The next morning I decided to skip lunch just so I could go and visit Buckbeak before anyone else. Hagrid finally got his dream job as Care for magical creatures professor and Buckbeak is supposed to be his first attraction to show off to kids.
When I was near the Hagrid's house I managed to spot Buckbeak in the bushes at the border of the woods. I immediately started running towards him, tripping several times in the process. We met halfway and I gave him a tight hug. I give Buckbeak a treat that I had stolen from the kitchen on my way here. He appreciated the gift and we sat down to talk while he ate.
It was nice to finally hear his voice after almost a year since I had last seen him. His voice purred and in combination with his eagle genes made him sound unique and mighty at the same time. Backbeak told me about how he was excited to be shown to everyone so that everyone could be amazed by his great presence and he forced me to inspect every feather so that everything was perfect. He was so excited that he was jumping up and down in the field missing enormous pumpkins just by a little.
After he had calmed down we sat down and I put my head on his warm stomach telling him about my recent adventures and he was doing the same.
I don't know when but at some point I ended up falling asleep and therefore missed my morning classes. When I came to my senses it was too late to arrive at divination class. Trelawny is so lost in her mind that she probably didn't even realize that I was missing, so that meant that I was safe and probably didn't even miss anything important. We had to share the classroom with Ravenclaws and they are not finding this class worthwhile and I'm the same. I mean those are just prophecies that maybe are not even true.
What woke me up was someone's loud talking and the fact that my head was no longer on Backbeak but on a rather large pumpkin. I quickly stood up and started running towards the line of kids that was slowly approaching Hagrid's house. Thankfully no one saw me sleeping in the dirt.
While approaching the mass that was bigger with each minute I decided to blame Draco for everything. If he hadn't come to my room last night I wouldn't stay up half night playing card games. Our favorite that night was an exploding snap. My hands are still slightly burning from it.
When I arrived I realized that I was to blame for all this. If I hadn't shown Draco how to go inside the girl's part of the dormitory, on one of our hangouts, he wouldn't be able to barge into my room last night and now I wouldn't be tired.
I had just enough time to cast a spell to bring my book for Care for Magical Creatures class, which I managed to forget in my room. Both Hagrid and the book arrived at the same time.
Holding my book tightly in my grip I followed Hagrid and the rest of the kids to the beginning of the dark forest where Hagrid decided to have his class.
I spotted Hermione in the mass of kids and immediately joined her.
,,Hey Mione", I hopped to her side. ,,Are you excited for Hagrid's first class?"
,,O hi, Esther, said Hermione with a wide grin on her face. ,, Yes I'm super excited, Hagrid is gonna do an amazing job!"
"I agree! I'm so proud of him, he is finally going to do his dream job."
I could hear Hagrid telling us to open our books on page 49. , so I stroked the spine of the book to calm it down and then opened it. Some kids opened their books without any problem but some were attacked by the said book. One of those kids was Neville, I don't know how he always finds himself in some kind of problem.
I stayed with Hermione until I saw Potter and Weasley coming closer to us. I didn't have the will to deal with them right now, so I excused myself and decided to stand closer to one of the trees. When suddenly Draco came out of nowhere and whispered in my ear. ,,Watch this!" I was startled for a second because I didn't expect anyone to sneak up to me but I immediately fixed my composure when he stood in front of me.
,,Yea so funny, terribly witty!" Draco said in a rather loud voice, as if he wanted everyone to hear it. ,,Wait until my father hears that Dumbledore got this oaf teaching classes!" Now he was shouting and I could see why. Potter and Weasley along with Hermione, had sharply turned their heads.
I was casting daggers in Draco's direction, because after insulting Hagrid his face suddenly looked really punchable, but he didn't seem to care. No matter how many times I have told him to stop insulting my friends he just never listens. It can be so annoying.
,,Shut up Malfoy!" Potter stepped forward, and with cocky steps, he started approaching Draco. The whole our gang, or more precisely Draco's gang started making mocking sounds. And I can't blame them Potter looked ridiculous trying to look tough. After that, he too started shortening the distance with the same type of walk.
When the distance was the small as it could be, Draco slowly started backing away with a terrified look on his face.
,,Dementor, dementor!" Draco suddenly shouted and everyone turned, with scared expressions on their faces, to look at the direction he had pointed at. Even I turned to look. But there was nothing but thick trees of the dark forest.
Loud laughter erupted from the small Slytherin group that surrounded Draco and everyone put on their hoods and started booing and mimicking dementors.
Kids were laughing but for me show stopped being funny a long time ago, so I just decided to move away from the crowd. Draco turned to face me with a giant smile but I just moved past him completely ignoring him. He needs to learn that I don't like when someone is making fun of someone dear to me.
I took a spot in the first row and started silently encouraging Hagrid. He made a small introduction about hippogriffs and by the time he was finished dozens of hippogriffs appeared behind him. Some were brown, some almost black but the prettiest of them all was Buckbeak. He stood proudly with his head high in the air and I could see that I had done a great job on his feathers. They were shiny and almost silver.
As Hagrid said they are proud creatures you could see that in every possible way, and I wanted to fly on one of them. Hagrid told me that he would allow kids to ride them and I couldn't wait. This would be my first time too, since he never let me before.
As Hagrid unchained Buckbeak and moved him forward everyone started bucking away, except me of course.
,,Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the first move," Hagrid said. "It's polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed ter touch him. If he doesn' bow,then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt."Right...who wants ter go first?" he excitedly looked towards the group but everyone backed away even further.
