"Is she going ter be okay?" Hagrid asked, "Will they take good care of her?""No need to worry Hagrid." Draco rea.s.sured Hagrid, "I have had my father arrange the best caretakers for her."
Hagrid nodded sighing, "Go along now, The cla.s.ses will star" soon."
All of them nodded and headed out of the hut. Harry and Ron went out their own way and the rest of them went towards the hall for dinner.
"So how are you going to get out at night?" Theodore asked, "Do you need me to come along with you?"
"Yeah! That would be great." Draco nodded. Having an extra hand would be very helpful in case of emergencies.
"I want to come too." Pansy said and Daphne added, "Yeah, me too."
"No, the more people there are the more the chances of someone finding out." Draco said, "Sigh, these are the situation where I wish I had kept a pair of an invisibility cloak."
Daphne and Pansy pouted, getting rejected.
"I will visit the place on the vacation, so you can come along if you want." Draco said, "But it"s far in Romania."
Daphne and Pansy looked at each other and nodded excitedly imagining their vacation out with Draco in Romania.
"You shouldn"t break the rules." Hermione said, "What if Filch finds out?"
"Don"t worry, even if he does we can knock him out with a spell." Theodore said grinning, "I have been practicing the Confundus charm recently."
"Confundus?" Draco said, "It"s sure to come in handy."
"It will." Theodore nodded, "You should focus more on handy skills like this than protection and offensive skills, it"s not like we are going to fight a Troll every day."
"Wait! Are you two serious?" Hermione reprimanded them, "Are you seriously talking about knocking out a caretaker and manipulating his memories?"
Draco and Theodore looked at each other and then back at Hermione, "I am sure we said the same thing."
"You--" Hermione said getting angry over their teasing.
"Okay, Chill." Draco cut off Hermione, trying to avoid an earful of lecture, "We are Slytherins remember, we are meant to be the bad guys."
"Just because you are meant to be doesn"t mean you have to be."
"Let them be, Hermione," Pansy said, "They have no other choice but to do it at night, otherwise they might get into more trouble if others, especially the professors find out."
"Yeah! and besides, they can run away from Filch like last time if they want to." Daphne added.
"I know that, but--" Hermione thought for a reason to stop them for a while and finally gave up as she sighed, "Sigh! Fine but how are you going to take the Dragon out? As far as I know, no one can come and go out of Hogwarts without being noticed."
"No humans can, but that doesn"t mean other creatures can"t." Draco said smirking.
"You mean, Elves?" Theodore said, "Can they apparate here?"
"I am sure they can." Draco said, "I have tested this theory over many restricted places and they can do it very easily."
Theodore put his hand on his chin and nodded, "We wizards really did underestimate does little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."
"Yeah, But I am glad we did." Draco said, "Imagine setting up all the protection only to get a.s.sa.s.sinated by a house-elf in the middle of the night when you least expected."
Theodore shivered at the thought of that and said, "We really did make some nice choices, cruel but it still works."
"What are you talking about?" asked Hermione.
"Nothing." Draco shook his head, "Anyway, you can rest a.s.sured that we will have no troubles getting the Dragon out of here."
Hermione nodded, "I will go back to the common room then, good luck!"
----------------------------------------------
Later that night, Draco and Theodore sneaked out of the common room slowly and carefully. Walking around the dungeon in the dark they slowly got out of the castle and came running towards the hut.
They looked around and knocked on Hagrid"s door. Hagrid also carefully opened the door and said, "Come in quick, your elves here."
Draco and Theodore nodded and came gushing in. Inside Dobby was standing at the corner politely.
"It"s nice to see you so soon, Master Draco." Dobby said coming towards them, "It"s nice to meet you too, Mr. Nott."
Ever since Draco got hold of the Black property, Dobby"s been living there, even though with the grumpy and crazy att.i.tude of Kreacher, living there was hard but it was still better than in the Malfoy Manor with all the grumpy old elves there, trying to force him to submit to the master of the house like a slave.
