"Oh! Is Norbert finally coming out?!"
Hagrid rubbed his hands together in anticipation, his eyes glistening as if filled with tears of joy.
"Norbert?" Harry looked at him, slightly confused.
"It's the name I picked out for the little fellow. Norbert Hagrid. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
"Er, yeah. Sounds great." Harry replied somewhat awkwardly. He couldn't quite wrap his head around giving a pet your own surname, but if it made Hagrid happy, then so be it.
"This is completely un-magical!" Draco muttered to himself, still looking utterly incredulous. He considered himself quite knowledgeable about dragons, and no matter how he analyzed it, this incubation timeline was completely illogical!
[There's nothing illogical about it.] Seeing the confusion written all over Draco's face, Tom reached out and patted the boy on the head.
[Remember, I built the incubator! Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long to hatch.]
Since when did any egg Tom incubated take ten days or half a month? Wasn't it always a "find the egg in the morning, hatch it by the afternoon" kind of deal? Heck, there had been several times when he had literally cracked an egg into a frying pan, only for a fully-formed bird to pop right out!
If he hadn't been worried about giving Hagrid and Draco heart attacks—and if he hadn't been slightly unsure whether a dragon egg worked exactly the same way as a duck egg—he would have just smashed the thing open himself days ago!
"...But this is nowhere near enough time for it to fully develop!" Draco argued, sounding genuinely anxious. This was his first time seeing a dragon hatch with his own eyes! He absolutely did not want to see a dead, underdeveloped fetus! That would traumatize him for life!
[Relax, I'm a professional!] Tom gave him a confident thumbs-up, wearing an expression that practically screamed, "Everything is under control."
Draco sighed helplessly. What was done was done. At this point, what else could he do but trust the cat?
"What are you two whispering about? Get over here! Norbert is coming out!" Hagrid called out excitedly. Despite their constant bickering, Hagrid had come to respect Draco's genuine passion for dragons.
"Coming!" Draco replied. He hurried over to the table and crowded around the egg, his eyes locked onto it, refusing to miss a single detail.
At this moment, Ron had completely abandoned any thoughts of arguing with Malfoy. His attention was equally captivated by the egg. As the saying goes: How many times in a lifetime do you get to see a dragon hatch? Missing a sacred moment like this would be a lifelong regret.
As for Tom? Unlike Harry and the others, he casually reached behind his back, pulled out a camcorder, and aimed the lens squarely at the egg.
Only get to see it once in a lifetime? Do you people not understand the power of technology?!
Sure, Hogwarts supposedly had enchantments that prevented electronic devices from working. But since when had Tom ever been bound by the laws of physics or magic? In his eyes, there were only two kinds of technology in this world: normal people's technology, and Tom's technology. A mere Scottish castle didn't have the juice to restrict him.
Under everyone's breathless gaze, the cracks on the eggshell began to spread at a visible rate. A bizarre, rhythmic click-clack sound echoed from inside, and the egg rocked violently as if something inside was thrashing about frantically.
Suddenly, a hole burst open on the side of the shell, and a tiny, slimy claw reached out, swiping blindly at the air.
A second later, the top of the egg cracked open, and a tiny black head poked out. It blinked its large, unfocused eyes at its surroundings, then promptly yanked its head back inside the shell.
"? What's going on?" Hagrid looked bewildered. He had never heard of an animal hatching halfway and then deciding to retreat.
However, he soon found out why.
With a series of sharp cracks, several more holes burst open across the surface of the egg. A claw, a leg, a tail, and a pair of leathery wings each thrust out of their respective holes. Finally, the little dragon popped its head back out through the hole at the very top.
The end result looked exactly as if the baby dragon was wearing the eggshell as a suit of armor.
"Oh, my sweet little Norbert! How can you be so adorable?!"
Seeing this, Hagrid's heart absolutely melted. He couldn't resist reaching out, opening Tom's makeshift incubator, and gently lifting the little dragon out.
Draco stared at the scene in utter shock. Yes, this was his first time seeing a live hatching, but wasn't this a bit too ridiculous?! According to the dragon keepers in Romania, the egg was supposed to split down the middle, fully exposing the hatchling. Who had ever heard of a dragon popping out its limbs one by one and wearing the shell like a diaper?!
Harry looked on in surprise as well. Honestly, the dragon itself wasn't exactly pretty—it was spiky, wrinkly, and completely black. But with the white eggshell still stuck to its body, it possessed a bizarre, ugly-cute charm.
(Yikes. This guy...)
Tom stared blankly at the baby dragon. Why did this hatching process look so incredibly familiar? Wasn't this exactly how every egg he had ever interacted with hatched?!
(This has to be the dragon's own doing, right? There's no way I influenced it! I just built the incubator! I didn't even touch the egg!) Tom thought, feeling a sudden surge of guilt. After all, this specific brand of cartoon logic was undeniably his trademark.
Hagrid, of course, knew none of this. He held the little dragon tenderly in his massive hands, his eyes overflowing with pure, unfiltered adoration.
"Squeak—Achoo!"
The baby dragon let out a tiny, adorable squeak before suddenly sneezing violently, as if the chilly air outside the shell had tickled its nose.
But unlike a normal sneeze, this one produced a sudden, bright burst of orange-red flame.
(?! Oh no you don't!)
The instant Tom saw the spark, his survival instincts kicked in, but he was a fraction of a second too late.
The flame arced through the air and landed with pinpoint precision directly on the very tip of Tom's tail, which was currently raised high in the air.
FWOOSH.
In a flash, Tom's tail tip was engulfed in flames.
"MEOOOWWWWW!!!"
Tom launched himself into the air like a coiled spring, rocketing three feet off the ground. He spun around wildly, frantically swatting at his burning tail, trying desperately to extinguish the fire.
But as anyone familiar with Tom's biology knows, a fire on his tail is never easily put out. Despite his frantic slapping and rolling, the flame only grew larger, steadily creeping up and devouring more of his fur.
Finally, the flames died down naturally. Tom stood frozen, looking over his shoulder. His once-fluffy blue tail now looked exactly like a burnt-out matchstick—a completely charred, black stick of ash. A gentle breeze blew through the open window, and the ash instantly crumbled away, leaving him with a stubby little stump.
[...]
Staring at the absolute devastation the baby dragon had wrought, Tom's face went completely deadpan.
Come to think of it, hadn't he suffered an unusually high number of physical injuries whenever he visited Hagrid's hut? Just as he suspected—he and this giant were cosmically incompatible!
"Pfft—"
Harry slapped a hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking violently as he desperately tried to suppress a laugh.
[Laugh all you want. I won't even bother taking it out on you guys this time.]
Tom shot them all a venomous side-eye, pushed open the heavy wooden door, and stalked out into the night.
He needed to step off-screen for a second to let his character model refresh and get his tail back.
The moment the door clicked shut behind him, the hut erupted into a chorus of unrestrained, joyous laughter.