Chapter One Hundred and Eight - Hagrid's Tale
The display of good sportsmanship that had so shocked Snape and McGonagall did not end with the first quidditch match. It continued into the following day when Millie hosted another meeting of the Marauder's Defense Group.
Harry was pleasantly surprised that the Gryffindors held no hard feelings against him for the Slytherin victory. The Weasley twins were quick to congratulate him on a nice catch, in fact. Though they could not refrain from observing that if he hadn't been so quick, their chasers would have crushed Bletchley easily.
Bletchley, hearing this last, attempted to start a minor row with them. Of all the members of the Slytherin team, he was the slowest to accept the new inter-house camaraderie. Having played as keeper since Flint's time as captain, he couldn't seem to shake the mentality that all Gryffindors were their mortal enemies. Perhaps his spite might have incited a revolt amongst his fellow Slytherins, but his barbed comments were quickly squashed by the bat bogey hex Millie had taught them that day.
Enthusiasm for their secret lessons had reached an all-time high, but Millie had some somber news to share at the end of the day's session.
"It may be some time before we can all meet again," she said, "Unless we can agree on another meeting place, we'll have outgrown the shack."
"What if we don't take on any new members?" asked Daphne. She directed a pointed look at Angelina Johnson, who had accompanied Fred Weasley to her first meeting that day. "We got along just fine before."
But Millie shook her head. "Even if we don't accept anyone else, you're all ready to start practicing more advanced spells. We need more space."
Seeing the disappointed faces all around him, Harry was on the verge of suggesting the Chamber of Secrets again, even if it was only a temporary solution. But he held himself in check, not wanting to question Millie's authority in front of her class. He satisfied himself with a renewal of his intention to speak with Dobby as soon as possible.
When the last of the students had gone, Harry, Blaise, and Millie climbed out from under the Whomping Willow and onto the school grounds. The days were growing shorter. Though they had been careful not to overstep curfew, the sun was already low in the sky as they began the trek toward the school.
Harry spotted it first. It was not the glittering windows of the castle that had caught his attention, but a small square of light coming from Hagrid's cabin. As Harry stared, a thin plume of smoke rose from the chimney. He came to a full stop, distracted by these signs of life from a building that had lain empty for weeks. Hagrid had returned at last.
Blaise and Millie called after him as Harry abruptly altered his course, but they soon realized what caused his sudden change in plan. They fell into step beside him, and all three began racing down the path to Hagrid's home.
Harry knocked loudly on the front door, and at once Fang's booming barks reverberated from inside, followed by Hagrid's voice.
"I'm comin', I'm comin'! Barely been home fer three seconds, and already this pounding at the door!"
Despite these objections, Harry could tell from his tone that Hagrid was pleased. But when he opened the door, Blaise let out a horrified scream.
"Keep it down!" Hagrid shushed, ushering the three of them inside.
"But Hagrid! Your face!" Blaise cried, even as Millie dragged him across the threshold.
In the flickering light cast from Hagrid's fire, Harry could fully appreciate the cause of Blaise's horror. Hagrid's hair and beard were matted with dried blood. His left eye was swollen shut, and every bit of skin not covered with hair or clothing sported a fresh bruise. He moved slowly, as well, as if his entire body was sore.
"Hagrid, who did this to you?" Millie asked in a demanding voice.
"Nuthin'! I mean nobody!" Hagrid replied evasively. "It ain't as bad as it looks."
"You're covered in blood!" protested Blaise.
"Oh this? This is nuthin'. Been using this…" Hagrid reached for the table, where a thick slab of greenish-looking meat had been left dripping on a plate. With a wet smack, he slapped it over his swollen eye.
"Dragon meat," Hagrid continued, "Helps with the stingin'."
Blaise was at a loss for words. Scoffing at Hagrid's feeble attempt at first aid, he turned away and began boiling a kettle over Hagrid's fire. Harry stared at him, fascinated, as Blaise began searching among Hagrid's cupboards for potion ingredients.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Blaise shrugged. "Making a salve. Mum used to make them for me whenever I got hurt playing as a kid."
Harry smiled at him. Though he was clearly irritated, it was all out of concern for Hagrid. Harry understood how he felt. Turning back to his large friend, he asked, "Was it the giants that did this?"
Hagrid's mouth fell open in shock. The slab of dragon meat slipped off his face, hitting the ground with a disgusting thud.
"How did you…"
"I was there when Dumbledore sent for you and Madame Maxime. What else would he ask of the two of you?"
Hagrid glared at him with the eye that wasn't swollen shut. "Yeh know, Harry. Yer smarter n' most people take yeh fer."
