The Beginning

The Dragon~*Rose*

The Dragon

Rose

Rose was alone. She was standing in the middle of the Slytherin common room, waiting impatiently. Celine was to come back from the Christmas holidays today. Rose had been left with only the Carrow twins in her dormitory for the holidays. It was awful; they never talked to anyone but themselves, so Rose was left completely alone and totally bored. Rose would never have hung out with them anyways, as they friends with Pansy.

The common room door, a blank stretch of wall in the dungeons, opened slowly. Celine stumbled in, heaving along her trunk with obvious effort. She flopped down on the couch and let out a sigh. “I swear, they should teach us how to make things lighter, not how to turn matches into needles!”

“Uhuh,” Rose muttered, “I’m so glad you’re back. I mean seriously, the Carrows stink.”

“What did you do? Spray them with something?”

“Haha, I wish. Speaking of which, did you figure out what potion we could ‘spill’ on Pansy yet?”

“I was thinking herbicide,” Celine mused, “It kills plants.”

The rest of the school came back from winter break soon enough and they started back on classes. To Rose’s delight, and Celine’s as well, brewing the herbicide potion had worked perfectly. When they’d dumped it in Pansy’s bed, she’d ended up in the hospital wing for a week. She’d also sworn to kill them painfully someday, but whatever.

When Rose and Celine walked into the common room one day after lunch, they saw Malfoy sitting in one of the best chairs by the fire with a smirk on his face. Rose wondered if he had some kind of plan to get Potter in trouble. Maybe something like... a spell? A trick? Rose couldn’t wait to find out. She nudged Celine, who was still reading her potions essay over.

“What?” Celine looked annoyed, “I’m not done yet. I thought you wanted me to read this over!”

“Look at the expression on Draco’s face,” Rose muttered to Celine, “Looks like he has an-” Rose raised an eyebrow, “-idea.”

Celine’s eyes lit up. “I love ideas.” Rose smiled back. Thank god Celine wasn’t still ticked off, like she had been throughout all of potions and lunch. Geez, just because Draco visited Pansy in the hospital wing, Rose thought, doesn’t mean that he’s gone over to the side of evil. Or, whatever you call evil when you’re the evil ones. You can’t call it good, ‘cause it’s not, but you’re not good either so...extreme evil? Wait, no way is Pansy more evil than us. Pathetic? Rose didn’t know.

While she pondered this conundrum, the rest of the first years had filtered into the common room. Draco’s smile grew larger now that they were all there. He stepped on top of one the tables and Crabbe and Goyle started staring menacingly at anyone who wasn’t looking at Malfoy.

The chatter quickly subsided until everyone was looking up at Draco expectantly, Celine right at the front of the crowd, looking more like she was admiring his hair than waiting for what he was about to say.

“I have news,” Draco started, “Big news. Concerning Harry Potter.” Mutters and snickers started among the crowd of Slytherin first years. Yes! Rose thought with glee. He was planning something to do with Potter! Celine had to be overjoyed. Besides Pansy, Harry Potter was one of her least favorite people.

“Everybody knows that big brute Potter hangs out with, am I correct?” He announced sharply. Everyone nodded. Really, it was hard to miss that man, Hagrid.

“Yeah? What about him?” Daphne Greengrass, a second year, asked, turning her attention to Draco. Other heads were turning too.

“Well, I’ve just found out he’s...handling something. Something...illegal.” the crowd burst into harsh whispers. “He’s handling...a baby dragon.” A dragon!? Couldn’t he go to Azkaban for that? Of course, the stupid oaf wouldn’t think of that.