Rubeus Hagrid: Keeper of Keys or Creator of Monsters?
Rubeus Hagrid, great bumbling idiot of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is as everyone knows a half-giant. A story was published in "The Daily Prophet" about his "giant" ancestry two years ago and although he was still permitted to stay at Hogwarts, many people still believe he is a danger to the students. Although there are some naive individuals who believe he is harmless, we have an inside source saying that this is absolutely untrue. Shortly after the previous story was dismissed, rumors started flying about current headmaster Albus Dumbledore appointing the giant oaf the position of Hogwarts first ever monster maker! Many people have reported Rubeus Hagrid raving about the position after he's had a few drinks. He's been heard saying things such as, "Dumbledore hired me to build up an army!" "Won't be anything that can stop it!" "The ministry will be powerless!" "Give me more Firewhiskey!"
Scared students have reported to their families and parents are becoming outraged. Everyone knows that Giants are horrible creatures with a thirst for blood and the intelligence of a bag of marbles but Rubeus Hagrid doesn't need intelligence when he has Albus Dumbledore around. Just think, the brains and the brawn together planning to downfall of the ministry all because the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge doesn't agree with Dumbledore's views on the Dark Lord. Plans for the creation of these monsters may already be underway so it's safe to say that we all better be on the lookout, especially the Ministry.
It wasn't a very long article, but it was long enough to start trouble. The three of them looked at each other and then to the surrounding crowd. All eyes were on them and Malfoy couldn't help but sneer.
"Like it?" Malfoy asked. "I think it captures his personality dead on." Malfoy walked over to them until he was less than a foot apart from Harry. "Now listen up," he whispered menacingly, "I have some things I'd like you to do."
Hermione shuddered, he sounded a lot like she did when she first threatened Rita.
"It's my turn for a little payback," he hissed. "From now on you are going to publish my stories and treat them as if you wrote them. No matter what the content. You are going to sell them as they are yours and carry out your normal routine."
"Shove off, Malfoy! We aren't doing that." Ron hissed back.
Malfoy continued to sneer. "Oh you aren't? I'd say you have no choice." He flashed the Quibbler in front of his face. "All because of this little baby."
"What do you mean, Malfoy?" Harry growled. "Nobody will take that seriously, it's in the Quibbler!"
"You're so stupid, scarhead. You forget that my father has built up some great connections with the Ministry. And of course the Daily Prophet."
Harry's eyes widened. He had forgotten that the Malfoy's were "friends" with Fudge.
"So," he continued, "that means, if you don't do it, I'll just send this to Rita to publish in the Daily Prophet. Everybody will take that seriously."
The three of them scowled at him. They were stuck at the mercy of Draco Malfoy.
"Oh and I'll know if you haven't sent that particular envelope by tomorrow. It's got a special little spell I put on it that acts as a timer. If the envelope isn't in the hands of Rita Skeeter by twelve tomorrow, I'll know about it, and I'll just send this little baby off right away."
"You're dead, Malfoy!" Harry shouted and lunged towards him. Crabbe and Goyle jumped in front of Malfoy and grabbed hold of Harry's arms. Malfoy laughed at his attempt.
"You really want to be careful," Malfoy said pointing to the paper in his hand, "It's only an owl away."
Harry backed away but he never took his eyes off of him. Hermione and Ron scowled menacingly at him.
"Ok then," Malfoy said, "if you three have nothing else to say, not that it'd matter, I'll be taking these papers and letting you take the good stuff to Rita." Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle each picked up a bundle of papers and hitched them over their shoulders. The whole crowd in the Great Hall looked disappointed. Malfoy then took a long brown envelope out of his robes and handed it to Hermione. "Here it is," he sneered, "Mudblood."
Ron lunged at Malfoy but this time Harry held him back. Hermione took the envelope and balled up her fist and made a quick punching action at his face. Malfoy flinched so violently that he fell backwards and if Goyle hadn't been there he would have fallen flat on his back. Malfoy gave Hermione a look of deepest loathing but didn't say anything else and with one sweep of their robes they were gone. Ron looked over at Hermione and threw her a little half smile, Hermione winked back. Harry, however, was breathing deeply and still staring at the retreating Malfoy. The three of them were standing in the middle of the Great Hall with all eyes upon them. They suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable.
"No story this week!" yelled Hermione as she gathered her books and started heading towards the common room with Harry and Ron. A collective sigh of disappointed students echoed throughout the hall but the three of them paid no attention. As soon as they entered the common room, Ron walked straight over to the chair by the fire and plopped down with a loud grunt.
"I hate Malfoy!" he exclaimed loudly. "As soon as we find something that entertains us that great prat has to go and ruin it!"
