D.H.P.C.C.G. - Rubeus Hagrid

Name/Aliases: Rubeus Hagrid
Appearances/Mentions: All four books
Summary/Comments: Born in 1929 of Mr. Hagrid and Fridwulfa the Giant. Hagrid first went to Hogwarts in 1940. His father died in 1942. Hagrid was expelled in 1943 when he was wrongly accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets and letting the "fanged beast" loose on fellow students. Professor Albus Dumbledore prevailed on Headmaster Armando Dippet to allow Hagrid to stay on as the assistant gamekeeper as he no longer had family available to take care of him. Albus stood as a father for Hagrid, allowing him to keep his broken wand hidden in a small pink umbrella. Hagrid eventually became not only the Gamekeeper in his time, but "The keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts. When Albus became Headmaster, Hagrid became his most trusted friend on the grounds. Hagrid is trusted with the most important things that the headmaster cannot assign to one of the teachers. He was sent to rescue the young Harry Potter after the disaster at Godric's Hollow. He was also sent to give Harry his letter and to insure that all of Harry's supplies were ready for the first year. In Harry's 3rd year Hagrid was made the teacher for Care of Magical Creatures. Fond of drinking. Excessively fond of creatures which would be considered dangerous, but which he thinks are cuddly. Presents a fearsome appearance. Kind and gentle disposition.

Physical Description: Hagrid, being half giant, is almost twice as tall as a normal man and alt least five times as wide. He has a wild appearance with long tangles of bushy black hair and beard which hides most of his face. He has glinting beetle-black colored eyes that crinkle when he smiles. His hands are as large as trash can lids and his feet look like baby dolphins in leather boots. His arms are vast and muscular

Friends/Relatives: Friends include Charlie and Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore.
Father: a short wizard with Rubeus' crinkled black eyes (unknown first name)
Mother : Fridwulfa the Giantess, who leaves the family when he is 3 years of age

A Hagrid Dictionary: Most people don't know how to write accents, so most don't even try. Hit this link for suggestions on writing Hagrid.

More information can be gained from the Online Lexicon
 Hagrid's Home can be found at the Online Lexicon as well.

Important Events/Quotes:



Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone/ Sorcerer's Stone Hagrid gets introduced = pp. 14,15
        "Yes — yes, you're right, of course. But " how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.
        "Hagrid's bringing him."
        "You think it — wise — to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"
        "I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.
        "I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless He does tend to — what was that?"
        A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up it the sky — and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed in the road in front of them.
        If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting ride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild — long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.
"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"
        "Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."       
        "No problems, were there?"
        "No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."

Hagrid says goodbye = pp. 15,16
         "Could I — could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.
        "Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"
        "S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it — Lily an' James dead — an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles —"
        "Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.
        "Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."
        "Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall — Professor Dumbledore, sir."
        Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.
Hagrid Brings Harry his letter = pp. 46-51
         "Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you — I'm armed!"
        There was a pause. Then —
        SMASH!
        The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its ‘ hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.
        A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.        The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.
        "Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy
journey. . . ."
        He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.
        "Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.
        Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.
        "An' here's Harry!" said the giant.
        Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.
        "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer moms eyes."
        Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.
        "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"
        "Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.
        Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.
        "Anyway — Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."
>From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.
        Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"
        The giant chuckled.
        "True, I haven't introduced myself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."
        He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.
        "What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."
        His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.
        The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."
        The giant chuckled darkly.         "Yer great puddin' of a son don need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."
        He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."
        The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
        "Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts — yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."
        "Er — no," said Harry.
        Hagrid looked shocked.
        "Sorry," Harry said quickly.
        "Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"
        "All what?" asked Harry.
        "ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"
        He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.
        "Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING?"
        Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.
        "I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."         But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."
        "What world?"
        Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.
        "DURSLEY!" he boomed.
        Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.
        "But yeh must know about yer mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."
        "What? My — my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"
        "Yeh don' know . . . yeh don' know ..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.
        "Yeh don' know what yeh are?." he said finally.
        Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.
        "Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell to tell the boy anything!"
        A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.
        "You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"
        "Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.
        "STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.
        Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.
        "Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry — yer a wizard."
        There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.
        "I'm a what?" gasped Harry.
        "A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."
………
(HAGRID WAITS WHILE HARRY READS HIS LETTER.)
 pp. 52-76
         Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"
        "Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl — a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl — a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:

          Dear Professor Dumbledore,
          Given Harry his letter.
          Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.
          Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.
          Hagrid
Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as"' talking on the telephone.
        Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.
        "Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.
        "He's not going," he said.
        Hagrid grunted.
        "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.
        "A what?" said Harry, interested.
        "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
……
        The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.
        "I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh — but someone's gotta — yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."
        He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.
        "Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh — mind, I cant tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it. . . ."
        He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with — with a person called — but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows —"
        "Who?"
        "Well — I don like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."
        "Why not?"
        "Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are sill scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went. . . bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was. . ."
        Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.
        "Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.
        "Nah — can't spell it. All right — Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Don make me say it again. Anyway, this — this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got ‘em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, ‘cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't
know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches.. . terrible things happened. He was takin' over. ‘Course, some stood up to him — an' he killed ‘em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.
        "Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get ‘em on his side before . . . probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.
        "Maybe he thought he could persuade ‘em . . . maybe he just wanted ‘em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' — an' —"
        Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.
        "Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad — knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find — anyway . . .
        "You-Know-Who killed ‘em. An' then — an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing — he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even — but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ‘em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards
of the age — the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts — an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."
        Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before — and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.
        Hagrid was watching him sadly.
        "Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot. . ."
        "Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.
        "Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured — and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion — asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types — just what I expected, always knew they'd come o a sticky end —"
        But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley — I'm warning you — one more word . . ."
        In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.
        "That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this rime sagged right down to the floor.
        Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.
        "But what happened to Vol-, sorry — I mean, You-Know-Who?"
        "Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see . . . he was gettin' more an' more powerful — why'd he go?
        "Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of ‘em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.
        "Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. ‘Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on — I dunno what it was, no one does — but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
        Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?
        "Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."
        To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.
        "Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"
        Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it. .. every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry. . . chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach . . . dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back . . . and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?
        Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.
        "See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard — you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."
        But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.
        "Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish — spell books and wands and —"
        "If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbledore —"
        "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.
        But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER —" he thundered, " — INSULT — ALBUS — DUMBLEDORE — IN — FRONT — OF — ME!"
        He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.
        Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.
        Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.
        "Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."
        He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.
        "Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm — er — not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff — one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job — "
        "Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
        "Oh, well — I was at Hogwarts meself but I — er — got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."
        "Why were you expelled?"
        "It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."
        He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.
"You can kip under that," he said. "Don mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

        Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.
        "It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."
        There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.
        And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.
        Tap. Tap. Tap.
        "All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up."
        He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.
        Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him. He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.
        "Don't do that."
        Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.
        "Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl —"
        "Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.
        "What?"
        "He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets."
        Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags . . . finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.
        "Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.
        "Knuts?"
        "The little bronze ones."
        Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.
        Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.
        "Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."
        Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.
        "Um — Hagrid?"
        "Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.
        "I haven't got any money — and you heard Uncle Vernon last night. . . he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."
        "Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"
        "But if their house was destroyed —"
        "They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold — an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."
        "Wizards have banks?"
        "Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."
        Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding.
        "Goblins?"
        "Yeah — so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe — ‘cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you gettin things from Gringotts — knows he can trust me, see.
        "Got everythin'? Come on, then."
        Harry followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.
        "How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat.
        "Flew," said Hagrid.
        "Flew?"
        "Yeah — but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh."
They settled down In the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.
        "Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If l was ter — er — speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"
        "Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.
        "Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.
        "Spells — enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the high-security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way — Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."
        Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he'd never had so many questions in his life.
        "Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.
        "There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could stop himself.
        " ‘Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minis-
ter, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."
        "But what does a Ministry of Magic do?"
        "Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."
        "Why?"
        "Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."
        At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.
        Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"
        "Hagrid," said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"
        "Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."
        "You'd like one?"
        "Wanted one ever since I was a kid — here we go."
        They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minures' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.
        People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.
        "Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted stitches.
        Harry took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.
        "Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."
        Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before, and read:

"Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.

"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.

Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.
        "I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.
Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry
had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up? If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.
        This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. Its a famous place."
It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.
        For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"
        "Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and making Harry's knees buckle.
…..
        But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.
"Must get on — lots ter buy. Come on, Harry."
        Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.
        Hagrid grinned at Harry.
        "Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh — mind you, he's usually tremblin'."
        "Is he always that nervous?"
        "Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was
studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience. . . . They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag — never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject — now, where's me umbrella?"
        Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.
        "Three up . . . two across. . ." he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."
        He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.
        The brick he had touched quivered — it wriggled — in the middle, a small hole appeared — it grew wider and wider — a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.
        "Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."
        He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.
The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldron's outside the nearest shop. cauldron's — All Sizes — Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver — Self-Stirring — Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.
        "Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."
        Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was
shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad. ..."
        A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon.. . .
        ‘Gringotts," said Hagrid.
        They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was
        "Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

            Enter, stranger, but take heed
          Of what awaits the sin of greed,
          For those who take, but do not earn,
          Must pay most dearly in their turn.
          So if you seek beneath our floors
          A treasure that was never yours,
          Thief, you have been warned, beware
          Of finding more than treasure there.
        "Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.
        A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made for the counter.
        "Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."
        "You have his key, sir?"
        "Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.
        "Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.
        The goblin looked at it closely.
        "That seems to be in order."
        "An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."
        The goblin read the letter carefully.
"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"
Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed
all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.
        "What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.
        "Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."
        Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in — Hagrid with some difficulty — and were off.
        At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.
        Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late — they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.
        "I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"
"Stalagmite's got an m' in it," said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."

        He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.
        Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.
        "All yours," smiled Hagrid.
        All Harry's — it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.
        Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.
        "The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"
        "One speed only," said Griphook.
        They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.
        Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.
        "Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.
        If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.
        "How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.
        "About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.
        Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least — but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.
        Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.

One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life — more money than even Dudley had ever had. "Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.
(Hagrid leaves at this point and Harry goes into Madam Malkin's shop where he meets Draco)
 Hagrid helps Harry finish his shopping = pp. 78-83
         "I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.
        "That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."
        ‘Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"
        "He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.
        "Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage — lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."
        ‘I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.
…..
        Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).
"What's up?" said Hagrid.
        "Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"
        "Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know — not knowin' about Quidditch!"
        "Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.
        " — and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in —"
        "Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were — he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in ‘em in a long line o' Muggles — look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"
        "So what is Quidditch?"
        Its our sport. Wizard sport. Its like — like soccer in the Muggle world — everyone follows Quidditch — played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls — sorta hard ter explain the rules."
        "And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"
        "School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but —"
        "I bet Fm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily.
        "Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."
        Vol-, sorry — You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"
        "Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.
        They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Counter-curses (Bewitch Your Friends and. Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.
        "I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."
        "I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."
        Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up
for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).
        Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's list again.
        "Just yer wand left — oh yeah, an I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."
        Harry felt himself go red.
        "You don't have to —"
        "I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at — an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."
        Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.
        "Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now — only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."
…..
        He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid.
        "Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again. . . . Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"
        "It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.
        "Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.
        "Er — yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.
        "But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.
        "Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.
        "Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now — Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"
(harry gets the right wand)
pp. 85-87
         The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall,
back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.
        "Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.
He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.
        "You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.
        Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life — and yet — he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.
        :Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in e Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander . . . but I don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry — I mean, the night my parents died."
        Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.
        "Don you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know its hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts — I did — still do, ‘smatter of fact."
        Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.
        "Yer ticket fer Hogwarts," he said. "First o' September — King's Cross — it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me. . . . See yeh soon, Harry."
        The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.
Hagrid meets the students from the train = pp. 111-113
         The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"
        Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.
        "C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
        Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.
        "Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."
        There was a loud "Oooooh!"
        The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
        "No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.
"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then — FORWARD'."
        And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.
        "Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
        "Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.
        "Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.
        They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
        "Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"
Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.
        The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in Emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.
        "The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.
Hagrid's seat at the table = p.122
         He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up. Harry grinned back.
At the end of the feast = p.126
         Harry, who was standing to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet.
Hagrid sends a letter = pp. 135,136
         Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Harry,
          I know you get Friday afternoons off,
so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me
around three?
          I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer
back with Hedwig.
          Hagrid
Harry borrowed Ron's quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.
        It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.
Hagrid's cabin after potions class = pp. 140 - 142
         "Cheer up," said Ron, "Snape's always taking points off Fred and George. Can I come and meet Hagrid with you?"
        At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.
        When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back, Fang — back."
        Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.
        "Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."
        He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.
        There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.
        "Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.
        "This is Ron," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.
        "Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles "I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest."
        The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry and Ron pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.

        Harry and Ron were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old git."
        "An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her — Filch puts her up to it."
        Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron, told Harry not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.
        "But he seemed to really hate me."
        "Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"
        Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.
        "How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot — great with animals."
        Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose. While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

          GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
          Investigations continue into the break-in at
          Gringotts on 3I July, widely believed to be the
          Work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.
                  Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing
          Had been taken. The vault that was searched had in
          Fact been emptied the same day.
                  "But we're not telling you what was in there, so
          keep your noses out if you know what's good
          for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this after-
          noon.

Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.
        "Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"
        There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
        As Harry and Ron walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?
One of Hagrid's duties = p.180
         Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaverskin boots.
At the Quidditch match = pp. 186,187
         Gryffindor cheers filled the cold air, with howls and moans from the Slytherins.
        "Budge up there, move along."
        "Hagrid!"
        Ron and Hermione squeezed together to give Hagrid enough space to join them.
        "Bin watchin' from me hut," said Hagrid, patting a large pair of binoculars around his neck, "But it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?"
        "Nope," said Ron. "Harry hasn't had much to do yet."
        "Kept outta trouble, though, that's something," said Hagrid, raising his binoculars and peering skyward at the speck that was Harry.
Hagrid shows concern = p.188
         "Foul!" screamed the Gryffindors.
        Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free sot at the goal posts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.
        Down in the stands, Dean Thomas was yelling, "Send him off, ref! Red card!"
        "What are you talking about, Dean?" said Ron.
        "Red card!" said Dean famously. "In soccer you get shown the red card and you're out of the game!"
        "But this isn't soccer, Dean," Ron reminded him.
        Hagrid, however, was on Dean's side.
        "They oughta change the rules. Flint coulda knocked Harry outta the air."
Hagrid's comments at Quidditch about brooms = pp. 189,190
         "Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing," Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. "If I didn' know better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom . . . but he can't have. . . ."
        Suddenly, people were pointing up at Harry all over the stands.
His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's boom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand.
        "Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?" Seamus whispered.
        "Can't have," Hagrid said, his voice shaking. "Can't nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic — no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand."
        At these words, Hermione seized Hagrid's binoculars, but instead of looking up at Harry, she started looking frantically at the crowd.
Back at Hagrid's hut = p.191-193
         Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty. Harry heard none of this, though. He was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut, with Ron and Hermione.
        "It was Snape," Ron was explaining, "Hermione and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you."
        "Rubbish," said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"
        Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another, wondering what to tell him. Harry decided on the truth.
        "I found out something about him," he told Hagrid. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."
        Hagrid dropped the teapot.
        "How do you know about Fluffy?" he said.
        "Fluffy?"
        "Yeah — he's mine — bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year — I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the —"
        "Yes?" said Harry eagerly.
        "Now, don't ask me anymore," said Hagrid gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."
        "But Snape's trying to steal it."
        "Rubbish," said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."
        "So why did he just try and kill Harry?" cried Hermione.
        The afternoon's events certainly seemed to have changed her mind about Snape.
        "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them!
You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"
        "I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh — yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an Nicolas Flamel —"
        "Aha!" said Harry, "so there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?"
        Hagrid looked furious with himself.
Hagrid takes care of the owls = p.194
         The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again.
Hagrid brings in Christmas trees = pp. 195 - 197
         When they left the dungeons at the end of Potions, they found a large fir tree blocking the corridor ahead. Two enormous feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound told them that Hagrid was behind it.
        "Hi, Hagrid, want any help?" Ron asked, sticking his head through the branches.
        "Nah, I'm all right, thanks, Ron."
        Would you mind moving out of the way?" came Malfoy's cold drawl from behind them. "Are you trying to earn some extra
Money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose — that hut of Hagrid's must seem like a palace compared to what your family's used to."
        Ron dived at Malfoy just as Snape came up the stairs.
        "WEASLEY!"
        Ron let go of the front of Malfoy's robes.
        "He was provoked, Professor Snape," said Hagrid, sticking hi; huge hairy face out from behind the tree. "Malfoy was insultin' his family."
        "Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid," said Snape silkily. "Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn't more. Move along, all of you."        
        Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle pushed roughly past the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.
        "I'll get him," said Ron, grinding his teeth at Malfoy's back, "one of these days, I'll get him —"
        "I hate them both," said Harry, "Malfoy and Snape."
        "Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas," said Hagrid. "Tell yeh what, come with me an' see the Great Hall, looks a treat."
        So the three of them followed Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.
        "Ah, Hagrid, the last tree — put it in the far corner, would you?"
        The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.
        "How many days you got left until yer holidays?" Hagrid asked.
"Just one," said Hermione. "And that reminds me — Harry, Ron, we've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."
        "Oh yeah, you're right," said Ron, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree
        "The library?" said Hagrid, following them out of the hall. "Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"
        "Oh, we're not working," Harry told him brightly. "Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is."
        "You what?" Hagrid looked shocked. "Listen here — I've told yeh — drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guardin'."
        "We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all," said Hermione.
        "Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Harry added. "We must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere — just give us a hint — I know I've read his name somewhere."
        "I'm sayin' nothin'," said Hagrid flatly.
        "Just have to find out for ourselves, then," said Ron, and they left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.
Hagrid gives a gift = p.200
         Harry picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Harry, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Harry blew it — it sounded a bit like an owl.
Celebrating Christmas = pp. 203-204
         Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver sickle embedded in his slice. Harry
Watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Harry's amazement, giggled and blushed, her top hat lopsided.
Hagrid in the Library = pp. 226,227
         Harry, who was looking up "Dittany" in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Ron say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"
        Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.
        "Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He looked suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"
        "Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron impressively. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St —"
        Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"
        "There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact," said Harry, "about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy —"
        "SHHHH!" said Hagrid again. "Listen — come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh —"
        "See you later, then," said Harry.
        Hagrid shuffled off.
Back in Hagrid's Hut = pp. 228-230
         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 stifling 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.
        "So — yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"
        "Yes," said Harry. There was no point beating around the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy."
        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' 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 abou' Fluffy."
        "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. Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. "We only wondered who had done the guarding, really." Hermione went on. "We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you."
        Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Harry and Ron beamed at Hermione.
        "Well, I don' s'ppose it could hurt ter tell yeh that. . . lets see . . . he borrowed Fluffy from me . . . then some o' the teachers did enchantments . . . Professor Sprout — Professor Flitwick — Professor McGonagall —" he ticked them off on his fingers, "Professor Quirrell — an' Dumbledore himself did somethin, o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."
"Snape?"
        "Yeah — yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."
        Harry knew Ron and Hermione were thinking the same as he was. If Snape had been in on protecting the Stone, it must have been easy to find out how the other teachers had guarded it. He probably knew everything — except, it seemed, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy.
        "You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" said Harry anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"
        "Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore." said Hagrid proudly.
        "Well, that's something," Harry muttered to the others. "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling."        
        "Can't, Harry, sorry," said Hagrid. Harry noticed him glance at the fire. Harry looked at it, too.
        "Hagrid — what's that?"
        But he already knew what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg.
        "Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, "That's — er . . . "
        "Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune."
        "Won it," said Hagrid. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."
        "But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" said Hermione.
        "Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this outta the library — Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit — it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, ‘cause their mothers breathe on ‘em, see, an when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here — how ter recognize diff'rent eggs — what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."
        He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't.
        "Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," she said.
        But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.

