An American at Hogwarts

The Egg

The next few days were spent much the same as before. The professors were reminding us to study more than ever, much to Harry and Ron's displeasure.

"Honestly you three, you'd think the exams were tomorrow with how you're acting." Said Ron, glaring at me, Hermione, and Marie, who I'd convinced to join us with a promise of a fancy dinner in the common room that night.

Marie snickered. "He does have a point, Y/N. They're more than two months off."

Hermione sighed. "Ten weeks! Ten weeks you two! Thats a blink of the eye to someone like Flamel!"

"True, but we aren't centuries old like he is. I do think that we may be going a bit too hard this early on." I said, chuckling slightly.

"Not you too now!" Said Hermione, standing up with a huff. "I'm going off to the library, if any of you decide to take this seriously, you're welcome to join me."

Me and Marie stood up, much to Ron's shock. I grabbed hold of him and Harry. "Come on, just an hour or two. It'll make her happy."

The grumbled but followed me and Marie, much to Hermione's delight. An hour or so later, we were back in the library once more, studying this time instead of search for Flamel. All of a sudden we heard a familiar gruff voice behind us.

"I hope you're not still searching for Flamel!"

Ron spun around in his chair, smirking at Hagrid. "Oh no, we found out about him ages ago. And about what Fluffy is guarding! It's the phil-"

I slapped the back of his head. "Don't go saying the name out loud, you idiot! Someone could hear!"

Hagrid chuckled slightly. "He's right Ron. Stay quiet about it. Come down to me hut later. I'm not promising to tell you anything but I'll think about it. We ought to catch up anyways, we haven't talked since before Christmas!"

With that, he walked off, carrying a book with him. Hermione frowned. "What was he doing here?"

I turned to her to reply, but she had already walked off to where Hagrid had been before talking to us. She came back a couple minutes later, carrying a stack of books.

"Look! He was reading about dragons!"

Harry's eyes went wide. "He can't have..."

Ron frowned. "Maybe he did..."

Me and Marie looked to Hermione, confusedly.

"Hagrid told Harry he always wanted to have a pet dragon."

Marie gasped. "But thats..."

Hermione nodded. "Illegal. Not to mention irresponsible, dangerous, and stupid."

I sighed. "We're gonna have to convince him to get rid of it aren't we?"

Harry nodded. "If we want to see him at Hogwarts next year, and not in Azkaban, yeah. We are."

Later that afternoon we headed down to Hagrid's hut. I had at first suggested that we go at night, but we wouldn't all fit under Harry's invisibility cloak, and I still didn't quite have the disillusionment charm down right, at least for using it on myself. I could get it started, but it flickered in and out a bit, almost like a bad television signal. However, I had finally managed to use it successfully on Cinnabar the other day, which freaked her out a bit, resulting in me giving her a bunch of owl treats as an apology. We made our way down to Hagrid's hut through the melting snow. It was ever so slowly getting warmer again, as winter began to turn to spring, something that Marie was very grateful for. She didn't mind the cold, but winter certainly wore out it's welcome for her after all our snowy hikes back in Wales. As we entered Hagrid's hut, though, I began to sweat. It felt like a freaking sauna in there. He had the fire roaring, and all the windows and doors were sealed shut, trapping the heat (and a decent amount of the smoke) inside. Harry coughed slightly after inhaling a particularly large puff of smoke.

"Can we open a bloody window? It feels like a volcano just erupted in here."

Hagrid scratched his back nervously. "Erm... no. Sorry, I need the heat."

I looked over to the fire. There was a cauldron upturned on top of a metal rack above the fire. I sighed.

"Hagrid. You aren't doing a great job of hiding what's going on here. There's a dragon egg under there, isn't there?"

His eyes went wide. "How'd you know?"

Ron huffed. "Better question, how'd you get the bloody thing? Raising them is illegal for a reason Hagrid, they're stupid dangerous. Charlie's scars prove it."

Hagrid smirked, seemingly ignoring the obvious danger. "Won her in a game of cards down at the Hog's Head! Some mysterious guy in a cloak. Seemed rather glad to be rid of her, if you ask me." As he said this, he uncovered the egg, which was a stark black with greyish spots covering it. "It's a Norwegian Ridgeback! They're rare, you know."

"Hagrid, you know they breathe fire, right? And you... you live in a wooden hut." Hermione said, incredulously.

Hagrid thought for a moment. "I'll erm... I'll figure that out later! Besides, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I frowned. "Yes Hagrid. It ca..."

"OI! WHO'S THERE?"

Hagrid suddenly shouted and we spun around and saw a familiar platinum-blonde mop of hair sprinting away towards the castle.

Me and my friends shared a quick glance and ran out, chasing after him. As the four of them sprinted out the door I turned around quickly.

"Just be careful Hagrid. We don't want to see you getting in trouble, or worse."

With that, I turned and followed my friends. Had I noticed what was happening quicker, I probably could have done something to stop him, but by the time I cleared the hill leading up to the castle, Malfoy was long gone, my friends bent over catching their breath against some rocks.

I groaned. "Damn bastard. He's gonna go tell Snape, isn't he?"

Marie sighed. "Probably. I doubt he actually knows what it is, though, so he will probably wait a bit. We can still fix this if we just figure out how to convince Hagrid to get rid of the egg."

Hagrid was still around the next day, and indeed a week later, so it seemed that Marie had been right. We couldn't convince Hagrid to see sense though. Every time we brought it up, he just brushed us off, saying he knew what he was doing. One morning, Hermione ran up to me and Marie in the common room, waving a letter. It was from Hagrid, and contained only two words.

It's hatching.