Chương 60: ITW,H - Chapter 60 - Norbert and Exams

(Word Count: 1, 669) The next week played out without much going on. The only thing happening, aside from the excessive amount of homework the teachers were piling on them as the finals approached, was the whole situation with Hagrid's dragon. Ron spent nearly every moment he wasn't in class down in Hagrid's cabin. As enthusiastic as he was, Ron wasn't the only visitor to pop on down to see the dragon.

Daphne and Tracey visited once more to check in on it, though once they saw how big it had gotten, they didn't think it was cute anymore. As the week went on, the dragon grew larger and larger, and it was now three times as large. That meant it was becoming a huge menace. By the end of the week, both Ron and Hagrid were looking haggard and exhausted. It was becoming too much for them to handle.

As Harry had predicted, Hagrid's time was now entirely consumed in taking care of Norbert and he was neglecting his gamekeeping duties.

"I've had enough!" Ron complained one night.

"That dragon's become a bloody menace! I don't know how Charlie puts up with so many of them! We can't keep it here anymore! Hagrid's gone and lost his marbles, thinking that thing actually understands him." It all came to a head when they were all at Hagrid's one evening when Norbert—Hagrid named him a couple of days ago—managed to bite Ron's hand.

"Ahhh!" Ron screamed in pain and shook the dragon off of him, but it was too late. The damage was done. Hagrid was there in a flash, pulling Norbert away from Ron, but surprisingly, instead of scolding Norbert, he began scolding Ron.

"Now why'd you go and startle him like that? Look, you've scared the poor thing!" Hagrid began rocking the dragon gently in its arms, humming a lullaby. Harry and Hermione were at Ron's side, examining the wound. It was a nasty bite. It went deep. Luckily, the dragon's venom was slow acting, so it wasn't turning green just yet. That would come in the coming days as it set in.

"Oh no!" Hermione gasped at the sight.

"Ron, We've got to get you to Madam Pompfrey's immediately!" Ron was turning pale and already sweating from the pain.

"Wait, I can't! What if she recognizes a dragon bite? How're we going to explain that? Lets just stop the bleeding and wrap it up. I'll be fine." Harry shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Ron, but you won't be. Dragon bites are venomous. If you don't get treated, your hand will swell three times the size and turn green. If left untreated, you could lose your hand." Ron paled even further, looking at his bleeding hand as if it was the last time he would see it again. He gulped, and nodded.

"Right. Let's go." Harry turned to look at Hagrid, who was too caught up singing lullabies to Norbert to pay them any attention. A flash of anger inside him, Harry stomped over to Hagrid.

"Hey!" Harry snapped, and cast a temporary notice-me charm on himself so Hagrid would focus on him. Hagrid blinked in confusion, then looked at him questioningly.

"Hagrid! Ron is now poisoned and bleeding, and you don't care? This has gone on long enough, Hagrid. The dragon has to go! It's become too dangerous to take care of on our own. We have to send it away." Hagrid looked at Ron's bleeding hand and seemed to have come to a realization. He shuffled guiltily.

"Erm… sorry about that Ron. Yer right, Harry. Norbert should go," Hagrid said sadly, fat tears already swelling in his eyes.

"But where are we going to send it?" Hermione asked.

"Ron's brother, Charlie, works at a dragon reserve up in Romania," Harry said. Ron lit up.

"Brilliant! Let him deal with the little bludger!" In the end, things played out similarly to canon. They sent Charlie a letter via Hedwig, who sent his friends. The next Saturday, they snuck the dragon in a crate under his invisibility cloak—That had been quite the surprise to the others, learning he had one—through the castle and up the Astronomy tower. Charlie's friends arrived from the sky on brooms and took the dragon away. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent.

Report any appearances on Amazon. The difference was that Ron had gotten treated early, so he didn't leave Charlie's letter in his book for Draco to find. There was no McGonagall waiting to catch them, and no one got detention. Harry breathed a sigh of relief that Fate didn't try to force things anyway. Though he supposed that he already had that initial confrontation with Voldemort anyway, so the detention served no purpose to her anyway.