So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.
The Dragon Hatches = pp. 231-233
         Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited.
        "It's nearly out." He ushered them inside.
        The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it.
        They all drew their chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath.
        All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; Harry thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes.
        It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.
        "Isn't he beautiful!" Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.
        "Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!" said Hagrid.
        "Hagrid," said Hermione, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"
        Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face — he leapt to his feet and ran to the window.
        "Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains — it's a kid — he's runnin' back up ter the school."
        Harry bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking him.
        Malfoy had seen the dragon

Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy's face during the next week made Harry, Ron, and Hermione very nervous. They spent most of their free time in Hagrid's darkened hut, trying to reason with him.
        "Just let him go," Harry urged. "Set him free."
"I can't," said Hagrid. "He's too little. He'd die."
        They looked at the dragon. It had grown three times in length in just a week. Smoke kept furling out of its nostrils. Hagrid hadn't been doing his gamekeeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over the floor.
        "I've decided to call him Norbert," said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. "He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mommy?"
        "He's lost his marbles," Ron muttered in Harry's ear.
        "Hagrid," said Harry loudly, "give it two weeks and Norbert's going to be as long as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment."
        Hagrid bit his lip.
        "I — I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't."
        Harry suddenly turned to Ron.
        "Charlie," he said.
        "You're losing it, too," said Ron. "I'm Ron, remember?"
        "No — Charlie — your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!"
        "Brilliant!" said Ron. "How about it, Hagrid?"
        And in the end, Hagrid agreed that they could send an owl to Charlie to ask him.
Hagrid and Norbert at home = pp. 236,237
         "I won't let you in," he puffed. "Norbert's at a tricky stage — nothin' I can't handle."
        When they told him about Charlie's letter, his eyes filled with tears, although that might have been because Norbert had just bitten him on the leg.
        "Aargh! It's all right, he only got my boot — jus' playin' — he's only a baby, after all."
        The baby banged its tail on the wall, making the windows rattle. Harry and Hermione walked back to the castle feeling Saturday couldn't come quickly enough.

They would have felt sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say good-bye to Norbert if they hadn't been so worried about what they had to do. It was a very dark, cloudy night, and they were a bit late arriving at Hagrid's hut because they'd had to wait for Peeves to get out of their way in the entrance hall, where he'd been playing tennis against the wall.
        Hagrid had Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.
        "He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a muffled voice. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely."
        From inside the crate came ripping noises that sounded to Harry as though the teddy was having his head torn off.
        "Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed, as Harry and Hermione covered he crate with the invisibility cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mommy will never forget you!"
Into the forest = pp. 245-252
         The moon was bright, but clouds scudding across it kept throwing them into darkness. Ahead, Harry could see the lighted windows of Hagrid's hut. Then they heard a distant shout.
        "Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started."
        Harry's heart rose; if they were going to be working with Hagrid it wouldn't be so bad. His relief must have showed in his face, because Filch said, I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself
with that oaf? Well, think again, boy — it's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece."
        At this, Neville let out a little moan, and Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks.
        "The forest?" he repeated, and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. "We can't go in there at night — there's all sorts of things in there — werewolves, I heard."
        Neville clutched the sleeve of Harry's robe and made a choking noise.
        "That's your problem, isn't it?" said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. "Should've thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn't you?"
        Hagrid came striding toward them out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder.
        "Abou' time," he said. "I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione?"
        "I shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid," said Filch coldly, "they're here to be punished, after all."
        "That's why yer late, is it?" said Hagrid, frowning at Filch. "Bin lecturing them, eh? ‘Snot your place ter do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."
        "I'll be back at dawn," said Filch, "for what's left of them," he added nastily, and he turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.
        Malfoy now turned to Hagrid.
        "I'm not going in that forest," he said, and Harry was pleased to hear the note of panic in his voice.
        "Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts," said Hagrid fiercely. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it."
        "But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he'd —"
        " — tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid growled. "Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an' pack. Go on!"
        Malfoy didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.
        "Right then," said Hagrid, "now, listen carefully, ‘cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment."
        He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.
        "Look there," said Hagrid, "see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."
        "And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" said Malfoy, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.
        "There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter into pairs an' follow the trail in diff'rent direcrions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."
        "I want Fang," said Malfoy quickly, looking at Fang's long teeth.
        "All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid. "So me, Harry, an' Hermione'll go one way an' Draco, Neville, an Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now — that's it — an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh — so, be careful — let's go."
        The forest was black and silent. A little way into it they reached a fork in the earth path, and Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid took the left path while Malfoy, Neville, and Fang took the right.
        They walked in silence, their eyes on the ground. Every now and then a ray of moonlight through the branches above lit a spot of silver-blue blood on the fallen leaves.
        Harry saw that Hagrid looked very worried.
        "Could a werewolf be killing the unicorns?" Harry asked.
        "Not fast enough," said Hagrid. "It's not easy ter catch a unicorn, they're powerful magic creatures. I never knew one ter be hurt before."
        They walked past a mossy tree stump. Harry could hear running water; there must be a stream somewhere close by. There were still spots of unicorn blood here and there along the winding path.
        "You all right, Hermione?" Hagrid whispered. "Don' worry, it can't've gone far if it's this badly hurt, an' then we'll be able ter —
"— GET BEHIND THAT TREE!"
        Hagrid seized Harry and Hermione and hoisted them off the path behind a towering oak. He pulled out an arrow and fitted it
into his crossbow, raising it, ready to fire. The three of them listened. Something was slithering over dead leaves nearby: it sounded like a cloak trailing along the ground. Hagrid was squinting up the dark path, but after a few seconds, the sound faded away.
        "I knew it, he murmured. There's summat in here that shouldn' be."
        "A werewolf?" Harry suggested.        
        "That wasn' no werewolf an' it wasn' no unicorn, neither," said Hagrid grimly. "Right, follow me, but careful, now."
        They walked more slowly, ears straining for the faintest sound. Suddenly, in a clearing ahead, something definitely moved.
        "Who's there?" Hagrid called. "Show yerself — I'm armed!"
        And into the clearing came — was it a man, or a horse? To the waist, a man, with red hair and beard, but below that was a horse's gleaming chestnut body with a long, reddish tail. Harry and Hermione's jaws dropped.
        "Oh, it's you, Ronan," said Hagrid in relief. "How are yeh?"
        He walked forward and shook the centaurs hand.
        "Good evening to you, Hagrid," said Ronan. He had a deep, sorrowful voice. "Were you going to shoot me?"
        "Can't be too careful, Ronan," said Hagrid, patting his crossbow. "There's summat bad loose in this forest. This is Harry Potter an' Hermione Granger, by the way. Students up at the school. An' this is Ronan, you two. He's a centaur."
        "We'd noticed," said Hermione faintly.
        "Good evening," said Ronan. "Students, are you? And do you learn much, up at the school?"
        "Erm —"
        "A bit,' said Hermione timidly.
        "A bit. Well, that's something." Ronan sighed. He flung back his head and stared at the sky. "Mars is bright tonight."
        "Yeah," said Hagrid, glancing up, too. "Listen, I'm glad we've run inter yeh, Ronan, ‘cause there's a unicorn bin hurt — you seen anythin'?"
        Ronan didn't answer immediately. He stared unblinkingly upward, then sighed again.
        "Always the innocent are the first victims," he said. "So it has been for ages past, so it is now."
        "Yeah," said Hagrid, "but have yeh seen anythin', Ronan? Anythin' unusual?"
        "Mars is bright tonight," Ronan repeated, while Hagrid watched him impatiently. "Unusually bright."
        "Yeah, but I was meanin' anythin' unusual a bit nearer home," said Hagrid. "So yeh haven't noticed anythin' strange?"
        Yet again, Ronan took a while to answer. At last, he said, "The forest hides many secrets."
        A movement in the trees behind Ronan made Hagrid raise his bow again, but it was only a second centaur, black-haired and –bodied and wilder-looking than Ronan.
        "Hullo, Bane," said Hagrid. "All right?"
        "Good evening, Hagrid, I hope you are well?"
        "Well enough. Look, I've jus' bin askin' Ronan, you seen anythin' odd in here lately? There's a unicorn bin injured — would yeh know anythin' about it?"
        Bane walked over to stand next to Ronan. He looked skyward.
        "Mars is bright tonight," he said simply.
        "We've heard," said Hagrid grumpily. "Well, if either of you do see anythin', let me know, wont yeh? We'll be off, then."
        Harry and Hermione followed him out of the clearing, staring over their shoulders at Ronan and Bane until the trees blocked their view.
        "Never," said Hagrid irritably, "try an' get a straight answer out of a centaur. Ruddy stargazers. Not interested in anythin' closer'n the moon."
        "Are there many of them in here?" asked Hermione.
        "Oh, a fair few. . . . Keep themselves to themselves mostly, but they're good enough about turnin' up if ever I want a word. They're deep, mind, centaurs . . . they know things. . . jus' don' let on much."
        "D'you think that was a centaur we heard earlier?" said Harry.
        "Did that sound like hooves to you? Nah, if yeh ask me, that was what's bin killin' the unicorns – never heard anythin like it before."
        They walked on through the dense, dark trees. Harry kept looking nervously over his shoulder. He had the nasty feeling they were being watched. He was very glad they had Hagrid and his crossbow with them. They had just passed a bend in the path when Hermione grabbed Hagrid's arm.
        "Hagrid! Look! Red sparks, the others are in trouble!"
        "You two wait here!" Hagrid shouted. "Stay on the path, I'll come back for yeh!"
        They heard him crashing away through the undergrowth and stood looking at each other, very scared, until they couldn't hear anything but the rustling of leaves around them.
        "You don't think they've been hurt, do you?" whispered Hermione.
        "I don't care if Malfoy has, but if something's got Neville . . . it's our fault he's here in the first place."
        The minutes dragged by. Their ears seemed sharper than usual. Harry's seemed to be picking up every sigh of the wind, every cracking twig. What was going on? Where were the others?
        At last, a great crunching noise announced Hagrid's return. Malfoy, Neville, and Fang were with him. Hagrid was fuming. Malfoy, it seemed, had sneaked up behind Neville and grabbed him as a joke. Neville had panicked and sent up the sparks.
        "We'll be lucky ter catch anythin' now, with the racket you two were makin'. Right, we're changin' groups — Neville, you stay with me an' Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an' this idiot. I'm sorry," Hagrid added in a whisper to Harry, "but he'll have a harder time frightenin' you, an' we've gotta get this done."
Hagrid lets out a secret = pp. 262,263
        outside his house; his trousers and sleeves were rolled up, and he was shelling peas into a large bowl.
        "Hullo," he said, smiling. "Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?"
        "Yes, please," said Ron, but Harry cut him off.
        "No, we're in a hurry. Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. You knew that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"
        "Dunno," said Hagrid casually, "he wouldn' take his cloak off."
        He saw the three of them look stunned and raised his eyebrows.
        "It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hogs Head — that's the pub down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up."
        Harry sank down next to the bowl of peas.
        "What did you talk to him about, Hagrid? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?"
        "Mighta come up," said Hagrid, frowning as he tried to remember. "Yeah . . . he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here. . . . He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after . . . so I told him . . . an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon . . . an then . . . I can' remember too well, ‘cause he kept buyin' me drinks. . . . Let's see . . . yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted .. . but he had ter be sure I could handle it, he didn' want it ter go ter any old home. . . . Sol told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy. …"
        "And did he — did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
        "Well — yeah — how many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll g straight off ter sleep —"
        Hagrid suddenly looked horrified.
        "I shouldn'ta told yeh that!" he blurted out. "Forget I said it! Hey — where're yeh goin'?"
Hagrid visits Harry in the infirmary = pp. 300,301
        Hagrid sidled through the door as he spoke. As usual when he was indoors, Hagrid looked too big to be allowed. He sat down next to Harry, took one look at him, and burst into tears.
        "It's — all he my — ruddy — fault!" he sobbed, his face in his hands. "I told the evil git how ter get past Fluffy' I told him! It was the only thing he didn't know, an' I told him! Yeh could've died! All fer a dragon egg! I'll never drink again! I should be chucked out an' made ter live as a Muggle!"
        "Hagrid!" said Harry, shocked to see Hagrid shaking with grief and remorse, great tears leaking down into his beard. "Hagrid, he'd have found out somehow, this is Voldemort we're talking about, he'd have found out even if you hadn't told him."
        "Yeh could've died!" sobbed Hagrid. "An' don say the name!"
        "VOLDEMORT!" Harry bellowed, and Hagrid was so shocked, he stopped crying. "I've met him and I'm calling him by his name. Please cheer up, Hagrid, we saved the Stone, it's gone, he can't use it. Have a Chocolate Frog, I've got loads. . . ."
        Hagrid wiped his nose on the back of his hand and said, "That reminds me. I've got yeh a present."
        "It's not a stoat sandwich, is it?" said Harry anxiously, and at last Hagrid gave a weak chuckle.
        "Nah. Dumbledore gave me the day off yesterday ter fix it. ‘Course, he shoulda sacked me instead — anyway, got yeh this…"
        It seemed to be a handsome, leather-covered book. Harry opened I curiously. It was full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father.
        "Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin fer photos . . . knew yeh didn' have any . . . d'yeh like it?"
        Harry couldn't speak, but Hagrid understood.
Hagrid's last duty = p.304
         Hagrid was there to take them down to the fleet of boats that sailed across the lake; they were boarding the Hogwarts Express;

Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets Hagrid finds Harry in the wrong alley = pp. 54,55
         "HARRY! What d'yeh think yer doin' down there?"
        Harry's heart leapt. So did the witch; a load of fingernails cascaded down over her feet and she cursed as the massive form of Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, came striding toward them, beetle-black eyes flashing over his great bristling beard.
        "Hagrid!" Harry croaked in relief. "I was lost — Floo powder —"
        Hagrid seized Harry by the scruff of the neck and pulled him away from the witch, knocking the tray right out of her hands. Her shrieks followed them all the way along the twisting alleyway out into bright sunlight. Harry saw a familiar, snow-white marble building in the distance — Gringotts Bank. Hagrid had steered him right into Diagon Alley.
        "Yer a mess!" said Hagrid gruffly, brushing soot off Harry so forcefully he nearly knocked him into a barrel of dragon dung outside an apothecary. "Skulkin' around Knockturn Alley, I dunno — dodgy place, Harry — don' want no one ter see yeh down there ?"
        "I realized that," said Harry, ducking as Hagrid made to brush him off again. "I told you, I was lost — what were you doing down there, anyway?"
        "I was lookin' fer a Flesh-Eatin'' Slug Repellent," growled Hagid. "They're ruinin' the school cabbages. Yer not on yer own?"
        "I'm staying with the Weasleys but we got separated," Harry explained. "I've got to go and find them…."
        They set off together down the street.
        "How come yeh never wrote back ter me?" said Hagrid as Harry jogged alongside him (he had to take three steps to every stride of Hagrid's enormous boots). Harry explained all about Dobby and the Dursleys.
        "Lousy Muggles," growled Hagrid. "If l'd've known —"
        "Harry! Harry! Over here!"
        Harry looked up and saw Hermione Granger standing at the top of the white flight of steps to Gringotts. She ran down to meet tem, her bushy brown hair flying behind her.
        "What happened to your glasses? Hello, Hagrid — Oh, it's wonderful to see you two again — Are you coming into Gringotts, Harry?"
        "As soon as I've found the Weasleys," said Harry.
        "Yeh won't have long ter wait," Hagrid said with a grin.
Hagrid the Peacekeeper = pp. 62,63
         "Break it up, there, gents, break it up —"
        Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy apart. Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye by an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. He was still holding Ginny's old Transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice.
        "Here, girl — take your book — it's the best your father can give you — " Pulling himself out of Hagrid's grip he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.
        "Yeh should've ignored him, Arthur," said Hagrid, almost lifting Mr. Weasley off his feet as he straightened his robes. "Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that ? no Malfoy's worth listenin' ter — bad blood, that's what it is ? come on now –— let's get outta here."
Second Year Feast = p.77
         A very small, mousy-haired boy had been called forward to place the hat on his head. Harry's eyes wandered past him to where Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, sat watching the Sorting from the staff table, his long silver beard and half-moon glasses shining brightly in the candlelight. Several seats along, Harry saw Gilderoy Lockhart, dressed in robes of aquamarine. And there at the end was Hagrid, huge and hairy, drinking deeply from his goblet.
Better out than in = pp. 114-118
         Hagrid appeared at once, looking very grumpy, but his expression brightened when he saw who it was.
        "Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me — come in, come in — thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again —"
        Harry and Hermione supported Ron over the threshold into the one-roomed cabin, which had an enormous bed in one corner, a fire crackling merrily in the other. Hagrid didn't seem perturbed by Ron's slug problem, which Harry hastily explained as he lowered Ron into a chair.
        "Better out than in," he said cheerfully, plunking a large copper basin in front of him. "Get ‘em all up, Ron."
        "I don't think there's anything to do except wait for it to stop," said Hermione anxiously, watching Ron bend over the basin. "That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand —"
        Hagrid was bustling around making them tea. His boarhound, Fang, was slobbering over Harry.
        "What did Lockhart want with you, Hagrid?" Harry asked, scratching Fang's ears.
        "Givin me advice on getting kelpies out of a well," growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked rooster off his scrubbed table and setting down the teapot. "Like I don' know. An' bangin' on about some banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle."
        It was most unlike Hagrid to criticize a Hogwarts' teacher, and Harry looked at him in surprise. Hermione, however, said in a vice somewhat higher than usual, "I think you're being a bit unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job —"
        "He was the on'y man for the job," said Hagrid, offering them a plate of treacle fudge, while Ron coughed squelchily into his basin. "An' I mean the on'y one. Getting' very difficult ter find anyone fer the Dark Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin' ter think it's jinxed. No ones lasted long fer a while now. So tell me," said Hagrid, jerking his head at Ron. "Who was he tryin' ter curse?"
        "Malfoy called Hermione something — it must've been really bad, because everyone went wild."
        "It was bad," said Ron hoarsely, emerging over the tabletop looking pale and sweaty. "Malfoy called her ‘Mudblood,' Hagrid —"
        Ron dived out of sight again as a fresh wave of slugs made their appearance. Hagrid looked outraged.
        "He didn'!" he growled at Hermione.
…….
        "An' they haven't invented a spell our Hermione can' do," said Hagrid proudly, making Hermione go a brilliant shade of magenta.
        "It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron, wiping his sweaty brow with a shaking hand. "Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we'dve died out."
        He retched and ducked out of sight again.
        "Well, I don' blame yeh fer tryin' ter curse him, Ron," said Hagrid loudly over the thuds of more slugs hitting the basin. "Bu' maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired. ‘Spect Lucius Malfoy would've come marchin' up ter school if yeh'd cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble."
        Harry would have pointed out that trouble didn't come much worse than having slugs pouring out of your mouth, but he couldn't; Hagrid's treacle fudge had cemented his jaws together.
        "Harry," said Hagrid abruptly as though struck by a sudden thought. "Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I've heard you've bin givin' out signed photos. How come I haven't got one?"
        Furious, Harry wrenched his teeth apart.
        "I have not been giving out signed photos," he said hotly. "If Lockhart's still spreading that around —"
        But then he saw that Hagrid was laughing.
        "I'm on'y jokin'," he said, patting Harry genially on the back and sending him face first into the table. "I knew yeh hadn't really. I told Lockhart yeh didn' need the. Yer more famous than him without tryin'."
        "Bet he didn't like that," said Harry, sitting up and rubbing his chin.
        "Don' think he did," said Hagrid, his eyes twinkling. "An' then I told him I'd never read one o' his books an' he decided ter go. Treacle fudge, Ron?" he added as Ron reappeared.
        "No thanks," said Ron weakly. "Better not risk it."
        "Come an' see what I've bin growin'," said Hagrid as Harry and Hermione finished the last of their tea.
        In the small vegetable patch behind Hagrid's house were a dozen of the largest pumpkins Harry had ever seen. Each was the size of a large boulder.
        "Getting' on well, aren't they?" said Hagrid happily. "Fer the Halloween feast.. . should be big enough by then."
        "What've you been feeding them?" said Harry.
        Hagrid looked over his shoulder to check that they were alone.
        "Well, I've bin givin' them –— you know — a bit o' help —"
        Harry noticed Hagrid's flowery pink umbrella leaning against the back wall of the cabin. Harry had had reason to believe before now that this umbrella was not all it looked; in fact, he had the strong impression that Hagrid's old school wand was concealed inside it. Hagrid wasn't supposed to use magic. He had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, but Harry had never found out why — any mention of the matter and Hagrid would clear his
throat loudly and become mysteriously deaf until the subject was changed.
        "An Engorgement Charm, I suppose?" said Hermione, halfway between disapproval and amusement. "Well, you've done a good job on them."
        "That's what yer little sister said," said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. "Met her jus' yesterday." Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching. "Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone else at my house." He winked at Harry. "If yeh ask me, she wouldn' say no ter a signed —"
        "Oh, shut up," said Harry. Ron snorted with laughter and the ground was sprayed with slugs.
        "Watch it!" Hagrid roared, pulling Ron away from his precious pumpkins.
Bugbears. = p. 201
         Harry blundered up the corridor, barely noticing where he was going, he was in such a fury. The result was that he walked into something very large and solid, which knocked him backward onto the floor.
        "Oh, hello, Hagrid," Harry said, looking up.
        Hagrid's face was entirely hidden by a woolly, snow-covered balaclava, but it couldn't possibly be anyone else, as he filled most of the corridor in his moleskin overcoat. A dead rooster was hanging from one of his massive, gloved hands.
        "All righ', Harry?" he said, pulling up the balaclava so he could speak. "Why aren't yeh in class?"
        "Canceled," said Harry, getting up. "What're you doing in here?"
        Hagrid held up the limp rooster.
        "Second one killed this term," he explained. "It's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear, an' I need the Headmaster's permission ter put a charm around the hen coop."
        He peered more closely at Harry from under his thick, snow-flecked eyebrows.
        "Yeh sure yeh're all righ'? Yeh look all hot an' bothered —"
Defending a friend = p.208
        Before Dumbledore could speak another word, however, the door of the office flew open with an almighty bang and Hagrid burst in, a wild look in his eyes, his balaclava perched on top of his shaggy black head and the dead rooster still swinging from his hand.
        "It wasn' Harry, Professor Dumbledore!" said Hagrid urgently. "I was talkin' ter him seconds before that kid was found, he never had time, sir —"
        Dumbledore tried to say something, but Hagrid went ranting on, waving the rooster around in his agitation, sending feathers everywhere.
        "— it can't've bin him, I'll swear it in front o' the Ministry o' Magic if I have to —"
        "Hagrid, I —"
        "— yeh've got the wrong boy, sir, I know Harry never —"
        "Hagrid!" said Dumbledore loudly. "I do not think that Harry attacked those people."
        "Oh," said Hagrid, the rooster falling limply at his side. "Right. I'll wait outside then, Headmaster."
        And he stomped out looking embarrassed.
A gift of fudge = p.212
         The rest of Harry's Christmas presents were far more satisfactory. Hagrid had sent him a large tin of treacle fudge, which Harry decided to soften by the fire before eating;
Hagrid likes eggnog = p.212
         Dumbledore led them in a few of his favorite carols, Hagrid booming more and more loudly with every goblet of eggnog he consumed.
In the Diary = pp. 246,247
         Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Harry stepped out behind him. He could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
        "Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.
        The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.
        "What yer doin' down here, Tom?"
        Riddle stepped closer.
        "It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."
        "What d'yeh —"
        "I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and —"
        "It never killed no one!" said the large boy, backing against the closed door. From behind him, Harry could hear a funny rustling and clicking.
        "Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving yet closer. "The dead girls parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered. ..."
        "It wasn't him!" roared the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"
        "Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing out his wand.
        His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Harry let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone —
        A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many yes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers — Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NOOOOOOO!"
Off to prison = pp. 260-264
         Seconds after they had knocked, Hagrid flung it open. They found themselves face-to-face with him aiming a crossbow at them. Fang the boarhound barked loudly behind him.
        "Oh," he said, lowering the weapon and staring at them. "What're you two doin' here?"
        "What's that for?" said Harry, pointing at the crossbow as they stepped inside.
        "Nothin' — nothin' —" Hagrid muttered. "I've bin expectin' — doesn' matter — Sit down — I'll make tea —"
        He hardly seemed to know what he was doing. He nearly extinguished the fire, spilling water from the kettle on it, and then smashed the teapot with a nervous jerk of his massive hand.
        "Are you okay, Hagrid?" said Harry. "Did you hear about Hermione?"
        "Oh, I heard, all righ'," said Hagrid, a slight break in his voice.
        He kept glancing nervously at the windows. He poured them both large mugs of boiling water (he had forgotten to add tea bags) and was just putting a slab of fruitcake on a plate when there was a loud knock on the door.
        Hagrid dropped the fruitcake. Harry and Ron exchanged panic-stricken looks, then threw the Invisibility Cloak back over themselves and retreated into a corner. Hagrid checked that they were hidden, seized his crossbow, and flung open his door once more.
        "Good evening, Hagrid."
        It was Dumbledore. He entered, looking deadly serious, and was followed by a second, very odd-looking man.
        The stranger had rumpled gray hair and an anxious expression, ad was wearing a strange mixture of clothes: a pinstriped suit, a
scarlet tie, a long black cloak, and pointed purple boots. Under his arm he carried a lime-green bowler.
        "That's Dad's boss!" Ron breathed. "Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic!"
        Harry elbowed Ron hard to make him shut up.
        Hagrid had gone pale and sweaty. He dropped into one of his chairs and looked from Dumbledore to Cornelius Fudge.
        "Bad business, Hagrid," said Fudge in rather clipped tones. "Very bad business. Had to come. Four attacks on Muggle-borns. Things've gone far enough. Ministry's got to act."
        "I never," said Hagrid, looking imploringly at Dumbledore. "You know I never, Professor Dumbledore, sir —"
        "I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence," said Dumbledore, frowning at Fudge.
        "Look, Albus," said Fudge, uncomfortably. "Hagrid's record's against him. Ministry's got to do something — the school governors have been in touch —"
        "Yet again, Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid away will not help in the slightest," said Dumbledore. His blue eyes were full of a fire Harry had never seen before.
        "Look at it from my point of view," said Fudge, fidgeting with his bowler. "I'm under a lot of pressure. Got to be seen to be doing something. If it turns out it wasn't Hagrid, he'll be back and no more said. But I've got to take him. Got to. Wouldn't be doing my duty—"
        "Take me?" said Hagrid, who was trembling. "Take me where?"
        "For a short stretch only," said Fudge, not meeting Hagrid's eyes. "Not a punishment, Hagrid, more a precaution. If someone else is caught, you'll be let out with a full apology —"
        "Not Azkaban?" croaked Hagrid.
        Before Fudge could answer, there was another loud rap on the door.
        Dumbledore answered it. It was Harry's turn for an elbow in the ribs; he'd let out an audible gasp.
        Mr. Lucius Malfoy strode into Hagrid's hut, swathed in a long black traveling cloak, smiling a cold and satisfied smile. Fang started to growl.
        "Already here, Fudge," he said approvingly. "Good, good . . ."
        "What're you doin' here?" said Hagrid furiously. "Get outta my house!"
(and after Mr. Malfoy drops the bombshell about Dumbledore being fired)
         "An' how many did yeh have ter threaten an' blackmail before they agreed, Malfoy, eh?" he roared.
        "Dear, dear, you know, that temper of yours will lead you into trouble one of these days, Hagrid," said Mr. Malfoy. "I would advise you not to shout at the Azkaban guards like that. They won't like it at all."
        "Yeh can' take Dumbledore!" yelled Hagrid, making Fang the boarhound cower and whimper in his basket. "Take him away, an' the Muggle-borns won' stand a chance! There'll be killin' next!"
        "Calm yourself, Hagrid," said Dumbledore sharply. He looked at Lucius Malfoy.
        "If the governors want my removal, Lucius, I shall of course step aside —"
        "But —" stuttered Fudge.
        "No!" growled Hagrid.
        (then on his way out)
         He strode to the cabin door, opened it, and bowed Dumbledore out. Fudge, fiddling with his bowler, waited for Hagrid to go ahead of him, but Hagrid stood his ground, took a deep breath, and said carefully, "If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff, all they'd have ter do would be ter follow the spiders. That'd lead ‘em right! That's all I'm sayin'."
        Fudge stared at him in amazement.
        "All right, I'm comin'," said Hagrid, pulling on his moleskin overcoat. But as he was about to follow Fudge through the door, he stopped again and said loudly, "An' someone'll need ter feed Fang while I'm away."
Aragog talks about his friend Hagrid = pp. 227,228
         "I!" said Aragog, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was a egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid
is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness. . . ."
Ron hits the nail on the head after their encounter with Aragog = pp. 280,281
         "Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive."
        "I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," said Harry.
        "That's exactly Hagrid's problem!" said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. "He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're
made out, and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban!" He was shivering uncontrollably now. "What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I'd like to know?"
        "That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry, throwing the cloak over Ron and prodding him in the arm to make him walk. "He was innocent."

