Today was Care of Magical Creatures for the third-year students.
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid looked at the bunch of young rascals before him, a warm smile spreading across his face.
Right now at Hogwarts, if one were to name the most popular classes, aside from Lupin's Defense Against the Dark Arts, it would undoubtedly be Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures.
And among the large crowd of students who had registered for Care of Magical Creatures, if anyone loved the class the most, it had to be Draco Malfoy.
Thanks to this class, Draco had ridden a Hippogriff with Harrie, shoveled Mooncalf dung together, hunted for treasure with Nifflers, and given Fluffy a bath...
Before that, back when Harrie and he were just little first-year newbies, they had even raised a dragon together.
With so many pleasant experiences hanging out with Harrie, Draco even found the teaching assistant for this class—Kyle—to be much more tolerable.
At the very least, seeing Kyle now didn't immediately remind him of that One Thousand Years of Death in Diagon Alley, or the brutal, inhumane beatings he had received on the Hogwarts Express and the Quidditch pitch back then.
More importantly, ever since Pansy had caused trouble during the first Care of Magical Creatures class and was kicked by Kyle—resulting in a concussion and fractures, a moderate disability—her presence had vanished from this course.
As for Pansy's pestering, Draco's heart actually rejected it.
Being pestered by a beautiful girl was an enjoyment.
But Pansy was no beauty; on the contrary, she was quite ugly.
Every time Draco saw her face, he would think of the Kappa that Lupin had shown them in Defense Against the Dark Arts—the magical creature that the Japanese wizards, who lived their comfortable little lives, called a water ghoul, water monkey, or river imp.
Well, Pansy wasn't quite ugly enough to be classified as a prehistoric beast.
But compared to the heavenly beautiful Harrie, she fell far short.
Draco dared to say that no female student in Slytherin could surpass Harrie in terms of looks.
The most important reason was that Pansy's personality wasn't very likeable.
She lacked the destiny of a princess, yet she always put on the airs of one.
Compared to the sweet and well-behaved Harrie, she was still miles behind.
If it weren't for his father's intention to arrange a political marriage between him and the Parkinson family, Draco wouldn't even bother to acknowledge Pansy.
"Can any student guess what magical creature we are going to talk about today?"
Hearing Hagrid's question, a large crowd of students immediately began to chatter in response.
"Dragons!"
"Chimeras!"
"Nundus!"
"& ¥ *#% ¥ ..."
Good grief, the answers were getting more and more ridiculous.
Kyle even heard someone shout "The Old Bat."
Among the answers above, not a single one had a danger rating below "XXXXX"; throwing any of them into a crowd would result in mass casualties.
Especially the Nundu. Although it couldn't beat a dragon in a one-on-one fight, just like a certain "weakest Titled Douluo" from popular cultivation tales, its most terrifying trait lay in clearing out low-level mobs.
Once a cloud of toxic mist spread out, half a city's population would be wiped out.
The Old Bat's danger rating wasn't low either. If he were truly to be classified, his danger rating would likely be above a dragon's, reaching a solid "6X" level.
The only ones who could surpass the Old Bat in terms of danger rating were probably the "Old Bee" at 7X level, and Lord Voldemort.
Cough, cough—getting sidetracked.
Hearing the students' chattering responses, a gratified smile appeared on Hagrid's face.
These students truly knew his heart.
"Regrettably, no one guessed correctly."
With a quick reach behind him, Hagrid produced a shimmering silver egg from an old cloth bag he had placed behind his back before class.
To be precise, they were fragments of an eggshell.
"Can anyone tell me what creature this egg belongs to?"
Hermione raised her arm high into the air.
"Uh, Miss Granger."
"It's an Occamy egg."
Hagrid smiled slightly. "Correct. Ten points to Gryffindor."
He handed the Occamy eggshell to Hermione. "Then this is yours to keep."
The students in Care of Magical Creatures were already well-acquainted with Hagrid's teaching routines; over the past two months or so, they had received no shortage of various souvenirs from him.
These included, but were not limited to, Unicorn hair worth ten Galleons, Thunderbird feathers starting at twenty Galleons, and Cerberus teeth starting at thirty Galleons...
Faced with Hagrid's sheer wealth, the students could only sigh in admiration, thinking, Professor, give us more.
"An Occamy is a plumed, winged, two-legged serpentine creature..."
After briefly introducing the Occamy to the students before him, Hagrid walked over to the edge of the Forbidden Forest and blew a whistle toward the pitch-black thicket.
Suddenly, two massive, blazing lightbulbs lit up within the dark, gloomy forest.
No, those weren't lightbulbs, but the eyes of some colossal creature.
Most of the students were startled by the sudden appearance of these giant eyeballs.
A few of the more faint-hearted ones even collapsed directly onto the ground in terror.
Although they knew Hagrid was fond of using these sudden surprises to scare people and had experienced it many times, they still couldn't get used to the sheer sense of oppression radiated by these dangerous, colossal beasts.
As the creature lurking in the Forbidden Forest reared its body up, the students finally caught a glimpse of its full appearance.
It was a giant serpent over a hundred meters long, with a diameter a full five or six meters wide.
The sky-scraping giant serpent stared straight down at the tiny humans below, its dull-yellow pupils gleaming with curiosity.
Looking at the panicked students, Hagrid smiled, stepped forward of his own accord, and shielded them behind him like a mother hen protecting her chicks.
"An Occamy can freely change its body size according to its environment, expanding until it fills the available space."
"Shrinking it is also very simple; all you need is a teapot and an insect."
Facing the Occamy, Hagrid held up the teapot he had prepared beforehand, along with a cockroach he had caught from god-knows-where.
"Melynia, come here!"
Under the students' astonished gazes, the Occamy, its eyes gleaming with a craving for food, lunged straight toward the teapot in Hagrid's hand.
To be precise, it lunged at the cockroach Hagrid had thrown inside.
Its body shrank at extreme speed in midair. By the time it reached the mouth of the teapot and precisely snapped up the cockroach, its body had already shriveled down to the thickness of a regular person's thumb.
After closing the teapot, Hagrid pried the lid open just a crack before passing the teapot to the students.
Hagrid was now highly experienced in teaching; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him a veteran hand.
As his teaching assistant, Kyle didn't need to fixate his full attention on this bunch of trouble-prone wizards every single second like he did during the very first class.
Therefore, he now had more time during class to study his own projects.
For example, Hashirama's Wood Release.
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