Right Now Could Last Forever

Everybody got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations. Harry and Ron told Hermione and I about a conversation they had overheard between Madame Maxime and Hagrid. Neither of us was really surprised to hear Hagrid was a half giant.

“Well, I thought he must be,” Hermione said, shrugging. “I knew he couldn’t be pure giant, because they’re about twenty feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can’t all be horrible... it’s the same sort of prejudice that people have towards werewolves... it’s just bigotry, isn’t it?”

Ron looked as though he would have liked to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn’t want another row, because he contented himself with shaking his head disbelievingly while Hermione wasn’t looking.

It was time now to think of the homework we had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat, now that Christmas was over. The first day of the term arrived, and I set off to lessons, weighed down with books, parchment and quills as usual.

Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that we couldn’t see out of them in Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this weather, though, as I said, the Skrewts would probably warm us up nicely, either by chasing them or by blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid’s cabin caught fire.

When we arrived at Hagrid’s cabin, however, we found an elderly witch with closely cropped grey hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.

“Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago,” she barked at us, as we struggled towards her through the snow.

“Who’re you?” I said, staring at her. “Where’s Hagrid?”

“My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank,” she said briskly, “I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher.”

“Where’s Hagrid?” Harry repeated loudly.

“He is indisposed,” said Grubbly-Plank shortly.

Soft and unpleasant laughter reached my ears. I turned; Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins were joining the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see Grubbly-Plank.

“This way, please,” said Grubbly-Plank, and she strode off around the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were shivering. Harry, Ron, Hermione and I followed her, looking back over our shoulders at Hagrid’s cabin. All the curtains were closed. Was Hagrid in there, alone and ill?

“What’s wrong with Hagrid?” Harry said, hurrying to catch up with the professor.

“Never you mind,” she said, as though she thought he was being nosy.

“I do mind, though,” said Harry hotly. “What’s up with him?”

Grubbly-Plank acted as though she couldn’t hear him. She led us past the paddock where the Beauxbatons horses were standing, huddled against the cold, and towards a tree on the edge of the Forest, where a large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.

Many of the girls ‘ooooohed!’ at the sight of the unicorn.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful!” whispered Lavender Brown. “How did she get it? They’re supposed to be really hard to catch!”

The unicorn was so brightly white that it made the snow all around look grey. It was pawing the ground nervously with its golden hooves, and throwing back its horned head.

“Boys keep back!” barked the professor, throwing out an arm and catching Harry hard in the chest. “They prefer the woman’s touch, unicorns. Girls to the front, and approach with care. Come on, easy does it...”

I walked slowly forwards toward the unicorn with the rest of the girls, leaving the boys standing near the paddock fence, watching.

I must admit, the unicorn was very beautiful, and when I reached my hand out slowly, it head butted it gently with its snout. It was super soft and all the girls seemed to melt at its touch. Grubbly-Plank was enumerating in a loud voice the many magical properties of the unicorn, loud enough that the boys could hear, too.

“I hope she stays, that woman!” said Parvati Patil, when the lesson had ended, and we were all heading back to the castle for lunch. “That’s more what I thought Care of Magical Creatures would be like... proper creatures like unicorns, not monsters...”

“What about Hagrid?” Harry said angrily, as they went up the steps.

“What about him?” said Parvati, in a hard voice. “He can still be gamekeeper, can’t he?”

Parvati has been very cool towards Harry since the ball. To be fair, Harry could’ve shown her some more attention. Parvati had told all of us the night of the ball when we were all in bed how she’d met a lovely boy from Beauxbatons, and how she had made arrangements to meet him in Hogsmeade on the next weekend trip.

“That was a really good lesson,” said Hermione, as we entered the Great Hall. “I didn’t know half the things Professor Grubbly-Plank told us about uni-“

“Look at this!” Harry snarled, and he shoved a copy of The Daily Prophet under Hermione’s nose. I read over her shoulder.

I felt my mouth fall open as I read. “How did that horrible Skeeter woman find out? You don’t think Hagrid told her?”

“No,” said Harry, leading the way over to the Gryffindor table and throwing himself into a chair, furious. “He never even told us, did he? I reckon she was so mad he wouldn’t give her loads of horrible stuff about me, she went ferreting around to get back at him.”

As I sat down, I looked over to where Fred, George and Lee were sitting, along with the majority of last year’s Quidditch team. I caught Fred’s eye, and he winked at me, which caused me to smile. This is how we’d mostly been interacting since Christmas Day.

“Maybe she heard him telling Madame Maxime at the ball,” I said quietly, turning my attention back to our conversation.

“We’d have seen her in the garden!” said Ron. “Anyway, she’s not supposed to come into school any more, Hagrid said Dumbledore banned her...”

“Maybe she’s got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry, ladling chicken casserole onto his palate and splashing it everywhere in his anger. “Sort of thing she’d do, isn’t it, hide in bushes listening to people.”

“Like you and Ron did, you mean,” I said.

“We weren’t trying to hear him!” said Ron indignantly. “We didn’t have any choice! The stupid git, talking about his giantess mother where anyone could hear him!”

“We’ve got to go and see him,” said Harry. “This evening, after Divination. Tell him we want him back... You do want him back?” he shot at Hermione.

“I – well, I’m not going to pretend it didn’t make a nice change, having a proper Care of Magical Creatures lesson for once – but I do want Hagrid back, of course I do!” Hermione added hastily, quailing under Harry’s furious stare.

So that evening after dinner, the four of us left the castle once more, and went down through the frozen grounds to Hagrid’s cabin. We knocked, and Fang’s booming barks answered.

“Hagrid, it’s us!” Harry shouted, pounding on the door. “Open up!”

