During the Ball it had snowed, meaning we were in for a white Christmas, which made Alice really excited. "Janet!" She shouted as she woke me up the next morning at about eleven, "it's snowed, it's a white Christmas!"

I groaned and sat up. "Calm down, Alice," I said as I yawned and stretched. "It's just snow."

"But it's snow on Christmas," she whined, "like with Dickens. Oh, it's beautiful."

"We had a white Christmas last year," I said as I got out of bed, confused by Alice's excitement.

"Yeah, but nothing in our immediate vicinity is trying to kill us. Come on, you've got presents to open." She scampered excitedly out of the room.

"Joy," I muttered as I got dressed.

The Common Room was abuzz with activity as people exchanged gifts and opened presents from under the tree. "Morning sleepyhead," Ron said. He had already opened his present and was wearing a maroon jumper with a letter R on it, the kind his mum gave him every year.

"I have mentioned in the past how little I care about Christmas, right?" I asked as I sat down on the arm of a chair.

"But, you've got presents," Alice said insistently as she handed me four presents. One was obviously clothing, it was medium sized and squishy. The others were harder to guess. One was a box about ten centimetres squared and about five centimetres tall, another was about the size of a book and the final one was another squishy parcel with something hard inside.

I chose to open the medium sized squishy parcel first. It was from Mrs Weasley and the rest of the Weasleys, inside was a dark purple jumper with a J on the front in dark blue.

"Ron, can you pass on my thanks to your Mum?" I asked as I put the jumper on. It fit perfectly.

"Yeah, sure," Ron said, blinking in surprise before returning to his conversation with Harry.

The second parcel I chose was the one that was about the size of a book. It was from Coeus and inside (surprise, surprise) was a book in Greek. "Pliny's Guide to Terrifying Monsters and How to Kill Them," I read to the others.

Alice chuckled."I don't think you need much help with that," she said, which caused me to blush.

The next present was the other squishy one, it was from Uncle Alistair, it had a tag that said, 'This may be useful with your new dog'. I opened the present. Inside was a dog blanket wrapped around a brown leather dog coat for Mrs O'Leary (who was being fussed over by a bunch of first years) as well as a lead, dog whistle, a spare collar, a bag of dog treats, a comb and brush set and a squeaky snowman. I did a check for curses and hostile enchantments (not that I thought it necessary with Uncle Alistair, but he would be horrified if I had not checked).

"Mrs O'Leary, here girl," I called. She yapped and ran across the room. I handed her the squeaky snowman, she bit it and it squeaked, she looked rather surprised and she started playing with it, spinning around and wagging her tail.

"I think she likes it," I said as she trampled a game of Monopoly, annoying some third years.

"Yep," Alice said, "it does seem that way, or she really hates it and is trying to destroy it." She giggled but stopped suddenly when I picked up the last present. It was from her.

I carefully peeled off the wrapping paper. Inside was a hinged blue box. I opened it and saw that inside it was a necklace that was bronze with a red heart pendant. I looked at Alice. "Thank you," I said as I clutched the box close to me.

"Well put it on," she said, smiling at me. I carefully undid the tiny clasped and put it on.

"It looks beautiful on you, although, everything looks beautiful on you. I made it myself during arts and crafts. I admit I had a little help from Beckendorf, but not that much."

"I got you a present, almost forgot it." I ran back to our room and picked up the present from where I had left it in the drawer of my bedside table. I returned to the Common Room and handed it to her. She tore off the paper. Inside was a similar box to the one she gave me, except mine was green. Inside the box was also a necklace.

"Great minds think alike it seems," Alice said smiling at me as she took the necklace out of the box and looked at it. It had a piece of coloured glass as the pendant, or rather, a piece of multi-coloured glass. It had a full rainbow carefully layered in the glass.

"I saw it and it reminded me of your eyes," I said quietly as my girlfriend stared at the necklace.

"It's beautiful," she whispered as she undid the clasp and put it on.

"It looks perfect on you," I said. She leaned over and kissed me on the lips, much to the annoyance of Ron and Harry next to us, who I heard get up and leave. I did not care what others thought; I was too deeply lost in the kiss.

"Get a room!" someone shouted from across the room, which caused everyone to laugh, but we ignored them, deepening our kiss.

