Forgotten Memories

Y/N’s time spent at Hogwarts hasn’t been too eventful, excluding the troll attack that left her disabled for a small amount of time. But that was before she had her Gryffindor trio. Now, she would spend her evenings with them, talking about anything and everything. She still spent time with Natalia, but, understandably, Natalia had friends outside of Y/N that she was far closer to. They would talk about their days at night in their dorm, all the gossip Natalia had gotten from her other Pureblood friends, how the classes they didn’t have together were going, whatever they thought of. Kit was as mysterious as ever, the knowing looks he gave Y/N when he sensed she was going to cause trouble, his disapproving glares when she came back having lost house points, he was just as odd as the day she got him, and she loved him for it.

The first week after she had read about Nicholas Flamel, she totally forgot to send Hermione an owl, but remembered when the boys had asked her if she wanted to bug Hagrid about Flamel. Hermione came back to Hogwarts a day before term was to start. She had said she had gotten Y/N’s owl, and remembered reading a book about the work of Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel’s alchemy work, and she got straight to trying to figure out which book it was. In Hermione’s words, she was ‘glad at least one person was looking for information about Flamel.’

School picked up again once the holiday break had ended and it was back to searching for more about Flamel in the library during their break periods. Their time to research was restricted due to the fact that school had started, but also now that Harry had Quidditch practice, he had less time than the rest of them to look.

A few weeks after break had ended, Hermione had finally remembered the book that talked about Nicholas Flamel. She notified Y/N of her findings and the Gryffindors and Y/N rushed to meet at the library. Since they weren’t in the same house, they couldn't exactly discuss things in the comfort of their common room.

“I checked this book out weeks ago for a bit of light reading! How could I have been so stupid! Of course it was in here!” Hermione bemoaned.

“This is light?” Ron looked at her with disbelief. Hermione just hushed him and Y/N jokingly flicked his forehead with a smug look. Harry snickered and Ron glared at her as he rubbed his forehead.

“Aha!” Hermione muttered gleefully, “Look! Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone!” She exclaimed, pointing at the sentence in the book.

The boys looked at Hermione confused, and Y/N’s eyes lit up.

“I remember reading something about the Philosopher’s stone over the break! Ah, to think I was so close to finding out.” The girl sighed in fake sadness.

“The what?” Harry and Ron asked at the same time.

“Ugh, honestly! Can’t you guys read? Here, read this.” Hermione complained and pushed the book in their direction while Y/N leaned over Harry’s shoulder to see what it said:

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. 

There have been many reports of the Philosopher’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera-lover. Mr Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

“Did you read it all?” Hermione asked. The boys and Y/N nodded. “The dog has to be guarding the stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to protect it because he knew someone was after it and needed it somewhere safe. That’s why the stone was moved from Gringotts!”

“A stone that makes gold—” Harry was cut off by Y/N.

“It doesn’t ‘make’ gold.” She said, putting air quotes around make, “It turns metals into gold. You’d have to have metal to transform into gold first.”

Harry rolled his eyes and continued, “And not to mention the stone makes you immortal! No wonder Snape wants it! Who wouldn’t!”

“Now hold on, Harry. This makes no sense. I get that a bunch of people would want to live forever or something, but why would Snape? He always looks so depressed and seems like he’s waiting for death to take him.” Y/N says, with a dead-serious face.

Hermione tries to hide her giggles, but Ron and Harry burst out into laughter. They obviously get yelled at by Madam Pince, and try to quiet down, but they’re quite amused.

Ron clears his throat and pushes down his laughter, “No wonder we couldn’t find Flamel in Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. Six hundred and sixty-five isn’t exactly recent, is it?”

For the past few days Harry has been becoming more nervous for his upcoming Quidditch match. He had told Y/N the referee was Snape, and while she believed Snape was innocent on the count of ‘trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone’, she couldn’t deny the fact that it was a Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff  match, and him being the referee didn’t seem too fair, given his obvious bias against Gryffindor.

The day of the match Ron, Hermione, and Y/N had met Harry outside of the Gryffindor changing rooms to wish him luck. As they were walking away to find their seats in the stands, Y/N stayed behind to reassure Harry.

