Chapter Seven
Harry
"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..."
"Well, what did you expect?" I asked. I glanced at my schedule and groaned. "Aw...we have Double Divination this afternoon..."
Divination was my least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting my death, which I found extremely annoying. It didn't boost my morale, either.
"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."
Ron snorted. "Arithmancy? Worst subject there is."
"No, actually, it's quite interesting," Hermione said.
"But it's the hardest subject," Ron complained, as if he knew what is was like and as if it had explained everything. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"You're eating again, I notice," said Ron, watching Hermione smearing 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.
Hermione scowled. "Oh...just shut up, will you?"
There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, I looked up, but there was no sign of white among the mass of brown and gray. 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—Neville almost always forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Draco Malfoy's eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling of disappointment in my stomach, I returned to his porridge. Was it possible that something had happened to Hedwig, and that Sirius hadn't even got his letter?
"Hey—what's that thing?" Ron pointed to a humongous bird that had soared in and deposited something on the blond guy's lap. About a second later, a large, black flying horse rammed through the window, shattering the glass and landing next to the guy with green eyes.
Hermione squinted at the creatures and turned her attention back to her toast. "Giant eagles and a pegasus, I suppose. They're popular figures in Greco-Roman mythology. I think that there's some pegasi in the Forbidden Forest."
"What?" Ron asked, sounding entirely lost. "What's 'Greasy-Romaine mythology'? Wait, what's mythology?"
Hermione waved her piece of toast impatiently in the air. "Mythology is a set of stories, traditions, or beliefs associated with a particular group or the history of an event, arising naturally or deliberately fostered, like 'the Fascist mythology of the interwar years.' And it's not 'Greasy-Romaine', it's 'Greco-Roman' mythology, relating to the myths of Ancient Greece and Rome."
If it were possible, I'd say that Ron looked even more confused then he did a minute ago. To prevent Hermione from lecturing him even more, he said uncertainly, "Yeah, sure. I get it."
"Good." Hermione frowned at her toast and set it down. "Though, it did seem rather strange that they would be seen delivering mail...oh, come on, it's time for Herbology!"
Here, I was distracted by Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants I had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid.
"That is nasty!" he heard one of his fellow Gryffindors murmur in revulsion.
"Bubotubers," Professor Sprout told them briskly, sternly glancing at Seamus Finnigan. "They need squeezing. You will collect the pus—"
"The what?" said Seamus Finnigan, sounding even more disgusted.
"Pus, Finnigan, pus," said Professor Sprout, "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."
The blond guy from breakfast raised his hand. "Exactly what does this...er, bubotuber pus do? Like, what's the purpose of it? Why is it so valuable?"
"An excellent question," Professor Sprout conceded. "An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples."
Everybody around to the blond guy sniggered, excluding a girl with long black hair, who glared at all of them in turn.
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. I saw a boy from the visitors wrinkling his nose. The rest of them just looked like they didn't see the point of squeezing pus out of sluggish plants, but they did it anyways. They 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.
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. The visitors ran back into the castle, mumbling among themselves and knocking against the other group, who had just came out of the castle just as fast. They ran towards Hagrid's hut as well.
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 they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions. I heard the girl with blue eyes mutter sleepily, "I've had enough of baby Hyperborean giants already!"
"Excuse me?" The boy with green eyes seemed to be trying not to laugh. "Baby Hyperborean giants?"
"You're too nosy."
The blond girl intervened before a full-fledged argument could start. "Stop it! You've been like this the whole of...what did they call it, Potions!"
"Yes," the boy with shaggy black hair snickered, "and got detention from the greasy dude!"
"I'll give you detention, Death Boy!" the girl snapped.
The said "Death Boy" answered, "I'd like to see you try."
"I will send an arrow through your brain, and I swear on Styx that it will not miss!" the girl threatened, all pretense of being tired gone.
"Death Boy" frantically looked around to hide behind someone, but I didn't see the point. The girl didn't seem to have any weapons on her, much less a bow and a set of arrows.
"Mornin'!" Hagrid said, grinning at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Be'er wait fer the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this—Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
The blond girl stared at the crates like she was judging whether or not they were worth opening.
"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.
"Well," "Death Boy" meekly said, "they're not Hyperborean giants, that's for sure."
