Chapter 284 Norbert’s Christmas Gift

Hagrid looked at Norbert with tears in his eyes, took out a dripping handkerchief from his pocket, and blew his nose loudly.

"Oh, Norbert..." he said movedly and took a few steps forward.

The dragon's whine stopped and turned into a deeper warning sound. Norbert bared his teeth threateningly at Hagrid and took a few steps back to protect the gift, causing a large splash of water.

"Like Hagrid's gift, eh?" Charlie whispered to Anthony, "but not Hagrid."

Anthony also whispered: "At least it didn't try to bite Hagrid's head off again. This is already a very big improvement."

Hagrid turned towards them hastily, startling both Anthony and Charlie.

But Hagrid didn't seem to hear what they just said at all. He just stretched out his hand to Charlie: "Give me the bag with the brandy-" He turned to Norbert again and said softly to the vigilant fire dragon, "I There are more gifts for you. Look," he opened the leather bag, took out a bottle of brandy, and held it high, "Brandy!"

Norbert stared intently at the cyan glass wine bottle, still firmly protecting his half bear doll and a blanket.

"There are more." Hagrid said enthusiastically, taking out more brandy from the bag and placing bottles on the shore beside him. The fire dragon blew out a long breath from its nose, its sharp claws scraped against the stones in the river, making a harsh and unpleasant sound, and its wings opened and closed slightly uneasily.

Hagrid took out another bottle of brandy. The bottle collided gently with other bottles, making a crisp sound. They reflected several beautiful spots of light on the rocks and snow on the shore.

With a whoosh, Norbert suddenly spit out a mouthful of fire at Hagrid. The cold water in the stream steamed up, and a large white mist rose from Hagrid's wet and tattered coat. A bit of fire lit up in Hagrid's hair and beard. He turned his head, glanced at it from the corner of his eye, and put it out with his hands without caring.

"Haha, you can't wait, can't you?" He said tolerantly, reaching in again and taking out two bottles of brandy.

"No more," Hagrid said. "What's left is a gift from your godfather. Henry?"

"Can you hand me the bag, Hagrid?" Anthony asked, carefully walking around to a not too close distance and stopping.

Charlie watched as Hagrid clumsily and clattered to the shore and handed the bag to Anthony. Norbert's eyes followed the inconspicuous bag.

Charlie asked: "What did you say about Norbert, Hagrid?"

"Don't ask," Anthony said.

"Godfather." Hagrid said loudly, "Henry is Norbert's godfather. When Norbert was a little dragon, before Norbert hatched from the dragon egg, he had a godfather." He looked at it with fascination. Looking at the black dragon in the middle of the river, glowing with cold water, a dreamy look appeared on his face again.

The fire dragon was holding all the brandy bottles with its wings while staring at the bag in Anthony's hand. It snapped one of the brandy bottles to pieces, crunching the glass while sparks shot out of its nostrils.

…

It's one thing to feed a dead mouse to a little dragon crawling around on the table, but it's quite another to hand a piece of apple wood suitable for burning to a fifteen or sixteen-foot-tall fire dragon.

Norbert stared at Anthony and his hand reaching into the bag with his huge, cold eyes, his vertical pupils shrinking into a black line. Its snow-white teeth shone with a green, ominous light.

It's too close. Anthony could clearly see every closely arranged, metallic black scale on its huge head. Cold breath came out of its two nostrils, but it smelled of something burnt, as if Anthony was facing a volcano waiting to erupt or a cooled chimney.

"Here." Anthony decisively threw the apple wood away from a safe distance, "your gift."

Norbert bit the applewood before it hit the ground. The applewood only had time to let out a short, overwhelmed crunch before it was thrown against a freshly baked rock.

Just as Anthony was about to leave, Norbert suddenly turned his head and started staring at the bag in his hand again.

"You want this bag?" Anthony asked, holding up the bag and shaking it.

"How smart!" Hagrid said proudly, "You must have noticed that the gifts are taken out of the bag, right? Oh, little baby, you are so smart!"

"I'm afraid this can't be given to you," Anthony said to Noble. "I suspect it's reserve property."

"It is," Charlie said.

Norbert opened his mouth slightly, revealing his beautiful teeth again. It looked maliciously at Anthony's arm, assessing whether Anthony would clench its mouth like Hagrid. A flicker of fire lit up deep in its throat again.

"But it doesn't matter if one is missing." Charlie said quickly.

Anthony smiled.

"Do you want to hand-deliver this Christmas present to Norbert, Charlie?" he asked.

"I don't..." Charlie said, then paused, hesitation evident on his face.

Hagrid said: "Yes, this is a gift from you, Charlie!"

Charlie finally made up his mind: "Okay. Give it to me, Henry." As he slowly walked towards Anthony, he shook his head and said to himself, "I must be crazy... Well, it hasn't lost its temper yet. It's so easy... maybe I will only lose half of my arm..."

Anthony placed the empty, deflated bag between Charlie's unnaturally curled fingers.

