Disclaimer: This woman called JKRowling wrote a brilliant set of books - you may have heard of them - and I liked the characters so much that I added some more and set them off on their own wee adventure.
"We're really sorry we didn't tell you Neville." The five Gryffindors were huddled in a secluded corner of the common room later that evening.
"Yeah sorry mate, it's just that Hagrid said we couldn't tell anyone."
"But that's still no excuse really," Alice chipped in feeling terribly guilty. Neville however didn't seem to mind at all; on the contrary he was more stunned by the fact that there was a dragon on the grounds and he was suddenly the centre of attention.
"Honestly, it's all right. I understand why you wouldn't tell me."
Hermione looked stricken at this, "No, no Neville. It wasn't like that at all! We just didn't think that -"
But Alice interrupted her. "Actually you could probably just stop there. The truth is we just didn't think at all." She felt her cheeks colour as all four of her friends turned to stare at her. "Well it's true, we didn't and we should have. You're our friend and we left you out."
There was an awkward pause as Neville considered this, then slowly the corner of his mouth quirked up in a shy smile. "Thanks guys… I still don't mind, but thanks. Can I maybe… actually it doesn't matter."
"What?" asked Harry curiously, "you can ask us Neville."
"Well, can I maybe go back with you, to see the… dragon?" Neville looked around surreptitiously as he whispered the word, "when you go to see it again?"
"The four friends looked at each other as identical grins spread across their faces. "Yeah I think we can do that."
Over the next few days the five first years took it in turns to take a break from studying and go down to Hagrid's hut and help out with the dragon, though they always had to leave someone outside on guard under the invisibility cloak just in case Malfoy should turn up again. Neither party had mentioned the incident to the other, but the number of evil grins Malfoy had thrown in their direction over the past week had increased so markedly that they did not doubt that he had seen Norbert.
Surprisingly - once he got over his initial trepidation - Neville turned out to be quite good at caring for the dragon, but it was obvious to them all as Hermione doused the flaming curtains for the third time that week that Norbert could not stay. The trouble would be convincing Hagrid.
"No!"
"Hagrid he can't stay here forever, for one thing he's going to get far too big to keep in the cabin," Hermione began counting her points off on her fingers, "and for another it's only a matter of time before your house gets burnt to a crisp - not to mention the fact that he's illegal and if anyone finds out you've been keeping him here you'll get into serious trouble."
"No!"
"Look Hagrid," Harry tried a different approach, "we all know how much you love him, but do you not think it would be better for Norbert if he had space to fly around and be free? It's not fair to him keeping him cooped up in here."
"No, we can't jus' set him free, he's so little…" but his conviction seemed to be waning.
"We could make sure he goes somewhere safe, but he's a wild dragon Hagrid, he'll be alright."
At that moment Alice had an epiphany. "Charlie!"
"What?"
"Ron your brother, you said he studied dragons in Romania. Couldn't he take Norbert, he'd at least know what to do with him, or know people who could take him."
Harry seized on the idea, "Alice that's brilliant! What do you think Hagrid?"
"Well now… I don't know. What if he don't like it in Romania? Poor thing might get lonely without his Mummy." He reached out a giant finger to tickle Norbert under the chin and nearly lost it for his pains.
Harry sighed, his frustration with the gamekeeper evident for just a moment. "Hagrid it's not safe keeping him here, and it's only a matter of time before Malfoy goes to Snape or Dumbledore and then Norbert will get sent away anyway. Is it not better that he goes somewhere that you've chosen for him?"
The thought that his revered headmaster might find out seemed to make Hagrid's resolve waver. "Yer brother will look after him won't he?" His doubtful question sent a wave of relief through Alice, in that instant she knew they had convinced him. Now it would just be a matter of contacting Charlie and hoping - she crossed her fingers - that he would agree to come and collect Norbert.
That evening Harry, Hermione, Alice and Neville had taken up their now customary places by the fire in the common room and were waiting for Ron to return from the Owlery after sending his missive to his brother.
"How long do you think it will take for Ron's brother to answer?" Neville looked up from the book he was struggling over, his brow still furrowed as he contemplated the problems presented by Transfiguration. No matter how many times Alice explained it to him it was still as unfathomable as ever.
"Dunno," Harry had given up on his homework over an hour before and was now making towers from chocolate frog cards - much to Hermione's evident disgust as she kept glancing over at him and tutting loudly. "I suppose however long it takes for an owl to fly to Romania." No one seemed to know how long this would be although Alice could tell from the expression on her friend's face that Hermione was making a mental note to look it up next time she was in the library. "Maybe he'll just come straight over when he gets the letter though. It wouldn't take him anytime at all if he used the Floo or apparated."
"Oh honestly," Hermione sounded truly exasperated, "when will you learn to read? You can't Floo in and out of the country because the Floo Network is internal and doesn't have outside links - unless of course they set up special ones," she added as an after thought, "which they can do for foreign dignitaries and things."
