A Web Of Magic

Hermione told him how Draco somehow found out about the baby dragon in Hagrid's possession. The Gryffindor trio already made a decision of sending away the baby dragon to Charlie in Romania as they couldn't take care of it properly. Hagrid was resistant to the idea at first but after Norbert bit Ron, he reluctantly agreed. Ron wrote Charlie a letter who replied in the positive agreeing to their request. Some of Charlie's friends would be passing by and they would take the baby dragon off their hands.

"Wait, that seems like a decent solution to the problem. What went wrong and how did Prof. McGonagall come into the picture?" Magnus expressed his doubt.

"Malfoy found out about the deal with Charlie and-" Hermione said sadly.

"Malfoy found out? How did Malfoy find out?" Magnus was confused. Malfoy didn't seem bright enough to figure out all of this, unless these guys were being stupid and spoke about it in front of him. Even Malfoy finding out about the dragon in the first place was suspicious enough. But apparently the Malfoy heir was bored enough that he stalked these guys till Hagrid's hut and peeped inside. 'Didn't know Malfoy was such a stalker. Was he that bored or is this his normal personality?' Magnus thought amused.

"Ron left his brother's letter in his History text book and left it in the classroom. Malfoy picked it up," Hermione said annoyed at both Ron and Malfoy. This would remain a blotch on her perfect record of no punishment.

'Ron left it just like that? Then stupid it is. And what's with this Malfoy kid. Does he have nothing else to do? Why is he so obsessed with these guys?' Magnus shook his head. It wasn't the first time he had heard Malfoy poking into the matters of the Gryffindor trio.

"And then what happened?" Magnus enquired.

"Me and Harry decided to drop the dragon off at midnight on the Astronomy tower. Charlie's friends would pick him up as per the agreement. It all went well. Harry brought his invisibility cloak along and we handed over Norbert's crate to Charlie's friends successfully. But we forgot the cloak at the top of the tower in our hurry and was caught by Filch. Malfoy told on us to Filch and he brought us to the professor," Hermione said both sad and annoyed.

"How did Neville come in?" Magnus asked. He didn't hear anything about the boy till now. Knowing him, he probably stumbled his way into it.

"He tried to warn us that Malfoy was onto us. Filch caught him too," Hermione said feeling sorry for the boy. He was only trying to help them but was caught and punished instead.

"Poor guy. So, what did Prof. McGonagall say?" Magnus asked curiously.

"She was really mad. I've never seen her so angry before. She said we were stupid to walk around the school at night in times like this. She didn't believe anything we said about the dragon. She thought we were making up stories trying to lure Malfoy out to make fun of him and get him punished. She took fifty points off, from each of us. Now all of Gryffindor knows that and they hate us for losing the house 150 points," Hermione looked down at her open book sadly. Her eyes teared up again but she stopped herself from crying.

Magnus saw that she was really feeling down and hugged her sideways trying to comfort her. He wouldn't have bothered if it was anyone else but she's his friend. "Listen Hermione. The house points don't matter in the long run alright. You don't see the sixth and seventh years worrying about them now do you? They are just a form of encouragement. It's not the end of the world if you lose a few," he comforted her. He only strived to earn his house points because they added up to his Impact points. He wouldn't have bothered with them otherwise.

"But all the professors must hate us now. And what will my parents say when they hear about this? The rest of the Gryffindor students hate us too. We must be the worst Gryffindors ever," Hermione poured out all of her worries.

"First of all, the professors don't care about you breaking some curfew. It's just Prof. McGonagall that's all and even she doesn't hate you. She's probably just angry that you broke the rules that's all. And I highly doubt your parents even know or care about house points here. I know they aren't people like that. So, stop worrying unnecessarily. Who's the detention with?" Magnus consoled her and enquired about the detention. If its's just with Prof. McGonagall, there's nothing to worry about. At most she'll make then write something from the book. The only detentions they need to worry about are those with Prof. Snape.

"She didn't say. She said she'll tell us the details about it later," Hermione said as she got her emotions under control.

"Well, it shouldn't be too bad. You already lost a lot of points so it should be an easy one like a detention with Prof. McGonagall. At most she'll make you copy material from the textbooks. Think of it as an extra revision. You better not be so impulsive next time. It won't be so simple if Prof. Snape catches you," Magnus advised her.

"Hey, I wasn't being impulsive. I thought out everything in advance before we went to drop off the dragon. Besides we had Harry's invisibility cloak. It's just bad luck," Hemione tried to justify herself.

"The invisibility cloak isn't fool proof Hermione. There are ways to find people even if they are under the invisibility cloak. This is a magic school, Hermione. There are plenty of spells available here that can do things you cannot even imagine. And yes, you were being impulsive. If you are going to sneak around the castle at night, you need to make the necessary preparations to not get caught. You can't be thinking that you are the only ones roaming around at night, do you? There are other students who also do that Hermione and why aren't they getting caught? Besides, if you don't know how to do it, you could have asked someone else for help," Magnus mildly chided her.

"But what if they tell everyone else?" Hermione weakly retorted.

"Well, that's why you ask people you know well enough. You could have simply asked me. Or even Fred and George really. They do live in the same dormitories as you lot. They are the experts at things like this," Magnus advised her.

"I'm sorry. I should have asked you but we were in so much hurry and it didn't cross my mind. Would Fred and George have helped us?" Hermione accepted her mistake as she further enquired. They never considered asking the older Weasleys. Ron made it seem like they'll mock him for everything so they stayed away from that train of thought.

"Well depends on how you ask, but at least they won't rat you out. At most they might ask you lot to test some of their inventions. A friendly tip, just never try first-hand whatever they make. Either tell Ron or Harry to try it first. You think you have lost more points? Last year, Fred and George alone lost Gryffindor 200 points. They almost broke every rule in the book. They just keep things under the wraps and don't go spreading the news to people," Magnus explained to her some of the deeds of the Weasley pranksters.

The more she listened, the more astonished Hermione became. Compared to the pranks that Fred and George pulled out, breaking curfew was nothing. "Why aren't they expelled yet?" she wondered out loud.

"Hermione, they don't just expel students for simple and silly things. It's just something they say to scare the students and keep them in line. Stop worrying too much," Magnus said as he rolled his eyes at her. She's still too naïve. 'Well, I might have to change that in the future. All of these events sound so strange. Even if they did break the curfew and get caught, why is McGonagall's response so strong? She isn't usually like that. It all sounds so fishy. And why did she say "in times like this?" Maybe there's something happening at school that I'm missing? Is it related to that stone?' Magnus mused to himself.

"Anyway, there's no need to worry. If it makes you feel any better, me, Fred and George once got detention in the Forbidden Forest at night. And that's because they did something very stupid and I got caught up in it. What you people did is nothing compared to that. So, cheer up. It's not like you'll get sent to the forest. What's the worst that could happen?" Magnus patted Hermione on the back as he diverted the topic to academics to distract her.