The Other Black Book 5

Chapter 10 - The Sorting Hat's New Song

"Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?" asked Ginny after Harry climbed in. "What's she doing back here? Hagrid can't have left, can he?"

"I'll be quite glad if he has," said Luna. "He isn't a very good teacher, is he?"

"Yes, he is!" said Harry, Ron, Aurora, and Ginny angrily. Harry glared at Hermione; she cleared her throat and quickly said, "Erm . . . yes . . . he's very good."

"Well, we think he's a bit of a joke in Ravenclaw," said Luna, unfazed.

"You've got a rubbish sense of humor then," Ron snapped, as the wheels below them creaked into motion.

Luna did not seem perturbed by Ron's rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television program.

Rattling and swaying, the carriages moved in convoy up the road. When they passed between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars on either side of the gates to the school grounds, Harry leaned forward to try and see whether there were any lights on in Hagrid's cabin by the Forbidden Forest, but the grounds were in complete darkness. Hogwarts Castle, however, loomed ever closer: a towering mass of turrets, jetblack against the dark sky, here and there a window blazing fiery bright above them.

The carriages jingled to a halt near the stone steps leading up to the oak front doors and Harry got out of the carriage first. Aurora followed after him, and she turned again to look for lit windows down by the forest, but there was definitely no sign of life within Hagrid's cabin and joined the fray into the castle.

The entrance hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.

The four long House tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other Houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes.

Again Aurora noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as Harry passed.

Luna drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindor's, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth years and left to sit with them; Harry, Aurora, Ron, Hermione, and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly friendly greetings that made Aurora quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before.

Aurora was looking over the students' heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.

"He's not there," Harry said, doing the same as Aurora.

Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid's size made him instantly obvious in any lineup.

"He can't have left," said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.

"Of course he hasn't," said Harry firmly.

"You don't think he's . . . hurt, or anything, do you?" said Hermione uneasily.

"No," said Harry at once.

"But where is he, then?"

There was a pause, then Harry said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati, and Lavender could not hear, "Maybe he's not back yet. You know — from his mission — the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore."