The three waited until the two professors almost disappeared from sight, before knocking on the door and taking the Cloak off themselves. Hagrid, not in the least surprised by their immediate disregard of the rules when he realised who was knocking at his door, let them in with a shake of of his head..
"Come in quickly! You three're lucky Professor McGonagall just left-"
"We know, we saw - Hagrid, congratulations!" exclaimed Hermione, and Hagrid, seemingly tense up until he saw her face beaming, breathed out and laughed heartily.
"Ah, it's all thanks ter you three…" Hagrid, his voice perking up. "Dumbledore… great man, came straight after Professor Kettleburn said he'd had enough! And wouldn't take no for an answer. Learnt later he's also set me to care for some of 'em Durmstrang creatures. Not sure what, hadn't gotten round to readin' what the Durmstrang folks wrote…"
"Yeah, we heard Pann say that." Ron said, taking a seat while Hermione went to see the small pile of letters on Hagrid's table.
"You three saw that, hm?" he asked, taking out three cups and filling them up with tea. "Listen. You three better stay away from all those Durmstrang grounds, you heard the Durmstrang Headmaster."
"Hagrid, what did Pann tell you at the table?" asked Harry suddenly, remembering.
"Hm?"
"When Dumbledore announced your appointment. She told both you and Lupin something."
"What'd you think?" laughed Hagrid. "Wished Professor Lupin and I good luck. Said first year's toughest. Now, 'ever was said on the other side of Dumbledore's…"
Harry did not seem satisfied with the answer, and started sipping his tea. Durmstrang did not sound like the kind of school kind enough to simply host them just because Hogwarts fell into a bit of misfortune. While they travelled to Hagrid's, Hermione gave both of them an abridged history of Durmstrang. Well, as much as she was able to say until they noticed Hagrid had guests. There wasn't much known about Durmstrang, apart from their proclivity for the Dark Arts, that famous dark wizards studied there, and that the school does not accept Muggleborns.
"Why would Dumbledore choose Durmstrang? They hate Muggleborns." Ron finally asked, and he and Harry both turned towards Hagrid, waiting for an answer, while Hermione was covertly skimming through the letter's on Hagrid's table .
"I've heard some parents and what they said, about the Basilisk, and now with that Sirius Black…" Hagrid shook his head, and shrugged. "Dumbledore's a smart man, he must've planned this out to keep all you safe until he's caught. You just keep out of trouble, you hear me? I don't like what that Karkaroff said, not one bit."
Hagrid noticed Hermione looking through the letters, and took the stack of letters from her, sighing as he fanned them out.
"I'll see if I can get 'er to just tell me what needs doin'. Come on you three, big day tomorrow! I'm excited to show you what I got." Hagrid grinned, before shooing them outside.
Harry took out his Invisibility cloak, and they all got under it, leaving Hagrid's hut slowly as Hermione caught them up with what she found in the stack.
"Well, there's nothing in those letters. I mean, there's some very interesting information about Magical Creatures even the manual barely has information on, really obscure ones. I hope we'll get to cover even a portion of what's in those-"
"Hermione!" both boys groaned, and Ron cleared his throat impatiently, motioning for her to continue.
"Right, right. Well, there's nothing else really. No instructions on how to get to Durmstrang - so I assume Hagrid must know, or maybe they'll only tell him verbally."
"Well, it's been one day and we've already gotten into his personal mail, so maybe they're right on that account." Ron couldn't help but add, amused.
The three hurried back inside Hogwarts, each pondering on the events of the day.
When Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall the next morning, they were surprised to see the extra seat next to McGonagall was still there, whereas the one that was on the other side of Dumbledore had disappeared. The empty seat seemed to have had a used cup atop a saucer, and Harry wondered if Sturdza had already been there.
"Morning. What a show you three missed." snickered George, handing them their timetables. Fred nodded, and elbowed George as he got closer to them.
