Chapter 34: Slugs at Hagrid's Hut
"You've got far too much energy," Hagrid grumbled as he turned away. "Up this early every morning, doing all those strange poses…"
Douglas watched him go, then turned to look back at the castle.
The grounds were quiet in the pale light of dawn.
The whole place still seemed half-asleep.
He clicked his tongue.
"A day's plans begin in the morning," he muttered. "What a fine morning, and half the castle is still in bed. No sense of school spirit at all."
The Weasley twins, who had only just fallen asleep after stumbling back to Gryffindor Tower, were violently shaken awake by Oliver Wood.
George blinked blearily.
"What… what's happening?"
Fred squinted at the window.
A thin layer of mist hung over a sky washed in pale pink and gold. It was clearly only just after sunrise.
So Fred yanked the blanket back over himself and groaned.
"Oliver. It's barely morning."
George cried out in outrage.
"Merlin's beard, Oliver, that's inhuman!"
"It's the weekend! The weekend!"
Then he pulled the blanket over his head and tried to go back to sleep.
Wood stripped it off again without mercy.
"Quidditch practice. Get up. I said get up!"
He stood over them, wild-eyed with determination.
"This is part of our new training schedule. Come on, get your brooms and follow me."
"While the other teams still haven't started training properly, we've got a chance to get ahead this year."
George shook his head, yawned, and said weakly,
"Oliver, unless I've gone mad, both practical exam rooms are open this morning."
He rubbed his eyes.
"The fourth-year one and the sixth-year one."
"Are you absolutely sure you'd rather do Quidditch practice than go challenge them again?"
Fred muffled his voice in the pillow.
"Oliver, I heard you didn't subdue a single Inferius yesterday…"
Wood looked offended.
"That's exactly why we need to train while everyone else is distracted!"
He pointed dramatically toward the window.
"Let them crowd the practical rooms. We'll use the time to surpass them."
Then, after a moment, he relented just enough to add,
"All right, fine—we can go to the practical rooms tomorrow morning."
He clapped his hands.
"Excellent. No more hesitation. Brooms. Pitch. Fifteen minutes."
"I still have other people to wake up."
And with that, he rushed off.
Lee Jordan, who had also been dragged half-awake by the noise, spoke from his bed in a tone of deep resignation.
"You know what Wood's like."
"He's been trying to win the Quidditch Cup before he graduates for years."
He yawned.
"He nearly managed it last year, too. Shame Harry ended up in the hospital at the worst possible moment."
Then he grinned.
"Come on. Help him out this year, or he'll be even worse next year."
"Don't worry. If you two can't stay awake, I'll happily take your places."
"No need to thank me."
The twins glared at him with matching expressions of pure disgust.
Douglas spent more than two hours that morning writing.
He had no desire to see owls from Mr. Slane three times a day, each one demanding a manuscript update.
After that, he went to inspect the two practical classrooms.
A long queue had already formed outside.
The seventh-years supervising the rooms, along with the class representatives from each house, were busy dragging away lower-year students and overenthusiastic fifth-years who were trying to sneak in where they did not belong.
The Gryffindor class representative, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Douglas noticed several fifth-years lingering nearby, looking unwilling to leave.
So he raised his wand and cast a voice-amplifying charm.
"Fifth-years, don't worry. Your practical classroom has already been prepared."
"What you should be doing now is reviewing the material from previous years and strengthening your foundations."
He let his gaze sweep over them.
"I do not want to see an entire year unable to clear the first stage."
The fifth-years' eyes lit up at once.
They immediately began discussing the clues they thought they had extracted from his words.
Then they scattered toward the library and their common rooms.
Douglas glanced over the crowd again and still didn't see Percy.
That boy really had made himself impossible to find.
Apart from Thursday's class, Douglas had barely seen him at all.
Still, he knew why.
Percy was one of the very few students who had signed up for all twelve subjects.
Which meant he was using a Time-Turner.
Douglas had no interest in borrowing it.
Bill had taken all twelve subjects once too, and Douglas had used Bill's Time-Turner often enough back then.
But whenever he did, he used the extra time to hide in the Room of Requirement and practice spells.
Time magic was unstable.
Violating the laws of time too seriously could have catastrophic consequences.
The Ministry of Magic was strict about that.
There were countless regulations governing Time-Turners, and misuse was punished with exceptional severity.
Douglas had no intention of seeing Bill sent to Azkaban because of some careless mistake.
And besides, a Time-Turner could not truly change the past.
Whatever you did while using it had always already been part of history.
Douglas had once thought about going back to the day of the car accident.
But the possibility terrified him.
What if, by trying to prevent it, he became part of the very chain of events that caused it?
The past could not be changed.
He caught himself and shook his head.
He was wandering off again.
In the end, Douglas didn't even wait until afternoon.
At noon, carrying a gift, he made his way down toward Hagrid's hut.
He had never really paid much attention to the edge of the Forbidden Forest before.
Now he noticed an open patch of ground beside it, where three long rows of potato noodles had been hung up to dry in the shade.
When he knocked on Hagrid's door, the gamekeeper greeted him with a broad grin.
"Ah, Douglas, there yeh are!"
Then his expression shifted.
"Something's come up, and I need your help."
He stepped aside at once.
"I reckon you can handle it."
Douglas walked in and discovered he was not the first guest to arrive.
He set his gift down on the table.
Harry and Hermione were standing in front of Ron, trying rather desperately to block Douglas's view of him.
Ron, who was slumped in a chair behind them, clearly did not want his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor to see him like this.
Unfortunately for Ron, Hagrid was not in the mood to preserve anyone's dignity.
Harry and Hermione both looked awkward.
"Professor—good evening," Harry blurted, then corrected himself at once. "I mean, good afternoon."
Before Douglas could respond, Hagrid simply pushed the two of them aside and hauled him forward until he stood directly in front of Ron.
Ron had his head lowered, his face bright red, and he was leaning over a large copper basin.
Every few seconds he burped and spat out another slug.
"Hurry up and look at him, Douglas," Hagrid said. "The poor kid's been hit by his own spell."
Then he swatted Fang away as the enormous boarhound came barreling over, tail wagging.
"Unfortunately, I haven't got a proper solution."
Douglas took one look and immediately understood.
"The Slug-Vomiting Charm," he said.
Then he added, with a faint smile,
"Though I must say, Ron, apart from the slugs, you're looking surprisingly well."
Hermione hurried to explain.
"Professor, I think all we can really do is wait for it to wear off. I've read about the spell."
"It's difficult enough to cast even under normal conditions."
Her eyes fell meaningfully on Ron's wand.
"And Ron used a broken wand."
Douglas smiled and lifted his own.
With a casual flick, he cast the counter-charm.
Ron blinked.
Then he realized he had stopped retching.
No more burping. No more slugs.
Hermione stared at Douglas with open admiration.
Douglas straightened slightly under the gaze of his students and said in an easy tone,
"Just a silent general counter-spell."
"It ends and limits ongoing magical effects."
He twirled the wand once between his fingers.
"A very useful bit of defensive magic."
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