He let out a shaky breath, and she gave him an awkward pat on the head. Not even the children were as emotional as Sirius tended to be. She wondered if she could bribe the man with treats like she did with her students, or if the promise of murder was more appropriate for someone his age. She summoned yesterday's Daily Prophet she'd forgotten to show him and gleefully handed him the front page.
GRIZZLY SCENE AT AZKABAN STUNS AURORS
In a shocking reveal by the Ministry via press conference yesterday, it was revealed that during the investigation of Azkaban Prison following the recent escape of mass murderer Sirius Black, (read more about his escape on page 7) that several maximum security prisoners located in the infamous Death Eater cell block have been found dead in their cells. The list of confirmed dead, as reported by the Ministry is as follows: Bellatrix Lestrange, Rabastian Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood, Gustav Jugson, Quentin Roberts, Amilie Bulstrode, and Wesley Mulciber. Minister Fudge said, "The state of the bodies leaves us to believe that their deaths were not natural nor coincidence." When pressed on whether this meant that foul play had been suspected, the Minister did not confirm the allegations. When asked if this was related to the removal of the Kiss-on-Sight order against escaped convict Sirius Black, the Minister did not comment.
"Lily and James got their revenge. Most of the Death Eaters in prison are dead. Again, there's just the two of us, Sirius, and we already have a lot of work cut out for us. What else can we do, realistically, about his supporters right now? Are you proposing to run for Minister of Magic? Let's focus on Voldemort, alright? If we get rid of him, we get rid of their leader."
"Those murders are going to be blamed on me," Sirius said, although he had a wide, manic grin on his face. The deaths of eight of Voldemort's forces was hardly a dent in their numbers, but it was a bloody good start.
...
The Care of Magical Creatures class was definitely a polarizing subject. Harry rather liked Hagrid, he was always nice and was absolutely mad - based on his obsession with the most dangerous types of creatures - which Harry thought was pretty endearing. But his classes… Well, most of Harry's classmates did not enjoy the danger as much as he did. Not even Ron and Hermione seemed particularly excited to be there, and Harry couldn't wait until Luna had the opportunity to take it as an elective, so he'd have someone to discuss his love of dangerous animals with. Perhaps he was being unfair, since he'd already received a ton of extra credit for his essay about how Grimms were actually sweet and fluffy and good dogs, but perhaps it was simply because the other students were cowards. Honestly, Malfoy gets injured once, and suddenly Harry was the only one willingly participating in class.
Malfoy had immediately started complaining to the two ministry officials who had come to view their lecture.
Hagrid, having clearly been warned ahead of time, began a very restrained lesson on flobberworms while trying to ignore Malfoy's loud and pathetic sobbing about his injury to Dolores Umbridge. It was a tense fifty minutes as the Slytherin students did not pretend to pay attention to the lesson and the two ministry workers scribbled loudly into their clipboards.
"Hem-hem," Umbridge interrupted as the students dispersed to do their practical portion of the lesson. Harry made sure he was at a nearby pile of worms, in case he needed to stab a bitch. She spoke slowly as though Hagrid barely had two brain cells to rub together.
"Mister - Hagrid - can - you - tell - me - about - your - criminal - history," she asked. She mimed being trapped in a box. Everyone stared at her like she was the one who was stupid, because she was.
"I can speak English, ya' know." He said. "And I was cleared of all charges last year, I was."
"Can - you - explain -"
"Dolores," the other official, an older, kind-faced balding man interrupted her. "Why don't you continue to talk to the students, I'll talk to Professor Hagrid." He heaved out a great sigh and held out his hand for Hagrid to shake. "I apologize about her. We do have it on record that you were proven innocent of all that Chamber of Secrets business last summer and there are no laws about hiring ex-felons. My only concern, you understand, is that this prevented you from finishing your education. This is a serious safety hazard, especially considering that there has already been one injury."
"I understand," Hagrid said. "Yeah, I - I got me a new wand in August, but I don't know too many spells."
"I will have to recommend you receive some further training in Defense, sir, so that you can properly protect the students in case of emergency. Did you ever take your OWLs or NEWTs?"
"No," Hagrid said hesitantly. Boy, he was super underqualified, wasn't he? He loved the subject, loved the animals and explaining it to the kids, but - even if Malfoy had been a dumb little shit, (and Hagrid was sticking to it that none of that had been his fault) it was clear he needed more education to be a proper teacher. It was very kind and wonderful of Headmaster Dumbledore to offer Hagrid this position, which made sense, as Dumbledore was truly a kind and wonderful man, but it also would have been kind and wonderful for him to teach Hagrid a couple of spells first, maybe. Dumbledore was not the one in trouble for injuring students.
"Don't fret sir, this is not the end of your tenure. I will recommend to the Ministry and Headmaster Dumbledore that you take those exams, however. A qualified Care of Magical Creatures professor should have at minimum an OWL in Defense and a NEWT in Creatures. If you sit those by the start of next term, I believe that should be acceptable. In the meantime, I would recommend you stick to the calmer animals in your curriculum, and enlist the help of a qualified teacher's assistant for the upper year's more dangerous lessons."
"Those are fair requests, thank you, sir." Hagrid said, feeling a bit dumbfounded at the thought of taking exams. Luckily those two should not be too difficult? When was the last time he'd studied? "About Buckbeak - the hippogriff - "
"That is outside of my domain, I'm afraid. A hearing has been scheduled. Please keep the creature paddocked in the meantime."
Hagrid nodded bitterly. He was lucky enough he wasn't getting sacked, he'd return to the notion of saving Buckbeak later. Harry, the sweet kid he was, shot him a thumbs up from where he was working. Hell, even if Harry was the only one enjoying the lessons, Hagrid was gonna call that a win.
....
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