Dominique Weasley would never claim to be beautiful, not because she wasn't aware of the fact, but because who would she tell it to?

It wasn't something that typically came up in conversation, especially considering that outside her family members there wasn't really anyone who she regularly conversed with.

Dominique found herself feeling drained, or maybe just tired, slumped at the end of the Ravenclaw table after the long journey to school, that, with typical British timing, had ended in a torrential downpour just as the students were making their way to the carriages that would take them up to school. The result of which being that until the food was brought up the Great Hall was cursed to smell of damp clothing and faintly of dungbombs.

Usually Dominique loved watching the Sorting, and she did manage to lift her head to appreciate the Sorting Hat's song, but after that rested her forehead on the table until the deputy head Professor Sprout called out the name of her cousin.

She applauded vigorously as James Sirius was, unsurprisingly and with great speed, housed with the lions, joining Victoire and Louie who looked more than glad to welcome him.

Headmistress McGonagall made her speech, emphasising with all due gravity the importance of a bunch of rules that her young cousin seemed to note with great interest, as he was probably planning on the most efficient way to break them all.

Then the feast was on the table, and while Dominique would usually have stuffed herself to bursting point, it was all she could do to help herself to a small bowl of stew and dumplings, which she didn't even realise she was eating until the bowl was empty.

By the time dessert came out she was dozing with head positioned to gain the maximum comfort on arms folded over one another, only to be shaken awake by a prefect what seemed like mere moments later. The boy looked quite nervous to be speaking with her, but the hall was rapidly emptying and clearly it was time to move to a bed, a thought which met with great relief.

Just as she was leaving she remembered what Winky had said and picked up a slice of pineapple turn over cake, munching on the dessert as she made her way up to her room. It was good, the tangy sweetness of the pineapple cutting through the creamy stodge of the cake, crisp outside provide a contrast with the fluffy sponge, and Dominique sent out a silent thanks to the house elf that had recommended it.

It certainly gave her the extra energy boost to make the long trek up to Ravenclaw tower, but by the time she got there she was feeling incredibly drained again, and definitely ready to fall into bed. However arriving after everyone else due to falling asleep at the table, it seemed she would have to handle the riddle herself.

What appears once in a minute, twice in a millennium and never in a thousand years?

Let it never be said that Ravenclaws didn't learn from their mistakes.

Dominique would always consider word problems as potential solutions to the entry riddles after the infamous 'end to all things' question, and a policy of adaptability was what served her house so well.

"The letter 'm'," she answered with a weary smile.

"Well reasoned," the knocker replied. "And welcome back."

The entrance swung open as Dominique returned the pleasantry, and by this point she was pretty sure she was sleepwalking as she made her way up to the dormitory and flopped face down on her bed and into oblivion, not even being conscious enough to spare her usual grateful thought for the house elves that made sure the bed was so warm.

She woke up at just past five the next morning, a pretty typical occurrence since over the summer holidays she tended to get into the habit of waking early enough to watch the sun rise over the sea. Her stomach was rumbling a warning that it wanted food now, given that she had eaten very little over the course of the previous day, really nothing more than a square of toast and a small meal at dinner. (She hadn't been about to buy anything off the trolley after Ricky Jordan's warning, and a good thing too as the prank had evidently been successful in hitting plenty of compartments with the stench of dungbombs.)

Fortunately for Dominique she was at Hogwarts, and the castle was renowned for its food which was almost universally considered to be its best feature. Even for someone who had grown up eating the cooking of Molly Weasley at least a few times a week it was easy to appreciate how lucky they were with the food that the Hogwarts kitchens provided.

Dressing quietly so as not to disturb the other girls, Dominique noticed that Keire had already left, assuming she had ever made it to bed in the first place, but she wasn't going to spend much time being concerned about it as her stomach had others plans.

She was the first to get down into the Great Hall, and spent a few minutes deliberating over where to sit in the empty room. The second she lowered herself onto the bench the food appeared on the empty dishes laid out along the length of each of the four tables, the candles around her flickering on to add warmth to the natural light that was beginning to stream through the windows.

The ceiling was a pale grey at the side where the teachers' table stretched across the hall, but still remained a navy so dark it looked black at the back of the room, and as expected heavy purple clouds dominated the majority of the surface, appearing distinctly threatening.

However focusing on the outdoors right now would only serve to remind Dominique that as extensive as the Hogwarts grounds were, they didn't even slightly compare to the awe-inspiring landscapes that surrounded her home.

Of course she tended to make the comparison anyway and end up disappointed.

But with the incredible foods that stretched as far as the eye could see within the Great Hall and only Dominique there so far to enjoy them, she found it surprisingly easy to push down the feelings of homesickness and pick up a fork.

