Hagrid's Hut
After finishing his dinner, he made his way down the worn stone path to the groundkeeper's hut, as darkness started engulfing the evening sky and the sun steadily set for the evening. The hut was a modest home, but it was clearly warm and friendly like the groundskeeper himself, and had that natural earthly feeling about it.
The evening slowly ticked by as Hagrid introduced him to his dog named Fang, and told him stories about his parents.
Finally, after several stories he got around to asking why he named the dog 'Fang', the half-giant replied fondly with an easily smile, "It gives him courage," before patting his loveable dog with a surprising gentleness on its brow.
Chuckling at the half-giant's odd sense of humour, he privately wondered if Hagrid had a policy of giving harmless pets dangerous sounding names, whilst giving highly dangerous creatures simple, unassuming names, like something you would give to hamster or any other family pet.
Listening as the half-giant talked about magical creatures with undisguised passion, he wondered if Hagrid had any other pets or any other creatures of personal interest. Putting down his oversized mug, "Got any other pets of interest?" he enquired, watching as Hagrid stroked Fang gently.
"Only Fluffy, nice dog, really loyal, totally harmless, wouldn't hurt a soul," Hagrid started in explanation whilst taking a gulp of his own drink, "The headmaster asked if he could borrow him for the rest of the year," the groundskeeper explained further with a half smile, as he recalled his pet.
Smiling as the half-giant talked fondly about his pet, his natural curiosity wanted to know what type of animal Fluffy was. Hagrid didn't say, just assumed that he knew what Fluffy was, but he doubted it was a rabbit like the name suggested.
It was quite annoying, not getting all the answers possible; it was one of his Ravenclaw traits, the need to know as much as possible; it was like a hunger at times, always demanding. "What type of animal is Fluffy, Hagrid? You didn't say?" Reaching down he pet Fang himself, as the giant of a man had some more mead from his mug.
"Oh, Fluffy is just my favourite three-headed dog, you know a Cerberus right?" He responded in a caring manner, not really paying much attention as he continued to drink, missing Harry's shocked expression as he immediately stopped petting the dog, as he processed the half-giant's statement.
"I didn't realize they were real. I just thought they were fiction from Ancient Greece," He replied quickly, realizing that many fictional stories he had read, may actually have some elements of truth to them. After all, Hagrid had just confirmed the existence of Cerberuses, what else could there be out there? Could there be hydras? It suddenly dawned on him that he would have to spend some time in the library reading up about such magical creatures, to fully find out what was fact and what was myth.
"Nah Harry," shaking his head, his long beard falling into his mug, "Cerberuses have been used for centuries as guard dogs by wizards and witches to guard their treasures. They are far easier to train than other magical creatures, such as dragons. After all, a dragon may just cook you alive," the giant joked, as Harry just listened patiently, before the groundskeeper pressed on in explanation.
"Best a Cerberus will do is bite a limb off, or two, you'll just be unlucky if it gets your head, instead of a leg. You just need to know how to train them," he replied taking another gulp of his drink before continuing on.
"Cerberuses are just like normal dogs really, extremely loyal, but they also have extremely sensitive hearing, even more so since they have three pairs of ears." Looking again at Harry before continuing, "You just need to train them from a young age to respond to a set piece of music, so when that instrument is played, the dog calms down and falls right to sleep," he explained with a smile.
"It's a very useful technique for training animals, since most animals have far more sensitive hearing than us. The goblins use a similar technique when training dragons to guard their high security vaults. Of course, then you have to keep it a secret, otherwise anyone can just steal what it's guarding and it would be a rather useless guard dog then, wouldn't it?"
"Sounds interesting, Hagrid," he admitted, storing the information away, "Have you ever considered teaching about magical creatures? You obviously know a lot about them, and have a passion for the material, I'm sure you know a lot of things not mentioned in the textbooks. Things that can only be leant through experience."
"You're right there, Harry, I may just have to ask the headmaster if I can take over in a couple years," the groundskeeper noted, as he thought more about the idea. "It would give me something to do besides grounds-keeping, and being the Master of the Keys," He replied, getting exciting at the idea, before seeing the clock.
"It's getting late Harry, you better head back to your dorm. I'd rather you didn't get a detention for talking with little old me," the half-giant stated whilst chuckling at his pun. Quickly saying goodbye, and agreeing to visit Hagrid again in a couple weeks' time, before making his way back to his room, thinking over what the friendly half-giant had said.