Harry was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace and mumbling to himself. Hermione heard a few disgusting swearwords leak from his mouth. The envelope was light but there was undoubtedly something in it. Hermione studied the flap where it opened carefully as if wary not to set off an alarm. Ron looked up from his feet and noticed Hermione examining the envelope.
"What are you doing, Hermione? Checking to see if it's real?"
She gave him an annoyed look and then looked back down at the envelope. "I was just checking to see if it's been tampered with. You know, like if he's sealed it with a spell."
"Malfoy? Seal it with a spell? He's too thick for that. He probably got somebody else to put that other timer spell on it." Ron lunged forward and grabbed the envelope from Hermione's hand and began to tear at it furiously.
"Ron! No! Wait!" Hermione yelled, but by then it was too late. Just as Ron dug his finger under the seal to open it, a thick purple liquid oozed onto his finger and hissed as if it were burning him. Ron jumped and threw the envelope onto the floor cursing loudly. His finger was swelling at an alarming rate but instead of it being his finger, it was growing into the shape of a nose. Ron looked down at the nose that had just sprouted from his hand with complete disgust. Hermione and Harry looked shocked. It was the size of a lemon when it finally stopped growing and just as soon as it did, dark purple words began to appear on Ron's hand. The words very clearly read, 'Don't be so nosy, Weaselby'.
Crookshanks, upon hearing the commotion pounced onto Ron's lap and proceeded to swat at his enormous finger-nose. Ron shooed him away with his mutated hand and the nose wiggled around limply. "Too thick, eh?" Hermione asked.
Ron scowled at her and kicked at the envelope that had damaged his hand. The words soon began to fade away but the shape still stayed similar to a nose. "Great. Now I have another nose to blow. I hate Malfoy so much!"
"Whatever's in here Malfoy really must want it to be left the way it is." said Harry who was staring at Ron's hand out of the corner of his eye. Ron hid his hand in his robes.
"I just hope it isn't something too horrible." Hermione said.
"Are you serious? This is Malfoy we're talking about. Of course it's going to be horrible! I mean he turned my finger into a bloody nose for Pete's sake!" Hermione made an involuntary snort and Ron quickly put his finger-nose back into his robes, blushing furiously.
"Well," said Harry, "we'll just have to publish it. We can't let him print that story about Hagrid."
"I know," agreed Hermione, "He's always trying to get Hagrid thrown out."
"Yeah, that's good and all," said Ron, "but how in the hell do we know that he won't just publish it anyway? How do we know he's not sending it by owl right now?"
"That's a risk we'll have to take," Harry said miserably.
"Maybe," said Hermione, "or maybe not."
"What? Do you have a plan?" asked Harry.
"I'm not really sure how it will work out but I just thought of something we could do."
"Well what is it?" demanded Ron impatiently.
She thought for another moment and then said, "Remember in second year when we wanted something from Malfoy? Do you remember what we did?"
Harry and Ron exchanged looks. "You mean the Polyjuice potion?" Harry asked.
Hermione nodded.
"But Hermione, that almost ended in disaster and you turned into a cat," said Ron.
"Yeah not to mention the fact that it takes a month to brew," said Harry.
"We'll just have to buy some," said Hermione matter-of-factly, "and Hagrid's reputation, job, and maybe even life might end in disaster if we just sit back and do nothing about it."
Harry and Ron pondered this plan. They knew Hermione had a point and they weren't about to let Malfoy get his way. After a while they both nodded in agreement. "Alright," said Harry, "we'll do it. But don't we still need the hair of a particular Slytherin?"
"Yes," said Hermione, "that's partly what I was trying to figure out."
"We're not using Crabbe and Goyle again." Ron pleaded. "It took a week for all of the hair on my knuckles to fall out."
"We aren't going to use them this time that would be stupid," said Hermione. "We'll have to pick three people who are part of Malfoy's crowd but they can't be too popular. Like maybe fourth or fifth years. Anyone lower than that Malfoy probably won't talk to."
"Well when we have lunch we can pick three vulnerable looking students out of the crowd," said Ron.
"Alright then, let's head over to Care of Magical Creatures, its nearly time for class."
>>
After a particularly rough lesson with Hagrid, the three of them made their way up to their History of Magic class. Of course they never spoke about the article to Hagrid because they didn't want to cause trouble. They wanted their plan to be executed smoothly. It was going to be a very long lesson because of their anxiousness to put their plan into action. When they arrived they sat in the back of the room and Harry and Ron decided to start passing notes to each other. Hermione was taking notes of course and occasionally shooting them disgruntled looks over the top of her quill. As soon as the relentless drone of Professor Binns started up, Harry and Ron began their own conversation.
Ron.
Yeah Harry?
Do you really think this will work?
