Chapter 7                   

            They went inside, Harry, Ron, and Hermione making eye-contact, and Hagrid looking some-what flustered. They sat around Hagrid's table and Hagrid set out tea and his famous stone-hard tea-cakes. Hermione was the only one feeling polite enough to reach out and nibble on one.

            "So, 'ow 'ave ya bin lately, eh? 'Ave a good summer?"

            "Oh, yes," said Hermione, "I went to Victor Krum's for a month to visit, and it was delightful."

            "Yep, agreed Ron, "Mine was pretty good too, I did a lot of riding and practicing for Quidditch."

            "Uh," said Harry, "Mine was... you know... same-old, same-old. I can't remember how I survived living full-time with those people." He shuddered. "They started trying to talk me into bringing Dudley to Hogwarts, cause he got expelled." Hagrid laughed. "Well, how was yours, Hagrid?"

            "Like I was sayin', it was good," he told them slowly, careful not to give anything away, "I got a lot done, an' it was pretty much successful. Er, 'ow's the family, Ron?"

            "Well, Bill came and visited briefly, but he's been really busy with the banks... Charlie visited for a few weeks, and, oh, yeah, he said to say hi... Percy I saw practically less than Bill cuz he's been so busy lately, with-"

            "I know," interrupted Hagrid, "I 'eard about Crouch an' all. Argh, that Minister Fudge, he needs to get down to business, I 'ad to talk to 'im a few times this summer about the gi- about my job, and 'e just won' understand." The others nodded and looked at each other. Harry, and by the looks of it, Ron and Hermione, had caught Hagrid's quick retreat from the word 'giants'. What was going on? Had his job been something to do with the giants that...

            "Oh, I-" Harry burst out, then shut up, not wanting to give anything away. He hadn't told them about what Voldemort had said about the giants...they were enemies...

            "What?" the others said.

            "Oh, sorry, nothing," gasped Harry, trying to collect himself, "Just remembered, I forgot to, er, do something..."

            "Anyway," continued Ron, looking at Harry strangely, "Percy's been busy, Mum and Dad are alright, and, oh, I forgot to tell you guys! Ginny-" And he started to laugh a little.

            "What?" said Hermione, "What about her?"

            "She-" More laughing, "She thinks she's gonna try out for the Quidditch team! Now that Wood's graduated, they need more players, and she wants to be one! She practiced all summer!"

            "Why is that so funny?" said Hermione, frowning, "It think it's great! I'm excited for her, and you should supportive, Ron!"

            "I am, I am, I trained her all summer," he laughed, "but, Hermione, have you ever seen Ginny fly? It's hilarious!"

            "Oh?" said Harry, smiling, "Maybe I should check this out."

            "Yeah," joked Ron, "I know why she's trying to join the team-"

            "I agree, Harry," cut in Hermione, ignoring Ron, "You should give her a few pointers or something. It'd mean a lot to her."

            "Yeah," said Harry, thinking hard. Wood was gone! He had almost forgotten. Who would be team captain now? He hoped it would be Angelina Johnson, she was very good... That made him think suddenly of Cho Chang. He had forgotten about her too, but now he felt a thrill in his stomach... but his heart sank again as he remembered what he had tried to block from his mind all summer- Cedric.

            "Well," said Hagrid, breaking the silence, "Class'll start any second, let's get outside, eh?" They all walked out into the sunlight, and Harry looked around. There was a group of kids coming down from the castle, led by Madame Hooch. He looked around some more for any signs of skrewts, but found none.

            "So Hagrid," he said, "What's the animal this year?"

            A proud smile crept over Hagrid's face that Harry thought could only mean trouble. "You'll 'ave to see!" he said simply, and hurried off to greet the kids. Hermione came over to Harry as Ron followed Hagrid.

            "Harry, are you okay? What was that whole... oh, Hagrid's job-"

            "Hermione, he's set out to talk to the giants! To try to turn them back to us! To be good!"

            Hermione nodded. "I know. And Hagrid said he was pretty successful! You remember, back in the hospital room, when Fudge said it was crazy to try and do that, and that it would ruin his career-"

            "Oh, but it is, it is!"

            "What do you mean?"

            "It's... Voldemort told me- told the Death Eaters- that they were allies with the giants, that they were natural allies with the Dementors, too-"

            "When... when did he say this?"

