[67]:Gryffindors

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Harry laughed. "Actually, Weasel, I didn't even get the chance to rat Hagrid out. I got as far as asking to speak with Kettleburn in confidence and telling him that, hypothetically, I might know of someone who had acquired a dragon egg without understanding the legal issues that might result. At that point, he interrupted me to say, and I quote – 'Oh Sweet Morgana's tits, what has Hagrid done now?!' – unquote. In other words, Hermione, I was completely correct this morning. This is actually something Hagrid does routinely and the staff just continually bails him out. Though to be honest, even Kettleburn was astonished he got hold of something like a Norwegian Ridgeback egg."

"Anyway," he continued, "Kettleburn said not to worry and that he'd take care of it. He has some friends in the Ministry who will backdate an authorization form allowing him to incubate a dragon egg that's been donated to the school until it hatches and then to raise it for a few months until it is old enough to be safely transported via apparation. Apparently, there's an 'educational purposes' exception to the normal rules on dragon-breeding. In a day or so, once the paperwork is complete, Kettleburn will take custody of the egg from Hagrid, who will still be allowed to assist the Professor and the NEWT-level CoMC students through the rest of the hatching process and then with raising it until after exams. Then, they will ship it to the sanctuary in Romania through perfectly standard and legal procedures sometime this summer."

He slung his book bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. "Oh, and I also won five points for Slytherin for bringing this to his attention and handling the matter with such discretion."

"Hang on a minute!" said Hermione angrily. He stopped and looked back at her with a bland expression. "You met with him this afternoon? That means you already had this whole situation resolved before you even contacted me!"

"Naturally. It would have been quite embarrassing to have presented a plan as simple as 'talk to a teacher' and it not actually work."

"So what would have happened if I refused to let you borrow the invisibility cloak?" Jim asked testily.

Harry looked thoughtful. "I suppose I would have done a good deed and helped Hagrid out of a very serious jam and then gotten nothing in exchange except a few House points and the satisfaction of knowing that I was a better person than the Boy-Who-Lived." And then, he turned and walked out, leaving four speechless Gryffindors behind him.

15 April 1992

The next day, Hermione watched the door of the Great Hall impatiently, but Harry never showed up for breakfast. She had sent him several parchment messages, but he never responded. By lunch, there was still no sign of him, though Ron would flinch every time he felt a breeze, convinced that Harry was sneaking up behind him invisibly for some nefarious purpose. Jim was not as paranoid, but he was continually anxious. Part of him was terrified that he'd lost forever the precious heirloom his father had entrusted to him. That afternoon, Hermione sent yet another parchment message while studying in the Gryffindor common room but then jumped when her parchment finally dinged in response. The message, however, was not one she was expecting.

"Um, Hi, Hermione, this is Theo. Harry asked me to tell you that he's ... oh, damn, how did he put it... off doing sneaky, underhanded unethical things that he can't talk to you about and that you'd just disapprove of because 'Gryffindor!' And also, he, um, has too much going on right now to worry about continually feeling like he's being judged for his lack of all-true-ism. No, I said altruism! ... Merlin, this thing really needs some kind of edit function. Anyway, just between us, I think you hurt his feelings last night. Well, you and Neville, but mainly you. No offense. Sorry. He just says he doesn't want to talk about it while he's ... doing important Slytherin ... stuff... that he can't share with you because, once again ... 'Gryffindor!'. Anyway, he'll see you next Tuesday after he's ... done with ... stuff. Now how do you send the bloody message again?..."

Both concerned and chagrined, Hermione showed the parchment to Neville who just shrugged.

"What do you think it means? And why is Harry avoiding us?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know, Hermione," Neville said somewhat dejectedly. "Maybe because he was one-hundred percent right about how to handle the dragon, and we completely ignored his advice because it wasn't exciting enough? Maybe because he probably has the same right to use that cloak as Jim and the fact that he has to use trickery to get it is a reminder of how badly his parents treat him? Maybe because we sometimes take way too much pride in being the House of Brash Heroism and act like we're superior to the House of Cunning Pragmatism even when they get the job done better than us?"

Hermione looked down for a few seconds. "It's so strange. I'm as close to Harry as I am anyone else in this school, but at the end of the day, Gryffindors and Slytherins are just ... different, aren't we?"

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