The Tenth Weasley

Chapter 8

*Chapter 8*

As we climbed the dungeon steps it was clear that Harry was feeling guilty about the previous lesson and loosingiu two points for Gryffindor . "Cheer up mate," Ron said , "Snape's always taking points off of Fred and George."

At five to three we left the castle and made our way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small cottage at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, away from the castle. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were sat outside, resting against the wooden exterior of the house. Harry knocked on the large front door and we could immediately hear a frantic scrabbling from the other side and several booming barks. Hagrids voice could be heard yelling, "back, Fang, back!" Suddenly Hagrids head appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open. "Hang on," said Hagrid, as he turned back to address the rowdy dog again," back Fang!" He let us in, still obviously struggling to keep the enormous black boar hound from pouncing on us.

There was only one room inside, it seemed to be a combination of a kitchen, living room and bedroom. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a well used copper kettle was boiling on the open fire and in a corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it. "Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fangs collet which was gradually slipping from his hands as he became more excited, who immediately bounded straight at me and began licking my ears. Obviously he was no where near as fierce as his appearance suggested, which I was quite thankful for, a trait he seemed to share with Hagrid.

"This is Ron and Lucy," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring water into a large teapot and placing numerous rock cakes on a plate, although the they seemed to be more rock than cake.

"More Weasleys, huh?" he replied looking at our freckles. "I spent half me life chasin' those twin brothers of yers away from the forest." As I suspect the rock cakes barely resembled cakes as we attempted to bite into them and they nearly succeeded in breaking our teeth. Yet the three of us still pretended to be enjoying them enormously, so we would not offend Hagrid as he bit effortlessly into one of the cakes. We began telling Hagrid all about our first lessons, as Fang rested his head on Harry's knee after growing tired of me and my ear.

Much to pure delight Hagrid seemed to detest Filch as much as we did, he even called him "that old git." He also seemed to share our hatred for Mrs Norris,"An' as fer that car, Mrs Norris, Id like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her - Filch puts her up to it."

Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron and I, told Harry not to worry about it, that Snape hardly liked any of the students. "But he seemed to really hate me." protested Harry.

"Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?" Despite Hagrid agreeing with me and Ron I couldn't help thinking that he didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that, obviously he knew something we didn't. "How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron and I, everyone knew our brothers. "I liked him a lot - great with animals."

"He's okay, he's in Romania at the moment, working with dragons." I replied. Whilst me and Ron continued telling him all about his work with dragons Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cosy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet.

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of dark wizards or witches unknown.
Gringotts' goblins today insist that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.
'But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out of it if you know what's good for you,' said a Gringotts spokes goblin this afternoon.

I remembered reading about that the day before coming the Hogwarts, they didn't steal anything so I didn't think it was a big deal but Harry looked like he had just read about something important. I'm pretty sure Ron had mentioned it on the train ride over here so it wasn't as if he hadn't heard of it before then. "Hagrid!" said Harry. "That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've happened when we were there!" There was no doubt about it, Hagrid most definitely avoided looking harry in the eyes that time, instead he grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read through the article again as i watched in anticipation, something was definitely going on. Soon after we left for dinner, our pockets filled with rock cakes that we were to polite to turn down, and Harry was deep in thought. What I wanted to know was what about.