“Don’t worry Harry, you’re going to do great. I know it." She placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a warm smile.

The girl then rushed to her seat in the Ravenclaw section as the match was about to start. Once the match had started, just like every other game she had attended, Y/N started daydreaming. She wasn’t paying too much attention to the match, maybe a quick glance to Harry here and there, but she eventually just went back to spacing out. Quidditch wasn’t that interesting to her, after all. She honestly was just there to support Harry, but when the match had ended five minutes in, she jumped up in surprise and screamed for Gryffindor.

The next day in the Great Hall, Y/N joined the Gryffindors for breakfast.

“I didn’t get to say this yesterday because everyone was in a rush, but congratulations on your win yesterday Harry, you have to have set a record or something. That catch was wicked!” Y/N fumbles to say, she was too excited to think properly.

“Thanks, but I have something to tell you.” Harry whispers to her, “This has to stay between us. I already told Hermione and Ron,” he gives them a glance and they nod at him. “Yesterday I overheard Snape and Quirrell, and we were right. It is the Philosopher’s Stone that’s being guarded. Snape was arguing with Quirrell, he was trying to force Quirrell to help him get the Stone. Snape asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy. Something about Quirrell’s “hocus pocus” was said, we think there ought to be other things protecting the Stone, like enchantments or something. There has to be some anti-Dark Arts spell that Quirrell did that Snape needs to break in order to get to the Stone.”

Y/N is quiet for a minute. She has been defending Snape all year, but hearing about this intervention really does pile a lot of evidence against him. “I really want to believe it is Snape that’s after the Stone, but that would be too easy. Quirrell is just as suspicious to me as Snape. You only heard so much of the conversation, right? How do we know that wasn’t Snape confronting Quirrell because he was after the Stone?” She sighs, “I’m going to try my hardest to believe that it’s Snape after the stone, because you guys strongly agree that it’s him, but if I turn out to be right, you all owe me something.”

“We won’t have to worry about owing you anything, then. Because we know that it is Snape.” Ron says snarkily.

“Yeah, alright, but don’t be upset when I turn out to be right.” Y/N retorts with a smirk. “Now, on a more serious note, if Quirrell is, allegedly, the only thing preventing Snape from getting to the Stone, then it’s not very safe…”

They all nodded in agreement.

In the following weeks, The four of them had been paying close attention to Quirrell. Just in case he had cracked and told Snape how to undo the anti-Dark Arts charm. While he was braver than they thought, he still seemed to be getting closer to his breaking point. In recent weeks, he seemed paler, thinner, and his eyes looked sunken in. They had made a pact to always check the third-floor corridor and make sure that Fluffy was awake and guarding the Stone properly. Snape was still in a foul mood every time they passed him, which had to be an indication that the Stone wasn’t in his possession.

Y/N regarded Quirrell the same way she had been all year, with suspicion. But now, she had extended that same courtesy to Snape. The boy started trying to encourage Quirrell, and Ron told off any and every student he heard make fun of Quirrell’s stutter.

Hermione’s focus shifted to something more important than the Stone. She started colour coding her notes and making revision time tables. She started nagging the other three to do the same, which started to bother Ron and Harry greatly. Y/N didn’t mind, and she joined Hermione. ‘Maybe it’ll help with my organisation.’ She told herself.

“Exams are ages away, I can prepare later.” Ron said as he waved her off.

“Actually, they’re exactly ten weeks away.” Hermione snapped, “Ages away was Christmas break. Ten weeks is nothing compared to Nicholas Flamel!”

“But we aren’t six hundred years old, Hermione.” Ron said. “What’s the point in revising anyway? You already know it all.”

“What’s the point in me revising?” Hermione sputtered, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Have you lost it? You do know that we need to pass our exams in order to get into Second-year, right? I should’ve started studying a month ago..”

Despite the boys thinking that studying for exams ten weeks in advance was useless, the teachers seemed to think the same thing as Hermione. No matter the class, work was piled onto the students to prepare for exam season. Needless to say, Easter break had much more homework than Christmas break. Most of Y/N’s time was spent with Hermione and the boys. While she and Hermione were practising spells, reciting potion recipes, and memorising the twelve uses of dragon blood, the boys moaned about all the extra work they had to finish.

