moon-struck....harry james potter

4.5| malfoy- the amazing bouncing ferret!

“Mornin’!” Hagrid said, grinning at Alex, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this — Blast-Ended Skrewts!”

“Come again?” said Ron. Hagrid pointed down into the crates.

“Eurgh!” squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward.

They 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 crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. 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. “On’y jus’ hatched" said Hagrid proudly, “so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!”

“And why would we want to raise them?” said a cold voice. The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words. Hagrid looked stumped at the question. “I mean, what do they do?” asked Malfoy. “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” muttered Seamus.

"Only doing this because I love you Hagrid" Alex muttered, picking up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lowering them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts.

“Ouch!” yelled Dean after about ten minutes. “It got me! Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious. “Its end exploded!” said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand.

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

“Eurgh!” said Lavender Brown again. “Eurgh, Hagrid, what’s that pointy thing on it?”

“Ah, some of ’em have got stings" said Hagrid 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”

“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive" said Malfoy sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”

“Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful” Hermione snapped. “Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?” Alex, Ron and Harry grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard.

"Are they really usefull?" Alex asked Hermione as the four of the made their way up to the castle for lunch.

"Of course not, I only said that to shut Malfoy up" 

They sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped themselves to lamb chops and potatoes. Hermione began to eat so fast that Harry, Alex and Ron stared at her.

“Er — is this the new stand on elf rights?” said Ron. “You’re going to make yourself puke instead?”

“No" said Hermione, with as much dignity as she could muster with her mouth bulging with sprouts. “I just want to get to the library"

“What?” said Ron in disbelief. “Hermione — it’s the first day back! We haven’t even got homework yet!” Hermione shrugged and continued to shovel down her food as though she had not eaten for days. Then she leapt to her feet.