The World Beyond

Chapter Ten: 'Care of Magical Creatures'

In his hurry to get ready for class, which he now realized would be starting in half an hour, Harry skipped a shower and decided to suffice with washing his face and changing his clothes. Twenty minutes later, he made one more check with the mirror and now saw just how horrid the dark circles under his eyes made him look. Knowing there was nothing to be done about it now, he ran a comb briefly through his hair, abandoned it as an unsuccessful attempt, grabbed his books for class, and hurried out of his dormitory.

On his way out of the dormitory, Harry's eyes glinted briefly off the trunk sitting at the end of his bed. Though he remembered closing it securely, he thought it looked as though the lid might be slightly ajar. Knowing he didn't have the time for a closer look, Harry passed it off as a trick of the imagination due to lack of sleep and made his way to the staircase.

Harry took the steps towards the common room two at a time and quickly found himself in the still-empty room. He knew everyone else was already en route to class; if he didn't get moving as well, he would be late.

Slipping out the portrait hole, Harry set off at a quick pace towards the front doors of the castle. He had Care of Magical Creatures first; Harry had been happy to find that this Hagrid was very similar to the one he knew. What made the class even better than his old one, though, was that the Gryffindors had it alone. There were no Slytherins there to bring down his day.

Turning quickly down a corridor and setting his foot onto the first step of a staircase, he saw what looked like Colin Creevey whizzing by. A moment later, as the boy disappeared out of sight, he heard Professor Black's voice calling, "Mr. Creevey." Harry heard Colin's footsteps come to an abrupt stop and found himself hurrying down the staircase to see what was going on.

Professor Black was striding towards Colin, a vicious expression on his face. "I do believe, Mr. Creevey, that you were told, in fact ordered, not to be alone in the corridors. That'll be..."

Before Harry even knew what he was doing, he found himself jogging up behind Colin. "He wasn't alone, Professor. He was with me."

Black turned disbelieving eyes towards Harry. "While you were still halfway up the staircase?"

Harry gulped and glanced at Colin. "Well, I... I stopped to tie my shoe. Colin must not have noticed, and he got ahead of me. I should've told him..."

"Yes. You should have." Professor Black didn't look like he was fooled, but seemed to drop the matter. "Get on to your class, then, boys. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but don't let it happen again."

Professor Black turned away and quickly disappeared down a nearby hallway. Colin turned to Harry and let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Harry. I owe you big time."

"It's nothing," Harry waved him off. "Just one Gryffindor helping another. Anyway, it would have only been five points off or something."

"Still," Colin countered. "Don't want to get on Black's bad side anytime, but especially not now."

"Very true."

Colin glanced at a watch that had been hidden under his robes. "Damn. Five till. We'll never get there in time. Why can't Professor Hagrid teach his class in the castle, like any normal teacher?"

Harry laughed to himself and said, "Well, he wouldn't very well be able to bring all of his animals into the castle, would he? Hippogriffs, unicorns, and such?"

"I suppose," Colin conceded. "But, this is a magical place. Surely they could work something out."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe."

"Or else," Colin said, as if a light had turned on in his head, "they could teach us to apparate from first year, and we could get there that way."

Harry laughed to himself. "I thought you couldn't apparate or disapparate inside Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, that's right. You know, you sounded like Hermione just then," Colin said. As he mentioned Hermione's name, he blushed slightly. Had Harry not been looking right at the other boy, he probably wouldn't have noticed it, but as he was, he began to wonder if maybe it hadn't been Hermione who Colin had been dressing up for when they went to Hogsmeade. As the thought occurred to him, Harry realized he wasn't sure he liked the idea.

The boys pushed the castle doors open and made their way into the bright daylight. Harry shielded his eyes from the sun as Colin squinted and they both glanced in the direction of their first class.

"Harry," Colin began, "what was your Care of Magical Creatures class like? At your old school, I mean?"

Harry thought for a second. "A lot like this class, actually."

"Was your old professor anything like Hagrid?"