One particular afternoon was especially hard for Ron. “I’ll never remember all of this!” His outburst had led to Madam Pince shushing him and Y/N having to go to the bathroom to wash her face. In his bout of frustration, he had thrown his quill in her direction by accident, leaving her with ink on her face and even some on her robes. He had apologised thrice over, but she reassured him it was fine as she stood up and left for the bathrooms.

When Y/N got back, she was surprised to see the trio talking to Hagrid. “Hey guys, what are you talking about?” She asked.

Hagrid jumped at her sudden appearance, “Oh, er, hello Y/N!”

“What have you got there, Hagrid?” She asks quietly, noticing the quietness of Hagrid’s voice.

“Nothin’ of yer concern, don’ worry ‘bout it! Now, I can’t promise I’ll tell yeh anythin’” But before Hagrid could finish what he was saying, Harry cut him off.

“We’ll see you later, then, Hagrid.”

Hagrid left the library as subtly as possible.

“Did you see what he was hiding behind his back?” Asked Hermione.

“Yeah, I did,” Y/N responded, “I got a quick glimpse, at least. He had a book, I didn’t quite see what it was about, though.” She whispered. While she was curious as to what Hagrid was up to, he was probably being quiet for a reason, and she wanted to respect that.

“Do you think it had something to do with the stone?” Hermione said, thinking out loud.

“I dunno, but I’m going to look in the section Hagrid was in.” Ron said, clearly using it as an excuse to stop doing his work.

“You’d think after spending this many months around Hermione he’d get used to the work. It’s not even that hard!” Y/N joked

Hermione giggled while Harry just scratched the back of his neck nervously; he was in the same boat as Ron, but he didn’t find as many excuses as Ron did to not do his homework. It’d been about three minutes, and Ron came back with a stack of books, and dropped them onto the table, making a loud ‘BAM’ echo throughout the rather quiet library.

“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day where Ron walked up to us with a stack of books!” Y/N exclaimed, teasing Ron with a smug grin. He waved a hand in her face with a scrunched up nose, obviously unamused.

“Look! Hagrid was looking for books about dragons!” Ron exclaimed while whispering. Ron read out some of the titles he’d grabbed from the section Hagrid was in, otherwise known as the dragon section.

‘I wonder why Hagrid was looking in the dragon section. Isn’t it illegal for wizards to own dragons?’ Y/N thought to herself as she looked at the covers of one particular book, From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper’s Guide.

“Hey, guys,” Y/N whispered, “you don’t think that Hagrid has a dragon, do you? This stack has a guide on dragon care, it gave me the idea that he might be hiding one.”

“I mean, the first time I met Hagrid, he told me he’s always wanted a dragon. The possibility of owning one, though, I don’t know.” Harry responded, just as quiet.

“It’s against wizarding laws to own one.” Ron said, “Dragon-breeding has been outlawed since 1709, everybody knows that. Dragons are kind of a liability to keeping wizard-kind hidden from Muggles. Besides, dragons are dangerous; they’re untameable. You should see the burns Charlie got from the wild ones in Romania.”

“Aren’t there wild dragons in Britain?” Harry asked.

“Yep, Common Welsh Green and Herbridean Blacks.” Ron proudly said, “The Ministry has tons of people to keep them hidden from Muggles. Our lot have to do bunches of spells on Muggles to stay hidden, especially spells to make people forget what they’ve seen.”

Hermione mumbles, just loud enough for the other three to hear her, “What on earth is Hagrid doing?”

 An hour later, the group had set out for Hagrid’s hut.

‘All the curtains are closed. Hagrid has to be up to something, I just know it!’ Y/N thought.

Knock knock knock

“Who is it?” Hagrid grunted out. He saw the group of students and let them in quickly. The first step they took into the hut the group noticed how unbelievably hot it was. It was a hot day, so there was no reason to have a fire blazing, yet there was one going.

“Thank you.” Y/N thanked Hagrid for the tea he made, but she refused the sandwich like the others.