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Hagrid's appointment = p.93
         "As to our second new appointment," Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away. "Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties."
        Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at one another, stunned. Then they joined in with the applause, which was tumultuous at the Gryffindor table in particular. Harry leaned forward to see Hagrid, who was ruby-red in the face and staring down at his enormous hands, his wide grin hidden in the tangle of his black beard.
(then after the feast on p.94)
         "Congratulations, Hagrid!" Hermione squealed as they reached the teachers' table.
        "All down ter you three," said Hagrid, wiping his shining face on his napkin as he looked up at them. "Can' believe it.. . great man, Dumbledore . . . came straight down to me hut after Professor Kettleburn said he'd had enough. . .. It's what I always wanted. ..."
        Overcome with emotion, he buried his face in his napkin, and Professor McGonagall shooed them away.
Hagrid prepares for his first lesson = p.98
         Just then, Hagrid entered the Great Hall. He was wearing his long moleskin overcoat and was absentmindedly swinging a dead polecat from one enormous hand.
        "All righ'?" he said eagerly, pausing on the way to the staff table. "Yer in my firs' ever lesson! Right after lunch! Bin up since five gettin' everythin' ready. . . . Hope it's okay. . . . Me, a teacher . . . hones'ly. ..."
        He grinned broadly at them and headed off to the staff table, still swinging the polecat.
        "Wonder what he's been getting ready?" said Ron, a note of anxiety in his voice.
The first lesson is ruined by Malfoy = pp. 112-119
         Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It was only when he spotted three only-too-familiar backs ahead of them that he realized they must be having these lessons with the Slytherins. Malfoy was talking animatedly to Crabbe and Goyle, who were chortling. Harry was quite sure he knew what they were talking about.
        Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.
        "C'mon, now, get a move on!" he called as the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
        For one nasty moment, Harry thought that Hagrid was going to lead them into the forest; Harry had had enough unpleasant experiences in there to last him a lifetime. However, Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there.
        "Everyone gather ‘round the fence here!" he called. "That's it — make sure yeh can see — now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books — "
        "How?" said the cold, drawling voice overact Malfoy.
        "Eh?" said Hagrid.
        "How do we open our books?" Malfoy repeated. He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out too; some, like Harry, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.
        "Hasn' — hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.
        The class all shook their heads.
        "Yeh've got ter stroke ‘em," said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Look — "
        He took Hermione's copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then tell open and lay quiet in his hand.
        "Oh, how silly we've all been!" Malfoy sneered. "We should have stroked them! Why didn't we guess!"
        "I — I thought they were funny," Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione.
        "Oh, tremendously funny!" said Malfoy. "Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!"
        "Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Hagrid was looking downcast and Harry wanted Hagrid's first lesson to be a success.
        "Righ' then," said Hagrid, who seemed to have lost his thread, "so — so yeh've got yer books an' — an' — now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I'll go an' get ‘em. Hang on . . ."
        He strode away from them into the forest and out of sight.
        "God, this place is going to the dogs," said Malfoy loudly. "That oaf teaching classes, my father'll have a fit when I tell him — "
        "Shut up, Malfoy," Harry repeated.
        "Careful, Potter, there's a dementor behind you — "
        "Oooooooh!" squealed Lavender Brown, pointing toward the opposite side of the paddock.
        Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Harry had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be
giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes. The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck, which was attached to a long chain, and the ends of all of these were held in the vast hands of Hagrid, who came jogging into the paddock behind the creatures.
        "Gee up, there!" he roared, shaking the chains and urging the creatures toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as Hagrid reached them and tethered the creatures to the fence.
        "Hippogriffs!" Hagrid roared happily, waving a hand at them. "Beau'iful, aren' they?"
        Harry could sort of see what Hagrid meant. Once you got over the first shock of seeing something that was half horse, half bird, you started to appreciate the hippogriffs' gleaming coats, changing smoothly from feather to hair, each of them a different color: stormy gray, bronze, pinkish roan, gleaming chestnut, and inky black.
        "So," said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, "if yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer — "
        No one seemed to want to. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, approached the fence cautiously.
        "Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' hippogriffs is, they're proud," said Hagrid. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, ‘cause it might be the last thing yeh do."
        Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle weren't listening; they were talking in an undertone and Harry had a nasty feeling they were plotting how best to disrupt the lesson.
        "Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs' move," Hagrid continued. "It's polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed ter touch him. If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, ‘cause those talons hurt.
        "Right — who wants ter go first?"
        Most of the class backed farther away in answer. Even Harry, Ron, and Hermione had misgivings. The hippogriffs were tossing their fierce heads and flexing their powerful wings; they didn't seem to like being tethered like this.
        "No one?" said Hagrid, with a pleading look.
        "I'll do it," said Harry.
        There was an intake of breath from behind him, and both Lavender and Parvati whispered, "Oooh, no, Harry, remember your tea leaves!"
        Harry ignored them. He climbed over the paddock fence.
        "Good man, Harry!" roared Hagrid. "Right then — let's see how yeh get on with Buckbeak."
        He untied one of the chains, pulled the gray hippogriff away from its fellows, and slipped off its leather collar. The class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding its breath. Malfoy's eyes were narrowed maliciously.
        "Easy, now, Harry," said Hagrid quietly. "Yeh've got eye contact, now try not ter blink. . . . Hippogriffs don' trust yeh if yeh blink too much. ..."
        Harry's eyes immediately began to water, but he didn't shut them. Buckbeak had turned his great, sharp head and was staring at Harry with one fierce orange eye.
        "Tha's it," said Hagrid. "Tha's it, Harry. . . now, bow . . ."
        Harry didn't feel much like exposing the back of his neck to Buckbeak, but he did as he was told. He gave a short bow and then looked up.
        The hippogriff was still staring haughtily at him. It didn't move.
        "Ah," said Hagrid, sounding worried. "Right — back away, now, Harry, easy does it — "
        But then, to Harry's enormous surprise, the hippogriff suddenly bent its scaly front knees and sank into what was an unmistakable bow.
        "Well done, Harry!" said Hagrid, ecstatic. "Right — yeh can touch him! Pat his beak, go on!"
        Feeling that a better reward would have been to back away, Harry moved slowly toward the hippogriff and reached out toward it. He patted the beak several times and the hippogriff closed its eyes lazily, as though enjoying it.
        The class broke into applause, all except for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were looking deeply disappointed.
        "Righ' then, Harry," said Hagrid. "I reckon he might' let yeh ride him!"
        That was more than Harry had bargained for. He was used to a broomstick; but he wasn't sure a hippogriff would be quite the same.
        "Yeh climb up there, jus' behind the wing joint," said Hagrid, "an mind yeh don' pull any of his feathers out, he won' like that. ..."
        Harry put his foot on the top of Buckbeak's wing and hoisted himself onto its back. Buckbeak stood up. Harry wasn't sure where to hold on; everything in front of him was covered with feathers.
        "Go on, then!" roared Hagrid, slapping the hippogriff's hindquarters.
        Without warning, twelve-foot wings flapped open on either side of Harry; he just had time to seize the hippogriff around the neck before he was soaring upward. It was nothing like a broomstick, and Harry knew which one he preferred; the hippogriff's wings beat uncomfortably on either side of him, catching him under his legs and making him feel he was about to be thrown off; the glossy feathers slipped under his fingers and he didn't dare get a stronger grip; instead of the smooth action of his Nimbus Two Thousand, he now felt himself rocking backward and forward as the hindquarters of the hippogriff rose and fell with its wings.
        Buckbeak flew him once around the paddock and then headed back to the ground; this was the bit Harry had been dreading; he leaned back as the smooth neck lowered, feeling he was going to slip off over the beak, then felt a heavy thud as the four ill-assorted feet hit the ground. He just managed to hold on and push himself straight again.
        "Good work, Harry!" roared Hagrid as everyone except Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle cheered. "Okay, who else wants a go?"
        Emboldened by Harry's success, the rest of the class climbed cautiously into the paddock. Hagrid untied the hippogriffs one by one, and soon people were bowing nervously, all over the paddock. Neville ran repeatedly backward from his, which didn't seem to want to bend its knees. Ron and Hermione practiced on the chestnut, while Harry watched.
        Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had taken over Buckbeak. He had bowed to Malfoy, who was now patting his beak, looking disdainful.
        "This is very easy," Malfoy drawled, loud enough for Harry to hear him. "I knew it must have been, if Potter could do it. . . .I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he said to the hippogriff. "Are you, you great ugly brute?"
        It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Malfoy, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.
        "I'm dying!" Malfoy yelled as the class panicked. "I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!"
        "Yer not dyin'!" said Hagrid, who had gone very white. "Someone help me — gotta get him outta here — "
        Hermione ran to hold open the gate as Hagrid lifted Malfoy easily. As they passed, Harry saw that there was a long, deep gash on Malfoy's arm; blood splattered the grass and Hagrid ran with him, up the slope toward the castle.
Hagrid worries about getting fired = pp. 120-122
         The grass was still wet and looked almost black in the twilight. When they reached Hagrid's hut, they knocked, and a voice growled, "C'min."
        Hagrid was sitting in his shirtsleeves at his scrubbed wooden table; his boarhound, Fang, had his head in Hagrid's lap. One look told them that Hagrid had been drinking a lot; there was a pewter tankard almost as big as a bucket in front of him, and he seemed to be having difficulty getting them into focus.
        "'Spect it's a record," he said thickly, when he recognized them. "Don' reckon they've ever had a teacher who lasted on'y a day before."
        "You haven't been fired, Hagrid!" gasped Hermione.
        "Not yet," said Hagrid miserably, taking a huge gulp of whatever was in the tankard. "But ‘s only a matter o' time, i'n't it, after Malfoy. . ."
        "How is he?" said Ron as they all sat down. "It wasn't serious, was it?"
        "Madam Pomfrey fixed him best she could," said Hagrid dully, "but he's sayin' its still agony.. . covered in bandages. . . moanin . . ."
        "He's faking it," said Harry at once. "Madam Pomfrey can mend anything. She regrew half my bones last year. Trust Malfoy to milk it for all it's worth."
        "School gov'nors have bin told, o' course," said Hagrid miserably. "They reckon I started too big. Shoulda left hippogriffs fer later . . . done flobberworms or summat. . . . Jus' thought it'd make a good firs' lesson. . .. ‘S all my fault. . . ."
        "It's all Malfoy's fault, Hagrid!" said Hermione earnestly.
        "Were witnesses," said Harry. "You said hippogriffs attack if you insult them. Its Malfoy's problem that he wasn't listening. We'll tell Dumbledore what really happened."
        "Yeah, don't worry, Hagrid, we'll back you up," said Ron.
        Tears leaked out of the crinkled corners of Hagrid's beetle-black eyes. He grabbed both Harry and Ron and pulled them into a bone-breaking hug.
        "I think you've had enough to drink, Hagrid," said Hermione firmly. She took the tankard from the table and went outside to empty it.
        "Ar, maybe she's right," said Hagrid, letting go of Harry and Ron, who both staggered away, rubbing their ribs. Hagrid heaved himself out of his chair and followed Hermione unsteadily outside. They heard a loud splash.
        "What's he done?" said Harry nervously as Hermione came back in with the empty tankard.
        "Stuck his head in the water barrel," said Hermione, putting the tankard away.
        Hagrid came back, his long hair and beard sopping wet, wiping the water out of his eyes.
        "Tha's better," he said, shaking his head like a dog and drenching them all. "Listen, it was good of yeh ter come an' see me, I really — "
        Hagrid stopped dead, staring at Harry as though he'd only just realized he was there.
        "WHAT D'YEH THINK YOU'RE DOIN', EH?" he roared, so suddenly that they jumped a foot in the air. "YEH'RE NOT TO GO WANDERIN' AROUND AFTER DARK, HARRY! AN' YOU TWO! LETTIN' HIM!"
        Hagrid strode over to Harry, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to the door.
        "C'mon!" Hagrid said angrily. "Im takin' yer all back up ter school, an' don' let me catch yeh walkin' down ter see me after dark again. I'm not worth that!"
Hagrid looses confidence = p.142
         Nobody really liked Care of Magical Creatures, which, after the action-packed first class, had become extremely dull. Hagrid seemed to have lost his confidence. They were now spending lesson after lesson learning how to look after flobberworms, which had to be some of the most boring creatures in existence.
Hagrid gets caught telling rumors = p.202
         "I did hear a rumor," admitted Madam Rosmerta.
        "Did you tell the whole pub, Hagrid?" said Professor McGonagall exasperatedly.
Hagrid blames Black = pp. 206,207
         "Filthy, stinkin' turncoat!" Hagrid said, so loudly that half the bar went quiet.
        "Shh!" said Professor McGonagall.
        "I met him!" growled Hagrid. "I musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Harry from Lily an' James's house after they was killed! Jus' got him outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash across his forehead, an' his parents dead .. . an Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin' motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred ter me what he was doin' there. I didn' know he'd bin Lily an' James's Secret-Keeper. Thought he'd jus' heard the news o' You-Know-Who's attack an' come ter see what he could do. White an' shakin', he was. An' yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN' TRAITOR!" Hagrid roared.
        "Hagrid, please!" said Professor McGonagall. "Keep your voice down!"
        "How was I ter know he wasn' upset abou' Lily an' James? It was You-Know-Who he cared abou'! An' then he says, ‘Give Harry ter me, Hagrid, I'm his godfather, I'll look after him—‘ Ha! But I'd
had me orders from Dumbledore, an' I told Black no, Dumbledore said Harry was ter go ter his aunt an' uncle's. Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. ‘I won't need it anymore,' he says.
        "I shoulda known there was somethin' fishy goin' on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givin' it ter me for? Why wouldn' he need it anymore? Fact was, it was too easy ter trace. Dumbledore knew he'd bin the Potters' Secret-Keeper. Black knew he was goin' ter have ter run fer it that night, knew it was a matter o' hours before the Ministry was after him.
        "But what if I'd given Harry to him, eh? I bet he'dve pitched him off the bike halfway out ter sea. His bes' friends' son! But when a wizard goes over ter the Dark Side, there's nothin' and no one that matters to ‘em anymore. . . ."
(Continuing on p.208)
        "I tell yeh, if I'd got ter Black before little Pettigrew did, I wouldn't've messed around with wands — I'd've ripped him limb — from — limb," Hagrid growled.
        "You don't know what you're talking about, Hagrid," said Fudge sharply. "Nobody but trained Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would have stood a chance against Black once he was cornered.
Hagrid gives bad news about his friend Buckbeak = pp. 217-221
         "Hagrid!" called Harry, thumping the door. "Hagrid, are you in there?"
        There was a sound of heavy footsteps, then the door creaked open. Hagrid stood there with his eyes red and swollen, tears splashing down the front of his leather vest.
        "Yeh've heard?" he bellowed, and he flung himself onto Harry's neck.
        Hagrid being at least twice the size of a normal man, this was no laughing matter. Harry, about to collapse under Hagrid's weight, was rescued by Ron and Hermione, who each seized Hagrid under an arm and heaved him back into the cabin. Hagrid allowed himself to be steered into a chair and slumped over the table, sobbing uncontrollably, his face glazed with tears that dripped down into his tangled beard.
        "Hagrid, what is it?" said Hermione, aghast.
        Harry spotted an official-looking letter lying open on the table.
        "What's this, Hagrid?"
        Hagrid's sobs redoubled, but he shoved the letter toward Harry, who picked it up and read aloud:

          Dear Mr. Hagrid,
                  Further to our inquiry into the attack by a hippogriff
          on a student in your class, we have accepted the assurances of Professor
          Dumbledore that you bear no responsibility for the regrettable incident.

        "Well, that's okay then, Hagrid!" said Ron, clapping Hagrid on the shoulder. But Hagrid continued to sob, and waved one of his gigantic hands, inviting Harry to read on.

          However, we must register our concern about the hippogriff I question. We have
          decided to uphold the official complaint of Mr. Lucius Malfoy, and this matter will
          therefore be taken to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. The
          hearing will take place on April 20th, and we ask you to present yourself ‘and your
          hippogriff at the Committees offices I London on that date. In the meantime, the
          hippogriff should be kept tethered and isolated.
                  Yours in fellowship . . .

