Chapter 5
„Granger!“
Hermione groaned and turned away from the voice, burying her face into the soft pillow.
“Granger!” A little louder and when a hand was shaking her shoulder firmly, she finally opened her eyes, frowning deeply. She turned back around again and Draco, his wand alight with Lumos and broom in hand, stood there bent over her bed. “Come on,” he whispered and quietly left the dorm.
With an envious look at the other girls, who were still sleeping soundly, she followed him into the common room.
“What in the world are you doing, Malfoy? What time is it?”
“Screech a little louder, will you?” He grinned. “It’s two o’clock,” he then informed her, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Hermione had so many questions. After a moment, her tired brain settled for “Why do you have a broom?”
“Because that was the only way to get into the girls’ dormitory. The stairs become slides when boys try to get in. And yes, first years are not allowed to have a broom, but I had it shrunk in my luggage, for emergencies.”
“Emergencies?” She echoed dumbly. “What emergency?”
“Waking you up, as it turned out.”
For a moment she wondered whether she should question her own sanity instead of his, but the moment passed.
“Draco, just tell me what you want.”
“I want to see what they have in the forbidden section of the library and Severus refuses to give me a permission sheet.”
For the briefest of moments, her curiosity peaked, but that moment passed, too. “You want to sneak into the forbidden section of the library in the middle of the night? Have you lost your bloody mind? Imagine how many house points we’ll lose, if we are caught outside after curfew, let alone in the forbidden section! Snape is going to kill us!” Despite the many house points Hermione and Draco alone had made, somehow Potter seemed to receive house points for the bare act of breathing and therefore Gryffindor was so close to Slytherin that they still had a good chance of winning.
“Then we shouldn’t get caught.” He grinned at her broadly. “Come on, Granger, we’ve been on our best behaviour all year. It’s time to live a little.”
She stared at him. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” With that, he turned around and walked towards the entrance. He had left the broom under one of the sofas.
Obviously, there was no way of stopping him, so her best option was to follow and try to make sure he wouldn’t be caught. That was thin logic at best, but what was she to do? Go back to bed and hope that he wouldn’t have the guts to go alone?
With a heavy sigh, she followed him. “How can someone so smart be so stupid?”
“Hush now.” The entrance opened and they quietly left their common room and stepped into the dark corridor, only lit by Draco’s wand. Hermione realised she didn’t have hers, but it was not like she could just stun a teacher or Filch, if they were caught.
They snuck upstairs towards the library, until they suddenly heard a noise. “Nox,” Draco whispered, barely audible, and the light on his wand went out. They stood perfectly still and listened.
Hermione was ready to hyperventilate. Snape would kill them and he would be well in his right to do so. But it wasn’t a teacher.
“Harry, I can’t see.” That was Weasley’s voice!
“Lumos.” Potter this time.
There was a faint light on the stairs to their right. She couldn’t see Harry Potter or Ron Weasley, though. It was … a weird sight. As if …
She felt Draco’s mouth almost on her ear, his breath tickling her. “Invisibility cloak,” he whispered so quietly only she could hear.
Yes, as if they were invisible! The light that obviously came from Potter’s wand, was dimmed and seemed to float in the air. She longed to ask Draco all about invisibility cloaks, but now wasn’t the time and what mattered was in the name: A cloak that made its wearer invisible.
When the light had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, Hermione started to walk again and Draco followed. The library was forgotten now. Instead, they followed Potter and Weasley.
It wasn’t a hard thing to do. They just had to be careful with their steps as they were walking in complete darkness, following a dimmed spot of light some distance away.
When they were downstairs, one of the double doors, the entrance to the castle, opened just a slit and the light went outside and the door closed. Hermione didn’t immediately follow, but went to the next best window, followed by Draco, from where they could easily see that the light went towards the hut of the gamekeeper, Hagrid.
“What are they doing there in the middle of the night?” Draco whispered incredulously. “It’s not like they can’t visit the big oaf during the day.”
Hermione had to agree. That was weird. “Wait until they’re inside, then we follow.”
She couldn’t see it, but she knew Draco grinned at her. “Getting adventurous, Granger?”
