The Hidden One

thesterals

Hermione left bright and early the next morning to try to help Hagrid with his lessons. Rose, Ron and Harry did their homework in the common room, trying to ignore the gleeful shouts of students playing in the snow. They also had to ignore the constant thumps as people bewitched snowballs to hit the window.

"That's it," Ron muttered as he threw open the window and stuck his head out. "I am a prefect and if one more snowball hits this window-OUCH!"

Rose let out a laugh as Ron quickly brought his head back inside and angrily closed the window. His whole face was covered in snow.

"It's Fred and George," Ron huffed as he angrily sat in his seat. Snowballs continued hitting the window.

"Ok, my turn," Rose muttered as she opened the window. The twins grinned up at her angry face. "If you two don't stop hitting this window I'm going to give you antlers for the rest of your lives and I'll write your mother!"

Fred and George sent each other panicked looks before running off. Rose smiled and closed the window and sat back down.

"Thank you," Ron murmured. Rose nodded and continued writing her Potions essay until Hermione came back a little before lunch.

"So?" Ron asked as Hermione sat next to him. "Got his lessons planned for him?"

"I tried," Hermione said as she used her wand to warm up after being outside in the snow. "He wasn't even there when I arrived. I knocked for thirty minutes before he came out of the forest-"

Harry let out a groan when he heard that Hagrid had been in the Forbidden Forest.

"What's he doing in there?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure. He says he wants to keep everything a surprise. I tried to explain about Umbridge, but he just said that nobody in their right mind would want to study the boring stuff that I was suggesting. He's in a funny mood. He still won't tell me how he got those injuries," Hermione responded. The whole quartet shared nervous looks, worried for the half-giant.

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Hagrid returned to the Great Hall the next morning. His reappearance was met with varying responses: Fred, George and Lee all seemed excited while Lavender and Parvati looked like they could cry. Even Rose was a little sad that Professor Grubbly-Plank was going to have to leave, but Rose would always have loyalty to Hagrid first.

"Is anyone else kinda nervous for this?" Rose asked on Tuesday morning as the quartet walked down to the Care of Magical Creatures lesson. She was wearing one of Harry's sweatshirts to try to fight the cold, but it wasn't doing much.

"I am. Let's just hope Umbridge isn't there," Harry said as he pulled Rose into his side, trying to warm her and warm himself at the same time.

Umbridge, luckily, wasn't there. Hagrid was waiting for the class in front of the forest, his cuts seemingly getting worse, not better.

"Is that a cow?" Rose gasped as she looked at Hagrid. He had the dead body strung over his shoulder. Hermione nodded, disgust clear on her face.

"We're going to be working in here today!" Hagrid told the class once they were all there. "Bit more sheltered. Anyways, they prefer the dark..."

"What prefers the dark?" Draco asked, worry clear in his voice. Rose noticed that he was back to hanging out with Crabbe and Goyle again. Theo and Blaise stood back behind everyone instead of next to Draco like they had before. "Did he-did he say what?"

"Ready?" Hagrid asked. "Right! I've been saving a trip into the forest for fifth year. Thought we'd go and see the creatures in their natural habitat. What we're studying today is pretty rare, and I imagine I'm the only person in Britain who has them trained-"