Their next lesson was care of magical creatures, a lesson that Rosalyn, along with lots of others, had been looking forward to. She was so happy that Hagrid was teaching, but she still hadn't forgotten what had happened last lesson as she climbed down the ladder amongst whispers and hisses. She ignored them the best she could, but some of them were hard to.

"The grim? Seriously Potter?"

"How'd you manage to do that? In our first lesson as well!"

"Are you going to die?"

"Round of applause for Rosalyn Potter she's close to death again!"

Rosalyn rolled her eyes and muttered, "idiots," under her breath.

Other people had met up with their friends who hadn't been in the class, and were telling them all about it.

"...And Rosalyn, you know, Rosalyn Potter, she got the grim! The omen of death!"

"...And she might die!"

"...What if she does?"

"Once you've all stopped talking about whether I'm going to die or not," said Rosalyn loudly, losing her temper.

Ron, Hermione and Harry all said, "Rosalyn..." But their friend marched on ahead of them, annoyed to the limit.

She marched out the front doors of the castle, striding longer than she ever had before, but her friends were running, and they soon caught up with her, all being careful not to rouse her explosive temper again.

Ron said uncertainly. "You don't think that grim thing's got anything to do with Sirius Black, has it?"

Hermione replied matter of factly, of course. "Oh honestly Ron, divination's a very wooly discipline if you ask me. Now, ancient runes, that's a fascinating subject-"

Ron cut across Hermione's rant. "Ancient runes? Exactly how many classes are you taking this term?"

"A fair few," said Hermione. Rosalyn surveyed her, knowing that there was something she wasn't telling them, and wanting to find it out. But all Hermione did was swallow and out her hand on her chest.

However, whilst Rosalyn was sniffing out the bluff looking at Hermione, Ron was doing it a different way. "Hang on, that's not possible, ancient runes is on at the same time as divination, you'd have to be in two classes at once!"

Hermione just brushed it off. "Don't be silly Ronald how could anyone be in two classes at once?" She started to walk ahead of them so that, Rosalyn perceived, they couldn't see her face, she started to mock Trelawney, to draw the attention off her timetable, "Broaden your minds! Use your inner eye to see the future!"

She gave a cackle-like laugh and Rosalyn laughed unsurely with the boys. Soon, they reached solid ground and stopped outside Hagrid's cabin, where he was with some of the class.

Rosalyn walked up to him and said a few words of encouragement. "Good luck, Hagrid, I hope you do great!"

Hagrid beamed at Rosalyn and she went back to Harry, Ron and Hermione. She saw Draco Malfoy arrive and sighed, but she didn't want to let it spoil her lesson.

When Hagrid saw that all the class was there (Draco was last to arrive) he started the lesson. "Come now- gather roun'- come closer, yeah, come- less talkin' if yeh don't mind. Now, I've gotta real treat fer yeh today, a great lesson, so follow me."

He led them into the Forbidden Forest. Some people, like Parvati and Lavender, were a bit apprehensive about going in there, and stopped in their tracks as soon as they got to the edge. Rosalyn rolled her eyes and they scowled at her.

"We're with Hagrid, he won't let us get hurt," she argued.

"But there's monsters in there, bad ones!" Parvati said.

"Then you can miss out on our amazing lesson, then," said Hermione coolly. There was a reason she was so icy, as, last class, Parvati and Lavender had excelled in divination, and had become so close to Professor Trelawney in just one lesson.

"Yeh're not gettin' hurt," Hagrid said, taking the same tone as Hermione. "Not on my watch yeh're not."

So it was that Parvati and Lavender reluctantly went into the forest, but Rosalyn didn't think that they appreciated Dean, Seamus, Harry, Ron and her scaring them and jumping out from trees to make them jump. They were bent over laughing when Hagrid lead them into a place in the forest that Rosalyn had never been to before. It was a nice clearing, with a sort of paddock in it.

When the chatting, laughing students climbed the dyke and got into the paddock, Hagrid said. "Righ' you lot, stop chatterin' an' form a group over there. Oh! And open yer books at page for'y-nine!"

Rosalyn sighed, every student here had the furry, lethal books, but, she noticed, they were all tied with a belt or similar. She herself had her book in her arm, but she didn't want to be the one to ask Hagrid how to open them without spending weeks in the hospital wing. But eventually Draco Malfoy did it, and a lot less polite than Rosalyn would have done.

"Exactly how do we do that?" He demanded of Hagrid.

"Jus' stroke the spine o' course!" Hagrid said as if it was obvious, then he went to go and get whatever creature they were studying.

Rosalyn sighed as she saw Neville open his book without stroking it, it started to bite ferociously and Rosalyn winced as her fell over backwards into shreds of paper.

"Don't be such an idiot, Longbottom," Theodore Nott said harshly.

"Leave him alone!" Rosalyn snarled angrily.

