The coming two weeks were a highlight in Ben's life; He spent his days practising spells and helping around the farm while his new self-answering quills did their job completing his homework assignments. And at night, he got to fly through the moonlit sky with his aunt, learning the intricacies of broomstick riding.

Ben had gotten a lot closer to Meave and learned an unfortunate truth about her; She either smothered you with her love or threw you off a cliff; there was no middle ground when it came to this Irishwoman.

He also enjoyed spending time with the spring-loaded fur balls; while not the egg-laying kind, they were still downright adorable.

Speaking of eggs, Ben found out that while impressive to look at, the dragon's egg-sized easter eggs were not very practical. After he tried but struggled to finish even one dragon-sized chocolate egg, he decided to stick to regular-sized ones and send the rest to his friends still at school.

He even sent one each for the golden squad, as Harry Potter was his golden egg-laying Stag. He had made quite a profit betting on him and will continue to do so in the future.

While Ben was having the time of his life, students at Hogwarts were not so lucky.

Ron and Harry spent all their free time in the library, moaning and yawning, trying to get through all the extra homework while Hermione kept nagging at them.

Ben would have valued the self-answering quills that got from his adventure even more if he saw their poor state. He had already completed the full first-year syllabus ages ago but still had to waste time writing long parchments of essays on it.

POV Hermione--

'It's quite a delightful day to be studying, I've finally finished my essay on the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood.

However, this day has become quite peculiar; firstly, Brown sent us these enormous Easter eggs which he referred to as Dragon eggs; my parents would freak out if they saw me with a sweet that big; and then we discovered that Hagrid had been perusing books on Dragon keeping.

'At this rate, we may even encounter a real dragon by the end of it,' she thought on the way to Hagrid's hut.

--

This type of thinking is quite unusual for Hermione, she doesn't believe in omens or signs, but ever since the incident in the library with Benedict, she's been getting a very strange feeling about everything.

"Who is it?" Hagrid called when they knocked on his door.

"It's us, let us in Hagrid," they answered and were quickly ushered in, and the door quickly shut behind them.

It was stifling hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate, and all windows had been covered; he had even made them tea which they refused.

While Harry asked Hagrid about what else was guarding the stone besides Fluffy and was shocked to find that even Snape was involved in protecting the stone; Hermione's eyes were stuck to the object in the very heart of the fire, underneath the Kettle.

'That can't possibly be--' she muttered in denial.

"You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" Harry asked anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"

"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly.

"Hagrid, W-W hat's that?" She finally asked, pointing at the large-black egg; already knowing the answer to her question.

"Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, "That's -er…"

"Merlin's beard, that's a dragon egg, isn't it?"

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune."

"Won it," said Hagrid. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."

And that's when it hit her, the terrible feeling in her stomach, but she couldn't voice it as even she could not believe it.

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" asked Harry, not wanting Hagrid to get in trouble with the ministry.

"Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this outta the library — Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit — it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on I em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here — how ter recognize diff'rent eggs — what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."

He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't. Hatching a dragon in a wooden hut? That seemed like the worst idea ever.

But she seemed to be more focused on what Ben had said, she didn't remember his exact words but it said something about a deal made while drunk and obtaining a beast and a key. She'll have to go back and check her notes for the exact words.

"Hagrid?" She called but was ignored as the giant was busy counting his dragons even before they hatched.

"Hagrid!" she called out a little louder, bringing him back to reality.

"Wha' happened, why yeh screamin'?" he said.

"When you got that egg, did that stranger want something in return?" She asked him.

"wan' somethin'? from me? wha' can i give 'im? he jus' wanna play cards wif me," he asked surprised.

"What did you guys talk about?" asked Harry curiously.

"Oh, we talked 'bout loads o' stuff," said Hagrid, frowning as he tried to remember. "Yeah…he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here…He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I took after…so I told him…an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon…an' then…I can' remember too well, 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks…Let's see…yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted…but he had ter be sure I could handle it, he didn' want it ter go ter any old home...So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy.…"

"Fluffy? Did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm as caught up to Hermione's suspicions.

"Well - yeah - how many three-headed dogs d'ye meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll go straight off ter sleep-"

Hagrid suddenly looked horrified.

"I shouldn'ta told yeh that!" he blurted out. "Forget I said it!"

"What did he look like Hagrid? the stranger," asked Hermione in a hurry.

"Dunno," said Hagrid casually, "he wouldn' take his cloak off."

He saw the three of them look stunned and raised his eyebrows.

"It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head - that's the pub down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up."

"Hey - where're yeh goin'?"

Harry and Ron ran after Hermione as she bolted at her fastest, only stopping once she reached the Gryffindor tower.

"Hermione, wait!" called Harry.

"Didn' know she could run this fast, mate," said Ron, breathin' heavily.

"Me neither," said Harry as he saw her running up the Girl's dormitory.

--Dreamscape--

So, MC is nowhere to be found and the focus of the story was shifted to the Golden trio.

I just wanted to show how Ben's lame prophecies changed the pace of the story, In the original story, the trio did not realize of Hagrid's blunder till the end of the year and then straight up ran to the stone as they had learned of Voldemort presence.

Read more on Patre@n/DreamyApe.