Harry had tried to visit Hagrid on occasion during the first semester at Hogwarts but he still felt like he hadn't spent enough time with the half-giant since coming back to this timeline. Their relationship had been developing at a fair pace and Hagrid seemed a little less nervous around Harry this time around, likely because the boy wasn't constantly bugging him about the Philosopher's Stone. As he knocked on the door, he heard a shout of surprise from inside followed by clattering and clanging. Finally, Hagrid cracked open the door, just a little, and peered outside.
"Ah, hello Harry," he grinned nervously, "everything alright?"
"Um yeah," Harry said, trying to look around the large man, "Is everything ok?"
"O'Course! Nothing to see 'ere," Hagrid tried to edge himself around the door and close it behind him, but as he did, Harry saw a glimpse of a round purple object glowing above a fire. The cabin was sweltering hot, despite the harsh winter cold outside and all the curtains were drawn. That's when it hit him.
"Hagrid, is that a dragon's egg?" Harry said in faux surprise as he pushed his way in. Of course, he already knew the answer and was just trying to figure out how to get rid of it without upsetting Hagrid too much. After everything that had happened to him and Hermione at Hogwarts, Norbert seemed like such a small, forgettable incident.
"Well, er.." The groundskeeper let out a nervous laugh, "Yeah, I suppose you could say something like that."
"Hagrid! There's no way you can keep a dragon egg on school grounds, what if you get caught?"
"I know, Harry I know. But it's just a baby, can't do no harm, not really." Hagrid turned towards the egg and gave it a sad smile as he let Harry sit inside.
"It could sneeze and burn your house to the ground."
"Now don't go saying things like that, accidents happen," Hagrid happily added some dry wood to the pile - much to Harry's dismay.
"It won't be a baby forever, you can't keep a fully grown dragon in here," Harry tried to say as softly as possible. He knew how attached Hagrid was to such creatures and knew how it would devastate him to lose one.
A moment of silence passed. Hagrid let out a heavy sigh, "I know yer right Harry, it was mostly just wishful thinking. Can ye imagine? My very own dragon! And he's gonna need me, he's not got a mummy or anyone lookin' out for him." Harry smiled up at him, "Yeah that does sound cool, but you're risking a lot here Hagrid. What if Dumbledore found out? You'd have broken his trust.'' Hagrid's firm admiration of Dumbledore had never wavered, Harry knew mentioning him would have a greater effect than anything else. "You could lose your job, Hagrid."
"Yeah, yeah I know, I'll have to give him up," Hagrid began sniffling, "I jus' wish I knew he was gonna be in good hands."
"Well, maybe I can help," Harry smiled.
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The stands erupted; it had to be a record, no one could remember the Snitch being caught so quickly, no one but Harry and Hermione anyway. Almost instinctually Harry's first glance when the match started had gone straight to the snitch. He'd dived straight for it at such speed he looked as though he'd apparated. He looked over to a grinning Hermione sitting next to Neville - far from the fistfight ensuing between Draco and Ron; the redhead was clearly losing. The past couple of weeks since the Christmas holidays had been calm, Harry and Hermione spent time as normal students, enjoying themselves, practising with Oliver Wood, spending time with Hagrid, and taking their time before destroying the stone. It didn't feel like there was too much of a rush to destroy it - it was out of Voldemort's hands, Dumbledore didn't know they had it and they had no plans to use it; they had time. Speaking of the Headmaster, he was heading straight towards Harry as he lowered his broom to the ground.
"Well done," said Dumbledore quietly, so that only Harry could hear, patting him on the back. "Nice to see you haven't been brooding about that mirror... been keeping busy... excellent..." It took all of Harry's restraint not to turn around and break the old man's hand for touching him. While he'd made sure not to bump into Dumbledore again when visiting the Mirror of Erised, Harry was sure Dumbledore had some way of knowing he was visiting that room, even if Harry remained out of sight. Thankfully, the Gryffindor team quickly took hold of him, carrying him back to the locker rooms in preparation for the after-party. That was also new. Harry and Hermione could happily enjoy the party without worries about Nicholas Flamel or anything else. It seemed as though they had tied up all the loose ends for their first year, other than destroying the stone. Harry was stubbornly refusing to let Hermione show him what the watch could do - he was adamant he'd figure it out on his own.
Ron was pissed off. He had a broken nose, two weeks of detention, and no Harry Potter. The mudblood spent too much time with his best friend, but he was never able to get rid of her. The potions, the troll, the insults: none of it worked. Maybe he would have to try something else. He'd been trying to come up with a way of getting her kicked out of Hogwarts. He didn't care that she was a model student, he had to find a way.
