CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RITA SKEETER'S
SCOOP
Everybody got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common
room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy
conversations. Hermione's hair was bushy again; she confessed to Harry that she
had used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion on it for the ball, “but
it's way too much bother to do every day,” she said matter-of-factly, scratching
a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.
Ron and Hermione seemed to have
reached an unspoken agreement not to discuss their argument. They were being
quite friendly to each other, though oddly formal. Ron and Harry wasted no time
in telling Hermione about the conversation they had overheard between Madame
Maxime and Hagrid, but Hermione didn't seem to find the news that Hagrid was a
half-giant nearly as shocking as Ron did.
“Well, I thought he must be,” she
said, shrugging. “I knew he couldn't be pure giant because they're about twenty
feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can't all be
horrible... It's the same sort of prejudice that people have toward
werewolves... It's just bigotry, isn't it?”
Ron looked as though he would
have liked to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn't want another row, because
he contented himself with shaking his head disbelievingly while Hermione wasn't
looking.
It was time now to think of the homework they had neglected during
the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat now
that Christmas was over—everybody except Harry, that is, who was starting (once
again) to feel slightly nervous.
The trouble was that February the
twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas, and he still
hadn't done anything about working out the clue inside the golden egg. He
therefore started taking the egg out of his trunk every time he went up to the
dormitory, opening it, and listening intently, hoping that this time it would
make some sense. He strained to think what the sound reminded him of, apart from
thirty musical saws, but he had never heard anything else like it. He closed the
egg, shook it vigorously, and opened it again to see if the sound had changed,
but it hadn't. He tried asking the egg questions, shouting over all the wailing,
but nothing happened. He even threw the egg across the room—though he hadn't
really expected that to help.
Harry had not forgotten the hint that Cedric
had given him, but his less-than-friendly feelings toward Cedric just now meant
that he was keen not to take his help if he could avoid it. In any case, it
seemed to him that if Cedric had really wanted to give Harry a hand, he would
have been a lot more explicit. He, Harry, had told Cedric exactly what was
coming in the first task—and Cedric's idea of a fair exchange had been to tell
Harry to take a bath. Well, he didn't need that sort of rubbishy help—not from
someone who kept walking down corridors hand in hand with Cho, anyway. And so
the first day of the new term arrived, and Harry set off to lessons, weighed
down with books, parchment, and quills as usual, but also with the lurking worry
of the egg heavy in his stomach, as though he were carrying that around with him
too.
Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were
covered in condensation so thick that they couldn't see out of them in
Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this
weather, though as Ron said, the skrewts would probably warm them up nicely,
either by chasing them, or blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid's cabin would
catch fire.
When they arrived at Hagrid 's cabin, however, they found an
elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair and a very prominent chin standing
before his front door.
“Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago,” she
barked at them as they struggled toward her through the snow.
“Who're you?”
said Ron, staring at her. “Wheres Hagrid?”
“My name is Professor
Grubbly-Plank,” she said briskly. “I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures
teacher.”
“Where's Hagrid?” Harry repeated loudly.
“He is indisposed,”
said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.
Soft and unpleasant laughter reached
Harrys ears. He turned; Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins were joining
the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see
Professor Grubbly-Plank.
“This way, please,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank,
and she strode off around the paddock where the Beauxbatons horses were
shivering. Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed her, looking back over their
shoulders at Hagrid's cabin. All the curtains were closed. Was Hagrid in there,
alone and ill?
“What's wrong with Hagrid?” Harry said, hurrying to catch up
with Professor Grubbly-Plank.
“Never you mind,” she said as though she
thought he was being nosy.
“I do mind, though,” said Harry hotly. “What's up
with him?”
Professor Grubbly-Plank acted as though she couldn't hear him. She
led them past the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were standing,
huddled against the cold, and toward a tree on the edge of the forest, where a
large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.
Many of the girls “ooooohed!” at
the sight of the unicorn.
“Oh it's so beautiful!” whispered Lavender Brown.
“How did she get it? They're supposed to be really hard to catch!”
