Babysitting Hogwarts {Book 1}

Giants

Percy

We arrived at Hagrid's house about ten minutes late by the time we had dried off. Harry pounded on the door and a dog started barking. 

"Hagrid, it's us!" Harry called. 

"Shoulda known!" a gruff voice called back. "Get down, Fang! Stop barkin' will yer?" The door opened to show Hagrid's face. Hermione screamed. "Keep it down will ya?" Hagrid shushed her. He ushered us in. Hermione and Ron looked horrified. Hagrid's hair was matted with blood and his left eye was reduced to nothing more than a slit. He moved gingerly -- I suspected broken ribs. 

"What happened to you Hagrid?" Harry asked. 

"Nothin'." 

"Where have you been? We haven't seen you in ages," Hermione said. 

"I've been runnin' an errand fer Dumbledore," Hagrid said, sitting down. Annabeth passed him a wet towel and he placed it on a particularly bad-looking gash above his eyebrow. Wincing, Hagrid put the towel down and limped to the large table in the centre of his cabin and moved aside a tea towel. Underneath was a large piece of green coloured meat. 

"You're not going to eat that, are you Hagrid?" Ron asked. "It looks poisoned."

"Course not," Hagrid said and slapped the meat onto the side of his face. He sighed. "Tha's better. Numbs ther pain, yer see," 

"Better tell Will that one," I muttered to Annabeth. The corners of her mouth twitched. 

"What happened?" Hermione asked, setting down six cups of tea in front of us on the table.

"Nothin'. More'n me job's worth ter tell yer that."

"Did the giants beat you up, Hagrid?" asked Hermione quickly. I spit out my tea. Hagrid seemed to have the same reaction as I did, because he dropped the meat. 

"Giants?" said Hagrid, quickly picking the steak up and slapped it back on his face, "who said anything' abou' giants? Who yeh bin talkin' to? Who's told yeh what I've - who's said I've bin - eh?"

"We guessed," Hermione said apologetically. They guessed?! How do you guess something like that, and what was Hagrid doing with giants? 

"It was kind of... obvious," said Ron. Harry nodded. Not obvious to me, apparently. 

"Never known anyone like yer three. An' I'm not complimentin' either. Some would call it bein' nosy. Interferin'" 

"So you were looking for giants then?" Harry asked. 

"Yeah all righ' there's no poin' denyin' it," Hagrid grunted. 

"Did you find them?" Hermione asked in a hushed voice. 

"Well, yeah. Ther not tha' hard to fin'. They're so big yer see."

"Where are they?" I asked quickly. 

"Mountains" Hagrid replied. 

"So why don't muggles..." Ron asked. 

"Well, they do, yer see. On'y their death's are put down ter mountain accidents, aren' they?"

"Come on Hagrid, tell us what you've been up too!" Ron insisted. 

"Well, yer see, me an' Olympe - Madam Maxime - wen' ter try ter convince them ter join the cause, bu' we weren't the on'y ones," Hagrid said in a hushed voice. 

"Death Eaters." Harry said. 

"Yeah, well they weren' to excited for us ter come, yer see.  They kept refusin' ter get involved. 'Cause they said tha' they had heard rumours that their enemies were involved with Dumbledore," Hagrid said. I got a chill up my spine. 

"What did you do?" I whispered. I was afraid of his answer, if the giants had mentioned any of our names, then our cover was blown. 

"Well, we told em tha' we had no idea wha' they were talkin' abou': enemies? Bu' they kept insisting tha' we had joined forces with," he used air quotes, "'children o' the future.'" My heart stopped for a solid three seconds. 

"What?" Harry exclaimed. 

"Yeah."

Annabeth grabbed my hand under the table. This was bad, this was very bad. 

"That's weird," Hermione said. "What does that mean?" 

"No clue," Hagrid shrugged. 

"How big were they?" Ron asked, curious. 

"Abou' twenty feet."

"Thirty," I mumbled. 

"Uh, yeah," Hagrid said. "Maybe abou' that." 

"How many were there?" I asked. 

"Abou' eighty left. They've had lots of wars amongst each other. They've bin killing themselves off fer a while now."

That sounded like giants. I looked at Annabeth. She nodded and stood up. 

"Thank you Hagrid, but I should go now. I have homework to complete," She smiled and walked out of the cabin. 

"I should go too," I said standing up. "Thank you Hagrid." 

Harry

Hagrid finished telling us about the giants around dinner time. He told us that we had to leave, but we wanted to ask him about something first. 

"What do you think of the Americans Hagrid?" Hermione asked. 

"Well, I think that ther a good bunch. Ther nice enough." Hagrid said uncomfortably.

"What's wrong Hagrid?" I asked. 

"Well, I didn' wan' ter say anythin' in front of them, but the giants did say somethin that got me thinkin'. See, the chief kept talkin' abou' six people. Ring any bells?"

"The prophecy," I breathed, remembering the prophecy that had been given before Christmas. 

"An' they kep' tellin' us abou' a differen' prophecy bu' I would'n' dare repeat i'. It's somethin' Death Eaters woul' enjoy, it's so dark. I jus' feel weird around them exchange students. They give off a weird energy, like somethin' deep down in my bones jus' don' trust 'em."

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A/N

My computer hated this chapter. It gave up towards the end, I think spell check might have gone on strike. 

Thank you to all my readers!

~pearjam

Edit 7/10/19: wow what a massive plot hole I just had to cover up. But it's fine now. I just hope it kind of makes sense. Also, forgive my terrible impression of writing Hagrid's dialogue I have no idea how it works.