Professor Hagrid, the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, stood like a small mountain outside his golden hut.
With one hand, he held the collar of his enormous boarhound, Fang.
Fang was whining and straining hard to break free from the collar.
From the looks of it, he seemed to want to rush over and investigate several open wooden crates on the ground at Hagrid's feet.
Clearly, the contents of the crates held great attraction for him.
Of course, the contents of the crates were not only greatly attractive to Fang the big dog, but also to the Gryffindor students.
As the little lions approached curiously, a very strange rattling sound reached their ears, punctuated occasionally by faint explosive sounds.
"Good morning!"
Hagrid said, while showing what he thought was a kindly smile to Sherlock's group of four: "I think everyone had better wait for the Slytherin students, they definitely won't want to miss this—"
He said loudly to the little lions in an exaggerated tone that combined pride, self-satisfaction, and showing-off:
"Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
"What did you say, say that again?"
Ron asked again, somewhat uncertainly.
"Blast... Ended... Skrewts! Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
Seeing that Ron hadn't heard clearly, Hagrid slowed down and repeated it, while pointing to the crates at his feet, indicating for everyone to look.
"Disgusting!"
Lavender Brown, who had taken a few steps forward, let out a scream after seeing clearly what was in the crates, and jumped back several steps.
Her movements were quite exaggerated.
However, this action coming from a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl wasn't particularly out of place.
It was within acceptable range.
Of course, this was also related to the fact that she was telling the truth.
In the Herbology class just now, the Bubotuber pus had already given the little lions and little badgers a full sense of what disgust meant.
But the disgust from earlier was completely different from the disgust brought by these creatures Hagrid called "Blast-Ended Skrewts."
The disgust from Bubotuber pus came partly from the visual effect and partly from imagination.
But these things called Blast-Ended Skrewts were purely visual impact.
To put it bluntly, they looked like deformed, shell-less giant lobsters—pale gray, slimy, and absolutely horrible-looking.
Not only that, they also had many legs sticking out all over the place, and you couldn't even see where their heads were.
Each crate contained about a hundred of them, each about six inches long.
They crawled over each other, bumping confusedly into the sides of the crates.
For people with trypophobia, it was even more troublesome.
In fact, trypophobia was like fear of heights—everyone had it.
It was just that some people had it more severely, others less so.
For those who had it severely, seeing this scene was already at an unacceptable level.
Not only that, besides the visual impact, they also had an olfactory impact!
These things actually gave off a very strong smell of rotting fish and shrimp.
Most surprisingly, sparks shot from the end of each Skrewt's tail.
Then with a soft popping sound, the Skrewt would propel itself forward several inches.
That was the strange explosive sound they had just heard.
This was the Blast-Ended Skrewt.
Blast-Ended Skrewts.
There was a reason Ron had asked Hagrid to repeat the name.
Mainly because for anyone encountering it for the first time, the two core parts of this thing's name exceeded everyday cognition.
And when combined, it was even harder to remember in one go.
The first part, "Blast-Ended," was a compound adjective formed from "Blast" (explosion, jet) plus "Ended" (having a... end).
The literal meaning was—having a tail that could jet or explode.
You should know, this combination was almost never used in everyday English.
Now it seemed this was purely a combination Hagrid had created temporarily to describe the creature's characteristics, with absolutely no linguistic convention to rely on.
As for the second part, "Skrewts," it was also a specialized noun Hagrid had coined for this hybrid creature.
Its pronunciation was close to "skroo-ts," neither a common biological noun nor having any associable root, it was a completely unfamiliar sound.
When these two parts combined into "Blast-Ended Skrewts," the entire phrase was five syllables long.
And it included consonant combinations like "sk" and "ts" that required the tip of the tongue to work hard.
Even for native English speakers, they needed to think for a moment to confirm that what they heard was a name and not a random jumble of words.
Ron asking Hagrid to repeat was essentially because he couldn't quite catch what this long and unfamiliar word actually was.
But after seeing what they looked like, everyone understood.
It must be said that Lavender Brown's word "disgusting" perfectly summed up most people's first impression of these things.
"Um, Hagrid... I don't think the Slytherins will like them..."
Harry really couldn't suppress his urge to complain.
Sherlock said calmly, "Unless you're planning to disgust them."
"Pfft~!"
Several girls nearby, including Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati, couldn't help laughing.
Listen, the Lion King is telling cold jokes!
"Sherlock, how can you say that?" Hagrid said somewhat dissatisfied.
"Sorry, sir."
Although he was apologizing, there wasn't a trace of apology in Sherlock's tone.
"It's alright, these have only just hatched."
However, Hagrid didn't seem to notice, and said proudly, "You can raise them yourselves!
We can make this a big project—make it bigger and stronger, create new glory!"
"So why would we want to raise them?"
Just then, a cold voice spoke.
The Slytherin students had finally arrived.
The speaker was none other than Draco Malfoy.
Crabbe and Goyle were sniggering behind him, and Pansy Parkinson was gazing at him adoringly, her eyes full of infatuation.
Hagrid seemed stumped by this question and stood dumbstruck for several seconds without speaking.
"I mean, what do they do?"
Seeing this, Malfoy frowned, first glancing in Sherlock's direction, then explaining in an impatient tone: "What use are they, sir?"
Hagrid opened his mouth wide, looking as if he was thinking hard.
After several more seconds, he said gruffly: "That's next lesson, Malfoy—you're just going to feed them today."
"..."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows but ultimately said nothing more.
"To be honest, this time I think he's right—I actually want to know the answer to that question too," Ron said quietly to Harry.
Harry nodded in agreement. "I'll bet you a Galleon that Hagrid hasn't even considered this question."
"Oh, Harry, you've learned bad habits from Sherlock, always wanting to bet with people and always starting at a Galleon."
