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"Of course I do."
Hagrid answered.
"Then why are you still going to raise it?"
Hagrid stammered for quite a while, but he could not manage to form a complete sentence.
He always did things on impulse and never thought about the consequences afterward.
He knew it was illegal, but he still wanted to raise it anyway.
"Hagrid, have you thought about what you're going to do once it hatches?"
Harry was also looking at the dragon egg with curiosity, although he was not nearly as obsessed as Ron and Malfoy. After all, he had not grown up in the wizarding world. To him, a dragon did not seem all that different from an animal in a zoo.
In the end, it was just a giant fire-breathing lizard, right?
"Of course I'm going to raise it here at home. I've read a lot about how to care for dragons, and I've already prepared brandy and chicken blood. This is a Norwegian Ridgeback, a very rare species..."
"But a Norwegian Ridgeback is a fire dragon. And your house is made of wood..."
Ron glanced around the hut and simply could not believe that the place would survive even a single blast of fire from a dragon like that.
But Hagrid did not pay the slightest attention to him. He kept tending the fire and humming to himself, as though he had not heard a word Ron had said.
That confirmed it for everyone once again.
'Hagrid really does things without thinking.'
"How about selling it to me? I'll pay whatever you want!"
Malfoy offered his suggestion.
"No chance! I'd never sell it to a Malfoy!"
Hagrid shouted, clearly agitated.
But as soon as he finished, he realized his tone had been too harsh. After all, the one he had been thinking of was Lucius Malfoy, not Draco Malfoy. So he hurriedly added,
"But you can come visit it."
"Really?!"
Malfoy, who had been visibly dejected after being refused, immediately perked up again.
Even when it was time to leave, his eyes remained glued to the fireplace.
He really did love dragons.
What little Malfoy failed to notice was that behind him, another pair of eyes was fixed on the dragon egg even more intensely than his.
In the following days, whenever someone suggested going to the Forbidden Forest and stopping by Hagrid's hut afterward, Malfoy was by far the most enthusiastic of all of them, more excited than Ron and Harry put together, and he never complained even once again.
The dragon egg brought a bit of relief to their busy, exhausting routine.
...
Time flew by.
And the day Dudley had agreed on with Dumbledore drew closer and closer.
One morning, right after they finished training, Hedwig brought a note.
There were only four words written on it:
It's about to hatch.
After classes, the four of them headed to Hagrid's hut.
And just as he had said, the baby dragon was about to be born.
A crack opened in the egg, and it began wobbling nonstop. As time passed, the movements grew bigger and bigger, accompanied by dry snapping sounds.
Then, with a sharp scraping noise, a wrinkled, misshapen little creature broke through the shell and crawled out.
The baby dragon sneezed, sending a few sparks of fire out through its nostrils.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
Hagrid murmured, completely enchanted. He stretched out a hand and stroked the hatchling's head. The little dragon bit his finger with absolute precision, revealing long, sharp fangs.
"My goodness, look at that! He recognizes his mummy!"
"Do you want to try touching him?"
Ron looked at himself, then at the sharp fangs inside the hatchling's mouth.
"I honestly don't think that's what he just did."
Rather than thinking Hagrid was its mother, the more likely explanation was that the hatchling had mistaken him for food.
'Pfft. Wood. Bad.'
That was what Dudley heard the hatchling thinking.
It simply did not have enough strength to pierce Hagrid's skin.
With his Magical Creature Language ability, he could understand what the hatchling was saying.
"Hagrid, unless I'm mistaken, a Norwegian Ridgeback takes less than a month to outgrow what this hut can handle."
Neville said in his thick, muffled voice. He had gone and specifically researched the raising of Norwegian Ridgebacks.
...
In truth, the reality was even more exaggerated than that.
In only a single week, the hatchling had already grown at least three times larger.
It would not even need a month.
In one more week, Hagrid would no longer have any way of keeping the creature inside the hut.
Especially after a single burst of flame that nearly set the whole place on fire, which finally made Hagrid regain at least a little sense.
What to do with the baby dragon had truly become a serious problem.
So they all sat in a circle and started discussing it.
Malfoy once again offered his suggestion.
"How about giving it to me? My family's manor is pretty big..."
"Draco."
Before he could finish, Dudley cut him off.
"Your father would never agree to that. On the contrary, he'd probably report Hagrid. And besides, Malfoy Manor isn't suited to raising a dragon either."
"Your father has never had a good relationship with Professor Dumbledore."
Dudley was simply stating the truth.
Unless Draco truly became the head of the Malfoy family, that option was not even worth considering.
"My suggestion is to raise it in the Forbidden Forest."
The Forbidden Forest was an almost mythical place.
Every book about magical creatures recorded stories of countless species living there: unicorns, Acromantulas, Thestrals, Hippogriffs, griffins, and many more. Some even said that dragons also lived in the deepest parts of the forest.
Never tickle a sleeping dragon.
That was Hogwarts' motto.
Releasing the little dragon into the Forbidden Forest would, in a sense, also be returning it to nature.
"But he's still too small."
Hagrid replied.
"Without me looking after him, he'll die."
"He won't."
Dudley shook his head.
"As long as it has enough food, a Norwegian Ridgeback only takes about a month to get through its growth period completely."
"I don't think anyone knows that better than you."
In this world, dragons grew at an abnormally fast rate, very different from those in other fantasy settings, where they sometimes took hundreds or even thousands of years to mature.
Of course, on the other hand, the dragons in this world also weren't like the ones in other fantasy settings, with bodies hundreds of meters long, absurdly high intelligence, and overwhelmingly powerful draconic magic.
They were still very strong.
Just not as overwhelmingly strong as imagination often made them seem.
"Even if you don't think about yourself, you should at least think about Professor Dumbledore."
"I don't suppose you want to cause trouble for him, do you?"
"All right... but I can't bear to part with him."
It seemed Dudley truly had convinced Hagrid.
And Hagrid, in fact, did not want to cause trouble for Dumbledore.
"You can leave him in the outermost parts of the forest for now. Once he grows enough, he'll leave on his own. And if the bond between you is really that strong, maybe he'll still come back to visit you."
In the end, Hagrid accepted Dudley's suggestion.
A week later, when the little dragon had already grown to the absolute limit the hut could handle, Hagrid took it to the outer edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Less than three days later, the hatchling had disappeared without a trace.
"Norbert's gone. He'll never want his mummy again."
At first, Hagrid was deeply saddened, blowing his nose nonstop.
But that sadness did not last many days.
Soon, something else distracted him.
Rumors had started spreading that a Manticore had appeared in the northern part of the Forbidden Forest.
The moment he heard that, Hagrid grabbed Fang and ran off toward the northern part of the forest with an excited expression, planning to stake the place out.
According to him, he wanted to artificially raise a Manticore.
...
In the middle of the night, under the full moon, not even the bright moonlight could pierce the density of the Black Forest.
The Forbidden Forest, formed by those dark trees, looked like an enormous black hole, isolated from the rest of the world.
The tiny points of light glowing from the fireflies and the faint radiance of certain nocturnal magical plants only barely kept the forest from being swallowed completely by darkness.
Everywhere, there were sounds of rustling, whispering, and faint snapping noises.
The sound of leaves shifting in the wind.
And also the noises made by certain nocturnal creatures as they moved about.
It felt exactly like a frightening forest out of some fairy tale.
Then, all at once, an extremely powerful beam of light appeared, circular in shape, illuminating a large part of the forest. The magical creatures struck by the brightness let out terrified cries and vanished back into the darkness.
A high-powered flashlight?
How could Hogwarts possibly have something like that?
No.
That was light magic.
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