Harry Potters Twin Book Four

Hagrid's Humiliation

"But what you're not telling me is why you didn't just tell us why Hagrid is staying couped up in his house," I snapped frostily as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dani, and I walked down the grounds after dinner. "I mean, we're his friends too, Harry."

"I didn't tell you because I was too busy reading the article about you snogging Cedric," Harry replied, though he only sounded upset now instead of furious like he was before.

I huffed and glanced at Dani, who just shrugged.

"How could Rita Skeeter be so evil?" I fumed. "Does she have no heart?"

"She is a horrid woman," Hermione agreed. "Writing that Hagrid was half-giant to the entire world..."

We stopped at him cabin door. We glanced at eachother and Harry steped foreward.

"Hagrid, it's us!" Harry shouted, pounding on the door. "Open up!"

Hagrid didn't answer. I could hear Fang scratching at the door, whining, but it didn't open. I hammered on it for ten more minutes; Ron even went and banged on one of the windows, but there was no response.

"What's he avoiding us for?" Hermione said when we had finally given up and were walking back to the school. "He surely doesn't think we'd care about him being half-giant?"

But it seemed that Hagrid did care. We didn't see a sign of him all week. He didn't appear at the staff table at mealtimes, we didn't see him going about his gamekeeper duties on the grounds, and Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes. Malfoy was gloating at every possible opportunity.

The worst part was that he only gloated when teachers were around, so he was safe from our retaliation. Dani wanted to badly to punch him in the nose she sat rigid in her seat with her hands clamped together.

There was a Hogsmeade visit halfway through January. Dani was disaproval when I announced that I was going.

"You should take the quiet to your advantage, Nixie," she said, her voice a little edgy because we had to endure an hours worth of Malfoy's taunting. "You could figure out that egg."

"I need a brake from that stupid egg," I said truthfully. "And besides. Cedric keeps dropping hints to me on how it works..."

"Well tell him to just tell you exactly how it works," Dani said. "He would listen to you, he is your boyfriend after all."

"He was going to, right after the Yule Ball, but I want to try and figure it out for myself..." I said.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I left the castle together on Saturday and set off through the cold, wet grounds toward the gates. As we passed the Durmstrang ship moored in the lake, we saw Viktor Krum emerge onto the deck, dressed in nothing but swimming trunks.

He was very skinny indeed, but apparently a lot tougher than he looked, because he climbed up onto the side of the ship, stretched out his arms, and dived, right into the lake.

"He's mad!" said Harry, staring at Krums dark head as it bobbed out into the middle of the lake. "It must be freezing, it's January!"

"It's a lot colder where he comes from," said Hermione. "I suppose it feels quite warm to him."

"Yeah, but there's still the giant squid," said Ron. He didn't sound anxious – if anything, he sounded hopeful. Hermione noticed his tone of voice and frowned.

"He's really nice, you know," she said. "He's not at all like you'd think, coming from Durmstrang. He likes it much better here, he told me."

Ron said nothing, which I thought was a marical because normally he would have made a stupid / jealous comment.