Chapter THREE! For the THREE PEANUTS with which Iron Hands will CHANGE THE WORLD!
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"Welcome back, Iron Hands!" Hermione said, smiling brightly, "How was your break?"
"Pretty good," Iron Hands said, dropping his trunk in front of the fire to thaw out, some ice chipping off as he did so, "The swim was brisk and refreshing, and it was nice to have a practical use for all that astronomy we've been learning. How was yours?"
"Oh, excellent," Hermione said, "My parents were thrilled with the potion, and cleared out one of the rooms at their practice to set up an automated production facility. It's been ever so interesting, what with the-"
Iron Hands pulled out an ice pick, and listened attentively as he began chipping the frozen saltwater off of his his trunk; it had been particularly cold during the walk across Scotland, and he was hoping to remove most of the ice before it melted and soaked the common room's carpeting.
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At dinner that night, there were peanuts. Peanuts which were present due to a certain, planned prank on the part of the Weasley twins, targeting the firsties, or more specifically the firsties at the 'hat in space' table, since they were easiest to target. First semester was over, after all, and as far as the Twins were concerned, that meant that the firsties were now fair game. Unfortunately, they had not taken into account the fact that Hogwarts did not, in fact, habitually serve peanut butter, and Iron Hands, having been raised American, was quite fond of the stuff.
Thus, every last peanut on the 'hat in space' table was passed along to Iron Hands, who crushed them into a pulpy mass with his bare hands, before spreading the results on his breakfast toast. Only one peanut escaped a buttery doom, the compressive force of his mighty fists instead causing it to rocket out across the Great Hall, crashing into the goblet of one Quirrinus Quirrel, and spilling hot tea all over the unfortunate instructor's lap.
This would be the first in a series of events that began with Quirrel being slightly delayed in grading the fifth year's latest set of assignments, and would end with him entering the Forbidden Forest a few minutes later several months down the road.
Of course, once the peanut-butter on Iron Hand's toast tried to jump up and start screaming about being eaten, which Iron Hands responded to by headbutting the offending paste into submission, most everybody forgot Quirrel's early departure.
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Iron Hands abruptly leapt to his feet, and stared wildly around.
"Awesome senses tingling!" He declared, "I must track this awesomeness down and take part in it!"
With that, he rushed out of the 'Hat in Space' common room, breaking for the nearest exit from the castle.
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Hagrid was rather startled by the sudden pounding on the door of his little hut, but quickly moved from the fireplace to the door, and cracked it open to see who was there.
"Harry?" He said, somewhat confused at the boy's presence "What brings you ter my door?"
"I sense awesome within this house!" Iron Hands declared, practically vibrating with enthusiasm, "And it's Iron Hands, not Harry. What's going on in here?"
"Er," Hagrid said, "What makes you think anything's going on?"
Iron Hands suddenly became very serious, and stared up at Hagrid gravely.
"I can feel it," Iron Hands said, "It is as a disturbance in the Force, drawing me in and demanding I take part."
"What?" Hagrid asked, scratching his head in confusion, and for a moment, taking his eyes off of Iron Hands.
When he looked back to the doorway, Iron Hands was no longer there.
"A Dragon egg?" Iron Hands said excitedly from the fireplace, "Awesome."
Hagrid felt a sinking sensation in his chest, but he ignored it in favor of exultant discourse about his soon-to-be pet Dragon.
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Quidditch, Iron hands decided, Is entirely an odd sport.
He was much more accustomed to manlier activities, such as American Football, Rugby, Hockey, and Boxing, and found the lack of direct physical contact in the sport disappointing. Still, he thought he could get behind the role of Beater, and was impressed by the skills demonstrated by the Chasers, Keepers, and Seekers. Well, some of the Seekers anyways, Slytherin and Gryffindor's weren't much to speak of.
Watching Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw compete with each other was interesting, at least. The Chaser teams were fairly well matched, and word around the school had it that the Hufflepuff Seeker was more talented, but the Ravenclaw seeker was much more experienced.
The game became considerably more interesting, however, when one of the Seeker's brooms began to malfunction, causing it to drop on a ballistic course towards the stands. Particularly, the patch of stand that Iron Hands was seated in. Most of the student body considered this an unfortunate thing; Iron Hands considered it ideal, like most of his life since he'd been freed from the Dursleys.
The pretty oriental chaser crashed into him at top speed for her broom, the wooden shaft shattering into splinters and sawdust as it struck his chest, and his arms neatly plucking the second-year out of the air as his magic responded to his subconscious demand that he heroically save her.
"Are you alright?" He gently asked the girl as she stared up at him in shock.
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"Iren Hands!" Hagrid said as he opened the door, "Good ter see yeh! Come in, he's jes' about ter hatch!"
"That's great!" Iron Hands said brightly, "I brought a few friends with to watch, is that okay?"
"Er," Hagrid said as he took in the small swarm of first through third year students behind Iron Hands, "I guess?"
"Great!" Iron Hands said, then lead the charge over to the fireplace.
