Our Secret Marriage: First Year

Chapter 14: Harry, Exams, And A Too Happy Hagrid

  "Harry, where have you been?" Hermione squeaks as I make my way back to the castle.

 "We won! You won! We won!" Ron shouts, running behind me and thumping Harry on the back. I pale only now realising he was behind me.

"And I gave Malfoy a black eye, and Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle single-handed! He's still out cold but Madam Pomfrey says he'll be all right - talk about showing Slytherin! Everyone's waiting for you in the common room, we're having a party, Fred and George stole some cakes and stuff from the kitchens." 

"Never mind that now," Harry murmurs gravely. "Let's find an empty room, you wait 'til you hear this...."

  Making sure Peeves wasn't inside before shutting the door behind us, he then told us what he'd seen and heard. 

I pale at this.  Did he see the kiss?

"So we were right, it is the Sorcerer's Stone, and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy - and he said something about Quirrell's 'Hocus Pocus-- I reckon there are other things guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through --" 

"So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" Hermione whispers in alarm. 

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," said Ron.

Professor Quirrel however, must be braver than we'd thought he'd be for a guy who trembles and stutters so much. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet. 

Every time we pass the third-floor corridor, Harry, Ron, Hermione and I would press our ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. 

Professor Snape has been sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant two things. One, that the Stone was still safe and two, the kiss didn't affect him as much as it did me.  Should I talk to him about it first or wait?

Since that day though whenever Harry passed Professor Quirrell he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at his stutter. 

Hermione and I, however, had more on our minds than the Sorcerer's Stone. Hermione had started drawing up study schedules and I had started gathering all my notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but Hermione kept nagging them to do the same. 

"Hermione, the exams are ages away." 

"Ten weeks," Hermione snaps. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

 "But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminds her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all." 

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realise 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 us that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. 

With Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood, me practising wand movements, and some moaning and yawning, Harry and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with us, 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 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. Harry, who was looking up "Dittany" in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he 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 mutters, in a shifty voice that got our interests at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He suddenly looks 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 looks 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," Harry continues. "About what's guarding the Stone..."

 "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," Harry smiles as Hagrid shuffles off. 

"What was he hiding behind his back?" Hermione says thoughtfully.  "Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?" 

"I'm going to see what section he was in," Ron jumps up, clearly done with 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, " Harry offered. 

"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?" Harry asks, looking kind of crestfallen. 

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

"So what on earth Hagrid up to?" I mutter, spotting Professor Snape by the bookshelf near us. My heart drops to the ground when his eyes meet mine. He looks different...like...he's happy for some reason...