Harry saw Hagrid's beard twitch, a telltale sign that he was grinning. Harry smirked back at him.
"So you were looking for giants?"
Hagrid glanced at Blaise's back. He had begun aggressively pummeling a few dry potion ingredients into dust in one of Hagrid's pestles. Perhaps softened by the sight of such care and concern on his behalf, Hagrid relented.
"Yeah, all righ'. I have."
"Did you find them?" Millie asked, though her expression revealed that she had already guessed his answer.
"O' course!" Hagrid exclaimed, wincing a bit as he settled into a chair, "They're not that difficult ter find, after all. Pretty big, yeh see? Olympe and I set off righ' after term ended. Dumbledore told us where to go…"
"Are they hidden?" Harry interrupted, "Is it a secret, where the giants live?"
"Not really," Hagrid replied, "It's jus' that… Well, they can be difficult ter get ter. Fer humans, anyway. The journey took us abou' a month…"
"A month!" called Blaise as he fetched the boiling kettle, "What took such a ridiculously long time? Couldn't you just apparate or grab a portkey or something?"
He poured a small amount of water into the pestle and began to stir the concoction into a thick paste,staring at Hagrid all the while. Hagrid responded to his question by glancing around his cabin, as if he expected someone to be lurking in one of the corners.
"We're bein' watched," he said in a low voice, "Anyone connected to Dumbledore, that is. So we couldn' risk using magic. We needed to be sure we weren' traced or followed."
"You mean you couldn't use magic at all?" asked Millie, "You had to act like Muggles the whole time?"
"Well, not the entire time," Hagrid admitted, "We jus' had ter be careful. After we got inter France, we pretended to be on holiday together. Knew someone from the Ministry was tailin' us, so we gave 'em the slip, and started trekkin' up through the mountains."
Hagrid paused as Blaise approached him, brandishing a wooden spoon covered in the salve he had prepared. Harry waited patiently for the treatment to be administered, though he was eager to know what happened next. Finally, Blaise was satisfied with his work, and he took a seat by Millie to hear the rest of Hagrid's tale.
"When we finally reached the giants," Hagrid continued, "There were only abou' seventy or eighty of 'em left."
"So few?" Harry asked.
"Aye," said Hagrid sadly, "There were loads once. Musta bin a hundred diff'rent tribes all over the world. But they've been dyin' out. Mostly they kill each other, but Dumbledore says it's our fault. It was wizards that forced 'em out o' their lands. They had ter huddle together fer their own protection, but they ain't made to live like tha'. Started fightin' among themselves."
Harry felt anger simmering inside him. Every day, he seemed to learn more about the Ministry's history of cruelty toward non-wizard kind. The enslavement of house-elves, unjust laws against werewolves, and even discrimination against Hagrid, who was half-giant himself… The list went on and on. The injustice of it all would have been enough to incite his outrage, but Harry had other reasons to regret the Ministry's hubris now. They had made many enemies for themselves, and Harry was sure this was something Voldemort would exploit for his own selfish aims. He would see how correct this assumption was as Hagrid continued his narrative.
"Anyway, we waited till the mornin' after we arrived, then we went to talk to the Gurg. Tha's what the giants call their leaders."
"You just walked in?" Millie asked, awestruck, "Hagrid, they must've been enormous!"
"Bout twenty feet tall, I reckon'," Hagrid said with a touch of pride, "But I wasn' worried. Dumbledore told us how ter do it, after all. We went up to the Gurg, big fella by the name o' Karkus, and we brought him a branch o' Gubraithian Fire."
Blaise gave a murmur of appreciation, but Harry was at a loss. He had never heard of Gubraithian fire before.
"Everlasting fire," Blaise explained, "It's supposed to never go out. Tricky charm to master. Not just anyone can do it."
Hagrid nodded his head and added, "Dumbledore can. Giants like magic, y'see? Jus' not when it's used against 'em."
"So what did they do when you gave them the fire?" asked Harry.
"Dunno. We presented it to the Gurg with Dumbledore's compliments, then we left."
"What?!" Harry, Blaise, and Millie gasped as one.
"Tha's the custom with giants," Hagrid reported patiently, "We give 'em time to appreciate the gift, then we come back the next day with another. Shows we're reliable and can be trusted, see? So we left 'em with the fire and came back with a battle helmet. Goblin mae. Indestructible. Then we sat down an' we talked."
"What did the Gurg say?"