The cash-strapped Ron was somewhat dissatisfied with Harry's rich-person approach.
However, they didn't need to make the bet, as they heard Hagrid continue: "Right, now you're going to try feeding them a few different things.
Since I've never raised them before, I'm not sure what they like to eat.
So, I've prepared ant eggs, frog livers, and grass snakes.
You can try a bit of each and see if they'll eat them."
"..."
The entire class was speechless.
"First the tuber pus, now this," Seamus Finnigan muttered.
"At least that stuff was satisfying to squeeze... like..." Dean Thomas whispered, while making a gesture that any man would understand.
"I suspect you're making an inappropriate reference, but I have no proof," Seamus said sourly.
"Heh heh heh..." Dean responded to his good friend with a rather sleazy smile.
Harry didn't know what others were thinking.
In any case, he himself was purely out of deep affection for Hagrid that he would grab handfuls of slippery frog livers and put them in the crates to tempt the Skrewts.
Ron was about the same, helplessly grabbing a handful of ant eggs and doing as Harry did.
Hermione noticed that Sherlock hadn't moved, and sidled up to him to ask quietly, "Sherlock, why aren't you moving?"
"Not much point."
"I think so too," Hermione kept her voice as low as possible. "In fact, I suspect this whole thing is pointless, because the Skrewts don't seem to have mouths at all."
"Obviously, the Blast-Ended Skrewts are Hagrid's biological crossbreeding experiment. From Hagrid's various behaviors, this is his experimental product from attempting to create a new magical creature species.
This spirit is worthy of encouragement, but in my view, these things lean more toward being failed experimental products rather than creatures with clear practical value."
Sherlock sighed. "If this is true, then even Hagrid himself will be confused about the Skrewts' growth direction."
Facts proved that Sherlock was right in most situations.
Just ten minutes later, an accident occurred.
"Ouch!"
Dean Thomas cried out in pain. "It hurt me!"
Hagrid hurried over to him, looking somewhat panicked.
"Its tail exploded!"
Dean said angrily, showing Hagrid a burned patch on his hand.
"Ah, yes, that can happen when they blast off."
Hagrid nodded, seeming to think this wasn't anything serious. "I've had it happen several times."
Hermione, who was talking with Sherlock, couldn't help putting her hand to her forehead.
Please, you're a giant with naturally hardened skin!
Being bitten by an Acromantula would only cause some numbness, and even being blasted by these things several times wouldn't matter.
But we can't handle it!
"Disgusting!"
Lavender Brown also started complaining again at this time. "Really disgusting, Hagrid, what are those sharp things on its body?"
Hagrid said excitedly, "Ah, nice, you noticed—some of them have stings."
Upon hearing this, Lavender quickly pulled her hand back from the edge of the crate.
"I think those with stings are males... the females have these sucker things on their bellies... I think they might suck blood."
"..."
The entire class fell silent.
"Well, now I finally understand why we're trying to keep them alive."
Malfoy said coldly.
"Who wouldn't want a pet that can burn, sting, and bite you?"
Faced with Malfoy's blunt statement, Hagrid truly found it difficult to respond.
Seeing this, Hermione immediately spoke up to rescue him: "Just because they don't look useful doesn't mean they have no use.
Dragon blood has magical properties, but would you want to keep a dragon as a pet?"
Upon hearing this, Hagrid couldn't help but laugh.
Because his greatest wish was to keep a pet dragon.
Just three years ago, he had kept a dragon—the dragon egg that hatched that dragon had been personally given to him by Quirrell, or rather, by Voldemort.
Unfortunately, it grew too quickly, and besides, keeping dragons privately was illegal.
With Sherlock's choice between "raising the roof" and "opening the window," Hagrid had ultimately endured the heartbreak and handed it over to Dumbledore.
It should still be with the magizoologist Newt Scamander now.
So, Hagrid just loved large, fierce animals.
The bigger and more dangerous, the more he liked them.
"Actually, this time I really think Malfoy is quite right."
At lunch, Hermione couldn't help saying to Sherlock: "The most sensible thing to do would be to stamp out the Skrewts before they start attacking us."
"Then why did you say that earlier?" Ron asked, puzzled.
"That was because Malfoy was putting Hagrid in an awkward position."
Hermione said sourly, continuing in a "you-don't-understand" tone: "These Skrewts are still small now, but once Hagrid figures out what they eat, I bet they'll grow to six feet long in no time."
"In that case, you shouldn't have contradicted Malfoy earlier," Sherlock said calmly. "Abandoning right and wrong merely to preserve friendship is not a commendable approach."
"Uh... not everyone can be as objective as you."
Hermione said somewhat awkwardly. "Besides, I don't think this matter has risen to that serious a level, I think."
"Dear Hermione, if someday I make a mistake, please be sure to point it out without hesitation."
Sherlock said quietly. "Don't turn a blind eye just because I'm your friend."
"Uh... okay, I understand."
Hermione glanced at Sherlock, then began wolfing down lamb chops and potatoes.
Harry and Ron both watched her in amazement, with Ron unable to resist asking: "Is this your new position on house-elf welfare, or... are you trying to stuff yourself until you vomit?"
Although Hermione had begun to give up the hunger strike approach yesterday at Sherlock's urging, eating vengefully like this was also rather odd, wasn't it?
"No," Hermione shook her head, her mouth bulging with bean sprouts. "I just want to go to the library."
"What?" Ron said incredulously. "Hermione—it's the first day of term! We haven't even been assigned homework yet!"
Hermione shrugged and continued eating ravenously, as if she hadn't eaten for several days.
Then she jumped up, said only "See you at dinner," and ran off.
In her view, since she couldn't attend the afternoon class with Sherlock, there was no point in staying here any longer.
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