Chapter Three
As soon as Lin's classes were over for the day, Lin hurried up to the Headmaster's office. She knew that he would know what to do about Lupin.
While she approached the door to Dumbledore's office, she listened carefully to make sure she was not interrupting anything. She could hear nothing to suggest that a meeting was taking place, so she pushed the large door open.
Inside, the Headmaster himself sat behind his large desk reading. He looked up at the sound of the door opening and said, "Ah, Lin! To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Lupin suspects," she said bluntly.
"I suspect what, Miss Sarvial?" the same teacher asked from the side of the room, near where the pensive was stored.
She whipped around to look at him and said pointedly, "Nothing that you need to know about."
"I would very much like to know why you seem so odd, Sarvial," Lupin said, standing from his seated position on a rather rarely used chair in the corner.
"Well I am certainly not going to tell you, Professor, as you have no need to know," she said, turning on her heel to walk out of the office.
"Albus, why can't you tell me who or what she is?" Lupin asked
"That information is not mine to give. If she decides to tell you, then that is that. If not, there is no way that you will find out," Albus said.
"She just seems so old, older than me even," Lupin said, thinking out loud.
The Headmaster snorted at that but otherwise remained silent.
"She's so intelligent, and she seems to know everyone. She has such an otherworldly feel, as though she's not human," Lupin continued.
Albus was determined to stay silent at this remark.
"Is she dangerous?" Lupin asked.
"We are all dangerous," the Headmaster answered vaguely.
Lupin took this to mean that he would get no information out of the Headmaster any time soon.
oooooooooo
Thanks to being a 7th year, Lin had much free-time. Since it was in the first week, she liked to observe the Care of Magical Creatures classes to see just how they reacted to all of the new and delightful magical creatures they were introduced to. Because of a near constant contact with Hagrid, she was well informed as to when each class had a new creature to deal with.
One such day was today. The third years would be dealing with hippogriffs. That in and of itself was bound to be interesting, never mind this was their first real experience with magical creatures.
With that purpose in mind, Lin walked calmly down the path to the clearing within the Forbidden Forest. This was where Hagrid intended to show off the hippogriffs, and this was where she perched herself in one of the trees, out of sight yet with a perfect view point.
Not two minutes later, Lin heard the trample of many feet. Sure enough, Hagrid and his class of Gryffindor and Slytherin third years were approaching the clearing.
Upon their entrance into the clearing, Hagrid called out to them, "Right, you lot. Less cha'ering. Form a grou' over there. And open yer books to page for'y-nine."
"Exactly how do we do that?" a blond Slytherin boy asked snidly. Ah, it seems as though we have a Malfoy. This should be interesting.
"Jus' stroke the spine, of course. Goodness me!" The last Hagrid said under his breath so the whole class would not hear him.
All of the students looked uncertainly at their books. Hesitantly, they began to stroke the spines of their books. One unfortunate boy released his book from the belt he had clamped it in before stroking the spine. The book attacked him rather ferociously.
"I think they're funny," Hermione, the girl with the curly hair from the train, declared. Her tone bespoke haughty intelligence, not at all flattering in one so young.
"Oh, yeah. Terribly funny. Really witty. God this place has gone to the dogs! Wait until my father hears Dumbledore's got this oaf teaching classes!" the Malfoy boy declared loudly. His large crones agreed with him via chuckling.
"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry said boldly, walking toward him.
Malfoy handed his bag off to one of his followers before stepping forward. He looked up at the sky and began to act really scared. He called out, "Dementor! Dementor!"
As all of the Gryffindors turned around in alarm, the Slytherins laughed. The Malfoy boy's gang flipped up the hoods of their robes and acted as though they were rather cheesy ghosts, not at all what a dementor would be like.
Finally, Lin had had enough. She raised her hand and in one swift motion, all of the Slytherin students' pants were on the forest floor, showing the no doubt embarrassing undergarments beneath.
This time the Gryffindor students laughed while the Slytherin students attempted to pull their pants back up. "Who did that?" the Malfoy boy exclaimed.
