When You Have a Hammer in Your Hand

Professor Lupin had taken sick leave. This news struck Harry like a bolt from the blue, leaving him momentarily at a loss. He had been spending such an intense amount of time with the professor lately that the sudden absence of Lupin caught him completely off guard.

Although he had been warned in advance, he still felt deeply unsettled now that the news had become reality.

He wanted to visit Professor Lupin in his bedroom, only to be told that he had gone to Hogsmeade.

In the days without Professor Lupin, they encountered someone in their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom whom they never wanted to see teaching a class: Potions Master, Severus Snape.

Snape stood at the podium, wearing his usual robes. He gazed down at the students, signaled for them to take out their books, and said with a sneer, "Very well, stop looking around. Your Professor Lupin is ill, and I will be teaching your classes for the next week or so."

"Let me see, where have you reached in your studies?"

"Oh, Giants."

"Look at what Lupin has been teaching you; it is truly disappointing. Such riddled, substandard instruction. I am genuinely ashamed to be a colleague of his here at Hogwarts."

He spoke with biting malice.

Harry's face flushed red. He knew Snape was cruel, but he hadn't expected him to be cruel to this extent.

"Professor Lupin taught us very well! Much better than you."

Harry couldn't help but retort; he couldn't stand the look of contempt on Snape's face, especially when the person being disparaged was Professor Lupin.

Snape heard Harry's outburst.

He stared straight at Harry, and Harry stared back at Snape without a hint of fear.

Snape revealed a smile devoid of any mirth, curled his lips, and pointed a finger at Harry.

"Speaking out of turn, ten points from Gryffindor!"

He shouted, then told everyone to turn to the back of the book. "Today, we shall learn about werewolves."

He said this with malicious intent.

"And Potter, if you ever speak to me in that tone again, you can expect detention."

He threatened Harry.

Harry was trembling with rage.

Snape ignored him completely.

His gaze swept past Harry, and he began the lesson.

"We've already learned this; the first lesson Professor Lupin taught us was how to defend against werewolves."

Ron muttered under his breath.

Snape heard the sound, but he remained indifferent.

"Then we shall continue with this lesson! Look at the class Professor Lupin gave you; it is simply abysmal. There is so much information he didn't even mention."

Snape said. Hermione, looking worried, twisted her hands together tightly under the desk.

She felt as though she knew what Snape was hinting at.

The Gryffindor students had never felt a class period drag on for so long.

Finally, the bell rang.

All the students breathed a sigh of relief.

But Snape had no intention of letting them off the hook. Watching the young wizards heave sighs of relief, he raised his voice.

"For today's homework," Snape said cruelly, "a two-thousand-word essay on werewolves—specifically their origin, their development, and how to kill a werewolf!"

"I expect to see your results by our next class."

With that, he swept out of the room.

The poor students wailed throughout the classroom.

Only Hermione remained deep in thought; she felt she understood the reason for Snape's actions, and she was also worried that the other students might discover the secret.

Professor Lupin was a good man.

As a Muggle-born witch, Hermione did not share the prejudice against werewolves that pure-blood wizards had been raised with.

She wanted to keep this secret.

Hermione walked along, lost in contemplation and heavy-hearted, as she heard Ron speaking to Harry.

This situation only ended when they went to Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class.

Thanks to Lupin, he had repeatedly told Hagrid to take things step by step. "Don't let the children come into contact with magical creatures they shouldn't be dealing with yet, Rubeus. You know, there are people who are very dissatisfied with your teaching."

"Don't give them any flaws to attack you with."

Hagrid had indeed listened; for the past few days, Harry and the others had been learning how to feed Flobberworms.

But today, Hagrid couldn't help himself.

"Today, I'm going to show you something good."

He said mysteriously, completely ignoring the "boos" coming from the Slytherins.

"Shut up, Malfoy!"

Harry spoke fiercely to Draco Malfoy, who merely sneered at him, completely unfazed.

Hagrid walked in front, leading the students toward the Forbidden Forest. There were quite a few witches and wizards in this class. Hagrid brought them to the edge of the forest and introduced them to Buckbeak—a fated encounter, wasn't it?

Ahem, Buckbeak, a Hippogriff.

A bird of prey.

If one could even classify it as a bird.

Clearly, these children had no business interacting with a Hippogriff; it was a dangerous beast. Though in Hagrid's eyes, it was actually quite docile—from Hagrid's perspective, he found Acromantulas cute and dragon hatchlings amusing, so a Hippogriff naturally didn't fall into his category of dangerous creatures.

Compared to a dragon, a Hippogriff was truly nothing.

"Oh!"

Seeing this magical creature, not only the Slytherin students but even Ron and Harry let out sounds of astonishment.

This Hippogriff looked far too threatening, with that massive eagle head and those razor-sharp talons—"If that thing clawed me once, I'd definitely be dead," Ron said.

Whether one would actually die from a scratch by this magical creature, Harry didn't know, but he did know that they were likely going to have to face this monster in class today.

At the thought, Harry's heart began to hammer.

"Don't worry," Hagrid said with a goofy grin, looking at the students who were backing away in fear, "Buckbeak is very tame."

As it turned out, terrible things would not change just because of someone's warning. Because of Hagrid's personality, Malfoy's temperament, and the nature of magical creatures, putting them all together was bound to lead to a disastrous result.

He signaled for the students to approach Buckbeak one by one. Everyone did well, even some of the Slytherins.

Until it was Malfoy's turn.

Malfoy caused trouble.

He provoked Buckbeak.

With a single swipe of its claw, Buckbeak nearly disemboweled Malfoy.

It happened so fast, too fast for Hagrid to react; he hadn't thought of any measures to protect the students at all!

