The Son of Mystery - Harry Potter Male Insert

A Damning Article

There wasn't a single person in Hogwarts that was up early on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor Common Room was much quieter than it had been lately, with many yawn punctuating the late-get ups. Hermione's hair was bushy again; she had confessed that she had used liberal amount of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion on it for the ball, "but it's way too much bother to do it every day," she said, scratching a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.

It was a common trend between Y/N, Ron and Hermione that not a word was to be spoken about last nights arguments. They were each being relatively friendly towards one another, Y/N and Hermione were fine, but they both had issues with Ron after last night. Harry had filled them in on what he had heard about Hagrid being a half-giant, though neither of them seemed as shocked as Ron had apparently been.

"You really thought he was human?" Y/N asked from his chair, "Look at the size of him!"

"He couldn't have been a full giant, because they're about twenty feet tall, but there's so much hysteria about giants. They can't all be horrible... It's the same sort of prejudice against Werewolves, it's just bigotry."

Ron looked like he was about to say something cruel about both of their comments, but perhaps he didn't want another row. He shook his head when Hermione wasn't looking.

Unfortunately for Harry and Ron, they still had a backlog of homework that they had neglected to touch over the Christmas holidays. Y/N was now persistently asking Harry about the second task's clue; the golden egg. Yet, he still had no idea what the incessant screeching that echoed from it could mean.

On the first day of term, Y/N set off to lessons, accompanied with his books, parchment and quills as usual. Intrestingly enough, more people seemed to be giving hi a wider berth than usual... He thought this was particularly odd. One younger girl walked round the corner, saw him, and dashed in the opposite direction.

Snow was still thick over the grounds, and the greenhouses were so thick with condensation that it was impossible to see out of them during Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures in this weather, though Ron pointed out that the Skrewts might warm them up, be that chasing them, or blasting their ends off so hard that Hagrid's hut set on fire.

When they arrived at Hagrid's hut, however, they found an elderly witch with closely cropped grey hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.

"Hurry up now, the bell rang five minutes ago," she barked at them as they struggled towards her in the snow.

"Who're you?" asked Ron, staring at her, "Where's Hagrid?"

"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank," she said briskly, "I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."

"Where's Hagrid?" Y/N repeated loudly.

Professor Grubbly-Plank froze on the spot when she saw where the voice had come from. Her face went paler as she tried to recompose herself, though it didn't seem to work.

Draco Malfoy's bitter laughter echoed around the area as the rest of the Slytherins joined the class. Each of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see either Professor Grubbly-Plank, or her reaction to seeing Y/N.

Professor Grubbly-Plank led them further down to the forest and introduced them to Unicorns, insisting that the girls go first, as they prefer a woman's touch. It seemed to be worse than usual, though. The looks he was getting from his other classmates, the wide-eyed fear that seemed to splash their faces should Y/N even look at them offhandedly.

"What'd you do this time?" Harry asked him in a whisper.

Y/N shrugged as Draco Malfoy laughed loudly. He put his hand inside the pocket of his robes and pulled out a folded page of the newspaper.