April at Hogwarts brought warmer breezes, blooming flowers in the courtyards, and a low-level buzz of impending stress. Students could no longer ignore the gentle but inevitable reality looming on the horizon: exams.
Hadrian had just returned to the Hufflepuff common room with an armful of books when he paused on the staircase landing.
Something was supposed to happen around now, he thought.
He flipped mentally through his memories, not his own but those belonging to the canon he still recalled with sharp detail. "Hagrid… dragon egg… Norbert."
But nothing of the sort had happened this year. Hagrid hadn't been seen nervously hiding something under his coat, and there hadn't been any mysterious injuries or forbidden late-night trips to the Astronomy Tower.
The dragon egg was missing from the timeline.
Hadrian frowned and retreated to the plush corner seat he favored for reading. He placed a heavy tome on magical law in front of himself, flipped it open for appearances, and turned inward.
The book in his mind opened easily, warm and familiar like always. He concentrated.
Amendment: The Norwegian Ridgeback dragon that would have laid Norbert's egg was never ambushed by poachers. All her eggs were safely hatched under the protection of a warded dragon preserve.
The book shimmered for a moment. A soft pulse rippled through his mental plane — nothing jarring, just a sense of finality.
There. No illegal egg trading. No misplaced Norbert. No risks of a baby dragon ending up in dark wizard hands.
He let out a small sigh of relief.
Satisfied, Hadrian shifted back into the present and started scribbling on his parchment — an essay on the ethical applications of Transfiguration in historical contexts. Fifteen inches, due next Tuesday. It wouldn't write itself.
Across the room, Dora and Iris were already hunched over their own assignments. A small magical hourglass clicked every fifteen minutes, a reminder to switch subjects. Quizzing each other had become a nightly routine.
Still, there was a new kind of quiet intensity in the air now. Not from worry — from determination.
Later that evening, Professor Sprout entered the common room and smiled at her Badgers. "Just a little under two months left. Exams are coming — and we're still leading in the House Cup rankings." She gave them a proud nod. "Let's finish the year strong."
Hadrian nodded slightly to himself.
No dragons would go missing. No poachers would win. And Hufflepuff would rise — not through tricks or shortcuts, but through cleverness, community, and quiet excellence.
And maybe a few clever pranks, too.