Sure it will. And if not, we'll still have fun doing it.
Yeah, you're right.
Of course I am mate. I'm always right.
Yeah sure, whatever Ron.
What? I am!
Hey Ron?
Yeah?
Look at your finger.
Oh you just had to bring that up didn't you?
Well you were the one telling lies about always being right when the proof that you aren't is right under your nose. Or is your nose for that matter.
Hey, stop with the bloody nose jokes.
Oh sorry but you have to admit that two nose don't make a right.
Ok it's just getting old now and that didn't even make sense.
Yeah well it's still hilarious to me.
You guys knock it off. I'm not going to give you my notes to copy because you didn't take any for yourself.
Oh who cares Hermione? Do you think Binns is gonna notice if we don't hand in our homework?
This is ridiculous. I'm not going to argue with you over pieces of parchment.
And yet you still are.
Yeah stop being so nosy Hermione.
Ok Harry you can stop now.
All right Ron Sneezley.
After Binns' boring lecture, the three of them made their way down towards the delicious smells wafting up from the Great Hall. Hermione was looking over her notes and scowling at the gap in the paper where her conversation with Harry and Ron had taken place.
"You didn't miss anything, Hermione," Ron mused, "I'm sure he was just talking about the invention of the toilet or something."
Hermione gave Ron a dirty look. "We were learning about the Free the Elves movement in the late 1400's Ronald. If you hadn't been arguing with Harry by pieces of torn parchment you would have known that."
"Yeah sure, free the snails, right," Ron said waving his hand and not paying any attention to Hermione.
As they reached the Gryffindor table and fixed themselves a plate, they immediately started searching for the perfect victims. "Uh, Hermione," Harry said while he peered over her head towards the Slytherin table. "How exactly are we going to get the Polyjuice potion by tomorrow, and where are we going to get it."
"I know of a place," she said as she looked over her shoulder at the Slytherins and tried not to look too suspicious at the same time.
"What place?" asked Ron who was stuffing his face but staring continuously over at Malfoy and the group of mammoth guys sitting around him like a shield.
"A place just out of Hogsmeade."
"How far out of Hogsmeade?" asked Harry. He knew that some parts outside of the familiar town were slightly dodgy.
"Just slightly. You'll see when we get there."
"Ooh there's a good bunch!" said Ron joyfully.
Sitting a few seats down from Malfoy were a trio of what looked like fifth year Slytherins. On occasion, Malfoy would tell a joke to one of them and the three would laugh as one. Maybe these were the ones selected to laugh at his jokes, (not that any one of his cronies dared to keep a straight face after he told a joke). It would have been perfect except two of them were girls.
"Uh, Ron? Are you planning on wearing a skirt?" Harry asked upon seeing Ron's find.
"No, mate. I figured you'd be the one who'd take the girl."
"What? Are you mad? I'm not transforming into a girl! I'll never hear the end of it!"
"We won't tell anyone."
"I'm not concerned about anyone. I'm concerned about you making fun of me."
"Well you should have thought that over when you were throwing all of those nose jokes at me!"
"You mean blowing all those nose jokes at you," Hermione spoke up.
Ron's face turned red again. He looked down at his finger (that had shrunk down a bit but was still definitely a nose) and then at Hermione.
"What?" said Hermione, "I had to get you to stop somehow."
"Right," grumbled Ron.
"So anyway, since we are running out of time I think we should take these three people."
"What? Hermione, no!"
"I'm sorry Harry but they look like they have some sort of association with Malfoy and that's what we need. They're perfect."
Harry looked furious at the injustice and reluctantly agreed. He had Hagrid's best interest at heart. After all, Hagrid had done so much for him; why not turn into a girl for Hagrid's sake?
"Good," said Hermione, "now we just need a plan to get their hair."
"We don't need a plan," said Ron. "We just need to wait until they leave, sneak up behind them, yank their hair out, and run."
Harry had expected Hermione to disagree but was surprised when she responded with, "Excellent."
>>>
They walked through the tunnel leading to Honeydukes after they had safely deposited their hair follicles under their pillows. The three of the Slytherins had decided to split up and go into separate directions after lunch so Harry, Ron, and Hermione were momentarily on their own. Harry's target had reacted so suddenly after her hair was pulled that she immediately turned around and punched the tiny second year Slytherin boy behind her. She would have hit Harry but his agility was so excellent from years of Quidditch that he dodged her right hook and was a good ten feet away from her before she hit. Hermione had a look of disgust on her face because she would probably miss a part of her next class. They had about twenty minutes of free time between lunch being officially over and the next class starting but it would be a great feat if they had accomplished all they needed within that short time limit. Ron and Harry were missing Divination so they could care less. Hermione was missing Arithmancy. She just kept reminding herself over and over in her head, "It's for Hagrid, It's for Hagrid."