"Oh, quite a bit." Harry tried to suppress a laugh, but found he couldn't. Luckily, Colin didn't seem to read anything in to it.

Colin wrinkled up his nose in thought. "Did he have a thing for, you know, strange animals, too? I mean, I know this is the magical world, so I can't expect it to be all cats and dogs and goldfish, but, really, are blast-ended skrewts necessary?"

Their eyes now fully adjusted to the bright morning sunlight, the two boys made their way companionably towards their first class of the day. Harry was thinking to himself that it seemed all half-giants named Hagrid had a penchant for torturing their students with large, dangerous magical beasts when he realized that Colin was still talking to him. Turning to face the other boy, he caught the tail end of his question.

"... anything like this?"

"What?" Harry asked.

Colin turned to look at Harry, having not noticed that his friend had not been paying attention. "Oh, sorry. I was just wondering, you've told everyone here so little about your other school. What was it like there?"

Harry turned and focused on his feet, wanting to avoid this question at all costs. He kicked a rock along the path in front of them. Unable to think of anything better to say, he muttered, "I'd really rather not talk about it."

Both boys watched as the rock skipped along the dirt and came to a quick halt at the base of a small tree. "Okay, then." Colin found a new rock and kicked it out in front of him. It rolled a few feet and when the boys caught up to it, Harry gave it another kick forward, continuing the makeshift game of football. "Well, do you mind me asking why you changed schools?"

Colin sent the rock bouncing forward again as Harry sighed. He shook his head softly and replied, "It wasn't by choice, I can tell you that. Certain... circumstances... made it where I couldn't go back to my old school."

"Do you miss it?"

Harry, lost in thought, stumbled over the rock that it was his turn to kick. He glanced back at the culprit that had nearly made him fall, and then left it behind and found a new one to kick. "Yeah, I guess I do. It's been a while since I've really had time to think about it, I guess. I mean, there's been so much going on, getting used to being here. And everyone here has been so nice to me. Well," Harry amended, "almost everyone."

"Not the Slytherins," Colin agreed with a cough, having accidentally kicked some dirt up towards his face.

"Definitely not the Slytherins."

Colin nodded. "They can be pretty terrible to me, too. At least you're not a muggle born - or are you?" Harry shook his head no. "Yeah. And they're really horrid towards Hermione. She really gets it the worst. It's terrible, sometimes I just want to smack them..." Colin emphasized his anger by sending the rock flying with a powerful kick. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Luckily, it's only Potions we have with them. To think if we had this class with them! I hear they're just as bad to Professor Hagrid, about his being half-giant and all."

"Are they really?"

Colin nodded quickly. "Especially that Weasley. Thinks he's king of the school, just because his father is so high up in the Ministry."

Harry shuddered inwardly at the mention of Ron's name. In the few months that had passed since his arrival, he had become accustomed to a multitude of things: Sirius a free man and a professor, Hermione an insecure, untalented young witch, and even Colin as a friend. The one thing he hadn't been able to reconcile with his memories of his past life, however, was the idea of Ron Weasley turning out to be just like Draco Malfoy.

He poked gently at a new rock with the toe of his shoe, sending it rolling a few inches ahead. Colin cut in and stole the rock away with a show of skill that made Harry think he might have played football, pre-Hogwarts, and gave it a strong kick into the air. The boys both looked up to watch its flight and were surprised to see that they were right outside Hagrid's hut. The rest of the class was already there and waiting.

Colin gasped in horror as he realized the rock he had kicked was heading on a direct path for their Professor's head. Hagrid was facing away from them, so Harry shushed Colin and pulled him towards their classmates. Both boys released gasps of relief as the rock fell to the ground just short of their Professor and tumbled unnoticed between his legs.

Dean snickered at the two of them as they came to stand next to him. "Close call, that one, eh?"

As the three boys laughed to themselves, Hagrid turned to face the class and smiled to see the new arrivals. "Good, everyone here." As he had done before every class they had had so far, the professor pulled an attendance sheet from his oversized pocket and glanced through it quickly. Satisfied, he crumpled it slightly more than it had already been as he shoved it back into his pocket.

"Professor," Neville piped up. "What'll we be studying now? We have finished with the skrewts, haven't we?"

"Aye, we have," Hagrid confirmed and the class made no effort to suppress their sigh of relief. Hagrid seemed oblivious. "I had planned on moving to dragons next, but as Professor McGonagall has still not agreed to let me keep one at the school, that has been put off yet again. Don't know what her bother is. I could keep perfect care of it, been studying them ever since I was..."

"Professor," Neville interrupted.

Hagrid turned to the boy and suddenly seemed to remember his previous question. "Right, what to study next. A fine question that is, m'boy. Come along class."

Turning again and waving for everyone to follow, Hagrid made his way around to the other side of his cabin. The students hurried behind him, Neville in front as always, and the Patil twins bringing up the rear, treading carefully over the tall grass. They were watching their steps as they went; Harry assumed they were checking for animal droppings. He reckoned it was probably not a bad idea to do so, but found that he couldn't bring himself to care too much about what he got on his shoes.

As they rounded the cabin en masse, a pair of hippogriffs could be seen grazing happily in the pen just behind. Harry saw another one that he thought looked like a baby playing happily in the distance.

"Hippogriffs again?" Seamus questioned, though he didn't sound disappointed. Harry knew they were all thrilled, at the very least, to be done with their last project. "We did those before, in third year."

"Our lesson was cut short," Hagrid responded gruffly. Seamus didn't say another word on the matter, so Harry figured this must have explained a lot to the boy. He, however, was in the dark. A slightly mournful look on his face, Hagrid continued, "We're going to spend some time studying these two hippogriffs, in depth. This will be a group project for this class, and only this class. You two," he indicated Harry and Colin, "take Clover there. Longbottom and Granger, join them. The rest of ye," he indicated the four remaining students, "will work with Striker here."

Harry heard one of the twins, he thought it was Parvati, gasp, "Striker? They get Clover and we get Striker?"

Harry, Colin, Hermione, and Neville made their way to the hippogriff designated Clover as Harry thought to himself that Buckbeak had been a wholly more interesting name for an animal like this.

"Just get to know them for now," Hagrid called as he beckoned the baby hippogriff in his direction. Harry saw what looked like a tear running down the half-giants face, but it was hard to tell as it quickly got lost in his beard.

"Harry," Neville called his attention back to their group, "did you study hippogriffs at your old school at all?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. In third year. Until an... an incident... happened."

"Here, too," Colin said. "It was the best thing we had studied in Care of Magical Creatures, until the slimy Slytherins had to go and screw it up."

"Don't you think it's fitting how 'slimy Slytherin' just flows so nicely?" Neville said with a smirk.

Harry was looking at Hagrid again and now saw for certain that the professor was crying to himself as he ran his hands over the baby hippogriff's coat. He realized that the baby maybe wasn't so young as he had originally thought; it looked to be a year or two at the least.

"What happened?" Harry asked. "I mean, in third year. Did you have class with the Slytherins back then?"

Colin shook his head. "Thank God, no. We've only ever had Potions with them. And like I said, that's more than bad enough."

"So, what did happen?"

Neville glanced around warily, as if expecting a so-called 'slimy Slytherin' to be sneaking around and listening. Confirming that no one else was within hearing range, he began, "It wasn't even in class time. And I don't know exactly what happened, but I saw a bit of it. It was Gryffindor's Quidditch practice time, but somehow things got mixed up, and Ravenclaw had the field. So we came to practice flying around a bit over on that field," he indicated an area just past the pen where the hippogriffs were being held. "Then, we heard this yelp, coming from this direction. Wood... Oliver Wood, that is, our old keeper, was the closest and he caught them before they could get away. It was Weasley and Malfoy, hiding around here to spy on us."

"What does that have to do with Hagrid?"

