AN: Hopefully we can get through this part of the story where it's just inserting Frank into the things Queen J.K has already written.
This has been beta'd by the amazing xx ShamiksXa xx, so go check her out!
"She hasn't been to an Arithmancy class yet." Frank scoffed down his food rapidly, eating and chewing quickly before following them out to Care of Magical Creatures that was taught by that half giant he still didn't trust. He, like Hermione, had good reasons to his beliefs. But on each side, there would always be someone that disagree.
Frank still felt rather uncomfortable about heading to a class taught by a giant. Well, half-giant, to be fair. But when he'd fought real ones as a demigod, to consider anyone that had giant blood in them a good person? He hadn't met anybody like that yet, and he doubted he would at this crazy magical school.
As he walked down to his hut that bordered the edge of what he learned was the Forbidden Forest, he saw that he would be attending the class with the Slytherins. Draco was talking animatedly to a pair who must've been his friends, who were chortling.
Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with a large dog at his feet, looking impatient.
"C'mon, now, get a move on!" he called as the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there.
"Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" he called. "That's it - make sure yeh can see - now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books -"
"How?" Draco said in a cold, drawling way. Frank had to admit, the difference between this Draco and the one he had met in the Room of Requirement was impressive, to say the least. He'd have to ask him about that when they met up again later that night.
"Eh?" said Hagrid.
"How do we open our books?" Draco repeated. He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out too; some, like Harry, Frank noticed, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.
"Hasn' - hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.
The class all shook their heads.
"Yeh've got ter stroke 'em," said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Look -"
He took Hermione's copy and ripped off the tape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.
"Oh, how silly we've all been!" Draco sneered. "We should have stroked them! Why didn't we guess!"
"I - I thought they were funny," Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione.
"Oh, tremendously funny!" said Draco. "Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!"
"Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Frank would also have to ask why Harry almost seemed protective of their teacher.
"Righ' then," said Hagrid, who seemed to have lost his thread, "so - so you've got yer books an' - an' - - now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I'll go an' get 'em. Hang on... "
He strode away from them into the forest and out of sight.
"God, this place is going to the dogs," said Draco loudly. "That oaf teaching classes, my father would have a fit when I tell him-"
"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry repeated.
"Careful, Potter, there's a dementor behind you."
"Oooooooh!" squealed a Gryffindor girl, pointing toward the opposite side of the paddock.
Trotting toward them were a dozen bizarre creatures. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, brilliantly, orange eyes. The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck, which was attached to a long chain, and the ends of all of these were held in the vast hands of Hagrid, who came jogging into the paddock behind the creatures.
"Gee-up, there!" he roared, shaking the chains and urging the creatures toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as Hagrid reached them and tethered the creatures to the fence.
"Hippogriffs!" Hagrid roared happily, waving a hand at them. "Beau'iful, aren' they?"
Frank could see what Hagrid meant. Once you got over the first shock of seeing something that was, half horse, half bird, you started to appreciate the hippogriffs' gleaming coats, changing smoothly from the feather to hair, each of them a different color: stormy gray, bronze, pinkish roan, gleaming chestnut, and inky black.
"So," said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, "if yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer -"
No one seemed to want to. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, approached the fence cautiously.
"Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' hippogriffs are, they're proud," said Hagrid. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do."
Draco and his two friends weren't listening. They were talking quietly, but loud enough so that Frank could faintly hear and assume that they were contriving a plan to best disrupt the lesson.
"Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs' move," Hagrid continued. "It's polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed ter touch him. If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt.
"Right - who wants ter go first?"
Most of the class backed farther away than before, the students reacting the same way. Frank could see that even the ostensibly brave Golden Trio looked nervous around the creatures. The hippogriffs were tossing their fierce heads and flexing their powerful wings; they didn't seem to like being tethered like this.
"No one?" said Hagrid, with a supplicating look with suppressed disappointment.
"I'll do it," said Harry, breaking the silence.
There was an intake of breath from behind him. Two girls- Frank remembered them from Divination- had whispered, "Oooh, no, Harry, remember your tea leaves!"
Harry either didn't notice them or was determined to ignore them and climbed over the paddock fence.
