If You Love Something... Let It Go.

Walking down to Hagrid’s hut for their Care of Magical Creatures class was a cold and dreary thing for us to do that day. As Harry, Ron and I reached Professor Grubbly-Plank we heard a loud shout of laughter from behind us. We turned to see Draco Malfoy striding towards us with his stupid cronies following him. ‘Can’t that boy go anywhere without those buffoons?’ I thought to myself. They kept laughing and looking at Harry, making it obvious as to what Malfoy’s joke was about. I also noticed that Draco kept looking at me, probably to see if I was going to curse him. On one occasion that I caught him looking at me I glared at him, showing him that I was not impressed with his taunting, this just caused him to narrow his eyes at me.

“Everyone here?” Barked Professor Grubbly-Plank once everyone had arrived. “Let’s crack on then. Who can tell me what these things are called?” she said indicating to a stack of twigs in front of her. Hermione and I put our hands up in the air, I saw Draco mimicking Hermione so I glared at him once again, and he stopped as soon as he saw me glaring at him. Pansy shrieked in laughter which caused the sticks to jump up into the air, causing her to them scream. The twigs then revealed themselves to be what looked like tiny pixie-ish creatures made of wood.

“Ooooooh!” said Parvati and Lavender, which irritated me beyond belief but looking at Harry’s face I could tell I wasn’t the only one that found them insufferable.

“Kindly keep your voices down, girls!” Professor GP said sharply, I hated calling her by her full last name, it is just too bloody long, and so I shortened it to GP when she first substituted for Hagrid. “So – anyone know the names of these creatures? Miss Granger?” Hermione looked at each other, both our hands raised.

“Which one?” we said unison.

“Hermione dears.” She replied. She must have a thing for the Gryffindor’s.

“Bowtruckles,” said Hermione. “They’re tree-guardians, usually found in wand-trees.”

“Five points to Gryffindor,” said Professor GP. “Yes, these are Bowtruckles, and as Miss Granger rightly says, they generally live in trees whose wood is of wand quality. Anybody know what they eat?”

“Woodlice,” I said which told everyone why the brown rice was moving “but fairy eggs if they can get them.”

“Good girl, five points for Ravenclaw. So, whenever you need leaves or wood…” I zoned out right about then not really caring about Bowtruckles. I zoned back in when everyone started moving forward to grab a Bowtruckle.

I heard Harry ask about Hagrid, which was followed by Draco’s voice.

“Maybe,” he started in an undertone, so that only Harry and I could hear him. “the stupid great oaf’s got himself badly injured.”

“Maybe you will if you don’t shut up.” Both Harry and I said that the same time.

The class continued on like normal, with nothing more out of Draco. It was boring, that is until Harry nearly snapped a Bowtruckle in half and so it defended itself by slicing his finger open. I couldn’t help but laugh at his misfortune, and that got the attention of Draco, who looked at me, wondering why I was laughing. That was until I helped Harry, then his eyes narrowed at me. We all started back up the castle not long after I wasn’t paying much attention to the people around me, not focusing on their conversation. I was too busy wondering about a stupid little ferret boy and why he kept looking at me the way he did. We split up when we reached the castle I went searching for Bailey who didn’t show up for class.