The Nameless One
There was still time, wasn' there? Yeah, the feast wouldn' start in several hours' time, an' wha' with the firs' years' also goin' in the carriages this year... So, he migh' go an' take Fang an' Buck– Witherwings, tha' is – an' see Grawp in tha' nice cave Dumbledore (great man, Dumbledore) fix'd fer him, an' chat fer jus' a li'l bit, tell him the news abou' Aragog an' all–
It was with these thoughts that Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper and the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry walked towards his cabin, which stood just on the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest.
Once he reached the cabin, he let Fang out – the poor sop would enjoy the exercise – and then, taking hold of his wand in passing, he approached Buckbeak carefully – with all the politeness requisite in dealing with hippogriffs. Buckbeak let Hagrid untie himself; and together, the three headed for the cave.
They reached it; and there, Hagrid suddenly stopped in his tracks.
There was a fire lit just outside the cave.
And Grawp was not alone.
---
"Yes, Grawp, I entirely agree. The view is, indeed, spectacular–"
The man sprawled by the camp fire was undoubtedly a stranger: dressed like a Muggle, redheaded (his long hair was tied into a ponytail, reminding Hagrid a bit of one of the older Weasleys: Bill, his name was, wasn't it?), with an open, honest face and a pleasant baritone voice. But what caught Hagrid's eye was, of course, the man's size. The man had to be a half-giant. He simply had to, there was no other possibility!
With Fang at heel and Buckbeak walking next to him (and acutely aware that in the event of a possible confrontation, the hippogriff would be of much more aid than the pooch), Hagrid strode into the tiny clearing in front of the cave.
"Who are yeh?" he demanded of the man. "I don' know yeh. Wha' are yeh doin' here? 'S private prop'rty, Hogwarts' grounds, this is. Show me yer left arm," he ordered.
The redheaded man looked up at Hagrid, obviously amused.
"My good man, is that a pink umbrella you are pointing at me?" he asked.
"Yeh'd better believe it is!" Hagrid nearly yelled out, "Yer left arm, I say!"
The stranger shrugged, and stretched out his left arm for Hagrid's inspection. He was wearing one of those Muggle short-sleeved shirts, and so, his skin was easily visible. Without losing hold of the umbrella, Hagrid clutched the well-muscled arm and studied it closely.
"All righ'," he conceded after a moment, releasing the arm, "Yeh don' have the Mark on yeh. But tha' doesn' mean yeh can' be one of his own."
The man's eyebrows shot up. "One of whose own?" he asked curiously.
Hagrid could not believe his ears. "What, yer daft? His." He gulped and added (after all, Dumbledore insisted that they use the name, and he wasn't one to oppose Dumbledore, was he?), "Voldemort's. A Death Eater–"
The man blinked, and then laughed. It was a hearty, jovial laugh, and it immediately dissolved all Hagrid's suspicions about the stranger. No Death Eater could laugh like that! They usually sneered, or sniggered, or had some such dastardly laughter–
"A Death Eater?" the man sputtered out at last, "I wouldn't want to be near Sister when she heard that one– No, dear Rubeus, I am only a very hungry eater. Will your companions and you join Grawp and me for a bit of grub, and perhaps a sip of Ogden's finest?" He gestured to the fire, where, indeed, Hagrid had already previously espied something cooking. It smelled – not very well, perhaps; but just fine.
In any case, the man's words reminded Hagrid at last that they were not alone by the camp fire. He looked to Grawp; the giant, towering above the bonfire, seemed to be unharmed: he was watching the exchange calmly with his big eyes, making small grunts to himself from time to time.
Fang was still at Hagrid's heel, now slobbering at the smell of food; Buckbeak also had not moved from his place at Hagrid's side. That also helped relieve Hagrid's fears: he somehow felt that Buckbeak would know if the stranger harboured any evil intentions towards Hagrid, or Grawp, or Hogwarts–
And then, as he was about to sit down, he realised something... He had never told the man his name!
"Hold on, how d'yeh know who I am?" he asked, clutching his umbrella tighter.
The stranger looked at him calmly. "Aren't you Rubeus Hagrid?" he asked.
"Well, yeah, I am," Hagrid answered slowly.
The man shrugged. "Then there you have it, Rubeus."