"Good man, Harry!" roared Hagrid. "Right then - let's see how yeh get on with Buckbeak."
He easily untied one of the chains and pulled the gray hippogriff away from its fellows. Slipping off its leather collar, the rest of the class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding their breaths, anxious. Draco's eyes were narrowed maliciously, a faint smirk playing on his lips in the shadows of the day.
"Easy now, Harry," said Hagrid quietly. "Yeh've got eye contact, now try not ter blink... Hippogriffs don' trust yeh if yeh blink too much..."
Frank watched anxiously as Harry interacted with the gray hippogriff curiously. He could not help but let his mind wander as he thought what it would be to transform into one of the creatures, and how long he could sustain it. He was brought back to reality when the students around him applauded and praised Harry for the amusing performance. Everyone besides Draco and his friends, that is. Apparently, hippogriff had accepted Harry after a tense moment.
"Righ' then, Harry," called Hagrid. "I reckon he might' let yeh ride him!" Frank suppressed an urge to snort. If any of the wizards learned of his powers, he wondered if they'd be asking him if they could ride him.
"Yeh climb up there, jus' behind the wing joint," said Hagrid, "and mind yeh, don' pull any of his feathers out, he won' like that..."
Harry put his foot on the top of Buckbeaks wing and hoisted himself onto its back. Buckbeak stood up.
"Go on, then'" roared Hagrid, slapping the hippogriffs hindquarters excitedly.
Without warning, large twelve-foot wings of one's nightmares flapped open on either side of Harry, he barely had time to seize the hippogriff around the neck before he was soaring upward up and up the sky.
Buckbeak flew him once around the paddock and then headed back to the ground, landing softly.
"Good work, Harry!" roared Hagrid. "Okay, who else wants a go?"
Emboldened by Harry's success, the rest of the class climbed cautiously into the paddock. Hagrid untied the hippogriffs one by one, and soon people were bowing nervously, all over the paddock. Neville ran repeatedly backward from his, which didn't seem to want to bend its knees.
Draco and his friends had taken over Buckbeak. He had bowed to Draco, who was now patting his beak, looking disdainful.
"This is very easy," Draco drawled loudly, not very subtly, Frank might add. "I knew it must have been if Potter could do it... I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he spoke to the hippogriff. "Are you, you great ugly brute?"
It happened in a flash of steely talons; Draco let out a high pitched, feminine screech and in a matter of 38 seconds- Frank had counted- Hagrid was brutally wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained and fought to get at Draco, who lay coiled in a heap in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes. "I'm dying!" Draco screeched as the class spread panic.
"I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!" He exaggerated as he called, though Frank doubted that calling the beast and insulting it was an accident.
"Yer not dyin'!" said Hagrid, who had gone very white. "Someone help me - gotta get him outta here -"
Hermione sprinted over to hold open the gate as Hagrid lifted Draco easily. As they passed, Frank remarked a long, deep gash on Malfoy's arm; blood splattered the grass and Hagrid ran with him, up the slope toward the castle. Even though it was scripted, he had to admit the wound was rather impressive considering he had brought it to himself. That did not excuse him from being a downright liar, however.
Very shaken, the Care of Magical Creatures class followed by a short walk- though it felt rather lengthy. Slytherins roared furiously and mercilessly of Hagrid- hurling sickening and repugnant insults shamelessly to Gryffindors as well. "They should fire him straight away!" sobbed a girl who was never very far from Draco, who was undoubtedly in tears
"It was Malfoy's fault!" snapped Gryffindor, defending Hagrid. Draco's two great brutes of friends flexed their muscles- that they thought looked menacing and intimidating.
They all ascended and crawled up the stone steps in exhaustion into the deserted entrance hall.
"I'm going to see if he's okay!" declared the Slytherin girl from before. They all watched her sprint and prance up the marble staircase. The Slytherins, still muttering about Hagrid, headed away in the direction of their dungeon common room. Harry, Ron, and Hermione proceeded upstairs to Gryffindor Tower. Together, Frank and Seamus silently went up to the Room of Requirement to finally meet up with Hazel and Luna.