"Pann came in this morning. You know, the Durmstrang professor that looks dead inside. Looked around, sat down, and get this, was talking to Snape." Fred got a cup of tea and lifted it up with his pinky raised, looking from Harry to Hermione from under his eyebrows with a tired look on his face. Harry laughed and turned to look towards the staff table, only to find Snape, indeed on the other side of the empty seat, talking to Professor Flitwick.
"Anyway," continued George, trying his utmost to stifle his laughter "Slytherins were going back and forth trying to get her attention, you couldn't believe it. Then out of the blue, who comes on stage? Enter Malfoy. Goes to the staff table, head all high. Now, no idea what he said, but you know, he seemed really full of himself. Gives his little story or whatever, and swear, lady just-"
Fred dropped his shoulders and pursed his lips, lifting his cup again to imitate the Durmstrang professor. Suddenly, he sighed and rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner, and grumbled, loud enough for all to hear:
"So?"
Several heads turned around, and several students across all houses but Slytherin chuckled among themselves as they realised that Fred had been imitating the scene. Harry looked over towards the Slytherin table for Malfoy, to see his reaction, but George shook his head.
"Oh, it was too much for him, poor sod. Left pretty quickly - guess to write to his father!" At that, they all started laughing, with even Hermione not being able to stop herself for a good minute.
Still chuckling, Harry looked at his timetable. The three of them had Divination first, and their second class was with McGonagall, and Harry wondered if she would tell them anything more about the Durmstrang move, as the Head of Gryffindor.
Even though it was their first class of the year and they had all been well-rested beforehand, even with their visiting Hagrid, The Divination class had managed, in just an hour, to suck the energy out of them. Not only did they find it nonsensical, to put it in the terms Hermione used, but the smells and classroom itself made both Ron and Harry doze off several times.
After a quick questioning of professor Professor Trelawney in regards to the move - which she mystically answered with 'the stars are all the same to me', they found out in their first session they were supposed to interpret each other's future in tea leaves. A task which ended up with the professor surmising that much peril was awaiting Harry in the future. And while he wouldn't have cared much normally, the fact that Professor Trelawney had equated the peril with the same great black dog he had seen before.
Professor McGonagall was more than eager to delve into her session after first alleviating her class's fears regarding Professor Trelawney's visions. She assured them that since their professor picked up the Divination classes, none of the students predicted to die had done so, and neither would Harry. However, murmurs continued in the class as the students went on from discussing Trelawney's omens to discussing the Durmstrang move.
Harry wondered whether Professor McGonagall was ignoring them on purpose, until she turned on her heels and promptly deducted five points from Gryffindor each from Seamus and Dean, as they were engaging in a debate as to whether Dumbledore asked to be hosted by Durmstrang or was offered the proposition.
"There, now I hope that's enough of that from you!"
"But, Professor-" Seamus pleaded, and the other Gryffindor students nodded.
"You have all been told everything that you needed to know yesterday evening, and as far as I know, you were all parents. The administrative aspect of running this school is no business of yours as students."
"I don't know if my parents would have agreed." Lavender grumbled.
"I'm not sure my grandma would have either." perked up Neville.
"Mine wouldn't have." Harry straightened his back, and looked around the class. A silence fell, and McGonagall cleared her throat, getting the students' eyes back onto her.
"Listen, all of you. For all intents and purposes, this is still Hogwarts. These are the exact same grounds and premises, albeit in a different location. None of you have noticed it when coming here, and most of you wouldn't have even noticed anything was amiss if it weren't for the announcements. You have been to your dorms, you have spent half a day not seeing a single Durmstrang student or being affected by them in any way, and we have their assurances this will stay like this.
Trust me, the alternative would have been far, far worse, for all of you. If you are curious, ask your parents, Miss Brown, your grandmother, Mister Longbottom, your guardians, mister Potter. Now that the announcement has been made to all of you, the charm for your guardians to not communicate the decision with you has been lifted - most of you will perhaps see it in the letters you will receive from your families this very morning." Professor McGonagall stopped, and let them murmur at each other as she nodded towards several students.
