Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix [139]
“Professor…” said Harry.
“Yes, Potter?”
“Is Malfoy going to be an official Animagus too?” As soon as these words left his mouth, Professor McGonagall made a rare expression: she smiled.
“More or less,” she said, still smiling. “While he’ll be registered, it won’t be as an Animagus, but a Polymagus.” Harry sighed.
“Are we ever going to see what he can become?”
“Oh… you’ll see soon enough, Potter,” she said. What was she talking about? Was Malfoy planning to surprise him at night or something? No, Professor McGonagall would’ve told him if it was something like that. It wasn’t like her to act like this.
Before Harry could ask any more follow-up questions, he felt himself being dragged away by Ron and Hermione, all the way back up to the castle.
“Come on Harry, grumbled Hermione, “we’ve got to study for the O.W.L.s, and I don’t want to get anything less than a perfect, especially because of you.” Harry got up, and walked back to the castle, discussing possibilities for what Malfoy’s animal could be.
“Well, I’ve read a few things on Polymagi-” said Hermione when they arrived in the library.
“She had to have read something on it,” whispered Ron, “she’s read every book in this entire library.”
“-and I’ve found out that what most of them… or at least three out of all five of them… have not transformed into several different animals, but combined several animals together, to make one superior one.”
“So Malfoy definitely has the advantage…” said Harry. If Malfoy had put together some of the nastiest creatures on Earth, there may be no stopping him, especially if he worked for Voldemort, which he was almost certainly doing already.
They studied for the rest of the day, just sitting there, reading books. It was very dull work, and Harry was glad when it came time to go to bed, though the next several days weren’t any more entertaining. All his classes were still review. However, Hagrid told them what his Advance O.W.L. requirement would be.
“Well, y’all ar’ gonna’ fight yer dragons ‘gainst on’ an other. The final four left’ll get th’ Advanced O.W.L.” It seemed simple enough, it was like a duel. Each dragon would fight another randomly chosen one, and the last four standing gave their owners the Advanced O.W.L.
To get ready for this challenge, Hagrid decided to devote the rest of the year to training the dragons how to fight well. They used their books to figure out how to toughen up their dragons, and found out that flying was the best exercise for them. So, each student hopped up onto their dragon, and attempted to make it fly. It would have been a very strange sight for anyone, seeing almost twenty students trying to mount dragons, and poorly fly them through the sky, wobbling all over.
Harry’s massive Hungarian Horntail (now fully grown, and the size of ten of Hagrid’s huts) proved to be very obedient. At just the slightest command of him waving his wand, the dragon would immediately turn to wherever Harry wanted.
Other students were not as lucky. Hermione’s Three-Headed Transylvanian Terror was living up to its name. It was the size of two school buses, but did not move like them. No matter how much Hermione pointed, the dragon would not move an inch. All it did was throw her off its back.
Ron was doing quite well. His dragon, like Harry’s, obeyed his every command, going wherever he wanted it to go, even thought its top speed seemed to be less than one mile an hour. The African Abysmall was getting larger every day, and not vertically.
It was Malfoy, though, he seemed to be the best at flying his dragon. He didn’t even use his wand, he just leaned over to the side, and his dragon moved along with him. He and the dragon seemed to have some sort of bond, a connection that no one else, not even Harry, could surpass.
The weeks, soon turning into months, passed on like that. Winter was far in the past, and Spring was just ending. It was mid may, and just about time