Ron-Weasly book 1

The egg, riddled with deep cracks, lay on the table. Something was moving inside, tapping on the shell. We arrived on time. A couple more minutes and the whole shell would have been broken.

We pulled chairs up to the table and sat down, holding our breath.

Suddenly, there was a crack, the egg broke in half, and a small dragon fell out onto the table. He wasn't exactly cute. It looks like a crumpled black umbrella. He was terribly skinny, and the wings protruding from his back seemed too big for such a body. The dragon's muzzle was long, with wide nostrils, prominent horn bumps, and bulging orange eyes. The dragon sneezed, and a few sparks flew out of its nostrils.

"Well, isn't he handsome?" Hagrid cooed. He reached out to stroke his pet's head. The dragon opened its mouth like lightning and snapped its sharp fangs, trying to grab Hagrid's finger.

"That's a smart kid! He recognized his mom right away!" Hagrid marveled

"Hagrid, how fast do Norwegian humpback dragons grow?" Hermione asked, puzzled. Hagrid opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly turned pale and, jumping to his feet, rushed to the window.

"What happened?" Harry shouted.

"Someone was looking in the window, and as luck would have it, I pulled the curtains loosely." Hagrid said ruefully. "Some kid... Out, running away."

Harry jumped to the door and threw it open. He looked after the blond-haired boy and sighed heavily.

"This is Malfoy."

Damn, well, we got there.

* * *

For the next week, Malfoy smiled unpleasantly at Harry, Hermione, and me, and his smile made us nervous. We spent most of our free time in the semi-darkness of Hagrid's hut, trying to reason with the woodsman.

"Let him go," Harry insisted. "Let him out."

"Can't." Hagrid shook his head. "He's really small. He will die alone."

We looked at the baby dragon. It has become three times longer in a week. Clouds of smoke were continuously billowing out of his nostrils.

However, Hagrid didn't seem to notice it. Apparently, he had completely forgotten about everything, including his duties as a forester, and if he left the hut, it was only to get food for his ward. Empty brandy bottles rolled across the floor of the hut, which was littered with bird feathers.

"I came up with a name for him-Norbert." Hagrid looked at the dragon with loving eyes.

"He already knows me... Look here. Norbert! Norbert! Where's your mommy?"

"He's crazy," I whispered, leaning into Harry's ear.

"Hagrid," Harry called loudly. "Two more weeks, and Norbert won't fit in your cabin. Besides, we probably don't even have two days left! Malfoy can report you to Dumbledore at any moment!

Hagrid bit his lip.

"I... I know I can't leave him here forever, but I can't leave him either... You can't do that." Harry suddenly turned to me.

"Charlie!" he exclaimed.

"Well, now you're crazy, too," I said calmly. "My name is Ron, have you forgotten?"

"No, I'm talking about Charlie, your older brother, who studies dragons in Romania. We can send Norbert to him. After all, Charlie will be able to take care of him, and when Norbert grows up, he will set him free!

"Brilliant!" I yelled. "What do you think of the idea, Hagrid?"

Hagrid didn't like the idea, but after much persuasion, the giant agreed to send Charlie an owl. Apparently, deep down, hoping that the answer would not come soon, or maybe not at all.

* * *

The next week dragged on unusually slowly. On Wednesday, when everyone had gone to bed, Harry and Hermione were still sitting in the Common Room, waiting for me. It was already twelve o'clock when I arrived. After a moment, I took off my invisibility cloak. I was at Hagrid's, helping him feed Norbert, who was now eating dozens of dead rats. He started sniffing at my Scabers, too, so I left the rat in the tower.

"He bit me!" I held out my hand, wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. "I probably won't even be able to hold a pen for a few days now. To be honest, I've never seen a scarier beast than a dragon in my life, and Hagrid is messing with it like it's a little fluffy rabbit. Just imagine: Norbert bit me, and Hagrid started scolding me for scaring his baby. And when I left, he sang him a lullaby."

There was a sudden knock on the dark window.

"It's Hedwig!" Harry exclaimed, rushing to the window to let the owl in. "She brought the answer."

Harry, Hermione, and I put the letter on the table and bent over it.

