The first-year Gryffindors had laid claim to a corner table in the library, which was far enough out of the way that they hadn't been kicked out of it by older students because no one else wanted it. It was surrounded by empty tables and dusty shelves, and far enough from Madam Pince's desk that they wouldn't be yelled at for talking, but had taken them some time to find and get into the habit of sitting at, because this was Hogwarts, and it was entirely possible to actually get lost in the library between the entrance and this far back.

(They still hadn't figured out how to get from their table to the Restricted Section, and Seamus had at one point suggested that maybe you simply couldn't find the Restricted Section at all unless you had a signed note that said you could go there. Ron had pointed out that he was fairly certain Fred and George snuck back there all the time without notes, but as the twins did not make a habit of sharing their methods, he had no idea how they got into the Restricted Section and no illusions that they would tell him where to find it.)

It was to this table that Parvati returned, carrying a book on minor magical pests that they needed for Quirrell's assigned essay, which was due soon. They had been practicing simple jinxes all year (Lavender had even hit Malfoy with one in the corridor while the blond Slytherin was taking aim at Neville, and ducked his rejoinder rather adroitly, to general applause), and were supposed to be writing about the 'appropriate' uses of these spells. Since everyone had just been using them to annoy their House rivals, they had been obliged to consult the library on what you were actually supposed to use Jelly-legs and Leg-locker Jinxes for.

Parvati sat down with the book, however, and did not open it. Instead she said, her eyes wide with curiosity, "I just saw Hagrid!"

Since they all had been in the library nearly every day since the start of term, it was immediately clear to everyone why this was news. Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper, simply didn't go to the library; they'd never seen him, and given his size, it would have been extremely obvious if he had been there. Lavender said, confused, "What's he doing here?"

"Dunno for sure," said Parvati, leaning forward as if to share a secret, "but he was looking at books about dragons!" And, she further explained, not the sort of books you would want if you were planning on trying to get rid of dragons, or protect yourself from dragons; they were the sort of old books that nobody published anymore, about what you would do if you wanted to raise a dragon, like as a pet.

"Who would want a dragon for a pet?" said Seamus, sounding a little horrified.

Ron and Neville exchanged faintly worried glances and said, almost at the exact same time, "Hagrid would."

Perhaps predictably, it was Ron and Neville who were elected to go find out what Hagrid was doing and, if it were illegal, stop him from doing it. As both their parents, and Ron's second-eldest brother, had been good friends of Hagrid's, they occasionally went down to the gamekeepers' hut for tea and tooth-breaking biscuits and interesting stories about their parents' childhoods. Since none of the other first-years did this on a regular basis, Ron and Neville were the ones who got to ask Hagrid awkward questions.

It was spring, and warm, and Neville's expression got steadily more nervous as they approached the hut and saw that there was smoke spiraling out of the chimney, and all of the blind were shut. "Surely," he said, swallowing, "surely he hasn't actually got - "

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house - "

Charlie,

We've just found out that Hagrid's got a baby dragon, and he hasn't got a permit or anything, he just bought the egg off some bloke in a pub. And we figured he could probably handle it at first ... But we think Draco Malfoy found out, and we really don't want Hagrid to get arrested, and is there anything you can do to help? It's about a week old now and he's named it Norbert and I don't know how old dragons have to get before they start breathing fire but Hagrid's hut is really flammable and we're worried ...

Ron

Ron,

Tell Hagrid he absolutely needs to get rid of the hatchling before he's reported to the Ministry! Lucius Malfoy could get him sent to Azkaban in a heartbeat. We can handle it here, that's probably the best plan, the reserve's actually got a pretty stable system for faking registration for dragons rescued from illegal breeders, that sort of thing happens all the time. Not my department, but I can send down a couple of my friends who're familiar with the area. I've put it on the schedule as early as we could fit it in; get Norbert to the top of the Astronomy tower at midnight a week from Sunday and they'll pick him up.

And apologize to Hagrid for me, I know he's always wanted a dragon, but that's really just insurmountably dangerous. Tell him to write me if he wants to come visit, we can arrange that with enough warning.

Charlie

Ron was sitting at the breakfast table when he read this, and had the amazingly awkward timing to be within reach of Percy.

"Writing to Charlie?" his brother inquired curiously, recognizing the owl that had delivered the message to be their dragon-taming brother's Great Gray, Alric. "What for?"

Ron said, "Um, no reason," and quickly stuffed the letter out of sight. The look of disappointment that flashed across Percy's face, however, made Ron feel as if he'd just stabbed his brother with a carving knife. Oh, it said, you don't really want me in your life, do you, you just want me to help you with your homework. Ouch, little brother, that hurts. Ron, who had only a few months ago resolved not to do that sort of thing, added hastily and with not a little guilt in his voice, "I'll tell you later, okay?"

