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Aurora Areli

NO SOONER HAD HERMIONE spoken than she and I separated from Harry and Ron, all of us running up to our respective dormitories.

While I only threw on my cloak and grabbed some gloves, Hermione took the time to search through her trunk for a scarf, her own gloves, and one of her knobbly elf hats. I waited for her impatiently, urging her to go faster. We were only going down to Hagrid's cabin, it wasn't like it would take long. Plus, Harry was bringing the Invisibility Cloak, and it was always warm under there.

Finally, Hermione allowed me to drag her back down to the common room. The boys were already there, looking just as impatient.

"Well, it's cold out there!" Hermione said defensively, as Ron clicked his tongue impatiently at her unnecessary getup.

The four of us crept through the portrait hole and hastily covered ourselves with the Cloak — Ron had grown so much that he now needed to crouch to prevent his feet showing. Then, moving slowly and cautiously, we proceeded down the many staircases, pausing at intervals to check the Marauder's Map for signs of Filch or Mrs Norris. Luckily, nobody was out but Nearly Headless Nick, who was gliding along absent-mindedly humming something that sounded too similar to "Weasley is our King". Then, we crept across the Entrance Hall and out onto the silent, snowy grounds.

With a great surge of excitement, I saw that the windows in Hagrid's cabin were lit with golden light ahead of us, and smoke was coiling up from the chimney. Harry was clearly very happy as well; he picked up his pace so much that Ron, Hermione and I had to hurry through the thickening snow to keep up, but I didn't think any of us minded.

When we reached the wooden front door, Harry raised his fist and knocked three times. Inside, Fang started barking frantically.

"Hagrid, it's us!" Harry called through the keyhole.

"Shoulda known!" a gruff voice said from the other side.

All of us beamed at each other under the Cloak; by the tone of Hagrid's voice, he was pleased. "Bin home three seconds . . . out the way, Fang . . . out the way, yeh dozy dog . . ."

The bolt was drawn back, the door creaked open and Hagrid's head appeared in the gap.

I gasped loudly, but I don't think anyone heard over Hermione's scream.

"Merlin's beard, keep it down!" Hagrid said hastily, staring wildly over our heads. "Under that Cloak, are yeh? Well, get in, get in!"

"I'm sorry!" Hermione gasped, as the four of us squeezed past Hagrid into the house and pulled the Cloak off. "I just — oh, Hagrid!"

"It's nuthin', it's nuthin'!" Hagrid said quickly, shutting the door behind us and hurrying to close the curtains. But Hermione and I continued to gaze up at him in horror.

Hagrid's hair was matted with congealed blood and his left eye was swollen to the point that it looked like a puffy slit amid a mass of purple and black bruising. There were many cuts on his face and hands, some of them still bleeding, and he was moving gingerly, which made me suspect broken ribs.

Looking around more, it was obvious Hagrid had only just got home; a thick black travelling cloak lay over the back of a chair and a haversack large enough to hold possibly even Harry and Ron leaned against the wall inside the door. Hagrid himself was now limping over to the fire and placing a copper kettle on it.

"What happened to you?" Harry demanded, voicing my thoughts exactly while Fang danced around us all, trying to lick our faces.

"Told yeh, nuthin'," Hagrid said firmly. "Want a cuppa?"

"Come off it," Ron said, "you're in a right state!"

"I'm tellin' yeh, I'm fine," Hagrid said, straightening up and turning to beam at us all, but wincing. "Blimey, it's good ter see yeh four again — had good summers, did yeh?"

"Hagrid, you've been attacked!" I said, in complete disbelief that he was trying to brush off the fact that he was covered in injuries. "Who did this to you?"

"Fer the las' time, it's nuthin'!" Hagrid said firmly.

"Would you say it was nothing if one of us turned up with a pound of mince instead of a face?" Ron demanded.

"Some of those cuts do look really bad, Hagrid," I said anxiously. "You should really go and see Madam Pomfrey."

"I'm dealin' with it, all righ'?" said Hagrid repressively.

He walked across to the enormous wooden table that stood in the middle of his cabin and pushed aside a tea towel that had been lying on it. Underneath was a raw, bloody, green-tinged steak slightly larger than the average car tire. I scrunched up my nose at the sight.

"You're not going to eat that, are you, Hagrid?" Ron said, leaning in to get a closer look. "It looks poisonous."

"It's s'posed to look like that, it's dragon meat," Hagrid explained. "An' I didn' get it ter eat."

