Chapter 197 - 197
Chapter 197:
The rain that had fallen last night had long since stopped, and at one o'clock in the afternoon the sky was clear.
The grass was soft and damp beneath their feet, and the young wizards chattered as they stepped onto it and headed in the direction of the northeast side of the castle, ready for their first lesson in the protection of magical creatures.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were quite excited for the lesson, as they were all friends with Hagrid and heartily happy for Hagrid to be a professor at Hogwarts.
However, walking down the road, they soon saw three very familiar backs walking in front of them, the skinny one in the center and the burly ones on either side, officially Malfoy and his two followers.
The three of them then realized that this magical animal protection class was taught by Gryffindor and Slytherin Academy students together, and they couldn't help but add a few points of gloom to their psyche.
At that moment, Malfoy was talking to Crabbe and Goyle with a derisive grin on his face, the two were giggling and looking silly.
Harry didn't have to think to know what they were laughing at.
Ever since he had learned of Harry's fainting spell last night at the hands of a Dementor, Malfoy had been obsessed with it, telling Crabbe and Goyle about it every few minutes, and occasionally looking ridiculous as if he was about to faint.
As for himself, he had instinctively forgotten the way he had shivered in fear when he had seen the dementors yesterday. ...
Not far from the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid was standing by the door of his hut waiting for his students.
He was dressed in a moleskin coat, stomping his feet twice now and then, textbook in hand, and the hound Tooth and Nail wagging his tail at his feet.
"Come on, little ones, hurry hurry hurry!" When the pupils drew near, he exclaimed in a loud voice, "There is a good treat for you to-day! A very exciting lesson is coming soon! Is everyone here? Good, follow me!"
This was Hagrid's first class as a professor, and he was eager to show himself and prove his ability in front of the students, and at the same time, he could also validate Dumbledore's vision and reduce the grievances of individual parents.
In fact, with Hagrid's qualifications originally was not enough to be a professor of the Protection of Magical Animals class.
He was expelled from Hogwarts back in his third year for a crime that was not originally his, and has been out of school ever since. This incident was the very same charge that the young Voldemort, Tom Riddle, planted on Hagrid.
The suspect of the charge on his body was not allowed to be a professor at Hogwarts.
At the time more than fifty years ago, Riddle was leading the snake monster to stir up trouble at Hogwarts, and he misunderstood Saracha Slytherin's wish to teach those hemp wizards some lessons.
To his own surprise, the snake monster did accidentally kill a young witch named Myrtle.
In order to prevent the castle from closing down due to the failure to catch the real culprit, Riddle, who didn't want to go back to living in an orphanage, framed Hagrid, who secretly kept an eight-eyed giant spider, for the incident.
Principal Dippet expelled Hagrid at the time, and if it wasn't for the strong protection of Dumbledore, who was still the vice-headmaster at the time, Hagrid would have had to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.
Since then, Hagrid became Dumbledore's loyal supporter.
In fact, even without the incident that caused the death, the fact that Hagrid was privately bred at Hogwarts Castle was enough to get him expelled, as was the case with Newt that year.
But after the serpent monster was captured by Dracula, the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets that year was solved.
Dumbledore joined forces with Newt, the world's best magical zoologist, and bribed Myrtle, the victim of the spectral form, with a surreptitiously crafted handsome portrait of Dracula, and the three of them together stepped in and vouched for Hagrid, freeing him completely from the charges of that year.
After clearing the charges, Dumbledore also used Hagrid's years of dealing with magical animals and his rich knowledge of magical animals as the reason to formally hire him as a professor of the Hogwarts class on the protection of magical animals.
From now on, Hagrid is considered a complete turnaround, as long as his next teaching does not appear too big problems, keep this professor's identity will not be a big problem!
...
Hagrid led the young third year wizards along the edge of the forest, and five minutes later they were outside a paddock-like area, the young wizards looking around curiously.
"Everyone get over here by this fence!" He shouted suddenly, "Yes, stand ... like this as far as you can see. Now, the first thing you're going to do is open the book ..."
"How do I open it?" Prick Draco Malfoy said in his cold, drawn out voice.
