It took a few days for the parents' reaction to materialize. Every student now had a hard curfew from sunset to sunrise, including prefects, and even the teachers didn't seem to want to walk the halls at night. Fortunately, it was just past the equinox, so they had a full half a day of light, basically being confined in their dorms from after dinner until just before breakfast. Professor Sinistra was scrambling to figure out what to do for her cosmology classes (usually in the middle of the night), and anyone assigned detentions had received a reprieve, but otherwise their days were fairly normal.

On Friday afternoon, when they didn't have any classes, Harry, Hermione, and Dean were taking advantage of a nice early spring day to practice martial arts out on the grounds. "That's a lot of people!" Dean was the first to observe, as he spotted a crowd making their way up from the gate.

"I wonder if that's the parents?" Harry guessed. "I think I see Lucius Malfoy out front."

"That might be the Minister!" Hermione said. "I've heard he wears a green bowler hat all the time."

"What a weird choice," Harry frowned. "I'm going to go see what's going on." Before they could tell him not to, he ducked down behind them, pulled on his invisibility cloak, and moved across the lawn to see if he could overhear anything useful.

The man in the bowler hat indeed seemed to be in charge, and he was giving orders to the rest of the crowd as they walked up. Most of them seemed to be Vanir warriors rather than wizards, and were armed and armored. "I want you to secure the school first thing. We're turning this place upside down looking for monsters."

"There is also word of a very suspicious book, of course," Lucius added as if the thought just occurred to him. Suddenly Harry remembered seeing the man carrying a black book when he'd accosted them at the Leaky Cauldron. Could he have been behind all of this? "We should catalog any unknown books and artifacts that might have something to do with the attacks. In fact, I heard that last year, Dumbledore might have been keeping a peculiar orange stone in the castle, and that had something to do with the issues then. Perhaps it's related, and we should look for it?"

Harry almost laughed out loud. The Soul Stone. They thought it was still in the castle, because only he, Dumbledore, and Gamora knew he'd returned it to its secure storage on Vormir. He hadn't even told his friends exactly what had happened on that strange planet. Had this whole thing been about trying to get a chance to search the school for the Stone?

"We'll have to arrest Mr. Hagrid, of course," the Minister added. "Need to be seen to be doing something. If the attacks stop once he's in custody, all the better."

Harry hadn't even been sure that Hagrid was back. He rushed over to his friends, as quickly as he could without revealing his feet under the cloak, and summed up what he'd heard. "I'll go warn Hagrid. You tell everyone else what's going on. See if you can get ahead of them to warn Dumbledore that Malfoy's really looking for the Stone from last year. He'll figure it out."

"Be careful, Harry," Hermione said as agreement.

"I'm just warning Hagrid. What could go wrong," he grinned, though they couldn't see it beneath his cloak.

"You jinxed yourself on purpose," Dean complained, but both of them ran back to the school, while Harry invisibly headed toward Hagrid's hut, without much of a lead over the band of Ministry guards.

He let the cloak fall open as he banged on Hagrid's door, yelling, "Hagrid! It's Harry. Ministry guards are coming to arrest you."

In a moment, Hagrid opened the door, Fang bouncing and barking furiously in his excitement to see Harry. "Arrest me? Why?"

"Minister says he wants to be seen to be doing something about the attacks. We think they've been trying to frame you the whole time, which is why the attacks stopped while you were traveling," Harry quickly explained.

"Well tha's not fair," Hagrid grumbled. "I don' wanna go ter Azkaban!"

"Can you hide in the forest until this is over?" Harry suggested.

The big man considered, already stuffing what little he'd unpacked from his traveling satchel back in, and admitted, "I could prolly stay wi' Aragog fer a bit. 'Specially since he were the start o' all o' this. Good idea!"

"And, we've been trying to talk to you, too, to ask about the last time," Harry said. "We can walk and talk?"

"Are yeh gonna be able ter find yer way back?" Hagrid checked.

Harry nodded, drew his wand, and formed a complex-looking orange mandala of light on the ground in front of Hagrid's hut. The image quickly faded, but Harry tested and confirmed that his wand would point back to that spot. He'd worked hard to learn what he thought of as the "waypoint" spell after he'd gotten lost in the forest the last time.

He needed to learn more theory to tag a moving target with the spell and track them, or "point me" toward arbitrary locations he was familiar with, but as soon as he figured out those variations they were top of his list to learn wandlessly. As it was, back on Earth, this basic spell would amount to one of the GPS functions already on his phone, so it wasn't a priority yet. But it would be very helpful getting back to the school after wandering the forest.

