You all should pray at Fey-Vim's feet for having the sense and courage to tell me to get my ass in gear and make shit actually happen in the plot :P
Consider the intro over!
I dedicate this chapter to Fey!
Hagrid was digging. Hagrid was panicking. Hagrid was multitasking by digging, panicking and shouting down local animal life.
"No! Buckbeak, yeh get back to the woods right now!"
The hippogriff gave him a haunty look, but obeyed, head raised high in anger. Prissy creature.
Sure that he was gone again, Hagrid wrapped his arm around another large stone and heaved, throwing it towards the edges. Below him, a gaping hole opened up, and he sighed, almost bothering to look around before pulling out his umbrella and pointing it at the dark. Light sparked at the tip and he lowered it. Nothing, nothing, nothing...
"Who's there?" a tiny voice squeaked.
"It's Hagrid," he responded.
"Hagrid! Professor Hagrid it's dark down here and I think I fell in the food stores, everything smells like raw meat and fish!"
"Now 'old on! I'll get you out!" Hagrid pulled up his umbrella, looked around, and eased his bulk onto the edge, jumping down. He landed with a heavy thud on an unstable surface, the floor here was covered in shards and stones. "Where are yeh?"
"I'm over here!"
He groped around in the darkness while his eyes adjusted, finally looking down at a tiny first-year, who had fallen into a mess, like most first-years.
"I think it's pickled herring! I don't like pickled herring!"
"Rupert Grout." Hagrid's face split into a grin. "Come 'ere!" He lifted him up and hugged him briefly before swiftly holding him away. "That ain't pickled herring, young'un. What you need is a good bath."
"'M sorry, Professor Hagrid. I was just going to the kitchens for a late-night snack and then BA-BOOM! The floor was gone!"
Hagrid set him down, barely picking out the shapes of things, mostly undamaged. Good luck, that was. He lifted barrels and sacks and set them under the patch of daylight, stacking them. Rupert Grout, brown hair stained by the food he had been lying in, looked around.
"Professor Hagrid, are you sure it's not pickled 'erring, cause I was eating it!"
"Oh, it's fish, alright, but it's meant for the animals!"
"Ew!"
"Now, now, nuthin' wrong with it... Well alright, you might feel funny for a day or two, but it works well when you've got nuthin' else!"
Rupert gave him a look of childish disbelief.
"Up you go then!" He set him on the first barrel. "Climb on up, I'll look at our supplies!"
He could hear Rupert beginning to struggle upward as he went around the room, reading labels.
"Professor, am I going to sprout wings?"
"I hope not. That's for the ground-creatures, like-"
"Blast-ended skewerts, right? I heard about those from a Weasley! Said 'is da said they were real dangerous!"
"They weren't dangerous! They could take care of themselves."
"If you say so, Professor..."
Several minutes and small sounds later, Rupert called down, "Hagrid! Where are we?"
"Hogwarts! Can't yeh tell?"
"There's no Hogwarts! It's all a mess! Where's Hogwarts?"
Hagrid delayed his response, dragging a bag of nuts to the hole and throwing it up onto the surface, then carefully aiming and jumping. He grabbed hold of a rafter end, scrabbled, creaked and finally heaved himself up onto the surface.
Rupert was sitting on a flat stone and crying. "I wanna go home!"
"You'll go home, Rupert! It'll eh... It'll just take a while." He threw the bag over one shoulder, picked up Rupert and headed towards the burned out (Again) shell of his home, following the wayward trails made by the mess.
"I wanna go home now!"
"Listen here! It ain't safe! Tis best teh just wait fer rescue!"
"Can you take me home?"
"Well, no." He set Rupert down on the stoop, and he winced. "I've got teh dig out other students. It's been six days already. Now eh... You go play in the lake or summat. I've got to keep working."
Rupert nodded and trudged down to the waterside. "Poor like tyke." Then he walked right back to the rubble that was Hogwarts. There was still parts of walls reaching into the air, where they hadn't been knocked down. Hagrid moved around the edge towards one, thinking he might find someone alive. So far, he had already found three bodies, all students, and refused to dig the rest of the library until he composed himself. They were buried on the hill.
He began shifting rock and wood, back to the towering wall providing shade. The hours passed like minutes as sweat trickled down his skin, into his beard. He was digging a hole, searching, and listening to the sound of silence. He wished something would call, break it, but nothing did.
It was sunset, suddenly. The day had passed. He was about to walk to the edge, rest a bit, when he realized that the floorstone before him, a great heavy monster, was cracking.
"Again!" someone said somewhere, the voice almost unnoticeable. The crack widened.
And widened.
And the stone shattered.
Lily Potter, wild-eyed, was crouching in front of him. Hagrid was shocked at how she looked. Lily had always been a nice, neat girl, her clothes never ripped and always clean in the morning. Now she was wearing ripped school robes, jeans torn with no less than three holes, her skin all blood and dirt stains and nails torn off. He quickly pulled her up off the ground. "Lily!" He hugged her tight.
"...Hagrid."
