Hagrid’s first Care of Magical Creatures class gathers outside his cabin under the cold September sun. Harry’s grateful already that he got himself more clothes. His burgundy jumper, grey trousers, and wool robe keep him warm.
“Righ’!” Hagrid beams around at all of them. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
It’s only about a five minute walk until they come upon a kind of paddock. Inside it is one of the strangest things Harry’s ever seen, a kind of half-horse, half-bird with the body, hind legs, and tail of horses, but the front legs, wings, and head of what seemed to be a giant eagle. It has a cruel, steel-colored beak, stormy grey fur and feathers, and large, brilliantly orange eyes that watch the class warily.
"Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" Hagrid calls. "That's it – make sure yeh can see – now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books—"
"How?" says the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.
Hagrid looks confused, but before he can say anything, Ella Woodside holds up her perfectly docile Monster Book of Monsters. “I thought they were brilliant! You couldn’t work it out?”
“A fascinating entry into the subject,” says Ravenclaw Anthony Goldstein with a slightly pompous nod, “a sort of test of our approach—do we attempt to subdue the book with force, or win it over with kindness?”
Harry tries not to laugh; he’s pretty sure Hagrid didn’t mean anything of the kind, and just thought a biting book was funny.
Malfoy’s turning bright red. “What in Merlin’s name—”
“You were supposed to stroke it,” Harry says quite loudly. He’d asked Lavender and Pansy to pass word around and it looks like it worked. Although he was pretty sure Woodside had befriended the book a lot sooner based on the way it was cooing at her.
All around, most of the class is revealing that their Monster Books are all perfectly tame Monster Books, and turning to the section on hippogriffs. Harry opens his own with a flourish while grinning nastily at Malfoy. Serves him right for trying to muck up Hagrid’s first class. By now only Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle are standing around like lumps. Everyone else who hadn’t heard before class started have got their books open now.
“Grea’!” Hagrid says. “Righ’—now, look on page fifty-two I think it is, an’ yeh’ll see hippogriffs. Fierce beasts, they are, an’ proud too—easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't ever insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do.”
“Er—Professor?” says someone off to Harry’s right.
Hagrid squints in their direction. “An’ yeh are?”
“Edgar Runcorn, and… how smart are they, exactly?”
“Wicked smart!” Hagrid says. “They don’ exactly understand English, but they’ll know if yeh insult ‘em, or if yeh don’ respect ‘em. Yeh gotta remember ter respect these creatures, righ’. A hippogriff’s called XXX by the Ministry.” He winks at Harry. “Any grown up witch or wizard could handle one all righ’, but yeh’re young, so we’ll be real careful today. When yeh approach a hippogriff, yeh always wait fer it ter make the firs’ move. It’s polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an’ yeh wait, and yeh don’ blink. If he bows back, yeh’re allowed ter touch him. If he don’ bow, then back away, ‘cause tha’ means he don’ respect yer or isn’ in the mood. We’ll talk later abou’ how ter win over a hippogriff that don’ bow at first. Buckbeak here—” he pats the grey hippogriff on the neck, and it butts its fierce head against Hagrid’s shoulder— “is friendly, so yeh shouldn’ have any problems. Anyone want ter go first?”
A few hands cautiously go up. Harry keeps his down. He’ll go up to Buckbeak but if he goes first everyone’ll stare at him instead of paying attention to the hippogriffs and Harry doesn’t want either of those things to happen.
Hagrid picks Millicent Bulstrode, the tallest person in their class. Harry vividly remembers her getting Hermione in a headlock during the disastrous Dueling Club last year. He wouldn’t have expected a Slytherin to go first or to do it well, but Bulstrode marches right up to Buckbeak, stops, and stares at him.
"Easy now, Miss Bulstrode," says Hagrid quietly. "Yeh've got eye contact, now try not ter blink... Hippogriffs don' trust yeh if yeh blink too much..."
Buckbeak had turns his great, sharp head and stares at Bulstrode with one fierce orange eye. The class holds its collective breath. "Tha's it," says Hagrid. "Tha's it... now, bow."