"Huh?" Hagrid froze.
"How are we going to open the books?" Malfoy repeated again coldly.
He pulled out his Protection of Magical Creatures class textbook, The Book of Demons for Demons.
At this point, the book had been tied up with a piece of string. Other people took out their books as well, some like Malfoy were tying theirs up with string, others had the book in a strong bag or in a large binder.
Since the professor of this year's Protecting Magical Creatures class had changed to Hagrid, he wanted to change the textbook for this class as well, to give the students something special to experience.
Thus, the original Where the Fantastic Beasts Are written by Newt, which had been used for many years, was honorably retired, and The Monsters' Book of Monsters became the textbook for a new generation.
This book is in some ways arguably the best in the history of textbooks - the least student-friendly textbook.
It's a beautiful book with a green cover and a gold title printed on it. But its ferocity is completely different from its pretty appearance.
This book is capable of running back and forth on its own, and likes to bite with the sharp teeth that come with the book, and is more than likely to tear another book apart with the combined efforts of both books.
Hogwarts with many years of cooperation Li scar bookstore owner can not stand, swore that the next school year, if the book is still this book, then directly not to buy goods, otherwise both to bear the risk of being bitten, but also have to bear the loss of two books torn one ...
This is really not something that the average bookstore can afford!
"No ... no one can open this book?" Hagrid said as he looked at a piece of the book that was tied up solidly in front of him, looking a little downcast.
Both the Gryffindor and Slytherin students shook their heads.
"Just run through these books actually." Hagrid said matter of factly, as if it was the most understandable thing in the world, "Look at ..."
He took Hermione's book and tore off the adhesive paper binding it. The book was trying to bite, but one slip of Hagrid's index finger on the crest from top to bottom and the book instantly went from menacing to shivering before silently turning itself over.
"Oh, how stupid we are!" Malfoy said, still sneering, "We should have run through these books! Why didn't we think of that!"
"I ... think these books are interesting." Hagrid said hesitantly.
"Oh, interesting as hell!" Malfoy said, "How clever, giving us books we want to rip out of our hands!"
"Shut up, Malfoy." Harry said quietly.
He hoped that Hagrid's first lesson would be a success, or at least that it would go smoothly and not be messed up by Malfoy.
"So ... then you all have your books ... oh ... now all you need is magical creatures." Hagrid said. He seemed to have his thoughts scrambled and stumbled over his words. "Right, I'm going to go find the magical creatures I'm going to show you guys, hold on a second."
He walked straight away from the students to walk inside the forbidden forest, and a moment later someone was out of sight.
"Merlin, this place is going down." Malfoy said aloud, trying to pompously get someone's attention, "This stupid people teaching, if I tell my dad, it's a wonder he doesn't have a big outburst-"
"Shut up, Malfoy." Harry interrupted again.
"Careful, Potter, that's a Dementor behind you!" Malfoy shot back defiantly.
...
It wasn't long before Hagrid walked back with twelve strange looking magical creatures.
These magical creatures had the bodies, hind legs and tails of horses, but their front legs, wings and heads seemed to be like those on an eagle, as well as sharp beaks the color of steel and large bright orange eyes.
The claws on their front legs were half a foot long, extraordinarily sharp, and looked like they would kill a man. Each beast's neck was covered with a thick layer of feathers, to which was attached a long chain, the ends of which were held in Hagrid's large hand.
Hagrid followed these animals at a slow pace out into the paddock.
"Get up there!" He shook the chains and yelled at the animals to come up to the front of the fence where the class was standing and had tethered the guys to the fence.
"Hawk-headed, horse-bodied winged beasts!" Hagrid waved one hand excitedly as he introduced them to the young wizards, "They're beautiful, aren't they?"
Indeed, it was a shock to see the half-horse, half-bird animal at first glance, but after the shock had passed, it was easy to admire its glowing fur, which smoothly transitioned from feathers to fur, each in a different color: dark grey, bronze, sandy-haired with a pinkish tinge, shimmering chestnut, and finally, inky-black, beautiful.
