Herring Potter And The Sorcerer's Salmon - Dark Ants and Duckbeak

Herring woke up, feeling rather sickly. He'd realised his little broomstick detour had caused him to miss two of his lessons yesterday, both of which he'd need to catch up in. But today he had his first "DATDA" lesson. The mysterious acronym left Herring feeling a little curious, but moreso feeling very, very worried.

When he got down to breakfast, he was Tron and Mermione reading a newspaper. The cover said "Smilius Black - Still At Large". Tron called Herring over.

"Read this," he said, pointing to an article.

"Smilius Black is still on the loose. There have been numerous reported sightings, however, the authenticity of these has not been confirmed, as Black was reported to have been seen in 7 different towns last Saturday evening. One woman even said she saw the mass murderer pruning her hedges. Some experts say they think Smilius has access to magical spooky technology that makes you appear in 7 places at once. These experts have all been fired."

"What do you think he wants?" Tron said nervously.

"Well, as long as it's not Fishboy and Chips, I'm fine with that."

"HAHAHAYOU'RESOFUNNYHERRING!"

---

After breakfast, Herring, Tron and Mermione headed off to the ominous DATDA. They noticed when they got in, that all the desks were pushed to the edge of the room, and there was no desk for the teacher at all. Many of the walls had dark black scorchmarks in them.

"Well, that's reassuring," Herring said sarcastically. The trio leant against a wall, waiting for their teacher to arrive.

"I'd like to have just one class maybe, where the teacher is here before us."

"But then what would become of their flashy entrances?" Herring said.

"True."

Suddenly, there was a loud pop, and a large Dragon apparated smack in the centre of the room.

"OHMYGODIT'SADRAGON!" Mermione screamed. The class began to run round wildly in panic, and Peacharti Patil even leapt out of the window.

"Calm down kids, calm down. I'm professor Blupin, your new Defense Against The Dark Ants teacher."

"Shouldn't you do something about Peacharti?"

"I'm sure Lagrid will clean the mess up later," Blupin said offhandedly. "Now, onto the lesson. Defense Against The Dark Ants can be a very dangerous subject at times, as you never quite know what to expect. Sometimes the dark ants can be really big and icky."

"Dark ants?" Tron exclaimed. "Why do we need defense against Dark Ants?"

"Dark Ants are very dangerous creatures, Tron," Blupin whispered gravely, "as they are all followers of That Guy. Now, these aren't your average ants. For one, they're really, really... dark. If you don't know the required spells to protect yourself, the consequences will be terrible!"

"Can't we just squish 'em?" Tron said. Blupin just laughed.

"Ok, Tron, you can squish these Dark Ants!" he opened one of the desks, and out came a swarm of little black dots. Tron was about to stomp them, when he was distracted by Blupin's screams.

"OH MY GOD THERE'S ANTS ALL OVER THE FLOOR!" he yelled, leaping onto a desk. It promptly gave way under his weight. "SOMEONE, GET RID OF THE ANTS!"

"...You're the teacher, shouldn't you show us how?"

"HELLO, I'M HAVING A BIT OF AN EPISODE HERE!" Blupin yelled. "PAGE 11 OF YOUR TEXTBOOKS! HURRY!"

By now, the Dark Ants had spread all over the classroom and were crawling up the legs of the students. Herring was now wishing he'd jumped out of the window with Peacharti. He quickly turned to the page, and recited the incantation.

"Besquishius Remo-" He stopped, as a flood of Dark Ants had entered his mouth. he spat them out rapidly. He recited the incantation again, this time with his mouth covered.

"Besquishius Removus!" he yelled, pointing his wand at a patch of the Dark Ants. They dissapeared without a trace. The class, noticing this, did the same. Within a few minutes, the classroom was rid of all the Dark Ants.

"G... good job class," Blupin said faintly, "Do all the questions on page 12 and finish any you don't for homework. If the Dark Ants bit you, there's some antiseptic cream on the top shelf over there."

"WHEREAREYOUGOINGSIR?" Mermione said.

"I'm going for my sedatives," he replied wearily, before disapparating.

---

After class, Herring, Tron and Mermione decided to take a walk around the grounds.

"Look, there's Lagrid's hut... and Lagrid!" Herring exclaimed. "Hey, Lagrid!"

"Lagrid!" Herring said, "I haven't seen you in... one and a half days! How are you?"

"I'm..."

"You're...?"

"LAG! O_O"

"But I-"

"LAG! O_O"

"Oh yo-"

"Fine, fine, fine, I'm fine." Lagrid said happily. "I was just about to feed Duckbeak, my Quackogriff." He pointed to the creature enclosed in a fence, eating an entire loaf of bread. It was a strange combination, having the body of a majestic black horse, and the not so majestic head of a duck. It turned to Herring and quacked loudly.

"Aaw, he likes you," Lagrid said.

"How do you know," Herring said.

"I don't, it just sounded good. Anyway, I'll let you have a ride on Duckbeak!" he said, patting the creature on the bill.

"Wow, really?"

"No, I was joking. We don't want any cheesy Duckbeak flying moments, now do we!"

The three said goodbye to Duckbeak and Lagrid, before returning to Hogwarts.

"Well, that was anti-climatical," Tron said.

"You can say that again. The author's gonna have trouble coming up with a foot note for this episode!"

---

Is Herring right? Will the author have trouble coming up with a footnote for this episode? Yes. Yes she will. But tune in next time anyway, for part 7 of HERRING POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S SALMON!