There was a general muttering of, "Not me." No one admitted because of course none of them had done it.
The Slytherins did not get a chance to become truly mad for Hagrid called the class to order by clearing his throat before announcing the entrance of a Hippogriff. Many of the students looked at it in horror. One student in particular, Ron, asked, "What exactly is that?"
"That, Ron, is a hippogriff. Firs' thing you wanna know abou' hippogriffs is they're very proud creatures, very easily offended. You do not want to insult a hippogriff. It may just be the last thing you ever do," Hagrid said, addressing the class. "Who'd like to come and say hello?" Hagrid asked.
The class backed away in fear, except for Harry. Thus it looked like he had stepped forward.
"Well done, Harry. Well done," Hagrid said, not noticing that the rest of the class had backed away.
Harry looked behind him before hesitantly stepping forward. As Hagrid instructed him, he moved closer and closer to the hippogriff and finally was stroking his beak. Hagrid then picked the poor boy up and set him atop the hippogriff. And thus Harry had his first hippogriff ride.
From the look on his face when he landed, he had greatly enjoyed it. The class and Hagrid were clapping when he did land.
"Oh please," the Malfoy boy exclaimed sourly as Hagrid lifted Harry off the hippogriff. The two whispered a short conversation, no doubt in encouragement, before the Malfoy boy stepped forward.
The pale boy walked straight up to the hippogriff, insulting him as he went. "Malfoy!" Hagrid called, but the boy paid him no heed.
The hippogriff reared and cut the boy's arm, making him fall to the ground. However, Lin could see even from a distance that the wound was not at all bad. It was, as Hagrid soon said, a scratch.
Lin quickly dropped down from the branch she had been perched on and ran in front of the raging hippogriff. "Quiet down, sir. You have wounded the boy enough!" she said forcefully in her native tongue. From there, the hippogriff very quickly calmed. She put a hand on his neck and led him away from the wounded boy. She called behind her, "Hagrid, take him to the Hospital. I'll watch over your class and this one."
"His name's Buckbeak," he supplied.
"Thank you. Now, hurry," she said. Hagrid nodded and quickly picked up the Malfoy boy, doing as she had said.
"Now, Class, come closer. I want you all to be able to hear me," Lin said.
"Lin, what language were you speaking?" Harry asked. He had been the first to notice the difference.
"That would be my native tongue, Harry. I can't say more than that. Anyway, as you have just seen, hippogriffs are indeed easily offended. Whenever you approach a hippogriff, you must do so with respect and dignity. Do not rush the process, or you will find yourself much worse than Mr. Malfoy," she said, continuing to stroke Buckbeak's nose.
"Do you all understand this?" she asked, looking around at them all.
When they all nodded or said, "Yes," she said simply, "Class dismissed."
Most of the class bolted out of the area back to the castle. The three that she had met on the train were the only ones left.
"Hello, you three," she said quietly.
"Hi," they all said.
"Harry, I must say that was a fantastic first hippogriff flight. Most people fall off the first time," she said, nodding her head to him.
"Thank you," Harry said modestly.
"How'd you get here so fast?" Ron asked.
"I was watching from that branch," Lin said, pointing out a branch fifteen feet from the ground.
"Wouldn't it hurt to jump to the ground from there?" Hermione asked.
Lin smiled and said, "I am stronger than I look. I believe you three had best be heading off to the castle."
They just looked at each other and shrugged. However, Harry stopped the other two by asking, "What about you, Lin?"
She smiled and said, "If you wish to include me I would be happy to oblige."
Lin turned back to Buckbeak and whispered into his ear, "Go back home. You deserve a rest."
She then returned to the same tree and retrieved her school bag before joining the three of them in the walk back to the castle.
On the way back, they continued to ask her all sorts of questions about how she had calmed Buckbeak and such. It did not even occur to them that she had been the one that had caused the Slytherins' pants to fall, thus embarrassing them and allowing the Gryffindors to win the stand off.