Real life problems delayed this chapter for a few days. My entire country (I live in Greece) is in a bad situation - turns out many of our governments over the past forty years took loans they shouldn't have then ate up the money for their own ends... and now we're facing bankruptcy.

In other news I love showing how competent Hagrid can be, despite being naive and uneducated. There are many hints about his work as a gamekeeper in the novels for example, but it remains mostly in the background. Growing and breeding things is a given, but what about scale? There are over half a thousand people in Hogwarts, not to mention all of Hagrid's pets and experiments. A cerberus alone (going by the movie size) would be a few hundred times as massive as a large dog and with an appetite to match. There's also a couple hundred Thestrals to handle too, which aren't exactly small.

Disclaimer: Not J.K. Rowling. if in doubt, just check my (nonexistent) bank account.

...

The smell of antiseptic and preserved potion ingredients revealed where she was even before the brightness and the white walls did. Why hospitals, especially wizarding hospitals, all shared that color scheme Valeria would never understand. Tombs were white. Old, sun-bleached bones were white. It didn't inspire much confidence, to be treated in a place that might as well be a mausoleum.

"Oh good, you're awake." Came theapparently indifferent but very welcome voice from her left. "About time for lessons too - it's monday morning."

"Don't mind the ice queen. We're both relieved you're OK." The friendly ribbing of the voice in her right was no less welcome. "She just has an image to maintain."

Tracey and Daphne flanked her bed in the uncomfortable seats available to visitors. Narrow, angular works of hard wood with no padding whatsoever, they were only grudgingly provided by the Hogwarts mediwitch to anyone within her domain that had no pressing need to be there. Most visitors, be they friends or family, she often chased away after only a few minutes so why bother with anything more? That Daphne and Tracey had braved not only open association with a "mudblood" but also madam Pomfrey's displeasure to be here when she would wake was... Valeria couldn't describe all that it meant to her. Apart from Claude, she'd never had a friend in her life. She often wondered why...

"Hey, blondie junior, don't be spacing out on us!" Tracey prodded her impatiently when she didn't immediately respond. "We have so much to talk about and it's seven o'clock already." The petite brunette folded her hands as she stared down at Valeria's prone form. "If you make us miss breakfast, I'm so hexing you."

"You think something's wrong?" Daphne said with a pensive frown and a raised pale eyebrow. "Madam Pomfrey did say she'd be fine but..."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, princess." Tracey snorted at the aristocratic blonde's affronted expression. "It's only been two days because the matron had to vanish twelve bones and regrow them individually to ensure the bone-breaking curse was gone for good." She bent low then stage-whispered to Valeria in equal amusement and fondness. "She'd been worried all weekend long but didn't know how to express it. That's purebllod upbringing to you."

"Prat." Daphne retorted, her face falling back into its usual unreadable mask. Valeria sighed. The Greengrasses were one of the oldest, purest, most conservative families in wizarding Britain. Even after Daphne mentioned how they were surprisingly flexible when it came to inheritance issues (whatever that meant) and active pursuit of pureblood supremacy, she couldn't make head or tails of Daphne's reason for befriending her. Tracey was right; the taller blonde did have problems socializing openly but Valeria suspected there was something else behind it. Better not push with questions just yet...

"I'm glad you two are here. Madam Pomfrey is somewhat lacking in her bedside manner. Not to mention she treats students like mushrooms." She smiled, the last traces of apprehension about her surroundings fading away. "Now tell me everything. Don't keep me in the dark and fed with b..."

"Ahem." Daphne's abrupt interaction and narrowed eyes reminded her that most purebloods were too serious by half; their insistence on always speaking correctly and politely proved it. She mentally noted down to change that if she ever conquered Britain or something. "Gemma went straight to the headmaster; we heard professor Snape complain about it later. By the time any professors arrived, there were over a dozen students there at the common room just staring at the fire."

"I'd never seen professor Dumbledore furious before." Tracey piped in a far more serious tone. "He was scary; snuffed out the flames, repaired the whole room and cleared the air with a flick of his wand. Then put all seven of you in enchanted sleep, made you hover and had Filch and McGonagal escort you to the hospital wing. He argued a bit with professor Snape but we couldn't hear anything - some magical silence, I guess."

