NORBERT THE
NORWEGIAN RIDGEBACK
gerous. You should see the burns Charlie’s got off wild ones in Ro-
mania.”
“But there aren’t wild dragons in Britain?” said Harry.
“Of course there are,” said Ron. “Common Welsh Green and
Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them
up, I can tell you. Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles
who’ve spotted them, to make them forget.”
“So what on earth’s Hagrid up to?” said Hermione.
When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper’s hut an hour
later, they were surprised to see that all the curtains were closed.
Hagrid called “Who is it?” before he let them in, and then shut the
door quickly behind them.
It was stifling hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day,
there was a blazing fire in the grate. Hagrid made them tea and of-
fered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused.
“So — yeh wanted to ask me somethin’?”
“Yes,” said Harry. There was no point beating around the bush.
“We were wondering if you could tell us what’s guarding the
Sorcerer’s Stone apart from Fluffy.”
Hagrid frowned at him.
“O’ course I can’t,” he said. “Number one, I don’ know meself.
Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn’ tell yeh if I
could. That Stone’s here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen
outta Gringotts — I s’ppose yeh’ve worked that out an’ all? Beats
me how yeh even know abou’ Fluffy.”
“Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you
do know, you know everything that goes on round here,” said
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