Chapter 11: October Nights

It was a wonderful Monday afternoon in the beginning of October. The leaves were falling from the trees, following the flow of the wind as they scattered over the grounds, adding a magnificent red and brown colour to the environment. I saw owls flying away from and towards the castle, carrying everything from notes to boxes to nothing at all.

I was now near Hagrid's hut, where the Care of Magical Creatures lecture was taking place. Students were now rushing around the little field with their massive books, dragging their robes into the dirt. They were conversing happily while waiting for the professor to arrive.

We didn't have to wait long before the half-giant emerged from his hut. His hand was clutching a medium-sized, well sealed wooden cage. To be honest, it didn't look like a cage at all; it looked more like a full log, although there were certain man-made shapes that showed the form was artificial.

"Beau'iful day, isn' it?" He smiled as he easily grabbed a large table near his door. He positioned the table in the centre of the field and above it the so-called cage.

With his normal wide and welcoming smile, he glanced at the students one by one, evidently examining all of them, and some students greeted him. He returned to the table once he noticed that no one was absent. "Righ', let's get straight ter the lesson."

When he unlocked the cage, two shy branch-like insects emerged. Instead of crawling or slithering, the insect appeared to be standing on two legs. The class then murmured loudly, clearly intrigued, and some explained what it was to those who didn't know.

"This, is a bowtruckle." he said excitedly, the bowtruckle climbing to his giant palm, holding his thumb tightly. "Yeh can come closer, but not too close, they're a bit o' a shy one, yeh see."

Of course, a bunch of students came closer, to see in more detail about the anatomy of the creature.

"They live in trees, usually magical ones. This is an adult one, so they're quite small, an' they're hard ter spot if they picked a good tree ter hide in. They love bugs, anybody wan' ter feed 'em? the food are in the bucket righ' over there."

One of the female students approached the bucket that was pointed out by Hagrid, but when she saw what's inside it, she squirmed, stepping away from the bucket.

"Come on, wha' are yeh waiting fer?"

When another student, this time a guy, noticed the female student's hesitation, he approached. He looked disgusted when he saw what was inside, but he still grasped the handle. When the male student carried the bucket to the table, the other students were finally able to view what was inside.

Worms and other insects were moving around inside the bucket, attempting to escape. Within were earthworms, hairy worms, and even some leeches. With the worms on show, the students were afraid to get any closer, and they didn't even want to feed the bowtruckles anymore.

"Wha'? it's jus worms." Hagrid snorted. "Anybody?"

Again, nobody answered, including me.

Hagrid just sighed as he put down the bowtruckle to the cage again. "Fine, we'll jus move on then."

And after that, the class went on smoothly, with the students not wanting to approach the bucket full of worms.

After the class had ended, the students obviously dispersed, walking once again towards the castle to either enjoy their free time or go to their next class. Instead of following them, however, I stayed, following the professor towards his hut.

"Uh, Professor, I'd like to ask you some questions." I called.

"Don't bother calling me a professor." he said as he put down the bucket. "Righ', wha' d'you wan' ter ask?"

"Let's hypothetically say that I have a Graphorn." I said. "How do I hypothetically harvest its horns without killing them?"

"Gallopin' Gorgons! Why d'you even ask tha'?"

"Well I am just curious, Hagrid."

"Well, firs' o' all, yeh can't, a graphorn will try ter kill yeh before yeh even try ter do tha'..." Hagrid murmured.

"But let's say that its tame—"

"Even if it's tame, I don't know how they will even allow tha'," he said. "Maybe the small horns around their necks, but the two big ones are definitely a no-no."

"Well how do I get those small ones?"

"Well jus cut it, or pull it." he answered. "Those small ones are easy ter pull, an' they'll grow it back so don't worry 'bout it not coming back, but be careful, even if they're tame, doesn't mean they'll be pleased with it.."

Well you're a half giant, of course it's easy for you to pull…

"Why d'you ask? d'you spot a graphorn around?" He narrowed his eyes. "They haven't bin seen in ages here. I'd like ter bring it here if i can, ter take care o' it, an' ter show it ter students."

"I wouldn't think that's a good idea… but no, I didn't spot a Graphorn, I was just curious." I answered. "Alright, thanks Hagrid, I'll see you next week."

"Well, even if you're curious, jus don't go from Hogwarts too far…"

And after that, I left his hut, walking towards the castle once again.