"Not much. Didn' speak English. But he had a few giants who spoke out lingo. They translated fer us, and Karkus listened. There were good signs. He'd heard o' Dumbledore. Knew he'd argued against killin' off the last giants in Britain. Everything seemed to be going well. We were hopeful when we left that day. Promised ter come back again with another gift.
"But that nigh', it all went wrong. There was a revolt. We sat it all from our camp o'erlookin' the valley. The fightin' went on fer hours. You could hear it echo off the mountains all through the nigh'. By the next mornin', Karkus's head was at the bottom of the lake and a new Gurg, Golgomath, was in charge."
"No!" cried Millie, "What did you do?"
"Only thing we could do! We went to see Golgomath. But we hadn' planned on a new Gurg two days after we'd made friendly contact with the firs' one. We only had one gift left to present. Gogomath didn' seem too impressed with the dragon skin. He had two o' his mates haul makeup by me feet. I was danglin' fifteen feet in the air and mighta had me brains bashed out on the rocks but for Olympe. She did some o' the fastest spellwork I've ever seen. Saved me life, she did. But she'd used her magic against 'em, and tha's somethin' giants hate. It was no use stayin' after that. We had to leg it."
"Wait," Harry interrupted, "If you were only there for three days, why did it take you so long to get home?"
"Blimey, Harry! We couldn' jus' leave! Dumbledore was counting on us!"
"But you just said you couldn't stay after…"
"Aye," Hagrid conceded, "It wouldn' do any good talkin' to Golgomath again. We had ter rethink a bit. We spent a couple o' days lyin' low, and tha's when we fig'red out why Golgomath had turned on us. He was bein' visited ev'ry day by a couple o' Death Eaters."
"How'd you know they were Death Eaters?" asked Millie.
"Because I recognized one of 'em! You remember Macnair? The Ministry's executioner?"
It took Harry a moment to make the connection, then he said, "The one they sent to Buckbeak's trial? He's a Death Eater?"
Hagrid nodded, "Thought you'd have guessed that, too, seeing as he's in Lucius Malfoy's pocket. Maniac, he is. Likes killin' as much as Golgomath. No wonder they were gettin' on so well…"
"Was he able to convince the giants to join Voldemort?" Harry asked urgently. "What did he offer them?"
"Hold yer hippogriffs, I haven' finished me story yet!" Hagrid chastised. "Truth is, Golgomath did seem in'erested in what Macnair and his friend had ter say. But not all the giants wanted Golgomath ter be their Gurg. Olympe and I stayed on a while longer, tryin' ter see if we could convince a few ter come over ter Dumbledore's side."
"How did you know who to ask?" Blaise questioned.
"Well, they were the ones bein' beaten ter a pulp, weren' they? The ones with any sense took shelter in the surroundin' caves. We had to search for 'em at nigh', all while avoidin' the Death Eaters."
"Did you find them?" asked Millie, "How many are coming to our side?"
Hagrid returned her eager expression with one of sadness, and Harry felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Before Hagrid said another word, he had already guessed the truth. He had found the hiding giants, but they would not be joining the fight.
"We mighta convinced a few in the end," Hagrid said, confirming Harry's worst fears, "But then Golgomath's lot raided the caves. The ones that survived… Well, they didn' wan' anythin' ter do with us after that."
He fell silent for a moment, and Harry lapsed into thought. He was still thinking about the gifts Hagrid had presented to the Gurg, wondering what the Death Eaters had offered instead. He tried to imagine what he would desire most if he were a giant, forced out of his homeland and struggling for survival. Was it revenge Voldemort promised them? Or a chance to have their rights restored? Harry couldn't imagine Voldemort keeping any such promise. Then he started to wonder what he might have offered, had he been sent to negotiate in place of Hagrid. No false promises, but perhaps…
"You still haven't explained how you got in this state," Blaise said, interrupting Harry's thoughts. He was staring at Hagrid's face, as if searching for a sign that his rudimentary salve was having the desired effect. "Who attacked you, Hagrid?"
"I haven' bin attacked!" protested Hagrid.
He started to argue further, but his next words were sunk under a loud rap at the door. Blaise gasped and dropped the pestle to the floor, where it landed with a dull thud and rolled away, leaving a trail of unused salve behind it. Fang yelped, then began barking madly. Harry quickly turned to the window and saw the shadow of a short, squat figure pass just beyond the curtain.
"Harry, cloak!" hissed Millie.
Harry reached into his bag, drawing out the invisibility cloak. Millie and Blaise had to crouch down to keep their feet from showing as the three of them backed into a corner of the cramped cabin. Hagrid paused to ensure they were well hidden, then shuffled slowly to the door.