“So.. yeh had somethin’ ter ask me?” Hagrid sighed.

“Yes,” Harry said, “We know about the Philosopher’s Stone, we want to know if you would tell us more. We already know Fluffy’s guarding it.”

Y/N could see the frown on Hagrid’s face, but it was something in his eyes that made her disappointed in herself for pestering him about the stone.

“I can’t.” he grumbled, “One, I wasn’ told much meself. Two, I really shouldn’ tell yeh anymore than yeh already know. Yeh know too much. The stone’s here fer a reason. Yeh shouldn’ even know abou’ Fluffy, don’ know how yeh even found out abou’ him.”

“Come on Hagrid, please.” Y/N begged, dragging out the ‘please’.

“Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know everything that happens at Hogwarts,” Hermione said in a flattering voice. It was working, as they noticed Hagrid’s mouth twitch into a smile. “We only wanted to know who was doing the guarding, anyways. We wondered who Dumbledore trusted enough other than you to help him.”

Hagrid grinned with pride, and the group knew they were in. They beamed at Hermione’s talent of flattery.

“S’pose it wouldn’ hurt ter tell yeh that.. Hm.. yeh already know he has Fluffy.. Some o’ the teachers did enchantments, Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall–” Hagrid listed the teachers from memory on his fingers, “Professor Quirrell, an’ Dumbledore did somethin, as should be expected.. Hold on, I’ve forgotten someone…” Hagrid trailed off trying to remember, “Oh, yeah, Professor Snape.”

“Snape?” The Golden Trio said incredulously.

“HAH! I told you so! You all owe me something!” Y/N snickered at the faces they were making. The thought of Snape protecting the stone shocked them to their core, apparently, even though she had been trying to tell them all these months it wasn’t him. Though, that does beg the question, if it isn’t Snape, and it isn’t Quirrell—as he was one of the listed teachers who are protecting the stone—then just who is after the stone?

“Yer not still on abou’ him, are yeh? Snape is one of the teachers protectin’ the stone, he’s not abou’ ter go an’ snatch it.”

While Y/N was being smug, she noticed the trio all had the same look on their faces, and that worried her. It was almost like they were thinking the same thing. ‘No way they’re thinking what I think they are, right?’ Y/N sighed and deadpanned at them. Despite the faith she put in them, she doubted they’d give up on the Snape theory that easily. After all, she’d been trying to convince them for months that it wasn’t him and they never listened to her.

“You’re the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy?” Harry asked, sounding more like he was stating it. He looked excited, like a kid in a candy shop. “And you wouldn’t tell anyone how to get past him, not even a teacher? Does Dumbledore know?”

Hagrid blinked at Harry, “Of course Dumbledore knows! He’s the reason Fluffy is here at Hogwarts! I wouldn’ tell anyone else how ter get past Fluffy, not one soul.”

“Interesting,” Mumbled Harry, obviously in deep thought about something.

“Is it just me or does anyone else feel a little warm?” Y/N asked while fanning her face, a sweat drop slid down her temple, emphasizing her question.

Nodding in agreement, Harry asked “No, I agree, it’s boiling in here, can we crack a window, Hagrid?”

“No can do,” Hagrid looked over at the fireplace. 

Y/N’s eyes followed Hagrid’s and she gasped, “Hagrid…”

“Blimey, Hagrid! Where did you get a dragon egg?” Ron asked as he got up and started approaching the fire.

“Er, well, I won it las’ night in the village. Was playin’ a card game with a stranger, he looked happy ter be free of it, if ‘m bein’ honest.” Hagrid said while scratching his beard and looking at the large, onyx coloured egg in the fire.

“What are you going to do with it when it hatches, Hagrid?” Hermione questioned with furrowed brows, she seemed to be confused.

“I’ve been readin’ up on ‘em,” Hagrid grunted as he pulled out a large book from inside his pillowcase and dusted off the title, Dragon-Breeding for Pleasure and Profit. Y/N blinked rapidly at the book in the gentle giant’s hands, did he plan on profiting from this unique situation?

