Hagrid, You're No Longer a Novice Professor
The sky was bright and clear after the rain, and the fragrance of grass and soil was everywhere. The leaves and branches of the plants were covered with trembling water droplets.
A cool breeze from the Forbidden Forest brushed against my cheeks, slipped through my hair, and I felt the dampness on my nose and earlobes after the rain. I was acutely aware of the chill, and the strange smell and chest tightness from the Greenhouse were quickly dispelled.
The fourth-year Gryffindor and Slytherin wizards stood in the open space, their eyes constantly scanning the giant-like professor and the strange wooden boxes beside him.
Good morning, children!
Hagrid's face beamed with a bright smile, his bushy beard swaying enthusiastically. "I'm so glad to be your professor for the Care of Magical Creatures again this school year, and to share with you the charm of these adorable creatures!"
"I really should have dropped this course. I wonder if it's too late to regret it now..." Ron muttered to himself, subconsciously taking two steps back. Harry's face was also a little pale.
Looking at their expressions, Loren and Hermione felt a sense of foreboding.
Puff!
A faint explosion suddenly came from inside the box.
"Look, these little guys can't wait to meet you!" Hagrid said with a chuckle. "And you certainly won't want to miss this— the Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
Several Gryffindor wizards who were nearby curiously gathered around, all showing expressions of disgust. Lavender Brown even jumped back several steps in a panic, shrieking, "Disgusting!"
They were a group of deformed, shelled lobsters, grayish-white in color, covered with a viscous liquid, with many legs sticking out haphazardly, obscuring their heads. Each box contained about a hundred lobsters, each about six inches long, crawling on top of each other like a dense swarm of maggots, a sight that would cause intense discomfort at first glance.
These creatures seemed to lack intelligence, constantly ramming against the walls of the box. Whenever they became disoriented from the impact, sparks would shoot out from their tails, propelling them forward a few inches while releasing a pungent, foul odor of rotten fish and shrimp.
Hagrid seemed to really like these little monsters that were neither insects nor lobsters. He proudly said, "It took a Sphinx and 60 Fire Crabs to raise these adorable little guys. These are just hatched... You can raise them yourselves! We can do a big project!"
Hermione paused for a moment, then turned to Loren and whispered, "This seems to be illegal... The Ban on Experimental Breeding of Magical Creatures Act was enacted and implemented back in 1965."
Loren fell silent, staring at Hermione for a few seconds before sighing, "Let's go to class first, and then we'll talk to Hagrid later."
Hermione sighed, looking at the densely packed, Blast-Ended Skrewts, feeling somewhat weary.
Hagrid was still enthusiastically introducing his little darlings. "... The lesson is about determining their food. You will try feeding them several different things. I have prepared ant eggs, frog livers, and Emerald Green Snake... Try a little of each and see if they will eat them."
"First it was the pus from the tuber, and now this." Seamus sighed with a sense of unease.
The young Gryffindor wizards, who had just finished their Herbology Class, deeply sympathized with the smell. They cautiously approached the box, their expressions contorted by the stench, and some even gagged.
Out of deep affection for Hagrid, the Gryffindor wizards did as Hagrid asked. The Slytherin wizards stood there looking around and hesitated for a few minutes. In the end, Draco and Theodore Nott took the lead and participated...
They grabbed handfuls of slippery frog livers and put them in the box to lure the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
Unlike the tubers from the previous lesson, these tiny creatures, resembling oversized maggots, gave Hermione goosebumps at the sight of them, and she really didn't want to touch them. She could only watch Loren observe these Blast-Ended Skrewts from the sidelines.
Loren picked up a small piece of wood from the ground and poked the soft flesh on the back of the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Stimulated Blast-Ended Skrewts's tail exploded with a loud bang, and a foul, fishy stench gushed out, propelling the Blast-Ended Skrewts forward a short distance.
It appears to have inherited the Magic Power of the Fire Crabs, but its physical form is more like that of Manticore.
Loren sniffed in disgust; the smell was so strong that even onions, ginger, and garlic couldn't get rid of it, so it was marked as inedible.
Furthermore, these animals, hybrids of Fire Crabs and Manticore, possess only biological instincts and lack any rationality. Loren could only sense basic emotions of calm and irritability from them, unlike other Fantastic Beasts, even ordinary Fire Salamander, which could convey feelings of joy and sorrow.
Fortunately, he could still calm them down. Loren rubbed the small wooden stick on the grass, held his breath, and turned over a few more of the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
These little creatures are not all the same; some have sharp spines on their abdomens, while others have organs like octopus suckers on their abdomens.
Loren initially thought that this shape and position indicated the sex organs of the Blast-Ended Skrewts Blast-Ended Skrewts, with the spikes on its abdomen belonging to the male and the Blast-Ended Skrewts on its abdomen to the female. However, subsequent observations seemed to overturn this conclusion.