"How"s the house Dobby?" Draco asked.
"It"s neat and tidy, Master Draco." Dobby said, "Kreacher wouldn"t let us clean some places but other than that, most of the house is cleaned."
"Good." Draco nodded satisfied, "Was it too much trouble?"
"There were some dark magic items here and there but other than the ones you removed, there weren"t that many," Dobby said. "And the restricted places are just as it is."
Draco nodded, he had specifically ordered the house-elves not to touch some of the rooms, especially the one with the Horcrux in it.
"What about Kreacher?" Draco asked, "Is he well?"
"Yes, he is still the same but he doesn"t boss around us too much like before." Dobby said.
"Who is Kreacher?" Theodore asked. "And what house are you talking about?"
"The house-elf of the Black family," Draco said but he didn"t answer the second question since it didn"t matter whether he told Theodore or not.
"Bet"er get going," Hagrid said taking out a large crate with Norberta inside it. "She"s got lots o" rats an" some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a m.u.f.fled voice. "An" I"ve packed her teddy bear in case she gets lonely."
Draco could hear ripping noise coming from inside the crate, he was sure that the Teddy was having his head ripped off.
"Bye-bye, Norberta!" Hagrid sobbed.
Draco couldn"t help but feel amazed by Hagrid"s enthusiasm with magical animals.
"Take this." Draco said giving a letter to Dobby, "Give this to father and go back home, I"ll be home after school ends."
"Yes, Master Draco." Dobby said and disapparated with the Dragon and now it was gone.
"Elves sure are Handy." Theodore said, "Pretty useful but it still increases my distaste for them more."
"I know what are you talking about." Draco said, "Hagrid, thank you for taking care of her, We shall take our leave now."
"Sure!" Hagrid said nodding, he seemed to be in a bad mood so both of them didn"t say anything else and went out.
Both Theodore and Draco sneaked out the place like before but as they stepped into the corridor, Filch"s face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.
"Well, well, well," he whispered, "we are in trouble."
Theodore slowly took out his wand and before he could cast a spell they heard him say,
"Professor McGonagall was right." Filch said showing an ugly smile, "Follow me, I have a huge present for you."
Theodore and Draco looked at each other, right now they couldn"t do anything to him since it involved a professor, if it was just Filch then both of them could just knock him out and walk inside like nothing ever happened but now they could do nothing but follow him.
"How did he know? No, the real question is how did McGonagall know." Theodore said underneath his breath following Filch.
Draco was thinking the same thing as he shrugged his shoulders in confusion.
Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall"s study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other wondering what was going on and soon Professor McGonagall showed up leading Harry and Ron who had victorious smile on their faces but soon their excitement turned into disappointment as they couldn"t find the Dragon anywhere nearby.
Theodore and Draco looked at each other finally understanding what was going on,
"Hey! Do you mind if I beat them up to a pulp." Theodore whispered.
"Which one are you taking? I am taking the red one." Draco said, today he was p.i.s.sed none the less.
Professor McGonagall came over towards them, she looked more likely to breathe fire than Norberta as she towered over the two of them.
"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Weasley and Potter said you were outside the castle. It"s one o"clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."
Draco finally understood Ron"s and Harry plan, both of them planned to catch them outside the castle from the start and looking at their faces, Draco was sure that they were probably expecting him to have the Dragon in his hand.
"We were out looking for my Wand." Theodore said showing his wand to Professor McGonagall, "Early on, Mr. Potter and Weasley took my wand and hid it somewhere and just before tonight"s dinner they informed me about the whereabouts of my wand since I was afraid to go alone outside, I dragged Draco with me."
Theodore lied with a straight face not even flinching a little bit. Draco couldn"t help but admire Theodore"s ability to bulls.h.i.t his way out of everything.
"Yes, Professor." Draco chimed in looking at Harry and Ron, "I was thinking why they were playing this prank on us but now we know."
Harry and Ron were both stupefied how quickly they turned the tables towards them.