Second chances *ੈ✩‧₊˚ (harry potter x reader)

What would we do without Hermione?

"A giant!? Hagrid wants us to domesticate and teach English to a giant?" Hermione whispers to Harry and I as we're walking back from meeting Grawp. Hagrid was out of earshot as we trailed quite a few paces behind him.

"Only if he gets sacked," I point out, "for now everything's still the same."

"Oh, come off it. I'm sorry to say, but we all know it's bound to happen! Then that- that- I don't even know what, is our problem!" Hermione replies, still sounding very stressed.

"For someone that's all about equality -" Harry muttered but Hermione heard him.

"House elves are nothing like giants! Did you see how Grawp was eyeing me! He even tried to pick me up! You saw that!" she exclaimed in disbelief.

"We were just being introduced," Harry says.

"Yeah, so when Hagrid's gone and Grawp is our responsibility, he won't kill us. Super reassuring," Hermione countered. And had a pretty good point.

Nobody spoke for a while, not even when we'd heard the distant crash that meant Grawp had pulled over a pine tree.

Hermione's face was pale and set, While Harry and I could not think of a single thing to say.

What on earth was going to happen when somebody found out that Hagrid had hidden Grawp in the Forbidden Forest? And Harry had promised that he, Ron, Hermione, and I would continue Hagrid's totally pointless attempts to civilise the giant.

How could Hagrid, even with his immense capacity to delude himself that fanged monsters were loveably harmless, fool himself that Grawp would ever be fit to mix with humans?

I'm sure all three of us were deep in this thought when we'd walked right into the back of a stationery Hagrid.

"Hold it," he said abruptly, just as we were gathering ourselves. He pulled an arrow out of the quiver over his shoulder and fitted it into the cross-bow.

The three of us raised our wands; now that we had stopped walking, we, too, could hear movement close by.

"Oh, blimey," said Hagrid quietly.

"I thought we told you, Hagrid," said a deep male voice, "that you are no longer welcome here."

A man's naked torso seemed for an instant to be floating towards us through the dappled green half-light, then we saw that his waist wined smoothly into a horse's chestnut body.

This centaur had a proud, high, checkboned face and long black hair. Like Hagrid, he was armed, a quiver full of arrows and a longbow were slung over his shoulders.

"How are yeh, Magorian?" said Hagrid warily.
The trees behind the centaur rustled and four or five more centaurs emerged behind him.

"So," he said, with a nasty inflection in his voice, before turning immediately to Magorian. "We agreed, I think, what we would do if this human ever showed his face in the Forest again?"

"'This human' now, am I?" said Hagrid testily. "Jus' fer stoppin' all of yeh committin' murder?"

"You ought not to have meddled, Hagrid," said Magorian. "Our ways are not yours, nor are our laws. Firenze has betrayed and dishonoured us."

"I dunno how yeh work that out," said Hagrid impatiently. "He's done nothin' except help Albus Dumbledore -"

"Firenze has entered into servitude to humans," said a grey centaur with a hard, deeply lined face.

"'Servitude'" said Hagrid scathingly. "He's doin' Dumbledore a favour is all."

"He is peddling our knowledge and secrets among humans," said Magorian quietly. "There can be no return from such disgrace."