Bulstrode bows, a bit stiffly, and then stands upright again.
The hippogriff still stares haughtily. It doesn’t move.
"Ah," says Hagrid, sounding worried. "Right—back away, now, easy does it—”
But then, to everyone’s surprise, the hippogriff suddenly bends its scaly front knees and sinks into what’s unmistakably a bow.
"Well done!" says Hagrid, ecstatic. "Right—yeh can touch him! Pat his beak, go on!"
Bulstrode steps slowly towards the hippogriff. Her left hand is in a tight fist, but she reaches out steadily with her right and pats Buckbeak gently on his cruelly hooked eagle’s beak.
The class breaks into applause, all except for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who look a bit disappointed.
"Righ' then, Miss Bulstrode," says Hagrid. "I reckon he might' let yeh ride him!"
Bulstrode visibly hesitates, which Harry thinks is actually perfectly fair.
"Yeh climb up there, jus' behind the wing joint," says Hagrid, "an' mind yeh don' pull any of his feathers out, he won' like that...."
Bulstrode puts her foot on the top of Buckbeak’s wing and hoists herself onto his back. Buckbeak stands up. Bulstrode wavers, clearly unsure where to put her hands.
"Go on, then'," roars Hagrid, slapping the hippogriff’s hindquarters. Without warning, twelve-foot wings flap open on either side of him, and Bulstrode just has time to seize the hippogriff around the neck before he’s soaring upward. Harry whoops and cheers with the rest of the class as Buckbeak swoops in a wide circle around the paddock before coming in to land.
The hippogriff hits the ground with a heavy thud as its four ill-assorted feet hit the ground. Bulstrode slides off, looking windswept and smiling wider than Harry’s ever seen a Slytherin do in public, except for when Malfoy’s being particularly nasty.
"Good work!" roars Hagrid. "Okay, who else wants a go?"
Emboldened by her success, more hands go up. Hagrid calls them forward one at a time. Harry nudges a blushing Neville into the line in front of him, with Ron and Dean crowding behind them.
Neville’s turn goes well. “I did it!” he whispers in shock when he passes Harry afterwards, “I really did it!” Harry gives him a grin and a high five before he steps up to the hippogriff.
Buckbeak gives Harry a terrifying fifteen seconds of stare before he consents to bow and be petted. No one other than Bulstrode’s gotten to fly him, Hagrid said there wasn’t time, but Harry’s okay with just giving Buckbeak a pet and backing away. He’s got his broom for a reason.
To Harry’s secret delight, and Lavender and Parvati’s very obvious sniggers, Buckbeak refuses to bow to Ron.
A few people pass and then Malfoy steps up to Buckbeak with a sneer on his face. Harry gets an uneasy feeling. "This is very easy," Malfoy drawls, loud enough for Harry and probably half the class to hear him. "I knew it must have been, if all the wrong sort could do it... I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he says to the hippogriff. "Are you, you great ugly brute?"
It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid’s wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strains to get at Malfoy, who lies curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.
"I'm dying!" Malfoy yells. Several people scream. "I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!"
"Yer not dyin'!" says Hagrid, who has gone very white.
Harry really does not want the attention he knows this is going to get, but he’s just got to help Hagrid, so he marches forward and grabs Malfoy’s arm. “It’s a clean cut, easily healed,” he says loudly. “Malfoy, can you feel this?”
“Stop moving my fingers, you filthy—!”
“Shut up,” Harry tells him. “You’re fine, you can feel your hand, your bone’s not broken. Madam Pomfrey can heal this in a flash. Hagrid, maybe you could take him up to the hospital wing, and we can talk more about hippogriffs next class?”
“Righ’,” Hagrid says. “Righ’, yeah, tha’s a good idea. Er—class dismissed. Come wi’ me, Mr. Malfoy—”
“Do not touch me,” Malfoy hisses at him, drawing up like an offended cat and stalking off towards the school.
“He’s fine,” Harry says loudly, at the now-whispering students. “Remember how Pomfrey replaced all my arm bones overnight?”
