Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC Bailey, pups, mate, and alterations to the original storyline plot their presence creates to various readers amusement everywhere across the globe.

A Dog's Purpose Is Strange Magic 3 Chapter 13

Over the next few days, the gray and overcast sky may have vanished, but the gloom lingering from the haze remains to loom over them.

The overall atmosphere in the mood the following morning is dark, dismal, and heavily reserved considering everything that went down yesterday leaving many in Gryffindor forlorn for Hagrid's sake. The only smile Bailey got from him was when she woke him up by snuffling busily around his chin and nose, fur tickling his skin. Afterward, any lightness is stolen by a joint amount of worry, concern, and fear for Hagrid's circumstances. Not knowing what would happen to Hagrid's position at Hogwarts is a real downer. Each day that Hagrid sits at the staff table in the Great Hall and does his classes with the other years is encouraging, but it doesn't make this feeling go away.

In fact, it stays with them all the way to Thursday. It doesn't help that they have Potions with the Slytherins as the first class of the day certainly doesn't do them any favors. Turns out Malfoy has somehow been able to avoid participating in classes saying the "trauma" from what he nearly experienced at the hands of a "monstrous" hippogriff so damaging that he needs some ample time to recover. Snape does no one any favors by not rebuking him in any fashion.

Realistically, Bailey is unconvinced he's been impacted so drastically. He's simply putting on a show acting all dramatic about the experience.

Overall, Malfoy has decided to play it up as much as he can. And in Potions where Snape is his ally, Malfoy is really milking it for all it's worth.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione bitterly bite their tongues lest they do or say something else that'll dig Hagrid into an even deeper hole than he's already trapped in. Not too keen on adding to his grief.

Difficult to do so during class when Malfoy is right next to them and there's no escape route whatsoever from him.

Malfoys making it impossible to maintain passive masks in their demeanor. Suppressing the urge to beat him to a pulp is a major struggle. Doing the opposite would be a mistake in the face of his devious intentions. He's taking great pleasure in inciting even more unrest with his endless lies.

Even Bailey's own tolerance has its limits in the face of Malfoy's snide remarks filled to the brim with spiteful resentment. Bailey must remind herself about the good she does see in the kid.

"How are you feeling, Draco," simpered Pansy Parkinson.

Bailey rolls her eyes. As if she hadn't asked Malfoy that question dozens of times already.

Putting a brave sort of grimace, placing a hand over his heart to add to the act, Malfoy said "I'm fine. I should be better soon."

Ron gags over his cauldron at the display.

Idly, Snape said "Settle down, settle down."

Don't know why Snape said that. Malfoy is the only one causing a scene. No one else was making any noise.

The class got into the new potion assigned to them right away.

Malfoy set up his cauldron right next to Ron so that he was sitting on the same table. Bailey can tell his presence there was seriously irking them the entire time but don't do anything to avoid being on the receiving end of Snape's attention.

As they're prepping ingredients Bailey doesn't even shift position next to Harry's seat to steal anything from up top. Lesson learned from one time when they were just starting out and Bailey had stolen an ingredient to see what it tasted like for the fun of it.

Yeah, not a pleasant experience. Utterly revolting. It immediately had her recoiling and spitting it out the moment it touched her tongue. Bailey had no clue what it was but never wanted to risk it again. Bailey knows to stay well clear of the laid-out ingredients whenever he's working on potions. She's lucky it hadn't been anything poisonous at the time of consumption.

All appears to be commencing smoothly until Malfoy touches a subject he shouldn't have dared go near.

"Seen your pal Hagrid lately," asked Malfoy, quietly.

"None of your business," said Ron, jerkily, jaw clenched.

"I'm afraid he won't be a teacher much longer," said Malfoy in a feigned tone of mock sorrow. "Father's not very happy about my injury."

"He's complained to the school governors. And to the Ministry of Magic. Fathers got a lot of influence, you know," said Malfoy, lips curling in a cold and cruel smile, striving to get a reaction out of them.

Harry restrains his temper, not rising to the bait but it's a struggle.

Even Bailey's ears and tail flick involuntarily in irritation at what she's hearing around her, a low rumbling growl brewing in her throat that goes unheard.

But Malfoy is absolutely determined to cause trouble.

"So that's why you're putting it on," said Harry, accidentally beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand is shaking in pure anger. "To try to get Hagrid fired."

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Malfoy said "Well, partly, Potter. But there are other benefits, too."

