Slytherin Princess | ✓

thirty-four

At some time at the beginning of the next week, Hagrid had come back to Hogwarts, relieving Professor Grubbly-Plank of her duty as the Cares teacher. Walking down the dirt path to Hagrid's hut, I saw the purple, green, yellow face of the teacher— he looked awful.

"Giants," Draco scoffed and I gave him a warning look to keep his voice down. Merlin knows what would happen if Lucius heard that Draco or I were letting the Dark Lord's plans slip.

Hagrid, who now waited for us on the edge of the forest, beckoned us to him.

"We're workin' in here today!" Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his head back at the dark trees behind him. "Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark..."

"What prefers the dark?" I said sharply to Draco, a trace of panic in my voice. "What did he say prefers the dark — did you hear?"

"Ready?" said Hagrid happily, looking around at the class. "Right, well, I've bin savin' a trip inter the forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we'd go an' see these creatures in their natural habitat. Now, what we're studyin' today is pretty rare, I reckon I'm probably the on'y person in Britain who's managed ter train 'em —"

"And you're sure they're trained, are you?" said Draco, the panic in his voice also present. "Only it wouldn't be the first time you'd brought wild stuff to class, would it?"

The Slytherins murmured an agreement and a few Gryffindors looked as though they thought he had a fair point.

" 'Course they're trained," said Hagrid, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his shoulder.

"So what happened to your face, then?" demanded Draco.

"Don't be rude," I hissed, smacking his arm.

"Mind yer own business!" said Hagrid, angrily. "Now if yeh've finished askin' stupid questions, follow me!"

We walked for about ten minutes until we reached a place where the trees stood so close together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow on the ground at all. Hagrid deposited his half a cow with a grunt on the ground, stepped back, and turned to facehis class again, most of whom were creeping toward him from tree to tree, peering around nervously as though expecting to be set upon at any moment.

"Gather roun', gather roun'," said Hagrid encouragingly. "Now, they'll be attracted by the smell o' the meat but I'm goin' ter give 'ema call anyway, 'cause they'll like ter know it's me..."

I walked forward, pulling Draco to see the scene before me. Hagrid gave an odd, shrieking cry that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. A minute passed in which the class continued to peer nervously over their shoulders and around trees for a first glimpse of whatever it was that was coming. And then, as Hagrid shook his hair back for a third time and expanded his enormous chest, I saw Harry point into the black space between two gnarled yew trees that had started to move.

"Oh, an' here comes another one!" said Hagrid proudly, as something pulled the dead cow's meat from it's bones. "Now... put yer hands up, who can see 'em?"

Harry, Neville, and a random Slytherin all raised their hands.

"Yeah... yeah, I knew you'd be able ter, Harry," he said seriously. "An' you too, Neville, eh? An' —"

"Excuse me," I said in a suspicious voice, "but what exactly are we supposed to be seeing?"

For an answer, Hagrid pointed at the cow carcass on the ground. The whole class stared at it for a few seconds, then several people gasped and Parvati squealed. I understood why: Bits of flesh stripping themselves away from the bones and vanishing into thin air had to look very odd indeed.