Chapter 50. Inside Hagrid's Hut
By Friday, time had come round again.
For Harry, life at Hogwarts was growing more and more fulfilling.
At first, he'd worried he wouldn't be able to keep up with the other students.
After all, before he met Adrian Wesson, he'd known nothing about magic.
But once classes began, he realised it wasn't like that at all—even most students born to wizarding families hadn't received much formal magical education before starting school.
Never mind those, like him, who came from the Muggle world.
He was even ahead in a few subjects.
Still, he didn't get cocky.
Because he found that even students touching magic for the first time could do better than he did.
For example, the girl he'd met on the train, Hermione Granger, successfully cast the Levitation Charm in the very first Charms lesson.
What's more, her wandwork and incantation both looked more practised than his.
And he'd had to practise for the better part of half a day before he managed to make a feather wobble up from the desktop—and that was with other witches and wizards coaching him.
And not just in Charms, but in Herbology, Transfiguration...
Merlin, she was brilliant.
Aside from that, Harry had thought he'd stand out in Potions—Adrian had taught him the most about potions, after all.
However, that Potions Professor called Severus Snape...
While Harry was lost in thought, he finally arrived at Hagrid's hut.
As for why he was here—it was because he'd received an invitation from Hagrid to come by for tea.
By the way, he'd brought Ron along.
Harry raised his hand and knocked lightly on the door.
Heavy footsteps sounded at once from inside; then the door was yanked open and Hagrid's enormous silhouette filled the doorway.
"Come in, Harry!" Hagrid grinned, his thick beard giving a little tremble. His eyes slid to Ron beside Harry. "And another one of the Weasley lot, is it?"
Ron nodded timidly.
Hagrid's hut had only one room; though not large, it felt comforting.
There was a big bed in the corner, next to an oversized wooden table and chairs, with teacups and a heaping plate of oddly shaped biscuits on top.
Er… at least they looked like biscuits, and not something else.
Unexpectedly, there was already someone else in Hagrid's hut.
"Professor!" Harry blurted, staring in surprise at Adrian Wesson seated in a chair.
Adrian was bowing his head over a rock cake, working his teeth across its surface.
The thing might as well have been some stone reinforced by magic—after all that biting, he'd only managed to grind off a bit of powder.
Hearing Harry's voice, Adrian looked up and forced a somewhat stiff smile.
His jaw ached from all the chewing.
"Oh, Harry, you're here," Adrian said, sounding relieved. "And Mr Weasley."
"Er… hello, Professor." Ron offered a small greeting, his eyes straying to the cake in Adrian's hand.
Seeing this, Adrian casually broke off the untouched piece and handed it to Ron; then, while Hagrid went to pour the tea, he stuffed the bitten piece into Fang's mouth under the table.
Before long, Hagrid came back with a teapot, urging them on warmly: "Go on, sit, sit. I've just brewed a fresh pot—Professor Wesson brought the tea leaves! There are biscuits on the table—don't be shy, help yourselves!"
As he spoke, he poured each of them a cup of tea.
Since Adrian had claimed the chair, Harry and Ron chose to sit on the edge of Hagrid's big bed.
As for the biscuits, the three of them silently agreed to ignore them.
"Professor, what are you doing here?" Harry asked curiously.
Adrian picked up his teacup, blew on it, and said offhandedly, "Hagrid invited me. He's desperate to know how Torch is doing lately."
"Who wouldn't love Torch? Ah, that little darling..." Hagrid said, full of envy.
In fact, over the summer, Hagrid had written to Adrian almost every few days, all about Torch's condition.
Hearing that name, Ron's brow creased. He nudged Harry with his elbow and whispered, "Torch? What's that?"
Harry lowered his voice as well: "A baby dragon."
Ron's mouth fell open so wide you could almost have fit a whole rock cake in.
Seeing Ron's shocked look, Harry couldn't help but smile and went on, "Professor Wesson keeps a dragon at home. When the holidays come, I can take you to see it."
Ron's expression immediately turned complicated.
How… how could Harry talk about keeping a dragon as casually as keeping a dog?
Was it his understanding of dragons that was off?
Adrian took a sip of tea and said unhurriedly, "Torch is growing fast—Lupin's been looking after it all along. Of course, it still can't fly, and it can't even breathe fire yet, but its scales are much tougher and its appetite's grown."
Hagrid's eyes shone. "That's brilliant! It'll be a magnificent dragon!"
…..
Besides dragons, they talked about many other things.
Like why the new Professor Quirrell reeked of garlic; how Adrian's first class had gone; and why the caretaker, Argus Filch, was always hounding the students...
At last, Harry brought up his Potions class.
"Hagrid," he called out as Hagrid was roaring with laughter at one of Adrian's dry jokes, "about Potions..."
"What is it?" Hagrid turned at once, sounding a bit anxious. "You didn't do anything in Potions class, did you?"
Harry frowned, thinking for a moment, then said in puzzlement, "I feel like Professor Snape has it in for me. In class, he asked me loads of questions. I actually got a lot of them right, but not only did he not give me any points—he kept finding excuses to take points off."
Hagrid's face altered a little, not quite naturally. He stroked his beard and mumbled, "Er… that's just Snape. He's strict with all the students."
Ron immediately curled his lip and muttered under his breath, "He's not strict with the Slytherins."
"What did he ask you?" Adrian suddenly perked up. Since Harry was his student, it would be terrible if he couldn't answer basic questions.
Harry thought for a while and said, "First, what do you get if you add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"The Draught of Living Death, Harry," Adrian said at once. "I taught you that."
"And then where to look for a bezoar, and what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane." After finishing, Harry added, "I answered all of them—even added a few different kinds of aconite. But Professor Snape still docked me a point."
"..."
Adrian fell silent for a moment and suddenly had the urge to see Snape's face at the time.
It must have been quite a sight.
Like this story Leave a review ; it would really help me out a lot.
Want to Read Ahead in Advance?
Join my Patreon!
+75 Chapters
Support me in
Patreon.com/BestElysium