Many of them then become partially distracted as attention is drawn over to Neville's station. Snape is going at him again voicing disgust and sneering disdain over Neville's disaster of a potion. Neville is pink and trembling, appearing as though he is on the verge of tears. Neville's fear turns into outright panic when Snape comments that unless the potion is no less than perfect its potency will be tested at the end of class on his precious pet toad. Hermione is forbidden from helping him, but that doesn't stop her from slipping advice to their terrified classmate when Snape's back is turned.

Harry and Ron have other things to preoccupy their minds thanks to Seamus.

"Hey, Harry," said Seamus, leaning over to borrow Harry's brass scales, "have you heard? The Daily Prophet this morning says that they reckon Sirius Black's been sighted."

Now that caught all of their interest quickly.

"Where," said Harry, snapping his head in Seamus's direction.

Bailey raises her head from where it is lying on her paws, ears raised as she listens closely.

Excitedly, Seamus informed "Not too far from here. It was a Muggle who saw him. Of course, she didn't really understand. The Muggles think he's just an ordinary criminal, don't they? So, she phoned the telephone hotline. By the time the Ministry of Magic got there, he was gone."

Not too far from Hogwarts? Bailey wishes there was an actual location. She'll have to notify her pups to keep an eye out for persons or anything unusual whenever she's not present with them.

Glancing significantly at Harry, Ron repeated "Not too far from here…" Ron cuts off as he catches Malfoy watching them keenly. "What, Malfoy?"

Eyes shining malevolently, fixed on Harry, leaning across the table to make sure he's heard, Malfoy said "Thinking of trying to catch Black single-handed, Potter?"

Offhandedly, Harry said "Yeah, that's right."

Bailey rolls her eyes. Yeah, right. As if. After dealing with Voldemort two years in a row Harry knows better than to go looking for trouble this year. He just wants things to be normal.

Malfoy's thin mouth curves into a mean smile.

Puffing his chest out, he drawled "Of course, if it was me, I'd have done something before now. I wouldn't be staying in school like a good boy, I'd be out there looking for him."

"What are you talking about, Malfoy," demanded Ron, roughly.

"Don't you know, Potter," breathed Malfoy, eyes narrowed.

"Know what," said Harry.

Yes, Bailey would like to know what they're missing, too.

It seems there's an important factor they are missing here that someone hasn't mentioned to her boy yet.

Releasing a sneering laugh, Malfoy said "Maybe you'd rather not risk your neck. Want to leave it to the dementors, do you? But if it was me, I'd want revenge. I'd hunt him down myself."

"What the hell do you mean? Why would I want revenge on Black? He hasn't done anything to me yet," said Harry, brow furrowed.

Harry is unable to interrogate Malfoy further. Snape calls time on their potions and the end of the lesson, stalking over to a terrified Neville cowering at his cauldron. The Gryffindors watch fearfully and Slytherins excitedly as Snape carefully administers the Shrinking Solution to Trevor. There is a moment of heavy silence as everyone observes with bated breath. Suddenly there was a small pop and Trevor the tadpole was wriggling in Snape's palm. The Gryffindors burst into cheers and applause while the Slytherins have the gall to look disappointed.

Returning Trevor to his proper form, wiping the smiles from everyone's faces, Snape said "Five points from Gryffindor. I told you not to help him, Miss Granger. Class dismissed."

The class files out.

Seething, Ron said "Five points from Gryffindor because the potion was all right! Why didn't you lie, Hermione? You should've said Neville did it by himself!"

Ron turns to speak to Hermione only to find her gone.

Hermione's completely vanished.

Bailey turns her head this way and that, but there's no sign of Hermione anywhere. Utterly perplexing Bailey.

This makes no sense. Hermione was right beside them seconds ago.

Finally, Bailey catches Hermione's scent in the air, but it's not originating from where she expected. It's coming closer from far away. Hermione soon emerges, panting slightly, hurrying up the stairs, and clutching her bag close to her.

Hermione is tucking something down the front of her robes. Harry and Ron don't pay any attention to it, but Bailey certainly does.

Eyes wide, Ron said "How did you do that?"

"What," said Hermione, dismissively, joining them.

"One minute you were right behind us, the next moment, you were back at the bottom of the stairs again," exclaimed Ron.

"What," said Hermione, slightly confused. "Oh…I had to go back for something."

