Sirius's son

O.W.L.s

Ron's euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch Cup was such that he could not settle to anything the next day. All he wanted to do was to talk over the match. As it was another fine, warm day, they persuaded him to join them in studying under the beech tree on the edge of the lake. Ron was not particularly keen on this idea at first; he was thoroughly enjoying being patted on the back by Gryffindor's walking past his chair, not to mention the occasional outbursts of "Weasley Is Our King," but agreed after a while that some fresh air might do him good.

They spread their books out in the shade of the beech tree and sat down while Ron talked them through his first save of the match for what felt like the dozenth time.

"Well, I mean, I'd already let in that one of Davies's, so I wasn't feeling that confident, but I dunno, when Bradley came toward me, just out of nowhere, I thought — you can do this! And I had about a second to decide which way to fly, you know because he looked like he was aiming for the right goal hoop — my right, obviously, his left —but I had a funny feeling that he was fainting, and so I took the chance and flew left — his right, I mean — and — well — you saw what happened," he concluded modestly, sweeping his hair back quite unnecessarily so that it looked interestingly windswept and glancing around to see whether the people nearest to them — a bunch of gossiping third-year Hufflepuffs — had heard him. "And then, when Chambers came at me about five minutes later — what?" Ron said, stopping mid-sentence at the look on Harry's face. "Why are you grinning?"

"I'm not," said Harry quickly, looking down at his Transfiguration notes and attempting to straighten his face. "I'm just glad we won, that's all."

"Yeah," said Ron slowly, savoring the words, "we won. Did you see the look on Chang's face when Percy got the Snitch right out from under her nose?"

"I suppose she cried, did she?" said Harry bitterly.

"Well, yeah — more out of temper than anything, though . . ." Rigel said slowly

Ron frowned slightly. "But you saw her chuck her broom away when she got back to the ground, didn't you?"

"Er —" said Harry.

"Well, actually . . . no, Ron," said Hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him apologetically. "As a matter of fact, the only bit of the match Harry and I saw was Davies's first goal."

Ron's carefully ruffled hair seemed to wilt with disappointment.

"You didn't watch?" he said faintly, looking from one to the other."You didn't see me make any of those saves?"

"Well — no," Eliza said, stretching out a placatory hand toward him. "But Ron, we didn't want to leave — we had to!"

"Yeah?" said Ron, whose face was growing rather red. "How come?"

"It was Hagrid," she said. "He decided to tell us why he's been covered in injuries. He has a half-brother."

The story was told in five minutes, by the end of which Ron and Rigel's face had a look of total incredulity.

"He brought one back and hid it in the forest?"

"Yep," said Harry grimly.

"No," said Ron, as though by saying this he could make it untrue."No, he can't have. . . ."

"Well, he has," said Hermione firmly. "Grawp's about sixteen feet tall enjoys ripping up twenty-foot pine trees, and knows me," she snorted, "as Hermy."

Rigel snickered. Ron gave a nervous laugh."And Hagrid wants us to . . . ?"

"Teach him English, yeah," said Harry.