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

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

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

“Missing your half-breed pal?” he kept whispering to me whenever there was a teacher around, so that he was safe from my retaliation. “Missing the elephant man?”

There was a Hogsmeade visit halfway through January. Hermione was very surprised that Harry was planning to go.

“I just thought you’d want to take advantage of the common room being quiet,” she said. “Really get to work on that egg.”

“Oh, I – I reckon I’ve got a pretty good idea what it’s about now,” Harry lied.

“Have you really?” said Hermione, looking impressed. “Well done!”

I left the castle with Harry, Hermione and Ron on Saturday, and we set off through the cold, wet grounds towards the gates. As we passed the Durmstrang shop moored in the lake, we saw Krum emerge onto the deck, dressed in nothing but swimming trunks. He was very skinny, but a lot tougher than he looked, because he climbed up onto the side of the shop, stretched out his arms and dived, right into the lake.

“He’s mad!” said Harry, staring at Krum’s head, as it bobbed out into the middle of the lake. “It must be freezing, it’s January!”

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

“Yeah; his only worry would be the giant squid,” I said, which made Ron look hopeful.

“He’s really nice, you know,” Hermione said, frowning at Ron. “He’s not at all like you’d think, coming from Durmstrang. He likes it much better here, he told me.”

Ron said nothing. I kept my eyes skinned for a sign of Hagrid all the way down the slushy High Street, and Harry suggested a visit to the Three Broomsticks.

The pub was as crowded as ever, but one quickly look around at all the tables told us that Hagrid wasn’t there. We went up to the bar, and ordered four Butterbeers from Madam Rosmerta.

“Doesn’t he ever go into the office?” Hermione whispered suddenly. “Look!”

She pointed into the mirror behind the bar, and I saw Ludo Bagman reflected there, sitting in a shadowy corner with a bunch of goblins. Bagman was talking very fast in a low voice to the goblins, all of whom had their arms crossed, and were looking rather menacing.

It was indeed odd, I thought, that Bagman was here at the Three Broomsticks on a weekend when there was no Triwizard event, and therefore no judging to be done. Bagman glanced over at the bar, saw Harry, and stood up.

“In a moment, in a moment!” I heard him say brusquely to the goblins, and Bagman hurried through the pub towards Harry, his boyish grin back in place.

“Harry!” he said. “How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all right?”

“Fine, thanks,” said Harry.

“Wonder if I could have a quick, private word, Harry?” said Bagman eagerly. “You couldn’t give us a moment, you three, could you?”

“Er – OK,” said Ron, and the three of us went to find a table.

“Over here,” I heard George call out, and Ron, Hermione and I joined George and Fred at a table.

“Where’s Harry?” George said sceptically.

“Talking to someone,” I said, before Ron or Hermione could say anything.

“Who?” Fred asked, picking up from my tone that it would be someone they would be interested in.

“No one,” I said, giving them both a serious look.

“Why can’t we tell them?” Ron asked, confused.

“Because, they’d want to go bother him.”

Fred and George both craned their necks, trying to catch a glimpse of who Harry was talking to.

“Come on, Blondie, just tell us,” George whined.

“It’s Bagman,” Fred said, standing up.

“He’s talking to Harry; it’s about the Triwizard Tournament,” Hermione said. “Leave them –“

But the twins were already weaving their way through the pub.

“I’ll be back,” I said, quickly following them.

“Hello, Mr Bagman,” Fred said brightly. “Can we buy you a drink?”

“Er... no,” said Bagman, with a disappointed glance at Harry, “no thank you, boys...”

The twins looked quite as disappointed as Bagman, who was surveying Harry as though he had let him down badly.

“Well, I must dash,” he said. “Nice seeing you all. Good luck, Harry.”

He hurried out of the pub. The goblins all slid off their chairs and exited after him.

“See,” I said to the twins, “he’s a waste of time.”

Harry and I went to rejoined Ron and Hermione.

“What did he want?” Ron said, the moment Harry had sat down.

“He offered to help me with the golden egg,” said Harry.

“He shouldn’t be doing that!” said Hermione, looking very shocked. “He’s one of the judges! And anyway, you’ve already worked it out – haven’t you?”

“Er... nearly,” said Harry.

“Well, I don’t think Dumbledore would like it if he knew Bagman was trying to persuade you to cheat!” said Hermione, still looking deeply disapproving. “I hope he’s trying to help Cedric as much!”

“He’s not. I asked,” said Harry.

“Who cares if Diggory’s getting help?” I said.

“Those goblins didn’t look very friendly,” said Hermione, sipping her Butterbeer. “What were they going here?”

“Looking for Crouch, according to Bagman,” said Harry. “He’s still ill. Hasn’t been into work.”

“Maybe Percy’s poisoning him,” I said. “Probably thinking if Crouch snuffs it he’ll be made Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation.”

Hermione gave me a don’t-joke-about-things-like-that (to which I shrugged), and said, “Funny, goblins looking for Mr Crouch... they’d normally deal with the Department of the Regulations and Control of Magical Creatures.”

“Crouch can speak loads of different languages, though,” said Harry. “Maybe they need an interpreter.”

“Worrying about poor ‘ickle goblins, now, are you?” Ron asked Hermione. “Thinking of starting up S.P.U.G or something? Society for the Protection of Ugly Goblins?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” said Hermione sarcastically. “Goblins don’t need protection. Haven’t you been listening to what Professor Binns has been telling us about goblin rebellions?”

“No,” said Harry, Ron and I together.

“Well, they’re quite capable of dealing with wizards,” said Hermione, sipping more of her Butterbeer. “They’re very clever. They’re not like house-elves, who never stick up for themselves.

“Uh oh,” said Ron, staring at the door.