        There followed a list of the school governors.
        "Oh," said Ron. "But you said Buckbeak isn't a bad hippogriff, Hagrid. I bet he'll get off—"
        "Yeh don' know them gargoyles at the Committee fer the Disposal o' Dangerous Creatures!" choked Hagrid, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "They've got it in fer interestin' creatures!"
        A sudden sound from the corner of Hagrid's cabin made Harry, Ron, and Hermione whip around. Buckbeak the hippogriff was lying in the corner, chomping on something that was oozing blood all over the floor.
        "I couldn' leave him tied up out there in the snow!" choked Hagrid. "All on his own! At Christmas."
        Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another. They had never seen eye to eye with Hagrid about what he called "interesting creatures" and other people called "terrifying monsters." On
the other hand, there didn't seem to be any particular harm in Buckbeak. In fact, by Hagrid's usual standards, he was positively cute.
        "You'll have to put up a good strong defense, Hagrid," said Hermione, sitting down and laying a hand on Hagrid's massive forearm. "I'm sure you can prove Buckbeak is safe."
        "Won't make no diff'rence!" sobbed Hagrid. "Them Disposal devils, they're all in Lucius Malfoy's pocket! Scared o' him! An' if I lose the case, Buckbeak —"
        Hagrid drew his finger swiftly across his throat, then gave a great wail and lurched forward, his face in his arms.
        "What about Dumbledore, Hagrid?" said Harry.
        "He's done more'n enough fer me already," groaned Hagrid. "Got enough on his plate what with keepin' them dementors outta the castle, an' Sirius Black lurkin' around —"
        Ron and Hermione looked quickly at Harry, as though expecting him to start berating Hagrid for not telling him the truth about Black. But Harry couldn't bring himself to do it, not now that he saw Hagrid so miserable and scared.
        "Listen, Hagrid," he said, "you can't give up. Hermione's right, you just need a good defense. You can call us as witnesses —"
        "I'm sure I've read about a case of hippogriff-baiting," said Hermione thoughtfully, "where the hippogriff got off. I'll look it up for you, Hagrid, and see exactly what happened."
        Hagrid howled still more loudly. Harry and Hermione looked at Ron to help them.
        "Er — shall I make a cup of tea?" said Ron.
        Harry stared at him.
        "It's what my mum does whenever someone's upset," Ron muttered, shrugging.
        At last, after many more assurances of help, with a steaming mug of tea in front of him, Hagrid blew his nose on a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth and said, "Yer right. I can' afford to go ter pieces. Gotta pull meself together. ..."
        Fang the boarhound came timidly out from under the table and laid his head on Hagrid's knee.
        "I've not bin meself lately," said Hagrid, stroking Fang with one hand and mopping his face with the other. "Worried abou' Buckbeak, an' no one likin' me classes —"
        "We do like them!" lied Hermione at once.
        "Yeah, they're great!" said Ron, crossing his fingers under the table. "Er — how are the flobberworms?"
        "Dead," said Hagrid gloomily. "Too much lettuce."
        "Oh no!" said Ron, his lip twitching.
        "An' them dementors make me feel ruddy terrible an' all," said Hagrid, with a sudden shudder. "Gotta walk past ‘em ev'ry time I want a drink in the Three Broomsticks. ‘S like bein' back in Azkaban —"        
        He fell silent, gulping his tea. Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched him breathlessly. They had never heard Hagrid talk about his brief spell in Azkaban before. After a pause, Hermione said timidly, "Is it awful in there, Hagrid?"
        "Yeh've no idea," said Hagrid quietly. "Never bin anywhere like it. Thought I was goin' mad. Kep' goin' over horrible stuff in me mind . . . the day I got expelled from Hogwarts . . . day me dad died . . . day I had ter let Norbert go. . . ."
        His eyes filled with tears. Norbert was the baby dragon Hagrid had once won in a game of cards.
        "Yeh can' really remember who yeh are after a while. An' yeh can see the point o' livin' at all. I used ter hope I'd jus' die in me seep.. . . When they let me out, it was like bein' born again, ev'rythin' came floodin' back, it was the bes' feelin' in the world. Mind, the dementors weren't keen on lettin' me go."
        "But you were innocent!" said Hermione.
        Hagrid snorted.
        "Think that matters to them? They don' care. Long as they've go a couple o' hundred humans stuck there with ‘em, so they can leech all the happiness out of ‘em, they don' give a damn who's guilty an' who's not."
        Hagrid went quiet for a moment, staring into his tea. Then he said quietly, "Thought o' jus' letting Buckbeak go . . . tryin' ter make him fly away . . . but how d'yeh explain ter a hippogriff it's gotta go inter hidin'? An'— an' I'm scared o' breakin' the law. . . ." He looked up at them, tears leaking down his face again. "I don' ever want ter go back ter Azkaban."
Hagrid provides a fire = p.235
         The last thing anyone felt like doing was spending two hours on the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid had provided a bonfire full of salamanders for their enjoyment, and they spent an unusually good lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing while the flame-loving lizards scampered up and down the crumbling, white-hot logs.
Hagrid gives advice = pp. 272-275

          Dear Harry and Ron,
          How about having tea with me this afternoon ‘round six?
          I'll come and collect you from the castle.
          WAIT FOR ME IN THE ENTRANCE HALL;
          YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED OUT ON YOUR OWN.
          Cheers,
          Hagrid

        "He probably wants to hear about Black!" said Ron.
        So at six o'clock that afternoon, Harry and Ron left Gryffindor Tower, passed the security trolls at a run, and headed down to the entrance hall.
        Hagrid was already waiting for them.
        "All right, Hagrid!" said Ron. "S'pose you want to hear about Saturday night, do you?"
        "I've already heard all abou' it," said Hagrid, opening the front doors and leading them outside.
        "Oh," said Ron, looking slightly put out.
        The first thing they saw on entering Hagrid's cabin was Buckbeak, who was stretched out on top of Hagrid's patchwork quilt, his enormous wings folded tight to his body, enjoying a large pate of dead ferrets. Averring his eyes from this unpleasant sight, Harry saw a gigantic, hairy brown suit and a very horrible yellow-and-orange tie hanging from the top of Hagrid's wardrobe door.
        "What are they for, Hagrid?" said Harry.
        "Buckbeak's case against the Committee fer the Disposal o' Dangerous Creatures," said Hagrid. "This Friday. Him an me'll be goin' down ter London together. I've booked two beds on the Knight Bus. .. ."
        Harry felt a nasty pang of guilt. He had completely forgotten that Buckbeak's trial was so near, and judging by the uneasy look o Ron's face, he had too. They had also forgotten their promise about helping him prepare Buckbeak's defense; the arrival of the Firebolt had driven it clean out of their minds.
        Hagrid poured them tea and offered them a plate of Bath buns, but they knew better than to accept; they had had too much experience with Hagrid's cooking.
        "I got somethin' ter discuss with you two," said Hagrid, sitting himself between them and looking uncharacteristically serious.
        "What?" said Harry.
        "Hermione," said Hagrid.
        "What about her?" said Ron.
        "She's in a righ' state, that's what. She's bin comin' down ter visit me a lot since Chris'mas. Bin feelin' lonely. Firs' yeh weren' talking to her because o' the Firebolt, now yer not talkin' to her because her cat —"
        "— ate Scabbers!" Ron interjected angrily.
        "Because her cat acted like all cats do," Hagrid continued doggedly. "She's cried a fair few times, yeh know. Goin' through a rough time at the moment. Bitten off more'n she can chew, if yeh ask me, all the work she's tryin' ter do. Still found time ter help me with Buckbeak's case, mind. . . . She's found some really good stuff fer me... reckon he'll stand a good chance now. ..."
        "Hagrid, we should've helped as well — sorry —" Harry began awkwardly.
        "I'm not blaming' yeh!" said Hagrid, waving Harry's apology aside. "Gawd knows yeh've had enough ter be getting' on with. I've seen yeh practicin' Quidditch ev'ry hour o' the day an' night — but I gotta tell yeh, I thought you two'd value yer friend more'n broomsticks or rats. Tha's all."
        Harry and Ron exchanged uncomfortable looks.
        "Really upset, she was, when Black nearly stabbed yeh, Ron. She's got her heart in the right place, Hermione has, an' you two not talkin' to her —"
        "If she'd just get rid of that cat, I'd speak to her again!" Ron said angrily. "But she's still sticking up for it! It's a maniac, and she won't her a word against it!"
        Ah, well, people can be a bit stupid abou' their pets," said Hagrid wisely. Behind him, Buckbeak spat a few ferret bones onto Hagrid's pillow.
        They spent the rest of their visit discussing Gryffindor's
improved chances for the Quidditch Cup. At nine o'clock, Hagrid walked them back up to the castle.
Sentimental Hagrid = p.293
         "S'no good, Ron," said Hagrid sadly as they reached the castle steps. "That Committees in Lucius Malfoy's pocket. I'm jus' gonna make sure the rest o' Beaky's time is the happiest he's ever had. I owe him that. . . ."
        Hagrid turned around and hurried back toward his cabin, his face buried in his handkerchief.
        "Look at him blubber!"
Hagrid is resigned to Buckbeak's fate = pp. 317,318
         Hagrid presided over the Care of Magical Creatures exam the following morning with a very preoccupied air indeed; his heart didn't seem to be in it at all. He had provided a large tub of fresh flobberworms for the class, and told them that to pass the test, their flobberworms had to still be alive at the end of one hour. As flobberworms flourished best if left to their own devices, it was the easiest exam any of them had ever taken, and also gave
Harry, Ron, and Hermione plenty of opportunity to speak to Hagrid.
        "Beaky's getting' a bit depressed," Hagrid told them, bending low on the pretense of checking that Harry's flobberworm was still alive. "Bin cooped up too long. Bur still. . . we'll know day after tomorrow — one way or the other —"
Hagrid Prepared for the worst = pp. 327-330
         They reached Hagrid's cabin and knocked. He was a minute in answering, and when he did, he looked all around for his visitor, pale-faced and trembling.
        "It's us," Harry hissed. "We're wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Let u in and we can take it off."
        "Yeh shouldn've come!" Hagrid whispered, but he stood back, and they stepped inside. Hagrid shut the door quickly and Harry pulled off the cloak.
        Hagrid was not crying, nor did he throw himself upon their necks. He looked like a man who did not know where he was or what to do. This helplessness was worse to watch than tears.
        "Wan' some tea?" he said. His great hands were shaking as he reached for the kettle.
        "Where's Buckbeak, Hagrid?" said Hermione hesitantly.
        "I— I took him outside," said Hagrid, spilling milk all over the table as he filled up the jug. "He's tethered in me pumpkin patch. Thought he oughta see the trees an'—an' smell fresh air—before —"
        Hagrid's hand trembled so violently that the milk jug slipped from his grasp and shattered all over the floor.
        "I'll do it, Hagrid," said Hermione quickly, hurrying over and starting to clean up the mess.
        "There's another one in the cupboard," Hagrid said, sitting down and wiping his forehead on his sleeve. Harry glanced at Ron, who looked back hopelessly.
        "Isn't there anything anyone can do, Hagrid?" Harry asked fiercely, sitting down next to him. "Dumbledore —"
        "He's tried," said Hagrid. "He's got no power ter overrule the Committee. He told ‘em Buckbeak's all right, but they're scared... . Yeh know what Lucius Malfoy's like .. . threatened ‘em, I expect. . . an the executioner, Macnair, he's an old pal o' Malfoy's. . . but it'll be quick an' clean . .. an I'll be beside him. . . ."
        Hagrid swallowed. His eyes were darting all over the cabin as though looking for some shred of hope or comfort.
        "Dumbledore's gonna come down while it — while it happens. Wrote me this mornin'. Said he wants ter — ter be with me. Great man, Dumbledore. . .."
        Hermione, who had been rummaging in Hagrid's cupboard for another milk jug, let out a small, quickly stifled sob. She straightened up with the new jug in her hands, fighting back tears.
        "We'll stay with you too, Hagrid," she began, but Hagrid shook his shaggy head.
        "Yeh're ter go back up ter the castle. I told yeh, I don' wan' yeh watchin'. An' yeh shouldn be down here anyway.... If Fudge an Dumbledore catch yeh out without permission, Harry, yeh'll be in big trouble."
        Silent tears were now streaming down Hermione's face, but she hid them from Hagrid, bustling around making tea. Then, as she
picked up the milk bottle to pour some into the jug, she let out a shriek.
        "Ron! I — I don't believe it — it's Scabbers!"
        Ron gaped at her.
        ‘What are you talking about?"
        Hermione carried the milk jug over to the table and turned it upside down. With a frantic squeak, and much scrambling to get back inside, Scabbers the rat came sliding out onto the table.
        "Scabbers!" said Ron blankly. "Scabbers, what are you doing here?"
        He grabbed the struggling rat and held him up to the light. Scabbers looked dreadful. He was thinner than ever, large tufts of hair had fallen out leaving wide bald patches, and he writhed in Ron's hands as though desperate to free himself.
        "It's okay, Scabbers!" said Ron. "No cats! There's nothing here to hurt you!"
        Hagrid suddenly stood up, his eyes fixed on the window. His normally ruddy face had gone the color of parchment.
        "They're comin'...."
        Harry, Ron, and Hermione whipped around. A group of men was walking down the distant castle steps. In front was Albus Dumbledore, his silver beard gleaming in the dying sun. Next to him trotted Cornelius Fudge. Behind them came the feeble old Committee member and the executioner, Macnair.
        "Yeh gotta go," said Hagrid. Every inch of him was trembling. "They mustn' find yeh here. . .. Go now. ..."
        Ron stuffed Scabbers into his pocket and Hermione picked up the cloak.
        "I'll let yeh out the back way," said Hagrid.
        They followed him to the door into his back garden. Harry felt strangely unreal, and even more so when he saw Buckbeak a few yards away, tethered to a tree behind Hagrid's pumpkin patch. Buckbeak seemed to know something was happening. He turned his sharp head from side to side and pawed the ground nervously.
        "It's okay, Beaky," said Hagrid softly. "It's okay. . ." He turned to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Go on," he said. "Get goin'."
        But they didn't move.
        "Hagrid, we can't —"
        "We'll tell them what really happened—"
        "They can't kill him —"
        "Go!" said Hagrid fiercely. "It's bad enough without you lot in trouble an' all!"
        They had no choice. As Hermione threw the cloak over Harry and Ron, they heard voices at the front of the cabin. Hagrid looked at the place where they had just vanished from sight.
        "Go quick," he said hoarsely. "Don' listen. . . ."
We find out what happened after the trio left = pp. 400-402
         "Where is the beast?" came the cold voice of Macnair.
        "Out — outside," Hagrid croaked.
        Harry pulled his head out of sight as Macnair's face appeared at Hagrid's window, staring out at Buckbeak. Then they heard Fudge.
        "We — er — have to read you the official notice of execution, Hagrid. I'll make it quick. And then you and Macnair need to sign it. Macnair, you're supposed to listen too, that's procedure —"
        Macnair's face vanished from the window. It was now or never.
        "Wait here," Harry whispered to Hermione. "I'll do it."
        As Fudge's voice started again, Harry darted out from behind his tee, vaulted the fence into the pumpkin patch, and approached Buckbeak.
        "It is the decision of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures that the hippogriff Buckbeak, hereafter called the condemned, shall be executed on the sixth of June at sundown— "
        Careful not to blink, Harry stared up into Buckbeak's fierce orange eyes once more and bowed. Buckbeak sank to his scaly knees ad then stood up again. Harry began to fumble with the knot of rope tying Buckbeak to the fence.
        ". . . sentenced to execution by beheading, to be carried out by the Committee's appointed executioner, Walden Macnair. . ."
        "Come on, Buckbeak," Harry murmured, "come on, we're going to help you. Quietly.. . quietly ..."
        ". . . as witnessed below. Hagrid, you sign here. ..."
        Harry threw all his weight onto the rope, but Buckbeak had dug in his front feet.
        "Well, let's get this over with," said the reedy voice of the Committee member from inside Hagrid's cabin. "Hagrid, perhaps it will be better if you stay inside —"
        "No, I — I wan' ter be with him. . . . I don' wan' him ter be alone —"
        Footsteps echoed from within the cabin.
        "Buckbeak, move!" Harry hissed.
        Harry tugged harder on the rope around Buckbeak's neck. The hippogriff began to walk, rustling its wings irritably. They were still ten feet away from the forest, in plain view of Hagrid's back door.
        "One moment, please, Macnair," came Dumbledore's voice. "You need to sign too." The footsteps stopped. Harry heaved on the rope. Buckbeak snapped his beak and walked a little faster.
        Hermione's white face was sticking out from behind a tree.
        "Harry, hurry!" she mouthed.
        Harry could still hear Dumbledore's voice talking from within the cabin. He gave the rope another wrench. Buckbeak broke into a grudging trot. They had reached the trees. . . .
        "Quick! Quick!" Hermione moaned, darting out from behind her tree, seizing the rope too and adding her weight to make Buckbeak move faster. Harry looked over his shoulder; they were now blocked from sight; they couldn't see Hagrid's garden at all.
        "Stop!" he whispered to Hermione. "They might hear us —"
        Hagrid's back door had opened with a bang. Harry, Hermione, ad Buckbeak stood quite still; even the hippogriff seemed to be listening intently.
        Silence . . . then —
        "Where is it?" said the reedy voice of the Committee member. "Where is the beast?"
        "It was tied here!" said the executioner furiously. "I saw it! Just here!"
        "How extraordinary," said Dumbledore. There was a note of amusement in his voice.
        "Beaky!" said Hagrid huskily.
        There was a swishing noise, and the thud of an axe. The executioner seemed to have swung it into the fence in anger. And then came the howling, and this time they could hear Hagrid's words trough his sobs.
        "Gone! Gone! Bless his little beak, he's gone! Musta pulled himself free! Beaky, yeh clever boy!"
        Buckbeak started to strain against the rope, trying to get back to Hagrid. Harry and Hermione tightened their grip and dug their heels into the forest floor to stop him.
        "Someone untied him!" the executioner was snarling. "We should search the grounds, the forest —"
        "Macnair, if Buckbeak has indeed been stolen, do you really think the thief will have led him away on foot?" said Dumbledore, still sounding amused. "Search the skies, if you will. . . . Hagrid, I could do with a cup of tea. Or a large brandy."
        "O' — o' course, Professor," said Hagrid, who sounded weak with happiness. "Come in, come in... ."
Hagrid Celebrates = p.404
         Hermione seized the back of Harry's robes not a moment too soon. Just then, they heard a burst of song. It was Hagrid, making his way up to the castle, singing at the top of his voice, and weaving slightly as he walked. A large bottle was swinging from his hands.
Hagrid announces freedom = p.422
         A shadow fell across them and they looked up to see a very bleary-eyed Hagrid, mopping his sweaty face with one of his tablecloth-sized handkerchiefs and beaming down at them.
        "Know I shouldn' feel happy, after wha' happened las' night," he said. I mean, Black escaping again, an everythin' — but guess what?"
        ‘ What? they said, pretending to look curious.
        "Beaky! He escaped! He's free! Bin celebratin' all night!"
        "That's wonderful!" said Hermione, giving Ron a reproving look because he looked as though he was close to laughing.
        "Yeah . . . can't've tied him up properly," said Hagrid, gazing happily out over the grounds. "I was worried this mornin', mind .. . thought he mighta met Professor Lupin on the grounds, but Lupin says he never ate anything las' night...."
        "What?" said Harry quickly.
        "Blimey, haven' yeh heard?" said Hagrid, his smile fading a little. He lowered his voice, even though there was nobody in sight. "Er — Snape told all the Slytherins this mornin'. . . . Thought everyone'd know by now . . . Professor Lupin's a werewolf, see. An' he was loose on the grounds las' night.. . . He's packin' now, o' course."
        "He's packing'?" said Harry, alarmed. "Why?"
        "Leavin', isn' he?" said Hagrid, looking surprised that Harry had to ask. "Resigned firs' thing this mornin'. Says he can't risk it happenin' again."

