Thin Pages

Keeper of Keys

Disclaimer, I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters and this is not a way for me to criticize the books. It's just how I believe the characters would react if they read JK Rowling's brilliant work.

In this chapter, Hagrid comes and tells Harry he's a wizard, which opens a can of worms as Petunia says everything she felt about Harry's mother that she had originally been holding back. Finally, Harry has a clearer memory of the night his parents died with the new information Hagrid gives him about the wizarding world when Voldemort was in power.

Chapter 4

Hagrid came into the staffroom with a loud bang and a large sob. "Yeh can' let Harry go back ter those muggles!"

The Heads of Houses and Dumbledore were currently having a meeting in the staffroom, and all had paused in their talk.

"Hagrid, come in!" Dumbledore said pleasantly as if this was a normal occurrence. "Have a seat please."

"Yeh can' let Harry go back ter those muggles!" he repeated coming farther in the room. "He don' deserve this! Harry is the mos' carin' boy an' he don' deserve this! Those stinkin' muggles!"

"We are in the middle of a meeting." Snape sneered, his lip curled upward slightly. "It said just as much on the door, 'Heads of House Meeting, Staffroom closed'." Hagrid ignored him.

"I'll take Harry, he can live with me!" Hagrid insisted.

Dumbledore pulled out the extra chair that was between him and Sprout, enlarging it slightly, and gestured to it. Hagrid hesitated, and then sat down.

"Should we not," Snape cut in. "Continue with our meeting?"

"I think we've touched on everything, and it's getting late." Sprout said rising. "I have to get back to reading."

"Reading, Pomona?" Flitwick asked.

She simply lifted a very large and thick stack of papers. "I'm grading essays."

McGonagall hummed shortly. "I saw you looking quite horrified at those papers shortly. I take it there was a particularly bad paper in that mix?"

Sprout looked uncomfortable. "It was terrible."

The two women stared at each other for a while, the others watching the interaction. Finally, McGonagall sighed deeply. "It was never my intention to read them."

Sprout sank back into her seat, and pulled out her wand to transfigure the stack of papers back into the first book. "I'm at the end of chapter three.

"I was just starting on chapter four myself." Dumbledore admitted looking quite grave.

"The pages o' the book're all soggy, I jus' couldn' stop cryin'." Hagrid sniffed. "I got all the way ter chapter three when I jus' couldn' take it no more."

"When I first saw the books, I hardly looked at them." McGonagall said. "Put them to the side to forget about, nearly burned them. I had no reason to read anything she gave me. But I'd started hearing things that... that got me curious. I didn't want to believe it, but I had to know for myself."

"'S so sad. Yeh jus' can' let tha' sweet boy go back ter them muggles!" Hagrid said once again.

"I agree something must be done about Harry's living arrangements. I will visit the Dursley's at the start of summer and speak with them. I will make sure Harry is safe there. As for now, would you like some tea?"

McGonagall's head snapped up. "Excuse me?"

"Tea," Dumbledore said again. "Would you like more, Minerva?"