Hermione was glad that they'd ended the holiday break on such a high, hopeful note, because the next morning, when the owls dropped down from the Great Hall's ceiling amongst floating snowflakes, the Daily Prophet immediately threw everything into disarray with its top headline:
DUMBLEDORE'S GIANT MISTAKE
There was a photo of Hagrid looking extremely shifty next to the article, and Hermione's heart sank as she read on.
The article wasn't written like a news article; rather, like an exposé, albeit colored with extremely purple prose. Rita Skeeter had the byline, but as Hermione read down the page, despite her slant on the matter, she'd captured the facts accurately: Hagrid had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, been kept on as gamekeeper for fifty years, and had been given the post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher with seemingly no qualifications despite having an alarming disregard for student safety during lessons. To Hermione's surprise, there were quotes from her classmates included as well.
"'I was attacked by a hippogriff in class, and one of my classmates – Hermione Granger, the Heroine of Hogwarts, you know – saved me from being maimed by jumping in front of it and taking the blow instead'," Hermione read aloud, giving Draco a sharp look.
Draco was unrepentant. "Where's the lie?"
"You didn't include the bit where you insulted it," Hermione remarked blandly.
"You forgot the next part," Blaise said from next to her, snickering as he read. "'My friend Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm'."
If anyone could get bitten by one of the useless, boring creatures, it would figure it would be Crabbe, Hermione thought, rolling her eyes so hard it nearly hurt.
The rest of the article went on, covering Hagrid's illegal crossbreeding project of the Blast-Ended Skrewts before finally reaching the meat of the article: that Hagrid was half giant, child of the giantess Fridwulfa. The rest of the article went on to tell the reader about giants, who were known for being bloodthirsty and brutal, before ending on an ominous note about Hagrid's continued presence at the school.
"Is any of it slander?" Draco asked pointedly, once Hermione had finished reading. "Is anything there untrue?"
Hermione scowled, but he had a point.
"It's not," she said reluctantly. "I just… the Gryffindors like Hagrid. I just don't want to deal with the backlash from them. It can get exhausting."
"Half-giant, though," Blaise said wonderingly. "Here I was, thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was young... half-giant, though. Wow."
The Slytherins had Defense first thing with the Ravenclaws, and when Moody stomped his way into the classroom, his magical eye glared at them all from the front of the room.
"Giants," he growled. "What do you lot know about them?"
To Hermione's surprise, Moody had abandoned whatever lesson he had planned in favor of teaching them about giants; they were 20-25 feet tall, resistant to most magic but unable to wield it themselves, and extremely vicious and bloodthirsty.
"The Ministry doesn't classify giants as Dark creatures," Moody spat, scowling, "but they should. Giants killed hundreds of people during the war – they were wreaking havoc on the muggle communities, just slaughtering dozens of muggles easy as you please."
The rest of the lesson was on how best to defend oneself against a giant. Short of linking up with nine other wizards to simultaneously cast stunners, there were limited options available, Moody emphasized.
"Best option is to run," he growled at them. "Apparate away. Get out. You don't want to be dealing with a giant unless it's your job."
He drew a diagram on the board of a giant and challenged them to guess the giant's weak points. Hermione earned points for guessing the eyes and the temples, while Anthony Goldstein earned points for getting the bridge of the nose, which made him grin widely.
"Like with David and Goliath," he explained, pleased. "Crack the bridge of the nose back into the brain, and then it's done."
Moody's hatred towards giants caught Hermione off-guard. In retrospect, she wasn't sure why – Moody had been active in the thick of it all, fighting Voldemort and his dark forces – but she hadn't expected his vitriol to extend past the Death Eaters he'd caught as an Auror.
"Do you think he hates Hagrid now?" Hermione whispered to Blaise. "Is that why we're learning all this?"
"I think he's worried of other giants coming to get Hagrid," Blaise murmured back, both of them jumping suddenly when Moody cracked out a "CONSTANT VIGILIENCE!"
Hermione doubted she'd ever be muggle camping in the woods in the mountains and need to be constantly vigilant against the threat of giants, but she paid attention all the same.
Care of Magical Creatures was the next class that morning, and Harry caught up to Hermione as they all trooped down the grounds towards the paddock where class was held, bundled up against the snow.
"Did you see this?" he said angrily, holding up the torn-out article about Hagrid's parentage. "Did you see this?"
"I did," Hermione said, her voice neutral.
"This is rubbish," Harry said angrily. "Absolute rubbish – just slander of Hagrid for no reason—"
"The reason isn't nothing, Potter," Tracey said pointedly. "The Daily Prophet is investigating Dumbledore and bringing public scrutiny down on him as much as possible. It's been doing that since you were trapped in the tournament. Dumbledore's hiring decision of Hagrid is being questioned because of that."
Harry flushed red, frustration warring with guilt in his eyes.
"The question isn't why," Millie remarked. "The question is how."
"How?" Harry echoed, and Millie raised an eyebrow at him.