He picked up the steak and, much to my disgust, slapped it over the left side of his face. Greenish blood trickled down his beard as he gave a quiet sigh of relief.

"Tha's better. It helps with the stingin', yeh know."

Good to know.

"So, are you going to tell us what's happened to you?" Harry asked.

"Can't, Harry. Top secret. More'n me job's worth ter tell yeh that."

"Did the giants beat you up, Hagrid?" Hermione asked quietly.

Hagrid's fingers slipped on the dragon steak and it slid down on to his chest with a squelch.

"Giants?" Hagrid said, catching the steak and slapping it back over his face, "who said anythin' abou' giants? Who yeh bin talkin' to? Who's told yeh what I've — who's said I've bin — eh?"

"We guessed," Hermione said apologetically.

"Oh, yeh did, did yeh?" Hagrid said, sternly fixing the eye that was not hidden by the steak on her.

"It was kind of . . . obvious," Ron said. Harry and I nodded.

Hagrid glared at us, then snorted, threw the steak back onto the table and strode over to the kettle, which was now whistling.

"Never known kids like you four fer knowin' more'n yeh oughta," he muttered, splashing boiling water into four of his bucket-shaped mugs. "An' I'm not complimentin' yeh, neither. Nosy, some'd call it. Interferin'."

But his beard twitched.

"So you have been to look for giants?" Harry said, grinning as we all sat down at the table.

Hagrid set tea in front of each of us, took his own seat, picked up his steak and slapped it back on his face.

"Yeah, all righ'," he grunted. "I have."

"And you found them?" Hermione said in a hushed voice.

"Well, they're not that difficult ter find, ter be honest," Hagrid said. "Pretty big, see."

"Where are they?" Ron asked.

"Mountains," Hagrid said unhelpfully.

"Well then why don't Muggles ever come across them?" I wondered.

"They do," Hagrid said darkly. "On'y their deaths are always put down ter mountaineerin' accidents, aren't they?"

"Oh," I said quietly.

Hagrid adjusted the steak a little so that it covered the worst of the bruising.

"Come on, Hagrid, tell us what you've been up to!" Ron begged him. "Tell us about being attacked by the giants and Harry can tell you about being attacked by the Dementors —"

Hagrid choked in his mug and dropped the steak at the same time, causing a large quantity of spit, tea and dragon blood to spray over the table as he coughed and spluttered. The steak slid, with a soft splat, onto the floor.

"Whadda yeh mean, attacked by Dementors?" Hagrid growled.

"Didn't you know?" Hermione asked, wide-eyed.

"I don' know anythin' that's bin happenin' since I left. I was on a secret mission, wasn' I, didn' wan' owls followin' me all over the place — ruddy Dementors! Yeh're not serious?"

"Yeah, I am," Harry confirmed, "they turned up in Little Whinging and attacked my cousin and me, and then the Ministry of Magic expelled me —"

"WHAT?"

"— and I had to go to a hearing and everything, but tell us about the giants first."

"You were expelled?"

"Tell us about your summer and I'll tell you about mine."

Hagrid glared at him through his one open eye. I had to bite back a smile when Harry just looked right back with an expression of innocent determination on his face.

"Oh, all righ'," Hagrid said in a resigned voice.

He bent down and tugged the dragon steak out of Fang's mouth.

"Oh no, Hagrid, don't, that's not sanitaー" My words quickly died in my throat, because Hagrid had already slapped the meat back over his swollen eye. I scowled, and grumbled to myself, "You put it back, of course you did, why wouldn't you."

Harry pretended to cough into his fist, being the only one close enough to actually hear me.

Hagrid took another fortifying gulp of tea, then said, "Well, we set off righ' after term ended —"

"Madame Maxime went with you, then?" Hermione interjected.

"Yeah, tha's righ'," Hagrid said, and his face softened in the few inches that were not obscured by beard or green steak. "Yeah, it was jus' the pair of us. An' I'll tell yeh this, she's not afraid of roughin' it, Olympe. Yeh know, she's a fine, well-dressed woman, an' knowin' where we was goin' I wondered 'ow she'd feel abou' clamberin' over boulders an' sleepin in caves an' tha', bu' she never complained once."

"You knew where you were going?" Harry asked. "You knew where the giants were?"

"Well, Dumbledore knew, an' he told us," Hagrid said.

"Are they hidden?" Ron asked. "Is it a secret, where they are?"

