remember it. Jus’ maybe, them that don’ want ter stay around Golgomath’ll move outta the mountains, an’ there’s gotta be a chance they’ll remember Dumbledore’s friendly to ’em. … Could be they’ll come …”
Snow was filling up the window now. Harry became aware that the knees of his robes were soaked through; Fang was drooling with his head in Harry’s lap.
“Hagrid?” said Hermione quietly after a while.
“Mmm?”
“Did you … was there any sign of … did you hear anything about your … your … mother while you were there?”
Hagrid’s unobscured eye rested upon her, and Hermione looked rather scared.
“I’m sorry … I … forget it —”
“Dead,” Hagrid grunted. “Died years ago. They told me.”
“Oh … I’m … I’m really sorry,” said Hermione in a very small voice.
Hagrid shrugged his massive shoulders. “No need,” he said shortly. “Can’ remember her much. Wasn’ a great mother.”
They were silent again. Hermione glanced nervously at Harry and Ron, plainly wanting them to speak.
“But you still haven’t explained how you got in this state, Hagrid,” Ron said, gesturing toward Hagrid’s bloodstained face.
“Or why you’re back so late,” said Harry. “Sirius says Madame Maxime got back ages ago —”
“Who attacked you?” said Ron.
“I haven’ bin attacked!” said Hagrid emphatically. “I —”
But the rest of his words were drowned in a sudden outbreak of rapping on the door. Hermione gasped; her mug slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor; Fang yelped. All four of them stared at the window beside the doorway. The shadow of somebody small and squat rippled across the thin curtain.
“It’s her!” Ron whispered.
“Get under here!” Harry said quickly; seizing the Invisibility Cloak he whirled it over himself and Hermione while Ron tore around the table and dived beneath the cloak as well. Huddled together they backed away into a corner. Fang was barking madly at the door. Hagrid looked thoroughly confused.
“Hagrid, hide our mugs!”
Hagrid seized Harry’s and Ron’s mugs and shoved them under the cushion in Fang’s basket. Fang was now leaping up at the door; Hagrid pushed him out of the way with his foot and pulled it open.
Professor Umbridge was standing in the doorway wearing her green tweed cloak and a matching hat with earflaps. Lips pursed, she leaned back so as to see Hagrid’s face; she barely reached his navel.
“So,” she said slowly and loudly, as though speaking to somebody deaf. “You’re Hagrid, are you?”
Without waiting for an answer she strolled into the room, her bulging eyes rolling in every direction.
“Get away,” she snapped, waving her handbag at Fang, who had bounded up to her and was attempting to lick her face.
“Er — I don’ want ter be rude,” said Hagrid, staring at her, “but who the ruddy hell are you?”
“My name is Dolores Umbridge.”
Her eyes were sweeping the cabin. Twice they stared directly into the corner where Harry stood, sandwiched between Ron and Hermione.
“Dolores Umbridge?” Hagrid said, sounding thoroughly confused. “I thought you were one o’ them Ministry — don’ you work with Fudge?”
“I was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, yes,” said Umbridge, now pacing around the cabin, taking in every tiny detail within, from the haversack against the wall to the abandoned traveling cloak. “I am now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher —”
“Tha’s brave of yeh,” said Hagrid, “there’s not many’d take tha’ job anymore —”
“— and Hogwarts High Inquisitor,” said Umbridge, giving no sign that she had heard him.
“Wha’s that?” said Hagrid, frowning.
“Precisely what I was going to ask,” said Umbridge, pointing at the broken shards of china on the floor that had been Hermione’s mug.
“Oh,” said Hagrid, with a most unhelpful glance toward the corner where Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood hidden, “oh, tha’ was … was Fang. He broke a mug. So I had ter use this one instead.”
Hagrid pointed to the mug from which he had been drinking, one hand still clamped over the dragon steak pressed to his eye. Umbridge stood facing him now, taking in every detail of his appearance instead of the cabin’s.
“I heard voices,” she said quietly.
“I was talkin’ ter Fang,” said Hagrid stoutly.
“And was he talking back to you?”
“Well … in a manner o’ speakin’,” said Hagrid, looking uncomfortable. “I sometimes say Fang’s near enough human —”
“There are three sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin,” said Umbridge sleekly.
Hermione gasped; Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly around the hem of Professor Umbridge’s robes, and she did not appear to have heard.
“Well, I on’y jus’ got back,” said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. “Maybe someone came ter call earlier an’ I missed em.
“There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door.”
“Well I … I don’ know why that’d be. …” said Hagrid, tugging nervously at his beard and again glancing toward the corner where Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood, as though asking for help. “Erm …”
Umbridge wheeled around and strode the length of the cabin, looking around carefully. She bent and peered under the bed. She opened Hagrid’s cupboards. She passed within two inches of where Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood pressed against the wall; Harry actually pulled in his stomach as she walked by. After looking carefully inside the enormous cauldron Hagrid used for cooking she wheeled around again and said, “What has happened to you? How did you sustain those injuries?”
Hagrid hastily removed the dragon steak from his face, which in Harry’s opinion was a mistake, because the black-and-purple bruising all around his eye was now clearly visible, not to mention the large amount of fresh and congealed blood on his face. “Oh, I … had a bit of an accident,” he said lamely.
“What sort of accident?”
“I-I tripped.”
“You tripped,” she repeated coolly.
