Chapter 70
Chapter 70
At dinner, everyone continued expressing outrage on Neville’s behalf.
“Why didn’t you fight back?” Hermione asked. “If you had shouted, someone would have come to help.”
“I…” Neville lowered his head. “I was afraid.”
“Then Malfoy will keep bullying you!” Hermione’s small face grew stern. “Unless you resist in some effective way, the bullying will follow you everywhere. Does Malfoy dare bully Suer?”
Suer, who had been concentrating on dinner, looked up in confusion.
What snake would dare bully a badger? Anger a badger, and it could turn the snake into dinner in a hundred different ways.
For further evidence, consider the provocative Marcus Flint. That boy had already been turned into a walking display of women’s fashion.
Under Hermione’s gaze, Suer swallowed his mouthful of meat and nodded. “She’s right, Neville.”
“But I can’t beat him.” Neville looked down in discouragement. “I still can’t Transfigure a proper needle. I’m not brilliant like you and Hermione.”
“I’ve always thought I don’t belong in Gryffindor.”
“Don’t say that, Neville.” Ron spoke around an oily mouth, a chicken leg in one hand. “You did very well at the match before the holiday. Even without a wand, you charged straight into a fight with Malfoy and the others.”
“That proves you have courage.” Suer nodded. He had witnessed the incident. “You simply lack confidence.”
“Malfoy is nothing to fear.”
“You’re worth more than a dozen Malfoys,” Harry declared conclusively.
For the rest of dinner, Harry and Ron offered Neville suggestions, including putting a sack over Malfoy’s head and throwing him into the room with the three-headed dog.
Neville neither nodded nor shook his head.
As Suer left the Gryffindor table for his own dormitory, he considered the matter and said, “Have confidence, Neville. If you choose to fight back, come to me. I’ll help you.”
For the moment, however, Neville’s most important task was finishing the mountain of homework.
Even if their encouragement inspired him to cast a truly vicious curse at Malfoy, it would do no good.
Malfoy had been taken home by his governor father on the second day of the holiday.
Time quietly disappeared amid a lightless whirl of desperate homework.
On the morning of the first day after the holiday, an owl delivered Suer a letter. Two words had been scrawled across it:
“It’s hatching.”
At the end of the first History of Magic period, Suer tossed his book to a dormitory mate and openly walked from the classroom beneath Justin’s puzzled stare.
“Professor, I think I ate something bad.”
The universal excuse never failed.
Hagrid welcomed him with a glowing face. The hut was finally less hot. At Suer’s suggestion, Hagrid had commissioned an enormous box.
Truly enormous.
“Norbert tells me it loves its little house. It’s wriggling happily.”
Norbert was the name Hagrid had given the unborn dragon. Hagrid had settled into the role of an expectant mother well in advance. With enough Galleons in hand, he bought a vast collection of supplies, including barrels of brandy and the milk of unidentified magical creatures.
Suer had no idea how Hagrid could tell that an egg was happy, but the giant’s delight was harmless.
The black egg no longer burned in the flames. Hagrid had placed it upon a cushion stuffed with feathers from many magical birds. Suer recognised several kinds, including Occamy and Jobberknoll.
Crack.
The egg shivered upon the cushion. A faint fracture sounded, and an existing fissure widened.
“Oh, come on, my darling.” Hagrid clasped his hands into one enormous fist and stared nervously. “Mummy’s right here.”
As time passed, the cracks across the shell slowly grew.
Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived just before it broke.
“When did you get here?” Ron asked in surprise.
“Shh!” Suer stared fixedly at the egg. While Hagrid opened the door, it began rocking violently. “It’s almost out.”
Harry and Ron hurried closer. Five people crowded the table, though Hagrid accounted for more than half the mass.
Click… click…
The amusing clicks gave way to an ear-piercing scrape.
The shell split.
“So that’s what a dragon looks like.” Suer did not know how to describe the strange little thing that had crawled from the egg and now flapped upon the table.
Black, slimy and wet, it possessed several projections that might have been horns pointing straight into the air.
If he had to compare it with something…
It looked like a wrinkled black umbrella drenched and battered by a storm.
The four young wizards exchanged glances. Distaste was evident upon every face.
Whatever Suer and Hermione thought, Hagrid clearly possessed different standards of beauty.
“Merlin’s pants, it’s beautiful,” Hagrid murmured, his eyes overflowing with tender love. “Eat your shell, darling. Fill your tummy and grow up big and strong.”
“You won’t have time to see it grow up, Hagrid,” Hermione said severely. “In one week, it’ll be enormous. In another month, it’ll burst through your house.”
Hagrid did not listen. One thick finger gently stroked the dragon’s head.
“Oh, look!” Hagrid cried in delight as Norbert bit down upon that finger. “It recognises me. It knows I’m its mummy. Oh, my darling.”
Harry suddenly went pale. He sprang up and raced to the window.
Suer knew what had happened without asking. Malfoy must have followed Harry and the others to the hut and seen everything inside.
Sure enough…
“Malfoy,” Harry said gravely when he returned.
It was entirely predictable. Ron and the others discussed secrets so loudly that Suer sometimes wondered whether everyone except Malfoy suffered from poor hearing.
Hagrid left to prepare food for his baby. The three young wizards began an intense discussion and unanimously concluded that, after Malfoy’s discovery, sending the dragon away had become unavoidable.
Suer did not join them. He picked up a strip of wood from the floor and held it near Norbert.
Crack.
The wood snapped.
Remarkable. Such bite strength immediately after hatching.
He wanted to test those jaws further. Something on the bedside table caught his eye.
Of course! Rock cakes.
Which was harder: a newborn dragon or a rock cake?
The others finished their discussion. Hermione presented their conclusion while Harry and Ron nodded in support. Together, they began trying to persuade Hagrid.
But how could this doting “mother,” with his whole heart set on the baby, listen to reason at a moment like this?