"Not really," Hagrid said, shaking his head. "It's jus' that mos' wizards aren' bothered where they are, 's'long as it's a good long way away. But where they are's very difficult ter get ter, fer humans anyway, so we needed Dumbledore's instructions. Took us abou' a month ter get there —"

"A month?" Ron said, as though he had never heard of a journey last such a ridiculously long time. "But — why couldn't you just grab a Portkey or something?"

There was an odd expression in Hagrid's unobscured eye as he squinted at Ron. To me, it almost seemed like pity.

"We're bein' watched, Ron," he said gruffly.

At those words, my stomach began to churn uneasily. From the snippets of conversations between the adults at Grimmauld Place I had heard and what they had actually told us, (along with my own suspicion), I had already been able to put that together. However, hearing Hagrid, someone who I associated with school and safety, remind us of it was extremely unnerving.

I unconsciously shifted closer to Harry, who glanced at me, then held his hand out. I didn't hesitate to take it.

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked Hagrid.

"Yeh don' understand," he said. "The Ministry's keepin' an eye on Dumbledore an' anyone they reckon's in league with 'im, an' —"

"We know about that," Harry said quickly, "we know about the Ministry watching Dumbledore —"

"So you couldn't use magic to get there?" Ron asked, looking thunderstruck, "you had to act like Muggles all the way?"

"Well, not exactly all the way," Hagrid said cagily. "We jus' had ter be careful, 'cause Olympe an' me, we stick out a bit —"

Ron made a stifled noise somewhere between a snort and a sniff and hastily took a gulp of tea.

"— so we're not hard ter follow. We was pretendin' we was goin' on holiday together, so we got inter France an' we made like we was headin' fer where Olympe's school is, 'cause we knew we was bein' tailed by someone from the Ministry. We had to go slow, 'cause I'm not really s'posed ter use magic an' we knew the Ministry'd be lookin fer a reason ter run us in. But we managed ter give the berk tailin' us the slip round abou' Dee-John —"

"Ooooh, Dijon?" Hermione said excitedly. "I've been there on holiday, did you see —?"

She fell silent at the look on Ron's face.

"We chanced a bit o' magic after that an' it wasn' a bad journey. Ran inter a couple o' mad trolls on the Polish border an' I had a sligh' disagreement with a vampire in a pub in Minsk, bu' apart from tha' couldn't'a bin smoother.

"An' then we reached the place, an' we started trekkin' up through the mountains, lookin' fer signs of 'em . . .

"We had ter lay off the magic once we got near 'em. Partly 'cause they don' like wizards an' we didn' want ter put their backs up too soon, an' partly 'cause Dumbledore had warned us. You-Know-Who was bound ter be after the giants an' all. Said it was odds on he'd sent a messenger off ter them already. Told us ter be very careful of drawin' attention ter ourselves as we got nearer in case there was Death Eaters around."

Hagrid paused for a long draught of tea.

"Go on!" Harry said urgently.

I frowned, and squeezed his hand. Hagrid had just gotten back, he deserved to rest a little.

"Found 'em," Hagrid said baldly. "Went over a ridge one nigh' an' there they was, spread ou' underneath us. Little fires burnin' below an' huge shadows . . . it was like watchin' bits o' the mountain movin'."

"How big are they?" Ron asked in a hushed voice.

"'Bout twenty feet," Hagrid said casually. "Some o' the bigger ones mighta bin twenty-five."

"And how many were there?" Harry asked.

"I reckon seventy or eighty," said Hagrid.

"That's all?" I said, sharing a surprised glance with Hermione.

"Yep," Hagrid said sadly, "eighty left, an' there was loads once, musta bin a hundred diff'rent tribes from all over the world. Bu' they've bin dyin' out fer ages. Wizards killed a few, o' course, bu' mostly they killed each other, an' now they're dyin' out faster than ever. They're not made ter live bunched up together like tha'. Dumbledore says it's our fault, it was the wizards who forced 'em to go an' made 'em live a good long way from us an' they had no choice but ter stick together fer their own protection."

"So," Harry said, "you saw them and then what?"

"Well, we waited till morning, didn' want ter go sneakin' up on 'em in the dark, fer our own safety," Hagrid said. "'Bout three in the mornin' they fell asleep jus' where they was sittin'. We didn' dare sleep. Fer one thing, we wanted ter make sure none of 'em woke up an' came up where we were, an' fer another, the snorin' was unbelievable. Caused an avalanche near mornin'.

"Anyway, once it was light we wen' down ter see 'em."