The
unicorn was so brightly white it made the snow all around 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
and catching Harry hard in the chest. “They prefer the woman's touch, unicorns.
Girls to the front, and approach with care, come on, easy does it...”
She and
the girls walked slowly forward toward the unicorn, leaving the boys standing
near the paddock fence, watching. The moment Professor Grubbly-Plank was out of
earshot. Harry turned to Ron.
“What d'you reckons wrong with him? You don't
think a skrewt—?”
“Oh he hasn't been attacked, Potter, if that's what you're
thinking,” said Malfoy softly. “No, he's just too ashamed to show his big, ugly
face.”
“What d'you mean?” said Harry sharply.
Malfoy put his hand inside
the pocket of his robes and pulled out a folded page of newsprint.
“There you
go,” he said. “Hate to break it to you. Potter...”
He smirked as Harry
snatched the page, unfolded it, and read it, with Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville
looking over his shoulder. It was an article topped with a picture of Hagrid
looking extremely shifty.
DUMBLEDORE'S GIANT MISTAKE
Albus Dumbledore, eccentric Headmaster of Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry, has never been afraid to make controversial staff
appointments, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. In September of this
year, he hired Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, the notoriously jinx-happy ex-Auror, to
teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, a decision that caused many raised eyebrows
at the Ministry of Magic, given Moody's well-known habit of attacking anybody
who makes a sudden movement in his presence. Mad-Eye Moody, however, looks
responsible and kindly when set beside the part-human Dumbledore employs to
teach Care of Magical Creatures.
Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled
from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the
school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore. Last year, however,
Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the
additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many
better-qualified candidates.
An alarmingly large and ferocious-looking man,
Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care
with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye,
Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to
being “very frightening.”
'I was attacked by a hippogriff, and my friend
Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm,” says Draco Malfoy, a
fourth-year student. “We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say
anything.”
Hagrid has no intention of ceasing his campaign of intimidation,
however. In conversation with a Daily Prophet reporter last month, he admitted
breeding creatures he has dubbed “Blast-Ended Skrewts,” highly dangerous crosses
between manti-cores and fire-crabs. The creation of new breeds of magical
creature is, of course, an activity usually closely observed by the Department
for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid, however, considers
himself to be above such petty restrictions.
“I was just having some fun,” he
says, before hastily changing the subject.
As if this were not enough, the
Daily Prophet has now unearthed evidence that Hagrid is not—as he has always
pretended—a pure-blood wizard. He is not, in fact, even pure human. His mother,
we can exclusively reveal, is none other than the giantess Fridwulfa, whose
whereabouts are currently unknown.
Bloodthirsty and brutal, the giants
brought themselves to the point of extinction by warring amongst themselves
during the last century. The handful that remained joined the ranks of
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and were responsible for some of the worst mass Muggle
killings of his reign of terror.
While many of the giants who served
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were killed by Aurors working against the Dark Side,
Fridwulfa was not among them. It is possible she escaped to one of the giant
communities still existing in foreign mountain ranges. If his antics during Care
of Magical Creatures lessons are any guide, however, Frid-wulfa's son appears to
have inherited her brutal nature.
In a bizarre twist, Hagrid is reputed to
have developed a close friendship with the boy who brought around You-Know-Who's
fall from power—thereby driving Hagrid's own mother, like the rest of
You-Know-Who's supporters, into hiding. Perhaps Harry Potter is unaware of the
unpleasant truth about his large friend—but Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty
to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the
dangers of associating with part-giants.
Harry finished reading and looked up at Ron, whose mouth was
hanging open.
“How did she find out?” he whispered.
But that wasn't what
was bothering Harry.
“What d'you mean, 'we all hate Hagrid'?” Harry spat at
Malfoy. “What's this rubbish about him”—he pointed at Crabbe—”getting a bad bite
off a flobberworm? They haven't even got teeth!”
Crabbe was sniggering,
apparently very pleased with himself.
“Well, I think this should put an end
to the oaf's teaching career,” said Malfoy, his eyes glinting. “Half-giant...
and there was me thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was
young... None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all...
