The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|39| Mad-Eye Moody

The storm had blown itself out by the following morning, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still gloomy; heavy clouds of pewter gray swirled overhead as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I examined our new course schedules at breakfast. A few seats along, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were discussing magical methods of aging themselves and bluffing their way into the Triwizard Tournament.

"Today's not bad... outside all morning," said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. "Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures— damn it, we're still with the Slytherins."

"Double Divination this afternoon," Harry groaned, looking down.

"I'm glad I dropped it, I can't stand any more of Professor Trelawney's predictions," I laughed.

"You should have given it up like us, shouldn't you?" said Hermione briskly, buttering herself some toast. "Then you'd be doing something sensible like Arithmancy."

"Aren't you taking Ancient Runes as well?" I asked.

"You're eating again, I notice," said Ron, watching Hermione adding liberal amounts of jam to her toast too.

"Yes, Maisey. And Ron, I've decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights," said Hermione haughtily.

After Herbology, we, Gryffindors, went down the sloping lawn towards Hagrid's small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As we drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.

"Mornin'!" Hagrid said, grinning at Harry, Ron, Hermione, and me. "Be'er wait fer the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this— Blast-Ended Skrewts!"

"Come again?" said Ron.

Hagrid pointed down into the crates.

"Eurgh!" squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward.

"I mean... they could be cute right?" I gulped.

They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.

"On'y jus' hatched," said Hagrid proudly, "so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

"And why would we want to raise them?" said a cold voice.

The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.

Hagrid looked stumped at the question.

"I mean, what do they do?" asked Malfoy. "What is the point of them?"

"What do you do besides complain about things you have no control over?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

Hagrid opened his mouth, and cleared him throat breaking up our little fight; there was a few seconds' pause, then he said roughly, "Tha's next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus' feedin' 'em today. Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things — I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer — I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake — just try 'em out with a bit of each."