Chapter 4:

Giant Lies

As a second BOOM echoed all around them, Jessa tugged her brother into the far corner, hiding in the shadows of the rickety cabin.

On the third BOOM, the door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor. Harry peeked out from where they were hidden at this noise. Jessa peeked around him, extremely hesitant, as she clung to her older brother.

A large body filled the doorway. The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon. As his gaze followed Dudley's retreat, he spotted the Potter boy.

"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.

Harry made to step forward, but Jessa grabbed onto his arm. "Harry!"

He gave her a quick, sharp look and shook his arm loose from his sister's grasp and stepped out to greet the stranger.

"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise, stepping forward, gun at the ready.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant.

Jessa cracked a smile, her eyes widening as the large man reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Now, where's yer sister?" Harry turned, outing her hiding spot and Jessa stepped out of the shadows and came to stand by her brother.

"An' yeh look jus' like yer mum. 'cept yeh've got yer dad's eyes."

He then turned back to her brother. "Harry, a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right. "

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.

"You're sharing that," Jessa stated immediately, who nodded at her, before looking up at the giant.

"Who are you?"

Though she was wondering the same thing, she wouldn't have asked him quite outright like that – certainly not with the kindness he'd shown them so far.

The giant simply chuckled though, "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

Jessa shot her brother a confused look, before tentatively asking "Er, Sir? What's Hogwarts?"

Mr. Hagrid stopped and stared.

"You don't know about Hogwarts?"

"Er – no, Sir. Sorry."

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. The Potter siblings themselves took a step back at the sudden change in tone.

"It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked the Potter children in unision.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered, rising to his feet. In his anger, he seemed to fill the whole hut. Jessa moved to stand behind her brother again.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that these children — these children! — knows nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING?"

"We know some things," Harry interjected. "We can, you know, do math and stuff."

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell them anything!"

"You never told 'em? Never told 'em what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer 'em? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from them all these years?"

"Kept what from us?" said Harry eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic. Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "You're magic. Harry — yer a wizard. And Jessa, yer a witch."

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

"I'm a what?" gasped Harry. Jessa simply remained silent, trying to comprehend what she was just told…and failing miserably.

"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. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. While Harry read his letter, Jessa's mind was already starting to fill with questions.

"Excuse me, but why haven't I got a letter?" She asked suddenly.

" 'Cause yer not old 'nough ter go ter Hogwarts yet. Yer letter'll come next summer."

"What does it mean, they await my owl?" Harry asked, now that he was done reading his letter.

"He's not going," Uncle Vernon said at that moment, interrupting them.

Hagrid grunted. "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.

"A what?" said Harry, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of them! Magical indeed!"

"You knew? And you lied to us?" she exclaimed, unable to stop herself. Aunt Petunia's hawkish eyes raked over them.

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that — that school — and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats."

Cool! her niece thought briefly.

"I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! 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!"

The Potter siblings moved closer together. "You told us they died in a car crash."

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"

"But why? What happened to make him so famous? And just him?" Jessa asked urgently.

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.

"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, how much yeh didn't know. 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'."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"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…"

So Hagrid told them of a very powerful, very dark wizard – Voldemort. How people wouldn't say his name to this day. How nice their parents were, how bright they were. How Voldemort set out to kill them. How the curse's darkness and power was the reason for Harry's deep scar on his forehead…and Jessa's on her palm.

"So – am I famous too?"

" 'fraid not. Story goes you were crouched in shadow behind yer brother. You-Know-Who didn' see ye. No one knows how either of ye survived. But only yer brother's name is known."

"Great," she muttered under her breath.

Hagrid was watching them sadly.

"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot…."

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped and Jessa hugged close to him for a moment; they had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

Inside, however, she was disappointed. Harry got to go away to a school for the year, while she was stuck here with the Dursleys. Harry was famous, while she was just another little girl.

But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Haven't I told you he's not going? I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.

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!" He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, the Potters saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers, and they burst into laughter.

Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. 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."

He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid then. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."

Hagrid took his jacket off, lending it to the Potters to sleep on. As Jessa drifted off to sleep beside her brother, her mind wandered. So she was a witch? Now the next question...was there a way to convince Hagrid to let her go to Hogwarts this year?