"Thank you..." Hagrid wiped the water droplets from his face.
Even though Adrian had put out the fire quickly, Hagrid's beard was still badly burned.
"Hagrid, are you alright?" Adrian asked.
"I'm fine, but Norbert's a bit too spirited. Maybe he just hatched and he's excited," Hagrid said, completely unconcerned about his scorched beard as he found reasonable explanations for Norbert's behavior.
'You call this spirited?'
Adrian looked at Norbert's mouth full of fangs and the occasional sparks shooting from his nostrils. Hagrid's love for dangerous creatures was completely blind.
Thinking about this, Adrian suddenly realized that raising a dragon to get blood might not be as simple as he'd originally thought...
The sudden incident had Harry and Ron breaking out in cold sweat, while Hermione said angrily, "This can't be explained away as being spirited, it nearly burned you, Hagrid!"
"But nothing happened..." Hagrid muttered quietly.
"Hermione, I'll help keep an eye on things when I can. There shouldn't be any major problems," Adrian offered.
"This is a dragon! It'll grow as big as a house in just a month or two!" Hermione glared at Adrian. "If Hagrid's caught keeping a dragon illegally, he'll be sent to Azkaban!"
"We'll just send Norbert away before then. Ron, doesn't your brother Charlie study dragons in Romania? When Norbert grows up, we can have Charlie release him into the wild," Adrian suggested.
He only wanted the dragon's blood, Adrian didn't care what happened to Norbert afterward.
"Send Norbert away? No, you can't do that! I'm his mother! He's so fragile, what if he gets bullied after being sent to the wild? No one can separate us!" Hagrid became upset.
Bang!
Just as Hagrid finished speaking, Norbert's tail swept a teacup off the table, smashing it to pieces. Then Norbert attacked the iron teapot with his teeth, biting dents into it and clawing a hole through the side.
The savage display made everyone more determined to send Norbert away. Adrian figured if Norbert was sent to Romania, the only concern would be for the local wildlife.
"You can't keep him forever, Hagrid!" Hermione reminded him.
"Maybe we could put him in the Forbidden Forest..." Hagrid suggested carelessly, patting his chest with confidence. "You can trust me, I have lots of experience with releasing creatures. I've done this more than once. Aragog has stayed in the Forbidden Forest just fine... never hurt anyone!"
"Aragog! You keep other things in the Forbidden Forest?" Harry stared at Hagrid in shock. He hadn't expected that this wasn't Hagrid's first time keeping dangerous creatures.
"No, no, there's nothing, you must have misheard..." Hagrid defended anxiously, but his explanation seemed weak.
"Aragog is an Acromantula," Adrian said.
Since Aragog's identity was now revealed, Adrian wanted Harry and the others to stay away from the Forbidden Forest this term to avoid running into Quirrell wandering around there. Though without Malfoy's complaint, they were unlikely to end up in the forest anyway.
"How do you know Aragog is an Acromantula?" Hagrid looked at Adrian in surprise. He hadn't mentioned Aragog's identity just now, or had he accidentally let it slip before?
"Giant spider? Just how big can a spider get?" Harry asked curiously.
"Probably about the size of this room? Maybe a little smaller," Adrian said, glancing around Hagrid's hut and thinking about the massive spider from the original story. Including those long legs, it should be roughly the same size.
"You have to believe Aragog is a good boy who won't bite..." Hagrid defended guiltily.
Harry and the others didn't believe a word of it. Ron was already imagining what a house-sized spider would look like, he thought it sounded like a nightmare!
"I swear I'm never going into the Forbidden Forest!" Ron declared.
"Hagrid, the Forbidden Forest is too small and too close to Hogwarts. A dragon that big will be discovered sooner or later," Adrian persuaded. The creatures in the Forbidden Forest were miserable enough, if Norbert moved in, there might be another wave of extinctions.
"But I just got him..." Hagrid looked at Norbert reluctantly.
"We can wait a month for Norbert to grow up before sending him away. If he's too young, he won't be able to survive independently in Romania," Adrian suggested as a compromise.
After hesitating for a long time, Hagrid finally agreed. Hermione, Harry and the others had no objections, Adrian was right, and Norbert, fresh from his shell, didn't have the ability to survive in the wild.
After deciding to send Norbert away in a month, Hagrid was dejected for a while before rallying to treasure their remaining time together.
Adrian looked at the ugly little dragon in front of him with enthusiasm that rivaled Hagrid's, already wondering how to secretly draw some blood when Hagrid wasn't paying attention.
However, since the Bloodline Fusion Potion would take time to brew successfully, Adrian had to be patient. Once blood left the body for more than three days, its potency would decrease significantly, and Adrian wasn't sure if that would affect the potion's effectiveness.
Before then, Adrian decided to build a good relationship with Norbert, just like he had with Fawkes, so he wouldn't face too much resistance when collecting blood later.
After having this idea, Adrian successfully became a glorious dragon keeper over the following period... or more commonly known as a cleanup crew.
Originally, Adrian had thought raising a dragon would be novel and enjoyable, but after several days of work, he'd experienced plenty of novelty but couldn't find any joy in it.
As a Norwegian Ridgeback, Norbert was incredibly temperamental. For example, sparks from a sneeze would burn furniture, or he'd chew on the bed or fireplace at every opportunity, leaving everything covered in bite marks. Occasionally, in fits of excitement, he'd trash Hagrid's entire cabin.
By the end of each day, Adrian had to cast Aguamenti at least several times, plus countless Reparo charms.
Otherwise, the hut would have collapsed...
As the hut's owner, Hagrid didn't mind at all. Even though he'd had to sleep on the grass last night because Norbert had burned his bed, and Adrian didn't restore it with a Reparo charm until the next afternoon, Hagrid insisted that Norbert was just a little restless, a sign that all babies were healthy.