and His Dragon Obsession

Every time we passed the third-floor corridor, 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, according to Ron, surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter. I did nothing of the sort, instead I would sometimes make myself invisible and follow him trying to find out more.

Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Sorcerer's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and colorcoding all her notes. Harry, Ron, and I wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. "Hermione, the exams are ages away." "Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel." "But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it." "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, Harry, Ron, and I spent most of our free time in the library with her, trying to get through all our 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 we'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming.

I didn't look up until I 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, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron impressively. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer'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 --" "See you later, then," said Harry. Hagrid shuffled off.

"What was he hiding behind his back." said Hermione thoughtfully. "Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone." "I'm going to see what section he was in," said Ron, who'd had enough of working. He came back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table.

"Dragons!" he whispered. "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide." "Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I ever met him," said Harry.

"But it's against our laws," said Ron. "Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709, everyone knows that. It's hard to stop Muggles from noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back garden - anyway, you can't tame dragons, it's dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's got off wild ones in Romania." "But there aren't wild dragons in Britain." said Harry.

"Of course there are," said Ron. "Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them up, I can tell you. Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles who've spotted them, to make them forget." "So what on earths Hagrid up to." said Hermione.