Chosen & Hated (HP) {Book 2 of the Wild & Free Series}

24. The Double Date

I woke up this morning with a feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I was so happy. I had to lay down for a while and recall what had happened during the Yule Ball, because I still couldn't believe it. George and I had kissed!

Everybody got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations. Hermione's hair was bushy again; she confessed to me that she had used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion on it for the ball, "but it's way too much bother to do every day," she said matter-of-factly, scratching a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.

Ron and Hermione seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement not to discuss their argument. They were being quite friendly to each other, though oddly formal. Ron and Harry wasted no time in telling Hermione and me about the conversation they had overheard between Madame Maxime and Hagrid, with the not-so-shocking news that Hagrid was half-giant.

"Well, I thought he must be," Hermione said, shrugging. "I knew he couldn't be pure giant because they're about twenty feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can't all be horrible... It's the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves... It's just bigotry, isn't it?"

Ron looked as though he would have liked to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn't want another row, because he contented himself with shaking his head disbelievingly while Hermione wasn't looking.

It was time now to think of the homework we had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat now that Christmas was over — everybody except Harry and me, that is, because we were starting (once again) to feel slightly nervous.

The trouble was that February the twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas, and we still hadn't done anything about working out the clue inside the golden egg. I still remembered the hint Cedric had given us: take a bath. I didn't really feel like it was the solution to our problem, but I certainly didn't know anything better.

Harry, however, absolutely didn't want to listen to Cedric. I guessed it had something to do with him going with Cho Chang, Harry's crush, to the ball. Harry didn't even listen to me, no matter how many times I told him Cedric went with Cho because he couldn't suddenly take someone else, like Lucy, and that we should listen to him and take a bath with the egg.

Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that we couldn't see out of them in Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this weather, though as Ron said, the skrewts would probably warm us up nicely, either by chasing us, or blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid's cabin would catch fire.

When we arrived at Hagrid's cabin, however, we found an elderly witch with closely cropped grey hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.

"Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago," she barked at us as we struggled toward her through the snow.

"Who're you?" said Ron, staring at her.

"Where's Hagrid?" I asked suspiciously.

"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank," she said briskly. "I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."

"Where's Hagrid?" Harry repeated loudly.

"He is indisposed," said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.

Soft and unpleasant laughter reached my ears. I turned;

Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins were joining the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see Professor Grubbly-Plank.