ROTBTD: Hogwarts

Chapter Two: Lessons

Hopefully this one will be a bit shorter. Hopefully. Maybe. Um, not. I failed. Whoops.

Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to ToothlessLover777 -- my very first reader and commenter!!! :D

"Bubotubers."

It was the first class of the year: Herbology, with Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Hiccup and Merida were sitting together. The plants they were working with, bubotubers, looked like slugs coming from the dirt. Hiccup was frankly disgusted.

"They need squeezing," continued Professor Sprout. "You will collect the pus --"

"The WHAT?" Seamus Finnigan yelped.

"Pus, Finnigan, pus. And 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 undiluted, bubotuber pus."

The first boil on Merida and Hiccup's bubotuber that was popped, Hiccup could have received a face full, but covered his face with his hands just in time. "Merida!" he cried indignantly.

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "None of the others shot it like a projectile."

"I don't care! Just -- don't spray me again. Please?"

"I'll try," Merida chuckled.

By the end of the lesson, they had bottled several pints. "This'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy," Professor Sprout said, satisfied. Madam Pomfrey presided over the hospital wing. "An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples."

"Like poor Eloise Midgen," whispered a Hufflepuff girl, Hannah Abbott. "She tried to curse hers off."

"Silly girl," Professor Sprout said. "But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end."

It took a moment for those words to sink in for Hiccup. And when they did, they horrified him.

The bell sounded. "Bye," Hiccup waved to Merida. He and the other Hufflepuffs were heading for Transfiguration. Merida and the Gryffindors were on their way to Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. In the field were several open crates. "Mornin'!" Hagrid said happily to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as the Gryffindors approached. "Be'er wait for the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this -- Blast-Ended Skrewts!"

"Come again?" Ron said nervously. Hagrid gestured to the crates.

"Eurgh!" squealed Lavender Brown.

Merida peered into a crate and gagged. They resembled disgusting lobsters, pale and slimy, with legs everywhere and no obvious head. There were about a hundred in each crate, each about six inches long. They smelled like rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and it would be propelled forward a few inches.

"On'y just hatched," Hagrid said proudly, "so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

"And why would we want to raise them?"

Merida turned; the Slytherins had arrived. With his new hair, it was easy to spot Jack making his way toward her. The speaker had been Draco Malfoy. Hagrid looked confused.

"I mean, what do they do? What is the point of them?"

A moment's pause. "Tha's for next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus' feedin' 'em today. Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things -- I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer -- I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake -- just try 'em out with a bit of each."