Harry Potter and the Painful Patronus

Chapter 4: Hagrid's Story Part II

"Hurry up and tell us what happened the night Harry's parents died!" said an impatient Ron to Hagrid who was wiping a white powdery substance from his nose.

"Oh right, where was I then? Ah, I remember. Well I have to first explain why I was expelled from Hogwarts" said Hagrid.

"Huh? I thought you were expelled because of that Tom Riddle business? Large spider and all that nonsense?"

"Yeah, that's what Dumbledore tells everyone," responded Hagrid, "but the real reason is because some of the teachers found out that I was moonlighting down at Hogsmeade as an ecdysiast."

There was a long pause. Then Ron asked: "A what?"

"An ecdysiast."

"What the flamin' heck is an eck dizzy yest?"

"Eh?" said Hagrid, raising his eyebrows quizzically, "you mean to tell me you've never seen a show by an ecdysiast? Finest art-form there is! And I'm a master of it. Just ask any of the patrons down at the Hog's Head Inn!"

"Well…err…whatever," Ron said, thinking it best to move the story along. "In any case you were expelled for being an ec….ecdys…."

"Ecdysiast" Hagrid said in a proud voice.

"Yeah… right." Ron decided he would look into this ecdysiast business at a later date, but for now he wanted to get back to the story and urged Hagrid to continue.

"Well after I was caught moonlighting, the teachers told Dumbledore they would never let me in their classrooms for fear I would corrupt the other students. Pretty hypocritical if you ask me… I'd seen most of the professors at my shows at one time or other. Anyway, Dumbledore finally relented and gave me the boot. But he got me a job as a gamekeeper as compensation, and because he knew that my night job at Hogsmeade would allow me to pick up on certain gossip which he wanted to know… and because me working at Hogwarts would give him an excuse to associate with me, against the wishes of the other staff."

"What sort of gossip was he after?" asked Ron.

"He wanted to know if I had come across or heard of anyone whose…er…. well, anyone who was in a condition like yerself."

Ron blinked. "You mean, with an exploded penis?!"

"That's right lad". Then, leaning closer, Hagrid whispered: "And a good many of you there are too!"

"What?!" Ron had been fairly sure that he was the unluckiest wizard in the whole world. After all, who had heard of a wizard whose penis exploded? But now it seemed that there were many fellow victims. Somewhat comforted by this thought, he turned back to Hagrid and said: "But what's all this got to do with Potter's parents?"

"Well, I can't tell you everything, since I've been sworn to secrecy. But what I can tell you is that I was there the night Voldemort confronted the Potters on account of James exploding his penis. As you know already, Voldemort dispatched of James Potter. Good riddance to the filthy feggler too. He also tried to be an ecdysiast, but he never had the knack, or the body, for it..." Hagrid left off, staring into the distance, lost in memories.

"Err…right," muttered Ron. He noticed that Hagrid was now using Voldemort's name, rather than saying "you know who" as usual.

"Anyway, after James was taken care of, Voldemort went after that dopey cow Lily. God she was an irritating saucebox of a woman, a right bint! But before Voldemort could kill her, she cast the expecto patrogum curse on him."

"Wait!" interrupted Ron. "You said James Potter had already made Voldemort's penis explode! How could she use the curse again?!"

Hagrid gave a pained look, and said: "The curse ricocheted off Voldemort, because it couldn't find a knob to blow up, and landed on the nearest person with the appropriate endowment."

"Oh God…" Ron said.

"Yeah, that's right" Hagrid said gravely. "Me old feller exploded."

Next Chapter: Harry has an uncomfortable encounter with Dumbledore.