She's lying. Bailey can tell. Hermione's acting way too jumpy. Her eyes spot the light sweat on her skin. That wasn't there before even around those steaming cauldrons during Potions. Hermione isn't being entirely truthful with them, and Bailey wants to know why.

A seam then splits on Hermione's bulging bag. It was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books. Another factor that hadn't been there.

"Why are you carrying all of these books around with you," asked Ron.

Bending over to stuff them back into the bag after she uses a repair spell, breathlessly, "Hermione said "You know how many subjects I'm taking."

Astounded, Ron said "But you haven't got any of these subjects today. It's only Defense Against the Dark Arts this afternoon."

Nodding, vaguely, Hermione said "Oh yes. I do hope there's something good for lunch. I'm starving."

As she's packing all the fallen books away, something slips out from the collar of her robes, dangling from her neck. Its golden shine catches her eye. Dangling on a long gold chain is a tiny, sparkling hourglass hanging from it.

Stepping forward Bailey touches the unique piece of jewelry with her nose intrigued by it.

Alarmed by the action Hermione nudges Bailey away and clumsily tucks the necklace back where no one can see it.

Shouldering the bag, Hermione said "Come on. We're going to miss lunch if we stay here any longer."

Ron, Harry, and Bailey stare at her back as she walks away.

"Do you get the feeling Hermione's not telling us something," asked Ron to Harry.

Bailey doesn't doubt it.

Authors Note:

For those of you on fanfiction I'm sure you've been facing the many unwanted ads when you're reading a story. Well, yesterday, I finally had enough, and I got an adblocker app. It worked! No more ads on any level! The one I got is Adblock Pro: Safari Ad Blocker. It really works. Just follow the instruction video that it attached to it.

Heads up everyone there's someone on fanfiction you need to seriously watch out for. Early a couple of months ago after I woke up I was checking my email and I saw I had a new guest review on my A Dog's Purpose Is Strange Magic 2 sequel. I took a look at it and got a very big shock. Some random person I've never spoken to before on here or anywhere else in my life was basically threatening me. Intimidating and practically ordering me to write a threatening letter to someone on their behalf, telling to stay off of for life or else they and everyone else close to them would be killed, disgustingly telling them to kill themselves. And at the bottom of the message this crazy person wasn't done. Warning me that if I don't send the letter then they would kill me and for confirmation to email them to make absolutely sure I complied with their demands. Of course I did nothing of the sort. Instead of doing what they wanted I reported them to the website, sent copies of this deplorable guest review message to police officer cousins of mine so they could have it on file, and I went to a nearby police station and reported it.

When I spoke to the police officers and they checked everything on the message they saw, that while the address and names of business were accurate the people and their names were not. They agree it was more than likely a scam because of the email address on the bottom in order to perhaps get access to personal information or potentially hack my computer. Despite that I'm still very happy they took it seriously as I showed and told them everything. All the same I'm still very happy that I brought this to the attention of law enforcement. Even though the entire thing might be fake I'm still very happy to have brought this to the attention of those who can do something about it if it was legit in some way. This may have been a scam, but it's obvious these people are beyond irresponsible if they try to goad people into sending death threats to random strangers just to get access to info.

Be that as it may if this does unfortunately happen to you do not send any messages to the email addresses they put down and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you bring the message to the authorities immediately whether it is legit or not.

Because it's a guest review it might not be visible for a couple of days as it loads if it is sent to you. But when it does you should definitely pressing the report abuse button and send it to the email that leads to the support staff that is available.

Just a heads up to those of you who aren't aware of this yet, Email alerts for this website are now only active if Email opts is enabled in account settings.

I hope you all like this one! I certainly did while writing it for your vast enjoyment! ;D

For those of you just starting out with my stuff there are other works on my profile that may catch your interest. I highly recommend you take a look as soon as the opportunity presents itself to you. Who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

Stay safe everyone. Especially with all of these crazy natural disasters occurring a lot lately due to global warming and climate change everywhere for sure. I swear it's like they're getting worse and worse all the time and it's like officials are simply just ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist entirely just to go on with their daily lives. Especially those in multi-million dollar companies that rely on certain elements of our planet that we rely on to naturally keep us safe instead of adapting and finding new safer ways to keep in business. There are so many options out there where they can adapt, but they just refuse to see it because all they care about is money. Climate change is altering so much faster than anyone can really keep track of.

So, in light of all this, it is important to live life to the fullest as much as anyone can.

I know I am. ;) See you guys next time.