Loved & Misunderstood (HP) {Book 1 of the Wild & Free Series}

5. Buckbeak

Note: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, only Liana, Lucy and Yara. The Harry Potter rights go to the amazing J.K. Rowling
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I was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch. Yesterday's rain had cleared; the sky was a clear, pale gray, and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as we set off for our first ever Care of Magical Creatures class.

Ron and Hermione weren't speaking to each other. Harry and I walked beside them in silence as we went down the sloping lawns to Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It was only when I spotted three only-
too-familiar backs ahead of them that I realised we must be having these lessons with the Slytherins. Malfoy was talking animatedly to Crabbe and Goyle, who were chortling. I was quite sure I knew what they were talking about.

Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.

"C'mon, now, get a move on!" he called as the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"

We walked right at the Forbidden Forest and for one nasty moment, I was scared we were going to spend our first lesson there. However, Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, we found ourselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there.

"Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" Hagrid called. "That's it -- make sure yeh can see -- now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books --"

"How?" said the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.

"Eh?" said Hagrid.

"How do we open our books?" Malfoy repeated. He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out too; some, like me, had belted their
book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.

"Hasn' -- hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.
The class all shook their heads.

"Yeh've got ter stroke 'em," said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Look --"

He took Hermione's copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.

"Oh, how silly we've all been!" Malfoy sneered. "We should have stroked them! why didn't we guess!"

"I -- I thought they were funny," Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione.

"Oh, tremendously funny!" said Malfoy. "Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!"

"Shut up, Malfoy," I snapped.

"Righ' then," said Hagrid, who seemed to have lost his thread, "so -- so yeh've got yer books an' -- an' - - now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I'll go an' get 'em. Hang on... "

He strode away from us into the forest and out of sight.

"God, this place is going to the dogs," said Malfoy loudly. "That oaf teaching classes, my father'll have a fit when I tell him."