Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

talons; Malfoy let out a high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Malfoy, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.
    ‘I’m dying!’ Malfoy yelled, as the class panicked. ‘I’m dying, look at me! It’s killed me!’
    ‘Yer not dyin’!’ said Hagrid, who had gone very white. ‘Someone help me – gotta get him outta here –’
    Hermione ran to open the gate while Hagrid lifted Malfoy easily. As they passed, Harry saw that there was a long, deep gash in Malfoy’s arm; blood splattered the grass and Hagrid ran with him, up the slope towards the castle.
    Very shaken, the Care of Magical Creatures class followed at a walk. The Slytherins were all shouting about Hagrid.
    ‘They should sack him straight away!’ said Pansy Parkinson, who was in tears.
    ‘It was Malfoy’s fault!’ snapped Dean Thomas. Crabbe and Goyle flexed their muscles threateningly.
    They all climbed the stone steps into the deserted Entrance Hall.
    ‘I’m going to see if he’s OK!’ said Pansy, and they all watched her run up the marble staircase. The Slytherins, still muttering about Hagrid, headed away in the direction of their dungeon common room; Harry, Ron and Hermione proceeded upstairs to Gryffindor Tower.
    ‘D’you think he’ll be all right?’ said Hermione nervously.
    ‘’Course he will, Madam Pomfrey can mend cuts in about a second,’ said Harry, who had had far worse injuries mended magically by the matron.
    ‘That was a really bad thing to happen in Hagrid’s first class, though, wasn’t it?’ said Ron, looking worried. ‘Trust Malfoy to mess things up for him …’
    They were among the first to reach the Great Hall at dinner-time, hoping to see Hagrid, but he wasn’t there.
    ‘They wouldn’t sack him, would they?’ said Hermione anxiously, not touching her steak-and-kidney pudding.
    ‘They’d better not,’ said Ron, who wasn’t eating either.
    Harry was watching the Slytherin table. A large group including Crabbe and Goyle were huddled together, deep in conversation. Harry was sure they were cooking up their own version of how Malfoy had got injured.
    ‘Well, you can’t say it wasn’t an interesting first day back,’ said Ron gloomily.
    They went up to the crowded Gryffindor common room after dinner and tried to do the homework Professor McGonagall had set them, but all three of them kept breaking off and glancing out of the tower window.
    ‘There’s a light on in Hagrid’s window,’ Harry said suddenly.
    Ron looked at his watch.
    ‘If we hurried, we could go down and see him, it’s still quite early …’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Hermione said slowly, and Harry saw her glance at him.
    ‘I’m allowed to walk across the grounds, ’ he said pointedly. ‘Sirius Black hasn’t got past the Dementors here, has he?’
    So they put their things away and headed out of the portrait hole, glad not to meet anybody on their way to the front doors, as they weren’t entirely sure they were supposed to be out.
    The grass was still wet and looked almost black in the twilight. When they reached Hagrid’s hut, they knocked, and a voice growled, ‘C’min.’
    Hagrid was sitting in his shirt-sleeves at his scrubbed wooden table; his boarhound, Fang, had his head in Hagrid’s lap. One look told them that Hagrid had been drinking a lot; there was a pewter tankard almost as big as a bucket in front of him, and he seemed to be having difficulty in getting them into focus.
    ‘’Spect it’s a record,’ he said thickly, when he recognised them. ‘Don’ reckon they’ve ever had a teacher who on’y lasted a day before.’
    ‘You haven’t been sacked, Hagrid!’ gasped Hermione.
    ‘Not yet,’ said Hagrid miserably, taking a huge gulp of whatever was in the tankard. ‘But ’s only a matter o’ time, i’n’t it, after Malfoy …’
    ‘How is he?’ said Ron, as they all sat down. ‘It wasn’t serious, was it?’
    ‘Madam Pomfrey fixed him best she could,’ said Hagrid dully, ‘but he’s sayin’ it’s still agony … covered in bandages … moanin’ …’
    ‘He’s faking it,’ said Harry at once. ‘Madam Pomfrey can mend anything. She regrew half my bones last year. Trust Malfoy to milk it for all it’s worth.’
    ‘School gov’nors have bin told, o’ course,’ said Hagrid miserably. ‘They reckon I started too big. Shoulda left Hippogriffs fer later … done Flobberworms or summat …