Chasing Shadows || Draco Malfoy x OC

Year 4- Ch. 76

That afternoon Céline and her friends walked down the steep path towards Hagrid's cabin for their Care of Magical Creatures lessons. She felt exhausted the lack of sleep was finally catching up to her. She wanted to just lay under a tree and take a quick nap, but it wasn't like her to skip class.

Hagrid had told them that their last lesson was the last one for unicorns and that they were moving on to something else. She hoped it wouldn't be Blast-Ended Skrewts again, and thankfully it wasn't. He came out with fresh new crates and in them were fluffy black creatures with long snouts.

"These're Nifflers." Hagrid said to the class, "yeh find them mostly in mines. They like sparkly stuff... there yeh go, look."

One of the nifflers, jumped up and tried snatching Pansy's watch of her wrist, causing her to jump back with a shriek.

"I thought we could have a bit of fun with 'em. They're great treasure detectors. See over there?" He pointed over to a large patch of freshly turned soil. "I've buried some gold over there, and I've got a prize for whoever finds the most gold with their nifflers. Jus' take off all yer valuables and grab a nifflers."

Everyone did as they were told, Céline grabbed her hair pins and placed them in her pockets and then reached for her neck. She stopped when she remembered that she no longer wore the necklace that Cedric gave to her for Christmas. She had taken it off a couple of days after, and carefully stored it back into the box that came with it.

She went to grab a niffler, "hold on, there's an extra niffler." Said Hagrid, as he looked around, "who's missing? Where's Hermione?"

Céline looked around and saw Harry with just Ron.

"She had to go to the hospital wing." Said Ron.

"We'll explain later." Harry mumbled, glancing over to Pansy who was definitely listening.

This lesson was easily the most fun they all had. The nifflers would dive into the soil like nothing, and then come back to the student who released them to give them whatever gold they found.  Céline had gone over to Ron and Harry at the start of the game. She looked over to Ron's lap and it was quickly filled with coins.

"Can you buy these as pets?" Asked Ron, clearly enjoying the game.

"Yer mom would like 'em very much. Nifflers like to wreck houses." Hagrid said, looking at the patch of dirt, "I reckon the almost got the lot, now. I only buried a hundred coins. Oh! There yeh are Hermione."

Céline, Harry and Ron looked back to see Hermione walking towards them. Céline looked down at her hands and gasped as she saw her hands heavily bandaged up.

"Merlin! What happened to your hands Hermione?" Céline asked as her friend stopped in front of them, she looked miserable.

"We'll tell you later, a certain roommate of yours is being rather nosy." Hermione said bitterly, looking over to Pansy who was watching them.

"Now, let's check how yeh've done! Count yer coins." Hagrid said loudly to the class. "And they're no point in trying to steal any, Goyle."

It turned out that Ron was really good that the game, and had the most amount of coins, winning him a late slab of chicks from Honeydukes.  As the bell rang everyone went back to the castle, except Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Céline who alls stayed back to help Hagrid with the nifflers.

"What happened to yer hands, Hermione?" Ask Hagrid.

She then told them all about the article that come out about her from Rita skeeter and the hate mail that she had received in the morning and the envelope full of bubotuber pus. Céline was ready to find Rita Skeeter and put her in her place, but Harry held onto her arm.

"Oh, don't worry," said Hagrid gently, placing a gently pat on both Hermione and Céline's head. "I got a bunch of those, after Rita Skeeter wrote about me mum. 'Yeh're a monster an' yeh should be put down.' 'Yer mother killed innocent people an' if yeh had any decency you'd jump in a lake.'"

"No!" Said Hermione, both her and Céline looked completely shocked.

"Yeah" he said, "they're jus' nutters, Hermione. Don't open 'em if yeh get any more. Jus' chuck 'em in the fireplace."

They all started heading back to the castle, Céline was now very exhausted. She yawned, almost tripping on the of the steps to the castle doors.

"You missed a good lesson, Hermione." Said Harry, "they're good, nifflers, aren't they, Ron?"

But Ron was quiet, he was looking at his enormous chocolate.

"Are you alright, Ron?" Asked Céline.

"Why didn't you tell me about the gold?" Said Ron, he looked quite bothered by something.

"What gold?" Harry asked.

"The gold I gave you at the Quidditch World Cup to pay you back for the Omnioculars. Why didn't you tell me that it disappeared?"

"Oh... I don't know." Said Harry. "I didn't even notice it was gone, I was more worried about my wand."

Céline looked at Ron who was frowning at his chocolate even more now.

"Must be nice," said Ron bitterly, "to have so much money that you don't even notice a pocket full of Galleons goes missing."

"Listen, I had other stuff on my mind that night." Said Harry, "we all did, remember?"

"I didn't know that leprechaun gold vanished, you should have never given me that Chudley Cannon hat for Christmas." Said Ron, as they all sat together at the Gryffindor table. Céline had thought about skipping dinner because how tired she was, but had decided to eat with them instead.

"Just forget it, okay." Said Harry.

Céline was silent, she didn't know what to say to him, none of them did.  Ron stabbed his potatoes, grumbling to himself.

"I hate being poor." He said. The other three all looked at each other.  "It's rubbish," he continued, "I wish I had a niffler."

"Well now we know what to get you for Christmas," said Hermione, but only earned a glare from Ron, "come on, Ron. It could be worse. At least your fingers aren't covered in pus right now." She said holding her hand up.

Céline helped Hermione cut her food, since she was having great difficulty with the bandages making her fingers stiff. She suddenly wished she had skipped dinner and went straight to bed with how Ron looked so gloomy and Hermione was angry with Rita Skeeter.

Hermione kept getting hate mail for over a week, but she took Hagrid's advice and threw them into the fire, but then the letters started to come in as howlers. Exploded at the Gryffindor table and shouting insults for the whole hall to hear. Céline felt bad and she wished she could so something to help her friend.

She was thankful that Rita Skeeter didn't catch wind of her break up with Cedric, just the school knowing was enough to bother her, she couldn't imagine if people outside of the school knew. She shuddered at the thought of what her father would say if he ever saw her name in the Daily Prophet again.