"Then the strangest thing happened." Daphne's nonexpression betrayed the barest hint of curiosity as she took up the story but that was all. "He summoned all your wands to him, tapped them with his own and cast some spell none of us recognized. All seven wands started shooting jets of light, as if they were casting. But they weren't... and the jets were tiny and a bit ghost-like. There were dozens of them, hundreds even - I knew some from our many duels. Tiny shields, and fire-conjuring, and a few hexes but there were too many images to tell for certain." She paused for a bit, perplexed. "Nobody knew what to make of the spectacle though, except Dumbledore. He kept staring around the room, whispering to himself about ambushes and counter-ambushes and necessity. We thought he'd gone mad."

"Be honest Daphne, most Slytherins think he's mad anyway." Tracey jibed. Valeria wasn't sure she agreed with her but didn't know what to do with her suspicions. Now that she was awake, quite a few people would be asking quite a few questions, and drawing even more attention to herself would not be very prudent.

"Professor Snape was furious too." Daphne continued, ignoring the brunette's comment. "Especially after madam Pomfrey saw Bole. She sent him straight to St Mungo's for emergency treatment." Uncharacteristically, Daphne gritted her teeth, her delicate fingers gripping the edge of Valeria's hospital bed so hard that bones creaked. "Good riddance."

"What about the rest?" Valeria inquired, deciding to drop the matter of Bole entirely.

"Graham, Gregory and Vincent are sulking in the common room." Tracey gleefully filled her in. "They only had a few bones to mend - physically that is. Their pride is another matter. Did you really beat them up with a couch?"

"I wasn't sure I could curse them all in time!" Valeria said defensively. "And they asked for it."

"You should follow my advice and learn more curses. The Full-Body Bind is too slow." She couldn't help but nod in agreement with Daphne's advice, remembering how Pansy of all people had almost knocked her out before she could finish her longer incantation. Why did the older dueling books in the library suggest it as an excellent option? Was there something she was missing?"

"You're spacing out again, love." Tracey said, breaking her train of thought. "Anyway, your last two victims didn't stay here long. Draco and Pansy were out of the infirmary as soon as they could. They were back soon enough though." The brunette smiled nastily. "We saw them yesterday, didn't we Daphne? Asking for dreamless sleep potions, weren't they?"

"This is no laughing matter." Daphne cautioned them. "Until now, you were just a convenient target for their bullying, Valeria. They just saw you as the pathetic mudblood their parents always taught them about. But now?" The Slytherin girl shook her silvery mane, worry in her eyes. "Now they've a credible enemy that threatens them; you'll never again be beneath their notice - or their families'. Besides, being thoroughly trounced by someone they outnumbered six to one is proof of their neglected skills and stupidity even they won't miss."

"You think they'll be back for round two?" Valeria asked as she tested her healing hand. The fingers still hurt abominably but worked. Madam Pomfrey did good work.

"Of course they will." Daphne snorted. "The bad thing with appeals to self-preservation is that the best way to survival is destroying the threat, not fleeing it. We have much to do before we can convince Draco and his posse flight is the best option."

"We?" Valeria asked tentatively.

"We." confirmed her two friends with one voice.

...

Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore sat in his comfortable armchair, behind the ancient but excellently preserved mahogany desk in the headmaster's office and contemplated the student before him. The many delicate devices he'd personally crafted and enchanted to track, observe and pass information on Hogwarts, the Ministry, the Wizengamot and several persons of interest clicked and clanged pleasantly as they usually did, filling the momentary silence. Most wizards over the world considered him a master of Transfiguration, the greatest duelist and sorcerer in recent history and a fair hand at alchemy. While mostly true, such titles were somewhat misleading. Information was far more important a commodity in his many jobs and positions than any other skill or achievement. Being able to both become invisible and detect the invisible with no apparent action or word for example had already allowed him to set young Harry down the first steps to fulfilling his destiny earlier in the year. Information had helped win the last war. Information had won over his old friend even thought he'd wielded the wand he now claimed as his own. He'd been in the process of improving a decade-old invention of his to allow the user to find and observe friends from afar no matter the intervening distance or barriers when the current situation had reared its ugly head.

"Lemon drop, miss Campbell?" he offered politely.

"No, thank you, headmaster." The young Slytherin fidgeted uncomfortably but betrayed no emotion. Alas, members of that House learned the same lessons at a far earlier age than he had. Some truths were too harsh if introduced at the wrong time, doing more harm than good and often blinding people to other realities just as important.

