The next morning, Harry looks a little down, and I ask him, “What’s wrong? Did something happen with that… that mirror?” oh, Merlin help us if it’s been damaged or something!

He nods. “Professor Dumbledore caught me last night. He said that it’s going to be moved somewhere else, and that, under no circumstances, am I to go looking for it.”

I put my arm around him, giving him a gentle squeeze.

“I’m… sorry to hear that. Really, I am.”

I enter the Charms classroom with the two boys in tow, and immediately get almost flattened by a brunette blur. “Max! Oh, I shouldn’t have left! I wish I’d stayed so I could have done something! I was so worried when Angelina told me what happened!”

“H-Hermione?!” I splutter, as the first person I’d ever told my secret embraces me fiercely.

“Yes! Hello! Sorry, how are you feeling now?” she asks, looking seriously at me. I blush a little and look away.

“I’m actually doing well. Professor Dumbledore explained that he’s going to help me!”

“I know, Angelina sent me a letter, remember?” she giggles, and then releases me. “Come on, class is about to start, we should take our seats!”

I join her, as she sets out her wand, textbook, quill and ink, and a sheaf of parchment. Across the room, I can see the two boys looking rather guilty, as if expecting Hermione to give them a serious ticking-off for their ‘thoughtless and reprehensible actions’.

However, the class passes quietly, with everyone focussed more on completing their work than on badgering me about my breakdown, or on gossiping with their returned-from-holidays friends. I do notice a few strange looks, but I brush them off and direct all my attention to completing the assignment Professor Flitwick has set.

After Charms, it’s Herbology with Professor Sprout. Most of the plants are either dormant or too dangerous for first-years, so we pass the lesson making sketches and notes about the biology and functions of various magical florae, as well as their uses in potions and so on.

Lunch, then a free-study period, during which Hermione sprints off, looking shocked at something. The three of us stare at each other for a few moments, before shrugging and resuming our search for any information on the elusive Nicholas Flamel. Almost twenty minutes later, Hermione barrels into the library once again, her robes billowing out as she barely refrains from breaking into a run. In her arms is a book almost as big as her torso, which she slams down on the table with an exasperated look on her face.

“I had the three of you looking in entirely the wrong place! I checked this out a few weeks ago for some light reading, and-”

Ron interjects, looking vaguely nauseated, “THAT’S ‘light’???”

Hermione gives him The Look, the one that can silence an unruly husband or settle a disobedient child, and continues, “Listen to this!”

She presses her finger to one page in particular and reads aloud; “Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone!” she looks up expectantly, only to be met with two blank looks, and my own expression of dawning understanding.

“The Philosopher’s stone?!” I gasp, and she nods, turning her gaze on the boys. They say, in perfect unison… “The what?”

Rolling her eyes and huffing heatedly, “Honestly, don’t you two read?”

Clearing her throat, she resumes, “The Philosopher’s Stone is a legendary substance, with astonishing power. It can transform any metal into the purest of gold, and produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal!”

Ron hisses, “Immortal?!” Hermione and I answer simultaneously, “it means you’ll never die,” and he looks wounded. “I know what immortal means…” he mumbles, before Harry shushes him.

“The only stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicholas Flamel, the noted alchemist, who recently celebrated his 665^th birthday!”

I gasp, “That’s what Fluffy’s guarding on the Third Floor! That’s the ‘thing’ under the trap-door!”

Hermione looks approvingly at me, and the boys look more serious. This is getting way more intense than I was expecting, but… something inside me doesn’t want to back down, or leave this whole business unfinished…

 

That night, after curfew, Harry, Ron, Hermione and I all head down to Hagrid’s hut. I’m still a little intimidated by the humungous man, but he’s always seemed very gentle and kind. Harry knocks on the door, and it opens, revealing Hagrid, clad in a… huge apron and oven-gloves???

“Oh hello! Sorry, don’t wish te be rude, bu’ I’m in no fit state to entertain today!”

As he swings the door shut, the four of us chorus, “we know about the Philosopher’s Stone!” The door stops, then, reluctantly, swings back open, a nervous-looking Hagrid staring at us.

“Oh…” he says weakly.

 

We file in, and I shut the door behind us, being the last in. Good manners cost nothing, after all. The cabin is warm and cozy, with a huge, sleepy-looking dog taking up most of the space on a blanket-covered sofa.

Harry starts off, “We think Snape’s trying to steal it!” Hagrid rebuts, “Blimey, yeh’re not still on about ‘im, are yeh?” Harry, Ron, and Hermione plop down in various oversized chairs, leaving me sitting next to the enormous hound. It looks up at me, and then heavily rests its gigantic head on my lap.

Harry adds, “We KNOW he’s trying to steal the Stone, we just don’t know WHY!”

Hagrid turns. “Snape is one o’ the teachers PROTECTIN’ the Stone! ‘E’s not about ta steal it!”

“What, really?” Ron chimes in, as Hagrid tries to chivvy us into leaving, clearly wanting privacy for something. Hermione’s eyes widen. “ONE OF the teachers?? There are OTHER things defending the Stone, aren’t there! Spells, enchantments!”

 

“Tha’s right. Waste o’ bloody time, if ye ask me.” Hagrid replies, as I start petting the enormous dog. I like dogs, but my parents would never allow me to even dream of getting one.

“Ain’t no-one goin’ to get past Fluffy!” the huge Keeper of Key and Grounds boasts, “Ain’t a soul knows how, ‘cept fer me an’ Dumbledore!.... I should not ‘ave told ye that, I should not ‘ave told ye that.” He clicks his tongue in self-directed aggravation.

The clicking continues, but it sounds more metallic, and Hagrid whirls to the fireplace. Hanging over the flames, is a bronze cauldron. The clicking sound is coming from it!

