All Earth's Children characters belong to Jean Auel. All Harry Potter Characters belong to JK Rowling. I just wrote this for fun, not profit.
the learning
Latie set in to learning Hagrid's language as quickly as she could. She needed him to teach her how to Call animals, but she never imagined there would be a different language in the spirit world. Perhaps this was why the mamutii trained for so many years. Latie was afraid that she didn't have years ahead of her. She had no idea what was happening in her own world. Had they found her body and been unable to waken her? What happened to time when one left the commonplace world to walk in the spirit world? She was a little afraid to think she might wake up buried. She had to learn as fast as she could.
Hagrid found Latie to be a quick study. He realized that she was conciously trying to learn his language, and sensed her urgency, but was surprised she did not try to leave. She stayed in his hut and tried to learn the names of everything around her. He toyed with the idea of taking her up to Dumbledore, but decided against it for one simple reason--she was a muggle, and muggles weren't brought to Hogwarts. He wanted to be able to talk to her so he could find out how a muggle girl came to be in the Forbidden Forest alone and unprotected. There was so much he wanted to learn about her and her people. Her clothes and language were completely unfamiliar. Some of her ways were strange to him, and she was clearly unfamiliar with the use of many of his ordinary possesions and almost reverent when she watched him with his creatures. Yet, for all her strange ways, there was nothing crude or gauche about her. Whoever her people were, they were quality.
the living
As the days passed by, they settled into a routine of sorts. From the first night, when Latie insisted on making supper, meal preparation became part of her day. She had admired the knife Hagrid was using because she had never seen metal before and was facinated that she could see herself clearly in it. He gave it to her. She used the spices in unfamiliar ways and added different vegetables to meat to make food that was tasty and a little exotic. She didn't always have him around to eat with because he had to make an appearance at the Great Hall often enough not to arouse suspicion. If he didn't eat supper with her, she would save the leftovers for the midday meal.
He brought her some clothes he got from Hogwarts, discards and lost items. She thought they were the most exotic clothes she had ever seen, but she refused to wear the shoes. They were stiff and rubbed her feet. She kept her own foot coverings.
She tidied the hut and kept house for him, much to his dismay, for he hadn't brought her ther to be a maid. When others were around in the yard, she stayed hidden within the hut. The rare moments someone came in the hut, she would slip out the back door and skulk around the edge of the Forest until Hagrid came to find her. The first time she took off, he had been quite worried, and she was unable to explain that she simply didn't want to meet any other spirits while she didn't know the language well enough. Actually, the arrangement was a little uncomfortable for Hagrid. Latie wanted to be kept secret. Hagrid wasn't positive but he suspected that there was probably some rule against faculty members harboring teenage muggle girls in their private quarters. He hadn't been sure how to tell Dumbledore, but he also didn't want to keep her a secret. On the other hand, he did enjoy her company and it was nice to have someone to talk to at the end of the day.
Latie had been amazed at her first sight of the castle on the hill. She had never seen such a shelter, and it was even more foreign than the hut. Like the hut, she could see it was built to be climbed up into, as opposed to the Mamutoi longhouse, which was built partially into the ground. When she could talk better and Hagrid told her there were dungeons and chambers built under Hogwarts Camp, she wondered how it did not simply sink into the ground.
Latie insisted on going with Hagrid as he made his rounds of the Forest. He wanted to forbid her, but he was more afraid she would explore on her own. She seemed very anxious to see all the animals for some reason, and he could protect her better if she was with him. She fastened a spear using the knife as the tip and would not hear of leaving it behind. As they patrolled the Forest together, he realized that she had pretty good hunting and tracking skills. She knew how to walk silently and observe disturbances in soil and vegetation. At first she would gather edible plants as they walked, but he discouraged her from doing that. He got all the food he needed from Hogwarts and didn't need to deplete the Forest. He had a hard time explaining this to her, and it was clear to him that she complied only as a favor to him. For her part, Latie watched Hagrid closely to try to learn how to call. But she grew frustrated because she felt there was some vital fact she was missing.