Chapter Five: Hagrid, Flying Lessons, and The Cerberus:
At five to three, the full group left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of goloshes were outside the front door.
When Harry knocked, they heard a frantic scrabbling from 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 yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was not as fierce as he looked.
"This is Ron," Harry pointed out to Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.
"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest."
"This is Neville," Harry pointed out next.
"Ya still have yer toad, then?" Hagrid asked, and Neville just nodded.
"This is Hermione," Harry stated.
"Yer that Muggleborn. Tha smart one, McGonagall talked abou'."
"And this is Draco," Harry finally pointed out.
"A Malfoy, eh?" Hagrid didn't seem as welcoming to Draco as the others.
The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry and friends just pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.
"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot - great with animals."
While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cosy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet :
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.
Harry remembered Ron telling them on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.
"Hagrid!" said Harry, "that 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 this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry reread the story. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
As Harry and Co. walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse; 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? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?
(Time Skip)
Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday - and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
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 their 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.
They had to wait for the Gryffindors.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey 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 angles.
"Stick out 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, but it was one of the few that did along with Draco's and Ron's. Hermione's had 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 off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Draco were slightly peeved when she told them they'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 shouted, 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.
No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into nervous laughter.
"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."
The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.
"Give that here, Draco," said Harry quietly, understanding what he was doing. Everyone stopped talking to watch.
Draco smiled nastily.
"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find - how about - up a tree?"
"Give it here!" Harry yelled, and Draco had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it, Harry!"
Harry grabbed his broom.
He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground.
He turned his broomstick sharply to face Draco in midair. Draco looked excited.
"Give it here," Harry called jokingly, "or I'll knock you off that broom!"
"Oh, yeah?" said Draco smirking.
Harry leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Draco like a javelin. Draco only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.
"Catch it if you can, then!" he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.
Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down - next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball - wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching - he stretched out his hand - a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.
"HARRY POTTER!"
His heart fluttered faster than he'd just dived. Professor Snape was running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling.
"Never - in all my time at Hogwarts-"
Professor Snape was almost speechless with shock, " - how dare you - might have broken your neck - you reckless child!"
"It wasn't his fault, Professor-"
"Be quiet, Miss Parkinson. Potter, follow me, now."
Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor Snape didn't say a word to him. He wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting excitedly behind him.
Professor Snape stopped outside a classroom. He opened the door and poked his head inside.
"Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Flint for a moment?"
A burly fifth-year boy who came out of Flitwick's class looking confused.
"Follow me, you two," said Professor Snape, and they marched down to the dungeons, Flint looking curiously at Harry.
"In here."
Professor Snape pointed them into his office.
"Potter, this is Marcus Flint. Flint - I've found you a Seeker."
Flint's expression changed from puzzlement to seriousness.
"Are you serious, Professor?"
"Absolutely," said Professor Snape crisply. "He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive," Professor Snape told Flint. "Didn't even scratch himself. Gryffindor's old seeker, Charlie Weasley, couldn't have done it."
Flint was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.
"Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?" he asked excitedly.
"Flint's captain of the Slytherin team," Professor Snape explained.
"He's just the build for a Seeker, too," said Flint, now walking around Harry and staring at him. "Light - speedy - we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor - a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say."
"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule - "
"Actually, I have a Nimbus Two Thousand, but I need that information to stay away from Dumbledore," Harry said smirking.
Snape gave Harry a calculating look before dismissing Flint back to class.
After a few minutes of silence, Snape asked, "Why do you need to keep things from Dumbledore?"
"Because I did not actually grow up with my magic hating aunt and uncle, despite what Dumbledore and everyone else thinks. Except for Uncle Luc and Aunt Cissa, of course."
Snape looked shocked. "Are you saying that Dumbledore has had no idea where you have been for ten years?"
"Yes."
(Time Skip)
It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Draco what had happened when he'd left the grounds with Professor Snape.
"So the plan worked out well," Draco stated.
"Yes. And now we just need to check out the third floor to be sure that the school is still safe with Dumbledore trying to test me."
"We'll go tonight. Did you give Neville his remembrall back?"
"I did. Things are going our way so far. Do you want to help me with my studies this weekend?"
"Sure. It may help me learn a few things. What are you working on now?"
"French, Spanish, Portuguese, non-verbal Charms and Transfiguration, Healing, Defence and Dark Arts."
"Count me in."
(Time Skip)
When Draco and Harry went to explore the third floor, they discovered a cerberus standing on a trap door. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.
They quickly left and went to bed with something to think about.
It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.