"Do you know why you're here, spending this very fine afternoon with a boring old man instead of being out, enjoying the surprisingly good weather with your friends?" Silence fell again as the smart young witch contemplated the question. They both knew the answer to it, of course. But answers were far from being the sole point of questions and what was not said was often as crucial as what was.

"It was the faculty's fault, headmaster." she stated gravely. Interesting response; not something any student would claim when standing in this office. A light touch of Legilimency, just enough to ferret out deception but not enough to be an invasion of privacy, confirmed she believed what she said. Perspective was very much an issue with the Mind Arts, as it was with mental potions and magical vows. It was one of the reasons such things were not fully trusted in a formal court and rarely used.

"Elaborate please."

"Well, Hogwarts is supposed to be our home. Our Houses our family." The girl tossed her hair angrily. "Family doesn't hurl dark curses your way."

"I suppose you're right, at that." Dumbledore agreed thoughtfully. The portraits in the Slytherin common room were of former members of the House; much like the Slytherin students they could hardly be trusted to reliably report the bullying of a muggleborn, especially with how rare muggleborn or muggle-raised students were for that house. Thus he'd resorted to employing Priori Incantantem on the seven students' wands, reconstructing the entire fight by the spells they'd used. A rare moment of surprise had come at the sheer volume of spells cast during the duel and, after a bit of reconstruction, their uses. Severus had hardly believed it when he shared the results with him... unfortunately, Dumbledore himself had experience of similar situations in the past. Or rather, one such situation - and parallels between them was what troubled him.

"Miss Campbell, regardless of your justifications did you actually try involving a teacher? Did you try to avoid such confrontations, head them off before they begun?" Dumbledore thought not. From what he'd seen, the young witch was frightfully precocious and far too independent for that. She was far more likely to...

"Of course I did!" she said indignantly, interrupting his ruminations once more.

"Indeed? How so?" He saw her hesitating a bit before answering and focused on his Legilimency again. Whether she trusted him with the truth and how much of it would be the deciding factor here.

"Bullies are lazy, headmaster. My friends and I made them believe I was already being confronted by somebody else so they wouldn't bother." Truth, if not all of it. Undertones of smugness at the successful manipulation, contempt for bullies in general, fondness for her friends and anger at the whole situation. Much better than the alternative - that she had real friends at all was a huge relief. "The plan failed though - as soon as faculty noticed I was told to stop. Apparently, the image of the House and its Head is more important than student safety." Anger showing through more and more. Oh dear.

"Violence is rarely the answer, young lady. You should have come to me." Dumbledore raised his hand to forestall the argument he knew was coming even as his young student jumped off her seat in protest. "Even when it is the answer it should be left to adult witches and wizards to handle, at least due to their greater chances of success if for no other reason." Miss Campbell sat back down but crossed her hands mutinously. Albus Dumbledore sighed tiredly at all the hats he had to wear, all the situations he had to handle ever so delicately. He had often considered trying to help Severus fix his behavior, or at least limit his excesses. But the young potions-master was already under enough pressure in a teaching position he had never chosen and under a Vow he'd only grudgingly taken. In his pride and bitterness Severus Snape would never accept such interference and Dumbledore would not grant him the position he so loved; he valued the man's life and services too much to see him dead or gone within a year.

"Students were seriously wounded through your actions, yourself among them. And can you claim the situation was resolved?" He couldn't fault her the satisfaction of defeating her would-be tormentors, only the viciousness of her response. But a muggleborn in the so-called Snake Pit had few options and he as headmaster fewer still. Lucius Malfoy had already demanded expulsion and while the rest of the governors didn't share that opinion, a punishment had to be given. There was one thing he could do for her though.

"Miss Campbell, for putting a student in St. Mungo's you have detention until his treatment is complete." he told her sadly. "You will spend your evenings helping Hagrid in his gamekeeper duties, away from the comfort of your House. Perhaps some quiet and hard work will curb your desire to engage your housemates in unapproved duels."

Seeing her face shift from worry to surprise to elation he returned her smile. He was now far less worried for her... and about her. Valeria Campbell was not the sly, ruthless manipulator a past student of his had been. Yes, she was powerful, mistrustful of authority and vicious for her age - but also highly emotional, capable of friendship and happiness, and didn't seem to mind being removed from the politics of her House for a time for her own protection. He hoped the time he'd given her would return some peace into her life; every twelve year old deserved to be free from worries. Maybe she'd even like and befriend Rubeus; the gentle giant was a kid at heart, never having grown up even after fifty years.