"How did they find out that he was half-giant?" Millie asked. "From the sounds of it, not even you were aware of it, and you're friends with Hagrid."
Harry looked shaken by that. He looked even more dismayed upon seeing Hagrid was not present when they reached the paddock, an elderly witch with a pointy chin and gray hair cut in a sharp bob waiting for them instead.
"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank," the woman said briskly. "I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."
"Where's Hagrid?" Harry wanted to know.
"He is indisposed," said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly, and that was all she would say on the matter.
Harry muttered mutinously and drifted back over to the other Gryffindors, linking up with Ron and Neville again, all of them shooting venomous looks at Draco. Hermione did her best to ignore them all, following Professor Grubbly-Plank around past the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were to the edge of the forest, where a large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.
Hermione was among those who gasped at the sight of the unicorn. The unicorn was so brightly white it made the snow all around it look gray. It was pawing the ground nervously with its golden hooves and throwing back its horned head.
"Boys keep back!" barked Professor Grubbly-Plank, throwing out an arm to keep them back. "They prefer a woman's touch, unicorns. Girls to the front, and approach with care. Come on, easy does it…"
Hermione joined the other girls in slowly approaching the unicorn, though dread and fear jolted through her mind. In muggle legends, unicorns were attracted to purity. Would the unicorn shy from her touch?
The unicorn did shy away from her touch, its equine eyes wide with accusation. She wasn't the only person it flinched from, though – it was equally reluctant to have Tracey, Millie, and Pansy touch it. It took much longer for each of them to approach the unicorn and have it allow them to pet it.
"All the Slytherins," Lavender Brown sneered across the paddock at them. "What a surprise."
Hermione felt immense satisfaction when the unicorn reared back from Lavender Brown's hand too when she went to pet it, her stupid eyes going wide with surprise.
After class, Tracey was wondering aloud as to why.
"I mean, I wasn't surprised it flinched from me," she admitted, fiddling with her sleeves. "But Millie—I was surprised at Millie."
"Me?" Millie looked surprised. "Why wouldn't it flinch from me?"
It was Tracey's turn to look surprised.
"Well, you—" Tracey started, hesitating. "You've never—you don't even fancy—"
Comprehension came to Hermione in an instant.
"The unicorn doesn't judge purity from virginity, Tracey," she hissed, her face reddening slightly. "That's a muggle legend, and virginity is a social construct, anyway. It was judging our purity from our magic – and all of us, you may recall, may have recently tainted ours a bit."
"Oh." Tracey's face bloomed with color, and Pansy snickered.
"And despite that misconception, you weren't surprised when it shied away from you," Pansy said, eyes glinting. "Tell us then, Tracey; should we expect an announcement from you and Adrian soon?"
Tracey glared at Pansy, but Pansy held up her chin, unrepentant.
There was another surprise waiting for Hermione in Ancient Runes. She'd changed out of her damp robes before Time-Turning back, and while she was expecting to see Blaise waiting for her there, she was shocked to see who was sitting next to him.
"Harry?" she exclaimed, astonished.
Harry grinned. "Hi, Hermione."
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
Harry laughed. "Good to see you too."
Harry had been promoted from 3rd year Ancient Runes to 4th year Ancient Runes, he told her, his eyes bright with pride. He'd taken and passed the 3rd year end of year exams just before the break, and he'd scored high enough marks that Professor Babbling had bumped him up a year.
"I'm way behind in this year's material, of course," Harry said, running a hand through his hair. "But I'll have time to catch up. And if I don't quite catch up – well, I'm exempt from end of the year exams as champion, so I'll have all next year to finish catching up before O.W.L. exams."
Hermione was astonished, caught completely off-guard by the change.
"You—you took the 3rd year exams?" she repeated. "And you didn't even tell me?"
Harry's face turned a dull red, embarrassed.
"I didn't want you to know in case I failed them," he admitted, but Hermione was having none of it.
"Harry, that's incredible!" she told him, meaning it. "You did all that on your own initiative—even with all the chaos of the tournament going on!"
Harry grinned, pleased.
"Yeah, well," he said, shrugging. "I need more Runes for Arithmancy."
There was one thing lingering that bothered Hermione, though.
"But Harry," she said. "How did you get here?"
Harry was puzzled. "I walked?"
"Care of Magical Creatures is going on right now," Hermione told him. "And I saw you there."
Harry's eyes flickered with understanding.
"I—ah—Professor McGonagall got a Time-Turner for me, just to go to class," Harry admitted. "I have to go meet her in order to use it – she keeps it locked up – but yeah, they—they authorized me to use one."
Part of Hermione felt incredibly irritated and put out that Harry had been offered a Time-Turner so he could attend more classes, but a larger part of Hermione felt vaguely smug and special that her Time-Turner didn't require an adult monitoring her usage of it.
"Well, budge up, then," she said, shoving Harry with a smirk. "If you're behind, you'll need to sit between me and Blaise so we can try to help you not to drown."