The Goblet of Fire - Harry Potter Male Reader Insert

22: The Substitute Champion

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 had confessed to Y/N that she had used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion on it for the ball, "but its way too much bother to do it every day," she said matter-of-factly, scratching a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.

"I should hope so, you wouldn't be Hermione if you didn't have your bushy hair." Y/N said in response.

Hermione wasn't sure whether she should blush at a complement, or huff at an insult.

Neither of them mentioned what had happened during the ball. As far as they were concerned, it had been just the same as any other night they would have spent in the library.

When Y/N had told her about the conversation between Madame Maxime and Hagrid, she didn't seem to find the news nearly as shocking as Ron did after her.

"Well, I thought he must be," she 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 towards werewolves... it's just bigotry, isn't it?"

It was no surprise that Ron was shaking his head in disagreement, but it was surprising that Y/N was following suit.

"Giant's aren't like humans, Hermione," Y/N said. "well, they are, but they're not as civilised as regular humans are. They live in tribes, kind of like cavemen, and they follow an animalstic way of handling leadership and power. It's simple really, whoever can bash the current leader's head in the most is the new leader."

Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that they 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 then up nicely, either by chasing them or by blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid's cabin caught fire.

When they arrived at Hagrid's cabin, however, the 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 them, as they struggled towards her through the snow.

"Who're you?" demanded Ron, staring at her. "Where's Hagrid?"

Ron was standing next to Seamus, a good few feet away from Y/N and Hermione, but he still caught their glares. He got the message, he was being quite rude.

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

"If I may ask, where's Professor Hagrid?" said Y/N, raising a hand. He too, was concerned, but tried not to take it out on the substitute teacher as Ron had.

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

Soft and pleasant laughter reached Y/N's ears. He 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.

"This way, please," said Professor Grubbly-Plank, and she strode off around the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were shivering. Y/N and Hermione followed her, looking over their shoulders at Hagrid's cabin. All the curtains were closed. Was Hagrid in there, alone and ill?

"What's the matter with Professor Hagrid?" said Y/N, hurrying to catch up with Professor Grubbly-Plank.

"Never you mind," she said as though she thought he was being nosy.