Although Ethan ate quickly, the large portion naturally meant it took more time.
Terry took the newspaper and immediately flipped to the *Daily Prophet*, searching through it.
He didn't find any news about the Triwizard Tournament, so he started looking for reports about Gringotts.
To enjoy gossip and join in other people's conversations, you naturally need to know more.
As a result, Terry read these newspapers and magazines even more carefully than Ethan.
After breakfast, Terry collected the newspapers and handed them to Ethan.
The group walked towards the grounds outside the school.
The first class was Herbology, held in the greenhouses outside.
Walking past the damp vegetable patches, they arrived at Greenhouse Three, where Professor Sprout was already waiting.
After the bell rang, Professor Sprout showed the class a plant.
Calling it a plant wasn't quite right; it looked more like a large, black, slimy booger sticking straight out of the soil.
Each one was wriggling slightly, covered in shiny, large blisters that seemed to be filled with liquid.
Ethan had dealt with these things before: Bubotuber pus, a rather precious potion ingredient with a wide range of uses.
Of course, this wasn't during Potions class, but when Ethan was brewing potions privately.
The main thing was squeezing the pus out of their bodies.
Ethan could clearly see the disgust in the eyes of many students when they saw these things.
No one expected the first class of the year to be about such disgusting things.
But Professor Sprout's next words made everyone even more despondent.
"Bubotubers," Professor Sprout happily told them.
"You'll need to squeeze them with your hands and collect their pus."
"What?"
A cry of surprise rang out, and everyone looked to see that it was Seamus Finnigan from Gryffindor.
Professor Sprout thought he hadn't heard clearly, so she immediately explained, "The pus—collect the pus. It's extremely valuable, so don't waste it. Listen carefully: you'll collect the pus in these bottles."
"Oh, and put on your dragon-hide gloves. Undiluted Bubotuber pus can cause unusual damage to the skin."
Then, Professor Sprout demonstrated again how to properly squeeze the pus from the Bubotubers.
The young wizards, though reluctant, put on their dragon-hide gloves and prepared for the lesson.
Although Professor Sprout was kind and didn't get angry, if you didn't follow her instructions and disrupted the class, she wouldn't hesitate to deduct points.
But as everyone squeezed, they found it quite interesting.
Especially when a blister burst, spraying a large amount of viscous, yellowish-green liquid. Although the smell was unpleasant, there was a sense of satisfaction.
Later, without Professor Sprout needing to remind them, everyone was vying to squeeze the Bubotubers.
By the time class was almost over, several bottles of Bubotuber pus had been collected.
As the bell rang, the young wizards left Greenhouse Three and headed down the grassy slope towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, instead of returning to Hogwarts Castle.
Last year, Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class, although with a few less-than-ideal lessons,
was generally well-received by the young wizards.
When the young wizards arrived, Hagrid was standing outside the hut, holding the collar of his huge boarhound, Fang.
On the ground near his feet were several open wooden crates, and as the young wizards approached, a strange clicking sound reached their ears, along with faint popping noises.
Ethan painfully covered his forehead.
This summer, due to the Quidditch World Cup, Ethan hadn't visited Hagrid.
Hagrid wasn't interested in Quidditch either, so he hadn't gone to the matches.
This meant Ethan hadn't given him a reminder, and he'd still created the hybrid of a manticore and a fire crab.
Although Ethan hadn't seen what it looked like, he knew from the descriptions in the books that it was a dangerous and extremely ugly thing.
Having the young wizards raise these things would likely ruin the popularity Hagrid had painstakingly built up last year.
Sure enough, if he didn't supervise and Lupin didn't teach, Hagrid was still far from being a qualified professor.
But now that Hagrid had already created these things, it was too late to say anything.
Ethan knew Hagrid's personality; he wouldn't abandon these little creatures unless he had been stopped from the start.
Led by Hagrid, the group arrived at the teaching area.
Then, Hagrid opened the crates and allowed the young wizards to come and see the little creatures they would be interacting with.
The young wizards were quite curious and gathered around.
"Disgusting!"
Hermione's roommate, Lavender Brown, screamed and jumped back a few steps.
These things were truly disgusting. Not just Lavender Brown, but the other young wizards, although they didn't scream, also showed signs of disgust.
It was hard to even describe these things as ugly; they looked like deformed, shelled lobsters.
Pale gray and slimy, with many legs sticking out haphazardly, and no visible head.
There were about a hundred in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over each other, mindlessly bumping into the sides of the crates.
In addition, these disgusting things emitted a very strong smell of rotten fish and shrimp.
From time to time, the rear end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt would shoot out sparks, and with a soft pop, the Skrewt would propel itself forward a few inches.
Compared to them, the Bubotubers in Herbology class were positively beautiful.
And Hagrid, seemingly unaware of the young wizards' discomfort, continued to speak in an excited tone:
"These are all newly hatched babies! You can raise them yourselves! We can do a big project!"
