BOOM.
Again, many people throughout the hall jumped at the sound.
He was holding a rifle
"He had a rifle!" Hermione exclaimed, her shout echoed by many of the muggle-borns and those who had knowledge of the muggle world, including Remus.
"What's so bad about a rifle?" Neville asked.
"It's like the killing curse, but a lot more painful, like it's mixed with a bludgeoning curse, a cutting curse, and a piercing curse. A very painful death," Hermione supplied quickly, wanting to continue reading so that Harry would be able to stop shivering soon.
"You were alright, weren't you?" Mrs Weasley asked. Harry nodded, which made Hermione and Ron very glad; they didn't think they would be able to help him hide the pain of being shot.
The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.
Ron tightened his arm around Harry's shoulders as his shivering increased.
He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame.
Ron relaxed his tight grip around Harry's shoulders slightly as his shivering lessened again since the wind wasn't hitting him anymore.
"Yeh look a lot like yet dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes."
"F…first one t…to tell me that," Harry said, not managing to make the full sentence without stuttering.
"But if you had a sickle every time someone told you that," Hermione remarked.
"Yeah, you'd probably have enough to buy a broom," Ron agreed. Harry grinned slightly at his friends, glad that they were trying to get the attention off him so that people didn't notice his stutter.
Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.
"What did the mouse ever do to you that made you compare it to a walrus?" Ginny asked.
"How do you know what that even sounds like?" Tonks asked. Harry shrugged while Ron grinned.
"Can't tell you that," he replied.
"Ronald, what did you do to that poor rat before he died?" Mrs Weasley asked.
"Nothing," Ron replied quickly, before adding under his breath, "wish I had though."
"Wish the rat was trodden on," Remus agreed quietly, quiet enough that no one could hear to question his comment.
He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.
Harry winced slightly as the muscles in his arm ached from the reminder of the forceful handshake on top of the shivering.
"I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."
"Hagrid! You don't drink around children," Minerva scolded, seeming to forget that Hagrid wasn't there, since he was still off with his job for the Order. Hermione and Ron laughed quietly. Harry would have joined them if he could stop his teeth from chattering.
"Didn't stop him," Hermione muttered to the other two on the couch.
"Never has," Ron agreed just as quietly.
He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there.
"Hah, you're not allowed to do magic!" Umbridge shrieked. Everyone ignored her since most people remembered that no one could be punished for anything that happened in the books.
It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.
Harry sighed as his shivering stopped. He was warm again and his friends relaxed their holds on him, no longer needing to try and give him warmth, but didn't move much so as to not draw attention to their constant movement.
The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea.
"How many pockets does he have?" Tonks asked Charlie who shrugged.
The giant chuckled darkly.
Many people around the hall frowned as they tried to imagine him chucking darkly. They couldn't.
He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful,
"Really?" Ron, Charlie, and Remus asked at the same time while Hermione and Tonks looked at him questioningly; all of them had had experience with Hagrid's cooking.
"No one can mess up sausages. And I was hungry," Harry replied simply.
An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."
"This will be fun," Lee said. Harry grinned slightly.
Sorry," Harry said quickly.
"Why did you apologise?" Hermione asked, "you did nothing wrong."
"Force of habit," Harry replied quietly; it was a habit he had been trying to break since his first year, but his attempts weren't going too well, even though he had improved.
"All what?" asked Harry.
"If I didn't know any better Harry, I would say that you're trying to make him mad," Ron said, nudging Harry with his shoulder. Harry just grinned, knowing that Hagrid got a lot madder.
"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered.
Around the hall, many people jumped, not having expected Hagrid to be that loud when he yelled.
He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.
"At first," he muttered, remembering how he had been locked in his cupboard for the first week of the holidays after he brought home his report card with marks higher than Dudley; he had purposely dumbed himself down after that, not wanting to experience the punishment he would get if it happened twice.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. Harry glanced over at her before sighing.