"Oh yeah, and what you gonna do, Potty?" Nott asked, Pansy Parkinson and a group of Slytherin girls sniggered.

"A whole lot more than you could!" Hermione burst out, but it only fueled the laughter of the Slytherin's.

Rosalyn sighed, ignoring Nott, and went over to Neville, saying, "here," and offering her hand to him.

He hesitated before he took it and she helped him up, he went very red as he touched her hand, but she pulled him up and he said, "thanks," to her.

Rosalyn smiled at Neville and he smiled back unsurely, then she went back to her friends who were laughing. But what she didn't know is that they were laughing at her, at how clueless she was.

"What?" She asked them after about ten minutes of them laughing at her.

"Doesn't matter," said Harry quickly, as his twin sister rolled her eyes.

Hermione sighed as she put her book on a rock, saying to her friends with crossed arms. "I think they're funny."

Rosalyn knew she only said that to shut Malfoy, Nott and the other Slytherin's down, and so did Malfoy, who said jeeringly. "Oh yeah, terribly funny, really witty." He turned back to Nott and said in a rather carrying murmur. "God, this place is going to the dogs, wait until my father hears Dumbledore's got this oaf teaching classes."

Rosalyn walked forward amongst a few giggles, saying. "Shut up Malfoy!"

There was a lot of oooohing, then Malfoy stepped forward. "Got a problem, Potter?"

"No, but if I did, I wouldn't be running to daddy like you always do."

Rosalyn smirked. Malfoy too. "At least I have a father."

"Yeah, one who's a pompous git with hair almost greasier than Snape's."

Malfoy looked outraged. "You dare insult my father-"

"I dare," Rosalyn stood with her hands on her hips.

But then, suddenly, Malfoy and his posse started looking at something over Rosalyn's shoulder, pointing at it, stumbling backwards. "Dementor, dementor!"

Rosalyn turned, red hair flying, and so did the rest of Gryffindor, but there was nothing there. For a split second she still thought Malfoy was telling the truth, and she looked round, but then she heard the jeers and turned round to see Malfoy, Nott and Crabbe, hoods up, arms held out, pretending to be dementors.

Hermione dragged Rosalyn away, making a rude face to the Slytherins.

"Don't worry about them, they're idiots," Ron assured Rosalyn.

Hermione said, "It's fine, as long as they don't do anything to Hagrid, he won't stand up for himself, like you do, Rosie, will he?"

"He might," Harry said, "He's always hated Malfoy, and now he's a teacher, he might-"

But Hagrid cleared his throat just then, he was back with an animal at his side and ropes of dead ferrets around his neck. He made a fanfare noise and put both his arms in the direction of the creature before them.

It had the body and legs of a horse, trotting proudly through the paddock, but it's head was one of a bird, one that Rosalyn couldn't name.

She saw that many people had come forward to see it, and then moved back, scared by it for reasons Rosalyn did not know. It was beautiful, not dangerous.

She had to pinch herself at that moment, and she smiled as she realised that she had been thinking in Hagrid's point of view, the point of view that said no creatures were harmful, and they could all be pets.

Smiling, she listened to Hagrid as he explained, chucking a ferret at the bird-horse thing. "Isn't 'e beautiful? Say hello, to Buckbeak!"

"Hagrid... exactly what is that?" Ron asked, his face half scared, half interested.

"That, Ron, is a hippogriff," Hagrid said, walking towards them. "Now, the firs' thing yeh need teh know abou' hippogriffs, is that they're very proud creatures, very easily offended, yeh do not want teh insul' a hippogriff, it may just be that last thing yeh ever do," he said this ominously, but then he clapped his hands together and said, "Now, who'd like teh come and say hello?"

Rosalyn was still transfixed by the animal behind Hagrid, so when everyone else stepped back out of fear, she didn't. As Hagrid had looked away, it looked like Rosalyn had stepped forward, not everyone else had stepped backwards.

"Well done Rosalyn, well done!" Siad Hagrid happily,

Rosalyn looked behind her and saw that everyone was three feet away from her. She stared at Harry, Ron and Hermione who looked apologetic.

"Come on now," urged Hagrid, and before she could protest, Ron had leant in and shoved her forward.

She stumbled on the rocky, uneven ground, but walked forward as Hagrid told her the rules. "Now, yeh have teh let him, make the firs' move, it's on'y polite. Now, step up, give 'im a nice bow, if 'e bows back, you can go an' touch 'im, if 'e doesn't... well we'll get teh that later..."

Rosalyn advanced slowly, mildly irritated by the big hole in Hagrid's plan, but more distracted by the hippogriff before her.

When she got about five feet away from Buckbeak, she bowed, like people do to the queen, and Hagrid said. "That's it! Nice an' low!"

But Buckbeak raised his wings, his beak clapping and making a little squawk, likea bird would do. "Back off Rosalyn, back off!" Hagrid said, gesturing with his hands to back away.