"Dear Ron,

How are you? Thank you for the letter. I'll be happy to take the Norwegian humpback dragon. But getting him here won't be easy. I think it would be best to send it with my friends who will fly to visit me next week. The problem is that no one should see them transporting the dragon, because it's illegal. It will be ideal if you can bring the dragon to the highest tower of Hogwarts Castle on Saturday at midnight. Then they will have time to reach Romania before morning.

Send me a reply as soon as possible.

Love, Charlie."

We looked at each other thoughtfully.

"We have my invisibility cloak," Harry said slowly, correctly interpreting our doubts. "I think she'll be able to hide you and me and Norbert, so everything will work out."

Even though this plan was a piece of cake, Hermione and I were happy for even such an ephemeral chance to get rid of the cursed dragon.

* * *

And then something happened that no one expected. In the morning, my bitten hand swelled up, doubling in size. I couldn't decide if going to Madam Pomfrey's would be too risky, because she could probably tell right away that it was a dragon bite. However, after a few hours, I had no choice. The hand turned green. It seems that Norbert's fangs were poisonous. So I trudged to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey immediately plied me with potions to remove the poison and smeared my hand with some kind of ointment. After that, I settled into my bunk, trying to distract myself from the burning sensation, and drinking water. I also have a constant urge to go to the bathroom because of the potion.

Harry and Hermione, who rushed to the hospital wing at the end of the day, found me in a terrible state.

"It's not just the hand," I whispered. "Although it feels like it's about to fall off. Then Malfoy came to see me and told Madam Pomfrey that he had come to pick up the book he had given me, but in fact, to make fun of me. He threatened to tell Madam Pomfrey who really bit me. I told her it was a dog, but she didn't seem to believe me. I shouldn't have beaten Malfoy in public, because that's what he's taking revenge on us for now."

Harry and Hermione tried to calm me down.

"It's all over at midnight on Saturday," Hermione reminded me, but I wasn't happy about it at all. I jumped up in bed, and my face was covered with sweat.

"Saturday at midnight!" I repeated hoarsely. "I just remembered that Malfoy took the book from me so that Madam Pomfrey would believe that he had come for it. And there was a letter from Charlie in that book! So now he knows everything..."

Harry and Hermione didn't even have time to say anything about it. Madam Pomfrey came into the room and ushered them out, saying I needed to get some sleep. They left, and I sat gloomily on the pillow and tried to pass out. I will never work with dragons.

While I was in the hospital, Harry and Hermione managed to pick up Norbert and hand him over to Charlie's friends. Unfortunately, they couldn't avoid getting into trouble. One hundred and fifty points as if from a bush. Horror. Yes, McGonagall didn't even take off so much from Fred and George at a time as during their one night walk.

Chapter 14. The monster in the forbidden forest

Now the Gryffindor house was in last place. He might still be able to win the Quidditch Cup, but he couldn't win the inter-house competition. And all because Harry and Hermione were caught on the Astronomy Tower. How could they forget to wear the invisibility cloak?

At first, no one understood what had happened, and looking at the huge board on which the faculty's points were fixed, everyone thought it was a mistake. This simply couldn't happen — well, imagine how it could happen that the faculty had one hundred and fifty points less in the morning than it had in the evening? But an hour after getting up, everything turned out to be Harry Potter's fault, the famous Harry Potter, a member of the national Quidditch team and the hero of the last two matches. Him and two other stupid freshmen.

Harry, who yesterday was the most popular student at school and everyone's favorite, in an instant turned into the most despised and hated. Even the students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw departments abruptly changed their attitude towards him, because everyone wanted Slytherin to finally give up the school Cup to someone else. Wherever Harry went, they pointed fingers at him and said all sorts of hurtful words at him at the top of their voices, without even trying to whisper. Only the students from Slytherin at the sight of Harry began to applaud and shout loudly: "We owe you, Potter!"

It was only me and Hermione who supported him. Even my brothers were offended by Harry.

"You'll see, in a few weeks everyone will forget about it," I reassured Harry. "Fred and George have received tons of penalty points while they've been here, but everyone loves them anyway."

"But they've never gotten minus one hundred and fifty points at a time, have they?" Harry asked sadly.

"Well, not really," I admitted.

