An American at Hogwarts

Into The Depths

The next few weeks were a blur. Marie was terribly worried when she heard about what happened in the forest, but with exams coming up we hardly had time to dwell on it. Me, Hermione, and Marie spent virtually all our time studying, forcing Ron and Harry to join us whenever possible. Stanley had told us not to worry too much about first year exams, but that didn't really help us stop worrying. Despite all our fears however, our exams went fairly smoothly. The Charms exams, especially the practical part, was a complete breeze for me, as were pretty much all the other practical exams save Potions. Even that, though, wasn't too stressful, although I did have some considerable trouble differentiating between shaved dragon claw and shaved unicorn horn. I'm pretty sure I got it right in the end. The written portions of exams were a bit more challenging, as I had expected, but I still came out of all of them fairly satisfied, if perhaps less enthusiastic as I had come out of the practicals. Finally, we finished our last exam, which was in History of Magic. I had basically served as a tutor for my friends for that one since I was the only one who could consistently stay awake during it. Hermione came out with a sense of deep relief, saying that she hadn't have bothered studying half of what she did since it didn't end up on the exam. Ron thought he had failed (I assured him he had probably done fine), and both Marie and Harry were more or less ambivalent about it. Regardless, though, we were finally done, and we decided to head outside to get some fresh air and celebrate. Harry was complaining about his scar hurting him and saying how Hagrid kept telling him it was nothing when I suddenly had a realization.

"Oh dear God."

Marie frowned at me. "Y/N? You ok?"

"Guys. Don't you think it's a bit weird that Hagrid just happened to run into a guy with a dragon egg? I mean, that's hardly a thing you just carry around with you on a daily basis right?"

Hermione's eyes went wide. "You don't think..."

I nodded. "We have to go talk to him, now."

The others, still a bit confused, followed me and Hermione down to Hagrid's hut. He happily invited us in and offered us some of his famous (infamous?) rock cakes, but we politely declined. I cleared my throat.

"Hagrid. That man in the pub who gave you the dragon egg. Can you remember anything about him? Like how he looked and whatnot?"

Hagrid shook his head. "No, he was wearing a big hood. Couldn't see his face. Why do you ask?"

My jaw dropped. "Did he... did he ask you about anything?"

"Well he asked me if I thought I'd be able to handle Norbert. I told him after Fluffy I'd be just fine!"

I groaned. "Did he ask anything else about Fluffy?"

Hagrid chuckled. "Well of course! It's not every day you hear about a three headed dog! I told him, though, Fluffy is a big softy. Loves music, he'll fall asleep to basically any tune!" His eyes suddenly went wide. "I shouldn't have said that."

I grabbed the others and raced out, Hagrid murmuring behind us about how he said too much.

"Guys, Snape knows. I bet you he's trying something right now, now that everyone is out of the castle. We have to warn Dumbledore."

Everyone agreed and we raced off towards Dumbledore's office. Just as we rounded the corner before the gargoyle, however, we ran right into Professor McGonagall.

"Whatever are you five up to?" She said, with a suspicious tone.

Harry quickly approached her. "We need to talk to Dumbledore!"

"What? What about? He's not here right now regardless. Had to handle some business at the ministry."

Harry's eyes went wide. "No! This is too important!"