Harry Potter and Claire Smith's Adventures: Book Four

First Day

"It's alright. Could've been a lot worse." Claire replied. She then heard an odd rattling noise and what sounded like minor explosions coming from the boxes near Hagrid. "Um, Hagrid what's in those boxes?"

"Oh, these," Hagrid looked extremely excited, which was a sign that whatever it was was more than likely dangerous. "Be'er wait fer the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this—Blast-Ended Skrewts!"

"Come again?" Ron said.

Hagrid pointed down into the boxes.

Claire looked down into the box. It reminded her of the house-elves heads decorating the wall at Grimmauld Place. The Blast-Ended Skrewts looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each box, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They smelt like rotting fish and every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.

"Well," Claire said trying to figure out what to say. "They're...different."

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

"Great," Claire muttered.

"And why would we want to raise them?" said a cold voice.

The Slytherins (unfortunately) had arrived. The speaker was non other then Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.

Hagrid looked stumped at the question.

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

Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds' pause, then he said roughly, "Tha's 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."

"First pus and now this," Seamus muttered.

Claire looked at Harry, Ron, and Hermione confused.

"We had to squeeze pus from Bubotubers in Herbology." Hermione explained.

"Oh," Claire nodded in understanding. "Well, then I'm very thankful that I'm not taking fourth year Herbology this year. I'll take an exam over pus."

"So, who's going to get theirs first?" Ron said, pointing at the skrewts.

Nothing but the deep affection for Hagrid could have made Claire, Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry couldn't suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn't seem to have mouths.

"Ouch!" Dean yelled after the first ten minutes. "It got me!"

Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious.

"Its end exploded!" Dean said angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand.

"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off," Hagrid said nodding.

"Eurgh!" Lavender brown said. "Eurgh, Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?"

"Ah, some of 'em have got stings," Hagrid said enthusiastically. (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box.) "I reckon they're the males...The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies...I think they might be ter suck blood."