Harry's Worst Fear (A Father and Son Fanfic) Book 4

Chapter 5: Divination, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and DADA

The storm ended by the next morning, though the clouds remained. As the enchanted ceiling showed the clouds swirling overhead. Harry, Ron and Hermione were eating breakfast as they looked over the schedule for the week. A few seats down from them sat Fred, George and Lee. They were discussing the different ways they could look older, so that they could successfully enter the tournament. Ron was looking at the schedule for today, which was Monday. He said, "Today's not bad.... We'll be outside all morning.... Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherin, damn it!" Harry looks at the schedule and groans, "Double Divination this afternoon." He hated Divination, because Trelawney kept predicting his death, which was very annoying. Hermione said, "You should have given it up like me, shouldn't you?" As she buttered her toast. She adds, "Then you'd be doing something sensible like Arithmancy." Hermione adds jam to her toast as Ron said, "You're eating again, I noticed." Hermione said, "I've decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights." Ron grins, "Yeah, and you were hungry." Suddenly, there was a sound of rustling coming from above their heads. They look up to see a hundred owls flying overhead, carrying parcels or letters as they looked for their owners. Harry spots Hedwig as the snowy owl lands in front of him. She was holding a letter in her beak. As Harry takes the letter gently out of her beak, a large tawny owl lands in front of Neville. It was holding a parcel in its beak. Neville almost always forgets to pack something before coming to Hogwarts, so his grandmother would always send him whatever it was he forgot to pack. Harry pets his owl and looks over at Malfoy. Malfoy's eagle owl had landed in front of him carrying a parcel. Malfoy opened his parcel to find the usual sweets and cakes from home. Malfoy smiles as he shares them with his Slytherin friends. Harry turns back around to find Hedwig eating a bacon. Harry smiles at Hedwig then looks at his letter. It was from Sirius Black. The address under the name said number 12 Grimmauld Place. Ron said, "Whose the letter from, Harry?" Hermione looks on in curiosity as Harry said, "It's from my Godfather, Sirius Black." Ron and Hermione smile at him. Ron said, "Go on and read it, Harry." Harry smiles and said, "Ok, hang on a minute." Ron and Hermione chuckle as Harry opens the letter. It read:

Dear Harry,
How are you? I hope you are well and that Snape is treating you well, too. I decided to write my address on the envelope, because I trust Hedwig more than that hyper owl. I'm doing well and so is Buckbeak. Thank you and your friends again for setting us free. I hope you do well in school this year. Take care of yourself.
Sirius Black

Harry sighs, but smiles. Ron said, "He still doesn't trust Snape, does he?" Harry said, "Not fully, no." Harry writes his reply and gives it to Hedwig who had just finished eating and had drank some pumpkin juice. Harry said, "Give this to Sirius Black, Hedwig. Be careful, ok?" Hedwig hoots softly and gently nips his finger. Harry smiles as she takes the letter and takes off. Harry watches her fly out the window and fly away, then turns back to his breakfast. After breakfast, they go down to greenhouse 3 for Herbology. Professor Sprout started the lesson by showing them the ugliest plant they have ever seen! The plant looked like thick black slugs with a number of large round swelling balls on them that were filled with some kind of liquid. The plant was squirming slightly as it moved in the pot. Sprout said, "Bubotubers. They need squeezing. You will collect the pus...." Seamus interupts her and said, "The what?" He looks disgusted at the plant. Sprout said, "Pus, Mr. Finnigan, pus. It's extremely valuable, so don't waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves, it can do funny things to the skin when it's undiluted." She shows them many pots of Bubotubers for each student to grab. They all grabbed a pot and got started squeezing the balls on the plant, making sure the pus fell into the bottles. It was disgusting, yet satisfying when the balls were popped. Each time the balls were popped, a good amount of pus came out. The pus was a thick, yellowish green liquid and it smelled a lot like petrol. By the end if the lesson, they managed to collect several pints of it, which made sprout happy. Sprout said as she stoppers the last bottle, "That'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy. An excellent remedy for the more stubborn form of acne. It should stop students from resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples." Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff, said, "Like Eloise Midgen. She tried cursing hers off." Sprout said as she shakes her head, "Silly girl, but Madam Pomfrey fixes her nose back on in the end." The bell rang from within the castle, signaling the end of class. The Hufflepuffs went up the stairs to Transfiguration, while Harry and the other Gryffindors went down the hill to Hagrid's hut. Hagrid was standing outside his hut with one hand on the collar of his boarhound dog named, Fang. There were several crates that were opened on the ground by his feet. Dang was whimpering and straining at his collar wanting to see what was in the crates. As they got closer, they heard what sounded like small explosions. Hagrid said, "Morning! Been waiting for the Slytherins! They won't want to miss this! Blast-Ended Skrewts!" Ron said, "Come again?' Hagrid smiles and points to the crates. Lavender looks in the crates and jumps backwards as she said, "Ewwww!" Ewwww just about sums it up what Harry thought of the Blast-Ended Skrewts, as he looks into one of the crates with the other Gryffindors. They looked like deformed lobsters with no shells. They were very pale and slimy-looking with legs sticking out in weird places. They were so weird looking that they didn't even know where the head was. There was about 100 of them per crate and each one was about 6 inches long. They crawled all over each other, bumping into the sides of the boxes as if they were blind. They smelled like rotting fish and every now and then, sparks would fly out of one end of the Skrewts. With a small phut, they would fly forward a few inches. Hagrid said, looking proudly at them, "Only just hatched, so you'll be able to raise them yourselves. Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!" Malfoy, who just arrived with the Slytherins, said, "And why would we want to raise them?" Hagrid looks at him confused. Malfoy continues, "I mean, what do they do? What is the point of them?" Hagrid said, "That's next lesson, Malfoy. You'll just be feeding them today. Now you'll want to try them on a few different things. I never had them before. Not sure what they'll go for. I got ant eggs, frog livers and bit of grass snakes. Just try them out with a bit of each." Seamus mutters, "First pus and now this." Nothing but love for Hagrid, made Harry, Ron and Hermione pick up a handful of frog liver each and lower their hands into the crates. Harry looks at the Skrewts and thought that the whole thing was pointless, since the Skrewts didn't seem to have a mouth either. After 10 minutes, Dean said, " Ouch! It got me!" Hagrid hurried over to Dean, looking worried. Dean shows him the burn on his hand as he said, "It's end exploded!" Hagrid said, "Ah yeah, that can happen when they blast off." Lavender said, "Ewwww, what's that pointy thing on it?" Hagrid said, "Ah, done if them have got stings." Lavender quickly takes her hand out of the box as Hagrid continues, "I reckon they're the males. The females have got a sort of sucker things on their bellies. I think they might be to suck blood." Malfoy said sarcastically, "Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive. Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting and bite all at once?" Hermione said, "Just because they're not pretty, it doesn't mean they're not useful. Dragon's blood is amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?" Harry and Ron grin at Hagrid, who smiles at them in return. An hour later, the bell rang within the castle signaling the end of class.