"Steven!" Harry called out.
He'd heard about Steven's detention, the first in the entire school year. He only wished he'd been brave enough to stand up to Snape that way.
Of course, he'd been too flabbergasted to think properly. He'd thought he'd left all that sort of abuse back home with the Dursleys. The Wizarding world was supposed to be better than that, and it had been a crushing disappointment to find out that it wasn't.
He promised himself that he would be quicker on his feet the next time.
The American boy slowed down and waited on him.
For a moment Harry thought about asking him about detention the previous evening, but realized that it might be a sore subject.
Instead he said, "I'm going to visit Hagrid and Ron's coming with me. Would you like to go?"
Steven frowned and then said, "I was going to ask him if he was a fusion..."
"I heard he was a half-giant," Harry said quietly. "People don't seem to like to talk about it."
Steven brightened. "So he's like me!"
Harry stared at the shorter boy for a moment. He couldn't see a resemblance at all, but that didn't matter. "So do you want to go or not?"
Steven nodded eagerly.
Setting out in search of Ron, they found him and soon were making their way across the castle grounds. Hagrid lived in a hut at the edge of the Forbidden forest.
Harry noticed Ron glancing nervously in the direction of the forest, but Steven seemed oblivious. He walked as though he didn't have a care in the world.
Although he still didn't understand a lot about his new friend, Harry had to admire his courage. He still didn't understand why the smaller boy hadn't ended up in Gryffindor. It was hard to get to know him as well as he'd like when they were in separate houses, but he assumed he would have to make do.
He knocked at the door to Hagrid's hut.
A scrabbling noise came from inside and a moment later Hagrid's voice, "Back, Fang! Back!"
"Come in boys. Make yerselves at home."
Fang broke free and lunged toward Ron.
Steven stepped forward, interposing himself between the huge dog and his intended victim.
The dog seemed to grin, and then it was licking all over Steven's face.
Steven giggled, grinning as he was doused in saliva.
Ron leaned forward and whispered, "Thanks, mate."
"This is Ron," Harry said.
Steven rolled the massive dog on it's side and was rubbing its belly. He grinned and seemed carefree.
"One of the Weaselys, I'll bet." Hagrid said. "And who's this?"
Steven stood up, giving the dog a last belly rub. He didn't even bother to wipe his face as he extended his hand.
"I'm Steven. Steven Universe."
"Nice ter meet ya, Steven," Hagrid said.
When he shook Steven's hand, a sudden surprised expression crossed his face. "That's quite a grip you've got there."
Steven grinned, pulling his hand back. "I'm half human on my dad's side."
The huge man stared down at him for a moment, then grinned. "You don't say? My da was human too."
Smiling up at the big man, Steven said, "I think us half-humans have got to stick together."
Glancing at Harry and Ron, Hagrid leaned forward and said, "What about them?"
Harry felt Ron stiffen beside him. From what he'd seen already, pureblooded wizards were very sensitive about non-humans. He'd heard someone muttering something about the goblin wars, but since he kept falling asleep in Binn's class he wasn't sure what they were talking about.
"They can be in the club," Steven said. "They're half humans too."
Hagrid frowned. "I'm not so sure about that. I knew James and Lilly..."
"They just happen to be half human on both sides!" Steven said.
Beside him, Ron relaxed.
Hagrid stared at him for a moment, then chuckled. "Yer a good boy."
He stood up and moment's later returned with rock cakes, which were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth.
Steven muttered something about Amethyst loving them, but he didn't seem to eat any more of them than Harry or Ron. Instead he simply petted Fang as he drooled all over his school robes, soaking them. It didn't seem to bother the boy at all.
He would have asked Hagrid why Professor Snape hated him, but after what had happened to Steven, it occurred to Harry that Snape might just be a smarter version of Filch, the disagreeable caretaker who didn't seem to care for anyone.
Glancing at the paper on Hagrid's table, which was screaming about a break in in Gringott's, Harry said, "Hey, this happened on my birthday! It might have happened when we were there!"
For the first time, the big man didn't look Harry in the eye. He was hiding something.
The big man's face was expressive, and he couldn't hide his feelings at all well. Normally he seemed so honest that it didn't matter, but now Harry's mind whirled.
He'd seen Hagrid remove something from a vault at Gringott's the very day of the attempted theft. Had he gotten it out just in time?
What was it that he was hiding?
Steven sighed. "I wish I had my Ukelele."
Ron stared at Steven, and for once Harry was just as much in the dark. Harry was sure it was a Muggle thing, but the Durselys hadn't exactly let him watch a lot of telly from his cupboard under the stairs. Dudley had been even worse. He'd managed to catch some things of course, but he'd rarely got to seen an entire program. He mostly caught things in snatches while doing his chores.
At their expression, Steven explained. "It's kind of like a guitar, but from Hawaii. My dad started teaching me to play it when I was three."
Looking down at the dog's massive head in his lap, Steven hesitated, then said, "He's a musician. He was even a rock star for a little while, although he wasn't famous."
He hadn't talked much about his family. Harry assumed they were still back in the United States.
"You could always visit him. The floo network reaches the states," Ron said. "It's not like you have to take a muggle airicopter or whatever."
Steven looked stricken.
"I'm not..." he stopped for a moment, visibly collecting himself. "I'm not going to see him again, ever. Not him, or Connie, or Lars or Sadie, and I'm worried the gems aren't ever going to get better."
Closing his eyes for a moment, he said, "I'm alone here."
"I don't understand," Ron said. "Are they all dead?"
Steven hesitated, then said, "If I tell you something, can you keep it just between us?"
The boys nodded.
Glancing up at Hagrid, he said, "Everybody I know is in another universe, and I can't ever go back there."
He told them the story, his voice flat and dull. It was almost as though he was telling a story about someone else, as though it hadn't been him it had happened to.
After he told them, they sat in stunned silence for more than a minute.
"I wanted to take my ukelele but there wasn't room," Steven said. "I had pictures of Connie and my friends on my phone, but electronics don't work around magic here."
Harry couldn't help but stare at the boy, unable to comprehend some of the things he'd been told.
Steven was his own mother? Harry hadn't understood that at all, but it appeared that they'd both lost their respective mothers when they were babies.
He didn't understand much about the war, or the spaceships shaped like body parts. The experiments done to fuse gems sounded like one of the bad monster movies he'd sometimes seen Dudley watching.
Poisoning his entire world so that he could save it, but never being able to live there again was more than Harry could comprehend.
He hoped he would never have to make those kinds of sacrifices.
Most importantly, it seemed that the happy Steven they sometimes saw was the real Steven. The serious child they'd been seeing was simply trauma.
"Playing music was a way for me and my dad to feel closer, even though we didn't live together," Steven said. He sighed, his hand stopping its compulsive petting of Fang's head.
Harry suspected that he was comforting himself as much as he was the dog.
"They've got music classes," Hagrid said. "It's just for third years, but I know the perfessor and I'll put a good word in for you. I never heard of the ukelele, but the perfessor has all sorts of instruments he doesn't use, and even if he doesn't have once, he could transfigure one up. That wouldn't be as good as a real one of course..."
Steven looked up at the big man, his face looking hopeful for the first time.
Music, apparently was important to him.