Jinx Not-So-Malfoy and the Triwizard Tournament

Chapter 10

Anyone willing to help me torture Steven Moffat? He needs to know the pain he's putting us through. 

I'll take him to the dentist. No worse torture than that. *-*

The storm had blown itself out by the following morning, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still gloomy; heavy clouds of pewter gray swirled overhead as Harry, Ron, Hermione and I examined our new course schedules at breakfast. A few seats along, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were discussing magical methods of aging themselves and bluffing their way into the Triwizard Tournament. 

"Today's not bad... outside all morning," said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. "Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures... damn it, we're still with the Slytherins...." 

"Double Divination this afternoon," Harry groaned, looking down. Divination was his least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harry's death, which he found extremely annoying.

I remembered my end of term exam last year...

I predicted I was going to become a ninja and fly to Mars.

Or something like that. 

"You should have given it up like me, shouldn't you?" said Hermione briskly, buttering herself some toast. "Then you'd be doing something sensible like Arithmancy." 

"You're eating again, I notice," said Ron, watching Hermione adding liberal amounts of jam to her toast too. 

"I've decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights," said Hermione haughtily. 

"Yeah... and you were hungry," said Ron, grinning. 

There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, I looked up, even though no ever sends me anything. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. A large tawny owl soared down to Neville Longbottom and deposited a parcel into his lap - Neville almost always forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Draco's eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. I noticed Harry had a weird look on his face. 

His preoccupation lasted all the way across the sodden vegetable patch until we arrived in greenhouse three, but here he was distracted by Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants I had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid. 

"Bubotubers," Professor Sprout told them briskly. "They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -" 

"The what?" said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted. 

"Pus, Finnigan, pus," said Professor Sprout, "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." 

Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. We caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints. 

"This'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy," said Professor Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. "An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples."