Chapter 4: Beavers and Stones
The next day, they were eating breakfast when they heard a familiar sound of hundreds of owls swooping down to deliver letters. Hedwig flew down to Harry and stood on his shoulder.
"Hey, Hedwig!" Harry said as he untied a piece of parchment from Hedwig's leg. "It's from Snuffles!" he cried out. Ron looked over his eggs to see what was written in the letter.
"He wants us to meet him in Hogsmeade! Hermione, when's our first visit?" Ron asked anxiously.
"I think this weekend," Hermione answered.
"He says he has lots to tell us," Harry read.
Harry leaned over to Hermione and whispered, "What about Lauren?"
"What about her?" asked Hermione in a regular volume.
"Well, we can't take her!"
"And why not?"
"Because…oh, you know!"
"No, I don't!"
"Oh, fine then! We'll take her! But we'd better make sure she won't tell anyone!"
"She's good at keeping secrets," Hermione said.
"What're our classes today?" Lauren asked, trying to change conversation.
"History of Magic and Charms," answered Ron.
"Goody," she said sarcastically. "Well, we'd better go or we'll be late for Professor Binns." She shoved the last bite of toast in her mouth, picked up her stuff and started to walk out of the Great Hall.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed. "There is something weird about that girl," said Harry to Ron. Ron nodded.
Professor Binns's class was even more boring than ever. Not even Hermione was taking notes. She and Lauren were busy talking.
Suddenly, the two girls burst out laughing. "What, I ask, is so funny about millions of goblins dying in the Goblin/Wizard War of 1511?"
"Nothing, Professor."
"Then why were you two girls laughing?"
"We were just thinking about a joke we heard once about goblins," Hermione said quickly.
"This class is hardly a class for joking." Unlike Snape usually did, Professor Binns did not take away any points from Gryffindor, or give detentions. He just went back to his speech.
The next class was a bit more interesting. Professor Flitwick was so small he had to stand on a pile of spell books to see properly over his desk. He talked a lot about how difficult the charms that they were going to learn this year were. By the time he was finished, it was time for class to be over.
"That was an easy day," said Ron, as they walked out of Charms.
The three others all nodded and walked back up to Gryffindor Tower.
The next day's lessons included Care of Magical Creatures and Astronomy at midnight.
"Hagrid's a nice guy; you'll like him," Harry told Lauren, as she followed him, Ron and Hermione out to Hagrid's hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hagrid was a very large man, half-giant, actually, who had very bushy black hair and beard and small black eyes. He smiled at Harry, Hermione, and Ron.
"Hey, how yeh guys been?" said Hagrid. "And who are you?"
"This is Lauren, Hagrid. She's a new student," said Hermione.
"Pleased to meet yeh," said Hagrid.
Harry groaned loudly at the people who had just shown up for class, Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins.
"I don't know if I can stand another year of him," said Malfoy, talking about Hagrid.
"Don't know if we can stand another year of you, Malfoy," Lauren said bravely.
Malfoy glared at her, but kept his big mouth shut.
"Wish I knew that spell to turn him into a ferret myself," Lauren said, loudly enough for Malfoy to hear.
Malfoy looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose your friends have told you everything, have they?" he said. "Well, don't let them fool you. They've been in trouble, too. And they…"
"Shut up already, okay? No one wants to hear you." Malfoy wasn't the only one staring at her now. Harry, Ron, and most of the Gryffindors were, too.
Hagrid called the class's attention. "I thought we'd start righ' in on Skittles today," he began.
"Skittles?" everyone said, taking their eyes off Malfoy and Lauren and the brawl that was about to break out between them.
Hagrid pulled a large crate out from the side of the house. Hagrid picked one of the Skittles out of the box. It looked like a red rock. "Don't be fooled by these critters," said Hagrid. "They may look harmless, but they have a nasty bite."
"What do they do?" asked Malfoy.
"I'm getting to that," Hagrid said impatiently. "These guys are very useful for digging. They may not look like diggers, but if yeh put them on the ground, they will pull out their digging scoop 'n start digging. Very useful for gardening 'n things like that."
Everyone scrambled up to the crate and picked a Skittle out of the box. Harry picked up a Skittle that was purple and put it on the ground. It immediately stuck out its digging limb, which looked a lot like a serving spoon, and began to dig a hole in the soft earth.
"Make sure yeh pick 'em up before they dig too deep yeh can't get 'em," said Hagrid.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Malfoy's black Skittle digging a hole which was surely was too deep for Malfoy's arm.
At the end of the class, only a few Slytherin Skittles had managed to escape their caretakers. Hermione quickly did a levitation spell to get them out, and brought them back to Hagrid's crate.
"Let's go to sleep early tonight," suggested Hermione. "We have Astronomy at midnight, and it's better to get a few hours sleep before we go." So after dinner, Hermione, Lauren, Harry, and Ron went up to the common room to sleep. They slept until ten thirty, then went down to the common room. Harry and Ron were still there.