It was Umbridge. With pursed lips, she leaned back to stare critically at Hagrid's face. Harry had to hand it to her, she showed a lot of confidence for a woman who barely reached Hagrid's navel.
"So, you're Hagrid, are you" she said slowly and loudly, like Harry's Uncle Vernon was prone to do when speaking to someone foreign.
Without waiting for his response, Umbridge strode into the cabin, her eyes rolling in every direction. With an impatient snarl, she swatted at Fang with her handbag. The hound had bounded up in his friendly way and attempted to lick her face, but at this rebuff, he skulked to his bed, growling softly.
"Er… I don' wan' ter be rude," Hagrid said awkwardly, "But who the ruddy hell are you?"
"I am Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge."
"Dolores Umbridge?" Hagrid repeated in a tone that indicated he had never heard of her in his life. "Then you mus' be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!"
"And the Hogwarts High Inquisitor," Umbridge added. Harry noticed that her usual simper was gone. Perhaps she didn't think Hagrid merited even this thin veneer of pleasantry.
"What's that?" asked Hagrid with a frown.
"Precisely what I was going to ask" Umbridge countered, pointing to the fallen pestle.
"Oh, tha's jus' me pestle," Hagrid explained truthfully, "I was jus' usin' it fer… fer a little moisturizer, see? Yeh surprised me when yeh knocked, so I dropped it, is all."
"Moisturizer…" Umbridge repeated with a small smirk. She was eyeing Hagrid's injuries with a sort of perverse joy. "Indeed…"
She wheeled away and began a crude search of Hagrid's cabin, searching under the bed and even opening his cupboards, as if she expected to find people hidden within. Hagrid watched her with a stunned expression. He still had no idea what a High Inquisitor was, or why Umbridge was acting so rude.
"What happened to you?" Umbridge demanded as she continued her search, now peering into Hagrid's cauldron, "How did you sustain those injuries?"
"Oh I… I had a bit of an accident," Hagrid said lamely.
"What sort of accident?"
"I fell off a friend's horse."
"And what kind of horse," Umbridge began slowly, turning back to Hagrid, "could possibly hold a man of your size?"
"Abraxan horses," Hagrid clarified, "Big beasts. Wonder if you've ever seen one before? They're beautiful creatures. Just beautiful. Winged, you know. And…"
"Yes, enough about the horses," Umbridge said impatiently, "Where have you been?"
"Been away fer me health," said Hagrid, "Call it a sabbatical."
"Sabbatical?" Umbridge sneered. This answer had clearly not satisfied her. "I shall, of course, inform the Minister of your late return. And I must also advise you that as High Inquisitor, it is my duty to inspect my fellow teachers. I look forward to your next lesson."
She left as abruptly as she had arrived. Harry moved to pull off the invisibility cloak, but Millie stopped him.
"Not yet. She may not be gone."
Hagrid must have had the same thought, for he shuffled to his window and peered through the curtain.
"She's headed back ter the castle," he said after a moment, then, "Blimey… what did she mean 'bout inspectin' the teachers?"
"It's the Ministry's way of keeping tabs on Dumbledore," Harry explained, removing the cloak from himself and his friends, "Rumor is she's already put one professor on probation."
"So… What sort of thing are you planning for our class, Hagrid?" Blaise said awkwardly.
Hagrid didn't seem to understand the severity of the situation.
"Don' you worry abou' that! I've got a great load o' lessons planned," Hagrid reassured them. "Been keepin' a couple o' creatures saved fer yer OWL year. They're somethin' really special!"
Far from feeling comforted, Harry experienced a worrying dread. Hagrid had an endearing, albeit misguided love of some rather dangerous creatures. True, he generally knew how to care for them, but that wouldn't matter much if Umbridge was out to give him the sack.
Harry tried to reason with him, but Hagrid wouldn't hear any of it. With more friendly smiles and assurances that their next class was sure to be interesting, he pleaded exhaustion from his long journey, and shooed them out the door.
"Yeh'd better head off ter bed, yourselves!" he chided, "It's well past curfew, yeh know! Don' wan' yeh gettin' into trouble now."
"Us?" Blaise said as Hagrid shut the door behind them, "Hagrid's the one in trouble!"
Millie nodded her head in agreement, "I don't think you got through to him, Harry."
Harry feared she was right.
"We have to do something," he said to his friends as they hurried back toward the castle, "She can ruin her own class, if she likes. She can threaten to cancel quidditch. She can try to pick fights with Dumbledore all she wants. But she's not taking Hagrid!"