"Yeah, but have yeh seen anythin', Ronan? Anythin' unusual?"
"Mars is bright tonight. Unusually bright"
"Yeah, but I was meanin' anythin' unusual a bit nearer home." Hagrid, Philosopher's Stone
Left alone at night, without the presence of students or the creatures he so adored, Hagrid liked to mend his socks.
His father had taught him that well-mended socks was a sign of a thrifty and able person and Hagrid's large fingers had been adept at the task since he was a child. Naturally, the process always brought back memories of his the small, capable man that had been his father.
A large sigh emanated from an equally large body as Hagrid hoisted himself to his feet. It was mid-December, nearly Christmas. He'd been invited to spend the holiday at the Burrow (he'd been secretly hoping for an invitation) and was glad for a chance to get out of the school. Now, however, he glanced out the small window towards the castle bedecked in a hundred glimmering lights before looking down at the old boarhound laying at his feet.
"'Tis me birthday, Fang. Did'ja know?" He'd almost forgotten himself, to be perfectly honest. Seventy years old, exactly, though if you asked the students most would say he was nearer to forty or fifty. He'd been around a long time, thanks to the giant's blood, the only thing left from his mother. Seventy years…he'd known Tom Riddle before the man became Voldemort, known Dumbledore before he was headmaster, seen both the wars…He was old.
"Happy birthday." He muttered to himself. He'd never set much store in his birthdays, his favorite being when he turned eleven. That was every wizard's favorite birthday. "An' may I live t'see another un." He snorted, setting the mending aside as the tea kettle whistled.
The cabin he'd spent the last fifty-odd years living in wasn't large, though it managed to hold the large man, his rather large dog, and all of Hagrid's worldly possessions. The only thing he was proud of that wasn't in this house was his garden outback, his brother, and the kids that school. Those were the only things that mattered.
Absentmindedly humming a tuneless song, he fed Fang, pet the dog affectionately on the head, and tended to the four injured bowtruckles he'd found earlier that week. Poor creatures had fallen from their tree after Grawp had shaken them loose. He usually let Grawp have free reign of the forest now, as most of the creatures viewed him with a mixture of fear and amusement, knowing that Hagrid had taught him not to kill for sport. That already make the giant a fair sight better than most humans.
His birthday was turning out to be uneventful, not that he minded. No one left even knew his birthday, he didn't think. Dumbledore had, and had always made a visit of stopping in to see him on those occasions. Hermione, and, by her, Harry and Ron had figured it out and usually joined him. Now he had no company to look forward to, except maybe little Dennis.
Though the boy was a seventh year now, Hagrid couldn't help but think of him as the child he'd had to fish out of the lake during Crossing. Granted, they had been in the middle of a bleedin' hurricane, but the kid was the only one to ever fall out of a boat in his fifty years. That's how Hagrid remembered him as when the boy started visiting him last year.
Dennis Creevy was tall in a gangly way, all long arms and big feet at the moment. He reminded Hagrid of a mixture of Ron and Hermione, for while the boy could sit and watch Hagrid mend or polish for hours on end in silence, there were times when Hagrid couldn't get anything accomplished for the boy's twitching. Yes, maybe Dennis would visit tonight, but probably not. He'd visited less and less this year, dropping in only twice a week.
A knock on the door made Hagrid look up. "C'm in." He called, expecting the lanky teen. When the door opened, however, it not reveal the boy but Professor McGonagal, hair tumbling around her shoulders, a small smile on her face.
Hagrid stood up. "'Ello, Professor." He winced slight at the mistaken title but did not bother to correct it. For years, Minerva McGonagal had been a professor. That wasn't going to change anytime soon, not to Hagrid.
"Hagrid," She began, sitting down in a cushioned chair that Hagrid had gestured to. "I was going through some papers a few days ago and realized it was your birthday." She waited a moment for a confirmation of this and received only a mute nod. "And not just any birthday. Seventy's a big deal. You're almost as old as I am." She smiled.
"Not quite, Professor. Tea?" Hagrid poured the woman a cup and sat across from her.
"Thank you, though I shouldn't be long. I just came to wish you a happy birthday and to pass something along." She took a moleskin purse (presented to her by Hagrid after Dumbledore's death, because a headmistress deserved to have some secrets) from a bag she produced a ring and slid it across the table.
