The children who lived, Fought, and Loved

Chapter Twenty Eight

Petrified/Cornelius Fudge

Har­ry, Ron, and Hermione had al­ways known that Ha­grid had an un­for­tu­nate
lik­ing for large and mon­strous crea­tures.

Regulus rolls his eyes, "Really? We didn't notice."

Dur­ing their first year at Hog­warts he had tried to raise a drag­on in his lit­tle wood­en house, and it would be a long time be­fore they for­got the gi­ant, three-​head­ed dog he'd chris­tened "Fluffy." And if, as a boy, Ha­grid had heard that a mon­ster was
hid­den some­where in the cas­tle, Har­ry was sure he'd have gone to any lengths for a glimpse of it.

But he was equal­ly cer­tain that Ha­grid would nev­er have meant to kill any­body.

"It can't be Hagrid. It just can't be." Said, Hermione

"We don't even know this Tom Riddle. He sounds like a dirty, rotten snitch to me."

"The monster had killed somebody, Ron. What would any of us have done?"

The three of them fell silent. Af­ter a long pause, Hermione voiced the knot­ti­est ques­tion of all in a hes­itant voice.

"Look. Hagrid's our friend. Why don't we just go and ask him about it?"

"That'll be a cheerful visit! ―Hello, Hagrid! Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?"

Ron, Hermione and Harry didn't notice that hagrid was right behind them.

"Mad and hairy? You wouldn't be talking about me now, would ya?"

They all quickly turn around, "No!"

Sirius snorts, "Real convincing"

Harry looks down at hagrid's hands, "W- what's that you've got, Hagrid?"

"Oh, It's a- Flesh-Eatin' Slug Repellent. For the Mandrakes, ya know. Now, accordin' to Professor Sprout, they've still got a bit o' growing up to do. But, once their acne's cleared up, we'll be able to chop em up and stew em, and then we'll get those people down at the hospital un-Petrified."

They all nod their head,

"In the meantime, though, you three had best be lookin' after yourselves. All right mhm." And with that hagrid begins to walk away,

"Hello, Neville!" He says to a running Neville.

Frank and Alice smile at seeing their son,

Neville runs over to harry, look­ing fran­tic.

"Harry- I don't know who did it, but you'd better come! Come on!"

[The screen fades out to show Neville, Hermione, Ron, and Harry in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory]

The con­tents of Har­ry's trunk had been thrown ev­ery­where. His cloak lay ripped on the floor. The bed­clothes had been pulled off his four-​poster and the draw­er had been pulled out of his bed­side cab­inet, the
con­tents strewn over the mat­tress.

"Why would someone do that?" Ted asks, confused.

"Probably because harry had something they wanted, love." Andromeda answers her husband.
 
Har­ry walked over to the bed,
open-mouthed, tread­ing on a few loose pages of Trav­els with Trolls.

 
"It had to be a Gryffindor. Nobody else knows our password- unless it wasn't a student."

"Whoever it was, they must have been looking for something."