𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍 - 𝐡.𝐩.

08 | Of Skrewts And Bouncing Ferrets

"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. Gemini tore her eyes away from the admittedly repulsing sight of the Blast-Ended Skrewts and looked at Draco, who had spoken. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.

Hagrid looked stumped at the question.

"I mean, what do they do?" asked Draco. "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."

Gemini directed her eyes back to the skrewts as sparks flew out of the end of a skrewt, and it propelled forward several inches with a small phut. She had never seen something quite as extraordinary as this. Despite having highly educated herself in the field of magical creatures, she couldn't figure out what creature it was. However, she regarded the action as something similar to the defensive mechanism of the endangered fire crab.

Complying with Hagrid's instructions, Gemini went over to a crate and picked up a few ant eggs, dropping them in front of the skrewts cautiously. The rest of the class joined slowly.

"Ouch!" yelled Dean Thomas 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. "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 Draco sarcastically, who was tending to some skrewts on Gemini's side. "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 Granger snapped. "Dragon blood's amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?"

"I would," Gemini murmured, but Draco heard her.

"You want a dragon as a pet?" he asked her in an incredulous tone.

"More of a companion," she corrected him. His expression remained unchanged. "It's a dragon!" she tried to justify.

"Exactly," he said.

Gemini rolled her eyes and turned back to her crate, picking up the skin of a grass snake for improvisation. She carefully probed the skrewts for a whole ten minutes before her concentration was broken by Draco's muttering.

She halted her movements and stared at him, watching the way he was throwing mass amounts of squelchy frog livers into his crate.

"Don't kill them just yet," Gemini told him, and Blaise tried to disguise his laugh as a cough at her comment. Several students snickered.

"As if you can do any better," he scoffed at Gemini.

"Is that a challenge?" she said, straightening up and walking towards him.