They'll be worried he'll eat their kids, ha, ha...”
“You-”
“Are you paying
attention over there?”
Professor Grubbly-Planks voice carried over to the
boys; the girls were all clustered around the unicorn now, stroking it. Harry
was so angry that the Daily Prophet article shook in his hands as he turned to
stare unseeingly at the unicorn, whose many magical properties Professor
Grubbly-Plank was now enumerating in a loud voice, so that the boys could hear
too.
“I hope she stays, that woman!” said Parvati Patil when the lesson had
ended and they were all heading back to the castle for lunch. “That's more what
I thought Care of Magical Creatures would be like... proper creatures like
unicorns, not monsters...”
“What about Hagrid?” Harry said angrily as they
went up the steps.
“What about him?” said Parvati in a hard voice. “He can
still be gamekeeper, can't he?”
Parvati had been very cool toward Harry since
the ball. He supposed that he ought to have paid her a bit more attention, but
she seemed to have had a good time all the same. She was certainly telling
anybody who would listen that she had made arrangements to meet the boy from
Beauxbatons in Hogsmeade on the next weekend trip.
“That was a really good
lesson,” said Hermione as they entered the Great Hall. “I didn't know half the
things Professor Grubbly-Plank told us about uni—”
“Look at this!” Harry
snarled, and he shoved the Daily Prophet article under Hermione's
nose.
Hermione's mouth fell open as she read. Her reaction was exactly the
same as Ron's.
“How did that horrible Skeeter woman find out? You don't think
Hagrid told her?”
“No,” said Harry, leading the way over to the Gryffindor
table and throwing himself into a chair, furious. “He never even told us, did
he? I reckon she was so mad he wouldn't give her loads of horrible stuff about
me, she went ferreting around to get him back.”
“Maybe she heard him telling
Madame Maxime at the ball,” said Hermione quietly.
“We'd have seen her in the
garden!” said Ron. “Anyway, she's not supposed to come into school anymore,
Hagrid said Dumbledore banned her...”
“Maybe she's got an Invisibility
Cloak,” said Harry, ladling chicken casserole onto his plate and splashing it
everywhere in his anger. “Sort of thing she'd do, isn't it, hide in bushes
listening to people.”
“Like you and Ron did, you mean,” said Hermione.
“We
weren't trying to hear him!” said Ron indignantly. “We didn't have any choice!
The stupid prat, talking about his giantess mother where anyone could have heard
him!”
“We've got to go and see him,” said Harry. “This evening, after
Divination. Tell him we want him back... you do want him back?” he shot at
Hermione.
“I—well, I'm not going to pretend it didn't make a nice change,
having a proper Care of Magical Creatures lesson for once—but I do want Hagrid
back, of course I do!” Hermione added hastily, quailing under Harry's furious
stare.
So that evening after dinner, the three of them left the castle once
more and went down through the frozen grounds to Hagrid's cabin. They knocked,
and Fang's booming barks answered.
“Hagrid, it's us!” Harry shouted, pounding
on the door. “Open up!”
Hagrid didn't answer. They could hear Fang scratching
at the door, whining, but it didn't open. They hammered on it for ten more
minutes; Ron even went and banged on one of the windows, but there was no
response.
“What's he avoiding us for?” Hermione said when they had finally
given up and were walking back to the school. “He surely doesn't think we'd care
about him being half-giant?”
But it seemed that Hagrid did care. They didn't
see a sign of him all week. He didn't appear at the staff table at mealtimes,
they didn't see him going about his gamekeeper duties on the grounds, and
Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes.
Malfoy was gloating at every possible opportunity.
“Missing your half-breed
pal?” he kept whispering to Harry whenever there was a teacher around, so that
he was safe from Harry's retaliation. “Missing the elephant-man?”
There was a
Hogsmeade visit halfway through January. Hermione was very surprised that Harry
was going to go.
“I just thought you'd want to take advantage of the common
room being quiet,” she said. “Really get to work on that egg.”