“Hagrid, I know you said you’ve been reading, but, you don’t mean you’re trying to profit from this, right? Dragons are dangerous, what if you get hurt?” She sighed with a concerned look.

Hagrid sputtered and her friends side-eyed her harshness, “Of course he doesn’t plan to profit off this dragon, can’t you see the look in his eyes? He obviously wants to care for this dragon.” Hermione scoffed. ‘Jeez, didn’t think that would strike a cord with them..’

“Er, this book’s a bit.. old, but it’s got some useful stuff in ‘ere. Keep the egg warm an’ in fire ‘cause the mother breathes on it, feed it with a bucket o’ brandy an’ chicken blood every thirty minutes. Oh, an’ see this page here, it tells yer how to identify diff’rent dragon eggs. This ones a Norwegian Ridgeback, rather rare, they are.” Hagrid talked about dragons with a shine in his eyes that can only be described as warm and passionate. While her fears about Hagrid getting hurt hadn’t eased, Y/N realized that Hagrid just isn’t the type of person to breed rare and dangerous animals for profit. It was quite insulting to assume he would do that, as that is what many poachers do, and Hagrid is not a poacher.

“I apologize for what I asked, Hagrid. I now realize what I was insinuating, I do hope you’ll forgive me.” Y/N said with a huff of frustration, not with Hagrid, but herself.

“It's alrigh’ didn’ take it ter heart, yer only concerned fer a beast. I can respec’ that.”

“I would hate to interrupt this heartwarming moment, and I am happy that you’re happy, Hagrid. But you do remember that you live in a house made of wood, right?” Hermione asked, but Hagrid didn’t hear her. He was busy happily humming a tune as he put more wood in the fire.

Hermione had started making revision tables for the four of them to do, and while Y/N didn’t mind them, the boys certainly did.

“Wonder what it's like to have fun.” Ron grumbled under his breath. This was the fourth time Ron had said something snarky under his breath while doing work and it was starting to irritate Y/N.

“Come on Ron. Hermione took time out of her days to not only make herself revision tables, but us as well! Be grateful! You won’t regret revising when you get good scores, also it’s getting distracting. Stop.” The girl huffed as she went back to going over the potions sheet, focusing on the potion that had her stumped all year: Wiggenweld. In theory it isn’t a difficult potion, some Dittany here, Flobberworm mucus there, and Violà, you have a potion! Y/N’s sure that it is the amount of stirs you have to do and when you change from clockwise to counter-clockwise! She always loses count halfway through and has to guess how many times she stirred before changing directions, it doesn’t help that Snape isn’t kind to her when he sees her failed potions.

The bells rang, signaling the period had ended, but as it was a Friday Y/N had the rest of the day with free periods. It was well deserved after she had managed to stay awake during Professor Bins’ entire lecture from start to finish. She waved goodbye to Harry and Ron when they stood up to go to their last period of the day. She was fortunate to have three classes on Fridays and the rest of the day off, but the boys weren’t so lucky. Her and Hermione stayed in the library till it was dinner time and they had to go eat before curfew.

A few days later during breakfast Harry’s owl, Hedwig, delivered a note that was from Hagrid.

Peeking over Harry’s shoulder, Ron asked “What’s it say?”

“Two words,” Harry grinned, “It’s hatching.”

The three Gryffindor’s had Herbology and Y/N had Potions to get to after breakfast, but Ron wanted to skip and go down to Hagrid’s hut immediately. Hermione refused to listen to Ron’s begging.

“No, Ron. We’ll get in trouble and I refuse to allow you to skip! And that trouble is nothing compared to the trouble Hagrid could get in if he’s found out!” Hermione huffed, but she was interrupted before she could finish her sentence by Harry nudging her shoulder. Harry whispered a quick ‘shut up’ before discretely pointing behind him.

Y/N glared as she realized that Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks to eavesdrop on them. “Mind your own business, Malfoy. No one wants you here.” She snarled at him. After their flight lesson, Y/N had a newfound disdain for Draco. The way he spoke about Neville was unacceptable and frankly disgusting. There is no place for that kind of speech in Hogwarts.

Malfoy snarled right back at Y/N, but he had a mischievous look on his face that no one in the group liked.