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Hagrid introduces an interesting creature for class = pp. 195-198
        Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise
reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.
        "Mornin'!" Hagrid said, grinning at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Be'er wait fer the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this — Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
        "Come again?" said Ron.
        Hagrid pointed down into the crates.
        "Eurgh!" squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward.
        "Eurgh" just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in Harry's opinion. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.
        "On'y jus' hatched," said Hagrid proudly, "so yeh'll be able ter raise ‘em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"
        "And why would we want to raise them?" said a cold voice.
        The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.
        Hagrid looked stumped at the question.
        "I mean, what do they do?" asked Malfoy. "What is the point of tem?"
        Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds' pause, then he said roughly, "Tha's next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus' feedin' ‘em today. Now, yeh'll wan' ter try ‘em on a few diff'rent things — I've never had ‘em before, not sure what they'll
go fer — I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake — just try ‘em out with a bit of each."
        "First pus and now this," muttered Seamus.
        Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have made Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry couldn't suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn't seem to have mouths.
        "Ouch!" yelled Dean Thomas after about ten minutes. "It got me!"
        Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious.
        "Its end exploded!" said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand.
        "Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off," said Hagrid, nodding.
        "Eurgh!" said Lavender Brown again. "Eurgh, Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?"
        "Ah, some of ‘em have got stings," said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). "I reckon they're the males.... The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies.. . . I think they might be ter suck blood."
        "Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive," said Malfoy sarcastically. "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?"
        "Just because they're not very pretty, it doesn't mean they're not useful," Hermione snapped. "Dragon blood's amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?"
        Harry and Ron grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew only too well — he had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better.
Hagrid acting like a teacher = p.234
         Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their "project," suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.
        "I will not," said Draco Malfoy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out : his sack. "I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks."
        Hagrid's smile faded off his face.
        "Yeh'll do wha' yer told," he growled, "or I'll be takin' a leaf outta Professor Moody's book.... I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy."
Brief interlude about Skrewts = pp. 251,252
         Hagrid sidled into the Hall through a door behind the staff table
twenty minutes after the start of the feast. He slid into his seat at the end and waved at Harry, Ron, and Hermione with a very heavily bandaged hand.
        "Skrewts doing all right, Hagrid?" Harry called.
        "Thrivin'," Hagrid called back happily.
        "Yeah, I'll just bet they are," said Ron quietly. "Looks like they've finally found a food they like, doesn't it? Hagrid's fingers."
Hagrid falls in love = pp. 263-267
         "'Bout time!" said Hagrid, when he'd swung open the door. "Thought you lot'd forgotten where I live!"
        "We've been really busy, Hag —" Hermione started to say, but then she stopped dead, looking up at Hagrid, apparently lost for words.
        Hagrid was wearing his best (and very horrible) hairy brown suit, plus a checked yellow-and-orange tie. This wasn't the worst of it, though; he had evidently tried to tame his hair, using large quantities of what appeared to be axle grease. It was now slicked down into two bunches — perhaps he had tried a ponytail like
Bill's, but found he had too much hair. The look didn't really suit Hagrid at all. For a moment, Hermione goggled at him, then, obviously deciding not to comment, she said, "Erm — where are the skrewts?"
        "Out by the pumpkin patch," said Hagrid happily. They're getting' massive, mus' be nearly three foot long now. On'y trouble Is, they've started killin' each other."
        "Oh no, really?" said Hermione, shooting a repressive look at Ron, who, staring at Hagrid's odd hairstyle, had just opened his mouth to say something about it.
        "Yeah," said Hagrid sadly. "'S' okay, though, I've got ‘em in separate boxes now. Still got abou' twenty."
        "Well, that's lucky," said Ron. Hagrid missed the sarcasm.
        Hagrid's cabin comprised a single room, in one corner of which was a gigantic bed covered in a patchwork quilt. A similarly enormous wooden table and chairs stood in front of the fire beneath the quantity of cured hams and dead birds hanging from the ceiling. They sat down at the table while Hagrid started to make tea, and were soon immersed in yet more discussion of the Triwizard Tournament. Hagrid seemed quite as excited about it as they were.
        "You wait," he said, grinning. "You jus' wait. Yer going ter see some stuff yeh've never seen before. Firs' task .. . ah, but I'm not supposed ter say."
        "Go on, Hagrid!" Harry, Ron, and Hermione urged him, but he just shook his head, grinning.
        "I don' want ter spoil it fer yeh," said Hagrid. "But it's gonna be spectacular, I'll tell yeh that. Them champions're going ter have their work cut out. Never thought I'd live ter see the Triwizard Tournament played again!"
        They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn't eat much — Hagrid had made what he said was a beef casserole, but after Hermione unearthed a large talon in hers, she, Harry, and Ron rather lost their appetites. However, they enjoyed themselves trying to make Hagrid tell them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating which of the entrants were likely to be selected as champions, and wondering whether Fred and George were beardless yet.
        A light rain had started to fall by Midafternoon; it was very cozy sitting by the fire, listening to the gentle patter of the drops on the window, watching Hagrid darning his socks and arguing with Hermione about house-elves — for he flatly refused to join S.P.E.W. when she showed him her badges.
        "It'd be doin' ‘em an unkindness, Hermione," he said gravely, threading a massive bone needle with thick yellow yarn. "It's in their nature ter look after humans, that's what they like, see? Yeh'd be makin' ‘em unhappy ter take away their work, an' insultin' ‘em if yeh tried ter pay ‘em."
        "But Harry set Dobby free, and he was over the moon about it!" said Hermione. "And we heard he's asking for wages now!"
        "Yeah, well, yeh get weirdos in every breed. I'm not sayin' there isn't the odd elf who'd take freedom, but yeh'll never persuade most of 'em ter do it — no, nothin' doin', Hermione."
        Hermione looked very cross indeed and stuffed her box of badges back into her cloak pocket.
        By half past five it was growing dark, and Ron, Harry, and Hermione decided it was time to get back up to the castle for the Halloween feast—and, more important, the announcement of the school champions.
"I'll come with yeh," said Hagrid, putting away his darning. "Jus' give us a sec."
        Hagrid got up, went across to the chest of drawers beside his bed, and began searching for something inside it. They didn't pay too much attention until a truly horrible smell reached their nostrils. Coughing, Ron said, "Hagrid, what's that?"
        "Eh?" said Hagrid, turning around with a large bottle in his hand. "Don' yeh like it?"
        "Is that aftershave?" said Hermione in a slightly choked voice.
        "Er—eau de cologne," Hagrid muttered. He was blushing. "Maybe it's a bit much," he said gruffly. "I'll go take it off, hang on..."
        He stumped out of the cabin, and they saw him washing himself vigorously in the water barrel outside the window.
        "Eau de cologne?" said Hermione in amazement. "Hagrid?"
        "And what's with the hair and the suit?" said Harry in an undertone.
        "Look!" said Ron suddenly, pointing out of the window.
        Hagrid had just straightened up and turned ‘round. If he had been blushing before, it was nothing to what he was doing now. Getting to their feet very cautiously, so that Hagrid wouldn't spot them, Harry, Ron, and Hermione peered through the window and saw that Madame Maxime and the Beauxbatons students had just emerged from their carriage, clearly about to set off for the feast too. They couldn't hear what Hagrid was saying, but he was talking to Madame Maxime with a rapt, misty-eyed expression Harry had only ever seen him wear once before — when he had been looking at the baby dragon, Norbert.
"He's going up to the castle with her!" said Hermione indignantly. "I thought he was waiting for us!"
        Without so much as a backward glance at his cabin, Hagrid was trudging off up the grounds with Madame Maxime, the Beauxbatons students following in their wake, jogging to keep up with their enormous strides.
        "He fancies her!" said Ron incredulously. "Well, if they end up having children, they'll be setting a world record — bet any baby of theirs would weigh about a ton."
Hagrid's reaction to the Goblet's choice. p 273
         "Well... through the door, Harry," said Dumbledore. He wasn't smiling.
        Harry moved off along the teachers' table. Hagrid was seated right at the end. He did not wink at Harry, or wave, or give any of his usual signs of greeting. He looked completely astonished and stared at Harry as he passed like everyone else.
Exercise for the skrewts = pp. 294-295
         Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Malfoy had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin carrying a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Malfoy completely.
        "Take this thing for a walk?" he repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. "And where exactly are we supposed to fix the lash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?"        
        "Roun' the middle," said Hagrid, demonstrating. "Er—yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus' as an extra precaution, like. Harry — you come here an' help me with this big one. .."
        Hagrid's real intention, however, was to talk to Harry away from the rest of the class. He waited until everyone else had set off with their skrewts, then turned to Harry and said, very seriously, "So — yr competin', Harry. In the tournament. School champion."
        "One of the champions," Harry corrected him.
        Hagrid's beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows.
        "No Idea who put yeh in fer it, Harry?"
        "You believe I didn't do it, then?" said Harry, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude he felt at Hagrid's words.
        "'Course I do," Hagrid grunted. "Yeh say it wasn' you, an' I believe yeh — an' Dumbledore believes yer, an' all."
        "Wish I knew who did do it," said Harry bitterly.
        The pair of them looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.
        "Look like they're havin' fun, don' they?" Hagrid said happily. Harry assumed he was talking about the skrewts, because his classmates certainly weren't; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts' ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.
        "Ah, I don' know, Harry," Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. "School champion ... everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn' it?"
Hagrid invites Harry to a midnight stroll. p 321
         "Look, it's Hagrid!" said Hermione.
        The back of Hagrid's enormous shaggy head — he had mercifully abandoned his bunches — emerged over the crowd. Harry wondered why he hadn't spotted him at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask.
(…then on p.322)
         Hagrid was beaming down at Harry too. Harry knew Hagrid couldn't see him, but Moody had obviously told Hagrid he was there. Hagrid now bent down on the pretext of reading the S.P.E.W. notebook as well, and said in a whisper so low that only Harry could hear it, "Harry, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak."
Let's see some dragons on a date = pp. 324-325
         "You there, Harry?" Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.
        "Yeah," said Harry, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off his head. "What's up?"
        "Got summat ter show yeh," said Hagrid.
        There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. He was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair — Harry could see the comb's broken teeth tangled in it.
        "What're you showing me?" Harry said warily, wondering if the skrewts had laid eggs, or Hagrid had managed to buy another giant three-headed dog off a stranger in a pub.
        "Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerself covered with that cloak," said Hagrid. "We won take Fang, he won' like it. ..."
        "Listen, Hagrid, I can't stay long.. . . I've got to be back up at the castle by one o'clock —"
        But Hagrid wasn't listening; he was opening the cabin door and striding off into the night. Harry hurried to follow and found, to his great surprise, that Hagrid was leading him to the Beauxbatons carriage.
        "Hagrid, what — ?"
        "Shhhh!" said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.
        Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.
        "Ah, ‘Agrid ... it is time?"
        "Bong-sewer," said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her down the golden steps.
        Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime's giant winged horses, with Harry, totally bewildered, running to keep up with them. Had Hagrid wanted to show him Madame Maxime? He could see her any old time he wanted .. . she wasn't exactly hard to miss. . . .
        But it seemed that Madame Maxime was in for the same treat as Harry, because after a while she said playfully, "Wair is it you are taking me, ‘Agrid?"
        "Yeh'll enjoy this," said Hagrid gruffly, "worth seein', trust me. On'y—don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'pposed ter know."
        "Of course not," said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long back eyelashes.
(later Hagrid comments about how ugly dragons are) = p.326
         "Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.
(then Hagrid wants a closer look… ) = pp. 327,328
         "Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Harry followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harry realized who it was: Charlie Weasley.
        "All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now — we put them out with a Sleeping Draught on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet — but, like you saw, they weren't happy, not happy at all —"
        "What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something close to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.
        "This is a Hungarian Horntail," said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray — and a Chinese Fireball, that's the red."
        Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.
        "I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie said, frowning. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming — she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"
        "Jus' thought she'd like ter see ‘em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.
        "Really romantic date, Hagrid," said Charlie, shaking his head.
        Four ..." said Hagrid, "so it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do — fight ‘em?"
        "Just get past them, I think," said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know why. . . but I tell you this, I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back ends as dangerous as its front, look."
        Charlie pointed toward the Horntails tail, and Harry saw long, bonze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches.
        Five of Charlie's fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at tat moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail's side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.
        "I've got them counted, Hagrid," said Charlie sternly. Then he said, "How's Harry?"
        "Fine," said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.
Hagrid's emotions always get the best of him. p 357
         "Yeh did it, Harry!" said Hagrid hoarsely. "Yeh did it! An' agains' the Horntail an' all, an' yeh know Charlie said that was the wors' —"
        "Thanks, Hagrid," said Harry loudly, so that Hagrid wouldn't blunder on and reveal that he had shown Harry the dragons beforehand.
Another typical Hagrid class = pp. 368-371
         "I'm not sure whether they hibernate or not," Hagrid told the shivering class in the windy pumpkin patch next lesson. "Thought we'd jus' try an' see if they fancied a kip. . . we'll jus' settle ‘em down in these boxes. . . ."
        There were now only ten skrewts left; apparently their desire to kill one another had not been exercised out of them. Each of them was now approaching six feet in length. Their thick gray armor; their powerful, scuttling legs; their fire-blasting ends; their stings and their suckers, combined to make the skrewts the most repulsive things Harry had ever seen. The class looked dispiritedly at the enormous boxes Hagrid had brought out, all lined with pillows and fluffy blankets..
        "We'll jus' lead ‘em in here," Hagrid said, "an' put the lids on, and we'll see what happens."
        But the skrewts, it transpired, did not hibernate, and did not appreciate being forced into pillow-lined boxes and nailed in. Hagrid was soon yelling, "Don' panic, now, don' panic!" while the skrewts rampaged around the pumpkin patch, now strewn with the smoldering wreckage of the boxes. Most of the class — Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the lead — had fled into Hagrid's cabin through the
back door and barricaded themselves in; Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were among those who remained outside trying to help Hagrid. Together they managed to restrain and tie up nine of the skrewts, though at the cost of numerous burns and cuts; finally, only one skrewt was left.
        "Don' frighten him, now!" Hagrid shouted as Ron and Harry used their wands to shoot jets of fiery sparks at the skrewt, which was advancing menacingly on them, its sting arched, quivering, over its back. "Jus' try an' slip the rope ‘round his sting, so he won' hurt any o' the others!"
        "Yeah, we wouldn't want that!" Ron shouted angrily as he and Harry backed into the wall of Hagrid's cabin, still holding the skrewt off with their sparks.
        "Well, well, well. .. this does look like fun."
        Rita Skeeter was leaning on Hagrid's garden fence, looking in at the mayhem. She was wearing a thick magenta cloak with a furry purple collar today, and her crocodile-skin handbag was over her arm.
        Hagrid launched himself forward on top of the skrewt that was cornering Harry and Ron and flattened it; a blast of fire shot out of its end, withering the pumpkin plants nearby.
        "Who're you?" Hagrid asked Rita Skeeter as he slipped a loop of rope around the skrewt's sting and tightened it.
        "Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," Rita replied, beaming at him. Her gold teeth glinted.
        "Thought Dumbledore said you weren' allowed inside the school anymore," said Hagrid, frowning slightly as he got off the slightly squashed skrewt and started tugging it over to its fellows.
        Rita acted as though she hadn't heard what Hagrid had said.
        "What are these fascinating creatures called?" she asked, beaming still more widely.
        "Blast-Ended Skrewts," grunted Hagrid.
        "Really?" said Rita, apparently full of lively interest. "I've never heard of them before . . . where do they come from?"
        Harry noticed a dull red flush rising up out of Hagrid's wild black beard, and his heart sank. Where had Hagrid got the skrewts from? Hermione, who seemed to be thinking along these lines, said quickly, "They're very interesting, aren't they? Aren't they, Harry?"
        "What? Oh yeah ... ouch .. . interesting," said Harry as she stepped on his foot.
        "Ah, you're here, Harry!" said Rita Skeeter as she looked around. "So you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?"
        "Yes," said Harry stoutly. Hagrid beamed at him.
        "Lovely," said Rita. "Really lovely. Been teaching long?" she added to Hagrid.
        Harry noticed her eyes travel over Dean (who had a nasty cut across one cheek), Lavender (whose robes were badly singed), Seamus (who was nursing several burnt fingers), and then to the cabin windows, where most of the class stood, their noses pressed against the glass waiting to see if the coast was clear.
        "This is o'ny me second year," said Hagrid.
        "Lovely... I don't suppose you'd like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experience of magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these — er — Bang-Ended Scoots."
        "Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid said eagerly. "Er—yeah, why not?"
Hagrid is confused about Rita = pp. 390,391
 …and just to heighten Harry's feeling of well-being, no story about Hagrid had appeared in the Daily Prophet.
        "She didn' seem very int'rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth," Hagrid said, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione asked him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone during the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term. To their very great relief, Hagrid had given up on direct contact with the skrewts now, and they were merely sheltering behind his cabin today, sitting at a trestle table and preparing a fresh selection of food with which to tempt the skrewts.
        "She jus' wanted me ter talk about you, Harry," Hagrid continued in a low voice. "Well, I told her we'd been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. ‘Never had to tell him off in four years?' she said. ‘Never played you up in lessons, has he?' I told her no, an' she didn' seem happy at all. Yeh'd think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Harry."
        "'Course she did," said Harry, throwing lumps of dragon liver into a large metal bowl and picking up his knife to cut some more. "She can't keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it'll get boring."
        "She wants a new angle, Hagrid," said Ron wisely as he shelled salamander eggs. "You were supposed to say Harry's a mad delinquent!"
        "But he's not!" said Hagrid, looking genuinely shocked.
        "She should've interviewed Snape," said Harry grimly. "He'd give her the goods on me any day. ‘Potter has been crossing lines ever since he first arrived at this school. . ..'"
        "Said that, did he?" said Hagrid, while Ron and Hermione laughed. "Well, yeh might've bent a few rules, Harry, bu' yeh're all righ' really, aren' you?"
        "Cheers, Hagrid," said Harry, grinning.
        "You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Hagrid?" said Ron.
        "Though' I might look in on it, yeah," said Hagrid gruffly. "Should be a good do, I reckon. You'll be openin' the dancin', won' yeh, Harry? Who're you takin'?"
Hagrid dances = p.424
         Madame Maxime and Hagrid were cutting a wide path around. the dance floor as they waltzed through the students, and Karkaroff was nowhere to be seen.
Then after the dance = pp. 427-429
         "Momen' I saw yeh, I knew," he was saying, in an oddly husky voice.