Following him was a curious Ron Weasley, a somewhat nervous Neville Longbottom, one Hermione Granger that was torn between worry and fascination, a faintly blushing Cho Chang, and the madly grinning Fred and George Weasley. Hagrid wasn't sure if he should be worried about one of the students getting him in trouble, or excited that so many were showing interests similar to his own.
"It's starting to hatch!" Ron Weasley declared excitedly, thoroughly derailing Hagrid's train of thought.
Over the next few minutes, the assembled Hogwarts residents watched as the wyrmling Dragon gradually boke its way out of its shell.
Then promptly belched fire onto Iron Hands.
"Awesome!" Iron Hands said, completely ignoring the smoke-stains on his face, and the fact that his robes were on fire.
Hagrid quite agreed.
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The second peanut event happened on Valentine's Day. Iron Hands had looted some of the peanuts from the breakfast table that morning, and was snacking on them as he moved from class to class, when he accidentally dropped one to the corridor floor, not noticing it and leaving it there. As it was one of the corridors Argus Filch had appointed for himself to clean, the House Elves left it be, and more than a month later, Quirrinus Quirrel would trip over it, resulting in him being another two minutes late in entering the Forbidden Forest.
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"Iron Hands," Hermione said with somewhat strained patience.
"Yes, Hermione," Iron Hands said from where he was wrestling with Norbert as though he didn't have claws capable of easily cutting through sheet metal.
"I understand that you're fond of Norbert," She said, "And it's very kind of you to babysit him so that Hagrid can spend more time attending to his duties, but surely you understand that a fire-breathing Dragon cannot continue to live in a wooden hut!"
"But Hermione," Iron Hands said as he carefully pinned the Dragon in a half-nelson, "We can just use magic to make the hut flame-proof!"
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, paused, realized she was going to have to come up with a different line of reasoning to convince Iron Hands and Hagrid to give up the Dragon, then closed her mouth and scowled.
This was not how she wanted to spend her weekends for the rest of the year. She had studying to do.
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"Potter!" Snape raged, lurching towards the boy seated at the front of his class, "Respect! None! Brat! Blarght!"
Then he glared the boy in the eye, and his mind went splat all over again.
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"Are yeh sure that Dragons need social contact with other Dragons?" Hagrid asked sadly as he slowly finished packing Norbert into a padded (and magically fireproofed) crate.
"Quite," Hermione said, doing an admirable job of hiding her relief, "I'm sorry that you have to be separated, but this really is best for Norbert."
"Don't worry Hagrid," Ron said, "You know Charlie, he'll take good care of Norbert."
"I suppose he will," Hagrid allowed, valiantly holding back tears, "Jes make sure yeh're careful with him, right?"
"No worries, Hagrid," Iron Hands said gravely, "We'll make sure he's passed off safely to the Dragon Handlers."
"Aye," Hagrid said, "Good luck fer yeh all then. Be careful."
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They did, in fact, get caught; one Draco Malfoy had apparently discovered their plans somehow, and ratted them out to McGonagall. Fortunately, they'd already passed the Dragon off, but the lot of them still ended up with detention, including Dracon Malfoy. For reasons beyond the comprehension of Hermione, for some reason they were sent to serve their detention in the Forbidden Forest. Fortunately, she was grouped with Iron Hands, and as she'd learned, it was pretty hard to get hurt when Iron Hands was protecting you.
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"Hunting Unicorns," Malfoy said scornfully, "What on earth do they hope for us to accomplish. There's no way we'll be able to catch a unicorn. We're first years."
"I don't see why not," Iron Hands said as he munched on a handful of peanuts, "It's apparently wounded. I mean look."
Iron Hands pointed to a trail of silvery blotches that the others hadn't noticed yet.
"Oh," Hermione said faintly, worry creasing her brow as they closed to inspect it more carefully.
"We should hurry," Iron Hands said, "This blood is fresh, and if it's still bleeding, it could be badly wounded."
He took off running after the trail, the others following close behind.
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"STOP RIGHT THERE, VILLAIN!" Iron hands shouted, "UNHAND THAT CREATURE!"
More than slightly startled, Quirrelmort dropped his knife, and turned to find a pair of terrified firsties at the edge of the clearing, and one utterly fearless Iron Hands McAwesome Genome sprinting across the clearing towards him. Acting reflexively, Quirrel hurled a spell at the fearless young man, which shredded the front of his robe before splattering harmlessly off of his well-muscled (for an eleven year old) chest.
Having long since been taught by his Uncle Kamina what to do when someone took a shot at you, Iron Hands took a shot right back, throwing what happened to be in his hand at Quirrelmort. What happened to be in his hand was a bag of peanuts, which scattered through the air between them
Quirrelmort opened his mouth to cast a curse, and one peanut found its way inside.
Quirrinus Quirrel, it turned out, was allergic to peanuts.
Deathly allergic.
And thus, did the world change.
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AN: I'm allergic to peanuts, though not deathly so. did anybody guess?
Also, Kamina demands to know WHERE THE HELL IS HIS SCREEN TIME?