“Yeah, tha’s right. Over … over a friends broomstick. I don’ fly, meself. Well, look at the size o’ me, I don’ reckon there’s a broomstick that’d hold me. Friend o’ mine breeds Abraxan horses, I dunno if you’ve ever seen ’em, big beasts, winged, yeh know, I’ve had a bit of a ride on one o’ them an’ it was —”
“Where have you been?” asked Umbridge, cutting coolly through Hagrid’s babbling.
“Where’ve I … ?”
“Been, yes,” she said. “Term started more than two months ago. Another teacher has had to cover your classes. None of your colleagues has been able to give me any information as to your whereabouts. You left no address. Where have you been?”
There was a pause in which Hagrid stared at her with his newly uncovered eye. Harry could almost hear his brain working furiously.
“I — I’ve been away for me health,” he said.
“For your health,” said Umbridge. Her eyes traveled over Hagrid’s discolored and swollen face; dragon blood dripped gently onto his waistcoat in the silence. “I see.”
“Yeah,” said Hagrid, “bit o’ — o’ fresh air, yeh know —”
“Yes, as gamekeeper fresh air must be so difficult to come by,” said Umbridge sweetly. The small patch of Hagrid’s face that was not black or purple flushed.
“Well — change o’ scene, yeh know —”
“Mountain scenery?” said Umbridge swiftly.
She knows, Harry thought desperately.
“Mountains?” Hagrid repeated, clearly thinking fast. “Nope, South of France fer me. Bit o’ sun an’ … an’ sea.”
“Really?” said Umbridge. “You don’t have much of a tan.”
“Yeah … well … sensitive skin,” said Hagrid, attempting an ingratiating smile. Harry noticed that two of his teeth had been knocked out. Umbridge looked at him coldly; his smile faltered. Then she hoisted her handbag a little higher into the crook of her arm and said, “I shall, of course, be informing the Minister of your late return.”
“Righ’,” said Hagrid, nodding.
“You ought to know too that as High Inquisitor it is my unfortunate but necessary duty to inspect my fellow teachers. So I daresay we shall meet again soon enough.”
She turned sharply and marched back to the door.
“You’re inspectin’ us?” Hagrid echoed blankly, looking after her.
“Oh yes,” said Umbridge softly, looking back at him with her hand on the door handle. “The Ministry is determined to weed out unsatisfactory teachers, Hagrid. Good night.”
She left, closing the door behind her with a snap. Harry made to pull off the Invisibility Cloak but Hermione seized his wrist.
“Not yet,” she breathed in his ear. “She might not be gone yet.”
Hagrid seemed to be thinking the same way; he stumped across the room and pulled back the curtain an inch or so.
“She’s goin’ back ter the castle,” he said in a low voice. “Blimey … inspectin’ people, is she?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, pulling the cloak off. “Trelawney’s on probation already. …”
“Um … what sort of thing are you planning to do with us in class, Hagrid?” asked Hermione.
“Oh, don’ you worry abou’ that, I’ve got a great load o’ lessons planned,” said Hagrid enthusiastically, scooping up his dragon steak from the table and slapping it over his eye again. “I’ve bin keepin’ a couple o’ creatures saved fer yer O.W.L. year, you wait, they’re somethin’ really special.”
“Erm … special in what way?” asked Hermione tentatively.
“I’m not sayin’,” said Hagrid happily. “I don’ want ter spoil the surprise.”
“Look, Hagrid,” said Hermione urgently, dropping all pretense, “Professor Umbridge won’t be at all happy if you bring anything to class that’s too dangerous —”
“Dangerous?” said Hagrid, looking genially bemused. “Don’ be silly, I wouldn’ give yeh anythin’ dangerous! I mean, all righ’, they can look after themselves —”
“Hagrid, you’ve got to pass Umbridge’s inspection, and to do that it would really be better if she saw you teaching us how to look after porlocks, how to tell the difference between knarls and hedgehogs, stuff like that!” said Hermione earnestly.
“But tha’s not very interestin’, Hermione,” said Hagrid. “The stuff I’ve got’s much more impressive, I’ve bin bringin’ ’em on fer years, I reckon I’ve got the on’y domestic herd in Britain —”
“Hagrid … please …” said Hermione, a note of real desperation in her voice. “Umbridge is looking for any excuse to get rid of teachers she thinks are too close to Dumbledore. Please, Hagrid, teach us something dull that’s bound to come up in our O.W.L. …”
But Hagrid merely yawned widely and cast a one-eyed look of longing toward the vast bed in the corner.
“Lis’en, it’s bin a long day an’ it’s late,” he said, patting Hermione gently on the shoulder, so that her knees gave way and hit the floor with a thud. “Oh — sorry —” He pulled her back up by the neck of her robes. “Look, don’ you go worryin’ abou’ me, I promise yeh I’ve got really good stuff planned fer yer lessons now I’m back. … Now you lot had better get back up to the castle, an’ don’ forget ter wipe yer footprints out behind yeh!”
“I dunno if you got through to him,” said Ron a short while later when, having checked that the coast was clear, they walked back up to the castle through the thickening snow, leaving no trace behind them due to the Obliteration Charm Hermione was performing as they went.
“Then I’ll go back again tomorrow,” said Hermione determinedly. “I’ll plan his lessons for him if I have to. I don’t care if she throws out Trelawney but she’s not taking Hagrid!”
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