“You don’t think he heard about,” Ron looked around and checked for anyone else who might be eavesdropping on their conversation, “the dragon?” he whispered to them.

“I don’t know, but we’ll have to be careful speaking in public from now on.” Harry spoke suspiciously. Hermione sighed at his response and waved to Y/N as she dragged the boys with her to their morning Herbology lesson.

Potions class wasn’t anything necessarily interesting, just review for exams season and reading up on potions ingredients. After the class was let out Y/N met up with the three Gryffindors and ran down to Hagrid’s Hut at the edge of the forest.

“Hagrid!” Y/N yelled with delight as she ran to where he was outside of his hut, she beamed at him as she got closer.

Hagrid grinned at the group approaching and guided them inside, “Almost fully hatched, in you go!”

Inside the hut was rather warm as Hagrid had to keep the temperature up for the hatching Norwegian Ridgeback. On the table stood the mostly cracked egg, clicking noises came from inside. Y/N squealed as she watched something move from inside the egg, cracking it further and lightly popping the top up. While the others pulled up chairs to watch the egg hatch, Y/N stood bouncing on her toes and intently watching the egg. Her grin widened as her face got closer to the egg, a tiny dragon popped its head out from the warmth of its shell. It flopped out onto the table and a strangled noise came from the girl once again, causing Hagrid to chuckle as he cooed at the baby dragon. Despite the dragon being a baby, its wings were rather large for its body, the gorgeous black dragon had a long snout and adorable, wide, orange eyes with black slits for pupils. Tiny horns were protruding from the baby dragon’s head. It sneezed and tiny sparks came out, causing Y/N to flinch back as it was faced in her direction. The baby dragon starts to stumble towards Y/N, her eyes widen with surprise as she instead takes her hand and redirects it towards Hagrid.

As the dragon keeps stumbling towards Hagrid he coos once again and says, “Awww he knows his mummy, might think Y/N’s family.”

The girl blushes at the comment as she looks at Hermione, who had opened her mouth to ask something, “How fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, Hagrid?”

Hagrid took a sharp breath in as he was about to answer, all the colour had drained from his face. He abruptly stood up and rushed to the window.

“What, what is it, Hagrid?” Hermione asked, concerned for Hagrids sudden actions.

“Er, there was a kid starin’ through the crack of the curtains, he’s runnin’ back ter Hogwarts.” After Hagrid said that Harry ran to the door and out of the Hut.

“Oh no,” Harry groaned, pure dread on his face, “Malfoy saw the dragon.”

Hagrid had never looked worse than when he heard those words come out of Harry’s mouth.

After the dragon hatched Y/N felt ill whenever she was around Malfoy, he always looked smug when passing by the group of Gryffindors, but he looked especially nasty when passing Y/N.

“I dislike how Malfoy looks at me.” Y/N mumbled while rubbing her bicep with anxiety.

“Don’t we all?” Ron grumbled with disdain for Malfoy.

“No, he looks at me differently than he does you guys, it makes me feel ill.” She whispered, quieter than before as they walked up the steps into Hagrid’s Hut. For the past week the group had been attempting to get Hagrid to let the Ridgeback free. Harry and Hermione were already in the hut, but Ron and Y/N were busy with something else at the time the two Gryffindors had mentioned stopping by.

“Come on Hagrid.” Harry pleaded with Hagrid to let the Norwegian Ridgeback go.

“I just can’t, he’d die. He’s just a baby.” Hagrid replied, sounding sad. The dragon had grown three times the size since hatching and it was getting too big for Hagrid’s Hut. The dragon kept Hagrid busy night and day, he had stopped tending to his duties as Hogwarts’ groundskeeper and was more like a beast caretaker. His hut was a mess, empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers strewn about, on the floor, the table, wherever they could possibly be, they were there.

“I’ve started calling him Norbert, a play on his name.” Hagrid chuckled at his own joke(?) and turned to face the group, “He knows me now, I can feel it. He knows who his Mummy is! Come on, Norbert, where’s Mummy?”

“He’s gone mad.” Ron whispered with wide eyes.