        Harry and Ron froze. This didn't sound like the sort of scene they ought to walk in on, somehow. . . . Harry looked around, back up the path, and saw Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies standing half-concealed in a rosebush nearby. He tapped Ron on the shoulder and jerked his head toward them, meaning that they could easily sneak off that way without being noticed (Fleur and Davies looked very busy to Harry), but Ron, eyes widening in horror at the sight of Fleur, shook his head vigorously, and pulled Harry deeper into the shadows behind the reindeer.
        "What did you know, ‘Agrid?" said Madame Maxime, a purr in her low voice.
        Harry definitely didn't want to listen to this; he knew Hagrid would hate to be overheard in a situation like this (he certainly would have) — if it had been possible he would have put his fingers in his ears and hummed loudly, but that wasn't really an option. Instead he tried to interest himself in a beetle crawling along the stone reindeer's back, but the beetle just wasn't interesting enough to block out Hagrid's next words.
        "I jus' knew... knew you were like me.. . . Was it yer mother or yer father?"
        "I —I don't know what you mean, ‘Agrid. . . ."
        "It was my mother," said Hagrid quietly. "She was one o' the las' ones in Britain. ‘Course, I can' remember her too well.. . she left, see. When I was abou' three. She wasn' really the maternal sort. Well. . . it's not in their natures, is it? Dunno what happened to her . .. might be dead fer all I know. ..."
        Madame Maxime didn't say anything. And Harry, in spite of himself, took his eyes off the beetle and looked over the top of the reindeer's antlers, listening.. . . He had never heard Hagrid talk about his childhood before.
        "Me dad was broken-hearted when she wen'. Tiny little bloke, my dad was. By the rime I was six I could lift him up an' put him on top o' the dresser if he annoyed me. Used ter make him laugh...." Hagrid's deep voice broke. Madame Maxime was listening, motionless, apparently staring at the silvery fountain. "Dad raised me... but he died, o' course, jus' after I started school. Sorta had ter make me own way after that. Dumbledore was a real help, mind. Very kind ter me, he was. ...."
        Hagrid pulled out a large spotted silk handkerchief and blew his nose heavily.
        "So... anyway... enough abou' me. What about you? Which side you got it on?"
        But Madame Maxime had suddenly got to her feet.
        "It is chilly," she said — but whatever the weather was doing, it was nowhere near as cold as her voice. "I think I will go in now."
        "Eh?" said Hagrid blankly. "No, don' go! I've — I've never met another one before!"
        "Anuzzer what, precisely?" said Madame Maxime, her tone icy.
        Harry could have told Hagrid it was best not to answer; he stood there in the shadows gritting his teeth, hoping against hope he wouldn't — but it was no good.
        "Another half-giant, o' course!" said Hagrid.
        " ‘Ow dare you!" shrieked Madame Maxime. Her voice exploded
through the peaceful night air like a foghorn; behind him, Harry heard Fleur and Roger fall out of their rosebush. "I ‘ave nevair been more insulted in my life! ‘Aif-giant? Moi? I ‘ave —I ‘ave big bones!"
        She stormed away; great multicolored swarms of fairies rose into the air as she passed, angrily pushing aside bushes. Hagrid was still sitting on the bench, staring after her. It was much too dark to make out his expression. Then, after about a minute, he stood up and strode away, not back to the castle, but off out into the dark grounds in the direction of his cabin.
Hagrid looses confidence again = pp. 452-457
         "Hagrid!" Hermione shouted, pounding on his front door. "Hagrid, that's enough! We know you're in there! Nobody cares if your mum was a giantess, Hagrid! You can't let that foul Skeeter woman do this to you! Hagrid, get out here, you're just being —"
        The door opened. Hermione said, "About t—!" and then sopped, very suddenly, because she had found herself face-to-face, nor with Hagrid, but with Albus Dumbledore.
        "Good afternoon," he said pleasantly, smiling down at them.
        "We—er—we wanted to see Hagrid," said Hermione in a rather small voice.
        "Yes, I surmised as much," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "Why don't you come in?"
        "Oh . .. um .. . okay," said Hermione.
        She, Ron, and Harry went into the cabin; Fang launched. himself upon Harry the moment he entered, barking madly and trying to lick his ears. Harry fended off Fang and looked around.
        Hagrid was sitting at his table, where there were two large mugs of tea. He looked a real mess. His face was blotchy, his eyes swollen, and he had gone to the other extreme where his hair was concerned; far from trying to make it behave, it now looked like a wig of tangled wire.
        "Hi, Hagrid," said Harry.
        Hagrid looked up.
        "'Lo," he said in a very hoarse voice.
        "More tea, I think," said Dumbledore, closing the door behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione, drawing out his wand, and twiddling it; a revolving tea tray appeared in midair along with a plate of cakes. Dumbledore magicked the tray onto the table, and everybody sat down. There was a slight pause, and then Dumbledore said, "Did you by any chance hear what Miss Granger was shouting, Hagrid?"
        Hermione went slightly pink, but Dumbledore smiled at her and continued, "Hermione, Harry, and Ron still seem to want to know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down the door."
        "Of course we still want to know you!" Harry said, staring at Hagrid. "You don't think anything that Skeeter cow — sorry, Professor," he added quickly, looking at Dumbledore.
        "I have gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea what you said, Harry," said Dumbledore, twiddling his thumbs and staring at the ceiling.
        "Er — right," said Harry sheepishly. "I just meant — Hagrid, how could you think we'd care what that — woman — wrote about you?"
        Two fat tears leaked out of Hagrid's beetle-black eyes and fell slowly into his tangled beard.
        "Living proof of what I've been telling you, Hagrid," said Dumbledore, still looking carefully up at the ceiling. "I have shown you the letters from the countless parents who remember you from their own days here, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I sacked you, they would have something to say about it —"
        "Not all of 'em," said Hagrid hoarsely. "Not all of 'em wan' me ter stay."
        "Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time," said Dumbledore, now peering sternly over his half-moon spectacles. "Not a week has passed since I became headmaster of this school when I haven't had at least one owl complaining about the way I run it. But what should I do? Barricade myself in my study and refuse to talk to anybody?"
        "Yeh — yeh're not half-giant!" said Hagrid croakily.
        "Hagrid, look what I've got for relatives!" Harry said furiously. "Look at the Dursleys!"
        "An excellent point," said Professor Dumbledore. "My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery. .. ."
        "Come back and teach, Hagrid," said Hermione quietly, "please come back, we really miss you."
        Hagrid gulped. More tears leaked out down his cheeks and into his tangled beard.
        Dumbledore stood up. "I refuse to accept your resignation, Hagrid, and I expect you back at work on Monday," he said. "You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall. No excuses. Good afternoon to you all."        
        Dumbledore left the cabin, pausing only to scratch Fang's ears. When the door had shut behind him, Hagrid began to sob into his
dustbin-lid-sized hands. Hermione kept patting his arm, and at last, Hagrid looked up, his eyes very red indeed, and said, "Great man, Dumbledore ... great man ..."
        "Yeah, he is," said Ron. "Can I have one of these cakes, Hagrid?"
        "Help yerself," said Hagrid, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "At, he's righ', o' course — yeh're all righ'.. . I bin stupid . . . my ol' dad woulda bin ashamed o' the way I've bin behavin'. . .." More tears leaked out, but he wiped them away more forcefully, and said, "Never shown you a picture of my old dad, have I? Here. . ."
        Hagrid got up, went over to his dresser, opened a drawer, and piled out a picture of a short wizard with Hagrid's crinkled black eyes, beaming as he sat on top of Hagrid's shoulder. Hagrid was a good seven or eight feet tall, judging by the apple tree beside him but his face was beardless, young, round, and smooth — he looked hardly older than eleven.
        "Tha' was taken jus' after I got inter Hogwarts," Hagrid croaked. "Dad was dead chuffed . . . thought I migh' not be a wizard, see, ‘cos me mum .. . well, anyway. ‘Course, I never was great shakes at magic, really . . . but at least he never saw me expelled. Died, see, in me second year. . . ."
        "Dumbledore was the one who stuck up for me after Dad went. Got me the gamekeeper job . . . trusts people, he does. Gives ‘em second chances . . . tha's what sets him apar' from other Heads, see. He'll accept anyone at Hogwarts, s'long as they've got the talent. Knows people can turn out okay even if their families weren' . . . well. . . all tha' respectable. But some don' understand that. There's some who'd always hold it against yeh . . . there's some who'd even
pretend they just had big bones rather than stand up an' say —I am what I am, an' I'm not ashamed. ‘Never be ashamed,' my ol' dad used ter say, ‘there's some who'll hold it against you, but they're not worth botherin' with.' An' he was right. I've bin an idiot. I'm not botherin' with her no more, I promise yeh that. Big bones . . . I'll give her big bones."
        Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another nervously; Harry would rather have taken fifty Blast-Ended Skrewts for a walk tan admit to Hagrid that he had overheard him talking to Madame Maxime, but Hagrid was still talking, apparently unaware that he had said anything odd.
        "Yeh know wha', Harry?" he said, looking up from the photograph of his father, his eyes very bright, "when I firs' met you, you reminded me o' me a bit. Mum an' Dad gone, an' you was feelin' like yeh wouldn' fit in at Hogwarts, remember? Not sure yeh were really up to it... an' now look at yeh, Harry! School champion!"
        He looked at Harry for a moment and then said, very seriously, "Yeh know what I'd love, Harry? I'd love yeh ter win, I really would. It'd show ‘em all. .. yeh don' have ter be pureblood ter do it. Yeh don' have ter be ashamed of what yeh are. It'd show ‘em Dumbledore's the one who's got it righ', lettin' anyone in as long as they can do magic. How you doin' with that egg, Harry?"
        "Great," said Harry. "Really great."
        Hagrid's miserable face broke into a wide, watery smile.
        "Tha's my boy... you show ‘em, Harry, you show ‘em. Beat ‘m all."
        Lying to Hagrid wasn't quite like lying to anyone else. Harry went back to the castle later that afternoon with Ron and Hermione, unable to banish the image of the happy expression on
Hagrid's whiskery face as he had imagined Harry winning the tournament. The incomprehensible egg weighed more heavily than ever on Harry's conscience that evening, and by the time he had got into bed, he had made up his mind — it was time to shelve his pride and see if Cedric's hint was worth anything.
A proper lesson = pp. 484,485
         Whether Hagrid was trying to make up for the Blast-Ended Skrewts, or because there were now only two skrewts left, or because he was trying to prove he could do anything that Professor Grubbly-Plank could, Harry didn't know, but Hagrid had been continuing her lessons on unicorns ever since he'd returned to work. It turned out that Hagrid knew quite as much about unicorns as he did about monsters, though it was clear that he found their lack of poisonous fangs disappointing.
        Today he had managed to capture two unicorn foals. Unlike full-grown unicorns, they were pure gold. Parvati and Lavender went into transports of delight at the sight of them, and even Pansy Parkinson had to work hard to conceal how much she liked them.
        "Easier ter spot than the adults," Hagrid told the class. "They turn silver when they're abou' two years old, an' they grow horns at aroun' four. Don' go pure white rill they're full grown, ‘round about seven. They're a bit more trustin' when they're babies . . . don' mind boys so much.... C'mon, move in a bit, yeh can pat ‘em if yeh want.. . give ‘em a few o' these sugar lumps.. . .
        "You okay, Harry?" Hagrid muttered, moving aside slightly, wile most of the others swarmed around the baby unicorns.
        "Yeah," said Harry.
        "Jus' nervous, eh?" said Hagrid.
        "Bit," said Harry.
        "Harry," said Hagrid, clapping a massive hand on his shoulder,
so that Harry's knees buckled under its weight, "I'd've bin worried before I saw yeh take on tha' Horntail, but I know now yeh can do anythin' yeh set yer mind ter. I'm not worried at all. Yeh're goin' ter be fine. Got yer clue worked out, haven' yeh?"
        Harry nodded, but even as he did so, an insane urge to confess that he didn't have any idea how to survive at the bottom of the lake for an hour came over him. He looked up at Hagrid — perhaps he had to go into the lake sometimes, to deal with the creatures m it? He looked after everything else on the grounds, after all—
        "Yeh're goin' ter win," Hagrid growled, patting Harry's shoulder again, so that Harry actually felt himself sink a couple of inches into the soft ground. "I know it. I can feel it. Yeh're goin' ter win, Harry."
Another good lesson = pp. 542-545
         Hagrid, who had told them last lesson that they had finished with unicorns, was waiting for them outside his cabin with a fresh supply of open crates at his feet. Harry's heart sank at the sight of the crates — surely not another skrewt hatching? — but when he got near enough to see inside, he found himself looking at a number of fluffy black creatures with long snouts. Their front paws
were curiously flat, like spades, and they were blinking up at the class, looking politely puzzled at all the attention.
        "These're nifflers," said Hagrid, when the class had gathered around. "Yeh find ‘em down mines mostly. They like sparkly stuff.... There yeh go, look."
        One of the nifflers had suddenly leapt up and attempted to bite Pansy Parkinson's watch off her wrist. She shrieked and jumped backward.
        "Useful little treasure detectors," said Hagrid happily. "Thought we'd have some fun with ‘em today. See over there?" He pointed at the large patch of freshly turned earth Harry had watched him digging from the Owlery window. "I've buried some gold coins. I've got a prize fer whoever picks the niffler that digs up most. Jus' take off all yer valuables, an' choose a niffler, an' get ready ter set ‘em loose."
        Harry took off his watch, which he was only wearing out of habit, as it didn't work anymore. and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he picked up a niffler. It put its long snout in Harry's ear and sniffled enthusiastically. It was really quite cuddly.
        "Hang on," said Hagrid, looking down into the crate, "there's a spare niffler here ... who's missin'? Where's Hermione?"
        "She had to go to the hospital wing," said Ron.
        "We'll explain later," Harry muttered; Pansy Parkinson was listening.
        It was easily the most fun they had ever had in Care of Magical Creatures. The nifflers dived in and out of the patch of earth as though it were water, each scurrying back to the student who had released it and spitting gold into their hands. Ron's was particularly efficient; it had soon filled his lap with coins.
        "Can you buy these as pets, Hagrid?" he asked excitedly as his niffler dived back into the soil, splattering his robes.
        "Yer mum wouldn' be happy, Ron," said Hagrid, grinning. "They wreck houses, nifflers. I reckon they've nearly got the lot, now," he added, pacing around the patch of earth while the nifflers continued to dive. "I on'y buried a hundred coins. Oh there y'are, Hermione!"
        Hermione was walking toward them across the lawn. Her hands were very heavily bandaged and she looked miserable. Pansy Parkinson was watching her beadily.
        "Well, let's check how yeh've done!" said Hagrid. "Count yer coins! An' there's no point tryin' ter steal any, Goyle," he added, his beetle-black eyes narrowed. "It's leprechaun gold. Vanishes after a few hours."
        Goyle emptied his pockets, looking extremely sulky. It turned out that Ron's niffler had been most successful, so Hagrid gave him an enormous slab of Honeydukes chocolate for a prize. The bell rang across the grounds for lunch; the rest of the class set off back to the castle, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione stayed behind to help Hagrid put the nifflers back in their boxes. Harry noticed Madame Maxime watching them out of her carriage window.
        "What yeh done ter your hands, Hermione?" said Hagrid, looking concerned.
        Hermione told him about the hate mail she had received that morning, and the envelope full of bubotuber pus.
        "Aaah, don' worry," said Hagrid gently, looking down at her. "I got some o' those letters an' all, after Rita Skeeter wrote abou' me mum.
‘Yeh're a monster an yeh should be put down.' ‘Yer mother killed innocent people an' if you had any decency you'd jump in a lake.'"
        "No!" said Hermione, looking shocked.
        "Yeah," said Hagrid, heaving the niffler crates over by his cabin wall. "They're jus' nutters, Hermione. Don' open ‘em if yeh get any more. Chuck ‘em straight' in the fire."
Hagrid looses his temper = pp. 560-563
         The sound of thunderous footfalls reached them, and Hagrid came panting into sight with Fang at his heels. He was carrying his crossbow.
        "Professor Dumbledore!" he said, his eyes widening. "Harry —what the — ?"
        "Hagrid, I need you to fetch Professor Karkaroff," said Dumbledore. "His student has been attacked. When you've done that, kindly alert Professor Moody —"
        "No need, Dumbledore," said a wheezy growl. "I'm here."
        Moody was limping toward them, leaning on his staff, his wand lit.
        "Damn leg," he said furiously. "Would've been here quicker . . . what's happened? Snape said something about Crouch —"
        "Crouch?" said Hagrid blankly.
        "Karkaroff, please, Hagrid!" said Dumbledore sharply.
        "Oh yeah ... right y'are, Professor ..." said Hagrid, and he turned and disappeared into the dark trees, Fang trotting after him.
……
        "Treachery!" he bellowed, pointing at Dumbledore. "It is a plot! You and your Ministry of Magic have lured me here under false pretenses, Dumbledore! This is not an equal competition! First you sneak Potter into the tournament, though he is underage! Now one of your Ministry friends attempts to put my champion out of action! I smell double-dealing and corruption in this whole affair, and you, Dumbledore, you, with your talk of closer international
wizarding links, of rebuilding old ties, of forgetting old differences — here's what I think of you!"         Karkaroff spat onto the ground at Dumbledore's feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff's furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree.
        "Apologize!" Hagrid snarled as Karkaroff gasped for breath, Hagrid's massive fist at his throat, his feet dangling in midair.
        "Hagrid, no!" Dumbledore shouted, his eyes flashing.
        Hagrid removed the hand pinning Karkaroff to the tree, and Karkaroff slid all the way down the trunk and slumped in a huddle at its roots; a few twigs and leaves showered down upon his head.
        "Kindly escort Harry back up to the castle, Hagrid," said Dumbledore sharply.
        Breathing heavily, Hagrid gave Karkaroff a glowering look.
        "Maybe I'd better stay here, Headmaster. ..."
        "You will take Harry back to school, Hagrid," Dumbledore repeated firmly. "Take him right up to Gryffindor Tower. And Harry —I want you to stay there. Anything you might want to do — any owls you might want to send — they can wait until morning, do you understand me?"
        "Er — yes," said Harry, staring at him. How had Dumbledore known that, at that very moment, he had been thinking about sending Pigwidgeon straight to Sirius, to tell him what had happened?
        "I'll leave Fang with yeh, Headmaster," Hagrid said, staring menacingly at Karkaroff, who was still sprawled at the foot of the tree, tangled in furs and tree roots. "Stay, Fang. C'mon, Harry."
        They marched in silence past the Beauxbatons carriage and up toward the castle.
        "How dare he," Hagrid growled as they strode past the lake. "How dare he accuse Dumbledore. Like Dumbledore'd do anythin' like that. Like Dumbledore wanted you in the tournament in the firs' place. Worried! I dunno when I seen Dumbledore more worried than he's bin lately. An' you!" Hagrid suddenly said angrily to Harry, who looked up at him, taken aback. "What were yeh doin', wanderin' off with ruddy Krum? He's from Durmstrang, Harry! Coulda jinxed yeh right there, couldn' he? Hasn' Moody taught yeh nothin'? ‘Magine lettin' him lure yeh off on yer own —"
        "Krum's all right!" said Harry as they climbed the steps into the entrance hall. "He wasn't trying to jinx me, he just wanted to talk about Hermione —"
        "I'll be havin' a few words with her, an' all," said Hagrid grimly, stomping up the stairs. "The less you lot ‘ave ter do with these foreigners, the happier yeh'll be. Yeh can' trust any of 'em."
        "You were getting on all right with Madame Maxime," Harry said, annoyed.
        "Don' you talk ter me abou' her!" said Hagrid, and he looked quite frightening for a moment. "I've got her number now! Tryin' ter get back in me good books, tryin' ter get me ter tell her what's comin' in the third task. Ha! You can' trust any of ‘em!"
        Hagrid was in such a bad mood, Harry was quite glad to say good-bye to him in front of the Fat Lady.
Hagrid the wise = pp. 718,719
        "Who's that?" called Hagrid, coming to the door. "Harry!"
        He strode out to meet them, pulled Harry into a one-armed hug, ruffled his hair, and said, "Good ter see yeh, mate. Good ter see yeh."
        y saw two bucket-size cups and saucers on the wooden table in front of the fireplace when they entered Hagrid's cabin.
        "Bin havin' a cuppa with Olympe," Hagrid said. "She's jus' left."
        "Who?" said Ron curiously.
        "Madame Maxime, o' course!" said Hagrid.
        "You two made up, have you?" said Ron.
        "Dunno what yeh're talkin' about," said Hagrid airily, fetching more cups from the dresser. When he had made tea and offered around a plate of doughy cookies, he leaned back in his chair and surveyed Harry closely through his beetle-black eyes.
        "You all righ'?" he said gruffly.
        "Yeah," said Harry.
        "No, yeh're not," said Hagrid. "'Course yeh're not. But yeh will be."
        Harry said nothing.
        "Knew he was goin' ter come back," said Hagrid, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked up at him, shocked. "Known it fer years, Harry. Knew he was out there, bidin' his time. It had ter happen. Well, now it has, an' we'll jus' have ter get on with it. We'll fight. Migh' be able ter stop him before he gets a good hold. That's Dumbledore's plan, anyway. Great man, Dumbledore. 'S long as we've got him, I'm not too worried."
        Hagrid raised his bushy eyebrows at the disbelieving expressions on their faces.
        "No good sittin' worryin' abou' it," he said. "What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does. Dumbledore told me wha' you did, Harry."
        Hagrid's chest swelled as he looked at Harry.
        "Yeh did as much as yer father would've done, an' I can' give yeh no higher praise than that."
        Harry smiled back at him. It was the first time he'd smiled in days. "What's Dumbledore asked you to do, Hagrid?" he asked. "He sent Professor McGonagall to ask you and Madame Maxime to meet him — that night."
        "Got a little job fer me over the summer," said Hagrid. "Secret, though. I'm not s'pposed ter talk abou' it, no, not even ter you lot. Olympe — Madame Maxime ter you — might be comin' with me. I think she will. Think I got her persuaded."
        "Is it to do with Voldemort?"
        Hagrid flinched at the sound of the name.
        "Migh' be," he said evasively. "Now . . . who'd like ter come an' visit the las' skrewt with me? I was jokin' — jokin'!" he added hastily, seeing the looks on their faces.