Immediately afterward, Hagrid began teaching the students how to show respect to the eagle-headed, horse-bodied winged beasts and gain their trust.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were not supposed to be listening to the lesson; they were quite upset that Dumbledore had made Hagrid, a large man who was extremely close to Harry's trio, the professor, and were always trying to find ways to sabotage the lesson.
But by the time Harry managed to gain the trust of riding a hawk-headed, winged beast and being carried by it for a week's flight around Hogwarts Castle, Malfoy's mood finally pressed on.
In fact, he wasn't the only one who couldn't hold back his excitement, as the other young wizards took their cue from Harry and cautiously entered the paddock one by one.
One by one, Hagrid undid the chains, and soon there were nervous bows all over the paddock.
Neville fled back several times from his chosen eagle-headed, horse-bodied winged beast, the animal seemingly not wanting to bend its knees; Ron and Hermione each bowed to a chestnut-colored eagle-headed, horse-bodied, winged beast, as Harry, who had already experienced a round, looked on.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had chosen Buckbeak, which Harry had ridden, as their practice subject.
Buckbeak was considered a hawk-headed, horse-bodied winged beast with a fairly good personality, and he took the lead and bowed to Malfoy, trying to gain his respect.
However Malfoy only saw the result of Harry riding Buckbeak and not the process of him gaining respect.
The three young wizards, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, were not listening at all, and Malfoy was arrogantly patting Buckbeak's beak with a look of disgust, completely breaking the taboo of hawk-headed, winged beasts.
"It's easy," said Malfoy, still unaware of the danger, dragging out his voice, which was loud enough for Harry to hear, "If Potter can do it, I know it must be especially easy ... I bet you're not at all dangerous. Isn't it?"
He scoffed and looked over at Buckbeak, saying, "You're not dangerous, are you, you big ugly beast?"
A dangerous gleam flashed in Buckbeak's eyes, and his steel gray claws swung out menacingly.
Malfoy let out a wailing scream, and Hagrid, seeing this, immediately worked Buckbeak, still struggling to pounce on Malfoy, back into its collar.
Malfoy, who had escaped with his life, curled up in a ball on the grass with chunks of blood on his robes.
"I'm going to die!" Malfoy yelled in panic, which caused all the little wizards to panic. "I'm going to die, and lo and behold ... it's killing me!"
His words were actually rather comical, but with the blood on the floor, it looked rather scary in turn.
"You're not going to die!" Hagrid said, his face extremely pale. "Someone help me ... have to carry him from here to the school infirmary!"
Hermione ran to open the gate while Hagrid easily lifted Malfoy's thin body.
As they walked by, Harry saw a deep, long gash on Malfoy's arm, bleeding onto the grass.
Hagrid supported him with one arm and ran quickly up the slope towards the castle.
The students in the Protecting Magical Creatures class were so shocked that they all followed. Together, the students of Slytherin House yelled something bad about Hagrid.
"They should expel him immediately!" Pansy Parkinson exclaimed, her face full of tears.
She had always prided herself on being Draco Malfoy's little pureblood girlfriend, and it was starting to hurt to see Malfoy get hurt.
"But this is clearly Malfoy's fault!" Dean Thomas of Gryffindor retorted sternly.
The two large men, Crabbe and Goyle, bulged their muscles threateningly and confronted the small Gryffindor wizards.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had no time to pay attention to the nonsense of the Slytherin House students, getting rid of them and returning to the Gryffindor tower. They were extremely worried about Hagrid, but didn't know what they should do to help him.
"Do you guys think he's going to be okay?" Hermione asked nervously.
"Of course he's going to be fine, Madam Pomfrey was able to sew up the wound in about a second." Harry said.
As a regular visitor to the school infirmary, Harry had seen the Head Nurse magically heal wounds much worse than this before.
"It sucks that something like this happened in Hagrid's first lesson though, doesn't it?" Ron said, with a worried look on his face, "Malfoy sure made a mess of things ..."
...
As they had expected, Malfoy was not happy to be injured like that and wrote a letter to send back home the same day he was in the school infirmary.
At the weekend's school board meeting, Lucius Malfoy killed his way into the Hogwarts school board room with a vengeance ...