Megan Potter - A Saga of the Heart - Book 6 - Dark Temptation-

Chapter 22 - Facing the music

Hagrid was in the pumpkin patch when they reached his hut. He looked up at them. And Megan was hurt, though she understood, to see anger in his eyes. He trudged into the house and left the door open, which they took as a permission to enter.

"Whaddya wan'?" he asked grumpily.

"We... wanted to see you..." Hermione said tentatively.

"We missed you," Megan said.

"Yeah, righ'. Didn't miss me enough to carry on my classes, did yeh?"

"We wanted to," Megan said. "We did. But we just couldn't fit it into our timetables."

"Yeah, righ'."

Ron suddenly yelped and jumped away from the table. Megan looked over and saw a large barrel of huge white worms.

"Hagrid, what...?"

"Jus' giant grubs. They're ter feed ter Aragog."

And then, without warning, he burst into tears.

"Hagrid, what is it?"

They had only seen him in this much distress once before: three years ago, when Buckbeak had been sentenced to execution.

"It's... Aragog, he... h-he's been ill since this summer and he's no' gettin' better... I think he's dyin'... I dunno what I'll do... we've been tergether so long..."

Aragog was Hagrid's giant spider, which he'd had since he was a teenager. He'd been accused of killing Moaning Myrtle because of him. No one said anything. They all felt the same. Hagrid had an unhealthy fondness for pets that... well, reasonable people saw as dangerous. Like Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, or his creations, Blast Ended Skrewts, or his giant half-brother Grawp. Aragog wasn't just a spider. He was a gigantic spider, about the size of Hagrid himself! This, Hermione had told them, was known as an Acromantula. Now, Megan and her friends (with the exception of Hermione, who'd been Petrified at the time) having narrowly escaped being eaten by his descendants four years before when they'd met him, they weren't too fond of him. But Hagrid loved him.

"Is... there anything we can do?" Hermione asked, ignoring Ron's vigorous head shakes.

Megan kicked him. She was with Hermione. She wasn't fond of Aragog, but she didn't want to leave Hagrid like this.

"Don' think there is, ter be honest," Hagrid snivelled. "See, the rest o' his tribe won't let anyone bu' me near him. But thanks fer offerin'. It means a lot."

He soon cheered up, after that, believing, even though none of them had shown any wish to feed grubs to a giant spider, that they would have liked to.

"Knew yeh'd find it hard to fit me in yer timetables..." he said. "Sixth year's tough, I hear. I'm sorry I've not bin... well... I just worried about Aragog... and I wondered, yeh know, whether, if Grubbly Plank had taught you..."

"She's not you, Hagrid." Megan said firmly.

True, Professor Grubbly Plank was a good teacher; but she wasn't the one who'd brought Megan to Diagon Alley, told her who she was, saved her when she was a baby... and Hagrid was good about creatures, he just had a different vision of what was dangerous than other people. He'd always known his stuff about the creatures he'd shown his students (well, except the Skrewts, because he'd created them). At least, when they left the cabin, he was back to his cheery self.

Megan was starving when they returned to the castle. But when they reached the doors, Megan let the boys in ahead.

"You know," she said to Hermione in a low voice. "I think McLaggen did look Confunded."