08| OF SKREWTS AND BOUNCING FERRETS
The storm had subsided the next morning, but the cold still nipped at her skin as Gemini traversed down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid's small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Now, Gemini — who had extremely sensitive skin, had her nose and cheeks blossoming with a light pink colour. The fact that her skin was pale only enhanced the pink, and Gemini was tired of being 'awwwed' at by Draco since morning.
Galleon, who she carried in her arms, rubbed his snout against her cheek affectionately, trying to convince her to let him go. She laughed softly at him but dismissed his plea.
As the lush green forest came into sight, Galleon gave a great lurch and Gemini couldn't hold him back. He scurried around on the freshly watered, green ground, and then tilted his snout up to ask for Twig, who had been napping in Gemini's hair the entire journey, finding it akin to a warm bed. Gemini picked him off her head and he woke up with a squeal.
"C'mon, Twig," she whispered to him, "time to wake up."
Chuckling, she handed him over to Galleon, who safely put the bowtruckle in his pocket, and nuzzled Gemini's leg once before shooting off to find his lair of stolen fortunes. As Gemini leisurely travelled down the slope, Blaise appeared by her side, his hands in his pockets, just like her.
Blaise and Gemini had what one would call something between friendship and being acquaintances. They were both not interested in having a friend — they were better off alone, and perhaps their similarity was what brought them on good terms with each other, and also what prevented Gemini from being involved with him in something more than friendship.
Another comparatively more valid reason was that Blaise, though a complete gentleman most of the time, could be a huge pervert when he so desired, and Gemini was his usual prey.
So Blaise, being his usual self, casually removed one of Gemini's hands from her pocket and reached into it instead to pull out her watch. Wrapping the chain around his palm, he examined the brass metal.
"What..."
"It's ancient, why do you keep it?" he said.
Gemini sighed and stretched out both her hands, unwrapping the chain and taking back the watch. "It's none of your concern," she replied, pocketing her watch again as the other Slytherins caught up and they arrived at their destination where Hagrid was already speaking about some unfamiliar creatures in some open wooden crates at his feet.
They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. The "Blast-Ended Skrewts", as Hagrid called them, were each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They gave off a very powerful smell of rotting fish.
"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.
"Depends," he smiled coyly, copying her actions as she reached him, "Can you win?"
"Let's find out," said Gemini. She grabbed a frog liver like it was a trivial thing, and dropped it precisely in front of a skrewt, but as she went to pull her hand back, Draco pushed it towards the end of a skrewt as it blasted.
She hissed, retracting her now burnt hand.
Draco gasped dramatically at her as several students looked at them. "Is that a burn, Gemini?" he taunted her, his eyes filled with vitriolic content.
Gemini glared at him, clutching her hand tightly, which was now acquiring a shade of scarlet, the colour standing out starkly against her skin. A vengeful look burned behind her eyes as she grabbed his hand and thrust it towards the crate. He jumped back with a scream as he got blasted twice.
"Is that a burn, Draco?" Gemini gasped sarcastically at him. The Gryffindors roared with raucous laughter.
The entire class was staring at them now, exhilarated to have a better entertainment than feeding the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Draco seized her hand and plunged it into the box again, only this time, they both got blasted. Gemini's hand was quite numb now, slowly adapting to the pain. She shoved his hand into the crate with her good one. They continued like this for most of the class until Hagrid stomped over and put an end to their fun.
"WHAT DO YEH TWO THINK YER DOIN'?!" he bellowed.
"He started it!" said Gemini, childishly pointing at Draco. She pulled back her hand with a flinch as the full effect of the pain hit her.
Hagrid stared at both of their hands which were blackened with soot, the bruised skin underneath turning a dangerous shade of puce. "Ter the Hospital Wing! Now!" he growled. Draco sneered at him as he started walking away, Gemini following in his lead.
"That oaf, who does he think he is? Commanding us..." Draco muttered angrily.
Gemini rolled her eyes at him and kicked him in the shins, and he toppled over by the sheer force of it. She started laughing by instinct, and so did many other students behind them. He staggered up from the ground, fuming.
Gemini took a couple of steps back. "Am I in trouble?" she asked, and people snickered at her query. He lunged at her and her eyes widened as she ducked and started running in direction of the castle, with him close at her heel.
"Give me a break! I'm wearing a skirt!" were the last words Hagrid and the others heard from her before both she and Draco disappeared up the slope.
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Later that day, Gemini was descending the marble staircase to the Great Hall, cursing Draco. After their little game in Care of Magical Creatures, Madam Pomfrey had held them back in the infirmary till she was done healing their hands completely, which was right up until dinner. However, as Gemini's skin was more delicate, she had been held back a while longer than Draco despite her protests that her injuries didn't need much tending.
She dawdled into the entrance hall, re-reading her Potions textbook, not paying attention to her surroundings until something soft and furry grazed her ankles. She shut her book and looked down, finding a pure white ferret circling around her feet, squeaking loudly.
"Oh, hey! A ferret!" she smiled and bent down and picked it up in her arms. It snuggled up to her, clutching her desperately.
"PUT IT DOWN!" a furious voice shouted at her.
She looked up sharply and her eyes found Alastor Moody.
"Why?" she blinked impassively, recognising his offensive stance. She ran a finger down the ferret's spine habitually, as she did with Galleon.
"PUT IT DOWN, LASS!" he repeated, all eyes on them now.
"Gemini," Blaise coughed, his eyes darting between her and Moody. "just leave it,"
Frowning at him, she put down the ferret and went over to Blaise, the ferret trying to scurry back to her.
"I don't think so!" roared Moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again — it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.
Gemini took a step forward to defend the poor animal, but Blaise pulled her back. "Don't," he said, "that's not a real ferret, that's Draco."
Gemini blinked a couple of times but masked her shock smoothly.
"I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned," growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. Gemini thought she would have been alright with the sight if the boy was in his real form instead of that of an animal. "Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do...."
The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly. "Never — do — that — again —" said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again.
"Professor Moody!" said a shocked voice.
Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.
"Hello, Professor McGonagall," said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.
"What — what are you doing?" said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret's progress through the air.
"Teaching," said Moody.
"Teach — Moody, is that a student?" shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.
"Yep," said Moody.
Gemini put her hand over her mouth to cover her snicker at his blatant confirmation.
"No!" cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly pink face. He got to his feet, wincing. "Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!" said Professor McGonagall weakly. "Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?"
"He might've mentioned it, yeah," said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, "but I thought a good sharp shock —"
"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!"
"I'll do that, then," said Moody, staring at Draco with great dislike.
Draco, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words "my father" were distinguishable.
"Oh yeah?" said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. "Well, I know your father of old, boy... You tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son... you tell him that from me... Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, will it?"
"Yes," said Draco resentfully.
"Another old friend," growled Moody. "I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape... Come on, you...." And he seized Draco's upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.
Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms, and hurried through the doors of the Great Hall.
Gemini broke the silence that lingered in the hall after Professor McGonagall's departure.
"What a shame," she clucked her tongue. "I preferred him as a ferret."
From across the hall, a very particular green-eyed boy chortled thoughtlessly at her words, accidentally meeting her grey ones. She winked at him with a small smile and his laughter ceased forthwith. With the smile still playing at her lips, she opened the book in her arms to the right page and progressed into the Great Hall.