A/N: Things are starting to fall into place nicely (in my opinion, at least!) Hope you enjoy! Please excuse Hagrid's speech pattern. I'm not talented like J.K. Rowling to make it like hers, but I did try. Kind of. I gave up after a while. ;-)
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling deserves the praise for coming up with the characters and places, not me.
~***~
"Al' right there. Come round here an' take a look inside," Hagrid said waving them all to look in the crate he set on the ground. The class looked at each other but no one moved an inch. After an apprehensive glance to each other, Hermione, Harry, and Ron moved to the crate. Harry and Hermione stood up on their toes (Ron was tall enough to see over the top of the crate without having to do this) and looked inside.
Hermione crinkled her eyebrows, reached inside (the class gasped in the back) and pulled out…a saddle and a bridle. She turned around looking quizzically at Hagrid.
"What do we do with these Hagrid?" she asked. He grinned at her, "Ye'll see," he said mysteriously.
"Everyone grab a partner an' one saddle," he called loudly. Hagrid moved to where Harry was and said in a low voice, "Harry, you wan' ter partner up with Neville? He migh' get a li'l nervous." Harry nodded a little cautiously before moving towards Neville, not knowing what he was going to get into. Ron and Hermione looked at each other, shrugged, and waited for the rest of the class to get a saddle.
Once everyone was ready, Hagrid led them over to the lake where they found in one section penned up with a fence.
"All righ', everyone gather 'round," he beckoned them to the fence. He then put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. Everyone watched in amazement as horses came out of the lake and trotted up to the penned area neighing softly at the sight of the students.
The students were astonished for the horses came out of the lake, they were in shades of vibrant colours, blue, greens, reds, bronze, gold, and silver, and they were part fish!
Hagrid chuckled softly at their reaction, "Can anyone tell me wha' these are now?"
Hermione raised her hand. "They're Hippocampuses. Half horse, half fish. They're from Greece, but merpeople caught one in Scotland and tamed them," she stated remembering what she read in Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them.
"Righ' Hermione. Five points ter Gryffindor," Hagrid said proudly as he looked at the animals. "These are the creatures we will be studying for the next while. Ye'll learn how ter ride them, feed them, and take care of 'em," Hagrid announced.
Everyone stared at the large animals. "Well, go on then," he urged them to the animals.
Ron and Hermione gave a what-can-we-do glance before hesitantly moving towards a brilliant sapphire blue stallion with silver hooves and mane. The fish part of the hippocampus had blue scales with shimmers of silver and aquamarine green gleaming through. Hermione looked up at it before turning to Ron.
"I guess we have to put this on it," she said holding up the saddle.
"Uh huh," he replied stupidly still gazing in awe at the creature.
"Oh for goodness sake Ron, snap out of it," she said exasperated. She moved in front of him and held her hand out for the hippocampus to smell. It seemed to work as the stallion took a tentative step forward and bowed its head to reach her hand. Hermione lifted her hand and stroked its face. "Well hello to you too," she giggled as the horse butted its head against her. They got to know each other for a couple of more minutes giving the animal time to get familiar with her, and her smell, before Hermione moved to place the saddle and bridle on him. Ron let her do the work while he got acquainted with their new charge.
"We got to get Bluey-here over to a stone so we can climb onto his back," Hermione said out loud.
"Bluey?" Ron said amused.
"Well, do you have any ideas of what to call him then?" she retorted back.
He took one look at her face and narrowed eyes. "No, no. Bluey is just fine, isn't it?" he hastily agreed and turned to the stallion.
They led Bluey over by the bridle to a stepping stone and looked at each other.
"What do we do now?" Ron asked her.
"I guess we just get on." Hermione looked at the rest of the class to see if any of them got on, but they seemed to be the first ones to try. Dean's and Seamus' hippocampus was chasing them in the pen, and Harry was trying to get Neville to pet theirs.
"Ladies first," Ron said, sweeping his arm to Bluey. "Thanks Ron," Hermione said sarcastically. She stood on the stone and placed one leg across Bluey's body and mounted up. She felt Bluey tremble a little not used to a person on its back, but she stroked him gently. "Easy boy, easy," she murmured, holding the bridle with her other hand.
She looked down at Ron, "Well, are you going to get up here or not?"
