Just as Buckbeak was about to leave several bone-deep claw marks on Pansy, a figure suddenly intercepted the beast, appearing right where she had been standing.
Kyle blocked Buckbeak's talons with both hands while slowly retracting his extended sidekick.
As for Pansy, the culprit behind the whole mess, she had been sent flying sideways at some unknown point, slamming heavily into a tree and passing out without a sound.
Snapping out of his shock, Draco let out a piercing shriek.
Hagrid rushed over in a hurry, helping Kyle subdue Buckbeak, who was still struggling to charge at Pansy.
Due to this sudden turn of events, the surrounding students fell into a complete panic.
"Calm down!" Kyle's booming voice rang across the paddock.
His voice seemed to carry a certain soothing power, and the students quickly quieted down.
Glancing at the pale-faced Hagrid, Kyle took it upon himself to maintain order in the class.
"Hannah, go give Miss Parkinson some medical attention."
He winked at Hannah, who instantly understood the Little Dark Lord's meaning—just keep her alive, then send her to the Hospital Wing so Pansy could suffer a bit.
Kyle had intentionally allowed Pansy to get hurt.
With Kyle's abilities, he was entirely capable of calming Buckbeak down while keeping Pansy completely unharmed.
But why would he do that?
He wasn't Pansy's dad.
Only after receiving a thorough enough lesson would Pansy finally understand the truth behind the saying: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Of course, whether she understood it or not had nothing to do with Kyle; either way, this incident would serve as a perfect negative example for the other students.
However, to teach Pansy a lesson and make her a warning to others, Buckbeak couldn't be the one to do the actual damage.
Given the Parkinson family's influence, if Buckbeak's talons had actually struck her, the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures under the Ministry's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would probably send someone to chop off its head within a few days.
Before completely burning bridges with the Ministry, Kyle couldn't afford to openly oppose them when they had a legitimate excuse.
At least, not for now.
So Kyle had to do the deed himself; he deliberately hadn't held back his kick.
Anyway, it wasn't like the Parkinson family could cause trouble for him.
Once Pansy Parkinson was carried away by Crabbe and Goyle on a stretcher Kyle had conjured using Transfiguration, the students resumed interacting with the Hippogriffs.
Only this time, they were far more cautious than before.
The first class of Hagrid's teaching career soon came to an end amidst the students' cheerful discussions.
However, Hagrid's spirits weren't particularly high; on the contrary, he seemed rather downcast.
"Hagrid, what's wrong?" Hannah was the first to notice that Hagrid's mood wasn't quite right.
Hearing Hannah's words, Hagrid let out a deep sigh.
"Was my first class a bit too reckless? I should've waited a bit before bringing out the Hippogriffs. Then no students would've gotten hurt..."
Before Hagrid could finish, Kyle interrupted him.
"That was entirely Parkinson's own doing. You don't need to blame yourself at all, Hagrid."
Before Hagrid could speak, Kyle continued, "Accidents like this happen all the time in other professors' classes. Compared to them, yours is just a minor incident."
If nothing else, just look at Snape's Potions class.
When their fellow Hufflepuffs shared classes with Ravenclaw, the Potions lessons went reasonably well.
But when it was Slytherin and Gryffindor's turn, things didn't go so well for the little lions.
Aside from Harri, the cross-dressing maestro favored by the old bat, and Hermione, the genius magical girl, every other little Gryffindor lion had experienced a melting or exploding cauldron at some point.
Among them, the ones who blew things up the most were definitely the second-generation demolition fiend Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom.
The former went without saying; he essentially blew up his cauldron every single Potions class, and accidents constantly happened in every other course that required a wand.
Neville, on the other hand, entirely caused his cauldron to melt due to operational errors brought on by being terrified of the old bat's oppressive aura.
As a result, an accident occurred in every single one of Gryffindor's Potions classes; if nothing happened, that would be the real anomaly.
Hearing Kyle's words, Hagrid felt much better. So everyone was in the same boat.
"Is that so?" Hagrid scratched the back of his head. "Then for the next lesson's curriculum—"
"I was originally thinking that for the next class, maybe we should start with harmless creatures like Flobberworms."
The light of mischief gleamed in his eyes.
"But looking at it now, can I go ahead with my original plan and introduce the students to Kelpies?"
Kyle nearly spat a mouthful of blood right into Hagrid's face.
Oh, wait, sorry—his blood couldn't spurt that high. At most, it would only reach Hagrid's belly button.
"Forget about Kelpies until you've actually tamed them," Kyle replied crossly.
Hearing that the Kelpies hadn't been tamed yet, the little beaver, bursting with a righteous sense of justice, also stepped forward and gave Hagrid a stern lecturing.
And so, the Blue Beast who could open the Six Gates and fight dragons hand-to-hand stood there, completely meek and submissive under the scolding of the Little Dark Lord and the little beaver.
"Stop constantly thinking about your pack of Kelpies," Kyle said, pointing toward the three-headed Husky lounging near Hagrid's hut in the distance. "Fluffy is also a pretty good choice."
The little beaver, who had been on the exact same side as Kyle just a moment ago, instantly froze.
A XXXX-class Kelpie? No way.
An XXXXX-class three-headed dog like Fluffy? Perfectly fine!
What kind of bizarre logic was this?
Noticing Hermione's look, Kyle explained, "Don't let Fluffy's high danger classification fool you. For the students, he's actually much safer than a Kelpie."
The once-majestic three-headed dog had been trained by Hagrid over the past few years to the point where he was now practically no different from a pet Husky.
His intelligence wasn't low either; he knew what he could and couldn't do.
So even if some audacious young wizard dared to yank on his fur, he wouldn't mindlessly retaliate the way Buckbeak did.
A single word from Hagrid would be enough to calm him down.
Furthermore, there was no longer any need to keep Fluffy hidden away these days.
Kyle had long since had someone secure a legal permit for Hagrid to breed and keep a three-headed dog. For his omnipotent, ultimate butler of an old man, getting a permit was a matter of a single sentence.
The only problem was whether the students' parents would object upon hearing that their children were handling a three-headed dog—a magical creature widely considered extremely dangerous.
"What objections could they possibly have?" Kyle curled his lip disdainfully. "When the time comes, just say it was arranged by me, the teaching assistant."
Hearing Kyle's incredibly brazen statement, the others nearby all had lines of black sweat running down their faces.
This was basically equivalent to dumping the blame squarely onto Headmaster Dumbledore's shoulders.
Hermione, who knew full well that Kyle and Dumbledore shared a mother-and-son—bah, father-and-son relationship, held her forehead in sheer helplessness.
How did Headmaster Dumbledore end up with a son who constantly sabotaged his own father? It truly was a family misfortune.
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