Harry Potter Male!Reader Insert

GOODBYE NORBERT

'Bye-bye, Norbert!’ Hagrid sobbed, as Harry, me, and Hermione covered the crate with the Invisibility Cloak and stepped underneath it ourselves.

‘Mummy will never forget you!’

How we managed to get the crate back up to the castle, we'll never know. Midnight ticked nearer as we heaved Norbert up the marble staircase in the Entrance Hall and along the dark corridors. Up another staircase, then another – even one of Harry’s shortcuts didn’t make the work much easier.

‘Nearly there!’ Harry panted as they reached the corridor beneath the tallest tower.

'Heave!' I said in a strained voice.

Then a sudden movement ahead of us. Forgetting that we were already invisible, they shrank into the shadows, staring at the dark outlines of two people grappling with each other ten feet away. I watched them intently, shielding my eyes once a lamp flared.

Professor McGonagall, in a tartan dressing gown and a hairnet, had Malfoy by the ear, I nearly laughed until Hermione shushed me.

‘Detention!’ she shouted. ‘And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you –’

‘You don’t understand, Professor, Harry Potter’s coming – he’s got a dragon!’

'What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on – I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!’ The steep spiral staircase up to the top of the tower seemed the easiest thing in the world after that.

We stepped out into the cold night air and threw off the Cloak, glad to be able to breathe properly again. Hermione did a sort of jig.

‘Malfoy’s got detention! I could sing!’

‘Don’t,’ Harry advised her.

'Sing?' Y/n snorted. 'Wonder what that'll sound like.'

'Oh, be quiet.'

We waited for Merlin knows how long. I could hear Norbert thrashing about in his crate. About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness.

Charlie’s friends were a cheery lot. They showed me, Harry and Hermione the harness they’d rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then Harry and Hermione shook hands with the others and thanked them very much, whilst I was talking to one of Charlie's friends, he was a nice fellow.

At last, Norbert was going … going … gone.

We descended back down the spiral staircase. I felt free at last, I finally had my friends back, and now that Norbert was off them. No more dragon – Malfoy in detention – what could spoil the happiness?

The answer to that was waiting at the foot of the stairs. As they stepped into the corridor, Filch’s face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.

‘Well, well, well,’ he whispered,

‘Oh, fu-’ They’d left the Invisibility Cloak on top of the tower.

***

Things couldn’t have been worse.

Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall’s study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis and wild cover-up stories chased each other around Harry’s brain, each more feeble than the last. He couldn’t see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to forget the Cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak and they might as well be packing their bags already.