Several people laugh, and the edge of panic he’d been feeling from everyone dulls. Harry spots a Ravenclaw imitating Lockhart’s dramatics and his stupid laugh while his friend pretends his arm’s gone all floppy and boneless.
Well, good, hopefully they’ll remember the lesson as a good one.
Harry’s friends have started moving back up towards the castle, and Harry falls in with them easily. “I don’t know what Dumbledore was thinking, letting Hagrid teach,” says Faye in an undertone.
Lavender nods, but Ron turns on Faye with a scowl. “Don’t talk about Hagrid like that!”
“Are you mental?” Faye says with a roll of her eyes.
“He’s wonderful with creatures and knows more than anyone else,” Hermione snaps.
“Yes, but he was expelled in his third year,” Parvati says. “Hermione, you told everyone that, last spring. Remember?”
“Wait, he was expelled?” Dean looks at them all as if hoping someone will contradict this. “Did he ever finish school? Anywhere?”
Hermione glares at him. “You don’t have to finish school to be an intelligent person!”
“No, I know, but, uh, in my old school, no one would be allowed to teach unless they finished secondary and got uni degrees in education and whatever they teach. You’re telling me Hagrid’s teaching and he has a third year education?”
“Hagrid’s brilliant,” Ron says hotly, scowling. “He doesn’t need some fancy degree for us to see that!”
“He’s not qualified, though,” Faye points out. “He can’t even legally use a wand, for Merlin’s sake!”
“Neither can Binns,” says Seamus, but he’s frowning.
“Binns stands around in a classroom and lectures about stuff that happened three hundred years ago,” Harry says. “Hagrid, on the other hand, teaches us about XXX creatures. He might have been able to heal Malfoy today if he’d had a wand. Or cast a shield over him.”
“Whose side are you on?” Ron says furiously. Hermione’s glaring at him too, but Neville nods in solidarity.
“I’m on Hagrid’s!” Harry says. “Look, can you really see Malfoy letting this go? He’ll try to get Hagrid in trouble, and it’ll look bad that someone got hurt in Hagrid’s very first class! I don’t want him getting in trouble because he’s doing something he’s not really set up to handle. I mean, it’d be great if Hagrid could go do… whatever advanced program in Care, but…”
“A mastery,” Faye informs him.
“Maybe we should suggest it!” Lavender says.
As they reach the entrance hall and join the crush of students heading for lunch, a vise-like grip lands on Harry’s arm and before he can say anything he’s been yanked out of the flow of people and into a side hall. He wrenches his arm free with the ease of practice against Dudley. It’s Ron, red-faced and nearly boiling. “What the bloody hell was that, mate?”
“What are you talking about?” Harry takes two quick steps backwards and finds Hermione there, chewing her lip and twisting her hands together. The entrance hall is ten feet away but Ron’s between him and it.
Why is Harry thinking about escape routes like this is a round of Harry Hunting? Ron won’t hurt him. Right?
“What was that, back there? Why’d you just say that about Hagrid, eh?”
“Ron—” Hermione says.
“I was being honest!” Harry says. “He’s great, you know I like Hagrid, and Malfoy’s a prat to him, but come on—”
“They have a point,” Hermione says uncomfortably. “Don’t look at me like that, Ron… It’s not very fair of Hagrid to have to teach when he hasn’t been to school since 1943…”
“For that matter, why hasn’t Dumbledore gotten him pardoned yet?” Harry says suddenly.
Both of his first friends look at him oddly. “What d’you mean?” says Ron.
Harry shrugs. “Well, Dumbledore—”
“Headmaster Dumbledore,” corrects Hermione.
“—is Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. That’s like… actually I can’t think of a Muggle version, but he can propose bills and he usually sits on tribunals for criminal cases. The Minister knows Hagrid was innocent, he learned it last year! Why hasn’t Hagrid gotten a pardon? He could finish school, get his wand rights, and teach properly.”