As for Madam Pompfrey, she seemed to have a personal policy to not ask much beyond "How did this happen?" Ron muttered out a pitiful excuse that he was bitten by a dog, but she obviously didn't believe him. Still, she didn't press and just got to work treating him. Harry heard her muttering, "What are they doing playing around with dragons?" Yeah, she knew. Still, it was now over and done with. For the system reward, he gained another level in his Magizoology class. It's now sitting at 12.

With the dragon fiasco out of the way, the last remaining week of school passed by in a flash and soon they were taking the first of their finals. It was in the middle of summer, so the castle was sweltering hot and the classrooms were muggy with all of the students. For the hundredth time, Harry wished Hogwarts had some sort of environmental conditioning spell to keep things livable. The exams for each class, except for History of Magic, were split into two parts: theoretical and practical.

History was only theoretical. For the written portion of the exams, the main hall was turned into the testing center. They were all given new quills to take them with, each enchanted with an AntiCheating spell. The spell was a clever intent-based enchantment. It wouldn't go off if he simply thought about cheating. It started out like that at first years ago, but it triggered on every single student. Now it would only trigger if they tried to act on that thought.

Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class. Flitwick's practical had them run through a random selection of several of the spells they had learned. It ended with the task to make a pineapple tapdance across a desk. Harry did so without issue. To show off a little bit, he didn't even use his wand for a handful of them. Flitwick cheered happily.

"I knew you wouldn't have any issues, Harry, 'O' plus for you!" It was the same for Professor McGonagall. A handful of inanimate to inanimate spells, then she had them turn a mouse into a snuffbox—points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Unlike Flitwick, who was the professor he was closest with, McGonagall didn't tell him how he did and just moved him along with a nod once he was done to test the next student. She did seem impressed though.

Snape's exam wasn't one on one. They were all in the potions lab and Snape did his utmost to make them all nervous, breathing down their necks, while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion. Luckily, they only had to brew the one potion or it would have taken hours. Snape didn't want that anymore than they did. Through the week, they tested the rest of their classes: Herbology, Astrology, and History. After each exam, Hermione liked to go over their answers together with Harry.

Ron and Neville didn't bother joining them, they were both too exhausted from studying and didn't want to spend another moment on the tests. Neville coped by tending to some plant boxes by the window, and Ron spent most of his time with Dean and Saemus. On the last day of finals, they were walking out of the History exam, following along with all the first years as they made their way out into the courtyard.

It was nice and sunny out today, so many of the students wanted a breath of fresh air, especially after having to suffer through an hour of questions in the muggy hall.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be, I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager," Hermione said, relieved. She was smiling cheerfully.

"I told you, you were overpreparing. You could probably take the finals for a third year and still be fine," Harry said.

"Ugh!" Ron flopped down onto the grass and stretched out lazily. He got himself comfy and sighed happily.

"Finally! No more studying! Now we can take it easy for the week until we get our scores back." Harry nudged him with his foot.

"Don't get too comfy, Ron. Remember what we have to do tonight?" Ron rose up onto his elbows, pouting.

"You just had to go and ruin the mood, huh?" Harry grinned and just shrugged. They grabbed Neville from the crowd. He was chatting with Hannah about how their tests went.

"Sorry, Hannah!" Harry called back apologetically as he dragged Neville away.

"We need to borrow Neville for a bit!" The four of them made their way down the hill to the lake and sat down under a tree. Off in the distance, they could see Fred, George, and Lee Jordan tickling the tentacles of the giant squid, which had come into the shallows of the lake to bask in the warm sun. It seemed to enjoy the tickling and played around with the three boys. It picked up Jordan by the ankles and dunked him before setting him back down on the shore. They were too busy to notice Harry.

Neville eyed Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"What's going on?"

"Don't you remember?" Harry said.

"We're going down the trapdoor tonight."