Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

She's not getting rid of Hagrid.

'Death Eaters?' said Kirra quickly.

'Yep,' said Hagrid darkly. 'Couple of 'em were visitin' him ev'ry day, bringin' gifts ter the Gurg, an' he wasn' dangling them upside- down.'

'How d'you know they were Death Eaters?' said Jasper.

'Because I recognised one of 'em,' Hagrid growled. 'Macnair, remember him Oph? Bloke they sent ter kill Buckbeak? Maniac, he is. Likes killin' as much as Golgomath; no wonder they were gettin' on so well.'

'So Macnair's persuaded the giants to join You-Know-Who?' said Jasper desperately.

'Hold yer Hippogriffs, I haven' finished me story yet!' said Hagrid indignantly, who, considering he had not wanted to tell them anything in the first place, now seemed to be rather enjoying himself. 'Me an' Olympe talked it over an' we agreed, jus' 'cause the Gurg looked like favourin' You-Know-Who didn' mean all of 'em would. We had ter try an' persuade some o' the others, the ones who hadn' wanted Golgomath as Gurg.'

'How could you tell which ones they were?' asked Mattheo.

'Well, they were the ones bein' beaten to a pulp, weren' they?' said Hagrid patiently. 'The ones with any sense were keepin' outta Golgomath's way, hidin' out in caves roun' the gully jus' like we were. So we decided we'd go pokin' round the caves by night an' see if we couldn' persuade a few o' them.'

'You went poking around dark caves looking for giants?' said Mattheo, with awed respect in his voice.

'Well, it wasn' the giants who worried us most,' said Hagrid. 'We were more concerned abou' the Death Eaters. Dumbledore had told us before we wen' not ter tangle with 'em if we could avoid it, an' the trouble was they knew we was around – 'spect Golgomath told 'em abou' us. At night, when the giants were sleepin' an' we wanted ter be creepin' inter the caves, Macnair an' the other one were sneakin' round the mountains lookin' fer us. I was hard put to stop Olympe jumpin' out at 'em,' said Hagrid, the corners of his mouth lifting his wild beard, 'she was rarin' ter attack 'em ... she's somethin' when she's roused, Olympe ... fiery, yeh know ... 'spect it's the French in her ...'

Hagrid gazed misty-eyed into the fire. Kirra allowed him thirty seconds of reminiscence before clearing her throat softly.

'So, what happened? Did you ever get near any of the other giants?'

'What? Oh ... oh, yeah, we did. Yeah, on the third night after Karkus was killed we crept outta the cave we'd bin hidin' in an' headed back down inter the gully, keepin' our eyes skinned fer the Death Eaters. Got inside a few o' the caves, no go – then, in abou' the sixth one, we found three giants hidin'.'

'Cave must've been cramped,' said Theodore.

'Wasn' room ter swing a Kneazle,' said Hagrid.

'Didn't they attack you when they saw you?' asked Kirra. 

'Probably woulda done if they'd bin in any condition,' said Hagrid, 'but they was badly hurt, all three o' them; Golgomath's lot had beaten 'em unconscious; they'd woken up an' crawled inter the nearest shelter they could find. Anyway, one o' them had a bit of English an' 'e translated fer the others, an' what we had ter say didn' seem ter go down too badly. So we kep' goin' back, visitin' the wounded ... I reckon we had abou' six or seven o' them con- vinced at one poin'.'

'Six or seven?' said Theo eagerly. 'Well that's not bad – are they going to come over here and start fighting You-Know-Who with us?'

But Kirra said, 'What do you mean "at one point", Hagrid?' Hagrid looked at her sadly.

'Golgomath's lot raided the caves. The ones tha' survived didn' wan' no more ter to do with us after that.'

'So ... so there aren't any giants coming?' said Jasper, looking disappointed.