One Hundred and Fifty Points

One day, after Aya had been playing in the dirt during Herbology, Harry, Ron, and Hermione dragged her along to Hagrid's Hut.

"It's about to hatch!" Ron said excitedly as he ran. "This is the first time I've had a chance to see a dragon hatch!"

"Hagrid had Hedwig bring me a note this morning," Harry said. "I can't believe it!"

"Why didn't I know?" Aya looked at the three of them, feeling as though she'd been left out again.

"You spent all morning with your head down, eating! You never sit with us, and you're always surrounded by a bunch of older students!" Hermione explained quickly, a little out of breath.

"Oh-" So she was the one who had left them out. Never mind, then.

When they reached Hagrid's Hut, they were quickly ushered inside. Hagrid's face was flushed, and he was extremely excited. "It's nearly out!"

They gathered around the table where the egg sat. Cracks had already appeared in its shell, and it was rocking back and forth on the table. Aya stared at the egg, which kept making clicking sounds, her mind full of thoughts of roast suckling dragon.

Before long, a few crisp cracking sounds rang out, and the egg split open. Out crawled a... a big black rat.

Aya's face scrunched up. This thing was far too ugly-its wings were wrinkled and spiky, its body was scrawny, and it had a long nose. Its whole body was pitch-black, but its nose was white, making it look especially big.

"It doesn't look tasty." Aya curled her lip and lost interest. When she looked away, she spotted a head outside the window.

Aya darted outside.

"Ha-ha!" Aya seized Draco by the back of his collar. "Look what I found! A Peeping Tom!"

"Let go of me!" Draco struggled. His collar was choking him, turning his face red, and he grabbed at it with one hand. "I'm not! It's you! You're raising a dragon! I'm telling my father!"

The others rushed out of the hut, the guilty look on Hagrid's face plain to see.

"Oh?" Aya suddenly brought her face close to Draco's, a frightening light flashing in her otherwise expressionless black eyes. "Then I... can't let you leave!"

"W-what?" Draco's eyes widened in terror.

"Th-that's not a good idea, is it?" Ron hesitated. Before the relief on Draco's face had even settled in, he went on, "We don't have anywhere to lock him up."

"That's wrong!" Hermione countered shrilly. Draco turned his head toward her, only to hear, "If we're caught, how many points will we lose?"

Everything went black before his eyes.

"But he is our classmate, after all. Not only do we have nowhere to lock him up, but..." Harry finally spoke. Draco clung to his words like a drowning man to a lifeline. "How about we let Hagrid keep him? Hagrid's hut is far from the castle, and no one usually comes here. We can dig a cellar under his bed!"

He died.

"What are you talking about?" Aya gave them a puzzled look and dragged Draco, who had scared himself so badly his legs had gone weak, into the hut. She shoved his face in front of the big black rat. "There, you've seen it too. Now you're an accomplice!"

"?" Draco came back to life on the spot. He hadn't even paid attention to what Aya said and had no idea he now had a criminal record. His eyes shone as he looked at the ugly creature before him. "Merlin, it's a Norwegian Ridgeback!"

"Is it?" Aya turned to ask Ron, whose face was scrunched up.

"Why did you bring him in?" Ron was a little angry.

"He was spying on us!" Harry was angry too. He'd never gotten along with Draco, and now that Draco was sitting beside the table, he didn't even want to go near it.

"This is for the best," Hermione said quietly, pointing at Draco, whose fascination rivaled Hagrid's. "It'll keep him from telling on Hagrid. If Hagrid gets caught, he'll definitely be sacked!"

Seeing that the immediate crisis was over, Hagrid sat back down beside the table and spoke to the little black dragon in a sickly sweet voice. "Oh, Norbert, Norbert, that's what I've named him-" He wiped his tears with a handkerchief. "He knows me, look!"

"You can't keep him forever, Hagrid. Before long, he'll be bigger than your house!" Harry warned loudly.

"Let me keep him!" Draco suddenly cut in. "Our family's manor is big. There's plenty of room for a dragon like this!"

"I won't!" Hagrid bit his lip and raised his voice. "I know I can't keep him forever, but—he's too little. He can't leave his mummy!"

"So Hagrid's a girl?" Aya whispered to Hermione.

"Let me keep him!" Draco, unwilling to be left out, continued loudly, "You're so poor, how could you possibly take good care of a dragon?"

"Why are you butting in?" Ron shoved him aside. "You're lucky we even let you look at him, and now you want more?"

