"Careful!" Hermione called out in warning.
"It's fine," said Morris, already crossing the room toward Norbert.
Norbert shook his head and fixed his gaze on the unfamiliar human before him. He bared his teeth with a guttural cry, and a few sparks flew from the corner of his mouth.
"Norbert, be nice to our guest," Hagrid said gently. He lumbered over to the table, hoisted an enormous kettle, and called out, "Anyone fancy a cup of tea?"
Harry raised his hand.
Hermione sidled up beside Morris and lowered her voice. "Hagrid spoils Norbert rotten. After Norbert bit Ron, Hagrid didn't say a single word of reproach."
"Understandable," Morris said with a nod.
After all—it was a dragon.
A dragon.
The interest in the creature was so extraordinary that the logical response to it biting someone was less "this is unacceptable" and considerably more "yes, that's what dragons do, how fascinating."
'Hagrid's attitude,' Morris thought, 'was actually the more intellectually clear one.'
He had no idea what a dragon hatchling might fetch on the black market, but it certainly wouldn't come cheap.
He also wondered whether Hagrid would ever consider selling it.
If not… keeping a dragon at Hogwarts was obviously out of the question. That would be, without any doubt, a serious criminal offence.
"Hagrid, where did you get this dragon?" Morris asked, his curiosity was genuine. If the opportunity ever came, he also wouldn't mind acquiring one for himself.
Just then, Norbert let out a belch. A wave of pungent brandy fumes mixed with the sharp bite of Sulphur washed over them.
Morris wrinkled his nose.
'Such a young creature, and already such dreadful breath.'
He revised his opinion slightly. A dead dragon might suit his purposes just as well.
Hagrid puffed up with pride at the question. "Won him in a card game at a pub—off a stranger I'd never met before that night."
"You must be quite the card player."
"Not bad," Hagrid said with a modest exhale. "Luck was on my side that night. The fellow kept losing hand after hand, and in the end, when he'd nothing else left worth wagering, he threw the egg in as a stake—I reckon he was desperate to be rid of it, now I think about it "
"Why would anyone want to be rid of a dragon egg?" Morris asked, genuinely puzzled. A living dragon egg was an extraordinarily rare and valuable thing.
Hagrid began to hedge and stammer. "Well… that fellow was… he was under some investigation, see, or so he let on. Dragon eggs have always been contraband."
"What you're doing right now is also illegal, Hagrid," Hermione said with a sigh.
It didn't take Morris long to spot the holes in Hagrid's story.
A card game with a stranger, with a dragon egg as the stakes?
That was about as sensible as hurling Galleons into the lake.
And besides—who in their right mind would be desperate to offload a dragon egg?
Even Morris himself could think of several ways to make use of one. If he truly had no channel to sell it through and no personal purpose for it—he could at minimum fry it and eat it, which would at least produce a meal that no human being in recorded history had certainly tasted.
Harry held his teacup and added helpfully, "We've already written to Ron's brother. He's agreed to arrange for someone to come and collect Norbert this weekend—that way Hagrid won't face any punishment, and the whole thing will be sorted without trouble."
Morris nodded, feeling a faint pang of regret.
He reached out his hand and slowly drew it toward Norbert.
His fingers were almost grazing the back of Norbert's neck when Harry's voice cut through sharply: "Watch out!"
In almost the same instant, Norbert reacted. His head snapped around, his jaw—already full of teeth—flew open, and he lunged at Morris's arm with a vicious bite.
Crack
A sound that set the teeth on edge.
But Norbert's fangs did not pierce flesh. Instead, they came down hard on a thick, pale object that had appeared from nowhere—a large bone. Morris had casted a Bone-Summoning Charm.
Having bitten down with such force, Norbert let out a small, wounded whimper.
"Oh! A fine teething stick—now there's an idea! I read about it somewhere—dragon hatchlings gnaw on hard objects when they're young, to help the teeth come in proper and sharp. It's a natural instinct." He looked at Morris with approval. "That was cleverly done."
"That sounds rather more like something a dog does," Hermione said.
Harry nodded his agreement.
For the next little while, Morris patiently continued his attempts to touch Norbert.
Each time the dragon moved to bite, a well-placed bone would appear in his mouth at just the right moment. At first, Norbert resisted stubbornly—but after several failed attacks on the same unflustered human, he finally gave up and flopped onto the ground with an air of profound resignation.
Morris looked down at the deflated little dragon and allowed himself a quiet smile.
'Time to get to work.'
While Hagrid rambled on about how adorable Norbert looked when he slept, Morris let his fingers glide softly along the back of the dragon's neck.
Norbert felt a faint, fleeting sting. A low, confused growl rose in his throat.
Hagrid who had been watching with the fond attention like a parent monitoring a child instantly was on his feet. "Norbert? What's the matter, eh? Are you hungry? Is that it?" He was already moving toward the door. "I'll get your food right now, don't you fret."
He bustled out the door and returned moments later carrying a bucket of clear liquid—brandy, by the smell of it. Norbert's attention snapped to the food at once, and that tiny, insignificant sting was forgotten entirely.
What, after all, could possibly matter more than eating?
He flapped his wings and waddled eagerly toward Hagrid, who beamed with fond indulgence, dipping a large wooden ladle into the bucket and pouring some of the liquid into a shallow dish.
Morris watched without expression.
Hagrid seemed rough and unrefined on the surface, yet with animals he was possessed of an almost impossible tenderness.
"Drink slowly, little one—no one's going to steal it from you," Hagrid murmured, holding Norbert as he spoke, as though soothing a child.
Morris got to his feet. "I should be heading back. It's getting late. Goodnight, Hagrid."
"Won't you stay for another cup of tea?" Hagrid urged. "I've got biscuits as well."
"Thank you, but no."
After leaving Hagrid's cabin, Morris returned to the dormitory.
He reached into his pocket and set a small vial on the desk.
Inside it, a few drops of deep crimson liquid swirled—it was dragon blood, collected from Norbert.
That had been his purpose all along.
He set up his cauldron and began to brew.
As each ingredient was added, the liquid rolled slowly in the cauldron, taking on a murky grey-white hue.
"And last—just a few drops of dragon blood…"
Morris tilted the vial with care, letting Norbert's blood fall into the pot drop by drop.
Three stirs clockwise, and the murky grey-white deepened and darkened.
Good. It was done.
He then dropped in a fragment of dragon bone he had found in the Forbidden Forest.
Not—to be clear—because he was making soup.
He was attempting to restore vitality to the bone.
After half an hour at the simmer, he fished the fragment out.
It already looked subtly different from before. The once dull, grey-white surface now held a faint ivory warmth, and it was slightly smoother to the touch.
Morris held the shard up to his eyes and examined it closely. Then he smiled.
He had done it.
He had restored the bone to a state of living activity.
A pity, of course, that this restored vitality was barely enough to measure.
But that was to be expected—after all, he had used only a few drops of blood, and from a hatchling barely days old at that.
If he could obtain enough blood from a full-grown dragon, there was a real possibility of restoring these ancient dragon bones to their full potency.
'Very good.'
Morris rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
'Now—how was I going to get my hands on more adult dragon blood?'