章 57: Chapter 57: Raising a dragon (Edited)
For the next few days, Tom and Hermione kept an eye on the dragon egg. On Thursday morning, after Charms class, an owl brought Tom a note with four words on it: it's hatching. The note was also received by Harry, who had seen the egg when he and Ron had gone to Hagrid's hut to talk to him.
A large group of people entered Hagrid's hut: Tom, Hermione, Harry, Ron and Neville. After all, this was a once-in-a-lifetime event for one of the most important magical creatures in the magical world: the hatching of a fire dragon, and anyone who knew about it had to come and see it, even if they had to miss school.
Although Hagrid's hut was called a hut, it was not small at all, being over ten meters long and wide, so there was more than enough room for five young wizards.
When they arrived at Hagrid's hut, the dragon egg had been moved to the table and Hagrid was looking at it eagerly. There was a deep crack in the surface of the egg, and a metallic sound could be heard from inside the egg, which showed that the little fire dragon inside was very active.
Tom and the others arrived just in time, for the stool under their buttocks was not even warm, and the crack in the egg had begun to widen, and with a hard scraping sound the egg cracked open and a black dragon emerged from it. It opened its wings, which were larger than its body, and sparks of fire shot out of its nostrils.
The first thing that struck the young wizards when they saw the little fire dragon was: How ugly! But Hagrid didn't seem to mind at all, he was very happy. He reached out a hand and touched the dragon's head, but it bit his finger.
The dragon's teeth couldn't break through Hagrid's defenses, and Hagrid came to think that the dragon was growing fond of him.
"I've decided, let's call him Norbert!" Hagrid named the dragon. Norbert's response to the name was a burst of flames that set Hagrid's beard ablaze. Hagrid doused the flames with a couple of blows and Hagrid's laughter echoed through the room.
"What a lively boy!" Hagrid didn't mind at all. But the rest of the young wizards were stunned at the dragon's fury: he had barely come out of his shell and was already so aggressive, if he grew a few more days, he'd be ready for human food, wouldn't he?
"Hagrid, how fast do the Norwegian Ridgeback grow?" asked Hermione cautiously.
"In just a week, it will be three times the size it was when it hatched from the egg!" said Hagrid with great pride.
The little wizards: "..."
"Hagrid... you've seen how fierce he is when he hatches, if he grows any bigger, I'm afraid he'll be dangerous" Harry also realized something was wrong.
"Ha! He's not fierce, he's energetic, which proves he's a healthy baby." Hagrid said with a laugh.
But at the thought of flames that were enough to burn people and fangs that could cause tetanus, it seemed to them that the baby was too lively. The little wizards looked at each other and had a bad premonition.
Ron, who had a brother who specialized in raising fire dragons, was more blunt: "Hagrid, trust me, it will soon be the size of your house, and then you won't be able to hide it! You'll probably end up in Azkaban for it."
Hagrid was silent: the harsh truth left him speechless. The magical world was very strict about fire dragons, and all fire dragons in the world could only live in nature reserves, and selling live fire dragons was a serious crime.
If a Hippogriff had harmed someone, Hagrid could argue, but if they had found him guilty of breeding fire dragons, the Ministry of Magic wouldn't have bothered, they would have come to his house and confiscated him, sending them away if they could, or killing them on the spot if they couldn't.
Hagrid could only say dryly, "Well, let's wait for him to grow up..."
Harry advised, "Let it go."
"No," Hagrid said, "He's too small, he'll die."
"Then let him go when he's a little older." Harry said.
Hagrid remained silent. He finally agreed to the suggestion. He bit his lip, tears in his eyes, "I know I can't keep it forever, but I can't throw it away, I can't."
"How about putting it in the Forbidden Forest?" suggested Neville quietly.
"Good idea! I hadn't thought of that." Hagrid's eyes lit up.
Tom: ???
I thought they were going to release him into the Forbidden Forest by default! So you're going to throw a fire dragon like a puppy? Tom gaped: Can they be any more trustworthy?
Honestly, leaving it in the Forbidden Forest is not a bad choice. There were already Centaurs, Acromantulas, unicorns, and all sorts of other magical animals in the Forbidden Forest, so another fire dragon would have been fine. But Dumbledore's blood pressure would definitely go up if he found out.
"No! Not the Forbidden Forest!" Hermione interjected, "Fire dragons can fly! If he ever flies out of the Forbidden Forest, he'll make it to the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch-if the sound of a match ever draws him there..."
The young wizards and Hagrid shuddered in unison.
The main difference between something like a fire dragon and other magical creatures was that it was very mobile, while other magical creatures gave the professors time to react, a fire dragon could come out of the forest and fly over the pitch in less than a minute, turning the young wizards into its meal.
Ron suddenly reacted, "Charlie," he stood up, "My brother Charlie, he's studying fire dragons in Romania, we could give him Norbert and let Charlie look after him. Fire dragons so juvenile must be invaluable research material, and then he'll be released back into the wild when he's older. What do you think, Hagrid?"
Hagrid had no choice, but still insisted on raising him for a month. Once this decision was made, Hagrid grew even fonder of the little dragon. He immediately got up, went outside and took a bottle of brandy with chicken blood in it, then poured the drink into a bowl and gave it to Norbert.
The book was right, newborn fire dragons liked it. Attracted by the drink, little Norberto stopped sulking and drank what was in the bowl. Tom looked at Norbert and felt that the dragon was not so ugly, in a strange and cute way.
Over the next period of time, Tom and the others took turns helping Hagrid take care of Norbert. Tom was the most diligent and gradually became more familiar with Norbert. The result was a fire dragon in Tom's Boggart Ring and, of course, a lot of burn marks on his body. But the problem was that he was the same size as Norbert, and not nearly as big as Fawkes. So Tom had to come to Norbert every day to collect the data from the body.
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