"I know it's highly illegal," James said. "But I don't think Hagrid cares. He's just always wanted a dragon. I don't think he sees anything wrong with what he's doing."

Hermione nearly choked on her toast and had to have Draco hand her water once she finished spluttering. "What?"

James handed her the letter he'd received from Hagrid. Inside were two words. "It's hatching."

"I suppose there's our proof," Hermione said.

"Looks like it," Draco said.

After breakfast the three of them headed to Snape and handed him the letter. "Hagrid," was Jame's short explanation.

Snape raised an eyebrow as he looked over the missive. "I'll handle it," he said and hurried off to take care of some nonsense that the Gryffindors were getting into. As if there was nothing more important than having fun.

They made it through the first few classes of the day and were taking their morning break when a thought suddenly occurred to Draco.

"Weasley!" He said.

"I hope you haven't gone totally insane," James said. "We don't like him. What does he have to do with anything?"

Draco frowned. "Doesn't he have like a million brothers? And isn't one of them a dragon tamer?"

"I think he said dragon keeper," Hermione said. "In Romania."

Draco looked between his friends. "So…"

"So, we ask Weasley to write to his brother?" James asked.

"Or," Hermione said, "we ask him for his contact info. We leave the reason vague. Don't want to draw too much attention. Also, make sure we keep Professor Snape clued in on this. The last thing we need is detention."

"I just figured we tell Snape to get Dumbledore to convince Hagrid that it would be best for the dragon to go somewhere that's actually able to look after him," Draco said. "After all, Hermione said it best. Hagrid lives in a wooden house. Even if it's been flame proofed, Hagrid doesn't have a wand anymore."

"What's that got to do with anything?" James asked.

Hermione suddenly felt a flash of what life might have been like if she hadn't met Draco when they were so young. She knew that his family was still trying to outgrow certain prejudices they had. But she wouldn't have had any idea why a wand would be so necessary in magical life if she hadn't grown up surrounded by magic.

"It's so he can prevent burns to his person and larger fires don't care about latent spells," Draco explained. Badly.

"Basically, even a baby dragon has enough magic to overpower most fireproofing spells," Hermione added. "If Hagrid doesn't have a wand he doesn't have the ability to keep the spells active or to use anything new if things go south."

"Oh." James frowned. He was clearly thinking things over, stretching and pulling at the concepts. "So exactly how is it safe for him to be the groundskeeper?"

"What do you mean by that?" Hermione asked.

"Well, if he can't cast spells, what happens if something really dangerous is in the forest? We know unicorns live there. And the lake has a giant squid."

Draco and Hermione shared a look. They each made a silent vow never to get detention that involved being outside at night. There was no way that they could trust Hagrid to have adequate skill in the event that something did go wrong. And somehow, it always seemed to go wrong.

A/N: so I just have to mention that in my files on my computer I labeled this chapter as "Dragons but slightly less illegal."