allowed.'
'Really? Hagrid didn't say.' He gestured at the door. 'Do you wanna see it? It's just hatched.'
Curiosity warred with indignation on the Gryffindor's face.
'C'mon,' Harry wheedled. 'It's really neat.'
'All right,' Ron gave in. 'Where did Hagrid get a dragon egg anyway?' he asked as they went inside. 'They're supposed to be illegal.'
'Ah, well,' Hagrid said, seeing their newest guest. 'That's what I tol' the stranger las' night. He din't take it well, but he 'greed I could take the egg off his hands.' He grinned happily at the little creature, who promptly bit his thumb. 'Isn't he lovely? I think I'll call him Norbert.'
Hagrid spent the next few minutes feeding the dragon the bucket of blood and brandy, then trying to soothe the dragon from a case of indigestion, complete with bursts of alcohol-tinged flame.
'Maybe music'll work on little Norbert. Does wonders for Fluffy, it does.'
Harry plucked the flute Hagrid had given him for Christmas out of his back pocket, where he sometimes kept it, so he could play it when his spirits needed a lift. But when Harry put it to his lips and blew a few practice notes, the dragon tried to bite it and wrench it from his grasp. Harry managed to keep hold of his flute, but he put it away rather than try again. 'I don't think music will work this time, Hagrid.'
'Guess, not.'
Later, as the four students made their way back up to the castle, Ron said, 'Hagrid could get into serious trouble, you know. 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, and anyway, you can't tame dragons. It's dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's got off wild ones in Romania.'
'Charlie?' Millie asked.
'My brother. He works at a dragon preserve.'
'In Romania,' said Teddy, his face taking on his deep thinking expression.
'That's what I said,' said Ron, going a bit red in the cheeks.
'Which might be the best place for little Norbert, right?' Harry asked quickly.
'I think it would not be a bad idea to give Hagrid the opportunity to let the dragon go,' Teddy said. 'He's going to find out very quickly that it's hard to keep a fire-breathing dragon in a small, wooden hut.'
'Did you see how much it had grown in just an hour?' said Millie. 'That Norwegian Ridgeback will outstrip a niffler before the end of the night.'
'Niffler?' Harry whispered to her.
'Later,' she whispered back before saying more loudly, 'Whyn't you ask your brother if the preserve can take in another dragon, Weasley? That way, Hagrid won't get in any trouble and the little fella will have somewhere nice to grow up.'
Harry grinned at her. 'You're really taken with widdle Norbert, aren't you.'
Millie punched his arm. Hard. 'Yeah, as much as you fancy Fluffy.'
'Oh, eww.'
'Who's Fluffy?' Ron asked. 'Hagrid mentioned the name, too.'
Harry, Millie and Teddy exchanged glances. Teddy shrugged. 'Might as well tell him. It's not like it's that big a secret if
Harry nodded and beckoned Ron closer so he could speak softly, even though they were still a hundred feet from the castle doors. 'Fluffy is a cerberus. A three-headed hell hound. It's what's on the third floor, the reason we're all warned away from there.'
'A . . . a cerberus? In the school? Are they mental?'
'Quite probably,' said Teddy.
'But why? Why is there a hell hound on the third floor?'
'We figure it's guarding something,' Millie told him, which was the truth. But, after a flick of a glance at her fellow Slytherins, she added, 'We don't know what, though,' which was not, really.
Ron's face had gone all funny, like he was passing gas, but then Harry realized the other boy was thinking -- it was the same face he wore during their occasional chess games, specifically the ones in which Harry did better than usual (and sometimes won.) 'I wonder,' he said after a moment, 'if Hagrid has told anyone else what soothes 'Fluffy' to sleep.'
The three Slytherins exchanged another glance. It was a very good question.
--BETTER BE SLYTHERIN--
Almost two weeks later, when Norbert was the size of a large dog and had poison fangs to boot, having bitten Ron when he visited one afternoon, Harry and Teddy were heaving a crate full of dragon up many, many steps to the top of the highest tower of Hogwarts. The two of them and the crate were covered by Harry's Invisibility Cloak. Millie was their lookout and guide, since neither of them could see much more than their feet. She led them up to the tower's top by as quick a route as possible, and they tried very hard to keep quiet. It was nearly midnight, so they were in danger of being caught out of bounds, but it was only at night that Norbert could be transported by broom across British skies to Romania.
They were almost there. Everything seemed to be going splendidly, in fact, until . . .
'Well, well, well. We are in trouble, aren't we,' a nasty voice said, just as they reached a landing and could pause for a breath. Filch!