======

When the late afternoon came and there were no classes remaining, I entered the vivarium once again with two buckets full of brown stock feed that was left for me inside the room, shaped like corks and small worms that don't look appetising for humans at all. Near the entrance, the family of Graphorns was already waiting for me.

"Well, I can only bring so much." I chuckled as the two younglings approached me with excitement, their tentacles in front of their mouths, already grabbing the feed. I then walked towards the two adult Graphorns, caressing their necks. "I'm curious how you are able to survive so far, hunting the other beasts here?"

The two Graphorns just grunted, enjoying the massages that I gave to their necks.

"Can I take some of your horns?" I asked quietly, looking at the slightly curved and long, small horns around their necks. To be honest, it looks like if I allowed it to grow any longer, it would penetrate the skin and possibly injure them.

So, looking at the small longhorns, I slowly took out my wand and pointed it at them.

"Diffindo."

A small blade travelled through the air, and it cut the horns cleanly, separating the horn from the body. The graphorn shook a bit, slightly in pain, but it just went back to normal.

"Good." I hummed, looking at the horn in my hand. I could sell this for, like, what? 100 galleons a piece? That's a sh*tload of money... I'm not sure if selling it is illegal, given that the creature's nearly extinct.

Suddenly, a loud beast's cry echoed throughout the sky. It was like a hawk's cry—sharp and somewhat intimidating. When I looked above, I could then see two horse-like creatures with eagle-like heads flying around in the air, one brown and one white, seemingly playing around, dodging each other.

They were hippogriffs, and they were approaching the beach, trying to land on the sands. It was quite weird that hippogriffs were going as far as here. As far as I know, their habitats were in the forests and the grasslands, not on the beach.

The two hippogriffs then swooped down towards the sea, seemingly wanting to dive into the waters, but then they spread their wings again, stopping the momentum, and their claws looked to be grabbing something from the water. The hippogriffs flapped their wings again, flying towards the beach.

As they landed, they threw what they had grabbed into the air and ate it instantly. They just ate a fish; I don't even know that there are fish here...

I then realised that maybe I could ride them to see around the place. So, I approached them slowly, grabbing a couple of those pellets to give them.

The two hippogriffs raised their heads proudly as they saw me, seemingly showing dominance. Seeing this, I quickly stopped just a couple of feet from them, and bowed as low as possible. The hippogriffs were at first confused, tilting their heads a little, but then, after a couple of seconds of waiting, they bowed back.

Finally, I straightened up my back and approached them, giving them the pellets while patting their necks.

"You've come far away from your habitat." I murmured. "Where is your home?"

After seemingly swallowing all the feed I've given them, they seemingly stepped back before flying away, not giving me a chance to ride their backs.

Seeing them wander away, I just sighed. "Well, next time, I suppose..."

======

I was now inside the library in the early evening, sitting on one of the chairs supplied on the first floor of the massive building. Outside, it was quite dark, the rain was falling steadily, and the wind was hitting the windows, generating cracking and clanging sounds that echoed through the silent and peaceful hall. There were only a couple of people in the library, therefore it wasn't too crowded, and I had the whole big table to myself at that point.

It was just right after dinner, so my stomach was quite full after a hearty meal in the great hall, and I felt more focused on studying. I was surrounded by books that were about a wide array of topics, as I was trying to finish all my assignments and extra assignments. I have transfiguration books for McGonagall's essays, ancient rune translator books for ancient runes homework, and Care of Magical Creatures books for my own personal research, preparing to take care of those beasts in the vivarium.

My mind was all over the place at the start of this month; I had piles and piles of assignments that I needed to do, and it's starting to wear me out, but the Occlumency at least helped me to blank my mind and wash my anxieties away. Speaking of occlumency, I have reached the point where the book advised me that training on my own isn't going to be beneficial anymore; the only thing I need to do to master this obscure branch of knowledge is to practise, and to do that, I need someone to attack me with their legilimency and/or spells that would try to invade my mind, which is a bit of a problem.

Anyway, I tried not to think about that at the moment, as I have to hurry off to finish these assignments, and I need to meet Moody in about thirty minutes.

Suddenly, while I was writing the essays using my quills, a girl sat just right in front of me. Out of every spot in this vast library that is pretty much empty at the moment, she chose to sit in front of me; either she didn't like to be alone or she must want something from me, and when I saw the girl's face, I was guessing that it was the latter scenario.