Colin picked up where Neville left off. "One of the hippogriffs, his name was Buckbeak, took a bite out of Weasley's arm." Harry tried not to let any recognition show on his face at the mention of the hippogriff's name. "Well, not bite so much as nip. Didn't want him spying on us, I guess. And he really wasn't hurt that much, either..."

Neville, clearly not liking not being the center of attention, butted back in, "So, Weasley took it to dear old Daddy - of course. His father made a big fuss about it, there was a trial, long story short: the hippogriff got the axe. Literally."

Harry heard Hermione sniff behind him and turned to see her wiping a tear from her cheek.

"Just like that?" Harry turned back to Colin and Neville. "He wasn't even hurt, but they execute Buckbeak just like that?" he asked, though he knew very well just how easily things like that could happen.

"With men like Arthur Weasley involved," Neville spat the name, "all kinds of things can happen."

"The incident at your school," Colin piped up. Harry was beginning to feel that this boy was all too interested in his past. "What happened there?"

Harry shrugged. "Similar, really. A boy got bit, but he wasn't hurt. His dad made a fuss, but the hippogriff..." Harry was about to say 'got away', but reworded quickly, "got off."

"That's good," Hermione said with a smile. "No one like rotten old Weasley to force the hippogriff to die." She sounded forceful and bitter and Harry wondered if she hadn't tried to help Hagrid win the hippogriff's trial, as the Hermione from his world had. He determined to come up with a way to ask her about that later.

"Oi!" The four of them whirled around to see Hagrid standing a few feet away from them. "Get to work, will you! You're supposed to be gettin' to know Clover."

All nodding quickly, they turned to the hippogriff who looked slightly disgruntled at having been ignored. "Hope he didn't hear us," Colin muttered.

After having spent a full class period trying to get to know an animal that didn't have much interest in getting to know them, the fifth year Gryffindor students were more than ready to move on to their next class. Colin had commandeered Hermione's attention the moment the class was dismissed and Harry found himself walking back towards the castle with Neville.

"It really is a shame about that hippogriff," Neville said, offhandedly. "I mean, I'm not so fond of the animals myself, but it's a shame that men like Arthur Weasley can get anything they want done like that."

Harry nodded his agreement. "Is he really that bad?"

"Weasley? He's worse. My father - he's an auror, you know." Harry found himself nodding along, though he didn't think he did know. Neville continued, "Well, he knows Weasley. From work and all. Knows the older kid, too, Percy. Says they're both scum. And tells me not to repeat that, but come on, everyone knows. Dad's wary of anything they do. Doesn't trust either of them."

"Does Mr. Weasley work with the aurors?"

"Sort of. Indirectly. He's the head of the Committee for Justice for Wizards Accused of Dark Magic. Used to be the Committee for the Disposal of Dark Wizards, but he had it changed," Neville said with a knowing laugh. "Didn't like the name painting his mates in a bad light, I'd say. Anyway, my dad thinks he uses that position to get his friends off."

"Does he?"

Neville nodded. "Not that I'd know, of course, only being a lowly student. But I'd say he does. He gets Azkaban-bound wizards a get-out-of-hell free card, and brings an axe down on an innocent hippogriff's neck. I ask you, where is the justice?"

Harry shook his head. "It's awful."

"It is," Neville agreed. "Of course, we in Gryffindor had a private funeral for Buckbeak. Invited Hagrid and all."

"A funeral?"

"Sure. As hippogriffs go, he was a good one. Took a nip out of a Weasley. He played sick for a month and missed a Quidditch game. We had to honor the fellow, didn't we?"

Harry laughed. "Of course."

Neville slowed his pace suddenly and let the other Gryffindor students get well ahead of him. Reaching out, he grabbed Harry's arm and stopped the other boy next to him. Once the other students were all inside, he turned to Harry. "We need to talk about something." His sunny demeanor of a moment ago was gone.

"Okay," Harry said nervously.

"I was looking around in your trunk this morning. I know, I know, I shouldn't have been," he defended himself, arms raised in surrender, before Harry could even comment. "I just wanted to have another look at your Firebolt..."