“Oh I—I reckon
I've got a pretty good idea what it's about now,” Harry lied.
“Have you
really?” said Hermione, looking impressed. “Well done!”
Harrys insides gave a
guilty squirm, but he ignored them. He still had five weeks to work out that egg
clue, after all, and that was ages... whereas if he went into Hogsmeade, he
might run into Hagrid, and get a chance to persuade him to come back.
He,
Ron, and Hermione left the castle together on Saturday and set off through the
cold, wet grounds toward the gates. As they passed the Durmstrang ship moored in
the lake, they saw Viktor Krum emerge onto the deck, dressed in nothing but
swimming trunks. He was very skinny indeed, but apparently a lot tougher than he
looked, because he climbed up onto the side of the ship, stretched out his arms,
and dived, right into the lake.
“He's mad!” said Harry, staring at Krums dark
head as it bobbed out into the middle of the lake. “It must be freezing, it's
January!”
“It's a lot colder where he comes from,” said Hermione. “I suppose
it feels quite warm to him.”
“Yeah, but there's still the giant squid,” said
Ron. He didn't sound anxious—if anything, he sounded hopeful. Hermione noticed
his tone of voice and frowned.
“He's really nice, you know,” she said. “He's
not at all like you'd think, coming from Durmstrang. He likes it much better
here, he told me.”
Ron said nothing. He hadn't mentioned Viktor Krum since
the ball, but Harry had found a miniature arm under his bed on Boxing Day, which
had looked very much as though it had been snapped off a small model figure
wearing Bulgarian Quidditch robes.
Harry kept his eyes skinned for a sign of
Hagrid all the way down the slushy High Street, and suggested a visit to the
Three Broomsticks once he had ascertained that Hagrid was not in any of the
shops.
The pub was as crowded as ever, but one quick look around at all the
tables told Harry that Hagrid wasn't there. Heart sinking, he went up to the bar
with Ron and Hermione, ordered three butterbeers from Madam Rosmerta, and
thought gloomily that he might just as well have stayed behind and listened to
the egg wailing after all.
“Doesn't he ever go into the office?” Hermione
whispered suddenly. “Look!”
She pointed into the mirror behind the bar, and
Harry saw Ludo Bagman reflected there, sitting in a shadowy corner with a bunch
of goblins. Bagman was talking very fast in a low voice to the goblins, all of
whom had their arms crossed and were looking rather menacing.
It was indeed
odd. Harry thought, that Bagman was here at the Three Broomsticks on a weekend
when there was no Triwizard event, and therefore no judging to be done. He
watched Bagman in the mirror. He was looking strained again, quite as strained
as he had that night in the forest before the Dark Mark had appeared. But just
then Bagman glanced over at the bar, saw Harry, and stood up.
“In a moment,
in a moment!” Harry heard him say brusquely to the goblins, and Bagman hurried
through the pub toward Harry, his boyish grin back in place.
“Harry!” he
said. “How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all
right?”
“Fine, thanks,” said Harry.
“Wonder if I could have a quick,
private word, Harry?” said Bagman eagerly. “You couldn't give us a moment, you
two, could you?”
“Er—okay,” said Ron, and he and Hermione went off to find a
table.
Bagman led Harry along the bar to the end furthest from Madam
Rosmerta.
“Well, I just thought I'd congratulate you again on your splendid
performance against that Horntail, Harry,” said Bagman. “Really
superb.”
“Thanks,” said Harry, but he knew this couldn't be all that Bagman
wanted to say, because he could have congratulated Harry in front of Ron and
Hermione. Bagman didn't seem in any particular rush to spill the beans, though.
Harry saw him glance into the mirror over the bar at the goblins, who were all
watching him and Harry in silence through their dark, slanting
eyes.
“Absolute nightmare,” said Bagman to Harry in an undertone, noticing
Harry watching the goblins too. “Their English isn't too good... it's like being
back with all the Bulgarians at the Quidditch World Cup... but at least they
used sign language another human could recognize. This lot keep gabbling in
Gobblede-gook... and I only know one word of Gobbledegook. Bladvak. It means
'pickax. ' I don't like to use it in case they think I'm threatening
them.”
