Chapter 17: Frank

The next few days passed quickly, Harry introduced to us, Hagrid, a half-giant who we were all apprehensive of. However, it turned out that he was quite harmless, nice even. We had gone down to his cabin every now and then and he told us very nice stories about what has happened the last few years. It was extremely entertaining. We were barely keeping up with the homework given all the DA sessions and our training sessions to try protect Harry. Umbridge was now inspecting most of Trelawnny's lessons. We were finally about to have our first Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Hagrid on Tuesday. We were walking down, all ten of us, down to Hagrid's hut, right on the edge of the forest. However, Hagrid was nowhere to be seen. We finally saw him on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, waving his arms to signal that he was there.

We ran over towards him instantly. We were worried that Umbridge would be here, but she was nowhere to be seen, it was very good for everyone. The snow made Hagrid stand out even further, however, it made the run over towards him hard.

'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 heard Malfoy say sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic in his voice. 'What did he say prefers the dark-did you hear?'

Malfoy before the Quidditch match was full of swagger and would bully and insult everyone. However, since then, he was timid, and none of his former swagger was shown. It seemed that he was also scared of going into the forest.

'Ready?' said Hagrid cheerfully, 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 Malfoy, the panic in his voice even more pronounced. 'Only it wouldn't be the first time you'd brought wild stuff to class, would it?'

The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few from the other houses looked as though they thought Malfoy had a fair point, too.

'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 Malfoy.

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

He turned and strode straight into the Forest. Nobody seemed much disposed to follow. I glanced at the rest of the demigods, who all shrugged. We ended up just walking right after Hagrid, into the forest.

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

'Gather roun', gather roun',' Hagrid encouraged. 'Now, they'll be attracted by the smell 'o the meat but I'm going ter give em a call anyway, 'cause they'll like ter know it's me.'

He turned, shook his shaggy head to get the hair out of his face and gave an odd, shrieking cry that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. Nobody laughed: most of them looked too scared to make a sound.

Hagrid gave the shrieking cry again. 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 lime and expanded his enormous chest, I stared at the gap between the two trees. I gasped, as a creature emerged from the gloom.

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs.

Those creatures that were pulling the carriages for us to get to the castle emerged. All of us looked grim, thestrals I believed Percy called them. Harry was wearing a relieved expression on his face. However, all of us had looks of understanding and sadness, most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as Ron's and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail. I looked around and I saw a few more people look at the horse creature with revulsion.

'Oh, an' here comes another one!' said Hagrid proudly, as a second black horse appeared out of the dark trees, folded its leathery-wings closer to its body and dipped its head to gorge on the meat. 'Now ... put yer hands up, who can see 'em?'

All of the demigods, Harry, Neville and a few other people put their hands up.

"Knew that you'd be able to Harry. Neville too. Wa? Also all of these exchange students – "

'Excuse me,' said Malfoy in a sneering 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.

'What's doing it?' Parvati demanded in a terrified voice, retreating behind the nearest tree. 'What's eating it?'

'Thestrals,' said Hagrid proudly and Hermione gave a soft 'Oh!' of comprehension at Harry's shoulder. The demigods, already knew, glanced at everyone else.

'Hogwarts has got a whole herd of 'em in here. Now, who knows -?'

'But they're really, really unlucky!' interrupted Parvati, looking alarmed. 'They're supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once-'

'No, no, no,' said Hagrid, chuckling, 'tha's jus' superstition, that is, they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! Course, this lot don' get a lot o' work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long journey an' don' want ter Apparate-an' here's another couple, look-'

Two more horses came quietly out of the trees, one of them passing very close to Parvati, who shivered and pressed herself closer to the tree, saying, 'I think I felt something, I think it's near me!'

'Don' worry, it won' hurt yeh,' said Hagrid patiently. 'Righ', now, who can tell me why some o' yeh can see 'em an' some can't?'

Percy, Annabeth and Hermione's hands darted up.

"Uh… Alright then Percy."

"Thestrals are only able to be seen by people who have witnessed death, which gives them a bad reputation."

