At breakfast the next day, they found Fred, George and Lee still conspiring to enter themselves into the Triwizard Tournament.
He and his friends sat down and went over their schedule.
"Nice, free period this afternoon," Dudley said, cheerfully.
"Not for me," Ron muttered. "I've got double divination."
"You should have given it up like me," Hermione said, buttering her toast. "Then you'd be doing something sensible like Arithmancy."
"Or quit like me to do something easy," Dudley said. "Like Muggle Studies—guaranteed pass."
"This morning is pretty good," said Dean. "Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology."
"Wonder what Hagrid has for us this year? Remember the Manticore?" Dudley said.
"And the Hippogriff!" Dean said.
"The Fire Crabs were my favorite," Neville said. "Those shells."
They were covering bubotubers in Herbology—ugly plants that looked like giant black slugs covered in boils.
"They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -" said Professor Sprout.
"The what?" said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted.
"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."
"Hi Dudley," Susan Bones said when Dudley went up to collect some bubotubers for his group. "Good summer?"
"Yeah, really good—the quidditch world cup was great."
Across the room, Ernie Macmillan was looking angry, much to Dudley's delight. He had never liked him and Susan been friendly.
They chattered about the World Cup for a moment before Dudley went back to his table.
"When are you just going to ask her out?" Ron asked.
"As soon as you ask Cho Chang out," Dudley retorted, which shut Ron up.
"If Ron doesn't want to ask Cho out, he doesn't have to. Perhaps he likes somebody else," Hermione said, icily.
"That's right," Ron said, nodding.
"And Dudley might not like Susan he that way. He might like someone else," Hermione gave him a knowing look which irritated him.
"Yeah … Lockhart," Dean said with a grin.
Dudley threw a bubotuber at him, costing Gryffindor 10 points.
They caught the bubotuber pus in jars and handed them to Professor Sprout.
"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 friend of Susan Bones, 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."
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.
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.
"Mornin'!" Hagrid said, grinning at Dudley, Ron, and Hermione. "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.
"Cool," Dudley said, looking into the crate.
The Skrewts 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.
"Where did you get them, Hagrid?" Dudley asked.
"Bred 'em meself," Hagrid replied, looking pleased.
"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.
"They're not too bad," Dudley said. "Knowing Hagrid, they're going to grow into something cool. They look at bit like Fire Crabs without a shell."
Hagrid had heard and had come over. "Five points to Gryffindor, Dudley," he said. "Quite right, they're a cross between Fire Crabs and Manticores."
"Wow!" Dudley said, impressed. The Skrewts may have smelled bad, but he was looking forward to seeing what they would grow into. He knew Hagrid liked monsters, so he was expecting them to bturn out pretty cool.
"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.
"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?"
"Shut it, Malfoy!" Dudley said, immediately.
"Or what?" Malfoy responded.
Dudley hated him. He had thought that losing the duel between them last year would have settled things. Or that been the school whipping boy would have put him in his place—but nope, Malfoy was just as obnoxious, rude and horrible as ever.