Harry sighed and called out to Hagrid, “I know you love Norbert, but in a week or two he’s going to be too big for your house. You can’t keep him a secret forever, and who knows how you having a dragon will play out with the teachers and parents. Malfoy already knows, and who's to say he hasn’t already snitched to Dumbledore?”

Hagrid’s eyes welled up with tears at the thought of letting Norbert go, “I know—I know I can’t keep ‘im here forever. I jus’ don’ wan’ ter dump ‘im somewhere he doesn’ know.” His speech started to get less comprehensive and became slurred as he held back tears.

Harry spun around to Ron and immediately said, “Charlie!”

“No, I’m Ron. Remember? Have you gone mad too?” The boy furrowed his eyebrows, this caused Y/N to snort as she realized what Harry actually meant by ‘Charlie’.

“No, Ron, he means your brother Charlie.” Hermione said with her hand pinching her nose bridge. This reaction caused Y/N to burst out with laughter, tears of joy streaming down her face as she failed to contain it all.

Harry side-eyed Y/N and nodded in agreement with what Hermione had said, “Your brother is in Romania studying dragons, right? So we could send Norbert to him to take care of until it’s safe to release him into the wild!”

Ron muttered something about Harry being brilliant, and the group had persuaded Hagrid to allow them to send an owl to Charlie about Norbert.

The next week was a nightmare, to say the least. Norbert had bitten Ron and landed him in the Hospital Wing with a green hand that was twice its usual size, and Malfoy was threatening to tell Madam Promfrey what had really bitten him, as Ron had lied about it being a dog. Hermione and Harry were meeting up with some of Charlie’s friends on saturday night in the Astronomy tower to send Norbert to Romania with them, so there was only a few more days of suffering for the group and Norbert would finally be gone. It was Thursday when Ron landed in the Hospital Wing and when he had finally gotten out, Norbert was gone. The night didn’t go without a hitch, though.

“So you have detention with Neville and Malfoy, and you lost one-hundred and fifty house points?” Y/N sighed. Her and Ron were the only ones not jabbing and yelling at Harry for losing house points, as even the Hufflepuffs and other Ravenclaws were being vicious to him. Everyone at Hogwarts really hated Slytherin and wanted to see them beat, but this late in the school year one-hundred and fifty points lost put Gryffindor in last place and at an almost impossible spot to beat Slytherin.

Harry nodded with his head down staring at his food on the table. Wherever he went he was avoided, especially by Gryffindors. The group’s usual spot at the Gryffindor table was vacant of anyone but them, no one wanted to sit near the person who ruined their house's chance of winning. Some insults were yelled from the other end of the table and Y/N saw it was some older Gryffindor boys that were likely in fifth-year.

“Buzz off you twats!” Y/N yelled back at them, “He’s got it bad enough, what with serving detention and everyone isolating him. He doesn’t need childish insults thrown at him by immature hags who have no concept of empathy.” She started with a frustrated tone and glare. Harry smiled at her, an appreciative look on his face.

“Where is your guys’ detention anyway?” Ron asked while chewing on toast. Hermione gave him a disgusted look before responding.

“We don’t know, we’re just supposed to meet with Filch and he’ll take us to do whatever.”

While Hermione and Neville hadn’t had it as bad as Harry, they were still suffering. No one would speak to them and Hermione had to stop answering in class so as to not draw the attention of people who might torment her. Y/N genuinely felt bad for them, it wasn’t as if they had done something atrocious, and yet they were being treated as if they had murdered someone. She can understand being upset at the thought of Slytherin winning, hell even she was a tad bitter, but she wouldn’t go as far as to bully the people partially responsible for their win.

From that day forward, the trio had kept to themselves and Y/N joined them in their constant and quiet revisions. Some of her housemates weren’t too pleased with her, she had been defending Harry and Hermione once again when she got so frustrated she hexed an older kid to have boils. That lost her fifteen house points; Flitwick was none too pleased to see a Ravenclaw hexing another student in front of him, after all.

One day when Hermione and Y/N were testing Ron on his Astronomy knowledge, Harry ran into the library and quickly told them something concerning.