“I’m sure Headmaster Dumbledore has his reasons,” Hermione says. “Harry, you know it’s not that easy…”
“It is that easy,” Harry insists. His stomach churns and he doesn’t know how he didn’t think of this before. What’s Dumbledore playing at? And how was Hagrid even expelled back in the forties, anyway? Acromantulas don’t petrify. It should’ve been obvious Myrtle wasn’t killed by a spider bite.
“Dumbledore is a great man, he would’ve gotten Hagrid pardoned if he could,” Hermione says, shaking her head. “There must be a reason.”
“Yeah, mate, don’t say shite like that,” Ron says.
“Ronald! Language!”
In the middle of Hermione’s scolding, Harry slips by Ron and heads off to lunch, just shrugging when Neville asks where he disappeared to. He’s quiet as he eats his chicken curry and still-warm bread. Harry’s trust in the Headmaster took quite a severe beating over the summer when he learned about the payments to Aunt Petunia and Mrs. Figg, but this is something else entirely. This is Dumbledore meddling in someone else’s life, not just Harry’s, and he can’t see any way it was a good thing to leave Hagrid uneducated and helpless for all those years. If nothing else, once Dumbledore was Headmaster, he could’ve let Hagrid back in to finish Hogwarts!
“Harry, you all right?” Faye asks, poking his arm.
“You’ve been quiet,” Lavender adds.
Harry summons up a smile. “Just thinking about, uh, quidditch tryouts.”
“Oooh! How are our chances this year?” Parvati says. “I bet my sister we’d beat Ravenclaw by at least two hundred points in the Cup!”
Harry laughs. “Well…”
Between his three new classes, having more people to talk to in the common room, and nightly visits to Bear (who’s found a grove by the lake he likes, and where Harry can practice spells in secret), the first week fairly flies by. Harry barely notices until the weekly Potions practical on Friday that Malfoy’s been missing since the Care lesson.
In hindsight, he should have. Things had been quiet. Now, with Malfoy swaggering in the door sporting a load of bandages and a very ostentatious white sling.
“How is it, Draco?” Pansy simpers. Having known her a few weeks, and gotten to know her sense of humor, Harry picks up on the sarcasm that he probably would’ve missed before. “Does it hurt much?”
“Yeah,” says Malfoy with a brave sort of grimace. Pansy bats her eyelashes at him, but when he turns away, the simper turns into a smirk, one that perfectly matches Theo Nott’s.
Harry tentatively nods in greeting. He and Nott haven’t had the chance to do much more than say hello in the hallways since they came back, as Slytherin and Gryffindor have only DADA and Potions together this year, and the new DADA professor, Lupin, had kept them all back for a lecture on why not to use prank spells after their first class, so everyone had to run to make it in time to the next one.
Nott smiles faintly, barely a quirk of his lips, and tilts his head in Harry’s direction. Slytherins are weird. But it’s nice to be acknowledged. Maybe they can stay friends even though he’s pretty sure Nott is in the same bind as Pansy as far as his parents watching who he’s friendly with at school.
Malfoy bangs his cauldron down on the workstation right next to Harry and Ron. “Sir, I’ll need help cutting these daisy roots, on account of my arm,” he calls.
When Snape’s eyes land on Ron, Harry just knows what’s going to happen. “Weasley, cut up Malfoy’s roots for him.”
Ron goes brick red. “There’s nothing wrong with your arm!” he hisses.
“You heard Professor Snape, get to it,” Malfoy says with a nasty smirk, shoving his daisy roots at Ron, who begins to roughly chop them with furious motions.
Harry can see where this is going and wants to bang his head into a wall.
“Sir, Weasley’s mutilating my roots,” Malfoy calls.
Snape approaches their table and stares down his hooked nose at the roots. He smiles unpleasantly. “Weasley, change roots with Mr. Malfoy.”
“But—!”
“Now,” says Snape, in his dangerous voice.
Ron shoves his own roots across the table at Malfoy.
“And I’ll need help skinning this shrivelfig,” Malfoy adds.
“I’d be glad to help you, Malfoy,” Harry says with the best smile he can muster on short notice.
Malfoy freezes with his mouth open, already halfway through what’s probably a demand for Harry to do it. Snape’s glittering eyes fix on Harry and it feels like a physical touch. Ron gapes.