I was punished if I did better than Dudley. And as you have already seen, Dudley isn't very smart, he signed. After the experience in the Shrieking Shack, Ron had decided they needed a way to communicate silently in case they had to talk without enemies or people they didn't trust knowing what they were saying, and Hermione suggested sign language.
Since Hermione hadn't had to give the time-turning back until the end of that week, they had checked out books about both American and British sign language – Harry had pointed out that they wouldn't know if the person or people they were trying to hide their conversation from knew, but would be lost if they used a mix of both – and spent many days, more than in a week since they turned back many hours every day, in unused classrooms learning the basics. Hermione and Harry had then pooled money to buy copies of all the books for each of them to have a copy over the holidays and they had kept learning it over their fourth year and had become basically fluent in both versions of sign language by the Easter holidays of their fourth year and were able to mix both in a conversation easily by the end of the same year.
Hermione scowled at his response, but didn't reply, clearly not know what to say to that.
Up where the staff were sitting, Severus scowled.
"If his marks were anything like they are now than they were very bad," he sneered.
"Severus," Minerva reprimanded, "you can't talk about students that way."
"What world?"
"This will end well," Ginny said, smiling savagely as she thought about the Dursley's getting what they deserved for treating Harry the way they did. Luckily, her mum didn't see the smile.
Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.
Harry quickly covered his ear, indicating for those in his group to do the same. He remembered how loud Hagrid had been after he said that and wanted some protection against the noise. Remus hastily copied what Harry did, the noise of Hagrid's yelling already starting to give him a headache due to his enhanced hearing, while Snuffles copied in his own way, burying his head under his paws. Almost everyone else in their group copied him too, except Luna, who started to sway slightly and humming along to a tune only she could hear.
"DURSLEY!" he boomed.
After that outburst, Harry uncovered his ears, knowing the noise would be over for a while yet, while those around him did the same, following his lead.
"I mean, they're famous. You're famous."
"Unfortunately," Harry said, gaining looks of surprise from those who had heard him.
"What? My - my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"
"Honestly, Potter. The first thing you ask about is your parents? You were just told that you were famous," Draco called from where he was sitting with his collection of Slytherins.
"I think you're forgetting a few things Malfoy. Firstly, I knew nothing about my parents beyond the fact that they were dead, meaning that I wanted to know everything about them. Secondly, you're assuming that I even processed that he said I was famous. And finally, I was eleven," Harry replied calmly, though loudly enough that the whole hall heard him, the last sentence being said slowly, as if he was speaking to a young child.
"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid.
The twins exchanged looks, identical smirks on their faces.
"We're using that," they said together, even as George pulled out a piece of parchment, taking a quill from Fred, and scribbling something down. Harry had a feeling that he didn't want to know what was on the parchment, but suspected it was to do with ideas for their joke shop.
"Harry - yer a wizard."
"Nice. Very blunt. Perfectly easy to understand," Ron said.
"And Harry probably didn't anyway," Hermione agreed. Harry scowled at them, knowing he couldn't say anything since they weren't really wrong.
"- a what?" gasped Harry.
"Told you," Hermione and Ron chorused.
"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit.
"He's right," Neville said. The DA all nodded in agreement, causing Harry to blush slightly.
After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"
"Out of everything you could have asked, that was what you went with?" Remus asked.
"It was the last thing I read. And it was an important question; the answers were due that day," Harry replied defensively.
"Gallopin' Gorgons,
"Using that too," Fred declared as George wrote something else down.
With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:
"How?" many people asked in shock.
"Most people struggle to read it right side up," Ron added. Harry shrugged.
"I had to forge Dudley's chicken scratch when I did his homework, and that is even worse than Hagrid's." Everyone in their group scowled, including Luna.
"He's not going," he said.
"He's still trying?" Charlie asked in disbelief.
"He doesn't know when to give up," Tonks said, shaking her head.
An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
"Figuratively and literally," the trio said in unison, gaining looks from the twins. The trio had done that many times already today. That was their trick. And the trio weren't even related!
I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak!
