FOURTH LESSON
The classroom was like usual again with the chairs and desk on their usual place. Noel stood in front of his desk, leaning a bit towards it and waited for his third years to join him. Today there was something different in the classroom though. This week there was a large fish tank on the table next to his desk. A sickly green creature with sharp little horns swam inside the tank, and at the moment it was doing everything in its power to escape the tank. It was not happy at all, not that Noel could blame it now. Noel had made sure to put a couple of charms on the fish tank so that the grindylow inside couldn't get out unless he allowed it to get out. He didn't want some incidents happening. Noel was not the biggest fan of the creatures and stayed far away from them.While mostly there was dislike to the fiendish little creatures, another part found them interesting. Interesting enough to travel to Great Britain and obtain one of them to use in class. He could only hope that his third years could see the interesting side of them as well, for they had likely never encountered these creatures before.
He smiled towards the third years as they all came in and closed the door afterwards, walking back to the front he started ''As you can see, these small pale-green water creatures are aggressive. This one's been scratching the glass ever since I put it in the fish tank,'' Noel began once the students had settled in. ''But don't worry it's not getting out of this fish tank. So you can sit tight.'' He than made them sure. Some would perhaps want to see it from very close, but others seemed to be very ok with where they sat.'' Now, before you say to me on about how wrong it is of me to lock it up in a tank, you should know that, given the opportunity, grindylows will eat humans. So this is quite literally the safest way to talk about and observe these creatures without getting eaten by them. It's for this reason that grindylows are considered dark creatures by the Ministry of Magic. But don't worry, I've given this one plenty of fish to eat while it's here.'' He paused a moment to give the students time to process this information and write it down and smiled. ''Thankfully, humans are not a common part of the grindylow's diet. It mostly survives on fish, algae, and other small sea creatures found in their natural habitat. However, you won't find these creatures between the weed beds at the bottom of lakes here in New Zealand or in Australia, as they're only found in the British Isles. Interestingly enough, while humans have failed to domesticate grindylows, merpeople have successfully tamed them in the past.''
Noel tapped on the outside of the tank and watched as the grindylow responded by aggressively pressing its face against the glass and trying to grab the Professor's finger with its long, spindly fingers. ''Watch the fingers for a moment. See how long and brittle they are? Well, you'd do well to avoid getting grabbed by them as looks are quite deceiving in this case. They might look frail but they are the exact opposite. If a grindylow has a person in its grasp, an person can be drowned easily. The trick to escaping a grindylow is to break its grip. The Revulsion Jinx is one way to escape their grasp.'' He straightened up and walked towards the students. ''You may stay and observe the grindylow for as long as you like. Your assignment is to read about the grindylow and figure out other ways one could break the grindylow’s grip.'' He than told them. Noel stayed close to the grindylow, so no one would try to be brave, but actually stupid and touch it. If they would he had fast reflexes.
Roleplay the lesson.