"Alrigh'," Hagrid allowed, shutting his door and heading out. "C'mon Fang. 'Nother adventure."

They hustled into the treeline, and Harry thought he made out the heads of four Ministry guards cresting over a hill just as they got out of view, so he'd timed it perfectly. Going quietly for a few minutes, he thought he could hear the echo of them pounding on Hagrid's door. "Where were you, by the way?" he asked the big man.

"Doin' a circuit o' the region," Hagrid said. "Dumbledore has me do it now an' again. Look fer beasties an' other threats that've slipped in. But I think he just wanted ter get me out o' the school so I'd have one o' them alibis in case there were 'nother attack."

"That's what we thought too," Harry agreed, stepping over a tree branch as Hagrid followed one of the lesser-used game trails through the woods, which was largely overgrown. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, however. The trees of the forest were already putting out leaves, so even in the afternoon it was very dim under their shadow. But quite a few trees and shrubs were also flowering, and the forest was as beautiful as it was forbidding. After walking in silence for a few minutes, Harry asked, "So… why did they think you killed Myrtle?"

"Aragog," Hagrid admitted. "I found 'im in the forest when he were a baby an' I were a student. I prolly shouldn't'a tried ter raise 'im inside the school. A few people saw 'im crawlin' around and went an' tattled. Then that Tom Riddle found 'im and claimed he were the cause o' all the attacks! As if! Aragog barely got away, but Tom's word were enough ter do fer me stayin' in the school as a student."

"Another dragon or giant wolf?" Harry guessed, knowing Hagrid's proclivities for "cute" beings he'd find in the forest.

"Nah, he's basically a whole person. Jus' looks a little scary. He's not from around here. Prolly fell through a portal. Happens more'n yeh'd think."

Setting that aside because he'd be meeting the monster in a little while, Harry asked, "The last time, did it basically happen the same? Bunch of people getting put into comas, and then Myrtle straight up died in the bathroom?"

"Not a mark on her," Hagrid agreed. "I didn' really know her that much, but she seemed nice. Sad way ter go, dead on a toilet."

"Like Elvis," Harry nodded, not even sure why he knew that bit of trivia. Probably some discussion between Tony and Rhodey. "So nobody ever saw it? We think it's a Nidhogg serpent that's basically a ghost, so it can float through the walls and bite people right in their spirits, or something."

"Huh," the big man considered it, as he shouldered aside some hanging branches. "I ain't never seen one o' them, but heard about 'em. Could be. Could be. Dunno how yeh'd control it, though."

"Tom Riddle's a parselmouth," Harry said.

"That'd do it," Hagrid said. "I always wanted ter be able ter talk ter snakes. Any animals, really. It'd be a big help. Guess Tom really were the heir o' Slytherin, huh?"

"Because only Slytherin's descendents are parselmouths?"

"I think so," Hagrid admitted. "Well, mebbe not. There weren't a lot o' families supposed ter have it that didn't do some dark spells first. Personally, I were always tryin' ter see if I were related ter the Peverells on me da's side."

"The Peverells?" Harry asked. It sounded familiar.

"Real old family," Hagrid admitted. "Supposed to be the family that's in the Tale o' the Three Brothers. Escaped Death, and stole three o' her personal treasures in the process. Parseltongue is supposed to be from figurin' a way ter talk ter the Nidhogg serpents. Be a real help if yeh were in a feud with Death." He took a beat and added, "I couldn't ever find a path ter 'em on my family tree. Think it mighta gone ter the Potters, though."

"Right!" Harry remembered, "Aunt Pepper mentioned that at some point when I was growing up! So maybe I didn't get it from Voldemort!"

"Get it?" Hagrid stopped and looked down. "Yeh can talk ter snakes?"

"Shhh," Harry said. "It's a secret. Don't want the school thinkin I'm the Heir of Slytherin. Dumbledore thinks I might have gotten it from when Tom tried to kill me, but I feel a lot better about it if it's a family gift."

"Mum's the word," the worst secret-keeper in Hogwarts (after Hermione's roommates) agreed. "But that's useful. Yeh takin' husbandry next year?"

Harry shook his head, "Just arithmancy and runes. Dean, Ron, and Seamus are, though. Are there a lot of snakes in the class?"

"Nah, not really," Hagrid admitted. "I were just hopin' ter have some friendly faces. Assumin' they still let me take over fer Kettleburn wi' all o' this."