Two days later, that way seemed to magically open itself up to him. Ron was happily making his way through breakfast when he was interrupted by the squawk of a tawny owl. It dropped a letter for him which he promptly ignored to continue digging through his breakfast, he could look at it after he was finished.
Harry though sat, joking and chatting with Seamus and Neville noticed the letter and recognised the owl as the one Charlie had used to send him a letter a day prior, informing him that Charlie's friends would be able to get the dragon out just as they had done last time. Both he and Hermione had been very careful, not to talk too loudly about it, so as not to alert Draco of what would happen. Though Draco had been fairly tame in this timeline, he would likely jump at any opportunity to get a Gryffindor in trouble. Harry looked straight over to Hermione, who had clearly also noticed the letter Ron received and had near zoned out of her conversation with Fay who hadn't seemed to notice Hermione's absent mind. They could only hope the contents of that letter didn't affect their plans for the evening.
Finally, Ron trudged up to his dorm. There were no classes for the day and a Hogwarts breakfast made him very drowsy. He flopped onto his bed and tore open the letter.
Dear Ron,
I hope you're well. Sorry I won't be able to see you tonight but my friends will be ready to meet you and Harry at the tallest tower at midnight. Next time, don't be worried about disturbing me at work - you can always write to your big brother whenever you need me, you don't need to go through your friend next time.
Make sure you're not caught and make sure not to get too close to the fangs, Ridgebacks are poisonous.
See you later,
Charlie.
Ron was confused. Why was Charlie writing to him? Why was he meeting Harry? And why would Ridgebacks be involved? Ron shot up from his bed. He could use this. What if he could make it seem like it was Hermione's dragon and she had forced Harry to join her in getting rid of it? If she was found with a dragon she would have to have her wand snapped, her memories wiped and be sent back home to her muggle family. All he had to do was warn McGonagall. Dumbledore would be sure to back him up. Harry would just seem like he was trying to cover for his friend. Everything would turn out fine.
Or so he thought.
This time, remembering to wear the cloak of course, Harry and Hermione returned down the staircase after having rid themselves and a very weepy Hagrid of Norbert's egg. A lot more relaxed now a scaly beast wasn't threatening to burn down their large friend's home, they began to head back to their dorms, nearly crashing into McGonagall berating a certain redhead.
"Mr. Weasley you have wasted a great deal of my time with your lies, I expect you in detention tomorrow night."
"But Professor, Hermione is coming. She has a dragon and she is forcing Harry to take it upstairs."
"That is enough, Mr Weasley. If you are not careful I will have to contact your parents. Mr Potter and Miss Granger are exceptional students and slandering them simply lessens my opinion of you. 50 points from Gryffindor and that will increase alongside your detention if you do not return to your dormitory immediately."
Ron scuttled away, utterly confused and unaware of the two causes of his problems rushing past trying to get to the dorms before he saw them out of bed. Without so much as a goodbye, they entered their respective rooms, drew their curtains and quickly got into bed. Ron came by five minutes later and checked behind Harry's closed curtains to find him sleeping like a baby. Perplexed, Ron fell into his own bed for a very disturbed sleep.
The next morning, when Harry awoke, he saw Ron rereading Charlie's letter. He quickly tried to come up with something to stop Ron from investigating further.
"Did you get one too?"
"One what?" Ron grunted, still not looking up from the paper he'd reread at least a hundred times that night.
"One of those prank letters. Someone's been sending letters to everyone and confusing them. I got one about a Chinese Fireball being delivered by Dumbledore to my cousin, Dudley. What does yours say?"
Ron, happy to notice that he and Harry were conversing without the mudblood in sight and that Harry had instigated the conversation replied, "It's stupid, something about a Ridgeback and my brother, but as if anyone would believe this tosh."
"Yeah, you should probably just ignore letters like that. Seems like someone here has time to waste."
"Yeah," Ron said trying to come up with something to say to continue the conversation. Before he could though, Harry had already jumped from his bed and left the room, hopeful that his lie had worked.
02/08/2023 - It's been wayyyy too long since my last update but I've had the most hectic time recently. Either way, I'm excited to get back into writing and finally finish updating this first year of Running. Thanks for sticking by if you're still here!
I think this chapter definitely improved on the last one - the Norbert storyline isn't so rushed anymore and I'm trying to make Ron a little less goofy and a little more vindictive - let me know what you think :)