And the pancakes were fucking magnificent.

She only slightly regretted the amount of food she'd consumed when she received her timetable and discovered that the first lesson she had was the elective Care of Magical Creatures, a subject she enjoyed in equal parts because it allowed her to spend time outside and because of the teacher, Professor Hagrid, who honestly held such a passion for his subject that she couldn't help but like it just through his enthusiasm. The only problem lay with the fact that the professor would probably have them shovelling out the stables that had been built to house the thestrals that preferred to stay sheltered overnight, and with such a full stomach Dominique was certain that she wouldn't be able to handle the smell without throwing up

She needn't have worried, because Professor Hagrid had something very special to show them as a way of thanking them for choosing his subject to continue into fourth year with, and as he informed them of the fact she was fairly certain he was grinning, even though she couldn't see behind his wild grey beard that seemed to defy the laws of physics more and more each year.

The huge man informed them to keep very quiet as he led them over to a pen that seemed to be empty, until Mellie Igwe let out a soft gasp and with one hand covering her mouth pointed the other towards the corner of the enclosure.

It seemed like everybody in the group leaned forward as one entity, and realised what the little creature curled into the corner with its tail over its nose actually was.

"It's a dragon," breathed Dominique, and several immediately around her nodded their agreement.

The grey-green dragon camouflaged well with the grass it had chosen to lie on, watching them all with beady brown eyes that darted backwards and forward with trepidation. It didn't seem to understand where so many people had come from after a summer of dealing with just one.

As its eyes fixed on her, Dominique suddenly felt as though she were looking into a mirror. Never mind the scales that rippled over the other's skin or the differently shaped skulls that each being possessed, or even that the whelp's pupils were slitted in a cat-like manner.

The same lost look manifested itself in the eyes that met through the mesh of the enclosure, and for a second Dominique couldn't breathe.

"What's its name," murmured Derin Patel somewhere to her left, but she couldn't bring herself to look away from the dragon, even though it's eyes continued to dart between all those present.

"His name's Righor," Professor Hagrid declared with gruff pride. "That means fire in the Giants' language. Now can anyone tell me the name fer a baby dragon?"

Nobody spoke for a few hushed moments. "Whelp," offered Dominique quietly. "He's a Common Welsh Green whelp." Righor met her eyes as she spoke, and the descriptor 'common' almost hurt to say, even if it was only part of the name of his breed. He couldn't have possibly understood, yet he narrowed his eyes and looked away as if sensing an insult.

"That's right Miss Weasley, five points teh Ravenclaw. A young dragon is known as a whelp, an' Righor here is a Common Welsh Green as yeh said. Now let's leave him teh rest and finish the lesson next teh the stables."

They filed after him reluctantly and slowly, many dawdling to catch a final glimpse at such an incredible sight of a real live dragon. Dominique was honestly in a state of shock as she trailed after the other students.

As it transpired that Professor Hagrid had received a permit for dragon handling from the Ministry for educational purposes, and had hatched the egg himself, and had been raising the whelp for a few weeks now. When questioned by Derin as to how he'd known what to do, the professor enigmatically implied that he had had prior experience.

Dominique knew about Norberta from Uncle Arry and Uncle Charlie, but she doubted any of the other students guessed that their genial 'Prof' was alluding to a highly illegal and secretive situation that led to a dragon being smuggled from the country.

A couple of months more and Righor would be transported to the same dragon sanctuary in Romania, where Uncle Charlie worked. In the meantime Professor Hagrid had a bunch of lessons planned, but in order to work more closely with the whelp they would be required to give up lunchtimes so they could interact with him in smaller groups that would be less threatening.

Strangely, no one had a problem with giving up their lunches for Righor, but when it came to the professor asking for people to spend time clearing out the stables Dominique was one of only two people that put their hands up.

She exchanged a long suffering look with Mellie Igwe, as it seemed the year before was all set to repeat itself in terms of the two of them being the only ones to put in real work.

Mellie was pretty polite for a Slytherin, and adored animals, but when others didn't pull their own weight the girl wouldn't mess about with putting them in their places. Dominique was committed to the subject, so she'd never found herself on the receiving end of Mellie's anger, but she had also never found herself being approached by the other student.

However, it seemed Professor Hagrid knew what he was doing with asking the question when he did, because as he made the finally adjustments to the lunchtime schedule Mellie and Dominique were paired up and were noted to be spending the most time with Righor, especially considering that all the other groups were threes.

Dominique was practically floating as she left the lesson having collected all the materials and schedules handed out. She'd alway held an interest in the tales of dragons that Uncle Charlie told, but to actually see one was beyond anything she could have imagined from the stories.