During his way back to the dorms, he unfortunately ran into the bitter caretaker who ranted and made threats. He just ignored the aging man and his cat, pushing them to the back of his mind. After all, he had done nothing wrong, so all of his remarks were worthless, just like a small dog barking, just for the sake of barking.
It seemed being ignored just made the caretaker even more enraged resulting in Harry finally snapping at the man "You really are a right piece of work aren't you, I have done nothing wrong and yet you are threatening me? You don't even know me, I suggest you pick on someone who can't have you arrested," flashing his Potter family ring at the caretaker.
"If you hate your job so much, just quit, otherwise stop your moaning," he stated bluntly as the disgruntled caretaker reddened, either from anger, or shame, but probably shame before continuing his rant.
"Have you ever thought about the reason why you are the victim of so many pranks? It's because you are trying to make our lives miserable. Think about it, I've done nothing wrong, but yet here you are, trying to cause trouble, throwing your weight around like a schoolyard bully, by god it's pathetic," looking at the man with disgust.
"What are you? A child? Grow up! If you're not happy here, find another job. Now go back to your office and think about it," dismissing the speechless man in the hallway, like a misbehaving child.
As he was walking he wondered what had suddenly caused him to snap at the man, what had suddenly caused his temper to flare, since normally he would just have weathered the verbal storm.
Thinking about his sudden outburst, it wasn't the first such outburst in recent weeks, and he had been feeling increasingly confident lately. His mind tried to come up with a logical explanation for it.
Maybe it was the result of no longer being an unfed, half-starved child finally having extra energy and belief in himself and his own worth now that he was no longer being put down every minute of the day and worked like a slave? Or was it the first signs of puberty?
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Next day – Great Hall
Looking around the Great Hall, he watched silently as different groups of students talked amongst themselves. Whilst it may appear a waste of time just watching, it did however provide some valuable insights into the people around him.
Who were the natural leaders amongst his peers, and who were the followers, who got along with who based on reading body language and positioning. Not that he could really tell with certainty, but it was still interesting to watch. It was clear that the houses stuck mostly with themselves, rather than mixed openly with another house.
Shifting his gaze over towards the Slytherin table and taking the measure of them, he noticed that the first years were broken into two camps. One was clearly led by Draco Malfoy, who in Harry's personal opinion was a spoiled brat and son of a well known Death Eater, and godson of their resident potions' master.
Over the last several weeks, Harry had taken to just ignoring the boy's presence, because frankly it was easier than getting dragged down to the boy's level; plus he wasn't going to waste his valuable time dealing with a bully, unless he started to effect Harry's own efforts.
Fortunately the spoiled brat had taken it upon himself to be Neville's rival and his daily headache instead of Harry's, not that that really surprised him. Logically by Draco trying to best Neville, the famous Boy-Who-Lived, he was trying to raise himself above Neville, and indirectly above the former Dark Lord Voldemort, even if it was stupid and childish and of dubious value even in the school setting.
How often had he heard the two boys exchanging heated insults, he didn't know, it seemed to happen every time they saw each other. Frankly, he was starting to wonder if they would eventually get bored of it, or if they would keep it up for the next seven years. On the other hand, it was very amusing to watch, at least from his point of view; he was sure the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were just amused by the frequent exchanges in the corridors.
During one such exchange, wands were drawn, resulting in an exchanging of spells. Of course, most were harmless prank spells, with no lasting consequence. However it was amusing watching Neville cast a series of disarming and blinding spells. Padma herself had been impressed until Harry told her what Professor Flitwick had told him about the boy's advanced training.
The 'duel' was very one-sided, as expected, and resulted in the boy's fame and popularity increasing within the Lion ranks. Unfortunately for him it also resulted in Neville losing 40 house points and landing himself in detention for a week, when Professor Snape finally heard about the confrontation.
Not that the young lion seemed to care, resulting in Gryffindor falling to third place in points for the House Cup. Naturally, the Deputy Headmistress not to be outdone, or perhaps just to stop her own house falling even further behind Slytherin, removed 50 points in retaliation and put Draco in detention for week with Hogwarts' resident cantankerous caretaker.
The end result was Ravenclaw gaining a comfortable lead of 100 house points over both houses, as the private house war between Gryffindor and Slytherin heated up.
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