He heard Charlie take a deep breath and encouraged himself: "Huh, you don't want to regret it for the rest of your life, Charlie Weasley." Under the dangerous firelight in Noble's throat, Charlie's eyes also flickered.

With eagerness and curiosity, he held the wand in one hand and hung the bag on the tip of Norbert's nose with the other hand. Norbert closed his mouth, exhaled, blew the bag into the air, and quickly took it away. The huge head of the fire dragon left in front of Charlie and Anthony.

Charlie took his hand back and looked down at it in surprise, as if he couldn't believe it was still on his body.

"Wow," he said in surprise, "I gave Norbert a Christmas gift! Is this true? I, gave Norbert a Christmas gift? I gave him a storage isolation bag from the Sanctuary instead of my own A certain piece of meat? I’ve never seen him in such a good mood—or heard of it!”

"It's true." Anthony smiled, watching the fire dragon lower its head to count its harvest today, "I guess it might have been confused by us. It probably doesn't often encounter people taking the initiative to give it so many gifts."

Norbert breathed out a small stream of fire. The apple wood was accurately burned into charcoal, and then slowly turned into ashes with the light of fire.

Norbert curled himself up and rested his huge head on the stone next to him, almost burying his nose in the burning charcoal. It blinked slowly.

It still lay across the current, the blocked stream beating with splashing water its folded wings, huge body and curled tail.

"Some fire dragons like wood with a special smell. Katalin met the Hungarian Horntail that likes to burn pine trees." Charlie said, staring at Norbert, "But Longhorns has never been one of these leisurely fire dragons. Member. I didn’t expect the Norwegian Ridgeback to like apple wood.”

Anthony told him: "The dragon was hatched in a pile of firewood containing applewood and rosemary."

"Really, Hagrid?" said Charlie.

"Huh?" Hagrid asked in shock, "What?" He still refused to take his eyes away from Norbert.

"We're saying Nobel was born out of...well, a teapot over a flame of apple wood and rosemary or something like that," Anthony said.

A smile appeared on Hagrid's face: "Yes, yes. It was only this big when it was born... Oh my God! In a blink of an eye, Norbert is already a big child! I still remember how he desperately consumed my brandy And chicken blood..." His voice was full of emotion, "That's a lot of chicken blood. I still remember Yaya started humming even when he saw chicken, and Aragog didn't want to eat chicken. Do you remember, Henry? We I ate several meals of chicken stew, haha!”

The apple wood is burned out.

"What's it going to do next?" Charlie asked softly with interest, watching Norbert lying on his stomach with his eyes half closed.

Norbert slowly raised his eyelids and blew a breath. The gray ash was blown into the water and quickly disappeared.

It then chewed a few more bottles of brandy before slowly standing up. Under the watchful eyes of three men on the shore, Norbert opened his mouth and swallowed the brandy and the stones used to grind his teeth.

Charlie quietly explained to Anthony that this was a temporary way of storing food. In addition to the regular stomach, dragons also have a very weak digestive stomach, which is often used by adults to store prey for feeding to their young.

Norbert held half of the teddy bear and the leather bag between his teeth, grabbed the water-soaked blanket in his paws, and stretched his wings.

"Are you leaving now?" Hagrid asked reluctantly, walking forward again.

Norbert didn't growl at him this time.

It flapped its wings slightly, as if it suddenly remembered something, and then turned its head to look at Anthony.

"What's wrong?" Anthony asked.

Norbert stared at him. Anthony searched his pockets and found nothing.

"I don't have any more applewood," he told Noble.

Norbert growled impatiently. A hot wind rushed over Anthony, blowing him so hard that he could barely keep his eyes open. His wizard's robes clung to him...

"Oh, Henry, I think Norbert wants the wizard's robe again." Hagrid said loudly, "No, Norbert, Henry already gave you a gift."

Norbert bared his teeth menacingly.

Charlie asked: "Does it have to be a wizard's robe?" He looked down at the leather coat on his body with some embarrassment, and then looked at Hagrid's tortured coat.

"Okay, okay." Anthony compromised, taking off his wizard robe and standing in the snow with his shirt on. Fortunately he hardly felt the cold.

Sure enough, Norbert stole another cheap black regular wizarding robe from Madam Malkin.

"The greedy dragon," Anthony whispered.

Norbert whined again. It stretched its wings again, half-lowered its head, and looked sideways at Hagrid - Hagrid looked at the big guy in front of him tenderly, his beard trembling - as if a hurricane had blown by, and Norbert had flown away. .

Hagrid looked up at it with nostalgia, sniffed, waved his handkerchief towards the sky, and said angrily: "Take care, Norbert! I will come to see you again!"

As a young dragon, Norbert flies fast and steady. Anthony could see the plush blanket Hagrid had given him fluttering under his paws, like a small flag.

Anthony whispered, "Merry Christmas."

Charlie was also watching Norbert. Apart from a few melted patches in the snow and a sprinkling of broken glass, there was no sign that Nob had been there for any length of time, inspecting his Christmas presents.

"They won't believe it," Charlie muttered. "I almost don't believe it."