Harmless and Easily Domesticated

The Chizpurfles

Harry had just added a pinch of shredded starchwort to his cauldron and was reaching for a lungfish liver, when --

PLOP!

His first thought was that Malfoy had thrown a Shrivelfig at him. His second thought was that that was the largest, roundest, plumpest Shrivelfig he'd ever seen in his life. His third thought was that Shrivelfigs didn't have legs.

'Blimey,' said Ron, peering into Harry's cauldron, 'what's that?'

Hermione leant over to have a look and jumped back with a squeak of horror.

'It's a Chizpurfle!'

'What, those things Hagrid showed us last lesson?' said Ron. 'No way, it's massive ...'

As Ron had predicted, their most recent Care of Magical Creatures class had not been Bowtruckles. Instead Hagrid brought a jar of Chizpurfles -- small, crab-shaped insects that fed on a variety of magical substances, most notably the blood of other magical creatures. But those Chizpurfles had been tiny, barely a twentieth of an inch high. The thing in Harry's cauldron was nearly as big as a Snitch.

'And what is it, pray tell, that makes Mr Potter's work so much more fascinating than your own?' said a soft, dangerous voice behind them. Whilst Harry, Ron and Hermione were engrossed in the Chizpurfle, Professor Snape had stalked over to their table.

'That,' said Harry, pointing into the cauldron.

When Snape beheld the Chizpurfle, his face took on an expression of loathing of the sort that he normally bestowed only on Harry.

'Stand back!' he snapped.

Once the three of them were well clear, Snape whipped out his wand and muttered a spell. Harry's potion erupted and the Chizpurfle shot skywards, ricocheting off the ceiling to land on the table where Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass were working. The pair of them retreated shrieking to the opposite side of the room, knocking over a jar of peccary bristles in their haste to get away.

Snape swished about and took aim again, but the Chizpurfle leapt off the table just ahead of his hex. Things continued in this manner for some time, Snape jabbing with his wand and hissing curses as the Chizpurfle bounced from wall to wall. Students scattered in its wake; cauldrons were overturned and a number of Snape's jars of horrible things were smashed. The Potions master himself grew steadily more enraged.

Finally Snape got hold of himself. He stood quite still, panting with fury, and waited for the Chizpurfle to settle down. At last it came to rest on a shelf behind his desk. Snape crept slowly forward, wand at the ready. At the edge of the desk he drew to halt and in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper said, 'Avada Kedavra.'

In a flash of emerald light the Chizpurfle exploded, spraying the front of the room in general and Snape in particular with foul-smelling liquid. Not even pausing to clean himself up, Snape stormed over to the store-cupboard and took out what appeared to be a crock of honey. He set it on his desk, pulled off the lid, tapped it with his wand and said, 'Accio Chizpurfles.'

Black specks of varying sizes converged on the crock from all around the room. A noticeable quantity of them emerged from Snape's slime-drenched robes and hair, but after the way he'd dealt with the first Chizpurfle not even Ron was brave enough to snigger at him.

That night in the Great Hall, Harry, Ron and Hermione saw Snape stop to have a word with Hagrid at the staff table. Snape looked wrathful; Hagrid was making placating gestures with his enormous hands. They could easily guess what that was about.

'You really can't blame Professor Snape for being upset,' said Hermione ('Just watch me,' muttered Ron). 'Chizpurfle infestations can destroy a Potions laboratory if they aren't brought under control quickly enough. The one in your cauldron must have been scoffing ingredients to get the size it did.'

After the meal, the three of them waited for Hagrid in the Entrance Hall to find out exactly how much trouble he was in.

'Nah, Professor Snape wasn' too happy about the Chizpurfles,' said Hagrid, 'but I told him I knew a good private exterminator, an' I'd be sendin' him an owl firs' thing tomorrow mornin' ...'

Next evening at dinner, an extra chair had been added to the end of the staff table. Sitting in it was none other than Professor Lupin. A tide of shocked whispers swept over the Great Hall, because of course everyone third year and above knew that he was a werewolf.

'May I introduce Mr Remus Lupin, who has come to Hogwarts to deal with our recent pest control problem,' said Dumbledore brightly. 'He'll be working in various areas of the school over the next fortnight -- please give him every cooperation.'

In the days that followed, older students delighted in scaring younger ones with lurid and entirely made-up stories about Lupin's tenure as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

'Obvious, really, why the Ministry never caught Sirius Black,' Harry overheard Fred and George telling a group of petrified second-years. 'That night he was loose in the grounds, Professor Lupin ate him right up!'