"I meant a different room!" he shouted again, causing less laughter than the first time. We finally parted, both breathing heavily and blushing.

Although I did not celebrate Christmas, I had decided it would be improper not to reciprocate gift giving. Harry gave me a book about Hieroglyphs (picked out by Sirius). I gave him a copy of my favourite book about magical history (so he had a better source than Binns). Ron was included in his family gift of a jumper. I gave a gift back of some muggle assorted miscellaneous items for his father to tinker with and a box of muggle jelly beans for Ron (who seemed to be disappointed by the lack of every flavour). John sent me a book about tactics. I gave him a replica of Napoleon's hat with enchantments to induce calmness on the wearer (Napoleon being his half-brother). I gave Uncle Alistair a sneakoscope, to warn him until his giant one was fixed. It started pinging immediately, but he declared that he had seen Peeves skulking about and would soon bring the poltergeist in line. Chiron sent a couple of records of his favourite artists (I think he did that to annoy me), I had sent him a joke present in response, a jumper which read 'I believe in Santaur' and had a picture of a centaur that was half reindeer half Santa. Annabeth sent me a book about the architecture of France. I sent her a book about the overlap between muggle history and wizards. Percy forgot, but I sent him a book about magical marine animals. The Stolls sent a present, but I did not trust it. It remains unopened to this day.

The novelty of a white Christmas quickly wore off when the snow did not lighten up until after Christmas break ended. Although that did not mean the weather got nicer. In fact, the weather only got colder and wetter. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures in this weather. I had left Mrs O'Leary to her own devices with the squeaky snowman while were out seeing as she had a tendency of scaring the creatures. The weather promised that we would be freezing and soaked to the bone, though as Ron said, the Skrewts would probably warm us up nicely, either by chasing us, or blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid's cabin would catch fire.

When we arrived at Hagrid's cabin, however, we found an elderly witch with short grey hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door. Alice and I were not cold, unlike the other people who were there because I had made a bubble of warmth around us.

"Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago," she barked at us as we struggled toward her through the snow.

"Who're you?" Ron said, staring at her.

"Where's Hagrid?" Alice asked.

"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank," she said briskly. "I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."

"Where's Hagrid?" Harry repeated loudly.

"He is indisposed," Professor Grubbly-Plank said shortly, glaring at Harry.

I heard the sound of soft and unpleasant laughter. It was coming from Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins. They all looked gleeful and none of them looked surprised to see Professor Grubbly-Plank. I had a bad feeling that Malfoy and his gang of snakes had something to do with Hagrid's absence. I could only hope Hagrid wasn't hurt.

"This way, please," Professor Grubbly-Plank said, and she strode off around a cairn. The class followed her. Some of us looked back over our shoulders at Hagrid's cabin. All of the curtains were closed.

'Is Hagrid in there, alone and ill?' I wondered to myself as the cabin faded from view.

"What's wrong with Hagrid?" I asked, hurrying to catch up with Professor Grubbly-Plank.

"Never you mind," she said, as though she thought I was being nosy.

"We do mind, though," Harry said hotly. "What's up with him?"

Professor Grubbly-Plank acted as though she could not hear us. She led us past the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons Abraxans were standing, huddled against the cold, their fancy Beauxbatons coats doing nothing against the cold. She led us towards a tree on the edge of the forest, where a large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.

Alice and I rolled our eyes as many of the girls ooooohed and ahhhhhed at the sight of the unicorn. "Oh it's so beautiful!" Lavender whispered. "How did she get it? They're supposed to be really hard to catch!"

The unicorn's white coat was so white and pure that it made the snow look grey. It was pawing at the ground nervously with its golden hooves and throwing back its horned head. Unicorns are beautiful and majestic until, as we found out in Idaho, you steal one's box of Lucky Charms. Then they are terrifying.

"Boys keep back!" Professor Grubbly-Plank barked, throwing out an arm out and catching Harry hard in the chest. "They prefer the woman's touch, unicorns. Girls to the front, and approach with care, come on, easy does it..."

"C'mon, Janet," Hermione said, joining the line that was hesitantly walking over to the unicorn. Alice rolled her eyes and strode over to the poor thing, ignoring Professor Grubbly-Plank's shouted warnings.

