Harry, taking advantage of the chaos, punched Flint in the stomach and struggled to crawl out of the crowd.
His face was bruised, his nose was bleeding, and the right lens of his glasses was shattered.
Hermione's reminder made him realize—if he waited for the professor to arrive, he would likely have to complete three detentions in two days: one by rushing to school, one by being framed by Filch for the dead rat in the corridor, and one by getting into a brawl.
Ron also crawled out, blood trickling from his mouth, but he looked like he was having a good time.
The others were still full of energy and didn't seem to have any intention of stopping—the Weasleys seemed only interested in breaking Flint's legs before the professor arrived.
"Let's go," Cohen said, casting a repair spell on Harry's glasses. "At least we can save Gryffindor two hundred points—if Gryffindor still has two hundred points after deducting three hundred points from six people."
Cohen saw Professor McGonagall hurrying across the field towards them and pulled the three away.
"If you ask me, even with the best flying broomsticks, they couldn't beat the Gryffindor team." On the way to Hagrid's hut to lay low, Ron rubbed his swollen lip and said with resentment, "Especially Malfoy, he's no match for Harry!"
"We all know that, Ron." Hermione handed Ron and Harry tissues, "But fighting won't solve anything."
"If you ask me, you should just give them all seven of them a Seven Curses." Cohen said, "Fighting will get you points anyway, and using curses on classmates will get you points too, so why not do something that will make you feel better—"
"Cohen!" Hermione interrupted Cohen's joking suggestion with utmost seriousness.
"At least this way we won't get punched…" Harry strongly agreed with Cohen's suggestion.
They arrived at the door of Hagrid's hut, and Hagrid was somewhat surprised by the injuries on Harry and Ron's faces.
"Did you two have a fight?" Hagrid asked, frowning. "It's normal for friends to have disagreements—but there's no need to…"
"It wasn't us!" Harry quickly interjected, "It was those Slytherin guys…"
Harry and Ron finished their explanation in a flurry.
"Oh—" Hagrid's furrowed brows relaxed. "That's good—I thought you two had a fight—you know, I'm not very good with words, I didn't know which side to take…"
"At least we didn't get another detention by Professor McGonagall." Harry sighed. "I might not be able to come out tomorrow, besides the car incident, we also have Filch's detention."
"We both have it," Hermione said sadly. "But it's not our fault at all! Those two rats had nothing to do with us!"
"Rats?" Hagrid asked curiously. "There shouldn't be many rats in the castle, right? Anyway, you don't usually hear students complaining about rats—I really don't know how Mrs. Norris's cat managed to catch all the rats in the castle…"
Because there's also a basilisk eating rats!
Cohen raised an eyebrow.
They didn't hide anything from Hagrid, and Hagrid also thought that Cohen and Harry had encountered some student's prank.
"Back when I was in school, people would write on the walls—with red paint to make it look like blood, it was so cool—" Hagrid recalled, but his expression wasn't good. "But I didn't stay in school for very long…"
"That's not cool at all," Hermione said, frowning. "It's so weird, I always feel like something's wrong with it."
"Speaking of strange things…" Hagrid suddenly said, "Some strange things have been happening in the forest too. My Thestrals have started to misbehave; they're wandering around the forest separately—they used to stay together…"
"Thestrals?" Harry heard a new term.
"You would have encountered them if you hadn't come by flying car," Hermione said. "An invisible magical creature. Cohen told me about it, and I looked it up later."
"Only people who have witnessed death can see them. My mother said it's an omen of bad luck—" Ron exclaimed in surprise, but Hagrid interrupted him.
"That's just outsider prejudice," Hagrid corrected. "Thestrals are wonderful creatures, not ominous at all."
But Hagrid's description of "wonderful creatures" was clearly not very credible—at least not to Harry and Ron, because they knew Hagrid had a penchant for dangerous and enormous creatures.
"They won't hurt anyone, will they?" Hermione asked worriedly. "They're classified as Class 4X magical creatures by the Ministry of Magic…"
"The Thestrals at Hogwarts are all trained by me; they won't hurt anyone," Hagrid assured her, patting his chest. "You'll find that as long as they have a stable food source, a stable community life, and a little companionship, they become extremely docile…"
Hagrid was likely the only person in Britain to have tamed a large number of Thestrals, and Cohen trusted him implicitly.
But the strange behavior of the Thestrals… could it be related to him?
Cohen didn't remember any such plot in the original book, and it was also strange that the Thestral pulling the carriage suddenly stuck its tongue out at him when school started…
If only they could talk—maybe horses can communicate with each other? Cohen wondered if he should go ask the unicorns about it.
"Want to go see Norbert?" Hagrid suggested excitedly after the conversation ended. "I've raised a whole bunch of hogboas for him! He's growing incredibly fast; I bet he'll be an adult this year!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn't even imagine facing an adult dragon—they all declined the invitation. Cohen wasn't particularly interested in Norbert either; he'd seen him all summer, and even the most interesting creature would get boring after a while.
They stayed with Hagrid for quite a while, only returning near lunchtime.
Hagrid had prepared several kinds of herbs for Harry and Ron, all with strange smells—but they worked very well; they looked much better afterward.
"Thank you, Hagrid," Harry said thankfully. "Otherwise, we would definitely have been caught by Professor McGonagall—I wonder if she still suspects we were involved in the fight."
As luck would have it, they ran into Professor McGonagall just as they returned to the castle.
Harry hadn't even changed his clothes, but he escaped by claiming he was skipping training.
"Skipping practice is no good, Potter," Professor McGonagall said sternly. "But it's a good thing you weren't on the Quidditch pitch today—your teammates got into a serious brawl, and I bet if you were all there, I'd have to deduct all of Gryffindor's remaining hundred-plus points."
"I wouldn't do that," Harry said guiltily, still smelling of herbs—it seemed Professor McGonagall actually knew the truth, but had no proof.
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(End of Chapter)