Harry Potter and Claire Smith's Adventures Book Two

Diaries and Valentines

Tom hesitated before saying, "No, sir. Nothing."

Dumbledore studied Tom for a moment then said, "Very well then. Hurry along."

Dumbledore left and Tom began to move quickly towards the dungeon steps.

"Why's he going down there?" Ron questioned.

"There's only one way to find out," Claire said. "C'mon."

They followed Tom down to the dungeons. Tom led them to a corridor. At the end of the corridor there was a door that was cracked. Tom put his eye to the crack. Someone was on the other side of the door speaking.

"C'mon, Aragog. Gotta get yeh outta here. C'mon now in the box….." The voice said.

Claire recognized the voice.

"No, it can't be…" Claire said in shock.

Harry and Ron seemed puzzled. Just then, Tom pushed the door opened revealing a younger Hagrid crouched by a box. There seemed to be a strange clicking noise coming from the box.

"Evening, Hagrid." Tom said smoothly. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Hagrid. I don't think you meant to kill anyone-"

"No, yeh can't! Yeh don' understand!" The younger Hagrid exclaimed.

"Hagrid, the dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered." Tom said.

"It wasn' him!" Hagrid said. "Aragog never'd kill no one! Never!"

"Monsters don't make good pets, Hagrid. They'll have your wand and you'll be expelled for this. Now, stand aside…." Tom drew his wand and pointed it towards the box making the clicking noise. The box disappeared revealing a huge spider with razor-sharp pincers. Tom pointed his wand at it and Hagrid leaped at him shouting, "NOOO!"

Then the entire room began to spin and Claire, Harry, and Ron found themselves falling flat on their backs back in the Gryffindor common room. Ron still seemed frighten.

"Bloody hell!" Ron gasped. "That was a huge spider!"

"Really? That's what you got from the whole thing?" Claire said. "Let's focus on the important things first."

"I can't believe Hagrid was the one who opened the chamber." Harry said.

"I don't think any of us expected it to be Hagrid." Claire said. "But it just doesn't seem like Hagrid would ever do something like this. He would never want to harm Muggleborns. You saw how he reacted when Malfoy called Hermione a Mudblood. He wouldn't do something like this. It just doesn't add up."

"But Tom showed us his memory." Harry said.

"Maybe we should talk to Hermione about this," Ron said.

The next day, they visited Hermione. They told her about Hagrid. Hermione couldn't believe what they said.

"Tom might have got the wrong person," Hermione said, once they finished telling her the whole story. "Maybe it was some other monster that was attacking people….."

"How many monsters d'you think this place can hold?" Ron said dully.

"We always knew Hagrid had been expelled," Harry said miserably. "And the attacks must've stopped after Hagrid was kicked out. Otherwise, Riddle wouldn't have got his award."

Ron tried a different tack.

"Tom does sound like Percy-who asked him to squeal on Hagrid, anyway?"