The lingering aftertaste of Christmas had not yet entirely faded. Hogwarts Castle was still covered in a thin blanket of snow, and the frost on the windowpanes shimmered faintly in the moonlight.
In the first week after the holidays, the air was filled with a lazy yet slightly excited atmosphere—the students were both annoyed about returning to classes and thrilled to see their friends again.
Julien Black returned to school with exactly this mindset.
While the warm winter sun of Bordeaux and his grandfather's magical tutelage in the secret room were certainly memorable, the towers of Hogwarts, the dust of the library, and the real starry sky in the Ravenclaw common room were also where he belonged now.
Time passed quickly. That evening, Julien was in the library looking up some information on Ancient Runes, but his head quickly began to spin.
Honestly, it was a bit too early for a first-year to be studying Runes. But perhaps because his grandfather had taught him a few obscure spells over the holidays, a book had materialized in his mind: Is All Ancient Magic Dark Magic?, which revealed that many ancient spells were intrinsically tied to Runes.
He was standing by the Black Lake doing eye-relaxation exercises when a girl's voice called out to him.
"Julien! What on earth are those weird movements?" Liriya stepped out from behind a massive beech tree, a few unmelted snowflakes still clinging to her cloak.
"Oh, I'm practicing Eastern magic—acupressure," Julien answered casually. "See? This is massaging the temples, and this is tracing the eye sockets! Pretty impressive, right?"
"Haha, very impressive!" The cold wind had turned Liriya's cheeks a faint rosy pink, but a bright, joyful light danced in her ice-blue eyes.
"Jokes aside, your timing is perfect! I'm just heading to see Hagrid. Come with me!"
Julien was slightly surprised. Liriya usually kept to herself. Aside from necessary communication during class, she almost never actively invited anyone anywhere.
Just as he was wondering about this, Liriya voluntarily explained that Hagrid was one of the few people around whom she felt entirely relaxed. Hagrid treated all creatures equally, and he never pried into her background or her tribe's secrets.
"Hagrid? This late?" Julien checked the color of the sky.
"He said he had something 'special' to show me tonight." Liriya blinked mysteriously, her tone carrying a trace of childish anticipation. "Hurry up! Stop dawdling!"
Unable to say no, Julien followed the girl from the North through the soft, thick snow toward the gamekeeper's hut.
Warm orange light spilled from the hut's windows, looking exceptionally cozy against the pitch-black backdrop of the Forbidden Forest.
The moment they approached, they could hear Hagrid's booming, excited voice, mixed with a bizarre sound—something between a cat's purr and a dog's bark. Unsurprisingly, it was Hagrid's cowardly boarhound, Fang.
"...Shh! Keep it down, Fang! Don't get so excited, you have to be quiet, or we'll get caught!" Hagrid was trying to keep his voice down, but his sheer excitement was overflowing.
Julien and Liriya exchanged a look, both seeing the confusion in the other's eyes. They knocked lightly on the door.
"Who is it?" Hagrid's voice carried a hint of panic.
"It's me, Liriya. And Julien."
With a creak, the door opened, revealing Hagrid's massive, bearded face. Seeing the two of them, he let out a sigh of relief, though he immediately looked rather flustered again. "Oh! You two! Come in, come in! It's freezing out there!"
The moment they stepped inside, Fang the Neapolitan Mastiff pounced over, giving Liriya's face two big licks, clearly very familiar with her.
Then, he suddenly noticed Julien standing behind her. He froze, tilted his head, and stared at Julien, as if to say, Who's this? Never seen him before.
The fire in the hut's hearth was roaring, making the room exceptionally warm. But what immediately caught the eye was a massive egg sitting right in the middle of the huge oak table. The egg's surface was covered in mottled grey-black patterns.
Right at that moment, the giant egg seemed ready to hatch. Something inside was going tap-tap-tap, pushing against the shell.
"Whoa, Hagrid, is this...?" Julien's gaze was instantly drawn to it. He remembered now—this had to be the plotline where Hagrid hatches a dragon egg. This was a rare sight indeed.
Hagrid's face instantly turned beetroot red. He clumsily tried to hide the egg, but seemed terrified of breaking it at the same time, making his movements look both ridiculous and endearing.
"Er... nothing, nothing at all! Just... a... um... a special pet egg! Right, it's about to hatch!"
Liriya had already unceremoniously leaned right in. She reached out a finger and touched it carefully. The next second, her breath hitched.
"Wow, this is a dragon egg!!!" Liriya gasped in shock.
"Shh—!" Terrified out of his wits, Hagrid slapped a massive hand over her mouth. "Keep your voice down! Have mercy on me! This is a secret!"
Just then, another knock sounded at the door. This time, the knocking was hurried and frantic.
Hagrid's face instantly drained of all color. "Oh no! It couldn't be..." He scrambled around, seemingly trying to figure out where to stuff the baby dragon to hide it.
Seeing Hagrid's panic, Julien frowned and walked over to the door, peering through the peephole.
Three silhouettes stood outside, slightly blurry in the moonlight, but he instantly recognized the boy with the round glasses and the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
"It's Harry, Ron, and Hermione," Julien called back to Hagrid.
Hagrid's expression shifted from sheer terror to profound awkwardness. He let out a helpless sigh and opened the door.
"Harry! Ron! Hermione! What are you lot doing here?" Hagrid asked, trying his best to sound normal.
"Hagrid, we need to talk to you!" Harry got straight to the point before even stepping inside. "We... we found out someone is trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone. We think it's Snape!"
Ron and Hermione nodded vigorously beside him, their faces written with worry and determination.
However, when the three of them walked into the hut and saw Julien and Liriya standing by the fireplace, they froze.
"Julien? Liriya?" Harry asked, completely surprised. "What are you guys doing here?"
"We came to hang out with Hagrid," Liriya answered simply, her eyes unable to stop drifting back to the massive egg in the center of the table.
The atmosphere suddenly became a bit delicate. Harry and the others clearly hadn't expected to run into anyone else here, especially not Julien. They had intended to have a highly secretive conversation with Hagrid regarding the safety of the school.
Hagrid clearly realized this too. He rubbed his hands together, his eyes darting nervously. "Er... well, since you're all here, how about some tea and a rock cake first?"
As Hagrid poured tea for the young wizards, he said, "Snape? Why are you lot still suspecting Professor Snape? He's one of the professors protecting the Stone..."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Hagrid slapped a hand over his mouth. "Blimey, I shouldn't have told you that."
"What? Then it's even more dangerous...!" Ron burst out anxiously.
Hagrid immediately cut him off. "Alright, listen to me. This isn't something you lot should be worrying your heads over. You just focus on your studies."
"But Hagrid..." Hermione interjected frantically.
Tap-tap-tap.
Just as Hermione was about to argue further, another sound came from the giant egg on the table.
"Hagrid, what is that? An egg?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally noticed the massive anomaly on the table.
"Whoa!" Ron gasped. "Blimey, that's no ordinary egg. That's a dragon egg! And it's a Norwegian Ridgeback, too. Bloody hell."
Ron's older brother Charlie studied dragons in Romania, and Ron had actually been to visit him.
CRACK—