He gave a short, booming laugh.
“What do they want?” Harry said,
noticing how the goblins were still watching Bagman very
closely.
“Er—well...” said Bagman, looking suddenly nervous. “They ...er
...they're looking for Barty Crouch.”
“Why are they looking for him here?”
said Harry. “He's at the Ministry in London, isn't he?”
“Er ...as a matter of
fact, I've no idea where he is,” said Bagman. “He's sort of... stopped coming to
work. Been absent for a couple of weeks now. Young Percy, his assistant, says
he's ill. Apparently he's just been sending instructions in by owl. But would
you mind not mentioning that to anyone. Harry? Because Rita Skeeter's still
poking around everywhere she can, and I'm willing to bet she'd work up Bartys
illness into something sinister. Probably say he's gone missing like Bertha
Jorkins.”
“Have you heard anything about Bertha Jorkins?” Harry
asked.
“No,” said Bagman, looking strained again. “I've got people looking,
of course ...” (About time, thought Harry) “and it's all very strange. She
definitely arrived in Albania, because she met her second cousin there. And then
she left the cousin's house to go south and see an aunt... and she seems to have
vanished without trace en route. Blowed if I can see where she's got to ...she
doesn't seem the type to elope, for instance... but still... What are we doing,
talking about goblins and Bertha Jorkins? I really wanted to ask you”—he lowered
his voice—”how are you getting on with your golden egg?”
“Er... not bad,”
Harry said untruthfully.
Bagman seemed to know he wasn't being
honest.
“Listen, Harry,” he said (still in a very low voice), “I feel very
bad about all this... you were thrown into this tournament, you didn't volunteer
for it... and if...” (his voice was so quiet now, Harry had to lean closer to
listen) “if I can help at all... a prod in the right direction... I've taken a
liking to you... the way you got past that dragon!... well, just say the
word.”
Harry stared up into Bagman's round, rosy face and his wide, baby-blue
eyes.
“We're supposed to work out the clues alone, aren't we?” he said,
careful to keep his voice casual and not sound as though he was accusing the
head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports of breaking the
rules.
“Well... well, yes,” said Bagman impatiently, “but—come on. Harry—we
all want a Hogwarts victory, don't we?”
“Have you offered Cedric help?” Harry
said.
The smallest of frowns creased Bagman's smooth face. “No, I haven't,”
he said. “I—well, like I say, I've taken a liking to you. Just thought I'd offer
...”
“Well, thanks,” said Harry, “but I think I'm nearly there with the
egg... couple more days should crack it.”
He wasn't entirely sure why he was
refusing Bagman's help, except that Bagman was almost a stranger to him, and
accepting his assistance would feel somehow much more like cheating than asking
advice from Ron, Hermione, or Sirius.
Bagman looked almost affronted, but
couldn't say much more as Fred and George turned up at that point.
“Hello,
Mr. Bagman,” said Fred brightly. “Can we buy you a drink?”
“Er... no,” said
Bagman, with a last disappointed glance at Harry, “no, thank you, boys
...”
Fred and George looked quite as disappointed as Bagman, who was
surveying Harry as though he had let him down badly.
“Well, I must dash,” he
said. “Nice seeing you all. Good luck, Harry.”
He hurried out of the pub. The
goblins all slid off their chairs and exited after him. Harry went to rejoin Ron
and Hermione.
“What did he want?” Ron said, the moment Harry had sat
down.
“He offered to help me with the golden egg,” said Harry.
“He
shouldn't be doing that!” said Hermione, looking very shocked. “He's one of the
judges! And anyway, you've already worked it out—haven't you?”
“Er...
nearly,” said Harry.
“Well, I don't think Dumbledore would like it if he knew
Bagman was trying to persuade you to cheat!” said Hermione, still looking deeply
disapproving. “I hope he's trying to help Cedric as much!”
“He's not, I
asked,” said Harry.