When Emerald Green Snake is handed over, the male Blast-Ended Skrewts will insert its sharp spines into the Emerald Green Snake's body and wriggle its body in a sucking motion, seemingly having a blood-sucking habit. The female Blast-Ended Skrewts will use its suckers to swallow the liver of a frog...
Therefore, this is not a sexual organ, but a mouthpart for eating.
Over here, Loren's class was in complete chaos, with the young wizards screaming non-stop. Dean's hand was injured by the explosion, and Lavender was stung by the spikes on the abdomen of the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
But this might be pointless, since the Blast-Ended Skrewts doesn't have a mouth at all.
The moment the school bell rang, the young wizards fled the open space and ran towards the Castle; they desperately needed a bath.
Pale-faced Draco immediately threw away the frog liver in his hand, took several steps away from the wooden box before taking a few deep breaths to recover. He then took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the slime off his hands.
Hagrid stood nearby, Draco couldn't help but complain coldly, "What's the point of raising something like this? Nobody would want it as a pet. It can blow people up and sting them..."
Hagrid stood there blankly, opening his mouth but unable to speak. After thinking hard for a few seconds, he could only say dryly, "This class is over. Maybe we'll discover its usefulness in the next class."
Draco gave him a cold glance, tossed the handkerchief to Goyle, and walked away without looking back.
"Ignore Hagrid!" Harry trotted over to Hagrid, glanced at the wooden crates, and although he thought Malfoy wasn't entirely wrong, he still comforted him, "They may not look very nice, but that doesn't mean they're useless."
Ron leaned in and nodded. "That's right, just like Fire Dragon. Although they are all ugly, that doesn't stop Dragon Blood from having thirteen magical uses."
Hagrid grinned at them from behind his bushy beard, and Harry and Ron grinned back, though their hands were still a little sore from the stings from the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
Hermione slowly walked over, looked at Hagrid's smile, and hesitated for a moment. "Hagrid, I think it's best to make sure that the Blast-Ended Skrewts doesn't appear again in the next class."
Hagrid looked somewhat aggrieved. "But they... Harry just said that although they don't look very appealing, that doesn't mean they're useless... as long as I figure out what they're willing to eat..."
Harry and Ron nodded repeatedly, seemingly indignant on Hagrid's behalf.
"Once you figure out what they eat, they won't be long before they grow to six feet long..."
Loren tossed aside the small wooden stick, clapped his hands, stood up, and said, "Then the Ministry of Magic will have ample evidence to arrest you. If you can't pay the fine, we'll have no choice but to visit you in Azkaban from now on."
Harry and Ron stared wide-eyed at the wriggling Blast-Ended Skrewts in the wooden box, their eyes filled with astonishment and disbelief.
"Hagrid, you're no longer an inexperienced professor of the Care of Magical Creatures ..."
Hermione's earnest tone was very much like Professor McGonagall's. "I believe that no one in all of Hogwarts knows more about Fantastic Beasts than you, no one knows better how to take care of these little guys you're talking about, and you know better than Professor Kettleburn how to communicate with them and how to protect yourself from harm..."
The three bystanders fell silent for a moment, recalling when Hagrid was raising Norbert. They felt that it wasn't that Hagrid was better at communicating than Professor Celticburn, but simply that he was stronger and wouldn't be torn apart by bites.
"That's why Headmaster Dumbledore was willing to hire you as our professor..." Hermione's face tightened, her expression serious, and then she changed the subject, "But a mature professor can't just know about animals; you also need to know the Ministry of Magic's laws regarding Fantastic Beasts."
"Mr. Scamander. Newt Scamander enacted the Ban on Experimental Breeding of Magical Creatures Act in 1965. I think your Blast-Ended Skrewts definitely did not have the necessary approval for experimentation, not to mention that the subjects you bred included Manticore, a Level 5X dangerous creature. Your sentence would be enough to keep you in Azkaban until we graduate!"
The Half-Giant lowered his head, slumped his shoulders, and stared silently at the Blast-Ended Skrewts in the wooden crate, looking as lost and guilty as a scolded hound.
Four young wizards walked across the vegetable patch ridges, the emerald green grass swaying, shaking off the water droplets on the leaves, which silently seeped into the soil, making the path even muddier after the rain.
"Hermione, what you just said to Hagrid ... wasn't it a bit too much?" Harry whispered.
Although he also believed that the Blast-Ended Skrewts should be nipped in the bud, he couldn't bear to think of the tall, broad-shouldered giant wiping away tears in front of the box.
"It's not serious," Loren replied. "Acromantula, Fire Dragon Norbert, Hippogriff, and fresh Blast-Ended Skrewts ... Hagrid said last year that he would change his bad habits, but at this rate, he'll get himself into Azkaban sooner or later."
"That's right..." Harry sighed deeply, wondering when Hagrid would ever grow up.
"Oh no!" Ron suddenly stopped in his tracks. "Wouldn't Malfoy report Hagrid to the Ministry of Magic? He seemed really unhappy just now!"
"!!"
Harry's expression gradually turned serious, and some unpleasant memories flashed before his eyes.