BROTHERHOOD ⟶ Harry Potter

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Milo, Paden is doing the backstroke in my soup!" Heidi called to the boy during lunch one afternoon, bringing Milo to look up from his reading. Instinctively, the boy reached up and touched the top of his head where Paden normally resided, only to just feel his hair. He looked across the way and saw that Heidi was right, the bowtruckle seemed to be highly content in the girl's soup as if he were taking a nice hot bath.

"Paden, we spoke about this!" Milo said reaching his hand to grab his little friend from the bowl. Paden attempted to resist being removed from his warm bath but he was no match for Milo's strength, leaving the bowtruckle to just a blow a raspberry in the direction of the boy. Apparently, what Newt forgot to mention in his many writings was that bowtruckles were fully capable of dealing attitude in situations that did not go in their favor. Grabbing a serviette off the table, Milo decided to clean Paden up as the creature fought him like a naughty child. 

Since the news of the bowtruckles attendance in the school, it had spread like wildfire and plenty of students younger and older than Milo wanted to see Paden. There were those that were fascinated by Paden and others that saw it unfair that the boy was able to have such a "pet" in the castle. Those in Slytherin, especially Professor Snape, made it a point to note that the Potter boys were just the exceptions to the rules and held special privileges. Of course, the abnormally large nose professor never dared to make such remarks in the presence of Minerva whenever she was around Milo, he only waited to ridicule the boy in his classes.  

But Milo had plenty of other concerns and Snape was not a priority for him to worry over. It was coming time for the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor and Milo was feeling more conflicted than ever. For the first time, he was going to be matched against his friends and even his little brother. However, just when Milo thought Snape would be the least of his troubles, it was announced that the Potions master would be the one to referee the game. It was hard to say which team the man was going to go after more, he had a strong dislike for both boys, Milo was sure it was going to be a celebration for Professor Snape to call a foul on all of them for any little thing. 

That was not what Milo needed but he was going to have to deal with it one way or another considering his team was counting on him as one of the Chasers.

Paden chirped rapidly as Milo continued to try and clean him when there was nothing left to clean. Heidi and Max exchanged looks with one another before Heidi reached out her hand and stopped Milo from cleaning any further.

"Easy there, Milo, he's clean and it's fine. I can get more soup. You need to relax."

Milo quickly loosened his grip around Paden and allowed the bowtruckle to climb up his arm to his hair. Paden gave one of his locks a strong pull in irritation before settling down and leaving Milo to turn back to the girls.

"I'm trying, but I can't help it. Out of all the professors, did it have to be Snape?"

"Don't worry about him," Heidi said, " I'm pretty sure all the Beaters on both sides are in agreement to send a few bludgers his way to get rid of him pretty early on."

It brought a small smile on his face as Milo pictured everyone on the pitch just turning on Professor Snape rather than playing the match. But he was sure whoever dared sending a bludger in the man's direction would probably be banished from playing quidditch for the rest of their remaining time in Hogwarts. He hoped if there was any foul play on Snape's behalf that the other professors would interfere and stop it all, especially his mother. 

She may have had loyalty to Gryffindor being the head of the house, but Minerva was always one for fairness in any way possible. Just as he thought of his mother, Milo saw her enter the Great Hall and immediately stood up and made his way over to her.