Black Blood

011 - Crisis Averted

She sighed in irritation at the childish antics taking place before her. A year ago, she would've been amused by her cousin's nonsensical need to tease and taunt Potter, but she'd changed in some way she couldn't quite comprehend. She'd been freer then, lighter of heart, yet something had altered her state of thought, and with an indifferent glance towards the muggleborn at Potter's side, she had a rather good idea where the tainting of her soft spirit truly began.

"Draco," she quietly said, a warning carried clear within her demure voice.

But her cousin didn't hear what should've been heard or seemingly care that she'd spoken at all, and, instead, he waggled his fingers at Potter with his robe's hood covering his head, imitating, rather poorly, the appearance of a deadly dementor.

Granger sent the obnoxious brat a sneer as she grabbed her friend's shoulder, turning him away from her immature cousin, but before she'd joined Potter in looking away, her brown orbs briefly met Cassiopeia's own light-blue ones, and there was something within them that the pureblood didn't appreciate one bit.

'What do you want now, Granger?' the girl wondered, giving the muggleborn a frostily polite smile.

A throat being cleared caused her head to turn, and she found the giant of a man who'd led them into the Forbidden Forest, albeit not deeply, and had left the class of third years alone for a minute or two, evaporating any doubt she'd held that the man was fit to teach them anything at all.

"Da-da-da-da!" he cried, imitating an instrument she'd heard many a time, but couldn't quite place.

Pivoting upon one massive foot, he stepped aside and rapidly waved his giant, robust arms, revealing a feathered horse that had been well-hidden behind his gargantuan frame.

"Isn't he beautiful?" the giant man asked, awe clear as day upon his bearded lips, and Cassiopeia would silently admit she too felt quite amazed by the sight of the majestic avian-steed.

Unlatching a dead rodent from a bandolier attached to his chest, he tossed it towards the creature, which caught the morsel from the air with a snap of its large beak-snout, giving a satisfied chirp as it gobbled down its unliving treat.

"Say hello to Buckbeak," the man continued, and Cassiopeia, against her better judgement, smiled and gave the beast a small wave, hoping to herself that none had seen her silly display.

"Hagrid..." Weasley quietly began, his voice unnaturally nervous to Cassiopeia's well-shaped ears. "Exactly what is that?!"

"That, Ron, is a hippogriff," he replied with a small chortle, then, before Cassiopeia's keen eyes, the giant man's expression lost all lightness and became entirely solemn, which rather alarmed her. "First thing you want to know about hippogriffs is that they're very proud creatures, very easily offended. You do not want to insult a hippogriff. It just may be the last thing you ever do..."

'And why, precisely, are you introducing us, a gaggle of immature, defenceless children, to a creature who has strong inclination for slaughter upon perceived insult?!' Cassiopeia silently wondered, more alarmed than ever by the giant of a man's grim warning.

"Now," he continued on, clapping his large hands together as his tone returned to something more light, which the girl found as disturbing as his previous statement had been. "Who'd like to come and say hello?"

Her eyes bulged at the offer, and she, along with the entirety of her assembled classmates, took a large step back, only for her to note that one individual had foolishly not.

"Well done, Harry! Well done!"

"Does Potter have a death wish?!" Zabini quietly hissed from behind the girl, and she too found herself wondering the same.