Lost Memories

xxxi. hagrid

"They do," said Hagrid darkly. "O'ny their deaths are always put down ter mountaineerin' accidents, aren' they?"

Hagrid spoke about his trip to the mountains to find the giant colony and rally support for Dumbledore. He told us how hard it was to get to the mountains without being followed by 'meddling muggles' and needing to follow Dumbledore's instructions carefully.

"S' like Charlotte said, Death Eaters show' up an' start' showin' up an' messin'— but Olympe an' me succeeded. We save' some of 'ems. Dumbledore'll be happy!" Hagrid explained.

Ron and Harry started to ask more information about the giants than about how Hagrid was, Hermione glared at them. They were too focused on Hagrid's tales that they didn't notice her. I sat at the kitchen table and played with Fang, who was slobbering all over the place.

A sudden outbreak of knocks came from the door. All four of us stared at the window beside the doorway. The shadow of somebody small and squat rippled across the thin curtain.

"It's her!" Ron whispered.

"Get under here!" Harry said quickly; seizing the Invisibility Cloak he whirled it over Hermione and me while Ron tore around the table and dived beneath the cloak as well. Huddled together we backed away into a corner. Fang was barking madly at the door. Hagrid looked thoroughly confused.

"Hagrid, hide our mugs!" I whispered harshly.

Hagrid seized Harry's, Ron's, and my mugs and shoved them under the cushion in Fang's basket. Fang was now leaping up at the door; Hagrid pushed him out of the way with his foot and pulled it open.

Professor Umbridge was standing in the doorway wearing her green tweed cloak and a matching hat with earflaps. Lips pursed, she leaned back so as to see Hagrid's face; she barely reached his navel.

"So," she said slowly and loudly, as though speaking to somebody deaf. "You're Hagrid, are you?"

Without waiting for an answer she strolled into the room, her bulging eyes rolling in every direction.

"Get away," she snapped, waving her handbag at Fang, who had bounded up to her and was attempting to lick her face.

"Er — I don' want ter be rude," said Hagrid, staring at her, "but who the ruddy hell are you?"

"My name is Dolores Umbridge."

Her eyes were sweeping the cabin. Twice they stared directly into the corner where I stood, sandwiched between Ron and Hermione, Harry directly behind me.

"Dolores Umbridge?" Hagrid said, sounding thoroughly confused."I thought you were one o' them Ministry — don' you work with Fudge?"

"I was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, yes," said Umbridge, now pacing around the cabin, taking in every tiny detail within, from the haversack against the wall to the abandoned travelling cloak. "I am now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher —"

"Tha's brave of yeh," said Hagrid, "there's not many'd take tha' job anymore —"

"— and Hogwarts High Inquisitor," said Umbridge, giving no sign that she had heard him.

"Wha's that?" said Hagrid, frowning.

"There are four sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin," said Umbridge sleekly, ignoring his question.

Hermione gasped; Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly around the hem of Professor Umbridge's robes, and she did not appear to have heard.

"Well, I on'y jus' got back," said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. "Maybe someone came ter call earlier an' I missed 'em.

"There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door."