"Hagrid!" Lucy Weasley bounded out, hugging him around the midriff. Molly the second carefully followed, dragging two beaten-up trunks. "Hagrid! You're alive!"
"Well o'course I'm alive! What else would I be?"
Molly was crying. He set Lily down and hugged the two sisters.
"Hagrid, I can't breathe!" Lucy complained. Hagrid quickly put them down.
"Sorry 'bout that. It's just..." He fumbled for a handkerchief, realized her didn't have one and apologetically blew his nose on his shirt. He sniffed, tears coming to his eyes. "You're alive!" He carefully policed them back to the grounds, keeping an eye on Lily. Her eyes kept flashing back and forth, like she expected an enemy to leap out, and she kept picking the scabs on her fingers.
"Don't do that," he chided. "They'll scar."
She stared up at him with blank, cold blue eyes. "So?"
He quickly looked elsewhere. "Buckbeak! NO!"
Buckbeak, who had been investigating the hole to the food, called his protested, but flew a short distance away.
Lucy stepped onto the grass, yelled a wordless called and immediately flopped down, burying her fingers in the grass. Molly joined her, still tugging the two trunks and running her fingers through her hair. The signature Weasley locks were now deep earthy brown. "Who's by the lake?" she asked.
"Rupert Grout. 'E was in the food, yeh see. Told 'im to play there, clean up a bit. Fell in the animal feed, 'e did."
Molly wrinkled her nose. "Well, at least he had food." She untied two strings from her wrists, standing and dusting off her jeans to head towards the lake herself. The Giant Squid, precious creature, was on the shore, staring at the tiny first-year.
Hagrid looked overhead, where stars were beginning to appear. "Well, I've got more diggin to get done 'fore sunrise."
"I'll help," Lily said immediately. Hagrid shook his head. "No, Lil-"
"I can help!" she insisted, and opened one of the trunks. Unfolding a piece of parchment, she whispered, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."
Ink began to bloom across it, lines and designs that became a map. The first floor and dungeons were covered in little dots, marking students.
"See? It's all the living ones. Most of Gryffindor, see? Professor Neville's work. And a lot of Slytherin, looks like. Oh. Lyra... Well, come on!" She bounded over the stones, spry as a foal. Hagrid followed at a much slower pace.
"We should help the kitchen-elves! They're hard workers!" she called over her shoulder. Hagrid was breathing heavily. Runner, he wasn't.
When he finally caught up, she was already digging. She had a lot of energy for someone trapped for six days, he noticed. He joined her.
"I'm mad," she said suddenly. "I'm completely crazy. It gives me a strange constant adrenaline rush."
"Now hold on!"
"It's true, Hagrid. But I don't mind. I've got no emotions, no dreams and only goals to fuel me." She began dragging a timber from the mess. "It keeps me clear-headed."
Healer. Lily needed a healer. Hagrid grabbed the timber from her small hands and yanked it from the ground. Dropping it, he cleared rubble from around a great foundation stone, then wedged the timber under. Lily jumped and grabbed the free end, swinging. Hagrid pulled down the very end. The stone came up level with a rumbling sound.
"Go look!" Hagrid told her. Lily jumped over, looked down and then jumped into the gap.
"Lily Potter, you get back up here!" he shouted. She didn't obey. Instead, Hagrid listened to the timber groan and creak, Lily dig and finally the sound of dozens of small voices. He took a deep breath, arms sore, and watched house-elves begin to climb over the edge, all taking a place on the timber. Lily was last.
"That all?"
She nodded.
"Right! Drop!"
Many tiny hands and two big ones all let go. The stone sank back deeper than ever.
"Alright, I know you're kitchen-elves and your job is to cook," Lily started, watching them and massaging her calves, "But right now you don't have a kitchen. If you think you're fit enough, there's lots of students to dig out. I've got a charmed map, I'll give out assignments!"
The house-elves immediately lined up into ranks, some adjusting their tea towels and puffing out their chests.
She unfolded the parchment again, eyes scanning it. "Alright. First and second row, Gryffindor Tower! Second, Ravenclaw! Third, forth, fifth, Hufflepuff! Sixth row, middle to right, library! Sixth row, middle to left, Astronomy! The rest of you, come get individual assignments!"
Hagrid stood by, dumbfounded. Lily Potter, prankster, had become Lily Potter, leader. A bit like her grandda, really...
She began pointing pairs of elves in different directions, all of them speeding off to obey. Once they were all gone, she continued staring, fingertips brushing the aged parchment. Hagrid tromped over.
She was staring at a place labeled Slytherin Dungeon.
"See, Al's alright!"
She didn't seem to hear him, eyes suddenly alright. "Score is alive," she breathed.
She fainted.
That is my horrible attempt to write Hagrid XD
Note the obvious borrowing of Rupert Grint's name as I place homages to our favorite actors. (Who, since I know nothing about their personalities, are probably nothing like them XD)
Please! Review, critique, opinionate, whatevers! And join Fey in making sure I actually do shit with the plot, instead of my horrible habit of taking-too-damn-long.