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Aurora Areli
ON SUNDAY MORNING, HERMIONE went back to Hagrid's cabin through two feet of snow to try and persuade him not to plan such dangerous lessons. Harry and Ron wanted to go too, but Hermione and I (well, mostly Hermione) reminded them that they had too much homework to finish as it was. Spending who knows how long at Hagrid's wouldn't help their case. I agreed to stay with them, though, half to make sure they were doing work, and the other half to help correct any mistakes.
I could tell that the gleeful shouts drifting up from the grounds outside where students were enjoying themselves skating on the frozen lake, tobogganing and bewitching snowballs to zoom up to Gryffindor Tower and rap hard on the windows were much more distracting to the boys than they were to me.
"Oi!" Ron bellowed, finally losing patience and sticking his head out of the window, "I am a prefect and if one more snowball hits this window — OUCH!"
He withdrew his head sharply, his face covered in snow.
I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle a giggle at the sight, making Harry turn and grin amusedly at me.
"Shut up, Rory," Ron told me, which only made it harder not to laugh as he closed the window. "It's Fred and George. Gits . . ."
I just bit my lip in another effort to stop smiling, and turned back towards the fire. To be honest, I didn't mind staying inside. The night before had been especially difficult in terms of dreams, and had left me rather exhausted.
They had started off strange and normal enough, with me following Jupiter around the castle grounds, but the blue skies soon turned dark and the fluffy white clouds shifted into a skull with a serpent slithering through its mouth, glittering bright green against the night sky. That wasn't the most terrifying part, though. It soon went so dark I thought I had simply fallen asleep again, but my vision adjusted so that I could see a large, greenish snake with evil-looking eyes slithering along a dark corridor. The last thing I remember before waking up in a cold sweat was the snake rearing up to strike, dagger-like fangs bared and the agonising screams of a man soon after.
Needless to say, it was very difficult to get much sleep after that.
I was jarred out of my thoughts by Hermione suddenly plopping into her usual armchair, shivering slightly, her robes damp to the knees.
"So?" Ron said, looking at her. "Got all his lessons planned for him?"
"Well, I tried," she said dully, pulling out her wand and giving it a complicated wave so that hot air steamed out of the tip and began to dry her robes. "He wasn't even there when I arrived, I was knocking for at least half an hour. And then he came stumping out of the Forest —"
Harry groaned, leaning back into the sofa. I completely understood why — the Forbidden Forest was teeming with the kind of creatures most likely to get Hagrid sacked. "What's he keeping in there? Did he say?" he asked.