Rosalyn did back off, but snapped a twig on the ground. She heard an intake of breath behind her that she knew to be Hermione's.

Anyway, Rosalyn was still bent in half, and Hagrid was saying. "Keep still, Rosie. Keep still!"

But Buckbeak put his wings down slowly, and rested all his legs on the ground, then he bent his legs and leaned his neck down into a bow.

Hagrid started clapping with his dustbin lid hands, saying. "Well done Rosalyn! Well done!" And the class followed, cheering for her. Well, most of them did.

Hagrid chucked another ferret at Buckbeak, saying to the hippogriff. "Yeh great brute!"

Rosalyn sighed as she readied herself to go back to the group, but Hagrid said. "Well, now yeh can go pet 'im."

Now, everyone wanted to see this, even Draco Malfoy, with his apple of course, shoved his way through the crowd to glimpse the sight.

Rosalyn swallowed the lump in her throat before taking the tiniest step forward, hand outstretched.

"Nice an' slowly, nice an' slow, nice an' slow," Hagrid said, and when Rosalyn took a marginally bigger step than she had been taking, he said. "Not so fast, Rosie."

Rosalyn went back to taking baby steps, inching towards Buckbeak. The hippogriff however, raised its head a little higher and snapped its beak. Rosalyn heard Hermione breath in again behind her, but what she didn't know was that Hermione had gripped Ron's arm in fright, something that surprised them both, but somehow everyone else wasn't.

Rosalyn was walking forward again, just a little, Hagrid was telling her to take it slow, and he would come to her, Buckbeak suddenly made an advance, and Rosalyn waited for him to do so again.

He came to her, and she went to him, and slowly, very slowly, she put her hand on the feathers above his beak, smiling as she saw that he didn't rip her head off, or do anything like that.

There was a round of clapping again, and Hagrid came up behind her and suddenly lifted her up. "I'm gonna let yeh ride 'im now!"

"What?" Said Rosalyn, then. "Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Hagrid-"

"Now," Hagrid said. "Don' pull out any of 'is feathers, 'cause 'e won' thank yeh fer that!"

And then he slapped Buckbeak's side and off she went.

He ran the length of the paddock before taking off into the air, and Rosalyn had to hold on with all her might to stay on the hippogriff.

It was very like riding a broom, but Rosalyn knew which one she preferred. Buckbeak's back was quite bony, and she was worried she was hurting him, but once she got used to it, it was fine.

He flew over the trees and round the castle, and Rosalyn loved it, the wind was in her face, her hair was blowing wild. She weaved in and out of the towers and turrets then dropped down to the lake, which Buckbeak flew parallel with.

He dipped a talon in the water, and sprayed the bottom of Rosalyn's robes. And when Rosalyn saw her reflection in the water, she realised how much fun she was having. She sat up, not clinging onto Buckbeak anymore, but taking her arms off the hippogriff altogether.

She opened her arms and laughed, cheering and yelling as she skimmed the water.

"Ha! WOOHOOO! WOOOHOOOOOOOO!"

She sighed as Buckbeak moved away from the water, and back up to the trees, which he circled. Hagrid was smiling on the ground, looking up at Rosalyn and Buckbeak before he whistled and the creature with his rider landed roughly on the ground amidst cheers, hoots and claps.

Hagrid, still clapping, lifted Rosalyn off Buckbeak when he stopped preening and was still.

As he lifted her down, he asked her. "How'ma doin' on ma firs' day?"

"Brilliant, Professor," said Rosalyn, grinning.

Hagrid laughed slightly and sent her back to the others, where Harry, Ron and Hermione had a lot to ask her.

Draco Malfoy, meanwhile, was furious. And, in an idiotic plan to put the attention back on himself, he barged past Nott and Crabbe, heading for Buckbeak.

For a moment, Rosalyn thought he was going to hurt Buckbeak. But then she realised that the roles were reversed.

Malfoy was ranting. "Yeah, you're not dangerous at all, are ya? You great, ugly brute!"

"Malfoy, Malfoy-" Hagrid started, but it was too late.

Several people screamed. Buckbeak was on his hind legs, wings flapping, screeching loudly. He had his deadly talons as well, and as Malfoy put his arm up to shield his face, it got struck. His robes tore, and fell to the ground.

Hagrid calmed Buckbeak down, but Draco was rolling about, crying. "It's killed me! It's killed me!"

"Calm down, it's jus' a scratch!" Hagrid said.

"Hagrid!" Hermione yelled, face desperate. "He has to be taken to the hospital!"

"I'm the teacher I'll do it!" Said Hagrid, then he turned and said. "Class dismissed!" Whilst Draco wailed out threats.

"It's your fault, don't blame Hagrid," muttered Rosalyn.

But that was exactly what Draco decided to do.