Harry's Care for a New Friend

That night after the feast, Ron remembered to thank Harry for the chocolate frogs. He must have heard others extending their thanks for various gifts during the feast.

"You're welcome, Ron. Did you get the cards you were looking for?" Harry asked.

"Not yet, soon though." Hope sprang eternal in him.

"You said you had a lot."

"I do."

"How did you get so many? Your family really like chocolate?"

"What? No. Not that much. The frogs are..." He shrugged. Not his favorite was how Harry interpreted it. "The cards, though, are wizard. I bought some with pocket money, sometimes I'd help with chores or help the Diggorys. Not the Lovegoods, though. They never had chores, for some reason. Lawn was so overgrown that cutting it down wouldn't have made a difference..."

"You said you had five hundred. You bought them all with pocket money?"

"No. We hand them down, don't we? Got some from my uncles on my dad's side, got Dad's and Bill's. Charlie refused to share what he had. Percy...well, I don't know if he collected anything other than books of rules. Never asked the twins, safer that way."

"So the cards have been around a long time?" Harry asked.

"Oh, they change sometimes, but Paracelsus and Hengist aren't going anywhere. They've been dead for ages."

"So the Dumbledore card has always said what it did?" Harry struggled to think of any other current wizards who might have cards. He just didn't know. History certainly didn't talk about anyone who was still alive.

"Don't know. I guess so."

That answered that. Ron probably did have five hundred cards, but they were family heirlooms. Maybe like Harry's cloak. That had belonged to Harry's father, at least the note had said so.

Harry didn't say what he'd thought of Ron's collection before. He still wondered if a few fewer chocolate frogs would have meant his friend was a bit happier about his life? But how did one phrase that without getting into a row the height and heft of Gryffindor Tower?

Harry took the prompt about gifts and sought out Hermione to thank her for the wonderful book she'd found him.

"I'm glad you liked it." She was almost tongue-tied. Perhaps she wasn't much used to receiving gratitude?

"Have you read it?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes. It was very helpful, but I don't especially like Defense."

"Well, I don't like the class, but I do like some of the books I've found. They're brilliant."

"Have you read..." Hermione was willing to talk to anyone who was willing to talk books.

....

Harry spent considerable time in the library looking for things to enjoy or learn, but the collection had strange gaps. For one, tales of wizarding explorers and adventurers were in short supply. Harry didn't like the Lockhart books much, but he found volumes about the wizards who had explored the Nile Valley during Roman times, the people who had excavated Celtic burial mounds, and the daft wizards who first explored the New World and forgot about what they'd found. None of the books talked much about the spells they used, but the stories were good, if dry.

Harry also found Hagrid in the library reading about dragons. Eventually Harry broke down Hagrid's babble-mouthed protestations. The large wizard was hatching an egg, a dragon egg.

So Harry began to split some of his free time: some went to Ron or Neville or the others, some went to Hermione who was looking into various magics referenced in the library but not taught in the school, some went to Harry's own projects, including mastering a few spells...and now some went to nurse-maiding a dragon egg inside an extremely hot, stuffy wooden hut.

Harry couldn't talk Hagrid from the name Norbert, but he did manage to get Hagrid to hide the dragon in the forest after the hatching. By the time spring was in full bloom, the dragon could fend for itself. It seemed to prefer dining on spiders, massive ones. Hagrid wasn't well-pleased with that, but he liked dragons better than spiders so he just grumbled about Norbert's dietary choices.

Harry visited Norbert several times a week. The dragon, which turned out not to be a male dragon, was larger than Harry, but she regarded Harry with some fondness. As if Harry were a rather malformed younger dragon.

That day Harry arrived to find the dragon with her head on the leafy ground, but she wasn't sleeping.

"I suppose you're lonely," Harry said.

The dragon seemed to understand. She nodded.

"I've read about preserves for dragons. You'd have people to take care of you. You'd have other dragons to chat with."

There was a noise on the wind that sounded like where.

Was the dragon talking to Harry?

"Let me look that up. I know there's one close enough. The bigger ones are in Romania, I think, and the Ukraine. They're pretty far away."

Harry returned the next day with two books and a map. He felt a little silly chatting away to Norbert. Although the wind had informed Harry that Norbert's real name was Bobminth. A strange name that.

A week later, Hagrid was despondent. Norbert was gone, flown away.

Harry wondered if he'd told Bobminth exactly where to go. He made a point not to mention his conversations with Norbert or his work with maps. Hagrid might not believe Harry, which would be bad, or Hagrid might believe Harry and be furious, which would be worse.