Outrage was heard throughout the hall, many people shouting about how wizards weren't freaks or how it was the muggles that were freaks. Harry didn't react to the words, keeping his face blank and effectively emotionless – there was a reason the hat wanted him in Slytherin aside from his sneakiness – even as everyone around him were yelling abuse at the muggles; it was nothing he hadn't heard before.
Dumbledore eventually fired a purple firecracker from his wand, putting a stop to the noise and allowing the book to continue.
It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.
"She had been," Harry confirmed.
"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"
"Blown up!" could be heard yelled from the members of the DA, while others were yelling as well. Hermione turned to face Harry, a tear slipping down her cheek.
"That's how you found out?" she asked. Harry nodded. Dumbledore managed to get everyone quiet quicker this time and the reading continued.
Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"
"And adults," Neville added.
"I wish they didn't," Harry muttered.
"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh,
"Why did you think there would be trouble getting hold of him?" Minerva asked.
"After the third lot of letters had to be sent, I figured that something was going on and it might be a bit tricky, but I simply assumed that they were on holidays abroad in America or something and that the letters were simply having trouble finding him or were taking a while to find him. That's also why so many were sent, to increase the chance of one of them actually finding him," Dumbledore replied calmly.
Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someone's gotta - yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."
"Imagine if you didn't know when you came to Hogwarts," Ginny said quietly, so that only those in their group heard. "It would have been terrible."
"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..."
"Of course it's a mystery. No one could ask the only survivor, so they made it up based on guesses and assumptions," Luna said.
No one does."
"It's just a name. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing," Harry said, causing many members of the DA to roll their eyes; they had already heard that a lot.
His name was..."
"He won't say it," Tonks said, Charlie, Remus, Fred, George, and Lee nodding in agreement.
"Why do you think that?" Neville asked.
"We tried to get him to say it while we were at school and he never did," Charlie replied.
"But he must have said it. Otherwise, how would Harry know his name?" Neville argued.
"He probably heard Dumbledore say it at some point," Tonks said.
"He knew it on the train, before he had even met Dumbledore," Ron said with a grin, already knowing what happened that night since Harry had told him.
"Nah -can't spell it.
"Of course he can't spell it," Zacharias Smith scoffed.
"I'd like to see you spell it then," Harry challenged.
"Alright. B-O-L," he began before Harry interrupted him.
"Do you even know his name? It starts with a V."
All right - Voldemort. " Hagrid shuddered.
"You actually got him to say it," Lee and the twins said in awe.
Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches...
"Who could you trust?" a first year asked.
"No one. Not your best friend, not your parents or your siblings. No one but yourself, and you couldn't even always trust yourself. You had no idea if someone was on the other side, or if they were being controlled," Moody said gruffly. "You trusted no one."
"You have to trust people to be able to watch your back, otherwise you won't be able to cover all your bases," Harry said. "And some people have proved that you can trust them. I would always trust Ron and Hermione."
"How do you know Potter. How can you be sure that they'll always have your back?" Moody demanded.
"Because we've faced things no one else has. They had opportunities to back out and they never did, they always had my back. So, if they betray me, I'll know that someone else is to blame," he replied fiercely. He knew that not many friends would follow him down the trap door, or trust each other to brew Polyjuice while they were only in second year, or go into the forest for each other, or down into the Chamber together. He knew many friends would have run for a teacher in third year even knowing there wasn't time to or wouldn't run after him when they knew that there were Dementors. He knew that only a few people would go back in time with him or stick by his side when everyone didn't trust him or help him get through something that adults struggled with.
"Agreed," Ron and Hermione said.
Everyone around the hall exchanged glances with their friends, all wondering the same thing. 'Can I trust my friends that much?'
Remus, Mrs Weasley, and Mr Weasley were all looking at the trio with a look of pride, although they were worried about what they had gone through together that made Harry that certain that he could trust them.
Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.
"They would never have joined him, no matter what he offered, no matter how close they were to Dumbledore," Remus said fiercely.
Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then.