My hand shot up and I started shouting,,Me, I would like to go first!" I was so excited that I was practically jumping. I just couldn't wait.
,, Anyone else... eh?" said Hagrid, and this hurts more than I would like to admit. And I was even more embarrassed when he picked Potter who wasn't even so excited to go. I lowered my hand and stepped away. Maybe I will be next because after all he liked Potter.
But no, when Potter finished with his one more moment of fame and when everyone finished showering him with praises because he managed to ride a hippogriff, every single person in this group wanted to try, and there wasn't even a number of kids and hippogriffs so I was with the group that needed to wait.
When my time finally came I was paired with one fierce-looking one. He had black feathers and deep blue eyes. I bowed deeply and he too after some hesitation bowed back. When I went on to pet him my hand was suddenly pushed by Buckbeak who was upset.
He started pushing me away from the black hippogriff, and when I asked him why he was doing that he didn't want to respond. He just put his head on my stomach and sighed loudly.
,,Was he perhaps jealous.' I thought while slowly stroking his head. ,,Who is the most majestic creature?" I cupped Buckbeak's face in my hands and I could see that he was enjoying all the attention.
I looked up trying to find a kid who was paired with Buckbeak to apologize, when I spotted Draco walking quickly towards me. Guess he was the one that Buckbeak left.
,,You just bowed to me and you are leaving you great ugly brute!" Draco shouted while reaching with his hand to touch the hippogriff.
,,No stop!" I shouted at Buckbeak when I noticed his sudden change in breathing, but I was too late. Buckbeak reared and sliced open Draco's right hand. Draco fell on the ground tightly holding his bloody hand.
,,It killed me, it killed me!" Draco started crying while rolling on the ground.
"Yer not dyin'!" said Hagrid, who had gone very white. "Someone help me...gotta get him outta here."
I stayed behind trying to calm Buckbeak down and allowing Hagrid to lift Draco and take him to the hospital wing. Blood was pouring out of his hand leaving the bloody trail behind him and Hagrid.
I knew that Hagrid would be in a great problem if he left all these hippogriffs unattended and chained to the trees so I freed them all and then I deeply scolded Buckbeak for his misbehavior. But as Hagrid said they are proud creatures so it turned out that Buckbeak was just offended by Draco's words and that was all.
After finishing up with everything I went to check how Draco was doing, but when I arrived at the hospital wing I was met with Pansy's high-pitched voice seeping through the giant door.
,, Oh my Draco! How are you feeling?" Pansy sweet coated every word.
,, I'm fine but I was lucky. A minute or so and I could have lost my hand." Said Draco while lying on a bed.
I waited for Pansy to finish with pampering Draco so I could peacefully talk to him. I went inside after she was done.
,, So ~Draco~!"I said imitating Pansy's overly sweet voice. ,, How are you feeling" I took my spot next to him.
,, Stop it! It sounds weird!" He said making a discussed face. , And I'm okay! Thanks for asking."
,, Well that was new, I didn't know that you and Pansy were a thing." I said raising my eyebrows. It was so refreshing seeing him flustered.
,, WHAT?! God no!" He almost jumped out of his bed. , Are you crazy where did you get that idea?" I squeezed my shoulder with his good arm.
,, Oh I don't know, from the sight I just witnessed. Her kissing your cheek and all!" I said jokingly while making kissing sounds with my lips.
,, STOP!" He now put his hand on my lips making me quiet. , Please, that is embarrassing!" His whole face was bright as a tomato. It was so cute.
,, Fuck, I just thought about Draco as cute?!' I never thought that the day would come when I would see Draco as cute.
I removed his hand so I could talk. , You are fun to tease, so deal with it!"
When he had calmed down I decided to continue with my jokes.
,,So all jokes aside. Do you fancy her?" I asked with eagerness in my voice.
,, Who?" Draco said snapping his head in my direction.
,, Well Pansy of course, who else?"
,, Well not her." He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
,, Ooo so there is someone, after all?!" This small slip of the tongue showed me that he definitely has someone on his mind and I'm planning on finding out who it is.
,, How did you?... I mean there is no one like that." He turned his face to the other side so I couldn't see his expression.
,,And I was right I thought to myself. I got a little bit closer to him looking him dead in the eyes telling him with eyes that I knew that he was lying.
He avoided my eyes for several seconds but in the end he snapped. ,, Yes! There is someone! Happy?" He dropped his hands in defeat.
,,Very!" I jumped from my chair and I almost looked like a dog with a wagging tail and all. This was just too amusing.
,,What give you the idea that I would tell you? And why in the Merlin's beard are we talking about whether or not I have a crush?" He was getting angry and I should probably stop or else we will end up fighting.
,,Because we are friends and friends talk to each other about these things." I said proudly.
,,Well I'm not doing this with you!" He pointed at me.
,,That hurts you know." I said trying to sound offended.
,,You would make your life mission to make fun of me." He scoffed.
,,Fair point!" I shrugged finally admitting defeat.
We joked a bit more when our great time was interrupted by Madam Pomfrey.
,,Miss Moore, I think it is time for you to go and leave Mr Malfoy to rest a bit! You will see him at lunch." Said Madam Pomfrey with a soft smile on her face.
I said my goodbyes to Draco and went to the library to do some studying before my next class. But my mind was full of the topic we had earlier so I just ended up thinking about who his crush could be.