It was like old times as they shuffled through the small crowd inside Honeydukes underneath the protection of the Invisibility Cloak. They were forced to wait as a line of customers blocked their exit and Ron decided to sneak a Marshmallow Mouse.
"Honestly, Ron," Hermione scolded, "are you six or sixteen?"
"Wha," he said through a huge mouthful of marshmallow, "nobolee cah see meh."
Hermione rolled her eyes and then headed onward as a break in the line appeared. As soon as they were out of the shop they slid down a dark alleyway and took of the cloak.
"Whew," Harry breathed, "it gets so damn hot in there."
"Come on, Ron," Hermione said, exasperated.
"Wait! I have marshmallow in my hair."
Hermione and Harry both pulled his arms and walked out onto the street. "Who cares about your hair, mate? We don't have that much time."
It took them about ten minutes to find the place. Hermione had only seen it in passing about three years ago when she was shopping for potion ingredients. There was another bigger potion store a couple blocks up from this one and that was where most of the shoppers went. After all, the bigger one was called "Life's Potions" while the one they were currently entering was called "Elixir of Death".
As soon as they stepped inside, they breathed in the acrid smell of stale potion and countless chemical concoctions. All three of them went into fits of coughing as if they had walked into a smoking lounge that was a thousand years old.
"Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Yes?"
"Are you really sure about this place?"
"No. But this is the only place that sells previously brewed Polyjuice potions."
"Oh yeah? How previous?" Harry mumbled.
"Do you think they have a potion to get marshmallow out of my hair?" Ron whispered to Harry.
They suddenly heard a loud banging noise as the door leading to the back room flew open and a rather tall and gangly woman jumped out. She had short curly hair that was the color of smoke and it looked like she had caught parts of it on fire a few times. She had pointed black glasses and her robes were a murky green and littered with stains and burn marks. Her small dark blue eyes bore into the three of them menacingly. Hermione thought she looked like a mad scientist like the ones she used to see in horror films during the summer at her house.
"Yes!" cried out the gangly witch whose voice sounded as shrill as a parrot's squawk. "A customer! I can finally rub something in the face of that bloody wizard who owns Life's Potions up the street."
The three of them exchanged uneasy glances. "Well come now," she cried, "don't be shy! What can Ms. Bethesdia Piddleswopper, the self-proclaimed finest potion brewer in the country get for you?"
Ron laughed at the mention of her name but successfully turned it into a cough. They all remained speechless, uneasy about what they should say and how they should say it. The old witch's face fell.
"Oh I get it," she said dismally, "you're more of those deaf and dumb kids that come around here to collect money aren't you? Well I'm sorry but I'm fresh out of money."
She turned to go back into the room she came out of until Ron spoke up.
"Hey we're not dumb!"
"Oh good!" She resumed her eccentric attitude and ran straight towards the register, waiting for them to buy something.
"Um, Ms. Piddleswopper?" Hermione asked cautiously. Ron had laughed at the name again but Hermione elbowed him hard in the ribs. "We were wondering if you had some Polyjuice potion available."
She considered the three of them for a moment. "Wondering about or wanting some, dear?" she demanded.
"Wanting," Hermione gulped.
"Ah! Yes deary! I have gallons of that brew here. How much would you like?"
"Enough for three people."
"Excellent!" She started tinkering around and muttering loudly in a frustrated tone. "I have plenty of this stuff unlike my competitor who makes it fresh daily or something stupid like that. But you have to be of age to buy his potion and you have to submit some request showing the reasons why you need it, and blah, blah, blah."
"What a loony," Ron mouthed to Hermione and Harry and for once, Hermione nodded her head in agreement.
"AH! Here we are! The Polyjuice Potion."
"Now," said Hermione as the witch added up her total, "is this the brew with the new ingredients or the old ones?"
"Why it's the new ones sweetie!" she said, winking at Hermione. "I smuggled them in me self."
"Right," said Hermione with a disgusted look on her face. "How much?"
"That'll be two galleons and eleven sickles," said the witch.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all chipped in, (Ron of course contributing the sickles), and just as they were about to leave with their potion, the witch grabbed onto Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione gasped and both Harry and Ron both instinctively reached for their wands.
"Don't forget to tell your friends about Bethesdia Piddleswopper's Elixir of Death!" she squawked, her eyes shining madly behind her pointed glasses.
"Yeah sure," said Hermione as she removed herself from her grip and started heading for the door. They all let out a huge sigh of relief as they exited the shop and headed back to Honeydukes. As they walked into the dark alleyway to put the cloak back on, Ron announced what all of them were thinking. "Bloody hell. I really hope this is all worth it."