If Tris and Hagrid hadn't been standing nearby, if there hadn't been so many people around, if he hadn't known that Harry and Ron were now doing exceptionally well in Charms and must have mastered their spells-in short, if he hadn't known he couldn't win-Draco would definitely have gone for Harry.
Why did this guy have such a big mouth?
Even Tris couldn't help giving Harry another look.
He had long since realized that Harry was nothing like the poor little thing he remembered. He was quite the chatterbox, with a vicious tongue to match. And since Sirius had returned, it had only been getting worse.
It just wasn't particularly obvious when Tris was around.
Because Tris had an even bigger mouth and a sharper tongue.
Hagrid looked a little awkward. He coughed and said, "Right, everyone, turn to page thirty-six and have a quick read. I'll go fetch the fantastic beasts we'll be using for this lesson."
Very few Hogwarts students had the reprehensible habit of studying ahead in the first place.
And since many of them hadn't even known how to open this book before, even fewer had prepared for the lesson.
So everyone except Hermione opened their books curiously. Even Hermione hadn't reached the point of knowing exactly what was on a page just from hearing its number this time.
But when they turned to that page, quite a few students sucked in a sharp breath.
The illustration showed a large, well-fed, powerfully built creature with a fierce appearance, tossing its head, swishing its tail, and flapping its wings.
"Is that... a Hippogriff?" Pansy asked uncertainly.
The Parkinson family and the Greengrass family were related by marriage no more than two generations back, so they remained fairly close. She had visited the Greengrass family's manor and seen