Ella Potter (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter 21

The storm had blown itself out by the following morning, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still gloomy; heavy clouds of pewter gray swirled overhead as everyone examined their new course schedules at breakfast.

There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. 

Draco's eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. Ella stared at it, Draco chucked and took the letter that came with it.

"They're for you too" Draco said

Ella squealed in delight and took a cake. Draco took it from her "no sweets until after lunch or dinner"

"aw, just a bite" Ella begged

"no" Draco shook his head

"a nibble" Ella said

"no" Draco refused

"a lick" Ella said with puppy eyes

"that can be taken so many different ways love" Draco teased

Ella's face turned red and looked away "s-snake"

After their first class it was time for Care of Magical Creatures. The slytherin's made their way down to Hagrid's hut. Their were things that looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. 

There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.

"On'y jus' hatched," said Hagrid proudly, "so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

"And why would we want to raise them?" said a cold voice.

The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.

Hagrid looked stumped at the question.

"I mean, what do they do?" asked Malfoy. "What is the point of them?"

"they look awful" Ella said from behind Draco

Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds' pause, then he said roughly, "Tha's next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus' feedin' 'em today. Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things - I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer - I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake - just try 'em out with a bit of each. "

Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have made Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry couldn't suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn't seem to have mouths.

"Ouch!" yelled Dean Thomas after about ten minutes. "It got me. "

Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious.

"Its end exploded!" said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand.

"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off," said Hagrid, nodding.

"Eurgh!" said Lavender Brown again. "Eurgh, Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?"

"Ah, some of 'em have got stings," said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). "I reckon they're the males. . . . The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies. . . . I think they might be ter suck blood. "

"Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive," said Malfoy sarcastically. "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?"

"Just because they're not very pretty, it doesn't mean they're not useful," Hermione snapped. "Dragon blood's amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?"