The Gift From Death

Chapter 20: First year Part 10

6th, August, 1998...

"We're going to skip a bit here." Harry said after everyone was comfortable in the living room after a delicious meal. "Basically Hermione here was driving me and Ron mad with studying," everyone laughed as Hermione glared at Harry. "And we had seen Hagrid in the library, he was looking up books on dragons, we went down to see him and we can start with that memory." he explained.

When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper's hut an hour later, they were surprised to see that all the curtains were closed.

Hagrid called, "Who is it?" before he let them in and then shut the door quickly behind them.

It was stiflingly hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate.

Hagrid made them tea and offered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused.

"Probably a good idea," James snorted.

"So - yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes," said Harry. There was no point in beating about the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Philosopher's Stone apart from Fluffy."

"Wonder what he's gonna tell them?" Sirius said eagerly.

"If you'd just shut up, Sirius, we'd find out!" Dora said irritably.

"What's up with you, Nymphadora?" he asked cheekily, clearly just amused by his cousins reaction. She glared at him.

"Don't - Call - Me - Nymphadora!" she said dangerously. Sirius looked taken aback at how fierce she had sounded.

"Merlin, are all women this scary?" he asked James.

"No. Just the ones we know." James replied.

"HEY!" all the girls said indignantly.

"Well, you are. Look at what you just did to poor Padfoot."

"Poor Padfoot? It wasn't poor Padfoot when you were throwing fire at him!" Dora cried.

James frowned.

"She's got you there, Prongs," Remus grinned putting an arm around his wife. "Good job, Dora. Not many people can shut this one up." Dora blushed slightly and grinned.

Hagrid frowned at him.

"O' course I can't," he said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn't tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts - I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know about Fluffy."

"They met him, of course." said James happily.

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on round here," said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice.

"Ah, yes." Sirius grinned. "Flattery works like a charm on Hagrid!"

"You should know! The amount of stuff you wheedled out of him when we were at school was bloody well amazing!" Remus laughed.