As quickly as they could without using Lumos and giving themselves away as the other two had, they made their way to the hut and approached it with crouched steps. One of the windows was open just a bit, so they could hear them talk. Something about a certain Norbert. Hermione didn’t know a Norbert.
Then they heard a screech which decidedly did not sound human and exchanged a startled look. It wasn’t completely dark out here since some light from the windows lit up the areas around the hut. Hermione could see her own surprise reflected on Draco’s face.
“I have good news, Hagrid,” Weasley now said, sounding excited. “I got a letter from Charlie and some of his friends are going to pick Norbert up Saturday at midnight. We’ll meet them on the Astronomy Tower and they’ll bring him to the Sanctuary where Charlie works.”
Hagrid sniffed. “Oh, I’ll miss the little rascal.”
Hermione stared at Draco and her lips formed the word “Sanctuary?” He just shrugged and slowly, carefully, raised his head a little to risk a short look into the window. Immediately he dropped down again, eyes wide.
“What?” Hermione’s lips formed soundlessly.
He gestured for her to follow and quickly, quietly, they went back into the castle. Without saying a word and making any unnecessary noises, they made their way back into the dungeons and when the entrance to the Slytherin common room closed behind them, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.
Her moment of relief was interrupted by Draco’s voice. “It’s a bloody dragon!”
She stared at him. “What?” What was he on about now?
“A dragon! A baby dragon!”
She sat down on an armchair next to the cold fireplace and Draco followed her example. “Do you know what that means?” Hermione asked.
“They’re all bloody bonkers?”
A smile formed on her lips. “No, you idiot. We are going to win the House Cup!”
Draco understood immediately and grinned. “We just have to catch them red-handed and …”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Again, how can someone so smart be so stupid?” This time around, he looked offended. “We don’t catch them at all or we’ll lose just as many points as Gryffindor for being outside after curfew. Tomorrow, we’ll tell Professor Snape that we overheard them talking about being out on Saturday around midnight and let him catch them.”
“You’re brilliant, Granger.”
“Good of you to notice.”
They both laughed.
“You know what I don’t get? Why don’t they just say that the oaf somehow found a baby dragon or a dragon egg that hatched and now someone is going to pick the dragon up to bring him to a Sanctuary? That’s the reasonable thing to do, no one in their right mind would stop them.”
“That’s because they’re idiots, all three of them.” Yes, Hermione liked Hagrid, but he wasn’t the brightest candle on the cake nor the most responsible adult in the castle.
“A dragon?” Snape stared at the two students before him after they had finished their story. They had kept it simple: Potter and Weasley had thought themselves alone and had talked about how on Saturday at midnight someone was going to pick up a dragon baby, which somehow had come into Hagrid’s possession, from the highest tower of the castle. For that they wanted to use an invisibility cloak. “You know I’d think you two were crazy, or Potter and Weasley for that matter, but knowing Hagrid, this isn’t even unlikely. I’ll be making rounds that night. Go on now.”
Draco turned to leave, but Hermione hesitated.
Snape raised an eyebrow at her. “Anything else, Miss Granger?”
“Yes, Sir. What will happen to the dragon?” Going to a Sanctuary would be the best and safest thing for the creature and after thinking the matter through again, she did feel bad for possibly having prevented that.
Snape looked resigned. “After catching Potter and Weasley, I’ll personally deliver the beast to the Astronomy Tower. It’s not like we need a dragon here or the trouble it will bring, if we report it. If there indeed is a dragon,” he drawled. “Happy?”
“Yes, Sir.”
She indeed was. With some amusement, she noticed that her Head of House didn’t seem inclined to check Hagrid’s hut for the dragon before Potter and Weasley would try to smuggle him through the castle at night.
On Sunday morning, they all went to breakfast and the first thing Hermione did – and so did Draco obviously – was checking the hourglasses showing the house points. Gryffindor had lost 100 points!
“Wow, what did they do?” Theo had noticed, too. “They were head-to-head with us yesterday.
Draco ginned smugly at his friend. “We’ll tell you later.”
“You know?” Pansy asked and they both just nodded, grinning like idiots.
~tbc~