"Weasley! Move! Your family can't even afford to feed yourselves, much less a dragon!" Draco straightened his back and shoved his way back. "I'm the one with the upper hand now. You smuggled a dragon into school! I'm helping you!"

"Would the elder Mr. Malfoy agree?" Hermione reminded him from the side.

Draco's back bent.

"Charlie," Harry suddenly said. "Ron, isn't your brother Charlie at a dragon farm? We can give him to your brother!"

"Brilliant!" Ron happily shoved Draco aside again. "What do you think, Hagrid?"

Draco looked at the little black dragon puffing smoke from his mouth on the table, his eyes three parts regret, three parts sorrow, and four parts longing, and sighed. Crying, making a fuss, and threatening to hang himself didn't work so well on his parents anymore now that he was at school. He'd tried it to get a new broom in Diagon Alley before the term started and had gotten a thorough scolding from his mother. Now that he was at school, he was no longer the young Master Draco who had once been showered with affection.

"All right, Mr. Malfoy." Aya's eyes darted about. "It's time to pay your admission fee."

"...Weren't you the one who kidnapped me and brought me in here?" Draco's face darkened in an instant. "You're lucky I haven't reported you for unlawful confinement, and you want money?"

"We let you look at a baby dragon for so long. It's such a rare sight-how can you justify not paying?" Aya declared self-righteously.

Draco glared at her, then his eyes darted about as he suddenly remembered something. He raised his chin, held a fist to it, and coughed. "Even if I did pay, it wouldn't be to you. Who are you to this dragon?"

"Hmm, witness to his hatching? His mummy's best friend? The first to care for him after he grows up?" Aya thought for a moment and answered.

"Go away, go away." Draco waved a hand at Aya dismissively and said with an air of restraint, "Mr. Hagrid, is it? I'll send the admission fee later, as a contribution toward his upbringing. I hope you'll accept it when the time comes."

"You're not plotting something, are you?" Ron looked at him suspiciously. Draco struck him as thoroughly Slytherin, and for him to be so eager to give something away, he definitely had bad intentions.

"We don't need you to pay an admission fee!" Harry said warily as well.

"Heh." Draco put on airs again. "Then, about this dragon-"

"You have to promise not to tell on us." Hermione stepped between the boys, blocking their view of one another.

"Fine." Draco cast another greedy look at the little black dragon. "But you're not allowed to stop me from coming to see him."

Only then did Aya tug on the beard of Hagrid, who was absorbed in the little black dragon's beauty. He looked down and saw all five children staring at him. He hadn't heard a word they'd said and mumbled his agreement.

Draco left the shabby hut with his chin raised. The moment he stepped outside, he even dusted off his clothes, as though they'd gotten dirty.

"...Damn Malfoy," Ron said viciously.

"His tail looks like it's held even higher than Aya's," Harry said. "Though he looks like a monkey."

"We Spirit Clan don't have any monkeys," Aya said.

Over the next few days, time dragged for Harry and the others, not only because the burden of Hagrid's dragon weighed on them, but also because Draco kept bringing raw meat to see the dragon. Afterward, he would viciously threaten Harry and the others, telling them to send the dragon away as soon as possible, because that great oaf Hagrid was actually feeding it those damned dead rats.

Even Ron felt a little embarrassed about that—what kind of dragon had it so rough? Fortunately, Charlie's reply came fairly quickly, and now all they had to do was wait until Saturday night to send Norbert away together.

In just a few days, the dragon that ate dead rats had grown at an alarming rate. An untamed dragon was enormously destructive, and Harry and Ron were both reluctant to feed him, so they borrowed Xiaohua every time they went. Xiaohua could now grow bigger and keep the not-yet-grown Norbert in check. At least he wouldn't get bitten like Hagrid's dog Fang and Hagrid himself-though Hagrid said Norbert was only playing with him.

"Merlin, if it weren't for Xiaohua, I definitely would've been bitten today!" Ron said, still shaken, when he came back carrying Xiaohua. He no longer cared that Scabbers was afraid of cats; he'd nearly lost the hand he used to hold Scabbers today.

"What happened?" Hermione hurried over. It was already late, and there weren't many people in the common room.

"When I went over today, I pushed the door open and Norbert stuck his head right out. He nearly bit my hand!" Ron put the cat down and shook his right hand. "If Xiaohua hadn't pushed me out of the way, I'd have lost it!"

"That thing's poisonous!" Harry was frightened too. "I really, really have never wanted Saturday to come so quickly. He even bites Hagrid. I have to bring Xiaohua every time I go to feed him."