“Who cares if Diggorys getting help?” said Ron. Harry
privately agreed.
“Those goblins didn't look very friendly,” said Hermione,
sipping her butterbeer. “What were they doing here?”
“Looking for Crouch,
according to Bagman,” said Harry. “He's still ill. Hasn't been into
work.”
“Maybe Percys poisoning him,” said Ron. “Probably thinks if Crouch
snuffs it he'll be made head of the Department of International Magical
Cooperation.”
Hermione gave Ron a don't-joke-about-things-like-that look, and
said, “Funny, goblins looking for Mr. Crouch... They'd normally deal with the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”
“Crouch can
speak loads of different languages, though,” said Harry. “Maybe they need an
interpreter.”
“Worrying about poor 'ickle goblins, now, are you?” Ron asked
Hermione. “Thinking of starting up S. P. U. G. or something? Society for the
Protection of Ugly Goblins?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” said Hermione sarcastically.
“Goblins don't need protection. Haven't you been listening to what Professor
Binns has been telling us about goblin rebellions?”
“No,” said Harry and Ron
together.
“Well, the/re quite capable of dealing with wizards,” said
Hermione, taking another sip of butterbeer. “They're very clever. They're not
like house-elves, who never stick up for themselves.”
“Uh-oh,” said Ron,
staring at the door.
Rita Skeeter had just entered. She was wearing
banana-yellow robes today; her long nails were painted shocking pink, and she
was accompanied by her paunchy photographer. She bought drinks, and she and the
photographer made their way through the crowds to a table nearby. Harry, Ron,
and Hermione glaring at her as she approached. She was talking fast and looking
very satisfied about something.
“...didn't seem very keen to talk to us, did
he, Bozo? Now, why would that be, do you think? And what's he doing with a pack
of goblins in tow anyway? Showing them the sights... what nonsense ...he was
always a bad liar. Reckon something's up? Think we should do a bit of digging?
'Disgraced Ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports, Ludo Bagman... ' Snappy start to
a sentence, Bozo—we just need to find a story to fit it—”
“Trying to ruin
someone else's life?” said Harry loudly.
A few people looked around. Rita
Skeeter's eyes widened behind her jeweled spectacles as she saw who had
spoken.
“Harry!” she said, beaming. “How lovely! Why don't you come and
join?”
“I wouldn't come near you with a ten-foot broomstick,” said Harry
furiously. “What did you do that to Hagrid for, eh?”
Rita Skeeter raised her
heavily penciled eyebrows.
“Our readers have a right to the truth, Harry. I
am merely doing my-”
“Who cares if he's half-giant?” Harry shouted. “There's
nothing wrong with him!”
The whole pub had gone very quiet. Madam Rosmerta
was staring over from behind the bar, apparently oblivious to the fact that the
flagon she was filling with mead was overflowing.
Rita Skeeters smile
flickered very slightly, but she hitched it back almost at once; she snapped
open her crocodile-skin handbag, pulled out her Quick-Quotes Quill, and said,
“How about giving me an interview about the Hagrid you know. Harry? The man
behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. Would
you call him a father substitute?”
Hermione stood up very abruptly, her
butterbeer clutched in her hand as though it were a grenade.
“You horrible
woman,” she said, through gritted teeth, “you don't care, do you, anything for a
story, and anyone will do, wont they? Even Ludo Bagman—”
“Sit down, you silly
little girl, and don't talk about things you don't understand,” said Rita
Skeeter coldly, her eyes hardening as they fell on Hermione. “I know things
about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl... not that it needs it—” she
added, eyeing Hermione's bushy hair.
“Let's go,” said Hermione, “c'mon.
Harry—Ron...”
They left; many people were staring at them as they went. Harry
glanced back as they reached the door. Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes Quill was
out; it was zooming backward and forward over a piece of parchment on the
table.
“She'll be after you next, Hermione,” said Ron in a low and worried
voice as they walked quickly back up the street.
“Let her try!” said Hermione
defiantly; she was shaking with rage. “I'll show her! Silly little girl, am I?
