PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

79. thestrals

     Aspen and Hermione ploughed their way back to Hagrid's cabin through two feet of snow on Sunday morning. Harry, Jasmine, and Ron wanted to come with them, but their mountain of homework had reached an alarming height again. So they grudgingly remained in the common room, trying to ignore the gleeful shouts drifting up from the grounds outside, where students were enjoying themselves skating on the frozen lake, tobogganing, and worst of all, bewitching snowballs to zoom up to Gryffindor Tower and rap hard on the windows.

     Aspen and Hermione finally returned from Hagrid's just before lunch looking defeated and windswept, shivering in their robes damp to the knees.

     "So?" said Ron, looking up when they entered. "Got all his lessons planned for him?"

     "Well, we tried," said Aspen sadly, sitting down beside Harry. She pulled out her wand and dried her and Hermione's robes. "He wasn't there when we arrived, and we knocked for like half an hour. And then he came stumping out of the forest-"

     Harry groaned. The Forbidden Forest was teeming with the kind of creatures most likely to get Hagrid the sack. "What's he keeping in there? Did he say?" asked Harry.

    "No," said Hermione miserably, warming herself up in front of the fire. "He says he wants them to be a surprise. I tried to explain about Umbridge, but he just doesn't get it. He kept saying nobody in their right mind would rather study knarls than chimaeras - oh, I don't think he got a chimaera," she added at the appalled looks on Harry, Jasmine, and Ron's faces, "but that's not for lack of trying from what he said about how hard it is to get eggs... I don't know how many times we told him he'd be better off following Grubbly-Plank's plan, I honestly don't think he'd listened to half of what we said. He's in a bit of a funny mood, you know. He still won't say how he got all those injuries..."

     Hagrid's reappearance at the staff table at breakfast next day was not greeted by enthusiasm from all students. Some, like Fred, George, and Lee, roared with delight and sprinted up the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables to wring Hagrid's enormous hand; others, like Parvati and Lavender, exchanged gloomy looks and shook their heads. Aspen knew many of them preferred Professor Grubbly-Plank's lessons, and the worst of it was that a very small, unbiased part of her knew they had good reason: Grubbly-Plank's idea of an interesting class was not one where there was a risk that somebody might have their head ripped off.

     It was with a certain amount of apprehension that Aspen, Harry, Jasmine, Hermione, and Ron headed down to Hagrid's on Tuesday, heavily muffled against the cold. Aspen was worried, not only about what Hagrid might have decided to teach them, but also about how the rest of the class, particularly Malfoy and his cronies, would behave if Umbridge was watching them.

     However, the High Inquisitor was nowhere to be found as they struggled through the snow toward Hagrid, who stood waiting for them on the edge of the forest. He did not present a reassuring sight; the bruises that had been purple on Saturday were now tinged green and yellow and some of his cuts seemed to be bleeding. He also appeared to be carrying half a dead cow over his shoulder.

     "We're workin' in here today!" Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his head back at the dark trees behind him. "Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark..."

     "What prefers the dark?" Aspen heard Malfoy say sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic in his voice. "What did he say prefers the dark - did you hear him?"

     Aspen remembered the only occasion on which Malfoy had entered the forest before now; he had not been very brave then either. She smiled to herself.

     "Ready?" said Hagrid happily, looking around at the class. "Right, well, I've bin savin' a trip inter the forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we'd go an' see these creatures in their natural habitat. Now, what we're studyin' today is pretty rare , I reckon I'm probably the on'y person in Britain who managed ter train 'em-"