Harry wished they wouldn't: Lupin was visibly hurt by the smaller students' fearfulness in his presence. Saturday morning, Harry, Ron and Hermione decided to pay him a visit to cheer him up. The Marauder's Map showed Lupin patrolling near the Slytherin common room, so they headed down the seven flights of stairs from Gryffindor Tower. As they were crossing the Entrance Hall, a tiny figure came pelting up from the dungeons sobbing hysterically and ran headlong into Hermione.

'It's Pagford, isn't it?' she said, helping the little first-year up from the floor. 'What's the matter?'

'V-Vincent!' wailed Pagford. 'The w-werewolf is eating him!'

Harry seized Pagford roughly by the collar, nearly lifting him off his feet.

'Professor Lupin wouldn't eat a student!' he snarled.

Pagford looked up, saw who it was and gave a moan of fright. Harry abruptly realised that he was bullying a boy who was scarcely half his size.

'Er -- sorry,' he said, releasing his grip on Pagford and tugging the minute Slytherin's robes straight.

'Harry's right, Jill,' said Hermione sternly (Harry abruptly realised he'd been bullying a girl who was scarcely half his size). 'Professor Lupin wouldn't eat a student. Now tell me what's really going on down there.'

'He is, he is!' shouted Pagford.

She bolted between Ron and Harry and went tearing up marble staircase. Hermione turned as if to go after her, then stopped.

'We'd better see if Professor Lupin's OK,' she said worriedly.

'Yeah,' said Ron. 'Wouldn't put it past Crabbe to try and eat him.'

Halfway down the dungeon corridor they met up with Crabbe and Lupin, and for a mad instant Harry thought Ron had been right. Crabbe's long, gorilla arms were wrapped tightly around Lupin's shoulders; his face was buried in Lupin's neck. Then Harry saw that Crabbe was crying. Huge, glistening tears streamed down his cheeks to soak Lupin's robes.

'Walk this way, there's a good lad ...' Lupin was saying as he attempted to usher the hulking fifth-year towards the staircase, without much success -- Crabbe was taller than he was and considerably heavier.

'Oi!' said Ron furiously. 'Leave him alone!

He sprinted over and dragged Crabbe off Lupin. Crabbe simply battened on to Ron and carried on howling.

'Gerroff me!' choked Ron.

He slammed Crabbe into the stone wall and punched him hard in the stomach.

'Ron, don't hurt him, he's not in his right mind!' said Lupin (unnecessarily in Harry's opinion, as Crabbe barely seemed to notice he'd been hit). 'We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey. Hermione, if you could work a Mobilicorpus Charm --'

'What is the meaning of this?'

At the foot of the stairs stood Professor Snape. From behind his billowing cloak, little Pagford was peeking out.

'Nothing serious, Severus,' said Lupin calmly. 'We're bringing Mr Crabbe to the hospital wing, he's been at my Glumbumble treacle.'

'You left it lying about for him to find?' spat Snape, his face twisted with hatred. 'You haven't learnt a thing, have you? Endangering students with your carelessness ... why Dumbledore let you back into this school, I'll never know ...'

'I shall certainly keep a sharper eye out in future,' said Lupin in a steady tone. 'But may I suggest that as Potions master you take stronger measures to drum into your students the dangers of tasting an unknown magical substance?'

Snape shot Lupin a murderous look and took the sobbing Crabbe by the arm.

'Come, Vincent,' he said, and swept off -- or rather, tried to sweep off. Snape had a somewhat easier job of bundling Crabbe along than Lupin as he was taller, but he was still fighting very much outside of his weight. The best he could manage was a fast stagger. Pagford trotted ahead of him, casting nervous glances back at Lupin and Harry.

When Snape was out of sight, Lupin sighed deeply, pulled a stone crock from his bag, opened it and said 'Accio Chizpurfles.'

'I expect I should have been more careful,' he said heavily, as one or two small black dots sailed towards the crock. 'But I'd only stepped away for a moment and I never imagined anyone might actually want to eat Glumbumble treacle ...'

Harry peered into the crock. The Glumbumble treacle bore a quite strong resemblance to troll snot: thick, cloudy, grey and speckled with the corpses of dead Chizpurfles.

'Definitely not,' said Harry. 'Snape was just being horrible.'

'Mind, I thought you were a bit hard on him,' Ron told Lupin.

Harry and Hermione gaped, and even Lupin looked mildly astonished. Ron standing up for Snape was rather like Voldemort applying to become an Auror.

Ron grinned at their expressions. 'Not Snape's fault those two idiots go around eating everything they see -- he's a Potions master, not a troll trainer!'