Harry strongly suspects he’s drawn the attention of the entire class but he doesn’t look.
When five seconds pass and Malfoy doesn’t move, Harry neatly plucks the shrivelfig out of Malfoy’s hand and sets to skinning it with delicate motions. He’s already done his, as carefully as he could, and he’ll be damned if he lets Snape see a single difference between them.
“Here you are,” Harry says, handing the skinned shrivelfig back with another smile. “I hope your arm feels better soon, Malfoy. Let me know if you need any more help.”
Taking the wind out of Malfoy’s sails feels wonderful. Harry returns to his own potion and tries not to grin. Off to one side, behind Snape’s back, Faye is giving him enthusiastic silent applause, while Lavender is whispering instructions to Neville out of the corner of her mouth.
Snape doesn’t move. Harry resolutely ignores him as he goes on with his potions. The daisy roots are added a bit at a time with his left hand while stirring clockwise with his right. He has to keep stirring at exactly the same pace so the roots incorporate evenly. If he goes too fast there’ll be chunks, and if he’s too slow the potion will start to set and get too thick, in which case the shrivelfig won’t dissolve right and who knows what’ll happen?
As he finishes with the roots, Snape steps closer. Probably he’s trying to be intimidating. However, Harry can make perfect chicken cordon bleu while being screamed at by Uncle Vernon or repeatedly kicked by Dudley. If Snape wants to intimidate him into screwing up, he’ll have to try a bit harder.
And at least if Snape’s messing with Harry, he can’t go frighten anyone else. Like Neville. Who, shockingly, seems to have turned out a potion at least in the neighborhood of green, which is what a good Shrinking Solution should look like.
Harry drops in the shrivelfig after he judges the roots have all been incorporated. It hisses slightly and the dull olive of the potion turns to bright acid green. Good. Okay, last step—toss a pinch of salt over the surface, and add a single reverse stir.
Snape makes an unhappy sound and stalks away. “Finnegan! If you do not put your wand down, you will receive detention for a month!” he snarls.
Grinning, Harry carefully ladles the shrinking solution into the vial Snape provided. It’s much easier now that he has a nonreactive crystal funnel from his new potions kit.
“Where’d you get that?” Ron says, staring at the funnel.
“Oh. Er, Diagon Alley,” Harry says. His eyes flick to Snape, but the professor is busy inspecting Crabbe and Goyle’s smoking disaster of a potion and not paying attention. “I got a new potions kit, this came in it.”
Ron doesn’t say anything, but he has an ugly scowl on his face as Harry carefully stoppers the vial and labels it with his name, the potion, and the date. Another thing that’s infinitely easier now he knows how to use a quill right. It seems like every day he finds something new that’s way simpler than it used to be.
“What’d you go and get a new kit for?” Ron says abruptly when Harry gets back from handing in his potion. “Your old one was fine, wasn’t it?”
“Not really,” Harry says with an uneasy shrug. “All my stuff was contaminated… I didn’t have any of the right tools. I had no idea until this summer.”
“Wow, are you really that stupid, Potter?” Malfoy sneers. “It took you two years to figure out you needed sharper knives? Behold, our Savior.”
“It’s not like anyone explained what tools we needed or why,” Harry retorts.
“Maybe not to you.” Malfoy grins at him unpleasantly. “My parents got me tutors. What’d yours do? Oh, right, they died.”
Harry’s knuckles go white on his potions kit, but he forces himself not to react, doing up the buckles with stiff fingers.
“You’re just jealous! I bet your parents don’t even like you,” Ron says.
Malfoy sticks his nose in the air. “They like me enough to get me tutors. Whereas yours got you… nothing! They just gave you your brothers’ old things!”
Harry’s had enough. He grabs his kit and beelines out of the classroom, elbowing ahead of Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis so there’s someone between him and the still-bickering Ron and Malfoy.
A whispered “Harry!” draws his attention, and Harry jerks around, squinting. A narrow side corridor splits off from the main hall and in the gloom Harry can spot two people. One of them leans forward—
Pansy.