"Oh." It was all Hagrid could do to take the heavy band into his trembling hand. "Wait a mo', this can't be…" He let his voice drift off. Murmurs of the Ring had been circulating for some time, especially among the Weasleys who had the most obvious example of the Ring's existence with Fred.
"It works." McGonagal said quietly, voice earnest. "I've tried it." Something else appeared on the table, a piece of paper, tattered, torn, filled with scribbled messages and stories. "Read this and try it. Just pass it along." McGonagal stood up, drained the last of her tea, patted Fang's head. "Goodnight, Hagrid, and," the smile was radiant now, beautiful. "Happy birthday."
Hagrid watched her go, then read the paper. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Percy, George…more people, all with stories, with losses. It worked.
Not daring to believe what he couldn't see Hagrid took a deep, steadying breath and asked more than commanded, "Dad?" Like a child, not the old man he was.
And his father was there, younger than he had remembered. Shorter, too, though that might have been because Hagrid himself hadn't been fully grown when the man had died. Finding his voice Hagrid said, a bit gruffly, "'Lo, Da."
In response, his father held out his arms. With a short laugh (he remembered!) Hagrid lifted the man up and set him on top of his dresser where they could speak eye to eye. "'Tis great to see you, Da." Hagrid said, one hand covering the man's leg.
"Same here, kiddo. Let me look at you. Last I heard you were twelve. Where are we, now?" He looked around, out the window. "A castle? The school?"
"Stayed here fer fifty years, Da." Hagrid said before lapsing into silence again. Neither of the Hagrids had ever been into talking, preferring to sit in each others company. They did that now.
His father leaned his forehead against Hagrid's great elbow. "What's been going on with you, son? Skip all the world history stuff, I've heard enough of it from the war casualties."
And so Hagrid told him about everything he missed, starting with getting thrown out of Hogwarts. "Didn't do nothing wron', Da. 't was Voldemort."
His father's response had been gently joking. "I've heard that one before, son."
Hagrid then recounted the kindness he'd been shown by Dippet by being allowed to remain at the school as groundskeeper in training. He told dad, reverently, about the forest and the creatures within it, of centaurs and hippogriffs and bowtruckles. Becoming "keeper of the keys and grounds" had been his calling, what he was meant to do.
"No lady friends, then, huh?"
And so he had to explain about Olympe and her horses, her hair, her command. "Ne'er met a woman like 'er." He left it at that and his father did, too.
For some reason, that's where Grawp came in, too, and as Hagrid spoke of his half-brother, so he learned about the mother he'd never really known.
"Friends?"
The only friends he'd really had were the students. Hagrid may not had been made for settling down but he loved the kids at the school more than anything, and he'd loved many kids in his fifty years. He talked of a few older students, many now in their fifties themselves, with families and careers. He spoke of the original Mauraders, who he'd chased from the forest. He was one of the few who's known, or deduced the true identities and meanings of Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail. He discussed his favorites, Harry, Ron, Hermione.
"Great kids, all. Great kids. 'Mione's more brilliant den a fair few Ministry blokes. Ron's got a heart o' gold. Harry…well, you must 'ave heard o' Harry."
His father nodded through all of this, interjecting at the right points, supplying his own two cents about matters that had happened decades ago. Finally, as the moon set behind the school and he boarhound stopped licking his feet, he asked, "Son…are you happy?"
Hagrid noticed the seriousness of the question and thought about it for a minute or more, ready to give a serious answer. "Yeh." He said, slowly. "Dis school, these kids…dey're in me blood, Da. An' all the creatures. What I do…it's important, ya know? Special."
A feather-light hand patted Hagrid's thumb. Looking down, the groundskeeper noticed that his father had lost some of his color. "Disappearin' on me again?"
Light laughter. "Looks like it." The two embraced even as the man faded. The last strains of "happy birthday, son," died as his father disappeared.
"Goodbye, dad." He'd meant to say it, he had. Hagrid had never gotten to say goodbye to his father before the man died. He'd hoped that seeing him again would give him that chance. Somehow, he was glad he'd never spoken the words when his father could hear them.
Sitting at the large oak table as night changed slowly to day, Hagrid wrote in the tiniest letters on the cramped letter, need a new piece of paper.
So, can ya'll guess who's coming up next? I tried to make it pretty obvious.
BTW: How was Hagrid. I was four paragraphs into this chapter when I realized I would have no idea if I wrote him OOC. Please tell me any mistakes with his personality.
As always, please review.