Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 60 – Hagrid’s Dragon Hatches (HP Chapter 14)
An hour later, the kids entered Hagrid’s hut. It was very hot inside. Hagrid had the house closed up, and he had started a fire in the fireplace. He had also made tea and offered the kids sandwiches, but they refused. Harry wanted to know what else besides Fluffy was guarding the Stone. He wasn’t interested in socializing or eating.
Hagrid tried to lie. He told Harry he didn’t know, but Hermione didn’t believe him. She used flattery to trick Hagrid into telling them what he knew. “We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you,” she said.
Hagrid fell for Hermione’s manipulation because it spoke to his conditioning. Being trusted was important to him, so he told the kids that Dumbledore had borrowed Fluffy from him. In addition, some of the teachers had placed enchantments around the Stone: Professors Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Quirrell, and then Dumbledore himself – but that was only five. Hagrid realized he had forgotten someone. “Oh yeah, Professor Snape.”
The kids were shocked! Hagrid had to remind them…yet again…that Snape was one of the teachers protecting the Stone. He wasn’t about to steal it.
But Harry didn’t believe him. Instead, his mind went into overdrive again. Being in on protecting the stone would give Snape the perfect opportunity to know exactly what was protecting it, but he would still have to learn how to get past Fluffy. Did any of the teachers know how to do that?
Hagrid proudly told Harry that he and Dumbledore were the only ones who knew how to get past Fluffy. That made Harry feel better, but the room was still too hot. Something wasn’t right. Glancing around, Harry noticed a large black egg sitting in the heart of the fire underneath the black kettle. Hagrid had won it the night before in a game of cards. “Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest,” Hagrid said.
We are introduced again to the idea that the black phase of Alchemy is an actual level of progression. Many people tend to associate blackness with evil, but that isn’t necessarily true. An Alchemical fire can be working on an individual, unknown.
Hermione wondered what Hagrid was going to do with the creature after it hatched. Hagrid pulled out a book on dragons to reassure her. He’d been doing some reading in a book he got from the library. The book told Hagrid how to hatch the egg: keep it in the fire, and when it hatches, feed the baby dragon brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour.
This particular dragon was a Norwegian Ridgeback, but the interesting thing was the chicken blood. In biblical scripture, Jesus often referred to himself symbolically as a mother hen who was trying to gather her chicks. Since we become what we eat or drink, Hagrid was learning about the role of a Master. He set up a situation that would ignite the Alchemical fire. When an individual hatched, he was then to feed them with the blood of Christ.
Hermione wasn’t impressed. “Hagrid, you live in a wooden house,” she said, but Hagrid wasn’t listening. A Master doesn’t listen to outside voices. His task is dangerous to his physical body because it could be destroyed, but that didn’t stop him from doing whatever needed to be done to coax the egg into hatching. Hagrid hummed to himself as he stirred the fire. The idea seems to be that the dragon egg represents the kids.
Since Harry and Ron had chosen not to accept Hermione’s suggestion about creating study schedules, she decided to do it for them. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time. Along with worrying about Hagrid getting caught with an illegal dragon, Hermione’s insistence that the boys have study schedules was driving them crazy. She had no concept of the principles of agency and unrighteous dominion.
When Hagrid sent word that the egg was hatching, Ron wanted to run straight to Hagrid’s hut, but Hermione wouldn’t let him. This insinuates that what prevents entrance into the Path is the logical mind. Ron was willing, but Hermione was not. She used all of her typical arguments. They had classes. They’ll get caught. Hagrid will be in trouble if someone finds out what he was doing. Pushy was putting it mildly.
Harry quickly became fed up with Hermione. Her arguing was what was going to get everyone caught. Draco was sitting nearby and had stopped what he was doing to listen to her. Harry interrupted her before she could say the word – dragon. “Shut up!” Harry whispered. But that still didn’t stop her. She was determined to have her way and didn’t have a clue that she was putting them all at risk. The only perspective she could see was her own.
Hermione and Ron continued to argue all the way to Herbology. While we continue to see Hermione’s tireless insistence that she’s right and the boys are wrong, we also see Ron’s strength. He wins the argument. Hermione agreed to go to Hagrid’s hut after Herbology.
Despite Hermione’s resistance, the egg was indeed hatching. It made clicking noises, and Harry could see deep cracks in it. The hatching process paralleled the kids’ awakening. It was like a born-again experience for them as the egg suddenly split open, and the baby dragon flopped onto the table. Jo told us that the dragon wasn’t pretty. Once we decide to make avoiding discomfort and seeking pleasure our purpose for living, we look quite disgusting.
Harry thought the dragon looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. This pointed toward an unfolding type of experience for the kids. The dragon had spiny wings that were huge when compared to his skinny, black body. Wings symbolize power of motion, so the dragon within the kids had far more power of movement than their outward appearance suggested. But the dragon’s skinny body also points to the fact that babies are born innocent, without the trunk full of false beliefs that adults lug around with them.
Although this particular dragon was black, dragons represent both the beginning and the end of The Great Work. The idea isn’t to kill the dragon. The goal is to bring it under our conscious control. This dragon had a long nose (like Ron), stubs for horns, and bulging, orange eyes.
Noses always make me think of being nosey, but some spiritual traditions say the sense of smell is the last sensory system we perfect. Horns are a symbol of power. The kids’ power had only begun to sprout. Although Hermione is talented with spells, her conditioned mindset controls her. The dragon’s orange eyes were interesting because on the physical plane, orange is a combination of red and yellow, but some have said that on higher levels of existence, orange is its own color.
Book 1 has been taking us on a journey that has been introducing us to the various levels of being along the Alchemical path, so Hagrid thinks the dragon is beautiful – even when it snapped at him and showed its fangs. This made me think about how often fallen man snaps at his introduction to there being something more than the physical world. We might say that we want freedom, we want to know what’s going on, we want Truth, but most of us are not willing to do what’s required to speed up the evolutionary process.
Hermione ignored Hagrid’s joy and instruction to look – “Bless, him, look, he knows his mommy!” – and tried to bring what she believed was reality to the situation.
How fast does this type of dragon grow? But before Hagrid could answer her, he leaped to his feet and dashed to the window. Draco had been peering through the window and saw the dragon hatch – or they thought he might have. Spiritually, that meant the dragon inside of Draco had just hatched as well as the dragon inside the kids. Draco ran back toward the school. We know how much he likes to snitch on everyone, so that meant trouble