It was Hermione Granger. The girl was bringing her usual stacks of books, but then I also saw some uncommon things in the midst of said stacks of books. Pamphlets, a pouch of buttons, and a box that has a small hole on it, like a donation box.

I see where this is going...

"Hi..." She awkwardly greeted me. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Well, you're already talking to me." I shrugged, half focusing on my parchments.

"Right…" she murmured. "Are you interested in joining my society? It's about the promotion of house elves' welfare and rights."

"House elves?"

"Yes, did you know about how wizards and witches treated the house elves? They are basically slavery in the modern tim—"

"Yeah, I know what house elves are, Granger; I studied in the past month." I sighed, making her blush in embarrassment. "What are you planning to do?"

"Well, in the long run, I would like all the wizarding families in Britain to free house elves from the bonds of slavery," she explained, rather nervously.

Hearing this, I just hummed, continuing to write my essay.

"O-Okay, well, do you agree with it? With how the wizards and witches treated them?"

I stopped writing and looked at her. Then, I pulled out a book, "Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them," and turned to the house elf page, which is weirdly not in the 'beings' section.

I cleared my throat, and read the content of said page. "House-elves prefer a life of servitude and consider it an honour to work for their owner. They obey their owner even if they get treated unkindly or are demanded to do anything that will cause them harm. They might not want to do what they were told, but they very rarely fail to—"

"But that is a result of generations of brainwashing and slavery!" she loudly refuted.

Because of her shout, Madam Pince instantly issued a warning. She let out a rather harsh shush sound towards her, making her flinch, and sat down once again.

"Source?" I raised my brow.

"W-Well it's just obvious, isn't it?"

I sighed once again when I heard that she doesn't have a source to back up her words. "For a girl that is known to be a know-it-all, Granger, you're quite lacking in terms of providing sources."

She frowned when she heard her nickname. "How do you know that?"

I shrugged. "Snape often mocks his students when I do my extra assignments in front of him."

She snorted when I heard that Snape was talking about her. "Fine, I might not have a source for that, and you might think that my society is ill-conceived or that promoting elfish rights is a waste of time because they seem to like being servile. But you can't deny that the mistreatment and the lack of laws that have been passed to protect their rights are alarming."

"Oh no, I think your words have merit." I hummed, continuing to do my assignments.

The girl was certainly surprised. "You do?"

"Yeah, I would also question if it's just a matter of "they like being enslaved", or if they are magically brainwashed to be servile, or selectively bred by wizards, or all of the above. Every species, especially the sentient ones, has a complex and rich history. The goblin rebellions, the centaurs' fight for their rights over their forests, the werewolves' struggle over prejudice—but you started to question why house elves don't have such a history; their histories are always seemingly aligned with ours, with no traces of their own history at all. Seeing all that, you start to wonder why they have no history; did the wizards of the past intentionally erase their history? Did something happen? No one knows."

"R-Right… turns out you do know something about the subject," she muttered. "So, do you want to join?"

I chuckled. "No."

"No? So you choose not to be supportive, even though you have thought about such scenarios?" said, narrowing her eyes.

"First of all, two sickles are too expensive for me; I literally have no money." I answered, pointing to the "two sickles" label that was written on the box, which made her a bit embarrassed. "Second of all, while I respect your cause, Granger, freeing them from slavery is not really going to help anyone except feed your righteous ego."

She took offence at that. "What? What do you mean?"

"If you free them from slavery, they would not like it, even if you think that it's better for them." I continued. "And the conservative wizarding community will not be happy at all, especially the businesses that rely on them. It's simply a lose-lose situation."

"Then what do you think we should do?" Her frown deepened. "Watch them be enslaved for generations? Beyond a certain point, I believe that watching is no different than doing."

I sighed. "It's simple. Actually promote Elvish welfare instead of talking about freeing them."

Suddenly, a bell rang throughout the library, signalling that the students inside should go to their common room, as it was late. Seeing the signal, I quickly tidied up my things and put them in my bag before standing up from the table.

"Well, it's been a rather interesting talk, Granger, but you should offer it to someone else." I said. "Have a good evening."

With a surprised look, Granger just nodded her head, and I left the room, heading towards Moody's office.