Brooklyn stood on the balcony bridge with his friends, gazing downward at the Black Lake, deep in thought. It had been about a month since Dumbledore fled and Umbridge became Headmistress. She had gotten so much power, even allowing the Inquisitorial Squad to have more power over him, Griff and the Prefects.

The Twins once said Montague tried taking points, but had shove him into a Vanishing Cabinet, not even knowing where he was going. And they also claimed that they would one day soon ditch Hogwarts and Umbridge, because they thought there would be no future for them if the toad was still in power.

Fred and George at last took their chance one week, as they set off a multiple of pranks on Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad before finally escaping on their brooms, asking Peeves to continue their task of keeping Umbridge in misery. Brooklyn wished them luck, wherever they would go.

His right hand still stung, as Brooklyn clenched it, seeing those words from the Blood Quill Umbridge made him use one day, I must not spread lies. It made him hate her even more, especially when she made almost everybody in the D.A. write with a Blood Quill too.

Nobody really blamed Griff, because Umbridge had used that terrible truth serum on him, and Brooklyn had Pomfrey take his friend in to clear his body of it.

Harry was especially down about all this, thinking it was his fault. Plus it didn't help that his Occlumency lessons with Snape weren't curing his nightmares about the locked door. Hermione came over, putting a comforting arm around him.

"I tried so hard to help everybody, and look where it had gotten us," Harry muttered in a dull tone. Brooklyn felt like for the first time he didn't know what to even say.

But then they heard a pst from the end of the bridge, and Brooklyn spotted Hagrid peeking out at them. He looked even worse, with new scratches and black eyes, but his face was urgent.

"Hagrid, what—." Brooklyn started, but he just gestured at them to follow. The foursome followed Hagrid all the way into the Forbidden Forest. Brooklyn was confused as to why Hagrid had pulled them all the way out here.

While they walked, there was a thunder of hooves, and Brooklyn tensed in his tracks as a furious herd of Centaur galloped through the trees. Hagrid frowned at the sight.

"I've never seen the Centaurs so riled like this, they could be dangerous nowadays, with the Ministry restrictin' their territory an' all."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Hagrid, what's going on?" Hagrid shuffled his feet guiltily. "So sorry ter sound mysterious teh yeh four, I wouldn' have pulled yeh out here. But with Dumbledore gone again, I'm likely to get a sack any day now, and I jus' can' leave withou' telling someone about him!"

Brooklyn was still confused. "Who? Who have you been—."

THUMP!

At that noise, the red gargoyle turned his head, and his mouth fell open, as a 16 foot giant appeared, towering over them all. The foursome backed away, and Brooklyn's eyes glowed white with disbelief, that a freaking giant was really here!

Hagrid had tears in his eyes. "I couldn' leave Grawp because...he's my brother!"

"Are you for real?" Yelped Brooklyn as the giant's footfalls made him stagger.

"Well, er, half brother is a better term. Them other giants kept pickin' on Grawp because he's smaller than the others."

Hermione was quite hysterical about it all, and Brooklyn couldn't blame her. Tiny, yeah right!

Grawp had tried snatching one of them, but a rope stopped him in his tracks. Brooklyn noticed he was tied to a tree.

"He-he's still learnin' his own strength an' tryin' ter teach him not ter grab things so roughly. Can' get his own food, but wanted somebody ter teach him English, in case I—."

Brooklyn looked in denial. "No, Hagrid, you won't get kicked out. If McGonagall is still here, she will vouch for you, and so will we." Harry nodded in agreement. Hagrid's eyes shone with tears from their support.

"Yeah. Bu', can I promise if it doesn't work out, you can help Grawpy here?" He pleaded. Brooklyn hesitated, as he and Harry looked at each other. If Grawp was Hagrid's family, and nobody else could take the young giant in… Brooklyn then gave a small sigh, and the friends nodded.

Hagrid smiled. "Thank yeh. He can sort of speak. Grawpy, say my name."

Grawp opened his mouth, and a rumbling voice came. "Haggar," he grunted. And the gargoyle felt a little impressed that this giant could actually speak, even if it wasn't much.

"Grawpy, these are new friends. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Brooklyn. He's a gargoyle. They're gonna help yeh if I'm ever gone."

Grawp turned his dulled looking gaze onto Brooklyn, who remained as still as he could. The giant's eyes sparked some interest, reaching out to him, but not as rough as before. The hand was just a couple inches away.

"Broook," rumbled Grawp, looking curiously at this new creature before him. Brooklyn gasped a bit, shocked that Grawp was able to say his nickname right away. Tentatively he reached with his hand, and touched Grawp's. The giant then smiled.

"Yeah, Grawpy, the gargoyle's your new friend, so are the others." Hagrid said in a cheerful tone.

After that, the group left, wondering now if they would be able to keep Hagrid's giant a secret and teach him proper English.

