It is a Monday and Filius is ostensibly here to bring by some extra rats for the hippogriffs. As he is shaking his sleeves out and stamping snow off his legs, Hagrid takes the cardboard box and peeks in at the furry white rodents, closes the box again and sets it on the table. "They'll be glad to have 'em," he predicts. Filius takes off his hat and Hagrid offers him some tea.
Filius could have walked under the table without touching it, if he wanted. He takes off his coat and Hagrid sets the table. He fights his way onto a chair; he even takes a rock cake and makes a good attempt to eat it.
"How are you?" he says, finally.
Hagrid shrugs, sitting heavily opposite him. "Doin' alright," he says.
"When I was starting out," says Filius, not sure how to put what he's thinking, "They didn't think much of a goblin as a professor. Much less, you know, I had long hair and I'd been in duelling rings for five years…"
"Part-goblin isn't part-giant," grunts Hagrid.
"I guess it's not," agrees Filius.
"I remember the hair," says Hagrid, and he gestures toward his own mane.
"It wasn't quite as impressive as that," says Filius, just in case Hagrid is misremembering the hair. Filius's had been more of a neat bob, more medieval and foppish than whatever Hagrid was going for. (Filius would not have pulled off Hagrid's hair. Filius is not even sure Hagrid is.)
"I know," says Hagrid.
They have both been at Hogwarts for a long time—Hagrid for longer—but they have next to nothing in common, Filius remembers.
"Y'know when you were a student," says Hagrid. "I coulda picked you up with one hand."
"I don't think you could have—"
"I could have." Filius is relieved when he glances up at Hagrid and spots an amused twinkle in his eye; he smiles uneasily back.
"We ought to start a support group," he says. "Part-humans at Hogwarts. Us and… well, Remus Lupin was technically a human."
Hagrid grunts and says "We'd meet in the woods. For the centaurs."
Filius tries to decide whether part-human applies to centaurs; he rather thinks they'd take offense to the implication. It takes about fifteen seconds to come to the conclusion that this is hypothetical, and will not happen.
"Dumbledore stopped in," says Hagrid.
"Did he," says Filius; he remembered Dumbledore visiting when Remus had been determined to quit, in the same manner he remembered Dumbledore encouraging him not to quit, back in 1964 when he'd just started.
"Sure did," says Hagrid. "An' some of the students."
Filius doubts Hagrid will say which, but he has three very likely guesses. "Lovely of them," he says.
"Helped me remember why I'm doin' this, still," says Hagrid. "Good man, Dumbledore."
"Mm," says Filius.