After Hagrid's bed boards were moved aside and a seemingly brand-new trapdoor passed through, a new area of Hagrid's Hut unfolded before Brian-a spacious basement, fully three times the size of the hut above, with room for twenty Hagrids.
Most conspicuous were the dozen or so crates of brandy on the floor, five large jars of chicken blood, and several large vats of neatly arranged frozen ferret meat.
At a rough estimate, those ferrets could have formed at least several dozen families of three, caused a ferret infestation in some region, or fed an entire colony of owls.
Unless half-giants had a custom of hoarding food for winter like squirrels, the ferret meat, chicken blood, and brandy were probably a growing-up gift package for the basement's sole tenant-newly hatched dragons were much like baby parrots, desperately needing these things to stay alive.
The dragon egg, about the size of Hagrid's head, currently sat in an apparatus resembling an iron oven above a stove. It looked rather livelier than before, much of the pitch-black color of its shell replaced by a copper-rust red.
Whether it had noticed someone approaching or sensed the little sapphire dragon in Brian's hand, the dragon egg began rocking restlessly. Wearing a tender expression, Hagrid hurried forward to soothe it.
"Oh, oh, Norbert, it's all right. Mummy's here. Don't be afraid, don't be afraid."
With an equally tender expression, Brian rubbed the raised head of the little sapphire dragon in his hand, which was swaggering about and attempting to challenge the egg to an arm-wrestling match, and reminded it:
"Relax. Norbert's still an egg, and you're his older brother-or sister? Anyway, if you want to fight, that can wait until later. I won't stop you then."
Yes, Hogwarts' sleeping dragon sculpture was lifelike, but it overlooked one