The atmosphere instantly chilled.
The young wizards looked at Hagrid with incredulous expressions.
"Why would we want to raise them?"
Amidst the silence, a brave soul stood up and retorted against Professor Hagrid.
It wasn't until he stepped out of the crowd that it was revealed to be Ron.
Hagrid looked at Ron with some embarrassment, unsure how to explain for a moment.
"What I want to ask is, what purpose do they serve?"
Ron simply wanted to use this method to attract the attention of his classmates, so he was showing off at this moment.
Harry had broken up with him, and he was doing everything alone. Ron had had enough of these days.
"That's the content of the next lesson. Today, just feed them. But I've never raised them before, and I'm not sure what they like to eat. So I've prepared ant eggs, frog livers, and emerald green snakes. Take a little of each and try to see if they eat it."
Hagrid didn't know how to explain either, so he could only awkwardly gloss over the topic.
Ron couldn't continue to press him, otherwise, if it led to points being deducted, he would be subjected to his classmates' scorn right from the start of the semester.
Then it was class time, but this class was a complete disaster.
Various accidents and complaints kept ringing out.
Some young wizards even openly stated that they shouldn't have chosen the Care of Magical Creatures class this year.
Chapter 246: An Unconventional Defense Against the Dark Arts Class
Time flew by, and it was Thursday.
Harry also arrived at Hogwarts and began his semester of study.
Nothing special happened in these two days. Everything was as usual.
However, if there was anything that happened, then there was.
Seamus Finnigan's special exploding charm reappeared in Charms and Transfiguration classes.
This morning, Neville once again burned through his cauldron.
But now, everyone was used to it.
Many young wizards were even speculating about how many cauldrons Neville would burn through by the time he graduated.
Currently, at the start of the fourth year, six cauldrons have already been lost to Neville.
Regarding this, Snape could only punish him to process potion ingredients for him, in addition to deducting points.
Of course, Snape wouldn't entrust Neville with more complex tasks.
It was unknown whether Snape was retaliating against Neville, knowing that he had a toad as a pet and cherished it greatly, yet he deliberately punished Neville to come over in the evening to dissect horned toads and extract their livers.
After lunch, the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the year arrived.
Last year's Professor Lupin was quite popular, leading many young wizards to have some expectations for this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at the start of the semester.
But upon seeing Moody, the expectations for this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts class vanished.
Indeed, someone like Lupin was an exception.
Although many young wizards learned about Moody's identity through introductions from classmates—a very experienced Auror with impressive achievements, claiming that half of Azkaban's Death Eaters were caught by him—few young wizards thought he would teach well with his neurotic appearance.
Arriving at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, many young wizards had already arrived.
However, the atmosphere was particularly quiet, and they took out their respective "Dark Arts: Self-Defense Guide" and pretended to read it.
There was none of the relaxed and pleasant atmosphere of other courses.
Ethan, on the other hand, didn't feel anything and directly left the Ravenclaw team to sit on the Slytherin side.
Defense Against the Dark Arts, unlike other courses that require grouping, Ethan had been sitting in the Slytherin seat for the past two years unless it was a practical lesson.
As the class bell rang, Moody's distinctive thumping footsteps came from the corridor.
Soon, Moody walked into the classroom, looking as strange and scary as he had at the opening feast, and as he walked, his claw-like wooden leg could be seen peeking out from under his robe.
Moody naturally saw the textbooks the young wizards were holding as he entered the classroom.
"Put those things away,"
Moody said as he hobbled to the podium with his cane and sat down.
"You won't need those textbooks in this class."
Hearing this, the young wizards happily put away the textbooks on their desks, immediately thinking that this new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, like Lupin before him, would take them on a practical lesson on the first day.
Then, Moody took out the roster, shook his head, and began to call out names.
His normal eye moved down the list, while his magical eye kept turning, staring at each responding student, as if trying to see through them.
This gave the young wizards immense pressure.
After the last young wizard answered "Present," Moody put away the roster in his hand and looked at the young wizards below with a sinister smile on his face.
"I received a letter from Professor Lupin. He introduced the situation of this course."
"In the last school year, you have mastered a lot of basic knowledge on how to deal with dark magic creatures, and learned how to deal with Boggarts, Red Caps, Hinkypunks, Grindylows, Kappas, and Werewolves, right?"
The young wizards nodded in response.
Their perception of Moody improved a little bit, at least he wasn't an unreasonable Defense Against the Dark Arts professor like Snape, and he knew to ask about the learning progress. It would be even better if his appearance wasn't so terrifying.
"Just knowing how to deal with magical creatures is not enough. You should also learn how to deal with spells."
"Therefore, I am going to let you experience the duels between wizards. I have a year to teach you how to deal with dark magic."
Hearing Moody say this, a trace of excitement flashed in the eyes of the young wizards.