"Yeah! That's exactly right. Ten points to Gryffindor."

Hem, hem.'

Professor Umbridge had arrived. She was standing a few feet away from Harry, wearing her green hat and cloak again, her clipboard at the ready. Hagrid. who had never heard Umbridge's fake cough before, was gazing in some concern at the closest Thestral, evidently under the impression that it had made the sound.

'Hem, hem.'

'Oh, hello!' Hagrid said, smiling, having located the source of the noise.

'You received the note I sent to your cabin this morning?' said Umbridge, in the same loud, slow voice she had used with him earlier, as though she were addressing somebody both foreign and very slow. 'Telling you that I would be inspecting your lesson?'

'Oh, yeah,' said Hagrid brightly. 'Glad yeh found the place all righ'! Well, as you can see- or, I dunno-can you? We're doin' Thestrals today-'

'I'm sorry?' said Professor Umbridge loudly, cupping her hand around her ear and frowning. 'What did you say?'

Hagrid looked a little confused.

'Er-Thestrals!' he said loudly. 'Big-er-winged horses, yeh know!'

He flapped his gigantic arms hopefully. Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows at him and muttered as she made a note on her clipboard: 'Has ... to ... resort ... to ... crude ... sign ... language.'

'Well ... anyway ...' said Hagrid, turning back to the class and looking slightly flustered, 'erm ... what was I sayin?'

'Appears ... to ... have ... poor ... short ... term ... memory,' muttered Umbridge, loudly enough for everyone to hear her. Draco Malfoy looked as though Christmas had come a month early; Hermione, on the other hand, had turned scarlet with suppressed rage.

'Oh, yeah,' said Hagrid, throwing an uneasy glance at Umbridge's clipboard, but ploughing on valiantly. 'Yeah, I was gonna tell yeh how come we got a herd. Yeah, so, we started off with a male an' five females. This one,' he patted the first horse to have appeared, 'name o' Tenebrus, he's my special favourite, firs' one born here in the Forest-'

'Are you aware,' Umbridge said loudly, interrupting him, 'that the Ministry of Magic has classified Thestrals as "dangerous"?'

My heart sank like a stone, but Hagrid merely chuckled.

'Thestrals aren' dangerous! All righ', they might take a bite outta yeh if yeh really annoy them -'

'Shows ... signs ... of... pleasure ... at ... idea ... of... violence,' muttered Umbridge, scribbling on her clipboard again.

'No-come on!' said Hagrid, looking a little anxious now. 'I mean, a dog'll bite if yeh bait it, won' it-but Thestrals have jus' got a bad reputation because o' the death thing-people used ter think they were bad omens, didn' they? Jus' didn' understand, did they?'

Umbridge did not answer; she finished writing her last note, then looked up at Hagrid and said, again very loudly and slowly, 'Please continue teaching as usual. I am going to walk,' she mimed walking (Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were having silent fits of laughter) 'among the students' (she pointed around at individual members of the class) 'and ask them questions.' She pointed at her mouth to indicate talking.

Hagrid stared at her, clearly at a complete loss to understand why she was acting as though he did not understand normal English. Hermione had tears of fury in her eyes now.

'You hag, you evil hag!' she whispered, as Umbridge walked towards Pansy Parkinson. 'I know what you're doing, you awiul, twisted, vicious-'

'Erm ... anyway,' said Hagrid, clearly struggling to regain the flow of his lesson, 'so -Thestrals. Yeah. Well, there's loads o' good stuff abou' them ...'

'Do you find,' said Professor Umbridge in a ringing voice to Pansy Parkinson, 'that you are able to understand Professor Hagrid when he talks?'

Just like Hermione, Pansy had tears in her eyes, but these were tears of laughter; indeed, her answer was almost incoherent because she was trying to suppress her giggles.

'No ... because ... well ... it sounds ... like grunting a lot of the time ...'

Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard. The few unbruised bits of Hagrid's face flushed, but he tried to act as though he had not heard Pansy's answer.