It was time to end his nocturnal adventures and surveillance of Snape. Harry was so ashamed of his wrongdoing that he even went to Wood and offered to expel him from the team on his own. It was in the Gryffindor common room. I was just practicing my wand movements.

"Expel them?!" Wood asked in a thunderous voice "And what will it give us? If we don't win at Quidditch, then how do we earn points?"

Hermione and Neville were suffering too. But although no one talked to them, like Harry, they had a much easier time than he did, because they were not such famous personalities. However, Hermione even stopped, contrary to her usual habit, attracting attention to herself in class. She sat with her head down and silently completed the tasks. Neville was in herbology and I was in transfiguration and enchantment, and we were fighting for her.

Harry, Hermione, and I would return to the Common Room after dinner, the three of us would sit down and study late into the night, memorizing the ingredients of the most complex potions, memorizing spells and counter-spells, memorizing the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions. However, when the exams were about a week away, another incident occurred.

Hermione was testing my knowledge of astronomy when an excited Harry came and told us about Professor Quirrell's surrender.

"So Snape had gotten everything out of him!" I concluded when Harry told me what he had heard. "And now he knows how to remove Quirrell's spell against the Dark Forces..."

"Yes, but there's still the Fluffy," Hermione reminded him.

"Perhaps Snape himself found out how to get past him, and he no longer needs to find out from Hagrid." I suggested, looking around at the thousands of books that surrounded us. "I'm sure one of these volumes tells you how to bring Cerberus down. So what are we going to do, Harry?"

I wanted to have an adventure again. But before Harry could open his mouth to answer me, Hermione jumped in.

"We're going to Dumbledore's," she said flatly. "I should have gone to him a long time ago. And if we try to do something on our own, we'll probably get caught again, and then we'll definitely be kicked out of school.

"But we have no proof!" Harry objected. "Quirrell is too scared to confirm our story. And it's enough for Snape to just say that he doesn't know how the troll got into the castle on Halloween, and that he didn't even come close to the third floor. And who do you think they'll believe? Him or us? Besides, it's no secret that we hate him. And Dumbledore will think that we made it all up to get Snape fired. Filch will never help us, even if he knows everything. Filch is too friendly with Snape, and besides, I'm sure Filch would only be happy if we were expelled from school. And don't forget — we don't know anything about the Philosopher's Stone and a Fluffy. If it turns out that we know about him, then we'll have to explain too much and we'll frame Hagrid."

Hermione nodded in agreement, but I had my own opinion.

"If we do a little investigation..." I began.

"No," Harry said softly but weightily. "We've had enough of investigations."

He pulled a map of Jupiter towards him and began to study the names of its moons. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to study astronomy.

* * *

The next morning, at breakfast, Harry, Neville, and Hermione received notes. They all said the same thing:

"To serve your sentence, be at the school exit at eleven o'clock tonight. Mr. Filch will be waiting for you there.

Professor M. McGonagall"

I stared at the note in surprise. I've never heard of punishments being imposed at night. At eleven o'clock in the evening, my friends said goodbye to me and took Neville downstairs.

* * *

I was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace in the Common room, waiting for my friends to return, and I fell asleep unnoticed. When Harry shook me roughly, I was dreaming of a Quidditch match. However, after a few seconds, I woke up completely and listened to Hermione and Harry's story with my eyes wide open.

Filch dragged them to Hagrid and they went to the forbidden forest. At night! On a full moon! Hunting the unicorn killer! What's going on in this school?! It really seems like it's worth writing to your parents.

Harry was so agitated that he couldn't sit up and paced up and down the room, trying to stay close to the fireplace. He was shivering.

"Snape wants to steal the stone for Voldemort. And Voldemort is waiting in the forest... And all this time we thought that Snape wanted to steal the stone in order to become rich... And VoldeMort..."

"Don't say that name!" I asked in a frightened whisper. I was afraid Voldemort might hear us. Or his followers.

Harry ignored my request.

"Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done that... Bane was furious... He said that Firenze had prevented what the planets had predicted from happening... They must have foreshadowed the return of Voldemort... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me. I think the stars predicted my death."

"Stop saying that name!" I hissed.

"So I just have to wait for the moment when Snape steals the stone." Harry continued. His eyes were feverishly bright, and his body was shaking slightly. Then Voldemort can come here and finish me off... I think Bane will be happy."