"I'll meet you there." I went over to Ron and Harry.

"Shouldn't you be with the other girls?" Ron asked.

I ignored him and said, "What do you reckon's wrong with Hagrid? Do you think maybe one of the Skrewts..."

"Oh he hasn't been attacked, Harker, if that's what you're thinking," Malfoy said softly. "No, he's just too ashamed to show his big, ugly face."

"I think you should be the one worrying about their face," I retorted, bunching my fists.

"What d'you mean, Malfoy?" Harry said sharply.

Malfoy put his hand inside the pocket of his robes and pulled out a folded page of newsprint. "There you go," he said. "Hate to break it to you, Potter..."
He smirked as Harry snatched the page, unfolded it, and read it, with Neville, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and I looking over his shoulder. It was an article topped with a poor drawing of Hagrid looking extremely shifty.

DUMBLEDORE'S GIANT MISTAKE

Albus Dumbledore, eccentric headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has never been afraid to make controversial staff appointments, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. In September of this year, he hired Alastair "Mad-Eye" Moody, the notoriously jinx-happy ex-Auror, to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. The decision caused many raised eyebrows at the Ministry of Magic, given Moody's well-known habit of attacking anybody who makes a sudden movement in his presence. Mad-Eye Moody, however, looks responsible and kindly when set beside the part-human Dumbledore employs to teach Care of Magical Creatures.

Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore. Last year, however, Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many better-qualified candidates.

An alarmingly large and ferocious-looking man, Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye, Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being "very frightening".

"I was attacked by a hippogriff, and my friend Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm," says Draco Malfoy, a fourth-year student. "We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say anything."

Hagrid has no intention of ceasing his campaign of intimidation, however. In conversation with a Daily Prophet reporter last month, he admitted breeding creatures he has dubbed "Blast-Ended Skrewts," highly dangerous crosses between Miniature German Manticores and fire-crabs. The creation of new breeds of magical creature is, of course, an activity usually closely observed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid, however, considers himself to be above such petty restrictions.

"I was just having some fun," he says, before hastily changing the subject.

As if this were not enough, the Daily Prophet has now unearthed evidence that Hagrid is not, as he has always pretended, a pure-blood wizard. He is not, in fact, even pure human. His mother, we can exclusively reveal, is none other than the giantess Fridwulfa, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
Bloodthirsty and brutal, the giants brought themselves to the point of extinction by warring amongst themselves during the last century. The handful that remained joined the ranks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and were responsible for some of the worst mass Muggle killings of his reign of terror.

While many of the giants who served He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were killed by Aurors working against the Dark Side, Fridwulfa was not among them. It is possible she escaped to one of the giant communities still existing in foreign mountain ranges. If his antics during Care of Magical Creatures lessons are any guide, however, Fridwulfa's son appears to have inherited her brutal nature.

In a bizarre twist, Hagrid is reputed to have developed a close friendship with the boy who brought around You-Know-Who's fall from power, thereby driving Hagrid's own mother, like the rest of You-Know-Who's supporters, into hiding. Perhaps Harry Potter is unaware of the unpleasant truth about his large friend. But, Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the dangers of associating with part-giants.

I finished reading the article and looked up at Ron and Harry. Ron's mouth was hanging open. "Who knew Hagrid was a half-giant?" Ron asked as the rest of the article sank in.

"I had guessed he was," I said. "It did stand to reason, given his height, that he was half-giant."

"I did," Harry said sadly. "He told me. We were alone, unless you count the beetle on the reindeer statue. How did Skeeter find out?"

"What d'you mean, we all hate Hagrid?" Ron spat at Malfoy. "What's this rubbish about him," he jabbed furiously at Crabbe, "getting a bad bite off a flobberworm? They haven't even got teeth!"

Crabbe was sniggering, apparently very pleased with himself.

"Well, I think this should put an end to the oaf's teaching career," Malfoy said, his eyes glinting. "Half-giant, and there was me thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was young. None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all… They'll be worried he'll eat their kids, ha, ha… Soon there'll be one less half-breed at this school"

My blood was boiling at that point (figuratively of course). Ron and Harry both glared at Malfoy, Harry took out his wand and pointed it at Malfoy. "You—!"