Soon, they walked up to the highest tower in the castle, where Professor Sinistra told them about stars, constellations and planets. After the lesson, they went back to bed.
Harry woke up the next morning with a giant yawn and went down to the Great Hall with Ron.
"Hey everyone!" he said cheerily as the two of them walked up to the Gryffindor table.
Hermione and Lauren nodded sleepily.
"Our first Transfiguration lesson is today," Hermione said, looking at her schedule. "Then Herbology."
"With the Hufflepuffs," finished Ron.
"Yeah," said Hermione.
Harry sighed and muttered, "Of course, no classes with Ravenclaw."
"What?" Ron said, stuffing his face with toast.
"Nothing!" Harry said quickly.
Soon it was time for Transfiguration. The group walked to Professor McGonagall's classroom.
"Hello class!" said Professor McGonagall. She looked down at her roster. "Yes, I believe everyone is here. Lauren, is it? I'll add you to the list." She wrote something down on the roster. You might be a bit behind, but no doubt Miss Granger can help you." She smiled at Hermione.
"This year," McGonagall continued, "we will be doing much harder things than ever before. The things we transfigure will be getting bigger. And there will be a lot more work involved." The class groaned.
"Today we will start turning beavers into rocks and back again." She pulled a very large cage out from behind her desk. In it were about ten beavers, all chewing on the metal bars of the cage and smacking each other with their tails.
"Two students to a beaver!" she called, as the class scrambled up to get a biting beaver. There were many "ouches" as the beavers tried to get out of the wizards' hands. Ron and Harry picked up a beaver and carried it back to their table behind Hermione and Lauren.
"Now, what you have to do is touch the beaver with your wand and say, Beavarius!" said Professor McGonagall demonstrating. The beaver on her desk turned into a rock. "To change it back, you just say, Robearus."
Hermione gently touched the beaver's back with her wand and said, "Beavarius!" The brown beaver was now a medium-sized gray rock. "Robearus!" she shouted, and the rock became a perfect, though stunned, beaver.
"You try," Hermione said, as Professor McGonagall congratulated her.
"Beavarius!" Lauren called out. To everyone's, including her own, surprise, the beaver turned into a brown, furry rock.
"Good for a first try," said Professor McGonagall, "but keep trying until it turns gray and smooth."
"Robearus!" The furry brown rock turned back into the beaver.
They kept trying until the end of class. Most students, including Lauren, Harry, and Ron, had successfully transfigured their beavers into rocks and back again. Neville had successfully transfigured his beaver into a perfect rock, but couldn't get the rock back into a beaver. Some students' rocks still had fur or tails, and some beavers were still gray.
Next, the four of them made their way out to the greenhouses for Herbology. Professor Sprout stood outside greenhouse three waiting for them. She was a witch wearing the regular black robes and a green apron over them. There was dirt all over her apron, as well as her hands and face.
"Welcome to another year of Herbology!" she said, smiling at the class. "If you would step into the greenhouse, we can start our first lesson on Venomous Tentaculas." She stepped inside the greenhouse.
"Venomous?" Harry asked.
"Today we will be feeding the Tentaculas," continued Professor Sprout.
"What do we feed them?" asked a Hufflepuff boy, Justin Finch-Fletchly.
"We will feed them bats," said Professor Sprout, pointing to a large cage covered with a black cloak. She pulled off the cloak and we saw about fifty bats flying around crazily.
"Put on your gloves and take a bat. Be careful not to let them loose or they'll be flying all around the greenhouses. When you have a bat, take it over to the Tentacula and shove it in its mouth. Be sure not to let the Tentacula bite you because their poison will make you sick." Professor Sprout demonstrated.
"She makes it look easy," said Ron after the four of them were assigned to a particularly hungry Tentacula. It almost bit Harry on the arm as he threw a bat towards its giant mouth. It looked something like an overgrown Venus flytrap.
After Herbology they were exhausted. They went back to the common room to work on piles and piles of homework. A little while after dinner, they went to bed.
"Today we have double Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Ron, at breakfast, looking at his schedule.
"And we still have no clue who the teacher might be," added Harry sadly.
"Maybe it'll be the real Moody," Lauren said.
"Maybe," said Hermione as the boys stared at her suspiciously.
As they got up to walk towards the classroom, Harry pulled Hermione aside and whispered, "What's with Lauren?"
"Yeah," said Ron, joining in the conversation, "she knows too much. She's starting to creep me out."
"I've spent a lot more time with her then you two have, and I know she's perfectly okay," Hermione defended.
"But how does she know so much?"
"Is that what you're worried about?" asked Hermione, laughing, but they could tell she was a bit nervous. "I told her all that stuff one night in our dorm. It's okay!"
The boys accepted the story and they walked together towards Defense Against the Dark Arts. But the Professor standing behind the desk wasn't Lupin or Moody. She had long silvery blond hair and beautiful eyes. She smiled at Harry as he walked in.