"You can't be looking through my trunk! I have private things there!" Harry was really quite upset. His textbooks that he was supposed to keep hidden were in the trunk. He didn't want to find himself getting into trouble with McGonagall over something like that.

Neville snorted and raised an eyebrow. "I'll say. I found a History of Magic book in there. Looked just like any normal one, on the cover." Harry gulped, knowing that Neville had looked inside. "Funnily, enough, it had a very strange history printed within. I didn't read it all - come on, it is boring old history - but I flipped through a few pages. You were mentioned, d'you know that? I'm sure you do." He smirked. "Anyway. It said something about you defeating a Voldemort. Funny name, if you ask me. And it listed a whole lot of things that anyone in their right mind knows full well never happened. Surely you've noticed, Potter, that many here think you're a bit, shall we say, not in your right mind. I thought maybe they were just being mean and, you know, Slytherin-ish. Till I saw this. Quite a fantasy life, you have there, Harry." He paused and waited for a response.

"A fantasy..." And suddenly Harry realized his escape. Neville thought the book he had found was all some strange fantasy had Harry had concocted for himself. Odd as that made him sound, it was certainly better than Neville finding out the truth.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Neville had a mocking grin on his face.

Harry ducked his head in supposed shame, hoping he was a decent actor, and allowed Neville to think what he wanted.

"So, I suppose now we have to talk about what you're going to do for me so as I don't feel the need to tell everyone about this."

Harry's eyes widened. "Are you blackmailing me?"

"Blackmail is such a vulgar term," Neville said. Harry thought the expression on his face made the other boy look like he would be a better fit for Slytherin House than Gryffindor. "But, if that's what you want to call it. Unless you want me to tell..."

Harry most certainly didn't. It was bad enough with just Neville having seen the book.

"So, here's the deal. You let me use your Firebolt for Quidditch games, and I don't tell anyone about your little book."

Harry tried not to let his face break immediately into a smile at this suggested deal, lest Neville decide he needed to make the conditions harsher. "Well, if you promise not to go looking through my trunk ever again? And the broom stays in my trunk in between matches?"

"Deal." Neville grinned. "Come on, we've got to get to Charms now." As he charged up the steps, Neville had returned to being the friendly person he had been in Care of Magical Creatures.

Harry hung back for a moment, thinking. He had been planning to offer the broomstick to Neville anyway, so he had gotten the better side of the deal. Still, he decided, he might ought to talk to Professor McGonagall about doing something better with the books.

He found a large rock sitting in front of his left foot and, remembering his little football game with Colin, gave it a fierce kick. The rock hit the castle wall with a thud and fell abandoned to the ground. Harry couldn't understand Neville; one moment the fellow Gryffindor was a great friend, the next he was as obnoxious and conniving as a Slytherin.

Harry heard the castle door slam shut and looked up. Neville, the last of the other Gryffindors, had disappeared inside. With a shake of his head in frustration, Harry jogged up the steps and through the doors, not wanting to be late for his second class of the day.

To be continued...

Scenes from Chapter Nine: 'Return to Hogsmeade'

- In many ways, the man looked just like how he remembered his old Potions professor. He had black hair, pale skin, and a hooked nose. But, in contrast to all that seemed normal to Harry, this Snape looked as though he had actually washed his hair in the recent past and, even more shocking, he was smiling.

- "It's the latest Remus Lupin romance. Lupin," - she stabbed at the author's name with her finger - "Ring any bells? Most famous trashy romance novelist in the wizarding world?"

"So, he's written... lots of these books?"

Hermione rolled her eyes again. "Yeah, presumably. How do you think he's gotten famous? Well, the books are part of it, but I suppose there's also who he's dating."

- Weasley pushed between the other two boys and stormed right up to Lily. Harry was surprised and pleased to see that she didn't look intimidated in the least. Weasley, on the other hand, looked enraged by this.

"What do you think you're doing here, you filthy mudblood?"