“He’s broke! Huff Snape got Quirrell to tell him how to break the Anti-Dark Magic spell! Huff”

“Slow down, Harry. How do you know?” asked Y/N with an unsettled look. She had been confused about who was after the stone ever since Hagrid mentioned Quirrell was guarding it as well as Snape. She never really believed it was Snape, anyways, but if it wasn’t Quirrell then there isn’t anyone else who she could think of who would want the stone. And even with her previous thoughts about Quirrell being after the stone, they were all just based off of her first impression with him and a small prejudice she had against people who smelled bad—as well as some damning evidence she gathered throughout the year of him trying to kill Harry, but still.

“Calm down, Harry. There’s still Fluffy and the other teacher’s protections.” Said Hermione, and though she acted calm, Y/N could tell by her body language and the look in her eyes that she wasn’t at all as calm as she wanted them to think.

“Snape has to have found out how to get past Fluffy if he also needed to get past the Anti-Dark Magic spell.” Y/N said, worry laced in her voice.

“Oh, so now you think it’s Snape?” Ron snarked at her. She glared at him before snapping at him.

“I don’t know who it is, Ron! And at this point, I might not care. All I know is that if anyone wants to get their hands on that stone, it has to be for a bad reason. Come on, Ron. A stone of immortality? Any bad guy would want that!”

The Gryffindors were stunned at her reaction, but understood her reservations at someone getting their hands on that stone. They didn’t know her past, but they knew that she hated the Dark Arts and everything about it. She was right about one thing, though, any bad guy would want that stone.

“Harry, go to Dumbledore about it. It should have been done ages ago, but we thought we could handle it when we clearly cannot. I don’t want to get expelled in my first year, and that’s surely what’ll happen if we do anything about this.” Hermione said after snapping out of her surprise with Y/N’s small outburst.

The other girl grumbled at this, “Who cares about rules at this point? We have to do something about it. No adult will believe us, it’s a known fact you guys hate Snape, and who believes children over adults? Why do you think I’ve heard Filch say ‘children should be seen, not heard’? That was rhetorical, by the way.”

Stunned at her response, Hermione sputtered, but Ron agreed with her, Harry, on the other hand, only agreed with not telling Dumbledore. “There’s no way Dumbledore will believe us. He’ll think we just want Snape sacked. Snape needs to be stopped, but it can’t be by us. We’ve done enough, there’s no way we’ll be able to explain how we know about Snape being after the stone, not to mention we aren’t even supposed to know about the stone orFluffy. We’ve no proof for anything we say.” Harry whispered, aware they were in the library surrounded by other students.

Hermione was convinced, but Y/N and Ron weren’t. Ron tried to voice his grievances, but Y/N stayed quiet with a far off look on her face.

The next morning Hermione and Harry found out more about their detention, more specifically that it will take place at eleven at night and they were to meet Filch in the Entrance Hall.

“Harry, do you still have your invisibility cloak?” Y/N asked before taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, why?”

“I’m going to join you guys in your detention.”

Harry and Hermione blinked at her before their jaws dropped. “Why—why would you do that?” Hermione had been stuttering a lot at Y/N’s words recently. Her personality, while still relatively the same, had changed quite a bit in the past few months, and it shocked Hermione.

“I don’t trust Filch. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he’s always grumbling about the old detention practices and being disappointed that he can’t ‘hang children by their feet to the ceiling’ anymore. He’s a freak, and I don’t trust him with you guys.” Y/N said matter-of-factly as if she wasn’t actively insulting Hogwarts’ caretaker.

Surprisingly, Harry allowed her to borrow the cloak, and that night she sneaked into the Entrance Hall a little after eleven o'clock so as to not risk getting caught and followed behind the group at a small distance. The detention group consisted of Malfoy, Neville, Harry, Hermione, and of course, Filch. She couldn’t hear exactly what Filch was saying, but he sounded delighted, and that was never a good sign.

They were approaching Hagrid’s Hut, she realized, and her heart became a little lighter at the thought of them serving their punishment with Hagrid. She got a little closer to hear what Filch was saying, but instead of her worry being washed away, her heart dropped once again.

Their detention was to be served in the Forbidden Forest.