Chapter 6: A Visit with Hagrid

Harry stuffed the bugle in his bag as he left McGonagall's office and the three boys made their way across the grounds to Hagrid's hut near the Forbidden Forest. Harry knocked on the door and was answered by a loud, deep barking, followed by Hagrid's voice as he opened the door.

"Down, Fang! Down ye dozy dog!" Hagrid had his hand on the collar of a large slobbering boarhound as he tugged it back from the door. "Come in, come in! Good ter see yeh Harry! Who're your friends?"

"Dean Thomas."

"Seamus Finnegan."

"Pleased ter meet yeh." He waved for them to sit around a large wooden table before pouring them each a large mug of tea and passing around a tray of what he called 'rock cakes'. The name worried Harry, but took one out of politeness. He took a cautious bite and winced as it broke with a nearly audible 'crack' a moment before he thought his tooth would. He politely set it aside and took a long pull on his tea to wash the vile taste out of his mouth.

"So how's yer first week of classes been Harry?" asked Hagrid.

"Fine, until this morning that is," replied Harry. "I don't know what that… that… person, and I use that term loosely, has against me but I have never met a more biased teacher in my life. Bastard took seventy points and gave me a detention for answering three questions that happened to be NEWT level and brewing a near perfect potion. Like it's my fault we had barely acceptable ingredients to work with, not to mention the fact that the directions he put on the board were wrong. He took fifty points each from me and Dean and gave us both a detention for following the right directions out of our textbooks." Harry paused to catch his breath. "Sorry about the rant."

"Yeh wouldn't be talkin' abou' Professor Snape, would yeh?" said Hagrid, chuckling. "I s'pose it's 'cause of yer folks, Harry."

"What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Far as I know, Mom and Dad have never met the greasy bat."

"Yer real parents, Harry. Lily and James Potter," replied Hagrid.

The way Hagrid said real parents reminded Harry of how Dumbledore had called the Dursleys his real family. He eyed Hagrid coldly. "Robert and Irene Pauley are my real parents." He shook his head. "Sorry. You just sounded like Dumbledore did when he chewed me out for not staying with what he called 'my real family'. Not my fault they dumped me in an orphanage, not that I blame them. Dumbledore left me on their exposed doorstep with nothing but a note. At least when the Dursley's left me at the orphanage they put me in an enclosed vestibule."

"S'okay Harry," said Hagrid. "I reckon it was fer the best that you weren't raised by yer Aunt and Uncle. I heard Professor McGonagall say she had watched them fer the whole day before Dumbledore had me bring you there. Said they was the worst sort of Muggles she'd ever seen, but Dumbledore said it was the safest place fer yeh. Like yer aunt would ignore the fact that she hated yer Mum 'cause she was magical and Petunia wasn't," he scoffed.

"I probably wouldn't have known I was a wizard until I got my Hogwarts letter," said Harry.

"Probably would've tried to keep you from going, if she hated your Mum because of magic. My first stepdad left us when I did my first accidental magic and he realized I was magical like Mum," said Dean.

"What I don't get is why he thought I'd be safer there than where I ended up. But enough of that for now, what do the Potters have to do with him being an ass?" asked Harry.

"He and Lily were friends before they came ter Hogwarts and stayed friends till their fifth year, even though he was sorted into Slytherin and Lily went to Gryffindor with yer Father. Him and James on the other hand hated each other from the start. An' ter be honest, yer the spittin' image of James in his firs' year. 'Cept yer eyes, yeh got Lily's eyes." Hagrid pulled a box down from a shelf and after rummaging through it for a few minutes pulled out a slightly wrinkled photograph and handed it to Harry.

Harry looked at the photo and saw that it was a picture of a tall, broad shouldered young man and a slightly shorter petite young woman. They were both dressed in Hogwarts robes, with Head Boy and Girl badges pinned to their chests, so Harry knew that they were at least 17 and assumed that they were probably seventh years as well. The boy had messy black hair and looked like he had just gotten off a broom. Harry smiled as he ran a hand thorough his own bird's nest of black hair that just defied being tamed. He could see a resemblance between himself and the older teen in the picture and realized that they were his birth parents. He turned his attention to his birth mother and saw his own eyes smiling back from her face. He looked up at Hagrid frowning.

"Just because I look like his schoolboy enemy is no excuse for that overgrown bat to behave like an a**hole. Neither of us misbehaved in class and all three of us produced nearly perfect potions. I've already had 5 years of magical education, including potions, and I brew a few of the potions we use at home, including that one. Only reason they weren't perfect was the quality of ingredients we had to work with. Bitch tried to Vanish both mine and Dean's potions but failed because I had put a charm I learned back at Burnham to prevent sabotage, including Vanishing. Dean was my partner so I taught him the charm too. I didn't get a chance to show Seamus and Snape Vanished his potion since he couldn't do it to mine or Dean's."

"We all went to Professor McGonagall and told her what happened," said Dean.

"And Harry helped us put copies of our memories of the class in her Pensieve so she could see exactly what happened," added Seamus.

"McGonagall's a good lass, she'll do what she can ter help yeh," said Hagrid.

"You said my mother and Snape were friends till their fifth year, what happened then?"

"He called her a bad name an' Lily…" Hagrid trailed off sadly. "She never forgave him."

"What did he call her?" asked Harry.

"I really don' think I should say, Harry. I have too much respect fer Lily to insult Muggleborns."