...

The gamekeeper's hut was a simple wooden construction right on the line that separated the Hogwarts grounds from the Forbidden Forest. From a distance it seemed small, a singe door, four leaning walls, a roof, a chimney and two windows, until one remembered the gamekeeper's dimensions. The door alone was twelve feet high and six wide and even so the giant of a man barely fit through; the rest of the hut was built to scale. What looked like a stable could be seen at one side but wasn't; it was a doghouse for the gamekeeper's near horse-sized boarhound. Valeria had to hastily cast a Shielding Charm to avoid the horrendous fate of being trampled over and thoroughly drooled upon by the vicious-seeming but actually friendly black beast. She wondered if it had anything to do with the barking she'd heard from the forbidden third-floor corridor the day she'd gone after professor Snape.

"Hello there!" the giant boomed as he marched out of the forest. Wearing his massive patchwork fur coat and carrying a crossbow wider than she was tall, she loomed even larger in the evening gloom. "Yeh be Valeria then? Bin expectin' ye, I have."

"That's my name, yes." she smiled up at the towering friendly man. "I didn't quite catch yours, though. Good evening."

"Oh, me name's Hagrid. Pleased ter meet yeh - even if yeh bin cursin' when yeh shouldn'ta." He winked. "Good job." Valeria giggled. She hadn't expected her detention to be very unpleasant given headmaster Dumbledore's last few hints but the gamekeeper's reaction pleasantly surprised her. Maybe he'd been in Gryffindor or didn't like Malfoy. If the latter, she approved.

"So... what will I be doing?" she asked looking up at him and the many tools half-hanging out of his coat's innumerable pockets, his well-used boots and his dirty but intact clothing. For such a huge man to walk through the forest with no tears or holes upon him in evidence, he must be a very experienced woodsman, to say nothing of the lack of wounds given the number of magical beasts that lived there. She wasn't sure what she could help him with. She was a city girl; the countryside was beyond her experience.

"Oh nothin' much. Helpin' wi' the garden, followin me inter the woods, simple stuff." He petted the huge boarhound whose name was (quite appropriately) 'Fang', then opened the huge door and went into the hut. "Come in, will ya?"

Valeria followed him inside, looking curiously at everything. The hut was just a single cavernous room around the size of the first-year Slytherin dormitory. On one side there was a simple bed several times the size of her own with logs thicker than her torso instead of legs and many layers of fur instead of sheets. Cupboards took up every nook and cranny, full of all kinds of substances from sugar to dried dragon meat to acromantula venom. An entire corner was taken up by a fireplace large enough for her to stand inside, made of hewn stone rather than brick and mortar. Despite its size, it was clean and well-kept, with no burn marks anywhere nearby. She'd once heard Malfoy repeating a rumor about the gamekeeper's incompetence but everything she'd seen so far proved it was obviously false. The ceiling was no less interesting; dozens of drying herbs hung overhead, often of the kind that couldn't be cultivated and had to grow wild. Fungi and pieces of bark joined them as well as... her breath caught.

"Hagrid, is that unicorn hair?" The silvery bundle was longer than her arm and as thick as her thigh. Given the difficulty in getting even a single hair from an adult unicorn... that bundle alone represented more money than she'd ever seen in her life. And if her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, the tips of many unicorn horns could be seen peaking from behind one of the higher shelves.

"'Course it is! Wha' o' it?" the friendly giant said, unaware of her gobsmacked expression. "Bin handlin' the herd meself fer years an' years. Poor sods be desparate fer groomin'." He waved the huge pink umbrella of his at the fireplace and flames started dancing merrily inside. Their warmth quickly filled the hut, chasing away the mid-February chill. And with that feat of magic her mind left the wealth of materials Hagrid so casually displayed for later and focused on the original desire she had ever since she'd met the gamekeeper for the first time. The one all the lessons, the bullying, the planning and the hectic pace of her life since the beginning of the year had made her forget but Dumbledore's detention had reminded her of. She owed the old wizard a big thank-you for that.

"Hagrid, how did you light that fire?"