"No, Buckbeak!"

Hagrid rushed over to soothe the creature. The Slytherin girls were screaming, and Hagrid's face had turned deathly pale, his hands trembling in panic. Hermione rushed over, looking at Malfoy, who had collapsed on the ground, and shouted, "Hagrid, hurry, we have to take him to Madam Pomfrey!"

Hagrid was busy calming Buckbeak, half-forcing it to be tethered to a wooden post; he had no time to respond to Hermione.

Malfoy groaned incessantly.

"I'm dying!"

He shouted at the top of his lungs, moaning continuously, "I'm dying, this beast is going to kill me!"

Ron couldn't hold back. He yelled at Malfoy, "Shut up! If you hadn't provoked Buckbeak, it wouldn't have—"

Before Ron could finish, Crabbe and Goyle stood up, glaring at him with hostility.

The Slytherin students began cursing Hagrid loudly, and some of their vitriol spilled over onto Ron.

Ron refused to back down.

The scene descended into chaos.

"Alright, stop it."

Harry was extremely flustered. He knew this wasn't a good thing, especially for Hagrid. He knew Hagrid was going to be in trouble—this counted as a teaching accident, especially given that Malfoy had done it on purpose. He had met Malfoy's father, Lucius Malfoy, who seemed to have a great deal of influence within the school's Board of Governors.

Using this as an excuse, Harry recalled last year when Draco Malfoy's father and Minister Fudge seemed intent on sending Hagrid to Azkaban.

Perhaps they would find a way to use this incident to send Hagrid back to Azkaban once more.

I absolutely cannot let that happen.

Harry thought to himself.

Although Harry still didn't know what kind of crimes one had to commit to be thrown into Azkaban, that didn't stop him from knowing how terrifying that prison was.

The disorderly noise around him made his head feel like it was about to burst.

Hagrid was trying to calm Buckbeak, telling it to stop thrashing, but the surrounding screams made Buckbeak feel threatened. Those people who were only capable of screaming had no intention of helping Malfoy.

The clamor and shrieking of the crowd only amplified the creature's agitation. Hagrid was still trying to tie Buckbeak up, people were screaming, and Hermione was shoved by a few girls and stumbled to the ground!

"Enough!"

Harry suddenly shouted. After he yelled, everyone around him was startled.

Even Hagrid spared him a glance.

"Malfoy, stop yelling, I'll take you to Madam Pomfrey!

You won't be hurt, and you won't die; this is just an accident."

As he spoke, he intended to wave his wand to move Malfoy as if he were moving a wardrobe, but he hadn't expected someone to stand in his way and block him.

It was a girl who wasn't particularly pretty, from Slytherin—sorry, Harry was just that shallow; he categorized people by whether they were good-looking or not. She was Pansy Parkinson of Slytherin, a sharp-tongued girl who was often with Malfoy.

She spread her arms to block Harry and said, "I can't let you take Draco. Everyone knows you and Draco—"

She kept rambling on. Behind her, the Slytherin students were blaming Hagrid, and Andy was speaking up for Hagrid—"It was all Malfoy's fault." The scene was a mess. Harry felt terrible, but he suppressed his temper and explained, "I said, I am taking him to Madam Pomfrey. She can heal Malfoy very quickly."

With a flick of his wand, Malfoy was sent floating into the air. Hermione and Ron watched in astonishment, while Pansy let out a shriek and drew her wand, clearly intending to threaten Harry into stopping.

"Stop it, I don't believe you."

What happened next occurred so quickly that even Harry himself hadn't realized it.

Dewey's training of Harry had paid off. He believed that since Harry didn't have a particularly sharp mind, he could simply get by without using it. He was skilled at tailoring his teaching to the student; for someone like Harry, who lacked brains, he used muscle.

Whoever hits me, I hit back. Whoever points a wand at him, he disarms them first. If he's wrong, he can just apologize later.

"Anyway, you don't know the Unforgivable Curses and you won't actually hurt them. Just remember to apologize; only the living can apologize to others, Harry."

Words of "Professor Lupin."

Seeing Pansy Parkinson draw her wand, the days of intense training finally took effect.

Before Harry even registered his own reaction, Malfoy dropped to the ground, the impact causing him even more pain.

Harry had already made his move.

"Expelliarmus."

"Protego."

"Stupefy."

"Petrificus Totalus."

His movements were simple and effective, flowing like water as he took down the three Slytherins. Pansy's wand flew high into the air and landed in Harry's hand. Goyle was hit by the Stupefy and collapsed without a sound, his condition unknown.

Crabbe, who had the most muscle, was the unluckiest; he posed the greatest threat to Harry, so Harry used "Petrificus Totalus" on him.

He acted too fast.

Fast enough that the other students had no time to stop him, and fast enough that they didn't even have time to draw their own wands.

Malfoy, who was wailing, saw this scene, and his face, already pale from fright, turned even whiter.

"Are you going to kill me, Harry Potter?"

Malfoy asked, his voice trembling.

Harry looked around; everyone was terrified, and no one dared to meet his gaze.

"I'm just taking you to see Madam Pomfrey. You won't die, so shut up."

Harry reiterated to Malfoy, then sent Draco Malfoy floating again and hurried toward the castle.

This time, no one dared to stop Harry Potter.

Hagrid finally reacted, crouching down to check on the others. Pansy, who had been disarmed, shrieked and tried to shove Hagrid away, only to be sent flying back by her own momentum. She scrambled up and chased after Harry.

Ron and Hermione also snapped out of it and drew their wands.

"Stay away from Harry."

Ron shouted at Pansy, while Hagrid blocked the students who were on the verge of losing control.

The Care of Magical Creatures class was starting to look more like a dueling training session.