Oh, I'll get her back for this. First Harry, then Hagrid ...”
“You don't want
to go upsetting Rita Skeeter,” said Ron nervously. “I'm serious, Hermione,
she'll dig up something on you—”
“My parents don't read the Daily Prophet.
She can't scare me into hiding!” said Hermione, now striding along so fast that
it was all Harry and Ron could do to keep up with her. The last time Harry had
seen Hermione in a rage like this, she had hit Draco Malfoy around the face.
“And Hagrid isn't hiding anymore! He should never have let that excuse for a
human being upset him! Come on!”
Breaking into a run, she led them all the
way back up the road, through the gates flanked by winged boars, and up through
the grounds to Hagrid's cabin.
The curtains were still drawn, and they could
hear Fang barking as they approached.
“Hagrid!” Hermione shouted, pounding on
his front door. “Hagrid, that's enough! We know you're in there! Nobody cares if
your mum was a giantess, Hagrid! You can't let that foul Skeeter woman do this
to you! Hagrid, get out here, you're just being—”
The door opened. Hermione
said, “About t-!” and then stopped, very suddenly, because she had found herself
face-to-face, not with Hagrid, but with Albus Dumbledore.
“Good afternoon,”
he said pleasantly, smiling down at them.
“We-er-we wanted to see Hagrid,”
said Hermione in a rather small voice.
“Yes, I surmised as much,” said
Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. “Why don't you come in?”
“Oh... um ...okay,”
said Hermione.
She, Ron, and Harry went into the cabin; Fang launched himself
upon Harry the moment he entered, barking madly and trying to lick his ears.
Harry fended off Fang and looked around.
Hagrid was sitting at his table,
where there were two large mugs of tea. He looked a real mess. His face was
blotchy, his eyes swollen, and he had gone to the other extreme where his hair
was concerned; far from trying to make it behave, it now looked like a wig of
tangled wire.
“Hi, Hagrid,” said Harry.
Hagrid looked up.
“'Lo,” he
said in a very hoarse voice.
“More tea, I think,” said Dumbledore, closing
the door behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione, drawing out his wand, and twiddling
it; a revolving tea tray appeared in midair along with a plate of cakes.
Dumbledore magicked the tray onto the table, and everybody sat down. There was a
slight pause, and then Dumbledore said, “Did you by any chance hear what Miss
Granger was shouting, Hagrid?”
Hermione went slightly pink, but Dumbledore
smiled at her and continued, “Hermione, Harry, and Ron still seem to want to
know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down the
door.”
“Of course we still want to know you!” Harry said, staring at Hagrid.
“You don't think anything that Skeeter cow—sorry, Professor,” he added quickly,
looking at Dumbledore.
“I have gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea
what you said. Harry,” said Dumbledore, twiddling his thumbs and staring at the
ceiling.
“Er-right,” said Harry sheepishly. “I just meant-Hagrid, how could
you think we'd care what that-woman-wrote about you?”
Two fat tears leaked
out of Hagrid's beetle-black eyes and fell slowly into his tangled
beard.
“Living proof of what I've been telling you, Hagrid,” said Dumbledore,
still looking carefully up at the ceiling. “I have shown you the letters from
the countless parents who remember you from their own days here, telling me in
no uncertain terms that if I sacked you, they would have something to say about
it—”
“Not all of 'em,” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Not all of 'em wan me ter
stay.”
“Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm
afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time,” said Dumbledore, now
peering sternly over his half-moon spectacles. “Not a week has passed since I
became headmaster of this school when I haven't had at least one owl complaining
about the way I run it. But what should I do? Barricade myself in my study and
refuse to talk to anybody?”
“Yeh—yeh're not half-giant!” said Hagrid
croakily.
“Hagrid, look what I've got for relatives!” Harry said furiously.
“Look at the Dursleys!”
“An excellent point,” said Professor Dumbledore. “My
own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a
goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He
held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I'm not
entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery...”
“Come back
and teach, Hagrid,” said Hermione quietly, “please come back, we really miss
you.”