"On your father's underpants, shut up, will you?" the girl irritably answered.
That seemed like a strange remark to make, but nothing about them seemed to be normal.
"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 made me, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. I couldn't suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn't seem to have mouths.
The guy with green eyes blinked, staring at the creatures. "Well..." he weakly optimized, "this is cake compared to killing hellhounds. Right?"
"Give me a dracana, any day," the girl with blue eyes said dismissively, rolling her up sleeves. "Whatever, though."
"Ouch!" yelled Dean Thomas after about ten minutes. "It got me."
Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious.
"Its end exploded!" said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand.
"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off," said Hagrid, nodding.
"Huh..." The blonde frowned at the shiny red mark. "I've got something for that...I think." She rummaged through a backpack that just appeared out of nowhere. She began tossing things out—a book that was written in some squiggly language here, a baggie full of yellow pastry squares there. She hastily wiped her hands on a piece of felt and continued rummaging.
"Don't even attempt to eat them," the girl said, finally shoving the baggie and book and numerous other objects into her backpack (she had noticed Ron staring at them) while bringing out a small box. She smeared some green salve onto Dean's hand, and he sighed with relief. "Wow...what is that stuff?"
The girl tossed the box into her backpack. "A burn medicine," she vaguely answered. She quickly turned back to dropping slimy frog liver into the box to feed the Blast-Ended Skrewts, leaving no more time for any questions.
"Eurgh!" said Lavender Brown again. "Eurgh, Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?"
"Ah, some of 'em have got stings," said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). "I reckon they're the males...The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies...I think they might be ter suck blood."
"Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive," said Malfoy sarcastically. "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?"
"Just because they're not very pretty, it doesn't mean they're not useful," Hermione snapped. "Dragon blood's amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?"
Me and Ron grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Ron, me, and Hermione knew only too well—he had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better.
"We do!" "Death Boy" enthused. He sat up, flicking some bits of leftover grass snake onto the grass. "He's totally awesome! He guards Thalia's pine tree—"
"You have a pet dragon?" Malfoy said, looking horrified.
"Well," the girl with blue eyes amended "Death Boy's" statement, shooting a dirty look at him, "more like it's the whole camp's. Uh, the place that we come from."
Hermione whispered, "What's the point of keeping a pet dragon to guard a tree? How did they even get a dragon in the first place?"
Ron shrugged, depositing some ant eggs into the crate. A skrewt slowly crawled away from it. "Dunno, and I don't really care."
"Well, at least the skrewts are small," I said as we made their way back up to the castle for lunch an hour later.
"They are now," said Hermione in an exasperated voice, "but once Hagrid's found out what they eat, I expect they'll be six feet long."
"Well, that won't matter if they turn out to cure seasickness or something, will it?" said Ron, grinning slyly at her.
"You know perfectly well I only said that to shut Malfoy up," said Hermione. "As a matter of fact I think he's right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all."
WE sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped ourselves to lamb chops and potatoes. Hermione began to eat so fast that Ron and I stared at her.
"What—" I began, but I never got a chance to finish as a pair of elbows slammed down on our table. The guy with green eyes stood there. "I bet that you're still pondering over the dragon, huh?"
"What?" Ron asked, clearly mystified. "What are you doing at our bloody table?"
The boy ignored his question and stuck out his hand, nudging a beef casserole aside. "Percy Jackson, at your service."
"Percy!" a bunch of voices instantly chorused a moment after he said that. The rest of Percy's group filed behind him.
"You run off too much," somebody complained. "We can never keep track of you!"
"That's a good thing!" a boy with mischievous features exclaimed. "Although I admit, you need to work on your thieving skills."
"Travis!" the blond girl reprimanded. Travis grinned as a response.
"Why don't you introduce yourselves?" Percy innocently suggested to his friends. They looked at me, Ron, and Hermione, and then stared at Percy as if he was a rotting Blast-Ended Skrewt. The blonde, "Death Boy", and the girl with blue eyes looked especially annoyed.
"You, Perseus Jackson," the blue-eyed girl said, "are incredibly stupid at times."
"Ha!" "Death Boy" snorted. "Understatement. He's stupid most of the times!"
Ron leaned towards me and asked in an undertone, "Why did I get myself into this mess?"
