Almira returned to Hogwarts after spending Christmas and the New Year’s eve with her mother, and the time flew by, teachers upping the amount of homework given as they moved onto spring and closer to the yearend exams, with many having to spend their Easter finishing them. As usual, Almira didn’t have any problems finishing her homework in time to still enjoy her holiday and neither did her friends, with Hannah being the only one to still have some left as they left for the second holiday of the schoolyear.

“Girlie, yeh wouln’t happen ter know things abou’ dragons woul’ yeh?” Almira has just come back to school after Easter, and she was teaching Fluffy to give his paw, when Hagrid suddenly asked her a question.

“Not much. Why?” She turns towards Hagrid and Fluffy takes this change to flop its paw over her, making her fall flat on the floor. She gives a stern look towards Fluffy as she gets back up but burst into giggles as she sees Fluffy turn all three of its heads in different directions to avoid meeting her eyes.

“Well yeh seems good with them beasts so was jus’ wondering.” Hagrid said with his voice turning shifty.

Almira’s giggling turned into laughter as she heard Hagrid’s answer and said, “Hagrid you’re the gamekeeper, how would I know more than you?”, managing to make the half-giant blush as he realized she was right.

“Maybe you could try looking from the library? They have a whole section on dragons after all.” Hearing Almira continue, Hagrid’s whole face lits up with excitement. “The library! Why’d I not think abou’ tha’ myself?” He bellows and storms out of the door, leaving Almira there together with Fluffy, both not quite sure on how to react.

“Do you think he got a dragon from somewhere?” Almira asks Fluffy while tilting her head, to which Fluffy returns a look as if saying ‘If you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?’.

The next two weeks Hagrid seemed to always be in a hurry when he came to feed Fluffy, making the time Almira had to play with Fluffy a lot shorter. Then one day, almost three weeks later, Almira was waiting outside Fluffy’s door for Hagrid to come, but even after an hour of waiting, he was nowhere to be found. Almira could have tried to open the lock with the unlocking charm, but saw no reason why opening the door would be so easy. After all, whatever Fluffy was guarding should be important so why wouldn’t the door be enchanted to counter the most common spell for opening locks. Feeling down, Almira makes her way towards the Great Hall to join her friends for dinner.

“Have you seen Hagrid today?” Almira asks her friends as she joins them in the Hufflepuff’s table. Susan, Hannah and Megan look towards each other with questioning gazes, before Susan says, “Isn’t he usually feeding Fluffy at this time? He wasn’t there?”.

“No, he didn’t come.” Almira answers while shaking her head, before asking them, “Do you want to come with me to his hut to see what’s going on?”

“Come.” Megan agrees instantly, Susan and Hannah also giving their agreement soon after. Almira has to remind her friends that she hasn’t eaten yet as they start to get up from the table, also making her friends remember that neither have they, making her friends blush as they sit back down to start their dinner.

After finishing their dinner, Almira and her friends made their way towards Hagrid’s cabin. It’s a small wooden cabin located outside the castle and right on the edge of the forbidden forest, and if someone had met Hagrid, they’d wonder how he even manages to get in through the door with his huge size.

As they get to the front door and are about to use the knocker, they hear a huge crash coming from inside, before hearing Hagrid say, “Norbert, wha’d I say abou’ eatin’ the crate? Yer gonnah get yerself a bad stomach.”, with almost a cooing voice. Almira exchanges looks with her friends before using the knocker.

They hear what sounds like pots falling onto the floor and then some shuffling, before finally they hear the sound of opening the locks on the door. Moments later they see Hagrid peek from behind the door, only opening it fully after seeing Almira standing outside.

“Girlie, what brings yer here?” Hagrid asks.

“You didn’t come to feed Fluffy, so I came to see if everything’s alright.” Almira says while trying to look past Hagrid and into the cabin for this ‘Norbert’ that Hagrid was speaking to as they came but fails as Hagrid’s body blocks to whole door.

“Oh yeah, sorry abou’ tha’. Norbert was bein’ mischievous so had ter take care of him. Don’ worry, came back from feedin’ Fluffy jus’ moments ago.” Hagrid says apologetically.

“Who’s Norbert?” Hannah asks, making Hagrid notice her, Susan and Megan standing on the side.

“Well, ah, Norbert’s a, umm, he’s a –“*GROWL* Hagrid starts to mumble awkwardly, but gets interrupted by a growl coming from behind him, and as he turns around to look, a black shadow speeds past him and jumps towards Almira.