'Er ... yeah ... good stuff abou' Thestrals. Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' sense o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go-'

'Assuming they can understand you, of course,' said Malfoy loudly, and Pansy Parkinson collapsed in a fit of renewed giggles. Professor Umbridge smiled indulgently at them and then turned to Neville.

'You can see the Thestrals, Longbottom, can you?' she said.

Neville nodded.

'Who did you see die?' she asked, her tone indifferent.

'My ... my grandad,' said Neville.

'And what do you think of them?' she said, waving her stubby hand at the horses, who by now had stripped a great deal of the carcass down to bone.

'Erm,' said Neville nervously, with a glance at Hagrid. 'Well, they're ... er ... OK ...'

'Students ... are ... too ... intimidated ... to ... admit ... they ... are ... frightened,' muttered Umbridge, making another note on her clipboard.

'No!' said Neville, looking upset. 'No, I'm not scared of them!'

'It's quite all right,' said Umbridge, patting Neville on the shoulder with what she evidently intended to be an understanding smile, though it looked more like a leer to Harry. 'Well, Hagrid,' she turned to look up at him again, speaking once more in that loud, slow voice, 'I think I've got enough to be getting along with. You will receive' (she mimed taking something from the air in front of her) 'the results of your inspection' (she pointed at the clipboard) 'in ten days' time.' She held up ten stubby little fingers, then, her smile wider and more toadlike than ever before beneath her green hat, she bustled from their midst, leaving Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in fits of laughter, Hermione actually shaking with fury and Neville looking confused and upset.

'That foul, lying, twisting old gargoyle!' stormed Hermione half an hour later, as they made their way back up to the castle through the channels they had made earlier in the snow. 'You see what she's up to? It's her thing about half-breeds all over again-she's trying to make out Hagrid's some kind of dimwitted troll, just because he had a giantess for a mother-and oh, it's not fair, that really wasn't a bad lesson at all-I mean, all right, if it had been Blast-Ended Skrewts again, but Thestrals are fine-in fact, for Hagrid, they're really good!'

"What are Blast-Ended Skrewts?" Annabeth asked, mystified.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts are a creature that Hagrid bred, a cross between manticores and fire crabs. In short, they are creatures that can burn, sting and bite all at the same time, not fun." Harry said.

"Good thing we weren't here for that," Percy said, relieved, "The thestrals were really cool though."

'Umbridge said they're dangerous,' said Ron.

'Well, it's like Hagrid said, they can look after themselves,' said Hermione impatiently, 'and I suppose a teacher like Grubbly-Plank wouldn't usually show them to us before NEWT level, but, well, they are very interesting, aren't they? The way some people can see them and some can't! I wish I could.' All of our faces fell, but Harry broke the silence,

"Do you really?" Suddenly, Hermione looked horror-struck."

"Oh no Harry. I didn't mean to. And you seven, I'm very sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"It's okay, we forgive you," I said.

We walked back up to the castle, and buried ourselves in all the homework we had to do.

December finally arrived, bringing even colder weather and more and more snow, until it was completely coating Hogwarts. The mountain of homework we were getting made it almost unbearable. Hermione was moaning about how many elves she still needed to set free while Ron was complaining about putting up decorations. We were also improving with our swordplay and hand to hand combat. The DA meetings allowed us to become aces at wizard and demigod dueling. We would easily be able to fight against any threat. Ron had already invited Harry and us to come and stay with him over the summer. I was ecstatic as it was going to be really fun. Hermione was also spending a lot of time I the library, even more than usual, I was suspicious, but I just assumed it was to do with all the homework. Also, I kept having the same dreams as the rest of the seven, of a door that I couldn't explain ever seeing. Today was the final DA lesson just before the holidays.

'OK,' he said, calling them all to order. 'I thought this evening we should just go over the things we've done so far, because it's the last meeting before the holidays and there's no point starting anything new right before a three-week break-'

'We're not doing anything new?' said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. 'If I'd known that, I wouldn't have come.'

'We're all really sorry Harry didn't tell you, then,' said Fred loudly.