Then, he snorted, as if something amusing had just occurred to him. "'Rubeus,' eh? 'Red'? Between you and me, shouldn't I be called 'red'?" He laughed.
This time, Hagrid laughed with him. "Yeah," he agreed, seating himself by the fire, "Me Da' didn' really hi' the mark wi' tha' one."
"You have a very fine dog, Rubeus," the man said, passing a bottle of Ogden's, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, to Hagrid. The gamekeeper took a large sip out of it and passed it to Grawp, who finished it, "I remember– I had a dog once– Barnabas, he was called–"
Grawp stirred and made a grunt. The man turned his head towards the giant, as if listening to him, and, when Grawp finished, said, "What happened to him? I gave him to my sister. She needed him more than I did."
"I've been travelling for some time with her, later – she had been ill, y'know," the stranger mused aloud, "We've been to this place called San Raphael– Family is important, Rubeus," he finished suddenly, and took another long sip of Ogden's. (Hagrid would have sworn that Grawp had finished it off; must've bin some fine charm on that bottle, he thought.)
"Yeah, I know," he said, looking at Grawp. The giant was sitting quietly at his side of the fire, watching the stranger and Hagrid. The gamekeeper felt happy. In the beginning, he was not really sure about Grawp... but now, his brother was turning out nicely. Perhaps, with time, he could become Hagrid's helper...
"My brother, y'know–" the stranger suddenly started to speak again, "He gave me this–" He fumbled for a moment with something at his side; and then, at last, produced what, to Hagrid, looked like a spotted handkerchief (and not too much unlike his own spotted handkerchief, at that). "Only that it was black then, of course," he added. "He only ever wore black, you know, the miserable suicidal neurotic that he was – you know the type–"
"Yeah, I do," Hagrid agreed, thinking of a certain Potions Master in particular. He was not entirely sure what 'neurotic' meant, but, yeah, it sounded like Snape, all right. The man was all nerves.
"He sought me out," the stranger said, as thought it meant something special to him, which it did not mean to Hagrid, and never could, "That bastard sought me out."
He laughed again; although, this time, it sounded to Hagrid as if he was laughing through tears. Grawp said something again, trying to comfort the stranger; Fang went to him, and licked his face. Even Buckbeak made some small noise.
The man collected himself, and finished, still not altogether without bitterness, "And now, he wears all white."
After a beat, he admitted, "He's a nice kid, actually... He has a hippogriff, although it looks very different from the one you have with you, Rubeus– A hippogriff, and a gryphon, all the way from Arimaspia; that, and a wyvern..."
Hagrid did not find it in his heart to tell the stranger that wyverns did not really exist, that they were only creatures from Muggle legends; and so, whatever creature the stranger's brother had in his keeping, it certainly could not be a wyvern. Still, he was curious to learn more about it–
---
And so they talked, and talked, and talked: about family, and magical creatures, and about whatever else they might think to talk about. The bottle of Ogden's made many passes around the bonfire; and then, at last, Hagrid remembered that such a thing as the Welcome Feast existed.
"I understand," the stranger replied to Hagrid's explanations, "And perhaps I, too, must go, Rubeus. I've stayed in your company long enough..." He looked into the darkness, and then, back to Hagrid. "Let's hope that not overly long," he muttered to himself.
Hagrid felt badly for the man.
"Lis'n, why don' yeh come visit me in me house, sumtime?" he asked, "'S good to talk, yeh know, with another– I'd invite Olympe, too. She's French, yeh know?" he finished with no small dose of personal pride. That such a woman as Olympe should wish to be with him still came as a bit of a surprise.
At that, inexplicably to Hagrid, the stranger suddenly grew serious. "You should not have said this, Rubeus," he said emphatically, "You should not have. No, now I know I have abused your hospitality already–" he said, looking furtively around; Hagrid could not tell what he was searching for.
Then, all of a sudden, the stranger Disapparated; all his belongings disappeared with him. Hagrid felt that it was rather rude: to leave without a word of farewell–
"Well, feel free to drop by anytime yeh want. Fang'll be glad to see yeh," he told the world in general, and, after giving a farewell hug to Grawp, he turned around and headed for the school.
He arrived there just in time to be late for the feast.