He kept his word; later that evening, he told Percy all about Hagrid's dragon egg, about Norbert, and about the resulting dilemma. He and Neville, even with help from the others, had not been able to figure out how to get to the top of the Astronomy tower at midnight on a Sunday without getting caught by Filch halfway and getting in amazingly huge amounts of trouble, especially given the constraint that they were going to need to do it while transporting a crate approximately the size and weight of Neville.

Percy stared at him for an entire minute.

Then he smiled, and said, "Did you know that prefects are allowed out past curfew?"

Ron learned the hard way that Norbert's bite was poisonous. Afraid of getting Hagrid in trouble, he wrapped his hand in a handkerchief and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but eventually that became untenable. The stubborn redhead had to be dragged to the hospital wing by a faintly exasperated Parvati, after his hand swelled to more than twice its normal size and turned a nasty shade of greenish purple.

Percy told the others in no uncertain terms that they were absolutely not to involve themselves in the transportation of Norbert. "This is not a Gryffindor adventure," he said flatly to the five first-years gathered around Ron's hospital bed the evening of May 9th, the day before Charlie's friends were scheduled to arrive. His voice was stern, and nearly reminiscent of McGonagall.

"But - " began Lavender. We're Gryffindors, aren't we?

"Gryffindor adventures get people hurt," said Percy flatly, and everyone - thinking of Halloween - winced. "There is to be no heroic rule-breaking, no last-minute emergencies that you must handle. If anything goes wrong, it is not your job to fix it." He gave an especially pointed look here to Ron, with whom he was still somewhat annoyed for getting himself bitten by the dragon he wasn't even supposed to be dealing with. Percy said, making clear eye contact with every single one of the kids, "You will not leave the Tower even if you hear from some older student that there is a dragon loose on the grounds, or that Hagrid's hut is on fire, or any other absurd problem that I cannot currently think of. If anything happens, I will handle it, because I am not breaking any rules." This was technically true; Percy was not actually going to break any Hogwarts rules.

(It tells you a lot about what Percy had learned from his older brothers that, while he would have rejected out of hand any plan that involved breaking school rules, it had not fazed him at all that he was going to be breaking several laws.)

He added, "and if one of you gets yourself in trouble by behaving like a stupid bloody Gryffindor, as soon as I get back, I will hang you from the top of the Great Hall by your shoelaces, is that clear?"

Six terrified nods told him that it was.

Given more than a week's warning, Percy had been able to get himself scheduled for prefect patrol duty on the night Charlie's friends were due to arrive.

At ten-thirty on the evening of May 10th, Percy Weasley walked casually out onto the grounds and to the gamekeeper's wooden hut, with his prefect's badge pinned carefully to his robes and wearing no cloak. He had heard far too many of Charlie's stories about cloaks getting set on fire, or caught in talons, or tripped over, to wear one in the presence of a dragon, even a very small dragon ... although, admittedly, the fact that the twins had recently charmed his cloak to play music whenever caught by the wind, a jinx he'd yet to get around to figuring out how to reverse, had probably influenced his decision as well.

Knock-knock-knock.

The door opened slightly, and Hagrid peered out suspiciously. When he saw who it was, he opened the door properly, and ushered Percy in. Percy could see that the enormous man was upset; he kept dabbing at his red eyes with a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth, and making half-hearted attempts to stall as he wrestled Norbert into a crate. Percy kept an eye on his watch and an eye on the door, and waited, wishing he had any idea how to be usefully sympathetic.

Once Norbert - now the size of a dog - had been packed into the crate with blankets and pillows and a teddy bear he had immediately shredded, Percy gave Hagrid five more minutes to be sentimental ("'E's gonna miss his mummy!") and then, glancing regretfully at his watch, said, "It's a quarter after eleven, Hagrid, I've got to get him up to the tower now." Hagrid nodded tearfully, waving at the little dragon through the slats of the crate, and Percy wished yet again that he had any idea how to make sad people feel better. "Locomotor Norbert!" he said, pointing his wand at the crate, and it lifted gently into the air.

Halfway back to the front door, the growling and tearing sound of Norbert disassembling his pillows motivated Percy to add a Silencing charm, which made it easier not to think about the fact that he was carrying a very illegal baby dragon. Still, it was a nerve-wracking climb up the front steps, up the marble staircase, around the west wing, and up the steps of the Astronomy Tower.

Thankfully, he made it to the top without incident; simply flashing his Prefect badge at Mrs. Norris made her scamper away with a disappointed hiss, and he did not see Filch. (Though he did have an explanation prepared for the eventuality: He was delivering telescopes to Professor Sinistra, and could probably back up that assertion by reaching into the crate and Transfiguring a pillow into a telescope to show the caretaker. It was for this reason that he was wearing his dragonhide gloves.)

At a quarter to midnight he shut the trapdoor to the open-air top of the Astronomy Tower, and took a deep breath of the cool night air, feeling vaguely surprised that nothing horrible had happened yet.