He glances around quickly; Davis and Greengrass haven’t rounded the nearest bend and Seamus and Dean up ahead aren’t paying him any attention. Quickly he hurries into the shadow. “Pansy, hi. Er… Nott, good to see you.”
“You too.” The lanky boy sticks his hand out. “I think we can go by first names now, don’t you? Call me Theo.”
“Yes, yes, very touching. Harry, we wanted to warn you,” Pansy begins.
“She wanted to warn you,” Nott—Theo—corrects. “I just wanted to say hello somewhere your Gryffindor friends won’t hex me for the pleasure.”
Pansy elbows Theo in the gut and talks over his wheezing. “Draco’s going to use his arm to get out of quidditch at the last minute. Apparently they have super different tactics than either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw and it’ll throw off your team if you’re facing one of them instead with no warning.”
It would. Badly. Harry squints at her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Beats me,” Theo says, scowling at Pansy and stepping out of elbow range. “Pretty sure the entire Slytherin team would take collective offense if they knew.”
“I dislike Draco and would love to see one of his own plans hex him in the arse,” Pansy says flatly.
Harry laughs, surprising himself. “I thought you were friends.”
“Listen up, Potter,” Pansy says sternly, “you need a refresher course on Slytherins.”
“Can you beat our House into his brain on the way to dinner?” Theo says. “Because I would like to get there before Greg and Vince eat everything in sight.”
“FINE.” Pansy marches off towards the main corridor and Harry scrambles after her. “No, Draco and I aren’t friends. We grew up together and our parents want us to get married someday. I think he’s a spoiled prat but his father makes life hard for my father if I’m rude to Draco, and then my father sends me angry letters and doesn’t talk to me for a week when I come home from school.”
“That’s horrible,” Harry says hotly.
“Welcome to the party.” Theo pats him on the shoulder. “Isn’t it fun?”
“Fun like a frying pan to the head,” Harry says without thinking.
Both Slytherins stare at him. Harry has the sinking feeling he’s just revealed a lot more about his home life than he wanted to.
“Well,” says Theo. “Looks like you were secretly already at the party!”
“In disguise as an emotionally well-adjusted Gryffindor.” Pansy laughs.
The three of them step into the entrance hall. “Harry!”
“Dear Merlin, the harpy descends. I’ll see you around,” Theo says, and vanishes so quickly Harry half thinks he has an Invisibility Cloak of his own.
Pansy sighs audibly.
“Harry, what are you doing?” Hermione hurries up to them, frowning at Pansy. “We couldn’t find you after class!”
“I was just talking with Pa—” Pansy steps on his foot. “—arkinson. About, er, quidditch.”
“Right.” Hermione steps forward like she has to defend him from Pansy. “Quidditch. Well, come on, you’ll miss dinner!”
Harry waves goodbye as Hermione tows him away. Pansy laughs at him.
A round of applause from the other third years greets him at the table. “Wish I could award points, mate, that was bloody brilliant the way you shut Malfoy down,” Seamus says, leaning over the table to clap Harry on the shoulder.
“All hail the great Vanquisher of Dark Lords and Spoiled Gits,” says Faye solemnly.
“Okay, it wasn’t that funny,” Harry says, grinning, as he serves himself.
“It was,” Parvati assures him.
Lavender’s cackling almost too hard to speak, but she gets out “His face!” before dissolving into helpless giggles again.
“Never mind that,” Hermione says with a frown. “Harry, what were you doing with Parkinson? And who else was that with you?”
“Just talking about quidditch, Hermione, lay off,” Harry says.
Faye and Neville’s eyes light up with understanding. “I think it’s a good thing,” Faye says loudly. “Inter-house unity and all that.”
“Parkinson?” Ron leans forward. “Harry, the Parkinsons are dark as they come.”
Harry’s stomach does an uneasy flop, but he reminds himself firmly that Pansy isn’t her father. “It was just a conversation, would you stop?”
“You shouldn’t spend time with them,” Hermione says seriously. “The Slytherins, I mean.”
“Slimy gits,” Ron mutters around a mouthful of mince pie.
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