"And you can't apparate in and out of the country either; it's against the law because of an invasion attempt by Goran the Ungrateful from Sweden in 1376 when he tried to apparate hundreds of wizards into the centre of London. There's a whole sub-division in the Department of Magical Transportation who regulate the anti-apparition wards around the country. It's just like what's in place at Hogwarts but much bigger."
Harry seemed momentarily stunned into silence - not for the first time - at the amount of relatively useless information that Alice and Hermione managed to retain. Neville on the other hand was merely curious. "What happened to them?"
"To who?" Ron had returned whilst they were talking.
"Did you send it?"
"Yeah, I had to borrow Percy's owl Hermes though - Errol would have snuffed it if he tried to fly that far - he'll kill me if he finds out, so Charlie better reply quickly. So who were you talking about?"
"The wizard army of Goran the Ungrateful." She turned back to Neville as Ron visibly lost interest. "They missed the city by a few miles because it's difficult to aim over such huge distances. Half of them got splinched and the other half landed on top of each other so they were fairly easy to round up."
"Or mop up," Fred chimed in as he walked past with his brother. Alice rolled her eyes as he winked at her whilst proceeding to relate to a rather revolted looking Neville exactly what had befallen the splinched invaders.
It took Charlie only a few days to respond to Ron's enquiry, and they were all relieved to hear that some of his friends would be along to pick Norbert up at midnight the following Saturday, which gave them three days to work out how to get a dragon to the top of the Astronomy Tower.
"We could knock him out carry him up under the cloak during the day," Harry postulated as they walked to their Transfiguration class the next morning.
"Do you know how to knock out a dragon?" Ron asked sceptically, his expression becoming smug as Harry's silence proved his point.
"What about transfiguring him into something no one would notice - a toad or something?"
"That might work - as long as no one gave it to Neville to look after." Ron added this last as a quiet aside to Harry, but Alice who was walking on the other side of him heard and hit him rather forcefully with her copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration.
"No it wouldn't work," Hermione spoke over his exclamation of pain, "just the same as trying to knock it out with magic wouldn't. Dragon's are highly magical creatures and it takes more experienced wizards than us to cast spells on them."
"Well we have to think of something soon," Harry intervened when it looked as though they might start arguing.
"Why don't we just put him in a cage and carry him up once everyone's gone to bed?" Neville supplied with quiet logic, momentarily rendering them all silent as he pointed out the obvious.
"It would need to be strong," Hermione sounded doubtful.
"Not really, as long as it managed to hold him till we got up there I'm sure Charlie's friends could come up with something." Alice considered for a moment. "And I'm sure I read somewhere that tomatoes act as a soporific on them."
"A soapy-what?"
"Soporific, it means it makes them sleepy. The only problem is they don't like them very much."
"Yeah Weasel-bee, don't you know anything?" All five Gryffindors froze as Malfoy shoved past them with his two goons trailing predictably behind him. "See you later." He smirked over his shoulder.
As they watched him walk away Hermione seemed about to faint, she swayed precariously for a moment with one hand clapped firmly over her mouth as though she were trying not to be sick. "Oh no - Ron!" she clutched at his arm, "can you write to Charlie to change when they arrive?"
"Dunno, it'll be too late won't it? How much do you think he heard?" He directed his second question to Alice and Harry who were conducting a similar muted conversation in the middle of the corridor.
"I'm not sure; I didn't even know he was behind us. But it means we're going to have to be even more careful now."
Any further conversation on the subject was prevented by the appearance of Professor McGonagall who ushered them into the nearby classroom and immediately began expounding on the principles behind turning a coin into a ring - why you would ever do this was a concept Ron just couldn't grasp. They had to limit their planning to snatched conversations between classes and even when they retired to the common room at night they were denied the opportunity to discuss their schemes due to the fact that Fred, George and Lee Jordan insisted on playing Exploding Snap with them all evening and were not in the slightest bit dissuaded by the fact that Ron kept telling his brothers to get lost every twenty minutes - although Alice had to admit she was enjoying herself.
By the time Saturday came around however they had managed to work out a plan of sorts. Two of them would go down to Hagrid's once it was dark and carry Norbert up to the tower underneath the Invisibility Cloak, the other three would wait in the Common Room and keep a lookout from the window to see if Malfoy followed them across the grounds and be prepared to act if the situation required it. This plan was complicated very slightly by the fact that Norbert took a fancy to the taste of Ron's hand whilst the boys were helping Hagrid rig up a cage to put the dragon in for the journey on Saturday morning.
"I'll never be able to use my hand again," he whimpered as they sat in the Hospital Wing - which after much badgering from Hermione and Alice he had reluctantly agreed to go to - watching Madam Pomfrey bustle about with bandages and potions clicking her tongue in exasperation every so often. "Look at it," he nodded towards the swollen, fleshy mess that had previously been a hand and was now covered in several sets of puncture wounds and turning a violent shade of green before their eyes.
