Chapter 17
Evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting. Or Harry and Ron were at least.
Lucifer and Hermione were doing just fine in their Homework unit.
Hermione had noticed that Harry didn't bother to make revision timetables, so she made up some for him as well, but Lucifer noticed it was starting to drive him mad.
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One day, Hermione noticed Lucifer always went somewhere, after dinner for the past few days.
So, she decided to ask Harry, who also stayed at Hogwarts, during the break, maybe he knew something?
"Harry, I wanted to ask, if you have seen Lucifer going out at night, during the Christ-"
"Hermione, I don't know anything!"
"But, you haven't even listened, wha-
"I really swear! I haven't seen Lucifer hanging out with those Hufflepuffs at all. Please believe me!" After yelling such dangerous words, Harry immediately ran towards the stairs, and went to hide, inside his blanket, honestly.
"....." Hermione. 'It must be those two bimbos again...' She stared at the wand, in her right hand, with a menacing look on her face. 'I should teach.....those things, a very hard lesson.... won't even dare to look at my Lucifer again..'
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One morning at breakfast, Harry got a letter from Hagrid, which told them, to come down at his hut, asap.
As much as Ron didn't want to, they all skipped the rest of breakfast and ran down to Hagrid's hut.
"We better not miss Herbology because of this!" Hermione yelled, while they were busy running towards the hut.
Hagrid opened the door and ushered them in quickly, "It's nearly out!"
The egg was laying on the table. There were deep cracks in the egg; something was moving on the inside, indicating that there was indeed a dragon inside it.
A funny clicking noise could be heard from inside it.
They all drew up chairs and watched with bated breath. All at once, there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table.
It had spiny wings that were huge compared to its tiny jet black body, a long snout with wide nostrils, stubs of horns and long snout with wide nostrils, stubs of horns and bulging orange eyes.
After Hagrid had told them the egg was a Norwegian Ridgeback, Lucifer immediately recalled, what he read about them, their bite was extremely venomous.
It suddenly sneezed and a couple of sparks came flying out of its snout, hitting Hagrid's beard who began patting it vivaciously to put it out,
"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured.
"Why don't you check, if her teeths are beautiful too?" Lucifer politely encouraged, Hagrid to go even further, who already lost his marbles at this point of time, and tried to put his finger near...
Only, when he was about to get bitten, Hagrid went wide-eyed and the color drained from his face, which made Lucifer, think for a moment, if his plans were found out.
Only, Harry turned and saw that, he was looking at the window.
So, he immediately ran up to it, and then saw an identifiable head of platinum blonde hair.
Malfoy had seen the baby dragon.
Hermione hated the smug look on Draco Malfoy's face every time, she caught the Slytherin looking over at them, and wanted to punch it right off of his face, every time he got close.
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The four of them spent a lot of their free time, for a little while trying to reason with Hagrid that keeping the Ridgeback was a bad idea, "Just let him go, set him free," Harry urged him.
"I can't," was always Hagrid's response, "He's too little... he'd die."
But, Lucifer was quite gentle, and directly made him a nice offer, "I could always buy that baby dragon from Hagrid...."
"Don't tell me, you are still thinking about riding on that thing?!" Hermione was already going bonkers, just after imagining this horror, and she even mentally berated herself for letting him near that.
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But, Lucifer didn't listen to Hermione's orders at all, and stared at this Ridgeback, who wasn't as little as he once was just a week ago.
Smoke kept rising from its nostrils.
Hagrid's game-keeping duties had fallen behind due to the Dragon, keeping him occupied.
There were empty bottles of brandy and chicken feathers strewn about the floor.
"I've decided to call him Norbert," Hagrid said with misty eyes as he looked at the dragon.
He really did care for it, but that didn't mean, this was a good thing for him, "He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?"
"He's really lost his marbles," Ron muttered to them.
"Norbert is a girl...." Lucifer, tried to correct him for the umpteenth time.
But Hagrid, just ignored what he said.
"I'm telling you Hagrid, give it a fortnight and Norbert will be as long as your house," Harry said, trying to get him to see reason, "Malfoy could pay a visit to Dumbledore at any moment."
Hagrid bit his lip, but Lucifer thought, it wasn't easy to see his mouth with all the hair from his beard, "I - I know I can't keep him forever... but I can't jus' dump him, I can't."
Harry suddenly turned to Ron, "Charlie!" He said loudly.
"Potter is losing his shit too," Lucifer said, not catching on right away, "He is Weasely, remember?"
"No - Charlie - his brother, Charlie!" Harry turned to the other two, "In Romania, Ron told us he was studying Dragons!" He turned back to Ron, "We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!"
"Brilliant!" Ron said eagerly, "How about that, Hagrid?" He asked and the four of them looked up at him.
In the end, Hagrid agreed that they could send an Owl to Charlie to ask him.
As much as he liked the Dragon as well, it wasn't beneficial to anyone being so near to a bunch of students, even if the teachers were all powerful Witches and Wizards.
The following week dragged on horribly.
Wednesday night found Lucifer, Harry, and Hermione sitting without Ron in the Common Room, long after everyone else had gone to bed.
The clock on the wall had just chimed midnight when the Portrait hole burst open, when Ron appeared out of thin air as he pulled off Harry's Invisibility Cloak.
He had been down at Hagrid's, helping him feed Norbert dead rats, "It bit me!" Were the first words out of Ron's mouth.
Lucifer and Hermione started to laugh, after seeing Ron's paled face, who glared at the pair in the return.
But, the color also drained from Harry's face, who is Ron's best friend.
Because, he had also read that, Norwegian Ridgebacks bites were venomous, "Ron!" He shouted immediately, causing Lucifer's cat, Eve to meow angrily at him.
Before he could say more, there was a tapping on the window.
"Hedwig!" Harry said, dismissing his sudden outburst, "She'll have Charlie's answer" He went and let her in, reading the letter out loud:
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"Dear Ron,
How are you? Thanks for the letter-I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon.
Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at Midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's still dark out.
Send me an answer as soon as possible.
Love,
Charlie"
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After reading the letter, Harry looked up at them, "We've got the Invisibility Cloak!" he was getting excited again, "It shouldn't be too difficult - I think the Cloak's big enough to cover three of us and Norbert!"
Hermione was in agreement. After how the last week had gone, she'd agree to anything to get rid of Norbert.
But then, Harry also remembered, what happened to Ron, "Oh, Ron, you should really go to Madam Pomfrey!"
"Why?" Ron asked, sounding reluctant.
"Norwegian Ridgebacks are Venomous," was all he said.
The color then drained from Ron's face, who passed out upon hearing that.
The Venom must not be helping, either. "I'll take him to Pomfrey, you two get to bed," Lucifer said, while moving towards Ron, to help him get up.
It scared the headlights of both Harry and Hermione, who must have known, that Lucifer was up to no good.
While, Hermione's mood was very complicated, whether to stop him or not, but ended up choosing the former, she didn't want Lucifer to get in trouble because of Ron....but, it only made the boy pout at her in return.
But, Harry ignored them, he quickly went towards his best friend, and put the Cloak over, then ran all the way down to the Hospital Wing, losing the Cloak just outside the door so Madam Pomfrey didn't see it.
He called for her and she just came out, not even bothering to ask what happened.
The only question, Pomfrey did ask what the cause of injury was.
Harry told her that Ron had been bitten by something Venomous, she just sighed and went to get something, probably been used to this kind of behaviour a long time ago.
Then, Harry also figured, by her look, she'd seen it all by now and was desensitized to even bothering to ask questions.