Since it was a secret operation, the fewer people involved, the better.

Harry and Hermione both insisted that Aya go, but Aya wasn't interested in the operation and sent Xiaohua instead. In the end, Harry, Ron, and Xiaohua went. Hermione was a girl and wasn't as strong as Ron, and there was only so much room under the Invisibility Cloak, so she stayed in the common room.

She had started wondering about Quirrell's secret again these past few days. After stealing his turban last time, the mental assault of its stench had kept her from noticing that the tasks on her task list hadn't refreshed at all. She only realized it later. The turban might not be important, so she planned to find a time to investigate Quirrell's office a second time.

This time, she had to find a moment when Quirrell was there.

While Aya was plotting her second visit in the common room, Harry and the others returned, their faces pale.

"What happened?"

"We got caught." Harry hung his head.

"Along with Malfoy," Ron said.

"Didn't you take Xiaohua with you?" Hermione asked in surprise. Filch's Mrs. Norris was very tolerant of Xiaohua, and she'd thought everything would go smoothly tonight.

"It was me..." Neville emerged from behind the two of them, looking miserable. "Malfoy was looking for them. I thought he was going to make trouble for Harry and the others, so I wanted to warn them, and then Professor McGonagall caught me."

"And then she caught all of you in one go?" Hermione said in disbelief. Then she suddenly covered her mouth, her voice horrified. "How many points did you lose?"

"Fifty." Harry's heart sank.

"That's not so bad. Split between you, it's still less than I lost in the last faction battle!" Aya comforted him.

"Each." Ron's face was ashen.

"Ah!!!" Hermione shrieked in disbelief. "Each!"

In a single night, Gryffindor's points were all gone, and they had fallen into last place. Draco, who had also been out last night, had lost only twenty points. Apparently, he'd switched sides at the last moment and claimed he'd been out looking for a professor to report them to.

"Typical Slytherin!" Ron said through gritted teeth.

"We should've known, shouldn't we?" Harry said angrily, his eyes fixed on the Slytherins two long tables away.

"Looks like there's going to be a big shake-up in the Gryffindor point-loss rankings," Fred and George said cheerfully, showing none of the distress one might expect over their house losing points.

"Are there prizes?" Aya asked.

"Hmm... maybe a few sweets?" George teased her.

"Don't listen to their nonsense!" Alicia scolded the two of them, while Percy glared at them, his face dark. "If there really were rankings like that, would Gryffindor still have a chance at first place?"

"I'm still a little curious whether my thirty points in one day would get me any sweets." Aya firmly believed that a reward from a ranking was better than one given away for free.

"Just barely~" Fred wore a proud expression. "Not quite as good as us, but still not bad!" He rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a few crudely wrapped sweets, and tossed them to Aya. "For the dark horse of the rankings, your prize-"

Aya caught them delightedly and was just about to unwrap one and try it when Katie stopped her. "You'd better eat breakfast first, little Aya. You can't just eat their sweets."

"Slander! Slander-" George shouted. "She's got Xiaohua. How would we dare?" That wooden stake would bite without a moment's hesitation!

Having lost a hundred and fifty points in one go, Harry and the others were guilt-stricken enough to die. Aya thought they cared far too much about collective honor. Unlike her: in the past, when players took her into dungeons, she'd lie down the moment they entered, then brazenly be the first to bid on the rewards afterward.

Young people, sure enough!

Aya swished her tail and shook her head with an affected air of gravity. "You still need practice. Take me, for example. Dumbledore's caught me wandering around at night more than once, and I haven't lost a single point!"

"I don't want to say 'you're boasting' anymore. Can you let us have some peace and quiet?" Ron lay sprawled like a puddle of mud in the History of Magic classroom. It was the first time he'd faced the cold shoulder from his classmates, and he was somewhat dispirited. "Fred and George are always losing points, but everyone still likes them."

"They lose them in a steady trickle. You lot opened the floodgates," Aya said.

"I'm begging you." Harry's voice was weak. Ever since Aya had become their good friend, they had all become much more direct when they spoke-because if they weren't direct, Aya wouldn't understand. "Please stop stabbing me in the heart, all right? I want to die quietly by myself in this classroom."

"You want to be the History of Magic professor too?" Aya said in surprise. "Forgive me for being blunt, but shouldn't your knowledge still be a little lacking?"

"..." He'd forgotten that even when he spoke plainly, Aya still might not understand.