            "When he came back to life! When I was tied to the stone, and-"

            "Harry, I don't know your story about that, you've never told me, and you don't have to or anything, but if you know something we need to know-"

            "I just did tell you! Hermione, I think that's what Voldemort's been doing. He's been turning the giants against us-" Hermione shook her head.

            "They already were against us. But Hagrid just said that it was successful- and besides, Voldemort wasn't seen anywhere near the mountains where they were banished. Look, we'll ask Hagrid, okay? No... no... we need to go see Dumbledore. Soon." The students had now reached the cabin, and Harry noticed there were considerably less Slytherins than there were the year before. Well, that was no surprise.

            "Hey, Harry, Hermione!" They heard a familiar voice, an American voice. Harry turned around and saw Callista walking with Ron towards them. Harry waved and he and Hermione went to greet them.

            "So, no screwts in sight!" said Ron happily.

            "Yeah, but I see something that could be counted as one. Malfoy," groaned Harry.

            "What?" said Hermione, "Why would he stay in this class after last year?"

            "Oh, because-" said a sudden voice from behind them, and they turned around to see Malfoy grinning, "-because I know what we're doing this year, and it's gonna be great."

            "Oh, do ya?" said Hagrid approaching them, obviously not happy to see Malfoy either. "And 'ow would ya be able to know that? I 'aven't told anyone."

            "I have my ways," he muttered.

            "Well, it's time for class, come on now, over to the edge of the forest." He went around gathering other students to bring them to the woods while they started toward it.

            "You know what animal it's going to be, Draco?" asked Callista curiously.

            "Uh, oh, yeah," stuttered Malfoy, obviously surprised to have her speak to him, especially calling him by his first name. He smiled. Harry was sure he'd throw up. "Yeah, it'd be perfect if we had a lot of little Potters running around. It'd be worse than the skrewts."

            "Ha, ha," said Harry, and started walking faster to get away from Malfoy. Why couldn't he have just joined another class? Ron and Hermione sped up with Harry, but Callista continued chatting for a moment, than ran ahead to meet them.

            "You guys, why don't you give him a chance?" she said, "He's just kidding around, you know!"

            "No, you don't know him well enough, Calli," laughed Harry. "He's not kidding, he's mean." Callista laughed too, and said,

            "Well, he's okay to me."

            "Yeah, you're lucky. Or cursed. Either way," said Ron, grinning. They reached the forest's edge and stood waiting for the other students. Callista went off to talk to someone else, and the three of them looked around for any sign of an animal inside the forest. None. But they did see a strange new tiny structure nearby, and so walked over to it and stood by it. Harry felt very strange standing here. He could see a little way's off where, in his first year, he, Hagrid, Neville, Malfoy, and Hermione had been forced to go to detention inside the forest, and how he had met Voldemort in there... He remembered when in his second year he had entered here with Ron, following a little troup of tiny spiders. He thought about in his third year when they had journeyed here to go under the Whomping Willow and make their way to the Shrieking Shack. And he shuddered, remembering how it had been just a few yards away where the year before he had witnessed the last moments of Barty Crouch's life.

            When Hagrid had finally gathered everyone around the shack, he began, "So, everyone, I've got a sort of a treat for ya this year. We're gonna study a variety of bird. It is slightly dangerous, and very expensive, so must NOT escape. So will everyone please step back a bit..."

            "A bird?" said Ron skeptically. "Dangerous?"

            "Well, you know Hagrid," pointed out Hermione, "You can never be sure with him." They watched intently as Hagrid carefully unlocked the shack and pulled out (very slowly) another large wooden structure and rolled it out onto the grass. Harry realized it was a sort of a cart mixed with bird perches, and inside the three large nest-looking things set on top were three very large bird eggs, one hot pink, another lime green, and the third electric blue. All the students gasped, then a few giggled a bit at the eggs' strange colors. Hagrid announced proudly, "These, as you can see now, are Fwooper eggs. They are a rare breed of bird that usually comes in very bright colors-"

            "No, really?" said Malfoy sarcastically. Hagrid ignored him.