"Girl!" Professor Grubbly-Plank yelled at me. "You're supposed to be over here, not with the boys! Get over here!"

I looked at Harry. "Don't do it, Harry. Malfoy's not worth it."

"Girl!" Professor Grubbly-Plank yelled again. I sent Harry a warning look and then glared at Malfoy before running over to where the other girls were.

"I hope she stays, that woman!" Padma said when the lesson ended and we were all heading back to the castle for lunch. "That's more what I thought Care of Magical Creatures would be like. Proper creatures like unicorns, not monsters."

"We have to study both kinds of creatures," I said, "otherwise if we come face to face with one of those monsters knowing anything about them we could end up dead."

"And what about Hagrid?" Ron said angrily as we went up the steps.

"What about him?" Padma said in a hard voice. "He can still be gamekeeper, can't he?" Padma stalked off with Lavender into the Great Hall.

"I think Padma is still a bit peeved with you about the Ball," Alice said. "Maybe if you hadn't of been such a grumpy Goblin she wouldn't have been so cold."

Ron shrugged. "I suppose I should've paid a bit more attention to her. But I heard she's been telling everyone she's going with a boy from Durmstrang to Hogsmeade the next weekend trip."

"That was a really good lesson," Hermione said as we entered the Great Hall. "I didn't know half the things Professor Grubbly-Plank told us about uni—"

"Look at this!" Harry snarled, and he shoved the Daily Prophet article under Hermione's nose. Hermione's mouth fell open as she read. Her reaction was exactly the same as Ron's.

"How did that horrible Skeeter woman find out? You don't think Hagrid told her?"

"No," Harry said, leading the way over to the Gryffindor table and throwing himself onto the bench, furious. "He only ever told me. I reckon she was so mad he wouldn't give her loads of horrible stuff about us, she went ferreting around to get him back."

"Maybe she heard him telling Madame Maxime at the ball," Hermione said quietly. "I know they spent a lot of time in the gardens together, he might have told Maxime and Skeeter overheard."

"That's possible," Alice agreed, "Skeeter'll snoop around for any sort of headline."

"She'd have been seen in the garden!" Ron said. "Anyway, she's not supposed to come into school anymore, Hagrid said Dumbledore banned her..."

"Maybe she's got an invisibility cloak," Harry said, ladling chicken casserole onto his plate and splashing it everywhere in his anger. "Sort of thing she'd do, isn't it? Hide in bushes listening to people."

"Like you do?" I asked.

"We've got to go and see him," Harry said ignoring me, "this evening, after Divination, tell him we want him back… you do want him back?" He shot a look at Hermione.

"I, well, I'm not going to pretend it didn't make a nice change, having a proper Care of Magical Creatures lesson for once, but I do want Hagrid back, of course I do!" Hermione added hastily, quailing under Harry's furious stare.

So that evening after dinner, we found John and the six of us left the castle, Mrs O'Leary trotting along happily, and went down through the frozen grounds to Hagrid's cabin. Harry knocked and Fang's booming barks answered.

"Hagrid, it's us!" Harry shouted, pounding on the door. "Open up!"

Hagrid did not answer. We could hear Fang scratching at the door, whining, but it did not open. We hammered on it for ten more minutes. Ron even went and banged on one of the windows, but there was no response.

"Hagrid, please, we just want to talk," I said in my sweetest voice.

"I think he's avoiding us," Harry said darkly.

"What's he avoiding us for?" Hermione asked. "He surely doesn't think we'd care about him being half-giant?"

"Maybe we just give him time," John suggested. "I know that if someone found out a dark family secret, I'd want time and space to recover."

"He's not opening up," Hermione said after we waited for another ten minutes. "Let's go back to the castle."

We did not see a sign of him all week. He didn't appear at the staff table at mealtimes, we didn't see him going about him gamekeeper duties on the grounds. Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes. Malfoy was gloating at every possible opportunity.

"Missing your other half-breed pal?" he kept whispering to Harry or me whenever there was a teacher around, so that he was safe from our retaliation. "Missing the elephant-man?" I got my revenge by resurrecting the chair gag where I kept moving Draco's seat out the way whenever he sat down.