Hello again! As promised this chapter is much longer then the last .
Random HP Related Rant(you can ignore this and just get on with the story if you want): I am here today to rant about something that really bugs me; J. K. Rowling's portrayal of snakes in her books. Now I'm not talking about the fact that there always evil or anything. No, I'm talking about the fact that that J. K. Rowling portrays snakes as having the ability to, not only blink, but also wink. This is of course physically impossible. Why you ask? Because snakes don't have eye lids, damn it! They can't even blink, much less wink at Harry or anyone! They have a protective, clear, scale over there eyes that they shed with the rest of there skin and the have to tuck there heads under there bodies(or a rock or whatever) when they sleep! O.o Ok, I'm done ranting . And now(if you didn't already know this) you are more informed about snakes .
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the not-very-informed-about-animals J. K. Rowling.
Chapter 5
"You so owe me," Draco said as they walked back to the Slytherin common room after potions.
"Yah, at least its only a knut. You didn't somehow stage that did you? Because I mean, that was a pretty big coincidence," Said Harry.
"Are you accusing me of cheating?" Draco said, faking shock.
"Well you are a Slytherin aren't you? And everyone knows that all Slytherins are cheating scoundrels, " said Harry sarcastically.
"We don't cheat - most of the time - we're just better at finding loop-holes, that's all. And I'm not the only Slytherin in this conversation you know." Draco said as they stepped through the door to the common room.
"But what Slytherins are most known for is there skills with the delicate art of sarcasm. And of course there good looks - er most of the time -" Draco said glancing over at Quidditch captain Marcus Flint who was sitting by the fire. They continued through the common room and on into there dorm room. Harry sat down on his bed and reached into his trunk and pulled out the bag he kept his money in. He flipped a knut over to Draco who caught it.
"Well, we've got some time to kill before three. We probably should get some homework done but..." Harry said.
"Procrastination is the key to happiness," Draco said, sitting down on his bed across form Harry. "Hay! You never did tell me the end of that story, about the muggle who got the pig tail. What did they end up doing about it?"
"Oh, that," Harry laughed. "They had to go to a private hospital to get it removed. I personally think it added to his appearance though." Harry said grinning.
"What are they like? The muggles you live with?" Draco said looking very interested.
"Well my Aunt and Uncle are horrible, but not all muggles are. Though, come to think of it, I've never actually met any nice muggles, but I know there out there. My cousin Dudley is rather big and stupid, I set a snake loose on him once at the zoo." Harry then began to tell Draco about what happened that day at the zoo. When Harry got to the part about him talking to the snake Draco got a odd look on his face, but he didn't say anything.
"I got in big trouble for that, but really funny at the time," Harry finished.
"You're a Parselmouth?" Draco said, looking at Harry in awe.
"A what?"
"You can talk to snakes," Said Draco. "That's so cool! You know, Salazar Slytherin himself was a Parselmouth, that's way our house symbol is a snake."
"Errr... really?"
"Yah, its one of the coolest abilities a wizard can have."
"I'm sure lots of people can do it though, its probably nothing special, right?" Harry said, hoping this would not be one more thing to make him stand out.
"No, its really rare." Harry's hart sank. "Go on, try saying something in Parseltongue," Draco said eagerly.
"Err like what?" Harry said, feeling a little awkward.
"I don't know, whatever," said Draco. Harry tried to concentrate on how it felt when he was talking to the snake at the zoo. The only problem was it had felt just like he was talking normally, but he tried anyway,
"Whatever." Draco smirked at this.
"Is that the best thing you could come up with to say? Well it doesn't mater, it didn't work."
"Maybe I have to be facing a real snake to do it." Harry said thoughtfully.
"Or maybe just a picture of one would work!" Draco exclaimed. He reached into the trunk at the foot of his bed and pulled out one of his school robes. He passed to the Harry, holding out the Slytherin emblem on it. "Just pretend it's a real snake."
Harry stared at the snake embroidered onto the black robe. He imagined it slithering around, its tongue flicking in and out. He tried again,
"Draco is a slimy git," Harry said. He looked up to a smiling Draco.
"It worked! That's so cool!" Draco said. Harry grinned. "Sounded very menacing and evil. what did you say this time?" Asked Draco.
"I called you a slimy git," Harry said, grinning. Draco frond at this. He then calmly reached over on his bed, grabbed his pillow and through it at Harry. Harry caught it and was about to throw it back when he looked at the clock above the door and saw it was now five to three.