"He just liked killing," the few adults in the hall who had been around during the war said. Harry didn't say anything, but he was pretty sure that Voldemort had been there for him that night, not his parents. Just the fact that the memory the dementors pulled up had Voldemort offering his mum a chance to stand aside so that he could kill the baby proved that.
No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones,
Everyone turned to look at either Susan, who was being hugged by Hannah, or Amelia Bones, both of whom were crying.
the Prewetts
Mrs Weasley gave a choked sob and the rest of the Weasleys looked down, grim faced, at the reminder of their uncles.
As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before - and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.
A shiver seemed to run around the hall as the high, cold laughter echoed from the book. Harry, Ginny, and Severus were affected the worst though. Severus' expression turned colder; Harry leaned slightly into the comfort of his friends; Ginny curled into herself; they had all heard that laughter directly from the monster himself. Recently too.
Harry was receiving many pitying looks that he ignored.
"You remember that?" Mrs Weasley asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the hall. Harry nodded, not having the heart to tell her and everyone else that he remembered a lot more now. Snuffles whimpered, laying his head on Remus' leg.
Remus looked down at that; he knew that Harry remembered it because of the dementors, but he had hoped that he hadn't been able to remember it before that.
Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there.
Many other people jumped as well, clearly having done the same thing as Harry had and forgotten about the Dursleys.
"Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured –
"Did he ever touch you?" Remus growled, his eyes flashing slightly as his wolf strained to get out and attack whatever or whoever hurt Harry, fighting against the induced calm from the potion he had taken earlier.
"No," Harry replied. He wasn't really lying, more like stretching the truth; there had been a slap or punch every now and then, the occasional frying pan he had to duck under, and the beatings that Dudley and his gang gave him when they managed to catch him over once in a while, but Vernon had never actually given him a beating. Well, except for that one beating he got for his accidental magic, but that was only once.
and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -
"You don't say that to someone about their parents. Especially their dead parents," Tonks hissed, her hair turning a fiery red.
"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You-Know-Who?"
"You actually said You-Know-Who?" Ron asked.
"Hagrid had just told me that he didn't like hearing the name," Harry replied.
"I don't like hearing the name," Ron protested. Harry shrugged, before leaning closer and whispering in Ron's ear.
"I've fought him, multiple times, you've almost faced him, multiple times. You can deal with hearing the name."
"I know mate, I get your reasoning. Doesn't mean I have to like it," Ron replied just as quietly.
"You could call him Riddle," Harry suggested. Ron nodded, looking thoughtful, not having thought of that before.
Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.
"He doesn't," Harry exclaimed loudly, cutting off Umbridge as she attempted to say that he was dead.
Dumbledore, meanwhile, was frowning in thought, wondering why Hagrid thought that, especially since it was extremely close to what he believed was actually the truth; he still didn't have enough evidence to prove it, although the diary very much pointed in that direction.
There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
"It wasn't me that stumped him. That was all mum," Harry murmured.
"And they'll find out that at the end of the book," Hermione reminded him, squeezing his hand that she hadn't released since she had been trying to warm him up earlier that chapter, before turning to join Ron in glaring at anyone that was staring at Harry.
How could he possibly be?
"What?" Fred and George asked.
"You didn't think magic was real?" Neville asked.
"I believed magic was real. I just didn't believe that I was a wizard. I didn't think I was special enough to be," Harry replied quietly.
"Harry Potter, not a wizard - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."
"Wish I wasn't. Who wants to be famous for not having parents?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ron both sighed quietly, having heard that many times; they both agreed though, it was a terrible reason to be famous.
But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.
"Of course not, because he's an idiot," Ginny stated.
He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled-"
Harry quickly shoved his fingers in his ears, remembering what came next. Ron and Hermione copied him, as did the others in their group upon seeing what the trio had done.
"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.
"That's not going to end well," Dumbledore said quietly, so that only the staff nearby could hear, but loud enough that the reading paused for a moment. He knew how much Hagrid respected him and also knew how Hagrid reacted to someone insulting him.