She watched as he mounted up with less difficulty than she did and felt him try to get comfortable behind her. "Stop fidgeting Ron, you're going to scare Bluey," she commanded.
"Look! Hermione and Ron managed ter get on their hippocampus," Hagrid shouted happily to the rest of the class. Hermione blushed and kept a tight grip on the bridle as she felt Bluey squirm just as much as Ron did under the scrutiny of so many eyes upon them.
"Why don' ye' take him out for a ride?" Hagrid suggested. "Just do a walk by the lake fer now. Ye' can go faster next lesson." He looked at the two of them sitting a little stiffly on the animal. "Ron, ye' better hold onto Hermione otherwise ye'll fall as soon as ye' move," he said before running to help Parvati stop her hippocampus from chewing Lavender's hair.
Hermione felt two hands creep up and place themselves shyly on her waist. Her eyes widened and she felt her face warm up, and she knew she must look like a tomato right now. She thanked her lucky stars that Ron was behind her and couldn't see her face.
She didn't know that he looked just like her at the moment, except he had the red hair to match.
"Err, I guess we should take Bluey for a walk," Hermione said weakly. She felt Ron nod his head, as his chin brushed slightly against her hair. "Ummm, yeah…okay," she said a little breathlessly. She gripped the reins in both hands and shook them while pressing her ankles to Bluey's body.
Whether she pressed them a little too much or Bluey was very restless they didn't know, but in the next second Bluey cantered towards the lake. Hermione and Ron held on for dear life and Hermione tried to slow Bluey down. Bluey took a leap and splashed into the water. The impact was too much for Ron and Hermione as they both lost their balance and fell into the shallow water.
Hermione laid in the murky ground and groaned. She heard Ron calling her name. Opening her eyes, she turned her head and found his face inches from hers.
"Are you okay?" he asked a little concerned, his blue eyes wide and searching her face for any sign of cuts. He was on his side leaning over. They must not have fallen far from each other she realised.
She nodded slowly. "Can you get up?" Ron asked her. She looked down and placed her hands in the soft mud and braced herself as she brought her knees up so her feet would be on the ground. She raised her head and saw that Ron had already scrambled up and was offering his hand to her. She took it gratefully and he helped her up, both of them soaking wet with their hair and robes dripping beads of water.
"Hermione! Ron! Are ye' two all righ'?" Hagrid shouted. She felt Ron withdraw his hand from hers quickly as they watched the class run towards them, and she realised she missed that feeling of her hand in his with a pang.
"We're okay Hagrid!" Hermione clambered out of the lake leaving Ron to bring in Bluey.
Ron grabbed Bluey's bridle and hauled him out of the lake. Bluey nickered knowingly at Ron and splashed him with water with its legs. "Oh, bugger off Bluey," Ron muttered under his breath, his face going bright red once more.
~***~
Hagrid cancelled the rest of the class and ushered Harry, Hermione, and Ron into his hut. Fang barked and launched himself on Harry knocking his glasses off one ear.
"Let me make ye' a nice cup o' tea," Hagrid said as he bustled around the room. He put the kettle of water to boil and found a couple of blankets. He tossed the blankets to Ron, "Pu' 'em on and keep warm," he admonished as he looked for cups.
Ron caught the blankets and placed one of them around Hermione's shoulders.
"Thank you," she said looking up at him, feeling the warmth spread through her, whether it was from the blanket or his hands on her shoulders she didn't know. He smiled down at her, "No problem."
Ron then moved over and helped Harry control Fang long enough for Harry to straighten up his glasses.
Hagrid came over and placed three steaming cups of tea on the table. "I should bring some o' my home made cauldron cakes too," and moved to get some. "No!" all three responded right away.
"Err, I mean, Hagrid, don't worry about it. We'll eat lunch soon enough, and we want to talk to you anyway," Hermione finished lamely. Hagrid beamed at her and went to retrieve his cup of tea.
"You mean, his cauldron cakes probably taste like Snape's cauldrons," Ron muttered. Hermione nudged him with his elbow and took a sip of her tea.
"How was your summer Hagrid?" Harry asked.
"Fine, fine. Dumbledore had some important business he wanted me ter take care of," Hagrid said, sitting up a little straighter.
"Oh?" Ron asked, "What did you do?"
"I can't tell ye' now; it's a secret between me and Dumbledore," he answered expansively. The three looked a little disappointed at his lack of information.