"We should get going, its almost three," Harry said. Draco groaned.
"Do I have to come?"
"Yes. Come on." Harry said, and led the way out of the dorm and through the common room. They made there way out of the castle and across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.
When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling form inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back Fang - back."
Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.
"Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."
He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.
There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.
"Make yerslves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Draco and started licking his face. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.
"This is Draco," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.
"yer Lucius Malfoys son aren't ya?" Draco nodded. Hagrid looked him over but all he said was; "huh."
The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke his teeth, but Harry pretended to be enjoying them. Draco wouldn't touch them, he said he wasn't hungry. They told Hagrid all about their first lessons as Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.
Harry and Draco were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old git."
"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her - Filch puts her up to it."
"I don't think Snape likes me much ether," said Harry, voicing an earlier concern.
"Why's that?" asked Hagrid.
"Yah, he didn't pick on you or anything," said Draco.
"Well that's the thing, he didn't do anything. After calling my name on the role call, he didn't even acknowledge I was there." Harry said, sounding a little depressed.
"He seemed really nice to me," said Draco.
"Draco," Harry said, "you were the only one in the entire class, that Snape liked at all."
"Oh..." was all Draco said to that.
"Well it sounds like rubbish to me," said Hagrid. "Yer probably jus pickin' up things that aren't there."
Just then Harry noticed a cutting form the Daily Prophet lying on the table under the tea cozy. He picked it up and read:
GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
Investigations continue into the break-in at
Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the
Work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.
Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing
had been taken. The vault that was searched had
in fact been emptied the same day.
"But we're not telling you what was in there,
so keep your noses out if you know what's good
for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this
afternoon.
"Hagrid!" said Harry, "this Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"
There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
As Harry and Draco walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse (Draco of course couldn't say he wouldn't be hungry later), Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now?
When they got back to the common room they spotted the other first years gathered around something pined up on the notice board.
"What is it?" Draco asked Goyle.
"Flying lessons start this Thursday."
"Yah, but were learning with Gryffindor," said Pansy Parkinson.
"Typical," said Harry as he and Draco walked away. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of a bunch of Gryffindors. Well there goes my Slytherin pride."
He had been looking forward to learning to fly more then anything else.
"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Draco reasonably. "And besides, against that lot of Gryffindors, you could be one of the worst players ever and still look good next to them." This, however, was not as reassuring as Draco had intended.
Everyone form wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Draco liked to complain loudly about first years never getting on the house Quiddditch teams and told long, boatful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. Though he did stop this when Harry told him how annoying this was and how ridiculous his stories sounded. But Draco wasn't the only one: the way Pansy Parkinson told it, she'd spent most of her childhood zooming around the countryside on her broomstick. Even Ron Weasley would tell anyone who'd listen about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on his brother Charlie's old broom.
It was now Thursday morning, and Harry and Draco were walking out of the Grate Hall after breakfast. As they walking past the Gryffindor table Draco leaned over and snatched a small glass ball filed with red smoke out of Longbottoms hands. As soon as Draco had the ball the smoke turned white.
Ron jumped to his feet and looked as if he would like nothing more then to give Draco a punch in the nose. But Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker then any teacher in the school was there in a flash.
"What's going on?"
"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."
Scowling, Draco quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.
"Just looking," he said, and he and Harry walked on, out of the Grate Hall.
"What did you do that for?" asked Harry.
"Like I said, I was just looking." Draco said with a rather evil looking smirk.
At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Draco, and the other Slytherins hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under there feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.
The Slytherins were the first ones there. Lying on the ground were twenty broomsticks in two neat rows. The Gryffindors soon got there and a little after that there teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angels.
"Stick your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"
"UP!" everyone shouted.
Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, as did Draco's only a second later. But there's were some of the few that did. Hermione Granger's simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding of the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting there grips. Draco was rather embarrassed when she told him that he'd been doing it wrong for years.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two -"
But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.
"Come back, boy!" she spurted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle - twelve feet - twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and -
WHAM - a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.
Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.
"Broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter. "Come on, boy - it's all right, up you get."
She turned to the rest of the class.
"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."
Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.
Next, the conclusion of the flying lesson!
Thanks to my reviewers; bluebutterfly, wolfy 65(as not only wolfy 65 but also, draco 65 and malfoy 65), Serpena, and litine.
Arrowcat(in hypnotizing voice): You will click the little blue button on the left that says 'Submit Review'. You will send me a review, and tell me what you thought. And you will also get me lots of nice dark chocolate while your at it. .