Almira sees a mouth full of sharp teeth closing on her face, so she reacts fast and catches the shadow by its neck and pushes to the side and down while turning herself, effectively slamming its head against the ground. It tries to growl at her, but she growls back fiercely, making its growls turn into whimpering, showing its submission. She looks at this attacker of hers and sees a black dragon about as long as she’s tall. It had large spiny wings, a skinny body and a long snout with large nostrils, small horns and bulging, orange eyes. Almira lets go of its neck and sees her hand having grown claws and fur, changing it quickly back before the others notice.

“I’m guessing this is Norbert?” Almira says as she pets the dragon and turns to looks towards Hagrid, only to see him standing there with his mouth open. She then turns towards her friends but finds them with the same shocked expressions on their faces.

For a while she thought that they had seen her hand, but then Megan’s eyes light up with stars as she looks at Almira. “Mira, dominating.” She says with a slightly flushed face, waking the others from their stupor.

“Norbert! Are yeh okay?” Hagrid yells as he runs to pick the dragon into his arms.

“”Mira! Are you okay?”” Susan and Hannah yell at the same time as Hagrid and it takes a while for Almira to make them calm down, showing them that she’s fine.

“Norwegian Ridgeback, less than a month old, female. Fought for dominance, lost. She’s fine.” Megan says as she examines the dragon in Hagrid’s arms, surprising her friends with the longest sentence they have heard her say during their whole schoolyear.

“What, Norbert’s a girl? How can yeh tell?” Hagrid on the other hand is shocked hearing what Megan said about Norbert’s gender.

“Males calm, females fierce.” Megan says with confidence.

“Well guess I hav’ ter call yeh Norberta from now.” Hagrid says as he tries to scratch the dragons chin. Norberta snaps at his fingers but Hagrid just laughs it off.

“Why are you calmly talking about the dragon that just tried to kill Mira?!” Hannah yells at Hagrid, angry at how he seemed to have no care towards Almira’s life.

“Calm down lassie, it was jus’ playing with her. Besides, yer frien’ can take care of Fluffy, so wha’ coul’ a little baby dragon do? At least a Norberta only has one head ter look out for.” Hagrid tries to calm her down.

“Only one head? What do you mean by only one head? Does Fluffy have more than one head?” Instead of calming down, Hannah starts asking about Hagrid’s slip concerning Fluffy, the ‘dog’ Almira has been spending time with.

“Three-headed dog?” Megan joins in, voicing her thoughts.

“Three-headed dog? That’s a five X rated beast, the same as dragons!” Susan yells, before turning to Almira. “Just the other day you said you taught it to give its paw! Why are you teaching it like a normal housedog? It should be the size of a small house!”

“Because it’s cute?” Almira answers while tilting her head, making her friends instantly calm down as they don’t know how to respond to that. They then remember how Almira’s been describing her playtime with Fluffy and decide it’s probably not worth it for them to worry about it.

“Fine then, we’ll put the topic on Fluffy aside for now, but why is there a baby dragon here? You do know that breeding dragons is illegal and can get you sent to Azkaban?” Susan says the first part to Almira, but then turns to look at Hagrid and the “small” dragon.

“Won her in a game o’ cards three weeks ago. Sadly, can’ keep her. She’ll move to Romania ter Weasleys soon.” Hagrid says as he hugs the struggling Norberta in his arms.

“Weasleys, cooperate. Take good care.” Meagan says, indicating that her family works together with Weasleys and that they take good care of dragons.

Almira and her friends exchange few more words with Hagrid, before heading back to the castle and towards their room.

“Can you keep the dragon a secret? I don’t want Hagrid to get in trouble.” Almira asks her friends as they reach their room, while using her most effective puppy eyes.

“I don’t see a problem with it. What about you Hannah?” Susan answers and turns towards Hannah. “It’s a dragon Mira. I can’t jus-“ Hannah starts, but stops as she sees water gathering in Almira’s eyes. “Fine, fine! I mean the dragon’s going away soon anyway.” She gives in and the water in Almira’s eyes dries away, as if magic.

“Together, meet with Fluffy.” Megan voices her demands even before Almira has the change to turn her eyes towards her, to which Almira happily agrees and then proceeds to hug her friends with a wide smile on her face.