"I'm dying! I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!"
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
YESTERDAY'S RAIN HAD CLEARED; the sky was a clear, pale grey and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as they set off for their first ever Care of Magical Creatures class.
Ron and Hermione weren't speaking to each other. Aurora and Harry walked beside them in silence as they went down the sloping lawns to Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It was only when Aurora spotted three only-too-familiar backs ahead of them that she realised they must be having these lessons with the Slytherins. Draco was talking animatedly to Crabbe and Goyle, who were chortling.
Why does he always hang around those doush bags?
Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.
"C'mon, now, get a move on!" he called, as the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and after five minutes, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there. "Everyone gather round the fence here!" he called. "That's it – make sure yeh can see. Now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books –"
"How?" Draco said in a cold voice.
"Eh?" Hagrid said.
"How do we open our books?" Malfoy repeated. He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out, too; some, like Aurora and Harry, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with bullclips.
"Hasn' – hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" Hagrid said, looking crestfallen.
The class all shook their heads.
"Yeh've got ter stroke 'em," Hagrid said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Look ..."
He took Hermione's copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.
"Oh, how silly we've all been!" Malfoy sneered. "We should have stroked them! Why didn't we guess!"
"I ... I thought they were funny," Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione.
"Oh, tremendously funny!" Draco said. "Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!"
"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry said quietly. Hagrid was looking downcast and they wanted Hagrid's first lesson to be a success.
