Chapter 62 Dumbledore: No Dragons Allowed in the Castle!

This gesture made the initially somewhat terrifying baby dragon suddenly seem much less intimidating—yet Harry and the others were still reluctant to touch it.

"How fast do dragons actually grow, Hagrid?"

Hermione was still somewhat uneasy, as the sparks sneezed out by Norbert had scorched the corner of the table.

And it had only been born five minutes ago!

"If it gets enough proper nourishment, it should grow to adolescent size in just a few months!" Hagrid said quite happily. "I'm sure that—"

"Hagrid, the faster it grows, the easier it is to discover..." Harry interrupted, with a tone of warning.

Yet Hagrid clearly did not care much about this—especially after Cohen had previously mentioned that there was a place in the castle where it could be raised.

After leaving Hagrid's hut, all three of them were filled with curiosity about the secret room inside the castle that Cohen had mentioned.

Therefore, Cohen intended to take them for a quick look—though naturally, not his own secret base, but rather making the Room of Requirement transform into the appearance of a dragon breeding ground for them to see.

After Cohen paced back and forth past the eighth-floor corridor three times, the Room of Requirement opened a door leading to a "vast wilderness."

"There, it's right here."

Cohen pushed the door open and said to the three of them.

The landscape behind the door, resembling an endless expanse of open wilderness, made Harry, Ron, and Hermione all widen their eyes in astonishment.

Once everyone had stepped through the door, Cohen closed it to prevent any students who might inexplicably wander past this dead-end corridor from seeing.

There was even a sun hanging in the sky within, and cotton-candy-like clouds drifted across the azure sky. If not for Cohen's reminder, they would have thought this led to the genuine outdoors.

"This must be deeply profound magic—I haven't even seen it in any books!" Hermione looked around in awe. "Does it have no boundaries?"

"It should have some."

Cohen casually tossed a spell toward the distance. The red spell flew a long way off before seeming to strike some sort of wall, kicking up a flurry of sparks and then vanishing.

"Still, it's definitely large enough to accommodate a dragon, and Hagrid can come here often to visit it—and bring it some food along the way," Cohen said.

"This must have been a breeding farm in the school's past," Harry guessed. "A room this big could raise so many animals—how did you find it, Cohen?"

"There are still a bunch of secret rooms and hidden passageways in the castle; whenever you run into strange places, you just have to try exploring them to satisfy your curiosity, don't you?" Cohen explained. "Just like that staircase on the fifth floor—at first, none of us knew that shouting 'idiot' at it would take you straight to the seventh floor."

"I still didn't know that—" Ron said cautiously. "No wonder the last time we went to astronomy class, even though you were behind us, you got to the roof first..."

"..."

After confirming that this room could accommodate a full-grown dragon, the lingering worry in the hearts of Harry and the others finally settled.

Thanks to the Invisibility Cloak, they only needed to secretly transport Norbert into this room before the dragon grew larger than a human.

If everything went without a hitch, this plan would launch smoothly in two weeks' time.

Unfortunately, this plan was interrupted by a certain white-bearded old man.

Because some ghost or portrait had overheard words like "Hogwarts" and "raising a dragon" from the "Gryffindor Troublemaker Squad," on the third day after the baby dragon hatched, a book accompanied by a phoenix tail feather appeared on Cohen's bedside table.

"I'm going home!" Cohen complained angrily inside the Room of Requirement, holding the book Dumbledore had sent. "Some perverted old man is sending his pet to break into the boys' dormitory at night!"

"Then I'll go expose him for you. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll go to the Great Hall and loudly condemn Dumbledore for engaging in inappropriate relations with students." The Earl guarded a white bird's egg, saying nonchalantly.

"You really are a genius."

Cohen praised sarcastically.

Yet doing that would only cause Dumbledore to take some mandatory measures to protect his reputation—nobody knew what would happen if a tremendously powerful and amiable old man were driven to extremes.

Cohen would most likely not die, but the Earl would certainly end up turned into charcoal-roasted Scottish round-faced fat chicken.

The book sent by Dumbledore was *The Application of Undetectable Extension Curses in Architecture*—Cohen had heard of this book title, having heard Mr. Ollivander mention it before buying his wand, because Cohen had shown curiosity back then about the wand shop being "bigger on the inside than the outside."

Tucked inside the book was also a letter, containing a few sentences written in Dumbledore's signature slender, artistic cursive handwriting.

[I heard that you are also very fond of magical creatures; perhaps this book will be of help to you—it once helped one of my students, named Newt Scamander, construct a magical briefcase that provided his magical creatures with a safe and comfortable home]

[P.S., please do not raise dangerous animals within Hogwarts Castle, lest you injure your classmates and friends. If you encounter difficulties with your research, you are welcome to come to the Headmaster's Office to seek help; I am quite fond of cockroach clusters]

Cohen summarized it: Dumbledore meant, "You are not allowed to raise a dragon inside Hogwarts."

Actually, Dumbledore's worries were justified—nobody could know whether a student might accidentally wander into the dragon breeding ground inside the Room of Requirement—at which point Norbert would very likely swallow that lost student in one bite.

"I don't really want to admit I was wrong," Cohen said stubbornly. "Though this time I'll barely—hm? Earl, what on earth is that under your backside?!"

Cohen only then realized that the Earl seemed to... appear to... roughly...

"You really are a cat-girl!"

"Cat your grandmother's wooden leg!"

The Earl was somewhat irritable from protecting the egg; parents were all like this:

"I'm a male! And this egg wasn't even laid by me..."

"Did you finally achieve a fruitful union with Hedwig?" Cohen asked curiously. "I thought you weren't very capable in that department—"

"That's just because Hedwig didn't want to spawn chicks in the winter," the Earl argued logically. "Now that spring is almost here, I plan to raise a few sons and daughters first..."

As for why the Earl was incubating the egg instead of Hedwig, the Earl summarized the reason as "Hedwig's living environment is rather crude, so it's not suitable."

Yet there was one slight benefit after the Earl became busy raising offspring: it finally stopped chattering endlessly—Cohen's reading environment was much better than before.

Since it was impossible to raise a dragon inside the Room of Requirement, Cohen had to make a choice: either send the dragon away, or follow Dumbledore's suggestion and make a Newt-style briefcase.

The latter was obviously much more appealing; a mobile base has always been what most people yearn for most during their childhood—and Cohen was no exception.

Previously, Cohen had tried to turn that Erumpent leather pouch or an old box into a long-term, stable small base, but the magic upon them always tended to dissipate over time, causing the internal space to shrink by several sizes before one even noticed.

Furthermore, the interior was forever a pitch-black environment, making it difficult to set up any sort of pleasing interior decoration style.

It was fine to keep a troll or a unicorn in there for a short time, but for living in it long-term... Cohen still wanted a base to actually look like a base.

The book indeed provided many solutions from the perspectives of alchemy and ancient runes, coupled with Dumbledore's promise in the letter that he could "seek help at the Headmaster's Office at any time," meaning crafting such a box did not seem particularly difficult.

"Let's get to work!"