Hermione thought of something. "Hagrid, how is Madame Maxime doing?" she asked.
Hagrid brightened up, "Olympe's doing well. Been seeing her all summer meeting the giants an' all…"
"So you've been meeting with the giants! Are they going to going to support us against You-Know-Who? Is Madame Maxime going to support Dumbledore?" Harry pounced on Hagrid's slip-up.
Hagrid was furious with himself. "I can' believe I told you! You mustn' tell anyone. No, forget I told you this myself."
"Oh come on Hagrid, you can trust us. What's been going on with the giants?" Hermione pressed.
"No," he replied shaking his head, "I told ye' too much already. You should go ter your class now." He shooed them out of his hut and closed the door.
The three of them looked at each other. "Something's definitely going on," Harry said. But as there was nothing they could do about it, they trudged back up to the castle to change into some warmer (and less smelly) robes.
~***~
Hermione ran a brush quickly through her semidry hair before leaving her room. She stepped lightly down the stairs towards the common room happier now that she wasn't soaked with muddy water. Harry and Ron were already in the common room playing wizard chess. Harry looked up when Hermione came in the room.
"Hermione! I'm glad you came. Let's go eat some lunch," Harry said in relief.
"Yeah right Harry. You just want to leave because you're losing," Ron laughed, rolling his eyes.
Harry spluttered defensively, but Hermione looked at the chess set and saw Ron was right. Harry's queen, bishop and knight were already taken, and Ron's crown and queen had Harry's king cornered and cowering in fright.
The three of them got up and followed some other Gryffindors down to the Great Hall.
"What do we have next?" Harry asked them.
"Defence against Dark Arts," Hermione informed him. "I wonder what Professor Andsware will be like," she mused.
"As long as she's not like Snape, who cares!" Ron said sitting down at the Gryffindor table and starting to ladle some cream of mushroom soup into his bowl.
Hermione reached over to grab a couple of sandwiches from a large platter and listened as Harry asked students around them if they had DADA yet, but no one had.
"I guess we'll be the first ones then, at least in Gryffindor," Harry assumed.
Hermione ate talking to them about mindless matters before settling down to watch them eat. They always took longer than she did. She rifled through her bag to pull out her textbook, and realised with a panic that her wand wasn't there.
She looked up to the two of them, "I have to go back to the common room. I left my wand in the robe pocket. I'll meet you guys in the classroom." She stood up and shouted over her shoulder, "Save a seat for me!"
She walked as fast as she could without actually running knowing that if Filch caught her, he would take off points for Gryffindor. She reached the portrait and gasped out, "butterbeer". The Fat Lady swung open accordingly tsk-ing at the sight of her running inside without even a thank you.
Hermione ran up the stairs to her room and found the damp robe on her trunk in front of the window. She reached in the pocket and pulled out her wand. Thank goodness. I thought it might be at the bottom of the lake! She turned to go out again and glanced out the window. Stopping, she turned back and took a closer look.
Her view outside consisted of the front gates of Hogwarts, and there by the shadow of the gates, wasn't that Professor Andsware? What was she doing there? She leaned forward, her nose almost touching the windowpane, and peered at the woman. She was talking to a man who had dark hair like Andsware's, but that was the only real distinctive feature Hermione could make out. She felt that she had seen that man before, but she couldn't decipher as to when or where.
She shrugged it off figuring it was nothing of importance and went to join Harry and Ron in the classroom – assuming they had finished their lunch by now.
~***~
A/N: You can look up Hippocampus in the Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them book.
Omega: thanks a lot again!
MusicalRose: thanks for your sympathy on my papers ;-) I hope you enjoyed the R/Hr scenes in this chapter. Nothing obvious (like them snogging in the great hall again) but it's still there.
Rally-as-Twiddle's: I figured both Hermione and Ron are in Gryffindor, they can do brave things! That's really interesting (your name I mean). There are so many interesting usernames out there and I'm always curious as to how they got them.
HermioneM: I hope this chapter is long enough for you! It's longer than the last one anway. Ffnet has been causing me problems too, but the past couple of days it's been working nicely. Good ffnet! Was there enough R/Hr romance to appease you in this chapter? Please say yes! lol!
A/N: Please, please, please review! I thought this chapter was pretty good, and I hope you find it too, but I won't know unless you review!
Shalara