Things continued to get worse with Umbridge as Headmistress, who granted Filch the option to whip the students like he always wanted. Brooklyn had seen him with a piece of pink parchment in his hands, cheering Umbridge's name, much to his disgust.

He did his best to keep a lot of the smaller students out of Filch's way, so none of them could get hurt.

Griff was eventually let out of the Hospital Wing, feeling better after getting the truth serum out of his system, and volunteered to help with the students to not get caught by Filch. The other students had eventually forgiven him for telling them on Umbridge, since he had the truth forced out of him unwillingly.


O.W.L.s eventually arrived, and the students were quite busy with their exams. One evening though, Harry had stormed from the dungeons after his last Occlumency lesson ever from Snape. He had accidentally probed into the Potion Professor's childhood and figured out his dad had been a bully, resulting Snape into throwing him out. He told Brooklyn this, who was pretty mad at Snape's action, and shocked at this new memory of James Potter.

But he still vowed to protect his little brother, no matter what his father was like as a kid.

One night while Brooklyn had been patrolling (he did outside shifts, while Griff did inside ones), and Astronomy exams were going on, the gargoyle spotted a group of people making their way to Hagrid's hut. His eyes narrowed. What was going on?

He stealthily made his way through the shadows, letting loose a small hiss at the sight of Umbridge with her cronies, approaching the front door, and going inside.

Brooklyn could hear angry voices from inside, and then it resulted into the front door slamming open, and his eyes widened as red stunning spells shot in every direction, and one barely missed Brooklyn as he ducked, the rush of it ruffling his hair. Then the door opened and Hagrid caused everybody to scramble out of his rage path.

Dawlish was there, backing away. "Now, be reasonable, Hagrid!"

"REASONABLE BE DAMNED, YEH WON'T TAKE ME LIKE THIS DAWLISH!" Roared Hagrid, and Brooklyn knew he had to help, they were trying to bring him in because of his Giant blood! Mess with any of Brooklyn's friends, you mess with him!

He ran at Dawlish who pulled out his wand, and tackled the man, screeching. This was payback for covering him with a net!

Fang also tried to do his part, attacking each man in turn that reminded Brooklyn of Bronx while he struggled with Dawlish. But the poor dog was then struck with a stunning spell.

A pair of hands began pulling him off Dawlish. Brooklyn growled in fury as the other human had a tight grip on his throat, trying to restrain him to the ground.

"Trying to protect your half giant freak won't work, devil!" Snarled the human in Brooklyn's ear, until Hagrid had grabbed him, lifting the man up, and throwing him to the ground, where he moved no more.

Brooklyn rubbed his throat after it had been released, and Hagrid looked at him with worry, but he said he was fine.

McGonagall showed up after hearing the commotion, shouting at everybody to stop, drawing her wand. Brooklyn grabbed another human, throwing him against the wall of Hagrid's house knocking him unconscious. Until, to his horror, four Stunners shot at McGonagall, hitting her right in the chest. She was lifted from her feet, illuminated red for a brief moment, and she collapsed unmoving to the grass.

Both Brooklyn and Hagrid shouted in equal fury at seeing McGonagall getting struck. Brooklyn in his rage pushed and threw aside more humans that tried tackling him again, and ran to her side. Hagrid took Fang in his arms, running into the darkness of the trees and avoiding spells with Umbridge shrieking "Get him!" Brooklyn wanted to help Hagrid but couldn't leave McGonagall there unconscious.

Brooklyn leaned over her, checking for a pulse, sighing in relief when he felt one. Getting hit by four stunners looked pretty critical, and it was a miracle she survived at all. Umbridge approached him once Hagrid was gone, approaching the two on the ground while Brooklyn held his friend in his arms, glaring hard at Umbridge. He didn't want her to hurt McGonagall any further.

"Get away from us!" He shouted, with the toadwoman giving him an ugly stare and smile as though she swallowed a fly.

"Oh, no, no, no, I only wanted to get Hagrid, not any of you trying to defend that half breed oaf. But I shall let you two go to the Hospital Wing, since Hagrid is now gone, and consider this a reminder of what would happen if you go against your Headmistress. Come everyone." Umbridge said in that honey coated voice Brooklyn loathed, leaving them there alone.

Brooklyn grunted a little gently picking up McGonagall, walking slowly back to Hogwarts and the Hospital Wing with her, hating Umbridge with a dark passion for taking over Hogwarts and changing everything he had grown to love about the place.

He sought the currently solitary comfort of the dormitory since Harry was still in exams, staring at the floor, struggling to comprehend the events and all the people he knew closely here were now gone: The Twins, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and now McGonagall. He now didn't have anybody else to turn to that was in the Order, feeling his stress levels reaching their limit.

The young gargoyle didn't know how much more he could endure from this new tyrannical Headmistress, putting his head in his hands and giving out a shaky sigh, dully wondering when things would return to normalcy once again.