Authors note: The next chapter has direct references from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in particular Hagrid's lesson with Buckbeak and Professor Trelawney's first class. I need to include these here because they are pertinent to the story I'm writing but please feel free to skip this chapter if you want as not much has changed from the original. I did however do my best to include some changes let's just say that writing canon isn't an easy task for me! This fanfiction is just written for fun and no copywrite infringement is intended.
"Harry, wake up. You're going to miss the first class!" Hermoine said as she shook her friend awake. He seemed to be really out of it this morning for some reason, usually he was an early riser. But Ron had said that there was simply no waking him, and had gone down to breakfast without him.
"Come on Hermione we don't want to miss class ourselves!" Ginny said reaching out and touching Hermione's shoulder.
"Come on Harry wake up!" Hermione said shaking her friend.
Harry groaned rolling over "come on Harry it's time for class!" Hermione said impatiently. Harry blinked looking around for his glasses and put them on. "I'm coming!" Harry said the girls happily left him to get dressed in peace whilst they got a head start wandering down to the Care of Magical Creatures class.
"Right yer lot form a line over here!" Hagrid said as the group wandered closer to the dark forest. It was the first Care of Magic Creatures lesson for the third year Gryffindors and Slytherin class. Draco and his crew were wandering along slowly behind everybody else trying to scare Harry with what they thought was a scary dementor noise with their arms up in the air every time he cared to turn around.
"Ok stop the nonsense, today class I have something really special for you!" Hagrid said as he took a few steps into the forest and came out with a creature which looked like a cross between a bird and a horse standing on four legs and easily hagrid's height in size. "This," he said proudly, "is a hippogriff. Noble and proud creatures very easily scared. Now...who wants to say hello?"
Harry had not realised that whilst Hagrid had walked into the forest the whole class had taken a few steps back which made him look like he was standing forward to volunteer!
"Harry good lad!" Hagrid beamed. Harry gulped but he walked over towards Hagrid not wanting to embarrass his friend, "now first of all we give a little bow," Hagrid demonstrated, "then we wait and see if he bows back!"
Harry copied Hagrid but also instinctively reached out to the creature. He could sense that the magnificent creature whilst being quite large was incredibly frightened. There were a lot of people around and it didn't know what the best course of action to take was. Harry reached out with the magic like Mel had taught him to and allowed himself to feel how soft the creature was and touch his feathers gently to calm the creature. This caused the creature to raise its head for more attention but also to glare down at him with its sharp orange eyes. Surveying the class. Malfoy was doing his best to annoy Ginny but as she had six older brothers and was used to this kind of attention she just ignored it. The hippogriff however, did not and raised itself up onto its back legs waving its talons in the air.
"back off Harry quick!" Hagrid said attempting to hide Harry behind him. But the creature put its feet back down on the ground and put its head down rubbing it into Harry's chest like a big cat! "aww look he likes ya!" Hagrid said beaming "I reckon he'd let ya ride him now!" Harry stared at the giant man at these words "uh Hagrid um" was all Harry could say thinking that a much better prize would be backing away! But Hagrid either didn't hear him or didn't listen because he lifted the boy with ease placing him on the back of the hippogriff.
"Don't pull his feathers he aint gonna like it" Hagrid said as he thumped the magnificent creature on the back signalling it was ok for it to fly if it wanted.
The hippogriff took to the air with the nervous boy clinging on around the creatures neck for dear life! Harry found this experience VERY different to riding his broomstick and he wished that he could still have both feet planted firmly on the ground! But whilst he was up in the air he decided he may as well try to make the best of his rocky ride and screamed out "woo hoo" as the creature flew over the black lake. They flew around for a little while Harry slowly getting adjusted to the movements of the fascinating creature and landed back in front of Hagrid again.
"Well done Harry!" Hagrid said, "and well done Buckbeak!"
Harry got off the giant creatures back with a little bit of help from Hagrid and went to sit down on a log nearby to watch the others. There were several hippogriffs nearby and the students had been split into 3 or 4 people per hippogriff to see how they could get along with the creatures. Hagrid beamed at his success as Malfoy approached Buckbeak with his friends Crabbe and Goyle not far behind.
"This is a joke if old scarhead can do it so can I! You're probably not dangerous at all you great big ugly brute!" Malfoy gave the hippogriff a shove as Crabbe and Goyle laughed. He smiled at his friends but when he looked back at the hypogriff the creature had its tallons in the air like before and when it went down it struck Malfoy clear across the chest.
"AAAAAAH!" he screamed, "its killed me, its killed me!"
"calm down its just scratch!" Hagrid said, then looking up sternly at the hippogriff he yelled "Buckbeak NO!" as if the massive creature was a little pekingese puppy that had done something naughty and deserved a scolding.
"Hagrid!" Hermione said "he's going to have to be taken to the hospital wing!"
"I'm the teacher I'll do it!" Hagrid said as he scooped up Malfoy into his strong arms.
"I'm going to get you!" Malfoy screamed at him, "you and your bloody pigeon are going to hear it from my father!"
"Class dismissed!" Hagrid said leaving the group of third years alone with their hippogriffs. A couple of people chose to stay as they had been feeding them bits of grass from nearby and patting them. But most of the hippogriffs had disappeared back into the dark forest once Hagrid had left.
If morning classes weren't interesting enough afternoon class was even more confusing. After having a double study period it was time for divination classes and the third year Gryffindors were all lined up outside the little ladder leading up to Professor Trelauneys classroom.
"Come in my dears!" Trelauney said standing at the top of the ladder. The students climbed the ladder and went through the little trap door to stand in the divination classroom looking around in interest. Never before had they been in a room that looked quite like this. It looked like a place that you could easily see many older ladies gossiping around quite comfortably. With enough arm chairs for one for each student placed in a circular pattern around the round coffee tables in front of them. Lining the walls was different kinds of tea and coffee and other unidentifiable substances along with a great number of crystal balls.
"Welcome children to the noble art of divination today we shall start a great journey together! I am Professor Trelauney and together we will cast ourselves into the future and discover if any of you hold the sight! Today we will start with the art of reading tea leaves I wish for you all to take a cup drink it down however you like and swap your cup with the person sitting opposite you. First place in whatever milk or sugar you might like from the dispensers on the coffee table and I will come around and pour your tea. When we have all had our tea I will come around and help you decipher what your tea leaves might read! What fun!" several students were looking a little bored after Trelawney's speech and a few girls were completely riveted and very excited. Harry looked bored but he was willing to try anything once. He drank his tea and swapped teacups with Ron.
"So what do you read Mr Weasley?" Trelawney asked kindly.
"Well Harry has this wonky kind of cross and that's trials and suffering and he has this little circular thing here which could be the sun…so….Harry you're going to suffer but…" Ron's voice became hesitant "you're going to be happy about it"
"Oh what rott give me that!" Trelawney said taking the cup away from Ron, instantly she gasped and took a few steps back "You have….the grim!"
"What's the grim?" someone asked.
"The grim…is an omen….of death!" Ginny read from her text book and gasped. The whole room just stared at Harry for the rest of the lesson and Harry did his best to pretend he didn't notice.
"Wanna try again?" Ron asked as a few others were trying again. Harry and Ron went and cleaned their cups and got more drink sitting and sipping at it quietly. Ron put his tea cup down and said
"so Harry tell me what you see,"
"Still a whole heap of brown stuff," Harry replied with a sigh "this is obviously not going to be my expert field"
The boys both laughed together as the lesson ended for the day.