"Oh, yeah, he said he's retiring. They're letting you be a professor? You'll do great!" Harry encouraged him, not promising to take his class, though.

They walked for a while longer in silence, the forest darkening even further as they entered an area that was left very overgrown and wild. It didn't look like horses would be able to get through most of the underbrush in the area, so Ronan's guard probably didn't patrol it.

But they felt like something was following them. "Is that Aragog?" Harry asked, quietly.

"Don' think so," Hagrid frowned. "But not much else is brave enou' ter come in his territory. We're almost there."

They were entering an incredibly dark area of the forest, for all that it was still a sunny afternoon outside of the trees. The normal sounds of small animals moving around had ceased, and the air was still and slightly clammy from some nearby water source. Fang seemed worried, making a faint whine as the cowardly dog followed behind them.

From atop a rise, a shadowy purplish form rose up, multiple long, insectoid arms waving in threat, a large head barely visible with clacking mandibles and a ring of leering, flat eyes. It breathed a fearsome sound at them like the scariest spider-swarm from the movies, and Harry involuntarily took a step back and kept his wand at the ready.

"Sorry!" it suddenly said in a high-pitched voice. "Hey Hagrid, didn't think it would be you. Oh! Is that young Harry you've told me about!?" the creature asked. It sounded vaguely like it had a New Zealand accent.

"Aragog," Hagrid greeted. "I got run out o' my house. Wondered if I kin stay wi' yeh fer a few while this all blows over."

"Oh, sure," the bug creature lowered his arms and stepped down the hill. As Harry had more time to watch, he realized Aragog moved more like a centipede than anything, seeming to have at least ten long legs coming out of his oblong, segmented body. He walked on the back two sets, though each of them seemed to have two opposable clawed fingers at the end that he could likely used to manipulate tools. "Hi! I'm Aragog."

"Harry Potts," Harry greeted him. "You're an alien?"

"We're all kind of aliens, if you think about it," Aragog said. "But, yeah, I'm from a place called Sakaar."

"Wait, how did Hagrid keep you in the castle? You don't exactly blend." The human-height bug man didn't seem like one could just hide him under a bed (even a Hagrid-sized bed).

Aragog explained, "When I got here, I was just a little grub. Not even as big as you! My arms were all stubby and I couldn't even talk. Hagrid found me and protected me until I could become the fine specimen before you."

That made more sense, and Harry told him, "The Ministry thinks you and Hagrid killed Myrtle. Attacks are happening again, so they're trying to arrest Hagrid just in case."

"That's stupid. Hagrid's never hurt anybody!" Aragog denied. "And I've never hurt anybody that didn't deserve it. Well, and deer. Lots of good deer to eat out here."

"You like it out here?" Harry checked.

"Oh, I miss entertainment, and might want to have kids someday," Aragog corrected. "But it's a fine sight better than where I was. Most of my kind have to live in the junkyard and do scrapping, or fight in the arena. I've had cousins strapped into robot armor to play gladiator while they were still full little! I'll live in the woods and eat deer instead of that, for sure."

"Well, cool, then," Harry said, making a mental note to find out more about Sakaar if there were portals opening to it that you could just fall through. "Anything else you know about the monster?"

Aragog gave an impressive shrug that undulated up each of his sets of arms, "If it can poison a girl to death, you ought to be able to stab it when it's doing that. It's only fair."

Harry nodded. This outing hadn't really taught him much else, but he at least knew that Hagrid was going to be okay. "See you in a few days, I guess," Harry told the big man. "I'll try to send Hedwig to let you know when everything's okay."

"Thanks a bunch, Harry. I didn' want ter go ter Azkaban. It's in another dimension. Supposed ter be awful," Hagrid thanked him, with a bone-jarring slap on the shoulder. "Yeh better head back 'fore it gets dark. Be safe."

Harry nodded and started walking back out of the glade, "Bye Hagrid. Bye Aragog. Good to meet you."

"Sweet kid," Aragog said, then took to planning for a roommate in his forest den, "You want the bottom bunk?"

Harry was pleased that his wand seemed to be pointing unerringly back to his waypoint, since he'd surely be wandering around the tangled forest until past dark otherwise. As it was, his hurry probably made him a bit less attentive than he otherwise should be, until the shadowy form stepped out ahead of him. "Harry Potter," the Dahvee assassin greeted, looking pretty healthy for someone that had been hiding in the woods for months through a Vanaheim winter.

"Oh no, are you going to try to maim me again?" Harry asked.

