another love; harry potter

six

\ wherein secrets are discovered and ferrets are transformed / 

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 I examined my new course schedule at breakfast, seated beside Harry and across from Ron and Hermione. 

I found that somehow, luckily, I had managed to blend in enough and simultaneously become one of the infamous 'Golden Trio', but I still wasn't completely sure I wasn't in a coma. 

 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. . . fuck, we're still with the Slytherins. . . . "

"Oh look, double Divination this afternoon," I noted, skimming through the sheet. Harry groaned loudly, looking down. 

"Another year, another death prediction."

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

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

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

"Yeah. . . and you were hungry," said Ron, grinning.

There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. 

A large tawny owl soared down to Neville Longbottom and deposited a parcel into his lap, and on the opposite end of the Great Hall, Draco Malfoy was proudly holding a box with a gray owl perched on his shoulder.  

"Burbotubers," said a brisk voice, snapping me back to Herbology class with Professor Sprout. "They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -"

"The what?" said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted.


"Pus, Finnigan, pus," said Professor Sprout with a roll of her eyes, "and it's extremely valuable, so don't waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus. "

Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. We caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints.

"This'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy," said Professor Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. "An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples. "

"Like poor Eloise Midgen," said Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff, in a hushed voice. "She tried to curse hers off. "

"Silly girl," said Professor Sprout, shaking her head. "But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end. "
"Er...should we be concerned for Eloise?" I whispered to Hermione, my eyes wide. 
"She said fixed it back on...?!"
A booming bell echoed from the castle across the wet grounds, signaling the end of the lesson, and the class separated; the Hufflepuffs climbing the stone steps for Transfiguration, and the Gryffindors heading in the other direction, down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid's small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Rubeus Hagrid was standing outside a large 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 our ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.

"Mornin'!" Hagrid said with a grin as we all approached. "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.

"Eurgh" just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in my opinion. 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?"

Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; 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. "

"First pus and now this," muttered Seamus.

Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have possibly made Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. And then there was me, staying as far as possible from them. In seventh year I'd gotten Sophia to dissect the frog for the both of us, there was no way I'd be dealing with those creepy creatures anytime soon. 
"Hey, Pheobe, can you hold this for me?" I looked over to see Harry outstretching his closed hand. 
"Hold wh- HARRY." he had dropped a handful of frog liver into my hands, and it took everything in me not to shriek like a little kid. I dropped it instantly, retracting my hands, only to find that they had fallen directly into one of the crates. Harry was grinning smugly at me.