"Wha? Ah... er... ehm... magic?" for some reason the gamekeeper was really flustered about it, like a small kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Of course it was magic!" she said impatiently. "But how did you do it? No incantation, no wand-motions... no wand for that matter."

"Err... best yeh na be askin' 'bout it." Hagrid sushed her then looked over both shoulders as if to confirm nobody was watching. "I'm nae supposedta do magic."

"Why not?" Valeria asked, hands on hips. Oh no, he wasn't getting out of showing her that easily. "I mean, you're the first wizard I've seen do magic like that and it's bloody awesome. There are mentions of nonverbal casting in our sixth-year books but nothing as advanced as that."

"Yeh... yeh think it was good?" Hagrid asked, chagrined.

"I wouldn't be trying to have you show me if it weren't!" Valeria exclaimed in exasperation. What was wrong with the man?

"Right... well... ah... if yeh think... OK!" He abruptly sat on his huge bed, making the heavy wooden construction creak dangerously. "I'm gonna show yeh, but yeh not be spreadin' it to noone, yeh hear?"

Valeria nodded vigorously and climbed on one of Hagrid's too-large chairs. This "detention" was going to be awesome.

...

"So that's what you're doing all evening?" Daphne asked as she stared at the trowel in Valeria's hands distastefully. "What do they think you are, a house elf?" Valeria rolled her eyes at her friend's indignation. She and Tracey were sitting on couch-sized pumkins, watching her work in Hagrid's garden.

"Naah. Only a young witch whose violent tendencies must be stamped out through backbreaking labor." She countered then did what she'd been preparing over the past week for. A single tap of her wand turned the trowel into a full-sized shovel. Another flick at the hard ground and she used the trowel-turned-shovel to open a long ditch with one hand, the softened earth offering as much resistance as foam. She laughed at her friends' saucer-wide eyes.

"Hagrid is a better teacher than most people think." she told them as she dropped a few seeds into the ditch, flattened the ground with the shovel and dismissed her softening charm. "You can't conjure or transfigure food with magic, you know. All that's possible is transforming materials to the final product, multiplying it if you already have some or helping it grow." She pointed at the huge pumkins Daphne and Tracey were sitting on. "The latter is what Hagrid's been doing - for near fifty years. Pumkin juice and pie for six hundred people means a pumkin that size every day."

The three of them stared at the huge crop, then at the rest of Hagrid's garden and facilities. Cabbages, carrots and an assortment of vegetables grew unobtrusively at the forest's edge despite it not being spring yet. Further along, chickens of impressive sizes and colors could be seen - must be the flobberworm diet. Evidence that, when taken all together, proved Hagrid's title of "gamekeeper" was well-deserved, even when few people noticed his contribution.

"A half-giant does all that? With magic?" Tracey said in disbelief but rapidly wilted under Valeria's furious gaze.

"Keep your preconceptions to yourself, thank you!" she said firmly. "Half the wizards in Britain can't do nonverbal spells reliably but that's all I've ever seen Hagrid do. He showed me his enlargement charm - it took me a week to get it to barely work and I have a wand."

"He doesn't?" Daphne asked incredulously.

"Not one I've seen. He uses an umbrella of all things. It's a garish pink color, too." She led the three of them to another part of the garden Hagrid had harvested that morning and started work on planting the next crop.

"He is teaching you?" Tracey said, traces of disbelief still in her tone and expression. For all her half-blood status her friend could often be quite short-sighted while Daphne preferred to reserve judgement until presented with evidence.

"Only a few things. He isn't supposed to be using magic." Valeria looked towards the forest where Hagrid had disappeared soon after she'd arrived for the evening's "detention". She'd accompanied him only on short trips during the day so far and had not seen anything dangerous in it. Maybe it was for the best.

"That's odd. Why isn't he supposed to use magic?" Daphne asked with a frown. Valeria knew that expression; it was the same one the taller blonde had when working on one of their plots.

"No idea. Haven't managed to get him to tell me yet but it must have been something serious if he refuses to talk about it after fifty years."

"Will you teach us?" Tracey asked, once again eager.

"Of course." Valeria agreed, escorting the three of them next to the hut. The garden was done for that day but there was work still. Nothing she could do without Hagrid there though so it was a good time to catch up with her schoolwork. With no bullies to worry about, it should only take her an hour or two.

"Just keep it to yourselves, will you? I don't want to get Hagrid into trouble..."