Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Seventy-Four

I agreed. "I think the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something."

"If only we'd done human Transfiguration already!" Hermione exclaimed. "But I don't think we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing...."

"Yeah, I don't fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head," said Harry. "I s'pose I could always attack someone in front of Moody; he might do it for me...."

"I don't think he'd let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though," I said seriously. "He might turn you into the amazing bouncing ferret, part two, and I know from experience that ferrets cannot survive for an hour underwater."

"No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm," Hermione said.

So we all looked to the library for something to use. But even though we searched through our lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends — and even though Harry asked Professor McGonagall for a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked Madam Pince, for help — we found nothing whatsoever that would enable Harry to spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale.

I could tell that Harry was starting to panic and he was finding it difficult to concentrate in class again. Whenever we passed the lake, Harry stared at it apprehensively. With two days left, Harry started to go off food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the reply we got from Sirius. Harry pulled the parchment off the owl's leg and unrolled it. I read over Harry's shoulder what had to be the shortest letter Sirius had ever written to him.

Send date of next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl.

Harry turned the parchment over and looked at the back, obviously hoping to see something else, but it was blank.

"Weekend after next," whispered Hermione, who'd read the note over Harry's shoulder. "Here — take my quill and send this owl back straight away."

Harry scribbled the dates down on the back of Sirius's letter, tied it onto the brown owl's leg, and as we watched it take flight again, I noted Harry's anxious expression.

"What's he want to know about the next Hogsmeade weekend for?" said Ron.

"You don't think he wants to actually come to see us, do you?" I asked nervously.

"Dunno," said Harry dully. "Come on... Care of Magical Creatures."

Whether Hagrid was trying to make up for the Blast-Ended Skrewts, or because there were now only two skrewts left, or because he was trying to prove he could do anything that Professor Grubbly-Plank could, I didn't know, but Hagrid had been continuing her lessons on unicorns ever since he'd returned to work. It turned out that Hagrid knew just as much about unicorns as he did about monsters, though it was clear that he found their lack of poisonous fangs disappointing.

Today he had managed to capture two unicorn foals. Unlike full-grown unicorns, they were pure gold. Parvati and Lavender went into transports of delight at the sight of them, and even Pansy Parkinson had to work hard to conceal how much she liked them.

"Easier ter spot than the adults," Hagrid told the class. "They turn silver when they're abou' two years old, an' they grow horns at aroun' four. Don' go pure white till they're full grown, 'round about seven. They're a bit more trustin' when they're babies .. . don mind boys so much.... C'mon, move in a bit, yeh can pat 'em if yeh want. . . give 'em a few o' these sugar lumps. . . . "

"You guys," I told Parvati, Lavender, and Hermione as we pet the unicorns and fed them sugar cubes, "If any of you gets me a baby unicorn for my next birthday, I promise to love you forever."