b CHAPTER ONE – A GIANT'S TEARS /b
Rubeus Hagrid could not help but gape at the scale of destruction caused to the towering house above him. Or rather below him. It remained as a small pile of ashes, burnt out from the death and pillage earlier in the evening.
He could not help but cry. It was not in the nature of a giant to cry. Usually cruelly described as lumpy, unemotional clumps of matter, giants simply trudged around for the best part of their lives, in their wake leaving trails of devastation and sorrow.
But he was no giant. That said, he was half-giant. But never the entire lumping creature that the wizarding world feared so greatly. His father had been a wizard, his mother a giantess. He still retained the humanity, eponymous to the human race. Within the heart of hard-baked ice was the warmth of a furnace of love – that was what made him cry.
He was proud to cry. Such a display of emotion and care was not something any self-respecting giant would wear on their sleeve, being seen a weakness to their race. He could not care less about them, they who could not care. He was welcome among the wizards and witches that made up the magical community. Every being in the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts knew him, respected him and obeyed him. Every student and teacher at Hogwarts liked him and showed kindness towards him.
So he could cry.
He could cry as much as he desired, until the village of Ottery St Catchpole down below flooded with the remarkable phenomenon of a giant's tears. He could cry until grief and despondency lay rife through the air, and the wizarding world's hearts sank in synchronisation with his.
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He pushed through the wreckage of the rook-shaped tower, careful not to disintegrate the fragile remains of the doorframe with a single touch of his hard-hearted giant's hand.
He could hear the wailing of a baby. The spines on its tears prickled at his burning heart, irritating him to seek the source of the tears.
He trudged through the ruins of the house, carefully treading the floorboards in case they gave way under the weight of an eight-foot giant. When he reached the staircase, the havoc of destruction had already eaten away at one side of the staircase, banisters, steps and all. The large surface area of the soles of his shoes trod cautiously, as their owner neared the wailing baby.
Hagrid pulled his weight up onto the landing, looking around nervously for the distressed infants. He had never really had a talent for dealing with small babies, owing to his clumsiness around fragile objects. When assigning him this mission, Professor Dumbledore had displayed misgivings about Professor McGonagall's reaction to the fact that Hagrid, an oaf made up of all fingers and thumbs (not in the literal sense), had been entrusted with taking a small baby, unaccompanied, halfway across the country overnight. Of course, that had done nothing to raise Hagrid's pitifully low self-confidence.
He thought that he trusted himself. He had dealt with dangerous creatures before. Acromantulas, centaurs, Thestrals, Blast-Ended Skrewts and many other dangerous magical creatures. Surely a harmless, helpless infant would be a piece of gateau when compared to those feats?
It was the nerves that seized him while travelling there. The terror of a one-year-old seemed overwhelming, even to an enormous monster-taming giant like him. Would he be able to deliver her correctly? What if he dropped her? What if she started crying? What if she needed food? He had not brought any provisions, since the journey by Floo was a simple, rapid one. That said, an uncomfortable one too for a blundering loose cannon like he could be sometimes.
He made his way into the bedroom, a small nursery with a heavily damaged cot in the corner. Burnt, smoking blankets and swaddling had tumbled out, and a vaguely distinguishable shape wriggled about within them, wailing dejectedly.
Hagrid stooped, his colossal back curving as he bent and extricated the child from its ragged bedding. He brought the baby into the moonlight streaming through the bedroom's window, and his eyes fawned, staring directly into the infant's.
It was a girl. Blonde hair was growing from her forehead, nearly concealed against the pale alabaster quality of her skin. Her eyes were screwed up with tears – tiny, tender globules of water trickling down her white face. A lightning scar was struck across her soft forehead – a sign of death engraved into a picture of innocence.
Hagrid rose, the baby in its swaddling still heavy in his arms. This was what love and tenderness felt like. Warm, soft, motherly nurture that seemed everyday routine to the people he lived among. All of the essence of love, wrapped up in a tiny baby encased in her bedclothes.
It was a shame that she would have to go on to live with her grandparents. From what Hagrid had been told about them from Professor Dumbledore, they were old, infirm and ill. Not in the best shape for bringing up a child.
He still thought it sad that an innocent child would not be given the due attention and affection deserved from a parent. Now that the baby's parents were dead or otherwise missing and presumed dead, the grandparents were the only blood relatives remaining. That had been of the utmost importance in Professor Dumbledore's eyes. Those piercing blue eyes that had regarded Hagrid with both curiosity and firmness in his decision when Hagrid had moved to protest against the child going to live with relatives who could not give her everything a child needed.
He gazed once again into those eyes. They were welled up with tears, as if the baby herself was railing against the decision. Hagrid felt apologetic towards the object of his task – as if he blamed himself for the baby's sudden change in scenery and lifestyle.
The Headmaster of Hogwarts had said it himself to Hagrid once, when he had been a displaced student once. i It is not our abilities, but our choices that determine who we really are, Rubeus /i
And now here was Rubeus Hagrid, making a choice based on his own heart's judgement, ignoring the callous, unsympathetic constraints of his giant's body.
This little child did not deserve to be overlooked, neglected and unloved. She needed a proper home, where she could be cared and provided for, without somebody else's disability obstructing this surge of love.