"It was an impressive charm several Ministry Departments worked at creating, together with letters must have gone out at the beginning of July." she replied to Hermione as she asked what the charm was, before turning towards the rest of the students.
"As far as we are all concerned, Hogwarts has an amazing opportunity to be the first to open dialogue across different Wizarding Schools, and if this is successful, which I cannot see why it would not be, we could be at the forefront of leading the way towards much better relationships across wizards all over the worlds. Become less insular, if you will. After all, some Durmstrang professors, past and present, studied or taught at Hogwarts themselves.
Imagine, if you will, the wealth of knowledge and information shared - can you imagine that, miss Granger? Mister Longbottom? Mister Potter?
Perhaps if we were working for a united front a few years ago as we are doing now, You-Know-Who wouldn't have gotten as far as he did. So I advise you all to look better at this and see it from other perspectives than your own."
With this, McGonagall delved back into her Transfiguration lesson, however Harry couldn't help but notice she seemed tenser, noticing a slight grip on her wand as she turned her back to them.
Harry looked at Ron and Hermione both - did Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia really receive something in the mail about the move? Well, he wasn't that eager to write them a letter and find out, and was thankful that Ron shared the letter he received from his mum and dad at lunchtime with him and Hermione. The letter Mr. Weasley wrote was much more exhaustive and explanatory than many of the others addressed, and Harry noticed many of the other students with relatives working at the Ministry had little groups of students gathered around. Harry saw that Susan Bones had a good quarter of the Hufflepuff students gathered around her, some of them with their own unopened letters in their clasped hands.
"Dementors? You've got to be kidding. No way the Ministry gave Dumbledore this as their option." Ron said shocked, turning towards Harry and Hermione. Neither of them seemed as disturbed as him, however, and Ron looked over towards his brothers.
"Read through the lines, Ron. Dad's not going to write it all down." Fred grumbled, and for the first time, Harry saw him deep in thought. "Now it makes sense. I don't think this was an option. I think Fudge probably went 'Either this, or Dementors.' "
"Put the exact things Black escaped from to guard the school, why don't they?" Katie Bell asked sarcastically, leaning in over Fred's copy. "Can you imagine, flying with them overhead in a Quidditch match?" she shuddered at the thought, and the other members on the Gryffindor team nodded, apart from Harry, who was still confused as to what Dementors were.
"Between Dementors and Slytherins gloating every day, hell, I'd sleep in the same bed with Flint to make space for the Durmstrang students." Fred nodded, and several students laughed half-heartedly.
Harry took advantage of the pause to finally ask.
"What are- uh, what are Dementors?" he finally asked, turning towards the older students. Percy, his chest puffed, took the opportunity to 'educate the youth' from his position as Head Boy, and leaned in, his letter unopened.
"They guard Azkaban, Harry. They're foul creatures that suck the happiness around and from people around them to feed, and create despair instead." he said, as if reciting from a textbook "They're horrible, there's something called a Dementor's Kiss which leaves a person without a soul."
"Dad went once to Azkaban with work. Remember?" George looked around to Fred and Percy, who nodded, before continuing. "He came back all weak and shaking, said it was the worst place he'd ever been to."
"Still, I'm sure that if the Ministry thought it was for the best-"
"Oh, Perce, if Hogwarts and the Ministry ever actually disagreed in public, I bet your head would explode just thinking about whose arse to kiss first." George snickered, changing the subject.
Harry looked over again to the staff table, only to realise that again, the chair next to Professor McGonagall was there, and this time, dressed in robes that seemed more comfortable than the furs from yesterday, Pann was sitting in it, chatting with Professor Flitwick. To Harry's surprise, the conversation seemed not only cordial, but friendly, as if they were both reminiscing.