The walk down to their first Care of Magical Creatures class was a welcome change from the stuffy confines of the castle. The air was crisp with the scent of autumn, and the Forbidden Forest loomed as a dark, mysterious backdrop. For Ariana, it was a practical application of the knowledge she had gleaned from Newt Scamander, a chance to observe magical biology in its natural, albeit managed, habitat.
Hagrid was waiting for them on the edge of the forest, his face beaming with pride. "C'mon, now, get a move on!" he boomed. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
He led them to a small, grassy paddock. Inside, tethered to a long rope, were a dozen of the most magnificent creatures Ariana had ever seen in person. They were Hippogriffs. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of powerful horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of giant eagles. Their eyes were a fierce, intelligent orange, and their front talons looked lethally sharp.
The class gasped in unison. They were beautiful, proud, and undeniably dangerous.
"Hippogriffs!" Hagrid announced proudly. "First thing yeh gotta know about Hippogriffs is they're proud. Easily offended, Hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do." He then explained the proper etiquette: maintain eye contact, bow, and wait for them to bow back before approaching.
He then untethered the largest of the herd, a magnificent, stormy-grey Hippogriff. "This here is Buckbeak," Hagrid said fondly. "Isn't he a beauty?"
The class instinctively took a step back. Buckbeak tossed his great, sharp-beaked head and fixed them with his fierce orange eyes.
Ariana, however, stepped forward, her expression one of calm, professional interest. "Professor Hagrid," she said, her voice respectful but clear, cutting through the nervous tension.
"Ah, Ariana!" Hagrid beamed. "Ready ter meet him?"
"Professor," she continued, "while I appreciate the opportunity for a practical demonstration, might I suggest a slightly more controlled protocol? These are proud and powerful creatures. Perhaps it would be wiser to keep Buckbeak at a safe distance from the main body of the class, unless a student specifically volunteers to approach. And only then, under your direct, one-on-one supervision, should they be allowed near him. It would minimize the risk of an accidental insult from an inexperienced student."
Her suggestion was, as always, rooted in pure logic and risk assessment. It was a simple, effective safety measure. Hagrid, whose love for creatures often overshadowed his sense of their inherent danger, blinked for a moment, processing her words. He looked at the nervous faces of the other students, then at the proud, easily-offended creature before him.
"Well… that's… that's a right sensible thought, Ariana," he admitted, scratching his beard. "Right then! As Ariana says! Everyone stay back by the fence! Who wants ter be the first ter volunteer and say hello to Buckbeak?"
No one moved, except for Hermione, who took a half-step back.
Harry, however, looked at the magnificent creature, and a sense of curiosity and empathy outweighed his fear. He stepped forward. "I'll do it."
"Good man, Harry!" Hagrid boomed.
Under Hagrid's careful guidance, Harry approached Buckbeak. He held the creature's fierce gaze, then gave a slow, respectful bow. After a tense moment, Buckbeak bent his scaly front knees and bowed back. With a whoop of delight, Hagrid helped Harry onto the Hippogriff's back. A moment later, they were soaring into the air, a breathtaking silhouette against the sky. They circled the castle once before landing gracefully back in the paddock. The flight had been a success, a perfect demonstration of mutual respect between wizard and beast.
The class applauded, their fear now replaced with a sense of wonder. The lesson seemed to be a resounding success.
But then, Draco Malfoy decided to ruin it.
Buoyed by the apparent tameness of the creature and fueled by his own arrogant nature, Malfoy swaggered forward, pushing past the other students.
"Yes, you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he sneered, his voice dripping with condescension as he approached Buckbeak. "You great, ugly brute…" He never finished the insult. Buckbeak reacted with the explosive speed of a coiled spring. With a furious, ear-splitting shriek, he reared up, his great wings spreading wide, his lethal front talons slashing through the air directly at Malfoy's chest.
The class screamed. Hagrid yelled in panic. But Ariana was already moving.
The moment Malfoy had begun his arrogant swagger, her senses had gone on high alert. She had identified the variables: one arrogant boy plus one proud predator equals inevitable conflict. Her hand was already on her wand.
As Buckbeak's talons slashed downwards, a shimmering, translucent wall of force appeared in an instant between the creature and the boy.
"Protego!"
The sound of the shield charm was a sharp crackle in the air. Buckbeak's razor-sharp talons, which would have torn Malfoy's chest open, scraped against the magical barrier with a horrifying screech of horn on pure energy, leaving deep, glowing gouges in the shield but not penetrating it.
The force of the impact was still enough to send a shockwave through the air. In the same fluid motion, Ariana's other hand shot out, not with a spell, but with a physical, decisive action. She grabbed the collar of Malfoy's robes and yanked him backwards with a surprising strength, pulling him stumbling out of the immediate danger zone just as her shield collapsed.
Malfoy fell into a heap at her feet, his face ashen with a terror so profound it had bleached all the arrogance from him. He stared at the spot where the talons had nearly connected, his mouth opening and closing silently. He was completely unharmed, not a single scratch on him.
The entire event, from Malfoy's insult to his rescue, had taken less than three seconds. Hagrid, finally reacting, managed to get a chain around Buckbeak's neck and soothe the furious creature with a dead ferret from his pocket. The rest of the class stared, frozen in a state of shock, first at the enraged Hippogriff, and then at the two figures on the ground.
Ariana stood over a trembling Draco Malfoy, her expression not one of triumph or anger, but of cool, detached disappointment. She had prevented the injury. She had negated the incident. And in doing so, she had saved Hagrid from the Ministry inquiry, Buckbeak from a death sentence, and Draco Malfoy from his own stupid, arrogant pride.
"The lesson," she said calmly, her voice cutting through the stunned silence, directed at the entire class, "was about respect for dangerous creatures. Malfoy has just provided you all with an excellent practical demonstration of what happens when that respect is not given."
She gave the pale, trembling boy on the ground one last, dismissive look before turning and walking back towards the rest of the class, leaving him to be tended to by a frantic Pansy Parkinson. The crisis was over before it had ever truly begun. And the rift between herself and Hermione seemed, for just a moment, a little less important in the face of such stark, preventable danger.