Artemis Black - Fred Weasley

Secrets

"What was he hiding behind his back?" said Hermione thoughtfully.

"Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?" artemis asks in curiosity

"I'm going to see what section he was in," said Ron, who'd had enough of 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," said Harry and Artemis nodded her head in agreement.

"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?" said Harry and Artemis had to look away, she might not have been a wild dragon but she couldn't help but feel if they found out what form she could take, they would hate her.

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

"So what on earth's Hagrid up to?" said Hermione and the other three shrugged their shoulders "lets go and see him"

"just give me a sec" Artemis said and then quickly ran over to her best friends "sorry girls, I'll probably be back, try not to get into too much trouble while im gone" she said with a large grin and Octavia rolled her eyes with a wild grin on her face.

"You must understand that you are asking too much of us right" Octavia said and Artemis grinned at her

"later bitches" Artemis called and then made her way back over to Harry, Ron and Hermione and then they all made their way down to Hagrids hut. When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper's hut, they were surprised to see that all the curtains were closed.

Hagrid called "Who is it?" before he let them in, and then shut the door quickly behind them. It was stifling hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate. Hagrid made them tea and offered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused. "So — yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes," said Harry. There was no point beating around the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy." Hagrid frowned at him and then noticed the look on all of the childrens faces, none of them could stop thinking about it and none of them were going to give up.

"O' course I can't," he said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts — I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on round here," said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. "We only wondered who had done the guarding, really." Hermione went on. "We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you." Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Artemis, Harry and Ron beamed at Hermione.

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that . . . let's see . . . he borrowed Fluffy from me . . . then some o' the teachers did enchantments . . . Professor Sprout — Professor Flitwick — Professor McGonagall —" he ticked them off on his fingers, "Professor Quirrell — an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."