Reaching in, the giant man carefully extracts something, huffing and making muffled exclamations of agitation, as he carries the incredibly-hot object to the table, gently placing it down. It’s an oval, shaped like a Muggle ‘Rug-Bee ball’, and looks… scorched.

Crowding round the table, we all stare at it. Harry’s the first to speak. “Hagrid, what… exactly… IS it?”

“Uh, well, um, it’s, uh…” the massive, bearded man stammers, as Ron’s eyes widen.

“Blimey! I know what that is! But, Hagrid! How did you get one?!”

“I won it! Off a stranger I met down th’ pub! Seemed quite glad t’be rid of it, as a matter-o’-fact…”

The strange object’s begun rocking and shaking on the table, the cracking sounds growing faster and more intense. Suddenly, the surface erupts as something bursts from inside. One of the windows loses a pane from shrapnel, as the tiny, reptilian creature inside the egg scrambles free, clawing fragments of shell out from under it.

Small, with a whip-like tail, beady, intelligent eyes, and shimmering brown scales, the tiny little winged lizard myopically blinks and cranes its long-necked head around to peer at us letting out a querulous squawk.

 Hermione breaks the silence. “Is that… a dragon?”

Ron shakes his head. “That’s not JUST a dragon… that’s a Norwegian Ridgeback! My brother Charlie works with these in Romania!”

The tiny dragon turns towards Hagrid and squawks again. The giant looks almost ready to cry. “Ohhh, in’t he beautiful! Bless ‘im, ‘e knows ‘is mummy!”

Reaching out, Hagrid’s sausage-thick fingers gently scratch at the creature’s chest. “‘Ello, Norbert!”

We all look at each other, then back at the creature. “Norbert?”

“Well, yeah! Gotta ‘ave a name, dun’t ‘e? don’tche, Norbert!” Hagrid alternates between answering us and fussing over the kitten-sized dragonling.

In response, Norbert coughs out a miniature spurt of flame, partially-singing Hagrid’s voluminous beard. “Well… ‘E’ll ‘ave ta be trained up a bit, o’ course!”

Suddenly, Hagrid stops, frowning out of the window. “Who’s that?”

We turn, and a pale-haired, familiarly-smug face goes whiter with shock, before vanishing. “Harry and I say in sync, “Malfoy!”

Hagrid looks crestfallen. “Oh dear…”

 

As we make our way back through the halls of the castle, Harry groans, “I can’t believe this! Hagrid’s always wanted a dragon! Told me so, the first time we met…”

Ron interjects, “that’s crazy! And worse, Malfoy knows.”

From a classroom ahead, clad in a tartan dressing-gown and sleeping cap, Professor McGonagall emerges, holding a candleholder, a lit taper flickering brightly.

Hermione, who hasn’t noticed, asks, “I don’t understand. Is that bad?”

Ron looks terrified. “It’s bad!” Hermione turns her head, and her expression mirrors Ron’s.

“Good evening,” Professor McGonagall says coolly, and Malfoy peers out from behind her, smirking like the obnoxious little ferret he is.

She ushers into the classroom, and stands at her desk, frowning at all of us. “Nothing, I repeat, nothing, gives a student the right to walk about the school at night. Therefore, as punishment for your actions, fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor.”

Harry splutters, “Fifty?!” McGonagall silences him with a Withering Look. “Each.” She adds. Just like that, we’ve cost Gryffindor two hundred points. I elbow him, hoping to prevent the situation from getting worse.

“And, to ensure it doesn’t happen again, all five of you will receive detention.”

Malfoy, who’s been watching all this with malicious delight, loses his grin, and he turns to the professor in confusion.

“Excuse me, professor; I must have heard you wrong. I thought you said, “The five of us”?”

She gives him a Withering Look as well. “No. you heard me correctly, Mr Malfoy. You see, as ‘honourable’ as your intentions were, you too were out of bed after hours. You will join your classmates in detention.”

Malfoy looks entirely put-out that his trick has backfired, as the professor sends for Filch, the caretaker. Three days later, after nightfall, we’re once again heading back outside, with a vindictively-grinning Filch in the lead.

“A pity they let the old punishments die,” he gripes conversationally, “Was a time when ‘detention’ would find you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons! God, I miss the screamin’…”

 

I give him a dirty look behind his back. He trudges us up to Hagrid’s cabin, as the massive man emerges, carrying a lantern and an enormous siege-weapon of a crossbow, his gigantic boarhound in lolloping tow. “You’ll be serving detention with Hagrid tonight. He’s got a bit of a job to do, in the dark Forest, heheheheheheh!” Filch cackles, as Hagrid prepares himself for his task.

“A sorry lot, this, Hagrid!” filch calls out, giving us all a look almost as dirty as his hair.

Hagrid sniffs deeply, and Filch harrumphs, “Oh, good God, man, you’re not still on about that bloody dragon!”

I attempt to imitate Professor McGonagall’s Withering Glare on Filch’s back, but it apparently isn’t nearly as effective.

Hagrid lets out a wheezing sigh. “Norbert’s gone. Dumbledore sent ’im off ta Romania, to… live in a colony…”

I feel a twinge of guilt, before shaking my head. No, it was Malfoy deciding to spy on us and cause trouble that wrought this. Hermione asks, “But that’s good, isn’t it? He’ll be with his own kind!”

Hagrid snuffles again, looking miserable. “Yeah, but what if ‘e don’t like Romania? What if the other dragons’re mean to ‘im? ‘E’s only a baby after all…”

Filch deepens my dislike of him by snarling, “Oh for God’s sake, pull yerself together, man! You’re going into the Forest, after all! Gotta have yer wits about yer…”