Hagrid gulped. More tears leaked out down his cheeks and into his
tangled beard.
Dumbledore stood up. “I refuse to accept your resignation,
Hagrid, and I expect you back at work on Monday,” he said. “You will join me for
breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall. No excuses. Good afternoon to you
all.”
Dumbledore left the cabin, pausing only to scratch Fangs ears. When the
door had shut behind him, Hagrid began to sob into his dustbin-lid-sized hands.
Hermione kept patting his arm, and at last, Hagrid looked up, his eyes very red
indeed, and said, “Great man, Dumbledore... great man...”
“Yeah, he is,” said
Ron. “Can I have one of these cakes, Hagrid?”
“Help yerself,” said Hagrid,
wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “Ar, he's righ', o' course—yeh're all
righ'... I bin stupid... my ol' dad woulda bin ashamed o' the way I've bin
behavin'...” More tears leaked out, but he wiped them away more forcefully, and
said, “Never shown you a picture of my old dad, have I? Here...”
Hagrid got
up, went over to his dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled out a picture of a
short wizard with Hagrid's crinkled black eyes, beaming as he sat on top of
Hagrid's shoulder. Hagrid was a good seven or eight feet tall, judging by the
apple tree beside him, but his face was beardless, young, round, and smooth—he
looked hardly older than eleven.
“Tha was taken jus' after I got inter
Hogwarts,” Hagrid croaked. “Dad was dead chuffed ...thought I migh' not be a
wizard, see, 'cos me mum ...well, anyway. 'Course, I never was great shakes at
magic, really... but at least he never saw me expelled. Died, see, in me second
year...”
“Dumbledore was the one who stuck up for me after Dad went. Got me
the gamekeeper job... trusts people, he does. Gives 'em second chances ...tha's
what sets him apar' from other heads, see. He'll accept anyone at Hogwarts,
s'long as they've got the talent. Knows people can turn out okay even if their
families weren' ...well... all tha' respectable. But some don understand that.
There's some who'd always hold it against yeh... there's some who'd even pretend
they just had big bones rather than stand up an' say—I am what I am, an' I'm not
ashamed. 'Never be ashamed,' my ol' dad used ter say, 'there's some who'll hold
it against you, but they're not worth botherin' with. ' An' he was right. I've
bin an idiot. I'm not botherin' with her no more, I promise yeh that. Big
bones... I'll give her big bones.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one
another nervously; Harry would rather have taken fifty Blast-Ended Skrewts for a
walk than admit to Hagrid that he had overheard him talking to Madame Maxime,
but Hagrid was still talking, apparently unaware that he had said anything
odd.
“Yeh know wha, Harry?” he said, looking up from the photograph of his
father, his eyes very bright, “when I firs' met you, you reminded me o' me a
bit. Mum an' Dad gone, an' you was feelin' like yeh wouldn' fit in at Hogwarts,
remember? Not sure yeh were really up to it... an' now look at yeh, Harry!
School champion!”
He looked at Harry for a moment and then said, very
seriously, “Yeh know what I'd love. Harry? I'd love yeh ter win, I really would.
It'd show 'em all... yeh don' have ter be pureblood ter do it. Yeh don have ter
be ashamed of what yeh are. It'd show 'em Dumbledore's the one who's got it
righ', lettin' anyone in as long as they can do magic. How you doin' with that
egg, Harry?”
“Great,” said Harry. “Really great.”
Hagrid's miserable face
broke into a wide, watery smile.
“Tha's my boy... you show 'em, Harry, you
show 'em. Beat 'em all.”
Lying to Hagrid wasn't quite like lying to anyone
else. Harry went back to the castle later that afternoon with Ron and Hermione,
unable to banish the image of the happy expression on Hagrid's whiskery face as
he had imagined Harry winning the tournament. The incomprehensible egg weighed
more heavily than ever on Harrys conscience that evening, and by the time he had
got into bed, he had made up his mind—it was time to shelve his pride and see if
Cedric's hint was worth anything.
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