"Just like that?" Ron said, looking awestruck. "You just walked right into a giant camp?"

"Well, Dumbledore'd told us how ter do it," Hagrid explained. "Give the Gurg gifts, show some respect, yeh know."

"Give the what gifts?" Harry asked.

"Oh, the Gurg — means the chief."

"How could you tell which one was the Gurg?" Ron asked.

Hagrid grunted in amusement.

"No problem," he said. "He was the biggest, the ugliest an' the laziest. Sittin' there waitin' ter be brought food by the others. Dead goats an' such like. Name o' Karkus. I'd put him at twenty-two, twenty-three feet an' the weight o' a couple o' bull elephants. Skin like rhino hide an' all."

"And you just walked up to him?" Hermione said breathlessly.

"Well . . . down ter him, where he was lyin' in the valley. They was in this dip between four pretty high mountains, see, beside a mountain lake, an' Karkus was lyin' by the lake roarin' at the others ter feed him an' his wife. Olympe an' I went down the mountainside —"

"But didn't they try and kill you when they saw you?" Ron asked incredulously.

"It was definitely on some o' their minds," Hagrid said, shrugging, "but we did what Dumbledore told us ter do, which was ter hold our gift up high an' keep our eyes on the Gurg an' ignore the others. So tha's what we did. An' the rest of 'em went quiet an' watched us pass an' we got right up ter Karkus's feet an' we bowed an' put our present down in front o' him."

"What do you give a giant?" Ron asked eagerly. "Food?"

"Nah, he can get food all righ' fer himself," said Hagrid. "We took him magic. Giants like magic, jus' don' like us usin' it against 'em. Anyway, that firs' day we gave 'im a branch o' Gubraithian fire."

My eyes widened in astonishment, and Hermione let out a soft, "Wow!" Harry and Ron, however, looked extremely confused.

"A branch of —?"

"Everlasting fire," I told them, before Hermione cut in irritably, "You ought to know that by now. Professor Flitwick's mentioned it at least twice in class!"

"Well, anyway," Hagrid said quickly, rather smartly intervening before Ron could answer back, "Dumbledore'd bewitched this branch to burn fer evermore, which isn' somethin' any wizard could do, an' so I lies it down in the snow by Karkus's feet and says, 'A gift to the Gurg of the giants from Albus Dumbledore, who sends his respectful greetings.'"

"And what did the Karkus say?" Harry said eagerly.

"Nothin'," Hagrid said. "Didn' speak English."

"You're kidding!"

"Didn' matter," Hagrid said inperturbably, "Dumbledore had warned us tha' migh' happen. Karkus knew enough to yell fer a couple o' giants who knew our lingo an' they translated fer us."

"And did he like the present?" Ron asked.

"Oh yeah, it went down a storm once they understood what it was," Hagrid said, turning his dragon steak to press the cooler side on his swollen eye. "Very pleased. So then I said, 'Albus Dumbledore asks the Gurg to speak with his messenger when he returns tomorrow with another gift.'"

"How come you couldn't speak to them that day?" I asked.

"Dumbledore wanted us ter take it very slow," Hagrid said. "Let 'em see we kept our promises. We'll come back tomorrow with another present, an' then we do come back with another present — gives a good impression, see? An' gives them time ter test out the firs' present an' find out it's a good one, an' get 'em eager fer more. In any case, giants like Karkus — overload 'em with information an' they'll kill yeh jus' to simplify things. So we bowed outta the way an' went off an' found ourselves a nice little cave ter spend that night in an' the followin' mornin' we went back an' this time we found Karkus sittin' up waitin' fer us lookin' all eager."

"And you talked to him?" said Hermione.

"Oh yeah. Firs' we presented him with a nice battle helmet — goblin-made an' indestructible, yeh know — an' then we sat down an' we talked."

"What did he say?"

"Not much," Hagrid said. "Listened mostly. Bu' there were good signs. He'd heard o' Dumbledore, heard he'd argued against the killin' o' the last giants in Britain. Karkus seemed ter be quite int'rested in what Dumbledore had ter say. An' a few o' the others, 'specially the ones who had some English, they gathered round an' listened too. We were hopeful when we left that day. Promised ter come back next mornin' with another present.

"Bu' that night it all wen' wrong."

"What d'you mean?" Ron said quickly.

"Well, like I say, they're not meant ter live together, giants," Hagrid said sadly. "Not in big groups like that. They can' help themselves, they half kill each other every few weeks. The men fight each other an' the