            "And they will hatch to be the same color. We will be hatching them in 3 or 4 days, but for now we will study taking care of the eggs. Let me show you all how these heating systems work, first of all-"

            And for the rest of the day they practiced turning up the lamps underneath them to a certain hatching-temperature and taking notes on what will happen when they hatched.

                "That was a really interesting class."  Commented Callista as they walked toward the Quidditch field for PE.

            "It certainly was," agreed Hermione.

            "But for once, I almost enjoyed it!" put in Ron. They walked a while, Callista running ahead to catch up and chat with the Slytherin gang. Finally they reached the field and noticed Madam Hooch standing in the middle, trying to gather students toward the bleachers.

            "This should be very interesting as well," said Harry, hoping they would get to practice Quidditch in this class as well as he had not even been on a broomstick since the Triwizard Cup the year before. But he was disappointed as all the students gathered around the stands only to hear Madam Hooch say,

            "Everyone, this year we want you to get in shape. So run a few laps around the track -er- field and the first one back gets a… um… chocolate frog. So off you go!"

            Ron laughed and said, "Whatever she says. Getting in shape by running and eating candy? Works for me!" and he took off. Harry shrugged and jogged off after him, smiling at the puzzled look on Hermione's face. He knew this was not an idea she was used to. He caught up with Ron and they began their quick jog around the field. They sped up to pass Malfoy who had started before Harry and Ron and was trailed by Goyle and Crabbe, but they kept tripping over their shoelaces and Malfoy had to stop and catch his breath once in a while to put some more color back into his sickly pale face, so it was easy for Ron and Harry to speed by, laughing that they were in front and would be the ones collecting the candy hopefully.

            Sure enough they finished first, and together, so they both got chocolate frogs, much to the anger of Malfoy and thugs.

            "Good job, good job, class," smiled Madame Hooch as Parvati and Lavender finally made it around to the end of their walk. "And in the future, girls, you can jog, okay?" The two giggled, and Madam Hooch sighed and rolled her eyes before going on. "Anyway, great, um... well, we're going to be learning a muggle-sport, actually..." (Groans from the students) "No, no, it'll be fun, I'm sure. It's played similar to Quidditch, in a way, only on the ground. It's called soccer-"

            "SOCCER!!!!!!!!!!!" cried ­Dean at this, grinning and jumping and punching his fists in the air, "YES!"

            "Yeah, that's right, Dean, soccer... and we're sure you'll be fabulous at it. In fact, maybe you'd like to give us all a little lesson on it...?" she asked hopefully.

            "Sure, yeah, wow!" he said, and jumped up beside her, grabbing a soccer ball from the bin behind her. Ok, here's the deal..."

            The rest of the class time was spent listening to Dean give detailed instructions about his absolute favorite sport, and they were almost sorry when, as they were just getting ready to start practicing kicking balls back and forth among themselves, Madam Hooch blew her whistle and said, "Thank you, Dean, but class is over. See you all next week! Harry, please come here..." The other students started walking toward the castle, but Harry, Hermione, and Ron jogged over to the teacher.

            "Yeah?"

            "Oh, Harry, um, that was certainly interesting, hm?"

            "Very, Professor, good job."

            She laughed and continued, "Well, I just thought you should know, there will be Quidditch practice after classes today. Or more like try-outs."

            "Wadda you mean?"

            "Well, now that some of our old team's gone, we will be picking new players... and a new captain, Harry."

            "Oh, yeah, of course, Wood's gone!" said Harry, trying to look sad, and feeling slightly so, but feeling a sudden joy as well... a new team captain! And she had said it as if... as if maybe... could he make team captain? Did he want to? He decided he'd think about that later, and said hurriedly, "Well, I guess I'll see you then. Good-bye!" and hurried off with Ron and Hermione for their next class.

            "Wow, do you really think..." began Ron, but was cut off by Hermione:

            "Harry! Today! Ginny'll be trying out! I hope she makes it..."

            Ron scoffed. "Are you still thinking about that? Come on, Hermione, you know she won't make it-"

            "Well, she could, I guess-" Harry mumbled, surprising them.

            "Really, Harry?" said Hermione.

            "Sure, why not? But I've never really seen her play, so we'll have to see."

            "Yeah, right," mumbled Ron. He looked at his watch and gasped "Oops! We're gonna be late for our favorite class...History of Magic! And they all started jogging toward the castle.