Harry slowly got a murderous look in his eye as he thought about what Hagrid said. He could only think of one insult for Muggleborns, or first generations as Harry thought of them. Both Pappy and his parents had taught him to despise that word and he hated what he was about to say.

"You mean to tell me that piece of manure called her a…" He grit his teeth in disgust as he ground out, "Mudblood?"

Dean and Seamus gasped in horror as Hagrid replied sadly, "Aye. James and his mates were bullying him after one of their OWL exams. Had him in a rather, erm, embarrassing position an' blurted it out when Lily tried to stand up for him."

"If my father was such a bully, why did she marry him?"

"James eventually grew up. They didn't start dating till seventh year after they was made Head Boy and Girl." Hagrid poured them all some more tea as Harry pulled out a deck of cards.

"Any of you know how to play poker?" he asked with a grin. Dean and Seamus replied happily that they did and they spent a few hours playing cards before heading back up to the castle. Harry glanced up at the clock over the doors to the Great Hall and realized that they still had a couple of hours before dinner. They went up to Gryffindor Tower and dropped their bookbags in their dorm. Ron and Neville convinced Dean and Seamus to join them in a game of Exploding Snap but Harry just pulled a miniature piano out of his trunk after putting his bugle away. He carried it down to the Common Room, found a large enough space, set it on the ground and tapped it with his wand to restore it to a full size upright piano. He sat at the keyboard, cracked his knuckles and began playing. A few minutes later he heard the sound of an acoustic guitar join him. He glanced over and saw an older black boy with dreadlocks that he recalled was the Weasley twins' friend Lee Jordan sitting on a stool, strumming away. As he looked away he heard Lee begin to sing.

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today."

The two of them finished the song and were greeted by loud applause and even a few whistles from some of their housemates. Harry just grinned and began pounding out the opening to Elton John's 'Crocodile Rock'. Lee frowned slightly but began trying to play along, but he didn't know it well enough to keep up. When Harry finished the crowd of Gryffindor's listening to him cheered and applauded even louder until they were interrupted by Percy Weasley.

"Oi! What's all this racket?" He spotted Harry sitting at the piano. "Potter! I should have known you were responsible!"

"Lighten up, Perce," said Fred.

"Harrikins and Lee were just providing us with a little…"

"Before dinner entertainment."

"It's okay guys," said Harry. "He wouldn't recognize good music if it came up to him and bit him in the ass. He clearly doesn't recognize the work of two of your countrymen, one of whom is even knighted." He smiled as Percy's face grew red. "They may not be wizards, but their music has a magic all its own. If he doesn't like the works of John Lennon and Sir Elton John, I'll bet he'll hate this. My apologies in advance if I offend anyone else." He reached up and unzipped a small pouch running across the top of the piano and unfurled an American flag before beginning to play.

"Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.
Oh say does that Star - Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

"What in Merlin's name was that trash, Potter?" yelled Percy.

Harry rolled his eyes and was about to give a snarky reply but Hermione came down from the girls' dorm and answered the angry redhead before he could open his mouth.

"It is 'The Star Spangled Banner'. It's the American national anthem." She glared at Harry. "Though why Harry decided to play it here is beyond me."

Harry ignored them both as he calmly rolled up the flag and shrunk his piano. He picked it up and stuck it in a pocket of his robes before walking over to Lee, who was packing up his guitar and chatting with the Weasley twins.

"Pay no attention to our prat of a brother," said Fred.

"Yeah, he wouldn't know good music if it bit him in the arse," said George.

"Thanks guys. I grew up listening to the likes of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and yes, Sir Elton John. I'm glad to see I'm not the only musician here."

"It was a pleasure, Potter," said Lee. "I hope we can play together more often. Maybe tonight after dinner?"

"I'd love to, but Dean and I have detention with Snape tonight."

"What happened? McGonagall burst into our class this afternoon on the warpath. She caught Montague trying to sabotage George's potion, then bound and silenced Snape. Montague tried to sneak out and got petrified for it. I think she was taking them to Dumbledore."

"He had written the wrong directions on the board, so I told Dean and Seamus to use the directions in the book. He must have thought we were cheating because our potions were nearly perfect, so he tried to Vanish our potions, but I had used a charm I learned at Burnham to prevent sabotage on my cauldron as well as Dean's. When he failed, he took fifty points from each of us and gave us both a detention."

"Serves you right," said Hermione from behind him. "Professor Snape did say there was to be no wand waving in his class."

"He said no 'foolish' wand waving, Granger. Protecting your work from sabotage is hardly foolish," replied Harry. He ignored her huff of irritation as his stomach growled loudly. Harry, Dean and Seamus made their way out through the portrait hole and went to the Great Hall for dinner. During dinner, McGonagall informed them of the reversal of Dean's punishment, as well as telling Harry that he would have to serve his detention with Dumbledore. Harry felt that the old Headmaster might try something and was relieved when McGonagall told him that the Headmaster's phoenix would protect him. She also asked to see the three of them after Harry finished his detention. Harry finished his dinner and left the Hall for what he was sure would be a rather unpleasant encounter.

A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out, but real life can be a bitch sometimes… That and the fact that I've had a few other story possibilities bubbling through my brain trying to get out and blocking my brain from getting the last bit of this chapter actually committed. Next chapter will be Harry's detention with Dumbledore and the boys' meeting with McGonagall. May be a while as I try to sort through the other ideas… Might even start committing them to text.