The elf asked, "You spoke of the monster with the half-jotun. Have you not seen sense, yet?"

"Weirdly, they seem to be going out of their way not to kill me. Did Lucius Malfoy try to hire you?" Harry asked, putting a theory together.

"The Dahvee cannot reveal a client," the elf said in a way that wasn't really a denial.

"I think maybe he wants me dead, but, weirdly, Tom Riddle might not. I don't know why," Harry explained. "I may be safer in the school than where Malfoy can take another shot at me."

"Tortured logic," the elf disagreed. "Harry Potter is always in danger, from the forces that would buck fate."

"It sounds like you know something I'm fated to do?" Harry said, remembering the elf mentioning destiny. "Maybe it's you who's trying to buck fate? Don't you trust that whatever you think is going to happen, is going to happen? What exactly do you know?"

The elf considered warily how much to reveal, before saying, "Something my people have lost, Harry Potter is prophesied to find. We would see Harry Potter survive to find it for us."

"I've been talking to our divination teacher a lot," Harry argued, "and if it's a real prophecy, it's probably going to come true regardless. All you're doing is making it harder for me in the meantime."

"There was… some disagreement over the subject of the prophecy," the elf said, lamely. "We would not wish to wait longer for another possible chosen one to come to pass."

"So… do you want to fight about it?" Harry asked, full of bravado with his wand drawn. "You might have to kill me."

Harry's assailant/protector narrowed his eyes, seeming to judge the boy's resolve, before agreeing, "When Harry Potter sees the beast laid before him, he will regret not staying home. But we will no longer interfere."

"Good. Thanks," Harry said, barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes. "You should probably head home, then. Can't be fun, living in the forest."

"By and by," the elf allowed, slowly retreating into the trees.

Shaking his head, Harry began to walk back toward Hogwarts, muttering to himself, "Crazy, cryptic elves."

He made it back to the grounds before sunset, and slipped into his cloak before he left the trees. He spotted two of the Ministry guards against the back of Hagrid's house, and bet the other two were inside, waiting to arrest the big man if he came back. They were probably in for a long few days. None of them noticed him as he slipped invisibly back up to the school, where dinner was just about to start. He hid around a corner before taking off the cloak, slipping in among the late-arrivals streaming into the great hall.

"How'd it go?" Hermione asked as he slid in between her and Dean at the dinner table.

"Good. Met a weird new friend. Finally got that elf off my back. I'll tell you all about it later," Harry summed up. "How'd it go here?"

"I think they're suspending Headmaster Dumbledore," Hermione frowned. "They'll probably announce it." Sure enough, the old man wasn't in his customary seat at the staff table, replaced by the man in the green bowler hat. Lucius Malfoy had taken a position at the end of the Slytherin table closest to the staff table, and Draco was clearly lording it up over the rest of his house having his influential father at dinner.

Dean added, "He said that you should call for… um… 'faller' if the situation seems bleak."

"Fjalar?" Harry asked, and Dean nodded. Harry almost expanded on what that meant, but then looked across the table to Ron, who was up there on his list of suspected mind-control victims. Rather than his guess that Dumbledore would be staying nearby waiting to come help, he amended it to, "That's what he said his bird's named. Maybe it can take messages like an owl so we could write him for help."

Ron didn't comment, though both he and Neville seemed interested, as did Ginny (who was rarely too far from Harry at dinner). Before they could ask for more information, though, the man in the bowler hat stood to get everyone's attention. He spoke loudly, saying, "Students of Hogwarts. For those that don't know, I'm Minister Cornelius Fudge. Due to the continuing dangers of the school, the Ministry is investigating the attacks directly. Your evening curfew will continue, and we've temporarily relieved Albus Dumbledore from the headmaster position, pending our investigation. Not to worry! I'm sure we'll get it all sorted quickly. You may see Ministry guards around the school. They're leaving no stone unturned while we search for the source of these attacks. I'm sure everything will be back to normal before long!"

"Is Rector McGonagall in charge, then?" Wood spoke up to ask.

"Of educational matters, yes, I suppose," Fudge shrugged, having not considered it. "And I'm sure she'll be consulted on administrative matters, as well. I defer to head of the school board, Lucius Malfoy, of course, on the long-term decisions regarding staffing."

All eyes turned to the Slytherin table, where Lucius gave a faint bow of acknowledgement and Draco preened in the secondary spotlight afforded him by his father's obvious and sudden power.

Harry resolved that the slimy man's tenure in charge of the school would be a brief one.