A Hagrid Dictionary.

How to Write Hagrid's accent.

Phrases and words common to Hagrid's speech:
blimey = mild form of exclamation
bong-sewer = mispronunciation of the French word for hello
budge up = move over
chappie = chap, person, gentleman
codswallop =cow manure - mild exclamation
crikey = mild form of exclamation like "Christ"
cuppa = cup of tea or coffee
dodgy = not quite right
duffers = someone who puts out a good effort but generally is not considered an expert
Him an me'll
It's them as should be sorry
looks a treat
reckon = to reason (I reckon I could if I wanted to)
ruddy = mild exclamation

If you write the way you would normally, and then replace the following words, you will get closer than many I have seen:

Note that where we use the ending of (ing), Hagrid uses a contraction of (in') leaving off the (g) except when the word is stressed: "nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING"
anything = anythin'
asking = askin'
behaving behavin'
being = bein'
biding = bidin'
blabbing =rabbitin'        
blaming = blamin'
bothering = botherin'
buying = buyin'
celebrating = celebratin'
changing = changin'
chasing = chasin'
coming = comin'
competing = competin'
copying = Copyin'
crying = cryin'
dancing = dancin'
delivering = deliverin'
doing = doin'
dying = dyin'
eating = Eatin'
everything = everythin'
everything ev'rythin'
expecting = expectin'
fattening = fattenin'
feeding = feedin'
feeling = feelin'
fetching = fetchin'
flooding = floodin'
flying = flyin'
forgetting = forgettin'
frightening = frightenin'
getting = gettin'
giving = givin'
going = goin'
going to = gonna
growing = growin'
guarding = guardin'
gulping = gulpin'
happening = happenin'
having = havin'
hoping = hopin'
insulting = insultin'
interesting = interestin'
joking = jokin'
keeping = keepin'
killing = killin'
knowing = knowin'"
knowing = knowin'
leaving = Leavin'
letting = lettin'
liking = likin'
listening = listenin'
living = livin'
looking = lookin'
lurking = lurkin'
making = makin'
marching = marchin'
meaning = meanin'
meddling = meddlin'
messing = messin'
moaning = moanin'
morning = mornin'
murdering = murderin'
needing = needin'
nothing = nothin'
opening = openin'
packing = packin'
paying = payin'
playing = playin'
practicing = practicin'
Promising = promisin'
pudding = puddin'
reading = readin'
ruining = ruinin'
running = runnin'
Saying = sayin'
saying = sayin'
seeing = seein'
shaking = shakin'
shining = shinin'
shouting = shoutin'
sitting = sittin'
skulking = skulkin'
something = somethin' or summat (usage is unique to English: got summat fer yeh)
speaking = speakin'
staggering = staggerin'
stinking = stinkin'
studying = studyin'
sucking = suckin'
swarming = swarmin'
taking = takin'
talking = talkin'
telling = tellin'
thriving = Thrivin'
trembling = tremblin'
trying = tryin'
waiting = waitin'
walking = walkin'
wandering = wanderin'
wanting = wantin'
watching = watchin'
wizarding = wizardin'
wondering = wonderin'
worrying = worryin'

Other words are also contracted:

about = 'Bout
about = abou'
and = an'
apart = apar'
are not = aren'
because = ‘cause
because = ‘cos
been = bin
best = bes'
better = Be'er
but = Bu'
cannot = can'
Christmas = Chris'mas
come on = C'mon
crazy = nutters
did not = didn'
difference = diff'rence
different = diff'rent
do not = don'
do you = d'yeh
does not = doesn'
don't know = Dunno
don't = don'
every = ev'ry
except = ‘cept
first = firs'
for = fer
gentleman = bloke
God (as an explicative ) = Gawd
good one = good'un
got to = gotta
governors = gov'nors
hasn't = hasn'
have = ‘ave
he would have = he'dve
honestly = hones'ly
I would have = I'd've
imagine = ‘Magine
interested = int'rested
isn't = i'n't
isn't = Is'n'
Isn't = isn'
it is = ‘S
it is no = s'no
it is not = ‘Snot
just = jus'
kept = Kep'
last = las'
lot of = lotta
lot of them would have = lot'd
might = migh'
might have = mighta
more than = more'n
mother = mum
must = mus'
must have = musta
must not = mustn'
my = me
mystery = myst'ry
mystery = myst'ry
no = nah
of = o'
of course = ‘course
old = ol'
only = on'y
ought to = oughta
out of = outta
quickly = sharpish,
right = righ'
round = roun'
shouldn't = shouldn'
shouldn't have = shouldn'ta
sleep = kip
so long = s'long
somewhat = summat
suppose = s'ppose
supposed = s'pposed
suspect = ‘Spect
that = tha'
that's = tha's
them = ‘em
to = ter
want = wan'
wasn't = wasn'
weren't = weren'
what = wha',
what is the matter = ‘smatter
won't = won'
worst = wors'
would Have = woulda
wouldn't = wouldn'
yes = Ar
you = yeh
you = yeh
you are = y'are,
you are = yeh're
you Have = yeh've
you will = yeh'll
you would = yeh'd
your = yer
yourself = yerself
yourselves = yerselves


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