"It's definitely the most vicious dog bite I've ever seen." The sceptical way she said it left them in no doubt as to whether or not she had believed Ron's makeshift story. Hermione looked as if she might be sick again. Her wide eyes and strained expression, coupled with the guilty way she kept looking at Madam Pomfrey practically screamed We're Up to Something; she might as well have worn a sign.
"We should probably leave you to rest," Alice gently nudged Hermione's foot and indicated that they should think about leaving; "we'll come and see you later." The four of them murmured goodbyes as they trooped towards the door and Ron stared mournfully at his mutilated hand. "Oh Ron," she turned back as though it was an afterthought, "we'll let you know how we get on with that homework tonight - so you don't fall behind." She hoped he would be switched on enough that he understood what she was talking about.
"Um… yeah sure - ouch, be careful - yeah you guys go ahead."
When they got back to the common room they decided that Alice would take Ron's place and go with Harry to get the dragon as neither Hermione nor Neville particularly wanted to volunteer, Neville because the whole idea terrified him and Hermione because despite the fact that she was more relaxed about rule breaking now she still wasn't completely reconciled to the idea; especially if it might mean getting caught.
"This is insane," Alice hissed at Harry as the two of them struggled back from Hagrid's hut, moving painfully slowly under the weight of a dragon that was almost as long as they were - a feat rendered slightly less impressive by the fact that neither of them were particularly tall. "Of all the mental things we've done this year this is definitely the most ridiculous, we should be committed. Why do all the bizarre things always happen to us?"
"Maybe we're jinxed - here help me get it up these steps - it can't just be us stuff happens to though, it must be other people too."
"What, you think the castle's just full of kids smuggling illegal magical creatures out of the country - Ow! Watch my knees - and discovering enchanted mirrors and stupidly named dogs down corridors they're not supposed to be in? I know this place is weird but it's not that weird."
"Alright maybe we are -" The two of them paused as Nearly Headless Nick glided through the wall to their left and disappeared out of sight back down the way they had come. "- maybe we are a bit unusual, but this definitely beats spending an evening looking up some rubbish for Binns' four foot essay for next week."
"Four and a half," Alice corrected absently as the reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the door to the top of the tower allowing the moonlight to spill through. Moving carefully across the roof Harry and Alice manoeuvred the cage into the centre and with great care so as not to disturb Norbert - who seemed to have fallen asleep somewhere along the fourth floor - they laid it down.
"What's the time?" Harry stared up at the velvety black sky, which although speckled with a dusting of stars was showing a distinct lack of any broom activity.
"It's five minutes to twelve, they should be here anytime - providing they haven't been held up of course."
"Are you always this optimistic?" Harry grinned at her as the two of them sat down to wait.
"Do you think school will always be like this, or do you think we've just had a really crazy year?"
"Maybe - why aren't you enjoying yourself?"
"Yes!" Alice's response was emphatic, "Of course I wouldn't change it for anything, that's why I was asking. It's miles better than…" she tailed off, not wanting to complain about her home life when she suspected his was much worse.
"Yeah I know what you mean. I -" He seemed uncertain. "I used to dream about escaping somewhere; that I was flying through the air to somewhere safe. That sounds really stupid doesn't it."
"No, so do I sometimes. Dreams about flying are quite common I think. Especially if you feel trapped; I used to dream I was flying after days when the other kids in the Home had been picking on me."
Harry seemed to be staring resolutely at the slabs now, "I hated it at home, my family hate me, but it always felt good when I was flying. Like I was free, that I wasn't in the cupboard anymore." Eventually he looked up at her, "Don't mention it to the others would you? It sounds daft."
"Of course not." She could see it in his eyes that he believed her and also confusion about his unprecedented lack of restraint in front of her. "Maybe you're a seer, maybe you were seeing yourself riding a broomstick." She attempted to lighten the suddenly sombre mood.
"Nah I think I was on a flying motorbike."
"Well then, now I know you're mental." Their laughter was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation of greeting as Charlie's friends swooped into view carrying some sort of harness between them.
The handover of Norbert was cordial but swift. Alice wondered if they knew exactly why two eleven year olds were disposing of a dragon at the top of the astronomy tower in the middle of the night, but they never indicated either way and neither she nor Harry ventured the information.
"Well that's that then," Harry sighed with relief as the figures on broomsticks dwindled into the distance. "Come on," he took her hand and pulled her back towards the door. They had barely gone down three steps when realisation suddenly hit her.
"Harry, we forgot the Cloak!" Scrambling back across the top of the tower they threw the silvery material around their shoulders.
"Lucky you remembered about that, could you imagine what would have happened if you'd forgotten?"
A/N: It just occurred to me how odd it is that right from first year Harry and his friends always sat by the fire, surely this would be the best spot in the room - especially in the winter in a draughty castle - and so would be used by older students? Maybe they're just all very respectful of The Boy-Who-Lived. Just an observation I thought I'd share. Also Ron's hand swells up much faster than in the book because Norbert bit him several times rather than just once.
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