Several people sniggered. Harry saw Cho laughing and he went red. It was painfully obvious that Harry liked her.

'-we can practise in pairs,' said Harry. 'We'll start with the Impediment Jinx, for ten minutes, then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again.'

They all divided up obediently; Harry just walked about, sometimes joining pairs to help them. The room was soon full of intermittent cries of 'Impedimenta!' People froze for a minute or so, during which their partner would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and take their turn at the jinx.

Neville had improved beyond all recognition. He was able to do jinxes and charms very easily, much more different to the kid who could barely disarm someone at the start. I was obviously partnered up with Hazel.

After ten minutes on the Impediment Jinx, we laid out cushions all over the floor and started practising Stunning again. Space was really too confined to allow us all to work this spell at once; half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over. I was reasonably good at stunning, along with the rest of the seven. It was quite cool.

At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.

'You're getting really good,' he said, beaming around at them. 'When we get back from the holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff-maybe even Patronuses.'

There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most people wished Harry a 'Happy Christmas' as they went. The nine of us wanted to wait for Harry, but he waited for Cho and we all gave him an understanding look and walked out of the Room of Requirement. The demigods snuck out to the Forbidden Forest, braving the cold to practice, yet again. Once we returned, Harry, Ron and Hermione were up, sitting around the fire.

"—You kiss?— " Hermione asked. Percy, Jason and I walked in and she froze up. She relaxed and greeted us. We grinned and joined the conversation,

"Did you kiss Cho?" Percy asked. He solemnly nodded and we all burst into laughter. Once we composed ourselves,

"How was it?" Ron asked.

"Wet," Harry said truthfully. Ron assumed an expression of disgust or delight, I couldn't tell, Jason was stifling laughes and Percy looked the same. Hermione and I glanced at each other and looked away, to conceal our grins.

"Because she was crying."

"Oh. Are you that bad at kissing?" Jason asked.

"Dunno. Maybe I really am." Harry said, looking crestfallen.

'Of course you're not,' said Hermione absently, still scribbling away at her letter.

'How do you know?' said Ron very sharply.

'Because Cho spends half her time crying these days,' said Hermione vaguely. 'She does it at mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place.'

'You'd think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,' said Ron, grinning.

'Ron,' said Hermione in a dignified voice, dipping the point of her quill into her inkpot, 'you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' said Ron indignantly. 'What sort of person cries while someone's kissing them?'

'Yeah,' said Harry, slightly desperately, 'who does?'

Hermione looked at the pair of them with an almost pitying expression on her face.

'Don't you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?' she asked.

"No." Percy, Jason, Ron and Harry chorused. I didn't know what to say, so I just said,

"No." after them. Hermione laid down her quill and rolled her eyes,

"Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's been flying so badly." This was greeted by a long silence. We all didn't know what to say. We immediately felt some sympathy for Cho. Ron broke the silence with an incredulous voice,

"One person can't feel all that. They'd explode."

"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon." Jason, Percy and I exploded with renewed laughter. They continued their conversation, but I didn't hear a word because of that amazing line.

'Who're you writing the novel to, anyway?' Ron asked Hermione, trying to read the bit of parchment now trailing on the floor. Hermione hitched it up out of sight.

'Viktor.'

'Krum?'

'How many other Viktors do we know?'

Ron said nothing, but looked disgruntled. They sat in silence for another twenty minutes, Ron finishing his Transfiguration essay with many snorts of impatience and crossings-out, Hermione writing steadily to the very end of the parchment, rolling it up carefully and sealing it. Harry was staring into the fire, while Jason, Percy and I were just finishing our Charms homework. Suddenly, Hermione went up to bed, and the rest of us followed.

Thanks for the recent support. Two in one day for missing a few days. Anyways, next chapter will be Mr. Weasley's fate and the dream about Voldemort and a god. Ares is what it's looking like. Proper Poll is up on my profile I think. I'm still not sure how it works. Tomorrow, I will check who is the most voted, then use that god in the whole dream sequence. Hope you enjoy,

~RedGods