Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 24: Positively Petrifying

"It was Hagrid," Harry repeated for about the hundredth time that day. It was almost as if he were trying to get himself to believe the words coming out of his own mouth by saying them over and over again.

Hermione had been released from the hospital wing that morning and Harry had spent every waking second since retelling what he had seen in the diary and trying to convince his friends that the person who had first opened the Chamber of Secrets was Hagrid.

Shaye, Hermione, and Ron were naturally skeptical.

Hermione shook her head as the four crossed the courtyard, the brisk spring breeze chilling them slightly. "It can't be Hagrid. It just can't be."

Ron pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. "We don't even know this Tom Riddle. He sounds like a dirty, rotten snitch to me. 

"The monster had killed somebody, Ron." Harry emphasized the killed part. "What would any of us had done?"

"I mean, Hagrid's a little out-there when it comes to the creatures he keeps around," Shaye admitted, "but I just can't believe that he would ever knowingly bring something so dangerous into the school."

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

Ron scoffed and rolled his eyes. "That would be a cheerful visit. 'Hello, Hagrid. Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?'"

"Mad and hairy?" Hagrid walked up behind the four friends, thankfully having only caught the end of their conversation. "You wouldn't be talking about me, now, would you?"

The group of students turned around in unison and looked up at Hagrid. "No," they chorused, followed by an awkward silence that fell upon them.

"What's that you've got, Hagrid?" Harry asked, changing the topic and pushing through the thick tension in the air.

Hagrid held up the green canister he was holding and showed off the label. "Oh, it's Flesh-Eating Slug Repellant. For the Mandrakes, you know. Now, according to Professor Sprout, they've still got a bit of growing up to do. But once their acne's cleared up, we'll be able to chop them up and stew them and then we'll get those people down at the hospital un-petrified. In the meantime, though, you four had best be looking after yourselves. All right?"

The four students nodded.

As Hagrid turned to leave, he spotted Neville and said a quick, "Hello." Neville, however, was in too much of a rush to return the greeting; the boy was sprinting across the courtyard and heading right toward Shaye and the others.

"Harry, I don't know who did it, but you'd better come." Neville panted, clearly out of breath. "Come on!"

Before anyone could ask what on earth Neville was talking about, he had run off again, waving for the four to follow. Usually, it was normal for Neville to freak out about small, minuscule things, but this time there was an urgency in his voice that tipped the others off and they sprinted after him.

By the time the five darted through the portrait hole and climbed the stairs up to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, Shaye was completely out of breath, but the sight before her was even more surprising than the fact that she had just managed to run non-stop from the courtyard to Gryffindor Tower. 

The boys' dormitory had been completely trashed, things were strewn about and torn to shreds, but the detail that stuck out like a sore thumb was that the majority of the items that had been destroyed were Harry's.

Harry's bed had been ripped to shreds, leaving feathers lying about all over the place. His trunk had been rifled through, his desk drawers completely emptied, and the wooden posts on his bed had even been broken.