"Maybe we should copy Mr Potter and his friends," Filius suggested, pointing down to the group that all had their fingers stuffed in their ears.
"Probably a good idea since Potter knows what happened next," Pomona agreed. The staff in hearing range all plugged their ears, just in time since the book continued reading.
But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE- IN- FRONT- OF- ME!"
Majority of the hall jumped at the loud exclamation that came from the book, many winces accompanying it from the volume. Harry knew that that was the worst of it so unplugged his ears, everyone else who had covered their ears following his example.
When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.
"You attacked a muggle. That's breaking the Statute of Secrecy," Umbridge exclaimed while many people laughed at the image.
"No, it's not. My relatives already knew about the wizarding world, meaning he didn't break the Statute of Secrecy, since that only applies if the muggles don't know about magic. And you wouldn't be able to convict him anyway, even if he did, since you can't prove that he did," Harry said, standing up and glaring at Umbridge from across the hall.
"I just heard all the evidence I need," Umbridge argued.
"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But no one will know, since you can't tell anyone," he said with a shrug.
"You can't tell me what I can or can't do," Umbridge screeched. Harry struggled not to grin.
"You're right. By all means tell people about what Hagrid did. I just hope you know how to live like a muggle." He sat back down before allowing his grin to appear. All his friends were grinning like mad while Umbridge spluttered, trying to work out a response to what he had said and trying to work out what he had actually meant. Her spluttering was cut off when the spell on the book began reading again.
Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much-left ter do."
Many people throughout the hall snorted.
"Not wrong there," Harry added. Fred and George exchanged glances.
"We're getting Hagrid a gift," they decided.
"He's always said that he wants a dragon," Fred said, tilting his head slightly as he thought. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all groaned, Harry thumping his head against the back of the couch.
"No more dragons," they said together, loud enough that many people throughout the hall turned to look at them.
"What are you talking about? When have you come into contact with a dragon?" Remus asked, having not heard what the first task had been.
"There were four at the school last year for the tournament and that was enough for my lifetime," Harry replied quickly.
However, over where the staff were seated, Minerva had paled slightly, hoping that the reaction from the trio didn't mean that there had actually been a dragon in their first year.
"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
"Harry," Mrs Weasley admonished.
"Hey, I wasn't sure if it was a rule or something, like you couldn't use magic around muggles no matter if they knew about magic or not. I didn't want to get kicked out for doing something that I didn't realise I was allowed to do," Harry protested.
"Why were you expelled?"
"He'll never tell you," Fred and George said.
"He never tells anyone," Charlie and Tonks agreed.
The trio exchanged glances and grinned.
"You know," Remus said in shock.
"Yup," Ron agreed.
"How?" Fred, George, Charlie, Tonks, and Remus all demanded. They had all tried to find out during their school years, and Fred and George were still trying.
"You'll see," Hermione answered.
"How do you know it will be in the books?" Tonks asked. The trio exchanged looks again.
Should we say? Ron asked.
It should be in the books. I mean, it's a very big part about the Chamber, Harry said.
Make them wait. They'll learn eventually, Hermione added.
"You'll see," Harry finally said.
"I have a feeling we'll start to hate that phrase," Remus muttered, while wondering what they had been talking about with all their signs; he had started learning British sign language while he was in school, but he didn't remember much of it, so had been completely unable to follow anything they had just said, aside from recognising that they had been signing to each other. The trio just smiled at him in response; it was nice knowing things that others didn't, even if it came at the cost of having their privacy invaded.
"Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."
"Why would he have dormice in his pockets?" Luna asked.
"He is the groundskeeper. You never know when he might need to feed an animal he comes across while working" Charlie said. Dumbledore stood up, calling attention to himself.
"We are going to take a break now. Feel free to go for a wander to stretch your legs or visit the bathroom. However, please be back in half an hour to continue the reading." As Dumbledore sat down again, the hall burst into chatter even as many people stood and began to leave the hall.