35 Chapter 35: Here we come Summer, Exams are finally over

Exams were here, while you could see the nervousness of the other students on their faces. Harry blasted through them with no difficulty; by this point, he had almost completed the third year of the Hogwarts curriculum. If he weren't distracted by other things like learning chess, he would have been farther.

The first-year exams were held under sweltering heat in their classrooms, with extra quills for the exams. They were bewitched with an anti-cheating spell, and Harry almost gave in to his desire to test its limits. But in the end, he decided he would finish the exam without troubles and try the quill once he learned the spell himself.

They had practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox — points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

Since the incident on Halloween, Snape pretty much ignored Harry's existence. Even when he had to hand over his potions for grading, the man just took them and didn't even look at the boy. Harry wouldn't complain if he didn't have to endure the ridiculing of the greasy-haired professor. He didn't have a problem with not being able to ask questions. Yes, there could be a better teacher, but in the end, he didn't care about Potions enough, and he did study ahead for all of the subjects anyway. There weren't that many questions he had to ask either way, and Hermione did a good job covering them. Not like Snape did a good job answering them.

Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons, and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn't help cheering with the rest.

History of Magic was one of the worst and most boring classes in the whole curriculum. Not only did their ghost professor have no idea what was actually going on, he didn't even know their names; he called them by the names of students who were probably already deceased. He was like a broken recording. No, it was basically like learning the history of what was going on for the last thousand years inside a fishbowl, almost completely isolated from the outside world. Even if they mentioned some events outside of the Wizarding World, their perspective was very limited and distant, without even trying to understand it.

For wizards, the transition from the horse carriage to cars was one of the most recent events. Completely insular, but sometimes funny to read. But there wasn't much use in it for Harry. However, he still persisted in learning their history so he had a chance to discover some kind of ancient or lost but interesting magic. More magic like their space manipulation in their trunks, the extremely rare kind.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," said Hermione as they joined the crowds flocking out onto the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager." Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterward, while the others could only chuckle.

"We told you that you were overthinking," said Harry as he could only shake his head when he heard his bushy-haired friend. They wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. From there, they could see the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan tickling the tentacles of the giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows of the lake.

"At last, no more studying," sighed Tracey contentedly as she basked in the warm sun, leaning against the stump of the tree. Daphne nodded beside her, enjoying the beautiful view of the Black Lake on this nice and sunny day.

Meanwhile, Harry was lost in his thoughts. It was time to get to the Philosopher's Stone. He had around an 80 percent winning rate against his copy of the enchanted chess set right now. But his time was running out; he didn't feel like he would improve much more until the school year ended.

It would be do or die... well, fail. He was confident he could survive losing against the chess set or against anything else there was as a safeguard. He had already tried it, and the Teleportation Circle did work in Hogwarts. They only warded against their specific forms of teleportation they called Apparition and Portkeys. So if he were stuck, he could just teleport out of there. Too bad he couldn't teleport to places he hadn't visited yet. Or he would just have teleported to the last room at the end. Also, he did need enough time to set up a teleportation circle because, unlike their instantaneous version, he first needed to set up a circle that took around half a minute. Some people could do it faster, but he couldn't yet.

Also, something was bothering Harry about Norberta, the Norwegian Ridgeback. Although she was growing splendidly, adjusted well to the environment, and hunted her own food, something about her was bothering him in his subconsciousness. But he couldn't tell what.

And then it hit him; he finally knew what was bothering him. It had nothing to do with Norberta herself, neither her health nor anything similar. 'Why would someone conveniently have a dragon for Hagrid? He said he met that someone in the Hog's Head, but why would he be there with a dragon egg? There is nothing; it's just a small village. Most of the shops there are for Hogwarts students. Nothing even remotely related to magical animals, especially dragons. Poachers would try to sell it somewhere in Knockturn Alley,' thought Harry as his mind worked at full speed.

"See you later, guys. I am going to visit Hagrid," he said suddenly as he stood up.

"Eh, see you later. That was kind of abrupt," muttered Daphne as the blond-haired girl watched Harry disappear.

Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house; his trousers and sleeves were rolled up, and he was shelling peas into a large bowl. "Hullo," he said, smiling. "Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?"

"Sorry, no time, Hagrid. I really need to ask you something! You know that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"

"Dunno," said Hagrid casually, "he wouldn't take his cloak off." Seeing that Harry watched him with bafflement, he clarified, "It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head — that's one o' the pubs down in the village. Might've been a dragon dealer, mightn't he? I never saw his face; he kept his hood up." Harry sank down next to the bowl of peas.

"What did you talk to him about, Hagrid? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?"

"Might've come up," said Hagrid, frowning as he tried to remember. "Yeah... he asked what I did, an' I told him I was the gamekeeper here... He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after... so I told him... an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon... an' then... I can't remember too well 'cause he kept buying me drinks... Let's see... yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg and we could play cards for it if I wanted... but he had to be sure I could handle it, he didn't want it to go to any old home... So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy..."

"And did he — did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Well — yeah — how many three-headed dogs d'you meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, just play him a bit o' music and he'll go straight off ter sleep —"

Hagrid suddenly looked horrified. "I shouldn't have told yeh that!" he blurted out. "Forget I said it! Hey — where're yeh goin'?"

"You already told me that. I don't want to use the Stone." 'Only study it a bit.' "You shouldn't have told that man," said Harry as he rushed back towards the castle. There was no way he would allow anybody to steal the Stone.

It was his target for this year! No way in hell would he allow somebody else to take it, even if he just wanted to borrow it for an indefinite amount of time. 'No!' he decided, 'Dumbledore is clearly incompetent. Who would guard the Stone with such simple protections? Devil's Snare is a first-year plant! The chess game may be deadly, but if I didn't plan to continue studying here, I could just blow a hole through that door. It's better if I keep the Stone safe.' He decided self-righteously with determination, "Fuck you, Quirrell!"

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