She’s not to be trusted.”
Ralph saw this as further evidence of his larger point. “This is all a load of cobblers! You can see that, right?”
“There’s nothin’ t’ be done about it,” Hagrid declared, smacking the table with the flat of his hand, making the remaining dishes rattle.
“Fer better or worse, the plan’s goin’ forward. Heddlebun an’ I leave tomorrow night at midnight. By the nex’ mornin’, we’ll either have Norberta in the barn, or I’ll be in Azkaban.”
“Ralph,” James said seriously, looking aside at his friend, “You’re not going to… you know… go to Headmaster Merlin or anything about this, are you?”
Ralph drew a hand down his face miserably. “I should, this time. I really should, and you bloody well know it.”
Still holding Heddlebun’s limp, hitching body in her arms, Rose said, “But you’re not going to. Are you?”
Ralph glared at Rose fiercely for a moment, his jaw firm, and then sank back into his chair, defeated. “Of course not. I’m no tattle-tale.”
“Not this time,” James couldn’t resist muttering.
“That’s good to know, Ralph,” Rose sighed, laying Heddlebun gently on the hearthrug next to Trife, who sniffed her head, and then licked her drooping, bat-wing ear. “Because if you tattle, you can’t be allowed to come along.”
Ralph spluttered, going rigid in his chair again. “Come along!?
I’m not coming along! None of us is!”
“Of course we are,” Rose corrected him firmly. “We went over this when we translated the letter from Grawp. Hagrid’s like family to us. Has been since our parents were little. In fact, if James’ and my parents hadn’t helped Hagrid out with Norberta back when she was still baby Norbert burning char-marks on this very table, we wouldn’t even have this problem, now, would we? Come to think of it, we’re just finishing what they started.”
Ralph shook his head derisively. “You’ve been reading too much of Revalvier’s books.”
“No,” Hagrid commented with a shrug, “That part is all true.
Perfessor Revalvier interviewed me special. There, you can still see the scorch marks from Norberta’s first flames…” He traced a finger along an old black stain and hitched a sniff.
“Seriously,” James said, trying to inject a note of calm rationality into his voice, glancing back and forth between Rose and Ralph. “You know Hagrid’s right. If this goes all pear-shaped, we’re not talking detention. We’re looking at actual legal trouble, the kind that doesn’t get fixed by a letter from our parents.”
“James, you and I both know that they don’t send school students to Azkaban for this sort of thing,” Rose chided, lifting her chin.
“But they do send adult wizards who already have tetchy legal records. If Hagrid goes through with his plan alone—I’m sorry, Hagrid,” she offered the half-giant an affectionately stern look, “But you’ll get caught.
You and Heddlebun both. You’ll go to Azkaban. And Heddlebun, I don’t know what they do to house elves that break the law, but it’s got to be even worse than losing your service. However,” she turned her gaze back to James and Ralph again, daring them to argue with her, “if we go along to help, nobody will face any consequences at all, because we won’t get caught.”
She met James’ eyes and a ghost of a smile twitched the corners of her mouth. James tried not to smile back, but the moment he made the attempt, the task became impossible.
Ralph glared at both of them in disbelief. “You’re enjoying this,” he exclaimed, shaking his head in dark wonderment. “Aren’t you!?
You’re both completely off your onions!”
Rose quelled her smile and approached Ralph. Putting her hand on the table near his, but not quite touching him, she asked, “Are you in, Ralph? We need you. We’re not a team without you.”
Hagrid spoke up, “No, Ralph! I can’t ask yeh…” He shook himself and glanced around at the others, “I can’t ask any of yeh t’ risk— ”
“Of course I’m in,” Ralph admitted, rolling his eyes and slumping onto his crossed elbows. “Who am I kidding? Oh, I’m the worst Head Boy ever.”
“Maybe you are,” Rose agreed gently, placing her hand on Ralph’s shoulder. “But that’s exactly why we love you.”
17. – Conspiracy of the dragon
Friday’s schedule was unforgiving under the best of conditions, and much less so, James realized, when awaiting a midnight adventure that, despite Rose’s purported confidence, could well end in monumental disaster. The morning began with a double Astronomy class in the high tower classroom. The fire had been stoked against a late winter storm, making the room almost stiflingly hot as the ancient Astronomy professor, Aurora Sinistra, droned on and on, calculating endless triangulation charts and plotting the orbits of planets, moons, and comets in her cracked, wispy voice.
James leaned with his chin on his right hand, struggling to stay awake amidst the cloying warmth and the monotony of the lecture.
Next to him, Ralph doodled aimlessly on his parchment, adding superfluous underlines, circles, and arrows to his halfhearted notes.
James tried to imagine what they would find that night: Norberta hiding in an empty wharf warehouse on the edge of London, huffing the air impatiently between the nervous figures of Grawp and Prechka, who would be terrified themselves this close to the gleaming lights and noise of the city. How would the three of them get there in the first place? How would two giants (Prechka was over twenty feet tall, James knew) sneak through the outskirts of a major Muggle metropolis, especially with a forty-foot dragon in tow? The whole affair seemed preposterous from top to bottom. And yet, James had to admit, at least to himself, that it was the very preposterousness of the mission that gave it an air of tantalizing, haphazard exhilaration. It had been over two years since James had been on any adventure more risky than a midnight sneak to the kitchens for a bag of crisps. He was due. And Rose, it seemed, felt exactly the same way.
Ralph, of course, was having none of it. He groused about the plan under his breath the entire way to lunch, and then offered every conceivable worst-case scenario he could think up as they made their way to Alchemy.
“What if Grawp and Prechka can’t control Norberta while they’re waiting for us in the wharf?” he fretted, speaking quietly and rapidly as they walked. “What if we get there and Norberta’s already escaped into London?”
“Then I guess it won’t be our problem, will it?” James muttered with a shrug. “We come home and read about it in tomorrow’s Daily Prophet.”
Ralph shook his head, clearly dissatisfied with James’ answer.
“What if we get Norberta onto the ship and are spotted by, I don’t know, a police boat or something? Spotlights everywhere, and shouting bullhorns, and people with badges yelling ‘halt!’”