Charlie's friends turned up precisely at midnight on broomsticks, dressed all in battered black leather and looking vaguely familiar. They inexplicably managed to land on the tower, all in a flurry of air and loose hanging straps and ruffled hair, without making a single noise, but then immediately ruined the effect by greeting Percy with cheery disregard for the lateness of the hour. "Mornin', li'l Ginger," trilled their leader, a shaggy brown-haired wizard with a friendly Scottish accent who was several inches shorter than Percy and seemed to thrum with energy. One of the others gave him a sardonic look. "Or, eh, evenin', I guess, whichever," he added with a shrug.

"Er, yes," said Percy, who had skittered several steps back to let the half-dozen broomsticks land, "hello. You're here for, ah, Norbert?" He indicated the crate, which was shaking slightly now that it had been let down to the ground again.

Several people nodded brightly and got to work, and it became obvious that the various loose buckled straps hanging from various broomsticks were in fact the pieces of a harnessing rig. They'd come prepared. "Thanks for the box," said a dark Spanish wizard appreciatively, "we came prepared for a loose dragon, but this is way easier."

"You're welcome," said Percy automatically, and then when someone asked what breed of dragon they had in the aforementioned box, he had to think. "I didn't get a good look at it," he admitted, "not in any kind of light. I think Ron said it was a Norwegian Ridgeback."

The Scottish wizard whistled. "Damn rare, these buggers. Where'd ya get hold of him?"

"I didn't," said Percy quickly, "I'm just the messenger."

This answer was accepted with a shrug, and soon Norbert was vanishing into the clouds, his crate strapped firmly to the dragon keepers' broomsticks. Once he had vanished from sight, Percy let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. The dragon was gone; everything was fine.

He paced the halls for another hour, until the end of his shift, during which time he mostly gently straightened portraits, as no one seemed to be awake. That was nice; sometimes he had to chase people out of broom closets, which was never fun for anyone involved.

He reported to Professor Sinistra, who was sitting in her office grading essays, that his patrol shift had been uneventful, and then headed back down the steps.

To his disappointment, this was not quitethe end of the excitement for the day.

Halfway across the first floor, heading for the staircase, Percy ran into Professor McGonagall, who was dragging Draco Malfoy by the ear. "Oh," he said in complete surprise, his voice squeaking slightly with nerves, "hello, Professor." McGonagall wasn't usually awake at this hour; night patrol duty fell to the prefects, and they reported to Sinistra rather than to their Heads of House, since the Astronomy professor was always up at night. Usually no one woke up any of the other professors unless something came up that required further authority.

"Mr. Weasley," said the Gryffindor Head of House, looking faintly surprised.

"See!" squealed Malfoy, "see, he is up past curfew - "

"I am a prefect, unlike you, Mr. Malfoy," said Percy rather sharply, eyes narrowing. "Professor, did he wake you up?"

McGonagall nodded. "Mr. Malfoy insists," she said with a sigh, "that there is, and I quote, a Weasley conspiracy to smuggle a dragon out of the school tonight." She shot the Slytherin a disapproving look. "I was just returning him to his common room. How was your patrol?"

"Pleasantly uneventful, Professor," said Percy as sincerely as possible. He was enormously glad for the fact that his gloves were now safely in his robe pockets. "I certainly haven't seen any dragons."

"But I saw - " began Malfoy unhappily.

A great deal of Percy's attention was focused on doing his level best to look as incredulous as possible at the idea that he and any of his brothers might be conspiring to transport a dragon out of the school, but this still managed to annoy him. "With all due respect, Mr. Malfoy," he said frostily, "this is Hogwarts. If you saw a poltergeist pretending to be a dragon, I don't believe that gives you the right to be out past curfew." Malfoy subsided, seething, and Percy addressed McGonagall politely. "My patrol's over. Can I do anything for you before I go to bed, Professor?"

"I can handle this, thank you, Mr. Weasley," said McGonagall, and Percy nodded and headed up the steps, trying not to betray his relief.

When he returned to the common room, he found that Neville Longbottom was waiting up for him, looking sleepy and nervous. He jumped to his feet the second he saw Percy, and said a stream of mostly-incoherent words, the relevant bits of which were "Malfoy" and "reporting to McGonagall" and "huge trouble", and Percy sighed and patted the kid on the shoulder, pushing him gently towards the staircase to the dorms.

"Everything is fine, Neville," he said. And then he added, pointedly, "but everything would not be fine if you had left the Tower to try to warn me, because McGonagall would have caught you instead of just catching Malfoy, and then the both of you would be in trouble." He smiled a little at the understanding that bloomed across Neville's nervous face then. "See? That is why I told you all to stay put," he explained. "Sometimes problems are much better solved with sense than with Gryffindoring." And off Neville went up the stairs, and Percy headed to his own bed, yawning, and feeling as if he'd actually managed to teach a valuable lesson.

(Percy was faintly surprised to notice that he really liked that feeling.)