"Yer not going ter go ter yer grandparents," Hagrid whispered through tears. "Yer coming with me, back ter Hogwarts. Yer'll be the daughter I never had, Luna Lovegood."
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Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall waited in the lamplight of the moonlit Tavalinnen Street in Surrey. McGonagall wore a frown of frustration and bitterness upon her face, while Dumbledore seemed unperturbed and balanced that Hagrid had not arrived with Luna yet.
"Albus," McGonagall whispered, her voice icy and shivering, "you have made few mistakes in your long and illustrious career, but I fear that entrusting a delicate thing such as a one-year-old baby to an oaf with two left feet like Hagrid would be a larger one."
"Patience, Minerva," Dumbledore gazed up at the moon and the stars, resplendent in the sweeping darkness of the night sky. "Hagrid is one of my trusted staff. I find it easy to give him a chance with a mission like this, even if others do not."
"I can assure you that I do not," McGonagall huffed as she opened up her tartan umbrella. Sure enough, the rain poured down upon Tavalinnen Street, and the two Hogwarts Professors remained dry as it clashed against the unfriendly tarmac beneath them.
There was a long, stereotypically awkward silence between the two of them, shattered by McGonagall's crisp tone:
"I suppose that the news and rumours we have all been hearing," she started, her voice shaking involuntarily as she proceeded through her sentence, "I suppose they are true?"
Dumbledore gravely nodded, silent as he observed the sky. Minerva's face crumpled at the face of the truth. Tears leaked down her face, held back in the restraints of dignity that governed her.
"I – I can't quite believe that she's dead," she sobbed. "Selena Trange – dead? It just doesn't make sense. When she was at Hogwarts, she was always so – so full of life, so lively." She mopped at her tears with a tartan handkerchief, before clearing her throat. "And I suppose – that this was the work of – He Who Must Not Be Named?"
"I would prefer that such a spirited, courageous woman as I have known you would use his full name," Dumbledore said quietly. "Fear of such a seemingly small thing as a name only multiplies fear of the thing it titles. I only hope that now he has gone, that more will not be afraid to use his name."
"So it is his work?"
"Naturally. Only the Dark Lord, as his followers worship him as, would be capable of devastation such as that caused to the Lovegoods' home at Ottery St Catchpole."
"They say that he turned his wand on Luna too," McGonagall continued. "But she is still alive, and the Dark Lord is dead somehow."
"Oh, I would not go as far as to say that the Dark Lord is dead, Minerva," Albus said quite cordially. "Quite the opposite – he is still alive, I am sure of it. And yes, I daresay he did turn his wand upon Luna too – I daresay that that was what he came to the Lovegoods' house in order to do."
"You're saying that he came to the Lovegoods' house to kill Luna?" McGonagall said, taken aback.
"I am being shockingly indiscreet here," Dumbledore admitted. "It is not my place to talk about the reasons why. Let us leave the subject here until the tumults blow over, as they all eventually do."
At that moment, McGonagall had been about to pursue the subject further, when from the sky that Dumbledore had been observing so fervently a great rumbling of a motorbike thundered, nearly sending a shockwave through the windows of the terraced houses of the street.
The motorcycle collided with the pavement, before screeching to a halt and pulling up against some recycling bins. The rider dismounted, pulling off a courier's black helmet and letting dark ringlets of hair flow freely.
"Black?" McGonagall snapped. "Regulus Black?"
Regulus nodded his head, smoothing his rebellious hair back down again. He seemed breathless, the exertion of a flying motorcycle ride taking its toll on his body.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped again. "Where's Hagrid disappeared off to?"
"That's what I came for," he said breathlessly. "I don't have much time – Azkaban is after me and I've got too much to do before the Dementors get their sloppy Kisses over me."
"Well hurry with it, young man," McGonagall snapped, still as rigid and disciplined as Regulus' Transfiguration Professor in his school days.
"Calm yourself, Minerva," Dumbledore soothed his deputy's anger. "What is your purpose here, Mr Black?"
Regulus controlled the contractions of his muscles from tiredness. He had been running from the Hit-Wizards of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement all day, and was tired from his new life as a fugitive already.
"It's Hagrid," he breathed. "There's a reason why he's late. He's not coming tonight at all. He has taken Luna, and he's raising her as his own daughter." He let the bated breath remain tense among the Professors. "Now, if you don't mind, Dementor snogs are not my cup of tea, so I'll just be leaving now."
He revved up his motorcycle, shoved his courier's helmet on top of his head, and drove off, hovering above the ground before ascending into the sky, and speeding off into the stars.
"So, Albus," McGonagall said coldly, "Are you going to let Hagrid, such a brutish oaf, raise Luna as his own?"
"I thought the answer should be obvious, Minerva." McGonagall relaxed in her bitterness: the great Albus Dumbledore was not entirely eccentric and mad. "I do think that Hagrid would make a wonderful adoptive father for Luna. Quite a stroke of genius for a usually, ah, less intelligent giant, I think. Of course, there will be the formalities to arrange to…"
He walked away, his voluminous grandfatherly figure strutting away down the street, leaving McGonagall frozen in absolute horror of what her colleague had just rashly decided to do.